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What mindsets make someone successful? We discuss this and more with Sarah Hernholm, founder of WIT (Whatever It Takes), which teaches entrepreneurship to kids ages 12-18. Join us as we explore the intersection of education, youth empowerment, and the entrepreneurial mindset.

Episode Transcription

Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode.

Marlin Detweiler:
Hello again and welcome to another episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Recently we had a guest, Sarah Hernholm. I forgot her married name.

Sarah Hernholm:
Woody.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. Sarah. I'll call you Sarah Hernholm-Woody. I don't know.

Sarah Hernholm:
Yeah. There. I guess that's what we're at for now.

Marlin Detweiler:
Anyway, she wrote an article that was published by Forbes on classical Christian education. And when I talked to you about it, Sarah, I learned that you had a business that defied what I thought was possible. And unlike me, maybe 20 years ago, I love it when people graciously like you did prove that I'm wrong.

And so hopefully those of you that are watching and listening are teased enough to hang around to hear what that is. But Sarah, first introduce yourself again, this time more briefly because others may have heard you before, but maybe a little bit of your background and what brings you here today for this talk?

Sarah Hernholm:
Well, I relate to you because there was a time when I did not like to be proven wrong. And now I'm like, sure, tell me. I can do that. I relate to that. It's good. Growth is possible. So that's good. So like you said, we had a fun chat earlier. I hope everyone enjoys that episode.

On the article that I wrote in Forbes about classical Christian education. Very new to it, got my own exposure to it by traveling out and seeing a school, reading books, and I just had to write about it. So that's how we met. And then my career trajectory is really, I guess, to be in my 20s. I was in TV and film.

Then I moved on to education. Being a teacher, public school teacher, left, started an organization called Whatever It Takes to chat a little bit about, and I've been doing that for over 15 years.

Marlin Detweiler:
Let me make sure that that didn't get lost on people. WIT, it stands for Whatever It Takes. And the website is doingwit dot yes.

Sarah Hernholm:
Yes. Doingwit.org. Our motto is do Whatever It Takes. But that motto came from my classroom. I had that painted on a paper banner in my classroom, every classroom I taught in, and that was our classroom motto. You may run into students that I taught, and they will still say that. One of my pictures by my computer desktop is that picture of that class and the banner.

So it's near and dear to me. But that is something I created after leaving the traditional classroom. And since running WIT, I also write for Forbes on education and entrepreneurship. And I speak around the country on the topic, and I've given a few TED Talks, and I keep myself busy.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. Well, today what we want to talk about is young people. The age range that you deal WITh is 12 to 17, primarily.

Sarah Hernholm:
Yep.

Marlin Detweiler:
12 to 17. And helping them to develop entrepreneurial thinking. This is ideas and developing gifts that they have and interest that they have into entrepreneurial opportunities. Give us an overview of what that looks like. And then I'll ask you some more. We'll drill down WITh some other questions because as I said to you, when we talk offline.

Yeah, I was, you know, in the 90s, colleges started adopting entrepreneurship programs and degrees and that sort of thing. And I found that a little bit silly because I didn't really believe that entrepreneurship could be taught because it really needed to be caught. And that's where you were able to convince me that it's not quite that simple or quite that limited.

And so that's what I hope we can really develop here. So tell us a little bit about the overview of what it is exactly that you do with it.

Sarah Hernholm:
So we're really big on helping young people activate that entrepreneurial mindset. And then we do that through entrepreneurship, through launching a business, a side hustle, maybe a giveback program. Eventually it could turn into a nonprofit. We're basically asking children to tap into something that they are good at and figure out how they could turn that into a business and how they could turn that into a business that actually gives back.

And we know that a lot of young people are asked, what's your passion? What do you want to be when you grow up? And that's a really intense question to ask somebody who's been on the planet for, you know, 12 years. There's many adults that don't even know what their passions are. They evolve and they change.

So that's why we try to take that. It's very heavy. It's a big ask of a young person, but instead ask them, you know, what do you enjoy doing when you have your own free time? Yeah. And then we explore what they're already doing and we explore how that can be turned into a business. And then we take them through the steps of launching that as a business and all the things that come with that.

