We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Stacy Payne a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Stacy, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.
I hit the jackpot when it comes to family! I was raised by a kind and determined mother and wonderful grandparents who lived mere feet away. As a child, I was surrounded by love, support, and encouragement; I remember feeling that there was nothing I could not do. While we were not wealthy by the world’s standards, I attended private school, traveled, and was encouraged to always pursue my passion. For most of my childhood that was dance. My mother and grandparents, despite busy schedules, made it possible for me to be at the studio three times a week for ballet class and all-day on Saturdays for company rehearsals. They were by my side for competitions, auditions, and travel overseas to pursue my joy. There were days when it all seemed too much, and I wanted to quit. My mother would always give me the same advice: just finish out the week and see how you feel. What a wonderful way to let me know that she heard me, that my feelings were valid, and that I had a choice. Invariably, I always decided to keep going. Knowing that I had a mother and grandparents rooting for me in my early years (and beyond!) gave me the courage to face the challenges and embrace the opportunities that would come my way through the years.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I am Stacy St. Amant Payne, a native Angeleno, speech-language pathologist, and owner of Bright Beginnings Speech Pathology, Inc., better known as Bright Beginnings Pediatric Services. I always knew I wanted a career that helped people, especially little people. While I considered becoming a pediatrician or a teacher, neither medicine nor managing a classroom full of students was for me. One of my mother’s cousins, who was pursuing her doctorate in Speech Language Pathology, spoke to me about the rewards of working one-on-one with children and adults to help them communicate and make their voices heard. I was sold! This one spontaneous conversation started my journey in the field which continues now, almost 40 years later. I was one of the rare students who entered college with my major (and career) declared and never veered off course. I started at UC Santa Barbara in the late 1980s and graduated with my Master of Science degree in Communicative Sciences and Disorders from CSU Northridge in the early 1990s.
While most people think of speech therapy as teaching children how to say things like, “Sally sells seashells by the seashore,” professionals in the field offer so much more. Speech-Language Pathologists (SLP) work with children and adults who experience voice disorders, loss of language and cognition after strokes, brain injuries, and degenerative disease, swallowing problems, stuttering, reading, writing, and developmental delays of speech and language. In fact, I spent the majority of my career as a medical speech-language pathologist working for major hospitals, including here in my hometown at Cedars Sinai Medical Center, with both children and adults who struggled with thinking, communicating and swallowing. When I realized that not many SLPs in the community were comfortable working with clients with complex medical histories, I decided to help change that.
I part-time as a sole practitioner in 2008, incorporated Bright Beginnings in 2013, and have been serving the local community ever since. What started as just me and a few clients is now a team of 13 amazing professionals who make big changes in the lives of children (an adults) and their families every day!
What sets Bright Beginnings apart is our three unique service lines that allow us to serve our clients as they grow. Our feeding and swallowing therapeutic service line helps identify and solve early feeding and swallowing challenges with the breast and bottle, such as bottle aversions and poor sucking, texture aversions in older babies, and picky/avoidant eating patterns in toddlerhood and beyond. We are also experienced in working with older children and adults experiencing dysphagia. Our speech and language service line helps children throughout early childhood and beyond who are experiencing challenges with things like speech sound production, receptive and expressive language development, voice, stuttering, and pragmatic language. Our third clinical specialty is found in our Bright Minds Therapeutic Learning Academy (BMTLA). BMTLA is a specialty program created to identify and resolve the underlying issues that may be leading to challenges in school in the areas of reading, writing, spelling, attending/focusing, and processing. This program is for smart students who are working harder than they should for their good grades as well as for those students who are struggling just to get by.
No matter the service line, the Bright Beginnings team aims to provide the highest quality of care with a heavy dose of compassion and humanity. We do not take lightly the trust our families place in us and consider it an honor to be invited to share in child and family’s journey.
Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?
Success is built on a track record of doing great work with integrity, no matter the field. I often tell my staff that what distinguishes a great clinician from a good one is offering each and every client the very best of yourself, and that goes beyond the basic clinical work. It is about being thoughtful, thorough, following through, and going the extra mile. People want to make a personal connection and trust that their provider has their best interest at heart. We are human and will certainly miss the mark from time to time, but when you make integrity and providing above-and-beyond care your intention, you are already succeeding!
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
I think one of the things that has helped my business grow is being intentional about letting people know who we are and what we do. For many, many years, I kept my head down, did the work, and certainly made a difference in people’s lives. I had a steady and reliable group of physicians who entrusted their patients to me and of course insurance contracts that kept business flowing. However, I really noticed a shift in our growth when I began making myself, and my company, more visible. I got involved with several professional networking groups, became a member of my local Chamber of Commerce, and upped my presence on social media. Now, when people ask what I do for a living, instead of a one liner, “I am a speech-language pathologist,” I share a little more about my company and the ways we are helping kids and families in our community.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.BrightBeginningsLA.com
- Instagram: @bbpsla
- Facebook: BBPSLA
- Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/@bbpsla
Image Credits
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