Click here to listen to more episodes of Child Care Rockstar Radio™ with Kris Murray!

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 next Childcare Rockstar.

   

• 0:00:34 Kris Murray: Now, let’s go. This is Childcare Rockstar Radio, episode 200, y’ all, featuring my friend, Vernon Mason. Man, oh man, oh man, how did we Here? Episode 200 might not sound like a lot, but I’ve been podcasting for the last eight plus years. I started in September of 2017, so I guess we’re not quite up to the eight year mark in podcast land. So many more podcasts are in the world today than were at that time, but we are still going strong, y’ all. Here at Childcare Rockstar Radio, I am Kris Murray, your host and doing some reflection over the past 2, 200 episodes of where did we start with this thing and how far we’ve come?

   

• 0:01:38 Kris Murray: So it’s been a very cool journey. Episode one is the beauty of persistence with just me talking about what I find to be most inspiring as an entrepreneur. And here we are at episode 200. I’ve only got one guest who’s made three appearances on the podcast, and that happens to be none other than Mr. Vernon Mason, who you will soon meet here on this episode. If you don’t know Vernon, you’re in for a treat.

   

• 0:02:06 Kris Murray: And many of you have come back to this episode. I am sure to get the latest and greatest from Mr. Vernon. He’s also featured on episodes 73 and 1 11. So if you need more Vernon, that’s where you should go. And we’re going to dive right in in this episode. Every day is a gift. We talk about so much what’s going on in the industry right now here in 2025, what we’re facing as child care providers, leaders and owners and talking about turnover, talking about team accountability, talking about the impact of universal pre K and funding, talking about toxic positivity, a term that I was not familiar with before Vernon talked about it on this episode is very interesting.

   

• 0:03:04 Kris Murray: Thinking about leaders who we’ve been told we need to be positive, right? Be positive, be positive. Don’t be a negative Nelly, don’t be an Eeyore, be a Tigger. You’ve heard me say that before, but I didn’t realize that a lot of folks, after getting that message so many times, feel like they have to fake it till they make it on positivity. Toxic positivity is not authentic. It’s not real. So we share ideas and thoughts around this notion here on the podcast today.

   

• 0:03:43 Kris Murray: And gratitude. Deep, deep gratitude from both Vernon and myself having been speakers, authors and trainers and entrepreneurs in this field together. Really being grateful now that we are in our 50s and for some of us approaching the ripe old age of 60. Not naming any names there. Me, no, I still have about a year and a half left. But yeah, as you get older, the wisdom gets deeper, the experiences get more plentiful and one has a deeper sense of gratitude and appreciation, deep appreciation for the journey.

   

• 0:04:36 Kris Murray: And so we talk about that. It is May 2025 here, if you’re listening to this live and I have a good summer coming up. I am doing something on my bucket list. Of course you guys know me, a bucket list queen. And I try to hit at least three things on my bucket list or in my dreams book, my dream journal each year and usually I hit four or five or more for in Coming up here in June for me is the bucket list item of rafting the middle fork of the Salmon river in Idaho.

   

• 0:05:21 Kris Murray: I was told when I went on the Grand Canyon in 2020 and did a 14 day overnight rafting trip with my kids in July of 2020 that the guides told me that I would love the middle fork of the Salmon. It’s only a six nighter. Six nights overnight. It’s a little bit more luxurious. They actually bring cots for us so we don’t have to sleep on the ground. And there are naturally occurring hot springs along the side of the river supposedly.

   

• 0:05:59 Kris Murray: So in the evenings we will camp hopefully near some hot springs and we can kind of like spa our way, natural spa through the middle fork of the Salmon River. So I will let you know when I get back how the experience was and if it’s a must do. I’m going with my boyfriend Chris and we’re both just over the moon excited. And he’s a big outdoorsman. We’ve skied a lot together this past season. I had a record, personal record of 23 ski days and I haven’t had that many ski days since I was in my 20s.

   

• 0:06:42 Kris Murray: So when you’re, when you’re a working girl, it’s hard to get the ski days in. So I’ll just share that. So without any further ado, we’re going to get to Vernon and I just want to thank you for being with me all these episodes. If you’re a die hard fan. Thank you for making the podcast what it is. I couldn’t do it without you and I’m very grateful and appreciative of your time and that you’ve been on this journey with me. And please feel free to reach out. I always say this.

   

• 0:07:08 Kris Murray: Very few of you do. I really enjoy receiving mail and it’s Chrisildcare success.com Kris with a kid. Let’s dive in to episode 200, everybody. Thanks again for tuning in. Let’s meet Vernon Mason and go have some fun. Let’s go. Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. This is a special one. This is episode 200 and I have a special guest with me today to celebrate the 200 episode. Vernon Mason, welcome back to the podcast. How are you?

