Best of 2025: Jolene Levine on How Education Founders Can Turn Betrayal, Burnout, and Chaos Into a Blueprint for Credibility, Alignment, and Lead Flow That Converts

Some episodes don’t just start conversations, they shift how education founders think about credibility, leadership, and lead generation. This one did.

When Jolene Levin, entrepreneur, innovator, and founder of NorvaNivel, shared how she built a global company, scaled too fast, got fired from her own business, and rebuilt from the ground up, it became one of the most replayed and quoted episodes of the year.

Her story hit home for education founders who’ve seen their pipeline stall or partnerships implode. Because behind every funding round or fast scale-up lies a tougher truth: you can’t generate consistent leads when your culture, mission, and credibility are out of sync.

Josh still remembers the moment that stopped him cold: “I built the company that would fire me.” That line didn’t just reveal a mistake, it revealed a mindset shift. Jolene’s comeback became a blueprint for rebuilding trust, alignment, and the kind of reputation that naturally attracts the right clients and partners.

Originally streamed as a LinkedIn Live in August 2025, this replay dives deep into how loss, burnout, and broken systems can actually become the foundation for stronger pipelines and more predictable deal flow.

Here’s the truth for education founders:

🚨 Growth without alignment kills credibility, and credibility is what closes deals.

In this Best of 2025 series of Breaking the Grade, Josh and Jolene unpack how founders can rebuild from chaos, restore trust with their teams and investors, and turn that clarity into consistent lead flow and sustainable sales growth.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

1️⃣ When Growth Outpaces Control
How scaling too fast can disconnect your culture from your mission, and stop leads before they start.

2️⃣ The Day She Got Fired from Her Own Company
Why losing control forced Jolene to rebuild from first principles, and how that reset reignited both her purpose and her pipeline.

3️⃣ Rebuilding with Belief, Not Burnout
How focusing on energy, values, and alignment keeps leads flowing without sacrificing your health.

4️⃣ Investor Alignment That Actually Works
The key questions that filter out the wrong capital, and attract investors who expand your reach, not your risk.

5️⃣ Credibility as a Lead Strategy
Why founders who lead with honesty, transparency, and mission consistency close more of the right deals faster.

If you’ve ever scaled too fast, watched your lead flow dry up, or lost control of your mission, this episode is your reset button.

📩 DM me “REBUILD” and I’ll show you how education founders inside the EdSales Elevation Experience rebuild clarity, credibility, and closed contracts after chaos.

📤 Know an education founder stuck between burnout and stalled deals? Share this episode, it might be the shift they need.

✍️ Love the show? Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify so more education founders can turn breakdowns into breakthroughs and credibility into conversions.

#EdSales #EducationFounders #BreakingTheGrade #ClarityConverts #FounderMindset #LeadGeneration #EdTech #JoleneLevine #JoshChernikoff #FounderLessons

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:00

Our students are the future. How we advance innovation and impact and approach equity in their classrooms will determine how we thrive as a world community. The status quo just won't cut it. That's why we're here to break the grade. Hello, breakers and difference makers. I'm Josh Thermikoff, host of How I Broke That. I'm a two-time entrepreneur in the education space, and I've successfully exited both of those companies. I've experienced my first share of breaks in my life, and I'm here to bring my signature approach to my new show, Breaking the Grade. I'm embarking on this special journey alongside my good friend and mentor, John Gamba, Director of Innovative Programs and Entrepreneur Residents at NGSD. In our podcast, you'll hear from emerging business owners in the education space who are working to transform education as we know it. Tune in as we hear about industry trends, unique principles and practices, and the attempts that have and haven't worked for our grade-breaking guests. So, fellow entrepreneurs and educators, what do you think? Are you ready to take a hammer to the education space and break the grade? Some conversations they just hit differently. And this LinkedIn Live did. She sells amazing furniture, which scaled too fast, and then she got fired from the business that she started. But what made this a top LinkedIn Live wasn't just the story. Although the story was raw and it was real, it became a blueprint for how education founders and CEOs can rebuild credibility, can restart lead flow, and can reclaim influence after everything breaks. So as we rebrand Breaking the Grade, we're spotlighting some of these LinkedIn lives that didn't just spark views, but they sparked transformation in our audience. Let's press play on this one. Welcome to Breaking the Grade. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Breaking the Grade Live or LinkedIn Live. And honestly, if I was going to select somebody to be my next John Gamba, my ride or die, uh LinkedIn's, bars, travel, any of that stuff, it would probably be the person who's here today, Jolene Levine, who of course I was introduced to by the great John Gamba. So Jolene, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01: 3:49

Thank you. That's that's huge. I take that. Like I I can actually die now because you've you've you've put me in that category, Josh. I'm great.