So the thing that we do that I just love is we just build in that failure is going to happen and that mistakes are going to happen. And what better place to do that than at wit, Whatever It Takes, where we totally care about your child. And we know that then building that resilience and that grit happens when they fall.

It doesn't happen when everything is smooth sailing, right. And there's really no place in it except, you know, that I've really seen in like the traditional public school setting and even private school settings where failure is allowed. There's a lot of achieve, achieve, achieve grades, grades and at WIT we just that's not what we're about. We need our young people to face rejection.

We need our young people to mess up, to fail, to have an idea that doesn't stick. Well, what do you do? Do you give up? Do you pivot? That's what we do with the young people in our program.

Marlin Detweiler:
How does the program exist? What are the options? Our marketplace, the people that are listening are generally speaking people who have an affinity for classical Christian education, whether they are parents or teachers or administrators, probably some students as well, in the homeschool world as well as the classical school world. So those are people that I would think would be very attracted to entrepreneurship. Tell us how it plays out in your various programs.

Sarah Hernholm:
Well, we want to make it accessible to everyone that's interested in doing what we're doing. We run the program virtually. There is an application process and we offer a variety of classes. They range from the person that's just getting started on the entrepreneurship journey and the teen that might already have a business and is having a hard time getting eyes on it.

And we have a PR class that they can take that is taught by somebody who runs a PR firm. So it's incredible that all of our courses and our classes are taught by people who are entrepreneurs, which is very different than in school entrepreneurship programs. And in that PR class, for example, every week a reporter from a different media outlet comes in and teens get to pitch their business.

So we really are giving you real world exposure because teens always, they want us to treat them like they can handle the real world. So we go, okay, let's handle the real world. Here's a reporter. Are you ready? And then they're like, oh, wait, I gotta go prepare because we're bringing in a reporter from the Financial Times or, you know, Forbes next week.

So show up ready to go. So we do make sure that we offer our programs virtually. Like I said, we do have in-person events but those are hosted by either a school or an organization and they're called hackathons. So we do that. And then we have the.

Marlin Detweiler:
Name what makes an in-person version of what you do virtually a hackathon.

Sarah Hernholm:
Okay, because you are hacking your city or your school's biggest problems. And our approach there is we tell young people, well, adults have created these problems and they clearly can't solve them. So we need you and we need you to do it because, right, the adults have totally messed up and they're like, yeah, they have. Okay, well let's fix it.

And we do it either in a 1 to 2 day event. It's very fast paced. It's so much fun. I know you're just hearing me say that, but I'm telling you, the kids say that what they usually say after a hackathon is. I wish school felt like this.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah.

Sarah Hernholm:
Ultimately, at the end of the day of the hackathon, they pitch their solution to the problem to a panel of judges, and then there's a winner because in life there are the first place winner is in second place and third place. So not everybody wins this. And this is.

Marlin Detweiler:
A little like Shark Tank.

Sarah Hernholm:
It is. And there's pizza and there's candy and it's fun. And kids are public speaking because they have to and they I think we sometimes as adults just underestimate the power of our children and what kids do.

Given I mean, what we do in 24 to 48 hours, people are like, how did that happen? Why? Because they have it in them. It's up to us, the adults, to use the right language, create the right systems to bring it out in them.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, that is incredible. Who in that age range is capable of being an entrepreneur.

Sarah Hernholm:
Well, I mean, we start them at 12, and I would even say, well, my nephew, I mean, he was selling Amazon Prime drinks on the corner and his neighborhood when he was nine years old, ten years old and charging more than they cost at the store and was making money off of that. And so we have to realize that young people, we're almost conditioned, like when we're little, when your parents would say, if you want that, you have to pay for it. You found a way to do it. You did yard work. You babysat, you.

Marlin Detweiler:
Know, more than half collected glass bottles to turn in for credit.

Sarah Hernholm:
Right? I mean, it's already in them. And so it's not hard to just take a couple different approaches with them and a couple different like rounds of questioning to get them to see how that could actually become a business. Could you for the summer be the person that takes care of the yards in the neighborhood? That's a business.

