1KHO 486: Success Without Peace is Failure in Disguise | Matt Beaudreau, Apogee

Summary

Podcast Summary: The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast — Episode 1KHO 486: "Success Without Peace is Failure in Disguise" with Matt Boudreau, Apogee

Release Date: May 22, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 486 of The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast, hosted by Ginny Yurch of the That Sounds Fun Network, Ginny welcomes Matt Boudreau from Apogee for a profound discussion on alternative education, homeschooling, and the critical role of modeling personal growth as parents. This episode delves deep into redefining education systems to foster self-reliance, creativity, and genuine learning in children.

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Guest Background and Apogee Program

Ginny Yurch begins by introducing Matt Boudreau, highlighting his extensive advocacy for family-led education and his efforts to develop alternatives to the traditional K-12 education system. Matt shares his journey of questioning conventional education models and experimenting with various homeschooling methods over two decades to create a more holistic and effective educational framework.

Notable Quote:

"We just started building as many different options as we could and just kind of plug in a real scientific method, you know, like plug in, like plug in as many variables as we can and just watch and just see what happens and see how these young people thrive."
— Matt Boudreau [03:47]

Matt explains Apogee's unique approach, which supports entire family units by offering standalone programs for each family member that converge on Apogee campuses. These campuses facilitate community-based learning environments where both children and parents can grow together, emphasizing self-education and sovereignty.

Modeling Growth as a Parent

A central theme of the episode is the importance of parents modeling personal growth and learning alongside their children. Ginny emphasizes that in traditional educational settings, children seldom observe adults engaging in the continuous process of learning and adapting, which Apogee aims to rectify.

Matt Boudreau elaborates on this by discussing how exposing children to real-time decision-making processes enhances their ability to think critically and develop trust and communication skills. He shares personal anecdotes about involving his children in business decisions and problem-solving activities, which cultivates a sense of responsibility and independence.

Notable Quote:

"If you really pull back and you get rid of those distractions, what you will find is your kids can just sit and play Legos and do the most kid-related things... and also go work a full 60-hour week and outwork almost every adult and not bat an eye and be completely at peace with that."
— Matt Boudreau [29:17]

Education and Self-Governance

The discussion shifts to the concept of self-governance and how traditional education systems often undermine a child’s natural self-reliance. Matt critiques how the conventional schooling model emphasizes obedience and standardized testing over critical thinking and personal growth, which can lead to disengagement and a lack of self-reliance in students.

Notable Quote:

"The traditional system is designed to undermine self-reliance... You learn for years on end that you don't have the real decision-making power."
— Matt Boudreau [19:39]

Matt argues that homeschooling and alternative education models like Apogee empower children to take control of their learning journeys, fostering essential meta-skills such as communication, financial literacy, and personal well-being.

Preparing Children for an Unpredictable Future

Ginny and Matt explore the necessity of preparing children for a future that is rapidly changing and unpredictable. They agree that instead of rigidly following predefined educational paths, it is crucial to equip children with the ability to learn, unlearn, and adapt to new circumstances.

Notable Quote:

"We need to prepare the person, not the road, because we have no idea where the road is going."
— Matt Boudreau [32:02]

Through Apogee’s programs, children engage in varied experiences that teach them how to navigate real-world challenges, thereby making them better prepared for careers and life’s unpredictabilities.

Overcoming Parental Fears and Embracing Growth

A significant portion of the conversation addresses the common fears parents have about homeschooling, such as feeling unqualified or worried about missing out on essential skills. Matt reassures parents that embracing curiosity and co-learning with their children can alleviate these fears.

Ginny Yurch shares personal stories illustrating how homeschooling has allowed her children to excel in areas beyond traditional academic metrics, reinforcing the idea that success without personal peace and growth is hollow.

Notable Quote:

"The fear that's gripping you... is that you cannot imagine anyone else loving your child the way you do."
— Matt Boudreau [58:24]

Matt encourages parents to trust their unique bond with their children and to foster an environment where both can learn and grow together, emphasizing that this approach leads to more meaningful and resilient individuals.

The Role of Boredom and Creativity in Learning

Ginny brings up the often-overlooked aspect of boredom in education, framed as a potential strength rather than a weakness. Matt supports this by highlighting how boredom can be a catalyst for creativity and self-discovery.

Notable Quote:

"Boredom is the birthplace of creativity. It teaches the brain to generate rather than consume."
— Matt Boudreau [55:18]

They discuss practical examples, such as gardening, where hands-on experiences encourage curiosity and problem-solving, further reinforcing the value of lived experiences over passive learning.

Final Messages and Encouragement

As the conversation wraps up, Ginny and Matt offer heartfelt encouragement to parents considering homeschooling or alternative education methods. They emphasize the importance of intentional parenting, fostering self-reliance, and creating learning environments that prioritize personal growth and peace.

Matt Boudreau leaves listeners with a powerful message:

"Let yourself be curious and enjoy that, that gets caught by them, too. You start the engine. You start with love and the curiosity, and I promise it'll pass along to them."
— Matt Boudreau [58:24]

Ginny Yurch echoes this sentiment, urging parents to embrace their roles as co-learners and to appreciate the long-term benefits of fostering an environment where children can explore and grow freely.

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Conclusion

Episode 1KHO 486 of The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast offers a compelling exploration of alternative education through the lens of homeschooling and the Apogee program. Matt Boudreau provides invaluable insights into how intentional parenting and self-led learning can cultivate self-reliant, creative, and peaceful individuals ready to navigate an ever-changing world. This episode serves as an inspiring guide for parents seeking to reclaim their children's education and foster meaningful, lifelong learning.

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Where to Find Matt Boudreau and Apogee: For parents interested in learning more about Apogee's programs or partnering to bring an Apogee campus to their community, visit Apogee's official website or contact Matt Boudreau directly through the podcast's show notes.

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Note: Timestamps correspond to the podcast transcript provided and are included with notable quotes to aid listeners in locating specific segments of the discussion.

Transcript

[Ginny Yurch]

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Purchases and random rewards. Hello friends and welcome back. Today, Matt Boudreau is back on the podcast and we are asking big questions. What does real education look like? What does it mean to model growth as a parent? And how do we raise kids who can actually navigate the world they're inheriting? But first, a quick personal note. I hope you'll stick around for my brand new book, Homeschooling. You're doing it right just by doing it is out now. And here's what you need to know. The first few days of a book's release aren't just important, they're really everything. Which is kind of annoying, but it's just the way it works. Early traction tells publishers, bookstores and media this message matters. Now parents are searching for this information. I mean, could you even imagine if a homeschooling book was in an airport? The more homeschooling books there are, the easier it is for everyone to homeschool. And the easier it is for everyone to homeschool. Well, the easier it is for everyone else to homeschool. There is a ripple effect here. More kids, more friends, more opportunities, more support. All of this has a generational impact. So if you have ever wanted to support what we do here, the podcast, the movement, the encouragement to live differently, this is the moment. If you've already bought a copy, thank you so much. You've definitely made a dent. If you haven't, just search. Ginny Urich. Wherever you buy your books, grab one or two or five. Gifting a copy to your co op leader, your sister, your skeptical cousin or mother in law. Not a bad move. And one more ask. Please leave a review. It does not have to be long. Three sentences, even one will do. But early reviews have so much power, they help new readers take the leap. Bottom line, if this episode inspires you, if it gives you hope or a new perspective, the book will too. I'd love for you to check it out. Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Jenny Yurch. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside. And Matt Boudreau is back. We had a phenomenal, phenomenal conversation last time. Thank you so much for returning.

