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How many times have you tried to think your way out of a hard day? You make the plan, color-code the calendar, give yourself the pep talk... and your shoulders are still somewhere up by your ears. Ashriel Huber is a certified brain coach, author, and host of the Called & Curious Podcast. She helps women who love God but still have anxious thoughts, hard days, big callings, and very human brains learn practical ways to become more at home in their minds and more rooted in God's love. She mixes faith, brain science, honest stories, and simple practices to help women notice what's happening inside them and experience more peace, joy, and connection in the life they're already living. What you'll learnWhy you can't think your way out of a fear state, and what your body needs insteadThe signals your body sends before your brain even knows you're stressedWhy ambitious women keep adding more, and how to start subtractingFive things to do with everything you're carrying (only one of them is "carry it better")How to face hard seasons honestly without slapping a positive affirmation on topThe identity trap behind "a good mother, leader, or wife should..." and how to renegotiate itWhy "I tried it and it didn't work" misses the point, and what rhythms of returning change Connect With UsAshriel’s Book, Love Moves: https://www.calledandcurious.com/general-3 Chanie's book, This Can't Be Normal: https://thiscantbenormal.com Join Schools of Excellence on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

If I asked you right now who owns enrollment in your school, you could probably give me a name. But if enrollment dropped this month, would that person be the first to notice? Or would you? Most owners I coach can name their enrollment person in about two seconds. She gives the tours, calls back the inquiries, and sends the packets. Then I ask a different question: who is responsible for moving this building from where enrollment is today to where it needs to be? That's when the room goes quiet. In this episode, I'm pulling apart the difference between handing off enrollment tasks and handing off the enrollment outcome. If you're still the one checking the numbers, doing math in your head as you walk past a half-empty classroom, and coming up with every idea when the number won't move, you never really let go of enrollment. You just stopped touching it. We walk through a concrete example, the four parts of infrastructure that make ownership real, and what to do when your director looks at you and says, "I don't know." In this episode, you'll learn: The one question that reveals who really owns enrollment in your school (hint: it isn't on your org chart)Why "help us grow enrollment" creates invisible work for everyoneThe pipeline numbers your enrollment owner should know without asking youThe four parts of ownership infrastructure: standard, ownership, rhythm, and responseHow you take ownership back the moment you start supplying the ideasWhat to do when your director says "I don't know," and how to build her thinking without doing it for herSeven questions to ask this week to see who's really carrying enrollment in your building Connect With Us: Chanie's book, This Can't Be Normal: https://thiscantbenormal.com Join Schools of Excellence on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

You hired the director. You hired the admin. Maybe you even hired the regional. So why are you still the one lying awake thinking about the classroom that isn't staffed? A lot of you are hiring right now. Teachers, admin, maybe a whole new layer of leadership. Before you make that next hire, I want to have a conversation with you about what you are actually handing off. It started in my kitchen. My 11-year-old daughter asked to bake with her 8-year-old brother, and I said yes, as long as the whole kitchen got cleaned up afterward. Fifteen minutes later there were bowls everywhere and ingredients all over the counter. When I asked her about it, she told me, completely sincerely, "But Mommy, I already cleaned seven things." I didn't ask for seven things. I asked for a clean counter. That moment has stuck with me, because it's how so many of our schools run. Everyone did something. Emails were sent, candidates were called, the spreadsheet got updated. And the counter is still dirty. The classroom still isn't staffed. The family who toured still didn't enroll. And somebody has to notice. If you own a school, you already know who that somebody is. In this episode, I share a conversation with a school owner I was onboarding recently who wanted her school to stop depending on her without disappearing from it. We talk about the difference between task distribution and true ownership, why your team can't read the standards living in your head, and what to do the moment your director walks in and says, "We're short two teachers." Are you hiring helpers when what you really need is owners? Let's find out. What You'll LearnWhy hiring more people doesn't bring relief when you transfer labor but not ownershipThe difference between task distribution and real ownership (and why most of what we call delegation is the first one)Why "hiring" is a task and "an appropriately staffed building" is an outcomeThe invisible agreement you make when you hire a helper instead of an ownerWhy your team keeps missing a standard that only exists in your headWhat to say when a problem lands on your desk so ownership doesn't boomerang back to youThe four-part ownership infrastructure: Standard, Ownership, Rhythm, ResponseThe one question to ask before your next hire: What needs to become true in this school without me? Connect With Us: Chanie's book, This Can't Be Normal: https://thiscantbenormal.com Join Schools of Excellence on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

