#107 - How to Better Support Clients

This one's for the pet professionals! Clients are integral to what we do and that means we need to make sure they're well-supported throughout the journey. In this episode, we explore the foundations of exemplary client care, including some tips to help you better support your clients even more. 

You can find the full episode show notes here.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Allie: There's that cliché out there that self care is client care, and if it's not a cliché, it should be a cliché, because we should all be saying it way more than we are. But self care really is client care, because I know, just like you, what you were saying, Emily, I know that if I am not at my best, I'm not showing up for other people. In the way that I want to be showing up for them, because I want to show up at my best for them. So, boundaries are hard, and also, everyone around you will thank you for them, whether they realize it, that they're thanking you for them or not. I feel like that was almost a sentence. We'll see if Ellen keeps that in. She probably will now that I called it out.

Welcome to Enrichment for the Real World, the podcast devoted to improving the quality of life of pets and their people through enrichment. We are your hosts, Allie Bender...

[00:00:59] Emily: ...and I'm Emily Strong...

[00:01:00] Allie: ...and we are here to challenge and expand your view of what enrichment is, what enrichment can be and what enrichment can do for you and the animals in your lives. Let's get started.

Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Enrichment for the Real World, and I want to thank you for rating, reviewing, and subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts. Last week we heard from Dr. Kelly Ballantyne and one of the topics we discussed was combating caregiver burden. This week we're going to dive further into how to better support clients and talk about implementation with the animals in your life. And by animals, I really mean humans.

In this implementation episode, Emily and I talk about My epiphany in a home improvement store Emily citing a rando on the internet Self care is If it's not a cliche, it should be How to free up your brain space so your brain cells can be used for more important things like supporting your clients and I'm just so freaking proud of MaryKaye 

[00:01:59] Emily: While we'll primarily be talking about and to trainers and behavior consultants just know that this is relevant regardless of the type of clients you have, whether you're a veterinarian or a veterinary technician or a groomer, or a dog daycare owner. It applies to you too, because clients are clients across professions. Clients are humans who have human needs.

[00:02:22] Allie: I feel like that's the end of the episode. That's it. That's it. That's all.

[00:02:25] Emily: That's it. Thank you for coming. Thank you for listening to our episode

next week. We'll be talking about.  

[00:02:32] Allie: Clients are humans with human needs, and therefore we have to make sure we're meeting their human needs, and that's one of the ways that we can support them. And I think it's really important for us as professionals to keep in mind that the best way to support the animals and pets that we're trying to care for is to support the humans who are taking care of them.

You can't do one without the other, and so really when we are working on creating better welfare for animals, we have to be looking at the humans and how we can best support our human clients.

[00:03:07] Emily: Yeah. And I think that's one thing that people can get tripped up on in this industry or like any animal welfare industry. Is that like, we, we get into this industry thinking we were going to help animals and, if it weren't for those darn pesky clients, we could be so much more effective.

And I think It really helps to have a mindset shift and realize that the client is the job. And our job isn't to help animals. Our job is to help clients to help their own pets. And so when we realize that the client is the job, then hopefully it becomes easier to, to do the job and and realize that like, having empathy for your client and supporting your client. is literally what we're here for. It's what we're, we're, we're here to do. So it's really important to embody a quote that I think I, I first heard Chris Pachel say this, and that is everyone is doing the best they can with the knowledge, skills, resources, and bandwidth that they currently have. Okay, maybe we embellished it a little bit, we added some things to it. 

But it's just important to remember that like everybody has their own unique learning history, their own traumas, their own influences, their own social network, which maybe varying degrees of supportive and their own goals, and and their own worldview and, and all of those things play into how a client shows up and how we can better show up for them. So as always with everything, our pole star is reducing harm and increasing welfare and wellbeing for everybody involved, the humans and the non humans that we're working with. 

