Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode  355. 

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. 

Angela: Hello, empowered principals. Welcome to today’s episode. I have a very special guest for you. Her name is Dr. Jamay Fisher. She and I have just recently contacted one another and felt like we became friends overnight. It was sensational to meet. 

We actually met, and I’m going to have her tell you a little bit more of this story, but we actually met through a different coaching program. We were both clients of a different coaching program, a business building coaching program. She found me in that program, and we connected. I loved her work and her message so much. It is such a valuable conversation that we are about to have to share with you guys today. 

I asked her if she could please be on the podcast because I think this message, this conversation will stimulate some really rich thoughts about the upcoming school year and just development as a leader.  So Jamay, welcome to The Empowered Principal® Podcast.

Jamay: Thank you, Angela. I’m really excited to talk more with you about this specific topic. Like you mentioned, we talked about a lot of different things, but we both really care about educators, and we really care about leaders in education specifically and the industry. We especially connected on that because I come from the world of education too. 

Currently, I advise experts on best practices in leadership public image. I have been in this work for a long time, and I come from the classroom just like the rest of us and we really care about education. So we’re going to talk all the things today about leadership and public image and all of that. 

Angela: Yes, and I love her unique niche in terms of the field of education. So definitely, you have the teaching background, you have the leadership background, you have administrative background. What’s interesting about the work that you do, and you can talk more about this, but what I love about your work is your work at the university level in teaching educators the art of PR. So can you just speak a little bit more about that aspect of your professional work? 

Jamay: It is definitely an art indeed. I did not come into education thinking I wanted to work in PR. I actually came into education because I wanted to leave PR. I worked on Capitol Hill. I come from the world of politics. My first degrees are in political science, and I worked on Capitol Hill for two members of Congress, one senator and one member of the House, both representing the state of Minnesota.

I loved it. I loved being in PR. I love being in press and handling the media. After a reelection scare, I wanted something that I wanted to do that was also just as exciting as working on the Hill. I decided that was education. So the member of Congress I worked for was a science teacher for St. Paul Public Schools before he ran for Congress. I had a lot of friends who are in education and educators. So that’s why I decided to be an educator too.

So I kind of came into education because I wanted to leave the world of PR. But as PR professionals know, once people find out you do PR, they think you’re going to do PR all the time. 

Angela: Yes.

Jamay: But it kind of was part of what I did because, I mean, I have a degree in elementary education and middle grade social studies. So when I went into teaching, I had the press in my room all the time, and I was interviewing at newspapers and there were always tours in my classroom. I always knew how to manage my students very well. We all knew what to do when the media showed up. It was like so exciting. I just thought everybody did it.

But come to find out because of the way I went about it, they wanted me to work at district headquarters. So I worked at district center, and I developed like superintendents, cabinet members, and things like that and the broader public about PR. I was doing coaching at that level. That’s what led me into getting the doctorate and doing this work at universities too. 

So that’s what brought me into this work. I am so committed to, especially in our current times. Some of us grew up when social media was not as big as it is now. The media is still the media, but it operates in a different way. I read an article this morning about teachers and educators and even members of education and leadership who worked in cabinet who lost their jobs because they did not necessarily know how to manage the media well.

I think that as educators who are committed to helping educators grow and being leaders in our own space, it’s important for us to know how to manage the media the best we can. I don’t think we’re typically taught that, so. 

Angela: Definitely not taught that. I agree with you. I think that media in general, particularly social media, is an entirely newer layer that has come into our schools. We have students with phones and access to media. We have teachers and staff, and we have families.

There is always a presence of social media on our campuses, which brings a new element into our leadership understanding and the skillset required of us to navigate that. 

I know I have been impacted by social media. Something as simple as like the newspaper, the local newspapers are now electronic. They have blogs, they have comments and opinion sections where people can go in anonymously or not and communicate and speak their opinions regarding you or your school or a staff member.

So there is an additional layer to be thinking about in social media. So tell us more about some of the teachings that you do with your students at the university level in terms of ideas, tips, strategies for them to think about as they’re entering into the field of education. 

Jamay: Yeah, so really when you really get focused on how you want to be, not only in your school, but we’re public employees, most of us. Even if you work in a private institution, you’re still kind of public. 

Angela: You’re serving the public, yeah. 

Jamay: We have a public image. You don’t have to craft your public image. It’s going to happen to you regardless if you do it or not. But if you craft it, it makes everything easier for you. So this is what I teach students in my public and my private practice. It really helps with making student outcomes easier, interacting with family, even moving around the profession. You get more power regarding how you negotiate contracts and the offers you get as educators.

When you specifically craft your leadership public image, it just makes it easier for you. I have to personally admit when I came into education, even though I come from the world of PR, I never really thought of investing in my own PR or my own leadership image. It’s just something that I naturally did. So I never really invested in it per se. But just like others, like we just kind of take on what the organization or the district is doing for their PR, which I think is important. We’re entities of that organization. 

But I knew as I went into the classroom and I had more media, I wanted to  help people beyond like the metrics of what the district counted. So that meant I needed to create an image. Like I wanted to help the profession writ large. So I knew at that point that I needed to create a leadership image.

This is what I teach my students too. I think we need to know about crafting an image because it is a personal preference. You don’t have to craft a leadership public image if you don’t want to, it’s all about preference, but as long as you know your reason why. Your image will be crafted. 

Image is like, basically when I think of leadership, public image in the world of education, it’s like reputation on steroids. So when you craft it on purpose is reputation on steroids. We all have a reputation regardless if we focus on it or not. But focus on it, it just makes things easier. 

This is sort of what I teach my students. I teach them from a couple of different lenses about how to do it. I think I have them first think about okay, think about your favorite like principal in your district or outside of your organization or your favorite superintendent. Like what makes that person great? Not only are they creating amazing student outcomes, I mean, of course they are, but what really makes them like so cool and so great? Think about that. I think that’s sometimes a great place to start.

Angela: Yeah, that is. I loved what you said that your image is being crafted whether you are doing it with intention and with consciousness or not. Because we are public figures, we do have a public image. We have a reputation. What I love about your work is that it gets really specific about the intentionality and the crafting of how to do that.

What I teach in EPC and the Empowered Principal® Collaborative is establishing your identity, how you self-identify. I think you and I were talking about this in our last conversation was, you first have to create your own identity. How do you identify as a school leader professionally? How do you identify personally? 

I think you and I can discuss this. My take on this would be to be in alignment with your identity as a person so that you’re not creating some false persona of who you want people to see you as an image, but being that person and being in alignment with that so that your image is actually you. 

Jamay: Exactly. That is really critical. The work that you’re doing with your leaders is really critical, and that’s definitely where to start. Then when you think about because that’s just going to help you create better student outcomes. It’s going to help you not have burnout and recruit better teachers. 

But in terms of public image, I’ve worked with a lot of superintendents and people who have really big images. It’s really important, even for our teacher leaders, because I was a teacher leader doing this, right? Think about our associations. Think about who you are. That’s the work you do with your educators. But then think about your association because a leadership brand image, one of the first things you should do or one of the things you should do is create your associations. 

So we’ll help you withstand turbulence in the profession as things change. As we know in the media, a lot of superintendents, teachers, and districts have a lot of turbulence in the media. So if you create strong associations, it will help you withstand turbulence in the profession. 

How I teach this is I think about educators who write op-eds. Think about where you’re putting the op-eds and what you’re saying. What outlets are you submitting op-eds to? One of the things that I teach my leaders in my public and private practice is like okay, where are you presenting? Which conferences? Just not anywhere, but on purpose based on what you’re teaching. Which, Angela, what you teach is knowing who you are. 

Angela: Yes.

Jamay: Are you presenting or are you publishing op-eds and outlets that reflect who you truly are? Or are you coming off as, quote-unquote, opportunistic? People kind of see that. Another example in education we use in terms of publishing is the ASCD magazines, like the Educational Leadership ASCD magazine is a very reputable publication. You might get a publication there or you might get an interview. 

You’re doing this because you have to know your big why. Like, why are you doing this? Most of the time people in education create leadership brand images because they want to make a bigger difference in the profession outside of immediately what they’re doing in their school. So that’s one way I think about creating a leadership brand image and how I teach it too. So. 

Angela: Yeah, that’s why I feel like our work that we do, it’s in conjunction with one another. It’s in combination because I cover leadership, right? So I’m doing, here’s how to be a new leader. Here’s how to approach situations. Here’s how to time manage, plan, balance. I’m trying to teach them that identity and stepping into their empowerment. I love this content because it’s so specific but yet it’s so critical because I do think, and I’ve had this experience personally. 

I wish I had had you as a mentor back 10, 15 years ago when I was a principal, but it matters. What people think of you matters. If you’re out of alignment with who you are, or if you are playing principal by day and like, I don’t know. It’s not aligned to you personally, like you’re one human. So.

Or if somebody misconstrues and now there’s a perception that isn’t you, isn’t in alignment with who you actually are, even that is something to have to negotiate, to navigate through because you have to deal with people’s misperceptions of your personality, your persona, your image. Like you said, navigate those storms. 

I have found personally and with my clients, the best way to navigate through the storms, and you’ll have them because you’re a leader. You’re a public figure is alignment. It’s knowing yourself so deeply that you tether yourself in what is true for you, where your values are, where you stand and owning mistakes. We’re human. It’s not to say you’re going to wipe your image squeaky clean for the public. It’s to own our humanness. I’m sure you have ways that you teach this.

But what speaks to me is you’re not here to avoid public comment, scrutiny, or misunderstandings. It sounds to me like you’re asking people to look at their image as a part of their job and craft it proactively knowing that, and those associations. That’s something I hadn’t thought of before. I appreciate that input because that is a part of image.

But you’re doing this proactively, but to strengthen who you are and grounding yourself in certainty so that when the storms hit, you are tethered during them. 

Jamay: That’s one element of it. So going back to creating these other associations in higher ed. Let’s use higher ed as an example. Each state in each region has their own like whatever associations, but let’s think about an example in higher ed, and that might be Harvard. So when people think of Harvard, they think of excellence, like the best in class, the gold standard. So when families or the public, they know Harvard, but when they meet you, they don’t know you. 

So let’s say, okay, they know Harvard, and they know what Harvard represents, but they don’t know you. So when they get to interact with you, you might have like your degree on the wall, which would say Harvard. Or they find out from your resume or your CV that you went to Harvard. So they create an association. Oh, Harvard represents like best in class. Oh, this person must be an excellent educator. So they associate you with excellence.

That goes back to where you’re putting your op-eds and where you’re showing up if you’re writing, like it’s a creation of association. They may not know you as an educator, like families or other people in the profession, but when they see your association, it’s about being intentional. Then putting things on repeat, not just doing it once. Not just going to Harvard and saying I tick that box, I’m done. But then putting it on repeat and sharing it with the public and then evaluating it through like inquiry or action research. 

I would say this is one thing that Angela is good at too. That’s why I think your work is so important, Angela, is because you help people with like inquiring about their profession outside of their institution. Like, I think that it’s important for educational leaders to seek like mentorship or guidance or advising outside their district resources because their district resources is very focused on the district. 

But when you want to craft a leadership public image, you need to think about okay, how can I impact my own practice and the profession outside of just what the district is doing and then putting it on repeat and sharing it. So that is the other thing I think that is important to teach when we’re doing the work on public image. 

Angela: Yes. This aligns to my message on in order to be, I feel like this is the equation that maximizes empowerment for school leaders. It’s your identity then creates an influence. You could add image into this too. Like your identity and your image creates influence, which creates impact and that creates a legacy. 

Jamay: Yes. 

Angela: So like, if you’re a leader who really strives to be the top of class, make the biggest difference, you have to identify as a leader. You go internal and identify yourself and then you create this image, and you would work with Jamay to build up that PR and that image of where you’re at and where you want to be. That builds up your level of influence, which generates impact. 

That is where you craft a legacy that goes so far beyond who you are today at this particular position in this particular school. You’re crafting an image for your life, your career. The ripple effect of that and the impact you’re creating, it has no bounds. 

It’s limitless because you are expanding your reach. You’re expanding your image, right? To not only be, I’m the principal at this school right now. I’m an empowered educator whose legacy and image continues to evolve and expand throughout the course of my entire career. 

Jamay: Exactly. That’s a commitment to the profession and the career. Like a lot of educational leaders can’t withstand turbulence because first of all, they haven’t created a series of association. It’s just not one. Let’s say you didn’t go to Harvard. You don’t have to go to Harvard. You could do anything you want, but it has to be a series of associations, and you have to put it on repeat. 

That’s where it’s a lot of distractions, especially as leaders. We get pulled in a lot of directions. So it’s important that we put our image on repeat. It helps us to withstand the turbulence that might come up in an organization or like just in life in general. You can withstand it better when you put it on repeat, you share it, you make more associations. 

I think one thing that I noticed too, a lot of people don’t do this, clearly Angela and I are fans of doing this, but a lot of educators in leadership like who are like teacher leaders or licensed admin, some of them worry about giving up their successes now. They worry that they’re going to lose what they’ve already done. So they decide that they don’t want to grow an image because images grow over time. Like it’s an ongoing associations and it evolves, everything in the universe changes.

So people are worried okay, I’m just going to stay at this school. I’m going to stay in my little zone, and I’m not going to do anything more because I’m worried that I’m going to lose successes, the success that I’ve created. But one thing that we know about leadership studies in general, especially creating a public image in educational leadership is the more you are intentional about your action research and the more you are doing this on repeat and sharing, you actually get clearer and clearer, and you grow your impact. 

Angela: Yes, that is definitely an important point. You can stay at a school. You can stay in a position. It’s not about like growing in terms of like climbing the corporate ladder per se or like running around and doing as many positions as possible to like rack up experience. 

It’s less about that and more about I call it the deeper work, like the under the surface work where it is refinement and nuance and detail and growing and exploring and expanding ourselves, whether you stay in a position or whether you grow. Staying in a position because you’re afraid is different than staying in a position because you’re taking it to the next level.

