#083 - Kelsie Marks | Exit Strategy: How Educators Can Transition to New Career Paths

Kelsie Marks is the Director of Career Transformation at Educated Exit, a company dedicated to helping educators successfully transition out of teaching and explore new career paths. In this episode, Kelsie and I discuss the mission of Educated Exit, the importance of recognizing transferable skills from an education degree, the various career paths available to former educators, whether teaching is a dead-end job, the value of being intentional in your networking efforts, the efficacy of an MBA, and the myth that teachers need additional schooling to land a corporate position outside the classroom. We also talk about how to invest in yourself once you decide you're ready to leave teaching, how to overcome the emotions that come with wondering if leaving is the right choice, and much more. Thank you for tuning in, and I hope you enjoy the show!

Work with Kelsie here: https://www.educatedexit.com/

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Thoughts shared on the podcast are purely our own and do not represent the views of the Anglophone South School District or the relevant jurisdictions associated with my guests.

Transcript

Lucas Clarke (00:00.568)
All right, Kelsey Marks, educated exit, a superintendent's worst nightmare. Thank you so much for coming on today.

Kelsie Marks (00:08.883)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here and to join the conversation.

Lucas Clarke (00:14.772)
Absolutely, so I think first off, I've come across a few kind of pages about like people kind of guiding teachers through a transition out of teaching, but I think a simplest question to ask is how would you describe what it is that you do?

Kelsie Marks (00:32.583)
I would describe what we do at Educated Exit is transforming people's lives because that's really what we do. When someone is ready to leave education, they are often at a very pivotal time in their life. They've often had feelings of wanting to leave education for a long time. Often they have experienced use or abuse of alcohol, prescription drugs.

using exercise or food as a form of therapy. And they're really at a turning point in their life where they oftentimes need their life back.

Lucas Clarke (01:11.14)
Hmm. So that's actually something, because I guess typically the narrative would be like, teachers are overloaded, overworked, but I guess something that's not really talked about as much. And if you could share some anecdotes, obviously anonymously, what are some of the stories that people have shared with you about some of the coping mechanisms that they've gone to? And I guess what was it about teaching specifically that you think kind of brought them to that point, if you don't mind sharing?

Kelsie Marks (01:37.427)
I think that where we're at right now in terms of the treatment of educators is at an all time low. And we see that in many forms. We've seen that in celebrities saying F teachers. We see that in professional athletes saying that they didn't value school because they wanted to play their sport. know, the degradation of the entire profession has

Lucas Clarke (01:46.404)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsie Marks (02:07.017)
happened through many, years, but with the use of social media and these quote unquote influencers saying or being able to more fluidly share their thoughts, we're at a really a tipping point where teachers are almost just viewed at as public babysitters. And I think for many people who are in the profession right now, including myself when I was in the profession,

Lucas Clarke (02:27.875)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsie Marks (02:36.507)
We didn't get into the profession to be a public babysitter. We got into the profession to help students. We got into the profession to make an impact on students' lives. But, again, because of the forces at be, this is where we're at right now. And for many people, the stress, the expectations, the workload, it is just too much.

Lucas Clarke (03:00.9)
And I'm always a fan of the quote of research is me search. So I feel like the reason why you're likely so good at this job that you do now and why you're so highly regarded and known for it, I guess, when what was your moment for leaving teaching? And I guess how did you end up kind of in this, like kind of creating this route of helping teachers? Like, I guess what struggles did you find leaving teaching and looking for other work?

Kelsie Marks (03:27.743)
Sure, so when I was a teacher, I taught preschool. And at first I thought like, my gosh, like, you know, I was new to this. thought, my gosh, you know, I'm gonna do this forever. This is my calling. And after about two and a half years, I was like, okay, I don't know if I can do this forever. And after that,

Lucas Clarke (03:33.112)
Bold move.