[Matt Boudreau]

That's an easy ask. One of my favorite humans. And hey, happy Mother's Day.

[Ginny Yurch]

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Okay, so I have a new book coming out.

[Matt Boudreau]

Yes, you do.

[Ginny Yurch]

It's super excited about it. It's called Homeschooling. You're doing it right just by doing it, which is what I believe firmly in my soul. And you wrote an endorsement for it. And we're just so aligned. We're so aligned. When we talked before, I had watched your documentary through Apogee and all of these quotes and people that have really influenced me were influences in that documentary, which I highly recommend. And I'll make sure I'll put the link in the show notes. But we're going to be talking today a lot about just education. And it really is an important time in the world to think about education. It's important because the world is changing rapidly. It's also just the time of year. It's the spring and so people are thinking toward the fall. What are our plans? So can you just give us a quick brief background of your story? You are a longtime advocate for family led education and staffed off of the conveyor belt system. And we're talking about, I feel like we, we question homeschoolers all the time. Like are you doing it right? Are you doing enough? But we don't really question the other side too much. Like the conveyor belt thing and the lack of movement and the lack of light and you know, it's interesting how one side kind of seems to be under the microscope, but everything else, the familiarity of that K12 education system just keeps on trucking.

[Matt Boudreau]

It really does. And that's the pro is what you said there was familiar. And we always say what is familiar gets substituted for truth. For most people, it's just what they've always known. And so it's hard for people sometimes to figure out what they want to know. So they just want what they already know. Right. So they get stuck there. So that's exactly. And that's. That was really the genesis of everything for me was just questioning, well, why the heck do we do this this way and what is going on and what if we start doing things other ways? And so we started playing with other models models and started playing with other other ways to tackle it from a full time to a part time you know, to all at home, to co ops, to. We just started building as many different options as we could and just kind of plug in a real scientific method, you know, like plug in, like plug in as many variables as we can and just watch and just see what happens and see how these young people thrive. And that's been the genesis of what we're building now. So it's been a couple of decades at this point of just kind of pulling on the strings and building alternative models to help families really make education their own, make themselves sovereign and free. That's what we're here for.

[Ginny Yurch]

Yeah, tell me about your program and so that everyone can know about it because I just talked to this woman named Deborah. She's joining in down in Florida. And you are just coming alongside in a really unique way. You're coming alongside not only the children, but you're really coming alongside the whole family unit.

[Matt Boudreau]

It's the entire family unit. So the way we talk about it is, is we offer things that can stand alone for each member of the family, but they all come together at a campus. So Deborah has a, you know, she has, she's an amazing lady. She has a family. If she was just solo, if she was by herself and just said, look, I just want to pursue education as a grown woman, as an adult. We have got a year long course that we have put together for women. And it's not just, oh, we think this is a good idea. We went to the best of the best and all the different categories that we think are meta skills. So your own personal psychology, your health, the things that always matter, right? Financial literacy, growth, great communication, all of those things. We've got an entire year's worth, of course with we bring in the best mentors in the world. So the last few lady mentors that have come in have been like Lindsey Graham, who's Patriot Barbie Sage Steele came in, my friend Tulsi Gabbard came in, Carrie Lee Walsh came in. I want to bring you back because you've come in with our homeschool families. I want to bring you in with our ladies. So we have a vertical setup like that for everybody. We have the ladies, we have the men, we have the young men and we have the young ladies. But we're really all comes together as on our campuses. And so we are helping people bring this education to, to their community. So I get to help well over 100 people at this point that have decided to bring this to their community. They're launching their own campus. Some are just launching Elementaries. Some are just launching high school, some are launching just university, some are launching kindergarten all the way through university. We have a university system accredited through Oxford. Right. So they're launching all of this, bringing it to their community. And they're operating almost 24 7. They'll help kids during the day and then parents will come in at night and they're helping coach the parents. You know, they're having the families come in and doing family kind of like roadmap from a family together. They're really providing full education for the entire family and we help help them throw live events. It really is just trying to bring the family unit back to the center of education. That's it. So full time, part time. We don't care. We want it to be on your terms. I think Deborah that we mentioned, I think she wants to go part. Great. What does that look like to partner with us part time? How do we help you? Not how do we make you become a cog that we kind of do a mass definition of everybody else.

[Ginny Yurch]

Yeah. So it's called apogee and there are over 100 locations worldwide. And I mean that you bring up an interesting point too, that people can join in. Not only join in just, you know, for their own family, but they could run one and they could reach out and do that as well. And that has a generational impact. It's really going to impact your geographical area where you live and provide. Obviously people really need this and want this. So I'll make sure I'll put those links in the show notes nodes. One of the things that you talk a whole lot about is modeling and it's built in. It's built right into your program where the parents are growing as alongside the kids. And to me this would be a big piece that's missing when a child is in an institutional setting from kindergarten through 12th grade. I would say I missed that. I didn't really. And a little less because the afternoons weren't quite so busy. And we met adults through different circumstances. But the rat race of childhood has really picked up the pace. And this is one of the things that we don't talk about too much is that kids do not really necessarily see too much how the adult puts the pieces into place for their life and how like you were talking about how they try things, the scientific method and then say eh, that didn't work or that did work or I'm going to adjust. So that to me is one of the things that a homeschool family is doing right just by Pulling out of that system, the kid spends more time around the parent, more time around adults. You say parents must do the thing and bring the child along. Which is completely opposite to me of this sort of mainstream educational philosophy, which is the parent or the adult tells the kid what to do and maybe does nothing, maybe they do nothing. I mean, it's very easy to become an adult and not grow at all. So everyone is modeling behavior whether we know it or not, intentionally or not. It's a universal truth. Can you talk about that type of education and why we really need to be thinking about that?

