Episode 11- Passionate Educational Leader Creates a Startup Focused on Gifted Resources

by

In this episode we discuss how an early passion for teaching led Dr. Brandi Maynard down an inspiring pathway to entrepreneurship where she now focuses on her passion to provide support to gifted students and families. You can contact Dr. Maynard on LinkedIn and find out more about gifted resources at https://giftedresources.com/

Transcript

Erin:
Welcome to Reimagining Schools, a podcast from the Entrepreneur Academy. Today, I’m talking with Dr. Brandy Maynard, whose passion for education started as a young child and has developed into a passion for helping teachers and educators along their pathway of learning, and now has turned into her own business working with families and students in gifted education.
Erin:
Hi Brandy, thank you so much for joining us today. How are you doing?
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
I’m doing wonderful. Thanks for having me, Erin. It’s good to see you again.
Erin:
Yeah, you too. I know. I appreciate you coming on the podcast and it is great to catch up with you. Brandy and I met through K-12 and gosh, it’s been seven or eight years now maybe, it feels like it’s been quite a while since we first met. And so we got to know each other that way and don’t live in the same part of the country, which is one of the great things about working nationally like that. We get to meet people all over the country and network everywhere. But I appreciate you coming on the podcast and I would love to just start with you just telling us a little bit about your background and how you got into education and eventually entrepreneurship.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
Sure. You got it. So seven years old, I knew I wanted to be a teacher. I got invited up to a small little one-room schoolhouse at a small museum in my hometown, rode my horse up there, hitched it up to the hitching post and spent this day in this one-room schoolhouse. And that’s when I knew I wanted to teach. Never knowing that it would be online education that I was walking into because it wasn’t even a thing back then. We’re talking about a kid who grew up in the seventies. No one in my family had ever gone to college. And so I needed to take steps to do that. Knowing though, as I went through school, I always wanted to be part of a community. I was voted most involved in high school, always inspiring people, always pulling communities of people together. And once I graduated going on to college, because that’s what you needed to do if you wanted to be a teacher.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
And the ink was not even dry on my teaching certificate, when a beloved teacher in the district resigned, it was December and they said, we need somebody to come in and take over his K through five self-contained gifted class. And so they decided on this young little fresh faced teacher, pulled me in. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, because when you get into gifted education, you get about 45 minutes in one class on gifted ed. It’s usually taught by a special education teacher. So I went back to get my master’s degree in gifted and talented from Whitworth University. As I was doing that, I took a really great class on learning, not online learning, but it was in accelerated learning actually, in NLP.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
And I decided through that class that my, I really wanted to teach and train teachers and parents, that was my driving force. So I went to my mentor at the time and I said, Margo, what do I need to do, to do what you do? Travel internationally and train teachers and parents? And she said, looking, I’m sure at this young 20 something year old, she said, you need credibility. And she said, you can either write a book or get a PhD. And so I had gone back to school, I said, I’ll get a PhD. Met up with my best friend and said, let’s go to Gonzaga, let’s get our PhD. So we did that. In that time, I also transferred over. I left the brick and mortar K5 and went into online education before it was even a thing, 2002. So before we had YouTube, before we had Facebook, I was an online teacher.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
And I was teaching gifted kids online. I was there for two weeks and said, we need a gifted program because what we find in schools is that you’ve got, bless their hearts, these teachers are teaching to the middle. That’s all they can do to stay afloat. They’ve got these weight belts around their waist and they’re being sucked down. So they’re teaching to that middle kids. And so you’ve got the special ed side and you’ve got the gifted side. And those are the kids that I think are being attracted to private schools, charter schools, online schools, anything different. And so I spent some time there. During that time earned my PhD. And then during that time, I got recognized by someone in corporate, we really connected and he was starting a leadership development program.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
So I walked alongside him. I was an instructional coach for a year. That’s how I met him at a conference, walked alongside him. He started this leadership development program, spent I think, three or four years there developing teacher leaders, school leaders. So teachers and then principals and superintendents of these schools across the United States and loved the work. It was fantastic. I was really putting into practice the leadership skills that I had learned. Left that company went into a small private school as director of gifted education. Again, going back to my passion, which was gifted ed. I spent about a year, a little over a year there building an online program and then decided I wanted to do something for myself, because 22 years ago, I had a conversation with my husband and I said, I want to start my own business. I think we should start it together.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
