Kris is joined by longtime friend, business visionary, and rockstar early childhood leader Rachel Supalla. Rachel is the founder of Vision Tree, a TEDx speaker, and the author of The Playful Leader’s Toolkit, a book packed with wisdom on leading with joy, grounding, and energy. With 10 schools across Montana and Utah, Rachel shares how she’s scaled her business while embracing what she calls “ruby slipper leadership.” They talk about managing energy instead of time, why remote teams need tight leadership structures, and how playfulness is more than just dress-up — it’s a strategy for productivity.
Rachel also opens up about living with ADHD and how it shapes her leadership style, creativity, and drive.
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Below you can read the full episode:
0:00:08 Kris Murray: Welcome to Child Care Rockstar Radio. I am your host, Kris Murray. Child care leaders around the globe are breaking through challenges, leading the way in innovation, testing new best practices, and impacting children and families in a much more powerful and positive way than ever before. Each week, join me for interviews with early childhood leaders and experts that will leave you inspired to become the next Childcare Rockstar.
0:00:34 Kris Murray: Now, let’s go. This is Childcare Rockstar Radio, episode 208 featuring Rachel Supala. Welcome back. I’m so glad that you’re here with me. This is Chris Murray. I’m the host of this amazing podcast. If I do say so myself, I’ll brag on it just to skosh. Rachel Supala, my guest today is having a moment, as they say. She recently launched a incredible leadership book and she had did a TED Talk. So if you haven’t seen her TED Talk, you definitely need to check it out. And in this episode, you get to meet her. You get to learn more about all of her endeavors, her early learning journey, and the times that we had together as she was a coach on my team from, geez, I don’t know, 2019-2022 or something like that.
0:01:33 Kris Murray: Rachel’s a great coach and she’s an incredible speaker, author and leader extraordinaire, CEO, founder. One of the things that we talk about on this episode is protecting your energy, managing your energy, how to find playful energy as a leader in an early learning setting when you just don’t feel like it, and maybe how to inspire yourself to stand up and create magic in your ruby slippers, as it were. And that’s what we titled this episode was Creating Leadership Magic in her Ruby Slippers, which are some themes in her book that we talk about, and how to run a remote team. She’s actually got three different regions in two states that she’s managing a lot of child care centers, and so many I can’t keep track of the exact number.
0:02:34 Kris Murray: One of the really big writer downers in this episode is Rachel shares about a max of 10 direct reports so that no more than 10 people report to a given director, assistant director, or administrator. And that keeps the load of how many people you’re managing and leading manageable. So it protects your energy. And I just love that. I’ve never heard anybody implementing that exact strategy. But I think it’s brilliant.
0:03:04 Kris Murray: And so much more to be shared here on the podcast. Before we dive into Rachel’s episode, I just want to mention that prior to this episode, I was honored and had so much fun interviewing Gigi Schweikart. She is in episode 207. And coming up after this episode, I want you to stay tuned for an incredible mother daughter story with Taya and Trina. They won our partnership of the year award at the Child Care Success Summit and they’re going to regale us with tales of a multi generational ECE company in Michigan with three locations.
0:03:48 Kris Murray: So that’s coming up in episode 209. So I just kind of wanted to give you the golden thread, the through line of what’s going on here at the podcast. Make sure that you’re tuning in to all of the amazing content that we are sharing with the world right now. And with that, let’s just dive in. Without any further ado, let’s meet Rachel Supala here on Child Care Rockstar Radio. Welcome back to the podcast, everybody. I’m very excited about this one.
0:04:28 Kris Murray: I’ve got my friend Rachel Supala back in the podcast studio. Rachel, how are you?
0:04:34 Rachel Supalla: I am super good and I’m excited to be here with you today. And we’re just gonna have fun.
0:04:38 Kris Murray: Yeah, absolutely. Where are you right now? Where are you sitting?
0:04:42 Rachel Supalla: I am home in Montana. Home for the summer. I love it. Cool.
0:04:48 Kris Murray: And we’re in Montana. For those that don’t know you in.
0:04:50 Rachel Supalla: Helena, Montana, we live on Hauser Lake. So it’s definitely my happy place and where I am at my most grounded and at at peace.
0:05:03 Kris Murray: Nice. Awesome. Well, welcome back to the show. Rachel was on the podcast Back on Episode 92 several years ago and thrilled to bring you back today. Tell us, for those that aren’t familiar with you, tell us a little bit about your role in early childhood education.
0:05:26 Rachel Supalla: I am a child care owner. I have 10 locations in Montana and in Utah. And I’m also a author and a TED Talk speaker recently, and also a child care business consultant and speaker.
0:05:45 Kris Murray: Awesome. Your 10 schools is quite something. In addition to that, you’re a mom and a grandma. So we’re going to get into your home life and all the things that you have going on. But that’s, that’s a lot. That’s a lot of different roles and identities on your plate that I’m sure can pull at you from time to time. So we should also talk about how you manage to keep all those plates spinning in the air.
