Hello, Empowered Principals. Welcome to episode 388. 

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. Happy June. Happy summer. Welcome to this week’s podcast. Oh my goodness, what a celebration. We just wrapped up EPC for the 24-25 school year, and we are launching into the Summer of Fun challenge. So, listen up, guys. Summer of Fun challenge is underway. And I want you to know there is something more energizing than simply reaching the finish line of the school year.

That feels amazing. And what’s even more amazing, besides the fact that you’ve crossed the finish line and it’s summer, because come on, who doesn’t love summer? It’s a wonderful season. It’s knowing that you’re going to have fun this summer. Yes, my empowered principals, it is that time. It is summertime. I’m so energized and so excited.

Summertime in the world of the Empowered Principal, for those of you who are brand new to the podcast or you haven’t been through a summer with us before, you know it means that the Summer of Fun challenge is underway. So, come on into Facebook, join the School Leader Summer of Fun challenge. Just Google or search Empowered Principal. You’ll find us, we’ll pop up. It’s an open group to anybody who’s an aspiring school leader or current school leader, district leader, state leader. It doesn’t matter what leadership position you’re in, or if you’re simply wanting to be around the energy of the empowered principals, come on in. Join us and let’s have some fun.

This is a very supportive community. We’re looking to bring fun back into school administration and into your lives. You guys, we’re here on the planet to have some fun, to enjoy our lives, to engage, to feel alive. So this year’s theme, this Summer of Fun challenge’s theme, is being alive. What are you going to do each and every day during your summer that makes you feel alive and engaged with your life, with your friends, with your family, with yourself? This is about finding ways to bring joy and fun and happiness and delight and pleasure into your every single day.

It’s fun. It’s free to join. All you have to do is go out, have some fun, feel alive, do things that invigorate you, post pictures, share about your experiences. If you’re having trouble having fun, you can share that too. We’re there to support you and cheerlead you on and coach you and guide you. This group is completely free. It’s so fun. Everybody’s really supportive. It’s really fun to see what everybody is doing and how different people get lit up by different things. I love this Summer of Fun challenge.

My dream come true would be to have a seasonal challenge, like the fall of fun, the winter of fun, the spring of fun, but I know people get busy with the school year. But the Summer Fun challenge, this is where it’s at, folks. So, for every post you share and every comment you make cheering other people on, your name is added to a weekly drawing for a $50 Amazon gift card. And you also will receive 90% off on your registration fee into EPC, the Empowered Principal Collaborative, which is my group coaching program and mastermind program for the 2025-20256 school year.

You will get a 90% discount, which means instead of paying $1997, you simply pay $199.70 for the entire year of coaching. Incredible. That’s the biggest gift. The $50 gift card, it’s just a little tease to get you in the door so that you can go buy yourself something to light you up and get you ready for the school year. But the real gift is the gift of the Empowered Principal Collaborative. So join us, okay? All right.

I want to share with you something that came up with a client of mine, and we have talked about it in EPC multiple times between April and June. So I know this may be coming in a little late for those of you who have already ended your school year. If you ended in May or early June, this might be dropping a touch late, but I want you thinking about it to put it in your plans for the upcoming year. And if you’re still in session, if you’ve got one, two, three, four weeks left, consider doing this, consider having these conversations.

So, I was talking to one of my clients, and she was trying to find the balance between allowing teachers to have fun and to do things that are different, a little out of routine, but also maintaining structure. And we had held this conversation in EPC around testing, what happens after testing. So, for some schools, they push the testing clear towards the end, so there’s only a week or two after testing, and people are basically just bringing closure, celebrating, wrapping up their classrooms, and then they’re out the door. For other people, you test in March or April, and then you go for four, six, or eight weeks after testing.

And because of the culture of testing, we know that we live and breathe this test. As much as we don’t want to believe that we live and breathe the test, we actually do, because there is an energy before the test as we’re preparing for it, and as we’re going through the school year. And then there’s an energy right around testing and through the testing window where we’re really focused, we’re really serious, we’re asking people to give it all they’ve got and focus and do their very best work, and everyone’s putting in so much mental and emotional effort. And then there’s after the test. So there’s before testing, during testing, and after testing.

And after testing, the energy shifts, the energy changes, and you’ll notice where people feel a little more lax or there’s been this big buildup to the test, and after the test, it feels like everything falls apart. It feels like chaos ensues. And if you think about why this is happening, the simple truth is that your teachers, your students, and probably even ourselves as leaders, our STEAR Cycle has changed. And what I mean by that, if you’re new to this podcast, the STEAR Cycle is simply thoughts, feelings, and actions, and how you approach your day with your decisions and your actions.

So, what happens is, during the test, we have a different set of thoughts. We have a different kind of emotional energy that’s in play, and our approach, our decisions and actions, the behaviors that we exhibit and the results that we create during that testing window, there’s a particular way we’re thinking, a particular way we’re feeling, and an energetic way we’re approaching testing.

And then, after the test, what you’ll notice is a different set of thoughts that happen. Woo, that test is done. Oh, we no longer need to be so focused. We don’t need to be so structured. We don’t need to try so hard. We don’t need to teach so hard. We don’t need to learn so hard. We want to relax a little. We want to, we’ve given a lot of effort and energy and focus.

That mindset shifts. And what happens is when the mindset shifts and the energy shifts, we also notice behaviors shifting. So, administrators are coming to me and saying, “Oh my gosh, I hate the time after testing. Everything’s so chaotic, behaviors are on the uptick, no one’s on good behavior, everybody’s tired, the routines are out of place, we need more structure, the kids need routine, but we’re doing all these parties and doing all these other projects and celebrations.” So, I just wanted to bring it to our attention here. We are simply noticing a shift in mindset.

So there’s thoughts around before test, after the test, during the test, as you’ve noticed. And this particular client that I was working with, she was struggling. She said, I want to balance this. I really want the students to celebrate and have fun, but I also want there to be a structure where kids can feel they know what to expect, and they know what’s coming, and they know how to behave, and the set of standards and expectations are still there while they’re having fun. So she was looking for the land of AND here.

And I am really excited to have this conversation with you because I do believe it’s possible for the instructional window between the end of the test and the last day of school to be a balance of fun and structure. Right? We want to have a set of consistency and a set of routines, but we also need to start with what is the STEAR Cycle that is happening that shifts. What are the thought shifts? What are the emotional shifts, energetic shifts? What are the behavioral shifts you’re noticing?

And a lot of times it will be teachers are less structured, they’re less planned, they are letting kids have a little less structure, a little less consistency, and the standards shift. So then the boundaries kind of shift, and this is where we feel the chaos. There isn’t as much structure, there isn’t as much consistency because there isn’t as much planning going on.

So, really what this comes down to, as a leader, you have to decide what is my STEAR Cycle? What am I thinking and feeling about the test, after the test? What are my opinions about what instruction should look like after testing or what the school year, what’s the energy that we should be aiming for between testing and the end of the school year? Is there the land of AND where we can have the fun, we can have the parties, we can have the celebrations, we can do reflections, we can do contemplations, and create memory books or reflect on the year.

There are so many activities that can be held between testing and the end of the year that include some academics, but also include all of the types of learning that teachers crave to do, but feel like they can’t because they’re so tied to pacing guides and curriculum standards and following the curriculum.

Perhaps this time of the year could be maintaining routines and structures, reminding students of the standards of expectations that we hold for them, and creating routines for May and June specifically that are a little bit adjusted and a little more flexible, but also have some structure to them so that kids and teachers still feel that they are able to function and regulate themselves.

So, what I want to offer is this. There is value in the last weeks of school, even though it may look different. So, when you’re thinking about what you value and how you would like the focus to be on your campus between testing and the end of the year, consider that we can decide what the structure of May and June look like and make them valuable. It doesn’t mean that you only have to focus on academics. People could be teaching kids life skills, human skills, reflection skills, contemplation skills, planning, goal setting, celebrating achievements, building up their identity, looking at where they were back in August to where they are now.

There are other skill sets beside curricular and academic and cognitive development tools and skills that we can help kids expand upon physically, mentally, emotionally. The skills that humans need to thrive, they can do. There’s plenty of things that people can be teaching and creating structure at the same time. So, bringing mindfulness activities into the end of the year. How can we make the end of the year valuable for students and teachers, and also give them that flexibility of, they are tired, they have put a lot of effort and exerted a lot of mental and emotional power into their school year and into their learning.

The rigor of the academic work may shift, but teachers can still be prepared, maintain routines, and structures. It just might not be as focused on the academic piece, but it could be focused on celebrations, reflections, goal setting, creating memories, looking forward to the upcoming school year, and allowing teachers a little bit of flexibility. But here’s the key: communicate these ideas and these routines for the end of the year in advance. Talk with your teachers in February or March, or April.

Have these conversations about what do we want our campus to look and feel like? What do we want the vibe to be? What do we want the experience to be? What do we want kids to learn after testing in April, in May, in June, once our testing is done? And what is the energetic, the emotional energy we want on campus? Do we want kids free-for-alling and getting all crazy and having no boundaries? Probably not. Do we want it to be so rigid that we stick to teaching academics only, and we hold kid,s and we don’t celebrat,e and we hold them accountable to that pacing guide until the last second of the last day of school? Maybe not. Maybe yes, maybe no.

What feels good for your school? Where does celebration fit in? Where does allowing people to have their goodbyes and have their parties and reflect on the year and celebrate their growth and look back where they were in August and September and all the things they’ve learned and the memories they’ve created and the friendships they’ve created and how they’ve matured physically, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, academically, intellectually. There’s so much to celebrate, but we can do celebrations in a way that is structured and fun and not exhausting and not so rigid that teachers just decide it’s too much and they go into all-or-none thinking. It doesn’t have to be all fun, and it doesn’t have to be no structure. It can be the land of AND.

So consider that as you’re thinking about what instruction is going to look like after testing, whether you’re in it still now, or whether you’re going to plan this and put a seed and plant that seed and cultivate this idea in conversation with your staff for next year. I think it’s an amazing thing to talk about. It’s something we have developed in EPC. We’ve come up with some plans and some ideas, and we brainstorm together. I hope you will join us for EPC next year.

Last year was epic. This coming July, I’m hosting my very first in-person event for members of EPC only. I am so excited to be coaching live for three days. We’re going to be doing this work hard, play hard mentality where we are vacationing and relaxing, restoring our energy, recovering, resting, and we’re also learning, growing, planning, and getting ready for the 25-26 school year.

So, with all of that in mind, I wish you well. Happy June, happy summer. Join us for the Summer of Fun challenge in our Facebook group, the Empowered Principal Facebook group. And I look forward to speaking with you all next week. Have an amazing week. Talk to you soon. Take good care. Bye.

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

Hello Empowered Principals. Welcome to episode 386. 

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.

Angela: Well, hello my empowered principals and happy Tuesday. Welcome to the podcast. And hey, if you’re new, a shout out to you and if you are a first-year principal, if you’ve just got hired and you’re binging on the podcast and you’re trying to learn all of the things, welcome to the world of the Empowered Principal. We are so happy you are here.

Just remember, I have all of the essential leadership things lined up for you. So be sure to reach out. Just a shameless plug here, but I want to make sure that you feel supported as you’re entering into the new position. So, I know it’s the middle of May, you’re winding down your current position into your new position. And I just want to let you know there is support available. There are resources for you. You don’t have to go into that first year all alone. So just be sure to check that out.

Now, I have an amazing guest. We have just met, and I’ll tell you guys, when I have people on this podcast, I do a pretty thorough screening. I send a list of criteria and I am very adamant about protecting this podcast. I do not want it to be a stream of solicitations of other people’s products or services. I want them to come on with the intention of serving the community and to provide you with something that you can walk away with. So, I’m pretty stringent about it.

And for every person who’s on my podcast, if I do not know them personally, I do a meet and greet beforehand. I meet them personally. I get to know who they are, what they’re like, their energy, their vibe to see if they’re a match for the content of this podcast. And I have to tell you, Steven Puri, who is our guest on today’s show, is not my typical podcast interview. But when I saw his email, there was something about the email that caught my attention, and that was a personal connection.

So, Steven and I both lived in the Mountain View, California area. I served in the Mountain View area as a teacher, principal, district administrator. Steven worked in the industry. I have actually been to the company that he worked at for so many years. I used to take my kinders on tours there because I had parents who worked at the company. And now we connected and he has so much insight to share with you guys. I couldn’t resist having him on the podcast. So, that was a long introduction, Steven. All of that to say, welcome, welcome to the Empowered Principal podcast.

Steven: Angela, I really appreciate you having me on. I hope as you said in a recent episode, I can be an A-plus guest. And for everyone listening, I hope that some of the things I have to share from my journey are helpful in terms of feeling your own empowerment, mastering your time, finding your focus. This is where I’ve spent a lot of my time.

