it was Such a critical component in myself believing that Bitcoin is a thing that I should pay attention to

it started out with the game, but throughout the course of the year, it became more and more clear that this was really something that was much, much bigger than us. And we want to really give that next generation the tools that they need, and multiple generations, like long after we're We're here and this is how we can help contribute to that and that's the reason for this podcast This is just another step in that evolution.

as Bitcoiners, we can't ever take those glasses off again. We're now just seeing the world completely differently.

It's another thing when you actually put yourself in a parachute and go up and jump out. Right. And so when you take a leap, whether it's to homeschool. It's to leave your job and do something different to start a new adventure There's a moment there. You have to make a decision I'm gonna go I'm gonna go forward with this and that was our moment back in December

Welcome everybody to Bitcoin homeschoolers. Today is the last episode we will do in the year 2023. And Scott and I thought it would be fitting for us to do a year end recap, just to share with you our journey. The reason for The idea came from an unexpected surprise in our mailbox today, I received a handwritten card from myself that I wrote in December 2022 as an exercise that I did with ,a group of people, and I had completely forgotten about it. It came in the mail and, I read it and it's just, it's such a wonderful reminder to look back over the last 12 months and just appreciate all that we have gone through all the, all the different, milestones that we have accomplished. I'd like to share with you something I wrote in my card. Uh, I wrote to myself a year ago. it says to myself in December 2023, I hope your year has been filled with accomplishments and breakthroughs. I hope the other year you have celebrated your wins more than you have pointed out the misses. So Scott and I are going to take our own advice and just look back and share with you are some of our wins and losses.

Where do you want to start?

Well, we can do it chronologically. So I'll just start with the last December. That was really when everything started for us. So up until then I have been a full time homeschooling mom with four kids that recently graduated high school, and I was suddenly done and Completely free with my schedule and Scott has stepped away from corporate It was the first time that I visited Bitcoin Park, because Scott and I had talked about Bitcoin. Those of you have heard our story. I was orange pill by his board game huddle up. And the problem that we faced was where we are in Kentucky, we just were not able to find other Bitcoiners. And even though we were fully convinced that Bitcoin was something we wanted to pursue and invest ourselves into, we didn't know how to start. We were watching YouTube videos, we were reading books and checking out articles, but it was just not the same as having somebody sitting down next to us and telling us face to face how to like step by step how to, you know, um, buy Bitcoin, move things from wallet to wallet, and just being truly a part of the ecosystem. So we visited some local Bitcoin meetups here, which all unfortunately turned out to be crypto investment clubs. So we decided to make the three hour trek to Nashville. Scott went there in November and then brought me there in December. And it was the first time that, at least for me, I Came in to a space with just everyday people who are all interested in the same thing that we were. We wanted a better alternative to what's happening in our fia system. And it was the place where we first met Matt Odell, where we first play a game of hollow up with people who were strangers, not friends and families who are doing us a favor. And it was the first time We realized that this was a space that we wanted to develop ourselves full time

So what comes to mind as you recall that is I don't think our confidence was where it is today. If you look at where we are today, we're just, we're in a completely different spot. Back then we, we made a decision that we were going to make a change and that, that experience you just described was. Like that's stepping off moment for us stepping out of for you is all the homeschooling years because you were done with all the formal schooling and for me it was leaving corporate and to me I Looked back in that and was a scary time. It was like, what are we doing? We don't know what we're doing. We think this is right We're gonna go for it. And I'm very glad we did but at the time if you if I would have Answer the same question back then I would have been I would have had a lot of fear Fear about what we're doing. How are we gonna take care of the family? How are we gonna make this work? So There's a big moment. That was a big moment. So

I remember having a discussion with you in the kitchen about whether or not We should play it safe and go back into the corporate world. But we chose not to. And it was, like you said, a very scary moment. It's actually still scary for me today. Because