And the way that we do this is starting with a growth mindset, having good faith conversations, engaging with curiosity, all of the things that we have talked about in previous episodes of this podcast. So we can link those episodes in the show notes so that y'all can refresh your memories if you need to. But the first thing, the first step is to really just. Start with asking open ended curious questions, even if you don't ask the questions out loud when you 1st start working with the client, even if you're starting with just the kind of typical way that you would work mentally and emotionally. Approach the situation with open ended questions, like instead of being like, Oh, my God, this client did this because X, Y, Z, whatever construct we tell ourselves about the client's behavior shift that to, I wonder why the client did X, Y, Z. I wonder what's going on with them that made that. The way that they presented the way that they showed up. So I think that's the first step is just revisiting those discussions about growth mindset and good faith conversations and engaging with curiosity and remembering that we're all doing the best we can with that. the knowledge, skills, resources, and bandwidth that we currently have.

[00:06:06] Allie: And I just want to emphasize that it's one thing to hear that quote and to logically, cognitively, what have you, in your brain, be like, yeah, I get that. And it's another to truly feel it deep in your heart and in your soul that people are just doing the best that they can for their pets, even if it doesn't look the way that you would have it look for your own and I I think I've told this story on the podcast before but my kind of aha moment for this was in I Think a Home Depot or Lowe's or something some sort of home improvement store that people can take their pets to.

And I was in the store, I saw this couple who had a very scared dog on a prong collar, and my judgment brain just immediately started going a mile a minute judging them for taking this dog who clearly did not want to be there into the store. They were using a piece of equipment that I don't recommend, etc.

And then I paused. And I thought, I wonder why? I wonder why they're here with their dog. And I could not come up with a single thing that I wouldn't have agreed with. I was like, they're here because they think it's good for their dog to get out and explore. They think it's good mental stimulation to be in new places.

They want their dog to meet new people. They like going places with their dog. Their dog has separation anxiety and they have to bring their dog. I came up with so many reasons why they might have brought their dog into this situation and I couldn't come up with a single one that I wouldn't have been like Yeah, I get it. I understand. 

Let's maybe have different solutions, but I understand and agree with the intent behind it. And it was in that moment that I was able to like fully embody that quote of everyone is doing the best that they can. And I also love the quote, is it Maya Angelou? When you know better, you do better.

And so I love that one of the things that is part of my job is helping people to know better and watching them get to do better and watching how much they enjoy and love getting to do that for their pets. I think that's one of the best parts of my job is watching people doing better when they have more or different knowledge, skills, resources, and bandwidth.

[00:08:37] Emily: Yeah. Same. I love seeing humans become empowered and be more effective and like the joy and the relief that happens because of that. So yeah, also, also me. And there are a couple of things that I want to add to this conversation because in the first place I have seen several people say, yeah, but not everybody is doing the best they can like then people will usually like, bring up specific, well known people. They're like, they definitely weren't doing the best they could. They knew better. And they, they did a really terrible thing anyway. Right? 

And I, by the way, have been that person. And, I think that is a really valid thing to think and struggle with and grapple is like sometimes humans can be really terrible and they had multiple opportunities to not be terrible and they were terrible anyway. And and so like, I get that and I acknowledge that it's, that it's true True on some level and also, I think 1 thing that helped me was realizing that that is a logical fallacy called an argument or appeal to the extremes. So, like, yes, there are always outliers. We, we acknowledge that there is a possibility that there are people who legitimately. With malice are doing worse than they could do, because they enjoy doing worse. And those people are not the, the, the people that you meet on a day to day basis, the people who are showing up to be your clients. You might encounter somebody like that once in a while, but for the most part, even when people are making bad choices, and even when people are doing something that they quote unquote should know better, there are reasons for them behaving that way, that don't have anything to do with malice or intentional harm. And so I think that's one of the things that helps me embrace this mindset was realizing that like, while it might be true, and I don't even know that it is true. Right. But while it might be true that there are people that are just so broken that they are intentionally doing terrible things those are, those are the outliers.