How would you promote that? How could you get the word out? What would you charge? How many people do you want? How many hours do you want to work a week? This is how you start talking to them. So I think that our young people are capable starting at eight nine years old, except for our program is more about a 12 year old, a 17 year old.

And sometimes our teens are launching their building apps, and they're doing that type of thing too. So everything is, you know, an in-person program like a lawn system or like a lawn job or a babysitting job.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. What are you, how long have you been around doing this?

Sarah Hernholm:
15 years. Wow.

Marlin Detweiler:

Okay, you'll have the data set to answer this easily. What are the attributes that you would say have made students most successful in your incubator environment? And then follow up to that, what are the attributes that students take that can be full fledged entrepreneurs that are really building businesses that support them?

Sarah Hernholm:
The biggest shift that we see in our young people is that they might come in with more of, let's call it a victim mindset, like everything's happening to them. And we there's a switch that happens at wet, which we call a switch into a Victor mindset, where everything is happening for them and that they become, we say, are solution focused, solution oriented versus problem focused. Okay.

And that is something that they can take anywhere that they go. A lot of times we talk to parents about, you know, the impact of WIT, or they use the language back to us of what they seen in their child as a part of, you know, after being in wet and there's something about what we do that really turns a young person into growing up to be a contributing member of society.

There is something in them that shifts in their mindset. And we do have these principles called the 11 tips for doing with it. And a lot of it is really about getting somebody to stop looking at what is wrong and blaming somebody else for it, and instead going, this isn't working. How do I fix it? What can I do?

We want people. We want our young people to be self-confident and we want them to be giving back. So it's not about just like, get it and win it just for you, but you can be successful. But on your journey of being successful, look around and find ways not to give a handout but to give a hand up.

So I think there's just a humility that happens in our young people too, because they come in thinking that they know everything, which is fine. I felt that way as a teen as well, and even as an adult. I times. So, there's when they realize that it's okay to be wrong and that it's good to ask questions and.

I think now that I'm thinking about this, it almost feels like they come into us and they take a load off, like they're carrying this identity out in the world. That's just like this push towards getting good grades and getting into the quote unquote right school. And then they come to us and there's a shift that happens where they start really getting to know who they are and tapping into their gifts and talents, and that it really is our responsibility.

And when we're on this planet and then in this experience to share those gifts and those talents. So I think that we do a good job cultivating that. I don't think I answered your question, but you're getting me thinking. So.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. Well, let me bring you back to the question. What are the roots of the participants that you find to make them most successful?

Sarah Hernholm:
Well, humility.

Marlin Detweiler:
Okay. So they're teachable.

Sarah Hernholm:
Curious.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. Is a character that would be risk-taking?

Sarah Hernholm:
Yeah. I mean, you do have to teach that. You do have to teach getting comfortable with taking a risk now for a young person. And sometimes young people have a hard time putting out into the world like what they're doing. That's really good and really impressive because they're afraid of what other people are going to think and that they're going to judge us.

We hear this, Martinez. Like, let's say one of our teens gets on TV talking about their business that they launched, and we say, okay, you want to go share that with people and share that on your Instagram and put that out into the world. And they're like, well, what if people judge me? What if people think, you know, they make fun of me for doing this? And that in a way feels risky to them?

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah.

Sarah Hernholm:
And so we help them work through that. Mostly our tip for that and for anybody who struggles with that is if your business helps other people, people need to know about it because how can you help more people if people don't know about what you're doing? So instead of making it about her, like, let's say your name is like Molly, instead of being that, know Molly, you want to get the word out.

So everyone know that Molly is amazing. Instead, it's, you want to get the word out because the work that you're doing is helping people and it's making a difference. And if people learn about it, then more people can be served by the work that you're doing. And that reframe is a much—this is kind of like what we like to promote when it comes to entrepreneurship. Which is different than what you see in the entrepreneurship world.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. Can you give any examples if in 15 years do you have any, 20 something, maybe even 30 something success stories?

