Lead From Where You Are with Dr. Joe Sanfelippo

In this episode Dr. Joe Sanfelippo joins us to discuss his new book Lead From Where You Are. In this conversation we discuss the power of moments and momentum, celebrating the wins, creating a positive school culture, and so much more.  Get the notepads ready because Dr. Sanfelippo shares some great knowledge!

Dr. Sanfelippo is an author, a speaker, he’s the superintendent of the Fall Creek School District in Fall Creek, Wisconsin, he was named the 2019 National Superintendent of the Year, he has over 63 thousand followers on twitter,  and he puts on the Weekly Show with Jimmy Casas on Youtube.

Be sure to pickup Dr. Sanfelippo's new book: Lead From Where You Are 
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Where-You-Are-Connection/dp/194833447X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3DVP0CNNMKZZ4&keywords=lead+from+where+you+are&qid=1657948372&sprefix=Lead+From+%2Caps%2C171&sr=8-1

Transcript

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What's going on everybody, I hope this finds you striving and thriving and doing absolutely amazing. For this summer episode, we are lucky to be joined by Dr. Joe Sanfilippo. Now many of you have probably heard of them. But if you've not, he's an author, a speaker. He's the superintendent of Fall Creek School District and Fall Creek, Wisconsin. He was named the 2019, National Superintendent of the Year. And he has over 63,000 followers on Twitter. He puts on the weekly Show with Jimmy Casa on YouTube. And he's dropping by today to discuss his new book lead from where you are. And in this conversation, Dr. Sam Flippo is going to discuss the power of celebrating the daily wins the power of moments and how we should be using them to create momentum, developing a school culture of where we recognize the amazing things that are happening all around. And then we go and we let others know about those great things. And so much more. Get those notepads out because Dr. Sanfilippo is going to share some knowledge. Welcome, everybody to the teaching champions Podcast. I'm fired up for this one. Because today, we have a gentleman with us that he just does amazing things out there. And I want to welcome Dr. Joe Sam Flippo to the podcast. Thanks for having me, Brian. Appreciate it. I appreciate you being here. And I can't wait for the listeners to get some great knowledge that you have in the past. Let's wait till the questions happen. And then we'll figure it out from there. I don't know if we'll talk we'll find out. We'll find out. Sounds good. Well, good for those people that are not familiar with you. Could you share a little bit about your background, please? Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Joe. Sam flip. I'm Superintendent in the Fall Creek School District. In Fall Creek, Wisconsin, home of the Fall Creek crickets and we are a small rural school 825 Kids, k 12, beautiful area of the state in Northwest Wisconsin are like a great group of kids and incredible group of people as as many schools across the country, it's just that we have just an amazing group of staff members that are that are just, you know, unbelievable with kids. So I'm extremely lucky to live and work in a in a town that values education so much. And it's just been an honor to be able to, to help out as much as I have here over the course of the last couple years. Excellent. And you have such a powerful platform. And one of the things that you use your platform is to spread a positive message. And one of the ways you do it is with these one minute walks to work. Can you talk about that for us? Yeah, absolutely. So it was really interesting how this whole thing started, because I was just, you know, I was coming to work on a Saturday because because I get up early and my family doesn't. So if I'm just in the house, just, you know, putzing around and doing whatever, then all of a sudden, everybody's gonna wake up and they get mad at me, you know, it's tough. So we decided that, well, I'll just walk over to school because I live right across the street from school. So I just started walking across the street to school and doing some work in the morning. And when I was doing it, I kind of just started thinking about leadership. And I was trying to start my day, learning something new, or reading an article or a blog or watching you know, a quick video cast or something like that, just to kind of, you know, make myself think a little bit differently. And so, I started thinking about leadership, just you know, and then I literally started just walking and talking and, and thinking about, you know, just how we get some of those leadership thoughts out and then, you know, they just kind of I don't know how they took off the way that they did, but they apparently is people started liking them and then all of a sudden, I didn't do them for a little while, like I skipped a bunch of weeks. And everybody started asking where they were and I'm like, Well, I do the thing about like I don't have I always wanted to be authentic. So if I'm gonna if I have something to say I'll say if I don't I'm not going to force out a you know, a walk just to get one out on a platform or anything like that. So I just tried to kind of take it in stride and if there are things like a couple weeks ago, there was one that I had done last year that I thought was real relevant for people starting their new position. So we just put that out. And, you know, so I don't, I don't really have like a schedule that I keep on it. But I just started talking about leadership and getting it out there. And the next thing, you know, people started to like him, and then we started, we just kind of kept kept rolling with them. So I think there's probably about, man, I don't know, I should probably even look, I don't know, print me, there's over 80 I think it was over ADM, so and a lot of the stuff in the book that we'd from where you are book, almost all of it is from those leadership walks. So. So you don't have to buy the book, you can just watch the walks if you're, well, I watched the walks and I've read the book. And I definitely suggest that you get the book as well. Now, that's how I discovered you. Someone had retweeted one of these walks, and I watched them and they're awesome. And I was talking to other people that I've