Episode 68: From Teacher for 17 Years to Health and Fitness Coach with Sara-Jane Ladums

Full Episode Transcription:

Arianna (00:07):
Hello everybody. And welcome back to the Ditch the Classroom podcast. I am super excited today to introduce you to Sarah Jane Ladum. She’s a second was a secondary school teacher for 17 years, turned health and fitness coach, as well as social media and podcast manager. So she’s got a lot on her plate and I’m so excited to get to hear a bit about her journey out of the classroom today and share it with y’all so welcome, Sarah Jane.

Sarah Jane (01:16):
Well, thank you so much for having me. I’m very excited to be chatting with you today.

Arianna (01:20):
Yeah, me too. So I’d love to just start with you sharing a little bit with us about your teaching journey and what really brought you into teaching, what grades you taught and all of that.

Sarah Jane (01:34):
Okay. So I followed the usual route from school of going into school. I went to university and studied and got my degree and like many students, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do once I’d completed my degree. So I’m not going to claim that I had great plans to be a teacher. But at that time there was a lot of recruitment going on here, looking for teachers. We didn’t have enough teachers. And I saw the adverts and I applied and I joined the teaching course. So that took me an extra year after I completed my time at university. And I just found that I was very good at it. I taught what we call in the UK secondary school.

Sarah Jane (02:28):
So that was from ages 11 through to 18 year olds. So it was quite a lot of year groups. I taught mainly geography, but I also was head of department for sociology and also taught physical education as well. So I ended up teaching a lot of different subjects. I really enjoyed being a teacher. I enjoyed being in the classroom. I enjoyed the pastoral side of being a teacher, supporting the children that I was working with. Um, I worked in quite deprived areas in the UK. So the schools that I was in were, you know, children who were perhaps low income families, a lot of children that had special educational needs, physical disabilities and that sort of thing. And I did really enjoy working with those children and just being part of their life and actually being a real constant adult for so many of them, as many of us teachers are because, you know, often if they’re having struggles at home school is a really, really special place and a really secure place for them. So was, that was how I came into teaching. And I, as you said, I was there for 17 years before I decided to make the switch.

Arianna (03:50):
That’s amazing that you taught for that long. I only made it three years. I’m super, super impressed by you. So thank you. Can you, can you tell us a little bit about what, what kind of had you shifting from, “okay, I’m enjoying being a teacher” to wanting to kind of pivot into something else.

Sarah Jane (04:16):
In all honesty, it was when I became a mom. So I was still working full time as a teacher, whilst I was pregnant with my daughter, Chloe, who is now four years old. And it was hard work being on my feet all day and being pregnant trying to keep up with teenagers. And then when she was born, I was on maternity leave for eight months. And I then went back to teaching full time when she was eight months old. And that honestly was the most difficult thing I ever did leaving her in childcare from seven in the morning, till six o’clock at night. And I would leave her and I would cry every single day, leaving her, handing her over to somebody else and all of it’s that difficult juggle that I think all parents have to make, particularly women of do we stay at home and look after our children or do we go back to work and the cost of, of childcare?

Sarah Jane (05:15):
I’m sure it’s the same for you in the US is really high as well. And it’s that really different, difficult job of deciding, “Do I go back to work and pay for childcare or do I stay home?” And then we only have one income in our household. My husband is a farmer, so we live on a farm in the UK and the hours that he works are really inflexible – they’re long they’re irregular. I went back when she was eight months old and pretty much within a couple of months, I was starting to think about what I could do to change that because it just wasn’t working for us as a family.

Arianna (05:59):
I see a lot of myself in your story. I was pregnant my final year of teaching and just realized, you know, being in the classroom was not going to allow me to be the mother that I wanted to be. I see that in you, and I’ve seen that in so many of the other guests that I’ve brought on the show that it just doesn’t give us the flexibility to really pour into our kids like we really want to.

Sarah Jane (06:28):
Yeah. And we spend so much of our time and energy as teachers pouring into other children. And I just didn’t have that when I came home to be the present mom that I wanted to be for my daughter.

