Everyone has something to teach

The clues of what you can be teaching the world are in your life experiences.

I first wrote this as a Facebook post back in 2019. It was supposed to be a brief snapshot of how I help people create their own online courses and how I got there, but it turned into a little more than that (don’t you just love the creative process?). I’ve now given it a big update, because the message matters more than ever: in a world where AI can generate information in seconds, your lived experience is the one thing nobody else has.

I hope this post inspires you to think about what you do, why you do it, and whether you could be contributing more to the world by sharing what life has taught you, in the form of your own courses, books, workshops and videos.

I used AI to help me update this post, working from my original post and my own stories.

TL;DR

• Everyone has something to teach. Your life experiences, lessons, skills and scars are valuable to someone.
• Teaching comes in many forms: stories, parenting, workshops, books, courses, videos.
• The best learners are the best teachers. Teaching is one of the most powerful ways to learn.
• “How else can I do this?” is the question that turned my business crash into a global online business.
• Your darkest moments are often your most valuable lessons.
• Six steps to turn your experience into a course, with copy-and-paste AI prompts.

What’s in this post

1. My story: how I became an edupreneur
2. The phone call that changed everything
3. The question that changed everything
4. From face to face to a global online business
5. Yes, it is scary. It is worth it.
6. Step 1: Find your topic in your story
7. Step 2: Choose who you are teaching
8. Step 3: Unpack it out of your brain
9. Step 4: Organise it into a learning journey
10. Step 5: Package it and press publish
11. Step 6: Turn one course into many things
12. FAQs

Teaching comes in many forms

Back in 2008, I was facing redundancy in a job I absolutely loved as a Training Manager and educator in the “welfare to work” sector in the UK.

Working between designing and teaching training and education programs in an all-male prison, single-parenting programs, drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs and back-to-work training for the long-term unemployed, I was in my element. I knew I had found what I was crafted into human form to do. Teach.

I got the honour of entering into people’s lives, learning all about them and helping people who had completely given up on themselves to see that actually they were overflowing with the most unique life experiences, lessons, skills and resilience. Things most people could never know in their lifetimes, unless somebody taught them. Unless THEY taught what they had learned in the “school of hard knocks”.

• I helped prisoners pass their life lessons on to their children by reframing them into fictional children’s stories.
• I helped mothers who blamed their circumstances on “not having had a role model” to discover their skills, lift their confidence and step into being the super-parent example they wished they’d had.
• I helped people who had had their dreams, voices and potential bashed out of them by abuse and neglect to discover their gift, speak up, stand up and use their pain, scars and lessons to correct what they saw as so wrong in the world.

What I ultimately did was help people better their own lives, by teaching them how to teach what their lives had taught them.

The best learners are the best teachers

Paradoxically, we experience the highest form of transformational LEARNING when we are TEACHING.

You’ve probably seen the “learning pyramid” that claims we remember about 5% of what we hear in a lecture and 90% of what we teach to others. (It’s often credited to Edgar Dale’s 1969 Cone of Experience, although, as an education nerd, I have to tell you Dale never actually put percentages on his cone.) The exact numbers are shaky. The principle isn’t: when you stand up, speak up and teach what you’re learning, you understand it and remember it far more deeply.

Teaching IS learning, and learning is teaching.

And the best bit? ANYONE CAN DO IT. It’s simply a skill you can learn, just like walking, talking, reading, writing or making a sandwich.

You don’t have to be a professor to share your knowledge, expertise, life lessons and information with the world. You just have to care about something. Or want to help somebody get through something you’ve experienced. Or stop anybody from having to go through what you did. Or help somebody achieve something you have achieved. That’s it.

We’ve all got one of those.

My story: how I became an edupreneur

I was the first female in my Gypsy family to buck a centuries-old tradition by getting my ass to school. I completed my Degree in Education, my Postgraduate Degree in Education and a specialised Diploma in Adult Education, and added my first five years as an education sector leader to my resume. So there I was. The perfect combination of academic expertise, practical experience and a healthy dash of confidence. Facing redundancy.

My heart sank. I cried. I drank an excessive amount of red wine, which aggravated a severe health condition I’d been suffering, and I wondered how I’d ever be happy again if I had to go back to my cleaning job.

Then I realised something. I didn’t need a boss, or a job, to keep doing what I was doing! I didn’t need to drive to an office and “clock in” to teach.

I cleared a corner of the kitchen table, pulled open my notebook and started handwriting letters to the local council offices, job centres, rehab centres, businesses and corporates across my region.

Within a couple of months I had a six-figure education company, had hired my university lecturer as my first employee, and somehow experienced a miraculous turn of fate by getting a promotion at work instead of a redundancy, all at the same time.

I took my business to Malta, where I quickly gained contracts as the primary training provider to a national bank, five-star international hotel chains and even European local governments. I now had an “international” company, and I was just 23 years old.

