From Burnout as a Teacher to Success as an Edupreneur with Michelle Smit

0:00 On this episode, we're talking about pursuing your passions and building successful side hustles and online businesses in the education space. Check it out. Welcome to the Leader of Learning podcast. I'm your host, doctor Dan Crinis, and this is where I help educators grow their impact as instructional leaders because my research and leadership experiences have led me to understand that someone like you, regardless of your role or your title, can have a tremendous impact on your organization. I chat with inspiring guests who are truly making an impact as instructional leaders. Whether this is your first time listening or you've come back for more, I hope you've subscribed to this show on your preferred podcast apps so you don't miss any of the great episodes, topics, or guests. Anyway, I'm so glad you've tuned in. Now let's get started. Hello Leader of Learning, and welcome into episode one sixty one. If you're just joining us, thank you very much and don't forget to hit subscribe or follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app. If you're back for more and you've joined us in the past, thank you so much for returning. I have a great episode in store for you. I just want to let you know that if you're listening to this podcast around the time of its release, you may already know that in the education space, one of the biggest conferences that takes place each year,

1:33 the ISTY Conference, is going on, and unfortunately, even though I thought I was going to be there and I was ready to present a couple of sessions and really soak in a lot of information and have a great time at the conference, I unfortunately had to withdraw from attending this year. It's not because I don't want to, and I certainly will miss all of you and meeting you in person if you're going to that conference, but I have a lot of other obligations going on this summer and I just couldn't take that kind of time away and that time off, so I won't be attending ISTY. But we will continue to produce podcast episodes throughout the summer, so obviously look for those every other week as we go through the rest of June, July, and August. As for this episode, I have a really exciting guest.

2:24 Her name is Michelle Smit and she is affiliated with an organization known as Digi Teach, and we're going to talk about pursuing your passions and building successful side hustles and online businesses in the education space. And I know that might be a little bit unusual or uncomfortable for people to listen to and a bit different from the topics that we usually delve into here on this podcast, but I think it's a really important one and I think it's a timely one because Michelle's going to share her personal journey from being a burnt out ESL teacher to a successful course creator and business owner and offers advice on how to overcome fear and lean into discomfort and follow your intuition. And so I know that you're going to get a lot of value out of it. And I know that even though you might not have a business or a side hustle, you can still gain so much valuable information and knowledge from what Michelle is going to share.

3:25 So I'm going to stop talking and right after these messages, we're going to hear from Michelle. Coming up is my interview with Michelle smit Welcome back, Leader of Learning. I'm excited to have on a guest who I think I have a lot in common with. I don't know, we'll see, but once I became aware of her and her work, I really knew that I had to get her on here. Michelle Smitt is a teacher business coach, helping educators in business make more money while working less through launching scalable courses and group programs, and all of this through her company called Digi Teach. So, Michelle, welcome to the show. I'm glad to finally see you and get you on here. I've listened to your podcast quite a bit and I love it. So thanks for joining us here. And before we move on any further, if you could do a little bit more of telling us who you are, where you are, and what you do. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super stoked to be here. Yeah.

4:27 So, I am a business coach and I help teaching business owners, but also just educators in the classroom, online teachers, freelance teachers, kind of any educator. I help them move away from trading their time for money and I help them move towards trading value for money, which is the way that I do it is through digital courses, digital products, group programs and things like that. And yeah, that's that's what I do. I've been doing it for a couple of years now, and it's my passion. I would say, it's my passion to really help educators sort of up level and make their own money online, like all types of educators. That's really I want to help educators, whatever they want to do, bring their impact online through online business specifically. Yeah, I've gotten that about you by listening to your show and following what you do, and I've become sort of familiar a little bit with your story. But I don't think my listeners know how did you get into this space? Because I think it's an interesting story, and I also think that it will help lead us into what could be still a difficult conversation or a difficult concept for my audience, because I think my audience still is largely K twelve and even higher education educators and people in the field who frankly at this point haven't necessarily considered side hustles or online businesses or like you

6:02 said, making money, you know, on monetizing their their talents. And I think sharing your story may may help us a little bit. How did you get into doing this? So I'll give the shortened version of the story, But I was an ear cell teacher in Vietnam, and that's where I started my teaching, and I ended up falling in love with a duchy and moving over to this little place in the Netherlands, and I moved online. I started teaching ear cell online and I loved it. I thought it was wonderful. It was really flexible and stuff like that. But when I moved over to the Netherlands, I in order to survive in this country with the cost of living it was drastically higher than Vietnam, I had to teach back to back classes. I had to teach a lot of classes right, and I I had the highest rate per hour. I'd reached sort of my income ceiling in the company that I was working with, and I was just teaching many, many back to back hours and it wasn't it was barely even minimum wage when I was in the Netherlands, and so I was working full on and I was actively teaching K twelve children in China on camera. Was wonderful.

