They Homeschool a Big Family AND Run a YouTube Business?! With Hayley Johnson

So I used to think I'll let my kids do whatever. And I still am going to do that because they have the opportunity to. But now our mindset is more of like, no, we're going to teach them how to do this. This is where we can almost guarantee success if they don't just absolutely hate it. So, yeah, our goal is to help them earn enough money to where they can invest it and then have money in passive income by the time they're 18, by teaching them digital products and how to do this online. And that seems like very far fetched because they're very young. But I really don't think it is. My 10-year-old's already doing it. And so I think that's really, at the end of the day, the biggest blessing is seeing it as like a mentorship that we're giving them. I love that. That's just kind of what we've included. Yeah, I love that. And I've seen that in other families as well. Whatever skill you have as a family, you have the freedom to pass down that knowledge to your kids, which is just invaluable. And just imagine how much they would be missing of that if they're not there with you, just watching you do all the things that you do. Welcome to Our Life Homeschooling. My name is My name is Sherry, Christian, wife to my high school sweetheart, Nelson. I'm a thankful mom to 10 incredible kids. I'm the author of the blog and YouTube channel, Our Life Homeschooling, where I share homeschooling encouragement for everyday moms. I believe that motherhood is ministry, and homeschooling is simply an extension of parenting. My passion is to cheer on other moms who are at home doing the most important work of all, raising the next generation for the glory of God. Welcome back to the Our Life Homeschooling Podcast. Today, I'm excited to have Haley Johnson with us to talk about homeschooling a large family while running a YouTube business. If you're not familiar with Haley and Doug, her husband, they are a homeschooling family of seven, and they have a YouTube channel where they teach people how to turn their YouTube channel into a real business. During the middle of this interview, our internet connection was cut for a little bit, and in the end, I didn't remember to ask Haley to tell us about their channel and what they do, so I want to make sure to point out. But you can find them both on their channel, Haley and Doug. Right now, they have monthly live five-day challenges where they teach people how to get started on YouTube and to sell their own digital products. I'm going to leave the link to that below for any of you who might have a business dream and want to check it out. One of the things I love about homeschooling is that it doesn't have to look the same in every family. In fact, one of the reasons I started this YouTube channel and my blog was because I wanted to showcase that homeschooling is very diverse and it looks so unique in families all across the board. Everyone is so different. I love seeing the different ways that people are making homeschooling work for them. I also love the freedom that we have in homeschooling to build our days around our family instead of the other way around. Homeschooling our kids has been so life-changing for our family. Now, each of us has different circumstances, and for Haley and Doug, when you add business to the mix, it can be a unique challenge. So I'm looking forward to hearing from Haley and hearing how she makes homeschooling work alongside their business. So let's jump in. Hi, Haley. Thank you for coming on today. Yeah, I'm stoked to be here. Love your channel, love everything you do. Such an inspiration. 10 children. Oh, thank you. Well, I'm excited to have you on. You are a mom of five, so you're a large homeschooling family and you run your own home business. Through YouTube and I have a personal connection to you because I'm one of your students and you and Doug have really helped me here on my YouTube channel and I think I was pretty much headed toward burnout. Just trying to do everything, and you guys have just been such amazing coaches and have helped me just manage things in a way that's sustainable for the long term, and for anyone that's watched my channel, it's just really grown in the past six months since I've been a student of yours, so I am excited to hear from you and honored to have you here on the channel. Yeah, I mean, I was just telling you before we press record, but I had watched you for a year before you booked a call with us. And I'm like, Doug, she doesn't know me, but she's my online mentor. I remember you DM'd me like before and I was like, she messaged, she followed me on Instagram. So yeah, I mean, I've learned so much from you, I think, because you have double the amount of kids I have. And I'm like, I always said, if Sherry can do it, I can do it. And then Now you're doing your whole, I mean, you were already running a business, and so then you started working with us, and I'm like, I really know she can do it because she's actually trying to make this whole business thing work. So yeah, likewise, for sure. Yeah, well, thank you. Well, I'm curious because I know a little bit of your story, your homeschooling story, but I don't know a lot of it, but I'd love to know how you ended up homeschooling. Were either you or Doug homeschooled? What made you decide to