Children’s Book Author Angela Hirschy and Regina Sitterley with Home Therapy Solutions

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Kid Biz Radio. Kid Biz Radio creates conversations about the power of entrepreneurship and the positive impact that journey can have on kids. For more information, go to Kid Biz Expert.com. Now, here’s your host.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:00:28] Hi. Welcome to Kid Biz Radio. I’m Layla.

Austyn Guest: [00:00:30] And I’m Austin.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:00:31] And today we have awesome guests with us in the studio. We have Regina with Home Therapy Solutions and Angela with Bright Bumble books and more. Hello.

Austyn Guest: [00:00:39] Welcome, guys.

Regina Sitterley: [00:00:40] Thank you. Hi. Thanks for having us.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:00:42] Of course. Thanks for being with us today. Can you tell us about yourself and your business?

Angela Hirschy: [00:00:49] Yes, I’m Angela. I’ve been married for 21 years. I’m a mom. I love cats. I’m also an indie author who writes faith based children’s books. I published my first book called Laney’s Change of Heart in March of this year. I’m also a licensed realtor and I recently started publishing journals and designing t shirts. I just love to be creative. Love it.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:01:08] Uh, Regina.

Regina Sitterley: [00:01:09] Sure. Yeah. My name is Regina. My company is Home Therapy Solutions. We do physical, occupational and speech therapy with the senior citizens in our community.

Austyn Guest: [00:01:19] I love it.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:01:21] Um, have you done podcasts before?

Regina Sitterley: [00:01:23] Yes, I’ve done one in person. And thanks to the change in our society over the past few years, I’ve done several over Zoom. Yes.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:01:33] Um.

Regina Sitterley: [00:01:34] Has to be in person.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:01:35] Yes. How did you get started in your business? You know, did it just kind of happen? Did you plan on doing it?

Regina Sitterley: [00:01:42] Um, I did not plan on it, no. So I always say that my business was one of the silver linings of Covid. I was an occupational therapist working in an assisted living setting that also had skilled nursing, like a nursing home. That’s what most people think of it as. And during Covid, I just couldn’t stand how the seniors were treated. It was, yeah, just, you know, like they couldn’t see their families. And it was very hard to be in health care during that time. So inspired by those circumstances, I just said, Oh, I guess I could do this on my own. I’m just going to go and do that. So I was part of a leadership program, like sort of like what you guys are doing. And I said, All right, I’m going to just start my own company as a result of this program. And on the day that it ended was the day that I had my first patient.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:02:42] That’s fun.

Regina Sitterley: [00:02:42] Yeah. And I just thought it was going to be me. And then as I went along, I ended up hiring other therapists. And when we had more therapists, we needed support staff. So I hired the support staff. And now here we are.

Austyn Guest: [00:02:58] That’s wonderful.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:02:59] Yeah. Angela, what about you?

Angela Hirschy: [00:03:01] So I actually. I never knew that I was going to be a children’s book author. I’ll tell you how it got started. It was almost five years ago. I was in bed one night, and it was 12:00. I couldn’t sleep, so I grabbed my journal and a pencil and I just started writing a story about a turtle. And it was about 700 words. I read the story. I was like, Oh my gosh, I just wrote a children’s book. So I had my family read it and they’re like, Yeah, you should get that published. And God put it on my heart to write those words. And it was a faith based story. So I began researching hybrid publishing, traditional traditional publishing and different avenues. But the cost involved in that is is pretty exponential. So I had to put it on hold for almost five years. So last March I was, let’s see, I was volunteering at a local organization and I was talking to the founder and he’s like, Angela, you have to do this. You have to publish this book because you never know what impact you might have. Yeah. So then I started researching self publishing and trying to figure out all the ins and outs of that. And it’s it’s a huge process. There’s so many steps involved. And then I found an illustrator who was a friend, a friend of mine. It was her daughter. She was really young. She had just graduated high school and she was able to illustrate my first book. Cool. So it wasn’t the turtle book that got published first. It was my second one that I wrote about. A little mouse is called Laney Change of Heart. But the Turtle, the first story I wrote about the turtle will be published soon. I just don’t know when it’s coming up. Coming up. Yep. And then this fall, hopefully I’ll publish my second one about a pumpkin and a little cat, but I may push it back until next year. So that’s how all that got started. I’m just really thankful I was able to make it happen this year.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:04:47] On this journey to creating your business, what have you done? Like the main points that have really helped you become as successful as you are.

Angela Hirschy: [00:04:57] Um. A lot of research. Always helpful contacting mentors that have done this before. If I didn’t have certain people, I wouldn’t have been able to make this happen because it was difficult. It’s not I mean, it’s not easy to be a self published author, but I learned so many things along the way and I made some mistakes. But now, now I know. So you learn from your mistakes all the time. Exactly. So I’m thankful for the whole process.