So your image could be a person who stayed in an organization for 10, 20, 30 years, but did you continue to evolve that organization and contribute to that organization and to expand your ability to lead and to leverage and to inspire people throughout that organization for the duration of your tenure, whether it’s two years or 40 years, right? 

Jamay: Yeah, exactly. Doing that is what makes you grow it. You get clearer and clearer the more you grow your image and the associations you make because you’re making trade-offs. Angela, you address a lot of matters in burnout. A reason some people have burnout is because they’re not clear about their associations and their trade-offs. 

Angela: Can you say more about that? 

Jamay: It’s always about, okay, I’m going to stop doing this because I want this to happen instead. So kids are always going to learn. You don’t have to create a public image for kids to learn if you’re doing your job really well. Kids are going to learn. But people come to you and they ask you to do things that are not necessarily related to the kind of impact and change you want to make in the profession.

So you will have to say no to that. For me personally, that was one of the harder things I had to learn in terms of growing my own image as an academic and a mentor advisor in the world is that I can’t do it all, but I wanted to make a bigger impact. So how can I make a bigger impact? That’s different for everyone, but it is constantly a matter of trade-offs. So doing things that will help you help more people in the industry, so. 

Angela: Yeah, no, that’s constraint. I think constraint actually is one of the tickets to success because we spread ourselves a mile wide and an inch deep versus like I’m going to hone this skill, or I’m going to hone this area of expertise, right? Doctors, general doctors, right? Then there are like specialists, and they can take that work to a level that when you’re trying to learn it all, you’re not going to be able to be a specialist in that area. 

So that’s another thing to consider in terms of your image and your PR stance is like, are you going to be an expert in a particular area of education? Are you going to be somebody who’s like done a breadth of experiences? You’ve tried a lot of seats on the bus. 

There’s no right or wrong way to develop your image. It’s the image that you want to create, but it’s about being conscious and intentional with that creation of that PR image and developing it in a way that continues to serve yourself, your organization, and the greater good, right, of education at large.

Angela: Yeah, and for those people in your audience who have written dissertations or considering writing dissertations, this is kind of when you think about it in terms of like higher ed and writing a dissertation. Okay, so when you write your literature review, even if you’re doing action research in a school or inquiry in a school and you’re not doing it for a dissertation but you’re doing it for professional development. Like there are certain things you include in the lit review and certain things you don’t include in a lit review. 

So let’s say you’re working on like teacher retention. So you’re trading off writing about teacher retention versus like standardized testing. We are in the industry of helping kids learn. So like whatever you do, like you’re still going to help kids learn at the end of the day, but you’re just focusing on, and this is for leadership public image too. Like if you want your expertise to be on teacher retention, you might not show up on an interview related to like standardized testing, for example. So it’s just a really always a thoughtful, intentional choose this or this. 

Angela: Yes, can I switch gears a little bit for a moment? Because I think we talked about this last time we spoke as well, and shifting gears from like the personal identity and the personal image and what you’re crafting for yourself and your legacy in terms of your career. Thinking about how you craft the image of the school you’re working for. 

So I work with a lot of principals or perhaps superintendents who are listening, crafting an image for their organization, whether that’s at the site level or the district level. Do you work with people on that topic?

Jamay: I do, and I think they go hand in hand. 

Angela: Yes. 

Jamay: So they do go hand in hand. you want to definitely think about like your school improvement plan, like your SIP, or your like strategic plan for the district in terms of how you, the matters of public image that you’re working on. So they definitely feed into each other. So let me make sure I answer your question.

But yes, I think these things all work together. I think they, I believe that as educators committed to the profession that they should be in accord. So I think that they need to inform each other because that’s how you excel with the community members, with like creating like strategic plans. It’s kind of how you get things done in the district too. When you think about, okay how can I craft this strategic plan? I’ve done strategic planning for school districts and many of your listeners have. So how can I craft this strategic plan in a way that aligns to the values of this particular community? 

So it’s similar. It’s crafting your own personal PR is similar to the work you do at the district level. It’s just thinking about it in a broader way. That’s all. 

Angela: It makes it feel doable and aligned, right? So it’s like, if I’m crafting and doing this work at an individual level, I’m going to expand that into the organizational level because that way you’re not trying to craft two different messages or two different kinds of images.

I have been working with people on we’ve been hearing in the industry that there is a shortage, right? There is a teacher shortage. It’s hard to hire staff. I’m coaching people to stop telling themselves that because that is actually when you keep telling yourself, there’s nobody out there who wants the job. There’s not enough people or there’s not any good people. That’s the experience you end up creating for yourself. 

So you want to be cautious about how you speak about incoming people. There are people graduating all of the time. There are people moving all of the time. One of the things we’re working on, and I think your work would really expand this message to schools out there, we need to market our image, our brand per se, to the people who want to work at our school.

If we want to attract high quality teachers or new assistants or paraprofessionals or maintenance staff, whoever you’re hiring, anybody, we want to share the strengths of our school and the image of our school in a way that makes people more interested in wanting to learn more and wanting to work with us.

Because our brand isn’t just about who we are. Our brand is about our team and the culture of our school and our values in the organization and what’s in it for people. Why should I apply to this school or this district? Would you agree that is part of image as well? 

Jamay: It is. Not only, like you said, it’s our own individual leadership image, but how is it complementing the district? What you focus on, you get more of. So if you’re talking about the lack of XYZ, the lack of like teachers in the profession or hiring, you’re going to get more of that. 

It’s also okay, what can we control? Getting back to focusing on like empowerment, the core of your work, and how can we be empowered around this instead of outsourcing a broader narrative? Like not saying I don’t believe that we should be Pollyanna about certain things, but what we do focus on, we get more of. So if you want to focus on a certain lack, you will create more of that lack.

So how can we make, how can I, as a leader, when I’m out like writing op-eds, doing ASCD work, presenting at international and national conferences, how can I contribute to the image of the organization I’m affiliated with? So how is my work complementing the district? 

If I’m going to conferences and I’m constantly talking about how there is a lack of talent, is that really helping me or the district? It’s not. How can we focus on like what we can control instead of outsourcing instead? So. 

Angela: Yes, yeah, no, that is so great. I think when you are intentional with crafting an image, a PR image for yourself and perhaps for your school, that is the conduit through which you communicate your identity, your school’s identity, your district’s identity about this is who we are. This is what we value. This is our approach. These are our kids. This is what we highlight. This is what we focus on because I believe at the end of the day, your image, your branding, your personal, what people think about you, it all comes down to the energy behind you. 

What you believe about yourself, what you believe about staff and students, what you believe about the work that you’re doing. The more empowering thoughts that you think about yourself and your image, and you have thoughts about the public and they have thoughts about you, right? This is that dance of image and public relations. It really comes down to the energy exchange between you and the public. 

Jamay: Right, exactly. Because we are representatives, I believe in my work. I think when you affiliate yourself, that goes back to associations. When you are associated with a certain district, you’re also associated with their strategic plan, even though you are growing this complimentary leadership image for your own professional life. I think it helps your professional life. Angela would agree, but it should be parallel. 

Because if it’s in contrast, that’s where problems start. That’s where you might lose your contract or you don’t create advancement in your district or in the profession because you’re out of alignment. That was the news story I read in the paper this morning about educators who have an image that’s not an alignment of their organization. It’s a relationship. So we want that relationship to be complimentary. If we’re focused on like a shortage of what the narrative is around the shortage of teachers, that’s what we’re going to create more of. 

Angela: Yes, definitely. I just want to reassure you guys, just as a side note here, there are people who want to work for you. They want to work for your school. The more you see how amazing your school is and you focus on its strengths and you speak to those strengths, you will attract people who want to be at your school, who desire to support, whether they’re support staff or certificated staff, there are people out there who want to work. So keep that in mind. 

I have been coaching principals on getting those positions filled before day one. I have been so impressed at their belief and trust and faith in the process and it’s working. So just, if you’re out there and you’re listening to this and you’re frustrated about hiring, just know like, think about your image. What image are you portraying to the public, to your community about what it’s like to work at this school, what it feels like to work at this school, the benefits of working at this school, right? 

It really comes down to how people feel, how they feel about you, how they feel about the district, the culture of the district. I really think this work is so essential. Jamay, I don’t feel like this is a conversation schools are having, but I do think it is one of the missing puzzle pieces about its image, but below that, it’s about how we feel. Like image is about how one feels about themselves, about how other people feel about us. You said relationship, and I think that’s the word here. It’s the relationship you have with yourself and others and the community at large.

Is there any final thoughts or words of wisdom or insight that you can share with these site and district leaders that are listening to the podcast today? 

Jamay: I believe we covered everything. Angela and I could talk about this forever, but that’s what PR is, right? It is relationships. It’s a public relationship. It’s the relationship, not only like Angela mentioned, first of all, any relationship we have with anything is first of all about the relationship we have with ourselves. 

So first you’re thinking about the relationship with yourself and then thinking about your associations and relationships, what matters outside of you and how these certain things become like circumstances. Like a so-called teacher shortage, that can become a circumstance if you only focus on the right thing, like focusing on the right things and helping kids learn and growing our image and impacting the profession that way is the work that we’re committed to. So I think we’ve covered everything. This is so exciting. 

Angela: I know you and I could probably talk for hours, but if the listeners want to learn more about your work or reach out or contact you, what’s the best way for them to do that? 

Jamay: I’ll keep it easy. I will just go to Instagram. My Instagram handle is JamayFisher, that’s J-A-M-A-Y, Fisher, F-I-S-H-E-R, and that’s where you can find me. I also have there where I have my academic papers written for the research at universities I’ve done. I have public pieces written like an ASCD, for example, in leadership. Just I would love to start a conversation with anyone who’s interested. So that’s where to find me.

Angela: Yeah, and we’ll drop some links in the show notes for people to get direct access to Dr. Jamay and her work. We’ll put her Instagram handle in the show notes as well so that you guys can just click and have immediate access to her and her work.

I really hope that at some point you and I can do a collaboration, whether that’s a webinar, a training, a conversation, or developing some kind of process for people, because I think our work blends so beautifully together. Your expertise plus my expertise, I think it just up-levels the work that our school leaders are doing and supports them at just a deeper level. 

Jamay: Thank you, I cannot wait. 

Angela: We will be talking more in the future. So thank you for your time. Thank you for being on the podcast. It’s such a pleasure to have met you and to now call you a friend and to collaborate with you again in the future. It’s going to be a lifetime of work together. Thank you so much. 

All right, everybody, that’s a wrap. Have a wonderful week. Enjoy this podcast. if this resonates with you or with somebody that you know, if you would please share this podcast link out with your fellow colleagues, we would really appreciate that. Because our goal here is to support as many school leaders as possible and to expand your reach, your legacy, your impact to a limitless number of students and the lives of their families for this moment on.

So please feel free to share this with anybody who might enjoy this conversation. Thank you so much. We’ll talk to you guys next week. Take good care. Bye. 

Hey, empowered principal. If you enjoyed the content in this podcast, I invite you to join the Empowered Principal® Collaborative. It’s my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to experience exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. 

Look, you don’t have to overwork and overexert to be a successful school leader. You’ll be mentored weekly and surrounded by supportive likeminded colleagues who truly understand what it means to be a school leader. So join us today and become a member of the only certified life and leadership coaching program for school leaders in the country. Just head on over to angelakellycoaching.com/work-with-me to learn more and join. I’ll see you inside of the Empowered Principal® Collaborative. 

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.

 Hey there, empowered principals, listen up. I have a very special, very time sensitive offer. I will be hosting a three part series called Flip the Fall Dip. Look, we’re all tired. We’re all exhausted. It’s only the beginning of October. We feel burned out and there’s so far to go. I know the feeling. The honeymoon is over and we’re fatigued.

I’m going to show you how you can turn this around and change the trajectory of the fall experience this season. I don’t want you guys feeling depleted, feeling discouraged, feeling like you’re never going to make it. That’s not the case. We’ve got your back.  Please sign up. It starts today. It’s at noon.

Flip the Fall Dip.  It is free for members who are in the Empowered Principal Collaborative and it’s  given to you at the magical price if you’re not a member of EPC for $111 for all three sessions. So join us today. I’ll see you there. I can’t wait to support you. Have an amazing day and we’ll see you at Flip the Fall Dip.

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 353. 

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, my empowered principals. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to the podcast. So happy to be here with you today.

And I want to welcome you to October. October during the school year is exhausting. I am not going to sugarcoat it. It is the month where we enter into the fall dip. We have been riding on tons of adrenaline from July through August into September and we hit October and we are exhausted mentally, physically, emotionally.

I work with clients all across the country, I see the dip happen every year, I am calling it out now because it is the beginning of October, and if you start to experience the fall dip, or perhaps it has already started for you, for your staff, your students, your families, when you start to see energy waning, you see attitudes shifting, you see people’s moods adjusting, you see the fatigue people are dragging, they may start to vent or complain a little bit, you might not feel the excitement and enthusiasm and energy that you did in the beginning of the year.

You are not going to perhaps feel that people are as committed or that they are not tuned into their problem-solving potential. We slip out of empowerment when we are tired. At least I know I do. I have seen it in my clients. I have seen it in staff and students. When we are exhausted, whether it is mental, physical, or emotional exhaustion, we slip out of our empowerment. We slip out of belief that we are strong, we are capable, we are happy, we are problem solvers, we are successful, we know what we are doing.

Either we slip into some frustration and doubt and uncertainty, we feel overwhelmed, or we might slip into the feelings of disempowerment where the job is happening to me and this teacher said that, and my colleague did this, and this parent sent this email, and the kids are like this, and the district office is doing this, and all of it is happening to me, and we step into disempowerment where we feel out of control, we feel like things are happening to us instead of happening with us or for us, and that also can happen when we are tired.