talked to as I was preparing for this interview, they've watched them and what you talked about when you said they're authentic and real. That's what people use to describe them. And you throw a little comedy in there, too. Sometimes we try. We try. Yeah, so it's cool. It gets called here. Yeah, as you know, it gets cold. So you know, you got to get, make sure you take care of the humor, and the thing too, because otherwise, you just gonna cry the whole time in here. If you cry in the winter, your eyes are gonna freeze up. So you don't want to do that. Absolutely. January, February can be rough. All right, you too, you too, I understand. You have a set reflection piece because within the book in the series, that there's a lot of reflection, a lot of leadership tips, do you have a set thing that you do on a daily basis to reflect? Or is it just something that comes natural and in like you said, you start your morning, with that? Do you have a set, that's probably the only schedule is that I tried to set, you know, start my day with learning something and thinking about how that's going to apply to what I'm going to do throughout the course of the day, I try to end my day with something that makes me smile too, just to make sure that um, you know, we talked about the idea of being present and engaged for people a lot. And a lot of times from a leadership lamp standpoint, if you're leading in the classroom, or you're leading in the school or the district or whatever, a lot of times, what ends up happening is you end up taking all the stuff that bothers you home to the people that give you the most latitude love you the most. And then they get the least of you because they love you the most and give you the most latitude. So I think I try to book in those days, just make sure I'm present and engaged for the people that I'm with, regardless of where I am. So I think you know, we're learning something new, sending a positive text before I get in the house every day, little slight little things like that just kind of changed concept. Now you also one of the big things that you talk about a lot is you say that we need to tell our school story. Why? Well, here's the thing about that. I mean, I think that whole concept of has gotten watered down like a ton. You know, I mean, it's just like telling saying to people, you need to tell your school stories like say, like somebody saying, well, all kids can learn? Well, yeah, of course they can. But like, tell me how to do it, right? Because otherwise it just ends up being like this 30,000 foot view us it's important to tell your story? Well, of course it is it's important to work out it's important to eat, right? It's simple, like buy. But guess what I'm going to, like I'm going to crush a pizza later. Because I don't you don't see the value in the statement unless you know how to do the statement. Right? So we talked, the idea is, the concept really kind of comes down to that, you know, it's important to tell your story, but it's more important to leverage it. So how can you make sure that you build momentum through all of these incredible moments that happen because 80% of the voting public don't have kids in school. So if 80% of the voting public don't have kids in school, that means 80% of the voting public are having a conversation about your school based on what happened to them when they were in school. And a lot of times that was 25 years ago, and they're still jacked up about like not getting a second chicken sandwich at lunch or something. And then they talk about that, like they know what they what you do they have no idea what you do so absolutely. And I heard you I was listening because you also have a show with Jimmy Casa about called the weekly show. And I was listening to one of those. And you were saying like, maybe only 10% of the graduating class goes into education. So you have the other 90% that walk away from education, and all they do is take their educational experiences. And not every single one of those is a good experience. All right. That's why you elaborate on that a little bit. That's why it's important that we share the great things that are happening inside our school. Well it also makes us feel better to I mean you live in you know we teach the teachers live in a world where they don't get the immediate gratification for What they do, right, let me know how many times have you had a kid come back after 15 years, you know, and walk in your classroom and say, Man, I really liked having you as a teacher, what you want to say is man, you could have said, assaulted like something at some point. But they they don't, they don't get that immediate gratification. And when you don't get the immediate gratification, you start to wonder if your work has value, because you don't get a chance to see that value every day. And, you know, I think if we set ourselves up a little differently, we talk a lot about the idea of recognizing acknowledged and extending this work. And the idea that is really important with that concept is putting yourself in the right mindset to recognize the great things that are happening. Because if you don't you just become a list follower or a doer of the list. And there's not a lot of like, everybody's got checklists, people got checklists all the time, all over the place, right. And they write stuff, dollars, checklists, they check it off, when the checklist is done, they feel good about the checklist being done. But then they got another checklist to go. And a lot of times the checklist, there's not a lot of great stuff on the checklist, it's just things that need to get done. So if you don't find value in the list, then you just kind of keep moving on. And if we don't put ourselves in a position where we can recognize the greatness that we're doing, I mean, the change in the lives of kids, that's my people change the lives of kids every day. And they should be, they should feel good about that they you know, and I hope that they do, but it's not about me as superintendent walking in there and saying, you're really good at your job, it's about making sure that you know your value and that the person that you teach with knows theirs. And you can actually have a conversation about how you can move forward together. Because you're gonna be with each other all the time, I would love to say