Join us as we explore the exciting world of '"education at home" with entrepreneurs Kristina and Herbert. Former educators, they share their journey breaking away from the traditional system to create a flexible, holistic approach to education. Discover the challenges in today's education system, the myths surrounding homeschooling, and the incredible benefits it offers. Kristina and Herbert emphasize "education at home," focusing on tailored learning, life skills, and fostering a love for education.

As entrepreneurs, they share their inspiring story, detailing the shift from corporate life to vibrant family education. Learn how homeschooling isn't just about academics but a lifestyle that strengthens family bonds and empowers parents to actively shape their children's learning experiences.

Tune in as we explore the paradigm shift needed in our education system and how homeschooling or "education at home" can empower families to thrive in an entrepreneurial way. Don't miss this enlightening episode filled with insights, personal anecdotes, and a vision for transforming education for the better.

About the Guests:

Kristina and Herbert met in college and soon became inseparable.  Kristina followed her passion into teaching and Herb followed his into business and entrepreneurship.  After 31 years of marriage and raising two sons they have combined their experience, passion and knowledge to found Vibrant Family Education and the  Brining Education Home podcast.  Helping entrepreneur families reimagine the education of their children and guiding them along the way is Kristina and Herb’s combined mission for a better community and a better world.

https://www.youtube.com/@Mrs.Heagh-Avritt/videos

https://bringingeducationhome.com/

Fast Five Questions

1. If you woke up and your business was gone, you have $500, a laptop, a place to live, and food, what would you do first? "Basically start reaching out.., and really make those connections and work again towards it"
2. What is the biggest mistake that you have made in business? "Releasing too much control too soon" - Kristina , " I hit my head and lost my emotional control. I lost my executive making decisions..., I started yelling at my employees, which was really strange. And I wasn't able to hold myself together." - Herbert
3. What is a book that you would recommend? "The Honeymoon Effect by Bruce Lipton"
4. What is a tool that you use everyday that you would recommend? "Calendly"
5. What is your definition of freedom? "I'm able to talk to my parents, I'm able to spend the time, you know, growing community working with people, and I still have time for me to do what I need to do as well. That freedom." - Kristina

About Jeff: 

Jeff spent the early part of his career working for others. Jeff had started 5 businesses that failed before he had his first success. Since that time he has learned the principles of a successful business and has been able to build and grow multiple seven-figure businesses. Jeff lives in the Austin area and is actively working in his community and supporting the growth of small businesses. He is a board member of the Incubator.Edu program at Vista Ridge High School and is on the board of directors of the Leander Educational Excellence Foundation

Connect with the Freedom Nation podcast at https://freedom-nation-podcast.captivate.fm/

Connect with Jeff:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freedomnationpodcast/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeffKikel

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffkikel/

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FN Intro/Outro: Welcome to the Freedom Nation podcast with Jeff Kikel. On this show, Jeff shares his expertise in financial and retirement planning from a different perspective. Planning for Your Freedom Day, which is the first day that you wake up and have enough income or assets and do not have to go to work that day. Learn how to calculate what you need, how to generate income sources, and listen to interviews from others who've done it themselves. Get ready to experience your own Freedom Day.

Hey, everybody, welcome to the Freedom Nation podcast and a special episode of Podapalooza feature podcaster. I'm in the Padapalooza today, interviewing a ton of folks. And today, we're going to interview Kristina and Kristina and Herb. They are entrepreneurs. And they are also folks that really focus on the world of homeschooling, and how that you can really integrate that in with your kids. So, guys, welcome to the show today.

Thank you so much for having us. We're glad to hear we're here.

It's a pleasure. Thank you so very much.

So glad to have you on I'm really interested in this topic, one of the one of my kind of silent passions, and now less silent passions has been about, you know, the situation with education in this country. And the challenges both not only of getting kids through the first 12 years, but the next few years and trying to do that economically. And trying to do that without going massively into debt. So I really am excited to talk to you all today. So why don't we get started with your story? How did you get to where you're at today?

Thank you. Well, I am a teacher of 27 years I was in public school system for 27 years, 25 of those years was in my in a traditional classroom. And the last few years I was in an online school for my school district. So these are kids who were there all the time, by choice because of certain situations, right. And through that career, I love teaching, I love my kids, I love my families. But unfortunately, like you were alluding to our system is broken. It's not doing what our families need and what our children need. And I realized that as a teacher, I couldn't reach those parents anymore, like I needed to. So I stepped away from that. And I chose to now be in the trenches with the parents coaching, helping, making sure that they know that they are the best person to pick up this torch of their child's education and make sure it's the best for them. And

Also, I was an entrepreneur, okay, I worked at Intel, I was one of the cubicle warriors that was dying slowly, every day, got into entrepreneurship, self development, got to a place where it's like, oh, we're gonna jump we left Intel started going out on our own. And then I had a snowboarding accident hit my head, lost everything except for our house and about 500 bucks. And, and so you know that something that's going to talk about later is going to

Will resonate with us in a minute will

Will resonate with us in that. But along the along when we were doing that, it's like I watched for 27 years how she was like an amazing excited teacher and how it slowly got taken away from her. The changes in administration, the changes in what she had to teach the way kids the way new teachers were coming in, and the way the schools have to be adapted to the way the new teachers were coming in, not not the Dole, teachers weren't able to bring them up to new teachers with these new ideas were forcing stuff on. And so it changed the whole dynamics. And so through this 27 years, we talked about how we could start our own school system about what that would look like. And I'm a different I'm very much also in the womb world. So one of the things that our children are missing in the education system is a knowledge of who they are what they really are, and have a little bit of psychology, a little bit of breath, work, a little bit of meditation to bring the life back. And so all of that is like taken away. So we started talking about how to bring that into a school system for 27 years. And so part of the reason you got into entrepreneurship is to is to make enough money so that we could do that as a life

Goal and led to now vibrant family education, helping families.

But then once I got hurt, that kind of got taken away. Yeah. And then recently something happened. And I had a message from God. It's like it's not going to be your school, but you need to get the school started. So we're giving it to the parents were we the ideas that we have the ways that we talk the experts that we know, we help we bring those to the parents so the parents can choose what they want to bring to their children's lives and how to grow their family in an entrepreneurial way.

That is awesome. So Christina, let's start off Let me have a question for you. What do you what do you see the changes that have happened? You know, you said, you've alluded to this, Hey, over 27 years, just things change dramatically. What you know what has changed, especially in the last few years, we had COVID. And everything else, what's changed in the school systems that really is making it difficult for teachers to actually deliver?

Well, a lot of it has to do with class sizes, waiting students in the room, and then the policies that are being implemented. So we are being told exactly what to teach is so far that in my district, you're supposed to be on page two of chapter three, on this day of this week, we are told pretty much exactly how to teach what to teach. So I couldn't agree my own personal teaching experience, and I was telling you this program, right. And granted, we have to learn and grow new programs are awesome. But when they constrain you that much, you don't get to use your knowledge that I gathered over 27 years, right. And then policy, we were encouraged to deal with everything at the school, we weren't encouraged to reach out to parents. So if there was an issue, the office would say, oh, we'll take care of it. It's like, no, the parents need to be involved. And they're like, now we'll take care of it has it here at school? Because the parents are too busy with their regular life. It's like, no, that does not land well with me at all. So a lot of those things really crushed me, because I want my family and my kids to be the best that they can be. And it has to be teamwork.

Well, and I remember, you know, I mean, I wasn't the greatest student growing up. So I mean, my mom worked at the school because she was you know, she was a homemaker for the first probably 10 years, 12 years, my life, but she worked at the school. So I couldn't get away with anything, because they all knew my mom. And you know, but it was, it wasn't something that was handled at the school. It was like, hey, the teacher called me in. I'm almost there. My dad was there. And it was like, Alright, we're gonna solve this problem. And that helped me because my parents knew what was going on. Not Oh, well. They're too busy. Yeah, that point. Yeah, that's, that's BS. So let's talk a little bit about homeschooling in that world, I had a one of my old bosses, home, they homeschool their I think youngest daughter. And I got to see kind of that world from his perspective and their youngest daughter's perspective. And I thought it was really what I would have imagined would be not really great. It was probably one of the coolest experiences that I saw as she was growing up. So share a little bit about what homeschooling is what are some of the myths and the truth. And I take this a little bit further to our girl boy.

One of the things that's really unique about what we do, okay, is it's not really homeschool education at school, it's education at home, because we're trying to get away from that school paradigm. Because when you go to school, you're sitting in a desk, you got eight hours, you have a whole lot of stuff that you need to do, it's very structured, education at home is a lot more flexible. So again, we learned that children it can be done in the evening or the morning, it doesn't take eight hours a day, it some days, it might take two hours, some days, it might take three hours of the of the reading the writing their arithmetic, the core stuff, but then the education at home that we really bring forth. That is we bring experts on? How do you how do you properly socialize your kids by taking them to music by taking them to the pool, you know, and also while you're doing that there, the kids are going into places where there are a group of children who all are doing stuff that they want to do. And so the likelihood of being bullied and hurt and traumatized. In the classrooms or in the hallways between classes by lots of kids who don't want to be there. You're in groups of kids who are working towards a similar goal. And so they get socialized in a in a cooperative manner, instead of in the wild jungle of young, untrained people. So our kids get better socialized. And it so there's this, there's this growth that happens. That's different from school. So we call it education at home. And so we coach, we take the brunt of the reading the writing the arithmetic, and then we leave the joyful activities more to the parents. That's amazing.

Well, you know, I mean, this was something that I saw too, you know, in the year, once again, you think, okay, if they're being educated at home, they don't have this interaction with others and everything else. And one of the things that I saw with John's daughter was there was this incredible community of all these other people that were doing this and they would get together for events, you know, so they, you know, John had this beautiful, ginormous house with a big backyard. Well, they would get together like 10 times a year at least once a month. And you know, it was just an opportunity for them to meet their friends in person and get together and hang out. But I thought the other cool part about it was and, you know, I saw this from my own personal perspective, I didn't really dig school, but I love education. And, you know, what I saw from John and his family was, you know, okay, they're learning about the Constitution and how that works, and how government works and everything else, well, they would take a trip with a whole bunch of their friends and go to Washington, and they would go visit all the pieces. So it was you're taking these kind of abstract concepts, and then making them real. And it wasn't until I got older and was able to travel, I read tons, and I knew about history. But it wasn't until I actually physically went there, that I could really make it palatable. And I'm assuming that's really where you're trying to go with this.

Right, exactly. So a lot of the one of the myths is that, you know, it will take too long, we have to do will six hours a day. And what we're trying to help parents understand is that no, like herb said, two to three hours of the hard academics are reading it, right. But then the rest of your day, think about it, you get to socialize, you get to teach actual life skills, cooking, cleaning, car, whatever, you get to incorporate that into the whole life. And then you get to take those trips, because now you're not tied to a school schedule, you're not tied to a school building, you get to take education on the road, and you get to go visit those places and do those things, and really make education come alive. And the other thing is that you get to follow the children's passions, a lot more. So they're interested in learning, they truly have a love of learning, because they're following and learning through what they want to know.

Yeah. And I think that was the same for me. You know, it wasn't until I got to control I think when I got to college, you know, I was going down a path that I didn't really want to be on. And then I kind of stopped somewhere in there and said this, this sucks. I don't want to ever do this for a living. And I kind of went off on a little journey of what is it that I want to be when I grow up. And it was at that point that I really fell in love with learning. I never had that opportunity before. So devil's advocate here, though, what if I'm a really busy parent, I'm a busy entrepreneur, I'm a busy parent, both parents are working. How do I make this happen?

Okay, that that's that's a me question. We didn't do that. Okay. In our own life, we didn't do that we I worked at Intel, she was a teacher. And we were also entrepreneurs until we got to a point where we thought we could quit, what we did is we tried to shelter our children from the stress that we were under, we didn't talk about our finances, we didn't talk about the ups and downs, we they were in school while we were working. And so it was like, oh, when we get to that place of freedom, when we get to our Freedom Day, when we get when we get wealthy, then then we'll bring them up, we'll fix it, we'll make a family. We'll do all that later. Okay. That was a big mistake, because while I haven't talked to him, My son is 31 years old. Now, I think I haven't talked to in about 10 years, I haven't been able to see my granddaughter in five or six times, as there was a lacking there was there was a missing communication, there was a break in the family. We weren't, we didn't properly get our family values passed down to our son. And he met a woman who had a different kind of background than we did. And right before he got married, like two days before he got married, he changed his last name. And I had issues with that, that that create. So family values weren't working, properly passed down. So part of the school system that we're doing is, you don't have time not to do this. And also, if you're an entrepreneur, again, it's so flexible, that if you're busy in the morning, then you can schedule your entrepreneur stuff in the morning and work with your kids in the evening. But your kids are going to be able to see you working, they're going to understand what you're doing. They're like, Oh, dad is working hard for us. And they get that opportunity to see you working as well as being educated. So your values are there, your work ethic is there. They get to see that you're always going to school, you're doing your classes, you're doing your personal development, you're doing your business development, good family development in there, too. So that the end goal is always I want freedom for my family. But so many of them are losing their family along the way we did. And we want other people to not do that. So if you can get them out because school right now is horrible for entrepreneurs as well, those horrible capitalists, you know, they're there, and so that that propaganda is also working against you At home, so if you if you're an entrepreneur and you have children, yet your kids out of school, the school is against you. It's and and then you, you can bring your your learning model that you have to do education, you know, personal development, make that model part of your family, and your education and do it yourself. Instead of shipping them off to somebody else. It's

One of my friends that I interviewed about a month or so I guess on the podcast, Jim shields, he calls it the 18 summers project. And, you know, he basically that was, he was he looked at his life, and he was like, I only have 18 summers with my kids. We're gonna make everything and we're gonna do everything we possibly can to be in each other's lives for that 18 years, because we're never gonna get that back. Right?

Yeah. And your and your friend that homeschooled his daughter, and you watch. Okay, that's not an 18 year thing. It's not when they 18 That relationship is over. No. Family is now tighter. Yeah, you know, when when your kids go off to college, and then they never come home. That's not ever going to happen with her because she's so tight with the family, the holidays, the commitment, the love, that's all there. Yeah. And that is so being taken away from us in the school system. Right

On, but I mean, I and I, I see it kind of in this world to have it and once again, kind of morphing into some of that the planning around, you know, how you get into college and everything else. You know, one of the things that I've seen is, like parents being less than less involved in their kids school understanding, I think that I think the pandemic changed a lot, because they had kind of abrogated a lot of parents just abdicated, they're raising the kids to it. Well, let's just let the schools deal with it. And I'm gonna go work. And then I'm going to come home, and I'm going to ask my kids, how was your day? And they're going to grunt at me, and then, you know, sit there with their phones. And that's it and never interact with each other. So the television says it should be. Yeah, exactly. And then all of a sudden, they got to see kind of what was going on with these classes. And it's like, what were you actually teaching off that they need to know to be successful in life? You're so worried about everything else, you know, of. And I think we all need to understand other people and all that that's great. But I don't think it's the school's responsibility to teach social issues and everything else right now, that should be the parent involved, you know, because you need to be able to share your you know, your family dynamics and everything else with that.

Exactly. I'm so glad we got to you because because, man, it is coming. It's coming. And you're gripping it and it's like, wow, this is this is important.

It's brilliant. Well, guys, let's transition to the Fast Five questions. Now. You're ready? You're ready. All right. And you can really relate to this first one. Ah, you wake up in the morning, business has totally gone Yep, 500 bucks in your pocket, laptop computer place to live? What are you going to do first?

Because we've already done that before, and we're building back now. The theory is now basically start reaching out, we've learned so much as entrepreneurs, how to build community reach out community to keep going and there are, even though we have these messages of oh, there's just so many awful negative people out there, there are so many good people, you just have to find them. So you can work through your Facebook, you can work through your LinkedIn, you can really connect to people and really make those connections and work again towards it. And

A lot more short and cliche is we're going to stand up and we're going to put one foot in front of the other and we're going to keep out and try and get somewhere farther ahead.

I've always said that I I started my life as a as an Army Ranger and the anytime I've had a hard time in business or yeah had struggles. I'm like, All I think about is how did you do a 50 mile ruck mark or ruck march one foot in front of the so that he gets on? And once you can break it down to that okay, what's the next step? What's the next step? What's the next step? That's where you go? Yep. All right. Second question. What is the biggest business mistake you've ever made?

Releasing too much control too soon. And the business that failed? We were really reliant heavily on our sales person. And it turned out that he was not like,

No, no, no, let's go back. My biggest issue, I went snowboarding and I had a really bad fall. And I hit my head and lost my emotional control. I lost my executive making decisions. I became already lost. I started yelling at my employees, which was really strange. And I wasn't able to hold myself together. So we've made a lot of bad decisions, but we're still again moving forward. But really the worst was, was had nothing to do.

But that's life. I mean, the those two accidents happen in life. But I think the thing that impresses me both about To you, you guys is one, you're extraordinarily positive about it. You've had horrible things happen, but you're extraordinarily positive about it. And you just don't have give up. And yeah,

well, we do, but it doesn't last very long. I have given up so many times, and it's like, I'm done.

When you are getting to the bar, and something

in me like snaps, and it's like, no, you can't be done this thing that you said you can't do when you stand up, and you do it. And it's like, how did I do that? I couldn't do that. And I broke and then I did it.

Yeah, I had the same thing. Or like, the second year, I was in business with my first successful business. You know, it was it was just a horrible summer, it was first time ever really experiencing a summer, and the slow downs that happen. And I remember my wife and I sitting here and going, You know what, we just have to shut the company down. And something new in the back of my head said, You know what, you've got all these people that are relying on you, you can't stop. And you know, that's when I went into lean into it step by step by step mode. But yeah, I mean, just absolutely cool. What is a good book that you'd recommend for our audience

The honeymoon effect by Bruce Lipton? Nice.

That's a new one. What's the book about it? Bruce

Lipton is one of the premieres in Epi genetics, okay. And he talks about how your attitude and your influence and the honeymoon like when you're on it, you'll add sense of glove, how things go so much more smoothly. And so he talks about how bringing those attitudes and those feelings intentionally into your life can bring the honeymoon effect and can if you can do that throughout your life, and you can maintain that vibration and things become easier and move smoother.

I love it. That is awesome. What is the tool that you use in your business every day that you might recommend?

A lot of people seem to use it. I love Calendly because I put my calendar link and we don't have to do emails back and forth or text messages back and forth and try to find a perfect time we can actually look at a schedule and choose and go forward from there. We then my savior

Meditation, okay, awesome. Administrative Tools, anything that is the feelings, the stuff, you have to get back to who you are and CenturyLink of that calmness. And so every once awhile, you just have to dump the world and meditate. Yeah,

I will say with Calendly, especially in meditation, but a Calendly. Especially, I fought it for so long, because I had an assistant. And I would let her book, you know, because I felt like well, it's more personal. If I let her do that, well, then I would look at my calendar, and they would have all these holes in it. So it was completely junked up. And I didn't know what I was doing. Adding Calendly one made her life easier. And two made my life so much simpler and my clients life simpler. Yeah. Last question for you both. And I'd love for you both to answer this. What is your definition of freedom?

Pretty much what I'm doing, I'm able to talk to my parents, I'm able to spend the time, you know, growing community working with people, and I still have time for me to do what I need to do as well. That freedom. Yeah, it's, it's the American dream, making the best of both worlds. You have your awesome personal stuff. And then you have a business that where you can help other people

That is awesome. Yeah. And it's not work if you do what you love every day. So it you get to be the teacher again and less of the administrator know about you?

I kind of go more towards the financial freedom aspect of it, where you get to a point where the money doesn't affect what you actually do. i It's time for us to go do that we go do that. And the money aspect of it doesn't have to be worked into the equation.

I'm with you. I, for me, that's it has been the dream that I worked towards, of, you know, I just want to be able to get up every day and say, I want to do this. I don't have to do it. And I don't have to worry about money when it comes to that. And that's that I think is the biggest dream out there. So totally great happens. We're

in an entrepreneur, a lot of people. So in 10 weeks, he says, Oh, wow, there's this amazing thing that you have to go to. And it's a week long. It's like, so not having to worry about money. It's like, okay, this, this experience is worth the week, and I the money doesn't come into it. So it's like I don't I can't do that. Because I have to take a week off of work. And there's this, like, no, it's like that experience is worth the time. And

If you're educating at home, your kids can go with you and you don't have to worry about that.

Well, and I mean, the other side of the coin there is okay, maybe this thing is in DC or maybe it's in someplace where hey, we're doing a history project on the Civil War. You know, there's five Civil War battlefields within 10 minutes of this okay, well, let's go do that too. And, you know, you can combine you can combine both, I think yeah, that's that's the beauty of it. and teaching your kids that life is different from, you know, life doesn't have to be drudgery. Life can be wonderful too. Yep. Well, guys, if someone wants to get a hold of you or learn more about what you're doing, what's the best place for them to find you? on

Facebook? Christina heyedrate, my main page, it has all of my links there. It lets you know about Vibram family education, it lets you know about bringing education home podcast, come talk to me. I'm real person, I'll answer DMS your message.

You're not chat CBT? Well, guys, thank you so much. We'll we'll include that in the show notes, folks. So make sure that you reach out to them. If you're interested in learning about this. I mean, I think it's a fascinating topic. And I think it's the, the world is changing. We're also getting some advantages from some states of saying, hey, you know, you're the parent, you make the decision where the money goes. So I hope more and more states go that way. And you could, you can actually educate your kids at home. We do these shows every week, twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So make sure that you subscribe to the channel, wherever, wherever this is at whether you're watching us on YouTube, or whether you're listening to us on one of the podcast channels. Make sure if this resonates with you and you feel like this would be good with somebody else in your life, share this episode with them so that they can actually learn a little bit about this as well. And give us a like if you can't. So thanks a lot, and we'll see you guys back here the very next time.

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