Ep #50: Words of Gratitude for Gary Vaynerchuk

Hello, Empowered Principals, welcome to episode number 50.

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.

Well hello there. How are you guys? What is going on? I’m so excited. I am a huge Christmas fan. I’m a huge holiday fan. Christmas is exactly two weeks away from today, and I hope that if you celebrate Christmas, you have that Christmas spirit running right through your veins like I do.

If you’re not a person who celebrates Christmas, then I just hope you are enjoying the season. I hope you are looking forward to your upcoming break. It I such a relief, I know. You get halfway through the year and you’ve got that break. It’s so wonderful.

So our household, we love us some Christmas season. We are all about it. We decorate, we blast the Christmas music. That’s me blasting the music – my husband is not so much about it. He used to work at Macy’s and he said the Christmas music drove him crazy, but he allows it and tolerates it for me this time of year.

But we do, seriously, Alex loves to bake, we watch Christmas movies, or all the holiday movies. We basically have this cult classic list that we watch year after year after year. And I’m telling you, I love this time of year. And I’m working from home, so I get to light my cozy candles. My favorites are those Rosy Rings and Yankee Candles. They’re just my favorite. They smell so good. They last forever. So if you’re a candle person, check those guys out – not that that’s a plug or anything, they’re just my favorites

But anyway, I love to take it all in during this season and feel the abundance of love and coziness and the excitement of the upcoming break. Whether you’re currently school leader or a teacher thinking about becoming a leader, I think that this time of year is magical at the school. So I hope you’re enjoying.

Anyway, as you know, every 10^th episode of this podcast, I like to highlight a mentor that I follow who has greatly impacted me both personally and professionally. The reason I do this is because I like to expand your horizons of people you know or mentors you follow and bring their little tidbits of knowledge or experience into the field of education.

Typically, I have been sharing with you some of my life coaching mentors, and I love them dearly – I love them all, of course. But this time, I am sharing somebody with you that is completely outside of education and outside of life coaching. But this guy offers incredible, sensible, and authentic advice and information.

He’s extremely financially successful and I believe that’s because he fully practices what he preaches. Now, you might have never heard of him, but I guarantee that one day you will, because he’s taking social media by storm, and he has the ears of millions of people.

His name is Gary Vaynerchuk, or as he goes by, Gary V. So I was first introduced to Gary through one of my master coach’s podcasts. She briefly mentioned him in one of her episodes and it caught my attention, so I decided to check him out. And boy, was I in for a big surprise.

And let me just warn you guys, first of all, Gary has a very bold personality. I love him for it, but I want you to know something upfront; Gary swears a lot. He drops F-bombs. So it does not personally bother me, he gets to be who he is and I’m cool with that, but I’m aware that it bothers some people, so I’m frontloading you.

If you are offended by certain language, you may choose not to check him out. But with that said, Gary’s message is so completely full of love and kindness. So if you can go past the language that he chooses to use – and I think he does that purposefully to connect with a younger audience – but his message is golden.

His actions speak even louder than his words. I just feel he’s so true to himself and he lives his life with brutal honesty, and I aim to be that person as well. So I’m going to share with you several of my takeaways from following Gary, and I want you to hear how universal his message is to anyone in any field of work.

Number one, your actions must match your ambitions. I love this. This is so good. So much of our unhappiness stems from wanting something we don’t have or not wanting something we do have. We want to have this big house and then we complain about the mortgage payments and property taxes and having to maintain it every week.

Then we say we want to become a school leader, but we complain about the workload, the long hours, the staff, the parents, the student behavior. We go on and on, right? Or, if you’re like me, I was focused on quitting the 9-5 job – well not 9-5, let’s be real, the 7-6 job – but when we do, we then focus on how hard it is to build our dream business. That’s where I’m at right now.

So if any of you out there are loving education or you used to love education and you’re not loving it so much anymore, let me tell you, embrace what’s good about it because if you decide to coach on this and move past education and serve the world in another way, you still will have issues, challenges, difficulties, struggles, complaints that come up in your life, no matter what.

So Gary reminds us that we are not entitled to having what we want simply because we want it. Our actions must match our ambitions. So if you want to be the most amazing school principal you know, then your actions have to match what it takes to accomplish that goal.

