Values-Driven Childcare Leadership and Investment
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[00:00:00] Hello, hello, and welcome to this week's Big Hearted Education podcast topic. It is brought to you by Jane Edwards, who made a comment on one of my posts, um, a week or so ago on the last podcast episode that I released about... talking about enrollments and how to make sure that you are sharing your values and your recruiting families or engaging families based on your value set, because that's going to mean that you have a really great alignment with these families.
And I wanted to share Jane's response to that because I thought it was quite a, um, interesting thought, and one that I would like to explore a little bit more with you because I think it was really valid and I think many of you will resonate with it. So I'm gonna read it for you here. Jane says, "I saw this post this morning and [00:01:00] watched it a couple of times, and now my brain is looping.
What are my values? I feel so confused about who I have become with all of the requirements to fit into this industry that I feel I may have lost myself in the process of surviving all of the changes. I'm so glad that you identified values as being important to share in an interview. It has made me think really deeply, and I don't know if I ever share my values."
And I just thought, "Wow, that was r- really poignant," and I can totally see that so many educators would be feeling that way and possibly have never even considered what their values are as an educator. So thank you for that comment, Jane, because it has sparked this podcast episode, uh, and I hope that you get some value out of it because I'm always blabbing on about my own values [00:02:00] and the importance of knowing what they are very, very clearly because it helps shape you as a person, first and foremost, secondly, as an educator, and thirdly, um, for so many other reasons like who you engage as a service and the families that you attract to your business as well.
They become a guiding post, so to speak, I believe anyway. Uh, my highest value is integrity, and everything that I do runs through that lens of integrity across- Business and personal as well. I can't lie to save myself. I d- you know, it's, it's that whole thing of s- speaking your truth even if your voice shakes because you don't know the ramifications of what that is going to be.
And when you know something needs to be said or done, you do it because you know it's the right thing to do, uh, in, as opposed to avoiding it to avoid facing [00:03:00] consequences or the ramifications of your actions. So when I come from that place of living a values-led life through integrity, it means that I question what I do before I do it so that then I go, "Hmm, is that the right thing for me to do?
Is that in alignment with integrity? Am I going to be stepping outside of my own integrity moral set compass," so to speak? So, um, I just, I just wanted to, to touch on that so that y-you can understand, um, you know, where, where I come from a little bit and how that... you may see that that drives a lot of what I do.
Uh, I get a lot of messages from educators who thank me for reminding them of how things could be and, uh, and, and that they really enjoy when I get a little bit vulnerable and share a little bit more of myself. Uh, because I do that purely because I [00:04:00] know that quite often people don't have the, quote-unquote, "permission" to do that.
And so I always want to lead through that value set for you anyway. Um, so if that resonated with you, you're not alone. This isn't, uh, one educator's confusion. This is what happens to many of us when we go through years of surviving requirement after requirement after requirement, reform after reform after reform, without ever once being asked what we actually believe about this work.
So what tends to happen is we get blinded through the forest by the trees and, and we can't see who we are as people and who we are as educators and what we bring forth purely because we put all of these other things in front of what our values are. Rather, the difference that we need to be doing is [00:05:00] we need to be keeping our values front and center, the things that are most important to us, the things that are not negotiable to us, and then making decisions based on these new requirements and reforms based on our values because these can be quite broad.
These reforms and these new requirements can be quite broad, and they are that way because they need to be able to be applied across a multitude of settings and setting types. So this is why the regulations are quite often very vague. Uh, some of them aren't, but some of them are. And that's because they-- the, the, the regulation writers or the policy writers understand that there are so many variables That each setting type has to contend with.
So if you're in, for example, um, a long [00:06:00] daycare setting, and we've all seen those ones, which I personally would never send my children to, but we've all seen those ones that are in a high rise, and they have these outdoor areas that are fake, and they may not e- may not even be proper outdoor areas. They may be just an open space on the floor of a high-rise building, uh, which has all the fake grass in it, and it has y- fans to bring air in, and, and all this sort of stuff, right?
