SR 827: Little by Little: Nurturing Young Entrepreneurs – Leigh Nguyen, Part 3

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And spent a lot of my husband speaking into him as well because especially as

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teen boys get older, mom is great, but

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dad really needs to step in and be able to speak to them man to

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man. Hey, everyone, this is Yvette Hampton.

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Welcome back to the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast. I am back with Leigh

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Nguyen and, well, we’re just having a fun conversation this week about

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homeschooling and family. And homeschooling is fun. I love

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homeschooling. I love that there are so many things that homeschooling

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encompasses. And it’s all about family, it’s about relationships, it’s

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about academics, it’s about teaching our kids to be who

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God created them to be. One of those things like we talked about in

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yesterday’s episode, which if you missed it, go back and listen. But we talked about

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how some kids are created to be entrepreneurs and some kids are created

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to be employees, some are leaders, some

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are followers. And neither is a bad thing. Like, that’s how

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the world works, right? That’s. That’s how God created mankind

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to work together. And that’s how God created the body of Christ to work together.

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I mean, if you look at that in the sense of the church, right? You

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have a pastor who leads and then you have

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the people in the congregation who follow, and that is a

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good thing. But we need good, strong leaders to

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lead us to truth. So that’s a whole different topic. But anyway, as I’m thinking

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about it, I’m like, you know, it’s just so interesting how the body of Christ

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works that way as well. So today we’re going to talk about some of those

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things. We’re going to talk a little bit about helping our kids to become entrepreneurs,

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if that’s what God has called them to do. Um, I also want to talk

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about gap year and what that might look like. We’ve got a gap year. I

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want to say student, but I guess she’s not going to be a student anymore

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since it’s a gap year, right? So a gap year adult

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coming into our home and, um, and that’s an exciting time for

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us. So we’re going to talk about those things and a few other things today.

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But before we get into it, I want to say thank you to our sponsor,

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BJU Press Homeschool. If you’re looking for a great homeschool curriculum

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need, check out BJUPressHomeschool.com. They will equip you for

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a successful homeschool journey. And they will be with you every step of the way.

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They are amazing and they’re grateful to be part of your homeschool journey. So

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check them out BJUPressHomeschool.com. and if you’re not sure what you need,

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call them up, talk to one of their consultants and they will help walk you

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through what is best for your family. They’ll also help encourage a

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love of learning in your kids. And everything they do, as you know,

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is from a strong biblical worldview. So check them out.

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BJUPressHomeschool.com well, Leigh, welcome

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back to the podcast. This has been such a fun conversation this

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week. Let’s talk about teaching our

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kids to be entrepreneurs. And I want to focus really on those

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ones that like, this is just how God created them. And I know you’ve got

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a son who is an entrepreneur. Talk a little bit maybe about his

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story, what you’ve learned in the process, what he’s learned in the process.

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And for those of us who have kids who are going down that

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path, how can we help guide them? Let me just start by saying

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that I didn’t come from an entrepreneurial background, so this was all brand new. So

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this was really a work that had to happen in me as well,

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of letting him go and try things and to trust,

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as we’ve talked in earlier episodes, about just stepping in and just

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recreating the school at home. And we think that that’s how it has to look.

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And realizing as he got older, there’s just something different. So this is my

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now 19 year old, my second born, my oldest son. And I

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started to realize that he’s just as wired differently. He’s very different from

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his older sister, which they complement each other wonderfully.

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And she just would go along and do the academics and do everything.

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And we took some time to get into what she was interested in.

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But him, he just was wired different. He just really began to push back. Now,

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if you heard the beginning of my story, he was the kindergartner that was always

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getting into, you know, in air quotes, trouble, right? He was always

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pushing back against, I mean, me, this has been all of, all of our

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home, all of his childhood, and we’re such good friends now. It’s, it’s, it’s

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really, it’s wonderful. We worked through all of that and learned our

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strengths and our weaknesses and stuff. But just as

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parents, allowing our kids to be who God has craved them to

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be, and as we spoke about earlier about just really what are their gifts, talents

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and abilities I found as he got to high school, we had done a lot

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of reading. You and I were talking about morning time and just reading and just

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how we enjoyed reading together. And he was a big, avid reader. And I found

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as he got to school, he just was pushing back on the books that I

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wanted him to read. And finally, I was like, okay, that’s it. What do you

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want to read? He was like, I want to read business books. And I was

