[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: The podcast for those who find themselves immersed in adversity and choose to write their story instead of having others write it for them. I'm Drew Duraney and I'm your host. Today's guests are Christina and Herb Hay of REIT.
Christina and Herbert have been partners in life for 34 years, raising two boys and blending her 27 year teaching career with his business and entrepreneurial expertise.
Together they founded Vibrant Family Education and the Bringing Education Home podcast to help families reimagine learning, strengthen relationships and raise happy, healthy, successful children, building better communities and a better world, one family at a time.
Enjoy the show. Christina and Herb, it's great to see you too.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: It's awesome to be here. Thank you for having us, Drew.
[00:01:04] Speaker C: It's a pleasure to see you too, Drew. Thank you.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Thank you. Herb and Christina. You know, it's great because often I only have one person on. You are the third couple I've had on and I love doing them because it just, it, it really shows why the two are still together.
Really. It's, it's. I love, I love the synchronicity and the alignment. So I'm glad you guys are here. I always thank the person who introduced us. And I look back at my notes and once again, it's Mike for juice or we call him Fritz.
I probably butchered the pronunciation last name, which is why we call him Fritz. So, Fritz, thank you for introducing me to Christina and Herb. I really appreciate it, my friend.
So my audience knows. I love to start with the fact that we're taught at a young age by the people who care about us that life is linear. Life is a straight path. If we do A plus B plus C, D is going to happen. It's not malicious thinking. It's people want it for us. And wouldn't that be great to have a linear life? And for the most part, our lives are linear. Or they start out that way until they're not.
Ultimately, an external circumstance comes in between the one of those letters and kind of derails our straight path and creating a more circuitous life path.
When that happens, that means adversity reared its ugly head.
And human beings either notice that adversity or they don't.
For the ones who do notice it, they have a choice. Do you face that adversity? Do you run away from it?
And because of how human beings react and behave and think, I, I see that there's three different types of people out there. There's three different types of women, three different types of men, man or Woman number one is the one who doesn't see the adversity. They've been living life the way people wouldn't tell them to live and they don't see the adversity as anything different. So they just live that life sucking it up on autopilot and nothing changes. I don't have man or woman number one on this show.
And then let's look at man or woman number two.
They see the adversity, yet they consider themselves a victim. Life is to blame. It's doing them. To them, adversity is a barrier. It's not an opportunity.
They can't change anything. So they don't. And they live life without any changes. And on their deathbed, they have a ton of regrets. I don't have man or woman number two on this show.
I have man or woman number three on this show because they have a heightened self awareness. They see the adversity and they say, hey, this adversity is not a barrier, it's an opportunity. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. I'm going to do something different, take massive action and being a stronger man or woman on the other side.
That's our guest today, Christina and Herb.
Hey, Everett. How'd I do?
[00:03:54] Speaker C: Real close.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: Okay, it's. And it's a hyphen in there. So we got hey, and Christina. We get a written herb. I love that.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: Nope, it's all herbs. The whole name is herbs.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: It's all herbs.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: It's all herbs.
[00:04:06] Speaker C: Her maiden name was Van Loo. My mom tried to change my name when I was 3 years old and the judge wouldn't let her fully change my last name away from my dad.
[00:04:16] Speaker B: We are going to get into that. I'm going to want to hear that. That's impactful. I love that. See, I assumed, you know what happens when you assume.
So I'm going to start with Christina here. I'd like you to reach back as far as you need to, Christina, for that defining moment. Whether it was the tap on the shoulder, the whisper in the ear, or like what I needed two by four upside my head that transformed you from the woman you were, whether it was woman number one or two or both, to the woman you are now and how that transformation impacted you personally or professionally. Can you share with us?
[00:04:48] Speaker A: Wow, that's a really good question. You know, there's lots of different things that happen, but we, we've always had kind of a drive. But I think one of the things around education and children, that was really one of those Things was that when our son was born and we were told, hey, he's a little bit different. He's not the normal run of the mill kid. And I was a teacher. I was supposed to know all the answers. And then we were both like, wait a second, this doesn't fit into the box anymore. And so we had to look at things differently and try to grow differently. So you having our son on the autism spectrum is really part of the things that really changed us and helped us understand things a little bit differently in the world. And again, it was like you said, we didn't say, oh, what was me? Or, you know, we're. We're, you know, we have this kiddo who's different. We did our best to do everything we could to help him be successful and move it in and throughout the world.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: Wow. Now, when, when that happened, how prepared were you for that path? Right. Or are we trained as first time parents to be in that linear mindset? Right. They teach us that path. Were you prepared for path number two?