And for the most part, the people, when we say everyone is doing the best we can, what we mean is everybody that we interact with on a day to day basis is doing the best that they can. So, so I, I just wanted to put that out there because if you're one of those people who was like, yeah, but not really. I feel you, it me and, and like, that's how I helped myself to move through that objection and and when I was able to process that and grapple with it, it became easier to start seeing people's behavior through the lens of, I don't know what has happened to them or what they have experienced that has led them to this point. And so that was, that was just a really helpful process for me to go through. So I'm sharing that in case it's helpful for you as well. The other thing I want to point out is that knowing that this is true and being able to do it are two different things. Like everything in life, this requires practice and fluency comes with repetition and an And intention to improve your skills, not just repeating the same thing over and over and over again, but trying to do better each time, seeking mentorship, seeking guidance being open to feedback. So, yeah, we can know that we should approach with a growth mindset and with curiosity and with good faith, and we can want to do that and intend to do that. And also our our responses don't necessarily aren't necessarily going to align with our intentions. And I think it's really important to be patient with your own learning process and be curious and growth minded about your own actions and your own decisions.

And instead of beating yourself up for them Asking, like, what, what led me to make this mistake today? Oh, I see. I was actually really trigger stacked. I maybe hadn't completed my stress response cycle. I'm in a certain amount of pain. This particular kind of behavior is really triggering because I have a trauma history with people who've behaved in similar ways. And so when you can When you can treat yourself with the same growth mindset and good faith and curiosity that you aim to treat other people with it becomes easier for you to improve in those skills because you spend less time beating yourself up and more time identifying why you ended up in the situation you were in and how to course correct. And one of the most helpful things that I ever heard that helped me with that growth process, and I don't even remember who said it. I think it was just some rando on the internet. Like I wish I could cite my source, but I literally just read somebody say this on the internet and it like pierced my soul somebody said my mother taught me that my first reaction is social conditioning. And my second reaction is what I'm learning to do better. And so I, I, I don't feel shame anymore. I don't allow myself to shame myself for my knee jerk reaction, because that's the social conditioning that I've been dealing with my entire life. And my second response is my genuine response. It's the person that I want to be. And it's the person that I'm becoming. 

And that was so impactful to me because that was, that was. The, the stage of growth that I was in when I read that comment on the internet was that I was beating myself up for not being perfect at my desired, my goal behaviors. And it really helped me to go, Oh yeah. So like when my first thought is a judgmental one, I don't need to feel ashamed about that. I just need to recognize that that's the social conditioning that I've. grown up with. And my second thought was asking, okay, but well, why would they be behaving that way? And that just allowed me to like get over myself and forgive myself and just focus on growth instead of beating myself for not growing fast enough. So, when you were telling your story, Allie of the Home Depot thing, that was the first thing that came to my mind is like, your first reaction was social conditioning. And your second reaction was, The skills that you are intentionally acquiring. So I feel like that's an important thing to discuss because otherwise we get into this perfectionist mode of like, well, if you're not totally, perfect at this, then, you're a terrible person. And, and that's just not true. That's just not how learning works. Right.

[00:14:35] Allie: Yeah, I've also heard that probably from some rando internet person and it helped me a lot too, to forgive myself. All right, so the first step of this, how to better support clients, is embodying that empathy. Getting curious, having a growth mindset, why are they behaving in this way so that we can better connect with our clients, and when you can connect with somebody better, you can support them better.

So we've done that. One of the things that happens, because we are in a caregiving industry, and we are caregivers, most of us, by nature, and we give until there's nothing left in our souls to give, and then we give more, and then we wonder why we're burnt out. I'm totally not speaking from experience right now.

So, we don't want to swing so far in one direction with empathy, compassion, all of the things that we are doing it to our own detriment. So we have to swing that needle back into the middle and have boundaries. Firm but compassionate boundaries. Because at the end of the day, we are We do have to take care of ourselves if we're going to be in this industry for a long time, and for all of you professionals listening, I hope that you get to be in this industry for a long time if that is your goal, and that means that we have to have boundaries.

And I want to make it really clear that you can have empathy and compassion and fully support somebody, and and have boundaries all at the same time. Those two things are not mutually exclusive, and for me that was a really hard thing to learn, that I can take care of myself while taking care of other people, and so I know it's, I know it's hard and scary, and also.