SPEAKER_03: 3:58

Yeah, good.

SPEAKER_01: 3:58

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_03: 4:00

It's all true. Thank you for for being here today. And I know that you are coming off uh a kind of a whirlwind of travel. Yesterday you were traveling, so that's why we, you know, we gotta we gotta accommodate the talent and your schedule. So that's why we moved it uh to today. But just give give everybody the quick 30 seconds um of uh who you are, where you've been, and uh what you're up to.

SPEAKER_01: 4:28

Awesome. So so excited to be here today and chatting to your amazing audience. So I'm my name's Jolene Levine. Uh actually started as a founder in Australia about 18 years ago, uh working in the education space in learning environments and product design with my husband. We started our business nine years ago. We came to the States, and um, we'll get into sort of the story and where unstructured growth leads to. But um I would say to sum it up, I'm just a really big advocate for designing great learning environments where kids can thrive. That's based on evidence and research, and supporting manufacturers in designing great products, and supporting the design community in creating the spaces to support future-focused learning and you know, really help kids feel good and safe and ready to learn in these spaces.

SPEAKER_03: 5:24

Yeah, super cool. You you know, you're not really supposed to steal my thunder. And you did, but because I love you, it's okay. We were talking uh before the the show about these two words and how they fit together, or but you might think that they don't, which is this idea of unstructured growth. I think when as business owners, when we think about growth, we feel like that has to be structured. You can't grow a business without structure. And we're gonna discuss that uh from a couple of different angles, but the one angle that I want to talk about it from first is that I get to work with a lot of companies in the education space who are making upwards of ten million dollars a year. And guess what? They don't have a way to get leads on repeat because you you can have a$10 million company and be scared shitless of it because nine million dollars can be wrapped up in one contract, and if that contract goes bye-bye, and especially with this administration, whether you like them or not, contracts are going bye-bye, you are now down to a million dollar company, which some people may say, I'd love a million-dollar company, but when you got a$10 million company, you go down to a$1 million company. So that's unstructured lead generation. That's the way I look at those two words together. Based on your experience, can you talk to us about what unstructured growth means to you and how you experienced it in the growth of your business?

SPEAKER_01: 7:18

So, I mean, Josh, I even think about what you do in terms of creating systems, you know, having a system of getting leads, of doing anything in your business. So when we came, we when we came to the states to open up our business, we already had a business in Australia that had been going for five years that was a certain size, completely different market, completely different go-to-market strategy. And like I think any typical entrepreneur, which I think I am, I saw a gap uh in the states and ran with it, you know, real quick and thought that we would have time to understand the market a little bit more. So I think knowing the market that you're going into very intimately and all the nuances and what you actually need to do in order to fulfill those sales in that market properly is key. We didn't, we didn't, we I didn't even think of that. I didn't think about how different it was going to be to do business here and what we actually needed to set that sales channel up appropriately. And then ultimately, what also let us down was the systems internally inside our business. So we didn't have the uh a CRM that we you know came with. We had to build that on the run. We didn't uh you know have the people in place to even, you know, the right people to run the system. So it it we were like building the plane and flying it literally at the same time and crashing and crashing it because you know that year that we made 10 million, I I know you know we would we lost 10 million, you know, just uh by trying to keep up and fix.

SPEAKER_03: 8:59

Well, so to go with that metaphor, what did it feel like? You know, I just got off a plane, I know you've been on a bunch of planes lately. I think flying is fucking nuts. Yes, you know, I still can't believe we're in the air. Uh but like were you on the plane, flying the plane, looking out the window, seeing like engines on fire and and wings falling off? And there's only two wings as far as I know.

SPEAKER_01: 9:29

I was like vomiting out the window, watching the wings fly off, actually, Josh.

SPEAKER_03: 9:34

Um what happens to the vomit when you're at 35,000 feet and it's going out the air?

SPEAKER_01: 9:39

It's bad. I mean, I was like three o'clock in the morning crawling on like warehouse shelving, uh, you know, doing tagging, doing whatever we could. It's a terrible feeling. You know, a lot of people have said, wow, like look at the success. You grew grew so quickly. You know, if you look outwardly like that, it it some of it looks like a great success story. We came into a market, we generated interest like really quickly. We knew we had a product that was impactful, and we spoke a different message and it stuck, right? So, on all accounts from that respect, we did that really, really well. But we couldn't deliver. So, if you can't deliver on the message that you're promising out, that's more dangerous than you know, just being very like, even just be cautious with that. Um and that felt bad as an entrepreneur who's who's impact-driven, who actually wants to do, you know, something well and successful and really with a as we all do, believe in our product, right?

