The World's Oldest Profession
When your employer sent you home to work, did you take comfort that the mandate included the entire herd of co-workers and supervisors? That you weren’t the lone guinea pig?
For countless businesses, #WFH is the new normal, adopting what entrepreneurs leveraged years ago as the internet grew into the mainstream. Likewise, there’s an exodus from schools—even if you can’t see the caravan.
No homeschooling parent or student is a guinea pig.
Consider for a moment that homeschooling is really the world’s oldest profession—after hunting and gathering—learned from parents. In fact, should you decide to homeschool your children, they will be in stellar company:
▶ U.S. Presidents
George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James Polk, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, James Garfield, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
▶ Athletes
Bethany Hamilton – Professional surfer who lost her left arm to a shark attack then returned to professional surfing.
Bode Miller – The most successful male American alpine ski racer of all time.
Serena and Venus Williams – Multiple grand slam tennis champions and Olympic gold medalists.
Sage Katsenberg – Won the first-ever Olympic gold medal in men's snowboard slopestyle.
Blake Griffin – Professional basketball player (No. 1 overall draft pick).
Maria Yuryevna Sharapova – Former world No. 1 tennis player.
Michelle Kwan – Five-time figure skating world champion and winner of bronze and silver Olympic medals.
Simone Biles – Olympic gymnast, 4 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze medals.
▶Scientists & Inventors
Thomas Edison, George Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington, Oliver Heaviside, Erik Demaine, Albert Einstein, Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Alexander Graham Bell, Guglielmo Marconi.
▶Writers
Laura Ingalls Wilder, Beatrix Potter, C.S. Lewis, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Charles Dickens, Robert Frost, Hans Christian Anderson, Agatha Christie, Pearl Buck, Louisa May Alcott.
▶ Entrepreneurs
Amadeo Giannini – Bank of America’s founder
Horace Greeley – New York Tribune founder
Ray Kroc – Founder of McDonald’s
Joseph Pulitzer – Newspaper publisher; established Pulitzer Prize
Dave Thomas – Founder of the Wendy’s
J. Edgar Thomson – Chief engineer, Pennsylvania Railroad
Colonel Harland Sanders – Founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken
Bill Lear – The Lear Jet Corporation, manufacturer of business jets
David Karp – Founded Tumblr at the age of 20
Jan Koum – Founder of WhatsApp
Ron Wayone – Co-Founder of Apple
Kevin Systrom – CEO of Instagram
▶ Very cool
Condoleezza Rice, Susan B. Anthony, Mozart, Booker T. Washington, Clara Barton, Jonas Brothers, Justin Timberlake, Sandra Day O'Connor . . . and the list goes on.
The only guinea pig in your homeschool classroom is your student’s—perhaps the teacher’s—pet.
ICYMI – 7 more compelling reasons to homeschool.
TL;DR: From Albert Einstein to Serena Williams, homeschoolers rock. You got this!
If homeschooling has ever crossed your mind, you don’t have to sort it out alone.
👉 Let’s schedule a quick call to talk through your questions and options. And if you’d like to explore right now, check out my homeschooling articles HERE.
Because your child’s education isn’t an experiment—it’s a legacy.
HOMESCHOOLING: Haven or Havoc?
Your child's school years are precious and fleeting.
Now could be your best time to step up where your school is letting your child down. Let this series of myth-busting short chapters encourage you.
2 Major Mistakes
Which one will you make?
Which of these 2 retirement mistakes are you making right now? It's impossible to entirely avoid both mistakes.
You won't know for sure which mistake will work out better for you until it's too late.
How to choose?
Finding the Will
(Part 1)
Part 1: Have the will to arrange for a smooth transition when you’re no longer around to answer questions
Have the will to arrange for a smooth transition when you’re no longer around to answer questions (Part 1)
Ensuring your children or other Loved Ones can readily access your important papers when you die entails a sound process versus one or two conversations. You must overcome aversion to the subject of death, procrastination of anything that is long-term, and the tendency to assume things will be fine. Family dynamics can be sweet, spicy, or dicey.
Finding the Will
(Part 2)
Part 2: Getting Organized
While the internet permits convenient access to accounts, policies, and stored documents, it presents a plethora of password management problems. which too many people avoid by succumbing to password laziness, such as:
- re-using passwords for multiple logins, or
- use simple, easy to remember passwords, or
- writing them on sticky notes placed on their monitor or under their keyboard, or
- keeping them in a spreadsheet on their computer, or
- letting their browser remember passwords for them
Embrace Your Clarence
Is Clarence your future?
Golden insight from a golden retriever.
Post-Pandemic W.E.L.L.ness
Working, Earning, Learning, and Launching to Thrive
Where life drastically changed forever two years ago, everyone adjusted to the best of their abilities.
Here are a few of the key adjustments--"pandemic pivots"--that sustained some and prospered others.
Prenuptial Adulting
Equip Them for Happily Ever After
“Mom, Dad, we’re getting married!"
“Wonderful, congratulations! Here’s what you both need to do first.”
Equipping newlyweds with essentials of responsibility leaves plenty of life yet to be discovered on their own. Adults understand that love isn’t oogly feelings; it’s a hard choice. It’s putting your commitments and your money where your mouth is.
Many of the following steps also apply to one’s turning 18 years old. Becoming engaged adds urgency and a deadline.
Rethinking Competing Funds for College and Retirement
We live in a time of skyrocketing inflation topping decades of unbridled higher education costs.
Is the tension between funding your retirement and funding (at least partially) your children’s college education keeping you up at night?
You’re not alone.
Married? Is Your Endgame 100% or Just 50%?
Are you single? That other 50% could be whoever is most important to you.
Multiple unforgiving players factor into your retirement and estate plans (collectively your “endgame”). Household names include the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration, and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Key decisions with these players are nearly impossible to reverse. Plus, if you qualify for a pension, how you activate it is another irreversible decision.
Are you more of a planner than your spouse? It’s all too common for one spouse to blindly trust the planning spouse. Countless endgame “plans” were created by 50% of a couple:
