00:00:00
What is good my exhies? It's your boy Jacob Gooden. We are back another week.
00:00:03
Another exhomeschooler club. That's right. The best exhomeschooler podcast this side of the internet. Uh I'm in a
00:00:10
good mood. Can you tell? Um I'm singing. I don't sing for very many people. But
00:00:14
why am I in such a good mood? My friend RB is in the studio today. Okay, it's a
00:00:19
Zoom call. I'll give you that. But you know what I mean. I'm having my friend
00:00:23
RB on the show today. We're going to talk about his homeschool experience. We're going to talk about growing up in
00:00:27
two different states, being homeschooled in both. We're going to talk about curriculum. We're going to talk about
00:00:31
the the role that religion played in his homeschool experience. We're going to
00:00:34
talk about the aftergeears and the after effects of homeschooling. Uh and we're
00:00:39
going to touch on like friendship and specifically male friendship, but adult friendship in general. Um and the
00:00:45
difficulty that that is. So before I turn it over to past me, I got a favor to ask. Okay? That is if you enjoy the
00:00:51
show, whether it's today's episode, whether it's a previous episode, do me a
00:00:54
favor. Share it with a friend. Shoot him a text, shoot him an email, uh, whatever
00:00:59
you got to do. Maybe you see him in person this week. Tell him about the show. Say, "Hey, I've been watching this
00:01:03
podcast. I've been listening to this podcast. Would love if you checked it out." Okay. Thank you in advance from
00:01:08
me. I'm going to stop rambling. Let's turn it over to Pass [Music] Me. Well, RB, we're here. Uh, it is our
00:01:21
second time meeting. Um, but I'm so stoked to share your story with my audience and for them to meet you and
00:01:28
hear what you've got to say. I don't want to give too much fluff at the beginning. I want to just kind of get
00:01:33
right into it of like what is your story? Can you give us a little bit set the stage so to speak of your homeschool
00:01:40
experience? Were you homeschooled all the way through? Siblings. Uh, I know when we chatted previously, you moved
00:01:45
around a little bit and things shifted because of the moves and things like that. So, so lay lay a little foundation
00:01:50
and then we'll go from there. I love it. I love it. And thanks for having me on the show. This is this has
00:01:55
been fantastic. And it's been cool to listen and uh in some ways connect to other people. I know there's one show
00:02:03
like I now follow her on Instagram and and that's that's fantastic to to meet
00:02:08
other people and really to hear other people's experiences because one thing I
00:02:12
will say about my experiences and it's true for everyone. It it's unique. Um, I
00:02:18
would not wish my experience on anyone else, but I'll also know that my experience of homeschooling is not
00:02:24
exclusive or or is not um indicative of everyone's, which is which is one of the
00:02:29
reasons why I'm so excited to have this conversation. Yeah. So, I was born in uh
00:02:35
Pennsylvania and primarily lived in a little town near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania called West Newton.
00:02:43
and we were the first uh homeschooling family in our county uh and definitely within our school district. Um
00:02:55
and when I was 13, my family moved from Pennsylvania to Kansas and I continued being
00:03:06
homeschooled and was homeschooled through to when I went to college. and then um about 7 years ago moved down here as
00:03:15
an adult, but moved down to Texas. So that's where I live now. And so yeah, so
00:03:21
being homeschooled in two different states is is something we could definitely chat about. Um and and I
00:03:26
would say that the experiences were different uh each place, but I'm the oldest of
00:03:35
uh five and born early 80s. So, uh, the earliest memory I have as a kid is seeing the,
00:03:47
um, space shuttle explode, you know, on TV. That was like a very like that was a
00:03:54
huge deal for us because first of all, we really didn't watch TV. I think our
00:03:59
total time of having cable as a kid was like six months. And and that was like a
00:04:04
big deal. like here we are this tiny homeschooling family like my my sisters at the time were you know they I don't
00:04:14
even think they had started school and I was just learning to read but it was like oh my god we get to watch TV and uh
00:04:22
and I remember my mom like right after it happened turned it off I don't know
00:04:26
what happened after that I was what four at the time but I was like that that was
00:04:31
like my um one of my intros to the outside world was like Oh, we're going to watch this really cool. And there's a
00:04:37
school teacher on the space shuttle and it blew up and uh we'll we'll we'll
00:04:42
we'll we'll move on with our lives now. Yeah. Oh, man. That's that I don't know.
00:04:49
Your your explaining of that is is taking me back to I'm a I'm a kid of the
00:04:53
uh I was born in 96 and so 911 when 911 happened I vividly remember that day watching the news and seeing it happen.
00:05:01
And I know it's it's very different circumstances obviously, but I remember
00:05:04
as a kid and then it's like the TV turns off and it's like okay, we just go on
00:05:07
with our day apparently. Um, so I know that feeling that you're talking about
00:05:12
that like something really tragic just happened and now we just have to be normal again. Like how how does that
00:05:17
Right. And that kids is why we don't interact with the outside world. Yeah. Yeah. So talk talk to me a little bit
00:05:26
about the early Pennsylvania like you you said you're like first kind of like
00:05:31
homeschool family in that area like what did that look like? Because I know that
00:05:36
when like I said I'm I'm a kid of the late 90s so 2000s was more of my era of
00:05:41
homeschooling a lot more solidified at that point. There was a lot more I group in California so the rules are different
00:05:46
but like there's a lot more like guidelines of like you have to register your school or maybe you have to take
00:05:51
your kids in for this. So, like was there anything like that growing up or what or were you just figuring it
00:05:59
out? Yeah, I mean there was a lot of figuring it out. And I would say when we when we
00:06:06
were doing when we were homeschooling in Pennsylvania, it was very much, I think,
00:06:12
a replication of what my mom remembered her public school experience being, but at home. So, we had desks in the kitchen
00:06:22
space that were basically like old school um you know desks that had the flip up
00:06:28
top. We kept all our books in them and we would start school at a certain time and we had our different subjects that
00:06:34
we would do. I think we started school at like 8 and we would say the pledge of allegiance and pray and then um school
00:06:42
was over at like 3:00 or 3:30. you've got like 30 minutes for recess to go outside and run around like crazy
00:06:48
people. Um, but it was I remember one of the first experiences interacting with a public
00:06:59
school was at the time you had to present a portfolio to the uh principal of the
00:07:09
school that you would have been going to. So, I I think it was it wasn't every
00:07:15
year, but I I remember going to our local elementary school and sitting there and him having like a binder of
00:07:25
all of my work from the last year and him just, you know, like going through it. Um, and even at that time, I
00:07:34
remember him saying like, you know, this looks good. you know, it seems like you're pretty smart. And um I got that a
00:07:43
lot as a kid. I as the it's one of one of the one of the things I'm sure we'll
00:07:48
get into, but as as the oldest, a lot of the as the oldest and as a boy, a lot of
00:07:55
the resources that my family had went towards me and my education at the expense of my sisters, which is one one
00:08:03
of the one of the things that I would um that I regret about about my homeschooling experience. But so in
00:08:10
Pennsylvania, very very like you got to check in with the school so often. Um I think we had to take a standardized
00:08:20
test. I remember I remember taking one at one point. It's very fuzzy memory.