So, one of the things that you'll want to consider is how do you provide accessibility to people? How do you support other people while still caring for yourself? And so, one of the ways that I do this is I do not have anything work related on my phone. It actually, It gets me into, like, some trouble sometimes if I'm traveling and, like, I'm checking into a hotel and, like, I used, like, my business account to check in.

And they're like, cool, we'll send you an email. And I'm like let me grab my laptop and I'll let you know. Get your email! So, it actually does trip me up sometimes and it's 100 percent worth it, even with those little trip ups that happen. Because one of my boundaries is I do not have anything work related on my phone so that there is no way that I can check my email, that I can respond to people, that I can text or call people.

Obviously I have, like, Emily and Ellen's phone numbers and some of our team members phone numbers who live in the area but I don't even have all of our team members phone numbers in my phone, so I couldn't even do that if I wanted to. And that helps me. have boundaries. It's really important antecedent arrangement for me because when I did have things on my phone, I did not have the willpower to not look at things on my day off.

And you know what, my clients are not worse off for that really important boundary. My clients know that if, if there is an actual emergency, and I teach my clients what an actual emergency is, Then, one, if it's an actual emergency, I'm probably not the person they need to contact. They need, like, an ambulance or a fire truck or something like that.

Like, I'm not a first responder, y'all. So, they probably don't need me if it's a true emergency. If it's, emergency aftermath, then, There are people on my team that can help them, so that's one of the ways. And at the end of the day, if it takes, 12 hours, 24 hours to get back to somebody, it's probably okay in our line of work.

[00:18:44] Emily: Yeah. My boundaries are different than yours because I am mostly pretty good about not checking my email on my phone. When on my day off and when I do have to pop into my inbox for something, I'm able to just pop back out again. So that's not an issue for me. But as one of the boundaries that I had to set for myself was like, I don't do phone calls because I have an auditory processing disorder as a part of my neuro spicy. And they take. Phone calls without visual aids take an enormous amount of bandwidth for me, and they just drain me dry. So, yes, I'm capable of doing phone calls, but they, they take more out of me than they're worth. So I don't have enough left to do the things that, that deserve that bandwidth from me and it.

It took me a very long time to be able to articulate that because all I knew is that I would get really angry when somebody wanted me to call them and it took me a very long time to like connect the dots and understand why. So I think one of the things that's helpful when boundary setting. It's like, you don't have to know why something just makes you have big feels. You can recognize that that is something that doesn't work for you in this moment. And you can set a boundary around that thing. And if it's not a thing for you in the future, you can obviously shift the boundary. But right now, if you have big feels about something just know that it's going to take you time to figure out why you have those big feels, and you don't need to know why yet in order to set that boundary.

So for me, we set the boundary that I don't do phone calls before I figured out why I, why phone calls made me so angry. Another boundary that I just recently set is I realized that after teaching any kind of course. That requires me to be talking to a lot of people and instructing and giving feedback. I don't have enough cognitive and emotional bandwidth left to show up for my coaching calls the way I would prefer to. And it's not that the teaching courses is terrible for me. I love it. It's one of my favorite things. I love teaching people. I love connecting with people. I love having those conversations about the things that we're learning. But it just, it's a very expensive activity for me and it takes a lot out of me. And after I'm done, I need to stare at the wall for an hour and just let my brain recuperate. And so, trying to do coaching calls immediately after teaching a course. I found myself not showing up for my students the way I would prefer to.

So I was like, Hey, Ali, can I set this boundary that I don't do coaching calls after I teach a course? And Ali was like, Yeah, set the boundary, block out your calendar. And I was like, cool. So the boundaries can look like whatever. Whatever they need to look like but the, the question is not just about your neurotype and your physical ability and your time, but also your bandwidth and how can you reasonably show up for your clients and have enough of yourself to give to them based on the workload you have, right?

So if you have, or if you're trying to take on too many clients or too many different types of jobs, and then you find that when you're showing up for your clients, you don't have the patience. To deal with them being humans, then that probably means that you're taking on too much and you need to scale back and identify how many clients you can reasonably show up for in the way that you should and that can take some trial and eval and it's okay.