[00:05:57] Speaker A: No. Matter of fact, one of the key things that we talk about often is that after we found out about his diagnosis, we really nailed it down because it was, he's on the high end of the spectrum. He's, you know, very high functioning, but at the same time, there's just certain things that are different. Right. And the kids would treat him different, the teachers treated him different, and things like that. We went to a class that said.
[00:06:16] Speaker C: Something like, my child is different, and.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: Sometimes it hurts, and sometimes it hurts. And that really kind of opened our eyes about what we've been going through already. The blame, the shame, the guilt, we did something wrong. And then the looking forward of, no, we're not going to stick in that place. We're going to make this new adventure, this new unexpected, quote, unquote vacation or whatever, however you want to look at it differently and move forward. Yeah.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: Great mindset. So going to you, Herb, would you say that your defining moment in your entire life would be that same same thing, or do you have a different one or an additional.
[00:06:51] Speaker C: Oh, so we talked about being outside of the box. It's like you. You think I'm a level three person, but I'm a level one person. There are parts of my life where I can't see, and I am a victim, and now I'm a level two person, and there are parts of my life where I can see it and I can't, and I don't feel like I can do anything about it. And I'm Moving consciously into three where I am taking control of my life. And that's been a journey that's been 30 years in the process. So for me, I'm not a one, two or three, I'm all of the above because I'm not linear. There have been so many times I got so unhealthy that I couldn't get my arms, my hands above my head and I couldn't touch my toes. That was a turning point to change, radically change my life, my diet, my lifestyle.
[00:07:40] Speaker B: Boom.
[00:07:40] Speaker C: That was a big one. I hurt my head on the mountain and my business fell apart. I had to restart everything from scratch.
Super big defining moment. I was a victim in that for years. Because of the way the brain damage hurt my head and the structures it damaged, I am finally crawling out of that. It's been three years since I got out of that. And so life is not linear. I am all three of the above. There are so many defining moments.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:08:11] Speaker C: And there's so. Yeah, it's, it's not one. There are so many. But at the start it's like I know that I can't stop. I don't have a way to stop because when I stop, it's like I look around, it's like, fine, I'm not going to do anything anymore. It's like, okay, well, well now I need to do that and I just take a next step.
So to me it's like it's all of the above. And somewhere in the middle of it, it's like I found out that it doesn't matter how bad it gets, I still have to take another step and some direction.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: So that the, the first defining moment was that before you met Christina or, or during.
[00:08:48] Speaker C: Yeah. So I also recently found out that I'm what's called a natural systems level thinker.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:08:55] Speaker C: And thinking in systems is really weird. Okay. And it causes a lot, a lot of problems with people because you think about problems in the way life works differently. So when people are working here, I'm working here. And, and so it, it changes. And so I've been different my whole life. I've never been one of these normal fit in people.
So again, that's where this out of the box come from. That's where this different look on life comes from. So my pitiful moment for me was just basically being me.
[00:09:32] Speaker B: It's got it now. The, the three years ago on the mountain. Get that. Obviously that was during your marriage.
[00:09:40] Speaker C: Oh yeah. We've been married for 36 years. We 30. I don't have any memories that she's not in anymore. Even my childhood memories when I didn't know her. She's somehow there and watching. It's me. And so she is in my entire life now.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: There's.
[00:09:54] Speaker C: There's no separation.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: I love that. I love that. So. And. And your. Your son was already born when you. How old is your son now?
[00:10:02] Speaker A: He's 34.
[00:10:03] Speaker B: He's 34. So. Geez. So this, this mountain. Tell me about that. That trip up the mountain. And why were you up there?
[00:10:11] Speaker C: Okay. I. I snowboard. I snowboarded a lot. I loved it. I was really good. And one thing we learned over the years is you never talk about the last run. So if you're at the top of the mountain, you always have one more and then you make that decision at the bottom. I forgot that. And at the top of the mountain, I was like, okay, this is the last run. We're gonna haul ass down to the bot bit. And I'm really good. I was too tired and I was going as fast as I could at like 50, 60 miles an hour. And I did something called high side. I caught a back edge and it threw me down the mountain backwards and I landed on my head and my back.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
[00:10:47] Speaker C: This was actually about.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: His helmet actually broke.