00:08:27
Then when we got to Kansas, it was literally the wild west. Um there was basically no oversight. You did have to
00:08:36
register a school name and our school name was Providential Academy of the Great Plains because my dad wanted to be
00:08:44
a cowboy so bad. Um or a pioneer and a pioneer and a blacksmith. Anyhow, so this long ass name. Um but
00:08:55
basically they were like you need to do school this many days of the year and you need to register. outside of that,
00:09:04
you're on your own. Okay. Um, so, so different experience. Um, so like I said, I was 13 when we moved to
00:09:12
Kansas. My the schooling changed a little bit, mainly because we were number one, we
00:09:21
were in smaller houses. Um, and we in Pennsylvania, we had a a larger house with enough space for us to have desks.
00:09:31
When we got to Kansas, we mainly stayed in in uh rented smaller houses and so there wasn't room for desks. So
00:09:40
we would generally work either like in the living room on the couch or at the kitchen at the kitchen table but kind of
00:09:47
still the concept of you started school at a certain time you ended school at a certain
00:09:53
time and um and then I would say when I was about 15 16 the subject matters the the subjects were beyond my mom's
00:10:03
education so I started doing like video courses and kind of taking some more control
00:10:09
over my schedule. Um, as long as I documented what I did, like she I would get up sometimes at like 5 or 6 in the
00:10:19
morning and start school then just it was easier in a small confined space where you know we ended up um we were a
00:10:28
family we had three kids for a while and then um there's 15 years between my
00:10:34
brother and I. So when he came along and then and then my youngest sister came along, now there's small children in the
00:10:41
house and we're trying to study. So Right. Um so yeah, the the experience changed some. Um but the yeah, the the
00:10:49
legislation was wildly different between the two states. Yeah, it sounds like it.
00:10:53
I think too I think a lot of I'm also the oldest uh of my homeschool world and
00:10:58
it just me and my sister, so much smaller environment, but yeah, I mean we did we didn't have desks. We did school
00:11:04
at at the dinner table and we did have we did end up getting desks in our bedrooms, but but we didn't have like a
00:11:10
school room or anything like that. But I I totally relate when you talk about like getting older and then kind of
00:11:15
starting to take charge of your own education and build out your own um kind of plan and like I was more of a night
00:11:22
person. So I would, you know, my everyone would be asleep and I'd be working late into the night, but then
00:11:27
I'd stay in bed till like noon, you know. Um, which I don't think my mom
00:11:31
loved, but I I think she just got to a point where she's like, I can't really
00:11:33
fight him on it at this point. Like, he's just that's his that's the way he's
00:11:37
doing it and everything's getting done. But I relate to that a little bit. And
00:11:40
we did have an a little period of time when I was in high school of we had a couple other kids coming to our house.
00:11:46
we were we were looking to adopt, but um it threw a wrench in everything because
00:11:50
they were younger and it was just, you know, like you said, it was just all of a sudden it was crowded and it was like
00:11:56
I I now need I need a better system to get this done, right? So just like finding those times to to to do it on
00:12:04
your own um was difficult. But um I know you had mentioned I think this was in our previous conversation that a Becca
00:12:11
tended to be like a pretty consistent thing throughout your experience which like a lot of a lot of homeschool
00:12:17
families that's very common. I don't think it's the worst curriculum in the
00:12:20
world. It gets you kind of where you need to go sometimes. Uh but it doesn't
00:12:25
work for everybody. But it's very much like you were talking about that traditional school experience cuz it's
00:12:30
designed for a classroom. So I do I do wonder cuz I never I don't want to say I
00:12:36
never took video classes but that transition from going like mom is teaching to like okay now I just watch a
00:12:41
video and do it. Was that a good thing for you or was that like this is really tough? It it was a good thing for me
00:12:48
because like I said like it was when I got into like algebra, algebra 2 and geometry and things that my mom was not
00:12:58
um skilled at and the opportunity to learn from people who that was their bread and
00:13:05
butter really kind of my first like actual teacher experience um was was very positive for me and it
00:13:14
was also it was also interesting because it was uh it was a new company. I think
00:13:20
it was called Greatest Teachers of America or Superstar Teachers of America, but they were public school
00:13:27
teachers. And they would go in and film, they wouldn't film the classroom, but
00:13:32
they'd film lectures that they gave. And I actually ended up corresponding briefly with the chemistry
00:13:40
teacher because he he he had the driest sense of humor I think I'd ever seen. And I felt a
00:13:51
connection with him. And then when I did the workbook, almost all of the answers were
00:13:59
wrong in the answer key. Okay. And so I did all of the problems multiple times and then actually
00:14:07
mailed like this is what I think the actual answers are to this guy I' never
00:14:13
met didn't know me and they ended up email they ended up mailing it back and
00:14:19
saying oh wow yeah all of our answers were incorrect thank you for thank you for correcting
00:14:27
us here's a free video course you get to pick anything else you want to take? And
00:14:36
um and then I heard from the I think I got a letter from the actual like science teacher and he the most
00:14:43
important thing to him was that I understood he's not the one who wrote the answer
00:14:50
key. He was like not me, not my fault. That was not that was not me. Yeah, we some intern did that. Yeah.
00:14:58
Right. That was actually a cool experience though because thinking back I I had like their whole curriculum to
00:15:05
choose from and I chose this like how to learn um and it was a shorter course but
00:15:12
I remember something from that course stuck with me has stuck with me my whole life and that was that the act of
00:15:19
learning is connecting old stuff to new stuff. And so when you're trying to remember something or you're trying to
00:15:25
understand a concept, if you can relate it in some way to a concept you already know, and that's basically systems,
00:15:33
right, thinking. Um, and but I I remember that as being like that's a that's a nugget that I got out of this
00:15:40
weird experience where I I corrected my science teachers answer key. Yeah. Look at you RB out here being like better.
00:15:50
Yeah. like more it you're proof that homeschoolers are smarter than other people.
