00:00How has this idea of shaping your career around that played out from in-home daycare provider to where you are right now?
00:09You know, I mean, I am grateful, right, for the community that poured into me and the people that always nurtured the possibilities in me.
00:21That stayed consistent.
00:23The parents that believed in me, the family that believed in me, my church community that believed in me.
00:31When I did daycare, it was because I got married young and had kids young, right?
00:37And I've always been a person that, like, wherever you at, you got to make the best of it.
00:43And I made the best of it.
00:44Like, my responsibility at that point was to make it work.
00:48If I'm going to have this baby, I'm going to have this baby, I'm going to be the best I can be at being his mother.
00:56And I'm going to build this home business.
00:59And so I did that.
01:02And I wrote me a grant.
01:04Wrote me a grant.
01:06That's going to be the name of your autobiography.
01:08I wrote me a grant.
01:10And that was about as sophisticated as I was at that moment.
01:13I'm going to write me a grant.
01:14It's clear.
01:15It's so clear.
01:16And I'm going to bring some other babies in here.
01:20And I'm going to start a business.
01:22And I started a childcare business and took babies in and started working on childcare policy.
01:29And did that until my oldest went to school and started getting involved in childcare policy.
01:37That led me to working in early childcare business.
01:44That led me to looking at how do we make access for families that can't afford it.
01:50That then brought me into policy at Hennepin County.
01:54And then I said, oh, I can go a little bit bigger than this.
01:57Then I got divorced.
01:59I'm like, I need a little bit more than that.
02:05I need a little bit more than that.
02:08Your second book is going to be called, I need a little bit more than that.
02:12I need a little bit more than that.
02:13Yep.
02:13Yep.
02:14So I've had these intersections with life events and opportunity that have coincided that have pushed me personally because I needed to.
02:31I had to, and then I had to like, get it together and pony up and find it.
02:38So how do you then go from what you were doing with early childhood policy, all of that.
02:45And then you start to play different leadership roles in community organizations.
02:52What, what community moment, life moment did that transition?
02:55I was now single parenting and, um, I, I was a non-traditional student like you and life transition, uh, transitioning three kids and I need to go to school.
03:15I need to finish my degree.
03:17Yeah.
03:18And I applied for a role that said, you need to have a degree.
03:24Hmm.
03:24Um, and I was running into, cause I, in home childcare, you don't need a degree.
03:29You just need grit.
03:32You don't need a degree.
03:33You just need grit.
03:34Book number three people.
03:36Book number three.
03:38You don't need a degree.
03:39You need grit.
03:40You need some grit.
03:41Now, some of these jokers going to put S's on it.
03:43This is not grits.
03:46It's grit.
03:49Continue.
03:49Grits.
03:50So.
03:52I applied for the role.
03:54They called me up.
03:55Did you mean to apply for this other role?
03:58Did you know?
04:00I did not.
04:01Well, this one requires a degree.
04:04I said, I understand, but I also understand you need someone that can get the job done and I can do that.
04:11So you need to decide if you also need me to have the degree because I can actually get the job done.
04:18And I know that without the single responsibility of caring for the three of them, that boldness would not have existed in the way.
04:31That it did.
04:32But because I had some additional responsibilities, I had some additional boldness.
04:39Yeah.
04:39And they called me back.
04:41And so I got that job and went and I was working full time running a neighborhood center and working on that degree full time at night and the weekends.
04:53Finished it and went on to get my master's.
04:55And then I got that master's and I'm like, well, I did all this work now.
04:58So I need I need a bigger job because I did too much work.
05:05So what's your yep.
05:07Right.
05:08And what what work do I need to do?
05:10Because because I was.
05:14I could feel myself getting in my own way.
05:17So I was moving.
05:19Caroline, finishing the degree, but still being very reserved around what I saw as possibility.
05:28For me.
05:29Yeah.
05:30Right.
05:31Yeah.
05:32And, you know, still seeking what.
05:37Seeking the balance of what I felt was possible for me and what I thought I could do.
05:44I was trying to fill that gap.
05:47Right.
05:48Yeah.
05:48Between what people were encouraging me to do and what I thought was available for me to do.
05:53Yeah.
05:54And I and I had moments in there of I don't know.
05:58I just don't know.
05:59Yeah.
06:00And I had moments in there of I don't know.
06:01I just don't know.
06:03You
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