do this? I had my first child. She's almost 10. So she would have been around three. I don't know. It's basic math, but during COVID. So I was never homeschooled. Neither was my husband. And we were running a business at that time full time. So I thought, naturally, I'm going to have to put her in school. So we found like this cute nature based, you know, Co-op-y. I mean, it wasn't a co-op in the homeschool sense, but it was three days a week and I dropped her off during COVID and they had the children sit in these boxes of like tape on the ground. And so I saw that and I'm like, I was already really against everything. We live in California. And so I'm like, is this how it is all across the world? Like, I know that wasn't normal. So then I just started questioning, like, how much input do I want the school system having Over my child's health and over her. um mindset with things and is there an alternative I also just honestly I don't know if any other moms like this I don't think did you put your kids in school at first at all or I didn't I had been a public school teacher yeah that was yeah that was my experience yeah okay um but I would drop her off it's a daycare basically and I would just have the shakes like in the parking lot like didn't want to part from her and so I don't meet a lot of families that are moms that feel like this Um, unless now they're homeschoolers. So I realized that was like a mother's intuition that I should have listened to versus like. just go with society and drop off your child not knowing what they're doing for so many hours for all of their life felt very foreign to me and I did go to regular school daycare kid and I think maybe that's why I was triggered in that way but then I read a book you probably read it but it's dumbing us down it's one of my favorites oh but John Gatto I think John Taylor yes I don't know where I don't even know I didn't know anyone in my life that was homeschooled or anything so I don't know how I got this book, but it's such a blessing. It's very intense. So if you want to be shoved off the cliff into homeschooling, you just read this book, the first chapter. Thank you, Pastor. And it did. It pushed me right off the cliff. And I'm like, I shouldn't part from my child. This is a mother's intuition. This is what I'm called to do. Thank And so, yeah, it's been ever since then. Yeah, I love his book. It just makes you think completely differently about education. And it also made me realize how much of what I do, or at least what I did at first when we started homeschooling was just based on the way everyone does everything. you. Yes. And it makes you really think outside the box and look differently at how children really learn. Yeah, he has so many Great points about testing, about everything that we're just. We're not looking at children and the way they actually learn. We're just, they're just cogs in a wheel. Totally. Yeah. I think since I was already entrepreneurial, I didn't, and I got the whole college degree, went into student loan debt, didn't use my finance degree, obviously, at all. And so I started being like, what path am I sending her down? She's also female. So, you know, I already was having, I had, you know, three, two, three kids, then more. And I'm like, what path am I sending her down? Like into college debt. What is she going to get out of this? Right, right. Do I want her to be a career woman? Like with little kids, I would hope that she's blessed with children. Not necessarily in that way. So I had to think outside the box. I also know that just going to school personally, I really just memorized information, regurgitated it, and it's like a trash bin in my brain. I feel like that's how school kind of conditions kids. And I wanted her to love everything. Not everything. Not everything's lovable. Math sometimes, not really. But most things at least give her understanding as to why she should do them and appreciate learning. And I feel like the only way is to think outside the school system. So yeah, we went down. Well, and I know from when we started homeschooling. It was an education itself. I was looking at the curriculum and thinking, I have never read some of these books. So I had to learn so much. And I've learned more in the years homeschooling our kids than I learned from my college education. I mean, far more. Um, it's been an education in itself. So, uh, yeah, I completely relate with that. Yeah. It's wild because even, you know, I do Ambleside. That's actually how I found you. I just told you that, but, um, the books that I read aloud to my children are harder than anything. And they're, you know, that I've ever had to read in elementary school. Maybe some in high school were similar, but I really didn't like, I didn't understand why I should like it. It was horrible experience, really high school, public high school. But, um, yeah, the books that I'm reading Ambleside, I struggle and the kids see me struggle. We struggle together and then we cry at the end of the book. It's amazing. Yeah. And it's like, this was so worth the struggle. Like hard learnings are good. You know, there's fruit from them. So. Yeah, same here. I've become better at so many things. I've had parents ask me, my child's in third grade or fourth grade, but some of the books seem really challenging and I don't know where to place