Sarah Hernholm:
Well, I'll give you a couple and what success looks like to me. I still get people that send me emails that have children and they talk about using the wet tips in their home and they thank me. Or maybe it comes because they've had another experience with their child in the education setting that isn't great.

And they go, gosh, I wish they had you because you were so great to me. You believed in me when nobody else did. That always is wonderful.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, that's a nice thing to hear, isn't it?

Sarah Hernholm:
It is. And we also have people that have graduated, gone on to do other work, and have come back and are working for it because they've said, I want to work for an organization that has a mission that I really believe in because it changed my life. And then we also have the people that are out there running completely different businesses.

We've got one guy who runs a very large agency, media agency, and he comes back and guests speak and he says, like, I know that you think that, you know, message is kind of annoying sometimes or like it asks too much, but trust me, this is the stuff that really matters, you know, forget your algebra class. I'm like, okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, like that.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, that may be a little bit presumptuous.

Sarah Hernholm:
So I think the fact that they still feel close to us or they're incorporating the work that they the messaging that the language that they learned at Witt in their life. We just are really proud of the children that have gone through our program and what they do in the world. They are people of strong character.

They are focused on others while also making sure to take care of themselves and their families and their solution oriented. They're not victim mindset people. So that's what I think. Those are the success story. That's the success.

Marlin Detweiler:
That's I've always believed since getting involved in classical Christian education that is the type of education that best positions someone to be entrepreneurial and successful. Do you see that? I know that your exposure to classical LED is relatively recent, but you've done some deep research. How would you say a classically educated kid is prepared in maybe the ideal way from their formal education to be entrepreneurial?

Sarah Hernholm:
Well, I'll tell you, as the audience knows, my exposure is limited but legit. Okay, I've gone to the campuses, I've researched, I wrote a Forbes article about it, but something that stood out to me when I was on campus is that the creativity is already there. The fostering of just to.

Marlin Detweiler:
To tell the audience this is that a particular Ax member classical Christian school called the Aspen School in Boise, Idaho?

Sarah Hernholm:
Yes, yes, I visited that campus at my request. I went they did not know that I was a reporter when I went. So there wasn't anybody like putting on a show for me. I went in as an everyday person just doing a tour and the creativity is there. The cultivation of creativity is there. The ability to, and that you need that as an entrepreneur.

Okay. I mean, you and I saw that through the projects that the young kids were doing and the way they're being spoken to, the open ended questions. I think where that is really that lays the foundation for somebody who's ready for entrepreneurship because they've learned that there's different ways to look at things. And I think that's what this type of education cultivates. That they're to explore the different viewpoints and then ultimately deciding on the approach that you want to take or what is right.

I feel like what I, something else that I notice was patience and I might that might sound kind of like a weird thing to have noticed, but I did. And I think that entrepreneurs. You have to I mean, it's tough, but things don't happen overnight. And that builds resilience when you just, you know, have to keep trying and finding another way.

I just think that through the way that I saw young people doing projects or the learning that I saw, there were.

There it was an approach that if they like that, so they were to come to where it would be familiar to them. It would be it wouldn't be as much of a shock as for some of the kids that come to it and they're like, well, I never had someone to talk to an adult talk to me like that or expect that from me.

Marlin Detweiler:
I don't know how you deal with this. And with my experience as a businessman and as an entrepreneur has me looking back on my exposure to the law, to accounting and to finance as basic ingredients in any entrepreneurial business activity. What do you think about that and how if you think those things are important, how do you expose the do you call them clients? What do you call them? I don't want to call them kids.

Sarah Hernholm:
I know I don't call them kids. They know they take it from me because they know it's a lot

Marlin Detweiler:
Of WIT. How do you expose these kinds of things and help them build their knowledge and understanding?

Sarah Hernholm:
Well, we've definitely noticed that our students that come to WIT are lacking in financial literacy. This is an article that I have that I'm going to be putting out soon. Just the lack of financial literacy in young people or in the education system. And it's the number one thing. I mean, this literally happened last night.

We got an application for our financial course that we offer at Wit from a 44 year old last night that said, would you be open to making an exception because this is so important that I understand this and I want to teach, I want to teach other people how to do it. Do you have a course that teaches adults so they can then go teach young people?

