Lainie Rowell

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Transcript:

Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Okay, so this is another one of those episodes where I'm already in full belly laughs before we even hit record, and I have to tell you, this guest, who, if you read the title of this episode, you already know who it is, but when she came on screen, there was so much shine you could not believe it.

It was just so much bright and light. And with that, I'm going to say hello to LaVonna Roth. Hi, LaVonna.

LaVonna Roth: Hi, Lainie. Oh my goodness. You don't know this and I'm going to tell you now, I have been wanting to be on your podcast for a very long time now, and I should have reached out and I didn't. And so when you reached out, I was like, what?

I finally, yes. This is a true story.

Lainie Rowell: That's amazing. I will disclose on my side that first of all, your name has been mentioned on this podcast probably more than anyone else's. We could turn it into a drinking game. And if you don't drink alcohol, I mean lemonade, but you, you seriously have been mentioned so many times.

And so you've been on my wishlist. Since the beginning, and there's some people who, if I don't know them well, it takes me a little bit of time to build up the courage to reach out, but I know you through listening to you on other podcasts, and I know you're this genuine, lovely, warm person, and I didn't need to be anxious about it, but that's still me, so that's on me and I'm just glad you're here now.

LaVonna Roth: I can totally relate. Yes. Same, same. Thanks for having me.

Lainie Rowell: Well, I'm going to tell our listeners a little about you on the off chance that they don't already know who you are, and then I would love for you to chime in with all the other ways that you are shining your light.

I am going to lean into that acronym a lot just so you know. You're going to hear me say Shine a lot. LaVonna Roth is an international keynote speaker. She's a consultant, author, mom, wife, so many of the things. She is the founder of Ignite Our S.H.I.N.E. And the S.H.I.N.E. Framework.

She supports others in their journey for educational consulting and, I mean, there's just too many things to list, but LaVonna, hopefully I touched on some of the big ones and you'll tell us more.

LaVonna Roth: You absolutely did. Yeah, all the things that you're talking about, you know, some of it was planned, some of it was not planned, but I think that's the beauty of life and the journey that we go on and experiences.

And yeah, I started my own company about 2008 after teaching for 10 years. And I had changed the name multiple times for various reasons, and then one day, I was really going after what do we call smart in education, and somebody said to me that I would never change the definition of smart in education, and anyone who knows me, part of my personality went watch me.

And then there's the other part that said, yeah, but LaVonna, what if they're right? And so I'm thankful to them because I ended up thinking more about it literally is how someone and the word shine pops in. And that's how it ended up becoming the framework for what it is that we do. And we were talking about this a little bit before the show, and I want to bring this to light too, because the way that you look at life is the way that that lens that you begin to look through things. So, for example, S.H.I.N.E. Was actually meant for students, but we kept having teachers and Board of Education members, police officers coming up and saying, you have no idea how badly I needed this.

And I was like, wait, what? And I realized this was a human thing. And so now we use the S.H.I.N.E. Framework for every lens. I use it personally, I use it professionally, and so do others. It's really cool to see how things evolve.

Lainie Rowell: I really want to dive deeper into the S.H.I.N.E. Framework. I won't put you on the spot to do that right this second.

But it's coming, you've been warned.

LaVonna Roth: All right, I'm warned.

Lainie Rowell: And then we're gonna see how many times you and I both can say shine or light or some derivative.

LaVonna Roth: Yes. Well, we already know it's a lemonade drinking game, so have at it. We can do it that way too.

Lainie Rowell: So with that, I'm going to, not subtly, not even remotely well, but I am going to segue to our first question, which is what does gratitude mean to you, LaVonna?

LaVonna Roth: Gratitude to me is when I take a pause and others take a pause and we reflect on what is good, what brings us happiness in our lives.

And I will be transparent. I actually have a harder time doing that. I am so focused and on what's next and where things are or are not. And because of that, I forget to pause for gratitude. So to me, it is though, it is that pause and recognition. So for example, we now start all of our meetings and when we work with schools and consulting, we start everything with a celebration, always, because it is so in the midst of all the chaos and everything that we're trying to solve, but I'm not here yet, and I haven't done that, and just, it's not good enough, all the thoughts that we have, that pause allows us to do that, and I, some days I win at it, and some days I don't, one of the things that I tried one time is I put on my office door, I had post notes, and every time something of gratitude came to my mind, a celebration, I was going to put it on the door, well, I got like three or four on it, and the next thing I know it had been months, and I went lavonna, you haven't added anything. You have so many celebrations, but what that told me, Lainie, was that I, again, was back in the habit of not showing gratitude for myself. Really good at uplifting others, really good at bringing it out for others, but not for myself.

Lainie Rowell: I so appreciate that honesty and by the way, highly relatable for me, of like the what's next.

I'm a big taskmaster. The joy and satisfaction I get from checking something off a list is intoxicating , it's like nothing short of that. So for me that permission to pause is so important and that looking for what's good. And I love how you call out that you have made this just a norm, that you start with a celebration.

I would not say I'm perfect, but it wasn't until I came across CASEL's three signature practices, where it's the Welcoming Inclusion Activity, Engaging Strategies, and Optimistic Closures, that I was able to operationalize, and this isn't specific to gratitude, but just really bringing more of the humanness into the learning activities.

And not that it wasn't there before, but this is about being intentional. This is about being super thoughtful and intentional of we are going to do something that brings us together. We're going to make sure everyone is engaged and has a voice throughout, and we're going to close, and optimistic closure is, is maybe a misnomer because it doesn't mean it's just about the good thing, right?

But like, I have this framework in my mind of this is how it's going to go. So I bring that in. I hear you doing that. in your way and I really appreciate that.

LaVonna Roth: Yes, thank you. And I appreciate you sharing that because it is about being intentional with some of these things, you know, each of us is designed to be different.

And, you know, some of us have, for example, more of a, inclination to be more positive about things, or we have the gratitude piece comes in, or the opposite comes in. And so once we had that awareness and then we intentionally put these things into place, I think it becomes a practice, you know, and, and like I said, sometimes I win and sometimes I don't, which tells me I still have work to do.

Lainie Rowell: Okay, I'm just too impatient, LaVonna. I want to get to the S.H.I.N.E. Framework, if you're okay with that, because this is such a big part of your world. And I really feel like it's important to get this out there for the rest of the conversation.

So would you give us a little lesson here, please?

LaVonna Roth: Absolutely. You know, I gave a sneak peek originally thinking that it was going to be around smart, but it really is much bigger than that. When I thought about the word SHINE, it quickly became an acronym. And so I'll share with you the overarching of the acronym, and then share a little bit more about the application of it.

So S is self. What are your strengths, gifts, skills, and talents? And so what we're really looking at is anything that has to go into self. So your gratitude, for example, will fall into that. You know, if you're talking about the way that we think through positive psychology, for example, I do a lot with brain sciences.

So my books originally were around brain science and how the brain learns with strategies and such. And then I see such an application of the brain sciences, the different psychologies, those practices to be able to embed in. So it matters so much when we talk about S for self. And then when we talk about H, it's heart.

So, what are your passions? What lights you up? What gives you so much energy? What is it that you lose track of time? You know, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks about flow. And so, where are you like, holy cow, it's been three hours? It was just like five minutes ago. But you've gotten into that state. And so, everything that I'm talking about, just so everyone knows, is that I am talking personally and professionally.

We talk about the two being separate times. We talk about work life balance. I personally don't buy into that. I think you bring personal to work. I think you take work home and it's figuring out how to make it where you feel like you are living in the, where you need to be based upon, especially H for heart passion.

Cause we get one life, we get one life. H, so I says heart. When you get to I, I is inspire. So life is going to throw the curve balls. We all know that, especially as adults, things are going to happen. So how do you stay inspired and how do you inspire others? And part of that, that package of I've inspired comes from the S and the H.

So we actually put S and H together and we call it the shine spot. So if you have yourself, right, so let's say you have a strength, for example, but you're missing a passion, you burn out. When we do talk with educators, one of the things we notice too is that, yes, you'd be passionate, and so my educators did not go into it for the money, they went into it for the passion.

But over demands, policies, a pandemic, everything came into effect, the passion can start to wane. So how do you build that back up? You need both. If we have a passion for something, but we're missing the strength, so we're not good at it, but we love it, that would be more like a hobby. Right, or something that you may need additional assistance with.

So when we get to I for inspire, it's where you get to use the power of what you have. We call it a greatness. As a matter of fact, we call everyone a lion of greatness. So you get a chance to take that shine spot of you, that greatness about you and use it to inspire others and inspire yourself. Because when we get to N in shine, that is navigate.

Meaning what are you going to do with everything I've talked about? It's you putting it into action, your story, your journey, your goals. What is it that you want in life? And how do you navigate the things that happen and the things that you want? And then when we get to E in S.H.I.N.E., it is exceptional, because you are becoming the exceptional person you were meant to be, not anybody else.

And we are so good as humans at putting up the mirrors, and I know they can't see me, Lainie, but I talk a lot with my hands, but I also, my degree was teaching the deaf, so a lot of times when we do our, trainings, you know, in our workshops, we call them fun notes and fun shops instead of keynotes and workshops.

But we do, we do those, I teach them signs. So I immediately am starting to put, like, I put mirrors up and I don't even know if you noticed or not, but the mirrors came up for sign language. And it is because we're so good at putting the mirrors up. Unfortunately, what we're good at doing is the mirrors of everybody else.

And we begin to lessen who we are and we start to go into becoming someone that we're not truly, or we don't want to be, and we can get lost and forget about how we really are great. We listen to so much of society and social media is an example of what can work against you, but it can also work for you depending upon what you do and what you allow.

So, when we talk about SHINE, that's the whole gamut of it, and the interesting part is that when we do this, again, we meant it to be for students, we came bigger than that, we also meant it to be professionally, but we've learned very much how much the personal comes into play, and we bring personal into all that we do, so if we don't elevate the individual, we cannot elevate a team or a school.

So again, we elevate the individual to elevate the team in a school. They are not separate. So part of what we do is we come in and we work with the staff first and elevate them, but then they also begin to carry that into the classrooms. And that's when students just, it's incredible to see what students do with this and how they run with it.

And it shifts and changes. And we know that all of that impacts achievement. You want your data scores to change. It's not by always just teaching, right? And teaching just specific topics in specific ways. It is about the human that is in that group.

Lainie Rowell: So friends, this is meant to be a conversational podcast, but I just want LaVonna to keep talking and I'll keep taking notes.

I'm just like, Oh my gosh, say more things. Can we go into this idea of comparison? Because I really appreciated when you were talking about the mirrors and that we're shining them more on other people and not really looking, and I'm interpreting, so please correct if I got this wrong, but we're not always seeing the good in ourselves.

We're a little bit too focused on seeing it in other people. Did I get that right? If not, please correct me.

LaVonna Roth: Yes, no, that's, that's a piece of what it is. You know, there's a lot of layers to this. You know, this is not, it's more than this conversation. It's more than a day of spending and having and talking to someone.

But the important part of, I love that you bring this up because comparison, you know, I remember one year, my daughter, she was in high school and she had just started and she came home and she's like, mom, everybody has the latest iPhone. I need the latest iPhone. And I said, everybody in your school has the latest iPhone.

Huh. Every single student in that building has a latest iPhone. Huh. No, no, they didn't. Right. And I know this. Well, this trend continues even into her sophomore year. I remember that she's like, mom, you know, we're getting close to me driving. We should probably be looking at cars. And I said, Oh, I said, well, you know, your dad and I've been talking about getting you a car.

And she said, yeah. She said, well, I don't know if you've been in the student parking lot, but if you went back there, you would see only BMWs and Mercedes. And I said, you're telling me if I drove to the student parking lot, I would only see BMWs and Mercedes. And she's like, yep. I knew that wasn't true. And then she made the mistake of saying it's better than the teacher parking lot.

Well, first of all, you were not getting a BMW or Mercedes, but you definitely are not now that you'd say it's better than the teacher parking lot. So I asked her, can you give me five names? And she did. And I asked how many of them have the latest iPhone? And she said, all of them. Well, of course.

As being a mom trying to make a point, I was like, oh, right. But I said, okay, how many of them have, I did several things throughout the years that she had mentioned and I came to the last one, how many of them drive a BMW or Mercedes? And she said, well, this one. And I said, but you know what the perception has been over the past year and a half is everybody, everybody, everybody, but it's not everybody, but our brain perceives things when we see it, we see, oh, they have that, and I don't have that, or they are phenomenal at that, I'm not, I still don't have a long way to go. Oh, well, I'm kind of good at that, but I can't say that because I'm not the best. And I definitely have room to improve, so I, I, no, really, I shouldn't even say that then.

And we start, the mirrors come up, and we start really comparing ourselves. But what we don't always realize, which is a piece of what I want to make sure we harness, is that nobody has all of it either. Nobody does. So when we see the teacher who handles, for example, every single behavior issue in the classroom, That's the one teacher that is very good at that, for example.

And then we see the teacher who has the Pinterest perfect classrooms. We see the, the, the administrator who can handle any staff challenge that comes along. And we, again, the mirrors come up, but what we're not seeing is that not everybody has it all, but because we see, well, I need to do that. And I want to improve on that.

And I don't have that. And I wish I was better at that. The mirrors come up and we begin again, it's complete comparison. And I think this is a part of what You know, I've been doing more and more with women and uplifting women, especially in leadership. As a matter of fact, getting ready to do a conference on this.

And one of the things that we talk about is imposter syndrome. And I truly believe a heart of that. There's a lot of layers to this, but I think a heart to that and a piece of that is the fact that we do compare. And we get lost in who are we and part of that comparison too, is what do we even want? I do hold Prime to S.H.I.N.E..

Prime to S.H.I.N.E. Is its own entity, so to speak, still under Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E., but teach others how to get into consulting. And one of the things that comes up often is, well, I would love to speak on this, but other people are already doing it. Well, I would love to do it, but who am I to start? The comparison immediately comes up and then, but if I'm to talk on this, I don't know everything about it.

Well, nobody does. Nobody does. But that's part of the imposter syndrome is having that comparison game begin and then allowing it to rule instead of questioning our brain to say, is that true? Do I truly have to know everything in order to be the expert?

Lainie Rowell: You know, I have been a consultant for a very long time, and it is something that you're like, okay, am I adding value? You have to constantly re evaluate, is this something that is good enough contribution to continue to do?

Maybe that's just me, I'm being really honest I write so much nowadays. I'm constantly putting it out there and I'm like, I hope this is helping at least one person. And comparison is my enemy because I'm constantly seeing other people who are, writing more often than I am.

Their stuff gets shared more often than my stuff. It's a hard, hard thing. Everything you're sharing in the S.H.I.N.E. Acronym. To me, there is a connection to gratitude in every one of those letters, right? And so I do take time to pause and be like, okay, be grateful that you are so focused and you're getting so much done and it is important you find value in it. And so do other people find value in it? I hope so. I'll put it this way. I feel very exposed as someone who puts a lot of content out.

And so that comparison is something that's also really challenging.

LaVonna Roth: So. Lainie, first of all, I appreciate and want to thank you and value what you just said and your openness. I can speak on behalf of other people who have, well, one, I've listened to your podcast, but many others have too. And some have shared with me and I wouldn't be on here if you didn't add value because that's the heart of what I do.

I believe in always adding value. I don't do things for fluff. I don't do it because I feel like doing it in that way. There's always intention behind what I do. And I've also learned along the way, there are going to be people who are going to be fans and love what I do, and I don't mean fans like, oh my gosh, girl, fan type thing, but I mean, really a champion of the work.

And there are going to be those that don't, and that's okay, because maybe they're not ready for it in their life, or maybe it's just not something they need. And my challenge, though, would be back that you may not need it. sometimes say this, you know, when I know there are people that are in the audience or attending and participating and they say things like, I don't need this and this is fluff, I giggle inside.

But what I say though, is if you don't need it right now, that's fantastic, but it doesn't mean that the person sitting beside you, a colleague or family member is not in a place that they need this and the support that you bring to the table. And Lainie, that's the support that you bring to educators by taking the time to do this podcast, doing all the writing that you're doing.

I will absolutely uplift you in this way because a lot of people think about doing it and don't. So it doesn't matter what anyone would ever say, it's how do you feel about what you offer? And retaking everybody else out of the picture. Taking that moment, because I have to do the same, I have to practice what I talk about, but how do I take myself out of it and appreciate the courage to do? And put self out there because it is so easy for anyone to critique anything that any of us do. The moment it comes out of your mouth or out of a pen, you have to deal with that.

Because there are going to be people who are not going to accept it. That's part of the comparison. But it's their comparison at this point. Right? So it's them not feeling good about themselves. And so, my heart always goes out to that.

We always say at S.H.I.N.E. that every behavior has a story. And I truly believe and I live that and it doesn't mean that I take things with a grain of salt. It doesn't mean I don't get ticked off or frustrated or who do you think? But I reel myself back in to say every behavior has a story.

And so with all of that said, I think, it's about uplifting confidence and you do that, Lainie, in all of the work that you do.

Lainie Rowell: I feel like I should be paying for this session.

LaVonna Roth: I'll tell you the mailing address, no, I'm just kidding.

Lainie Rowell: Send me an invoice. I think it's really easy to not share these things that are our vulnerabilities and I'm just being really honest because I have put a lot of content out in the last few years and I appreciate you sharing that these are the things that we keep working on. And I also really appreciate you talking about If someone wants to say this isn't for me, and maybe it's not for them right at that moment, I appreciate that you're saying well, maybe it's for the kids in your class, or maybe it's for your peers, or maybe it's for someone else, and you can take it to them, you can help them.

I think that's a great way to handle those who might not be on board a hundred percent.

LaVonna Roth: Yes, yes, and you summarize that beautifully. I also know just from psychology I also know from my own background and things that I have been through in life that it's easy to sometimes put up a wall of protection or self defense and So again, when they say every behavior has a story that's a part of it. So that person exactly what you said may need it and they may not In that moment, it's up for them to decide.

My job though, is to broaden the doors, not only to yourself and have that window to yourself and to give yourself that space and that patience that you have been through stuff, no matter what, how old you are, we've all been through things. So how do you step back and honor and value that within yourself, but then do that with the others.

And so that's, to me, what it's about is opening up that door and that window into that person. And if they don't want to deal with it, that's fine. I'm not a therapist. That's up to them to move forward with, but I do believe we have a responsibility to others and to support them and inspire them.

Lainie Rowell: Well said. So, tell us more about the work that you're doing, because I want to have a really clear picture, and I have heard you on other podcasts and we have mutual friends, but you've really got a lot going on and I want to give you some space to share as much about your work as you want to.

LaVonna Roth: Oh, thank you. So Ignite Your Shine is the umbrella of all that we do. It's the foundation. And it's the piece where again, we uplift the person and build the confidence in that person, which I always find fascinating because in education, nobody's going, you know what we need?

We need confidence. That's exactly what you need, right? Because the teacher's not going to take the risk. The student's not going to take the risk. They're going to be afraid to make a mistake. We have lack of psychological safety, which means innovation, productivity, achievement, they go down.

So you need confidence is what it is. We love to start with schools, with our districts, you know, with Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E., and we take through the framework. And that can be as minimal as wanted or as big as wanted. We go as much as kicking off with a fun note, going into a fun shop, to then working in PLCs.

And at that point, we turn it over to the teams with, what is it that you feel you need to work on at this point? And we go from there. And so that can be ongoing work. Another piece though, layer, and this is where I actually started, I had mentioned this before in my books, it's engaging your students using brain powered learning.

So my books are all around, like I said before, either brain science, how does the brain learn, and then specific strategies that engage students, get them to do student owned thinking, it's differentiation, you name it, it's all in, on one spot. So we will come in and we work with educators on that piece as well.

And then the third part of that is we look at closing the learning gaps through micro skills. This was taught to me by Dr. Bob Greenleaf. He decided he wanted to retire and he's like, LaVonna, I don't want this to stop with me. And it is astronomical what happens, but we go into a deep dive into skills specific to certain students, and what we find is that, you know, we often go after the skill, or I can say this out there myself under the bus as a teacher at times, where I would say things like, Oh let me just show you again.

Or, oh, you're going to get stuck here, just do this. When it's really the micro skill that is the problem, and once you identify and close that micro skill, much, if not all, of that actual skill closes, because we've hit the actual target. So it's a deep, deep dive that we go into in PLCs with teams, and again, that can be ongoing work.

So that's the gamut of Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E. There's three buckets, so Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E. With, you know, human focused cultures, how we look at things to engage me using brain powered learning, to then going into the closing learning gaps through micro skills. But the other piece that I, I touched on and mentioned is that after doing this for quite a few years, I've had people say to me, LaVonna, how do I do what you do?

And I was always like, Oh goodness, you know, like I don't have time to share all the things and to stop and pause and do all that. And I kept getting approached and finally I thought, you know what, if others want to do this, I could take the many mistakes that I have made, the lots of loss of money that I have spent in those mistakes and I can take it and put it in.

So we created a course and we call it Prime to S.H.I.N.E. is the arm for that. But we put into a course and then people go through the course from A to Z of like, who am I as a consultant to how do I even get customers to what does this mean for the IRS and bank accounts? So we go all the way through the whole gamut and then we have membership site because people requested it where we give ongoing feedback and it's a positive community is unbelievable.

It's way more than I ever could have imagined.

Lainie Rowell: I wish I had had that when I started, because I have made every mistake possible. At least it feels that way. And there's no consultant prep program. Right? So, how do we move into this? And I think there's a lot of different entry points and feel free to speak to this more. I will say that diversifying has probably been one of my best approaches to consulting is that I didn't like walk away from a school district and say, well, let's just see how this thing goes.

Apple had hired me as a consultant and I had some steady gigs, if you will. And I think why this service is so important is because people could get themselves into trouble. You do have to be really smart about it because there is no, on the 15th and 30th of every month, you will get this exact amount of money that you can count on.

It's a very different lifestyle in my opinion.

LaVonna Roth: I agree wholeheartedly. It's one that I wish I had had not only mentors, but the right ones. I had a few, but I've spent six figures trying to learn from others. And sometimes it was the right mentor.

Sometimes it wasn't and this is where I'm always saying, if I'm not the right person for you, then that's okay. Go find somebody who is. But at the same time, I'm very vulnerable, very open to the mistakes that I made, and I wish I had known this. I wish I'd had the right person.

And so, just tons of mistakes that have been made. And the, the misnomer though, I think a lot of people have Lainie, is that they feel like they have to go full-time with this. And I will be the last person to encourage somebody to come out of the classroom. Like, if you are ready, yes, that's a different story. If you don't want to, then don't. You know, consulting can look as small as one keynote you want to do a year, to full blown and jump.

And I jumped, but I was in a circumstance where I was being treated horrifically on a job, and it was highly toxic, and I was done. I was the eighth person in 10 months in that position, and they had a bet on how long I would last when I walked in. So I lasted four months, and I said, this is it. I'm done.

I'm going. So I jumped and I haven't totally looked back. It's quite the journey. It's very up and down even to this day, you know, but that's part of what I now understand and know.

Lainie Rowell: I appreciate you saying even to this day because like I said, it's a different lifestyle in my opinion. And one of the things that I have learned, not only in my own experiences, but watching other people's experiences, like you said, you need to figure out what that looks like for you, and whatever it is for you, don't limit yourself by what you think are your options because great leaders will do whatever they can to keep great educators in their team. I was very blessed that I had some amazing leaders. I would have probably left my district a lot sooner if I didn't have leaders that were not only lifting me up and just constantly encouraging me, but trying to figure out, how can we, from an interest based perspective, meet what you're trying to accomplish, and also still make sure everything's covered here. I know everyone won't have that opportunity, but you might have it and not realize it.

LaVonna Roth: Yes, yes. And I would encourage you to talk to people who are already doing it. You know, I'm happy to always set up a time to tap in to help you sort through things, you know, whoever that is, to see if this might be a fit for you or might not, you know, so, that's a whole other podcast interview we could do, huh?

Lainie Rowell: I know, right? I will say one of the things that I have just been absolutely delighted about is the generosity of this ecosystem that I cannot actually think of a time where I approached someone who was doing something that I aspired to do, where they're like, nope, those are my secrets, too bad, figure it out on your own.

And that's not even just specific to education, because I do have mentors outside of education who are incredibly giving of their time, incredibly generous, and so going back to that comparison is that you might be building something up in your mind, like, oh, I can never be like that person, well, you don't want to be exactly like that person to begin with, obviously, but that person might actually be someone who you could be reaching out to.

Maybe a different way to shift that energy of, instead of that comparison hangover, it's like, reach out to them and see if they're willing to help you on your journey.

LaVonna Roth: Yes, yes, I agree. And the one thing is, I had the opposite experience. I love hearing that you've had such a good experience.

But mine has always been like, no, these are my secret sauce and I'm not going to tell you. And, oh, how much did you charge? Well, you go guess. And you'll figure it out. Because it was a competition mindset, not a we're in this together and the pie is huge. So, you know, there's plenty of schools to figure out.

And besides what you do is different than what I do. And even if it's the same, we don't deliver it the same way. We don't package it the same way. We don't do anything the same way. So it's that kind of a mindset. So on the flip side, I will say though, I have had people who have tried to monopolize time.

So just whoever you do talk to, be respectful, they do have a business they're trying to run and such. They're happy to help you and answer questions, but also be mindful of they're not on your speed dial, put it that way. Is that old school?

Lainie Rowell: I'm with you on it. Totally made sense to me.

I really appreciate you calling out that consideration because we don't want to take advantage of people. I think that you can be so thoughtful of I have my five questions, if I could have 30 minutes of your time, that would be so amazing. And then, if it's going to be more than that, you need to look at LaVonna and all the resources that she's created, including a membership, because I do think there is, a threshold for generosity and I'm going to help you like others helped me.

And then there's also, and I think this is part of that mindset of a consultant of, we have to honor that our time is worth something. It is valuable. Thank you for pointing that out. We don't want to take advantage of people's kindness.

LaVonna Roth: Yeah, but I love how you framed it up. You said 30 minutes, or could I have 15 minutes, or could I ask you three questions? And then from that point on, it's up to that person, whoever is being asked, to give more time if they wish.

Yes. I find as educators, oftentimes, we're too afraid to ask. Where you don't know unless you ask, but just at the same time, just be respectful of people's time.

Lainie Rowell: Yes, 100%. That's a great balanced approach to that. All right, any last tips you want to share before we get to your shout out?

LaVonna Roth: Find your people who are going to uplift you. I just had this conversation yesterday with a woman and who is consulting and you've got to find the people who, if they're going to give you feedback, it's the right feedback.

And the way I phrased it to her is it's trusted feedback. And I think that goes for any role, anything that you're doing. There are going to be people who want to do what you do, whether it's in the classroom, as a leader, consulting, all the things we've talked about, but find that trusted piece, because that trust is what's going to matter.

Lainie Rowell: There's something so disarming about you, that's why I trusted you sharing some of the things that I'm working on. I'm a constant work in progress and there is this great reciprocity out there, I want to appreciate that, and thank everyone who has helped me along the way, and continues to help me along the way, and I'll just try and honor their time as well.

LaVonna Roth: We're all a work in progress, every single one of us, and it's okay, we talk about it. It is something that is true and accurate and let's just enjoy that and be a part of that and knowing that it's not something that we can change.

Lainie Rowell: Enjoy it for sure. . Okay, my friend. So shout out time.

LaVonna Roth: I am going to give it to all of the cheerleaders that have ever been in my life, so past, current, possibly in the future. I just want to show gratitude for anyone who has helped me to do better and be better, because that's exactly what I want to be for others.

Lainie Rowell: Yes. There are so many cheerleaders in our life.

LaVonna Roth: Yes. And I know you've had her on your podcast, but one of my biggest ones is Liz Bostwick.

She is someone who we talk pretty much every day so it's one of those that she keeps my head on straight at times and I hope I do the same for her and we're very philosophically aligned and she is one of the biggest cheerleaders that I have.

And she is also the person though, that will say, so LaVonna, you might want to think about this. And that's needed too. So I'll give her an explicit shout out, but yes, it's to all the cheerleaders.

Lainie Rowell: Well you both shine. I mean, I can't even stop at this point, but you both shine very bright. I adore you both and I'm glad that I had this time with you.

I've had a chance to talk with Liz on the podcast too. And I mean, this is the selfish reason for doing the podcast. So I get time with these people. All right, my friend, what is the best way for people to reach out to you?

LaVonna Roth: So I would say through the websites are the best. So igniteyourshine.com, if you're interested in learning more about what it is we offer and how we do it and how we can support you and elevate you. And then if you're interested in the whole consulting or any of that, primedeshine.com is a great website to go to. On all social media, it's @LaVonna Roth.

Lainie Rowell: So I feel like you might be with me on this that we have unique enough names that we were able to nab the same handle across all the platforms. Is that just the best?

LaVonna Roth: Yes, it is the best.

A lot of times I just, I would say at LaVonna, but I went ahead and started adding the ending there, but yes, it is the best. Like, I don't even want to introduce myself to people. I just say, hi, I'm LaVonna. Yeah. Because when I say LaVonna Roth, I get a lot of like, wait, I'm sorry, what was your name? Because the first name is so unique, it doesn't catch it all.

So yeah, me and Lainie, LaVonna. Yep, exactly.

Lainie Rowell: And we even start the same. And it's funny because there's sometimes, there are services, this is such a tangent, but there's sometimes services that just the username automatically adds like a 24 at the end. And I'm like, how dare you? How dare you? I know you do not have another Lainie Rowell in your system.

Don't you dare do this. That's how spoiled I feel. No, this is not happening.

LaVonna Roth: So there are some perks, because I don't know about you, but when I was younger, I could not find anything with my name on it. And we didn't have, yeah, you couldn't like go and customize.

Lainie Rowell: You're in the tourist shop, and there is no keychain with a license plate that says LaVonna. There's not one that says Lainie. If you were a Jennifer, you could have five different color options.

LaVonna Roth: You ruled the world if you were Jennifer.

Lainie Rowell: If your name was Jennifer, you ruled the world, yes.,

LaVonna Roth: That's the biggest takeaway we've said today.

Lainie Rowell: No, you have shared so much wisdom, but I really appreciate this moment that we have lived parallel lives for our names. All right, my friend, I will make sure everything about how to connect with you, your bio, is all in the show notes so people can reach out to you. And I hope they take advantage... Well, no, that's a terrible way to phrase that.

I hope they reach out to you and take in all your brilliance. See, again, I'm trying to go back to the light.

I just can't even stop.

LaVonna Roth: I love it.

Lainie Rowell: Sarah Candela was one of the guests. And I can't even get into it. She gave a very clear description about Candela meaning light.

LaVonna Roth: Oh, wow.

Lainie Rowell: So I feel like there's a theme here. It's emerging. It's lovely.

LaVonna Roth: There is. Yes, for sure.

Lainie Rowell: I'm going to let you go enjoy the rest of your day, but I really appreciate this time. Thank you for being here and thank you all for listening.

LaVonna Roth: Thank you, Lainie.

Lainie Rowell

October 17, 2023

Episode 76 - Human Flourishing in a Digital World with Guest Sara Candela

Lainie Rowell

October 17, 2023

Shownotes:

In this episode, I get to chat with a guest whose last name literally means "intense focused light" - how brilliant is that? Sara Candela and I delve into the realms of attention, mindfulness, and the ways humans need to adapt and learn to flourish in the age of AI. We also explore how cultivating gratitude can be our guiding light, just like a burst of radiant sunshine brightens up a room. From daily joys to facing the challenges of an evolving world, this episode will inspire you to wield gratitude as a powerful tool for navigating the complexities of our modern era. So, grab your shades and embark on this enlightening adventure! (We really leaned into that light metaphor! 🤣)

Article referenced: Scope Creep

Trailer

Full Episode

About Our Guest:

Former high school English teacher, and current Community Manager for The Optimalist community, which supports Engageable by Swivl. Her work supports educators in their journey towards mindfulness and adaptability in the world of AI. Outside of that world, Sara is a writer and a poet living in Los Angeles who loves meeting interesting and creative people. She hosts The Optimalist Podcast, is working on a book of short fiction and a book of poems, and can be found haunting comedy clubs & literary events around LA.

Website: theoptimalist.substack.com

Twitter: @Scandela9
Instagram: @scandela9

About Lainie:

Website - ⁠LainieRowell.com⁠

Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And now, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You is available too!

Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.🙌

Just fill out the forms linked above and someone will get back to you ASAP!

Transcript:

Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] All right, my friends. I'm hoping I still have the nice, deep voice from this cold that I have been fighting. But let me just kick this off with a welcome to Sara Candela. Welcome, Sara.

Sara Candela: Hi, thank you for having me, Lainie.

Lainie Rowell: Well, you have this lovely, mellifluous podcaster voice.

Sara Candela: Ooh, what was that word?

Lainie Rowell: Mellifluous do you like that?

Sara Candela: I love it.

Lainie Rowell: That was on my day of the word calendar. I've got it right here. No, I just...

Sara Candela: don't know that I know that word. I'm, I'm, I'm shocked.

Lainie Rowell: It's a compliment.

Sara Candela: Oh, I love it.

Lainie Rowell: It's just, it sounds so beautiful. And if I was more technical as a podcaster, I would try and enhance my voice in ways, but the best I can do is hope for...

Sara Candela: Well, I think when people say that it's usually when I am in front of this mic and I do think that when I pull the mic, my voice just naturally starts to do this.

Lainie Rowell: That's amazing. That was a great, that was a great little trick.

Sara Candela: It's like a weird connection. Like here's the mic. It's time to talk.

Lainie Rowell: So fun. Okay. I'm going to introduce you as proper as I know how to.

Sara Candela is an experienced high school English teacher, she is the community manager for the Optimalist. She is so many things, my friends. She is a writer and a poet.

She focuses on mindfulness and adaptability in a world of AI. And gosh, I could just keep going. She's working on a book of short fiction. I don't want to steal all her thunder. So, Sara, please take it from here. What all do you want people to know about you?

Sara Candela: Well that was a lot of the tidbits, but I can explain a little bit more. I did teach for 14 years, 15 years in New York. I was a English teacher which seems like another lifetime ago and now I'm in Los Angeles and I kind of left education to figure out other ways to work with teachers and students that were not in the classroom.

Found my way into learning podcasting, which is why I can talk like this sometimes. And was actually originally started working not exactly in the community manager position that I'm working in now, but with the team at Swivel because they were building a product that doesn't exist anymore, which some of you listening might remember, which was called Synth, which was a product for teachers to podcast remotely with their students.

And so it was an app and I was kind of, recruited with education and podcasting experience to work on that and think about what would make that something that we could build community around as well. So my foray into gathering with educators in a very different way outside of a school building began with that about five years ago.

And now has led to this whole new world of what do we do with a future that is uncertain in the world of artificial intelligence and how can we bring mental health like there's a lot of problems, I think, societal issues that kind of get wrapped up into that before we think about even the technology piece, but all of the things we're dealing with post pandemic and even pre pandemic that are in larger society, but are mirrored in our schools, like little microcosms.

Like, what can we do to kind of educate ourselves and be prepared to build routines that help ourselves in and outside of the school? in our lives that also will help us really be mentally ready for flourishing in a future that we can't predict anymore. And so that's what I'm doing now in the Optimist community with our newsletter and working with our team on building Engageable, which is a free software product for teachers to help build mindful routines in the classroom and now having launched the podcast in April, all the things that kind of get wrapped into building communities of educators that are outside the classroom and just all over the world, and helping people, talking to people like Lainie on their shows jumping into other people's communities and just thinking about how I can keep expanding the way we talk about the important things that are going on today.

Cause I think we have to continuously adapt the way we do that.

Lainie Rowell: This place that you've come to where you're talking about mindfulness and adaptability and your work is just so near and dear to my heart. And I love that you're building this community and you're bringing together two things that people might feel are antithetical.

Right? Mindfulness and technology. Yeah. But you see them as... what? How would you describe how you see them?

Sara Candela: What we see them as are two things that we need. And that I think people wind up going through life today, choosing one or the other, or thinking that they have to choose one or the other. We all know people in our lives, whether they be colleagues or family, we know people around us who we think of as more like, Oh, my friend meditates every morning or my, this is my yoga friend.

We all have people that we would associate as more mindful or quiet or peaceful, like all the things that we tend to group together, it's kind of like a stereotype. And then we have the other side of people who are a little bit more. And the tech part could be anything, it could be any range from casual tech use to addiction to tech, but we often separate them is really my point.

And so with thinking about the state of mental health and loneliness and all of the stuff that we know is true, but we keep pushing away and not wanting to deal with the attention crisis, all of these things, they all kind of get wrapped together. And go back to this route of like, where are we spending our time?

And where we're spending our time is in front of things and doing things that are not really using our time well. And so it's really, really, really, really hard to talk to adults about stuff that they don't quite understand how they mesh. And so I try to work with educators because that's where we want to start in thinking about these things out loud together, that's really what the community action part is, is like not me getting on a microphone and telling people what to do, but picking out books and sharing them with others and saying, let's come together and read about this stuff together.

Let's talk about it. Let's have so and so on the podcast and get their ideas about either something like mindfulness or wellness in schools like talking to psychologists or talking to people who are working with teachers on AI initiatives and bringing all of these concepts and people together so we can see that we can't march into this future or even live today with one or the other.

Like, how do we get more people to realize that we have to start adapting to what is going to come by, embracing things that seem a little bit outdated or slow. And as I talk to more and more teachers that are still trying to do this in the classroom, you know, kids seem to want to embrace this, but they're looking to adults to step into that role first. I'll stop talking.

Lainie Rowell: I don't want you to stop talking and I appreciate that you're bringing these things together because to me, I don't like the false dichotomy of if you're using a device, then you're being distracted.

Sara Candela: Right.

Lainie Rowell: There are actually things I'm using a device for sometimes that are helping me focus. And if we're on devices, we're disconnected we're lonely. Well, there's actually times where I feel closest to people because of the device. And so I appreciate that what I hear you saying is how do we not just say, well, that's bad or that's bad?

How do we find the best and adapt?

Sara Candela: Yeah, and I think part of adaptability is also knowing, and this takes, is going to take a while for people to catch up with all together, but knowing that you as an individual, and we as, as a society, like we have to adapt as well.

We can't just, look at the things around us as growing and changing. Oh, we're being left behind. Like, what do we do? Like you have to adapt to what's being given to you or sold to you or the newest thing that's not going to go away. Or that's changing our lives, but at the same time, we're going to have to up our game in order to remain

like to remain human beings really into the future that are going to be able to, I guess, progress and keep going as a important part of, of life. How do we do it? I'm like, not even saying this right anymore. How do we do it? And how do we flourish if we're not going to keep going?

Plugging Flourish. That's our brand. That's, that is,

Lainie Rowell: that is our mutual, lovely word that we share. And I do really appreciate that word. And I want to talk more about that, because I think flourishing, that is something that we can be simultaneously doing and aspiring to, if that makes any sense because I think I can be flourishing, but still also striving to be even better. And I don't know if there's a more flourished or a flourishest.

Sara Candela: I'm more flourishing than you. I'm the more flourished.

Lainie Rowell: Could you imagine that would be a terrible competition?

Sara Candela: We're going to introduce with this episode when it comes out, we're going to introduce the Sara and Lainie lexicon. It should be the starter pack of 10 words that you can start to learn and incorporate.

We've been writing about this a little bit actually in our newsletter that kind of goes along with the optimist community, we've been trying to dive really deep into what it does mean , to even just use the skills that we think of, or would traditionally call 21st century skills and what people need today or five, ten years from now.

We're so used to using some of these terms to talk about , what the basics we need to flourish or what our kids are going to need to flourish in their future as adults. And we have started to introduce this idea of instead of thinking of 21st century skills or higher order thinking skills, we are now going to have to think of us as humans being aspiring to an even more flourishing level of even higher order thinking. So where the technology that we have to adapt to is kind of what I mean about adaptability being complicated, the technology we have to adapt to is complex. already able to do a lot of the things that we would consider higher order thinking.

And how do we flourish as human beings and continue to be productive and successful and happy and reach new heights if we don't adapt to that? And adapting means now we have to be even better. So what we're trying to explore, what are those levels look like that are all the way up here now? How do we not be absolutely terrified of that, and know that we are going to have to eventually really be ready to prepare kids for that level, right? For those levels of creativity and thinking, and what does that mean and look like, and how can we start that today?

Without knowing what that map is, part of why we are doing all of this exploration in attention and mindfulness is because we're thinking about what skills can we develop that we know contribute to that and we know being better focused, knowing how to manage your distraction, knowing how to build routines that keep you regulated and how to be someone that knows how to pay attention in a way where you can tell when something is not real and also very real.

The things that we know are going to help someone go from having those basic levels of flourishing to having even higher order thinking skills. And I think that that's where we're seeing the future is going. It's just going to take us a while to figure out what that really is and what that looks like.

Lainie Rowell: I want to put in the show notes, I'll put a link to that article cause I read it and I really appreciated it. And I felt like you were articulating something that I'm going through right now as a writer. So I use ChatGPT, but I don't just say write me an article on human flourishing, right?

Sara Candela: Where my name comes up, right?

Lainie Rowell: And make sure to include Sara Candela.

And then I drop your article in and I'm like pull a quote from here. No, that's not what I do. One of the reasons even higher order thinking skills really resonates with me is because when I have an idea for an article, and I, in my mind, kind of know where I want to go, and I want to touch on some things, I will put things into chat GPT, like, okay, here's what I want to address help me with an outline.

And then I have to review that outline and go, Oh, this is like completely the wrong direction. I'm not wanting to go here. And then I have to like think so critically about like where I actually want to go with the article.

Sara Candela: Exactly.

Lainie Rowell: Because I now realize that I wasn't able to communicate to ChatGPT what I wanted to have happen.

So that means I am not ready to write this article. And so then I need to have this further conversation with ChatGPT where I'm like, I really want to make sure and emphasize this. And how could I include this idea? And okay, I want to talk about human flourishing. And Adam Grant talks about languishing.

And Austin Kleon says, I'm not languishing, I'm dormant. And you know what I mean? I'm taking this in a very different direction than ChatGPT originally wanted me to go. Because I am the one supervising where this is going. And it's requiring a lot of my attention.

Sara Candela: Yeah. And what I was going to say, what you're describing is that real command of your attention.

And it's a very different order. It's a very different level of executive functioning. It's almost like you're running a mini team in front of you. Like you really are the executive of whatever it is that you're working on at that time. And you have these invisible workers that are kind of being helpful.

But then you kind of just have to keep pushing back at them, right? And thinking about, you really have to tell them exactly what it is that you want. And I do wonder, like, and you'd be probably someone really good to talk to about this in the next 12 hours of podcasts that we record. But you get so many different views from people who are using it, like you do, of how helpful or, how much time it saves, or if it really is just helping them write from a different vantage point.

And I think that's also an interesting question to think, like, what level of helpfulness or, I don't know, I don't even know if helpfulness would be the word, like, what do you see? Is it, is it adding to you?

Lainie Rowell: Right, and in the Sara and Lainie spin off of writing with Chat GPT, we can address that, but I will quickly say, It's made writing both harder and more enjoyable, but harder in a different way.

I don't sit there and stare at a blank screen and go, what am I gonna say? I now feel like I have an assistant that is helping me think through and I feel like the quality at the end is significantly better.

Sara Candela: Oh good.

Lainie Rowell: And I also have to be, and this is a constant fear and anxiety are not the right, those are too extreme for what I feel, but there is a consciousness I have that I cannot lose my voice in this conversation.

The most important thing to me is that this is a quality piece of writing that reflects my perspective and voice. And if it doesn't do that, then I feel like I've failed.

Sara Candela: Yeah, I think maybe just in the last month we started, maybe a little more than that, we started to use AI to write our show notes for the Optimalist podcast, but I don't use 70 percent of what it writes, but you can tell. Well, today, the day that we're recording this Lainie's episode of the Optimalist podcast is released.

And so that's the one that's in my head right now. Cause I did it yesterday. But if you'd go to look at Lainie's show notes, you can tell, now that I'm saying it to you, you can tell that her intro paragraph, has been spit out by something that has listened to the episode. But even though I've gone in and changed it and deleted half of what it said because just like you're talking about the staring at the blank screen, absolutely my least favorite part of the podcast process is having to start those show notes, doesn't matter what the episode is, it could be my favorite topic in the world, but sitting down and writing that paragraph today on the show, dot, dot, dot, and like I'm like, I already did this for something else.

So I get annoyed by starting it every week. And so having it kind of listen for me and tell me back and forth what each of us said for the entire hour is really helpful for me to just pull out pieces and then I can zoom ahead and look at what people said at the end that I need to grab for quotes, you know, I don't have to go through and listen to it.

And it's so funny how we only started doing that a month ago. I'm like, wow, I was like skipping ahead and that's so funny. But yeah, it's a good jumpstart.

Lainie Rowell: I think the through line of this entire conversation so far, and I will get to my first question. I think we're like 15, 20 minutes in, but that's okay.

Sara Candela: We'll be drawing a map to this episode after.

Lainie Rowell: But the through line is. There's nuance, there's complexity, there's no good or bad, we don't get to just dismiss things easily, we have to be really thoughtful and intentional with how do we move forward, how do we adapt to flourish.

And so...

Sara Candela: That's, that's six times we've said it now.

Lainie Rowell: I mean, we're going to turn it into a drinking game if we haven't already. I guess if it's shots, we don't necessarily...

Sara Candela: That'll be our bonus episodes. Tim, are you out there? We're going to continue.

Lainie Rowell: Oh my gosh. Okay. So I have to tell you all Tim, Tim, my friends.

Sara Candela: Tim Belmont. He's a member of the community. People know him on Twitter.

Lainie Rowell: So Tim is post producing the episodes for The Optimist. And it is really lovely that when Sara starts recording with her guests on the pod, she says, Okay, I'm going to say Tim sometimes.

Sara Candela: Because I talk directly to him. And sometimes if I forget how I say it, people will be like, Oh, wait, is he listening?

Like thinking it's a real engineering situation. Like I'm in a sound booth and I've got the engineer up there listening while we're recording. I'm like, Oh no, he's not here.

But now I want that to be. Yeah.

Lainie Rowell: It's like Wobby Wob from Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard.

Sara Candela: Yes. Oh my gosh.

Lainie Rowell: I believe his real name is Rob, but they call him

Wobby Wob. That's just one of Dax's term of endearment.

Sara Candela: But we'll have Tim create a bloopers reel of that can become a drinking game for people to play with of bonus content.

Lainie Rowell: There we go. Okay. Well, you have some lovely things to share about gratitude so I want to pivot to that. Not that this is really a pivot, but I do want to make sure I give you the opportunity to share that. So, Sara, just tell us, what does gratitude mean to you and how does it look in your life?

Sara Candela: So gratitude, I'll kind of combine a bunch of things into something that doesn't sound like a straight up definition, I guess, but I was telling Lainie a tiny bit before we started recording that really my personal relationship to gratitude is pretty deep and started a little bit before the pandemic and going through as a lot of deep, associations with things or changes happen when you're going through a deep shift in your life.

That's usually when you look for how can I I guess I'm going to use the word deepen again, deepen my relationship to myself, my relationship to others around me. What can I do that is meant to be built into a routine. And so my brother is a really well practiced yoga teacher, and he's been trying to get me to be just as mindful about that part of myself as he is for a long time , as many things, you have to come to it on your own. And so I did that in January of 2019, I guess it was, I started a yoga practice, a very, very small one to start like 10 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day. But then in conjunction with that also started like many people start with a gratitude journal, but I was very specific about it.

And I know people have different ways they relate to what gratitude is, but I've always found that what really helped me mentally move away from whatever negative space my mind had been in for so long that I needed to kind of get rid of was thinking of thinking small and really moving into the very, very, very present.

And that has a lot to do with a lot of the other things that we've talked about today, but realizing that all of the wild chatter that was keeping me from flourishing or even moving forward at all needed to literally just completely stop. You can't go through one thing at a time and you got to just like, zone in on like, what are the little things?

And so for me, gratitude really began to deepen and become a thing that changed me when I thought about what are the things in my immediate present that I would be unhappy not having tomorrow, or that enhance something right now. And I could, of course, be grateful for people and circumstances, and I am every day, but I'm not going to write about those same things every day.

What I would wind up writing about is things like sun streaming through my kitchen window every morning in a certain way where I know I can wake up and at 7 a. m. I can sit in this sunlight. And to me, that was so fulfilling because I'm like, so many people can't sit in a stream of sunlight because they don't live in Southern California and like, don't have, this warmth in the morning.

And I don't know, sometimes that sounds silly when I say it to people, but those were really the things that got me focused on just each time of the day, each moment of the day, the activity being, and it helps you move beyond that, because then you're grateful for what am I doing when I'm sitting here?

Oh, I get to write in this journal. Then I get to work from home, which means the sunlight is here. I can open all the windows and work in this beautiful, open, bright space and be with my dogs all day. Take them out every day, whenever I want, so it opens up the gratitude from there. When you start with that tiny thing, like what are the things around me that are tangible?

That I'm really just so joyful to have. And then joy became the word that I embraced for all of that year. Like everything that I did, every little thing or big thing that I welcomed or pursued or found me was like, if it filled you with that sense of joy, then it was to keep. And it all came down to like, I guess it comes down to that sunlight finding, can you find that one beam of sunlight that you really, really wish you would never be able to live without the end.

Lainie Rowell: So, this is a circle back for us because before we hit record, we were talking about how we both just really love natural light and how lovely it is when you can open the windows in the morning and you get to see that, that brightness come in, which we don't get every day here in Southern California, but it's a lot of days.