That's the thing about boundaries is they're not. Permanent, you can always shift those boundaries as you learn more about yourself or as your body changes or your circumstances change, right? So you can shift your boundaries, but once you know where your boundaries are, wherever they are in that moment, It's really important to hold those boundaries firm while being compassionate with with your clients.

[00:22:21] Allie: Yeah, I, I think, there's that cliché out there that self care is client care, and if it's not a cliché, it should be a cliché, because we should all be saying it way more than we are but self care really is client care, because I know, just like you, what you were saying, Emily, I know that if I am not at my best, I'm not showing up for other people. In the way that I want to be showing up for them, because I want to show up at my best for them. So, boundaries are hard, and also, everyone around you will thank you for them, whether they realize it, that they're thanking you for them or not. I feel like that was almost a sentence. We'll see if Ellen keeps that in. She probably will now that I called it out.

[00:23:03] Emily: So the next thing after empathy and boundaries, the next thing is project management as clients support. And I know that sounds weird, but. Hear me out. We have learned this the hard way and let's be real. We'll we're still learning this and we'll continue learning it until the day that we retire or die, whichever comes first. infrastructure and coordination is critical to being able to support your clients as best as you can, because, oh my God, the journey we have been on figuring out. What kind of infrastructure we need to succeed as a team, to all be in the same boat, rowing in the same direction in tandem to know what we're doing and how it fits into the bigger picture to know who's responsible for what and when things are due and who they're due to. And the consequences, like the, the contingencies on those tasks has been a massive growth curve for us. 

And even if your team or your business is not as large as ours, that is still true. There are skills that I have learned now in Pet Harmony that I look back on when I was just a solopreneur and I'm like, man, I wish, I had these skills back then. My life would have been so much easier. I would have been so much more efficient. I could have gotten paid more for working less. If only I had known how to do these things. 

So, it is, it is worthwhile figuring out, first of all, I think you, everybody, everybody who has a business, even if you're a solopreneur, everybody should have a project management tool of some kind. The 1 that works for our team is click up, but, different people are in different teams are going to have different dynamics.

So, that may not work for everybody, but just. Like, being able to see all the moving parts and know what's doing when it's due and who's responsible for each piece of it has been massive for us and I can see how if I had had that when I was a solopreneur, I would not have dropped as many balls.

I would have been more efficient about getting things done. I would have known what things I could automate. I wouldn't have had to spend so much brain space on just remembering task completion. Like, just that alone is, is a game changer. 

It helps you to be able to pivot if your client suddenly needs something that you weren't expecting, or if your client needs support that you can't offer and you have to add somebody to the support team and very quickly get everybody up to speed so that we're all on the same page. It helps you to be able to keep track of like, all the support teams that you're managing, because, past me would be like, you need to speak to a VB. I'm going to refer you to this VB. And then I would go into the next session and be like, you know what, I'm going to hook you up with an enrichment specialist.

And the next coach I'd be like, or the next client, I would be like, you know what I think would help you as a, as a day trainer. And then by the end of the day, I'm like, wait, what? Who's getting what now? Wait, what's happening? Okay, wait, when do I need to check in with these people and I would have to go back through training plans to remember like, oh, this person I have to check in on this date about this because we're waiting for the VB to be on board. And it was just so labor intensive and I dropped a lot of balls and and I, If I had a better infrastructure in place for keeping track of all the support teams that I was managing and making sure that everybody had the information they needed to be successful in their role on the support team, my job would have been so much easier. 

So I think that's something that often gets overlooked or it gets talked about in terms of business success and it doesn't get talked about in terms of client support, but that is, it. critical to client support, because if you forget to get check in with clients, if you forget what you've already recommended to them, if you forget to follow up with them after they're working with somebody else on the support team all of that stuff, then, then you aren't able to support your client in the best way that you could be. And so it really is not just about business success. It's also about client support success.