00:15:59
I disagree with that. Um I disagree with that vehemently. Um but it's it's
00:16:05
interesting because that ties into this concept that that you and I have have chatted about where I feel like in some
00:16:13
ways in my experience I am an accidental success of homeschooling and of my environment. Um, and that, yeah,
00:16:23
whenever you're ready to dig into that, that that's kind of a I did want to kind
00:16:26
of dig into that because you made the comment before about you feel like a lot of the resources your family had were
00:16:32
poured into you as a student, but your sisters were were lacking. And so, if you wouldn't mind just like unpack that
00:16:39
a little bit and then what Yeah. why that how that then ties into being like an accidental success in your
00:16:45
environment. Yeah. So, I'm I'm gonna Fair warning if you're watching this podcast, this will get
00:16:54
religious. Um, because one of the unique things, and it's not unique to me, but one of
00:17:02
the things that shaped my homeschooling experience was obviously the reasons why
00:17:07
my parents chose to homeschool and then the environment which I did grow up in being homeschooled. And so the reason
00:17:16
that my parents homeschooled was primarily fear-based. They were genuinely I believe this. They were
00:17:23
genuinely trying to do the right thing. They were trying to do the best thing for their
00:17:28
kids. But that meant that their previous trauma dictated their the decisions that
00:17:34
they made, which were that's the outside world. We're going to create a safe
00:17:40
space for you to grow up in and we're going to educate you as best as you can
00:17:45
and that will give you a better a better chance in life. Mhm. Um, so along with that because it
00:17:54
our I I like to say I grew up in a cult because that's the easiest way to to
00:18:00
explain it in the simplest way, but independent fundamentalist Baptist, reformed Baptist, that was our our
00:18:08
primary I think we were we went to a Presbyterian church for a while, but then we had a my dad had a argument with
00:18:14
the elders about whether baptism was immersion or sprinkling. And then we left that church. And
00:18:22
um but the part of what we were indoctrinated into in Pennsylvania, but almost more so in Kansas, was the was uh
00:18:33
patriarchy. So the concept that the man is the head of the family, the man is the bread winner. The man basically runs
00:18:41
everything, the wife is to submit. And so if you look at education of children from that context
00:18:50
of the man's going to make the money, the woman's going to cook and clean and
00:18:54
be at home and have babies, then your the the results of the education are going to be drastically
00:19:02
different based on the gender of of the student. And so in my case, I had I had more opportunities
00:19:10
than my sisters did in okay, you let's let you play baseball. Like I played baseball for 2 years from 9 to 10,
00:19:18
right? They were never given that opportunity, right? Um they were basically taught, you know, all the math
00:19:24
you need to know is how to is fractions so that you can convert recipes and be able to balance a checkbook. And
00:19:34
so when I say that I am I am an accidental success like I am successful in my career
00:19:43
professionally but that came I feel like at a cost of um I'm the one who who went
00:19:51
to college. My parents didn't pay for college but I I lived at home. They obviously helped in all the ways that
00:19:57
they could to get me through that experience. I landed a good job. So at, you know, at 23, I'm an engineer working
00:20:05
at Cessna and my sisters are, you know, at home cooking and cleaning and with no
00:20:12
higher education whatsoever. So, um, I it's it's one of those things that when
00:20:17
I tell people I'm homeschooled and they see the success in my life, I don't I don't want that
00:20:25
correlation. I don't want that correlation of I am successful because I was homeschooled or I was, you know, I'm
00:20:33
smarter because I was homeschooled. And that was one of the justifications that my parents would use was they would
00:20:40
point to someone and they would say so and so was homeschooled and look what they did with their life. And once I got
00:20:47
old enough to realize like that person was that gymnast was homeschooled because they're a professional gymnast
00:20:57
and they literally had a tutor living in their house homeschooled like that is not the same, right? But to make a an
00:21:05
equality statement statement that you know because you were homeschooled that's going to equal this is something
00:21:13
that when I have when I get into this depth of conversation about homeschooling I I try to make a clear
00:21:22
delineation that there is not I do not see necessarily a correlation between someone who was homeschooled and someone
00:21:29
who is successful later in life. No, I I I agree with you. I think I also had a little bit of that. Not that I didn't
00:21:37
view I viewed as other people could also be successful, but I I the stats and things that I was being given was kind
00:21:45
of like homeschoolers can accomplish XYZ faster, quicker, they're better at it,
00:21:50
you know. Um there was a point where like I was going to do college while I was in high school and so I was going to
00:21:56
graduate high school and college roughly at the same time. And you know, things played out. You know, I I do think that
00:22:03
like my home education helped me in college. I did college in three years, which was like, but I I busted ass to do
00:22:11
it, right? Like I worked really hard. Now, that's not exclusively a homeschool
00:22:14
thing. I just know that the tools that I was given, especially in those high school years, we talked about the
00:22:20
independent study. That helped me significantly to be able to do that because I could just I could just hone
00:22:25
in and be like, I got to do this XYZ. I'm okay with working in the summers. Like, it's all good. You know, I was
00:22:31
okay with that because of my previous experience, but that doesn't Yeah, it didn't equal I'm actually just smarter
00:22:36
than everybody. I'm still the dumb sometimes the dumbest guy in the room. Um, but
00:22:44
you know, it just kind of like you said, it shapes you to who you are, but it it
00:22:48
also I agree with you in that like I I saw some of that in my home school world as well, where like sometimes the guys
00:22:56
were treated in a different standard and way than than the girls were and and that was kind of an
00:23:03
interesting thing. It also, like you said, religion ties into it. There's purity culture aspect. there's all this
00:23:08
other stuff that plays into, you know, well, you're, you know, the girls are
00:23:13
going to be barefoot and pregnant for, you know, all of their 20s. Um, kind of a deal, which is is a little bit of a
00:23:22
it's kind of a dangerous game to play, I think, sometimes. Um, yeah. And, you
00:23:27
know, it's unfortunate because I see that in in my friends from growing up. I
00:23:30
see some of them who have struggled because of that lack of education. So yeah, you know, how is that? And and to
00:23:39
be clear, like my my sisters are doing very well for themselves. I don't mean
00:23:43
to paint paint paint a picture um that isn't that isn't true. It's just I wish
00:23:48
that they had the same opportunities, right, that I had had that that there had been equality. Um, I think there's I
00:23:57
growing up in a in a larger family and uh around uh lots of large families, they there's an undeniable advantage and
00:24:08
disadvantage to being the oldest. You you you tend to just naturally get more opportunities. You also are the
00:24:15
experiment child for a lot of things. like your parents learned on you and then and then took those learnings and
00:24:23
applied them to to your siblings. So, um yeah, and it's also been interesting.
00:24:28
Like I said, my brother's 15 years younger than I am and my sister's younger than
00:24:33
that. They grew up without so much of the religious aspect, but more of the homeschooling aspect. And I was chatting
00:24:41
with my brother and he was openly musing about like when I have kids maybe I'll homeschool. And I just
00:24:49
was like what? Why? Like and and that was just like this light bulb of our experiences were drastically different
00:24:58
even in the same family just being separated by 15 years. I was going to ask kind of yeah how those other
00:25:05
siblings like look today I guess is kind of the question there. But like yeah, what
00:25:12
has what has their life shaped out to be? And obviously I you know you might not know every facet of
00:25:20
everything, you know, of of their own this is what they think of homeschooling, but like how have you
00:25:25
seen their life be different and like how they've had to overcome some of the
00:25:29
obstacles that maybe you didn't have? Of course, their story is their story. So I
00:25:35
I will share a a little bit of just my perspective and it's just been more of
00:25:42
like I said the the opportunities that were presented. So I'll give you an example. When I was when I was a kid in
00:25:48
Pennsylvania, I remember at one of the god awful pun, no pun intended, church services. Um we we would go and meet and
00:26:00
with two other families in the second story of an Eagles building. Okay. And on Sundays and we would have a Sunday
00:26:07
school and break for lunch and then we would have a second service. And so we were there from like 9:00 a.m. until 2
00:26:14
or 3. Um but I remember in the break once one of my mom's friends looking at
00:26:21
me and saying, you know, Richard, you're really smart. you need to be an engineer.
00:26:28
And I like I remember that vividly and I I became an engineer and then I'm I'm I
00:26:36
would not call myself an engineer anymore. Um but that that's just an example of like very clear expectations
00:26:44
being set for this is your IQ level. This is what we expect out of you. This is this is the direction. And as a
00:26:52
kid, you hear those messages enough like you're smart, you're capable, you're
00:26:57
going to do great things. Like my dad would tell me like you're going to sit
00:27:00
down with the president someday and have dinner with him. They didn't get that same message,
00:27:08
right? And and so from the very beginning it was it was like Richard is on this path and y'all are kind of going
00:27:18
to be supportive characters in someone else's story. Um and so what I see with
00:27:24
my sisters is that struggle as they got into adulthood, got married. It's like no, I'm not just a
00:27:34
supportive character. I am my own person. I get to I get to um one of my sisters is a writer. I get like I get to
00:27:43
do this, right? I'm not I'm not just here to be a mom and a wife and take
00:27:47
care of the house and but it's also challenging because the the financial aspect of without a college degree, you
00:27:56
can't there's just some thing some doors that are not as easily open to you,
00:28:01
right? Um, so, so that that's kind of what I see. My younger brother, he went
00:28:05
he went the trade school route. Um, and he just got married last year. Um, and he's he's doing he's doing he's doing
00:28:14
well. So, yeah, I all of I'm really good friends with all my siblings and they're
00:28:20
all they're all doing well. Um, it's just I I notice like I said from from
00:28:28
even from the earliest memories being in a very uh sequestered environment, a very
00:28:38
controlled environment, one that was heavily influenced by uh religion that was very fundamentalist in
00:28:47
nature. um just kind of put us on these paths and it's been easier for me because the path I was put on was a path
00:28:57
to success whereas the path they were put on was a path to to subservience in some cases. Yeah. I Yeah. I
00:29:07
recently I joked in kind of a more serious way, but that I was like I I have it the easiest out of everybody.
