Ep #272: Not Your People

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 272. 

Welcome to The Empowered Principal™ Podcast, a not so typical educational resource that will teach you how to gain control of your career and get emotionally fit to lead your school and your life with joy by refining your most powerful tool, your mind. Here’s your host certified life coach Angela Kelly Robeck. 

Hello my empowered leaders. Happy Tuesday. Happy Spring Break. Many of you are starting spring break. March, April, they’re all over the place. I’m coaching people from all over the country. It’s been a challenge to ensure that we are scheduled for the right week, and that everybody’s got the right week off. 

So happy spring. I hope that wherever you are in the world, that you are enjoying the beautiful springtime weather. Here in California, it’s been a cold winter relatively speaking for us. We’ve had tons of rain, tons of snow in the Sierras, and lots of chilly nights and chilly mornings. So looking forward to bright, sunny, warm days ahead. 

All right, I just got back. Speaking of spring and being out in nature, I just got back from a walk. I’m gonna record this short and sweet because it’s been on my mind. I thought about it throughout my walk. I thought about you. It really struck home with me the need to say this to all of you directly. 

So I was listening to a podcast that was talking about the fear of haters, and the vulnerability that comes with being a leader in the public eye. Whether that’s a school leader, or a celebrity, any public eye version of a leader, which is all of us to some capacity right. I’m putting myself out into the world as a coach for school leaders. 

I am being the leader to help all of you. Leading the way, trying to help you coach, mentor you, guide you so that you can have the best school leadership experience possible. All of you are putting yourselves out in the public eye with your school community, your school boards, your counties, states, government officials, your superintendents, your staff, your students. A lot of the public eye is on you as a school leader. 

I was listening to the podcast thinking about the role of school leadership and how public it’s become and how vulnerable it feels to be in the position. With cancel culture and parents going off the rails and just all of the emotional and mental challenges that you’re facing as a school leader, I’ve been thinking about this.

I can remember this fear haunted me when I was a school leader. I know it’s definitely a fear that most if not all school leaders face to some capacity when you’re in this position of school leadership, and I coach on it so often as a coach for school leaders. So I have to tell you a personal story.

It happened to me the other day. I don’t know. Something popped up on my podcast feed. I noticed that my podcast rating actually went down from 4.8 stars to 4.7 stars. Now, I laugh at myself because in school leadership, this is like going from an 842 to an 841. Okay. I understand like it’s a point 10th of a number, right? And it’s what we’re making it mean, right? 

But the visceral reaction I had when I saw it, I was like oh no. My stomach dropped. I saw the thoughts. They filled up my body and my mind. I was thinking oh gosh, there are people who don’t like the podcast. The content’s not valuable enough. There must be something that I’m missing, something that I haven’t addressed, something they’re looking for that I am not providing. 

I saw my brain going through the spin out. I’m like why? What happened? Then I caught it. I caught it. I caught myself. I coach my leaders on this all the time when you’re looking at data. I’m actually going to be doing a podcast on data and what we make it mean, either people who love the data and people who avoid the data. I’m going to talk about both ends of that spectrum, and what we make data mean and how to leverage data in a way that serves us and we keep it neutral. Okay, more on that later. 

But my brain did what your brains do. When you see your score drop, it flips out, right. I laughed. Then I thought oh, what am I making 4.7 mean versus 4.8? Of course, it was making it mean like all or none thinking. Oh, the podcast is terrible. Nobody likes it. Then it occurred to me back to what this earlier podcast was saying on my walk earlier. 

These aren’t your people, Angela. The people who give you a one star rating, it’s completely acceptable for them to do that. It’s their opinion, but they’re not your people. They don’t connect with my content. It’s not what they’re looking for. It’s interesting because I’m not supposed to fulfill whatever they’re looking for. They’re not my people. So that’s not my job. 

They weren’t meant to be my people. They might not ever be my people. They might change over. They might come back later and find the content valuable at a different point in their lives or different point in time. But at this point, not my people. Might not ever be my people. They don’t need to be. That was the realization I came to. 

People who don’t like my podcast, or don’t like me, or don’t like my coaching, they’re just not my people. That’s okay. They weren’t meant to be. Not everybody is meant to be working with me. That’s okay. But you don’t need them to be your people. You don’t need them to like you, to want to coach with you, to love your podcast, to love the content. I just realized I don’t need it. I’m sufficient. My opinion of my own work matters more to me or at least equal than other people’s opinions. 