0:06:13 Kris Murray: Before we do that, just give us some highlights of your journey. I’ll just mention that Rachel was one of her highlights was being a child care success business coach with us at the academy for a few years and then prior to that you were a client. And so just talk about your growth and how you scaled your company or any other highlights of your journey that you want to share.
0:06:36 Rachel Supalla: Yeah, for sure. So I started out as an owner and I went to a summit and with my then partner and we decided we need to jump on this. We need to drink the kool aid and we want to be part of this academy, part of the cool kids club. So we joined the academy, loved it, and then it did. It became our tribe. And still to this day, I mean, I still am friends with several of my people that I met in the academy.
0:07:05 Rachel Supalla: And then I decided I wanted to try to help also with the things that I had learned and applied to be a coach and then got to be a coach. And I learned so much about scaling my business, also being part on the employee side of being part of the child care success Academy. I learned a lot about. About scaling my business and running a business remotely. I think that’s probably where I learned the most about how to run a remote team was being an employee for the childcare success academy. So that was really helpful because then, you know, Covid hit and we had to learn how to do a lot of things remote. And I don’t think I would have been able to scale properly if I hadn’t learned all of that behind the scenes what it takes to run a remote team adequately during that time.
0:07:55 Rachel Supalla: And then, yeah, we just scaled. We bought three schools in one year and then a couple months later bought two more schools. So we not only scaled, like added locations, we added two regions. And I think that’s something that I was never taught. I didn’t know how to do. I didn’t think that was going to be a big deal until we actually did it. But what I learned is now I have three regions that are set up. So now we can scale even better because we’ve got the proper systems and leadership teams and all of that in place.
0:08:30 Rachel Supalla: And then I started Vision Tree after I left the academy and have been doing that and mostly business consulting, mostly on the. I would say the executive bench, mentor, teacher. Like that kind of side is what I mostly coach on and scaling those teams.
0:08:51 Kris Murray: Cool. Tell us a little bit about your family life. You’re there in Montana and just kids, grandkids, husband. What do you like to do in your personal time? That kind of a thing.
0:09:05 Rachel Supalla: I love the lake. I love to boat. We got a surfboat last year, so we love surfing. I’m not so good at it, but I keep trying, but I Love my son. Watching him son surface. And I have four kids. My second daughter got married this year at our house on the lake, which was beautiful. And my oldest daughter is getting married in November. And my son is in college at msu, Montana State. And my youngest son is in high school still. He plays football and we’re a big football family.
0:09:42 Rachel Supalla: And then my daughter had our grandson Zeke in October, and he’s nine months old. And he’s just such. It’s the best thing ever. I know everyone says it’s super cliche, like have grandkids. They’re the best. It totally is the best. Like, I can’t even explain it. So, yeah, honestly, close to all of our kids and they’re here a lot, which I love, which is great. Yeah.
0:10:06 Kris Murray: Yeah. You look way too young to be a grandma.
0:10:08 Rachel Supalla: Just gonna say, well, I, I’m not one of those. I thought I was going to be in one of those. Like, don’t call me grandma. I don’t want to be a grandma. But I’m not one of those. I, I embrace it.
0:10:19 Kris Murray: Nice.
0:10:20 Rachel Supalla: I’m loving my 40s. I think it’s my favorite era so far.
0:10:25 Kris Murray: Yeah. Good. Well, I think you’re going to love your 50s even more just because experience. It’s pretty great. Cool.
0:10:33 Rachel Supalla: Yeah.
0:10:33 Kris Murray: Cool. I love that. What is a fun fact about you that not that many people know?
0:10:39 Rachel Supalla: Fun fact about me, I went to Ireland when I was 13. My grandma took me there and we traveled around and like, studied her heritage. And so we went to different grave sites and different, you know, different things all through Ireland. And she told everyone that she was my sister. So she would take me to pubs with her. And one, and one pub, we were playing this game and all these people were like, what’s something that you can do? And I said, well, I can kind of sing.
0:11:13 Rachel Supalla: And so I stood on a table in the pub and sang A Whole New World from Aladdin, you know, 13 year old girl.
0:11:19 Kris Murray: Oh, my God, that’s awesome. Yeah. I didn’t know you could sing a little bit. Yeah, Love it. Very cool. And do you remember what counties, what county was she from? Do you remember?
0:11:32 Rachel Supalla: We went to County Clare.
0:11:34 Kris Murray: Okay.
0:11:34 Rachel Supalla: And also Dublin.
0:11:37 Kris Murray: Yeah.
0:11:38 Rachel Supalla: But yeah, it was awesome. So we got to explore the country and stay in youth hostels and. First time I saw a naked man. Because you’re in the youth hostel and everyone’s getting ready together, right?
