Who am I to be doing this? Like, is this even legal? Is this a real business? I, you know, I don't know when I started.
I definitely felt like this is a this is a little side thing or this isn't a real business.
It's just like a silly little business.
Like, No.
Hi, and welcome to the smarter literacy podcast from ascend Smarter Intervention, where our mission is to simplify effective literacy instruction to make teaching literacy see easier and more accessible for everyone.
We are hosts Lindsey.
And Corey, and in today's episode, we'll be taking a little detour from our usual content.
So we know that for so many educators right now, things are feeling challenging.
One, it's just that time of year where kids are getting antsy.
We are getting antsy as educators, and it can just be a little bit stressful.
But two, there's a lot of change and shift going on, and we've heard from so many educators who are worried about their positions and funding.
And so we went ahead and sent out a survey through Instagram and through our email, and we asked what you needed right now, and what would be helpful for you.
And we had over 3,000 educators respond, and nearly half said they wanted to learn how to build a literacy based business.
So we're gonna be hosting a workshop all about how to build a literacy based business.
We'd love for you to join us.
We're gonna be dropping a link in the show notes, but we also figured why stop there we'll make this slight detour and share a sense journey as a private practice, open up a conversation about some of the pros and cons of starting a business, whether it's in addition to your teaching job or something that you wanna shift to full time.
And we'll be sharing one thing you can do if this is something that you've had in your heart for a while.
Alright.
So, Corey, can you tell us about how Essen's journey began? Where did the idea even come from? Yeah.
Absolutely.
So I know I talked about this a little bit in our first episode, but my background is actually in clinical psychology.
And when I started my career, I worked in research.
So I worked at Kennedy Creek Institute and did research with John Hopkins University, and that was all about child development.
And I absolutely loved that work.
But when I found out that I was expecting my first child, we decided to move back to Colorado.
And so at that time, I got a job at Children's Hospital here in Colorado, and I loved that.
I worked there for about five years, and it was an incredible experience.
I learned so much about brain development and kids and learning processes and working with kids with learning disabilities, and I just absolutely loved it.
But at that time, my kids, I had two at that time, um, were getting ready to be kind of school age.
So, you know, four, five, they were little guys at the time.
And I just felt like something was missing.
Like, I was looking for something more, but I was also in this transitional period in my life, like, I don't know.
I really need to, you know, stick here.
This is consistent.
It's steady, and it's safe.
Even though, deep down, I felt like something is missing.
The interesting thing was that I really didn't know what I did know at that time that I really was looking for more flexibility.
So I had continued to ask, you know, is there any way that I could work for ten hour days? Or is there any way that I could do this? Scenario that I could do that.
And I kept trying to figure out how could I flex my schedule to make it work? And, you know, essentially the schedule was what it was.
So I was like, nope, that's not really an option.
So, okay, that's alright, I guess.
Yeah.
And I I feel like many people feel that way that a lot of people are looking for flexibility in a lot of different careers, and it's just not there.
Right? No.
Absolutely.
And it's the same thing in the classroom.
Right? It's like, oh, if you work at a school, the hours are what they are, and that can be great, or that can be a little bit challenging.
And, you know, in addition to that, I think I was also really looking for more autonomy, maybe more control over who and what I was teaching.
So again, I loved what I was doing, but I really felt boxed in a little bit of this is the curriculum, this is the programming, this is what we do, these are the processes, and every time I would have an idea of, well, what about this, or what about that, you know, then be like, yeah, okay, like, we'll we'll consider that for the future.
Yeah.
Which really meant no.
Right.
Exactly.
It's a nice way.
I can think of so many experiences myself.
I've had that and teachers everywhere having that kind of feeling.
Yeah.
You know, and I think I just I really liked the idea of being innovative.
I was constantly trying to come up with new ideas for teaching my kids and trying to come up with games and things like that, and I just felt like there really wasn't time or space for some of that.
And so, think that was a little bit of a challenge to you.
And so I was looking for potentially an opportunity where I could use a little bit more of that, you know, autonomy and that creativity and just thinking about, you know, what that was gonna look like for my kids in a way that felt good for me.
Absolutely.
So What did the journey look like for you? Like, where what kind of was the start of it? Yeah.
Absolutely.
So in 2015, which I can't believe that now, thinking about it.
It feels it feels like so long ago, but also not long it'll it'll go at all.
And at that time, I started seeing one student in a library.
So it was in addition to my full time job, and it was just, again, just tutoring a student and starting in that way.
And and the good thing was is it gave me an opportunity to start to see, okay, what does it look like to have sort of a separate parent communication? What does it look like to accept money? What does it look like to put programming together.
And this particular student, um, was a student that couldn't be seen in my, um, my other job just because of the way that his profile, he didn't kind of fit the profile of students that would be seen by I'm the hospital in the in the clinic that I was working in.
And so it gave me an opportunity to work with a different student profile and see, alright, what does it look like to work with with this type of student and what does the curriculum need to look like and what do we need to design? And so, anyway, I started with that one student in the library after work.
And from there, it started to grow.
So what starts happened is that then that family told somebody else, and then they asked.
And I was like, well, I guess I could maybe do two.
And then that person told somebody else, and so before you knew it, there was a group of students that I was working with just privately on the side of my full time job.
By 2016, the beginning of that year, I started to think, you know what, like, maybe this could be something that I could do full time, but it felt scary.
Right? Like, three students is very different than a full time job.
Right.
But it got to the point where it just kept pulling on me.
And I felt like, no, this is really something that I need to do.
And so by August of twenty sixteen, I left my full time job to embark on this full time, and it was a scary, scary leap.
Right? Because at that time, I really didn't, I mean, had three students.
Right? So it wasn't, you know, this wasn't like, oh, I've got a full time business ready to go.
This is just taking a leap of faith, which is so scary.
So scary and so hard to do, you know, if we just I think so many of us wanna kinda say in a safe zone, and as much as we we crave the, you know, the creativity and the flexibility.
We're just it's scary.
It's it's hard to do that.
Absolutely.
And and honestly, it ends up working out.
I think sometimes if you trust and you put the work in, things come together because by 2017, that was when we hired our first full time team members.
And in fact, we had two Okay.
That we were able to bring on relatively quickly.
And that changed a lot of things because at that point too, it became okay.
This isn't just about me making sure that I can see students and keep myself busy, but do we have enough work to keep other people busy as well? And you know, what are you gonna do during the day? Right? Because the, you know, the thing is is that you really need to think about how do you keep yourself busy full time? Yeah.
And if you're tutoring, you're kinda thinking about student hours and that kind of thing.
Mhmm.
And so that's when we started looking at what is the curriculum that we're using? And this is working? So how can we share this with others? And so, really, you can start to think about those other ways of, you know, diversifying what you do a little bit.
And so those full time team members came on to help us build delivering smarter intervention, and that's what's become what it is today.
And so by 2020, we started offering professional development to schools and teachers, and and essentially that's where we are today.
That's so incredible.
And can I ask, like you said, in 2017 is when you had hired two other members and brought on, were you in an office at that point? Were you still meeting kids kind of in the library setting? That's a great question.
Yes and yes.
Um, so we transitioned from seeing students in the library to be honest, not fully until 2020.
Okay.
So in 2020 was when we stopped seeing students.
In the library because of COVID.
Right.
But at first, we rented space Okay.
From just another clinician.
And it was just, okay, we just need one day.
And so she would let us just come in on the days that we needed.
And then we had transitioned to the office that we're in now.
We had just a single room.
Okay.
By the time we started in 2017, with full time team members, we realized, okay, that's not gonna work.
We actually need to for all of us to be able to work together.
So that was kind of our first big jump into a space that would have an office where we could all work together.
And I think there were two other rooms that we could see students in.
And that's a scary leap too.
It's definitely something that you don't have to do at all, especially in today's day and age.
You can do a lot of things online.
You can do a lot of things remotely.
Yep.
But I felt like, okay, that's what I need to do if I'm gonna have team members Yeah.
Here.
So, yeah, that's a great question.
Yeah.
I guess, since we're just kind of, you know, talking for our listeners who are interested in maybe starting a business, what was even that hiring process of finding two team members that you wanted to work with, one finding them and two, like, actually going through the hiring process us with them.
Yeah.
That's a great question.
So it's a little bit of a mix.
So one of our team members came through, indeed.
So just your typical hiring process.
Okay.
And sometimes again, I think the universe just delivers to you what it is that you need at that time.
And the other piece of that was the other full time team member reached out to us and said, Hey, I really love what you're doing.
I've seen, you know, some of the students that you've worked with privately.
I've seen the reports that you've put together.
I really appreciate it.
I love what you're doing.
I'd love to be a part of it.
And so she came to us that way.
So sometimes again, I think it just everything falls into place when you put it out there.
Yeah.
I I have to agree with that.
Okay.
Um, so next question, what are some of the best things about starting and having that literacy based business? I think there are so many benefits.
Some of the things that I talked about, the reasons that I left my previous job.
So having some of that personal and professional freedom and flexibility was huge.
So just being able to really think about what are the hours that I want to be working and and can be working.
And if I need to take some time off and things like that, there's so much flexibility in that.
And so that's phenomenal.
Honestly, that's the one thing that I'm like, I just don't think I could ever give that up again.
Going back to just not having some of that flexibility.
I think the other thing is just having a lot of opportunity for career growth, opportunity, and flexibility in that.
So we've really been able to chase down different things as those things have become exciting to us.
So as we started to think about professional development, and what does that look like? And how do we support educators? And how do we continue to support students, you can really start to think about what is the direction that you wanna take that as opposed to how does that fit into when I was in the hospital setting? How does that fit into the overall goal of the hospital or if you're in a teaching setting? How does that fit into the school and what they're looking for and their objectives.
And so I think having that flexibility to make that decision for yourself of where you wanna go, do you wanna chase? Absolutely.
I can see so many teachers nodding their head right now.
We have so many intelligent educators out there who I think sometimes feel like they're kind of boxed in.
And they would like to be able to do more, but just for different reasons aren't able to.
So I could just see so many people nodding their heads right now because that's what I'm doing.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Any some of it too is just, again, having that personal autonomy, having that that creativity and being able to make those changes in a time that feels right for you as opposed to a timeline that maybe needs to fit for somebody else or for a larger organization think the other thing is impacting students in a way that feels authentic to to mean in a way that I felt like this is the way that I wanna help students.
And these are the students that I want to help.
I think that's huge.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I know that's one of the best parts of the job for me.
Alright.
So let's then talk about what are some of the worst things or the cons to consider when you're starting or thinking of starting and having a literacy based practice? Yes.
While I will say, there are so many pros.
There are so many benefits.
I would absolutely be lying if I said this was all easy or this was just, you know, the best thing ever.
It's not always.
There are a number of things that you do wanna consider when you have your own business.
So the first thing that I think you have to be aware of is there is a huge learning curve.
Just a huge learning curve because while I knew a lot about students and learning development and kids just working with kids.
I did not know anything about business.
I did not have a business degree.
Did not have a marketing degree.
Did not have a finance degree.
And so there are a lot of things that you do need to learn.
And so that learning curve is huge, and sometimes it can almost feel insurmountable in the beginning.
Mhmm.
I will say that there are ways to overcome that, you know, having a coach or having support, having having some of those things in place can help to alleviate that, but there is a big learning curve.
And sometimes that can lead to imposter syndrome.
Oh, yeah.
Who am I to be doing this? Like, is this even legal? Is this a real business? I yeah.
I don't know when I started.
I definitely felt like this is a this is a little side thing or this isn't a real business.
It's just like a silly little business.
Like, no.
I mean, I haven't obviously gone through the process was starting my own business, but there were years there where I was really considering what if I did start it? And immediately I shut the idea down because I'm like, I don't know anything about about business.
I'm not someone who's smart enough to know anything about business.
So I guess they will just never happen.
That impostor syndrome just killed the dream right that in there for me.
So, yeah, I completely understand that feeling.
And I think just knowing that everybody feels that way is so helpful.
We listen to how I build this podcast by Guy Ross, and I think that also helped me a lot of realizing, oh, even, you know, your founder of Starbucks felt like you have imposter syndrome.
And so I think what you'll start to recognize is, oh, that's just a natural part Yeah.
Of building a business is feeling like you don't know what you're doing because you don't, but step by step you do.
Right.
Um, but that's hard in the beginning.
So that's something to consider for sure.
The other thing to consider is finances.
You really need to be able to think about, am I gonna be able to make the money that I need to be able to make in order to make this a reality? And some of that can be challenging, like I was mentioning earlier with student schedules and things like that.
You have to think about, okay, if I wanna serve kids, they're in school during the day.
Mhmm.
So that means I'm kind of flipping my schedule potentially a little bit to meet their needs.
Mhmm.
Now that doesn't mean you don't have flexibility because you can still think of other ways to fill that time, but those are things to consider for sure.
And so you really need to think about how much do I need to make Right.
To make this viable for my family and for where I am.
Yeah.
Um, and and how am I gonna find those hours and what does that look break.
And so, again, there's absolutely ways around that, but it is a true reality.
Right.
And kind of thinking of going back to when you said you you had started this and it was, it's like a second job.
It was a side job to your to your first job.
And so you're working full time, and then you were doing this.
And I can see a lot of people starting out that way.
Right? What were the cons then? Because, obviously, you had your job during the day and you could see kids after school, but Was it more like that's the time is almost like one of your current season? A %.
A % because then, you know, as I mentioned, I had young kids at the time too.
And so what that required is it required you know, Matt, my husband to step in and take on some of the childcare duties during that time and really just making sure that for us at that time, it was okay.
We know that this is gonna be worth it because we're gonna take the money that I'm making while I'm working full time and then also seeing these other kids to sort of save some of that away Yeah.
So that we had a little bit of runway.
And we knew too we sat down and talked about what is the runway and how long can we try this dream out before saying like, okay.
No.
You're gonna have to go back and go back into teaching or go back into that type of position.
And I felt confident that I'd be able to find another job.
So it was also like, let's just give this Yeah.
A try.
Let's give it an opportunity to work.
Yeah.
And that also felt a little bit a little bit better of knowing.
Okay.
We're giving this, you know, a year.
And if it doesn't work in a year, then that's okay.
Yeah.
I love that.
And, you know, thinking from an educator standpoint, I could see maybe a lot of educators taking the summer to, you know, to trial this.
Okay.
Let me see what it would be like if I actually kind of started this, you know, this practice during the summertime, and I met with kids during the summer just to start getting an idea.
And, uh, the money in the summertime could probably be a bit more lucrative than maybe during the school year just because you could see more kids.
But like you said, save that money away.
So you have a bit of that runway.
So when you get to the point where you're like, you know what? I think I wanna try this full time.
I think I'm ready to make that jump.
You have the experience, and you have kind of those savings like you said.
And I agree.
Summer's a great time, and summer summer is definitely a time even if you do decide to do this full time where you can start to capitalize a little bit.
And it's nice because then for me, I was able to go to some of my kids' things during their school day.
I was able to do some of those things because I wasn't working all the time during the day.
So sometimes it is.
It's just thinking too about, alright.
Yeah.
Let's kind of flip this around a little bit and think about our hours and think about what that looks like and And, yeah, take take some of that income where you can get it.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
I think one other thing just thinking about potential cons is that it can be lonely too.
So coming from a place where, you know, you're in a setting for me, I I did work in a team setting, and it was very similar to being in a school setting where you've got, you know, grade level teams and things like that.
And so jumping off to do something on your own can be lonely.
It can be something where you like, oh, gosh, but I'm gonna lose sort of my my friends or I'm gonna lose that that team aspect.
And so I think it's really important to make sure that one, either you continue to have that support in other ways or two, when I first started, I actually went into this with somebody else.
And so that's huge because then you feel like, you know what? I'm not in this alone.
I've got somebody I can bounce ideas off of.
