272: Meet the Hosts of Childcare Conversations! Hijacked Episode with Erica Saccoccio

In this episode of Child Care Conversations, guest host Erica of the Directors Chair Podcast turns the tables on regular hosts (and cousins) Kate and Carrie, diving into their journey as early childhood education leaders and publishers. They share heartfelt stories about resilience, building their business, and empowering women in leadership. 

You’ll hear about their “monkey management” workshops, memorable conference moments, and how they make learning fun. Plus, they reveal exciting new projects and offer practical advice for aspiring authors and speakers. Listen to learn more about our hosts and the creators of childcare conversations! 

Check out our guest host on her Podcast and her episode from last year!

Learn more about their speaking on their website

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Thanks for Listening 🎧

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Transcript

Automatically Transcribed With Podsqueeze

Marie 00:00:03  Welcome to Child Care Conversations, the podcast where early childhood leaders like you get real world strategies, honest talk and a whole lot of support. Whether you're running one center or many. We're here to help you lead with confidence and clarity. This episode is brought to you by our summer partner Child Care Business Growth, your go to solution for filling spots, increasing revenue, and scaling your child care business without the burnout. We're proud to partner with a team that's as committed to your success as we are. Learn more at Childcare Business growth.com. Now let's get into today's conversation. One we think you're really going to love.

Erica 00:00:49  Hey guys. So welcome to childcare conversations with Kate and Kerry. I'm not Kate and I'm not Kerry. I am Erica and I have hijacked their show today. I'm putting them in the spotlight. because they do so many things. There's a good chance that you're listening to this podcast. You met them at a conference, or you haven't had the wonderful pleasure to meet them yet. but hopefully you will at your next conference.

Erica 00:01:19  So, Keith Carey, welcome to your show.

Kate 00:01:24  Woo hoo!

Erica 00:01:27  And I think.

Carrie 00:01:27  This is the first that I'm in a car, and Kate's in an office, so I think that's kind of fun and different.

Kate 00:01:34  You do what you gotta do, right? Some of us were prepared.

Erica 00:01:40  So I am so excited to be here. I have the wonderful pleasure of knowing Kate and Carey pretty well now. I would say maybe a little over a year. they are the most kind people ever, by the way. Thank you. My director's chair content is here is at my house. So my husband's like, you want me to build it? I'm like, yeah, I would like to get it out of the box, I think.

Kate 00:02:07  I think that needs to be its own version of an unboxing video. Put those millennials to work and a whole series. And then I think there's a grandchild who could sit in that and join you. And he probably love to be your little mini mascot, at least for a mini photo shoot to send us.

Erica 00:02:24  I would, I would love to, but I can't do that because he cannot have photos right now.

Kate 00:02:29  Oh, I got that.

Erica 00:02:30  I got that. That's okay, that's okay. But we'll do definitely unboxing and send that to all of you. So guys I want to ask you something because I've heard so many stories from you, but I don't know that I've ever heard this one. So what made you two ladies decide to work together and then like, did you know or when did you realize that it was like, pure magic when you do it together.

Kate 00:02:58  Oh.

Carrie 00:02:59  I can answer the second part.

Kate 00:03:01  Okay.

Kate 00:03:02  The first one.

Carrie 00:03:03  Okay. But I want to do my part first. So when we realized that we were pure magic together is when we were kids, and there was a summer that just the two of us kids. I don't know, my brother may have been there, but he has no place in my memory. But I remember Kate and I being at the family farm, the farm that our grandfather grew up on and we spent.

Carrie 00:03:27  What to me was the entire summer. Who knows? Children's time is not real time. making up our own version of badges because we were Girl Scouts, so we needed badges for everything we did. And so we had, like, daily ice cream badge for a week, and we had saw a gopher badge, and we made badges for everything. And it was probably my most fun summer of my whole life. And that includes summers, where I was at the beach for weeks at a time, and I had Girl Scout camp. But the weeks that Kate and I made up our own version of scouting and demanded that our uncle be kind of our driver, and we were just like, we're going to go do this now, Uncle Fred, you need to drive us. And that is when I think we knew that we had a really great working relationship.

Kate 00:04:27  So I'm going to take us back, maybe not quite as far. Carrie took us back like, you know, over 40 years, and I'm going to take us back just about 26.