So we are in the beginnings of, or maybe you are already in it, the fall dip. So if you are on Facebook and you are not in EPC, I have a public Facebook group, non EPC Facebook group called the Empowered Principle. You can be in that group. I am in there. I am posting, I put Facebook lives up and videos just to keep you going, keep the momentum going. We are having the fall of fun over there. So we want to keep energy high, keep your spirits high.

But really this is the time of the year you have to manage your brain, manage your emotions, and manage your fatigue because you need that capacity to be able to hold space for all of the other adults on campus who might not have the emotional regulation or the emotional maturity or the emotional bandwidth tools that you have here on this podcast, okay? So you need to really dive into this work, emotional regulation, physical regulation, mental regulation, managing your thoughts, managing your emotions, being able to process them so that you can hold space for other people who are learning these skills. Okay?

Now, with that said, if you are struggling in any way, shape, or form, the good news is that the doors for EPC, The Fall Dip session, are opening. So the doors are open for a very brief time. If you want to slip into EPC between October 1st and November 1st, jump on in. We have got your back. Okay?

Today I would like to talk about three different hats that you wear, three different identities that you embody as a leader. The first one you know about, it is the most obvious one, because it is leadership. You are a leader, right? As a school leader, you are a decision maker. You guide others, you inspire others, you have influence to create impact. You are building a legacy. Whether you understand that or not, whether you are consciously doing it or not, with intention or not, you are building a legacy.

People will remember you for being a school leader. You get to decide what that narrative looks like. You get to decide. You get to create the script. You are the main character of your movie and you are the main character as a school leader and you are writing the script of what it looks like and how it feels and the impact that you have as a leader. So when you think about yourself as a leader and you have your leadership hat on, there are many aspects to that identity, to the leadership aspect of your identity.

So as a leader, you really step into the role of a visionary. You create the vision with your mind, your heart, and your soul. As a teacher, you are not necessarily creating a school-wide vision. You might be creating a classroom vision. But as a leader, you are stepping into the role of visionary. Every time you up-level into a leadership position, a bigger and bigger leadership position, you are expanding your capacity to visualize.

So in a classroom, you are doing it at the classroom level. As a grade-level department chair or a leadership at your grade level or your department site, you are developing vision for your entire department or grade level. You step into a site leadership position, you are developing a vision for the site. You go into a district-level position as a district coordinator or a district director or a district assistant superintendent, now you are expanding your vision to include those departments district-wide. And then you get to the superintendency, and now you are developing a vision for an entire district.

Past that, you can look at any leaders in any organization. As you move up in the leadership positions, you are expanding how much visionary work that is required of you. You create this vision, you map it out, you plan it out, and then you have to execute it. But you are getting paid not to just lead, you are getting paid to be a visionary, to inspire others to develop a vision for themselves and plan it and map it out and execute it for themselves. One that is hopefully in alignment with the entire vision, with your vision as the leader.

You want to communicate that vision with conviction and drive and authenticity, because the authenticity is what connects people to the vision. You have to learn that as a skill, how to communicate with conviction and drive and authenticity. You have to present possibilities for people to inspire them when people feel stuck, or they feel like they are in the grind and they cannot see out of their tunnel vision or where they are stuck in that silo, you present possibilities and you tap into their potential for them.

You show them, you model this, you reflect, not just on things outside of you. A lot of times I caught myself contemplating and reflecting and ruminating over a situation that was externally outside of me. The situation at the IEP meeting, or the staff meeting, or the district level meeting, or what this parent said, or this grade level did, or what this teacher did or did not do in their classroom. Things outside of me, systems outside of me, lunchroom, dismissal. We want to contemplate externally what is happening around us.

But not only that, exceptional leaders, empowered principals, they reflect on what is happening internally. You deepen your awareness at an internal level as a leader. Just like you ask teachers to reflect on their self-efficacy as a teacher, and their identity as a teacher and their teaching practices, their teaching skills and their practices, internal practices. You are asking them to develop themselves. What is working? What is not?

What do you want to learn next? How do you want to develop? How do you want to grow? What is coming up for you?

We need to do this as leaders. And there are not enough people asking us as leaders to contemplate and reflect internally. You want to contemplate your purpose, intention, what matters to you, and why. Your leadership values. As a leader, the value that you provide is much more visionary than it is execution. It is a different kind of planning, a different kind of visionary work, and a different kind of execution.

Your role as a leader is now to inspire people into action, just as a teacher’s job is to inspire her students into action. When you take action, you model that. But the action that you are taking at a leadership level is different than the action you took as a teacher. But here is the fun thing. You do not throw away your teacher hat to put on your leader hat. You keep on your teacher hat

and you add on top of your leader hat. It is like caps for sale, except it is more than 50 cents a cap. I promise.

You are still a teacher out there, leaders. You did not turn in your teacher hat, your teaching ability, your teacher certificate, when you stepped into a leadership role, you are still a teacher. You are a mentor, a guide, a coach, a model. You provide support and access for other people as a teacher. Your grade level as a leader is now your fellow administrators and your office staff at your site. And perhaps you have an admin team at your site as well.

What was your classroom is now your campus. So your new classroom is your campus. Your new class is your staff. Your curriculum that you are learning to teach is leadership and human development. And you study that curriculum to know what to plan and how to deliver with execution, excellence, and precision to your students who are your teachers and your support staff. You hone those teaching skills and techniques and knowledge just like you did in the classroom.

You collaborate and connect with your fellow teachers, your admin, your fellow admin are also fellow teachers. You are prepared and planned just like you were as a teacher, and you are also open to teachable moments in the leadership role and the teacher role. You allow for flow and spontaneity within your systems and structures. So yes, as a teacher, you plan system and structures in your classroom, but you also allowed for some flow and spontaneity.

You were prepared and planned with your lessons, but also there were magical, teachable moments where you went off course, and that was the best thing you could have done. The same thing applies to leadership. Leading is teaching. Teaching is leading. And the bottom line for you, as a teacher leader, is to empower your students, to empower your teachers. You want to inspire and up-level their identity as a student, and they are a student of teaching, and you are a student of leadership, and you are learning how to lead them by teaching them how to teach, and they teach by learning how to be a student, and we all learn how to be better at what we do by being a student.

So in order to inspire your teachers to be the best versions of themselves, your teachers need to be also wearing their student hat. They need to be students and teachers, students of their craft and teachers of their craft. Your job as their teacher is to ignite their empowerment by inspiring their identity to develop themselves. And the way that you do that as a leader is you are also a student. You do not give up your hat as a student when you became a teacher. You are a student and a teacher. And now that you are a leader, you do not throw away your student hat and your teacher hat. You have your student hat and your teacher hat and your leadership hat.

Learning does not end when you graduate or obtain a degree. I find it so fascinating, the human mind, when it becomes an adult. When you graduate from college or get your master’s degree or your PhD, whatever degree that you have or your certification and obtain that degree, you have it, you have achieved it, accomplishment, that is not where the learning ends. That is where the learning begins. As a human, we are wired to learn from the day we are born until the day that we are no longer on the planet.

Yet, because learning is so uncomfortable from the beginning, it is hard to learn to walk when you are an infant. You fall and you fall and you fall and you go boompsy on your bum.

And you have got to get back up, and you scrape your knees, and you trip, and you fall, and you cry. Walk, but they do it anyway. They never stop trying until they do it. Babies get frustrated when they are learning how to put puzzle pieces together and their fine motor skills are not cooperating with their brain. Their brain knows which puzzle piece it wants to pick up and put it into the hole, but it cannot figure it out. And they scream and they kick and they throw things until they figure it out. Same with riding a bike. Same with learning to drive a car.

Everything we do as a human is learning. We are a student of life. We are a student of knowledge and wisdom and skill set and mindset and emotional regulation and communication and relationships. This is why we have the Mastery Series in EPC. There was always something new to learn. And being new at learning something, it is super awkward. It is super clumsy. It is really uncomfortable because of what we make it mean about ourselves and what we think other people are thinking about us, so we might feel a little embarrassed or we get a little frustrated.

That is because learning new things might also be very taxing to our brains and to our bodies. So it is awkward, and it is embarrassing, and it is clumsy, and we get frustrated, but it is also taxing mentally, emotionally, physically, to our bodies, to our brains, to our hearts. So we get confused. We get unsure. We get exhausted. And because of that discomfort in the learning process, now think about it.

We ask kids to do it all day, every day. Be new, try it again, fail, fail, fail in front of all your peers. And then as adults, we are like, well, that really sucked. I am not doing that ever again. I am going to not learn and be vulnerable and be awkward and clumsy and be embarrassed and frustrated in front of all my peers ever again. I am going to cocoon and just hide the fact that I do not know what I am doing. I am going to fake it till I make it.

It is because we are trying to avoid the emotion of embarrassment or the emotion of frustration or disappointment or awkwardness, clumsiness. And you can see this in our human culture. Some people, as soon as the law no longer requires them to attend a learning institution or a learning environment, they shut down. They avoid learning new things as much as possible. Other people decide that they have had enough learning once they graduate college or obtain that degree. Like, I will do just enough to get that degree or just enough to say I graduated college.

Other people, they are more comfortable and they will go all the way through the formal education system. And once they hit the max of that, they feel like, well, I have done it all. I have gone to my PhD or I do not even know the highest. I think it is PhD. But formal education has a beginning and an end. It is finite in the formal education world.

And then there are others who choose to be a student of life, who let life be the curriculum. They become a student of themselves, a student of humankind, of human beings, of human education. And as educators, we are in the business of humans. We literally develop humans, big and small, older or younger, all of them, every single day. There is always something to learn about being human. That is why people study it generation upon generation upon generation upon generation.

There is so much depth and complexity to the human experience, the entire learning experience, just to study learning as a human. That is a lifetime achievement award. We never run out of curriculum. Ever.

And in the Empowered Principal Collaborative, an EPC, we study the human experience to deepen your knowledge, your wisdom, your skill set, your strategies, your openness, your intentions, your mind, what it means to be a leader, a teacher, a student, from all perspectives. From the leader perspective, the teacher perspective, the student perspective, how it feels to be a leader, a teacher, a student, all the feels from the entire spectrum of emotions. In EPC, there is no emotion we are afraid to feel. We do not avoid emotion. We do not run from them. We do not hide from them. We lean into them.

So embarrassment has got nothing on me. Do you know how embarrassed I felt putting this podcast out into the world when I first started? I was horrified that my friends or my previous colleagues or my previous bosses would hear this and laugh and say you are the biggest joke on the planet. You were not a great leader. You were this, you were that, whatever their opinions were of me. I feared that.

I was horrified and my coach said that is the perfect reason to start the podcast. Because if you feel this way, there are thousands of other school administrators who feel just like you. The only difference between people who succeed and people who do not is that they feel that feeling, they lean into it, and they do it anyway. That is the only difference.

Successful people, successful students, successful teachers, successful leaders, they do not avoid emotion. They are not void of emotion. They are not void of fear, void of embarrassment, void of clumsiness, void of frustration, void of disappointment, void of failures. The opposite. They are full of it. They are full of vulnerability and failure and disappointment and frustration and so much embarrassment.

The fear. Think of the emotions that lock you down into fight-or-flight. Everyone feels those. You have the capacity to feel them. If you did not have the capacity to handle them, you would not have been gifted with them. Emotions are a gift. It is an internal compass that guides us.

So in EPC we study emotion. We lean into it and we leverage it as a tool, as a strategy to become stronger mentally, emotionally, physically, psychologically, as a leader in our relationships, in our communication, in our identity, in our confidence. The decisions and actions of a leader, a teacher, and a student, we study them through all the lenses. Every lens, every angle that we can imagine, we look at how and why we make decisions and how we decide our approach and the actions we take in that approach and then we look at them. Did they work? Did they not?

Let us test a theory. Let us see if it works. Oh, did not work. Let us adjust. That is it. It is as simple as that.

We come up with a theory and a plan. We execute it. We evaluate it. What worked? What did not? What do we want to adjust and do differently?

Let us go. Oh, there were some emotions that came along with that. I have got your back. We support you. We love you. We care about you. We care about your experience as a leader and as a teacher and as a student.

We look at what motivates and drives us as leaders, as teachers, as students. We need to study all of the angles. What motivates students? What motivates teachers? What motivates us as leaders? What motivates us as a student?

Us as a teacher? From all different backgrounds, from diverse backgrounds, diverse experiences. We want to study the human experience.

EPC is a new learning experience. It is a new offer. It is a new type of learning opportunity. It is based on introspection. And what I love about it is that it is the fascination of the human experience. I am fascinated by humans.

I am fascinated by how we learn, how we think, how we engage, how we interact, why we do things, why we do not do things, why we do things we say we do not want to do and we still do them and why we do not do things we say we want to do but we still do not do them. Why is that? Study it. Be a student of it. And then you can be a teacher of it. And then you can be a leader of it.

EPC is designed to help you design and create your vision for yourself, for your career, and for those you lead. I want to help you learn how to lead and how to teach and how to be a true lifelong student. Not because you want things to be hard, but because you want to master them. You want to expand your capacity to handle everything that comes your way. To practice skills and strategies. To embody empowerment, curiosity, and delight. To love your life, love your job, love your students, your staff, your families, your community, your district leaders.

Can you imagine going to work and loving your district leaders instead of talking about them? I know some of you have great relationships, but on the regular, I get some feedback that says otherwise for some people. But I truly want you to learn this skill because it is delightful. I want you to be happy, to have so much joy in your life, to have energy, to have hope, to have charisma and focus, determination, empowerment. I want you to celebrate failures just as much as you celebrate your wins.

Let us hold space for one another when we hurt. Principals, district leaders, we need a space to be supported, to feel held, to feel understood when we hurt, when we ache, when we fail, when we lose, when we fall down, when we get publicly scrutinized, or publicly embarrassed, or publicly humiliated. We need a space. EPC the space. We listen, not to respond to you, but to understand you. As leaders, we want to listen to understand, not to respond or react, but to understand.

