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• 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 episode 193 of Childcare Rockstar Radio featuring Tameenah Adams. Welcome back, folks. This is a special episode. If you don’t know Tameenah Adams, she is one of the premier trainers, speakers and coaches in the child care industry, having grown herself into an empire of four different brands in the D.C. area and the mother of seven special children, special humans, I should say.

• 0:01:12 Kris Murray: And she’s just an incredible soul. She is a coach, she’s one of the top coaches and has been with us a long time at the Child Care Success Academy. And I’m just really thrilled to bring her back today on the podcast. She has not been with me since episode 12 here on the podcast and I figured it was about darn time to bring her back. So we dive in and reflect on the last four plus years since the COVID age in this world and then talk about what’s going on in the child care industry, industry trends and what really has been experienced in the lives and hearts and minds of you and how to come back to feeling alive in 2025.

• 0:02:03 Kris Murray: So that is the name of this episode and I can’t wait for you to listen in. We talk about something very cool called the feelings wheel. We talk about so many things on your journey, trying to have some real talk about coming back to a place of abundance and not just monetarily with your schools and profit margin so that you can do all the things that you want to do and have a life of ease as a leader, but also within yourself, coming home to yourself and a place of self love, which I know sounds kind of maybe hokey and woo woo, but really is the essence of living a full life, at least in my experience.

• 0:02:49 Kris Murray: So yes, of course we talk business strategies and technology and delegation and financials and, and all of those things, but also there’s a lot more depth going on in our world right now, I feel. And a desire not to have to keep running on the hamster wheel, a desire to not have to hustle as hard and just kind of ease into a daily rhythm and feel really at home and at peace with it and just present.

• 0:03:31 Kris Murray: You guys are welcoming children into your schools every day. And there’s nothing more beautiful than that. So I hope that at the end of the day, you can continue to tap into that joy. And that’s really what I want for you. And so does Coach Tameenah. So let’s dive in and reveal this amazing conversation. I can’t wait for you to join us here at episode 193 of Child Care Rockstar Radio. Let’s go. Welcome back to the podcast, everybody.

• 0:04:08 Kris Murray: I am very excited to have you here because I have a special guest today and we’ve been feeling it. I felt it almost like a calling. I was like, I must get Tameenah Adams back on this podcast. Tameenah, welcome to the show. How are you?

• 0:04:23 Tameenah Adams: I’m great. I’m great. Thank you.

• 0:04:26 Kris Murray: I’m so happy to be here again. Me too. So this morning I looked at the list of all the episodes, and now we’re up to episode 193 here. And you have not been on this podcast since episode 12. I’m like, what? I thought for sure there was another one in between 12 and 193. But welcome back. It’s been a long time since you’ve been on this podcast. So where are you right now?

• 0:04:53 Tameenah Adams: Ooh, 1212 and 193. That’s. I mean, that alone is kudos, right?

• 0:05:02 Kris Murray: Totally.

• 0:05:04 Tameenah Adams: And where am I at now? You know? Well, first, I’m in snowy weather.

• 0:05:11 Kris Murray: In Maryland.

• 0:05:12 Tameenah Adams: In Maryland, on the brink of a pivotal change with the changing of guards in D.C. and I’m right here experiencing it, which also is a serious time of reflection for me as an individual, as a business owner, as a mom. Mom. I’m enjoying life, learning myself. It’s new year. This is when we take stock of who we are and what we want. Still have my. I have one school, so I’ve now sold three. I’ve all 43.

• 0:05:48 Tameenah Adams: I’m at my final one, getting ready to celebrate my 53rd birthday next month. Working on my retirement plan. And what does that look like? Yeah, just kind of here and running, you know, I’m doing some other business ventures. I do fractional HR for business owners. I’m still with the Academy. I’m still coaching. I don’t know if, you know, say no. I’m still coaching and speaking. Just going more than anything. I’m living in 24 hour increments.

• 0:06:27 Kris Murray: So you.

• 0:06:28 Tameenah Adams: I’m sorry, go ahead.

• 0:06:29 Kris Murray: No, so you and we talked a little bit about before we hit the record button about you being a little bit on a. I don’t Want to say a presence journey, but that’s what I call it for myself as a presence practice is trying to not think ahead and be what I call future tripping. So always thinking about the future and the what ifs or always thinking about the past and how I may have screwed up or not, but just living in today.

• 0:06:56 Kris Murray: So I love that you are living in 24 hour increments and you’re living more in a place of presence. It sounds like I am.

• 0:07:03 Tameenah Adams: I am. 2021-2024 was really tough for me right after the pandemic. And I kept fighting it and trying to be what we call resilient as a leader, as an owner, trying to be empowered, knowing I had so many people dependent on me. And I was going through highs and. And in October of this past year, it just really came crashing down and I was at the intersection of my life. I had to make a choice of what was I going to do because quite honestly there were times I didn’t even know if I could make it another day, if I wanted to get out of my bed. And really what kept me hanging on was knowing that my children needed me. If I could, if I’m going to really be transparent. Like there were some days I just said why am I doing this? Or why am I even here? And I’m tired.

