Episode 134 – Lindsey Wander

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Lindsey Wander
When I said, “Let me teach the way I want to teach.” My number one priority at all times was to have fun. If they have fun learning, everything else follows. And they’ll exceed your expectations. So I planned every lesson with ‘fun’ in mind. And I would say, “What if they forget the stages of mitosis? I don’t care. I want them to remember having fun but they would still remember the stages of mitosis, because they had fun doing it.” I think that we have to bring that back. These kids are so excited to learn. They’re so creative, they’re so innovative, and we just really stifled them with these worksheets that are just boring, unengaged, and unmotivated. But if we just go with the idea of, “Let’s enjoy this and provide them with the experience. That they have fun, they’re going to learn faster than if we would do it the other way.

The HERO Show
Heroes are an inspiring group of people, every one of them from the larger than life comic book heroes you see on the big silver screen, to the everyday heroes that let us live the privileged lives we do. Every hero has a story to tell from the doctor saving lives at your local hospital, to the war veteran down the street, who risked his life for our freedoms, to the police officers and the firefighters who risked their safety to ensure ours. Every hero is special and every story worth telling. But there is one class of heroes that I think is often ignored: the entrepreneur, the creator, the producer. The ones who look at the problems in this world and think to themselves, “You know what? I can fix that. I can help people. I can make a difference.” And they go out and do exactly that by creating a new product or introducing a new service. Some go on to change the world, others make a world of difference to their customers. Welcome to The HERO Show. Join us as we pull back the masks on the world’s finest heropreneurs and learn the secrets to their powers, their success, and their influence. So you can use those secrets to attract more sales, make more money and experience more freedom in your business. I’m your host, Richard Matthews, and we are on in 3… 2… 1…

Richard Matthews
Welcome back to The HERO Show. My name is Richard Matthews. And today, I have the pleasure of having Lindsey Wander on the line. Lindsay are you there?

Lindsey Wander
I’m here.

Richard Matthews
Awesome. So glad to have you here. And for those of you who’ve been following along with our travels, my wife and I are still in Fort Myers, Florida for our traveling. And Lindsey, you said you were coming in from Chicago, right?

Lindsey Wander
I’m in Chicago, still no snow, but I’m still here.

Richard Matthews
No snow. And I guess you know, the streets are kind of empty there. We were talking, a little bit before we started recording, about the whole COVID stuff. We’re still in the middle of that pandemic. Hopefully life will start getting back to normal soon. But you know, it is what it is.

Lindsey Wander
Yeah. All temporary.

Richard Matthews
What I want to do real quick, before we get too far into this is do a quick introduction for Lindsey for our audience who may or may not know you. So Lindsey, you moved to Chicago at the age of 29, where you decided to start your own tutoring business, which later became Worldwise Tutoring. Her mission is to help students of all abilities to not only improve their grades and scores, but also to learn the skills needed to become confident and independent, be lifelong learners, grow into competent, and conscious leaders. So with that very brief introduction, Lindsey, why don’t you start off by telling us what you are known for now? What’s your business like? Who do you serve? And what do you do for them?

Lindsey Wander
I think I’m known for using my background with my own education experiences. I’m known as a teacher in the classroom, and as a tutor. I’ve done all of it. And I understand that learning is more than just doing problems out of a book or doing a worksheet. And my goal with the company is to really equip our students with the mindset as well as the skill set so that they can be successful as adults. I would say my deeper mission is to avoid what I’m sure a lot of us have heard. Where a lot of adults get into their career and 20 years down the line, they realize they are living someone else’s dream. And they feel miserable, they’re not doing what they love, and there haven’t been true to who they are. I really work with kids to help them find their unique voice to pursue their own personal passions, while also getting good grades and getting to good test scores, right, but really helping them figure out who they are and develop those skills so that when they do go down that path that’s uniquely theirs, they can then be, in their own way, successful. Whatever that entails. And it’s just so much more than what we’re doing for the kids right now in school. So I’m trying to be more of an extension of support to expand and help them find who they really are.

Richard Matthews
So with the tutoring business, two questions real quick on that. What’s the age group that you serve? And I think the second question, I know you’ve turned it into more of a business that is beyond yourself. So do you have other tutors? How does actually look like?

Lindsey Wander
I’ve always said “All ages, all abilities, all subjects.” And I’m being very much put to the test with the pandemic. I literally have students as young as two. And I have students up in their 50s, who are doing career changes. Up until this point, I said that. But we mostly got Middle High School – College. But now, I mean, we have a lot more ages. So because of that, and because of the changing needs of our clients who are looking for specialists for certain age groups and certain subjects, I have brought on a ton. I’m talking 40, plus new instructors. So I’m up to almost 60. And that way, I have multiple options for families to choose from with specialties. So I’m getting a lot more people who are wanting help for the younger kids, we’re looking for people who have expertise in that, but also a lot of people who have children with learning difficulties, or like I said, adults that are going back to school with their own sets of challenges. And so I really just want to make sure I have a ton of people on board ready to go to help with literally all ages, all abilities, all subjects.

Richard Matthews
So the first thing that pops into my head, I’m growing a small team myself, having 60 people that you have working for you… How do you manage that for both finding the right people and making sure that they’re keeping your level of quality and instruction that you want to offer our students over such a large group of people.

Lindsey Wander
So it’s funny because I always say I have two superpowers. And I think that’s one of them. I’m just really good at spotting other amazing instructors. And a lot of it comes to like my intuition. There are some people where on paper, they look good. And there are certain things that are right, but just something, I could feel it. And there are times I’ve gone against that intuition and brought them in. And ended up not working out and I’m like “I’m learning, you know,” You got to follow that intuition. So that’s definitely one part of the business I’ll never let go of, because I’m just there’s something I can sense in the person. And it might just be the way they respond to questions. Yes, it’s something I can’t really describe it. But I just know. And I just have an amazing, amazing team. And I don’t rush it either. You know, I think a lot of people when they’re hiring, they hire because of openings, and they’re trying to get someone to fill the spot, I more anticipate my client’s needs, and then get people on board slowly, I don’t get someone on board just just because I need them for a client, I already have them from before. And they’ve been trained, and they’ve been prepared, but they also come to me already committed to the same ideals, they might just need a little more help in specific strategies for how to actually carry out those ideals of creating lifelong learners who are confident and independent and all of the things that we discussed.

Richard Matthews
So my next question for you then has to do with sort of this whole pandemic stuff that’s happened. He said, you’ve hired a lot of people and your business grew really rapidly. I’m curious, were you prepared for that kind of growth? Or is this something you had to scramble and sort of like figure out how to grow? Or was it a natural outgrowth like, “Hey, we’re ready for the stress of rapid growth.”

Lindsey Wander
You know, this is something I work on with my students, I think my resilience level is really high. And I’m really good at when things are tough, rather than wallow in the depths of it, I’m like, “Alright, what do we got to do? Let’s just get it done,” Prepared in the sense of, I’ve hired people before, but with that mass, to the point, literally, I was working for like six months, seven days a week, like 14 hour days, because, you know, hiring is a lot plus everything else I was doing to revamp my business. But it was just one of those things where it’s like, every once in a while, you just got to put your head down, knock it out, get it done, make adjustments, I’m committed to this business I’m passionate about it, I’m not willing to let it go. Because I really think it’s providing an exceptional service for people and you just get it done. You know, it’s like, it is what it is. It’s temporary. And I’m back now to being able to have a little bit of a life again, you know, and I think one of the things that honestly caused me a lot of stress at the beginning of this pandemic was the current educators & instructors that I had, weren’t getting enough work because despite what people might think, the tutoring companies actually got hit pretty hard. In the beginning of this, mainly, I think parents were just not really sure what they needed help with. And it was survival mode, and education was just thrown to the side, like, “Look, we’re trying to survive.” And it was really keeping me up at night. You know, there are people who rely on this income, and they weren’t getting it. And so I really put in the effort to revamp the business to grow it, and to adjust to the changing needs of our clients. And with that, the clients started flooding in and I knew that was going to happen. So I anticipated it at the same time I was hiring and training and getting everyone ready for that mass of growth. In fact, I actually had it as a goal of mine. I didn’t want to get higher than like 15 in each city. Um, and I think that was my A lot of my own personal roadblocks. I have my own you know, I know you call it like your kryptonite, and I think there’s certain things there that kind of already have been a problem for me in the past. But then with this, I just said, you know, what sky’s the limit, you know, these kids need us the world. But there’s a spotlight in education right now. You know, I have an amazing service and amazing concept. And our kids are moving and shaking out there in the world. And I’m like, “Let’s just go with it. Why am I holding myself back?” So if anything, it was my own issues before.

Richard Matthews
That’s such a such a cool story too. We’ve talked a lot over the last couple of months on this show with guests about how there, there are like two options when you get hit with something like a global pandemic unlike anything we’ve seen in the past 100 years. Because it’s like, shutting down the global economy to like, ground it to a halt kind of thing. And you have two options there. One is you can just sit back, watch Netflix, and watch it happen, or you can get to work and start taking advantage of the opportunities that happen when the world changes.

