00:00 you Welcome to Diary of a Dreamer, where resilience unlocks your potential. I’m Tasha Eizinger, and each week I’ll bring you powerful stories and practical insights from my own experiences and inspiring guests. Whether you’re facing challenges or chasing dreams, this podcast is your go-to for motivation, building confidence, and practical tips for transforming obstacles into opportunities. Be sure to check out my website, TashaEizinger.com. 

00:34 Let’s dive into today’s episode and start turning your dreams into reality. Today, we are with Erin Beecham. She is a micro business owner and has been homeschooling her three kids for eight years, which is incredible to me as a former class teacher. That’s amazing. She loves embracing each person’s unique brain, including her own. 

01:00 And she has quite a story to share about her journey into her business and taking what could be perceived as a major challenge and turning it into a big advantage to help a lot of people. She is the owner of Whole Person Organizing, LLC. So we’ll have to talk a lot about her business because I’m really excited about all the things that you offer and what you’re doing. So Erin, thank you for being here today. I appreciate your time. Oh my goodness, Tasha. Thank you for having me on. 

01:30 So when we were talking before, you had mentioned something about you that makes it almost ironic that you’re in organizing. And I love it. I love when people take something that’s a challenge to them and flips it around and helps other people. So can you share like how you got started with your business and everything? I can. Going back to the olden days, I have a background. 

01:59 operations management um which is like the flow of inventory and that kind of thing and uh fast forward i have these three wonderful kiddos um i also have adhd and have received that diagnosis in the last three years so that hasn’t always been um a chapter in my story that i was aware i was living 

02:28 But as I went through college and, you know, got married and made friends and moved to several different states before my family landed here in Indiana, one of the things that I’ve always almost not been able to help myself from doing is organizing my home and life and doing it for my friends when they would let me or ask me.

02:58 And it’s just really fun. It’s like a puzzle. It is. It’s like playing Tetris, kind of. It is. And let me just tell you, of all the games in the world, Tetris is my favorite. Me too. I played all the time as a kid on the Nintendo. And I can pack the trunk of a car like you would not believe. And I’m like, it’s because of Tetris. 

03:23 We actually use it as a verb in my house. My family will say, oh, are you Tetris-ing this closet? Are you Tetris-ing the van right now? Okay, we definitely have to be friends behind this podcast. Absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. So how, this is interesting because, you know, my degree is in elementary education, so I’m familiar with ADHD. And especially how it goes so often undiagnosed in girls because it’s different. 

03:52 So often. Yeah. So what was that like when you learned you have it? Because I can’t even imagine the thought processes you had. It was very redemptive for a lot of my story. One of the things that I think is an unnoticed tragedy. 

04:21 in anybody with adhd and i can only speak from my experience as having been a girl and a woman with adhd is that we you tend to pick up little phrases that you don’t even know you’re picking up that just really stick with you and they sound a lot like i’m not very good at finishing things i’m not very good at figuring out things i’m not very good at 

04:51 following through on things and to have more complete information about myself has really made me more aware of all of those really poorly assigned statements that i had picked up and therefore disqualified myself from doing some really cool things until now yeah sit with that for a minute of 

05:17 maybe their own story too, because we all have like those things we say that aren’t necessarily true, but I like that you said it was redemptive to find the diagnosis because a label isn’t bad. It’s how you choose to have the label define you. It’s just information. It is. Yeah. It’s information. So you can have the appropriate tools and resources and get the support you need. Yes. So that you can like win at life. 

05:45 And feel good about it. And feel good about it. And you can also recognize, you know, as I get a little older, I realize how unique wins are, successes are to each person. And if I’m measuring myself against a vague other, I really overlook the things that I need to tell myself are a success. 

06:13 opened that mail today huge success you did it today I did it when it came you didn’t lose it I didn’t lose it I didn’t let the fact that I may not have been very good at that in the past haunt me today or hold up a bullhorn in front of those those statements that we just talked about today and that creates a whole different feeling about 

06:43 what I’m capable of. So how do you go from, I don’t know, like when you’re organizing business started in reference to getting this diagnosis, but people with ADHD aren’t typically known for being very organized. It’s just right. So most of us struggle with it in general. You know, there’s very few people that are really good at it. So how do you. 

07:09 start that and that’s fascinating to me sure sure um thanks for asking me honestly you probably know more women who have ADHD than you think you know and your comment just a minute ago was correct there are lots of times where we do struggle with organization and kind of executive function in general throughout our lives I mean 

07:34 Even somebody who does not have ADHD may have a stretch in their life where they’re struggling with insomnia or the loss of a loved one or anxiety or a change of their life phase. They’re welcoming a child. They’re taking care of a parent. They have a kiddo starting school for the first time. And those can come with their own executive function challenges. 