It's a lot more fulfilling though. And, and now that another thing that's happened over the course of years, things make more sense than they did. So when I hear Jeff Booth say, if you continue to work at wherever you're, you're working, you're just, but you're, you're helping feed the system that you don't like. You have to get outside the system. Well, that, that makes a lot more sense to me now because we are doing our own thing, but most people. It's not easy to say, Oh, okay, well that makes a lot of sense. And then this suddenly change your life. This it's, it's one thing to understand those words. It's another thing to try to apply them. So it's one thing to say, Oh, I can see how you skydive and you watch somebody on a, on a TV show or whatever it is. And then it's another thing when you actually put yourself in a parachute and go up and jump out. Right. And so when you take a leap, whether it's to homeschool. It's to leave your job and do something different to start a new adventure Like it there's a there's a moment there. You have to make a decision I'm gonna go I'm gonna go forward with this and that was our moment back in December

that was our moment back in December. Yeah. unknown. Okay. So we'll, we'll cover our year. Kind of chronologically so that it would make sense when we first started our only Goal was to expose was to introduce HODL up to as many people as possible because it was Such a critical component in myself believing that Bitcoin is a thing that I should pay attention to and we just felt that if everybody Had reluctant family and friends that they were having trouble reaching. Huddle Up could be a really wonderful tool in their hands that they can share Bitcoin with. So we've, we basically reached out to as many Bitcoin meetups as we could possibly drive to and just offer to host Huddle Up game night. And we just got in the car and just drove.

Right. But a year later, or nearly a year later, what I learned from that is throughout the course of the year, it became more and more clear. The game helped open up opportunities for us to meet people, right? That was the, we went out and we talked to people and we showed them and we answer questions or we ask questions. This is where I realized somewhere on that, that journey that what we're doing is actually much bigger than ourselves. And we now use that expression. Frequently. I know it comes up, you listen to like Bitcoin veterans, they'll talk about it. We talk about it in the context of schooling, self custody of education. The game is just one piece of that bigger picture about teaching kids about money, teaching even adults about what money is. I guess what I'm saying is it started out with the game, but by, if I look throughout the course of the year, it became more and more clear that this was really something that was much, much bigger than us. And we want to really give that next generation the tools that they need, and multiple generations, like long after we're We're here and this is how we can help contribute to that and that's the reason for this podcast This is just another step in that evolution. I never ever ever thought I would be Doing a podcast But you go back and it's it started with the game Then it was the in person events and being in person is so so so so critical you got to get out and and try to find people who Who think like you, where it can help you with that next, the next step. And then if you have something, then to give it back. So if we have, we have a lot of experience with homeschooling and maybe games are one piece of that education. Great. That's our piece. Let's go, let's contribute with, you know, with that. So that as a, I know it gets a little philosophical, maybe I shouldn't go that deep on it, but it started as a game and it's so, so much more now. Um, and now look where, I mean, it's expanded for you for women and it's expanding for things with bringing the kids in. It's just, it's getting, it's getting to be much more than just this, this game that people can play.

getting, to be much more than just this game that people can Sort of forced me to pay attention to this whole concept of Bitcoin, which is the point of all of this anyway. And once you go down that Bitcoin rabbit hole, and you start to see the world completely differently, completely through a different pair of lens, right? So, for example, like, you know that, that movie with, Ryan Reynolds, what's, what's it called? Anyway that movie where you know, he put he put on a pair of glasses and suddenly He was seeing signs on buildings and floating in the air and you take off the glasses and, you know, everything is just the way there was, which is the way the rest of the people see it. And then he puts it back on again. And it's all these words, except that as Bitcoiners, we can't ever take those glasses off again. We're now just seeing the world completely differently. And the game. The reason, at least for me, when we started traveling was because I really wanted everybody to have the opportunity to put on those glasses. They may choose to look away, but they're never going to look at the world the same again. And then at least they have the full information to make their own decisions. Everybody has the right to make their own decisions. They don't all have to be Bitcoiners, but at least we can show them that there's a thing there. So, When we started traveling and sharing HODL up and with people with Bitcoiners, what we realized was that almost every Bitcoiner has family slash friends slash people they really care about who just don't understand Bitcoin to the point where they're in the They show animosity toward the whole concept So we see the game as a bridge builder between the Bitcoiner and their family and friends That they can have fun and in the fun just pique their curiosity a little bit because The truth is nobody will come to bitcoin unless they have a real need for it But at least like plan to see so this is a bridge builder This is a c planner and that's the way I saw it as we were traveling and everything else is Brought it from our experience from our encounters with people and even more needs that we identified in the industry Which brought us to create this podcast which brought me to create orange hatter, etc They all stem from this understanding that we're just trying to bring awareness to people