SPEAKER_03: 10:41

Um I uh learned this lesson the hard way. Um, that not every deal is a win and that you don't need to say yes to everyone. Um, did you have to learn that lesson the hard way too?

SPEAKER_01: 10:58

Uh definitely had to learn the lesson. But that's uh I love that you've also brought that up because I think that's also a strategic lesson uh in a business with any product you have, knowing your customers as well. Like who are you and who are your customers? So if you have a limited sales force, which we did, I was the only sort of you know, one out there selling with dealers, but you gotta, you know, you've got to find what opportunities are right for you and your product and and the way that you do things, and not kind of like um, you know, kind of try and get to to what's not going to be yours. So yeah, I think that's so important.

SPEAKER_03: 11:41

I think you and I have discussed this, and people who listen to this show know this, and and and I'll pause for a second. Anyone who is uh interested in kind of putting your name in the chat and your LinkedIn and asking a question, go for it. Um we're happy to always hear from people, um, and we'll answer the questions that we can. Um but people who do listen to this show know that I I love to talk about this idea of window washing. And uh if you if you are a window washer, you make your money, you make your living by window washing, and you look at two different buildings, and one of them has clean windows, and one of them has dirty windows. In my opinion, and I think yours, you should really approach the building that has clean windows because they appreciate what you do. They love a clean window, they love that smell, they love that feeling. And in my second business, uh Flex Academies, um I started off by approaching the wrong people. I was a window washer who went to people who had dirty windows. And while they want your help, they really don't value it. Yeah, so I had to pivot and I had to start talking to people who wanted clean windows and because I knew their their problems. And I think this has to be particularly important for you because you're selling furniture. And I'm not gonna turn my camera and show you that we have finally finished decorating our beautiful 1,000 square feet here in Washington, D.C. But picking out the furniture was really tough because you can look at you know uh a couch and you can say, well, that couch is it$500 or$5,000? Because they look the same. So you have to convince people, you Jolene, have to convince principals, superintendents, whoever you're talking to, who's the right person, that that they need to value furniture. So can you talk to our audience about how you took something like furniture that can look so confusing to people and say, spend the money, and here are the outcomes.

SPEAKER_01: 14:04

Yep. Uh so love that you framed it that way because we talk uh and I'm really big on value proposition. So our company was was would be considered a high-end uh spend for schools when it comes to furniture. So we definitely were not the cheapest. And but the value proposition and the way that we could talk about that value proposition, you know, everyone is like schools won't spend this on furniture. But if you can speak about it in the right way and you can position it and articulate it in the right way, they will spend it. So for us, you know, everything we designed, there we there was evidence and meaning behind it. I could talk about the impact that it was going to make, right? I like if we and and the way that we worked with our customers in a very consultative way, for us, every job was almost, even though we had a range of furniture, every job was a custom job. Every time I would go and work with the district, firstly, it's like listen and have empathy and understand what they're trying to do and where they are in the scale. There are times, um, to your point, where I would be sitting with a customer and say, listen, I think they're going to be able to get 10 or 15% of my furniture in here. The rest of it, they're going to need to source from somewhere else. And I would work with other companies that, you know, in our industry to say, come, and you know, I'm here to actually give the customer the right solution. So, but I think we were able to articulate our value proposition. We we knew the needs, we knew the pain points, we knew what we were trying to achieve when we were coming in to do a space. And then we were able to like show that it was actually it happened. Um, so having those case studies and proof points behind us was really good as well. And I think, yeah, I think we knew how to speak the educational language. It wasn't like I'm here, I never sold a piece of furniture ever. I wasn't there to sell them a piece of furniture. I was there to say, okay, this is what you're doing. This is how we can create an environment to facilitate how how you're teaching what's the teaching and learning in here.

SPEAKER_03: 16:13

One of so I I wrote down a few things here that you said. You said listen. Love it. You said language, love it. You said empathy, love it. You said custom. Don't love it.

SPEAKER_00: 16:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 16:34

Was that uh did that end up being, and I just got done coaching with somebody who they basically have like he he used the two words that I can't stand, Chinese menu, not when it comes to food, but when it comes to running a business.

SPEAKER_01: 16:49

Yep.

SPEAKER_03: 16:50

Did custom become a challenge?