• 0:07:58 Tameenah Adams: So that was an intersection. It was places that therapy couldn’t even take me. I was in therapy every Wednesday for three years and I still am, but I really had to look at myself and I got some additional resources and I decided and I learned. Like you said, live in, in the presence. What can I do within this 24 hours? That’s the only thing. Let me make it through this day. I can’t focus on what I did wrong because that’s going to give me self pity because I made some mistakes.

• 0:08:31 Tameenah Adams: I made some mistakes. Coach Tamina made some mistakes. We’ll talk about them. And I can’t focus on what’s coming down the road that’s beyond my control. So I’m learning. You know, we pick words every year. My word for this year is surrender. I’m learning to surrender. Surrender to this is what it is. And for whatever reason, this is what I’m supposed to be in and how do I make the best of it. And it’s been working really good.

• 0:08:59 Tameenah Adams: It’s been working really good. Yeah, because I made some heck of a mistake. So I’m not gonna use no bad words.

• 0:09:05 Kris Murray: But you know, I.

• 0:09:09 Tameenah Adams: I was on top of the world. I had pandemic money. I had subsidies, I had grants. I had four successful schools. I had a phenomenal team. I was blessed to make it through Covid. I felt like I needed a reward, and so I didn’t necessarily spend my money. Right all the time.

• 0:09:31 Kris Murray: Right. So let’s talk. We’re going to dive into that. So what I want to talk about on this episode and the reason I brought Tamina here is. Well, first of all, I totally felt to. I was like, I just knew that you needed to come be with me and talking a little bit about. We’ve come through this very, very difficult season. I’m going to just say the post Covid season, the last four years, and having all the money in the streets from the government, from the Rescue act was necessary to get us through it.

• 0:10:05 Kris Murray: But a lot of us mismanage that money. And we’re feeling it now because now we’re in this place where. And then, you know, we’ve got all of these different factors coming in. And I wanted just to come and talk a little bit real talk about people who. For people who are struggling, for people who need to hear this today to get them back in a place where they can have hope and real strategies and maybe some new tools in their toolbox or just a reminder of the tools we’ve been talking about for a long time in coaching.

• 0:10:44 Kris Murray: But it’s almost like we’re back in the recession of 2008. Right. And we haven’t had to talk about these things and how to actually survive. We talked about it during COVID of course, survive and to thrive. But that was a completely different era. So with that, let’s talk a little bit about if you wouldn’t mind sharing some of the key missteps maybe that you made, maybe one or two things that you did that you felt were not the best choices for your business.

• 0:11:19 Kris Murray: And then what you learned from those things, what are the big lessons that you’ve learned over the last couple years?

• 0:11:27 Tameenah Adams: The biggest lesson that I learned was when it came to managing the revenue and changing my mindset about it, I thought if I had my bills paid and I had a certain amount of money in the bank, I was good. What I didn’t think was the things that were beyond my control that I didn’t know about. And so if I had my payroll and I had, you know, let’s say at one point, I know that I had over a million dollars cash in the bank account.

• 0:12:01 Tameenah Adams: So I’m thinking my payroll’s done. I followed the rules of three months worth of assets in the bank account, plus a little cushion. Yeah, sure. I’m in Hawaii. I’m gonna buy $10,000 worth of purses because I deserve it. I’ve survived the pandemic. I deserve it. I’m not treating myself, you know, I deserve a bonus. Now, in retrospect, I probably have $5,000 of those $10,000 of purses still in my closet, still with the tags on.

• 0:12:33 Tameenah Adams: Was it really the best thing? Did it give me the reward that I felt like I truly deserved? I think not. So I’m learning now that a different reward system and that is rewarding myself with non materialistic things. My reward comes in how my heart feels, how my mind feels, how my body feels. Am I able to sleep? Well, I realized that rewarding myself really doesn’t cost anything. So that was number one, is really learning that you could have your bills paid, but there’s a better way to manage your money because you have to predict the unpredictable. And that’s what I didn’t do.

• 0:13:17 Tameenah Adams: Right. I cannot control the behaviors of others. Oh, I know. It’s only gonna take me, you know, to put this furniture in and I’m in the market this way, and then all of a sudden my building’s gonna be full. Well, I didn’t expect in D.C. for parents to stay virtual as long as they did. So it calls the slower track at centerfold. I think the other thing that I’ve learned the most over these years, giving myself grace and mercy and working on my ego.

• 0:13:51 Tameenah Adams: I’m working, working on my ego. I’m not snobby, I’m not bougie. So I used to use that as the grading scale. Like, hey, I’m not snobby. I don’t think I’m better than people. I’m very humble. I don’t have an ego. I do, because that ego shows up as my power struggle. As a leader. You’re going to do it my way. This is my business. It’s the power struggle. I’m right, you’re wrong. I don’t need to hear your point.

• 0:14:15 Tameenah Adams: So I’m learning to quiet the ego and sit in the moments.

