Ana Valle Rivera on Play, Purpose & Overcoming Self-Limiting Beliefs

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1:03Today, we're diving into early childhood education and how a passion for play can create global impact. Our guest is Anna Vela Rivera, the founder of early years thriving a keynote speaker and a workshop facilitator. Growing from our own journey of overcoming self-limiting beliefs, Anna has builds an organization that provides professional development training to thousands of educators across North America and beyond. In this episode, we'll explore her inspiring path, the power of playing both child and adult learning and leadership in education. And what it takes to run a purpose-driven business as a mother. So without further ado, let's dive in. Anna, we're very pleased to have you on the show today. Welcome to the podcast. How are you? Thank you so much for having me. I am feeling amazing and great and just really thankful that you invited me to come on here and chat. Very pleased to have you with us and Anna, your personal story is incredibly powerful. It is rooted in being labeled as a slow learner as child and this experience.

2:03Filled your passion for early years, field and your business. Please tell us how does your overcome self-limiting beliefs and fear to launch early years thriving and how to joining a female mastermind group lead to your TEDx talk and global success? Yeah, for sure. I mean, number one, I did not do it alone. I don't believe in self-made. For myself at least, I had parents who helped me through my childhood overcome many embarrassing moments within my educational experience and educational journey and they definitely championed me throughout my life. They let me play a lot and really low pressure on learning and really low pressure on academic success, which is really interesting, a little ironic because I got into education as an adult and ended up, you know, now completing the Masters in professional education.

3:05And I do have to say, you know, I didn't do it alone as a child. I didn't do it alone also as an adult because throughout my life, my husband has been, you know, a huge support for me in so many ways in going into business and, you know, growing up as an adult because we met when we were very young. And also in supporting me into this journey of entrepreneurship and after having, you know, our third child, I was doing this, you know, this entrepreneurial thing and kind of feeling alone. And I realized I needed something and that was when the business babes were doing a conference and I saw it just pop up on my feet and I thought, you know what, I want to see what this is about.

4:07And within the group, they had, you know, so many other entrepreneurial mothers like me in a similar stage and, you know, being told, like, you shouldn't do this. This is not good for you to be working right after having a baby. And, you know, I didn't take a mat leave with my third child. So I felt like I was different and, you know, kind of alone in it. And I realized that I wasn't alone once I joined the business babes. Now they go by bloom business collective. And I met Danielle, who is the fearless leader. And, you know, Danielle is just such a warm, wonderful, loving person who also was able to provide me the support that I needed to overcome many of my self limiting beliefs. So at every turn, you know, I've had people in in my life to support me. And I want to give a shout out to Matt from internet mastermind because actually Matt was the one who connected me to the TEDx organizers. And that's how I got that opportunity. So, you know, I didn't overcome my self limiting beliefs on my own. It was really rooted in connection, community and collaboration.

5:26That's such an inspiring story of transformation. And it shows how mindset and community support their essential for turning self doubt into purpose driven entrepreneurship. Now let's explore the core of your expertise, which is the importance of play in learning. And your work it focuses on curaging a love of learning and children adults through play. And this is a vital concept for educators and business leaders alike. Tell us why is play so vital for both children and adults and why does play based learning inspire more engaging, curiosity driven, professional development and leadership. Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, the research is so clear. There is so much research to support the fact that play is essential for healthy brain and body development in the developing child. Okay, that that's just like a fact. We cannot dispute that. And you can look at, you know, countless, like I said, number of papers and articles and journals and, you know, even the Canadian pediatric society within Canada came out with a position paper and and and have supported play as being essential for, like I said, healthy brain and body development.

6:43Now another thing that I've seen with play and this is from my own experience is that play gives children the freedom to make mistakes and problem solved and take risks and all of this is so amazing for driving creativity and inspiring creativity. Even just watching a child, you know, grab materials and mix up paint colors and get that paint on their fingers like all of this, you know, to the adult might look really messy and scary, but it's doing so much for that child from feeling the senses in their fingertips. And all of that being sent up into the brain and all of that being processed and, you know, maybe having to navigate the different materials and like there's just so much that we can go into on that aspect of it. So, so play is just great for child development, but play is also great for adults. We are lacking in play in our adult lives, I think, you know, and when we're lacking in play.