Sara Candela: And also this is a treat were two Southern California gals recording together. I rarely record with people in my time zone. And now it's two weeks in a row. Anyway.

Lainie Rowell: It is lovely. And we will have to figure out a way to meet in person at some point. But it just, I have this warmness and like glowing sparkle inside of me because I'm just thinking of how we're such kindred spirits.

And I love the way you're talking about the joy. And sometimes I feel. I know this secret and I know people like you, Sara, know this secret and I want to help other people find this secret and just like your brother with you.

Sara Candela: I know exactly what you mean.

Lainie Rowell: You want people to know and I just will keep talking about gratitude.

I'll keep writing about gratitude and then also just like you said, which is profoundly wise, people have to come to it in their own time, in their own way. So I'll just still keep talking and writing about it and savor these moments when I get to talk to someone else who knows the secret too.

Sara Candela: Like four years, five years, I don't know what it is later. Because I did reach a point after a year or two, maybe of going about it and writing about it in that same way, where it almost felt like I had hit a wall because I started it for purpose, right?

In conjunction with movement and other things that I was using to move past difficult things that were blocking my brain and my growth and all that stuff. But so then eventually it gets to the point where it doesn't feel like it's quote unquote, working anymore. Like it did what I initially needed it to do and now it's almost like I needed, what's the next level of gratitude? Like, I don't want to write in this journal anymore. I need the next level. What do you do? And so I went journaless for a long time and still have not gone back to writing every day in that way. But now just in the last couple of weeks, I've started to fall into this thing where if I'm feeling anxious about something during the day or apprehensive about it deep breaths, movement is still always like the number one thing.

But if I'm not in the position to be outside or something like that, just thinking for a second about actually being grateful for the problem. Like, oh, I get to solve this thing. It literally almost immediately moves me past that barrier. Like, why am I not able to talk to this person?

Well, this is an opportunity to do this. Like, why am I not getting along with so and so? Like, it could be anything. And I couldn't get to that level of that's a form of gratitude without having written and written and thought and thought and reflected and reflected for years. And I know people would come into that next phase at different times, but that's, I think what I was thinking of when I thought, like, it's not working anymore.

What's the next level. And then you have to discover that also for yourself. Right. But it helps you, I think recognize that all of the struggles that you have are not just obstacles. They're things that you get to learn and understand better. And that's the way I like to think about things.

It's really a calming way to approach every day.

Lainie Rowell: Very peaceful. It's been so helpful for me to hear Sara, your story, and other people's stories, and just know that there is no one way to do it. And so I think that's the really important key takeaway, is we know the secret. The secret is Grateful Living is going to... lead to fulfillment, lead to flourishing. There is no one way to do it.

Sara Candela: Well, the secret is really the same to all of these things that are difficult and that take either a habit or a routine is that you have to just start it. And even if it's only tiny. And I, and I know that sounds like cliche because people say that all the time now, but it really, that really is the secret to anything that's hard like that.

And that takes an individual momentum and an individual effort is that no one can really force you to sit down and do that. You have to realize when it's right for you. And that joy only comes when you keep up with that. It's not like a once in a blue moon type of thing.

That's what I feel. I mean, any gratitude we want, but I think that the feeling that you're talking about, that bubbles up that secret, I think is what comes when it becomes a part of you.

Lainie Rowell: Sister. I was just going to say the way you talk about it.

It's just a part of you. And then you said it. Oh my gosh, get out of my head.

Sara Candela: Yeah.

Lainie Rowell: Well, friend, our time has gone too, too fast. But I want to give you an opportunity if there's any other tips you have.

Sara Candela: No, I think I've totally gratitude ed, I've flourishingly gratitude ed. I don't think gratitude is meant to be a verb.

Lainie Rowell: I feel like in our journal, in our lexicon, I was just going to say, when we come up with our dictionary.

So before we get onto your shout out, we have to address your last name. Because we've spent some time talking about how important light is to us, especially natural light. But there's so many ways you can go with the word light.

And Sara, do tell us, what does your last name mean? What does Candela mean?

Sara Candela: So any science, especially physics teachers out there might already know where we're going at this, but Candela is a unit to measure light. And I was telling Lainie earlier, there might be more, I don't know, but I know the main ones are lumens is the one most people know when they think of, not that we use it every day, but if you look on a box, like a light bulb box, you'll see lumens used as how they're measuring the intense or I guess, I don't know if it's the intensity, but candela. Candelas are the way that you measure the intensity of, I think it's like a cone of light, which Lainie can see behind me the light in my room here that I'm in.

And I do think now I'm very aware sometimes when I buy certain bulbs, I look to see if it's measured in candelas and lumens. And sometimes they are, it depends on the type of light. And I think when you're in a work room or like a garage, something that's normally dark, or Underground, and it needs an intensity of like focused light it will be measured in Candela.

So that is me an intense focused light.

Lainie Rowell: Again stop! Get out of my brain. Out of my head.

Sara Candela: We're gonna get Physics teachers writing and saying that's not true. No, I'm just kidding.

Lainie Rowell: This seems true to me and...

Sara Candela: It's true.

Lainie Rowell: Especially the part about you being an intense focus light, but in the best way.

Sara Candela: So I'm grateful today for my name having lent itself as a metaphor to the show.

Lainie Rowell: It's beautiful. It's beautiful. Well, and it's funny because the techie nerdy person in me was like lumens. Oh yeah.

Like on the projector in my classroom.

Sara Candela: Yeah, exactly.

Lainie Rowell: I know. But it's like the, most people are thinking about the very great example you gave about you'll go to buy lights in Target and they'll have the lumens on.

Sara Candela: And I only notice it because of my name. So anytime I'm around stuff like that in packaging, I'm always just glancing to see which measurement is on the box, but you have to be aware of it to notice the word candela, I think it's not common. In household lighting there, I think it's the first education podcast that has talked about household lighting units.

Lainie Rowell: I will just tell you right now, I will never purchase household lighting without thinking about you Sara.

Sara Candela: And that goes for all of you out there.

Lainie Rowell: You are now imprinted. Oh my goodness. Well, okay, let's get to your shout out.

Sara Candela: Okay. So this totally, totally wasn't planned, but given this person that I'll give a shout out to, but given the light of our, the light of our light of our conversation.

I'm just a living metaphor, my friends. And that's, I literally wouldn't be talking about any of this stuff or know about any of this stuff. And he coined the term, Even higher order thinking, I'm gonna give my gratitude shout out to Brian Lamb, who is the founder of Swivel, co CEO of Swivel, he's the founder, he started Engageable, it's his idea, that's his baby and he is just like one of the hardest workers I know with this very specific cone of light, this very focused light, and I'm not even trying now, it's seriously how I think about it.

Lainie Rowell: It's just seriously happening!

Sara Candela: Thank you got it! This is, this is real life right now, everybody. This is what's happening. But he is so focused on this mission that I'm just the voice for like all of this stuff is, and anything you hear me talk about here or anywhere else is just a culmination of all of these two years, really, of studying what it means to be an attentive human being.

And what do kids need versus what do adults need? What do we think about our attention? How do we tell ourselves that we no longer have the ability to pay attention? It all started with that two years ago and being on a journey with somebody who is that focused in helping starting with a specific group of people like educators and students and then moving outward from there and just going through that journey of knowing that you can't build something really, really important and really meaningful without knowing how to adapt.

And that's where the adaptability comes from. And without being ready to change, without being ready to accept that, you're going to fail most of the time. And these are all the most important foundational things that we need to bring into our classrooms. And I, and it's like part of why I love stepping into being like the vocal part of this team, in this role, in this community is because I like being able to connect with people directly and get more people jumping and willing to jump into talking about and tackling these hard, hard issues and conversations as much as possible. So if my light can bring a little bit more to that, then.

That's what I love. So yeah, my gratitude goes out to Brian for always being willing to tackle these really difficult things that we all are going to need to face at some point when people are not looking and he'll do it without the attention. So our attention goes to him today.

Lainie Rowell: I love that. And I feel you shining the Candela on him.

I can join in too, right?

Sara Candela: Yeah, definitely. Everyone's name is Candela today.

Lainie Rowell: One thing I so appreciate about you, my friend, is your passion for your work, your calling it's contagious. Like I can feel how important this is to you.

And that's just something that is very inspiring. And I'll just go for it again. It lights me up.

Sara Candela: We can't stop. Someone's going to have to go to Lainie's house and press stop recording. This is it. A bonus will just be the two of us giggling for an hour.

Lainie Rowell: I mean, it might be, and I would be fine with that.

So Sara, please tell people how they can connect with you.

Sara Candela: Okay, well, to go back to my name, you can connect with me on Twitter or Instagram at @SCandela9 . I was telling Lainie also that's a name given to me by my seniors in like one of the last years that I was a classroom teacher, they would call me Scandela in the hallway and yell it down the hall.

And then I was like, that's going to be my Twitter handle and it's been my Twitter handle ever since. So, @SCandela9 mostly on Twitter is where I live and breathe and what I would really love is checking out and following. I don't have a website of my own, but really I live on our Optimalist Substack.

That's where we publish our newsletter and our podcast. The podcast also can be found everywhere. But I'm the only one I know using Substack for publishing podcasts. So I think it's kind of cool to say that if you subscribe to the newsletter, you also automatically get the podcast every Wednesday when it comes out in your email which is kind of cool. But the Optimalist community stuff can be found at theoptimalist.substack.Com. And that's pretty much it.

Lainie Rowell: So much wonderfulness and I could talk to you for hours. And we will.

Sara Candela: We only live 40 minutes away.

Lainie Rowell: I know. We're going to have to figure out how we can get together face to face ASAP.

My friend, I thank you for sharing so much wisdom and everything that you're doing as well as your experience and journey with gratitude and I just want to, I don't, I have no, I have no words because I'm just so full of light and joy that I, I don't know what else to say, but.

Sara Candela: This is the Gratitude episode of the Gratitude, the podcast about Gratitude.

Lainie Rowell: This is the meta, this is the Gratitude about Gratitude episode.

Sara Candela: Well, thank you so much for having me and I love this. I think Pattern started with Sean a few weeks ago, like a month ago. Pattern, I'm getting into of like, have someone on the Optimalist, then the next week go on their show. I love that bookending experience.

It's so great. And super fun, but we're going to, we're going to have a mashup podcast, I think coming soon, maybe like a mini series. Actually, let's do that.

Lainie Rowell: Oh, she just said it. All right.

Sara Candela: All right. Thank you very much,

Lainie Rowell: Sara. Thank you for your time. And thank you all for listening.

Lainie Rowell

October 10, 2023

Episode 75 - Obstacles as Opportunities with Guest Kevin Brown

Lainie Rowell

October 10, 2023

Shownotes:

Are you ready to discover how gratitude can reshape your perspective and enrich your daily life? Tune in now for a thought-provoking and heartwarming discussion with our special guest, Kevin Brown. He'll take us on a journey through his life, from educational leadership to embracing gratitude as a way of living. This conversation is bound to leave you with a grateful heart and a new outlook on challenges. Don't miss this joyful discussion that will undoubtedly leave you with a smile on your face and a heart full of gratitude.

Shared on this episode:

Trailer

Full Episode

About Our Guest:

Dr. Brown is a 33-year, award-winning public school teacher, principal, superintendent, and advocate, spending the past five years leading TASA, an organization that supports school leaders in Texas. A product of public education with many family members who have been lifelong educators, he is grateful to serve the 5.4 million students of Texas, the leaders who support them, the communities whose futures depend on them, as well as the future of our nation's democracy, which depends upon an educated citizenry. He is a believer, practitioner and witness to the power of gratitude.

Website: tasanet.org

X/Twitter: @KBrownTASA

About Lainie:

Website - ⁠LainieRowell.com⁠

Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And now, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You is available too!

Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.🙌

Just fill out the forms linked above and someone will get back to you ASAP!

Transcript:

Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Hello, friends. I have already been belly laughing with my new friend Dr. Kevin Brown. Welcome, Kevin. Thank you for being here.

Kevin Brown: Hey, I'm so honored to be a part of this and excited for the conversation with you, Lainie.

I'm a big fan.

Lainie Rowell: Oh, you're very kind, and I have to give a huge shout out to Dr. Jill Siller, who if anyone was listening to her episode, which if they didn't, they should go back and listen to. It was somewhat recent. She recommended you as a guest, and when Jill says something, I listen.

Kevin Brown: Well, I do too, Lainie.

That's good advice for both of us, and she's an amazing human being and a wonderful friend and a great colleague, and I'm honored to work with her every single day.

Lainie Rowell: You two together, what a powerhouse. So I am going to do a little quick intro, Dr. Brown has been in education for 33 years. He is an award winning public school teacher, principal, superintendent. He's done it all. For the last five years, I believe his sixth year, he can correct me if I'm wrong, but he's been leading TASA, an organization that supports leaders in Texas.

He is grateful to serve. Friends, this is a really good number. 5. 4 million students of Texas and all those who support the 5. 4 million students. So, that's just a start. Kevin, please tell us more about you.

Kevin Brown: Well thanks, Lainie. And it's really been the joy of my life to be in public education and to serve people in all of those roles.

I've loved every one of them and, and learned so much and, and been such a better person because of it. In the organization I serve now we do a lot of professional development for school leaders. We publish a couple of magazines. We provide member support to everybody. So, And we advocate for public education at the Capitol, which isn't always an easy thing to do in Texas, but it's a really important and critical thing to do, and I work with an amazing team and, you know, one of the things that you said, I've had some individual accolades along the way, but the thing that I'm most grateful for and honored is when my school district was named the best in Texas when I was superintendent, and it was the product, I think, of this great team that was together for a really long time we had a great board, teachers, leadership team, we really listened to students in the community, and that sustained effort over a long period of time, it was this great team celebration, and the neat thing about that is, That team still, they've taken it a whole nother level and and continue to do amazing work.

Lainie Rowell: Well, best in Texas. That is no small thing. That is a very big state. Not only geographically, there's a lot of people in it. And so, best in Texas. That is amazing. And I love how you're honoring the team. And one thing that affirms this best in Texas is that they've continued to improve and you're saying that they're taking it even to the next level and so that always reminds me of that Jim Collins level five leader, right, is that they make sure it's continuing to succeed and improve beyond their tenure.

And so I hear that. .

Kevin Brown: Yes, I'm really proud of them. It was an honor to be with them. And I'm with this amazing team here at TASA that just is so committed to public education, committed to serving leaders. And we work with the most amazing people. You know, school leaders are incredible.

They, they have this amazing sense of mission. They work incredibly hard in spite of tremendous obstacles, and so we get to be there to encourage them, to support them, to celebrate their successes, and to be with them, too, when they have hard days. And that's a real honor to be a part of. .

Lainie Rowell: I can't wait to hear more about your work.

And I would love to get that started with just this question, this very open question where there's no right or wrong answer. And that is, what does gratitude mean to you?

Kevin Brown: You know, for me, Lainie I think it's an intentional practice of recognizing and honoring the people around us. Their attributes, the events that happen in our lives the things that are, you know, both big and small in our lives that occur every day.

I think it's even recognizing how negative events in our lives, and even people in our lives sometimes can actually ultimately be real blessings. And. You know, in some ways, for me, it's the embodiment of our love of life and everything that comes into each day. It's a recognition there's a deeper meaning than just that drudgery of day to day existence.

It gives us our lives meaning, it brings happiness it makes life worth living.

Lainie Rowell: I really appreciate that you're explaining it in this very rich and full way that encompasses not just the sunshine and roses and flowery fields and all of that, but you're talking about these negative events and negative people even actually can serve a purpose and turn out to be a blessing.

And how, you know, I was talking about this with my daughter in the car yesterday, that sometimes a curse turns out to be a blessing. And it's really, you never know, and it's hard when you're in it, but when you can get to that point where you can acknowledge, appreciate, and I heard you say, you know, intentionally honoring what it is, either the event or who they are, and what it's meaning for your life.

I think that's a really beautiful way to live.

Kevin Brown: Yes, I do too.

Lainie Rowell: So what does this look like in your life? Because, you know, again, Jill, raved and raved about you. And in just a little bit of time that I have now known you, I concur. And she's like, you have to talk to Kevin Brown because this is someone who lives in gratitude.

And so I'm so excited. Please share practices. And even if you're up for it, maybe how you came to appreciate gratitude, which sounds redundant, but it's not.

Kevin Brown: No, it's not at all. I think, you know, for me, I think the Gratitude came very naturally for me because both of my parents are people who really have gratitude in their lives.

I lost my mom five years ago but she's actually in my gratitude journal every day because I got to have 52 years with my mom. And both my parents have had struggles in their lives. It hadn't been perfect or easy and they divorced when I was a child but I saw them go through some really difficult times and yet always find those silver linings, always recognize in each day that there was blessings and that I was one of those for them and they were for me.

But my mom never met a stranger. She would see people. She would you know, comment on things. She just made people feel so good about themselves. And my father has the same knack for them. I'm very close to my, oldest sister. We talk multiple times a week. She's an educator herself in Colorado and her husband had a pretty severe stroke when he was 31 and they were doing volunteer work in Thailand.

He had a severe stroke. We didn't know if he would survive and it's had a pretty profound impact on his physical abilities. But he's been this inspiration for me because he's been able to find real joy in life and meaning. And, and not that long ago, this summer, he said, you know, if I had to do it all over again, I don't know if I would have prevented the stroke from happening. I think my life is richer because of what happened. And he focuses on what he can do instead of what he can't. And he said, you know, I'm such an intellectual person, but I think I wouldn't have gone that direction in my life had I not had this stroke.

And So that's a real inspiration for me. But, you know, every morning I wake up and I have a gratitude, you know, kind of a ritual that I do every morning and, and I wake up and make my cup of coffee. I have a, a beautiful golden retriever who's my, my buddy and he comes and he wants a little bit of love.

He'll come and I pet on him a little bit. I have my cup of coffee and I keep a gratitude journal every day and it's kind of divided into two big things. One of them is kind of the big rocks in my life. So it's my family. I have an amazing family that I adore and I name them all. I have a lot of really dear lifelong friends, as well as some newer friends in my life, and I think of them, my colleagues, and what a blessing they are to me, and I name every one of my staff members so I can visualize what they bring to my life, but also do a 24 hour gratitude list, which is what happened in the last 24 hours, that I may have missed if I didn't really take the time to observe.

In my gratitude journal this morning, you know, just to, to give you an idea we had a rainstorm here in Austin which hadn't happened much at all. And so that was in my gratitude journal. And instead of just, ignoring it, I stood at the window and got to watch it this morning, which was wonderful.

I got to pick up my daughter at the airport and have a nice conversation. I had that great cup of coffee. I had a walk with my dog. A nice conversation with a colleague who needed help. A good workout. And I actually ran into a cashier at a store. who was just dispensing wisdom to everybody who came through.

She was just this joyous person, and I decided to take time and actually visit with her and, and honor her. And I said, you know, you're just here, you're joyful, you're giving all this advice to everybody. And she said, oh, it's my grandmother just coming out of my mouth every day. And I said, well, your grandmother probably picked all that up from somebody else too, but thanks for making my life better today.

And those are a little cheesy things, maybe, I don't know, but it really means a lot to me and it makes my life, I think, richer by doing that. I do a little meditation or prayer every morning and then I move on through the day.

Lainie Rowell: I'm actually just taking notes because there were so many things I wanted to, to remember to talk about.

And as you're describing your gratitude rituals. Which, by the way, I love the word rituals. And you're talking about how you do these two big rocks.

So, I really love that you talk about that you, every single day, acknowledge, name, honor, your family, your friends, these, really important things in your life. I've heard some people say, Oh, I don't like to, you know, just write the same thing every day. But I really think it's about how you approach it.

And if you're really just writing my family, my friends or something like that, that is really not going to add a lot of value. But the way I hear you describing it is there's a nuance to it that's critical. And that it's that you're really listing them out, the individuals, and you're taking the time to think about what a blessing they are in your life.

And it's not becoming this rote, I do it every day. But you have made it something that's a ritual that's really important. I love that.

Kevin Brown: Well, and Lainie, one of those things is, you know, it's easy in our jobs, and educators feel this, because you're in the dailyness of your life.

If you're a teacher, you're going through the day It can be chaotic. The wheels can come off. If you're a principal or superintendent, oftentimes it's what you didn't plan on that happens during the day. But to be able to separate yourself a little bit from that and remind yourself, you know, I'm in a profession that has real deep meaning to it.

And it's critical for our society. It's critical to the children in our schools. What an honor to be in this profession. And yeah, of course we're going to have bad days. There's going to be things that, that happen because we chose to be in this profession. And with that comes the slings and arrows of whatever.

But I would prefer to be dealing with this than something that didn't have meaning and didn't make a difference in the lives of other people. And then I think of the people that made a difference in my life and that they probably had really bad days. I have this vision that, oh, they were just perfect and everything went well.

Of course it didn't. They had really hard days, but they made a difference in my life and that's enabled me to help others.

Lainie Rowell: So as you're talking about that, this profound profession that we have that is so impactful, it always reminds me when I talk about happiness and Laurie Santos gives a great definition, in her words from the social scientists, happy in your life and happy with your life.

So happy in your life, you're having these positive emotions at least more often than not. And it gets tricky saying positive and negative emotions. I think pleasant and unpleasant is maybe a little bit more precise. But happy in your life and happy with your life And I always feel like as educators, we have a leg up because that happy with your life is that meta stepping back and this is what my life is about.

And I feel like as educators, we have this calling, this purpose in our profound profession that even though not everything is perfect in our life, we can step back and go. Okay, I get to make a difference. And that's what I hear you saying.

Kevin Brown: Absolutely. Look, I go through negative emotions like anybody, you know, I've had personal loss in my life.

I felt sadness, deep, profound sadness. I felt anger, resentment, hurt, all of those kinds of feelings I've had in my life. And every human being has those, but we can dwell in that. We can let that define us, or we can be intentional and, and say, you know, we're not going to let that define us. Everybody has that in their lives.

What is going to define me is I'm going to respond to those things with kindness and love. With generosity, with fairness and I'm going to recognize the good things in my life and the good things that come into my life and that I'm able to give to others. And for me that, that does provide a tremendous amount of happiness even though not every moment or every day is, is, oh, this is just great, you know, it's not.

But it gives that deeper meaning to us and helps sustain through difficult times if we can focus on those blessings that happen every day. And I think that when things are the most difficult, It's the most important for us to take that daily time and ritual to reconnect to this, to help us get through it quicker, to short circuit what might be a difficult cycle of, of emotions.

Lainie Rowell: My mind is blown that your ritual and the two ways you do them so perfectly align with this idea of happiness being happy in your life and with your life, right? Because your first one is the big rocks and that would be what I would consider with your life, right? The people that are constantly in your life that you are so grateful for, your profession.

These are like those, that first bucket you said, the big rocks. And then to me, your second bucket, this in the last 24 hours list, that's your in your life. This is the stuff that the moment to moment, this is what's guiding your your emotions, and you're being super intentional, you have empowered yourself to control that through your gratitude practices, through that prism of gratitude that you see the world through.

Is that fair to say?

Kevin Brown: It is. Yeah, it is. And, and, and look, I'm not perfect at it, but I do it probably five to six days a week. There's usually a day or two where I, I get thrown off, but it's the times when I get away from it that I find myself struggling the most. And so if I can come back to that, re center my life, re center my day, be intentional about how I'm going to approach the day even really think in terms of, okay, here's the day that's coming before me.

What is it that I'm hoping to be able to embody during the day? I'm going into a difficult meeting. I want to listen. I want to be patient. You know, I want to be intentional with the words I use. Whatever that is that comes to you. If I'm a teacher and I've got a particularly challenging student, how can I approach that student with empathy and with kindness and in a way that maybe I can help move the needle with that child that day and make a difference in their lives.

Lainie Rowell: And it's fair to say that you are a very busy person and yet you're setting aside this time and I sometimes wonder if people think like, oh, this is an extra thing to do, but these are small yet profound moves, wouldn't you say?

Kevin Brown: I definitely would. And I think anybody that struggles with time and we all do, and you're right, I'm extremely busy.

And when I was a superintendent, I was extremely busy. And, you know, every step of my life has been, I really suggest a book called Essentialism by McKeown who talks about, Finding those things that are most essential in your life, putting your efforts and your time and energy into those, and stripping away the things that aren't essential and for me, things like watching TV are not that essential to me and not that TV is a terrible thing or anything, but, if you're spending many hours watching TV, instead of taking care of yourself, doing your gratitude journal, exercising, spending time with family or whatever.

You know, you strip those things away and focus on the things that are the most important to you in your personal life and in your profession.

Lainie Rowell: I can't wait to check that book out because I do think that's something I'm trying to be really intentional with in my life is prioritizing those big rocks, right?

That's like the metaphor, the mayonnaise jar metaphor, right? Like you put the big rocks in the jar first and then you fill it with the small pebbles and the sand and if you do that it all fits, but if you start with the little things it's not going to all fit. So I really appreciate that. I want to touch back to you.

You talked about your brother in law going through, I think it's fair to say, a traumatic event.

Kevin Brown: Yes.

Lainie Rowell: And being on the other side of it and saying, you know what, I don't think I would change anything. There's actually a practice called mental subtraction or counterfactual thinking that I encourage people to go through.

It's one that I use a lot in workshops and it has this really profound impact because we don't always think about these sliding door moments when if something had gone differently, how my life would look right now, and so, I think that's a really interesting point, and I appreciate that as you're talking through everything, you're acknowledging the challenge, acknowledging the hard, but also saying, but yet, look, we get these choices, we get these options, and that's how we can really make a difference in our lives. So I didn't, didn't mean to to Birdwalk too much, but I just, it's a really, really good practice.

Kevin Brown: But along with that, let me just share with you that, I used to define myself as a younger person as an athlete.

And I have had now nine surgeries, about to have ten orthopedic surgeries, had a lot of chronic pain in my life and early on, I was not allowed to play sports starting in middle school, and I thought, you know, that was my defining thing and it went away from me for a while but that pushed me towards music.

I ended up being a three time All State trumpet player. I went into college on a music scholarship, met all kinds of new people, had leadership opportunities as the president of the UT band. I would not be where I am today had I not had those injuries early on. Now eventually I got to play sports again, but by then I defined my life in a different way.

And I remember turning to my brother in law, when I was going to have spinal surgery and I was really feeling sorry for myself. And he said, you need to focus on what you can do and not what you can't do. So what can you do? And dig in deep on that. And I'm a big believer. I love Ryan Holiday and the Daily Stoic and I've read The Obstacle Is The Way, which is one of my favorite books that I read recently. He really talks about that.

And Seneca, one of the old ancient philosophers said, a good person dyes events with his own color and turns whatever happens to his own benefit. Laura Ingalls Wilder said there is good in anything if we look. And if we can approach life in that way and approach our jobs in that way, I just think it makes all the difference in our ability to do great work on behalf of other people.

Lainie Rowell: I so appreciate you sharing all of that wisdom. You've given us books to read. I'm excited about that. And there is such a thing as social and emotional contagion and when you are doing these practices, when you're living your life in this way, we not only positively impact our life, we positively impact the lives of the people around us.

And not in a way that denies people their feelings, it's in a way that this is what's working for me, and this is how I'm going to live, and people will naturally catch it.

Kevin Brown: Well, I agree with you, and I think, Lainie, that, and this is something for school leaders out there, and of course teachers are leaders in their classroom, and principals are leaders in their campus, superintendents in their district, and so forth, but, we don't spend enough time celebrating and honoring and showing gratitude for our students, for our teachers, for our communities.

We all want to be part of a winning team. We all want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. And I feel like one way to define culture in your classroom, your school district, so forth, is by identifying what's important in your community to your school district, and then honoring and celebrating the work that people do around it.

And that should be the majority of what you do instead of coming in and saying, Oh, our test scores are bad, or we got to improve this, or we're not doing this well. And we used to say, our work is to design engaging experiences for students that result in profound learning for life. And so every day we tried to honor teachers who were doing those things.

So a teacher took a bad lesson plan that they had maybe it was a worksheet or something, they redesigned it into something that was really unique and wonderful. We go in take a video, talk to the kids, talk to the teacher, talk to the parents, and then honor them at a board meeting.

We started every staff meeting and we do this at TASA. Every time we have a staff meeting, we start, we spend a good half hour of our time honoring the work that people have done and allowing our staff to honor each other. We call it staff shout outs. And that helps build culture, but it also makes people feel like they're part of the team.

And in this day and age of shortage of everybody, you know, teachers and so forth, great people have options. They can go where they want to go, and we have to be able to create the environment and the culture. Where they want to be. And that's one way to draw them in is by really honoring their work and empowering them in their work and then being their cheerleader.

And I'm not being Pollyanna, I'm being very specific about how we honor them and recognize that. I think everybody wants to be recognized and appreciated for the work they do. We don't pay educators enough, but I think what educators want is a sense of I'm making a difference, and people recognize that I'm making a difference, and so you can set the tone in your school district when you do those, or in your classroom, your community.

Lainie Rowell: That asset based approach is so important, and one of the things that I pulled out as you were giving the example of the teacher, of this lesson wasn't working, and I improved it, and now look at this. To me, that's honoring the growth, too. And that's something that I think we can really all focus in, not because we're not already doing great work, but we're always getting better.

I think that's such an important mindset. Love that. Well, this goes by too fast, of course, as always. So I do want to give you a chance, any last tips that you want to share? You've given us so much, so don't feel like you need to. I can cut this out, but I just wanted to give you a last chance. anything else you want to make sure and get in there.

Kevin Brown: Yeah, you bet. So I have a couple other things that I would recommend to people that they do. And I think It helps other people, but it also helps ourselves. I really make a practice of trying to randomly call family, friends, colleagues, tell them that I love them and I appreciate them and that they mean so much to me.

And I've done that with my former teachers. I brought my first grade teacher to my first convocation when I was the superintendent. I've done that with former teachers. teachers. I even hired one of my favorite teachers and got to honor him a great deal, sending cards out to people. A lot of that is not earth shattering, but also recognizing people and the work they do, even randomly, too often we, we hold back, you know, like this cashier that I saw the other day who just exuded goodness. How many people just walked by her and thought, well, that's really neat, but they didn't say something about it. And to say, you're a joy to be around.

I love that you're doing this. I'm sure it meant something to her. I hope it did, but it also made me feel good. And then I think finding inspiration for ourselves through music, through reading and experiences. You know, hobbies, finding things that are joyful to us. I love to fly, fish, and hike. Those are things I can do.

I'm grateful I can do those things. And I try to find the gratitude in that. And then I think last but not least is, be grateful for yourself. You know, each person has some gifts that they offer to the people around them and owning those, not being shy to say, you know, I'm really good at this or this is something that I can offer to others.

Own it. Enjoy it. And offer it to others to make the world a better place. I think it's something we all should do a better job at, probably.

Lainie Rowell: Well, and you say it's not earth shattering, and I appreciate your humility in that, but we often don't take the time to say the kind words to the cashier, even just listening to the wisdom, and then, you know, thank you for sharing that.

And I have to tell you, because I think you'll appreciate this, I posted on Instagram, I don't know the source at the moment, but it was a graphic that's like, normalize telling your friends you love them, tell them a lot, make it weird. And I just love that idea, because I think there's so often that we think the things, but we don't say the things, because It would feel weird or it would feel out of the norm or isn't this obvious?

I don't need to say this. But we don't always do it, and we need to do it more.

Kevin Brown: We do. Especially men have a hard time saying, I love you showing affection giving each other a hug. You know, men do that awkward double tap hug and that kind of thing. But I tell the men in my life, and there's many of them, colleagues, friends that I love them, I appreciate them.

And I'm going to tell you, it makes my friendships deeper and more meaningful. And I'm honored to have friends that reciprocate and it's, it's just, it's wonderful. It really is.

Lainie Rowell: The double tap hug. Great visual.

And so thank you for all you have shared. Thank you for modeling this, living this, and I know it's spreading to those near and far, in your orbit. And. I would love it if you just took a moment to give a shout out.

Kevin Brown: I would. My sister, Heather Carroll, who is a educator in Colorado, and I could do a million people, but she's my oldest sister.

We're extremely close and anything that happens in my life, I have to share with her and vice versa. And she sees the good in me, and oftentimes when I don't. And another is a lifelong friend, since two years old, Eli Zambrano, who became a teacher and a school counselor and continues to be kind of this daily contact.

I have so many friends that do that, but both of them are educators who I've known almost my entire life. My sister, it has been my entire life, and they just exude goodness, and they see me for who I am. I love them for it. I'm grateful for them.

Lainie Rowell: Lovely shoutouts. I appreciate that. And now, after hearing this episode, I know people are going to want to reach out to you. What is the best way to connect with you, Kevin?

Kevin Brown: So my email is kbrown@tasanet. org. I'm not a great social media guy, but it's @KBrownTASA I believe is my Twitter.

And those are probably the easiest ways to get in touch with me. And then through my website. Everybody in the world has my cell phone, but I probably won't maybe get that out on the podcast. But if people reach out to me through those means, I can always share my, my mobile number with them and, and follow up.

Lainie Rowell: That's very generous to be so accessible, and I will make sure that all of that's in the show notes. Save the cell phone number. We'll make that a step two after people reach out to you, right? You always have to be careful with the cell phone.

How many times can we get asked if we want to extend our car warranty? And so we'll just keep it to the email for now.

Kevin, . I have just cherish this time with you, and thank you for being so generous with your time. I know people are going to want to connect to you and I can't wait to see what comes of that.

So thank you again for your time.

Kevin Brown: Thanks so much, Lainie. I really appreciate it. And I've enjoyed this time a great deal. Thanks for the work that you do and making a difference in the lives of countless people who you probably don't even know how far your impact goes. But I know it goes wide and far.

Lainie Rowell: I appreciate that. We never know our impact. We hope those are some strong ripples, right? Thank you all for listening.

Lainie Rowell

October 3, 2023

Episode 74 - Uninterrupted Vitamin D Time and Authentic Acknowledgment with Guest Yvette Cantu

Lainie Rowell

October 3, 2023

Shownotes:

Join me for an episode packed with goodness! I'm diving into a joyful conversation with the incredible Dr. Yvette Cantu. Discover the magic of authentic acknowledgment and bask in Yvette's brilliant "vitamin D time" concept. Get ready for a dose of inspiration, practical tips, and a whole lot of heartwarming moments. Don't miss out – this episode will leave you smiling and motivated to cultivate positivity both personally and professionally!

Trailer

Full Episode

About Our Guest:

Dr. Yvette Cantu has been in education for over 35 years. She is proud to have been an aide, elementary teacher, and principal. Dr. Cantu has served the Buena Park School District, first as the Director of Curriculum and Instruction and then as the district’s Chief Academic Officer. She focuses on developing programs and instructional strategies based on the whole child philosophy and supports a vision of opportunity, achievement equity, and social-emotional success for all students.

Website: bpsd.us/divisions/educational-services

X/Twitter: @DrCantu14

About Lainie:

Website - ⁠LainieRowell.com⁠

Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And now, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You is available too!

Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.🙌

Just fill out the forms linked above and someone will get back to you ASAP!

Transcript:

Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Well, hello, friends. I am so honored, delighted, filled with joy to welcome our guest Yvette Cantu. Welcome, Yvette.

Yvette Cantu: Thank you.

Lainie Rowell: I cannot wait to share more about you. There's so much so here we go. Dr. Yvette Cantu. Over 35 years in education, every role, friends. She's been an aide, elementary teacher, principal. She's done it all. She is currently in Buena Park School District.

She started as the Director of Curriculum and Instruction. She is now serving as the Chief Academic Officer. She has so many wonderful things that she focuses on. I'm going to let her take it from here.

Yvette Cantu: Yes. Well, one of the things that I am just so proud to do is to be the head of our educational services department, which includes special education, student and community services, curriculum instruction, as well as being able to be the one in the forefront of all that is teaching and learning in our district, along with special programs.

Lainie Rowell: Oh wow, I mean, you're doing it all, right?

Yvette Cantu: I've got a great team.

Lainie Rowell: You do, you do, and I had, I'm just gonna put this out there, cause. I often just jump to talking with the guests, and I don't always give context for how we know each other. And so we had a chance to meet at, this is the world's longest acronym, the CAMTSS PLI.

My goodness, that's a long one, isn't it? The California MTSS Professional Learning Institute in Anaheim. It was so wonderful. Dr. Miramontes. introduced us. It was lovely to meet you there and then I had the complete joy of coming and doing a welcome for your staff to kick off the year and you all made me feel so incredibly welcome. That was just a wonderful experience so I appreciate that.

Yvette Cantu: Wonderful way to start the year off for our teachers and staff. They still talk about it to this day. It has been one of the best ways to start a school year that we've had in many years so thank you for that.

Lainie Rowell: So, Yvette, I wanted to say, you went on before I did, and when you took that stage, your energy is so infectious, and just your light shines so bright, and I truly believe that every teacher, and it was hundreds, in that gymnasium, they felt your love, your energy, how you pour into them.

And so I don't mean to embarrass you, but I do want to get that on the record.

Yvette Cantu: Oh, thank you for that. Thank you for that. That was really the goal, is I wanted the teachers to feel valued and cared for especially knowing what's ahead of a teacher's year. And so with having you there was, I have to tell you they have said thank you for having you there because your words meant a lot to them.

Gratitude for their work and for us to show gratitude to our students. But I have to tell you, there's a couple of things that you did that we will never forget. You gave us permission to laugh from the belly, and that pause to take a big group selfie is something that was so simple but so powerful because, you know, proximity, you can feel the energy, you can feel folks caring for one another, and when we finished that time and we kind of folded on the outside. People didn't leave. People didn't leave. They wanted to continue that feeling. So thank you for that.

Lainie Rowell: Oh, well, I appreciate you giving me some credit there.

But I think this topic, which I, I keep staying in for that, for that reason, it's so deep, it's so rich, and leads to such fulfillment that it's, it's just something that we can all kind of gather around and help us in good times and in challenging times, right?

I want to give a shout out to Marlon Styles for suggesting that selfie activity. He gave me that idea. He gave me permission to take it and that was a lovely moment. So I thank you for giving me the latitude to do that, and to Marlon for that activity, which is now a staple in my presentations, because you're right, that proximity, that let's be together and celebrate was a lovely moment. I want to get to that first question. I'm so linear in my thinking, but I always want to make sure I give every opportunity for you to share all of your greatness.

Yvette, what does gratitude mean to you? And of course, this isn't necessarily a definition, just in your own words. And I know this is deep in you, so I cannot wait to hear.

Yvette Cantu: I think for me it's really living in a positive space being able to intentionally take in all that's good, as well as to be the face of that for others when needed, or more importantly, when not asked for, to show gratitude and thankfulness for others.

Lainie Rowell: I love that when not asked for, well I love the whole thing, I love the whole thing, and I really honed in on that, when not asked for, because that's a really beautiful part of it, right?

Yvette Cantu: Yes, yes, yes.

Lainie Rowell: So what does this look like in your life? And feel free to go personal, professional, however you want to take it.

Yvette Cantu: So I think one of the things is I'm being much more intentional in showing gratitude in both work space, professional space, and also in my personal space. Oftentimes, I am been more focused in on supporting the people that I work with and then taking for granted the people I go home to. And so, I've been making a much more conscious effort of knowing that I'm able to do what I do professionally because I have a wonderful team behind me at home.

I have two wonderful sons that I can now say they are grown adults. And it just pleased me that they still want to be with me and my husband. I have a husband who has always, in our 31 years of marriage put my needs and my career and our kids first even as taking a backseat himself to his professional goals.

And so I've been much more mindful of thanking them and letting them know how proud I am to be part of their lives. Professionally, coming out of COVID I realized that before COVID, we weren't saying thank you enough. During COVID, we realized that that was all we had was one another and to show gratitude for being healthy for regaining health and for coming out of maybe for some trauma. So it was all around us, social, emotional development, everywhere you looked, it was self care, social, emotional development to the point where it was like, enough, let's just work hard. And then I realized that, you know, what did we learn? We don't want to go back to the way we were.

We want to get better from COVID. And so part of that is acknowledging, you know, the health of others, the care that others give us and wanting to let them know that they're cared for.

Lainie Rowell: I really appreciate you sharing with the listeners and me about thinking about those people we go home to because as educators, this is my perspective, I feel like our job is so rewarding and all consuming that it's sometimes easy, especially when you've got that great support system at home to kind of feel like they're fine, they're good, and so to be that intentional in saying that I have to make time an intention with them, right?

Yvette Cantu: And it's kind of putting into practice what you've been teaching and preaching at work. So for example, we talk about the importance of our staff, adults, and students hearing five positive to one correction or critical support. And I realized I don't do that at home. It's kind of like I come home. I'm tired of talking.

I'm tired of smiling. Leave me alone. What do you mean? I can't watch the TV show I want to watch. You know, I've been working all day. And so I've been much more mindful to really be more present with the folks at home in just a way that's just about bringing fun and joy and laughter. So when I'm asked how my day was now, instead of saying, I don't want to talk about it, I actually picked something to say one thing that was really hard and one thing that was really fun.

And then asking back, how was your day? For my kids, even though they're grown, reminding them how proud I am of them, but more specific. And so it's kind of like what we say for our kids is that they need to hear the word so they can create that tape for themselves. And, and when times get hard, play it back.

And so instead of me just reminding them of what to do when they're out in public, mind your manners, do this, do that, it's more letting them know specifically why I think they're wonderful adults, specifically about the joy that they bring to me because of who they are as people.

Lainie Rowell: Oh, you've got these grown, wonderful humans and I'm learning, listening to you.

I have smaller humans at home and I love how you're saying, you know, what was one thing that was really hard? What was one thing that was really good? And that's something I'm trying to be really intentional with because. Sometimes people will lead with just what's really good, and I do this too, and when we got on today, I said what's going well, what else is going on, and I'm still always trying to figure out what's the best way.

I want to make sure that people feel like they have permission to tell me and share whatever they need to share. It shouldn't just be a forced, tell me something good. And, and, if I have, I have two tweens now, and, you know, this is when friendships get tricky. And if they're going through something really tough and they walk in the door, they're not necessarily going to embrace the question, What's going well?

Yvette Cantu: Exactly.

Lainie Rowell: They're gonna be like, I am hungry, I am annoyed, there's some friction going on in our friend group, or you know, I don't know what's going on in their head, so I really do appreciate that you're articulating, it's we want to know both of those things, and I'm always trying to find, I think this is a tricky line to walk, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, I'm always trying to walk this of how do we encourage looking for the good because our negativity bias is going to push us towards seeing the threats and the dangers, which of course we need to some extent, but we don't want to go too far in that direction. So I'm always trying to figure out what's the magic to, how do we know, if you figured this out, please let me know.

Yvette Cantu: Well, I tell you, I'm working on it because when you see your kids going through that passage of time and for me, I'm now reflecting on, did I miss something? You know, I hear what our struggles are elementary kids are having. Did I miss that in my own kid's life? Middle school, how challenging that is.

High school, that bridge to adulthood and then college and beyond. And so now I'm kind of going back and trying to make up for anything I could have skipped. So for example, when I asked about work, I asked, is there anything, challenging I can help you with. You know, I learned this about leadership.

I learned this about something specifically that I think connects to them. And then I do wait for them to say, Oh, tell me more. Or, you know, mom, what are you talking about? I'm like, I don't know. I just want to share with you. Just listen, humor me, you know? And then for their personal lives, it's the same. I bring up some of the things that I know our students are are going through a challenge and I say, are you facing that?

You know, or how did you deal with that when you were in school? Is there something that as a parent that I missed that you can tell me that I can go back and help our parents with? So it's more of even asking them, was there more you needed from me? And that's so hard because I don't want to hear it, you know, in my heart, my head wants to hear it.

And I think that's why I'm much more mindful of the fact that, am I really telling them specifics so they can replay that back and their own personal take when they need it. Because I tell our parents here how important it is for their kids to hear that they're cared for, that they're loved. I didn't grow up hearing love, but I sure felt it.

So I started parenting that same way of feeling it, not saying it. And then I realized people do need to hear it. I started liking to hear it. So I'm mindful of that. But then I'm also wanting to balance that with how am I showing it? How am I showing up for them? You know and also how am I giving them a balance between knowing how to solve their own problems with just being a good listening ear?

Because many of us go home to people who you tell them how their day was and they want to solve it. You don't always want a solution. As a matter of fact, I never want a solution from my husband.

Lainie Rowell: That's amazing.

Yvette Cantu: We saw things two different ways, right? That's what not to do, you know?

Lainie Rowell: So fair, so fair.

Yvette Cantu: Give you a book to read. So, it's one of those things where learning to be a good listener and being able to walk that tightrope between giving some suggestions, some tidbits, or when just to really listen and give a hug.

And so I'm kind of flipping that, you know, where trying those things at home either because I missed earlier or I know it's still needed. And then coming back and being able to tell that story to the people I work with, both my colleagues and to the parents and teachers that I'm supporting.

Lainie Rowell: I don't know if you need to hear this, but Yvette, I know you are an amazing mom and always have been.

And I think that's the hardest thing about parenting is there's no perfect way to do it. And we can always Monday Morning Quarterback our child rearing. So, oh my goodness. Those are words of wisdom, and my kids will be home from school this afternoon and I'm really going to focus in on that listening. I am one of those who likes to solve a problem. I like to solve a problem. So if you want to talk to me about your problem. Let's, let's workshop this. I've got some solutions for you.

And there are a lot of times like I don't want your solution. I don't want your mom solution to my friend group problem. No, thank you. But if you could just listen, that would be amazing. That's a really good piece of advice. One thing I've been doing for, for as long as I can remember is, and not that I don't love, love, love music, but we don't listen to music in the car because that is a time to really connect with each other. I'm captive listening to them. They're captive listening to me. It's just such a great time for communication.

I know your kids are older. I still am doing the drive around. So I've got them in the car. And I know that this translates everything and you're doing a beautiful job of sharing how personally and professionally and what I'm kind of processing in my head is you talking about how it's this, we're modeling, we're listening, and we're working with to provide solutions to, to develop solutions when appropriate, not just as a default.

Yvette Cantu: Yes, yes. And I think in a professional life and those that I work with, I am leading through support because I'm trying not to be the little red hen. I'll do it myself. But really empowering others and building capacity. And so something intentional in our work is this whole notion of gratitude.

So we just had a retreat with my team and our theme over the district is building bridges and beyond. So for my team, it's building bridges of gratitude. That's our theme, because we know that if we can show some compassion, some empathy and thankfulness for those teachers working hard, for parents looking to us for support that we're going to help. That's the capacity we all need, actually. So to model that and then I just gave them some expectations of how we're doing it. We're just gonna do it. We're going to be kind to one another and ourselves intentionally until it becomes just something we do automatically without feeling guilty.

You know, feeling it's part of our work time to sit and reflect on what's going on, the positivity around us. I called it D time, a vitamin D time, get out and walk, get out from behind your desk. If you can't get to a school site and walk a campus and breathe and be happy that we are alive and doing well, and that we're so privileged to do the work we do, do it, because that's going to feed you.

And be the more the person you want to be in your workspace. And so we, we just said vitamin D time. And I'm also asking that when someone's out getting their vitamin D time, don't interrupt it. Let them be. That's how we're showing gratitude from one another is letting them have that space. The other thing too, is that the expectation that I set is that reflection time to celebrate.

Because I work with a high powered team of women that we usually end our day with the weight of what didn't go well, what's left to do, so just celebrate that you accomplished something, you know, you answered some emails, you picked up that phone when you didn't have to, you saw who was calling on the other line, and you still were brave enough to do it, so celebrate that and then finally, it's around acknowledging others in a way that's really authentic.

So again, that reflection. And so we took some time and we just listed all the ways we would like to be acknowledged. And when I say we know, we can't take things off your plate. My thing now is I can't take things off your plate, I can help you rearrange them.

But I can surely acknowledge how hard you're working and be there if you need something. And so what we did was we just listed. And as a team, the ways that we can acknowledge one another. And the other thing too, is it feels good to do that. So it's twofold, right? You know, you really are showing someone really that not only are you thankful for them, but specifically why in a way they can best receive it.

And then it just feels good doing it.

Lainie Rowell: What I hear when you talk about your work with your team, I hear you have so much trust in them. That you're so honest with them, and that the way that you frame gratitude is not to dismiss what's hard, it's to acknowledge the good authentically, and that really resonates with me, and I had to chuckle when you said I can't take things off your plate, I can help you rearrange the plate.

It's just so true, right? We want to take things off the plate. That's not always an option. And that's just a reality. And I think that that honesty you have, that's part of your integrity. And that really helps people believe in their leader. You're such a tremendous leader.

I want to be on your team. You bring so much light and so much joy. From the moment I met you, I knew you were my gratitude soulmate. And so I just really appreciate you giving us these very specific and authentic ways that we can bring gratitude into our personal and professional lives. You've given us so many nuggets and I just want to give you an opportunity. Is there anything else tip wise that you want to share with our listeners? Something that they can bring into their, their personal or professional life?

Yvette Cantu: I just think offer yourself grace that you offer to others. Being grateful means that you are seeing yourself for who you are, and it's good and it's okay. I often say that one of the things that I strive for is to be the best person I can be, but I know it's not happening overnight. I know in these long years I've been here, I haven't got there yet. Cause every year I learn something more that I want to become, that I want to be for myself and for those that I work with and those that I cherish. And even my circle beyond, you know, those that are adjacent to my circle. I really believe in that six degrees of separation.

So there's some folks out there, there's some things out there that I know I'm going to be in contact with soon, and I'm going to be grateful for expanding my circle, but it's going to bring some stress. It may bring even some hardship, and I want to just be able to be there in a moment, offer myself grace, and I think that's what I want others to do for themselves, is just offer yourself grace, and that's a way of showing that self care, and that gratitude for the space that we're in, and I think offering that to others is also a way of showing gratitude, or of being with those who are trying their best.

