EPISODE #54

You’re listening to School Leadership Reimagined, episode number 54.

Welcome to the school leadership re-imagined podcast where we rethink what's possible to transform your school if you're tired of settling for small wins and incremental improvement. Then stayed tuned to discover powerful and practical strategies for getting every teacher in your school moving towards excellence. Now here's your host, Robyn Jackson.

Hey builders,

Welcome to another episode of the school leadership reimagined podcast. I'm your host Robyn Jackson and today we are going to talk about what got you here. Won't get you there. I want to tell you a story about a principal I worked with a few years ago and he was a brand new principal and he had been an amazing assistant principal. He was the kind of principal who was there early and stay late. He was getting into classrooms. He dealt with discipline himself and he knew his kids. He was in the lunch room, he worked on the master schedule, he was the master scheduler for the building. He went to teachers' team meetings. He handled of the custodial staff and he was just a really hard worker. So when the district was looking for a principal for a new middle school, he was the exact right person.

It was obvious that he was the right person for the job.

And so they made him principal of this school and he was so excited to be the principal of the school, but within months he was exhausted because he was still doing everything that he did as an assistant principal. And he was trying to tackle the new responsibilities of being a principal. He was there early. He'd was not going home until after midnight sometimes he never saw his wife and children on the weekends. He was at the school. He was always trying to keep up. And one day I sat him down and I said, you know, you're working really hard. And he says, yes, but that's what it takes to be a principal. And he wasn't complaining. He never complained about working really hard. And I said, you're going to continue to work really hard and you're going to kill yourself in the process. And you know, he looked at me because that's the advice that everybody tells a new principal.

He says, I'm a new principal. It's my school. I'm trying to get established. But what he was doing was he was trying to be the best assistant principal he can be. The only problem was he was no longer an assistant principal. Now he was principal of the school. You see what got him to the point of being suggested and recommended as a principal was not the same thing that was going to make him a good principal and at the moment all he was doing was he was being an amazing assistant principal, but the job had changed. The job now was the principal. The things that you do as an assistant principal, the grunt work that you do, the things that you do to kind of personally run the school. They're great for being an assistant principal. That's what an assistant principal does, but when you're a principal, it's not about doing the right work.

It's about making sure that the right work gets done. 

It's a simple distinction, but it's the most important distinction. It's what makes principals successful. It's, you have to make sure that the right word gets done, but you have to work through other people and a lot of people ascend to the principalship, never having learned how to get other people to do the work. They were good as assistant principals because they were good at getting the work done themselves. But when you're a principal, it's not about you doing the work yourself, it's about coordinating the work. It's about motivating and inspiring other people. It's about looking at that bigger vision. It's about setting a bigger vision. And a lot of times we are not trained on how to do that. And so a lot of us go into the principal role having never learned how to do the things that principals are expected to do.

So we are just the assistant principal and chief rather than taking on the role of being the principal. What got you here won't get you there. I fell into the same trap myself as an instructional coach. I was a good teacher, I was a very good teacher. I worked very hard at it over the years to refine my practice. And as a result, people said, you know, you're having so much success in your classroom, you should be an instructional coach so that you can help other teachers have similar success. And then I fell into the same trap that I see most instructional coach falling into. They do what worked in their classroom and they tried to take that and put that in other people's classrooms. So a lot of times instructional coaches will sit down with teachers who are struggling and they'll say, well, what worked for me?

Just between us, no teacher wants to hear what worked for you. 

They want to know what worked for them. And so, but we don't know. We're not getting trained on how to help other teachers be successful. A lot of times we get very little training as instructional coaches and so we're, we're frustrated because we're going in and we can see what's not working in a teacher's classroom, but we were never trained on how to help other people be successful. We were just told to go in and replicate in that classroom what we did in our classrooms. So what happens is we're running around from one classroom to the next trying to give teachers strategies, trying to give them resources going in classrooms and giving them minute feedback going in classrooms and modeling, teaching for their class and all of those things while they're, you know, good tools, they are not enough to take a teacher who is struggling or teacher whose jets mediocre and help that teacher begin to be a better teacher and move on the pathway to being a master teacher for themselves.