Lindsey Wander
Absolutely. And I’ve seen both among people, you know, you see some people and you want to shake them, like, “Do something. Why are you just sitting back?” But yeah, it’s just different personalities, I guess, and maybe your own passion about what you’re doing. And like I said, I love this business. And I know it’s working. So I’m like, you know, let’s just do it. If I have to give up a little of my social life or temporary amount of time, I’m going to do it.

Richard Matthews
Yeah. It reminds me of one of the metaphors I use regularly. This is what they call the work-life balance, where it’s like the legal scale where everyone’s trying to get their work life balance. I’ve always hated that metaphor. Your story fits well with the metaphor I use for work life balance. It is more like a rubber band. Sometimes, you have to really stretch the rubber band. And when you stretch the rubber band and you let go, you can rock it forward in your business. But if you stretch it too far, you can break it. So you want to know where your limits are but you have periods where the rubber band is sitting there and you have periods where the band is stretched really hard. And that sounds like you just you spent several months going through this stretch rubberband phase.

Lindsey Wander
And honestly, in the past five days, I had family concerns I had to put my attention towards. Business got put on the back burner for a little while. And that’s just life. You know, there are certain times that other things need your attention. You just knock it out and people will understand. That has been a learning part for me too. I’m so quick about replying. I’m so quick about getting things done. But not everyone holds me to those expectations. It’s me holding myself to it. So sometimes I’m just like, I’ll get back to you tomorrow, you know, and they’re fine with that. Everyone is really understanding that family is important right now. And that’s okay. Sometimes the rubber band goes the other way, like you said.

Richard Matthews
Absolutely. So my my next question for you after getting to hear what it is that you do. Let’s find out your origin story. Every good comic book hero has an origin story — the thing that made them into the hero they are today. We want to hear that story. Were you bit by a radioactive spider that made you want to get into the tutoring business or did you start a job and eventually become an entrepreneur? Basically, we want to know where you came from.

Lindsey Wander
And I think I was bit by lots of radioactive spiders, I’ve had a lot of career changes throughout my life. And I think with a lot of people, that’s kind of the case. It’s not a straight road where I’ve just said as a kid, “I want to be a tutoring business owner.” No. I actually had a long, windy, and bumpy road. I originally went to school for biomedical engineering, I had ideas that I was going to be building prosthetic arms that your mind could control. I studied genetics and chemistry. Super cool, right? Until you get into the lab. And then it’s like, ‘yawn…’ you know, it’s super boring. And I couldn’t stand it. The genetics lab, for me, just didn’t work. And I ended up switching my major to ecology. So I was out hiking in the forest. And then I ended up graduating with these degrees in biology, chemistry and math. And I was like, What am I going to do with these, I want to travel the world. So I did internships all over the world, in those fields so that I could test out the careers before I actually committed to them. So I did research. I did grant writing. I did teaching, and it was the teaching that I fell in love with and went back to school for my teaching credential. So you know, me who was originally going to be this engineer, and now I’m going to be a teacher at low income schools and middle schools. A lot of people were shocked by that, you know, a lot of people were like, “What are you doing?” Until they saw me teach? And they’re like, “Yeah, this is where you need to be, this is perfect for you.” And honestly, I would probably still be doing that. I was tutoring on the side. But it wasn’t really a goal of mine to have a tutoring business. I was happy as a classroom teacher, I loved my job. But it wasn’t until I moved from California to Chicago and thought I’ll find a school that gave me the same freedom to teach. And I didn’t. That’s when I said, “Forget this. I’m done having these people.” Sorry for anyone who’s an administrator, but a lot of times you’ll hear the complaints from teachers that there’s a disconnect between administrators and teachers. And you have administrators telling the teachers what to do, but they’ve never been in the classroom. And so I just said, “You know what, at this time, I’m going to do what I know is right for these kids, I know how to teach them, I’m not going to sit here and just do test questions with them all day long when I have a storage unit full of microscopes, and dissection kits. Let’s get these kids learning and having fun.” And that’s when I started the tutoring company. And I honestly, it was just me for a couple of years. And it wasn’t until I outgrew myself that I said, All right, I gotta hire someone. And it was my friend who said, the first one you hire will be the hardest. And after that, you’re going to be like, “Why didn’t I hire people sooner? And it’s so true. Here I am at almost 60 tutors, just about five years, six years later.” It wasn’t really a straight path. But all of those experiences, all the things that I hit along the way, really got me to be as successful as I am now because I’ve used those experiences. So it kinda like I went down the path I was supposed to go down, even though it wasn’t my original intention, I just followed my gut all along the way. And it worked out.

Richard Matthews
Yeah, that’s really awesome. And I love the story of like, how you sort of fell into fell into it, right? You’re like, “This is just not working for me — to teach this way.” You look like you’re around my age. When I was going to high school, it was a very different experience than what kids are seeing today in school. And a lot of that is the bureaucracy that’s come in, and the changes in the government and there’s just a lot of stuff that has changed in school dramatically from

Lindsey Wander
…so political. Yeah.

Richard Matthews
And I’ve met a number of teachers as we’ve been traveling around. I’ve met a surprising number of teachers who have retired and started traveling. And when you start talking to teachers who have retired a lot of them are young people. They’re not at retirement age. They’re just like, “I’m out of teaching.” And the reason they’re out of teaching. It’s like, “I can’t teach anymore. I can’t do the thing I want to…”

Lindsey Wander
It’s not the kids. Yeah, we’re not burnt out by the kids. We’re not burnt out by the teaching. It’s the the red tape and the hoops. And it’s just exhausting. You know, you just want to teach. I’m not trying to be lazy, like I go home every day and rewrite my lesson plans. But I know my kids, I know what to do with them. Let me add, they’re gonna hit their standards and they’re gonna pass whatever tests you give them. Even if I don’t teach the way you want me to teach. Just let me teach them, you know?

Richard Matthews
yeah, we Yeah, school for kids. So yeah, I’m familiar, right. Like, It surprises me how much they learn? Yeah. When you teach to them, right? Yeah. Not to standards.

Lindsey Wander
Because school systems have gotten so big, people try to just just package it and say everyone should learn one way. And that’s not the case. I’m a big proponent of student centered learning. And that’s the way I teach. And it was frustrating when I was told, “No, no, no. Just teach it this way generically.” And my kids would not succeed. They would succeed the other way. And I’m like, I don’t want the generic way.

Richard Matthews
So you probably will really relate to this. Because one of the things that my wife and I struggled with for quite a while, was my oldest son being an auditory learner. And my wife – the one who does all the teaching for the kids is a visual kinesthetic learner. And so she kept putting the lesson stuff together for him – visual kinesthetic. And he was just not getting it or having any of it. No success with it at all. And it finally dawned on me one day, I was like, he’s an audio learner. And I am, right. And so I walked my wife through it, I was like, “Hey, he’s probably an audio learner. This is what you need to do, because that’s how I learned.” And she switched all the stuff up for him. And he was just like a rocket ship. It changes everything.

Lindsey Wander
It’s so easy. It’s so easy. That’s actually one of the first things I say when I train with my tutors. I remind them that we teach the way we learn, but not all of our kids learn the way we do. So you have to be able to look for signs of their learning style. It’s really easy to see. And then, simply adjust your teaching accordingly. And I’m sure for your wife, it was easy for her to adjust. You know, it’s just her natural tendency to go the other way. And I think that’s the misconception. I think a lot of people think that those changes are so difficult and so time consuming. Or they need more training. And when you’re an educator, you’re used to adjusting for kids. You had the plan B. Off the camera, I could tell you help with your kids. We just know to always have something in our back pocket. I really hope that with this pandemic, things change with our education because parents are having their kids at home just like you’re seeing and realizing more about their children and how they learn. I’m telling these parents “You have voices. Go to the schools and tell them You want things done differently.” They’re going to listen to you more than they listen to me, or a teacher. So I am really hoping that you know, things change for the kids.

Richard Matthews
There’s gonna be a lot of change, because a lot of students are coming home. And then parents are being a lot more involved in the education. Even if it’s just like, “Hey, they’re actually in the same room because I’m at work on this computer.” And they’re at school and their computer over here, they get to see the education happen in real time. And they’re seeing the dissatisfaction, right? They’re seeing the non engagement, and they’re saying, like, “Hey, something like this is not going down the way I thought it was going down.”

Lindsey Wander
Exactly. And I love it. This is something that has needed to change for a long time. Our technology has grown. But our teaching methods have not adjusted accordingly. I mean, I always say, “If you can Google it, why memorize it?” Like, we really have to adjust the way we teach these kids. And even now, they can’t really do multiple choice tests, because the kids can just google the answers. So they’re being forced to do more project based learning. Good. That’s how we should have been doing a long time ago. Yeah. So there’s certain things that are changing. I’m happy to see it.

Richard Matthews
Yeah, that’s one of the things I tell my son all the time, I was like, don’t memorize things you can look up, right? Absolutely. Use your brain space for other things. Exactly. And like, the skill you should have is the skill of how to find what you need exact, whether that’s a person, or information.

Lindsey Wander
And be empowered to do that. And be able to advocate for yourself when you are still confused, or can’t find what you need. To say, “I looked here, here and here and here. And I still can’t…” That’s a great skill set. And then to know when to ask for help. Yeah, exactly. And we just don’t do that in the school system.