So the regulations have to be able to suit that building as well as the family daycare who has a acreage property that they get to operate their service from. I mean, how lucky. Why would you choose to go to a high rise when you could do that? I suppose because if you live in the city, there are no acreage properties available.
But this is why the regulations are somewhat vague and broad so that it can be applied across all service settings. [00:07:00] But it also gives us the ability to make our policies and run programs that are in alignment with our personal philosophy or the philosophy of the service that you operate under. So this is where it's really helpful when you can be clear on what your value set is.
So by the end of this podcast, you're going to understand, uh, a little bit and have permission to put your values front and center, uh, most, most importantly. So here's the difference that I want you to hear. Um, the requirements tell you what you must do. However, values tell you why you want to do it in the first place.
So you can tick every single regulatory box and still feel completely hollowed out if nobody has ever asked you what you're actually here for. So for me, running my family daycare service, it was very important that I instilled in the [00:08:00] children a love of nature and being outdoors, a love of growing food and then cooking with it, a love of hand-making things for families as gifts, and a love of the creative arts because they are all the things that naturally come through me that I believe children should have access to in abundance.
So I shaped my entire program around going on daily walks with the children, slowing my program down enough so that we had ample time to potter in the garden. But also when doing my seasonal planning, I would include gardening in that. Like, it was just a g- it was just what we did. Because those are the things that I feel children val- get the most value from in day-to-day [00:09:00] life as a child in a setting outside of the home So they are values that, that, you know, um, that the slow- slowness, slowing down, less is more.
Uh, I've written programs on that and delivered professional development on those types of things. Helicopter to hands-off being one of them. Um, get your stinky nose, uh, get your stinky adult nose out of the children's business is another one. So these are just examples of values that I believe children should be able to experience.
They come from me because they're the things that naturally light me up as well. And that's one thing too that I would really like to encourage, is that quite often the educator who, in my opinion, is the most important person in the cohort of your family daycare business, if you are not lit up by what you're doing and you are not sharing your natural skills and the things that bring [00:10:00] enjoyment to you into your program, you are not catering for your own enjoyment in your work.
And if you're not catering for your own enjoyment in your work, what are you doing? H- how are you really sharing joy and enjoyment with the children? Because I, I, I truly fundamentally believe, and this is another value, that children deserve happy adults in their lives. Happiness, joyfulness, contentment, enjoyment, they are all values.
And, and what I often do is I'll get a list of values. There's, like, hundreds of values, and, and I will distill them into similar categories. So joyme- enjoyment, joyfulness, uh, playfulness, and, um, aliveness, all of those kind of fit under the [00:11:00] same banner, so to speak. So this is where I would encourage you to look at what you as a person enjoy.
Now, obviously, if you enjoy sitting around a campfire and drinking red wine, you can't do that with the children. But if you do enjoy sitting around a campfire, you could create a fire and then cook damper with the children. Or you might make a talking circle around the fire, where every morning or every afternoon, whichever, however you wanna do that, you might bookend your day or have, i- i- um- Ally, um, oh goodness, her surname has escaped me at the moment.
She was on the summit a few years ago. She's over in Adelaide. Um, she used to end her day with a fire pit, and the children would have cups of tea or hot chocolate or whatever it was that they were doing, and they'd talk about their day. Fleming, Ally Fleming. Um, she was a wonderful, uh, example of bringing something like that into her program because it brought [00:12:00] her immense joy too, and the children really got a lot out of it.
So if you enjoy having a fire and drinking red wine, obviously we're not gonna drink red wine with the children, but you could put something like tea. You might make a beautiful chai tea every day with the children or, um, you know, you might have herbal teas. Whatever, whatever it is that floats your boat.
But that, that moment of having that fire pit together where it becomes a ritual, it meets your needs as an educator to combine your day and, and it brings joy for you. It slows the children down. They get immense value out of it as well, and you become a really cohesive team. So things like this, things that bring you enjoyment.
