Fast-Track to Prosperity: The Financial Edge of Homeschooling Early On – Episode 526   

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[00:01] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast. Prosperity thinkers, we’re talking today. This one will be probably harder for me, because it’s like talking about our family and Zane, my oldest, graduating. What I really want to see this conversation be is figuring out how you get the kids to find something they enjoy, being responsible, teaching everything that you can. And I’ll have to slow down on my speaking because, wow, it feels like a lot. And then getting them to become responsible human beings. And we’ll see how well we’re doing in the future. I think we’re faring okay right now. Well, I’ll do a little bit of setup that will let you catch your breath and get your thinking in line. It is so interesting to watch how families educate their children.

[00:55] And my children are in their mid-20s. They are wonderful adults. I am so impressed with how they’re living their lives. And I attribute it to work that started when they were babies, literally one and two days old, not years, days. And it is a book that I’ve shared before called My First 300 Babies. And it is a method of child raising that is just the most valuable thing in the whole wide world. And the book was written in the 50s. It has not been updated. You have to take a bit of it with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, so, so valuable. Fast forward ahead, my children attended a boarding high school. So from ninth grade until 12th grade, they were at a boarding school in St. Louis, Missouri.

[01:41] It’s called Principia and it is character education. It uses a lot of the Socratic method. If I were raising children today, I would very seriously consider homeschooling them. I am grateful that that wasn’t necessary. We had a nanny that served our family that had a daughter that homeschooled her own children. So Robbie and Kaylee were exposed to the homeschool space all throughout their elementary and junior high environment. And that really served them well. And then this boarding school was off the charts. It just so, so amazing, the good learning that occurred there. And I believe that all of that literally starting day one, all the way through graduation at high school of a class of, I don’t remember 20 or

[02:31] something like that, it’s a small school. Maybe not quite that small, but for the class, it’s still that all of it contributed to the amazing people that those two now young adults are. So Spencer, I know that you have homeschooled your children and you have two more that are still being homeschooled. But my biggest curiosity, because we got this awesome graduation announcement. Yay, Zane graduated, quote, high school a year early because he’s homeschooled. And I was wondering what a homeschool high school graduation looks like. Well, we didn’t buy the cap and gown. We did take some pictures. I’d say mom was probably the most proud of all of it. And I will have to give mom the credit for making sure that that happened.

[03:24] It was, as far as a graduation, it was really looking through. And I remember the moment, we’re all sitting around the table. My wife and I and our son Zane. And we’re sitting around and we’re going through what are the requirements. And I would say he probably had five times more the requirements that were needed. And he’s like, wow, okay. And we’ve tried to do a few things above and beyond. We’ve hired a Spanish tutor that they go on Zoom multiple times a week and they meet with. And there’s a bunch of other things that are really important, finding mentors to help. And we just realized, one, it’s not a lot of fighting with the kids of like, you have to go do this or you have to do that. It was clearly stating, here’s what you need to learn.

[04:19] And they would self-select many of the courses. We used Khan Academy. And then we used a variety of other courses out there. And they would find what they’re working on and they would work through it and then show us their milestones. And so it was self-guided. The reason it’s done that way is because that’s how life works. Unless you want to have a lower responsibility job, that’s a diplomatic way of saying it. Unless you want to have a lower responsibility job and have someone over your shoulder and telling you every single piece to do, we wanted to create leaders and thinkers. So that’s how we operated a little different. Wow, super cool. And yes, big, big congrats to mom because moms like those milestones.

[05:10] And that’s awesome. It was amazing. Yeah, absolutely. Earned, right? Zane earned that. 100%, yes. And we did a couple of test rides. So I think that’s helpful to know. So your kids, they went off to Principia, where they were in a boarding school environment. And I would say there was probably a mix of they had their freedom and they had their finding out who they are. They also had the schedule and a discipline and there’s a blend of it. And so, for example, Zane is really big into drones. I mean, that’s probably the understatement of the year. He builds them. He creates the 3D printed parts for them. He flies them. He’s FAA licensed on a variety of different pieces. And so last year as one of the test drives,

[06:06] we went and had him, some family friends of ours out in Aspen. Their oldest son owns a cinematography company. And so Zane got to Shadow and he went out there for a week and they filmed for Red Bull. They filmed for a bunch of other companies. And he got his hands on the stuff and he realized, hey, I actually really like this. And so he got the real world experience. So take that for where we are now. Now that he’s graduated, Zane has his own drone company. The cool recent news that we have is he recently got accepted into probably like the most prestigious stock video platforms out there. Oh, nice. So his footage will now be on Getty and like huge platforms. He’s already had coverage on like ABC and a bunch of other commercial outlets.

