[00:00:00] Dennis DiNoia: I think that’s at the heart of entrepreneurship, that you’re doing something that you’re passionate about, that it’s that burning desire that just drives you and it gives you a sense of purpose.

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[00:00:15] Gretchen Roe: Good afternoon, everyone. This is Gretchen Roe for The Demme Learning Show. I am so excited to welcome Nicole Thomas and Dennis DiNoia today to have a conversation with you about launching your dream. We’re going to talk about entrepreneurship. This is really going to be a workshop format, and I’m going to let them introduce themselves, and then we’ll get started in earnest. Nicole?

[00:00:39] Nicole Thomas: All right. Hi, everyone. My name is Nicole Thomas, which very few people know because they know me as Nicole the Math Lady. [laughs] My husband apparently likes it every now and again for me to fill in that last name. I, as Nicole the Math Lady, and I just realized this year that it’s been 10 years since we started that endeavor. As you will hear as we go through this, I’ve always been an entrepreneur at heart, but I truly believe that entrepreneurism comes from who you are, what you’re naturally passionate about, and having that be an expression in the world. At a certain point in life, I was like, “I love kids. I love teaching kids. I should find a way to do that.”

It starts just like that, with the little tiny kernel. I’ve just been really blessed to have met so many wonderful people in this beautiful industry. Dennis and I got a chance to really hang out and become good math buddy friends. We just want to share. I think the world of homeschooling is ripe for entrepreneurism. I think for many people, it’s just like a hop, skip, and a jump away. If we could be some instruments to share our stories, we’d love to do that.

[00:01:57] Dennis: Hi, everybody. I’m Dennis DiNoia. Most people know me as Mr. D from Mr. D Math. My story is similar to Nicole. I guess what I would say, though, is I’m a recovering classroom teacher. That’s probably my thing. I started in education in 1988. In 2010, I left the school system and started Mr. D Math. Here we are. Nicole, the one thing about homeschooling, and you just touched on it, it’s like you and I and Gretchen, we’re three different math companies, yet we all get along. We all work together. You can’t do that in any other industry that I’ve ever seen. The fact that we get to play together, work together, share ideas together, it’s a joy. Yes, excited to be with everybody, and let’s roll.

[00:02:44] Gretchen: It is. We all identify that every key doesn’t fit every lock. We’re just looking for the best possible experience for kids to make sure that they have the opportunities available to them. It’s always been a pleasure to come alongside you guys at conferences. To get to have you on here today is a very special privilege for me indeed. The outgrowth of this was the fact that I listened to you all do this presentation, gosh, was it really all the way a year ago? It was so fantastic. I’m like, “You all have to come talk to me about this because it’s just such good information.” What was the genesis for you all to realize that you wanted to talk more about entrepreneurship in the homeschool space?

[00:03:34] Nicole: Gretchen shared with us some of the questions that people have been asking. The very first one I love, because for me, it’s a natural dovetail. Someone said, “What are the subjects that young entrepreneurs should cover in elementary and middle school as an advantage for being an entrepreneur?” Not to be commercials for math, but I was just thinking, what we do every day to me is all about building logic and thinking skills, building logic and thinking skills, building logic and thinking skills.

To me, when I think about what it takes, it’s funny, my daughter right now is graduating from college this summer. She is a business major with an entrepreneurship minor. I always laugh, and I’m like, “What are they teaching you in that entrepreneurship course that I couldn’t teach you here at home?” Really, to me, as long as you are sharpening those logic and thinking skills, which I believe that is many of our– we’re maybe less concerned about the exact grade over here. To me, it’s all about creating the logic and thinking of a human being. That is a natural jumping-off point for entrepreneurism. The world that we’re in right now, who knows what’s going on out there, what’s going to happen in the future. I know if there’s anything I can bet on myself because of those skills I developed back in the day. Dennis, thoughts on or dovetailing?

[00:05:07] Dennis: It’s so great. First of all, take geometry. That’s what I’ll tell you. If you want to work on logic and thinking skills, geometry is the course. That’s it. When I was in high school, it was probably my least favorite class of all. I didn’t get it.

[00:05:22] Gretchen: It’s the only math I ever liked, Dennis.

[00:05:25] Dennis: I know. My high school teachers knew what I was doing today. They’d be like, “Oh, there’s no way.” Here we are. When I was teaching geometry in public schools, I started to notice this course is unbelievable for foundation, for thinking. It was really great. It’s funny because when you think about what tracks are there, I didn’t even know there’s a program for entrepreneurship in colleges now. That’s cool to hear.

[00:05:50] Gretchen: That’s very cool.

[00:05:51] Dennis: There’s not a lot out there. We launched one entrepreneurship course. We’re working on a new one. I’m excited about it because it’s fun. How do we take what we did in our presentation? How do you roll it into a course? How do you make it available for young people? We expect to have that done pretty soon. We’ll see. Here’s what I would share with people. There’s courses you can take, but there’s reading you can do. I’m going to tell you straight up. I am not a book reader. It is not my thing. Reading, listening to my audiobooks, just not my thing.

I’m going to recommend two books to you that I have read that if you’re interested in being an entrepreneur, this is a place to get started. One is by Robert Kiyosaki, which is called Rich Dad Poor Dad. There’s also a version for young people called Rich Dad Poor Dad for Teens. The other is a really, really old book called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I started with both of those books, probably, gosh, almost 30 years ago. I was still in the classroom at the time. It shifted everything. It was like, I got to get out. This is who I am. This is where we need to go.

Those two books probably were at a foundation of thinking and creating, and especially Think and Grow Rich, because it’s like, what can you do? In the same place, it’s like, not just what can you do, but do you love doing it? For me, that’s really, this is where we are today. We love doing what we do. I think that’s one thing we all agree on. It’s like, we love what we do. I think that’s at the heart of entrepreneurship, that you’re doing something that you’re passionate about. It’s that burning desire that just drives you, and it gives you a sense of purpose.

