We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Amy Nielson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Amy below.

Amy , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

A willingness to learn, a bias toward action, and play.

I’ve always been a bit of a self-teacher. As a child, my parents moved us all over the country and I was often responsible for my own education. I only completed one grade of public education. It was kindergarten. Now I’ve created a multi-million dollar education company that is impacting children all over the world.

How did I do that?

I’m willing to learn and I’m confident in my ability to educate myself on things I don’t know yet, because that is what I have done since early elementary school. As early as 2nd and 3rd grade I would set my schedule, pick my books off the hallway shelf at the beginning of the school year, and take the textbook and teacher’s edition back to my bedroom to teach myself math, english, and science for the year.

Now as an adult, I use Youtube, books, and courses to teach myself the latest software, how to build a website, and how to run a business.

I don’t wait for things to be perfect. Teaching yourself and trying new hard things is a messy business, but that is how you make progress. It’s so rewarding when you acquire a new hard-earned skill.

Play is also SO valuable because it brings energy and joy to what you do and allows you to keep working at it as you grow in proficiency. Research shows that focusing on the experience over just the goal allows people to work longer and make more progress than trying to just work on motivation and goals alone.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My passion for play-based education started in an elementary school hallway over 20 years ago, with a 6-year-old boy in tears.

I was a university student at the time, working as a reading tutor in a local school. This energetic, adorable little guy HATED reading. It was such a struggle for him and he would do whatever he could to avoid it. At one point I told him he had to read at least one page of his reader before we could play.

He looked up at me with giant tears in his eyes and said, “I thought you were my friend.”

I went home to my apartment that day devastated and angry. How had reading become so awful? What were we doing wrong that made kids HATE learning to read?

I was convinced that there had to be a better way and spent the rest of my weekend finding anything I could in a college apartment to turn reading into the funnest thing possible, and that was my mission for the rest of the school year.

Now 20 years down the road, I have over 100 million views of my educational activity videos. Children around the world are using my play-based learn-to-read program, our Mommy and Me Preschool program, and our classroom resources for teachers. I am so grateful for what I get to do every day.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

The greatest growth moments in my company have come from pivots.

The first major pivot was when I transitioned from being a stay-at-home mom to starting my company in the first place. My husband at the time had told me that it wasn’t fair for only one of us to work and that I needed to get a job.

I had 5 children 10 and under at home, with 4 at home during the day. There was no way I could earn enough to even cover daycare, and because of my children’s specific needs, I felt like I needed to be home with them.

I started getting up at 5am before my kids woke up and staying up till midnight hoping to build enough of a business and income that my spouse would feel supported and I could still care for my children the way I wanted to at home.

Within a little over a year I was making enough that he told me he wanted to quit his job.

Another example of a pivot was when I had a video hit 20 million views on Facebook alone, and I didn’t make a single dollar from it.

I realized that I needed to find a way to continue to provide amazing value to the people I serve, but also do it in a way that served my family. That led me to create products that continued to go viral and were also purchaseable in my store.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

It’s critical to know your core values as a person and as a company. Once you are clear on those, you can create a community around that.

Our videos, our social posts, our emails, our products… all of them reflect our core values of play, learning, kindness, and connection. Because of that, our little space on the internet has grown into a community of over 2 million moms and teachers from around the world who are kind and supportive of each other. It’s beautiful.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://planningplaytime.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/planningplaytime
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/planningplaytime
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3q3mGmT0E3xxoaIXp8nMJA