Hey, everyone! I have a couple of really big announcements today.
One of those is that we are making changes to which Good and Beautiful products are
free. We know that this affects so many of you, so I need to tell you briefly
about the Good and Beautiful story so you understand why we are making these changes.
For those of you who don't know, I was a singer-songwriter before I started
The Good and the Beautiful. Around 12 years ago,
it was time for me to resign a three album contract with my record label.
I went to a meeting about the contract in this big, high-rise building, and I was sitting there
listening as they outlined my obligations to do CD signings, radio shows, TV shows, interviews,
and then they gave me the contract to take home and look over.
My CDs had never been selling better. I had won awards recently for my music. I was travelling
all over the world. It was incredible. But something very unexpected happened to me
when I walked out of that building that day.
I remember going through that glass revolving door and looking across the street and something
struck my heart with such a powerful force. It was a gardener. He was maybe in his forties,
and he was just working humbly in a huge, beautiful flower bed.
And I just stopped and stood there watching him. The beautiful blue sky was arched above him,
his hands were reaching into the soil, and the flowers around him were just nodding
in the breeze, and he seemed so happy, so peaceful. His life seemed so simple.
And my soul just cried out, "I want to be that gardener! I want that kind of life."
I looked at the record label contract I held, and I knew,
at that moment, that I wouldn't sign it. I was done.
I had recently realized that I needed to homeschool and decided right then and
there that I was done travelling the world and signing CDs and being on radio shows. I was going
to lead a slow and simple and peaceful life like that gardener. And, that's what I did--at first.
It quickly became apparent to me
in my new life as a homeschool mom that it was really hard to find a language arts curriculum,
even from Christian homeschool companies, that incorporated wholesome books. I started a deep
and dedicated study of children's literature. It was fascinating to me how it has changed over time
and how books today are undermining family unity and high moral character.
I started reviewing books for my own children
and decided to release the Good and Beautiful Booklist to my music fans.
The next thing that became apparent to me as a homeschool mom
were actually two things. They went hand in hand.
First was that language arts had the potential--I knew--to be a powerful,
life-changing, character-building, absolutely beautiful experience.
But it wasn't! And I started scouring the world to try to find a language arts curriculum
that was just what I was looking for, that would work for us.
And I think I probably bought and studied about every homeschool language arts curriculum I could,
but they all fell short for my family for some reason or another. Sometimes I would
find beauty in a curriculum, but it wasn't academically strong. Or, I found one that was
academically strong, but it didn't incorporate God, or family, or nature, or good literature.
And then the second thing was the number of courses I had to use to teach language arts.
For each child, I had a writing course, a grammar course, a spelling course, a literature course,
and that was on top of math and science and history that I needed to teach.
And I also needed to be teaching geography and art! I am sure most of you can relate to this.
So, long story short, I created my own language arts curriculum for my children that incorporated
reading and phonics, writing, spelling, literature, geography, and art into one course.
Even though I had a music career, I had majored in English during college. I had a passion for good
literature and experience with it. I had been an editor for a magazine, professional writer,
and even managed a technical writing department.
Language arts was my thing. It was my passion. I had never had any intention of selling the
curriculum, it was only for my kids. My husband had an amazing job and the thought
of having a curriculum company literally did not cross my mind as I created my curriculum.
But then, one of my music fans emailed me--and I didn't know her--and
she said that she had heard that I homeschooled and wondered if I could give her some advice,
because she had felt like she was supposed to homeschool but she didn't feel like she could
do it any more. And, she didn't feel the joy in it, and I had just experience that with myself,
and she was overwhelmed. I said, "Hey, I created this curriculum
for my kids because of those same things. It is just open and go, no prep, it is filled with
beauty, we connect art and geography to language arts." And all this. And I said, "You should try
it!" And she did! And she ended up telling me a little later that it changed her homeschool.
And then this same thing happened with a second woman who contacted me, and I said to try this
curriculum. And then when she told me as well that it changed their homeschool,
that is when I had the idea of offering this curriculum to others.
Becuase I had done the work of creating it, and it was helping people,
so I thought, "Oh, I'll just put it on my music website and sell it."
So, in order to do that, it needed to be solid. So I rewrote
the curriculum and brought in reading specialists and professional editors
and reviewers to help. And then the day came that I released the curriculum.
