Fingerpaints to Franchises: Amber Jayne’s Colorful Childcare Canvas | Daycare & Early Childhood Education Series

Intro  

Welcome to another edition of inspired stories where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes, how they’ve overcome adversity, and explore current challenges they’re facing.

Anthony Codispoti (00:02.84)
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codaspote, and today’s guest is Amber Jane, founder of the Loving Start Learning Center, a daycare with two locations just outside of Sacramento in Cameron Park in Auburn, California. They take care of kids from infant through kindergarten, and they’ll soon be offering franchise opportunities for their daycare.

Their website is lovingstartlearningcenter .com. She has written a book called the ABCs of Preschool where she equips preschool educators to find their own success. She has a podcast by the same name, the ABCs of Preschool Podcast, where she covers all things from parenting to childcare and how to not just survive, but to thrive in the early years. And she runs an academy where she provides a variety of courses to parents, educators, directors, and owners.

Information about this academy can be found at thelovingstartway .com. Before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cashflow by implementing one of our proprietary programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefitsagency .com. Now, back to our guest today, the CEO and founder of the Loving Start Way. Amber, I appreciate you making the time to share your story

Ms. Amber Jayne (01:39.517)
Yeah, thank you so much for having

Anthony Codispoti (01:41.621)
Okay, so let’s go back to the very beginning. How did you first get started in the early education space? What’s the origin story?

Ms. Amber Jayne (01:49.417)
I always loved kids. was the neighborhood babysitter. I was that 10 year old with like flyers and I would babysit kids in the neighborhood and I got married young at 19. And so I just got into the career. I started teaching preschool when I was 19 years old and got married at 19 and I had my first son at 22 and thought I was going to be this stay at home mom and I was going to bake cupcakes and

love it being a homemaker and it’s not cut out for everybody. And so my whole dream of staying at home kind of went out the window in about four months. I loved my son, but I just knew I needed more. And so that’s where the idea came of opening my own, but I’ve always loved kids and I knew, you know, having kids, teaching kids was my future.

Anthony Codispoti (02:42.795)
I’m curious, when you were going through that period of the first four months of being the stay -at -home mom that you thought you always wanted to be, and then realizing that maybe that wasn’t exactly how you were wired, that you were gonna need something else, something in addition to that, was this a difficult transition? I remember when my wife first stayed home with our first son, she had lot of feelings of guilt that she wanted to go back to work. I’m curious what your personal experience was

Ms. Amber Jayne (03:10.119)
Yeah, it was really tough for me. I, you know, for years had this vision of myself as a full time stay at home mom. And I was a really great mom, but I just, I didn’t like doing all the things every day the same. And so yeah, I had a really big transition, but I think I just accepted it. I’m glad I accepted that sooner than later, that that was part of me, that I just wasn’t as fulfilled.

So, I mean, I just went to work at like a part -time daycare and I got to bring my son with me. So I always incorporated my job, my work, opening up my own school so I could have my kids with me, a part of, you know, I was still being mom and I still got to work. And I think that was like the best of both worlds for me. And I think as women in general, and it’s really unfortunate, but I think a lot of times

you have either the working moms or the stay at home moms and we need to like break that cycle because everybody has to just do life the best way for them, you know, and it’s okay, either is fine and our kids are gonna be great and survive whether you’re a working parent or a stay at home parent, you know, it’s all personal choice.

Anthony Codispoti (04:23.187)
Yeah, that was one of the things that was a challenge for me to try to help my wife through was, this doesn’t make you a bad mother, doesn’t make you a bad person. Just means that you understand what you want in life, which is fantastic. And so, you know, go for that. And fortunately, we have great childcare centers around us that, you know, allowed for her to go back to work and have our kids be taken care of, you know, during their early years when we needed that. okay, so you,

Ms. Amber Jayne (04:41.117)
Yes. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (04:50.812)
have sort of this difficult sort of transition, but then you go into and you’re working at a child care center, you’re able to take your child with you. And so how did it progress from there into opening your own

Ms. Amber Jayne (05:04.093)
I always say it’s like a little seed of an idea. I taught preschool for four years prior to that and I liked a lot of stuff about it but I really didn’t like the management stuff. I didn’t like how the schools I worked at were handled. I didn’t like how leadership treated people. I don’t know when this idea came into my brain but I was like, I’m gonna start my own school. And I didn’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars.

22 at this point, my husband was like, you know, 24. So we took a home equity line out of our house. We did own our own home and I wanted to build a classroom onto my house. I didn’t want a home daycare. I didn’t want like kids running around my house. I didn’t want toys everywhere. I already had my own son. I was pregnant with my second. And so I had this idea of building a classroom.

onto our house and starting a preschool. And I remember sitting at the kitchen table, just crunching numbers. And it took me a couple of years to get to those numbers. But just something inside me said I could do this. I didn’t know what entrepreneurship was. I didn’t even know like even under the understand concepts of even owning your own business, because that’s not how I was raised. I was raised with a dad who worked at a chemical plant, you

four days on, four days off and worked for a company. And so I just didn’t know anything about owning my own business, but I knew I loved kids. I knew I loved teaching preschool and I knew I wanted my kids to be near me. And so that’s where this idea came, Loving Start came about. And I actually started it right after 9 -11. It was crazy. 9 -11 happened.

Anthony Codispoti (06:50.087)
Mm -hmm.

