Redefining What’s Possible: How Good Life Innovations is Transforming Disability Services | Healthcare Series

Anthony Codispoti: Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codispoti and today’s guest is Megan McKinney Todd. She is the Chief Strategy and Integrations Officer at Good Life Innovations Inc., a forward thinking organization founded in 1977 and based in Kansas. Good Life empowers individuals with disabilities and seniors by offering innovative home care services, adult day programs, housing assistance, behavioral support, and targeted case management.

Their mission is to ensure autonomy and dignity for every client and they become a leader in disability services and support. Megan is a spirited storyteller and strategic leader who has worked on critical decision-making processes, spearheaded innovative projects, and collaborated with senior leadership to drive growth at Good Life. Her background includes extensive experience in the disability sector where she developed her passion for creating inclusive environments. At Good Life, she continues to guide the team toward new solutions and partnerships that directly impact the lives of those that they serve. Now before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our innovative programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefitsagency.com. Now back to our guest today, the Chief Strategy Officer of Good Life Innovations, Megan McKinney Todd. I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Megan McKinney Todd: Yeah, so happy to be here. Thank you, Anthony.

Anthony Codispoti: Okay, so before we get into talking about Good Life Innovations, maybe tell us a little bit about the path that led you there. What were some stops along the way that have been sort of formative for you?

Megan McKinney Todd: Sure, so this is actually really interesting. I had dabbled in sort of university work ever since I graduated with my bachelor’s degree and ended up actually back at home in Lawrence, Kansas after graduating, working as like you do, a barista in downtown Lawrence, Kansas, actually met up with a couple of attorneys there who could really use some administrative support. And so I started sort of toggling, working behind an espresso machine and also supporting these small businesses and got an opportunity to actually teach at Haskell Indian Nations University.

So I was also gigging as an adjunct professor there in the English department and piecing all those things together just kind of felt at some point like it was going to be a real challenge to get traction in any one thing. And so just started applying for some jobs in the area and found one at the University of Kansas, actually the department for, it was the, actually it was the Center for Research is where I was working in the Center for Research. And yeah, so I got a job there and it kind of kickstarted my career.

I thought I would be able to stay there forever, really enjoyed the work and the research center on pre-award grant processes and work and sort of helping investigators and the researchers across the university gain funding for the important work they were doing. And that’s when I, my paths crossed with Dr. Mike Strauss and he was actually one of the investigators and one of the sponsors for an individual, actually a small handful of researchers at the university. And so he asked to, this is actually so funny, I asked to meet with him because we were sort of behind on a couple of the project goals and needed to get re-established in the new calendar year for the work we were going to move forward with. I had, so young, I had no idea what I was asking of a CEO at the time, but he honored the request. We met up, we got sort of in sync and I sat there with sort of the goal to say, we’re behind on our project, you’re the sponsor for it, you need to like, you need to pay up, we need to get re-going.

And he just sort of sat back and crossed his arms and he’s like, so what degree did you get and what is your experience? And before I knew it, he was recruiting me to come and actually lead the grant writing initiatives that Good Life needed. And it just kind of synergistically happened around the same time that I felt like my ability to be compassionate toward folks who were different than me was really, I was really struggling with that. And I had made an intentional decision, totally separate from this, to just focus a little bit more on my ability to be compassionate and kind and thought, well, what better way to do that than this opportunity, which sort of gave me an entrance to an industry I had no, I had, you know, no experience with up to this point. So yeah, we started our journey together and Mike has become a very close friend and mentor.

He is still my boss and we work together now instead of just sort of a local nucleus of grant writing and grant project management, we now have expanded, diversified our revenues to the point where we are really working not just in Kansas anymore, but leveraging sort of the mission behind what we do to have a national footprint instead. And so yeah, it’s been quite the journey. It’s been very interesting.

Anthony Codispoti: So it’s interesting that you were able to develop grant writing skills when you were at the university. And, you know, you had this chance to meet with Dr. Michael Strauss because he was not pulling his weight on the project and, you know, very politely and kindly, you know, requested to sit down with him. And it seems like he really appreciated the fact that you were just very direct and sort of matter of fact, and, you know, very businesslike and hey, we need to get these things done. And he saw something in you like, I want, you know, I want Megan on my team. And so that’s what he originally recruited you for to help with writing his own grants there. And then your role has expanded in the time that you’ve been there.

Megan McKinney Todd: Quite a bit. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not been without hardship, of course, because no, I guess, no journey really is. But yeah, that’s where it started. And we just ended up being able to figure out how to work together in a really meaningful way. And I think that allowed for us to both sort of explore what the natural best fit would be for the use of my talents within the organization. I really honor that it’s a it’s a tremendous asset to me to be sort of targeted for for what I uniquely bring to the table and for somebody to say, Hey, I think that could I think I could work for us and and and for this mission. And yeah, so we collaborated on that together.

Anthony Codispoti: So let’s try to put the services or you know, what it is that you guys do there into some different buckets, how can we kind of categorize these things, then maybe we’ll we’ll we’ll drill down into a couple of them. Okay. So break it out for us sort of the different buckets of what you guys do.