[Matt Boudreau]

So if you think about this. So you and I have connected quite a bit around literature and our love for certain books, right? And so we've connected a lot around a lot of non fiction and some of our favorite authors there. But there are a lot of fictional novels that we both enjoy too, and the classics and there's so many great lessons to be pulled out of there. One of the reasons I love using the classes, I'm gonna tie this into what we're talking about here. But one of the reasons I love using classics is because there's always a theme, a moral, there is something that we can pull out and we can immediately apply to our own thinking, right? That's what good books are supposed to do. They're supposed to change your life, they're supposed to change your behavior. And the beauty of that is I can sit down and talk with my kids and go, oh my gosh, well, what if you were Pip in that situation? And what would you have done if you were Scout and what would you have like how, how would that have played out, right? And you can have these conversations and it's allows you to make decisions, get practice making good decisions by putting yourself in somebody else's shoes. So it's a little bit more of a low risk, but you can think through all the patterns and the ripple effects. It's the beauty of that. Imagine how much more powerful that is though, when you bring it in the house and my kids get to see me go, okay, so we've got, you know, a few people applying in the same area to launch an Apogee affiliate. And so, gosh, they're all amazing people, but we really only have room for one affiliate over there right now. And so really I've got to kind of weigh this as the owner. Like this is a tough decision because this is going to be person that's part of my crowd. You guys come take a look like, take a look at the backgrounds. This is how I'm kind of deciding to go through this. Right? So again, they're getting the power of that decision making process, but they're seeing it happen in real time and this is actually somebody close to them. Every time we get the opportunity to walk our kids through those kinds of decision making processes, from what we're doing at work to what we do here on the farm and decisions we have to make to. Okay, we had a flat tire a couple of days ago. We've got to completely alter our entire schedule now. Let's walk through this together though and make sure every one of those examples is a learning experience in real time. Just in time. That is so powerful and so impactful and they just get to be a part of that. Right? It's that intentionality that transfers and so they get used to that decision making process too. There is nothing more powerful than that. Rather than sitting idly by being told about life, they are actively engaged with it and they're engaging with high level conversations. And what's cool, trust gets developed there too. And I know you know that trust gets developed there too because I'm going to them, I'm going to my 9 year old or my 12 year old, I'm like, ah, even if I know where I'm going to go, what I, what decision I'm going to make, the power of me going, I'm not really sure. What do you guys think, right? Like what do we do for this? What do we do in this scenario? Let me get your feedback. Let me get your feedback. Okay. Okay, thank you. That helps me. I think what I'm going to do is this, and here's why. Right? The. Imagine the trust that is built and the confidence that's built there and what happens when they have decisions to make. There's trust in mom and dad too. There's no hiding things. We're a team, right? And so there's so many, so many threads we can pull just from a small scenario like that. That's why it's so dang important and long term.

[Ginny Yurch]

Then you've got business acumen and you have people skills and you have all of these things that the child is used to, to the parent for the questions or to be a part of the decision making. And so as, as the child then moves through their later teens and into their 20s, that is part of the package and it just seems so simple. But you know, you say the best. I mean I think people would, this would stop them in their tracks. The best education is parents growing themselves and then bringing the kids along. And this is part of, you know, in my book too, like, when we grow, they grow.

[Matt Boudreau]

Bingo.

[Ginny Yurch]

You know, I think that a lot of people maybe have never thought of that and when they stopped to consider it, might think that sounds too simple. It's pretty bold. But you do see that along the way that you're growing and so you are teaching your kids, life is about growth, life is about change, life is about learning, life is about trying, it's about risk. What would you say to a parent who would say, I'm not a very good example, Matt? I don't know enough to model anything.

[Matt Boudreau]

That's. So that is one of the hardest truths to face, but it's also a great place to start. So that's really, in my experience, what people don't love about this is that a simple way to educate. It is actually, education is simple. The whole thing is simple. It's not easy. That those are very, very different doesn't mean you're not going to be struggles. Doesn't mean things aren't going to be tough. It is very, very simple. And again, it's what I love so much about your book. I was just reading this, just going, yep, yep, nailed it. Yep, that's it. Like the whole time. Because it is, it is literally that simple. But the hardest part for a lot of parents is going, wait a second. This puts a lot of pressure on me to live responsibly. I have to be an adult. And when they say I don't know enough to help, that's actually a great place for me. I go, oh, my gosh. Well, then that's actually going to make. Because you're going to have more questions than answers. Therein lies the beauty. Part of the problem with school in general is that we take this position of we have all the answers. It's very narrowly defined. Doesn't matter what it is, doesn't matter what subject we're talking about. It's very narrowly defined. We have the answers. We're going to tell you the answers, you tell them back to us. Whereas we're saying, look, education, the scientific method in general says, what are all the questions that I have? What's the one rabbit hole I want to go down with these questions? And if I do it right, oh, that's going to give me a little bit of what looks to maybe be an answer, but it's really going to provide me with so many more questions. And that's fantastic. That's the beauty. That's the never ending Game of learning. And so when parents go, I don't know enough, I go, thank God you're gonna get to be co curious with your kids. And that's gonna make it even so much more simple for you to model because you're gonna be able to go, you know what, Ginny? Dad doesn't know. Dad does not know that. But that is really interesting. Let's find this out together. Let's go on an adventure and figure this out. Right? Rather than, here's the next thing you need to learn. I'm going to obviously, with my voice and my body language, show you that I don't care and I don't even use it. But I'm going to tell you to do it. Like, you bring some school at home and you kill the whole thing. So take that responsibility, get co curious with them and watch how simple it is.

[Ginny Yurch]

And these are the things that people say, I'm not patient enough. I didn't take calculus. You know, I don't know how to do it. But it's a flip. It's saying, no. Like, life is about learning how to do it. That's right. What an opportunity to become a more patient person as opposed to closing the door and just saying, I can't do that. That's right. So the concept is that when you grow the best education, really think about it if you're listening. The best education is parents growing themselves and bringing the child along. It's really something to think about. And then it fosters relationship for the entire time that you're alive and beyond, because people always will say, my mom said this. I'm sure that you hear it all the time. I talk to so many people. My dad said this, my grandpa said this. And it becomes that thing that lasts. And it's a thread that goes for generations. You know that feeling when you're standing in the snack aisle squinting at a label that says natural flavors but gives you zero clue what that actually means? Yeah, I was so over that. That is why I love Thrive Market. My go to online grocery store for getting all of my healthy essentials delivered right to my door. No crowds, no label confusion, and no junk. Thrive market bans over 1, 000 harmful ingredients, so I know I'm getting clean products without having to turn into a nutritionist. Their Healthy Swaps scanner is a game changer. I just scan a product I used to buy and it recommends a cleaner version instantly. I've swapped out sugary snacks for simple mills, crackers, chomps, beef sticks, and lesser evil popcorn. And guess what? My kids don't even know the difference. In fact, they love the products from Thrive Market even more. Plus I love their Buy it again feature. It makes reordering our favorite items super easy. And since I can't always find the things I want locally, I Thrive makes it stress free with Auto Ship. Go check them out. You're going to be hooked. Ready to make the switch? Go to thrive market.com 1000hours for 30% off your first order plus a free $60 gift. That's T H R I V market.com 1000hours thrive market.com 1000hours okay, true story. Once the temps started rising, I realized I was right back in my same old rotation. You know the one, that worn out tank top and those overwork shorts. So I finally gave my daily uniform a little upgrade with Quint. Let me tell you, this brand gets it. Quint has pieces that are simple, elevated and somehow make you feel totally put together without even trying. I've been absolutely loving the 100% European linen shorts and dress I got, which I paired up with their super cute Italian leather platform sandals for some of my speaking engagements this spring. It is all beautiful, breathable and built for real life. And here's the best part. Quint's cost costs 50 to 80% less than similar brands. How they work directly with top artisans and cut out the middlemen so you get luxury without the crazy markup. Plus everything is made in safe, ethical factories using premium fabrics and finishes. Feel good, look good. It's a win win. Treat your closet to a little summer glow. Up with quince. Go to quince.com outside for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N nce.com outside to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com outside go ahead. Your summer self will thank you. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Knowing you could be saving money for the things you really want is a great feeling. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and in savings and eligibility vary by state. One of the huge things that you focus on as well is self governance. We have to develop sovereignty. It's our own life. We're in this chaotic world. It is your life. You have to have some self reliance. Can you talk about How a traditional system would undermine self reliance.