7:23 But then it got to a point where I was like burning out very fast. I sort of lost my love for the work that I was doing. I sort of became quite robotic in my teaching, like I wasn't being like challenged. I think it was just becoming too simple for me the work, and I sort of lost meaning and passion and I felt kind of, yeah, burnt out would be the word that I felt. And while I was going through this time, I actually stumbled upon my first mentor through a Facebook ad and I went down his whole journey and I basically invested with him to help me. And he was someone who was teaching like courses like how to sell an online course kind of something like that, and I at that point did not know about online business. I did not know about digital courses.

8:16 But I really needed to do something else and I didn't really know what I was doing. I was just kind of like, cool, I'm gonna my intuition is telling me to do this thing. Let me just do this thing, and yeah, invested with him and it was like the craziest journey. Four months later, I had launched my first course online and I made a whopping like seven sales and it was like the greatest achievement ever. I had learned so much in that time, and I kind of became addicted to online business, like I just I started absorbing it all the time. It was what I spent all my time, on, all my money on and I was just like really energized by it. And then I just kept on launching my course and it just kept getting better and better, and you know, by my fourth launch, you know, I had a forty thousand dollar course launch, and that was like a pivotal moment in the journey. That was like one of those moments where I was like, Okay, this is what I want to do with my life. This is like I feel the passion, I feel the energy for it. I'm so inspired by it.

9:24 And I actually started my business originally helping educators become online ear cel teachers. So that's what my first course was on. I wasn't passionate about it, and then I moved into helping teachers start online businesses. I love that story for a lot of reasons. But and by the way, you know, I think by now my audience probably could tell that this is a bit of a different episode and topic then we usually talk about. But I think it is timely as many of us have just finished or are about to finish our school years heading into the summer. Let's face it, a lot of educators right now are probably thinking what is it that I really want to keep doing with my life, and I'm wondering if helping my audience and people in still in that K twelve education space take what they know and whether it's a hobby, a legit side hustle, or maybe they feel like, you know what, it's time that I start my you know, my own business and get out of K twelve altogether. That's why I really wanted to pursue this episode and pursue this conversation with you, and I'll be honest, I'm going to kind of break the third wall here a little bit with my audience. Like I've been podcasting now for over five and a half years. It'll be six years in I don't know, September, I guess, so it's been a

10:54 while, and you know, not right away, but actually pretty early on in my podcasting venture is when I started thinking about what I'm doing as a little bit of a business or a side hustle formed an LLC. I've been getting a little bit of money here and there from advertisements that I run on the show, sponsorships, and so I have not always but almost always, since i've been doing this, thought about how can I monetize and I know that's not easy. It's still not easy for me. It may still not be easy for you, but at least you more so, but at least we've taken steps in that right direction. I feel like I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you why you think it's still so hard for people to in education, especially to really wrap their heads around monetizing and placing that value on their knowledge, their experiences, their passions, their interests, and what can they do about it if they still have that kind of wall that's built up, that barrier that they need to break through in order to really understand, No, you can do this, you should do this. I think there's you know, there's lots of different reasons why. I think one of the biggest things that I see is a fear of the failure. That's one of the things that and they're the security blanket of being in a job. So

12:26 I often tell, you know, people who come into my world, you don't have to quit your teaching job, right you can start this on the side. This can just be a side hustle, which you know, gives you that safety nature, not like cutting your you know, livelihood off. But what I see a lot of the time is just this fear of getting out of their comfort zone and the vulnerability of taking something that is their own that might even be different to what they've trained in or what they're teaching in, which is even more scary for them putting package it into a product and selling it online, like, you have to overcome a lot of inner resistance and fear to do it. Um and and I see that a lot.

13:13 I see that a lot with educators in particular. They're very used to being, you know, working for an hourly rate or a monthly salary. They are very used to trading their time for money. It's just the way that we have been socialized and conditioned to to work. Um And. I think a lot of them don't know that there are other ways that you can A lot of them don't even know that there are things that they can do online, that there are digital courses that they can sell. Um. Those they are those people who don't know. And then there's the people who do know and are just too Generally it's a fear of failure, Um, I'm not good enough, Like I mean, it's all internal stuff at that point.