And he was always more, let’s just stay secure. Let’s make sure that you have a secure job and just be part of that system that’s secure because that’s what we both had grown up in. And I always had this dream just to fly, to do something on my own, not to work for somebody else, but to work for myself and to follow that passion of working with kids. And so I was able to step into a position at my local school, I truly think it was a God thing, Erin. I had a local [crosstalk 00:05:49] on the school board and they, I had to step off the school board about six months ago and they called me up, they wanted me to start training and coaching their teachers on gifted ed, so they could do a more inclusive gifted model in the schools.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
And so I could make the same amount of money doing that I was doing in my school two days a week, which freed up three days a week. And my husband said, how do you want to spend your time for those three days a week? And I said, the thing that I love most in the world is to drink tea with moms and talk about their gifted kids. And he said, then do that, because it’s something I’m really good at. And so in coming along with that idea of doing that, I decided to make a gifted community for parents.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
And then in working through that, an in talking with parents and doing the market research, realized the parents are secondary, what they really need is someone to come in and be the champion and create a community for their children. Because right now, especially during these isolating times, these kids need intellectual peers. They need somebody that really gets them, gets their sense of humor, can talk Minecraft for hours with them. And to just, I almost think of myself as my own littlematch.com. I know kids who need to be together and I can make those connections so that they can begin to foster those friendships. And so all of that, Erin, happened within the last month. So I’m pretty new on the journey.
Erin:
Wow. That’s an incredible journey. Yeah. And I have to start with the question about, where were you that there was a, you had a horse and a one-room school. So we got to go back there for just a second. Was this your experience in school? Did you go to this school?
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
I did not. Chatter, in Washington, small little town, north of Spokane. And it was a small museum that was in my local hometown, literally it’s rural. And it was a museum that was open a few times a day. Nobody went except me and my little friends, we’d ride our bikes or our horses up there. And so the one-room schoolhouse was one of the buildings up there. The curators had brought their grandchildren in for the week to spend the summer with them. And they said, we’re going to play school. Do you want to come? And I said, yes, I do.
Erin:
Oh, awesome. So that was really your inspiration for becoming an educator. That’s great. What a cool story. Yeah. Well, so tell me a little bit more about how, because I know you’re new to this, what you’re doing now, but tell me a little bit about how you got started with that. And as you were thinking through, obviously you had a little bit of support there in the back where you weren’t just fully making the leap to entrepreneurship by itself. But tell me a little bit about how you got started with that and what resources maybe were helpful for you as you were beginning that journey.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
Yeah. You got it. So I got started in consulting actually going back probably 2012 is when I was finishing up my PhD program and schools were inviting me to come in and do training with them around gifted ed. So I had that experience in my company that I call Gifted Resources. So I had that experience. So the piece of going to the local school seemed like a breeze. I’d been doing it before. Wasn’t anything that was hard for me. The hard piece was trying to decide, or figure out how am I going to start an online community that’s not Facebook? I wanted to get out of Facebook. I wanted to make sure, because inside of Facebook, there’s so much noise. And I wanted to have a safe place where families were vetted. We were bringing together a group of people, like-minded people to create an online, vibrant community.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
I didn’t even know if that existed. There’s a woman by the name of Elaine Beich, B-E-I-C-H, through the Association for Talent Development. And she was doing something called consultant chats. And so what I found every step of the way, even starting back to when I knew that I needed to go to college, but I didn’t know how to get there. When I knew that I wanted to teach and train teachers, but I didn’t know what those next steps were. It was going out to people who’d walked the path before and asking. And so I had gone to one of her coffee chats. She does online Zoom coffee chats on Thursdays. And I said, I want to start a community. How do you do that? Is there a membership community or something out there? And then someone had said just, I think I said, are there online communities? And they said, search membership communities, which I did.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
And so it’s that. And then I got into a membership community called Mighty Networks, and that’s one of the biggest ones that’s out there. And as I went through there, purchased a course. I purchased Mighty Networks, purchased a course, learned how to build the community, listened to every podcast I could find, every book I could find. And then went to a smaller company where I landed called Group App. And so I’m using what I learned at Mighty Network, the big giant of communities. And then I’m applying it on a smaller level through Group App. That’s how I did it.