Lucas Clarke (03:41.827)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (03:46.029)
Yeah

So two and a half years, why the half year? Okay, okay, good to know, all right.

Kelsie Marks (03:53.03)
why the half year? Because I got into a grad program.

So that's kind of led me to school counseling where I thought, okay, you know, I still really want to work in education, but I don't think it's teaching, you know, preschool for forever. I still have a passion for working in education. I still wanted to impact lives. And for me, school counseling just really felt like a natural fit and a natural career progression for me. And, you know, so I got into a program, I worked my way through the program.

did all my clinicals, passed all my tests and got a job in a high school and I loved it. And then got a job at the college level and loved it. But really after about three years, I would say that I became disillusioned really because the same issues that I was dealing with as a preschool teacher were the same issues essentially that I was dealing with.

at the high school level and at the college level and the issue of respect and the issue of funding and the issue of resources, those issues never went away and those issues just continued to get harder to fight. And so a tipping point really for me was I was getting to the point where I was exhausted every day. There were nights where I was staying on school campus until seven o'clock at night.

I lived an hour away from campus. So, you know, I wasn't home until eight o'clock at night. And my husband was like, you're not getting paid for this time, right? Like you have a contract and it says four o'clock, you're there till seven, that's working for free. And he was really the one who encouraged me to be like, you know, he was very, I love that you're passionate. I love that.

Lucas Clarke (05:41.678)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsie Marks (05:55.143)
You love what you do, but I can't see you work yourself to death. And I've talked very openly on my social platforms about needing medication to sleep at night. I gained 30 pounds working in education. I really lost all my hobbies because I was so dedicated to trying to make it work that I was not dedicated to anything else. And that's where it becomes unhealthy.

Lucas Clarke (06:19.906)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsie Marks (06:23.473)
and many people don't recognize that until they're in this extreme burnout state.

Lucas Clarke (06:30.628)
It's almost yeah, you almost don't realize the burnouts there until you like literally run out of gas. You're like, Whoa, I actually like can't do anything. I would say, yeah, it's sad how prevalent all of the trends are in what you're saying and like why people are leaving. But I do think I think it ranges from school to school is kind of what I'm

picking up on, I'm still early on in my career, who knows where I'll be in five, 10 years, but as of right now, I'm still enjoying it. there's, fingers crossed. But there does seem to be like a cultural pressure to just put your pedal to the metal. Like I don't understand, it's almost okay when a teacher starts their career,

Kelsie Marks (07:03.199)
you

Congrats.

Lucas Clarke (07:24.566)
It's weird if they don't have like nine extracurriculars that year. It's like almost like this, you have to prove it even though you're also still just learning how to be a person in a job. You know what I mean? Like you just went from being a university student and now you're going to work like all the time. I guess, I guess initially how often when teachers come to you, because you could give a percentage how many people that usually come to you actually end up staying in a

like facet of education and who actually like leave the profession entirely.

Kelsie Marks (07:58.601)
I would say it's about 50-50. Some people still have that desire to be involved in education in some capacity. So whether that's working for an educational nonprofit, a museum, as like an education coordinator, a curriculum writer, I mean, there are hundreds of jobs outside of education that still allow you to be education adjacent and work with students or work with young people. Now, there's also a large portion of people that we work with.

Lucas Clarke (08:00.803)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (08:21.198)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsie Marks (08:28.403)
who feel that they are just too burned by the education system. They are burnt out. They have had their feelings hurt, their family damaged, whatever it may be. And they want nothing to do with it. So we do have a wide range of industries in which people have transitioned into. And I talk about that very openly on my social platforms. Educated Exit has helped educators transition into 26 different career fields.

Lucas Clarke (08:47.576)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsie Marks (08:58.129)
outside of education. So really there are so many more opportunities out there than many people realize.

Lucas Clarke (08:58.308)
You know.