00:29:15
It's like I'm a straight white guy. I live in Tennessee. Like to your point, I
00:29:20
always had that messaging from everybody in in that you're going to do great
00:29:25
things, you're super talented, you know, you're all of these things. And I won't
00:29:30
say that my sister didn't get messages like that. She's also very skilled in
00:29:34
what she does. Um and and super talented and and has a great life. But it it's
00:29:41
interesting how the expectations that are put on you and then like you maybe you leave the
00:29:47
picture and then the expectations change for your sibling and how they react to it and they're like I don't want to
00:29:52
follow in the footsteps of so well of course not you know or I don't want to
00:29:55
do this well like you know seeing them push against that and become their own person is is it's
00:30:01
really it can be strange but it's also really like a beautiful thing right where you're like okay I it's amazing to
00:30:07
see you now become become this like full-fledged version of yourself and really lean into the things that you're
00:30:13
passionate about and that you care about, you know? And I so I appreciate your message of just also being like
00:30:18
parents, you need to tell like all your kids like you're strong and capable and
00:30:22
smart and like you can do anything you set your mind to, right? There's no reason like that you can't not, you
00:30:28
know, everybody can go have dinner with the president. Um, you know, or whatever
00:30:33
whatever they want to do, you know? Um, right. That's Yeah. So I think I I want
00:30:40
to kind of shift a little bit of like into post homeschool world, right? So like what how did that shift look? You
00:30:49
know, you're getting out in the real world. You you kind of mentioned like you lived at home while you went to
00:30:53
college and and did that, but you know, was that was there a point where that homeschool bubble maybe started to pop
00:31:01
for you and you kind of were like, "Okay, now I'm in the real world. Yeah, it
00:31:10
was so I graduated when I was 17 and I remember one one of the one of the positive things was but again it was
00:31:24
only for the guys so it's it's just this weird thing but we had a a church
00:31:28
service where all the guy all the men in the church stood up and said like here's
00:31:33
what I do for a living here's where I went to college here's just how here's
00:31:37
kind of my success level. And based off of that conversation, my parents and I and mainly them were like,
00:31:47
"Okay, we think it's a good idea for you to have a blue collar skill and a white
00:31:51
collar skill. Like, you are going to college. That's not really a question, but let's get you a blue
00:31:57
collar skill first." So, at 17, I took the GED so that it eliminated all of the
00:32:03
transcript mess. of you you have to now record all your grades and because we didn't really have that. Uh so I took
00:32:13
the GED and then I started uh aircraft mechanics school. So, I went to I went from this like 17-year-old kid
00:32:22
who really wasn't allowed to talk to girls and very socially awkward to being
00:32:28
in a room of 30 like mid20 to mid30s mechanics who were also working like working real jobs
00:32:39
but also getting their aircraft mechanics licensed. And it was it was a huge culture shock. I mean, I was
00:32:47
hearing jokes I had never heard before. I was hearing words I had never heard before. I mean, I showed up in khakis
00:32:53
and a button-down shirt that was buttoned all the way up to the top. I still remember like after after some of
00:33:00
us got to know each other better. One of the guys like re literally reaching across the table and unsnapping my shirt
00:33:06
and being like, "Stop buttoning your top button." We all need people like that in
00:33:10
our lives. I had people like that when I got to college, too. We're like we're
00:33:13
like, "Yo, you sab me down." were like, "Yo, you got to chill the [ __ ] out,
00:33:17
man." Like, oh my god. And you know, I was invited to house parties for the first time. I
00:33:27
never went to any, but it was it was just just a very, like I said, culture shock experience. And yet it was weirdly
00:33:36
bounded because it was part of the it was in Witchaw, Kansas, and the the community college I was going to was
00:33:42
part of the Witchaw public school system. So like no cell phones in class. I didn't have a cell phone, but no cell
00:33:50
phones in class. And the Federal Aviation Administration requirements were very timebased. So, we had to show
00:33:59
up at like 7:30 or 8 in the morning and stay until 2, even if we had our work done. Lots of pranks being played,
00:34:07
people falling asleep on desk. Like, these guys are working second and third shift, right? Um, but that's where some
00:34:13
of my personality also started to come out of like, that guy's falling asleep.
00:34:18
Let's tie his shoelaces to the table so he wakes up. So, there was there was
00:34:22
lots of that going on. And then partially through that experience, I needed a I needed a job. I
00:34:33
had been working mainly mowing lawns and that's and that and Pelgrants were what
00:34:38
paid for most of my college. So I went to work at a little avionics shop and uh then 911 happened and
00:34:48
general aviation like my entire career trajectory. Yeah. like took a nose dive. So, I'd
00:34:55
only worked there for two months. I started interviewing other PA places, ended up getting a job at Cracker
00:35:02
Barrel and that was a culture shock in the other direction because here I was going to school which with 30 guys like
00:35:13
bluecollar guys and now I'm in an environment that is primarily bluecollar women which is a
00:35:21
way different place to be and um and so like at 18 I remember standing in the vestibule and one of the gals who was
00:35:28
training me, my parents had come in to dinner and I was like, "There's my
00:35:32
parents over there." And she's like, "Oh, okay. I'm going to go tell them we
00:35:36
had sex in the parking lot." And then walked away and I was freaking out. I
00:35:42
was like, "Oh my god, you can't you can't do that." And she saw like when
00:35:48
she came my face was must have just been ashing cuz she was like, "Oh, I honey, I
00:35:54
would not do that to you." Like So, but I loved both of those experiences because that's what really
00:36:03
got me out of my shell. Like I was I was one of the leaders I would say in my peer group in in the church because the
00:36:13
church was was basically our only um social group. Then going outside of that and
00:36:21
just being hit with those two aspects of humanity was fantastic and I would not have changed that in any way. I think it
00:36:31
would have been shocking and possibly damaging to someone who wasn't already
00:36:37
outgoing. Um, but I I loved it. It's so interesting the the like the experiences
00:36:43
that then like you get out of it and like I went to a small Christian college right out of high school and so I kind
00:36:50
of took that like like you I was very much like I was I was I don't want to say I was like a leader but like I was
00:36:57
like big fish in a little pond in the homeschool world and then I became like a medium fish in this slightly larger
00:37:03
pond but that was also still very like Christian and and I was like okay cool and And it it wasn't until I got really
00:37:11
out of that even that I was like, "Okay, now I'm working a job. I'm surrounded by
00:37:15
people who have varying different beliefs. It was like I worked this great I worked in a coffee shop. I managed a
00:37:20
coffee shop. And it was great because everybody we all believed different things. And so we would work and we
00:37:24
would we would you know on Sunday I had to work the Sunday shift. And so I didn't get to go to church, but I would
00:37:30
like afterwards we'd go out to lunch and we would just all ask questions about
00:37:35
our upbringing and religion and like all these things. So, we got to start to kind of like unpack all of our
00:37:41
worldviews together. And it was it was very fun. And I think it was really I it was the
00:37:48
right timing for me cuz I was questioning my own religion. But it was like it was the right timing because I
00:37:54
was like there is so much more out here than I would have ever known. And it made me unafraid to ask dumb questions
00:38:01
because we had this environment where it was like I know I'm an idiot when it
00:38:05
comes to all this stuff. I can I'm now in a safe environment where I can ask it
00:38:09
and it's okay and you guys are not you might laugh at me or whatever, but like
00:38:13
it's it's it's it was a safe place to do it, you know, instead of like I don't
00:38:19
know. I I think there's a level you talked about the fear-based aspect of of
00:38:24
your homeschooling experience. And I don't necessarily think that my parents
00:38:27
was really fear-based, but there is that fear in the homeschool world of the outside. And so there is that As a kid,
00:38:37
I just remember being scared of like asking anybody what is what made them different, right? If they from outside
00:38:43
that bubble, I didn't want to talk to them because they were scary. They were
00:38:46
dangerous. It's it Yeah, it's terrifying. It Yeah, it truly is. So, okay. So, you you're going to college,
00:38:54
you're working Cracker Barrel, you're you're getting outside the bubble.