Richard Matthews
The other thing that’s blown me away, is the technological baseline of our children, versus our baseline is very different. Oh, yeah. Because we grew into technology. Our children were born into it. Mm hmm. Right. My son, when he hit seven or eight years old, he’s doing his schoolwork. And, and we’re trying to, like teach them how to type was one of his classes he had to go through. He had to learn how to type. And he’s like, “I don’t understand, why do I have to learn how to type?” And he’s like, “I can just talk to the computer and it does whatever I want, right?” As far as he’s concerned, Siri just does everything. Yeah. And I was like in this weird position. I told him “You’re probably the last generation of kids who will have to learn how to use input output systems like the keyboard and mouse.” But you’re still there. So you have to learn it, you have to. But he’s also right, like, yeah, his kids probably will not even know what a keyboard is.

Lindsey Wander
Valid point. And that’s what I’m saying. Our technology has changed. Our education needs to change with it, you know? Yeah. Because I mean, I have my three year old nephew here today. And the way he navigates my computer and my iPad. I mean, there are times I’m like, how did you figure that out? And I mean, they are so savvy, and even with all of this remote learning, there are so many opportunities there to really differentiate instruction — to really push kids to a different level of innovation and problem solving. And yet, we’re trying to just mimic what happens in the classroom at home – but online. And I’m saying “You’re just missing the point, people!” There’s so much we could be doing with this.

Richard Matthews
Yeah, for us in the in the homeschool space. Like it wasn’t a huge change for us when the pandemic happened, because we were already doing a lot of the homeschool things. But it’s been fascinating to see a lot of our friends, bring their kids home, and then realize that teaching their kids isn’t nearly as hard or as scary as they thought it was gonna be.

Lindsey Wander
That’s so cool. You know, that’s great. That’s another great thing of this pandemic. It’s building resilience in all of us. I don’t think we could have ever — this is so sci-fi. We probably never thought we’d be able to be okay with something like this. When it first happened, I mean, we weren’t okay. But look at us now. We’re getting close to the end of the year, and we made it. We’re still doing all right. You know, it’s not ideal. But you know, we’re doing okay. And honestly, I think our kids have been the ones that adjusted the best. They’re just so flexible. And just so really cool and inspiring to see.

Richard Matthews
And I’ve been really blown away. If you look into some of the people who are innovating in the education space on the things that you can do like Khan Academy. Or we have some quick math stuff that our kids go through. And we have some other things where they’re starting to integrate gamification into learning in really cool ways. My son is going through a coding class right now where they’ve turned all the stuff — like I learned to code the hard way — and my son’s learning to code with these cool code blocks. And he’s getting all excited every day with the new problems that he solved in coding. Like, he’s learning if-else statements and all this stuff that’s really complicated, like looping. What do you call them… functions and whatnot? And I was like, I was 30. Before I could even wrap my mind around this. And my son’s doing high-level coding stuff with some fancy technology. And if we wanted to, like all the stuff he’s doing for coding, he could buy a robot and all of his coding would apply to a real-world robot thing. It’s super cool, the kind of innovations we have available in the education space if people would just use them.

Lindsey Wander
And honestly, like when I said, “Let me teach the way I want to teach.” My number one priority at all times was to have fun. If they have fun learning, everything else follows. And they’ll exceed your expectations. So I planned every lesson with fun in mind. And I would say, “What, if they forget the stages of mitosis? I don’t care. I want them to remember having fun.” But they would still remember the stages of mitosis because they had fun doing it, you know. I think that we have to bring that back. These kids are so excited to learn, they’re so creative, they’re so innovative, and we just really stifled them with these worksheets that are just boring. And they’re not engaged. They’re not motivated. But like, if we just go into it with the idea of, “Let’s enjoy this and provide them with an experience that they have fun at, they’re gonna learn, and they’re going to learn faster than if we would do it the other way.

Richard Matthews
It blows me away too. Like my two oldest, who are in school the most, they really love the curriculum and all the stuff that we’re putting them through. And it’s fascinating to see them light up and be excited and want to share their stuff that they’re learning with you. Because you’re like, that’s what you want to see. You want to see them. Like, I love it when my son gets up and interrupts me in the middle of work to be like, “I solved this problem with this…”

Lindsey Wander
I mean, that’s the confidence.

Richard Matthews
Yeah. And I can’t remember what he’s doing in science… I pay attention enough to like, get what he’s going. But I’m like, he’s interrupted me. So anyways, he’s always coming in, he’s excited about school work. And that’s the thing that I wish more people could see. Because if your kids aren’t excited about school, there’s something wrong.

Lindsey Wander
Yeah. And the thing is, if they get excited about learning and they feel confident, then they start becoming more independent. And they start taking more risks with their learning and trying new things, and exploring new learning opportunities and becoming a lifelong learner, which is really the bottom line of my business. If you’re a lifelong learner, sky’s the limit for you. You know that you could do anything, because you’re constantly learning and improving and growing. And that all comes down to, “Did you have fun when you were learning?” That’s really what it is.

Richard Matthews
The lifelong learning thing is like a prerequisite. Our audience, a lot of them are entrepreneurs, right? If you’re trying to raise children to have that kind of skill set, right? It’s that constant learning and the willingness to take risks, because entrepreneurs have a higher risk tolerance than other people. And then a lot of that comes down to how you learned to learn.

Lindsey Wander
Hmm, absolutely. So it’s exciting times.

Richard Matthews
Yeah, yeah, I want to talk a little bit about your superpowers. Every iconic hero has a superpower. Whether that’s a fancy flying suit made by a genius intellect, or the ability to call down thunder from the sky. In the real world, heroes have what I call a zone of genius, which is either a skill or a set of skills that you are either born with, or you developed over time that really helps you to help the people in your life slay their villains. And, you know, come out on top in their journeys. So with that framing, what do you think your superpowers are?

Lindsey Wander
So I definitely think I have a strong sense of intuition, which then helps me with the power of being able to bring on amazing staff and people who are aligned with the vision of really helping our students to grow beyond what’s happening in the classroom. But I also think another one of my superpowers is the ability to read people. And I don’t know if it’s something I was born with, or something I developed from traveling, and I’m a huge proponent of traveling and stepping outside your comfort zone, and really adapting to what’s going on. That ability to read people has really led me to be able to assess kids really quickly and accurately, and then provide them with what they need to go down a different path than they’re going right now. Because they’re obviously needing some help. And I mean, that’s become really evident. As soon as I first started teaching, I had kids who have stepped into my classroom the very first day and like, one kid, I was like, “This kid has Asperger’s.” And other kid, “This kid is dyslexic… this kid has never learned how to read and he’s in eighth grade! How has he been pushed through all the way to eighth grade and never learned how to read?” I can see it instantly. Or if there’s something else, you know, like there’s a student who’s just lacking motivation, what’s the real reason for that? If they’re lacking engagement, what’s really causing that? So digging deeper than just treating the symptom – more kind of figuring out what is actually causing that issue, and then diagnosing to be able to provide them the solution to be able to not just fix the symptom, but actually fix the root of the issue. And a lot of that just comes from being able to read them to be able to kind of figure out what’s going on.

Richard Matthews
So I almost feel like those are two parts of the same like agreeing superpower, right? I have something similar with the ability to read people. Looking back over my life, I almost feel like the underlying superpower is something that you’re born with. But the more you use it, the more attuned it becomes. So that’s where like traveling sort of like bring clarity to things that you might not have known.

Lindsey Wander
And the more you do it and succeed at it, the more confident you become to use it next time.

Richard Matthews
Yeah, and the more comfy you become of your assessments of other people too. And I’ve noticed personally, the better you know someone, the easier they are to read. So like my wife, it bothers her. She’s like, “It’s almost like I’ve got a billboard on my head that you can just read my thoughts.” But the thing that sticks out for me there is that it’s a skill that you have to put into practice and use. And particularly when you’re using it to help other people grow or change for the better. I remember when I was a young man, I had one of my early mentors. He told me early on, he was like, “You’re not gonna believe this now. But you need to be careful with what you say and how you say it to people because they’ll listen.” Hmm, right. And, I was like, I remember at the time, I was like, 16, or 17 years old, I was like, “Whatever, and went off on my way.” And it wasn’t until many years later when I realized that like, oh, he was actually like, serious about that. I had a few experiences where someone came and asked me for advice. And because of that ability to read someone, I gave them timely pointing advice, and they took it and acted on it. And I was like, Oh, I should have like, thought about that more and internalize it a bit and realize the weight that comes with being able to help someone else that way. To your point in the education space, you’re talking about these kids’ whole futures. Everything in their whole life is going to be based on how they want to learn.

Lindsey Wander
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Metacognition is the phrase for that. And yeah, we do a lot with metacognition. Yeah. And that’s again, one reason why I think I’m never going to let that part go of my business. You don’t always deal with the incoming clients. But I’ll always handle the incoming clients because I want to make sure I can get them down the right path. It is so important that they’re getting what they need.

Richard Matthews
So when clients come to you and students come to you, do you filter them out to your tutor?