That's a good segue. And if you just look at the year again, this can be a year in review. So December we finally reach out we meet some other people who are Bitcoiners, we get to meet them in person. That's the big deal. We play our game. We start to travel. The, the other place besides Bitcoin park was trying to go to the homeschooling conferences and that message that you're talking about trying to reach other people. And that's, and that's what inspired me to write that article that homeschoolers are Bitcoiners that don't know it yet. There are a lot of people that. That are going to benefit from this this message, but it's not something that you just say one time and people understand and That it was one of the things that I look back on last year where Don't I don't know what the right word is. I guess I wasn't I don't know if it's humility Like I just thought hey, look, this is so obvious. Look at this this message This is gonna be awesome these people really really are gonna benefit from this and their kids are gonna benefit from it and And we drive and we set up a booth and we have this, and then we have the, the strange looks like we're like aliens, right? Like what the hell is this Bitcoin thing that you guys are talking about? And people are steering clear of us. that was kind of an eyeopening moment for me to, to realize just because we see it, we need to put ourselves in the shoes of others on how they're seeing it, if we're going to reach them with that message. It, it, they're not going to probably get, get it the same way I came to it one way. Like you said, you came to it a different way. Everybody has their own way. this, it's just something that we have to keep in mind. All of us, all Bitcoiners and all parents have to think about this with their kids too. You have to think about how they're perceiving the world and how you're going to reach them. And just, you cannot assume that if you say the words that other people are going to understand. What you're saying. So there was a big lesson there for me in terms of trying to see things from another point of view.

I echo that because even with our own kids, because we were so mindful about teaching them about money when they were growing up and we homeschooled. It's not like we school them and they never heard about money. Like we emphasized money education with the knowledge that we had pre Bitcoin. So our kids grew up with certain understanding about money, which we now know is pretty much all untrue. And then suddenly Scott and I changed our perception. And now we're trying to get our kids to also pivot with us. What we realized was that they, even though they have the money education, from homeschooling until they personally have a need or they see the personal effect from the current fiat system. Even they don't pivot with us being our kids being, we're a very close knit family. Clearly we were their, their primary teachers. And still it was hard for us to Help them pivot their perception with us when we did.

and think, it's extended family too. It's parents, it's siblings, and then it's friends. You, and I, I had my reunion this year, and it's not, the we take for we talk to other people in the space frequently or we listen to the same resources. it doesn't mean that this is like the, the view that everybody has. It's not, it's not that obvious. There's a lot of noise out there, lot of noise with social media, a lot of noise with the news. it's a very contentious time. We don't, I don't have to explain all that. People can go with it as they will with the politics, but we're very divided and people get their, their information from one place or another. For me, it was, it was classmates too. So it was, it was family. It was friends. It was colleagues. Not everybody sees and understands the same things that we just take for granted, uh, when you're in this space for a while.

And so that's why we, Scott and I, not only have been telling people about the board game, which worked for me, but now we're also trying to create other touch points for Bitcoiners to be able to reach their family members. So for example, I started a podcast called Orange Hatter and it was because I saw a gap in the industry where women were not. Necessarily being spoken to in a feminine way, because women talking to women, they have very different conversations than a woman talking to a man, and neither is better or worse. It's just different. And so if we're just if our goal is to rare to raise awareness, then we have to meet people where they are. And some people are So we can try to reach them through how to hop. Some people are conversationalists. Maybe we can reach them through a woman to woman conversation. And then of course we created this podcast, Bitcoin homeschooler to try to simultaneously, um, help the Bitcoiners with our experience in homeschooling our kids over the last 20 years, but hopefully also reach the homeschoolers that we haven't been able to reach with just little tidbits that they can pick up along the way. And maybe eventually they'll get to the point where they're ready to hop into the rabbit hole. So we're just creating different touch points for people to be able to bring their loved ones toward the rabbit hole.