And to give you a little context, I spent about twenty years as a senior executive at several studios. As Angela mentioned, as a senior executive vice president, DreamWorks for Kurtzman Orci, as a vice president at 20th Century Fox. Saw a lot of movies there, and then when I moved back into tech, I saw that there was a lot of overlays about the kind of management techniques, both for managing yourself as managing others, that were really helpful. And that’s what I’ve been talking a lot about the past five, ten years. So I’m really happy to be here and I hope this is both engaging and maybe has some cool prescriptive advice.

Angela: Yes. One of the things I love about Steven is his engagement strategies, talking about education, but just human-to-human contact, his engagement strategies. And our conversation at our meet and greet flowed so beautifully. I felt that connection and those are the kind of people I bring on because it’s really about the energy and the intention behind the words that we’re sharing with you today. And so, we’re probably going to dive into a couple of different topics here and there, but really the context of this is it starts out with storytelling and connection and your ability to work and flow with people. That’s kind of where our conversation led. So, Steven, I’m going to just turn the mic over to you and I’m going to let you tell the stories that you shared with me on the meet and greet and we will put them in the context of our school leaders out there who are wrapping up the year. I know we talked a little bit about the energy behind the end of the school year and managing all of that stress, trying to do many big things at one time, managing the time, managing your energy. So let’s just dive into your story and tell the listeners a little bit more about who you are and the context of why you’re here today.

Steven: That is so generous of you. Okay. I will give you some of my story, and by you I mean everyone listening, so that you have a spine on which you can hang the lessons we’re going to talk about. So you’re like, “Oh, I understand the context of why Steven learned that and how it’s applicable.”

So, my story is, if it were made into a movie, it would probably be something of a dramatic comedy in that I think a lot of things have fallen in my lap and I’ve been very lucky, and then I’ve worked really hard to make something of the things that fell in my lap. I cannot tell you that my grand design at fifteen was to be on Angela Kelly’s podcast years later talking about remote work, but it’s led here. And I’m going to tell you how.

So my mom was a high school science teacher in the Bronx. Hard area, this was a long time ago, and she definitely had that vibe of like, you need to learn, you need to respect education, you need to do this from a very underfunded point of view. My parents both grew up extremely poor and my mom worked while she was a high school science teacher on the side. I guess what you’d call it now is like a side hustle. But she built up an engineering education where she eventually became a software programmer at IBM, which is where she met my dad, who was a hardware engineer. So my mom was programming System/360 computers. My dad was designing chips for them.

So when I was little, of course, mom taught me how to code. I mean she’s a teacher. She loves passing along knowledge, right? Which is what I’m very excited about. As you know, I’m having a son this year. Super excited to probably teach him more stuff than he cares to learn, but you know what, you’re trapped, right? So let’s talk about stuff.

So, so that was my early years was doing software, learning about this, becoming a little code monkey, a little hacker. I got a scholarship to go to USC. USC was very generous and I was also a Thomas J. Watson scholar from IBM. So, they essentially paid me to come to Los Angeles, which I grew up in Northern Virginia, very different world from that. This fell in my lap where USC came when I was still a junior in high school and said, “Do you want to come to college early? You know, we think you’d do well here.”

I went there and this is another one of those lucky coincidences. So while I’m there, of course, a lot of USC has a fantastic cinema TV school. A lot of people in my dorm and in my life were aspiring filmmakers, you know, writer directors, you know, wanting to be the next Lucas or Spielberg because they had gone to school there, right?

And this was the moment when film went digital. And I happened to be at the intersection of that Venn diagram of I could speak to an engineer and I could also speak to a filmmaker. And by sitting right there at that intersection, my career took off when I was like a junior, senior in college. Suddenly I started working in film. It was an amazing period of time. And you know, everyone aspires to make great movies and work on great projects. I got very lucky is that I produced the digital effects for Independence Day and we won the Academy Award for the visual effects on that movie.

And a rising tide lifts all boats as we know. Yes. We set up a company with the director and producer of Independence Day because we got along really well. We were like, “Oh, we’re going to keep making big movies like this.” Sold that company four years later to a German conglomerate called Das Werk, after doing a bunch of movies through there. So I got to work with Woody Allen and Jim Jarmusch, who are not typically known as effects filmmakers, as well as worked with Cameron and Fincher and Spielberg and a bunch of the big name, you know, a bunch of guys.

So, I did that for a few years through my twenties, sold this and foolishly thought, “Oh, this is easy, like building companies is so easy.” Yeah, later in life we learn not so easy, right? So, this next turn was I had, in doing this, met a lot of people who were in film, not doing computer generated film, but actually producing films and working at the studio. I thought, “That seems really cool.” So that was kind of my thirties was I want to go be a studio executive, which is how I ended up as you know, senior executive at a couple studios. Again, kind of fell in my lap, but I worked really hard with those opportunities that came.

And I think there’s probably from my both my parents who worked very hard and earned their degrees, there was a celebration of learning. It was like one of the greatest things you can do with your life is just have a beginner’s mind. Just continually ask why and how and why and how, you know? And I can’t wait, you know, for my child and hopefully my children have that same sense of curiosity about the world.

So, I did this, worked on a bunch of movies, Transformers, Star Trek, you know, Die Hard, Wolverine, and I have to admit, there’s a moment on Die Hard where I was like, “This is a terrible script. I’m the senior executive running this franchise.” And I know that the momentum behind this project because Bruce wanted, he had a spring slot to shoot. And when you’re working with stars, they have very rigid schedules. It’s like, “I have April and May to do this and then I have to be in Romania to shoot the sequel to, you know, whatever it is.”

So, he had a slot and it was like my boss, the chairman of Fox Film Entertainment was very clear, “We’re going to shoot this in the spring.” Like, I don’t care if it’s written in crayon on, you know, on like napkins. You will shoot this because we know how much money we’ll make. We can do the projections, we’ll release at Christmas, it’ll make some amount of money, right?

I’m thinking, “I’m going to wake up, be like forty, fifty years old, be like, I’m cranking out Die Hard movies.” You know, like, and what will my children think of me? Hey, Daddy’s got to go to work today making Die Hard 9 in the retirement home because it pays your college, right?

I decided to get out of film, which a lot of my friends were like, “You’re insane.” There are maybe thirty executives in the world that had my job, that senior executive at a studio because it’s a very rare job to have. And I got back into tech. And that was when, as I mentioned before, I had this moment of, “Wow, there is a lot about how work works in film that is not translated to other industries and I can mind some of those lessons and share them in these other industries.” And that became very much a point of my career the past five, ten years of just saying like, “Okay, here are things that I’ve learned.” And the fun thing is when you can illustrate them with like, “Here’s a great anecdote about how Transformers got made or how Star Trek got made or how this,” you know, it’s more memorable for people. So, maybe it just it sits differently and people remember this like, “Oh, that’s a great productivity technique that the writers on so and so used. Oh, I should try that,” right? So, that’s kind of the spine of my story.

Angela: Nice. Oh, well, first of all, I think everyone can relate to film because most of us in the world watch movies. Second of all, I’m personally attached because for those of you who don’t know, my son is a screenwriter. He went to Chapman University. He studied screenwriting, but he really loves working on set. He is an assistant camera. He’s worked in LA, he’s worked on many shoots, he’s traveled for his work and now he’s in Nashville and he’s getting into the network out here. And he loves the art of film.

And so, Steven’s story connected with me personally as a mother, but also I started thinking about how leadership is leadership and it crosses over in every industry. And sometimes in education, we feel like it’s very different in the field of education than in other industries. And then when I hear stories and I speak to other leaders who have actually been in the shoes of leadership in other industries, there really are so many similarities and things that we can learn from one another in different industries. And I think it’s wonderful to consider and be curious, like you said, to bring in perspectives outside of education because we want to expand and evolve our capacity to lead within our field without being stuck in the bubble of how we’ve always done things.

Steven: Angela, I so appreciate you saying that. And to anyone who is listening who is like, “What is this Hollywood tech guy have that’s applicable to teaching and you know, being an administrator in education?” I would love to acknowledge that there’s a bit of that when you and I were talking, I was like, “I’d like to figure out if this is applicable, if this is something that would actually help your audience.” And you and I got to a place of like, “Oh, this is going to be a great episode. Let’s do that.” I hope this is a great episode.

And I’ll mention that there are some things that I have seen either through my mother’s life or friends who are who are teachers, mainly in LAUSD, that I have listened to their problems and said, “Oh, it’s so interesting how you don’t see this as similar, but I see it as an outsider, outside the bubble as being very similar to other problems in other industries,” which really mimics my journey, which is a lot of the solutions that I offer are ones because they represent solutions to problems I have. And I’m not unique.

And I just want to say, there’s that great new mode about, you know, if I’ve seen further it’s because I’ve stood on the shoulders of giants. A lot of what I’m going to share is from reading the books by all the smart people who have been like, “I’ve thought on this deeply for my entire life and here’s what it is.” And if you do read like those top twelve books on focus, on meditation, if you read Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, if you read Clear and Cal Newport and, you know, I’ve actually got to meet Cal, like you start to see, you know what, there are maybe five to seven common themes here. They all have their own lexicon. They do need to sell you their book for $24.95, so it has to be different than everyone else’s book, right? With their own McKinsey studies, you know, and like this case study of this weird, you know, serial company in Oklahoma and how they did things. So they all have those specifics. But in general, there’s some very common things. I’d love to share some of those. So maybe this is an opportunity for us to dive in.

Angela: Yeah, let’s go.

Steven: Okay. So, let me begin with this, which is I know that when you are an administrator or you are an actual teacher, like frontline, that there’s a lot of your energy, your brain energy, your spirit, your time that goes into other people. You are there to nurture a next generation of people, whether you are there administrating them or they are actually talking directly to the students.

And there is also a bunch of time where you need to do things that move your life forward, whether that is, “I need to go offline now. I’m not interacting one on one or one on thirty with other people, but I need to do the deep work that moves things forward here.” And let’s talk about some of the ways in which that can be either easier or I think you mentioned another episode like how to find the joy in some of that.

And there is number one, a problem that I hear from a lot of people, which is a cold start problem. I have it. I did a bunch of reading on solving it. And I, as you know, run a community of thousands of focused, you know, productive people. And when I talk to them, because I love learning, this is the number one thing they bring up in their own language. They always say it’s this thing about like sometimes just the inertia of getting going. Either I’ve had a day already and I’m going to guess that, you know, there’s the, “I need to grade papers or I need to review work or it’s I need to do administrative work.”

I’ve already had a day. I’m exhausted. How am I going to do this? And by the way, this could sprawl until dinner time. And no one wants to have that feeling of like, “Oh, I’m tired. I’ll just get up early tomorrow and try and like finish the stuff I just couldn’t get through today,” right? You want to have the feeling of, “Oh, I’m done. Feel great. Let me go do something.”

When you really dig down the cold start problem and you do the why and the why, very often what you come to is the problem is about overwhelm. And it’s overwhelm because there are too many things that you think you’re going to do and it’s not possible. And your brain then shuts down and you do fewer. There is research that if you say, “I’m going to do three things,” you may do three things. If you say, “I’m going to do seven things,” you may actually do two. Because it just seems insurmountable, right? I can climb that hill but that mountain, I’m never going to make it and you don’t go as far, right?

Yes. So, there is that issue. Part of the solution to that is limit yourself to what you’re going to do so that you have successes. So if it’s like, “I’m going to make this up, I’m going to grade four thousand essays tonight.” No, you’re actually not, you know? But if you say, “I’m going to grade thirty or something,” right? That is achievable and you can get there. And then suddenly you listen to an investor, right? So that’s one thing.

The other kind of overwhelm, and this maybe applies sometimes to people’s like side hustles. I don’t know if part of your community is also working on another thing. Yes, they are. It is that when you have a task that seems so large, you don’t know how to approach it. That stops you from doing anything. It’s almost like a paralysis. And for example, we have a lot of writers and engineers who work in our platform. And it is interesting how some of them will make a task that’s like, “Write my book.” You know, and you’re like, “You’re never going to achieve that in the next two or three hours,” right? Right.

So, I mean this is why we built a smart assistant that helps you break down tasks. So it might say, “You know what, instead of write your book, which seems big, what if we were to say outline chapter one?” And could we do that in thirty minutes? And then suddenly you’re like, “You know what, when I was driving yesterday, I did have that idea for chapter. You know what, I could jot that down in thirty minutes.” Great. You’re going to have a win today, right? And in doing that, in chipping away at it, you start to have little successes.