7:59We get really boxed into our day to day, we get boxed into those self limiting beliefs, we get boxed into like this is the way that it has to be because it's just the way that it's always been. And so when we allow adults to also engage in play and encourage play, you know, in the adult world, we see that there can be more, you know, increase in confidence. And increase in curiosity and increase in problem solving, you know, do we want people doing jobs or work without thinking? I mean, there are some, you know, jobs and work out there that don't require much of that because they're very technical, but within education, we don't want education to just be technical. We want education to support problem solving, leadership, you know, encouraging collaboration and connection and all of this can happen within play.

9:04That's a, that's a great framework and it highlights how people's curiosity, resilience and innovation for both children and professional teams. Now let's discuss the challenges and triumphs of running a global purpose driven business as a mother and an entrepreneur. And I use it to a proud mother of three and a successful entrepreneur who runs a global business that has reached over 14,000 educators internationally. As what challenges do you face as a female founder and a mother building a global business and how does running a purpose driven company keep you motivated and fulfilled? Yeah, I would say the greatest challenge that I have found as a mother is not comparing myself to anybody else in my niche. I can't compare myself to anybody else doing the same or similar work that I am doing because if not, I feel like I'm not doing enough, but I am doing enough because I do the lunches and the meal prep and the housework.

10:06And, you know, I am the driver to so many different activities and, you know, to all the places where the people need to go, all my people need to go. And so I have found that not comparing myself is a great first step finding the right community for, you know, the stage of life that I'm in. So when I was doing my masters, it was that cohort, like that cohort, my cohort in my masters was amazing, you know, and, and they were so supportive and just like we're able to provide just the right type of support, you know, and then same with like having friends who are also in the state same stage of life with me in motherhood. In motherhood, but also in business finding that community in business so definitely community has helped a lot prioritizing has been huge for me moving away from the archaic for me, it was archaic but using like a paper calendar to just having everything put into one calendar, we can have so many different calendars, especially if you have like different email accounts and different, you know, different types of tools that you use.

11:26I just put everything into one now that helps, you know, to keep me really focused, but when we're talking about motivation, I think what keeps me motivated is definitely when I get the feedback from the individuals who take workshops with me. And when I get the, you know, when I when I when I hear from clients like that, they felt inspired and sometimes I wonder like is this are they just being nice, but I get I get that feeling too when I've joined a workshop where I've joined a keynote or I've joined like something I've listened to an audio book or a podcast and then I feel inspired. I know that feeling so I know that when you know these clients and these testimonials come in and they say like that was a game changer for me, I believe them and so that has helped me definitely keep motivated and like want to continue because I get tired and there are moments where my priority has to shift away from my business to my help or to, you know, my children or.

12:38You know to the breaks that happen in school because oh my goodness there are so many breaks and school to right so then there are all these gaps in between like the momentum, but I don't think of them as gaps I just remind myself that you know this is the stage of life that I'm in right now and growth is happening and movement is happening and it might not look like others who are in a different stage of life or in a different journey and that's okay I'm I'm so. Happy for what I have and what I've built and I just remind myself so I think gratitude is another like big piece for me to like keep it all in balance and it can't always be perfectly balanced like I said it there's a kind of a shifting that happens with priorities. That's an important and a very kind of perspective and it underscores how resilience and purpose help female founders navigate the unique pressures of building a global business now that's not to get the leadership development side of your business which is cultivating new leaders in the early years field.

13:44And you're you're you've successfully pivoted from working directly with children to teaching and mentoring adults really taking on a leadership role in education. How do you empower educators to become leaders through your workshop as a teacher facilitator training and how does adding graduates to your platform amplify diverse voices and early education. I created workshop facilitator training for somebody exactly like me 10 years ago when I started this work. So the way that I began creating workshops was I was asked to create one I didn't set out one day to do this work. I was just very passionate about early childhood I was at the time very passionate about aesthetics in early childhood and so I would talk you know about things like aesthetics and play materials and invitations to play and one day I had a colleague just say hey can you create a workshop out of all that that you just said.

14:50And I said what no I can't I didn't have confidence right I still had those self limiting beliefs from childhood thinking that i'm not a good learner how am I going to teach this how am I going to structure a workshop. I didn't know at all how to do it I just had you know some really great people like my husband and my parents who believed in me who said yeah do it you can do it pull out the PowerPoint. Start creating you know pull out your books from your college and from you know early childhood and like create something and so I did it it was a mess but I did it and I just remember feeling such a rush and feeling so fulfilled and feeling like my cup was full from doing this work and so I created workshop facilitator training like I said specifically for somebody like me at that time. Somebody who wants to do it maybe has been invited to do it but doesn't know how to start doesn't know how to create structure doesn't know you know what what is the right amount of let's say research and your own thoughts and you know how do you navigate the really specific parts of getting contracted as a workshop facilitator.

