Wrestling Dragons

This week on The Quest for the GoodLife podcast, Mike & Ivo honor the legacy of Diane Bannermen Juracek, the first employee of GoodLife, and explore how her pioneering spirit still fuels innovation today. Dr. Mike Strouse, Ivo Ivanov, and newly-appointed Executive Director Megan McKinney Todd reflect on the roots and future of GoodLife U—a bold, evidence-based initiative tackling workforce stability and technology-driven service models.

You’ll discover how the “coaching tree” of behavioral science mentors continues to inspire transformative leadership, how teaching family models evolved from KU to Boys Town and beyond, and why implementation science and mentorship remain at the heart of building lasting systems change.

This is more than a podcast—it’s a call to pioneers in healthcare, disability services, and human services to forge forward and “wrestle dragons” together.

Episode Links: 

• Diane Bannerman Juracek Obituary
• All About Gregg Popovitch
• Who is Phog Allen?
• Boys Town
• Make a Meaningful Difference

Transcript

Ivo Ivanov (00:08):

Hello and welcome to the Quest for the GoodLife. Don't call it a podcast. Call it a pod-quest. Oh yes. A podcast Quest. Quest. Yes. We got to trademark this for sure, the podcast. I like it. It's our podcast Quest for the Good Life. We are here with our host Fedora, wearing adventurer, PhD, Dr. Mike Strouse. People don't forget that. Indiana Jones, who's also a PhD in archeology. So, adventurer and a scientist. I am your co-host with the co-most sound engineer, funny engineer, Ivo Ivanov. And we have a dear, dear guest today, Megan McKinney Todd, AKA, the fiercely independent and multi-talented and strong-willed, Jo Marsh from Little Women

Megan McKinney Todd (01:06):

You remember.

Ivo Ivanov (01:06):

No. Yes, we remember. Well, Megan herself selected Jo Marsh as the character from a movie she believes represents her the best. It's an interesting podcast today, Mike. I started thinking this week about Gregg Popovich. Sports analogies have become a valuable resource here for this podcast, but Gregg Popovich, of course, was a legendary basketball coach for the San Antonio Spurs, and he created the so-called system, they call his approach to coaching the system with a lot of complicated flex screens and movement without the ball and all that stuff. But that's not the reason I started thinking about him. I started thinking about him because of what he created in terms of a coaching tree, and it got me thinking about other coaches like Phog Allen and how he built a foundation of a very, very rich learning environment for other coaches. And for example, Phog Allen gave us Dean Smith, he gave us Adolf Rupp by proxy. We got Roy Williams and so on and so on. Gregg Popovich gave us Steve Kerr and Mike Brown and so on. And these coaching trees to me are extremely important because they remain after your career is done and the branches of these coaching trees end up giving fruit. So why am I talking about this? We lost a very, very dear friend recently.

Dr. Mike Strouse (02:52):

We did.

Ivo Ivanov (02:52):

And the applied behavioral science lost an enormous influence. And I'm about our colleague Diane Bannermen Juracek. She passed away recently and she was extremely important for our mission and for our organization. She was the very first employee of GoodLife, which back then was CLO. And along with Dr. Mike Strouse, they basically started this organization. I was thinking how both you and her are branches also of a tree that probably started with Dr. Sherman and some other icons of behavioral science. But that tree kept on branching and the new branches enriched the field of applied behavioral science and probably elevated it to kind of unexpected levels. So I was wondering if we can say a few words about Diane before we start because there was something very interesting about her. Her contributions are numerous, but maybe one of her more significant scientific contributions was in the field of choices and how services really are nourished by rich choice environment and how important that is for success of an organization like ours and for really providing high quality services. And also I feel it's kind of appropriate because one of the branches of your tree, Mike, is today our guest.

Dr. Mike Strouse (04:42):

It is. Ivo, I have to say it is just such a perfect introduction. I should have thought of it before because we are going to talk about GoodLife U today and where it's been and where it's going and some things like that. But really the roots of all of this are at the University of Kansas and there's no better tribute to Diane than that started about that. But all of it predated Diane. It predated me. And we are but a couple of very interesting branches on that tree, but I'll remember it was 1979. I started in the spring. I graduated actually early and started my career at the beginning of the summer of 1979. And Diane came just a little later.

Ivo Ivanov (05:37):

Oh, Okay.

Dr. Mike Strouse (05:37):

She came a little later. Now, I wasn't with GoodLife at the time. I was just with the university entering the doctoral program and Diane came in the fall. I was actually one of the people who from Jim and Jan met or introduced her to Lawrence and helped her get enrolled. At the time, nothing was electronic in enrollment. You did it all by a series of cards. 

So every place you would go to, you would go in and ask. They only had a certain number of cards that represented the number of people in the class. And so you look at what you wanted to take your schedule on and then you'd go and you'd pick out the card. And if you were lucky enough to get one in your class, there was a card left, then you were enrolled. They were like gold, literally. You could trade the darn things, but we didn't. I mean, I may have done that once or twice, I'm not going to say, but I will tell you they were a commodity, Right?

