Unlocking Potential: How Middle School MBA Transforms Young Minds

When we're building curriculum, we don't think about the student.

We think about the teacher.

Why doesn't every kid leave high school with a, with a thorough understanding of calculus?

We're teaching math the same way we taught it 100 years ago, and guess what?

We're getting the same results.

I like teaching things that kids will use for the rest of their lives no matter what they do.

It's not whether or not you fall down.

It's whether or not you pick yourself up.

I want them to confront failure.

I want them to see that it, that it doesn't kill you and, and that you just pick yourself up and keep going.

And it's, it's just one more step along the way.

It's not, it's not the terminal event in, you know, in, in your life.

Hello, my name is Mark Taylor.

Welcome back to the Education on Far podcast.

And this is my conversation with John Foster from Middle School mba.

Hello, my name is Mark Taylor, and welcome to the Education on Fire podcast, the place for creative and inspiring learning from around the world.

Listen to teachers, parents, and mentors share how they are supporting children to live their best, authentic life and are proving to be a guiding light to us all.

Hi, John.

Thank you so much for joining us here on the Education on Far podcast.

I think it doesn't matter where we are in the world.

The idea of what we're learning and why we're learning it and those skills that are going to set us up for the future, success is really important.

So I'm really excited to be chatting today specifically about what you're here to talk about.

So, yeah, thanks so much for being here.

Oh, thank you for having me.

I'm honored to be here with you.

So why don't we start Middle school mba, where did that come from?

Because I know you've sort of had your professional career, which is sort of taking you into this part of, this sort of world within this part of your life.

Yes, well, middle school MBA was, as you said, I started as a, you know, in industry, and I had a career there as an engineer and a business manager.

And along the way, I volunteered with Junior Achievement, which is a, well, it's in the UK as well.

They, it was started over 100 years ago by a guy who was appalled at how little kids understood business.

And so he, this, this organization recruits volunteers from the business world and has them go into schools and, and teach the Junior Achievement curriculum to kids.

And so I, I, I participated in that as a, as a volunteer, and over time, I kept adding and tweaking that.

Apparently I, I can't leave well enough alone.

And at one point I actually, I just had my own curriculum.

And so I was teaching that in schools and everybody loved it.

And one day I was walking to class and I said to myself, why am I teaching 14 kids?

I need to teach 14,000.

And that's when middle school MBA was born.

And I built all the tools that I always wanted to have.

Instead of me drawing ugly pictures on the board and saying, imagine this moves here and changes like that.

And we actually have a 3D digital model that so, so kids can actually see all the connections and you don't have to guess about what's going into their head because, you know, it's, it's right there in front of everybody.

And so we, it just took off from there.

That's where, that's where it all started.

And the, the reason we call it Middle School MBA is because we're, we're actually teaching graduate level stuff to middle school kids, which, which at first seems kind of shocking, but on, on reflection, it's not so much.

You know, we've.

If.

If you really boil things down to their essence and you connect them just right and you use the, the best available tools, you actually can teach these things at a very young age.

And, and kind of the magic of Middle School MBA is we do it through the teacher who's in the classroom.

Instead of the JA model, which is where I started, where an outside expert comes in and gives the class, we do a mind meld with the teacher.

So the teacher has everything in their head, and then the teacher delivers it to their kids.

And it's far more effective because, I mean, actually in the beginning, I had a great fear that a teacher that didn't have a heavy background in business wouldn't be able to, you know, to deliver this.

But in fact, they're better than I am because they're actual teachers.

They have teaching skills and they know every child in the class.

So they know how fast that kid can learn new material.

They know how much they know to begin with.

It's just a huge disadvantage not to know those things when you walk into a classroom.

And so it's really been remarkable how we can.

It really does feel like we're in the teacher's head.

In fact, that's our, that's our goal.

When, when we're building curriculum, we don't think about the student, we think about the teacher, and we're thinking about being in their head.

So it's it's been a remarkably successful.

It's fascinating you say that as a musician myself, I've, I've done lots of workshops in and CPD for teachers, and we do sambo, African drumming, that kind of thing, which I've done over the years.

