Ep 228: [INTERVIEW] Aligning Your Passion and Passive Income with Online Teacher, Autumn Emigh

Episode 228 of the Purpose and Pixie Dust Podcast: [INTERVIEW] Aligning Your Passion and Passive Income with Online Teacher, Autumn Emigh

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Autumn is a member of the Magical Membership for Women Entrepreneurs. Click here to learn more and join her and other amazing women!

Hey girl, welcome to the purpose and pixie dust podcast, the podcast where we dive deep into our passions, our purpose and really unlock our potential with some pixie dust thrown in. What is pixie dust? You might ask. It's the fun and joy that gets unlocked when you're creating and owning your magic. I'm Lindsay Dollinger dog, mama, Disney lover and high school Spanish teacher who has used my magic to grow businesses while also working full time. I'm on a mission to help other women create and own your magic by building not only the business of your dreams but also the life of your dreams while still juggling life, your full time job and all the things. So if you want more than this provincial life, let's use our glass slippers to break those glass ceilings and Sprinkle lots of pixie dust into our lives and businesses. Let's do this. 

Hello everyone. Welcome back to another live podcast episode of the purpose and pixie dust podcast. I'm Lindsay Dollinger and I am super excited to have another one of my clients on. We've had a couple on before or maybe maybe only one actually. Um but anyway, I'm excited for you guys to meet Autumn to hear our fun conversation today. So Autumn, welcome to the show.

Thank you Lindsay. Happy to be here.

Ttell us more about you. Who are you? Where do you live? What do you do? Um and we'll go from there.

 I am Autumn Emigh, I live in the Columbus, Ohio area um a little suburb called Gahanna That's pretty close to the airport. And I am a mom of two girls and a wife to my husband of 23 years now I think. And I'm by training, I'm a speech therapist. Um but when everything shut down over, Covid, I kind of wandered into the out school platform as a teacher and um haven't really looked back. So that is a little bit about me. I love that. And okay, so for people who do not know what it is, would you explain kind of what out school is and walk us through what that pivot looks like for you? Like did you just had you known about it before? Like how did that happen? All right. So um in 2020 that January I had started teaching English to Chinese people. It was kids and adults um in the morning very very early in the morning and it was not especially lucrative. I mean it wasn't bad pay but it wasn't great pay either. And so um when everything shut down, somebody in one of the groups on Facebook posted. Hey, I just found out about this place called Outschool and it turns out it's a teaching platform. Um There are classes, if you can imagine it, there's probably a class about it. There's like Minecraft and crafts and um all kinds of art and math and reading and sometimes it's themed to Disney stuff. Sometimes it's themed too. You can't in your titles and stuff, you can't say harry potter or plato or legos, but there are classes that do encapsulate all of those things. So, um, reading clubs, just social clubs. I have a couple of classes that have been together for well over a year, just the same kids because they like hanging out with each other and me. So, um, it's really fun. I do mostly confident speaking things. I can't do speech therapy on there. I started with articulation clubs and I think quite quickly their lawyers decided that that sounded too much like speech therapy. I had cleared it with the american speech and hearing association. So I knew that wasn't really the case, but um, they said, no, you can't have that word in any of your classes. So I had to kind of pivot and restart, but it's really good. I'm really happy and I've taught kids from all over the world, so that's the other thing. It's worldwide. So there are classes, pretty much any time you can think of. Also that's so fun. Um, I didn't realize that you had some of the same group of kids like who keep signing up, you know, like that club atmosphere, that community atmosphere I think is really cool to pull that all it is. And I mean it says something when I have a full year of games now, like I have themes and I try to add a few new ones every year, just so it doesn't get boring for me, but the kids look forward to. I'm like, hey, next week we're gonna play the one that's about this. And they're like, oh, I love that one. So they played it two or three times already, which means that I've been with them for quite a long time, but it was so fun. I love that. Now. You also do things with teachers, teachers, so find out what that is and how do you do that? So I was making, I create all of the games that I play on, out school myself, um, using canvas, which is a really wonderful website. If you don't know about it, go there and anything you need to create graphics wise, it's the place. Um, but I create all of the things in there. And I was like, you know, when I was a speech therapist, I would have loved to have found, I mean when I was just doing speech therapy, I'm still a speech therapist. Um, but I would have loved to have found things like this on teachers, pay teachers, which is a website where you can post, um, any teaching tools really. And it could be anything from, you know, classroom decor, it can be keeping your, um, attendance or your records, all of that kind of things or actual lessons that you do. Um, I know there's escape rooms and just all kinds if you can think of it, it's probably on teachers pay teachers. Um, and I thought, hey, maybe some people would like to pay for the things that I've created for my classes. Um, I do ask that they not be used in out school since that's where I use them, but otherwise, you know, I think they're great for in a classroom. You have kids play on an ipad or you can print them out. It can be digital or paper copy. So yeah, that, and I love that you were just taking something that you're already making anyway and you're like, okay, let's find a way that I can also profit from this to make money from this. And um, teachers pay teachers I think is a really great resource for anyone listening who is an educator in any sort of way, whether you're a parent or a teacher or a speech therapist or occupational therapy stuff. Physical therapy, probably a lot of things. Yeah, yeah. And that's really awesome because it's that passive income where like you can put it up and you, you know, people can find it without you having to, you know, be recruiting people or different things like that. Yes. Yeah. The great part is, it's just me, the really hard part sometimes. It's just me. So yeah, it's like that in any business.