[00:10:50] Speaker C: Yeah, this was about 15 years ago.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: It happened 15 years ago. And you dug out of it three years ago.
[00:10:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:56] Speaker C: So like I said, I was in the dark and I was a victim and I was broke. I was broken really, really badly for a long time. And then I got involved in psychedelic medic.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:05] Speaker C: And it helped me regrow the structures of my brain and help me reconnect to life. So I actually became a psychedelic preparation and integration coach to help other people save their lives from stuff that happened to me.
[00:11:17] Speaker B: This is unbelievably amazing now.
[00:11:19] Speaker C: Yeah, I told you, I'm an out of the box thinker. I'm not linear. I'm all over the place.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: This is.
[00:11:23] Speaker B: There's so much here because for Christina, like at the time it happened, you say your son's 34 now. So you're talking 19. He was 19 when the accident happened. Happen. Right. So now Christina's got a 19 year old on the spectrum and Herb with brain damage. How the heck did you get through this?
[00:11:44] Speaker C: Christina, or thank God she meant it when she said for better or for worse.
We also have a younger son.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:50] Speaker C: And so at the same time, I hurt my head, my dad died, my business fell apart, my youngest son stopped talking to us. And now we can't talk to our granddaughter anymore. So it seriously was like five big hammer blows that absolutely took my life apart. And part of it is because I was doing so well, and I was so grounded, and my spirituality was coming along and was like, God, let's like, okay, let's step it up. I'm ready.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: I know you give you as much as I can handle. That's done. I'm done.
[00:12:21] Speaker C: And it's like. And then it's like, okay, let's. Let's take it to the next level. And God picked up Mount Hood and smashed me over the head with it.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: And said, okay, so, yeah, two by four.
[00:12:30] Speaker C: Like, back to where you were. And when you get back to where you were, then you'll have something worth.
[00:12:35] Speaker B: Doing, which you don't. Still don't talk to your youngest son. No, he.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: He. Yeah, he won't.
[00:12:40] Speaker C: We would love to, but every time we try, it gets worse. And so he won't talk to us.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: Do we know why or do you not want to talk?
[00:12:47] Speaker C: That's the hardest part, is we're not really sure.
That's part of why we do what we do with helping families. Because we didn't have communication when we were going through all of this.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
[00:12:58] Speaker C: We were trying to protect our children. We were trying to.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: Of course.
[00:13:01] Speaker C: Yeah. And instead, what happened is all of these problems that we had became problems that we had, and we didn't grow together. So we went into the dark, and he didn't understand. And somewhere along the way, we lost it. So part of what we do is we help families communicate, get together, because the family unit is so important.
Don't protect your kids. You include them so that they learn the resilience that you're learning at the same time.
[00:13:29] Speaker B: Well, that's a great message. And you think about that, because when. When we. And I have a. I have a son who's on the spectrum, too.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:35] Speaker B: That. The impact that the Having a neurodivergent child has on siblings. Yeah, it's a tremendous impact that a lot of times we don't see. We don't think. I mean, my son's got. We got it. We had. He has a younger brother and a younger sister.
I now know that there was a lot of. Of stress on the two of them while we were trying to diagnose the older one.
[00:13:59] Speaker C: Our youngest son at one point came and said, how come. How come I have to be the older brother?
So our youngest son. It's like, how come I have to be the older brother.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: Oh, and that's impactful.
[00:14:09] Speaker C: That's impactful.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: Now when did he say that? Like, while ago. Did you guys pick up on that?
[00:14:14] Speaker A: He said that when he was about 13, I think.
[00:14:17] Speaker C: 12, 13.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: Right. And, and how do you pick up on something like that?
[00:14:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, we, we just looked at him and said, you know, your, your brother thinks differently. He just does things differently. And you know, they're only 18 months apart, first of all, so they're really close in age. Right. And so then it's like. But we know that you can handle a lot. And that was kind of one of our mistakes, I think, is saying, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: And you don't know. You don't know what, you don't know when you're in those situations. And, and you know, in a way there's a silver lining because the fact that that was said and you realize it now, you can help other families.
[00:14:52] Speaker C: And we're Gen Xers.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:54] Speaker C: And I gotta sell you, almost all Gen Xers don't know what they don't know. Because again, we're the feral generation. The locked out doors is like, we did what we knew.