0:11:51 Kris Murray: Yeah. So that’s awesome.
0:11:52 Rachel Supalla: That’s cool.
0:11:53 Kris Murray: Yeah. My grandma is from County Cork.
0:11:55 Rachel Supalla: Okay.
0:11:56 Kris Murray: And I have not been to Ireland yet. It is very high on my list, so if probably the top on my list. So to get to Ireland.
0:12:03 Rachel Supalla: So, yeah, highly recommend.
0:12:05 Kris Murray: Yeah.
0:12:06 Rachel Supalla: Kiss the Blarney Stone.
0:12:07 Kris Murray: I gotta do that. That’s happening. Cool.
0:12:11 Rachel Supalla: Yeah, cool.
0:12:12 Kris Murray: Love that. That’s super fun. Let’s talk about your book. So I want to, I’m going to ask you about running a remote team. I’m going to ask you about your regions. But before we get there, I want to show everyone that’s watching this on YouTube, this beautiful book, the Playful Leaders Toolkit. And if you’re listening to the podcast, you can check it out on Amazon. The Playful Leaders Toolkit. Creating a legacy of joy and magic in Ruby Slippers.
0:12:43 Kris Murray: What inspired you to write this book?
0:12:46 Rachel Supalla: I have done everything wrong as far as like scaling, so I’ve had to learn and I have adhd. So my husband always says I do everything the backwards wrong way. But I think in that process, because of that, there’s a lot of discovery and exploration that comes along with that. And I learn a lot from it. I’m always like failing forward. Like John Maxwell’s book Looking Backwards. What did I do wrong? How could I do it better next time?
0:13:15 Rachel Supalla: And taking notes. And that’s kind of what this book is. It’s a toolkit for everything that I did wrong, that I figured out how to do it a better way. So I wanted to share that with people because that’s one of my biggest joys. You know, you go up the ladder in life when you’re succeeding and you’re accomplishing and you get to this level of contribution and that’s the level that I feel like I’m at. And I want to give back. I want to help people do it faster, the right way from my mistakes.
0:13:44 Rachel Supalla: So that’s what inspired me to write that book.
0:13:47 Kris Murray: Cool. Well, it’s chock full of tools and ideas and strategies and checklists and you know, of course your story is told along the way. One big component of that book is the sub headline with regard to Ruby Slippers. So talk a little bit about what shoes mean to you. What are, what is the how do. What is the role that shoes play in your life?
0:14:13 Rachel Supalla: The shoe I, when we, when I was a coach in the academy, this was a big thing and it was kind of like this little mini competition that all of us coaches had, like, who’s going to show up with the most fabulous shoes? And of course Tamina wins every time. But we would all come with our fabulous shoes and like whatever, all the different things and so that I think started it, my love of shoes. But also when you put shoe, when you put a fabulous pair of shoes on, it just, you’re like, it gives you confidence, it grounds you, it completes an outfit, it helps you. When you walk into the room, you’re, you know, facing forward, all of those things. So that’s like a metaphor of being grounded in ruby slippers. But it’s also, you could be barefoot on the, on the grass or, you know, whatever, wherever it is that grounds you. And so that kind of was the idea behind the shoes.
0:15:09 Rachel Supalla: And when you’re looking for some shoes are a statement too. So I’m a theme girl, you know, so it’s like, I’m going to speak on this topic, what shoes am I going to wear? So. And it always kind of helps complete everything. And that was also what helped give me the idea that it grounds me because once I’ve got the right shoes, then I know what I’m going to talk about. I know how I’m going to feel, I know how I’m going to present myself.
0:15:35 Rachel Supalla: So that’s where that story came from with the.
0:15:38 Kris Murray: No, I love that. That’s so. It’s such a great metaphor and I love the. The grounding component. Yourself, as somebody who has struggled with adhd, it was really helpful in the book to give those concepts around the grounding because it helps bring you back down to earth when sometimes you might feel like you’re, you’re scattered and you’re all over the place. Right. So I don’t have adhd, but my son does, has struggled with it more so when he was little than. Than now. But talk a little bit about that component if you wouldn’t mind sharing, because I know a lot of listeners to this podcast do struggle with whether they have been diagnosed with it or they just feel running a childcare center, that they’re constantly being pulled in all those directions. They might feel like they have adhd.
0:16:30 Kris Murray: So talk a little bit about how you. What are some ways that you’ve learned to bring that to your advantage as a leader?
0:16:42 Rachel Supalla: A lot of it is, and this started honestly when I was coaching for the academy because I had to do a presentation about it. And anytime I have to do a presentation, I do my own research. And one of them, it was about time management. And as I was preparing and researching, I thought, this is all a big frickin lie. I’m not going to go up here and tell everyone I manage my time so well by doing X, Y and Z. No, that’s not true.