00:39:00
Yeah. Yeah. So, I ended up graduating and then went on to Witchaw State University. So, kind of the same as you,
00:39:08
like one of the one of the advantages that I think homeschooling g did give to me was was it it was sink or swim,
00:39:17
especially with when I got to subjects that were outside of my parents' comfort
00:39:22
zone, right? I remember even in Pennsylvania explaining to my dad like, "My math is getting hard." And I was
00:39:27
probably like 11 or 12. Right? I'm like, I'm starting to learn about imaginary
00:39:31
numbers. And at this time, it's literally reading the Abeca book and trying to understand math, right? And he
00:39:39
was like, "Oh, you're like beyond where I ever got in school. I don't even
00:39:45
understand what imaginary numbers are." And I was like, "Oh my god."
00:39:49
Um, but yeah, so I I got to college, real college, still living at home. um worked two to three jobs pretty much
00:40:00
the entire way, did summer school, and one of the goals of higher education was obviously to get a job. But that ties
00:40:11
back into the purity culture and like you can't have sex until you get married. You can't get married until you
00:40:19
are ready to lead a family. You're not ready to lead a family until you have a
00:40:22
highpaying job. And ideally, you have a house that's paid for as well. I didn't
00:40:27
hit that goal, but I hit the other goals. And so it was it was very much this like I
00:40:35
am I'm not living in the moment which has been a huge struggle for me as I've
00:40:43
kind of come out of that religion and come out of that those experiences of I spent so much of my life trying to get
00:40:51
to a point where life could start and then once life started I was like [ __ ] what what is the point like what do we
00:41:01
do now? Like I've got a house, got a wife, I can finally have sex, now what? Mhm. And and so it I look back
00:41:11
on my college and I while I'm I'm grateful for the experiences that I did
00:41:16
have things I hear other people talk about college like um my wife um who I'm divorced and remarried. She
00:41:27
had a much more normal normal experience but like she has friends from college that she dormed with that she's still
00:41:36
friends with today. We went and stayed with them a few months ago with one of them and I don't have that concept of
00:41:42
like I had a study group and we went out to the bars and you know because I was um I'd get up usually between 3:00 and 4
00:41:52
in the morning and work and study. I would study for two to three hours. I would go to class and then I
00:42:00
would go work one of my jobs and then I would go find a place to do homework. And my senior year, I like to joke like
00:42:07
I probably slept 2 hours a day because it was just every time I walked past my bed and looked at it, I would just kind
00:42:13
of fall into it and sleep for a couple hours and then get up and do the next thing. But I think that the
00:42:17
homeschooling experience of I had to be a selfarter and I had to run my own schedule or I wasn't going to hit these
00:42:28
milestones that I had set for myself. um really helped me through that experience. It's just like wish I had
00:42:36
had the friend experience too. Two things, the friend experience and also I didn't get a B until I was in my senior
00:42:44
year and I remember the relief of getting that B and realizing and it was like literally out of my control. My my
00:42:56
professor was like a brilliant jerk and I scored higher than every other graduate student in the class and he
00:43:04
still gave me a B because my schedule or my it was based on two exams. My second
00:43:10
exam score was lower than my first exam score and he's like you have not demonstrated learning in this class.
00:43:16
Like it was outside of my control. For the first time I was I would could not get an A. Yeah. And
00:43:24
I was like, "Oh my, I wish I had done this sooner." And then I got like three B's
00:43:30
my last semester, so I was like, "What's the point? I'm still going to graduate
00:43:33
with a high GPA." Yeah. Um but yeah, I I I have a couple of people who I'm still a little bit connected to
00:43:41
um from that from that college experience, but for the most part, it's just it was just like
00:43:47
a checkbox to the goal I was trying to get to. Well, that also plays back to and and we hadn't really talked on this,
00:43:54
but like friendships growing up of like inside of the homeschool world. I know for me I I have a lot of friends still
00:44:03
from when I was a homeschooler. I had friends from college like I but my mom strategically put us in co-ops and
00:44:11
community and things like that because she knew that that was like she knew that that was the the the danger zone or
00:44:17
one of the weird things about homeschooling. She's like, "Everyone says antisocial. That's the thing." And
00:44:21
so I think she had this fear that I don't want my kid to be antisocial, so I'm going to push. I don't want to say
00:44:27
too far, but she she really pushed the like have friends, go to houses, go like we had, you know, other parents teacher
00:44:34
or other kids. Uh parents were our teachers as well. So there was like very much
00:44:40
there there was community and we did things outside of just school together as well. We dances, sports together, and
00:44:46
all that kind of stuff. But wait, you did dances? Yeah. Yeah. So, we had uh swing. I love that for you. Yeah. No, it
00:44:55
was so much fun. When I was 12 years old, my mom stuck me in a swing dance class. And so, I learned swing dance and
00:45:01
ballroom, which again, very homeschool coded weirdness, right? But like, but it was so much fun. And did that all
00:45:08
through high school. Did that some of college as well. Like I was the guy if you talk to my friends from growing up
00:45:14
that I was the guy who really eventually took over and led the charge of that whole thing. Taught for a couple years
00:45:22
that it was a lot of fun. It was really cool and and we had a community that was
00:45:26
willing to like put on school dances. So we kind of had some of these normal things. Um we did school dances. We
00:45:35
partnered with a a Christian school and did prom. We had yearbook like we had a lot of the kind of traditional school
00:45:43
things field trips all that kind of stuff nice existed and so it so it's it's different when we talk to some when
00:45:52
I talked to somebody who was public schoolled but at the same time there's very much a similarity between like well
00:45:57
yeah we also did that it just looked a little different you know but it was but it was the same you know and so but for
00:46:04
you growing up especially in Pennsylvania where you're the first homeschool family. Are you friends with anybody?
