Episode #44 - Creating Content For Generations To Come: An Interview With Natalie Brobst

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Welcome to the podcast where relationships, confidence, and

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determination, all converge into an amazing, heartfelt experience.

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This is Speaking From The Heart.

Joshua: 00:00:11

Welcome back to episode number 44 of Speaking from the Heart.

Joshua: 00:00:14

Today we have Natalie Brobst who will be joining us, and she is the co-owner of

Joshua: 00:00:20

Nuggets of Wisdom in which is the company website that she has in which she and her

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business partner, Elizabeth, manage PDF and PowerPoint resources for individuals

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that like to submit creative content that is used in a Christian context.

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This company hires people that not only create that original content, but

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they upload it on the website, sell the content for them, and they receive a

Joshua: 00:00:47

cut of the profit that comes from it.

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Natalie has four kids and is also a homeschooling mom.

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She loves to teach multiple subjects, which include ASL or American Sign

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Language, which we get into quite extensively in this episode, the subject

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of math, which we talk about The Money Book in this episode, along with history

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and geography and many more subjects.

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this guest was somebody that was really inquisitive

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about not only the things that we can potentially learn, especially as children,

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but how we can continue to support each other even with all the different things

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that we have to abide by, whether those are rules and regulations, but having

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the free choice of being able to teach each other how to practice and how to

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become able to help our kids become the best versions of themselves is really

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the catalyst of what we start to learn at a young age, and I love the fact

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that she does embrace that with not only her Christianity, but also the

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ability to say what is the truth, which we talk about quite a lot of as well.

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I think that for anybody listening to this, keep an open mind to

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the fact that there are different ways of getting to your end goal.

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It is really more important about learning from those perspectives so

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that we can understand each other better, and at the same time, learn

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some quality educational tools.

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With that, let's go to the episode.

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All right.

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We're here with Natalie Brost.

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Natalie, thanks for sharing your heart with us today.

Natalie: 00:02:26

I am so excited to be here.

Natalie: 00:02:27

Thank you so much for having me.

Joshua: 00:02:29

Absolutely.

Joshua: 00:02:29

I'm so excited too.

Joshua: 00:02:30

I've just been fantasizing about your website because there's just so much

Joshua: 00:02:35

great stuff about it that as a business owner, I really have been interested

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in diving into because there's been a lot of things that I just thought,

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"Man, you are making such an impact", so I want to start off with this.

Joshua: 00:02:47

The audience already heard a lot about your business, about Nuggets of Wisdom.

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Tell us a little bit about how you got the company actually started,

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because I've been really curious.

Joshua: 00:02:56

It's a really awesome name because I've heard of that expression before, but

Joshua: 00:03:01

can you tell us a little bit about that?

Natalie: 00:03:03

Yeah.

Natalie: 00:03:03

Yeah, so I've been working with kids since pretty much I've been 13, 14 in

Natalie: 00:03:08

junior church and other places, and I went to college, got my education

Natalie: 00:03:13

degree, and I've been teaching sign language and other classes online.

Natalie: 00:03:17

I'm a substitute teacher for kindergarten through second grade

Natalie: 00:03:20

currently; just very part-time.

Natalie: 00:03:23

I will be teaching more full-time in the fall and then I also

Natalie: 00:03:26

homeschool three of my four children.

Natalie: 00:03:27

I'm actually probably taking on a couple more kids this fall,

Natalie: 00:03:30

so I have a nice little one room schoolhouse type feel to that.

Natalie: 00:03:33

Working with kids, I drove school bus for around six years;

Natalie: 00:03:37

six or seven, give or take.

Natalie: 00:03:39

It's just been interesting seeing the differences between the different

Natalie: 00:03:42

learning styles of children and not just from a private school versus

Natalie: 00:03:47

public school, but also homeschooling in that effect and just piecing it

Natalie: 00:03:51

apart to where Nuggets of Wisdom was a cohort effort between the other owner.

Natalie: 00:03:57

I'm a co-owner with Elizabeth McMahon.

Natalie: 00:03:59

She's the other owner of Nuggets of Wisdom, and we kind of

Natalie: 00:04:01

just thought, "You know what?

Natalie: 00:04:03

There's teachers pay teachers; there's education.com.

Natalie: 00:04:07

There's a lot of other websites that provide PDFs, but we are Christians",

Natalie: 00:04:11

and we decided if you want to offer Bible PDFs that are available, which

Natalie: 00:04:16

you can't really find a lot of for decent prices all the time, it's there.

Natalie: 00:04:21

We also are in contact with some other PDF sellers who are all other companies,

Natalie: 00:04:26

and so we hire people as contractors.

Natalie: 00:04:29

You don't necessarily have to have an education degree.

Natalie: 00:04:31

You can be a parent who's been homeschooling or teaching for

Natalie: 00:04:34

years and years and years and you create amazing content.

Natalie: 00:04:37

We have you sign a contract and then we put it on the website for you.

Joshua: 00:04:41

In other words, just so my audience understands, you make it a lot

Joshua: 00:04:44

easier for content creators to be able to publish and you manage all those facets?

Natalie: 00:04:49

Yeah, we actually put it on the website for them.

Joshua: 00:04:51

Cool.

Natalie: 00:04:52

And we do 90% of the work for them.

Natalie: 00:04:54

They create the content, they put it in a secure Google Drive that we connect

Natalie: 00:04:58

with, and then we have them double check when everything's done, make

Natalie: 00:05:01

sure the pictures are where they want them and everything, the descriptions

Natalie: 00:05:04

are correct, pricing is correct, but everyone sets their own prices,

Natalie: 00:05:07

and they promote their own products.

Joshua: 00:05:11

Now I know that you have four kids.

Natalie: 00:05:13

Yes.

Joshua: 00:05:13

And I'm just curious.

Joshua: 00:05:15

Yeah, first off, congratulations on that.

Joshua: 00:05:17

That's a handful for sure, and then being able to do this and all the things

Joshua: 00:05:21

that you said is really impeccable, so commend you and your husband for being

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able to do that and balance everything.

Joshua: 00:05:28

Do you have your kids use your stuff that you do?

Joshua: 00:05:31

Obviously, since I imagining since you homeschool them, you probably already

Joshua: 00:05:36

do, and do you find it that there's a difference between like how your

Joshua: 00:05:40

kids use it and maybe like other kids in some sense, like, guess what I'm

Joshua: 00:05:45

trying to get at is, where do you see where this is really making an impact?

Joshua: 00:05:51

Is it like a certain age group that is doing really well?

Joshua: 00:05:55

Is it all age groups?

Joshua: 00:05:56

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Natalie: 00:05:58

Yeah.

Natalie: 00:05:58

Actually my kids do go through some; not all of them.

Natalie: 00:06:02

It honestly depends on their learning needs, and I've worked with special

Natalie: 00:06:05

needs for a couple years, so I've really worked on the whole spectrum

Natalie: 00:06:08

of deaf and hard of hearing kids to kids that are wheelchair bound, to

Natalie: 00:06:13

kids that just need extra remedial help, and so I can offer these things.

Natalie: 00:06:17

For instance, cursive writing, there's a cursive writing workbook on that and

Natalie: 00:06:21

how many schools are not teaching cursive writing, and I know a lot of parents who

Natalie: 00:06:25

want that taught, and my kids do learn it.

Natalie: 00:06:28

My son, my oldest is 10, he learned it in kindergarten.

