The Empowered Principal® Podcast Angela Kelly | The Need to Know

Do you ever feel that pang of anxiety when you realize you’ve missed an important meeting or weren’t included in a crucial conversation? If you’re navigating this tension between wanting to know everything happening in your school and district versus recognizing what information you actually need to fulfill your leadership responsibilities, this episode is for you.

There’s a significant difference between wanting information from a place of insecurity versus seeking it from a place of mature leadership. So, how do you tell the difference? This awareness can transform how you approach information-sharing, meetings, and your overall leadership presence.

This week, I share insights from a recent coaching conversation with one of my long-term clients who had an epiphany after missing a few days of work due to illness. We explore the fascinating psychology behind our desire to “be in the know” and how this need often stems from deeper places than we realize. 

 

Essentials for New School Leaders is my brand-new three-month program for principals in their first year of leadership! If you want to make your first impression your BEST impression, click here to register and find out more.

The Empowered Principal® Collaborative is my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to create exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. Join us today to become a member of the only certified life and leadership coaching program for school leaders in the country by clicking here.

 

What You’ll Learn From this Episode:

  • How to identify when your “need to know” comes from insecurity versus mature leadership responsibility.
  • Why FOMO often connects to unhealed wounds from earlier life experiences.
  • How to use the STEAR cycle to examine your thoughts and emotions when feeling left out of important conversations.
  • Why scaling your leadership impact requires letting go of being in every conversation and knowing every detail.
  • How to determine what information is truly necessary for you to make effective decisions for your team.

 

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Check out my four-day Aspiring School Leaders series for first-year site and district leaders:

Full Episode Transcript:

Hello Empowered Principals. Welcome to episode 381. 

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. 

Well, hello, my empowered principals. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to the podcast. Good to see you. Good to be here. I wish I could see you in person. I would love to give you a big hug and say hello. Thank you for being a principal. I love you all and I’m just so proud of all that you do. I know you’re out there working your tails off for kids, for staff members, for yourself, and it’s such an honor to be here with you each and every week. So, thank you for listening. I really do appreciate it.

It’s like having a big family where I haven’t met all of the people yet, and I can’t wait to meet you. I really do hope that you will consider joining EPC. It’s really the room where we are making visions come to life. I am so inspired by the people in the room. And you know what’s fun? We talk about the real deal. We talk about how it really feels. We talk about lifting each other up. We walk shoulder to shoulder. I have a client in there who’s always asking, “Can anybody else relate to this experience?” and everyone’s like, “Yes!” It’s so much fun because we talk about more than just school leadership. We talk about how it feels to be a partner, a wife, a mother, a parent, a friend, you know, dealing with loss in our personal lives and how do we grieve loved ones while also leading a school?

How do we be a really good parent while also leading 500 other elementary students, right? We talk about those kinds of things in addition to how we lead our schools, how do we empower ourselves and others? It’s the most magical hour of my life. I love, love, love EPC so much, and I would love to meet you, and of course, you are invited in to EPC. This is now what? I’m recording here towards the middle of April. You’re welcome to join in now. You’re welcome to join in this summer. We’re going to be doing a lot of planning and preparing and getting you ready, getting your identity all worked up, ready to go to be in the seat of the empowered principal when you go back to school in the fall, which will be here before you know it.

As I mentioned on last week’s podcast, how quickly three months goes. So, here we are in the second quarter of the year. In a flash, you will be back to school, starting a new year. And I invite you to come in to EPC now so that we can get your plans underway. We can get the summer of fun for you all planned out, ready to go so you can have a wonderful summer, get the rest you need, get all that play in so you are planned, prepared, and you’re playing, having fun. That’s what I hope for you this coming summer.

All right. Today’s episode is really coming off of the conversation I just had with one of my one-on-one clients. This client has been working with me since the very beginning. We’ve coached together for the last four or five years. She’s very, very savvy. She’s very empowered. She’s very attuned to her mind, to her heart, to her feelings, and to her brain when her brain’s trying to sabotage her. And this conversation was so rich, I wanted just to share with you a piece of it so that you could take this episode and contemplate what this conversation might mean for you and your experience in school leadership.

So, this principal has been in around five years now, and she’s not brand new. I’ve been with her since she’s been new. We are what I would call a very seasoned school leader. She knows her stuff, and she’s getting very comfortable in her skin. She’s stepping into the identity and really is able to manage her mind and her emotions in the school leadership position.

So, this client had to take off a couple of days because she was sick. And I have a whole separate podcast coming up about being sick and what that looks like as a school leader, because we don’t give ourselves permission to be sick. But I’m going to speak with you otherwise and hopefully inspire you into giving yourself some permission to be out of the building, to rest when you are ill, to give yourself permission to go to conferences and be away, and give yourself the breaks that you need. But that is for another podcast.

In this case, the problem, and it doesn’t mean you have to be out sick or you were away, it simply might be the situation where you missed out on something. You missed out on a meeting, you missed out on a conversation, you weren’t invited to a conversation or a meeting, or you had to be in two places at once, so you missed out on one thing while the other thing was happening. Perhaps you were out sick, perhaps you were away from the building, but you can be literally in your building and not be accessible or accessing all things that are happening on your campus.

Now, we got into this conversation about the desire that we have, especially as school leaders. We have this desire to be in the know. We want to know what’s going on. We want to know the details. We want to know the what, where, when, why, how, all of that. And we were exploring this concept. And I asked my client, I said, “What’s happening within you when you feel you’ve missed out?” So, an event happens and you weren’t there. What’s the thought process? What are the feelings, the emotions that come up? What are the insecurities? What do you do in response to that? Basically asking her, what is the STEAR cycle, S T E A R, for those of you who are new to this podcast? I have a tool called the STEAR cycle. It helps you look at your thoughts, your emotions, and then your reaction or response to those thoughts and emotions, like the urge to act, the approach that you want to take when you’re feeling a certain way or thinking a certain way. You can look at that in advance and say, “Oh, here’s what I’m thinking. Here’s how I’m feeling. This is the urge I have. When I want to react and I want to go into fight or flight, this is the urge I have. I want to react this way.” 

But because I have the STEAR cycle, I can push pause. And I can look at it for a minute and say, “Ooh, when I react this way, is this the outcome I’m intending? Is this what I want? Is this who I want to be? Is this how I want to show up? Is this how I want to react?” And is it going to give me the desired outcome I’m really looking for? Is this how I want to feel? And you can use the STEAR cycle as a tool to really help you navigate when feelings do come up or thoughts come up. You can use it to push pause and to look, and then to re-decide what might be the approach you decide to take out of responding versus reacting so that you can generate a more desired outcome, okay?

So I was asking my client, let’s put this in a STEAR cycle. So, if you are a principal and let’s say there’s a meeting at the district office and some of the principals got invited, but you didn’t. Notice what your brain is thinking. What are you making it mean? They got invited and I didn’t. There’s FOMO, right? There’s this fear of not having been included, not being significant enough, not mattering enough, not feeling important, feeling like you were left out, you were rejected, a fear of like you’re not in control, you’re not in the in-group. 

Maybe I wasn’t competent enough or maybe they didn’t think I could handle it. The brain goes off when it goes into FOMO, fear of missing out. It’s thinking something’s gone terribly wrong with me. I somehow did not get invited to the “party”. I want to be included and I’m not. There’s a lot of heavy feelings, negative emotions that come up when we believe that we were left out intentionally or we don’t belong or we aren’t significant or that other people don’t see our significance and that they don’t think we matter.

I just want to bring this up as awareness. If something is going on, whether it’s on your campus or it’s at the district level, and you weren’t a part of it, notice if your brain goes into FOMO. And what the FOMO means. What are you actually fearing if you miss out? Is it just being in the gossip and drama? My friends and I call it “cheese, man”. This like, “what’s the cheese?” Just being in the details. And why we love that being in the know of that stuff? Because we’re connecting, it feels good. Like when my girlfriends and I get together and we’re “spilling the tea,” you know, “sharing the cheese,” whatever phrase you and your friends use, like getting into the gossip of it all. There is a feeling of, it’s almost an addictive feeling. It’s dopamine. It’s love, connection, belonging, significance, importance. 

You really crave those feelings. And when we have them, they feel so amazing that we chase them. We want more. Now we want to be involved in other things that make us feel that good. So notice if you’re chasing the dopamine hit and if you’re feeling an addiction to having to be in the know.

So there is the fear of being out because of what we make it mean, and then there is the addiction of what it feels like when we’re in. So, what I have noticed is that when we’re looking at the need to be in the know, there’s two ways that this can go. And the way that I break it down into my mind is there is the immaturity in us. 

As my client said, she goes, “I can see my teenager brain is showing up here.” I love that so much. So you’ve got your “teenager brain,” which is like, it has a level of immaturity still, and it’s very much valuing its peers, their opinions, their thoughts, inclusivity, being included, being a part of the crowd, being popular, being in the know for the sake of significance, for the sake of belonging, for the sake of importance.

And with that comes in my coaching mind, what I see that as, it’s a very all-or-none thinking. It’s positional authority. You’re, you have a superiority, right? You, you know something that other people don’t know. You’re in and they’re out. There’s pride, there’s like this exclusivity that feels good when you’re in it, but feels bad when you’re not. Do you see it? It’s an all-or-none, in or out, yes or no, knowing or not knowing. It’s very binary in its concept. So, and there is just, there’s a level of immaturity in that way of thinking because we tend to think it’s all good or all bad, right? 

When you look at little kids, they’re either happy or they’re upset, right? They don’t, they don’t live in a land of just contentment, right? They tend to be very, I’m loving my life right now as a toddler, or I’m having a tantrum as a toddler, and I’m feeling rested as a toddler, or I’m tired as a toddler, right? Their lives seem much more binary. Perhaps it’s the complexity of the brain development and such.

But what I see is when we’re in school leadership, if we haven’t addressed that teenager experience where that immaturity comes into play as an adult, and we’re still feeling the need to be in the group and be in the know so that we can feel important and significant and powerful and knowledgeable and have, you know, status with our peers, status with the administrative team, and status with the teacher team, like teachers aren’t invited but admin are. Just notice if that’s happening. 

If it’s happening, nothing’s gone wrong because most of us haven’t even thought about this at this depth, which is why I’m bringing it up today. And most of us didn’t even realize back when we were teenagers to reconcile and to heal some of those past pains when we got rejected, when we were left out, when we didn’t feel like we belonged, we didn’t make the team. 

We saw girls gossiping and we thought it was about us, or maybe it was about you, and there’s some wounds that haven’t healed. They come along with you. Like your mind, your body doesn’t stop forgetting those things until they’re acknowledged and they’re validated and they’re processed, and then they can heal. Which is why I spend so much time talking with people about acknowledging your feelings, validating your feelings, and processing them so that they have space to heal.

This applies here. So, FOMO can be coming from a past wound. Notice that. You could probably recall right now as you’re listening to this, a time in your childhood or teen years where, or maybe even college, where this happened, where FOMO was a thing and it happened and the level of maturity you had at the time was very hurt, like the maximum you could handle this, the best that you could do to handle it was to try and get into the group or to feel very heartbroken and be very in rejection, very in sadness, very in grief about not being included. Notice that.

Then, that’s what I would call like the “less than empowered version of you”. And it’s decisions that are being made from a place of control or a place of insecurity or a place of FOMO. But it’s a zero-sum game. Like, “I have to be in and that means somebody has to be out. And for me to feel good, someone has to feel bad. And for me to be in the know means somebody has to be not in the know. For me to be included means somebody has to be excluded.” Do you see that? Okay.

Moving on to the empowered version of this. So there’s the need to know from a place of maturity, from a place of empowerment. And the need to know isn’t coming from, let’s say a more ego based, a more positional based, a more power based. It’s coming from the actual need to know. So in this case, my client had been out for a few days, and when she came back, she said, “I had the biggest aha moment.” 

And this really is a moment of transformation for each and every one of you. There will be a moment when you realize that “I don’t need every detail of every meeting, of every conversation. I simply need to know the outcomes that impact me, the knowledge to make decisions for myself and my team that are the most empowered and informed decision I can make at the time.” You don’t need to know the nitty-gritty details of every little thing and how it came down and who was there and what they said and who said what and what arguments were had. You just need to know, give me the lowdown, what are the important things I need to know? What are the outcomes? What are the decisions? How does it impact me? Take in that information, and then that’s when you can move forward and do what you need to do with the information you need, right?

So, even when you miss out on meetings, it doesn’t mean you miss out on the message, that you miss out on the outcome, that you miss out on what you actually needed to know. You can get briefed on that. This is how you actually realize, oh, this is how people scale. Can you imagine being a superintendent and thinking you need to be in every conversation and every meeting, at every site, at every district meeting, at every site meeting, and you need to know all of the drama, all of the little bits that you want to be involved in every little thing? 

This is how people burn out. This is how they get overwhelmed. You cannot scale your impact as a leader if you’re trying to be in the “ocean of detail”. There is a maturity. There is a giving up of being in those little details and talking about the conversations and the details of those conversations and all the things that people said and did and the drama and the “cheese, man” and the “gossiping” and whatever, “spilling all the tea”, right?

The maturity of being in the know is actually knowing what you need to know so that you can get your job done to scale, so that you can create impact to scale and influence positive influence to scale. It’s not about, “I know because I’m the one and I’m superior and you don’t get to know.” It’s, “I need to know because I’m leading people and I need to make these decisions, and I want to know so that I don’t hurt anybody by not having the right information or all of the information.” I can use my need to know because I want to make a positive influence, a positive impact. There is a maturity and a responsibility and an obligation that comes with being in the know, really being in the know.

Think about CEOs who run companies. They definitely need to be in the know, but not with everything, and there is a letting go of that. And yes, that does mean, you know, when you’re a teacher and you are in the know with your grade level or your department, you have to let go of some of that being in the know when you step into, let’s say, being an instructional coach. And then being an instructional coach, you’re in the know with maybe the teachers and the other instructional coaches. And then when you step into maybe an assistant principal, you have to let a part of being in some of that know, you have to let that go. 

And then there’s a maturity that comes into being the site leader, and then again, the district leader. With each evolution of your career, there is a maturity that you step into because there is a responsibility with knowing information and being invited into certain meetings.

There’s a reason not everybody goes to the HR meetings or the behavior, the discipline meetings. When you have to have maybe, you know, what do they call them? You know, you actually have to have this like type of conference where, I can’t think of the name right now, I’m sorry. Like a manifestation determination meeting. When you’re going into a behavior conversation where, does this child qualify to be, you know, disciplined in a way that’s Gen Ed or Special Ed? What is the determination here going into those meetings? 

And there is a level of knowledge that needs to be known in those meetings. And with that comes great responsibility. So, those meetings get limited. Not everybody gets to show up. Not everybody gets to show up to your HR meeting if you’re having a conversation with your superintendent and there’s some HR stuff going on, not everybody’s privy to that. Why? Because with that information, there’s security and there’s safety and there’s sensitivity involved in the information. And it comes with maturity and it comes with responsibility and an obligation to honor what’s being said at that meeting. And being involved doesn’t become about you and whether you’re good enough or whether you fit in or whether people want you there or not. 

It comes with, “Do I belong there because I understand what it means to belong and it means to go to that meeting?” because of the information I need and I’m using that information to make informed decisions for those that I lead versus feeling mad or upset or hurt or jealous or envious or insignificant because you didn’t get invited to a district meeting where there were other people there. And having the maturity to see the perspective of, perhaps I wasn’t invited not because of I have a personality flaw, rather the information being discussed most likely pertained to those individuals. And I don’t need to know all of that if it doesn’t actually pertain to me or my site or the people that I lead. It’s okay that people go and have meetings.

And if I need to get briefed on what happened while I’m away, I will. People will give you information. If you need it, you’ll hear it. If your superintendent wants you to know, you will know. And if you miss something that was important, it’ll filter to you. Trust that. 

Intermingling your personal needs, your like friendship needs or your desire to belong because, you know, in the eighth grade you got kicked out of the clique or people were mean to you and not healing that and then bringing that into your work environment, one, because you’re not aware of it. Two, because you are seeking to feel good, to feel belonging again, notice that. Run a STEAR cycle. Why am I feeling this way? What are the thoughts? What is my urge to react to this? Why am I wanting to be in the know? Do I need to be in the know? And then what would the empowered version of being in the know, the mature version, the responsible version? What would that look like? 

Really in-depth awareness, in-depth alignment. But I wanted to share this because I do think it impacts people on the daily. They feel really hurt. They feel really bad if they didn’t get invited to something or they missed out on something.

So just notice when your brain is reacting to the need to know from a place of immaturity and maybe some past situations and healing that needs to be done, or from a place of maturity where you need to be in the know because you need to be in the know because it’s the thing you need to do in order to lead your people. And it’s coming from a place not of all or nothing, I’m in, I’m out. It’s for us, for them, for the greater good. That’s the mature, empowered version of being in the need to know. All right, my friends, I hope this has been helpful. Have a wonderful week and I’ll talk to you next week. Take good care. Bye.

Hey you guys, calling all first-year site and district leaders. As you know, I hosted a free master course for those aspiring to land a job in school leadership. This was a four-day course that covers what you need to prepare yourself before, during, and after the interview process. So for those of you who are interested, you can find the YouTube links below in the show notes. The Aspiring School Leader series is completely free. 

Now, for those of you who landed that job, I have a brand-new program. Let’s make your first impression in school leadership your best impression. Let’s lead your school with confidence in year one and nail your first year as a school leader. You’ve got what it takes to make an impressive first impression, so come on in. 

I’ve got a brand-new program called Essentials for New School Leaders. It is three months of professional and personal development to give you the strategies, the mindset, and the skill set to lead your school to the next level of success.

There is a gap between the time you get hired and the time you start your contract. Let’s get ahead of the curve, three months in advance, you’ll be ready to go on day one of your brand-new contract. Join Essentials for New School Leaders. For more information, click the link in the show notes.

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. 

Enjoy The Show?

The Empowered Principal® Podcast Angela Kelly | Balance School Leadership and Life: The Empowered Principal® Approach with Jeff Linden

Have you ever felt completely overwhelmed as a school leader, wondering if you’re cut out for the job while trying to balance your personal life? 

That’s exactly where I found myself during my early years as a principal. Opening a brand new school as a first-year administrator while being a single parent pushed me to my limits, making me question if I could continue in educational leadership. After 15 years in the classroom, I felt called to leadership but hesitated about “going to the dark side” of administration.

In this episode, you hear a conversation I had with Jeff Linden, host of the Education Leadership with Principal JL, to dive into my journey from kindergarten teacher to principal to district leadership and eventually coach. We discuss an important perspective shift in your identity as a leader, a coaching tool that will help you manage your thoughts and emotions, and how I help principals navigate the complexities of school leadership while maintaining their humanity, finding joy, and creating meaningful impact without sacrificing their wellbeing.

 

Essentials for New School Leaders is my brand-new three-month program for principals in their first year of leadership! If you want to make your first impression your BEST impression, click here to register and find out more.

The Empowered Principal® Collaborative is my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to create exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. Join us today to become a member of the only certified life and leadership coaching program for school leaders in the country by clicking here.

 

What You’ll Learn From this Episode:

  • How to transition from seeing yourself as “just a school leader” to a human in a leadership role.
  • The profound shifts I experienced when I discovered coaching.
  • Why the emotional experience we have serves as our compass in difficult leadership situations.
  • How to use the STEAR cycle to create space between your thoughts and your identity as a leader.
  • Why acknowledging your pain and leaning into it actually expands your capacity for joy.
  • The importance of creating connections with other leaders to combat the isolation of principalship.

 

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Check out my four-day Aspiring School Leaders series for first-year site and district leaders:

Full Episode Transcript:

Hello Empowered Principals. Welcome to episode 380. 

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. 

Jeff Linden: All right everybody, today we have a special guest. This special guest is somebody that is near and dear to my heart because they kind of helped me out as a principal throughout my journey. So I’d like to welcome to the show, Angela Kelly. Welcome Angela.

Angela Kelly: Hi there, Jeff.

Jeff Linden: Hey Angela, I wanted to kind of get things started here with just kind of talking about your journey in education. So, tell me about how you got into education. What is the reason that got you to become a teacher in the first place?

Angela Kelly: Wow, that goes back a few decades. So, you know, like any kid coming out of high school, the big question is, what are you going to do with your life? And for me, I actually need to start back into middle school. I was in middle school. I was attending a brand new middle school. My family had moved a lot. And there was this presentation in our theater, and it was called Upward Bound. 

And it was a program that was designed for students of families who had not – they’re the first generation of students to potentially go to college. So nobody in my family line prior to me had attended a four-year university. And you also had to meet certain requirements financially. So my family fit these financial goals. And by the end of eighth grade, I signed up for this program called Upward Bound. 

It was at Iowa State University. I was born and raised in Iowa. And it was the game changer for my life because I don’t know that I actually had sites on going to college. I didn’t really contemplate what my future would look like. It was that life was just happening and I was just going through the motions of being a kid and going to high school. And then this happened, and I started thinking about my future, actually thinking about what I wanted when I grew up, the kind of career I wanted to have. And I went through Upward Bound for five years. 

So from the summer of eighth grade clear through the summer of the year I graduated. So five summers, instead of being the kid who, you know, went to movies and hung out with her friends and went out on dates, I was going to college. I was going to school through this program. The first couple of years, they are prep courses to prepare you for the rigor of college. 

And then the last three years, you start taking actual classes with other college students while you’re in high school. And then you have an intense amount of preparation and support and tutoring to ensure because if you’re going to get anything lower than a C, they kind of pull you because they they realize you might not be ready. 

So, I was able by the time I graduated high school, I had a semester of college credit. And that was so invigorating and so motivating. I had this momentum going where like I started to identify as somebody who could actually go to college and get a degree. I have to highlight that because that program really did change my life and I credit the Upward Bound program too, creating a vision for my adult life and my future. So I have to give a shout out to Upward Bound.

And then when I got into college, I actually… my dad was like, well, you should go into finance. That just sounds very prestigious and you’re really good at math. And I took one semester. I hated it. I was falling asleep in the class. I remember in economy class, I slept through a quiz. It was just bad. It was bad news. 

And I was sitting down with some friends over the summer and they were asking how college went. And I said, well, it’s okay. But I wasn’t fired up. I was more fired up about the social scene and being, you know, away from family and being a little independent college student than I was actually my future and learning.

I had a very profound conversation about what did I want to do? What did I love to do? And in that conversation, it came up like, I love kids. I babysat from a very young age. I loved being around kids. They lit me up. And I loved school. So I think the combination of truly loving school as a student, I always played school, I played the teacher, and combined with my, you know, young adult love for children. And I would say too, I’m really wanted to improve the experience of school for students.

And not that I had a bad experience, but, you know, I grew up in the 70s and 80s, so there were things that we could do to improve the experience of students and the emotional experience that students had in addition to the style of learning that we did. So that really, those combinations of events in my life drew me into teaching. 

And the minute I shifted into from finance into education, it was like lock. I knew right then, I was locked, loaded, this was my life. I loved it, ready to go. And that was it. I never looked back. And I ended up getting my early childhood credential along with my elementary, you know, teaching credential.

Jeff Linden: All right, as a teacher, how long were you a teacher?

Angela Kelly: I taught two years in Minnesota. So I graduated from Iowa State, we moved up to Minnesota. I taught pre-K. It was a birth through grade age five, early childhood program. I was the teacher and the coordinator for two years there. My husband and I moved out to California in ’95. And I taught at the same school for about 15 years. 

So I taught primarily kindergarten, it’s my love language is kindergarten, and I also taught first grade. And then I became an instructional coach. I was a reading specialist. So I did, you know, different seats on the bus, but I was definitely elementary. Really profound love for early literacy and early childhood development and just the social emotional development of children.

And I really loved working with parents. That’s why I chose kindergarten because you can just, you get to bring them in and you get to cultivate them and their experience. And that was really important for me to set the stage for these families to have a positive experience with their school and to really love the school that they were sending their children to. 

So, I did that for 15 years. And in the meantime, I’m going to say like around 12, 13 years into teaching, I felt this desire for more, but let’s be honest on the podcast here. You know, when you’re a teacher and you’re like, it’s teachers, they have their mindset and perspective and then admin. 

And as a teacher, you’re looking at the admin like, I don’t know about that. I don’t know if I want to go to the dark side. I don’t know that I could handle it. You know, deep inside I was like, I don’t know if I can handle it, but on the surface it was like, I don’t want to be like one of them. I don’t want to have to work like that or, you know, I just you have thoughts and opinions about it because you’ve never experienced it. So you can only imagine, you know, what it would be like.

And we go both ways. We imagine that it’s going to be amazing or we’re going to have this big impact and what, you know, it’s going to be better than ever. It’s going to, oh, we’re going to get out of a classroom, we’re going to be able to walk the campus and we’re going to have all this freedom and power. 

