Kate Fisher — A Day In Her Life

This week, we're sitting down with Kate Fisher, founder of Kate Fisher Tutoring and mom of two daughters on New York's Upper East Side. Kate shares what it's like to tutor back-to-back on Zoom from 4pm to 9pm with zero breaks (dinner included), cook the family's dinner at 11am so it's ready to reheat later, and pop out mid-session to say goodnight to her girls.

In our conversation, Kate opens up about turning a $20-an-hour college job into an 18-year career and a company with 35 tutors, a rocky start to motherhood that collided with her mom's breast cancer diagnosis, and why 2026 feels like the year she finally came back to herself. We talk about the hourly AI-generated to-do list that scans her texts and emails, the husband who plays the Rocky theme when she finishes a long day, and why her time with her daughters is about quality over quantity (because "they deserve a happy mom").

What We Cover:

Why she describes her days as variable, loud, and fulfilling, starting with a 7am wake-up call from her three-and-a-half-year-old (who needs an alarm?).
How a Kaplan ad looking for theater kids with strong SAT scores became her life's work, and why she almost left it all for social work school.
The learning management system she built with Claude over the summer and how AI lets a small company "punch above our weight."
Her biggest PTO hack: solo trips tacked onto conferences, and why three months of maternity leave with her first nearly broke her while three weeks with her second felt just right.
Unlearning the "every hour is more money" mindset so she can say yes to a Tuesday night concert, plus matinee-and-lunch dates instead of 8pm dinners.
Her "friendship islands," coffee walks with her top competitor, and the weekly walk across Central Park to in-person therapy (and why Zoom therapy doesn't work when you work on Zoom all day).
Working out five to seven times a week as a formerly unathletic kid, and why her younger self would be shocked she's a mom (and that she loves it).

References:

London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe — what Kate is reading now, as the nonfiction pick for a self-described literary fiction girl
Moccamaster — the coffee maker that replaced their Keurig and "forever changed" their mornings
Margaux sample sale — where she scored three pairs with a friend she met through work

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