If you want to leave school leadership and follow your passion of, let’s say, interior decorating, then you’ve got to hustle on the side to build up a financially stable business so that you can afford to leave and have the flexibility you dream of. If, on the other hand, you just want the stability of a paycheck, you want somebody else to make the decisions and to be in charge and you just want to go to work and come home, then be okay with that.

Choose a job that matches that, but then be okay with it. Be okay with not being in charge. If you don’t want your career to be the focus of your life, that is also completely okay. I think, as a school leader, your life is the job and the job is the life. It’s hard to separate them because they’re so intermingled, or at least for me it was.

That was completely okay because it taught me so much about myself and what I wanted and what I didn’t. But there was also a point at which I no longer wanted my career, that career in particular, to be the focus of my life. I felt the calling to serve in a very different way. That’s okay, they’re both okay.

So you can’t want both and get both. You can’t want to make multiple six figures and not want to have to put any effort into working. That’s just not how it works, guys, okay?

So be conscious of what it is you really want and align your actions with your true ambition. And your actions will highlight and they will tell us what your true ambitions are, because if you’re not working that hard for it, you really don’t want it.

Okay, number two, 99% of the things around us just don’t matter. It is so easy to get caught up in the day to day minutia. And, you guys, we do it as school leaders all the time. There’s so many people to serve and so many people to take care of. We don’t realize how much stress we actually create in our lives by caring so much and so deeply about every little thing.

You know how you get caught up and annoyed when a phone call interrupts your work and you think about it for so long? So much energy wasted. We feel resentful hen our boss shows up late to the leadership team meeting again and again, and then we get up in his business, like where is he? He should be here. I’m on time, why isn’t he on time?

Too much drama going on in the head, guys. You know, we get mad when someone accuses us of something we didn’t do – totally get that, but when you spin on that, I want you to think about the emotions you experience on a regular basis and how much time are you spinning on those emotions?

Are they the emotions that you want to be feeling? So Gary reminds people that when you take a step back, the amount of energy we put into those things that don’t really matter, it’s pretty astounding. So it’s important that we use our emotions as a signal to slow down, take a breath, and ask ourselves if the situation is really as critical as our brain is making it out to be.

Gain perspective by asking yourself questions such as, are solutions available to me at this time? Will this matter tomorrow? And then, at the end of my career, what will have mattered most? Step back and get some perspective, guys. Come on, it’s okay, you can do this.

Number three, make positivity your priority. We don’t realize the amount of negativity we consume on a daily basis. It comes in the form of those – this is what I think about; the staff lounge gossip, the local newspaper blog. Oh my gosh, I used to read all the drama in the local newspaper that people would talk about our district or a particular school. That was a lot of time wasted.

You can get caught up in social media posts. Sometimes parents will post negative things on Facebook groups or greatschools.com, emails, on and on, you guys. We are surrounded with people who choose to promote negativity. Sometimes, it’s anonymous, sometimes it’s blatant. It’s just out there. It’s just part of their right as a human being to choose to be negative.

But one thing I noticed is that the more influence I had, the more I went up the ladder in the educational field. And the bigger my position was in the district, the more negativity and the more negative energy that was directed my way.

I had to consciously practice not only maintaining my own positivity, which was hard enough, but I had to intentionally create and spread positive energy to those around me and on my campus and with my kids and my staff and my family.

So I want you to think about the people you spend the most time with. What is their positivity level? Do they spend most of their time complaining and blaming and talking about others, or do they seek the silver lining and spend their time discussing solutions versus problems? As a school leader, it’s imperative to surround yourself with positive people and reduce your time-consuming negativity as much as possible.

Number four, do what makes you happy. I cannot tell you this enough, and I know it sounds like it can’t happen, but this is a theme that Gary expounds upon over and over again. He spent such a great deal of time talking with young adults. And what those kids most often ask him about is how to pursue a career and a life they love.

When you’re young, you feel like you can’t do what you want to do because they’re really worried about what their parents are going to say or their friends will think or whether society is going to accept them at large.