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like, okay, but you’re 15. And so I was a

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little cautious because a lot of the business books were written for

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adults, and I don’t really know all the material that’s in it. So I asked

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a couple of friends that we have who own their own businesses, and,

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you know, what are some books? And they kind of gave us some ideas and

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went to the library, and long story short, so here he is, how many

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years later, and he has a bookshelf full of books, and he buys them all

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on his own. And, you know, we’ve, I’ve trust that

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the foundation we’ve laid that he can kind of weave through some of the different

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worldviews that’ll be pushed into those. And so

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just being like, okay, you don’t want to read this

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historical fiction books that I wanted you to read, that I thought that would be

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a great thing for you to read in high school. What do you, what do

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you want to read? So he read the business books. He got into autobiographies and

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biographies of probably business people. And so really just kind

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of caught that bug. So, really, it was also a part of, for

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me letting him go and trusting

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him and then guiding him and myself, as well as my husband, guiding

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him, putting up guardrails for things and not just diving straight into things.

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And so he started with a little

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firewood stand when he was, like, 1314, chopping up the firewood

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and then moved into pushing a push mower down the street. We moved to where

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we are now. We were living out the country, and now we’re living in the

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suburbs and just mowing different lawns. And so I

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found at the point that he was going into his

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junior year, I was like, he’s just, he’s

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done. Like, he’s, he’s done with this. He’s ready to run. And I think

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that a lot of entrepreneurs are just ready to run early.

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And we graduated him a year early, and he’s just

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been running full speed ever since we get into the gap year. I’ll kind of

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explain a little bit what he did with what would have been his senior year,

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his 12th grade year, but I just have found that

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just some kids are just wired that way, and that’s okay. And we have to

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let them go a little bit. We need to trust them, but we also need

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to. It’s a lot more work at times to keep up with

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what. What do you want to do? And they want to do all of these

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things. So now my 16 year old sees what the 19 year old’s doing, and

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he’s like, well, I want to do this, I want to do that, and I

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want to be able to market maybe on social media. We haven’t given our kids

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social media at that age. I’m like, okay, so how can we work this? You

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want to create YouTube videos, but you don’t have free access to

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YouTube. So how can we work this where you still get to do

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that and you can edit and everything on the back end, and then together

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we post it and so just kind of figure those things

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out. So I don’t know if I answered that question or. Yeah, no, totally

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talk about this. Because as our kids are growing into this

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world of entrepreneurship,

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oftentimes they feel like they’re like, they see dollar signs.

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You know? They are like, I want to become a millionaire, and so I’m going

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to become an entrepreneur, and I’m going to do this thing, you know? And maybe

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they’ve read about it in a book. As you said, your son read books, or

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they’ve read a blog or they’ve listened to a podcast or something, and

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they, they see this, like, flashy, you know, dollar sign

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ahead of them. But how do you guide them

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to what is it that God wants for

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you? What has God created you to do? Have you dealt with that

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with your son? Because it’s not just about being a successful

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entrepreneur. Yes, perhaps God’s created you to

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do that. But for let. So let me. Let me back up really quickly.

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The reason I asked this question is because for my

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husband, I know one of the things, he’s an entrepreneur. You know, he’s, he produces

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this podcast. Um, he makes movies. He,

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he does his own thing. He hasn’t always been an entrepreneur,

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but he really got to the point where he felt like he wanted to make

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a difference in God’s kingdom. Like, that’s what he wanted to do. And whether

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that’s through mowing lawns or producing a podcast, it doesn’t

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matter. But have you gone down that road

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with your son of how are you going to

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impact God’s kingdom with the talents and abilities and gifts

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that he’s given to you? That’s a very good question. In the beginning,

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yes, it was dollar signs. It was looking at the money that I have and

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looking, even if it was just dollar 300 he made from cutting firewood. And so

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that really was a big thing. And that’s been very intentional and spent a lot

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of my husband speaking into him as well, because especially as teen

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boys get older, mom is great, but dad

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really needs to step in and be able to speak to them man to

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man. And so there was a lot of conversations about that, and

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that still is, I mean, it’s a personal thing that he has to continue

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to battle. And to him at this point,

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he’s dealing with such broad, big numbers

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at times that it just is numbers, that it’s not

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necessarily anything that’s flashy. He’s not

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going out and buying all kinds of things. And he actually learned pretty quick. We

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went through a, I guess it was Dave Ramsey’s

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financial whatever course for homeschoolers. And he learned a lot that

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he already kind of knew. And he ended up getting a job at a grocery

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store to make some money so that he could then pour into his business and

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some of the kids. There was one particular girl who had a car, and he’s

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like, it was a brand new car and said she had bought it. And he

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was kind of asking some questions and had to explain to her what financing was.