0:17:09 Rachel Supalla: So what I figured out was I need to learn how to manage my energy better because that’s when I’m most productive, is when my energy is managed. It doesn’t have anything to do with time. You can have time blocked, you can have all the time in the world, but if your energy sucks, you’re not going to get anything done. You’re going to pick up your phone and you’re going to scroll or whatever. So figuring out my own rhythm and how to manage my energy and how to protect that with boundaries and non negotiables and put those into place, that’s when I was really able to pay attention to ew. I feel icky. I don’t want to open this email or I don’t want to work on this spreadsheet right now.
0:17:48 Rachel Supalla: And then when I did pick up, I want to do those things I wrote, wrote it down like this is a good energy time for working on a high performance task. You know, things like that. So that’s what’s really helped me with my adhd and also having training my team and my like assistant around what works best for me has also helped me be more productive because I know I’m not going to be productive from this time to this time. So I’m not even going to try. It’s just going to be a waste.
0:18:17 Rachel Supalla: I think that’s been the biggest thing, is learning to manage my energy.
0:18:22 Kris Murray: Cool. I love that. So let’s talk about that in context of running a remote team. What are some strategies that you’ve used in managing your energy and then having these three regions and as you’ve scaled, what are some ways that you’ve had to shift and grow as a leader around your energy?
0:18:43 Rachel Supalla: I at first, like I said, team was my biggest thing. I loved my team. I love having a tribe. I love, you know, I preached on it, all of those things. But as we grew, I almost had to mourn that connection, that closeness that I had with a smaller team and I had to figure out, okay, now what does this look like now that I’m running a bigger team with three regions and how do I still have that connection?
0:19:10 Rachel Supalla: And, and that’s when I really leaned into the EOS with direct reports. And we are very strict on you don’t have more than 10 direct reports and you do those one on ones with those 10 or less direct reports. You man, it’s almost like in childcare we have the primary caregiver system. It’s the same kind of concept but with Running a team. These 10 people, they’re my people. That’s my tribe. I’m still part of the 200 people that work for me, but these are the ones that I’m really going to pour into. And with that, they’re going to pour into their 10 people, and they’re going to pour into their 10 people.
0:19:44 Rachel Supalla: So that’s something that we’ve really leaned into, is making sure that it’s small and tight so that it carries on because we want our culture to bleed from the top down, inside out. And if we’re strong like that, then we are. Then there’s not one leader that’s too overwhelmed with too many direct reports or something like that. I’m really mindful of that, too. Like, if we get. If a region gets too big or something like that, we’ll bring in another person so that we can help that team.
0:20:14 Rachel Supalla: Some of my schools are really big, so there’s a lot of staff at those schools. So we make sure that we have two leaders that we can run these bigger schools.
0:20:24 Kris Murray: Cool. I love that idea. I think a lot of folks listening to this. The max of 10 direct reports is not a commonly embraced idea in childcare where you might have a director with 20 direct reports and.
0:20:40 Rachel Supalla: Right.
0:20:41 Kris Murray: It’s. You’re going to. You’re completely overwhelming them. Like, no wonder they’re an ineffective leader because they can’t. There’s no way they can do one on ones and manage all of those people well. Right.
0:20:51 Rachel Supalla: Right. Yeah.
0:20:52 Kris Murray: So. So how do you afford. I know people thinking hearing this might be like, how well does she afford that? How do you have enough leaders or managers on the team to do the max of 10 rule and still be able to have not a crazy payroll?
0:21:10 Rachel Supalla: So we from the beginning have learned to automate, delegate, eliminate. So we often look at our systems. We often look at the four quadrants. I can’t remember what you called it, Chris, where we would take off stuff on the bottom. And we do that a lot with our team. And one of the things is, of those things, how can we automate, delegate, and eliminate the things that are below the line? And what are your roles and responsibilities that are going to give you the most traction in this position?
0:21:43 Rachel Supalla: So if your role and responsibility is to lead, manage and hold teams accountable, then you shouldn’t be doing all this paperwork crap. So how can we automate that or delegate that or give it to somebody else? So we’ve been really. We pay attention to that from the beginning so that we know what people’s workload is we also do time audits at least once a quarter. Sometimes once. No, I think she doesn’t. Once a month, Jen does them, our coo.
0:22:09 Rachel Supalla: So we do time audits on our team. And it’s not to micromanage them, it’s to help them so that we can see they stop every hour. They look back at everything they did in that hour, what we can automate, delegate or eliminate. And with doing that, then they can really focus on the things that they need to do and do double tasks. To answer your question about payroll, so we have like some of our bigger schools, we’ve got coordinators and those help with the direct reports.
0:22:38 Rachel Supalla: Those are under the director and they have multiple roles. Like we might have a coordinator that does billing, but she also has direct reports. Or we have a coordinator that does, you know, social media, but also has direct reports, but also could be in the classroom 20 hours a week. So we just are. We keep our 50% payroll. That’s our budget. And so sometimes it depends on how many kids you have. It just depends on the school. Like I have some small schools where the director’s even in the in ratio a certain hours a week, but she has only five direct reports, you know.