Kate 00:04:40  So, I was at a point in my life where I knew that I didn't want my oldest son to be an only child. Well, not really an only child to grow up with. No family near him. So, Carrie and I are cousins. We've been that for, you know, over 50 years. And my son wasn't going to have any cousins near him. And so I started to apply for jobs all over the country where I had cousins who had kids about his age. And this was before everybody had social media. So you really didn't know what your cousins were doing unless your parents told you. And in our case, our moms were not the bestest sibling friends. And so it would have had to be a conversation with, like, Carrie's mom to our grandma and my mom to the grandma and the grandma to think that we needed to know, assuming that our moms even talked about us to the grandma. So like the to the true version of social media, right? That's how that would have had to work for us to even have a clue what the other one did.

Kate 00:05:49  But I did know that Carrie had two daughters that weren't much younger than my son, And this seems like a really good idea because my my grandmother was also about to move to Austin, Texas. So I got a job. I moved to Austin, Texas. I show up here and find out that Carrie is in child care. Meanwhile, I came to Texas to work for the Texas Center for Women's Business Enterprise. Actually running. What I came to do was to run a how to Start a childcare center series like I did in Ohio. So that didn't happen. They changed to women in Construction right after I got here. So instead, Carrie and I started doing, there was, I think was even the predecessor to the Greater Austin Training Coalition calendar when it. Carrie. When it just changed. Andy.

Carrie 00:06:42  Yeah. So that was teachers. Yeah. So that was I had, there was another owner friend and I trained each other's staff, and then other people were like, hey, would you train our staff too? And so we made a little training group and we trained around Central Texas, and then we threw Kate into the mix.

Kate 00:07:03  So, so, so about 1997, 1998, teachers was born. And I jumped in not too long after that. And I pretty much did business classes, which meant that it really became I did the owners, not necessarily the teachers that the that the owners and the directors were training. And so we quickly realized that we liked to teach together. By 2002, we were doing a director credential together. Now, by 2002, I had been Carrie's director at her fourth location, and we still survived. Like we didn't kill each other. we had family dinners together. Our kids were growing up together, and we had created, We broke every rule I had for business by that point in time. So by that point in time I was 30 and I was like, I am never doing business with a relative again. I am never doing business with somebody who I would call a friend again. I am never getting my family associated with my business partners because I had had some some burn marks and I was never going to do that.

Kate 00:08:12  And here I did it, and I did it in a, in a really, really well. It became a really big way. I did not know in well, I guess that would have been 99 when we formed our first LLC, and I did not know what that was going to become. And we started doing training and director credentialing in the state of Texas. We've now done that for over 23 years, and we've now written books together.

Erica 00:08:44  And hey, yay! Stop stop stop stop. Okay, go. Go on to my other questions, girl. Stay on track. Stay on track.

Kate 00:08:55  I don't know what the questions are. You're the one.

Kate 00:08:57  Who wrote.

Erica 00:08:57  My question. My question to you was, how did you first decide that you were going to work together? That was my question. You answered it. Don't go on to the rest of my interview. I've been waiting a lifetime for this interview. Alright, so I want to know what inspired you, because you guys have a lot of things you do a lot of things.

Erica 00:09:19  We're going to talk about all of them. I'm so prepared for this interview. I feel like I am Oprah interviewing the best of the best and early childhood education. Let me have my moment. what inspired you to get into publishing and thought leadership in this field, particularly because I know we know the history that you guys had a lot of experience in publishing. But why Eazy-E? Why why child care businesses?

Carrie 00:09:45  Okay, I want to take that sort of. so the reason we started doing director credentialing is because I was asked to write a director credentialing course because they wanted a book, and they asked me to write the book, and I started and then they said, and I said, and when will I start teaching it? And they said, no, no, no, you're not qualified to teach it just to write the book. And I.

Carrie 00:10:12  Got a little bit.

Carrie 00:10:13  Hot under the collar, and I took my book and I left because they hadn't paid me anything. So I took it and we did our own.