I was helping Diane go through all of that to get her cards. I mean, it took us all day. She got the perfect classes, everything. And she was someone, if you know Diane, everything's exciting. Everything was exciting. And when we got through the entire day and we went to get something to eat after and she lost her cards, I remember that. Oh my gosh. And we had to start all over on that. But Diane was, came from California

And I think she arrived in a tennis outfit because that's probably the last thing she did in California. Everything about Diane was about, she did all kinds of fitness, physical fitness and things like that. And everything was just a joy. The thing you'll always know about Diane is that everything was exciting for her.

Ivo Ivanov (07:43):

A bundle of energy

Dr. Mike Strouse (07:44):

Bundle of energy, and there's nobody that liked singing more than her or playing a guitar or whatever. And one of the things I learned about engagement of people with intellectual disabilities is you always look around for things that you can engage multiple people with. That woman could sit there and sing and play guitar and there'd be 30 people would be just standing mesmerized by all of that. And so she could always get people excited, engaged, large numbers. So we learned a lot from that. We learned there's different activities you can do to engage more people and stuff, but Diane was, she'll never be replicated and she'll always be missed.

Ivo Ivanov (08:35):

She wrote a spectacular song. I don't know if you remember, but it was the Midnight Farm song. And I made a video with her song in the background, and it was beautiful. She wrote the lyrics and the music at Midnight Farm where the sky is blue…

Diane Bannermen Juracek (08:52): The Midnight Farm Song

On Midnight Farm, (Midnight Farm) 

Where the sky is blue, (Sky is Blue) 

Where the animals smile (Animals smile) 

And the hearts are true. (Hearts are true.) 

Where I can sing (I can sing)

If it's hard to talk (Hard to talk) 

And ride in a wagon (ride in a wagon) if I cannot walk. 

I know a place where my buddies come to meet me if I can't get right up and walk to them 

Where I can sing in perfect harmony when I join and sing with my friends. 

On Midnight Farm, (Midnight Farm) 

Where the sky is blue, (Sky is Blue) 

Where the animals smile (Animals smile) 

And the hearts are true. (Hearts are true.) 

Where I can sing (I can sing)

If it's hard to talk (Hard to talk) 

And ride in a wagon (ride in a wagon) if I cannot walk. 

Ivo Ivanov (10:12):

She was multitalented, she was doing so many things.

Dr. Mike Strouse (10:16):

I often wonder if Jim Sherman, who was one of our founders, but he wasn't the founder of the Department of Applied Behavioral Science at KU, the chair of the department, and he co-chaired that department for, I dunno, 15 or more years. I can't even remember if it was 15 or 20 years, but a long, long time. He brought that department to Fame

Dr. Mike Strouse (10:42):

With a few other colleagues. I often wonder if his perseveration appropriate perseveration on the importance of relationships in improving the lives of people with disabilities and a “durable dance partner”, which means that staff stability was based on a lot of Diane's influence because Diane sort of exuded relationships.

Ivo Ivanov (11:09):

Yes. She's one of these people that had a way of finding a connection with everybody, no matter of social status, no matter of interests. She had a way of talking to everyone and like you said, infectious personality, always smiling, always happy, just an incredible influence. And the good thing about creating a legacy is that even after you're gone, the three branches remain and keep branching out. Phog Allen is long gone, but then you have Larry Brown and you have Steve Kerr, and it keeps on growing and growing and your legacy remains. And in a way you never really die.

Megan McKinney Todd (12:00):

I like that you said that Ivo, because I've never met Diane, but I did find, I found that the current of what you talked about really does run deep still with the GoodLife that I know, even though it was all those years ago. So identifying talent, nurturing that talent, seeing the golden people, understanding what their superpowers were relating to them on that level. And I still see the way that that feeds who we are.

Dr. Mike Strouse (12:33):

Many, many years ago, we used to hire people to be my executive assistant, and it was a traditional executive assistant because you needed somebody that would work with the board and handle all the matters that an executive assistant would do.

Ivo Ivanov (12:51):

Linda Miller,

Dr. Mike Strouse (12:52):

You remember Linda Miller? She was there forever, but she was a quintessential executive assistant. That's what she began. And that's what she ended as executive, and she was legendary for it. 

Ivo Ivanov (13:03):

She's Great. Yeah,

Dr. Mike Strouse (13:04):

She was amazing. But wasn't too long after that that I got the idea that whoever is in that role follows me around and gets to see the elephant from absolutely every side that exists. And if the intent of that position was not to be necessarily an executive assistant, but a mentored future executive, if you can say that there couldn't be any better training because you get to see every aspect of the companies. I get to see like, oh, there's some passion here for this or that or something else. I love these percentages. 50% or 60% is what you bring to the game. The other 60% is your experiences. But it is kind of the Yogi Berra approach to life. But the truth is you bring somebody into that role that just has the right stuff to begin with.