0:23:13 Kris Murray: Right.
0:23:14 Rachel Supalla: So we’re able to look at it based on the situation and we just stay within the budget.
0:23:19 Kris Murray: Cool. Do you have teachers that have direct reports as well? Like do you have lead teachers who are in the classroom fully in ratio, but also they have people reporting to them?
0:23:32 Rachel Supalla: We have mentor teachers who are in the classroom full time and they help mentor people for six months, but they don’t have. That’s not their direct report. They kind of help in that process. But the direct reports are coordinators or directors.
0:23:48 Kris Murray: Right. Gotcha. I love the automate, delegate, eliminate and that has been something that I’ve used as a leader as well. With your automation, this will be your chance to shout out any software that you love because we’ve had people, you know, who use Monday or use Slack or use IKS or use, you know, childcare, Sierra, all the things procarement. But you’re obviously a pro because you have these three regions and you might also have softwares that work better in some region than another, I don’t know. Or you just look for something that works across all the regions. But just talk a little bit about automation. How have you embraced automation and gotten more sophisticated with it over time?
0:24:35 Rachel Supalla: We use a lot of AI and automation and we’ve been. We’re always looking to improve. So one of Jen’s jobs as CEO is to audit our systems and also to eliminate. So if we’ve got 10 systems or we can have one system that can do three of those things. That’s kind of what we’ve been doing this year, is really kind of eliminating a lot of those systems. So we are switching to Playground and that is going to also kind of same thing. We’re combining multiple different systems into one.
0:25:13 Rachel Supalla: We also just upgraded to Jotform Enterprise. JotForm Enterprise has AI agents, it’s creating our chatbots, it’s taking our SOPs and making it into a system that you can just type into and say what’s our binding policy? And blah, blah, blah, whatever. We’re using Jotform Enterprise for that. We use Zapier for a lot of different things where we’ll zap from one system to the next, building in workflows.
0:25:43 Rachel Supalla: We also use Teachable for all of our LMS systems because it’s more sophisticated than other LMS systems that I’ve used. It costs more, but for us it works better because the teachers automatically get their onboarding link to join Teachable to do their course. Then they get their next course and next course. It’s just the certificate goes directly to the director that goes into their system. So it was a way for us to automate that piece of it.
0:26:16 Rachel Supalla: Those are the main ones that we use. We use Monday.com but we’re switching to Jotform because Jotform has a task management system, it has a note taker, it has all the different things. That’s why we switched.
0:26:30 Kris Murray: Yeah, love that. That’s very, very cool. And I love the Playground operating system that those founders have been on the podcast and young guys out of New York City that are amazing and they’re doing great things for the industry. So thanks for all those, all those recommendations. Really appreciate that. Let’s talk about the idea of play and playfulness in leadership, which is the really the core platform for your book or the core idea is using play intentionally to be a better leader.
0:27:10 Kris Murray: So talk a little bit about that and how you help people get more playful.
0:27:16 Rachel Supalla: Play is not just let’s dress up and have a potluck. I mean, that’s a lot of times what people think or they’ll be like, I can’t afford to take my team bowling or I can’t afford to do all of those things. It’s not that it’s a mindset. It’s this mindset that we are going to Approach things with innovation. We’re going to approach things with a no wrong answer approach. And we’re going to have this playful mindset so that we’re not going to get stressed out. And also there’s times when you’re going to get stressed out, but it also teaches you to recognize it and to figure out what that trigger is and how to reset. Okay, we’re stressed out right now. We need to go outside and take a walk, do a gratitude exercise, you know, something like that. So that it gets our mind back into the right space.
0:28:08 Rachel Supalla: So that is the mindset behind it. And we aren’t taught that in school. We’re taught, sit at your desk, pay attention, learn, do these things even when you don’t want to, even when the time’s not right. You know, all of those things. And so what I’m trying to teach my leaders is you don’t have to sit at your desk, you don’t have to do these things if your energy is not right. You need to do what works within your rhythm and figure out how to make that work and to recognize your own body so that you can run a better team and a better and a better system.
0:28:41 Rachel Supalla: That’s the whole mindset behind it. It’s not play as in like we’re going to go on the playground and play. It’s just that, that relaxing mindset keeping you in your rhythm, keeping you in your grounded, you know, all of those things so that you can be the most productive. Because we’re the most productive when we’re having fun and when we’re relaxed and not pressure. Because pressure is the opposite of what we need to do.
0:29:06 Kris Murray: Right. So that it’s almost like a flow state, like being in that creative zone of genius and being in that happy, relaxed flow state. And that’s all energy work too. So I love that you’re really bringing this mindfulness and the awareness of the energy in your body to leadership, which not. I haven’t really heard hardly anybody talk about the context of that related to leadership.