Carrie 00:10:20  So we did the old fashioned version of self-publishing that back in 2002. So that's when I first published or we first published anything in the field. But like, we didn't do the stuff with getting an ISBN and sending it to, the Library of Congress. We didn't do any of that. We did very basic self-publishing Thing of that because we wanted a course, a textbook for the course that covered all the areas that a director needs to know, that covered marketing, that covered classroom management, that covered guidance, that covered staffing, that covered legal organization. Because even if you're not the one who owns the organization, whether you're an LLC or a nonprofit affects the director, and they need to know why. so we wanted all of that in our book, and there wasn't a book that had all that. So that's how we started, you know, way back in the day. But when we decided to put the book out so that anybody could get it, you didn't have to just come through us was really.

Carrie 00:11:39  Can I be completely honest?

Kate 00:11:41  Yes.

Carrie 00:11:42  I was tired of making up the books and sending them to our students. and I was like, they can buy their own book off of Amazon. That was the whole reason was I was tired of putting together the books.

Erica 00:11:55  Okay. And then you want to add the key or is that good?

Kate 00:11:59  Well, so, the only thing I'd like to add.

Kate 00:12:01  Is one of the things that we discovered after creating that first book and, and making it an e-book is that it wasn't nearly as scary as we thought it was going to be. And so then we did the next one, and Cory wrote some children's books, and then I wrote a children's book with Cory, and then we had these great ideas for other books, and we had our first set of what we call super friends who are like, we want to write a book. And so we helped the three of them write a collaborative book together. And so the five of us wrote this book and we were like, okay, that was a lot of fun.

Kate 00:12:36  And they were able to share with us their stories about that, how it made them feel their confidence level, the respect they saw from their direct from their clients. And we were like, okay, we need to offer this to more people. So we. We we kind of said that maybe we would do that. And then people went, hey, I want to get in line. I want to help, and I need that help. And so what started out as something we would kind of maybe help folks with if they asked us, has turned into a huge opportunity, not just for us, but for directors and owners to really start to share their authority. And we love it.

Carrie 00:13:18  Awesome. You know, we have.

Kate 00:13:20  Eric.

Kate 00:13:21  Is going to make you be quiet. I think we finished answered the question.

Carrie 00:13:24  No, I had one more part.

Erica 00:13:26  We got like, you got 20s go.

Carrie 00:13:29  Both of us had published the, real way before we did that. The the book that we did together that was in the industry.

Carrie 00:13:38  Just it had been in other industries. So we had done it. We just had none in the industry.

Erica 00:13:43  Okay. I want to know, what do you think makes your voice and your approach stand out of the sea of presenters in early childhood education?

Kate 00:13:59  From a presenting standpoint.

Kate 00:14:02  Oh, you.

Erica 00:14:03  Wear a lot of hats. And we are going to show Keith's.

Kate 00:14:05  Baseball.

Erica 00:14:06  Today in this episode.

Kate 00:14:08  Okay.

Kate 00:14:09  So now that I've changed hats I think the biggest thing is that as a presenter duo, which is not an easy thing to do and not a lot of people do it. we're fun. We we bring an energy to the room. We are somewhere between, entertainment and educational. so we're edutainment. this was not something we grew up and said we wanted to do. There was definitely no hey, I want to be a, a little improv comedian that teaches people. we actually joke that all of our kids, all of Kerry's kids, Kerry's husband, like they've all taken improv classes? We haven't.

Kate 00:14:51  But yet we're the ones that get paid.

Kate 00:14:54  Yeah.

Carrie 00:14:55  Both of us, when we train independently, also have that mentality because we know the science that people learn better if they're playing. So we try to make the trainings, have some elements of play to it, because that's what we know from education science is that if I stand up there and I just quote facts and figures the whole time, and then it becomes like Charlie Brown's teacher and it doesn't go in their head. They've got to play some, and they've got to have at least some time to either discuss or implement. What's great is if we have enough time in a session that we can talk, they can play, they can discuss, and they can implement. If we can get all four of those. That is what we consider a great training. But a lot of people are like. You can have 45 minutes to discuss why you should train your directors. And I'm like, the heck you say, how am I supposed to do that? 45 minutes.

Carrie 00:15:56  So we don't always get all four elements, but we try.

Erica 00:16:01  Okay, well, I will say we hired you to come out to Rhode Island in May and all the feedback forms that we got, you guys were definitely in the top two favorite presenters of our entire conference, which was two days and 15 speakers. So we'll leave that there. let me ask you something because I know this is probably a change, but what's your mission behind your brand and how has it evolved over time? Because you guys, you know, you've been in the field now for quite a bit.