I’ll mention this, there is a vice principal at a high school in Missouri that has been using our platform for two years, named Roy King. Super nice dude. And every night and weekend, I’ve seen him in our platform because we have like a virtual co-working space where he’s been working on the side on his engineering PhD. Wow. He defended his dissertation last Monday. It’s so great. In our group chat was like, “Hey guys, you know, guess what? Tomorrow is the big.” And people all over the world were like, “Congratulations, Roy. We’ve been excited for this day for you. You know, good luck. You got this one,” right? 

People who don’t know him. And that feeling of support and seeing that he could chip away at this and complete his side hustle. The next day when he said, “Hey, you can now call me Dr. King,” is a pretty great moment to see you can do those things. But he was very methodical about, “Tonight, I’m only going to get through these three things and I’m not going to look at a list of seventeen where I just feel paralysis of like, I’m never going to do that.” And then you procrastinate. When you feel you can’t do something, that’s when you put the laundry in, that’s when you clean the dishes, that’s when you scroll. So that’s one of the things. Like false productivity. Exactly right. So let us begin there.

Angela: Yes. Exactly. And so for the listeners, this to me resonates with the concept that I teach called the overwhelm cycle and the forever long to-do list that just basically transfers from day to day. So you write the list of all the things you have to do and it just stares at you and you kind of pick the easy things or the things that are super fast and then the non-urgent important things sit there on the list from day to day and then you have to cram, right? So, it sounds like we’re talking a little bit about there’s always too much to do in educational leadership and there never feels like enough time. So we have to knowing that, if that’s just a fact of the work, then we have to come up with some strategies and that’s what Steven’s here to share with us today is are some strategies for you to really break down the work in this field, which is there is too much to do and not enough time. So how do you break it down so that your brain drops its resistance to getting started and then to complete a bigger task, right?

Steven: Yes. And can we move on to another principle of monotasking? And this is something that there has been in the course of our lifetime, a lot of talk around multitasking and like, “Oh, I’m so good at juggling.” And the most recent research really shows that we don’t multitask. The thing that we call multitasking is monotasking with context switching in between. Yeah. And it’s almost like if you think in computer terms, it’s like I’m running this program. Oh, I want to switch to that program. Let me take what I’m doing, store it in RAM, find the other context, bring that back from RAM so I can work on it and then work on the new thing. And that process of storing and retrieving, that context switching actually burns brain energy.

So what they’ve found is that you can pretend that you multitask, but in reality, you’re context switching and using energy that could be used to get something done if you monotasked on simply switching tasks. So, I’ll make this one super short, but that is one of the things that I’ve personally seen with a lot of writers is that and we’ll talk about sort of the balance of creativity. I’ve seen works. I’ve been lucky to work with a lot of the top writers in Hollywood. But with monotasking, there is that moment where a writer says, “Okay, this is the thing I need to do and needs to block everything out.” And that’s when you do get the, “Hey, I came out of my cave and here is the script.” And then Brad Pitt wants to be in it because it has that kind of focus to it.

Angela: Yes, I agree with you. And so again, when you have the to-do list and there’s teacher observations and there’s discipline situations that you need to deal with and you need to investigate, and then you’ve got to make these phone calls and you’ve got to check these emails. When you are doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that and a little bit of this and a little bit of that, your brain thinks it’s being productive, but at the end of the day, that’s the day you look back and say, “What did I get done today? What just happened with this day?” And it’s because you’re a little playing, I call it whack-a-mole. You’re playing whack-a-mole all day long versus blocks of time. I call it batching blocks of time.

So, principals out there, particularly new principals, I know you’re listening because you’re you’ve just got hired or you’re getting hired and you’re transitioning over. You do have the skill sets as a teacher, but it’ll feel like you don’t have them when you go into the administrative role because the expansion of the role and the expansion of responsibilities and demands on you. So you’re going to be in the overwhelm cycle. So, taking these tasks, breaking them down into small segments as Steven was saying, and then also batching them or you said monofocusing. Is that the way you were Monotasking. Monotasking. Yes, I love that word. That’d be a new vocabulary word for me. Monotasking where you are focusing on just one thing and allowing your brain. And would you say, Steven, and you can help me with this. Would you say that when you monotask, your brain can actually go deeper into that task?

Steven: This is a fantastic segue into flow states.

Angela: Okay, perfect.

Steven: Let’s do that. Some of you out there are nodding your head, “Flow state, got it.” And other people are like, “I maybe I’ve heard that. What exactly is that?” So, let me do thirty seconds on what it is and then we’ll talk about some of the conditions precedent, some of the techniques that help you get that. Great. Flow state, to be very succinct, is that concentrated state when you look up, hour or two hours have gone by, you’re like, “Wow, I got everything done. I didn’t fidget. I didn’t check my email. I didn’t go to the bathroom. I didn’t go get water and you know, go check the fridge.” And you just were incredibly productive and focused and maybe did your best work.

If you’re a sports fan, you’ve heard that famous quote of Michael Jordan about, “When I’m in the zone, it’s me and the ball.” He’s like, “Everything else falls away. I don’t see the scoreboard. I don’t see the defenders. I don’t see the stands. It’s just me and the ball.” Picasso had that great quote about, “I was up all night. I didn’t go to the bathroom and I forgot to eat, but here’s Guernica. Do you like it?” you know.

So Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote a book and he named this book Flow because he said, “I’ve studied these people who get into this state where it’s just they’re hyper productive, they’re high performers, and I wanted to distill the knowledge about that into a form where people could use it.” And he said, “They often describe it in a way where it almost feels like you get into a state where you’re not just moving forward, but you’re moving forward like a river is carrying you.” And he said, “We’re going to call it flow,” right? And that’s what we call it flow state.

So, I personally first had that on an airplane where the Wi-Fi was broken. There was no incoming Slack message, text, WhatsApp, you know, email to check. And I had to like do some designs and I looked up. I was like, “We’re landing? We just took off. Like what? How are we in, you know, San Francisco now?” right? And it was magical. I was like, “Oh wow. How my career would move forward if I could find a way to do this?” Which of course, necessity is the mother of invention. We all look for the things that help us.

So I offer this thought about flow states, which is now that there’s a ton of research on how to get into these states. And by the way, Cal Newport, fantastic writing around this, you know, the deep work movement. There are some things that seem to help. Number one, you have to believe what you’re doing is meaningful. Like if you think you’re just raking the lawn, it’s not that thing, right? So you have to believe there’s some meaning in what you do. You also have to have skills that apply. So if it were Picasso playing basketball, not going to get into a flow state. You know, Michael Jordan painting, not going to, unless I know something I don’t know, right? But not going to get him into flow state, right? And it has to be at a challenging level where you’re not outmatched, but it is something where you have to pay attention, you get into it and you start to feel good about, “Oh, I’m good at this. This is real,” right?

Music, there’s a lot of research now that music often helps. And for example, I know a lot of film composers and they have a lot of time on their hands right now. So we have like a thousand hours of original music in my platform that is all designed around the scientific best practices, which seem to be about sixty to ninety beats per minute, certain key signatures, non-vocal, you know, screaming lyrics at you, you know, rhythmic, and some people really dig binaural beats, you know, which is when there is a delta in the frequency between your left and right channels. So you need headphones for that. We offer binaural beats too if you’re into that sort of thing.

And with this, and there are some wonderful YouTube channels. There’s Brain FM, there’s Endel, there are a lot of people who are… There are a lot of apps, you know, that provide fantastic music if you like that. So there are a number of these things that provide the conditions precedent to make flow states more available to you. And then once you drop in, it’s like a muscle, you start to develop that. I’m going to use this as a segue into a question, which is I believe that probably a lot of the audience listening, when they’re working on things that are not classroom oriented, they may be doing that at home. Am I correct about that?

Angela: Yes, they’re working at home about as much as they’re working at work.

Steven: Right. So let’s talk about that for a moment because there are some really bad practices about working at home that can be corrected and you’ll start to see the benefits. I say this because I not only studied it, but I observed it in myself and made this correction in my behavior, which is when I first started running tech companies from home, right? We were entirely remote and I was like, “Oh my god, this is so great. I can hire talent globally. I don’t have to just hire people who live twenty miles from the office. Oh, you know, we don’t have commute times. Everyone can work and you know, do…”

All these things are true. But I made a huge mistake, which is in my home environment, I started working from the sofa. I was like, “Oh, you know what, this afternoon I’ll be here. It’s great. Oh, you know, I made breakfast. I’ll just sit here at the kitchen table, work a little bit.” And one of the things I saw, and I’m going to illustrate this actually with a Hollywood story, which is that the brain does associate spaces and light with certain kinds of work.

Now, I’m going to give you two quick examples. One is when Roland and Dean, whom I mentioned we did Independence Day and Godzilla and Stargate and, right? When they wrote, they would always rent this villa down in Puerto Vallarta, this beautiful villa. And they said like, “The light in the morning, the way it comes in across the pool and you know, they.” Don Devlin, Dean’s father was like Jack Nicholson’s producer. So Dean was accustomed to like a certain kind of lifestyle. And Roland Emmerich, his family is basically the John Deere of Germany, like a huge industrial family, right? So they rented this beautiful villa down and this is where they wrote their screenplays as their career was going up and up from little movies like Moon 44 and Universal Soldier to Stargate to, right?

So on a Friday, Roland told his assistant, “Okay, go rent the villa for us. We need to go write the next script. Like we have a deal lined up at Fox.” She came back and she’s like, “It’s rented already.” Oh no. And it was like a hue and cry around the office. It was like, “What are we going to do?” So Roland, being Roland, spoke to his attorney, John Diemer, who’s a fantastic entertainment attorney and was like, “John, you must buy the house.” By Monday, John had purchased the villa. I don’t know where the current renters went. God bless. I’m sure they found another place. But Monday, Roland and Dean were there because they had associated so much the space and the light with creativity. And that is where they went and wrote Independence Day and Godzilla and a bunch of stuff, right? Wow.

Now I’ll tell you this, it doesn’t have to be, “Oh, we need a villain Puerto Vallarta.” When I was working with Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci, who are amazing, wonderful guys. Bob sadly just recently died about three weeks ago. Sorry to hear that. But while I was working with them, their meeting was really like that college, we’re in dorm rooms, we’re scrappy, young, right, we’re going to be somebody someday. This is before they did Alias and Mission Impossible 3 and like Zorro, like all the things that launched them to be, you know, the Transformers guys.

So when they had to write, and I mean when they were getting $1.5 million per screenplay. This is established top twelve writers in Hollywood. They would still have their assistant book them a room at the Universal Hilton, which I whisper to say is not the Beverly Hills Hotel. This is not the Ritz Carlton, this is not the Four Seasons. This is the Beverly Hilton. And it was super, let us say, austere to be diplomatic, okay? Yes. But it evoked in them that creativity of we’re young guys in college and we’re scrappy, we’re going to. We’re hungry, yes. Exactly.

And that is where they wrote these multi-million-dollar screenplays in that little room at the Universal Hilton. I’m not talking a suite. I’m talking a room, all right? Yeah. So that is something that I offer like a mental hack is if you start to say, “You know what, this is the space in my home for doing this thing,” your brain, as soon as you enter it, starts to be trained to say, “Oh, I’m here right now to grade papers or work on my side hustle or whatever it is.” And don’t let that blur throughout your home. Don’t take your laptop into your bedroom and then say, “Well, this is where I’m also going to do the other thing.” You’re missing out on a really good hack.

Angela: That was a beautiful story because I coach, my business took off during COVID because we were pivoting and we were going remote and nobody knew what we were doing. We were all coaching together on this and it was trial by error, learn by doing, just in the, you know, walking through the fire together. And what’s interesting is post pandemic, we still rely on remote days. We didn’t used to. I mean, most schools that I know of didn’t have remote days prior to COVID. It was you were in school or you were not in school. And now we can have hybrid days where or we can have remote days. Like if there’s inclement weather, we can still hold school remotely.

They have these kinds of options now and the people that I am working with will say like it feels like those days are kind of a wasted day or less productive. But based on what you’re saying, if we can get set up as such, at least for the teachers and the administrators to define some space, create the type of lighting that works for you, whether that’s a little, you know, a little dark and a little focused or it’s like bright and sunny and cheery, whatever works for you, but maintaining consistent space and a consistent kind of environment to keep you focused.

One of the things I learned, we had so many people in our house during COVID that you had to kind of use a bedroom, but sitting in bed working, like when you first got up, it felt good in the morning like, “Oh, I’m just going to lay here and work away.” And then I realized, “No, that’s not good.” Or like working. Now, principals, I know what you do. You come home, you eat dinner, you play with your kids, you put them to bed, and then you get on your laptops. And you might be getting on your laptop on the couch or you’re getting on your laptop in your bed. Anybody guilty as charged? 

Steven: Can I raise both hands? 

Angela: Yeah. It’s so hard to go to sleep when your bed is your office and it’s supposed to be your place of serenity and peace and quiet and shutting down the brain when you’re firing it up right before the time you’re asking it to shut down and turn off, right?