0:29:34 Rachel Supalla: Yeah. Because it sounds woo woo. So most people are like, that’s not going to work. And I’ve heard that, you know, if you watched my TED talk, you can see the comments. And some of the comments were, this is great, but how is it going to work in a corporate world? Well, it absolutely works in a corporate world. How, how’s it going to work in a hospital? It’s absolutely going to work in a hospital because it’s that mindset and it’s really.
0:29:53 Rachel Supalla: That’s why I start, that’s why my framework starts with mindset is because it’s, that’s what it all comes back to. And the way that my framework works, and I use it personally, my team uses it, is you go through the steps and then if you’re at that place where you don’t have clarity, you go back, go back to mindset. If you’re at the place where you’re struggling with influencing your team, go back through the steps again so that you can figure out what’s missing so that you can get back to that influential level as a leader.
0:30:23 Kris Murray: Right. You know, energy is not woo woo. To your point about everybody, they might think it’s woo woo. But if what I, when I always talk about energy, it’s like you can feel it. We feel that every day when somebody’s sucking our energy or when somebody walks in the room with negative energy and they drain us. Right. Like everybody’s experienced that. You can’t see it, but you can feel it. You can’t taste it or see it, but you can sure as heck feel it. So it’s not woo woo because it’s, you know, it is real.
0:30:54 Kris Murray: It’s just kind of weird to. It might feel like from a corporate perspective, it might feel like it’s not really grounded in fact, but we know that it is energetically.
0:31:06 Rachel Supalla: I mean, it’s grounded in brain based studies. Like there is brain science behind it that shows you that your brain craves play. You have to play in order for your brain to reset and you, you build more neural connections when you play. So that makes you more creative. Like you said, problem solving, it gets you in your frontal lobe of thinking, which is that executive thinking skills. And when we’re stuck down here in the lower levels of our brain, we’re just going to be on edge.
0:31:33 Rachel Supalla: We’re not going to be thinking straight. It happens to all of us. We’re staring at a blank screen. You know all of that. So.
0:31:39 Kris Murray: Yes. Yeah, Love it. That’s very, very cool. Briefly, tell us the steps since you referenced them and you do talk about them in your TED Talk, which is amazing by the way. I watched it. You can just Google Rachel Seppala TED Talk. We’ll put it in the show notes, the link to it. What are the steps? They spell magic. Right? So tell us, tell us a little bit more about that.
0:32:03 Rachel Supalla: So M is for mindset. And this is where you have to realize that burnout is not a badge of honor. This is where you have to make the decision on your own. I need to work on my own mindset to be able to get to the next step. And the next step is assessing the pain points. And this is where you’re diagnosing your business, your leadership gaps, your, you know, holes in your system, your financial gaps, any of that.
0:32:29 Rachel Supalla: That’s when you’re really diving in. And if your mindset isn’t right, you’re not going to be able to do that. You’re going to be like, I’m not going to open that bank statement, I’m not going to open that email, I’m not going to deal with that person. So mindset has to come first, right? And then the next one is grounded in ruby slippers. So this is when you know your mindset is right, you’ve assessed the pain points. Now I need to be grounded because in order for me to know what to do next, my energy needs to be right.
0:32:55 Rachel Supalla: I need to know what’s going to happen next. I need to be grounded in my vision and my own personal values before I can take that next step. Because the next step is influence. So now that I’m grounded, I know who I am, I know what my vision and values are, I know what my boundaries are, my non negotiables are. Now I can influence others because I’m authentic, I’m real, I’m transparent, I know what I’m talking about, I know what the pain points are and I know how to help us as a team get through that.
0:33:24 Rachel Supalla: And then once you have that influence, that’s when it becomes contagious to the rest of your team. And then you can step back and you talk about leading from the 10,000ft above, because then you can look higher, look beyond. That’s when you’ve got clarity and you can have the capacity to keep building that clarity. And once you ever get stuck, like I said, you just go back. I’m in a kind of a stuck phase right now because I’m like, I’ve accomplished all my goals, now what?
0:33:54 Rachel Supalla: So now I’m back to this mindset phase. What do I want next? All of those things.
0:33:59 Kris Murray: Yes. Yeah, yeah. I recently did a podcast, a solo podcast on. It was called what would you’d love? And it’s all about that. Like when you, once you’ve sold your business or accomplished your goals or you feel very satisfied with in your life’s kind of running really well as a leader and you’re just kind of like, now what’s kind of. I feel kind of empty, like what’s next? And so the way to do that, that I talk about in that episode is just to tap and it might take, it’s going to take some time and some pondering is what would you love? What is your heart telling you? Your open hearted love is to do X, Y or Z.
0:34:39 Kris Murray: And it can be big, it can be little, but that’s good.