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She didn’t even know. And it was just to him, it was eye

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opening to see how other people, I think there was a really good example to

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him of how other people then can view money and then how a

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better view of it is and how can we manage it. Well, so going

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back to the, yes, in the beginning was pretty flashy as far

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as, like, look at me, I have $500 and I, you know, 1415

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years old, and that’s, you know, more than all my friends have and kind of

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thing. And it really just, again goes into that, tying

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into that biblical worldview and what is our

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purpose here, you know, to glorify God and how can we do that? You can

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do that no matter where you work, whether you are the guy that’s on the

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lawn or you’re the guy who’s owned the lawn company, or you’re the guy who

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is producing the movie, or you’re the guy who

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is the actor, or you’re behind the scenes and you’re holding the camera in every

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way we can glorify God. And so just, yeah, it’s just been,

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it’s been a journey, and it’s just been different people and

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different things speaking into him. And I know that it’s at this point in, in

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God’s hands. We actually went to a different church. We were visiting

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my daughter, and it was just, it happened to be the one time, very first

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time we’d ever gone to this church. And the pastor talked about money, and I

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just saw him sitting there, just soaking it all in. And my husband, I were

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kind of nutting each other, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, this is why this

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is the Sunday that we’re here, is for him to be able to hear that

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message yet again. Yeah, yeah. Because

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even if their business isn’t

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ministry, they can still use the funds that God provides

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for them to be able to pour it back into God’s kingdom,

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you know? And that’s a hard thing to teach kids, I think, because, yeah, they,

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they see that bank account rolling up and they’re like, oh, wow, I can do

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a whole lot of things with this money, but, yeah. And realizing, and realizing the

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impact they can have on if you have employees, right. That you can speak into

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people that you wouldn’t have had other opportunities. And he’s given me some

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examples of just recently, he says, just kind of, it’s just naturally a part of

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who he is. Yeah. You know, and he’ll just kind of talk about God or

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something. And sometimes, you know, he notices some of his workers just get a little

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quiet. Yeah. He’s like, oh, okay, you do what? I mean, but then I’ll ask

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some questions, too. So it’s just so we’ve been actively have talked

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to him all along, is run this different than

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somebody else would be different, you know, run your business differently

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and help them to be like, well, have them notice,

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like, what’s different. Yeah, I’ve had these other bosses and they

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were, even though I, you know, it was my fault, I slacked off and stuff,

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but there really rude to me. And then, you know, this boss slacked off

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and stuff, but they weren’t, I still maybe lost my job or I still got,

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you know, reprimanded, you know, or still something kind of talking to because I did

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something that I should not have done, but they did it in a different way.

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And so we’ve just really tried to encourage them to do things differently. Yeah, yeah.

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And, and I think finding people in our community who are,

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you know, business owners, entrepreneurs themselves, who will help speak

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life into them and encourage them and, you know, maybe bring

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them alongside as an apprentice or something, you know, there are lots and

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lots of programs even now today, christian programs that offer apprenticeship

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styles of learning. And I think it’s such a great

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thing. So yeah, good stuff. All right, well, we’re going to take

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a quick break. We’ll be right back. Have you

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apologia today

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Apologia.com. we are back with Leigh. Let’s talk about gap

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years. Because I know years ago I was like, gap year? What is

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that? I don’t even know what that is. That was a whole new term to

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me. And I’m talking this was only like maybe four years ago or five years

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ago that I had never heard of a gap year. Talk about what that

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is and how that can be beneficial to a homeschool

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family. I was in the same boat. Hadn’t heard of a gap year. I guess

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maybe I’d heard about a program. I had heard about a program maybe ten years

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ago that young adults could do, and I didn’t

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really know quite where it fit. I was like, do you do it before you

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go to college? It was really targeted towards college kids. And that might have been

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about ten years ago that program started. And so the gap year idea really didn’t

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hit me until maybe, like you said, four or five years ago. Maybe people just

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kind of started talking about it more, and I was like, that kind of

