64: Should You Share Your Business Vision with Others or Keep It Quiet?

Behind Their Success: Ep 64

Paden: Sandy

Sandy: [00:00:00] I encourage the people that are passionate about their dream don't listen to

those naysayers forge out there and be determined.

Use your passion and your good sense and to make decisions and it's not always going to be

what you think it should be.

Paden: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Behind Their Success podcast. I'm Peyton Squires,

the host, and today we have on Dr. Sandy Brees. 33 years ago, she was a teacher and a middle

schooler. She made it her goal to start a school that would address the individual needs of her

son and students who were like him.

Now, she's an author and writes about how courage, compassion, and collaboration can help

schools and communities grow. Dr. Sandy Brees, welcome on the show.

Sandy: Thank you very much. Glad to be here.

Paden: Yeah, absolutely. So, give us a little bit about your background.

Sandy: Well, if I take it back to 33 years ago, I was teaching.

tried and true kindergarten teacher. And did that for [00:01:00] a long time. And then the school

system that I was with was wonderful. I liked it, but it was overcrowded. Students in any, any

one classroom that you could pick was too many students and I knew that there was a better

way not only with class size, but with individualization of treating each student individually rather

than, putting them all in the same box called a classroom and teaching them all the same way at

the same time.

So I made it my dream to maybe I could find a way. My son was a kinesthetic learner and

learned with his hands. And so, uh, he and other students that are like that get lost in

classrooms that are set up for visual and a few auditory learners.

So, um, I knew that that was the problem. I was going to have figured something out. I never

dreamed it would be starting a school at that time. So, uh, I spent way too long thinking about it.

So, it took a total of 3 years wasted time.

I should have [00:02:00] started right away in hindsight. I can say that now. So, yeah, I finally

started and uh the first thing I ran into that uh I want to put out there to anybody that's thinking

about starting a school is don't listen to those naysayers.

Paden: A lot of them. I bet.

Sandy: Yeah. Yeah. There's a ton of them.

They're all waiting out there to tell you what's wrong with your idea and so on because I went to

my friends when I finally made some The decision to do it, to start a school, and shared it with

teachers and colleagues and people that I knew, that I thought would be supportive, and to my

surprise, They weren't supportive.

They were like, what? You want to do what? That's not going to work.

Paden: Yeah, yeah, and they just, you know, they can't see your dream. They don't,

Sandy: That's right. So that's my first words of advice is your determination and your passion all

needs to shine through and to go.

Just not listen to those folks and follow your heart, follow your [00:03:00] dream and don't give

up, never give up.

Paden: Yeah, that's great. So, you push through and tell us, the school you established there

and how, how that kind of went.

Sandy: It started out small.

I put a tiny little ad in the newspaper, the old fashioned way, you know, a classified ad without

my name. Cause I still had, was a teaching, I was still teaching kindergarten. So I certainly didn't

want to divulge it too soon, what was happening here.

And I built a small community of nine students. Only nine. bottom floor of my, two story duplex.

And I started in that one little room. And we grew, and we grew. And we started with middle

school, and pretty soon we were all kindergarten through 12th grade.

And that's what we are today. And I added a preschool five years ago. And now we've got the

full complex from age three to graduating seniors in high school. Wow.

Paden: Wow. That's, that's a, that's a heck of an accomplishment.

Sandy: students to 300 and 300.

[00:04:00] 15. Yeah,

Paden: that's yeah, that's wild. And, you know, you know, I don't pretend to be like an expert on

the education system and whatnot, but, you know, I have, I have three small Children and, this

is the kind of stuff me and my wife think about to and you know, what's the most appropriate

thing.

And, these big public education systems and it's not like many of the people in them are bad or

have bad intentions. It's just the system itself is not necessarily designed for You know, any type

of individual, needs because they're trying to fix, you know, fix problems across the whole

population and that's not going to necessarily address what,

Sandy: for sure.

You're absolutely right.