• 0:14:22 Kris Murray: So let me speak to that a little bit and thank you for sharing that and thank you for being so real and transparent with me today. The ego isn’t just the bougie who’s showing up driving the sports car. The ego is really the part of you that wants to keep you safe. It wants to. It’s looking for security, acceptance, recognition, approval. It’s looking for love. The ego is the part when you’re little, you’re a little baby and everybody has babies in their school. So you guys can recognize this moment, that moment that infant looks in the mirror for the very first time and smacks her hand on the glass on the mirror and says, I’m here, I am a human. I exist as this separate being.

• 0:15:13 Kris Murray: That’s when the ego is born. So that ego is just looking for love. And if you don’t get love as a human, you will perish, you will cease to exist. So we all need it. But the thing that I’ve discovered in this journey is all the love that I actually really need, I have to give to myself. And so when you stop looking for all of that approval, acceptance, recognition, you don’t need it anymore. The way to stop it is just to continue to love yourself through this self awareness process, through presence and realizing you don’t need the handbags, you don’t need the material possessions.

• 0:16:02 Kris Murray: I’m even thinking about selling my sports car that I love so much, but I don’t need it. Like, I love the feeling it gives me when I get in to drive it, but it’s sitting in the garage right now covered, like, what, what am I? You know, like, right? So for people that need to hear this today, it’s just having that awareness to what your ego is actually driving you to do. You might be like, I didn’t even have the awareness to know that I was doing X, Y and Z because I was attached to.

• 0:16:36 Tameenah Adams: Right.

• 0:16:38 Kris Murray: What the parents thought of me, what my teachers thought of me, what my husband thinks of me, what my kids are doing, how it’s reflecting on me, what it’s telling society about me that I. So yeah, thank you for sharing all of that.

• 0:16:52 Tameenah Adams: It comes from the ego can even fool you to believe that it’s not the ego. Right. Like you said, it comes from as early as infancy, either my childhood traumas or something as small as I was skipped in the fourth grade to a higher grade. And I had my fourth grade friends that didn’t accept me and then I had my fifth grade friends that didn’t want me either. So that started really early on with me wanting to prove myself and me being held accountable to the fact that I was labeled as talented.

• 0:17:30 Tameenah Adams: And that has shown up. And I realize that now that that shows up because I have a checklist of things that I’m saying. I need to make sure my school is this. So I need to make sure that I’m showing up like this. And that’s that what we think about wanting to be loved as, oh, I have low self esteem. I love Tamina and Tamina’s really funny and she’s cute. But I’ve created this checklist of I need these things to prove and measure my success.

• 0:18:02 Tameenah Adams: I need these things or I deserve these things to be my reward for success. And you’re right. And I’ve just learned that really it’s within me. And the minute that I’ve started the journey to really look and love me, I’m healing from the hurt in my life and how I hurt myself. And self love is being kind to yourself. You know, there’s always out here, self love, self love, self care, self care. Go do this. Go.

• 0:18:34 Tameenah Adams: The greatest form of self love is learning how to be kind to yourself and to stop abusing yourself. And I’ve been doing that. I’m abusing myself. And so now that I’m on this journey, oh my gosh, I’m showing up even better as a leader. My staff, my peers, they’re like, who is this new you? Did you do something different? I’m like, no, Same hair, maybe a different color, same weight, size, just. I don’t know. It’s a different type of humility.

• 0:19:06 Kris Murray: Mm. So let’s talk a little bit about overwhelm and try and then I wanna talk about how people can get back if they’re in a hole. I wanna talk about that too. So as far as overwhelm. Cause we’re hearing that from coaching clients because they’re facing all of these things that maybe have been mismanaged over the last few years or there’s these market shifts that have happened. So people are having fewer babies here in 2025 than they were in 2020.

• 0:19:38 Kris Murray: People are more. They’re less trusting of the system, so they’re more apt to keep their children home or have different flexible models where they don’t want full time care. So the model is changing of how families are behaving. Government plays a role because they’re also less trusting of the government because we’ve had all of this to some degree, craziness in our political scene. And so how can people, if they’re facing this feeling of overwhelm or even not wanting to get out of bed, how do you coach them to start getting started taking their life back just for today, for this moment.

• 0:20:21 Tameenah Adams: On the week that I’m in Overwhelm. I’ve been working in my center from 6am to 6pm every day. Today is my first day out of my center all week. This is perfect. You know, every day I wake up. So one, I have to wake up in a quiet space. So that means that I need to wake up before my building wakes up. I have to, right? So waking up, it took a while to discipline myself. And I just start off by in my own mental space saying, not worrying about what I need to do to get through the day, but just saying I am going to get through today.

• 0:21:00 Tameenah Adams: And saying, you know what? What are the three things that I must do that are most important that I accomplished today? You know what? It’s payroll day. Payroll. You know what? I have to make sure that my subsidy gets in. And then I’ll say, you know what, if I can’t even do those, what is the one thing that absolutely today I have to do? And that’s my most important, my must do. And maybe on that day it is. Today’s the absolute drop dead deadline to press the button for payroll.