them in Ambleside. What if I just placed them in year one? And I look back to when I started year one, all those books were new to me and hard. They were challenging. The very first time I read The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, Oh my gosh, I'm reading that right now. The first chapter, I'm circling all these words. I didn't know what they meant. And, you know, I got into the old English, and by the end, you know, we had learned so much. And now I look at it, and it's all familiar to me. But at first, it was foreign. And yeah, so starting at level one, at year one, it is enough of a challenge. It's such a rich curriculum. And you do have to kind of be careful. I have. because you can just try to do everything which I kind of did with my oldest and part of it was because I didn't know any of these books so it's not like I could pick and choose I didn't know what to pick and choose from because it was all new to me so um I know I think of some of the books in the parables of nature the stories brutal I have to take a break I'm like guys we'll come back tomorrow but that's how it should be you know learning shouldn't always be you know like you're watching a cartoon like it should be brutal sometimes and then you get the the reward of that. So yeah, I love that experience. Yeah, totally. Yes. Yeah. So can you share some of the perks that homeschooling has given to your family? And also just the perks of being able to homeschool and continue with your home business? So many things but I would say that the biggest is time with my kids and you would say that too but I think specifically because we are entrepreneurial and we do this full-time it's like one big happy family doing everything together. There's a lot of challenges which I could touch on too obviously but when you don't have a spouse that like goes to work And I have to like, right now I'm doing this, you know, and it's 12 o'clock and he's feeding them some type of weird lunch because he can't cook. I don't know what's happening there. But it's like we switch off back and forth and back and forth. So there's a lot of struggle in that. But again, struggle we find is rewarding when you just see it as a blessing. And so the biggest perk is time. We live a very odd life because we. We're entrepreneurs and we homeschool, so we don't work Fridays other than coaching our students in the morning. Our students will know that. But we go on hikes with our co-op, and we aren't like a hiker family. We're not nature-y at all. We would literally be behind a computer all the time. We'd have kids working because we love it. But we get to be out in nature with our children, and it's life-changing even doing that with other families. I'm sure you do that as well. And then every six weeks, my parents drive up from Mexico. They live in Baja for retirement and we take off that week, a lot of that week. And so that's like a rotational thing. And we would not be able to do these things if we didn't run our own business. Summers, we pick a place to travel to and then we just won't create content because of the way we, you know, as you know, because you sell courses and digital products, but the way we make money isn't dependent solely on content. So we don't create content for a month or two. Thank you. And we can travel up the coast of California. Our last two years ago, we went to Hawaii for a while. And so, yeah, we can work from our laptops. And so just the time that we get, that's very flexible. It's honestly very overwhelming because it's like I have. So many options. Should I live like everyone else? And it's just very tormenting, but it's a privilege, you know, but I think it's the time. So I think that's the first one that I definitely want to touch on. But the second one, I don't hear too many people talk about. I love to hear your experience with this, but it's just the fact that we can mentor our children in real time. So like I'll have my almost 10 year old, she'll sit in on coaching calls or even sales calls. And our goal for our kids is by the time they... graduate from our school, whatever you want to call it, they are earning an income online. I think back to like, yeah, a long time ago, if your dad was a farmer, you were a farmer and they had this mentorship or if your dad was a blacksmith, then you just did that. Nowadays, like do whatever you love. And that's an amazing opportunity for people with the school system, which we still do love and colleges we like to a certain extent. But at the same time, like I see it now is like each individual family has skills. Like I know you guys, I've watched your You eat off your land, okay, whatever that's called. I don't live in California, so, or Orange County. I'm setting, yeah. Yeah, homesteading. You got the chicken tractor I've seen, and you have these skills, which I would love to do that. But not everyone, again, is like... Just however God has placed them in their life, they don't have that opportunity. And not everyone's an entrepreneur, but some people are really good with their hands and they're artists and they make money from that or whatever. The spelling is so unique. So I used to think like, I'll let my kids do whatever. And I still am going to do that because they have the opportunity to. But now our mindset is more of like, no, we're going to teach them how to do