[00:07:35] Gretchen: Well, Dennis, I’m delighted to hear you recommend Napoleon Hill’s book because that was required reading for my high schoolers in my household, believe it or not-

[00:07:44] Dennis: That’s great.

[00:07:45] Gretchen: -as was Rich Dad Poor Dad. My eldest daughter started work at 14 in a coffee shop and at 19 bought that coffee shop. It has gone on now to found two more businesses on her own. She would bring my neck a fight. She won’t know this, but she’ll be 40 next week. She would tell you that a lot of it is you believe as if you can until you can.

[00:08:12] Nicole: There’s businesses out there that focus on selling widgets. My thing is, look, you get to wake up every day and do something. I might as well do something that lights me up, that I love, that pulls me out of bed, rather than go sell some widgets. I’m not interested in that. I think that’s really what we’re talking about here. I always tell people, “Think about what you naturally do. Naturally do that somebody would come to you and ask for your help on because they know you have that skill.” The hard part is, it might not have a name like what we’re used to. For example, I was not a classroom teacher, and that was by design. I was like, “Oh, no, me and 30 kids in a room, nope, not doing that.”

I loved teaching things. I just didn’t want to manage a K-12 classroom, so I didn’t go into teaching for very long. What’s funny about that is every job I ever had, I was just always teaching. I always ended up teaching something. Sometimes, when people are like, “Where do I start?” I look at some of the questions, “Where do I get an idea?” For me, it is usually the thing you do naturally that when nobody’s looking, it just comes out of you. It lies someplace right there.

[00:09:38] Dennis: Yes, that’s it. It’s like what lights you up in the morning. It’s not a hard thing to do. Just look at what you did during the day. You’re going to see in there, there’s what people want, there’s what people need, and how can you make that available to them? That’s the start of a business. It’s the start of the world of an entrepreneur.

[00:09:58] Gretchen: I think there’s one thing that– a quality that you all have that’s an intrinsic quality, and it’s something, as parents, we need to instill in our kids. That’s, one, the willingness to be friendly and talk to people you don’t know, and, two, the willingness to ask questions and be curious. Creating those two things in our children is equally as important as having the competencies of math, reading, and spelling and all those fun things.

[00:10:28] Dennis: That’s really good. Yes, you said being in that space that you don’t know is the best place to be. I think people, they think that they have to know everything, like they’re going to start a business. They wait because they’ve got to have it all figured out, and it’s got to be perfect. There’s nothing perfect in the world of an entrepreneur. In fact, that’s the best place to be in, in the world of imperfect, right? Because we’re exploring, we’re creating, we’re revamping, relooking at, well, what worked, what didn’t work. It’s the place to start, but it’s such a great comment to be in that space of what you don’t know, and it’ll open up so many doors.

[00:11:09] Nicole: One of the questions that another person wrote here was, “How do you start?” I saw that several times, and here’s the pocket science of an answer. You start because guess what? It is not going to be right. I’m going to give you permission because it’s not going to be right. Many of us, we try to wait until it’s perfect and perfect in our mind, and we get it all planned out. It is still not right for me. It’s still not perfect 10 years later.

The only way you start is by starting and fixing, and starting and fixing. As you were saying, Dennis, having that willingness to look at it and go, “How can I improve that? How can I make that better? How can I ask my customer questions on how to make their lives better?” Because I’m here for them, right? I don’t know everything, but I’m willing to ask. I’m willing to be curious, and I’m willing to find out how to serve them better because for me, that’s what has you be successful in business. At the end of the day, you’ve got a customer who you’re making happy. It is that willingness to be curious, but also that willingness just to be like, well, I don’t have it all worked out, but I’m going to start. I’m going to keep going, and I’m going to keep going the day after that.

[00:12:26] Dennis: You keep going. I know your story because we both come from the same place. How wrong it was when we started, how many things were, you get out there, you go to the first homeschool convention, and people are looking at things, and they’re like, “Well, yes, but what about this and what about this?” Oh, my gosh, I didn’t think about that, right? It was just getting started. It was, what do they call it, your viable product. When I started there, and what I looked at and what I was sharing with people, here’s how bad it was.

I was at the Florida homeschool convention, and this was, I don’t know, maybe 15 years ago, 14 years ago, whatever it was. I was there, and a mom came up, and she was coming up to tell me how badly written our coursework was and that we needed editing and we needed this and that and the other thing. She came up, and she stopped, and she said, she goes, “I didn’t know what to do because there were so many kids around you saying how much they loved the program.” She added, “I couldn’t come up and tell you that.” Then she’s telling me this story. I said, “Well, what kind of work do you do?” She goes, “Well, I’m in editing.” I said, “You’re hired.”

We brought her in, and she edited everything, and it was awesome. It was rough when we started, but we grew, we improved, found the right people to do the things that I wasn’t good at. That’s probably another thing in the world of entrepreneurship. You don’t have to do everything. You can build a team around you. I didn’t think I’d go risk. It’s one of the things Henry Ford, that’s what he was so good at, was having a team around him of experts that he just had to go to them. He didn’t have to have it all figured out.

[00:13:59] Gretchen: That is true. One of the things that you all talked about last year, I actually went and dug in my cabinet and pulled out my notebook from last May when you all spoke. One of the things you talked about is figuring out how to make lemonade out of lemons when it wasn’t going right. Assessing what wasn’t working and then just continuing to go forward. I think one of the messages that you all emphasized last spring was it’s not going to be perfect. If you think it is, that causes you to hesitate to start. Instead, just start somewhere. I wonder if you could go back to the beginnings of knowing now what you know, going back to the beginnings of Nicole the Math Lady and Mr. D Math. Is there something you would do differently, or as the struggle has progressed, it has made you into who you are?