Ms. Amber Jayne (06:52.805)
and I had an open house. started October 1st of that year. it was so, you know, life was crazy then it was very uncertain. And I remember while the classroom was building being built, I had this little mini classroom, I had bulletin boards, tables and chairs. I mean, it was a school I had curriculum, all of it. And there were four little families there. I had two kids who were paying and two kids who were free, because you can’t start a school

two kids and yeah, I needed to fill it up and but by spring that was October. So by April I had 48 students and the classroom was built. Yeah. And I had to

Anthony Codispoti (07:23.604)
So you just wanted to fill it up, make it look,

Anthony Codispoti (07:35.306)
48 students in the classroom that you built onto your

Ms. Amber Jayne (07:38.569)
Total. I had like a Monday, Wednesday, Friday program, a Tuesday, Thursday, I had morning and afternoon classes going on and I had my first two employees. So and I was like pregnant with my second. So I was 24, 23, 23 and a half. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (07:55.37)
So for somebody with no entrepreneurial background, and it sounds like nobody to kind of model yourself after you just jumped in with two

Ms. Amber Jayne (08:03.025)
I totally did. And the internet wasn’t really, it was just beginning way back there. I’m aging myself, but yeah, it’s a lot of trial and error and it’s going with your passion. I was just passionate about creating high quality childcare. I wanted to create a school that I wanted my kids to attend. And so that’s how I rolled. I just wanted cooking and art and music. And so that was my little beginnings. And I never would have imagined it

you know, 24, almost 24 years later, we like today was one of my school’s first day of school. think it’s the 24th year. Yeah. I’ve loving start learning centers. So yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (08:42.825)
Wow. So what was it that you were committed to doing differently than the experiences that you had seen prior?

Ms. Amber Jayne (08:52.021)
I wanted to be a really good boss. I didn’t understand the impact yet that I could make for other people’s lives. Like I was just learning as I went, but I really wanted to make a huge impact on other women. And I think that’s been one of my biggest, I’m the most proud of. I’ve been able to be there for a lot of my staff over the years and created a lot of jobs.

And my program itself, I wanted to be different in the sense where here I am a new mom, but I think all the philosophies in early childhood education are amazing. And I now have four kids. They are all adults now. My youngest just turned 18 in June and each of them learn differently and experience the world differently. And so I wanted to create a program to that celebrates every child’s uniqueness

I throw in all the different philosophies, all the different ways of teaching and learning because not all children are Montessori based or not all kids need play based. So those are just some of the ways I wanted to be different. And it’s worked, it’s worked really, really well and we want to meet the needs for every student. So

Anthony Codispoti (10:08.05)
say more about how you wanted to be a really good boss for your employees.

Ms. Amber Jayne (10:12.201)
Yeah, I was not treated very well. I remember one of my jobs, one of my last teaching jobs for someone else. manager, the director was just really rude, really mean, very disrespectful. I wanted to change that. I wanted to be, you know, this field is predominantly, it’s probably 98 % women. And I wanted to be able to try

switch up a pattern and I wanted to be a transparent person for women who I wanted to be a person who lifts people up. So that has been like at the core of our schools lifting each other up if there’s issues talking to each other face to face and I am a firm believer. I tell this to all my clients who come in into or my school. My staff comes first then my clients because if my teachers are not happy

If they’re not fulfilled, if they’re not waking up with joy in their heart in the morning and excited, I know we all don’t want to work. can all just want to lay on a beach, right? But we all have jobs. So I want them to wake up loving their job and just little things like every month we do. I do gift bags at the first day of every month just to celebrate the new theme, the new month. We do lots of staff socials. We do wine like the wine bus at the end of the year because preschool teachers

We love our wine. yeah, so it’s really about community and culture of a family. Like I truly believe they’re an extension of family.

Anthony Codispoti (11:42.521)
Everybody needs a good release. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (11:53.746)
That’s terrific. Yeah, you know, one of the favorite questions I like to ask on this podcast is to type labor market, you know, it’s hard to retain and recruit good folks. And you know, what do you do? And you just, you know, rattled off a, you know, a nice list of things there that you do to make folks feel welcome and part of the family and staff first client second.

Ms. Amber Jayne (12:02.697)
You good?

Ms. Amber Jayne (12:14.953)
Absolutely. And in this business too, there’s so much turnover. There is a high amount of turnover and there’s, you know, with preschool and daycare, there’s, just, had a pep talk with my staff today. We were at my other school, we were doing our kickoff breakfast and there’s always a ceiling in childcare because we can’t enroll, you know, 300 kids. There’s only a certain amount of space. There’s only a certain amount of kids that we can enroll. So there’s always kind of

a ceiling in this business, a cap. And so it’s really important to treat, you know, your team with kindness and grace. And so we give a lot of time off to a lot of them are moms, you know, they have their own kids, their own families. So, you know, even for my childcare centers, we, we follow the school district. So when this the normal public schools are closed, we’re closed too. So my girls are getting time off. Yeah, so they get

They almost, it’s about 28 days from August through May that we have closure days that they have time off. And then I have loyalty bonuses. So I have people 14 years with me, 13, 12. Yeah, like a really, really long time. So most of my team members stay when I have the right team. Like I opened a new school a year ago and it takes about eight months, nine months to

Anthony Codispoti (13:27.163)
Wow, that’s impressive in this space.

Ms. Amber Jayne (13:41.607)
You know, people come in, you throw people out, they’re not your brand, they’re not, you know, they’re just not the right fit. But once I find my team, try to, they hold onto them. Usually if they leave when they get pregnant and they start their own families. So, that’s a typical thing, you know, or, they might come back in a couple of years when their little ones are old enough to be at our school. So

Anthony Codispoti (13:53.614)
Okay.