And the majority of people are kind of.

But I don't know anything about music.

I'm really scared about teaching music.

And I started from the same sort of position that you did was the fact that, you know, we're teaching this to children.

So if they're going to understand it, we understand that you'll feel for fearful about it, but actually you'll be understand it as well.

And like you said, you have all the skills that you need because you're used to teaching, you know, the children.

You know, the way the setup of the school is.

It's actually much easier for you to do it once you've got hold of the curriculum and the understanding than it is for someone else coming in sort of off the street, so to speak.

So, so it's fascinating to hear you think the same.

Along the same lines.

Exactly right.

And, and you know, the, when you talk about the, the level of the material and, and people say, wait, wait, you're teaching kids subjective theory of value and business cycles and these kinds of things.

We don't do that until much later.

And my response is, why don't we, why, why have we been sitting around for 100 years teaching them the same thing?

You know, why doesn't every kid leave high school with every kid with a thorough understanding of calculus?

You know, it's, it's just that we're, we're, we're teaching math the same way we taught it 100 years ago, and guess what?

We're getting the same results.

And there are a shocking number of people who walk around saying, I can't do math.

That's insane.

Everybody can do it.

It's just that we're just so poor at teaching it.

Same for so.

And one of the, one of the things that I like to do in schools is to say, okay, look, Mr.

Principal, bring middle school MBA and plug it into your school, super easy to do.

And then challenge all your other curriculums to reach that bar.

And so in that way, you're not only amping up your business and economics education, but, but whoever else is clever enough to, you know, history or whatever and make a step change.

Improvement.

Yeah, that's really interesting because I was going to sort of say that in terms of sort of bringing that into the curriculum.

Or bringing it into a school, is there some sort of sort of feedback or sort of thrust back a little bit?

Because it's like we do our curriculum this way.

We have to cover this.

You know, the system is set up so that we can do X, Y and Z.

And it works as it works, whether we think it's a good idea or not.

So to bring something in from outside and then to make that work, do you sort of need the principals to kind of really understand what that is to begin with, or is it easy to kind of sort of just sort of say no?

Look, this is going to be the benefits both in terms of you as a school, but of course also for the students involved as well.

It all depends.

It's a real mixed bag.

But typically the principals who are ambitious for their kids are our customers.

Really.

I can just say the words middle school MBA to a principal and engage the reaction that I get.

And almost right away I know if that's my customer or not, either.

It's like, okay, I'm going to move heaven and earth to get this in.

And by the way, I happen to know that I have two or three programs that really aren't getting me much.

They're not very effective.

I'm just going to, to substitute this for that.

And, and that's a beautiful easy way to, to just, it's a win, win for everybody.

But on the other hand, there, there are people who are exactly like you described.

Well, we're full.

You know, we've been doing this for years and we'd have to take something else out.

We don't want to change.

So there's, there's plenty of that as well.

So I describe it as, as finding needles in the haystack, our customers.

But the thing is, it's an enormous haystack.

You know, there are, there are dozens of schools in, in every county.

So I mean it's, it's a big world and that's just in the U.S.

you know, there's, there's another 300 million native English speakers outside the U.S.

so it's a, it's a very large haystack.

And so you sort of mentioned sort of the international element there.

How does it sort of work, like say, across sort of different countries and things?

Is it because of the, the principles that you're teaching and the way that you're doing it?

No matter what the, the actual curricular itself is in any given country, you can adapt it or you can insert it in a way that's going to be supportive Absolutely.

It's like teaching physics.

You know, it's, it's, it's the same everywhere.

And, and so we have schools around the world, in Africa and Europe and wherever people speak English, they can adopt it.

And yes, from the get go.

I always wanted to teach principles.

You know, you, you can teach a coding language, but, but that language is going to be obsolete in six years or maybe less as quickly as things move.

So I like teaching things that kids will use for the rest of their lives no matter what they do.

And I know one of the important things to you is this idea of failure and failing over and over and just gradually keeping that, that sort of momentum going.