08:02 Learning to support that no matter where you are is really, really cool. Learning to organize officially for people and getting this diagnosis were kind of just parallel lanes in my life. They did not overlap in a way that was obvious to me. 

08:23 When we moved to Indiana, I had a really good friend. You know, it’s very easy for homeschool moms to just talk shop all the time. It is because you’re probably swapping ideas and challenges and everything, right? And it’s a great thing to have in common, although it’s really not the only thing we have in common with other homeschool moms or other, you know, really amazing humans. But this friend asked the table, what would you do if you were not homeschooling? 

08:49 And the words like flew out of my mouth. And can I just tell you, I was over 40 at that time and had really never understood what I wanted to be when I grew up. This makes me so happy because people think in their 20s, they got to have it all figured out. No, you don’t. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I mean, I knew when they handed me my first baby, I was like, oh, this was, I want to do this. But to, you know, for a job, I had never.

 09:14 had a strong statement before and i always felt a little bit ashamed of that you know because people do have very strong you know five year plans and passions and i’m very excited for them that’s amazing but the words flew out of my mouth i said oh i would organize other people’s stuff and i almost didn’t even know where that that came from and at the time i’m sorry did you just like sit in shock like 

09:41 i was like whoa is somebody well what i kind of the feeling of is somebody gonna come along and make fun of me because my house does not look like a magazine we had just moved to Indiana so my house looked more like uh an abandoned warehouse at the time than it really looked like a magazine and everybody went around and it was so interesting to hear what everybody had to say and i left there and i could not like 

10:10 i just felt like god would not let me put that idea down and i’m a little bit of an analog girl and so i wrote uh in my planner just once a week organizing question mark and i started listening to podcasts and kind of you know googling around and the institute for challenging disorganization um specifically an interview that judith kohlberg had done 

10:38 floated to the top, floated across my, you know, very tentative search. And it was just really inspiring. And so I just kind of started taking those next steps. I had really encouraging voices around me. And the Institute for Challenges and Disorganization focuses specifically on brain-based organizing. 

11:05 lit up light bulbs inside me that I didn’t even know hadn’t turned on yet. This is so cool. So I love that you’re not like, so even though like I’ve got this ADHD thing, like I’m actually pretty good at organizing. You’re like, I don’t know why this idea came to me, but I’m going to learn how to do it. I’m going to learn. And I, at the time was undiagnosed. So I knew that I was very bad at using a filing cabinet. I knew that. 

11:33 a certain level of paperwork felt very overwhelming to me and i had all those little statements about all the things i’m just not very good at kind of rolling around and saying you can’t really do this and i realized i was gonna have to do it differently than a lot of people the way i perceived other people to be doing it and you know what 

12:02 I’m not an accountant, but I hired a great one. Right. I don’t know how to do the paperwork that makes you an official business, but Patrick at the Indiana Small Business Development Center sure does. It’s who you know. You can’t know it all. It’s who you know. And there are like the Indiana Small Business Development Center. 

12:30 is free for me to use because I live in Indiana. It was amazing. And so I started resource. I’m so glad you mentioned that because we have something at IUSB where it’s like a small business development. Like you get free mentorship. It saved me. I don’t even know how many thousands of dollars, probably tens of thousands of dollars. Yes. It’s incredible. And moments of sleep and worry. 

12:55 It’s really amazing. And that’s not the only one. That’s just the one I’m familiar with and has really been a good fit for me. So I started just taking really, really scary baby steps. I love it. So what was your first scary baby step? Because the first one’s the hardest because you actually have to do it. The first one is the hardest because you actually have to do it. I think the scariest baby step the first year was just putting my own dollars. 

13:25 down to take a certification class, like really commit, not just daydreaming about it, but actually taking an action toward. Don’t you think the reason that’s so scary, it’s not necessarily the money. You can make more money, even if it’s a lot of money and that’s scary. It’s saying, I believe in myself enough that I have to do it. Yes. And it might flop, but I still have some level of belief that I can do this. 

13:55 You know, Tasha, one of the things that I have started telling myself instead of I’m not very good at this is I will probably make a mistake and that will be okay. There’s freedom in giving yourself permission to be bad. Yeah. And not very good at it. None of us are perfect. I love that. 

