When the episode starts with four people laughing and wiping tears from their eyes, you know it's going to be a good one.

Two first cousins who are both third-generation entrepreneurs, Carrie and Kate have a variety business experience, but their core passion is Early Childhood Education. They have both owned and operated facilities, and they leveraged up to training other people how to run their own. They've been doing that for over 20 years.

They're both authors and have both owned businesses in the publishing industry. As we publish this episode, their 6th book together, titled Don't Chase the Monkey, is available on Amazon and will be publicly launched very soon. (Link below)

Carrie decided to own a childcare facility when she was in childcare herself. Kate decided to start one after she became a parent. Eventually , they joined forces.

There are so many family connections and people in the family working for one another in their extended family that it is a little confusing. What is clear is how much they know about what works and what doesn't when family members work together.

Join us in this entertaining and educational discussion and meet these dynamic women.

Links to more about Kate and Carrie:

• Don't Chase The Monkey book - Kate and Carrie's latest book, just published in Sept. 2024
• Amazon.com: Carrie Casey: books, biography, latest update - Carrie's Amazon author page
• Amazon.com: Kate Woodward Young: books, biography, latest update
• Texas Director Facebook page
• Carrie's LinkedIn profile
• Kate's LinkedIn profile
• ChildCare Conversations with Kate and Carrie Podcast Series – Apple Podcasts - Kate and Carrie's podcast
• Texas Director website

00:00 Introduction to Kate and Carrie

00:53 Early Entrepreneurial Ventures

02:05 Family Influence and Business Background

04:36 Diving into Childcare

10:23 Challenges of Working with Family

19:16 Expanding Texas Director

21:12 Reflecting on Business Success and Future Plans

22:31 Advice for Small Family Business Owners

24:11 Balancing Family and Business Relationships

25:40 The Importance of Delegation and Hiring Experts

27:01 Mindset Shifts for Business Growth

28:16 Navigating Family Dynamics in Business

37:38 The Value of Peer Support and Venting

38:46 Planning for Personal and Business Future

42:06 Promoting New Books and Final Thoughts

Welcome to another episode of Celebrating Small Family Businesses.

Today we are celebrating Kate Woodward Young and Carrie Casey of TexasDirector.

org.

Good morning, ladies.

Good morning.

John and Connie.

We're all sitting here just about wiping tears out of our eyes

because we've been laughing so hard in our pre show conversation.

You don't want to know about that.

Yeah, we're, that's a whole different podcast.

But, you guys have been, you're, so you're cousins, you know,

the family aspect right away.

You're first cousins, and you've been working together in the child

care industry, both owning child care facilities and, and now for

decades advising people in that industry how to run efficiently.

Is that accurate?

Yes.

Yeah.

Um,

And we've actually...

Go ahead, Carrie.

I was going to say this is our second business we've had together.

Um, well, unless you count the one that we started when we were kids,

which was called Camp Frederick.

Oh, tell.

Oh, we were, we were Girl Scouts and we love to go to a conference.

Those aren't the same thing, but I got a whole bunch of swag

from a printing conference.

We got together over the summer and we came up with a whole bunch of

badges you could earn and stuff like that using the office supplies

I got from the printing convention.

So that was our first enterprise together was camp Frederick.

Uh,

And I hope there were some fun badges.

there were, there were, Identifying unidentified animals

was one of the badges, um.

Love that.

Uh,

That is so in line with the Girl Scout mission, you know, the, the

leadership and the creativity.

You're just immediately in, in leadership and in Girl Scouts.

That's great.

Well and we were both Girl Scouts.

Our kids were Girl Scouts.

We both sold...

we had a parallel path when it came to Girl Scout cookies.

yeah.

We definitely have entrepreneurship in our blood.

We are third generation entrepreneurs on both sides so we are, uh, excited to just

continue to share that passion with pretty much anybody and with our own children.

So,

Good.

So that, that entrepreneurship led from, I think your, your grandfather, you,

you had worked with your grandfather at some point, is that right?

I

worked with my grandfather at some point,

ah, that's what I,

and that was at a Christmas tree farm.