So for people who don’t love my work, I can respect that we have a difference of opinion. That’s okay. They can go their way, and I can go mine. I don’t have to make it mean it’s all none, good or bad, right or wrong. I don’t need to go chasing them to try and figure out what it is they need so that they can like me, and they can like the podcast? They’ll give me a five star and change the one star to a five star, right? 

I want you to hear this. Translate this in the school leadership. Your people are out there too. There are teachers who love you and want to work with you and love your vision and love what you have to share with the world just as you are. They want to learn from you. 

They want you to be their leader, you to be their principal. They want to evolve themselves. They desire to work with you. They’re eager. They’re excited. They’re enthusiastic. They follow your lead. They enjoy you just as you are. They think you’re doing a great job. Those are your people, and they are out there. They’re right in front of you actually. 

I coach principals on this topic so often. So many times we spend an entire session coaching about their thoughts on the percentage of people that aren’t their people. Because what happens, our brain focuses on that. It focuses on the negative. 

It focuses on the teacher who argues and pushes back, the person who won’t follow our lead, or implement that mandate, the parent who comes in raging at us, the district admin who ignores you or fails to support you, or on the other end, they micromanage. They’re there all the time. They’re criticizing. They’re just like in every little move you make. So sometimes you have it too much, and sometimes it’s nonexistent, but your brain’s focusing on those people. 

I get it. Our brain is wired to focus on these people because the brain perceives them as a threat. So it’s not a problem that it’s doing it. We just need to understand why our brain is doing it, and understand that and acknowledge it and train our brain to look to the people who are our people. 

So I coach people on what they’re making these people’s behavior mean about them. So if someone’s out there, and they’re not your person, and they’re talking behind your back or saying mean things or who knows what they’re doing. People do crazy things. 

So if they’re out there doing those things, and you get sucked in, now all of your time and energy and focus, attention, and all of the things you could be putting towards the people who do love you. You’re focused on the people who don’t, and you’re trying to figure out how do I solve for the people who aren’t my people versus adding value and supporting and loving on the people who are your people. 

It’s so much easier to be a school leader when you focus on the people who love you. Like the teachers who are early adopters and they jump right in. Whenever you have a new mandate or initiative, they jump right in. The parents who spent all their hours volunteering and cheerleading for the school and speaking highly of the school. They’re not on Facebook bashing you. 

These are the parents who are in the PTA. They’re the room parents, and they’re coming to meetings, and they’re supporting with their time and their energy and their finances. Or there’s a district admin. Think about the district admin who are warm and open and welcoming and supportive and take time to listen and understand you and gain your perspective on what’s happening. 

So as I’m thinking about all of you and my work as your coach, I was asking myself this question. How do I want to approach my life as a coach for school leaders? Like how do I want to embody? Who do I want to be as a coach for school leaders? How do I want to show up and present my life? Do I want to spend my time thinking about a 4.7 versus a 4.8 and spinning out on that? And the, I don’t know, handful of people who said this was a one star podcast. Do I want to spend my life on that? Or do I want to spend my life on the people who gave me four and five stars? It’s just so much more fun and easy to focus on the people who are my people.

I want to come across from love and integrity and honesty and vulnerability, trustworthiness, compassion. I want to be as authentic and true to myself as possible. I want to be as true and authentic as I can for my clients and my future clients and the audience, all of you who take time to listen. I’m here for you, not the haters. Not the people who aren’t my people. 

I want to talk to the people who want to be empowered principals, who want to lead their school, who want to learn how to balance getting high achieving results without being so intense and overworking their staff to death. Who wants that balance of high results and high accountability along with lots of love, fun, compassion, and balance. It’s possible. I want to work with those people.

I want people who want to work with me. I want to love my clients as if they were my own best friend, who loves me for just being me, showing up every week, sometimes b minus work, sometimes A plus work, but who feel my work resonating with them. That’s who I want to work with. I want you to imagine. I know you guys are going into hiring season right now. Right now you’re letting go of some people, and you’re bringing in some new people, and you’re entering into the hiring season. I want you to trust and believe that your people are out there. 