0:34:43 Rachel Supalla: I’m gonna work on that.
0:34:44 Kris Murray: Yeah, Yeah, I love that. Yeah. And I wanted to say for the dudes listening to this podcast, that it can be, you might not want to think about it in ruby slippers, but you can think about it as grounded in your power shoes or the shoes that you wear with your sharpest looking suit that make you, when you step into the room, it makes you feel, you know, very powerful and handsome.
0:35:07 Rachel Supalla: Yes. One time when I did a presentation for the Child Care Success Academy, we talked about your power pose and your power stance and, you know, whatever you need to do to kind of get in your, your zone. And it’s that same mindset of, you know, what shoes or suit or whatever you’re going to put on that’s going to make you feel ready.
0:35:30 Kris Murray: Yes. Yes. I remember that session. That was a fantastic session. Everybody loved it. So what was it like to do a TED Talk? Are you scared?
0:35:40 Rachel Supalla: It was terrifying. It was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done. And I’ve spoken on stages of thousands and this was probably 150 people in the room. It wasn’t even big, but the lights were blinding. And you have to memorize it. It’s very short. So you have to get your point across in a very short amount of time. Be funny, be, be powerful, be smart, you know, all of those things and really fast.
0:36:12 Rachel Supalla: So terrifying. But it was, it was great. I loved it. It was, it was literally a dream come true. I’ve had it on my dream board for years. I actually dressed up like a TED Talk speaker for a dress up day at our school in 2021 because I love the concept of ideas worth sharing. And that is what TED is all about. And I am very passionate about this playful leadership concept. It’s an idea, it’s silly to some, it’s weird to others, and it’s powerful to others. And I really do think that if you embrace it, it’s going to change the way we teach children, it’s going to change the way we lead our companies, and it’s going to make the world a more happy, innovative, creative place, which is what we’re lacking right now.
0:37:01 Rachel Supalla: And so I am very passionate about that. And so the thought of ideas worth sharing was something that was a dream for me, that I got to be part of that stage.
0:37:11 Kris Murray: Yeah. Well, congratulations on accomplishing that dream. That is huge. And just the fact that you dove in and you did it and you faced your fear and you did it with wet pants, as I say, and you did an amazing job, and now it’s there for the world to. To be impacted by you. So well done.
0:37:34 Rachel Supalla: Yeah. What came from it was interesting and not what I expected, which it never is. Right. And yes, the playful leadership concept has taken off and people have asked me about that and all of that, which is what I thought would come from it. What I didn’t expect, which I actually find to be more beautiful and I’m excited about is the ADHD perspective and how a lot of people have been asking me about ADHD as a mom, as a leader, as a child.
0:38:05 Rachel Supalla: You know, how you navigated all of that and how you’ve learned to teach those concepts. I have a daughter who has extreme ADHD like. Like I do. And, you know, how are you using that in the leadership world? Which I didn’t expect that. And I thought that was. I love that because that’s now something that I’m diving into that I didn’t expect.
0:38:26 Kris Murray: Cool. Love it. Where are you headed? What’s next for you? And, well, you said that you’re still. You’re kind of at this place where you’re figuring that out. Yeah. And before we get there, I want to just. The question of having all of these amazing accomplishments and having 10 schools and having the, all the family that you have and, you know, these regions. And then of course, you’re doing speaking, training, consulting.
0:38:58 Kris Murray: So how do you juggle all of that in your life? What. What are. Do you have, like, quadrants where you’re trying to have only a certain number of hours or certain days of the week where you work on specific things or how do you, like, juggle all of the plates?
0:39:16 Rachel Supalla: Yeah, so I work in seasons. And so my, like, right after Christmas to May is my travel speaking. You know, that’s when I do a lot of my speaking and things like that. And then I don’t miss football season. That’s one of my non negotiables for my, my son. And then I don’t miss summer because summer in Montana is amazing as it is in Colorado. And so those are, you know, my non negotiables. And then I know that when I’m going to be in a heavy season, so like, we just Came out of a heavy season. I had my book tour, I had a lot of speaking engagements, things like that. And it was a lot, a lot of travel, a lot of things.
0:39:56 Rachel Supalla: But then we know that summer’s coming, so it kind of sets me and my family up, my husband up for this. Then also during the year, on Mondays and Fridays, I have no meetings. I do all of my meetings on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. All of my focus work is on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Mondays and Fridays are my creative content building, things like that, just space. I need that space for capacity building.
0:40:25 Rachel Supalla: And then I also don’t really put time constraints on things because I know how my energy works. So I know I might get a burst of energy at 8 o’ clock at night, and that’s okay. So I’m not going to say I’m not going to have to do these within certain times. That helps. My husband is a rock star. So he manages our house, our Airbnbs, all of our properties, all of our real estate. You know, he manages all that, pays all the bills, does all the back end things, all the boring. He says I give him all the boring jobs and so he helps with all of that. Takes Trent to doctor’s appointments, you know, all those things.