14:00 And also just strategy wise, like how to actually do it. I mean, of course, like and that's that's how I help people, well specifically teachers, as I give them strategy, I tell them how too, and I help them overcome the internal stuff to help them step into their power, to help them see their value, to help them see what they can do can be monetized. Like I mean, one of my teachers, who was straight up classroom teacher, had never really heard of online business. She was just trading. She was just doing like a side like hobby, which was training stock dogs. So she was just training literal stock dogs to her sheep.

14:43 That was her thing, that was her hobby. We saw that and she took that and she made it her business. And now she's leaving. She's chosen to leave the classroom. Not everyone has to. I mean, it can just be a side hustle, but it just I think there's so many educators who just can't see maybe what they can do or what they can offer online and how it could be so so massive. Like Jennifer, this teacher, she's literally her life has changed. Her business is incredible, which is amazing. I want to just share a quick story with you that happened just this past weekend I have a we have a nephew who is just a week or so away or two a couple weeks away from graduating high school and not really sure exactly what he wants to do with himself in terms of pursuing his education, but also, you know, starting to really look into studying for a career. And I know that there are a lot of things that he thinks he might be passionate about, but he hasn't necessarily explored a ton yet, except there's one thing that he's been doing for a long time since he was a kid, which is martial arts. And I was speaking to my brother in law and you know, his parents over the weekend and I and I said, I kind of harnessed my inner Michelle though this is the first time we're talking here, because I felt like I was kind of trying to not sway him in this direction, but just to ask if maybe he

16:14 would think about, like while he goes to school, if he wants to make some extra money. I asked them, like, are there such a thing as online courses for kids to learn taekwondo? And they were like, I don't know, I've never really heard of that. Now I'm not you know, I don't. I have no idea either. I haven't really looked into this. Maybe there are, but if there aren't, that could be a good, uh, you know, a good little side hustle to earn some money while in college or potentially a career afterwards as well. So I guess all of that to say that I'm starting to think a little bit like what you were saying in terms of helping people overcome whatever barriers to entry that they have. I think one of the things that you touched upon but didn't mention my name is imposter since Rome, which I've certainly dealt with a lot over the years, and I've addressed it here on the podcast as well.

17:06 But you know, just helping people understand that there are things that you do and that you know that other people are dying to do and to know as well, and just to have that as a starting point a launching point, I think is really important. Totally. I think that martial arts thing would be so good, Like now they're like, that would definitely be Yeah, all those little there's so many Like often people come to me and they like think very like, Okay, I'm an English teacher, I'm a maths teacher. Therefore I have to create, you know, an English teaching course or a maths course. And I'm like, okay, cool, is that what you're passionate in? Is that? Like, do you have the energy to build a business in that? Like can you really show up fully with passion behind that? And sometimes they can't. And sometimes it's like, oh no, I'm really passionate about baking and I really love knitting, or I love like swimming, helping triathlon this is one of my students as well, helping triathlon athletes improve their swimming. Like, I mean, there's so many different things. And then I'm like, well, if you've got the energy behind that, you just obviously need to do a little bit of market research and see if there's demand. But if there is, it could really be that's the key. You want to find something that you're passionate about, you've got energy behind that, there is also demand for that people are wanting to buy.

18:32 I think that's a great piece of advice for anyone at this stage of the game, not even people looking to monetize their talents or start online businesses, but anyone. I think it's just follow your passions, right, I think over the years. My wife and I have done that pretty well. There have been a lot of things that we've been interested in doing or learning and it's just like, hey, I want to go for that. You know. My wife studied theater in college and even upon graduating with her four year degree, wasn't really sure that that was what she wanted to do long term. And since then she's she went back to school for well, first she took some floral designing courses, then she went back to school to culinary school for for pastry arts, and technically she's a trained pastry chef, although that's not what she does full time. So um, we've been very fortunate to be able to do those things. But I guess my point is we've we've found those opportunities to pursue what we're passionate about and at times even explore monetizing them as well. My wife is now a pretty new independent travel agent and helping people plan their dream vacations. So I am I'm all about it.

19:53 Um. For me, I am passionate about you know, this educational stuff and just like it says up above me, helping educators grow their impact as instructional leaders. Hopefully that I don't lose that passion anytime soon. I don't think I will, because that's that's what I love to do, so that's what my content and courses are all about. But but I appreciate that. And I guess so thinking about you said that the key or the first step is to kind of figure out what you're passionate about and pursue that. What's the next step, I guess is what I wanted to ask you. So I would definitely just find your niche and get a bit of clarity on your niche and just get specific on not only like what topic and thing you're passionate about, but who you want to help. So the who is really important, not just I want to teach this thing or I'm passionate about knitting or whatever. It's like, who do you want to help with this thing?