SPEAKER_01: 16:52

Well, I can tell so I'll I'll define custom for you, and then but I will tell you that it's a swear word in manufacturing too, right? Because in terms of scaling, I couldn't agree with you more. Custom is impossible to be able to do. And when you're working with architects and designers, you know, they want to sometimes take your product and slightly change it or do something, you know, different to it. So managing that in a manufacturing environment is actually critical. What was part of our undoing, to your point on that, was you know, the way that we built environments, it was very varied. So it wasn't like anyone was coming and buying 2,000 pieces because, you know, the third grade classrooms had this kit of parts, the fourth grade classroom had this kits of parts, and we weren't a big company. So it felt like everything we were doing that first year was custom, uh, you know, in a sense. But uh the way that when we're referring to custom is we wouldn't necessarily change the furniture, but the design of each school is going to be different. You know, when you're sitting down, let's say with a charter school, and you know, the way that they their needs around a third grade classroom or a steam space might be different to the public school down the road. And so uh even the furniture is not custom, but the design, the design is very consultative.

SPEAKER_03: 18:15

Okay. Well, that that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01: 18:20

Um but I agree with you on custom. Like I said, for in a manufacturing environment, um my my husband, who's a who's a product designer, is he's anti it. He's like, I've designed this product in this way because it's right in this way, you know, and I can I can vouch for it in this way, and it should be repeatable in this way.

SPEAKER_03: 18:44

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 18:44

So yeah, I I agree.

SPEAKER_03: 18:47

And that's exactly how I feel about the Ed Cell Zelvation experience and the work that we do with companies. You know, it's been designed a certain way, 12 weeks, you know, an hour and a half a week, uh, 10 companies, two people, no more. Um and then sometimes and I get my team wants to just, you know, come from the Philippines and Nigeria and India and strangle me. And I haven't done it in a long time. Uh, you know, somebody will come and they'll say, We love what you're doing, but uh, we only have six weeks. I'm like, oh, cool. You know, we'll adjust the price and we'll make a new course for you and we'll meet longer. And then it always ends up being a mess. And my team always ends up hating me for that.

SPEAKER_01: 19:35

Um, and I I I can vouch for it because the minute we did things like that, we got ourselves into a deeper mess. Um, so uh I completely agree with that. And that that goes, I think, back to your point about picking your customers as well, right? So you've created this experience, and we created what we did based on a lot of research and a lot of understanding. And our skill sets, you know, that we could apply to design and design of product and spaces. And we know it works. And so, you know, I think that that that and so so the customers where it doesn't work for them might not be the right customer.

SPEAKER_03: 20:18

Yeah. I would take it one step further, and they are not the customer for you. Um, and most likely, and I haven't necessarily thought about it this way, but most likely those people are really just a tire kicker and a time waster. Because if they really trusted you, uh, then they would say, you know what, I feel this way, but I trust you. Let's go forward with your way.

SPEAKER_01: 20:48

And I think I uh you would I think agree with me here. Definitely in the education space, it is very relationship-driven. Um, definitely, superintendents and leaders, when they're stepping out of the bounds and doing something different, and generally when they were bringing in, you know, me or our company, it was different, right? They were transitioning from probably a lot of desks and chairs in a class to a different kind of like, you know, toolkit in their environment. And when they're doing something different like that, uh, they've got to know, they've got to be able to prove that it's gonna work as well. They need the proof points. Uh and that because they've got to answer for that change, if it works or it doesn't work. And so one thing very early on as an you know, an entrepreneur in our company is I needed to know and be the expert. Like I need to be able to provide them the um confidence that I know what I'm talking about, that I've you know can link what we're doing to outcomes that are important to them, um, so that they could have the confidence to do something to make changes too.

SPEAKER_03: 21:58

Understood. So why don't you list for us the amount of things that can break when you get uh to$10 million and you're not ready? Because I think that this list is important for people to hear because everybody wants to get to that next stage in their business. But if you get there too soon and you're not ready, it can all collapse. So can you list for us the amount of things that broke, probably including you, yep, uh by getting to$10 million, not the right way?

SPEAKER_01: 22:37

Well, I'll tell I'll I'll probably start with the the one that hurt the most is uh trust. We broke trust with our customers really quickly. Um, they put a lot of initial trust in us because we were unknown and we, you know, came out of nowhere, and so they got behind us. And so we broke trust with with with, and that was probably the worst thing for me. That's what I think contributed to breaking me in the process as well. Um, we broke our people internally also because we didn't have systems, so we set everybody up to fail, you know, inside our company as well, because we we just couldn't, you know, we we didn't give them structures and systems and the right tools to work with. So coming in and not having it like let's say a proper CRM set up, you know, our operational team and our logistics team, and the people were, you know, we didn't give them the right tools to work with in order to be successful in their jobs. So we you know, we broke them as well. We broke the people that we needed to actually execute. Um, so those were were I I guess the two the two we broke ourselves, and then we ultimately, Josh, ended up because we had no money, you know, to be able to then carry on and get to the next level. And that's what kind of uh predicated the next X amount of years of trying to catch up and then ultimately making some wrong choices and us getting fired. Yeah, so it all stemmed from not starting right. If anyone says to me, like, what would you do, you know, if you could go back, it would just be to start right.