And then you also think about, ooh, that looks really hard and they’re the ones who stay last and they’re the ones who eat last and they’re the ones who, you know, take the heat and I don’t know if I can handle that. Am I capable of leadership, actually leading a vision, a school, a community? And so that I was feeling it and it was just kind of, I was keeping it on the inside. Well, my superintendent at the time was offering this program.

So if any of you out there listening are teachers or site administrators or district administrators, which I’m sure there’s a bunch of you out there listening, this program was another, like I think about these little milestones in my story that at the time, I had no idea the impact they were really going to have, but I could feel like it was a calling to go into that. 

This second little milestone for me was this program, we called it ELA, like it was like basically it was a leadership development program and my superintendent had the brilliant idea of like cultivating leaders from within the district and not always trying to hire somebody outside who didn’t know our culture or understand, you know, our vision. And it was a two-year program. 

We’d go once or twice a week and it was pretty intense, actually. It was more than I thought it was going to be, but it was a profound group of people with of my own peers and we talked leadership and we talked straight leadership. We didn’t sugar coat it. We talked about how it actually felt to be a leader, the real challenges, the work-life balance issue, time management, how do you get planning in, just how do you keep it all together emotionally when teachers this and that? And it really gave me perspective and insight.

But the best thing it gave me was I went from thinking I’m not cut out, it’s not possible to like, I think I can actually do this. Did you have that moment, Jeff?

Jeff Linden: Yeah. So in my journey as becoming a principal, honestly, I was a teacher in the classroom for 11 years as a math teacher and coached football, wrestling, track, you know, did all those things. I love it. You know, I love the connections with the kids. It honestly wasn’t until I got into Omaha where I was actually, I moved went from Millard North High School as a teacher to Ralston. And the main reason I went to Ralston was because of Dr. Adler, who was the superintendent at Ralston.

My main question was, could I get into your leadership academy if I come over? Because at the current district I was in at Millard, I had to wait three years. And I did not want to wait three years. I kind of wanted the training because I felt like it would be good for me to be able to have some more background in becoming an educational leader. I had my credentials already. I had curriculum masters and I also have my educational administration masters. And so I was like, I need to have something more like leadership academy, maybe it’ll be make me more marketable.

And so I spent two years in the Ralston Leadership Academy with Dr. Adler, which was a great experience and that kind of propelled me into becoming a principal and having some experiences and some just insights on what that’s like. So kind of very similar pathways there. 

So tell me more about like, you know, you’re going from a teacher into becoming on the dark side now, right? Coming a principal, you kind of talked about that, you know, piece where you went into like a leadership academy and how did that propel you? What was the next step to making that transition from teacher to principalship?

Angela Kelly: I went through the program and it was two years. So, yeah, it was like an academy and we graduated out of that. And then shortly after that – so there’s this period of time and I was in California at the time. I lived out in California for 30 years. So my career really spans primarily in California. You know, you had to go through the motions of getting the credential. And because I already had a Master’s degree, I could go through kind of a, it was like a shorter term credentialing program offer because they were in need of administrators.

So they had this kind of like limited time bonus, if you act now, you can go through this program through the county or the state and add on your administrative credentials. So I did that. And then I, you know, you have to take the test and I remember driving down to Santa Cruz, California and taking this test and it was just old school like handwritten six hours straight of just writing and writing and I thought, oh gosh, I hope I passed this test.

And you’re just like a kid again, like waiting for your ACTs or your SAT scores to come back and it came back and I had a nearly perfect score and I was like, what? Oh my gosh. And I thought, you know, there was the celebration moment. I’m like, gosh, I’m ready for this. And then I thought, it’s one thing to write it down on a piece of paper. It’s another thing to live the experience and to be in it, right? And Jeff, you know that. That is definitely true. There is the theory of leadership and there’s the life of a leader and there’s the leadership, I think day-to-day, right?

Jeff Linden: Yep.

Angela Kelly: Yeah.

Jeff Linden: Yeah. And I know like for me, transitioning from teacher into becoming a principal, did I really know what I was getting myself into? Not really. I just knew that was my next step. And for me it was like, I was looking for that person to give me the opportunity. And I did a series of interviews because at my time, there was a lot more competitiveness becoming a principal in Nebraska at that time because, you know, everybody that was a teacher that wants to get into a principalship was trying to get into those or you’re competing against other candidates that might have some more experience.

So getting into it, you know, it was hard, but once I got that opportunity, that’s when I was trying to make the most of it. And so that’s part of like, for me, becoming a principal, I had the education, I had the academy, I had all this knowledge. Now I had to put it in practice. And that’s the part that gets tough because there’s not a lot of professional development out there for principals and for people that are just get stuck on an island because my first principal ship was out in Southern Valley.

It was, you know, out in the middle of South Central Nebraska. Our school was set in a cornfield basically. I mean, we had our conference principles, we had our – in Nebraska, we had educational service unit, which we go to to do some professional development, but there wasn’t a lot of ton of stuff out there. 

And then for me, about two years in, I started searching for professional development. And that’s kind of when I ran across your podcast, The Empowered Principal. So tell me something about, you know, going from that principal leadership, what was that like? But then transition into getting into becoming the empowered principal person you are. Like you basically help other principals manage not just the stresses of the job, but also their life.

And so kind of tell me about your principalship a little bit, but then kind of go into you becoming the empowered principal, which you actually wrote a book, The Empowered Principal by Angela Kelly. Yeah. Which kind of is the basis to what you do now. So kind of tell us about that journey.

Angela Kelly: Yes. So fast forward to my first principalship. I got tapped on the shoulder by the superintendent. And here’s what I want to say about this for the listeners out there. If you’re an aspiring leader or you’re even considering, you’re listening to this podcast with Jeff because you’re thinking about becoming a leader and he’s inspiring and you’re like, oh gosh, Jeff can do it. I want to do it. I want you to know this. 

Like it’s an identity conversation with yourself. Like feeling capable, being capable. So if you’re not in the position yet, I want you just to imagine what it would look like, what it would feel like, you know, what the experience would be and start to step into even in just your mind, just kind of role play what it might feel like to be a leader and get yourself into that identity of being a school leader. That’s going to help you transition. It’s going to feel easier to actually cross that threshold into being that. 

So in my situation, my experience was I got tapped on the shoulder. It’s your time. You’ve got to apply for this. I actually applied to be the AP of a middle school because I thought AP would be easier transition into leadership. Well, I didn’t get that position. I was, you know, really sad at the time, but my superintendent said, I have other plans for you. And so he hired me as a first-year principal to open a brand new school, a brand new campus. So…

Jeff Linden: Brand new principal and you got a brand new school? Let’s talk about adding on the stress. I had enough issues with just the construction and putting a new Hvac last summer and getting the building ready and I’m going in my seventh year and that was enough stress again to do that. I could not imagine being a first year principal opening a new building and tell me more about that.

Angela Kelly: Yes. Well, I’ll tell you those first two years. So I was opening a brand new site. So it was a brand new group of people, brand new community, brand new physical building. So I was dealing with construction and I love to tell the story. It was back to school night. It’s like a week into the brand new school year. It’s my first five days on the job with people on campus. 

Back to school night, parents are coming, children, campus is full of people. And the office calls and she said, Houston, we have a problem. She said the main water pipe broke and there is raw sewage running down the central campus. So I had to be like, okay, everybody to the side. But I mean, metaphorically, that’s how I felt. I was literally waiting through all of, you know, the newness and the craziness of school leadership. 

And these crazy moments were happening. And but, you know, all humor aside, it was the hardest two years of my life. I was a single mom at the time. My son had just transitioned into middle school. He was a sixth grader. And I was a single parent trying to operate a brand new school and, you know, I had to really set the foundations. I had to create the site council team and, you know, this all of this, all of the teams had to be developed, vision, all of that. And so that was not the empowered principal moment that I was having. That was like probably the most disempowered two years of my life.

And there were some moments I just felt like it was happening to me. Like the job is coming at me with a fire hose. I can’t keep up. I was staying so late at work, having other people pick up my son, other people take him to his events, going in super early, staying super late, working nights and weekends. And I really thought, how did I get myself into this? And I don’t know how to get myself out of it. And that’s what I really felt like, I had no power.

So, fortunately, the district assigned me a mentor. And by the way, I forgot to mention that not only was I a brand new principal at a brand new school, they only allowed me to work there three days a week and they had me working at the district two days a week to fill another position that was, yeah. So I was spread a little too thin. 

So all of that to say, if I’ve gone through that, I’m sure somebody else listening has been through that too. So we feel you, we hear you out there. And you can only do so much, right? Everything gets watered down. So you do the best you can. But I had a moment, the second year into my school leadership where I thought, I don’t know if I can do this. And that’s when I was searching online for help. 

And you’re right, Jeff. That was the first time I noticed there’s a huge gap in support at the admin level. It’s, hey, you got hired. We’re so happy you’re here. Here are the keys, go figure it out. But please don’t come back to the district asking for support because we’re too busy dealing with other things. 

And so you really are figuring it out on your own and it’s very isolating and it’s scary. There’s a lot on your plate, a lot of responsibility and you’re thinking about students, staff, community, you know, of course test scores come in and scare the, you know, the jeebies out of you. But at the end of the day, I was desperate to be successful. I wanted to want the job. I wanted to want it and I wanted to be good at it. And that’s when I literally Googled where to look for help. 

And, you know, you can go to a conference, you can read a book, you can talk to your peers. That was about what was available. And I love going to conferences. I love socializing, I love learning, but there is you go and you’re motivated and inspired and then you come back into the realities and it’s hard to integrate what you’ve learned for the long haul, like integrate it into your identity as a principal, your methods and your approach into leadership.

And so the next, how long was I a site leader? Two years at that school. Then they moved me back to my home school. Now, I am the boss of my peers of 15 years. So, I don’t know if you’ve experienced that. I think a lot of principals become the leader of their peers. There that is an interesting dynamic to have to navigate. 

And so again, there wasn’t internal support. I sought support outside, but what I found was life coaching. I didn’t know what life coaching was, but I knew I needed one because my life was a big mess. I was not feeling like I was doing anything well, being a parent, running my household, being a good principal, being an instructional leader.

So I found this person, Dr. Martha Beck, and I signed up for her program, not to become a life coach, but to learn what it meant to coach my own life. I wanted some empowerment back. I wanted some agency and I wanted a sense of control somewhere along the way. 

And from her, I learned just some techniques to just kind of regulate myself emotionally when I was overwhelmed or to stop and take time for myself to just literally make sure that I’m drinking water, make sure that I am, you know, eating lunch, making sure that I put time limits on the amount of work that I did.

So I started playing around with this idea of I’m a human in a school leadership role versus I’m a school leader and that’s my only identity because that job’s never done. We all know that. The same goes for students. If there are students listening to this, you might just think like the studying’s never done, the learning’s never done. And on one hand, you’re right, because we are lifelong learners, but on the other hand, there needs to be something more than studying, learning, test scores, achievement, and that there needs to be living. So there’s all the doing, but then there’s also the living.

And that’s where I got my first little breath of fresh air like, I’m going to be a human in this job, not just a robot trying to keep up with the demands and the wildness of school leadership. 

Jeff Linden: Yeah. So you’re talking about just, hey, yeah, I’m a school leader, but I’m also a person, right?

Angela Kelly: Yes.

Jeff Linden: So how does that mindset going into it? Yes, I’m a school leader, but yeah, I want you to see me as the person who I am. How did that help you build connections into your principalship and your leadership when you started discovering those things through your life coaching experience and your journey on that?

Angela Kelly: It was profound because what I did was I started paying attention to what I needed as a person. You have physical needs, right? You need sleep, you need food, you need movement and exercise, you need rest, you need to have pleasure and playtime in your life. You need this full experience. 

So the more I tuned into me, the more I started realizing that we are more connected than separate. That was the profound change where I started seeing teachers as just fellow humans, as fellow people on the planet. And I started thinking, we’re all here for the right reasons. We’re all here doing the best job we can, trying to figure this thing called education out, trying to figure out life. We’re all here.

And we all want to feel good. We all want to feel included, significant, important, valued, connected, appreciated, cherished. We all want to feel the same feelings. And so that, when I realized what we’re striving here, what we’re striving for in education is human development. We’re striving to, you know, support our young ones, our students with tools and skills to navigate the human experience, not just the learning, not just academics, but their body, physically changing and developing and growing and their, you know, their ability to interact with their peers and to build friendships that have meaning and fill their hearts with joy and fun and laughter and memories.

And same with teachers, like teachers go into this for the right reasons. And if you believe in that and you believe that your story is more similar to their story than separate, we aren’t admin and teachers, we’re humans, we’re educators. And that team, when I saw that we’re a team, we want the same things. We want kids to be happy and successful. We want them coming to school. 

We want to feel good about ourselves as teachers, whether we’re an admin, whether we’re the secretary or the nurse or the counselor or, you know, tech support or bus driving or maintenance, we all want to feel good about who we are and what we’re contributing. And that’s when I realized equal contribution but different, equal value. 

So our contributions, whether you’re a teacher, whether you’re maintenance crew, we all are contributing something valuable, it just looks different. So we’re more together than separate. And then I started teaching that with kids and they would come into the office and have their disagreements and have their conflicts. And I would be able to start talking with them about the similarities and how we want to feel the same way and what we really want is to feel good about ourselves and our connections with people.

And then from there it just it started rolling. I started getting how to be a leader, which was connection and similarity over separation and disconnect. That’s when in 2015, I was looking like, how do I get more of this? How do I become a stronger leader, a better leader? And you know, Jeff, again, there’s a little bit out there for school leaders. Like it was starting to percolate, like there’s organizations that provide incredible learning connections. I love it. 

And there was just this little piece for me personally that was missing. And that’s when I found The Life Coach School. I went and got certified in 2015. And I applied those concepts for two years as a principal. Then I got promoted to the district level. I was the RTI coordinator for the entire district. We were able to build a really robust academic RTI and behavioral RTI program at my site. And then I was supposed to go and help my fellow peers do the same at their schools. Well, one year at the district office is if you’ve ever moved from site to district leadership, ooh, that’s like a whole another level of perspective.

And I was like, okay, I can do this. But I did. I felt disconnected from kids. So I spent a lot of time at the sites. And what I learned is that principals were coming together in the district at the leadership team meetings. Everyone had a smile on their face. Everyone was saying everything was great and this is what they’re going to do and problem solvers. And then when I go back to their sites and we close the office door, the truth came out of how they really felt and the struggles they were facing and the pain they were in and the insufficiency that they felt.

And the disempowerment they felt, they felt a lack of ability to inspire and create influence and impact in their school as a leader. And it’s because that identity and leadership skills and all of that was missing from the conversation. It was be this task manager, like, and I’m sure you run a school because you went from a small school to a big school, right, Jeff?

Jeff Linden: Yeah, I went from a school with about 75 students to 1,000.

Angela Kelly: Yes.

Jeff Linden: So I made a pretty big jump. And kind of the great thing was is when I was getting ready to make that jump, that’s when I found your podcast, what you’re doing. I think we had like a free consult and we kind of worked through some things because I was getting frustrated because I was looking for at the time, how can I become a better leader, but also, I need help because something I’m doing is not working and what is it?

And I think that’s when we talked about, you know, a lot about your mindset. You took me through the STEAR cycle, we did some brain drains and we were really able to focus in on kind of what I needed to do to get into, you know, the right mindset for that, to show people my value, show people that, you know, envision myself into their school and how do I do that? And so we worked a lot on that. 

And of course, I was following you on Facebook and I listen to your podcast and so I was just kind of falling along because I needed something to kind of help me through the journey because you’re right, when you talk about, you know, go to these conferences, you network, you do these things. I even go to, you know, our regional state conferences, our regional meetings and things like that, but then you go back and then you’re on your own again.

So what can you get daily? And I think that’s kind of where you’re kind of fitting into that piece to where you can help principals on the daily with becoming a better leader, but also being the best version of themselves. So, honestly, this podcast was is a derivative from working with you because knowing that there was not a lot out there, my goal with this podcast is basically to connect people with other people, but also tell other people’s stories, but also try to help other principals in these situations or in these leadership roles to be the best they can be. 

And if I can help inspire and give them some nuggets of knowledge here and there, that would help them so they don’t have to go through some of the hard things you had to go through or other previous principals had to go through as well because I think you’re going to go through some dark times as an educational leader, but to have somebody kind of support you through that, it is an important piece.

And I find that’s kind of where what you’re doing now going from your district leader role. Now you’re the empowered principal guru, life coach, you kind of, you know, help people with that and you stay pretty busy doing that. So talk about that transition. You talked about, you know, I went to become a life coach. You were starting to implement practices. 

I think the one thing you really kind of talk about in your book is, you know, your mindset, your thoughtfulness or just how do you think, you know, your brain works and your STEAR cycle kind of… So kind of talk about the STEAR cycle. What is it? Why is it important to help you become an empowered principal?

Angela Kelly: Yes, of course. I first have to do a shout out for Jeff because Jeff and I worked together as one-on-one client and also he was a member of my group coaching program at The Empowered Principal Collaborative. But what I want to highlight about Jeff was how quickly our conversations went from just talking to him implementing.

And I don’t mean so much like he didn’t add more to his plate, he adjusted his approach. He didn’t add to his plate, he adjusted his approach by like broadening his perspective. And it’s funny to have some conversations recently and I listen to all that he’s done. I listen to the podcast. I follow him on social media, but your perspective and the way that you tell stories and the way you connect with people. 

And just the other day we were talking about, you know, how we support fellow adults to have conversations and conflict and to resolve those as adults. We have to be able to hold space for them. And I just think Jeff does an incredible job of implementing mindset plus skill set and that supportive approach and that really the belief that, hey, we’re all here to feel good, to do our best. We are on the same team. I see that in your work, Jeff. I see it in your posts, in your work, in the conversations that you and I have. And this podcast is really a manifestation of that work that you have done, right? I was there to initiate those conversations with you and to provide that awareness and get to get you feeling aligned to what you value and who you are.

But from there the momentum was all use. So Jeff is an incredible leader and I’m I couldn’t be happier that he started this podcast because he has so much wisdom to share with you guys. And what I love is this is just the beginning. So I have to say that because I respect him, I appreciate him and this work that he’s doing. He’s not just talking at you in this podcast. He’s living it and sharing his stories and experiences with you in real time. So I really honor and respect that. 

So back to the question was how I transitioned. So that one year at the district, I saw people suffering is really what happened. I saw my peers suffering and it pained me. It ate me and I thought, we really are the same. Like, I felt that way too. I thought I was alone and isolated. I thought it was just me. I thought I was the one who was insufficient or I didn’t have what it took or I wasn’t charismatic enough or smart enough or, you know, organized or disciplined enough. But I see that it’s the job. 

And so if it’s not the people that are the problem, and the job is the job, it’s just the reality. If we can’t go out and change what the job is, but it’s not us, then what? And that’s when I realized there needs to be a way for people to take their personal power back and to feel empowered in the job even on the hard days or even when the test scores don’t land where we’d like them to or even when we’re working with a kid who’s really struggling to regulate emotionally or working with an adult who is really struggling to regulate emotionally. 

And why don’t we just have a space where principals can talk about this? Talk about like, I’m barely emotionally regulated right now, let alone being able to help somebody else regulate emotionally. We expect kids to emotionally regulate, yet we sometimes don’t have the capacity to do that ourselves.

So just in my own observation of me and through The Life Coach School, I came up with my coach calls her work the Model. And I took that and ran with it and created the STEAR cycle. But it it’s just a tool, not just, it’s a powerful tool. It is a tool that helps you observe what’s your brain is offering you, your thoughts and just observe them kind of give a little distance between you and your thoughts to create that space so you can write them down onto paper or, you know, type them up. And you can – that’s what the brain drain is where you can just like, wow, like what is going on for myself right now?

And I’ve shifted a little bit like I wrote this book when I was a baby coach, a brand new coach. And, you know, it was like my pride and joy at the time. And I’m writing another book right now actually to…

Jeff Linden: Yeah?

Angela Kelly: Yes, breaking news. Okay, I will. But I’m just, you know, the combination of this work has really expanded my capacity to coach and to offer support for people. But in this book, I really focus on using the STEAR cycle as a tool where you look at your thoughts. But what I realized is that the emotional experience we’re having is truly the compass. 

So you still look at your thoughts, but what I would offer to you now is, what are you feeling? Being able to identify because sometimes you’re feeling all worked up and you don’t know really what’s going on inside. And you’re going to have a brain drain. Trust me, like if you’re upset or you’re frustrated or you’re overwhelmed, the brain is going to go, well, there’s this and let it drain all out. 

And eventually, you’re going to be like, okay, I got I said my peace and you’ll feel a little release of energy there. But that practice gives you some space in your mind to say, okay, I’ve acknowledged how I’m feeling. I’m overwhelmed or I’m upset. Here’s why. So what are you feeling number one? Why are you feeling it? That’s the brain drain. All the thoughts are going to pour out. And then you have some space there to be like, huh, okay, I’m acknowledging that I’m overwhelmed or I’m really upset right now. Valid, fair enough. Now what? And you can look at the thoughts.

You separate them from your mind because they kind of just one, they go on repeat, they loop over and over and it feels like there are 200 thoughts when actually there’s probably 20. They’re just on repeat and loop and then they get all jumbly and entangled in your mind and you kind of go down these rabbit holes, but putting it onto paper, it finite them. You start to see like there’s only so many. 

And then you can say, okay, here’s what I’m thinking. How is that feeling? Which one of these feel terrible? And which ones feel a little better? Let’s lean over there. And that’s what my next book is going to be about. It’s called Feel Good Goals. It’s about the goal here is to feel good. And we use this process to like lean back into what feels more aligned, what feels true, what feels good. 

What do we want to believe about ourselves, about others, about our school? So that’s the gist of The Empowered Principal is how can I take back, empower myself to feel better, to learn what’s working, what’s not, what do I want to shift and do differently? But also, this is another secret, is that if you’re having a thought that feels terrible, like, I’m not good enough or I really messed this up or, you know, I’m a failure, I’m insufficient in some way. We all have the not enough thoughts. When they feel terrible and you feel like you’re in so much pain, the little secret is that they’re not true.

That’s just your brain’s way of saying like, hey, you know what? I don’t want you to feel the pain of failing. So I’m going to just tell you in advance, don’t even try because I don’t want you to fall down and, you know, scrape your knee. I’m going to protect you and keep you safe. And the brain can’t differentiate between real pain and perceived pain. So it’s just it’s going to freeze you and say like, please don’t try this at home. This could result in pain, whether that’s physical pain, emotional pain, mental pain, psychological pain.

We’re so afraid of pain. But if we lean into it and we’re looking at the STEAR cycle and it’s like, ooh, I’m really feeling some pain here. Like, let’s say we failed. Let’s say we did. And we acknowledge it. It’s better to validate that, acknowledge it and lean into it and be like, you know what? And this is true. 

I think I taught you Jeff something called the land of and, where it’s like, this might be true, but also equally true is this other side where you can start to feel better. So even on those hard days, it’s like, yep, today was hard and… what’s equally true are these other things that are good. There’s the duality of our jobs. There’s really hard days. 

I just moved here to Nashville and in real time, I don’t know for those of you who know, there was a school shooting recently just this past week. And there is a principal out there and a family, multiple families who are in the biggest pain of their life. And to me, losing a student on my watch is one of the most unimaginable things. And that principal is in so much pain and we can feel compassion for that principal. And it is like probably our biggest nightmare and fear as a principal is losing a student on our watch when it’s our job to protect them and also knowing we do our best, but we aren’t in control of the world.

And so then it becomes, how do I navigate this heartbreak, this pain? And pain is pain, right? Whether you’ve lost a student or you’ve lost a staff member or whatever tragedy of any kind that’s happened at your school. And hey, if you haven’t had a tragedy, don’t feel bad that you haven’t had one. 

Whether it’s like an IP that didn’t go well or a parent that got upset and left your school or there’s different kinds of pain. We all experience it. So acknowledge your pain, lean into it and just know people like Jeff are out there. And Jeff spent through pain too. He’s been through really hard times and really hard conversations. He’s had to lead people. He’s had to coach people up. He’s had to coach people out. So you do both, but your willingness to expand your capacity to feel pain also lets you expand your capacity for joy. And that’s the duality of this job.

So that’s really what I do in a nutshell is I help people navigate this thing called educational leadership. I help you navigate the hard stuff emotionally, mentally, but I also help you visualize and learn and expand your potentiality and your possibility about what you can be, what you can experience. 

And hey guys, at the end of the day, we’re all here to support, to love, to have a good time and to create memories, to create success stories, to be proud of ourselves, our students and the work that our teachers and our team are doing. And that’s your legacy. That’s what you want to leave behind. 

But here we are today, Jeff, this will be a memory locked in time, an experience that you and I are creating. And then tomorrow this will just be a memory and it will be a beautiful memory. It’s one that we want to lock in and remember this forever. But all of us are doing this. We’re all out there at our schools.

You’re present in the day and that tomorrow, the next day, this day is a memory. So that brings me to just kind of, I know we’ve been talking so long here, but wrapping up this podcast episode, it’s really about intentionality, who we want to be, not perfection. We don’t even want perfection, that would be very robotic. We want to experience it all. We want to have the capacity to experience it all. And that’s something that I see Jeff modeling, not just as a school leader.

