Chanie Wilschanski is known as the "school culture doctor" because she can diagnose the root cause of the struggle in a child care center in less that 10 minutes.
She's an early childhood leadership coach and the CEO of Schools of Excellence, and in this podcast she discusses what she sees in those 10 minutes and much more.
" You need to understand where you're spending your time," Chanie says. "And then you can hit your goals."
She talks about making sure you're setting appropriate expectations for your staff while maintaining high standards and staying true to your values.
Chanie also describes how to connect with your teachers, which is so vital as early childhood education leaders struggle to find and retain staff, as well as the importance of taking care of yourself.
Her goals are:
Learn more about Chanie's work at her Schools of Excellence website and you can find her own podcast series here!
Chanie Wilschanski is known as the "school culture doctor" because she can diagnose the root cause of the struggle in a child care center in less that 10 minutes.
She's an early childhood leadership coach and the CEO of Schools of Excellence, and in this podcast she discusses what she sees in those 10 minutes and much more.
" You need to understand where you're spending your time," Chanie says. "And then you can hit your goals."
She talks about making sure you're setting appropriate expectations for your staff while maintaining high standards and staying true to your values.
Chanie also describes how to connect with your teachers, which is so vital as early childhood education leaders struggle to find and retain staff, as well as the importance of taking care of yourself.
Her goals are:
Learn more about Chanie's work at her Schools of Excellence website and you can find her own podcast series here!
Welcome to the childcare business podcast brought to you by ProCare solutions. This podcast is all about giving childcare, preschool daycare after school and other early education professionals, a fun and upbeat way to learn about strategies and inspiration you can use to thrive. You'll hear from a variety of childcare thought leaders, including educators, owners, and industry experts on ways to innovate, to meet the needs of the children you serve from practical tips for managing operations, to uplifting stories of transformation and triumph. This podcast will be chalk full of insights. You can use to fully realize the potential of your childcare business. Let's jump in
Speaker 2:Today. I'm really excited to have our guest, um, and I'm gonna have her you'll know why in a second, when I try to pronounce her name, gonna have her talk a little bit about the origins of her name, and maybe give us a little lesson on how to pronounce it. But honey Wilky of schools of excellence, and she'll tell me how close I was to getting that right. Um, is with us today, she's gonna be giving us some tips on how to create culture and community, uh, in your child, early childhood education centers, and specifically how to make your employees happy in their careers. I think this is a super relevant topic based on what we all know is happening in the industry right now with staffing and, um, retention and, and even recruiting challenges for a lot of, uh, childcare professionals. So excited to have her here. Um, just by way of introduction, Shawn Todd toddlers at the acclaimed preschool of the arts in New York city for eight years, she went on to earn her master's degree. She can tell that story, but I read a little bit about it on her bio that, uh, I think she did that while pregnant with her third child. So, um, adding a little degree of difficulty. Uh, and then she went on, uh, after that, after getting her master's, uh, in 2015, she began working with teachers and school leaders on how to create excellence in their schools. And, uh, I mentioned she, uh, was pregnant with her third job. I believe she's a mom of four. And, uh, you know, like I said today, she's gonna be talking about, uh, how to build culture and how to promote a career Latice in your school and how to create opportunities for everyone on the team so that everybody on your team can bring their best foot forward. So, um, with that being said, welcome to the show, Shawn,
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me, Ryan. All right. I'm gonna take you with me wherever I go to have intros<laugh> um, so thank you. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I was, you know, we were talking a little bit before we started recording and, um, you know, I know this is something that you do. And so we'll talk a little bit throughout the show and at the end to make sure our audience can find you and, um, tap into some of the things that you're doing. Uh, you are a podcaster, you are a media, you know, expert. So I was telling you before we start recording that, uh, this will be a lot of fun for me. I did wanna ask you if you could give a little bit of like instruction on your name, pronunciation, and you even mentioned that maybe giving a little background at the origins of your name might be kind of fun. So can I ask like a, how do you pronounce it correctly and then talk a little bit about, you know, the, um, the origins.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So you gotta kind of clear your throat when you're about to say my name. So I always, uh, tell people that that's kind of the way to do it. So it's ha um, it's actually, uh, H is actually the nickname of my original, like the, the origin of my name is actually HANA. Um, and I was named after. Um, great, great, great, great grandma. Um, I come from a very long lineage of Hasidic rabbis and leaders, and so it's actually the first one in my family to graduate, um, from college first one to start a business. Um, so this is just a very kind of new trajectory in my family. Um, faith and family are my top values. And so, um, even though I'm kind of like on a little bit of a different course, um, my faith in my family still are very much anchored in every decision that I make, both in the business per personally, professionally. Um, faith is a company value. We make sure to honor any person's faith. We have a huge collective group of people and clients that we work with from all different faith, all different backgrounds, um, every race it's just, it's been a wild ride to be able to serve such a diverse, uh, group of leaders who are really binded together by their pursuit of excellence, more than anything else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's amazing. So when you, when you were growing up then just, I, you obviously wanna spend most of our time talking about the work that you're doing now, but growing up when you're saying first one from your family to graduate from college and to maybe take a, a non-traditional route, like what, like, as an expectation growing up in it with faith being such a big part of your upbringing and your family, like what would generally be the expectations for a female growing up in your home to continue in, in the, um, yeah, maybe that's just a, a question. Like what would, when growing up, what was the expectation of what your adult life would look like?