   

• 0:07:47 Vernon Mason: Good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good. I’m great. I’m so, I’m honored to be here. I’m honored to, always honored to spend time with you and always honored to share some little nuggets of what our people need to know. That’s it.

   

• 0:08:04 Kris Murray: Yeah. So this is, you’re the only person, Vernon, that that’s been on the podcast thrice. If you guys want to go back and listen to the other episodes, we have episode 73 and 111 with Vernon. And here we are at 200. So here we are in 2025. Where are you right now? Where are you located? Where are you sitting?

   

• 0:08:28 Vernon Mason: I’m at home. I live in eastern North Carolina, about two hours from the coast. We have a little beach house that we go to every weekend. We’re about four hours from the mountains. We’ve had a lot of devastation in our mountain in the last year. We got hit by a hurricane, but we had no damage around here. We were perfectly fine. It was the western part of the state.

   

• 0:08:51 Kris Murray: Well, I’m glad to hear that. For the two people listening that don’t know who you are, give us some highlights of your journey, a quick bio, if you will, of some things that you’d like to share with the audience.

   

• 0:09:04 Vernon Mason: Well, I don’t know who to. I often say it’s you and I’m not 100% sure it’s you. So somebody started referring to me as the trifecta of childcare because I was raised in an in home center. We opened up our first mall, then we went to Medium, then went to. Of course I was owner director. Then I became owner of a multi site chain of five child care programs. I sold in 2019 and have been out doing professional development and speaking for childcare owners and companies across the country.

   

• 0:09:43 Vernon Mason: I bring inspiration, information, and normally leave with a slight kick in the butt for them when I leave. For all of us to learn and grow and be better, be better, do better, be better.

   

• 0:09:59 Kris Murray: Right? Yeah. Well, that was not me that named you the trifecta of childcare. I feel like you’re the quatrefactor or the center, whatever that is. But yes, there’s lots of hats that you’ve worn, essentially.

   

• 0:10:10 Vernon Mason: Yeah, yeah.

   

• 0:10:11 Kris Murray: And all beautifully. And so thank you for having such a huge impact on the industry. And so you’ve been. I mean, really, you were raised in it, so really, for most of the decades of your entire life, you’ve been in it, which is amazing.

   

• 0:10:25 Vernon Mason: My mom. Yeah, my mom in my book. Right, right there. Don’t waste a crisis. I talk about that. It’s a personal story. It’s a. It’s a business story, and I talk about that. My mom had a 10th grade education. She decided to get married. She didn’t want to live on the farm any. She never went back and completed her high school education. But she was really found that she really had a talent with children. And so the whole time growing up to help keep a roof over her head, she kept children in our home.

   

• 0:10:53 Vernon Mason: And that’s how it all began. I graduated from college and we took a Citibank credit card. They’re not paying me to say that, but anyway, we took a Citibank credit card with a $5,000 credit card limit, and we opened our first location and we just jumped from there. You know, mom stayed in the classroom. We found she was so much better with the kids than she was with the adults. Right. You know, the parents would come to her and say, oh, Ms. Nancy, I can’t pay you this week. I spent too much money at the grocery store. And she’d say, oh, honey, just pay me when you get it right. You know, that doesn’t work in childcare.

   

• 0:11:26 Vernon Mason: So I had to go to my mom and say, the next time you tell somebody I’m gonna pay you, they’re gonna pay. It’s okay to pay when they get it. I’m gonna pay you when I get it. And she never, ever said that to anybody again. From that point on, I don’t handle the finances. You have talked to Mr. Vernon about that. So we got. We came to our. We figured out our guardrails there.

   

• 0:11:46 Kris Murray: Yes. You had your lanes defined right at that moment. And that’s fantastic. I love that. So you. And you grew to five locations, and then sold in 2019.

   

• 0:11:57 Vernon Mason: Yes, yes, absolutely.

   

• 0:12:00 Kris Murray: So I know you’ve got a lot of stories about people on your team, people that you had to let go, families that were very interesting and, you know, special that you’ve worked with over the years. But I love your book, Don’t Waste a Crisis. So some of the stories and leadership journey pieces are in that book. So if y’ all haven’t picked that book up, definitely get a copy of that. Can people get it on Amazon or where do they find it?