Okay.

And then we both worked with our mothers.

Um, I also worked with my dad.

Um, my dad took the contractor route, not strictly entrepreneurial.

He was a contractor.

Um, he wrote technical manuals, so he worked for everybody from Apple to

Dell, to, IBM, Gulf Western, like all kinds of companies over the years.

And I was his back office for a while.

Um,

Very cool!

And yeah,

And we also worked for other cousins or with other cousins

and our spouses worked with.

So my spouse worked with Carrie, Carrie's spouse worked with

me and different businesses.

So I had a publishing business

and, uh, yeah, so we got everybody working together somehow.

So when it's time for me to write my book about family businesses, I'm going

to be calling you guys for research.

absolutely.

Oh my goodness.

So much depth of experience there.

Yeah.

Kate used to have a publishing company and now I have a different publishing

company because I work faster than the traditional publishing company.

And the idea of waiting two years after I wrote something for it to hit

the shelves was like, no, thank you.

I can't handle that much lag time.

I will figure out how to, how to create my own publishing company.

Um, I don't do all of the work.

I, You know, I function as a CEO in that company and other people do the

work and yay me I can get stuff out in a week if I need to because I got a bee

in my bonnet

to write something.

Whoa.

See, this is where I'm saying with our podcast, we, you know, something

just comes and we plan something and then something like that comes

up and like we could spend the whole time talking about that.

We're not to

That's amazing.

Okay.

No we're not.

Because how did you get in the child care business?

Um,

We had children or that was mine.

I had children.

Carrie was a child,

yeah, I decided when I was a child in childcare that when I grew up I was

going to have a childcare business because my mom was, uh, an 80 to 120

hour a week entrepreneur when I was born.

Um, and so she didn't have a huge amount of time for me, but

the people in childcare did.

And so I thought that that was the best place in the world because

people paid attention to me.

There you go.

And so I decided I would have a center when I grew up.

I see.

So you had a really, you had an experience in a well run child

care center that gave you a really good role model to start with.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And, um, between that and then having a mom who, taught me a whole

bunch about business by osmosis.

Um, it made it such that I was able to open my first program at 21.

And my first center at, what was I, 24, I think, when I

opened my first licensed center.

Wow.

Now what's the difference between a program and a center?

So home based programs are, you know, in your house, you have a room or a couple of

rooms set aside for your cottage industry.

In Texas they're called registered family homes, but that's not

what they're called everywhere.

But home based care is usually for, like, 6 or fewer kids.

And then a center can be, you know, 400 children.

I never had 1 that that was that big because 400 children is a lot!

, but the hundred,

had, but you did have four, you did have four centers and you

always had multiple locations.

So,

yes.

um,

But one building with

Okay, Kate, what about you?

What is your, oh,

Having

400 kids

between

yeah,

multiple locations is fine.

I got into child care when I had children, so my 1st son was born and prior to him

being born, I was actually a certified business analyst with the SBA at a local

small business development center in Ohio and so I knew I wanted to stay at home.

But I also needed a revenue source.

And so I had infants and then after a couple of years of running that

business as a business, the Ohio small business development center asked

me to be part of a consulting team that trained other registered family

homes, how to run their business, like a business around the state of Ohio.

Now you have to remember that all of this happened pre-social media and

Carrie and I didn't necessarily know that we were on these parallel paths.

Because while our mothers, our sisters, they do not, they did not get along.

They were, you know, were five siblings and each of them had three siblings

they liked better than each other

um They they were very much oil and water growing up.

And so just because my mom knew what I was doing and her mom knew what she

was doing, they were not having weekly phone calls between the two of them.

Um, and my grandmother, I don't think really, our grandmother didn't really

know what either one of us was doing.

She was very confused.

I was like, they're doing what?

They're taking other people's who?

I don't get it.

And so she didn't make that connection for our moms until Kate moved to

Texas because she didn't want her son to not have cousins around,

like Kate is an only child, and our parents lived thousands of miles away.