Carrie 00:16:35  Our mission is to empower every early childhood, school and school age program to have amazing quality care because the leaders are well cared for and well educated.

Kate 00:16:51  Okay, and.

Kate 00:16:52  I'm not really sure, Erika, that that mission is necessarily changed. I think we've just we've seen well, first of all, podcasts didn't exist when we started self-publishing on Amazon. There was no Amazon when we started and there was no, you know, KDP, you know, self-publishing book by book versus 2000 at a time.

Kate 00:17:16  So I think that we've tried to remember that the directors are still the same age as they were when we started. We're just older, and so we have to find them where they are. So are they on podcast or are they on TikTok? Are they on social media? Are they on an e-book? I remember, you know, how big a deal was when we launched our first online course in oh five. We were the first online course in early childcare in the country in 2005, and people are like, well, you can't do that. What about those people with dial up? Well, we figured out how to work with those people on dial up still.

Kate 00:17:53  That's how old we are. Yeah.

Erica 00:17:56  So you you just find more ways to to to get the information out to the folks that need it. Yeah. so. Yeah. So from pages to stages, guys. So what's the most rewarding part of being publishers in this space?

Carrie 00:18:13  The look on someone's face when they realize that the words they wrote had an impact on someone else, like the look on their face when they become a bestseller is great, but it's not as good as the look on their face when they are telling the story of someone who's been impacted by their book like that.

Carrie 00:18:38  At those conversations. That is what makes the printing the publishing something I'm willing to keep doing even though it wasn't on my list. Write it. Why? Why? I feel like I'm not chasing a shiny object. I am helping people make an impact in a way that they didn't know that they could. I think that's amazing.

Erica 00:19:03  Okay. so when you're having people bring you these books, right there sometimes might be the hard conversations too. So how do you decide what voices and stories are worth amplifying? Because somebody might bring you a book that's really not great.

Kate 00:19:23  Well, we've had those. So that's a great thank you. So part of the goal when we are talking with somebody who wants to publish a book, is what is the ultimate goal for them. And so again, this is not about us being a traditional publisher because a traditional publisher, it's all about the publisher, right? It's all about them making money. But if your goal as a author is to amplify your authority, to have all of your handouts and notes in one place, that you get to give them that book and go, hey, today we're going to do chapter 12 on today's workshop, or you know that you went through some struggles and you know that your struggles are going to inspire somebody else.

Kate 00:20:07  And if your ultimate goal is training keynotes, creating a stage for yourself then, or.

Carrie 00:20:15  Filling up your program or filling up your classrooms?

Kate 00:20:19  Yes, absolutely. So you've got something that you're an expert in then we want to help you with that. But we're going to take it from the lens of what you told us your goal was. And sometimes we do have to have difficult conversations with clients who are like, but I want to do this now. And I'm like, that's not who your book is targeted to. You know, so sometimes we do have to be the business coach. And again, we come from that background. We have a lot of years in a variety of industries, not just childcare. And so we're able to go, okay, look, this is who you told us you wanted your book for. This is what you told us. The goal is just because somebody else is doing something that's shiny, and you think it looks like fun, doesn't mean that's a fit for you and your book.

Kate 00:21:07  And we know that that's not nobody likes to hear it. Kerry's flat out told people that that book is not very good, and it doesn't sound like the author. It's like it's no fun, it's very boring, and we give it back to them. And so, yeah.

Carrie 00:21:22  I mean, it's the same as when you're a director at a center and you've got a teacher who is trying to do stuff in the classroom. That is not a match for the kids in that classroom. And so you've got to have those caring conversations where you're like, look, you said you wanted to build your authority and increase the enrollment at your center, and you're writing a book about how your mama didn't treat you right. And that book is not going to fulfill that purpose. Right. If you want to write a book that's going to help fill your center, it needs to be about why do a, you know, you are a dual language program. Why do a language is so important for cognitive development? Don't be writing your memoir.

Carrie 00:22:08  If your goal is to fill up your program, it's not going to work.

Erica 00:22:13  That is good advice. So speaking of that, while we're still on the subject of books, what's one book, article, or blog that you published that changed you personally?

Carrie 00:22:27  that's a harder one.