[00:15:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:04] Speaker C: And our parents did what they knew. And we, again, we were the first ones raised by two parents that were out of the home because every until, until the generation before us, there was always the mom at home. So there was such a big shift in everything, in the way the world was working when we were growing up. And the Dr. Spock books that taught children raising there were so wrong.
So, you know, what can you do except try and make it better for the next group of people that are coming through.
[00:15:34] Speaker B: I tell you, I give you guys a lot of credit because you could have hunkered down in your hole and not shared this stuff. So let's like launch into the business aspect of your transformation. Your. Your each of your transformations in life. What, in, in layperson's terms, what. Give me the structure of your business and what the mission is.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: The mission is exactly what we said. To help families not fall apart. To help families know how to communicate and stay strong through all of the adversities back and forth. And the lens that I do it through, that we do it through is mostly through education. Because right now education is a big thing. Families are not happy with the services in the schools or schools that are not supporting our kids the way they need to. Our kids are different thinkers now than they used to be. And we still have a system that treats them the same way that we were raised right and so vibrant family education is all about looking at that family dynamic, looking at a great fit education, mostly homeschooling, especially for our neurodiverse and things and kiddos like that, because they need something different to put them into a school setting where their emotions are constantly being triggered. Their, you know, the language and the noise and all those kinds of things are constantly being triggered. They can't learn, they can't show their brilliance because of all of that triggering. And so if you can bring them to a space where they're quiet and settled and safe and you have the support to do that fully, then your child can grow and be so much more than what we think they can be right now.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: No, it's so true. All right, let's go deep into this because.
[00:17:11] Speaker C: Oh, can I. Can I answer that one too before you go? Yeah, because I got the out of the box answer.
[00:17:16] Speaker B: Okay, go ahead.
[00:17:18] Speaker C: So when I started, the focus was also on entrepreneurs, because entrepreneurs know something is wrong with the world and they're trying to do something to make their family better. Because all when you get into entrepreneurship, it's like, I want my family to be safe. I want all this freedom for my family.
But they ignore their family while they're doing it, and then they're like, I'm going to fix it when I get there. Okay.
If your child is in public school by the time they're 18, you spend about 17,000 hours with them.
Okay. If they're homeschooled, you spend about 126,000 hours with them. Okay?
[00:17:54] Speaker A: So big difference.
[00:17:55] Speaker C: What you're trying to do, becoming an entrepreneur is buy your time back to spend it with your family.
What we do instead is we start you with that. We show you how to incorporate your family into your daily life through homeschool to where instead of sending them off and having to go to teachers and having to do this thing at 8 in the morning and 3 in the morning to pick them up and the lines and the hassle, you incorporate all of that into daily life. You work your business development, your personal development, and your family development, and you put all three legs under the stool and. And you build everything up together. So don't lose your family on the way to building your business. Your businesses are going to fail. You're going to have three or four or five or six. Maybe your jobs are going to change, your friends are going to change, but your kid is always going to be your kid. And if you want them there when you're old and you need help, then you need to be there when they're young and they need help. And that is really what we are trying to do. That's the core of our business. And so it sounds like, oh, yeah, we help you homeschool, we help you do this, but really we're trying to give you your family back. And because that is so important for the health of our communities, for America. America is founded as a Christian nation, and our Constitution doesn't work if we don't have a solid family structure of integrity. So all of that.
All of that is. Is here. That's what systems thinking makes me think of. And that's why there's so much angst in the stuff that, that I had in my early life. Because all of that is. It's not just one thing. It's. It's this system.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: Right.
[00:19:35] Speaker C: You have to put it all together.
[00:19:36] Speaker B: Well, let's talk about the system, because in the system, when we use the word education, that can be defined in many different ways because you have scholastic education. They're teaching history, music, math, English.
And I think that that's where the public and private schools are stuck on is. Is. Let's get them the information, right? And it doesn't matter how we get it to them, let's just get it to them. And then it's the how piece.
The how. The how is what we need to look at for the neurodivergent because they're not going to be able to absorb all of that knowledge, all of that information if it's taught in a didactic way.
That's for the neurotypical. And so that's where I see a big distinction.
[00:20:20] Speaker A: Here is the other thing that we do is we redefine education. Education.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: Let's do that. Give me your. Give me your redefinition of education.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: Education is the whole child education.