Yes. Okay, so I know you are a super busy mama. Tell us a little bit about what sorts of, I wanted to say extracurricular as though you're in full yourself, but what you do in addition to your business, Autumn.

So I am a 4-H advisor. I have stepped back from that role just a little bit, but it's something I grew up with and I'm very passionate about and I've been really, really happy with the opportunities my own children have had and plan to continue making sure other kids have the opportunities and for a lot of people think it's just agriculture and animals, but there's, I mean they made bottle rockets, they learned how to, so they learned how to cook like all kinds of life skills. I mean bottle rockets is maybe not life skills but it's physics, which is important. Um, so there's just a lot of science and other things that you can do in four H that doesn't have to be animals. We never owned any animals that we took to fair. Um, so yeah, that is one thing I do and then the other thing my family is really involved in theater and I learned to sew in 4-H. So I am a costume mom. I'm actually on my third show for this fall that I'm helping to costume. I'm a little bit costumed out. I think I need a little bit of a break when she says third show, like she is the costume lady, like she is going all in making the costumes, she's there at practices. Like there was a, we did a call. I feel like it was maybe around this time last year when I were maybe call in the spring when I was at the high school in the hallway for legally blonde. Yeah, you were in the hallway on her break making costumes and I was like girl, we can totally like you don't have all this stuff going on. Um Okay, that was the spring, gosh! It seems like it seems like forever ago like sorry to interject but I just want to say like that it's like a whole nother level of course it is and I feel like it's been kicked up actually. I'm working on frozen JR which is a super fun show if you are in the Columbus area. Pickering two community theaters doing it the first two weekends in December. Just a quick plug. But it's been really some of the hardest costumes I've ever worked on because of the magic that there is surrounding Elsa and costume changes.

So um is that the one that Stephanie's little boys in?

Yes, Okay. Eric is one of our Olaf's. So yeah, so um okay, so you are super busy doing all the things yes, with us and I know no one has it.

Perfect, but how do you, how do you work your schedule? Like how do you fit your things in?