Talk to me a little bit about that, because I know certainly from my experience of teaching music in schools, but probably more importantly, my children going through school, that sense of sitting in the classroom and them feeling like they should know the answer already, they shouldn't put their head above the parapet or the.

Being inquisitive is not necessarily what they should be doing.

They should know all these things in advance.

How do you sort of, how does that sort of work for you?

How did you get that message across and sort of get people to understand it's such a positive thing and it's the way that we're all learning and growing?

Well, you know, we, we do several things in that regard.

One is, is just like preaching the message, you know, don't be afraid of failure.

You're.

It's not whether or not you fall down, it's whether or not you pick yourself up those things.

But, but probably more importantly is we build the opportunity for failure in every exercise that we do.

And we also put in what we call curveballs to try to throw the kids off their game.

Like they'll be set up to do a negotiation.

And they've reviewed their situation, they've analyzed the market, they've.

They've come up with their strategy for the negotiation.

And then they come sit down against their opponent and we hand them a note.

That changes the game, you know, oh, your plane is leaving early.

So you have 15 seconds less than you thought you did.

Things like that.

And so I've actually had a principal complain, john, you're setting these kids up for failure rather than setting them up for success.

My response is, yes, I want them to fail now.

I want them to confront front failure.

I want them to see that it, that it doesn't kill you and, and that you just pick yourself up and keep going.

And it's, it's just one more step along the way.

It's not, it's not the, the terminal event in, you know, in, in your life.

We, we even tell them, you know, when you, when you go to McDonald's and they tell you, okay, that'll be 7.95.

Just ask them, well, would you, would, would you take 750 instead?

And of course they're going to say no for very good reasons.

You know, you've already consented to the price because it's listed on the wall and that person working there doesn't have the authority to, you know, to make a difference.

But what, what it does is you practice making an offer and then you get rejected.

And guess what?

It doesn't kill you.

You're fine.

And you learn to make it in such a way that the cashier isn't offended and you continue with a transaction that's successful.

That happens in a negotiation all the time.

You say, well, I'd like to do this.

And the other party says no.

And you go, well, all right, let's talk about something else.

Can we do it this way?

So all these are tiny failures and so you become sort of immune to the, to the, the internal hurt of a failure, whether it's big or small.

And, and you keep going.

And I think that's the real problem with the, the current system of testing and constant sort of grade boundaries and that kind of thing.

It's, oh, I've got 10 out of 10, I've got 10 out of ten, I've got an A, I've got an A star, I've got an A plus.

And then you suddenly, I got a nine and a half out of 10.

It's like I've, you know, my life's over, I failed.

My averages aren't going to be where they were.

Rather than that, yes, of course you want to do as well as you possibly can, but the pressure that you put on yourself and maybe even people around you to keep up that excellent standard, which is just unrealistic over time because you're going to do harder and harder things, you're going to be more and more different situations.

There's always someone bigger, better, cleverer, louder, whatever that happens to be.

And as soon as the whole concept, like say it's about conversations, it's about deciding what you need, it's about looking at things in a different way that just changes your whole atmosphere to life.

And I think from, you know, a well being, mental health point of view and an understanding of how life that actually works in reality, that's got to be a benefit.

Absolutely, absolutely.

You know, and the world isn't so black and white, okay?

In math, 2 plus 2 is 4 and that's it.

But in most other subjects it's a little bit grayer than that.

And, and I think it's also helpful to know as a child that we don't know everything yet.

You know, that there's still history to uncover and there's still different viewpoints to examine.

And so you need a certain flexibility in your thinking, particularly if, you know, if you care about critical thinking.

What we tell them is don't, don't believe anything until you can follow every step in the chain in your own head and it makes sense to you.

Trust your own intellect and if it doesn't add up for you, then, then, then suspend belief for a bit, you know, so, okay, I'm going to hold on to this idea and realize that it's there and, and that maybe it's true, but I'm not committing to it yet until I know every, you know, every step in this chain.

And so you, at the same time, you, you're flexible, but you also have a, you're building a clear picture of the framework that's totally true.