20:51 And getting really specific about the who is going to help you inform you on all your next steps once you have that sort of niche and getting specific around it. So not just being like, and this is something that happens all the time, is I just want to help everyone, like I can help everyone, and like that's not going to work, Like, find out who it is you want to help, get specific on it. And then the next step I would say is start finding out what they want. Start finding out what your ideal target customer, like, your dream client or your dream student, the one that you really want to work with, the person you really want to help with this problem or get to this result. Get into conversation with them and literally start asking questions, even if it surveys, even if you have to get on calls, whatever it looks like, even if it's part of your friendship circle. Just ask questions and find out what is it that they want, what are their main struggles, what are their main things like, learn about them, it's really important. And then once you've got that information and you understand, Okay, this is my target customer, this is the person that I'm going to help with this program. Once you know that, you can then map out an offer that really really speaks to them, that is desirable, that is something that they actually want to purchase. Can you, for the benefit of anybody who will listen, go a little bit more into it, because I know the jargon, the terminology

22:26 you mentioned, the word niche or niche depending on how you pronounce it. If you could just dive into that a little bit more, just because you know that what you just mentioned obviously is very important, right, knowing who you're serving and the why behind what it is that you want to offer them. But if you could dive a little bit further into that, just for people who are really kind of hearing some of this for the first time. Sure, So a niche is basically like a sub market in a greater market. So what you want to look at when you aren't choosing a niches, you want to get it. You sort of want to niche down and you want to try to get quite specific within the greater market. So, for example, you've got English teaching, and that's a massive, you know, industry, it's huge, it's quite it's massive. Right, If you were to just create a program, you know, an English teaching program helping people learn English, it's just it's just too vague, and we need to niche down, we need to get more specific. So then you can go down even deeper into like a segment of the market and you can say aisles English or business English or yeah, whatever, some particular type of English, and then that's the topic. Right, You've niche down into like the little market and then now you want to look at Okay, who's this four? You want to even niche down on the customers. So who are you trying to help? Is it going to be like expats that need to learn English?

23:56 Is it stud students like young adults that need to learn English? Is it people who want to immigrate to learn English? Like, try get clarity on who it is and get specific around that. And by doing that, the reason we do that is because it just is so saturated. There's just so many people selling things. And when you're when you don't have like a very specific niche specialization and target customer and you're very vague, that sort of just affects your ability to market, and it affects your messaging and it sort of dilutes everything down and then you cannot really stand out very easily people. You want people to see your stuff and say, oh wow, like that's for me, Like that resonates online and niching down is really important for that, I would think, in my opinion, the logical next step after that would be to make sure that you're collecting their emails and and contact information so that believe it or not, if you're listening and you haven't ever or have rarely given thought to some of this stuff. Um, you know, those potential as we call them leads, right, those those could be your your clients one day. And if you are serious about monetizing or or starting to start

25:29 starting a side hustle say that five times fast um or or an online business of some kind. Uh, that's that's where the gold is, um you know. So yeah, and I've even I've been right, and I've even been trying to tell my wife that as she starts this side hustle as an independent travel agent. And I think, as we record this right now, I hope I'm not outing her too much, but I think she's got an email list of like twenty and I'm like, well, that's that's perfect. You know, has got to start somewhere. My email us had twenty people on it at one point. Michelle's did too. So now this is this has been great. I think, like I said, it's a timely conversation.

26:10 I know that it's not for everyone. So I know that, Um, there are people, you know, people who tune into my podcast for education and instructional leadership. But you're getting a little little something different today. And I hope that it gets you to think think about maybe yourself and in your situation, and whether or not this is something that you want to do. I think it is, and I'm sure Michelle would agree. Um, but even if it's not, I think it is important to consider the people who are doing this and who are creating side hustles and online businesses in the field of education or not. And I say, I actually say that with a little bit of a thought in the back of my mind, which is that, uh, like I said earlier in the in the interview, I've been podcasting now for going on six years and the only I think two negative reviews I've ever gotten on the podcast are from I think it's the same person, if I'm not mistaken, but let's call it two different people because they're two different reviews that both say that there's a little too much self promotion and promoting going on in the podcast. And I want to tell them, like, do you listen to other podcasts, because I know I'm not the only one doing it, but you know, at the end of the day, I think it's important to understand that there are people out there, educators even who are doing this as a living you know, it's for a living, whether it's on the speaking circuit or an online business where they have courses and