Jeff models it as a husband, as a friend, as a father. I see him on his Facebook, guys. So he can’t hide. I know. He’s doing the work here. But, you know, this is really my story is I’m just leaning into how can I help people experience this job in the most profound, empowered way so that you can enjoy your life. You can enjoy, you can have balance. You can work hard and go home and play hard. You can get the rest you need and put a lot of effort in. You can have both. And believing that it’s possible to have both is where we start.

Jeff Linden: Yes. And that’s really what I love about the work that you’re doing is how you’re helping principals not just manage the job, the task that at hand, but also how can they just be a someone that can enjoy just being, you know, a husband, a father, a good friend, you know, somebody that’s, you know, we are people outside of this job.

We’re not just, we just don’t go home and do nothing. We got interests, we got things we like to do. And so you being able to tap in, I think you’re the only person I know that has the experience being a teacher, a principal, a district admin, but then this life coaching adventure you’re on where now you’re helping people navigate that job, navigate how to find the joy out of it because like you said, it’s a tough job. 

There’s going to be, you know, great days and there’s going to be good days. I always say because I’m not I’m a non-traditional educator. I worked in a factory for three and a half years and I always tell people the worst day in education is better than the best day of my factory job. So I just enjoy what I do, but at the same time, I think it’s that mindset that we come in with, but also having someone like Angela Kelly here to help you navigate is something that, you know, I would encourage principals and educational leaders to tap into.

So Angela, tell us, you know, what you’re up to with The Empowered Principal? You know, how can people connect with you? You know, how can they reach out to you? I’ll probably, well, I’ll put some your email or some connections down in the show notes so people can easily find you in the podcast, but, you know, how can people connect and get in touch with you if they’re really thinking about, you know what? A lot of the things that I heard today resonates with me and I really want to learn how to have that work-life balance. How can they connect with you?

Angela Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. So I jumped into this job around, I think 2017. So I’ve been coaching for the last eight school years. And I started with one-on-one coaching. As Jeff knows, and then the demand expanded into, I do have some one-on-ones. I don’t coach, you know, a ton of one-on-ones anymore, but I do coach one-on-one with some principals.

But the majority of people are coming into The Empowered Principal Collaborative, which is a group coaching program. And what I love about that is the synergy. It’s the you don’t feel alone. Like one-on-one is where we have those confidential, private conversations. And I do offer one-on-one sessions to the members of EPC if there is something confidential in nature or sensitive in nature that we need to discuss offline. 

But what’s so great about the group is the collective wisdom, the collective desire to feel good, to improve, to expand their impact on their schools, to also to like not take it all on themselves, like to lighten that load, to not feel alone. I thought teaching was isolating because you’re in your classroom by yourself, but you have your colleagues, you have your grade level team or your department team.

And then you get into admin and for me, 550 students, you know, 27 teachers, you know, about 70 staff members at my site and one admin on campus. That felt isolating. And I was like, okay, there’s got to be a place to go mingle and have some conversations and have a little bit of fun and actually just lighten up about it, laugh about it. Like some of the stories, you cannot make these up and you’ve got to be able to have a place where people understand you and they can laugh and have a good time. So EPC, The Empowered Principal Collaborative is my group coaching program.

So if you are interested in learning more, number one, you can just listen to the podcast and kind of get to know me, The Empowered Principal® podcast. You can pick up the book, audio, it’s on Audible, it’s on, you know, you can buy the hard copy if you want. And then you can find me on my website, AngelaKellyCoaching.com. But The Empowered Principal is where I’m at. I hang out primarily on Facebook and Instagram, but you can also find me on LinkedIn.

Jeff Linden: All right, Angela, it was really great to have you on the show today. You know, it’s fun to listen to just your journey as an educational leader and how you became the empowered principal you are today. And I really appreciate the work you’re doing because it’s meaningful and it’s, you know, something that we as educational leaders need. You know, I hope today’s podcast helped someone out there today, get connected with you to help them become a better educational leader. So thank you for being on the show today.

Angela Kelly: It’s so wild to be a guest on a show. Like I have my own podcast and I spend my time being the interviewer. And so it was a blast to be here with you, Jeff. And I’m excited to actually share this interview with my audience as well for them to hear your story, but also, I don’t know that I’ve ever really shared my story to this depth. So it was really fun and just thank you for the privilege and the honor of being here today. I had a lot of fun. Take care.

Hey you guys, calling all first-year site and district leaders. As you know, I hosted a free master course for those aspiring to land a job in school leadership. This was a four-day course that covers what you need to prepare yourself before, during, and after the interview process. So for those of you who are interested, you can find the YouTube links below in the show notes. The Aspiring School Leader series is completely free. 

Now, for those of you who landed that job, I have a brand-new program. Let’s make your first impression in school leadership your best impression. Let’s lead your school with confidence in year one and nail your first year as a school leader. You’ve got what it takes to make an impressive first impression, so come on in. 

I’ve got a brand-new program called Essentials for New School Leaders. It is three months of professional and personal development to give you the strategies, the mindset, and the skill set to lead your school to the next level of success.

There is a gap between the time you get hired and the time you start your contract. Let’s get ahead of the curve, three months in advance, you’ll be ready to go on day one of your brand-new contract. Join Essentials for New School Leaders. For more information, click the link in the show notes.

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. 

Enjoy The Show?

The Empowered Principal® Podcast Angela Kelly | Raise the Bar

Can you believe we’re already a quarter of the way through 2025? Time flies by so quickly that it’s made me pause and reflect on how we’re spending our precious moments. As we enter April and the final season of this school year, it’s the perfect opportunity to examine our intentions and how we’re showing up in our lives.

Many of us feel stretched too thin—not feeling “good enough” in our various roles as educators, parents, partners, or friends. This overwhelming sensation often stems from trying to do too much without clear intention. When we operate on autopilot, moving robotically through our days, we miss the richness life has to offer.

This week, I invite you to raise the bar—not from a place of insufficiency, but from a desire for greater satisfaction and joy. This isn’t about demanding more productivity or discipline from yourself. It’s about elevating your expectations for fulfillment in your career, deepening your connections, and squeezing more pleasure out of everyday moments.

 

Essentials for New School Leaders is my brand-new three-month program for principals in their first year of leadership! If you want to make your first impression your BEST impression, click here to register and find out more.

The Empowered Principal® Collaborative is my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to create exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. Join us today to become a member of the only certified life and leadership coaching program for school leaders in the country by clicking here.

 

What You’ll Learn From this Episode:

  • The importance of creating intentional presence in your daily life.
  • Why raising your standards for joy and satisfaction transforms your leadership experience.
  • The powerful balance between rest, play, and work that maximizes your potential.
  • How to approach the final weeks of the school year with renewed energy and purpose.

 

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Check out my four-day Aspiring School Leaders series for first-year site and district leaders:

Full Episode Transcript:

Hello Empowered Principals. Welcome to episode 379. 

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. 

Well hello, my Empowered Principals. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to the Empowered Principal Podcast. Here we are. It’s the beginning of March. And did you realize we are 25% through 2025 already? Three months of the year has gone by. It’s amazing! One full season! 

It made me really stop and ponder how quickly time goes in a calendar year. Just a few months ago, we were celebrating the Mid-Year Reboot. We were celebrating New Year’s Eve. We were celebrating the beginning of 2025 and here we are now, April 1st, ready to go into the second season of the calendar year and the third season of the school year, which is spring. It’s the last season of this school year, and it really amazes me how quickly time passes and why it’s important to be intentional with who we are and how we spend our time and where our energy goes and planning. 

So for those of you who feel overwhelmed, if you feel that there’s too much to do and not enough time, if you’re rushing around and you’re feeling like you’re busy at home and you’re busy at work and you’re not being a good enough mom or a good enough dad or a good enough partner or a good enough friend or a good enough child to your parents or a good enough friend to your friends. If there’s something you’re doing that just feels like it’s not quite good enough? Probably because we are trying to spread ourselves too thin. 

And one of the ways that we can counter this is by slowing down just for a minute and getting very intentional with our lives. To see how quickly one, two, three months have gone in 2025, it made me personally want to deepen my presence in life. To live each day with much more intentionality and much more mindfulness. 

Not in a way that prevents me from getting things done. I don’t want to sit around and just meditate all day and be present like that, although that is a wonderful thing to do, but we want to be alive. We want to live. We want to be engaged, but we want to do so from intention, not out of automation or what I call like robotic living, where we are just living a life as a robot, getting up, doing the same thing over and over again, feeling okay, feeling like we did a good job, but also feeling this kind of flatline, unfulfilled, like automated response to life or reacting to life.

So I want to invite you in to this idea of raising the bar, raising the bar for our experience on the planet, raising the bar for our joy and our fulfillment and our satisfaction, our enjoyment of life, that being alive as a human on the planet, feeling all of the feels, going to the things, doing the fun things, taking time out to rest, taking time out for fun, really being present. What am I doing today and why? Waking up and deciding ahead of time, this is the experience that I want to have today.

I want to expand the experiences that I want. I want to appreciate the connections in my life and the relationships I have developed. I want to raise the bar for my experience as a school leader. We’re not raising the bar out of insufficiency. We’re not telling ourselves, we’re not meeting standards, we’re not good enough, we’re not doing enough, we’re not being enough, therefore I’m raising the bar so that I get disciplined and I get more, you know, on top of my game. It’s not about raising that bar.

It’s about raising the level of expectation and standard for the satisfaction we want out of our careers, for the connections we want to build, for the interactions we want to have. For the joy that we want to experience. For just the pure pleasure of being alive on the planet as a human. Really squeezing out all that life has to offer. Squeezing out the joy and the love and the pleasure and the laughter and the fun and all of the things.

I want to raise the bar for myself. I would love to raise the bar for education in terms of raising the bar for the experience that students have, raising the bar for the experience that teachers have, actually engaging people in a way that feels good, coming to school because it feels good, showing up as a teacher because it feels good.

Leading schools, leading education, pioneering the way for an experience of learning and developing humans in a way that can feel good. We can feel alive. It doesn’t mean we’re going to be happy all the time. Feeling good is about being in alignment with the truth of who we are. When we’re in grief, we’re in grief, when we are in pain, we are in pain. And when we are in joy and delight, we are experiencing joy and delight. It’s being in alignment with the experience that feels most true for us.

So as we’re going into this second season of 2025, so that would be April, May, June. I had to think about that for a second. April, May, and June. We’re going into spring, skidding into summer here, right? I want to invite you to have more fun. Insist it upon yourself. 

If you had to have more fun, if it was your assignment for the day, what would you do? If you had to make life more fun, if you had to squeeze out more pleasure in your day, if you had to rest more, if you had to laugh more, if you had to connect more, if that was your assignment, which, by the way, it is, it’s your life assignment, to enjoy your life, to experience as much as possible.

And I’m not saying you’re running around to the point of running yourself ragged, that’s not the experience we’re looking for. Exhaustion, overwhelm, burnout, that does not equal to an invigorating human experience. I’m talking about raising the bar on the balance of life, getting the rest we need, getting the play that we crave, and contributing to work in a way that feels good.

Think about this as you go into your spring season and into the last season of school. Insist upon yourself to look for ways to have more fun, to laugh more, to rest more, to play more, to infuse pleasure into your workday, to see the collaboration between rest and play and work, and to see how in collaboration when you’re balancing rest with play with work you get this beautiful combination we call life. And you contribute in a way that maximizes your potential. 

When you’re exhausted all the time, your contributing goes down. If you’re only playing, your contributing goes down. If you’re only working, your balance goes up and the experience you have becomes automatic and robotic and you’re not actually living. You’re just automated through the day, robotically moving about. 

So raise the bar for yourself. If there were no limits, if you could purely just design your life the way you wanted to, with no strings attached, what would you be capable of experiencing? What would the bar be? How much fun is possible? How much laughter is possible? How much delight is possible? How much contribution is possible? How much connection and collaboration is possible? How many solutions could we create in this lifetime? How much rest can we embrace to give ourselves the energy required for play and for work?

Using play, rest, and work in collaboration with one another is how you raise the bar. So going into spring season, it’s April. Many of you are just getting hired on as brand new principals. Be looking out for my new school leadership series coming out in April.

Number two, if you are a seasoned principal and you’re heading into testing season, the end of the year, all of the chaos and you’re exhausted and tired, I invite you to join EPC now. EPC for brand new leaders, it’s going to get you on track because you’re going to be thinking about tying up the old job and getting excited and wanting to jump into the new one. And for my seasoned empowered principals who might not be feeling super empowered this time of year, this is a time to reinvigorate.

Come on into EPC now, get your spring season planned. I’ll run you through the three month plan. We’ll get you up and running there. And you can actually enjoy the last eight weeks, 12 weeks of the year. It’s going to be amazing should you decide to raise the bar. Come on in, EPC, now’s the time. Happy Spring everybody! Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. We’ll talk to you next week. Take good care. Bye.

Hey you guys, calling all first-year site and district leaders. As you know, I hosted a free master course for those aspiring to land a job in school leadership. This was a four-day course that covers what you need to prepare yourself before, during, and after the interview process. So for those of you who are interested, you can find the YouTube links below in the show notes. The Aspiring School Leader series is completely free. 

Now, for those of you who landed that job, I have a brand-new program. Let’s make your first impression in school leadership your best impression. Let’s lead your school with confidence in year one and nail your first year as a school leader. You’ve got what it takes to make an impressive first impression, so come on in. 

I’ve got a brand-new program called Essentials for New School Leaders. It is three months of professional and personal development to give you the strategies, the mindset, and the skill set to lead your school to the next level of success.

There is a gap between the time you get hired and the time you start your contract. Let’s get ahead of the curve, three months in advance, you’ll be ready to go on day one of your brand-new contract. Join Essentials for New School Leaders. For more information, click the link in the show notes.

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. 

Enjoy The Show?

The Empowered Principal® Podcast Angela Kelly | Creating Problems vs. Solving Them: A Fresh Approach to Staff Collaboration

Do your teachers ever come to you with perceived problems they want your help solving? It’s easy to get caught up in trying to solve every issue that comes your way, but what if some of those “problems” aren’t really problems at all?

In this episode, I share a powerful coaching conversation I had with a principal who was struggling with a teacher collaboration issue. We uncovered some key insights about how we can sometimes create our own problems by making assumptions and trying to force everyone to fit into the same box.

I invite you to tune in and consider a different approach to teacher collaboration – one that allows for flexibility, diversity, and acceptance among our staff members. By embracing individual differences and empowering teachers to find creative solutions, we can create a more harmonious and effective school culture.

 

The Empowered Principal® Collaborative is my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to create exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. Join us today to become a member of the only certified life and leadership coaching program for school leaders in the country by clicking here.

 

What You’ll Learn From this Episode:

  • Why it’s important to have deeper conversations with staff members who come to you with concerns.
  • The value of allowing for flexibility and diversity in teacher collaboration styles.
  • How to empower teachers to find creative solutions that meet their individual needs.
  • Why forcing everyone to fit into the same box can actually hinder success.
  • The importance of modeling differentiation and accommodation for our staff, not just our students.
  • How to create a school culture that embraces individual differences and promotes harmony.

 

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Full Episode Transcript:

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 378.

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.

Well, good morning, my Empowered Principles! How are you feeling today? Here we are, end of March. You’ve made it through the longest month of the spring. So congratulations. I know that March can feel like a very long month. There’s a lot of days in March. There’s a lot of pressure in March.

There are a lot of decisions to be made in March, and you, my friend, are handling them. And I want to celebrate you. You only have two to three months to go, depending on what part of the country you live in, what your school district’s timelines are. But some of you are done at the end of May, and some of you are done at the end of June. So I am rooting for you.

So for those of you who have two to three months to go, make sure you’re planning out the last eight weeks of the school year. And be sure, please be sure to be planning out your Summer of Fun Challenge. And for those of you who are on Facebook and you like to have fun, if you are both of those things, come on in to the Empowered Principal Facebook group where we do our Summer of Fun Challenge. I do lots of fun prizes and encourage people to get out, have fun, and to be inspiring to other people. And really what we’re doing is we’re raising the bar to see how much fun we can have as school leaders during the summer and during the entire school year, I would venture to add.

So congratulations on making it through March Madness. I know that it can be a challenge. So as we close out March of 2025, I just want you to notice, we’ve already been through January, February, and March. We are a quarter of the way through the calendar year. And I say that to bring up awareness and to help you realign with who you are and who you want to be and how you want to feel and what you want to experience. It’s been a wild ride in 2025 and I want to create that awareness.

And every week you listen to this podcast, I want you to be thinking about, with intention, the experience you want to have in your school leadership experience, in your career, with your children, your relationships, your relationship with time, your relationship with your money, your relationship with everything around you. But ultimately, the life you want to live, the life you want to lead, the legacy you want to leave behind.

And I don’t mean being some famous person when I say legacy. I just mean your personal legacy, what you value, what you cherish, how you’re going to be remembered, creating those memories with your loved ones while you’re here on the planet, while they are here on the planet. We’re not ever guaranteed another day, another year. So why not make the best of this day and cherish this day and appreciate this day?

So as we’re wrapping up the first quarter of 2025, look back at the last 90 days. Look at your last plan. What did you celebrate? What did you learn? Where did you grow? What accomplishments did you create? What experiences did you have? Who did you connect with? Celebrate your life, acknowledge it and enjoy it.

Okay. Now this podcast is going to be pretty quick because what I want to do is show you how we can create problems for ourselves. So I was coaching one of my EPC clients. Once a month, you have access to a free 30 minute one-on-one session with me as a part of being in the Empowered Principal Collaborative. So you get the best of both worlds. You get weekly coaching, you get all the collaboration, you get the connection and insight from like-minded people.

But then you also, if you have something that’s churning at you or something that’s private or confidential, once a month, every EPC member has access to a 30-minute one-on-one private session with me as a part of the membership. Now, this client has been working with me for several years as a one-on-one client. And when I opened EPC, she did both for one year and now she’s an EPC exclusively. And she scheduled a one-on-one session with me and it caught my attention because this client is pretty savvy at coaching herself. And I know that when she does schedule a one-on-one session, there’s something going on for her.

So we connected. I asked her what was going on. What did she want to coach on? And she felt very distraught. The way that she introduced her problem was that she was going to have to have a hard conversation with a teacher who was very set in her ways and is a very good teacher. So the principal was feeling conflicted because she felt she had to have a difficult conversation, a very uncomfortable conversation with a teacher who she saw as being very set in her ways, but also being a brilliant teacher.

And I asked her, if this teacher is brilliant, what’s the hard conversation you’re having with her? And she said, it’s about collaboration. This teacher has extremely good interactions with children. She gets results. Her classroom’s on point, like teaching wise, we have no problem. But in the principal’s mind, the way that the teacher collaborated was a problem.

And so she felt like she had to address this problem. So stay with me here, because if you have a person like this on your campus and you’re like, they’re such good teachers, but dot dot dot, they’re not good at relationships with adults or they, whatever they do. If you’re in this boat, which trust me, I’m assuming, and I know it’s an assumption, but I’m presuming that there are many of you in this boat because you have people who are really good and this thing or really good, but this thing. Okay. Stick with me here.

So I listened to the story. I allowed my client to brain drain all of her story about what was going on and what was wrong and why it was a problem. And I can’t share the details, obviously, with you, but the gist of it was the colleague, this teacher, had been in a gen ed classroom and now she’s an intervention teacher and there was multiple intervention teachers, and the colleague of the teacher wanted to collaborate differently than she currently was with her colleague and she felt that she was being met with resistance.

So hear me out. The person that the principal had planned to have a difficult conversation with was a person who’s an excellent teacher, but whose identity, based on other people’s opinions, was a difficult person to get along with. Now, it could be true. I don’t know the person, which is great because I can stay super neutral.

So this person perhaps does not collaborate in the way that people would expect, or maybe she does engage with adults differently than children. We oftentimes do. So when we got down to the core of what was going on, I said, what’s the real problem here? Is the real problem that teacher needs to collaborate in the way that the colleague wants her to? Is that the problem? Is the problem that the colleague doesn’t feel connected or supported to her peer? Is that the problem? Is the problem that because somebody came and said something to you, now it’s a problem that you have to solve and you feel an obligation or a duty to solve it for them? What is the actual problem here?

And I want you to hear this out because there are so many things that come our way. And adults will come up to you and say things.

For example, I was coaching another person yesterday and she said, “Well, I had a teacher come and tell me that another teacher came in late.” And again, my question is, okay, the person came and told you something, which that’s fine. They have the right to tell you that. You can say thank you. But do you have a problem as the principal with the person who came in late? Maybe you do, and maybe you address that. But isn’t it interesting that somebody came to you and told you that because that person also has a problem.

And so when they come to you to tell you this person came in late, that person clearly has a problem with the person coming in late. It’s not just the person who came in late, it’s the person who tattled or told on the other person. So what I coached and mentored this newer principal on was, “Isn’t it interesting that this person would come and tell you that somebody’s coming in late.”

So my response to that person, if I were principal, I would say, thank you so much for sharing that. I really appreciate you being honest with me. And how does it make you feel that this person’s coming in late? Is this person’s tardiness impacting you directly in any way? And the reason I wanted to know that is because I want to ensure that if I address this, that I understand the impact of the other teacher’s tardiness.

Is there something about the tardiness that is directly impacting you? And that creates awareness for the teacher who’s coming to tell you, why did I come and say this? Was I coming to tell? Was I coming to get attention? Was I looking for connection with my principal? Was I just tattling? Was I concerned for the person, but I don’t have a relationship with them? And I’m wondering, maybe something happened? Are they okay? But I don’t feel comfortable going to them.

It creates awareness around the behavior of the person who’s telling. So there are times when people come to us and tell us, this is what’s going on. This is how I feel. I saw this, I overheard this. They’re sharing it with you. And you can be grateful that they’re sharing it with you. But it’s interesting to consider, is it really a problem? Is it this person’s problem? Like, where does the problem lie?

Oftentimes what happens without awareness is somebody comes and says, my colleague is not collaborating with me in the way that I want. She’s not sitting down with me during PLC time and she is not collaborating. And you need to know that. And then you’re like, okay, thanks for sharing with me. How are you feeling about it? Well I’m frustrated, I want to collaborate with her. I’m used to collaborating with the other team I used to be on collaborated and this team doesn’t.

Okay. That’s good to know, but notice how the person coming to you is the person you want to engage in conversation with. What exactly is the problem? Why does it bother you? How is it impacting you? What is it that you see? What do you think this obstacle is in the way of collaboration. What do you think the solution is?

The conversation isn’t, oh, thanks for letting me know and you go now and talk to the other person who has no idea what’s going on perhaps, or maybe they do. But do you see how there is an opportunity for conversation to get to understand the person who came to you about their thoughts and their feelings and what it is they’re looking for and their perception and what they think the problem is and what they think the obstacle is and what they think the solution will be that is an opportunity for connection and conversation with that person before you ever go off running to solve it.

Because here’s what’s happening. Somebody tells you something, you take it for truth, you take it at that face value, and then you go and you try to fix it. You try to change somebody else so that the person who came to you can feel better. Right? It’s the same thing. If a student were to come up to you and say, you know, Sally hurt my feelings. Okay. Tell me more. What did Sally do? What did Sally say? How did it impact you?

You would talk to the child who’s distressed about the circumstance that occurred before you would go and just say, okay, go get Sally and let’s have this conversation. Now, some people might do that, but I’m inviting you into the idea that there may not even be a problem.

So back to the story of my client, when we dug down and I asked her, okay, the teacher that you were considering this difficult conversation with, she gets great results, right? She kind of keeps to herself. So maybe she does find adult relationships a little more taxing for her, a little more challenging for her. That could be true. She said, yeah, I’ve had multiple experiences myself and I’ve heard other people say that she can be a challenge to work with.

I said, but she kind of sticks to herself. She gets her job done. She’s prepared, she’s planned. But ultimately, she has an excellent relationship with kids and she gets the job done. So where is the problem, the actual problem? And we spent about 30 minutes dialing down and it became apparent to the principal, oh, I actually don’t have a problem with her. She’s not, to my knowledge, not harming anybody. She’s not harming children. She’s not negatively impacting anybody. She’s just a teacher who tends to keep to herself. She tends to prep by herself.

And it’s the colleague who is feeling the dissonance, like the discord between the two of them. So let’s talk with that teacher because for her, that’s the problem. The teacher who’s out doing her thing and maybe isn’t collaborating in the way that it should look like we all have, you know, in PLCs, this is how it should look and this is how people should talk and this is how people should collaborate.

But if we are truly in the business of human development, in the business of people, and we’re expecting teachers to embrace, allow, and account for differences, diversity, equity, accommodations. Why would we not model that in our staff? Does every single student need to fit the square? Does everybody need to fit in the box? Or do we differentiate for students? For kids who really struggle with social-emotional skills or really struggle to connect and to relate in the exact way, they might not be able to think pair share or to partner up or to work in a group. Not everybody is designed exactly the same.

