The Hope Strategy Podcast

Kerry McDonald shares her optimistic view of education and education innovation along with her insights about the remote learning situation many parents currently face during the pandemic. Kerry defines “Unschooling” - the idea taught in her book “Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom” and gives evidence based advice and hope to parents seeking a better way to educate their children. This episode is a great reflection on what education really is and how it should be approached.

Highlighted Quotes

“Opportunity in Education Entrepreneurship”

We're seeing tremendous growth in all aspects of the economy in terms of entrepreneurship, of course that's not offsetting the vast number of businesses that have been shut down due to government orders, but it is a hopeful sign that entrepreneurship is alive and well and I think, again, education entrepreneurship is ripe for more opportunities and more innovators to create some really wonderful options for families.

“Defining Unschooling”

“Unschooling” is really disentangling education from schooling and seeing schooling as one method to being educated sort of top down, course of type learning where you know here are your daily assignments here are your tests and quizzes here's your ABCDEF grade, and yet learning is so much broader and again more enriching than that experience. Also unschooling doesn't mean that you're not taking classes, it doesn't mean that you're not doing what we would consider school like activities. It just means that it's a less coercive experience and it's more driven by the child's interest.

“Parents”

Parents are the ones, ultimately responsible for making sure their children are highly literate and numerous highly educated, and I argue that that's true whether your children are homeschooled or in a conventional school that it's up to the parents to make sure your children are getting a high quality education that it's your responsibility as a parent to do that.

Resources/Mentions:

Book

• Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom
• Why I Love Homeschooling

Company

• Expanse Learning
• Expanse(Linkedin)

Organization

• FEE.org

Guest Links:

• Kerry - Linkedin
• Kerry Mcdonald Website (Fee.Org)
• Kerry’s Forbes Articles
• Kerry - Facebook
• Kerry - Instagram
• Kerry - Twitter

Podcast Links:

• Instagram: @Hopestrategy
• Facebook: @hopestrategy
• Twitter: @thehopestrategy
• Youtube The Hope Strategy

Jason Earl professor at BYUH and Entrepreneur shares his vision for the future of education along with his thoughts on success and happiness. Jason shares how his upbringing created the desire to do well in school and taught him the value of working hard and smart, the value of opportunities, the lessons learned building a successful business and optimizing your own weaknesses through the right team. This episode is a great look at what it means to be successful, the real value of traditional education and what needs to happen in order to future proof the education process.

Highlighted Quotes

“Bad Zoom Classes”

The shroud is off and people can finally peer into higher education, and for the first time in the world people could see what a bad zoom class looks like... it's not pretty. I think what's really happened is we've jumped into the future about 10 to 15 years. I'm convinced there are some educators out there that can do it, and they can teach it and I think this is a huge opportunity for them because this is a chance for a lot of well meaning people to find a platform and put their own foot back in education and really help.

“Skills”

There's so many skills now that can be gained just with a decent internet connection and with a tablet or a laptop. You can learn skills in project management, and digital marketing or whatever... There's a lot of things that students need besides just passing some class... they need that confidence, they need a network and they need the brand.

“Intangible value”

If you can learn to value the things in life that you can't put a dollar amount on and then devote your life to those things. I think that's where you find your greatest reward and even to this day I look at you know some of my best students and I'm so proud of them. But I also look at my students who are simply, you know back in the Philippines and working with their families and they're running a small business, they're happy. they can provide for their families. They feel like they are part of something bigger than just themselves. And they're creating jobs in their own little way and they're changing the world so I think, I think those are the two examples.

Resources/Mentions:

Education

• Willes Center BYUH

Companies

• Exxon Mobil
• World Minerals

Places

• Walmart Museum

Podcast Links:

• Instagram: @Hopestrategy
• Facebook: @hopestrategy
• Twitter: @thehopestrategy
• Youtube The Hope Strategy

Eric Bandholz talks about Beardbrand, presenting on Shark Tank, politics, and how he changed up his hiring to create a more independent and creative work environment. Eric also shares some of his thoughts on stoicism along with some of the struggles both he and his wife have faced in pursuit of building a family. This episode is a great look at creating positive work culture and building a life you can be proud to live.