Speaker 3:So I think a lot of the expectation was around, um, the, I guess, stereotypical mom role where she's home she's with the family. Maybe she has a part-time gig as a teacher, um, you know, community service work working alongside the rabbi in the community, um, which is so beautiful. Like I'm so grateful for all the people that do this important work, um, of service, of taking care of their community, of their tribe. Um, and so I, I've done so many different episodes on so many different podcasts where people have interviewed, um, me on just what role reversal looks like. Um, when you're looking at a traditional, you know, faith-based family where there's role reversal, right on the breadwinner in the family, and just how, how just all the dynamics are associated with that. So if you're interested in that side of my story, there's a lot of different episodes that I've done. Um, and other people shows, and maybe I should do one on my show, um, on just on everything that comes along with that, because it's, it's, it's a big part of my story.
Speaker 2:Interesting. And so growing up was this, did you know, like when you were younger that getting into education and having a, a love for teaching and education was something that definitely you were passionate about. So what was your path then out of like maybe school to start pursuing what you're doing now?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I always knew that education was gonna be a big part of my upbringing, um, because it's so much part of the legacy. You know, I, I often talk about legacy is understanding our history so we could create our future, right? It's understanding where do you come from? What's your origin then understanding what is, you know, your own legacy that you wanna create. And so much of my history and our family story is about the pursuit of religious freedom and education of, of having the opportunity to be able to choose what makes sense for you. What are your values? Where do you wanna show up? Right. So we work exclusively with private schools, um, all types of private schools, but exclusively with private schools, um, who just have a little bit more freedom and Liberty around what they get to do and how they structure their, their education, their curriculum. So I also grew up in a large family. I'm one of eight children. Um, I have hundreds of first cousins and that's not an exaggeration actually hundreds of first cousins. Um, and it's, it's when you grow up in such a large family, family, and education, and children become a huge part of just so much of your filter of the world, right? And so, you know, so many times I have a lot of employees in my own company and, um, friends of mine, they've had so many different career tracks in their life. I've always been in the field of education. And sometimes I look at it as like, oh, you know, I've never explored other other areas, but this is my story. Like I've always been in the field of education. I've never stepped out of it. Um, from when I got out of high school, I've always had jobs in the field of early childhood. So this is, this has really been my path,
Speaker 2:Always your one colleague. So going back to like early days for you, what were there, people in your life that like identified that in you and, and called that out of you? Like, oh, oh, wow. You know, honey, you really have this gift. And you remember people like speaking that into your life, or was this just you recognizing in yourself, this is what makes me feel alive. This is what I'm passionate about. This is where I'm heading.<affirmative>
Speaker 3:There wasn't anyone like specifically that was like, oh, you should go for this. Or, or anything like that. There was, I feel like so much of what I've created, what I've been blessed to create has really come from a combination of like, you know, pushing myself for what I want. And, and, you know, I'm, again, I'm a person of faith. And so God's blessings coming inside of me and just helping me, you know, take that step forward. Um, I worked alongside teachers, always. So even as I, you know, worked through my career from a teacher to, you know, lead teacher, executive director manager and operating the center, um, I was always looking for, how do I make this better? How do I make this more seamless? How do I help this person feel happier with herself? How do I help this parent understand that I really care about their child? Um, and I documented so much of those experiences. Um, and that's so much of what we teach now, right. Is so much of the trial and error that I did in my early career. Um, but we're constantly evolving and creating new ideas and new content and new strategy, but I'm always looking for the root of it, right? I am, I always say, I'm not a tactics person. Um, my husband and I just finished a parenting course that we took together and it's the first actual parenting course that we've ever taken. And the reason for that is, is because I have never seen a course where it was never about tactics, right? This course that we just finished was all about understanding the why, understanding what's really going on, understanding the root, understanding your motives. Why are you showing up how to be an intentional parent? Like, that's what I want. Um, I believe every person is smart enough to figure out all the tactics on their own. Um, we need to understand our own internal motivations and why we're doing what we're doing and then everything else falls into place.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I saw, I saw on, you know, some of the, the information I was, you know, studying up, researching a little bit about this conversation and, and, you know, I think one of the things that I saw that stood out to me that you talk about is like, you know, going into a school for the first time, you know, you go in and, and, and schools talk about like, Hey, we have a good sense of what we think our problems are or where our challenges are. I know you talk about, oftentimes that's not, doesn't turn out to be what people think, but you, you talk about, which is a really bold statement. Hey, within 10 minutes of meeting with you, I can identify your school's underlying issue. Ha I'm curious, how do you do that? Like, what is that first 10 minute conversation or intro or analysis look like when you're working with the new school?