And so what we do is we understand children, we get to know them, we get to understand them, we get to understand their triggers, and then we create a space that allows them to still feel safe in their own skin, even if they have neurological differences, biological differences, physical differences, mental differences, emotional, social differences. We create a space that accommodates and allows for flexibility. Can we do this on our staff as well? Can we allow our staff members to be different?

Maybe third grade collaborates differently than fifth grade or first grade. But if it’s working for them, we’re good. Now in this case, you have somebody who’s completely happy doing minimal collaboration and somebody who has a desire for more. So for the person, if they’re not causing harm and they’re not doing anything wrong, you can discuss with them, like, how do they feel about collaboration and what’s working for them and what’s not. But also with the person who doesn’t feel like fulfilled or satisfied, is there another way that that fulfillment can be nourished?

And in this case, we’re talking about intervention. So intervention, it might not look the same as gen ed collaboration or PLC time, might look a little different. And if this person in the intervention position isn’t getting the full collaborative experience she wants with this one colleague, might she be able to fulfill that with someone else, with another colleague? Maybe she can push into grade levels. Maybe she can work with the special ed team. Maybe she can work with anybody on the campus. Collaboration doesn’t exactly have to look like one thing.

Now, I know some of you are going to say, well, she needs to be held to the same exact set of standards as everybody else. And that is an option. You can certainly say, this is the standard, this is the expectation, you must sit down and collaborate. But in the conversation I had with my client, what she discovered is that forcing PLC time, collaboration time to look exactly the same in every single grade level and every single department on her campus might actually be a hindrance to their success.

And so she wanted to take into account is forcing people to look just one way and do it just one way is making people sit down for a certain amount of time and talking in a certain way and taking notes in the exact way. Is that level of management, is that really creating the best results?

So this principal decided I’m going to let the results speak for themselves and I can work with this team to see if we can create more connection in a way that’s authentic for everybody involved, not forcing one person to do it the other person’s way, or one person to have to give up what they want, but living in the land of and helping them collaborate and noticing that one, is this actually a problem?

And two, if somebody’s feeling there’s a problem, who are we actually addressing, being mindful of that, and working with that person to come up with multiple solutions. Because when somebody’s in discord, disharmony, they feel that there’s a problem and they come to you, what’s happening is they don’t feel the way they want to feel about something, whether it’s collaboration or a colleague or whatever. The goal for you as they come to you is, how do they want to feel? And then what multiple options might create and generate that feeling?

So in this case, if that person feels disconnected from her colleagues, might she be able to connect with other colleagues to get the sense of fulfillment and collaboration that she craves? How can she fulfill that need for herself and not need this one person to fulfill that need for her? Especially if the other person isn’t intending to cause harm or discord, they’re just uncomfortable or they maybe have, you know, some neurological or some biological, who knows? There are reasons that people avoid different kinds of collaboration, different kinds of contact.

We want to be respectful and mindful of that. So it could be an opportunity to collaborate with this team and also empower your teachers to find other ways to fulfill their needs so that it’s a win-win. We don’t need to force somebody, particularly an adult who may be a little more adverse to adult connection or a ton of adult stimuli, this communication and connection. If that is overwhelming to some of your adult staff members, let’s be open to allowing for flexibility, diversity, allowance, embracing acceptance, embracing flexibility in how we approach teaching, learning, planning, collaboration, conversation. Something to think about.

Have a beautiful week. Happy March. I hope you enjoyed it. We’re bringing up April. Come on in to EPC. If you are a brand new leader, oh my goodness, get in EPC right now so we can get you started. We can get you planning. We can get you transitioning. EPC is the bomb you guys. I could not love it more. The only thing that would make me happier is all of you coming to join us. It is so, so fun and so worth it. I love you guys. Have an amazing 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.

Enjoy The Show?

The Empowered Principal® Podcast Angela Kelly | Times of Uncertainty

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the rapid changes and uncertainty in the world of education? Do you find yourself struggling to navigate the impact of decisions and actions that are outside of your control? In this episode, I share my insights on how to lead with certainty during uncertain times.

As a leadership coach, I’ve observed various leadership styles and approaches, and I’ve noticed that many school leaders are feeling distressed, concerned, and angry about the current state of education. The impact of leadership changes on schools, districts, communities, families, and students can be significant, and it’s natural to feel a sense of uncertainty and fear.

I explore the reasons why we fear change and offer practical strategies for navigating the challenges of leadership during times of uncertainty. You’ll learn how to slow down your mind, quiet your worries, and lead with clarity and confidence, even in the face of chaos and unpredictability.

 

The Empowered Principal® Collaborative is my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to create exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. Join us today to become a member of the only certified life and leadership coaching program for school leaders in the country by clicking here.

 

What You’ll Learn From this Episode:

  • Why humans fear change and how to navigate the discomfort of uncertainty.
  • How to slow down your body, mind, and nervous system to gain clarity and perspective.
  • The importance of focusing on what you can control, rather than what’s outside of your control.
  • How to generate thoughts that create feelings of safety, certainty, and calm during uncertain times.
  • The power of leading from a place of integrity, alignment, and truth, even in the face of chaos.
  • Why change in education can be both challenging and necessary for growth and progress.

 

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Full Episode Transcript:

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 377. 

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. 

Well, hello, my empowered principals. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to the podcast.

It’s good to be here with you today. So I’m recording this podcast in February, and so the energy and the message of this podcast may be a month old for your ears, but it is just as relevant in this present moment. You can take the content of this podcast episode and apply it any time you feel like you are in a time of uncertainty. Because here’s the deal guys, we are living in times of great uncertainty and with new leadership of any kind comes change.

Now some leaders ease into their new positions. So some leaders will approach a new leadership position by meeting people, initiating, building relationships, spending time, connecting through seeking to understand people, getting to know them, to listen to their stories and their experiences and their perspectives. That’s one approach to leadership. And other leaders will come in with their ideas and their plans and their agendas, and they will begin implementing those ideas and plans and agendas pretty immediately. And we’ve seen this happen publicly.

And that style, that approach to leadership focuses more on accomplishing the goal and making that vision a reality as quickly as possible, more than the experience of the leadership position and the experience of those you are leading, and the change and impact on people around you. And while of course, I have my own personal opinions and belief systems. I’m not here to discuss politics, but I am here to discuss how empowered principals can navigate the impact of decisions and actions that are outside of our positional authority. Basically what I’m saying is we’re not here to talk about politics. It doesn’t matter politics. I’m observing leadership. I am a leadership coach and as I observe leadership styles, I’m studying and watching and observing the approaches that people take, the outcomes that they create, the impact it has on themselves, on others, short-term impacts, long-term impacts.

And as a leadership coach, I look at and read about and study and learn and try on many examples of leadership because it’s my goal to not be a one-size-fits-all, to genuinely coach the human that’s in front of me. That’s why EPC is very detailed and personalized to the individuals who are in the group. So I have content, and then we coach on how to make that content customized to your approach, to your belief systems, to your values, to what you want to do, to what you don’t want to do. We tweak it. That I learn other approaches, other perspectives from observing leaders in our communities, leaders in the public eye.

And while any person’s values and opinions and approaches can work, you have to discern for yourself the approach that works best for you. And at the core of what I’m observing, I will share with you my personal truths, what I believe to be true, what I believe to be impactful, insightful, and hopefully for you helpful. Because I am coaching person after person after person, school leader after school leader after school leader, who are very distressed, very concerned, very worried, very angry, very upset. Lots of intense emotions around leadership and its impact on your school, your district, your community, your families, your students, your budgets, your staff, the supplies that you might have available to you, the resources available to you.

Because of leadership outside of our control, it impacts the leadership that is within our control. So here’s what I know to be true. The world is always going to be, always has, always will be in a state of change. Humans are always in a state of change.

Every single day, every single hour we are growing older, our bodies are changing, our bodies are developing, children are developing, adults are developing. We’re still developing. We’re still in the trajectory of human development between birth and death. That never stops. We are always in a state of change.

The universe is in a state of change. The world is in a state of change. Everything, plants, nature, all of it is change. And yet humans will say to other humans, we don’t like change. Change is scary. Change is hard. Change is difficult.

I don’t want change. I want to go back to what I know, back to what felt good, back to what was comfortable. And I started thinking about change and what it means and why we are very uncomfortable with change, why we are uncomfortable with uncertainty, and during times of high levels of uncertainty, what’s going on. And what I’ve noticed is that even though we intellectually understand that everything is changing and that everything has a beginning, middle, and end, we understand that at an intellectual level. The reason that we feel fear with change from what I’m observing is that we fear change when it comes quickly. When it is unexpected, when it’s a spike.

So in our lives, when we’re little, we don’t fear old age. We don’t think about wrinkly skin or, you know, like our muscles maybe not being as strong or not being as fast or agile. We’re not worried about that when we’re 10 because that change happens so slow over decades of time. So when change is happening and it’s happening very slowly, incrementally, very teeny tiny changes over the course of a lifetime, we acclimate to the change.

So when we know a change is coming, and we have some time to step into it, to think about it, to figure out how we’re going to address it and solve for it or adapt with it and, and flow with it. We feel less afraid of it, but when major change spikes of change and a lot of change in a lot of different areas of our lives, or a lot of different changes happening at once.

Like I think about superintendents who might come in right off the wagon and they come into the district and they’re, they’re making all kinds of staffing changes, curriculum changes, programming changes, department changes, or shifting this around, shifting that around, getting rid of this, getting rid of that. That kind of change that happens rapidly, unexpectedly, it spikes, it’s all over the place, it’s unpredictable, it feels a little chaotic.

There’s many changes happening at once and people aren’t able to keep up and track kind of what’s happening, why it’s happening, what’s expected of them, how they can adapt when all of that feels like it’s happening at once, that is when we freak out. So it’s the spikes of change when a lot of change happens at once, or it’s unclear, it’s not really articulated.

There’s like speculation of change, or there’s little dribs and drabs of information where you’re getting a piece here and a piece there, but the dots don’t connect. So your brain, out of trying to create a sense of certainty, it will fill in the gaps. It will fill in the missing blanks. So it’s like a mad lib. You get a little bit here and a little bit there, and you’re like, wait, what does that even mean?

And then your brain fills in the adjective, and it fills in the noun, and it fills in the time, and it fills in the when, and it fills in the who, and all of a sudden the story is like, oh my goodness, education is being canceled. The Department of Education is being canceled. We’re being canceled. I’m gonna lose out a job. What is gonna happen to kids? What about these families? It feels very scary. It’s very uncertain. And hey, I am not going to diminish or dismiss how painful it has been to coach principals who are losing children, who are losing families to immigration changes, to the culture changes in our nation’s administration, and the pain that school leaders, site and district leaders, I coached several district leaders, and the pain, they don’t even feel in control.

So site leaders just know district leaders feel a sense of uncertainty too. And this isn’t a political conversation, you guys, this is a, how do we navigate change when it’s uncertain, when it’s unpredictable, when it’s spiked, when it feels a lot, when it feels like we can’t keep up, when fear has taken over and when the voice of fear slips into the driver’s seat. When they scoot you out, they scoot out the voice of truth and they scoot in the voice of fear and that’s in the driver’s seat. Fear will go pedal to the metal. We try to keep up with the change. This is our reaction.

We try to keep up. We try to understand it. We try to make sense of the confusion, but we try to manipulate the unpredictability. We try to force predictability. We try to understand something we can’t understand.

We try to manage the chaos that we didn’t create. And we focus on all of the things outside of our control. We start reading the news or talking to people and what’s going down and where our brain is trying to collect information to create a sense of safety and security. Or it’s trying to create a plan to protect and defend your existence, your career, your school, your staff members, your students. We’re in fight or flight right now.

We have intense amounts of unpredictability and uncertainty. So what do we do in these times? Focusing on the fear. Consuming fear. Consuming what worries you.

Dwelling on it. Thinking about it. Perseverating on it. It’s only expanding the fear and what it does it expands your fear, which expands your doubt, which expands your disempowerment. You feel helpless, out of control, no sense of understanding, a lack of purpose, a lack of vision, mission.

It feels like when fear is in the driver’s seat, it drives you right into a bank of fog. And you have no control because you’re not in the driver’s seat. You can’t slow down. You can’t pull over. You can’t redirect the car.

You’re just driving through the fog, not knowing if there’s an obstacle in the way, if the road’s going to turn, other traffic is coming.

It feels so helpless. And people are desperate for certainty in their lives. So if you are out there feeling an extreme sense of uncertainty, first I want you to know you’re not alone. There are hundreds, if not thousands, if not tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of educators, if not millions, who feel similarly.

So on days when it doesn’t feel like you can make sense of the world or understand your place in it or know what to do about it, or feel like you’re not doing enough, slowing your body down will slow down your nervous system, your breathing. The urge when you are in fear is to go hyper speed, to do more, to be more, to figure out more, to learn more, to hear more, to understand more, to talk more, to clean up more, more, more, more. We want to outrun the uncertainty.

It feels like we’re trying to outpace it so we can get back to certainty. But that begets more uncertainty, more fear. And now we’re fueling our lives, our careers, our experience, our days with fear. And I want you to think about that. Do you choose to be a school leader, a district leader, who comes in every day to the office and makes decisions and takes actions out of fear, out of hopelessness, out of uncertainty? Do you lead people that way? Is that your preferred method? Does it feel good to you to be in that zone of leadership? Or would it feel better to believe that you have the ability to create certainty during uncertain times?

We know the world is uncertain, but right now there has been a spike in uncertainty. And when there’s a spike, we go into fight or flight. And so we’re in the amygdala brain, trying to figure out and trying to rationalize, but that’s not where rationalization happens. The response to uncertainty is to slow down.

Slow down your physical body. Stop moving. Stop trying so hard. Slow down your body. Slow down your breath. Slow down your nervous system. Slowing down your body and your breathing will slow down your mind. Slowing it out of fight or flight and moving it back up into your prefrontal cortex. And then slowing down your mind will start to slow down your worries. And I look at my worries and I say, what am I actually worried about in this moment? And you’ll find that in that moment, you’re worried about a future fear, an anticipated fear. But what about this? But what if that? But what if this?

And that’s where doubt will start to calm because you’ll say, wait a minute, if this happens, then what? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. But if you slow down the doubt, wait a minute, but if I did know, slowing down the doubt slows the confusion, and slowing down your confusion will speed up your clarity.

It feels very counterintuitive when you need to go a million miles an hour, so your brain tells you, to say stop, take 5 minute time out, and sit, and literally slow down your physical body, your breathing, let your nervous system catch up, and let your mind slow down, and let your worries come to the surface, but see them as separate. You’ll see the worries and you’ll feel the doubt of how you’re going to handle it. And then the doubt will be quieted when you say, wait a minute, I’m not confused.

And when you allow yourself to not be confused, What will I actually do? Let me answer the question. I don’t want to stay in confusion. I don’t want to stay in doubt.

The quickest way to cut through confusion and doubt is to say, but if I did know, what would I actually do? Not spin out like, I don’t know what I would do. Chicken with your head cut off running around. The sky is falling. What would I actually do?

And just like that, you will snap back into alignment, back into awareness, back into alignment because you’re able to go back into thinking rationally, like, okay, now that I’m slow, now that I’m back in my mind, I’ve slowed my mind from chasing away and racing away, my worries, they’re still there, but they’re not pushing the pedal down to the floor. They’re just sitting there. With the truth of who you are, with the faith in what you value, with the trust of where you are headed no matter what, with the certainty of how you want to show up for you, and with the confidence that you are capable and that you can do this, even in the chaos of uncertainty. Because what’s true at the bottom line, your truth, your ultimate truth, is that you will do what you need to do.

And it will feel like the right thing to do. You will have clarity. You will drop confusion. You will drop doubt. You will drop worry.

When you know for certain that at the end of the day, you’re going to have your own back, you’re going to take care of the people you love, you’re going to lead the school with the best of your intentions and with the most integrity you can, and you’re going to lead during uncertain times no matter what.

I get it. It’s very easy to get caught up in the overwhelm. The world is full of overwhelm and it can snatch our attention with all of its unpredictability and chaos. And there’s a little part of our brains that like that because it’s exciting and it’s curious and it’s adventurous and it gives us this big rush of adrenaline and all this, whoa, dopamine being in the loop.

Be mindful of that. It’s an addiction. And if it serves you well to be informed, that’s different than getting caught up in having to know and being in a loop of being addicted to the adrenaline, the dopamine, all of the drama.

So what’s happening outside of you is out of your control. And we try so hard to control it. There’s so much out of our control. Actually it’s astounding how much is out of our control. Everything but one. And the thing that will always be within our power, from birth through death, is how we choose to lead ourselves.

We will always have a power within us in how we lead ourselves, how we determine who we are and how we show up in the world, how we choose to experience our lives both personally and professionally, how we decide to respond to circumstances that are not of our own doing, and how we respond to circumstances that are because of our own doing, taking ownership and taking ownership of how we respond to things that are outside of our ownership. Not by jumping over into the other lane and trying to control, but by staying in our lane and doing our part with what feels aligned to who we are, to your identity, to your values, to what you believe in.

Trust, safety, calm, peace, certainty. All of the things you want to feel are within your reach. So what do you have control over? You. Your thoughts, your beliefs, what you value, how you feel about things, what you do in reaction to those things, the level of emotional regulation you have, the level of mental regulation that you have, where you prioritize your time, your attention, where you put your love into the world, where you put your light into the world, and you also have control over what brings you peace, calm, certainty, safety.

Because the things that you want in a time of uncertainty is to feel safe, is to feel certain, is to feel some calm, feel some peace, feel some balance. These are emotions that you want during times of uncertainty. We want to feel this way. No matter what’s going on around us, we can still feel that way.

So when you want to feel grounded, aligned, safe, certain, redirect your attention back to thoughts that generate these emotions. Thoughts you actually believe. What you do know to be true, where you can say a thought out loud and say, yeah, I see the truth in that. I see where that’s true. Thoughts that you probably aren’t thinking on a regular basis, but when you say them or you write them down or you read them, you’re like, oh yeah, that brings two for me. I do know what I would do in an emergency.

I do know what I’m going to do if X happens or if Y happens. And I know at the end of the day, what I value most are my relationships with my loved ones, my staff, students, and community. I’ll take the action. I’ll do what I can. But half of my work, half of my work is not in the doing of school leadership.

It’s in the being. It’s in the identity of it. It’s in the identity of I’m a calm, aligned leader who gets up and works from a place of integrity, a place of alignment, a place of truth, and a place of certainty.

Even when the world is uncertain, there’s some chaos out there, don’t dismiss how you feel, acknowledge it. If you’re angry, be angry. If you’re sad, be sad. If you’re frustrated, be frustrated.

But if you’re overwhelmed, be curious. You know, I’m not really sure how to end this podcast because I sense that the uncertainty of education will continue. I don’t know that it’s the worst thing that could happen. I think the institution of education has been riding on a very consistent train, maybe a little too consistent for a very, very long time. And it has been wonderful to have such predictability as an educator. And we’re equally frustrated by the consistency. The consistency of inequalities. The consistency is equally infuriating.

The consistency in our test scores, the consistency in who’s in intervention and who’s not, the consistency of behavior struggles, the consistency of teacher burnout, the consistency of turnover.

There’s a lot of consistency in education that we don’t want. And so I invite you to do this work because we are in an era of inconsistency. And that change is going to bring about a wild ride. Some of it good, some of it difficult, but we’re here for it. We’ve got you in EPC. Come on in. Join the movement. Change is inevitable, but we are riding the wave. Have a good week and take care of yourself. Talk soon.

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.

Enjoy The Show?

The Empowered Principal® Podcast Angela Kelly | People Who Want Conflict

Have you ever found yourself in a conversation with someone that seems to go nowhere? No matter how hard you try to resolve the issue, the other person almost seems to thrive on the conflict. As a school leader, I’ve encountered this scenario more times than I’d like to admit.

In this episode, I share an excerpt from my Relationship Mastery program that dives into how to identify and approach people who engage in conflict for their own personal gain. Through my own journey with professional and personal relationships, I’ve gained valuable insights on how to navigate these tricky situations.

Join me as we explore ways to create awareness around this behavior and tools to help shut it down. While we can’t control how long someone chooses to stay mad, we can control how we approach the situation and maintain our own sense of peace and alignment.

 

The Empowered Principal® Collaborative is my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to create exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. Join us today to become a member of the only certified life and leadership coaching program for school leaders in the country by clicking here.

Ready to dive deeper into leading with confidence this spring? Join me for the Spring Training Series for School Leaders—an 8-session live program starting in March, designed to empower you through HR, testing, leadership, and more. If you’re not quite ready for the full Empowered Principal Program, this standalone series is perfect for you! Click here to register!

 

What You’ll Learn From this Episode:

  • How to identify people who thrive on conflict and engage in it for their own benefit.
  • Why some people seek out conflict as a sense of power, control, or attention.
  • The difference between reacting and responding to conflict.
  • How to approach people who want conflict in a way that doesn’t fuel the fire.
  • The A-A-B-C-D method for crafting a centered response to conflict.

 

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Full Episode Transcript:

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 376. 

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. 

Well, hello, my empowered principles. Happy Tuesday and welcome to the podcast. It’s such an honor to be here with you today. I have another excerpt to share with you from Relationship Mastery. I mean, I really love this Relationship Mastery program. I created it a couple of years ago, but this year I completely rewrote it, the entire thing. I added some of the concepts that I had prior, but I really have gone through my own journey with relationships, professionally and personally. And I’ve gained so much more knowledge and wisdom and understanding. And I’ve done a deep dive in reflecting on how I want to approach relationships and who I want to be in them and how I want to speak and how I want to treat people and how I want to feel about relationships and be in relationships and connection and how I want to feel about myself moving forward.

So this portion of the module is so good because at some point you will most likely run into this scenario as a school leader. I can promise. And it can be tricky because when you’re in it, it’s very hard to see it. You might not be able to catch it when you’re in it. So I hope that this excerpt creates some awareness so that when you’re conversing with somebody and you don’t seem to be getting anywhere, this episode will pop into your head and you’re like, wait, I wonder if this is what’s happening.

So there are people who are going to get upset, right? People who will disagree with you, people who have misunderstandings or people who will be downright mad and they’ll want to discuss their concerns with you. They will come to you and they’re going to express themselves and express some emotion, but at the end of the day, they are people who want to resolve the issue. They want to feel good. They want this resolved. They’re looking for a solution. And they’re coming to you to work in collaboration even though they’re expressing emotions, negative energy. Okay?

Then there are folks who thrive off of conflict. They kind of seem to be energized by it. They get a lot of traction with it. They enjoy making your life a little miserable. And I want you to take note of this type of behavior. It may be coming from someone who has no intention of resolving the conflict.

And this clip will talk about how to look out for people who want to engage in conflict for their own personal benefit, for their own gains, and ways that you can identify this and then approach them in a way that can maybe shut this down for you. They can stay mad for as long as they want. We can’t control that, but I want you to have some tools to be able to identify and then approach people that might be interested in conflict for the sake of conflict. So enjoy this show and again if you’re interested in purchasing relationship mastering the link will be in the show notes. Have a great week everybody. I’ll talk to you next week. Take good care. Bye.

One of the questions I always like to ask is, is there anything else you’d like to share? Is there anything else coming up for you? Let them get it all out. Because a lot of times they’ll be like, oh yeah and then this other thing. Okay. Let it all out. Let them share. And then when they’re done sharing, is anything else coming up for you? Like, okay, they kind of express themselves.

I take say to them, I want to be in partnership with you. I’m very direct about my intention. I want to be in partnership with you. I want to focus on how you’re feeling and how you want to feel. How do you want to feel about this right now? What’s missing? What’s the resolution you’re seeking? What do you think it is that you need? Because I want to understand where you’re coming from.

Now, let me address very quickly, because I know we’re almost at time here. Some people want conflict. Have you noticed? There are people out on the internet, out on the streets, out in the cars, in public. There are people in our schools who actually seek out conflict. They like it. They like the feeling that comes with conflict. They like the adrenaline rush. They like the cortisol. They like the dopamine hits. They crave it. It’s almost like an addiction.

And I’ve thought about why would people want conflict? They’d love to engage in conflict. Well, one, it feels very powerful when you’re coming in all hot and bothered and stomping around and screaming. And it feels like you have power. Actually, you’re completely out of control.

But for the person doing it, it feels like a sense of control. I’m going to be the boss around here and I’m going to stomp around, probably because that’s how they grew up. They probably had parents who stomped around and screamed and yelled, and that was their positional power. They had authority as parents, and that is how they exhibited their power and their authority.

So people grow up and like, well, it’s my turn. Now I get to be like this. It’s a sense of power and control for them. It might also be a need for attention. You can see that on the internet. You can see it in public, like people just creating a scene, undo attention seeking, and they’re trying to get whatever kind of attention they can.