SPEAKER_03: 24:21

You're such a thunder stealer. Because that was gonna and I've never said that before, and it sounds ridiculous coming out of my mouth, but it's just how I felt, and I can be honest with you. That was gonna be my next question. But I'm gonna ask it a little bit differently. I like to be very careful with my words when I talk to entrepreneurs um about growth, and I'm very careful to say, um, especially in my second business, I do not regret what I did, but I would do it differently. I would have done this differently in my second business, which is we were we were basically dominating the Washington, DC area. There was one other competitor, but there's enough space for two. But I was obsessed, as the kids say, with with getting out of the DC area. And if I had just focused on the DC area where the operations would have been a lot more clear, where I knew my clients better, I could go to every single school, you know, then I wouldn't have had to do all those drives up to New York and New Jersey and Connecticut and hire all those people and fire all those people and get to know all those people and wine and dine them. That's the one thing I would do differently. I don't I carefully use that word or do not use that word, regret. Although am I just telling myself my own story? So when you wake up in the middle of the night, do you regret, or how do you talk yourself through it?

SPEAKER_01: 26:02

Um, well, I'm a Leo and strong about that. I don't regret, and I should maybe, you know, regret certain things. I've actually decided to take the tactic of learning from acknowledging actually, you know, the failings and where things went wrong, which is hard sometimes as an ego perspective to be able to do also. Um I'm trying I've tried to be very introspective on the things that I could have done differently uh in those situations. And I love even what you're saying about, you know, starting in a logical place. Like I think as an entrepreneur, and I fall into this trap, uh, like we want to take on the world, and we know we can and we think we can, right? Like, and but just going and doing it because you know you can and you think you can, and you got that like fighting spirit inside you. Um, it's you it's like you you gotta I wouldn't I I would say I did that too much without stopping and being like, okay, how are we actually gonna like what is the logical sane way to do this that's scalable, that's gonna keep everything intact, you know? And I didn't do that. I was like, I came and went, you know. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 27:23

There's moments that, especially during COVID, that uh we should have closed the business down temporarily. But I was like, no, we're going forward. And I had the right idea, which was let's take everything online, let's let's let's run these enrichment companies, these enrichments online, yoga, pottery, whatever it was. And the reason I know I had the right idea is because Out School made a billion-dollar business out of it. Execution is the whole other side of the coin. Um, so some of the action items um that we think about um coming out of these LinkedIn lives uh have I know impacted people who are listeners because they'll come back to me and they'll say, Thanks for going through those things. Because you and I have in this conversation, we've we've we've talked about more of the looking back and what we experienced, and I want to help people kind of going forward to kind of learn from some of our mistakes. So one of the action items that I wrote down was define your who not to sell to.

SPEAKER_00: 28:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 28:35

Have you taken that pill and defined who you do not sell to?

SPEAKER_01: 28:43

Uh definitely. Uh, and I think that I I I I realized I I guess I was lucky and unlucky in that I was the only person out there doing it with and with four children in a new country as well. So I couldn't run myself, you know, ragged because I was initially, before I was like, okay, hang on a second, you know, I've got to be a lot more strategic about this. Um, the who is such a good strategy. I think it's just a sound, you know, sales strategy, particularly when you're starting up and you don't have a lot of resources.

SPEAKER_03: 29:20

Yeah. The next part is to kind of audit your sales pipeline and see who's in there that doesn't align with your mission. But then, Jolene, and this is the tough part, you know, imagine that we printed it out, right? Old school. You got to take your pen and you have to put a line through that person that's not gonna grow your top line, that's not gonna be in your pipeline, that's gonna affect your numbers, and that is so much easier said than done. Because you're essentially killing your own sale.

unknown: 29:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 29:59

Talk about having to do that.

SPEAKER_01: 30:01

Well, and like I also found, again, sometimes the through the hard way, that top line number is almost fictitious, right? Unless you're you that top line customer that's oftentimes you spend the longest on, right? In terms of resources, trying to convince or trying to make happy. By the time it hits your bottom line, it's just a revenue figure. You've made nothing on it. So I think that's what I've learned sometimes in that process as well. And then you've lost sight of the customers that you should be paying attention to.