Lindsey Wander
Yeah, exactly. I know my tutors really well. And then I get to know the student and then I match. I’ll offer the families a couple options to choose from because I a ton of tutors. So I have a lot of options for them. But I will narrow it down from the 60 to like the top two or three that I feel are a good match. I’m almost like a matchmaker, I always have one that I’m like, “I’m pretty sure this is the best fit. And I really hope they pick that one.” And they usually will you know. But I’ll give them a couple of options. And they’re all good options, you’re not going to lose.

Richard Matthews
Yeah, that’s really cool. So talk to me a little bit more about the metacognition. What does that mean?

Lindsey Wander
Thinking about how you think. So it’s involving your learning style. Kind of what you were talking about earlier, being aware of your learning style. Your dominant learning style. But then still being able to utilize strategies from other learning styles because the world is a blend of all of them, honestly. It’s also being able to evaluate your successes, your failures, and learn and grow from them. And it does combine a lot of monitoring your self talk and your own thought processes along the way. So knowing when you’re stuck, what’s getting you stuck, knowing how you got unstuck last time. So you can utilize this method, or you know, stress prevention techniques. I know I can do this when I’m feeling stressed or overwhelmed. So it’s just being really aware of your emotions and your thoughts and your learning and being able to analyze and address them rather than have something external do it for you.

Richard Matthews
So it’s that introspection where you’re actually like a claim to your own mind and seeing what’s there and what’s actually happening. I have a fun essay I wrote about a year ago, that was just like a walk through my mind kind of thing. Like, you know, here’s the room where I keep all my negative self talk.

Lindsey Wander
Yeah, right.

Richard Matthews
And here’s the room where I go and I need to have like, the positive stuff. And, you know, it was just a fun exercise for me. Particularly with negative self talk, which is something that I know a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with. How do you deal with it? Like, in your head? For me, it helps to actually put it into a real world picture. I’ve got this dark room in the corner that’s got cobwebs, and there’s a box in there. And I just take all this stuff I don’t actually believe about myself, but it’s still there trying to call to me. Sticking it in a box and put all on the locks on it like, that stuff’s not real. Right?

Lindsey Wander
Absolutely.

Richard Matthews
You have to have a place for it because it’s there. Like it exists. And you have to acknowledge it, and know where it fits in your mind.

Lindsey Wander
Exactly. And honestly, I think that’s been my biggest issue my whole life and growing as an entrepreneur. It is that negative self talk, and it hit me this year. But most of the negative self talk that I have, the things I say to myself, were actually things that were said to me when I was a child that I have internalized. And when that hit me, I was just like, “Okay, even more reason why we need to be doing what we do with these kids — we’re changing their inner dialogue and changing their their thoughts.” And it’s funny, I’ve had students tell me, I hear you in my head when you’re not there. And it’s creepy but it’s cool, because they start doing the things and asking themselves the questions that I asked when they’re not there. Also praising themselves and readjusting their own thoughts of themselves and their image of themselves. And that’s so important, because I really think if you don’t replace that negative self talk at its root, it’s just going to always be there in that dark room. Nagging at you. I see it so much for what it is now. And it drives me crazy. I’ll get a project done. And I’m like, “Okay, final touches.” I’m on my keyboard, doing my final touches, and then this little voice in my head goes, “That’s not going to work. You just wasted your time doing that.” And I’m like, “Oh, I hate that.” So you know, that’s a big thing. And that’s something we really work on with our kids with that metacognition component.

Richard Matthews
It’s hard too. For me, it wasn’t until I got to my 30s that I started to become aware that the negative self talk wasn’t 100% truth.

Lindsey Wander
Yeah, right.

Richard Matthews
You just buy in, as a younger person, to whatever your mind is telling you. Not realizing that you can choose which stuff that’s in your head you accept.

Lindsey Wander
I really do try as much as I can to follow my intuition, I have to separate that it’s not intuition. Maybe back in the day in my childhood or whatever. It might have been something as a protective measure, but it’s not serving me anymore as an adult. I know what’s going to work for me and what’s not. And if I’m doing it, it’s going to work. And that stuff isn’t helping me anymore. That’s something I’ve definitely been working on in 2020. It is learning to identify it and see where it comes from. And realize, like you said, it’s not truth, and not to give it any power anymore, lock it in that dark room, you know.

Richard Matthews
So that actually, I think, makes a good transition for the next question, which is about your fatal flaw. Every Superman has their kryptonite, or, you know, every Wonder Woman has her bracelets of victory she can’t remove without going mad. So you probably have a flaw that holds you back in your business, something you’ve struggled with. Maybe like, for me, it was perfectionism. You know, I would not want to ship things because I wanted to tweak them just a little bit more. I could make it a little bit better because of that negative self talk. My head was telling me it wasn’t good enough yet. Or a lack of self care, which in my case, led to letting my clients walk over me and not actually having a good, appropriate boundaries. We talked about the whole work life balance thing earlier. But I think more important than the flaw is how have you worked to rectify it over the years so that it’s not making as much of an impact on your business? And hopefully, sharing will help our listeners know a little bit from you.

Lindsey Wander
I think, you know, they’re probably tied together. But I think my biggest flaw or setback in a way is myself and my own setting limitations for myself. I think I’ve had it and I know we talked about this before, I always had it in my mind that business owners were greedy and entrepreneurs were just about getting the money and they didn’t care about their customers. And when I did end up starting a business I just said I don’t want to grow too big. I don’t want to lose touch with my clients. I don’t want to lose touch with my tutors. I still want to have my hands in certain things — and not a control thing — I’m happy to just hand things off to people. You want to do my payroll? Do it. But it’s more of like, this is what I know I’m good at and I don’t want to get so big that I can’t do it well anymore. Because then, what’s the point of having the business? And it really wasn’t until recently that I realized I can be a business owner, I can be successful. And I can still be true to my original mission of starting this business — which wasn’t to start a business — it was to help other people. And honestly, I think that’s true. For most business owners, they had a mission or something… They wanted to help others and it turned into a business. Nobody says I want to do payroll, and manage people,. That’s not super fun for them, that’s not the reason they went into the business. That’s been something I’ve realized. I can still do what I set out to do, while growing and helping even more people — not only the students, but their families too. We bring a lot of peace to their families. I’ve had one mom say, “You guys are cheaper than therapy, you know. We’re keeping you for as long as we want to.” We’re also creating jobs for people. A lot of the instructors I have say that this is their second job. And this is where they find their joy and their reward. They find their meaning in life. And it’s just so great to be able to bring that happiness to so many people and still have success beyond just the money side of it. Everyone is succeeding in their own way, and the ripple effect of that. I think it’s been my own self talk, my own holding myself back because I didn’t want to be that person, or I didn’t want to put too much into something that didn’t work. And the way that I’ve handled that is just following my intuition, really, really listening to my intuition and knowing “Okay, if this is something I feel good about, I’m gonna make it work. It’s gonna work” And this is something I help my students with. I mean, if this is something you’re passionate about, and you love it, you’re gonna make money at it, it’s going to happen, because people are going to sense that. They can tell you love it, and then the money will follow. But if you go into it with money as your only mission, then people are going to sense that too.

Richard Matthews
Yeah, yeah. And it’s an interesting thing, right? I mean, we mentioned before we started recording that it is actually the purpose of this show. I think it goes back to that self-talk that we embed into kids. We imbue into them, whether we mean it or not. And one of the ones that we have frequently in our culture is that entrepreneurs are the villain, right? And so many entrepreneurs, like yourself, or myself, or people that I talked to all the time, they’re like, “I got into business. And the thing that I had to get over was this idea that profit is bad that sales is bad that.”

Lindsey Wander
Yeah.

Richard Matthews
As if growing a business is a negative thing. Not realizing that, in a capitalist society, you’re talking about equal exchange of value, right? And it’s voluntary. The only reason a business grows, is because you’re providing value to them that they want, right? That’s greater to them than what they give you in return. So it’s a fascinating thing. And I wish more people understood that because they’d be freed, so to speak, to give their value to the world. And, you know, to your point, that ripple effect, your business does more good for more people, the bigger it grows. And that affects people in a positive way.

Lindsey Wander
That was a mind blow for me to realize. I thought it would be the opposite.

Richard Matthews
Yeah.

Lindsey Wander
And so, it’s simple when you say it. I’m like, “Yeah, duh.” But it took me years to get to the point to realize that.

Richard Matthews
Yeah, and it’s a it’s a hard thing, right? Because it’s that it’s that internal self talk that you don’t even you don’t even you just you just believe it. Because that’s what was put in when you were a kid. So anyways, yeah, I appreciate that. And I totally feel you there. So, my next question for you then is your common enemy. Every superhero has what I call an arch nemesis. It’s the thing that they constantly have to fight against in their world. In the world of business, it takes on many forms, but we generally put this in the context of your clients. So your students, your parents, I assume you would consider your parents the clients, right? So what’s a mindset or a flaw that you’re constantly having to fight to overcome in order to get them the results adn growth that they want to see with their kids?