Regina Sitterley: [00:05:26] Yeah, I think being willing to learn from your mistakes is the number one. Piece of wisdom.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:05:34] Yeah. Some people make a mistake and just give up. Oh, Regina, what about you?

Regina Sitterley: [00:05:41] Repeat the question for me.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:05:43] What have you done along your path that has helped you become a successful entrepreneur?

Regina Sitterley: [00:05:49] Um. Learned from many mistakes. Being listening to other people who have already made those mistakes and recovered from them. And not only that, but actually being willing to make mistakes, like taking a risk, I guess, and knowing that I may not do the right thing. But. How are we going to progress if I don’t even take a step forward?

Layla Dierdorff : [00:06:19] I’d be willing to take that big risk. What do you define success as? At what point in your career where you’re like, Oh, you know, this is what success is? Yeah. Or do you think you’re not there yet?

Angela Hirschy: [00:06:34] Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about that question for some time. And I came across this quote by Einstein Strive, strive not to be a success, but rather to be a value. And when I wrote my story, I honestly I had no idea if it would even sell one copy. It was about getting the message out. So I feel like if you’re providing value in whatever you do, even if you’re a parent, you’re providing value to your kids, you’re still successful. So I think. I think as long as you’re providing value, you can be successful. Even if I only sold one book, that would have been fine. Yeah, because the message out, I got the message out and I was able to. You know, accomplish the goal that I wanted to.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:07:16] I think with that mindset, the product that you produce is going to be better because instead of thinking like, what will sell the most, it’s like, what do I actually care about? Exactly.

Regina Sitterley: [00:07:25] Yeah. Very good.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:07:27] Would you say you define success as.

Regina Sitterley: [00:07:30] It’s very interesting because I was talking to a big therapy company the other day and I’m like, they asked me, what are my goals? I’m like, Well, jeez, I just want to stabilize. Like, my company is just about three years old. I’m like, I don’t I don’t want it to act like a terrible to company anymore. And I said, I can’t even think about expanding to another state. And they said, Well, you are at the stage where you’re supposed to be at. Don’t think about what your company will be like 30 years down the road. Yeah, that’s nice. And what I thought about is I think sometimes we don’t give our credit ourselves credit for the success that we are now because we’re looking 30 or at companies who are 30 years down the road and we’re like, They’re successful. That’s what it will take for me to get there. But the things that we do on a daily basis, like I could pay payroll this week. Wow, I paid a whole bunch of other people. That was a success. Yeah.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:08:31] That’s very nice.

Regina Sitterley: [00:08:32] And then we traded we probably did 150 patient treatments last week. So that’s.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:08:40] That’s, that’s a definitely a.

Regina Sitterley: [00:08:42] Success. Yeah. So trying to slow down and celebrate in the moment, the successes that we have, I think is something I’m still trying to remember every day.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:08:53] That’s actually a good way to roll into. What are some highlights that you’ve had in your career?

Regina Sitterley: [00:09:01] Well, my my career as an occupational therapist. Oh, I’ve had so many highlights. We’ve had patients and I guess specifically at a home therapy Solutions, we’ve had patients who were in rehab centers for months at a time, and they left the rehab center actually being told you’ll never walk again, which is a horrible thing to say to someone. I mean, how do they even know? Well, anyway, then the patient, I’m like, You really should give us a try. You know, why don’t you go home and let us try it? And we go. And it wasn’t overnight, but over the course of 3 or 4 months, that patient was able to get up and walk around her house. And now it’s been in about a year now we’re still seeing her for therapy. Now she’s walking out of her house and around her cul de sac. I love.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:09:54] That. So cool.

Regina Sitterley: [00:09:55] Awesome. So that’s a huge highlight for me.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:09:58] It’s definitely a highlight. How about you?

Angela Hirschy: [00:10:01] So I won a book award this year. Wow. I had no idea. It’s called the Golden Wizard Book Prize Award. Cool. That was really excited about that. And. What was the other part of the question?

Layla Dierdorff : [00:10:16] Well, I’m just what are some highlights that kind of stand out to you that really help you keep going?

Angela Hirschy: [00:10:21] Um. Definitely the reviews that I received on Amazon that I know that the story is making a difference. Yeah, yeah. That that really brings me a lot of joy to read that. I did get one negative review on Amazon. You’re always going to get some.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:10:39] But when you get the positive ones, it feels really nice and.

Angela Hirschy: [00:10:41] It helps you keep going. Yeah, I was like, Oh no, I got a one star, but it’s all good. Yeah, I.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:10:46] Got all the other five stars. We’re good.