So, now her,

so, so.

her kids have,

when I moved to Texas, yeah, so when I moved to Texas, Carrie and I quickly

realized the, um, similarities.

We started training together.

Literally as soon as I got here, uh, when I moved here, I went to work

for the women's business development center, the Texas center for women's

business enterprise and you know, we fit, we worked well together.

We started a substitute service.

Uh, we learned a lot about ourselves in our late 20s.

Um, like, I'm not the person you call on a Thursday night and

again, we didn't have voicemail.

We didn't have other ways of communication.

We had a, we had a pager.

But they had to call me.

And so Thursday night when you're drunk and you need a substitute for

Friday morning, I quickly discovered I'm not the person you call.

so that that venture, we did a great job, like, so such a great

job that people would hire our substitutes and so we did too good

of a job hiring and training staff.

Um, but we didn't learn the, if you hire our people, this is,

you're going to pay us money.

Like we didn't learn that.

And we definitely learned our strengths and weaknesses and we continued

to work with and for each other.

I actually worked for Carrie at one point in time as a

director of one of her programs.

And that was after her husband worked for me, at my publishing firm.

And I think actually did my husband go to work?

Yeah.

My husband actually went to work for you before I went to work for you.

yes, yes.

Time, it's confusing.

Wow.

I don't even know how to unravel all this.

Our normal first question, next question is, What do you

love about working with family?

And it's like, wow.

You kind of,

I think it'd be a shorter list to tell you what I don't like and it's

Go for it.

I mean, and I have now worked together for 25 years.

And so I obviously like working with Carrie.

Um, we both would have relatives and may even be the same relative that

we we learned an awful lot about the type of people we would not work with

mm hmm.

in our family.

Yeah, I have are three members of my family that i've worked with that.

I will never work with again because I want to continue to have a good positive

family relationship with and they were We could not together Keep that

those boundaries clear of this is when

Mm hmm.

I'm wearing my working hat and this is when i'm wearing my family hat And

if they can't keep those boundaries clear, then you can't work with them

Right.

True.

True.

Right.

And that's a, that's, you know, it's a communication issue, it's a, it might

be a parenting issue from their past, you know, there's so many things that

come into that, but that's, that's so key that you have to make that

choice, or there, there are times when you have to make that choice.

Which relationship am I going to preserve?

Yeah, and, you know, like, for instance, one of them is one of my parents siblings,

so we'll just leave that nice and vague in case they happen to listen to the episode,

um, but one of my parents siblings could not stop seeing me as an adolescent girl,

That happens.

if they continue to see me as an adolescent girl, then any of the

ideas I come up with Are the ideas of an adolescent girl and that's just

not going to work if we're trying to have a business relationship.

So it

Right.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Right,

to be able to have a professional working relationship and it's not

that I'm not up to the task or that they're not up to the task.

They just can't make that mental shift from adolescence to mature

adult with lots of good ideas.

And I know

and there's a lot more to that than just having a conversation.

I mean, you can talk about it, and they can say, Yes, yes, I'll change,

I'll do that, but if they're not gonna do the thing, you know, the work,

Yeah,

you know, change that

I've worked

over time.

with my mother in three different businesses that she's had over the years.

Wow.

In the first one, I was a child.

And she treated me like a child.

I mean, this sounds like...

I don't know.

This is a bible verse in my head Um, and then we put away childish things and then

I worked with her when I was in my early 20's to get enough money to open my school

and she treated me like a young adult who hasn't been in the workforce for 10 years.

And then the third time we worked together,

it was in real estate development and my mother had never worked in an industry

that had a whole lot of government oversight, which is all child care is

it is like so much government oversight.

And so I took the role of doing those things.

And my mother's perceptions of me as an adult changed radically because there was

this thing that she couldn't do it all.

I did it like I was a fish swimming in water.

You know, not a problem.

Okay.

So every time we have a conversation, you have to send an email confirming what was

said in the conversation to that person.

And if possible, also their supervisor And she was like, why?

Why?

I was like, because they will forget what they said and then try to get

cite you for something that they told you that you were supposed to do.

And she was like, people wouldn't do that.

And I was like.