[00:20:32] Speaker C: Education skills is learning that you're never done.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:36] Speaker C: Again, as an entrepreneur, I talked about business development, I talked about personal developments like, oh, I need to do this. You're going to focus on it for three to six months. You're going to get really good at it. You're going to integrate it into your life, and then you're going to do that with your business and then move to the next thing. That is how we teach you how to teach your children as well. It's like, oh, they want. This kid is really interested in trains. Great, perfect. You now have an anchor for your learning.
What kind of trains do different countries have? What kind of wheels do they have? What are their metals made of how fast can they go and how long does it. So you can get your math, you can get your reading, you can get. So you build your stuff around what the kids want to do and they pull it. And then after a while it's like, leave me alone, go do that on your own. I have my own stuff to do. Quit teaching me the stuff you're learning.
[00:21:28] Speaker A: Kids are saying this, so, so what.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: You'Re doing is you're finding, you're finding the strength in the individual and then helping them apply the knowledge they need to learn the math, the English into that strength. That gives them the passion. They have passion in that strength. So why not?
[00:21:46] Speaker C: Our current, our current education system is, is modeled after the Prussian military. And when Carnegie started developing industrialization in the United States, he needed a lot of people in his factories. And so he went to farms and.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: He goes down to the farmers.
Yeah.
[00:22:03] Speaker C: In the way our education system is set up starting at five years old to six years old, the last two years is where a lot of your creativity actually happens. So starting at 5 year olds tends to start curbing your creativity in the first two years and then sitting down in the rows and spending that much time, you're actually programming the children to be able to work in factories and take direction, not expand their curiosity and learning. So by doing the individual education and every child is different, needs to be educated on their own. You bring out their strengths, you get their love of learning and then you get out of the way because you don't need to be there anymore. Even as early as 10 or 12, you do need to kind of keep them structured and in line.
[00:22:47] Speaker B: Right.
[00:22:47] Speaker C: But they're gonna pull hard what they want.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, it's interesting because you mentioned about the Dale Carnegie and the oil and all that kind of stuff. I remember learning that like the agricultural era, these farmers had to do all the thinking or do all the decision making, the cultivating, the harvesting, the distribution, all that. And when the industrial revolution started, like you said, they needed people to work in the mills and everything. They were taking these farmers who like to ask questions.
And they didn't want them to ask questions, they just wanted to do what they wanted to do. So that's where the raising your hand came in.
[00:23:26] Speaker C: They didn't want to put all their kids in school.
So farmers used to have 10, 15 kids to run the farm. Yeah, dumb people don't run farms. There is so much coordination and growth and learning. These and families stayed together, big family, generational families. And then school came along and Suddenly we're pulling these kids out of school, sending them in the factories, living them in the cities. The farms are kind of falling apart. People are having trouble keeping their farms and are, and are almost giving them away to families now who will take care of them.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: They also took at least one of the, one of the parents out of the home now and into the work world. So that's where it all started. So how do we, this system is so strong now. It's got so many politics, so many lobbyists.
How do we, I mean, you're two people.
How do we in this country get back to the agricultural era of, of teaching and, and, and, and educating our children? How do we do that, Christina?
[00:24:27] Speaker C: Well, we start, we started with the homeschooling.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: Hard to start with the homeschooling. But one of those things it was, and it's a silver lining, it was the pandemic, because guess what? When parents really started looking at what their children were learning, how they were.
[00:24:41] Speaker C: Learning, how much time they were wasting, how much time.
[00:24:43] Speaker A: Yeah. But then the beauty of what could happen inside the home, there then a huge, if you can look at the numbers, huge increase in homeschooling and people looking at alternative education because of that. So people are waking up. People are knowing, and especially for our special population, because they know that whenever you send a child to school and all they do is come home frustrated, and then you spend a couple of hours calming them down and getting them back to their center so they can be, you know, safe in their own body again.
[00:25:16] Speaker C: How irritating is it that a grown person can't teach a second grade math? I did her math homework for years, and then one day like, okay, here's the math homework, and I'm looking at the math and it's like, this isn't math. I have no idea what this is. I couldn't grade her math anymore. It's like, that's ridiculous. So you shouldn't, your kids shouldn't have to go through that.
[00:25:35] Speaker B: I agree. And, you know, we look at the society now. You talk about the lockdown and all that, and look at suicide. So the two main reasons people commit suicide is lack of connection and isolation. And what were we forced to do during the, the pandemic? I'm gonna say the. I was going to say the plan.