Kate 00:22:29  So that we actually published ourselves. For me, that's probably the from OSHA to I got this and we published that last August, and it was the first book I took a lead on. So Kerry kind of took the lead on our others, before that. And there's an awful lot of personal stories in that book. there were definitely some moments that inspired the writing of that book. But I also realized by having shared parts of my story and having conversations with other women, they've gone through similar stories, and so some of them allowed me to share their story in the book. Some of them, the names were changed to protect.

Erica 00:23:13  To protect the innocent.

Kate 00:23:15  Yeah. but to me, it was, just the whole experience of, taking that particular topic, which was very raw from start to finish, and incorporating all of the things that I love about being in business, why I think everybody should be in business and to understand it.

Kate 00:23:39  Sometimes that oh shit moment is what propels your business.

Carrie 00:23:44  So tell people what that topic was, because you just said that topic and didn't explain what the topic was. Girl. Define your terms.

Kate 00:23:53  So, the book from OSHA to I Got This is about that unexpected transition in female business owner lives. And so for me, it was finding myself unexpectedly getting divorced. I hadn't really been in a position where I was expecting it, and I sure the heck wasn't expecting to be the primary breadwinner with minor children. And so it was definitely an oh, shit. I had been an entrepreneur. I had been self-employed. I was a I was a sole proprietor or the sole breadwinner when my oldest was young, you know, was young. but I hadn't done that in 20 years. So I hadn't had to be in that role for over 22 years. And it was sudden. It was unexpected. And there was an awful lot of, oh beeps moments during that time period, which is really interesting that we ended up back here because Erica, that was the first podcast we did with you was on that book.

Erica 00:24:55  So let's go to some mic drop moments, ladies. So you've done keynotes. You've done breakouts. you've been on lots of stages. What one so far has been your favourite and why?

Carrie 00:25:11  I mean, in some ways my favourite was something called the Directors Roundtable. that was in Austin back in the early 2000. because those were some of my first speaking to a group of, like 60 people. So I really like that. But as far as ones that are happening now, I'm a big fan of child care, business growth, child care business growth Live, which is now going to be in Miami every year because it has my people like directors and owners who think about the business the way I do and the people who are the principals of that company ran schools, and they know what it takes. And so right now, I'd say that's my favorite. What about you, Kate? What's another great stage that we've been on?

Kate 00:26:06  So, in Texas, one of the things that the Texas Workforce Commission does is pay for conferences for like a thousand of their quality providers.

Kate 00:26:19  and, and I need to feel like I need to frame this a little bit. In Texas, there are over 9000 licensed programs. So Texas is not your average state. And so a lot of those programs, probably over 70% of those programs, are part of the quality improvement program. And so the state hosts 3 to 4 conferences every year for those folks to come for free. It doesn't cost them to come for the training. The the the state puts them up in a hotel, that comes with breakfast and lunch. The two, the two days of training. And there is something about walking into a room with, you know, 120 folks who know us. because they listen to the podcast or they get our newsletter, or they've been to a workshop before. We did one literally two days ago. And I loved it because somebody came up and said, I have your books. I listened to your podcast. I didn't even know it was you. And, they just, you know, they came to the title.

Kate 00:27:27  And so although we get some of that when we go to other places around the country. Still, getting that in Texas is a lot of fun because it's the next generation of directors who haven't necessarily heard us. for the last, you know, 25 years. And, you know, we've been doing conferences for over 20. And so, like, sometimes you kind of go, well, we're in Texas. How many people are there to still hear us talk? because again, we have large, state conferences in Texas. There's multiple associations. And so and we've, we've presented, I was going to say performed we've presented at.

Erica 00:28:05  In your case form is accurate.

Kate 00:28:07  We presented it most of them more than once. And usually when we go, we're doing 3 or 4 workshops in a day. So you have lots of opportunity to see us. And we had folks come to all three workshops. You know, we're so excited. Joined the book, you know, bought the book on Amazon and came up to tell us about it.

Kate 00:28:25  And anyway, so it was just a really great, that still is. The warm and fuzzies. I'm still getting used to it in states other than Texas, which it happens every once in a while. but not to that same level as with Texas directors and I. Absolutely. They will always have a dear place in my heart, I'm sure.

Erica 00:28:46  So with that being said, you know, what topic do you feel like you're most known for and maybe what topic are you hoping people pay more attention to?