00:46:11
Are you friends with kids in the neighborhood? Like what? Like like or is it just like a very stereotypical home
00:46:18
school where it's like, "Oh, my sister is my best friend, you know, and then
00:46:23
like in high school like yeah, we did prom, but it was in the basement and I went with my mom, you know, like
00:46:30
oh my god." So, it's it's really it's interesting because my experience in
00:46:37
Pennsylvania was quite a bit different. And of course, it would be because I was
00:46:40
older when we moved to Kansas, but in Pennsylvania that fear was so visceral like the teriy officer is going
00:46:49
to come, the social workers. Like my mom literally had we had this old piano next to our front door in our
00:46:57
house. And there were two things sitting on there and one was a tape recorder and
00:47:01
the other was a gun because we were going to record what the conversation and if they tried to take us she was
00:47:08
going to shoot them. And like saying that out loud like that's so [ __ ] bizarre. Like what is this? Um but it
00:47:16
was it was just we were scared of everything. I can remember, of course, Halloween was not okay in any way,
00:47:23
shape, or form. And so, kids from the neighborhood would come by and trick-or- treat, and I remember hiding under the
00:47:28
kitchen table because they were dressed up like devils or goblins or what. And they probably weren't, but that's what
00:47:33
we were told. Like, this is an evil holiday. Like, this is the day that evil runs rampant in the land. And so, we're
00:47:42
like going to hunker down and protect ourselves. Um, and in Pennsylvania there were mainly um, three families that I
00:47:51
can remember that we interacted with. Um, there there were a couple of other families that were kind of on the
00:47:57
fringe, but we were we were one of two families who pretty much only homeschooled in our
00:48:07
friend group. The others did kind of a mixture of public school and homeschooling. Okay. And um as far as
00:48:16
friends in Pennsylvania, there was one guy who was a year older than I was, but he was the closest boy and then there
00:48:24
was my sisters and a few girls who were my age. So, especially early on, I hung out with the girls. Um because like you
00:48:34
wouldn't think that like today we think of a year age difference as like that's
00:48:38
not a big deal, but developmentally when you're like six and seven or seven and
00:48:41
eight, that's huge. Yeah. Um so, so and that interestingly enough has played into even today where
00:48:55
I struggle to make friends particularly with guys. And I'm much more comfortable
00:49:02
talking to women much more I I make friends much easier with with women. And it's something that I've actually worked
00:49:10
on in therapy as to how do I relate to other men? How do I um how do I make friends with guys?
00:49:20
And when when we got to Pennsylvania or when we got to Kansas, that changed quite a bit because we were going
00:49:29
to a cult, but just um the pool was a lot bigger and there were more like 15 to 20 families there. And so there were
00:49:39
boys who were my age, very close in age. And um and so I made a lot of a lot of friends. Um still didn't we really
00:49:52
didn't do sleepovers. We didn't there was we did some field trips together. Um my ex's family was she's
00:50:01
the oldest of um 10 kids and mostly girls. And I um had been infatuated with her
00:50:11
since I was I had been 14. Um and so I would like my entire so like my goal of I need to get a job. I need to finish
00:50:22
college was like very much you know aimed at this very specific person. Um but that family was a bit
00:50:30
more liberal as liberal as you could be in in this very fundamentalist. So like they did they watched movies, they did
00:50:38
dance classes, like they were in symphony. Um so in because I was constantly trying to be a part of their
00:50:47
world that did get me exposed in my later years to things like I did take like some some line dancing classes with
00:50:55
them. Um they did these things uh they called them era nights where you could dress up like a historical figure and
00:51:03
and show up and give a speech. Um, and uh, so we we did some we did some fun things like that. Um, I think
00:51:14
the apologies if I get emotional. Um, but what changed was when I got married and I I wasn't allowed to leave the
00:51:24
church until I got married. And and by leave the church, I mean leave that specific group of people. Okay. And as
00:51:31
soon as I got married, I did. And that pretty much ended my friendships with everyone in
00:51:38
that group. Um, like all of my grandmen, my best man, like I I can count on one hand the times I've talked to them
00:51:47
because after I left and based on some of the choices I've made, they've made
00:51:53
it very clear to me that, you know, they they don't want to be part of my life, right? Um, and the interactions
00:52:03
that I did have with them, I think it was I think it was mutual in some ways because the interactions I started
00:52:08
having with them were basically them saying like, "Hey, let's go to lunch."
00:52:11
And then they would tell me like, "We think you're sinning in this way and you
00:52:15
need to shape up." And I'm like, I I'm not going to like Yeah. No, it's your
00:52:21
life to it's your life to live. You get to make your decisions. Yeah. Right. So,
00:52:26
it's been interesting moving from that. So that was in Kansas. And then when we
00:52:30
did get into a really good small group of of what we called young marrieds in the church that we started going to.
00:52:38
Um but then over time I started questioning religion, questioning Christianity more and more. And then uh
00:52:48
that kind of ended that round of friendships as well. And then most of that all was severed when I moved down
00:52:55
here to Texas. And I've started so I've been here for about seven years and of
00:53:00
course a year and a half after we got here um we were real close with a couple down here. They were our friends so we
00:53:07
moved down and he died of COVID and then I lost my job during COVID and then this
00:53:15
remote working world. So it's like it's really been within the last year to
00:53:20
where I've started getting out into the community. Um, I did some very focused
00:53:26
um, trauma healing and therapy and that has opened me up to like now we have a friend group. We play bingo with them.
00:53:34
We play trivia with them. we we hang out with them and that has been such an amazing experience to because I've I've
00:53:43
always been one who who chases other people. And I think that going all the way back to like the guy I wanted to be
00:53:51
my best friend was older than me and had interests that were more advanced than mine. And so I was always chasing him
00:53:58
and this concept of like real friends are it's mutual, right? like there's not
00:54:06
one person who's doing everything and trying to get everyone together. Like it
00:54:10
just happens has been so fantastic and so healing for me. I can't I can't even
00:54:17
describe it. Everything you're saying has resonating with me significantly. I
00:54:21
mean, you talked about co and the work from home. I I literally quit I worked in a restaurant. I quit my job. Was like
00:54:28
so stoked. I'm I'm going to I I do podcast editing. So, I was like, I'm
00:54:31
going to be like the greatest podcast editor in the Nashville area. I'm going
00:54:35
to go to the cool little coffee shops. I'm going to be that dude who like sits
00:54:38
and works on his laptop and has big headphones and like looks super cool. Like, I had this whole plan. I knew the
00:54:44
groups I was going to get connected with and like how I was going to network and
00:54:47
all this stuff. And then co just really came down and stopped all of that. And for two years, it was very much just
00:54:53
stuck inside going stir crazy. Yeah. you know, I like I I have my wife, but like
00:55:00
it was just, you know, you start you get to a point where sometimes you just want
00:55:03
to bite the head off of the only person you get to see, you know, it's like it
00:55:06
was it was insane. And that is honestly where this show stemmed from because I literally was so depressed and so just
00:55:14
like irritable and awful. And I was like, I have no friends. Nobody's called
00:55:18
me. Nobody's texted me. And I'm thankful for my wife because she she goes, "Well,
00:55:24
I think you should just just you talk about these people, just text them and say hi and see what happens." And that's
00:55:30
where this show came from because I texted my high school buddies and I just said, "Hey, like I'm I'm hurting. I need
00:55:37
something, you know? I just I just want to talk. Like that's all." And it really
00:55:41
started these conversations of like let's talk about we're coming up on a
00:55:46
year. I mean, we've passed that now, but at the time we were coming up on 10
00:55:49
years of being out of the homeschool world. How have we changed? What has shifted for us? Where are we now? What
00:55:55
do we believe? What's different? And um and it started this show and then from
00:56:00
there it sprung into okay now like I have to I have my virtual community of reconnecting with these people and I
00:56:06
have those skills again. Now I got to go find that community that exists here and
00:56:10
I can be in person with them. And so, yeah, I think it's in that regard, I think it's a
00:56:17
tough time to be alive and be a guy because guys don't know how to be friends. We just don't and we're kind of
00:56:25
we're having to learn. Um, and like you said, it can't always just be a give
00:56:30
give. It's got to be a little bit of a give and take kind of a situation. So, I
00:56:33
appreciate you saying that because I think male friendship in general, friendship in general is very important,
00:56:39
especially as adults, but it's it's something that I think a lot of homeschool kids, we we get out of it.