And then within that framework, you have many more ideas that you're trying to place somewhere.

So a flexible open mind, but also a questioning and doubting aspect to it to really round out a critical thinking situation.

And I think for me, whenever I lose sight of that or I feel like I'm not able to get that across in anything that I'm doing, I think back to those sort of younger children, you know, the toddlers who are just so enthusiastic about the fact they, they have a ball that they can play with or they've suddenly realized they can do X, Y and Z.

They're not thinking about anything else other than all the options that I can do with this new thing that I have in the world of possibilities.

And I know, you know, wicked and wired differently at that younger age as well.

And, and there's a certain amount of life that happens, but I think there's a key element there that as soon as you lose sight of that or you lose the wonder of what's possible, which you can keep even with that sort of more grown up understanding as we develop, then, then life becomes exciting.

And even now, I think some of the things that I've done, you take the podcast, for example.

It wasn't something I studied at school, it wasn't something I knew I was going to be doing in my earlier life, but now it's that I don't know where it's going to go.

I don't know who I'm going to be speaking to.

I'm excited about the possibilities and what we're able to share.

And like I say, if you can keep that going for as much of your life as you can, then it's always going to be exciting and it's always going to be growing, which I think is probably the other important thing.

Yes, I think you should never lose that, that playful aspect of.

But what else could happen here?

You know, how else could we, could we manage this situation?

Absolutely.

Take us into sort of how the, the system works.

So I, I sort of understand that sense of like say you get the principal, they're really keen.

You can understand whether they're sort of getting involved in that.

Once the school have kind of literally effectively bought into it, how does it then work in terms of then the teachers being involved?

What sort of resources are there, how do they access them, what sort of the online platform look like and that kind of thing.

So it's, it's, it's, it's super cool how, how this goes because step one, the teacher goes, oh, wait, I can't teach this.

This is, this is, this is way above my pay grade.

This is, I didn't like this stuff in college, I'm not good at math, blah, blah, blah.

And, and then as soon as they see the, the layout of the curriculum, you know, they, they spend 30 minutes with it, they go, oh, I got this.

Okay, give me this.

I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to give this to my kids.

Because it's, it's, you know, it's like you said earlier, it's, it's clear enough that a 12 year old can get it, a teacher gets it super fast.

And ever all the stuff comes in online, all they do is they, they log in, they get a dashboard with lessons, they open a lesson, all the stuff you need is there, and then they project that lesson on the wall of their classroom.

And it guides, it's the teaching materials they need.

It, it explains activities.

We do a lot of activities like building parts and P&L's negotiating, pitching companies.

But all of it's within a framework of very rigorous economics.

Economics is sort of the abstraction of business, businesses, the, and that's how it all started.

You know, Aristotle looked around and said, I see people buying things and selling things and using money and charging interest and hiring people.

What is, what does this Commercial activity mean what is its nature?

And he laid out the first principles of economics because that's what economics is.

It's the abstraction of commercial practices.

And so we give them that framework of economics that, that all of their activities are happening within.

So it's, it's seamless between.

They don't know the difference between business and economics.

They just understand that supply and demand is part of how I get the prices that go into my P and L for my business.

You know, so it's, it's extremely easy to implement.

It's, it's really get credentials today, teach tomorrow, and, and it's super fun for everybody.

The, everybody feels like they're punching above their weight.

The kids, the teacher, we, you know, business is about interactions between people, and so we create a lot of interactions.

And you know, when, when two kids are negotiating, everybody's involved.

You have, there's a, there's a time, keep it there, because time pressure, there's always a thing.

And, and the rest of the class is involved in setting the thing up and figuring out what curveballs we're going to throw to which kid.

And so when these two kids sit down to negotiate for the rest of the class, it's like a cage match.

You know, everybody is tuned in.

And so it's, it's just a beautiful thing.

Kids start adopting business lingo.

They, they look at their other coursework more seriously.

They realize, you know, this is, this is the real world and it's out there just ahead of me, and I have to prepare myself for it and, and be ready for it.