Carrie 00:28:58  I mean, I think we're known as the monkey ladies. and we we kind of gave up and bought our, you know, got some great artwork made for us. We have wearable art of jackets that have monkeys felted on the back because monkey management, while we didn't come up with the phrase. We've all heard phrases like she's got a monkey on her back and and there's a monkey around her neck, or, who's not my circus? Not my monkey. All of that kind of stuff.

Carrie 00:29:28  But to me, it's the. There are so many things that leaders of schools have to do, and you have to manage them, manage all the things because you can't do all of them. You've got to decide what's urgent, what's important, what you should do, what you should hire done. Like that concept? People in leadership in any industry have a tendency to be reactionary, but in our industry it's kids lives on the line. And so we're really reactionary. And it does not serve our business as well. So I think that's what we're most known for is doing monkey management workshops. And, you know, there's another one of those things where we didn't plan on writing a book about it, but people kept going. Why are you writing other books? Why aren't you writing a book about monkey management?

Carrie 00:30:23  I don't know.

Carrie 00:30:26  What about you, Kate? What's something you wish we were better known for?

Kate 00:30:29  Well, I think because it's become kind of our own little soapbox slash passion is that owning your power and understanding, that role that your personal leadership plays.

Kate 00:30:42  And we know that, Erica, you are right there with helping every staff person find their own leadership voice. And we love that. And so I feel like this is where female leaders in EQ need to come back to the stage and speak from the stage and say, look, hey, I'm so glad you're all motivated by these men, but let's get motivated by the leaders in the field. And that's kind of where we are right now, is empowering different folks, predominantly women in EQ, to find their power, find their voice. And we love doing that workshop. and we love. I mean, that was our. That was our last book that's been publicly published. We have one that's coming out really, really soon, but it's not out yet. and so we absolutely love helping folks find their power.

Carrie 00:31:38  And that brings us to another one of our favorite stages that we hope will continue to happen, which was Erica Stage, and that was Erica and Noel owning their power and going, you know what? We can throw a conference, and I bet it would kick butt.

Carrie 00:31:54  And they did. They threw an excellent one. And they're figuring out what it will look like next time.

Erica 00:32:00  Yeah. so let's I know this this is going to be a yes. And you guys always have like the most fun story. So, have you ever had a presentation maybe go off the rails. And how did you pivot and own it?

Erica 00:32:16  Yeah.

Carrie 00:32:19  I totally I was.

Erica 00:32:20  Very prepared for this interview.

Carrie 00:32:24  Options. so we had, a session where, we were teaching and people were at a, at rounds, and we're about a third of the way through, and one table just got up and left, the whole table just left. And so we said, well, I guess they had somewhere else to be. And we just kept going. that's the most. That's the one that pops in my head right now. but.

Kate 00:32:54  I got one, I got one. Alright. So seriously, like, so one of the things that we are not known for, Erica, is, I'm going to say, being short, like, I don't think we've ever finished a session early.

Kate 00:33:07  Like we've never, not had enough to say. And there was a session literally this week where we got our timing off a little and we thought we were, running behind. And so I skipped a couple of like group sessions slides. And then all of a sudden we were done and but we still had 15 minutes to go. And so Carrie's like, I'm going to take this mic. And Kerry went off on a little 15 minute tangent that like a little mini workshop and a workshop and, it ended up coming out really, really great. And there was a lot of fun with it, but it was just kind of one of those well, that didn't kind of go quite as expected. Now, we've always been known to go off topic. so sometimes we get people who will ask a question that is completely unrelated to the topic we're teaching at the moment, but they know we know the answer. So like we might be doing a, a, a leadership workshop and someone will be like, okay, but I'm still trying to figure out how to put kids in my program because the preschool next door or the, you know, the elementary school next door started preschool and they took all my children.

Kate 00:34:19  And so, you know, we're like, okay, that's that's not this workshop, but we can answer the question. And so we will, do that. And again, I think because of our the number of times we've presented, I mean, we haven't actually really done the math, but we did preliminary math. And so we've probably presented well over 500 times. And so with over 500.

Carrie 00:34:42  Since it's 100 this year so far.