00:56:45
Like you said, there's this drive to like go go go and get to a specific point and we hit that and then we just
00:56:52
don't know what to do anymore. It's like, right, it's time to create that
00:56:55
new set of goals, people. it's time to kind of set that new expectation of what
00:56:59
do you want out of life and who do you want it if to be a part of it and those types of things and so yeah like I said
00:57:05
I really resonate with what you're saying there because it's just yeah thank you so much for sharing Jacob and
00:57:10
that like I hope that you're able to take deep breaths and you're able to to know
00:57:18
that where you are today you're okay and you're good and that there's
00:57:27
not if all you accomplished was what you have to this point and connecting the people that you have and forming the
00:57:33
relationships like that would be enough. I Yeah, I I agree with you. I I piss people off when I say this, but I
00:57:42
especially like my wife and my parents, but I'm like if I died today, I'm good.
00:57:46
I did it. Like I have to live my life that way because there's no like of course there's other things I would love
00:57:52
to accomplish, right? Who doesn't have that in their life? But at the same time, you got to, like you said, you got
00:57:58
to be okay with I did I did what I did. I'm happy with what I got, you know? So,
00:58:04
if I can, you know, we're not promised tomorrow. Like, right, we're not promised the rest of today.
00:58:12
But but it's so much easier, I think, to live life in that mindset and be kind of
00:58:20
a little bit happier and a little bit more content with what you've got than
00:58:24
it is to just be like, "Well, no, I I got to get to that next thing. Got to be
00:58:28
working to that next thing." You know, it just it gets tiring. It burns you
00:58:32
out. It's not fun anymore, you know? And life, we get one life. We got to make it
00:58:36
fun, right? It's got to be fun. It's got to be fun. We've got it. Yeah. I'm so
00:58:42
much so in that. Oh my god. It's fascinating to hear your experience too because the the what you said about men
00:58:55
in relationships and how challenging it can be to feel like my success has been from
00:59:06
sitting behind a computer and just banging away at my job and learning and getting better and better and
00:59:14
and starting to starting to be like, why why am I so exhausted at the end of the
00:59:20
day? All I've done is sit in front of a computer. And it's funny, I went and
00:59:24
hung out with a friend of mine and I I was working, he was working, but his job was vastly different than mine. And
00:59:31
after a couple hours, he was like, "You work harder than anyone I've ever any remote worker than I've ever
00:59:40
seen." And I was like, "What are you talking about?" He's like, "When you're
00:59:43
in a meeting, you're on." Because I'm I'm like literally on Zoom calls almost
00:59:47
all day long. And I was like, "Yeah." But what I realized um about eight
00:59:53
months ago is that I was missing in-person time and I was missing being part of a an actual
01:00:08
physical community. Like I I have I do I am friends with with uh a couple interestingly enough a couple of um
01:00:18
girls. One girl that was one of the original um uh homeschooling friends that I grew up with in Pennsylvania.
01:00:25
Like she and I have gotten reconnected in the last couple years, but you need that
01:00:31
in-person sign. And I had this kind of period of of euphoria, almost mania after I I did a bunch of trauma healing.
01:00:42
And I was like, all of a sudden I have all this energy and I want to go connect with everyone. And
01:00:47
um I started a business um which is Bassrop Co-working. So I live in Bastrop, Texas. And I was like, I need
01:00:55
to get out and I need to be around people. And there's not a spot for that in my downtown. But there's I've been
01:01:02
part of a a gym community for several years and I've kind of floated in and out of the community and they've they've
01:01:08
really been there for me through some tough times and I love them dearly. Um but I wasn't connecting. Um because
01:01:14
spoiler alert, once you get into your 40s, if you're not doing CrossFit every
01:01:19
day of the week and you do it like once or twice, you are going to injure yourself and then you're going to spend
01:01:25
six to six weeks recovering and then you're going to repeat that process until it finally gets through your s
01:01:30
thick skull that maybe I shouldn't try to do a 100 pull-ups at the same time on
01:01:35
the same day in a row. Um, but it was this opportunity to where I was like, "Okay, there's a little
01:01:43
office space in the building that the gym is in. If I can connect with some of those same people, but then just
01:01:49
literally show up and be around people." Yeah. And that's what has gotten us
01:01:55
ultimately um connected to this new friend group that we're a part of. um more involved in the community, actually
01:02:03
getting out of the house and giving myself permission to um let not let go. It's it's hard to say
01:02:16
because I'm still working through this, but the concept of like I am not tied to
01:02:20
this desk and to this computer for eight hours a day, 40 hours a week. Like I can
01:02:25
go work from a coffee shop. I can go to a co-working space. I can go physically be around other people and I not only
01:02:32
can I but I need to I need to because I don't want to spend the next, you know,
01:02:38
20 years of my career sitting here only connecting with people virtually. So, and that goes all the way
01:02:47
back to um what we were talking about from from Pennsylvania and and even in Kansas somewhat of of
01:02:55
that academically I think I did very very well in homeschooling. Um my learning mo modalities matched the
01:03:05
ability to be able to pick up a textbook and read it and understand the concepts.
01:03:11
Um, but that's one of my biggest fears when people say, "Oh, I'm going to
01:03:17
homeschool my kids." It's like it does not work for everyone. And it unless you
01:03:23
are truly an expert at all aspects of reading and writing and arithmetic, but also all of the social skills and the
01:03:32
understanding what learning disabilities and learning challenges look like. Like that is the power of going to
01:03:40
a place where there are educators who have made it their career to understand childhood
01:03:47
development to who have made it their career to understand at 13. These are the concepts
01:03:54
that a 13-year-old brain on average can understand. And even at, you know, 42 years old, um, I'm still learning things
01:04:09
socially that I quote unquote should have learned in high school. Um, when like even the concept of like not
01:04:19
everything is black and white. I I joke with with my wife that if I if I ever write an autobiography, a working title
01:04:26
is ascent to gray because learning that the world is not black and white and that people are not good or bad, right?
01:04:34
And that there are all these different personalities. One of my favorite parts of my job now is that I get
01:04:39
to teach people uh run them through a personality test and then talk about like there is no like better personality
01:04:49
than another but we need to understand these so that we can communicate well together. Um, but a lot of that is is
01:04:56
like me having these aha moments in my 40s like, "Oh my god, I just figured out
01:05:01
how this aspect of the world works and everyone's else was like, "Yeah, RB."
01:05:06
Like, good for you. We've known that for a long time. Um, but in a in a way, I
01:05:12
get to approach some of these things from that like childhood uh curiosity of like I didn't learn this
01:05:19
before. And I feel like that's where the true choice for me is as a human is I
01:05:25
can look back and sometimes I do and sometimes I get stuck in the rut of like god damn it why did I not learn this?