Anthony Codispoti (14:03.236)
Yeah, lots of good stuff there. I’m curious to hear more about the franchising opportunities that are

Ms. Amber Jayne (14:12.007)
Yeah, I’m really excited. I had this guy pursue me for eight years. He has begged me to franchise for eight years. He’s flown out to see me multiple times, but I went through a really horrible divorce and just wasn’t time in my life. And I had brain surgery two years ago, which is crazy in itself. Yeah. And I woke up and first thought was I’m alive. Thank goodness. And then I just realized it’s time for me

pursue these bigger dreams, right? Anytime we start a business or anytime we change a job or anything new in life, it’s scary, it’s taking a chance. So I’ve had these really big dreams of going nationwide for a really long time. And again, it falls back to high quality childcare. just think we need more loving, kind, amazing early childhood educators out there and we need more high quality.

child care centers. And I think we also need people talking more about early childhood. So yes, I’ve been working for the last almost two years, we are on our final document. It will be filed with the state of California probably the next three weeks. And then we’ll be ready to roll. So I’ve literally created a whole platform. This is going to be the first time ever that a child care franchise I have

three different models because I want it to be obtainable for anyone and everyone. I was this stay at home mom who wanted to start providing for my family and who wanted a job and it turned into something so beautiful for me that to be honest, I was able to leave almost a 20 year marriage that was very unhealthy for me, but I got to leave and I got to stand on my own two feet. I got to buy my own house because of my business.

So I, I am so excited. We’re going to be doing a home model franchise version. So if you know, like a stay first day at home moms or people that maybe not like, they don’t like their job, we’re going to do a home version. Cause I ran very successful for nine years from my home. And that’s moving to different cities. Like I moved around. and I always just bought a house where I could see the vision of a classroom. And

Ms. Amber Jayne (16:34.003)
We’re going to have a home version, a small school version, and then like the big commercial version. So I’m really, I’m so excited about it. I just like helping other people, you know, get to their dreams too. So yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (16:48.079)
So why was this person pursuing you for so long to franchise? What did he

Ms. Amber Jayne (16:52.137)
He saw something in me and he keeps telling me, he’s like, you just have no idea what’s about to come. So I don’t know. He didn’t give up. two weeks after I had my surgery, when I decided in my head, didn’t say anything. Of course, his name is Harry. I get an email from Harry again and he’s like, hey there, are you ready? And I was like, yes. He’s like, what?

I said, it’s time. And it was eight years of just little nudges along the way. he just, he’s believed in me and saw something and saw my schools. Yeah, I was on the phone with him today. We meet weekly. So yeah, we’re just really excited. Yeah. So here we are. I mean, I 30 some years

Anthony Codispoti (17:40.471)
And so Harry has experience in franchising different concepts. And so that’s the strength he brings to the

Ms. Amber Jayne (17:49.467)
Extraordinary. Yeah. And his whole team has been extraordinary. And yeah, so here we go.

Anthony Codispoti (17:57.398)
And tell me what is the difference between the small school version and the commercial version? Like for context, do you have a small school or do you have a commercial version?

Ms. Amber Jayne (18:06.637)
Yeah, so we’ll have the home version, which will be in home and then model B and C really are commercial. Both are commercial. We just have like, so for me right now, I have a school in Auburn, California that is a large, pretty large center. We have about a hundred and some kids every day on site. And then I have a school in Cameron Park, California, which is really small. We have about 45 kids. So, but both are commercial.

Anytime someone wants to open up a childcare center, it’s commercial unless it’s in your home. And so it’s different restrictions and qualifications for both. But when it’s in your home, it’s way more lenient in a way of the qualifications for your state.

Anthony Codispoti (18:54.316)
It’s an easier way to get started. You’re starting a small business for the first time. There’s less capital, less overhead, less

Ms. Amber Jayne (18:56.273)
It’s an easier way. exactly. Yes, less risk. And the beautiful thing is, you know, lot of big box companies are so rigid, right? Like, and I was telling Harry this whole time, I’m like, I don’t want to be like all the normal big box childcare centers where they just hand curriculum to their teachers. Everything’s printed. It feels cold. So each site

we’re going to have an outline of like the vibe, how it looks, how you run it overall. But, you know, we really want people to have the freedom if they really like science or if they’re really into gardening, go for that, you know, like that’s your specialty. So we’re just laying the foundation for everybody and all the things that have worked. You know, I had to took me years to figure out so much. Right. And now I just took it out all out of my brain with the book and the program that we’re about to launch

We’re just excited to come alongside people and support them.

Anthony Codispoti (19:56.247)
That’s exciting. Where can people go to find out more information or to know when this will actually be available?

Ms. Amber Jayne (20:02.715)
Yeah, they can keep going to the loving start way .com. The loving start way .com is kind of like we have our schools, but this is the kind of like the national brand that we’re moving towards. There’s just a small board because legally, I can’t quite start marketing it. So but the loving start way .com will have information. There is like a there is like you can get information now like, I might be interested and then when it’s legal.

You know, my lawyers, it’s almost there. So we’re almost there ready to be able to like really say, here it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (20:39.139)
Terrific, well I look forward to hearing more updates about that. But if you’re comfortable talking about it, I’d like to hear more about some of these challenges that you went through that got you to this point. Going through a rough divorce, getting out of an unhealthy relationship, and you had brain surgery. And I don’t know sort of the chronology of those, but those are two pretty huge life events. my goodness.

Ms. Amber Jayne (21:03.241)
I also had breast cancer at 31. Yeah, so here’s another guy I like to always say this to any human, right? We, it’s so easy for us to get on the hamster wheel of work. It’s so easy for us to work, work, work, over schedule ourselves. I think part of

learning for the first decade of running my own schools and being a mom and I wanted to be the best mom and the volunteer and I, you know, I wanted to do everything yet there was a lot of things going on behind the scenes. I think a lot of us wear a mask. A lot of times we wear this mask and everything is just perfect. But on the inside, I was struggling with perfectionism. I was struggling in a really unhealthy marriage. People didn’t see holes in the walls that were in my bedroom.