(14:21):

And I'm not, maybe somebody who has a master's in this or a who knows whatever you think you need in that company, somebody that comes in with some basic skills in that, but then to give 'em that kind of experience and then a year or two later off, they go to that role as a future leader and you hire somebody else to do the same thing. And then I realized that you don't need to do that in just position. There's so many other roles that exist where you take this, you can find incredible talents that just bring more to the game than just that one role. And I think of the people who were in that, Adriane Murray was my executive assistant, and she now runs all of our workforce stability and

Megan McKinney Todd (15:15):

HR. 

Dr. Mike Strouse (15:16):

And HR. And then you've got Lauren Vohland who came in with a Master's in organizational administration, and three years later she's going up and directing HR and then directing the services and then becoming our executive director of GoodLife Services across two states.

Dr. Mike Strouse (15:41):

I mean, how many years later? I can't even remember that she's here now over a decade probably. That it's incredible talent that's going to be here for a long time, I hope further.

Ivo Ivanov (15:56):

Right? Exactly. Exactly.

Dr. Mike Strouse (15:57):

And then we got Megan Todd, Megan McKinney Todd, who is here to my left.

Megan McKinney Todd (16:04):

It was pretty funny, actually a little kismet. I think only because this was aligned with a time in my life when I was recognizing that I wanted to improve my capacity to be compassionate. And I had articulated that as a specific goal. And separately from that, working at the University of Kansas in the Center for Research, leading a team of essentially grant, pre-award grant folks, folks who would help the investigators across the campus submit their proposals for external funding. And I just had the gall with this one project that I had to reach out to the CEO and essentially, which was Mike and I got his assistant of course, which is perfect. And to say, we need to talk. We need to get this project reestablished. You're behind on your payments. And we wanted the work to be able to continue. And so we needed to,

Dr. Mike Strouse (17:15):

Let's define behind on the payments. It was a disagreement. Basically, the university is, which I'm a part of, loves to charge indirect costs for things because that's how they fund their thing. That's right. That's How I was funded.

Dr. Mike Strouse (17:32):

Any money I give away to somebody else is not funding my thing. So you know how I feel about that. So we were sort of a bit that with the university at loggerheads, I didn't want to pay the overhead that they universally charged, and I didn't know how to go about not doing that. Right.

Megan McKinney Todd (17:51):

Well, and it worked out perfectly for Mike because here we sit at Panera, we meet for the first time. I essentially explained where we're at with the program. I represent our investigator who was there and worked with Mike for a long time and said, okay, so that's where we're at. That's where we're going. We got all on the same page. And then he just sort of leans back in his chair, crosses his arms, and he is like, what degree did you say you got, again?

Dr. Mike Strouse (18:20):

I really liked you, I recognized talent because I said, this woman has some chutzpah. I don't even know what chutzpah is, but she had it and she was not holding back about what she needed for her university. And I decided I'm just going to talk to her about GoodLife so that she understands we're already doing good stuff and we're already helping the university a lot because we generate so much opportunity for employment and clinical practice and research and other kinds of stuff. So I started pulling around on that stuff and then finally,

Megan McKinney Todd (18:55):

Yeah, it didn't take that long actually, to convince me to come.

Dr. Mike Strouse (18:59):

But once we hired her Ivo, I learned the secret sauce about how I should have been presenting GoodLife to the university to lower our costs. So it's like, oh, this was a double win.

Megan McKinney Todd (19:14):

Yeah. I totally paid for myself in the first two years, 

Dr. Mike Strouse (19:15):

Came into an amazing position for our needs at GoodLife, which wasn't executive assistant. It was actually in Grants

Megan McKinney Todd (19:24):

Grant writer. Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (19:25):

Yeah. It was a grant writer. But I mean, from day one, you knew that that's not what she was going to Do forever.

I mean, she never stopped doing that.

Megan McKinney Todd (19:35):

No, I haven't.

Dr. Mike Strouse (19:36):

And that's a story about that too that I think is important. 

Megan McKinney Todd (19:41):

It's Worthy, yeah. 

Dr. Mike Strouse (19:42):

But at the end of the day, there was no way that that was going to be where she ended her story.

Ivo Ivanov (19:49):

Yeah. Recognizing talent is one of your superpowers.

Megan McKinney Todd (19:53):

I agree.

Ivo Ivanov (19:53):

Mike, so was Greg Popovich and Steve Kerr was executive assistant at San Antonio. He's now four time the NBA champion. That’s how things work. 

Dr. Mike Strouse (20:03):

Exactly. That thing is what positions now seriously, what positions gives people this incredible perspective of our agency where they have to do deep dives and grants, executive assistants, marketing. What I will say about GoodLife and what we're going to talk about GoodLife U, if we ever get to it, but what I'm going to talk about is the reality that you have to be a content expert to help people. I mean, you can't just sort of go out and be taught how to train. My feeling of training by itself doesn't work, A hoot. You got to do more, but in order to do more, you got to know what you're doing. I mean, I'm not saying just know what you're doing because you’ve participated and learned it and you can recite it. I'm saying you’ve got to be able to replicate results from ground one and just telling people about it isn't enough. So that's why you've got to go deep in our agency. If you're really going to make a meaningful difference and in people's lives, especially when you're working on workforce stability or, for God's sakes, technology, which are the two specialties that we have,

(21:35):

You better know what you're doing because by the time I said this sentence, that sentence, technology has changed. 