[00:25:54] Speaker C: Demic, but yep, no, totally, totally.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: We were forced to lock down and isolate, and the fake connection was through elect. You know, the electronic era.
[00:26:04] Speaker C: Over a cold.
[00:26:06] Speaker B: Yeah, over a cold. It burns me because that's when, when this all happened. Was the first time my, my son now set 23. He was 17 at the time.
First time he ever felt anxiety and panic was during, during the lockdown because he had to learn through a computer. He didn't have his aids. So he lost his physical contact and emotional contact with his teaching aide and all that. And he fell apart. We had to almost do his homework. We did do his homework for him so he can graduate high school. He was a class of 2020 in high school. Bad news. Yeah, bad news. I set him back.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: So like I said, there's that silver lining out of the public education. That's why. That's when Byron family came into. Because I saw the need of all these families who wanted.
[00:26:51] Speaker B: What is your background, Christina? You. You were a teacher, right?
[00:26:54] Speaker A: I was a teacher for 27 years. I was in the public, in the.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: In the same school system that, that you're trying to revamp right now. So how frustrating was it for you to be having to teach the curriculum that they told you to teach where you knew there was a better way?
[00:27:10] Speaker C: Can I go through this one?
[00:27:11] Speaker B: I want Christine, my story.
[00:27:14] Speaker A: No. Yeah, I mean, and that was one of the major things that made me leave is because I couldn't reach my children and my parents the way I used to because of policies, because of structures, because of, unfortunately, kiddos in the classroom that didn't belong in the classroom.
[00:27:29] Speaker C: Right.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: All those different things. I couldn't reach the people that I need to reach. And so the frustration was to the point where I, you know, her love is to tell the story because I, I lived it for the beginning of my career. I cried at the end of the year because I was passing my kids on and I was going to miss them. Yeah. Near the end of my year, the last five years, I was crying almost every single day because I couldn't reach my kids. I couldn't teach them what I needed to teach. They were telling me I had to teach multiplication when my kids couldn't even add and subtract yet. They're like, we don't care if they don't have the skills. You need to be on this page, on this book right now because you have a test at the end of the year. That's how strict and strong it was in the school system.
[00:28:10] Speaker B: They stopped caring about building a solid foundation.
[00:28:13] Speaker C: Exactly one year they decided that they didn't need to teach children how to read in kindergarten, in first grade, and she had two years of classes where they got to second grade and they couldn't even write their name and they couldn't read. And so she actually had to spend the first half of the year teaching them how to read. And. And it took one more year to actually get them to change and get them to start teaching. So she had three classes in three years in a row where she had to teach second graders phonetics and how to read. And there were years where I actually went to her classroom every day to help out as an assistant.
I brought in crystals and rocks and things to try and keep her children focused and on task. We. I worked in her classroom for years just to keep the stuff in place.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: So whatever happened to no Child Left Behind? That.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: That was the problem. Don't even get, don't even get me.
[00:29:11] Speaker C: Going on those policies left behind doesn't mean you bring the lower ones up to the top.
[00:29:16] Speaker B: They were doing that.
[00:29:17] Speaker C: You bring the top ones down, down to the lowest level and try and creep them all up at the same by making the smart ones teach the low ones. It. Yeah, I was one of the smart ones. That. That's been a problem my whole life. Oh, you're really good at this. Work with the dumb kids to stop it. Yeah, they're not dumb. They're just different. Different levels.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: So every kid's unique. Every kid's different. Like they say with, with children with autism, you meet one person with autism. You met one person with autism.
[00:29:44] Speaker A: Autism, exactly.
[00:29:45] Speaker B: Yeah. All different.
So the audience has certainly captured the essence of Christina and Herb. Hey, Everett. And they're going to want to get in touch with you guys. So the best way to do it, folks, is go to their, their website, vibrant family education.com. you'll find everything there.
So I've got two final questions for you guys. So we'll start with Christina and then we'll go to Herb.
So, Christina, you're sitting in your happy place. You're sitting down with 7 to 10 year old Christina and you want to give her advice about life. What are you going to tell her?
[00:30:26] Speaker A: Find someone you can count on and be with them for the rest of your life. Because guess what? When you have a happy marriage and a strong commitment, it makes things, even the rough spots go a little bit easier.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: Oh, I love that. I love that. All right, now we'll go to Herb.
You're sitting down with 7 to 10 year old herb and you want to give him advice about life. What would you tell him?