As a result, a lot of instructional coaches right now are running around and instead of coaching other teachers, they are personally responsible for the success or failure of other classes because they are in essence teaching those other classrooms. They are the ones that are creating the plans. They are the ones that are going in and checking for understanding. They are the ones who are looking for resources to help that class. They are the ones thinking through what needs to be done to move those students. That's not the role of a coach. You are a great teacher in your classroom because you are responsible for the kids because you did that for your kids. But as an instructional coach, your job is to help other teachers do that for their kids themselves.

What got you here won't get you there. 

I see this with people who move from individual schools to central office. So a lot of times principals will get promoted into central office and instead of being responsible for their individual school, they are now responsible for several schools. And I see those principals running from one school to the next and essentially principal principaling. Is that a word? Principle thing? Well, let's just make it a word. So they will be essentially principal Ling, each of those schools and micro managing those schools because they don't know another way to help those principals be successful. And they're facing a mandate that says you've got to go in and you've got to turn around these schools. And so they take it as an individual mandate and they try to turn around the schools because they were never taught how to help the principals become better principals themselves. Again, what got you here is not what will get you there. And the challenge that I see a lot of people facing as they're trying to, to take on new responsibilities and new roles is that every time you ascend, every time you get a promotion, every time you get more responsibility, it's less about your individual work and more about how you help other people do the work.

And this is where a lot of us struggle because we were good and now we're being asked to help other people be as good as we were. And we didn't ever learn how to do that. Nobody ever taught us how to do that. So on today's episode, I want to talk about this conundrum and share with you a few solutions to get you out of the trap. If you're in that trap of, of working really hard and doing what made you good and trying to, to spread that out across several classrooms or an entire school or several schools or an entire district and you're struggling because while you were good, you are never taught how to help other people be good. I have a few solutions that I think can help you today and these are the same solutions that we teach at builder's lab because we find that a lot of people come to builders lab and they are exhausted. They have a vision for their school and maybe a vague vision and we help them kind of clarify that vision and really crystallize it.

They want their school to be better. 

A lot of times people come to us not because their schools are failing, they come to us because their schools are doing okay. Their schools are, are kind of good, maybe mediocre, but you know they're okay schools and they want their schools to be great and they're struggling because when they were in the position, when they were the teacher, when they were the principal, they were good. They, they had a lot of success. They know how to move a classroom or move a school and now they're in a new role and they're being asked to help other people do the same thing. And they're frustrated. They're frustrated sometimes because people don't have the skill that they need to do that work.

And sometimes they're frustrated because they see potential in the skill, but they, the people don't have the will, they, they're just not motivated. They're, they're satisfied with the status quo. They're, they're just okay with where they are. Or people are cranky and they don't want to work any harder than they're working. Or there's a toxic culture pervading that that is keeping people from doing the right work the right way and for the right reasons. So people come to builders lab because they're frustrated because they don't know what else to do because they have this either external or internal mandate to, to move a school forward and they feel stuck. And one of the things that we teach at builder's lab is we teach you how to get unstuck. We teach you how to move people so that you stop doing all the work yourself and you get everybody in your school moving in the right direction, working the right way, working for the right reasons.

Stop being the smartest person in the room and the hardest working person in the room.

And instead you get other people to join you in that effort, willingly join you in that effort and you're moving your school forward. So I'd like to invite you to join us at an upcoming builders lab. In fact, our next builders lab is happening January 21 through 23 2020 and it's happening right here in Washington DC. Well not in Washington DC, right on the edge of Washington, D C in Arlington, Virginia. And so you would fly into Washington DC on that Monday and then we'll get started and builders lab on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. And during that time, you and I are gonna spend time really helping you figure out how to get to the next level. That's kind of what we teach you at builders lab. So wherever you are, if you have a school that's struggling or you have a culture that's really toxic and kind of undermining the work that you're doing, we're going to help you figure out how to overcome that so that you can stabilize your school and you can get your school moving forward.

Maybe your school is already stabilized, maybe you are a good school and a lot of people come to builder's lab and they say, you know, my school is pretty good. I have a lot of teachers who are hard working and who want to do the right thing. We just can't figure out how to move forward. And it feels like they're spinning their wheels. Well, they come to builder's lab and they get clarity about the right thing. What is the next best thing we should be doing? And they get a process that helps not only generate momentum but keep that momentum going long after they lead. A lot of people tell us, you know, we say, you know that when you come to builders lab, you'll get more done in the next 90 days and you've gotten done all year long. That's kind of we're, we're realizing that's kind of not really it.