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sounds neat. That sounds like a really neat idea

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behind it, and it can look so different. We can get into that. Like, what

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exactly is a gap year? What can that look like? And then it kind of

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got to the point where we really started looking at

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just kids just going straight off to college and my own

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experience going straight off to college and not really knowing what

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I’m doing, not feeling grounded and just saying, you know, I’d really like to give

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them a year to ground them. And so we have. We’ll say, we’ll

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say the word required, each of our kids to do a gap year. But it’s

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not like a demanding, you have to do this. We’ve really tried to

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find a program or find something that fits with them that they’re excited to go

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to, so it’s not something that they have to do. But a gap year doesn’t

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have to be. We can get that, too. It doesn’t have to be some type

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of program. It can be, but we’ve just. That’s what we have opted for. Yeah.

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Yeah. So what has that look like for each of your kids? Because you’ve got

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your older daughter who’s in college right now, right? Well,

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she’s. Yeah, she’s. She’s working at a ministry right now. She’s working in ministry.

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Okay. I was like, wait. I just said she’s in college, but maybe she’s not

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in college. And then your son, who is an entrepreneur, so what

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has that looked like for both of them, as far as the gap year? Yeah.

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So our daughter went to a gap year program. It was two semesters. She ended

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up graduating May of 2021, and we

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had found the program. We’re like, this is what we’re going to do. But she

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decided at that point to stay home through the summer and not do

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their fall semester and to just work and to save up some money

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so that she could help pay for the gap year program as well. So she

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stayed home then for nine months, and then in 2022, did, like,

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the winter spring semester, and then came home for the summer and then did their

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fall into up to Christmas semester. And then after that, she

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got a job with a ministry. So that’s what she has been doing, and the

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program was perfect for her. My boys

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have no desire to attend that program. It’s a wonderful program, but it just

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doesn’t fit them. So then it got to my

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second son. My second child, my first son. So it was a two year difference.

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But he graduated a year early, so it really was only a year until we

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started looking for something. And for him, my husband and I were like,

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he needs. It needs to be like, go big or go home, like kind of

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thing. And so he also had his business that he wanted to be running, so

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he didn’t necessarily want to do a full year. So we’re like, okay, we could

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do a full year of something. But we opted then and said he spent four

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months in Africa. So he went on a missions trip for four months and was

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fully immersed into other culture. And

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we were like, okay, if you did four month mission trip, like, that’ll count as

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an entire. As an entire gap year. So that’s what he had. As I alluded

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earlier, that’s what he did for half of what would have been his senior year.

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And that was so much better than him sitting at home writing

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papers or reading some books that he didn’t want to read or

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studying some history thing. This was just fully immersive for him just to kind

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of jump in. And he came back just a different. A different

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young. He came back as a young man, you know, very different. And it was

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perfect, perfect fit for him. So now I have one more, and I

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don’t. Not leaning towards graduating him early. So I have a couple of years. And

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so he’s kind of excited. He’s exploring some different options, and I’m excited

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about what God brings us for him, for him to do. And again, it doesn’t

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have to be a program that a child goes to or even that he goes

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to. It could just be. I don’t know. Do I talk about that? Like, what

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a gap year different options are? Yeah, sure. Yeah. We have a few minutes. Let’s

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talk about that. Okay. Yeah. So a gap year doesn’t necessarily have to be a

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program. It can just be a time. I look at it as a time, like

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a buffer for a kiddo to take and step away from

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homeschool. I remember my daughter was still at home, and we started our next homeschool

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year. And we were talking earlier about morning time, and she was home

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but not participating in morning time, or she was going to her job and she

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was doing some shift work and stuff. And it was a little sad, but it

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was a good. It was good for her to be home and to have that

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buffer of, I’m not necessarily doing what I was doing. I am older, I

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am more mature, and I’m doing other things. So sometimes kids

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take a gap year and they do a program. Some take time, and they just

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maybe might get a job. They might volunteer somewhere. They might do a couple

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different things. They might just kind of live for a while. But I encourage them

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to do something, whether it is some type of ministry or you’re volunteering

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or a job, but just some way to take that space in between

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before making a decision as to what you’re going to go on to next. Maybe

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it’s ministry work, maybe it’s college, maybe it is trade school, maybe it’s starting a

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business. But there’s a lot of options. I think it gives them a chance, an

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opportunity to really just kind of settle and let the dust settle from

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homeschool and to figure out what are the next steps. Yeah. Yeah.