[00:27:03] Allie: I feel like I've been having this conversation just every single day this week, so I'll just, I haven't had it yet today, so I'll have it here and then we can round out the week fully. I love it. So the conversation that I've been having is that if you want to operate at a higher level, whatever that looks like for you, if you want to be more efficient, more effective, more something, the habits that you currently have are not going to get you there.

You need new habits in order to operate at a new level. It's almost like behavior change works for human beings too. I was recently talking with MaryKaye about this, she's recently taken on a managerial role and she was like, man, I don't know why I feel like I'm, I'm dropping balls. I feel like I'm letting things slip through the cracks.

And I was like, yeah, cause you're trying to use your current habits to operate at a higher level and that's just never going to work, so let's get you some new habits. And one of them is integrating her more into our project management software. And one of the things that I told her is like your brain needs to be used for better things than remembering to do a task that can be automated in ClickUp. As Emily mentioned, that's what we use. And so I was like let ClickUp be your brain for tasks, so that your brain can do the things that only your brain can do. And I think that's one of the things that this comes down to when it comes to having better support for clients is, you don't want your brain so muddled with all of that minutia that it's using energy on all of that when it should be using energy on how to best support your clients, how to troubleshoot for them, how, like, figuring out all of that fun stuff. And so, yeah, it's work smarter, not harder. Let computers be your brain sometimes, in a not creepy, post apocalyptic, robot way.

[00:29:03] Emily: I mean, you know, It took me such a long time to like, figure that out. And like embrace it that like how much of my cognitive load was going to just remembering all the minutiae of the tasks that I had to do. So, yeah, it, I think we tend to, most people, most people that I know and hang out with anyway over or sorry, underestimate how much of our brain space is being taken up with just the little logistical stuff of running the business. And if we have a system in place that takes care of that for us, it's remarkable how much brain space is freed up to do the stuff that we really want to be doing.

[00:29:42] Allie: Absolutely. I know I'm much better for it, as a, as a consultant, as a mentor, all of the things. So. As we're talking about this, please know that we are condensing decades, honestly, of trial and eval and blood, sweat, and tears, and all of that into this podcast episode. This is not necessarily an easy thing that we are talking about here. We know that this is a lot of cognitive and emotional labor, and that showing up for clients in the way that they deserve is hard, and it takes effort, care, mindfulness, a lot of antecedent arrangement sometimes, if you're me at least.

So, going back to that boundaries thing, figure out how many clients you can reasonably take on and still support them in the way that they deserve to be supported. And again, know that if you want to be able to help more people, your habits are going to have to change in order to free up some of that cognitive labor.

So, I know it's hard. We're condensing decades worth of trial and eval and blood, sweat, and tears into this episode. And also, one of the things that I'm seeing just in working with MaryKaye is that when you have somebody who has gone through all of that, imparting their knowledge, yes, everybody still has to go on a learning journey, they still have to learn. They don't have to learn the hard way, though. It's been amazing to me, as I've been working with MaryKaye in her new role, of watching her go on a journey, a learning journey, in a week that I know took me three years to go through. And I, like, I'm simultaneously so jealous of, like, man, why didn't I get this?

Like, it took me three years to figure this out, and, and that's because I was doing it by myself. And now that she has somebody who is teaching her how to do it and its taking her a week and wouldn't that be nice Um, so I'm simultaneously very jealous of that experience, and also, one, just very proud of her, But, it has shown me so much of, for myself, of like, why I need to continue striving for having a mentor, and and having somebody who's been there, done that, got that t shirt, who can help me go on the journey and have it take a week instead of three years.

[00:32:15] Emily: Yeah, I think this is like, why I keep harping on mentorship because you can learn the concepts and you can try to implement the concepts on your own. But if you don't have somebody who's already been down that road giving you feedback and helping you to like, identify the little details, the little tweaks you need to make to make a huge difference in impact and outcome.

It just takes so much longer and it's more frustrating. It's more discouraging and you just have to do a lot more unnecessary trial and eval than you would if you had guidance and feedback and somebody who actually cared about you and was in your corner and rooting for you.