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I, it, it, it's interesting. I'm gonna course correct that, that statement cuz it's twofold. Right? So when I come into a center within the first 10 minutes, I can tell you which teachers came on time and which ones didn't. Um, so that's what I could do in a couple of seconds, right? Like this one came in late, this one's still figuring themselves out this one's on their phone. This one's distracted. This one forgot to eat breakfast. This one really needs a bathroom break. Um, because we don't realize our bodies are constantly communicating what is actually going on inside of us. Right. You know, like with the little kid they're dancing and they're like, okay, go to the bathroom. Right. So teachers communicate through their body language. Like I need a break. I'm overwhelmed. This is too much. This is right. Their faces. Tell the story, their bodies tell their story. Um, so that's what I mean when like I come in and I can kind of really quickly see what's going on. When I get on the phone with a client, um, what I'm looking for is their level of self leadership. First, I'm looking to understand their level of self-awareness their level of self leadership. So I'm, I'm determining the quality of their question. So if they're asking me constantly, how do I get this person to do this? How do I get them to do this? How do I do this? How, and everything's about the other person, this person is struggling with identifying that they stand at the root of what goes on in their center, right? Their self leadership is what matters. Um, whereas when I have someone who's like, Hey, you know, I wanna know how I could be a better leader. How can I show up better? What can I do better? Now we're talking right now. I can have a conversation with you. Um, because I have zero control over you. And especially I have zero control over your staff. Um, you are the only person who's in charge of yourself. So if you believe that all the problems live outside of you, you can't make progress.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. So, so let, let me unpack that a little bit and maybe walk through in terms of your role and your work with school. So I, you know, I, I think for our audience, what would be really helpful is to, is to take the model that you follow and, and how you work with schools to improve operations and, and to support them. So as a coach and for your, your, you know, schools of excellence, walk me through, like, if I'm a childcare owner or I'm an administrator, it sounds like you work with a lot of private schools as well. So does that go into like K through 12? Is it strictly,
Speaker 3:We do have some clients who are owners of K12. OK. Um, it's, it's less like our, the, the vast majority of our clients are childcare or have like a kindergarten, first grade, maybe.
Speaker 2:Okay. Mm-hmm<affirmative>. And so, so talk about like, if I'm, if I'm the owner of, you know, a preschool and so somehow I hear about you I've been referred to you, or I find some content, but like walk me through what that first conversation is and how you would talk with me as a potential customer about the value that you provide or the services you provide.
Speaker 3:So the first thing I always look at is your calendar, because your calendar tells the story of all the priorities that you have in your life, right? Always tell people, you know, you wanna know what your values are, look at your bank account and your calendar, um, because where you spend your time and money, which are two time is your only non-renewable resource, but then also money because, you know, just the way the world operates is, is, does revolve around money. When I understand how you spend your money and how you spend your time. Now, I understand what your values are and what your priorities are. Hmm. So I don't look at people's bank accounts. When they work with me first, I look at their calendars. So the first thing we look at is we need to understand where are you committed right now? What did you say yes to already? Because for 99.9% of the clients who come to me, they are over committed. They are committed to too many projects, too many things, uh, too many responsibilities, there's just too much going on. And they have this belief that they're using their time really well. There just isn't enough time in the day, which when you have that belief, what that tells me is you don't know how to prioritize, right? You're not because you don't have infinite time. Right. Um, so that's the first thing we do is we understand, okay, where are you spending your time? And then we look at, well, what are your goals? Right? So if your goals are to, you know, acquire this next location, or your goals are to go through an acquisition or your goals are to exit, or your goals is to expand and build new property, or your goals is to maintain the number of students. You have, whatever your goal is, no judgment on your goal. Your goal is your goal. Some my goal I'm the coach. My job is to help provide a container and an, uh, a, um, a space for you to recognize what is your next step? What do you actually need to do? And help you remove the mindset blocks that are stopping you from getting there. So once you've identified the goal, now we look at, okay, does your calendar align with your goal? 100% of the time? It doesn't right. So these are your goals, but your calendar, isn't going to get you to where you want to go. So now we need to go ahead.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you, but it, is there anything that comes to mind, like as an example of that, when you, when you have a customer that says, Hey, look, this is my goal. And you reviewing the calendar with them. Can you give an example of like sure, something on your calendar that doesn't align with your goal?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I, I had a client in 2018 who joined us and, uh, she, you know, told me that her goal was to build, she had one location at the time and she wanted to have three locations. So I said, great, great goal. Right? So we look at her calendar and her calendar is 50% of her time. She was still teaching in the classroom mm-hmm<affirmative>. So she was the owner and she was also in the classroom. And I said, my love, if you wanna build three locations, you gotta get yourself out of the classroom. Within the next 60 days, you have to replace yourself. You have to hire a teacher and you have to get out of that classroom. So that's one example, right? Another example is, you know, and she owns four locations by the way. Now, um, another example is, you know, someone said that they want to, um, they wanted to enroll 30 more children. So they had, I don't know, 90 kids or whatever it is. They wanted like 120 kids. Um, but what she was doing in her activity every day was she was going into the classrooms and she was spending time with teachers and schmoozing and talking, and then, you know, spending two hours at the carpool line in the morning or whatever it is. And I'm like, Hey, if this is your goal, guess what you have to do. Your ear has to be glued to a phone. And you've got to be doing calls with parents and tours. Um, and within 30 days she enroll 30 kids. Literally it was 30 days. Right? So, so many times when you look at our goal and we're like, oh, I can never achieve that. And it's like, no, no, no. You need to understand where you're spending your time. And then you can hit your goals.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's amazing. And so then you go through, you're looking at calendars, you're talking about what their goals, it sounds like that's one of the mm-hmm,<affirmative> the starting points for all of the customers you work. Yeah. Cause am, am I right to like, this is a generalization, but if I'm a childcare owner, I'm coming to you. Cuz I say, I, I just wanna keep pronouncing your name too, by the way, honey. Yeah. Um, I, I hope I'm getting a little closer.