Lindsey Wander
Well, one of the things… it’s changing now with the pandemic, which I’m happy about. But I think that we’ve been so focused on grades and test scores. I have a lot of parents who come to me just because their kid has a bad grade in the class or isn’t getting a score that they want. And that’s fine. I bring them on and we do what we need to do. But I realize there’s more to it than just the grades and the test scores and we provide them services accordingly. Even though the parents aren’t asking for that. So, we work on their confidence and their metacognition and their executive functions even though the parents aren’t asking for it. I understand that it’s what they need. And I really think we need to change our perception of intelligence and success. It’s not always the kids getting the A’s and getting the high scores who are necessarily the ones that are going to be successful. And that even goes along with attending college. I help kids with their college applications. Everyone wants to go these big name Ivy League’s and it’s kind of like… You know, your education is what you make of it. You don’t have to go to this big school. I didn’t go to a big school and I’ve gotten every job I’ve applied for because of my experiences and what I bring to the table. And so, it’s really just changing. I think people want to put these labels and these nice things on their resume. Their grades and their tests and their degrees. There’s just so much more to that in the real world. And we know that as adults. Yet, we’re still holding our children to these standards of what they need to do to get those lines on their resume. I also think that with a lot of children we have, the traditional system isn’t working for them. And they might have a diagnosis like, Asperger’s, autism or ADHD. But when we work with them, and we let them be who they are, and shape our teaching to them, what comes out of these kids is incredible. And they’re the ones who are going to go change the world. They’re the ones who — if we give them the power, and if we give them the pathway — are going to come up with the next best thing and be out there making the improvements in our society. And so I think these diagnoses should not be seen as a downfall. It’s just more of a sign that they’re not matching with the traditional system and we need to change the way that we teach them, because they are intelligent, and they are capable. It’s our system that isn’t working. It’s not the kids.

Richard Matthews
So just a quick sort of like side note on that. Have you ever read Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card?

Lindsey Wander
It sounds super familiar. I read every day. So it’s hard for me to remember the name.

Richard Matthews
So Ender’s Game is probably the…

Lindsey Wander
Okay. I’ve read that. Yeah.

Richard Matthews
That’s like, one of the most successful sci-fi novels of all time. And he sells out of prints every single year since it was released in 1978. It’s a fantastic book, but he’s got a whole world that’s around those characters. And if you remember Bean who follows Ender through that book, he’s got a whole series of books that are just about his story and his history, the reason why he’s small. And he’s got such an incredible amount of intelligence for his age. And his size is because of this fictional thing called Anton’s Key, which is, essentially, an unlock in the brain. That it’s like, the dichotomy of the reason our brain is limited is because of how big it’s allowed to get.

Lindsey Wander
Okay, right.

Richard Matthews
And so they unlocked this key in Been and he never stops growing. And so, he actually becomes a giant in his story, and dies because of that. His body gets too big for himself, but because of because of that, it also completely unlocked his mental capacity. And so, it just strikes me. A lot of the diagnosis like autism and Asperger’s — they’re kind of like that fictional, Anton’s Key. If something has been turned, maybe they don’t have full access to the stuff that you might consider normal. But something else has been unlocked. There’s brilliance there, if you can figure out how to stoke that flame.

Lindsey Wander
Yeah. And it’s totally possible. And we can actually work with those kids and still bring them into the classroom, they can be successful. It’s not that we have to constantly, you know, adjust for them, we can give them strategies, so they can, you know, be successful in that classroom. But still give them a place where they can be free and let their mind go. And it’s incredible wt these kids can do. And it’s related, and it’s on topic, but man, I mean, the stuff they’ll say… I came up with a different algorithm for this. And they’ll like bust out this… I have a kid who came up with an algorithm for a Rubik’s Cube, for example. And he had a whole equation for it. It could solve the Rubik’s cube in like five minutes, any Rubik’s Cube you gave him and it was just incredible. Like, I love that stuff. Because those are the kids that are going to change the world. Yeah. And if we don’t give them that platform, and we just kind of suffocate them and label them and say they’re not capable. We’re wasting so much human talent, you know? Yeah.

Richard Matthews
Yeah. So I have two other thoughts on that — just on the things that you’ve talked about there. And one of them is with our grading system. It’s like, if you get it right 70% of the time, you get a C. You’re just average.

Lindsey Wander
Yeah. Right. A

Richard Matthews
It always really bothered me because if you look at the people who are really successful, they fail 100, 200, 300, and 1000 times to get one success. And that one success is what changes the world, right? You know, the most famous example of that is a light bulb. And he learned 999,000 ways not to make a light bulb and one that did change the world. I understand the idea that we’re trying to make sure that they’re learning and that we have to have some sort of gauge of that. But at the same time, you’re also enforcing this idea that you’re trying to be right most of the time. And really, I lucked out one of my teachers that, you know, still talks in my head all the time. He used to tell me that failure is just the stepping stones to success. Right? And how do we engender that, while still having to take our measurements.

Lindsey Wander
We work with that on our kids, too, we actually use the terms that struggle and failure are inherent in growth and success. And it doesn’t mean you’re not smart or you’re a failure. Everyone struggles in order to succeed. It has to happen, you know, no one just automatically succeeds. So we really work with our kids. We model it for them. We talk about our own struggles and successes. But we also use those failures as learning opportunities. So we don’t just say, “Oh, you failed this task.” We talk about it. What was the problem? What could be better next time? Or we have them set some goals. If they reach the goal, we discuss what led them to reach the goal. But if they didn’t reach that goal, why not? What led them to not reach that goal? At the end of the day, like I’m a scientist at heart. And one of our things as a scientist is, when we have a hypothesis, even if the hypothesis is rejected, you still learn something about the world. And so even if there’s a failure, you’re still learning, you’re still gaining from it, as long as you go back and reflect and do your analysis and your conclusion and figure out from that. When I was a teacher, you know, one of the things I did is I had to do standardized tests. I always let the kids — whatever they missed, I would have them, they can come sit with me, or I gave them many different opportunities to try to learn from that. And then they can redo that part, either in a test situation or write out a response or do a project or some other way to show that they understand that concept. Rather than just being you got to see that’s the end of it and moving on to the next unit. Because that completely fails the purpose of an assessment. In my company, we use assessments, to see what we need to reteach. And to give an opportunity for the kids to evaluate their learning on it. So if they miss a question before… We give homework to them, and we prep them for standardized tests, if they miss a question, we ask the kids to look over it on their own. First, look at the answer. We give them the answers and look at their work and try to figure out where they went wrong on their own. That’s that metacognition, we teach them how to do this. And if they still can’t understand it, okay, now we’re going to help explain it to them. Because that’s something we need to teach them. That’s on me, not on you.

Richard Matthews
That’s where we failed at teaching.

Lindsey Wander
Exactly, exactly. And then we’re going to give you another assessment to make sure you understood it. It’s not busy work. It’s just to help that we explain this to our kids, you know, this is to help us understand if you’ve got it. Practice helps. I always say practice, practice, practice, perform. You got to practice it. And then if you still don’t understand it, all right, we got to teach a different way. Like, it doesn’t mean you’re not smart.

Richard Matthews
It’s like that idea that there’s a difference between making a mistake and not understanding something. Yeah. Sounds like your process is like, “Hey, did you just make a mistake here that you could go back and correct?”

Lindsey Wander
Exactly.

Richard Matthews
Or do you actually not understand it? And that’s a failure on us for not teaching you properly.

Lindsey Wander
And a lot of the kids have this term, they always say, “Oh, it’s a stupid mistake.” And I squash that super fast too. Because we don’t say ‘stupid mistakes.’ It was not even a careless mistake. It was just a mistake. It’s okay. You know, you made a mistake. You caught it. Yeah. And you caught it. And you learned. You found your own mistake. It’s a celebration. That you caught your own mistake is a success in itself. So there’s just so many little things, little turns, you can change the way we talk to our kids, the opportunity to provide for them, that really changes their inner dialogue really sets them up for a growth mindset. And just changes their whole perspective on learning and life. And it’s so easy to do. While we’re teaching calculus, while we’re prepping for the ACT, it’s just so simple to do it.

Richard Matthews
I had this really fun moment a couple of months ago with my son, he’s been really into the Pokemon Trading Card Game, which is a strategy game with cards. And there’s a lot of planning and strategy involved in actually playing the game. I play the game at a pretty high level with him. So I don’t ever like go easy on him. And yeah, so like, every time we do a battle in this game, at the end of the game, he would generally lose and we would go over like, okay, where’s the strategy? And like, Where did you fail? Where did you have a problem? And he would, adjust his deck, adjust his strategy, and adjust things so we could deal with what I was giving to him. And it was constant little improvements. It got to the point where he could honest to goodness beat me. Yeah, like the first time he got to the end of the game and he won. And he was like, “Oh my gosh, I won! I can’t believe I won!” And we sat down I was like, “Okay, now what did you learn from winning? He was like, “I didn’t. I don’t have anything to go over.” I said, “Remember I was telling you, that you learn more from your mistakes than you do from your successes.” And like, the light bulb went off in his head. He was like, “Oh, my goodness, I need to lose more so I can learn to get really, really good.”

Lindsey Wander
Good job, dad. I love that story. That’s a great story.

Richard Matthews
Yeah, and for like it was I felt like, it was a big win for me, because I saw the light bulb go off where he was like, “Oh, man, like I see.” Like, he saw firsthand that he legitimately learns more when he doesn’t succeed than when he does.

Lindsey Wander
And it’s Pokemon Cards but he got that lesson for life now. And that’s awesome.