So I have found that things that really, really need to get done by me in my house that are quiet all of those things I have to do first thing in the morning, I am the one person in my house who's kind of a morning person. Not because I want to be, but because I've trained myself to be. Um So I really do get a lot more done in the morning, so if I'm making products or making games for my classes or making crafts or whatever I'm doing work wise, a lot of that stuff has to be in the morning or it's probably not going to get done. Um And then I add in the other things I need to do like um so else addresses or do laundry from the last show or whatever that kind of stuff is and then um my poor family then I add in making dinner and doing laundry and cleaning the house and that kind of thing. So um obviously not everything gets done every day, but we're doing pretty good, we're keeping it together pretty well.

Tell us what you and your husband do once a month.

Okay, so in 2019 this started, we I was just feeling very stuck like I'm a mom, I'm volunteer for all the things my kids do and I felt like I was never spending any time with my husband, but we also were like we don't want to do the same thing all the time, it's so boring, so we go on a monthly adventure date and a monthly create date. So we've done so many things and sometimes it does include the kids like when we travel, I call that adventures and it includes our kids. So like this summer we went to Seattle and there were a bunch of things that we did there that were different adventures. Um but then this august we went to Disney, just my husband and I to celebrate our anniversary and that was definitely adventure. So um yeah, that it has been wonderful and we've definitely learned things about each other. Um I know things that we could go back and do again over and over and it would be great and then there are things that are like one and done. No way are we ever repeating that? Give us an example of a create date. Um so this month, I haven't written about it yet. Um we did a flower arranging class um with a place called Gatehouse blooms here in Guyana. A woman runs out of her house and she had people over to make, I mean they're huge. They were huge. These centerpieces for thanksgiving ours has now died because it's been a couple of weeks and we had to give one away because they were these huge boxes and we each made one or like where are we gonna put these? So I gave one to a friend. Um but that was really fun because that was something neither of us had ever done before. We also did paper cooling, which is where you coil the paper up and then make it into different shapes or fill in shapes. Um We've done pottery has not gone well for us either throwing our own or painting it like painting was okay for me. My husband did not enjoy that. Um We've done some woodworking like we worked with a lathe and made some ornaments. Just, I mean so many things fun. I love it. So how do you find ideas for this? It takes a lot of energy and actually I don't have anything for the next few months. I need to like start trolling facebook and look for events. Um I have a couple of places we've gone to um the glass access place here in columbus. They have like three or four different ways that you can work with glass. And we've done glass fusing glass, we've done a couple of them glass molding, like a couple of things there and there's probably a couple more, we haven't ever actually blown glass. So that would be a new one for us and I don't think we've done um stained glass is the other one that they have there. And then there's this place called the idea foundry um which is right near there. They're both in Franklin. Tenn here in Columbus and it we've done, we did a date there for valentine's day once that was amazing because we got to try all kinds of things, so we did blacksmithing, which is not a thing we're great at, we did welding, which my husband was pretty good at, I was not fantastic but that's okay. Um We did some fire and um alcohol ink thing on tiles which was pretty cool. Um They took pictures of us, we made a picture frame, so there were all kinds of things we could buy that night which was really neat um but they have classes to up with a wide wide variety of things that you can make, so okay and then you kind of mentioned it um But then how do you share about these experiences online? Alright, so I have a blog called adventure create relate. Um And it started off we were going to do the two dates and then also a family game night every month. It turns out that our family is just a little too all over the place, so we do still enjoy family game nights from time to time, but it hasn't been a regular thing for a while. Um Even when we were here for quarantine, we just didn't really feel we needed more family togetherness, so we we would do things online with friends but usually we didn't have a lot of family game nights then, but those were the three things I wanted to write about every month and I have, so I have a record of all the things we've tried and I can go back and be like, I can't remember did we like it when we did that or not. So yeah.

Well and I love how literally everything that we have talked about is so you like, it's so on brand like because you also have created classes correct me if I'm wrong from some of the stuff from like your four H and all of that as well. Right. I have, yes. Um, they haven't always been really popular. Like I have a couple of canning classes. I haven't gotten any sign ups yet, but I know what's gonna happen at some point. I have some bug classes which have had some sign ups. Um, and that's one of my favorites. I joined 4-H because I did 1/6 grade bug collection for science class and he was like, hey, if you really like this, you should look at 4-H. So um, yes, my bug classes have been some of the longest running ones for me actually. Um, Yes.