I used to love teaching the children how to sew. Uh, I loved teaching the children how to sing. I loved teaching the children how to garden and make food and all sorts of things. Like, if you've listened to me for a long time, you've probably heard me [00:13:00] tell the stories, um, especially where one of the little, um, after-school care, before school care children, they would come in the morning at 7:00 AM, and we would put the slow cooker on, and they would help me, particularly in winter, they would help me make the slow cooker my, my dinner for my family, but they would help me do it.
And one day the mom rang me, and she was like, "Ah, my little guy is telling me that I have to put cinnamon in with the lamb shanks, and he's told me that you've told him that he has to do this, and it makes it the best. It-- Like, the-- I've never heard of that before. It makes zero sense to me. Is this true?"
And I was like, "Uh-huh, it most certainly is." And they did, and she rang me later to tell me it was really delicious, and they do that all the time now as well. So this is where my value... And, and I love to cook. A lot of people think I'm an Italian lady. I'm not but I could be with my black eyebrows, let me tell you.
Um, but I, th- I get such [00:14:00] immense joy from feeding people, and so that's my values l-l-living through and coming through in the work that I do. So it's, it's like you've gotta get clear on what it is that brings you joy and, and what it is that lights you up, and it's okay to include that in your program. In fact, I think it's essential.
When you are... When that's anchored in, and it is a part of you, and it is feeding a part of you, it means that it is so authentically connected, and it will come from within you, and it's not performative. It is something that brings joy and aliveness to your work. That, my friends, is irreplaceable. That is what makes you stand out above everybody else who are doing things just because they [00:15:00] think that's what they have to be doing So let's make this real, not just a nice idea.
What do you want the children to feel when they're in your care? What do you want a family to say about you in five years' time? What would you never compromise, even under pressure? That's a value. Everything else is just strategy. So can you feel the difference in that? The educator who's doing STEM because they feel like they have to, school readiness because they feel like they have to, as opposed to an educator who's teaching the children life skills and enjoying being in the garden, enjoying going on nature walks, and slowing down, and noticing the things that are happening in nature.
And I mean, you, you could live in the city and still do that. You can still notice the difference in the birds, the difference in the [00:16:00] temperature, the difference in the leaves and the trees, and the different flowers that are happening. Get yourself to the botanic gardens. If you are on the Gold Coast or on the East Coast somewhere, we've got whale season right now.
Take the children whale watching. Like, that is something that is in their world. Those children who come to you, if you live on the East Coast, you, you, you might have seen my stories. I've moved to the, to the ocean now, and every day I'm out watching the water. This morning, so close to the shore were whales.
Like, it just blows my mind, and I'm sitting there thinking, "If I ran my family daycare down here, 100% I'd be doing an excursion to the beach," not into the water, obviously, but to the beach, and we would be whale watching, and we would be talking to the community that are around us. Uh, maybe we might go to the little local cafe and get a babyccino and talk to the cafe staff and get to know these people in our community [00:17:00] because that's important to me, community, which I then share with the children.
So can you see how that might be more authentic and connected than if I was to sit here and try and do school readiness with the children? Like, I see personally no value in school readiness in terms of teaching the children numbers and letters and things like that. Le- leave that for school. Like, leave that for when they get to prep or kindy or whatever.
Even in kindy, I don't think it's really needed. I think that should be in prep. That's my personal opinion.
Come at me. Change my mind if you can. I don't think you will, but regardless, for me, school readiness is more along the lines of how children are able to communicate with each other, how they're able to express their own feelings, how they're able to look after their own gear, put their stuff in their bag.
Like, how many times when you sent your own children to school did they go to school with a hat, with a jumper, with shoes, [00:18:00] with a pencil case, a lunchbox, a drink bottle, and they come home with an empty bag, and they're cold 'cause they've got T-shirt and shorts on? Like, we need to teach our children how to be responsible for their own stuff, how to tie their shoelaces, how to do a zip up, how to open their lunchbox, how to refill their drink bottle.
All those things, for me, are far more important than them knowing how to r- read and write before they get to school. Anyway, I digress a little bit. I digress. But what do you want the children to remember about you, and what do you want the families to say about you in five years' time? Do you want them to have those warm, fond memories?