It's not that you just get more done, like you're knocking out work. It's really that you get more accomplished and there's a big difference.

So you're already working hard. It's not that you're not getting stuff done, you're probably already getting a lot of stuff done, but how much are you getting accomplished? How much success are you seeing? Major success, not, you know, little teeny tiny incremental improvements because nobody has time for that anymore. You want to see big success, you want to see your biggest barrier removed and that's what we show you. A builders lab. We show you how to knock out the biggest thing that's holding you back from whatever it is you're trying to achieve so that in 90 days you already have a success story. You already are looking back and saying, I cannot believe it. That thing has been bothering us for years and it's just gone.

Sometimes schools come and they have been struggling for years to kind of move the needle. They're kind of stuck at a certain student achievement level and they can't move the needle and they come to us in 90 days and not only do they move the needle, but instead of getting like five or 10% gains every year, and a lot of schools will be satisfied with that. But the people come to the builders lab, they don't want five or 10% gains will they want our 20 and 30% gave and they're seeing that happen in 90 days. They're seeing that happen this school year. Other people come and they, they have a teacher that they haven't been able to move and they learn something and builders lab and they send an email to that teacher during builders lab. And then I remember one lady, she did that, she, she had a teacher who had been giving her grief.

She learned something in builder's lab! 

We helped her compose a letter to that teacher, an email to that teacher. And then in the middle of the third day, I hear this like, whoop, come me from the back of the room and I'm like, what's going on? And she goes, Oh, I'm so sorry. I just opened my email and I got an email back from the teacher and this teacher, I was expecting resistance. She always resist. But this time because of that email that I wrote, she's like, I will be happy for you to come into my classroom. I am excited about what you're going to show me. And it was just like a night and day difference in that teacher. And that kind of thing happens in builder's lab all the time. In fact, sometimes I don't even tell people that those things are happening because I don't, you know, they think it's just hype.

They think it's just advertising, they think it. But it really does happen. And that's one of the reasons why builders lab is my absolute favorite thing to do. I may have done a lot of different workshops over the years in my career. I've learned a lot. I've enjoyed them at the time. But there's something different about builder's lab that I just, and I think the thing that's different is that a lot of times I do workshops and people enjoy them and they, they, they, they can see how they can use that. But at builder's lab, because we are helping people implement, they're not just learning. We're implementing while we're at builders lab, I get to be a part of so many people's success stories because those success stories are happening in builder's lab. They're happening right there. So if you, if I go on and on and on about builder's lab, the reason I do that is because I honestly believe that when you come to builders lab, whatever that thing is that's holding you back, we work hard to remove it.

People come to builders lab frustrated, they come overwhelmed.

They come in, I'll just kind of like, they know that they could be doing so much more and they're, they're working as hard as they can and when they come to builders lab, they don't really kind of know exactly what else they can do. They, they, they've done everything. They figured they, they've tried to figure it out. They're people who are honestly good at their jobs. They, they're there. There are people who are already experiencing a level of success, but they know that there's more success out there and they're frustrated because they can't get to it. And in three days we figure out what's the thing that's holding them back from bigger success and we show you how to remove it. And then people walk back into their schools and they start writing a new success story.

They start turning their school into this raving success story and they do it with the people and resources they already have. They don't go back and say, well let me go fire all these teachers and then I'll be successful. Let me go find a grant and then I'll be successful. They go back the same teachers, same situation, same resources, new attitude, new tools, and they go back and they take that school and they turn it into a success story. So anyway, I could go on and on gushing about builders lab. But I just want to invite you to join us. If you are ready to turn your school into a success story. If you are frustrated because you feel like you're hitting a wall, you feel like you're just stuck at a particular level. Come get on stock, come and join me.

We keep it small and intimate.