• 0:21:34 Tameenah Adams: I do that at the start of my day because we all get thrown things, right? And so if I don’t get nothing else, I know I’m gonna get that one must and maybe the three most done. The other thing I do is I have a running to do list. So I have a notebook that I list when my mind ever. Because you know, we’re thrown things all the time as entrepreneurs. I could be sitting right here in my office and a teacher walk in and say, hey, I need this and hey, I need that. I’m not gonna remember. So I just start making a list.

• 0:22:05 Tameenah Adams: Don’t forget to give the teacher her badge. Don’t forget to order whatever. And that list I know is an infinity list. Let me just call it an infinity list. It’s an infinity to do list. It will be ever existing.

  0:22:18 Kris Murray: Yes.

• 0:22:18 Tameenah Adams: What I do is that as I go through the hustle and bustle of my day, before I end my day either in the office or at home, I do reflection. I sit back and I look at my day, just the day, and I mark off the things I’ve gotten done so I can give myself grace for whatever I didn’t. And then I also do a reflection in myself, right, that I sit back and say, is there something in this day, is there somebody I owe an apology to that I didn’t show up the way I wanted to show up today?

• 0:22:51 Tameenah Adams: Do I owe myself an apology because maybe there’s something I failed to do because I have to forgive myself before I go to sleep because I can’t carry it into Tomorrow. Because tomorrow’s my opportunity to show up different. Is there somebody, Is there something that I need to restructure in. In what I did? I do a reflection, right? Like, right. Is there something? And then, okay, I’m going to sleep and I’m waking up tomorrow and it’s a new day.

• 0:23:19 Tameenah Adams: I am not celebrating Happy New Year’s. I’m celebrating Happy New Year Day. Every day. Happy New Year’s Day, Chris. Today is a new day. If we take that goal that we set for the year. Yeah, we dip, right? And then we beat ourselves up. Because I said I was gonna be at the gym and I done gave up and I said I was gonna save more money and I done spent money. But every day is a new day for me. But what is my goals for today? And did I make em? And if I didn’t, I forgive myself.

• 0:23:49 Tameenah Adams: And that’s how I get out of overwhelm, right? And I’m honest. It’s taking a lot even being on here, right? And telling that I mismanaged some money as somebody that many people look up to, that’s hard. And so I’m doing that with my staff. I’m saying, you know what? I’m sorry, you’re right. I can see how you feel. You’re not wrong for how you feel. And I apologize for that. Because a lot of times, as an owner or as a leader or even in a relationship, I get into a power struggle of, I’m sorry, but you did this. We call it the Pisces apology.

• 0:24:25 Tameenah Adams: I’m sorry, but that’s because we try to justify our behavior.

• 0:24:28 Kris Murray: Right?

• 0:24:29 Tameenah Adams: Sometimes I just got to say, you know what? You’re right, I’m sorry. Or I don’t even have to say, you’re right. I could just say, I’m sorry, and how do I make it further? And I’m getting the buy in, right? And I’m constantly looking for new things. And I’m saying, I could do this because one thing for sure, two things for certain, we will never be replaced by robots or AI. This is an amazing industry.

• 0:24:50 Tameenah Adams: And the final thing I do is I keep staying plugged into a community that can serve me and that can understand me. Where I could feel safe, where I could have conversations like this and someone could say, I understand and this helps me. Or I could hear someone else’s story and I could say, I could do something with that. I gotta be plugged in with the right community.

• 0:25:12 Kris Murray: Yes, because it keeps filling your cup with new ideas, inspiration, motivation, just strengthening, pulling, pulling Strength from others, from the people in your community. And that’s. That’s what we have. That’s what we’ve built. So the other thing that hit me was if you’re looking at your to do list and, you know, it goes back to the very first thing that we taught is your unique brilliance and just hiring the right help to help you pull the things off your to do list that are under your, you know, I would say under your pay grade. Or that if you’re the owner, the entrepreneur leader, and you’re running to Costco to get supplies still, you know, so you’re doing a lot of things for. Because you have to be the glue of your program to keep it all together is you have to. At some point after you get through all of that overdoing and overwhelm is you have to go, okay, let me get really real here. What am I doing that is beneath my pay grade?

• 0:26:17 Kris Murray: And hire that help and hire somebody that would love to go to Costco and run those errands and be that office manager or that classroom supply manager or what have you and write that job description for that person that. Yeah, right.

• 0:26:31 Tameenah Adams: Or you know what? Be honest. And I get it right where you say, I don’t have the money for that. I can’t even afford that. There is enough technology out here, enough access. I don’t have time. Like right now in crisis mode at my school, I. I can’t go to Costco or I’m gonna have to do it after work. So you know what? I gotta instacart it. Does it cost a little more money? It does. But guess what? How much money would it cost me for that to do it myself? How much gas is it taking me away from in my program?

• 0:27:01 Tameenah Adams: So either sometimes after, like first thing in the morning at quiet time, the very next thing I do is I’m instacarting some emergency stuff. Do we have milk? Do we need this? I’m instacarting, I’m door dashing. I’m sending in whatever I got to send in because they go to those places for you.

• 0:27:18 Kris Murray: Yep.

• 0:27:19 Tameenah Adams: That’s saving me time because I can’t afford to hire somebody full time right now to do it. So I’m going door dash it. And I’m using technology.