   

• 0:12:26 Vernon Mason: Absolutely. And I also want to thank your. Your people, Chris. It was a village, to say the least. I was shocked when it started climbing the charts. Right. And I kept getting these emails, you’re at this, you’re at this. And we hit number one on Amazon in the self employment category. I was absolutely shocked that I did that because, you know, I don’t have people. People often reach out to me and say, can you have your people reach out?

   

• 0:12:50 Vernon Mason: I am my people. Right. You know, I don’t have a marketing team or any of that, you know, and so I was so impressed that it organically, it did that, you know, on its own. And I’ve been very touched by the emails and the Facebook messenger messages I’ve received from people that, you know, different parts of it touch different people. And it’s been, I would say, cathartic in some ways and just heartwarming in many ways.

   

• 0:13:27 Kris Murray: Mm.

   

• 0:13:28 Vernon Mason: Yeah.

   

• 0:13:28 Kris Murray: I mean, when I met you, Vernon, I believe it was the first childcare Success summit in 2012 in Denver in that little crappy Red lion hotel. And to see you talk about, you were actually on microphone, captured on video during that event, that summit, that first summit, talking about that you had a desire and you’re making a commitment to write your book or finish your book. And so having been part of that very first stake that you said, yes, I’m doing this, and you started really living bigger, you showed up in a bigger way. You became a full fledged speaker, or maybe went from more of a regional speaker to a national stage speaker. You came to the summit, you spoke on the main stage twice, I believe two or three times over the last 15 years. And it’s been amazing to be a part of your journey and your impact.

   

• 0:14:29 Kris Murray: And so I just want to ask you, like, and you’re going to continue making an impact, but looking back at the impact that you’ve made or stepping into the bigger version of Vernon, what are some reflections about that? How do you feel about putting on your big boy pants or anything you can share about just playing a bigger game.

   

• 0:14:52 Vernon Mason: Well, you know, the thing that I say is, you know, we don’t have a dress rehearsal. This, this is the real show here. Right. There’s no do overs. Right. You know, this is the life we’ve been given. And I want to make an impact. I want to be the best person that I can be. And I’ve never professed to be the smartest person in the room. Right. I’ve never been that person that, oh, you have to do it my way.

   

• 0:15:20 Vernon Mason: You know, I’ve just been that person that want to add some, some knowledge and some levity to the situation and, and realize that we’re, we’re not perfect. And something that struck me recently is that phrase you’ve heard people say many times, and that is not to worry about what people are thinking about you, because they think about you a lot less than. Than you think they do.

   

• 0:15:48 Kris Murray: So you sent me a note saying that you saw in the news, maybe it was a stat from the Labor Department that you heard turnover is slowing or people are job shopping less or labor is. Labor is starting to stabilize in a certain way. So talk more about that and how can we see some light at the end of this tunnel with regard to employment trends?

   

• 0:16:18 Vernon Mason: Yeah. So when I’m out in the field and I’m talking to owners and directors, they’re finding, most of them are finding their turnover is slowing. Right. And the Labor Department, like you said, we figured out that they have. Their stats are showing that we’re now back at the pre pandemic levels with the lowest quit rate. So people aren’t, like you said, they’re not job hopping. It’s like an 11% drop of where we were.

   

• 0:16:46 Vernon Mason: So what does that mean? It means that during the pandemic, for every job opening, there were. For every two jobs, it was one person looking for a job. Meaning even if everybody out there got a job looking for it, we’d still have a lot of job openings. And so now it’s almost even for every one. It’s like 1.1 for every 1.1 person job open and there’s one person looking, looking.

   

• 0:17:17 Kris Murray: Okay.

   

• 0:17:17 Vernon Mason: Yeah. Yeah. So what does that mean for us in our industry? It means that we’ve got to step out of this working in a crisis. Right. I think that we’re dealing with some ptsd. I think some directors and some owners can’t move past the living, surviving, working through a crisis, because we really have to go into more of a leadership role. And where I’ve been focusing My time lately, what does that mean?

   

• 0:17:47 Vernon Mason: Is the areas that I’m hearing a lot of people struggle with is holding their staff accountable. They’re still struggling with holding their team accountable. They’re scared to hold them accountable. They think they’re going to fly. They think they’re going to just, you know, ghost them and not come back. They’re dealing. I hear this a lot. They’re dealing with an entitlement that people are just. They feel very, very entitled.

   

• 0:18:07 Vernon Mason: And one thing that I’m noticing that goes on a lot in our industry is this toxic positivity where they just roam around telling everybody, good job, good job, good job, whatever. And so I thought maybe we could talk about some of these areas today during our call. And I always start with my first place is stop being the fixer. We often become in a leadership role in our industry because we’re able to fix things, because we are that fixer.