SPEAKER_03: 30:42

And fine, and we so let's talk. You mentioned revenue, that's one thing, is you get to the bottom line. But I want the audience to know that Jolene is a badass, fit, cool, put together, well-dressed chick. And I use chick in the most endearing way. Thank you. I take it in that. Yeah, like you would say dude, or how how how you might say it for the guys. So can you talk to the people in our audience about how they take care of themselves? You know, because you can look at a at a at a top line revenue and you can see what erodes as you get to the bottom line. Harder to do when you're looking in the mirror. So, what do you encourage people to do to do their best? And we uh we can't be our best on every single day, as we know, to do their best to stay healthy.

SPEAKER_01: 31:48

Uh, so thank you. I appreciate it. I'd uh for those that know me, I box for an hour and a half every morning and I run. And that's actually not only good for me physically, but I I I it's so in tune with it's I kind of meditate. I need that uh for myself. It's it's a reflective time in the day where I can just everybody in my family knows, don't talk to me before I've gone um and worked out and let it out because uh and I and I reflect in the in that time, actually, weirdly. Like I I do think a lot, I get a lot of anger and frustration out, which still exists, you know, for all of us as you're going through this journey. Like it's tough. It's tough to go out there. It takes a lot of guts, you know, to be an entrepreneur and you really put yourself out there. So I do really um make the time for myself, which again, as sometimes even as parents, it's hard to find to put yourself first when you've got your work and then you've got your kids, but you gotta. Um, it's so important to find something that helps to relieve the stress, otherwise, you're just gonna explode.

SPEAKER_03: 33:00

Yeah. What does it mean for you? And I'm asking this for myself, but for everybody else, hopefully as well. Where what does it mean to reflect? Like when you say I reflect, like what do you do? Because I'm trying to figure that out. I you know uh I'll detail a little bit more, but like what does that mean to you?

SPEAKER_01: 33:23

Um, I think it's that those are the moments, Josh, where I'm like replaying all the things that happened that didn't, you know, go well. And it's it is like if I could do this again or would do it again, like how would I do it differently? And then a little bit, I think getting older is reflecting on myself and my actions in in that so that I can learn from it and not make those same mistakes again. You know, the way, you know, we're here to talk about the unhealthy way to scale and and what can happen. And I I'm like, you know, happy to be openly vulnerable in uh I don't think any founder really would like to say to to have our story, right? But we did I I did come back from it. Uh, and I think it's because I'm reflective and because I was like, okay, I'm gonna learn from this. It's not gonna beat me. The mission is so strong, that doesn't change. We just got to find another way to do it, and I've got to, I've got to, I've got to learn from those mistakes. Otherwise, I'm just not gonna uh grow from this, it's gonna happen again.

SPEAKER_03: 34:36

So one of the things we talk about um is is resilience. There's resilience. Fuck. There's resilience that we need to have as entrepreneurs, obviously as human beings, but certainly as entrepreneurs, every single day. I like to say that I used to experience this a lot more in my second business, where you know, I could get off the phone with a school district, you know, that wants flex academies, and then the next phone call can be from a PK president who's just chopping me to shreds. So you can go from the penthouse to the outhouse in a matter of minutes.

SPEAKER_01: 35:18

I call it compartmentalization, is like key, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 35:22

You're like, you know, you're or it could be reverse, like you're just getting killed, you pick that phone back up, you're like, hey, it's hey, how are you? You know, and but you have to be resilient.

SPEAKER_00: 35:32

You do.

SPEAKER_03: 35:33

And so um your business broke, you kept a mission alive.

SPEAKER_00: 35:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 35:41

Was that uh something that you planned for before, or is that something that you just had to deal with in the moment?

SPEAKER_01: 35:52

Oh, in the moment, because I was blindsided, you know. In my uh it was bizarre because when that happened, all I'd known was that we were gonna build this company and then we were gonna go uh to America, and then we were gonna, you know, take and I had for 18 years my first child wrapped up this dream in that this was the mission. And interestingly, my husband, who's a co-founder, was a co-founder with me, always said to me, you know, Jolene, at some point in time, you're you you're more than this company. Like the mission is more than uh just this company, but I could never see that, right? And so now looking back, you know, I I always say to people, like, you know, you never know, you might like your next story better. In the moment, it was brutal. And I'm like, you know, how? But it was because of the resilience and because of the belief in the mission that I was like, I I I'm not gonna fail. I can't. I've got four kids relying on me. I got a whole, you know, we we just got to pick this up and find another way. And so I put myself into rooms where sometimes, you know, you want to just hide when things like that happen. I didn't. And I was like, I'm just I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna go into that room and I'm gonna talk to people and I'm gonna see where it comes and I'm gonna be authentic about it and vulnerable about it. And I I've I found that that was that helped, you know, to be able to do it.