Erin:
That’s great. Yeah. And I think I heard you say a lot of what I hear entrepreneurs talk about, which is that they just started asking questions to any that would help and answer and not being afraid to, not know what you’re doing in the beginning. It’s okay to ask questions and to find others that have been down the pathway a little bit farther than you. So it sounds like that was a big one for you. Is there anything that you can think of that you wish you would’ve known more information about, or you wish you’d done differently as you were getting started?
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
Yes. So I think the one thing that a lot of entrepreneurs have, there’s two things actually in my mind that in the beginning kept me up. Finding someone that you could talk to doing enough research around what you’re going to charge. So I’m sure a lot of people probably talk about what you’re going to charge. And then the second one for me is scalability. So knowing what I have is a great product. I’m excited about getting it started, but once I get to a certain number, a certain threshold, I’m going to need to bring in other people to help me. And I don’t know if it’s going to start out. I do a launch on December 19th. My goal is to start with 30 families, but it could be 30. It could be 300, 3000, three million, I don’t know. And so I’m going to have to learn how to say no or wait list families until I can get the help that I need.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
And then being right now, reaching out and putting out feelers of how I’m going to get the help to support it, because I don’t want to create something that is going to be half baked. I want to make sure that those first 30 come in, they’re going to have an awesome experience. When the next 30 come in, they’re going to have an even greater experience and so on, because I think one of the things with entrepreneurs or anyone really when you’re starting a small business is growing too fast. And so I’m really keeping my eye on that of making sure that each cohort that comes in is going to have a fantastic experience. And I’m not going to allow myself to grow too fast.
Erin:
Yeah, that’s great advice. I think the model of Chick-fil-A, we know we do chicken really well, so we’re going to stick with chicken and do that really well is a good strategy for a business owner. And so you obviously have a very specific passion and your experience revolves around that. So that’s great that you are very clear about what you’re focusing on and what you want to support others with. And that sounds like a great pathway. Are there any, because you mentioned books and podcasts, is there anything specific that you can think of that was super helpful for you, or resources that you might want to share with others?
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
Yeah. And, oh, I wish I had all my books here. I could hold them up and show you. So I started with this one, and it’s where I started, Digital You, by William Arruda. And it’s all about branding yourself online. And so for me, I think the first place to start would be to create a brand and to do it, I would start on LinkedIn honestly, or to go out to wherever your customers are. So LinkedIn and Facebook are my two areas that I’m branding myself in, and just making sure that you’re doing it right and you’re doing it authentically. I think that’s a really big piece, because one of the things that I loved listening to is this TED talk, I think it was a TED talk around, no, it was a Harvard commencement speech that Oprah had done.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
And Oprah had talked about always thinking that a really good newscaster, or host needed to be like Barbara Walters. And so she would try to be like Barbara Walters and then realize I just need to be Oprah. And I’m going to do things differently than Barbara’s going to do them. And I think that we need to really be authentic to who we are, because then your brand comes across the same way behind closed doors, as you are face to face. It’s who you are genuinely. So I think that one is really, really important. Entrepreneurial you is a great book by Dory Clark. I love her work. The $1 Million Business is another one that I’m reading right now. I think that is a really good one. Simon Sinek, Brene Brown. All of the influencers that are out there. I love listening to things via podcast, or even SCRIBD.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
So I have a subscription to SCRIBD, S-C-R-I-B-D. And I listen to audio books all the time. I constantly have them on. And so Work the System is one that I’m listening to right now. It’s a great one. It’s by Sam Carpenter. And it’s really talking about creating procedures around the systems that you have inside of your world. And so for me, adding someone to the community. Here are the eight steps in the system when I’m adding somebody to the community. And I think that really helps with scalability too, because if you bring in additional people, you just give them the procedure manual, boom, boom, boom, boom. Okay. When I’m getting ready for a podcast, I make sure that I don’t have anything in my teeth. I make sure that I have my teeth in front of me. I make sure that everything’s working. And it’s just basically a checklist. Something that a pilot would use before they get started, and everything then just becomes automatic.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
Atomic Habits is another really good book. So creating those morning routines, those in the day routines, I have something at the very end of my day called promise fulfillment, to make sure that all the promises that I’ve made to people are done. And I set aside time to do that. I’m a huge reader. So those are just a few of my favorites.
