We’re focusing on mental and emotional wellbeing here on the podcast over the month of February, and this week, I have the perfect guest to talk us through this topic. Ben Pugh is a certified life coach through The Life Coach School, and his specialty lies in parent and teen coaching. He’s passionate about helping parents reconnect with their teens, to help them build rock-solid relationships so they can turn their struggles into strengths.

Ben is a shining example of someone who has used coaching tools to first manage his own mental and emotional health, to then be of service at the highest level to his staff and students. From being labeled a teenage arsonist to becoming a principal, you’ll hear how his story is the foundation of his passion for empowering teenagers, and I can’t wait for you to listen in and be inspired by his drive to help his clients turn their lives around.

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Over the last few years of working with clients and school leaders, I’ve created a lot of personal development tools and mulled over how to bring them into the professional setting. As 2020 exemplified, we all need some kind of plan and systematic way of approaching our jobs as school leaders, and I’ve got just the solution and I can’t wait to share it with you today.

This week, I’m introducing you to the Empowered Principal process and what it entails. When we make the leap in our careers to school leadership, it never goes exactly as expected. The realities of it often miss the mark of what we envisioned, and navigating all the pressures that come along with the job can sometimes be too much.

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After winter break, I hope all you school leaders are refreshed and ready to take on 2021. This time last year, we were talking about our “2020 visions,” and I don’t think anyone could have predicted the havoc that the past 12 months would bring to our schools. So, I want to make sure that we don’t get caught up this time around.

This month on the podcast, we’re talking about creating a future vision for 2021 of the kind of principal that you want to be, the energy you want to bring to the job, how you can be a visionary, and how you want to experience your own life this year. So at least, if we’re in for another year of chaos, you will be grounded in your own reality.

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Welcome to the end of 2020, my empowered leaders. You have all made it through one of the toughest years in school leadership, and I know there was a time when you didn’t believe you could make it, but you did.

As we head into the New Year, today, we’re taking some time to acknowledge your resilience and growth over the past year to get to this point. Although 2020 has felt extremely uncomfortable and challenging, you navigated school leadership and learned new skills, and it’s a milestone we have to pause and take the time to appreciate.

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You, as a school leader, are not just a principal. You are so much more than your job title. And this is really easy to forget when you’re consumed with your day-to-day tasks. We take this job very seriously, as we should. But sometimes we take it so seriously that we forget to enjoy it at all.

When I was a principal, I truly believed that school leaders who had fun at work were not taking their jobs seriously. However, it turns out that this couldn’t be further from the truth. I was making life harder than it needed to be, I’d lost connection with who I was as a person, and I don’t want that for you. So today, I want to help you reconnect with that side of yourself so you can truly enjoy your job.

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