[Matt Boudreau]

The traditional system is designed to undermine self reliance. You think about it from the. There are some schools, there are some teachers that do things extraordinarily well, especially at the younger ages. And why does this happen more at the younger ages? Well, there's a couple of things. One, child development. They haven't hit this certain stage yet where there's still a lot of play that's there and there's a lot of. There's a lot of schools that are doing a good job of incorporating that play and they aren't getting tested at that level too. There's not funding that is reliant upon that testing at a lot of schools. So they still will incorporate some of this play based learning and they'll have a good time and the kids will still, still be excited about it. It's something new, it's something different. But you start to see it around 8 years old. There's a big developmental leap that takes place and that's when teachers will tell you they also start to see kids check out. That's the most common age. And it's, you know, they say third grade, but that's the most common age. Kids start to check out because there's this developmental shift that takes place and kids start to figure out there's a game going on. And I'm either going to go ahead and get involved in the game or I'm just going to play it because I'm a people pleaser. I'm going to go ahead and play the game and I'm going to try to play it really, really well. Or like screw this game, I don't want to play this game. You start to see a lot of these decisions be made because they start to realize the day is about obedience. You get in, you're in your rose. It's the industrial model. You're raising your hand for everything, including can I go to the bathroom? Everybody is taught to the lowest common denominator and these things called subjects, as if each thing is completely disconnected from reality or life or actually real world application. And so you learn for years on end that you don't have the real decision making power. That is really what you learn. You learn that you're in a specific class of person and that you don't have decision making power over your own life. You're going to be told where to go, when to go there, what to ask, what you can say, what you can't, who to talk to, who not talk to, when to talk, when not to talk. You ask permission for everything. And you learn that as long as I am obedient to this game, I'll get a response. I'll get a mark on a piece of paper that says, go job playing this game. Even if you understand that that's a game and you learn how to play it, it becomes your habit. If you think about how to develop a habit, it is just repetition. It is doing something over and over and over again until it feels right in your body. Adults often have a really difficult time getting out of this because they've been trained so long in school to sit down, listen, ask the authority what's going on. I mean that, that's really the biggest problem I have. We can make a case for so many different things. It's the habit of obedience that I despise the most.

[Ginny Yurch]

And it really is an issue because long term, our world has changed. Look, maybe you could have had an assembly line job at some point or. But today, I mean, those don't really exist or they exist in much lower numbers. So you're probably going to have, they say something like seven careers. Or our kids will seven careers. Not seven jobs, seven careers. So you have to be able to rely on yourself to come up with your own direction. I'm going to tell you a quick story. It's not in the book because it happened after the book went to print, but it just happened. And our oldest daughter, when she was 14 years old, you know, you know, I mean, she's never taken a test. You know, eighth grade, ninth grade. No test. I think people will be shocked. No test. She comes to me, 14, she says, I want to be a personal trainer. I did some research. There's this man named Joe Drake and he teaches the National Academy of Sports Medicine. He teaches classes to become personal trainer. I think that's the best class you can take and I want to take it. Can you call him and ask him if he'll take a 14 year old? So I said sure. So I called Joe. He says, we'll take her. We've never had anybody that young, but she certainly can take the class. So she takes the class. She's on Zoom every week. She doesn't miss. She's got this textbook, she's studying all she knows, all the body parts. I mean, everything. I didn't, I wasn't involved for one second except to call and ask if she was old enough to take the class. Then she finishes, she goes to take the test. This is the first test she's ever taken, ever now she's 15 years old and she, we went to a testing center, flying colors, walks out with the paper, passed the test. She is a certified personal trainer at one of the highest levels at age 15. And I texted the instructor and I said, she did it. And he said, I hope my girls, yeah, young girls, I hope they turn out just like her. She was a joy to have in class over and over again. She just did her thing. It's what she wanted to do. And you can see if you hear a story like that, how that would translate then for the rest of life.

[Matt Boudreau]

So I'm so flipping excited about this whole thing. So first I want to ask, and kind of, well, not kind of rhetorically. So you know, you and I both host shows, we host podcasts, we get to talk to amazing people every single week. When we grew up going to school, do you remember what grade you got in podcast class? Oh, wait, it wasn't a thing, right? At all. And so the reality is we don't know what the thing is 10, 15 years from now either. So the thought that we're going to prepare our kids for, for that by having a specific thing is crazy. We need to prepare the person, not the road, because we have no idea where the road is going. We don't know what's going to be relevant. We don't know what's going to be no, you know, irrelevant. We don't know what they're going to have to unlearn. So it's the meta skills and then the ability to learn and unlearn and adapt. It's literally it. That is the game and the confidence to be able to do that. Because while they've got experience doing that, not experience sitting and being obedient. So, so what you just explained right there with, with your 14 year old who's now 15. My 14 year old and is in the other room right now just had a very similar experience. So she already has two jobs. She works out at a local ranch that she rides at, rides horses at. And so she takes care of the barn and shovels, you know, shovels horse crap and does all the grunt work out there so that she can, she uses that to exchange for lessons. She also gets taken out to a camp by this same person to go teach people how to ride. It's like an overnight camp on the weekends. But she got recommended to a summer camp that's out here. That's like a nine week summer camp. Six days a week of work, ten hour days, you know, working in the equestrian center. And she was recommended by her instructor. And so those people came to her like, all right, we need all these letters of reference. You're gonna have to take all these tests, these tests around equestrian science. We're going to take tests around. They're going to have to get first aid and CPR and we're gonna have to do all these kind of things. Same exact thing. Went through, through smoked all of that and had somebody kind of awkwardly put her in a weird position, but took her to the side and said, look, you are outperforming all these other girls that you're gonna be working with are 18, 19, 20 years old and you are way outperforming everybody. And she's like, I don't, please don't say that in front of them. Because that's what they were doing. They're making it awkward for her. But it was like, it was a testament to the way she shows up. Same thing. Aced all the tests. Aced. That's normal. She's not. Your 15 year old is not some special unicorn. Neither is my 14 year old. They just haven't had all of the other distractions to take them away to those from those factory settings.

[Ginny Yurch]

Yes.

[Matt Boudreau]

That's the way it's supposed to go.

[Ginny Yurch]

Yeah. Yes. That they have learned self reliance and they haven't lost it. I actually think that you don't have to learn self reliance. I think you're born with it. You're born with self reliance. That's why the little two year old wants to help in the kitchen and crack the eggs. You're born with self reliance and you lose it.

[Matt Boudreau]

Bingo. We pull it out. We, we train obedience and we give distractions. You go to a school all day that trains you to be obedient and then you're worn out because you're just having to play this obedience game. Right. That's where a lot of bullying comes from. As kids are like, oh, I want a voice somewhere. It's the same thing as what happens in prisons, Right. You got people that group together on the yard and you get that violence because they don't have. That's the only place they can exercise any sort of power and freedom. Right. So same thing happens at schools. That's where a lot of the bullying comes from. Then they come home and they're worn out. And then a lot of times we are putting them in these scenarios where now they're given a bunch of distractions, a bunch of things to take their mind off of all the other obedience. They're distracted so what do you have? What do you get with that? At barely any point during the day are they making decisions that matter. They're not given time to think through who they are. They're not given time to think through, through what they want, what they want to try, what they're questioning. The beauty of the world just kind of gets dimmed and dulled and it breaks my heart when you put all of it together that way.