SPEAKER_03: 37:20

It helps to, I agree, to be authentic and vulnerable. I think sometimes it it does rub people the wrong way. Um, it is for some people though, because as you know very well, and a lot of people in my audience know, I've tried to be very authentic and vulnerable about the passing of my father uh two months ago. And honestly, right after this call, this this LinkedIn Live, we're actually going to the cemetery because we have to pick out the tombstone. Because in uh in our religion, Jolene, uh, as you know, we have an unveiling one year uh from the passing, and and um tombstones take eight months uh to create, so we have to kind of revisit this again. I wish because I got fired too. Well, my my business partners walked away from the business, which essentially was firing me as well. And I remember they my wife was downstairs in our apartment in Capitol Hill DC, northeast DC, and they and she got a FedEx on a Saturday morning. Never forget that friggin' moment. I wish I could have been prepared for that. My father was sick 19 years ago. So I thought I was prepared for him to to die on on whenever, and it happened on June the 9th. I thought so, and I and I and I and this is what I've discussed in in my one of my more recent LinkedIn posts. I think because we are entrepreneurs, that A, we plan, and B, when these things happen, we just know how to attack them, move forward, attack them, move forward, attack them, move forward. But getting fired, losing your business, losing your father, those things you can't prepare for.

SPEAKER_01: 39:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 39:19

Yes or no?

SPEAKER_01: 39:20

No, you you can't, and I wasn't uh prepared for it. And I didn't know how I would be, you know, and react to it. But again, I just having good people around you makes a difference. So I think I always say, like, just like people like meeting you, Josh. You know what I'm saying? I and even Gamba, when that happened, uh, like I call him, you know, straight away. And so it felt better to have also a network of people that I could also be vulnerable with that knew me, uh, too. Um, but and I just think um People like us just we're not i i life hurts sometimes, it just does, it really does. Uh, and I think sometimes it's hard when you're like again, an entrepreneur, you're probably tough. You you like you said, you get up and you face things. I think the hardest thing for us as entrepreneurs is actually sit back and feel that pain for a minute and and know that it's okay. I can actually feel like this today. I I it's I it's normal. I don't have to fix it all the time. I can feel like this today and know that tomorrow you're gonna wake up and be resilient again because that's in our nature at the end, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 40:40

My dad's favorite saying was grow up, not down, and we we're with mine.

SPEAKER_01: 40:45

I love that.

SPEAKER_03: 40:46

Yeah, it was it's really wonderful to hear now. It was really shitty to hear about 10 or 11 all the time. Um, and my cousin Brett, who's like a brother to me, as we were talking about the tombstone, he's like, You should put that on the tombstone. I don't know if my family's gonna go that route. We're more kind of on the simple route. But I think you make a really important point about having the right people around you. You know, you have to have you can't see her, she's not on camera. My wife here has been along this ride with me uh for 13 years, the ups and the downs, and she's there for me to pick me up and sometimes to throw me down when that's necessary. And when you have the right people around you, you can ride these waves even when the wave swallows you up. We're gonna break here in a minute, but I'm gonna tell a story that I've never told, and I and sometimes I wonder why I haven't told it. Um, and it's about John because he's such a good friend to you, and he's such a good friend to me, and he's such a good friend to a lot of other people. Man, and at this point, he can't tell me, I can't tell the story, so I'll just beg for forgiveness. It uh John was there for me, of course, as my dad got sick and we were in the hospital, and we were on the fourth floor and in the ICU, and um it was like Thursday, Wednesday, or Thursday of the week that we spent in the ICU. My dad died the following Monday, and I got a call from John, and I love the dude, but I I wasn't able to pick up in the moment. And um we're at suburban hospital in in in outside of DC. And I saw the call or and I couldn't pick up, and then it was a couple hours a couple minutes later he's he texted me, and he's like I don't have the exact wording, but he said, go downstairs uh look at you know, in the entrance of the hospital, it's this beautiful glass entrance, and there are three tables and under the second I cannot cry. Under the second table, there's a tissue box. And under the tissue box is a letter.

SPEAKER_00: 43:20

What?

SPEAKER_03: 43:21

He's like, I dro I I I dropped it off from Philly, I gotta go to Massachusetts.

SPEAKER_00: 43:27

Oh my gosh. Now you make me love him even more.

SPEAKER_03: 43:32

And he was gone. And I'm like, what? You're what? So I went downstairs and there was a yellow letter. Oh my gosh. And that yellow letter is in my suitcase. Stays in my suitcase, and it travels with me. That's the type of people you need to have around you when you have$10 million and you then go broke.