this because this is where we can almost guarantee success if they don't just absolutely hate it. So yeah, our goal is to help them. earn enough money to where they can invest it and then have money in passive income by the time they're 18 by teaching them digital products and how to do this online and that seems like very far-fetched because they're very young but I really don't think it is my 10 year old's already doing it and so I think that's like really at the end of the day the biggest blessing is seeing it as like a mentorship that we're giving them. I love that. Yeah, I love that. And I've seen that in other families as well. I have another friend who has said the same thing. She's very entrepreneurial minded and they have a homestead. They raise all the meat they eat, just like us, but they're kind of more intense. They're actual farmers, but their kids know how to do incredible things. And that really is their goal for their kids to know where their food comes from. how to grow it, how to basically live themselves without being dependent on anyone. So whatever skill you have as a family, you have the freedom to pass down that knowledge to your kids, which is just invaluable. And just imagine how much they would be missing of that if they're not there with you, just watching you do all the things that you do. And I think that that's really been lost. And I think it's just, it's life changing if you can. Assume the responsibility for passing down whatever gifts God's given you and seeing is like, OK, maybe my child doesn't have this natural inclination to be an entrepreneur. Right. Like some people will say, well, what if they don't want to do what you want to do? That's OK. But this is what we're teaching in the home. Like you're going to have the skill because it's going to make you money. You can always fall back on it. I just wish more people thought of that. Valuable for so many things, even if they don't choose that specifically, there's going to be ways that they can still use it to get to wherever they want to go. Yeah. My sister's another good example. So she does single family real estate. And so she's already has her children helping manage the rental properties and they're homeschoolers as well. So just whatever you were given, just pass it down and be intentional. I've learned that in the last Well, and you and Doug, that's one thing I have noticed is that you are both really strategic and intentional is a good word about planning your business so that you're able to keep your family first. Can you talk a little bit about how you do that? Yeah. And honestly, it's such an emotional answer, this one, because as you can imagine, I mean, you just said in the beginning, you're like, if it wasn't for, you know, you guys pointing me in the right direction, then me getting results, I would have burnt out. And I think that's most people, not even like a mother's experiences. If you are an entrepreneur trying to build something online as most people, um, I literally have tried all the income streams I could ever think of as far as ever since I turned 20, I didn't necessarily want to work for the man in that way. And so then when I had my firstborn when I was 23, which felt really young, um, cause I'm from where I am and people have kids in their late thirties here. Um, I thought I can't put her in daycare, so I have to make it. So then I started doing YouTube. I started doing UGC, which wasn't a thing, I was just hawking whatever I could to make money. Blogging, I tried that. I dabbled in everything because no one had really done it and no one was teaching it. And so it just went on this wild goose chase of trying to find the income stream that would allow me to grow my family, have a child. I mean, almost every two years I'm having children. I have five now, obviously. And one that's not going to allow me to burn out. So yeah, it just took so long. I think the strategy comes from So many years of being like, okay, this requires me to grow a team of 20. I don't want to have nannies or a daycare, you know, or this requires me to be working 50 hours a week. I want to homeschool and then stopping and starting and stopping and starting. And I think a lot of women do this and they beat themselves up. Like you said, burnout, but it's like burnout is just, I think, a sign that it doesn't align with your values. So now we run this business. I do it with my husband. There's no way I could do this type of business alone, maybe in another niche like you're doing, but something that is business coaching, absolutely not. And we just had to grow as a couple, grow in like, I don't know, just following the will of the Lord, I think. And. asking ourselves like is this income stream how we want to live our life because that's kind of like what you're signing up however you make your money is how you live your days as you know filming your life or doing digital products whatever um and so that's kind of the answer that we've come up with is like the way that we run our business now is YouTube only really Instagram is just as you can imagine you're not really on it like us either it's a wild goose chase out there too but yeah YouTube is evergreen selling your own products I think It's what I've concluded after 10 years of trying everything. Yeah, yeah, that was one of the things that resonated with me