Right. And even though we're, we're stumbling trying to figure out how to do that, this has been the most. fulfilling things. So there's the frustration of going, for example, going to a homeschooling conference and being like, how come these people don't get it? Talking to your own kids and saying, mom and dad, we have this insight. We want to share it with you. It's gonna make a big difference. And then we struggle with just reaching our own. Our own family. On the other hand, when you look at the game and you look at the in person events and you have a conversation with someone who, for example, they're thinking about starting a family or maybe they have young kids and you can make an impact on somebody or someone plays a game and they, they start to open up to Bitcoin is about, or you reach some women that can join you on whichever ways you guys connect. There is something so fulfilling and again, I'll keep slipping back to the philosophical this is something bigger than us when so when I talk with Gabe about Operation Bitcoin and what he's doing with with veterans Same type of thing like there's something when you When you realize the thing that you're working on is connected to something that you are passionate about It is you you have purpose And there is, it is so much more fulfilling than anything else that I have ever worked on. Yes, we don't know exactly how to do e commerce. We're learning. Yes, we don't know how to do podcasting. We're learning. Technical aspects of Nostra, Bitcoin, Lightning, etc. Get it. We're learning. But this is so fulfilling knowing that this is part of a bigger purpose. And every time you reach someone it doesn't have to be that you, you orange pilled 10, 000 people or a million people. If you make a connection with your family, that's awesome. You make a connection with your spouse, that, that is invaluable. Like the priceless, the, the little priceless video that you did for the conference. Right? I mean, it was like, cost of a movie or something is, what was it?

dinner 000 families united in Bitcoin

priceless That captures it. And that, that to me is so motivating. I'm frustrated that we made mistakes in the past. I'm frustrated we didn't see the light to get in on Bitcoin earlier. I am so grateful though that we're in the spot where we're in now. Where we are part of something bigger. And, and we are figuring this thing out. Whatever it is. With money, with Bitcoin, with Entrepreneurship, but it's so fulfilling and then I I think that shows in your energy when you talk to people. And I also think that shows to your kids when you're working on something you believe in as opposed to going to a job that you hate, right? There's there's so many other ways that this can, that it's more than just the money. It's more than just the technology that it impacts. Really how you look at life and, and how you do things. And then, the kids are looking at us, right? So we're setting a personal example to, by doing this. So, anyway, again, I go down the philosophical stuff. This is, um, this is, this is gonna be a lot of fun. Maybe we should, uh, think about how we wrap up the 2023 and transition to what we want to get done in 24. What do you think?

Yeah, let's talk about 2024.

All right. So one of the things that I'm thinking of is we're going to continue to go to the homeschooling conferences. We're going to do one this year and each time we're just going to keep taking a slightly different tact on how we, we approach that market. I still believe that they're all, they all have Bitcoin. Principles that they have. They just haven't, we haven't been able to, to reach them yet. I think we need to continue to do the orange hatter, reach out to women and the Bitcoin homeschool or reach out to parents. I think that's critical. And then we absolutely have to continue in person events. That's where, I mean, I get it. Audiobooks and podcasts are great for learning. Nothing replaces going to a conference, like I would

not even a meetup where you, you're in a room with 10, 15 people. I love those interactions the most because you're really getting to know each other. And and what we stand for and it's it's not like you have to interact with 100 people at the same time So, you know an evening of a game night. I just I love that I I think I would like to do more of that. The other thing is

Now you're recorded on saying that. I know how much you love games, so

Okay, just so everybody knows I am NOT a board gamer Scott can tell you that he and our son they're the board gamers, but it is what

Orange

built me. So here I am. But anyway, I think from the point of view of reaching more women, which I think is really critical. I am in the process of, um, Creating more touch points for women. So one of the things I want to do. One of the things that I am doing is hosting a woman's retreat in Yucatan, Mexico in March, March 16th to the 20th. And I like to address the need that women have to remember to recharge themselves because we're such we're, we have a lot of windows open up. any one time, you know, as women trying to take care of ourselves, our career, our families, our children, everything that we sometimes forget that until we fill up our own battery, we can't really be as effective as we would like to be. So the woman's retreat is one touch point. Other things that are in the works, which I will announce later. Um, just I, my focus for me is to create more touch points to reach women. And, uh, especially moms, because if you reach one mom, you reach her kids. If our kids are

young enough. Yeah, that's where, I almost interrupted you. That's where I wanted you to get to is that these are connected. You, you've made a comment in the past, this is what I was going to hope you'd expand on and, and that is. If we want Bitcoin adoption to increase, you have to have women, you have to have moms. Otherwise, you're, you're going to, you're going to leave out half the population there and all their kids. Right. To me, they're very connected. And yeah, if you can, I know you can expand on it from a woman's standpoint, but