Paden: So to, you know, dive in a little bit. you've written a chapter in the books. give us a little

more color to what, chapter in the book looks like. Or what it's

Sandy: called. one thing I have talked about is being flexible is important because if you go in

with your dream in mind, sometimes it's so, so cast in stone, you don't have any wiggle room.

the very first year that we incorporated as a non profit [00:05:00] and moved forward as a

private school, my difficulty was I had to change the name of the school in the second year. I

called it in the beginning Hands On Learning because it was all about kinesthetic learners. And

those nine students were kids that learned with their hands, with projects.

That was a learning environment that was a lot of activity and it definitely wasn't in tune with

what a visual or an auditory learner would need in those modalities. So, I started out with that

mindset. But, I had, with, it just didn't, to the beginning of the second year, I had visual learners

and auditory learner parents coming to me that wanted their kids in my school.

That was my first problem with it. Flexibility. So that's my, my advice to them is to be flexible. So

I had a dad and one of my kindergarten parents called me up.

He had his daughter in my, in my school and he [00:06:00] called me up. He says, I've got the

perfect name for the school. And I said, really? And he says, yes, yes. Call it Talesis. And I went,

Telesis, what does that mean? He says, Oh, I don't know. It's, it's doing good things and making

good and having things turn out good.

I mean, he didn't seem to know. So I said, well, let me think about it for a while. Will you? And he

said, sure. So we hung up. And the first thing I did is I went to the dictionary, the old fashioned

way. And I looked it up and I saw right away that he was pronouncing Telesis incorrectly. It is a

word. It's in the dictionary.

It's in the dictionary today. You'll find it there with a lowercase t. And it means planned progress,

moving forward, succeeding, completing.

the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. The more I thought about it, the more flexible I

became. And that's when I changed the name to Telesis Preparatory Academy.

I'm so happy that it's still working out so well. It's something and [00:07:00] if I hadn't been

flexible, it would have stopped right there with the kinesthetic learners and and no more.

So, that would be uh one of the things to be flexible.

Paden: Yeah. Yeah. And 100%. Yeah. it's very good to have goals that are very specific and

very, you know, clear going into the future. But, I'm a guy that, you know, does a lot of goal

planning and stuff like that.

But like in my opinion, you can't really plan past like 90 days, like the world changes so fast and

everything from doing, you know, so, you know, everything's moving all the time and that, being

able to be flexible, knowing that, okay, I have my big North star of gold that I'm going after, like

you is growing this awesome community and growing this awesome school.

um, but you're not gonna know the entire path before you start walking down that.

be able to pivot. Um, it's crucial as well.

Sandy: And that's really where I landed on the idea of consulting because, helping other people

with their passion, I've been through all those bumps and grinds and ups and downs.

You know, I've been [00:08:00] through all that and I didn't have anybody to talk to. I, you know,

not even my good friends thought I was a good person. They all thought it was a zany, crazy

idea. it was really being flexible and being determined and passionate about my dream and not

giving up

Paden: I imagine the huge part of the success there or why it continued or you didn't quit was

that kind of community you built in the beginning. All the support and everything that come from

that initial community.

Once you had that, it was just, you know, really a matter of time. You guys want to keep pushing

through.

Sandy, looking back on your, journey through all that, the ups and downs and struggles and

stuff, what. What would you say was, like, the best decision you made, through all that?

Sandy: The best decision I made? well, it was definitely never giving up and not listening to

those naysayers.

But, I made one decision the third year, I needed a science teacher. We were getting ready to

start at high school. to our program and I needed a high, a science teacher and the [00:09:00]

teacher shortages was raging.

It's worse now, but it was really bad then. And I thought, Oh my goodness, well, how am I going

to find a science teacher to move here and then really stay with us? And so I looked, and I

looked, I went to job fairs, and I wasn't having any luck. And a member of my community, not a

teacher, but a member of my community, a parent, said, you know, why don't you see if you can

get a, an agency, a shopping, uh, looking for teachers and, and marketing teachers.

So, uh, I contacted a, a teacher agency. and they sent me a CD of interviews of teachers they

had interviewed in India.

