Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• Lisa Hardwick talks about her position at The Math Learning Center and how the company has evolved
• The challenges involved in growing a business and transitioning to include international customers
• What was it like to launch the first American Family Insurance office in Oregon?
• Lisa speaks about her husband’s battle with his health and how she managed to keep their office running while he was sick
• How Lisa transitioned out of running a business, experienced being unemployed, and ultimately found a position at The Math Learning Center
• Lisa describes her fight against lung cancer and what it was like to go through chemo and radiation
• Carl J. Cox and Lisa discuss what it takes to get through difficult times
• Why listening to one podcast a day has become a part of Lisa’s spiritual journey

In this episode…

Trying to run a business is hard enough, but what happens when you or your partner get sick? How do you handle the logistics, as well as the emotions, and still find the strength to keep fighting?

When Lisa Hardwick’s husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor, he had to step away from the business they’d built together. Lisa quickly took on the challenge of juggling long hours at the office to keep things running while also trying to help her husband in the fight of his life. Years later, when Lisa was diagnosed with lung cancer, she had her own battle to fight and many obstacles to overcome. Her story is an important reminder of what really matters and how to find the inspiration to confront hardships with the power of grace.

In this episode of the Measure Success Podcast, Carl J. Cox sits down with his sister, Lisa Hardwick, to discuss life, business, and finding the strength to overcome difficulties. Lisa describes her successes and challenges while working at The Math Learning Center and how she previously helped launch the first American Family Insurance office in Oregon. Carl J. Cox and his sister also talk about Lisa’s struggles overcoming cancer and why it’s important to be thankful for each day. Stay tuned!

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• Lisa Hardwick on Facebook
• The Math Learning Center
• Guy Hardwick on LinkedIn
• Cris Cawley on LinkedIn
• Cris Cawley’s website
• Game Changer Publishing
• American Family Insurance
• The Bible in a Year podcast with Fr. Mike Schmitz
• 40 Strategy
• Contact 40 Strategy
• Carl J. Cox on LinkedIn

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is sponsored by 40 Strategy.

40 Strategy provides strategic planning and consulting to help organizations realize and achieve their dreams by creating and measuring KPIs for success.

Unfortunately, most organizations only spend 2% of their time—or about 40 hours per year—on building an effective strategy.

Increasing the success of those 40 hours is what 40 Strategy does because your success is their passion—and that’s why organizations look to them for guidance.

Not only does 40 Strategy help you craft and implement an effective strategy, but they’ll also work to facilitate teams with proven practices and help with your scenario planning.

Harvard research shows that you can triple your success when you use the right Key Performance Indicators. Who doesn’t want that?

If you have questions, you can reach out through their website or email them at catch@40strategy.com.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:03

Welcome to the Measure Success Podcast where we feature top leaders on how they measure success in their business and life. Now, let’s learn from their experiences.

Carl J. Cox 0:18

Carl J. Cox here, and I am the host of the Measure Success Podcast where I talk with top leaders and about effective strategies that inspire success. This episode is brought to you by 40 Strategy at 40 Strategy. We help provide strategic planning consulting to help organizations realize and achieve their dreams, Lisa, basically what we do is we help companies and organizations create strategic plans that measure the right KPIs for success. Unfortunately, organizations only spent about 2% of their time, or about 40 our collective hours per year on actually building an effective strategy. And I don’t know about you, Lisa. But I think that’s pretty crazy. that that would be it. And so at 40 Strategy, your success is our passion. That’s why organizations call is to help. Not only do we come up with strategy, but we come up with proven practices that actually work. Harvard Business Review says when you actually focus on the right KPIs, you can triple your success and who wouldn’t want that? So you could email us today, catch, like catching a ball catch@40strategy.com or go to 40strategy.com where there’s ability to check a box and you could get some more information. So from there, we’d like prior to introducing our guest today I want to talk about a little shout out to Cris Cawley, Cris Cawley is the CEO of Game Changer Publishing based in Fort Worth, Texas. And I just want to thank her team so much. She was a big part of releasing our first book, which is now available on amazon.com. You can check out my name Carl J. Cox. And thank you, Cris, so much for being a part of that. And this leads us to our guests, Lisa Hardwick. She’s not an ordinary guest, not only did she will talk about that in a moment. But currently, she is currently working at The Math Learning Center based in Salem, which is a non for profit publisher of elegant elementary math curriculum and the education space. They provide this for pre K through fifth grade in the United States. And they have international support as well. They’ve had incredible growth over the past seven and a half years, or at least has been with the company. They’ve gone from 20 employees to over 80 employees, and from a reach of amount of people that have actually had a 40 times increase in terms of like, curriculum agenda have gone out, which is absolutely incredible. Prior to that, Lisa was an office manager with her husband, Guy Hardwick. There we go, who successfully launched an American Family Insurance office in Salem, Oregon. And he initially was a manager for the corporation. And then he said, this great opportunity to actually open an office. And so they did that. And they had a lot of success. And he worked for there for 12 years. Lisa is also a mother of two, red mother three and a cancer survivor. Not only is Lisa one of my heroes, but she is also my sister, eight years older than me. So Lisa, it’s a true honor to have you on the Measure Success Podcast. And I welcome you here today. 