You probably even have kids like this who are like, they like to get in fights because it makes them look cool, makes them look really tough and strong, and people don’t mess with me. It’s an identity. It’s a need for attention. It’s a sense of power and control when they lack it in other ways.

So oftentimes, it’s coming from past experiences. It’s their zone of comfort. It actually feels better to be in conflict because if there’s no conflict, no drama happening, how boring is life, right? It’s the only approach they’ve probably witnessed. But ultimately, it comes back to people who want to have conflict. It’s about how it feels for them. Powerful, empowered, righteous, justified, important, significant, all of those things.

So how do you approach people who want conflict? I’ve had this, I’ve had parents, I’ve had teachers who have actively engaged in conflict because they liked it, because they felt a sense of power, they felt a sense of power over me. And with those people, after going through all of the stuff I’ve just shared with you and trying to come to a resolution and then I’m realizing, wait a minute, this person doesn’t want a resolution. This person wants conflict.

So I will say to them, what’s the solution you’re seeking? And do you actually want that solution? What’s the solution you’re seeking? How do you wanna feel about this? What do you think would make this feel better and why? I make them say to me, what would resolve this for you? You seem very upset.

We’ve talked about this multiple times. You continue to drag it on. You know, this is continuing for you. I can see this continuation of stress and frustration and unhappiness. And I’m really curious, what do you think would make you feel better? And is this resolution that you think that you need? Is this what you’re actually seeking? Do you want a resolution right now? Because sometimes we don’t want it. We don’t want to make it better. That’s okay.

You don’t need for this to feel better right now. You might not actually be ready to solve this problem. If that’s the case, if you need to feel the feelings and process it, I’m here for you. You can feel however you want for as long as you want. What I want to do is the leader as the school, the principal, or your boss, you know, what I want as your leader is for you to feel good. But I also understand on a hold space for your feelings. So what does that look like?

Now, people who want conflict, who love it, who engage in it intentionally, they are fueled by reaction. When you react when you meet them where they’re at energetically, they love that. It’s like putting gasoline on a fire. But if you respond versus reacting, it doesn’t feel as fulfilling for them. Okay? So notice if people are not wanting to give it up, they might be doing that because the conflict is what makes them feel good. You’re not feeling good, but they’re feeling good.

So you can ask them directly and you can say to them, it’s fine for us not to solve this. And then we’re going to set some expectations. And sometimes they don’t even realize they’re doing it. There’s some people who are like, No, you’re actually right. I kind of want to just be mad about this right now. Okay, fair enough. I’ll give you some time. As long as the way you feel is not impacting your students, your colleagues, then you set some parameters around their emotional response. Okay?

So one more time. For team, tune in. E is express emotional energy. A, align your goals with agreements. And then M, meet them in the middle. Because the goal is harmony. The truth is you actually are on the same team. You’re on team human experience. We both want to feel good.

We all want what’s best for the students. We want to be in harmony. People want to feel good. Even people who love conflict. They actually want you to be in harmony in conflict with them. They want you to engage in battle, but that’s a form of harmony for them. And you can decide, I’m not going to engage in that. That’s just not my standard. But when you’re ready, I will engage in harmony because harmony doesn’t mean perfectly aligned, perfect agreement. It means you have different perspectives, but they can blend together kind of in a way that works.

There is a difference and I’ve said it, but I want to be explicit about it. There is a difference between reacting and responding. Reacting is when we act on our initial emotional experience of an exchange with someone. So it’s when somebody sends you an email and you email them right back, or someone yells at you and you raise your voice, or a teacher talks behind your back and you call them out for it in anger. Or a parent complains about you and you defend yourself, right? The reacting, like a responding to the gut reaction, that is a reaction.

Empowered principals, our goal is to respond. We want to pause long enough to shift from our amygdala into our prefrontal cortex. We need a couple seconds to do that. Responding is basically just pausing, pushing pause when you feel a reaction coming. When you’re feeling the reaction coming, you push pause, which is, this is what push pause looks like. Pause yourself. Do not fire off a text. Do not fire off an email. Do not march down to that person’s room. Do not get in the car and go over there. Do not pick up the phone. Pause. Breathe. A-A-B-C-D. Take it back down a notch.

Creating a response comes from the A-A-B-C-D method. It’s how you create awareness, centeredness with intention. How do I want to respond? And you craft a response that’s based on centeredness and then directing your thoughts back to the outcome you desire. Because the goal is to feel good. It has to be an alignment. Whenever you’re in conflict, if you react, we’re going to raise the energy and raise the conflict, we’re going to fuel it. Nobody feels good.

Even the person who loves the conflict, they’re like, whoa, that felt good in a little bit. But also like, now I’ve got to keep this up. It’s a facade that they’re playing because that’s all they know. That’s how they know. They only know how to react. But deep down, people want to feel aligned. They want to feel calm. They want to feel at peace. They want to feel happy. They want to feel good for us as leaders, for them as staff and students, and for the greater good of our communities.

The goal is to feel good. Imagine a school where people felt good, felt good about themselves. They weren’t trying to keep up a facade. They weren’t pretending to be somebody. They were just feeling good about who they were. They felt good about the school they sent their kids to. They feel good about their teachers. Teachers feel good about themselves as teachers. Students feel good about themselves as students. They feel good about their friendships. They feel like they understand how to navigate them. Imagine a school like that. For us, for them, for the greater good.

Relationship mastery. It involves awareness. It involves alignment. It involves momentum. And it involves knowing how to overcome obstacles. You start with awareness, what you’re thinking about. What am I thinking? What’s going on for me in this relationship? Am I creating this conflict? I feel unaligned, I feel misaligned. What’s happening for me? I start with awareness. What do I value? What are my priorities? What is the desired outcome I want? That’s step one.

And then alignment is knowing those desires and those goals, getting clear about what you’re, you know, looking for in this connection, this relationship, how do you want it to feel for you? How do you want it to feel for them? Creating a win-win environment, creating a win-win connection, looking for a meet in the middle, understanding the goal, how it’s a win for them and for you, aligning your actions and communications with that desired outcome.

When you are able to do that, you gain momentum in building relationships, maintaining them, cultivating them. Relationships are alive. It requires you to nurture them with time and attention, to be engaging with them, checking in with people, genuinely caring, listening, being in how energy, honesty, openness, willingness.

And of course, you’re going to have to learn how to overcome obstacles. That’s what we talked about today. All relationships have speed bumps. They have detours, they have speed bumps, they have road delays, it’s just like a road trip, right? We have to navigate that.

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.

Enjoy The Show?

The Empowered Principal® Podcast Angela Kelly | Your Two Voices

One voice cheers you on, encouraging you to dream big and go for your goals. The other voice tries to hold you back, telling you all the reasons why you can’t or shouldn’t do something. Which voice do you tend to listen to?

In this episode, I dive into the concept of the two inner voices we all have – the voice of truth and the voice of fear. Understanding the role and purpose of each voice is crucial for school leaders who want to make aligned decisions and build strong relationships.

Join me as I explain how to recognize these two voices and share strategies for tuning into your voice of truth more often. By the end of this episode, you’ll be equipped with a powerful framework for navigating your inner world and showing up as a more authentic leader.

 

The Empowered Principal® Collaborative is my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to create exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. Join us today to become a member of the only certified life and leadership coaching program for school leaders in the country by clicking here.

Ready to dive deeper into leading with confidence this spring? Join me for the Spring Training Series for School Leaders—an 8-session live program starting in March, designed to empower you through HR, testing, leadership, and more. If you’re not quite ready for the full Empowered Principal Program, this standalone series is perfect for you! Click here to register!

 

What You’ll Learn From this Episode:

  • Why every person has two distinct inner voices and the purpose they each serve.
  • How to recognize the voice of fear and the ways it tries to hold you back.
  • What the voice of truth sounds like and how to tune into it more frequently.
  • The importance of self-acceptance and self-compassion for school leaders.
  • How embracing your humanness allows you to build stronger relationships.
  • Why following your intuition often requires a leap of faith.
  • How your unique differences can become your greatest strengths as a leader.

 

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Full Episode Transcript:

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 375. 

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. 

Well, hello, my empowered principals. Welcome to March. I want to start with a quick announcement before we head into today’s show. It is March. There are only three or four months left of the school year, depending on how late your school year goes. But you are in the last trimester of the year. This is the last season of this school year. It’s the spring season.

So first of all I want to invite any aspiring school leaders or brand new hires. If this is your first time in school leadership or you are applying to become an administrator. If you have recently been hired I want to invite you into EPC this spring, right now. It’s the perfect time to join if you aspire to get hired as a school leader for the upcoming school year because I will be offering trainings on how to get hired, how to be the person who gets hired.

And the more that you are around school leaders, when you join EPC, You’re going to be surrounded by like-minded school leaders. You’re going to be in the conversations. You’re going to be at the table. And the more that you identify as a new leader, whether you’re aspiring or just getting hired, the more aligned you will be to landing that ideal job in your school leadership position.

Okay, so new school leaders that just got hired, listen up. You will want to join EPC now for two reasons. Number one, you’re going to feel pulled in all kinds of directions because you are still in your current position and need to fulfill your role through the end of the school year and you’re going to be compelled to dive into your new position as leaders. Because people basically expect you to start leading the day you get hired, even though you’re in another position.

So it happened to me. I was actually felt like I was working two jobs. So you are going to be pulled into planning meetings. You might be asked to go to the leadership meetings, but you still have to fulfill the role so you can tidy that up and put a bow on it and hand it over to the person who’s going to be taking over for you. And you’re going to want to get caught up on all of the happenings in the new leadership position.

So it’s very likely that the overwhelm is going to build up quickly. Your district leaders are going to want you to be planning for next year. So your brain has to be thinking about how to wrap up this year. And you have to be thinking about 3 to 6 months ahead of the game for your next year. So your brain’s gonna get very overwhelmed and it’s gonna build up really quickly because you’ll be split. Okay? I can support you with this. I have done this personally. I’ve helped other people through it.

Springtime is a busy time anyway. This is the perfect time to join EPC and you’ll be in for the full year. So if you join in the spring, you’ll have all the way until next spring and then you can just join in again and keep it rolling. But there’s going to be a gap in the skill set that you have now and the skill set that you need to become a site or a district leader, depending on where your new position is. That’s totally normal. The gap is normal. You’re not supposed to have all the skill sets in your new job that you had in your old job. That’s normal.

So it feels a little discouraging at first. You’re going to be new, you’re going to be clumsy, you’re going to be clunking around a little bit and feel very insufficient. Okay, that’s normal. Don’t beat yourself up, but it can be really discouraging.

Okay, so I’m going to be hosting the Spring Training Series this month throughout the month of March so when you join EPC you get access to all of those resources all of the trainings. If you’d like to wait until the summer to join EPC, you can purchase the Spring Training Series as an a la carte option for $555. So you can purchase the Spring Training Series when you join EPC by September 1st and apply the $555 credit towards the registration price of EPC.

So EPC cost $1997 for the entire year for all the trainings, all the coaching, all the bonus one-on-one sessions and you get to apply the $550 as a credit and you will only end up paying the $1442 remainder for the entire year of EPC. So it’s such a great deal.

Okay, all of you new leaders, all of you aspiring leaders, this is the perfect time to join because this is the time where all the HR stuff is happening, getting hired, transitioning from your old job to your new job. It’s so exciting. It’s so fun. You want to be an EPC.

All right. Today’s show is an excerpt from the Relationship Mastery Series I hosted last month. This was a three-day program that covers all things relationship. Relationships with others, connection during conflict, and relationship with self. It was pretty epic, if I might say so. And you can purchase that series, the whole replay and the booklets that come along with it for $222 and again if you buy Relationship Mastery and you watch all the replays and you love it and you want into EPC, you can use that $222 as a credit towards your EPC membership when you’re ready. Okay?

So today’s excerpt is from day three of the Relationship Mastery Series, and I’m sharing the concept of your two voices. You have two inner voices. Most likely you’ve noticed them. They’re probably talking to you. You have two of them and they’re opposing most of the time.

There’s one that tells you, dream big, do the things you want to do, be happy, go for it, everything’s going to be fine, Don’t worry. It’s the voice that cheers you on. It’s the voice with your deepest dreams and ambitions and desires. It’s the voice that feels good when you actually tune into its sweet voice. This is the voice of truth. It’s the voice of our heart and our soul. And it’s the voice that tends to get drowned out by the other voice in our head that’s kind of like the louder, more aggressive sibling. I call it the voice of fear.

So on one shoulder you have the voice of truth and the other is the voice of fear. And the voice of fear, for some reason, always gets the megaphone. It’s always fighting to be in the driver’s seat. It wants to tell you all the reasons why you can’t do this or you shouldn’t do that or you won’t do that or you’re not capable or you’re too lazy or you’re not good enough. All the fears. And it’s trying to protect you.

But it goes on and on, and it’s really loud, and it’s really annoying. And there needs to be an approach to being able to listen to both of these voices so that you know when to listen to which voice. Because there’s a purpose to both voices. It’s not like you just throw your fears away and only listen to one side. There’s a reason you have a voice of fear. And I talk about this in this excerpt of the Relationship Mastery Day 3 Training.

It is imperative to build an understanding of these two voices and their purpose in your life so that you can proactively choose which voice you want to follow because each of them do play a very important role and they have an impact on your life and your career. So enjoy this clip and if you’re interested in the Relationship Mastery Series you can purchase it with the free link that’s in the show notes. Have a wonderful week.

The beauty about this course relationship mastery is we get to pause, we get to reflect and contemplate, we get to rewrite the script, we get to change the course, change the trajectory of what it means and looks like and feels like and sounds like to accept ourselves, to love ourselves. Because when you are accepting of you and all of your little humanness, all your little quirks, all your little faults, all your little imperfections, so you call them, all of those things, that little package, when you can get 10% more kind, a little bit more forgiving, a little bit more trusting, a little bit more compassionate.

That fuel, when you start looking at yourself and that fuel, you will also start accepting others because what you’ll realize is that when you can accept your humanness, you can also understand other people’s, which connects you in relationship with them. It’s understandable when people lose their marbles and go off the deep end because they’re so upset and passionate. It’s understandable. It’s relatable. When we see it in ourselves, we can see it in others. When we can accept our humanness, you can allow other people to be human. Your relationship matters, the way you think about yourself, the way you speak to yourself. Because this, I really want to drive this home.

The way you feel about yourself, the emotions that come up when you’re thinking about yourself, when you’re like, ugh, or ugh, just all of it, all the internal loathing, scowling, disappointment, embarrassment, shame, all those icky feels that we feel sometimes when we’ve messed up or we’ve been told things about our bodies, things about our actions, things about who people think we are, our character. When we feel that way, that feeling, those emotions in you, it is fuel. It is energy. That’s why it vibrates. It’s energy in your body. You have an emotional sensation that’s occurring in the body. It’s a vibration and it can be, it’s like I think of like radio waves, right? It’s really low. It’s kind of humming in the background.

It’s like, you know, when you go to a restaurant and there’s ambient, you know, music playing in the background where you, if you tuned in, you could hear it, but you don’t really hear it, right? You’re not at a concert versus you go to a concert. You turn the volume up to 100 and that’s all you’re focusing on the voice in your head. It might be low in the background, but it’s still playing. Or it might be on full blast. But the fuel, how you’re feeling about those thoughts, you turn up the volume too. The louder the thoughts, the louder the feelings. And when the feelings get more intense and that energy is in your body, that is when it impacts the way that you treat people because it’s the fuel.

So it’s like this, when you are at home and something’s gone wrong at home and you’re just all flustered and you got into work late, you can go into somebody’s classroom and still be in that energy and you might snap at them or be more critical about their teaching or like picking on something that you normally wouldn’t even say anything. But that energy’s got to go somewhere because we didn’t acknowledge it, we didn’t validate it, we didn’t release it, we didn’t process it at all. Okay, now I’m at school, I’ll think about home when I get back home. We didn’t do that because we weren’t self-aware, so the energy comes with us.

So when we don’t feel good and we criticize ourselves, we’re criticizing others. Because criticism is what is fueling your actions. So what I have learned about what to do with all of this, the resistance of the acceptance and wanting to accept myself but feeling like I can’t because it’s too selfish, uncoupling all of that. I’m like, what is going on here? And this is when I saw it. We have two voices.

Now, this is not new. You’ve heard this. Some people will say like, well, I’ve got the devil on one side telling me to do all the naughty things and the angel on the other side telling me to do all the good things. We see that portrayed in movies or in books and whatnot.

But the way that I hear the two voices in my head is the voice of fear. So there is a voice that is fueled by my emotions of fear. When I am feeling any kind of fear, the voice that I hear is the inner critic. It’s the judgment. It’s the criticism. It’s the fear of insufficiency. It’s the fear of rejection that’s fueling my thoughts, fueling my energy. It’s fear.

Oh my gosh, I’m not good enough. Oh my gosh, what if they don’t like me? Oh my gosh, am I worthy? Oh my gosh, am I capable? Oh my gosh, am I even accepted? Am I going to win or lose, succeed or fail? Do people want me around? Do they respect me? Fear. What if, what if, what if?

We focus on the failures. We focus on the insecurities. We focus on the imperfections. And that voice of fear is that inner critic. What happens here? And what about this? And what about that? You’re not good enough here. Remember that time you failed? And it just keeps on reminding you and reminding you and reminding you. Remember when you failed at this, remember when you did that, remember you acted a fool. And this voice will run the show every single time if we allow that fear to be the fuel. And what this voice, I believe is doing is it’s speaking up. It’s trying to be critical in the weirdest, it’s trying to be helpful in the weirdest way possible by being a critic, because it’s trying to motivate you or protect you. But what it’s really trying to do is avoid the pain of insufficiency, the pain of embarrassment, the pain of others not liking us, the pain of rejection, the pain of disappointment, painful emotions, uncomfortable emotions, emotions we don’t enjoy feeling.

This voice is doing everything in its power to prevent you from putting yourself into situations where you might have to feel rejected. You might have to feel embarrassed. You might have to feel a disappointment. You might have to feel heartbreak. You might have to feel the burn of failure, the agony of defeat, right? So this voice is telling you, I want to protect you and keep you safe from these painful emotions. So I’m gonna criticize and judge and I’m gonna kind of distract you over here and do a song and dance about, focus on these people, focus on them liking you, focus on you know criticizing yourself. Let’s just stay in this area because at least it’s a zone of comfort, at least it’s safe.

And so when we’re reacting to that fear in the name of motivation, in the name of discipline, that’s how I used to frame it. Oh, I’m just being disciplined or oh, I need a little kick in the pants. Need to get going here. There’s a difference between giving yourself loving feedback, and giving yourself jerk feedback. Like really mean, like terrible feedback just to think it’ll, it’ll feel so bad that eventually the pain will be too much. And I’ll finally get out and get to the gym, or I’ll finally get out and write that book, or I’ll finally get out and do the thing at work that I needed to get done.

And sometimes it does work. That’s why we keep doing it. We have intermittent success with harshness and criticism. And it might motivate us temporarily or it might give us the discipline we need to get something done, but it doesn’t feel good. The whole time doesn’t feel good. So the next time our brain’s like, well, I’m not doing that again. And so we avoid even harder. We go even further around the block. We like take a bigger detour.

But what we don’t understand is in the attempt to avoid criticism, to avoid rejection, to avoid embarrassment, disappointment, we are doing those very things to ourselves with our relationship with ourself. We are rejecting us instead of accepting. We’re criticizing us instead of comforting, right? We are critical of ourselves versus being constructive with ourselves and supportive. We’re being dismissive versus embracing.

We are actually doing the very thing that the fear voice, the voice of fear, is most afraid of. We’re just doing it internally so nobody can see it, Which is why we would be mortified if we somebody saw the way that we talk to ourselves or heard the way we talk to ourselves and treated ourselves.

We’re hiding, we’re trying so hard to hide our imperfections and our failures. I watch myself do it all the time, especially with AI. Now you can like touch up your skin, touch up your face, touch up your photos. You could literally create a totally different human. And we do that with our photos for our physical body, but we do it in the way that we present ourselves.

And we have a persona, we have a facade that we put out there to hide the imperfections of our humanness, emotional imperfections, mental and, you know, mental, like thoughts, imperfect thoughts. Like we hide past mistakes, like judgments, decisions we’ve made that might not have been super in alignment with who we are now.

And we end up playing small, playing safe. We don’t go for big goals. We just kind of do what we’re doing now, which is just getting through surviving and celebrating some superficial wins or celebrating the ones that are comfortable enough to celebrate, because we don’t want to look too big for our britches. We don’t want to look like we love ourselves too much. We don’t wanna look like, you know, we’re tooting our own horn because society makes that mean you’re selfish, you’re a narcissist, you’re egotistical, you’re self-absorbed, you don’t care about other people, all you care about is yourself. All or none thinking.

So we get that feedback from people and we’re like, whoa, we disconnect. We disconnect from them, we disconnect from ourselves. There’s a disconnect, the relationship disconnects and we hold ourselves back. And then what do we do?

We go home, we get in our minds, and we worry. Anxiety, worry. What are people going to think? What did they say? What should I do? What shouldn’t I do? Okay, that society doesn’t like that I am too tall, what am I supposed to do about that? Society like that I’m too short, I’ll wear heels. Oh, society thinks that principals should be servant leaders. Okay, I’ll be at work 24 hours a week. Oh, now they’re telling me self-care. Oh, I guess I’ll try and get some sleep. Oh now they’re telling me that we need to do this. Okay, I’ll do that over here.

Have you noticed that? Society is always changing the rules about what’s in what’s out. What’s cool? What’s not what we should do, what we shouldn’t do. Education is we’re famous for following trends versus creating trends that are consistent with human development. We are in the business of human development. And when we’re listening to the voice of fear, what we’re doing is we are focusing on how it appears versus who we are. And life doesn’t respond to what it looks like, how it appears, the facade, life, people, the experience that we have, it responds to who we are on the inside.

You can hide the fact that you don’t have a healthy relationship with yourself. I’ve tried for decades to be good and kind and generous to all the people and then come home and be mean to me. But what happens is the truth of who I am on the inside is energy. And that is our experience. So you can go out there and everybody could like you and you can kiss up and people please and placate people and do everything everybody asks you to do and so they might be happy, but your experience isn’t happy. You’re not happy. And then you live a life from beginning to end, trying to people please, never feeling genuine to yourself, never honoring the relationship with yourself, never valuing what it is that you want, how you want to feel, what you want to experience, what you would like to contribute to the world in your way, because we’re focused on how it appears versus who we are inside.

Unfortunately, I have observed that that’s how most people live, on the frequency of fear, listening to the voice of fear. But there’s another voice. Thank goodness.

Another frequency we can tune into. It’s like an AM radio, right? You can be on this frequency 96.5 or you can go up to 101.3. Tune into another frequency. This is the voice of truth. It’s when you’re alone by yourself and you’re dreaming about your desires, about your goals, about your dreams, about your thinking back to the wonderful Christmas and New Year’s you had and you’re reminiscing those memories and they already are nostalgic because they’re already memories. Or you’re thinking about the future.

You’re thinking about maybe you’re starting a family and you’re daydreaming about the love you’re going to fill with that little bundle of joy, or maybe your child’s graduating college and you’re sad and happy, you’re so excited to see them spread their wings and your heart is breaking because they’re leaving the home. But it’s the voice of truth. It’s the goals that you have the experiences you want to create. The person you want to be, have you ever been like I wish I was. I actually had somebody hire me and he said I want to be the James Bond of school leaders. He had a vision of who he wanted to be, a vision of his identity of who he wanted to be. He dreamt of who he wanted to be, but he didn’t feel that way. So he wanted that appearance, but it wasn’t who he was.

So we had to actually create an identity for him so that he could feel like he was the James Bond of school leaders. But there is a knowing in you. There is a voice of truth. There is a compass, a GPS system. It’s that intuition or that gut feeling some people will call it. It’s the body saying to you, hey, this is where I want to go. This is what we’re destined for. This is what we were born to do. There is a knowingness. It’s clear. There’s clarity to it. There’s truth. And there’s leaps of faith.

I literally just moved from California. I’ve lived in California for 30 years. I have loved every minute of it. I will even take their traffic. I will even take the eight-year drought we had. All of it. I loved it. And after going through a very significant life change, I had a knowingness. I didn’t know where I was going to land. I didn’t know when.

I couldn’t, there was no answer until my son called me one day and said, “Mom,” he had moved to Nashville about 18 months prior. And he said, “Mom, I think you’re going to love it in Nashville.” And I was like, I couldn’t fathom leaving my beloved California, but there was a knowingness in me. There was something in my gut that said, “Yeah, go. Your son’s there. Go be with him. California’s not going anywhere. If you want to come back, come on back. We’ve got you. But go play. Give it a year. Go have fun. Try new things. Go explore. Start a new chapter. Write the adventure. You are the screenwriter of your story. You are the main character.”

And here I found my son coaching me on how to live my life. And I’m a life coach. And he said, “Mom, I’m going to say what you said to me. California’s not going anywhere. If you absolutely are unhappy, you can always go back. Give it a try.” This is exactly what I said because he was agonizing over what to do with the move. Should he stay in LA? Should he move up? You know, he wanted to go to the Pacific Northwest, but didn’t really know anybody up there. He just didn’t know what he wanted. I said, “Just pick, pick it and stick it.”