   

• 0:18:37 Vernon Mason: But you know, what we’re good at, sometimes it sets ourselves up. I believe being the fixer is one of the main drivers of being an overwhelm, because nothing moves, nothing changes, nothing gets better, nothing is done without first coming to us, coming to the record, coming to the. The owner. And so that’s. I think that’s a main driver of that. And when you’re trying to hold people accountable. I love quoting Stephen Covey. He says accountability breeds responsibility.

   

• 0:19:08 Vernon Mason: And then my favorite part of the quote is this. Accountability without a relationship is viewed as harassment. That’s a, to me, that’s a. It’s a meaningful quote because I can remember years ago, I had an employee and her name was April. I’ll just use her name. And we didn’t have. She was a good employee. She was always there. She always did. Parents are always happy that she was there. But she and I, this is when I was owner director, she and I, we didn’t have an ongoing, you know, hey, have a good day, good morning. Right. That, that was the extent of.

   

• 0:19:45 Vernon Mason: I didn’t take time to have conversations with or whatever took her for granted. And I remember having an unusual situation that a parent came and complained about something and I went down literally just to talk to her about it. Not to reprimand her, just to have a conversation, just kind of on an information gathering mission here. And she just went into meltdown mode and realized when I read that email, I said, that’s exactly what happened with she and I.

   

• 0:20:18 Vernon Mason: We didn’t have a relationship. And she viewed me trying to hold her accountable as harassment. And I never, I Never thought about it in a different way from that point on. Realizing if you really want to hold these people accountable, you’ve got to have some kind of relationship. And, you know, accountability was. Who is it that says that? Like the. What’s that guy’s name? I can’t think of his name. John Maxwell.

   

• 0:20:49 Vernon Mason: I’m gonna forget John Maxwell’s name. Right. He says people change for four reasons. You’ve heard this before. They heard enough that they have to. They see enough, they’re inspired to. They learn enough that they want to, and they receive enough that they’re able to. And so that all brews in. It all works together into holding people accountable, realizing that we have to build a relationship with these people in order to hold them accountable.

   

• 0:21:13 Vernon Mason: So directors, they like to direct from the office. They like direct from the directors, from the director’s office. Desk.

   

• 0:21:20 Kris Murray: Chair. Yes, the desk.

   

• 0:21:23 Vernon Mason: It just doesn’t work. Right. You know, I always say, Karen, by walking around, right? Going around interacting with people, having good conversations, keeping people enthusiastic. Right. Encouraging them by walking around. Because your people will never be more enthusiastic than the leadership. Right. So going out there and really giving them the feedback they need so you can have that responsibility so that they’ll want to perform for you, and then you can hold them accountable because you have developed a rapport.

   

• 0:21:56 Kris Murray: Yeah, right. No, I love that. There’s a lot to unpack in there. Vernon, what you talked about in the beginning, about being in crisis mode and being in PTSD from the crises that we’ve been hit with from 2020 to post Covid, to all the labor challenges, having to increase our wage scales, now we’re facing. Because we have increased wage scales, facing an extremely low profit margin sometimes if. Then we’ve. Now we’ve got a little bit of a low enrollment dip going on.

   

• 0:22:33 Kris Murray: And so if you’re sitting at 65 or 70% full, which a lot of folks are, because they forgot how to. They forgot their marketing. So we could talk about that too. But so now there’s. You’ve basically a scarcity mindset because we’re going, well, maybe we can get our labor back. But now we’re trying to really dive back into a crisis around enrollment, and we’ve got the universal pre K as well, et cetera, et cetera. So I do feel that it’s like one crisis after another.

   

• 0:23:06 Kris Murray: And so people like leaders and owners, a lot of them are walking away from the industry right now or just feeling like they want to. And I think hiding. They’re like, in their Little bomb shelter going, what’s next? Like, I’ I’m scared to even stick my head out. But I think it’s a mindset. Like, I just want to say in terms of that fixer mindset is if you’ve been fixing for the last five years and you’re exhausted, you’ve got to break free from that fixer or that fear based leadership mindset. You’ve got to really look at yourself in the mirror and try to feed yourself with positive messages. Books, podcasts or things, you know, industry groups trying to get back to that place of positive mindset leadership. I want to ask you about toxic positivity.

   

• 0:24:01 Kris Murray: I’ve never heard that phrase until you said it. Toxic positivity. But what’s the difference between toxic positivity and then walking around and doing leadership by walking around and going around and managing classrooms effectively? What’s the difference there? So if you could speak to that a little bit.