And then you know stuff, you know, you love it and you're more likely to talk about it to share about it.

Yes, definitely. Although I do think people look at me like really you like books like, no, you don't understand like weirder things. Let's be real. The more I have. I have to say, the more I become an adult. I don't know if that's the right way to phrase it. The older I have become, the more I realized that all the things that we like are insecure about your like no people are way weirder than me. I am not the weirdest one out there. That is probably very true. Yes, helped a lot with like posting online and all of that. Yeah, I know, but I don't really care. Oh yeah, I keep it very real online. I'm like this is who I am, here we are. What? And I feel like what's like just so much more natural like than trying to be something that you're not and then getting caught up in something, you know what I mean? Like why not just be you and you're going to attract people who are your people no matter what?

Um tell us because I think what you're doing right now for your November, posting on your personal law is really cool, so will you share what you're doing?

Alright, so this is my 13th year I think of doing um grateful posts every day, like I just every day in November, I pick something else to be grateful for. Sometimes it's something really big like, you know, I'm thankful for my family and my girls and my husband and I have wonderful things to say about them today. It was just think I'm thankful for patients because I had to go grocery shopping the past two days and if you don't have patience and also, you know, thankful that we don't have food insecurity, I understand that some people can't have patients around food and I'm totally not talking about those people. Um, but yeah, so, um, it just helps me, I think to be in such a grateful place by the time I'm starting to actually think about Christmas and what I need to do for it. Um thanksgiving is my favorite meal because my favorite holiday because it's just one day and yeah, there's a lot of cooking that happens, but it's also you get to enjoy your family and just be grateful, whereas Christmas just seems like so much work because there's still all the cooking, but then there's also the presence and the traveling and there's a lot of added layers. Yes you posted. I'm pretty sure did you post something that you're thankful for your car recently? Yes, I saw that and it was so funny because a lot of them that I've read, I've been like, oh yeah, me too. And I am car I was, yes, because I have, you know, I had instances where my car is not running or whatever and guys, that is such an inconvenience like yes. Yeah. Because you know, there's so many of those things that are just like your daily parts of your life that we forget to be thankful for and so I've really appreciated your post is just like a reminder. Like, yes, that's so true. Yes. And then the other post I do in November because I'm from the state of Michigan and if you don't know the state of Michigan in the state of Ohio have teams, I'm not a fan of University of Michigan, I'm a fan of Michigan state, but university of Michigan and Ohio State have this little football game coming up this week actually and my husband delights in singing that I don't give a darn about the whole state of Michigan song and I'm like, well you're really stupid because the whole state of Michigan is not Ann arbor and Michigan is amazing. And so one year I was like, you know what, I'm gonna tell people how cool Michigan is. And so I did a Michigan fact every day in November. And then the next year I was like, well I think Ohio is really cool too and I have a lot of friends on Facebook who are from Michigan who are like bashing Ohio this week. And so I did Ohio facts and then I was like, well what state can I do next? I'm really loving this. So I did Pennsylvania next because that's where my in-laws are from. And then we did Florida because when everything shut down, we were supposed to do a trip to florida that summer to celebrate my oldest daughter's graduation. Um so I did Florida facts and then I did Louisiana because my aunt and uncle lived there and then this year we went to Washington. So I'm doing Washington facts.

So I love that. That's so fun. I didn't realize the hopping all over. Like I didn't I didn't put two and two together. That was like an annual thing. That's so cool.

It's so it's year five. So because I learned a lot about Michigan, and Washington because I've visited Washington for the first time this summer. So I was like extra intrigued.

I'm like, oh yeah you were there I think right before us or right after us. Like we almost overlapped.

