Her Story
About Michele
My days are always 12-hour days minimum, without family obligations - that's just the business side. My key responsibilities are everything. I am the superintendent and the janitor, I am the teacher and the nurse, I am the marketing agent and the accountant and the payroll and the HR. I am also an advocate and a volunteer. I graduated college and there was supposed to be retirements that would lead to jobs, but what ended up happening was two recessions. My primary certification is in music education, so it was always dependent on funding and the politics of education changed drastically. After working in 12 buildings in 3 states in 10 years and literally being a nomad for a decade, I said enough of this. My then-husband and I had gotten pregnant with our first child, and I couldn't move anymore because I now have somebody relying on me to be stable. So we bought a house with the intention of opening the business, and that's what I've been doing for a decade. It's still education, it still uses my foundational degrees, but it was a way for me to afford the life and the lifestyle that I wanted, and I got to take my kids home. I kept them through COVID, socialized, and they didn't miss anything - we had birthday parties, we had friends, because we were socially safe here.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Michele
01What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice is to not listen to any advice. Had I listened, I wouldn't be successful. Had I listened to all the ways that I shouldn't do this, couldn't do this, I wouldn't be successful. Advice is one thing, success metrics are another thing, and then there's Live Your Life. I have friends who do not value what I do, and they don't see it as success because I got off of the standard path. But my life is as rich and as robust and in some cases more fulfilling than some of my friends who stayed on the path, a path that's not working.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
It is our space. We don't have to ask for permission to be in our space. It is our space as much as it's anybody else's space. Our work worth and our value - just entering the space, no apologies, no permissions, just be.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The parity of the state regulations is against my modality, and therefore I cannot expand. Without changing modalities, and when you change modalities, you change completely - philosophy, operating practices, everything that makes us us would not be. So there is no growth opportunity by way of state mandates.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Creativity is most important to me. To be an out-of-the-box thinker, to find solutions to get to the means. It takes creativity because just because somebody hasn't done it doesn't mean that it can't be done.
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