Megan McKinney Todd: You got it here. Here’s how it goes. And it’s actually a lot. So hang on with with me for just a second. Okay. Okay. So Good Life started in 1977. Your your intro did a really good job of sort of highlighting what the core of that mission was. This is a time when disability services really didn’t exist beyond institutionalization. And especially for people who have pretty intense or severe intellectual or developmental disabilities, the options that existed within the community were just so poor. And the quality of life really was just not what this, our founders, this group of parents thought was best for their loved ones. And so it was very grassroots effort at the time to just sort of sit in dig in and work with the University of Kansas Department of Applied Behavioral Science, which has been our partner now for 50 years, almost 50 years.

And and for us to, I mean, the energy of the group was essentially like, how can we do things differently? What does community based services really look like? How can we leverage existing funding and, you know, create an alternative to institutionalization for our loved ones? And we have championed that for decades now. But to the point, and I think because Kansas in particular has been, I’ll say like a not necessarily a leader in disability services, we do, you know, the state here does really well within the means that they have, but we have never really had an opportunity to leverage Medicaid or Medicare funding and provide a high quality, high quality life for individuals with disabilities here.

So that gap in like the funding reimbursements that come down through, that’s complicated, federal state funding, and the cost of providing high quality services here, the gap just kind of keeps growing. And we really kind of, and I championed so much what Dr. Strauss has done here because necessity was the mother of our invention. And we realized really early on that we were going to need to be innovative and creative with the way that we delivered care in order to bridge that gap. And so yes, grant funding was a part of that. But it ended up being so much more about how we could redesign service models and approaches in order to bridge that gap.

Anthony Codispoti: So Kansas is sort of behind the curve in all of this, specifically because of the state rules regarding Medicaid reimbursement or were there other things that just a whole bunch of factors at play?

Megan McKinney Todd: Yeah, I think, you know, different states sort of champion different matters. And I would say I don’t know what the issue is specifically, except that we’re the funding in this state hasn’t really followed, you know, as much as other states, the investment hasn’t come back to the disability industry.

Anthony Codispoti: Got it. And so part of what, you know, good life has been able to do over the years is sort of think creatively about how to bridge that gap in funding grants. And maybe there’s fundraisers, donations.

Megan McKinney Todd: Yeah, and so that’s like the kind of the typical solution that people come up with. Well, we’ll just get other people to pay for it. And what sort of uniquely set good life apart was this idea that we could redesign, like look at other industries and what they used to either to diversify their revenues or to provide better services.

And okay, so I have like a couple of examples. Most importantly, in 1999, we started Eileen Technologies. And this was the essentially the nation’s first use case of leveraging technology in the care industry for people with disabilities. So it wasn’t even Y2K yet. You know, I mean, we’re talking like blips of very early, early, early days of

Anthony Codispoti: monitors or the old bulky cathode ray tubes, they’re not in color.

Megan McKinney Todd: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you get the idea. And so essentially, we were thinking like, what could we, how could we leverage technology to expand and improve the capacity of our caregivers and improve the quality of life for the people that we serve? Eileen now is a is a incredible, I could spend our whole time talking just about Eileen. But it’s essentially the the tool, the primary tool that we’re able to lean on. And it’s a technology infrastructure that combines smart home solutions with really solid proprietary software that interprets intelligently what’s happening in a home. And based on the individualization of the configuration of that home and of the logic that’s built into the software, we’re able to say, hey, something’s not quite right here, somebody should probably check in on Johnny. Or we saw that the door opened in the middle of the night at Sally’s house, that really doesn’t make sense. Can we should we check in? Oh, no, she steps out for, you know, she steps out for a cigarette every night.

It’s really okay. So it’s those sort of things we’re actually allowing for people with disabilities to be more independent. The other side of that is like that core group of people with severe challenging either behaviors or disabilities. In that case, we’re finding that Eileen is really a tremendous support for the staff who need to be there on the regular. But there’s a caregiving crisis going on. And this is sort of the second thing that that good life does really well. So technology, of course, unique service models, redesigning those service models to really leverage what technology can do. The other side of it and what a decision that we made actually.

Anthony Codispoti: Sorry, before we get into that, I just want to clarify. So I link technologies. This is sort of a standalone entity that not only supports you in what good life is doing, but this is technology that’s available for other care providers to put in place. And so you’re able to use some of the funds and the profits from this to help fill some of the bridging gap at good life innovations. Okay, you got it. And then, sorry, where I cut you off, the other components you guys made a decision on is?

Megan McKinney Todd: We expanded our mission. And this was really critical. In I want to say about 10 years ago, we intentionally decided that just serving people with disabilities wasn’t really the core of it. We had done some research that that identified that aging adults had similar barriers to independence that people with disabilities did. And so in addition to sort of expanding the mission to say we want to provide a high quality life and redefine what’s possible for people who have barriers to independence, we also included improving the lives of the caregiving workforce, who are really the backbone of the work that we are trying to do. And this is where sort of the other arm this diversifying our revenues and expanding our entrepreneurial prowess in order to bridge that funding gap has really just taken off. There is a massive caregiving crisis that’s going on across the nation right now.

Anthony Codispoti: The crisis is that there’s just not enough people to provide the care.

Megan McKinney Todd: Exactly. And that the the jobs themselves, the caregiving jobs themselves are becoming less and less attractive. 60% of the people who are looking for a new job right now, they’re like number one criteria is they want to work remotely. Well, delivering care isn’t a remote job. And yes, we’re leveraging technology to do that. And yes, we have remote caregivers.