• 0:27:28 Kris Murray: Yes. So I did that for my daughter. She’s in college and she just went back and she’s like, mom, I just can’t figure out how to manage my meals and do my own food prep because now she’s in a little house with a roommate instead of being in the dorms. And I’m like, okay, you got a $75 a week Instacart budget. Get on there and order healthy food. Order fruits and veggies and chicken breasts and whatever you want.

• 0:27:55 Kris Murray: And that’s what we’re doing. Because I’m like, that’s one less thing you have to do as a busy college student is go run to the store. Everything will just come to you, and all you have to do is cook it.

• 0:28:06 Tameenah Adams: There you go.

• 0:28:07 Kris Murray: So one other cool example of that I want to share is my physician, my OB gyn. She hired a VA out of Philippines who comes in and is with her on Zoom virtually on her laptop during appointments. So I’m sitting there and she’s talking to me, and her VA is on Zoom with us. And she introduced her to me on the computer and taking all the notes of the sessions and then putting it in my patient portal. So that, that takes the load off of all of that scribing off of the staff in the medical office, because this low pay or affordable VA who loves the job in the Philippines would be happy to, you know, have that job.

• 0:28:57 Kris Murray: So that’s just examples, guys. We’re trying to give you examples of how you can think differently and use technology to help replace yourself, right?

• 0:29:07 Tameenah Adams: So, you know, my teachers, I might have just the other day, you know, I was, I’m trying to read, I needed to get all the supply lists, I needed to put the order together to put in for supplies. And I told one of my staff members, I said, look, your shift is over at 4. Can you stay an extra hour and a half to two hours and help me get this done? Am I paying overtime? Time and a half. It’s cheaper to pay time and a half and give this employee more value for two hours of overtime than to pay for a full salary that I cannot afford with just these little project things.

• 0:29:44 Tameenah Adams: So that’s another way to do it, is to get their buy in. And they love it. They love the fact that I’m saying, look, I’m here with you. I want to make things better. I just don’t have the time. If you have an hour, you have 30 minutes. I’m willing to budget and you help me. I had another teacher Yesterday who said, Ms. Adams, if you want my shift starts at 9, I could come in at 7:30, I can get this stuff unpacked. I could send these letters out to the parents for you.

• 0:30:12 Tameenah Adams: So I’m making my staff show me what they have and Adding value and giving them buy in. So they’re all in. And they’re so excited, they’re telling other people, like, I had a new girl start on Tuesday. She was like, I’ve never had an employer that tells the truth like you do. I’ve never had an employer say, I will help you in ratio, but I’m not changing no diapers. I will sit and rock the baby. I will sing to the babies. I will get on the floor, but you gonna have to change the diapers. You gonna have to be that party to do it. And she was like, appreciate the fact you’re willing to come in.

• 0:30:46 Tameenah Adams: So you’re right. It’s there. It’s there. We have it.

• 0:30:52 Kris Murray: Yeah. Well, what you’re talking about is the courage just to be super transparent. Not. Not unprofessional. And you still have a boundary, but you’re being transparent with a boundary. You’re not. You’re not being a, you know, a doormat. You’re not being overly giving or, you know, overdoing, but you’re being transparent. And today’s employees, I mean, that’s all that we want. It’s. We’ve come into this era of transparency here in 2025, and we can tell. We can smell the BS meter, right? So we can tell. And we don’t want to work with people that are going to just beat us a bunch of nonsense.

• 0:31:32 Tameenah Adams: And they want. Believe it or not, we think that they don’t want accountability. We think that they want to do what they want to do. That’s our ego telling us that. Because I still have a point system, they still have to bring me documentation when they’re calling out. There’s still things that I coach them to and hold them accountable to, but I also get them to understand this is twofold. To whom much is rewarded, much is required. And what is the thing we hear from employees, especially teachers, I’m trying, I’m doing my best, I do this, I do that. And you know what I had to tell a teacher this week? I said, you do, and your intentions are on 3,000, but what impact is it making?

• 0:32:11 Tameenah Adams: You have the best intentions. I’m not here to measure that. But your intentions have to equal your impact. Same thing for me as a leader. I’m trying, but what am I impacting? What am I doing? So once I told her that, she paused. I said, just sit in that for a minute. Not here telling you your intentions aren’t good, but what impact is it making?

• 0:32:34 Kris Murray: Right?

• 0:32:35 Tameenah Adams: Ooh.

• 0:32:38 Kris Murray: All right, let’s Talk about the financial piece. And because we did touch on it, we touched. We talked about using technology, using inexpensive strategies. In the upcoming academy meeting, we are having Samantha Phillips come and talk about the world of insurance. Many people’s insurance, either they’ve. Some people have gotten completely dropped and some people’s. Most people’s rates have doubled or tripled in the last year for insurance.

• 0:33:17 Kris Murray: Enrollment is down across the board pretty much because people, we have overbuilt in many cases in certain markets. There’s too many centers for the demand. And people I think also post Covid forgot some of the basics. Like, I think we got so comfortable with the funding that even if we were sitting at 75, 80% full, there was a comfort level there and we just let it ride because we just assumed that it would come back and kind of dropped. Some of these basic things that we teach in the growth asset checklist, which is the marketing piece, you know, and the relationship building piece at the front end of your funnel.