Arianna (06:43):
Yeah. Same. So can you just share with us a little bit about like once you made that decision that, okay, this is not where I meant to be anymore. Can you share a little bit about that journey from deciding to leave where you are now?

Sarah Jane (07:00):
Yeah, so it wasn’t just a, I’m gonna leave and pack my bags and off I go. I’m quite a planner, so I wanted to put a plan in place. My head teacher said to me that I could go part-time. So I actually went part-time for a year. So I was working three days a week. And during that time I also sort of realized that, although I was only in school three days a week, I was still thinking that I was working full time. And it’s really difficult to like compartmentalize that, that part of your life because there’s always as a teacher, there’s always more that you could be doing.

Sarah Jane (07:53):
And you are always thinking about those children that are in your classroom and lessons and marking books and all of the things that you do. And although I was only being paid for three days a week, I think I was still working full-time hours and I was starting to think to myself, okay. So what can I do to take the skills that I have as a teacher? And then turn them into something that I can make a job out of. And it was really scary because I, you know, I’ve been employed for 17 years, so I’d gone from university into the classroom. And I was talking about going out on my own and becoming an entrepreneur, basically being self-employed. And that was really scary. But I think one of the great things that you learn as a teacher is that actually you can handle most things.

Sarah Jane (08:44):
If you can be in a classroom with all of these, certainly with the children that I was teaching, I thought, well, if I can do that, then I can probably achieve anything that I actually want to. So I was thinking about the skills I had, the obvious one for me that was transferable was my love of sport, my love of physical education. So whilst I was still teaching, I embarked on some extra qualifications and I studied in the evenings and weekends to get my qualifications so that I was a personal trainer and a nutrition coach. Once I got those qualifications whilst I was still working, I was sort of gradually making that transition to getting myself up and running as a business whilst being a teacher. Looking after my daughter who was still really young and starting to get some clients, starting to build a reputation in the community so that I then got my business to a point where I felt that while I wasn’t matching my part time to salary, it was enough to cover the bills and things that my salary was paying for. And it was gonna give me more flexibility so that I could be there with my, my daughter more.

Arianna (10:06):
That’s amazing. There’s so many of my listeners that are, you know, trying to start this side hustle, whatever they’re wanting to make full time, whether it’s becoming a virtual assistant, becoming a health and fitness coach, whatever they’re wanting to do, a lot of them are starting this as a side hustle while still teaching. And so hearing how you’ve been able to do this as a mom and a teacher and starting your own business, that’s just amazing. So I would love if you could just share with us some of your, your top tips for juggling it all.

Sarah Jane (10:48):
I think one of the great things that we have to our advantages teachers is that many of us are very organized. We’re very good at planning ahead. We are very good at blocking out time because if we are lesson planning, we’re putting time into certain parts of a lesson or a topic in a class. So we’re very, very good at doing that. One of the other things that I used that I was discovering whilst I was training to be a personal trainer at the time was I was learning all about cycle thinking. And I know that you guys over in the US are a bit more ahead of the game with it than we are here in the UK. But cycle thinking ultimately is about knowing what’s going on with your body, knowing what’s going on with your menstrual cycle and using your hormones to your advantage.

Sarah Jane (11:34):
So there are certain like activities and work that you can be doing within your business at certain times of the month to get the most out of the time that you have so that you can be more productive. And that was something that really helped me to get my calendar organized so that I wasn’t feeling overwhelmed. I could look at my calendar and say, okay, well I know that at certain times in the month, I’m gonna have more energy. So this is the time where I’m gonna be pushing maybe to learn more for my exams, or this is the time where I’m gonna be looking to promote myself more, to try and find more personal training clients.

Sarah Jane (12:23):
I had my business for two months before COVID hit. And as a personal trainer here in the UK, that was ultimately the end of my business for about eight months. It was devastating, absolutely devastating because I’d left a 17 year career, built up a business and then it all sort of crumbled down in front of me. So with everything that I’d learned, I actually made a massive pivot and I ended up kind of teaching myself a new career. And that was where I started to learn how to become a virtual assistant. So I’d kind of taken like a massive full circle and yeah, it was quite a challenging point at the start of COVID that’s for sure.