Lainie Rowell: So the listeners can't see this, but you and I can see each other on Zoom. And as you're talking about offering yourself grace, my shoulders drop, I take a deep breath. You're giving me that permission to just let go of what sometimes is serving me well in aspirational and I want to continuously approve and other times weighing me down because I feel like I'm not doing enough.

I really appreciate that. So much wisdom. Oh my goodness. Well, I'm looking forward to hearing your shout out. Who would you like to send some appreciation and gratitude to?

Yvette Cantu: So I would really love to give some gratitude to someone who keeps me going in the right direction in my work life. And that is my wonderful secretary, Eva Sanchez.

I always say if you ever really want to hear from me, get to her first. She makes me look good, so to speak, you know, so to say. She makes me look good. She makes me look like I have it all together when it's falling apart. And she knows that. She can see it in me when I walk in.

She's very perceptive. Just the conversation I start off with, she's like, okay, I gotcha. So I just really appreciate that in her. And then I really do want to give a shout out to the principals that I work with who show me every day that their students and their teaching staff and their support staff is number one to them.

And they do all they can to be that leader that inspires and supports. and Gives Direction. And I'm always very impressed and I'm inspired by them. And I think lastly, we have a very new member on our team, our superintendent, who I've known before coming here, Dr. Julianne Lee. And she's given us permission to be brave and courageous in our work.

And I truly am grateful to that.

Lainie Rowell: Oh, so lovely and I wanted to say a huge thank you for dedicating this time. I am grateful to anyone who carves out the time to come on this podcast to share their knowledge, their wisdom.

I have to say when I am having a guest that is in a position like yours at a district office, I have a little anxiety that there's a high probability of the recording getting cancelled, because, by the way, for the listeners, she's nodding because she knows what I'm talking about, because all those that you serve, you know, a teacher in a classroom obviously has so much responsibility, and then principals have so much responsibilities, but there are so many things that you are responsible for, and when something goes wrong, they're coming to you. And so I am very aware that this is borderline miraculous that we were able to make this happen. I am so grateful to you for your time again, sharing all your wisdom and I really want to make sure that people can connect with you after hearing all of your brilliance. So, with that, what would you like people to do to connect with you?

Yvette Cantu: So, you can go on our district website bpsd.us. And you can just look for me Yvette Cantu send me a message if y ou'd like. I am on Instagram just look up Yvette Cantu and send me a message, or just give me a shout out there and connect.

One of the things that I'm really excited about too is I have to give a plug to our instructional program or things that we're trying to do with our most vulnerable kids, our, our most at promise students. And we have just a phenomenal group of teachers who have put their eyes and hearts and arms around our students and they're showcasing them.

So look up anything on Buena Park School District.

Lainie Rowell: That's amazing. We want to see what's going on. I know you all are doing amazing work and you've given us so many great things to think about. I can't wait to get this episode out.

Yvette Cantu: You're quite welcome.

This is just, it's been a pleasure. It's been fun. Thank you for that.

Lainie Rowell: I appreciate this time to sit and chat with you and thank you all for listening.

Lainie Rowell

September 26, 2023

Episode 73 - Mindful Magic for Creative Energy with Guest Erika Sandstrom

Lainie Rowell

September 26, 2023

Shownotes:

Jump into the magical world of creativity and mindfulness with the incredible Erika Sandstrom. Join us as we explore the power of gratitude as a "magic potion" for a happy life and learn how simple yet profound practices can transform your daily routine. Discover the secrets of creating your very own "breathing bubbles" and find out how they can bring a sense of peace and presence to your day. Plus, stay tuned for a sneak peek into Erika's upcoming book, where kindness, empathy, and creativity collide in the most heartwarming way. Tune in and let's cultivate our best life together! 🌟✨

Trailer

Full Episode

About Our Guest:

Erika is a Digital Learning Coach and Digital Media Teacher in 32nd year as an educator currently specializing in Green Screen and creative video production. Dubbed “Green Screen Gal”, Erika shares her creative media and mindfulness passions as a featured speaker at conferences, provides district PD, hosts online webinars, serves as a Canvassador for Canva, and co-hosted Week of AI and Genially EDFest. Erika also created the Green Screen Summit and was featured on the cover of the of Ed Tech K12 Magazine and named one of TOP 30 IT Inlfuencers to follow. Her book “Cultivating Compassion Through Creativity” is out in 2024!

TUTORIAL ➡️ bit.ly/flipbubble

Website: GreenScreenGal.com

Twitter: @greenscreengal
Instagram: @greenscreengal44

About Lainie:

Website - ⁠LainieRowell.com⁠

Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And now, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You is available too!

Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.🙌

Just fill out the forms linked above and someone will get back to you ASAP!

Transcript:

Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Welcome to the pod, friends. I have with me someone who I have been waiting and waiting to have on the podcast. The stars finally aligned and I get to have Erika Sandstrom here with us. Welcome, Erika.

Erika Sandstrom: Thank you so much. I just love you. I love your work and all of this gratitude going out to the world because of you.

So huge fan. I'm fangirling.

Lainie Rowell: I'm fangirling. Alright, Erika, I'm going to do a quick introduction and then I want you to jump in. Erika Sandstrom is a digital learning coach, digital media teacher, Friends, if you were looking at her right now, you would not believe this. She's been in education 32 years.

She looks fresh out of the teacher prep program. This is a glowing fresh face. If you're not familiar with her name, you might be familiar with her as the green screen gal, because that is how I came to know you. I did see your actual name, but that's such a catchy nickname. How do you not catch on to that, right? So.

Erika Sandstrom: Yeah. Well, I was dubbed that by a digital learning coach right before COVID because I was just obsessed with the green screen and creative media, but it is true. People do know me as green screen gal. They don't know Erika. It's really funny.

I mean, so I just go with it, you know, whatever, but it, it has stuck.

Lainie Rowell: I think it's worth sticking and Erika, you just mentioned creative media is what a lot of people know you for. They might know you for mindfulness. Obviously the green screen gal comes from your work with green screens.

And you also have an upcoming book, which I'm excited. I'm hoping you'll tell us a little bit more about that. But first, just, you know, what else do people need to know about you?

Erika Sandstrom: Oh, goodness. You know I think what I am known for is the mindfulness being weaved into the green screen and video production, but I guess right now I really want folks to know more about these breathing bubbles that I'm creating and I can share that at the end.

Lainie Rowell: We're going to make plenty of time for that. I'm just So impressed with what you do, and I don't think I'm going to explain it well, but yes, people do know you for the mindfulness, for the creative media, the way that you have brought the two together is so beautiful, so engaging, so creative, and I just love it, and I really do want to get to all that you're doing, and the type A personality in me is like, make sure to ask her the first question or I might not get to it. So I'm going to...

Erika Sandstrom: Oh my gosh, are you kidding me? I'm just sitting here listening to you going, I'm going to call you every day because I really need to hear that, you know?

Lainie Rowell: Affirmations from Lainie every day. You've got it.

Erika Sandstrom: I love it.

Lainie Rowell: All right. So my friends, let's kick us off with what does gratitude mean to you?

Erika Sandstrom: How much time do you have? I truly believe in my heart and soul that gratitude is a magic potion and a magnet to a happy and fulfilling life.

It really is the key to, to everything and I'll explain why I believe that, but it's just, it's a science, it's a practice, it's powerful, and there's so much more that people don't even realize, I think, and I'm a yoga instructor many, many years now, and so a lot of that, the energy talk I'm going to bring up is from that and the experiences I've had in my own life.

Gratitude has literally changed my life, so. It is a magnet. Do you want me to keep going?

Lainie Rowell: I do. The floor is yours and I love that magic potion and a magnet. I'm all ears. I'm leaning in. I'm ready. Go.

Erika Sandstrom: Okay. Saddle up. Here we go. Well for me, I think a lot of it started with Oprah Winfrey.

You know, she's like the queen of gratitude and Deepak and us as humans, we're always in this state of, I'll be happy when, dot, dot, dot. And I'm guilty of that. We're all guilty of that. And when you catch yourself in that, that's when you've got to remind yourself to practice gratitude.

But the way Oprah explains it is so Beautiful. You can just Google Oprah gratitude and she's wearing a red dress. It's the best video. And she talks about what gratitude truly is. And there are three types of gratitude. Usually when you ask someone, what are you grateful for?

They say, Oh, my family, my friends, my home, my clothes. And those things are deep gratitudes. That we have all the time. And then there's past happenings, but the most important ones are the present happenings. And what I mean by that is that, you know, Oprah in her, in her video, so funny, she's like, I keep my gratitude journal every day.

And I write five things at the end of the day that there's power in the words, there's power in writing them. Personally, I use an app because I love my technology. And she'll say that, you know, there's certain days that you just can't stop talking and there's other days it's like, okay, I just saw a squirrel.

Great. That was cute. It might not be anything else today. You know, I had a good cup of coffee. So Oprah explains, and I love your nodding because you know all this that gratitude is a practice throughout the day. If you focus on what you don't have, you'll never, ever, ever, ever have enough.

And if you focus on what you do have more will come.

Lainie Rowell: So, I'm nodding because I know that Oprah video, I almost have it memorized and . It's so, so I believe that video was shot 2017. Oh, maybe even 2012. It was like a long time ago. It was old.

That video is old. And at the time of that video, she had already been journaling. Mm-hmm. for. Years and years. Yeah. And one of the things she says in that video that I found so profound is she says, I believe this is the most important thing I've done in my life. And I think when someone who has lived the life that Oprah Winfrey has lived, the trials, the tribulations, and the successes, If that's something that after all of these experiences, you can say that, that's something I need to pay attention to.

Erika Sandstrom: Absolutely. I say that too. I'm like, look at her house, folks. It's not just about that though. It's about, she's a true light worker. She's living her dream and she did not come from anything good. She came from some sad times. And I just have a lot of respect for her understanding how energy works.

And that's the part that's fun to prove to people is this isn't just, okay, I'm grateful and I'm just going to write it down and feel good about myself. No, this is science. You are changing your brain. You are changing your hormone levels. I mean, with middle school. It's great. I'm helping them balance their hormones by practicing gratitude.

It's that powerful. And I know, you know, this you know, energy flows where the mind goes and you know what she says in there? She says, Grace is a direct response to gratitude. The more grateful you are, the more grace steps into your life and mirrors your gratitude. And I know that once I started my gratitude journal, It's true.

My family, sometimes I drive them crazy because I'm always, you know, gratitude helps you look for solutions instead of worrying about the problem all the time. And sometimes they just want to vent. So I have learned that let people vent and then try to change the energy and help them be grateful for the, for the blessings.

So you have to be careful.

Lainie Rowell: Well you're very generous that you keep saying like, that I know these things. And to some extent I do, but hearing them through your lens, hearing it the way you're sharing it, is new to me and it's so special to me to get to hear how you see this in your life, in the lives of those around you.

From your, family to the, the kiddos that you get to work with. And that's why I think I keep staying in this topic. It's not just because it's deep and you could devote your whole life to it and never ever come to the end of it. It's also just seeing it through other people is really beautiful.

And I, I love that. It's always about like, what is it for you and what is it in your life?

Erika Sandstrom: And it's so interesting, especially when you talk about people internationally and how, you know, we say thank you here, but in other cultures, that's when it gets really fun.

I'm sure you you know, have interviewed people from other countries and it's different and it's different everywhere you go, how they practice gratitude. And I, I find it as fascinating as you do. Yeah,

Lainie Rowell: There's so many things that go into what forms our relationship with gratitude.

Erika Sandstrom: So many layers.

Lainie Rowell: I appreciate you bringing up the, the cultural aspect and that yes, in some places saying thank you would be considered an insult because it's like well, of course I'm going to do this. I'm a good person. You saying thank you implies this wouldn't be my natural reaction or my natural intention.

So it's, it is interesting but the culture is just one, one thing too. So there's so much that goes into it.

Erika Sandstrom: There's so much and my favorite part about it all is proving that energy is real and what we put out will come back to us. Good and bad. Ripples of energy. And, you know one of my favorite things I've ever read is that gratitude unshackles us from toxic emotions.

And that's where I get into Abraham Hicks and I teach the kids about the energy scale of, you know, the highest vibrational energy is joy. You know, joy is so high up here and, and then the lowest is shame, guilt. and you know, Deep Depression and all the other emotions in between. And if anybody studies Abraham Hicks and the emotional scale, you, you can't jump from despair to joy.

You have to learn to go up the scale. You're only supposed to jump a couple things. So I told my kids, I'm like, okay, if you're really in despair right now, think of something that makes you really angry. Cause that's a higher vibration of what you're putting out. Anger is not always a bad thing. You get it out and it just depends on how you get it out, but gratitude can help you focus on what's going right and not what's going wrong because every day, most days something will go right.

And like I said, it could be, I saw a squirrel and it was cute. It was that kind of day.

Lainie Rowell: I love that you're bringing up. It is not about dismissing emotions that we would consider unpleasant. It's not about ignoring them or even necessarily trying to shift out of them at a rate that's not realistic. But we do want to have the full human experience.

This is something I always want to make sure people know that I'm not saying gratitude for happiness because we should only be happy. You know, we do want that. But you talking about this emotional regulation, where, Okay, I'm here, and I need to not be here for any longer. I've been here long enough.

Now I'm going to shift to anger. That's a better place for me to be right now, and I can get there.

Erika Sandstrom: This is all from personal experience, you know, I'm an A D H D woman.

Very proud of it. I think it's a gift, but, just, things I've gone through in my life. Like sometimes if you're crying, I just look in the mirror. 'cause an ugly cry always makes me laugh. Or you can just watch a cat gif or something, something that'll make you laugh.

So there's ways to get out of this despair faster, but gratitude is huge and another thing I tell my students how energy works is that. And I was guilty of this too. Be happy for others who have what you want or what you desire in life. You know, maybe for adults, someone who has children and you want that.

If you want to bring the energy into your life, be happy for them. Be truly happy for somebody having something you want and watch it come to you too. Otherwise you're blocking yourself. And the only way I can truly prove energy to people besides the energy scale is I do a trick with a battery.

I have the kids, this is so cool, it's more visual but I'll try to explain it. You have the kids stand with their arms down, I do this with adults too, where you're just relaxed and your feet are a little bit apart, your knees are not locked, you're just standing there and you take a deep breath and then I tell them to focus on their heart and think of something they love and they start to sway forward and then I do the opposite, think of something you hate and it could be sadly a person but it could also be like peas.

You know, I hate those things. And then you'll start to flow backwards. And then like, why am I moving? So then I give them a battery in their hands and I tell them they don't have to do anything. Just stand there. And when the battery, and this really works when the battery is facing with a positive, it pulls your body forward.

And when you flip the battery over, it goes back and , it's fascinating. And within this lesson, even if not everybody flows because some people won't let go or they'll lean lean on their leg the kids are, they buy in. They're like, Oh my gosh, she's right. This is, why did I, why did I sway? It freaks them out every time.

It's important for kids to understand whatever way you want to teach about energy that It's real and it affects us and it affects your body and that's where mindfulness comes in.

Lainie Rowell: Well, I do wanna get to, and I'm gonna give you latitude because I just wanna hear whatever you wanna share. And so feel free to talk about breathing bubbles.

Feel free to talk about any mindfulness practices, any gratitude practices. Girl, I'm giving you free reign.

Erika Sandstrom: Oh my god, you're so cute.

Lainie Rowell: Because 30 minutes goes fast, so I want to make sure we get in.

Erika Sandstrom: Okay. So things that I do in my classroom right now for gratitude and or even in my life personally, I use the Thankful app, but there's a lot of gratitude apps out there. And the reason I love this one. is maybe because I'm lazy, but you can put a picture. So I look through my pictures from the day.

It pings at me at 9 p. m. every night and I look for pictures. I put a picture in and then I just list as many things as I can think of. And there are days where it's a cup of coffee, squirrel, I made it to work on time and other days I can't stop. And it's great to look back on. It takes me 60 seconds to do this.

There's no reason not to. And I'm so glad that I kept doing it. But with my students, I teach them about gratitude for themselves and for others. It's not just thinking about yourself, it's thinking about others too and how you can help them. But we do an attendance form every morning.

I put gratitude on there, it's usually like in the morning, I always get, I had a great pop tart in the afternoon it's like, day's almost over. We make gratitude videos. WeVideo, Canva, all the, you know, Adobe Express. On the green screen, we do this thing at Thanksgiving with.

turkey feathers. The kids become feathers. They pop up behind a turkey with what they're grateful for and we do that every year and that's a fun project. One that we keep ongoing is called the ABCs of Gratitude. So whenever the kids think of something that starts with an A, it goes up on the list and we do it all year and it gets really funny.

Also with MISBA for Wakelet, we did a mindfulness series and I did a whole series on gratitude there. So that's a fun video to watch. Those are some of the things that I do for, for gratitude. And I truly believe that one way to help your day, especially with Abraham Hicks, and that is if you start off your day very low, you fight the whole day.

to be happy or to find joy in your day. And most of us do that. So I've tried this is a Gabby Bernstein thing. I love her. She's a good person to follow. Before your feet hit the floor every AM, name one thing in your mind or out loud that you're grateful for and one thing you're proud of yourself for before you even put your feet on the floor.

So you can start in a space of gratitude or at least try to, because gratitude makes sense of the past, it brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. That's a good quote by Melody Beattie.

Lainie Rowell: I love that Melody Beattie quote. That is actually the last quote I have in the Bold Gratitude Journal because I feel like it really encompasses this past, present, and future.

And of all those, I think present is the hardest. I've said that before.

Erika Sandstrom: Present is the hardest, but that's where you use mindfulness. Use your five senses and bring yourself back. And I do it all day long. But speaking of that, I was saying to you off, off the air that I feel like you sharing gratitude and this magic that people have right in their back pocket.

And I'm sharing breathing exercises and deep breathing. Those two things could literally save people across the world because they're both very easy to practice and they just keep you present.

What my students and I have created, it's called #MyBreathingBubble.

And we have figured out how to create a breathing bubble that is an inhale for three, hold for three, exhale for three, hold for three, one minute exercise where I've always watched the one in the calm app, it was just a pretty bubble. And I said, wouldn't it be cool if we could put something personal inside that bubble, like a picture of my cat or a vacation I went on or something that brings you joy or brings you peace.

A lot of kids will put a basketball for their bubble because they love basketball. And so just watching what the kids create is so cool. And having them create these bubbles, they're actually practicing the breathing and the timing. So I'm watching kids like slump in their chairs and realizing how much it works.

The breathing bubbles are powerful. We're learning how to do them in every program right now. The course is free and it will have the Canva bubble in it. Which I'm going to be presenting as well soon with Canva. And we have Keynote, DeWink, oh my gosh, Adobe Express. And they're all different. Flip, all of them. Genely. That one's an actual bubble. And I have a free course right now under bit.ly/mybreathingbubblecourse.

Lainie Rowell: So you are doing. So, so, so much in your classroom, obviously, with those around you, personally, professionally. So what's the book going to be? I want to hear a little bit about the book.

Erika Sandstrom: Oh, thanks for asking. It's called Cultivate Compassion Through Creativity. I don't have a tagline yet, but it is about greed screen and creative media, but in mindfulness, all being tied into one.

So basically it's all of my lessons, but it's also a book on mindfulness and shared stories from me and from others. It's a great way to cultivate lots of things because each chapter says, cultivate kindness through creativity. Cultivate empathy through creativity, cultivate equity through creativity, cultivate gratitude through creativity.

I'm very grateful for Amanda Fox for, for bringing me in now with teacher goals to create this book. So I'm thrilled.

Lainie Rowell: That's so exciting. 2024. Right?

Erika Sandstrom: Well, yes. 2024. You know, as soon as Erika gets her schedule in to keep writing. I've never written a book before, so this is, this is quite an experience.

Wow.

Lainie Rowell: It's going to be amazing and I cannot wait to read it. And I think it's so interesting. I think we're in this very interesting time and I have kids who they're both preteens at the moment and I'm very aware of how media can positively or negatively impact them. And so I love that you're putting so much of your energy into finding these ways to engage with what resonates with kids, which is the media and do it in such positive ways and not just consuming it, but actually creating it too. It's just so lovely.

Erika Sandstrom: Creating it. And they come from a space of teaching others about it. So that's, that's, what's really powerful is these kids are really practicing it.

And I always tell this story, but it's. We did a video once with, I have a mindful superhero club as well, it's all about the green screen of mindfulness. And we had the kids do one on put your brakes on that negative self talk. So they did this whole skit where this girl dropped her book.

She freaked out and they come around in their green capes, which are full of green screen, smiley faces and stuff in them. And, they tell her to put those brakes on that negative self talk and it's, it's a cute video, but the point is that I heard in the hallway by the lockers, kids saying that to each other that weren't even in my class.

Put your brakes on that negative self talk to their friends. And that's when your heart explodes. So that's, that's what made me really go forward with this because, you know, these fun things are really fun to make, but it's the lesson behind it and the building up to it of what kindness truly is.

And then, then we'll go jump in the word kindness and do our Zach King tricks and all that stuff. Yeah.

Lainie Rowell: I'm really glad that you pointed out that it's also teaching others because there's consuming it. There's creating it, and then there's actually helping others to create too, which is like the highest level of that, and that's just so powerful, and obviously it's having ripple effects when you're hearing, not even kids from your own class that are saying the things that you're teaching, that's That's like, that's a Gooseys moment, right?

Heart Explodes. I love it. I heard you say that. That's so, so good.

Erika Sandstrom: Yeah, it gave me Gooseys for sure. Oh my goodness. It does every day. The kids just blow your mind with, and they love the gratitude stuff too.

Lainie Rowell: Well, okay. This is where I always get bummed that it's a short podcast and I know you have so much more.

So I'm just going to give you a last chance for any tips that you want to share with folks before we get to your shout outs.

Erika Sandstrom: I just encourage people to start journaling. Just grab a journal, even if you do a gratitude app. And just try it. You can even, you can even put pictures. It doesn't matter. And, and the thing about gratitude is it, it even works when you don't share it.

You know, it changes your brain chemistry. It's amazing. So try it as a practice throughout the day. What just happened today?

Lainie Rowell: And I really appreciate, I try to give this permission to myself and to others, of course, too, and I hear you giving it too, is that I think sometimes when people hear gratitude journaling, they think of very traditional paper to pen, but what I try and advocate for, and I hear you advocating for it too, is It can be photo, video, audio.

It could be a drawing. It could be whatever you want it to be. Traditional, using media, and newer tools. It's really just about getting those ideas in a concrete form. So then you really do, you know, one of my favorite words, savor it. And so...

Erika Sandstrom: I love that. I love that.

Lainie Rowell: You gotta savor the gratitude.

It's not redundant. You do savor the gratitude.

Erika Sandstrom: True. And, and honestly, the only way to change your brain and to change your thought process is to do something like this. And it's so easy. Like 60 seconds, but it's fun too. Cause then, then you start your day looking for things. Sometimes you're like, Oh, I'm going to write that down tonight.

It's really been great for me and I just handle things so much better in my life because. I literally have changed the way I look at the world. That sounds really deep, but...

Lainie Rowell: People get it because when you know, you know, I think that's, I think that's how it is. So I.

Really know there's so much more that there is to catch up with you. We're going to share your socials and how to get in touch with you in just a minute. But first, let's get to your shout out.

Erika Sandstrom: Oh gosh, of course I have too many. Can I rattle off? Amanda Fox, I mentioned. Barbara Bray. She's powerful. I'm in her new book and she's always supportive of, she's telling my whole story.

I love her. Taisha Rowe from EdTech Magazine. She put me on the cover of EdTech for the breathing bubbles and everything else. And I just love her. And she's just a wonderful human being. Cat Couchy for the Rise EDU Magazine. That girl is doing so much. And I love being a Canvassator, Barbara Roy, and the ladies from DeWink, I'll stop there.

Melinda and Karen have gone above and beyond to help me in my personal life and my professional life, and I just cannot be more grateful for them. And for you, Miss Lainie Rowell, for sharing the beautiful, beautiful gift of gratitude.

Lainie Rowell: You are so kind, my friend. And we have so many friends in common. I want to add , not to discount any of the other names that you dropped, but I do want to give a shout out to Barbara Bray.

She has been a inspiration in my life as well, and known her for many, many years. Yeah. actually got the chance to listen to you on her podcast. And so if people haven't had a chance to listen to that episode, they should go check that out because both Barbara and Erika are tremendous. And so you should check them out.

Erika Sandstrom: Oh, thank you so much. I just love her. She's awesome.

Lainie Rowell: All right, my friend, how can they catch you online? What's the best way to reach you?

Erika Sandstrom: Honestly, if you Google green screen gal, you'll probably find all my socials, but @greenscreengal and on Twitter or X, I can't say it or #greenscreengal44 on Instagram.

I'm on TikTok now. I'm trying all that. And GreenScreenGal.Com. I haven't run it yet this year, but I run the Green Screen Summit with 30 presenters. It's called Not Just a Green Screen Summit. And yeah, I think that's the best way to find me.

Lainie Rowell: All right, friends. So you know how to find Erika. AKA GreenScreenGal.

She's amazing. A great, great person. Connect with her because she's awesome. And with that, I'm going to say, Erika, thank you for your time and thank you all for listening.

Erika Sandstrom: Thank you. Namaste, girl.

Lainie Rowell: Namaste.

Lainie Rowell

September 19, 2023

Episode 72 - Thrive Through the Five with Guest Jill Siler

Lainie Rowell

September 19, 2023

Shownotes:

Get ready to dive into a whirlwind of inspiration and gratitude! In this episode, I had the absolute pleasure of chatting with the incredible Jill Siler, an expert in thriving through life's challenges. We explore the unexpected power of gratitude in tough moments, the art of being present in the now, and practical strategies for expressing appreciation daily. Plus, Jill shares a fantastic shoutout to someone who's been a game-changer in her journey. It's time to thrive through every moment, and this episode is your guide to making it happen! #ThriveWithGratitude

Jill and I love Compendium ThoughtFulls. (Not a paid endorsement!🤣)

Trailer

Full Episode

About Our Guest:

Dr. Jill Siler served as a Superintendent of Gunter for nearly ten years and now serves as the Deputy Executive Director for Professional Learning for the Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA). Jill’s first book, Thrive Through the Five, was released in 2020, and focuses on how to thrive through the most challenging seasons.

Website: jillmsiler.com

Twitter: @jillmsiler
Instagram: @jillmsiler

About Lainie:

Website - ⁠LainieRowell.com⁠

Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And now, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You is available too!

Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.🙌

Just fill out the forms linked above and someone will get back to you ASAP!

Transcript:

Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Welcome, friends. Well, this is me again using the podcast because I want to talk to someone. And so you're lucky because she is so amazing. And I'm going to go ahead and just really quickly say hi and then I'll introduce her. But hello, Jill. How are you today?

Jill Siler: I am fantastic and it is great to be with you.

Lainie Rowell: Well, thank you. So Dr. Jill Siler is just a tremendous, wonderful human being that I, I kind of just swoon from afar as I see the incredible work that she's doing. And I'm going to tell you a little bit of her bio, and then I'm going to ask her to enhance with all the other wonderful things she's doing.

So Dr. Siler has served as the superintendent of Gunter for nearly 10 years. Her current position is the deputy executive director for professional learning for the Texas Association of School Administrators, TASA. Now, one of the ways that I have connected with Jill is through her book Thrive Through the Five, which released in 2020, is incredibly relevant at any time that you get to come across this beautiful thing I've got a five star review on Amazon talking about it.

Jill Siler: Thank you!

Lainie Rowell: That is my love language because when you put your heart out there like you so beautifully did, I always want people to know how much I appreciate it. And there's so much inspiration, so many beautiful strategies in there.

And just the way that you carry yourself with grace and confidence and then also help us thrive and Flourish is just really lovely. So Jill, that's just a little bit about you more, more from you, please.

Jill Siler: Yeah, no, thank you for the lovely introduction. And it's great to be with you today. I'm talking about a subject that is so important in this work that we do as leaders, but even more important in our work of just being human beings and being good to one another.

And so I've loved every role that I've had in education. I've served in public ed for 25 years and now get to lead leaders across the state in Texas. And of course, with my book, get to impact leaders across the nation too. And that has been a true privilege. So it's great to be with you today.

Lainie Rowell: Well, thank you.

And you are a keynote speaker. I want to make sure you get that in there because people should have you out just saying.

Jill Siler: I am. And I've had a great privilege to keynote all over the country. It's been wonderful.

Lainie Rowell: It is a joy and I've heard you speak and you're just such an impassioned, insightful person.

You bring so much and I'm gonna not do a graceful segue, but I am going to segue to our first question and just ask you, no right or wrong answer. You know, what does gratitude mean to you, Jill?

Jill Siler: So, I think gratitude, to me, is just that constant need to share our appreciation for others. And I'll tell you, Lainie, like, this has been a journey for me.

I am a Type A personality. Like, I want to get things done. Like, spreadsheets are my love language. I'm a solid Enneagram 3. And so moving into this realm of leadership, I was really good at that task aspect of the job. And it really took some time for gracious people to pour into me to really help me understand that this work that we do as leaders is about people.

And even if we're not that necessarily touchy feely out there all the time. Like that's our personality that there are things that we can hone in on to be really good at valuing and supporting people. And gratitude is one of them. And so for me it was things like when I walked into my superintendency there was so much to do and, you know, you walk down halls and meet people and, and all of those things.

And in your mind, you're like selecting that to do list. Okay, we need to do this. We need to support this person. We need to order these resources, whatever that might be. And just getting to a place where you realize, okay, so gratitude is so important. So how do we do that in this busy work that we have as leaders?

And so for me, I've really approached it in my type a kind of personality, like what structure systems and processes can we put into place to then authentically share our gratitude with one another. And I know that that sounds kind of like an oxymoron, but for me, it's kind of like, if it's not on your schedule, it's not going to happen if it's not on your calendar.

And so it was, how do we strategically do that? So for me, it was things like walking out of a campus and stopping for a moment and I would keep a spiral notepad at my desk and just write down the list of names of people who I wanted to touch base with and share my appreciation with them. I didn't have the time at that moment to do it, but I would take time on Friday afternoon to be really specific in sharing that gratitude.

So I think finding ways to, to in whatever way that it works for you to make that happen is so important because. It's critical for us as people, as humans and as leaders.

Lainie Rowell: I couldn't agree more. So let me just tell you all the ways that I was just completely on board with you because I am a type A, task collector, task master kind of person.

And so I had to be coached up and I love that you said people were graciously pouring into you, teaching you kind of this way because... I can even think of times where like, I would start an email and then I would send it to a mentor and I'd be like, how does this email sound?

And they'd be like yeah, it's great. You're coming in kind of hot. Could you have some sort of opening to express gratitude or just something to kind of make a connection to the person before you go straight to business? And I'm like, oh, that's an interesting strategy. Luckily, I've met this person very early on in my career and have hopefully managed to do that but to this day, I still have to take a beat before I hit send and go, how's my tone? Am I just task mastering this or am I pouring into this person that I value them and I appreciate them?

Jill Siler: So I take exactly what you just said to like next level in that I write every email in that tone, in that, like I put down all of the facts, everything.

And the very last thing before I do before I hit send is go back to the top and rewrite my beginning, because, and I don't even force myself to start there because it's just not my innate personality, like, let me just get the work out and what needs to be done, but before I hit send, inevitably, I will go back to the beginning and rewrite the beginning to make sure that I'm expressing, like, by the way, hi, like, a greeting of some sort, and then some sort of just word of specific, intentional valuing of whoever it is that I'm writing to.

Lainie Rowell: Thank you for making me feel seen, heard.

Jill Siler: I was sharing with you before the show that I was just a little anxious about coming on because A, this is your body of work. Like you've done such good work on how to Honor Gratitude, How to Bring the Practice of Gratitude to Life with Students, with Leaders, all of those things, and this is not my area of forte, but I also took a minute because I know that I've heard really good words around this, and I was pulling back an interview that I had read with Brene Brown, and of course I love her work, but she talks about this, and it made me feel so much better because it kind of edified these things that we're talking about, that this whole notion of gratitude, that it's, it's more than just a feeling of being grateful, she says.

It's about developing an observable practice. So often we think that joy makes us grateful, but in reality, it's gratitude that brings us joy. And then just talking about, so how do we bring that to life? And so I'm glad that I'm not alone in finding ways to make that come to life, because it is a practice.

It doesn't just happen. It might be an emotion, but until we share that emotion, it does little to the people that we're engaging with.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah, I think it practice because it is an ongoing thing, right? And it's You know, sometimes weaponized in my own home that I wrote a book on gratitude, like, I'll do something and I'm reminded that I've, you know, written about gratitude and I'm supposed to be really good at this.

Doesn't mean I'm really good at it all the time. So, still work in progress. We write the books that we need to read, right?

Jill Siler: There you go.

Lainie Rowell: That's what I did.

Jill Siler: I love it. I love it.

Lainie Rowell: Speaking of Brene Brown, you got her to keynote your event.

Jill Siler: I did.

Lainie Rowell: Do you know someone? I need some intel.

Jill Siler: So it's funny because it was a process to get her. But in terms of the world of gratitude, I'll just share how that happened. Which was that we were very thoughtful and specific and strategic in how we went about approaching her team. Filling out the application, doing all of those things but like when I had an interview with her speaking team I know our viewers can't see this, but I have like a floor to ceiling bookcase behind me, and in all of my entries, I had included Brene Brown books, and then in addition, had written a really thoughtful letter about just the timing of education, specifically in Texas, and the word that our leaders needed to support our teachers in terms of being valued and heard given all of the political nature.

So really tried to speak to that. But then last I included a packet of the impact of Dr. Brene Brown's work on Texas educators. And I went through social media and I pulled every snapshot of every Twitter post, social media posts about teams doing a Brene Brown book study and whatnot and shared that with her just as a token of appreciation.

And so I think, in our work, it's those things that set true leaders apart from one another, not just that they do good work, but it's that level of thoughtfulness and just being strategic about things and being intentional. And so for me when we talk about how to do this practice of gratitude with one another, sometimes it's also modeling how that occurs.

And so I gathered up on my desk, a couple of things that our team has done in our professional learning events. But again, how do we model this practice of gratitude to others? And so every part of the design of one of our events maybe not like a major conference, but anything where it's small in Texas small is like 500 or smaller.

So anytime I have a crowd that's small, intimate like that we're always trying to find ways to build in affirmation and build in gratitude. And so a couple of things, and these are easy things that you can do on your own leadership team. But this one right here I took some of my favorite quotes around different characteristics.

This one is called the encourager quote, and it's a quote by Robin Sharmer . " Leave everyone you meet better than you found them. Become an encourager of potential versus a destroyer of confidence." And on the very top it says the word encourager. And then we have our people on the back write a specific note of gratitude to someone else and leave it for them throughout the conference.

Another great little tool I found was this one by Thoughtfuls. It was a company called Compendium, And they're called pop up cards and it has just a little word on top and you write a note on the back of gratitude and you share it with someone else and then they get to pop open this card and inside is a beautiful quote around that term.

I've used things like successory cards. I'm a huge Successories fan, if you were ever flying back in the 90s, and you saw the magazines, they always had big Successories ads, but it's words around motivation, encouragement, and have just provided these for attendees to allow that to happen. And then at our last staff retreat that we just had last week, one of my colleagues led an activity around affirmation, and he just brought in super simple canvas boards, and we just wrote in our name, And then as an entire staff we rotated and wrote words that we really thought of when we thought about that person and so my board is covered with words like inspirational, empowering, amazing, powerful, committed, and so just to hear and receive those words of affirmation and gratitude was a really powerful moment.

And so I say all that to say that our job is not only personally to share gratitude with one another, but sometimes our job is to model what that looks like for other people and setting up strategies and processes for that to actually happen. Cause when it happens, man, it's powerful.

Lainie Rowell: Oh my goodness. You were worried to come on this show.

You have so many concrete examples of great gratitude practices. And by the way, we're not making any money on this, but I have the Thoughtfuls too. I keep them in my wallet. They're just such the perfect little size and to be able to write something on the back. I love those. So Jill and I are not making any money on this, but I'll put a link in the show notes because it's easy to have them.

Jill Siler: And I'll tell you too, one cool thing that we did at our last one is that we actually had someone write the card to someone who had impacted their lives, and we had them Google, text, whatever to get the address, and they left them with us, and our organization mailed them to the people, and it was so neat to see the impact, like the trickle down impact that happened after that event, again by systemically finding a way to show appreciation and gratitude with others.

Lainie Rowell: I just got the goosies. And I love your approach to gratitude. That is being thoughtful to me. That is being considerate. That's a part of, I find this to be so important, I'm not going to leave it to chance or circumstance or in my case, my memory.

I am gonna make sure that these things are in place so that this happens no matter what. And so I love all of that. Those are great strategies now.

Jill Siler: Thank you.

Lainie Rowell: Now, as you've probably figured out, Jill, I am not a segue queen.

I don't do this transitioning gently, but I do want to make sure that before we run out of time, that we get to talk about your book. Can you tell people who have not had a chance to read, and by the way, that, that's not necessarily likely because a lot of people have read this book, but let's just assume that we have someone who maybe did not get a chance to read it yet.

2020 was a busy year. So, so if they didn't get a chance to catch it before now, what's, what's the book about?

Jill Siler: So I shared earlier that I love what I do, and I've loved every role I've had in education. I started as a paraprofessional, I was a classroom teacher and coach, a campus leader, a district leader, superintendent, and now I get to impact leaders across the state, and I love what I do.

But often, when you tell people that, they kind of come back with this notion, like the quote out there, right? If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. But the truth is, right, I love what I do and I've never worked harder than I have in this profession, and specifically in the past few years.

And I think that that is missing that just authentic truth of this work is really hard. In fact, being a teacher has never been harder. Being a leader in education has never been harder. As my association, we're the supporters of superintendents and on our group chat or on our Slack channels, whatever it might be, it's a constant news release, this superintendent has retired. This superintendent has stepped out and it's like, gosh, we're losing such good people. So I love this work that we get to do. It's such a privilege to work with young people, but I also know that it's hard. And so I wanted to write a book about how do you not just survive when things get tough.

Because if that's what we did, that would just not be living, right? So how do we do more than that? How do we truly thrive? And I think there's a lot of just, Merit that can come from talking about how do we be our best selves, not just at work, which is so critical 'cause our kids need that.

Our leaders need that, our teachers need that. But how do we also have a best self to come home with? And so that's really what the book is about, is just, you know, how do we approach things like when there's failure, how do we approach things like fear or when we're anxious or we're doubting, how do we approach it when the pressure is really hard really high, whether it's us putting it on ourselves or someone in the organization doing that.

How do we handle those situations and do more than just survive those moments? So that's what I got a chance to write about.

Lainie Rowell: I love that. And you get to speak about this, right? Getting a chance to go out and share? And, and what, can you tell me, I'm just being kind of an author nerd right now, because the book's been out for a while.

You've been, you've been able to talk about it. Like, what has maybe evolved for you since the launch of the book because its been a very interesting time in history. And I'm totally catching off guard with this question, so I can edit this out, that is no problem.

Jill Siler: No, I think the thing that has surprised me, you know, I really wanted to write a book. I just have had that that desire and that dream for a long time. I did not anticipate just the opportunity in speaking that would just avail itself to me.

And so I have worked with leadership groups. I've done convocations. I've done major conferences. I've worked with people outside of education. And so to be able to walk in and not just talk about specific strategies of how to thrive when things get really challenging. But to honor and value the fact that the work that we do is hard.

I think that that has been needing. And I think when a group gets someone in front of them who says like, I get it, this work is tough. Let's talk about it. And then talk about truly, you know, practical steps again of how do we move through that? I think that it is appreciated. So that's been the unexpected gift for me is being able to share with audiences and work with leaders and and just share a word of encouragement for our teachers too.

Lainie Rowell: And I love how you mentioned that you've actually been able to speak outside of education. And so this has been kind of an opportunity for growth for me, in that I recently became you'll appreciate the name, I recently became a contributor to Thrive Global, which is Ariana Huffington's community.

And so it's been really fun to take ideas that we value and promote in education and see how they actually apply in all sectors and not just professionally, but also personally. And so that's been a really fun journey for me and sounds like you're, you're getting a chance to do that too.

Jill Siler: Absolutely. And I think, you know, it really comes down to this work is also the work of just being a human and being a good human. And so that transcends every profession that we have and that's really what gratitude and leadership come down to.

Lainie Rowell: I love that. I want to make sure that I give you an opportunity...

do you have any other tips or suggestions for our listeners? It can be about gratitude specifically, but I want you to feel comfortable sharing... It could be from your book or just your work recently.

Jill Siler: Yeah, I think, you know, one of the things I've been mulling around, especially in the realm of gratitude is obviously, you know, it's easy to show gratitude in those moments that are fantastic.

When you're on that vacation with your family, when you've had this big achievement, like a book of yours coming out, whatever that looks like, it is so easy to find gratitude in those moments. But some of the most beautiful moments of gratitude for me have come from places that have not been those mountaintop kind of experiences.

I think back to early on in my superintendency and walked into just some financial crisis and had to really make some difficult decisions. And I was so surprised at the Gratitude that I had in that moment. Because you typically don't equate those two things. And I think that goes back to what, you know, Brene Brown talked about, right?

It's not just about feeling grateful. It's about developing that observable practice. But in that specific moment for me, it was kind of this feeling of, you know, I hate that I'm having to make these decisions for this community, but I'm so thankful to have the privilege to sit in the seat, to be able to guide some of these decisions for this group of people that I now love and call home which I still live at, you know, 10 years later.

And so for me, you know, I think about some of the systemic pieces that we've talked about, like how do you structure that in your day and make sure that you're able to share those words of affirmation with people. But I also, my personal challenge is to become Grateful on that moment to moment basis, you know, not just at the end of the Friday when you have time to write cards to people, not just maybe in a daily gratitude, but in those day to day moments of, you know, where am I just finding those moments to be grateful, especially in moments that you wouldn't necessarily think that that would be there. And so I don't know if that resonates with you and the research that you've done around gratitude, but that's been just a surprising thing for me that I've been thinking of through.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah, one of the themes that kind of keeps coming up for me with gratitude is this idea of, you know, gratitude for things in the past, gratitude for things in the present, and gratitude for things that we look forward to.

And it's just, to me, it's often hardest to be grateful in the present because I'm really focused on it.

Jill Siler: Yes, yes.

Lainie Rowell: So I think that's a really important practice because you're talking about in the moments, right? It's, we could always reflect on it later, but actually being present enough to be grateful in the moment.

That's a, that's a good skill. Love it. Alright my friend, anything else you want to share with the group before we get to the shoutout? The group, like we're all in the same room.

Jill Siler: I know. I know, no, I'm excited about this shoutout. I've been thinking about it quite a bit.

Lainie Rowell: Alright, let's get to the shoutout.

Jill Siler: So I think the question that you had for me was just who's someone that you are grateful for personally and professionally and that, I mean, there's so many, like, I just, like, the list is endless the people that I work with and the people that I live with and, you know, family and friends and all those things, but on this specific occasion, related to this specific topic, I think the person that I want to give thanks to is my current boss.

So Kevin Brown, who I would totally encourage you having a conversation with because I have learned so much from, and specifically around this topic of gratitude, is a constant source, not just of gratitude, but in the encouragement of giving gratitude on a just a And so some of the practices that he has shared with me have really impacted just who I am as a person.

And so he has been a huge influence for me just as a leader and as a human, but specifically around gratitude. I'm really thankful for what I've learned from him in that realm.

Lainie Rowell: Well, if you're recommending him, I will take you up on that recommendation. Maybe you'll introduce us.

Jill Siler: I would love to.

Lainie Rowell: Okay well that was a lovely shout out and hopefully he will get a chance to hear this and we will get to share this with an audience pretty quickly I think actually. I think this will go live on Tuesday because I have not like I don't have a huge bank right now because I've been busy all summer and I know you have too so.

Jill Siler: I hear ya.

Lainie Rowell: Well thank you for that shout out. Now let's make sure because people are going to want to connect with you if they're not already. What is the best way to reach you, Jill?

Jill Siler: So I am Jill M. Siler on all of the platforms. So my website is jillmSiler. com and then Twitter, Instagram, all of the things.

I'm Jill M. Siler.

Lainie Rowell: Jill M. Siler across the web. It does not get any easier than that, friends. She has made it so easy to access her and I love that. So do reach out to her, check out her website, connect with her on socials. I'll make sure all the links are in the show notes. And Well, Jill, this went too fast.

I'm really sad.

Jill Siler: Well, it has been a joy to just get a few minutes to chat with you. And thank you so much for the work that you're doing and for the practice with gratitude that you're sharing with the rest of the world.

Lainie Rowell: Thank you. And thank you all for listening.

Lainie Rowell

September 12, 2023

Episode 71 - Pause, Ponder, and Persist with Julie Schmidt Hasson

Lainie Rowell

September 12, 2023

Shownotes:

Get ready for a dynamic chat with the amazing Julie Schmidt Hasson! Dig into Julie's captivating work on reframing and navigating the twists and turns of education. Find out how teachers work their magic, turning roadblocks into opportunities and savoring those small yet mighty moments. This isn't your ordinary conversation; it's a thought-provoking conversation as we delve into the profound connections between gratitude, teaching, and personal growth! Plus Julie's golden nuggets of wisdom for bolstering resilience in seasoned educators.

Trailer

Full Episode

About Our Guest:

Dr. Julie Hasson is a professor in School Administration at Appalachian State University. A former teacher and principal, she now teaches graduate courses in school leadership and conducts qualitative research in schools. Julie’s research on long term teacher impact is the foundation of her books, professional development programs, and TEDx Talk. She is the founder of the Chalk and Chances project and the co-host of the Lessons That Last podcast.

Website: chalkandchances.com

Latest Book: Pause, Ponder, and Persist in the Classroom

Twitter: @JulieSHasson
Instagram: @julieshasson

About Lainie:

Website - ⁠LainieRowell.com⁠

Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And now, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You is available too!

Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.🙌

Just fill out the forms linked above and someone will get back to you ASAP!

Transcript:

Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Hello, my friends. I am so happy to share with you that we have Julie Hasson here. Welcome Julie.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: Hi Lainie. I'm so excited. I've been looking forward to this.

Lainie Rowell: Well, me too. And you know, of course we have our friend in common, Sean Gaillard. He is always singing your praises and so I am just delighted to get to have this conversation with you today.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: Oh, same. Thanks, Lainie.

Lainie Rowell: Well, I wanna give you a quick bio so people who may not have crossed your path, they know a little bit about you, and then I hope you'll jump in with all the extras. So, Dr. Julie Hasson is a professor in school administration at Appalachian State University. Did I say that correctly?

Julie Schmidt Hasson: It's Appalachian. It took me a long time to get that right. I get a redo on that one. You're good. You're in the majority with that pronunciation.

Lainie Rowell: Okay, I'm gonna try and get it right this time. Dr. Julie Hassen is a professor in school administration at Appalachian. Did I get it?

Julie Schmidt Hasson: Great. No, you were great.

Lainie Rowell: That was the second take, but I'm gonna roll with it 'cause I can't keep doing it.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: That was perfect.

Lainie Rowell: I'll take it. All right. So of course a former teacher, principal now doing graduate coursework and school leadership, and she's got a TEDx Talk.

She has done professional learning. Co-host of Lessons That Last podcast, and these are just scratching the surface. She's a beautiful author, such a wonderful writer. I recently read, Pause, Ponder, and Persist in the Classroom, How Teachers Turn Challenges into Opportunities for Impact and friends, I just absolutely love this book. Of course, there's a five star review on Amazon that you can go check out when you go to purchase the book. It's inspiring, it's practical, just loaded with these heartfelt stories.

It's like you take us on a journey. And that was really, really fun for me to go on that journey with you. So that's just like a glimpse into who Julie is. So please tell us more, Julie.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: Oh, thanks Lainie, and I've been so excited to talk with you because our work intersects so beautifully. What you talk about with gratitude, I talk about with reframing and really we're talking about the same thing.

It's how the mindset we use and how we view the struggles that we are navigating, which are inevitable as educators, those challenges are going to come and it's about how we handle those challenges and turn them into beautiful opportunities. And I know both of us are about using gratitude in that process and savoring, so I'm.

Super excited for this conversation.

Lainie Rowell: Oh, yes. And I loved seeing savoring in your book. I came across that, that always gives me the chills.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: Yay. Savoring. That is an intention of mine to do that more for sure, because it's such a busy time. We're talking beginning of the school year and it's so easy to just check, check, check the boxes, and go through the motions. And that savoring can make a big difference in how we feel at the end of the day.

Lainie Rowell: It really can.

Anything else you want our friends to know about you before we get into the convo?

Julie Schmidt Hasson: I think you captured it. I mean, I describe myself often as a teacher and a researcher, so I'm a pretty active researcher in my role.

I do qualitative research thanks to Brene Brown for helping people know what that means. We use the same approach, grounded theory, so most of my work is grounded in interviews with educators and observations of educators, but also the stories people tell about their really impactful teachers. So a researcher but not in the way you think, certainly not in a lab or using a lot of quantitative data.

It really is a very organic way of looking at teaching, so I'm excited to talk to you about that too.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah, and I think that's what makes your books so beautiful is the stories in them, is the qualitative research that you're doing and how that translates into telling the story of what's going on in classrooms and the magic that teachers are are putting out there.

So, my friend, I'm going to get you to the first question, and of course no right or wrong answer, but that first question is, what does gratitude mean to you?

