How Teaching High School Prepares You to Run a Company | Leslie Loveless (1/4)
September 28, 2026
Leslie Loveless starts at the beginning: growing up in a close-knit Indiana family, watching her father build a career as a pharmacist, and learning early that education mattered even if the eventual career path was left up to her.
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“You need to really be in tune with what's being heard and received and understood.”
Leslie Loveless starts at the beginning: growing up in a close-knit Indiana family, watching her father build a career as a pharmacist, and learning early that education mattered even if the eventual career path was left up to her.
She explains how high school shifted her interests from mathematics to English, grammar, and writing, then describes the college experience that deepened her love of literature, stories, and critical thinking. A full scholarship close to home shaped her university decision, even as she sometimes wondered what it might have been like to leave Indiana.
Leslie also takes us inside her years teaching ninth, tenth, and eleventh graders while earning a master's degree at Butler University. Managing crowded classrooms, mixing current events with drier material, and keeping students engaged taught her a leadership skill she still relies on: read the room, then adapt.
Key Topics Covered:
- Leslie Loveless's Indiana upbringing and close-knit family
- The influence of her father's career as a pharmacist
- Why Leslie shifted from mathematics to English in high school
- Grammar, writing, and sentence structure as a bridge between analytical and humanistic thinking
- Choosing a nearby university with a full scholarship
- Studying literature, interpretation, and critical thinking
- Earning a master's degree in English at Butler University
- Teaching ninth, tenth, and eleventh grade English
- Balancing classroom teaching, graduate school, grading, and coaching
- Keeping teenagers engaged through varied lesson formats and current events
- Reading the room as a transferable leadership skill
- Why teaching began to feel too structured and all-consuming
- The freedom and financial considerations behind a possible career change
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Find our guest, Leslie Loveless, at these links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslieloveless1
Slone Partners: https://slonepartners.com/
Find our host, Jon Chee, at these links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonchee/
Learn more about Excedr:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/
Website: https://www.excedr.com
Intro & Outro Songs Created by OkKyojin
OkKyojin: https://flow.page/kyojin
OkKyojin: https://flow.page/kyojin
Resources & Articles:
Butler University English: https://www.butler.edu/academics/college-of-liberal-arts-sciences/english/
Purdue University College of Pharmacy: https://pharmacy.purdue.edu/
Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:
Purdue University: https://www.purdue.edu/
Butler University: https://www.butler.edu/
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:59 Growing Up in Indiana
03:27 A Close-Knit Family
05:02 The Pharmacist Influence
05:46 Lessons From Her Parents
07:10 When Math Stopped Clicking
07:41 Falling for Grammar and Writing
11:42 Choosing a University Close to Home
15:26 Discovering Literature
16:02 A Future in Education
16:18 Teaching While Earning a Master's
19:18 Inside the High School Classroom
20:32 The Reality of Teaching
20:52 Keeping Teenagers Engaged
24:40 Reading the Room
27:04 Considering a Change
33:25 Outro
The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.