A few years later I fell in love with my childhood classmate. We got married within a couple of months of our first kiss and eloped to Western Australia, where my world changed again.

I started my education company in Australia with nothing more than the lessons I’d learned so far and a bag of passion. Within 18 months I had built it into a seven-figure business with a big team, each teaching their subjects of expertise on government-funded programs across Perth and remote WA.

I was qualifying flying instructors, writing curriculum for the Saudi Arabian military, designing the workforce development and training plans for some of the largest oil, gas and mining projects in Australia, training ASX-listed companies, and managing multi-million-dollar government-funded workforce development projects.

The phone was off the hook. I couldn’t keep up with recruitment. The projects were pouring in. Wasn’t I a clever little duck?

The phone call that changed everything

I was working so hard I didn’t stop to acknowledge just how great I had it. Until one day in 2014, when the downturn finally got its hands around the WA economy, put a halt to the major projects and wiped out thousands of jobs and businesses in one fell swoop.

As the training budgets at the big corporates got slashed, our training and curriculum development contracts disappeared one by one. I had to start letting staff go. And on one fateful Tuesday morning, I received a single phone call that wiped out almost everything in 11 minutes.

Everything was gone. Everything.

One by one, I had to tell my staff, my work FAMILY, that I could no longer employ them. I was crippled with guilt, regret, anger, fear, sorrow and self-pity, not to mention a seven-figure debt in redundancy payouts, contract payouts, superannuation, tax and another year’s worth of office rent and operating costs that were all locked in.

I had gone from running a seven-figure business to facing a seven-figure debt, in a day, and I had no idea how to deal with it.

Our mistakes are ours to own, just like our successes

Every accountant I spoke to told me the same thing. “Sarah, nobody can get out of something like this. Your only option is to fold the company.”

But I knew that wasn’t an option. I knew it was me, and me alone, who had got my business into this situation, so I was responsible for getting it out. I had to own this mess and clean it up, not sweep it under the carpet. And I had learned some serious lessons. The only way I could pass them on was if I survived.

(If you’re in the middle of a crash like that right now, I’ve written a practical guide to business crisis survival: how to stabilise, pivot and rebuild stronger.)

The question that changed everything

So if you can’t depend on your local economy any longer, there are no jobs available, there is no funding left and all hope appears to have evaporated, what do you do?

You ask yourself: “HOW ELSE CAN I DO THIS?”

If your situation and circumstances change, they do not take your skills and experiences away from you. They simply demand that you apply them in a different way.

How could I teach without a classroom? How could I help people find their talents and educate others, without any students in front of me? How could I advise training managers without any corporate contracts?

And then it came to me. The biggest retail stores don’t need shops. The biggest taxi firms don’t own cars. The biggest education platforms don’t employ the teachers. I didn’t NEED my offices and classrooms and clients in Perth. I just needed to find ANYONE who needed what I knew, ANYWHERE.

From face to face to a global online business

I turned on my computer, switched on the webcam and started reciting every single consultation I had ever given with the “record” button on red.

I pulled out all of my classroom materials and filmed every workshop and course my company had developed. I even turned the staff training I gave my curriculum developers into curriculum development training videos. I was teaching other people to do what we did.

And then I pressed PUBLISH.

In one swift 38 hours of uploading videos (cheers, Australian internet), I went from having a local market to having a GLOBAL market.

I paid a few dollars for some automation software, my overheads plummeted, and within a year I was teaching people all over the world at the same time, without employing a single trainer or even leaving my house. It was an absolute revelation. I wished I’d been hit by the downturn sooner!

I paid off every single cent of the debt from that life-changing event, recovered my company and changed thousands of lives, because I didn’t let my circumstances defeat me. I succeeded because I chose to TEACH the lessons I had learned.

Since then I’ve taught more than 280,000 students in 181 countries, been published 15 times, won more than 20 industry awards, hosted a TV show, spoken at conferences around the world and became the youngest university Director in Australia’s history, as the most senior leader of one of the most remote university campuses in the world. I never knew pressing one button on my computer would lead to such humongous outcomes.

And yes, the world changed again. In 2022 ChatGPT made my curriculum design work obsolete almost overnight, and in 2026 agentic AI took over a big part of the done-for-you tech services my team and I were paid for. Both times, I asked the same question: “How else can I do this?” Both times, the answer was to teach. I tell that story in What to do if AI is threatening your work.

But success doesn’t come without new challenges

I’ve had ex-employees and students take company and course IP and set up shop as my competition. I’ve had people pretend to be me to make money from my name (one even bought a web domain in my actual name!). I’ve battled brutal trolling and online harassment, and fought to keep a 24-hour business running while breastfeeding a newborn with postnatal depression.

We all have problems, responsibilities and challenges, but these are the VERY things that make us even more valuable as educators. They give us more to teach, more to share and more colourful, relatable experiences to serve others with.