I sent an email out to my music list and I announced it, that it was for sale.
I had two levels of language arts at that time, and I was selling the language arts
courses I think for around a hundred dollars, because I looked around at comparable programs
and some of them were two hundred, three hundred dollars, so it sounded fair to me.
I sent the email and then I suddenly felt terrible. I couldn't shake this terrible
feeling that I had. So I got down on my knees and I prayed and I said, "What is going on?" And I had
such a strong impression come into my mind that God had helped me create this curriculum because
He wanted it to bless homeschool families, not for my own business. I felt, at that moment I knew,
at that moment that the curriculum was supposed to be free. It was kind of a frightening feeling!
I had spent a lot of time on this, a lot. And we had used the savings we had from my music money to
create this curriculum. It was a lot of money, and I had to tell my husband "Ahh, actually,
I think we should just give this product out for free." I did need to create future levels
of language arts too, so I prayed and I asked God, "If I give this all away for free, how will I ever
create anything else?" And I felt impressed in my mind that I had also created handwriting books. I
could sell downloads of those, and use that money to create more language arts courses.
And so, the same day that I sent the email out to say this is available for like a hundred dollars,
I sent an email back and said, "Nevermind. Um, It is actually free."
So, I thought of that peaceful gardener. It was actually a relief to me, and I said to myself,
"Okay, great. The curriculum is out there. People can use it and access it and download
it. I don't want a business anyway, I just hope the curriculum blesses people."
I didn't really expect the response that we got from the curriculum.
I did not market it in any way. But through word of mouth it spread, and people were loving it.
But they said these, like, three hundred page color course books are actually quite expensive
to get printed. And that worried me because I was also getting heartfelt emails from
people telling me, uh, how much they loved the curriculum and how much it was changing them
and their children. And I thought, oh, it is expensive to print, but if I buy it in bulk,
I can offer it for much less than people can get it printed for themselves and make it affordable.
So, I ordered some physical books to sell. And I will never forget the day that a semi-truck
pulled up to my house and dropped off a big, wooden, shrink-wrapped pallet
of books, of course books, into the middle of my driveway. I had ordered like thousands of
CDs before, but they are so small, there's just, like, it comes in a few boxes. But there is this
massive pallet in my driveway. I didn't know how, or what I was going to do with
it. Where in the world am I going to put all of these course books? And I thought,
I am never going to sell all of these. What have I done? And I actually felt so much anxiety over
that one pallet of books that I told myself, when these books are gone, I will not buy any more.
Well, I did.
Becuase I heard so much about how the curriculum was helping people,
and God just continued to push me along in the journey. And I started hiring people,
all along thinking, "I am not really doing a business. I really don't want a business." It
really hadn't hit me yet that I had a business to run. I was just trying to help homeschool moms.
Eventually, my entire garage and basement was full of products, and I had 15 employees working in my
house each day. Semi-trucks were delivering 15 to 20 pallets of curriculum at a time
to our house, and they would line the sidewalk going down the street
with pallets before we could get them all carried down into the basement.
For the first two to three years after releasing the curriculum, I had
no marketing team at all. I posted maybe once a month on Facebook, I didn't have an Instagram
account, I didn't attend conventions. After all, I was not doing a business.
So, eventually, we had to move to a warehouse. And I think my neighbors were very glad about that.
The day came that we moved into the warehouse. The moment
finally came, then, that I realized--I have a business. And I looked around and people were
there assembling pallet racks going up high, and a forklift was moving pallets around,
dozens of people were working, and I ran into the bathroom and I just started crying.
I didn't want to do this. I just wanted to be that gardener. That was,
this was all to stressful. Now I had a four-year warehouse lease signed, and there was a forklift
moving curriculum around. I had no desire to have a warehouse or a forklift. And as I was
crying in that bathroom, I thought, how can I get out of this? I was seriously about to go
out and tell everyone to just go home because I was just going to shut it all down. I really was.
But, God stopped me. He placed in my mind all of these children.
Your precious children.
And, as these children flashed before my eyes, I could feel of their worth to our Heavenly Father.
And, I knew that The Good and The Beautiful was doing an important work. And I rolled up
my sleeves, and I walked out of the bathroom with my tear-stained face. And I went to work.