14:22 So when it comes to organizing like a home, which my house a lot of times is pretty chaotic as far as how it looks, it’s just, yeah. So do I need like to have a bunch of bins to organize things? Like what does that look like in practice? So my favorite way to start is with whatever Amazon box came in the mail. Oh, that’s brilliant. 

14:48 Most of us have at least one of those. Most of us have at least one of those. So I think people, myself included, probably I’m the chief one of these. We can identify a pain point or at least a good starting place. And we take our energy and our confidence and our dollars and we go out and we buy bins. And then we come home and we’re already down. 

15:17 energy i mean i never feel more optimistic than i do in the target aisle right abilities if i’m lucky i have remembered to measure a thing before i left but like nine times out of ten i don’t just hope for the best i was just gonna say then you just hope for the best we just hope for the best and then we come home and we try to enact a vision that matches the feeling that we want to feel i want to know where my things are 

15:47 i want to avoid the awful feeling of i can’t find the thing i need when i need it and if that doesn’t hit in the first iteration we tell ourselves i’m bad at organizing i failed again i don’t have the self-discipline to live the way i want to live and none of that is true 

16:15 None of that is true. There are very few things in life that we require of ourselves to get perfect the first go around. But for some reason, we really do feel like we need to do that with our homes and our schedule and our stuff. And fail to give ourselves the grace of the gray area. Well, does that start leading into like a shame spiral too? Because you’re like locking it in, right? You’re saying all these things and then our brain. 

16:44 proves ourselves right. So it’s going to come up with all this information that just validates the stuff. And then it just, instead of just being like, okay, I can learn and get better. It’s like, well, I’m just not very good at that. So how do you get out of the shame? I know that you mentioned something that you say to help you. I love the simplicity of like an Amazon box, something that you already have. Something that you already have. Ziploc bags, painter’s tape. 

17:13 It might not be the shiniest, but the cost is not scary because those things do not, they cost very, very little money, if any money at all. And when I have, so full disclosure, we went through a phase where we had a lot of ramen noodles in my house. And those boxes are great for pencils and tape and tiny toys. 

17:42 measuring spoons. I’ve got one in my closet right now, my pantry holding Tupperware lids. It’s two years old. It’s not even real square anymore. And it’s doing a great job. It’s doing a great job. And every time I look at it, instead of saying, man, that is not professional grade, you have to say, that’s doing the job I wanted it to do. And I assessed the situation correctly because it’s worked for me for several years. 

18:11 And it’s better for the environment because you already have it. So sometimes when you want to spontaneously organize a thing, because, you know, you can just grab a box. And once you’re comfortable, like I would be confident going out and buying a more permanent container for that spot because I have experimented first. It’s a little bit like playing dress up, which is always really fun. But there are also there are a lot of voices in the field who have letters behind their name. 

18:39 and in adjacent fields who uh turn up the volume on the power of the small win and those small self comments um you know kendra dachi lazy genius she does start small bj fogg uh he does um little wins they’re a bunch of different um 

19:01 It’s not new. We just tend to discount it or somehow, even worse, disqualify ourselves from it. Like that might be really great for my best friend, but somehow I’m a quitter. So it doesn’t work for me. Or I’m, oh, I hate this word. I’m lazy. It doesn’t work. Oh, I hate that word too. I hate that word. I’ve never met a lazy person, but I have met people who feel like the mountain is just too high to climb. And they’re sick. 

19:29 or they feel shame about it. And that’s really, really hard. Absolutely. Well, and I’m thinking there’s probably some people, Erin, who are like, Erin, that’s great that you can use boxes, but I love an aesthetically pleasing home. But here’s what I’m thinking and tell me if I’m right or wrong. But I think there’s a lot of value in those small wins and proving to yourself first that you can do this. And then once you give yourself a time period that like, I am keeping this space organized with my little boss. 

19:58 Yes. Now I have earned going to buy the pretty thing. Does that sound fair? It does. I’m going to challenge you a little bit on the word earned. I have built the confidence that I need in my own assessment of the situation. I like that. Yeah, I like that. 

20:19 i’m very competitive and stuff so earnings is like but you’re right some people that’ll shut them down we don’t want to shut people down we’re trying to light them up and Tasha if an aesthetic home and like look i’ve got some i’ve got my cardboard boxes i’ve also got some clear bins um if if that is motivating or pleasing then i am all for it we tend 

20:46 to narrow the definition of what organized is. And so by creating like a functional fit spectrum. So if I’m functional over here and my form is over here, you know, aesthetic bins looking beautiful on one end and cardboard boxes, just toughing it out and doing their job on the other end, wherever you fall on that spectrum of organization. 