So, the doors for EPC, the Fall Dip’s session, they are open starting today throughout the month of October. If you want to sneak in, I am leaving the doors open for this month only. They will not open again until 2025. I hope you are coming. I would love to see you. I would love to support you, but I would love, most of all, to empower you.

Have a beautiful week. Take great care of yourselves, and I will talk to you next week. Bye! 

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.

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 351. 

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. 

Angela: Hello, my empowered leaders. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to the podcast. I have a very special and dear guest on the podcast today. Her name is Wendy Cohen. She is an AP in New York City, which I think is amazing. She has been working with me for how long, Wendy? 

Wendy: Since spring of 2020. 

Angela: Yes, we have been on a journey together, and we’re so excited to have this conversation with you all today. Wendy has had some amazing gains, amazing wins, and we’re just here to talk about it and share with you guys the power of coaching, the beauty of coaching. Really, what I invited her on the podcast, in my heart, the intention of this podcast is to celebrate her success. She has so many things to share with you today, and we’re going to dive right in and talk about it. 

But really, my intention is to celebrate her life, celebrate her professional life, her personal life, and to invite you in, all of you as the listeners, into celebrating because this can also be your experience and her experience is just one of many empowered principal experiences. But hers has been so delightful and such a joy to witness that I wanted her to share her story with you in her own way, in her own words. So welcome to the podcast, Wendy. 

Wendy: Thank you. thank you for saying that. It is felt and deeply appreciated. Yeah, I think it’s really just a continuation or a summary of our last three coaching sessions that we’ve had toward the end of June and into July and integrating a lot of things that we’ve coached on over four years, but in particular, in the last six weeks or so. 

Sort of this theme of facing new challenges and feeling like you’re a novice and you’re brand new at something and growing through it and how your identity shifts through that process. Then as you move through, feeling proud about your progress. And, like you said, taking the time to celebrate and reflect and feel like we don’t do that enough as school leaders or in general. So it’s welcome as an opportunity to take a little bit of time to look back on the journey and feel like, wow, look how far we’ve come. 

Angela: Yes, it really is. I am actually working on that myself and going deeper in planning with intention my life in all of the aspects in business, in professional, personal relationships, health, just anything. I’m really shifting from this idea of like having a goal to creating a plan because a goal, to me, is like a to-do list. It’s like you hit it or you didn’t, you check it off or you don’t. It feels like it’s an experience that you have for a moment when it’s a goal, right? 

We’re going to talk about this because Wendy did something new in her life this year that it was a goal, but it really turned into a journey and into it’s an evolution. It was more of a plan and an identity shift. But a goal is I’m going to run this race. Then you check it off. I ran the race. I crossed the finish line. I started, I finished, I crossed it off. That’s a goal. That’s exciting for that moment that you crossed the line or maybe that day. You bask in the glory and then it’s gone. 

But the journey and the intention and the identity shift and the plan of becoming a runner who runs races, that’s a different approach to your life planning. So can you tell them about your experience? 

This has just been such a fun thing to talk with you because I am a former runner. I used to run long distance, short distance. I was really into racing, but I did not start running until I moved to California. So I did not start running until my mid-twenties, but it became such an integral part of my life until my body decided that running was maybe something I wasn’t going to do on the daily. But tell the listeners your experience, Wendy, of becoming a new runner, being a runner.

Wendy: The connection with coaching on the school leadership side and coaching in the personal side really came through in this running journey because there are so many lessons that I learned through coaching as a new leader that I applied to the running journey. Now having checked off my goal, but also gone through this whole transformation through the training months that I’m now bringing back to school leadership as well. It’s sort of feeding this cycle of building a new sense of self and this new identity and new confidence as a result.

But going back to the beginning of the running journey, I have so many friends and family members who run. They love it. It’s their life. My husband is a runner, and I’m someone who never even ran the mile in high school when we had to do the fitness test every year. I faked it. I walked, and I never got it.

Angela: I got sick. 

Wendy: Oh no.

Angela: It really made me sick. I ran, and it made me, they made us run like our senior year a mile. I was like I can’t do that. I physically got sick. 

Wendy: I never got it. It was just not something that I was interested in. Or when New Year’s resolutions come around, everyone’s like, this is the year I’m going to run a marathon. Never really crossed my mind to even add that to my list of goals or things that I was interested in. But this year I reconsidered it, and I said, you know what? This would be a way to challenge myself. Go outside of my comfort zone. Try something new. See if I like it. I might surprise myself and actually find out that I really enjoy it. 

Also to be able to have this shared interest with those in my community. My husband, my in-laws, his sister, it was part of this race. When they signed up for this 25K, now they signed up for it last year and ran in 2023. I said, nope, this is not the year for me. I’m planning a wedding. I have other things I’m working on. Not the time, but maybe next year.

So January 2024 comes around, and they say, we’re signing up for that race again. Last year you said you would think about it. I said, you know what? Let me give this a try. In the past, I would have thought there’s a steep learning curve. I have zero confidence as a runner, especially around people who do have experience with this. 

That feeling of being new at something and just being scared of that uncertainty, the lack of confidence, there’s certain lingo and jargon. I don’t know what intervals are. I don’t know what tapering is. I don’t know how to do the electrolytes and gels. There’s a whole world, a whole subculture of running that was unfamiliar to me that I was really afraid to explore, I think, because of that new feeling. This year I said, you know what? Let’s try it. 

Being new at something in general can be scary. I remember when I was a new AP, being very impatient with that beginner mindset and being new at something and wanting to know how to do everything right away, wanting to go from A to Z overnight and realizing that you don’t start by running 13 miles. You start by maybe walk and run one mile and that you do have to work to get there. So this being new as a runner, I thought, well, let me take what I’ve learned and try and apply it, go outside my comfort zone, and make it an opportunity to grow and expand.

I think when we talked about it in coaching, it was really a conversation about the fear of being uncomfortable, being worth going through that because the things that you might be missing out on and taking a risk knowing that it could be like an assessment of what the outcome might be on the other side of that risk. Am I going to feel embarrassed? Am I going to fall and scrape my knees? I did the fear of all those things. 

It’s worth going through that process of feeling uncomfortable because of what can happen on the other side. I think in becoming a new runner, I said, you know what? Let’s take this risk because it probably will be worth it. Let’s see what comes out of it knowing it will get easier. Knowing I’m not going to know how to do it right away, knowing I have to start with one mile and I would work my way up. 

But through coaching was able to sort of see how in the past, my experiences as a new leader and being new at things, being newly engaged, moving to a new apartment, all these things we’ve coached on over four years of becoming an AP, getting engaged, buying a car, moving to a new apartment, getting married, all of these experiences when I was new or in transition and realizing what could come on the other side of it.

I said, you know what? Let’s commit to this training cycle. Let’s go through these 14 weeks, pretty much 16 weeks with a little bit of a base building in the beginning there. I said you know what? We’re going to jump in, and we’re going to try it. 

Angela: It has been so fun to watch you go through being new in multiple facets of your life because with full transparency, being new feels scary. I think it’s scarier for adults than it is for kids. Like we do feel scared at certain things as a child in our lives, like maybe the amusement park felt scary for the first time or going to somebody’s house you didn’t know, those things. 

But also I think about kindergartners when they walk into a room, they are so excited for the new. They have a sense of humor with the new. Like if they don’t know it, they don’t feel embarrassed. They just ask, what’s this? What’s that? Can I touch this? Can I do that? Bringing that lightheartedness, that sense of humor, just being like, oops, sorry. I didn’t know. I’m new, right? Like having some levity around being new.

You did kind of a trail run. It wasn’t just, so when you said you fell down and scraped your knee, it’s not like you were just running and tripped. It was you were probably on a trail where there was some rigorous hiking or all of that.

But I just love watching you be new over and over again because there’s still that ledge o, as you’re making the decision, there’s this teetering of like, am I going to jump? Am I going to take the leap? Am I going to try the new thing? The fear never stops coming up. 

But what I’ve witnessed in you, Wendy, is the ability to like, I recognize this stage. I know that this feeling is temporary. I know that after I jump, after I say yes, and when I do commit to trying the new thing, being in it and falling and scraping, those things aren’t actually as bad as we anticipate they will feel because you know you’ve handled it time and time again. 

Buying the new car, that actually felt like one of the scariest things you ever did, right? Then the moving was another big thing. Then getting married was a huge deal for you. The process of allowing yourself to be a bride while maintaining the integrity of your school and leading a school, especially in a high power, high stakes situation, state, school, all of that. 

Being new in all these facets has really just blossomed you into a person. I’ve seen the identity shift in I can do hard things. I can handle anything that comes my way. I’m really okay with being new. Being new isn’t a bad thing. It’s actually what I want. I want to be new at new things. 

Wendy: Yeah, and through all of those experiences and coaching the mindset shift from this is so scary that I’m going to shy away from it to it’s an opportunity for growth and an opportunity for expansion and up leveling. This idea of if you’re not growing, you’re staying the same. I actually don’t want to stay the same. I actually do want to grow. 

Knowing, as you said, it’s like phase one of a transformation is oh, this feels a little sticky. Uh-oh, this is uncomfortable. But knowing that it will get easier and being able to take the time to look back and reflect, even on the little gains. Like when on my little running app, I would see it went from one mile to three miles and then from three to four. I was like, wow, I can run a 5k now. I couldn’t even run a 5k a month ago. 

I think seeing that little bit of progress and taking the time to look and see where you’ve come from through this conversation, even, and all the things that we just mentioned through what we’ve coached through over these last couple of years. It’s a nice reminder of like, I remember when I was in the new phase. Even going back to being a brand new teacher, a first year teacher. Like, yeah, like that was a hard year. I got through it. I even ended up becoming a school leader after all of that growth. 

Angela: Yes. I love the part where you were talking about if you’re not expanding, if you’re not trying new things, you’re stagnating. I think there’s a place where people are like what’s too much? Like, am I just going to live in discomfort every single day in order to grow and evolve? You can if you want to. But sometimes we reach a plateau where we take a moment and we look around, and we’re like, I know what I’m doing. I’m not new right now. Things feel really good. 

I say get on that little, I picture like floating out down the river, right? You’re in your floaty. You’ve got a refreshment in hand and life is so good. Take that all in. That’s a beautiful space to be in it. I don’t think consider it a plateau at all. I consider it the celebration phase. 

But if you only — like there is a moment where you start to feel stagnation. It shifts from like everything’s going so great. I love my life. I love my job. Everything’s going great. I think we’re wired as humans that dissonance comes back and there’s this little urge or this like desire for something new or different. 

We actually do want things to be new and different and exciting and challenging and fun. That being new is not all scary and bad. It’s actually engaging and exciting, and it’s curiosity, and it’s growth. So there’s both. There’s the growth. There’s running up that mountain, literally in your case, right? Running up those trails, falling, scraping. It’s that journey and that discomfort and the grit and the strength and getting up earlier, like feeling tired the next day, but feeling good tired. There’s growth. Then there’s the celebration. But eventually you’re right. That tickle of desire for the next growth does come in.

If you’re afraid, if that calling makes you feel afraid of the growth, there are people who literally stay in the same job at the same place for 40 years. that’s all they do. If that continued to feel good for 40 years, do it. But the empowered principals that I attract into my world tend to be people who are like this is fun for this amount of time. Then what else? And what else and what else and what else.

Wendy: Yeah. As I’m getting to know my own tendencies, we’ve coached over the years of how do you know that it’s an authentic one? How do you know when you’re just feeling kind of pressured, or you’re feeling that rushing pace? I remember moving into this apartment and being like well, in three years, we’re going to be buying a house. So I don’t want to buy a couch because we can’t get furniture now because I’m going to have to get new furniture. 

You’re like hold on. We just finished one transition and you’re already rushing forward to the next one. I had to learn that was one of my tendencies of okay, let me sit and bask in the moment of now of being in this apartment and not worry about is the couch going to fit in my house? Because the future is coming up down the line. 

I think going through the new leader process, that was a push year in the professional sphere. Going through the engagement and the wedding planning process, that was a push in my personal life and in that atmosphere. There was a reason that I didn’t sign up to do that run last year when I was invited to because I think I knew that I was expanding in a different way and was wanting to really be present in that aspect of my life.

In this newlywed year, deepening my connection with my new husband through this running journey, it felt like an aligned thing to do in this year, in this time. But notice I’m not searching for a house. I’m not looking for a new job. I’m not trying to do some of these other things because I think we can get on the roller coaster of what’s next, what’s next. 

Sort of finding the happy medium between I love my life, I’m soaking it all in, things are perfect and I love and accept myself just as I am now. I want to grow, I want to expand, I want to up-level. When the time is right, I’m going to have another push year in some aspect of my life to evolve myself and evolve my identity. I do have future goals. I would love to own a house. I’d love to start a family. 

Professionally, I may not be an assistant principal forever. When the time comes to make a transition, I think we’ll be coaching on it, but I’m sure I’ll be feeling into the timing. Does this feel aligned in this moment? 

For me, this year running, it was the time to finally give it a try after seeing other people go through it and knowing that it wasn’t always my challenge or it wasn’t always the right time. This did feel like an aligned time to take on this type of challenge and this type of personal growth. 

We’re school leaders. We’re kind of on the type A. We’re kind of in the personal development world. We’re life coaching all of our staff members on a day-to-day basis. We’re growing small humans in our schools. It’s very tempting to sort of sign up for every challenge and want to sort of fast forward the process on some of these changes. 

In this moment, I’m grateful that we’ve coached so much on the slowing down and the checking in and the why does this feel like the right time versus is it really coming from within, or is it an outside pressure? Is it judgment of myself? Is it perceived judgment from other people? Trying to really turn off the outside noise and really listen to my why and coming from within from me of why is this the time and what is my reason for wanting to do this? 