Speaker 3:You are, you are, you're getting better. You're getting better, Ryan. You're
Speaker 2:Good guys. I'm gonna keep practicing. Um, so I would come to you and I would say, you know, I, I, I, I've got your name from a colleague or a peer who, you know, said that you did amazing things for their school. And, and here's what I'm struggling with. I'm trying to do these things and I keep hitting, uh, uh, a wall or there's too many hurdles. And so they come to you just saying, Hey, can you support me and assist me with, with trying to resolve this? Is that, is that a fair, like analysis of how that starts?
Speaker 3:We have two types of people that come to us. We have some people that are coming. Cause they're really struggling with retention with staff, with, with, um, culture, with just, there's just so much going on. Right? And then we have another group of people who they've achieved a certain level of success. They're doing well. They know, you know how to market, they know how to enroll. They know how to get people in the door. They're good. Um, but they're looking for a higher level conversation. They're looking for a better peer group. They're looking for how to make things a little bit easier, more streamlined, um, have more systems and operations. And they're looking for a network, right? They feel lonely. They feel like they're isolated. And so they're looking for a network. So those are really the two types of people that will come to us.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:I always tell people, I don't help people with marketing. So, you know, if you're struggling with, uh, filling your spots, I'm not that person. Right. Um, cuz I don't teach marketing. I will teach you how to organize your calendar, um, which will help with your marketing. Um, but we don't teach marketing strategy.
Speaker 2:Got it. Yeah. Not the specific tactical piece of SEO and you know, all the market. Got it. And then, so let's talk specifically about, and, and I, I say this on so many of our episodes, I, it feels like around staffing and, and challenges that schools and providers are having in the current, you know, environment we're in, uh, how, talk to me a little bit about your role, your focus on career pathing and how you've seen that influence staff retention, those types of things. I think that's a, a topic you spend a lot of time, you know, discussing.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Before I go into a career path, I wanna talk about something else. Um, about staffing, there are two, there there's a lot, but I would say there's two mindset shifts that leaders need to make that dramatically impact your staffing crisis. One is a reset of expectation. The expectation that we have of staff coming in, or staff performing or staff doing, what they're supposed to do is not only ridiculously high. It's not, it's not humanly normal. It's just not your ex. Like I talk to directors and, and she's like, this teacher's struggling. I'm like how many days has she been on the job? So she's like, she's been here for a month. I'm like, okay. So, but there was also Thanksgiving and this, so she's worked for like seven days total in the last month. Okay, great. The last time I checked when I did something for seven days, I wasn't an expert yet.<laugh> um, I was barely mediocre. Right? So there's, there's a lack of an awareness of the learning curve of the journey. Right? Um, Malcolm GA um, Gladwell has a great quote. He says, mastery is 10,000 hours. Mm-hmm<affirmative> develop mastery in something takes 10,000 hours. If you take an average, teacher's Workday. If she's working 40 hours a week or 35 hours a week, that is six years, six years of working to develop mastery. So yeah, the person who's listening to this episode has more than six years after about multiple decades. Right? And then you have a new teacher who's coming in. Who's 21 years old. She has no experience, no exposure to children, no understanding of developmentally appropriate practice. She has a passion. She has a love, she wants to be with kids. Do you understand her learning curve? Like sh her nervous system, like she hears three kids crying and she's like, oh my God, what do I do next? Like she doesn't, she's not even familiar with the sound of children crying or the fact that it's normal for kids to cry when they separate from their parents or it's normal for kids to not walk in a straight line all the time. You know? And it's normal for kids to miss the garbage can or miss the toilet bowl. Like they, there's all of these little things that teachers are completely unaware of. And they get super frustrated themselves where they're like, oh my God, there's toilet paper on the floor. Yeah. You teach two year olds. There's gonna be toilet paper on the floor. You know? And then the owner gets upset. She's like the classrooms are rep. I'm like, yeah, there's 18 two year olds in that classroom. It is not a museum it's lived in. Like we have to redo our expectations because when I hear leaders tell me things like, well, I just high the expectation. I'm like, no, you don't, you're a perfectionist. You don't have high expectations. You're a perfectionist. And you are putting your perfectionism on the people. So stop don't do that.
Speaker 2:Don't do that. That's number one.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Check yourself and ask yourself is what I'm asking appropriate for this person. Cuz here's the other thing that owners and directors get stuck on? Well, everything has to be fair. Everything has to be equal. Every needs to be treated the same. No they don't. The veteran teacher knows how to do this. So then you don't give her as much grace when she makes a mistake. Right? Because no, no, no. You, you know this versus the new teacher. Right? I don't treat all my kids the same. My 10 year old knows it's not okay to do certain things. My four year old is still learning. Right. Could you imagine if I responded the same way to each of them, that's not parenting.