Yes, they will, and it's not necessarily malicious, but they

don't remember the conversation.

And if you've sent the email, you can go, as per our email of

March 5th, this is what we're doing, and you signed off on it.

So, like, I've gone through all three phases with one person in my

family it's amazing the difference in our relationship since we did

the real estate development because now she sees us as completely equal.

She may have more knowledge in one area, but she knows that I've

got more knowledge in others.

So it's, if you've worked with a family member and it didn't

work out, wait, come back to it.

Try it again.

Cause.

You've got shortcuts in your conversation when you've known

somebody for, I don't know, 50 years.

Just makes it easier.

Yep.

So

Yep, oh man.

been really lucky that we've had only spouses, but in laws who've

supported our business endeavors.

So whether it was my know, my first husband or

gonna

sound like a serial spouse, but but anyway, um, and so that was with my first

husband, Carrie's husband and his family.

They've all been very supportive.

And I think that that is how we were able to continue to be

entrepreneurs and run our businesses.

But, you know, we've got cousins and 2nd cousins and our moms have cousins

that have all been entrepreneurs.

So it's

Wow.

also we're not like the redheaded stepchild at a family reunion, right?

We really everybody kind of understands.

We don't sit around and talk business.

there is a level of understanding.

And sometimes even though we may not have worked with somebody,

somebody may have been an investor.

So like Carrie's mom and my grandmother were both investors

in the publishing company that I bought into when I moved to Texas.

So I didn't really, I didn't work with them, but I was accountable to them.

Um, and there were definitely provisions that came with those investments.

Yeah.

Um,

Well, and that's a, that's a little bit different relationship and that, you

know, that a lot of small businesses don't, , have many people in the

family that are part owners and yet don't work in the business, but as

family enterprises grow, that becomes a much bigger part of the puzzle.

And that's where there's so much negotiation and and communication

and understanding that has to happen because those people's wishes have

to be taken into account and and there has to be meetings and all that

so I'm so glad you brought that up.

well, and the real estate project that Carrie and her mom were part of were

actually with a whole other family unit.

So it was them.

And then another family unit of siblings, a spouse, um, of of a

business partner who passed away.

So.

You know, he and he was the visual one and everybody else kind of was in the back and

so it was like Carrie and my aunt and then like his brother, his sister, his wife

Oh my

a whole other version of

The wife

to manipulate, you know, how

wasn't involved until he died, and she didn't know anything

about business, so that was fun.

Um, when she became a co general partner and had no business background,

Yes

or

another

background.

Yes, that's a whole another flavor there that a property manager we

know calls them accidental landlords.

Yep.

You know, but you know, accidental business owners, same way, you know,

husband passes away and all of a sudden the wife's, You know, in

business with maybe a partner or other business partners, and oh my goodness.

And there's planning that can take place ahead of that if it's done.

Have you We've been talking to our lawyer?

Exactly.

Oh my goodness.

We got that homework assignment from our attorney of, you need to

put all this in your paperwork.

And we're like, nah, we don't.

she's

Yeah, you do.

do.

I actually heard that from an investment advisor.

He was talking about, you know, a buy-sell agreement, how important it is to have

a buy-sell agreement for exactly that.

Yeah.

And we

And some insurance that

people to

pays for the buyout.

We advise people to do it all the time.

Does that mean that we had it in place for this business of ours?

No, but we've had it for other businesses each of us have had,

just not the one with our cousin.

So

Well, and now we're so now Texas director is actually growing and we

are launching a Um, a much larger scale version of our business.

And so we're really excited about the, about the growth and what's

happening over the next two years.

And so we've now gone from.

What you would call absolutely a small business, but in two years, you're

not going to put us in that category.

Um, and we're excited about it.

I think

So is this, um, is this franchising?

similar concept.

So we're going to go with licensing.

Uh huh.

excited about opportunities and programs we've got coming up, , and

wonderful.

all dovetails into things like our podcast and books and, and public speaking

and all those other things that we do.

So we're really excited about moving that forward.

So people in other states.

That was one of the questions I wanted to ask.