Arianna (13:20):
That’s so hard to have a business that you’ve been pouring into just kind of be put on hold and there’s nothing you can do about it. So you’re amazing for having that ability to be like, okay, well I can’t do this, so I gotta shift into something and figuring it out so you could still provide for your family. That’s amazing.

Sarah Jane (13:43):
Yeah. Thank you. That’s really kind to be saying.

Arianna (13:46):
You’re welcome. So can you share with us, what are some resources that helped you in your digital classroom journey?

Sarah Jane (13:55):
So I think as teachers, we are very good at learning. We are amazing learners. We love learning, which is why we teach. And so, although it was a challenge working and teaching and looking after my daughter, I did go and get some extra qualifications although it was hard work and it was time consuming, I actually did really enjoy it. I was interested in the subject that I was learning about. And I think because we teach, we know how to learn as well. So I found that actually, although it took time and again, it was the cycle thinking that helped me to put that into place in calendar when I was gonna be doing that learning so that I could get those extra qualifications. And then also, the university of Google as I call it when it came to having to do the pivot and to do the virtual assistant work, it was my friend who had a marketing agency and her business was really growing at the time because a lot of people were looking for marketing help to try and change the way things were being done.

Sarah Jane (15:07):
She said to me, you know, I know you are not a virtual assistant, but you are pretty organized and you’re good on a computer. Can you help me to do X, Y, and Z? I was like, okay. And there was loads of things that I didn’t know how to do, or you know how to go about doing it. I spent hours on Google trying to figure stuff out. And then I think going back to our skills as teachers, I think we have so many, and you were saying earlier about, you know, people who are thinking about having a side hustle so that they can leave the classroom. I think we are really lucky because although we probably don’t give ourselves credit for the skills that we have, our skills are massive. We are great. We’re great at organizing. We are really good at being around people as well and supporting people. It’s just, I think you’ve got to really give yourself some credit and think, there are so many skills that we have that you can tap into if you are thinking of moving out of the classroom. And that was one thing that I did was I really did take a step back and think, okay, what skills do I have? Where can I put those skills into a different context?

Arianna (16:24):
I’m so glad that you brought that up because I say all the time to the listeners that you don’t have to know how to do something 100% before you start doing it. We’re teachers, we get stuff thrown on our plates all the time that we have no clue what we’re doing. We have a student, we don’t know how to help and we gotta figure it out. We have a new lesson plan we’re expected to teach and we just, we figure it out on the fly. And that’s one of our biggest talents. And that can definitely be applied to starting your own business.

Sarah Jane (17:00):
Yeah. I love that you say that. I mean, if you think about it, how many times have you walked into a classroom with a perfectly planned out lesson thinking, yeah, this is what I’m gonna do. And something else happens and you have to throw the whole thing out the window and just do something completely different. And I think, I don’t know if you were the same, but I did my degree in geography, but I learned a whole different subject to teach my students through until they were 18 and they were going on to university. So we are so good at learning. And then being able to share that and put those skills into different places.

Arianna (17:42):
Yes, absolutely. And, and the fact that you said using Google university, that’s what I’m all about too. You can figure out anything you want to on Google. I personally do website design and so anything website design related, I taught myself watching YouTube. And it’s something that brings me so much passion, and you can go find so many tutorials for how to do it. So, yes, I love that. So I would love to ask you this question that I ask on every episode and it’s, if someone wanted to start their Ditch the Classroom journey, but they just felt too overwhelmed. What would you tell them?

Sarah Jane (18:24):
I think the first thing you need to think about is why you want to leave. What is your motivation? Because for me, my motivation was so obvious that crying every single day when I was leaving my daughter at childcare and my options really were carry on doing that or find something else. So I guess I almost have my back against the wall in that sense. But I think sometimes if you are in that situation and you just really are not happy, but you are thinking, oh my gosh, can I do this? Am I doubting myself? Do I have all of this fear? What’s worse. I know it sounds really awful, but which is gonna be worse for me.