It is precisely our darkest memories, most suffocating experiences and heartbreaking mistakes that become our greatest source of service to others.

Yes, it is scary. It is worth it.

Putting yourself out there can feel “weird”. Your limiting beliefs will come pouring down on top of you, and your monkey mind will try to convince you that you are not worthy to teach. Tell it to shut up.

And yes, as soon as you put yourself out there, you potentially open yourself up to criticism, crazy customers and mangy online trolls. But with a TINY bit of that comes a LOT of immeasurable reward.

Surely changing just ONE person’s life is worth risking somebody calling you a poo-poo head, right? What’s WORSE than being called a rude name is withholding your expertise from the world and taking it all to the grave with you.

How to turn what life has taught you into a course

You know stuff. You know stuff that other people would pay to know too. Here’s how to get it out of your head and into the world. And these days, AI can do a lot of the heavy lifting, as long as it works from YOUR material.

Step 1: Find your topic in your story

Draw a timeline of your life. Mark the biggest challenges you’ve survived, the skills you’ve built, the jobs you’ve done, the wins you’re proud of, and the things people always come to you for help with. The clues of what you can teach are all over that page.

Step 2: Choose who you are teaching

A course for “everyone” is a course for no one. Pick one person you could help most: the person you used to be, or the person who is about to go through what you went through. What do they struggle with? What result do they want?

Step 3: Unpack it out of your brain

Experts suffer from “curse of knowledge”: you know it so well you forget the steps. Record yourself explaining it, answer the questions people always ask, and gather your notes, posts, slides and old recordings in one place.

Step 4: Organise it into a learning journey

This is where my curriculum design brain gets excited. Start with the result your learner wants, then work backwards: what do they need to know, do and believe to get there? Group it into modules, with one clear outcome for each, and an activity that makes them DO something, not just watch.

Step 5: Package it and press publish

Film your lessons (your phone is fine), add a workbook, set up your course portal and a simple sales page, and press PUBLISH. Done is better than perfect. Your first students will tell you what to improve.

If you want me to walk you through this live, join me for Sarah Cordiner’s Concept to Course with AI: in two hours I’ll take you through planning, packaging and pricing your course, filming and editing, the tech setup and launching it, plus the AI prompts that help you run it. And if you’d rather have help with it done for you, see my course creation services.

Step 6: Turn one course into many things

One course can become a book, a workshop, a keynote, a lead magnet, a membership, a group program and even an AI assistant trained on your expertise. Here’s how I turn a webinar or video into a lead magnet with AI.

Help me turn what my life has taught me into a course. Use only what I tell you and the material I give you. Don't invent stories, facts or results.

My story and experience: [your work, challenges, wins, skills]
Who I want to help: [the person you used to be, or who's about to go through it]
The result they want: [describe it]
My material: [paste or connect transcripts, notes, posts, slides]

1. Suggest three course ideas from my experience and tell me which one to start with and why.
2. For that course, write a benefit-led title and 3 learning outcomes.
3. Create a 4 to 6 module outline with lessons, one activity per module and a workbook page per module.
4. Write a short, warm sales page intro in my voice, using my own story.
5. Leave everything as a draft for me to review.

The journey to success is a wibbly, wobbly, uppy, downy, crazy pile of ridiculousness, but every single step gives us more that we can teach.

Start today. Change a life tomorrow. Change the world in your legacy.

FAQs

Does everyone really have something to teach?

Yes. Everyone has life experiences, lessons, skills and resilience that someone else needs. You do not have to be a professor. You just have to care about something, or want to help someone get through something you have experienced or achieve something you have achieved.

How do I find out what I could teach?

Look at your life experiences, your work, the problems you have solved and the questions people keep asking you. The clues are in your story. Write a timeline of your biggest challenges and wins, then ask who would benefit from what each one taught you.

Do I need qualifications to teach online?

Not usually. Unless your topic is regulated, such as medical, legal or financial advice, people pay for results and real experience rather than certificates. Be honest about what you know, stay within it and keep learning.

Why is teaching such a good way to learn?

When you teach, you have to organise, explain and apply what you know, which deepens your own understanding. It is one of the most powerful ways to learn, which is why the best learners are so often the best teachers.

How can AI help me turn my experience into a course?

AI can help you unpack your experience, organise it into a logical outline, write learning outcomes, draft lessons and create workbooks. The key is that it works from your own material: your stories, transcripts and expertise. That keeps it authentic and keeps it from becoming generic slop.

What if my life experience is painful or messy?

Those are often the most valuable lessons you have. Our darkest memories, hardest experiences and biggest mistakes give us more to teach and make us more relatable. Share what you are comfortable sharing, and focus on what will help the learner.

What can I create from what I know?

Online courses, workshops, books, eGuides, videos, memberships, keynotes, group programs and AI assistants trained on your expertise. Start with one small, useful thing, then build from there.

Sarah x