Would you like to be your own boss?
Do you wish you could get back the hope and joy you had when you first started teaching?
Do you want the freedom to plan your own days?
Do you want to do work you love so much that you don't need mental health days?
Do you want to start and grow a business you believe in and the freedom that comes with being in charge?
This is exactly what reThink Your Lifestyle aims to do.
reThink Your Lifestyle offers coaching, courses, and free business tips to support beginning and experienced small business owners. You'll learn how to:
Teaching taught me to be a better business owner
The most important thing I learned as a teacher is that all the lesson planning, professional development, and interventions in the world aren’t going to matter if the student doesn’t buy in. So I have to start with the student. I have to ask them:
Unlike other business coaches and courses, or the dreaded day of professional development, reThink Your Lifestyle not about me or my program. It’s about helping you figure out what YOUR goals are. It's about how YOU can build the systems to reach those goals. It's about how YOU can be your own boss. It’s not just about throwing information at you, but helping your develop the confidence you need to use the relevant information and right tools to start and grow your business. You have gifts and talents, interests you’re passionate about — and a story. With confidence and the right tools, you can leverage those into a successful business and build the lifestyle YOU want.
I know how to start over because that's what I did — twice.
In 2021, I decided to leave my teaching job to be my own boss running my educational publishing company, finishing my education, and helping people rethink their lifestyles.
This is not the first time I’ve set new goals and recreated my life.
In 1999, I was a reporter for a newspaper covering an entire county when I found out I was pregnant with my son. I soon realized that I couldn’t be a great newspaper reporter and a great mom all at the same time. Even if I was okay letting someone else raise my child all day, what daycare was open from 2 to 10 p.m.? It occurred to me that any journalism graduate could fill my shoes at work; I was the only person on the planet who could be my son’s mom.
So I left my job to stay home.
After a year and trying to make friends in a new community, I started meeting other moms online. I learned how to post baby pictures in mom forums and started a blog to share some of my stories. But I realized I needed something more to do. I loved my son, but I was also afraid I'd lose everything I learned in college. My degree in journalism with minors in public relations and art was wasting away. At the same time, I realized several of my mom friends were starting businesses selling home-made baby products like cloth diapers and baby slings. One of my friends realized that I had a blog and asked me if I could set up a website so she could be her own boss and sell her cloth diapers.
So I taught myself HTML and CSS and learned how to setup websites so I could help my friend. Then a lightbulb went on over my head, and I realized I could earn money building websites for other moms! So I started my business, Watersweb Solutions, in 2002 and formed an LLC in 2004.
I researched how to build better ecommerce websites for product sellers, partnered with upstream providers to learn how to host websites myself, connected with other work at home moms and partnered with web designers to provide top notch services and support to my customers.
You can see some of my company's reviews here:
In 2009, I realized that I needed something different; I needed to get out of my office and serve a younger population. I thought that if I could convince young people that they could — and should! — write, if they decided to stretch their entrepreneurial wings, they would have a greater chance of being successful.
That's when I sold my company.
I used the income from the sale to help support my family while I worked on becoming an alternatively certified English teacher. I've got to admit: The first five years were rough. I may be an award-winning newspaper reporter. I may own an educational publishing company. But the majority of my middle and high school students don't like to write, and they especially loathe academic writing. It's not relevant to most their lives and the style of writing is excruciatingly boring to teenagers. (Or so I've been told!) The traditional ways I had been taught in honors English classes weren't working with students who planned to work in the oil fields after graduation. And I really hated reading most of what I assigned.
Here I am Teaching high school English in a pandemic. The awards on the wall are from Oklahoma Writing Project and the poster is one I created for reThink ELA. I am teaching an essay written by a former student as a mentor text for current students.
So I started searching for answers.
How could I made what I was teaching relevant to the students? How could I get them engaged in writing and reading. After attending the Oklahoma Writing Project Summer Institute to become a writing project teacher consultant, starting my National Board for Professional Teaching Standards journey, and working on my master's degree in Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum, I realized that all the theory and practices I'd learned lead to one general answer. Start with the students. What stories do they need to tell right now? What issues are important to them right now?
Here I am leading an In-Person teacher workshop in a small Oklahoma school for reThink ELA.
What does this have to do how to be your own boss?
My focus is on you. What do you need to start and grow your business right now? This is what I bring to my courses and coaching. You may already know the answer to that question. Or maybe you need me to listen to your story and help you see what you what you already have and what you need.