I work with you personally and in three days we help you go back and, and you go back with renewed vigor and energy and insight and then we follow up with you for the next 90 days to make sure that what you learned at builders lab, you have all the support you need to be able to implement it in your school and you can start seeing the success happen this school year. So go to Mindsteps inc com slash builders dash lab, that's mindset, think.com/builders-lab to get your tickets and to find out the upcoming dates. So if you can't make it in January, we have some other dates happening this school year. I'm sorry, not this school year in 2020 and so just go to mindset, think.com/builders-lab and get your tickets off for any of the upcoming builders labs that we're having in 2020. All right, so now let's talk about this.

What got you here won't get you there. I see this all the time. I see it with individual jobs like I described at the beginning of this episode, but you know where else I see it. I also see it in schools. I see schools who have been working really hard to get out of a situation or to raise test scores and then they hit that, that, that goal, they, they, they, they improve by five or 10% or they, you know, improve fourth grade reading scores, you know, or they, they, they improve, you know, high school graduation rates. So whatever it is they're working on to improve. And so they keep doing that same work, but then they get a new problem and they try to add on the new work to the old work. And so a lot of teachers I talked to these days are just overwhelmed and they feel like this is what the teachers are telling me.

The teachers are telling me that it often feels like my administrators are just throwing spaghetti against the wall. 

They don't really know what's going to work, but they are just throwing everything they've got at the problem and hoping that something works. And then when they do that, they experienced some success. So they feel like, well, I'm not sure which individual thing gave us the success. So let's just keep throwing spaghetti against the wall and let's throw some more spaghetti against the wall. If a little spaghetti is good, more spaghetti, we'll be even better. And so they keep throwing new things at the problem. They're not sure which thing made them successful. They're afraid to stop any of the things that they've tried because they're afraid they're gonna lose that. That little 2% or 5% gain that they're seeing. And so we're just working our teachers to death because we keep trying.

We go onto to emergency mode and we just keep putting everything we have into the problem. And it's a trap because we don't know what worked. And so we can't figure out what to continue to do and what to stop doing. And over time we just keep adding more and more and more and more work on teachers without fully understanding the problem without kind of understanding what worked and what didn't work. It becomes a mess. And so what got you there? What got you those little teeny incremental gains is not what's going to get you to the next level. It's not what's going to keep the momentum going. Because oftentimes what we used to get those little tiny gains were emergency measures and people are not going to be able to sustain that over the long haul.

It's why so many of our teachers are overwhelmed.

You know, I wrote a book a few years ago called never work harder than your students. And a lot of people see that title and they think that, Oh, let's have Robyn come in and help our teachers who are overwhelmed, stop being overwhelmed. And when I, when I talked to those people and I say, well, what are you willing to let teachers stop doing? And they say, Oh no, no, we can't stop doing it because those are the things that got us to this point. So we have to keep doing all of this extra work, but I just want you to make them feel better about all the extra work they're doing. Well, I don't take those gigs because the whole point of never worked harder than your students. It's first you have to figure out what is the root cause for why things are not working and then you fix the root cause forever so that things get easier.

The idea around never work harder than your students is that you want things to get easier, not harder. You want to make sure that you are doing the right work the right way so that you can get the most results from your students. It's not about how do I make you feel better about how hard you're working. You see, if you really take this idea of what got you here, won't get you there. Seriously. What it means is that when you get to a new position or one year school gets to a new level, you need to understand that every time we get to a new level there's a new devil and you can't continue to fight the old devil while you're trying to find the new devil. You just, you're pulled in too many different directions. What do you have to do is you have to make sure that every time you get to a new level, you don't fight the old devil.

You defeat the devil so that that devil is no longer a problem. 

So you can face the new devil waiting for you at the new level. I think that's a podcast record for how many times? I could say grimy words in a short period of time, but I hope you got the point. You see what we do is we are still trying to fight the old problems from our old position in our new position and so we are unprepared for the new problems that are waiting for us in our new position because we never once and for all solve the old problems. At our old position. So let's go back to the examples that I gave you at the beginning of this episode. Let's start with the new principal who was a great AP. He's bringing his AP skillset into a role that doesn't require it.