[00:14:52] Nicole: Many people know I started teaching Saxon Math. The first 100, I said 100 videos that I made, I had to throw out. I was going to let that sink in for a little bit. 100 videos, worked, worked, worked, realized something was not going to work. At that point, it literally could have been like, okay, I’m done. I’m going to stop. I’m finished. Didn’t do it right. It was like, well, I could pivot. I could do it like this instead. What’s so funny about it is the this instead worked out better than what I was originally doing.

I wish I could tell you that that only happened once. You’d think I’d have figured it out by now. No. It’s happened so many times where you’re like, okay, this is it. We’re going full force on this. Then you go in this direction, and you’re like, that’s not working. Let me pivot. I call them hard right turns in life. You think you’re going down one path and you’re planning life. Then all of a sudden, circumstances change and you have to make a hard right turn and you’re completely going a different direction.

The second part of your question is what would you change or would you change? I wouldn’t because I’m clear all those mistakes. I will literally say in a math video when I’ve made a mistake, I literally go, “Okay, so I’m not rerecording that because I’ve been talking for 10 minutes. Yes, Nicole the Math Lady makes mistakes. I just made one. Did you see that?” Then I found out that kids actually like it when I point out a mistake that I’ve made. They’re like, “Oh, she makes mistakes too.” I have a lot of friends who want to be entrepreneurs who are always coming to me for advice and sharing my story. I keep seeing nobody wants to start because I want to have it perfect first. I tell you, that’s never going to happen. Are you going to start today? Are you going to start tomorrow? Are you going to start next week? Let’s start.

[00:16:57] Dennis: That’s so good. I guess the other thing, too, what would I change? I don’t think I could change anything because when I started, I started by recording DVDs. I’d make a recording, and it was one of those things like there was no online and there was no the way that we do things today. The good news is that technology is moving so rapidly that whatever you’re doing right now, like Nicole said, just get started because if there’s a way to improve, a way to make it better, a way to find an easier way to do things, it’s going to show up.

I think the other word that I love is have faith. It’s about making a decision and then put your decision in action. I think that’s what oftentimes people, they don’t say, I’m going to start. When I say that you’re going to start making a decision, you have to tell everybody you know that you’re doing it, everybody. People are like, “No, no, I’m going to keep it a secret.” Tell everybody because it does a couple of things. One, puts you on the hook for it. Now you’re going to be held accountable because the next time somebody sees you, they’re like, “Hey, how’s that going?”

The other thing it does is that it opens doors for you because you never know who you’re talking to that might have the perfect idea for you that will give you the thing that you the thing that you hadn’t thought about, or the thing that was missing, or the thing you didn’t know how to get to. I look back at the recording and recording software. I started with a lavalier microphone attached to my shirt, and it was awful. Now I look today, and it’s like technology’s better. What did I know back then? I started asking people, “Well, I’m trying to make these videos,” and they kept giving me tips from people that I would never expect it from.

Tell everybody what you’re up to and don’t be embarrassed by that. Because people love to support you. They want to give you ideas. They’re going to encourage you. By the way, people that you may not know as well are going to be the ones to give you the coolest stuff. The people that know you’re like, “Oh, you can’t do that,” because that was my family. Like, “What are you doing making my videos? What do you know about that?” I was like, “Well, this is where we’re going.” It does turn out. Would I change anything? There’s no way.

[00:19:08] Gretchen: Now, does your family have a different song? Do they sing it differently because they’ve seen how successful you’ve been?

[00:19:15] Dennis: Oh my gosh, yes. It’s so funny because now they take credit for everything. That’s what’s really funny about it. They’re like, “See, I remember when and I encouraged you.” I was like, “Whoa, slow down.” It’s so funny how they don’t remember that, but what they do remember is it turns out. Now they’re like, “See, we knew you could do it.” [laughs]

[00:19:34] Gretchen: That’s awesome. What is the mindset that you would say, particularly for a young adult, maybe a 16, 17, 18-year-old, what’s the mindset they need to develop beyond the ability to be resilient? What are the things they need to do as far as habits, those daily things that you would say that helped you all in the very beginning that kept driving you forward?

[00:20:01] Nicole: I would say, right? Again, a lot of people have ideas, “Oh, I want to start something.” Some of us are even strong starters, but the people I think who make it long-term are the people who are willing to do one thing every day on that passion project. One thing every day, because it’s not about like, “Oh, I started strong, and then I fizzled out.” It’s like, “Oh, I took one incremental step.” I’m going to let Dennis because we love to talk about integrity and what we think integrity means. Really about honoring the word you gave to yourself. We will more quickly honor the word that we give to other people than we will to ourselves. To me, yes, resiliency. Yes, deciding on that passion. Now, go be your word and do what you said you were going to do. Don’t let anything stop you from honoring your word to yourself.

[00:20:54] Dennis: You said it all. Schedule it. Have a schedule. Even if you schedule 10 minutes a day, and in that 10 minutes you can’t think of anything, then sit there for 10 minutes. You are doing something because in that 10 minutes, an idea is going to come to you, something’s going to happen. It’s so easy. Like Nicole said, get out of the habit. If you just say, “This is what I’m doing.” My family knew on Sunday, don’t bother me because I’m recording. That’s what it was. That went on, you ready? Every Sunday for four years. That was 16-hour days of recording, writing, editing, all of it. It was what I did without question. I even missed a lot of Super Bowls. That was rough.