If it was just to be able to post a picture on Instagram at the end, that was not a good enough why to be coming home after a long day and putting on the shoes and going. You really have to want to do it for a compelling reason to sign up for a 25K trail race, which actually ended up being 17 and a half miles, not 15. But you don’t just do that because you feel like it or because you want to post a picture at the end. 

Knowing your why and knowing that it was an aligned choice, I think through coaching and being able to feel really confident with the decision helped me to be successful through the whole training. Not just checking off the goal, but evolving through the process of going through it.

Angela: I really love, and I want to reiterate something that you said where we are people that love the drive of the thing, right? We are goal-driven. We’re plan-driven. We are achievement-driven, accomplishment-driven. what burns us out faster than anything or what feels actually less fulfilling is to try and have push. I love how you said that like a push area. Like to be pushing in all areas of your life and being new in something all around in all aspects, that is what thins out the process. 

I love your like alignment with yourself. Where is the area I’m going to push this year? We don’t need to push in everything all at once. That’s where you get overwhelmed and discombobulated, but it ultimately, it discourages you. It defeats you. You feel deflated because you can’t be growing in every area all at once. But when you focus on one, it impacts all of the others. That is so, so powerful.

I wanted to reiterate that because we think we’ve got to be healthy and we’ve got to be the best parent and we’ve got to be the best partner and we’ve got to be the best principal and we’re going to do, that’s like New Year’s resolution energy. Then it fizzles because it’s too much. The brain’s just like, I can’t do, the body can’t do all of this. 

But when you focus on with intention, what’s my one area of growth that I want for me that matters to me this year? Maybe it is health. Maybe it is professional. Maybe it is personal. Being decisive about that and sticking to it, knowing there’s plenty of time and space for the rest of it.

Like last year was about the wedding and being a principal and being a partner. But the wedding was the focus, the new. Before that, it was the move. Before that, it was the car. Before that, it was the AP. Now this year was the running. This was the focus. Then you’ll choose something next year, which I think is, it’s a brilliant way. 

This is the concept that I teach in the Balance Mastery Program where balance looks different every single year, every single three-month plan you create, depending on your focus for that time of your life. 

Wendy: Yeah. I 100% agree with, as you said, the connections between these different areas of your life. Last year as I was planning a wedding, I was thinking to myself, if I can evacuate my building for a fire drill and have 500 people get out in four minutes, I can figure out how everyone’s going to get from the ceremony to the cocktail area and then from the cocktail area to the reception. So having gone through that growth as an AP helped me on my journey of the wedding planning. 

Now in this running journey saying to myself, well, I had to figure out how to do time management when I was planning a wedding on top of my job, and I had to figure out how to be more intentional with my time. Now I have to figure out how to fit training for this run into my life. 

Well, let me take what I learned through my wedding planning journey, through my new AP journey, and apply that to how am I going to fit this running training into my schedule. It all is integrated, and it all does apply. Because, at the end of the day, I’m one person, and I have 24 hours in my day, whether I’m wearing my AP hat, my wife hat, my runner hat. It did seamlessly kind of dovetail on all of the coaching we’ve done around expanding my concept of time and not having that scarcity mindset approach to time. 

Because training for a half marathon for 25K, if you’re running 25 miles a week, you’re dedicating four, five, six, seven hours, and that’s not even including eating enough, stretching before and after, all those extra showers, changing clothes, all the other things that go into it. 

I don’t think if we hadn’t coached around time so much when I was a new leader, or if I had gone through some of the other transitions that I’ve gone through, it would have come as easily with this new challenge in the running sphere, just knowing that so many of those coaching principals apply and crossover.

Angela: Yeah. Let’s talk, I was, you read my mind about the time management thing because people are all sitting here listening like, oh my gosh. Like I’m barely able to figure out how to fit work into my life, let alone any other kind of personal project, whether it’s for pleasure or just personal growth or gain. Just can you tell them the process of how you personally were able to do this? 

Wendy: In my 2023 fitness life was not a runner, but liked to think that I was someone who was kind of active. I like to go to Pilates. I would squeeze that in probably three times a week. So I was already making my health a priority to some extent. Now this was like expanding to another level of commitment to physical health. 

The good thing with growing as a runner is that you do have to start small, and that forces you to not overdo it right in the beginning. If I had tried to run five miles in the beginning, I probably would have gotten injured and would have gotten discouraged and just quit. So knowing that all I had to do was go out and do one mile, and it would take 15, 20 minutes and I would come home after. That was all I had to do. It’s kind of hard to talk yourself out of 15 minutes.

 Like if you can’t find 15 minutes for yourself in the day, it’s an opportunity to reflect and see like, how long am I on Twitter? How many hours a day am I looking at emails? How many hours a day am I spending doing things that maybe could be delegated or could be reallocated in another space and time or just done more efficiently? Staying up late instead of going to bed early and then being able to wake up early and having that time. 

So starting out small with that 15 minutes, I said okay, we can get one mile in. I would do that largely on the weekend, but I did try and incorporate it probably two days a week during the work week as well. Then as the months go on, when you start going from one mile to two miles and two miles to three miles and building upon it. 

Knowing that I didn’t have to go home and carve out 15 minutes, but I had to go home and carve out 45 minutes, I would sort of backwards plan and say okay, if I know that I need to run for 45 minutes after work, I’m not going to have time to meal prep on that day. I’m going to make sure that I take care of that on Sunday, or I’m going to make a double batch of this the other day. 

As that grew and then you’re doing eight, 10, 12 mile training runs, and that was like just a Sunday thing, I really made it a point to carve out that time for myself on Sunday and try and front load other things during the week, on the weekend, trying to just be more efficient. Working as a team with my husband made a big difference with that as well. I knew which days he was training, which days I was training. 

We tried to collaborate, but it did kind of force us to zoom out and take a bird’s eye view of the week and where my time was going and do a little audit of some of the ways that I could take time back. Whether that was leaving earlier so I didn’t have to sit in as much traffic and getting that time back when I came home, or perhaps some of the meal planning stuff for the weeknights or going to bed earlier so I would wake up earlier.

It was a little bit challenging in the beginning, but I’m actually shocked at how much time you have if you are intentional with it. When you are very honest and self-reflective, your phone does tell you how much time you spend on apps. I don’t need to be spending an hour on Twitter every day. That hour could easily go towards running, even if I’m using it professionally, even if I’m using it as a healthy outlet and not something like a phone addiction situation. It’s not an essential. 

If it’s a priority, and it’s important to me, and my values are I want to focus on my health and I want to accomplish this goal, and I want to be committed and dedicated to the training plan that I’ve made, you set up a calendar, you write the miles on it, you cross out each day and you go through and you say well, that was the priority. It wasn’t a priority to talk on the phone, to go on Twitter, to stay up late watching a show.

I was able to check in with my values and audit my time and find the time. Just the nitty gritty, knowing that I was going to be building it out over the months, it also helped. Starting small and then okay, what else can I reallocate? What else can I move around? How else can I find more time in my day and building it over the months? 

By the time I was running for four hours on a Sunday, when the race was done, I was like, I just got four hours back. Now look at all these things that I could do now that I have all this time that I’ve created and all this space in my schedule, just from it’s like a secondary bonus of having gone through this process of learning this new point of view about how I want to spend my days, my weeks, my months, and really that becomes your life. 

I mean, that’s my life over the course of 2024 is I spent all that time dedicated to improving my health, to running, and opens up so many new possibilities moving forward that I wasn’t even anticipating that as like a secondary bonus of this whole training cycle. 

Angela: Yeah, here’s what I hear. The theme that I’m hearing is once you decide, you make a decision that something is a priority and you put that first on the calendar. You’re like this is, it’s a non-negotiable. It has to go on the calendar. Then you reallocate, you redistribute the other tasks. 

What you find is that what you end up shaving off are things that were just kind of consuming time versus being the most intentional about the time. Again, there’s nothing wrong with being on social media or watching Netflix or any of that, as long as you’re doing it with intention, and it’s healthy. But when you do have a goal or you have a desire or you commit to it and you prioritize it. 

When that goes in first, it feels like it’s almost seamless or magical that like everything that needed to get done still gets done. But now this running thing is just a part of your new identity. It’s a part of who you are as a person. I’m a runner. It goes into my calendar. I’m a school leader. That goes into my calendar. I’m a wife. That goes into my calendar. 

Now, what I want to say is for those of you who are principals, spouses, maybe you’re caretaking for elderly family members, or you have young children, and you’re listening to this and we’re talking about prioritizing physical health and running or some kind of movement, physical movement in your life, but you are caretaking for young children, older adults, or you are prioritizing other things in your life. Here’s what I want to say. 

Again, be intentional with those priorities and do not use Wendy’s experience to beat yourself up. If you are prioritizing childcare or healthcare of a loved one and you’re thinking to yourself, well, I’m lazy or I’m not managing my time well enough because I’m not running on top of all of these things.

Remember, your push year, what you’re doing is you’re choosing to build up your relationship with your children and your parenting skills, maybe your spouse and your relationship and co-parenting with your spouse or caretaking. I’m just thinking of a couple examples here, but there’s a lot of things that we have to prioritize in our lives. I’ve done this personally. 

So I’m speaking to it because it’s very easy to hear Wendy’s story and say well, like, oh, it’s easy for you. You don’t have kids, or you’re young, but everybody has dualities in their life. Everybody has something else going on in addition to school leadership. Your extra things may be childcare. It may be adult care, healthcare. It may be planning a wedding. It may be going through a divorce. It may be moving that year.

Or I mean, there’s an endless realm of what would I call them? Pivotal moments or like chapters that you go through that you might not be able to go for a run. Just as Wendy said the year before, it was about her wedding. So she said maybe another time.

Just know this. If you’re in a chapter of child rearing or you’re in a chapter of parent care or you’re in a chapter of getting married or getting divorced or relationship changes, family changes, anything personal that’s big and you’re prioritizing it, be still with that. Be at peace with that. Remind yourself, I’m choosing to focus on this right now as my area of newness and growth knowing that it’s a chapter. It is a chapter and it’s a beautiful chapter. Some child rearing is a long chapter. 

Maybe, I know my sister and I are caring for elderly parents right now. I just went home to take care of my dad, and it’s a chapter, right? So I might not be going to the gym five times a week or four times a week anymore. It might be once or twice because my priority is my dad’s wellbeing and taking care of my sister, who’s the caretaker, right? 

So just know that everyone has duality in their lives. You’re never just a school principal. Even if you’re a single person with no children and no home, even if there’s not a lot of other attachments, there’s still the version of you that’s a principal, and there’s other things going on in your life. It’s okay to not be trying to do it all at once.

Again, I just want to reiterate, that is when you go a mile wide, you only go an inch deep. So I invite you to consider one thing at a time. If you have a wipeout year or a wipeout day or unexpected, unforeseen circumstances come up that re-shift your priorities, allow that.

One of the things my coach is teaching me to do, and I’m going to add this to the three-month planning because it’s so valuable. She takes the priorities, and she puts them on Post-its. Because instead of scratching it out or erasing it and say I failed. This was a wipeout. We’re never going to accomplish that. You just move it. You just move it. Because for Wendy, it was never that she said I’m never going to be a runner because she was planning a wedding. She just said, I’m going to move that to another chapter, to another timeframe. 

Where we get caught up in planning and balance and prep and expanding and growing and expanding our identities is we want it to be in this certain timeframe. We want it to happen right here, right now by this date. if it doesn’t, it’s this very all or none feeling. 

But that feels terrible. It’s discouraging. It’s defeating. It’s like graspy. It’s well, you guys know the energy where like I need this to happen right here, right now. We try to control and coerce and force things to happen. Versus this goal is on a Post-it, and the Post-it is going to keep coming with me. If I just find the space and time when I can actually prioritize the running and put it in three days a week and from 15 minutes to 45 minutes to however hours probably when you’re trail running, eventually it comes together into this moment of accomplishment.

Now, Wendy, I guess I want to transition to asking you tell them about. Actually, you have a great story about the actual experience because there was the anticipation of the experience, what you thought it was going to look and feel like. Then there was the actual race day. That’s a great story in and of itself. 

But I’m curious to know for you, what is your identity after the goal, right? The actual moment of goal was checked off, but there’s an identity shift in you. Let’s talk about your identity as a runner in future terms. Like, is it going to be something you continue to do? Is it just something I’ve done. I’ve accomplished. It was a one and done. Is it going to be this balance? Like, let’s first tell the story because it’s so good about the day of. Then I’d love to hear your thoughts on your identity moving forward. 

Wendy: Yeah. So as far as the actual race day, end of June, months and months of training and planning, I did my final longest long run, which was a full half marathon, 13.1 miles. Was so thrilled with that and was feeling like, you know what? I was consistently training. I showed up. I got to see the little chart on my app going up and up. I was proud of myself just for following through and committing to the plan. 

At that point I had sort of said to myself, you know what? Regardless of what happens on race day, I know that I got this far, and I accomplished the training. At that point, even after having run a half marathon and running 20 something miles a week and four days a week, all of this, I will say that I don’t know if I ever really took on the identity of and I’m a runner. I realize that sounds silly because if you’re running, you’re a runner. If you’re running four days a week, you are a runner. 

The same thing happened to me as a new AP as well, where I was like I’m still in this sort of mindset of I’m in this imposter syndrome mode, or I’m still transitioning from teacher to leader. I think I had to remind myself like if your job is an AP, and you come to the school every day and you’re a school leader, you are a school leader. 

So the same happened with the running of all right, I’ve gone through this training process. I’m a runner. I’m going to show up to this race. I accomplished this whole training cycle. I know I can run the distance. I’m proud of myself. Let’s see what happens on race day. Regardless of if I make any special time or anything, I will have succeeded.

