Find Your People
with Emily Wilson
Behavior Bites Podcast - Ep77June 24, 2026Who are you outside of your job?
What kinds of hobbies and interests do you engage in to maintain work/life balance?
During today’s meal — I speak with a behavior analyst about the realities of owning a business, finding your people, not volunteering your time to do unpaid labor, and I learned a new food local to southeastern Virginia.
-
Amuse-Bouche
What is Precision teaching and how do you use it in a clinical setting?
Appetizer
How did you get into Behavior Analysis?
What staffing barriers do you have when owning a company?
Tell us about your involvement with the Virginia Association for Behavior Analysis (VABA)
Palate Cleanser
Describe Southeastern Virginia and the must-try food there
Entree
When was a time you failed, and what did you learn from that experience?
Why do you wish you learned more about labor laws?
Dessert
How do you practice self-care and balance life/work?
Excerpts from the Episode
(*Paraphrased highlights)-
I own a small business. Years ago we had a terrible experience with a billing company that resulted in us scrambling for a small business loan. It was genuinely awful. I was coming to terms with the idea that my organization as we designed it was not going to survive.
We ended up pulling ourselves out of that hole, but being that close to failure was illuminating for me. If I had failed, I would have been really sad, and I would have also been fine. There's always a path forward, even when you mess up big time. I would have figured out the next step and taken it.
-
What I have gleaned from my experience in behavior analysis and in the school system, and with these other professionals, is that in these settings where women dominate a workforce, we are asked to volunteer our labor and put up the cost of performing our duties, at an absolutely alarming rate.
No one does this to male-dominated fields. No one is asking men to give up their evenings and weekends, unpaid, to purchase things required to do the basic functions of their job.
Women just accept it as this is what you got to do, and it's not. The experience that men are having at large is consistent with law. The experience that women are having is illegal. I want to be an advocate for women professionals and I want them to know this stuff, because they don't.
One occupational therapist that I used to work with, they would send her an hour away from their clinic to provide a one-hour early intervention session. If nobody answered the door, she didn't get paid. That's a crazy thing to do to someone.
-
I am not the classic workaholic business owner. I know that a lot of business owners are, but my business partner and I specifically did this together, because we did not want to be sole proprietors of a company.
When I am not there. She's there. When she is not there. I'm there. When neither of us are there, we can lean on our clinical director. We have a trusted inner circle that we know will meet the needs of the organization when we can't be available. That allows us to breathe easier and take time for ourselves and our families when we need it.
I have hobbies. I have a dog. I have a lot of plants. I love audio books and podcasts. During this time of year I love to be outdoors. We have a couple really awesome public parks in our area, and I‘ve made the outdoor spaces around my home very cozy and welcoming.
I look for bats every evening on my back deck. I have a chair that reclines enough that I can easily look up, and I'll listen to my audio book and wait for the bats to come around like the sunset hour. If you have bats in your area, they're excellent. Go find your bats.
ABOUT Emily
Emily Wilson, MA, BCBA, LBA
Emily stumbled into this field in 2012 and has been committed to the kind of self-improvement that translates to sustainable community support ever since. She was instrumental in the formation of the Virginia Association for Behavior Analysis regional Special Interest Groups, because there is no true substitute for face-to-face professional collaboration.
Emily co-founded Blossom Behavioral Services in 2018 with a mission to apply the science of behavior to facilitate meaningful change that improves lives. All these years later, Emily continues to strive toward that goal by emphasizing individualized compassionate care with her client families.
In an effort to align values and practice, Emily has been intentional about her post certification training and experience. Her practice emphasizes a trauma-informed approach, relying on assent-based instruction. She began to dabble in Precision Teaching in 2019 and is now a dedicated charter.
Emily also has a background in early childhood development, specifically ages 0-3. She has been supporting families of babies and toddlers exhibiting developmental delays since 2020.
CONNECT with Emily
Email EmilyBlossom Behavioral ServicesCEU: Creating Collaborative Teams: Buy-In, Assent, & Self-AdvocacyCEU: The Ethical Considerations of Assent in the Development of Instructional MotivationPlease support our podcast by leaving a rating or review!
(When on Apple Podcasts, scroll down the episodes to find the review area.)
Visit my Podcast page to learn more about Behavior Bites!