Speaker 2:So do you start, you know, um, when you meet with a new owner all the time, those two things that you just mentioned, like you've gotta lower your expectations and you have
Speaker 3:To, and they're not lower. You need to make your expectations developmentally appropriate. I don't wanna, I don't wanna say lower because I want you to have high standards. I want you to have high values. I want you to believe in the pursuit of excellence and I want you to do it without chaos and crisis and stress. And the way to do that is just constantly manage expectation. Right? So that's the first thing
Speaker 2:I like that clarification. Yeah. We're not lowering expectations. We're setting a really high standard, but we're using the right progression to get there and then measuring our staff based on where they are in that journey. And, and to your point, the second thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, sorry. Sorry. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, that's what I was gonna say. And the second thing is, is what,
Speaker 3:The second thing is the hardest, because no one wants to do this. And, and, and what no one wants to do is take care of themselves. They want to constantly take care of other people, right? Let me give you what you need. Let me take care of you. Let me jump in and you know, run that shift for you. Let me give by you lunch. Let me give you the day off. And what they don't understand is when you learn how to take care of yourself and understand that the only person you're in control of is you. The only person you're in control of is you, you cannot manipulate exploit, control, exploit any of your staff. I mean you could, but they they'll leave. Um, you can only control yourself. And so you need to understand what are the activities that center you, that ground you, that take care of you. So when you come into the building, you are centered, you have confidence, you have precision of decision making. You're clear on what you need to focus on today. You know, when to tell a teacher, I'm gonna get back to you. I wanna think about that for 24 hours versus another teacher. You know what? Come into my office right now, let's work through that. You have what it takes to practice discernment. And the way to do that is you have to be aware of what grounds you and so many leaders don't do the little things that ground them every day, cuz they're like I'm in survival mode. I can't do it. No, no, no. The way you get into survival mode is by forgetting what grounds you, you have to do that
Speaker 2:In your experience as you talk, cuz I listened to you kind of share that second point and it you're obviously passionate about it. So am I right to assume? Is that a pretty common yes. Issue. If that's the right term that you see when you first talk with owners is that's always something that's on the table. You're not prioritizing taking care of yourself.
Speaker 3:It's always on the table because the owner starts, you know, with hustle and grit and all those things and actually build a center. But if you wanna sustain the center, you have to be able to ground yourself. Because when you hit a higher level, you, the quality of your decision making is going to determine the quality of success in your center. The qu the, your, your center's success is not determined if you plunge that toilet that day, or if you gave little Sammy a kiss, it doesn't, the quality of your center is determined by your decision making. And you cannot make clear discerning decisions. If you did not take care of yourself. Um, and we don't take care of ourselves, cuz we feel guilty and, and, and all the stuff that I coach on, right? But I had a conversation this morning with a client and she's like, well, I didn't do all these things. And then I said, but why she's like, cuz there are enhancements. Like I don't, I don't feel like I have to do them. I'm like, no, no, no. There's enhancements like getting a monthly massage as part of your wellness routine, having someone cook your dinner, getting a cleaning lady, you know, a few times a week, those are enhancements. And then there's grounded. Centerness meditation, yoga, prayer. If you know, if, if, if that's part of it, exercise, eating, healthy, drinking, water, sleeping. If you are not doing those things, those are not enhancements. Those are regular centered activities. You must do every day. If you're gonna play at this level
Speaker 2:As a BA as a baseline.
Speaker 3:But if you wanna play at this level, you gotta operate at this level.
Speaker 2:And this level, just for those who don't see this, that's a high level. She's, it's
Speaker 3:A high level,
Speaker 2:A high level. So thanks. Here's a question for you when you're talking with, with somebody and you say, Hey, look, you've gotta find the things in your life. That ground you, that center you, that bring life out of you. Yeah. You know, when I hear somebody say that, I, I think like how does somebody find that? Like, is, are there some techniques that you found, like if somebody were to say like, Hey, that sounds awesome. I would love to find the things that really are my, my center, my grounding. How did somebody identify that? Like what should they look for? Is there an exercise that they could do to identify those things?
Speaker 3:So I'm gonna tell you a story.
Speaker 2:Love it. I love stories.