He never figured out when he was an AP, what does it take to run a school and the only solution he has is hard work. And so he takes that hard work ethic into the principalship. Now, there's nothing wrong with a hard work ethic, but which work, which work are you doing? He was working at the job of being an AP because as an AP and an aspiring principal, he never learned how to make other people good APS so that he can occupy the role of the principalship and do the things that only the principal can do. Instead he's trying to do the AP job and the principal job and in fact, because he never understood the difference between being an assistant principal and being a principal and he never really was taught what it means to be a principal. He erroneously assumes that being a principal, it's just a harder working AP. It's not. It's a totally different gig.

You have to do the first step. 

If you really want to get out of the trap of what we're talking about here today, the first step is that you have to understand the demands of the new role. You have to really kind of understand and unpack that. And you have to start in your current role developing the skill set that you need for your new role. So a lot of times I will tell aspiring principals that you have to stop focusing on being a good assistant principal and you have to start focusing on what it's going to take to be a good principal. That doesn't mean you stop doing your job as an AP, but it does mean you're going to have to figure out how to automate and systematize a lot of the work that you're doing.

As an AP, you're gonna have to hack the AP job and I'm saying hacking quotation marks, you're gonna have to figure out what is this job really and what are the things that it takes? And how do we set up systems in place to make that happen? Because eventually you're going to have to train your APS as a principal to do that for you. So as an inspiring principal, stop doing your job and start understanding your job so that you can figure out how would I show somebody else how to do what I'm doing right now? What is it that makes me so good at this job that I can now help somebody else do this job? The same thing. You've an instructional coach. You have to stop thinking about what did you do to make your classroom successful and you have to start studying.

How do you get other adults to do that same thing? 

You are no longer in the classroom and now you have to figure out how do you make somebody else successful in the classroom. And if you're moving to central office, you're a principle and you aspire to be a superintendent one day you have to start thinking about systems, not about individual schools and what it takes to move one school. You have to start thinking about how do I manage an entire system of schools? How do I help other people be as good as I am? So one of the things that I've learned that you can really do to do this is you take on a mentee. So if you aspire to be a principal and you are currently an assistant principal, find a teacher who wants to be an assistant principal and groomed that teacher to be an assistant principal.

Because what you are going to learn how to do is as you're working with that teacher, you're going to learn more about how the job works and how you help other people be good assistant principals. Because as a principal, that's going to be a big part of your job is managing your APS. If you are a teacher and you aspire to be an instructional coach rather than going to other teachers and showing them what you did in your classroom and trying to help them learn how to be a mini you, you know, sharing your lesson plans, sharing your strategies instead practice going into other teacher's classrooms and showing them how to be a better them. Do you see the difference? A lot of times we fall into a trap and it's a frustrating trap because there's only one you. So if you think that being an instructional coach is going around and making other people many use, you're going to be frustrated all the time.

If you figure out, how do I take teachers and make them the best version of themselves, you're going to be an amazing instructional coach. 

Teachers will welcome you into their classrooms. So start doing that now so that when you get to that job, you are ready for that job and you can take on that job and not be so frustrated. And if you're a principal and you aspire to a central office position or a superintendency one day, what you want to think about is find a struggling principal. Find another principal in your district and mentor that principal. Find somebody else who's struggling in their school and try to figure out how to help them be successful at your job. I mean, that's the big distinction at every new level. When you go to a new level, you have to figure out how do I help people at the level below me be successful?

It's not about you anymore. It's about them. It's not about what you did. It's about helping them do something better. It's not about making people the best version of you. It's about helping people be the best version of themselves and that's the big difference between being a leader and a builder. Usually a leader is the smartest person in the room. Usually everybody's looking to the leader to tell them what to do. Usually the leader got to the leadership position because they were so good and they stay in that leadership position and continue to climb up the ladder because they are individually good. Now builders different.

A builder doesn't have to be the smartest person in the room. 

In fact, a lot of times builders prefer not to be the smartest person in the room. They want people who are smarter than in the room because they're going to need everybody's talents and skills in order to build this bigger thing. Then another difference between a leader and a builder is that a builder is not the only one with information you see in a leadership position, you're the one, you have the information and you dispense it to other people. A builder saying, Hey, everybody here has something to contribute. How do, what do you know and how can we use that to build this thing that we're all building together and when you're a builder, you're not just building a better school or a better district. You're also building up the people around you as a builder. You want to go into a situation and you want to take people who may not be ready yet, who may not have the will and the skill to step into this bigger vision that you have when your your school or your district or you're the group of teachers you're working with and you want to build the will and skills so that those people can step into that vision.