And I never dreamed anything about that. I thought, oh my gosh. You know, talk about, I didn't

even ask any of the naysayers because I knew I'd get lost in that. They would have told

Paden: you five different reasons why it didn't work. That's exactly

Sandy: right. So I interviewed her over a scratchy international [00:10:00] telephone line in

those days.

You know, we didn't have cell phones. So it was horrible. She told me later she couldn't hear me

either. And I hired her on the spot. She had a great command of the English language and she

was just kind and she's just wonderful. And now she's been with us for 21 years. I hired her right

over the line. And we sent her a contract immediately.

She arrived in her sari and all of her attire that she would wear every day in India. And trained

my staff to say the words, Welcome to America. Welcome to Telesis in Hindi. And we said that to

her on her first day there. And she started to cry. And now she's my Instructional Analysis

Director, my Dean of Students.

And our program couldn't operate without her. any better without her. She's, she's

fantastic.Yeah.

Paden: And it's true. You know, if you would have told [00:11:00] anybody, you know, especially

whenever this 21 years ago, Hey, I'm going to hire somebody from India and bring them over

here? Every, you know, Yeah, I mean, there's no way,

Sandy: And if a community member hadn't suggested the talent agency for me to look for a

teacher, I would have never gone that direction either.

So it's a community push to make it happen. So, power of community is really an important part

to me. That book is really important.

Paden: Yeah, absolutely.

So, looking back to the beginning. 21 years ago, or, you know, I guess whenever this started,

what is

Sandy: it? Thirty three years. Thirty three, yes, that's right. Thirty three years ago. I was like,

almost 34. So, looking back

Paden: 33, 34 years ago. If you could give yourself one piece of advice from your perspective

today, what would it be?

Sandy: Never give up. Because if you don't have that passion and determination set firmly from

the very beginning, and capitalize on that, and use it [00:12:00] often, and be The collaboration

and the, and the flexibility to talk to the community and handpick the people that you tell.

Handpick the people that you share it with because if you try to tell the world like I did at first,

you will be so disappointed.

Paden: A lot of bad feedback. That's

Sandy: right. You know, and because people, you know, even if they really like and love you,

they're going to. want to protect you, so they're going to try and give you an answer, and they

haven't done it. You know, they haven't, they haven't walked that, in those, footprints that I was

making.

So, you know, it, it would be impossible for them to share a, an opinion that was moved forward,

go ahead. It would be like, to them, it would seem like jumping off a cliff, I'm not blaming them.

I'm just telling. I encourage the people that are passionate about their dream and their dream

school to don't listen to those naysayers forge out there and be determined.

Use your passion and your [00:13:00] good sense and to make decisions and it's not always

going to be what you think it should be. You might have to like I did with the with the teacher that

I hired from India that is now my dean of students and instructional analysis director crunching

all the numbers. You know, I would have never had that happen, had I been inflexible and

determined to do it my way, or the highway, right?

Paden: Yeah, that's great, that's a great piece of advice.

So Sandy, you know a great conversation here I appreciate you, you know coming on the show

What's the best way people can connect with you or get get to know more about you? Um,

Sandy: I have a web website that is great. It's called School Founders Academy, so all they

have to do is Google that School Founders Academy and it should come up.

I'm also available by phone. They can reach me a contact information. You want me to give that

number now? Sure. I want area code 9 2 8 7 [00:14:00] 0 6 8 6 6 3. 928 706 8663, they can call

me and leave a message if I don't answer right away and I'll call them right back. So it's all good

and I, the website is really full of information.

They'll learn a whole bunch about me, about my business and how I want to help them.

Paden: Well, Sandy, I appreciate you very much for coming on the show.

Sandy: Thank you very much, Peyton. I'm glad to meet you, and I, uh, look forward to working

with you in the future,

Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. If you found it valuable, please rate, review, and

share it. That is the best way to help us build this and reach more people as we're trying to

accomplish our goal of help creating more healthy, wealthy, and wise entrepreneurs. You can

follow us on social media by searching for me, Payton Squires, or going to paytonsquires.

Speaker: com. On the website and social media, we're always sharing tips of personal growth,

and there we can actually interact. I'm looking forward to [00:15:00] it. Thanks guys.