So one of his best friends was moving to Nashville and said, “I think you should come with me, Alex. Give it a year.” Alex has been here 18 months. I’ve been here two months and it has been the adventure of my life. I had a knowingness, even though I know nobody in this city other than my son and his roommate, that’s it. And the people at the coffee shop down the street now.

There is something in your body that tells you follow this path. And you’re like, “That doesn’t even make sense. Follow this path. Are you sure?” That’s what school leadership was. “You should be a school leader.” “Oh, no, that does not look fun. I’m not doing that. I’m going to stay right here. And my little kindergarten room in my instructional coaching room. No, thank you.” “Be a school leader.” There’s a knowingness.

And when you listen to the voice of truth, the truth, the clarity, the guidance system inside of you, there is an acceptance with this. The voice of truth, it’s very loving. It’s very kind. It’s gentle. It’s patient. It will wait for you. While you bounce over and listen to the voice of fear, oh, and you freak out, this one, voice of truth is always there patiently waiting, nothing’s gone wrong.

But when you do listen to this voice of truth, there’s an alignment. It just clicks. This is awareness. This is alignment. And from here, the voice of truth, you gain momentum. So when you’re acting in alignment with the voice of truth with yourself, you have this like duality of relationship where you have this relationship with fear, and you have this relationship with truth.

But when you’re with truth, the truth of who you are, you’re a little kinder to yourself, you’re more accepting of your humanness. You can laugh at your or celebrate your imperfections a little bit. You know, you know you, you can laugh at that a little bit. You can just embrace it, celebrate it.

Your imperfections are your, they just equal differences and those differences are your talent, your skills. It’s who makes you who you are. I think about people who have physical, what people would say is not normal, the average human body, right? Whether that’s in size, shape, mobility, cognitive ability, physical ability. The human body comes in every way, shape or form.

And for the people who were born with a different, less than average, not average shape, size, mobility, whatever, they became inventors. They invented ways to live life. People who have had accidents and lose their legs or lose their limbs, people invented materials for those people to embrace life. If it hadn’t, if everybody all had two legs and then something happened catastrophically, we would not have anything in place.

So for all of our differences, they become creations. Our differences are how we become creators. The reason that I can be a life coach, a certified life and leadership coach for school leaders is because of all of my imperfections. I was a terrible principal for a long time. And I say that with love and appreciation and gratitude.

If I hadn’t been so awful and so strung out between my personal life and my home life, I wouldn’t have reached out to get a life coach. I wouldn’t have created this awareness. I wouldn’t have ever applied these tools to education and to school leadership.

And from that, I created programming for school leaders. That’s unlike anything anybody else could ever offer you because I was put on the earth to create it.

How can I not love that? How can I not appreciate that gift that I was given? And all of you have it too.

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.

Enjoy The Show?

The Empowered Principal® Podcast Angela Kelly | A Teen's Guide to Self-Love and Authenticity with Kristi Simons

Do you ever feel like there’s a disconnect between your inner truth and the critical voice in your head? What if I told you that learning to navigate this duality is the key to unlocking your full potential and living a life of authenticity and joy?

In today’s episode, I sit down with Kristi Simons, a former teacher turned life coach who specializes in helping teens develop emotional intelligence and essential life skills. Through her own journey of self-discovery and transformation, Kristi has gained invaluable insights into the power of mindfulness, self-love, and embracing the full spectrum of human emotions.

Join us as we dive deep into the challenges teens face in today’s world and explore practical strategies for cultivating resilience, confidence, and a deep connection to one’s inner truth. Whether you’re a teen looking to navigate the ups and downs of adolescence or an adult seeking to reconnect with your authentic self, this episode is packed with wisdom and inspiration that will leave you feeling empowered and ready to embrace all that life has to offer.

 

The Empowered Principal® Collaborative is my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to create exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. Join us today to become a member of the only certified life and leadership coaching program for school leaders in the country by clicking here.

Ready to dive deeper into leading with confidence this spring? Join me for the Spring Training Series for School Leaders—an 8-session live program starting in March, designed to empower you through HR, testing, leadership, and more. If you’re not quite ready for the full Empowered Principal Program, this standalone series is perfect for you! Click here to register!

 

What You’ll Learn From this Episode:

  • Why teens struggle with self-love and self-acceptance, and how to cultivate a deeper connection to one’s inner truth.
  • The power of mindfulness practices in regulating emotions and navigating life’s challenges with resilience and grace.
  • How to distinguish between the voice of your inner critic and the voice of love and truth within you.
  • The importance of creating safe spaces and finding supportive communities where you can express yourself authentically.
  • Practical strategies for building confidence, embracing discomfort, and moving past limiting beliefs and mental blocks.
  • Why coaching is a powerful tool for personal growth and transformation, and how it can benefit teens and adults alike.
  • The role of emotional intelligence in navigating relationships, setting boundaries, and living a fulfilling life.

 

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Full Episode Transcript:

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 374. 

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. 

Hello, my empowered principals. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to the podcast.

And I am so excited. I have a special guest for you today. We haven’t done an interview yet in 2025. So Kristi here is my first guest on the podcast for the 2025 school year. Her name is Kristi Simons. Is it Simmons or Simons?

Kristi: Simons.

Angela: Simons. Ooh, good catch. Kristi Simons. And she and I met through podcasting and coaching. She coaches teens and works with families with teens. And of course, education, school, coaching, kids, families, we’re here for all of it. So we met, we connected, we just, you know, had an instant connection. And I really wanted her to come on to the podcast and talk with you all about the things that she does and her approach and working with teens.

And I know a lot of you, people that I work with, clients have teens that you’re working with. I have middle school principals, high school principals, and not to mention if you are a principal and you have your own children who are teens and you’re double dipping into the teen development years, this is gonna be a juicy podcast for you. So Kristi, welcome to the podcast.

Kristi: Angela, thank you so much for having me. I feel honored also that I’m the first conversation of 2025. This is super exciting for me. Thank you for having me.

Angela: I’m so glad that we connected. And we really hit it off. I love her work. I love your content. So can you just introduce yourself, tell them who you are, what you do, your passions, your coaching, and really I wanna dive into your work with teens.

Kristi: Yeah, absolutely. I love answering this question or just this part of being on other people’s podcast because whenever they ask me to share about my story, I feel like I learn something new about myself every time as well. And just being able to go back in time and really see the progression, the progress, because that’s been the true highlight of this path for me that I am following now is just progress over perfection. And that’s really the state of mind that I hope that teens can really start to adopt one day as well.

So to tell you a little bit more about myself, I’m actually a former teacher. I taught in the classroom for well over a decade. It was actually my children, so having my firstborn in 2020, that really shook me, shifted me and broke me into a bunch of pieces. And at that time, I can actually remember hearing like this strong whisper telling me that, you know, something inside of me, like there was something in me that knew I needed to change, that I wanted to start creating change, but I wasn’t even sure how.

And a lot of this came back to becoming a mom for the first time and recognizing how much love I felt in that moment, like when they put that baby in my arms and like I felt like I had never felt a love like this before and then I feel like I started to connect these dots like I had never felt that love for myself and it was almost as if the more I tried to connect with him and love him like I was starting to realize that like that was something that I never gave to myself and it brought me back to my teen years and all of the things.

So moving forward through a second pregnancy I ended up having a series of mental health breakdowns, partially too because I suffered from addiction before having my children as well. And so, yeah, like I said, there were just a lot of moving parts during that time and I felt so disconnected from myself. And in hindsight, it’s actually really beautiful that my children were the ones to finally wake me up to that disconnect.

And yeah, so I hired my own coach. Again, when I talk about these whispers and following these breadcrumbs, like there was just this inner knowing within me that I was gonna need like outside support to really help me through this.

And to me at the time, the investment brought up so much, but I’m so grateful that I did because it literally, it changed my life. Having somebody in my corner who could see and believe in me and start to just like guide me back home to myself, it’s been an incredible journey. I’m still with my coach three years later.

And so through all of this, we have the pandemic. And so I was on maternity leaves and then kind of still teaching, but not in the classroom. It was virtual. So yeah, again, a lot of moving parts and there was just a lot of a lot going on at the time.

And I think this was actually in hindsight, again, such a positive thing for me, such a positive change because it allowed me to take a step back and really evaluate if this was still something that I wanted to do for myself. And the more that I was spending time immersed in this coaching experience, the more that I was recognizing that so much of what I was learning, like I wished I learned as a teenager. I wish that somebody was teaching this in the school systems.

And it’s not to say that teachers don’t do an incredible job, but I didn’t know what I knew back then. Or sorry, I didn’t know now back then what I know anyways you get me sure and so come full circle I left my full-time teaching position it’s been close to two years now I’ve been working full-time with families full-time with teens specifically is who I work with I usually connect with the parents but it’s the teens that I end up working with.

And I teach them all about emotional intelligence, essential life skills, and really at the root of it all, it’s to have that deeper connection to themselves. Because what I hear come out of parents’ mouths a lot is like how they really would love for their teen to feel more motivated, more confident, more motivated.

And to me, like the more I look back on my journey and thinking even like about my own motivation, motivation for me comes from that source within, of like deeply trusting yourself. It’s not that you can’t look outside of yourself to co-create and to ask for help and to connect with other people, right? Like we’re meant to connect and we’re meant to merge, but there’s also this really big part of us that desires to be autonomous.

And that’s the part that I really have been nurturing in myself over the last few years. And that’s the part that I helped them to come back home to as well and really building their confidence. So that’s a little bit about me. I could go on forever, but I’m going to stop there.

Angela: I love it. I love the story. I can relate to the feeling of the very first time that you held your son. I have one son who is now 25 and I remember that day as though it were yesterday. And the feeling is so significant.

There is no other experience like it, at least for me. And I love that you connected it back to the love that you felt for him was a love that you hadn’t given to yourself. And that was inspiring just for me right now. So thank you for saying it in that way. And I think we all are on a journey of true self-connection and self-love.

And finding that, whether we’re a teenager or an adult, no matter what age you are listening out there, there is opportunity to connect with yourself and love yourself even more to the point you love yourself as though you would love your own child. Oh, that’s so beautiful, Kristi.

Kristi: If everybody were to lean even just a little bit more into that, because at first, even for me, it felt intimidating. And it was also extremely emotionally uncomfortable even just to say that out loud, like why don’t I love myself? And then to start hearing all of those thoughts and those limiting beliefs and all the stuff that comes up and we can get into that later. But I just imagine a world where people start to lean back into this and when they start to come to that place where they do feel more at home within themselves and they do feel that self-love, like that ripple effect would just be, like it would change, it would change everything.

Angela: Yeah. The question coming up for me right now is, why do you believe that teens struggle with self-love and connection, self-acceptance basically. Self-acceptance, self-love, and I feel like the teen years developmentally, they are an extremely challenging time in terms of their connection with themselves versus their connection with their peers and their identity in the world. Who are they in the world? Who are they at school?

Kristi: Who are they going to become? They’re always asked, what are you going to go to college for? What are you going to do when you grow up? So what is your take on that? So for my podcast, one of my central questions that I ask every guest who comes on is if you could speak to your teen self, what would they need to hear? And so this is usually what I come back to. I feel like this is at the core of everything that I do. Like if I could speak to my teen self, what would she need to hear? And then I build on that.

And I know that back then I was placing a lot of my power outside of myself. So, you know, looking to the judgments, the opinions, the comparisons, all of those things. And I’m seeing this to be very true for my clients as well today. That’s not to say that their experience is the same. They are living in a completely different world, so I always like to acknowledge that.

However, in my coaching and what I do, I also center everything around how do you want to feel. Because for me we are energetic beings, everything comes back to our emotions and the feelings that we are desiring. So again, external stuff aside, they are feeling disconnected from themselves and because they are feeling disconnected and they don’t know how to put those pieces and parts back together, kind of like I didn’t know how to do it before I hired my coach and she taught me what I didn’t know yet, until they can figure out how to start connecting with themselves again, they are going to continue to look outside of themselves for validation, for approval seeking, whatever the case may be, to fill some of those, the word that’s coming up for me right now is like those voids.

And in my sessions, what I’m hearing so often with my clients is that they want to connect with other people, but they’re afraid that like they’re not enough, that their ideas are going to be the word cringy always comes up or that they’re going to look stupid or that people aren’t going to like them, that they’re not going to be seen, heard, understood or accepted. And it’s fascinating to me because I feel like they are so advanced compared to like what I felt like where I was at as a teenager.

And if they could just move past those limiting beliefs and those mental blocks. So I’ll bring it back here. I actually once had somebody tell me that like those thoughts getting trapped in that worry cycle can feel like an undertow. And once you like grab onto that, it just kind of pulls you down.

And so if they don’t know to lean back into love, if they don’t know how to connect with that source, that power that I speak of that they have within, just by way of connecting with, and these are four key areas that I teach in my coaching, it’s mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual energy.

And so going through all of this and really creating, you know, habits around how we want to feel because that’s going to in turn start to shift our beliefs and then we start to create a new reality. But again, it’s something that takes consistency. It takes consistent progress, not perfection.

But it’s really just about connecting with yourselves. And I know from past experience, that was something that I was really afraid to do until I started doing it. So there’s meant to be like that discomfort there, but if it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you. So yeah, that’s just some of the stuff that I’m seeing really come up with them.

Angela: Yeah. Yeah. What’s so interesting is how much our work aligns because I’m doing the exact same work with adults and they happen to be school leaders and parents a lot of times. But I noticed that there is a resistance or almost kind of what’s the word I’m looking for, like they kind of scoff at the thought of like self-love and self-care and self-acceptance. It almost, there’s such resistance to it.

And I’m wondering if you see that in your teens as well. Because school leaders, can you imagine if you work with middle or high school students and they have a life coach or even a percentage of them had these tools. Or even better, what I think is if this became a mainstream practice, exercises like just I don’t want to say curriculum, that feels a little too formal for me, but like a way of being part of the vision of the school, if this were a part of the conversation around the, like, dropping the resistance to self-love, self-care, self-understanding, self-deepening, self-acceptance. What do you think is, like, when there’s resistance to that, kind of like, oh, I couldn’t do that or that’s not cool. Like what comes up in the teen mind when you see the resistance come up to like self-acceptance and self-love?

Kristi: I love this question. My mind is firing off in so many different directions.

Angela: I’m sure there’s no one answer, right?

Kristi: Holy moly. I’m trying to reel it in because there’s a lot here. Resistance is just a really big topic. You could really break this down. The first thing that was coming to me is just that obviously resistance is normal. I still feel resistance in my own life towards the things that I have to do, but I have this awareness now and I have this toolkit. Having the wisdom, having the tools that work best for me, because this is never a one-size-fits-all. It’s really about discovering what works best for you.

And I do, as a life coach, I also just feel like I’m kind of just, again, they’re holding the beliefs, asking the right questions so they can come back home to the answers that they already have inside of them. But it’s the inner critic. The inner critic was the other thing that’s coming up for me.

I was working with a client, it was 2 weeks ago, and I just remember them saying, oh my gosh, I didn’t actually realize that there was another voice. Because I teach my clients to learn to think about what they think about, because that was never something I did when I was a teen. I just believed all of my thoughts. I thought all of them to be true. And so this was true for this client too.

I remember I had her write down a list of, okay, so what would your inner critic say? What are some of those things that do come up? Let’s allow them to be seen, heard, and understood in this moment without judgment. She was able to list off a bunch of stuff. Then when I asked her what her inner voice would say, so that place that comes from love, it was completely blocked. There was nothing that she was able to put on that side of her list.

And from like an energetic perspective, because I’m very good at reading people’s energy, like I could tell that her walls were completely up. And that to me is the resistance. We are so resistant to leaning into what an inner voice coming from love would say because we’ve been giving our power to our inner critic. So we’ve really been essentially building that muscle, right? That has become a comfort for us. Our brain also has a negativity bias.

So it’s always going to try to keep us safe, even if it reverts us back to something that is in fact, you know, not helping us to thrive or succeed in our lives. So in order to start creating change, like it’s going to feel uncomfortable, that’s where the resistance will come in. That’s where you’ll hear those thoughts that say, like, who do you think you are to start making these changes or why would you think for my clients?

It’s hard to hear them say that they don’t feel like they’re enough, that they don’t feel like anybody will care. And to me, that’s just, again, them feeling, well, unworthy would be one of them for sure, unlovable. And yeah, so what I have found really helps with this for myself personally and for the clients that do come to work with me is really incorporating mindfulness into this.

And I think that this is an area that would, and I feel like we are, I mean, at least here in Canada, I’ve noticed that there are more mindfulness practices like happening in the schools but that’s just like we’re just like touching the surface right like we really need to get them the information as well but yeah when I can actually have my clients like connect with themselves like settle back into their bodies get out of like the thinking space of just being so up in our heads.

We really need to connect with how our body is feeling. Oftentimes when the resistance shows up, you’ll notice different sensations. Maybe I get tightness in my neck, sometimes in my chest. My emotions will obviously change. I may feel some anxiety, overwhelm, whatever the case may be, and then I hear those thoughts start to spiral, those thought loops of who do you think you are, like you’re not worthy of this, you’re not good enough, yada, you know, those ones that come up.

And so for me, it’s always about just getting grounded. I have to reconnect. I have to ground myself and get those thoughts to just come away and just connect back with my heart. And that to me, I have found has been so helpful because once I’m in that space, that’s when I’m able to, like I’ve regulated my nervous system. If we want to speak to like a scientific perspective, you’re regulating your nervous system.

So you’re allowing, like I was talking about my client, you’re allowing those walls to come down. And then the other voice, the voice of creativity, the voice of love, the voice of abundance, bravery, whatever, you name it, that voice is able to come through and then you get your right next step. For me, oftentimes for resistance, it’s really about moving that energy. Sometimes this looks like going for a walk, taking a few deep breaths. Like there’s so many simple tools available to us each and every day. And yeah, it’s just about figuring out what works best for us. And then also just understanding, I feel like how, you know, the mind, body, soul, all of it is connected.

Angela: I love how you help kids separate out the two voices because I think all of us have a voice of love and I consider it like a voice of truth. Like universal truth. Like you are worthy, you are enough. There’s just like this love and truth that speaks to us.

And it’s a deep knowing, but on the surface of that is this inner critic. And what’s so interesting is we all have one. We all have the inner critic and we didn’t have it at birth. I think about this, right? Like babies are born, you know, straight from source and they get, like, I think about they learn how to walk and talk and play and they’re pure joy. They’re either in joy or they’re in pain and they’re telling you something, right?

It’s one or the other. It’s very all or none and they’re not criticizing themselves for needing milk or needing to sleep or needing a diaper change or learning how to walk and falling and all of those things. So that inner critic, it somehow comes from the experience that we have as humans on the planet and every single person has one. And just the awareness as a teen to know there’s a voice of truth and then there’s this voice of criticism and not enoughness and that’s coming from fear, right? There’s love and truth and then there’s fear over here and that’s protection.

That’s the brain’s way of protecting us, but just that one awareness could change an entire student, child’s life. Just that awareness.

Kristi: To your point, I also feel like when we talk about fear, I’m feeling like, for me personally in my life, and this is my own personal experience, but when I’m feeling like deep fear, it’s actually a fear of feeling its opposite, which is like deep love. It’s like how much more can I expand my capacity to love when I used to lean so heavily into fear? So my fear tries to pull me back and really it’s just a fear of like propelling myself forward into more love.

Like I even notice on a day-to-day basis for myself, right? I’ll have one of those thoughts come in that tells me like, you should try taking action on this. Like this would be such an amazing opportunity. And for a second I’ll be like, oh, I love that. And then the thought, who do you think you are? And then it comes in. And yeah, it’s just like being aware of that and understanding that, as you said, and I think that’s the connection that I made too.

When I had my son, I was just like, oh my gosh. He doesn’t view himself this way. And at one point I was a baby too and I was just as, I don’t usually use the word perfect but it feels right in this moment, like he’s just so perfect right now. Never wanting him to experience I guess the human experience. And then I realized that’s not logical either. We are all here to experience the highs and lows, the waves of life, so to speak.

And I feel like this is just a really opportune time to highlight that through this work that I do with them, we’re always talking about how the inner critic and that inner truth, I love that, I might start using that, how the inner critic and the inner truth can really also merge together and start to co-create. Because for my clients, what I’m seeing is that they will also get down on themselves for having that inner critic and wanting it now that we know it’s there. Like, why can’t we just completely get rid of it? And that’s just not how it works.

And so what I love to do with them, especially in terms of like mindfulness practices, so for that one client that I spoke of, and she’s given me permission to highlight her story if I need to, anywhere that I’m talking about it. But yeah, what I did for her when she was blocked on that list and she wasn’t able to fill in on the other side. I also work with Reiki, so I do energy healing and meditations for my clients.

So just a simple meditation, it was 10 minutes. I just allowed her to settle in her body, take a few deep breaths. We do like a body scan just so again it relaxes everything, really takes them out of their head and back into their truth. And I just guided her. I guided her through the things that had come through the session, again, giving and bringing awareness to that inner critic.

And I had her see herself, like visualize herself in her mind as the version of herself, her truth that she knows that she is, but then also meeting her inner critic there and just giving her a big hug, like just giving her a big hug because you’re right. It’s just so much external stuff that has come at us. It’s nobody’s fault. Everybody, I truly believe to my core, is well-intentioned. It’s just we don’t know what we don’t know, right?

And so we do. We absorb all of this information and then we start to think that there’s something wrong with us, when in fact there’s nothing wrong with us. We are born perfect and worthy. And so in that visualization, I had her hug and just really bring acceptance to understanding that this was just a part of her that’s trying to keep her safe, but that she could put herself in the creator role.

And then I had her ask herself, like, what is something that you would tell your inner critic that you believe are your actual truths? And when she came out of that meditation, she had three to add to her list, which I think is just, like, to me, that’s such a huge win. And I remember one of them was that like, nobody’s perfect. Like life’s not meant to be perfect and it’s okay to like love and accept herself. That she was a very empathetic person and that was one of her strengths and one of her gifts. And I don’t know if I’m going to be able to remember what the last one was. It might come to me as we’re speaking, but yeah, it was just, and again, from going from only being able to hear that one voice from then making the distinction and now she has three and that will anchor itself in.

Like now those have become new beliefs and it doesn’t mean that it’s going to override, but we just, we need to start nurturing that side more so that it can remind the inner critic that we are creating from this place now.

Angela: Yes, oh, that is so, so beautiful. And I do agree with you. I guess I think we babies, brand new babies are just a source straight from perfection. And, but it is the human experience to have the duality of life. And I think the duality of life is how we continue to know the truth. There has to be some kind of opposition, right? There has to be some kind of, what’s the word I’m looking for? Like a reflection or a balance of how do you, like if it’s always perfect and sunny out, you know, you never know, you know, what it’s like to have this cozy, warm, wintry day or the rainy days, or, you know, to enjoy that day.

I lived in California for 30 years and it’s almost always sunny and you almost take it for granted because there’s not a lot of dichotomy or there’s not a lot of difference. And so when you have a rainy day, you’re like, wait, what? You’re either annoyed by it or you’re like, I forgot how much I love a beautiful rainy day. Well, here in Nashville, I’m getting all seasons all at the same time. So it’s fun to think about.

But there is that duality in the human experience, which I remember wanting to bubble wrap my son and protect him from the world. I remember when he was little thinking, I don’t ever want to see him go through his first heartbreak, his first love heartbreak. Right. And then it happened and it was excruciating as a mother. And I thought he’s living, he’s alive. This is a part of the human experience.

And luckily, having the tools to hold space for him and be with him in that moment and not try to coach him out of it, but to coach my own feelings about how I felt with him and then allowing him to have his own feelings for as long as that took and for him to process that situation and that breakup, it really made me realize, no, I want him to have the capacity to handle any emotion that comes his way, to handle any experience that comes their way. And the gift of just having access to these tools can give kids so much more. We talk about in schools, we talk about grit, we talk about resilience, we talk about stamina.

And I’m going to say something that it may ruffle some feathers, but I believe when you said earlier that in Canada, they’re talking about mindfulness, but it’s kind of on the surface. I think this is true of all educators because we haven’t been having these conversations as part of the norm, as part of just the repertoire of education and human development, we as the adults are on the surface, and we can only teach to the capacity at which we’re willing to go below that surface of mindfulness and to, as teachers, as staff members, as administrators, talk about our own inner critic with ourselves, right? We don’t need to put it on blast in front of our colleagues, but to have the awareness and to have these conversations as adults with ourselves and with those we trust, but to be mindful ourselves of our own reactions of our own emotional regulation.