Steven: Can I say something a little bit woo, a little bit like out there? I’m just going to tell you. So with my own company, the Sukha company that I run, which is this focus community, one of the things I noticed is when I was doing the thing of spreading out through the house and be like, “Oh, I made breakfast, I’m going to work at the kitchen table,” which was a thing, right? Yeah. “Oh, it’s late in the afternoon. Well, I’ve worked on the sofa before, I’ll work on the sofa now. It looks so comfy,” right? My company was doing okay, not great, to be super honest.

And when I was talking to Laura, my wife, who’s pregnant right now, and I said, “You know what, I’m going to actually make a dedicated effort to set up my workstation upstairs in one of the empty bedrooms and that’s going to be a place to work. So when I’m downstairs, I’m totally available to you. I’m never going to be like, ‘Oh, I’m on a Zoom.’ If you see me outside of that room, I am in non-work mode. But if you see me in my office, I’m going to be really focused on that.” Can I tell you, since I made that decision in January, my company has turned around. Like it is growing. And I’m not going to say it’s because I’m brilliant. I think there’s something about just the energy does it kind of gets concentrated and you start to exude and attract things to you by saying like, “No, this is my space for killing it.” And I want to work X number of hours but get this amount done.

I’ll tell you one story. When in the early days of my company, I was looking for a name. And let me be honest, I had every bad name in my head. I was like, “We should call it Focus app or productivity mate or something terrible.” And I was just like, “I hate all these. I hate them all,” right? It was around the time Laura and I were getting married, right? So, we go off on our honeymoon, very grateful. We got to go to Bali. Like yoga, you know, Laura and I met in yoga. Okay, beautiful. We have a daily yoga practice for ten years, right? So it’s a big part of our life. It’s very like meditative but physical thing. Yes.

So, we go off to Bali. And running a small business that I have and being part of, you know, any sort of organization, you’re continually badgered with questions. Some are big, some are like, “Can we order the staplers?” you know. But all day long, it’s like this barrage of things. And I knew for the next ten days, no one would bug me. Yes. It’d be really quiet, right? So I’m like, “This is the perfect time to let my unconscious mind bubble up.” And we’ll pick up on that moment about sometimes you do need to be creative. It’s not just grading papers. Sometimes there are, you know, let me create the next thing. I’m going to talk about that in a moment. 

Angela: Designing content, right? 

Steven: Exactly. So, I told Laura as we’re flying over there, I was like, “Listen, I know we’re going to, you know, do some yoga and eat some food and sit by the pool.” I’m like, “Do you mind if I sort of feed the back of my mind on the first day so that maybe over the course of the next ten days, something bubbles up and it becomes interesting,” right? And I said, “I kind of want to reach out to a couple of our power members in these early days and ask them like, ‘What do you like about what we do? Maybe you can give me an outside the bubble perspective that I can’t see because I’m inside the bubble.'”

Laura, being Laura, was just like, “Absolutely, I’m going to the pool. Like enjoy. Talk to a couple of people. I’ll see you down at the pool when you’re done,” right? So I had a couple of conversations that day. And the third one, I was talking to a guy. And I promised everyone, “It’s just ten minutes. Would you just talk to me for ten minutes? I just want to hear your thoughts,” right? So about eight minutes in, I had asked all the dumb questions and I was like in the wrap up. I’m like, “You know, Angela, thank you so much for chatting with me. I really appreciate you taking the time.” And he stopped me. He said, “Steven, you didn’t ask me the right question.” And I was like, “Oh, okay.” You got my attention. Right. “What was the right question?” He said, “You should ask me why do I pay you?”

And we only charge $10 a month. It’s like thirty cents a day or something. So it’s like, it didn’t seem like a big deal. But I was like, “Okay, I probably wouldn’t have said something so bold, but I’m super curious. Like, why do you pay me?” He said, “At 3:00, I can be playing with my kids or at 6:00, I can say where did the day go?” He said, “The difference is, did I open Sukha in the morning and have a focused experience?” He’s like, “That’s why I pay you. My kids are two and four and I want to see them grow up.”

And I was like, “That is more articulate and insightful than any stupid thought I’d had over the past couple of months. Thank you.” Told this to Laura. I was like, “Oh my god, I talked to this guy. It was so cool. He said this thing. What do you think?” She loved it. So we’re brushing our teeth that night going to bed and Laura says to me, “You know what that is? What that guy told you is you actually are trying to help people live a happy life. And the tools that you built, you know, the music we talked about, the timers, the smart assistant, these are just the path. This is just productivity is the path to that.” And that is why she said, “You know, Sukha, it’s that word we hear in yoga a lot about happiness, self-fulfilled happiness when you’re doing the thing you’re meant to do and you’re good at it.” And she’s like, “I think that’s kind of what you’re doing.” And that’s why I called it the Happiness Company, the Sukha company.

As this relates to creativity, which I know we bookmarked in the middle of that. So something I learned along the way about creativity was this. And this is when I was like twenty years old, wet behind the ears, and I was working at an ad agency that did trailers for movies, mainly for Warner Brothers and Buena Vista, which is basically Disney. So, two guys own the company. Awesome guys. Still good friends with one of them. One of one of them has died at this point sadly. But Jeff, who is one of the two owners, came into my office and my job at this point was to get the movies in and assign them to writer producers. “Hey Angela, we got in this movie from Warner Brothers. It’s a rom-com. Right, you know, watch this and write a trailer for it,” right?

So, he comes to my office, he goes, “Hey, do you know Bart?” And I was like, “Bart, the guy in the vault who delivers the tapes around Hollywood?” He goes, “Yeah. Have you ever given him a movie to write a trailer?” I was like, “Bart, the guy who drives his around Hollywood.” I actually, Jeff, I actually haven’t. And he always called me Stevie. He’s like, “Stevie, I think you should give him a movie.” And I was like, “Okay, you’re the boss and you’ve been doing this for twenty years and you have this huge reputation. I’m totally going to trust your instincts. You got it. Done. Do this.”

Two days later, Jeff comes to my office, “How’s Bart doing?” I’m like, “Jeff, I gave him the movie two days ago. He’s never written a trailer before. I’m not going to stress him out and ask him every day, ‘How you doing? How you doing?'” He’s like, “What else did you give him?” “Jeff, he’s never written a movie before. I gave him one movie. I gave him some Warner Brothers B title that had like a month deadline. So if he bombs out, we can give it to one of the pros and they’ll bang it out in a week.” 

He’s like, “Stevie, let me teach you something about creativity.” He said, “It’s always about the other thing. If you give Bart one thing to work on creatively, he’s going to stare at that with little beads of sweat coming down his temples and he’s going to come up with the worst ideas you’ve ever heard.” He said, “You have to give him another thing because the part of your brain that comes up with the, ‘Oh, chocolate and peanut butter,’ is not the part that you’re staring at. You have to stare at something so the back of your brain that does that creative thing can play freely.” He’s like, “Have you ever noticed you have great ideas when you’re driving, when you’re showering, when you’re doing the dishes?” He’s like, “Because it’s the part of your mind has the other thing to look at.” And the other part that’s important goes, “Ah, chocolate and peanut butter.”

And this may apply because I know there’s a lot of creation involved in, you know, in education is always think about how you’re balancing your brain so that you have that part of your brain free while another part of your brain is occupied with the other thing, as Jeff would call it. And I’m going to tell you this, in twenty years of film, I saw that proven over and over and over with the best writers, the best directors. They’re always juggling two or more things and when they’re on this one thing and something they go, “Oh, I just had an idea on the F1 project today.” Happens all the time, every day.

Angela: That’s so cool. And the beautiful thing about school leadership is that there’s always multiple things to be thinking about. So when you have a big project or you’re trying to creatively solve a problem, this is what happens a lot of times. Like, I have to make a decision or I need to solve a problem and I can’t figure it out. So what I think I hear you saying is go chew on something else. You know, go focus on something else even if you’re just getting up out of your office and going into the lunchroom or going out onto the recess or going into classrooms or even taking a walk on campus and just saying hello to people or doing another like maybe lesser intense project to open up, like you said, the mind to be creative because it’s still thinking about the problem or the solution or the decision, right? It’s still processing.

Steven: Anyone who wants to dig deeper into the neuroscience of this, there is a great book by Olivia Fox Cabane that’s called The Net and the Butterfly, like catching those ideas. Nice. And it talks about when we’re little, we have this like default mode network that’s the one that’s just like, “Huh, you know, interesting, piece of paper. What does it taste like?” right? And it’s like doing that weird stuff. Yeah. And then as you mature, you have that executive mode network of like, “I must get my homework done by 6 because I want to do the thing and I have to go to practice.”

As you become older, the executive mode network runs the house. Yes. And it’s only when the executive mode network is busy with something. “I have to go drive, I have to go shower, I have to do.” The default mode network goes back into that like, “Oh, let’s, you know, like the parents aren’t watching. Let’s try crazy ideas.” And it’s a fantastic book that digs deeper than we’re going to go in this podcast. So if someone’s interested in that, pick up that book. It’s fantastic.

Angela: You know what? We, can you say the name of that book again, please?

Steven: Oh, sure, it’s good. The Net and the Butterfly.

Angela: Okay. We will put that link in the show notes just for somebody interested and you want to know the title, we’ll put it in the show notes so that you can resource. And actually, we’ve talked about a lot of books. I’ll try and capture the titles of those books so that you can check them out if you so desire to do that on whatever platform tickles your fancy. So, Steven, this has been, first of all, so energizing. It’s so fun. So much fun. And if we had to like, you know, wrap things up and hit a home run here, if there’s one last precious gem that you would like to drop with our listeners, what might that be?

Steven: I will say this, which is if there is anyone that is intrigued about something I said or wants to pick up on it or has a question, my email address is really public. I try to reply to every email same day. It’s steven@theSukha.co, the Sukha company. I’m happy for someone to be like, “Hey, could you mention the name of that book again? Or what’s that Cal Newport blog you talked about?” Email me. I probably won’t send you a long lengthy email like it’s writing to my mom about college. I will answer your question and try to help because people helped me on the way up and now is my opportunity to give back.

Angela: Yeah, great, great. So good, so good. All right, my listeners, I hope you have found this delightful and helpful. Steven, it’s such a pleasure to have met you. I’m really honored that you reached out and I’m glad that you chose The Empowered Principal Podcast® because we’re out here. We are really in the business of people. 

Education is the business of developing humans, young and adult. And we’re out here to make a difference, but really to have some fun and to expand our capacity for joy, delight, fulfillment along the way. So we get a little up in here at the Empowered Principal program too, but it’s really about, you know, that balance of the external work that we do and the internal work that we do. So thank you for being a part of our experience and our world over here and I just wish you many blessings in your life. Congratulations on the new baby.

Steven: Angela, thank you so much for having me. This was awesome.

Angela: All right, you guys, have a great week. Thanks for being here and we’ll see you all next week. Take good care. Bye.

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

Hello Empowered Principals. Welcome to episode 384. 

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. 

Angela Kelly: Well hello my empowered principals, happy Tuesday and welcome to the podcast. I have a very near and dear friend to my heart as our podcast guest today. You have heard her lovely voice before. This is Jena Damiani and she is a friend, she is a client, and she is a soap maker by the way. And she’s also a life coach.

So, we are going to talk about all the things. You’re going to get a sneak peek into our innermost conversations today. We just decided to jump on and share all of the tea with y’all today. So, Jena, welcome to the podcast.

Jena Damiani: Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here.

Angela Kelly: And there’s a special reason why I had Jena on today. We didn’t just decide to chat with you all. Jena is a certified life coach for school leaders and she specializes in weight loss. And we’re going to talk about that today because I know for me personally, Jena, when I transitioned from teaching into school leadership, I gained over 20 pounds. And that was something I never saw coming. I did not have a struggle with my weight as a teacher.

I didn’t use food to comfort myself as a teacher. I’m thinking back in real time here, I taught kindergarten. We had some pizza, we would have birthday cake. So I had snacks around, I always had snacks in my room, but I wasn’t going home and eating my stress away or I didn’t recall being attached to food. But something shifted when I got into school leadership. The stress went up, the volume went to volume 10 and I think I was numbing out a little bit there.

So, can you speak to us about this? So, you’re a client of coaching, you are a coach, you’re certified and trained as a coach, so you have the capacity to see both ends of this and you’re in school leadership. So, can you enlighten us on what’s happening when we go into school leadership and we start diving into the sweets, the treats, maybe the wine?

Jena Damiani: Maybe the wine? It was not a maybe for me, but yes, absolutely. Yeah, so quickly to share my experience in terms of weight, transitioning from teacher to principal. I had a little bit of a different experience. I won’t take you through my entire history, but I had my third and final child and I was off for a year on maternity leave. I was still a teacher at the time and I got into the best shape of my life and I felt strong and healthy.