But it’s really not and we would never want to take the humans out of a human service model. More than ever, we need community right now and we need support and and and access. And so by expanding our mission to include the caregivers, we’ve really spent sort of an equal amount of time focused on what it means to improve their lives. And this is another sort of gift, another train, I guess, that we can sort of teach other providers is how to improve the lives of their caregivers by redesigning the service models. So we we work on their pay and their schedule strategies.

I want to come back to you, Anthony, and ask a little bit more about the ad that you talked about at the beginning, because benefits packages need to be reconsidered, looking at the way that the workforce functions. Traditionally, three day or five day work weeks are sort of like the bread and butter of the industry. But, you know, we are champions of shortened work weeks and unique benefits packages and and staffing neighborhoods instead of homes, moving away from group home models and really allowing for communities natural spaces to exist where caregiving is a an amenity of living in in that neighborhood, both giving and receiving.

Anthony Codispoti: So not only are you trying to implement a lot of these new programs for your own team, but you kind of like a consulting arm that is coaching other organizations on how to bring the the same sort of new care models, the benefits packages, the the flexible scheduling and all of this to their organizations.

Megan McKinney Todd: Yeah, you nailed it. Exactly. Yeah. And that is it’s really, really cool. It’s incredible work, first of all, because it’s desperately needed. We are facing, I mean, the crisis isn’t new. When we talked about the caregiving crisis, of course, there’s not enough caregivers.

It’s nothing new, though, especially in the disability industry. It’s been like four decades of crisis. What’s really making it tremendously worse and where people think like, oh, we’re just going to keep sort of like, I don’t know, throwing the water out of the canoe as it comes in, we can’t just like keep bailing water and thinking that it’s that we’re going to like stay afloat. There is a this like sucking sound that you hear of caregivers leaving our industry, they’re going to support aging adults. Baby boomers are aging at this tremendous rate. They themselves have loved ones who have disabilities. And all of a sudden, we’re seeing sort of this exponential need exist in the nation. We’ve got 10,000 people turning 65 every day, every day. And that is, it’s incredible.

That’s one every eight seconds. It is just tremendously burdensome. And as they as, as these individuals age, they need support. The support that they’re then giving to their loved ones with disabilities becomes an additional gap. And essentially, we know as an industry that we are not going to be able to keep up with what private pay aging adults are going to be able to pay. Like there’s no, there’s no matching that with federal or state funding.

Anthony Codispoti: So are each of these entities, are they all set up as separate entities? You’ve got, you know, good life, you’ve got iLink, you’ve got, I don’t know how you sort of what you call the good life university.

Megan McKinney Todd: Yeah, good life university. Okay. Are these all separate entities, or they fall under a nonprofit umbrella?

Megan McKinney Todd: How does this work? So everything is a nonprofit under the good life innovations umbrella. Good life university is that consulting arm. And then right now, iLink Technologies is an LLC. But because it is fully owned by, by good life, it takes on the tax status of its parent company.

So at some point, our goal really is to shuttle that off, gain investors to the point that we can really shift it into its own entity, where good life will sort of remain a, an owner, you know, a part owner of it, but where it can really sort of live as a, as a for profit entity, making sure that our, our folks, especially at good life are a sort of forever endowed with the, with that revenue that then would be generated to bridge the gap we were talking about.

Anthony Codispoti: So iLink, is it mostly like your own hardware? It like is what you have like the secret sauce, the software or these products that I could find on Amazon? Or is it more of like a, like a distributor network?

Megan McKinney Todd: This is your questions are so great. So I would say the special sauce of iLink is really the proprietary software. So what we’ve built on the back end. But the difference is, and I think this is what’s really critical and maybe a barrier that people don’t recognize or understand is that when you start taking a dozen different off the shelf solutions and packaging them under one roof to improve the independence of the people who live there, make their lives easier or more streamlined in some way, more technically, you know, advanced, what you end up with is a dozen different apps on your phone that all have different login restrictions, you know, access sort of barriers and that aren’t talking to each other. And so what’s made iLink really special, I think, is that we’re utilizing things that sort of anybody could purchase. But the way that the hardware is fashioned and then also configured is feeding directly into that software that can sort of intelligently and with the configurations for the individuals living in each home, interpret all of the data that comes out of a smart home and say this is typical behavior, nobody needs to intervene, nobody needs to show up at the house, everything’s good.

And instead sort of focuses on this is not typical behavior, this is there’s something out of whack here or that or you know we’ve got a pattern that’s sort of evolving here that somebody needs to check on. And so I think the special sauce is in the software, it’s called iLink Assist and it’s really incredible. What we’re finding especially in the disability industry and one of the reasons why I think it sort of lags behind other industries that have adopted technology, you know, decades ago, is that the individualization of the care models that are used is real, it’s really important. We want to make sure that that the needs of the individuals are promoted and that their choice and their autonomy and their decision making and their independence are all empowered by the services that we deliver. But an analogy that we like to use is if we were to say that every single person needed to choose their own hardware and software and you know it’s like you would pick a whole separate like every single person served.

Anthony Codispoti: I wouldn’t know how to tie them together and get them to talk to each other and to produce those red alerts that you know

Megan McKinney Todd: that my character is equal to. The one reason why Uber works is because not everybody is using their own car, we’re using the car and we’re sharing it across 100 different people. So yeah, there’s this sort of tug of war I would say like within the industry right now on how you take the focus of individualized services and build something that’s scalable. And I haven’t seen another solution in the technology sector for our industry that is scalable the

Anthony Codispoti: way that ILink technologies go to ilinktech.com.