Lucas Clarke (09:05.764)
Okay, that brings up an excellent point because even for my, again, even though I enjoy it, I won't sit here and lie to you and say I haven't scrolled through the jobs available on LinkedIn or Indeed. And just like, I don't know, you're always kind of looking, I guess first, let's just say you finished your education degree and you haven't even started teaching yet. Like what fields actually value?

an education degree that aren't necessarily becoming a classroom teacher, I guess even from the hop, like what's the value of the degree, if any, when it comes to going into other fields that you've seen.

Kelsie Marks (09:40.063)
So yeah, that's a great question. I think when any young person gets an education degree, I think they need to understand what that education degree actually means. Because in that education degree, you're learning communication. You're learning conflict resolution. You're learning so much more than actually teaching.

You're learning management, you're learning curriculum writing. Like there is so much to being an educator that is not standing up in front of the class and actually teaching. So if you are a younger teacher and you just got that degree and you're thinking, you know, hey, maybe this isn't the right thing for me. Maybe I kind of overestimated myself or whatever it may be. Those feelings can come up.

Lucas Clarke (10:18.851)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsie Marks (10:36.593)
I would really start looking at your strongest transferable skills and you want to think big picture. A lot of times when I say look at your strongest transferable skills, people think like classroom management, classroom decorating, organization. Yes, all of those things are great and they can contribute to your overall employability, but you want to think big picture. You want to think public speaking. You want to think project management.

Lucas Clarke (10:51.939)
You

Kelsie Marks (11:05.657)
You want to think things along the lines of copywriting and editing. Big picture things that can fit into many different industries. And then it is going to be on you as the job seeker to do some really serious soul searching and understand what it is you want from your next position. Because what I see a lot of is people coming to me and saying, well, what can I do? And I say, well,

what have you done and where do you want to go? Because ultimately it comes down to you. I can only do so much. At the end of the day, you need to be able to sit down at your computer and apply for jobs.

Lucas Clarke (11:48.904)
So some of the paths that I've seen, so let's just say you're the one who's five years or 10 years into your career. A few of the ones that jump out whenever I did some Google searching, I obviously consulted, this is my own cheesy joke, Chad Gepete, which is Chad GPT, about what are some of the positions that could potentially be kind of an automatic transition.

ones that come up are like corporate trainer or human resources. Um, obviously you can, I would say, I would wholeheartedly say that like less than half of the people who used to want to be administrators in schools now do not want to be administrators. Like I, for some reason, we'll get to that point a little bit later, but for the actual positions that are available, it's like usually corporate trainer HR. And like, that's kind of like, that's kind of it that I've seen. So I guess.

of the 26 industries, it's a very specific number, like what are some that have even surprised you and maybe what are some of the most that are like unexpected that you've seen?

Kelsie Marks (12:55.635)
Yeah, I think I want to let everyone listening know that no two people come to the job search or the career transition market with the exact same experience or worldview. And that is why we've had so many people transition into different career fields. I've had people transition into things like the genealogy field, doing genealogical research.

Lucas Clarke (13:09.689)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsie Marks (13:24.883)
I've had people transition into nonprofit management, museum curation, tech sales, pharmaceutical sales. I've had people transition into being like an office manager or an executive assistant. I've had people transition into working for like a hospital system, doing surrogacy and adoption work. Let's see, I'm trying to think what else. I've had people transition.

Lucas Clarke (13:48.451)
Hmm.

Kelsie Marks (13:53.023)
and do things like in corporate and commercial real estate. I've had people transition into more tech jobs like computer science, data analyst. I've had people transition into banking. Really, again, no two people are the same and you have more options than you think.