   

• 0:24:22 Vernon Mason: Yeah. The difference is being specific. It would like someone telling you, chris, your podcast is fun. Okay. Or, Chris, I really like the way you and Vernon dug deep. I really like the way you asked the best questions and got the best answers. It would be the exact same way in the classroom, not telling somebody, good job. It would say, you know, specifically, whatever they did. I really liked the way you handled Johnny when he was crying.

   

• 0:24:50 Vernon Mason: I thought you did all the steps. You, you knocked it out of the park. You. We could have, we could have recorded a video training on how to handle a child who’s, who’s having a meltdown. Right? That kind of, that kind of specific, Specific.

   

• 0:25:06 Kris Murray: Specificity. Nice.

   

• 0:25:08 Vernon Mason: That’s the word.

   

• 0:25:09 Kris Murray: I’ll help you. I’ll help you out, honey.

   

• 0:25:10 Vernon Mason: And I’m not having wine. But that’s. We, we, we’ve got to be very specific. And when things aren’t great, we don’t say things are great. Right. We, we just get in that childcare, a little Mr. Rogers bubble of trying to, trying to spread the positivity when there’s really, you know, you’ve got to deal with what’s handed in front of you and point out because as I learned from Becky Bailey, she was one of my college professors in college. I love to tell people that I knew Becky Bailey before she was Becky Bailey. But, you know, whatever you focus on most, you get more of. Right.

   

• 0:25:50 Vernon Mason: And that’s a phrase that I live by. Right. So, yeah, yeah, I love that.

   

• 0:25:57 Kris Murray: The accountability piece. A lot of directors still really struggle with it and you talked about it in terms of having a relationship what are some other tools, things that people can use to try to help them with accountability? Of course, we’ve talked a lot about scorecards, tracking simple things. You can track things in the classroom, you can track family turnover in the classroom, you can track lesson plans on time. But what are some strategies that you’ve used or that you teach for accountability?

   

• 0:26:33 Vernon Mason: Well, first of all, you got to make sure they have some buy in, right. That they want this to work. The other thing I would say is teaching can be seen as an art. We need to appreciate people’s strengths. Stop trying to make people somebody that they’re not. Right. You’re going to have somebody that’s really good with art, where they’re going to do art longer during the day than the other class. Right. You’re going to have people who love to go outside. They’re a PE teacher. Deep down, they’re going to be outside longer than, than the day. So going where people are instead of expecting the same thing out of everybody and grading everybody on the same scale, grading people where they are and just grading that they get better right.

   

• 0:27:09 Vernon Mason: From where they are rather than, well, she’s a C. She’s never going to be the A, but she, but she’s better, right? She’s a C plus or a B. Now let’s, let’s reward that, let’s praise that. Let’s, let’s acknowledge that in a specific manner rather than, well, she’s still not in A. So we’re not going to, we’re not going to, we’re not going to even acknowledge the growth that has happened there.

   

• 0:27:33 Kris Murray: So another piece of the crisis that. Let’s talk a little bit about the financial piece. So with state funding, with the grants and the things that the America Rescue act that Biden passed and all of the money that started flowing into childcare industry but has since a lot of it has dried up and people, leaders and owners went into this shock because a lot of them spent that money and didn’t use, didn’t really apply fiscal prudence to their situation again, having to raise all the wage scales.

   

• 0:28:17 Kris Murray: And so the labor costs went up and so a lot of that money is gone. So we don’t know the future because now we’re in a different political season, right. With a new regime at the White House. So how are you helping people prepare for what is the unknown in the future? If we lose funding or if the flavor of funding changes and some big shift, how can we prepare and survive?

   

• 0:28:51 Vernon Mason: You know, the first thing I’ll say Is I’ll have to acknowledge there is a portion of our industry that can’t survive without government funding. The people providing care in low income areas that literally live and breathe off subsidies and off the food program and things like that. It’s. That that’s going to be really, really, really difficult for them. But I would say the most of the bigger part of the market or the more mainstream part of the, of the market out there is to get your house in order where you are.

   

• 0:29:25 Vernon Mason: Right. You can’t keep spending like it’s coming. Right. I talked to an owner a couple of weeks ago that this is when we were all went under that, that fear that the front, the funding was going to be frozen. Right. When they, first of all, when they started freezing the funds and everybody was like every state was interpreting it differently. Some states were immediately putting lockdown. Some people, some states even stop paying providers like right then. Right. You know, they’re not paying them until they figure this out.

   

• 0:29:52 Kris Murray: Yeah.