0:41:05 Kris Murray: Right.
0:41:05 Rachel Supalla: And then I also have my coo Jen, who’s amazing. And we have an amazing team, a really, really amazing team, a really strong leadership team and a lot of the issues that we were having in Bozeman, which if you read my book, you’ll see I figured out the hard way, which I should have known, was that it’s leadership. You have to have strong, amazing leadership that’s bought into your company and. Yeah, so that’s how I do all the things.
0:41:33 Kris Murray: Cool, thank you. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, I love that. So, yeah. So where are you headed in the rest of 2025 and what’s on the horizon for you for the future? Anything that you want to share and if you don’t have any earthly clue, that’s cool too.
0:41:48 Rachel Supalla: I’m going to do Donna’s teacher training next month, which is fun in Myrtle beach. And I am going. I have a course coming out on my magic framework and it’s for six to eight figure entrepreneurs, women entrepreneurs or C suite, that type of leader who’s looking to scale their culture and not burnout in the process. Because I’m really big on scaling. Without losing your soul? Because I almost lost my soul when I was scaling.
0:42:20 Rachel Supalla: So I really want to make sure that you can have it all, you can scale and you can still have a family and all of these things. I had to figure that out the hard way. And I don’t want people to think it’s either or it’s. And so that is what my course is about. It has a lot of dashboards. It has leadership team audits, vision alignment tools. You know, all those different things to help leaders in any industry.
0:42:46 Rachel Supalla: Doesn’t just have to be childcare. And the next thing, I’m going to be speaking starting in December because that’s when I start my speaking and traveling and all of that. And I don’t know other than that I want to travel for fun this year. I said that I’m going to put that on my bucket list because I traveled a lot for work last year and I want to have more fun. Fun travel this year.
0:43:10 Kris Murray: Yes. I am still doing that. And I’m going to Japan in. In. Yeah, late October, early November.
0:43:18 Rachel Supalla: Awesome. You have a travel agent. You need to send me your.
0:43:22 Kris Murray: Who. You.
0:43:22 Rachel Supalla: Your tips and tricks on all of that.
0:43:24 Kris Murray: I actually do not have a travel agent, believe it or not. So I have people that I travel with that are just like groups of friends and groups of colleagues and spiritual friends and stuff. And so sometimes they plan the trip and I just go along for the ride and then sometimes I plan the trip. But yeah, don’t have any. I don’t have any shortcuts for you there, Rachel. Sorry about that.
0:43:46 Rachel Supalla: Well, I’ve got Julie, who’s, you know, the travel queen.
0:43:50 Kris Murray: Yes.
0:43:50 Rachel Supalla: He’s coming here this weekend, too, so.
0:43:52 Kris Murray: Good. Julie. Roy, that’s fantastic. Good. Well, thank you so much, Rachel Supala, for being on the podcast today. I have loved getting to know all of the things that you’re up to, and there was tons of writer downers and juicy tidbits in what you shared today. But thank you for being here. Really just appreciate you.
0:44:15 Rachel Supalla: I. I loved it. Thank you. It was fun catching up.
0:44:18 Kris Murray: Really, really fun. Everybody go and get the Playful Leaders toolkit. It’s an incredible book, and I think that every single leader, no matter what niche that you’re in, but certainly early childhood, can benefit from that playful mindset for sure. And tapping into that playful energy and that flow state and your creativity, all of that will be so impacted for the better because you usually, when that happens, you kind of fall in love with your life again or with your work again.
0:44:48 Kris Murray: And. Yeah, I love that.
0:44:50 Rachel Supalla: For real?
0:44:51 Kris Murray: Yeah, for real.
0:44:52 Rachel Supalla: Yeah. And I think that’s what helped me want to make that book, too. Is that you? I got stuck in this. I can’t. My husband didn’t want us to grow and it was because of me. I was not in that creative, fun person that I normally am. And so I figured out how you can grow fast or you can grow deep, but you can do both if you have the right team in place. And that’s really what that’s about. And having that playful leadership mindset so that you can do both.
0:45:24 Kris Murray: Cool. Well, thank you again, Rachel, and thanks everybody for tuning in to the podcast. Really appreciate you guys for taking the time to be with us today. And take care and God bless and we’ll talk to you next time. Bye Bye. I hope you liked this episode of Child Care Rockstar Radio. If you did, please leave a review and share. Share it with someone you know to help spread the word to friends in our industry and on social media.
0:45:54 Kris Murray: Child care business success is my passion and I’m honored to be on this journey with you. As a thank you for listening, I’ve got a new video training that shows you how to add six figures or more of new revenue to your program in the next 60 days by improving your hiring and your enrollment systems. To watch my new video, just go to www.fixmyschool. com. That’s FixMySchool. Com. Thanks. Take care and God bless.