Kate 00:34:45  Well okay. Anyway. We know that there's things that we can pull back in another story, a way to loop an unrelated topic back into whatever the topic is. And that really just comes from doing something over and over. Building our own confidence. it's definitely not something we necessarily could have done. When we started training. I started training, literally, I did my first. I was an MC for the first time at age 14, and I was teaching adults by buy 17 for the American Red cross. So, you know, 40 years of training, there's not a whole lot of things that you can cause me to pivot or completely derail.

Kate 00:35:29  It's I think the biggest thing for us is trying to stay on time.

Erica 00:35:34  Okay.

Carrie 00:35:34  Yeah.

Erica 00:35:35  Speaking of time, is it okay if we run long? I don't know.

Kate 00:35:39  Oh, yeah. Keep going.

Erica 00:35:40  You okay? All right. I mean, I guess it's your show, so if you give me green light, we're going to go. Let's go behind the curtain. So, how do you, you know, how do you prepare before you go on stage or before you record an episode? Like, is there any, any rituals, any routines, any power playlist? Like, what do you guys do? You empty yourself out. What do you do?

Carrie 00:36:04  I make sure I have holes in my pocket for my throat, which gets scratchy. but it's for me. very much like what my kids I taught my kids to do when they were acting, which is go over your lines. and then once you know, you've got your lines. Open yourself up to the flow of what's going to happen in that moment.

Carrie 00:36:29  To be authentically there. Don't be so wedded to your lines that you're not willing to serve the people who are in front of you.

Erica 00:36:38  Yeah. The good news is they don't know that, you know, they don't know the line. So even if you messed it up they wouldn't know that you messed it up. So.

Erica 00:36:44  Yeah absolutely.

Kate 00:36:46  Yeah. I'm not sure I have anything incredibly you know like it always happens the same. The biggest thing is trying to get myself present for who? Who I'm talking to. And so sometimes that might be not checking social media, not answering the phone, not reading that text message. you know, sometimes it's trying to remember to eat or drink something ahead of time or maybe not do it in the middle, because there have been times where it's like, oh, maybe I shouldn't have drank that coke or that coffee. Halfway through the the session or the training day. because we now need to take a break. And it wasn't that kind of session. you know, when we're doing full days or we're driving someplace, I think one of the things that we've really done, as we've gotten older, is we no longer tried to drive, train and then drive home in the same day, even.

Kate 00:37:43  because, again, Texans are a little weird. we do do that with a three hour drive. We're known to, you know, get up at 5 a.m., drive to Dallas, which is three hours from us, do a presentation and drive home. we try to do that a lot less. We try to enjoy where we're going. Take advantage of those swimming pools at the hotels or the hot tubs or, you know, maybe it's just even having some fun food or, you know, there's this one place we always stop for insert whatever the item might be.

Carrie 00:38:13  It's a the item is.

Kate 00:38:18  Yes, we like our pastries, so we like our German pastries. And, so I think that's as close as I get. Like, I don't have a playlist. I also don't get in my head, but never have. So that's not something that I have ever had as an issue. I think even because again, I, you know, when you start, when you're under 20 and you don't really care what people think.

Kate 00:38:42  I just, I didn't I'd have always been in that. Well, if it doesn't.

Erica 00:38:45  Mean.

Kate 00:38:45  It's not going to go well.

Carrie 00:38:47  We've both been public speaking our whole lives, so it doesn't really faze us the way it does a lot of people. And so I don't know that I have any advice to give other people on that other than be present with the people you're with.

Erica 00:39:02  Okay.

Erica 00:39:03  So what do you think the biggest misconception is that people have about either publishing a book or getting in front of 500 people and speaking?

Kate 00:39:13  Well, to me, the thing that I think that everybody thinks that's a misconception is that it's really, really hard. I think it's you have to be determined. And if you've set the goal, I mean, I look at people who run ten K's and marathons and go, no way. I mean, there needs to be a dedicated bear behind me, making me and making me make that run, right. Like, that's not something that I would even remotely find entertaining or fun.

Kate 00:39:40  And, you know, I know that there are folks who feel the same way when they watch somebody pull out, you know, calculus or math calculations, to, to do a project. And they go, no, where, where for us, being able to tell a story or help somebody tell a story, whether that's on stage or in print, I think is something that we've become really comfortable with. And when we have that moment and people said, well, people asked, Will you help me? That's when we realized that as educators, it is our job to help them learn a new skill. And this is just these are just new skills that they haven't had a chance to learn yet. And we want them to learn them. We want them to own their power. So if it's making sure that they know how to how to how to look at a cover design, that's going to be an effective cover design on a book, how to understand what the audience is really going to look for in, you know, a nonfiction book or in a children's book.