That’s what it looks like. It is being consistent with your word. I’m giving my word to this. When you don’t do it, is it the end of the world? No, but you need to tell whoever you promised, “Hey, I said I was going to do this and I didn’t do that,” or tell yourself, “Wow, I said I was going to do this, I didn’t do that. What got in the way that I can get out of the way so that I can get back to what I said?” Then you just make a new promise, and you get right back to it. That’s probably it. Being consistent, having a schedule, honor your word.

[00:22:14] Nicole: Then if you’re starting with something, going back to that, something that you love, something that, again, you naturally wake up into every day, then that work doesn’t seem so hard. If it is not something that’s like an outpouring of who you naturally are, then it does seem like work, doesn’t it? Who wants to do that? You got to start in the right place, such that the love of whatever that is, whether for you it could be organizing. Maybe you’re an organizer. Maybe you’re somebody who loves supporting somebody else. That’s what I meant about it. There might not be a word for it or an occupation for it, but there’s skills that you have. There’s a natural way that you be that if you start there, then honoring your word isn’t as hard because it’s just a natural, yes, I love that. I’m going to go do that. I’m going to do that again today.

[00:23:06] Dennis: That’s great. For everybody listening right now, here’s a question for you. Just take five seconds and the very first one, two, three things that pop in your head, write them down. What is it you love to do? Just whatever comes into your head. It could be anything from stamp collecting to whatever. I like organizing. You’re organizing. Write it down because that’s the start. It comes with the idea and have faith. The right idea is there. It’s waiting for you. It’s coming to you because you’re asking the question. You’re putting it out there. It will find you.

[00:23:49] Nicole: I’m going to dovetail on the faith thing. I hope you put a little bit of latitude here, Gretchen. For me, when I started Nicole the Math Lady, it wasn’t about starting a business. I was clear that I wanted to teach. I wanted to teach one-on-one. That’s what I wanted to do. I started tutoring, which I had done when I was 17. Here I was 40-something. I just wanted to teach. I started teaching. I remember thinking I drove almost like an hour to get to a student because just the way the roads are here in Florida, it took like almost an hour to get there. I remember when I was doing it, I was so happy. I think I did it for $25. I was just so happy in that moment. She got it. It was just beautiful.

I remember when I got in the car to drive back home, I was like, “Well, that probably was not the smartest thing to make $25 to spend $5 in gas to get out here. It wasn’t very business-minded, but I knew just do what you love. I remember, this is where it gets a little woo-woo, I remember sitting in that car on the way home. Then that’s when the idea, like, “Oh, you could just make a video, and then you could send it to her, or maybe you could put it online.” It wasn’t like, I’m going to start a business. It wasn’t that. It really was like, and this is for me, for me, I was like, I remember having a conversation with God about this. It was like, listen, it’s my job to worry about how this is all going to work out.

Nicole’s job was to show up and do the work. Show up and do whatever work was being asked of me. If that day it was to– this happened on a Thursday, and by Saturday, for me, I had a whiteboard a friend gave to me. I had a camera another friend gave to me. I had to go buy some markers and put on some nice clothes to stand in front of a board. Because it was just like, get in action, get in action. If there’s anything that’s bubbling around, all I can say is get in action. If it’s not the right thing, I think it’ll lead to the right thing.

[00:26:06] Dennis: Gretchen, I heard Steve Demme speak one time. It’s funny because look back and there’s a lot of parallels between how he got started, what he was doing, and what I did, the same. When I first got started, and Nicole, by the way, too, it was about prayer. It was like, I just stopped, and I actually just left the tutoring job, and things were not– they just weren’t going great. I called this friend of mine and I said, “Listen, I just don’t know what– I seem to be doing all these different things. What is it?” He said, “Have you prayed?” I said, “What?” He goes, “You got to pray, brother.” I said, “Okay.”

I did. The message, it was like somebody was shouting at me, “You’re a teacher. What are you doing? Get busy. Start doing this. “How it started, which is like Steve did because I heard him say this as well, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, I did the same thing. It started with co-ops. I was taking the program to co-ops, and literally, I was recording things on Sunday, and I was giving it to the kids Monday at the co-op. It didn’t matter if I got done at four o’clock in the morning, I had to have it done because I had to hand out these little DVD discs to them because it had all the videos and practice problems on it. Then it was like, “Oh, one co-op really liked what we were doing. Oh my gosh, now there’s another one.”

I was in the Florida area at the time, and I was going from different cities. I was in Sarasota, Tampa, and St. Petersburg, and I’m going to all these different co-ops.

I remember Steve telling the same story. It was like he was a road warrior. You got your box in the car, and you got all your gear and you’re taking it and you’re setting everything up and you’re there all day and the kids are doing the classes. It’s like, Nicole, when you said it was like the validation came there because the kids get it. I love being able to, once you have a product, start giving it away. Put it in the hands of people and get their feedback because they’re going to tell you what’s working, what’s not working. There’s things that you think that work, but it’s from that customer base. It’s from the people that are using the product that are going to tell you what they like about it, what they need more of, what they want more of. I think that that’s huge. Those early days, oh my gosh, driving, I think I put 60,000 miles on my car in one year. What’s really funny is I just don’t own a car anymore. I haven’t had a car in 10 years, and I couldn’t be happier.

[00:28:26] Nicole: I want to say something about– one of the questions here is about, how does this help me with my teen or with my kid? The funny part is, I’m going to tell you as an adult, you are more fearful to start than your teen is. Your teen, even your middle schooler, they don’t have a lot of fear about starting. Sometimes we get in the way because we want to protect them and make sure they’re okay and stop them from getting rejected. I just have those natural instincts as a mom to make sure my son is okay, and my daughter is okay, but they’re pretty fearless. They’ll try things and be like, oh, that didn’t work. Sometimes we just need to maybe step out of the way and encourage from the sidelines. Ask questions, what are you going to do next? You have this idea, wait, who did you share that with? We’re like the facilitator, the question asker, and we don’t have to do it for them. They’ve got ideas, they’re not afraid, we’re the ones who are like, “What if somebody rejects me or doesn’t?