Is Texas Director just, do you just serve people in Texas?

Or do you, are you nationwide or are you expanding?

So, I

Our podcast serves people on a national level, Childcare Conversations with

Kate and Carrie, shameless plug.

And our books of course, serve people in the United States and internationally.

And we had people coming to us going, Hey, how do we get your training?

And we were like, let's think about that.

and so we, I've been in the franchising side of, been a franchisor, been part

of a company where I was a franchisor.

And, um, then we also did the company run shops and I was like, I need

something in between these two.

Um, that's not company run shops and it isn't franchising and

licensing is that in between.

I see.

Yeah.

Very cool.

we're really excited about where that's headed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We have a proven model.

We've had our business model online since 2005.

This is a product that we've had online for 19 years, very successful.

And, and very much part time.

It was truly the side hustle before side hustles were a thing.

Oh.

most of the time, one or both of us had a full time gig as well as Texas Director.

And so we're really excited about a, now that we are empty nesters, um, In

theory and um, or at least in schedule.

I will say it that way.

I am an empty nester in schedule Half of them well more than half still live

here but I don't have to manage what they do anyway Carrie and I are able

and excited about creating our future our retirement plan and serving even

more child care directors, business owners, teachers and children.

As of right now, we've already served over a million children; impacted more

than a million children and directors and owners through the trainings

we've provided in the last 23 years.

Well, wow.

That yeah.

So that one of my questions, our questions we'd love to ask is, you know, is what

would be a piece of advice that would, you would give other small family

business owners from your experience and you've got so much and you're

in the business of providing advice.

So lay it on us,

You've got to have an exit strategy.

And you should probably have two.

One for if the other members of your family want to continue on

after you are like, I'm done, thank you, I'm gonna go to Tahiti.

Um, so one is if your children or, you know, siblings, whoever

is involved, want to continue on.

And then another one,

I wanted to, I ran away to Orlando.

Yeah, Kate quit and went to Orlando and I bought her out.

And so that was her exit strategy.

And then she came back and she wanted back in as if, but so we made that happen.

But if your family members don't want the business, you're no longer

involved because for some people Part of the joy of working in that family

business is that family connection?

And if you're not there anymore don't want it So you need to have two versions

of an exit strategy one for how to sell it to an unknown third party and one how

to turn it over to The next generation or the sibling or or whatever so

internal succession kind of.

That's brilliant.

I've never heard that said before and I love it.

I love it.

Well, I would actually add two things to that too, which is remember to have

time to keep that family relationship.

What do I mean by that?

So our moms think that Carrie and I spend all this time together, which we do, but

we generally are pretty business focused.

And so there are times where I really don't know what's going on in

Carrie's personal life and vice versa.

And it's hard to try to explain that to other people who are like, but

you spend all this time together.

Yeah.

But we're working, you know, you know, we're, we're launching a book, we're,

we're doing this, we're doing that.

So although we might spend 30 hours a week on the phone or in meetings

or, or interviews or whatever, that's not 30 hours a week hanging out.

So I think that's really important.

And then for us also, I think there's been, a struggle with the whole mind shift

and the mindset of growing a business.

As a small business, I think that's one of the things that we are learning right

now as we transition to both being full time and growing the business is there

is that mind shift of not being a small business that, um, sometimes you need to

find a coach or a consultant or somebody to hold your hand through that process.

And we're all about finding team members.

Yeah, we do not try to do this on our own.

We have coaches.

We have partners.

We have consultants.

We hire it done.

That we definitely learned to I think Carrie, over the years is stop

trying to be the jack of all trades.

yeah

and recognize when you're going to save a lot of time and money by hiring

a professional who can do in an hour if you can do it and it's going to

take you eight hours to get it done, but I can do it Where it would have

been better to spend the 200 bucks for somebody who can get it done in an hour.

Yeah, I mean I think that's one of those things that I learned from,

you know, your virtual coaches, the people on podcasts or whatever.

So, I don't remember if it was Russell Brunson or Dean Graziosi, but

one of them said, you come up with a new problem, think who, not how.