Angela Hirschy: [00:10:48] Right?

Layla Dierdorff : [00:10:51] So when starting up y’all’s businesses, what are maybe some regrets or maybe some things that you would have hoped you would have done differently when starting up y’all’s businesses?

Regina Sitterley: [00:11:03] Oh man, how do I choose? I think that businesses are really defined by processes and. Although I think that you have to take risks. And the most important thing is to take action if you don’t take action. Even the processes don’t matter. You could have a gazillion spreadsheets and know how to do it and not do it anyway. I’m an action person, so sometimes I just dive in. I don’t. I’m like, Oh, well, I guess I.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:11:37] See where this goes.

Regina Sitterley: [00:11:38] Yeah. So I wish that I had slowed down a little bit more and put more structures in place because what happened is the company grew so fast without.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:11:49] Like it was just crazy.

Regina Sitterley: [00:11:51] Yeah.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:11:52] It got snowballed.

Regina Sitterley: [00:11:53] And then because of lack of structure, with it being so big, it was hard to put the structure back in afterward. So then we had to scale back down and start over. It’s okay, but in retrospect. Putting those structures in before we developed a million referrals and had a ton of therapists that might have been. It might have made our all of our lives easier. Yeah.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:12:22] About you.

Angela Hirschy: [00:12:22] I agree with Regina. Slow down more. I was trying to hit a specific deadline, and that’s where the mistakes came in. But. But it’s okay because I learned from those mistakes. And I would say also not getting started sooner since I pushed it off four and a half years because I. But things happen. Life happens, and I just couldn’t make it happen at that time. But. But it all worked out.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:12:50] So following up with that, what would you say is some advice you have for aspiring entrepreneurs to maybe prevent them from going too fast and preventing some of the regrets or things that you may have wanted to change?

Regina Sitterley: [00:13:07] I would say. I mean, you don’t want you don’t want to not take action.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:13:14] Yeah, of course.

Regina Sitterley: [00:13:15] So it’s very important to take. Calculated action every single day. And. Okay, So I guess, I guess I would schedule in time to work on processes. Yeah. And policies and make sure that you are really. Developing a foundation. But it’s still taking action.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:13:40] Yeah.

Angela Hirschy: [00:13:42] Yeah, I agree. I would say research and mentors. I think the more people that you have that are able to teach you and mentor you along the way. Then the better it will be.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:13:57] We’ve talked a lot about the past and present. What about your future goals for your businesses? Where would you like to be? Do you remember? You said you didn’t have many, but if you had to maybe come up with some, what would they be? They they don’t have to be long term. They can be short. They can be within the next few months even.

Regina Sitterley: [00:14:15] Well, like I said, my my main goal is to stabilize. So we need our support staff, which is. So that’s another example of kind of just take a breather and be like, all right, what would we need to be stable? So we need the three branches of, in my particular company just to stabilize. Once we have those support staff in place, the therapists can then build and see more, more and more patients. So we want to definitely be able to serve all of the patients, you know, the elderly, people who want to be able to age in place and stay at home in Cherokee Cobb and North Fulton Counties.

Angela Hirschy: [00:14:59] I think for. Self publishing. I would like to you know, probably my big goal is 50 children’s books. Of course, it could take me. It could take me 40, 50 years. I don’t know. But yeah, that’s that’s a big goal. It’s a very good goal. And to get my book on the shelf in Barnes and Noble right now it’s just online.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:15:24] Well, I guarantee it’ll get there eventually.

Angela Hirschy: [00:15:27] Thanks. Yeah.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:15:30] Okay. So we have about a couple like deeper questions for you. So forewarning you can take a minute to yes, you can take a minute to think about it. The first one is if you had the attention of the whole world for five minutes, everyone was listening and paying attention to what you had to say for five minutes. What would you tell them?

Regina Sitterley: [00:15:52] Wow, that.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:15:53] Is. I know that’s a.

Angela Hirschy: [00:15:54] Did you prepare.

Regina Sitterley: [00:15:55] For this?

Angela Hirschy: [00:15:56] I just wrote down a few things. All right. You go ahead. Yeah, that’s a big question. I think a lot of time fear stops us from moving forward and then we get stuck. I think I would. You know, tell people to be true to yourself, love God and love others. If something is on your heart, do what it takes to make it happen. There’s a reason that it was on your heart in the first place and best in being your best self. I think a lot of times we get too comfortable with who we are instead of moving forward. I know. I mean, it happens to me and we’re capable of much more than we think we have. We’ve all been given these amazing gifts and talents, and so often we don’t use them.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:16:36] Yeah.

