We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Azizi Tuere a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Azizi thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s kick things off with a hypothetical question – if it were up to you, what would you change about the school or education system to better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career?

If I could change one foundational thing about the education system, it would be this: We need to stop seeing education as something we do to children, and instead recognize it as something we build with them.

This realization hit me when my daughters were just 4 and 6 years old. At the time, they were attending a well-regarded Montessori school, a place that promised creativity, independence, and child-led learning. But even there, I saw a subtle but powerful disconnect. The teachers couldn’t fully see the individual child beyond the system’s own set ideas of how learning should unfold.

My girls would light up when they found something they were passionate about from building elaborate projects to diving deep into a creative process, but no matter how engaged they were, they were still moved along to the next station because the schedule said it was time. This wasn’t based on their learning rhythm or curiosity. It was based on the programming of what should happen next.

That was my wake-up call. If we couldn’t honor natural learning flow in preschool and first grade, when the stakes are low and curiosity should be king, what would happen later when real passions, talents, and gifts needed nurturing?

That’s when I made the decision to homeschool. Not just homeschool, but completely redesign what education meant for our family. Instead of following someone else’s map, we built our own curriculum around our real life. We launched Tiny Green Chef, a plant-based cooking program that my daughters helped create when they were just 8 & 1o years old, which wove together math (through recipe scaling and pricing), science (through nutrition and cooking chemistry), language arts (through recipe writing and filming video scripts), and business skills (through marketing and customer service).

Later, when my daughter Kaja earned her scuba diving certification at 10, we turned that experience into a writing project. She published her own children’s book at 13 called Because Kids Can Scuba Dive, which not only fulfilled language arts requirements but taught her marketing, public speaking, project management, and more.

What I’ve learned, and what I wish every educator understood, is that real learning doesn’t happen in tidy subjects or arbitrary schedules. Real learning happens when children are trusted to follow their curiosity and parents and educators become partners, not directors, of that journey.

If we want to prepare students for a fulfilling life and career, we need to stop training them to be compliant, test-taking machines and start teaching them how to lead themselves. They need to think critically, solve real problems, communicate their ideas, and create value. This isn’t just education reform. It’s family leadership reform, and it starts at home.

That’s what drives everything I teach now through Parent Like a CEO — helping parents reclaim leadership so they can create family cultures where curiosity, creativity, and entrepreneurship are baked right into daily life.

Education should prepare children to thrive in the world they’re inheriting, and that world is changing faster than ever. It won’t reward kids who can memorize answers. It will reward kids who can ask the right questions, adapt, innovate, and lead.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Azizi Tuere, and I’m a Parent Leadership Mentor, author, speaker, and creator of the Parent Like a CEO framework. I help visionary parents reclaim leadership in their homes so they can design intentional family cultures, raise self-led children, and build a legacy of leadership that lasts for generations.

My work is rooted in both personal experience and professional passion. I began homeschooling my daughters when they were just 4 and 6 years old, after realizing even progressive education models like Montessori were still stuck inside old programming; focusing more on schedules, systems, and “doing things the right way” instead of following the natural flow of children’s interests, talents, and creative genius.

I knew there had to be a better way, so I began designing our education around our real life, following my daughters’ passions and weaving core subjects, life skills, and business education into their natural interests. That approach turned into Tiny Green Chef, a plant-based cooking program we built as a family. It also led to my oldest daughter publishing her first children’s book at just 13, after she became a certified scuba diver at age 10 and wanted to share that experience with other kids.

Over time, I realized we weren’t just building a unique education model. We were building a blueprint for intentional family leadership, one where parents own the culture of their home, where learning is meaningful and real, and where kids grow up seeing themselves as leaders and creators, not just students or dependents.

That experience inspired me to create Parent Like a CEO, a framework that helps parents step into their role as visionary leaders of their homes, rather than defaulting to employees who just manage the daily to-do list. I teach families how to create a family vision, mission, and culture; how to design education that travels with them, whether they homeschool, worldschool, or supplement traditional education; and how to raise kids who are capable, confident, and ready to lead their own lives.

Along the way, I also wrote the Because I Am children’s book series, which helps young readers build unshakable self-worth through stories about beauty, genius, and what it really means to be a winner. My books, courses, and mentorship all reflect the same core belief: The greatest gift we can give our children is the ability to see their own brilliance and the confidence to create their own path.

What sets me apart is that everything I teach comes directly from lived experience. I’m not sharing theories. I’m sharing what actually worked in my own family; raising kids who are entrepreneurs, creatives, and leaders before they’ve even reached high school. I also bring a global perspective, since our family has lived, worked, and learned in multiple countries across continents, blending cultural experiences into our curriculum and family culture.

I’m most proud of the fact that my daughters have grown up knowing that their ideas matter, their voices have power, and their education was never something that happened to them, it was something they co-created with us as a family.