Speaker 3:I just put on my big event in, um, March, so about, you know, almost three months ago. And um, so our annual event for owners and directors and one of the ways that I prepare when I take the stage for big events is I work a lot on my breathing technique. Why? Because when you're standing on stage for those who are listening, that have been on stages, the sensory stimuli of the lights of the cameras, of the AV of just all of the sensory stimuli that's coming on to you really impairs your functioning in your brain, cuz it's a constant stimuli. And then if you also have to entertain, your brain is constantly fighting against what's going on. Like you have to member, remember what you wanna say, but you have these bright lights coming at you, you have people looking at you. And so the way to constantly keep your brain at peak performance is to make sure you're pausing and taking a breath, literally taking a breath and it brings oxygen back to your brain. Okay. So I was talking to a client of mine who was at the event and she said, I noticed that every once in a while you would take this big breath and then you would like continue speaking. But there was always like, you always make sure to take this breath. And she's like, I, I really love that. And I started incorporating that into my day and whenever I feel overwhelmed, I would take this breath. And then after the pause, I would have this clarity of like, okay, now I need to do this and I don't need to do this. And she was talking about just how it impacted her life. Like she started working from home now twice a week, instead of coming into the center, she works from home now twice a week from the breath, the pause. Okay. So for those of you that are listening and I'm like, how do I find out what grounds me? You find it in the space, in the quiet, you need to turn off notifications. You need to sit quietly with yourself. You need space. And that is where it comes to you. It's inside of you. We are so busy running around chasing our own tails. We don't even have space to listen when our body says, sit, drink, rest, go outside. Right. Our body is telling us, but we don't hear it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I, I like that. And, and what, what you're saying from a coaching standpoint, find that it starts with you. You have to be, you know, however you define that the best version of yourself and find what brings life out of you so that you can then lead your team. Transition that for me. So once you've kind of laid that foundation with an owner or all right, it starts with you only, you can only control the things that you can control and you get that baseline. Then as you transition into like, all right, let's tackle this challenge of staffing. Mm-hmm,<affirmative> like talk about some practical things that you're doing with your customers right now around that topic, if you could.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. So again, it depends on where you are in the journey, but let's, let's say you're in the beginning of the journey. Um, the first things that we're working on when it comes to staffing is something that I call the gratitude beat tricks. So I have a whole episode on this, on our podcast as well. It's episode three on the schools of excellence podcast. And gratitude is the foundation of building great cultures because fundamentally we have human needs, right? We want to be, feel seen, heard Des um, um, noticed we wanna be missed. We like when I wasn't here, did anyone notice that I wasn't here even, you know? Um, and so how do we build that into our teams? The first step is teachers need to know that you care about them, that you see their hard work. And so the gratitude matrix is about understanding that every teacher needs one touchpoint of gratitude per month and that's at the bare minimum. Um, and by gratitude, I do not mean buying them book classes and gift cards. I mean actually telling them whether that's a handwritten card or a voice message, and we have a whole system of how to do this. We have someone who has 50 teachers that does this. So anyone who's listening to us like, oh, that that would be great if you have, you know, a small school. No, no, no, no. She has 50 teachers and she does this every month with all her staff. Why? Because it's a priority of how she uses her time. She understands that when I do this, all of these other things fall into place. Right. Um, so that's the first thing when it comes to staffing is, is gratitude. Because when staff feel seen and heard, they will step, they will step up in a way that you never thought possible. Right? So that's the first thing, but let's say you're doing gratitude, right? Cause we have a lot of clients who've been with us for four or five years at this point. Right. And they're doing it consistently. The next thing that we're looking at is one-on-one meetings consistently running one-on-ones and one-on-s are not performance reviews. They're not curriculum meetings. They are not check-ins. One on ones are connecting with your teacher and asking her, what did you do for self-care in the last 24 hours? Where are you going for the holiday break? Tell me how your mom is doing. I know the last time we spoke, she wasn't, well, your brother's wedding's coming up. What are you wearing? Can you tell me about that? Right? How's your son doing? Right. I know you moved recently. How is that settling in? Right. You're talking to them now people are listening. I'm like, oh, I do this all the time. I'm like, no, no, no, no. This is not a hallway conversation of like, Hey, so you're wearing that black gown. Great, gorgeous. No, no, no. This is not a fly by conversation. This is not a conversation that we do in the ladies' room. When we're washing our hands after the bathroom, this is not a conversation that we do at the coffee. You know, at the coffee bar, in, in the teacher's lounge, this is a conversation that's eye to eye, toes to toes in the office, just you and her, all browsers closed door is closed. Notifications are off, you get 20 minutes of me that builds intimacy connection. And that is where you build the emotional bank account where when you need to hold people accountable and you need to tell'em things like, Hey, I need you to work on your circle time, right? Or the way that you spoke to that parent was not aligned with our values. I'd love to role play with you. Another way to approach that conversation. Right now you've built emotional currency where she's like, yeah, Ryan really does like me. He really does care about me. I really do wanna do this for him.