And then I went back to work and life hit me and adulting and all the things. And I started to gain the weight that I had worked so hard to lose over the year that I was off. And then when I transitioned into school leadership, my bad eating habits went with me into that leadership role, but it emphasized it. And you know how everybody always says when you go to college, you gain the freshman 15?

Yes. And I don’t know if this is a thing or if my friends and I are that clever that we came up with it, I don’t know. But we were, it’s the admin 30. Because I gained 30 pounds. Yes. Rapidly in a year. My first year of leadership, I gained 30 pounds. It sounds like you gained maybe 20. And it feels like it happens overnight. Of course, we know it doesn’t. But I broke down some reasons why I think that happens. So, if you’re ready, Angela, I say let’s start talking about…

Angela Kelly: Yeah, I want to dive into this because it feels like it happens to you, first of all, and it feels like it happens overnight, which we know it doesn’t, but our minds tell us that. And I also think it’s a slippery slope. I feel once you start on the path, it feels so much more difficult mentally to get out of the loop. 

And so I would love to personally hear what your thoughts are on this because I’m not, I don’t think about weight loss. I don’t solve that problem for school leaders and that’s why I wanted you to come on today is to help us with this because I do think a lot of people struggle physically with their physical health.

And then there’s body image on top of that and how they’re feeling about themselves and this spirals down. So I do think it’s a very important topic for school leaders because if we want to be at our innermost empowered state, that matters physically, mentally, and emotionally. And I think this is a component that we haven’t addressed, at least here on The Empowered Principal® Podcast.

Jena Damiani: Yeah, I’m happy to. Because I mean, to all the principals out there, it is a hard job, but it is necessary. And I truly believe anybody who’s out there in a principal role is there because they want to do good by their community, support teachers, students, all the things. But you can’t do that if you yourself aren’t taking care of if you’re not healthy. So, thank you, Angela for the opportunity to talk about this because I am very passionate about it.

So, I, because it’s a good point, I’ve been on both sides of it. I have also lost 30 pounds, so I lost my admin 30. I have some more weight to lose from weight I gained before I became an administrator. But I try to with my students break things down as simply as possible. Kind of what we do when we’re teachers, right?

And so I was able to pinpoint basically the top five things. Before we can solve a problem, we have to know how we got here. So, these are the top five things that I would say is what makes it so easy to gain weight when you’re in a leadership role. So without further ado, I’m going to start with the first one, Angela. Are you ready?

Angela Kelly: Okay, let’s go.

Jena Damiani: None of these principals is going to be shocking, but I think it’s important to take a step back and recognize what you experience in a work day. And so the first thing is you are in a high stress environment. That’s not to say that there isn’t some stress with teaching, but I’m sorry, it is not at the same level as when you’re a leader. So, the fact that you go from teaching in your one room of whatever, some hundreds in a school, right? You are now in charge of the entire school.

So it’s constant decision making, constant discipline issues, staff always need you, unexpected problems you can’t ever anticipate, and that in and of itself leads to emotional eating. Which is the reason why we gain weight. But the reason we’re eating is because of all of the things that we are now having to suddenly deal with that we did not have to deal with before. And no matter how good your principal certification program was, nothing prepares you for the role. Would you agree with that, Angela?

Angela Kelly: Oh. 2,000%. There’s theory and then there’s what happens with boots on the ground and it is not the same. You cannot theorize your way through a day, a week, a year of school leadership. You can’t.

Jena Damiani: No. And it is perfectly normal when you are feeling stressed to want to eat. It’s a way that – it’s honestly a very easy way to calm your body. Food is very easily accessible. And that’s certainly what I turn to. And the interesting thing was that I would work the entire day and not eat because I was doing all the things, whatsoever, and I wouldn’t eat at all during the day.

So in my mind, I’m like, I’m going to lose weight in this job. I’m not even eating during the day. And that couldn’t be further from the truth because then I’d go home at night, I’d eat dinner, but then I’d be snacking or having the wine at 10:00, 11:00 at night. Which is not going to lead to abs, unfortunately. 

So, I got in this habit of snacking and drinking in a way to unwind from this otherwise what I would describe as a grueling day, right? Before I had all of the mental tools that you were able to teach me through your program. I would argue if you’re overweight because you’re stressed, you’re actually quite smart. That’s the way that our brains are wired to survive. So it’s not that there’s anything wrong with you. I don’t know anybody who loses weight moving into an admin role. Quite frankly. Do you, Angela?

Angela Kelly: I mean, the only people I can think of are people who when they are stressed, their reaction is the opposite. Which there are people out there like that. I don’t think it’s the norm, but there are people. But even so, I know there are situations in my life where I have lost a lot of weight quickly because I was under stress, but it was a different kind of stress. And in the school leadership role for me personally, I like the way that you said this because coming home to the food.

I was the same way. You go 100 miles an hour from the time you get there till the time you leave. You’re grabbing a Diet Coke or you’re grabbing a granola bar or something. And then you get, so you’re thinking to yourself, I haven’t eaten all day. But what I found is after the nourishing meal that you, if you have an actual dinner or a salad or whatever you eat for dinner, that’s more nourishing. The snack, the wine, for me it was dependent on the day if it was a gin and tonic or a glass of wine, but it was, there was something that felt comfort.

It felt I could relax, unwind, and it was safe to let go of the front that I had to put on every day. Almost the armor that I was wearing all day long, being strong, making decisions, being in boss energy, going and I had this armor on and I could finally take that weight off of the school day. And sit by my fireplace and look at the fire, sip my wine or watch a movie, whatever we were doing as a family that night. 

And it felt so warm and cozy and fuzzy, a warm blanket wrapped around me that I didn’t look at it as overeating. I didn’t think of it as giving my body something it didn’t need. What my heart was saying and my mind was saying was, I need this more than anything else right now.

Jena Damiani: Yes, I deserve this. I honestly feel like I woke up one day 30 pounds heavier. I didn’t realize it was happening in the moment and I think that you so perfectly described why. It doesn’t feel even a bad habit in the moment. It’s, I deserve this. This is what I need. I worked hard today, so now this is my time to unwind.

Angela Kelly: Yes.

Jena Damiani: And it feels good. It does take the stress off for a little bit. You do have a little escape for a moment. In what you’re feeling, especially, I’ve coached with you, Angela. We’ve been together for six years. Isn’t that crazy?

Angela Kelly: I know it’s crazy, right?

Jena Damiani: But I can’t say enough about Angela. If you’re a principal and you’re not working with her, you need to be because she’s amazing. And I can’t say enough about how much she’s taught me and how much better I feel in being able to navigate emotions and it’s helped me beyond the principalship, but absolutely.

So, this leads into the second thing that I identified of why it’s so easy to gain weight when you’re a principal. And that is the non-stop schedule. So when you’re a teacher, again, I’m not saying at all that teaching is easy. We know it’s not.

Angela Kelly: Definitely not.

Jena Damiani: But when you’re a teacher, you have a contract time where you begin work and you have a contract time when you end work. And you don’t have to work prior or after that for the most part. I mean, are there some exceptions if you have a meeting or whatever, sure. But in the general day-to-day, you know when you’re working, you know when you’re not. Your weekends are free, your evenings are free. And you also have a scheduled lunch, you have a scheduled prep. A lot of teachers work under contracts, so this is protected time through if you’re part of a union. 

So, you go from this very structured, predictable schedule, specifically with your time, to then you’re an admin. And it feel you work 24/7. Your phone can ring at any time. There’s expectations that you’re checking your email. There’s expectations that you’re working evenings. There’s no allotted lunchtime. You’re often eating while you’re doing something else to get food into…

Angela Kelly: You’re monitoring lunchtime is what you’re doing.

Jena Damiani: Yes. Yeah. Or, we already said, you’re not even eating lunch at all. You’re watching other people eat. And then the off chance that you have a couple of minutes or if you’re driving back from district office because you had a meeting and you’re going back to your onsite building, you’re driving through the fast food line. Because that’s the realistic thing in your mind to do because it’s quick. You can get back to class. You can get back to the school. And that shift in schedule, I think can create such an easy way to gain weight.

Angela Kelly: So true. I did not even acknowledge until just now how often I ate out two reasons, now that I’m thinking of it. Number one, the fast food was for the speed, right? And I could eat it in my car between the fast food restaurant and the school, so there was no downtime. I would shove it in. And I’m not even fond of fast food, but you get in a habit of it’s easy, it’s fast, it’s convenient. You can expedite getting food into your system.

But the other reason, now that I think about it, is it was a midday treat. If I did eat lunch, it would be another form of a little break or a reward or I deserve this. Sometimes my secretary would say, hey, we’re ordering the local taqueria, what do you want? And I’m, oh, I’m good. And of course there would be this whole tray of food at my desk. And of course I have to eat it because it was delicious, but…

Jena Damiani: Yeah. Well, see now that’s where I’m also different. There were no better words spoken than we’re ordering out for lunch. Yes. And I’d order a cheesesteak and fries and I’d wonder, I don’t know how I gained all this weight. I can’t believe it. Why am I not feeling well? I can’t imagine why I’m not. It just… And this is funny because Angela, you don’t have the list that I have, but everything that you’re saying leads perfectly into the next thing.

Because reason number three of why it’s easy to gain weight as a principal is because of this food-centered culture that we have in schools. Now, we already know this as teachers. There seems to always be treats in the office or in the teacher’s lounge. And as a teacher, hey, listen, it can be easy to snack on those things and have those extra calories. 

But again, you only have certain times during the day that you are off. And the rest of the time you’re in your classroom, you’re busy, even if you’re thinking about the cupcakes that are in the teacher’s lounge, you can’t go get one because.

Angela Kelly: Donuts. Yes.

Jena Damiani: You’re teaching. Whereas, yes, as a principal, you can move around a lot more freely, but you have access to these treats. All of the time. And it’s very easy to start grabbing all day long snacking. And usually it’s not a veggie platter. Usually it’s something along donuts or cupcakes.

Angela Kelly: Ice creams.

Jena Damiani: Yeah, something sweet or something salty, typically not figure-friendly foods. And when we’re stressed out and I didn’t Here’s the other thing. I wouldn’t have packed my lunch because…

Angela Kelly: No.

Jena Damiani: I would wake up late because I’m tired. You know, and then I’d rush to school.

Angela Kelly: Trying to get three children out the door.

Jena Damiani: Yes, that too. And if I’d be hungry and then I’d end up eating whatever food’s around, which, there’s always a birthday happening in a school. We know this. Someone’s birthday is always occurring and there’s always snacks.

Angela Kelly: Yes.

Jena Damiani: So then, reason number four, it is easy to gain weight as a principal. Is lack of motivation. And I mean this with zero judgment, but you’re working long hours, you’re sitting in meetings, you’re dealing with non-stop problems. The last thing I felt doing when I got home after a day like that was putting on my sneakers and getting my rear end out the door to go for a walk or run or well, okay, I don’t run. Who am I kidding? 

But I didn’t want to go exercise. That was the last thing on my mind when I got home. I certainly didn’t want to wake up earlier than I already was and work out in the morning. So, when I was in this cycle of overworking, not managing my emotions, eating and drinking when I shouldn’t be, late at night typically. I did not have the motivation to be able to change anything. I was in a very unfortunate cycle.

Angela Kelly: Was it because we thought we didn’t have any more energy to give? I mean, when I would come home, I felt there was no more energy to give to a walk or to even the mental energy to think about making healthy choices. It was I had hit my plateau of my capacity to be disciplined, if that makes sense.

Jena Damiani: Yeah, no. I think for me, it was a little bit of I honestly wanted to numb out a little bit, I think. I wanted to escape on social media, scroll on social media, and escape whatever negative emotion I was feeling from the day, escape the stress. There’s also the piece that if you have a young family, if you still are in if you have children and they’re in activities, you’re also coming home, you’re cooking your family dinner or you’re cleaning up the dinner or both, or somebody doesn’t have clean underwear, so now you got to do laundry. Someone has soccer practice. So, there’s also that piece where you work your full-time job, but then you also come home and you’ve got your family life to handle, which makes you more exhausted.

Angela Kelly: Yeah, really. Yeah. And in that case for me, that is true too, but I was a single mom, so I was when I was on the days, the week that I had him, it was 100% on. And then I had the week that he was with his dad. This is when he was younger. Eventually he lived with me full-time, but in the beginning, I was all or none. But even on the weeks where I was not, I was more socializing because I couldn’t socialize as a single woman when I had my son.

Because I was doing mom things or we were doing boy scouts and we were doing all of his events. And then the other week would be my non-mom week where I was out. And that’s when I would go out for happy hour with girlfriends or go on a date or go to the movies with a friend or something to get out of the house and to be in that adult energy. 