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We’ll put a couple of links in the show notes because I know we have

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interviewed a few different people that have different gap year programs,

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and so we’ll put those links in the show notes for people to go back

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to those podcast episodes as well. But I think it is such a,

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you know, it’s funny. You get to the end of that senior year, and do

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you remember when we were in school, we would call it senioritis. You know,

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you have senioritis and, like, you just get to that last semester. And

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most seniors, whether you’re in home school or public school, private schools,

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you just. It’s that mentality of like, I’m almost done, so you

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just kind of check out anyway and that you’re following. It’s like,

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we just oftentimes throw kids into a

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university and, which, you know, for some, that’s fine. It’s not that that’s

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a wrong thing to do, but for a lot of kids, they’re just not ready

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for that yet. They. They need to grow, and a whole lot of

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growing can happen in a year, right? And when they don’t have the pressure

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of homeschooling and they can just kind of figure out life,

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that’s a great year for the Lord to grow them and help them to figure

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out what direction to go next. Maybe not take

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on that $200,000

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student loan that they’re going to need to educate, be educated for the

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next four years and just figure out or save, like

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you said, take a year to save money so that maybe you can go to

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a program or go to college or do something that will

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benefit you without having to just stress out about

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it. I just feel like kids need a break. They need

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that Sabbath year kind of from school to just

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breathe and figure out, you know, what next. So, anyway, all great

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stuff, but we are out of time. So we have just a

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minute left. Could you tell us you’ve, you’ve shared your

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with us that you, you do your little by little homeschool podcast, you’ve got

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your blog little by little homeschool. What do you have on your website? I know

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you’ve got a couple of courses that you offer. Talk about that for just a

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minute. Sure. Yeah. I offer mentorship if you want to do anything, like one on

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one. I do that as well as offer some courses which are just self

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paced. So there are a couple courses. I’m working on some other ones

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as well. But those are all listed in the menu. They could range

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from finding maybe your curriculum to really establishing your, your homeschool,

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as well as a course that has to do all with creating your own chore

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management system and just getting all of those things, all those tasks and keeping up

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with all of the cleaning, which we know is a hard thing at times for

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homeschool moms specific to homeschool moms because our lifestyle is a little

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bit unique. So you can find that all on the, on the website. Okay, awesome.

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We’ll put links to those things in the show notes. Leigh, thank you so much

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for being with us this week. It has been so much fun chatting with you.

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Thank you for your encouragement and just for being one of those mamas who’s kind

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of gone ahead of a lot of homeschool moms and said, you know,

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this is how we did it and it’s going to be good and it’s going

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to be fine and it’s all going to work out. So if you have one

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last word of encouragement to our audience, what would you say? I would say

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to focus on the relationship over curriculum. As we’re

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talking, there’s just so much focus on curriculum and the curriculum is great. It is

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a resource and come alongside us. I remember not knowing how am I going to

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teach my kids math. I was told that I was terrible at math and school

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and didn’t felt like I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t going

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to get it wrong. So those are great. Let’s let them come alongside us. They

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can serve us well, but focus on the relationship over

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all of that because when we become so hard handed about the curriculum, we lose

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the relationship and in the end, the relationship is what’s going to show as our

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kids move on and they take flight and they leave our homes.

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Yep. Yep. That’s awesome. I love it. Thank you so much. And thank you

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00:23:03,798 –> 00:23:06,814
guys. For listening. Stay tuned to the very end to hear what’s coming up next

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00:23:06,854 –> 00:23:10,502
on the podcast. And if you have not yet watched the movie Schoolhouse Rocked, you

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00:23:10,518 –> 00:23:14,350
can stream it for free through our website, SchoolhouseRocked.com. have

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a great rest of your day, and we will see you back here on Monday

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with another fantastic guest. Bye.

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And I can tell you, I don’t have a degree. I don’t have any kind

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of college degree. I don’t even have any college experience. I have

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a high school diploma. But I can tell you that I know

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00:23:34,922 –> 00:23:38,146
my kids and I love my kids. And I am a professional. I have a

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00:23:38,170 –> 00:23:41,682
degree in my children, right. And I got that as we walked

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along. And so you as a parent can do the exact same thing. And I

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think that’s the biggest message in my book that can help give

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parents the confidence to say, I actually

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can do this.