Natalie: 00:06:32

Now, he did go to private school for kindergarten, but first grade and on

Natalie: 00:06:35

last four years we've been homeschooling.

Natalie: 00:06:37

My daughter learned it last year; first and second grade.

Natalie: 00:06:40

She's a struggling learner and so my oldest is way ahead with school.

Natalie: 00:06:44

She's right where she needs to be.

Natalie: 00:06:46

That's great, so yeah, I do actually use, and depending on their needs,

Natalie: 00:06:49

for instance, the money workbook, is filled with activities that they

Natalie: 00:06:53

not only trace the coin, but it's a picture of a real coin, not a fake

Natalie: 00:06:58

plastic coin that you might find in a place because it's not realistic.

Natalie: 00:07:02

Kids need that realistic view because it's not only tactile

Natalie: 00:07:05

you're combining with, but you're listening to, "Oh, this is a nickel.

Natalie: 00:07:08

Nickels are worth five."

Natalie: 00:07:09

There's counting activities in there; count by fives up to a

Natalie: 00:07:12

hundred, which would be a dollar, and then at the very end of that

Natalie: 00:07:16

workbook, it's about 20, 25 pages.

Natalie: 00:07:18

It has a assessment to see how much they learn and what you need to still

Natalie: 00:07:23

work on with them, so that way you can evaluate yourself, "Is my kid learning?",

Natalie: 00:07:26

because I know some schools don't teach that until certain grade levels,

Natalie: 00:07:31

and so it honestly depends on your child because every child's different.

Natalie: 00:07:34

I can't give specific, like, every child should know this at

Natalie: 00:07:36

this age, unless you're an adult.

Natalie: 00:07:39

By then you should be learning things.

Natalie: 00:07:41

On our website, we pretty much have preschool, three year

Natalie: 00:07:45

old up to about eighth grade.

Natalie: 00:07:46

We don't really have a lot.

Natalie: 00:07:48

We have a couple things for high school, mid- upper middle school, but then we

Natalie: 00:07:51

do have some adult things like financial planners, which are really important;

Natalie: 00:07:55

budgeting planners, and undated garden planners, especially if you do a lot

Natalie: 00:07:59

of gardening and it's a hundred and I think it's 12 pages, 113 pages, and

Natalie: 00:08:04

it's undated, so you can use it year after year, so you're not having to

Natalie: 00:08:06

keep buying something every single time.

Joshua: 00:08:10

That's really cool because I know that a lot of people get concerned about,

Joshua: 00:08:13

"Well, do I have to keep paying for it over and over again, and most families

Joshua: 00:08:18

thinking about what kinds of activities they can do, especially when it comes to

Joshua: 00:08:23

continuously learning, even outside of an organized school setting, it's really

Joshua: 00:08:28

impactful to have that, and I have to tell you; I didn't even share this with you.

Joshua: 00:08:32

I had a lot of learning disabilities growing up, even with reading and

Joshua: 00:08:36

math and even speech, and most of my listeners have heard that.

Joshua: 00:08:40

They have even commented on, "Well, your syllables drop off here.

Joshua: 00:08:43

You could actually stop and maybe fix that a little bit.

Joshua: 00:08:46

It's just a grammar thing.", and I've said, "It's all about really our dynamic

Joshua: 00:08:51

or how we learn", and also I'm always learning to adapt to that which actually

Joshua: 00:08:57

leads me into this question because we just emerged, a few months ago, out

Joshua: 00:09:02

of the COVID 19 pandemic officially, right, and all I hear anymore is

Joshua: 00:09:07

about how kids are being left behind, and about 20 years ago, George W.

Joshua: 00:09:12

Bush signed, and I remember back in the day, the teachers

Joshua: 00:09:15

absolutely just lambasting that-

Natalie: 00:09:18

Yes.

Joshua: 00:09:18

Law, and how that really didn't help anybody catch up.

Natalie: 00:09:22

No, it doesn't.

Joshua: 00:09:22

So, yeah.

Joshua: 00:09:23

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:09:24

Absolutely, so, do you feel that there's a crisis when it comes to not

Joshua: 00:09:30

only learning for kids, especially some of the things that you covered

Joshua: 00:09:34

here, because I was literally thinking of financial literacy, things of that

Joshua: 00:09:37

nature, and if so, what do you think your company is doing to actually change

Joshua: 00:09:43

that, because I think you're doing some work, but I'm kind of curious

Joshua: 00:09:45

what your thought process is with that.

Natalie: 00:09:48

Yeah, so first thing to point out is that we're not a curriculum company.

Joshua: 00:09:52

Sure.

Natalie: 00:09:52

It's more a supplemental if your child needs extra help with something like

Natalie: 00:09:56

the Money Workbook, history, geography.

Natalie: 00:09:59

I created a couple workbooks; ones on Australia, and if you do a country

Natalie: 00:10:03

study for geography for one year, but it covers information, reports, animals,

Natalie: 00:10:08

money, songs, recipes, national anthem, and a lot more; 64 pages, and so by

Natalie: 00:10:13

the time you're done studying this, you will know all about Australia,

Natalie: 00:10:17

their national anthem, what Waltzing Matilda is, which I love that song.

Natalie: 00:10:23

That song is absolutely amazing, and because we are more supplemental,

Natalie: 00:10:27

it is a good way to help people fill in the gaps with learning,

Natalie: 00:10:32

especially if a student is struggling.

Natalie: 00:10:33

For instance, I know a lot of kids that read Flat Stanley, and so we have

Natalie: 00:10:37

a unit study on Flat Stanley that a child can read and work through for

Natalie: 00:10:41

reading comprehension help and for dictation and for a lot of things, but

Natalie: 00:10:46

a lot of parents don't understand how most formal education shouldn't even

Natalie: 00:10:50

really begin until about six years old.

Natalie: 00:10:53

I know a lot of parents that want to force their kids in at three years old.

Natalie: 00:10:56

What can we do for school?

Natalie: 00:10:58

My mom motto for homeschooling is: "Let the children play", because how

Natalie: 00:11:03

much does a child learn by playing versus trying to make them right

Natalie: 00:11:06

when their hands are not even big enough to hold a pencil correctly?

Natalie: 00:11:10

We're forcing these ideas and ideologies that, it took me as an educator, it took

Natalie: 00:11:15

me at least two years to start thinking outside of the box of education, and

Natalie: 00:11:20

what we were forced through in school, I mean, I was not homeschooled, so this

Natalie: 00:11:25

is a whole new topic for me to where I have to think outside the box with

Natalie: 00:11:29

my educational purview from having a degree in education has completely

Natalie: 00:11:34

changed the way that I view how I train my kids, how I teach them things.

Natalie: 00:11:39

My husband was in the cooking industry for 20 years almost, and my eight-year

Natalie: 00:11:43

old, who is my struggling learner, she knows how to make spaghetti

Natalie: 00:11:47

by herself from start to finish.

Natalie: 00:11:49

She knows how to make homemade macaroni and cheese by herself, you know, things

Natalie: 00:11:52

that are simple, but enough to where a lot of adults can't even boil water.

Joshua: 00:11:57

Well, yeah.

Joshua: 00:11:57

And they burn the boiling water too, right?

Natalie: 00:12:00

Wait, how do you do this?

Natalie: 00:12:01

It's a shame because I do not appreciate what George Bush signed, because the

Natalie: 00:12:06

district I specifically live in on the niche website, niche.com, it ranks

Natalie: 00:12:12

the schools from best to worst, and let me just tell you, the graduation

Natalie: 00:12:16

rate for mathematics, I think is 6%.