Who can solve this problem, not how do I solve this problem?

Who can solve it?

Because, That's one of the things that having a little bit of flexibility

in your budget allows Is for you to go who can solve this as opposed to

spending your time, which is a non renewable resource Figuring it out

where money is a renewable resource.

You can go get more of that.

You can't go get more time

Could have been either one of them because they probably

learned from each other but yes

They're in a mastermind together.

That and that is I want to say that is the the one of the really essential things

that you were talking about kate about the the mind shift from running a business to

i'm changing your words a tiny bit but, running a business to growing a business.

Right?

And and that that you do have to think differently and

that's what we're all about.

So I love that this came up Yeah, because what got you this point is not

going to get you to the next point.

And and there's different levels of thinking that have to happen and mostly

it's simplification so that That you know who and who can do this instead

of me and the willingness to do that.

I think that's where a lot of small businesses get hung In in

their in trying to grow is that that the founder can't let go.

You know, nobody can do it like I can.

We had that.

And the delegation.

and

Yeah, we're struggling with that right now as far as growing and staying in

our lanes because we both have done Um You know, for over half of the life of

the business, I was the primary person and then Carrie was the primary person.

And so now we're like, well, what do you like to do?

There we go.

do, how do, how do we stay in the lanes of

Mm hmm.

we're good at?

And we were really excited.

We, I love it when Carrie listens to podcasts and then we have

meetings and people go, well, why don't you just have so and so?

And then we like brought in so and so and we're like, Oh, yeah, we

were never going to get to where we wanted to without killing each other

without bringing in so and so, right?

Right.

But now it's the "What

exactly is my lane and do I always have to stay here?"

Can I come over here and play?

The answer's no stay out of my lane

Or maybe find a way to play, play in that, in another aspect, you know,

experimental or smaller where it's not impacting the main flow of the business.

I mean we do

things together still we haven't um, we're not yet to the point where it

really is Um From a time standpoint.

No, you're, you're 40 plus hours need to be in your lane.

Um, we're, we still have, and we're still teaching the others how to, like,

Well, and know

to

their do their job.

Take the the Apple example, right?

The two Steve's Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs still had meetings Even once it

became very clear That was was in charge of actually doing things and Steve was in

charge of thinking up things but because they knew how to brainstorm off of each

other when they would get stuck in their area they could come together and Since

they'd both done both parts You They brainstormed really well together and

I think that's one of the things that family businesses have a leg up on any

other kind of business because you already know how to brainstorm well together.

You may have been brainstorming where are we going to eat on Sunday, but

hmm.

been brainstorming for a long time together and.

Skill transfers into the business arena.

Okay.

Well said.

Yeah.

Because we start negotiations early, don't we?

Yeah.

know, who's bringing what to Christmas dinner?

Yes.

We're talking about,

I'm only making that sound because of the four kids.

I feel like that's all I've done.

Um, and I got, I got one that's way better at it than, than the rest of us.

And, and, um, Carrie has a sibling who, um, I think he thinks

that's all he was born to do.

so.

Lots of remembering of family conversations

Mm hmm.

decades of, you know, versions of my children, her children,

siblings, cousins, you know, trying to out negotiate each other.

Absolutely.

fun.

So fun.

Oh.

Wow, we've got lots to talk about.

We definitely can offer some ideas about some of those shifts.

And I love what you said, , it's more efficient to hire it out to, uh, somebody

that can do it now, or instead of spending eight hours doing it, however,

it's also really effective if you've

done it at least once, because then you can supervise that person that you're

hiring and they can't pull the wool over your eyes with a bunch of stuff.

yeah, need to know how to supervise it.

And so sometimes I hire it done and then I have them explain it all to me the way

Right.

it.

And then I do additional research.

So sometimes

Smart.

to get somebody in there to get it done today.

And then you can come back in and go, okay, okay.

How do we do this going forward?

So

Right.

Yeah.

And how to tweak it.

Well also with that, what's really great is , just because you have somebody

who's really good doesn't mean it's the only person and that sometimes it's

worth because so many new tools, right?