Lucas Clarke (14:14.562)
Yeah, I feel like the real estate and social worker one I often hear like that's very much a way to like potentially help people or kind of use your people skills, I would say. As for let's just say you're someone who's and I guess, like you said, it is a bit more difficult to say because no one's actually coming to you with the same background. So if let's just say you've decided to

Leave education, you want something different. I kind of wrote down as I was thinking about this, like the six month, the one year and the two year transition, but it almost seems like that's not really relevant because there are so many different backgrounds. But first off, how would you recommend someone invest in themselves while still teaching to like, I guess make them more generally, like accredited if that makes sense, like for

just a more general workforce. And one that I've seen most common is like a master's of business administration. That's kind of like, I have a lot of friends who are teachers that have said, if you do your master's, do something to keep your options open. So I know I threw a lot at you there, but I guess what are the parts where you start to think of like, okay, you're on the fixed income. Maybe you're five years in, maybe you have a kid or two, maybe you're married. Like how, in what ways is like the best?

Kelsie Marks (15:13.759)
Yeah.

Kelsie Marks (15:29.245)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (15:43.032)
like bang for your buck in self-investment.

Kelsie Marks (15:46.601)
So I want to warn anyone against getting another degree or more certifications. Those things are great, don't get me wrong, but they are not overnight improvements. They are not going to rock your world tomorrow. You're gonna have to put in a lot of effort into that. And if you're someone who desperately wants out of education,

Lucas Clarke (15:53.636)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (16:01.689)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsie Marks (16:14.747)
That's more playing the long game than the short game, if that makes sense. You're taking out a driver when you should be taking out a putter in a sports term. And...

Lucas Clarke (16:27.8)
Yeah.

Kelsie Marks (16:32.667)
If you're at that pivotal place where you know you can't do this, you're on that fixed income, you have a couple kids, whatever it may be, you have expenses, the best thing that I can tell people is to invest in career coaching sooner rather than later and to work with that career coach.

and follow their protocol exactly. Because oftentimes what I will see is people will come to me and say, well, I signed up for X person's course. I signed up for X person's email template and I signed up for Y person's cover letter template and I'm not seeing results. Well, you've just named three different people who have three different philosophies on leaving education. So I'm not sure what philosophy you're following, but

Lucas Clarke (17:26.456)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsie Marks (17:29.779)
That's probably why you're not seeing results. And so I think there's also a lot of self trust that needs to happen to say, Lucas, I'm trusting you, Kelsey, I'm trusting you, please help me navigate this. Because ultimately at the end of the day, that's what we are doing. We are helping you navigate to that next phase.

Lucas Clarke (17:32.547)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (17:53.572)
And so what do you find teachers? I had a conversation recently with another person. They were like like anyone else. I don't like being told what to do, even though you're like you're going to someone and like you're a career coach. I want to change like I don't want to be told what to do. So I guess what do you think? What do you find teachers especially? We're used to very much being in control of most of our environment or trying to control our environment.

Kelsie Marks (18:12.947)
Yeah.

Kelsie Marks (18:20.649)
Yes.

Lucas Clarke (18:23.544)
What do you find that you encounter the most resistance with?

Kelsie Marks (18:28.607)
So in our career coaching practice, we use sales and marketing techniques in order to help you leave education. We are the only teacher career transition firm on the market that does this. And we are the only teacher career transition firm on the market who has a combined 30 years of experience using sales and marketing along with education to help educators ultimately leave the profession. So a lot of times when educators come to me,

that word sales throws them off. Sales is often looked at as a four letter dirty word. But really, if you can learn the psychology behind sales and you can learn the psychology of selling yourself to your next employer, you are going to find long-term success after education. Because what you don't want is you don't want to apply for a hundred jobs

Lucas Clarke (19:02.724)
Okay.

Lucas Clarke (19:21.657)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsie Marks (19:29.127)
and just take whatever interview you get and say yes to the very first offer. That can be a recipe for disaster. That can lead to even further burnout. It can lead to a lot of really unhappy endings. But when you really sit down and analyze who you are, establish career clarity, and understand how to sell yourself and your skill set to the next employer, you are setting yourself up for

Lucas Clarke (19:34.2)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsie Marks (19:57.764)
longer-term career success after that first job.