Speaker 2:And then you can hold to that level of standard that you're talking about earlier. Exactly. But it starts with, if I replay what you said, it can't go in reverse. You, you can't set everything up around, uh, this is what you gotta do. And this is what, how you need to perform. And then as a byproduct, I'm gonna try to get to know you because that people see through that, you gotta carry well,
Speaker 3:It's manipulation, that's manipulation. That's, that's the definition of manipulation. And, and here's the thing also is that people are listening to this saying they're like, but I don't have time to do all of that cuz I still need them to perform. And when, when people say that to me, I'm always like, I understand it means you're overcommitted. If you don't have the time to pause and slow down and have these conversations, you're doing too much, you have to stop. You need to slow down. Um, and people are terrified about I'm gonna lose money. I'm gonna lose a run the numbers. You're not gonna lose money. You're not gonna make as much profit or as much whatever. Okay. At what cost, right. You're gonna continue to run this thing until when. Right? Like we have to understand, you have to pause. You have to say no to the temptation of whatever else is out there for six months, 12 months, and then go out there. You'll come back for it. But you have to have the discipline to say, not now, now I need to do this.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And, and then from your experience, that component that you're talking about in terms of, you know, building culture and recruiting other team members and retaining your talent, uh, all of those things become a byproduct like that. That success story happens from prioritizing connection with your staff. Like, I mean, I, I know I'm oversimplifying it, but no,
Speaker 3:You're, it's not, it's not an oversimplification. It's more about most people don't have the patience to see it all the way through. And so they do it for three months and that they're not getting results. So they stop. And if you think about generational wealth, financial freedom, real fitness wellness, any like really hard goal to achieve it, doesn't get achieved in three months, six months, 12 months, a person who really lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off. That was years of work of mindset, work of deep work of, of discipline, of changing, who they are as a person, right? Someone who builds generational wealth that no longer is in debt ever again is fundamentally a different human being. And so we don't have the patience. We don't have the discipline to stick with it. We want the result faster. And, and this is one of my things. When I tell people on the phone before they work with me, I'm like, I will not give you instant results. You're gonna see quick wins when you work with me in the beginning, because I'm gonna help you organize your calendar. And you're, you're gonna automatically see a ripple effect. But the real work takes months. This is, this is a process because the person who enters my program is not the person who leaves the program. It's a completely different human being. They make decisions differently. They think about different things. They have different values. They show up to conversations differently. They make different decisions. Their marriages are different at the end. Their relationship with their children are different. They are a different person. If you wanna be a different person, a better version of yourself, then this is amazing. But if you're looking for tactics, they're free, you don't have to pay for it. Tactics are free becoming a new person. You have to do the work
Speaker 2:And the tactics will follow in. In, in your relationship with your clients, it starts there. How, how do you set that up with your clients outta curiosity? We we've talked with different coaches and consultants and experts around, you know, their business model and their approach. But I'm curious for you. Yeah. When you start working with a client, do you actually lay out like, Hey, a, a timeline and what benchmarks we're looking for? How do we measure sure. The success of this relationship. And then you mentioned when they finish your course, it, but it also sounds like you have ongoing relationship as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah. People since 2017, who's, who've been working with us.
Speaker 2:Got it. And so it's both. So it's both like, Hey, I, I, you know, you really help me out. And I feel like there was a lot of value and I'm gonna now take that and go kind of, you know, carry on. And then there's what does that look like? How do you know when the work is done? Or is that just something you work on with your clients together?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's such a great question. So we have benchmarks, meaning we say the first 60 days, your goal is to get your calendar in order and to understand how to start prioritizing within your first 90 days, your goal is to start creating your gratitude matrix and get consistent about it. So that you've laid the foundation for gratitude. Within the first four months, we want you to build a better communication system with your administrative team. So we have multiple different frameworks that we help them work through how to actually build better communication between the administrative team to just loose ends, follow through task completion. All of those little things we teach you how to follow through with that by the six month mark, we want you to understand how to do performance reviews, one on ones, classroom observations, just the infrastructure to raise the quality of care. Um, then we start working on parent relationships. So we have like a whole, um, roadmap, if you will, of what we take clients through through the first 12 months. Um, but the way that we really determine like, you know, who is ready to move on, who's not, it's a really very much client base. So the client decides, you know, I have decided I've gone as far as I wanna go with you. And then, you know, we part ways, whereas other people are like, I wanna go deeper. I wanna go a lever, you know, a layer deeper. I wanna go further. The other reason why people stay in just the way that we've built our infrastructure is we're built around community. So people we're training, coaching, and community. So we have training, we do coaching and then we have communities. So we partner people together with people in similar seasons of life, similar stages of business, um, similar goals. And we do multiple different exercises and challenges to help people find community. Um, we know that it's lone only at the top. You know, we understand the worst punishment is solitary confinement. And yet every school leader voluntarily says, I'm gonna sign up for some solitary confinement for the rest of my life, right? Like I'm gonna do this all alone. And the antithesis to being lonely is being in community is finding belonging. And so that's a big part of what we've created in our, in schools of excellence. If you ask anyone, like, they'll tell you the people, the community, like I've made friends there, lifelong friends.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's amazing. I actually was listening to, I don't know how recent it was, but it was some content that you put out talking about loneliness and, and how you were saying like the medical community has actually identified that loneliness as is as detrimental to your health as like smoking 15 cigarettes a day, I think was the statistic you said, so it's, it's not just like, Hey, it doesn't feel good. It, it actually has a physical, emotional, psychological toll on an individual.
Speaker 3:Yeah. We, I mean, I see it in a membership. I see the people who stay isolated, right. Even though they come in, they choose to stay isolated. They, we, we encourage it so much to get connected, but some people just don't do it. They do not get results. Hmm.
Speaker 2:Interesting. They,
Speaker 3:They make some incremental progress, but the quantum leaps, like the, the people that just like completely transform are the people who make relationships and it's not by accident. Right. Because when you're in community and you don't feel alone, your confidence in yourself skyrockets, so you tackle risks in a totally different way. You believe in yourself in a different way. So when opportunity comes that you're like, I got this as opposed to when you're all alone, you're like, I don't know. Can I do it? Can I not? Can I do it? Can I not?