• 0:34:00 Kris Murray: So talk a little bit about how you coach people if they are facing. If they’re in the red right now and they’re losing money and they’re bleeding money. What you know, and, and their insurance rates have tripled and they’re. What are some things that you. How you coach people to try to get back to a place where they’re making money again.

• 0:34:22 Tameenah Adams: So. Ooh, that’s a tricky one. So, because I was thinking, because I. I’ve had some increases as well, so the first thing we don’t do is operate in fear, right? Fear. Like you taught me many years ago. The antidote to that is action. So I’m afraid about my insurance. I’m afraid that I don’t. And I start panicking. No, I need my insurance. It’s going to work. I’m going to speak a positive affirmation.

• 0:34:49 Tameenah Adams: It’s going to work. The other thing that you’ve taught in the academy is figuring out that math. So I do the same math now. How many children do I need to be able to afford this increase, right? And I focus my attention on now, where can I go get those two children? Where can I go get those three children? The other thing is going back to being real with myself. Okay? I was sitting at a 24% profit margin.

• 0:35:18 Tameenah Adams: I was sitting at this one location, a 43% profit margin. Life was great. Maybe right now for 20, 25, I’m only gonna be at a 3% profit margin as long as I know. Or I might be at break even. Like one of My schools right now is right at break even. That’s okay to get it to break even. And that be that’s the hard part of entrepreneurship.

• 0:35:41 Kris Murray: Yep.

• 0:35:41 Tameenah Adams: So I say if you could, let’s work to get you at break even and let’s see what is the necessity. And you gotta be mindful of the noise. You have to quiet the noise around you. So I had to do that. Quiet the noise. All social media is a lot of noise, you know, and sometimes people who don’t know business are a lot of noise. And the biggest one is the people that are in business that don’t know your business.

• 0:36:07 Tameenah Adams: So if my attorney tells me, hey, you know what? I don’t think this is a good real estate deal. You might need to get out of it. Excuse me, you don’t know childcare. I’ll take what you say, but I’m gonna take what you say. And now I’m gonna go to my peers which are in childcare. And now let me see what I can come up with. Because if I let an attorney or I let a CPA or I let someone else say, oh well, drop this and drop that. You don’t know childcare.

• 0:36:32 Tameenah Adams: So I expect you to make this decision. Let me take what you give me and now let me go to a childcare group and let me go with them and let me see what works. Cause if it’s working for one or two people, it should work for me too. I’m sorry. It’s just pulling it all together. So that’s what I do. And then I dig myself out of that hole and I keep giving myself grace and say, you know what? I made it through my payday.

• 0:36:57 Tameenah Adams: You know what? I might have had to borrow. The US borrows money all the time, so I might have had to borrow. And maybe I’m paying 10% interest to make payroll, or maybe I’m paying 30% interest to make payroll. That’s a temporary fix to a long term profitable industry. We will still be here. Just 25 is this way. I’m so sorry, but yeah, that’s what I do. And that’s what I coach to. Yeah. And that’s what I also say is the value. Right? The value of a great program.

• 0:37:33 Tameenah Adams: I have business coaches, I have the coach. I have childcare coaching. I need it. I’m not cutting that out my budget. Because if I cut it out my budget, where am I going to learn from?

• 0:37:46 Kris Murray: Exactly.

• 0:37:48 Tameenah Adams: I just can’t do it. I’ll find something else to cut out the purses. If I Sell three of these purses. I could pay. I mean, that’s just me being real. Let me not go down that rabbit hole.

• 0:37:59 Kris Murray: Well, I want to go back to not operating out of fear because I was speaking with an owner yesterday who always would come into her tuition increases with a place of, like, fake confidence. Like, I’m going to do this 5 to 7 to 8% tuition, annual tuition increase, but I’m going to either hide behind the fact that it’s coming from management, it’s not coming from me, the owner, or I’m going to, like, just do it in a. From a place of partial fear. Yes. It’s like, almost like fake it till you make it. Like, I’m doing this increase because Chris Murray told me I needed to do an increase, but I don’t really feel that I’m worth it.

• 0:38:49 Kris Murray: And I’m nervous about doing it. I’m doing it from a place of fear. And then what? What is the result when you do that? Well, the energy that you put into that increase, because it wasn’t a confident feeling of, I love to do this because I’m worth it. And I truly feel my value is Now I’ve got 10 parents coming at me, complaining to me about the increase. But yet. So she told me yesterday she did the increase for the very first time from her name, from not hiding behind from management.

• 0:39:24 Kris Murray: It’s from me, the owner. And I feel to do this because I know that I’m worth it. I love to do this because I’m. This business has this value and this love for the children that. So there’s this value piece, this giving process piece that you’re putting into your increase. So you’re combining, like, your heart and how you really feel about yourself and your mindset with your leadership and with your business practices. And when you come to those decisions with that energy, it’s all energy.

