For the early childhood education industry, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a crisis on steroids. I have built 27 schools, shepherded more than a dozen schools and hundreds of teachers through the 2008 financial crisis, and managed nearly every challenge you can imagine an owner would face over the course of 20-plus years. But it goes without saying that the pandemic is hands-down the most difficult situation I have encountered as a leader, by far. Within the ECE field and beyond, I am hardly alone.