I mean, that's their job.

When, when you're 11, 12 years old, your job is to grow up and be an adult and take your place in the world.

Whether you know it or not, whether you're thinking about it or not, that's programmed into your genes and, and so they just, they glom onto this.

They see it as, as authentic and useful and they just dig in.

It's funny, you never know which kids are going to be the most enthusiastic.

Teachers say that all the time.

They got, well, I have this very artsy, very into fashion girl over here, and all of a sudden she's like this tiger that's running businesses and driving negotiations.

It's just, they're all just natural entrepreneurs and, and we give them the outlet to express it.

And I guess there are two things there that strike me.

One is the fact that, like you say, there's a, there's a DNA, there's a hot wire in there of Sort of natural growing up, which probably just flicks a switch somewhere on some people.

They're like, I can don't know why or how, but I identify with this in some way.

And there's also people who've probably been within the school system thinking, I'm not sure what this is all about.

I'm coming to school, I'm being told what to do, I'm doing everything I'm meant to do.

And all of a sudden you get this sort of creativity and this freedom and this ability to have your personality come through and to make it sort of real world related to what you're doing.

And then all of a sudden they're like, oh, I'm still at school, I'm still learning, but this is a whole different framework and something I can really sort of literally dig my teeth into in a really positive way.

And I'm getting credit and I can see how I'm learning as well.

And I think there's always that sort of, sort of flash point somewhere where you suddenly go, yeah, there's something here for me.

And if, if that takes them into that particular module, but then more importantly, like you say, into life afterwards, then it really is such a powerful thing.

Yes, you're totally right.

You, you, you hit that on the head.

It's, it, it opens a different world.

And it also another thing that it does.

If you think about a kid, we live in this commercial world.

We live in an ocean of transactions.

And if you're 11 years old and you just see all these transactions happening, it's a bit like a blaster battle in Star Wars.

They're just these pieces flying every direction, but they're all chaotic and crazy and unexpected.

But once you understand the bigger picture of what's happening with that, all of a sudden the world becomes, it comes into focus more and it's, it's less chaotic and less scary and, and that feels really good.

All of a sudden you're like, I see what's going on here and I know how to participate in it.

And you know, I walk into a store and I don't just see the merchandise, I see, I see the salespeople, I see the marketing strategy.

You know, I'm not just a victim being sucked along by an ad.

I see the ad, I see what they're trying to pitch to me, I see the approach they're using.

And, and it's just a, it's an entirely different way to look at the world.

And I think once you can see that bigger picture, there's Almost an excitement about actually getting on board with.

You think that's really well done and they've got me and I can see what they've done.

But even so, yes, well done.

I'm.

I'm going to put my money where my mouth is from that point of view.

But like I say, with a whole different feeling than just not knowing and just following it.

Like sort of blindness.

Exactly.

You know, it's kind of what they say about being sold something by a Lebanese guy.

You know, he's like, I know he's picking my pocket, but.

But he's so nice and so, so cheerful.

I mean, I'm good with.

You sort of mentioned that this has come out of your experience in terms of business and the world that you were working in, but having sort of got into that sort of educational system and this particular sort of world.

Is there an education experience that you remember or a teacher that you remember that kind of.

You think, oh, yeah, that maybe they knew something along the lines of what you're talking about now, which sort of you can remember or you sort of took into what you've managed to create.

You know, more in the spirit of the thing.

I had a chemistry teacher when I was in the 10th grade named Mr.

O Me, and he did demonstrations in class.

On the first day of class, he took a piece of sodium and dropped it in a beaker and of course it made a big flash and flew across the room and.

And.

But then he.

He taught us how to do unit analysis, you know, to.

To balance equations.

And, you know, I went through almost all of college with.

With little more than being able to apply unit analysis to things.

And he was just a great teacher.

And one day at recess, I had kind of slacked off and he stopped me at recess and he said, what happened to you?

I was.

You started out as a house of fire and.

And then all of a sudden you just.

I don't know what's going on.

You haven't.

You're not doing much.