21:14 It’s what works for you. You don’t have to have anybody’s permission to call that good enough. Oh, I like that. I think reframing is so important. And we see so much on social media, too, of people living these seemingly perfect lives, which they’re actually probably rented homes anyway, just for filming and pictures, right? 

21:44 I like that you’re big on start where you are. Yeah. And honor like what matters to you, but like just taking the steps to do it. So like, is it kind of, you know, have you seen Marie Kondo’s method? Oh, I read her book the minute it came out. So do you think like somebody new to this should just like start, like dive all in, pile everything up? Or like, do you start with a specific room? Like, how do you do it? So first of all, I think we need to start. 

22:13 by being really gentle with ourselves. And I think that there is a lot of grace for doing it a different way. For example, there are some small business owners who do their own accounting. That does not make me less of a small business owner, right? There are some people who pick their car into the mechanic when it needs an oil change, and that does not make them any less of a driver. 

22:43 If you need help organizing or getting your arms around the project that is your time or your space or both, that doesn’t make you any less of an owner of that time and space. And it doesn’t cheapen the success that you have. I think we first start with let’s don’t. 

23:08 require ourselves to become an entirely different person. That’s more sustainable. Yes. Let’s don’t spend more than 30 seconds looking at a filing cabinet and saying, that doesn’t work for me. I need something else because there is something else. There’s always a possibility, you know, maybe you have three cardboard boxes and they just live in this drawer and it’s, you know. 

23:34 2024, 2025, and 2026 because you can go through a box really fast, but it’s really hard to hunt through your whole house or to stare down that filing cabinet and feel kind of dumb because you can’t remember why you set it up that way and therefore you don’t remember what’s in there. I’m relating so much to some of this stuff. I’m like over here laughing like, yep. 

24:03 Yep. It’s very relatable. I’m not diagnosed with ADHD, but I might have a little touch of it. Well, you have different people in your space too. You have kids. Yeah. And so you have different personalities and different needs and different levels of maturity. And so, you know, it’s pretty generally accepted that our prefrontal cortex is not developed until, you know, sometime in our twenties. So. 

24:32 Any kid in your house is going to need a different level of support. And while you’re giving them resources to support them, you don’t have 100% of your resources to focus on a thing. So you shouldn’t punish yourself by trying to set up a micro category filing system if it’s not what works for you. Yes. Oh, my goodness. Yes. Somebody once told me that your kids get a piece of your heart and a piece of your brain. Yep. It’s so true. 

25:03 So I wish you could just come into my home, Erin, and like go around every room and tell me exactly what to do. So how do people get with you and learn from you? Sure. First, Tasha, the first thing we would do is we would go around your house and we would figure out the things you’re already doing that are amazing. I’ve never met a client that didn’t already have really incredible coping skills. 

25:29 I like that. Start with the wins first. Start with the wins first because they’re generally something that also brings you a lot of joy. You know, speaking for myself, I’m homeschooling three kids. We have a very busy life. It often looks like more of a circus than a school. But if I feel things getting out of control and I need to remember what drives us, the first thing we do is sit down and read aloud together. 

25:59 Because that brings me a lot of joy. I really like to do it. I don’t think everybody should do that. If playing Play-Doh with your kids, if everybody doing something quietly, you know, we would start with what worked for you. I would say, what is your go-to? What’s your fallback? What’s the thing that just makes you feel like you’re really connecting with your people or your space? 

26:25 What are those things? That’s where instead of starting with what we fix, we start with what’s already working for you because you’re the expert on your own life. I don’t know what makes Tasha run, but you do. Right. Well, and I kind of like to you probably because you’re the outsider looking in can see like, oh, this is what they’re actually doing without realizing they’re doing it. So let’s just like extrapolate that in other areas. Yes. Yes. That’s really cool. 

26:51 Much like we pick up those little statements like, oh, I’m just not very good at, we also tend to tear down the things we are. Well, I do this, but it’s only because. Or, well, we only do this a couple of days a week. Or that’s just, I only do it because my kids like it. Or something like that. It’s like, no, no, that’s the gold. People will call themselves inconsistent and in the same breath tell me the thing that they do every day for their kids because it’s important to themselves. 

27:21 Sometimes we’re not very good at the self-awareness thing when it comes to giving ourselves props. That’s real true. That’s real true. So can you do like Zoom interviews with people or how do people get in touch with you and get more of what you’re sharing? Okay. Well, first of all, I took one of the biggest scary steps in this whole journey just this week and launched whole person organizing LLC.com. 