[Ginny Yurch]

And you have to think if you're listening and you've got a four year old and you're right on the cusp. These are the decisions that you're making. You have to think in 10 years, do you want a 14 year old who is a typical 8th, 9th grader today addicted to screens, a lot of mental health issues. I mean it's an epidemic. That is your typical 14 year old. Or do you want a 14 year old who's right in line with 18 and 19 year olds in terms of ability to go do real world work? I mean our daughter, she was taking the class with people that were in her 50s and she, she said some people ask, she goes, they must not have read the material. You know, I mean they're starting to get a sense of, you know, you, your time is wasted in those sometimes by some of the other people and how that goes and, and it's an accumulation of small decisions over time that, that 10 years is going to go by no matter what. What do you want think about your child 10 years down the road. Do you want them to be a self reliant person who's going after life with gusto or someone who's following orders and it, and it matters and you don't have to do too much except for support them and pull them out.

[Matt Boudreau]

That's right.

[Ginny Yurch]

Of a standard system. That's why the book is called you're doing it right just by doing it. There are things that you are innately doing right simply by stepping out of a system that takes things like self reliance.

[Matt Boudreau]

Yeah. And simplifying that whole process. And I know you've seen the same thing with your kids too. But what's interesting is we'll get, and we'll tell stories about our 14 and 15 year olds and we'll have people that'll go oh well that's too, let them be a kid. There's too much responsibility. You know what's interesting? If you really pull back and you get rid of those distractions, what you will find, and I bet you are finding the same thing for your kids. My Kids at the time of this recording are 14, 12 and 9. They are equally like able to just sit and play Legos and do the most kid related things that I would argue you don't see a lot of 14 year old girls necessarily do. Like she can get in there and do the kids stuff and be like for sure and be totally at peace with that and can go work a full 60 hour week and outwork almost every adult and not bat an eye and be completely at peace with that. And she can get along with anybody and everybody along the way in between. And there's peace. And I do think is the factory setting. I think it's the ability to do all of that.

[Ginny Yurch]

Yeah, it's interesting what you brought up earlier about podcasting because I've thought about that a lot and we've talked about it just a little bit here and there. But if I were really to go back into my childhood and find the root of a successful podcast, this is a top two parenting podcast in the whole country, which is wildly mind blowing. And I only started it on a whim. It wasn't anything that was. I went to school for, I got a degree and you know, I've never gone to a conference. I, I've never done any extra learning about it at all. I just put the episodes out. But when I was a kid and we had more time to play when I was a kid and my best friend was named is named. I mean she's still a good friend. I love her. Her name is Beth. And we were best friends as kids and when we were together she listened well. And I remember how important that made me feel and I wanted to emulate that. I remember this starting in elementary school, like how can you ask good questions? How can you be a good listener? And that was just in play. You know, she'd come over and spend the night. There was a lot of space there to do those types of things. And I would equate the success of this podcast to that childhood friendship.

[Matt Boudreau]

I love that, I love that the.

[Ginny Yurch]

Simple things and that's what kids are missing, that they're missing those downtimes where you learn, like what is it? And whatever. It's going to translate into all sorts of different jobs. Like you talk about your daughter and being with all of these different age people, that's something that you get experience with when you homeschool or my daughter stepping in and taking a class and you know, no one's even close to her age. They're a decade plus older and she didn't care. She wasn't intimidated. So all of these things that happen in childhood, you don't know how they're going to weave back through into their lives for, like you say, the jobs that don't exist yet, but that are coming.

[Matt Boudreau]

That's right.

[Ginny Yurch]

It's a lot to think about.

[Matt Boudreau]

I look back, I mean, we can all do that. Can the dots connect? Well, backwards. And I, you know, people have asked, well, how did you get to. How did you get to where you are? And I can make a case that I get to do all the. The fun things that I get to do partially because I worked, you know, 25 years ago at Abercrombie and Fitch. Like, I can make a case. I can go backwards that way and I can link it. Right. But I also very much understand that there were some things that happened there that very much played into it, and that was great. But I also understand how many offshoots I had throughout my entire life because I was so distracted. That, again, the biggest thing for our kids, I really believe, is eliminating so many of those distractions in this so that they can figure out who they are and figure out where they want to go. So I think you're absolutely right. It is. It is that simplicity and experiences, the.

[Ginny Yurch]

Success, to me, experiences, not to book work, not to someone telling you what to do. It's like real life lived, embodied experiences is okay. I talked to this woman this morning because I'm out talking about homeschooling since this book is coming out, and she told me that her kids are grown, they're in their 20s. But she told me this story, and I loved this story. So she homeschooled. She's nervous. Like, everyone is nervous. People are nervous. You're afraid you're going to mess it up. And she said, you know, I just did my best. And I took my oldest daughter, she was oldest, the oldest one, when she was 17, to take the ACT or the SAT, one of those. And she said she did a phenomenal job on the test. Like, I mean, flying colors. But when she got there to take the test, she had to sign her name. And she looked at her mom, and the mom was like, oh, no, I forgot to teach cursive. So then it's the thing, right? You gotta learn how to sign your name. And then for the other kids, of course, she didn't forget to teach them cursive because it was just something that slipped through. And I know there's some schools do and some don't, and there's a Whole, I like it. I think it's good for the brain. Kids like it, it's fun to do. But you talk about this just in time learning, which I think is so phenomenal. We take so much of childhood and we use it with the grades and it's, it's just. To me, it's very arbitrary. Just in case, Just in case you.

[Matt Boudreau]

Got to get the, you know, you gotta, gotta get your Pythagorean theorem. Just in case you gotta get. And look, anytime I post something around that people go, oh, well, this profession will use it. Or I use it here, because this is what I do. Cool. That's awesome. Congratulations. That's fantastic. 99% of people don't use that. But everybody has to learn this quote, unquote, learn it in school, or at least play the game pretending like they're learning it. That to me is an issue. So it's so funny what you said there, the signature part, right? So just in time. Oh, shoot. Better figure out how to. How to sign my name. How do you know what you need to know for the rest of your life? There is no way to understand this. We are on a farm now. We've been on a farm for three years. My wife and I grew up as city kids in the Bay area of California. I did not know how to lumberjack anything. I did not know how to fix electric fence. I didn't know how a well worked. Now I have two. Now I have thousands of trees and they fall often. Now I have an electric fence that surrounds. Sounds like 20 acres. So when that fence goes down, I've got 20 acres worth of work to figure out. Where is the disconnect? What's going on? How do I fix this? Well, shouldn't I have learned that in school then? It's impossible. It is literally impossible to learn all there is to learn in an entire lifetime. So the thought that we are going to cram all of our kids with the perfect foundation so that they're never going to have to learn anything. It's provably ridiculous if you think about it. So when parents are like, oh, I think I'm gonna mess it up. Because I hear that all the time. I'm gonna mess my kid up. I go, I get it. And I understand the fear. Hey, by the way, what does that mean? And they're like, what are you talking about? What does it mean you're gonna mess up your kids? Well, I. They're just. They're not gonna know. So what are they not gonna know?