What I want every parent, educator, and follower to know about my work is this: You are the CEO of your family. You have the power to design a life, education, and legacy that fits your values, serves your children’s gifts, and prepares them to lead themselves confidently in a rapidly changing world. You don’t have to wait for a school, a system, or an expert to tell you what’s best for your child. You are the expert, and your home is the most powerful leadership training ground there is.

Whether through my books, coaching, courses, or speaking, my mission is to help families break free from outdated models of parenting and education and step into a future where family leadership is intentional, education is meaningful, and children grow up knowing who they are, what they’re capable of, and how to create their own opportunities.

Have you ever had to pivot?

One of the biggest pivots of my life wasn’t about leaving; it was about learning how to stay.

After living in London for five years, I moved back to the U.S. and felt completely out of place. I was restless, disillusioned, and ready to run again. I kept thinking if I could just move somewhere new, somewhere more aligned with my values and lifestyle, I’d finally feel at home. But something inside me knew the real work wasn’t about finding a new place to live. It was about learning how to thrive where I was, even if it felt uncomfortable.

That’s when I made a decision that changed everything: I can’t leave until I can stay.

That single mindset shift became a cornerstone of how I approach life, business, and leadership. Instead of escaping, I got curious. I built homeschool co-ops. I learned natural medicine. I explored alternative learning methods and studied how to create sovereignty in health, money, and education. I became deeply intentional about how we lived as a family, wherever we were planted.

This mindset was critical because when we finally chose to leave, selling our home and stepping into a location-independent lifestyle, we did it from a place of clarity and leadership, not from reaction or fear. That preparation made all the difference because once you’re out in the world, unforeseen challenges will always show up. Knowing how to lead yourself and your family through uncertainty is everything.

This exact philosophy; moving from an employee mindset (where you just react to what’s happening) into a CEO mindset (where you create intentional strategy for your life and family) is the heart of Parent Like a CEO.

That lesson in sovereign leadership came full circle when COVID hit and shut down my travel-based business overnight. I had been running Stone Soup Family Pop-Up Communities, 30-day immersive retreats where families came together to travel, learn, and co-create community. When the world closed, so did my business.

We were in Bali at the time, and instead of panicking, we pivoted into creation mode. My daughter had been asking for years to turn our family’s passion for plant-based cooking into something more, so we took the unexpected pause as the perfect moment to create Tiny Green Chef, an online plant-based cooking course for kids.

That pivot wasn’t just about business. It was education, creativity, entrepreneurship, and family culture all woven into one. My daughters helped create the lessons, plan the recipes, and film the content. They didn’t just learn math, science, and writing through the course creation; they learned how to build something from scratch when life doesn’t go as planned.

That’s what I teach parents now. Whether you’re homeschooling, worldschooling, or just rethinking your family’s future, you need to think like a CEO, not just managing daily fires, but leading with vision, adaptability, and creative problem-solving.

Every pivot in my life from feeling like an outsider, to rebuilding community from scratch, to shifting from retreat leader to online educator, has taught me the same truth: You can’t control what happens, but you can always control how you lead through it. That’s the message I hope every parent learns because family leadership is the first and most important leadership role you will ever have.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My mission is to help families reclaim their power by teaching parents to lead their homes like visionary CEOs, while raising children who know who they are, what they’re capable of, and how to create their own opportunities in life.

Everything I create, whether it’s a book, a course, a workshop, or a family experience comes from this belief: Strong, self-led families create strong, self-led children, and those children become confident, adaptable adults who can thrive no matter where life takes them.

This mission was born directly from my personal experience. As a mother, I saw early on how easy it is to outsource leadership to schools, systems, and even society, trusting that if we just follow the “normal” path, our kids will turn out okay. But I also saw how much potential gets wasted when we follow generic blueprints instead of designing life, education, and family culture around who we actually are.

That’s why I created the Because I Am book series, to help children understand, from a very young age, that they are already beautiful, brilliant, and capable just as they are. It’s why I co-created Tiny Green Chef with my daughters, to show families that education doesn’t have to be separate from life and that kids are fully capable of leading projects, businesses, and creative work when we trust them with real responsibility.

This mission isn’t just about homeschooling or entrepreneurship; it’s about empowerment at every level. It’s about helping families break free from broken systems, whether that’s outdated school models, limiting beliefs about parenting, or the pressure to live by someone else’s definition of success so they can step into their own unique vision for life.

Ultimately, my creative journey is driven by the desire to see families thrive, not just survive. I want to see parents lead boldly, children shine confidently, and families work together to create lives that reflect their values, talents, and purpose.

Because at the end of the day, the family is the first and most powerful community we belong to. When we get family leadership right, we don’t just raise great kids. We build a legacy of leadership that can ripple out for generations.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.azizituere.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/azizituere
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/azizi.tuere
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azizi-birkeland-4558315/
• Twitter: https://x.com/AziziTuere

Image Credits

Sabrina Waverly Wren Photography