Lucas Clarke (20:03.7)
And I think I've, what I've noticed is that educators are annoyingly humble in a lot of regards. Like sometimes, like I'll meet a teacher and they're just like an absolute rock star and they think nothing. And honestly, I think that's what part like makes them a good educator. Like they don't take themselves like too seriously, but I guess trying to add a bit more to that idea of

trying to sell themselves a bit more. Cause I feel like even when you're in education, if you were, I guess, what are some of the soft sales things even to try and help sell themselves at their own school? Cause obviously you can help the school's reputation. You can help the district's reputation. Cause like you can try to not maybe shine a light on the work that's being done, but actually make more of it. So I guess what do you find has helped?

you help teachers learn to sell themselves better? Like what are some of the things they kind of need to get past to learn how to sell themselves?

Kelsie Marks (21:07.369)
So selling yourself in the education environment versus selling yourself in the corporate environment are two very different things. And most people don't realize how different they are until they step into the corporate job search space. That doesn't mean that the skills you have in education and the sales aspects

Lucas Clarke (21:29.218)
Hm.

Kelsie Marks (21:36.741)
of who you are or the aspects you want to sell yourself as don't meet all of those corporate needs, it just means you need to be speaking on the same language or on the same playing field essentially. And so for many of our clients, that really starts with establishing career clarity. And career clarity is understanding who you are.

Lucas Clarke (21:45.177)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (21:51.213)
Okay.

Kelsie Marks (22:04.329)
your worldviews and what you want after education. Without those things, you're going to be like a balloon lost in the wind.

Lucas Clarke (22:14.532)
Absolutely. Yeah. So that's just something I find that so many people that I've come into contact with, especially like one people don't see the value in potentially what their education degree can provide. They don't feel this. They don't know how to even find the tools to learn to sell themselves. And even like, as you said, marketing and sales, like I felt the weird kind of twinge of like, no, that's a

That's like a dirty word. Like we can't talk about that. Like we're, we're educators. We're here for the good fight. You know what I mean? It's just, it's all noise that you've kind of sold yourself to like make sure that you kind of drink the Kool-Aid if you will. But something I came across on your feed as well, that it also kind of fed into like when I first started a few years ago, I was like, you know what? One day, like I'm going to be a principal.

Kelsie Marks (22:42.173)
Yes.

Kelsie Marks (22:53.501)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (23:06.5)
I'm going to make a difference. like, I'm going to try and do my masters of education and leadership one day. And and I still liking education, but if someone said tomorrow, like, Hey, we want you to be the VP next year. I'd be like, excuse me. I absolutely not. it just seems like not even necessarily a, not even like a money question. It's just the amount of thankless work that kind of goes into that seems to be the more of the norm now. But the question I have is

Kelsie Marks (23:06.834)
Mm.

Lucas Clarke (23:36.06)
Are you as kind of someone who's in the field of career coaching as obviously with educators specifically is teaching now a dead end job.

Kelsie Marks (23:46.295)
you've seen my content. Yes, that's a great question. You know, when I was growing up, I only ever wanted to be a teacher. I played school as a child. I had stuffed animals as students. I only saw myself in that role. And I think a lot of people listening to this podcast can probably identify with that. Like many of us, you know, saw

Lucas Clarke (23:47.749)
I have seen, yeah.

Lucas Clarke (24:03.268)
You

Kelsie Marks (24:15.237)
our teachers doing really great things. But now, like I said earlier, the degradation of the profession is so much and so heavy that many, many of my clients have left education and gone and work at Starbucks or Target or Costco or whatever it may be. And sometimes

People do that for a long time and sometimes people do that for like three, four months until they find another job, a more stable corporate job. And so I really don't have the answer for you because I think that yeah, teaching could be a great career field still. Like there are still so many amazing things. You can go from teacher to school counselor to AP to principal.