Of course on race day, it was pouring thunderstorms, a tornado warning. The trails were completely washed out with mud. All the rocks were extremely slick where people were slipping and falling. I think one girl had to get stitches because she had fallen at some point during the race, like at mile 10 or something. 

So the morning of the race, I said you know what? The goal the whole time was just to finish and not get injured. That’s exactly what I’m going to do, whether it’s sunshine, rain, mud, freezing cold, regardless, heat stroke. We were sort of going in knowing that it wasn’t going to be ideal conditions and knowing that the times were probably going to reflect that. 

By the end of the 17 and a half that we ended up running, we’re soaked through to the bone. Our shoes were muddy. Like every step was like, I had to take my glasses off because I couldn’t see, obviously. The rain was all fogging up my glasses and the water droplets and everything. So none of that was what I had envisioned for how the day was going to go.

At the end, what we thought was going to happen was we crossed the finish line. We’d have a nice celebration. It was a camping situation. So we were going to camp out that night and have a fire and celebrate and have a few drinks with some of the other runners and connect. 

Of course we get back to the campsite after running and we say okay, let’s get out of these wet clothes and change. The tent is blown over. The poles are bent in half. We said I think we got to pack up and head home. That’s exactly what we did. So none of that celebration happened that night anyway. 

We go home. We had to cut our weekend short. We didn’t get to hang out with my sister-in-law and my brother-in-law and my nephew who all ran the race as well and drove from the other side of the state, six hour drive to get home. We unpacked the car. We’re hosing down everything because it’s covered in mud. The next day I said we didn’t really get to have our little celebration. We had gotten some fancy drinks or something, like a non-alcoholic cider, whatever. 

We said, you know what? We’re going to uncork this drink. We’re going to have a little cheers. We’re going to have a little moment, even if it’s not at the finish line with the other runners in Western Pennsylvania in the middle of this town where everyone’s doing the trail run. It’s a whole big deal. I said we’re going to have our own celebration at home because we still accomplished something. We still finished the race. It’s still something to feel proud of. 

Coaching with Angela actually even enhanced that thought to say, not only did you finish, you finished in spite of probably the worst conditions possible and didn’t get injured, didn’t get discouraged. I’m sure there are people who saw the weather forecast and said you know what? I’ll eat the $50 registration fee and just say whatever because I don’t really feel like going out for five hours in the pouring rain and getting soaking wet. We did it anyway. 

Just showing up for the actual race and finishing the same way, just showing up throughout training that alone is something to be proud of. So we had to kind of create our own new vision of what the celebration looked like. We had to change our expectations of what the race was going to feel like in the moment. But we made sure to find a little bit of time to celebrate and to have that standing on top of the mountain feeling at the end. 

Because I don’t want to say that we were denied that, but it just didn’t go the way that we envisioned, or we didn’t have the weekend that we had planned. Yet we still accomplished something great. We still set out to run a certain distance, and we did it. So we said we’re not going to miss out on our celebration. We’re going to still have that moment for ourselves. 

Angela: Yes. This is very important. Wendy and I just talked about this like this week. Celebration is very underrated, and it’s very easy to overlook it. But it’s the one thing that we actually want most when it comes to any goal, challenge, adversity situation. We want the celebration. We need to honor and acknowledge the hard work we’ve done. 

It’s like when you’re in a classroom with a student, and they’re struggling and struggling and then they get it. Oftentimes the kids kind of excited, they’re kind of in shock that they got it. They’re like wow, I just did that. You are celebrating the heck out of this kid because they stuck with it, and it was hard, and they couldn’t get it. There were probably tears and torn papers and eraser marks. Then they get it. When we celebrate them, it teaches them to celebrate them. We as school leaders must celebrate little tiny wins, great big wins, and all the wins in between. 

One of the things that you said, Wendy, that I also want to highlight is that you said you started with that one mile walking or half running. But you had an app that was reminding you of the progress. What your brain was doing was looking for all the evidence that it’s working, and I’m moving forward, and I’m on track, and I’m growing. It is working. The process of learning how to run a, was it 15 mile, 17 mile race? Was you start with walking one mile. 

In school leadership, the race is a race that never ends. Like there are some milestones, some beginnings and ends of school years, but your profession, it is the longest marathon of your life. You can look at the scrapes, the fails, the time that slowed you down. You can look at all of that and you can say well, I didn’t make it this time and look for evidence to kind of bring yourself down. 

Or you can look at the app and say I went from two to three today. Or like this was just the perfect running conditions this afternoon, or Saturday morning, like I really had a great time just running, just being free, like looking for all the little things to keep you motivated and keep you going. 

I wish we had an app. Maybe I need to develop one where we were like looking for the milestones because it’s easy to get bogged down in what isn’t working in school leadership, but it’s also just as easy to focus on what is. 

Wendy: I think it was easier for me to see those small gains with this running journey because every day I would check off my, I had a physical counter, and I would draw an X. I know some people would take those gold foil star stickers and just stick them right on the 1.5 today. Check. I don’t think I did that as much in my first years as an AP. 

It’s a good reminder that it might be my job to show up every day at work and be an AP, but I have finished four years now in the role, and I have grown. Maybe I don’t always take the time to look at that, but even through the journey going from lacking confidence and maybe my identity not really catching up yet. I know that now when I think about my day to day, I feel more confident with decision making and my interactions with staff and with families. 

I have fewer moments of sort of self-doubt and uncertainty in that imposter syndrome. The way I look at challenges now versus when I first started has changed. I’m less scared of not knowing something. I know that I’m still learning new skills, and it’s an ongoing thing in life to be new at something. It’s a pattern that’s going to continue and just gets easier every time you do it. Embracing the challenges, going outside your comfort zone, reminding yourself you can do hard things, and it doesn’t have to be perfect. 

The same way I feel proud of myself for sticking with the running, I also feel proud of myself in the ways that I’ve evolved as a school leader. Doing things scared, feeling like a novice, going for it anyway. Then seeing on the other side once you’ve done it that it wasn’t really about running the 25K. It was really about showing up every day and proving to myself that I could do the training.

Even as an AP, like getting tenure is one thing, but improving every year and doing things better every year and seeing the ways that things are getting easier. Wedding planning, it wasn’t about the wedding. It was about the process of going through the planning and evolving my identity and my relationship with my partner. 

In the future, I have goals of starting a family and becoming a homeowner, growing in my career. I feel a sense of confidence that I can do those things because I’ve taken the time to reflect on all these other challenges and seeing that I have done things before where I felt new and uncertain and moved through the uncomfortable emotions and gone through the process of coming to the other side of it. I think all of the different areas in which I’ve had different practice with this, it just feeds each other and helps it to become easier each time.

Angela: It’s so true. The way we do one thing is the way we do everything. We can focus on one area of being new, one little push area, one little growth. This is something I’m going to invite you guys to do. So this podcast is dropping around mid to late September. It’s the beginning of the school year. I invite you to decide what’s the one area of growth that I want, that I really want for myself. What feels most aligned to me? 

If you tune in, if you listen, it will come to the surface. Is it something professional? Is it something personal? Is it your health, your relationships, your finances, your relationship with your kids or your family? Or maybe you are single, and you want to date or you want to like expand your friendship circles or you want to expand your spirituality and connection with a higher power of your understanding. 

Pick one because when you pick one and focus on that, you’ll be able to see, just like Wendy did, you can apply the growth, the learning, the journey to all of the other areas. It’s how you expedite your identity expansion and what you feel is possible. So maybe it’s time management this year. 

Like in EPC, we have the six pillars. We’ve got time, balance, planning, relationships, leadership, emotional regulation. I also am adding communication. I think that’s an essential part of school leadership. Yeah. Just like the art of and mastery of communication with ourselves and with others. 

But pick one area and just try that for one year knowing it’s going to expand the other ones. Then you don’t feel so overwhelmed that you have to fix yourself or improve all of this all at once because that’s where we jump right into the overwhelm cycle. Then we spin, spin, spin out. So Wendy, oh gosh, there’s so much I know we could share, but do you have any like last words that you want to share with listeners, fellow principals just like you who are out there? What is it that you’d like to say and share with them? 

Wendy: I think the biggest takeaway is you might surprise yourself with how much growth and how much you can get out of something that at first really scares you and makes you doubt yourself, but stay with it because whether that’s taking a new job or accomplishing some other goal, there’s so much that can come out of that process of discomfort. We’ve coached over the years about not wanting to feel that discomfort, and I purposely did something that I knew was going to bring that on, and I don’t regret it one bit. I don’t regret it one bit. 

Angela: Yeah, I cannot wait to see what this year unfolds for you. Do you have any thoughts about what your push area is going to be for this coming year? 

Wendy: Not so much the coming year, but the current moment, we’re still planning a honeymoon, and that is a whole team process that there’s a reason that you plan a big trip after you get married. You learn so much from going on a big international trip together, and we haven’t even left yet, but the planning itself has been a very enlightening experience.

I think building on my health goals probably to get us to a place where we feel good about making other life transitions. I think feeling healthy enough to start a family, healthy enough to take on a challenge, whether that’s moving or taking a new position. I think starting with a healthy foundation is going to help in all areas. 

I kind of knew that going into the running process too I want to get to be the healthiest version of me that I can while I don’t have kids, while I’m not in a new role, when I’m not making up another big life transition, knowing that it was going to set me up for success with whatever’s next. 

Angela: Yeah.

Wendy: Right now is the honeymoon planning, so I’ll let you know how our trip goes in a couple of weeks. 

Angela: I cannot wait to hear about it. I can’t believe you’re going. It’s so exciting. 

Wendy: Not to mention that 25K trail run is going to help us to hike Machu Picchu, so it’s all connected. 

Angela: Yes, oh gosh. This is where it all blends together, and it’s such a beautiful experience to watch. I’m so honored to be your coach, I really am, and to call you a friend and to see you grow. I mean, it goes beyond words, like the emotions and the fulfillment I have in seeing you blossom and be this best version of yourself. You embody personal empowerment. You embody personal growth. 

What’s so cool about it is that you take this with you for the rest of your life. You can’t unlearn this, you can’t unknow this, you can’t undo this. It only expands you more and more. So I’m just so happy for you. Congratulations, not just on the run, but on the journey. 

Wendy: Thank you. When we started, and I was 29, and you said, you’re doing this work now because it’s like compound interest, and it’s going to pay dividends down the line. In four years of coaching, I’m already feeling different and seeing things differently. It just gets me so excited for how much more growth is ahead. With your support, it’s been not always easy, but it’s been a very rewarding journey. That’s for sure. 

Angela: So fun. It’s so fun. Thank you for your time on the podcast today, Wendy, and for sharing your story with us. I really appreciate it.

Wendy: Thank you for having me. Best of luck with the new school year to all the other school leaders out there. 

Angela: Yes. Yes. Happy New Year, everybody. We’ll talk to you next week. Take good care. Bye. 

Hey empowered principal. If you enjoyed the content in this podcast, I invite you to join the Empowered Principal® Collaborative. It’s my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to experience exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. 

Look, you don’t have to overwork and overexert to be a successful school leader. You’ll be mentored weekly and surrounded by supportive likeminded colleagues who truly understand what it means to be a school leader. So join us today and become a member of the only certified life and leadership coaching program for school leaders in the country. Just head on over to angelakellycoaching.com/work-with-me to learn more and join. I’ll see you inside of the Empowered Principal® Collaborative. 

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Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 349. 

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, my Empowered Principals. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to the podcast. Hey, I am actually recording this in place of another podcast episode I had because this came up in a conversation with a client and I wanted it to go on the podcast immediately in real time because this is a topic that comes up for almost every school leader at the beginning of the year. So we’re going to put it here in 349 beginning of September and the topic is this class assignment requests.

So some of you have already started school and you’ve already been through this but some of you have not or some of you are in the middle of it right now and I want to ensure that you have some tools and strategies for the moment and the situation in which a parent or a family member comes and says, hey, I would like to select my class. I would like my child to have X teacher. I would like you to move my child out of this classroom and into that classroom, you know what I’m talking about. Parents who want to request their child’s class assignment.

This typically happens in elementary school, but I suppose, I have not taught middle and high school, I do suppose it happens there from time to time when a student comes home and says, I don’t like my teacher, or I want a different math teacher, or I don’t like this, you know, whatever. I don’t like this teacher, I want a different teacher. So it can happen probably at any level. So most likely you’re going to experience this at some point if you haven’t already. So let’s talk about it.

Let’s say a parent requests a certain teacher or asks for their child to be reassigned to a different teacher. Now the first thing that’s going to happen in your brain is you’re going to have thoughts and opinions about the request. And sometimes your brain is like, you know what, that’s a valid request. They stated what they wanted, why they wanted the impact of the request, why they think it’s reasonable and you’re on board. That might happen. Most of the time not, but it might happen. If it does, that’s amazing. It’s a win-win right off the bat.

Most of the time, principals feel somewhat offended by the request or annoyed by the request. Two, they’re going to have to have a conversation. Three, it impacts a lot of people. Four, there’s a lot of moving parts. And five, you might feel personally offended. I was talking with a client, and she said, hey, I don’t feel respected. I don’t feel that they’re respecting my authority, my professionalism, my expertise. I’m doing the best I can. There’s no perfect placements. They’re just trying to get their way. They’re telling me how to do the job. They think they know what’s best.

Those are very common feelings. Those are very common thoughts, I should say. They generate emotion. If you’re thinking you’re not respected, you might be a little offended or that they’re not appreciating your professional opinion. You might just be annoyed if you think they’re trying to get their way, they’re trying to bully you, they’re trying to tell you how to do your job. Maybe it makes you feel a little incompetent or a little indignant that they think you are incompetent. You might feel defensive, right? Notice this.

When a parent or a family member asks for a request to reassign their child or to put them in a particular teacher’s room, you might have some personal opinion about that. That’s your right as a human on the planet. You’re going to have thoughts. It’s okay. But the key here is to not react to those thoughts without being aware of those thoughts. So when somebody asks you for a class assignment change, you need to check in with yourself first.