Anthony Codispoti: So it’s really interesting to me what you guys have done and I think you put it well like from from an early stage you thought really creatively about you know how can we sort of fill this funding gap and that’s Mike. So Mike’s you know people think about nonprofits and they don’t usually think about innovation right? That’s like that’s that’s for-profit companies that’s you know.

Megan McKinney Todd: That’s especially in our industry. There is not very much innovation in the disability industry.

Anthony Codispoti: Yeah so what you guys are doing in your space it’s pretty unusual a little bit of a unicorn. Yeah and so you’ve come up with these other ideas to generate revenue and to support the bigger mission of what not only you are trying to do but what you know your peers are trying to do out there. You’ve got the ilink technologies that can you know help to support people who need the care and to help the caregivers to provide that. And then sort of I don’t know I’m going to call it like the the HR arm of things like the university portion of this where you’re kind of coaching people to you know here’s better ways to support your workforce so that you can recruit more folks and then when you find good folks you can hold on to them for longer.

Megan McKinney Todd: I’m really hoping that this becomes I sense that it that it could and it will become sort of this ever-expanding you know process of continuous improvement because we’re not teaching anybody else something that we don’t do here and we host folks across the nation at least two per month come to Kansas City to sit with us across a day sometimes two days where we walk them around and we show them what we’re doing and we walk into the fabrication lab which is just the whole down the hall from me or the remote support center we’re going into the homes we’re going into the neighborhoods and they’re seeing we’re able to show them what life looks like what a good life looks like when innovation is at its core it’s very inspiring it’s it’s tremendously good work and I think that the the university component of it is really really important because it is not all die not all of our ideas stick not all of them work and in the end we only teach the ones that do that are research based evidence based that are ready to be scaled that are ready to be deployed that are designed specifically for the improving of such a sort of desperate and and the industry the disability industry especially is just it’s just I don’t know there hasn’t been a ray of sunshine in this industry in a really long time I think it sounds like you guys are it yeah I think so and that’s honestly one of the reasons why I love working here and and honored that I get to use my talents to to support our mission and expand what our board has asked us to do which is improve the lives of people with barriers to independence and make sure that the caregivers lives are improved as well

Anthony Codispoti: so you guys have a lot going on yeah with those those different sort of buckets that we’ve identified there but I know how an entrepreneur’s mind works and the way you’ve described dr. Strauss and you know where you know he’s the guy where these ideas are coming from he’s cooking up new ideas all the time oh and you guys are probably having to build some sort of a funnel or restraint system to keep him from launching one every other day but are there things that are in the pipeline that you would want to give some voice to now

Megan McKinney Todd: yeah yeah one of the things especially that’s so exciting and important right now is on the technology side we can right now design or sort of customize the software for a home but utilizing and especially when privacy is such an important thing identifying who specifically might be triggering a sensor within a home a smart home sensor right now we can’t dial down to to the very specific individuals either the one served or their staff and so what we’re working on right now is the utilization of beacon technology and an MM wave technology so that without having to do facial recognition which has you know big sort of HIPAA implications and privacy implications for people who need you know according to federal regulations to have autonomy and privacy and safety and the ability to self-direct we need to be able to protect privacy but we also need to know who it was that that triggered a specific sensor so that the care models that revolve around that individual and leverage their or empower their independence with as much possibility as as is able yeah so we’re sort of like torn between how do we provide that independence and that autonomy and also protect our privacy and also you know make this better so that’s what the beacon and MM wave technology is going to do we’re going to be able to to identify who somebody is

Anthony Codispoti: so like have a key fob or something that’s got like a little like tile on it that is sort of identifying me as I get close to these different sensor

Megan McKinney Todd: points yep and it can even like triangulate and sort of like weed out okay how many people are in the home and you know it’s it’s logic and it is a reason but yeah it’s essentially like a beacon it’s either wearable um sometimes we’ll put it like in the insole of a shoe uh on some some jewelry or uh or a watch even in like the um like the the um the hem of a of a shirt or um yeah so especially for people who have like sensory issues we those things have to be really sort of creatively um designed but we will I think by the end of this year be able to leverage beacon and MM wave technology within the Eileen assist environment to um move from just a home level sort of configuration capability to an individual level and this is really important because it allows greater access to the community we will not just be able to serve that person in their own home they can go anywhere in the community and we will be able to wrap these supports and services around them

Anthony Codispoti: so there would be a way for the technology to sort of identify like where they are you know if they went down to the store down the street um because I don’t know what’s it using like is it like connecting to their phone through bluetooth and that’s sending the signal or does it have like its own like a cell

Megan McKinney Todd: phone I think they’ll have a phone they’ll have their beacons um there may also be the use of like NFC technology within that um we should get Dr. Strauss on here because he would know a lot more about sort of the technical you

Anthony Codispoti: know this is this is pretty technical I mean what you’re talking about it’s it’s really fascinating is there I know I know what Dr. Strauss’ answer is going to be to this is there thoughts about being able to apply this technology to um other use cases sort of outside of what it is specifically that you guys do in your industry

Megan McKinney Todd: it has absolutely been designed that way from the get go it’s it is not just for people with disabilities anybody who has a barrier to independence um and okay so here’s a couple of good examples right now if somebody gets up in the middle of the night in their own home and makes their way to the restroom and then goes back to bed and let’s say three minutes let’s say five minutes um all of that But we’re good. It’s fine. Everybody’s safe. Nobody has fallen down.