[00:29:30] Dennis: What are people going to think?

[00:29:34] Gretchen: I think it’s also important to use your community. Sometimes there was a tone in some of the questions here about, how do I motivate my teenager? Maybe it’s not you. Maybe it’s people they trust. They have an idea, so they go to the people they trust who provide them guidance, and then they can begin to go forward with that guidance. Because sometimes as a parent, you guys know this, we’re not always the prophet in our children’s land.

[00:30:08] Dennis: Yes. How many times have you given your kids advice, they go off, and they hear the exact same thing from someone else and they run home to tell you what somebody else said, and you’re like, “But I just–” You just got to stop right there because [crosstalk] yes, that’s right.

[00:30:23] Gretchen: Yes, that’s great advice. One of the most brilliant things I have heard is a mom who had a daughter who wanted to start a business, but she didn’t quite know how that was going to unfold. Mom, instead of sitting down and saying, “Well, you should do this, you should do this, you should do this,” she sat down and said, “Who would you go to in the circle of the people we know to answer those kinds of questions?” She said, “Well, I’d talk to Mr. So-and-so because he’s an accountant. I’d talk to Mr. So-and-so because he does marketing.” She said, “All right, so you’re going to give them a call and set up those appointments?” The child did. That’s a great place to actually motivate a student because now they’ve got some skin in the game.

[00:31:14] Dennis: I’m going to add on to that. Moms, dads, grandma, grandpa, aunts, uncles, whoever, the adults out there that are listening right now, model it. Be the one. What is it? You’re looking for yourself. The reason I say that is that because I was willing to dive in and go and start creating and do something incredible, my kids have done the same thing. They looked at something that didn’t look possible to them, and they took it on. I’m a 21-year-old, so I’m going to brag about him for a second, right? My 19-year-old.

[00:31:50] Gretchen: I hope so.

[00:31:51] Dennis: Yes. My 21-year-old, he wanted to be a dancer since he was little. He was probably five years old and got in a hip-hop class, and he’s like, “Oh my gosh, this is what I love doing.” He’s like, “Awesome.” We literally took him to Spain, got him classically trained. He’s 21. He’s a professional flamenco dancer. We just went to see him perform in Argentina. It was amazing. He’s based in Madrid, and the troop just traveled to Argentina. A lot of that, he acknowledges it too. He goes, you went way out there and did what you loved to do and didn’t stop and didn’t quit and kept going. He took that on.

For parents, I think it’s important. Sometimes it’s like that question is, well, how do you transfer the mindset? You don’t. You model it, and you be it yourself, whatever that looks like. You have conversations with your kids, and you talk to them, “Whoa, wow, here’s what I’m running into. Here’s what I don’t want to do and here’s what I’m afraid of.” Young people will be your biggest cheerleaders, and then it gives you permission to be their cheerleader as well because now you’re doing it together.

[00:33:00] Gretchen: I want to ask you all this question because I thought it was a really good one. What age is appropriate to start cultivating this entrepreneurship mindset? I know what you’re going to say, but I want to hear you say it.

[00:33:13] Nicole: I want to dovetail off of the story you just told, Dennis, because your son’s a flamenco dancer. To me, somebody listening might go, “Oh, well, did he start a business? Is that what this is all about, is starting a business?” To me, this is what I mean when I say that the world of homeschool is ripe for entrepreneurism. I’m not talking about starting a business where you have a shop and a store, and someone comes in. That can come out of entrepreneurism, but entrepreneurism is a mindset. To me, your son is thinking like an entrepreneur. I’ve got this passion that I want to fulfill, and I’m going to go make it happen. That’s how entrepreneurs act.

Some people can set up shop and there’s a price tag to buy the widget or whatever it is. That’s fine. That’s logistics. That’s just logistics. The mindset that he saw that you were modeling, that to me is what I’m talking about. When you ask-

[00:34:13] Gretchen: Oh, no, it’s great. Yes, because he’s doing the same thing now, because he’s talking about– I said, “Look, you’re a dancer. How many years do you have doing this?” He goes, “My shelf life’s probably until I’m about 30, and then I got to figure out what’s next.” What he’s looking at already is starting his own company, getting on the road and traveling. There’s three people that are in his company at 20, and the three of them are already starting to work on their own performance. Now he’s looking at, well, that might turn into opening a school, all those things. He’s got the thought. It’s great because there is training to get. To answer your question, Gretchen, it’s like, how old? Now. If they’re walking and talking, get to it, man. That’s right. Yes.

[00:34:58] Gretchen: Your son is a great example. He started out with a love of hip-hop, and now he’s a flamenco dancer. One of those things is not like the other, but he had to get there and it was the mindset that got him there.

[00:35:14] Nicole: We also can talk a little bit about– Dennis, we talked about, okay, if you are ready to do the, I want to start a business, that there are some things that need to happen. Let’s go back to this MVP that you mentioned. It stands for minimum viable product. What that means, it goes back to our conversation of having to have everything perfect before you tell people or take it to market. Minimum viable product. The word I want you to focus on is minimum. It is like, what is the least amount that you can put together to be able to take it out and show someone, or get some feedback? Maybe it was, for us, it was put together the first set of videos. The first set of videos were horrible. I didn’t know how to do those. I had to figure it out. I’m clear, the next iteration of the video couldn’t have happened until the first iteration happened.

You’ve got to create whatever that idea is, has to be turned into something called an MVP, a minimum viable product. What can you put together? What prototype can you put together to be able to take it to someone and get feedback, or take it to a possible customer and hear how to improve, or how to pivot or how to make a hard right turn from where you’re at? That, again, goes back to, you got to get started somewhere.