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I
Speaker 3:Do realize the impact of that realize how that impacts us.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's really that resonates with me because I also, you know, I know you're a big advocate of like doing hard things. Like, you know, something that feels hard to you or difficult. I talk with my team about this all the time as well. I think the difference between being good and great in a role oftentimes is individuals who identify what those hard things are and learn how to lean into it. I think human nature is you shy away and you try to find reasons not to do them or ways around them. But when you find somebody who's like, Hey, that's actually a really difficult part of the job or a really difficult thing for me to do for my personality. But I also know that that's what I have to do to get to the next level or to grow like when, so for those individuals that struggle with connection and community, it might be like, Hey, that's hard for you. But if you lean into it, the fruit of that is gonna be, you know, so huge and profound. So that's a really good segue.
Speaker 3:I'll just add one more thing there. It's not, you know, the person who's listening, like, okay, so I'll lean into it. Here's, here's what it is. If you can expand your capacity to tolerate discomfort at the root of that, right? Like at the root of all, the reasons why we don't do hard things, right? Why don't I call the friend? Why don't I reach out to the person? Why don't I go to the gym? Why don't I not eat the cheesecake or whatever? I don't wanna tolerate the discomfort. The pain is too great. Right? I'm very, I'm gonna be ashamed. I'm gonna be whatever it is. Right. All the emotions. If you can learn to train yourself, to tolerate discomfort for longer periods of time, this is like this golden key that unlocks where it's like, okay, I'm gonna be a little bit uncomfortable, but I'm gonna have made the call. Right. I'm gonna be a little bit uncomfortable, but I may, I, you know, I did the outreach I did. And, and we, we don't know how to tolerate that discomfort. We immediately numb it. Take cigarette, take the wine, take the phone, take whatever. Right. All the vices, right? No, no, numb it right away. I don't wanna feel discomfort. I don't wanna feel pain if you can tolerate it for longer. Gosh, like you just opened up the gates of freedom for yourself because you are going to pursue things that people will never touch.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Don't just go up to the line and retrieve when it's uncomfortable. Yeah. But yeah. And, and I think that's actually what you said is really interesting. It's not like you have to go run a marathon the day you start running. It's like little by little, just go a little further and tolerate a little bit more. And if I heard you right. That mindset and that willingness to endure just a little bit more unlocks, so much potential that people have. So that that's a really good segue. Cause I also wanna be really respectful of your time. You've given us, you know, 50 minutes of your time. And I know you mentioned you had a hard stop, but I would like to give our audience, um, you know, an opportunity to, to, to find you, if people wanted to reach out or tap into what you guys do, uh, at, at your organization at your company. So can you share a little bit about if somebody listening to this episode wanted to reach out or learn more about the work you do? How, how can our audience find you?
Speaker 3:Sure. Thanks so much, Ryan. Yeah. So there's a number of different ways, depending on what you know, you're, you're considering. So if you're look, if you listen to that episode and you're like, I want more content like this, I wanna hear more of what Connie has to say on, on these topics. We have our podcast, the schools of excellence podcasts, um, where I do basically all of the episodes. We've had very few guests. I do mostly the content on my own. Um, right now we are doing, um, an entire series on you're not the only one. And so we have a special series where we've interviewed, um, multiple owners and leaders sharing their personal stories so that when you listen, you understand, you're not the only one. Um, so that's a super exciting series that we are excited to launch. We have some other series there on ordinary moments. Um, so just really great content where you can learn and understand you're not the only one and you will figure this out and you're gonna be okay. So that's the first thing from a content perspective. If you're looking for you wanna get connected with schools of excellence, you wanna work with our organization. Um, you could go to h.me/join the DIC. We'll give that, that link inside the show notes. And that gives you all the information on our schools of excellence coaching program, our directors in our circle, our owner HQ program, where we work with directors and owners. Um, and this is for the person who's like, yes, I need training. I want coaching. I want community. I really, really want to be connected. Um, and I want someone to help guide me to shorten my learning curve so that I can enjoy the process. So I can be part of this and not feel like every day is like, oh my gosh, like, can I make it through today? Yes, you, can you have that inside of you? So I would say those are the two places that I would send, uh, your listeners.
Speaker 2:Excellent. And, and look, this has been for me a lot of fun because the first time we've met was like 30 seconds before we started recording and really enjoyed learning more about you. And, um, so honey was, was Ky was Chansky
Speaker 3:Ky.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And she'll, um, you know, I would encourage the audience, like people who heard anything on the show, even if it's giving feedback or, or relaying something that was helpful. Like it's always nice when we have a guest that can receive, you know, commentary or feedback about how their content was helpful, but reach out to, to, uh, you know, honey as well, if you are interested in what they do. And then maybe at some point in the future, we'll get a, a round two with you, cuz it's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:I would absolutely love to do that. I've been on a lot of podcast, Ron, you're a brilliant interviewer. I really enjoyed this conversation. Um, so I would absolutely love to do a part two at some point and we could dig more into some other, um, topics and we spent a lot of time on the history and things like that, but um, happy to come back to chat about anything. So thank you. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I will look forward to it and everybody have a wonderful day.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to this episode of the childcare business podcast, to get more insights on ways to succeed in your childcare business, make sure to hit subscribe in your podcast app. So you never miss an episode. And if you want even more childcare business tips, tricks and strategies, head over to our resource center@procaresoftware.com until next time.