[07:08] And so for us as parents to say, OK, we may have done a few things all right and we were really intentional and then we’re not taking credit for it. We’re just saying we instilled enough and then go forward and do. Yes, well said. And then Zane will get to have the same problem that my young adult children had, which is how does he rent a car? Thankfully, there’s Uber now. My kids didn’t have that. Get a hotel room, et cetera. When he’s not old enough, it will be an adventure. And, you know, aren’t those great problems to deal with? You know, for us as a family, the conversation that everyone always asks is, is how do you do it? And I think what it what it does is and I’m going to relate this back to you,

[07:59] which is it’s not something that happens logically or linearly. So you can’t say, well, they’ve been in school and now we want to home school and treat it like regular school. It’s different. And I take the same of what you do with finances. You’re not sitting there and someone calling you. And then all of a sudden you put on the hat of I’m a typical banker and I’m going to act like this. You’re creating a whole other world. And you’re saying, well, the world operates like this. But traditionally, here’s where it operates. And the schooling is the same. You know, if we take back hundreds of years ago, homeschooling was a norm. That’s how it worked. And that’s a tradition right now we’re dealing with typical.

[08:52] And so I’m trying to use some of the chem and the prosperity language there. Well done, very well done. It’s amazing. In fact, Principia was formed as a homeschool group. One parent with a couple of kids wanted to have a couple more kids be available to have the outings and the good camaraderie and collaboration that go with the homeschool group. And that’s what she created. And it just developed and grew from there. So one thing is, yes, one thing. One of I think one of my final tie in pieces that I could give for this is that if we as parents approached homeschool and use the guide like perpetual wealth. And I know I’m plugging the book, but I am on purpose. Because I think too often we think that it has to be so rigid

[09:50] and that there has to be a specific curriculum. And there are standards that have to be met, of course. But if we look at how perpetual wealth is, that’s a legacy book. And our legacy learning should be the same. And if we take a look at that and we say, OK, well, let’s approach homeschool very much as a family, like the perpetual wealth book. And what we’re going to do is we’re just going to add in some of the other pieces. Maybe we add in the writing pieces, the reading, the sciences, then the other pieces that aren’t mentioned in perpetual wealth for good reason. But we add those in. But we still stay under the same premise of, here’s my purpose. Here’s how I’m working. Here’s what I’m valuing.

[10:37] Here’s what I’m moving forward with. It’s impossible to not fail. Well, it is such a joy to be able to share this kind of thinking. I encourage you as a listener, here’s our call to action time to share this with your family. Let us be the messenger if that’s helpful to you. Put the phone on the dinner table and push play. Make sure that spouses are hearing this. Make sure that older children are hearing this kind of thing so that we can set the stage and let you come alongside us. And it’s one of my joys of being a financial guide. And that’s different than being a financial advisor or a life insurance agent or some of the other roles that I’ll play from time to time, but to be a guide for the thinking.

[11:27] And perpetual wealth is a absolute summary of a lot of our thinking. And very specifically in the book are the seven phases of prosperity and a super helpful tool for somebody to grab and begin to see where they are. And they are phases of prosperity and they don’t necessarily relate to ages of a human being. I’ve got some guideline ages in there, but somebody could go through those phases quicker than somebody else. So they’re helpful regardless of where you are in life. Absolutely. You know, thanks for asking how it worked for us. And thank you for sharing the wise principles that you’ve put in that book and the work that you’re continuing to do. You know, I definitely know that our conversations

[12:24] and what I’ve consumed has made an impact on our homeschooling and the work that we do. And it will continue to do that. And hopefully we’ll instill that in our kids so that when they have kids, they’ll be doing that as well in generation and generation on and on. So I have a heart full of gratitude for that. And for all of you listeners, thank you for just supporting this movement of what we’re doing. We’re rising the positivity in this world, the prosperity in this world. We’re rising the legacy. Like this isn’t just about making your day better. This is affecting everyone. This is huge. And so thank you so much. Thank you for listening to the Prosperity Podcast. To take control of your money

[13:17] and have it work for you, visit ProsperityThinkers.