Julie Schmidt Hasson: For me, it's not that gratitude takes away the struggle or even makes the struggle easier. But it helps me find the beauty in a struggle.

So right now my parents are in their mid eighties. They're both having some pretty big health challenges and the gratitude, I feel doesn't take away that reality. I mean that, that's hard. It's hard for them. It's hard for me. But what it does is now when they answer the phone, when I call, I don't take that for granted.

You know, or the, the opportunity to support them the way they've always supported me. I feel so grateful for that opportunity, but it came out of this struggle. So for me it's that reframing that you and I talk about that helps us look at a struggle and say, Okay, this, this is real and this is hard, but within it, it's some beauty and some opportunity and some grace.

Lainie Rowell: Yes, and there is sort of this bittersweetness that I think also is often associated with gratitude, even if we don't call it out explicitly. I hear you talking about the bittersweetness of you get to spend this time with your parents, but you also acknowledge that it is fleeting. And so that's something I struggle with too. We're in the same boat, my in-laws and my dad mid eighties and well, I should say a little earlier eighties because I don't want anyone to get mad at me if they're listening to this, but yes, they are getting older and I would like to believe that they would live to be a thousand.

Okay. But yeah, it's that bittersweetness of, okay, well that's really hard to, to grapple with, but I get this time with them. And so it goes, that kind of goes back to the savoring, right? When I do get to spend time, like I'm here with my in-laws in Oklahoma City while we're doing this interview, right? And so I take this little bit of time to do this interview while they're busy doing something else.

And then when we are together, I will savor that time.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: And really even for our friends and family members and the people we love who aren't in their mid eighties, we don't know how much time we have, and so we've got to practice that savoring and, and looking at the struggles as part of life.

I know you probably like me, are a fan of the Princess Bride movie and, and my favorite quote is when Wesley says to Princess Buttercup, life is pain Princess and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something. And I think it is, but within that hard stuff is the good stuff.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah. I'm literally reading the book Bittersweet by Susan Cain right now. I don't know if you've had a chance to read that, but it's it's a really good.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: It's on my stack behind me. I can't wait to talk to you about that. Yes.

Lainie Rowell: I really appreciate that you lead off when you're talking about this is what gratitude means to me.

That it isn't all just the, the really, really amazing, like everything's wonderful, perfect. It's, it's the little things. It's acknowledging that there's hard things along the way and it. Doesn't take the hard things away. But it does help us to focus, at least I'll speak for myself. It does help us to focus on the beauty and the little things that we get to enjoy while we get to enjoy them.

And I a hundred percent agree, we don't know how long we get with anyone. Right? So we we wanna appreciate that as much as possible.

Let's go into, and I'm so excited and I do hope you'll bring in whatever of your work. 'cause you have written multiple books and your research and your role.

How does gratitude look in your life? You can go personal, professional, whatever you want.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: So in my professional life, I've been on this research project post Covid to figure out how really impactful teachers navigate challenges in a way that they leverage those challenges in the classroom as opportunities.

Opportunities for teachable moments for kids, opportunities for their own growth. Opportunities just to take a difficult situation and look at that from an improvement lens. And in that work of reframing, a challenge as an opportunity. There's a pause where we kind of get a handle on our own emotions take a deep breath.

I think we really underestimate the power of a couple deep breaths, and then we just come from this place of curiosity. Where is this coming from? What is this about? Where are the opportunities hidden in this situation? And then we persist in those practices of coming back to a place of presence and peace.

Coming back to a curious stance. Looking for those opportunities, and I think your gratitude happens in the persistent part of pause, ponder, persist. It's that practice because all of those things are a practice. It's not, oh, I learned about gratitude and now I'm set. Now I've got it. It's a daily, sometimes probably multiple times a day practice.

And so I teach reframing now in most of my professional development, especially with beginning teachers who get thrown off course pretty easily when an unexpected challenge comes. So a student shouts out something that throws off your lesson or does something that's unexpected or surprising. Okay.

What do you do now? I. How do you respond in a way that's helpful and not an emotional reaction? That's unhelpful. And then how in that dance do you strengthen the relationship with that kid and strengthen your own skills in teaching? So right now, I'm really focused on reframing as a three step sort of framework, but gratitude is a big part of that.

Lainie Rowell: Absolutely. And as I've been kind of playing with this connection, so Dr. Andrea Hussong out of University of North Carolina and her crew, I don't know if you're familiar with her work.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: Yes, they are not too far.

Lainie Rowell: I didn't wanna make the assumption that because they're geographically not far from you that you are BFFs, but I thought maybe you were...

Julie Schmidt Hasson: We keep an eye on our U N C friends.

Yes.

Lainie Rowell: So they have identified the four essential components of gratitude as notice, think, feel, and do. Mm-hmm. And I see a connection here to pause, ponder, persist. Am I way off in that connection or does that make sense to you too?

Julie Schmidt Hasson: It totally does, and the first time I read that work, I thought, oh my gosh, we're really coming at the same thing.

Maybe from different angles. I'm really in K 12 classrooms looking at this, but it's about being in the present moment. Because you can't notice. You've gotta pause and get in that space, not let your mind kind of catastrophize to the future, or pull in all the things you're still upset about from the past.

Be right there and take it all in. And then really be open-minded. And so I think we're both talking about getting in that same state so that then we can respond in a way that's helpful to us and more helpful to others.

Lainie Rowell: Absolutely. And you said a word that I respond to because catastrophize, that is something I am very, very good at, that I, it's.

So what you're nodding. So maybe, maybe you have experience with this too.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: Absolutely. And I'll catastrophize about catastrophes that are not even my own business. So we have this beautiful, we live in the mountains on a river and downhill from us. Is the sweetest pumpkin farm and every October they've got the corn maze and pick your own pumpkins.

We've had a storm coming through, you know, the south this week, and I started worrying about what if the pumpkin farm floods and no one will have a pumpkin and the kids won't have the corn maze. And it was ridiculous Lainie like, why it's not my farm, not my pumpkins. Right.

A good sleepless night worried about the pumpkin farm.

Lainie Rowell: Like not my circus, not my monkey, whatever that saying is right? Yes, I, I totally agree. I think that's one of those things that we have to keep an eye on. I don't wanna project this onto you, but I think a lot of educators are empathic. They are looking through their student lens, the family's lens. And that's why, especially during pandemic, a lot of compassion fatigue. We see it and we wanna help. And we wanna prevent it, of course. Right? And so it's trying to find this, I feel like we keep coming back to almost this bittersweet of how can we see it, but not also take it on ourselves in a way, right?

Julie Schmidt Hasson: Yes. Yes. How can we have empathy yet still notice that we are separate. Right. There's been some really good research and I wish I could cite it for you, but my brain isn't gonna work that way right now out of medical care and nursing about empathy fatigue. Yeah. And how are we empathetic and caring about the people we're serving?

And at the same time, see us separate. Yeah, so that we are not emotionally exhausted and really physically and mentally exhausted at the end of the day. That's so true for our work as educators too.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah, because as we're pausing and pondering, we have to be able to persist and if we are fatigued, we struggle to do that.

I really appreciate everything you're sharing. What else are you thinking about it doesn't have to be specific to gratitude, but what else are you thinking about, especially as we're coming into this new school year and kind of where we are in the world? I just left that really wide open for you, didn't I?

Julie Schmidt Hasson: No, that's such a good question. I've been thinking a lot about... I work with beginning teachers quite a bit, so giving them the skills they need to navigate all of these challenges. But I'm really worried about our experienced teachers and their level of resilience, because they're the big ripple makers, right?

They're mentoring the newbies. They're making this impact on kids that goes beyond anything we could ever quantify or measure, and they're leaving. And it used to be that we might lose teachers in their first five years. They would decide this isn't the right profession for them, or we might have a few retire a little bit early, but these like 15, 20 year exceptional veterans leaving is something I've been really worried about.

So I've been kind of thinking about how my framework and my work could serve teacher resilience, and how can we help them keep making those ripples? I always wanna work on the question that's keeping me up at night. So beyond the pumpkin patch, what's keeping me up at night right now is that losing these veterans and what we could do to support them better.

Lainie Rowell: I hear you. When you're talking about those ripple effects, one of the challenges in education, this is no secret, is that we don't often see those ripple effects. And so when we take the time to, like you said, reframe, and we're really digging deep into like what's going on and really intentionally looking for the good.

And then actually sharing it rather than just keeping it to ourselves. So once we cultivate that culture, my hope is that these veteran teachers will feel the appreciation, will feel the gratitude, and that that helps sustain them, that that helps build up that resilience.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: I so agree, Lainie, and I think part of our problem is we've defined impact as the test scores that come at the end of the year, when really there are all of these signs of impact every day.

You know, the quiet kid who shares an answer or an idea in your class, that's a sign of a relationship you've built and an impact you've made. You know, we know we talk about the light bulb moment. That's a clear sign of impact. But even just those kids who are happy to see you, wanna tell you a story, wanna tell you a joke, write you a sweet little note or a picture.

All of those things are signs of impact. We just have to frame them that way.

Lainie Rowell: Hundred percent. And I do love that you brought up the quiet kid. So how do we model where we see all of our kids, because I do feel like that was one that really, speaking of those, those amazing, you know, 15, 20 year, these veteran teachers that we don't wanna lose.

One of them had shared with me, be really careful you don't miss those kids. Those kids that are doing the work kind of head down those kids sometimes don't hear their name at all in a school day. Right. 'cause they're just flying under the radar. And so that's one that I'm very intentional with, is trying to get to those kids that we don't hear. And it's really hard to know what's going on with them. We have the kids, the ones who are just so on it, those high performers, they're raising their hand. They're with you every minute of the lesson.

Yes. And then we've got some that we've talked about maybe a behavior, so we know something's probably going on with them. We need to check in with them. But that group that's just kind of head down, quiet. And it happens with educators too.

We have educators like that as well who are also head down and how do we see and acknowledge 'em? We want everyone to feel, you know, seen, heard, known, and valued.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: Sure, and I think for me, I was that kid, so I tend to think about that. It really introverted, super shy, but hardworking.

And if I raised my hand and talked in a class, it was clear that was a class where I felt safe, where I was really engaged and for some reason just needed to share an idea and I can probably name the teachers in whose classes I did that often because they were so impactful and memorable.

So you're absolutely right. That's certainly a sign of impact and something for us to keep in mind.

Lainie Rowell: I love it. Could you tell us, 'cause I'm curious, is Safe, Seen, and Stretch is that your first book?

Julie Schmidt Hasson: I co-wrote a book with my principal mentor friend, Missy Leonard It was a Dave Burgess book. We loved that whole experience. It was, I wanna say 2017. So it's been a minute called Unmapped Potential. And it really was about letting go of limiting beliefs, which is still a foundational part of the work I do. And it was a foundational part of the work I did with Missy. So that was technically the first.

And then when I left my K 12 position and became a professor and had to have a research focus, my first grade teacher, Nancy Russell, who was forever the builder of the foundation for my academic life. As I've said, a highly anxious kid, dyslexic kid super quiet. She made me love reading, feel more confident.

I don't know that I would've been on the same trajectory without Nancy in first grade. She retired when I became a professor. So my research focus became how do teachers like Mrs. Russell make this lasting impact on our lives? What do they say? What do they do? So I started interviewing teachers about their impact.

Like you said, we don't know about our ripples, at least the long-term ripples unless we connect on social media or a student sends us a letter or reaches out. So I just set up, I got a sign from Office Depot that said, talk to me about a teacher you remember and set up at craft fairs and farmer's markets and flea markets.

And I think that project is over 600 stories now about people's favorite teachers. And the stories were so detailed, it was surprising, and they were small moments that people remember when, like you said, they felt seen. And so the book is Safe, Seen and Stretched because those are the themes that came out of all of those stories.

And then pandemic happened right after I finished that research and finished writing that book, then I shifted a little to the focus on navigating challenges. So how do those Mrs. Russells take a challenge in the classroom and turn it into an opportunity for impact?

Lainie Rowell: Well, I love it and, of course I make the connection to gratitude in all of your work, and so I really...

Julie Schmidt Hasson: and it's there. You're so right. It's foundational in all of it.

Lainie Rowell: Well, I so appreciate that you took the time to set up at those farmer's markets and to go and to collect all of these stories because that qualitative data is so rich and so valuable. It's not as necessarily easy to work with, as quantitative, I mean, kind of depending on who you are, but the quantitatives a little more cut and dry, right?

Julie Schmidt Hasson: It's true.

Lainie Rowell: I'm sorry, I'm just gonna kind of nerd out for a moment because I'm so fascinated.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: Love that question. It is the most random in some ways. I took field notes for this one because I didn't wanna audio record participants.

I thought that might keep them from telling their stories in really authentic personal ways. So I got really good at quick field notes that didn't interfere with my connection with the storyteller, and then I just took all of those field notes and spread them out. I did it over time. So maybe I had 50 stories and I started, and then I would get initial themes that came out.

I would highlight the words people said and kind of start putting them in groups and categories. And as more stories came, I would see, okay, do these still fit, safe, seen, and stretched came pretty early as obvious themes, and I have not found a story yet in this data that doesn't fit in one of those or all of those.

So it is this crazy Jackson Pollock kind of spaghetti on the wall start, and then we begin to organize it and organize it. But the, the themes emerge from the data. So you don't go into this qualitative work, especially grounded theory, trying to prove or disprove some idea you have or some somebody else's hypothesis.

You really go in saying, I wanna explore this, and whatever emerges, emerges, which I love. But for researchers who don't like gray or messy or uncomfortable, it is probably not the best approach. It's great for me. I live in the gray. I love the messy, so yeah.

Lainie Rowell: Well, I just find it so fascinating because, like you said, you're not trying to prove a theory.

With Pause, Ponder, Persist, I felt like I was on this qualitative research journey with you, which was truly lovely to me because I am not a researcher and so I liked vicariously living through you.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: Oh, thank you. I love writing narrative first person, which is so not a researcher way to write, but I'm a story collector and a storyteller, and so my approach to writing is, I'm gonna tell you this story of this research journey.

You are gonna learn along with me what I was learning as we went. And so I thank you for saying that. I hope it keeps people turning the page. Isn't that our fear as authors, like it's not just that people won't buy the book, but that people won't read the book. And I want you to keep reading to say like, where are we going next and what are we gonna find out next?

Lainie Rowell: Yes. And so I will reveal that it is unlikely to become rich selling education books, so we don't do it for the money.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: You're gonna kill someone's dream today.

Lainie Rowell: It's really not how you're gonna get rich unless you somehow make it onto the New York Times best seller list, in which case maybe that will work out for you.

But for most of us that are writing books, for other educators, we do it because we care about the message and it's what we've learned and we hope it helps other people. And so, yes, we don't just want you to get the book. We want you to read it and to see what of it you can glean to bring into your own practice.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: And then tell us what you thought of it.

Even if it's maybe not what we wanna hear or tell us what you used. Because otherwise you feel like you put it out there. And it doesn't live. But when someone says, I read it and I'm either struggling with this or I've used this, or you made me think about this. I know you feel that way too.

Yeah. It's so satisfying as a writer.

Lainie Rowell: Yes. Yes. And if you have constructive, feel free to DM rather than tweet.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: Or maybe don't write that Amazon review,

Lainie Rowell: Hold off on that Amazon review. Those could really hurt. But, but no, I do wanna know, I mean, the challenging thing with the book is we can't really go back and change the book necessarily, but I do like to know, and I have had people do that where they've privately messaged I will say for, Evolving Learner, which is the first book, the subtitle, Learning from Kids, Peers, and the World.

And someone struggled with the choice of the word kids 'cause they were teaching adults. And I said, well, I'm sorry we wrote for K 12, but, it's good for me to think about, I will consider the use of that word. But I was very grateful that the person told that to me privately.

I've just now shared it with everyone, but it's fine. It's fine.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: I love the word kids Lainie 'cause, because for us in K 12, it's the point of everything. Like if we write something or we give professional development or we talk about something and we don't focus on kids and students, what's the point? So I, I'm team kid with you.

Lainie Rowell: Okay. Yay. Thank you. Well, I still do love that word because I do, I think you're saying the same thing. It does kind of ground me and remember they're little people still being shaped and it's our job to help them even if they're 17 years old, they're still a kid and I'll even hear college football coaches say they're still kids.

And I love that.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: I say it half the time about my doctoral students and I think my youngest one is probably in her thirties right now, and I will forever slip and call them kids because that's, Just the way you feel about your students, you're seeing them develop and grow. So no, you, you kid away.

Lainie Rowell: Okay. We're on same team. Cool, cool. Well, okay, so is there anything else that you would like to share about your work before we get into your shout out? 'cause I know 30 minutes goes by really, really fast, so

Julie Schmidt Hasson: It definitely does, and I think you've asked such good questions. I people have a handle on what I am interested in and do.

So really what I'm constantly wrestling with and I, I like the sort of metaphor of wrestling an octopus, like a big question about teaching that has all these arms and you're trying to just sort of make what's really abstract about our work more concrete and understandable. And for me as a researcher, my goal is to make it accessible.

I don't want it to just live in a academic journal where my mom and three colleagues read it. You know, I really want teachers be to be able to take the work and use it and let it change their practice. So thank you for asking those great questions.

Lainie Rowell: You're very generous. I just love picking your brain because the work you do is very fascinating to me. And so again, the qualitative and turning it into these beautiful stories that teach us, I think that's just such a gift.

Alright, that brings us to, I don't know if this is people's favorite part or least favorite part or somewhere in between, but who would you like to give a shout out to?

Julie Schmidt Hasson: My gratitude shout out today is going to be Laura Estes-Swilley, who has been my buddy since seventh grade.

So we've had a four decades friendship, like tight friendship. And who gets to do that, like have the same best bud for decades. But she's family at this point and she has been with me on this research journey. We were teachers together in the same district. She's high school. I've always been elementary, but we, we went on that road together. When I became a professor and started this research project, she as someone who continued to stay in the classroom, was such a supporter of the work, and she kept asking for a book, that was just the stories. For the mornings before she went out to hall duty, she said, I just need this to be part of my morning routine.

I want to open to a story, read a story every day, and let that inspire me for the day. And finally, last year I said, I will do it if you will help me. So I gave her 185 stories. We sort of culled through them all and picked them together and she wrote the reflections. So that book lessons that last is coming out in October.

And while we were working on the book, we would have these Zoom calls about the stories and we would kind of unpack the stories and that became the Lessons That Last podcast. Which probably feels like you're sitting between the two of us on a couch talking about these stories. But who gets to write a book and do a podcast with their best friend of 40 years, you know, I do.

And I am so grateful for her and so grateful for that journey. And any successful woman, I would say has some really great women friends standing behind them or maybe sometimes holding them up, and she is that for me.

Lainie Rowell: Oh, I love that. And I actually have listened to the show and it does feel like you're sitting on the couch.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: Sometimes it's ridiculous, Lainie.

Lainie Rowell: Well, I think that's a beautiful shout out and I will be happy that she gets to hear this or I hope she'll get to hear it.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: Oh, we will make sure she does.

Lainie Rowell: Wonderful. Okay, so that's something to look forward to. You said that's coming out when?

Julie Schmidt Hasson: The book is coming out in October, I wanna say October 11th.

Lessons That Last coming out soon. I know, I know. We are working on that launch plan and marketing plan. Now, after you write the book, there's still work to be done, so we're working on that. But the podcast is out now. It comes out on Sundays. Yeah. In case those Sunday scaries are getting to you and you need a little inspirational story.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah. I feel like we're crushing dreams here about books. Writing a book is actually only a certain part of it. I don't know. It feels like it's a lot more launching it and sharing it, but that's just me.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: No, we could do a whole podcast episode just about that, couldn't we? So friends who are aspiring writers call us.

We've lived and learned.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah. And we keep doing it. So , the other spoiler is, it's worth it, but it's different kinds of work than you might've anticipated, at least for me.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: Exactly. Same.

Lainie Rowell: Well, I have truly enjoyed this time and I wanna make sure that people know how to connect with you.

I will put everything in the show notes, but Julie, just a real quick, what's the best way for people to connect with you and your work?

Julie Schmidt Hasson: I'm Julie S Hasson. So Schmidt is my maiden name. There's a Julie Hasson, who's a beautiful vegan chef. That's not me, that's a different one. So Julie S Hasson on all social media and the best way probably to get into my work, to access the stories is chalkandchances.com.

Lainie Rowell: Perfect. I will make sure all of that's in the show note. But chalkandchances.com is actually pretty easy to spell, so that's a good one.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: It's not hard. Yeah. When I had to name it, my now son-in-law, who's a marketing guy, said, what did Mrs. Russell use to change your life? And it turns out it was a lot of chalk and a lot of chances.

So there you go.

Lainie Rowell: How lovely is that? I'm glad we got that in there. That's a great thing to know because I kind of actually wondered where that came from.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: It all goes back to Nancy Russell. Yes.

Lainie Rowell: Lovely. Well, I appreciate your time so much, Julie, and it's been really great to connect with you and I will put all your contact information so people can connect with you.

Looking forward to the next book Lessons That Last coming out.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: You can pre-order friends.

Lainie Rowell: Well, Julie, thank you for your time and thank you all for listening.

Julie Schmidt Hasson: Thank you.

Lainie Rowell

September 5, 2023

Episode 70 - An Anchor Point for Peace with Guest Bradley James Davies

Lainie Rowell

September 5, 2023

Shownotes:

Join us in an enlightening episode as Bradley James Davies shares his profound perspective on leadership, gratitude, and personal growth. Prepare to be inspired by his transformative PEACE acronym—a daily mantra overflowing with wisdom. Plus Bradley shares practical advice on intentional practices and systems that provide invaluable guidance for leading more fulfilling lives and nurturing harmonious relationships. Seasoned leaders and aspiring ones alike will gain fresh perspectives on impactful leadership and intentional living after tuning in.

Bradley and I also trade quotes on expectations and here’s the one I couldn’t think of when we recorded:
“expectations are premeditated resentments”
After doing a little digging, I believe this is shared in AA and it appears to originate from a full quote:
“Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.”
― Neil Strauss, The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships

Trailer

Full Episode

About Our Guest:

Celebrated school leader and former Oscar Mayer Wienermobile Driver, after a two-decade career in education that included teaching, coaching, and leading across all grade levels, Davies wrote School Leadership from A to Z: How to Lead Well Without Losing Your Way. It's a book about the ups, downs, and all-arounds of school life and leadership that seeks to help educators thrive through the challenges and stresses of school life and leadership.

Davies is the founder of Falkor, a leadership and life consultancy dedicated to helping clients live, love, and lead better.

Website: bradleyjamesdavies.com

@bradley.james.davies

About Lainie:

Lainie Rowell is an educator, international consultant, podcaster, and TEDx speaker. She is the lead author of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Evolving Learner⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and a contributing author of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Because of a Teacher⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Her latest book, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Evolving with Gratitude⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, was just released. An experienced teacher and district leader, her expertise includes learner-driven design, community building, online/blended learning, and professional learning. Learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linktr.ee/lainierowell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And now, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You is available too!

Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.🙌

Just fill out the forms linked above and someone will get back to you ASAP!

Transcript:

Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Welcome, my friends. I am so excited to introduce you to Bradley James Davies, who you may already know, but if you don't, wanted to share with you that he's a celebrated school leader and he would like you to know he's a former Oscar Meyer Wienermobile driver. I can honestly say that that is the first time those words have ever come outta my mouth.

And he is also an author. He wrote School Leadership from A to Z, How to Lead Well Without Losing Your Way. And hopefully he'll share some more about that, but that is just scratching the surface. So Bradley, welcome. What else would you like us to know?

Bradley James Davies: Well, first of all, Lainie, thanks for having me on. I'm excited about our conversation.

Yeah, gosh, I am a proud Minnesotan son of a bricklayer dad and a bookworm mom. And after nearly 20 years serving schools, I decided to establish Falkor a life and leadership consultancy committed to helping leaders in all fields live better, lead better, and love better. Yes, way back when I did drive a 27 foot long hotdog all around the country.

Lainie Rowell: Well, Bradley, that is quite the story and I know there's a lot more to it.

And having been a principal at all levels, I mean so many years in education and I know in the last few months you've been on some of the podcasts. Our friends, Josh Stamper, Aspire to Lead and Darren Peppard's Road To Awesome.

So those are two of our friends that you've had a chance to have a conversation with, and I really encourage people, go check that out, because it was those both great episodes.

And I know you've been on a lot of podcasts. You've been doing a lot sharing your message. And I'm gonna go ahead and kick us off with the first question that we like to ask here on this podcast. And so, Bradley, what does gratitude mean to you?

Bradley James Davies: For me, gratitude is one of my anchor core life practices, and it is giving thanks for all things, both the good and the bad.

And of course, it's easy for all of us to give thanks for the good stuff. It's oftentimes beyond difficult to give and learn to give thanks for the bad stuff. So beyond gratitude as a feeling for me, it's, it's a discipline. It's a daily commitment. So I have my own personal process that we can get into where I anchor my day in gratitude.

But also for leadership. I believe leading with gratitude is one of the most powerful levers we can pull to invest in, in the people we serve and the organizations we serve and support.

Lainie Rowell: That's lovely. I really appreciate how it's an anchor point for you and I would love it if you could kind of taking us into the second question.

I can only manage three questions as a podcast host. So the second question would be, what does this look like?

Bradley James Davies: Yeah. Well, I'll start professionally, you know, in working with leaders and I believe that, the biggest bang for our organizational improvement buck is via appreciation, and that's the giving of gratitude to those we serve and support. So fundamentally, as a, as a core leadership practice, I invite and encourage leaders to embrace appreciation and for appreciation or leadership via gratitude to be effective and truly helpful it has to be specific and it has to be personal.

I site often this wonderful book called Leading With Magic. It's written by a former vice president of Disney, and he was famous for writing something like over a thousand handwritten, personalized notes of appreciation to his employees every single year. And it comes down to something like 20 or 25 notes a day.

So I encourage leaders and embrace myself to try to write one personalized note of appreciation each day to your team members. The great thing about this is one, of course, it's a feel good element, Lainie, but also leaders have in their minds their own idea, best practice, their own vision for the direction the organization should go.

And so if you walk the hallways and around your campus, whatever the case may be, looking for the good stuff and then choosing via gratitude to water the good stuff, well, good stuff, watered becomes great and it becomes just a powerful driver of progress . Via gratitude, via the feel good feelings that come along with being appreciated for hard work and a job well done.

Lainie Rowell: I have heard through multiple leaders that one of the things that sustains them that helps them thrive is to do that. Looking for the good. And I love how you said when you water the good stuff, it becomes great. And I'm paraphrasing there, but that was really lovely.

Really beautifully said. And 25 notes a day might seem like a lot. So I love how you've said, okay, you can do one a day. That's definitely more doable. And really, making that specific and personal makes a huge difference. And I heard you say that too. And I always encourage people that I think the handwritten notes are amazing.

If that's just really not your jam, would you agree, even just an email or a text message or something would would suffice.

Bradley James Davies: Oh my gosh. Lainie, my handwriting. Like my mother, like all mothers, right? She thinks I am perfect. However, there is one glaring shortcoming I bring to this world, and that is my handwriting.

It's as though, I'm a fourth grader trying to write hieroglyphics, so I chose a long time ago actually not to do handwritten notes because I looked like a fool. So I think via email is absolutely okay. Via text is absolutely acceptable. What's absolutely crucial about appreciation, Is it has to be specific and it has to be personal.

The mass email, "Hey team, you guys are awesome", while well intended can actually have a reverse impact. Mm-hmm. It can come across as disingenuous. So you've got to have a vision of what you think is great. What is your vision of best practice, and when you see that... we used to with children talk about catch them doing good. Thank you Lainie for helping push in the chairs, like those simple kind of experiences across all disciplines, across all industries. Catch your team doing good, doing well, and then praise them specifically for, but gosh, if your handwriting's like mine, a quick email is absolutely powerful.

But focusing our effort. The thing about leading with gratitude, not only does it feel good, not only does it help promote best practice, but it also helps us as leaders to see the good stuff. Too many leaders will walk their hallways looking for weeds to pull rather than plants to water.

And my fundamental leadership belief is that one of the best ways to eradicate the bad is to emphasize the good. And Gratitude is the most powerful driver of that approach to leadership.

Lainie Rowell: A hundred percent. That was really well said, and I have to just have a moment of like, Yes, I get the handwriting thing 'cause I have the worst handwriting and

Bradley James Davies: Oh my gosh.

We'll have to have a competition someday.

Lainie Rowell: I know, right? I think what we wanna do is remove the barriers, right? Yeah. And so if your hesitation is because you don't like your handwriting, then a handwritten note is actually not the way to go because it will limit the amount that you do.

And so you would rather just find the way that you could do it. And I will say, Whatever way you do it, whether you choose to do handwriting or email, and like you said, you don't want it to come across disingenuous and so even the handwritten can come across disingenuous. If, for example, this lovely principal came up and she's like, I love my teachers so much.

I wrote them all handwritten notes and they were all specific to the each person. And then I went and I put them in everyone's box and I said, did you happen to put them in everyone's box at the same time? Mm-hmm. And she said, yes. And I said, well, they're not reading the other ones so they probably assume you wrote the same thing in everyone, just because they can't imagine that you would spend that amount of time personalizing, but you did.

So, next time spread them out. Don't put them all in at once and be strategic about that because you don't ever wanna people to not feel special when you're trying to show them gratitude.

Bradley James Davies: Lainie, I think that's a real savvy and and wise observation. One of the practices that I use is I actually keep a spreadsheet and will put the little date next to my team members' names.

And it's a way to ensure, have I named something grateful to each one of my team members and how often have I done it. And so it's just, what's the wonderful quote from Atomic Habits? That we don't rise to the level of our aspirations, but we fall to the level of our systems. I've found that just utilizing a simple Google sheet with all of my team member names along one column, and then put in the date the, the day I wrote them a personalized note of appreciation or expressed gratitude to them was a good way to say, gosh. I haven't written Lainie a note in three months. It's her day. And if we can commit to just one a day, just one a day, I'm such a big believer in in micro goals. Just one a day. Sometimes that becomes two or three. But gosh, over an entire year, over an entire fiscal year, you're looking at well over 200, 250 notes.

If you're a human, and maybe you're not successful every day, but gosh, think about the impact that could have celebrating 250 times what you believe best practice to be for your organization. It is a beautiful, joyful way to move the needle forward, and frankly, I think the most effective.

Lainie Rowell: I really appreciate that very thoughtful and strategic approach, because one of the things I think about in all aspects of our lives, whether it's in the classroom being a teacher, a leader, even in our homes, is that sometimes the people who fly under the radar get the least amount of acknowledgement, whether it's positive or negative. And so when you're strategic about that, because just like you could have a student that is actually really amazing, but kind of quiet doesn't really draw your attention much. They just kind of do what is needed to do. That can happen with teachers too.

I'm a mom. That can happen with my own kids sometimes the one who's doing what's actually most helpful doesn't always go noticed. And so being super intentional in that is really important to nurture all of those relationships.

Bradley James Davies: I love that you mentioned kids in this context, Lainie.

I'll just share this simple example of just something magical that happened in my professional career a handful of years ago. I invited my leadership team to join me in this effort to lavish our team with gratitude to catch them doing good. And so , we had a shared spreadsheet and it was five or six of us on the leadership team, and we all committed to trying to write one email, text, letter of gratitude to our team members. Well, they caught on and then one of our teachers said, Hey, what if we have a shared spreadsheet for all of our students? And what if we send an email home to families saying, Hey, just a quick email to let you know that Lainie did x, y, and z today, and we were so proud of her.

Wanted to let you know and invite you to give her a high five at home. So all of a sudden, what started with creating magic, this book and then me trying to do one a day and then inviting my leadership team to join us became an entire team of teachers, lavishing the children, the students with gratitude, and then sharing that with families.

So we sent over 1000 emails of gratitude in a year to students' families, catching them doing good and celebrating the joy and the privilege of working with their children. It was magical and it was one of those things that I could not have anticipated, but was beyond grateful that that ended up taking place.

Lainie Rowell: Ooh, I got the goosebumps. I got the goosies.

Bradley James Davies: It was beautiful.

Lainie Rowell: Wow to have something that organic happen. And this episode is gonna come out towards the beginning of a school year, and I've said this a few times recently, but I just truly believe that we want to start off a school year paying into that relationship bank account as much as we can.

I know we're all really busy all times of the year, and beginning of the year is no less, but really get started on that as soon as possible. I think that really helps with those family relationships.

Bradley James Davies: It it was, it was something beautiful to see, so I couldn't agree more Lainie.

Lainie Rowell: Well, let's talk a little bit more about what gratitude looks like in your life.

I know that in your consulting, you are helping with leadership, but also life. And I wondered if you wanted to maybe even go beyond leadership, and it doesn't even have to be specific to education, but what does this look like in your life?

Bradley James Davies: I really appreciate the question. And I do share this with clients in a coaching context as they seek to add systems to add discipline to their life so that the outputs they desire come to pass and a few things I share with clients is one that I have a daily mantra?

And it can be anything for me it's a peace acronym. For me everything's about peace. Peace is the prize. And I'll tell this quick story because I love to tell it. I was probably in fourth grade, Lainie. And at school that day, kids must have introduced to me this concept of three wishes. You know, if you had three wishes, what would you wish for?

And so I brought that home to my mom and she was making dinner. I remember I was on like the bright yellow linoleum kitchen floor hanging out, you know, early eighties. And I offered to my mom as she was making dinner, and mom, if you had three wishes, what would you wish for?

And she kind of brushed me off lovingly. Said, oh, son, I don't really wanna play that game. I said, come on mom. If you had three wishes, what would you wish for? And finally she said to me, Lainie son, I would wish for peace. And someday you'll understand. That just stuck with me.

And ever since then, peace has been my guiding North star of my life and, and what I seek. And, and so I have this peace acronym that I recite every day and I don't need to go through all of it. P is embrace the precious present, the miracle of the moment. Well, e is expect and embrace adversity and that is really anchored in, in a life committed to gratitude because I've learned through the good times and the bad that we can both be sad that something happened and also eventually glad for some of the things that emerged from those difficult moments. And so I really try to anchor my own personal practice in expecting and embracing adversity, expecting and embracing difficult things to come.

And then the a of my Peace acronym is to have an attitude of gratitude. And what I do is I challenge myself to offer, you know, to myself, and I'd also journal so oftentimes I'll, I'll do it in my journal to give thanks for 10 small things. Those daily mini miracles, how light hits a plant in a living room, the beauty of a wildflower, things like that. I really try to anchor myself in the small things to offer gratitude for, and I then compliment that where I have a life log and I've listed 10 categories and each day I reflect into my life log.

It's a spreadsheet of did I accomplish certain things? And one of those is, did I pause to give gratitude? And it's, created in the spirit of we live our lives as we live our days. So in my coaching practice and working with my clients, I invite them to create their own life log. What are the variables that when you look back on your life, you will have peace knowing that, wow, day in and day out, I delivered on X, Y, Z, A, B, and C via this lifelong.

So from really this belief that gratitude is not just a feeling, it's more so a discipline, a commitment I think this daily mantra and also creating a life log or are two tools that I would invite your listeners to consider embracing that have really enriched my life. And I'm really gra grateful. I, I stumbled upon it because the, the value add to my life via these practices has been, has been immense.

Lainie Rowell: I love so much. And are you gonna leave us hanging on the rest of the acronym?

Bradley James Davies: Oh gosh. Okay. Here we go. Ready? Peace. So the precious present, you know, embracing the miracle of the moment. E expect and embrace adversity. A is an attitude of gratitude. C is choose. I think attitude is choice. Choose to be positive, choose to be patient, choose to be peaceful.

And then E is expectations. And the thing around expectations actually is tied to gratitude. There's a fantastic book called Solve for Happy by Mo Gawdat and he's got this equation. He's a former Google exec who endured the tragedy of losing a child.

And through that pain really started studying the science of happiness. And part of his book's deliverables, this definition of enjoyment equals experience minus expectation. And it's this real invitation to think about what are we attached to and what are our expectations.

So the last E in the Peace acronym is I try to explore in a real healthy way of, okay, what am I attached to? What expectations do I have? And while we've been taught to have high expectations of ourselves and others in truth a life journey of peace and real joy actually is associated with lowering our expectations, still honoring the inputs, still honoring a full enthusiasm, a full commitment to inputs, to love and care, and commit to excellence yet, just loosening our grip a little bit on what our expectations are.

So that last E has really informed a lot of, a lot of my personal growth as well. And it came to it the hard way by holding on way too tightly to too many things. So that's the full piece acronym.

Lainie Rowell: Okay. I needed to hear them all and I knew our listeners would wanna hear them all too.

So I love how you have a way of creating systems and these practices, these processes that you've come up with, that are really so thoughtful, so intentional, and I think that is a great way to live. I can tell we're kindred spirits when you're referencing James Clear. I'm a kind of an efficiency nerd and anyone that can help me with habits and efficiency, I'm all in.

I just wanted to say a few things about your Peace acronym. I feel like that's a great recipe for really finding the peace and also the awe in the day-to-day life. And so that's something that I think is really beautiful. And when you're talking about listing these 10 tiny things, I think that's where the joy is found.

A lot of times we think, when I get to this big thing, that's when I'll be happy. But it's actually really much more about the awe and the wonder and the small, simple things in our lives.

Bradley James Davies: I appreciate it. You saying that Lainie a number of years ago, gosh, going way back where I just embraced this quote that a drop of intentionality gets you a gallon back.

That works in relationships, it works in institutional leadership. It works in our own personal growth, our own commitment to our own wellbeing. And so the life log and this peace mantra for me have just been really game changer. So I invite folks to embrace it, make it their own.

I will name that the life log is not a scoreboard. It's just a log. I'm not successful or unsuccessful, but it's just a good way to check in with myself. Like, okay, here are the variables that I believe will inform a life well lived and how am I doing? And not to beat myself up or anything like that, but just to check in and say, Hey, did I journal today?

Was I proactive about being grateful today? And, you know, down the list it goes. But yeah, this, this drop of intentionality, no matter how small can just get us so much back. So little practices like this as I work with my clients really do prove helpful.

Lainie Rowell: This is gonna kind of just come outta nowhere, but it was another thought that I had as you were sharing your PEACE acronym and that last e being Expectations.

There's various quotes about expectations. I think Brene Brown says expectations are resentments waiting to happen. There's, there's all sorts of them. I do think a lot about expectations because I think they can really be, In some cases harmful to relationships, but also harmful to ourselves.

You just said, the life log is not a scoreboard, right? It's being aware, being intentional, and then also not holding ourselves to ridiculous expectations that are just gonna lead to us feeling bad about ourselves.

Bradley James Davies: True. my quote is, expectation is the enemy of enjoyment.

Lainie Rowell: That's a good one. Oh, I like that one too. I like that one too. There's one that's even more harsh. If I can find, I'll bring it, bring it just for giggles. I'll put it in the show notes. But I do think expectations is one we have to be kind of careful about.

So I appreciate that's part of your daily mantra, your peace acronym. I do wanna ask you to share a little bit about your book. Tell us more about it.

Bradley James Davies: The book is my reflection really on 20 years seeking to lead others well without losing your way. And you know, I do believe that leadership is hard and it's hard on leaders.

And so the book's approach is part how to and part how not to. So truly it's anchored. In my experience as a school leader, I do believe that many of the, the lessons I, I seek to offer apply across all sectors, and it's chunked up in an alphabetical approach. You know, if you walk into a kindergarten classroom and you look along the top of the wall, you likely will see some kind of visual that's, you know, lighthearted and loving that says, A is for apple, B is for ball. C is for cat. And so I've just collected a handful of, of essays that correlate with the alphabet. So A is for appreciation, I lead with that. B is for B, C, C, I think one of the most evil things on the planet C is for culture, D for dancing guy, things like that.

So there's a lot of leadership lessons that apply across all sectors, and also there's a real strong wellness component to it. There's a lot in there for leaders and best practices to ensure that while they're giving, while they're filling the cup of those they serve, they're also being mindful of their own wellness.

Because I wasn't great at that and I got low and I got to a burned out place, and that was part of the catalyst for me transitioning to consulting and speaking and coaching. So there's, there's a lot of good wellness practices in there for, for folks to be mindful of, to ensure that they don't get to that low place and that their batteries are charged and they're able not only to serve their teams well, but just as importantly that they're bringing their best selves home as well. And they have energy and light and love left over at the end of the day to give to the most important relationships in their life, their friends and family.

Lainie Rowell: I'm very excited to read it. Now I'd like you to give a shout out to someone if you are open to that.

Bradley James Davies: You know, it's, it's funny, you, you invited me to reflect on this a few days ago, and so I have to start with one, but then I'm gonna go with a collective group.

So I'm gonna go a little bit off script and I think you'll, you'll be okay with it. One, I have to start with my mom, and that's no disparagement of my dad. I just, I have a wonderful mom and she has loved me unconditionally. And even as youll read in the book that I got to a low place about two years ago, and COVID, was a contributor, et cetera.

But here I am, you know, at that time, a 46 year old man. And I got to a low place. I needed my mama, and my mom stepped up with just, just loving grace to help me get back on my feet and, and grow strong again. So I gotta start with my mom, you know, just now going on 48 years of immense unconditional love.

But here's who I wanna focus on. I have gratitude for those who have done me wrong and Lainie, there aren't many, very few. I've been so fortunate. People have just been exceedingly kind and generous to me in my life, but there are a few who, who did me wrong and I would love if they were ever to possibly listen to this podcast that they would hear from me.

Hey, no hard feelings. And super important. I take at least 51% of the responsibility for our relationships being strained, at least. And when I look back on that version of me, yeah, I'm kind of disappointed in him too. So, hey, those few folks out there who feel maybe I didn't treat you well and who I feel like maybe you didn't treat me well.

I hope you know that. I'm a different person now, and I forgive you. I hope you forgive me. I'm grateful for you helping me become a better person. And really in the spirit of one of my favorite quotes ever, it's a quote by Rumi, oh, it's so powerful. And he says, beyond all ideas of right doing and wrongdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.

So my, my gratitude is to some folks who, you know, maybe we didn't get along so well. Just to thank them and invite them to say, Hey, I think things can be good between us someday. And to be honest, I've reached out to all these people and some have, have reciprocated and we've had wonderful reconciliation and others have chosen not to.

And I'm okay with that. I'm making it sound like there are like thousands of people out there. But there are just a few that are in my head and heart like, oh, I don't think I was my best self with you and you probably weren't your best self back to me. And gosh, Maybe now in our more evolved states, we, we could pause in that, that field that Rumi mentions and, and shake hands and maybe even hug and, and know that all is well.

And so I'm grateful for it because I've become a better person because of that adversity. But I'd love for them to know that I've no hard feelings and I would be future oriented, grateful for any reconciliation we might be able to accomplish together.

Lainie Rowell: Both of those were very, very generous shout outs and regarding the latter, the grateful to those who have done you wrong.

I would say that is a truly peaceful way to live and I know that you are seeking peace that is a priority for you, and I think that that is a great way to be there. Now I know that people are going to want to grab your book and they're gonna wanna know how they can connect with you more.

So I will put in the show notes a link to your book, but would you also just out loud share with us how do people connect with you best?

Bradley James Davies: Yeah, so I'm on all socials on Instagram, @bradley.james.davies. I think I'm bradley.james.davies on Instagram and Facebook.

Bradley James Davies, of course, on LinkedIn. And then my website is bradley.james.Davies.com. So yeah, would love to hear from folks.

Lainie Rowell: I will link all of those in the show notes so people can just touch or tap or whatever they need to and go straight there. I do encourage people to check out your book like I will be doing.

I can't wait to read it, and I have truly enjoyed this conversation. Bradley, this has been very enlightening and enjoyable and you gave me the goosies on multiple occasions, so kudos to you and I just really thank you for your time.

Bradley James Davies: Well, thank you, Lainie. I'm so impressed with the work you do, and I'm grateful that you're investing your gifts into this planet and, and its people.

And raising awareness to the power of gratitude and how it can really change the world. So thank you.

Lainie Rowell: Thank you my friend, and thank you all for listening.

Lainie Rowell

August 29, 2023

Episode 69 - Healing Trauma Through Relationships with Joshua Stamper

Lainie Rowell

August 29, 2023

Shownotes:

Josh Stamper returns! Another incredibly insightful conversation with Josh as he shares his experiences as a middle school administrator and trauma-informed practitioner. We dove deep into the topic of trauma and its impact on learners, discussing practical ways educators can create a safe and supportive environment for them. Josh shared eye-opening insights on identifying trauma, the importance of building strong relationships, and actionable strategies for integrating trauma-informed practices into the classroom.

Trailer

Full Episode

About Our Guest:

Joshua Stamper is an author, podcaster, leadership coach, and education presenter. He is also the Training and Development Specialist for the Teach Better Team. Prior to Joshua's current positions, he was a classroom art educator and athletic coach.

Book: Aspire to Lead

Website: JoshStamper.com

Twitter: @Joshua__Stamper
Instagram: @joshua__stamper

About Lainie:

Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And now, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You is available too!

Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.🙌

Just fill out the forms linked above and someone will get back to you ASAP!

Transcript:

Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Hello friends, and welcome to a first for the Evolving with Gratitude podcast. We have a repeat, Joshua Stamper returns. Welcome, Josh.

Joshua Stamper: Well, thank you. It's a true honor to be a repeat guest on your podcast.

Lainie Rowell: First one, and I'm gonna say by popular demand because the episode when you were on, episode 14 is one of the most listened to episodes of Evolving with Gratitude.

So...

Joshua Stamper: Oh my goodness.

Lainie Rowell: It's your brilliance. It's how amazing you are, and just the genuine, wonderful person that you are. I'm gonna go ahead and introduce you, Josh, for those who may not have listened to that episode. And for anyone who may not already, be in your orbit, but Josh is an educator, author, and podcaster.

He is also the training and development specialist for the Teach Better Team and just one of the best humans on the planet.

Joshua Stamper: Oh my goodness. Stop it.

Lainie Rowell: Nope. This is my podcast and I'm allowed to just show how much I adore you all I want, but that was just like a very little bit of who you are.

I know that you're a family man. You have so many other things. So please tell us more about what makes you so amazing.

Joshua Stamper: Oh my goodness. Well, thank you so much for that kind introduction. I'm, I'm blushing over here. I know folks can't see me, but that was wonderful. So thank you so much.

Yes, I am a father and a husband, and we are a crazy crew. I have six. Children, we're gonna talk about more about my family later. But yeah, we just had the opportunity to move to the wonderful state of Colorado and it's absolutely beautiful here. We moved from Texas, which we lived there for 16 years.

That was not the intention, Lainie. We were not supposed to be there for that long it. But we finally have made the transition and it has been phenomenal. I'm an author. I have a podcast that's gone on for five years now. Aspire to Lead and hit a couple milestones that I'm extremely proud of. And yeah, it's just kind of taken me down this crazy rabbit hole that I did not anticipate, which landed me with the Teach Better Team.

I worked with them part-time and now I'm with them, and that is my sole purpose now is to work with schools and districts all over this country and I, I get a chance to work with schools with like strategic planning leadership developments and then also trauma-informed practices. And I think we're gonna touch on that a little bit today.

Lainie Rowell: definitely wanna dive into the trauma-informed practices. Now I feel like you might've buried a lead. You said that you hit some milestones with the Aspire to Lead podcast. Would you please share what some of those milestones were?

Joshua Stamper: Yeah, I just hit 250 episodes and I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Steve Mesler. He is a Gold Olympic athlete who is now the CEO of Classroom Champions and also hit 200,000 listens. So that's a, a pretty big milestone also.

Lainie Rowell: 200,000 listens!?!

Joshua Stamper: Yes.

Lainie Rowell: Josh. That's huge. That's amazing!

Joshua Stamper: That's a big number and I wasn't anticipating that and I know I said five years of conception, but I switched providers, so I only have four years of data. So in the last four years I've gotten 200,000 listens. And that's, yeah, that was pretty phenomenal.

Lainie Rowell: That's amazing. And I wish I knew some of the podcasting statistics off the top of my head, but it's like most podcasts don't even make it past like, what, six or seven episodes or something?

Joshua Stamper: Yeah, that's true.

Lainie Rowell: So many people start podcasts and don't actually follow through.

So the fact that you've been doing it for five years with 250 episodes and over 200,000 listens. That's amazing. I think that's a reflection of not only what a good person you are, but how you seek out other good people to amplify their voices.

If people aren't already listening, they need to go over and subscribe to the Aspire to Lead podcast, which by the way, you mentioned there's a book too. And your book is celebrating two years.

Joshua Stamper: Yeah, it's almost two years now. And it's been my passion project as far as. Well, I was really coming from the podcast of just hearing all these phenomenal leaders and their stories and then just finding my own voice in that and finding a model that I could construct for those who are wanting to, to lead.

And so in my journey, I was an art teacher going into administration and I had to really break down some doors and some perceptions of what an elective teacher was. And so I write about that journey, but then also, I've had a lot of failures in things that I did wrong in that journey from teacher to administrator.

And so, you know, my, my goal was to be as authentic and transparent as possible for folks to not do the same things that I did and to really shout out the stumbling blocks that a lot of us, trip over. And so hopefully, for those who are looking to get into leadership or maybe an administration someday, that this would be a wonderful guide for you to, to get where you're wanting to go.

Lainie Rowell: Absolutely. So I'm putting it at the beginning. I'm not even waiting till the end. You should check out his book and his podcast. Both Aspire to lead. Now, Josh, let's take a little trip down the memory lane, and could you tell us how you started this deep dive into trauma informed practices? You are a trauma informed practitioner.