Sarah Jane (19:22):
And I think if you know why you want to do it, then you start putting a plan in place and it doesn’t happen over the night. Mine took me a year to get to a point where I was doing the two and then my personal training. And I’m doing this up and down thing with my hand, like I’m on a, on a scale <laugh>, um, where I got to my, got my personal training business to a point where it was consistent. And I felt comfortable that I wasn’t gonna be putting the sole financial responsibility of our family onto my husband, because I wanted to have some financial independence. I didn’t want to completely rely on him. So it really was about having a plan in place. And then getting that plan to a point where you feel that you are ready, that you can take the step away from the classroom. So maybe don’t put pressure on yourself to have it done in like three months, be prepared for it to take a year, 18 months for you to make that slow transition. And then that probably won’t feel quite so overwhelming as thinking I’ve got to get somewhere within three months.

Arianna (20:36):
Yes, I agree. 100%. I just had a guest on recently and she said a quote that just blew my mind. I’m probably gonna butcher it, but it’s something like, do you want this to be day one? Or do you wanna keep saying one day? So do you wanna say one day I’m gonna ditch the classroom and I’m gonna figure that out someday. Or do you want this to be day one of taking that first step? And like you said, it’s not gonna happen overnight, but just taking those little steps that’s going to compound over time.

Sarah Jane (21:12):
Yeah, absolutely.

Arianna (21:15):
So I would love if you could share your resources that you have, that you think would be helpful for someone who wants to ditch the classroom.

Sarah Jane (21:24):
Oh, thank you so much. First, it’s been a real pleasure chatting with you today as well. I have a podcast called The Productive Mum, where I share a lot of self care and productivity advice for women who are perhaps working full time with a side hustle, how to manage your time. And the main thing that I talk about is about your health and your wellness, because if you are working as a teacher and then you are also putting a lot of energy into trying to build this business so that you can leave teaching, you’ve got to look after yourself because otherwise you’re going, your health is going to suffer. There’s a lot of work going on to do all of that, a lot of energy.

Sarah Jane (22:23):
So you’ve got to look after yourself. And if you are a parent as well, you’ve got the added responsibility of looking after small people. So on the podcast, I share a lot of health and wellness advice, and it is mostly based around cycle sinking. So how you can eat the right foods at certain times of the month to support your body productivity tips for how you can do different activities in your work, in the classroom or your work in your business to get the most out of the limited time that you have. So, yeah, that’s obviously free.

Arianna (22:57):
I absolutely love that. And I think that my listeners are going to as well, because you can’t pour from an empty cup. So we need to keep our cup full, to be able to pour into our students lives. our kids lives, our business, everything. So I know that they’re going to find your podcast so helpful, and I will have that linked in the show notes for everybody listening.

Sarah Jane (23:21):
Thank you

Arianna (23:21):
Where can people come and connect with you?

Sarah Jane (23:27):
So I am on Instagram @theproductivefitmum. The best place to find me is the podcast. I use social media, but I find it can be a real rabbit hole for me. So I don’t tend to get too focused on my DMS because there’s too many other things going on and I can get lost in social media. So the podcast is a great place to find me, and my email address and everything is linked in the podcast. And if anyone ever wants to ask me a question, they’re more than happy to. I’m love getting emails and hearing from people. So, yeah. Thank you.

Arianna (24:04):
Perfect. Well, thank you so much again for coming on today. It has been such a pleasure and I cannot wait for my listeners to get to hear your story and just be inspired to just take that first step. That’s all you can do.

Sarah Jane (24:18):
Yeah. Thank you very much. It’s been a real pleasure chatting with you today.

Arianna (24:22):
You’re welcome. All right, everybody. I hope you love this episode. Make sure to go connect with Sarah Jane and show her for some love for coming on the show, leave a review on both of our podcasts. It helps us grow so much. You guys have no idea how much we appreciate it. I love you guys so much and we will see you next week.