Kate 00:40:48  even though we don't really do a whole lot, we don't help a whole lot of folks with children's books. We get we have enough folks that we do help. We just don't want to take on, because there's a lot when it comes to finding those illustrators. That's that's that's painful.

Carrie 00:41:04  Yeah. I mean, I think for some people the, mystery is they think, oh, well, you know, I couldn't write a book because that's for those people who have upper level college degrees, right? They think that you have to have gotten a master's degree in writing in order to write a book. And I'm like, Stephen King doesn't have one, and nobody's telling him to stop writing. You know, you don't have to have a degree in writing to write. You just have to know how to put words together. And if you if you have friends, you probably know how to do that.

Erica 00:41:48  All right. So let me see I'm going to ask one more question. What is next for Kate and Carrie.

Erica 00:41:58  Any sneak peeks. Anything you can drop for us. Anything you want to spell. Now's the time.

Kate 00:42:05  So I'm going to share one, and I'll let Carrie share the other.

Carrie 00:42:10  Oh, hopefully I remember what it is, but go for it.

Kate 00:42:14  So, like Erica mentioned from the beginning, we were lots of hats. We have several businesses that are industry related, and we have been doing online director credentialing for the last 23 years, and we are really excited that our newest platform is actually launching in 11 states that will be customized for those states. So it's going to be, Texas director is going to have some sisters in New Mexico, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, New England, Michigan.

Carrie 00:42:50  She's going to forget something.

Erica 00:42:52  I'm going to forget some.

Kate 00:42:53  But we're really excited about watching those sister sites open before the end of 2025. So, Carrie, I hope that means that you remember the other one.

Carrie 00:43:04  I don't know, but I just want to say it's a national director credential, and it's available in two levels.

Carrie 00:43:09  so the other thing I think she's alluding to, is that one of our books is being used as the textbook for a course at Charter Oaks, University. And another university is talking to us about using some other of our books. So, and we're kind of befuddled because we use it in our director credentialing course, and we use the whole book, and they're teaching a whole semester class, and they're only using a few chapters. And we're like, so does that mean our director class dives too deep into too many subjects? Anyway, so I think that's the other one Kate wanted us to talk about, because we think that's kind of a it's a big deal to me. My dad was a college professor. And so for me, that's very much bringing it full circle to, my my family.

Erica 00:44:09  Yeah, that's a cool thing. That's a cool thing. So thanks for coming on. child care conversations with Kate and Kerry. make sure you keep tuning in. Make sure you hit that follow subscribe button, whatever platform you're watching or listening.

Erica 00:44:26  this is Erica from the Child Care Director's Chair podcast. As always, have a great day.

Erica 00:44:31  Wait wait wait wait. No, wait. What you did.

Carrie 00:44:34  You also make sure that you also go over to the childcare director's chair and take a listen to Erica, because she has a lot to offer as well. And she has episodes covering just about every subject as well. And she's amazing and a lot of fun.

Erica 00:44:54  So are you.

Erica 00:44:56  There? Well, what's great about every single.

Kate 00:44:59  Day of the week? Erica's got you every day of the week.

Erica 00:45:02  Every day.

Carrie 00:45:03  If you need a pick me up because you've had a rough day with the staff, go on to Erica's podcast and she will pick you the heck up.

Erica 00:45:11  That is a true story. That is true.

Erica 00:45:13  Absolutely right guys.

Erica 00:45:14  Always a pleasure. Always a pleasure. Keep doing what you're doing. If you are a conference coordinator and you don't have these ladies at your conference, you're missing out. That's all I've got to say.

Marie 00:45:26  Thanks for tuning in. We love bringing you real talk and fresh insight from the world of early childhood education. Be sure to follow us on social media to stay connected and catch all of the latest episodes. And if you're planning a conference, training, or special event. Kate and Carrie would love to speak to your audience. You can learn more about their keynote sessions and workshops at Kate and Caricom. If you learned something today, share the show and leave us a review below. We'll see you next time on Child Care Conversations.