Erin:
I can tell. Yeah, you have a lot that you came up with right there off the top of your head. Those are great, great suggestions. And I hadn’t heard of SCRIBD before, so I’ll check that out, because I’m also a big audible fan and audio books and listens to those a lot. That’s just easy. Especially if you’re driving or doing things that you can listen while you’re doing something else. So those are excellent advice.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
Yeah. And it’s under $10 for the subscription and [crosstalk 00:16:28].
Erin:
Oh, that’s great.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
… I’ll even send you a link. It’s under $10 and then you have access to all things that you can read. The books, the podcast, the audio books, really inexpensive. I don’t even have to go to the library anymore. It’s all [crosstalk 00:16:40].
Erin:
That’s awesome. Yeah. That’s great. Very cool. Well that also leads to the next question, which is just asking a little bit about your, the plans for the future, which you mentioned a little bit about scaling and thinking about how you could grow. It sounds like you’ve got a bit of a plan for the future. Tell us a little bit about what you’re thinking as you grow.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
Yeah. So my plan is to start out with that student community, because that’s what the parents really need right now, more than anything, the world needs it. And so to start there, I’m planning on building out a year of content so then I can bring in people to work the systems that I create to teach the lessons, to do those things. So then I can move more into that passion area of working with parents. So, that’s where I want to grow. I want to build that student business out and then I want to move into the parent community so I can really begin to build trainings in that area, working one on one with parents, doing coaching with parents, because my thought is if they can nurture those things in the home, they really need to be able to do that. And they need to connect with one another.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
They need a community bigger than themselves because oftentimes they’ll, parents will go to playgroups and they’ll be like, oh my gosh, you are so lucky to have grace and he’s such a smart kid and you’ve got it so easy when you’re thinking, oh my gosh, the kid hasn’t had breakouts every three days. His feelings are so big. He’s reading at a fourth grade level. His first grade teacher doesn’t know what to do with him. There’s so many mismatches there and oftentimes these parents need that community too because it’s isolating raising a gifted kid. And so I want to be able to build the scalability and the procedures of the student community, bring in really good people that are trained and gifted and talented. So then I can take over that parent community.
Erin:
That’s fantastic. Yeah. And so there is such a big need for that. So, we didn’t really talk about where you’re in terms of geography, but you’re beyond your state, I’m assuming nationally what’s the plan for your scale in terms of who you’re reaching out to? [crosstalk 00:18:39]
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
… across the planet, as long as [crosstalk 00:18:42].
Erin:
Across the planet. That’s great.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
… as long as they speak English, yes. As long as they speak English, because all of our live classes that we’re doing are going to be done in English. So if a student comes into the community, this is what they get. They come into the new community, they get two cookie chats a week and I’m calling them cookie chats because honestly I am teaching students servant leadership using picture books, bibliotherapy through the characters in the picture books, and we’re just going to eat cookies and be friends and talk about these things. I’m going to do it through different works of art. So we’ll be doing that on a Thursday, these cookie chats. And then on Sunday, it’ll be more informal. We’re going to have our own Minecraft server where kids can come in and play Minecraft with kids that are on the server.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
We may have a reading club, or a horse club, or whatever the kids are interested in. So it’ll be more informal on Sundays where I’ll do a mini lesson, or bring in a speaker on a specific topic. More exploratory so they can have their minds expanded. And then they’ll be able to meet more informally on those Sundays. So, that’s one component. We also have an online resource where kids can do enrichment types of things. Every student comes in, we’ll get a subscription to this service. So they’ll be able to do things 24/7. We’ll also have a community platform where parents and kids on their own separate communities will have the opportunity to talk with one another. So in the case of a child, they can talk about, let’s say that we’ve got a group of kids that are mathematicians. They can use an audio feature inside of the forum to share, just press record. And they can have audios of each other where they can talk.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
They’ll have the opportunity to share videos. They’ll have opportunities to share links to some of their favorite math sites. And then knowing that if they want to share their gamer tag and come in and get into Roblox together, they can definitely do that. And then parents will have the same thing on their end. I’m also going to do coffee chats, probably tea chats with parents once a month as well. And then inside of my community for parents, I will have opportunities for classes, other types of resources that they’re interested in. And I’m even building out a summer camp program right now for kids.
Erin:
Oh wow. That’s incredible. I love the idea of the cookie chat. That’s great. It sounds like all the fun stuff that sometimes we don’t have enough time for in school, or that kids really, that they seek out. And also, I think over the last couple of years with COVID, a lot of those things got cut and taken away from. And so it sounds like adding back in the really critical important social, emotional learning and just time for students to be able to be creative and explore. It sounds fantastic.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
I think about it like Google’s 20% time where they’re going to have this 20%, they can do enrichment and then it’s time for them to connect around their passions. And the biggest thing is finding those intellectual peers, because when you’re looking at a whole pie with a gifted child, you’re looking at about 2% of the population. And with gifted kids, it’s very, they’re very isolated and secluded right now, especially with COVID, especially in rural districts, especially New York and some of the areas that are defunding gifted education, or it might even be in a lot of schools what I’m finding is gifted kids don’t get into programs until they’re in third grade. And then also the schools just don’t provide it because there’s no money for it. And so they just cannot find these children and their parents are tired of listening to Minecraft.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
They want to connect them with someone else who understands Roblox, understands Minecraft, is reading the same books that they are so that they can have those friendships, because they need to have a place where they feel like they belong, iron sharpens iron, and where they feel like they can just be themselves around people who get them, who get their sense of humor. I was working about a month ago with a couple of kids. And it was interesting because I put out challenges to kids and there are challenges that I think they’re not going to be able to even, well, I don’t think that, I know they’ll be able to reach it, but I know it’s going to be quite a stretch.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
And so the challenge I put out a month ago was you have until Christmas to, if you want to take on this challenge and I’ll send you a prize, you have until Christmas to memorize pie out to a hundred digits, two weeks, I had two kids do it in class. Two weeks.
Erin:
Wow.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
And it’s that iron sharpens iron. It’s learning the longest word in the English language, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, you have until Friday to learn to spell it. It’s things like that, that these kids are just, especially gifted kids, they’re all over the challenge. And if they don’t have anyone else challenging them, or pushing them, they’re never going to reach their infinite capacity. They need to be in community with others to reach that infinite capacity. And that’s what this vibrant online interactive community does.
Erin:
Yeah. And just because you and I both have the experience with online education, we know how important that piece is too. With students connecting with other students and parents being able to connect with other parents. It’s just, we don’t, just because we’re able to do these things on the internet doesn’t mean that we don’t need the interaction of other humans. And so this is such a great way to get that. So I’m so glad that you’re doing this.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
It’s funny because with online education, we were truly in what I like to call crisis schooling. And so I tell parents, it does not have to be like that. You were in crisis schooling, school closed down on March 14th. Teachers needed to figure out by March 17th, what they were going to be able to do. I started figuring this out in 2002, I’ve been doing, it’s not my first rodeo. I’ve been doing it for a long time. And honestly it took me three years to figure it out and to get really, really good at it. So expecting a teacher to come in and be able to do that right off the cuff, it takes a really special person because when you are working, you know this Erin, when you’re teaching online and before video, especially, it was like teaching to a blank wall, the walls in front of you, you don’t see your students and you’re trying to engage, you’re trying to motivate. It takes some time.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
And I feel like, okay. I call these rocking chair moments. And what a rocking chair moment is, is when you’re in your golden years and you’re sitting on your rocking chair and you’re looking out at the beautiful area in front of you and you might have your grandkids down. I can point back to those milestones in my life that got me to where I was. And the milestones are, hitching my horse up to the post. The milestones are going to college. The milestones are the conversation I had with Margo to get my PhD. The milestones are in 2002 before Facebook and YouTube, getting into online education. And you can just point to those milestones. And for me, every milestone that I point to can point back to brought me to creating community where I could have tea with moms and do what I was designed to do, which is talk to them about their gifted kids.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
And then to be able to create these engaging online communities around servant leadership, which I wrote my dissertation on. It’s all those milestone moments. And a friend of mine asked me about the rocking chair moments. And she said, Brandy, when you are in a moment, do you know it’s a rocking chair moment? And I said, when I met my husband, I did, but not for the most part, no, you don’t realize until you’ve passed the moment that, that was the moment that got you there. And so what I’d like each one of your listeners to think about out who are entrepreneurs in this educational space, think back to those rocking chair moments that got you to what you were designed to do.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
And what you were designed to do is what you’re better at than anybody else, and what the world needs right now. And a passion where you can [inaudible 00:26:28] on the floor every Monday morning and be so excited to be doing the work. And I can guarantee you that you can start back and for some, it might even be in childhood and you can say rocking chair moments, were they big in time? No, but they’re really big now.
Erin:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And what a great feeling it is to be doing what it is that you’re passionate about and what you love. And there’s nothing better than being able to wake up and do that, because it doesn’t even feel like work, it’s just a part of what you’re built to do. And what you mentioned there with the rocking chair moments too, it’s like, if someone’s thinking about that as you’re telling your story, that is the things you’re talking about. Those are the things that you think of as you tell the story of you and how you got to where you are today. So, that’s fantastic.
Erin:
And I definitely want to make sure that our listeners know how to reach out to you in a couple different ways, because in thinking of, if they are interested in the gifted and talented side of things, what would be the best way for them to reach you through that lens? And then also just, I know you’re on LinkedIn so that they can reach out to you that way, because we have some educational entrepreneurs that you just we both did had mentors and people that answered questions and help them along the way, what would be the best way for them to reach you for that purpose as well?
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
You got it. So LinkedIn is a great way to do it. Email, if you would like to email me, it’s DrB, D-R-B, @giftedresources.com. And then if you want to sign up with the community, it is www.giftedresources.com. And there is a sign up right there. And I’ll send you some more information about how, if you’re a gifted parent, wants some intellectual peers for yourself and for your friends, how you can get involved in our community. We launch on December 19th, and we’re so excited about our launch party, but if you want your children to come in and start doing some cookie chats with us, we would love to have them. And it’s kindergarten through 12th grade.
Erin:
That’s great. Fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. And we’ll put all of that in the show notes as well. So it’ll be there for people to click on, but helps to say it in the episode as well. And then just as a final thought, is there anything else that you’d like to share with other entrepreneurs as they’re going down this pathway and getting started? Anything else that you can think of?
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
Yeah. So my biggest thing is just, don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. Realize if there is some inkling in your heart that you want to be doing something different, take small steps. And for some, it might be that you’re taking small steps inside of the current organization that you’re working in. It’s more of a side hustle. You’ll know when you get to the point where you can step away, for me 22 years I worked for somebody else before I realized that, yeah, it’s okay to step away. It’s all right. And it took me into my late forties to figure that out. So go slow and go slow to go fast, because you have to go slow and think things through before then you can speed up and go fast. My last piece of information is know when to be on the dance floor and know when to be in the balcony up above.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
Sometimes you need to be in the balcony, looking down on what’s happening on the dance floor, what it is that your customers need, seeing the big systems piece. Sometimes you need to be down on the dance floor, talking to people and figuring it out. So for me, when I was up on the balcony, I was thinking, okay, what I need to be doing is sipping tea with moms and talking about their gifted children, because that’s what I’m best at. And I could see those families working down below, but when I stepped down on the dance floor and really began to have the conversation with families, I realized these families want more than anything to make sure that their children have friends and have that sense of belonging and feel like they’re part of something different where iron sharpens iron and they’re really connected with others. And I realize, okay, Brandy, that’s where you need to start. And I would not have seen that from the balcony, but I definitely saw it from the fence.
Erin:
All right. Great perspective. Thank you so much Brandy for coming on. I really appreciate your time today and all of your insight and you’ve definitely been a great mentor for me as I think I met you as you were doing the leadership things through K-12. So I definitely appreciate your advice and mentorship and appreciate you being on the show today.
Dr. Brandy Maynard:
It’s my pleasure. It’s so good to reconnect with you, Erin.
Erin:
You too. Thanks Brandy.

css.php