Now, obviously, if it’s happening in real time, if they like approach you, they’re at the Lemonade Social looking at the class list and they’re like, I want my class change. They’re going to do that. You’re going to breathe deeply. You might want to have a plan ahead of time to say like, we’re not going to change anything in this moment. If you’d like to send me an email or make an appointment with the secretary, get on my calendar, we’ll have a conversation. don’t feel pressured.

In real time, when they’re coming to you and you do have the time, you can take a deep breath and you can sit with them and just hear them out and say, hey, I’m willing to hear you out. Tell me everything. What’s coming up for you? How are you feeling? What is your concern? What is your worry? Why are you feeling this way? You’re just going to ask them a bunch of questions to gain information. You want to get into their steer cycle. You want to understand What are they thinking? What are their emotions? What is it they’re worried about? What are their fears? what is the outcome that they’re trying to create. You just take it all in, okay? But first of all, you want to notice your thoughts.

So if you have the opportunity to self-coach before you meet with this person, this is ideal. If not, you’re just going to take the information in and tell them you’re going to contemplate it and you’re going to get back to them within 24 hours. You thank them for sharing everything with you. You need to look at numbers. You need to think about how this impacts, there’s a lot of moving parts, and you’ll get back to them in 24 hours. You do that to give yourself time and space to process your own thoughts and feelings about it, okay?

So when somebody’s asking you this and you’re feeling offended or defensive, it’s probably because it’s feeling like some form of attack on your character or your professional opinion or an attack on your level of knowledge or expertise or even your positional authority. So it’s okay if you feel resistant, just notice that. We don’t want to use that energy to retaliate or to react to that parent.

What you want to do is notice how you’re feeling. Notice the urge to want to dig your heels in. This is the way it’s going to be because I said so. Kind of authoritative or authoritarian, whatever it’s called. The strict kind of like because I’m the boss and that’s how it goes and because I said so. Notice if you’re feeling that way.

Now, you probably aren’t not going to want to give in. You’re going to want to prove your authority or your expert position or opinion on this. But if you make decisions and communicate to the parent, to the family, from this mindset and energy, oftentimes what happens is now we’re in a tug of war. We’ve gone into battle. They don’t get what they want. They’re going to go to the superintendent and they’re going to work their way up so that they can get what they want because you’ve locked in with them. you’ve engaged in battle.

It becomes a win-lose or a lose-win. Somebody’s going to win, somebody’s going to lose. It becomes a competition versus trying to see the land of and. What they’re trying to do when they don’t feel heard or they don’t feel seen or they don’t feel validated or acknowledged is that they’re going to try and get those feelings from somebody. If it’s not you, they’re going to go up the chain. They’re going to go to the superintendent. They’re going to want to talk to your boss. They’re going to want to get what they want even deeper than before.

They’re going to make a bigger scene. They’re going to go to the school board, the local paper, the blogs, whatever, Facebook. They’re going to find their validation somewhere else if they don’t feel validated from you. I’m saying this ahead of time if you haven’t had this experience yet because the goal here is to understand the emotion, the energy fueling the request. It’s not as much about the request as it is about what’s fueling the request. The fuel may be valid. It might not be appropriate. We don’t know yet until we have a conversation with them.

But what you need to know is when somebody comes to you and says, I want a classroom change, I want assignment change, there’s a reason that that parent is requesting this. Your goal is to neutralize what you’re making it mean about you and sit down and ask them so you can understand how to approach them. We don’t know how to approach them, and we don’t want to assume that we know, oh, they’re just trying to get their way, or they’re just trying to tell me how to do my job, or they think they know better than me, or they just listen to gossip and hear that teacher, and then all of a sudden nobody wants the teacher.

Well, now we have a teacher’s feelings involved here, too. There’s a student, there’s a family, there’s a teacher, there’s you. And it also impacts, if you’re moving numbers around, now it’s impacting the whole grade level or the whole department depending on what level you’re leading, okay?

So what happens is when people’s emotions don’t get validated, not the request but the emotions, they will seek out a way to get those feelings acknowledged, validated, vented out. It oftentimes can turn into a very big problem. People will turn little problems into big problems because their emotional regulation has not been reconciled.

Now I get it. In a perfect world, adults would learn and know, because we would have taught them in schools, how to emotionally regulate and how to tune into their emotions and understand what they’re asking for and why and where it’s coming from and the fuel and is this a projection of themselves? Of course, we would want every human to be in their personal power, in personal development, getting this. But because we don’t teach it in our schools, you coming here to this podcast, I’m teaching it to you now as an adult.

So our job is to first regulate ourselves emotionally and neutralize the situation by looking at what are we making this mean about ourselves? What are we making the request mean about them? What are we making it mean about the teachers that are involved here, about the student? You got to clarify, what am I making this mean? How am I interpreting this request? Is it firing me up? Does it not bother me at all? Am I curious as to what’s going on with the family? Do I understand already? Do I have some perspective? Do I need to talk to the teachers about what’s going on?

What are you making this situation mean about you, about them, about the greater good here? You’ve got to clarify your own thoughts and opinions first. Why do you think they’re asking for this? Notice what comes up for you. And then you want to think about, let’s look at this from the perspective of the student, the teacher, and the parent. Why might they be asking? If we put our emotions aside just for a minute, what’s going on for this parent? Why do we think they’re asking? Or does the teacher have any information? Or what’s going on with the student?

Maybe the student has a 504 or an IEP and there is a specific conversation that needs to be had in one of those meetings. There is always a reason a parent is asking. Our first step can be to get curious and explore with that parent why the request. And when they meet with you, they’re going to feel very, very validated as to their reasons. Their reasons feel very true for them and it seems like the only response. You can let them have that opinion for a while as you’re taking it all in.

But I also want you to think about the idea that this isn’t a reflection on you as a leader. It’s a conversation to get curious about what’s coming up for them, what’s coming up for their student. And if it is feedback about your leadership, now we’re getting into a conversation around receiving feedback. And if maybe we did oversight something, maybe we agreed at the end of the year, this child wasn’t going to be placed with that child, but we missed that. And they’re together in the same class and we need to rectify it. No problem. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad leader. It means you’re a human who just had an oversight, not a problem.

Maybe we agreed that this child needs a particular style of teacher, or we had agreed this child was going to be in that teacher’s class. And sometimes it just happens. We can’t remember every little detail, every conversation we had last year. So it might be valid. The request might be simple. But when you’re coming from the place of they’re thinking X about me, or they’re judging me, they’re criticizing me, what happens is you do the flip. You also get into judgment and criticism.

You want to dig your heels in because you think they’re digging their heels in. Notice the energy, okay? So instead of responding with reaction, emotional burst of energy, you want to respond with intention. We want to look for the win-win, win-win here. Because oftentimes it feels like it’s an all or none. Either you have to hold firm or you have to give in. It feels like just give in, let them have what they want, make my life easier, they get what they want, but now everybody’s going to demand that, and I can’t possibly get everybody’s requests in, or I have to hold firm and then weather the storm and it escalates up.

It feels like those are the only two options. The empowered principle approach here is where is the win-win? Where might this be a win-win? We have to find out what they want, why they want it, what’s the emotion, how are they feeling, what is their concern? and consider the request from the lens of the parent. What might they be thinking? What might they be feeling? What do they want below the surface of the request? It’s basically they want to feel certainty. They want to be assured. They want to feel like they’re a good parent. They want to feel like they’re in the best placement possible for their child. They’re advocating for their child.

You want to consider what else the request might mean. Can you separate yourself from the request completely? If the request had nothing to do with you, what else would be going on for these people? And is there a win-win here? Sometimes, the best decision to make is to do the change and to have a rationale as to why. Other times, the easiest thing to do is to say, hey, let’s try this. Let’s try it for 30 days, and if it doesn’t work out, we’ll discuss a change of placement.

If it’s truly not working out, this teacher truly isn’t providing the service your child needs, if you’re truly unsatisfied, if the child’s distressed, at any time in these 30 days, we’re going to try it for 30 days. I’m going to observe. We’re going to check in each week, see how it’s going, and after 30 days, if it’s still not a fit, let’s talk about a placement change.

Oftentimes what happens, people are anxious because they hear rumors. about a teacher, or they’re like, I’ve heard that teacher’s mean, or that teacher’s no good, or I had a conflict with that teacher, that teacher’s terrible at, you know, parent communication. They’ll hear something from one person and extract that to mean it’s going to be a horrible year for them, for the kid, for everybody. And so they come to you in a panic.

When we give it a go, if there’s no valid reason, if there’s nothing you can really ground yourself in, and you have strong parameters about a not-appropriate request for a change in placement. You can say, let’s give it 30 days. Let’s try it. I’ll check in with your kiddo. I’ll be in there observing. If I see anything, I’m going to let you know. Let’s do a weekly check-in. If something comes up, you call me. We will be in touch. I want you to be reassured. I’m hearing you.

And we also want to give students an opportunity to try a new environment. Let’s see how it goes. we’ll do it with support, and we will give your student every opportunity to be successful, because the goal is for your child to be successful in any environment, to know how to understand and adapt and advocate, and if there truly is anything harmful going on in a classroom, I want to know as soon as possible. I will be in there monitoring. Let’s check on it for 30 days. Can we give it 30 days? How would that feel for you? What would you need to feel reassured that your student’s in good hands?

I want this to be a win-win. I want your student to be happy. I want you to be reassured that they’re safe, that they’re going to learn, that it’s going to be a great year. What will help you with that? Can we allow 30 days and see what they say? This question is typically so much deeper than what you see on the surface. It’s more about a parent’s insecurities, a parent’s fears, a parent’s anxiety, a parent’s worry. A lot of times it’s playground talk between the parents or now Facebook talk. They’re talking coffee shop talk, talking about teachers, but we want to be respectful of the teacher, the student, and give that child the opportunity to be successful, that teacher to be successful.

What would it look like if it was an amazing fit? What if this is the best fit for your child? We won’t know unless we give it 30 days to try it out. How are you feeling about that? So a conversation with a parent about a classroom placement change doesn’t have to be contentious. It doesn’t have to be anxiety-ridden. It doesn’t have to mean anything about you as a school leader, your capacity to lead, your ability to make decisions. It’s not about your expertise or professionalism. It’s about a parent who’s worried about having the best of the best for their kiddo.

When we can talk from human to human, especially if you’re a parent, you can relate as a parent advocating for your child, wanting the best for them. But what the parent wants in most cases is reassurance. I want to be reassured that this is the best place, the right place, and they want to know that they have some kind of an out if it truly is not a good environment for their student. And that’s where the win-win comes in. Let’s give it a try. Let’s assume and give positive intention and give this child an opportunity to thrive. Give the teacher the opportunity to be successful. And if we need to have a conversation with the teacher or with the student or all together, let’s do it as a team. Let’s make this decision as a team. How does that feel for you? Can you get on board with that?

So again, when you’re working with a parent, you want to look below the surface. You want to focus on how they’re feeling and how they want to feel. You want to give the teacher and the student an opportunity for success. We can’t know unless we try, but the parent needs to be reassured they’re going to be okay, they have a voice, they’re validated, it’s acknowledged, we’re hearing you, and let’s give this a go. Or you might just decide not to. You have to work with individuals, which is why it’s important to have parameters.

But in the end, you want to look for the win-win for them, for you, for the greater good of the student, the teacher, and your school at large. This is about a policy, this is about having a plan and a practice in place, but treating students and teachers and parents as individuals and having a conversation on an individual basis, it’s not a flat one-size-fits-all because there’s different reasons, there’s different emotions, there’s different fears, different outcomes and expectations. You want to get into that individual conversation to see what the next best move is.

So I wish you an amazing start to the new year. Happy New Year! Happy September! And if you’re brand new to the podcast, welcome to the podcast and congratulations! on your school leadership experience. I hope you find this podcast to be extremely helpful. If you do, give us five-star rating, give us a little comment. The more we get five-star ratings, the more we get comments, the more the algorithm allows more people to find us. I’m here to serve you in any way that I can. And as these topics come up, it is my honor, my pleasure to give you as much free coaching as you can.

And of course, you’re always invited into the Empowered Principal Collaborative. Have an amazing week. Happy New Year. I’ll talk to you soon. Take good care. Bye.

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.

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 347. 

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, my Empowered Leaders. Happy Tuesday and welcome to the podcast. Such an honor to be here with you guys today. I love this podcast so much and I’m so proud of it because it provides all of this amazing content free every single week right in your email box. So I’m so happy that you’re here. If you’re new to the program, welcome. And I love giving you all the best content on this podcast. It’s worth millions. And what I love about EPC is we go even deeper into these concepts.

So today I’m gonna dive right in, keep it short and sweet for you, and talk about valuable planning. You are in the thick of the beginning of the year and you are planning out your year. I work with school leaders on planning, and I think one of the things that happens is we greatly underestimate the value of taking time to plan. And I think that the way we define planning might look different, and some planning gets us results, and some planning isn’t giving us the results we want. So there’s productive planning and unproductive planning, but I wanna talk about valuable planning, what valuable planning looks like, the significance of planning and the outcomes of your planning.

So we are taught in education to set goals, very specific goals, and we put timestamps and dates on them, we write SMART goals, and we set all of these goals in education, but we don’t necessarily develop a plan for the goals. We write the goal, we put out some strategies, we hope they stick, we hope they work, and then we feel like they’re out of our control. I remember sitting in my office and filling in the blanks of the site improvement plan, but I had no idea if the plan was accurate, if it was strategic, if it was intentional, if it was going to work. I had no idea. I filled it out and I hoped it would work. I wanted it to work. I believed in the possibility of it working, but did I trust that we had a plan in place to execute the goal, to make the goal inevitable, to ensure that we could fulfill the strategies we listed out? No, in all transparency, I did not.