[00:36:47] Gretchen: I think you’ve got a really important point in this, Nicole, and I don’t want it to get lost in the thought process. When you did those first 100 videos, you were willing to go, “Okay, I can make this better.” You weren’t so cleaved, if cleaved is a word, you weren’t holding on so tightly to what you did that you weren’t willing to pivot and say, “Okay, I can do this better by changing X, Y, and Z.”

[00:37:16] Nicole: To me, people who run successful businesses have to have that because if you’re stuck to my idea and this great idea that I have, and nobody out there who’s a possible customer is vibing with that idea, you have a hobby, you do not have a business, which is okay, by the way. You can have a hobby. I’m all for hobbies. I probably should find one. A business is because there’s a need out there that somebody needs something or somebody wants something, and they’re willing to engage you, pay for it, whatever. Unless you’re checking in with what’s out there and willing to adjust to meet that need, you’re just doing your hobby, which again, I have no problems with. I probably should find one.

[00:38:06] Dennis: I think sometimes people think, in the world of entrepreneur and running a business, and they’re really two different things. There’s being an entrepreneur, which like Nicole said, doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re running a business. I think sometimes people think, okay, so the first thing I got to do is I got to make business cards, and I got to go get my LLC or S corp, or however you’re going to set up the entity and all those other things. Don’t do that. You’ll do that once when, because you are going to do that, but when are you going to do that? That’s not the first thing to do. The first thing to do is, what Nicole just said, get that minimal viable product, know that customers want it, what they need.

Once you start gaining that customer base, okay, then you’re going to form a company, and then you’re going to get your business license in the city you live in or state or whatever your state is set up in. You know what’s funny is today to this day, I do not carry business cards. I don’t have them. I don’t want them. I know what happens with those. It’s like you hand them to somebody, they put them in their pocket, and you never see it again. I thought, “Why in the world am I going to spend time laboring over what a good business card looks like when they’re just going to be lost anyway?” For me, it’s more about the conversation. It’s more about, how can I share this with people? What do you think about this? What does it look like to you? What could be better? Be willing to hear what people say because they are going to have an idea that you haven’t thought of. That’s the gold in this. It’s like hearing from other people, collaboration.

[00:39:33] Nicole: How many people I wonder who are listening, maybe got stuck after they came up with the name or tried to come up with the name? That was like the first thing you were going to work on? Because again, I’ve started businesses before, and I thought the name was so important. I look at companies now with all these made-up names and I’m like, yes, it really doesn’t matter. Get to work. Tell me what it is that you’re creating. That to me is what an entrepreneur is. Somebody who’s a creator. Somebody who wants to create something in the world that wasn’t there before, or if it was there, they have their own take on it. Whether your student wants to actually create a business or is just trying to figure out how to create and put who they are into the world, that’s the thing I want to cultivate in them, whether or not it ever turns into a shop that someone pays them for. It’s that vibe, that energy, that skill that they’re developing. Things like meetings and LLCs, that’ll come later.

[00:40:35] Gretchen: I think it’s also important, though, that you all have both hit on this from different directions, but I want to make sure that we understand that asking questions, “Hey, I had this idea, how would you be able to use this? What do you think about this?” Dennis, I know that because I’ve talked to you multiple times about this, you did a lot of let me try this, and then I’m going to ask questions, and then I’m going to shift this, and then I’m going to do this, and then I’m going to shift again based on feedback that you got. You’ve made a lot of changes to Mr. D Math based on feedback. Tell us how you cultivate the mindset to receive the feedback, because sometimes that’s where people get hung up too.

[00:41:26] Dennis: Yes. Wow. That’s a great question. It goes back to being really comfortable with it. You don’t know everything. That’s really, really, really, what it is. When we started doing live classes, that was not part of the plan. It just wasn’t part of the plan to do the live classes. It came from that that’s what students wanted. They were like, “Well, but we want to meet with you. We want to be with you.” I was like, “Oh, my gosh, how are we going to do that?” Back in the day, and this was back in the early 2010, ’11, ’12, that era, what was out there? With Zoom today, Zoom’s awesome, and there’s lots of platforms now. Back then, they weren’t very good. They weren’t very stable. They were wobbly.

I was at a convention, and believe it or not, it’s so funny how many times that I get to run into Steve, and it’s Steve Demme. He came up to me, and he goes, “You’re doing live classes. You’re doing them online. Nobody’s going to want to do that.” I said, “Steve, I don’t know, man. It’s what people are asking for.” The next year, there was Matthew C with their live online classes. I was like, “Okay, we’re onto something here. It’s good.”

It really came from what people wanted, and it came from sharing. We gave away so many of our programs to homeschool moms. They did blogging. They did writing. They had groups. It was like, “Look, I want you to give the course to your kids. Let your kids tell you how the course is going, and then write about it. That’s the deal. I’m going to give you the course, and then you share about what works.” Is there a risk in that? Yes, because they may not have liked it. That’s what it was. Even for some of them came back and said, “Oh, I wish we did this or that.”

Spiral reviews. We did not have spiral reviews in our course when we first started, but people requested it. They wanted it. It was like, “Well, how can we do that?” They wanted honors. We didn’t have honors. It was like, “Well, how can we do that?” We just kept looking at what was it that people were requesting, what were they asking for, and how can we get that out there for them? It just keeps opening the door. Whether I thought it was a good idea or not didn’t matter. It was what people wanted. We got what they wanted and delivered it.

[00:43:41] Gretchen: Nicole, I know you’ve gone through multiple iterations, particularly now, having the opportunity to work with a wide variety of curricula to help make the delivery of those materials easier for families so that it’s more accessible to them. That had to be hard, too, because you had to shift from I’m this, to I could do this, and it becomes a wider variety of things. How was that hard?