[00:30:50] Speaker C: Don't take it so seriously.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: I love that.
[00:30:54] Speaker C: This. This isn't this. This is not what you think it is.
It's not about the job. It's not about the business. It's. It's, it's about being here. It's about the relations. It's about what you're feeling. And the society stuff.
Think. You think it's important. You think it's what matters, and it feels like it does. But then at the end, when those regrets. This. This isn't what matters. You're never going to regret missing a day of work. You're never going to regret, oh, I didn't build that business. You're going to regret I didn't spend more time with my family. So as a kid, at 7 years old, I, I couldn't hold what I need to tell myself to move forward. So it would just be. It's not real. Don't. Don't take it seriously. What's happening doesn't matter.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: I love that. I love that. All right, let's switch gears. Christina, you're now sitting down with young businesswoman, young entrepreneur Christina, and you want to give her advice about business. What do you tell her?
[00:31:51] Speaker A: You're good. What am I going to tell her?
Don't do it alone. If you're building a business, if you're being doing something kind of outside of the box, find your tribe and work with somebody. You know, it doesn't have to be a business partner, but find those people who understand what you're doing, what you're going through and keep connecting with them. Because so many entrepreneurs try to do it on their own. And solopreneur, doing it on your own is a way to complete burnout. So make sure you're finding your tribe and connecting in with people.
[00:32:23] Speaker B: Love it. Herb, you're sitting down with young businessman, young entrepreneur Herb, and you want to give him advice about business. What are you going to tell him?
[00:32:31] Speaker C: Well, it sounds so cliche, and it is.
You're going to fail. You're going to mess up. You cannot get it perfect. Don't even try get started.
No, don't try and get it perfect started.
Because each time I failed, it would hurt and it would be, oh, I'm bad at this. I shouldn't do it anymore. And then the next time, years later, when I would start, I was like, oh, man, I'm still bad at this. I knew I shouldn't have started, but I got farther. And the next time I was like, oh, man, I, I, I'm doing it again. I know I'm just going to set myself up for failure. And then I got even farther, and then I had a really successful one. Finally and then I smashed my head. It all fell apart. So somehow I would need to convey myself to myself that, like, look, first attempt in learning is what failing is. You're not failing. You're growing. You're going to mess up your business, you're going to lose friends, you're going to piss people off. You're gonna make mistakes, and people are never going to talk to you again.
There are billions of people, and those ones that don't like you or stop liking you, it's, like, perfect. Awesome.
[00:33:39] Speaker B: Thank them.
[00:33:40] Speaker C: Don't take that personally. I do. You know, I say I don't care what people think, and I act as if that's true, but it tears me up inside.
And so I. It almost feels like I would rather please the people that don't like me than help the people who do. And change that. Change that. Quit trying to make everybody like you. And help the people who are ready. And help the people who are ready. Ready.
[00:34:06] Speaker B: I like that. Yeah.
That is a big thing.
People who resist. We entrepreneurs keep chasing the resistors. Go for the ones who need that.
[00:34:15] Speaker C: Oh, you don't want to buy my product. Oh, here, let me change this. Let me do this. Let me do this.
[00:34:20] Speaker A: Bonus.
[00:34:21] Speaker C: I still don't like it. Oh, well, let me do this. No. Oh, hey, this person you want to buy, well, great. Here you have it. But I'm trying to sell to this person who doesn't want it.
Stop that.
[00:34:30] Speaker B: Stop it. I want to thank the two of you for coming on. I want to thank Fritz for the introduction, but Christina and Herb keep doing what you're doing. You are wonderful human beings, and you're sharing so much. You shared so much with the audience. I know you're sharing a ton with your. Your parents.
Keep doing what you're doing. And thank you so much for being who you are.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:34:50] Speaker C: Thank you. Thank you for having us today. It's been a pleasure to. To be able to be here.
[00:34:54] Speaker B: Absolutely. Everybody out there, please take care of yourselves.
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and give us a review. To help others find it, I'd like you to answer this question.
Are you living the life you want to live, or are you living the life others want you to live? I'd like you to think about that for a second, because I strongly suggest you live the life you want to live. If you want to learn more about what I stand for and my services and how I'm able to help many men get out of their own way, please go to my
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feel free to also email me at drew@profile profit compassion.com I'd love to have a conversation with you.
Take care of yourself and choose to write your own story instead of letting others write it for you.