Joshua: 00:12:18

Mm-hmm.

Natalie: 00:12:19

21% for language arts; that's not good.

Natalie: 00:12:24

The math used to be 7%.

Natalie: 00:12:26

It's down to 6% now.

Joshua: 00:12:28

Wow.

Natalie: 00:12:28

Because as a teacher, I can tell you right now, that

Natalie: 00:12:31

educators are not allowed to teach the way it was back 50 years ago.

Natalie: 00:12:37

Once certain laws and rules changed, teachers are not allowed to teach

Natalie: 00:12:40

the way they want to because you have to get testing done, you have to get

Natalie: 00:12:44

testing done, you have to train to test.

Natalie: 00:12:48

All those other facts and important things like the Constitution and

Natalie: 00:12:52

the Declaration of Independence that actually matter, which keeps us free

Natalie: 00:12:56

as citizens of the United States, they're not teaching that anymore.

Natalie: 00:13:00

Most people can't tell you what states are 50 states.

Natalie: 00:13:04

They call them countries or continents.

Natalie: 00:13:07

They'll name a country like Africa, for instance.

Natalie: 00:13:09

I can't tell you how many times I've heard people talking

Natalie: 00:13:12

about calling Africa a country.

Natalie: 00:13:15

I'm like, no, not quite.

Natalie: 00:13:18

There's 52 or 56 countries within Africa, and these kids have no idea, and to help

Natalie: 00:13:23

that along, there's a 50 states activity research book that we have on the website

Natalie: 00:13:27

that, what they can do, summer activity.

Natalie: 00:13:30

If you're traveling, it's a great way.

Natalie: 00:13:32

It's blank.

Natalie: 00:13:33

There's little cute shapes where they can fill in facts about each state.

Natalie: 00:13:38

There's a picture of the state that's colored in.

Natalie: 00:13:41

It's blank; doesn't name may say except for the state, but it points

Natalie: 00:13:44

where the capital is, and then they get to draw or color in or put picture

Natalie: 00:13:48

of the state flag on that page.

Natalie: 00:13:50

They can learn about just a little bit about each state, and then

Natalie: 00:13:53

they can know the 50 states.

Joshua: 00:13:56

I am loving what you're talking about because it's so wide

Joshua: 00:13:59

spectrum, like you said, because there are so many different things

Joshua: 00:14:03

that, as a kid, we growing up, you and I definitely had those advantages

Joshua: 00:14:08

of being able to be taught all those different things, and actually picked

Joshua: 00:14:12

up earlier about you saying cursive.

Joshua: 00:14:14

I remember having to write those cursive letters, practice them over and over

Joshua: 00:14:18

again, trace them out on a piece of paper that was for that type sort of thing,

Joshua: 00:14:24

and I always think of Billy Madison.

Joshua: 00:14:26

I don't know if anybody's a fan.

Joshua: 00:14:28

I don't know if you've watched the movie yourself, but with Adam Sandler,

Joshua: 00:14:31

he's up in third grade and he has to go write the word Rizzuto and he

Joshua: 00:14:35

doesn't know how to do the letter Z, like, that's what I think of people-

Natalie: 00:14:38

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:14:38

When they are talking about cursive because they don't know how

Joshua: 00:14:42

those shapes are, and, I have to point out to you, I have to commend

Joshua: 00:14:46

you because I fell across this as I was scrolling through it too.

Joshua: 00:14:49

There was somebody that has something called the Bigger and Better

Joshua: 00:14:52

Speaking and Debate Extension Game.

Joshua: 00:14:54

As a Toastmaster, which my audience clearly knows I love so much because

Joshua: 00:14:59

I've had many guests that have that background, thank you for having

Joshua: 00:15:02

something about public speaking because I can't tell you how important

Joshua: 00:15:05

that is, especially even for me.

Natalie: 00:15:07

Yeah, so that's Melissa.

Natalie: 00:15:08

She actually lives, I believe, in Peru.

Natalie: 00:15:11

She lives in a different country, and she actually has Spanish versions and

Natalie: 00:15:15

English versions of those activities, and she is a phenomenal content creator.

Natalie: 00:15:20

I absolutely love her material.

Natalie: 00:15:22

I haven't had a chance to use them yet, but being the owner and putting them

Natalie: 00:15:25

on the website, I browsed everything before I put it on because it's

Natalie: 00:15:27

fun and I don't use it on my own.

Natalie: 00:15:30

I make sure I buy it or whatever to make sure they get the income

Natalie: 00:15:33

with that and everything, but, I completely agree; debate, logic,

Natalie: 00:15:37

that's been thrown out the window.

Joshua: 00:15:39

Yeah.

Natalie: 00:15:40

People, if you don't agree with somebody, something someone

Natalie: 00:15:42

says, you're getting named called.

Joshua: 00:15:44

It's funny because I've had a guest that actually talked about that too.

Joshua: 00:15:47

They didn't care anymore that people were just bashing them because,

Joshua: 00:15:51

really, it was just an opinion.

Joshua: 00:15:52

It wasn't trying to make a statement or inject that into someone's life, but to

Joshua: 00:15:56

just have an opinion and, you're right, there's a lot of that and I even have

Joshua: 00:16:00

said to many people on this show, it's all about understanding that diverse

Joshua: 00:16:04

viewpoint, because in order for us to have a great conversation, we need to

Joshua: 00:16:08

be able to understand both sides of it-

Natalie: 00:16:10

Exactly.

Joshua: 00:16:10

And be able to articulate that, so I commend Melissa and Peru and all

Joshua: 00:16:15

the content creators for your website.

Joshua: 00:16:17

This is going to be a very hard question for you.

Joshua: 00:16:20

Out of all these things that are on your website, what do you think is the

Joshua: 00:16:22

most favorite thing that you have on there that someone has created or maybe

Joshua: 00:16:26

you haven't even created that you can share with us, and I'll say this as

Joshua: 00:16:31

you're looking it up real quick too.

Joshua: 00:16:32

I'll give you a moment, but, for all those that are already interested.

Joshua: 00:16:35

I will have this in the episode notes to go check it out because it is the

Joshua: 00:16:38

site that Natalie and her co-owner Elizabeth have, so I will be making

Joshua: 00:16:43

sure that you can view all this as well, but sorry, Natalie, go ahead.

Joshua: 00:16:47

I know you have it ready.

Natalie: 00:16:48

No, that's fine, so I would have to absolutely say the most viewed

Natalie: 00:16:52

product we have and the most purchased product we have is the ASL ABC alphabet

Natalie: 00:16:57

tracing book, and the reason being I started learning sign language.

Natalie: 00:17:01

My college actually required it for four year majors for the girls

Natalie: 00:17:05

and was a private college, and let's just say that it taught me so

Natalie: 00:17:10

much learning sign language as an interpreter, and then I went on to work

Natalie: 00:17:16

at a deaf and hard of hearing camp.

Natalie: 00:17:19

That was life changing.

Joshua: 00:17:21

Yeah.

Natalie: 00:17:21

We had a group from The Bahamas that was there that summer and

Natalie: 00:17:25

I learned some Bohemian sign language.

Natalie: 00:17:27

It was absolutely phenomenal.

Natalie: 00:17:28

They're more what's called English word for word.

Natalie: 00:17:31

They do more as we would talk instead of the syntax being

Natalie: 00:17:35

different with sign language.

Natalie: 00:17:36

It has its own grammatical structure.