The majority of the Bitcoin meetups take place at either a restaurant or a bar, mostly pubs. For a woman, and some women are okay with that, but a lot of women would prefer more of the homey feeling. So like the home parties, like the Tupperware parties or the, uh, what's another party like makeup party, like Mary Kay parties, you know, just,

or actually like a play date kind of let's all meet in the park kind of thing. You know, you can, well,

talking about more like a home, like almost like a home Bible study thing where people, Just kind of gathering intimate settings. You're sitting on a sofa, everybody's got a cup of coffee or a cup of tea. And then they're chatting in an intimate, casual setting. And that's when you really make that connection. Whereas if you're sitting in the pub and the music is loud, then you're having to, you know, order food. And you're talking only across the table to the person who's. Close to you, you know, sitting close to you. It's just it's a completely different environment. And so my focus this year is to try to reach women through the living room

Right. So I guess 2024. For 2024. So to me the we, we need to continue the momentum we've built with, with free market kids, reaching out with games, with lessons, with, and now we've expanded it to these, these podcasts really don't see any other way than to continue the in person type events, uh, the, the experiences we had, for example, at the UN conference before, what do you call it? Adopting Bitcoin in El Salvador was fantastic. I have a personal goal. Personal desire to help with the veteran side. So I'm going to be working with Gabe to try to support everything I can for operation Bitcoin as well. and then we'll, we'll keep building games. We'll keep building content. We'd like to, I think we should start getting, I know we talked about how would we do this, but what would be the right type of lessons that would, we could formalize to go with the games or other things that we've done. Especially for the homeschooling audience. It's a different audience than the people that you'll meet at a Bitcoin conference or meetup. So that's something that we need to explore as well. And the digital huddle up. I do think we, we have an opportunity here to, to break through all the friction of supply chains. Board games are great, but they're expensive to ship. Not everybody can afford them. If you pay two or three times the value of the game just to pay for your import duties and shipping, people are just not going to buy it. And Bitcoin is a global type thing. So I'm looking, I'm also looking for ways to break down those barriers and a digital version of our material is one way to do that

covers it. That's, that's 2024.

Great, let's just wrap it up there then. Say Happy New Year, we're looking if anybody has specific topics that they would like to cover on this. We are learning as we go and we're excited to meet as many people as we can. So I hope to meet many of you in person somewhere along the way in 2024.

if there's any interest in having a live Q and a session, for those of you who are new to homeschooling or encountering some specific challenges, homeschooling your kids, and you'd like to pick our brain, let us know. And if there's enough interest, we'll set up a regular time.

Why don't you make it a, we could think about it as a panel almost, like the, at TabConf

we can, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Just people having access to us to ask questions because they listen to our podcast and they would like our opinion, not a topic specific panel thing because if they have an issue and they just have a question, we can either invite them to, to send us a, um,

We can do a live

us a, yeah, exactly. If we did a live stream on YouTube, like YouTube live, we can record it

well, I mean, look at what, look at what, What Matt and Marty do with Rabbit Hole Recap. You can record that and listen to it later, like I usually will just because of the schedule. There are many people though, who log in live and if they have questions, they just ask.. the pre

they do, um, YouTube live.

Yeah, but they also are doing, it's Nostra, I forget the name of it now, but they're, they're doing, there's a, there's a Nostra nest and you could do both. So if, if you, if there's a pre coiner who hears about us, they're interested in it, but they don't have the same background. They're not going to know what a Nostra nest is, but it's a Bitcoiner who hears about us. Great. So you set up both and, and just. You make it available, this, this goes exactly back to our point earlier is, we have to put ourselves in the shoes of those who we're trying to reach and what are the ways that they would be able to, to access and then we, we make ourselves available through those means.

Yeah, so if there's any interest in that send us an email

Is there any, anybody out there, anybody who's technically competent enough to help us set some of that stuff up that we need to, you

YouTube live I already know how to set it up

do you, you know, I do a Nos or Nest

that I don't know. And I don't know if he can record it and host it anywhere.

Well, you,

If there's any interest, if you have any interest in regular office hour or just regular Q and a session, DMS ads, free market kids on Twitter, or what are other handles that you want to share?

other people seeing on social media? Yeah, if you're a woman listening to this, and you specifically

if you're, if you're a woman listening to this and you specifically want to talk to me about Orange Hatter, you can check out the website, orangehatter. com or you can email me directly, tolly at orangehatter. com or you can reach me at tolly at freemarketkids. com as well.

Yeah. It's gonna be great. 24 is gonna be, you have the halving, the ETFs, the election. It's gonna be crazy. Crazy year. It's gonna be a very exciting time. So, Happy New Year everybody. Can't wait to see you in person. Take care.

See you next year. Bye.