And I think that stress, truly believe the stress of all of it. And my coping mechanism was never like a drinker. My coping mechanism was to be busy because that’s how I felt love. And if I can stay busy and if I could accomplish this, and I loved hearing like, I don’t know how you do it all. You run your schools, you have your kids and you’re volunteering and you’re at the school auction and you’re doing logistics.

I loved hearing all of that, but I was so burnt out. at 31, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, which was super hard, obviously. I had no family history. So I’ve had multiple health things along the way. so I’ve really had to learn. Life is too short, right? And so sometimes we have to pause and think like, what are our goals? Our goals to work nonstop and so we’re just exhausted and why.

Why is that? So I left my marriage finally at almost 20 years. I took a sabbatical. So I work on my business, not in my business anymore. I have an amazing team. And yeah, so with the divorce and the brain was just a random, that just happened two years ago. I was having these really weird symptoms and it wasn’t like I was stressed or anything. I’m a very, everything’s very, I take a lot of vacation now.

Ms. Amber Jayne (23:22.951)
I take a lot of breaks. I’m happily remarried. I’m very, very happy and to a pilot. So we travel the world pretty much. Like we try to work three weeks and then take a week off. But the brain was just a weird one. I was just all of sudden having migraines, like really weird migraines. I was dizzy. I couldn’t barely walk through an airport. It was just really weird. And so they found I had like a cyst.

like a benign tumor on my pineal gland, which is in the middle of your brain. Here’s another thing is like when you know something’s wrong, like when I was 31, I knew something was wrong. Actually, when I was 30, I found my first lump. No doctor would hear me. I mean, they missed my ultrasound. But if I did not listen to my intuition, I just knew something was wrong. And it took me doing my research and pursuing it to get a biopsy.

And same thing with my brain. They gave me an MRI. They’re like, nothing’s wrong. There’s this little thing here, but that’s fine. And I just didn’t sit right with me. For a year and a half, I was having extreme, like major cognitive issues. And I found a surgeon that was like leading the way in pineal gland issues and went to South Carolina and he did a craniotomy and it was scary as hell. But.

Anthony Codispoti (24:42.505)
And a craniotomy is where they cut you, cut

Ms. Amber Jayne (24:45.039)
they cut your skull. Yeah. The pineal gland is like way in the middle of your brain, this tiny, tiny gland. And so he removed it and changed my life. He did. He took the whole thing. Yeah. And which I don’t know, I wasn’t even sleeping. wasn’t sleeping. I mean, there was so many issues and it’s just really changed my life. I feel amazing now. Yeah. So who would have known, but you know, we have to be our own advocate.

Anthony Codispoti (24:55.359)
He removed the whole gland.

Ms. Amber Jayne (25:13.223)
when we feel like something’s not right, have to push until we have the right answer.

Anthony Codispoti (25:18.101)
Well, that was quite the trifecta of life hurdles that you went through. Breast cancer, divorce, brain surgery, and you’ve come out the other side happier, healthier, better pace, better priorities, healthy marriage to a pilot. Now you get to travel the world every

Ms. Amber Jayne (25:24.391)
Yeah.

Ms. Amber Jayne (25:31.175)
Yeah. Yes. Yep. Yeah. I know. Who would have? I know. Just, yeah, I think that’s why I’m so passionate about this next phase with the franchise and coaching is because I’m still here. know, a lot of people that I had cancer with are not here. And so sometimes I struggle with the why me.

but it’s a beautiful blessing. And so now I’m just really excited to be like, there’s a reason why I’m still here. And I want to, I read, I’m so passionate. I want to start, you know, helping others get financial freedom and just, you know, pursuing their dreams.

Anthony Codispoti (26:16.958)
Now you said it’s one of the reasons why you’re excited about the franchising and the coaching. Is the coaching something separate that’s available?

Ms. Amber Jayne (26:23.911)
Yeah, the loving start way. just coaching people, you know, if they have their own school already, a lot of people have their own schools, they have childcare centers, they have home daycares, but they’re struggling, right? Maybe they’re not getting clients, they don’t know how to market, know, marketing changes so fast. And you know, the technology now, the algorithms of Instagram and SEO, it’s like all changes so rapidly. So yeah,

I’ve created a lot of things that, you know, just through video coaching, one -on -one coaching, go on site to go check out their school to see what we would say, hey, have you changed this, this and this, you know? So yeah, that’s just, I’m getting excited. Yeah. I’m kind of launching it all. I spent the last year and a half kind of laying the foundation of everything that’s about. it’s all, it’s launch time now.

Anthony Codispoti (27:16.616)
Awesome. Fun stuff. So tell me about the book, the ABCs of Preschool. First of all, where can people find

Ms. Amber Jayne (27:24.521)
Yeah, it’s on Amazon Audible. Yeah, if you like to listen, it’s there. Yeah, I started it when I was 40. I’m 46 now, so it took me a minute. Yeah, it’s basically all my successes and all my failures too. And it’s a lot of my personal stories as well. I try to be very transparent. This is not an easy business to be in. There’s a lot of challenges in

business, but there I think the reward outshines any of the hard any day. So the book really goes through with through like with the ABCs like A is for adventure B is for buildings. It talks. I literally it’s like a roadmap of here is how you open up your own childcare center from hiring to marketing to staffing to curriculum to philosophy.

all of it. It’s in there. just everything that I’ve learned over like, you know, I’ve been in the field almost 30 years now. It’s kind of crazy.

Anthony Codispoti (28:26.578)
You you probably have a unique perspective on this question, Amber, because I like to ask this one of my guests as well. You know, as business owners, we’ve always got our eye on the bottom line, right? We’re looking at the profit and loss statement. And, you know, there’s two levers that we’ve got to pull. One is to increase sales and one is to lower expenses. And I’m curious, especially not somebody who’s, you know, opened several daycares yourself and you’ve coached other people on how to do this.