Natalie: 00:17:38

It is not like English, and I will say, I hate the term baby

Natalie: 00:17:41

signs, because it's sign language.

Natalie: 00:17:43

It's not baby German or baby Italian or baby Russian.

Natalie: 00:17:46

We don't use it with any other language, but sign language, and why is that?

Natalie: 00:17:48

There's no need for it.

Joshua: 00:17:50

Yeah.

Natalie: 00:17:50

Just throwing that out there.

Natalie: 00:17:51

That's just one of my pet peeves as an interpreter and someone who's been doing

Natalie: 00:17:55

sign language for a very long time.

Natalie: 00:17:57

The one thing, I looked on Amazon, I looked on just typing in Google, other

Natalie: 00:18:03

places, and I use real people hands.

Natalie: 00:18:06

Not cartoon hands, and the reason why is because children need

Natalie: 00:18:11

to see real things like money.

Natalie: 00:18:13

We talked about cooking.

Natalie: 00:18:16

You can have a picture of a wooden spoon all day long, but until

Natalie: 00:18:19

you see it actually being used correctly in a real life situation,

Natalie: 00:18:22

what good is it all the time?

Natalie: 00:18:24

It really doesn't explain what this wooden spoon is going to do, or a

Natalie: 00:18:27

masher, or whatever it is you're talking about or trying to explain.

Natalie: 00:18:31

It's not out there mathematical concept where it's a physical visual

Natalie: 00:18:37

thing that you need to see, and so, yeah, I use real people hands and

Natalie: 00:18:41

so there are four pages per letter.

Natalie: 00:18:44

The first page is a picture of the handshake.

Natalie: 00:18:47

The letter being signed with the capital upper and lowercase letter beside it in

Natalie: 00:18:51

print, and then they get to trace it.

Natalie: 00:18:54

Then the second page, they actually spell short vowel.

Natalie: 00:18:56

I tried to keep a short vowel words because, if you're learning sign language,

Natalie: 00:18:59

it's a whole language to begin with.

Natalie: 00:19:01

I'm not going to try and do long vowel short vowels all mixed together,

Natalie: 00:19:04

because these are kids that are probably going to be doing this, so they can

Natalie: 00:19:08

trace the short vow, like for a, we have at, ant, add and and, so they

Natalie: 00:19:13

repeat a lot of the same letters that they see over and over again as well.

Natalie: 00:19:17

The third page then is they circle out of three options, which letter

Natalie: 00:19:21

is correct and it has a letter beside it so they can see it.

Natalie: 00:19:24

More tracing, and then the final page is tracing some words so it's not just sign

Natalie: 00:19:30

language, but it also includes ELA or language and whatnot for those skills, for

Natalie: 00:19:35

learning how to hold a pencil correctly and learning how to do those things.

Joshua: 00:19:39

Is there a certain subject on your website that you wish you had more content

Joshua: 00:19:42

creators to provide material about?

Joshua: 00:19:45

I'm kind of curious if you are seeing maybe having more options for a certain

Joshua: 00:19:50

sort of subject matter, because I know that you have a very diverse set of those.

Natalie: 00:19:55

Right.

Natalie: 00:19:55

Now we are Christian based, but math is math.

Natalie: 00:19:58

I don't expect someone to Christianize Math.

Natalie: 00:20:00

One plus one is two, so it doesn't have to be all Christian,

Natalie: 00:20:03

this or that, and that's fine.

Natalie: 00:20:04

I completely understand.

Natalie: 00:20:05

I will say high school material, we don't have any content creators

Natalie: 00:20:09

for really high school material.

Natalie: 00:20:10

I do have a Christian history timeline, which is more of a year-long project

Natalie: 00:20:15

that the student has to not only cut out the different facts in history,

Natalie: 00:20:20

they have to look up when they happened, and then they also have to paste it and

Natalie: 00:20:24

write in the date of when it happened.

Natalie: 00:20:26

It's not just all Christian history, it's also about Nero burning Rome,

Natalie: 00:20:30

historical facts that happened in history.

Natalie: 00:20:32

They talk about more than just Christian based facts, and then also too, I

Natalie: 00:20:37

would love it, this is a weird thing.

Natalie: 00:20:40

I think one of my things that I've been hoping for secretly is that because

Natalie: 00:20:45

we are Christian based, having people who have been in ministry for a very

Natalie: 00:20:49

long time create material for high schoolers and adults on what is the

Natalie: 00:20:56

reality of being a pastor or a minister, because it's not all peaches and roses.

Joshua: 00:21:03

Yeah.

Natalie: 00:21:03

I can tell you, I grew up as a deacons kid.

Natalie: 00:21:05

I was in church my whole life pretty much, and I can tell you, pastors

Natalie: 00:21:10

aren't just there just for money.

Natalie: 00:21:12

They're not in it for the money.

Natalie: 00:21:13

A lot of pastors I know don't make hardly anything.

Natalie: 00:21:16

They're not in it for the money.

Natalie: 00:21:17

They're there because they love people and they're there to help people, and there's

Natalie: 00:21:21

a lot of friends I have that started out wanting to be a pastor or in ministry of

Natalie: 00:21:26

some way, and they're not doing anything remotely close to that, and that's fine.

Natalie: 00:21:30

My husband was in the food industry for 20 years.

Natalie: 00:21:32

He's not a pastor, but that's fine.

Natalie: 00:21:35

We need good cooks.

Joshua: 00:21:37

Yeah.

Natalie: 00:21:37

You know, and stuff, and I don't know.

Natalie: 00:21:39

It's just something that's been on my heart, I guess, for a long time

Natalie: 00:21:43

that because I know that people have a skewed view sometimes of religion,

Natalie: 00:21:48

and I understand why, because of all the pedophile reports and all the

Natalie: 00:21:52

pastors getting arrested for sexual scandals and, yeah, rightfully so.

Natalie: 00:21:55

They should be in jail.

Natalie: 00:21:56

I don't applaud that at all.

Natalie: 00:21:57

It's horrendous and horrific and yeah, they should be in jail.

Joshua: 00:22:01

I was going to say that I know that that's been a big crisis within the

Joshua: 00:22:05

last two decades, just all these scandals being unearthed and my heart does go out

Joshua: 00:22:10

to all the families that have that, or any of my listeners that have known somebody.

Joshua: 00:22:14

I definitely have sympathies for that too, but it definitely has painted a

Joshua: 00:22:18

picture of organized religion as being this sort of toxic environment, and

Joshua: 00:22:25

I think you're right is that we need to have more self-awareness when it

Joshua: 00:22:28

comes to understanding that with not only the materials that we provide-

Natalie: 00:22:33

mm-hmm.

Joshua: 00:22:33

But the education of it, which is why I love that you provide this

Joshua: 00:22:38

sort of service to help others, which leads me into my question because

Joshua: 00:22:42

you definitely have talked a lot about the Christianity aspect and

Joshua: 00:22:45

we haven't really dug into that yet.

Joshua: 00:22:47

Has that been something that, especially growing up, as you mentioned

Joshua: 00:22:51

with your father being a pastor.

Joshua: 00:22:53

I said that correct?

Natalie: 00:22:54

Correct.

Natalie: 00:22:54

He's a deacon.

Joshua: 00:22:55

He was a deacon.

Joshua: 00:22:56

Okay.

Natalie: 00:22:56

Yeah.

Natalie: 00:22:56

Ministry type stuff.