27:41 programs, or people like me who are who are still doing it as a side hustle. I work in a school in a public school district. I come every day and uh, you know, from September through June that that's my deal. And all the podcasting and business ventures and things for me are on the side. But um, anyway, enough of enough of me on my soapbox. Um, Michelle, As we wrap up, if there's anything else that you have in the in the way of advice for people who are thinking about this, people like me who were dabbling in it, that would that would be great. And also of course sharing your contact information social media if you want, and how we can maybe learn a little bit more about what you're doing, what you are doing, and all about did you teach?

28:33 Yeah, there's so much advice that I could give. But one of the things that I if I put myself back into the time when I was sort of working in my teaching job and like not feeling one hundred percent fulfilled and just not knowing what to do, I had this like into I had this like niggle inside. It was like a niggle. That's all I can explain it as there's a niggle inside of you. And this is how you'll know if this could be something that could really be for you, is when you have this nickel inside of you that you are you want more, like you just desire more. You desire more flexibility, you desire more. You desire to create your own legacy. You want to impact more. People.

29:17 You want to you want to up level, you want to challenge yourself because I also was not being challenged in my work. If you feel like that and you have this desire to really impact people on a bigger scale and make money with that, so both income and impact. If you have that niggle inside and you're sort of just shutting it down out of fear, all I can say to you is the best thing that you can do is just to listen to that niggle and just take the next step. Like whatever that next step is, like, just take the first step. It doesn't have to be you know, you don't have to do something crazy immediately, but just start just explore what that is. Explore that niggle inside, because if you're feeling like a lack of meaning and burnt out or something's not right. There's something inside of you that's guiding you. And I'm very big on like intuition and just following it. And I just followed it like I didn't know anything.

30:12 I just kept listening. Okay, let me just keep following where my energy is going. Let me just pursue that. And that's what I can really say. Like your mind is going to say all these things like don't do this, like you need to stay safe, like this is very risky. Just tune back into your body and your heart and if you're feeling like the pull, lean into it, lean into the discomfort, lean into the fear, because really it's it's so rewarding when you do that, and it's so amazing what doors can open up for you. It might look very different to what you thought, but it is just so amazing what can happen when you do start this journey. It's very empowering to be able to make your own money or just to build skills, just to build skills that allow you to do to increase your impact and whatever. It is. So yeah, that's what I would say on that. And if anyone wants to find me, they can find me on Instagram at Digi Teach. I do have my own podcast. I haven't been podcasting for as long as you, which is very awesome. It's still new, it's not even a year old, but it's called The Empowered Entrepreneur Podcast. And if you do want help, and I can share the link with you maybe in your show notes if you guys want to help with sort of the roadmap of creating and selling a course, I do have an awesome freebee which I can give to you in your show notes that someone can can grab. That would be great. I'll definitely put that in the show notes and up on the website. I've used it before,

31:47 by the way, it's it's really great going back to what Michelle was talking about before in terms of not only understanding what you're passionate about, it's kind of that next step of Okay, who am I looking to target with it? Right, So it's all about really finding and honing in on your niche and who your target audience will be. So definitely I'll link that in the show notes. Michelle, I really appreciate your time. Again, very important topic for me. I've said this before kind of jokingly, but I'm like a little serious about it too. I'm always my number one fan, so I bring on guests and I share topics here that I really want to learn about. But I know that this is going to resonate with a lot of my audience as well, so I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much. I've absolutely loved it. Well that's it for this episode.

32:38 Thank you so much for listening. If you haven't done so yet, don't forget to subscribe to this show on your favorite podcast app. If you enjoy the content covered on this show, I want to ask you to do this one thing for me. Please share it. The biggest favor you could ever do for me is to please let others know about what I'm doing and how I'm helping educators grow their impact as instructional leaders. I hope you can share this podcast with other educators, leaders, friends, or anyone you think would love listening and learning. If you're interested in leaving a positive rating and review of this show, links to do so or always in the show notes for every episode. For more information about me or this show, and to access the great content that I share, please visit my website at Leader of Learning dot com that's where you can find my online courses, YouTube channel, blog, how to connect with me on social media, and even ways that you can support the show like donating or purchasing Leader of Learning merchandise. Thanks again, and remember, no matter who you are or where you are, you are a Leader of Learning.