16:12And so I created it for that now what it has grown into is also supporting organizations that have a mandate to educate some organizations might have a mandate to educate their stakeholders community members you know maybe other educators or. You know other caregivers and parents and stuff like that but they don't have somebody who is stepping up to the plate they don't have somebody who you know is taking on that leadership role and they might want to identify leaders and grow leaders within their organization so it's definitely developed over the years and that's kind of the main focus now. But when I do provide workshop facilitator training to individuals I like to include them into you know onto the website and onto our living library we have a library that is not just with my own content but the content of other facilitators as well and supporting them to get started in this work because I do think that amplifying each voice in early childhood is important we each have a different experience we each that have a different.

17:23You know knowledge base and we can all learn from each other and so I do have specific criteria like I don't just work with anybody with that workshop facilitator training I do have a very specific criteria like I want to make sure that you know the people who are taking this training have experience you know and I like to know what their experiences are. And also what their child care philosophy is as you know I'm very play based and so there needs to be some alignment there because if they are promoting something that not play based I might be like I don't know if I can do this with you right and so as long as we have some alignment. Then I will usually invite those who take workshop facilitator training to present on our website and then we get to showcase them and it just it's such a great way to collaborate with new facilitators. That is beautiful and it's such an inspiring model as well really demonstrates how empowering educators as facilitators it creates meaningful leadership and amplifies diverse voices in the early education.

18:32Finally let's wrap this conversation up and with your discussing your recent accomplishments and global travel and the future vision. You recently completed a master professional education and presented a TEDx invest Vancouver on the power plate and you've also traveled across Canada and internationally to speak at conferences. Please tell us what does earning the degree master's degree while running a global business say about life on learning what is your long term vision for early years thriving and a key message as you want us to remember about building a confident business. Oh goodness that's a loaded question. Okay so with the master's degree you know I do acknowledge that I didn't really need to do it right like I was already doing this workshop facilitator work and public speaking. The reason I did it is because I want to be able to do this work well.

19:33I want to be able to do this work confidently. I want to be able to not only do it well and confidently but to really provide a positive impact in the early years field whether it's in Canada or abroad. And so for me that's always been the goal is to provide a better service regardless of what the service is but in a more informed way academically and so that I can transfer some of that to make it relatable to the people who are doing the work on the floor who are working directly with children and that job is so important. You know I did that job I was I was doing that job for a long time before deciding to go back to school or do this and you know this business and and with the TEDx it was it was a similar you know a similar pursuit.

20:34It was about wanting to share this message of the importance of play and you know wanting to share this this this passion that I have and so what I see for the long term vision of early years thriving is definitely you know having this message of the importance of connection community. Like collaboration play you know and and being really rooted in wanting to help children thrive. I want to see that everywhere I want to see others you know regardless of where they are really understand that like when we help children thrive we're helping the future. But we can't do that if we're not thriving ourselves you know I I prioritize I was saying earlier I prioritize my health and I prioritize you know me feeling good because I'm the caregiver in my home right and so even if I'm I'm caring for other children you know other

21:51people's children or my own children I need to feel good and so there's two parts to that really and so that's why you know I've definitely moved my focus into supporting the adults and supporting you know the caregivers and parents and you know the the people in these younger organizations who are trying to find those leaders who can provide that impact because if I can support other leaders to support the same vision and mission. Then I feel like I'm doing something I'm doing something positive right we're leaving a positive impact in this world and that's that's the hope that's the goal. That's an ambitious vision and it shows how lifelong learning drives your global impact and shapes the future of early years thriving. This was a great and a very powerful podcast and it was amazing to have you on the show today thank you so much for sharing such great expertise in your vision with us.

22:54Thank you thank you so much for having me. Now this is I was a great conversation with Anna Vela Rivera on inspiring a love of learning to play leadership and education and building a mission driven business. Why raising a family thank you so much for tuning in to the podcast. Please subscribe for more insights by visiting a website canadianism.ca. Before we leave a special shout out to our partners who PS a global college ADP and Google for supporting Canadian small businesses. We'll see you in the next episode. Please keep moving forward. Thank you for listening to the Canadian SME podcast. Please visit canadianSME.ca to subscribe and join us next again as we share more expert advice from Canadian business leaders.