Ivo Ivanov (21:42):

It's Advanced.

Dr. Mike Strouse (21:44):

We're in a technological revolution we've never seen before,

Megan McKinney Todd (21:48):

But you saw that coming and sort of like the reading of the tea leaves combined with our mission of making a meaningful difference in the lives of the people we serve, expanding that mission to include anybody with a barrier to independence and the caregivers who are the backbone of what we do. Having that vision combined with the desire to continuously improve is the seed in, I guess, or is the garden in which the Seed of GoodLife University was planted.

Megan McKinney Todd (22:17):

So That's where that combined with how our history on the program side started with CLO and the University of Kansas Department of Applied Behavioral Science. So Mike, you were telling me a little bit earlier about the history of that relationship specifically and our Roots…

Dr. Mike Strouse (22:34):

and I'm happy to do that, but I'm going to first start with an announcement, and the announcement to the world is that Megan McKinney Todd has been offered and has accepted the position of Executive Director of what?

Megan McKinney Todd (22:53):

GoodLife University.

Dr. Mike Strouse (22:54):

Good Life University. Congratulations. So I'm super happy about this. I feel like a proud, whatever you want to call me, but it was just like the fruit of your work. 

Ivo Ivanov (23:09):

You're the proud Tree.

Dr. Mike Strouse (23:10):

Yeah. It's like, that's right. We have a branch that just sprouted and it's pretty good one. Yeah. Yeah. It's a pretty good one. And the thing is, where I'm in my career, you just want to know what goes on. That's what you want to know, is it goes on and that there's a message and a process for it and a culture, and you want that to live on. Remember I told you in one of the first episodes about Sarum, you remember that book Sarum?

Ivo Ivanov (23:43):

Yes. Yes.

Dr. Mike Strouse (23:44):

Sarum is the history of Salisbury England from 10 million BC present to present, 10 million BC to president, fictitious history, but it follows four families through time. And I was given that book at 1500 pages. 

Megan McKinney Todd (24:01):

I Remember this story

Dr. Mike Strouse (24:02):

When both of my parents parents passed away

Megan McKinney Todd (24:03):

By one of the nurses

Dr. Mike Strouse (24:04):

In the hospital by one of the nurses, and I could not understand why you gave it. And she looked at me and said, you read that sucker, and then you give me a call and tell me why I gave it to you. And I did all of that and called her. And it's like it hit me to the point where I was literally in tears. And basically what it was is this power of

Megan McKinney Todd (24:28):

Legacy,

Dr. Mike Strouse (24:28):

A generational transfer of knowledge after so many years that people started sort of behaving and doing things in ways that their ancestors… basically, It was like, you'll live on. What you plant, you sow. It was a really cool book and anybody who hadn't read it, it was on the New York Times bestseller list for years, believe it or not. It is worth a read, especially if you want to feel like your life has purpose. So anyway, enough of that. But congratulations, Megan. Thank you. We're so excited for that. We now have an executive director of GoodLife U, which is you and one of our GoodLife services, which is Lauren, and I'm still hanging out there and doing stuff. I'm still the CEO of a bunch of different things, but honest to goodness, the goal is to work through these beautiful, wonderful, future talent of GoodLife and to just keep that growing. And it gives me a chance to do some things that I got to get done. I view it as just all a great thing.

Megan McKinney Todd (25:43):

It's such a win-win because we benefit from your years of experience and knowledge and that direct mentorship in the time that we have left to work together directly, we just get a chance to make the most of it, which is great. So Thank you.

Dr. Mike Strouse (25:56):

Yeah, it's all good. But it goes back to that history that you said, old people like to talk about history, and so I'm going to do that too. By the way, Diane and I were think, two months apart in age, but she was older, and I used to tell her that I was too much younger. Don't forget, I don't ever forget. I'm younger. But anyway, I came in 70 the summer of 79, but in the seventies, early seventies was of course the department of it was called “Human Development and Family Life” at the time. Now it's the Department of Applied Behavioral Science, which I liked that title. Better Applied Behavioral Science. It was behavioral analysts that would either work clinically or they would work on organizational behavior. And there was a project there called the “Achieve A Place Training Project”, which was really a project that from its inception, wanted to create evidence-based practices that immeasurably improve the lives of young children who were adolescents who had trouble backgrounds and paths and sometimes didn't have families that would help them. And they created, look in the seventies, small group living arrangements, group homes. But they recognized the importance of a durable dance partner to do that. And so they sort of created one that was based upon a live-in model of a couple, But not just a couple that would care for them, but a couple that would teach them and mentor them.

Megan McKinney Todd (27:54):

The way a parent would.

Dr. Mike Strouse (27:55):

The way really a professional parenting couple, a professional teaching parent. And that's where the teaching family model was born, was in that early seventies. And from there, all of a sudden we developed something that was evidence-based. It was measurably improving people's lives, measurably meaning that we weren't just doing stuff that was correlated with good things. We were doing things that caused things to get better that were measurably assessed before, during, and after, and experimentally evaluated that were making a difference, which was different. Most people didn't do that. They just sort of like, oh, that's a good program. Let's correlate some things with that to see if we know what factors may have caused it. But you really never knew.