Like that's an awesome career trajectory, but in reality, actually doing that is hard. It's like really hard and it's harder than we even speak about because all of the thankless work that you mentioned, not to mention the amount of unpaid labor that goes into moving up in the education space.

Lucas Clarke (25:20.686)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsie Marks (25:38.471)
And I think we're just really at a tipping point where people want to be paid for the work that they do. Teachers understand that they have great skills. Teachers understand that they have options outside the education system. Teachers understand that they could be treated better somewhere else. And so I don't want to think of being a teacher as a dead end job, but many people now do think that.

Lucas Clarke (26:07.652)
Yeah, because I find first thing I would say to anyone is at least try to switch schools, switch grades like you to me if there's a reason for what drove you to like so blind, like blind, blind, blinded, so blindingly into I don't know there's a word there somewhere. I swear I'm a teacher. I know some things, but I find like if there's a reason for you going like that aggressively into that career path, there's probably

Kelsie Marks (26:28.957)
Hehehehe

Lucas Clarke (26:35.596)
something else in your lane. Like for me, I got taught social studies at like a grade 12 level for a few years and now I'm doing like middle school resource teacher, which is very different. But like, I'm still very much enjoying that role. I could obviously pursue some creative passions as well. It's not as like, I guess to say like the resource position I've enjoyed more than being a classroom teacher. Like some people say, like, do you miss

being in the classroom. And yeah, there's like the pros of some that you don't get as like deep of relationships with some of the students as you normally would kind of being on more of a almost like an appointment basis, like working with groups and pulling kids out. But it's a lot like you're you're doing a lot more of your work when you're in the building with the students versus a lot like the like you said, the unpaid stuff. And I do think what is

still prevalent is there's a lot of unpaid labor put into getting promotions, which is like, like some people always said to me, if you do the pardon my language, the shitty guy jobs, then you can get a promotion. Like if you go at 7.30 PM to put the soccer nets back up on the field, that gives you a good look. And then maybe when they are taking the applications for those higher positions, that's what they kind of, they don't look at it, but they know about it. I mean, I'm not sure how much that's.

Kelsie Marks (27:30.132)
Yes.

Kelsie Marks (27:49.393)
Mm-hmm. A lot of back-fair politics.

Lucas Clarke (27:52.888)
Yeah, and that's the I've heard a lot of the yeah, and witness anyway, I won't get into that on here. But I do think that that's almost like eating our own. I don't know if that's like what you've seen. And I don't know. I guess that's another question. I don't mean to just bombard you too much here. But how I'm assuming unpaid labor and learning and planning is obviously prevalent and

Kelsie Marks (28:12.223)
Cheers.

Lucas Clarke (28:20.47)
almost every salary based position, because like there's some sort of like squeeze on that salary to an extent like who do you have any sort of warning for like the grass is not always greener? Like how often do people end up coming back because they're just like that went horribly. I hated not being in the classroom. I guess does that really happen? Because obviously I know that's not like your goal. Your goal is to help them successfully transition out.

Kelsie Marks (28:46.9)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (28:48.964)
I don't mean to talk too much at you there, but I guess what are your thoughts based on that?

Kelsie Marks (28:53.447)
Yeah, so I'll say this, in two and a half years in business, we've never had someone come back and say, I'm not happy.

Um, in two and a half years of business, I've never had someone say, I'm more burnt out in corporate. And in two and a half years of business, yeah, in two and a half years of this, it is crazy. is because a lot of times when I speak with educators, they'll say things like, I never saw myself working in corporate. And the corporate work environment has changed a lot in the last decade.

Lucas Clarke (29:02.116)
That's pretty good.

Lucas Clarke (29:11.402)
Which is crazy. That's crazy.