Richard Matthews
So anyways, I was pretty excited about that. Yeah, but it’s that same thought process where you’re going through and teaching them how failure is not a character definition. It’s just an event that happens. And you can use them as stepping stones to move forward, get better, stronger, and to become a better person.

Lindsey Wander
Mm hmm. Absolutely.

Richard Matthews
Cool. Well then the flip side of your common enemy is your driving force. Right? So just like Spider Man fights to save New York or Batman fights to save Gotham or Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information. What is it that you fight for in your business?

Lindsey Wander
I would say, I didn’t really realize this until recently. But I feel like I’m trying to be the adult that I kind of wish I had as a kid. And, you know, provide kids with the adult that a lot of us kind of wish we had as a kid. Be the person you wish you had as a kid. The way it was said to me. And I was like, “Yeah, that’s exactly what it is.” Because it really was through my own self exploration, I realized it was a lot of my own teachers. You know, I was kind of a problem when I was a kid. And if you ask my mom, she’d say I was too smart. And I was bored, you know. I was bored with everyone else, and frustrated that they weren’t getting it fast enough. And I would act out. I had teachers in my life that saw through that, and really sat with me on the side to give me that extra stimulation. Whether it was after school, or during class, and those are the ones I remember. And it wasn’t until now I’m reflecting back as a teacher that I thought about what led me down this path. And I really do think that it was them that inspired me to do the same for other people. It’s hard. And I know, a lot of the parents listening probably already do this for their kids. But it’s hard when you’re a parent, you know. And you’re trying to discipline and do all this other stuff while also be the person that your kids look up to for education and inspiration. I like being that extra person to support the families and to be someone else that the kids can get guidance from. And then there are some cases where the parents don’t necessarily have that skill set. So we are that person for those kids. So it really is just about giving them the support they need as kids so that they can grow into truly happy adults. Because they had someone rooting for them as a kid, teaching them those valuable lessons like you did with your son and helping them figure out who they are as people. And you know, be able to guide them down a path that’s totally their own, be your age or my age and be truly truly happy with their job. And I think that’s truly my driving force.

Richard Matthews
Yeah, that’s really cool. And it just, it reminds me of the couple of teachers in my life that I have, who were who were that for me. And I think probably everyone has has those people in their mind. And for me, the first one was my seventh grade history teacher. And I remember, he assigned us a writing assignment on something about Indians. I don’t remember exactly what. It was like the the California Indians that lived in the area we were at. And we had to write a paper on it. And I turn the paper in, we come back a couple of days later, they go hand all the papers out. And he didn’t hand back mine. And he instead he was like, “I want you to see me after class.” I like freaked out. I was like, “Oh, God, was it so bad that he’s not even gonna hand it back to me?” And so I went in after class, and he was like, “I’ve already worked this out with your parents. But I want to have you after after class for some extra tutoring because you don’t write at a seventh grade level. You write it like a college level. So if I gave you back your paper, like I graded it at a college level for you.” And it was a bloodbath, like all over red stuff. He was like, “I didn’t want to like freak you out in class and like have you cry in front of all your friends because I ruined it. But you can be held to a higher standard because of some skills that you have and I want to help you with that.” It was super cool for me. So I spent a good six or seven weeks with him every day after school just learning how to write better because he saw something there that I had. Not a lot of the seventh graders had. Yeah. And so, it’s like people like that, who see something in you and go the extra mile that really make a difference in someone’s life long term.

Lindsey Wander
Exactly. And when you go down a path and you’re happy. And then you’re happy in your family. So you’re a happy person for your children, for your wife. And think of how that ripples. I mean, everything is so related and connected that it’s like, it’s not just about that one person anymore. It really does expand out. And it really just comes down to figuring out yourself and what you’re good at. Sometimes with your kids, we have to model that for them and say, “This is something you’re really good at, you know.” And helping them figure that out and go down.

Richard Matthews
It’s crazy, too, because chances are, he probably doesn’t even remember my name. Or he may never know how much of an impact he had on my life. He’s one of the people in my life that I hold up in my head as being like…

Lindsey Wander
But that’s not what it’s about.

Richard Matthews
He was a shining moment for me, but he’ll never know. Mm hmm.

Lindsey Wander
And I mean, I have students who reach out to me, and sometimes I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, I don’t remember the student at all.” But they’ll say I stood out to them in their life at a time when they needed it, and blah, blah, blah. And it’s again, it’s not about being remembered. I’m not doing it to be remembered, you know. It’s more about doing it just to help them be authentic to who they are, and to really find happiness. I’m just so happy that they do.

Richard Matthews
It’s that ripple effect, you do it for the ripple effect. It’s real. And sometimes you get to see it, sometimes you don’t.

Lindsey Wander
Yeah, and that’s okay. You know, I know it’s there.

Richard Matthews
So my next question for you then is more practical, right? So I call this The Hero’s Toolbelt. And every superhero has a tool belt with awesome gadgets, like batarrangs or web slingers, or a big magical hammer like Thor. I want to talk about top one or two tools you use in your business that you couldn’t live without. It could be anything from your notepad to your calendar, to your marketing tools to something you use to actually deliver for your clients. Something that you use regularly for that. You know, something that you think is essential to getting your job done.

Lindsey Wander
Oh, that’s a good question. Um, I would say for me any of my organizational tools. So my calendar, my notepad, all of my Google Drive, keeping everything organized there. Man, I’m a spreadsheet queen. That’s really the surface of why people see me on the outside of being a really ‘get things done’ person. It’s really because I’m writing everything down. Because things come in my head and are out really fast. And if I don’t write it down and get it in its appropriate area, then it’s not going to get done. And so, I’m the one that just gets things done fast in an organized way. But that’s because of all the structures I have in place. And if I didn’t have those, I’d probably be totally scatterbrained. I think it comes down to metacognition and knowing how my brain operates. And I think I have a little bit of ADD – ADHD. And so it’s very hard for me to focus. And this is one of the tools that I’ve developed over the years to really help me follow through on things and stay on track. And it’s one of the things I also present to some students and see if it works for them. And then I would also say, honestly, I don’t know if this is considered a tool. But it goes back to a little bit what we talked about before – being able to read people. I have people in my life who I’ve chosen to be in my life, who are just so wonderful and who have been in my life from the beginning. They are really great sounding boards. So there are so many people who genuinely want me to be happy and successful. They will help me with whatever I need help with, whether it’s just me, kind of throwing an idea off of them. Or actually trying something out — whatever it is, they are always ready, always available, and always there to do it. Because I think they know I would do the same for them. But we also just have that love for each other. And I literally don’t even know the kind of person I’d be without a lot of them. So I tell them all the time, “Man, if you weren’t around, I don’t even know where I would have gone to.”

Richard Matthews
That’s a magical thing to have in your life too. I call it having a running mate. Right? You know, you might not be running the same race but you are going the same direction. You’re both running together, right? You’re going somewhere in your life. And you know, the one who will always pick up the phone when you call regardless of what’s going on. Like, I got one of those guys in my life. And I literally run like everything I’m doing past him. Just because if I don’t, I know it’s not gonna go as well as it did if I did pass it with him once.

Lindsey Wander
And they give you a good honest feedback. I mean, they’re gonna tell you, “I don’t like this. I do like that.” I mean, it comes from a place of love, you know. It all comes from they truly genuinely care. And I’m so thankful to have them. A lot of them have been in my life since I was seven years old. And they’ve just really been a steady, running mate throughout my whole life. Through everything and it’s incredible. I’m so fortunate.

Richard Matthews
So I have a question for the teacher side of you here. And this is just something that has been fascinating because of the differences between my wife and I — and how we organize our lives. So both of us have a calendar. And the calendar is really important to making things go and actually happen. My calendar is on my phone. And it’s incredibly functional, right? It’s got to be digital, if it’s written down somewhere, it might as well not exist, right? I’m never gonna look at it. It’s never gonna work if it’s on a paper calendar — one of those those planner things. Like, if it doesn’t alarm me when it’s time to do things, it might as well not exist. My wife on the other hand, her digital calendar does not work for her at all by any stretch of the imagination. She’s got to have her paper book. And it’s got to be pretty. She’s got to have her stickers and her drawings and her fun pens, or it’s not useful for her. And I’m just curious, how often do you see things like that when people are like organizing their lives? And how important learning how to organize your mind, so to speak, is to actually learning how to learn?

Lindsey Wander
Well, first of all, you realize the reason why you guys are different is that auditory and visual learning, right?

Richard Matthews
Yeah.