[Ginny Yurch]

They're not gonna know how to sign their name when they get to the sat, right?

[Matt Boudreau]

Because you can go down that rabbit hole forever. What are they not gonna know? So I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about what are the meta skills. These matter to all people of all time. Communication is a meta skill. You need to be able to communicate well. So I'm going to worry about that a little bit. I'm going to keep working on my kid and hey, by the way, just having great conversations with them, bringing them along while you get better at your own communication. Hey, it's kind of amazing how much their communication, right? Their physical health, things like that are meta skills. They're spiritual health. That's a meta skill skill. I'm going to worry about the meta skills, otherwise I'm just worried about their confidence and learning what they need to learn when they need to learn it. All information is available at this point. As long as you have the confidence and the drive to go get it and figure out how to apply it, you're going to be okay. What are you going to mess up?

[Ginny Yurch]

Yes, because everybody has holes. That's the whole point.

[Matt Boudreau]

Always.

[Ginny Yurch]

Everybody has holes. You can't help it, right? Can you imagine, I think that your fixing Wells example is the ideal pinnacle of an example because you say, look, 99% of people don't use the Pythagorean theorem. A squared plus B squared equals C squared. Also, how easy is that? You can learn it when you need to learn it. I mean, it's just a couple letters with squared. I mean, it's not that complicated of a thing. Learn it when you need to learn it. If you're the 1%, what if every single student in the entire country or in the whole world had to learn how to fix a well, Right? People will be up in arms. They'll be like, well, why they would.

[Matt Boudreau]

Be up in arms? You gotta learn how to fix the well or you've got to learn how to. I, you know, I ask people when they're like, oh, but I gotta, you know, the standards of certain things. I'm back. Cool, man. Hey, how's your child's double leg takedown? And they're like, what? I'm like, how's it, how's your child's double leg takedown? Like, my son is working on his double leg takedown right now and he's, he's getting really, really good at in his body lock and his gable grip. And they're like, what are you talking about? My kids don't wrestle. I'm like, oh, so they don't need to learn that. That my kid wrestles. So he does need to learn that, right? So again, it's, it's such an individual journey. And yeah, the A squared, you know, plus B squared equals C squared. It's more complicated to learn how to drive a vehicle. Why don't we start our kids at 5 learning how to drive? Why do we wait until they get their permit and see how quickly they pick that up? It's the same flipping thing. You're only afraid of it because you've been taught to be afraid of it. It. You're only afraid of it because you've been taught that if you don't do these certain things at these certain times, that somehow you're going to go to jail or something. Like your kid's going to grow up and just, you know, be homeless, like. But it's provably false.

[Ginny Yurch]

Yes. And so the homeschooling book that's coming out, it talks about individual timelines and that is just in time learning, right? There should be allowances for individual timelines. If your child can't read and they're eight years old, that's fine. We should be allowing kids, kids to blossom on their own individual timeline.

[Matt Boudreau]

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[Ginny Yurch]

Can you talk to an anxious parent about being behind or ahead.

[Matt Boudreau]

Yeah. I always ask. This is. I love that. I love that question. I love that conversation. And it's one that we have a bunch. I'm really worried. I talked to a lady yesterday. I don't remember her name. She was fantastic. She just reached out on Instagram, and so we were just messaging back and forth, and she said, I'm just so worried because my son is behind. And I said, I'm so glad that you are. You know, you love your child and you want to lead your child. Well, I'm really, really thankful for intentional parents. By the way, he's behind. What? She said, well, he's behind in school. I said, what is. What does that mean? And so I just start asking these questions to get her to come out with her own. She's like, well, it just means the other students are, you know, they're supposed to be at grade level. He's not at grade level. I said, what is grade level? Are you at grade level, ma' am? I said, I think you and I are about the same age. So are you at grade level for our age? She goes, what does that even mean? I said, exactly. It's not a real thing. And it's not a real thing for them either. So does he have any kind of disabilities? No, he does not. Does he have it? Okay, so look, what is it with reading? What's going on? Well, he hates it. We've forced. We force it on. The school forces it on. They force ar tests. They do all these things. So he hates it. I'm like, okay, so here's the problem. You're actually forcing something versus making it amazing. Like it could be and should be making it magical. Like, that's the problem here. So he's resisting it doesn't mean he's not going to learn how to read. But you're killing the love of it right now. But ahead and behind is not. If a head and behind was a real thing, then I'm just gonna put a bit of logic in there. Shouldn't that keep going when you're 18, when you're 24, when you're 31, when you're 48? You know, I'm 45 right now. What's the ahead and behind? Who do I compare myself to? We don't do that at an older age because we realize that you can't. You literally can't map that because there.

[Ginny Yurch]

Is just a vast diversity in life, and there should be. Right? That's the beauty of it.

[Matt Boudreau]

It that is the beauty of it. So stop with the ahead in the behind. Again, that's an arbitrary metric put in place by a system that does not have child development in mind. Never mind your child's development in mind.

[Ginny Yurch]

I love the. You talk about the meta skills. I was thinking about. We've got one of our kids that she. She, like, corrects people during conversation all the time. So, you know, you would be like, yeah, you know that we've got this friend. He's 11. She'd be like, well, he's 10. You know, like that type of thing. And so then, you know, actually. Yeah, right, right. So then you have to teach. You have to teach like, honey, you know, people. It doesn't really matter if it's. If it's this minor detail, you know, you're teaching. That's a meta skill to help them further their conversational skills. And I've thought, because it's happened a couple different times, I've thought, well, what if I wasn't there? What if I wasn't there to overhear that? And she's having all these conversations during the day with other people and correcting them all the time. And, you know, you just think that is such a small thing, but really, it's a really big thing. It's a big thing that I was there and able to overhear it. And because we're living together in proximity, then you are helping your kids with these meta skills. It's just like when they're little and you help them to pronounce a word differently, right? They say spaghetti, and you say, oh, it's spaghetti. It's like those little. It's just those little tweaks. Little tweaks.

[Matt Boudreau]

It's just coaching. Right? And if anybody here has an athletic background, like, it's just coaching, it's your coach going, okay, I see what you're doing. I see how you think that that's effective. If you just try this little tweak, that makes it a little better. Right. That's all we're doing. It's the same thing.

[Ginny Yurch]

Yeah. And it's really powerful over an accumulated period of time. How about this? One of the things that we talk about is learning through living. We've talked quite a bit about that today. We've talked about that in the past. It is interesting to me, Matt, that as a culture, we really undermine that. Like, nobody seems to care. And we, you know, we'll throw in, like, story problems. Like, that's the closest that we get. Or, like, here and there, these kind of, like, fake projects. I remember being a teacher, and it's like, you're. You're. You're trying, but it just doesn't really work. Why do you think, as a culture, that we don't value lived experiences?