You can have a leadership team, directors, job descriptions, titles, and processes. And somehow the school still works because you're the one underneath it all, noticing, anticipating, remembering, and asking the next question. From the outside, it looks like you've built something that runs. From the inside, you're the invisible operating system. In this episode, I sit down with Kris Saburn, an executive director who has spent 35 years in childcare. Kris has a center director, an administrative specialist, and a teacher mentor on her leadership team. On paper, she has plenty of help. And for years, she was still running in survival mode. What You'll LearnWhy a full leadership team doesn't automatically mean a school that runs without youThe open door policy myth that keeps directors working 60-hour weeksWhy so many women in leadership give to everyone except themselves, and what it takes to receive careThe difference between being lonely at the top and drowning in plain sightWhy questions build more leadership capacity than answers ever willHow constant updates can be a form of soothing your own anxietyWhy trust is built through evidence your body experiences, not through pep talksThe skills Kris built that help her face licensing citations and hard conversations without losing sleepWhat happens when you only seek support in a crisis Connect With Us Chanie's book, This Can't Be Normal: https://thiscantbenormal.com Join Schools of Excellence on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

I don't bring guests onto this show very often. Most weeks it's just you and me, working through leadership, one honest conversation at a time. But every so often I want to hand you a different voice, because getting to witness yourself in someone else's story is powerful in a way I can't always create alone. This week that voice is Kate Young. Kate and I have been friends for a while, along with her cousin Carrie, and we've done a lot together in the childcare space through our ongoing "Childcare Conversations." She's spent the last 30 years in early childhood education, she's a mom of four, and she's here to talk about her new book, Authority Without Apology. The book is about the women who are holding down entire industries — including ours — and getting zero recognition for it. Kate told me flat out: accomplished women don't need more credentials. We need to be seen for the job we're already doing. Once you see that gap, she said, you can't unsee it. We went deep. We talked about the financial cost of never stepping into your authority, and the quieter, invisible costs underneath it — confidence, identity, the years you lose being "somebody's spouse" instead of yourself. Kate told me about her own mother, who legally owned four businesses and still couldn't call herself a business owner well into her eighties. She told me about the moment, in her forties, when a stranger recognized her by her own name — and the "wrong turn" she took right after. This conversation got real fast. Grab your headphones for this one. What You'll Learn: Why Kate believes accomplished women don't need more credentials — they need to be seen for the job they're already doingThe story of Kate's mother, who owned four grocery stores and still wouldn't call herself a business ownerWhat happened when a stranger recognized Kate by her own name — and why she now calls it the turning point she got wrongThe real financial cost of staying invisible in your own life and leadership (and why it compounds over decades)Why you don't have to be an expert in something to be the right person for the jobHow Kate found meaning in the years she "lost" by reframing them as a gift to the people who needed her most Connect With Us: Kate’s book, Authority Without Apology: https://katewoodwardyoung.me/books/authority-without-apology Chanie's book, This Can't Be Normal: https://thiscantbenormal.com Join This Can't Be Normal on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

You coach her. You remind her. You give her grace, adjust the deadline, understand her season, and hope this is finally the time it sticks. Then you're back on the ride again. I was on a coaching call recently with a group of owners, and I asked them to think about someone on their team who isn't delivering predictably, reliably, and consistently. Not the obvious underperformer, the one everyone already knows isn't working out. I mean the person you're actually invested in. The one you keep coaching. The one you keep training. The one you keep giving another shot. I call this the teacup ride. You coach, you explain, you remind, you accommodate. Round and round you go. They give you a little bit of progress, just enough crumbs to keep you hopeful, and then somehow you're right back where you started, wondering why they can't meet the standard predictably, reliably, and consistently. In this episode, I break down why “did I coach her enough” is the wrong question to be asking, why infrastructure exists to give you evidence instead of just making your school run smoothly, and the two questions that finally reveal whether you're dealing with a skill gap or a willingness gap. Because you cannot supply willingness in another human being, and pretending you can is costing you a lot more than you realize. What You'll LearnWhy “did you coach her enough” is the wrong question when someone keeps missing the standardThe difference between a skill gap and a willingness gap, and the two questions that tell you which one you're facingWhy infrastructure exists to give you evidence of reality, not just to make your school run smoothlyWhat it actually costs you when you keep supplying your own capacity to cover someone else's roleHow to build a predictable response to a missed standard instead of reacting based on your mood in the momentWhy “one more chance” often protects the leader's hope more than it protects the outcome Connect With Us: Chanie's book, This Can't Be Normal: https://thiscantbenormal.com Join This Can't Be Normal on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