Lindsey Wander
Okay, so yeah, she’s very visual. As am I, and that’s why mine’s a paper calendar as well. And it’s very pretty, and everything is organized. And yeah, I’m the same way. And it’s funny because I spot that in my kids. I always tell my tutors, “If you have a kid that opens their binder, and it’s highlighted and color coded, then you know, this is a visual learner. You run with it, you can tell. And then your auditory had to have the bell to go off, like you said. So, really finding something that fits for you, I think is crucial. And there are so many methods out there for me. There’s no way I could put it on my phone. I don’t like putting it in there. I don’t like things crunched in. It just stresses me out. I like to have it laid out where I can see the whole week. And then everyone tells me, “But you can do that with your phone too.” But it’s not the same. I like to be able to flip because I’m also very kinesthetic. I’m a very tactile learner. So I like to flip. I like to move. I like to count. It just works for me. And people think I’m crazy. Because I literally carry around this planner. People will try to make plans with me and I’m like, “I have to wait till I get home because I have it on my planner at home.” Like you can ask me right now to write it down in my phone as a reminder, but I can’t answer it until I get home. And people are like, “Are you kidding me? Why do you not have this in your phone?” And so, yes, I think really, it just comes down to finding a method that works for you. And tapping it into honestly your dominant learning style, your natural learning style. But it is a tool that you can use. And it doesn’t mean you’re disorganized, or you’re like lazy about things. It just means you need a little extra help to be able to stay on your toes. Exactly.

Richard Matthews
So just out of curiosity, how important to running your business is your calendar?

Lindsey Wander
Extremely critical. Like, there’s been times I’ve left my calendar on places, and I’m in full on panic. Like, Oh my gosh, I don’t know my life. And not only that, because we schedule students, and we have reminders going out to them. And then my tutors have their schedules. Honestly, the logistics of all of this is massive. But the weird thing is, I don’t really have things planned out more than like a couple of weeks in advance. So as organized as I am, I’m not super far in advance. And maybe that’s because I know I gotta be flexible. And I adjust, you know. So I know this week, I literally have my week planned out to the minute for this week. But if you asked me next week, it’s still in flux.

Richard Matthews
But the The reason I brought up the counter thing is like it’s one of the things that on this on the show, like you’re right around 150 or so guests that we’ve had on the show, and probably a good 90% of them have all said that their calendar is the key to running their business. And it’s always struck me as such a strange thing because my non entrepreneurial family and friends are like, “My life doesn’t revolve around my calendar.” And I’m like, I would die without my calendar.

Lindsey Wander
Oh my gosh.

Richard Matthews
I don’t know, like, I can’t do things or plan things or work like…

Lindsey Wander
It’s a full on panic.

Richard Matthews
Yeah, like my family time is planned in there. And my wife knows that. Like, I’ve got my calendar for work and my calendar for family stuff. I’m like, if you want me to be there, drop it on to the family calendar and it’ll block out my time and my work schedule. My mom was like, “That’s insane.” I’m like, “It’s not insane. I promise you all the other entrepreneurs are the same way.”

Lindsey Wander
And I don’t think you’d be successful without it. Like I wouldn’t be able to follow through on things and people wouldn’t be able to rely on me or trust me. I mean, it’s crucial. My calendar is in the other room right now and even I’m a little bit like…

Richard Matthews
…it’s too far away from me…

Lindsey Wander
…too far away. Yeah.

Richard Matthews
That’s funny. Yeah. And so anyways, it’s interesting how so many entrepreneurs find their calendar invaluable. And then also to find out how frequently the way calendar gets used is very different from person to person. Whether it’s you know, drawing in a bullet journal like my wife or sounds like you might do or using their digital calendar, the big wall calendars… There’s something about it, you just have to organize your life in order to do all the things. I say entrepreneurs are like those plate spinners, right? If you’re gonna keep all the plates spinning, you have to know where they are, and when you have to be there.

Lindsey Wander
Yeah, well, that makes me feel a little bit better, because that’s actually one of the things we really work on our kids with. They’re planning, they’re prioritizing their time management and learning a system for themselves. And so it’s cool to know that so many entrepreneurs really rely on that. And we’re really focusing on teaching those skills to the kids. So it’s good. We’re creating entrepreneurs.

Richard Matthews
…creating entrepreneurs, and like, to your point, too, about only having things a couple of weeks in advance. It’s one of the things that I’ve learned really, really hard as I’ve become a full-time traveler that has spilled over into my business. It’s easy to have long term goals, like, “Hey, I’m trying to get to New York. But if you try to plan every stop along the way, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.

Lindsey Wander
Excactly. Right.

Richard Matthews
So it’s like, I can plan my next couple of stops for the next couple of weeks. But if I try to go three months out and be like, “Hey, this is where I’m gonna be three months out at five o’clock.” You might as well just paint the failure on there right now. You know, life’s gonna happen.

Lindsey Wander
Yeah. And it seems so contradictory, right? To be so organized. Everything’s on your calendar. But then I’m the same way when I travel, everyone would think I’d have a strict schedule. And I’m like, No, I kind of have an idea of things I want to see and do. But if it’s raining, I don’t want to be disappointed that I bought these tickets. And now I can’t go do it. You know, I want to be able to adjust. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. But you’re right, it probably comes from traveling. That’s probably where I got that from.

Richard Matthews
Yeah, and I’ve noticed it’s got a huge positive impact on my business too, because then you’re like, “I know where my destination is. And I know where I’m going.” I’m working on the next couple of steps that are gonna get me closer there. So anyways, that’s a cool stuff to talk about with your calendar.

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So I only got a couple more questions for you. Next one here is about your own personal heroes. Right? So every hero has their mentors. Frodo had Gandalf, Luke had Obi Wan. Robert Kiyosaki has his rich dad, and Spider Man has his Uncle Ben. Who were some of your heroes? Were they real life mentors, speakers or authors? Peers who are a couple of years ahead of you? Maybe teachers. And how important were they to what you’ve accomplished so far in your life?

Lindsey Wander
So this is a really good question. I had to really think about this one. And, I mean, obviously the few teachers that I can name that were you know, definitely influential in my life – in helping me find who I was and really saw me beneath that troublesome kid. But honestly, when it comes to anything, you know, academics or career wise, it’s very hard for me to think of a lot of people that I had as role models growing up. Or even now I’m starting to get more of them, as I’m really embracing this business owner side of me. But honestly, I think the biggest role model in my life was my grandma, and she was more about showing me the person to be. And it’s funny because even now with my company, we really try not to focus too much on kids like characteristics or their grades. So instead of saying like, “Oh, you’re so smart, you got an A.” We like to say things like, “Wow, you worked so hard on this.” Really praising their effort, more than the grade. And I think I learned that a lot from my grandma, because she saw me for who I was beyond my grades. Beyond, you know, my test scores, she really saw that. She would tell me, “You’re kind and you’re loving.” and she would give me glimpses of who I was as a person. And she is also one of the people who really saw people for who they were, and loved them for who they were at that moment. Rather than who they were going to become, or who she thinks they should be. And people were just drawn to her for that, you know. They felt so accepted and seen. And I think that, you know, obviously, that worked for me, it helped me understand who I was. And I do that with other people, not just my students. I’ve even had, you know, friends and people in my life say that they really just feel like they can be who they are, when they’re with me. And they still feel very loved. And I think that’s like, the best compliment you can give me, you know. That I make you feel truly who you are and accepted for it. It’s really cool. But I think I learned that from her. And, um, I think we can all do that. Honestly, instead of, you know, seeing people as objects to change and mold or be improved, really just seeing the beauty and who they are, and all the good in them and loving them for that, I think is the greatest gift that you can give to people.

Richard Matthews
Yeah, I wonder if there’s, there’s something about being a grandma that just makes that thing, because I learned almost the same lesson from my grandmother who’s passed away. She’s passed away now. But I remember it so vividly — a number of occasions where she showed me who I was. And who I was to her was more important than anything else in the world. And that’s such a visceral lesson to learn. And it impacts you forever, too. And I remember, I was probably seven years old, and I knocked over a really expensive vase on my grandmother’s table. It’s like one of those really nice crystal ones. It was probably a couple of $1,000. And it shattered all over the marble floor. And I remember freaking out, because I thought the world was over. And if it had been my mom’s, then my mom probably would have been in prison because she’d have murdered me, right? But my grandmother, she just picked me up and took me out of all the glass things. And she was like, it’s just a vase. There’s nothing more important in the world than you and who you are and when you’re safe… and like that kind of stuff. And I remember later, when I went back home, my mom told me she, “That was a really expensive vase that you broke.” And it has always stuck with me because it was a lesson. Who you are to someone else is more important than what you do.

Lindsey Wander
I see myself doing that now as a teacher and I teach my tutors to do that… praising the effort and the person rather than the outcome. I think that it helps people really develop an innate sense of self worth that’s not contingent on external systems. And they really find out why they’re valuable as people. And that’s just crucial. I mean, we all need to know why we’re important and why we’re special.

Richard Matthews
Yeah, yeah. And what’s interesting is like, because of that lesson, it turned me into a lot more careful person around things that are expensive and nice. And yeah, it’s interesting how that lesson actually stuck. It changed a little bit about who I was. And it actually changed the effort and the outcome in my life. And it’s a cool thing. So anyways, that’s a cool story. I love grandmas and I know everyone needs a grandma.

Lindsey Wander
Oh, man. Yeah, I was lucky. I actually I lived with her for a while, like, especially during a stage in my life I really needed to. And man again, she’s one of those people where I’m like, “What would I be without you?” You know, just thank goodness, I had you. So yeah, everyone needs a grandma like that. Or an auntie. I’m an auntie like that.

Richard Matthews
Yeah, I have I’ve been told by one of my nieces that I’m her favorite uncle. So yeah, I’m working on that. Hmm.

Lindsey Wander
It’s fun.