Megan McKinney Todd (28:46):

That's Not science.

Dr. Mike Strouse (28:47):

Yeah, that's not science. The way I view science. It is a help it can get you ideas, but you got to put those ideas in practice and see if they move the needle. And that's what KU did with this project. They implemented real evidence-based practices to improve these lives. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis was invented and created by KU and Lawrence. It started in Lawrence.

Ivo Ivanov (29:13):

I didn't know that.

Dr. Mike Strouse (29:14):

Yeah, that's amazing. That's where it began. And so that journal took off. 

Ivo Ivanov (29:20):

It's an institution though.

Dr. Mike Strouse (29:21):

And then all of a sudden, other people started contributing to that and adding more science to the applied science of helping people. And then from there, a real interesting thing happened, which was another partnership that was incredible. And that was Boys Town. Oh, yeah. It was sort of like a separate development Boys Town in Omaha, Nebraska. It was a not-for-profit that had so much money that they couldn't spend it.

Megan McKinney Todd (29:53):

An endowment.

Dr. Mike Strouse (29:54):

An endowment, I believe. Look in the seventies maybe it was like $600 million. Oh my God. So where it came from, where it was. So Boys Town, a not-for-profit that was created prior to World War II, but really came to life with a movie with Mickey Rooney called Boys Town. And really Boys Town in the movie and in reality, in the beginning, was really a place where orphans and people who were challenging young, maybe without parental involvement, ended up being supported and cared for in Boys Town. But then the movie came along, and that combined with World War II generated this enormous amount of wealth because World War II had a lot of people who lost their fathers.

Megan McKinney Todd (30:59):

Yep, Exactly.

Dr. Mike Strouse (31:00):

And because of that, people had this heart string. It was a Catholic organization, Boys Town was. And so they gave, and they gave in the wake of World War II and of that movie,

Dr. Mike Strouse (31:14):

Could comm commiserate Tracy, Mickey Rooney. I mean it was all the big names at the time. And then they amassed this wealth, and then they took notice of what we were doing in the Achievement place training projects. Now, I was not part of that, but I was later a part of the project, and they hired Lonnie Phillips, who was a PhD graduate from that Achievement Place training project. So Lonnie Phillips became the executive director of Boys Town, and Lonnie Phillips always seemed to be the guy that was at the right place at the right time with the right stuff. And he was there willing to help them with their problem of having too much money. And they developed a partnership with the University of Kansas, that same applied department that we have a partnership with and created what was this incredible model, kind of a not-for-profit partnership with

Megan McKinney Todd (32:24):

The science side,

Dr. Mike Strouse (32:25):

Science side in the university

Megan McKinney Todd (32:26):

In order to produce an evidence-based model.

Dr. Mike Strouse (32:30):

So that was the first experience I had with Wow, that was a heck of a partnership, right?

Megan McKinney Todd (32:37):

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (32:37):

We used to go to Boys Town help. My area was trying to take that model and adapt it to IDD. That was where I came in working with Dr. Sherman and Dr. Sheldon and Diane, Matt Reese, other people involved in that early work. My area was consulting and evaluation. So I adapted all of their evaluations and all of the consulting practices because not only was that work focused on implementing great science for making new approaches to improve care, but can you replicate it? Can you disseminate it? So I remember it was called 798 replications of the Teaching Family Model, 798 Replications

Megan McKinney Todd (33:29):

Mind boggling

Dr. Mike Strouse (33:30):

Of the Teaching Family Model, which was taking that model at Boys Town and distributed all across the country. So not only could they do it, but they could get other people to do it. And that's where they came into creating training sites, certification sites, all kinds of stuff. And so one of the greatest articles was called “Dragon Wrestling”

(33:51):

Because Dragon Wrestling was how Mont Wolf characterized the figure out how to do it and replicate it and disseminate it widely so that people get to use it. And then a guy by the army, Todd Risley, wrote a book called “Meaningful Differences”. So much came out of that work that was related in one way to the University of Kansas. What I saw from all that and what forever changed, how I thought about things was you can train till the cows go home. That's not going to help it much. First of all, you got to create something. You got to make sure it measurably improves something. You got to be able to replicate it, and then you got to teach other people to be able to do it, and you got to teach other people to be able to replicate it. I mean, it is just a never ending process, but there's a science behind it. And that science became what we now call implementation science, right? There it is right there. And I brought that book out and this is a book, nobody here can see it, but it is with Dean Fixsen and Karen Blase and Melissa Van Dyke on this particular one. It's a recent one, but it kind of goes back on some of that history and stuff. But I'm so proud of that.