Because the number one thing that I coach on all week long around the calendar is principals and district leaders. And, you know, sometimes I work with state officials, but primarily its district and site administrators, and they spend their day with, how do I handle emotional regulation for myself, and how do I hold space, and how do I navigate the emotional experiences and the emotional expressions of other adults? I very rarely coach on kids. Like a situation with a kid, it’s more about their experience with the adults, whether that’s the adults on campus or the adults as family members, parents coming in and they’re highly dysregulated, or maybe it’s your boss or your supervisors who have their own emotional experience, their own human developmental experience. We’re all on this journey.

And being able to hold that space as a teacher for all of your kids and all of those parents and your grade level team or your department team and your colleagues, and then you go home and you have your family and you’re trying to hold space emotionally for your own children and your partner, your spouse, your friends, your family, that it can feel like a lot to hold on to.

Kristi: Yeah. I feel like it is like navigating it. Navigating it is definitely not a linear path. And I love when you talked about holding space because it’s so true. There is this depth beneath the surface. I feel like we kind of touch on the waves if we’re using the water as our metaphor here. But you have the waves on the surface, right? So maybe in the classroom, we see those waves and we’re like, perfect opportunity to throw in a mindfulness practice. Is this gonna benefit them? 1000% it’s going to, but like, what is the reason? Like what’s underneath it all? Like, why, you know, why are we doing this? Like, they really need to have a connection and an understanding to that.

It’s like what’s beneath the surface? What are we actually connecting with when we do these practices? And I feel like that may be the piece that’s missing. And you’re right. What I’ve noticed with myself over the last five, almost six years of doing this work is that even in order for me to hold space for other people and for me to be an active listener, I have to create space within myself. So in order to hold space for other people, you need to create that space within yourself. Otherwise, they’re just getting the surface level you and the surface level me can often also be irritated and feeling a little bit overwhelmed.

This obviously happens with my toddlers and so I’m very conscious of that now and there are still a lot of moments where I have to, you know, go back and repair because like I said this is not a linear journey. Even for me somebody who is doing this work like I still have my moments where I know that there’s just more space needed. My cup is empty, so to speak, so I have to fill that back up. I need to know how or which ways it works best for me to actually connect with myself, whether that be through journaling, like I said, going for a walk. It’s all of our energies. It’s paying attention to the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual. Mental is our own limiting beliefs and our thoughts, our narratives that come up. And again, if we’re dysregulated, it means that we’re in our mind.

So if you’re trying to hold space for somebody, but you’re feeling dysregulated, you’ve got thoughts swirling. If you’ve ever had a conversation with somebody and afterwards, you’re like, oh my gosh, I have no idea what that person just said to me. I have no idea.

This happens with… My husband won’t listen to this, so that’s okay. He already knows this is true though, but this will always happen for us. He’ll tell me something and then like 20 minutes later, I’ll ask him, okay, so what are you guys doing at work tomorrow? And he’s like, I just told you. And I’m like, oh no, because I wasn’t fully there. I was not fully present. And so it’s just being aware of it. It’s always giving ourselves compassion too, as we do this work, because we are literally retraining ourselves. We’re trying to break old patterns that we’ve been following for so long.

And I love that you brought up the holding space. And I do believe that holding space starts with yourself. So the mental energy, then the physical energy. This comes back to how we are actually fueling ourselves, the amount of sleep, like the way we talk to ourselves, like our bodies, like what we’re putting into our bodies. And again, I never come at this from a place of like, there’s certain foods that you should or should not eat. It’s all about what feels good to you and not shaming yourself in that area of your life either.

Your physical environment, ever since I immersed myself in a community of women who are all holding this belief for one another that we can move our lives in this direction versus falling back to where we do not want to be anymore, that has made a significant impact on me because there are still other little containers of space in my life where those aren’t the conversations that are being had. And those tend to deplete me at this point. So it’s nice to have that space where I can come back to that language of self-love, confidence, and empowerment that I’m searching for.

There’s also emotional energy. So this is understanding your emotions. It’s emotional intelligence, teaching them about like the emotional guidance scale, just about gratitude, about hopefulness, about love, about abundance, about how their lives are actually limitless as long as they continue up that spiral. And again, it’s always okay to spiral back down into those feelings of overwhelming anxiety, whatever it is, sadness, fear. And it’s just that’s where the resilience piece comes in is knowing that you can get back up and keep going whenever you’re ready and whatever small next step you’re meant to take.

And then there’s spiritual energy. If spiritual doesn’t resonate, you can just call it self-energy. It’s really that deeper connection to yourself. Are you actually putting things on your calendar that are going to help you co-create the way that you want to feel?

So for me, I actually have a whole energetic with my planning process, but I do as a former teacher. It’s that concept of reverse engineering rather than having the expectation. The expectation for me is how do I want to feel today? And then I will just jot down some of the things that come to mind. Maybe for me it is going for a walk. Maybe for me it’s actually taking like 30 minutes to paint or draw because I love doing that. I always love doing that as a teen.

And what are we here for if we can’t still enjoy some of the things that we used to do when we were younger? Like to me, I’m just like, what the heck is the point? And I find when I do put those things on my calendar, even if it just is 30 minutes to sit down and color or draw for a little bit, it will 10X my capacity to be able to show up for the other things in my life that I need to show up for simply because I listened to myself.

And this is how I’m seeing that the confidence is being built, because you’re just compiling this evidence that you do trust and choose yourself. And then it opens up more creative flow rather than keeping you stuck in that mindset of lack and scarcity and fear.

Angela: That’s so, so beautiful. I love that you use the water as an analogy because there’s the surface and we have feelings on the surface. And the goal isn’t perfection. The goal, I think about school leaders who are like, or teachers who are like, one more thing, now I’ve got to be mindful, now I’ve got to add mindfulness and I’m going to add this to the plate. I don’t think it’s about adding to the plate. I actually think it’s about awareness. I don’t think the goal is perfection. We all know that we strive for that, but the actual goal is awareness.

So awareness when you win and acknowledging and validating the success or the win or what is working in your life and focusing on that, it’s awareness. But then the emotion when you’re feeling positive, that’s awareness. That’s an opportunity for awareness of what’s working and what you love and what’s happy.

And then when you’re not feeling if you’re feeling on the I think of, you know, like emotional bandwidth is like, you know, positive, negative, on the negative spectrum. That’s awareness. It’s like, oh, I’m not feeling great or this doesn’t feel good. Why? It’s the awareness. The emotion is the tool that we use to leverage what’s working versus what’s not working for us. And it’s the awareness of why we’re feeling the way we’re feeling to generate that because underneath that initial feeling is the momentum, it’s waves, it’s below the surface, the undercurrent that’s going on underneath the surface of the water is where how deep are we willing to go to find out what we’re feeling and why we’re feeling it?

I think those are the two most brilliant questions. It’s what am I feeling and why am I feeling it? Because you have to stop and you have to pause and you have to ask yourself like, wait, why do I feel this way? And then your thoughts are going to, I call it a brain drain where it just like all comes out, right?

So I have a question. You mentioned something about kids if they can stay in the spiral up. And I just was coaching a client on this. So I think it’s going to be very relevant for teens and families and adults.

When somebody is coaching with you and they are creating this awareness and they can see the difference between the inner critic and the voice of truth and love, and they’re starting to feel differently, and they’re starting to think differently, and they’re connecting to themselves, do they have moments where they’re like, now I feel more isolated? I feel more weird. Nobody’s talking like the way I’m talking, or nobody’s thinking like the way I’m thinking, or my coach and I can be real with my coach, but then I go back with my friends and they’re all talking about whatever, gossiping or boys or whatever kids talk about these days, TikTok and all of that, but how do you coach them through as they’re evolving themselves and expanding their awareness, how do they still feel connected to their peers who maybe don’t have access to the coaching tools or the awareness strategies?

Kristi: I love that. Oh, I love this because this is actually like you just brought up one of, I would say, the main challenges is once they start to have more awareness for how they want to feel, they’re definitely going to be more aware, even more so of what’s going on around them and their environment. And so this is where, and again, I always bring it back to my life too. It’s been like a game changer for me to have a container of space where these conversations are still being had. So I have that space where I feel seen, heard and understood.

I can express myself openly, authentically, and I still encourage them to do this in their own lives. And I can also understand how, like when they’re in their school community And if there’s nobody else that’s really understanding them on a deeper level, this is why I’m talking like it’s so good to have like those safe spaces or that group of people or that one person even. It really just takes one person in their corner that sees and believes in them. So that’s important to highlight as well. But yeah, it’s just continuing to have conversations with them, continuing to encourage them to not dim their light just because they’re afraid of the projections of others, and also just helping them to build a set of tools, something that will help them to move through those times in their lives.

I wish I could say that there’s a right answer and we can just fix it all. And the truth is that they’re going to come up against these blocks, these mountains in their lives that are going to challenge them, right? It’s like, do I in this situation continue to just trust and choose myself or do I dim my own light to follow others? And they’re also still growing and exploring. And a lot of this for them is still like their brains are still developing.

So a lot of this is new. So I think it’s just allowing them to just be very like open minded to everything and just allowing their experience to be what it’s going to be. But if as long as they have a safe space that they can come back to, where they can talk to somebody about what’s going on, I feel like that’s like the number one place to start right now for them, is just having that person that they feel that they can trust.

Angela: Yes, I coach on this with my principals who they get into, they start one-on-one coaching with me and now I offer group coaching and they’re in the group coaching program. So in that container, it’s just, it’s like a bubble of safety and we can talk about expansiveness and our feelings and really kind of push the envelope to the edges of how deep we’re willing to go with these conversations about how good life can get. And we really can play in that space and feel very safe and it feels very confidential and you feel trusting because it’s like-minded people.

So I do believe that like having those containers are really important. And that’s like the ideal. Like you wanna be surrounded by people who are like-minded. But when you’re first starting this, and I’ll just share my own personal experience for any teen who’s listening out there to this, happens to be listening to this podcast or a school leader or educator.

In the beginning, there is what my first coach ever that I had, Dr. Martha Beck, she called it the ring of fire, where there is a moment when you have awareness, there is a moment that you feel in the reconnection to yourself. You do feel a disconnect from those who are also disconnected from themselves because you’ve reconnected with yourself.

So you’re reconnecting and you’re learning and you’re creating this awareness. And when you’re in it, you’re like, I want to tell the world, I want everybody to know this. And then people are like, what? Because they’re disconnected, they can’t, they’re not on the same frequency as you. They don’t understand it. They can’t comprehend it. And then they’re like, oh, is she weird or different? And then it kind of reclose you back to like, wait, am I being the weird person or am I being the off person?

There is a moment of this decision that you make, but I want to say something to teams. Like if you’re working with Kristi and you are, and you feel this like truth and love and lightness that comes with working with her. And then you go with your friends and you’re not feeling that it’s okay to feel that discomfort. Number one, number two, it’s normal. You’re going to feel that discomfort. Three, it’s temporary.

And this is what I want to share with you, that you will kind of feel a chapter or a moment where all you can think about is this because it feels so good. And you go and you’re out in the world with other people and you might feel like, oh, they’re talking about things that aren’t as meaningful to me anymore. I don’t relate to or connect to anymore. But eventually what happens is you get yourself to a space where one, you start to gravitate and you attract more like-minded friends and circles. And that might happen for you if you’re middle school to high school or high school to college. So you will start to attract more people.

But the other thing that happens is your ability to engage with people who don’t understand you, your tolerance for that goes up because you won’t need them to acknowledge you and to validate you and to listen to what you need to say because you’ve done that for yourself. So you can actually go out and enjoy your circle of friends and love them just for who they are and appreciate them and be with them, while you still have this expansion and awareness within you, that will happen.

And it will, because you’re so young, through the course of time, it’s going to feel like you’re the one being isolated. But what’s really happening is you’re the one that’s reconnecting. And then you see them in a light where you can actually just love them for who they are and embrace them. And if you truly aren’t aligned anymore as friends, that friendship will run its course and you’ll meet new friends.

But I do think this, I am on social media, obviously to connect to people. And what I’ve seen is there is a trend. There is a wave of coaching coming down into from maybe the thirties and forties where people at midlife were like, I need a coach. Now to like 30s where I see parents embracing coaching for the sake of being the best version of themselves as parents for their children. And now you’re starting to hear teenagers talking about it.

I am personal friends with coaches who are barely over the drinking limit age, right? They’re in their early to mid-20s and they’re out there. I have a friend, I should actually have her on the podcast. She is a friendship coach and she teaches people how to make friends like post school and college. So I just want you to know that, yes, there are people out there who are in, they’re just a little bit older than you and they’re doing this work. You can follow them on your Instagram, your social medias, your TikToks, wherever you guys are on listening and following, there are people out there that can just remind you that you’re not alone.

It’s so much about shifting the language, like shifting the language, but kept coming up for me. And yes, like again, acknowledging that there

Kristi: There are going to be moments of discomfort. There still are for me in my life, especially now that I, like, I know that this is a direction that feels so aligned to me. My resistance tends to come up even more so than before. And what I wanted to say about that too was just in terms of like, you said the teacher, whoever would be listening and maybe thinking like, oh my gosh, another thing to add to my plate, right?

Before I could see and believe it for myself, like I really needed somebody to see it and believe it for me before I could see it and believe it for myself. And that’s who my coach was to me and still is for me. And so like to those people, if they’re having those thoughts, like I believe in you, I believe that you can move past those stories and those limiting beliefs, because to me, it’s not even about putting another thing on my plate at this point.

It may have felt that way in the beginning. Now, I feel like I’m being served a buffet on a daily basis. The more I fill myself up, the more simple things feel. Again, it’s just, it’s starting something new. It’s starting fresh. It’s leaning in a different direction than we’re used to leaning to. So yeah, there’s going to be discomfort. And again, you’re going to try to be pulled back into that safety zone, that comfort zone where you’ve always been doing what you’ve been doing. And if you feel like that’s working for you, then you can continue to do that. That’s your free choice and your free will.

But I’m just here to always remind you that the belief is there because somebody held it for me. So I will not stop shining that light now because if my coach would have stopped shining her light, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Well, maybe I would have found another coach, but she has been the reason for so much of the transformation in me. And so I’m always reminding myself of that. Like I would be doing others a disservice by not showing up and having these conversations and at least letting them know that when they’re ready, I believe in you and you can make some of these changes in your life too. It just starts with small habits and then just building on those habits over time.

Like this doesn’t have to look like tomorrow you wake up and your life looks completely different. It’s just, what’s one, like, how do I want to feel today? And what’s one thing I can do to lean into that versus its opposite?

Angela: Yes, so good. So yeah, educators out there, I just want you to know that coaching is just teaching. And I think about, you know, I could not have, none of us go through life without a teacher. I don’t know of a person who’s gone through life without some sort of mentor, teacher, or actual coach, whether that’s a fitness trainer or a spiritual, you know, counselor or mentor, parents, your, maybe your auntie or uncle, your grandparents had influence. There’s somebody out there in the world who was coaching, mentoring, teaching that, and you as educators, all of us parents, we’re all teachers.

Coaching is just teaching, teaching as coaching. It’s funny that people are like, well, what’s a life coach? What do they do? We help you create awareness around, I call them like the blind spots, right? We all, like when you’re driving a car, there are blind spots, which is why we have the mirrors and coaching provides the mirrors and the reflection into ourselves and to what’s happening around us from different perspective and angles, just like teaching.

So it’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s actually, I think it’s one of the most reassuring relationships that I have with my coach and I will never not have a coach. I’ll tell you that right now. I will never not have a coach. Yeah.

So Kristi, this conversation has been so enlightening and I want school leaders to know how to access your information and content so that they can pass it on to parents who might be interested in finding their teen coach. Because I think you’d connect with parents and teens, correct? Yeah. So how can the listeners connect with you, get your resource and information so that they can be passing your services along to families?

Kristi: I love this. Thank you. First, so much for having me. I knew that, well, when we first met, that first conversation that we had was enlightening as well and just felt so connected. And whenever I have these conversations and I truly feel energized at the end. Again, this is like a part of me showing up to fill my cup. So I just appreciate you for helping me to do that today and holding the space.

So Confident Teen Podcast is where I love to hang out. My podcast is my baby. So yeah, you can find it anywhere you listen to podcasts. And I also am fairly active, I would say, on Instagram so you can find me @ConfidentTeenTeacher. And what else did I want to add? My website is https://kristisimonscoaching.com. So that’s K-R-I-S-T-I-S-I-M-O-N-S. And yeah, everything that you need to know about my services, about me, all of that information is there, like bookings for speaking and all the things.

And lastly, I would just like to add, and this is something I’m wondering if you could just throw maybe into the show notes, but I do have a freebie right now. If parents are interested, I created what I’m calling The Truth List, cracking the teen code and I created this because I was noticing a through line with all of the teens that I was working with or have been working with and even back to like my days in the classroom that teens are just so connected.

Like I can literally see and visualize in my mind that like they’re all holding like the same golden thread and the golden thread is like all of like their deepest desires and then also you know like the entanglement of all of those limiting beliefs and stories that they tell of themselves that prevent them from really connecting with that and so The Truth List is to show parents like when your teen is telling you like I don’t know nothing’s wrong or you literally just get silence.

These are some of the things that they are thinking in terms of like the blocks that they have showing up for them. And then again, those desires that are coming up for them are. For me, it’s just, it always blows my mind because you would think it would be those material things that they want a new bike, a new video game, whatever the case may be.

And honestly, it comes back to connection. It comes back to acceptance. It comes back to just being able to feel like they’re free to use their voice, free to express themselves, free to be creative. So yeah, you can get that. I’ll give you the link for that and we’ll put that in the show.

Angela: Yeah. We’ll put all of that contact information in the show notes. No problem. And I think that these are the conversations that are going to really spark a resurgence in education. I think COVID actually did us a huge favor because it shook us up.

It shook an institution up to the point of no return, where we can’t unsee, we can’t unfeel, we can’t unknow that there is room for growth and room for awareness in the field of education. And doing things the way we did them a century ago might be time to bring up some awareness. And one of the things I think we do really well in education is we avoid talking about feelings. We avoid talking about emotion because of our discomfort with it as adults, and because of what we’re afraid will happen if we open Pandora’s box when we talk about emotions.

But what will actually happen is the process of awareness, validation of our feelings, and then the regulation of them, which cannot occur if we haven’t acknowledged the feelings or validated them and process them.

So this is just the beginning of beautiful conversations that can be had with your team, with your staff, and with yourself. So, Kristi, thank you for your wisdom, your insights today. This was beautiful. I couldn’t love this conversation more and I really appreciate you taking the time to be on the podcast today.

Kristi: Yes, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you too.

Angela: You’re so welcome. All right, folks, that’s a wrap. Kristi Simons will put all of her information in the show notes, and I wish you a very empowered week. Take good care. Talk to you soon, 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 toangelakellycoaching.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. 

Enjoy The Show?

The Empowered Principal® Podcast Angela Kelly | Your To-Do List

As principals, we often find ourselves drowning in a sea of tasks, appointments, and responsibilities. But what if there was a way to transform your to-do list from a source of stress into a powerful productivity tool?

In this episode, I dive deep into the psychology behind our to-do lists and share my insights on how to create a list that truly serves you. Let’s explore the emotional relationship we have with our lists and how it impacts our ability to prioritize, delegate, and follow through on our commitments.

Get ready to revolutionize your approach to task management and discover how to create a to-do list that empowers you to take control of your time and energy. By the end of this episode, you’ll have the tools and mindset shifts needed to make your to-do list work for you, not against you.

 

The Empowered Principal® Collaborative is my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to create exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. Join us today to become a member of the only certified life and leadership coaching program for school leaders in the country by clicking here.

Ready to dive deeper into leading with confidence this spring? Join me for the Spring Training Series for School Leaders—an 8-session live program starting in March, designed to empower you through HR, testing, leadership, and more. If you’re not quite ready for the full Empowered Principal Program, this standalone series is perfect for you! Click here to register!

 

What You’ll Learn From this Episode:

  • Why your current to-do list may be holding you back from true productivity.
  • How to identify and manage the emotions that arise when interacting with your list.
  • The key steps to take your to-do list from a brain dump to an actionable plan.
  • Why prioritization, delegation, and calendaring are essential for an effective to-do list.
  • How to build a better relationship with time and honor your commitments to yourself.
  • Strategies for navigating end-of-year challenges like staffing decisions and holding space for emotions.

 

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Full Episode Transcript:

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 373. 

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. 

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

I want to dive right in. This is going to be fairly short and sweet. I was coaching one of my clients and we got into the topic of her to-do list. And I want to invite you, as you’re listening to my voice, to take a moment and think about your to-do list.

I’m sure that no matter where you are, whether you’re in your office or you’re on a walk or you’re driving or you’re listening to this and you’re far away from work, you can visualize your to-do list. Is it on your calendar? Is it on your desk? Is it on your computer? Is it in a notebook? Is it on a notepad? You know exactly what it looks like. You know exactly where it is. You know the pen you use to write with it. You know the to-do list intimately because you are so connected to it and involved with it every day.

Okay. Now think about that list and I want you to tell yourself what the purpose of that list is. What is the purpose of your to-do list? And if you think about it, for most people, a to-do list is a list that captures all of your thoughts. There are thoughts about things you need to-do, things you need to complete, things you’d like to get done, things you hope to get done, things you feel pressured to get done. And the to-do list captures the thoughts from your brain and puts them onto paper or puts them onto your computer screen.

So a to-do list for most people is simply a brain drain. It goes from the brain onto paper and this action that you’re taking going from brain to paper it’s a task or it’s an action line that I recommend everybody take, particularly if your head is spinning and your head is trying to hold all of that content in your memory, right? So the list is what helps you capture everything in your brain and it puts it down onto paper. And I’ll say paper, whether it’s computer, digital, or actual pen and paper, but it’s a placeholder for those thoughts.

It’s a placeholder for your desires, things you want to-do, actions you want to take, projects you want to complete, conversations you want to have, appointments that you want to make and then meet, people that you want to connect with, all of the things, right? Personal appointments, professional appointments, meetings, observations, conversations, check-ins, picking up your kids, getting over to the dentist, getting your best friend’s birthday present purchase, planning your husband’s birthday party, calling your mother, talking to your sister. I mean it’s on and on. This is why we create to-do lists because our brain wants to explode with all of it swimming up in our mind.

So the to-do list captures all of it and puts it down on the paper. I just call this a brain drain. So most people have a to-do list and it’s a brain drain of all the things that they want to-do, need to-do, would like to-do, feel like they have to-do. Okay? And the beautiful thing about our lovely brain is that as soon as we drain it out, there’s a moment of like, ooh, that feels good. I think I got everything. And then a few minutes or a few hours later, it fills back up. It’s like the cup that never empties. It will fill up the cup again with all new kinds of thoughts and things you need to-do, or it will recycle the water that was in the cup before and fill it back up with the same thoughts.

So you look at the list and you’re still thinking about the same things that are on the to-do list. And so we either add more things to the to-do list. Oh, I forgot this. Oh, what about that? Or we think further into the future. Okay, I’ve got this month covered. Now, what about next month? And then wait, what about six months from now? And all of a sudden, our to-do list is growing longer and longer and longer and longer. Now this to-do list might be helpful. It might give your brain some reprieve from trying to hold and memorize and remember all of the things you want to-do.

So it can give you some relief, but it can also, when you look at it, especially if you’ve been adding on and adding on and adding on, or you have the same things come up on your list over and over and they’re not getting done. So it either feels really good to be getting the things done and to getting it out of your brain, or it feels like crazy stress every time you look at it and it brings up anxiety, stress, worry, doubt, fears, resistance to having to get it all done. But the to-do list in and of itself tends to be simply a placeholder. And it doesn’t do a lot more than that as it stands, than just as a to-do list. Okay?

But what do we love to-do? We love to put things on the to-do list and then go do something that’s on the list and then check it off or cross it off. It’s incredible how addicting that is. Something as simple as checking a box or striking a line through that task. Have you ever done this? I’ve done this so many times. I did something that wasn’t on the list. So I wrote it on the list so I could write strike it off the list. Have you ever done that? It’s so crazy satisfying. I don’t know why, but something as simple as a check mark or a cross out, it feels so good. So good that we keep creating a to-do list.

But I want to go into the to-do list problem so I can help you create a to-do list that actually is productive. Because look, some things are on the to-do list day after day after day after day. Work out, work out, work out, work out, take a walk, take a walk, take a walk, take a walk, call a friend, call a friend, go to bed early, eat healthy, you know, whenever, get your newsletter done. There are things that are on the list that we’re like, we have such good intention, we really want to-do them. And then we don’t, and they’re on that list on repeat over and over, but we don’t really question it, why we’re not doing it or it shouldn’t be on the list. So there’s that. And then there are the things that we just keep adding, hoping that they’ll get done because they’re on the list.

Have you ever done that? Like, so we either get the things done on the list or we don’t, and they tend not to fall off the list. And the ones that we do get done, we feel super good about it, gives us this great big wave of dopamine, and we feel very productive on the days. The thing that we put on the list, it got done. We feel good about it. We get to cross it off the list and then it’s over. And then we look at the other things that were like, oh, and then the list feels bad again. Have you noticed that?