Richard Matthews
It is. It is fun. And I’m having to… She’s a teenager, which I didn’t think like, I was that far removed from teenager-hood. Because you know, I’m only in my 30s right. And like, she says things to me all the time. I’m like, “Pam, I have to look that up because I don’t know what it is.” Yeah. Which you probably deal with a lot — with teenagers.

Lindsey Wander
Well, it’s fun because I mean, I feel like they keep me young. You know, they keep me kind of fresh with things. But yeah, all the time. I mean, the kids like that. They like the kind of vulnerability or the dorkiness where I’m like, “Oh, I don’t know what that is, let’s all learn that dance with you. Let’s do it.” And I’m sitting here doing things like I’m fighting karate, you know? And they’re like, “That’s so not the dance move.” But yeah, exactly. I mean, it keeps things fun.

Richard Matthews
My Urban Dictionary is my best friend whenever I’m with any of my teenage family members.

Lindsey Wander
It can steer you wrong sometimes, though. I’ve had it steer me wrong a couple of times. So be careful.

Richard Matthews
Okay, well I’ll keep that in mind. Okay. Okay, so my last question here for you is about your guiding principles. And it’s one of the things that makes heroes heroic. They live by a code, right? For instance, Batman never kills his enemies, he only brings them to Arkham Asylum. So as we wrap up the interview, talk about top one or two principles that you use regularly in your life, maybe something you wish you’d known when you first started out on your own hero’s journey.

Lindsey Wander
Honestly, I know I’ve said it a couple of times already. But I cannot say it enough. Really trust your intuition. And I think that’s a major lesson that all of us need because we all have it. I think some of us have suppressed it. But man, it’s super powerful. You might call it a gut feeling or you know, whatever it is, but really truly trust that. And if something doesn’t feel right, don’t don’t do it. If something gets you excited, and you’re still thinking about it days later, then that means you need to go for it. So my advice to people when they’re deliberating on something, I’m like, “Well, what makes you feel -sigh- you know.” What kind of makes you like, sigh out? That’s the one you need to go for. I’d probably say that’s my biggest one. And then the other is … Let me think how to say this. When I made career changes, I had a lot of people who were projecting some negativity onto me about it. And I realized that a lot of people have their own fears and their own worries, because of things in their own life. And I was able to separate that and realize that they were kind of projecting their own issues on to me. And it had nothing to do with me. So also knowing which people to trust, to turn to, and which people are coming from a place of love, because they are worried about you. But it really has nothing to do with you. It’s their own kind of issues. Being able to separate the two and know which is the one that is going to lead you down the right path and which one is the one that’s just going to feed into that negative self talk. That’s been a really powerful lesson for me to not only forgive the people who kind of were naysayers in the beginning, but also to know how to take advice for what it is and know which advice is helpful. And which advice really has nothing to do with me.

Richard Matthews
Yeah, it’s a that’s an interesting thing, right. And I remember, I was lucky enough that I had a particular book put in my hand when I was a young entrepreneur, a young kid that talks specifically about how to take advice from people. And the reality is, people will… like everyone will give you advice…

Lindsey Wander
…whether you ask for it or not.

Richard Matthews
whether you ask or not.

Lindsey Wander
Yeah.

Richard Matthews
Whether or not they’re qualified to give you advice in that area. And it was one of the things that he said, “You need to look at the results the person has in that particular area.” And just because they’re a great parent, doesn’t mean they’re a great accountant. Right? It doesn’t mean that they’re a great spiritual leader or whatever. So you might take parenting advice from someone here, but you might not take their same advice on business, or other things. And I remember learning that at a young age and it’s been incredibly valuable to learn how to judge the advice that comes in. It’s always going to come in. And then, like secondary, that learning how to seek out the people who have the result that you want, so you can get advice that fits for the thing that you need,

Lindsey Wander
…and being willing to be vulnerable and ask for help when needed too. That’s been a big one for me, because it almost comes off like a weakness. And then you’re like, in debt to people. And I never wanted to come off as either of those. But realizing that when you’re asking the right person, that’s not how it is at all. You know, they’re happy to help and they don’t see you as weak. They’re just there to help you be better at whatever you need help with.

Richard Matthews
Mm hmm. Yeah. And you realize it’s interesting too, because it’s particularly the people who have results in an area are not the ones who are going to vilify you for asking for help in that area. Right. Right. And that’s one of those things that your intuition will start to pick up on. If they are being, you know, negative or mean about asking advice, they probably don’t really have the results that you’re looking for.

Lindsey Wander
And that’s their issue, there’s probably some insecurity or something going on there.

Richard Matthews
Yeah, yeah, and that all goes back to learning how to feel that with your intuition, which is a hard skill to pick up. You’ve got to practice it.

Lindsey Wander
You do. But it’s one of those things like you were saying before, the more you practice it, the more confident you get in it. Then you can fine tune it. So just at least, you know, start by being aware of it and listening for it. And like I said, I always go with that -sigh- feeling is probably the easiest way I can describe it. But it’s something we all have, I wish we really tapped into it more.

Richard Matthews
Yeah, and I think personally, I think it’s like the most important with relationships. If someone gives you that weird feeling, they probably don’t need to be in your life. Something bad is gonna happen with it at some point. And it’s hard to listen to your intuition when that person is a family member or a close friend or a friend of a friend or something like that. You feel like, “If I don’t do something with this relationship, you’re going to disappoint people.” Sometimes it’s not worth it. You just need to make sure that person is not in your life. And that’s a really hard thing to listen to your intuition in those areas.

Lindsey Wander
And I even expand that to clients. I’ve had some clients I didn’t have a great feeling about and I would just — rather than kind of push it through, I was like, “You know what, I just don’t think this is gonna work.” And that’s hard as a business owner, because you’re kind of like, you don’t want to pass up a client. But if you have a bad feeling about something, it’s just not worth it. You know?

Richard Matthews
Yeah. And it’s harder as a younger entrepreneur, like earlier in your business when you need the revenue. Yeah. You’re like, “I need the revenue, but I’ve got a bad feeling.” And yeah, you take the revenue instead of the bad feeling. And then you’re like, “Oh, shoot it was not worth the revenue, It was not worth it.”

Lindsey Wander
Because then you end up in a deeper hole, probably. One bad client can really stir up some trouble. So yeah, follow that. And don’t feel bad about blocking those people from coming in.

Richard Matthews
Absolutely. Well, that’s basically a wrap on our interview, Lindsey, but I do finish every interview with a simple challenge I call the hero’s challenge. And we do this basically as a selfish thing to help myself get access to stories that might not otherwise find on my own. So the question is simple. Do you have someone in your life or in your network that you think has a cool entrepreneurial story? Who are they? first names are fine. And why do you think they should come on our show and share their story? First person that comes to mind for you.

Lindsey Wander
So the first one that comes to mind is my friend Sarah, who is a personal trainer. And like, you know, especially everything with the pandemic, she had just started a new job, but then she got laid off. And rather than just sit down and do Netflix, she completely built this whole new brand. And it’s just out there with this massive following. And it’s been really cool to see this person who doesn’t really have a business background or really anyone to turn to for business advice. She’s come to me for a few things. Other than that, she doesn’t really have anyone. She just really blew up. It has been super cool to see. And I’m just really, really proud of her.

Richard Matthews
Awesome. We’ll reach out after the show and see if we can get her and bring her on and hear her story a little bit. That’d be cool. Maybe I’ll even help her grow a little bit.

Lindsey Wander
Yeah.

Richard Matthews
What I want to do now then it’s just our send off. In comic books, there is always the crowd of people who are standing along the side and clapping for the hero & for their acts of heroism. So our analogy to that as we close is I find out where can people find you? If they want your help in the future, where can they light up the bat signal, so to speak? And say, “Hey, Lindsey. I have a child or children who need help with their schooling.” And more importantly, who are the right types of people to reach out and ask for your help?

Lindsey Wander
Um, so the best place to start is the website. It’s WorldwiseTutoring.com. People who would reach out to me would be parents, or Honestly, I’m always looking for anyone to collaborate with who has a similar mindset with the kids to know it’s beyond just what’s on the surface. There’s so much more, because parents are always looking to me for referrals. So anyone who works with families and children and has a similar mindset as I do, I’m always willing to chat with them. I’m also on all social media platforms. So you can go on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn and I’m everywhere. Just look up Worldwise with an “S”. Worldwise Tutoring and you’ll find me. One of the things I’ve been doing a lot during this pandemic is giving out daily tips for parents and free resources. So that’d be a really nice place to start if you’re trying to implement some of these things on your own. But otherwise, the website, I have a blog, I have a student handbook. I have all the resources on there. There are lots of good stuff on there.

Richard Matthews
Cool. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Lindsey. It’s been a pleasure having you here and if you do have students in your life who might need a little help, definitely check out Worldwise Tutoring. I think if you’ve listened to this, you definitely can hear the passion in Lindsey’s voice for what she does. And Lindsey thank you again for coming on. Is there any final words of wisdom you have for our audience before we hit this little “Stop Record” button?

Lindsey Wander
It’s easy to do. Be the adult that you wish you had when you were a kid. And it’s easy to do for our kids.

Richard Matthews
Awesome. Thank you very much.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai