Do you have what it takes?

Pretty much any American has the option to homeschool if they want to, public school if they want to, and probably has a private school of some sort at least within driving distance. But most Americans probably are not geographically close enough to a part-time school model to make it a viable option.

So guess what that means?! It means the fields are ripe for harvest and if you can find an entrepreneurial bone in your little toe, YOU may be able to bring this model to your community. 

Exciting right?  Except a hybrid school is a business. Legal structure and the accompanying paperwork, bank accounts, insurances, employees, payroll, supplies, customers, revenue, expenses, bookkeeping. All the pieces that make up most service businesses are there.

Scary, right? Depends on where you are coming from, I’m sure, but yeah…sort of scary.S

Starting a business is a LOT of work! But don’t be scared (actually, you CAN be scared, just don’t be too scared to keep going), because if you have the vision, you probably can do it.

Know Thyself

What sort of work do you really love? What are your strengths? What do you bring to the workplace or your family? Are you a planner, a visionary, a go-with-the-flow, a dreamer, a checklist person, a people person, a detail person,  an introvert, an extrovert? 

 What are your weaknesses?   If you look at your home and work life and think about what you feel alive doing and what drains you, you will have made the first step and the good news is:

It really doesn’t matter what KIND of person you are. All you really need is a vision for what you want this to look like in the end with ONE KEY QUALIFICATION ….drumroll ….

Surround yourself with the right people!

You need to fill your gaps. I can’t tell you how important this is for success that lasts. 

That’s not to say you can’t do this all by your lonesome self on a wing and a prayer.  You certainly CAN get something started all by yourself. But EVEN if you start this way, (and I would say passion will propel you far on momentum),  research and preparation and a good team will keep you from falling, so you need…eventually… people to fill  your gaps.

Let’s say you are a parent who really, REALLY wants a nature-based school that is affordable. You know a few other people who would love this too. You can see it now…happy children dropped off 3 mornings a week with their rain boots and butterfly nets as cheerful teachers welcome them in and  weary parents go to work or the grocery store in blessed peace.

 You have the vision, but it doesn’t exist yet.  Now hold up,  where are you in this dreamy vision?

 Are you the cheerful teacher because you love those little kids and you love the outdoors?

 Are you the administrator keeping things running in an office? 

Are you ‘just’ the parent who wants to drop the little darlings and go? 

 Why are you in that place in the picture? Do you belong there? 

Once you do the organizing and find the right people to fill whatever roles you don’t want to fill, your vision can exist and you can have whatever place in it you want to have. But somebody has to get it started and stick it out until it can run itself with all the pieces in place.

 So DO you have what it takes?

What kind of person are you? Did you answer those questions a few paragraphs ago? 

Maybe you get excited about projects and big ideas,  but you tend to forget to pay the bills or water the plants and bathe the children. Great. Not a problem. You are going to be wonderful at thinking big and not letting obstacles stop you….BUT, you need people, as soon as you can find them, who can pay the bills and water the plants. I mean, not literally water the plants (although actually maybe?! A nature program would be nice with plants). You get my point, right? 

At the risk of stating the obvious. Again. You have to know what your gaps ARE, and then you need to fill them. 

If you are excellent at bathing the children and watering the plants because you write the whole month down in detail ahead of time in your perfectly synced calendars, have a planner in every room, and never forget to go to an appointment; bathe the children at 7 pm every other day and never forget to water your plants on Wednesdays,   but you get overwhelmed by last minute changes or obstacles, you might need someone alongside you who can see possibilities in the face of difficulties and can go with the flow when things don’t go as planned at the last minute.

Get the point? This applies to many other areas besides how organized you are (areas you can learn about in my course…shameless plug), but the point is, you can do it with vision. Just make sure you fill gaps.

One last bit of advice?

 Do it scared and prepared. 

Prepared is why I’m here!, but it’s okay to do it scared and figure it out as you go. Do it nevertheless. 

You may panic when you think you just totally messed up the budget numbers and nobody seems to care but you. . 

You may want to cry on the state business website that wants you to jump through seventy-three hoops to find the paperwork you need and then you  do it but lay awake that night pretty sure you might get arrested for noncompliance or some other criminal act, quite innocently committed. 

 You might panic again  when a teacher quits on Open House day, or be quite sure NO one saw your advertisement that you worked SO hard on making.

(Not that I have ever been in any or all of these situations or anything, but I digress…)

If you quit, or never start, you never will see your vision take form. That’s a certainty.

But if you don’t quit and you just prepare, be a little scared, and plow ahead anyway? You may have a beautiful community, a business, a job, or whatever it is you want in a year or two. 

So know yourself, fill your gaps, and then do it scared. You probably have, or can get…what it takes.