[00:44:13] Nicole: When I first started, everybody always said to me when I go to the conferences, “Oh, you’re the Saxon lady. You’re the Saxon lady.” Okay, let me tell you how I picked Saxon. My daughter had gone to a private school when she was young, and when I thought, “Okay, I’m going to teach math.” I went over to the bookshelf, I grabbed the book, and I opened it up. I was like, “Great, I’ll teach this curriculum,” and it was the Saxon curriculum. It wasn’t that I had some master plan for Saxon, or I had done all this research.

[00:44:38] Gretchen: I had no idea that’s how that happened.

[00:44:40] Nicole: That’s how it happened. It was just sitting over there. I’m somebody that once I do it once, I’m like, I’m bored. Saxon took a while. Again, trying to figure it out and pivoting and all this, took five years to record. After I recovered and took a couple years off, I was like, “I want to do something else. I’m kind of bored.” People kept asking us. It was funny. People would say, “Nicole, are you ever going to make a grammar course?” I was like, “You don’t want me to make grammar. I am not.” Math is my thing. I can teach math all day.

I thought about teaching the next curriculum, which we moved on to Singapore, Math Dimensions. We really thought about it for a long time because I was the Saxon lady. I used to say, I’m a teacher. I’m a teacher. If it’s great curriculum, I’ll teach it. Now we’re working with new curriculums. Again, my whole thing, and this is something I do want to say that’s important, because when you’re thinking about, sometimes your customers come to you and they’re like, “You know, what I really want is this.” Also, if that is not what you do, that is okay to say, “That’s not what I do. I’m going to leave that for somebody else. I’m going to focus on creating this.”

Now, it still has to be a market need, but it doesn’t mean just because there’s a need out there that you should be doing it. I think it’s like a marriage. You’ve got to match the need to your passion. When that’s a fit, when that jigsaw puzzle comes together, yes, I think you’ve got something. Yes, you’ve got to reinvent yourself. You’ve got to keep it interesting. I’m sure after this, who knows what I’ll do next. I know I’m too young to go sit on the sidelines. I’ve got stuff I want to do. At the end of the day, for me, it’s about service. I realize this is what I love about what we do. We’re teachers. Some teachers are going to love my style. Some teachers are going to love Dennis’s style. Some teachers are going to love somebody else’s style. Great. I love it all.

To me, as long as we’re out here supporting families, making this world that we all have participated in a little bit easier, I’m down for that. I’m here for it. You’ve got to reinvent yourself. I also say, I stay in my lane. I do what I do, not what somebody else does.

[00:47:06] Gretchen: It also is important because otherwise you become too scattered. Being able to say, “This is what I’m good at, and this is my lane,” makes a difference. We’ve got 10 minutes left here. The question I really want to ask you both is, what would be the two or three things you would say would be the action steps for families who have listened to our conversation today? Now they’ve sat down with their kids. They’ve watched the video. Now what? What do they need to do?

[00:47:37] Nicole: It’s funny, Dennis. I pulled up our workshop. I was like, “What did we teach last year?” One of the slides that we had in our workshop were for people to identify their top three fears from starting. Until we articulate what that is, we can’t really tackle it. Okay, identify what is stopping you from starting. Then you have an assignment once you’ve identified that, because once you’ve identified it becomes a ghost. It’s like, is that real? Is that really stopping me?

To me, after you’ve identified those fears, promise yourself to take one action. One action, because I will tell you what the antidote to fear is. Action. You cannot be fearful. Action and fear don’t live in the same place. Yes, you can be afraid of starting, but the action is what makes the fear go away. Not thinking about it, not rationalizing it, not having a conversation with the fear. It’s taking action, getting an action, staying in action. You know what? I’m going to tell the truth. It’s not that the fear goes away. It doesn’t go away. It’s like, have the fear and do it anyway. The fear is still there. You get a little bit better at going, “Yes, be quiet. I don’t have time for you.” [laughs]

[00:49:06] Dennis: That is step one. What is it that you are most afraid of? One of those things may be going out because this is where I would say what’s step two, and this might be one of the fears. Step two is go out and talk to people. Talk to people and find out. I always like to distinguish the difference between what people want and what people need. I love that because I’m much more of what people want than what they need. I always go back to a new car. Do you actually need a new car, or do you want a new car? For most people, it’s like, “Oh, really? Then what kind of car?” We say, “What kind of car do you need?” We ask people, “What kind of car do you want?” I think that that becomes the question of, if you’re doing something, it’s like, “Well, what would you want?” If I was going to do something, and this is what my talent is and my skillset, and this is what I really love doing, what would you want to see? What would be something that would be interesting to you? You have to be willing to talk to people and get their feedback. It’s not always going to be what you want to hear, which is good. That’s great because, again, you’re hearing something that is going to make a difference that you probably haven’t thought of, which is great. It gets back to that, it’s okay to not know. In fact, that’s good. You don’t want to know. Actually, it’s a much bigger piece of the pie in the things that you don’t know compared to the things that you do know.

Be interested in that. Be willing to talk to people, ask them what they want. Whether it’s young people, adults, both. You can ask young people, “Well, I’m working on this product, what would you want it to be?” Then you can ask parents, “Well, what would you want it to be for your kids?” So that you’re hearing both sides of the story. You’re hearing what parents are looking for. Oftentimes, it’s what’s parents need, but it’s what kids want. If you’re looking in a young person world. Then for adults as well, it’s like, “Well, what do you want? What would this look like to you? What would make a difference?” It’s like, yes, identify those fears, and then get out and talk to people. I think you asked for three, Gretchen, but if you start with those two, that’s going to get you rolling.