Ms. Amber Jayne (28:37.373)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (28:54.482)
What are some interesting or creative things that you’ve come up with to move one or both of those levers?

Ms. Amber Jayne (29:02.237)
That’s an interesting question. Well, I think anytime we have our own business, I’m not a CPA, you know, it is a tricky thing, right? I actually am working with the last piece of the document that we need is, is P and L stuff. And it is the categorizing of everything on the P and Ls, right? It’s really hard as a business owner because you don’t want to be super taxed at the end of the year, right? You know what I mean? So it

I don’t know. It’s constant. It’s a tricky question. It is a balancing act. It’s a tricky thing. But I think when you own your own business, there’s a lot to write off, right? There’s a lot of things that you get to put in through the business. It depends on too, like if you’re an entrepreneur and maybe you want more money, maybe you’re saying you’re like, okay, I really want to make more money. Is there like staffing where you can look at staffing and say, well, maybe I don’t need all these, this team member. You know, I think too, it also is

Anthony Codispoti (29:33.287)
How do you balance all that? It’s a little bit of a, yeah, a balancing act.

Ms. Amber Jayne (30:02.663)
where are you in your business? Are you about to sell a business? Then you have to put the throttles up to show a ton of profit. I don’t even know if this is really what you’re asking me, but it’s a tricky thing. think it’s a… For me right now, I don’t want to work in the business. I don’t work. So I have a full team and I don’t make as much money, but that’s where I’m at in life. So I

work with your CPA, but it is as a tricky thing. It’s a very tricky thing keeping that up and down. don’t know. I don’t know if I’m answering it the right way for you. I was like dancing, kind of dancing around a lot of things, but you know, it’s, yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (30:39.037)
The right way was exactly the way that you answered it, Amber. I wanted it straight from your.

Anthony Codispoti (30:46.226)
That’s all right. That’s all right. We’ll read between the lines. So we talked about the book. You’ve got a podcast by the same name. Is it pretty much the same content? Who are your guests? What’s what’s the content

Ms. Amber Jayne (30:59.825)
Yeah, I have just a few guests. The content really is anything in the early years. So if you are a parent, if you’re a mom, a grandparent, if you are in the childcare profession, I talk about all of it from like dating your partner with kids, like anything and everything is on the table. Just for those, you know, infants, they’re going to kindergarten, how to prep your kids to kindergarten, potty training, sleep training. Yeah, I talk about

all of it. Like I’m about to record after this and we’re going to talk about hard conversations, how to have hard conversations with your team members, you know, and when they’re not in the right, they’re not in the right job. So, yeah, I talk about entrepreneurship. So just pretty much anything, health, self care.

Anthony Codispoti (31:46.014)
Let’s pick one topic that you think most of the listeners might want to hear about. Maybe something related to, yeah, dealing with a challenging

Ms. Amber Jayne (31:58.301)
yeah, dealing with it. I like positive reinforcement. So if there’s a negative child, if you have a child right now, it’s like, they are just acting out all the time. I had one of those and I’m all about positive reports, reinforcement. So it sounds kind of weird, but they want your attention and they’re doing the negative behavior because that’s how they’re getting the intention. So if you can ignore that negative, literally ignore

And you can look at the ceiling and you can say, I hope little Johnny can calm down. You’re not giving them eye contact, right? But when they’re doing something good, like if they’re sitting and eating really nicely, if they’re watching, you go over the top with the positive. And I mean, you might sound like a broken record, but I love how you’re sitting there. You’re sitting there so nicely. I love how you’re eating breakfast.

Like over the top, I don’t care if they’re just walking. my gosh, look how you’re walking. It’s so nice. They start to learn. Like that is way better attention than the negative. So just a little tip for you. No eye contact with the negative.

Anthony Codispoti (33:07.805)
So do you think that works with my eight and 10 year old boys?

Ms. Amber Jayne (33:12.106)
I don’t know if it’ll work for your eight and 10 year olds, it might, it might. did that for a long, we’ve used it in the schools. They’re a little older, but you know, every, but you know, here’s the thing about growing kids are gonna, kids are gonna act out, kid, that’s their job. Their job is to, their job sometimes is to get on our nerves and it’s lessons for us, right? It’s, they’re really teaching us.

Anthony Codispoti (33:14.973)
Okay.

Anthony Codispoti (33:36.753)
They are teaching us patience.

Ms. Amber Jayne (33:39.549)
They are, they are, and it’s such a joy. And honestly, it goes so fast. Everybody would tell me that it goes so fast. All of my kids are adults now and yeah, enjoy it. I mean, the hard, even in the hard, enjoy

Anthony Codispoti (33:55.933)
So tell me what would a day in the life of one of your students look like? What are they experiencing there at your schools?

Ms. Amber Jayne (34:04.935)
Yeah, so they get dropped off. put their little backpack in their cubby, their lunch in their water bottle. And we have learning stations. I call them learning stations. So at the tables, there’s activities, there’s paint going on, there’s free play. Then we have circle time where we go over the calendar. We do music and movement. They do little games, learning games. Then they’ll do maybe an academic project back at the tables, an art project.

sensory bins and they go outside, they have snack, then we do another circle time that says goodbye and then some stay home, stay for nap time. So that’s kind of like a typical day. They’re pretty busy throughout the whole day, but our job really is we want to teach them a love of learning early, right? We want them to come to school excited. So we really believe in a lot of play too, like outside play, we try to do half inside and half outdoors. So

There’s a lot of learning going on and you might not think it, but there’s a lot of learning going on in nature with gardening and outside.