Megan McKinney Todd (35:06):

And I remember you casting a vision for that really kind of early in my career with GoodLife because we were looking for funding specifically, and especially in nonprofit budgets and in the I/DD industry where it is really hard to make ends meet, we were using Grants specifically to leverage, okay, how do we replicate that now with other next generation service models? And I really loved the vision that was cast for GoodLife University early on, which is let's first of all commit to a process of continuous improvement. So when the special sauce changes and we get ready to disseminate, we're always up to the best of what either technology can offer of the time or what science says, what we've learned, what we know, and then to be able to take that and essentially recreate something that is replicable and ready to be disseminated. And that's such a powerful foundation for GoodLife University for

Dr. Mike Strouse (36:05):

That's what you're leading now. It is really incredible. But the point I really want to make on all of this is that our services exist for two really important reasons. One is because we have a mission to improve people's lives and those people who make that possible, which we added to that mission, which is the people that make it possible,

Megan McKinney Todd (36:25):

Caregivers,

Dr. Mike Strouse (36:26):

The DSP, the caregivers, the clinicians, everybody's life has to go up. And if you don't focus on that, the implementation of science says it ain't going to happen. You got to improve the lives of the people that you serve and the people who make that possible, cause that’s what helps get it implemented. So that's where all of that came from. And now the things I want people to come away with this podcast and as we work in our work together is number one, first start with “evidence based” that means it's measurable. That means we got to decide what we're trying to improve, and we got to measure that. Maybe people don't have it yet,

Dr. Mike Strouse (37:14):

After we work with them, they got more of it. And also try to instill within all the agencies that we work with that it is a never ending process. You don't just do it once and you're happy and you go, yay, you're done. It is like decades of work to get to where you really want to Go, 

Megan McKinney Todd (37:33):

But there's still hope and we work on that together. And then we are essentially bolstering true access, true equitability, true improvement, and all on the foundation of science.

Dr. Mike Strouse (37:50):

Yeah, it is.

Megan McKinney Todd (37:50):

And the evidence proves it. The measures prove it.

Ivo Ivanov (37:53):

Exactly. That's exactly what Jo Marsh would've said. That's how I feel. Excellent. So what is your vision for GoodLife University for the next say five years?

Megan McKinney Todd (38:04):

Yeah, really good question. Really good question. Well, first of all, I think it starts with spreading the word that what we're doing is proven by science, and there's a lot of examples of success,

Megan McKinney Todd (38:18):

Especially When it comes to workforce stabilization strategies and the implementation of technology into next generation service approaches and models. I think that's the bread and butter of where we're at right now and truly what the nation needs.

(38:34):

I think the next step in that is, and it's sort of another play out of the Boys Town playbook, but it's essentially getting people together to focus on strategically designed and articulated goals. So what is the measurable next step? What is the root of the problem that we are actually going to make an impact on? And then sharing what each of us have done in the best way possible to move that needle to measurably move that needle. I think having a conference that looks a little different than sort of a typical breakout session track or theme-based, but rather talking about, okay, so here's our collective vision for moving forward in an industry that does tend to lag behind. So how do we set our sites on not just the next best thing, but the, I'm going to say the very best next thing? And we talked about calling it a “sharing your best” conference, essentially where folks can come that have adopted the models and approaches and strategies that have made a difference and added their own energy to it and accomplished something greater than we all could have imagined.

Dr. Mike Strouse (40:05):

Megan, since almost since COVID, we've probably been in 20 states in different ways, helping other Agencies

Megan McKinney Todd (40:12):

Yup.

Dr. Mike Strouse (40:13):

If you went back to the Boys Town model where they were disseminating, by the way, way they dealt with their endowment, I didn't go back and tell you this, is that they had this huge endowment. And so what began as a strategy for how that is partially spent, their actual endowment is extensively larger now. Then It was then. But the difference is before it was concentrated on Boystown in the Midwest, now it went from there to be in Boys Town, USA, Boystown International. I mean, literally they've worked with tens of thousands People in agencies. So while their endowment hasn't yet smaller, it's gotten a lot bigger, but their base is going to accomplish it is they first taught people what they learn. Then they realize, well, not only am I teaching what learning, but we're learning some stuff that they're doing that might be good back with our toolbox. Super cool, but we're going to have to measure it because saying it's good and being good, and then replicating it is an entirely different thing. So it was kind of a two-way street between the places that they worked with were now contributing to them. And then they got to that point, well, okay, they created these things called developing sites, training sites. I mean, they went through stages of contribution and at the end of the day, their whole r&d effort was not in one base anymore. Anymore, not isolated, everywhere. And so the idea of what we're trying to accomplish now is we took all the partners that we're working with and it's like, okay, can we

Megan McKinney Todd (42:04):

Level up?

Dr. Mike Strouse (42:05):

Yeah. Can we get more organized instead of just hodgepodge of this, that or the other? Can we work strategically together, maybe even look at the same basic measures of success? And as we develop key practices, let's see if we can replicate them and assess them. Let's see if we can make them truly

Megan McKinney Todd (42:28):

Well, and that's a two, two-way street that has to perpetually persist because the last thing you want to do when you're disseminating a model, have it be perfect in the moment, but not improved over time because we do learn more as we do more. And if it's just walking into Pleasantville 10 years later,

Dr. Mike Strouse (42:55):

You remember the story, right? Yeah. Do you know what the movie Pleasantville was about, Ivo? Oh

Ivo Ivanov (43:01):

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that,

Dr. Mike Strouse (43:03):

What was that movie? It was

Ivo Ivanov (43:05):

So it was the community arrested in a time. Yeah. There was one colorful person that changed everything and brought color to the community, but it was quite an amazing message of these Videos.