01:05:32
Why was I not why was my education experience what it was? Why was my sisters what it was instead of and what
01:05:41
I want to be is like whether I learned it before or not is really irrelevant. It's today is what matters, right? And
01:05:49
and I can have that childhood sense of curiosity and joy today and connect with that in some very real ways. And I I'll
01:06:01
give you just an example. Um, and this is silly. And there's so many people that are like, "That's that's so silly."
01:06:08
But I have this little um this little uh bag that I carry around and I I hand these lizards out to people. Okay. It's
01:06:17
a It's a little tiny and it's just a resin lizard. It glows in the dark.
01:06:23
Um, but it's just this this childhood like I get to give this little toy out
01:06:29
to people and you would not believe how like the people who look the grumpiest and like they're having a terrible day
01:06:38
and I'm like, "Would you like a lizard?" And most of them are like, "What are you
01:06:42
talking about?" And then I'm like, "No, like it's just a little toy." And
01:06:47
they're just like their face lights up. Um, so yeah, all of that to say is I
01:06:53
feel like one of the things I missed was that social aspect of being around a peer group, learning those
01:07:01
relationships, but that means I get to do that today and with the knowledge and experience
01:07:07
that 40-year-old me does. And I do silly things and that's just me. And I think
01:07:14
people are drawn to me because of that. I think that's a really important message. And like I was going to ask you
01:07:19
the question of like, you know, what do you say to homeschool parents who are thinking about it? And I think
01:07:25
ultimately I I this show has become as I I have realized that part of the reason
01:07:30
for the show is to be a resource for people who are thinking about homeschooling, to hear stories like
01:07:36
yours, to hear stories like mine, to hear stories like my friends, because there is a case to be made that
01:07:43
homeschooling can work and you can do it. But also, there's a lot of pitfalls
01:07:48
you can fall into. So take the stories that you're hearing and listen to them
01:07:52
and go, "Okay, like I can change this or I can tweak this or I can give this to
01:07:55
my kids." But also just understanding that like I think every parent hopefully
01:08:01
maybe not every parent, this is maybe the the really looking at the best in everybody, but every parent should want
01:08:06
the best for their kid. And I think that every parent does want the best for their kid. I think and that looks
01:08:11
different for everybody. But I kind of I I look at it and I go, every kid is designed differently and some kids
01:08:18
operate better in the public school system, in the private school system, and in a home school system with private
01:08:22
educator. Whatever it is, figure out what works for that kid and be the strongest advocate to get them to where
01:08:28
they need to go and and try to give them the best. It's never going to be perfect. Like that's just that's just
01:08:35
the reality. It's never going to be perfect, but Right. But we can kind of continue that iteration of like you you
01:08:42
said it at the beginning. I've been I've been doing a lot of research of like the
01:08:46
the trauma that's passed down people to people, right? And so it's like yeah, my
01:08:50
grandpa maybe wasn't the greatest person and he screwed up my dad in this way,
01:08:55
but my dad is a better person, right? And then my dad screwed me up in this way, but I'm a better person. And then
01:09:00
the next generation and I can pass that on to the next people, right? And so I think that's just that's the point is
01:09:07
like continue to grow and continue to educate yourself. You talked about it within just your own life of like rather
01:09:14
than be stuck in the past of I didn't learn this. Oh wo is me. You get to learn it today, right? Like and there's
01:09:21
so much more resources today. So it's like you get to learn it way better than
01:09:26
you would have learned it way back then anyways, you know? So yeah. Yeah, that's
01:09:30
true. Well, I appreciate you, RB. I this has been a great conversation and I've I
01:09:35
I love just like your take on life and things like that. I do want to give you the opportunity shout out your
01:09:42
Instagram, your business one more time. Um so if people are in the Texas area and listening or if they're not in the
01:09:48
Texas area, the great thing about the internet is we can follow each other on Instagram and things like that. But
01:09:52
shout out what you got going on and uh so people know. Yeah, thanks Jacob. I've
01:09:57
really enjoyed this conversation too. Um, and and as I stated before, I think maybe in our previous conversation, a
01:10:04
lot of what's happening in even in Texas and even in the small town that I'm in
01:10:10
where we're we're, you know, talking about school vouchers, we're talking
01:10:13
about private school, we're talking about homeschooling, and I just so value conversations like
01:10:21
this because I don't want my gut reaction when someone says, "Oh, I'm
01:10:26
going to homeschool my kids or I'm homeschooling my kids." be like, "What
01:10:28
the [ __ ] are you doing?" Um because it is, but that's my experience. And so I
01:10:34
think exactly what you said is there are um there are multiple ways that kids learn and ultimately I do
01:10:44
believe every parent is trying to do the right thing uh for their kids. Um and I'll give a I'm just going to give a my
01:10:51
wife is a public educator. She has been for 20 plus years. So um there's an aspect to this which would
01:11:00
be interesting to explore that I I just know a little bit about but it is for those uh folks who are not privileged
01:11:08
who the parents don't have the time to sit down and think what does my kid need
01:11:13
what kind of learning style do they have what would work best for them right because they're working two jobs and
01:11:19
they're you know they're poor um I mean I grew up poor but there's there's a lot of people who
01:11:26
public school is so important as that's the only opportunity they have to learn. Um, so I'm just going to give a
01:11:36
plug for uh for public education and if if someone is listening to this and and having that uh I'm I'm open. I'm willing
01:11:47
to talk. Um, so I'll give a plug for my Instagram. So it's flyer brown because I
01:11:53
thought I was going to be a pilot when I was a kid. So F l i f l i er b r o wn and then uh by business uh
01:12:02
isbassrop co-work on Instagram as well. So yeah, if anyone wants to connect or has uh questions, I'm more than happy to
01:12:10
chat. And Jacob, thank you again. This is this has been fantastic and and I'm
01:12:14
so glad we got connected. Yeah. No, I I really am too. I'm glad you sent me. It
01:12:19
was like a cold DM or something like that. And and that the some of the greatest conversations I've had on the
01:12:24
show had come from people that like I I I don't know, right? Like I I thought
01:12:30
that the show was going to for the longest time just be people that I had known that we lost contact with and and
01:12:35
it has reached more people than I ever could have imagined. And so it's great
01:12:40
to have conversations like this. I'm going to put all of RB's stuff down in
01:12:43
the description as well. So if if you can't find it, it's going to be linked.
01:12:47
Um, and along with the newsletter and my Instagram and my Tik Tok and all of the
01:12:52
stuff, you know, it's down below. If you enjoyed it, like, comment, share, follow, all that stuff. Yeah, do do all
01:12:58
of the the internet things that you know at this point what you need to do. So, if any of my friends are seeing this,
01:13:05
reach out to Jacob and tell him your story because like the more people we get talking about this and Jacob's doing
01:13:10
an amazing job of just creating this community and I love it. Well, thank you. Yeah, of course. Like yeah, like RB
01:13:17
said, reach out. I'm I'm always looking for new people to to interview and and
01:13:21
hear their experience. That's the whole goal. Even if you don't want to record
01:13:24
it and put it out in the world, if you just want to have a conversation, I'm
01:13:28
down, okay? We'll hop on a call. We'll chat. That is what the whole point of
01:13:31
this is, is to build. We've been talking about friendships and community. That's
01:13:35
what I want to do here. You are not alone. Our home school experiences are they're unique, but they are not
01:13:41
isolated. Um, so yeah, with that, reach out to me. [email protected] and uh until next week,
01:13:49
we'll see you. Okay, peace. [Music] [Music]