Nobody, you know, we’re good. But what happens if that individual doesn’t make that circuit back to the bedroom? What if they’re in the restroom for 10 minutes or 30 minutes? At some point, should somebody check in on them? Or what if sort of there’s this confusion that happens and we see that individual move toward the front door or the back door or turn the stove on in the middle of the night? Are any of these triggers that we would want to cause somebody to sort of check in and say, hey, it’s everything going OK?

Right now, IELIN can do that. It can identify the times when that out of the norm behavior is happening and provide a human in the moment to check in. And these are not just like, I’m talking about like calling centers. You know, it’s the human who provides direct care that’s also available remotely. And to check in in the middle of the night and say, you know, Tom, what’s going on? Are you feeling OK?

Are you good to go back to bed? And what if something’s really going on? Do we need to send in-person support?

Do we need to call the emergency services? That right now is the way that IELINC is in sort of its like core, making a difference. Soon, that’s going to happen in the community as well. Right? So let’s say an aging adult gets confused and maybe walks down the street.

Taking a walk is great, but today it happens to be 110 degrees outside. How about we check in with that person? Or something happens when they’re on the golf course and they have a wearable pendant that can allow for their caregiving team to essentially be available on demand.

The applications and the use cases for this are just endless. And it’s exactly what folks need to avoid more restrictive care settings, congregate care settings, which nobody really wants to go to. And they want to live in their own home.

They want to live in their own neighborhoods. And so often we’re watching people trade just, I don’t know, a little bit of need. But those needs happen intermittently when you can’t really predict them. We’re trading a little bit of need for a whole lot of care and a whole lot of money. And at some point, you know, our industry already can’t afford that. And all the more, you know, as baby boomers age. So yeah, anyway, I got so many, so many good things.

Anthony Codispoti: You know, it just struck me, Megan, you mentioned that you’re in Kansas City and here we are recording this on Thursday, February 6th, just a few days before the Super Bowl. Are you excited? Are you a chief span? What? Sure.

Megan McKinney Todd: Like, OK, you know, it’s it’s hard not to get excited when there’s this much energy in the town. I would probably so I do love football. Typically, though, when I say football, I mean soccer. But yeah, Monday night football has always sort of been a tradition in the McKinney household. And when we watched that, yeah, I would probably be like a little bit more of a fan. If if the if there was a mascot really that aligned, though, with like typical, I don’t know, fanfare. I don’t really appreciate. The chiefs having or utilizing sort of an indigent indigenous mascot. I just don’t think that’s appropriate.

Anthony Codispoti: Do you have a Native American background yourself?

Megan McKinney Todd: Yeah, yeah. So Prairie Band Pottawatomie, so Nishinaabek people. We were in the Great Lakes area and removed several occasions sort of down south. So my ancestors specifically were Prairie Band Pottawatomie and Citizen Band Pottawatomie. And yeah, my my grandfather, we always called him Misho.

He was one of the sort of speakers of the language went through a very sort of challenging childhood, ended up in the military, got married, made babies, went all over the world, passed away way too early. And yeah, so we’re connected to both the group that’s like north of Topeka, Kansas and the Mayetta area and the one in Oklahoma, Citizen Band.

Anthony Codispoti: So you’re looking forward to the game. You you enjoy the sport, but for you, you don’t appreciate the mascot. It feels offensive to you and to your your culture and to your heritage.

Maybe you can because I’ve had this conversation with some friends before. And so maybe you can help shed some light on this perspective because there are certainly other other types of mascots that reference other groups of people. You know, I think about my high school. We were the Hoover Vikings and I don’t know. I can’t immediately think of like then there was the Minutemen, you know, for some schools, too. Sure.

So what is it that’s sort of different about using like Vikings or Minutemen or something like that as a mascot versus like something like the Chiefs or the the Redskins or the the Seminoles or maybe you can shed some light there. Sure.

Megan McKinney Todd: Yeah. So and this is sort of just my opinion, but from sort of the position of straddling white culture, presenting very typical American, you know, middle class in the Midwest, but also watching and listening and having exposure to Indigenous teachings from a very young age.

I mean, my entire life. There’s a very distinct difference between sort of the the and I hear the argument about honoring who, you know, the tradition and it’s, you know, the grit and the power that comes from having that. But there’s not really been a consistent echo of respect toward Indigenous people in our history at all. And so it’s hard to sort of stand by and to watch the things that are central and central to our culture and sacred to the way that we exist and worship.

And, you know, I don’t know, like give honor to creator and to the world that’s not that’s not really being embodied by taking what we are and animalizing it. And especially when you look at like the amount of time that’s really been spent trying to eliminate Indigenous culture in America, there is. I don’t I don’t see another example of really wanting to eradicate a specific culture. Like I have seen from colonialism that has made its way in the Westward expansion across the Americas, even African American and now like very solid black culture. We we need those individuals and they’re often put in positions of even still providing services, right?

Or like old, old slavery essentially still manifesting itself. But we didn’t ever look at Indians as a value at not even to provide services. It was more like, how do we stamp it out? How do we how do we eradicate and eliminate so that we don’t have these barriers to accessing and stripping the the land of its resources?