• 0:39:58 Kris Murray: The result was. I said, so how many parents have complained? She goes, zero.

• 0:40:05 Tameenah Adams: Right.

• 0:40:05 Kris Murray: And it’s all about the energy that you made that leadership decision with.

• 0:40:09 Tameenah Adams: And you just gave me my next. Aha. And I think my topic for when we go to Phoenix at the live meeting.

• 0:40:17 Kris Murray: Stop it.

• 0:40:18 Tameenah Adams: Yep, yep. You just did. You just gave me. Because we tell. We tell people how to dress. Like you said, don’t be afraid. Show them your value. But you know, I remember a presentation on e packets and I remember how I took that and I Amazon it to employee packets.

• 0:40:40 Kris Murray: Yep.

• 0:40:42 Tameenah Adams: I guess I need to do tuition increase epackets, huh? And show parents the value of why this 10% increase is worth it. So I think I’m going to work.

• 0:40:53 Kris Murray: Wow.

• 0:40:54 Tameenah Adams: Because we need to show them the process of how increases exist. Why did the cost of chicken go up? I’mma break it down for them. Why did the cost of your real estate or gas go up? I’mma break it. And why is the cost of your child? So they can really see we’re no different than any other industry.

• 0:41:11 Kris Murray: Right. Wow, that’s powerful.

• 0:41:13 Tameenah Adams: Yep.

• 0:41:14 Kris Murray: I can’t wait to see topic. You’re welcome.

• 0:41:16 Tameenah Adams: Doing two days. I’m trying in. Those who are coming to the live meeting are in.

• 0:41:22 Kris Murray: Yes, they are. So let’s finish with. Because that ties back to also something we were talking about before we started the recording, which was how you are working on yourself and the day to day living for this 24 hours, this new version of Tamina because you are a new version. How you are showing up as a leader because you mentioned that it’s flowing into your leadership and how you lead. So I call it Awakened leadership. That’s my new brand is Awakened Leader. Helping people with this consciousness, this new presence or this realization and then flowing that into how they lead.

• 0:42:08 Kris Murray: So maybe just one or two things of how you’re showing up differently for your team or how you’re leading differently.

• 0:42:18 Tameenah Adams: I’m leading differently because I’m leading even more transparently. My staff are broken. Life is lifing for them on their level. And their 15, $20 an hour problems for their life are just as big for them as my 100, $200 an hour problems. Right. And so just kind of having these conversations and again, I’m going to go back to giving more grace and mercy and just saying I get it. Because they think as owners we don’t have no problems.

• 0:42:54 Kris Murray: Right.

• 0:42:55 Tameenah Adams: They think as owners, life is amazing for us. And I’ve had employees say, Ms. Adams, you don’t understand what it’s like to make it from paycheck to paycheck. The heck I don’t. I said. But I just do it. Making it from payroll to payroll. Imagine that.

• 0:43:09 Kris Murray: I don’t know.

• 0:43:10 Tameenah Adams: Like so just I being vulnerable. We’re so scared to be vulnerable. Social media has gotten us or the public to. Don’t be transparent. Don’t say that people are going to use it against you, baby. They case searching you anyway. They googling you anyway. So before I’ve taken my power back, that’s what I’ve done is I’ve taken my power back. There is nothing anyone can say about me. Find on the Internet.

• 0:43:39 Tameenah Adams: Find From a neighbor that I have not transparently shared myself. I’m not gonna walk around in shame for anything. Okay. Maybe my business didn’t run right all the time. Maybe there was a time I didn’t make payroll. Maybe I did talk to an employee the wrong way. But that’s all in my past. And I’m just. I’m working it today. I’m trying to be better every day. And I’m saying to them, like, I’ve had so many one on ones with my staff, saying, it’s really hard for me.

• 0:44:08 Tameenah Adams: It’s lonely sometimes in this seat because I don’t get it right all the time. I don’t always have somebody to talk to. And I’m sorry. I’ve said so many I’m sorrys. I’m sorry if you felt like I snapped at you yesterday. I didn’t mean that. I’m not wrong for how I feel, but I’m wrong for how my emotions come out. Your feelings are one thing, your emotions are another. And I’ve learned that, like, what’s at the root of what I’m really feeling? I had to learn that I was angry. Why am I feeling angry? So if you’ve never looked up this thing called the feelings wheel, it is amazing.

• 0:44:47 Kris Murray: Oh, wow. I love that. Cool.

• 0:44:50 Tameenah Adams: It’s used in a lot of therapies, but it’s called the feelings wheel. I shared this with my pod the other day.

• 0:44:55 Kris Murray: Okay.

• 0:44:56 Tameenah Adams: At the center of the wheel is the emotion or the feeling. Right? So the other day I was really, really angry. And then when you go out of the wheel, it gives you what the options are from anger. And it said that either I was feeling infuriated or it was something else. And so I picked which one. You know what? I’m feeling that. And then it opened up. The final layer of this is truly what you’re feeling.