How many things in your life look functional only because you've become exceptionally good at compensating for what isn't? That's the question I can't stop asking, and it's the reason I started This Can't Be Normal, a new thinking space on Substack. This episode is a little different. I'm not teaching a framework or walking you through five steps. Instead, I'm pulling back the curtain on why I started writing publicly about the questions I don't have answers to yet, questions about responsibility, caretaking, competence, and what we've all quietly agreed to normalize. It started with a moment in Lake Tahoe, on vacation, when I suddenly noticed how automatically I take on responsibility that nobody actually assigned to me. That noticing turned into an article, then another, and eventually into a whole new space for thinking out loud instead of teaching from the front of the room. If you've ever felt like the person everyone relies on, the one who catches everything before it falls, this episode is your invitation to pause and ask a different kind of question. In this episode, you'll learn: Why Chanie started This Can't Be Normal, and how it's different from the podcast, coaching, or her bookThe moment in Lake Tahoe that made her question how automatically she takes on responsibilityWhy being a highly competent, capable leader can make it easy to compensate for things that shouldn't require so much of youThe difference between wanting an answer and wanting to be witnessed in a questionWhy the same "operating system" that shows up in your leadership also shows up in your marriage and parentingThe question Chanie wants every leader to sit with: what have you become so good at tolerating that you've stopped asking whether it should be normal? Mentioned in this episode: This Can't Be Normal on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/ Article: "The Cost of Being the Caretaker" — https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/p/the-cost-of-being-the-caretaker Connect With Us: Join This Can't Be Normal on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

Your staff is the biggest line item in your budget. Which also means your schedule can be the biggest leak in your school, and most leaders don't even know it's happening. In this episode, Chanie is breaking down schedule efficiency: not "do you have enough staff," but do you have a strategic coverage system. She walks through a real audit where a single scheduling fix uncovered nearly $30,000 a year in savings, and why chasing more enrollment isn't always the answer when the leak is sitting in your own schedule. This episode covers strategic coverage versus just having bodies in the building, why schedule predictability is a leadership standard and not a luxury, why break coverage is actually a culture issue, and why directors who keep jumping into classrooms are quietly stealing from their own school's profitability. In this episode, you'll learn: The difference between strategic coverage and coverage for the sake of coverageHow a 20-minute daily shift overlap across 20 teachers added up to $27,733 a year in one real auditWhy systems need to be designed around the school, not around whichever person is currently running themWhy schedule predictability is a leadership standard, not a nice-to-haveWhy break coverage is a culture issue, and how a late break erodes trust between teachersWhy directors and owners who regularly cover classrooms are unintentionally hurting their school's profitability Connect With Us: Join us on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

What if the thing that finally moves the needle in your school isn't a new system, but a phone call? This is the final episode in our three-part series on the power of community, and today we're bringing it all together: thriving together, the strength of collective wellness. We're talking about how the people you surround yourself with shape your health, your growth, your business, and honestly, your whole trajectory as a leader. I open with a quote from Jim Rohn: you are the average of the five people you spend the most time around. And once you sit with that for a second, it explains so much — why the mindset in the room rubs off on you, why a struggling season can start to feel “normal,” and why getting around leaders who are further ahead can shift everything without you doing anything differently at all. I walk through real, specific examples of what that's looked like inside our own community: a member who sold her school to another member she met inside the program, a director who got connected to her next regional manager role after a cross-country move, a leader who was saved from a construction nightmare by another member's architect referral. None of these people joined community hoping for those outcomes. That's exactly the point. What You'll Learn In This Episode: Why the five people you spend the most time with shape your beliefs, habits, and results — whether you're aware of it or notThe difference between a community that creates collective wellness and one that spreads collective distressWhy “your network is your net worth” isn't just a nice phrase — it's access to opportunities, knowledge, credibility, and long-term relationshipsA simple travel habit that keeps you exposed to new ideas outside your usual laneReal, anonymized stories of what happens when school leaders build genuine community — from business sales to job placements to saved timelinesWhy investing in community without an immediate ROI is still worth it — and why waiting until you're desperate is the wrong move Connect With Us: Join us on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