Anthony Codispoti: So one of the big differences is in the way that Native American culture for hundreds of years has been treated here in this country. It you know, it was the attempt to annihilate it, right? Let’s take everybody. Let’s move them. Let’s you know, if they die along the way, so be it kind of just dismissive and, you know,

Megan McKinney Todd: smelly blankets and and the whole like treaties that are never honored. And and and the and the moving of a people from their land and then staking a claim on that land and going, not only do I own this now, but I will charge you to utilize it in any way. Yeah, I think all of those things are just it’s tragic and really unfortunate.

And we have to sort of exist already with that amount of pain and generational trauma to turn around and see your people be sort of made fun of or or I don’t know, just like it’s a further bastardization of a very sort of special and sacred situation. Never should costumes emulate regalia. Never should behaviors. I don’t know, like like mannerisms or behaviors reflect what’s done in in ceremony for our people.

Anthony Codispoti: Is there a way to have these kinds of mascots and do it respectfully? Or would your preference be move on kind of like the Washington Redskins became the Washington commanders?

Megan McKinney Todd: Just leave it behind. I applaud what happened with Washington. I really do. I think we honestly, that’s the R word in our we have two R words in my world.

Anthony Codispoti: OK, so that’s really offensive for me to just have reference that that that like bristles you

Megan McKinney Todd: just as just as bad as it’s so hard to even come off my tongue. But the Redskins and retarded are both words that need to be absolutely eliminated from our vernacular

Anthony Codispoti: in that you came to me today. Thank you. Yeah. You’ve described yourself as a spirited storyteller. How do you use that storytelling to engage stakeholders, families, donors, community partners?

Megan McKinney Todd: Honestly, it’s a challenge because of how many different stakeholders are involved in the work that we do. And we we make a little joke around here sometimes that like if if you want an elevator pitch from somebody at good life, you’re going to need to like being a skyscraper. Like it’s going to be a long conversation just to get to like the core in the nut of what it is that we do. And so I think one of the biggest challenges of trying to tell stories in this space is no, the first the first sort of lesson you learn, English major, in what it means to utilize rhetoric to communicate effectively is know your audience. You got to have credibility. You got to know your audience. And yeah, we’ve got we’ve got like dozen different audiences that will all benefit tremendously from the things that we have to say and the stories that we have to tell.

But I think that’s that continues to sort of be like the thing that we need to do better and not necessarily get wrapped up in who we are, but to actually listen to who our audience is and what is this? What what are the stories and what are the messages that will. I guess enable them to imagine.

A world that looks different from the one that they’ve seen before. And and then to tap into that and go, that’s doable for me, like like right now. That’s what I hope we’re able to accomplish. And leading a marketing department is such a trip because there is. I don’t like marketing is wild, but that’s really kind of the core of like what’s the message? What’s the core message? Who’s our audience? Who’s our target audience? And what are we trying to help them understand or learn or absorb so that they can feel safe by by who we are and what we do and so that we can really help them be the guide that they need to get to the next generation of care.

Anthony Codispoti: Is there a particular marketing strategy or campaign that you’ve used in the past that has been very successful for you?

Megan McKinney Todd: That’s a good question. That’s tough. I don’t know that there’s been like a necessarily a campaign. I feel like we are still so grassroots and I haven’t even like leveraged enough of the different mindsets in the marketing space. Ask me that again in a couple of years. Like I really think so. I think I think probably yes, there will be, but I don’t know that there has been one to date.

Anthony Codispoti: How about can you recommend a resource? Maybe a book, a podcast, a course that’s been really helpful and instructive for you and your path that might be helpful to those folks that are listening now.

Megan McKinney Todd: Yeah. So one of my favorites was this was actually a professional development opportunity I got when I was at KU and it was called the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It’s a Franklin Covey line. And it was just it was so good. I just learned so much about how to take my talents and sort of slough off the things that would get in the way, the barriers, the the the vines that sort of wrap up around your ankles when you’re trying to move. And that it was that one was really, really good. There’s also a podcast that I love. And can I remember what it’s called? Something about all like all my ancestors. Oh, I hate that I can’t remember exactly what it’s called.

It’s like a quick click in my podcast app. All my relations, that’s what it’s called all my relations. And it’s a the framework and sort of the understanding of how indigeneity exists in the current American climate. That one has really, really helped me see myself, I guess, in my roots. differently. differently. How? Just differently.

Anthony Codispoti: Like more favorably, like was there like, I don’t know, like a like a dark cloud or like a shame that went with this before and this is help lift it?

Megan McKinney Todd: No, yeah, I wouldn’t say shame necessarily, but. Yeah, interested. That’s a really good question differently in that it’s something that I could own. And I don’t. Look, Indian, I don’t have the dark skin.

I don’t I don’t I speak a Potawatomi grew up speaking it, but I don’t necessarily have, you know, if you don’t use it, you lose it. And my ancestors are. Largely gone and so much of what we were. Caused to do just through this American life was.

A simulat. And so how do I connect and reconnect on sort of a reoccurring basis with. Not just the generational trauma, right, but with the with the strength of of my people or of my ancestors. And I still haven’t. I still don’t have all that figured out. What is the language? So honestly, what is the language? Sound like the Potawatomi language? Mm hmm. It sounds very.