• 0:45:19 Tameenah Adams: And I want to thank coach Jody for that, because I remember Coach Jody kind of said this to me last year in Denver, and she was like, but what are you really feeling? And I was like, coach Jody, get on. I don’t want. What are you talking about? She’s like, no, what do you really feel, Coach Jody? But now, what am I really feeling? So just that. That has really helped. And positive affirmations. I have stickies everywhere that says pause, take a pause.

• 0:45:50 Tameenah Adams: It’s okay to say, you know what? Let me get back to you.

• 0:45:54 Kris Murray: Yes, 100%.

• 0:45:56 Tameenah Adams: Give me a minute to think about that. It’s okay to get up from my desk and go get A Mountain Dew. It’s okay to take a pause even with my children, my partners, whoever in life. Right. So learning how to take a pause. And so I have that all over my computer. And then I have affirmations just today. One of my affirmations says, it’s just today. Take it by the. And another one says, 24 hours. And how many times do I have to get it right in 24 hours?

• 0:46:29 Tameenah Adams: And if I can’t get it right in 24 hours, what can I do in this hour? And if I can’t figure out this hour, what can I do in this 30 minutes that’s helping me? We teach in education. I’m not an educator, but our teachers teach in education.

• 0:46:43 Kris Murray: Yes.

• 0:46:43 Tameenah Adams: Chunk it. They say break it up and chunk it. Teach the child in chunks. I’m learning how to do the same thing. And I think the last one being honest, that just like we noticed, there’s a generation of children that have undiagnosed special needs. There’s a generation of us adults that have that same issue. I am a person that was never diagnosed with ADD or adhd, but I’m showing all the traits as an adult.

• 0:47:13 Tameenah Adams: I’m learning to look at that and see how I can put tools in place to manage that. I’m learning that there are some teachers that have developmental delays that may not be aware of it. There are some parents that may have it that may not be aware of it. So the same way I have to use tools on these children, I probably need to use some of these tools on adults. So that’s what I’m doing. Cool.

• 0:47:36 Kris Murray: Hey, the feelings wheel, is that a book? Is that a resource? Is it online? How can we find that?

• 0:47:41 Tameenah Adams: I know it’s on Amazon. If you just put in the feelings wheel, it’s there. And then on the other side of it is. On the other side of it, of the wheel is two things. Two divisions. One division says things within my control and things beyond my control. And learning that you can only control the controllables.

• 0:48:01 Kris Murray: That’s right.

• 0:48:02 Tameenah Adams: That’s all I can control, is the controllables. I know right now everyone is loving Mel Robbins with Let them.

• 0:48:09 Kris Murray: Yes.

• 0:48:10 Tameenah Adams: And that’s true. Right. Like, I can’t control that. And what people think of me is none of my business.

• 0:48:17 Kris Murray: Right.

• 0:48:17 Tameenah Adams: That’s not my business.

• 0:48:19 Kris Murray: Yep.

• 0:48:21 Tameenah Adams: What I think about me is my business.

• 0:48:23 Kris Murray: That’s right. Okay. That’s what we’re going to leave it. That’s where we’re going to leave it, everybody. Real talk with Coach T today. Thank you, Coach Tamina, for being with me today on this episode. This has been amazing.

• 0:48:40 Tameenah Adams: Happy New Year Day.

• 0:48:42 Kris Murray: Happy New year day. Happy 2025, y’all. We’re trying to bring you alive in 25.

• 0:48:47 Tameenah Adams: I love that some of you are.

• 0:48:49 Kris Murray: Out there walking dead. Like, we got to wake up these walking deads. Come on, let’s go and get back to a place of self love realizations. Your new ver. This is your next version, so let’s dive into it. And we’ve talked about self love, mindset, money management, presence, delegation, technology, leadership so much and so much more. So thank you, community. Thank you so much, Coach Tamina. Thanks everybody for tuning in today. Any final thoughts, Coach T. As we get ready to be together in Phoenix with all of our friends in the.

• 0:49:30 Tameenah Adams: Academy, you know, ironically, my Last thought was Mr. Rogers neighborhood. It’s all about being good neighbors, right? And you needed a neighbor. And I just remember, would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won’t you be my neighbor? And I’m just excited about that as we go to Phoenix. I need my neighbors. Yeah. I need my community.

• 0:49:55 Kris Murray: Yeah, I love that. I love Mr. Rogers. Yep. I used to watch it when I was a little girl.

• 0:50:01 Tameenah Adams: Right. Excited about the neighborhood and what you get to the postman, what you get to learn from your neighbors. So that’s what made me. That literally came. I’m so excited to see my neighbors, my child care neighbors.

• 0:50:14 Kris Murray: Yes. All right, well, thanks everybody for tuning in to the podcast. I really appreciate you sharing your. Your valuable time with us. Hopefully you got some good writer downers from this episode and are feeling the love as we’re sending love out to every single one of you. Thank you so much, Tameenah Adams. And take care. Take care, everybody, and we’ll talk to you next time on Childcare Rockstar Radio. Bye. Bye.

• 0:50:41 Kris Murray: 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. 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.

• 0:51:11 Kris Murray: To watch my new video, just go to www.fixmyschool.com. that’s fixmyschool.com thanks. Take care and God bless.