This is true for you as an empowered principal. When you step into that version of you, there are going to be people no matter what who are mean, who are rude, who are inconsiderate. Those are not your people. The people who judge and criticize you are not your people. Yes, it stings. Of course it stings. You’re a human. You have feelings. 

That visceral reaction is a part of the human experience, but it doesn’t mean that we have to take their opinion and value it more than we value our own opinion and the opinion of the people who already love us. It just means that their opinion is noted but not quite as important as our people.

So please know this as you’re entering into a new hiring season. I’m going to do a podcast on hiring in the 2023 school year because there is lots of drama around. There’s not going to be enough people. There’s not enough good people. Teachers don’t want to work anymore. There’s a lot of thoughts like that. I’m going to address those in a future podcast coming up here. 

But I want you to get your mindset ready as you’re entering into hiring season and compassionately and with love letting teachers go. I actually did a whole entire podcast about lovingly letting people go, how to hold space for people between the time you tell them that they’re not coming back and the end of the school year because that can be kind of a hairy time. We’ll put that podcast in the show notes for you so you can refer back to that. 

But here’s what I want you to walk away with. There are people who love and enjoy you just as you are. You don’t need to be better. You don’t need to work harder. You don’t need to do more. You don’t need to be funnier or prettier or smarter or taller. These are things my brain offers. People would love me if I was taller, skinnier, prettier, younger, whatever. Brains are crazy, but people love you, the little package that you are. We love you. I love you. 

Even if I haven’t met you yet, I love you if you’re my people. If I am your person, let’s connect. Let’s work together. Let’s join the force of being an empowered principal and joining hands with fellow likeminded people who are our people. That’s why I created this community. I want people who want to work on themselves and evolve the way they think and evolve the way they handle their emotions and manage them and evolve their capacity to lead and guide and hold space for other people’s thoughts and emotions and actions. Okay? 

Just know this. There are people who backup your vision for your school and your students. There are people who come in with good attitudes and good intentions. There are always new people that are your people. Never ever think that the teacher pool that you’re hiring from isn’t big enough or good enough. There are always new people walking into that door. There are people who want to be your people. Those are the people whose opinion matters most. Your opinion first, your people’s opinion second, and then the other people duly noted, moving on. 

Do not forget this. Do not give the haters more of your time and attention than you give to those who love you and who want to follow your lead. Focus on giving your people more of you. Let them know what you stand for and what you don’t. Be transparent and open and authentic with them. Show them who you are. Let them experience the real version of you. 

Allow yourself to just be yourself. Idiosyncrasies, quirks, all of it. Here we are. Let people in. It’s okay to be human. You’re a school leader, right? I think about celebrities. They have millions of haters. They have people just waiting for them to have a human moment, to make a human mistake, to beat just a little imperfect so they can dig at them.

I just watched the Grammys replay. My friend had taped it because we weren’t home that evening of the Grammys. I went to her house, and we watched it. She’s like have you seen all the memes and all the things about this person and that person? I was like no, I try not to consume any of that content because it’s just yucky. It doesn’t feel good. She was telling me some of it. I’m like why would people like spend their time and energy doing that? It doesn’t even make sense to me. 

But there are people who do it. It’s just how they thrive. They’re not our people, but you don’t need to be consumed by them. You don’t need to give them a minute of your life, a minute of your precious time, or your precious energy, or your precious value. You have so much value to offer. Focus on generating value with your vision with your people. 

Create joy for yourself and others and inspire your people into energy and their possibilities. That’s what you’re on the planet to do. Focus on your people. If they’re not your people, no problem. I love you. You’re my people. I am your people. Have an amazing week. Talk to you guys real soon. Take good care. Bye.

If this podcast resonates with you, you have to sign up for the Empowered Principal™ coaching program. It’s my exclusive one to one coaching and mentorship program for school leaders who believe in possibility. This program is designed for principals who are hungry for the fastest transformation in the industry. If you want to create the best connections, impact, and legacy for yourself and your school, the Empowered Principal™ program was designed for you. Join me at angelakellycoaching.com/work-with-me to learn more. I’d love to support you in becoming an empowered school leader.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Empowered Principal™ Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, please visit angelakellycoaching.com where you can sign up for weekly updates and learn more about the tools that will help you become an emotionally fit school leader.