Anthony Codispoti: Would it be weird to ask you to say something?

Megan McKinney Todd: Yeah, no, it’s not weird at all. I just hope I do. I just hope I do it justice. I hope the tongue is is right. But so so. Bojo is how you say hello in Potawatomi. My so my Indian name is which up no ghost that was given to me in ceremony with my with my with my dad and my grandfather.

I I honor that very much. It means blue star. And yeah, so in our world, there’s a mishmash of K’s and G’s and W’s and Z’s, but as an oral language. And so the ability to put it to paper and to continue and to make sure that it lasts beyond, you know, our generations is really tricky. So my dad and and and his dad worked on a language project that actually took this oral language and allowed for it to sort of be manifest in writing. There’s people now who who carry that work on, but it’s it’s tricky and it’s hard.

Anthony Codispoti: Fascinating. Yeah. I was trying to remember there was a Netflix series on and it was centered around the Native American reservation. And so they would have English subtitles often because they would go into whatever the Native American language was rather frequently throughout the episode. And I cannot for life and me remember it comes.

Megan McKinney Todd: Yeah, I couldn’t remember the podcast.

Anthony Codispoti: Yeah. Well, you did come up with it eventually. So you get you get a bonus point there. But Megan, I’d be curious to hear about a serious challenge that you’ve gone through, how you overcame that, what you learn coming through the other side of that. Yeah.

Megan McKinney Todd: Yeah. Honestly, the hardest the hardest aspect of my life is is a grief story. We when I was 11 years old, my dad was first diagnosed with cancer. And he is the only son. So he has two older sisters and two younger sisters, but very special.

Only son of his his father. And so he struggled with lymphoma cancer for a handful of years, went through chemotherapy and radiation. And there’s a lot of my childhood that is sort of wrapped in that sadness. And he was also such a warrior and such a fighter. So he that that cancer did not kill him. It did come back 10 years later, maybe maybe longer than that even came back. We did we opted to do a stem cell transplant. He wanted he did not want to die.

He he loved loved life. That stem cell transplant was also successful. So that’s really incredible.

He used his own stem cells. And, yeah, that it was just honestly, it’s very traumatizing to sit in hospitals and to watch treatments that are brutal and to know that this is almost as bad as the disease, except for the possibility of the outcome. And we were really lucky to be able to have many years with him.

In the end, in 2017, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And for those of you that know much about that, it’s just it’s also pretty rough. The warrior that he is still sort of defied the odds had a whipple surgery and, you know, effectively recovered for about five years. And then it and then it really took hold and and he passed away in 20 21. Wow.

Anthony Codispoti: Yeah. So you were an 11 year old girl when your father was first diagnosed. And so as you think back to even memories that weren’t directly associated with his care and his brutal treatments, is there sort of this like heaviness to everything like you think back to your teenage years and it’s like. Yeah.

Megan McKinney Todd: And honestly, I think a lot of it contributed to burnout that I didn’t even realize was happening. But I’m the first born the oldest and he and I were very, very, very close. And so there was a sense of duty and obligation that I don’t think. I don’t think I knew I didn’t realize what I was doing, but I was just always the one who was there. It was like not going to be an option to not be present and be supportive. It was hard. I probably wasn’t processing any of that. Along the way. And yeah, so I got married so young.

I don’t know what I was thinking. I got really lucky, but we got married in 2005. And that’s when his cancer came back. So summer he was sick during our wedding, but we didn’t know why. And then my dad’s dad, my misho passed away in October and is the same week that we learned his cancer was back. And so those like traumatic those memories of like, how did we survive that? What did we we just we just did. We just did what was sort of in our core and in our bones to do, which was survive.

But there wasn’t really a lot of thriving, if you will. And so my little brother came to live with us. My dad and mom moved for a stem cell transplant that took up half a year. I was leaving school on the weekends.

I was a senior in college in Nebraska going to support my mom so that she could like get out of the hospital and go shopping for a few hours, care for him during the nighttime hours, which were very confusing and chaotic. It was just it was just really it was really, really hard. And I don’t think I realized in the moment how much that challenge would impact like impact who I am and the way that I like exist in in the world. But we did that grit and it was not until 2020 when COVID hit that we sat down and just sort of like to protect my dad, be like, we’re not going to see anybody else. We’re not going to do anything else and took a pass essentially on life and sheltered in place together. And I think that was really kind of the first aha moment that I had that I was exhausted. And finally, the world was sort of settling in and going, we’re just going to not, you know, we’re just going to not for a while.

We’re going to just everyone stay home. And boy, I reveled in it. I loved it. I needed that so desperately. And I was so mad. I was so, so mad that my dad, who loved, loved living was just confined to his home for these, you know, last few weeks and months. We were lucky enough to get, you know, 18 months or so.

Anthony Codispoti: But so for you, the the the the initial part of COVID was was actually a welcome blessing. It was yeah, it slowed things down for you. It sort of cut out all the outside stuff and just allowed you to kind of be here to be with your family in the moment.

Megan McKinney Todd: But but yeah, that was I think how I first realized that I was burning myself out, that I was over. Overdoing it.

Anthony Codispoti: We were over extending yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Traveling back and forth, you know, helping to take care of your family, you know, doing your own work at the same time. Yep. Since your father has passed, has there been any personal development work on your side that has helped you kind of process those traumas, those emotions that you weren’t maybe fully aware of at the time?