Have you ever sat in a staff meeting and realized it's the same three people talking every single time? That's not community. That's a room full of people who've learned it's safer to stay quiet. This week I'm back with Part 2 of our series on the power of community, and today we're going Beyond Borders. I'm talking about how the connections you build, whether that's at a conference, in your staff meeting, or inside an online community, ripple out into real, local impact at your school. We're talking about why dissent is actually a sign of a healthy team, why the best ideas rarely come from the stage, and why community might be the most underrated retention driver you're not tracking. What You'll Learn Why the best ideas at any event happen in the hallway, not on the stageThe real reason your staff meeting might be missing true community, even with a diverse team in the roomWhy "strong opinions, held loosely" might be the most useful leadership mindset you adopt this yearHow silencing dissent on your team quietly erodes trust (and retention)Why the same two teachers arriving late need two completely different responses from youPractical, low-pressure ways to build community even if events aren't your thing right now Connect With Us: Join us on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

You've got hundreds of kids in the building, dozens of teachers on your team, and parents lined up at pickup every single day. So why do you still feel completely alone? This week, I'm kicking off a brand new three-part series on the podcast all about the power of community, because nourishing the human spirit is just as important as nourishing your business. In this first episode, we're talking about embracing connection, the heartbeat of everything else we'll cover in this series. I've been running Schools of Excellence since 2016, and if there's one thing I hear over and over from leaders in our world, it's "I want relationships, I want connection, I want friends." And yet, so many of us are painfully slow to actually take the steps it takes to build them. It sounds simple. Go make friends. But in the season of life so many of you are in right now, it's genuinely hard. So today, I'm unpacking why community matters beyond just feeling nice, the real benefits it brings to your emotional and mental wellbeing, and the sneaky ways so many of us isolate ourselves without even realizing it's happening. This isn't about willpower. It's about recognizing the patterns and making one small first step back toward connection. What You'll Learn: Why humans need community for emotional survival, even though we no longer need it for physical survivalThe four real benefits community offers: emotional support, mental stimulation, a sense of belonging, and shared resources and skillsFive circumstances (not choices) that quietly isolate leaders without them realizing itWhat happens to your thinking and your decision-making when you stay isolated for too longA simple, low-pressure first step you can take today to rebuild connection Connect With Us: Join us on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

LaShawn Bridges has run Blessed Beginnings Learning Center in Detroit for 27 years. She's been through a recession. She's been through COVID. And she'll tell you the hardest season of her whole career wasn't either of those. It was learning how to stop being everyone's answer. I love bringing owners into this space because the shape of the story tends to rhyme, even when the details don't. LaShawn came to me in survival mode. She had policies. She had procedures. She had disciplinary systems on paper. And she still couldn't leave her building without holding her breath. This conversation is about what happens on the other side of that. Not a personality transplant, not a quick fix, just the slow, sometimes grief-soaked work of installing infrastructure and watching who you become because of it. We talk about the identity LaShawn had to grieve to become the anchored, accountable leader she is now. We talk about what chronic over-functioning cost her physically and mentally. And we talk about what changed in her marriage, her relationship with her adult daughters, and her families, once she stopped being the fixer for everyone in her orbit. If you've ever felt guilty for wanting quiet, or scared that letting something break means you've failed, this one is for you. What You'll LearnWhy LaShawn describes her old leadership style as “survival mode” even with systems already on paperThe identity she had to grieve in order to become an anchored, accountable leaderWhat chronic over-functioning cost her physically, and how her body told her before her mind caught upThe phrase she repeats to herself to stop absorbing problems that aren't hers to holdHow she rebuilt her calendar so staff issues stop landing on her desk in real timeThe weekly rhythm that changed her marriage after 27 years togetherWhy she now sees failure as a healthy, necessary part of building a business that runs without herHow she defines excellence, for her team, her families, and herself Resources MentionedChanie's book, This Can't Be Normal: https://thiscantbenormal.com Download Chapter One for Free: https://thiscantbenormal.com/chapter-one Connect With Us: Join us on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