And again, you said, the culture at schools, and I think the culture in adults is it revolves around happy hours or going out for dinner. It revolves around food and drink. And that is how we are programmed, what we are programmed to believe is pleasure, would you say?

Jena Damiani: Oh, absolutely. Yes.

Angela Kelly: Yeah. So it’s, it’s the pleasure of the friendships and the outing, but it’s also coupled entangled with this pleasure of having a glass of wine or having appetizers and snacks. Or if you come home, grabbing the popcorn and the M&M’s. That’s what we used to eat all the time. We would have popcorn and M&M’s together when we’re watching movies. And that was on top of dinner.

Jena Damiani: The other thing, you said happy hour and that maybe remember that when I would do that as a principal, there was a comfort in commiserating with other admin who get it. Because there’s also the other piece to this where you don’t feel understood, especially if you’re a building leader who’s the only leader at your site. Can feel lonely. And so when you’re with others who can relate or they’re they know the people that you work with and they can provide some sort of comedic relief for you, that is nice to have.

Angela Kelly: Yes.

Jena Damiani: But you’re so It is nice, but in the same breath, that with happy hour is not a good, was not a good mixture for me because I was eating wings.

Angela Kelly: It wasn’t a net positive gain. You would go and it felt good initially. It’s almost when you eat candy or ice cream, the initial feels good, but then your tummy doesn’t feel so good afterwards and you’re, that was not a net positive. I felt the times where I went out with colleagues, sometimes it was, I left energized and happy that I did it, but a lot of times. What I think commiserating is actually net negative. It pulls your energy down and it confirms and it reaffirms that things are so bad and whatever. 

And we did it as teachers. We blah over happy hour as a teacher. And now as an admin, you don’t go out very often as often with your admin. But when we did, it was the same thing. Blah, blah, blah. And then you go home and it’s, ew, that felt yucky. It wasn’t uplifting or inspiring or energizing. And now on top of it, I ate a bunch of fried cheese sticks and nachos or something.

Jena Damiani: Absolutely. Again, no one’s getting the veggie platter at the…

Angela Kelly: No, you’re getting margaritas. Come on. We’re being honest on The Empowered® Principal Podcast today.

Jena Damiani: We are being real. And then the fifth reason why it’s hard to gain weight as a principal. Which is similar to the lack of motivation that we already talked about, is the mental fatigue, the amount of mental fatigue. Everyone has experienced mental fatigue. But in my opinion, experiencing the difference between that in a teaching role versus that in a leadership role, I wasn’t prepared for the level that it was. 

And the amount of decisions that you make in a day. Forget about willpower. Forget about wanting to stick to a healthy meal plan. You’re looking for the comfort foods. And I was not prepared for the level that I would experience with that. And the other piece, which we’ve already said, is that other principals are experiencing the same thing as you and are doing the same things as you. 

So as I look back and reflect, a lot of my – I loved the people that I have worked with, both as a teacher and as a principal. But we didn’t necessarily help each other out because we both were having the same problems and solving the problems the same way because we didn’t know any other way to do it.

Angela Kelly: Which made it more comfortable for you to do it in that way. So if other people were eating and drinking and you were eating and drinking, it normalized it, the behavior. And it didn’t call out the habit, it actually confirmed it. What’s the word I’m looking for? When it solidified that.

Jena Damiani: Confirm, yeah.

Angela Kelly: Yeah, that’s the behavior that is normal.

Jena Damiani: It felt very normal and we all gained weight and it was for a moment, I was accepting that this is how it was. And I was settling for, oh, well, this is what I signed up for. I want to be a principal, so I’m gonna gain weight.

Angela Kelly: This is the price you pay.

Jena Damiani: Yes. And that’s such nonsense, but I was subscribing to that for a period of time before I learned better. So those are the five reasons that it’s easy to gain weight, but then I also identified five reasons it’s hard to lose weight. Can we transition to talking about that?

Angela Kelly: Yeah, let’s transition because I hope there are five ways why it’s easy.

Jena Damiani: There are, but we’re going to start by talking about why it’s hard. We’re going to normalize why it’s hard because too many people take these five things that I’m going to tell everybody and they make it mean that they somehow it can’t be done. They can’t that they’re – have to settle. And there’s no rule on what number has to be on the scale or what size clothing that you’re wearing. Every person decides that for themselves. 

But I can tell you that I would look in the mirror 30 pounds heavier and I didn’t recognize myself or I’d see a photo of me. You do have your photo taken fairly often in a leadership role and I’d be, oh my gosh, is that what I look like? It just It didn’t feel right to me. It didn’t feel right and I didn’t feel good. I did not feel good. I was pretending everything was fine and I was putting on a happy face for my colleagues at work and even my family. But there was something inside that I knew this was not what I wanted. 

And so I feel a lot of principals are in this boat where you maybe are past the point where we talked about how you go unconscious and you gain all this weight, you don’t even realize it. That’s stage one. Then in my opinion, stage two is when you have the realization, okay, whoa, I gained this weight. I don’t want this weight on my body. And now this stage is where principals try to lose weight and typically fail at it. 

So here are again, I take the five things from doing the job, from coaching other people. These are the five reasons, top five reasons why it’s hard to lose weight as a principal. So the first one is lack of time because in our roles, something always feels urgent. And the first thing that we tend to put to the side when something seems urgent is our own agenda, our own priorities. 

So that could be things from meal prepping to exercise or any self care, even if it’s I’m going to commit to giving myself 15 minutes of time to eat my lunch. That can very easily be pushed aside when a teacher shows up in your doorway and thinks that they have an emergency.

Angela Kelly: Exactly.

Jena Damiani: You know, and the truth is that of course there are times where it is urgent, it is an emergency and we have no problem not eating in that time. There’s a fire in the building, you’re obviously not going to keep eating your salad. Obviously. But 99.9% of the time when someone comes to you with what they think is so urgent, it isn’t urgent at all. It might be urgent to them, but it doesn’t mean that they can’t wait 10 minutes or whatever the circumstance may be. So it’s this thought that you don’t have the time and that you need to respond to all of the other people’s what they deem as urgent. I’m sure you can remember this, Angela.

Angela Kelly: I mean, oh, yes. It’s the idea that your lunch time is less important than whatever’s walking in the door. And you don’t want people to feel bad to think that your lunch is more important than them. So whatever you’re eating, it should be put to the side because it’s less important than the person in front of you. And look, as a coach for school leaders, if that’s your style and that’s your approach and it works for you and it feels good, that’s one thing. 

However, if you’re not feeling the way you want to feel in your body, and part of it is that you’re not able to eat all day or you’re consistently munching because you don’t sit down and have a 15, 20-minute window to eat something that feels nourishing and fulfilling to your body. Then it’s time to look at what is it in my mind that’s making me believe I don’t have 15 minutes in my day to prioritize my lunch. 

I mean, this sounds such a minuscule thing to think about as a leader, but it has a massive impact on your identity, on your body image, on how you feel about yourself, on just your self-efficacy in you as a person and you as a leader. It’s these little things that gnaw at us and without awareness, you find yourself 30 pounds heavier or you find yourself fatigued all the time. 

Or you find yourself in this low grade dissatisfaction and you’re not sure how to put your finger on it, but it’s because there isn’t a time and a space where you are the priority or your lunch is the priority. And if you can’t be the priority for 15 minutes a day. What does that mean about who you are and how you feel about yourself and what you believe about yourself and what you think? And so it really is much bigger than I should be polite to the person who’s coming in while I’m eating my salad. It’s so much more than that, Jena.

Jena Damiani: Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely. And it’s a mindset shift, right? Because if we’ve been telling ourselves all this time that the minute somebody or no, this is my favorite, the open door policy. We’ve been telling ourselves that we have an open door policy. We somehow make that mean that we can’t have simple requests like a 10-minute lunch to ourselves where we can close our door and we’re not interrupted for 10 minutes. It’s somehow we get it twisted. In an effort to want to do well, we sometimes sabotage our own health.

Angela Kelly: Yes. I’m just going to say it. I hate open door policy. Stop it. Renegotiate that with yourself. Here’s the deal. This is a side note, but I have to say it because I can’t stand it. When you decide to communicate when it’s best to reach you. When can teachers reach you? They can reach you before school and after school. They can reach you probably at their lunchtime, which some maybe your lunchtime. And then they try to reach you at their recess time or their prep break or whatever. 

Now, they are going to come at you at all times of day if you don’t say, this is the best time to reach me. And these are my office hours, or this is the time where if you want to drop in, if you have something that’s less than 15 minutes, you can drop in from this time to this time, designating times for drop in versus a 24/7 365 open door policy. Because if you think about what that means, open door policy means I’m a doormat. Please come in and walk in through my door at whatever time, whatever you need, whether it’s relevant or not, whether it’s an emergency or not. And let me set aside my entire life to serve you. 

That is not an empowered principal. And to be honest with you guys, teachers don’t like it. They want to know. When can I come and actually get your attention? So I don’t have to watch you eating your salad or I don’t have to feel like I’m putting you out. It’s much better to tell people, this is when you can reach me. And the fact that you give yourself 15 minutes to eat a lunch before you go in and do lunch duty or before you go out to recess or before you go to that meeting or whatever you’re doing with the rest of your day. 

It indicates to your brain and to the people that you’re leading that you have standards and boundaries. It sets a precedent, not just for you, but for them. It’s for the greater good. Just trust me on this. I know it sounds silly, but it does change the energy and it changes the interactions that you have with people on your campus. Sorry for that. Sorry, I didn’t mean to rant off, but…

Jena Damiani: No.

Angela Kelly: I value this so much because you’re never going to eat lunch if you have a true open door policy, never. Because they know to get you at the lunchtime.

Jena Damiani: Yes. Well, and it’ll make it that much harder for you to lose weight. The other thing that I underestimated because with Angela being my coach, she coached me on this. And so I was working on building in this time for myself within the day. And what I realized is that teachers are watching and it gave them permission to really enjoy their lunch and not feel like they have to stop eating because a parent emailed and they have to respond right away. 

It really created and modeled the healthy boundaries that in theory everyone should have, but some of our teachers that are similar to us in terms of they’re wanting to work and help and they’re having a hard time turning it off and prioritizing themselves, by you modeling that, it is also helping your staff. So it’s a double win.

Angela Kelly: Yeah, that’s a really good point. We need to give everyone permission to take 15 minutes to themselves. It maintains the sanity, people. It really does.

Jena Damiani: It does. Yes, it does.

Angela Kelly: A little goes a long way.

Jena Damiani: So then the second reason why it’s hard to lose weight as a principal is that we tend to have all or nothing thinking. A good quality of educators is that we strive for excellence, but that can work against us when it comes to losing weight. Because we don’t see results immediately. It’s something that we have to have consistency over a period of time to see results. 

And so because of that, we think the minute that we can’t or don’t do something perfectly, it becomes an afterthought. Oh, I can’t pack my lunch every day because I only did once this week. And then we move on and go back to our comfort foods and happy hours. But at the same time, we’re still in some emotional pain because we do want to lose weight. We do want to be healthier. 

And then that leads into number three of why it’s hard to lose weight, the emotional overload, which we’ve talked already about this. But when you’re dealing with students in crisis. When you’re being told that staff morale is down. When you’re sitting in a district meeting and they’re laying out their expectations of you and you’re feeling very overwhelmed and wondering to yourself, how am I going to do all the things? That’s going to lead to stress eating and drinking. That’s how we got overweight to begin with. We’ve got to break that cycle. We have to be able to respond to stress in a different way. But until you have the skill set to do that, you can learn, anyone can learn, but until you learn the skill set, that emotional overload makes it hard to lose weight.

Angela Kelly: It’s tough because emotional regulation, emotional maturity and expanding our capacity to feel our emotions instead of what we call buffer them or suppress them or avoid them and try to circumvent them. When you can lean into an emotion, even if you do it for a minute and you say, I’m disappointed with today. Today, there was a big disappointment or I was discouraged or, oh, we missed the mark, we wanted to, we didn’t hit our target scores or our attendance is down or something horrible happened to a student or a staff member. And you’re feeling the weight of that and the responsibility of that as a leader. 

Look, when you go into school leadership, you don’t drop your emotions at the door. When you’re a teacher, you feel all the feels for the kids. That backpack comes with you. You can’t detach yourself emotionally. You’re still a human in the leadership position. But there’s more emotion coming at you. You’re holding space for teachers and staff and families and community and your district administrators and yourself. And then you go home and then you have your own family and your friends and your children and your parents and your all of that. 

So it’s this gentle stretching. It’s when you’re doing yoga and you’re gently stretching your muscles to stretch a little bit more and handle a little bit more. It seems to me that’s what Jena, you’re saying is this emotional bandwidth is an art, it’s a skill, it’s a practice. That we do yoga, you never perfect yoga, but you practice it daily. 