Regina Sitterley: [00:16:39] Um, if five minutes seems like a long time. It does, you know, so very.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:16:45] Long for a speech.

Regina Sitterley: [00:16:46] Yeah, I think that I would make a speech around. Living right now. Because we will let stories from the past influence us right now, and then we’ll let concern about the future influence us right now. And of course, I think that’s the human condition. However, living right now and dealing with now. Instead of like living in the past past stories about things. And if there’s something from the past that is you’re living out like, Oh, my mom did this to me or whatever. Do take action now to resolve that for yourself so that you don’t continue to carry the past into the future, I guess. Yeah, I love that. Not that eloquent, but it works.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:17:38] Yeah. Um, another one is if you woke up tomorrow without your business, what would be your first steps to recovery? Or would you just decide to.

Regina Sitterley: [00:17:46] Are we waking up with millions of dollars and no business or.

Angela Hirschy: [00:17:50] It wish you.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:17:51] You woke up as if it was just it had never existed. It was gone. What would be your first steps to recovery? Or would you just leave it as it is?

Regina Sitterley: [00:18:02] There are many days when I would be thankful. It’s hard. The but I would so like it was taken away or I couldn’t I had to close it. Something like that. Something like that.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:18:17] Yeah.

Regina Sitterley: [00:18:19] Yeah, I think I would. Look for the try to look for the next adventure. I mean, I’m sure that it would be it’s very emotional being responsible for other people. And it was a dream, you know, letting the dream kind of closing those doors. But just I think that the first step would probably be like we talked about earlier, acknowledging the success and. Patting myself on the back, for lack of a better term, to say, look, all these things that you did and how can you use these things now to propel your future? You know? I didn’t end up here because of a smooth and easy path that just led here. It was difficult things that led to these to me being able to do this so this difficult thing will lead to something even better too, for sure. So I would just encourage myself in that way.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:19:20] How about you?

Angela Hirschy: [00:19:21] I think I would do it all over again.

Speaker4: [00:19:25] Yeah.

Regina Sitterley: [00:19:25] Yeah, that’s great.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:19:28] Okay, so we’re going to do a little lighthearted now, this or that. So we’ll give two options. And as quick as you can say what it is. Who wants to go first?

Angela Hirschy: [00:19:37] I’ll go. Okay.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:19:38] All right. So here we go. Cats or dogs? Cats. Spider-man or Batman.

Angela Hirschy: [00:19:43] Spider-man.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:19:43] Books or movies. Books. Waffle or curly fries. Waffle. Mountains or the beach. Beach. Sweet or salty. Sweet chocolate or fruity candy. Chocolate cake or pie.

Angela Hirschy: [00:19:54] Mm. That’s a good one. High.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:19:56] Lower, high rise jeans.

Angela Hirschy: [00:19:59] Well, when I was younger, I would say low rise, but probably high rise now.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:20:03] Comedy or horror movies.

Angela Hirschy: [00:20:05] Comedy.

Speaker4: [00:20:06] Okay. All right. Okay.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:20:09] Okay. Here we go. Cats or dogs?

Speaker4: [00:20:11] Dogs.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:20:12] Spider-man or Batman.

Regina Sitterley: [00:20:13] Spider-man.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:20:14] Books or movies.

Regina Sitterley: [00:20:15] Movies.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:20:16] Waffle or curly fries. Curly fries. Mountains or the beach.

Regina Sitterley: [00:20:20] The beach.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:20:21] Sweet or salty. Sweet chocolate or fruity candy.

Regina Sitterley: [00:20:24] Definitely chocolate.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:20:26] Cake or pie.

Speaker4: [00:20:28] High.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:20:29] Lower, high rise jeans?

Speaker4: [00:20:31] No, just. No.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:20:37] Comedy or horror.

Regina Sitterley: [00:20:38] Comedy.

Speaker4: [00:20:39] All right. All right.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:20:43] From deep questions to some fun, this or that.

Speaker4: [00:20:46] That was a good recover. Yes.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:20:49] All right. Well, thank you, Regina and Angela, for hanging out with us today. We really appreciate it. Can you tell everyone how they can get in touch with you and check out what you’re doing?

Regina Sitterley: [00:21:02] Sure. Yeah. You can check out our website. We’re in the middle of changing it, but it’s still is GA for Georgia GA home therapy.com. And you can reach out to our office at (678) 632-8189.

Speaker4: [00:21:20] Okay.

Angela Hirschy: [00:21:20] You can check out my Instagram page at Angela author Angela Hershey sorry or my website at w-w-w dot Angela hershey.com fantastic.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:21:31] Well we enjoyed our time with you today and we know our audience will get so much out of hearing your story. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you on the next one.