And his response to them is this; living by somebody else’s rules or expectations will never ever result in your happiness. Believing that you need to stay in a job that kills your soul because of the big paycheck is completely backwards. You need to flip that. When you’re doing something you love, the paycheck will come. Doing what your parents want you to do or what your friends want you to do or what your family wants you to do is only going to result in resentment later on in life.

The only game in life you need to choose is the path that lights you up; the one that puts your soul on fire, the one that gets you up and running every morning, the one that sparks your interest so much that it pushes you right past caring what other people think. School leaders, I’m calling you.

If there’s any one thing that I want more than ever for you, it’s for you to admit to yourself what you love the most and then do that with all of your heart. If school leadership is your passion but you’re just trying to navigate the demands of it, then do everything in your power to follow that path and create happiness in your life as a leader.

Want what you have and have what you want. If you have this nagging desire or passion outside of education, or you’re like me and you were called to serve the world in another way, please, please, do whatever it takes to get the support you need to follow your dreams. It’s so possible. You would not have the dream if you weren’t meant to follow it.

There is no second chance to live a big and happy life. Nothing else matters if you’ve lived your life for anything other than to serve others and to be happy.

Here’s another aspect I want to highlight here. I want you to be sure that you explore this on a deeper level, because sometimes, what you believe makes you happy is on the surface.

So for example, if you’re happy because you got a big raise when you went into administration – like, that was cool, right? I got a bump, you probably got a bump. It’s awesome. But if you’re hating the fact that you rarely get home every night before six o’clock and you have so little time with your kids, you need to explore this a little deeper.

We want to hang onto, oh, here’s all the good things, but if there’s something deeper that’s calling and nagging – you know the feeling I’m talking about. Deep in your tummy, if there’s something there, explore that. be real with yourself.

And on the contrary, by the way, if you happen to actually love your job and love working and other people are telling you not to work so hard or that you should take that break or vacation, it’s also okay not to listen to them or take their advice. You have to follow you, people. Do you.

People are always going to have an opinion about you. The only opinion that matters is your own. You just need to know what your opinion is, but you’ve got to explore what your opinion is. You might think you know, but sometimes, it’s the influence of others on us that make us choose that opinion.

If you want to quit education and travel or sell paintings, do it. I don’t care. There are people who love education who want to be in it and they need to learn how to navigate it. Good on them. I love that. They need to be there. We need them. On the other hand, I’m equally passionate about helping people find their truth, find their real passion, and get into that flow.

So, speaking of other people’s opinions and them impacting you, number five is this; 99% of people who judge you or have opinions about you, they actually have no idea what is happening in your life. They need to get over it.

So here’s my take on this; judgment is the face of fear. And I see it as a weakness on both ends. It is the weakness of the person who is judging you because it is their words and actions towards you. They are simply just a reflection of how they are feeling about themselves.

So if you, my school leader, can, with confidence, believe that whenever a parent, a teacher, a district admin or some community member judges you as a school leader, and they will, you will be able to dismiss their comments with so much less heaviness if you can believe that idea that whatever they’re saying is simply a reflection of them.

Their brain created the thought, therefore it’s about them, 100% of the time. And even when your boss makes a comment to you or comes to a conclusion about you that you feel is very judgment in nature, or perhaps you feel misunderstood by that person, you can look at the comment from a place of neutral observation and see where it might be showing up in their lives.

It really helped me take the sting out of judgment when I thought, okay, there might be some truth in this for me because I am human, I totally make mistakes. But I can also see why this person is choosing to focus on this aspect of my performance, because they too are noticing it in their own performance.

On the flip, allowing yourself to be rattled by every single judgment is going to weaken even the strongest of leaders. If you’re plagued with worry about what other people think of you and the decisions you make and your leadership style, this is going to cripple your effectiveness and you will never, ever step into your empowerment, which then will lead to a very dissatisfying career.

We, as humans, are wired to connect and belong and be accepted, which is why it feels so traumatic when we get judged. But keep in mind that judgment is nothing about us. It is coming from somebody else’s brain. Their thoughts equal their business. You focus on keeping your thoughts clean and clear and keep your eye on your own prize.

Number six from Gary V, Kindness is the key. Kindness is somebody who brings warmth and value to somebody with no expectation in return. That’s Gary’s definition of kindness, and I love that. You just are kind of the sake of being kind. We teach being kind to our students. We want our staff to be kind to one another and the students.