Just like with eating, we can practice feeling a little bit more and not eating as a reaction to our emotions. Even if we hold off for five minutes and I used to play this game where it’s, I’m going to wait five minutes for the wine. And I would say 50% of the time, it passed. The urge passed and I was, no, actually I’m okay now. Because it was, well, the feeling’s still there and it passed. Other times after five minutes, if I still felt the urge, I was, I’m still going to choose to drink tonight. But it felt different. It felt I was in control more than it was happening to me and I it was out of my control and I was eating the popcorn or pouring the wine or whatever. Does that land at all with what you teach your clients?

Jena Damiani: Oh my gosh, yes. Absolutely. And I can totally relate too with just my own experience, for sure.

Angela Kelly: Yeah. So we just, we’re here to let you know guys, emotions are the hardest thing you do. And if you are responding to reacting to your emotions with food, you are not alone at all. And it’s normal because it’s such a comfort. And we don’t always nail emotional bandwidth. Sometimes we are at our capacity. And it’s okay if you have a night where you give into that urge, you’re human, it’s normal. We’ve got you. And as Jena said, it’s not all or none, it’s not about perfection, it’s about creating awareness.

Jena Damiani: Well, that’s how you get anything to change. You have to be aware of it first before anything can change. So I hope that even if one person listens to this podcast and has that light bulb of, oh my gosh. If you had that moment of feeling they are reading my mind, then you’re already better off than someone who’s still unconsciously snacking and staying up too late to try and numb out from the day because that means that you’ve now become aware. And once you’re aware of something, then you can take action to change it if you want to.

Angela Kelly: Yeah, exactly. Good. Okay, keep going. I love this list.

Jena Damiani: I have two more things. Yeah, so the fourth thing that makes it hard to lose weight as a principal is if you don’t have something that is a habit, something that you know how to do and that you use for time management. Because the truth is, schedules are always changing. You’ve got your personal life combined with your work life. And there will always be something happening when you’re a school leader. That’s not going to go away. 

And if you don’t have a tool to be able to manage your time. Then forget being able to have structured meal plans or to plan your meals or to plan your workouts. All of that’s going to be so much more difficult. And a lot of the people that I work with when they come to me, once they get this down pat, they see a lot of weight loss results. So don’t underestimate having something to do with time management. And I know that I thought I was so good with time when I first started working with you, Angela. And I have I remember that you coached me many times on my time management. You remember those days, don’t you?

Angela Kelly: Yes. We were co-designing the ideal time management because there’s two parts of time management by the way. There’s your relationship with time, your thoughts and your feelings around time. There’s the relationship you have with time and then there is the execution of the planning. So there’s two components of that. 

We talk about that in EPC, but with Jena, Jena was one of my very first principals, you guys. So she’s near and dear to my heart. But yeah, we were co-creating a relationship with time in combination with the execution of how she planned her time and prioritized her time, but also constrained, right? Not trying to make everything a priority and not trying to solve everything all at once. So there was a work in progress.

Jena Damiani: It’s so nice of you just to word it like that, but…

Angela Kelly: Yes. But look at the strides that I’ve made. Look at me now.

Jena Damiani: You’re pro. I can have two businesses and still work full-time and have three kids.

Angela Kelly: I just want to say that. Did you hear what she just said? She went from not being able to manage her time, so she said, which she did do beautifully by the way, but she has three children at home. She works full-time as a principal and she’s running two businesses. And she’s married, which is another full-time job.

Jena Damiani: Yes. And I promise you, I’m very normal.

Angela Kelly: And her husband is in school administration, right, Jena?

Jena Damiani: Yeah, he’s a principal too. And I love to sleep nine hours. I don’t typically get nine hours, but if I could, I would. And on the weekends, I love to sleep in. So I’m not somebody who’s only sleeping four hours a night. Okay, Angela, this last one, I saved the best for last. 

Angela Kelly: Okay, tell us.

Jena Damiani: Because I do – you have taught me so many things over the past six years, but I would say this is probably one of the best tips or best things you ever taught me that, not to sound cheesy guys, but truly changed my life. It’s also a reason that if you aren’t doing this, it can make losing weight hard as a principal. It is if you don’t plan fun.

Angela Kelly: Yes.

Jena Damiani: I remember Angela, you said to me, or actually, maybe it was even one of your podcasts. It may have been both. I know you coached me on it. You said to me that I shouldn’t wait for fun to find me, that I have to go create the fun.

Angela Kelly: Yes.

Jena Damiani: That was the my first year as a principal and a few days later it was they, my school at the time did a Halloween parade. I was leading an elementary school. And so I purchased this blow up unicorn costume that everyone thought was so hysterical. And so all the kids came to school in their costumes. And we did a parade on the school grounds. 

And there was a student, I’ll never forget it, who was a blow up dinosaur. And he I started running to him. The school that I was a very long hallway and he was at the end of the hallway and he started running to me. So I started running to him and somebody played music. I don’t even know how that even happened. Music started playing and we danced together. It’s such a fun memory now looking back. 

But there’s a very simple example of I wasn’t even going to dress up for the parade. I went from in this cycle of again, I was I it was I was coming from a good place. I was trying, I wanted to be a good leader. I wanted to do all the things, but I was quite honestly, I was burning out, right? And gaining weight at the same time. And you said that to me and that night I ordered the costume on Amazon, put it on and then I had the most fun that I’ve ever had probably since I’ve been a principal, that was such a fun day. And so that is the truth in all the things that are happening in school leadership. The last thing probably on your mind is planning something fun, but don’t underestimate it because if you’re not having fun, it’s probably hard for you to lose weight.

Angela Kelly: What’s the point? What is the point?

Jena Damiani: If you’re not having fun, you’re probably stewing in the stress, in the problems. That’s not to say those things are going to completely disappear, they aren’t. It’s learning how to have those things in your life as a principal and still have fun. And it feels you can’t have both, but Angela taught me you actually can.

Angela Kelly: Yes. Oh, I love that. That’s such a good way to end. And because here’s the truth, fun is not coming through the door. You know what I realized? I remember thinking, I’m in the big leagues now, it’s time to get serious. And I got very rigid and very serious and I didn’t have time for silliness and I didn’t dress up for a while either. 

And you know what? My job was not very fun at all. I was being too serious. I was taking things too heavy, too seriously. And finally I just – actually it was one of my colleagues. It was lighten up. What’s happened to you? You were so fun and now you’re such a bummer.

Jena Damiani: Yeah, maybe it’s part of it is, I think especially for females, it can feel like in order to be taken seriously, maybe you need to not be as bubbly, you need to be a little more stern or who knows. I mean, there’s so many factors that are at play, but I am telling you. If you plan fun, watch how much better you feel, watch how much less you think about food. Try it principals.

Angela Kelly: This is so true. Because think about this. The reason you’re eating is you’re seeking pleasure. The brain, the motivational triad of the brain is to seek pleasure, avoid pain and make things as easy as possible. And if the only pleasure that you’re giving yourself or allowing yourself is to eat when you get home, you’re not even giving yourself the pleasure of lunch. And the only pleasure in your day is to snack at home all night and there’s no fun throughout the day or nothing pleasurable to look forward to, you will default to seeking that pleasure through food. 

And what I have found is when I’m doing things that are genuinely fun, or I one of the things I love to do was make plans on a Wednesday night, mid week. Have something fun to look forward to because that anticipation of the fun is half of the fun is the anticipation. And then do something on the weekend that’s fun. Have some things you’re looking forward to and you’ll notice a shift in how you feel. Because we eat based on how we’re feeling. Would you say that’s true, Jena?

Jena Damiani: Absolutely.

Angela Kelly: I mean, there’s a difference between the sensation of being hungry, the actual sensation of hunger, and then the emotional vibration of I’m uncomfortable and I want to comfort myself with a little snack.

Jena Damiani: Yeah. Some chips.

Angela Kelly: Some salsa. A strawberry margarita perhaps? Yes.

Jena Damiani: Oh, yes.

Angela Kelly: Okay. So Jena, let’s talk about weight loss for school leaders. I want to let the listeners know where they can find you, what’s going on in your world of weight loss for school leaders, and tell them all the things. What’s going on for you right now?

Jena Damiani: Right now, I have a program called 20 Pounds Down. I’m almost at my two year anniversary, which I can’t believe.

Angela Kelly: Oh wow.

Jena Damiani: I know. So all of my students who have gone through the program have lost 20 pounds. The ones who have not yet gotten there are all at 17. That’s the minimum weight that my clients have lost. I have two over 30 pounds. It’s amazing. And so I want to create a group to go through my program 20 Pounds Down, but that it’s specifically geared for principals, led by a principal, so it’s someone who understands what makes the job so taxing, who can teach you how to get out of that, get out of that cycle. 

It’s built for real life leaders that I understand the long days and the high stress and the unpredictable schedules. And so I created a program around how I did it. I lost now it’s 30, but at the time when I created the program, I had lost 20 pounds, working full-time, doing all the things that you are all doing. I’m no special unicorn. That was my Halloween costume a couple years ago. I’m a very normal person who’s trying to make it at work like everybody else. 

The reason I say that is because if I can do it, I know anybody who wants to do this can do this. You have to be shown the way. Weight loss is a skill, and like any skill, anybody can learn it. And so that’s an exciting new development for me in my business. I’m on Facebook and Instagram. My business name is The School of Best Self. So Instagram handle is School of Best Self.

Angela Kelly: We’ll drop that link in the notes for you guys.

Jena Damiani: Oh, thank you. Thank you. I have a lot of free workshops and webinars that I’ve done that you can start to listen to if you want to learn more. And then if you’d like to join me, I would love to have you. But I also can’t say enough about working with Angela in EPC and being with like-minded people who are doing all of the things that school leaders do. So I would like to offer something special, Angela, if…

Angela Kelly: Yes, we have a very special, once in a lifetime offer for you guys. We were concocting this just before we jumped on. And we’re so excited and so delighted to be offering, there’s going to be a combination offer here. For those of you who would like to join EPC. So this podcast is airing in May. And I believe, Jena, you can tell me the details, your program, your summer program is going to run June, July, August. Is that correct?

Jena Damiani: Yes, we start June 1st and we go through the month of August.

Angela Kelly: Okay. So it’s a three-month program for school leaders, 20 pounds down. I just think this is so magical of you to do, Jena. I want to tear up thinking about it. So listen up guys. For those of you who are interested in joining EPC in the fall, we will be opening back up in we end on Memorial Day, and we take June and July off to reboot and recoup. And then we start back up in August. 

For those of you who sign up early, if you sign up before June 1st for EPC, The Empowered Principal Collaborative, and of course, we’ll put the link to sign up for EPC in the show notes, Jena is going to let you attend 20 Pounds Down for free.

Jena Damiani: Yes. I hope you take us up on this. I would love to have you.

Angela Kelly: You’re going to get a year of EPC and 20 Pounds Down for the price of joining EPC. Because Jena is a miracle worker and she – let me tell you this, Jena is a one on one client. Jena is a client in EPC, so she’s in EPC. She’ll be your colleague in EPC and we mastermind and we EPC this year has been epic. I cannot wait. 

And I actually am going to host an EPC session where we are podcasting as an EPC group. Because I think the dynamic is magical this year. It’s been epic that the energy and the ideas that are coming and the support. Oh, it warms my heart. So Jena’s in that group as well. And if you join before June 1st into EPC, you’re going to get a full year of mentorship and coaching and support and masterminding, but you’re also going to get 20 pounds down. I mean, an incredible offer. So, Jena, can you tell us a little bit more about 20 pounds down? How does it work and where would they sign up and all of that?

Jena Damiani: Absolutely. So, if you are going to take us up on this offer, then you would sign up for EPC and then Angela, I would then through your list, invite them, invite them for free to that. So that’s what we’ll do. That’s how we’ll work that. Okay. So the only thing that you would have to do is sign up for EPC, and then I will send you the information, the login information, all that good stuff for free for 20 Pounds Down. 

So 20 Pounds Down is a program. So it includes a course that you can access. It’s through an app. You can, of course, use your laptop, but you can download the app and listen on the go from your phone. And so it’s a self-paced course. You get instant access. It’s short lessons to teach you the skill of weight loss. I try to keep things as short and concise as I can. I mean, like all of you, I was a teacher before I was a principal, so I’m I think I’m pretty good at teaching. 

So I’ll teach you the skill of how to lose weight. So you’ll listen to those lessons on your own time. And then in addition to that, we have a private Facebook group that you can join to be a part of where you can always ask questions. Share wins, connect with other people who are also working to lose the weight. I also have a weekly coaching call where you can come on the call. I do some teaching, but then you can also ask questions. I can coach you. It’s meant to make sure that I’m supporting all of my people in my group. So that’s a little bit more about 20 Pounds Down.