Especially when you start thinking about technology or anything that's

technology based, whether it's internal systems, external systems,

there's constantly new tools.

So, even though you might have somebody who's really good and who

appears to be really efficient.

There now be maybe tools that can do their job that maybe they don't even know.

I think that that's why it's, it's worth definitely doing those check ins

on business systems, business software, um, and, and meeting with different

people when time allows, you've got to, you got to do the, you got to work in

the business and work on the business.

Um, you can't, you know, you got to pay some attention to that stuff,

Yeah.

always be looking for new things.

I mean, I think all of this also reflects back on what we were talking about the,

the accidental landlord, the accidental business owner, um, that's part of why we

wrote the book that just came out from O.

S.

H.

Asterix I.

T.

to I got this.

don't know if we're allowed to curse, so we won't.

Um,

I think you can.

okay.

So

We're adults.

got this,

Because if you are

an oops, My parent passed away.

My partner, we got, you know, there was a divorce, whatever.

And you're now a business owner and hadn't actually planned to be one,

having a book that addresses some of those issues of that was not the

plan or, Oh, this is a great idea.

I'm going to start a business and it's going to be wonderful and

da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.

And you're full force with the enthusiasm.

And then you're like, four months in and you're like, what did I do?

ha ha.

Ah.

It doesn't mean that men can't read the book.

Um, but a lot of our stories and situations are female entrepreneur

based for those women who had like, maybe they were a stay at

home mom with a side hustle y thing, and then the husband was laid off.

so we've got all kinds of situations in the book to kind of

illustrate what we were thinking.

Uh, when we wrote those chapters.

And we're really excited because that book is just a wonderful stepping stone

from our very 1st book that we wrote that that was translated into Spanish.

And then within the next week or so, we have

Book number 6 coming out that we've co authored and that book

is about don't chasing monkeys.

And so it's great for family business owners and people who

have to figure out that boundary.

Maybe you're a person who doesn't who's...

hasn't quite figured out the whole delegating process, and

you really want to help people.

And so sometimes, you know, you help them and they haven't actually asked for it.

And so that's kind of the premise of Don't Chase the Monkey.

yeah, I think, know, you, if, if you think about the farm analogy, right?

Um, so you're working on a farm, you've got the traditional version, right?

So you've got your high school student working on the farm with you and they say,

I'm having a really hard time putting the corn in and you're like, oh well Let me go

look at the let me go look at the tractor And then you spend 45 minutes fixing the

alignment because something was wrong on the alignment of the tractor Well that

teenager didn't ask you for that help.

just coming to you to kind of go This is harder than I thought it

would be and you're like I fix it for you And they're like I didn't

even know that was the problem.

What I'm saying is sitting in the seat in the combine for three hours

was harder than I thought it was gonna be and you fixed a problem.

It just wasn't the problem they were having

And it might, and what the problem they were having might

not have needed fixing at all.

Right.

They just need to have to learn how to sit on their rear end for three hours

without things plugged into their ears.

And they might want to just been heard.

This sounds a little bit like a conversation, you know, we've had

about, you know, husband and wife.

You know, with the male, maybe the male dynamic of, you know, I want to fix things

when she tells me something's not working.

She's upset about something.

I want to like go beat somebody up or fix it somehow.

And she's like, will you just let me talk?

Just shut up long enough just to listen.

That's all I need.

And if you can't listen, I'll go talk to my pillow.

So I'm, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a process of, there's a, there's a really

important conversation, uh, communication key there about, so let me, let me make

sure it's checking for understanding.

It's an alignment thing, you know?

So what is it that you need from me or what exactly is the problem?

Yeah.

And so that's a lot of what we talked about.

with that

Sorry.

Absolutely.

It is definitely what we talk about in the book.

As I say, one of the things that I love with that, John, is we often

encourage business owners to find other business owners to vent with that,

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

you want to keep that relationship.

And if every time you need to vent, you go to your spouse, your spouse

is either going to always try to fix it, they're going to try to

figure out why are you doing this?

If you're that miserable and really.