I filled out the site plan because, one, I had to. It was compliance. Two, I tried to make it meaningful, but you know how it goes. It’s a big document, it’s required, we have to present it to the school boards or whoever your governing board is. And then we go and we get into the weeds of the everydayness of being a school leader, and that plan sits there and we hope and pray that we’re doing right by the plan and doing right by kids and doing right by teachers, hoping that we make some gains for our goal, towards our goal, right? That’s typically how planning happens at a school.

So I’ve thought a lot about planning because it is the essential element of leadership. And when you’re writing a plan that you don’t really believe in, or you don’t feel connected to, or you’re not really sure if it’s gonna work, it makes you feel anxious or it feels like high pressure or high stakes and you’re afraid almost of this plan, no wonder we don’t like to plan. We don’t like to plan because setting goals and mapping them out, it feels constrictive. It feels scary. It feels like we’re going to be held accountable for all of those actions, like implementing all of those strategies, ensuring everybody is doing their job, basically controlling or forcing an outcome.

So goals, for me, it feels very constrictive, and it feels very high stakes, high pressure. It doesn’t feel good to write a goal that, one, I’m not super connected with or attached to, or even if I do have passion behind the goal and I believe in the goal, that I feel it’s attainable. If you have to write a goal that you don’t believe is attainable, then you’re not going to believe in that goal and the energy that you’re fueling to get to that goal, it’s never going to happen because you don’t believe that it’s possible in the first place.

So we feel like we’re on the hook. The minute we set a goal and we write out the strategies, we feel like now we’re on the hook and now we’re going to be held accountable to the goal. And if we don’t hit the goal, we fear some kind of negative consequence is going to happen, or we’re going to get our, you know, we’re going to get a talking to, or the board’s going to scold us, or we’re going to lose our job, like we worry about all these things. What I notice is that when we focus on goal creation, it creates a negative relationship with planning, with goal setting and planning. So, what we do is we set goals that are either not a stretch, we’re like, “I want to ensure we cross the goal. I want to make sure I get accolades for meeting the goal, so I’m going to make sure I set a goal that is 100% guaranteed attainable.” 

And we do that because it doesn’t require us to grow and stretch and evolve and transform ourselves or to get curious and try new ways and expand ourselves. So we set the bar low to ensure we hit the goal because hitting the goal is more important than the expansion, or we set a goal to please somebody else. The goal is really because the district wants it, or your superintendent wants it, or the school board wants it. So you set a goal, even though you don’t personally feel attached to the goal, there’s no connection, you don’t even believe the goal is possible to attain, you’re writing it for the sake of compliance and getting it done. 

But either way, whether it’s too little or too much, the goal becomes the enemy. And the reason I say that is because it’s the enemy in the sense of a too low bar stagnates us and the too high bar puts us, locks us into fear and pressure and forcing and trying to control external situations like other humans. Or we just are apathetic because we have no connection. We have no meaning. 

We don’t believe the goal is possible. So why would we put any effort into trying to hit the goal? And here’s what I want to identify. There’s a difference between a goal and a plan. So when you think about goal setting, people don’t like to goal set because it automatically makes them feel insufficient, insignificant, incapable.

It makes them feel insufficient in some way. Like here’s where you’re at and here’s the goal, but you’re not there. There’s a gap in your ability, so go figure it out. That doesn’t feel good. Or people don’t like planning and they resist the planning process because they don’t really see the value in it because we think like, well, the district’s always changing priorities or the plans are always changing or no one even follows the plan. I put so much work into the plan and nobody’s following it and the plan doesn’t even matter, so why put effort into it? Or if I plan, it’s gonna take time, it’s super tedious, all of those thoughts we have around planning.

And what I started to realize was, we don’t have a positive relationship with planning. So our planning isn’t valuable when we don’t see the value in the planning, when we don’t have a positive, healthy relationship with what planning is, what it actually is, and why we’re doing it. Now, there are people who say, I’ve worked with many clients who are like, “Ooh, I love to plan.” And what they mean by that is they love, like they put a two-hour block on their calendar and they get out their planners and their beautiful journals, or they get their computer out and they plan away. But what I see happening, the actual work that’s happening during the planning session, is that they love the idea of planning, like they like the big picture versus executing on the plan.

So they love the feeling of mapping it all out on the calendar, but they don’t necessarily love having to think through the details of all that’s required for that event or that goal or that task to be accomplished or to be completed. So it’s like, we like that 30,000 foot level where we’re planning out the big picture, but the devil’s in the details, right? And this is me, 100%. That’s how I know the leadership type or the planning type of person, because that was me. I love to get out the pretty journals and plan and map out my year from, you know, August through June. Let’s master calendar, map it all out.

But what I wasn’t doing was I wasn’t looking at those events. I was calendaring. I wasn’t planning. There’s a difference. One of the things we did was a Lemonade Social, so all the kinders would have a Lemonade Social to meet and greet their families for meeting, you know, our school for the first time. And so we did a little bit of extra TLC for our kinders, and then we had a big class posting party where we did pizzas and lemonade for the whole school. So everybody came and they found out who their teacher was and they got their class list and met their teacher and got the supply list and all of that. And then everybody got to pick a backpack because we were a school where we were gifted with backpacks.

So, but for those events to happen, you can put them on the calendar, but you’re no more closer to that event happening if you don’t plan it. What has to happen for the Lemonade Social to be executed with success? And how do we want this experience to feel for kinders and their families, for the grades one through five and their families? We’ve got to get work with Google and get those backpacks and get the pizza order and and we’ve got to get the lemonade order in, so I need to work with PTA. There are things that need to be planned out, okay?

So you can love the idea of this big picture planning and mapping out, but what I realized, mapping out is calendaring, it’s not planning. So whether you avoid the planning because you think it doesn’t matter, or you love the planning, but it’s 30,000 foot planning, the details of planning is where our brains will want to run out of the room. Have you ever had that experience where you put it on your calendar for like, Tuesday, nine o’clock, from nine to 11, I’m going to plan. And you’re so excited, and Monday night you’re like, “Ooh, I have two hours to plan, I’m so excited.” Then you get to Tuesday at nine o’clock, and the minute it comes time to plan, your brain starts to like, fidget, and all of a sudden you’re just checking your emails, or you’re going out of your office, you’re checking in with the office staff, or you’re like, “Ooh, I gotta talk to that teacher,” or you’re taking a moment to kinda check out the snack area, right? Your brain is like, “I don’t want to do this.”

And it finds sneaky little ways to distract yourself. I’ve watched my brain. I’m observing my own brain because it does this too. My brain does not want to sit down and plan because it’s like, “This is going to be tedious. This is going to be hard. It’s going to be uncomfortable. It’s going to take so much time. I’d rather be doing something else. This isn’t important,” blah, blah, blah, right? Your brain goes on and on with all the reasons. It’s like a little kid, it’s like, “I don’t want to do it.” So we listen to that, that immature part of our brain, and we tend to avoid that planning. And we’ll say, “Well, let me just put it on the calendar.”

And then I know there’s some big chunks, but what we’re doing is we’re putting the due dates and the vet dates, and then I’m planned. But calendaring isn’t a plan, it’s a calendar. So valuable planning is when you have a plan for your plans. So if your plan is to host the Lemonade Meet and Greet before the start of school, so that everybody has an opportunity to meet their new classroom teacher, you can put that event on the calendar, but I promise you it doesn’t happen if you don’t plan it. You’ve got to plan for that event and ensure that the details are in place for it to be a success.

Now, I realize that I’m preaching to the choir here, and it sounds like, of course we plan, but that’s what we do, we’re planners. And I know that you know you need to plan for the meet and greet or any event, I know that. You’re going to let teachers know, you’re going to let families know the date, the time, the location. You’re going to have to have someone buy the lemonade. You’re going to create the class rosters, campus maps. You know how to plan an event, okay? But then there’s planning, there’s the basics, the essentials, and then there’s valuable planning. This is one level deeper.

Valuable planning is planning based on the value you want to create and the experience that you want to provide. And what I mean by that is the emotional experience and the memory that it will create for those who are participating in the event. So valuable planning is like, “How am I planning to create value? What is the value that I am providing in this lemonade social meet and greet? What’s the value in it? What’s in it for teachers? What’s in it for kids? What’s in it for families? What’s in it for you?”

Now you’re looking at it and you’re actually planning based on how you want people to experience the event. You want parents to be satisfied. You want kids to be happy. You want teachers to feel connected. You want there to be a community experience. You want people to remember the Lemonade Social as the kickoff to school, as the first time they ever set foot on campus if they’re kindergartners, or the first time those parents that are brand new to your community ever set foot on your campus. You want them to have a positive first-time experience. You want the returning families to love coming back and be excited to meet you guys and talk about your summers and reconnect with their friends who they didn’t see because they’re, you know, PTA mom friends or whatever.

I want you to think about a wedding planner. Now, the entire goal of a wedding planner or an event planner of any kind is to help create an experience. It’s based on how the bride and the groom want to feel, how they want their guests and their families to feel about the wedding, to experience that wedding. They try to capture how they want to remember that wedding day.

An event planner does the same thing with any event. If it’s corporate planning, we don’t say wedding goal. They’re not setting goals. The goal is to walk down the aisle. The goal is to have flowers on the stage of the church. The goal is to have a musician. The goal is to throw rose petals. They say, “We’re planned for this. We’re mapping out a plan to execute exactly the experience that you want so that you can have the emotional memories that you desire.”

So there is a difference here. You can set goals. You can calendar those goals, but you also have to plan them with value. And in EPC, I’m going to teach you all how to plan and enjoy the process and the experience of planning, to get joy out of the actual planning itself, to create the experience and the memory. Remember when we planned this event, how fun it was to plan that event?

I want you to think about something that you love to plan, because what I want is for you to love the job of planning so you can enjoy your job. So think about things that you already love to plan. For some people, they love to plan vacation. Other people love to plan dinner parties. Some people love to plan celebrations, birthdays, weddings, baby showers, travel, your summer schedule. How much of you loved to plan your summer schedule? Way fun, right?

So I want you to think about what is the difference between planning those events that you love and then planning events and tasks at your school. My goal for you all, every single one of you who listen to this podcast, is to enjoy the process of planning. Planning and executing your plans is why you’re paid to be a school leader. Think about this. You do not get paid more money as a school leader because you work longer hours as a principal. Money is not an exchange of time. It’s an exchange of value. You get paid to create valuable plans and then execute on those plans.

If planning and executing your plan is how you as a school leader make that bread and butter, I want you to learn how to make the most of yourself as a valuable planner. I want to help you hone the skill and enhance your ability to create amazing plans that are highly valuable for you, your students, and your staff. Because you’re a leader. You get paid to be a leader. You are a thought leader, a visionary leader, a celebration leader, a momentum leader, a results leader. You create results as a leader.

First, you imagine them. Think about this. Anything you’ve ever done, it starts with an idea. You have a thought. “Whoa, maybe we should do a lemonade social. Let’s think about the value of that. Why would we want to put all this time, effort, energy, financial resources, blood, sweat, and tears into hosting a Lemonade Social for our students at the beginning of the year? What’s the value of it?” Then you start imagining, “Wow, that could be a really good thing. This is a value, this would be great, this would be easier, this would be better, this is good for kids, this is good.”

Then you’re like, “Wow, I’m starting to imagine how good it would feel to offer this. How teachers would feel knowing they’ve seen the faces of their kids. They’ve already met the parents. We’re going to calm the nerves before the first day of school.” Then you start feeling the outcome of that. Now you have a valuable plan because there’s value being generated. And then you decide we’re going to do this because of its value. And then the planning becomes fun. It becomes meaningful. There’s purpose behind it. You’re not just creating a meeting, an event, you’re creating an experience. You’re creating a memory.

So, valuable planning is about enjoying the creative planning process. It’s allowing the planning to be fun and delightful instead of ridden with stress and overwhelm and pressure and, you know, to be honest, sometimes it’s even apathy or resentment when you’re planning.

So, think about the things. Think about how you plan. How do you feel when you’re planning? What is your relationship with planning? And here’s what I’m going to leave you with. What if, instead of planning as though you were going to fail, meaning “I’m going to feel stress, doubt, fear, this isn’t going to work, we’re not going to hit the goal, why are we doing this?” Instead of planning from that energy, what if you planned as though you were guaranteed to succeed? If you were doing it for the fun of it, for the value of it, because you wanted to create an experience? How would planning feel differently if you knew that the time you’re investing in your planning is going to provide you a return on investment?

Not only that, the more you plan and pay attention to detail as a school leader in designing the experience that you want to have, that you want your students to have, your staff to have, your community to have, the more likely your plan would succeed. I want you to lead this year as though you can count on being successful and creating an enjoyable experience versus leading as though you can count on failing and missing the mark and dreading the process.

I don’t want you to lead as though planning is a chore because it’s your job to plan. I want you to take delight in planning and see it as one of the most valuable ways that you spend your time. We are going to be diving in to valuable planning in EPC. This is the time to sign up for EPC right now. The doors are closing in September. If you want to gain all of the bonus courses, I’m creating a course on this, How to Become a Valuable Planner. I’m gonna teach you this approach in a way that’s going to delight you, that’s going to feel better, that’s going to be fun, that’s going to create memories, valuable memories of highly positive experience for you, for them, for everyone.

That’s what EPC is about. We are up-leveling our game. Bonus courses are coming. They’re exclusive only to EPC members. If you want to be a part of EPC, if you want to be a part of this group where you’re going to learn and expand and grow your capacity to lead with passion, with love, with fun, with delight, with joy, with pleasure, and plan in a way that gets more done in less time, this is the day you make the decision. “I’m signing up for EPC, I’m joining, I’m getting all of this bonus material. I’m getting access to all of the Empowered Principle programming. This is my year. This is my time.”

I invite you in. The doors are open. Let’s go. I’ll see you inside of EPC. Take good care. Have a great week. Talk to you soon. Bye.

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.