Megan McKinney Todd: Yeah, I think the biggest one is like tapping into energy work and magic. And it sounds really sort of silly. But I think when when there’s so much we don’t know about science and especially like quantum level science, that I think there is a there is a capability and ability within every single person to be their own healer. And and the way that you sit with that and sort of explore that is fast.

It’s just fascinating. And so what this looks like really tangibly is meditation or breathwork or grounding. So like connecting, letting your your chakras or, you know, your root reestablish itself in nature and in creation, listening to the birds and recognizing like they have something to teach. I, you know, I consider them family members.

I consider nature to be an extension of our family and of our consciousness. And so since he’s passed, I referenced earlier just feeling lost a lot of the time. It’s because our teacher, like my teachers are gone. I don’t I can only access them now through a sort of spiritual realm. And and I feel so confused often about how to tap into that and and access it in in a meaningful way. And I think it just kind of looks like keeping open mindedness and and not letting myself sort of get caught up in the rat race of Middle America, especially now. It’s just it’s it’s really, really challenging and also really beneficial to just opt out in a lot of the teachings, I guess, of where where we are. And yeah, picking the teachings to follow the ones that are true and that are right and to hold those near and let other things just fall away.

Anthony Codispoti: Kind of tune out the the extra noise. You mentioned meditation as being a vehicle for you to sort of access these healing places. Is there a specific style of meditation or breathwork that’s been helpful for you?

Megan McKinney Todd: OK, yeah. So my partner, Seth, my husband, he did transcendental meditation and has explored that. And I think that one’s pretty cool. I haven’t done done that specifically myself. But but I see good things. Quantum touch is a really interesting modality of energy work that honestly sort of gives that gift of of a healing touch to anybody like you could do it.

It’s just there’s no restrictions. I also really like Wim Hof because there’s this method of like building and energizing just through your breath and like oxygenating your body. That I find fascinating and to sort of get like an ethereal experience from just just breathing. I just I don’t know.

Anthony Codispoti: I find that it’s a Wim Hof for those folks who aren’t familiar. It’s a series of different kinds of breaths. If I’m remembering correctly, there’s almost like a like a controlled hyperventilation that kind of takes place and then holding the breath and. It causes something to take place in the body where there’s sort of the sense of relaxation, floating. Am I doing it justice?

Megan McKinney Todd: Yes, completely. And there’s like, yeah, it is. It sort of ends up feeling. I don’t know. I feel very empowered by it, especially in when fear is so much a part of our. Experience, our human experience. I find I find sort of that breath. Almost want to say like manipulation, but it’s not in a bad way. Just like the capability of what my body can do.

I find it to be really empowering and enlightening in different ways. What is quantum touch? OK, so this is a it’s specifically sort of an energy. It’s an energy work. Where where sort of breath is drawn up and the energy is pulled up and then and then shared sort of like up and in and then sent through sort of quantum realm to any time, any place, any, any person. And essentially, it’s different than like Qigong, which is going to be so much of like building up stores of energy inside yourself.

And then ascending out of that energy that you’ve stored up. What I like about quantum touch is that it’s just channeling and and empowering somebody else. You don’t end a quantum touch session feeling tired or or exhausted because it’s a regenerating replicable sort of approach.

And so really just unlocking the the the recipients own physiological ability to heal itself and to put things back in sort of the natural order and relieve pain sort of, you know, immediately. It’s it’s fascinating.

Anthony Codispoti: Yeah, Megan, I’ve just got one more question for you. But before I ask it, I want to do two things. First of all, for everyone listening today, I know that you love today’s show. Megan’s been a wonderful guest.

So to make sure you don’t miss out on other great shows like this, please hit the follow button on your favorite podcast app. Megan, I also want to let people know the best way to get in touch with you or to continue following your story or that of Good Life Innovations. What would be the best way for folks to do that?

Megan McKinney Todd: So probably the best way is to go to our website. So mygoodlife.org is the nonprofit service hub. GoodlifeU.org is going to be the Good Life University main sort of main center.

So come there. This is for the consulting arm related to staff stabilization strategies, the integration and utilization of technology in our service models. And then ilinktech.com, which we referenced earlier for really digging in on what the technology can be. And you can find me also on LinkedIn. I don’t really do much on any of the others, but but come see me on LinkedIn. How about that?

Anthony Codispoti: OK, last question for you, Megan, as you look to the future, what is it that you’re most excited about for all the entities under Good Life Innovations? What’s coming around the corner that’s got you particularly jazzed?

Megan McKinney Todd: I really hope that we can. I’m excited about how we can contribute to value based funding and partnerships with managed care organizations and reimagining how federal and state funding and insurance can. I guess how those resources can find innovators in the field and and can really sort of re imagine what community looks like that will make a difference in in everybody’s lives. And I think there’s a I think there’s a mechanism in there and a math problem that we can figure out where we’re filling care gaps that are otherwise sort of fractionally disconnected and disassociated and where we can go. Oh, you know, we’ve got we’ve got a solution for that. And I think there’s going to be I think there’s going to be some real real neat changes that we see in the care industry if we make space and allow for those innovations to flourish.

Anthony Codispoti: I’m excited to follow that progress. Yeah, me too. Well, Megan, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Megan McKinney Todd: It’s been an honor. Thank you so much.

Anthony Codispoti: Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspire Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.