They can occupy that vision, they can make that vision happen. You see, as a leader you, it's all on you. You're dragging your teachers to a goal. You're dragging your school to a goal as a builder. You go out and build and then you invite other people to join you in building and if they don't have the skill in the will yet, you built that. That's the difference. And let me tell you something, y'all being a leader is exhausting. I was looking at that principal who was the best AP there was and he's doing the AP job in the principalship and he can't understand why. I'm telling him that he doesn't need to be at work so late every night and he doesn't have to work nights and weekends and he thinks that, you know, he's looking at me like, what's wrong with you? This is a part of the gig. This is what I signed up for. No you didn't. 

There's nothing in the job description that says you have to be at work every night until midnight, but you do. 

If you are trying to do your job in somebody else's job too, you do have to be there. If you are the one who is single handedly dragging your school into success, then yeah, you're going to have to work extra hours, but if you're building, you can go home, you can see your family, you can see your kids. You don't have to stay at work late because it's not just you. You are building up the people around you so that they together can work with you to move your school towards the vision that you have for your school. Those coaches who are frustrated because they, they go into classrooms that I give teachers everything. I modeled the lesson for them.

I did everything and this teacher is still not moving. The problem is you did it and the whole role of a coach is not for you to do it. It's for you to help somebody else do it. Those, those principals who move from being a principal to being a superintendent, they're frustrated with their school because they said, you know what? I don't get it. When I was a principal I did these things. You did those things. Yes you did, but now your job is how do you get other people to do those things? That's the difference. You see, most of us are exhausted because we are trying to do everything and while being good in a particular position is what got us here to where we are right now. It's not going to get us in the next level. I also see this when people are trying to move their schools.

They have something that they've always done and it got us to this point and they tried to keep doing it.

They think they can't let it go because this is the thing that's gotten us to this point. This is the thing that's made us successful so far. But again, what got you here won't get you there. I mean, just the other day I was talking with a school, it was in a school working with the school and they were so overwhelmed and yet I was asking them, well, hits a, why are you doing this? Well, that's the reason we have this. Well, okay, why are you doing that? Well, that's the reason we have this and here's the thing that most people don't realize about schools. Most schools are doing exactly what they were designed to do. You're not going to take a school to a new level with the same thing that got you to the level that you are.

You're, you're at the level you are right now because of the things you've been doing in the past. The reason that you're stuck and you can't get beyond that level is because the thing that got you there is not going to get you to the next level. So the things that have gotten us to the point where we are right now have given us the school that the best school that those things were going to ever give us. And if we want to get to the next level, we need something new, new level, new devil. So what got you here is not going to be the same thing that gets you to the next level. And what we have to do is stop relying on the things that God is here. And I know this is hard because those are almost kind of a security blanket for us. You know, this is the thing that got us to the point.

If I let this go, then I'm going to lose ground. 

No. At some point in the past you made a decision to do something different. You made a decision that as a teacher, if I'm going to be a really good teacher, then I'm going to have to let some things go. And I'm going to have to try some things new and those things worked for you, which is why they're asking you to be a coach. If you were a teacher or a coach or something like that and you got promoted to be an assistant principal, the reason you were able to do that is because at some point you decided to go against the status quo and do something that distinguished you enough that people asked you to take on more responsibility. When you became a principal.

It wasn't because you were such a great assistant principal. It was because you at some point made a decision to refine your practice as an assistant principal to the point where you would, you attracted the notice of other people who said, wow, you are doing something different. You should be a principal. The reason you got to central office is because, not because you were just kind of doing the status quo as a principal. It was because you at some point decided to do something different to let some things go so that you could move your school further and you attracted the attention of a central office or a superintendency and now you're in that role.

We have to let go of the security blanket if you want to climb higher, I call this a trapeze moment.