[00:51:20] Gretchen: I think so. I think the third would be don’t give up.

[00:51:24] Dennis: Oh, absolutely.

[00:51:27] Gretchen: Absolutely, because that would make a huge difference. Just to recognize that you have an idea. Maybe you don’t know all the nuances of bringing it to fruition, but the fact that you’re not going to give up until you figure it out.

[00:51:40] Nicole: That right there, what you said, Gretchen, that’s what entrepreneurism is, that I’m not going to give up until I figure this out. You might have to pivot three times in doing so, but it’s that not giving up thing. That’s what I’m talking about.

[00:51:53] Dennis: I know you guys are going to read Think and Grow Rich. Why? Well, we recommended it, right? Three feet from gold. That is a passage in Think and Grow Rich. I’m going to leave you with that. I’m not going to tell you what it is, but I’m going to tell you, you want to find that passage and read about it. What three feet from gold and how it made a difference to the person who quit, and how it made a difference to the person that didn’t quit. Yes, we’re always just three feet from gold. Then we get two feet and then one foot, and then here we are, right? [laughs]

[00:52:24] Gretchen: Nicole, now 10, 15 years into your experience. What’s the best thing about sailing your own ship? Dennis, you can think about this because I’m going to ask you the same question.

[00:52:39] Nicole: The best thing is being an example for my kids that you can create what you want.

[00:52:48] Gretchen: Now you’re going to make me cry. That’s awesome.

[00:52:51] Nicole: Do you know what I mean? Again, for me, it’s with God’s blessing, tapping into what that plan is for you, but that you can do that. Again, my daughter’s getting ready to graduate, and she’s looking for jobs and all of that. I’m like, “Look, just get out there and try something. If you don’t like it, try something else. Then if you don’t like that, try something else. Pivot again, and then pivot again.” The only way you’re going to get there is by trying things and saying, “Nope, that’s not it. Nope, that’s not it.” Oh, wait, I like that part. Let me pivot a little bit and go this way. I feel like I’m still doing that.

To me, I don’t want to ever stop doing that. That, to me, is exciting, and that my kids get to see that it’s possible. Again, the way I grew up, I grew up in a very traditional West Indian family. Your job was to get a job. Your job was to get a good job. I had a good job when I graduated, and I was the renegade who was like, “I think I’d like to go my own course.” They were like, “What? We don’t do that. We get good jobs.”

[00:54:00] Gretchen: There has to be a character quality in you that could push back against that. A lot of people, when you receive pushback, then you’re like, “Oh, okay, I won’t do it because I’ve gotten pushback.” I know Dennis is really good at, “Oh, yes, really? Watch this.”

[00:54:19] Dennis: Bring it on. That’s right.

[00:54:22] Gretchen: I’ve heard stories, so I know.

[00:54:25] Nicole: I couldn’t imagine a life where I didn’t. It was like that voice just kept saying, “No, you got to try. You got to try.” What’s the worst that could happen?

[00:54:34] Gretchen: That’s a great question. It is.

[00:54:38] Nicole: Bet on yourself. That’s what I want to leave people with. If you’re going to bet on somebody, bet on you.

[00:54:43] Dennis: That’s so great. I love that question. What’s the worst thing that can happen? If you look, it’s not going to be that bad. It’s good. Everything you said, Nicole, with our kids and our family, one thing that I’ve gotten to look at over the last several years was probably about five years ago. I went to people that were on our staff and I said, “Look, it’s time to turn this over to you. I want you guys to take this on.” We have the most amazing team. Our administrator, quite a few of my lawyers before, I think, right? Nicole, I know you have as well. One of the things was she was the mom of one of my students. When I knew she was looking for some part-time work and I said, “Hey, why don’t you come on and do this?”

I went to her and I said, five years ago, I said, “Listen, I’m turning things over on the admin side to you and to Mr. H on the curriculum side.” They both were like, “But we don’t know how to do that.” I said, “I know, but that’s the point. I know that you don’t know how to do it, but that’s what we’re going to do.” I think that if I look and I think what’s the most rewarding thing I’ve seen is watching people start to develop themselves and discover things about themselves that they didn’t know about themselves.

Lourdes discovered this amazing entrepreneurial spirit that she had. It’s amazing because she’s coming to me now with ideas, and she’s looking at what’s possible. She’ll tell you, she goes, “I never thought this is what I’d be doing. I didn’t know this about myself.”

I think that is one of the most rewarding things because the same thing’s true in our curriculum, that kids come back and say, “Well, I didn’t know I could be good at math.” It’s overcoming those things so that people can move the ball forward, and they can discover something about themselves that they didn’t know. That’s the joy of this whole thing is really people discovering something possible that they didn’t think was possible. It just opens doors. I love that about what we get to do.

[00:56:48] Gretchen: Yes, absolutely. I want to thank you both for joining me today. I know we could carry on this conversation much longer than we have. I think if we’ve done nothing else, hopefully we have planted a seed. I’ve had the opportunity to have you all as guests separately, but this was a really special opportunity to have both of you together because the message that you all are delivering is so important. It’s not just starting a business. Nicole, you said it, it’s bet on yourself. That’s something that we as parents should be teaching our children to do, no matter what path or direction forward they’re going to go in. I thank you guys for delivering this message because I think it’s, particularly in this day and age, it is really needed. Our kids need to hear it. Our kids need to hear us articulate it.

[00:57:49] Dennis: Thank you for having us, Gretchen.

[00:57:52] Gretchen: Really great to have you all here. I want to thank our guests today for joining us. I want to thank you all for trusting us to come into your living rooms. We look forward to doing this on a regular basis. We’re so glad that you join us in this journey. Thanks, everyone. We appreciate your time and your patience with the ability to listen to us all talk today. Thanks so much, everyone.