It’s our job as school leaders to ensure that we are being kind, we are modeling kind, and we are promoting kind. So I’m going to ask you, how are you being kind to yourself? How are you being kind to others? When you’re not being kind to others, how are you not being kind to you?

And finally, doing the right thing is always the right thing. So kindness, equals kindness, equals kindness. Kindness to yourself equals kindness to others, and you will receive kindness in return.

Number seven, lack of patience is why we are so unhappy. Do I struggle with this one… When we expect something to happen when we feel it should happen, we are going to experience disequilibrium and discontent, 100%.  And I will forever be practicing and learning this concept.

My lack of patience is why I’m so unhappy. I want things to work out now. I want to serve more clients. I want to create bigger programs. I want to expand my support for all the school leaders out there who are in pain or suffering or confusion.

Just know this – and this is true for you guys too – everything takes longer than you think it will. If you are a new principal, give yourself time to be new. Know you won’t know everything; you’re not supposed to.

Just like I’m learning how to run this business, I’m not supposed to know everything. Expecting ourselves to know everything and to be perfect and to be a skilled leader without the experience is setting ourselves up for complete frustration. So please be patient with yourself. And you know what, as a bonus, be patient to your new teachers out there. If you’re a school leader and you’ve got teachers who are not getting it yet, be patient. Don’t stress. Be happy.

Finally, number eight – this is my last one, I promise – know thyself. Allow yourself to do what you want when you want and how you want. Do not be a slave to the middle, to the mediocrity, to the average, to the status quo. There are so many ways to be happy and it requires self-esteem and the ability to be self-aware.

Gary promotes this all the time. You must explore who you are and what you value and what drives you and take action towards the things that you most want to do with your life. So for me, having flexibility and being location independent was the biggest driving force in my leaving my educational position.

I needed freedom. I was really, really scared, you guys, to leave the paycheck and the benefits. And actually, just today I had a meltdown because the benefits that I have now through my husband’s company are nothing near to how awesome my benefits were as a school leader.

And because I was in the district for so long, we had just outstanding coverage. Man, that bugs me, but you know what – I still choose this over having benefits. And I’m fortunate to have the ability to pay the extra co-pays and the extra balances on the bills that we are paying. I would much rather be following my heart than having those benefits.

But I’m not going to lie, I was sad. I was sad to leave the kids and the community. I felt really guilty about leaving my colleagues behind, but I had to do what I was called to do. I am living this life today because I want to be the example of what is possible.

My calling was to coach school leaders. I couldn’t deny it. I have been feeling this way for years. I help school leaders know who they are and what they want and I support them in taking the action required to live a life that is in alignment with who they are. You either really want to be a leader, or you don’t. And once you admit which answer is truly yours, then we get you from A to B.

So, sharing some of Gary V’s insights as a multi-million-dollar business owner has been such a pleasure. And the reason I love him so much is that we educators tend to stay in our bubble with fellow educators, probably because we think that – and it seems like this is true – that we are the only ones who know what we’re talking about.

We understand each other. We know our lingo. We understand the ins and outs of the job and I totally get that. but it’s also really important to step out of that bubble every now and then to see that regardless of what human beings choose to do in the world, the fundamentals are all the same; be kind, follow your heart, choose happiness, contribute, share, and serve, choose love over fear.

So, in closing, I want you to hear me, school leaders. Your most powerful asset ever, ever, is your mind. The way you think about your job on a daily basis is what creates your daily feelings in the short-term, which then impacts your legacy in the long-term.

So if you are excited to review your 2018, I would love to coach each of you on what happened in 2018, did it work, did it not? What do you want? What don’t you want? Let’s make some plans for 2019, my friends.

If you’re up for that, my December cohort is open now. This month, we’re going to reflect on the past year. We’re going to take a look at all the actions you’re taking as a school leader and whether those actions are getting you the results that you want, both at school and in your personal life.

I’m going to be sharing a new process with my clients so that they can head into January with focus, clarity, and control in just six weeks. So if you’re ready, join me for a consult call this week and check out how easy it is to get some control back into your life. Have an empowered week, my friends. I love you guys. I’ll talk to you next week.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Empowered Principal Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, please visit www.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.