[Matt Boudreau]

I. I think we don't. That's a great question. Why, as a culture, do we not value the lived experiences? And I, I think that's probably a multi. Multifaceted answer. I do think school is a big part of that, and I do think I go back to distractions. Distractions aren't just things that, you know, the young kids have just. We're distracted as adults, too. We're distracted by social media. We're distracted by keeping up with the Joneses. We're distracted by sometimes working jobs that we don't love with people that we don't necessarily love to. You know, we're distracted by all those things. So we have stopped putting a value on the things that are most valuable. Included is what you're talking about here. I think we have stripped that. But the value of those experiences is the only way to learn. And I make that case in the. You know, one of the TED talks that I was talking about is. Is. And I go back to that school in Jiu jitsu, and it's like, you don't sit there and watch it on TV or watch a reel of it or, you know, do a history test around people that were really good at Jiu jitsu, and then do a trifle, a full board, and do a. An example of, you know, you stand up and you do, like a business fair of a jiu jitsu players. That's not the same as actually getting on the mat and getting your butt kicked. Like, that's it. It's the same thing as parenting. You can read all the parenting books in the world, and that's great, and there can be some great information in there. But when you have your kids, then you see, oof. Okay, this is how to actually do. I've got to figure out so much as I go. When you start a business for the first time, you can. You read all the business books in the world, but it's when you actually start the business where you go, okay, this is difficult. I got to figure this out. Just. This is where I got to go find and pull this information. I'm doing it a little differently than everybody else, so I've got to. You have to have the lived experience. So why would we not provide that exact same thing for our kids? It's great to talk about certain things and give examples, but let's get them involved. And having to make those decisions real time, we've done them a disservice by taking that out of culture.

[Ginny Yurch]

You have to get in the game. I did that with gardening.

[Matt Boudreau]

Gardening.

[Ginny Yurch]

I was so nervous about it. I don't know enough books, Book, book, book. And then what changed it for me is this book called Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots by this woman named Sharon Lovejoy. And it's about gardening with kids. And it wasn't about the mechanics of gardening. It was about the wonder of gardening. It was like, can you build a garden of giants? And then she would say, like the giant pumpkins. And it was like, can you build a pizza garden? Can you build a moon garden where all the things bloom at night? And can you build a sunflower house? And we have tried six times and our sunflower house has never quite worked out. But I just planted it again for this is time number six, because it was enticing. And then you have the experience to say, that didn't work, that worked. I want to try that again. That was easy to grow. That wasn't easy to grow. But I could have just stuck with the books and had nothing to show for it.

[Matt Boudreau]

And had nothing for it. You know, there's a great quote and I don't remember for some reason I'm going back and forth in my head between Naval Ravikant and Carl Sagan. And I, I don't know, it may be. I may be mixing some things up, but it was something along the lines of like, curiosity really is the engine of achievement. And that wonder always makes learning a joy instead of a chore. Right? It makes learning a joy because you are so curious. That is the engine of achievement. What is next? You ask the next question and you can't help but give it a shot and see what happens. That's. Gardening is a perfect example. Raising animals, that's a perfect example. The more wonder and curiosity we bring to the table, the better is. And we know this from a. You know, you can take a look at that from. If anybody here is an entrepreneur and if you have employees, think about your employees. Employees, the ones that are hard set and like, nope, this is how you do it. You're like, ah, no, I really want them to do it this way. And the, the, the beef that happens there versus the employee that comes in and goes, man, I am so. I'm in love with what we are doing. I'm so passionate. I'm so curious. What about this Idea, this idea, this idea, this idea. You're like, yeah, give me that person all day long, all day long. And they show up with a different attitude because of that too. You know, wonder makes learning a joy and not a chore. I really, really believe that.

[Ginny Yurch]

I read this book recently by this man named Sahil Bloom. The title is the Five Types of Wealth. And he talks about how it's money. Money is a vehicle to different things, but money is not the end all, be all. It's a fantastic book. It just came out and he's already gotten it in the airport. So it's obviously really, really good. But he says this and I thought it's a great book for parenting because it's going to help your teenagers. He says at every step of your career, you're going to be given a lot of tasks you have no idea how to complete. This is what you and I are talking about. Self reliance, like this is part of life. You're going to be given a job and you're not going to totally know what to do. Here's what he says. There is nothing more valuable than someone who can just figure it out, ask the key questions, do some work, get it done. If you do that, people will fight over you.

[Matt Boudreau]

You bet. You're the linchpin. You are a linchpin. Like that's to use Seth Godin's term, right? You're the linchpin. There you become invaluable table.

[Ginny Yurch]

Yeah.

[Matt Boudreau]

And imagine if we set up an environment for our kids to be able to not only earn that skill, but to be able to show others that they have earned the skill. So one of the things that we do with our kids, with our, all of our Apogee students too, is is they develop a digital portfolio. It's really a branding. I don't really like that word. But sometimes it's a website, sometimes it's a social media, sometimes it's a. They'll do it on PowerPoint slides or, or something. But all they're doing is they're stacking proof that they are that kind of person through the projects and challenges they're taking on, through their reflections, through the interviews that they're conducting, they're stacking proof that they are the person that is going to figure out and get it done. They get a roadmap of challenges and projects, but we don't tell them exactly how to do every single bit. We just come together with them every single week and go, okay, let's talk about it, what happened? And get their take on it. And, you know, they're create. They're writing their own, own script. And that does make you that linchpin. And it's something that also, in my experience, brings you a piece like nothing else. It's an anxiety reliever. You know, again I mentioned of all earlier, one of my favorite things that he says is, if you are so smart, why aren't you happy?

[Ginny Yurch]

Right?

[Matt Boudreau]

He says the, the biggest test in life, he says, really the biggest test of intelligence is do you get what you want out of life? That's really it. And if you are anxious and you are, you know, always feeling like you're in turmoil, I would argue that that's a lack of a skill set at some point, that you have not earned the skills to bring that piece back to yourself. And that's part of what we are letting these kids earn is that skill set that brings that sort of peace. Man.

[Ginny Yurch]

Do you get what you want out of life? You have to practice that. You have to practice figuring it out. You have to practice thinking about it. And if you spend your whole childhood where the only thing, the only end goal is some college, you know, diploma and then some college, that is such a narrow view of. Leonard Sachs calls it the middle class script. And he says it doesn't work. You know, the middle class script is do good in school so you can go to college so you can get a good job, so you can be happy. And he's like. He goes, the problem with the middle class script is that it's false. That's what he says, right?

[Matt Boudreau]

That's a huge problem. But everybody wants that step one through 10. And it's just like, let's just give me the steps that everybody else is doing. I don't have to worry about it. I don't have to think about it. I'll take responsibility for myself. I don't have to have my friends or my family think that I'm strange because I'm going off script. All of that is off of me. Of course, at the end, you are in that same cage as everybody else, right? And Jodorowsky says the birds born in a cage thing, flying is an illness, right? And so you're the one in the cage looking at the birds flying outside, just going, okay, you know, they're crazy out there. We're safe, secure in here. It might not. It might kind of. It sucks. And other people, we're having to rely on other people. At least we know we're safe. And that's the safety in, in that regard. In that definition is one of the biggest diseases of our time.