   

• 0:29:53 Vernon Mason: But the real situation here is the owner said, well, I’m going to, how are you going to fix it? They said I’m going to go get equity line of money. And I said, and how are you going to use that? Well, number one, the time you want to get an equity line, time you want to get a line of credit is when you don’t need it. Right?

   

• 0:30:18 Kris Murray: Right.

   

• 0:30:18 Vernon Mason: Just anybody out there who’s running a business, first thing you do, don’t wait till you’re in a crisis to go and then ask get it now while things are good. Right?

   

• 0:30:26 Kris Murray: Yes.

   

• 0:30:27 Vernon Mason: But my concern was, I said what are you going to do with that? She said well, I’m going to pay our bills until the funding kicks back in. I said what if it doesn’t kick back in? Then how are you going to pay that money back? I think some of us are going to have some real hard reality check because we’re just assuming it’s going to work itself out. And I know we’ve got to be optimistic, I know we’ve got to be hopeful, but we’ve got to have a plan B.

   

• 0:30:53 Vernon Mason: How do we move forward in the event, you know that phrase, one of my favorite quotes is from Ronald Reagan that it says was one of the scariest things and whenever we’ll say is I’m from the government, I’m here to help. Right. That’s one of my favorite quotes. Because we depend on the government. We think they’re going to. And they may not pull us out. They may. This new reign, whoever, whatever, however it may change where we are. So we’ve got to figure out where we are and what’s going forward. And it may mean making really quick snap changes that are going to just curve our spending.

   

• 0:31:31 Vernon Mason: Like we’ve hit a wall. Right. So that you can move forward. Because the thought of someone bailing us out, I just not sure that’s going to happen this time.

   

• 0:31:44 Kris Murray: So yeah, it’s a good message to be thinking about plan B. And certainly you guys all should have a business line of credit already lined up. The best way to do that is to get a local banking relationship and talk to your banker and get your business line of credit setup which usually for a seven figure business can be between 100 and $200,000 or more. So that’s a really good safety net. But to your point, Vernon, is yeah, we can’t. We’ve got to start thinking differently.

   

• 0:32:17 Kris Murray: One of the things that we’ve taught for a long time is just how to attract more private pay clients. Whether you’re in a subsidy market or not having a program, a marketing strategy for how to put your message out there in front of private pay parents. A coach on my team, Coach Jay, she’s got a school with 99.9% subsidy and two private pay moms that drive 20 miles to drop their kids. It’s a woman that discovered her on social media and loved what she stood for and is a private pay client that drives 20 miles out of her way to bring her child to that school. And she got her neighbor to come as well. And they also bring stuff for the other families and they do lots of good work for the families that need it and they just like a little angel that that came to her school. But you can, you can market intentionally and find more people that want to be part of your vision. They want to be part of a program that is also serving under, you know, underserved families and be part of that impact.

   

• 0:33:36 Kris Murray: It’s all goes back to impact. So I think just mindset people might think I can’t do that. But I wanted to share that story because you can do that and that’s an inner city Atlanta that’s happening right now. So. And you. And you’re no stranger to subsidy. You were. Some of your schools were in kind of rural North Carolina. I don’t know if you have any stories like that and any strategies that you use to try to build your private pay clientele and rely less on subsidy.

   

• 0:34:10 Vernon Mason: Well, we would reward those that would come in because the people you want to enroll know People. The people you’re targeting know people like they like them. Right. So targeting them and giving them incentives to bring their friends and family and.

   

• 0:34:27 Kris Murray: Yeah. So a parent referral reward program. Yeah.

   

• 0:34:31 Vernon Mason: Yeah. Cool. And just running the program so that the other parents would feel families would feel comfortable or would come in there and it. And it not looking different or feeling different. Having expectations and treating them all in a manner so that it’s not a culture shift at all.

   

• 0:34:54 Kris Murray: Yeah. Well, here in 2025, I have shifted out of running the day to day. And I don’t know if you’re still. Are you still in leadership at the Nest? Talk a little bit about that. What’s going on?

   

• 0:35:11 Vernon Mason: Yeah. Four years we’ve been at the Nest. Jane Porterfield, Jerry Pastor. They. We met through you. Through. We were in coaching with you. And they sold about three months after I sold in 2019. A year later, they decided to. They weren’t done. They wanted to go back in the industry. They called and harassed me and offered me to join. So I joined them. And so I handled the developments. So I’m the ones out finding our new locations and negotiating the deals, et cetera.

   

• 0:35:43 Vernon Mason: And we’ve grown from. The first person we brought on board was Rochelle Kiner, who, you know, we also met through coaching with you. And she had five schools in Columbus, Ohio. She came on board. And Rochelle’s amazing. She handles our maintenance and new builds. And just. She’s a smart cookie. Really, really working with Rochelle. So we’re at 52 locations. We have three or four more coming on this year.