SPEAKER_01: 44:04

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. And I hope that letter is a reminder to you as well of you know, having those people around in your life. That's a rich life, right? And unfortunately, like I always think in the sadness of losing somebody you love, there's this joy of you know, being so sad to lose that person meant you were lucky enough to have that person in your life. Um, because they made such an impact, uh, you know, and were so important. And loss is just hard. And friends like that are hard to find. That's that's such an amazing story. I'm really glad you told that to everybody. That's such an amazing story.

SPEAKER_03: 44:53

Child's gonna be pissed.

SPEAKER_01: 44:54

I love it. Well, it's true though. You're right. When you're when you're up high, high, high, and down, down, down, um, it really is the people around you that can help get through the hard times, whether you're resilient or not, are still shitty, right?

SPEAKER_02: 45:11

And tough.

SPEAKER_01: 45:12

And there's grief and there's loss and there's all these things. Um, but it really does help to have people in your corner.

SPEAKER_03: 45:19

Yeah. Um I have been waiting to tell that story, and it felt like the right time because I love it. It would have been a hard to tell the story with John here, although, of course, I could have done it. You can always grow up and not down, but because you love John the way that I do, um, I thought uh it was important to tell. And I think it's important for people, you know. You were we talked about auditing your pipeline, audit your fucking personal relationship pipeline too. Because shit is gonna hit the fan. Yeah, you know, you are gonna get fired, you are gonna lose that deal. Um, you you are gonna lose that employee to your most fiercest competitor.

SPEAKER_00: 46:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_03: 46:04

And when you have the right people around you, you'll get through it. Maybe not as fast as one would like, because I would really like to get through this a little faster, but you will get through it.

SPEAKER_01: 46:18

You will get through it, you you will get through it. I think that's the message, and I believe that, Josh. I actually do, and I think that's what wakes me up and keeps me going, even in the roughest of times, is it's uh somebody once said to me when I was like in the thick of it, it's seasons. Life is seasons, full of seasons, right? And sometimes it's good seasons and sometimes it's bad seasons, but they do end, and you know, the bad times do, you know, that season does come to a close, and uh the the birds and the trees and the flowers will bloom again, and I believe that.

SPEAKER_03: 46:53

Yeah, Alvin is on our team and and is uh stepping in for Ken today. Ken's our usual producer, but Alvin wrote this title, and I wanted to literally read it out loud, which is your show note from$10 million in sales to losing your company, what education founders learned the hard way about selling, scaling, and staying aligned. And I think we perfectly cover that today. And um, I appreciate you being vulnerable, I appreciate you really telling people the truth about the good, the bad, and the really ugly that can happen, and then how you got through it and how you handle it on a daily basis, which is really important because we are a crazy bunch of people to start a business and think that we can succeed, right? And then get knocked down and be like, no, I got this over and over again. And to your point, at the end of the day, it's the people around you that are gonna keep picking you back up. So thank you for being one of those people. You become a really fast friend, and I appreciate that. And then you know that I'm here for you.

SPEAKER_01: 48:10

Oh, so much, and thank you so much for having me on. It's just so nice to have a chat like this to, as you said, uh a friend. So so excited to be here and be able to share my story, and hopefully people can learn, you know, even from the hard parts.

SPEAKER_03: 48:26

Yeah, they are hard. How can uh people get in touch with you so that they can connect with you, learn more, see how badass you really are?

SPEAKER_01: 48:35

Well, I'm pretty easy to find on LinkedIn, and you know, Josh, I'm also a massive advocate for women entrepreneurs. Uh, and so, you know, we uh try and and you know uh give fierce females who are out there doing things a voice in our community, uh, so in our bold woman collective. But I think most people can find me on LinkedIn for sure.

SPEAKER_03: 48:57

Yeah, no, I love that you're this fierce advocate for women entrepreneurs, um, and the stories that you tell are phenomenal. So people should should turn into your podcast. Julie and I I really appreciate you joining us. I mean, you're you're a busy person, you're the talent, you know. So you had to, you know, you had to get off your plane and then come here. And and uh so thank you for doing this, and I hope you have a uh a wonderful weekend. I will tell you because we have alluded to this, I will say an early Shabbat Shalom to you.

SPEAKER_01: 49:31

And thank you to And good luck for you know the next thing you've got to do today. Uh, know that your people uh you know feel your people around you, Josh, as as you're doing this.

SPEAKER_03: 49:43

I do. Hey Breakers, thanks for joining us on Breaking the Grade. If you want to get to know your fellow breakers in education better, please join us in our community in Mighty Networks. You can also follow us on social media for lead generation tips. Information about the community and the social media in the show description. And if you want to help us out, please like and subscribe to the show. Keep on breaking new lead gen legends.