Because that's what all of my families have with me. Uh, they- we often talk-- Because I'm in a small community, I see a lot of my family daycare children, um, quite frequently, and w-we still-- they, they still run up to me and hug me. And, you know, they, they're heading to high school now, which makes me feel so old.
Uh, [00:19:00] but i- this is, this is the thing, and I, and I still see some of the mums that I, um, taught their children in long daycare way back when, and their children are finishing high school now, and we still are connected, connected after they left, of course, but we're still connected, and they still talk about the things that I taught their children and the things that I taught them by default.
Because you're not in family daycare. Uh, and s- there's certain educators who are not just teaching the children, they're teaching the families as well. Um, so in a long daycare setting, I would be, you know, offering parenting advice to families because I could see they were struggling, and they didn't have anybody else they could talk to about certain things.
And so the strategies that I gave them were strategies that they used at home. So this is how you can help yourself become aware of what your values are by thinking about, you know, "What do I want people to remember me for? What is my legacy that I am leaving with these children and families?" [00:20:00] So when you don't know your own values, every compliance change, every reform, and every hard family starts to feel like a threat to who you are instead of just a task to get through.
So that's a different kind of exhausting. So when you... And I've felt myself being knocked off my center and not coming from a values-led perspective before, and every time I have done that, it has felt overwhelming. The tasks have felt insurmountable. These things have been challenging and difficult. When I come from my values, though, and I look at-- We have these beautiful core values that, that run Rainbow Bridge Family Daycare and Big Hearted Education.
There's seven of them, and we work on this together. Actually, at conference, um, our team has a separate day. Rainbow Bridge Family Daycare has a separate day, [00:21:00] and we are in the room together as our team, and we work through our core values every year. We revisit them because we change. We change as educators, the requirements on us, upon us change, and so therefore we need to sometimes look at these values and go, "Well, is this actually leading the show anymore?
Or is this really deeply embedded that we actually, it's second nature for us now, and we want to grow, and as a form of growing, we want to have a focus on this- these particular values." Or our dynamics have changed somewhat, or the people within our group have changed, and so therefore our values change and grow as well.
So that's part of what we do as a team in Rainbow Bridge, and we are accountable. Each person is accountable to those values. So there has been a few incidences in the past 12 months where I have had to have conversations with educators and say, [00:22:00] "Hey, that is outside of our core values, our agreed core values.
That is outside of it. That behavior is sitting far over here when it needs to be here, front and center." Um, and then we can course-correct. And it- it's not personal, it's that, well, that's sitting outside of our values. And so therefore, all the decisions that we make as a management team come back to what our core values are.
And it's a guiding, um, signpost, so to speak, for everybody. Everybody's on the same page. Everybody understands what they are. We've all agreed to them, and they, they keep us on the, the straight and narrow. So when we are applying policy changes and things like that, it comes through the lens of, is this in alignment with our values?
And if it is, this is, this is what it will look like. And so therefore, it's really important that, um, when you are making [00:23:00] decisions or you're looking at these reforms and these regulation changes or new families that are coming into your service, or it might be a new coordinator that you have, that everything comes through those set of values because it's then predictable, consistent, and it's in alignment with who you are as a person, so therefore it's actually going to light you up and fill you up rather than be burdensome and tiresome.
I hope that makes a little bit of sense. Okay, so this is where I need to be really direct with you, too. Uh, we are losing educators at a rate of knots that should alarm every single educator in this sector. It's not just family daycare, it's long daycare as well. Um, and it's rarely just the paperwork that's causing these people to leave.
It's educators who never got the chance to reconnect with why they started until one day [00:24:00] they just don't anymore. And when they don't, and they're so far away from their values and the things that make them who they are, and the things that bring them joy and fulfillment, it's too late. And therefore, people find this is all too hard, it's all too difficult, it doesn't really work.
I'm, I'm, I'm exhausted all of the time. I'm depleted. It's costing me energetically to run my business, and even if I'm on a good income, the income isn't worth what it's costing me personally And I don't have job satisfaction. The way to circumvent that is to be really clear on what it is that you do, what lights you up, and then live through that.
Do your work through those lenses, because it's really important. We cannot afford to lose more educators. We absolutely cannot afford to lose more educators. We [00:25:00] need to bring more into our profession, and that can only happen if there's more of us who are led by their values and lo- deeply love what they do and are so lit up from the inside out that more people want to come to us, more people are attracted to what we do.
So this is what a lot of educators say to me when they, when they reach out to me, they go, "Oh my goodness," like, "I'm just so inspired," like, "especially since I've come down here. I'm just so inspired by your stories. Like, it's giving me life." That's because I am so filled up that there is an abundance and an overflow that comes to you, and you pick that up, and you feel good just by being in presence with me.
And that sounds a little bit egotistical, but it's not, it's true, because I follow people that are the same. I follow people that I'm [00:26:00] like, "Yes. Yes, yes, yes," that makes me feel so inspired, because it resonates with the values that are in me, right? So this is what happens. When we are lit up, other people naturally want to gravitate towards us because it's easy to be with us.
You get something from being in our presence, right? And this is what we need to do as family day care educators to attract more family day care educators into family day care. And I don't believe for a second that the Department of Education or the government is trying to get rid of us. I just don't believe that.
We are written into the regulations. We are here to stay. The only way we will fade off into the sunset is if we stop bringing more people into our fold, right? So this is where it's really important that we are filled up and lit up, and we are surrounding ourselves with the people who [00:27:00] give- Not the ones that take away from us, the people who give, the people whose message fills us, the people whose message makes us go, "Hmm, that's interesting.
Haven't thought about it from that perspective. Wow. Yeah." And, and really get you thinking, and really get you observing your own behavior and observing your own way of being, and then bringing slight change, or maybe it's big change. Maybe it's just a, a small thing each day that you bring into your work that is, is slowly filling you up and, and fanning those flames of wonderment and enjoyment and fun and playfulness or whatever it is that it is that you want to be building.
So this, this is also something that we need to talk about, and it's talking about working on your business as opposed to working in your business. Now, there is a [00:28:00] massive difference, and this may be a new concept for some of you. So working on your business is doing the nappy changing, the programming, the planning, the families, the day-to-day things that you do in your work.
Working on your business is stepping back and asking what you're actually building and why. And most of us never get the time or the head space for that working on your business. So that means stepping outside of your normal environment, your day-to-day environment, going somewhere else, and having someone else feed into you ideas and thought processes, and getting questions into your brain that make you go, "Hmm, is there a better way I could do this?
Is there a different way to [00:29:00] get from A to B? Am I doing this the hard way? Am I doing this the long way? Am I doing this just because it's something I've always done, and I've never considered that there could be an alternative?" This is what true businesspeople do. And I hear family day care educators say this all the time, "I'm running my own business."
In some respects you are, and then in other respects, you're trying to run your family day care like a long day care sy- like a long day care center. And you may not be running your business like a true business professional I'm just gonna let that sit there for a second. Running your business means that you need to be on top of super, tax, annual leave.
You need to have proper budgets in place. There is not one business that [00:30:00] successfully runs without proper budgets. You may need to look at having a coach. You may need to look at engaging in some professional development that's not always free. Because when we are looking at professional development that's always free, what value are you putting on yourself as a business owner?
It's a big fat zero, my friend. A big fat zero. It's a number none , right? You have to look at investing in yourself as a business owner to move the needle in your business. Have you got vacancies at the moment? You're at a loss as to how to fill them. What are you doing outside of asking on the Facebook groups, "How is everybody filling their vacancies?"
Ha- like [00:31:00] can, can you see that? Like, uh, uh, for me as a business owner, I have a coach. I have a coach who gives me strategies, who I can go and ask, "How do I do this?" And this person is specialized in business, right? And guess what? She's coming to my conference. Marie Kirkpatrick, she is a sales specialist, and she is one of my coaches in my business because I don't know enough about that.