   

• 0:36:15 Vernon Mason: And so we’ve grown to that many locations in four years, so we’re looking to probably double that, maybe, is the plan, I think, where we’ll be going. We did get an infusion of. With some private equity money about a year and a half ago, and that relationship has gone fine. And yeah, it’s interesting. It is a new world out there. It is interesting because I was so used to having very intimate relationships with my leadership. And when you have 52 locations, that is challenging to do. And there’s this whole. And I don’t even want to try to explain it because I’m going to tear the language up.

   

• 0:37:02 Vernon Mason: But there’s this whole realization that we can’t have these deep relationships with that many people, that we all have these little bubbles. I think it starts with like 5 and then grows to 10, and they’re not quite as good as the 5 and then the 15. Right. And so, yeah, so that’s been another whole area that I’ve been thinking about lately is how you develop these relationships and maintain these relationships when it really is impossible to develop very close, tight relationships.

   

• 0:37:31 Vernon Mason: Leaders, right?

   

• 0:37:33 Kris Murray: I mean, I suppose you could do. I’m sure you all do leadership zoom calls. But even that with, you know, consistent leadership meetings with 52 people on a zoom is still really difficult to try to. I mean, you can break people out and do, like, fun things and. But, yeah, it’s. It’s challenging, the scaling part in childcare to try to maintain that culture of what you had at three or four or five locations and then scale it to 52.

   

• 0:38:01 Kris Murray: It’s a whole new world. But I love watching what you guys are doing and being part of your early formation of your relationship with you and Jerry and Jane and Rochelle and others. That’s very, very cool and rewarding for me to watch. And. Wow, 100 schools. I’m just surprised that you don’t have more gray hair, Vernon. I mean, that’s just. That’s crazy.

   

• 0:38:23 Vernon Mason: Well, the blessing here is that I don’t handle operations. We have a wonderful person, Haley, that handles our operations. And yeah, after. After I’m in the industry now, I’m frightening to say. I think 32 years. Right. The operations is not somewhere I want to be right now. It’s.

   

• 0:38:43 Kris Murray: Right.

   

• 0:38:43 Vernon Mason: Yeah. I love the fun part. The fun part is out looking for them, negotiating deals with owners who want to sell and send them on there with their little golden parachute, you know, however it works out. And.

   

• 0:38:54 Kris Murray: Right.

   

• 0:38:55 Vernon Mason: I. I’m doing. I. I consider myself having the fun job.

   

• 0:38:59 Kris Murray: Well, that’s fantastic. And if you’re an owner listening to this and you would like to explore potentially selling, I know that the nest has a certain criteria that they’re looking for, but Jerry did hit me up a few months ago and say, hey, can you help us find more people that want to sell? So I’ll just throw that out there here on the podcast, and you guys can reach out to Vernon. What else is on the horizon for you? I know that you’re still out speaking and helping Centers boots on the ground and inspiring their teams.

   

• 0:39:33 Kris Murray: What else is going on for you this year? Anything else you want to share?

   

• 0:39:37 Vernon Mason: Yeah, no, I think just normal. Just wanting things to calm and find a nice pattern, a nice system and just enjoy enjoying myself.

   

• 0:39:54 Kris Murray: Yes.

   

• 0:39:55 Vernon Mason: Trying to be present where I am and remain grateful. I’ve had a couple health issues in the last couple of years, and I’m doing great, and I’m doing fine. But it’s. But it’s. It’s reminds me every day is a gift.

   

• 0:40:12 Kris Murray: Yes.

   

• 0:40:13 Vernon Mason: And so trying to be. Be present and enjoy the time where I am and who I’m with. Because, you know, Chris, my brain, like so many entrepreneurs, is moving so fast. I’m having a conversation here, but my brain has already moved on to the next conversation, who I’m talking to next, what it’s going to be about. You know, I say I have too many tabs open, like on the computer. Right, right. And I’m trying to just bring it.

   

• 0:40:40 Kris Murray: In and be present.

   

• 0:40:42 Vernon Mason: Yes, yes, yes.

   

• 0:40:43 Kris Murray: Yeah. So I was going down the road of mentioning that when I said I had stepped aside from being a CEO. And I am still active in leadership in different companies and doing my own thing and coaching and of course, loving being this podcast host. But to your point, you and I both have slowed down. We have worked a ton of. We are at a season in our life where we have every right to go sit our butt on a beach if we want to.