Lisa Hardwick 3:22

Thank you, Carl. 

Carl J. Cox 3:24

So before, we’re going to talk about the the business side a little bit and before we talk about the personal side, Lisa, so The Math Learning Center, tell us a little bit more about that organization, and what do you actually do?

Lisa Hardwick 3:40

Hi, I actually help schools and districts adopt the math curriculum. So my position is knowing the product, as well as organizing the quotes and purchase and shipping the materials. And then I worked closely with the professional learning department, who sets up all the workshops to teach the teachers how to teach the curriculum.

Carl J. Cox 4:13

And you’ve been there for quite a while and seeing all this growth. What’s changed from when you were first, you know, there in the 20 person company to where you are today. How has the How has the nonprofit organization changed in its reach in its ability to make an impact.

Lisa Hardwick 4:32

The growth was substantial, a steep climb up, and we I feel like the business was running us instead of us was running the business. And eventually, through the last years, there was a lot of structural organization with upper management, development, academic research, and also In all departments, currently, we are implementing a new CRM and the new ERP system at the same time, so everything has changed. Except for the product, the product remains the same.

Carl J. Cox 5:18

Wow. So so it’s just a matter of, clearly that’s a sign that this curriculum is making a significant difference, right? That’s what is its reach. Go ahead.

Lisa Hardwick 5:28

That’s what the growth means to us is that we’re reaching more educators and more students with great feedback. We are word of mouth company, we do not do any advertising. And just knowing that we are reaching all of these people, and they’re coming back and saying, My students are doing so well, they’re getting the understanding behind the concepts. And it just has been wonderful to see that.

Carl J. Cox 6:06

And you’re mentioned to me earlier, so not only have you been in the United States, give us a little bit of flavor, like all the different countries throughout the world that you started to go out to,

Lisa Hardwick 6:16

we’re in China, Japan, Singapore, we are in Morocco, Africa. Just, it’s, it’s really all over the place. It’s been a, it’s fun to work with international customers, but it can be difficult as well.

Carl J. Cox 6:43

I noticed

Lisa Hardwick 6:45

just even the logistics part of it can be difficult. But it’s been exciting. And at first, I was handling all the international and then two people, myself and somebody else. And now everybody gets the opportunity to help the international as well, everybody on my team. And yeah,

Carl J. Cox 7:13

it’s such a common thing when organizations go and they they’re serving the US and and making that transition international has so many different challenge, especially as you mentioned the logistics side, it seems we don’t even think about in the US. But almost when you have to get through customs in a different area, or you have to get just their ability to collect, receive, it is so much different. It’s his small little challenges.

Lisa Hardwick 7:36

Yes, they’re actually they’re kind of big challenges. Yes, you know, so what, what we can pack the product on, you know, it has to be a certain type of a pallet, you have to have additional paperwork, you have to have the tariff codes for the actual product so that they can get into that entry. So one of the recent ads was Kuwait. So and we also have it in the UAE as well. Wow. Oh, yeah. Is he watching that?

Carl J. Cox 8:11

is it just an English? Or is it in multiple languages as well now, 

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