So, I just, I can't stop. I can't stop emphasizing how important mentorship is as a part of this learning process so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You can just learn from somebody who's already been on this journey and they can help you really expedite that process. You're still going to have to go on a learning journey and you're still going to have to do repetitions and learning is still cyclical and we are still learning and we still have mentors. So I'm not saying that mentorship is just going to make you like Insta perfect. That's not a thing. But the journey has been so much easier for our students than it was for us. 

And again, like you, Allie, I'm, I'm simultaneously envious and so thrilled for them. They didn't have to hurt the way we hurt. They didn't have to suffer the way we suffered. They didn't have to make the mistakes that we, we make. We jokingly say that tagline for Pet Pro is, We messed up so you don't have to. And that's only, that's only partially a joke, 

[00:33:49] Allie: It's barely a joke. honestly. Like 

[00:33:53] Emily: It's barely a joke. It's mostly true. It's truth said in a ha ha funny

[00:33:58] Allie: Yes. You laugh so you don't cry sort of way. Yeah, I learned it the hard way so that you just get to learn it. And not learn it the hard way.

[00:34:07] Emily: Yeah, my favorite thing is we recently got feedback from from 1 of our students. And by recently, I mean, this morning, she sent us a very touching email. And 1 of the things she said was, if I'm being honest that 1st Module and pet pro that you have that talks about like self care, and completing your stress response cycle, and emotional self regulation, and, how to have perspective and all this stuff. She was like, when I first went through that, I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm fine. And then like, got onto the, what she called quote unquote meatier material and she did put it in quotes. I'm not putting it in quotes. 

And then she said, now that I'm, I'm in it, I'm like, oh yeah. Yeah. There was a reason that y'all put that at the beginning of the program. I need to go back and revisit that now. And I was just like, cry laughing when I was reading it because I was like, welcome, welcome. You have arrived.

[00:34:58] Allie: I also got an email from a mentee today with, with the same vibes of, she was like, I finally got a professional accountant because you were right, it is harder to do your taxes when you're an LLC and I should have listened to you sooner.

[00:35:12] Emily: I love letting people like, I love being like, this is what you're going to need for this journey. And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it. I'm just going to go on the journey. And then I love like them coming back and being like, so about those things that you said we needed for this journey. Can we have that discussion again? It's delightful to me. I'm like, yes. We can,

[00:35:28] Allie: It's my favorite. Humans are the cutest.

[00:35:31] Emily: It's so true, it's so true.

[00:35:33] Allie: Ugh, humans are the cutest. Alright y'all, so today we talked about how to better support clients. The first step of that is to embody the following quote, everyone is doing the best they can with the knowledge, skills, resources, and bandwidth that they currently have. 

Once you embody that, then you want to make sure that you have some firm but compassionate boundaries because self care is client care. I'm going to say it until it becomes a cliche. 

Next, you also want to think of project management as client support. You need infrastructure. I know it's not sexy sounding, but you need it if you're going to free up your brain space to do better things than task management with it, which your brain can do better things than task management.

And finally, we know that this is a lot of cognitive and emotional labor, and that this is a learning journey, y'all. So even though there are ways to make that journey easier, like with the support of a mentorship or community, it's still a learning journey. So go easy on yourself. Next week, we'll be talking with Debbie Martin about The behavior specialist you didn't know you needed.

If you're anything like me, you listened to a podcast episode, and the little gremlin toddler in your brain is like, the world needs to know this! So, if that's you right now, and while you were listening to this episode, you thought of someone who could benefit from it, go ahead and text them the link to this right now. I'm tasking you with being an enrichment ambassador so that together we can improve the quality of life for pets and their people.

Thank you for listening. You can find us at petharmonytraining.com and @petharmonytraining on Facebook and Instagram, and also @petharmonypro on Instagram for those of you who are behavioral professionals. As always links to everything we discussed in this episode are in the show notes and a reminder to please rate, review and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts a special thank you to Ellen Yoakum for editing this episode, our intro music is from Penguin Music on Pixabay.

Thank you for listening and happy training.