Dr. Mike Strouse (43:18):

Well, and it is one that we lived at GoodLife because we literally have closed in the university before. Good Life closed probably six institutions across, maybe seven contributed, but six for sure

Dr. Mike Strouse (43:33):

That We closed. We closed within GoodLife, I think 11 ICFs. So 12, I think when we closed the institution, we implemented our models and services as alternative community services to that and taught them our trade craft. Well, I'm not going to say which one it was, but 10 years later they had their sort of a reunion.

Megan McKinney Todd (44:01):

It was their anniversary, I think. I mean, it was a 10 year anniversary of these community-based models that had come out of working to take people with pretty significant disabilities

Dr. Mike Strouse (44:10):

I'm really proud of that part. 

Megan McKinney Todd (44:11):

Incorporating them into community.

Dr. Mike Strouse (44:14):

I was proud of that. But the part that was unsettling was it was like it was arrested in time in this technology and approach to care. It was best practice 10 years ago, but when you're in a small area in a particular part of the country and you're not connected to what's happening and what's next, and you're not constantly working on it, it's sort of like a franchise that doesn't have any standards change. And pretty soon you find out, well, that Blockbuster franchise doesn't have any customers anymore. 

Megan McKinney Todd (44:56):

Doesn't Have what it takes.

Dr. Mike Strouse (44:57):

Right.

Megan McKinney Todd (44:58):

Yeah. This was super foundational for me hearing this, because what we imagine then for GoodLife University, how it's different is that when the special sauce changes, when the science evolves, when the approaches improve and we've got new better Outcomes

Dr. Mike Strouse (45:15):

measurable outcomes.

Megan McKinney Todd (45:16):

Exactly. Then those need to find their way into the way that we're actually impacting people's lives. And if you continue to operate in the old way, then we're not actually on a process of continuous improvement anymore.

Ivo Ivanov (45:33):

If you've never seen this fountain of colors, you will never know how beautiful the world can be and you'll be stuck in black and white world. Maybe that's the mission of GoodLife University to bring color to the world. to show colors

Dr. Mike Strouse (45:48):

To everyone, and it's like on the road to the GoodLife, which isn't a destination. It's just a journey.

Dr. Mike Strouse (45:55):

It's all it is at that journey. You go up sort of this long and difficult incline, and then you get to the top of it and you see a little crest and you see this incredible vista. It's a beautiful site, but you see all this stuff in the distance you want to get to, and there you go again. And that's the way it's supposed to work. It's like, I'm going to a better place. I'm getting to high ground. And you get to high ground, you have a vision and you can see more

Megan McKinney Todd (46:32):

You have a Vision

Dr. Mike Strouse (46:33):

And if you can't see it, you're not on the right trip. I mean, the reality is the beauty of and why I love the name. I always love the name GoodLife. You're never satisfied with it. You may have a great life, but there's always more. There's always something more. And I wrote in my last little thing as, are you a settler or are you a pioneer?

Megan McKinney Todd (47:00):

Ooh, interesting.

Dr. Mike Strouse (47:02):

And that's the challenge that I'm going to tell every agency that we work with is, are you a settler or are you a pioneer? Because the settler is going to be just happy with what they got.

Megan McKinney Todd (47:16):

They'll get to a spot, they'll dig in, they’ll stay there, they'll make it great. It'll be a beautiful homestead,

Dr. Mike Strouse (47:22):

But there's more out there.

Megan McKinney Todd (47:25):

Interesting.

Dr. Mike Strouse (47:26):

And you need a little bit of both, and there's no doubt about that. There's midpoints and all of that, but the conference that we're going to end up doing is more about how can we start organizing and delivering and intentional r&d

Dr. Mike Strouse (47:47):

Where We contribute back to the toolbox

Megan McKinney Todd (47:50):

Both ways,

Dr. Mike Strouse (47:50):

But not just from GoodLife unit, but from all of our partners participating in that, and then how can we come together more strategically? So we need to have a concentrated focus on keeping up with technology-levered service models, and how that it's just exponentially growing so much that we got to focus on that and we need more help in the R&D

Megan McKinney Todd (48:15):

Like what you said about doing it strategically and partnering with people strategically because another aspect of what GoodLife University is the umbrella under which our strategic partnerships are nurtured and developed and pushed toward that r&d. So in our world, and I think what we've talked about before is when we explore new states, there's a little bit of a Groundhog Day effect

(48:45):

Where we go into a new state and all of a sudden we have to start all over again. So we're really working to lift those strategic partnerships to a national level. That means working really meaningfully with managed care. With state leadership, with even federal organizations and entities that have multi-state overlap in order to ensure that what we're doing can be replicated. And I think the future we've talked about before will very likely include value-based care models. Technology for sure. I mean, a unique and interesting replicable version of utilizing technology as an infrastructure and not just as a one-off for a singular person in a singular moment. That's in order to maintain our scalability and replicability and relatability, especially as the world continues to evolve and improve.