Natalie: 00:22:57

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:22:57

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:22:58

Thank you for correcting me because I wanted to make sure I had that right,

Joshua: 00:23:01

but being a deacon, do you see that there is a struggle even nowadays with people

Joshua: 00:23:07

finding their identity, whether that is outside of religion, within religion?

Joshua: 00:23:12

Do you think that you have an indirect effect by having these materials out

Joshua: 00:23:16

there with maybe bringing some awareness, because I find your story unique in

Joshua: 00:23:21

that you have this focus, along for your business partner, to kind of

Joshua: 00:23:25

move this quote unquote conversation along where you could easily go into

Joshua: 00:23:29

really anything with sharing that type of content, so why do this?

Joshua: 00:23:34

Why with Christianity, because, and I'm not asking you to debate the merits,

Joshua: 00:23:38

because we'll be here for hours, but, but I'm kind of curious what you think

Joshua: 00:23:42

because I know that everybody has a different story when it comes to how

Joshua: 00:23:46

they got to be, and I've had authors on here that have talked about that

Joshua: 00:23:49

experience, kind of curious about yours.

Natalie: 00:23:52

As a Christian, people don't always understand.

Natalie: 00:23:57

They base Christianity off of things they've heard.

Natalie: 00:24:00

And one problem with society today that I've learned and seen and heard

Natalie: 00:24:06

time and time again is, "I haven't ever read the Bible for myself.

Natalie: 00:24:11

I'm going off hearsay."

Natalie: 00:24:13

Now, if for instance, you were to apply that to a judge in a courtroom

Natalie: 00:24:21

and it's hearsay, what happens?

Joshua: 00:24:23

It gets thrown out.

Natalie: 00:24:24

Exactly, so if you're only going by hearsay when you haven't

Natalie: 00:24:28

actually taken the time yourself to read through the Bible and learning what

Natalie: 00:24:33

it says, I can't do anything for you.

Natalie: 00:24:35

That's not my job.

Natalie: 00:24:36

My job is just to talk about what the Bible says, and yes,

Natalie: 00:24:40

the Bible was meant to convict.

Natalie: 00:24:42

There are things in it that I don't always like what it says, but it's there because

Natalie: 00:24:48

God wrote it for us to learn about and to realize and a lot of people don't

Natalie: 00:24:53

realize that a lot of laws we have are based out of the Book of Proverbs in the

Natalie: 00:24:59

Old Testament and the things that people talk about, I'm like, "Oh, the book of

Natalie: 00:25:02

Proverbs says that", and people don't realize that we've said it throughout

Natalie: 00:25:06

history by Christians and non-Christians, but it's actually in the Bible.

Joshua: 00:25:12

Yeah.

Natalie: 00:25:12

And the laws we follow and stuff, and so people have asked me like,

Natalie: 00:25:16

"Do you believe on this specific topic", I'm not going to name any specific topic

Natalie: 00:25:19

because they're so a plethora, and it also comes down to which group you're in

Natalie: 00:25:24

as far as doctrinally because you have Catholic, you have Christian, you have

Natalie: 00:25:28

Catholics who say they're Christians, you have Mormons, and the list goes on

Natalie: 00:25:32

and on and on and on, and so pretty much our standards are, "Is it in the Bible?

Natalie: 00:25:38

What does the Bible say about this?", and if it goes against the Bible,

Natalie: 00:25:42

then we won't allow it on our website.

Natalie: 00:25:45

It's just very simple because we believe that the Bible is our

Natalie: 00:25:48

final authority, and that's what we preach from the very beginning.

Natalie: 00:25:52

I'm not a pastor by any means, but that's what we have said from the very beginning.

Natalie: 00:25:56

We do some interviews sometimes if they want to just to get to know us

Natalie: 00:25:59

better before we hire people and stuff.

Natalie: 00:26:02

It is more unique than, say, Teachers Pay Teachers where they hire anybody.

Natalie: 00:26:06

We like to make sure that you can write about math PDFs.

Natalie: 00:26:09

You see our website, it's very diverse, it's not all Christian based because

Natalie: 00:26:13

not all learning is Christian based, but at the same time, our focus is

Natalie: 00:26:17

more towards allowing people who are religious to be able to create content

Natalie: 00:26:21

to put on our website to allow them to do that, because a lot of people

Natalie: 00:26:24

snub at that and don't like it, and don't want it, and that's fine.

Natalie: 00:26:28

That's their view; that's their capability of logically being able

Natalie: 00:26:32

to decide, "I don't want that."

Natalie: 00:26:34

"Okay, fine.

Natalie: 00:26:35

This is what we're doing."

Joshua: 00:26:37

Yeah, and believe it or not, there are clients that I have even

Joshua: 00:26:41

through my business that sometimes have had that drilled into their head and now

Joshua: 00:26:46

I have to undrill whatever nail, screw was put in because it was, it might not

Joshua: 00:26:52

been just religion, it could have been any plethora of sort of issue, so I

Joshua: 00:26:56

have to take a step back and ask them, "Well, what makes you believe that?

Joshua: 00:27:00

Is that something that is true?

Joshua: 00:27:01

Is that something that makes up you and who you are?", and first off, I

Joshua: 00:27:05

want to say thank you for sharing that, because it is very brave in 2023 to

Joshua: 00:27:10

be sharing those sort of things, and I know that that seems really crazy to

Joshua: 00:27:15

say, because even for me to say it out loud, I'm shaking my head as I'm saying

Joshua: 00:27:19

it because, I think it is about, and kind of like we said earlier about the

Joshua: 00:27:23

public speaking when I pointed that out-

Natalie: 00:27:25

Right.

Joshua: 00:27:25

It's really important to be able to have that, and I always have believed,

Joshua: 00:27:28

even with this podcast, to have that sort of opportunity for dialogue so that we

Joshua: 00:27:33

can continue to have that conversation.

Natalie: 00:27:35

One question I always ask people is, "What are you afraid of?"

Natalie: 00:27:38

If you bash the Bible, but you've never read it for yourself,

Natalie: 00:27:41

what's your reasoning behind it?

Joshua: 00:27:42

Right.

Natalie: 00:27:43

Why won't you read it?

Natalie: 00:27:45

Are you afraid it's going to change your life for the better?

Natalie: 00:27:48

It just makes you think, because I know people bash the Bible all the time.

Natalie: 00:27:50

I can't tell you how many times I've heard, and that's fine.

Natalie: 00:27:52

I can't change your life.

Natalie: 00:27:54

I can't make you change.

Natalie: 00:27:56

You have to decide to do it on your own bike.

Natalie: 00:27:57

You study it yourself, so when people start to bash the Bible, say, look until

Natalie: 00:28:02

you've read it yourself, then come back and talk to me, because you can't prove

Natalie: 00:28:08

facts until you've done it yourself.

Natalie: 00:28:10

You have to study facts.

Natalie: 00:28:11

That's what science is, right?

Joshua: 00:28:13

Yes.

Natalie: 00:28:13

Hypothesis, and the end product.

Natalie: 00:28:16

What do you do?

Natalie: 00:28:17

You provide facts, not theories, facts.

Natalie: 00:28:21

People say the Bible's a bunch of archeologists, my husband actually knows

Natalie: 00:28:24

a guy who found Sodom and Gomorrah, bits of pieces, archeological digs from

Natalie: 00:28:30

Sodom and Gomorrah that actually exist proving that did happen, and there are

Natalie: 00:28:36

other archeological events that have happened that archeologists have found.

Natalie: 00:28:40

Are you going to say they're lying?