Angela Kelly: Oh gosh, I love that so much. Thank you so much. Jena, thank you for your time today. Thank you for being on the podcast. It’s going to change lives. I feel it’s going to save lives because without your physical health or your mental health, your emotional health, you cannot be the most empowered version of yourselves. And we want you guys living the fullest life possible. 

We want you to enjoy your professional life and your personal life. And we want you to sleep better, we want you to feel better, we want you to be 20 pounds down so that you can be in the energy of empowerment and creating the memories of a lifetime and living the best experience possible. So Jena, thank you for being such an integral part of EPC and being here today on the podcast. I mean, I think this is your third time on the show?

Jena Damiani: It is.

Angela Kelly: Is it? Holy wow. We talked about her as a first-year principal and then we talked about all of her growth and now here she is. Certified life coach. She has another business called The School of Scents, right? You have to follow her on Instagram. They are the cutest little gifts. You could get them for your teachers, you could get them for your peers, your colleagues, darling. 

So check her out on Instagram School of Scents. Shameless plug, I don’t care. I love the soaps. She sent me some for Christmas. They are so cute. The packaging is crazy. But the scents are incredible. I love it. So anyway, you are a miracle, you’re an angel. I love you. You’re my friend, you’re my colleague, and I adore you to pieces. So thank you for all you do in the world. And I’ll see you in EPC.

Jena Damiani: Thank you so much. Love you too, Angela. And I owe a lot of where I am in my life to you and all of the things you taught me.

Angela Kelly: Let’s go celebrate together.

Jena Damiani: That sounds good.

Angela Kelly: Okay. Take good care. All right, everybody, have a great week. We’ll talk to you next week. Take care. Bye.

—

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

Hello Empowered Principals. Welcome to episode 382. 

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. So good to be here with you today. Just sending you all the love. And I’m sending you all of the healing if you have not been feeling well. I’m recording this at the end of February and a lot of people have not been feeling well. It’s been really going around. I don’t know if it’s the flu, the congestion, the cold, if it’s COVID, who knows what’s going on, but people are sick and I’m sorry if you’re not feeling well.

But I’m going to give you a quick little love slap, for lack of a better word. I’m going to shake you out of love. I just got off of the EPC call today and one of my clients in EPC said, “So sorry, I’m just not feeling very good today, but I’m here. I’m just dragging through the week. I just can’t shake this. It’s been like two weeks. Does anybody else have this?” And a couple people were like, “Yeah, I’ve been there before.” And she’s like, “I just keep coming into work and I feel guilty because when I get home, I’m so tired. And then my husband’s doing everything and I feel so bad.”

And I said to her, “Wait a minute. What’s going on here? Why are you not staying home?” And this ended up being a pretty profound conversation. It was very lighthearted on the surface, and I’ll make this lighthearted for you too, but it is something to contemplate, particularly for women. I know men leaders, I love you. 

I’m not saying you’re excluded from this, but women are conditioned to believe that they should be A+ partners, A+ wives, A+ friends, A+ siblings, A+ daughters, A+ parents, and A+ housekeepers, A+ cooks, A+ errand runner, A+ shopper, A+ soccer mom driver to the field, A+ school leader, by the way. All of the things, right?

I picture it like a backpack. And we put in the brick of our relationship. And we want that. Like feels good to have this responsibility and this maturity to be contributing to this relationship. And then we’ve got our parents that we want to take care of and connect with and our siblings, and then our friends. And then later on, we have kids, and then we’re teachers, and we have the students at our classroom and then our colleagues. 

And then maybe the PTA and then maybe our, you know, any organizations outside that we might participate in where we volunteer or support or maybe you’re in a running club or maybe you go to a gym or maybe you belong to a church. Whatever your external affiliations are where you’re doing those things too, and then those bricks go in.

And then you have children. And now it’s like, whoa, those bricks go in. And then on top of all of that, now you have the responsibility of leading an entire school. And then guess what? You’re carrying all the bricks, you’re doing your thing, you’re feeling good about yourself. And you might be doing B+ work, but you’re proud of yourself. You’re keeping it up, right? And then you have a human experience. And you get sick. 

Your body’s like, “Hello. Guess what? We’re human and we’re tired. And because you never stop, because you go all day and you go all night and you go all weekend, and you don’t take breaks, I need a break. And so I’m going to create a break and I’m going to not feel well. And you’re going to need a lot of rest. You’re going to be very tired and it’s going to be very hard to concentrate and you’re going to do your job at about 40% of what you normally do. And I want to see if you will listen to me. Will you take time out for me? Will you take care of me? Let’s see what happens.”

 All right, let’s see what happens. I’ll speak from my own experience. I was a single mom and I was a teacher, and then I was a principal. And getting sick, in my mind, just wasn’t an option. If I got sick, I took a bunch of vitamins and I tried to stave it off. And then it would hit. And you know the morning you wake up, you’re like, “Oh no.” Like, it’s real. I tried to brush it away, pretend it wasn’t happening, but you’re down.

And the last thing your body wants to do, if you could ask your body, “What are we doing today?” It’s like, “Sleeping. I am sleeping. I am staying in this bed. I am not getting out of my pajamas. Do not pass go. Call somebody for help. Have the partner, spouse take the kid to the daycare or to school. And I need silence for sleeping.” That’s what your body would say. But what do we say? “No, no, no. Sorry, it’s only Wednesday. You’re going to have to make it to Saturday. We can do it. It’s only three days, right?”

We get up and we drag ourselves and the body’s like, “What are you doing?” We go and we get through it and then we’re like, “Oh my gosh, we actually made it. I didn’t mean I didn’t feel that bad. Like, I wasn’t running a fever or anything. I basically just had a pounding headache all day and my throat was scratchy and I was, you know, had this runny nose and I could hardly breathe because my congestion was so bad. But you know what? I took a DayQuil. I made it.” Okay?

And then five days go by. Cold’s still there. But we’re doing it. We got through. The weekend was kind of rough. We laid around a little bit. We felt so guilty because then our husband had to, you know, pick the kids up and I just was so exhausted. I went into the bed. And then, you know, he had to make dinner and I felt really bad because he works too. And, you know, I just, I feel really bad. I can’t be just leaving this work for my colleagues to do. That would feel terrible. What would they think if I actually stayed home sick? Like I’m really not that sick. Like I’m not dying.

So do you see the story that goes down? Now, where is that coming from? Who taught us that? Where does this story that we should get up no matter what and do the thing? It comes from conditioning. It comes from pull yourself up by the bootstraps. When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. 

You know, the sign of an empowered woman is she’s out there doing her career and leading her household and, you know, getting up every day, raising those kids, bringing home the paycheck, being the best wife. She’s going over taking care of her parents, checking in on her siblings. And, oh, she’s also going to those PTA meetings? Like, what is happening right now?

So, if you break this down, what you’re saying to yourself is, your physical health doesn’t really matter. Your physical rest, the rest you’re craving, it’s not as important as other people’s. It’s not as important as your husband’s, your kids’, your your family, the school, your colleagues. Their wellbeing is more important than you. Now, you might agree with that because it’s so profoundly conditioned in our mind.

So I’m going to ask you a question. If your best friend were sick, if your spouse were sick, if they came home and they said, “Honey, I’m so miserable. I feel terrible. Would it be okay if I went and rested?” What are you going to say? Of course. Oh my goodness. Can I get you some water? Do you need juice? Do you want some chicken soup? Let me take care of it. I would just step in without a doubt. 

Notice the two different trains of thought. What are you thinking about you? What are you making it mean about them? When you’re sick, it’s a failure. Can’t do that. But when they’re sick, of course, they’re human. You nurture them, you take care of them.

If your kids came home, would you say to them, “Sorry, you’ve got chores. No time for sickness in this house. Get the dishes done. Go take the dog for a walk. Sorry, we’ve got chores to do. There’s a routine here. What are you thinking? We don’t have time for that. You can go to bed after everything’s done.” We would never do that to our children. But yet we do it to ourselves. And then we’re like, “But our colleagues, we’re going to feel so guilty if they, you know, if they have to carry my burden.”

How do you feel when your colleagues are out? Are you thinking they’re a burden? Or are you like, “Yeah, sure, of course. If you’re sick, stay home.” Or is your brain like, “I know, they’re just taking a mental health day. They’re dumping all this work on me.” 

If you’re thinking that, then of course you’re going to think that they think that about you. So check in with yourself. When people call in sick, do you believe that they’re really sick or do you believe they’re just making life miserable for the rest of you who are at work? Check that out. That might be the reason you refuse to let yourself call in sick. You’re like, “I’m not going to be that person.”

The other thing I asked my client was, “How sick do you have to be before it’s sick enough to call in? What constitutes a sick day?” She’s like, “Well, definitely if I have a fever or if I test positive for COVID. Like, we have to stay home then.” Okay. Basically, you have to be so down for the count, knocking on death’s door, about ready to go to the ER, or you physically just cannot move anymore. Is that the level to which we finally allow ourselves some rest?

So ask yourself this: What does it take to give myself permission to be human, to be sick, to get the rest that my body is asking me to give it? Where’s my permission slip? Who gives you that permission slip? Is it you? Is it your kids? Is it your boss? Is it your spouse? Only you know how you feel. And there is a discernment.

I get it. There are days where we wake up, we’re a little bit tired and we’re like, “Oh God, I would love to sleep in. This would feel so good. I wish it were Saturday.” Or maybe we’re a little tired or we have a little ache or pain or a little headache, but we know, we know how to discern when we’re sick and when we’re just a little tired. Or when we have a little sniffle, but we have the energy to face the day. And then we know when we’re sick. You know when you’re sick and you know when you’re not.

And look, I’m not judging if you want to stay home because you’re tired and that’s the only symptom you have, you have full permission to do that. You’re an adult, you are a human, and sometimes you need sleep. And the only way that you’re going to be at your best is when you balance sleep, play, and work. You know how to discern for yourself whether you are sick, whether you are just not wanting to go to work today, but you have the capacity to. And days where you’re like, “I’m so exhausted. I don’t really feel sick sick, but I can tell my body is asking for permission to rest.”

I invite you to give your body permission to rest. You can give yourself permission. You must give yourself permission. Who else will give it to you? So, my friends, the most empowered decision you can make is to check in with your body every single day. 

How am I feeling physically, mentally, emotionally? Is there an aspect of my life, physically, mentally, or emotionally that needs some TLC? And if it does, give yourself permission to have it, to take care of it, to nurture it, just as you would a loved one.

Treat yourself the way you would treat your children. Can you imagine how it would change the way you spoke to yourself? How you nurtured yourself, how you held space for yourself, how you cared for yourself? If you treated yourself the way you treat your own children? 

If you don’t have your own children, the way you would treat any child, you know, a niece, a nephew, the children at school. Think about you. There’s still a little child in there. You’ve just been on the planet a little bit longer. You still get sick. You still need care. You still need TLC. You still need rest days.

And if it’s so uncomfortable to do it, that is the homework assignment. The more resistance you feel to taking a day off, the more required the assignment is to take it off. Because what you will notice is that when you take it off, the world didn’t crumble, you didn’t fall apart, the school didn’t fall apart. You didn’t miss out on something so grand that you’re not going to find out about it. Everything’s going to be in its place. 

And do you know what else? It empowers other people. Because part of the reason we don’t want to miss out at being at school is because we’re the principal and we believe we’re the most important person there. But that’s not true. Everyone plays a part. Different contribution but equal value. So everyone’s contributing, everyone’s providing value. And you being sick for a day will not make the ship sink.

And you need to experience that to believe it. So if you are in extreme resistance to taking a day off, I highly, highly encourage you to do it. And watch your brain. It’s going to be so upset and be in such resistance, but your body’s going to be thrilled. It’s going to get all the sleep you need. And your emotions and mental state might be in a tizzy while you’re at home, but you’re going to go back, everything’s fine. Even if your secretary’s like, “Oh my gosh, while you were gone, this and this and this.” You can be like, “Yeah, I get it. I know.”

But you know what? You did it. And thank you. I really needed to rest up. I wasn’t feeling well and I appreciate it. Thank you for standing up for me, for helping out. I’m really, really glad you’re here. And then you can wink at yourself in the mirror knowing, I have permission to take the day off. And that’s a beautiful thing for not just me, but for my family and for my school.

So, here’s your assignment. The next time you need physical rest, mental rest, emotional rest, take the day and watch yourself. See what happens and how good it feels to know that you have the empowerment to take care of you. Treat yourself like you would a child. Nurture yourself, cuddle yourself up, love on yourself. And that is going to give you the energy to be the best version of you when you go back to school. 

Take good care. Be well. Be safe. Feel good. Enjoy your life. Enjoy your school. Have an amazing week. I love you all and I’ll talk with you next week. Take good care. Bye.

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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.