Dr. Mike Strouse (49:40):

We've said this on the technology, always love to say Uber. Uber is the best model out there because it reinforces the people who implement uber

Dr. Mike Strouse (49:52):

And the people who receive it, and it's a system, but it allows individual transportation services. It's scalable, it’s growable. It's a system, it's a platform. It's technology.

Megan McKinney Todd (50:08):

When it's used, it improves everybody's life, 

Dr. Mike Strouse (50:09):

but you can customize. Everybody gets customized rides 

Ivo Ivanov (50:16):

And it's simple. Simple to understand it's

Dr. Mike Strouse (50:17):

Everybody gets, it's and it's simple for the people that deliver it. They have an ownership stake in it. In essence, they get what they put into it back to them in all kinds of ways. It's consumer driven where you've got the happiness of the person that receives the services, affects everything. They've lined it up so well.

Ivo Ivanov (50:44):

It's worth researching if a behaviorist was involved in the genesis of Uber.

Megan McKinney Todd (50:49):

I would be so curious to know that.

Ivo Ivanov (50:50):

Yeah, because it sure feels like it's a behavioral concept

Megan McKinney Todd (50:54):

For an organizational behavioral solution

Dr. Mike Strouse (50:56):

It is a masterclass in it. I love studying other things. I learned so much more by studying these other things. But the implications is that those drivers, they've got skin in the game. They're owners, they're not employees for the most part, and their lives are, they can use it a little or a lot, and they're getting some incredible outcomes from all. You read that and you say, wow, a 20,000 rides a diamond level…

Ivo Ivanov (51:43):

So hopefully GoodLife University in the future, we are able to incorporate and implement models like the Uber model.

Megan McKinney Todd (51:51):

I think we kind of already have.

Ivo Ivanov (51:53):

Already have.

Megan McKinney Todd (51:53):

Yeah. I think that's what the beauty of our long-term relationship with the University of Kansas has enabled us to find the Netflix over the Blockbuster or the Uber over one car. Taxi for one person. Taxi. Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Mike Strouse (52:07):

But you know what the thing is, remember when I told you the story that I used to just hire executive assistants and then we mentored them and then Megan was like the first person that wasn't that, but we still realize, well, we can still do this. Right? We did. It doesn't matter. Well, I think the same is true even with even the University of Kansas. I mean, that was a great example of doing that. That's evidence space but can it get bigger than that?

Megan McKinney Todd (52:39):

Yes, and the answer is yes.

Dr. Mike Strouse (52:41):

Yes. Can we develop an intentional collaboration? I mean, we're in Arkansas. We're going to be talking to the University of Arkansas too, but not just university, which is a great pipeline, but how many of these programs across the country have this can do the same thing we're doing in terms of talent incubation and how can we get people locked onto a broader culture of evidence-based improvement?

Megan McKinney Todd (53:07):

We totally need that. This is an industry that absolutely needs that talent. It's facing a merge or die mentality when if we just cultivated for the next five or so years, the next generation of talent I've been the happy beneficiary of, then I think there's a lot of hope there.

Dr. Mike Strouse (53:26):

So we got a lot to go. And I know that one of the most fun things is we get to talk with other industry leaders in the podcast. I know one that we have coming up here in just a little bit is going to be an ICHRA.

Megan McKinney Todd (53:43):

Yeah. Oh man. Unique benefits, I could dig in on that!

Dr. Mike Strouse (53:48):

With IMA Insurance Consulting group that is very talented. But we're going to explore an ICHRA is another way of ensuring people that really is very cool. Adds another tool to our toolbox. And so that's coming up. We're going to be going to a lot of conferences here in a little bit. This is a big hot conference season. We're start grabbing some of our customers and pulling 'em into the podcast, doing some stuff.

Megan McKinney Todd (54:16):

That'd be great. If you want to know where we're going to be, check out our website. GoodLifeU.org. Mike and I are all over the country this year, so come stop by our booth and say hi.

Ivo Ivanov (54:26):

We're taking the show on the road.

Megan McKinney Todd (54:28):

Taking the show on the road.

Ivo Ivanov (54:28):

Yeah.

Megan McKinney Todd (54:28):

Yep.

Ivo Ivanov (54:29):

Well, that was an illuminating podcast. This was the pod-quest, The GoodLife with your host Dragon Wrestling, Mike Strouse, once again, we failed spectacularly at Remaining Concise.

Megan McKinney Todd (54:47):

I love it like that.

Ivo Ivanov (54:48):

That's by design, of course, and completely deliberate. Please write to us at GoodLifeUpod@mygoodlife.org. This episode was produced by Megan Olafson and sound engineered by Me, Ivo Ivanov. Together, we want to thank you and promise you that the quest for the GoodLife will come back in a couple of weeks.