Gretchen has been in business for 15 years! She is an academic life coach and creator of the anti-boring approach to powerful studying. Gretchen has many different offerings (too many, she says) including coaching students, a course called “The Art of inspiring students to study strategically” and an online course called “The Anti- Boring Approach to Powerful Studying” for teachers, a course called “Launch Your Biz” for people who want to start academic coaching, and the Anti-Boring Educators Club for people who want to learn and have community in this field.
Finding her perfect way to help kids take charge of their learning:
When Gretchen was seven years old, her family lived in a village in Egypt and she got a scholarship to go to a British school in Cairo, and that’s when she became an ecstatic student. After getting her masters, Gretchen got her first teaching job and hated it! She didn’t feel she could help kids take charge of their own learning the way she has been able to.
She was then hired to create a coaching program at an independent school and started to find clients outside of the school context and eventually had so many clients she could not do both jobs and created her independent business. She started off by driving around to her client’s houses and then switched to coaching out of her home to save time and begin online coaching.
Gretchen now has many online clients on the east coast. To grow her business and reach a wider audience, she worked on having a consistent blog, but was a very slow writer. So she started uploading videos instead of written blogs.
Gretchen often felt most jazzed after a session with a student, so she started making a habit of recording videos right after her sessions to talk about whatever she was jazzed about. She learned to be okay with imperfection and started uploading weekly videos to her blog, and then started a podcast.
Balancing all of her creative projects:
Instead of doing what everyone tells her to do and focusing on one specific niche, Gretchen has many different projects all of which she loves because she knows she is an awesome resource to educators.
Before going completely independent with her own business, Gretchen was working part time as a curriculum writer and coached in the afternoons and was exhausted all the time and didn’t see any way to earn more than 50k a year. She knew she could not continue to live comfortably off of this. She joined a year long marketing training system and was attending brain conferences and started to realize how to put it all together.
The importance of self reflection
Teachers can sometimes lack necessary self reflection, and as a very reflective person, Gretchen constantly seeks ways to engage and help educators work on that skill. Educators ask their students to do immense amounts of self reflection. But teachers are students too and people who are trying to grow their business or do their job better need to be active learners that self reflect as well.
You can reach Gretchen and learn more about her business on her website www.gretchenwegner.com or email her directly at gretchen@gretchenwegner.com
Sean McCormick 0:03 Today on the Earn More Tutoring podcast, Gretchen Wegner and I talk about how she leveraged YouTube to gain clients across the country, how she earns passive income through courses she created to teach teachers her anti boring approach, and how she built a coaching certification program that includes group coaching. Gretchen Wegner 0:22 At the time, I think I was charging $75 an hour, something like that, like I don't see any way for me to earn about $50,000 I just don't see it. And I can't continue to survive off of $50,000 I mean, didn't have health insurance didn't wasn't putting anything into retirement. And so I just had to solve that problem. So that's why I like took a deep breath, got a 0% credit card, put $10,000 for a year long program onto the onto the credit card, and then just trusted this program this marketing program to hold me. Sean McCormick 1:00 Welcome to the Earn More Tutoring Podcast, the podcast where you can learn strategies and stories about how to earn more tutoring, educating and doing what you love. I am here with Gretchen Wegner today. She is an academic life coach and creator of the anti boring approach to powerful studying, among many things. Welcome, Gretchen. Gretchen Wegner 1:20 Hi. So nice to be here Sean. Hi, all you listeners. Sean McCormick 1:24 Yeah, thank you so much for coming today. So I wanted to start by just asking you about what you're offering right now what your your different offers are. And then we could go into how did you create and develop those but I read your your story on your website just about traveling to the world with your family and all the different pathways that you took to do what you do now. So I'd love for you to share in your own words, your story. Gretchen Wegner 1:53 My business is complicated. And I'm trying to simplify one of the things that may come through this as I think as many of us who start our own business as we have these wild creative minds, we are creators, we just want to make things. But I'm at a place I've been in business for 15 years now. And I've made too much and I don't have the support systems to really help me navigate it sustainably. So I'm working on that. But here's here are the offers. I am an academic life coach for students and I love working with students. And so I maintain about four or five clients myself at all times. So they are high school and college clients. Usually, I also have a course called The Art of inspiring students to study strategically. And it is a course that teaches educators so that could be teachers that could be other academic coaches that could be AED therapists, that anti boring toolbox for working with students around studying and time management and organization. So the coaching that I do with students is based on the anti boring approach to powerful studying, which is an online course. So I have that. And then I have all of that, but for educators, right, teaching them how to do it. And then for people who think they really want to start their businesses as specifically academic coaches, I have a course called Launch your biz, which is basically me just showing you behind the scenes, everything related to how I set up my coaching business. And then there's the anti boring educators club where if people want time with me or in community, it's such lonely work, as I'm sure you know, Sean, being an entrepreneur in this education world when we don't have school communities to lean on. So I've created that community and my anti boring educators club. So there you go. Sean McCormick 3:47 Yeah, so it sounds like you've got I'm gonna call it a trident, or you've got the coaching support, which is for both students, and educators or as the educators club, the part where you coach actual other advocates. Okay, so you've got the coaching the students, the educators club, and the course is the anti boring approach for educators and students. Yeah, and then also, there's some other courses the launch of this course. So that's amazing. And and I hear you Yeah, it's it sounds like a lot, but I'm sure if anyone can juggle it, you can and you know, you were always all learning, right? So. So how did you get to this point? I'm sure there's so many little stories on the way but maybe walk us through some of the I don't know the word for the axiomatic or like key kind of points in the story that led you to being able to create not only you know, a coaching program for students courses for students and educators and a club, what what led you to this point, what are the key Piazza Gretchen Wegner 4:52 fun, we could enter anywhere, right, like we could enter since you mentioned my international background we could enter when I was Seven years old, and my family lived in a village in Egypt. But we had to figure out how is Gretchen going to get schooling and we got me a scholarship to go to a British school in Cairo. And I was so excited...
Check out the full interview below!
Want to hear more?
Head to your favorite podcast listening platform and get inspired by entrepreneurs and educators who have experienced it all!