Anthony Codispoti (35:10.884)
Now you mentioned before that you wanted to create an environment where students don’t have to learn by one specific model, that there’s different avenues available to them. How are you, how are your teachers sort of evaluating, know, little Johnny needs this model, little Susie needs this

Ms. Amber Jayne (35:19.079)
Yes.

Ms. Amber Jayne (35:24.101)
Okay.

Ms. Amber Jayne (35:28.957)
Yeah. yeah. It’s really easy. Yeah. I mean, I think all these philosophies are so beautiful. They’re really amazing. but some kids can’t sit down to do a Montessori job for a half hour. That’s just not in their DNA, right? Some children, just like us as adults, we all learn differently. We all

interpret information differently. So we have a lot of music, we have a lot of art, some our kids are really hands on, they need to build with Legos, they need to create things. it’s really just offering all of it to our kids and they will gravitate. You know, we have a schedule, it’s not chaos, but they gravitate to what they really, really need. And open ended things too, you know, there’s a lot of kids with ADHD, there’s a lot of kids on the spectrum. And

It’s just really important to not put our kids into boxes. I’m really, I talk about this a lot in our education system. You know, when they get to public school, they’re going to be put into a box. And for those kids that do not fit into that box, they go through their whole learning career feeling like a failure. And it’s not them that are the failure, it’s our system, the box. So I just feel like it’s really important to not have a box.

Anthony Codispoti (36:49.444)
Can you share a particular success story, maybe one of your kids along the way who was going through a challenge or they were challenging themselves and a way that you and your teachers were able to help them through

Ms. Amber Jayne (37:01.949)
Yeah, I don’t know if I can think of any specific ones, but it’s sometimes the kids with the hardest challenges that come into the year that are the most difficult is the one sometimes you pour your heart into the most and you love on them. There’s a lot of kids.

that come from family. You never know what’s going on in families. You never know what’s going on behind the scenes. And so sometimes we’ve realized the kids with the hardest issues need the most love. So I can’t really think of like one specific at the moment, but I’ve seen that transformation happen over and over and over again. And I think as early childhood educators, you know, it should be the very, very last resort and it should be a resort where

if there is just like other kids are being harmed, but no child should be turned away. Like every child, especially the zero to five needs someone to love them, to take care of them and to tell them that they are loved.

Anthony Codispoti (38:10.555)
That’s wonderful. Is transitional kindergarten becoming a challenge where you

Ms. Amber Jayne (38:16.829)
Yeah, it’s really interesting because now we’ve really like downsized. We used to offer lots of transitional kindergarten programs, but now that the public school has it, so we’ve kind of downsized our program. But we still have a lot of kids that come to us for transitional kindergarten because they don’t get in or they don’t like their public school. you know, it’s just changes. It used to be pre -K, junior K. Now we call it transitional kindergarten.

But yeah, I mean, it’s still happening and around. We just don’t have as many as we used to because of the public school, but we still have a good, we have an amazing program, but it’s tough. I hear both sides of it, you know, with the public school, like a lot of people like it and a lot of people do not like the public school transition, okay.

Anthony Codispoti (39:04.74)
So it’s great that you’re still able to offer it for those folks who want something different. Now I see you have something called the Academy. Is that the coaching for the daycare owners that we talked about before, or is this something else?

Ms. Amber Jayne (39:06.759)
Yeah, yeah, we do. Yeah, exactly.

Ms. Amber Jayne (39:18.855)
Yeah. Yeah, so I have the Academy where I created so I have like actually training videos. So like for childcare center owners, and what do you have new staff coming in? I have like teacher training videos, director training videos, owner training videos that will be there too for my new franchises, but also for private clients as well. Just just getting everything out of

brain like actually in a format. So yes, it’s called the Academy. And I noticed a lot of people need help with that. You know, it’s just you’re trying to run your business. A lot of people especially owner operators, they’re working 12 to 13 hour days, you know, so I put together a lot of videos one on one coaching just to get your time freedom back. And that’s probably one of the biggest things I talk about is time freedom because

If you’re going to run yourself, you’re not, I don’t want you to be like me. You know, don’t have to have a cancer diagnosis, right? To wake up to realize you need to slow down and change some things

Anthony Codispoti (40:26.713)
Is there also coaching or training available for parents or is it more geared towards?

Ms. Amber Jayne (40:32.317)
I have, it’s more towards educators, maybe eventually. I have like a little free course for mamas, like new mamas, new parents. Yeah, it’s called mama love. It’s just like, you’ve got this, you know, and it’s free and it’s just, it’s just to give some love and you know, it’s a new role when you’re a new parent, it’s sometimes like, my gosh, you don’t realize how overwhelming it could

Anthony Codispoti (40:40.408)
thought I saw something like

Anthony Codispoti (40:58.36)
Well, if you ever decide to come out with something for a father of an eight and 10 year old boy, please let me know. I could use some extra coaching

Ms. Amber Jayne (41:03.857)
I will. I will just go let them go wrestle on the lawn a lot of times. I have three boys and a girl. Okay. Yeah. yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (41:09.996)
That’s what they do. Unfortunately, though, we’ve got a very small yard, and so it ends up happening in the house, coming down the stairs, sometimes on top of my wife. It’s it’s pandemonium.

Ms. Amber Jayne (41:21.723)
It’s like so normal. I have three boys and then my daughter is the youngest. And I don’t think people realize if they just have one boy, like when you have multiple sons, it’s just how it is. mean, it’s just how it is. So they’ve got to get that energy out and they need to get a lot of energy out.

Anthony Codispoti (41:41.058)
We took them to a water park yesterday and my wife had one, I had the other, we were kind of off in different areas. And then at some point we came back together and within seconds they were pounding on each other, yelling at each other. Both of our blood pressure went through the roof.