So, we now have over 140 employees, and hundreds of thousands of families across
the world use the curriculum. Our language arts courses are the most searched for homeschool
language arts program on the Internet. More than any other homeschool curriculum.
But I needed to tell you this story to help you understand our announcement today--our
announcements.
So, first, The Good and The Beautiful is building schools in Africa. We have built 2 schools that
are now up and running in Uganda, and we are building 3 more schools in Uganda as well.
This means a lot to me. And we have a school being built in Ghana as well.
I never started this company to make money for myself. I started it to do good in the world. So,
I also want to do good with the profits the company makes.
A little down the road, in another video, I am very excited to share more about these schools and
what we are doing, and how you can get involved. But, I wanted you to know what we are doing with
our money because you are all contributing towards there schools and it is incredible.
The other thing you are contributing to is the creation of new curriculum that
is blessing the lives of children and families around the world, including yours we hope.
This leads me to the second big announcement I have.
The new language arts courses that we created are above and beyond anything we have created before.
It has taken a lot of money to create them, a lot of collaboration, and a lot of work, and we are
so very excited about them.
So, my team found ourselves asking, "Can we and should we still give this out for free?" We really
need a new building that we don't have money for, uh, so much money and time went into this project
it is mind-boggling. And I found myself thinking, we sell the products for such a little amount,
maybe we just don't need to offer it for free anymore with these new versions. They are just
at a totally different level and a much bigger expense to create than our original courses.
So, while thinking about this, I had some of the biggest challenges that have ever come my way
with The Good and The Beautfiul come to head and one night I could not sleep. And you have all been
at this place in your lives, you know what I mean. I was on the verge of
having panic attacks all through the night, because of this incredible stress. And it
was 5:30 in the morning. I was exhausted, but I couldn't sleep, so I just decided to get up.
And I picked up my phone as I lay in bed to read my emails, which I don't normally do and I don't
suggest doing first thing in the morning, and I found out that, on top of everything else,
we had this major problem with a printing job that was going to cost us all of this money.
And then a video message popped up and it was a key member of our team having to quit right away
for an important but unexpected family reason, and I had no idea how we were going to replace her.
It was all just too much.
It was, for years, too much of having to persist, and to be brave, and be strong,
and deal with so many pressures. So I got up and I was walking into my closet to get my shoes,
it was dark, and I was like, I'm done. I just really can't do this a moment longer. And,
I don't even care how great these new language arts courses are, I'm done. I don't even want
to release them. And I said to God, "See God? This is why I just wanted a simple life. This is why I
wanted to be that gardener." And instantly into my mind came these words: I have made you a gardener.
And it's like I saw, could envision in my mind, a map of the world with hundreds of
thousands of points of light. All of the children that would wake up that day and
do The Good and The Beautiful curriculum, and come closer to God, and learn to discern
and seek out what is good and beautiful in life and in learning and in literature.
I had just pictured myself gardening on this small garden plot. It's where I wanted to be,
it's where I thought I would be happy. God had pictured something much more.
There were so many times where I didn't feel like I could do The
Good and The Beautiful a second longer, but I hung on every time, trusting God.
This story is your story too. As a homeschool parent, you will have so many times that you
don't feel you can homeschool a second longer. But you continue to do it, and you are a gardener.
You feel that beating heat of the sun on your back during the hot days. You see weeds popping up,
and you just continue to pull them out. You labor so diligently as you continue to nurture your
precious, precious sprouts. And they will grow into beautiful trees that will bear amazing fruit.
And your children will go on to plant seeds and it will go on and on, because of the work you
are doing. And that is why I am excited to make this second announcement today.
As of right now, February 2022, our levels 1-5 math and language arts downloads are free.
So, the question is, will they continue to be free with our new language arts version? Yes.
We are going to keep them free. But we are also
going to make our K-8 math and language arts courses downloads free starting June 1, 2022.
I was reminded that the whole reason that God led me to create and share this curriculum
was to help others and I never want to lose sight of that.
And I hope you will not lose sight of the work you are doing in homeschooling.
God will lead you. And He has in mind for you and your children much more than you do.
Let Him lead as you plant the seeds.
As it says in Proverbs 3:5-6, Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not
unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways, acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.