Yeah we were there at the end of June before our cruise. We went up to Canada but it was my first time in Washington and then Seattle and I loved it. However I was sick. I was sick while we were in Washington still. So I like I feel like I need to go back because I didn't get the full experience.

Yes it was wonderful. Although it was like really hot when we were there like so I was there, it was cold. It was in the nineties and hot. Like we went up on Mount rainier, like not the highest kind of point where tourists go but pretty high. Like there was one more maybe a little bit higher and it was still in the eighties. Like high eighties.

That's insane. No we um I guess we didn't go on any mountains in Seattle because we just we didn't have enough time. But when we were up in Vancouver it was so cold, like there was still big piles of snow and the fog was so bad. High up in the mountains that we couldn't see like anything.

We um when we were there there were there was really only one day where Mount Rainier was really noticeable that we could see from Seattle because sometimes you can see it and sometimes it's just fog. And yeah, there was the day we went, it was pretty clear and then there was one other day where we did see it when we went on our whale watching tour and we went out in puget sound. So yeah, we did, we saw a humpback whale and then we saw orcas which are technically not whales or dolphins, but that's okay. We'll go with it, we'll go with it. They're beautiful and I'm very excited to have seen them. So, so fun.

I love it. Yeah, we saw, we didn't see any humpbacks were disappointed about that, but um some orcas for sure. And then um porpoises, there were quite a few porpoises. Um we were on top and it was harder to see them from there if you were sitting inside the boat, you could see them kind of level with you, which I think was easier. Um but also I get more seasick that way. So I was on top of the boat, you got to do um

One last thing before we hop off of here, you were at my slaycation fall retreat. Was that your first business retreat ever, I'm assuming?

Maybe, I mean, I went to a creative memories convention once upon a time when I was a Creative Memories consultant, but that has been quite a few years. I was pregnant with my 17 year old a little while ago, yep, it's been a bit, a little bit about the retreat. The retreat, it was so wonderful because we had time to really sit and work on things for our business, but we also, we did a breathing, breathwork, , which was amazing. It's something I definitely want to fit in once. There's more time in my schedule again. Um I thought that was fantastic. I loved the hiking and talking about our goals with other people there, that was really, really cool. Um and then having the pictures, um Lindsay's picture, Lindsay's sister Courtnay, did pictures for us and they were amazing and I've just kind of started slowly rolling them out a little bit. Um but I really am appreciative of that and then just the bonding time and being around people who have goals too. So, you know, none of my friends are running businesses, it doesn't seem like it's that common of a thing in my mom's circle, so it was just nice to be around people who understood.

Yeah, it is that like community. Um now you didn't know any of the women in real life like in person beforehand. Right?

So ironically my creative memories up line was one of the people there, but I hadn't seen her in years. So it was like a reunion Michelle. Yeah, I knew her in real life. Yeah, I remember that. That was so crazy. You guys were like, you were like, I think it was you who said it to her, right? You were like, I don't know if you recognize me. She, I think she said it to me and I was like, of course I do. But I was like, this is very peculiar though, what is happening memory? I don't know that I would remember remember for that amount of time, which is so called small world, Right? Yes, definitely. Well, I'm so glad you could come because it was really fun. There was one other thing, Oh, branding pictures. Yes, I'm glad you said that because I'm slowly starting to roll mine out too and I'm like, it's so nice to have like that 15 minute slot of taking pictures in different places that you can use in your posts. Yes, I have to admit I've used to in posts on my facebook, but I also just submitted one to the theater for the slide show because I'm a costumer and they needed a picture of me. So, um, they're useful for all the things, which is great. Um, yeah, and I think I'm gonna use background removal to pop some into my um, thumbnails for my classes. A lot of people seem to be doing that and I'm like, okay, well maybe we'll see how that works. So yeah, I think that's so smart because then you put a face to a name and people are more likely to connect with you, you know what I mean?