Natalie: 00:28:42

I'm not in this for debate, but you know what I'm saying, it's just, it's

Natalie: 00:28:44

crazy that if you say the Bible's wrong then you're saying archeologists who

Natalie: 00:28:48

have found to prove the Bible's true are also wrong, but yet they found this

Natalie: 00:28:52

stuff, so who's right, and who's wrong?

Joshua: 00:28:56

It's always been about who is right and who is wrong.

Natalie: 00:28:59

Right.

Joshua: 00:28:59

That's been the testament for all of civilization because we have

Joshua: 00:29:03

fought wars and things of that nature over such silly things sometimes too.

Natalie: 00:29:08

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:29:08

And even in, if you want to call even social media the modern

Joshua: 00:29:13

warfare, sure, we could, but I think it's really about and I love

Joshua: 00:29:17

the fact that you're doing this for your company to kind of take it

Joshua: 00:29:20

back to that, to the original point-

Natalie: 00:29:22

Mm-hmm.

Joshua: 00:29:22

Because it's really about being able to have that access.

Joshua: 00:29:26

As we're getting close to the end of time, I have one last question for you,

Joshua: 00:29:29

Natalie, because I really appreciate our conversation because of just how

Joshua: 00:29:33

open you have been with me and just hearing this, it really refreshes

Joshua: 00:29:37

me to kind of think about myself.

Joshua: 00:29:39

What are some ways that I can put this into practice, even with some of the

Joshua: 00:29:42

things that you do, and maybe one day I'll have some resources that I can put

Joshua: 00:29:45

on there on your website from my business.

Joshua: 00:29:47

Yeah, but my question is this.

Joshua: 00:29:51

You've been doing this for a while now, I would say.

Joshua: 00:29:54

How many years have you been doing it by the way?

Natalie: 00:29:56

We actually opened November 22nd of 2022.

Joshua: 00:29:59

Okay, so that's a while from me because I've been open less, so we're

Joshua: 00:30:02

going to go with that as my definition.

Joshua: 00:30:05

You almost approaching a year.

Joshua: 00:30:08

We're pretty much on the eve of that as we're getting ready to enter in November.

Joshua: 00:30:13

Do you think that there is an opportunity here to not only expand our knowledge

Joshua: 00:30:21

when it comes to some of the things that we're challenged with today, but more

Joshua: 00:30:26

importantly, and to get more specific with this question, do you think that our

Joshua: 00:30:30

children will ever be equipped, especially with the way things are going, to be able

Joshua: 00:30:35

to help improve the quality of their life?

Joshua: 00:30:39

Improve the things that they can learn?

Joshua: 00:30:42

Do you think that there's hope for that, because sometimes I think people want

Joshua: 00:30:46

to say, "Well, there probably really isn't any hope", but I think your

Joshua: 00:30:49

business actually says, "Yes, absolutely, by providing this sort of stuff."

Natalie: 00:30:54

I am not here to bash public schools by any means, but I

Natalie: 00:30:58

can tell you, people ask me all the time: how do your kids socialize?

Natalie: 00:31:01

That's the big question, and if you're a homeschooling parent, you've heard

Natalie: 00:31:05

it, you're probably laughing right now listening to this because you know it's

Natalie: 00:31:07

true and, yes, we go to the grocery store, we go to the doctor's office,

Natalie: 00:31:13

we go to church, we go to the gym.

Natalie: 00:31:15

My daughters takes Tae Kwon Do, so yes, my children are socialized.

Natalie: 00:31:19

I don't understand how children can sit in a classroom when there's a list

of rules saying: 00:31:22

sit quietly, don't look at your neighbor, eat your lunch

of rules saying: 00:31:26

quickly and quietly so the next group can come in, stand in line quietly.

of rules saying: 00:31:31

That's not socialization; that's what prisons do.

of rules saying: 00:31:35

Forgive me for being blunt.

of rules saying: 00:31:36

My mom worked in a prison.

Joshua: 00:31:37

Yeah.

Natalie: 00:31:38

That's what prisons do.

Joshua: 00:31:39

My dad had a brief stint at a prison himself working there, that

Joshua: 00:31:42

is, not being a prisoner, but working there, so I know what you're saying.

Natalie: 00:31:46

As a homeschooling parent, it breaks my heart.

Natalie: 00:31:48

It really does, and I realize that it is not for everyone.

Natalie: 00:31:52

Every child is different like we've talked about their styles

Natalie: 00:31:55

of learning are all different.

Natalie: 00:31:57

I feel like public schools need to take a step back and look at the failed

Natalie: 00:32:02

amount of kids being pushed through this government system and looking at why so

Natalie: 00:32:07

many thousands and thousands of parents are leaving the public school system.

Natalie: 00:32:11

There's a school district near here, up north of us, that is actually

Natalie: 00:32:17

closing their elementary school because they have lost that many students.

Joshua: 00:32:21

Oh my gosh and I don't think I even heard about that.

Joshua: 00:32:24

You can tell me later.

Natalie: 00:32:25

There are that many students that are now homeschooling and

Natalie: 00:32:28

doing charter schools and people ask me, "What's the difference?"

Natalie: 00:32:31

The people call cyber schooling and home and public charter school, but

Natalie: 00:32:35

we don't get government assistance.

Natalie: 00:32:37

We get 0%, zero, nothing from the government, so we pay thousands of dollars

Natalie: 00:32:41

out of our own pockets for curriculum that we want to use to teach our own

Natalie: 00:32:45

children, and cyber schools, I've helped-

Joshua: 00:32:49

All ages in all groups-

Natalie: 00:32:50

All the school, whatever it is, I don't care who you are.

Natalie: 00:32:52

If you need help with your child and with their learning and figuring out

Natalie: 00:32:55

their style of learning, because if a textbook's not working, there's

Natalie: 00:32:59

a lot of other options out there.

Natalie: 00:33:01

Please utilize them.

Natalie: 00:33:02

Help your children get to know your kids.

Natalie: 00:33:05

It breaks my heart hearing parents say, I can't stand my kids during the summer.

Natalie: 00:33:09

I'm with them 24/ 7.

Natalie: 00:33:11

It's kind of funny to laugh at.

Natalie: 00:33:13

Do you really hate your kids that much, like, what?

Natalie: 00:33:15

Please, no.

Joshua: 00:33:17

Why did you have them in the first place, is really the question to ask.

Joshua: 00:33:20

Yeah.

Natalie: 00:33:20

Because you're the parent.

Natalie: 00:33:21

You're in charge of their life growing up and if you don't enjoy them

Natalie: 00:33:25

while the little bit they're home, when they're 18, they're out, man.

Natalie: 00:33:29

They're not going to want to hang out with you.

Natalie: 00:33:32

I've seen it time and time again, and it breaks my heart because that's

Natalie: 00:33:34

not how we're supposed to do it.

Joshua: 00:33:38

I think you are changing that trend though, and I have to think-

Natalie: 00:33:41

I hope so.

Joshua: 00:33:41

Elizabeth and you.

Joshua: 00:33:42

I think you are because you are providing that content so that people can have

Joshua: 00:33:46

that conversation with their children.

Joshua: 00:33:48

Natalie, I'm going to give you the last few minutes.

Joshua: 00:33:50

Can you tell us how to access Nuggets of Wisdom?

Joshua: 00:33:53

How can we get in contact with you if we're interested in

Joshua: 00:33:56

submitting content for the website?

Joshua: 00:33:58

Tell us all about it.