I don't know enough about that to be able to go and do that well. And so I have engaged Marie to help me look at the sales processes within my business because I sell things. So I'm at the beginning of that process because I identified that that was an area that I needed to improve on, right? And so if you are an educator who's saying that you run your own business but you do not invest in your business, you're lying to yourself.
You're not really running a business. You have [00:32:00] a job Right? So in order to say that you're running a business and you're a business professional, you need to be investing in your business because if all you're doing is invest- investing in the free stuff, the free stuff is great. Like, it's there, it serves a purpose.
It, it does a little bit, but I'm telling you right now, the free stuff is all designed to just scratch the surface and not really get to the juice and the meat of things, right? So the difference is that when you're investing in your business, and you're investing no cost into your business, you're going to be stifling the change that can come into your business.
You will be not moving the needle very much at all. So you're also telling yourself that you're not really worth the investment, which is a bitter and uncomfortable pill to, to sort of sit at and follow and, and swallow really. [00:33:00] So I'm not saying, I'm not saying this either to make anybody feel bad at all, but I'm saying it because I want you to notice the pattern and ask yourself where that came from.
If you've gotten yourself stuck into that mindset of, "I can't spend the money, I can't do this, I can't do that," you're always going to be struggling. Whereas when you actually invest in things that are going to help you move the needle and going to, uh, really excite you and then enliven you and put you in the room, sitting at the table with other people who are doing the same thing, magic happens, inspiration comes, courage builds in you, bravery speaks up louder, and you start asking for the things that you want and the things you need to help you move that needle.
So just speaking about Marie, she's going [00:34:00] to come and speak to services and educators alike on how to get people who are in alignment to join your business and work with you. If you can... If it costs you $250 to come to the conference, for example, and you learn five things from just Marie, and she's not the only speaker, but if you learn five things just from Marie that will fill your vacancies, that $250 investment will be paid for within a week.
Can you see how this makes such a big difference? It's so important. We've not just got Marie, we've got Nicole Holton coming from Inspired Family Daycare and Inspired EC to talk about slow pedagogy, nature play, risky play, all of these things that are just so important in, in early childhood education.
She's also going to be guest presenting with me on Leaders Day, and we're going to be breaking down the investigations that we've [00:35:00] been a part of, what we've learnt, and sharing skills and, and tips with other services. Th- this isn't happening anywhere in early childhood education Nobody is having the conversation about, "Hey, this accident or this mistake happened in our service.
This was the, the result, this was the investigation that happened, this is how it played out, and this is what we've learnt and then put in place from that. Your service can learn from that, too." No one is having that conversation, right? So to have ... to just sit in on that one particular session is going to reduce the stress and the, "I don't know what to do in this situation," if you're a service leader.
That is going to be worth the $250 to come for that day alone. Let alone then having Marie come and tell you how to find aligned educators to, to join your service, right? So there's so much [00:36:00] value that comes from joining in on these sessions. We've also got Sami Jaeger, who's going to be talking to both services and educators about filling their cup, and the importance of making sure that your cups are filled, and how to come, come back from burnout or avoid burnout.
Who doesn't need that conversation, particularly leading up to that busy, busy, busy time of year? And then we've got Emma Rattenbury. Like, who does not love Emma Rattenbury? Like, she is one of the most amazing voices in Australian early childhood education when it comes to programming and practice. She's going to be talking to leaders about how to help your team.
Strategies, and skills, and things to help your team to get the most out of them for their programming. And then she's going to be talking to educators about how to invite children in instead of pushing them away with their programming. Like, d- it ... The amount of value that you get from [00:37:00] coming and sitting at these tables and being a part of that conversation is just
Like, it's exponential. So if you really want to be living through your values, then investing in your business is vital. And you need to support these things that are here for you because if you don't support them, they're not going to exist, and then you're gonna not enjoy what you do anymore. You're going to just get sick of it and go elsewhere.
Family day care is such an important and vital role in early childhood education. We all know this. Yet when things come up, people don't support these things. So we need to really look at that. And you really... If you are go- if you are one of those educators that says, "I'm running my own business," you need to behave that way too.
So I just, I just want you to know that choosing to invest in a [00:38:00] day or two days at the conference, depending on what your s- what your circumstances are, whether, whether you're a leader or just an educator, it's not an indulgence. It's actually one of the cleanest way and one of the clearest ways to live out your value.
Like, I take my work seriously, and I deserve to keep growing. It was never about the ticket price. It's about what that choice says about how you see and value yourself So this is your invitation this week. I want you to sit down, write your values down. What are the things that are really important to you?
What are the things that are non-negotiable to you regarding your work as a family daycare educator? Not think about them, write them down exactly as they land for you, exactly as they come. Hopefully, I've given you enough [00:39:00] ideas and inspiration and examples for you to be able to think about what your values might be, and if you're looking for a place that was built specifically to help you do that, it's definitely the Dream Lead Play conference, which is in Sydney on September 11 and 12.
I hope I've got those dates right now. You'd think I would have written that down, wouldn't you? Um, it's absolutely the place where you will find your tribe, where you will find those people who are sitting at the table with you and will cheer you on. I know there are little cohorts of educators that came last year that are still in contact today, and that are still talking with each other today, and are coming to conference again this year because they had such incredible connections and conversations and intense value from last year that they absolutely did not want to miss this year.
So if you want to come to conference, I want you to jump onto the website, and I'm going to pull it up [00:40:00] right now because you'd think I would have organized that beforehand too. But the way to get to conference is to go onto my, um, www.bigheartededucation. Now I don't know where it is. Hang on. I will tell you what it is.
Uh, bigheartededucation.com/dreamleadplay26, and that should get you to the website, uh, to the, to the, um, uh, the page about the conference. If not, just send me a message via Instagram or Facebook with the word conference, and I will get the information to you, the link so that you can book your ticket. It's a really incredible, uh, conversation that we're going to be having.
There's four speakers a day. Like I- I've gone to other conferences where you run around, they're 40-minute sessions and, or 30-minute sessions, and you end up having to [00:41:00] run from one end of the conference space to another, and you've got five minutes to get there. Second of all, there's always, always, I don't know why it happens, but every single time I end up having to decide, oh, there's three things on.
The three things that I wanted to see, they're all on at the same time. Now I have to choose, and I always end up choosing the one that I sit in and go, "I shouldn't have chose this one. I shouldn't have chose this one." I hate that. I really, it, I, I don't understand why we do that. Um, so my conference, I didn't do that.
We have four speakers for the day. Everyone's gonna be in the same room together. No one misses out on anything. You get to sit at the table, make friends. You all get to talk about these things. And if you want the VIP option, there's absolutely a VIP option. This year the VIP option is you get to have, um, special tables at the front of the room so you get the best view of every [00:42:00] speaker.
You also get to have an intimate lunch with me. You get to sit with me and have a meal and any of our speakers that are there as well. You get to talk to us. You get to ask questions. You get to probe us and get to the deepest, darkest secrets. And there's also a goodie bag for, uh, for you, which all of our speakers are contributing into as well.
There's books and little mini courses and all sorts of stuff as well. So, um, yeah, that's, there's lots in that VIP bag actually. So that's, that's it. That's what I wanted to talk to you about today. I wanna talk to you about your values. I wanna talk to you about how investing into your business is always such a, a fantastic idea and so worthwhile doing because it elevates you from an educator who's just doing things because that's the way she thinks it needs to be to an educator who is living through her authentic self and sharing that with the world.[00:43:00]
How incredible is that? Anyway, my friends, if you liked this episode or it made you question and think about things, I would love to know your thoughts. Please always share with me. I love getting feedback. If there's a topic you would like me to cover, uh, on the podcast, please let me know because I just always want to serve you and share with you and look at things from a different perspective and give insight and ideas and inspiration.
So with that, my friends, from my big heart to yours, I am sending all the love to you, and I hope you have a beautiful day.
