If you are asking the question, how do I know when I spend too much time on Facebook?, the simple answer, which you already know deep within, is when you have to ask that question!
Look, there’s nothing wrong with Facebook. In fact, it’s a great tool for connecting, building community, getting in touch, sharing ideas, networking and discovering common interests.
However, like all things, too much of anything is bad for you.
When was the last time someone sent a referral your way?
If you can’t tell me today, yesterday, or this week, then you are leaving money on the table and failing at a-low-cost opportunity to easily grow your business.
Nearly (yikes) two decades ago, I started the Center 4 Learning, a tutoring business, in the fabulous Florida Keys.
I, a fresh-faced English teacher, went house-to-house in my bright yellow VW Beetle, tutoring anything from math to writing, to test prep, to organizational skills.
My business started with one referral.
I recently heard that more than 80% of people spend their life, or at least the majority of their life, doing what they are second best at.
Stop and think about that for a moment.
Is that you?
Is there something you are just amazing at or totally love to do but were told to get a real job, focus on your education so you can have a profession that will pay to fall back on or some other such story?
What is the one thing you are amazing at?
If there is one thing I really don’t agree with in the educational field, it’s the use of labels.
I think labels can be detrimental for growth, for learning and for being our very best.
Labels can hinder us from growing, improving, and even succeeding in life. And I’m not talking about how much money one makes when I think of success. I’m talking about personal growth, the strengthening of character and the removal of blaming others - or labels - as a way to get by.
Labels often allow us to not take responsibility. And that’s a shame. Plus, it’s simply sad.
When It Feels Like No One’s Listening… I am…
This was one of the things that I’ve been told made me a great teacher in and out of the classroom.
I listen.
Elena, an amazing 18 year old I once worked with, told me that most adults don’t even see her, acknowledge her, let alone talk to her.
She went on to add that the fact that I smiled at her meant everything. Then the fact that I talked with her and listened...well, that brought her to tears…
When I was a teacher in a classroom I was given a mentor. An older teacher, who’d been around the block a few decades and was there to give me the support I needed as a new teacher.
Or so I thought.
A little back story is needed here.
I did not plan to teach, never went to school to be a teacher nor did I have a degree in teaching.
Recently, I sent out a Scoop email about my mentor and his favorite question - Who Are You Being?
Well, this question resonates in everything I… you… do.
Who we are being determines our doing.
See, if you don’t feel like someone who can be an awesome tutor, you can’t do the job of tutoring.
It will feel fake.
And that’s normal.
If you don’t believe you can tutor, then chances are it won’t come easily to you.
Dear Education Lady,
My math teacher keeps making sarcastic comments towards me. How should I deal with this?
She asked everyone if they understood then singled me out and said “Sally, do you get it? Because you’re so clever.”
Dear Clever Sally,
It’s funny how sometimes adults can be more childish than children, right? First, you’re doing the right thing in asking and hopefully, not reacting. You may have heard the saying “Fuel fuels the fire.”
In chasing the latest and greatest, I was constantly learning something instead of implementing what I learned.
And that was a hard lesson to learn (for me).
It took me a while. And some aging. Like a fine wine, we get better as we age… as long as we’re cared for properly!
But in jumping from phone to phone and platform to platform and shiny new tool to… yep, you got it, I got lost in the mastering of any.
So, thankfully, I put an end to my crazy… well, at least that side of my crazy and said no more.
I’m also no longer into the shiny, new object and that’s why I’m sticking with the APP that just gets me...really really gets me.
I just made a quick decision.
Throw your hands up in the air, wave ‘em like you just don’t care.
Yes, I’m celebrating. Why? I never learned how to make quick decisions. Instead, I’m a natural analyzer and a worrier.
Oops, I want to rewrite that. I was a natural analyzer and a natural worrier. I am turning over a new leaf and words have power. So let me use my words here with the utmost care…
![How To Easily Get Referrals In Seven Steps… the Cornerstone Method of Growth For Your Tutoring [or Any] Business](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57bf58b0ff7c50b7ffb93109/1556031371231-BVD5Y9KYW9SDQLQJB65U/moises-alex-1464196-unsplash.jpg)