Joshua: 00:33:59

The last few minutes are all yours.

Natalie: 00:34:01

Sure, so like we said before, we are PDF; mostly 99% PDF, online website,

Natalie: 00:34:08

and when you purchase something, it is a PDF that gets linked, sent to your

Natalie: 00:34:11

email address that you sign up for.

Natalie: 00:34:14

As far as what we need, if you are interested, you can email us.

Natalie: 00:34:18

Our email address is nuggetsofwisdom4you@gmail.com; so nuggets,

Natalie: 00:34:25

plural, of wisdom number four y o u at gmail.com and our actual website is

Natalie: 00:34:31

nuggets, N U G G E T S, of wisdom.com.

Natalie: 00:34:37

One unique feature we have that I don't know of many other websites that

Natalie: 00:34:41

do, but we have, when you sign up as a content creator, because we're not

Natalie: 00:34:45

all teachers, I am, but I know some people are just moms that have been

Natalie: 00:34:49

homeschooling for a long time, so we call 'em content creators, or little nugs,

Natalie: 00:34:53

we call our nickname is Little Nuggets.

Joshua: 00:34:56

I love that.

Natalie: 00:34:56

Because it's wisdom.

Natalie: 00:34:57

It's information to help children grow and adults grow and succeed, and that's

Natalie: 00:35:01

what we want to see on our website.

Natalie: 00:35:04

We have a cool area called "Meet Our Sellers", where you can actually go and

Natalie: 00:35:08

see a bio picture and a screenshot, and a little bio three, four or five sentences

Natalie: 00:35:13

about who they are, what they do, what they love, what they teach, if they do

Natalie: 00:35:18

that, and then they can provide a link to classes outside of just selling those

Natalie: 00:35:22

PDFs that they actually teach, and so we actually are kind of like a hive

Natalie: 00:35:26

hub for other businesses and content creators, if they teach outside of

Natalie: 00:35:30

just selling PDFs, they can offer that.

Natalie: 00:35:32

Here's a link to their website.

Natalie: 00:35:33

Go find it.

Natalie: 00:35:34

If you're looking for these kind of classes, here you go.

Natalie: 00:35:37

Whether it be out school, whether it be Elizabeth owns Teach Me Truth.

Natalie: 00:35:40

Abby, she does art and science she mixes together, like the life cycle,

Natalie: 00:35:45

and so she draws and they has some color and they, but they go outside

Natalie: 00:35:48

and find leaves and they find lifecycle and different animals and farms to be

Natalie: 00:35:53

able to look at the chicken and let's talk about the chicken egg and how it

Natalie: 00:35:56

grows and the life cycle with that, so hers is called art adventurous animals.

Natalie: 00:36:01

We have a lot of over 200 products on our website.

Natalie: 00:36:04

We have a ton of different things to choose from, and if you have an idea

Natalie: 00:36:08

of saying, "Hey, I need help with this certain topic", let us know.

Natalie: 00:36:11

Send us an email, we'll work on it.

Natalie: 00:36:13

Most of us are teachers and educators, so we have the background to be

Natalie: 00:36:18

able to do that, and we love what we do, so I'll leave it at that.

Joshua: 00:36:23

Well, Natalie, I know that there's so many different resources and I

Joshua: 00:36:26

encourage my listeners to go check it out.

Joshua: 00:36:29

Don't take her word alone because there is so many different things and whatever

Joshua: 00:36:34

you can think of, it's probably out there, and if it's not, definitely see

Joshua: 00:36:37

if you have something that you could submit, but Natalie, I want to say this.

Joshua: 00:36:41

It is very important to have these sort of materials.

Joshua: 00:36:44

I think there is still a need.

Joshua: 00:36:46

I love the fact that you have both free items that people can invest in along

Joshua: 00:36:50

with then the paid aspects too, and I love the model that you kind of give,

Joshua: 00:36:55

not only that content back to people, the monetary aspect for a small fee of that,

Joshua: 00:37:00

but you run this as if it's almost like a cooperative, and I love that because

Joshua: 00:37:06

everybody gets to be able to share in that and I appreciate you doing that.

Joshua: 00:37:11

I appreciate you being part of this show.

Joshua: 00:37:14

Thank you for Speaking From The Heart with us because it is something that

Joshua: 00:37:18

we truly, truly need and we need to continue educating the future.

Natalie: 00:37:22

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:37:22

So thank you so much for being part of this.

Natalie: 00:37:25

I appreciate it.

Natalie: 00:37:25

Thank you so much.

Joshua: 00:37:27

I want to thank Natalie for being on the show and being really insightful

Joshua: 00:37:31

and sharing the variety of different viewpoints that she has about not only

Joshua: 00:37:36

education, but also some of the things that have allowed her business, along

Joshua: 00:37:42

with Elizabeth being the co-owner too, to pick up and just be so successful and the

Joshua: 00:37:49

almost year that they've been around, and I think that for many of us, especially

Joshua: 00:37:54

even if we have kids that can use the content that's available there, I think

Joshua: 00:37:58

that this is also important for adults to realize that even if you are struggling,

Joshua: 00:38:03

if you have a GED or don't have your GED yet, this is a great place to use some of

Joshua: 00:38:08

those things too, for your own edification and to move forward with, so if you know

Joshua: 00:38:13

somebody that can go to Nuggets Of Wisdom to use some of that material, you'll

Joshua: 00:38:18

be supporting a small business that supports other people that are content

Joshua: 00:38:23

creators individually too, so I really want to thank Elizabeth and Natalie for

Joshua: 00:38:29

creating this business because let's face it, all of us need help, even our kids.

Joshua: 00:38:35

We need to be real about that because we all need to have a stable foundation

Joshua: 00:38:40

so that we can continue to support each other no matter where we are, no matter

Joshua: 00:38:44

what places, persons, or things that we go through, can create some of those

Joshua: 00:38:50

opportunities to excel, and I love the fact that she's even talked about being

Joshua: 00:38:55

able to work with the deaf and hard of hearing through ASL, and for those that

Joshua: 00:39:00

have not heard in other episodes, I've had the opportunity for a few years to

Joshua: 00:39:04

work with blind entrepreneurs as they ran Food Concession stands and state and

Joshua: 00:39:09

federal facilities under the Randolph Shepherd Act, which the Randolph Shepherd

Joshua: 00:39:13

Act is a piece of legislation that has gone through many evolutions over the

Joshua: 00:39:17

years, over the various decades, to help provide opportunities for blind

Joshua: 00:39:22

individuals to excel; to give them fair chances at employment, because

Joshua: 00:39:29

we all need to have a shot at what that is that we can do and I've been

Joshua: 00:39:33

fortunate enough to meet some of the best people through that experience, but

Joshua: 00:39:38

sometimes maybe the not so good people.

Joshua: 00:39:41

The not so good people might not have had the best intentions in the first

Joshua: 00:39:45

place to provide some of those things that are needed for what the purpose

Joshua: 00:39:48

of what that legislation was passed in the first place, but that's the whole

Joshua: 00:39:52

point, is that sometimes we think we have the right solution to a problem,

Joshua: 00:39:58

but it might even make things worse.

Joshua: 00:40:01

I know we could have ended the episode with, "Wahhh, bash the United States.

Joshua: 00:40:06

We know that they're not doing very well and that's what is really causing all

Joshua: 00:40:10

these issues", but can we really just take a step back and stop with the negativity?

Joshua: 00:40:17

Can we really stop with thinking that this always has to be the

Joshua: 00:40:20

way that we solve problems?