Ms. Amber Jayne (41:56.963)
I know. I know. It’s just that’s how it is. But you know, they grow out of it. My boys now are like, just such good friends. They’re like they, they’ll grow out of it. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Anthony Codispoti (42:06.262)
I went through a similar phase with one of my brothers and we couldn’t be closer now. So yeah, I have a good hope for them too. I’m curious to hear, you you probably get a lot of parents who are touring your facility, they’re touring other facilities, they’re trying to make the decision on, you know, where they wanna bring their child, you know, the most precious thing to them. What advice can you give to a parent who’s going through that thought process?

Ms. Amber Jayne (42:32.903)
Yeah, if you are looking, if you’re starting to look for a school, I call it the four senses. Really use your senses. So if you’re going to go tour a school, obviously sight. want to really like as soon as you walk in, you’re going to like look at the school. Is it clean? Is it organized? Is it cute? Is it like not very cluttery? How does the school smell? That’s a really big one. You go into a lot of childcare centers and they don’t smell

and my team knows your classroom better smell good. We have essential oils going on and in the preschool world, obviously there’s diapers, there’s things like that, but it should smell good. It should smell clean and it should smell really good. How does it sound? Are kids engaged? Are they laughing? Are the teachers talking to the kids with respect and kindness?

And then lastly, how does it feel like you should have those goosebumps? Right? You should have those warm fuzzies. Like this is the school. This is the childcare center I want my little one to go to. So I call it the four senses rule. A lot of people like to go, there is the school and everybody wants to get to the school. But I would really caution everybody about that. And it’s awesome that there is the school. I know I’m one of those schools, but you have to

think of your child first and their learning style and how they will succeed. Because in one of the areas, when I took over a school about a year ago, it was a Montessori school and I took it over and transitioned into my philosophy. But that whole town was all trying to get their kids into the Montessori school. And I would say half the kids I had, they wouldn’t thrive in that environment. So you always wanna think about where will your child thrive? And it may not be at the school.

Anthony Codispoti (44:25.74)
Amber, what’s something you wish you could teach a younger version of yourself?

Ms. Amber Jayne (44:32.777)
Grace, think, well, I think this would be the biggest one. You do not have to do an accomplish for love. Like you should just, like, we should just love ourselves, right? Like we don’t have to go, go, go, go, go, accomplish, accomplish, accomplish to be loved or feel that in our head. So I think that would be the biggest is it’s okay to sit on the couch and do nothing.

It took me a long time to get to that point where I could just sit on the couch and I could just journal and not feel guilty. And I think that’s what I would tell myself. If I could have figured this out earlier, I think that would have been a beautiful thing.

Anthony Codispoti (45:15.96)
How do you think you got there? Do you think it took going through some of those uber -challenging experiences that we talked about before?

Ms. Amber Jayne (45:23.997)
Yeah, I think I had to come to Jesus moment really like cancer. Well, my divorce was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever been through a hundred times harder. It was such a dark period of my life. I mean, I was full -time mom until now you’re splitting kids and you know, with boys, they wanna be by their dad. It was just a very, probably four years of really darkness.

bathroom floor crumbled up on the floor thinking, I don’t know if I can go another day. And I just knew something had to give. And so I made that call. Yeah, over five years ago, I just did a lot of therapy. I did a lot of just being quiet. When you’re going through a divorce, you lose a lot of friends, know, it just life starts to be kind of quiet.

and different. And so I had to really look inwards and find my responsibility of why I was doing all this, why I was coping in the way I was coping of taking on more and more and more. So I just had to recognize all of that. And I wanted different, I wanted a different life. I didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole again. I didn’t want to go on the hamster wheel. I will never get back on a hamster wheel. I will never.

work myself to the ground again ever. Even if it’s busy, know, I, Tuesdays, it’s my husband, we’re both type A, he’s an entrepreneur. I’m a, you know, we have Tuesdays blocked off now. Like we don’t do any work. Like that is our date day. So I think it’s, I just had to learn to schedule my rest, the things that bring me joy and then schedule work all around

Anthony Codispoti (47:06.68)
Did getting to that point feel like bunch of work, bunch of work, bunch of work, and then the flip of a switch? Or do you look back and does it feel like it was sort of a gradual release?

Ms. Amber Jayne (47:19.485)
It was probably a gradual. Yeah, it was a gradual and it was just stepping stones of maybe like some therapy, looking inwards and then truly deciding. I think we have to have a, we have to decide mentally what does your life, what do you want your life to look like? And I made like five and a half years ago, I started writing it down and I would say it every day of how I wanted my life to look

It was not happening that way. was not going. What I was saying was definitely not happening, but someone told me you just start saying it, you start believing it and you start feeling it. And within like five months later, it just started all kind of falling into place. It was crazy. But I, I, I really live in with intention now. I don’t want life to happen to me. Of course we’re going to have circumstances that are going to come our way that are out of our control. Right? Like my mom.

passed away suddenly five years ago. You can’t control things like that, but you can control how your day -to -day life is, right? And if you want peace and if you want time off and you want some stillness and calmness, you can decide that. So I always say I live a very intentional life now with my goals, with my expectations. And I mean, I never would have imagined I have this life now ever.

Anthony Codispoti (48:40.886)
what were the things that you were saying and writing down? Your life was in chaos. It wasn’t what you were saying. What were those things? What was the vision that you were creating?

Ms. Amber Jayne (48:46.375)
Yeah.

I wanted financial freedom, leaving my ex -husband was not good with money. And so left me really when I left the marriage in financial ruin. Basically, I had to start from over financial freedom. I wanted the love of my life. I wanted a really close relationship with one of my sons. It was really strained from just things that were being said, just things were going on.