Joshua Stamper: Yeah, thank you, Lainie. So when I was a Dean of Students, when I first went from a teacher to an administrator, you know Texas, they have this, this job where you're really focusing on student discipline.

I mean, obviously you have other things where you're assessing teachers and you know, I had lockers and buses and all these other things that nobody wanted, but they gave to me as the Dean of Students. And so working with a campus of 1400 students and having all of the discipline for that campus, I was also in a Taiwan school and I was getting burnt out.

I was working insane hours. I was really just focused on detentions in school suspension and out school suspension. And what I was finding was that the student behavior wasn't getting any better. In fact, it was getting worse. And what I was doing was I was taking the students and I was just pushing 'em back out to the community, and they were just getting into more trouble out there, which then it was like this vicious cycle of just rotating of students getting into different trouble out into the community, it coming back from the campus. And then it was just like amplifying the student behavior. And so I was trying to figure out like what was my purpose? 'cause obviously becoming administrator you wanna make a difference in everybody's lives, and especially with students.

And I just didn't feel like I was doing that. So I was kind of at my breaking point. I was literally sitting in my car after a PD session at the district and thinking like, do I even go in the building or do I just go home? I might just be done here. And at the same time, my wife and I were making a really important decision in our personal life, which was getting into foster care.

So my wife and I, we just ended being foster parents in Texas for the last 12 years. So we've been doing that and so we've had six placements and four of those placements we've actually adopted. So we have six children in our house, two biological, four adopted, and with that process, If anyone doesn't know what it takes to be a foster parent, you have to go through intense training every single year.

There's a certain allotted amount of time and, and things that you have to go through. And one of them is trauma-informed care. I'll be honest with you, Lainie, and when I first started going through this training, I was very apprehensive because it was like, look, I've got two kids. They're being successful.

Why on earth do I need to go to this ridiculous training? And it probably was the best training in my life. It changed me not only as a father, but then also as an administrator. ' We had to go through the T C U program, which was on trauma-informed care. And Dr. Purvis is who was the one that was the researcher.

She constructed it, God rest her soul. She's passed away since since then due to cancer. But T C U still works with that trauma-informed program. But what I was doing was I was sitting there going, yeah, this is wonderful as a parent, but how can we also transition this into the school because the behaviors that were being discussed and the fact that trauma is so prevalent in our communities, I was like, well, I'm seeing everything that they're talking about in regards to these foster kids with my own students.

They're handling it very differently. So why at the school level am I only focused on detentions ISS and OSS? There's gotta be a more creative plan here and constructed for the needs of our kids. And so that was kind of my charge and, and the starting point of like getting into trauma-informed care.

Lainie Rowell: My mind is buzzing.

First of all, I just have so much more to learn about trauma-informed practices and one of the things that was really resonating as you were sharing what happened, and I can see you in that car, not sure if you should go in because I think that whatever your role in education, you've had that feeling of just being ill-equipped.

Joshua Stamper: Mm-hmm.

Lainie Rowell: Like I don't have the tools to do what I feel is necessary to move the needle on this, to make the change and I think this is a challenge for a lot of administrators, especially in AP positions, is they get kind of designated the disciplinarian.

Joshua Stamper: Yep.

Lainie Rowell: And that's not filled with a ton of joy necessarily, especially if it really is all kind of the downstream detention and all of the, these are the consequences kind of things.

Joshua Stamper: Yep.

Lainie Rowell: And what I love is that you saw how there are practices that we're working for parents and for caregivers, and you're like, why can't this come into schools?

And so I think that's really lovely. And you'll probably hear me use this phrase upstream a lot because I do think that we don't always know what's going on. I think actually a lot of times we don't know what's going on with people until we do the, the deep dive. And so, we do end up dealing with things more downstream because we haven't upstream done more, what's going on? What can we help you with? I was watching this Edutopia video. 'cause I've noticed a lot of research on greeting kids at the door.

Joshua Stamper: Yeah.

Lainie Rowell: And how when you greet kids at the door that's your upstream, What's the vibe I'm catching from this kid?

Because I can provide support earlier rather than 10 minutes into class when there's a disruption, a negative, and now, how do I handle that in that situation? So I'm really, really excited to hear more about this. I'm gonna follow your lead as far as where you wanna go first, do you wanna talk about some of the things that you brought into schools or the effects of trauma or like just wherever you wanna go with this, because I'm just here to learn.

Joshua Stamper: Oh, I love it. Lainie. Yeah, as far as, trauma goes , in the research, and I will say I'm not a researcher, this is, coming from companies that I have used as a practitioner. So the first thing as a leader, I wanted to make sure was that with my staff, I wanted to identify what was going on as far as the student behaviors, but to let them know I don't have all the answers.

We're gonna partner in this. And so what I did was I built a relationship action team. As kinda like , a grassroots step-by-step process of like, we're gonna learn together, we're gonna implement things in the classroom, and then it may fail or may be successful. And if it's successful, what I charged them with, and we only started as a group of seven at the beginning of the school year.

So we had a hundred teachers, only seven were participants that I kind of were using as like my disciples. Like, Hey, I know you have the same ideas the same charge. You see the same things that are going on and you want something to change, so will you you be a part of. And unfortunately the nickname of the group was Rats because of Relationship Action Team.

Lainie Rowell: Wow.

Joshua Stamper: I know. It wasn't a very good...

Lainie Rowell: Did y'all workshop that? Was there a focus group involved?

Joshua Stamper: No, I, I really wish there was, because I wouldn't have landed on that, I promise you. But we were the rats group and so we would, you know, bring in some form of research to say, okay, what's going on?

For instance classroom check-ins. A lot of times people think, oh, this is an elementary tactic. It's not something that's secondary. Although in the middle school we're like, okay, how can we change this and make it work for us? And so it originally came and started with a paper form, but the idea was and research shows, it's similar to what you're talking about Lainie, about going to the door and seeing, okay, what's the vibe of my kid before they enter the classroom?

Which we would ask all our teachers that were a part of RATS Group to be at the door to greet. But then also on the secondary piece of, okay, there might be an opportunity for us to gather information about where the student is at and this could be something fun. We used to use like animal memes or now there's like Baby Yoda memes and things like that where there's a number system.

Or it could be a color and it was really up to the teacher on how they wanted to do this for the check-in. But it really was to like get a baseline of where the kid is at. But then secondary was, is there a resource that they need right now? So, for instance neglect is a huge piece of trauma in our country.

It's the most prevalent component. For instance, let's say a single parent is working three jobs. They haven't seen their kid, they're struggling, and there may not be food in the home. Well, most times the kids don't share that in the classroom. And so they're having maybe a struggle of paying attention due to the fact that they're extremely hungry.

Well, if you do a classroom check-in, you can have an opportunity to get that information in a safe space where they're, they're not being called out, they're not being embarrassed. Or for instance you know what? My parents were up all night fighting. I got an hour of sleep due to that. I would love to be able to take a nap.

There's really no way for a child to communicate that in a safe space. So there's just two options here that I provided as far as examples. But we found out a lot about our kids through these check-ins that we never would've known. For instance, the number system, if a kid comes in and says, oh, I'm at a nine.

This is the best day of my life. Well obviously that, that's wonderful. There's probably gonna be a lot of learning that's going on in that classroom. Whereas a kid saying, oh, I'm at a two, well, we know that something else is going on. They may not feel comfortable enough to share that with us. Maybe we're not their trusted adult, but at least we know that when we're talking with them, communicating with them our expectations of the work that's supposed to get done, it's gonna be a lot different.

If we know that they're at a two versus a nine. Right. So it just gave a lot of information. It didn't take a lot of time. A lot of times we, it would be maybe just a couple minutes at the start of the class. But that's just like one of many. But, the Relationship Action Team, you know, we, we tried things out.

If it worked, then what we did was we just shared that out as much as possible. So, oh, you know what? Go to my neighbor in, in the hallway and say, Hey, I tried this out. It worked. I dunno if you're interested and share a little bit more about it. And then if you want to learn more, you can come to RATS group.

So it was like inviting. And so by the end of the year, we almost had half our staff on the RATS group just because they were trying things out. They saw the benefit, they saw the change, they were getting results, and then they were sharing with other people. So when it was year two, as a leader trying to do a top down initiative, we all know that's really, really difficult to do, but on year two, it was like, Hey, half the staff is already implementing these things. It's working. Let's go a step further and we're gonna do a campus squad.

Lainie Rowell: One of the things I was thinking about as you were sharing is just, I'd like to think I've gotten better over the years. I do think I have, but as a new teacher where I was insecure in my skills and I taught kinder, and then I jumped to sixth grade with adolescents. And when there were behavior issues, I took everything personally. Like, this is about me. That was just my inexperience. My naivete as a young teacher. And what I love about the examples that you're giving is we're giving space to find out the stories.

Not assuming this has anything to do with me. I'm not at the center of this, the kid is at the center of this. What is happening in this kid's world and how can I learn about it so that I can help them through it? And I don't know if that's something that other teachers struggle with, but when something's not going well in the classroom, I take it personally.

And so I think these trauma-informed practices are so essential and when you were on episode 14 you did this there, you're very good at leaving no stone unturned. You are very good at thinking from all the angles of like, okay, well here's what this might look like in an elementary classroom, but here's what this could look like with adolescents really appreciating that we're all unique and dynamic and there's not one solution.

It's not gonna be like, Hey, all of our middle school teachers are going to do this practice. It's like, here's what we're trying to accomplish, and here's some ways that you could do that, and please pick the one that works best for you, or maybe you can actually come up with your own practice. That will be helpful.

Joshua Stamper: I'll be honest, as a new leader, I was not probably in tune with that because it was like, I'm the leader, just do what I say. And of course that didn't work very well. So, having to remember like as a teacher, what was my perspective?

There were a lot of things that were initiatives from the administration that I was like, okay, I'll take pieces of this and employ my classroom 'cause this is what my environment needs to be successful. And I just want to give teachers the autonomy because. We can't do cookie cutter this, it's not possible.

So what strategies are gonna work and, and what's the best way for you to implement that? To get, again, the best results? So, we did relationship agreements allowing the students to have a, a chance to have a say in how they're gonna be treated. From teacher to student, student to student, and then student to teacher, which they always loved because they got to say what they expected from their teacher.

But it wasn't a, again, it wasn't class rules like. Don't do this, don't do that. It was more about how we're gonna treat each other. That was super effective from teachers, and so we implemented that campus-wide. So, you know, just finding opportunities for instance, if a student is escalated having a safe space in that classroom and having that set up for them no questions asked.

Finding ways to identify the behavior of the students equaling trauma. And once we've identified that, finding a safe space for them to deescalate and then also to again find a, a safe adult. Teach them deescalation strategies put things in place for them so that they can go back to learning.

I think so often we just like, we're on a timeline, we gotta get to get things done move forward even if you're crying and or extremely angry. And there's a lot of nonverbals of kids that are in complete shutdown with their brain of survival mode. And we just assume that they're gonna like snap out of it within a couple minutes and go back into the learning environment.

And that's just not possible. Sometimes it takes a kid that's escalated 30 to 45 minutes just to get to a state of mind that they can function and even listen. It's just trying to educate our teachers that these are what's happening in the brain. And I didn't even speak on that Lainie of just like the effects of trauma in the brain, but it literally breaks down the pathways and deconstructs cells and even immune systems are broken down and kids get sick all the time.

So there's just a lot of chronic stress and trauma that occurs in our students' lives. And 70% of our kids have at least one form of trauma, and it's only increasing, especially with the pandemic. So my, my charge was like, Hey, to my staff, this is not. Something that a few kids have, this is the norm.

So when you're addressing a kid in the hallway, you better have all your tools because if you're just expecting a kid running down the hallway and you don't have any relationship with 'em, you're gonna yell at 'em and tell 'em to stop. You're probably gonna get an adverse reaction. You're gonna get a kid probably cussing you out because they don't have a relationship with you.

There might be some other things going on. So there's gotta be a better way to address a child, to communicate. So we were really focused in on. More strategies than just , this is poor behavior. There was the proactive, I think you said upstream, right? It was all these strategies of building relationships, trying to figure out what's going on in the student's lives so that way we can address it early instead of, okay, we are now reacting to an extreme behavior and now we're trying to uncover what's going on in the life of the student.

Lainie Rowell: Thank you for giving us all that info. I almost get a little overwhelmed to be honest, because I just go, oh my gosh, for some kids, school is the safest place they're gonna be at for sure.

Joshua Stamper: Well, we go on break and we'd be like, Hey, you know, did you have fun? You know, what'd you do?

Those types of things. And it was extremely sad to hear, no, I didn't want to go home. I'd much rather be here. And it wasn't because they were a fantastic student, it was just because they were in a safe space. They were provided food. Mm-hmm. They had good, healthy relationships with adults. And it was kind of heartbreaking to hear, so many times that kids just wanted to be at school just for that, that safe haven.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah, California's Surgeon General is Dr. Nadine Burke Harris. And I've listened to her and I've read some of her stuff and she was probably the first one who really, the way she articulated it about a healthcare provider might see a kid once or twice a year, and who are the adults in a kid's life?

Joshua Stamper: Yeah.

Lainie Rowell: That can be there for them and for a good portion of kids it is going to be the adults at a school. Yeah. I wonder if you could just quickly tell us how do you operationalize that safe person at school? How does that happen so that we make sure everyone has at least one person they can go to if they're in trouble?

Joshua Stamper: Yeah, we would run a survey through the school multiple times, and one of the questions on that survey to get feedback from kids was, do you have a safe adult? And if so, who is that person? And so a lot of times we would get that information from that survey and that feedback.

But for us, we had a lot of administrative folks there, the counselors, we had coaches and things like that. But if there was a student that was really having some struggles in their life, we would always ask them, Hey, who's your safe person? So for instance, I can think of a couple times of, of students sharing out to a nurse administrator or counselor, something horrific that was going on in life and they needed support from resources outside of the school.

We bring that safe person with and actually, provide a sub, for the time or someone to cover that class so that way they could stay with that child and work through that really difficult situation with the, the folks that they needed to be with at that time. So for us, we always wanted to make sure that every kid that walked through our campus at least had someone that they had a healthy relationship with.

And it didn't matter who it was in the building. Just making sure that we knew who it was and finding As quickly as possible. So that's why we, we ran the survey. And then of course if there was a kid that didn't have a trusted adult trying to work through that to, to make sure that there was someone that they were connected with.

And sometimes it was a kid moving outta state. They were brand new to the campus, didn't know anyone. So trying to get that relationship built as quickly as possible.

Lainie Rowell: One of the things I've been thinking about as we head back to school is, how quickly can we start to make these deposits into the relationship bank accounts with obviously kids and with families too.

Joshua Stamper: Yeah.

Lainie Rowell: So I think that's a great way to start to do that is like, who is your safe person? And so I love that you came up with a comprehensive way of, well, let's first let them identify if they feel like they have it. And then that reveals when they don't. And I'm guessing some kids put multiple people and...

Joshua Stamper: Oh, for sure.

Lainie Rowell: How lovely is that? That kid feels super supported and so I think that's really great that you're giving them a voice and an opportunity to share who they would...

Joshua Stamper: And it changes of the year too, you know, thankfully, you know, having that feedback over multiple times, you know, you could see how that's developed. At the first year, a seventh grader may say a sixth grade teacher that they had last year, but then as they've got a new set of, of teachers, they've built strong relationships where they've got a new person.

We leave the students out of so many decision making pieces, and so they're told no and what to do all day long. And so for, for me, I was really trying to, find opportunities for them to have a voice, but then also to share out as much as possible and be a part of the decision making of the campus.

Of, you know, we had 'em on committees, we had 'em presenting information at staff meetings. I mean, we were trying to find student voice as much as possible, and I think that's extremely important, especially for students that may feel like in their life they don't have any control. And for those who have trauma in their life, that's exactly what's happening.

And so to create environments where they have choice, where they have an opinion, they have an opportunity to be a part of those decision making processes is, is huge. And so, I, I would just say that anyone listening right now, please make sure that you, you have student voice as much as possible.

Lainie Rowell: I totally agree that that sense of no control in so many aspects of your life. We can only control so much. They already have agency, but sometimes that gets stripped away.

Mm-hmm. And so just to make sure that they retain that at least while they're on our campus, I think is really important. And Josh, I really wanna know what your thoughts are on how could we use gratitude? You know, I have to bring it back to gratitude, although I would of course very easily draw lines to connect the things we've talked about to gratitude.

Even like the example I gave of greeting at the door. To me that's a thank you for being here. You start the day with gratitude. Thank you for being here. And so I would just love to hear from you as a trauma-informed practitioner, someone who knows the research and is actually doing these things.

What kind of role can gratitude play in supporting our kiddos and adults who have experienced trauma? And, like you said, we know it's a significant number of people on our campus. What can we do with gratitude to help support them?

Joshua Stamper: Of course. I was talking about this before about teaching mindfulness practices and I think a lot of times we just assume, especially with some of the older students, if they're an eighth grader, some of 'em look like they should be driving and they have a wife and kids. I mean, it was ridiculous.

They were taller than me. We just assume like, oh, you have these skills to calm yourself down or to work through an adverse situation, work through stress, whatnot. And a lot of times, even though they look like adults, they don't possess the same skills as an adults. And so we would teach gratitude in gratitude journals as a mindfulness practice.

And if someone needed some time to kind of get their head straight Or to calm down emotionally. That was one of the practices that we shared. Sometimes it was breathing through blowing bubbles. If you ever wanna see something hilarious, just find a group of eighth grade boys blowing bubbles in the hallway.

It's really hilarious, but also extremely effective because they don't realize that they're actually doing a breathing exercise. They're just having some fun. So, finding ways to teach students this is what's needed at the time. You talked about anxiety. Obviously there's depression.

There's a lot of things going on in our students' lives that we may not identify. But if they have these skills and are able to identify their own emotions, I think that's really half the battle there. And so we would use gratitude quite a bit. I mean, you share in your book too, and just the research of like how it affects folks in regards to gratitude and obviously the brain chemistry too, that that's happening.

When you get that. So I will shout out my sixth grade science teacher, Ms. Harvey. She was fantastic about just going around the classroom and her communication was always positive and everything that she did, even if it was like, I need you to sit down, sweetie, you know, she would always, as soon as it happened, was sharing Gratitude of, thank you so much for doing that and then explaining why it was needed.

And so she had mantras, they would sing, they were interactive. Her communication with gratitude was consistent and just the positive interactions that she had. Everybody, every kid that I stuck in her class was, was flourishing. And it didn't matter how much trauma was in their life, they were successful.

And I really, truly believe it was because of how she treated each student and the amount of positivity and gratitude that she had with each student.

Lainie Rowell: Thank you for that. And I love the connection to gratitude and mindfulness, and that is, the research has very strong support for one of the ways to get out of that trauma response all the cortisol pumping and you're just, Really freaked out is to get into that mindfulness.

So I love the examples you're giving, the breathing through bubbles that's a new one to me. That's amazing. I love that. And by the way, I cannot stop picturing middle school boys playing bubbles in the hallway. And that's a lovely, lovely picture I now have in my head. One of the things I was thinking about as you were talking is I recently heard Dr.

Marty Seligman, who is the founder of Positive Psychology. I know you know that Josh. He was on the Happiness Lab with Lori Santos, and I say recently, but I've gone back to this episode so many times it might've even been a year ago. . But I've re-listened to this episode a bunch of times because my psych degree was earned really still at a time where studying psychology was all about studying misery and how can we put a label on whatever is wrong with you. And that was really still the bulk, but it was just starting to turn that corner with positive psychology as I was finishing up my degree and so I am so grateful to Dr. Seligman and the social scientists who have been looking into positive psychology, because to me it is very empowering that we can go from even when we've experienced significant trauma, we're not done. There's things that can help us. Right? And so one of the things he said on this podcast that I thought was really interesting is he is like, think about response to trauma on a bell curve. And on one side of it, you've got the post-traumatic stress, which is the ugly stuff we've been talking about. Depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, worse. Now the vast majority of people are gonna respond with some form of resilience. Maybe it'll be a little bit of resilience.

Maybe it'll be super high resilience, but like 95% of people should respond with resilience. Typically lots of shoulds and typically, 'cause of course, things happen, but then there's a 2.5% that respond with post-traumatic growth. And when I show this graph to people, I'm like, the graph doesn't show the nuance.

It doesn't show the fact this is fluid. It doesn't show the fact that three months after post-trauma, you're in stress and it's bad, but that doesn't mean that a year later you're not in post-traumatic growth. And so what I really appreciate about you, Josh, and the work that you're doing and all the other trauma-informed practitioners and researchers and experts that are out there is, it's not a, this is terrible and we're all in trouble. It's this is terrible and we can actually do things about it and we can respond differently and we can, I know I see upstream all the time, but to me that's what's so critical is that we're not doing all the punishment and discipline and consequences downstream.

It's we're upstream trying to identify how can we see what will help these kids and adults so that they can really get to that. What is their best, and I love the word flourishing. Thank you for using that. So this is all so wonderful, Josh, any other thoughts? And I talked for a bit, so feel free to respond to any of that.

But what, what else do you want us to know about trauma informed practices?

Joshua Stamper: No, I think what you're talking about, I love the idea with administration specifically folks talk about like punishment and discipline matrix and whatnot, and when there's a skill that is non-existent or there's something that's going on in their life that is causing stress, trauma and whatnot, we can't just punish it out of 'em.

Or we can't punish a skill to exist. And I think that we have to understand that when we're talking about discipline, discipline, the root of that is a disciple meaning to learn. And so as much as we teach math and science and history, we also need to talk about teaching student behavior. And that also goes with emotional resilience and identifying what that is and how to calm down.

And some of those things that really we know are important, but we haven't found a place for that in the educational environment. And so that was something that was really important for me because if anyone out there right now is having difficulty with student disciplining in their classroom, you know that it's really hard for students to master the content until you get that addressed.

And so it is important. We need to make sure that the skills that we have for the instruction, right? We have thousands of things that we rely on to make sure that students retain the content. But when it comes to student discipline, we only use like three different tools. And for my teachers, all they wanted me to do was use the hammer.

And I'm telling you right now that every kid is not a nail. So we can't just assume that the hammer's gonna work. And I will say I'm giving you permission to be creative and define solutions that are going to be what's right for that kid. Consequences look like many, many things, and I would ask that anyone that's in charge of student discipline, teacher, administrator, make sure that you are doing your due diligence in research and finding out what consequences may be successful for that student based on what their experiences are. Cookie cutter doesn't work. Putting a kid in a box does not work, so make sure that you're finding something that is going to teach the correct behavior moving forward instead of just sit in this room for eight hours.

And I'll say, when I talk about the trauma informed training that I had to do for a parent, if I told you Lainie, like if your kid does something wrong, put 'em in a room for eight hours at your house. I mean, I can already see your face. Like, no way. Like as a parent, you would never do that.

But when it comes to the school environment, we're okay with that. Go ahead and stick 'em in a room. Take 'em outta that educational environment for that long and just let 'em suffer, right? So I don't understand why it's okay in school when it's not as a parent. And so that was that relationship, right?

So, if it's my own kid, let's say, one of my boys, God forbid, hits another of the children. , I'm not just gonna stick 'em in a room, not tell 'em anything. Of course, as a parent I'm gonna teach 'em what's the correct behavior and find consequence that is related to the behavior that was exhibited.

And so I just hope that everyone that's listening is, is also doing that at, at their school campus.

Lainie Rowell: Everything you said a hundred percent, and one of the things that stuck out to me is, and I'm paraphrasing here, but you basically said, we can't punish a skill into existence. And that is so true.

And even as a parent, I will say that I have to constantly remind myself that when my child is in an escalated state, raising my voice does not help that at all.

Joshua Stamper: No, it does not it.

Lainie Rowell: It's also not going to be the teachable moment. That teachable moment will have to happen in a calm conversation later on.

And so we can't punish a skill into existence, I think is a very important takeaway and really kind of shines light on how, it just doesn't make sense the way that discipline has been handled and not, not an indictment on any one individual. It's more of the system.

Joshua Stamper: Yeah. And I will say, I'll go back. A lot of times we default to our experience. Mm-hmm. So, for instance, when I was a brand new teacher, I taught like how I was taught and it was not effective. And so I had to make some drastic changes. When I became an administrator, I was an administrator like I had been administrated and it did not work right.

And so I had to find my own way. And as a teacher, a lot of times we just default, especially with discipline because when we go through those programs, they'll teach you all day about all of the academic skills that need to be taught and how to do that. But when it's classroom management, typically it's like a day.

Mm-hmm. Maybe two, on how to work with students and their student behavior. And so a lot of teachers are ill-equipped, no fault to their own. And so they default to how they were taught. And so these are traditional practices and unfortunately, over time I've been on multiple campuses, multiple districts, multiple states, and I've always had the same concept with teachers just holding on to this idea of these traditional practices as if they're going to work when data and the research shows that that's not the case, and so something has to change.

We can't just default to what we experienced potentially 30 years ago. Yeah. We, we have to change, especially as the data shows that more and more students, especially with the pandemic, have gone through trauma.

Lainie Rowell: Not to be all sunshine and roses over here, but to end on a positive note.

Joshua Stamper: Please.

Lainie Rowell: I do feel like we've come a long way in

Joshua Stamper: Yes.

Lainie Rowell: Raising the awareness of the practices. And that's why I'm so grateful for the work that you're doing. Obviously you have your hand in a lot of different topics and you are a practitioner who has a lot of talents and knowledge and wisdom to share.

But I do feel like we have come really far and maybe part of it is our own as education, post-traumatic growth that we're realizing, there were things happening we didn't, maybe know about pre pandemic and they got brought to light. And when you said that neglect is one of the biggest forms of trauma, I think that really came to light a lot more during the pandemic when we were seeing so many kids either they're not making it on the Zoom or they're on the Zoom and we realize they're five years old in a home alone.

So that's, that's some, some stuff that we saw that we were like, Ooh, wow. So has this. You know, is this just because of the pandemic? And in some cases it was definitely not just because of the pandemic. So thank you for helping shine a light. Thank you for giving us solutions, practices, and permission. I hear you giving permission to be creative and I think that's something that we all need.

And so there's no one size fits all. We take the science and we take the practices and we make them our own. And so thank you so much. Now, Josh, you're my first return guest, so I don't, I don't know if you wanna do another shout out, but I'm gonna give you the opportunity if you wanna give a shout out to anyone.

Joshua Stamper: Can I shout out you?

Lainie Rowell: No.

Nope. Not allowed.

Joshua Stamper: Why not? Has anyone shouted you out on your show?

Lainie Rowell: No. And if they did, I'm the host. I would edit it out.

Joshua Stamper: Don't edit this out. Goodness, sakes. No, I wanna lift you up because to have me back on the show, that's such an honor. And then also just, I know the folks don't know like our friendship, but you've spoken a lot into my life and both personally and professionally, and I just wanna thank you just being a wonderful friend.

Lainie Rowell: Well, that is also how I feel about you. So as long as we, as long as we agree, we're that for each other.

Joshua Stamper: Well, you talk about repeats, you've been on my show multiple times. I think I owe you a jacket of some sort as one of the most visited guests on my show. So, Kudos to you for that too.

Lainie Rowell: Well, I mean, we should probably just talk on the phone every once in a while.

We don't always need to hit record and publish it, do we? Although we have. Not to say that we haven't, but, but I just love learning from you, Josh, and I'm so grateful to you and thank you for sharing your personal journey, your professional journey, and you're just such an amazing human. I know I always say that.

But I just really appreciate this work that you're doing. I wanna make sure people can connect with you if they're not already connected with you. Double underscore us, Josh. Hit us with the double underscore people. You have to listen to the double underscore. That's an important thing.

Joshua Stamper: It is. I don't know why I did that, but yes. @Joshua__Stamper. That's on Twitter and Instagram and. If, if that's too difficult, of course you can go to JoshStamper.com. That's a lot more simple. It's got all of my social media accounts on that, and then of course, the podcast and you know, the book and whatnot.

So that's probably a better way to connect with me.

Lainie Rowell: Well, I'm gonna put it all in the show notes so people can just touch on the double underscore and not have to type it in. But yes, and, and who knows if we're even still, I mean, Twitter is now X and they keep, they keep pulling Twitter from everywhere.

And if they take away the twitter.com links, I will be crushed 'cause that will break links in the thousands potentially for just me. And so, we'll, we'll hope but across the socials, @Joshua__Stamper. You can check out the book, check out the podcast. This man is gold or platinum, whatever the most valuable element we can come up with, but, Josh, thank you so much for this wisdom and thank you for the work that you're doing, and thank you for being a guest again.

Joshua Stamper: Well, thank you so much for having me, and I just wanna thank everyone that's listening for all the hard work that you do. I know, especially the topic that we're talking about with trauma-informed practices, it's not easy. It takes a lot of time. But I just appreciate everyone that's taking that charge.

And if you need any support, please let me know.

Lainie Rowell: Love that. Please do reach out because Josh is amazing, he supports so many. So thank you all for listening. Have a great, whatever it is. Day, night, morning. I don't know. Have a good one.

Lainie Rowell

August 22, 2023

Episode 68 - Meta Moments for the Unlimited Teacher with Guest Marisa Thompson

Lainie Rowell

August 22, 2023

Shownotes:

An insightful episode of 'Meta Moments' as we dive into gratitude in learning communities with the dynamic Marisa Thompson. Discover how Marisa's journey from the classroom to a coordinator of curriculum and MTSS has enriched her perspective on empowering educators. Explore the art of authentic appreciation, the value of teacher support, and the power of specific feedback. Tune in for a refreshing conversation that transcends traditional teaching and embraces the limitless potential of education.

Trailer

Full Episode

About Our Guest:

Marisa E. Thompson (M.A. Teacher Education) is an international speaker, instructional coach, and the Coordinator of Curriculum & MTSS. Having been a classroom teacher for 16 years and seeing the transformational power of letting go of “so-called limitations” in her own classroom, Marisa is on a mission to challenge and equip teachers and educational leaders to do the same. Through her experience, humor, and practical tools, she pushes districts and teachers to believe they have the power to transform the learning experience for both students AND teachers.

Website: unlimitedteacher.com

Twitter: @MarisaEThompson
Instagram: @marisa.e.thompson/

About Lainie:

Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And now, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You is available too!

Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.🙌

Just fill out the forms linked above and someone will get back to you ASAP!

Transcript:

Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Welcome, welcome, welcome, friends. I am so happy to have Marissa Thompson with us, and I'm gonna give her a quick little introduction in just a moment. But first I wanna say, hi Marissa. How are you today?

Marisa Thompson: I'm doing really well, thank you. How are you?

Lainie Rowell: I'm good.

So Marissa Thompson is an international speaker, an instructional coach, and the coordinator of curriculum and MTSS and friends, that's just the beginning. So Marissa, please tell us more.

Marisa Thompson: Well, I was in the English classroom, high school English for 16 years and absolutely loved it. I proposed a job to my district to be able to support teachers.

And so I was doing a little half and half of that, and I just got into conferences and really meeting people who are just as energized about, life and teaching and everything as I was. And it's just that feeling when you meet your people, you know? And so that opened up a ton of opportunities to me, and I'm currently working for someone I consider to be my longtime mentor when it comes to education, and I'm just having a blast working with this really amazing team of educators who are serving students who, who really need some attention and, and some extra awesome educators. So it's an honor to work with them.

My current role is coordinator of curriculum and MTSS, so I work with three different schools and I support the teachers in their curriculum and design and making it really intentional so that it benefits kids, but also benefits them so that everybody gets to have that work-life balance and everybody can show up with, with joy, you know, and be, be really present when they're there together.

Lainie Rowell: Now, for those who might not be familiar with MTSS which I think is growing to be a smaller and smaller number of educators, but I do work with educators in a variety of settings, and I can tell you there are still a good amount of educators that might not be familiar with M T S S.

So let's not take that for granted. What is M T S S?

Marisa Thompson: Right. And I appreciate that. I run into that sometimes too, in different states or different countries. So MTSS is Multi-Tiered System of Supports. All of our students fall under these different tiers. It's not a label for students, it's just, you know, if we're gonna say we support students, we're gonna support all of them.

Some of them might need a little bit extra, some of them might need even a little bit more than that. So it's just really a way to make sure that we're doing everything that we can for kids and making sure that the systems that we're, that we're offering that support, that we're offering is what exactly what they need.

Not, not too much, not, you know, not enough.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah, and I think one of the things that I love about M T S S is that we're not saying here's where a child is. They live here, they'll always be here. It's a system designed to appreciate the unique and the dynamic and understanding that it's contextual and in certain situations we might need more support academically, socially, emotionally, behaviorally, but that, that's in constant motion, if you will.

And so how do we create a system that honors what are our strengths and also supports us in ways that makes sure that we all have those firm goals and we can all achieve our best.

Marisa Thompson: Well, I think that's an important point because I think sometimes, okay, you've got the paperwork, right?

So now this is who you are and this is the support that you get. We sign that paper, right? That's not what this is. It's fluid like you said, you know, it might be that in this moment, for this one semester, that kiddo needs some help. That kiddo needs some extra help, but it's not a designation and I really appreciate that.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah. I think when someone said to me, There's no such thing as a tier two student that really hit home to me that this isn't, like you said, it's not a designation, it's we have supports that are tier two.

Marisa Thompson: Right. It's not a description of the kid, it's a description of what we can offer.

Lainie Rowell: I love that. Okay, so Marissa. I'm gonna ask you the first question, which people might get tired of this question. Maybe I need a new first question. I'm not even sure, but I want it to be less about a definition per se. 'cause we can look that up, but what does it just kind of mean to you in your life?

And so take that however you want. There's no right or wrong answer.

Marisa Thompson: I don't think you need a new question. I think it's worth revisiting, right? And getting everybody's lenses for, so I'm gonna go ahead and say that, but I would say that for me it's, it's really knowing that at any moment you can let yourself be really present.

Right. And to take in how wonderful things are, even when they're hard. I'm experiencing right now a, a lot of things. And so I was trying to kind of change that narrative for myself and think about all the things I'm really grateful for. And I described it to somebody and they said, you know, how's it going?

And I was going to say, Ooh, it's a little bad right now. But instead I just, I didn't wanna keep that going. Of course, now I just said it, but I, I tried to describe it instead as well, I'm learning how much I can take.

Lainie Rowell: Yep.

Marisa Thompson: It turns out I can take a lot. So I'm still here. And I think that that's, I can look around and sometimes I do, right?

Sometimes I actually stop and instead of the proverbial take a look around, I actually look around. And I take that breath and I allow myself to be present. And then I try really hard to speak my gratitude, my appreciation with really specific words. To make sure that it's really clear to myself and to other people how much they truly are appreciated.

It's not lip service.

Lainie Rowell: Mm-hmm. That's specific and authentic.

And it was funny 'cause you're talking us through how you are intercepting your negativity bias before you say something to someone.

So you're getting meta and then you're actually feeling bad about, but then I said it to you all. No, we're good. We're good. I appreciate you doing the meta and say, you know, here's my negativity bias coming in. And I hear you doing, I've heard Jay Shetty say this before, where you're, you're spotting it, you're stopping and you're swapping before you put it out there.

And one of the things that. I talk to people when we're having these conversations and I'm always so fascinated in what people think. And you know, some people push back and it's like, oh, you can't ignore the negative. Well actually by default we ignore the positive. We don't ignore the negative, we stay fixated on the negative.

So I really appreciate you taking us through your thought process of like, okay, I had something coming in, but I'm gonna reframe this. And I think that reframing makes a huge difference.

Marisa Thompson: It does make a difference for me and I don't think acknowledging the negative and stopping it means that I'm ignoring it. I think it means that I get to have a choice in it.

And, I think there's a lot to learn from the negative, so I'm not trying to ignore it, you know? Even as I'm in this space, I'm thinking, okay, okay, I'm going through it. I'm experiencing it. I can be grateful for other things, but I'm also gonna learn from it. Right? And for me, there are some lessons that I'm taking in right now and going, okay, I'm going to make sure I say this lesson out loud.

So I said it even to my daughter, she's turning 10 this weekend, right? I said it to my husband like, Hey, I'm experiencing this. I know you're watching me experience this, but it's not gonna be like this next time, because next time I'm gonna know what to do.

Lainie Rowell: Oh, that's such a great way to think about that learning through this experience.

Maybe it's the hardest the first time, but the next time I know I've got the skills. I know I can handle this even better next time.

So let's dive into some more of the examples. You know, one of the first times we connected. Was through Corrie, wasn't it?

Marisa Thompson: Yeah. It was Corrie Myers and then Katie Martin. Yeah. Yeah.

Lainie Rowell: We have those two friends in common.

Corrie had asked me to write an article for, Dude, Be Nice. And then you and I connected and I think Corrie actually told me something that you were doing in your classroom, if I'm remembering this correctly, gosh, I feel like I'm getting old. I cannot remember the sequence of events to save a life.

But...

Marisa Thompson: That sounds right. That sounds like her. That sounds like something she would totally do. Right. She's a, she's a connector. It's who she is and what she does. Yeah. And I love that for her. And I'm appreciate it of her. Right. I love having her in my life for that reason. She's brought so many wonderful people to me, you know?

Yeah, she's great. Yeah. I, I do a lot of. Really really intentional things in the classroom and I think we all do. Right. But she was doing a project called The Gratitude Project, which was awesome, and you really should talk to her or Sarah Hunter about it. And we'll, we'll do that after, of course, but, there are so many opportunities every day where it doesn't need to be a project, right?

It doesn't need to be this big thing that we're gonna do, where we're gonna focus on gratitude and read all the articles and make it a unit because it should be part of just a daily practice, you know? So I will thank students. I'll thank teachers that I work with, but I'll thank students.

There are times when students would admit that they were behind on something and I would thank them for their integrity. It's helpful. Anytime that I caught a student, you know, caught a student doing something good. I'm not gonna bring it up. I'm not gonna interrupt everybody, but I used to slip 'em a little sticker and it was a be good people sticker, and I would write a little note like, I saw that and you didn't have to do that, but I saw that you did that, and we need more people doing stuff like that.

I need, I need that in my world. I just want you to know that I appreciate it and I wanted to acknowledge it. I write thank you cards as well. One of my friends, a teacher friend, actually, she complimented me on my thank you cards, and I had never really considered it before, but I guess people write like a couple generic sentences, like thanks for whatever.

And she's like, you don't. You go the full monty on the sucker. You go, I'm so thankful this is what you did. And I, I know that took time and I appreciate it and here's the positive impact it had on me, and I just want you to know. And she's like, oh my gosh, no one does that. But I, I write thank you cards and I'll write thank you cards to my students too.

One of my students, she just moved to Chicago this week. She's gotta be 28, 29 now. But she messaged me. She got in touch on social media and said, Hey, I just wanted to update you, which is like also a statement of Gratitude, right? Mm-hmm. And she goes, I was cleaning up my room and I have your card.

That you wrote me, and I'm just sitting there going, God, what a beautiful thing that is. Right. That I saw something that I felt like I needed to thank you for. I did it. I wrote it, and you felt the need to keep it. And then I, I mean, maybe it was in, you know, tucked away in some trash or something, but I mean, like you had it.

Yeah. And then you decided to reach out. And express your gratitude as well. Like it's just a beautiful, reciprocal thing.

Lainie Rowell: It is a reciprocal thing. And so one, I have to point out how. This episode has like a theme of meta because like a thank you for the thank you note. Right? It's like, that's so fun.

But it does actually lead into the other thing we're talking about this reciprocal, because it's like there are some people who we actually get into these potentially unending loops of Gratitude where it's like we can't stop thanking each other. And like sometimes I'll be like, I love you and now we're gonna go on with our...

Marisa Thompson: we need to stop.

I mean, there's that episode right? Of the good life where it's like, thank you. I want to thank you. I want to thank you for your thank you some champagne to thank you for the thank you that you thanked me for. And I was like, oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I know what it's like, but I need it's need to go see that.

It's so good. It's so worth it.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah, well, I'm gonna have to look that up. I'm always looking for these little clips. Anyone who's seen me present, I, I always bring in these tiny little, maybe it's from a reel or maybe it's something, but just a few seconds of this gratitude interaction happening because there's, we catch the feelings, right?

We actually get to vicariously experience this gratitude interaction, and it's just so lovely. Not always as funny as the good life, but...

Marisa Thompson: so good. You, we'll, we'll get it. I'll make sure that you get it for sure. Okay. Because I'm sure you're busy and you've gotta do all these things, but I will,

Lainie Rowell: you're busy too.

Marisa Thompson: ...make sure you get,

Lainie Rowell: We'll find it and we'll get it in the show notes. How about that? Okay.

Marisa Thompson: Sounds good. Sounds good.

Lainie Rowell: So we can all go through this in a fun and humorous way, because that's a good way to, to live life, right?

Marisa Thompson: Yes.

Lainie Rowell: I wanna point out that you're talking about something, it reminded me of one of my favorite James clear quotes.

A lot of people think what they need is intensity, but what they really need is consistency. And when you're talking about these little ways that you do it, I think that's so important because I know for me, one of the biggest barriers to gratitude is sometimes I wait till I. get to the pretty stationary or wait till I can sit down and compose it perfectly.

And I think what often is most important is that with like you're doing specificity and authenticity, we just get it out there. Yeah. Like let's just get that message out there. Let's not wait on it. And even in the smallest ways, it can make such a big difference.

Marisa Thompson: It does, and then you can do it in big stuff too.

Right? And sometimes that stationary is everything and sometimes it's an action. Right. And the blog that I write, so I write this blog and I, I feel like little hacks, like it's just stuff right for teachers to, to use and it's great, but. I actually wrote it because I was bored in a summer school class.

I got, I got pulled in to teach a summer school class for somebody who had unfortunately a family emergency. Right. And they're like, Marissa, can you come in here? I'm like, sure. What am I teaching? I'm an English teacher. Math, okay. Self-paced online math. And I'm like, oh, okay. Well I guess I'll come do that because somebody needs with a credential needs to be there right?

In case of whatever. And I'm sitting there for five hours a day for three weeks. And so I'm looking at Twitter right back. This is way, so I'm looking at Twitter and everyone's sharing their ideas. I'm like, it's so nice, and I've used some of their ideas. Now I'm gonna throw something out there too, right?

Like, this worked for me, so I'm gonna throw it out there just as like a pay it forward. You shared something with me. I'm gonna offer something out to you and maybe it'll help somebody. And that's. That's how that started. So it could be, it could be the little thing where you just say something and you make sure you're being really clear.

It could be the thing where you find the stationary and sometimes it's something else. And you know,

Lainie Rowell: there's so many different ways to do it. Mm-hmm. In fact, let's dig into that because you're doing different things in your role right now than traditional Be in the classroom with students. Right. I say that with so much love 'cause I'm doing it too.

Yeah. So one of the things I think when you step out of the classroom, And your goal is still to support kids in every way possible. But now your goal becomes, and how do I support my colleagues? Not that, that we don't do that as classroom teachers. To be clear, I know that classroom teachers support each other, but when you step out of the classroom and you're no longer rostered students, And your primary role is to support educators who can support kids.

That's, that's a different thing. Right? And so kind of, what does that look like for you?

Marisa Thompson: It's really different and it was a hard thing to do, especially after 16 years, right? Like, you're in there, you're with the kids, you know what, you know your stuff, you know your community, you know your kiddos, you know what you're gonna do in September and how that's gonna roll into, you know, like, you know, all of it.

It's been wonderful. It's been wonderful. It was a hard transition. To leave it, it felt like a change in identity to be honest. But I get to do that. I was doing that anyway. Mm-hmm. At conferences. I was doing that through coaching. I was doing it through consulting or whatever. I was doing that kind of work.

But I couldn't keep it sustainable. I couldn't do all the things, and so I. I with Covid, the district asked me to help with the response for secondary. And so I had to leave my classroom and I had to leave my school and I had to leave my little community to be able to, to do that work at a time when it was needed.

And I couldn't return I couldn't return to that school and I couldn't return to the way that. I normally taught. And so I, I did go back to the classroom and always love the kids and love my subject area and love the camaraderie and everything else. But when this opportunity came, that offered me some more flexibility and to be able to, to help more kiddos and, and help a lot of teachers, I, I jumped, I had to jump.

Lainie Rowell: I actually got chills as you were talking through that, because I've lived this, right. It's this time where, You're kind of getting pulled in too many different directions, and as much as you love being in with learners of the younger ages it also feels a little unfair to everyone involved, including the kids.

So it's like you, you kind of have to make this, this jump. And I heard you say it kind of was a change in your identity and maybe challenged your identity a little bit. And I, I totally related to that as well.

Marisa Thompson: I think a lot of people do. Anytime. If you're, if you're a teacher, there's, there's something really wonderful that comes with being able to say that, right?

And, and there's like an, there's an honor to it, right? I'm a teacher. And for me to now say I am the coordinator of curriculum, and M T S S has a very different ring to it, right? Like there's not, it doesn't translate the same way to like the general public of I am a teacher, you know? But it's. It is awesome, and I love it.

I will forever miss kids. I miss them on an extremely regular basis, but I'm lucky. My, my students were older, so I, I'm in touch with a lot of them. I live in the same community. Some of them are like nephews to me. They, they know my kids, like they've, they come over. We have, we have dinner when they come.

You know, like it's a normal, it's a normal thing. They're just. They're just in my life as opposed to just being in my classroom.

Lainie Rowell: I totally related when you said, now when people ask what do I do? And it was so funny too, 'cause my mother-in-law, she is like, can you just gimme an easy way to tell people what you do?

'cause when you were a teacher, it was just really easy to say she's a teacher. And now I have no idea what to tell people you do.

Marisa Thompson: Yeah. Right. I finally 'cause my own children, they keep calling me a teacher and they're like, when can we go to your classroom? And I'm like, again? Again, buddy. I, I don't have one.

Okay. So cause they used to go and there would be candy, right? But I, I describe it to my kids as like, you know, your coach? Like Yeah. I'm like, I'm like that. I coach teachers and they're like, oh, what do you coach them to do? And I was like, well, I coach them how to help the students in the way that they really want to, and I coach them how to make it better for themselves too.

And I think that's, if we were going to describe like what my philosophy is, it's that of, yeah, I want to help kids. I'm a teacher, I'm an educator. That's what I'm about. And when you talk about English, I want 'em to read, I want 'em to write. I want 'em to think and discuss and create. But I also think that when we talk about universal design and when we talk about the daily experience and we talk about teacher retention and SEL and all these other things, that there's somebody else in the room that we need to consider when we're designing.

And that's the teacher. So that's, that's where my work is. And, and that's the, the message that I keep hammering every time that I go and, and share some of those, those things that I, that we do.

Lainie Rowell: Well, I think it's a real blessing that we get to do what we get to do because we get to see our peers in practice, probably more than a lot of people.

I mean, a classroom teacher rarely sees another classroom teacher in practice, but when you step outta the classroom and you move into a role where your primary is more of professional learning, you get to see other educators in practice, and that has been probably the best professional learning of my life.

Marisa Thompson: Oh yeah. I mean, just if we could make that real Yeah. The, the, the growth, like the transformation that, that would be. 'cause it's inspiring to see, to see people doing their thing. Like when people are in the zone, it's so much fun to watch. I don't care what their zone is, but when it's teachers in the zone, oh, it's so much fun.

And there's always something that you can glean from it. You know.

Lainie Rowell: I always share how we can do the instructional rounds, we can do the observe me, but we also need to take time just to honor what's going really well. I think in education as a profession that is dedicated to continuous improvement, and while that is hugely important, I think sometimes we spend so much time focusing on how we could get better, we don't take moments to just pause and point out the really good things that are happening. So I think instructional rounds are amazing. I think it's also okay to once in a while visit each other's classrooms and just point out what they're doing really, really well.

Marisa Thompson: And just being inspired by it. When you go and see someone doing their thing and it's going well, and you think to yourself, oh, I love what they're doing, and you express that to 'em, right? Then to be able to take it one step further and go, can you explain that to me? Can you explain how that happens? Or what do you do when this goes awry?

Or, or, you know, how can I make that work for my subject area? Because I would really love to, when we start using that to build our connections and using the positive to build our connections, that is just invaluable investment, right? And, and the foundation of having a really good year and a really solid team.

Lainie Rowell: I'm a huge fan of that asset-based approach. Absolutely. Doesn't mean we won't be learning from it, but let's start from like, here are things we're already doing really, really well, and I like how you added that specifically. Like, okay, what, what if this happened? Or what if this happened? Teach me more.

Mm-hmm. Because I saw you do it perfectly, but maybe I have some questions about like how it might not work the same for me.

Marisa Thompson: @Right, right.

Lainie Rowell: Our time has flown by and now I'm gonna ask you for your shout out.

Marisa Thompson: You know what, it's a great, it's a great problem to have. I listed like five, so it's not fair. So my family has really stepped up. It's been an interesting time, and so my family has been, has been there for me. So I wanna say my family, but I actually wrote down Corrie. I did, she's, she is a huge supporter and I learn a ton from her.

And she, every once in a while will message me and, And remind me of things that I probably have forgotten or just, just a positive voice and somehow, you know, maybe a little psychic knows exactly when it's needed. So I'm shouting out Corrie on this one.

Lainie Rowell: I love that. Yeah. The friends who just sense that you want that phone call that maybe you need that phone call.

Those are good friends to have.

Marisa Thompson: I love that. Right. Just that, that perfectly timed text and you just, Thank you for that.

Lainie Rowell: They knew I needed it. I love that.

Marisa Thompson: That's right.

Lainie Rowell: Marissa, people are gonna wanna connect with you if they're not already connected. What is the best way to do that?