I've got somebody else to do this with.
Yeah.
So that's something to consider as well.
I think that's a really great point.
Again, 3,000 of you had kind of reached out and said, this is this is what we're interested in.
Right? So you're not alone.
It's definitely not alone.
Thinking about like, do you know someone else who you could maybe jump into this with? Or maybe reaching out to other teachers in just on social media or, you know, in different groups and stuff and saying, like, is anyone thinking of doing this and you can maybe you guys can just be someone who can talk to each other and kinda coach each other and be supporting, or maybe even if you're not in the same place, you could start a business together, the internet and, I mean, COVID kinda taught us that we can do many things on right? So It's so true.
So there's there's a lot of opportunities out there that I think just before we're available, but they are now, and we're still learning how do we do that.
And I say if you're kinda willing to maybe try it, take that risk, look at expanding, you could do a lot of really cool things.
I agree.
And you made a great point there.
It doesn't mean you have to start a business with someone else.
When I first started, we were in, we'll call them masterminds and quotes it wasn't a paid mastermind or anything like that, but it was just a group of us that all were looking to start a similar type of business.
And so there were a lot of speech language pathologists that I connected with, a lot of occupational therapists that I connected with, And they were starting businesses too, and so it was so nice to know.
Again, you're not alone and so many people are going through the same things that you go through, and you could share ideas and things like that.
It was really fun.
Yeah.
And I I do know that there are lots of, like, small business, like, you said, podcasts out there, groups out there.
So that might not even be a bad place to kind of reach out to.
Alright.
So to keep this actionable, what is one thing our listeners can do if this is something that they've had in their heart to get started, Corey.
Oh my gosh.
It's so hard to narrow it down to one thing.
But what I would say is we have a workshop where we're gonna share all about how to know if starting a literacy based business is right for you.
We'll be talking about the four must dos to turn your idea into a reality, and we're gonna share how you can get step by step support to launch your business in a way that feels right for you.
So honestly, I would say just signing up for this workshop is putting that dream, that goal, that vision out into the universe.
It's just a great way to take a tangible action of, like, I'm just gonna do something and put that out into the universe.
Like I've said a few times, I feel like there was a few times where I'd be like, I need a team member and somehow somehow it delivered.
And so I think those are things to to consider.
But honestly, we can put so many barriers up to doing the things that we really wanna do.
It feels complicated.
It feels too overwhelming.
Just too something too scary.
And so I would say join this workshop whether you join it live or catch the replay.
It's gonna be a really great opportunity to just see.
Is this something that I really wanna do? Yeah.
Or, you know, maybe even something you wanna consider in the future.
Yeah.
But just to start kinda thinking about it is gonna be a really great next step.
So I would say, one thing, sign up for the workshop.
It's free, and it will just help you to decide, is this something that I wanna pursue further or not? Yeah.
And I think this is such a a great way because it's it's virtually risk free, you know, right? Because it it's free.
You're you're learning, you're seeing, is this right for me? And we I think we all have to remember there are risks in whatever we do, whether we stay, whether we, you know, change careers.
It's always going to be, like, what risks you wanna take.
So this would be such a great one to do because it's not gonna hurt you.
Right? This is not gonna be a risk that hurts you.
Yeah.
No.
Absolutely.
And and again, if you join us live, amazing, otherwise, catch the replay.
You can do it in your own time and a place that feels comfy.
Just really getting into that dreaming space.
It can be so fun.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
So there you have it.
Join us for our free workshop how to start your own literacy based business, which we will link in the show notes.
And let us know if this is something you've considered and if so, what's holding you back? We'd love to support you in any way possible.
In our next episodes, we will be back with literacy intervention, tips and strategies.
So stay tuned.
Thanks for listening to this episode of a smarter literacy podcast.
Make sure to subscribe describe for more strategies and insights to make delivering effective literacy instruction easy, or at least easier.
And if you found this episode helpful, share it with a friend or leave a rating and review wherever you get your podcast.
It really does help others find the show, and we are beyond grateful for your support.
Thanks for listening.
Until next time.
Happy teaching