I'm mixing metaphors here so forget the climb higher part. But if you, I call this a trapeze moment and we talk about this in builder's lab on day one. If you want to, you know how you, when you're swinging from a trapeze piece, you have, you're holding on to kind of one, you know, swinging bar, I dunno what's called the swinging bar thing. And in order to care AB onto the next swinging bar thing, you have to let go of your bar in order to grab on to the next wire. And there's a moment when you are letting go of the bar that got you to that point and it's ordered to grab onto the bar that you want to, that it will take you to the next point. And a lot of people are terrified to let go. And so what they're doing is they're hanging up, they're holding on to their former bar with one hand and grabbing one to the new bar with the other hand.

And if you are going to move forward, you are going to have to let go. What got you here won't get you there. So I want to challenge you this week. I want you to take a good look at how you are working right now. If you are a coach, how much of your time is spent trying to turn teachers into many versions of you versus figuring out what that teacher needs? What is the best version of that teacher and how you're helping that teacher become that? If you're a principal or an assistant principal, how much time are you spending doing your former job versus stepping into the role that you have now, if you are in central office, how much time are you spending trying to individually improve schools versus developing a system where all schools thrive? If you are working in a school and you're trying to move your individual school right now, how much are you uncritically relying on the things that have gotten you to this point and what do you need to let go of?

What do you need to let go of in order to reach for something that will take you even further? 

In other words, this week, I want you to look and see whether or not you are currently in your own trapeze moment. I want you to look and see whether you are holding on to things that have gotten you here and I want you to ask yourself, do those things still serve you? What got you here? Is that what it's going to take to get you to that next level, whatever that next level is for you, and if the answer is no and you're stuck and you don't know what to do about it, if you are in the midst of your own trapeze moment, then you're going to have to let go. And if you're worried about letting go by yourself or you want help to figure out what you need to let go up, then again, I want to invite you to join us and builders lab on day one.

One of the first things we talk about is a trapeze moment and everybody has one at builder's lab and we try to help you figure out how to navigate your own personal trapeze moment. What do you need to let go of? What is no longer serving you and what do you need to let go of because it no longer serves you so that you can free up Rome to do the thing that you really ought to be doing right now that's going to propel your school forward. So again, go to mindset inc com slash builders dash lab and get your tickets to builders lab.

If we're not connected on social, then we should be.

I mean LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, we need to be connected somewhere. So wherever you are, if you're on LinkedIn, let's connect on LinkedIn. If you're on Facebook, send me a friend request, make sure I know you're an educator and not like you know something else so that I know to accept your friend requests.

And then if we're on Twitter, let's follow each other on Twitter. And if you feel brave enough and you've recognized your trapeze moment, I'd love to hear about it. So if we're connected on the socials and you're so inspired this week and you're having a trapeze moment right now, or you had an aha based on this episode, I would love to hear about it. So this week everybody at your assignment, we're going to figure out what is our trapeze moment, what are we holding on to that's no longer serving us? Because remember what got us here won't get us there. And so if you're going to move forward, at some point you need to figure out what is your trapeze moment and you need to let go. But you're not just letting go randomly. You're letting go of things that no longer serve you and that's how you move forward like a builder.

Okay, let's talk about next week. 

Next week we're going to do something fun. We're going to do a makeover show next week. I've been doing a lot of work with schools lately around vision and mission and core values. And people hear this or they read it or they listen to a podcast episode and they're like, yeah, we need to do vision, mission, and core values. And so they go away and they create a new vision or a new mission and core values and then they show them to me. And while they may be better than the ones that they had before, they still need a little work. And so I thought it would be really helpful for you, for me to kind of take some of the vision, mission and core values that I've been hearing lately that don't quite work, that kind of almost work and make them over live on Michelle.

So next week we're going to make over your vision, your mission and your core values. And if you have a set of vision, mission, and core values that you'd like to see being made over, get them to me this week. So if you're listening to this episode in the future, please don't send them to me because the episode will be over. The makeover show will be over, but if you get them to me this week, if you're listening in real time and he send them to me on one of the socials this week LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook, then maybe we'll include it on the show. We'll make over your vision, mission, and core values live on the show. So next week we're gonna try and make over show and then have a little fun with vision, mission, and core values.

I hope you'll join me. I think it's going to be really fun.

Bye for now. See you next time. 

Thank you for listening to the School Leadership Reimagined podcast for show notes and free downloads visit https://schoolleadershipreimagined.com/

School Leadership Reimagined is brought to you by Mindsteps Inc, where we build master teachers.