Marisa Thompson: You know, I'm on all social media, but it can be tricky with a generic last name, like Thompson.

Yes. So if we just go to UnlimitedTeacher.com, you're gonna find all the links to all the things and we'll be able to connect. I'm looking forward to it. I want to hear what people think and what they're doing.

Lainie Rowell: Okay, so UnlimitedTeacher.com. That's right. I will put that in the show notes because that makes it the easiest.

Right? People can just click on it. In fact, I'll even put your social handles clickable in the show notes so people can go on that.

Marisa Thompson: Awesome. Awesome.

Lainie Rowell: And I have so much appreciation for the fact that when your last name is thompson, it's not going to be easy to grab a handle, especially across all the socials.

So I got really lucky that there's not a lot of Lainie out there, and I don't think I've come across a Lainie Rowell yet.

Marisa Thompson: Yeah, I had to throw, I had to throw the E in there. Yes. Marisa E Thompson. It sounds a little, a little fancy, but.

Lainie Rowell: It's very prestigious. I love it.

Marisa Thompson: It works. It works.

Lainie Rowell: Okay, so we'll get that all in the show notes and I've been looking forward to having you on for so long and I'm so glad we got this opportunity to talk and I appreciate everything you're doing for kids and adults and keep putting that great stuff out there and we'll keep consuming it, putting into practice ourselves.

Marisa Thompson: Yeah, I appreciate that. Thanks for having me. It was nice chatting.

Lainie Rowell: It's so great. Thank you all for listening.

Lainie Rowell

August 15, 2023

Episode 67 - The Impossible Gift with Guest Dave Burgess

Lainie Rowell

August 15, 2023

Shownotes:

This episode brings in a real heavy-hitter as I'm joined by the renowned Dave Burgess. We explore the incredible power of gratitude and Dave shares his authentic approach to showing gratitude to educators and readers. Dave also reveals an "impossible gift" that can have a huge impact in our daily lives. Join us for a heartwarming and empowering conversation that will leave you inspired to make a positive impact!

Trailer

Full Episode

About Our Guest:

Dave is the New York Times best-selling author of Teach Like a Pirate, the co-author of P is for Pirate, and the co-founder and president of Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc. which has published almost 200 books for educators around the world. He is also a professional development and keynote speaker well-known for his outrageously energetic and unique performance style. He is also the host of The Dave Burgess Show.

Website: daveburgessconsulting.com

Twitter: @burgessdave
Instagram: @dbc_inc

About Lainie:

Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And now, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You is available too!

Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.🙌

Just fill out the forms linked above and someone will get back to you ASAP!

Transcript:

Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Okay, my friends, so to say that I have been looking forward to having this guest on the pod would be a massive understatement because I have been looking forward to this for so long and I'm not gonna make him feel guilty about the fact that I might have asked a year or so ago for him to join. I am just gonna be grateful that he is here.

And friends, I am talking about the Dave Burgess. Welcome Dave.

Dave Burgess: Lainie. I am so excited to be on the show, and yes, as anyone who has emailed me, knows sometimes I am a email flake, but if you send me a message, like a direct message or something like that, all of a sudden you'll see I am much more efficient.

Lainie Rowell: It's good for people to know your communication language, right? Like this is the mode ...

Dave Burgess: Exactly.

Lainie Rowell: ...that people get me.

Dave Burgess: Yeah. People have their love languages and all these different things like, and so I have a communication language and it is not email.

Lainie Rowell: Well, I knew you would be generous enough to come on, and it was just a matter of time.

And so actually it was a message that I sent you, not an email that did the trick. So I'm just so happy you're here. Dave, if there is anyone who somehow does not know who you are, I'm going to do a brief introduction and then please feel free to add on. So Dave Burgess is a New York Times bestselling author of Teach Like a Pirate.

He's the co-author of P for Pirate and the co-founder and president of Dave Burgess Consulting Inc. He is also the host of an amazing podcast, the Dave Burgess Show .That barely scratches the surface. Dave, what else do you wanna tell us about yourself?

Dave Burgess: I think that's a good start. Let's just go from there, see how it goes.

Lainie Rowell: Well, see you're so humble because there's, there's so much, and I'm gonna throw this out here right now because I had a chance to see Lauren Kaufman in person a few days ago, and we thought it would be fun to run into a Barnes and Noble and play which of our friends have books in the store?

For the listener, if you're not familiar, it is incredibly hard to get a book in Barnes and Noble occupying shelf space, like they want stuff that flies off the shelf. And so that's what you will find in there. And of course, Teach Like a pirate was in there. And so we had to take a nice little selfie with the book. And then we were talking, and Lauren's like, you know, Dave just created a whole new style of writing in education where, well, this is my paraphrasing, but it feels more like you're sitting with a friend talking about best practices in a much more engaging and interactive way.

Dave Burgess: Well, thank you. You know, that's actually a very intentional part of the brand is that we wanted books, first of all, we wanted to elevate the voices of practitioners, people that are actually out there doing this stuff which is something that I don't think there was a lot of that before.

And then also writing in a much more conversational tone. Like I tell people like, we don't want the doctoral dissertation. We don't want the textbook. We want you to feel like someone who is really excited about what they're doing is sharing it with you. And that they're in a conversation with you.

And that's why, for example, sometimes, especially this time of the year, you'll see pictures of our books. People are reading them like at the beach or poolside. Like you don't read a workbook at the beach, but people will read a DBC book at the beach because it just has a little different feel to it.

And our authors also, we really work on them in maintaining their voice in the projects and a lot of education books today. No shade intended, but if you put them all out on a table and you shuffle the names around on the bottom, in a lot of cases it wouldn't matter. It's written third person, formal, academic.

Right. Yeah. But the idea of changing the names on the bottom of our books would be ridiculous because we are inside of our books and we work hard at that. Like Lainie, you are inside of your book. Like Evolving with Gratitude,. You are in there. Your personality, like you could meet you at a conference and you would go up and give you a hug, say hello because you feel like you know Lainie after reading the book and we try to do that as best we can with our projects.

Lainie Rowell: You do it so beautifully. And like Lauren pointed out in our conversation is you made this happen and the legacy of how this has just rippled through, I mean, how many books is it now, Dave? How many books have you put out into the world through DBC?

Dave Burgess: So I think between DBC and IMPress we're probably up around 200 or so.

Lainie Rowell: That's amazing.

Dave Burgess: I wanna go back to one thing you said too, Lainie.

Yeah. And that is that you mentioned the Barnes and Noble thing. That was one of the things that people told me. When I made the decision to start DBC, they said, if you do this, you will never see your book on a bookshelf. If you do it yourself, you cannot get into a big house bookseller without some gatekeeper like knocking that door down for you and so if you decide to do that, that's what the publishers told me. Like, you will never, ever see your book on like a Barnes and Noble shelf. And in that picture that you tweeted out there were four DBC Inc. books inside that picture. And if you've been in a Barnes & Noble lately, you know that the education section has shrunk and shrunk and shrunk.

And it's down to like one little case basically you know, a few shelves on one little row where it used to be a big giant thing. And so in that one little case there, you know, we had four books and it's a home-based business, you know, running it from the house. So that's something that I'm super proud of, that I didn't let those naysayers and the people that tried to be negative, like, you're shooting yourself in the foot if you do this yourself.

I didn't let that stop what we were trying to do and the vision for the company.

Lainie Rowell: It is tremendous. And let's just say when Lauren and I are taking that picture, it's like a selfie. We're in tight. You're right. It was exactly one case for the education section. And I remember where we're going and looking.

I'm like, where's the big sign for education? And it was tucked on the side and it was one case. And it was just that one section that you saw four DBC books. There were more DBC books and I should have taken a better shot where we got 'em all, but just a tremendous, tremendous thing that you have created here.

And so thank you for not only creating this new style of writing, but giving us all the permission to do it. And so I am truly honored to be part of the DBC family through IMPress, and I just, I just love that we get to have these books out there, like you said, by practitioners, for practitioners in that conversational tone.

It is something you wanna read on the beach and not something you feel like, Ugh, I have to read this, I get to read this.

Dave Burgess: I'll tell you a quick story, Lainie, I had a conversation one time that was kind of confrontational with the person who we had turned down for a project, by the way, obviously, we can't do all the books. And so some of the projects that we have turned down are just absolutely incredible. I love those people. I love their work. I love every single thing about them. We just can't do everything right. There was some reason why we couldn't do this. So I always kind of like, oh gosh, I don't want someone to think that we don't appreciate what they do as an educator 'cause we didn't do the book. I love everything about what they do and we just literally can't do all the books. But anyway, this person was very upset about it and what they had written was basically a doctoral dissertation. And I'm gonna tell you that I think this person was brilliant, like legitimately probably a genius.

And their work was genius. And I was trying to explain to them why we didn't publish the book. And he said, you don't understand, this is my life's work. And it was amazing. But I'm like, look, at some point you're gonna have to decide something. Are you writing this book to try to sound smart?

Are you writing this book to change the world? Because if you're writing this book to change the world, you need to write it so that people will read it and they will use it. So someone will publish your book and it's gonna sit pretty on a bookshelf. That's not the book we want. We want the book that is in someone's bag because they're taking it back and forth to work.

We want the book that has post-it notes sticking outta the top. We want the book with highlights in it. We want the book with the underlined stuff and the notes in the margin 'cause people are actually implementing the ideas so inspiration without implementation is a waste.

Don't just inspire me. I wanna know what I can do different next week when I get into my classroom or when I get into my principalship or whatever it might be. And so we want those real practical books that get used, not the book that looks beautiful on the shelf.

Lainie Rowell: I think that's so important that, do you want this to be the book that gets published or the book that gets read?

I'm paraphrasing obviously what you said, but I just think that's so important and something that you constantly remind me of as I think about the stuff that I put out there, it's not just because I wanna get more content out, more content out, it's like, what am I adding value with?

And so trying to, to be really intentional with that. And so I thank you for inspiring that, for giving us all that permission to do that conversational, really practical, actionable. It's inspiring, but we can do this and I really appreciate that. Now hopefully I've embarrassed you enough.

If not, I'll try for it later. But I will get to a first question for the pod, and we can take this in whatever direction you want to go, Dave. But what does gratitude mean to you?

Dave Burgess: Okay, so here's the way I think I'm gonna tackle this. I'm gonna try to sell you something. Okay, so I'm a reasonable salesperson.

I've sold a lot of things sold probably all in, all told over a million books and speaking different things. So I want you to be on alert, because I'm not gonna tell you the price until the end. Okay? So, I want you to have all your defenses up because I'm pretty persuasive.

Okay? So here's what I'm gonna try to sell you. If you'll do this, you will immediately feel better. It'll have a positive impact on your life. Not only will it have a positive impact on your life, but every single person that you do this with, it'll have a positive impact on their life too. It will change your day and it'll change their day too.

Not only will it change their day, but the very mere fact that it changes their day, they will go off into their interactions and change other people's lives too. And it's gonna have a rippling, exponential effect of a positive nature in the world. If you'll just agree to do this. And it's easy, it's simple.

You could do it every day. But here's the problem. I'm gonna have to eventually tell you the price. It's free. Are you gonna do this thing? Are you gonna buy this Lainie?

Lainie Rowell: I'm sold.

Dave Burgess: That's gratitude.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah.

Dave Burgess: That's gratitude. It's not only will it make you feel better when you extend gratitude to someone else, it makes them feel better too, and they go off and it has that exponential ripple effect.

So how is this not something that we don't intentionally make a part of our lives? It has to be there. Showing thankfulness and appreciation for the blessings of your life and the blessings that other people are in your life. It's like, I talked about this with kindness one time, called it the impossible gift.

It's an impossible gift. What do you mean? It helps everybody and it's free and it's simple to give. Like why are we giving it all the time? So that's what gratitude is.

Lainie Rowell: I love that you hone in on the, obviously all the positive benefits, but also the contagiousness of it, right? It's something that you do for someone else and it's gonna pay itself forward, and that's really pretty special.

And, I like that, the impossible gift. Ooh, you just named this episode.

Dave Burgess: And, and that's something you talk about a lot, Lainie with the social contagion, when you're putting this kind of energy out into the world It reverberates, right?

Yeah. That, that, that frequency, it's, it's amazing.

Lainie Rowell: And I see you do that in every aspect of your work. I mean, if anyone has been in one of your keynotes, it's contagious. No one is immune. You are going to feel that energy. You're gonna get all excited. And I wonder if you could help me think through this, well, why don't more people do this?

What do you think some of those barriers are? What's keeping some from doing this?

Dave Burgess: I think that a lot of people have a little bit of a negativity bias. Mm-hmm. And this is, this is kind of a cliche, but I'll give you the example 'cause it'll just resonate immediately so much with teachers is if you have students review your class and write things about your class we all know exactly where I'm going with this. 99 kids can say it was the best class they've ever had in their life, and that it changed their whole world and they love everything about you.

One kid. In the midst of maybe 10 compliments says one thing. That's negative or bad. What are we gonna perseverate over? What are we gonna really walk away with knocking around in our head? Is it gonna be that one comment? Right? So we have this negativity bias, and that's why it, it has to be such an intentional thing that you that you look for these areas of positivity in your life.

And you, you get to do that. You are the producer, you are the director. I just did a podcast recently about don't buy tickets to bad movies. Right? And the idea was like, Hey, if you go to a movie and it's horrible, you don't like it, it makes you feel bad, you're upset about it, and you walk out even almost feeling a little traumatized, right?

And then the next day you're trying to decide what to do. Are you ever going back to that movie? Of course you're not going back to that movie, right? You would never buy a ticket to the same bad movie again. But we do that with our brains all the time. Something happened in our life and it was negative, and we can feel bad whenever we go back there and think about it.

And we just go back and we just rub over that over and over and over again in our brain. And it's like, sort of like when someone has like maybe a, a problem in their mouth with like a tooth missing or something like that, and they run their tongue back and forth over like it's. We do that all the time, and that's what we do with some of the traumatic things that happened in our lives.

And so you own the theater, you direct the camera, you are the one that decides what plays in your mind. And Marcus Aurelius said that the things that you think about determine the quality of your mind, your soul takes on the color of your thoughts. And so that intentionality is something I think that is missing for a lot of people with gratitude and why they don't do it.

Lainie Rowell: It's so empowering the way you're talking about it, that you are the producer, you're the director, you own the theater, and I think that's really important because I think there's times where we feel totally out of control. And so I hear you saying, well, we have so much more control than we realize.

And so I appreciate that a ton. That's the power of gratitude. That's the power of kindness. The power of hope. There's so many things that we actually have a lot more control over that we tend to think we do. I wonder, could you share with us some of the ways that you experience and express gratitude in your life. And I will just say, and again, I know I keep coming back to your work as a publisher and a speaker, but I think it is a form of gratitude that you are amplifying the voices of other educators.

You could have written a New York Times bestselling book and been done. You did not need to go on to do this for others. It costs a lot of money to produce a book. I don't know if people understand that. I'm just gonna put that out there for you. If anyone has ever looked into self-publishing, it is very expensive.

So when DBC or any publisher for that matter says, we will publish your book, they are right then assuming financial responsibility and it's a big price. And then they have to hope to make that back. So to me that is one way that you show gratitude is that you are amplifying the voices of other educators. I mean, you really had to pave that road that was not something that was handed to you and, and you are offering it to other educators.

So I'll just put that other, I think that's one way you're doing it.

Dave Burgess: I tell people all the time, I wasn't trying to write the encyclopedia teaching. I tried to write some things that I thought were useful and successful in my classroom and there are lots of things that are not in my book that are unbelievable teaching ideas.

And the reason they're not on the book is, first of all, it can't be 800 pages long. And also because maybe I wasn't very good at them. Maybe that's why I signed the book because like I wasn't very good at it and I wanted it to write it from a very authentic place. If it's in the book, I did it and I found it to be successful.

If it's not in the book, it's not saying I don't think it's a great idea. Maybe I just didn't do it successfully. And so I knew that I wanted to try to amplify the voices of other people and to kind of amplify my impact in the world. I had built a platform, I had gained some notoriety and so, Then try to transforming what I do to being less about my project and being more about using my platform to help other people spread their messages was an important thing.

I think another way that I like to show gratitude and I work with authors are showing gratitude, and this is something that you're amazing at by the way, is that is interacting with your readers. Now, I used to be more relentless about this than I was, but when I first started, lemme just tell you something.

If you tweeted something about Teach Like a Pirate, I appeared so quickly in your feed that you thought maybe I was looking over your shoulder when you were typing it. Like you look behind you saying like, is he watching me right now? How did a response get in here that fast? Like I just tweeted this person who I don't know, some author on the internet, right?

And I would be so fast into that feed saying like, oh my gosh, thank you for reading Teach Like a Pirate, hashtag Gratitude and something like this. And that's something that we really work with our authors too, and what sometimes authors don't understand. I'm not saying that this is necessarily deserved, but it's the truth.

The truth is, is that if you are an author and you have written a book that someone thinks maybe had an impact on their lives and they reach out and say something about it when you respond, that is a huge moment for that person. They're just putting a tweet out into the ether, right? And like, and all of a sudden the author of the book, they just read, shows up on their feed and is talking to them and interact with them and is showing some gratitude and thankfulness for them helping to say something or saying something nice about the message. That's actually a bigger moment than probably is deserved to be, but it is. And so that's something that I think is really important. Some people say, I don't feel like I should go in there all the time and talk to them 'cause it makes it seem like I'm just like all about myself. Like, no, no, no. That's not about you. That's about them. Imagine you say something nice to somebody and they just walked by. They heard you, but didn't even like acknowledge you and just walked by. That would be rude. Well, the same thing is true on the internet.

Someone says something nice about you if you just scroll past that and don't say anything, that's actually kind of arrogant, right? That's a big thing they just did for you. And so you should interact with that person and want to be a part of this community of people who are reading your project.

I think that's an important way to show gratitude is as an author.

Lainie Rowell: I love that. Anytime anyone mentions anything about Evolving with Gratitude and Bold Gratitude, I am trying to catch onto that because that means they're with me in the message.

They're supporting this thing that I am super passionate about and I absolutely wanna connect with them and see how we can continue this work together. So I am always very, very grateful for that. And then also another way you amplify the voices of the authors and those who are reading and interacting is you are retweeting, you're commenting.

When someone's talking about a DBC book, you find it, it's like a superpower you have, you are able to find, oh, they're talking about Lead with Collaboration. Thank you for sharing. And you're right there with it and that is something that I am just in awe of and I'm very grateful for as an author, but also as a reader of these books.

Like, oh, I didn't even realize that book came out, but I saw it in Dave's feed, look what's available now. So I think that's really helpful.

Dave Burgess: That's something that we focus on too. I mentioned this on a recent podcast that came out. If you think that there's good work in the world to be shared, it's not just okay to share it.

You have a moral imperative to share it. And not only do you have a moral imperative to share it, but you have a moral imperative to get good at sharing it, to put in the time, to put in the energy, to build the skillset, to learn how do I find all these tweets about the DBC inc books? Well, I look for it, right?

I'm searching, I'm constantly looking for ways to interact with the readership. Not because it's going to sell more books, which it does by the way. Because I am also authentically grateful for the fact that someone has spent their money, not only their money, but their time, picking up one of our books, one of our projects, and investing their time into it.

And that's something I don't take for granted ever. I'll never take for granted the fact that these things cost money. These things take time. And so I want to try to really authentically interact with that person and let them know that we appreciate that.

Lainie Rowell: And authentic is a key word there because that is exactly what I see. I see you very authentic in your appreciation of what people are putting out there, the authors, the readers, everyone. It just is so genuine. It really is. I get my opportunity here to record saying as many nice things as I can, and I just want you to know that I see this and I was astounded by it.

From the author side, also the reader side. It just shows how much you value educators and the work that they do in every role that they have. So I appreciate it and it's important to share it, it's important to share it as best as possible.

Dave Burgess: So Lainie, I wanna tell you something that I'm working on today.

Lainie Rowell: Please.

Dave Burgess: I'm working on this thing that we talked about when you were on my podcast. You can find that episode by the way. Lainie was on The Dave Burgess Show. It's fantastic. And that is indebtedness where we have this tendency to want to like always deflect and so that was one of the things I decided, I'm gonna work on this in this podcast today. Like, I know Lainie's gonna say these good things, nice things because you always do. And I'm going to really work on sitting with it and be thankful for it and just appreciate it and try not to feel this great sense of indebtedness.

I'm working on this thing that we talked about when we talked on my podcast.

Lainie Rowell: I struggle with it to this day. I think I'm getting better, but I do hope you get a chance to sit with it 'cause there is so much goodness that not just me, that so many people see. And there's so much over a million books out there, a million copies sold thanks to this legacy that you've created and it just keeps going. Just keeps getting better and better. So I'm very excited. I know we have new DBC books coming out all the time, and I'm gonna give you a chance to share for those who may not be directly connected to you. There's a lot of people already connected to you, but just in case they're not you can share how to connect with you.

But first, would you like to give a shout out?

Dave Burgess: Yeah, so it's funny, I ran across something before this that I think it does tie into your message so well. And Jack Kornfield has this quote and he says, if your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.

Okay. And I think there's lots of people who, you know, are very compassionate for other people, but sometimes they have a difficult time directing that same compassion inward. Right. And same thing with gratitude. And I was watching this Snoop Dogg, of course, you know, we have to reference Snoop Dogg whenever we can.

So Snoop Dogg was getting a star on the walk of fame in Hollywood and he gave his acceptance speech. He was thanking people and he said, and last but not least, I want to thank me. And then he says, I wanna thank me for all the hard work. I want to thank me for not taking any days off. I wanna thank me for believing in myself.

I want, and he like goes down through all these different things that he was thankful for. And I, it is just hearing Snoop Dogg do it is just like, It's so like on point, right? But I do think that's something, you know, when we think about gratitude, we usually think about sharing it with other people.

But I do think, you know, we should also focus some of that Gratitude towards ourself. Like Jack Kornfield said, compassion, if it doesn't include you, it's not complete. But I won't use me. My gratitude ... we have this multimillion dollar posting company, but it's a skeleton crew.

Like DBC Inc right now is run by three people. So there's me, but then my Gratitude will be focused towards my amazing partners in this. My team teammates Tara Martin. Who does all the director of publishing and does marketing and communication with authors and all these different things. If you see me do some cool graphic, it's probably made by Tara.

And in addition to being a speaker and author herself, and then also behind the scenes, the person that you never see, but is really responsible for making sure that we're always moving forward and getting the books where they need to go and getting things up, files uploaded, and distribution channels in line and all the different royalties.

Like everything that really makes DBC run as a business is Wendy Van Dyke. So Wendy Van Dyke and Tara Martin, DBC does not run without those two. And so that's where I like to send my gratitude.

Lainie Rowell: I love that and I have so much love and appreciation for both of those people. Obviously you, Dave. Hopefully I've properly expressed that, but Tara, who actually contributed with Tisha Richmond to Evolving with Gratitude and Wendy is constantly doing things in the background and with the release of Bold Gratitude, this, journal, which is a very different thing, you all kind of jumped in and like make sure and do this and this and this.

Making sure that there was no stone left unturned. And so I appreciate that 'cause there's so much that goes on behind the scenes. And even going back to your reference of Snoop and his acceptance speech and thanking himself, I think there could be a perception of Snoop as he's very chill.

This guy is relaxed, it seems like, but he is just crushin it, doing so many things and there's a lot of people who it might look like success has just kind of fallen in their lap, but they're actually just doing so much work constantly and it's just a good thing to appreciate that in yourself and then to also acknowledge that in others.

And so, yes, the DBC team is very near and dear to my heart, and obviously IMPress as well. Dave, do you wanna say for those who are listening and don't quite know how it works with DBC and IMPress, You'll say it better than I do, but what that relationship is.

Dave Burgess: Yeah.

It's a fantastic collaboration between Paige Couros and George Couros and the DBC team. And so DBC Inc published The Innovator's Mindset by George. It's one of our flagship books, one of our most successful books of all time. And one of the things that George wanted to do with Paige was to be able to kind of curate his own line of projects but without all the headache of doing everything.

And so the production team of DBC Inc does the behind the scenes work on IMPress books. And so I'm co-owner with George and Paige of IMPress books. It's sort of like a subsidiary of DBC Inc. But George and Paige do the primary curation and development of that line of books and those titles.

Lainie Rowell: So Paige has spent a lot of time with me, especially through the stages of development for Evolving of Gratitude and Bold Gratitude and just really everyone, DBC, IMPress. They've all just been so lovely to work with. So I know you can't publish all the books that come to you, but for those who are thinking about writing a book, you would be very blessed to be a part of the DBC team. So I encourage you to, to put your best foot forward, and if that works out, that would be a great blessing for you. So with that, Dave, how do people connect with you in case they're not already connected?

Dave Burgess: So I'm easy to find if you're on Twitter or X I should say, if you're on X I'm @BurgessDave, that's the first time I said that. My name just flipped around Burgess Dave, if you're an Instagram person, I'm @DBC_Inc. We're at daveburgessconsulting.com. And I have the Dave Burgess Show podcast. And I am a beginning TikTok person. @Pirate.Teacher I only have two posts up, but hopefully more soon.

Lainie Rowell: You're way ahead of me. I have an account and I believe it is empty, and then there's like threads too, which is also, I think I have one post in there.

Dave Burgess: I haven't got over there yet.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah, I mean, I got my number and then I think I'm good. There's so many spaces and places and I wanna connect with everyone, it's just finding the time to do it in a million different places. That's hard. Right.

Dave Burgess: Yeah.

Lainie Rowell: Okay, my friend, I am so thankful that you made the time to come on here and you're very generous with your time and you really have supported me in countless ways, and so I thank you for that and I really, again appreciate you joining me on the pod.

Dave Burgess: Hey, it was an honor to be on the show and we are so proud to be able to publish not only Evolving with Gratitude, but the Bold Gratitude journal too.

Which is just so fun to see people working with right now. So thanks so much for the work you put out into the world and we love having you part of the family.

Lainie Rowell: Well, thank you. Alright, my friends, have a great day, night, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, enjoy.

Lainie Rowell

August 8, 2023

Episode 66 - Small Bites of Learning with Guest Maxwell Roach

Lainie Rowell

August 8, 2023

Shownotes:

Such a pleasure of chatting with the dynamic Maxwell Roach! In this convo, we delve into his journey from a computer science student to a musician sharing the stage with Beyonce and the Rolling Stones to his latest gig, educator. Maxwell's passion for the potential of young minds is infectious. Join us as we explore how personalized learning and cultivating expert learners can unlock endless possibilities for children and adults alike. Get ready for a conversation filled with wisdom and insights that will inspire you to embrace lifelong learning.

Trailer

Full Episode

About Our Guest:

Maxwell is a children’s book author and the Founder of JonAyves Learning Club, a personalized learning organization that teaches children concepts such as long division as early as the age of 3. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Toronto and is certified as a Professional in Human Resources (PHRi). As a former musician, sharing stages with Beyoncé and the Rolling Stones, leading a child care organization as CEO, and working as a consultant for ecommerce tech companies globally, Maxwell values the need to "fill the industry gaps" by way of disruption and modern solutions.

Website: jonayves.com

Twitter: @JonAyvesTV
Instagram: @AJsHouseKids

About Lainie:

Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And now, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You is available too!

Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.🙌

Just fill out the forms linked above and someone will get back to you ASAP!

Transcript:

Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Okay, friends, I have another amazing guest for you. I am very excited to welcome Maxwell Roach to the show. Hi, Maxwell.

Maxwell Roach: Hi there. How are you? Thank you again. This is great.

Lainie Rowell: I'm so happy to have you. I'm gonna call you Max, but I wanna make sure people know Maxwell Roach because that's easier to find online.

So that's that's a good thing to know. Right.

Maxwell Roach: Perfect. That's wonderful. Appreciate it.

Lainie Rowell: Well, I'm gonna introduce you and then ask you to jump in with all the extra details you are comfortable sharing with us. And so Maxwell is a children's book author and the founder of JonAves Learning Club, which is a personalized learning organization that teaches children concepts such as long division, as early as age three. I'm excited to hear more about that. He has so many accolades and I always love meeting people who have such a wide range of talents and Max former musician sharing the stage with Beyonce and the Rolling Stones. I mean, is this correct?

Maxwell Roach: The research is correct. Absolutely. Lots of fun there, too. Lots of stories outta that.

Lainie Rowell: Well, there's a lot more to you. So Max, I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to you to please fill in all the important information that we need to know about you.

Maxwell Roach: That's amazing, Lainie, thank you so much.

This has, this has been great. I mean, we, we connected a little bit on Twitter as well, and we, we were able to get the ball moving on this, and I really appreciate it. I think this year has been really interesting because, it's funny. I, I think I've probably, I've been on quite a few podcasts this year and this one I was specifically looking forward to and I was explaining to you earlier as well, because sometimes the conversation on being thankful and being gracious and having Gratitude for things is generally left maybe for last at times, when really that should be the, the forerunner, right, should be the front runner.

So this is really fantastic, really looking forward to this. So, yeah, I mean, you pretty much said it in the intro, right? Fantastic. So thank you. I've, I've been kind of doing quite a few things across many different domains over the years, and it's, it's been a lot of fun. There's been some stress involved, there's been a lot of learning.

It's been a lot of change. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't edit any of this, right. I wouldn't change any of this. I think it's fantastic. And you know, I actually started out going into computer science first before anything. Of course I was playing music and you know, I'm playing music as a child.

I'm playing in church, I'm playing with bands, you know, family. Everybody has some sort of musical instrument at any time, right? So all in that, you know, I'm going through high school and I'm thinking, okay, what do I wanna do? And, and to be honest, didn't really want to play much music at all. That wasn't really what I wanted to do.

So I ended up going into computer science. And that was a very interesting kind of situation because I realized I didn't want to look at a blank screen all day and, you know, add random syntax and code to it. It wasn't really what I was interested in, even though I loved web development, I loved graphic design, all these things as well throughout high school.

So, Long story short, my mom found a school for me to go to and said, you have to do something with your time. So go to this music school. And it was across Canada. I, I was living in Windsor, Ontario at the time, and that's right across from Detroit, Michigan. Right. So that's kind of the motor city capital, all those things.

And. So I ended up, you know, I think I was, I was 18 at the time. I went for the first time away from home, right? Living away from my parents and started going to this music school where I, I learned so much and when I say I learned a lot, it's kind of, I. The, I think the more I move forward in life, the more I realize how important that period was, because I was learning how to approach mastery in something and I was going in there to learn how to play the drums.

Right. And of course, I had played previously in all of these things, right? So, went through that, came to Toronto, Ontario right after graduating there with a diploma in Arts and Music from Edmonton. I came to the University of Toronto and finished up my studies here, but pretty much as soon as I moved to Toronto, I ended up touring immediately.

You know, I, I was connecting with people networking. I learned how to, and let me tell you, there's something about music that really teaches you how to network because musicians are very interesting creatures, right? We are quite artistic. So there, there's a lot within that, right? And you really learn how to network in that respect.

So, What I found was that being in the music industry and being able to understand what it was like to to travel, you know, for months on end, right? Being able to meet new people and perform with individuals almost nightly, who you may not have met, you may have met them that night and you're performing with them.

Yeah. And then you go the next night and meet with someone else and you're performing with them. So you're building this network, you're building this comradery with people immediately as soon as you meet them. Now, what's fantastic about this is that all of this translates into different. Domains, I guess you could say, right?

Whether it's into corporate business world, whether it's into education, which is where I'm finding myself in right now. What a home to be in right now. I think this is fantastic. Whether it's into the food business where I launched a bread product into the greater Toronto area, into grocery stores there, right?

Whether it's in software development and having to hire software developers and, you know work on, work on projects where we're, we're developing tools for, for phones and all of these things, right? Whether it's talking to administrations across the world and having to administer scholarships to their postdoctoral students and speak to the professors about these concepts, that to be honest, to this day, I question how I even learned some of these concepts, right?

But it really all boiled down to what I found was approach, approaching that mastery of learning how to do something very well. Now whether I'm the best at it or not, I'm, I will never be the best because there's always someone better than you. It's what it is, right? You come to that conclusion very quickly in music as well, but being able to be on that constant quest of mastery has always been something that I found has been beneficial for me.

And moving into education. I mean, this is the space for all of that. It's constant lifelong learning. Even as an educator, it's constant lifelong learning. I mean, children are being brought up in completely different environments day in and day out, right? Year in and year out. I guess I could say right from one moment you're at home learning on your computer, right?

For a year, right? And you're in kindergarten. To all of the different things that are happening now. We're we're, you know, we're combating mental health now. We're combating, you know diagnoses of different sorts and whatnot. So how do we deal with that as educators while all at the same time not burning out our teachers?

Right? So I found that this culmination of knowledge and understanding and, and work and stress and all these things that I was talking about previously has really brought me to this place here now where I can at least maybe lend some sort of a helping hand. You know? And those who have been in the education industry for far longer than me have been, they've welcomed me with open arms.

So I'm really excited to be here. And, you know, it's, it's been a blast so far.

Lainie Rowell: Well, we're happy to have you. And as I was listening to you, I had so many thoughts and one of them is, Yes, I, I played piano as a child for years. It did not get me on stage with Beyonce. And I think what you're pointing out is so many of the little things that are actually big, big things that are sometimes invisible to people on the outside not knowing your whole story.

And so I really appreciate you talking about the importance of connecting that networking. And that search for continuous improvement, and it's not that you're not good enough, but that you can always be better. I won't always necessarily be the best person performing, but I can be the best I can be and I can be better tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.

And I can keep striving for that. And I think that mindset is what gets you on stage with Beyonce and the Rolling Stones is I can always be better and I'm here to connect with people who can teach me to be better too.

Maxwell Roach: Oh, 100%. And I think that is really where not only network, but also mentors, also friends, right?

Those who you can be close with, and also your students as well. All of this helps you become a better individual. It helps you either have more patience. It helps you be able to create concise ideas and display them in a way that's digestible. This is very important skillset to have, right? That I found that I can take music as an example.

You really need to, and you can understand playing piano as well, that there, there are, you have to learn how to play with one finger before you can learn how to play with your whole hand. So being able to understand this is actually very important because you can take this concept and bring it into education, right?

And this is what I found is sort of the basis of a lot of what we're doing at our organization right now anyway. And also how I just seem to want to operate in life anyway. I want everything to be digestible. It's not fun if you're trying to, you know, you have a full mouth of food, right? Mm-hmm. And you're like, you're chewing on it.

It's like, oh, I can't breathe or anything, right? Small bites are fantastic. Right. It, your body digest, it's a lot better, right? You're able to enjoy, right? You're able to have more conversation with people as well, right? You're able to expand on other ideas. You're able to taste the food. Why not taste the food while you're eating it?

Right? Instead of having to, you know, eat too much of it because oh, you're, you're trying to scarf it down, not interesting. So being able to apply all of that, I think, to education and to even just navigating life in itself and being thankful for all of it, right? Like, why not? It's fantastic.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah. Well, I feel like you already answered my first question.

What does Gratitude mean to you? So you are an amazing guest. You already did that, so thank you for that.

Maxwell Roach: I wanna trying to stay ahead of the game.

Lainie Rowell: You, you're ahead. Thank you. Keeping me on track. I wanna dive a little deeper into the work that you're currently doing, and I know that you said educator, and I wanna, I wanna explore that a little bit further and, and any ways that that connects to Gratitude would be lovely.

But tell us about JonAves, the learning club.

Maxwell Roach: Yeah. I mean this is, this has been quite the journey. We started this organization, Around a year and a half ago, right? So it was maybe not that long, so April of 20 22. And it started out with a very interesting thought process that we figured was going to make this become the greatest thing on the planet.

And I think everyone always needs to think that way, right? Whatever you're pursuing think it's gonna be the greatest thing ever, right? Because it might be right? So why not? So I guess to bring it sort of back a little bit further, I mean, JohnAves in itself, right? We were discussing earlier, you know, like where, where does this, where does this name come from?

Right. So I have two children, right? My wife and I, we have two children. So one is our, our daughter is nine years old, our son is six years old, and at the time of this episode anyway, so our son's name is Jonah and our daughter's name is Ava. So what we did, we just put them, put their names together, right?

Made a little soup right there, and here we are. Right? So JonAves Learning Club is where we're at. And the reason why we did this is because they're the basis of why we're able to have any sort of curriculum right now that moves things forward, right? Any sort of process that was created was based on the process that we used with our own children.

Now, As, you know, we were speaking earlier as well about, you know, concepts such as long division, right? How do you, how do you teach long division to a three-year-old, right? How do you teach double digit multiplication to young children like that? And I think what it comes down to is, again, it's the bite-sized modules and, I like to use the word consistency, but I feel like consistency is something that's overused and it's something that is actually very difficult to achieve because I understand it, right.

I've been tracking. So I've been trying to do a little bit more, you know, workouts at the gym, right? I just, I go to my basement, I've got some weights down there, I'll do that. Right? It's very difficult to stay very consistent with this, right? Or even any level of consistency. So when I kind reflect on how we raise our children, we had a semi consistent model with them.

But over the long term, when you look at it, there's consistency, right? Doesn't have to be every day. It doesn't have to be every other other day. It's just, you have to look at it on the macro, right? So we were introducing, you know, reading practices with our children from even when they were in the womb, really talking to them, reading to them everything.

So, you know, when our children sort of came out, it was, here, here's some concepts for you. Here's what we're doing. This is the content that we're, that we're consuming. And a lot of it, to be honest, again, I may get some flack for it, right? But YouTube is fantastic. If you utilize it for the reasons that are positive, right?

It's very easy to to, to fall into other traps and whatnot, right? But being able to use it for an educational source, fantastic. But here's the thing, one-on-one instruction is also very important, the personalized side of it. So not just sitting my children down there and having them just watching a video.

If I'm able to engage them at the same time, now we have a relationship, now we have a lesson. Right? And that's fantastic. So being able to do this, this is one of the basis sort of models that we use with our company currently, right? So the whole concept behind everything, keeping everything bite-sized, really just giving in doses as required and in the, in the, the style that each child requires.

Has really been the basis and it's really been helpful for being able to teach you know, somewhat, I'd say advanced concepts, let's say to those who are in their early years. Now, I have received a lot of pushback on this, tons of pushback because here's the thing I use, you were mentioning educator. I use the term educator very lightly when it comes to myself.

The only reason I use it for myself is because I'm in the space. But the reality is that there are, there are individuals like yourself, there are individuals, like all the teachers that are in the classroom every day, right? They're right in the thick of it. And I, I don't know how they do it. It's incredible.

I can't, it's that, that's not my skillset. Right. Even though I am in the classroom with these children, right. And I'm working with them, you know, in, in our classrooms, it's fine. But I think what's very important here is that when it comes down to understanding that, you know, Education is such a formal and important part of lives from early years.

There's a lot of research. Over the years that have had sort of conflicting, I guess, I ideologies where, hey, we just want the children to play, let them explore all of these things. Right? I think that's fantastic. And a place for it. I think there's also a place for being able to sit down and have some level of structure.

There's room for everything, right? So how do we create that balance? And this is an ongoing conversation, which I'm sure you know all about, right? Happens all the time. We're all on Twitter. We all see it. So I think, again, For our company personally and where we are at, and, and to be honest, our methodologies and how it worked.

We love the concept of making the work, quote unquote, into play so that the, the kids have no choice but to think that what they're doing is play anyway. I. So it's all great. It's all fantastic. But again, I'm coming at it from a bit of a different angle where again, I play drums, right? So this, this kind of mentality of having play involved is very important.

But you know, personalized, personalized a hundred percent. That's where we're at and that's how we run kind of everything that we do so far.

Lainie Rowell: So lemme ask you this, and thank you for asking yourself the tough question before I had to do it. I appreciate that.

Maxwell Roach: Ahead of the game.

Lainie Rowell: Again, I feel like I'm not running the show and I'm fine with it.

I'm here for it. So my question would be, I hear you saying personalization and I guess my follow up question would be, it's not that your goal so much is. I wanna teach long division to three year olds. That's not necessarily the goal, but to me what I'm hearing you say is that you believe kids are capable of amazing, tremendous things, and when you personalize, it's astounding what they can achieve even at very young ages.

Is that fair to say?

Maxwell Roach: Absolutely. You probably put it better than I did. Right. I definitely feel that it's not the actual skillset that you have. This is actually a very interesting topic because I've had discussions with many people where they talk about gifts and talents, right?

So full disclaimer, both my parents are licensed ministers, so some of the lingo that I may use may come from that, right? It's, it's what it is. It's how I grew up. Some people say, I have a gift for this, or I have a talent for this, or whatever it might be, right? I'll use the word gift. In this particular scenario, what I've found is that sometimes people confuse gift with skillset.

Now skillset can easily be learned. And when I say easily, I mean there's a formula to it. You go, you do the work, you be consistent, right? This difficult thing that we speak of, right? And then there you go. You have that skillset. As an example, myself, I play music, I play drums. I mean, I like it. I'm not doing it now, right?

I do it sometimes now, right? It's fine, but I'm not doing it now. Does that mean that it was my gift or is it my gift? Or maybe my gift doesn't actually have anything to do with that. I mean, who knows? So my thought process is I wanna find the gifts in people. I wanna see what is it that they have that is independent of the skillset.

So long division. Sure it's a skill. Great. Now you know it. Now apply that ability on how you were able to master that process and put it somewhere else. See what happens. I guarantee you, if you can understand that, you can apply that same process somewhere else, right? And then try it somewhere else. Try it somewhere else.

Now I'm a living product of this, and again, I'm not saying, Hey everyone, go quit your jobs and try something else. Right? This is not any legal advice or any advice. It's for things that you should do on your own. Right? But for myself personally, I've moved from industry to industry and I've seen some level of success in all of them because I've applied this process that I thought would work for myself.

When I was looking to approach mastery in music, right. And it's, that's the process that works for me. It's the process that I feel works for those who are coming through the program as well. And the thing is, is that we just tailor it that, so you're correct. The personalized side of it is not based on the actual work.

It itself, it's based on creating a process so that you can apply that to anything that you're doing.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah, cultivating expert learners is what I hear you saying. It's about really learning to learn, and that's far more valuable than any specific skillset because if you can learn how to learn, if you can become an expert learner, you can learn anything.

All the doors are open. Absolutely. So I think absolutely. I think your agility, your experience in all the different fields is a testament to that. And I think a lot of us move in in different places. I've made some lane changes without signaling and that's fine. Right?

Maxwell Roach: Yeah. Sometimes it's scary for the people who are behind you or ahead of you. Right. Sometimes the car's broken, so you're the blinker's out and you just gotta make the move. So all of it is, is what it is. Right.

Lainie Rowell: Thanks for joining me in that analogy.

Maxwell Roach: Gotta do it.

Lainie Rowell: Well, my friend, is there anything more you wanna tell us about your story, about JonAves?

Maxwell Roach: Well, I think a lot of the, the reason why I was so happy to be here is because of the Gratitude portion.

Right. And to be honest, it got me thinking a lot and you know, I'm generally thinking, I'm thinking before I go on podcast. Right. This one was, was very interesting because. It kind of got me thinking about what are the things that we are grateful for, for ourselves, and also how do we express that to others, right?

For things that we may be grateful for for the things that they bring to either our lives or to the general public or whatever that might be. And one of the things that I was thinking about was, well, within myself, I found that I've really trimmed many activities that I take part in right now. I don't really go out much.

Right. Again, I've been out and around the world quite a bit, right. So it's fine. But I do enjoy networking. I love those things as well. I can appreciate social media as well and things like that, right. But I've definitely dialed back a lot of, of what I consume both physically and also mentally and everything, right?

And I see that as way of looking at Gratitude or even a way of being grateful for what we have been given, even being grateful for what our bodies are providing to us, because our bodies are very, very, I guess the word could be meticulous in the way that it does what it does.

Right? So if I am making sure that what I put into my own body, Both mentally, physically, whatever it might be for some people spiritually as well, then that's all Gratitude, right? When it is positive right now, again, people do what they do. Right. Myself included, right. I'm, I am not exempt from any of this though I think just having the mindset of being thankful that we're given health, we're given strength, we're given life, all of these things is very important and

there are so many levels to Gratitude as well, where even as an example, right, let's say you have a mentor. Your mentor gives you advice. So if you act on that advice from someone who's giving you that sort of direction, that in itself is being very grateful for the, the time that was spent, for the information that was given.

All of these things, I would even put this into the classroom. So I actually thank my children. Every time they come in, I say, did you do your homework? And they say, yes. I say thank you, because they didn't have to do it. I'm very thankful that they took my advice and did the homework, right? It's almost like they are, they are showing Gratitude effectively for the advice that I've given them, right?

And I thank them for that. So I think being able to see that everywhere is really important. And, you know, I wish we did actually spend some more time on this as well. Maybe we'll come back and do another one, but I think there's a lot to unpack there as well. And you know, why not just see, see Gratitude, and see thankfulness and, and gratefulness everywhere.

You know, I think it's very important.

Lainie Rowell: I really appreciate that perspective, and I think that one of the things that I've spent the last few years as I've been taking this deep dive on Gratitude is really expanding my definition and my view on it and realizing that it is, like you said, in so many facets of your life.

Once you start to look for it and you go, oh, this is how this relationship is nurtured through Gratitude, is that we do these things for each other and I'm helping you and offering you this support, and you are, you're in it with me, taking me up on this support and, and learning with me, and I think that's really important.

I also wanna touch on, a few months ago, I read Dr. Cassie Holmes Happier Hour. I don't know if you've had a chance to read that, but Yeah,

Maxwell Roach: Very familiar.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah, I hear that as you're sharing, because what I think you did, and, and not to say that you did it because of the book, but maybe, but what I hear you did is you did a time audit.

You looked at how you were spending your time, and then you said, well, here's how I wanna craft my time. This is actually where I wanna put my focus. And I think that's a really important thing because I think it's very easy to lead a distracted life. I think it's very easy to lose hours on devices. I'm guilty of it to this day, but I try for it to be more of okay, I'm ready to sacrifice some hours for this versus it just kind of getting away from me. And so I think that's a really lovely thing. And then I hear you savoring life. And so to me those are, those are all to do with Gratitude

Maxwell Roach: A hundred percent. And what's really interesting as well about content and online and scrolling and, you know, looking at, at any and everything that someone else has to say about their lives.

Right? That's pretty much how I look at it, is that, I was thinking about this as I was driving in the car actually today when I was coming, getting ready for this and being thankful for the fact that you can make choices. You are absolutely allowed to make whatever choice and then at that point, I'm so thankful for social media.

I'm thankful for YouTube algorithms. I'm thankful for TikTok algorithms because once I choose to, to take a listen to or watch certain content, it's just given to me. I don't even have to look for it. It's amazing. Incredible. Right. So for myself, as I kind of keep kind of looking into it and experiencing this sort of direction of Gratitude as well, I'm starting to, it's almost automatically being curated for me that the information that I need is just coming to me. Right. So, Why not just continue in that direction? So I don't even really any longer think of it as a sacrifice, even if it is in a direction that may be a little off the beaten path.

If we look at it, you know, literally it's still all coming back to exactly what I'm looking to do for myself, for my family, and again, being thankful for everything that we're given. Right? So, yes, this is. Interesting that you mentioned that book as well. Right? All, all of that information sort of came all at the same time.

Right. So I think it's, it's it's definitely very interesting and we, again, thankful for, for being able to have these kind of discussions with individuals that are actually thinking about this 'cause it is very important and worthy of being in more discussions.

Lainie Rowell: I'm thinking about, like last night, I have spent a lot of time on planes in the last few weeks and I love what I do, but last night I was tired and I got on a plane and I had a five hour flight and I said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to put on a very cheesy rom-com and I am going to sit back and I'm going to watch this movie. . It was a choice to kind of let go. I'm choosing to do this. And honestly, to me, the best thing about social media is actually sharing Gratitude. That's one of the biggest reasons I go on there. Love going on there and amplifying the work of other people like you and all the amazing people that are sharing their hearts and like their passions and their purpose.

I wanna amplify that.

Maxwell Roach: Well, that's, that's the scary thing about addiction at times as well, is that it's not a choice or seemingly not a choice at the time. So yes, you made the choice, this is what I'm going to do right now. . Fantastic. Right. You know what the ramifications are, if any. Right. You know what the positives are, if any.

You made that choice, right? maybe it was compelling or that the choice was compelled upon something else, but you weren't at the mercy of someone or something else. and I think that's the important point. So, Please rom com away. I've had my guilty pleasures personally, which maybe I won't discuss on here, with certain television shows.

It's entertainment and to be honest, it plays into. It actually plays into our organization because we need to connect with the children. That's a big piece of it, right? So seeing what's happening out there and being a part of it, I think is important. And yeah.

You know, enjoy.. Like it, right, and you're doing what you're supposed to, you're making the choice to do it. And I think that's, that's the, the beauty of what you've done and that you, for all the work you've been doing as well, if you're on flights and doing all these things. So you know, continue. It's great.

Lainie Rowell: I love what I do. I get to work with so many amazing educators, and it was such a, such a great day yesterday. Well, I know I need to start to let you go, so I'm just gonna ask you to do your shout out and then tell us how people can connect with you.

Maxwell Roach: Oh, for sure.

Yes. I'll start with a shout out. So I'm, I'm actually gonna, I'm gonna share this podcast with this individual. I have two people. One is, An individual. I was on his podcast earlier this year. Incredible smooth voice as well. I always joke about that with, with individuals as well. Charles Williams.

He's the amazing educator. He's got a podcast called The Counter Narrative Podcast. And what a gentleman, what a figure. He's opened me up to a bunch of different Facebook groups. He's connected me with people and it's been fantastic. So big shout out to him.