You gave the perfect tour. The parent loved everything. And then they enrolled somewhere else. If that scenario makes you want to scream into a pillow, this episode is for you. In today's episode, I'm walking you through the four silent saboteurs quietly costing you enrollment: the first impression gap, the trust signals your team is missing, the confidence gap, and the follow-through factor. None of these have anything to do with your program quality. All of them have everything to do with how you communicate it. I share real stories from schools I've worked with, including a director who couldn't figure out why her inquiry-to-tour ratio was so low (spoiler: it wasn't her facility), and why "we'll think about it" almost never means what you think it means. What You'll LearnWhy parents form their opinion of your school long before they ever call or tourThe exact phrases that unintentionally signal "you're just like everyone else" to a touring familyWhat parents are really asking when they ask about your schedule, your rates, or your teacher retentionWhy confident answers beat perfect answers every single timeHow to build genuine confidence in a team member who feels awkward or unsure in front of familiesThe follow-up mistake that quietly hands enrollments to your competitors Connect With Us: Join us on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

I want you to think about the last stack of unanswered inquiries sitting in your inbox. The missed calls. The tour you meant to follow up on three days ago. If you're a school leader who feels like you're working harder than ever and your enrollment numbers still won't budge, this episode is for you. I've audited hundreds of school leader schedules over the years, and here's what I keep finding. The schools that are full, the ones with waitlists and a reputation that does the marketing for them, aren't winning because of a bigger budget or a better location. They're winning because of how they structure their day. I tell a story in this episode about a multi-site leadership team I worked with. Six locations, each one needing to enroll seven to ten kids, which meant they were staring down sixty enrollments they needed to fill. When I asked each director what she was doing to drive enrollment, the answers broke my heart. One had changed the answering machine message. Another rearranged the front desk. Someone updated the website fonts. None of that is enrollment activity. None of it is close to the cash. So in this episode, I walk you through what I call the Daily Profit Plan, four frameworks that separate the schools spinning their wheels from the schools that are full. This isn't about doing more. It's about doing the things that actually move the needle, and building a rhythm around them so they don't get pushed aside every time something urgent shows up. What You'll Learn Why "activities closest to the cash" matter more than busyness, and how to tell the differenceHow to protect enrollment time so it doesn't get swallowed by the daily fire drillsWhy generic follow-up scripts fail, and what a tiered follow-up system actually looks likeHow to turn your current families into a natural referral network without feeling pushyWhy enrollment can't live on one person's shoulders, and what happens when it does (including a real story about a nearly $50,000 mistake)What it actually takes to make your whole team enrollment ambassadors, not just your front desk Connect With Us: Join us on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/

You don't have one type of parent in your school. You have three, four, maybe five. And if your marketing, your website, and your enrollment tours are all speaking to the same imaginary "average" parent, that's exactly why some of your best families are scrolling right past you. In this episode, Chanie breaks down the Parent Archetype framework, a structured way to figure out who is actually enrolling in your center, what they care about, and how to stop guessing at your marketing and start speaking directly to the families in front of you. This is the enrollment conversation most schools skip. Everyone wants to talk about Facebook ads, website redesigns, and getting more Google reviews. Chanie makes the case that none of that works until you understand the data underneath it: who your parents actually are, what they actually value, and why they actually choose you. Whether you're short on enrollment, sitting on a full waitlist, or just want a marketing strategy that finally makes sense, this episode gives you the foundation everything else is built on. What You'll LearnWhy enrollment is "the lifeblood of your business" no matter what season you're inThe five data collection methods to understand your actual parent population (not who you assume they are)The exact demographic categories to track, from family structure to decision-making styleWhy online reviews mean almost nothing to certain parent avatars, and everything to othersFive real parent archetypes Chanie uses with clients: Career-Focused, Highly Involved, First-Time, Multicultural, and Grandparent GuardianHow to validate your avatars once you've built themWhy throwing money at Facebook ads won't fix an enrollment problem rooted in bad messaging Connect With Us: Join us on Substack: https://chaniewilschanski.substack.com/