Lucas Clarke (29:18.573)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsie Marks (29:31.645)
while the education space has not. And so many times when educators do transition from education to corporate and they get that salaried position in an office or working remotely, whatever it may be, they're often left feeling like the weight of the world has lifted off their shoulders more than they anticipated. And I think that's really

Lucas Clarke (29:31.918)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsie Marks (30:01.407)
scary that we have put that much onus on teachers to do their very best at every single point during the day at every single interaction that when they leave to go for a higher paying job or a job with more responsibility, they feel less stressed. That says something.

Lucas Clarke (30:02.83)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (30:28.452)
Yeah, I do. respect like, and that's kind of what I found. It's not. For me, I didn't get really, I didn't really get a lot of parental flack. And maybe, maybe I shouldn't say that too loud because maybe that's going to start coming my way. But what I did notice it's just like the general, yeah, the general chaos of a day. Like I remember my practicum teacher and I, we were teaching like grades seven and eight. Just a bunch of rascals. And like the second the bell rang to close the door, one day I remember in particular,

Kelsie Marks (30:41.375)
No one would.

Lucas Clarke (30:58.102)
We just close the door. were like.

like we had to like survive and there's two of us in the room and it was just it's stuck in my brain for a reason I guess you know what mean like that shouldn't be like no like we're here we teach the lesson we help them out they go home like why is it just so rambunctious all the time and like it literally like shakes your brain so I don't know how much that I guess like it contributes to the chaos of that but

Yeah, I feel like I know so many people who are working in kind of corporate environments. They're like, yeah, like going for lunch here and like we're doing a trip here and like for work. I'm like, whoa, like this is kind of crazy. But anyway, that's my own little tangent there. But I've kind of gone through most of the questions here so far. Like there are opportunities outside of education. And I think if anything, what I've come to observe

perhaps naively with my somewhat still new experience that it's kind of a great time to be a teacher, I think, only because, and now I've had some fortunate roles, just because there are so many other options and because it's like, I start to see the pendulum swinging back a little bit that we're a bit more appreciated because they're like, no one wants to do it anymore. So it seems like there's a bit more of a concerted effort to.

somewhat appreciate from the top down, maybe not from the parents, but anyway, I'll leave that to the side. To finish off here, I have a few quotes that I go through if you'll indulge me, that I find like you're someone who successfully left teaching, you're you built your own business. The quote I kind of talk about is, don't let school get in the way of your education.

Lucas Clarke (32:47.618)
So I guess what are some of the things that you have found have helped you become like a successful business woman and be able to take charge and lead that you wouldn't have necessarily learned in a classroom?

Kelsie Marks (33:01.689)
gosh, I talk about this on LinkedIn a lot. And this is a loaded question. We started Educated Exit literally at my kitchen table, me and our CEO Chris. And really it started as me writing resumes and him doing the coaching and it just really grew. And...

Lucas Clarke (33:02.88)
Yeah.

Kelsie Marks (33:25.883)
every you can look at any social media platform and people are going to talk to you about entrepreneurship and how hard it is to be an entrepreneur and how much you learn your first year, how much you cry your first year, how many times you want to give up. And I can tell you as somebody who's been doing this now for about two and a half years, all of that is true. All of that is true and 10 times more.

Lucas Clarke (33:50.84)
Yeah.

Kelsie Marks (33:53.511)
I lived and breathed and slept with my laptop for a year. I read tons of business books. I went to forums. I networked. I did so much outside of the role of being an educator that I never thought I would ever do. And yeah, it was really hard. And yeah, it was scary at times. And yeah, I'll be honest, I cried because it was that hard.

But you learn and you grow so much from entrepreneurship and you really have to believe at the end of the day, you are making an impact and you are impacting others because there will always be a naysayer who says, you're not good enough. so and so is doing this. so and so is doing that. And you really have to put the blinders on and be like, I know what I'm good at. I'm going to double down on this and I know I can help people.

Lucas Clarke (34:42.18)
Okay.

Kelsie Marks (34:53.001)
So to answer your question, I learned a lot. I don't think I can even put into a few sentences everything that I've learned. I mean, just...