Joshua: 00:40:23

I learned quite early on in my life that it's about moving into different

Joshua: 00:40:27

directions, especially if you feel uncomfortable with where you are at.

Joshua: 00:40:31

That's what's allowed me to be in several different state agencies,

Joshua: 00:40:35

even in my career, to allow me to understand fully the true potential

Joshua: 00:40:40

that I have inside of myself.

Joshua: 00:40:42

It wasn't because I had bad bosses, which I did.

Joshua: 00:40:47

It wasn't because I didn't like the work, which sometimes I did.

Joshua: 00:40:52

It was about learning and growing and experimenting with all the different

Joshua: 00:40:56

types of things that are available to us and learning how we can do that.

Joshua: 00:41:02

Can we play and be able to also relax and create engagement, because

Joshua: 00:41:06

there are all kinds of different balances when it comes to that.

Joshua: 00:41:11

Having that material that's available to us so that we can mentor those

Joshua: 00:41:15

types of people, those different types of ministries, as Natalie

Joshua: 00:41:19

put it, can help us to really grow.

Joshua: 00:41:22

It can help us to really not just go off of hearsay, but

Joshua: 00:41:27

to actually seek the truth.

Joshua: 00:41:30

It's always about evolving.

Joshua: 00:41:32

It's about creating some of those things that inner lives are

Joshua: 00:41:36

truly important, because it is about continuously learning more.

Joshua: 00:41:43

It's about looking at the world in a curious sort of way, and I know that

Joshua: 00:41:47

for all of us, we might not often have those opportunities, but the

Joshua: 00:41:52

best things that we can do is read.

Joshua: 00:41:55

To learn and read and grow in all kinds of fiction and nonfiction books, which

Joshua: 00:42:01

we have featured plenty of different authors, of all kinds of different

Joshua: 00:42:05

backgrounds, that have all kinds of different writing styles available to

Joshua: 00:42:09

you, but that's the point, is that we need to be able to have access to it and I

Joshua: 00:42:16

think that this portal, essentially, that Natalie and her business owner friend,

Joshua: 00:42:22

Elizabeth, have created, Has allowed us to create so many more opportunities for

Joshua: 00:42:28

delivery and engagement because it does help us to understand and learn more

Joshua: 00:42:34

about the ways in which we can improve.

Joshua: 00:42:37

That's why I create original content for Your Speaking Voice as well, to

Joshua: 00:42:42

work with my clients so that they know where I'm coming from, from a certain

Joshua: 00:42:46

perspective, because let's face it.

Joshua: 00:42:49

One way of doing it does not necessarily mean that we always

Joshua: 00:42:52

have to do it the same way.

Joshua: 00:42:55

As the old saying goes, why tear down a fence that works just fine and

Joshua: 00:43:01

just put up a completely different fence that doesn't work as well.

Joshua: 00:43:07

Now, I know I'm paraphrasing that phrase, and you might have heard some

Joshua: 00:43:10

sort of adage related to that, but maybe you've heard of it this way.

Joshua: 00:43:16

You shouldn't replace non broken things.

Joshua: 00:43:20

You shouldn't do that, because it's working, but it doesn't mean

Joshua: 00:43:24

though, that maybe it's truly working in a way that other people

Joshua: 00:43:28

can appreciate and understand.

Joshua: 00:43:30

That's what the true essence of coaching is, is that sometimes you have to

Joshua: 00:43:35

have that connection with somebody else in order to understand and fully

Joshua: 00:43:39

appreciate what those people can do.

Joshua: 00:43:41

That's what I really try to do at its core, because that's not just about the

Joshua: 00:43:46

money, which, yes, I do have to pay bills.

Joshua: 00:43:49

I do have expenses, but I know too that I need to learn to appreciate

Joshua: 00:43:54

that there's different ways in which to tackle a certain problem, but that's

Joshua: 00:43:58

what is really important about growing, is that you gain those connections

Joshua: 00:44:03

and you network through those people so that they can give you that.

Joshua: 00:44:07

Even the people that I have met in my life have given me nuggets of

Joshua: 00:44:11

wisdom so that I'm able to learn and appreciate differences in this world.

Joshua: 00:44:17

I would've never went to school for the number of years that I did after high

Joshua: 00:44:21

school if I didn't appreciate that fact in itself, because that's exactly it.

Joshua: 00:44:27

Those facts, those things in which we can look back at history can

Joshua: 00:44:31

help us to learn and understand how we can move forward in the right

Joshua: 00:44:35

direction, and that's why I really appreciate Natalie having this website

Joshua: 00:44:40

so that other people can understand and create that opportunity too.

Joshua: 00:44:46

Even with all the different subject matters and all the different types

Joshua: 00:44:49

of materials that are still needed, especially for high school students,

Joshua: 00:44:53

even for all the different things that we try to do in order to

Joshua: 00:44:56

incorporate that vision of what we think can become the best version of

Joshua: 00:45:01

ourselves, it needs to be modified.

Joshua: 00:45:05

We need to continue to have that conversation.

Joshua: 00:45:08

That conversation can be very tough at some points, and other times it can be

Joshua: 00:45:12

very easy to have that conversation.

Joshua: 00:45:16

It is really about understanding what is really important for us to work

Joshua: 00:45:21

on first, and it doesn't mean diving all in and getting overwhelmed and

Joshua: 00:45:25

then you don't want to do it at all.

Joshua: 00:45:29

It's called being able to incrementally increase as time goes along.

Joshua: 00:45:35

It means taking one baby step forward so that we are able to create that

Joshua: 00:45:40

content in our own lives, because we all have our unique stories that we

Joshua: 00:45:44

share as I've mentioned many times.

Joshua: 00:45:47

What if the story would be a little bit different?

Joshua: 00:45:52

What if we were to take charge of our own story?

Joshua: 00:45:56

What if we were able to help influence those people that are necessary too?

Joshua: 00:46:00

Which has always been a plea, from my perspective, to all of you, to be able

Joshua: 00:46:05

to do in your own way, but what if you did it in a way in which it allows

Joshua: 00:46:11

people to freely access it on their own?

Joshua: 00:46:14

What if you created that content so it's ready to go whenever that

Joshua: 00:46:18

person is ready, instead of thinking that they have to always go to you?

Joshua: 00:46:23

What if we could embrace the potential power of leveraging all the different

Joshua: 00:46:28

types of resources that are available and utilizing that to our advantage?

Joshua: 00:46:33

That's why this website, Natalie and Elizabeth designed and has worked with

Joshua: 00:46:38

clients of their own to do and create content with, have been very successful.

Joshua: 00:46:44

That's what makes this really unique is that we all have different

Joshua: 00:46:49

answers to maybe the same problem, but it's about collaborating.

Joshua: 00:46:53

It's about learning those differences, and it's about understanding how we can

Joshua: 00:46:57

navigate through them together, because we're all on the same journey; that

Joshua: 00:47:02

journey of self-empowerment; to learn how to become the best version, to be

Joshua: 00:47:07

able to understand fully what is truly necessary for us to learn and grow.

Joshua: 00:47:13

That is what's really able to define the next generation, and that's something that

Joshua: 00:47:20

we need to grab for ourselves as well.

Joshua: 00:47:24

Thanks for listening to episode number 44 of Speaking From The

Joshua: 00:47:27

Heart, and I look forward to hearing from your heart, very soon.

Outro: 00:47:31

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Outro: 00:47:32

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Outro: 00:47:37

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