27:50 i’m so proud of you that’s so exciting and before i hit the publishing button i said i probably made a mistake and that’ll be okay and you know what i did i had to hit unpublish and fix it and throw it back up there and it was fine good job you know what i love that you realize you can unpublish it like most things in life are fixable and i think we forget that we do we expect rapidly yeah forget it so very rapidly so that my 

28:19 My calendar is there and there are complimentary 30-minute consultations available. So I would say go grab one of those. My email is there. Shoot me a message. Send me a question. Say, I don’t think this is for me. That’s okay. That’s okay. But we also, you also might send me a message that says like, this makes me so sad. And let’s try to work on that. And my Facebook is there. So you can kind of get a little glimpse of like, 

28:48 what’s going on. I would love to say daily life, but I’m going to say, I hope that I am as consistent as I need to be on social media to be available. And then I’m going to call that a win and be. We have a similar social media strategy. Mine is proof of life. Because it’s just a whole nother animal that I just, I can’t. 

29:18 Social media. The thing is, in general, everybody’s doing their best, right? I do believe that to my core and that people really are doing the best they can with the tools and resources they have. And so by bringing somebody like you in, it’s like bringing in another tool or resource to help, right? Yes. 

29:46 We’re going to turn the volume up on the stuff you’re good at and turn the volume down on all that stuff that yells at you, that pile that you walk by and you think, oh, I got to, I have to do something about that. Or I just need to take a Saturday. Hey, if I don’t enjoy doing it and I get a whole Saturday off, that’s a steep ask. That is a steep. You’re going to find something else to do with that Saturday when Saturday comes, because it’s going to all of a sudden become really important. And I call it productive procrastination. 

30:15 I call them procrastichores. Oh, my goodness. I cannot wait to meet you in June. It’s going to be so fun. You cannot wait for it. Yes. So that’s actually how we got connected was through the Midwest Homeschool Expo. Yes. And I don’t know if every year it happens in June, but this year it’s happening June 28th. And then once this podcast actually airs, I’ll include links when it. 

30:45 is going to be available again you know when the um have you been to the expo before i have never been to the expo before but can i just tell you i have talked to jean lee at the academy of chaos who produces the entire it’s her brainchild she’s produced the entire thing and her heart and dream for the midwest homeschool expo is really amazing and i have gone to some of the expo mini workshops i was actually a presenter there in october jean was kind enough to invite me to come down um it’s a really cool group somebody once said oh i thought all homeschoolers you know x y and z i said 

31:24 We are, it’s so, it’s so different. There’s so many different styles and priorities and people. And it’s just, it’s a really cool thing that she’s doing for the Indianapolis area and for anybody who can access her online. It’s amazing. Yeah. When I’m coming from a couple hours away, I’ve got some guests coming a couple hours away. I know that it’s. 

31:48 like far reaching because it’s going to be worth the time and i love it is worth it a hundred percent yeah the drive the flight the trip 100 worth it yeah because the lineup is incredible like all the presenters and i feel like there’s something for everybody even though like i’m not a homeschooling parent i would still want to go because it’s all about like education and really developing your child’s mind which 

32:15 as a parent i want to do that outside of the classroom as well so i think it’s really something for just about any parent who has children to go absolutely absolutely and there’s so she has an i mean have you seen the sponsor list for this thing child development life skills playing learning there is so much there that you know 

32:42 Any way that you educate your kids at home that works for your family, that’s the right choice for you. Like you said, we’re all doing the best we can with what we know at the time. But there’s so much at Midwest Homeschool Expo that lifts you up as a parent, that lifts your kid up, that’s interesting to your family, your caregivers. It’s just going to be so cool. 

33:08 It is. Yeah. I’m excited too. Like everybody I’ve met so far has been really incredible and collaborative and fun and interesting. So I, yeah, like I said, I cannot wait to see you in person. I feel like we are very. Oh my goodness. Well, I will make sure that I include your website so people can get in touch with you. Absolutely. I am. 

33:36 So grateful that you took time to be here today. Thank you. Thank you, Tasha, for inviting me to share. I’ve listened to some of the Diary of a Dreamer and just feel so honored to have been invited to be part of that. Thank you. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Diary of a Dreamer. 

34:03 I hope you found the stories and tips shared today to be a source of motivation and strength. Remember, every challenge you face is a chance to grow and move closer to your dreams. Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this podcast with anyone who could use a boost of encouragement.