And just the fact that he noticed, you know, I walked away from that.

Oh, my God, he actually noticed.

And.

And I got back on the stick and started, you know, started turning out better work.

And I know that guy just.

He's always stuck with me.

I think if there's one thing I've Learned from the 400 odd episodes that we've done here on Education on Fire, it's exactly what you've said there.

It's the fact that there's a human connection and there's something about the person and the interaction which makes a difference, like I said, whether it's a subject related thing or whatever it happens to be.

And that happens and comes up so much.

And I think it's what you were saying, you know, probably the success of what you're able to create now is the fact that it brings up a different feeling.

The interactions with the people, whether it's their fellow students, whether it's the teacher, whether it's the school at large, or however the project gets put together, it's about those interactions.

And I think understanding that at the heart of everything you do just suddenly makes your experience of everything you do such a more rewarding thing.

Yeah, you're right.

And you know what, Even though unit analysis is not formally a part of business or economics, we teach it to kids because I think it's so incredibly important.

We do a little sidebar and say, okay, look, here's how the co kids, you know, make math problems work.

And, and so, yeah, Mr.

O'Mealy is still built into to our curriculum.

God, 45 years later or something.

Amazing, isn't it, how it sort of carries through and, and is there a piece of advice you'd like to share or indeed maybe you can frame it in a way, a piece of advice you might give your younger self now.

Looking back, you know, it's, it's, it's be bolder and don't give up.

And by that I mean, by bolder I mean act sooner.

When, as soon as you feel like, I mean in business the first time you think, you know, maybe we should fire Joe over there, you should have already fired Joe.

And when you think, you know, maybe I should move on to a, to a different job, you already should have done it.

So don't, don't dwell on those things for six months or two years or something to get on about it and, and, and just, just never give up.

There's no matter how daunting the situation.

So if you can pivot, you can change direction but, but you can just never give up.

You, you never know when you're going to get a break or when, when you're just going to overcome, when finally the, the obstacles will collapse in front of you.

So just never give up.

Yeah, I love that.

And, and the being bold thing is something which some certainly strikes a chord with me.

It's in my life there's various different moving parts and opportunities and things coming and it is that sense of I'll just wait, I'll just see if this happens.

I'll just See if that happens and then maybe this will happen.

Like you say, there's something about the being bold about it because you kind of already know and also sometimes you need to do it to create the space for those other things to really come in and take hold.

And so I think both of those things become incredibly important.

Yes.

You can't get in your own way, you know, with, with self doubt.

And I mean, so frequently the thing you need to do is the thing that you're scared of and you just have to go, you know, I'm an introvert by nature, but I do a lot of public speaking because that's how you reach people.

And, you know, I just had to find my way to it and, you know, be bold.

Yeah.

And I think that fear often, and it's something which has actually come up in our family.

Our daughter's going through the sort of the end of her school life now and there's sort of lots of unknowns, lots of things going on.

And it's something that I sort of say quite a lot is the fact that the unknown part of it, which is often the scary part of it, is going to happen multiple times.

But when you sort of identify that that is what it is.

Because if you look back even in sort of her relatively short life, it's like, you know, there was a new school, there was a new class, there was a new teacher, there was a change of friends, there was a new club.

And you can kind of start to think, oh, yeah, I felt a little bit funny about all of those things.

But you know, within the first hour or the first day or the first week, suddenly it's like your best friend has arrived or a new favorite class or a new teacher or whatever.

And I think just being aware of all of those things can then give you the power to think.

Actually this is maybe slightly fearful or I feel slightly funny about it, but actually I know it's probably going to be a great success or at least it's going to be a great learning experience.

Yes.

And you, and you know, there's a, there's a trick that I love you can, you can trick your brain a little bit when, when you're approaching a scary situation.

You know, they're, they're different hormones that your, that your body produces depending on the situation.

And if you say to yourself, you're, you're, you know, you're coming to a, an unknown situation or an uncomfortable situation.

If you say to yourself, this is going to be fun, it can change the actual chemistry of Your brain and the way it's doing things and all of a sudden open up a lot of opportunities for you that you otherwise wouldn't.