So because we stop at brain draining the to-do list, which is just like blurting everything out onto paper from your brain, here’s everything I need to-do. We blurt it all out and then we just leave it there. And it’s this kind of jumbled mess. It has no rhyme or reason. It has no value assigned to it. It’s just there. But when it’s on the list, everything feels important. Everything feels like a priority because it’s on the list.

I want you to consider the purpose of that list. Why do you create a list? And how do you feel about your to-do list? This really matters. Some people look at their list and they feel great about it. They know the purpose, it serves its purpose, it’s productive, they use it efficiently and to create the outcomes that they want. Some people, the to-do list is all they need to get things done.

So ask yourself, how do I feel about my to-do list? When I’m looking at it, does it feel good or does it not? It’s very clear and it’s very simple. You don’t have to make this complicated. It’s either going to generate feelings of like calmness, clarity, certainty, like productivity, or it’s going to generate feelings of anxiety and stress and doubt and worry.

So if your to-do list doesn’t feel good for you in any way, shape, or form, then it’s time to change the way that you approach your to-do list and leverage it in a way that maximizes your productivity and that feels good for you. So the to-do list is simply the very first step of proactively planning your productivity.

And what happens for a lot of us principals out there is that we don’t want to-do the remaining steps of the planning, which includes prioritization, delegation, and calendaring. We don’t want to-do that part. We don’t like it. We think it’s going to take too much time. We get stuck in indecision. We complicate it by making everything a priority, and we don’t want to delegate. We don’t want to give things up, and we don’t want to have to calendar it because it feels like now it’s set in stone and we get all squirmy if an emergency comes up or something happens and it’s on our calendar and then we didn’t do it.

When we don’t honor our calendar, there’s a feeling of disappointment or a feeling of guilt. We feel kind of guilty if we don’t honor what we ourselves put on our own calendar. Can you see it? Okay. So just notice how much emotion comes into play when you interact with your to-do list. The emotion is the biggest part of it. I know that sounds like insignificant but it’s the most significant.

And I teach an approach in EPC for task management that’s efficient and productive. And the technique itself, the process that I created, it’s not really rocket science but it does take the to-do list to the next level and the next level and the next level. It goes much deeper than just blurting everything out and doing a brain drain on a piece of paper. The technique itself is not rocket science, I promise you.

However, coaching your mind and managing your emotions around your to-do list and all the tasks you need to get done can feel like rocket science when you’re in the moment. Managing your time, managing your energy, managing your interactions, managing how much effort you put into a task or how much time you’re going to give to a task or what you’re willing to delegate, what you’re not willing to delegate.

The amount of time you spend just thinking about your to-do list but not doing the to-do list. Think about the minutes that you spend just thinking about the to-do list or looking at the to-do list or worrying about the to-do list or wondering how you’re gonna get the to-do list done. We spend so many minutes at work contemplating about the to-do list versus prioritizing it, delegating it, calendaring it and let’s go right.

It’s the emotion that’s holding you back or the fear of some anticipated emotion in the future. That’s holding you back. We have a lot of thoughts and feelings around delegation, around prioritization, around calendaring, around honoring. And we also have a lot of thoughts and feelings about the obstacles that come up. Things like interruptions, emergencies.

Now look, if everything is an emergency, if every single day you’re having emergencies and putting up fires, they’re no longer emergencies. We have a management problem. So there are true emergencies and there is a need for interruptions at times. But we tend to use them as an excuse, as the reason why we can’t calendar, we can’t plan, we can’t prioritize and delegate.

We think that school leadership is so full of emergencies and interruptions that it’s impossible to actually plan and honor the calendar. But I’m here to dispel that myth. What makes time management, balance management, planning management, what makes all of that so difficult are the threads of emotions and thoughts that we have and the relationship that we have with time, the relationship we have with ourselves, the relationship we have with others.

Those get intertwined into our ability to take a to-do list from a brain drain and prioritize it. And what can we delegate? And what can we constrain? What can we say no to? What can we put on the back burner? And then what needs to be on the calendar this week, next week, and then three months from now. And then when it comes time to-do the thing that we’re set out to-do, do we honor that? Do we actually do the thing when we said we would do it?

Are we in a relationship with ourselves where we have our own back, where we are honoring the very thing we said we wanted to accomplish. That’s a whole another level. This is why you can get the best time management system in the world. You can get the prettiest journal and planner. You can have multiple calendars on your computer, but if you don’t follow them or honor them or take the time to plan them proactively and really build up that relationship with time and planning, there is no system that will work.

There’s nothing external that you can implement that’s going to help you feel better around your time and to build a better relationship with your time. Okay? So in March, I’m going to be hosting my annual Empowered Principal Spring Training Series. I’m gonna teach how to develop a plan for the last months of school, all the testing, all the celebrations, all the graduations, all the promotions, all the end of year, yada yadas, all the hip hop hoorays. In a way that feels manageable and enjoyable for you.

Enjoy the end of the year, whether you end in May or you end at the end of June. Enjoy the last two months of the year. Don’t run yourself ragged. There’s a way to prep and plan for that now and to delegate more than you ever thought possible and to actually be present and enjoy the celebrations of the end of the year and looking at the accomplishments, focusing on what worked, focusing on all the hard work and the effort and acknowledging it, validating it, celebrating it, versus running on empty, not sleeping, overworking, overexerting, overscheduling yourself back to back, not eating, not getting any rest, feeling like you can’t even comb your hair, you know what I’m saying? Making sure that your shoes match, right?

So I hope you’ll join me in March. I’m going to be covering all things time management, planning management, balance management, but I’m also going to talk about the things that come up in the spring. March and April are heavy hitters with HR stuff. Things like making staffing decisions, how to tell people that you’re letting them go from a place of authenticity and love, and then how to hold space between the time that you tell them and the last day of school.

Because very few professions have this where we tell an employee, “I’m sorry, we’re not going to re-select you for employment next year, but we’d really like you to give it your best for the next three months, even though you know you’re not coming back to our place of employment. Have a nice day.” Yet here we are in education, having to tell people in March that they’re no longer reelected for next year. And then please do your best and get through testing and celebrate the end of the year and don’t be sad. Be happy and please do your best between March, April, May, and into June. Thank you so much for your service. Goodbye. That’s how it feels. We have to hold space for that.

Ourselves, for them, and the embarrassment or the shame or the frustration, whatever they’re feeling. So there’s how you’re feeling about it. There’s how they’re feeling about it. And then the whole staff has an opinion about it. So how to hold space gracefully for all of that. We’re going to talk about that in the Spring Training Series.

I have developed a very authentic, gentle approach to navigate this so it feels more comfortable for you, for them, and for everyone around you. And if you want more, come on in to EPC. You can get started right away at EPC. Doors are open in March. And the link to register for the Spring Training Series.

And by the way, when you join EPC, you get free access to all of my trainings, all of them. And I teach them in EPC. So you don’t have to-double down on your time. I will cover these concepts in EPC, but I also do trainings for people who are not in EPC who just want to a la carte purchase specific trainings.

So you can purchase Spring Training, you can purchase the Mastery Series, you can purchase HR stuff, you can purchase Emotional Regulation. I have the Mastery Series all separated out. You can purchase them a la carte. You can purchase them as a bundle and just join EPC because you get the best value. It’s only $19.97 and you get access to everything.

So for those of you who are new to me and you want to try something out, you can do a la carte or if you are ready to dive in, you get a full year into EPC for one price. Come on in, we can’t wait to meet you. Love you so much, thank you for the work you do. Have an amazing week. Talk to you real 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. 

Enjoy The Show?

The Empowered Principal® Podcast Angela Kelly | Acknowledging Pain

Do you feel like people are actively trying to hurt you or criticize your every move? If so, you’re not alone. The emotional and mental toll of school leadership can be incredibly painful and isolating.

In this deeply personal and vulnerable episode, I share a raw and unfiltered message that I recently posted in my public Facebook group for school leaders. I dive deep into the struggles that so many principals and administrators face, especially when they’re new to the role or dealing with particularly challenging situations.

If you’re suffering emotionally and feeling like you’re not cut out to be a leader, this episode is for you. I offer validation, support, and practical tips for acknowledging your pain and moving through it with grace and resilience. You’ll come away feeling seen, heard, and empowered to keep showing up as the leader your school needs.

 

The Empowered Principal® Collaborative is my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to create exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. Join us today to become a member of the only certified life and leadership coaching program for school leaders in the country by clicking here.

Ready to dive deeper into leading with confidence this spring? Join me for the Spring Training Series for School Leaders—an 8-session live program starting in March, designed to empower you through HR, testing, leadership, and more. If you’re not quite ready for the full Empowered Principal Program, this standalone series is perfect for you! Click here to register!

 

What You’ll Learn From this Episode:

  • Why it’s crucial to acknowledge and validate your feelings instead of pretending to be okay.
  • How to identify and label your emotions to process them more effectively.
  • The importance of releasing emotions through crying, screaming, or physical movement.
  • How to ask your emotions what wisdom or insight they have to offer you.
  • Why making mistakes is a necessary part of the learning process as a leader.
  • How to prioritize and delegate when you’re feeling overwhelmed by your to-do list.
  • The difference between reacting and responding to challenging situations and emotions.

 

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Full Episode Transcript:

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 372. 

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. 

Well, hello, my Empowered Principals. Happy Tuesday. I hope you’re doing well. I have a very different type of podcast for you today. This is something I have never done before. I have a public Facebook group for empowered principals. It’s a group where anybody who is in education, who’s an aspiring leader, who is currently a leader, whether you’re site leader, district leader, assistant principal, principal, director, coordinator, superintendent, whatever, you can be in this group. Anybody can find it. It’s a public group and it’s a Facebook group.

And in that group, I go in regularly and create comments and support people and offer Facebook Live videos. And recently, a new Principal had just found the Facebook group and she was struggling in so much suffering and pain. And I read her post or her comment and my heart ached because I remember what it feels like to be new. I remember what it feels like to be so overwhelmed, so deflated, so defeated, where you feel so behind that you don’t know how you’re going to get out of it. You feel like people hate you, and they’re actively trying to hurt you or come at you sideways or be ugly. And it’s a very lonely, it’s very isolating, it’s a very painful experience.

And hey, you don’t have to be new for this experience to happen. This happened to me multiple times over the course of my seven years in school leadership. In the beginning, for sure, it happened. But any time that a teacher or staff member was unhappy with something that they felt was impacted because of me, if they thought it was my fault, or they thought it was my decision or they just didn’t like me for whatever reason, because I’m short. Or I laugh funny or I’m super bubbly or who knows? I just annoyed them. I wasn’t their person. And there were people who found ways to be extremely hurtful and talk behind my back and say terrible things and tell the superintendent untruths. It was a very painful time.

I was thinking about this person and I just jumped on a Facebook live and I recorded from my soul, from my heart speaking to this person and to anybody who is suffering emotionally, who’s in pain, and how to handle that pain.

You are cut out for school leadership. Your brain is going to tell you that you’re not because the emotional and the mental toll can feel overwhelming. It can feel like you can’t handle it. I’ve been there. I totally get it.

And so today I thought I would share that Facebook live. It got hundreds of views within the group and I’m just offering it to you in case you or somebody you know is in pain and they’re suffering and they’re feeling like they’re not cut out to be a leader. That isn’t true. You are cut out to be a leader. And how do we know you’re a leader? You’re in the position.

So whether you’re a first year or you’re a veteran, the amount of time you’ve been in leadership doesn’t matter. When you’re in pain, pain is pain. The circumstances don’t matter. What matters is when you’re in pain, it feels like it’s never going to leave, it’s never going to end, and you don’t know how to get out.

And this Facebook Live, it’s pretty raw, it’s pretty vulnerable, and it’s here for you to acknowledge and validate these feelings. They didn’t come out of nowhere. They’re here for a reason.

So tune in, listen to this Facebook Live. If you’re on Facebook and you’re interested, you can always join the public group. And when you become a member of EPC, we have a private group where I upload all of my resources, all of the trainings, all of the webinars, everything that I teach, everything that I train, all of the resources, the workbooks, the guides that I have developed, they’re all in EPC, but this group is for the public.

So come on over, check us out. I hope this Facebook Live audio is helpful to anyone out there who is suffering. And if you want more support, please feel free to reach out and call. At the very least, we’ll do a free consult call. I’ll talk you through it. And if EPC isn’t in your immediate future, but you’d like to join us later, that’s great too.

So I wish you well, I wish you happiness, and I wish you peace and empowerment. Enjoy the show.

I want to take a moment and welcome our new Empowered Principles in the group.

A lot of people have been coming in looking for some reprieve, looking for some relief. And this message is definitely for you. If you are struggling this year, if you feel like you’re in survival mode, if you’re barely hanging on, if you feel like you’re not going to make it, if you feel like you’re being crushed or that you think that you can’t handle this, or you’re not cut out to be a school leader, or this is just too much, I want this message to be directed directly for you.

So the first thing I wanna say is that I can relate. I was there in your shoes in this job. I was a single mom opening a brand new school, my very first two years in school leadership. I had construction nightmares happening on my campus. I had a teacher who applied to the administrative position and did not get it. She was very bitter and hurt and upset, understandably. I had people who did not like me. I had been a kindergarten teacher. They didn’t feel that I was competent in upper grades. I had people who tried, actively tried, to get people to dislike me, to kind of group up against me. So I feel that burn.

I had parents screaming in my face, raging at me, refusing to leave the campus, refusing to leave the office, people threatening to go to the newspaper, people threatening to go to the superintendent. It was rough. And if you’re in, oh gosh, it makes me want to cry just thinking about it.

So first of all, I just want to say I relate to you. I know how painful that is when you’re having one heck of a tough year. So first of all, I’m so glad you joined the Empowered Principal group. This is a free group. It’s open to the public. I try to ensure that it’s aspiring school leaders, new school leaders, that it’s school leader related. I try not to let people solicit in here. Our team cuts that off. As soon as we see somebody marketing or salesy or trying to promote themselves, we delete that stuff because this is a safe space. It’s a sacred space for you. You get to say how you feel in this group. You get to be honest about it. And I want you to know that if you feel you need support in this group, all you have to do is just post how you’re feeling.

Do a brain drain, just get it all out onto this page. I will respond to every single person who hosts in this group. I keep an active watch on, on this. This it’s my group. Like you are my people and you are attracted into this group because you want to feel better. You want to feel empowered and you might feel desperate right now.

So when you’re in this zone and it feels like everything is overwhelming you and it’s crushing you and you feel like you cannot breathe, the first thing you need to do is you need to validate those feelings. You need to acknowledge them. Empowerment isn’t about pretending to be empowered. Empowerment isn’t about faking it till you make it. It’s the worst advice I’ve ever received because faking it till you make it, that is what creates imposter syndrome. That is what weakens your confidence when you’re faking it.

When you’re feeling your body’s in fight or flight, neurologically, your body is screaming at you to get out. This isn’t safe. It doesn’t feel good. Nothing about this is working. I can’t handle this. But ultimately, your body and your mind and your heart and your gut is telling you to get out, to flee. It’s not safe.

Or if you’re like me, fight. And by fight, what I mean is you want to get in there and fix all the problems and prove yourself. And you want to, you want to explain yourself and justify and argue and defend and not really retaliate, but you want to try and prove yourself to like force people to see that you mean well, you have good intentions, that you’re trying to do a good job. That’s a form of fight or flight.

When you, when you feel hurt, when people have wrongly accused you, when you tried to help and somebody turned it into how you were incompetent and didn’t know how to do your job and you failed and they’re pointing fingers and they’re blaming you and they’re accusing you, criticizing you, judging you, it is crushing to the soul. And there is a period of time on this journey. Ooh, I’m really feeling the feels for you guys today. Wow. Ooh.

So the first thing you can do is just acknowledge how you feel. Say it out loud. I’m hurt. I’m sad. I’m frustrated. I am angry.

I am pissed. I am devastated. I am overwhelmed. I’m exhausted. Say it out loud. Claim it. The feelings aren’t going away if you pretend that they’re not there. If you pretend to go in and fake it, and that’s what false positivity is, or toxic positivity, when people say, like, positivity is toxic, they’re talking about fake, faking it, faking positivity.

Especially on the weekends, guys. Here it is Sunday, you probably have the Sunday scaries and they’re probably bringing up some legit shit. I had to say it, it rhymed. But some, you know, it’s legitimate feelings here. And it’s coming to the surface and it feels horrible because what’s happening is you feel like you shouldn’t feel that way. I shouldn’t feel so this, I shouldn’t feel this, I should feel this.

So first of all, you add it to the flames by judging yourself, criticizing yourself, telling yourself you should feel different than you do, when instead the solution, the antidote, is to acknowledge the feelings. I feel this, I’m enraged, I am furious. Sometimes I have to look up emotion lists to kind of like nail how I’m feeling. There’s the anger, there’s all the spectrum of anger, there’s all the spectrum of sadness, there’s the spectrum of depression, there’s the spectrum of apathy, there’s the spectrum of hurt, grieving. There’s so many feelings out that we feel as humans. And seeing if you can label them, identifying them, is step one. Just acknowledge that they’re there.

And then you’ve got to validate them. There is nothing wrong with feeling the way you feel. When it seems like there are tens if not dozens of people upset at you judging you criticizing you it feels like you’re being ostracized. It feels like you’re being disconnected and when we feel disconnected as humans when we’re wired for connection, it’s very scary. It’s like being ostracized out of public and being isolated and alone. It’s a horrible feeling.

So I’m sorry if you feel that way. And I know school leadership is very isolating. It hurts because you are oftentimes the only administrator on that campus. You’re the only one. It feels like all of them against one of you. So I just want to acknowledge that for you.

And I’m sorry if you’re hurting and you feel that way, but I’m here to help. So, a couple of simple, simple things you can do is just to say it out loud. How do you feel? What’s the label? If you can label it, and if you can’t label it, what’s the sound? Where do you feel it in your body? Just scream it out, or punch a pillow, or go cry in bed. Do something that releases that emotion for you. Crying’s one of the best things that ever happened to humans because it is the release of emotion. It is the release of that energy buildup in your body. And eventually when you’re done with the tears, your body’s done, you’re going to feel like a, just going to be a moment of calm and some, just a temporary peace.

And in that moment, when you’ve acknowledged and you validated your feelings, you just said, it’s okay to feel this way, feel it, sit with it, breathe through it. Just take some deep breaths, ground yourself. I like to like, I either like to crawl into bed or I like to sit like on my floor, on my carpet, firm, just firmly sitting, whatever’s comfortable for your back and your backside and all of that. Whatever feels good, okay?

Then take a couple of deep breaths and there’s kind of this now what? I’ve had these feelings. Yes, I’ve validated them. I’ve felt them. I’ve processed them. I’ve let them kind of just rapture in my body. Like they just kind of take over and you just let them all out. Okay. And then you have a moment of like, what next?

This is the time when, this is what I do. I know this sounds kind of weird, but it works. You ask the feeling what it’s there for. Why am I feeling this way? And is there any wisdom? Is there any insight? Is there any knowledge? Is there information? Is there an awareness that I need to develop? What is the emotion here for? I have not met an emotion that I haven’t learned from.

So when I’m angry, oftentimes when I write it all down, here’s why I’m angry, I would write it down, down, down. And then I’ll say, anger, what are you here for?

What wisdom, what awareness do I need to gain here? There’s something here for me. There’s a nugget I need to learn or a skill I need to have or some insight or some information or knowledge. Is there anything you’ve got for me? Why did you show up at my door? I invited in for coffee. Let’s talk. Anger, what have you got for me?

Oftentimes, for me, anger tends to be there’s some kind of injustice happening, or I’ve been wrongly accused. That’s a form of injustice, right? Like there’s an injustice out there externally I’m upset about, or there’s an injustice I feel like has occurred, like, to me. And sometimes I’m just angry because I need to take action. Anger is a lot of energy and oftentimes it can be channeled into an action.

Now, if you’re angry with yourself, if you’re feeling like you are upset with yourself, you mishandled something or you didn’t know something, you weren’t aware of something, or you misspoke or you misstepped, some kind of perceived mistake or failure, you can feel that and validate that. And then what can I learn? You can’t get it right until you get it wrong. That’s the duality. That’s the dissonance required for you to know what to do.

So just know that when you misstep or misspeak or make a mistake, there’s an error, you were just not aware of something and something happened and it upset people. You can learn from that and take it away and then apply it forward and take ownership of it. You can repair it or apologize or whatever it is you need to do, but know that there’s no one on the planet that got it right. Always the first time they had to get it wrong in order to even know what right was. So there’s that.

If you’re feeling super overwhelmed, that’s normal. Every leader feels overwhelmed. And that’s a matter of like, we are thinking in kind of this ambiguous way. If you’re super overwhelmed, if it’s just too much to do in non-adjunct time, and everyone’s coming at you 100 miles an hour, and you’re playing whack-a-mole, and you don’t know how to, it just, it feels like you can’t handle it all.

That, I have a very specific program for. Come on into EPC, join right away, you’ll get time mastery, balance mastery, planning mastery. That’s all technique and skill that I’ve learned over my years in school leadership. That can be taught. That’s a skill. But if you’re feeling it right now, again, acknowledge it, validate it, and you can be overwhelmed. And then when you get to the part where you’re like, and now what? Okay. Then that’s when you brain-dare your to-do list, that’s when you start prioritizing, that’s when you have to start breaking it down.

And if that feels hard, the hardest things about planning is prioritization, delegation, right? And then saying no, like being constraining, basically. Being able to know what to say yes to and what to say no to, and making decisions through the lens of those priorities and what you value as a school leader. Okay?

Now, if you’re feeling hurt, if you’re feeling like people are mad at you or people’s behaviors out of control, a lot of newer principals will feel overwhelmed by other people’s emotions. People can be nasty, they can be mean, they can be sharp with their words, they can be nasty in their actions. And there is a gap from being a teacher and feeling included and belonging and significant and like you’re in a group, you’re in that group to feeling this isolation.

There’s a gap from learning how to handle being the leader, being isolated on your own, being the authority figure, but also having the capacity to navigate your own emotional experience and your own experience as a school leader while also holding space for everybody else’s emotions. And let me tell you people are spraying their emotions all over all over. Kids are spraying emotion. There’s emotional dysregulation in children and emotional dysregulation in adults.

And if that is a problem for you, again, come on into EPC. But my quick little tidbit for you to help you right now is if people are being nasty to you, again, state how you feel. Just acknowledge it. You don’t have to go above it. You don’t have to be walk on water perfect. Just acknowledge it. You’re human. Validate it. It feels terrible that people be so nasty and ugly. And when they’re coming at you sideways, it’s okay to have human emotions.

Again, we’re not faking perfection here. We’re not faking aloofness. We’re not faking that we’re bulletproof emotionally. No one’s bulletproof emotionally. We all have tenderness, tender spots because we’re human, because we care. We’re in the business of people. We’re in the business of human development. That’s what education is. And we are on a human development journey as a leader and as an adult.

Every person on your campus is on a journey of human development, personal development, academic development, physical development, social-emotional development. It’s all a journey, okay? Give yourself a little grace here. And I teach a program within EPC, which is the Empowered Principal Collaborative. It’s a group coaching program for school leaders. It’s called emotional regulation mastery. It’s how to understand and leverage your emotional capacity to be emotionally mature, emotionally responsible.

And by emotionally responsible, what I mean is emotionally responsive. You’re responding versus reacting. There is a difference. Most people react. They feel the emotion and they react. They say something, they do something in reaction to that initial emotion versus I’m feeling a feeling, I’m going to feel, I’m going to acknowledge it, I’m going to validate it. And I’m pausing any decisions and actions in the meantime. And then once I’ve cleared that energy, emotional energy, now I’m in a space to decide with intention how I’m going to respond.

So I know Sunday can be tough. Last week I talked about the Sunday scaries. If you’re still feeling the Sunday scaries, try validating how you actually feel. And you can definitely focus on what’s working, what feels good, what are you looking forward to. But if that doesn’t work, if you can’t tip into feeling good and you can’t bridge that gap, you’ve got to go in and stop faking it. Stop pretending you’re okay. Stop pretending that you’re not bothered by it.

That’s what I used to do. I used to act strong. I used to act resilient. I used to pretend that I was okay. I wasn’t. I feel for you. I’m here for you. I love you. I love the work you’re doing. I know the job, it’s so hard.

And I want you to share this with any school administrator who is struggling, who feels like the school’s against them or the world is against them or the odds are stacked against you. We can help. One, little by little, we can break away and break through and create a shift and we can bridge the gap so that you can get into feeling much more empowered, much calmer, much more grounded, much more peaceful.

So I love you so much. Take good care. If you want to talk to me personally, just DM me and we’ll set up a call. I’m here for you. I don’t want you to suffer any more than necessary. Okay? Breathe deep, acknowledge your emotions, validate them, feel them. And take a couple more deep breaths and then ask yourself, what can I learn from this? What is there available to me?

And then you can get into what’s working. What am I excited about? Is there anything that can give me some energy? Love you. Take good care of yourselves. 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. 

Enjoy The Show?