Another shout out is somebody who actually works at a local library, and she is just something else, and sometimes I refer to her as my guardian angel. Her name is Sandra, and she only appears when it's necessary. I don't know what her hours are at the library, but she's only there when I require her assistance.

And when I say assistance, I mean, on a mental level, right? I'm either going in there and I have a thought process and I'm struggling with something and she's just appears like, how does this happen? Every time, magically. She just says hello and then she starts talking about my problems in the moment, and, it's like we continued a conversation that was in my mind, so big shout out to, to Sandra, right, Sandy.

So fantastic. I think that if you can find someone in your life that's like that, or they come into your life, you are blessed for years. So that's definitely one thing that's interesting there is, is kind of having, having someone like that in your life. So those are the people that I would shout out if you do want to kind of take a look at.

Where we are and what we're doing at JonAves Learning Club, we've got a bunch of books, right? You can go on our website, JonAves.com, J O N A Y V e s.com. We've got our books on there. You can shop the books there. You can take a look. They're all on Amazon as well. Please check out our YouTubes and our, and our Twitter.

We have a couple of YouTube channels. One is at JonAves tv. So that's J O N A Y V E S T V. And we just went in downtown to to Toronto, to the CN Tower and Ripley's Aquarium and all these things. But what we do is we, we do timestables competitions with random strangers, right? Because again, our children are nine years old and six years old.

You know, they'll go up all cute and say, oh, you know, can you help us with our timestables? And they're like, oh yeah, no problem. And then we go right into it and it's a full on dual, right? And so, you know, it's great content. Fantastic for kids and for adults too. So check us out there. We've got another channel, @AJshousekids, And we've got tons of timestables animated videos there as well, you know, with music. And our kids are rapping and singing all kinds of things. And yeah, you know, on TikTok, on on Twitter at JonAves tv as well, please get in touch with me.

Contact me. Let's just talk. I love continuing conversation. Happy to talk with anyone about a lot of our practices and how we can even integrate in schools, things like that. So it's been great. Everything's fantastic. Everything's fun, thankful for all conversations that happen and you know, if we can get in touch, please.

Happy to talk.

Lainie Rowell: I really enjoyed this conversation. I just have to say, when you were doing your shout outs, your face just completely lit up and, and you're already like, on fire and so animated and so fun to watch.

But when you, when it came to giving those shout outs, it was just beaming out of you, and that was really, really fun to watch.

Maxwell Roach: I love connecting with people, right? And I think it's really fun because everyone is so different in the way that they are and different in the way that they approach life.

I mean, they, they wouldn't be where they are unless they had a path and a journey. So when you just get to see that snippet of where they are right now, my imagination just goes wild. It's like, oh well. Where did you come from? Why are you like this? You know, what, what did you eat when you were younger?

You know, all of these things, you know, what did your parents do? So it's just, it's, it's partly comedy to me too, because we're all so different. All of us are so different and somehow, like, we're still kind of like fighting each other about our differences. It's like, but we're all different, so why is this a problem?

But anyway, yeah, I guess that's kind of a part of it. I, I do really enjoy it.

Lainie Rowell: Well, it shows, and I appreciate your positivity, your energy, and all the great things you're bringing. I hope people get a chance to connect with you, and thank you for your time. Thanks for this conversation.

Maxwell Roach: Oh, thank you so much, Lainie.

Lainie Rowell: Thanks, friends. Thank you all for listening.

Lainie Rowell

August 1, 2023

Episode 65 - Building H.O.P.E. with Guest Cathleen Beachboard

Lainie Rowell

August 1, 2023

Shownotes:

Get ready to unlock the secrets to a thriving life with renowned educator and bestselling author, Cathleen Beachboard! Join us as Cathleen unveils her groundbreaking Building H.O.P.E.© framework that's transforming schools nationwide! Discover how psychological hope, combined with gratitude, can be the ultimate catalyst for resilience, well-being, and achievement. Don't miss this important conversation filled with practical tools and strategies for parents, educators, and leaders to embrace hope and soar towards success!

Trailer

Full Episode

About Our Guest:

Cathleen Beachboard is an award-winning educator, best-selling author, and leading innovative expert on raising psychological hope in schools. Her Building H.O.P.E.©

framework has improved resilience, well-being, and achievement in thousands of schools across the country. As a sought-after speaker on well-being and retention, she provides practical tools and strategies for parents, educators, and leaders to increase hope so every person can thrive.

All resources for Cathleen’s book are available for free on www.theschoolofhope.org and the hope test and hope culture audit for schools are available for free in Thrively www.thrively.com/hope

Website: www.theschoolofhope.org

Twitter: @cathleenbeachbd

About Lainie:

Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And now, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You is available too!

Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.🙌

Just fill out the forms linked above and someone will get back to you ASAP!

Transcript:

Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Hello friends, I get to introduce you, if you don't already know her, to Cathleen Beachboard. Hello, Cathleen.

Cathleen Beachboard: Hi. I'm so excited to be here.

Lainie Rowell: I'm so excited you're here. And friends, I saw Cathleen was that last week. Oh my gosh. The weeks are running together, friends, this is a whirlwind of travel for us. We get to go all around, work with educators, which is absolutely lovely.

Cathleen, let me introduce you to those who may not have the pleasure of knowing you already.

Cathleen Beachboard is an award-winning educator, bestselling author, and leading innovative expert on raising psychological hope in schools. Her building Hope Framework, H O P E, she'll tell us about that has improved resilience, wellbeing, and achievement in thousands of schools across the country.

Just amazing. Cathleen, I'll stop there and ask you to jump in and just tell us a little bit more about yourself.

Cathleen Beachboard: So I'm a teacher, author, and a psychological researcher. Woo, three hats. I am the mom of seven wonderful children, five, who I adopted out of a case of extreme abuse and neglect.

And most importantly, everything that I do with Hope and with Gratitude, because hope and Gratitude are connected psychologically in the brain. That I've done everything that I've done for my own kids because, you know, honestly, we hear about trauma and everything else, but we don't realize that adverse childhood experience.

And all those negative psychological emotions and you know from your background in psychology that yes, they impact the brain, but these positive cognitions can fight back against it. And it is amazing and it is powerful and my children are living proof of what happens when people have hope and have gratitude.

Lainie Rowell: We are speaking the same language because I think one of the things, and I shared with you before, hit record. One I'm so excited as I'm, you know, diving deep again into the world of psychology is just the transformation that has happened over the last couple decades, and thanks largely to the work of Dr. Marty Seligman, who is the father of positive psychology, who really taught us. And there's a charming story about how actually his five-year-old inspired this, but taught us that we actually have far more control over the way that we handle things, like you said trauma than we may have been led to believe.

And so it's super empowering and creates a lot of hope and Gratitude, and I'm excited to talk about those things with you.

Cathleen Beachboard: Me too, because they're my favorite.

Lainie Rowell: Well, Cathleen, I want you to go ahead and start off by expanding on what you've already shared. You know, what does Gratitude mean to you?

And feel free along the way. Bring in that hope as much as you want.

Cathleen Beachboard: So ultimately Gratitude, when you look at what Hope Theory is, which was, you know Dr. Schneider was the founder of Hope Theory and he said Hope is a mix of three things, goals, pathways. That's your ability to form a path to your goal and agency, which is your motivation to reach that goal.

Goals, pathways, and agency combine together to form psychological hope. Now where Gratitude falls in is in a couple of areas. So Gratitude lets us realize our capacity to reach our goals as we're grateful as we reach those milestones. So it falls under the goals section, but where it falls the most is agency.

So we want willpower to reach our goals, but most people think of willpower as this thing, like a muscle. That's not what it is. It's more like the emergency break of a car. And you don't use your emergency break to drive, but we were like, Hey, just will yourself through it. That causes burnout.

One of the things that they have found, and you probably already know this, that helps prevent burnout and provides a psychological bubble safety net is being grateful. As we're grateful, we learn we control where we're going and when we control where we're going and we start to reflect and have Gratitude for ourselves, for what we've done and for the people around us, we start to see that we're in control and that leads to self-efficacy. It's powerful and it's life changing.

We talk about being grateful. One of the things that I do every day is you can plan, you can plan to be hopeful by being grateful. And so a lot of teachers are like, oh, I can't control this. Thing will happen. This thing will happen. You know what that involves pre-commit, which is some of the things that you can do to gain more willpower. So pre-commitment devices at the beginning of the day, I open three emails and I say grateful. By the end of the day, those emails already open. So before I close my computer, guess what I have to do? Fill them out. And so every day I am choosing to be hopeful by choosing to have Gratitude.

And so you have to interweave it into your day because it is an essential part of your hope, your agency, and it gives you that sense of control that, you know, we might not control everything that happens today, but we can plan to include those things to safeguard our mental wellbeing.

Lainie Rowell: Okay. I don't even know where to start.

I'm just so excited right now. One of the things I really quickly before we dive any deeper is, As I'm reading your book and listening to you talk, you've taken this, this word, this idea, this beautiful thing, hope, and you have made it so accessible to people because I do feel like one of the many things that hope and Gratitude have in common is that they can be words that are thrown around without real deep thought as to what this is and what this means in my life, and so.

I really appreciate when you're talking about this agency component and that we have so much in our control. And I'll be honest, I'm someone who loves control. So to me, to me, this is great news. You know, we have so much more control than it might feel like, right? And so I think that's amazing. And I definitely agree.

This is the stuff that's going to keep us from burning out a hundred percent.

Cathleen Beachboard: It is. Doing it with intention, that's like one of those key things is that, you know, we think of Gratitude after the fact usually, like even kids, oh my gosh, you're my favorite teacher. You've changed my life. When do they tell you that?

When they run into you in a store 20 years from now? But that level of appreciation and Gratitude is one of the things that fuels our willpower and our agency to keep going. That's why we have to interweave it as a psychological support for hope. And what's amazing is, so we talk about Gratitude, we talk about hope. Hope has been operationalized. Dr. Snyder, he quantified. Hope so, you can take the Adult Hope scale, the Children's Hope Scale. They're online for free. You could even do it after this. But if you're low in agency, one of the suggestions he gives all the time is you need to work on Gratitude.

If you're low in this area, this is something you have to do because if you don't, essentially you'll lack the willpower that you need to keep going in moments of distress.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah. One of the things you said earlier that I wanna circle back to, 'cause I think it it can have a good deal to do with agency, is this idea of Gratitude for ourselves.

So Dr. Robert Emmons, the world's leading science of Gratitude expert, often talks about the myths around Gratitude, and one of them is, To be a grateful person, you have to be completely self-effacing, which is not at all true. So he's really good at pointing out these myths that people may not even be thinking very deeply about.

They're just kind of assuming or just in the back of their head. But I love how you talk about we can be grateful for ourselves and look at all the power we have to impact our lives and the lives of those around us. So that is definitely something that gets me really hopeful.

Cathleen Beachboard: Well, what's interesting is, so they've done studies on kids like, because hope is so well researched, like the, the testing it, increasing it, and that it is a learnable skill.

Gratitude, as you know, is a learnable skill. Anybody can learn it and has a big impact size. So with this learnable skill that we can easily teach to another person with hope, if you're low in hope, you don't believe you can do anything. So that's where that personal Gratitude comes in, because you don't celebrate your wins.

Kids who are low in hope and adults who are low in hope, when they do something awesome, they're like, oh, I got lucky. No, you need to celebrate your win. And in my classroom I have this thing called bragging rights. And the kids fill it out. So this is a Gratitude practice anytime they wanna be like, I finally understand figurative language, hooray.

They fill out the bragging rights card and they send it to their parents to celebrate Gratitude for the moment, for being successful in that moment. And that boosts their hope and overall agency and teaches them to own their success. Be grateful for you.

Lainie Rowell: Such a good point. I think this is our negativity bias a little bit too, is we often attribute good things that happen to us to luck, randomness. This very specific example of braggable rights. I love that. And one of the things that I love as I'm reading your book, I'm not finished, but I'm already in love with it is that you are very good at giving specific, actionable approaches to this.

I think sometimes these concepts, when we talk about things like hope and Gratitude, can feel somewhat intangible, and so the way that you operationalize it, the way that I try and make it accessible is to say, well, you could do this, this, or this. You don't have to. There's a ton of different ways you can do it, but trying to get out of this very narrow view of this is what Gratitude should look like, this is what hope should look like, and I really appreciate you emphasizing that these are learnable skills. I want people to understand that because I think sometimes when we are lacking the hope and the Gratitude, we just feel so out of control.

Cathleen Beachboard: What's completely amazing other than just like learnable skills. So you, you're a very grateful person. You know it.

She's like, I've learned it. But here's the thing. If I hung out with you every day and I'm like, You know, medium on the Gratitude, medium on the agency, just by hanging around you, I can pick up those practices. That's part of emotional contagion. So here's the thing with hope, you measure it. Okay? So someone goes on, takes the hope test, takes the children's hope test, you measure your all your students, or you measure your whole staff.

Find out who those people who are high in agency, those are your grateful people. Then sprinkle them like magic little sprinkles across your entire school and spread them out because we tend to hang out with people similar to ourselves. That's what psychology shows. So people who are similar in Gratitude, you probably have some really amazing grateful friends, but the thing is, Those people who aren't, don't have access to you because they're afraid they're not like you.

And so by finding out who those people are, by the test, then you take those High Hope students, you put 'em next to the Low hope students, and this is what research shows. Even with Gratitude, this is how the contagion works. You find out those, those people who are doing it, and just by sitting a kid next to another kid who's low in hope over six to eight weeks, that high Hope kid, you're not bringing 'em down.

They're gonna bring the other kid up.

Lainie Rowell: Yes. That social and emotional contagion is so important to me. I call it my Gratitude mentors 'cause I do feel like I have cultivated a grateful disposition, but I always can improve. Yes. And I didn't get here on my own. I got here by paying attention and going, okay, I see how that person is doing it. I see how this person is doing it, and noticing that even though the way they're doing it might not be exactly the way that I would do it, that inspires me to make it my own. And so that to me is really, really powerful. And so now I'm gonna be looking for hope mentors.

Cathleen Beachboard: Yes, and that's what I talk about in my book, HOPE Mentors.

So one of the things to operationalize hope on a school staff is find out who your hopeful teachers are and utilize them.

Find out who your hopeful students are and use them as mentors for new students, because we go through points where we feel hopeless. For example, a transition to a new school, a transition from elementary to middle, middle to high. That's where we see hope dip. Why? Because it's scary. There's anxiety there.

And when we're scared, you know, it's hard to go into the prefrontal cortex because of the amygdala response. And so by operationalizing this and using the strength of your Gratitude, of your hope that's in the building, you can change the building. Use your people. It's not professional developers who change a building.

It's utilizing the strength and expertise and the psychological power that you already have.

Lainie Rowell: Building H.O.P.E., H.O.P.E. Is an acronym. Could you tell us about that please?

Cathleen Beachboard: So the research ultimately with Hope I've taken thousands of research studies and they're all mentioned in my book through little footnotes.

But essentially what hope does in the brain is it first H it provides healing. So for adverse, Childhood experiences. One of the research studies that I actually have a picture of at the very beginning of the book is they found out that hope provides healing. So even the prefrontal cortex is able to activate during moments of distress.

So you do not go immediately into fight, flight, freeze, fawn and flop. All the F words. Not, not a bad one though. So it's, it's amazing that it provides healing for the brain, and that's what it shows as we raise hope, we're giving kids self-efficacy and agency to remember they control their lives because, Trauma makes us feel like we are hopeless.

That like everything's just gonna happen to us. But it reminds you no, you have a say in who you become. Your yesterday does not have to define your tomorrow, and it takes time for that because ultimately we can't change a child's home life, but we can change someone's hope in life and that's like groundbreaking.

So healing is the first one. Then O is overcoming because as we're grateful, as we reflect on these things, As we utilize hope, it allows us to realize that today we might not control today and we might face adversity, but healing with hope allows you to overcome situations. And what's really cool, you're gonna look this up afterwards 'cause it's amazing.

Dr. Schneider, the founder of Hope Theory, actually went on live TV on Good Morning America to do a live science experiment to show the power of hope to the world. So essentially, and it's amazing. He went into a small room and had the host of Good Morning America, the weatherman and the medical expert all go into a back room.

He came out with a small slip of paper. He measured their hope, just so you know. And then he proceeded to tell them they're gonna participate in the cold presser task. And I know you know this 'cause you're into psychology, but for the layman at home, it means you're gonna stick your hand in icy water till it hurts so bad you have to take it out.

So all three men stuck their hand in the icy water, and Dr. Snyder wasn't even watching and it made the host mad. He's like, what are you doing? You're the one who said this was about hope. And then after a few minutes, the weatherman, he couldn't stand it, pulled his hand out. Then you have the medical expert and the host of Good Morning America, going eye to eye.

And after a few minutes though, the medical expert's, like I'm done with this, pulls this hand out. And then they were about to go to commercial break. So the host was like, I'm gonna leave my hand in here till the end of the break. And he did. And then he pulled his hand out and he was mad and he was like, Dr. Schneider, what does hope have to do with Icy water and my winning? And he said, this is what it has to do. Before I gave you this task, I measured your hope level. You were the highest in agency, which is connected to your Gratitude and everything else. You were the highest in pathways. You were the highest in overall hope.

And guess what it accurately predicted you would come in first. He would come in second and he would come in third. That's why I didn't need to watch you because it allows us to access the deep reserve of our potential to keep going in moments of distress. Gratitude will not change your situation, but it'll change you and how you look at the situation.

And it's the same thing with hope. It allows us to keep going, we're gonna face horrible things, death, darkness, divorce, who knows? But being grateful in those moments and trials allows you to rise above the situation. Being hopeful in that moment allows you to keep going in that moment to realize there's still potential for tomorrow.

And then so we have healing, overcoming then after that planning. 'cause it allows you to plan for a good future. Kind of like planning Gratitude into your day. You realize you control your hope so you can plan.

And then E is energizing, And the biggest thing is what Gratitude does.

What hope does it energizes you. That's why I can be like, On a call with seven kids and a teacher and a researcher and I have all this energy, it's not because of coffee. It's naturally energizes us. Especially when you get like a thank you note from someone like gratefulness and the, the people at home.

Just text someone right now and say, Hey, I'm grateful for you because of blank. Someone who matters to you and see what happens. And then immediately, I promise you, you do this one thing, you are gonna feel amazing 'cause you will get a response. We respond to Gratitude.

Lainie Rowell: I love that. That's a great acronym. Okay, so we've got healing, overcoming planning, and energizing. I wanna talk about overcoming for a moment because as I've been spending a few years talking about Gratitude inevitably there are those who come, and I'm gonna try and be careful about how I phrase this.

So toxic positivity is not an official diagnosis. It is a pattern of behavior. And is it a real thing? I do believe it is a real thing. Do I believe it actually gets weaponized? I do. And I think what's important is the overcoming. It's not that bad things don't happen. It's not that I don't have what we might consider negative emotions.

Those things happen or are happening, but overcoming is something to be celebrated, in my opinion.. Not, not to be put down, not to be shunned. We all have to have permission to feel, we have to give others permission to feel. But that overcoming is a very, very big deal. And again, coming back to this agency, we have to have that feeling that we can overcome this.

Cathleen Beachboard: And here's the other thing that's really interesting. You don't have to be an optimist in order to be hopeful. They've done multiple studies. I could be a complete pessimist and still have Gratitude and hope. What? Yes. So someone who looks at the negative side of life can still be grateful, can still be hopeful.

And ultimately, sometimes they can be more hopeful because they plan out for the bad moments. They're like, oh, this could happen. I'm gonna. I'm gonna plan for this and this and this and this. And actually that gives them more agency. So here's the thing we're not talking about just optimism. Optimism is great to have 'cause that does lead to better wellbeing.

But Gratitude and hope you can be it. You can do it no matter where you are. No matter who you are. And we know these two things. When operationalized change someone's life, they lead to achievement. According to studies, they lead to success. They lead to lack of bullying in schools. They help teachers stay because teachers didn't get into it for the money and for the fame.

They got into it to have Gratitude given to them for what they're doing. And so it's hope and Gratitude that anyone can operationalize and change a culture, change a climate, and change a person. And here's the thing. They have to choose that. So we're not talking about toxic positivity or you have to be happy all the time.

No, my kids, they came from a, a horrible home life and they were not happy, but it ha woke them up, was the hope and Gratitude every day that, oh my gosh. Yes, this bad thing happened, but it does not define me. I define me. And that's what it does.

Lainie Rowell: You talked earlier about how neuroplasticity doesn't happen overnight, and I think that's something that we have to keep in mind.

Like let's listen to the research. These things work. This has been proven time and time again. This is not Cathleen and Lainie sitting here going. I think this is a great idea. We are pulling from the researchers, the experts who have spent decades studying these topics, but that doesn't mean it happens overnight.

It does happen, in my opinion, somewhat quickly, yes, but it might not be tomorrow, and so you gotta stick with it for a little while.

Cathleen Beachboard: Yes. And, and that's the whole thing, you know, utilizing hope and utilizing Gratitude. It's really simple. Guess what? Schools, this is a free practice. You could start tomorrow.

And, and if you just do it by like even measuring it for hope or even just looking at, okay, well how much am I showing Gratitude to my staff what it is it? And I'm remembering there are love languages. So that's, that also gets tied into this. Knowing someone's love language is super important. Why?

Because it allows you to show Gratitude in the way that makes them feel the most loved. And so it ties into Gratitude because we all show Gratitude in different ways. It'll tell you how you show Gratitude that makes that person feel really special. And so looking at hope, looking at Gratitude, looking at the way people feel loved when you connect those things, you can have a big impact pretty quick.

And with some people you can change a hope score within a matter of a day. A day. Yeah. Because it changes the dynamics of the way they're looking at it. As soon as a person recognizes the power of the thing and starts utilizing the thing more and more, it changes their life.

Lainie Rowell: I wanna ask you if you could give us maybe one strategy or tip for improving our hope.

Cathleen Beachboard: So one of the things that we do, even with our, our Gratitude and our hope overall is we tend to passively take in information in the world. Like, oh, I'm gonna go on social media. And then you're like, oh, I feel sad now. Here's the thing I wanna learn. I wanna teach people you can cultivate. You need to be proactive with your Gratitude, with your hope.

You need to create spaces, even if you don't wanna change your social media because you follow your mother-in-law and she's really toxic, you don't have to change that. Create a separate account where you just surround yourself with the people you admire, the people who you inspire, you who the people who feed your soul, create those spaces and then, When you're feeling bad, enter those spaces.

Or with Gratitude, take all the Gratitude that you're getting from others and surround yourself with it. Because in moments of distress, looking back on gratefulness from other people brings you back up in that adversity to realize you do matter. You do bring something special to this world. You do have an impact.

And despite what's going on in that moment, It grounds you. It's like a grounding technique. You can use gr Gratitude to ground yourself. And so those are two simple things. Create a space that will fill you up, whether it's a physical space, a digital space, and make yourself enter that to safe guard your hope, create a Gratitude space that you enter.

Why is that important? Because we're gonna have bad days. Plan for the bad days. We make fire drills for fires, tornado drills for tornadoes. Guess what? You're more likely to have a bad mental health day. So let's plan for that. Let's plan a space that will bring us up, create it, and then enter it.

Lainie Rowell: Yes.

And I wanna just piggyback on that and say, I think it's important that, like you're saying, create that safe space digitally and physically. And the algorithms, what you're putting eyes on, what you're spending time on, what you're liking, it's gonna feed you more of that. And the algorithms and the social services are actually getting even more sophisticated where you actually can, on a lot of 'em, you can say, show me less of this.

Yep. And then what you'll see over time is that it will learn what you want and once you start really gravitating towards the more positive, the things that nurture you versus the things that make you feel bad. You know, everyone has a different experience when they go on the socials.

We, we could try and just say it's bad, but actually I think it's very different based on how you cultivate that experience over time because that's what the algorithms are good at. They're good at feeding you what you want, so you have to be careful about what you tell it you want.

Cathleen Beachboard: Yes. You, you really do.

And you have to be purposeful. So that's another thing is we, we talk about scheduling things that matter to us. Well, you know what? If you're hearing hope matters to you and Gratitude, plan it into your day. We plan our most important things like meetings and everything else, but we don't plan family time.

We don't plan, Hey, I'm gonna do a dad joke in the morning. I love dad jokes. They start my day on a positive foot. I do it every day. Like today's was, I stayed up all night to see where the sun went, and then it dawned on me, I loved it. And I do that because it starts my day positively. And so here's the thing, schedule those things.

Even at work, if you're like, oh, I'm super stressed. Schedule a coffee break. Like I'm going to go even put it in there. No, i e p meetings go, this five minutes is me getting coffee. And tell your principal or whoever else is doing it because, It's important when you take care of you, like, kind of like we hear on airplanes.

Put your own oxygen mask on before you put on someone else's. If you wanna spread Gratitude, be grateful. You wanna spread hope, be hopeful. Do the things to take care of you, and it will spread to others just by you doing it.

Lainie Rowell: It is pro-social. They both are. And I think that's really important because we talked about earlier the social emotional contagion.

You know, the behaviors you exhibit, the emotions you express. These are things that other people catch. And so we wanna put out there what we hope to get back and what we hope will spread to others. I am so excited to finish reading your book. There's so much great content in there.

Cathleen Beachboard: So I'm an author with Corwin. I know you can order things quicker on Amazon, however, they do two to three day shipping with Corwin.

If you use the code author, all capital letters 40 at the end, you'll get 40% off and then it's like 12 or $13, which is actually reasonable right now. If you look on Amazon, everything goes up and down, but that, that is a stable thing. So just. Order away. And here's the other thing, I actually make no profits from my book.

So if you're a Title one school and you're underfunded, I built this into my contract. My goal is just to spread hope. I'm not out to, to make a million dollars or do anything like that. I want to spread this message 'cause it works. It worked for my own kids. It works in my classroom. That's why I stay in the classroom.

I know this works. So if you're an underfunded school, contact Corwin and literally just reach out and say, Hey, we're a title one school. I heard there's free books available from the author 'cause this is her contract. And you will get those books because I've let my goals to spread this message. Just like your goal is to spread Gratitude 'cause it works.

Lainie Rowell: It does. And just like teachers don't go into teaching to get rich, authors don't go into writing books to get rich. It's really about sharing this message that we're super passionate about. And speaking of the social emotional contagion, I'm picking it up just seeing you and listening to you talk about this topic that is so important to you. I'm so grateful that you are spreading this message, and I do really love the connection between Hope and Gratitude, and I appreciate you articulating that so well. Friends, you need to grab a copy of her book and learn more. Any last tips before we get to your shout out?

Cathleen Beachboard: Well, if you wanna take the Hope test, I have a partnership with Thrively, so you can go to thrively.com/hope. You can take the hope test for free. You can even give it to a whole class of students for free, because once again, I've partnered with them because I wanna operationalize this so anybody could do it.

You wanna find out who those high hope kids are, the grateful kids. Find out. Then once again, if you're not gonna do anything else. Just seat them, mix them up. Because if you break that dynamic, you are gonna bring up the strength of the whole classroom. The whole culture.

Lainie Rowell: Absolutely. Speaking my language, my friend.

All right, let's get to that shout out.

Cathleen Beachboard: Well, mine is actually very simple. There are two amazing people.

One is my mother and she is my rock. She even moved in with me, seven children to help with the, the, the kids once we got them, and to help make it so I could focus on each kid individually, one-on-one. She has made my life amazing and I would not be who I am without her. And so my mom, and then the other one, I, I just have to give it up to my husband who took in all these kids, because I convinced him that five was like a small group because, you know, I was a teacher before we became parents.

I was like, that's easy. Like I have 32 kids, five is nothing. And so he was like, yeah, let's bring them home. So, you know, for that man who has been through everything with me and supports me as I spread this message around the country and with other schools, I love him because he's the rock. Why I go out and spread this.

Lainie Rowell: Hope they get a chance to hear those shout outs because those were very lovely. I wanna just say again about your book again. I'm reading it, but it had me from the beginning. I'm not gonna give anything away, but there was something that almost brought me to tears when I read the beginning.

You got to my heart really quickly because we do care so much about the kids and the adults, and how can we keep everyone not just safe, but healthy and thriving and flourishing. That's what we want.

Cathleen Beachboard: Yes. And, and Gratitude and Hope are two of the ways that research not. This is not just us saying this.

Once again, research shows this works and it works for anyone. It will not take away your anxiety, it will not take away depression if you're, you know, diagnosed. But what this will do is it's gonna help you feel better. As you are, it's, it's just gonna enhance your life. That's what all the research shows.

It will make things feel awesome, so you have to do it. It won't change your circumstances, but it'll give you the ability to overcome them so you can keep going and reach your goals and do amazing things even with whatever it is you have.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah, and the research shows our circumstances are actually somewhat small in the way of determining our happiness.

So again, we have a lot more control than we may have been led to believe, depending on how you were raised and all the variables that came into to how you see the world. But we have a lot of control and that's really to me, That brings a lot of hope with it, so I love it. Cathleen, please share all the ways that people can connect with your wonderfulness.

Cathleen Beachboard: So you can reach me on Twitter or X, whatever you wanna call it @CathleenBeachBD email, CathleenBeachboard@gmail.com. Those are the two that I mainly check because I'm also a teacher in the classroom. I might take me a couple days to get back to you, and then also through Thrively, because I work with them extensively to kind of operationalize this in about 110,000 schools across the country.

Lainie Rowell: So amazing. You are having such an impact and I am very excited that I got to meet you in person and then to have this time today to do a deeper dive. I cannot wait to finish your book. I encourage everyone to take a look . All right my friend, I'm gonna put all your contact information in the show notes and have a wonderful day and thank you all for listening.

Cathleen Beachboard: Thank you. It was awesome. Spread Gratitude, spread hope.

Lainie Rowell: Absolutely.

Lainie Rowell

July 25, 2023

Episode 64 - To-Go Plates of Joy with Guest Marlon Styles

Lainie Rowell

July 25, 2023

Shownotes:

If you are ready to discover how to elevate the energy of the collective in the room, you have come to the right place! In this electric episode, Marlon Styles gifts us stories of provoking joy and energizing our learning communities. Plus, learn about how Grandma Watson can inspire each of us to dish out to-go plates of joy. This is a tasty episode you don’t want to miss!

Trailer

Full Episode

About Our Guest:

Marlon Styles is a recognized inspirational speaker and educational leader. In 2017, he was named a Top 30 Digital Trailblazer by the Center for Digital Education. Under his leadership at Middletown City Schools, the district was awarded the ISTE Distinguished District Award in 2019. He testified before the United States Congress in 2020 to advocate for access and opportunity for all students. K-12 Dive recognized him as the Superintendent of the Year in 2020 for his advocacy and leadership to close equity gaps on a national stage.

Website: https://marlonstyles.com

Twitter: @Styles_MarlonJr

About Lainie:

Lainie Rowell is a bestselling author, award-winning educator, and TEDx speaker. She is dedicated to human flourishing focusing on community building, social emotional learning, and honoring what makes each of us unique and dynamic through learner-driven design. She earned her degree in psychology and went on to earn postgraduate degrees in education. As an international keynoter and a consultant, Lainie’s client list ranges from Fortune 100 companies like Apple and Google to school districts and independent schools. Learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linktr.ee/lainierowell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And now, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You is available too!

Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.🙌

Just fill out the forms linked above and someone will get back to you ASAP!

Transcript:

Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Hello, my friends. Oh, it's a treat day. It's a treat day. I'm giving you a treat right now because I have Marlon Styles with me. Marlon, welcome.

Marlon Styles: So good to see you. So good to see you. Thanks for having me. Ready to have some fireside chat type fun. Let's go.

Lainie Rowell: Let's do this.

Okay. I'm going to properly introduce you, Marlon.

It will not be enough so I want you to jump in. Marlon Styles is a recognized inspirational speaker and educational leader. He has been named a Top 30 Digital Trailblazer by the Center for Digital Education. Under his leadership at Middletown City Schools, his district was awarded the ISTE Distinguished District Award. He has testified before the US Congress advocating for access and opportunity for all students.

K-12 Dive recognized him as Superintendent of the Year and he is just amazing. There's so much to know and so Marlon, that was just scratching the surface. Please tell us more, help make it better.

Marlon Styles: Yeah, I don't know if I can make it any better. I'm just a normal educator that just loves giving back to people. Marlon Styles been a superintendent, Middletown City Schools the last six years, currently in transition as a partner at Learner Center Collaborative, doing some amazing work as a team in a company with school districts across the country and also a brand new inspirational speaker just trying to discover message that gets educators excited about being in the field of education and serving kids. A lot of gratitude to celebrate today. I'm just thrilled to be here. Looking forward to having some fun with you.

Lainie Rowell: Let's have some fun, and let's start off with the, the question that I like to ask first, and then we're gonna dive deeper into your work and all the goodness you're putting out there.

So, knowing there's no right or wrong answer, Marlon, what does gratitude mean to you?

Marlon Styles: Fun question, right? Fun question. For me it's about people. You started out with awards, but the story behind the awards are the people. gratitude to me just means being able to just sit, I mean, locked arms, shoulder to shoulder, right alongside people and just serve others.

And I've been fortunate to, in my career, especially the last six years in Middletown, to be alongside some amazing educators just working to serve the community. gratitude to me means being able to go in the cafeteria on the first day of school when it's breakfast and it's kindergarten, lunch, and being able to help out kindergartners open up those syrup packets, knowing that it's gonna end up all over your clothes and your shoes.

gratitude to me means being able to show up for bus duty alongside outside some of the educators and just greet students as they get off the bus and arrive to school. gratitude to me just means being able to help a child, to help an educator, an adult, you know, discover the start of a dream they didn't see coming, that that's gratitude.

And those are the special moments that really filled my heart with joy. And I know there's a lot of educators right now in the field to get a chance to do that every single day. It's that feel good moment.

Lainie Rowell: Well, you're feeling my heart with joy and those listening too, and I wanna add those syrup packets are tough and I don't even think it's just kindergartners, right?

We're all struggling with them.

Marlon Styles: Have you ever tried at kindergarten lunch to open up a packet of syrup on breakfast lunch day and then turn right around with the same student and they say, Hey, can you help me open up my chocolate milk carton? That's difficult.

Lainie Rowell: I feel like I've been there and you know, I actually was a kindergarten teacher.

That was the very first grade that I taught. And back then you could have a four year old in kindergarten. Ooh. And that's just not even fair to give them those, those syrup packets because here I am, well, well, well into my forties and, and I find them stressful.

So understood they need secure packaging so that they don't come, come on all over the place. But I love how you gave those very, very specific examples, these moments in a day as an educator that are so special with kids and with adults. And that really resonated with me because I do think it's very easy to lead a distracted life and not notice these things.

But when you are being so intentional and focusing on those very important little moments that are actually really big moments, I think that makes all the difference.

Marlon Styles: Yeah. The cool part about it is always try to do an energy check. Like, where's your energy?

Not necessarily my mind, but where's my, where's my spirit at right now? I'm always try to think about those special moments in time, especially during the school year, where if you really put together this powerful moment and this experience for the people who you're trying to impact, if you take time to really think intentionally about creating that moment and the experience in that moment and the impact it'll have.

It's actually fun, right? Mm-hmm. Let's take convocation for example, right? Some of your listeners might hear this right around the start of the school year. But convocation is a cool moment. I mean, a fun moment, right? We tried to create a standard when I was a superintendent that can it be so fun and joyful, so electric, so energizing that after winter break, people are still talking about convocation.

A 60 minute moment, a 60 minute moment. But can the experience be that energizing for everyone in the audience and the staff that they're talking about how energizing it was around Christmas break. That's a cool moment, right? So you talk about intentional moments. I would encourage leaders, educators, anyone in the field, think about those moments as you stand in front of people, as you sit at the same table with them, and you're doing that unique, really powerful, powerful work together.

Don't forget those special moments to really can energize your spirit, energize the people around in the circle, and really elevate the excitement of the collective group. Those are the feel good pieces that I don't encourage you to think about.

Lainie Rowell: Absolutely. So I would love to hear. And you can take this whatever direction you want. It could be in your role as a superintendent, in the work you're doing currently, or both, what are some of the practices, the rituals if you will? How do you see gratitude fitting into your life, and you're talking about it in these moments, but I wonder if there's any other ways, other tips that you would have for listeners about how they can move to that grateful disposition.

That's what I hear you talking about is being super intentional to get to that grateful disposition. What do you do and what would you suggest others do?

Marlon Styles: Yes. What do you care about? Right. So for me one thing that's always been a practice, personal life, professional life, take the title, position off of it professionally.

I always try to focus on the give back moments, right? And I try to make commitments around paying it forward. Somebody did it for me. The only reason I'm on this podcast is cuz there's a laundry list of people who invested in me to get me to this point in my career. I hope I listened and learn from them and try to apply it, and the hard work is really paid off, but I try to make sure I make the commitment to live it every single time I can as I interact with people to be able to pay it forward.

The first thing that I would share is as you interact with different educators in your community just listen, right? Listen to what their aspirations are, something we practice at Learner Centered, but listen to those aspirations. And really make a commitment to helping someone reach and fulfill all those aspirations.

It's not necessarily about me telling you how to do it. It's not about me giving you advice on how to do it. It's just me making a commitment to pay it forward by investing in you. So number one, listen to those aspirations. Hold true to those, and really try to invest in other people. And your heart will be filled with gratitude.

Number two, what I'll share also is to celebrate, right? When you discover and experience really moments of gratitude, just pause, right? Collect the energy in the room. Engage the people who are present in that joyful moment. And, and recognize it. And celebrate it, and take your watch and put everything on pause.

Throw your phone on the floor and just celebrate that joyful moment. Oftentimes we get in the hustle and bustle of do, do, execute, rip this off, check this off the list, let's go do that. When we have those moments of gratitude, you know, to be able to sit and celebrate with someone who's a colleague, who's a partner, who's a friend who's a teammate it, it just can really electrify the environment.

And being able to do those consistently. That'd be the second thing I would share consistently. Celebrate all those joyful moments. It'll really electrify your heart, fill you with joy, but more importantly, it'll really elevate the energy of the collective in the room.

Lainie Rowell: You know, as you were talking, I was thinking about the listen to and invest in others and to celebrate with intention, collect that energy consistently. I feel like we live in a culture that kind of glorifies busyness, like, oh, I'm so busy, and you know, oh good. You're doing things. You're getting stuff done. And I think what I hear you talking about is slowing down in the best way possible to really honor people and to truly get to know them and to truly be there for them. And then also just, I love that idea of collecting the energy.

To me, I wanna savor that for a minute because I think that's something that's very easy to move past. Allyson Apsey and Jessica Gomez have a new book out called Lead with Collaboration, and one of the things they talk about is, when you're doing that starting, you know, you can call it an icebreaker, but there's sometimes better words for it.

Sometimes there's already energy in the room and then you're like, stop we ought to do an icebreaker is an example that Allyson gives and it's like, wait, you already had that energy going? Why are you putting a halt to that and moving onto something else that might actually diminish that.

And so I really love what you're saying. Nice little shout out to Allyson and Jessica. I really thought that that resonated with me because I do think we tend to, like I said, just kind of glorify the busyness and actually really there's something very special about the slowing down and honoring people.

Marlon Styles: Think about the busy, right, the busy versus enjoying the moment. If I'm busy, then my educator joy starts to diminish, potentially. If I'm busy, then I might get in this mindset where I've had enough. But if I slow down and I enjoy the moment, I recognize the moment we celebrate the moment, then something different might happen that something different might move you from I've had enough to really getting excited about answering the question. Have I done enough? It might get you excited about exploring the potential to take advantage of an opportunity to do something special. More importantly, it might create an opportunity for your educator joy to start to elevate itself.

So really considering the choice in the moment to really think about do I wanna acknowledge the busy or don't wanna enjoy the moment, really could put you in two different mindsets. As an educator, I know which one I prefer and not sure about you.

Lainie Rowell: I'm with you. And it's, it's really trying to savor.

Sometimes it's just small moments. It doesn't have to be like an extra hour or anything like that. Sometimes it's just two minutes, three minutes, five minutes. That makes a huge, huge difference. And lately I've been thinking a lot about this idea of time poor versus time rich. And maybe it's partly reflecting and thinking about heading into this next school year, is just this idea of when we have this mindset of time poor, and I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy, and we don't take those moments to slow down...

I think when you feel time famished, that's not great for your wellbeing. That's pretty bad for your wellbeing. So I think it's heading into the new school year with that mindset of how can I savor these little moments? I still have stuff to do, but that doesn't mean I can't take these moments too.

I love that. Collect the energy, listen to people. So good.

Marlon Styles: Think of your, think of your joy, think of your educator. Joy as an asset, right? If you know anything about value in assets and if you invest in your assets, they will appreciate. So that age old saying, what you appreciate, will appreciate.

Let's attach the word joy to that educator joy. If you appreciate your educator joy, your educator joy will appreciate meaning if you invest in it daily, you invest in it weekly. You invest in it moment by moment with the colleagues who feel your heart doing the same passion driven work that you are over time, your educator joy is gonna appreciate it itself. And you'll be looking up and there'll be somebody at the other end of the stick who discovered a dream they never saw coming. It could be a student, it could be a colleague, could be a family member, a friend. But somebody's on a discover a dream they didn't see coming. All because you're making investments in your asset, your educator joy. It's gonna fill your heart, it'll feel good.

Lainie Rowell: What I'm really appreciating, and again, I'm, I'm in this mindset of like, okay you and I are both about to hit the road and get to have these amazing experiences helping schools start off their year.

And I, I really think I hear you saying you want all of us to find that joy. And it's been a hard few years, but I think we're to the point now where we can really go, no, this is a good profession. This is, you know, not that it ever wasn't a good profession. I don't wanna come off like that, but just I think we're to the place now where I we've learned a lot. We've grown a lot, and now this is what we get to do.

Marlon Styles: Yeah, I mean, every day we get a choice and a chance. You're guaranteed it every single day. It might be your choice and chance that you're giving yourself or somebody else presenting it to you, but you get in a choice and a chance every day to be excited about filling the, the space you sit in with others and around others with joy.

You get a chance and a choice every day to, to take advantage of time, to create moments of, of, of joy. I'm talking, I don't know about you, but I'm a goosebump guy. A goosebump, joyful moment. Not sure if you've ever had any of those as an educator, but when you have those goosebump joyful moments, it just absolutely sets your world on fire and those around you that you're serving.

So as you walk into the start of the school year, it's a great time to not just refresh your educator joy, but to invest in that asset and treat it like if it was your favorite pop, your favorite ice cream, something you gotta have nonstop. But, but really appreciate that asset. You know, protect it, invest in it every day and celebrate it.

Right? Let the whole world know how it feels to be an education and serve others right now. And it's okay to say I'm having a good time doing it. It's okay to say it.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah. And social contagion is a big deal. And so what we put out there others feel that. And this is a time where we're really wanting to highlight those joys, those positives, because we want other people to join this profession.

We love what we get to do. Not every moment. Let's acknowledge that. That's fine. But there's so much good in what we do and I think we really need to make sure and be very loud about the good things because we want people coming into this profession. We want people to also appreciate it when they're already in it.

And I think it's really easy if, if we hear the constant challenges and negativities, and it's not to ignore them, but to overcome them and to also really point out, here are the wins. Here's the really great thing that I get to do today. Even if its opening a syrup packet for a kindergartener, that's a win!

So, Marlon, I feel like you're a storyteller, and I'll cut this out if you don't wanna use this, but I would love to hear, what is a moment in your career that you were just so grateful. Again, it could be maybe from classroom time, it could be from a superintendent role, or maybe even just something you're doing right now.

I'm putting you on the spot, so I'll edit it out if you're not up for this, but if you've got a story ready to go, I'd love to hear it.

Marlon Styles: A story?. Ooh, okay. One year...

Lainie Rowell: you got it already? That's fast.

Marlon Styles: Oh yeah.. It's a people story. So one year in Middletown, hopped online and I bought this flathead, I mean, a full body flathead of Justin Timberlake. I don't know if you like JT or not, but I get down with JT the drop of a dime. I won't sing right now. I'll go back to the story. We bought it and we had it shipped to the office in Middletown, right?

So I hopped on my social media account, took a picture with Justin Timberlake, as if the guy was there in person, and I put this teaser post out on social media, tagged everybody in the district talking about it. Convocation this year we're gonna catch the feeling that song came out and fell in love with it.

We teased convocation around a, a theme for the year about catching the feeling. And JT was the heartbeat of that whole, whole energy and that whole vibe. We took him around the district, we posed him at different locations, had him in a, a suit and tie. I know that's one of his songs. But we, we teased it for like 30 days leading up to convocation.

A special moment. I'm gonna shout out Creekview Elementary right now. Creekview Elementary, the entire staff, right before convocation, they put a video together as a staff around one of JT songs, catch the Feeling, and they had a staff-wide dance around that. So when we talk about moments, right, if you intentionally think about how you can create the vibe in your school community, for me it was a flathead of JT getting people excited about convocation coming back to school, that the moment that really filled my heart was watching a whole staff of adults, whether they could dance, sing or not, doesn't matter, but to come together.

And do something pretty daggone, special dancing around in the hallways, all around a song. When they walked into convocation that year, I'll tell you what, they lit the place on fire. I don't wanna tell you everything they did but, but the singing, the dancing, the stereo, the music that outfits, the crazy hair, the wild things they did that year, convocation, it just really made it such a, a gratifying moment.

Something I'll never forget that, that whole 30 day sprint right there leading up to convocation a lot of fun, lot of fun.

Lainie Rowell: First of all, my heart is bursting. Yes. JT fan over here. In fact, I think my whole house is full of JT fans. You mentioned earlier, if you can put on a convocation that they're talking about at winter break.

I bet they were talking about that at Winter Break

Marlon Styles: Blast. The kids came out and they performed a song live in person, and the staff didn't know they were coming out. We kept it a big secret. We had hype dancers and the crowd staged certain staff members. We swar 'em the secrecy and they kept a big, big secret.

But the tail end of that was this giant performance of about a thousand people in our arena, and the kids lit it on fire as one of the most magical moments in Middie Rising that I'd ever been a part of. And it just started with people. It wasn't me on the microphone, it wasn't the principal on the microphone.

It was Middie's of all walks of life, just lighting that environment up for that eight minute segment. People bobbing their head, clapping their hands, stomping their feet, dancing, singing place was standing up, rocking. It just was a magical moment.

Lainie Rowell: I feel it. I'm smiling ear to ear and I can envision it.

You told that story so beautifully. I can completely see it and feel the energy in the way that you're even describing it. I feel the energy and earlier when I was doing the intro I know people are not necessarily going to brag about themselves so I wanted to give your accolades on your behalf, but you immediately took it back to the people.

And when I say, oh, do you have a story to share? It's about the people. And I think that community that you cultivate, that, you're leading, that you're a part of that's just really, really special. It's contagious and that's having such an impact, not just the staff or the kids, but that that spreads out to families.

That is far reaching. What a great way. And so people will be listening to this... I'm so out of my recording schedule, but people will be listening to this in probably August, so they might not have had theirs yet. Just depends on, you know, we're on a very.

Nowadays we're on a very interesting, who's starting in July, who's starting in August. My kids start in September. But if you have not already had your convocation this year, I encourage you to think of a way to really light it up like that. You know, I spend some time with Instagram reels.

I like to make them, and I'll go look for inspiration. And there's, Coldplay does a concert. They give you these wristbands with lights on it. It is a vibe. The energy that they put out is amazing, but you don't even need those wristbands, right? Even if you just dim the houselights, pull out your cell phones, turn on your screen, turn on your flashlight on your camera, whatever, start waving those things around and then, like you said, Marlon, have the kids if you can, have the music that you can, get that energy going.

Marlon Styles: Every convocation. I started this before I even introduced myself to the staff as their new superintendent. My first year had 'em pull their phones out and we took a five minute window and we just called it Selfie Moments. Right. Could you imagine just the invitation to not have to talk business for a minute and just grab whoever's near you that you probably sat down next to on purpose, because you're just so excited to see your people when you come back.

And for five minutes we just took a bunch of selfies and we, we blew social media up. Community gotta see how excited we were to be back. Some of those pictures, people still hold on today, but some of the biggest smiles you've ever seen, all because of convocation. We took a few minutes. Turn the microphone off and just created selfie moments.

I mean, arms out like this, taking pictures, people hugging each other. Just again, it's about feel good, it's about joy. And if you can create joyful moments your joy's gonna appreciate.

Lainie Rowell: Oh, that's so cool. You can even do that at a staff meeting. Like just turn on some super fun music upbeat that's gonna get the energy in the room up.

All right, we've got three minutes for selfies. Let's go.

Marlon Styles: Go, let's go. And then you gotta go jump in the crowd and take some selfies too.

Lainie Rowell: Oh, that's so great. I love that. I am definitely going to borrow Selfie Moments, if that's okay with you.

Marlon Styles: Make it happen. Make it happen.

Lainie Rowell: That's a great one. All right, my friend. You already gave a lovely shout out to Creekview. Do you have any other shout outs you'd like to give?

Marlon Styles: Yeah. I'm gonna shout out my Grandma Watson, if that's cool.

Lainie Rowell: Please tell us about Grandma Watson.

Marlon Styles: Grandma Watson made two things. Well, several things. The best sweet potatoes you've ever had in your life, the best macaroni and cheese you've ever had in your life.

Best homemade ice cream. The best fried chicken made the best. Right? And I mean, I stack my grandma's fried chicken up against anybody, but I'll get back to the the question, but I wanna shout her out because I think there's a lesson we can take from Grandma Watson. It'll really get the education field really excited, right?