And I like to have this application and it's legit. And I did some googling on him. He's legit. But basically just saying people need this and they can't find it so they come in without that. Okay. And so there's layers to what you're going to learn at went depending on your business depending on your exposure to entrepreneurship before we meet you.

But what we do often get is the person that comes in and says when we say it. Okay, now it's time to talk about the budget for your business. Like what are your expenses? Oh, I don't have any. And we say, what do you mean how many? Well I already have the yarn or I already have the cooking supplies.

And I said, but your mom and dad bought that. How much does that cost? And you know, as they say when I because I'll come to you and it will sound like this. We're going to charge a dollar a cookie. I'm like, no, you're not okay. Yeah. Because I don't have any expenses. Yes you do. So it's just teaching that.

And that's actually how young people want to learn about math and apply math to their life is real world application. So that's I mean, I would say that's like how basic we teach it with starting with your budget. And then if you take this class that's taught by a gentleman who has sold a couple businesses and he also runs a nonprofit, he comes in and teaches a financial class.

You're going to get a lot more in depth at that's like just wants to if you just want to be that to be your focus and that goes into investing basic and then finance. Basic finance. So we have a range. But that's how it ties into for the business case.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. You just were talking I was remembering an example. I have four boys and all of them have had their own businesses and have been entrepreneurial. They kind of grew up thinking that way. But one of the remarkable experiences that I remember and I. I'm going to say what I think we should have done differently so that the audience might consider this because of what you just said.

They on July 4th, there was a, my in-laws lived in Highlands, North Carolina, on the ninth tee of a golf course that was perfectly situated before the halfway house on a hot day in the summer to sell lemonade. So they've all four sat out there and every single group that came through. But, lemonade for every one of the kids, it was very successful, 100% market penetration into their market.

But I and they only charged $0.50 which doesn't sound like much today. Back then it was a bit more. This is probably the early 90s, maybe late 80s. No, it definitely was early 90s. But what they should have done, which I wish I would have done, was put $0.50 on their price and put a strikethrough and say $1.50 because grandma has to be paid back.

Sarah Hernholm:
Yeah. What do like or do. It's. Yeah. We like to teach them like how to do like the two like you know, what would it cost to get two of them. It's a little bit you know like price it so that they people will automatically.

Marlin Detweiler:
Take the piece $0.90 for two. Okay.

Sarah Hernholm:
Yeah. And then they give you the change because when you get to get the tip you know like all that kind of stuff. Yeah. And that is that's great. Yeah. Because people have to learn the people need to learn what the things cost money. Your Wi-Fi costs money. Your electricity costs money. Your computer you're using cost money.

So yeah it's it's fun. It's really cute actually to hear some people like even like 16 year olds like that. I was already working at 16. But 16 year olds that have never held a job and never had to pay for anything except for using a debit card that's their parents and then just having no sense of what things cost.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. Well, my desire in this episode was to expose people to the idea that there is an opportunity out there. You're providing it. I gotta look it up again. Doing with dawg. Yeah. To help kids take their education and apply it to a real world context, even if it is in a small way, but helps them get to thinking about how they can create a livelihood.

Do good, do for others, and make living at the same time. It is wonderful to see and I hope that our audience will come visit the site and I hope they'll tell you that this is why they ended up there. This.

Sarah Hernholm:
I hope so when we offer a really fun summer camp. It's virtual. It's five days and it culminates in the chance to win a $1,000. We only do this during the summer, not during the school year. And we got three different camp sessions. And I'm telling you, it's a lot of fun. You're going to be so impressed with what your child does.

They are not going to want to do anything else but work on their business in those five days, and you're going to be shocked, but you have to act like you're not shocked. But this is what happens every single summer. Five days and then a pitch competition and a chance at $1,000.

Marlin Detweiler:
Well, Sarah, thank you so much for telling us about it.

Sarah Hernholm:
Thank you. And I hope to see some people there in camp. Yeah.

Marlin Detweiler:
And, folks, thank you for joining us on another episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of Classical Christian Education. We hope to see you next time.