Highlighted Quotes

“Stoic Mindset”

I tend to have a Buddhist-Stoic mindset for a lot of things... there is going to be suffering it's just part of humanity and it is part of life.one of the things that I have seen is that you are dealt the problems that you are capable of solving them. If you aren't capable of solving them, you wouldn't have them. That has encouraged me to find bigger problems because I feel that I can certainly solve bigger problems that I'm currently facing right now. You should want to have those problems and those challenges in life.

“Core Values”

We look at our core values as a triangle of Freedom, Honor and Trust. what happens is if you have too much freedom... then what happens is your trust and your hunger go down. So it's something that you want to have balanced... again perhaps too much hunger or too much drive and you end up working 80 hours a week and you are losing your freedom, and maybe you are eroding trust as well as you walk over your teammates so like balance has been a big thing for us.

Resources/Mentions:

Book

• The Obstacle Is The Way - Ryan Holiday
• Book of Reminders

Company

• Beardbrand

Episode

• Shark Tank Episode

Guest Links:

• Beardbrand
• Eric Twitter
• Eric Instagram
• Eric Linkedin

Podcast Links:

• Instagram: @Hopestrategy
• Facebook: @hopestrategy
• Twitter: @thehopestrategy
• Youtube The Hope Strategy

Guy Kawasaki talks about his early experiences working with Steve Jobs at Apple while working on the Macintosh project. Guy shares his thoughts on failure, working with other people's money, and why work-life balance is “overrated”. Guy also talks about his father and mothers families and their relocation to Hawaii in search of better opportunities. Through hard work in the plantation fields, fighting fires and even work in government Guy’s family helped pave a culture of hard work and “grit” that has been the secret to his success. This episode is an upbeat but very honest look at motivation, work ethic and finding fortune.

Highlighted Quote

“Failure is Not an Option”

“It is NOT “Ok” to fail. When you fail you ruin peoples’ lives, you waste money, you waste time, you waste many things... So don't get a cavalier attitude about failure. Having said that the odds are you WILL fail so the question is - “what lessons did you learn that will increase the probability of success next time?”

Resources/Mentions:

• Canva
• Apple
• Mercedes
• Guy Kawasaki Books
• Garage

Guest Links:

• Remarkable People Podcast
• GuyKawasaki.Com
• Twitter
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Podcast Links:

• Instagram: @Hopestrategy
• Facebook: @hopestrategy
• Twitter: @thehopestrategy
• Youtube The Hope Strategy

Jonathan Beninson shares his background and beginnings in entrepreneurship along with thoughts about imposter syndrome, “enoughness”, and what it truly takes to “win”. Jonathan also talks about his belief that “human problems have human solutions” and shares how his desire to help solve some of those problems brought him to his latest project: Arkhaven - a company dedicated to creating self sustaining housing that provides energy, food and water to residents.

Highlighted Quote

“Imposter Syndrome”

We all have something about ourselves that is always with us but that we don't like to look at. Maybe something that drives us, something that we feel embarrassed by... for a lot of people it's a sense of imposter syndrome. I can tell you the number of people in my life who are people you've heard of probably, who are CEOs who are otherwise thought leaders, influencers, etc. I can tell you that, by and large, many of them, most of them even have the sense of imposter syndrome. My advice to anyone who cares, is make friends with that, whatever it is, because it's going to be with you and it's in there's nothing you're going to do to get rid of it. It's your passenger and it's probably the fuel in your tank and and when everything is said and done, chances are, wherever you succeed in your life It's probably because of that thing...it's probably your strongest investment.

Resources/Mentions:

• 8Mile - Film
• Humans Need Not Apply
• Happiness Lab
• Arkhaven

Guest Links

• Linkedin
• Beninson.com

Podcast Links:

• Instagram: @Hopestrategy
• Facebook: @hopestrategy
• Twitter: @thehopestrategy
• Youtube The Hope Strategy