Lucas Clarke (34:53.644)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (35:01.892)
No, and I was going to say one thing. Yeah, it's like, don't tell people your plans. I feel like that's something that's always been comforting to me is like, if you have a like, an idea, kind of just go for it. Let it manifest in your own brain before you talk to anyone about it, because they can kind of taint that vision. But one of the things I wanted to bring up was networking. So it seems like if I were to tell you like, this is how to network.

Kelsie Marks (35:24.414)
Yes.

Lucas Clarke (35:31.394)
I wouldn't really have much to tell you other than like build the relationships you have in front of you and go on social media and have contact with people. But I guess that's not very much. So what did you do to network kind of in your initial process? And like, what have you learned about effective networking?

Kelsie Marks (35:49.993)
So when I initially left education, I was doing a lot of in-person networking, going to a lot of corporate events, a lot of community-based events in my area. And that's great, but our world has changed drastically since 2018. And there is so many more opportunities for networking virtually now. And so...

I want to tell everybody that networking is not just adding every single person from your church on LinkedIn. Networking is not adding every single person from your kids hockey team, their parents on LinkedIn. There is strategic networking and the more strategic you are about networking, the more you can see yourself

Lucas Clarke (36:32.9)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsie Marks (36:46.163)
grow and the more opportunities that open. So if you're a teacher looking to leave education and you want to use that networking piece, I would say that you need to network with people who can number one, help you get to the position you want to go to. So that's people like myself and our CEO, Chris McLean, we're on LinkedIn, we post regularly on LinkedIn, as well as Instagram and TikTok.

I post tons of content there. It's always a great place to start networking. Now, the next piece I would say is network with people in the positions in which you want to hold. Those are people who are already in those customer success manager positions, people who are already in those project management positions, whatever type of position in which you are going for, you want to network with people who are already in those positions.

Lucas Clarke (37:44.964)
Interesting. Yeah, because I guess social media is it's almost made network networking feel like implicit in a sense because you're kind of always doing it without realizing it. You're always like reaching out and talking to people again like you and I connected on social media and that's how this came to fruition. So like is that networking or is that just like shooting someone a message? I guess that's kind of the norm of networking now in a sense. But I guess that's

Kelsie Marks (38:09.661)
Yeah, I think that there's a fine line between a cold sales pitch and networking with intention. Those are two very different things. And I think that you really need to be intentional as an educator because many times what I hear from people outside our sphere of

Lucas Clarke (38:17.828)
Hey, this.

Kelsie Marks (38:38.491)
or my scope of practice is that many times when they get a message from a teacher, it's them wanting something or asking for a favor. And so you want to build those quality relationships instead of just constantly asking for something or wanting favors, because that's not true networking.

Lucas Clarke (39:00.772)
Absolutely. Okay, so I've got one more quote to finish us off here today. It is somewhere along the lines of the previous quote, but it's education is what remains once one has forgotten everything they've learned in school. So not necessarily what you learned in school, but like, what is it that you want people to take away from their time with you, formerly Ms. Marks, that they wouldn't get anywhere else?

Kelsie Marks (39:28.873)
Gosh, that's another loaded question. Oftentimes when I work with teachers, I start out by saying that they are valued because number one, they don't get that very often. And number two, teachers and educators in general experience so much working in the school system. You are exposed to so many things that

Lucas Clarke (39:30.271)
Hahaha

Kelsie Marks (39:57.733)
would never happen in the corporate work environment. And sometimes that manifests itself as trauma and PTSD and a whole host of other things that I won't get into. But I always tell people your feelings are valid. Whatever is pushing you out of education, it is a valid reason. And you don't have to justify that to me or anyone else on the educated exit team.

You have every right to leave when you are ready to leave.

Lucas Clarke (40:31.822)
Beautiful. All right, Kelsey Marx. Thank you so much for coming on today.

Kelsie Marks (40:34.921)
Thank you. Thank you for having me.