[Scene: Rob in a comfortable setting, storytelling mode]

Let me take you back to 2014. I'd been a school BCBA for about three years at that point, and I was completely burned out.

I remember one day in particular. It was a Tuesday—I'll never forget it. I had 47 students on my caseload across six different schools. I'd been in three crisis situations before lunch. And I was sitting in my car in a school parking lot, just... paralyzed.

I couldn't make myself go inside. I sat there for twenty minutes, staring at the building, thinking: "I can't do this anymore."

[Pause, vulnerable moment]

I went home that night and told my wife I was done. I was going to find a different job—maybe leave the field entirely. I felt like a fraud. Like I'd spent all these years getting my BCBA, and I couldn't even help the kids who needed me most.

Because here's what was happening: Every behavior plan I wrote—plans I was proud of—would just... sit there. Teachers didn't have time to implement them. Paras weren't trained. Admin didn't understand why consistency mattered.

I was doing everything I was "supposed" to do. And nothing was working.

[Shift to more hopeful tone]

But something my wife said that night stuck with me. She said, "Rob, what if the problem isn't that you're bad at your job? What if you're just trying to do the job in a way that doesn't work?"

That one question changed everything.

Because she was right. I was trying to be a superhero—individually supporting every student, personally handling every crisis, manually doing everything myself.

[Looking directly at camera]

What I didn't understand yet was that sustainable impact doesn't come from working harder. It comes from building systems.

I was treating symptoms instead of causes. Reacting instead of preventing. Operating as a technician when I needed to become a leader.

In the next video, I'll share the specific myth that was keeping me stuck—and probably keeping you stuck too.

See you there.