Yeah, I love that. Alright, I like to wrap up with... Always like one, like one last tip for the mom who is busy doing all the things. What's one tip that you have for her to help her survive this holidays?

Um My best tip is just be ready to be flexible and pivot when you need to because what's really important for you to get done may not be the most urgent thing that you need to get done, like you have to prioritize and there's definitely been a lot of times where my kids really, really needed me, so I really had to pivot and do that and then come back to other stuff, it'll still be there. Um and I'm at a point thankfully where my businesses can run kind of on autopilot for a while if they have to, I still teach my classes, but I have so much stuff already created that I don't have to do a lot of the creation, which is nice so anytime you can get something built so that you don't have to think about it constantly and can have seasons where you're busier and don't have to worry about it, I think that's going to really, really be wonderful for you. So and that recycling like instead of you like making a new course, you're like I'm rerunning stuff that I know has already been successful. So that's less work for me and you know why why reinvent the wheel right? Because I'm not going to say that all the games I've ever created have been 100% successful. I have kids who are very, very honest with me and they're like MS Autumn, this was not a good game. I'm like okay we'll play this one again, Like we'll tweak it for next time. I will do something different for next time. That is fine. But you appreciate the feedback. I know you do, I do for sure because I don't want them to not have fun. Like that's the whole point of it for me is having a good time and learning at the same time. I think you learn more when you're having fun.

Well I love this Autumn. So for people listening, give us a quick run down of how people can work with you or how they can sign up for your classes or find you on T. P. T. And I'll be sure to link all this in the notes too.

Okay so on Outschool I am just Autumn Emigh that's spelled E M I G. H. Because my husband is German and Swedish and I take no credit for that. Um So yeah just look for Autumn Emigh I have a lot of like I said confidence speaking and then I do some crafty phonics classes where we make really really cute stuff. Um I'm actually here. I gotta show you. This is adorable. This is the advent countdown calendar we're going to make and his nose moves around to the different numbers until you get to one. So super cute, cute. Yeah. So anyway um he's made from a paper plate. It's fun. Yeah. So I have seasonal crafts and then animal crafts that we do. Um But if you just go to out school dot com search for Autumn E. M. I. G. H. You will find me there on T. P. T. Um My company that I had to create as a speech therapist, I had to create my own company because I was an independent contractor for a county. And they said you have to do this if you want to keep working. So I started a speech and language therapy. Speech and Language services inc. Yes. A E speech and Language services inc is my company. So if you go to T. P. T. Teachers pay teachers. I think it's T. P. T. Dot com. Um And search for a speech and therapy. Speech and language. Sorry you're kind of like it. I have a link tree that I know I sent to you. So if you go to my link tree it has all of that and where is your canning class if there's an adult listening, who would like, I have not gotten that started yet because I only ended up canning salsa this fall. I haven't gotten any of the other things can so that it's a work in progress to be determined, people can contact you to get on the wait list for that one. Yes, absolutely. It is definitely something I want to do either in person or online. I haven't decided for sure which it will be, but I know there's a lot of people who, I mean there's not a lot of people who do it anymore, but a lot of people would like to learn. Yeah, yeah, I totally believe that. And her salsa guys, she brought it to the retreat. It's delicious. So canning on point. Thank you. Alright, Autumn, Oh, thank you so much for your time. It was so good chatting with you. Yes, definitely. Thank you so much for having me. And that's a wrap on today's episode. I hope you're leaving today inspired princess to create own and spread your magic to the world. If you found by you in this episode or no, a girlfriend who needs to hear it, would you screenshot it and send it to her and if you're feeling really generous, pop it up on your I G. Stories and tag me at Lindsay Dollinger so I can see you loved it and tell you, thank you, I appreciate you. Now let's go do some amazing things. Bye bye.

Connect with Autumn here: https://linktr.ee/Autumn.Emigh

Join the Magical Membership for Women Entrepreneurs with Autumn and others here: https://www.lindsaydollinger.com/magical-membership-sales-page