The idea of to-go plates and grandma's house every time you went over there, she was always dishing out to go plate. She always had something to eat and you always got it to go plate. Packed up to go to the point where people were showing up on the Tupperware cuz they knew it was coming. So I like to shout her out because she taught me to provide to go plates, right?

And I believe as educators we should be dishing out to go plates of joy as different experiences happen. As you capture the moment of somebody doing something super joyful to really invest in the community. Dish out a, a, a to-go plate of joy, right? As you're having a conversation for some with someone, make sure your conversations are provoking joy in that colleague and that person and that individual and that student. And give them a to-go plate. Be careful who you give to-go plates to make sure they appreciate the joy that you're really handing out to them. But my grandma made sure every time someone left her house, they had something in their hand they could be joyful about.

I really wanna shout her out because she's gonna inspire a lot of educators here as they start dishing out to go play to joy this upcoming school year.

Lainie Rowell: I think that is a beautiful shout out. I almost lost concentration when you said sweet potatoes, because those are my favorite. A hundred percent. I mean, yeah, like we're both drooling right now.

Marlon Styles: Right now

Lainie Rowell: To go plates of joy is profoundly beautiful and I think that I'm like just really processing it because that's so special. It's not just while we're together, it's, I wanna send you off with this, wow. That's a mic drop.

Grandma Watson man. I'm impressed. I love that.

Marlon Styles: Also. I mean, she was the real deal. I mean, if you not taking care of your business, I got in trouble, Ms. Thornton's class one year in fifth grade, I pulled a chair out from somebody. She called home.

My grandma found out I got in trouble at school. Best believe that next Saturday morning. I didn't get it to go plate.

Lainie Rowell: You gotta have consequences. Oh my goodness. Grandma Watson. I don't know you, but I love you. Well, that was beautiful, my friend and I, I gotta let you go, but I would love it if you could please share how do people connect with you?

What's the best way on the socials website, we want the full, we want the full to go plate. How do we get, get more of you after this.

Marlon Styles: Absolutely a, I would love to come out to your school community and just share some inspiring words as a guest speaker, as someone could just connect with their education community.

You can check me out on my website, www.marlonstyles.com. Hit me up with a message on all social medias, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. Check me out. Hit me up any chance you can. If you just want to talk, if you're just an educator looking, just have some conversation. Get excited for start of school year.

Shoot me a message. Happy to connect with you and get you fired up. Welcome back in the start of school year here to serve man. Here to serve more importantly here to ignite unifier. That's my calling in life.

Lainie Rowell: Well, you certainly ignited me and our listeners and so I am thrilled to get this episode out into the world.

Cannot Wait. I will be sure to put all of your info in the show notes. Make it as easy as possible cause I know people are gonna wanna connect with you. A S A P, Marlon. Thank you for this time. Oh my goodness. I could talk to you forever.

Marlon Styles: Back at ya. I appreciate you having me. I had fun. I'm not sure about you, but you had a lot of fun.

Lainie Rowell: My, my honor. And I really do. Hope we get to chat again soon. And Friends, Marlon, you gotta, you have him out to your district. Have 'em out to your school. Connect. It's all in the show notes. So alright my friends, that does it for this episode and thank you all for listening.

Marlon Styles: Thank you guys. Enjoy the rest of your summer.

Lainie Rowell

July 18, 2023

Episode 63 - SEEing to Lead with Guest Chris Jones

Lainie Rowell

July 18, 2023

Shownotes:

Let's discuss the power of gratitude and its impact on leadership and education! In this episode, we dive into the concept of being teacher-centered in order to create a positive and supportive environment for students. Chris shares his journey of discovering the importance of supporting, engaging, and empowering teachers, and how it led him to write his book, "SEEing to Lead." With anecdotes and insights, we explore the significance of gratitude in daily life and its transformative effects. Tune in for an inspiring conversation that will leave you feeling grateful and motivated to make a positive difference in the world.

Trailer

Full Episode

About Our Guest:

Dr. Chris Jones has been an educator in Massachusetts for 22 years. Chris is currently the Vice President of the Massachusetts State Administrators Association (MSAA). He is the author of SEEingtoLead, a book that provides strategies for how modern leaders can and must support, engage, and empower their teachers to elevate student success. He also hosts a podcast of the same name to amplify teachers’ voices in an effort to improve education as a whole. Most recently, Chris was named the 2022 Massachusetts School Counselors Association's (MASCA) Administrator of the Year.

Website: teamjonesedu.com

Newsletter: sendfox.com/DrCSJones

Twitter: @DrCSJones
linkedIn: @drcsjones

About Lainie:

Lainie Rowell is an educator, international consultant, podcaster, and TEDx speaker. She is the lead author of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Evolving Learner⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and a contributing author of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Because of a Teacher⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Her latest book, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Evolving with Gratitude⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, was just released. An experienced teacher and district leader, her expertise includes learner-driven design, community building, online/blended learning, and professional learning. Learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linktr.ee/lainierowell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Twitter - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@LainieRowell ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Instagram - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@LainieRowell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And now, ⁠Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You⁠ is available too!

Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.🙌

Just fill out the forms linked above and someone will get back to you ASAP!

Transcript:

Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Welcome, my friends. I am so excited to have Dr. Chris Jones on the pod. Welcome, Chris.

Chris Jones: Hi, how are you?

Lainie Rowell: I'm doing better now that I get to talk to you and I'm very excited. Happy Summer. We're recording this towards the end of June, and so I'm guessing you're on maybe a quiet campus.

Chris Jones: Yeah, it's, it's pretty quiet and I'm, I'm really happy to be talking to you because I love the stuff you put out and I'm really happy for it.

So I'm excited to have a, a conversation about gratitude with you, but this is a good time because the campus is quiet and we can always tend to focus a little more on what we need to when, when things slow down a little bit.

Lainie Rowell: Yes. And I should mention that you are a high school principal, so slowing down is something that does not happen often for you.

So I think we had some good timing getting you on the pod.

Chris Jones: Yes. No, it doesn't happen often, so I, I take advantage of it every chance I get. I don't have to work as long a days and I get more done. Go figure.

Lainie Rowell: .Well, I do want to back up a little bit cuz I just get so excited to talk to you.

I'm like already in it, but I do wanna back up a little bit and give you a little more of a formal introduction, which listeners of the show know, I can't do even when I try. But I am gonna make an honest effort here. Because I am a fan of you and the work that you put out there, and I wanna make sure people know at least some of the, the credentials as we go in here.

So, as I mentioned, you are a high school principal. Dr. Chris Jones is also the president-elect of Massachusetts State Administrators Association, M S A A. And he is an amazing author. He is the author of SEEing to Lead and I hope he will talk about that because this is a very important book and I mean, he's also a podcast host.

Oh my goodness. The like Cardinal Sin, of podcast host is to not acknowledge the podcast status of someone else. So I want to make sure and say he is also an amazing podcast host. I have had the pleasure of being on his podcast. So, with that, Chris, is there anything else you wanna add? Because I, I barely scratched the surface on your credentials.

Chris Jones: No, I, you know what? I think you covered it. I appreciate you saying those kind words about the book. I, that was kind of a a long coming idea wise, but quick product that I put out through a process of a lot of caring, I think. So that's why it's good that we're talking about gratitude. And the podcast, it's funny, people ask me what came first, kinda like a chicken or the egg thing, because they're of the same name and the idea of the book and the beginning of the writing of the book came before the podcast.

But so yes, that's, that's the official answer that I'm, I'm gonna stick with

Lainie Rowell: You stick with that. I mean, yes, that does, that does come up sometimes. And we both have books and podcasts with the same name, and they, they feed each other. I, I find for me, right.

Chris Jones: Absolutely. So I don't wanna say we're twinning, but we might be twinning.

Lainie Rowell: I'll go with twining. I'm up for that. Well, I'm gonna ask you the quintessential first question. I don't even know if that's the right use of the word quintessential. I'm gonna ask you the typical first question and then I'm gonna ask you to dig deep in, and I don't think I even mentioned this, but let me, lemme make sure and point this out, that you were actually named as Administrator of the Year by Massachusetts School Counselors Association.

Yeah, I don't wanna leave that off, so congratulations on that.

Chris Jones: Thank you very much. That's funny. I forgot all about that, but yes I was named that, that was, that was quite the honor because when I received that award, it was my director of counseling that was saying all, you know, you get these awards and they say all these things about you.

And I think it was my mother, it was a virtual event and my mother had logged on to watch this virtual event. And I think my sister did too, and I got a text from my sister right afterwards and she said, so how much did you pay that lady?

Lainie Rowell: Generous introduction. Check is in the mail. Yeah. Nope, they did it because you're amazing and you're also humble because you didn't even think to throw it out there.

And as a podcast host, I should have said it first, but at least I recovered. I'm gonna give myself, points for recovery there. So yes, absolutely. So many accolades, so much great work. So let's go at that first question, what does gratitude mean to you? No right or wrong answers, and then we'll get into some of your work.

Chris Jones: Sure. Boy, no right or wrong answers. You really took the pressure off. That's what we should do in all schools. Gratitude to me is it goes beyond the glass is half full type of thing. I, I like to dig a little deeper into, it's not whether the glass is half full. It's not whether the glass is half empty.

It's the idea that I have a glass to put anything in to begin with. So it's a step back to look at the bigger picture. Driven by the question of what do I have rather than what do I want? And so what I mean by that is, you know, quite often we get caught up in, oh, if only I had this, or I wish I had that.

When we do that we skip the idea of what we actually do have as simple as. I wake up in the morning because I had a good night's sleep in a bed, in a warm bed. And I can go downstairs and pour myself a coffee.

And I think of how many people don't even get to start their day that way, and how many people don't get to start their day that way, whether it's because of an economic issue, whether it's because of a health issue you know, the idea that I can. I can lay my head down at night in comfort, get a good night's sleep, and get up in the morning to repeat and to take another run at it for another day, is what I see as gratitude.

Lainie Rowell: I love that idea of stepping back at the bigger picture and when you are describing what it means to you, you're talking in a way that I think is so essential where you're really thinking about very specific examples of things, not so general, like, I'm grateful for my health. You're thinking about very, very specific things and I think that if I, if I understood you correctly, you're getting down to like the very, very basics in very specific ways.

Chris Jones: 100%. And you know, that wasn't something I always did. That became an acquired thing because I did a gratitude exercise each night and each morning. So I would try to come up with three to five things I was grateful for every single morning. And at first, you know, like the first morning you're like, yeah, I'm grateful, like you said, for my health.

I'm grateful cuz it's a nice day out and you know, I'm grateful for whatever. And then the next morning you wake up and you kind of do the same thing. You dance around it, but then you start to run out of things because you don't wanna keep repeating 'em or else they have less meaning. And so what do you do on the day that you get up and you have a cold and it's, you know, it's four degrees out and there's knee deep snow on the ground that you gotta go outside and shovel, shovel before you go to work.

So you really have to get specific about those things. So it's that challenge each day that made me look more. I was gonna say specificity, but I don't even know if that's the right word. You were talking about quintessential before. But to look at more specific things. And when you do that, I think it really helps you embrace gratitude to a point where it almost becomes second nature in the bigger picture, daily operations of your life.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah, I like the way Dr. Robert Emmons describes it. He goes, you can feel Gratitude. It's this feeling that you're having, but emotions are fleeting versus I am a grateful person. So there's, I feel grateful versus I am a grateful person. And so I think what I hear you saying is that through these practices and over time, you have moved into being, I am a grateful person.

Chris Jones: Yes. And I'm glad you made that distinction. I think that's an important distinction and it's, it's not something that you start to feel that way and you're there no more work. It's something that you need to continually remind yourself of. And if you truly are to become a grateful person, I think there's a lot of work on the backend that you have to identify specifically what you're grateful for, because.

It's almost like a boomerang. So you start off big, you get specific to make sure that you're actually becoming that grateful person, and once you become that grateful person, it's like a world opens up where it's very hard not to be grateful for just about everything. So it almost goes back out to that big picture once you get it tight again.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah, . That's a great description. I wanna make sure we get a chance to spend a good amount of time talking about your book. And by the way, I know I said the title Seeing to Lead, but the S.E.E. Is all capitals.

Can you tell us why?

Chris Jones: Sure. It stands for Support, Engage, and Empower and that in, in and of itself, when you mention the idea of gratitude, a lot of that just has to do with gratitude of the people I serve as their leader. When I'm supporting somebody, I'm grateful that they're there and grateful that they're, they're looking to be supported and looking to improve when I'm engaging them.

Engagement comes from my outwardly showing of my gratitude for them, and then because it's about value added. And then the empowerment part. I'm grateful that they've taken a step forward into a role of leadership where now they're branching out on their own, and I'm grateful that they're doing that because then I don't need to look at minuscule things based on trust and the, the understanding that they're there.

Lainie Rowell: Beautiful. Tell us how did you come to write this book? Like what was the journey? How did you come to, to get this framework that you wanted to put out there and share with the world.

Chris Jones: Yeah. It's it, and it, it definitely, it's a framework because it's a, it's built like a flywheel. And the whole idea of the framework is to get that flywheel spinning as fast as possible on its own. So the idea is, and I'm gonna say something that I get so many crazy looks from people when I'm sitting around in a conference.

Lainie Rowell: You've got my attention. I cannot wait. Go

Chris Jones: Lay that one out, Chris. I'm a teacher-centered principal. I'm not a student-centered principal. I'm a teacher-centered principal, and people look at me and it's almost like, oh dear, you can't say that as a principal, you need to be student-centered. Well, I. I look at where my leverage point comes from, where I can get the most leverage, and what's that big domino I can push over.

Now, if I can engage teachers and empower them in their classrooms to where they like coming to work. They're not ruining their whole Sunday afternoon because it's one o'clock and they're thinking about work the next day, but Sunday evening, they're like, oh yeah, I work tomorrow.

If I get teachers who are passionate about what they're doing in front of students and they're supported and they're engaged in the process, there's no way the students don't benefit much more on a larger scale than I could ever do on my own. So the teachers are really the center of my focus. Obviously student achievement, student environment, things like that are important, but I gain in that by taking care of the teachers.

The process was, and I lay this out in the book as for the longest time I sat in school, I did not have a great school experience and I sat in school with a chip on my shoulder thinking there's gotta be a better way to do this. Which then eventually, after iteration, after iteration, after iteration, led to my personal mission.

My why, if you wanna call it that, if you wanna use that word, but it's to make a better educational experience for everyone involved by being purposeful, acting with integrity and building character. And so that's, that's why my weekly videos are about that. But the book really, I came to realize somewhere in my educational career, and I wish I could remember where that I was blaming the wrong people.

I was blaming the teachers for the bad experience until I realized that teachers were acting in the box, that they were kept in by strict rules and not being supported, rather having expectations. And not receiving any help or engagement with those expectations. They didn't have a voice or anything like that they were just told to do.

And so of course, they stayed within their box. They didn't branch out, which led to a very disengaged student by the name of Chris Jones. And so as I started to look at it, I first gave a presentation on this. I, I can't remember what year, but I gave a presentation on it. At N A S S P, their national conference when I was playing with this and putting it around and and talked about supporting, engaging and empowering staff.

And then as I was writing these things down and putting the presentation together, I noticed I had three chunks that I could use. And that's what the book ended up being. I, I worked through the support piece and to help people with that I put in the strategies I use, I put in reflection points in the book.

It's not just a read through in you're done book or read through and highlight. Obviously if you wanna highlight, great. But it gives you strategies that you can do. It gives you questions to answer, and then it gives you the strategies I use in the different areas. And I do the same for the Engage and the Empower piece.

I really noticed it because in those weekly videos, which is why I mentioned 'em earlier, I started talking about these things and I started talking about how to support people better, how to engage people better, and how to empower them better. And then it just, I put the pen to paper. And ended up getting a book deal and writing a book.

Lainie Rowell: I wanna clarify something because here's what I heard. I heard you say it's not that student-centered isn't something that you believe in...

Chris Jones: Correct.

Lainie Rowell: You believe in student-centered. But if I'm understanding you, you are saying, I know that my role as an administrator is to be teacher-centered.

Is that fair to say?

Chris Jones: That's accurate. That's a hundred percent accurate. See, the student-centered, that's the teachers. The teachers are student-centered. I expect every single one of my teachers to be student-centered. They are part of the larger culture and organization. Yes. But I almost view it as if you keep going up steps, the teachers are my students.

So I need to be teacher-centered.

Lainie Rowell: Well, I think this is something that anyone who's considering leaving the classroom needs to go in with full awareness that when you step out of being rostered kids, being their teacher, your direct impact is not likely going to be the student. It will most likely be the adults and their direct impact will be the students.

I think that's something that can be quite jarring at first when people move out of the classroom into whether it's a instructional coaching position administrative position, whatever it is, you need to understand that your direct impact, most likely. I don't wanna speak in absolutes cuz there are other positions out there that I may not know about, but most of the positions I see where people step out of the classroom, their direct impact has to do with adults.

Chris Jones: Correct. That's your direct impact. If you want to impact students, you have to impact the adults because you're talking adults that depending on what school you're in, have anywhere from 20 to 30 kids in their classroom. If you're in a high school, let's say average 25 kids in their classroom, five or six periods a day, So think of that number of students compared to how many I can meet with in the morning to see how school's going.

I can schedule meetings with, I can never meet anywhere near that many students. And so if I want to have the largest impact, I have to impact those that I can get to a position where they're leading on their own, where they're empowered, they're fully engaged in the vision of the school and making it really happen for the students.

Lainie Rowell: It's an equally important thing, but it's a shift because like you said, it doesn't mean that there's no direct impact on students. You're still doing things that impact the climate, the culture on the campus, all of those things. But it is, you now need to pay attention to those adults who ultimately are gonna have the most contact with those kids.

Chris Jones: Yeah, no, absolutely. I'm, I'm involved with the kids. All the, I look, you wanna talk about Gratitude? That's one of the things that I'm, I'm most grateful for is the ability to interact with students when I want to interact with students. Yeah. By going into classrooms. I, I'm in classrooms all the time. And I have a feedback system with that, that I, I cover in the book, but the better idea of that is to be able to interact with the students. Like I'm out at arrival every morning for bus duty and we've got the music blaring and I'm out there greeting all the students that get dropped off and get dropped off with the bus. The best part about that is I'm out there with my assistant superintendent.

My assistant superintendent comes out and we play music and talk and we were gonna do a presentation on it called B D P D, Bus Duty Professional Development cuz we solve the problems of the world while we're standing out there. But Interacting with the kids, having fun with the kids. And then on Wednesdays, I do welcome sign Wednesdays with my positive affirmation signs that we take pictures.

And so, you know, when I, when I walk around the school and people know me or, or they're saying hi to me without being prompted or anything like that in the hallways, or, Hey, Dr. Jones, you know, or call me over to their lunch tables when I'm in the cafeteria. That's, that's what it's about. That's, that's what I'm grateful for, is the ability to walk around and do that.

Lainie Rowell: I would describe what you are describing as a form of temptation bundling. Are you familiar with this idea?

Chris Jones: No.

Lainie Rowell: So the idea of temptation bundling is to take one thing that you need to do, but maybe are not super excited about, and you bundle it with something that you cannot wait to do. So what I heard was, Bus duty pd, BDPD.

Right? So you need to be out there for security's sake. And it's not that you don't want that, but it's just like, bus duty on its own is not going to get you out of bed. But the fact that you get to have, these conversations that are your professional learning with your assistant sup, like that's amazing.

That's temptation bundling to me. You've found a way to combine the two things, you know, one that needs to happen with one thing, you can't wait to happen.

Chris Jones: Yeah, no, that's excellent. I had never heard of that before. And it's funny because you say that about B D P D and it, as we get close to the year, people will drive by and parents will roll down their windows and bus drivers were, they're like, you're almost there.

Cuz we stand out there in rain, snow, like we're a mess half the year. And it's funny cuz I'll be coming into work and I'm blah another workday, you know? Okay. It's a job and I don't not like my job. I love my job as a principal, but one of those days, it's just a blah day man, I'll get to bus duty and saying hi to the kids and good morning to the kids and all that, and listen to the music and, and I'm in such a good mood to start the day.

Lainie Rowell: I think that's such a great strategy and for principals in general, you know, it's, it's hard. There's sometimes you have to go into the office and close the door and do the budget stuff, do the compliance stuff that is just a part of the job that you're not super psyched about, but, It has to happen.

And when you can combine these things where you're visible, you're out there supporting the kids, keeping them safe, and you're getting to interact with your peers, that's, that's a, that's a win-win. I will say that my children, the elementary school that my kids go to, that principal is out there every morning.

As a parent, it brings me so much peace and joy. I see her, she's here making sure everyone's safe. I know mentally, I know intellectually, I know that that's what a principal does is one of their millions of jobs. But just to have that visibility of her, like she's on campus, she's keeping them safe.

It means a lot. She's greeting them. It's like she's loving it. I'm loving it. The kids are loving it. And we have good weather here in Southern California, so that's, that's a bonus for her and for any of the principals who are in this area. But the fact that you're, you're doing it Rain, sleeter, snow, like the, the mail carriers. Thank you.

Chris Jones: Yeah, no, it is, it is funny. One of the funniest things that happened is I pulled up and my assistant suit was out there first. He had taken his shoes off and he had his pants rolled up around his knees. He looked like Huck Finn because it was raining so bad. He put his shoes off the side.

You know, when you talk about gratitude, it's, it's being grateful for every aspect of life. Not just the positives, but you know, what, what positives are within the negatives that are occurring.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah. And that negativity bias is, is hard to overcome. And I mean, even you and I were chatting before and I was like, I've been knocked down a few things today.

It's been a little bit of a rough day, some bad news after bad news. But at the end I can take a deep breath and go, you know what? There is a lot of really good going on so I can shift even when I get bogged down a little bit. It's for me, having a grateful disposition has helped me shift out of it a lot faster.

Chris Jones: You're right though it is difficult cuz that negativity creeps in. My, my wife and I'll talk about our two boys and we are just so blessed with our two boys. We're so pleased with the young men that they're turning into that, but hey, they're 16 and 14, so it's almost guaranteed they're gonna try to do stupid things from time to time.

And so they'll do something that has us scratching our head or that get us a little miffed to put it politely and we'll look at each other afterwards, after talking to the boys wherever they go. You know, in the big scheme of things really just let 'em have this one, because, you know, they can do their little consequence, but we are so lucky to have the boys that we have.

So it's, it's that big. It's, again, it's like I said at the beginning of that stepping back big picture.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah. I have a chant I do now, now that I have a tween, and it's still developing a prefrontal cortex, still developing a prefrontal cortex, still developing a prefrontal cortex.

They're still going. There is still more work to be done and I am here for it. Ill support them. Ill not take things personally that have absolutely nothing to do with me. It's a reminder. I try and give myself.

Chris Jones: It's not their fault. It's not their fault.

Lainie Rowell: That's the more condensed version of the chant. Yes. Alright, my friend, I need to honor your time. I wanna make sure and give you an opportunity to give a shout out, and then I'm gonna ask you to share how people can get in touch with you. But let's first go ahead and who would you like to give a shout out to?

Chris Jones: First I'll do the professional one because this is usually a shout out that I give, but there is a fantastic man by the name of Danny Bauer from Better Leaders, Better Schools that I started with him and his masterminds before masterminds were the, were the, the key thing to do in 2017.

And I would, boy, looking at myself in 2017 and the leader I was worlds away from where I am now. I wouldn't be the leader or the person I am right now without his guidance and his mentorship. So that's, if you ever get a chance to look him up and do any work with him, just Yes, a hundred percent, yes.

Lainie Rowell: Full endorsement, Gratitude and endorsement.

Chris Jones: Yes. Gratitude and endorsement. He just a, just everything he's done for me and, and he really is a, a fantastic example of continuing to evolve and improve himself by working on himself. While he helps others and serves others. So the personal one, I, I have to give a shout out to my wife.

My wife is a seventh and eighth grade teacher. Something that I look at her and I say, you are a warrior. I'd never be able to do that. But she teaches English and she's too shy to say it, but she just received an award for teaching for her work with inclusion and making sure that all students have an equal opportunity to learn and are successful at doing it. And it's the first time that award was ever given to a middle school or high school teacher, cuz they're a junior senior. Really proud of her. Her name is Mary Ilo Jones.

Lainie Rowell: Thank you, Mary, for your work and for everything you're doing and happy that your husband is willing to brag for you because that is something worthy of bragging about.

Chris Jones: Oh, absolutely. She really is and I know, yes, I'm completely objective. She really is lights out in the classroom.

I mean, she gets up on desks and sings and all kinds of things. Teaches the kids songs to learn by always moving around the room just full of energy. I get tired watching her, but she just really does a fantastic job and, and the kids let her know it too. So it's excellent.

Lainie Rowell: Amazing. And I will admit, I was like, you, Chris, I was not what they would call a star student. I was maybe also there being like, when is this gonna be over? And sounds like I would've really enjoyed being in your wife's class.

My friend. I wanna make sure people know how to reach out to you. So where do you like to hang out on the line? On the line? Where do you like to hang out online?

Where, where's the best way for people to connect with?

Chris Jones: You know, probably probably Twitter. I play with Insta and all those others, but I'm, I'm, and I do Facebook, but Twitter's really easy to get ahold of me. It's @DrCSJones. And I'm pretty much @DrCSJones everywhere. If people want to reach out to me via email, it's drchrissj@gmail.com and if they want to go to my website, it's teamjonesedu.com.

Lainie Rowell: Amazing. I'm gonna put all of that linked in the show notes, so you've got to hear it. My friends who are listening, and if you look in the show notes where I put lots of gems you'll just be able to touch or click on it. So please be sure to connect with Dr. Jones. Be sure to listen to his podcast, grab a copy of his book.

He's putting really, really great things out there. He also shares great things on social media, so make sure to follow him there so you can catch all the goodness like I do. All right.

Chris Jones: Thank you very much. I appreciate you taking the time to have me on your show. I could talk to you forever, so thank you for being the one bold enough to say, Hey, we've gotta wrap this up.

Lainie Rowell: It's only to honor your time because I could talk to you forever as well, but I know that even though you're on summer break and things are slightly slower that you've got a million things to do.

Friends, thank you for listening and don't forget to check out Dr. Jones all on the web, all over the places. He's got great stuff.

All right, my friends. Thank you for listening.

Lainie Rowell

July 3, 2023

Bonus Episode - Behind the Scenes of Bold Gratitude with Guest Allyson Liu

Lainie Rowell

July 3, 2023

Shownotes:

Get ready for an electrifying episode as I chat with the fabulous Allyson Liu. We discuss our game-changing creation: "Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and By You." Friends, this isn't your average journal. It's an interactive, vibrant, and downright fun experience that breaks free from the confines of traditional journaling. With "Bold Gratitude," you're in control—choose your own adventure and embark on a gratitude journey that's as unique as you are. It's time to get bold and embrace the joy of gratitude like never before!

Trailer

Full Episode

About Our Guest:

Allyson Liu is a creative talent who discovered her passion for design early on. She has extensive experience in industries such as publishing and advertising. She also founded How Inviting, a line of custom stationery, which gained national attention when it was featured on NBC’s Today Show. Now, Allyson helps clients achieve their marketing goals through her company Allyson Liu, Marketing + Creative, where she brings a unique and inspired approach to branding.

Website: ⁠AllysonLiu.com⁠

Facebook: ⁠@allysonliucreative⁠

Instagram: ⁠@allysonliucreative⁠

About Lainie:

Lainie Rowell is an educator, international consultant, podcaster, and TEDx speaker. She is the lead author of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Evolving Learner⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and a contributing author of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Because of a Teacher⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Her latest book, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Evolving with Gratitude⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, was just released. An experienced teacher and district leader, her expertise includes learner-driven design, community building, online/blended learning, and professional learning. Learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linktr.ee/lainierowell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Twitter - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@LainieRowell ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Instagram - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@LainieRowell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Evolving with Gratitude, the book, is now available! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Purchase here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

You can also get bulk orders for your staff (10 copies or more) at a discounted price! Just fill out the form linked below and someone will get back to you ASAP! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠bit.ly/ewgbulkdiscount⁠⁠⁠

Transcript:

Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Hello friends. We have a very special episode today. Today we have Allyson Liu. Hello Allyson.

Allyson Liu: Hello Lainie. How are you?

Lainie Rowell: I'm good. See, we're pretending like we're just now talking for the first time, even though we've been talking for like an hour so far. Friends, here's why this is a super special episode, and that is Allyson is a lifelong best friend and the partner in Bold Gratitude. Our journal that's coming out. I'm so excited. Actually by the time people are listening to this, the journal will be out.

Allyson Liu: That is really exciting.

Lainie Rowell: I cannot wait. Okay. Let me give a proper introduction to my bestie. I'm gonna get real professional here. Are you ready, Allyson?

Allyson Liu: Let's keep it real Fun- Lainie.

Lainie Rowell: Oh, okay. That's fine. So we're gonna talk about Fun Lainie too, in case the listeners are wondering what the heck that means.

Okay. Let me get legit first. Allyson Liu is a creative talent who discovered her passion for design early on. It's really hard for me to do this with a straight face, but you are a big deal. So I wanna make sure and convey that because you've got experience in publishing advertising.

You're the founder of How Inviting and you have been nationally recognized on NBC's Today Show for your design work. And I think that's a pretty big deal.

Allyson Liu: Well, thanks.

Lainie Rowell: So I'm just saying it how it is. What do you wanna add? What do you wanna tell people about you that I did not cover in that semi-professional intro?

Allyson Liu: Well, I, I guess I would say that one of my biggest passions is helping other female entrepreneurs launch their businesses. So I love to work with other women who, whether they be moms who are trying to, you know, redefine what career looks like in their family and find that work life balance. I love to help support them in those goals, whether it's naming their businesses or creating their logos, helping them with their packaging, website, just branding in general.

But that's really where I feel like I make the most rewarding personal impact in helping other women who are in similar situations that I am with young families get back into the workforce and be proud of what they do.

Lainie Rowell: Well, speaking of impact, you've had a tremendous impact on my life personally as a bestie, but also professionally, in fact. I did put this in the acknowledgements of Evolving Learner, but I wanna say it here.

We were sitting in a Pei Wei in Tustin, and I was explaining to you this idea I had about professional learning and how I learned from kids and peers and the world. And you, without even taking a beat, you're like, oh, well it sounds like you're an Evolving Learner. And I was like, yes, that's it. And that ended up being the title of the keynote that I did at BLC.

And then that became the title of the book that I wrote with Kristy Andre and Lauren Steinman. Yes. So yes. And so basically, you have had a huge impact on everything that I have put out into the world as far as books. And you've helped me with so many things along the way. So I'll, I'll start to get like all emotional if I, if I lean into it too much.

But I just wanna put that out there because it was so easy to say, I need to do this next project with Allyson and one of my favorite things, we just celebrated the one year of Evolving with Gratitude, which you designed the cover of.

Allyson Liu: That's right.

Lainie Rowell: And I don't know if you saw this, but yesterday on Facebook I said, Hey, here's the cover for Bold Gratitude.

You might recognize Allyson's name because she did the cover of Evolving with Gratitude, and someone wrote in the comments. I love everything she does.

Allyson Liu: Aw. It's like, I did not see that, but that makes me feel really good.

Lainie Rowell: I know. I was like, oh my gosh, that makes me so happy. And I know people who have actually reached out to me and said will she design my book cover?

And I know that people have already reached out to you to help with their branding educators and so yes, I love that.

Allyson Liu: Yeah. There's been a lot of great networking that has come through all of this. But I remember when we were talking about the cover of Evolving with Gratitude and you had this little seed that you, you, you planted saying, wouldn't it be great if we had a little spinoff, a little, a little baby come off of this book. So it's so exciting that we were able to to make this happen.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah, let's take people through that. Let's talk a little bit about this, because people not knowing the backstory, which we're about to share, might be like, wow, Evolving with Gratitude came out June, 2022 and a year later.

We're having the Bold Gratitude Journal come out, like, how did that happen so quickly? But as you just pointed out, this has actually been in the works for a while. For me, I dared not say it out loud for a while except to you because I was like, I don't know are people gonna get excited about this?

And then as soon as I started letting it out of the bag, people were excited. So let's, let's talk a little bit about the origin story of this. Yes, we talked about it being like from the beginning with Evolving with Gratitude, but how did this actually come into to being from your perspective, and then I can share some of my perspective, but...

Allyson Liu: Well, I think when we really got serious about it was when we took over some property at Starbucks with a lot of research in other books and journals that are out there and where we really kind of zoned in on finding that missing element that we weren't really seeing in some of the journals that are out there currently. So when we honed in on what we felt like could be really impactful, which was to go after, you know a wider demographic. Particularly with tweens and above.

Yeah. And that was something that I think we, we saw was, was lacking.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah. And I, I just wanna say you know we say on the cover, so it's Bold Gratitude: The Journal Design for You and By You. And I feel like from the very beginning that this was gonna be universally designed, as interactive as possible, so we wanted to make it as accessible as possible, but we also, and you really brought this out in me wanted to make it creative and really to inspire creativity and to also have this like upbeat, casual, you call it Fun- Lainie which we, we were not seeing in some of the other journals.

Allyson Liu: Correct. And me being a creative writing my thoughts and feelings won't come as naturally as it will to somebody like you. And so when I see the journals that are relying all about writing instead of all the different other ways you can express what your feelings are, which, you know for me it's obviously with art and design, I felt like it was a really good direction to go where we are hitting more audiences because we make this journal, really interactive in a way that they can take on an assignment or skip over a chapter or go backwards. If I'm having a day where I do wanna write, there are many options for me to do that.

But if I have a day where I just wanna doodle or sketch or you know meditate or whatever, there are so many different paths you can take through this journal and for somebody like me that is way more appealing than a journal that is strictly for journaling in its traditional sense of writing.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah, and what I love is, I think we came up with a nice balance of, we've got fill in the blanks in there. Just give you a little bit of inspiration and you don't have to go full on writing essays or anything like that. You can just fill in the blanks and get to process through all those feelings, get that experience. We've got the activities that are really about creativity and bringing in kind of that artistic, which if that means stick figures to you, that's totally fine.

You don't have to be an artist for that. We've got some quotes. One of my favorite things that kind of came from you and I going back and forth on, well, how much space do we give for a journal prompt is, well, why would we dictate that at all? And one of my favorite things is that we have at the end of each section, there's three sections.

Gratitude for Happiness, Gratitude with your Peeps, and Gratitude with the World. At the end of each section, we've got the page of prompts that you can either cut out and glue on the pages that follow, that are wide open. Or you can rewrite them if, you know, cutting or tearing in your journal is, you know, non-starter for you.

Allyson Liu: Right.

Lainie Rowell: But that was, that was one of my favorite things that came from, and that was a hundred percent a reflection of this being a partnership where I would say something to you and you'd be like, well, I don't know about that. And vice versa. Right. And so definitely that was...

Allyson Liu: It was back and forth.

Lainie Rowell: It was. It was. And the practices are pulled from Evolving with Gratitude and things that I've done over the years. But you contributed practices too. Yeah. And then the design is a, you know, that is led by you. And then sometimes I'd be like, Ooh, can we do this? I mean, I have no design skills, but it was...

Allyson Liu: You had a lot of design ideas and then back to your point, if you're not artistic, we've got the coloring book page, we've got doodles that you could just fill in. So you don't have to have an artistic side either to really enjoy the different options that the journal has for you.

And then even the origami, you know, that's also kind of a neat craft that I think a lot of people are interested in learning how and then it serves you well throughout the journal because then you can use your bookmark.

Lainie Rowell: So the origami bookmark a hundred percent your idea. And I loved it. And I will say that that was one of the first suggestions that you made that made me go wider on what this journal could be.

And realizing we have a lot of opportunity to not only leverage what we give them on paper, but have them bring things outside in, right? So it's like go get a piece of paper. It can be patterned, it could be blank, it could be colored paper, whatever it is. And then we give the directions for the origami bookmark.

Which is so brilliant because we clearly state you don't have to go in order, you can hop around, right? And you could potentially create multiple of them and put them in different spaces for like, okay there's a day where I wanna do a fill in the blank.

I'll do this. If there's a day I want more open-ended, I'll do this. Right. There's a day I wanna be more creative and artistic, I'll do this, but. I just am so happy with how it turned out, and I really cannot wait for people to get it.

Allyson Liu: I really cannot wait for my children to get it.

Lainie Rowell: Awww.

Allyson Liu: You know, it's just nice to have something that is age appropriate that they can participate in too.

Even though they're younger than the tween, this is still something that with my assistance that they would be able to work through and to participate in, so, I see this being something that families can do together. I see it being something that adults would love to do just because it is so interactive and different than a typical journal.

But I also think it's a really great thing for families to do together.

Lainie Rowell: I'm glad you mentioned that because I'm excited for that too. And my kids have been testing, they're my focus group. So when people see some of the prompts that are in there, know that those made it past two rounds of a child and a tween And they had to rate them and if it got the veto it definitely wasn't making it.

Yeah. Most of them got the thumbs up from both.

Allyson Liu: Right. And that means that we're speaking to a broader audience. And if our kids understand and can do this journal, then it's really open to all ages, which is exciting and different.

Lainie Rowell: When we first started, and I still use this language "for anyone 10 to 110 and then some", because like you said, if it's a family doing it, you can go much younger.

Mm-hmm. And if you can live past 110, I think you should still do some gratitude journaling. So that too. Right?

Allyson Liu: Agreed. You definitely should be doing some gratitude journaling. You have a lot to be thankful for.

Lainie Rowell: You do. Exactly. Yes. Exactly. So let's continue down this memory lane, can you think about something throughout this process, maybe it was taking over a Starbucks, and by the way, friends, I own pretty much every gratitude journal that's on the market right now, I have an entire bookshelf that is just gratitude journals or anything, gratitude journal, adjacent, even planners, things that we just dumped out on that Starbucks.

I brought a suitcase. It was literally a suitcase full of journals.

Allyson Liu: Yep. It was a carry-on. You know, to be fair.

Lainie Rowell: Exactly. It did not require being checked.

Allyson Liu: No. It was perfect for overhead space.

Lainie Rowell: It would qualify for overhead space, but it was still an entire suitcase of journals. And some of those journals are thin.

And we had to put tables together at the Starbucks. Yep. And then we laid them all out so I'll tell you a little bit about what I loved about that part of the process. It was very organic, very messy, we just went through and one of my favorite things was, there were some journals, which are lovely, but I remember you opening up one of 'em and you're like, oh, that feels like a homework assignment.

Allyson Liu: Homework assignment. Yes.

Lainie Rowell: And I was like, oh, we don't want that. It was like, visually...

Allyson Liu: And that's the creative brain, you know, when, when you see something like that, that it just to me, personally felt very taxing. Overwhelming. I did not feel like I could make it through that, and it had a redundant feel to it, so that also kind of is how we went down the path of combining a lot of different activities.

Lainie Rowell: I've listened to people talk about some of their hesitations in journaling, and one of the things that I've heard multiple people say is they'll get a journal and then they feel like they have to do all the prompts in order.

Allyson Liu: Mm-hmm.

Lainie Rowell: And that feels very restricting because maybe that, that prompt isn't speaking to me today, but they don't necessarily feel like they have permission to hop around. We explicitly say, please hop around if you want to. You don't have to. And then also just some of the feedback I've heard, cuz I was asking a lot of people, do you journal, do you not?

Why or why not? Some people were saying they felt real guilt about not filling up space that was given or not doing enough items or things like that so I, I really am happy with where we landed on, I think it's a good amount of guidance without being overwhelming or too prescriptive.

Allyson Liu: Absolutely and I feel that the same way, you know which has kept me from doing as much journaling as I would like.

My journaling comes in more of a creative field, you know, vision boards and things like that appeal to me personally more. I find that I enjoy doing things like that, the scrap booking aspects versus the writing. Everybody's different and that's what's great about the journal is that we are offering a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

Lainie Rowell: And there's a little bit of stuff at the beginning, if you want, get you in the mindset of like, okay, we're gonna do this.

We're gonna give ourselves a little permission slip, and then we have an intro which has a subheading of, unless you decide to skip it, but I think you'll like it if you give it a try. And then we've got some guided practices. But in these sections, at the end of each, there's a bunch of just somewhat blank pages. I say blank- ish pages cuz you gave them a nice little border that people could decorate if they wanted to. But it's really pretty free, wide open space. And we talked about do we put the dots there? Do we put lines and I'm happy that we just settled on it's free space.

Allyson Liu: Yeah, and you know, also one of the thoughts that had gone by our heads were during the places where we have the quotes. You know, that could be potentially a page where you can scrapbook around that quote on how that quote speaks to you.

So if you're inspired by Oprah's quote, then maybe you can either doodle or you can scrapbook and you can use that page to design how that quote inspires you.

Lainie Rowell: I tell people, I'm somewhat allergic to paper just because I don't like people handing me paper and it's something really important that I'm gonna lose.

But there is something really special about the tactile of a journal. And also I'm a nerd for post-it notes and I can get behind some good stickers and stamps and things like that and I went full out. One of my favorite memories of this process, we made a field trip to The Paper Source.

Allyson Liu: One of my favorite places.

Lainie Rowell: This is not an advertisement. Although Paper Source, if you're listening and you wanna send some, you know...

Allyson Liu: Do you want this wonderful journal?

Lainie Rowell: In your, in your establishment, in your stores.

Allyson Liu: Yeah. I think that would make a lot of sense.

Lainie Rowell: Yeah. Or feel free to just send us a check for the shoutout. Well, either way, whatever you...

Allyson Liu: But we're not being sponsored by Paper Source.

Lainie Rowell: But we're not being sponsored. But that was one of my favorite field trips because I brought supplies home and my kids, it was really interesting to see how one would gravitate towards certain materials and another different materials and me as well.

And so even if you're not an artistic person I found, I think it was like $5 on Amazon. I bought some stencils because I just, I don't consider myself really artsy and so that's why I have you, Al. But the stencils helped me to like make it aesthetically pleasing, which was just kind of a nice calming activity just to sit there and use the stencils and color them in.

And that was just super fun for me too.

Allyson Liu: And a little washi tape goes a long way too.

Lainie Rowell: Oh my gosh. Washi tape is amazing. Mm-hmm. That's a really solid point. We hope that people just have so much fun. Treat it like a scrapbook, obviously it's a journal, but put things in it.

It's not just already what's there, which is, I feel a lot and I think you're gonna love it, but the idea of actually gluing or taping things in, I think is super fun too.

Allyson Liu: Agreed. And another thing that I love about the journal is the back cover because the owner of the journal is the author in our eyes, so I love that we let the author acknowledge themselves on the back cover, which I think is really special too.

Lainie Rowell: And full choice on that. You can just describe yourself in some words. You could tape or glue a selfie on there. You could...

Allyson Liu: do your self portrait.

Lainie Rowell: Absolutely.

Allyson Liu: You could write adjectives about yourself.

Lainie Rowell: A hundred percent. That's one of my favorite things about the journal and I think we, we did a good job of reinforcing that with each other is that we kept saying it's their journal. It's their journal. So when we were asked okay, are you gonna have an acknowledgements? It was like, well, but it's their journal. Right? Right. And so there were times where you and I would get into the habit of doing things that would normally go in a book and we're like, but this is their journal, so we're not gonna take that space. It's theirs. I love it so much. I am super excited to get this into people's hands and if you are listening to this, the journal's available.

We're not gonna put this out there until people can get it and we'll put the link to get it in the show notes. All right, Al, any last thoughts that you wanna share about this wonderful collaboration?

Allyson Liu: Another thing that I love about the journal is we have an area on pages where you can check once you've completed the task.

And so I love that kind of ownership, like, okay, this is what I'm gonna do today to show others that I'm grateful for them. And then I'm gonna come back and I get to check this box when it's complete so that I'm held accountable for the gratitude that I share with my friends that day.

And I think that that's, that's a fun and easy way to use the journal to kind of, remind yourself of things that you could do. Same with cutting things out and posting them around your house to remind you, we've got a lot of those types of activities that are super easy. They don't require any real effort, but they will keep gratitude front in mind throughout your day.

Lainie Rowell: Absolutely, and I'm so glad you mentioned that it's not a huge lift. A lot of these things can be done in five minutes or less.

Allyson Liu: Yep.

Lainie Rowell: I love that you pointed out, we have a Gratitude in Action checkbox on a lot of the pages. If you're like me, lot of joy from checking things off a list like yes I did that.

It's very self-affirming.

Allyson Liu: I am. I am a hundred percent that way.

Lainie Rowell: I know I keep saying this, but I'm just so excited for people to get this and just wanna say one other thing, because I'm flipping through a draft of it that I have. As we're recording this, we're in the very final stages and if you're listening to this, you could buy it right now. But there's so many practices in here, like Dr. Robert A Emmons... There's a noticing the good practice inspired by him. These are not just on a whim we decided to put these things in here. A lot of them are practices that were mentioned in Evolving with Gratitude, but I wasn't able to give a lot of space because in that book I'm talking about the science and I have the stories from the contributors, and I'm trying to be really concise.

And so I really wanted to make this a, you've got the space. This is about you and expressing and experiencing gratitude, so yeah. It's gonna be a good time. I'm looking forward to it and the people who have been sharing on the socials are like, can't wait. Ready to order now.

Allyson Liu: Awesome. I love to hear that.

Lainie Rowell: I know, right? It's so fun. All right, Allyson. I know people are gonna wanna catch up with you and see all the amazing work you're doing, and they might need some help with their own branding, their own content. So, Al, what's the best way for people to reach out to you?

Allyson Liu: My Instagram handle is @AllysonLiuCreative. And my website is AllysonLiu.Com.

Lainie Rowell: I'm gonna put all that in the show notes, my friends, you gotta check her out. She does such great work. I am truly honored to not only call her a bestie, but a partner in this. .

I just wanna take a moment. This journal would not have happened without you. There was no other way this was gonna happen. It, it was something that I had hinted at when Evolving with Gratitude started, but I always knew in my mind that I would not do it without you. This was just something that had to be us together.

And there's so many things that if there was gonna be an acknowledgements, I would go very, very deep into explaining all the things that you did. For example, how long it took just to figure out the fonts. Like, it seems like such a simple thing, but if anyone has done any sort of design work, they know that picking fonts is not. It's not a simple thing.

Allyson Liu: No, but it was super important and I'm really happy with the font selection. I think it speaks to the journal quite well.

Lainie Rowell: I think so too. I absolutely love it and I know that people are gonna love it too. So I hope people will go ahead and click on the links in the show notes to catch up with Allyson on all the spaces. She's one of the hardest working people I know. She wants everyone to be happy with what she does, and I've just never worked with anyone that is so fast at getting things done, but not just fast great stuff. I won't be able to properly gush over you because it's like decades of friendship.

I can't even come to the words. But I just want you to know that I know there was so much heart and soul and creativity that went into this. And I just thank you for that.

Allyson Liu: And I thank you for taking me along on the ride.

Lainie Rowell: Like I said, it wouldn't have happened without you.

All right, friends, I'm gonna put links to all the goodness in the show notes. I hope you grab your copy of Bold Gratitude, the Journal Designed for You and by You with so much love from Allyson and I.

Allyson Liu: Thanks guys.

Lainie Rowell: Thanks for listening.

Lainie Rowell

June 27, 2023

Bonus Episode - Season 2 #EvolvingWithGratitude Podcast Highlights (January-June)

Lainie Rowell

June 27, 2023

Shownotes:

Get ready to be filled with joy, hope, and inspiration as you listen to highlights of Season 2 of the pod so far! There are so many takeaways from these #EvolvingWithGratitude guests! The hardest part of producing this episode was picking just one highlight per episode! I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed putting this together.

Full Episode

About Lainie:

Twitter - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@LainieRowell ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Instagram - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@LainieRowell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Evolving with Gratitude, the book, is now available! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Purchase here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Lainie Rowell

June 20, 2023

Episode 62 - Happy Kids, Healthy Relationships, Gainful Employment With Guest David Miyashiro

Lainie Rowell

June 20, 2023

Shownotes:

In this delightful episode of the pod, we're joined by the innovative and inspiring David Miyashiro. We dive into the keys to creating happy kids, engaged in healthy relationships on a path to gainful employment. David shares his insights on developing vocational identity, exploring diverse careers, and empowering students to find their passions. Join us for an inspiring conversation that will leave you feeling grateful for the incredible work happening in our schools and communities. Let's get ready to spread some positivity and make a difference together!

Trailer

Full Episode

About Our Guest:

Dr. David Miyashiro is a forward-thinking, award-winning education leader with a 17-year career spent revolutionizing learning approaches, education models, and school district capabilities in Southern California. As a digital pioneer, he has navigated districts into the hi-tech era, delivering numerous innovation “firsts,” for which he has garnered professional honors. Those include Superintendent of the Year and recognition from the White House and U.S. Department of Education as one of the “Top 35 District Leaders in Personalized Learning.” Districts under his leadership have also won awards, such as the California School Boards Association’s Golden Bell Award, the National School Boards Association’s Magna Award for Digital Learning, and the California Distinguished Schools Award.

Website: ⁠cajonvalley.net⁠

Twitter: ⁠@DavidMiyashiro⁠

Instagram: ⁠@miyashirod⁠

About Lainie:

Lainie Rowell is an educator, international consultant, podcaster, and TEDx speaker. She is the lead author of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Evolving Learner⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and a contributing author of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Because of a Teacher⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Her latest book, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Evolving with Gratitude⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, was just released. An experienced teacher and district leader, her expertise includes learner-driven design, community building, online/blended learning, and professional learning. Learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linktr.ee/lainierowell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.