It's a cool trick.

And I think your brain doesn't necessarily know the difference between you can't lie to yourself frequently or you'll lose credibility.

But that's a great one that I've used a lot.

Yeah, and I love that.

I think, especially in the modern world or where we are now, that sense of understanding the science and the emotion and the spirituality and.

And the whole way the world works.

Because I think, like you say, you can actually be smart with yourself to understand what's going on.

And, you know, some of these fears are there, you know, innately, because they were there for.

As a survival mechanism.

But we don't live in that same world anymore.

And, you know, if there is a bear in your garage, then you're going to want to be fearful about it and do something about it.

But just like, say, going to a different lunch hall, which might be a bit weird if you're younger, isn't actually going to put you in that same situation.

Exactly.

Is there a resource you'd like to share?

And it's going to be anything from a video, song, film, book, podcast, whatever it might be.

And it can be professional or personal.

But something which you think would be interesting for people.

Well, you know, there are a lot of great economics books that are very accessible, both economics and business.

Peter Thiel has book called Zero to One, which is extremely good, very thoughtful, He's a very deep guy.

And then there's Murray Rothbard has written tons of very accessible things on economics and history that put things in a light that you never recognize before.

So anybody can benefit, I think, from reading those guys.

Yeah, I love that.

And I love the correlation there, like, say, about sort of a different light on things, because that's kind of the impression I sort of get from what it is that you're producing.

You know, we're still learning, we're still doing things in the educational setting.

But that different spotlight, that different way of doing things, I can see how.

How that's something that really identifies with you.

So obviously the acronym FIRE here at Education on FIRE is really important.

By that we mean feedback, inspiration, resilience, and empowerment.

What is it that strikes you either one of those words or a combination just from hearing that?

Well, you know, for me, I like the expression that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

And so the resilience part of Hanging in there and continuing to work is, I think is, is just, just super important.

You can't overemphasize, that is many people sit around waiting to be inspired, you know, do something.

I, you know, I've done some writing too and, and one of the things that we say in writing is you can fix a bad page, but if you never write the page, there's nothing to fix.

So, you know, button the chair, fingers on the keyboard, make something happen.

I love that.

And, and the work and the resilience I can identify with as well that, you know, the 10,000 hour rule of practice to learn an instrument or yes, become skilled at something.

You know, I've been inspired, I've been inspired many times, but I can remember more of those early mornings, late finishes, practice rooms, all of those things in order to get to the point of being able to actually deliver the thing I want to from that original inspiration.

And I think both sides of those coins, they're so important for people to understand.

Definitely.

So this has been absolutely wonderful conversation.

I love the mixture of the real world with the education because it's what we're all about here.

It's that sense of we're here to learn, we're here to kind of give people the skills they need, but also the understanding they need.

And I think also to have these conversations that people listening can go, ah, I've been, I've been looking for something, I've been thinking of something.

I wanted to mix it up in some way or another.

Whether like say it's a principal who can bring it straight into a school, whether it's a teacher who can take it to a principal and sort of say, look, this is out here and whatever.

So what's the best thing for people to do?

If that's indeed what they're thinking, where should they go?

Where should they try and find out more?

You just need to go to middleschool mba.com and everything you need is there.

Sample lessons, curriculum outline.

You can, there's a, there's a link.

You can just click and send me an email if you like, whatever you like.

Everything is there.

It's, it's, it's just really easy if you, if you don't, if you don't want to talk to me, you know, you can, you can sign up right there online and get your credentials and everything is just so it's super easy to on board and everything you need is right there@middleschool mba.com Fantastic.

John, thank you so much for chatting.

I, I love hearing the story and the people behind the websites and the systems and things that people create because it just gives that personal element.

And I think that's been brilliant and come across so well today.

So, yeah, thanks so much indeed.

Oh, thank you, Mark.

It's really been a blast.

Thanks for listening to the Education on Fire podcast.

For more information of each episode and to get in touch, go to educationonfire.com Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.