[Ginny Yurch]

Yeah. When you talk about your daughter, you're talking about, do you get what you want out of life? She's having practice doing that as a 14 year old. You're practicing, do I like these horses? Do I like working outside? Do I like working with these people? Do I like working at a camp? What do I want out of life? And a child could have have a solid 15 years, 14, 10 years where they really get a chance to start to figure that out. I think it can start pretty young. What do I like, what do I not like? What do I want out of life? As opposed to it being one singular thing that at 18 or then you, then you invest a hundred thousand dollars and now you're 22 and you're like.

[Matt Boudreau]

Wait, and you're going, shoot. I guess I better go down this path because I told everybody that's the path I was going down. And I, I spent a lot of money to go. I mean we've got stories upon stories of that. Like I'm in nursing because I was told it was going to make good money and it was always going to be in demand. But it's actually kind of hard to find a job and I hate the job, but I've got such a big loan to pay back. Like I have those conversations all the time. How, I mean, how old were you when you started thinking, well, what do I want out of life? You know, I know I was much.

[Ginny Yurch]

Older, I was a parent. That's what it was for me. That was the catalyst for me was I have this, this child. What exactly am I going to do? And then really it was stacked upon it when I, we decided to homeschool because that is a, that is a lifestyle choice and that sends you a certain direction and it ripples out. It ripples out. You learn. I don't have to do things the way every single person around me does. You learn, you learn. I'm going to start learning. You learn all these things we're talking about, right? That I grow, my kids grow alongside me. You learn about all of these things that you didn't even realize existed. And it makes life a lot fuller. There's a lot more opportunities out there and you have to practice this, you have to practice it because you can't, you don't all of a sudden just get that. You don't turn 22 and then all of a sudden you're going to start to learn what you want out of life. You've kind of Missed two decades of practice.

[Matt Boudreau]

You missed a lot of times at that point, you are following somebody else's script. And so even success in that script, success without peace is failure in disguise. My heart breaks for them. Not that you can't fix that and turn that around. And you and I are examining. I would argue I probably started even later than you asking myself that dang question. I think you're. You smartened up way before I did.

[Ginny Yurch]

But way later than our own kids. I mean, way later, decades and decades later, realize, oh, there's different ways that you can do life.

[Matt Boudreau]

That's right.

[Ginny Yurch]

This heel bloom in his book said it's what you were talking about earlier. Build a reputation for figuring it out. Build a reputation. And that's what these kids are doing in these different scenarios or running out of time. Here. I want to hit one more because this is one I think that parents struggle with when they choose to homeschool or they're thinking about homeschooling or even they're looking back on their year and they're kind of like, we didn't quite get as much done as we hoped. Boredom is a huge piece of something that you're doing right with homeschooling. This is a piece where. To me, to me, Matt, some of this is really that our deficits, the fact that we cannot fill every bit of time, actually turn out to be strengths for our kids. So the inherent situation with homeschooling is that your kids are going to be bored sometimes. And some parents would think that's a waste of time. What would you tell a parent who's afraid that their kid is wasting time if they're not constantly learning something measurable?

[Matt Boudreau]

Yeah. Gosh, I love how you frame that, too. Because there is such a thing as wasting time. And that's when it's. Something is pulling you away from the person that you want to be or, you know, the values that you espouse. And there are ways to waste time because it's pulling yourself backwards. What you said right there is, you know, when they're not doing something that is measurable. There are so many amazing endeavors that are not measurable. Boredom is something that is an absolute, absolute gift. That's what I want parents to really try to train their brain around, is that boredom is a gift. I've told my kids from day one. So they don't even. They. They don't even say this anymore. But they used to, you know, if they're, ah, I'm bored. I would always tell them it's not possible to be bored. It's only possible to be boring. So as they're younger, we give them a lot of things to choose from. It's like, all right, man, I'm gonna give you a bunch of choices of things you can do. Here's A, B, C, D, E, F, G. I'm not going to give you H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P. Because those aren't good decisions. So during the day right now, you're not going to go scroll on, not going to go jump on a computer, you're not going to go watch tv. You're not going to. But look, here are a bunch of things you can do. Here's a bunch of books, here's some project ideas over here. I'll start them off with some things. You know, I had to do that when they were younger. I don't ever have to do that at this point anymore. Because they know that when they're feeling bored, it's because they're being boring. And it's time to create. Boredom is not an enemy of learning or growth. Boredom is literally the birthplace of creativity. It is the birthplace of that curiosity and of self discovery. It is that peace and quiet forced upon you to figure out who am I and what do I want to do? If we are going to continuously keep our. And we see that, by the way, the factory settings are no different for us. Right. It's the same thing. We see this in our to. If we keep our kids constantly entertained, we are going to rob them of the chance to learn how to entertain themselves. And that's where the imagination is born. It teaches the brain to generate rather than consume. Yes.

[Ginny Yurch]

And if you want to be the type of person that has a reputation for figuring things out, you've got to have an imagination. And if you want to thrive in a world where you, you might have seven careers, you have to have an imagination. You have to be able to pull something out of nothing and move forward with that. Now I just am so honored to be connected with you.

[Matt Boudreau]

You're one of my favorites. One of my favorites. Love what you're doing. I am so excited about the book. You did such an amazing job. Once, once I was able to, I patted my cue and I was like, oh, because you had sent over that. And once I, I knew I had a couple of weeks before I was going to be able to read it, but once I did, I went through it. I mean, I went through it really flipping quickly every single word. And I was, I'm telling you, I was just going, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. You did an amazing job. This is a gift to the world.

[Ginny Yurch]

Thank you, Matt. Yes. We're so in alignment. Can you give one final message to a parent who feels unqualified? I know you say, look, you fiercely believe that parents are the most qualified to guide their children's education, give one final word of encouragement.

[Matt Boudreau]

So I will just say, you know, the. The fear that's gripping you. I just want you to ask yourself one question. Does anybody else that I would send my kids to love them the way I love them now, if you can honestly say, yeah, you know what? Anybody. Everybody that I send them to is going to love those kids and know those kids better than me, they're going to love them better. Okay, well, then I don't know what the scenario is, but okay, maybe there's a conversation here, right? But for the majority of parents, you're going to say, no, of course not. Nobody loves that child like I love that child. Nobody knows that child like I love that child. Let's figure out, where do we want to go together? How do we want to grow together? And when you step into that and genuinely let yourself be curious and enjoy that, that gets caught by them, too. You start the engine. You start with love and the curiosity, and. And I promise it'll pass along to them. You make normal what you make normal. So go make that normal.

[Ginny Yurch]

It's so powerful. I'll make sure everybody knows where they can find you if I. I love what you said at the beginning, that two people are possibly, like, wanting to put an apogee program in the same location. So then you're having to decide which one. So it's like, hey, listen, jump on it now. Jump on it now before you're gonna be pitted against somebody else. This is what people want. They want support. They want support in their communities. They want to have community. And everybody wants to grow. Once you start to grow, you realize how good it feels and how it trickles down to your kids. And so, Matt, thank you so much. I know that we'll stay connected, and I really, really appreciate you writing the endorsement and joining us here today.

[Matt Boudreau]

Honor is always mine.