And I think the house part I wanted my own house was on there. there was just four or five financial freedom was on there for sure. So there was like four or five things that I would just say every single day. I think I wrote that list in April. I met my husband in June. Isn’t that crazy? Yeah. My son came back. My oldest son came back in my life right around there too. We have the best relationship. Like, my gosh.

He’s a little entrepreneur too. He is almost 24. is like runs like 40 employees. He’s amazing. And we talk all the time. We have these long breakfasts, like the best relationship, financial freedom. I worked really hard. I got to buy my own house. I am debt free. Like I worked really hard for that. So I’ve got financial freedom. So, but it was really taking steps

seeing it and believing it. And I’m doing it now even because like now I’m like, I have such this big dream that sometimes it feels like, can I do this? Like, who am I to like see this really big thing? And every morning, man, I back to it. I have my little journal and you know, my grateful is what I am thankful for, but where I’m heading and what I see and I believe so we’ll see.

Anthony Codispoti (50:35.774)
So you do a gratitude part of your journal and then you go into

Ms. Amber Jayne (50:40.379)
Manifestations basically, I know that sounds woo woo to some, but I really believe it. I’ve seen it absolutely work in my life. And one of my one of the things I say now is I am healthy and I’m strong. Because for a long time for years, since my cancer, I think I had a story in my head that I’m just the sick girl. I’m just going to have the sick weird things like that’s just me. And so this past year, I became a walker I walk.

I took gluten out and I just say I am strong and I am healthy. I am strong and I am healthy and I believe it. And so it’s funny. It’s this is probably the first year in 15 years. I harp. don’t think I even went to the doctor once. So yeah, I know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (51:21.917)
That’s fantastic from curled up crying on the bathroom floor like I don’t think I’ve got another day in me to look at you now. Good for you. I appreciate you sharing.

Ms. Amber Jayne (51:35.102)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (51:38.653)
What’s a fun fact most people wouldn’t know about you, Amber?

Ms. Amber Jayne (51:42.857)
I love to throw parties. I am the happiest when I have a house full of people. Like I love, I am a really good entertainer. I throw really good parties and I just love it. I’ve loved it since I was 19 when I first had my first house I bought to now I just, my heart is the happiest when there’s a house full of people.

Anthony Codispoti (52:06.843)
Any particular books or mentors you’d like to call out that have been helpful to you in your

Ms. Amber Jayne (52:13.877)
E Cartoli, The Power of Now was definitely a pivotal book for me, just starting to let go of that coping mechanism of being busy and always thinking, like, just really trying to just be present, like here and now. I, Brene Brown, I really like her. I’m listening to her leadership book now. I’m one that.

I like to have books on all the time in the car, audio books. So I don’t know anymore, but yeah, I would say that E Cartoli is probably one of my biggest ones that have just really taught me to slow it all

Anthony Codispoti (52:53.434)
Amber, just have one more question for you, but before I ask it, I want to do two things. First, for those listening, if you like today’s content, please hit the subscribe, like, or share button on your favorite podcast app. Amber, I want to tell people the best way to get in touch with you, and there’s so many reasons for it, right? Maybe they’ve got a child in the Sacramento area that’s looking for daycare. Maybe they’re interested in the franchise opportunity. Maybe they’ve got a daycare. They’re looking for some coaching. What did I miss?

But, okay, so of all those things, for all those things, what’s the best way for folks to get in touch

Ms. Amber Jayne (53:30.013)
Yeah, they could probably go to my website, thelovingstartway .com and just say contact. If you’re on social media, I am everywhere on social media at The Loving Start Way, at The Loving Start Way. So I’m all over, yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (53:43.042)
Last question for you, Amber. How do you see the daycare industry, child care industry evolving in next five years? What do you think the big changes are that

Ms. Amber Jayne (53:53.715)
I think one of the biggest changes is there are less early childhood educators. Less people are going into this field, which is concerning for me. I think that is the biggest impact that’s gonna face our schools. I think there’s still gonna be a lot of, which actually I don’t know, but I think that’s the biggest impact that we’re gonna see with early childcare centers is less and less people

becoming early childhood educators, which we’ll have to see how that unfolds. Hopefully we can turn it around. mean, I’m hoping I want to turn that around, but I don’t

Anthony Codispoti (54:29.093)
Yeah, I

Anthony Codispoti (54:34.509)
And we saw a lot of daycare centers close going through COVID. It was a topic we didn’t even touch on. And it largely hasn’t improved a whole lot coming out the other side.

Ms. Amber Jayne (54:38.045)
Yes. Yep.

Ms. Amber Jayne (54:45.37)
I heard a stat, I was at an early childhood conference, maybe like almost two years ago, that there was over a million women in the workforce before COVID, but have not gone back to work. There’s so many women that haven’t gone back. And I know I’m seeing that in our field. I’m seeing, so we’re definitely a shift with team members. think…

Not even just in my field too. I think in business in general, we’re seeing maybe a lot more harder people, know, harder to get really good employees. But yeah, COVID definitely, there’s a lot of childcare centers that closed that ended up not being able to survive.

Anthony Codispoti (55:28.305)
Well, and hopefully you’ll be able to communicate the sort of the passion and the love that you have for your staff and how to teach that to your franchisees. So that’ll be something that can create some momentum in other parts of the country.

Ms. Amber Jayne (55:37.981)
Yes, absolutely.

Ms. Amber Jayne (55:42.985)
Yeah, because when you do have your team, you wanna keep them. Do not take them for granted. So we wanna treat them right so they stay along for the long haul.

Anthony Codispoti (55:52.069)
Well, Amber, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate

Ms. Amber Jayne (55:58.631)
Yeah, thanks so much for having

Anthony Codispoti (56:00.389)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.