the most was that you have to have something that you're not dependent on. YouTube can change at any moment. The algorithms change, and then you've done all this work, and you're left with whatever they decide they want to do with you. And so you have to build it in such a way that Um, it's not dependent on that where you can own some of it yourself and then it does give you the freedom to, like you said, if you want to actually go on a family vacation, you can do that. And you're not thinking about sponsorships and views and how and all that. So, um, that's one thing that was so helpful for me to one of the first things that clicked with me when I was watching you guys and found out about you. Um, so I just, I love how you do that. And then, of course, too, I mean, I know speaking for myself and I know just from what I've learned from you, I'm able to do this in the hours before my kids get up or during quiet time. And so it has allowed us to keep our family first and yet be able for me to help other people and bring in some income for my family. and it's just been its been amazing Yeah, and I think that's... A lot of people assume like we'll just work during quiet time on YouTube and they'll think that that's what it is and that's all it entails and like okay I can be a good mom if I just do YouTube like they're saying but I think that if someone was watching this they might take away That's what we're saying but we're not like I don't think you are. It's really you have to sell your own products so that you're not reliant on sponsors I think that's the thing that I learned after six years of doing sponsors full time with my family as like the breadwinner and all that I did that for so many years I woke up really early I got light boxes to stay up until 12 o'clock at night you know. filming a YouTube video, because then as your children age, it gets much harder to like fit in content, even if it's talking head or whatever style. So I decided I had to find income streams outside of just sponsors and AdSense, because it's the only way to make more is with more videos, more views. That's where I kind of stumbled upon, oh, I have to sell my own products, especially because with COVID, they weren't allowing sponsors. And that was my income stream. So I was like, I literally have to sell courses or something. And that's kind of what forced me into this. It's like, I really feel like it's God's invisible hands. Like just being like, not this, like you have to do this, you know? So yeah, long answer, but kind of where we're at right now. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I've seen the results from it myself. It's helped save my channel. Good. So I, yeah, I think I would have burned out and just been exhausted. So then. Just looking into what your normal everyday life looks like, can you go through a normal homeschooling day as you're balancing your business and your family life? This is the question of life. I don't know if you can let me know, but I don't know if it's just because I've only been, I mean, my oldest is nine, almost 10, and you've got so many more years on me, but I feel like it's taken years to perfect a schedule. And I don't know if that's because I am an entrepreneur or if it's because, so I do still work, like I'm here doing this and I film videos and I still coach students. We only really work part-time hours, so I don't know if it's really that, but between the both of us. Um, but this schedule, like I've had like papers and papers of schedules, trying and testing schedules. So right now I'm going to say it's this, but it's going to change, you know? Um, but I love hearing about this from, you know, more seasoned moms, like what is the perfect schedule? Because I keep having children and the toddler is the thing that makes it all go upside down. Yeah. But, um, we model a lot of your, like, honestly, a lot of your, not that Doug knows, but I model a lot of your schedules. I found your schedule on your blog, and so I bought your e-book and all that. So morning time, we do probably what you do. You introduced us to Worldwatch. Actually, they love that. Oh, good. Yeah, and then all the riches, you know, composer study, art study, very Ambleside Online. And then I will try to wrangle my baby and my three-year-old at the same time, helping, as you know, with math. And I'll try to do everything. This is a lengthy answer, but it's like the Play-Doh. And it's very challenging. So I will say that I just want to encourage moms that they have a lot of kids and then toddlers. It's so hard. Like it is so hard. And I really would like to outsource at least math because how am I supposed to sustain this? I don't know how you do it. As the math gets harder, It's wild. So we get math done and our core subjects like right in the morning. I find that if I fail at everything else that day and something crazy happens in the business, which life happens or someone breaks a leg, like at least, you know, we get math, reading, writing done. So I do whatever I can to get those done. And then the rest of the day, it is just all the enjoyable things. So it's reading aloud, history, science, all the other things, piano. And then the afternoon when, which is what I think you're doing right now. And you told me that. Um, we record our podcast for our YouTube channel. So we do that if the stars align and the children are, well, the three-year-old goes to sleep. You have a three-year-old too. Yeah. And yeah, we don't do any screen time. And so I think that's why I do make it hard on myself because I just can't, you know, after seeing the effects of how it was with my firstborn, not knowing what I know now, I can never go back. So we do make it harder on ourselves in that way. So that's kind of like how our day goes. Yeah, we don't do screen time either when I'm doing stuff for this. Our kids just find stuff to do, and I don't know, maybe I've forgotten. Maybe when they were younger, it was. really hard and then somewhere along the way they just don't expect it and they pick up things to do and stay busy and I will say like um our oldest three so the five-year-old seven-year-old nine-year-old they just watch us podcast and color and they think it's so interesting you know we have to pretend to be someone someone more gregarious or whatever on YouTube um so they'll just watch us like a couple times a week and it's just the three-year-old that I'm like Like, there's nothing I can do. You know, she'll fight with her silly butt. Yeah, it's amazing when you never give it. They don't know. They just do stuff with their toys. I don't know. They color. They find stuff to do. So, yeah, that's kind of what we do in a day. And then. I put them in all the activities I can. So I think there's like this big push, especially on Instagram, I see for the homeschooling culture to like take things slow, which I do like, because I just feel like it's swung. It's, you know, like put them in everything, put them in school. And then there's this huge swing now where it's like, do nothing. They don't say it like this. It's more dressed up, but like stay at home, keep things slow. Teach them, you know, as they're much older, but I'm somewhere in the middle where I like to get out every day for an activity or else I feel claustrophobic and smothered. I don't know if it's because I don't have land. That's like the grass is always greener, right? I live in suburbia, but it's like I've got them in speech and debate, dance, like something every day. It's only an hour, but they have that to look forward to. And I've learned that this year after last year of us not having enough to do, like we got to get out. So that's kind of what we do in the afternoons. Good news. Yeah, that's interesting to hear you say that because when our kids were younger and when I was in your stage of parenting, we lived in town, we didn't have any land and it was the same thing. We had something planned to go out and do every day. Is it the land? You got to tell me. I think, I think part of it is the land. Animals keep you just so busy. Even when it's off season, I don't know. And there's just so much, just mowing our yard takes four hours and the kids all help. You know, they do part of it and that's not even the weed whacking or that's not the garden. I mean, it just. It takes a lot of time, and so there's just not as much of a need to do stuff. And doing stuff, even the kids sometimes get overwhelmed by it because there's just not as much of a need. But when we were in town, I was the same way. We had something that we were going to go out and do every day, and we switched it up. See, I knew it was suburbia. I'm Well, and it's having young kids too. starting With having older kids, teenagers, There is someone at our house almost every single day. And so that alone exhausts my little ones. Just the activity last night, they were running around for my son's birthday. to He had friends over. They were running around at like nine in the dark playing. speak. I don't know what they were playing, but anyway, and there was a campfire. I mean, it's just there's stuff all the time because you have older siblings that their friends are coming over. And so that is part of it. We're in that phase where they're all small, you know, maybe nine and below, but I can see that. Yeah, we want to move and get at least half an acre, you know, which I don't know how many you have. It's probably tiny, but we actually have three chickens. It does help. It does entertain them. Yeah, it gives them something to do. And then when you're older, we have older kids. And they can drive. There's just so much coming and going. It's, I mean, honestly, it feels like a whirlwind sometimes. The kids tell me all the stuff they're doing. I'm like, just write it down on my schedule because I am going to be so lost. Yeah. So, yeah. So I'm curious, what was your, or what has been your biggest challenge in balancing a business and homeschooling? I thought about this question when you sent it. The answer is very, it's honestly. I feel like I'm solving it now, and it's taken me so many years of being an entrepreneur for 11 years and then doing this for years. It is. Just the identity crisis that I felt in being a working woman, you know, or someone that is a homeschool mother that is there to, you know, her role, her God-given role in life is to nurture her children, train them up in the Lord and have this time, this, you know, time all, all the day long. And then also I'm expected to provide income, which I placed that expectation on myself because of what I want to steward for this business and whatever, support my husband. It's just been such a internal struggle because I will go in homeschool circles of women that can just, they have so much more time than me. Not saying they have it easier, but they, they're my friends. Like I say this, you know, they can stay at the beach longer, you know, all day long if they want it. And I need to make it home for this. Or they just don't have that pressure that I have put on myself because of this opportunity. And I've just battled internally, like, is this morally I don't know about you, like if you've ever battled that, but. I don't know anyone in my personal life that does what I do. Only my students, you know, we all kind of homeschool. A lot of us do. And so I can feel that bond with them because I'm like, we have this desire to change our family's income in our life and generationally, but also number one, we're homeschool moms and mothers and wives. And so I've just battled within the last really like five years of quitting. Like, do I just call it quits and have my husband do everything? How much do I stay in it? And so I've started and stopped and chased different things in that aspect. And I've kind of come to this conclusion that This is what God has given me and I am to steward what God has given me instead of focusing on all of the flaws with how full my life is or how I don't relate to the other homeschool moms, you know, or how I have more stress than other people. It's like just you can be grateful with what God has given you. And it's even harder for me to say that now because it's such an internal battle because the stress is real when you do anything outside of honestly, even just homeschooling is very hard. Yeah. So I think that's my struggle. And I've discovered this really within the last couple of months. Just do it. And see everything as a blessing from God Yeah. And I think part of what you're talking about is just the unique circumstances we all have. I mean, I remember back to the early days of us homeschooling and my husband worked such random shift work and it really affected our homeschool life and simple things like going on a field trip with our co-op. I didn't want to go because this was his only time off. I knew he was going to work as soon as we left. And then when I go, all my friends think, oh, this is so nice. Your husband can come along for this field trip. But I'm thinking, this is our only family time. I'd rather actually just be at home enjoying. But it was this, yeah, talking, relaxing. But I feel torn because this is the kid's only chance to go on this fun field trip. They want to go with all their friends. With his schedule, there were things that just felt impossible. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Not ideal, and I did not always have the best attitude about it, but I came to a point. The Lord showed me that this is what he'd given me, and the best thing was just to accept it and be thankful for the life we have and understand that it may not look like everyone else's life, and that's okay. That's what makes us each unique, and in some ways, that's our strength. You know, it's good that we don't all look the same and do the same things. Yeah, it'd be boring if we're all the same, for sure. I think a big contributing factor as to why I personally had so much internal battle is because when you are exposed to social media and everyone's lives, you can see, well, I could have it this way. If I worked in this way, I could have it this way. I could have it this way. Maybe not necessarily for you. Um, cause your husband had to go and do his job. But even that, like, even if you had a cop as a husband or five years, like you're not going to change that. This is his vocation, you know? Um, but you see online, you're like, well, maybe I could work it out to where I could do this because this person did And it's just, you start to resent your position in life. And I think that's what happened to me versus put the blinders on and just be grateful. Yeah. But it's possible. Right. Yes. So then what encouragement would you give to a mom who has a business dream and but feels like this season of motherhood leaves no room for it? I know personally when I was younger, just because of my husband's crazy schedule and our life circumstances, I couldn't have done YouTube. But it really changed at a certain point in our homeschooling years as my kids became so much more independent and I was able to just slowly fit it in and it became something that was very natural and kind of a nice outlet to have something different to do. I was always learning a new skill. That's what I liked about it. Well, first off, I don't think every mother should do what I do. Absolutely not. It's kind of like the stars aligned and I was given all these opportunities and this gift and whatever, and I don't think every mother should do what you do. I think first and foremost, my encouragement is to always, and I didn't always believe this, okay? So this is through blood, sweat, and tears of learning, but follow your husband's lead. And that's, like, my biggest advice that I could tell any mother. It's, like, if she has a desire to, like, live this bougie life because of social media or whatever, it's, like, what does your husband feel about that? You know, you can obviously voice your opinions to him, but if that's something that he... thinks it's best for you to do, then like, you know, do that. But that's the first thing, which I did not always do. I would just chase whatever was the opportunity for me and myself and our family. But it's like, does my husband want me to do that? Is our marriage going to be strengthened? Is our children going to still be raised up in the Lord? Am I going to have the bandwidth? That's the first thing. The second thing is, I would say that, you know, you said a second ago, you're like, well, I didn't always have time for this. I wouldn't have had time, Probably very true. You absolutely cannot and you're in a season of loss or whatever, like do not do it. But if there is a part of you where you're like, I really want to do this, but how the heck am I going to find the time? I would encourage you not to assume that you have to do it in the way that other people do it. So they might see your videos and they see, okay, Sherry does B-roll voiceover videos. But I can't do that because I live in this apartment and there's just not a lot to work with. I don't have this cool like chicken backyard, whatever, you know, this homestead or I just don't want to like bring the camera into my home, but I also can't do it in this way like this other person. So you can list all the reasons why it's not going to work for you because you have all these constraints or you can work within those constraints. So I used to say, well, I can't do it like these people and so therefore I can't do it. But really it's like, what do you have to work with? Do you have just a phone? You know, do you have a window? Can you just do a simple weekly podcast? Like, can you do that and not quit? Because you're going to find reasons why you should burn out or it's okay for you to quit or try something else if what you're doing does not fit within your values or your constraints versus like trying to find the thing that you're not going to quit and faithfully do that because you will absolutely see the fruit like you have if you don't quit. If you pick something that you can do faithfully week after week, month after month, I think that's my encouragement, is just work with what you have, and it's okay if it doesn't look as shiny as the girl next to you, you know. Right, yeah. That's one of the biggest things I learned from you all, was working within your constraints. And, yeah, I mean, we have constraints just because of our children and our lifestyle, but even with time, you know, it'd be easy to say, well, I just don't have the time, because sometimes I really feel like I don't have the time. But I do try to take at least an hour and a half to myself every day and my kids know and I would do that whether or not I mean, I did that before I had anything on YouTube. I did that because I just needed it and the kids needed it. And then I was happy when I came back to them. So you have that hour and a half and you just do you know what you can do in that hour and a half. And I have found that I actually work better. When I'm under pressure and have less time, because then I only get to the things that have to be done. I don't waste any time. I get right to it. And so only an hour and a half, I just, that makes me get a lot more done. Because that's my only time. And that's a good, that's a good thing to focus on. It's like only an hour and a half, but you could do so much. You could change your whole family's life in an hour and a half a day or an hour or 30 minutes. If you just, again, steward the time that God has given you and not... allowed yourself that scarce mentality, the victim mentality, where it's like, well, woe is me, I can't do it, because of my, whatever, X, Y, Z. It's totally enough time if you pick the right income stream and business model, I think. And stay consistent over a long time. Yeah, people give in too easily, I think. Yeah, 100%. It's easy when the kids are loud, and life is loud. Yeah, yeah. Well, Haley, thank you so much. This has been really fun. I've enjoyed getting a chance to talk to you. We don't get to do this that much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so. So thanks again. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for sharing your experience. And I just really think this is going to encourage some families out there. Totally. It's very niche, you know, working and living together as a family. But we wouldn't have it any other way, as you know, if you're doing it. Yeah. For sure. This is exactly why I love having conversations like these. Homeschooling isn't a one-size-fits-all approach. Every family has unique interests and needs. We all have different circumstances, and there's just so much freedom in finding what works best for your family, and I think Haley really touched on that. I love hearing Haley sharing how she and Doug found meaningful work, you can tell they're passionate about it, while also keeping their family at the center. And if you're a mom with a business dream, I hope this conversation encouraged you. Remember to check out Haley and Doug's channel and join their monthly live five-day challenge. You may not be able to do everything that you want to in this season, but that doesn't mean you can't take small steps to get started on something you've been dreaming about. That's how it works for most of us. We just start small and then keep going. Thanks for listening to the Our Life Homeschooling podcast. I'll see you next week.