   

• 0:41:17 Kris Murray: And being present. So the thing about presence is it helps you reduce stress and not feel overwhelmed. If you are just present for what you are sitting here doing at this moment and not thinking about not having those tabs open and having a practice of shutting down the tabs, it can change your life because your energy, all of a sudden, so much energy is spent on what I gotta go do, my to do list and all the stuff that I just did and what did they think about me when I was doing that?

   

• 0:41:50 Kris Murray: And if you can just kind of come into this practice of trying to practice presence a little bit more. So I just love to hear you bring that up because to me, presence is everything. Like, it’s it. We only have this moment, so we got to just juice it up and just like be here for it.

   

• 0:42:12 Vernon Mason: So, you know, when I’m out doing professional development days, one of my most popular. One of the most popular topics I talk on, I called controlled chaos, is classroom management. And the struggle is getting the teachers to be present in the classroom because teachers come in. Historically, statistically, many teachers are lower income. So they have some trials and tribulations. And it’s really hard. It’s really easy to say, let that stay outside your classroom and come in and be the best teacher in the world. But that’s really hard when you can’t pay your utility bill or you think your car is going to get repossessed or somebody who means something to you is doing something or not doing something, whatever.

   

• 0:42:56 Vernon Mason: But this is what I tell them when you let your Classroom, be your safe place when you engage with these children, when you know what Bobby is cooking in, dramatic play in the kitchen area, when you’re on the floor helping Sally build a stable for her horse, or if you’re in the art area, painting with Ariel. Right. When you’re that engaged and you’re that present, you can’t worry. Your brain won’t work. Your brain won’t worry about what’s going on the outside.

   

• 0:43:31 Vernon Mason: And it’s such a way of an example of how you really can physically be present, and so you can give the children what they need. But it’s also not just for the kids. It’s also for those caregivers out there who need to be present where they are, because it’ll make their day go by so much faster, so much more pleasant, so much more positive. They’ll leave work feeling so much more rewarded. Right. Than if they had stood back all day with our arms crossed, worrying about everything going on and not engaging.

   

• 0:44:09 Kris Murray: And that’s right. Yeah, that’s right. Ooh. And the children feel it because it’s really just all about how you’re approaching things in your energy energetically. So the kids, they have that sixth sense, that intuition. They’re going to feel that whether the teacher is coming to the day with the energy of openness and presence or worry and stress and fear and arms crossed. And so, yeah, that’s everything.

   

• 0:44:40 Vernon Mason: Chris, what I use is you’ve been with someone in the hospital or having outpatient surgery, and they use those pain charts. Where are you at on the pain chart? And it has. It has different variations of a smile, of a, you know, a frown or smile. And I use that, and I put it up on the screen when I’m talking about it. And I say, within 10 minutes of you being in your classroom, your children can tell us where you are on this chart.

   

• 0:45:08 Vernon Mason: Absolutely. 100% they know.

   

• 0:45:11 Kris Murray: Yeah. Wow, that’s profound. I love that. And it’s a great reminder, Vernon. All right, well, this has been an amazing conversation. As always. I want to thank you for being here on the podcast today and for being my guest for this special episode. 200. I just, you know, I honor everything that you’ve given to this industry, and I know that you have provided so much laughter and joy as well. People just love you, and I do, too. And so I just want to thank you for being here today.

   

• 0:45:51 Vernon Mason: Well, can I say the same? You know, Chris, you gave me an opportunity when you were doing your first summit. I reached out and said, are you really going to stand up the entire time and talk. Don’t you want me to fill in for an hour or something on there? And you said, yeah, you can do that. Right. And you gave me. And that was my first taste of being what I would call on a national stage. And I’ve been so impressed with you in this industry all these years because I really believe you’ve impacted not just your clients, but the industry.

   

• 0:46:23 Vernon Mason: Right. And that’s something that our owners and directors should understand, that they don’t only only impact the children and the families of what where they are working, where they are, but their entire community. And I believe that you have done that. And I appreciate your confidence in me and I appreciate you giving me the opportunity and I appreciate what you’ve done for a community that I genuinely love. I really feel as if this industry is in my DNA.

   

• 0:46:53 Kris Murray: Well, thank you so much, Vernon Mason. It’s been a joy and a pleasure as always. And thanks to everybody for tuning in on this special episode 220 here on Child Care Rockstar Radio. And take care and God bless everybody. We’ll see you next time. I hope you liked this episode of Child Care Rockstar Radio. If you did, please leave a review and share it with someone you know to help spread the word to friends in our industry and on social media.

   

• 0:47:21 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 me letting 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.