And so it's easier to go find those peer relationships in your industry, or maybe

just in business in general, that can go, oh, let me tell you and, um, and then

that way it's it's your cup of coffee.

It's your Friday night wine friend.

It could be a virtual.

that you just know will so relate to what you've got going on and

it really saves that relationship.

Mm hmm.

as long as the perception isn't that that person now becomes more

important than the relationship.

Right.

Wise, wise words.

Wow.

Is there anything that you wish you had known before you started all this?

Is there any one thing that you went, Cool.

would say probably 1 of the things in addition to the term balance.

was to put my own longterm, remember myself in longterm planning.

Oh, good.

um, with either husband number one or husband number two,

I always put the kids first.

I always put the family first.

And so when, um, unexpectedly marriage number two ended, um, After, you know,

24 years, there was no savings for me.

Ah.

There was no retirement plan for me.

And so there's a component that I would tell every business owner

and it's actually the last chapter in our book of oh, shit, is.

Make a commitment to both of you to having your own retirement programs,

um, not just maybe the one with a job.

So, if somebody else runs a business, make sure they're also putting themselves

first into that retirement program.

What, even if it's something small, even if, you know, even if it was 100 a month.

For 24 years, there would have been something.

Mm hmm.

Right.

And, um,

it's not necessarily that you're planning for divorce.

It's

No.

No.

if somebody loses their job or becomes disabled?

You're, you're planning for.

All of us will probably eventually become disabled.

We're hoping it's in our 90s, right?

But sometimes it's a short term disability like a broken arm that makes

it such that I need to have money In an account so that I can pay for ubers

and taxis and stuff because I can't drive without my right hand I've been

I'm the right hand.

So between my husband and Kate, I'm getting around and the occasional Uber.

Um,

you go.

if I didn't have a husband who was doing his programming from the

house and Kate wasn't in one of her flexible weeks, you know, there's

times when Kate would not have been able to help me with transportation

You're

I need to have a separate account for dealing with that short term disability.

And sometimes short term disabilities become long term disabilities, and

you've got to have savings in an account for all the members of the management

team, so that if they fall and break an arm, or if they get or if they

start deciding that huff and glue is their full time occupation, We have a

way for them to deal with it and for the business to continue to function.

smart.

Absolutely.

Amazing.

Wonderful, wonderful advice.

Yes.

That's, that seems like a perfect place to, to say, let people

just settle with that for a bit.

Yeah.

So, I, uh, you showed your book.

I, I wanna, I wanna make sure I put in the, you know, the show notes.

I'll put your website.

I'll put a link to the book, um, other stuff and, uh, so people can

find you and I wanna stay in touch about your program expansion , so

we can keep that updated as well.

Can we see the covers of both books that you have?

Well, I can give you the cover of the book that's out which is from oh

Right.

got this Um yours

Right.

this little gray bar across it that it says author copy

Okay.

The other book we don't have the cover back yet on um, this is it's

Sort of workbook that goes with

Right.

So have some of these same graphics.

It just won't be called this it will be called Don't Chase the Monkey

Don't Chase the Monkey.

But if you

Great.

look either of us up on Amazon you'll be able to find the books.

Okay.

You can also find all of the books at I-got-this-books dot com.

Great.

We'll put that in the show notes also.

Gotthisbooks.

com.

I love it.

Great.

Ladies, any other closing words of wisdom you'd like to give us?

Like to?

No.

Yeah, I think you know work.

I'm sure Carrie has something we should probably say.

I

No, tell me what you,

what were you gonna say, Kate?

I would just, I really want people when they're listening to this

episode or any episode by y'all, just to remember that they've got this.

And that they can do whatever their, their plans are, their dreams are.

And, um, you can be that superhero.

we just love people knowing that they've got this.

Well said.

Well said.

Well, thank you so much.

I can't wait to uh, to hear the feedback from this episode and look forward to

future conversations with both of you.

This has been so much fun.

Oh my gosh, we laughed till we cried, literally.

I

look forward to being able to go to a concert with y'all

Yes, yes, very much.

We'll stay in touch.

Absolutely.

Thank you.