that I could get into every classroom every day. And for, you know, half hour, 45 minutes, and I just can't and that's there's, the thing is that we can wait for that. Or we can develop a culture where people can value each other. So you feel like there's that momentum moving forward. And it's not just dependent on one person. That's so well sad. And I think, you know, when you talk about like that, recognizing, and we're gonna get into this to recognize and acknowledge and extending that gets into, I think, like, celebrating our wins finding the value in what we do the small wins, because 180 days, that's a long time. And yeah, you hit that mid year, it can get tough. So seeing that, like you talked about seeing that value, seeing those small wins, celebrating those small ones is right. So he's keeping that positive mindset, I think you got to be, I think we have to understand O'Brien that, you know, when we say we got to be careful about saying small wins, because they're all wins regardless of what they are, I think if we start to minimize little things, and always wait for the big the graduation of the problem, or the or the first day of school, or the last day of school, or whatever, then we will celebrate that stuff all the time. But it's all of the stories in between, that are wins every day for these kids and their wins every day for you as an educator, if you're willing to look at them as wins, not just as something that happens or just something that you do because we minimize, we minimize so much. Teachers minimize stuff all the time. How many times have you talked to somebody that says they're just a teacher, and that just makes me nuts to say when they say that they're just a teacher, they devalue all of their work. And not only do they devalue their work, but they give the person that they're talking to license to do exactly the same. So we gotta be really cognizant about how we're talking about the work, otherwise, nobody is going to change the way that they talk about the work. I love that I love that correction that you just made because you know, the wins. And sometimes the best joy that I have is in January, sit in one on one with a kid that's a struggling reader. And maybe they just crush it in that moment. And, you know, it's such a good feeling. And there's going to be stress every single day, there's going to be so grabbing on to those moments. And like you said, not minimizing those wins and calling them small wins. Let's call them Hagrid tables, every single wins. Yeah, their wins, all of them are wins. Now, you just came out with a new book lead from where you are. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Well, yeah, that kind of I kind of touched on earlier, they're essentially the lead from where you are, is, is, is just a compilation of all the walks that we've done. And we kind of we put them into three components, you know, how are we leading with intention, leading with connection and leading with direction and what that really looks like and, and, and hopefully giving people the opportunity to reflect but just as importantly, a couple of ideas that they can move forward with. And more importantly than both of those is I hope that you read or I hope when people read if they choose to read the book. I hope they read it and like half of the stuff that they read, they're like, oh my goodness, I already do that. That's fantastic. You know, I think we end up pushing a lot of stuff. up off to the side, because we're like, it's just something that we do when you should be recognized and acknowledged the work that's already happening. I mean, we, we don't do that. So we got to be really, you know, understanding that there's the the work that you're already doing is fantastic. I mean that teachers are changing the lives of kids, there's, that should be celebrated. But it we're always waiting for like the next thing. So I hope people find a couple of things that they can kind of tweak a little bit in terms of the work that they do. But I hope they hope they spend just as much time reflecting on the great work that's already happening. And it just re energizes them in that, oh, yeah, I do that I do this, we do this, we do that, Oh, that feels good. You know, that kind of stuff like. So I think that's been really helpful. thing that I loved about the book is, I don't think is just for leaders. I know your role as a superintendent, that you talk to a lot of administration. But as I read that book, I viewed it through the lens of a teacher, and ways that I see that happening within the classroom, and different things. So and I love, you put a lot of questions at the end of each segment to really reflect upon. And that's great. Now, one of the things that you talk about a lot is creating that positive school culture, what are things that you do each and every single day to try and create a positive culture for those around you, and also a positive culture for yourself from within. I think the first thing that you have to do is put yourself in the right mindset, to we go I you know, it's gonna sound really repetitive. But we really spend a lot of times talking about, you know, recognize, acknowledge and extend the great work that happens in schools. And because what ends up happening a lot is that people do the first to a lot, they recognize and acknowledge to the two people that are in the room, or to the person immediately that they see, but they don't extend that conversation to somebody who wasn't there to see the event happen. And I think that's where you develop the culture is when you are willing to extend the great work that's happening, more people are willing to talk about the great work because they don't feel like they're isolated in that great work. So so we do things like you know, while I talk to people about you know, how do you start your day, you start your day with, go and get in your classroom and opening up your, your computer and responding to some emails and thinking about your day. And all of a sudden, you're like, oh, my gosh, I'm already overwhelmed. And kids haven't even gotten here yet. So you got to be, I think you have to do something that we, you know, that whole concept of starting and ending your day with joy is important. But it's also it's important to put yourself in the right mindset to recognize what's happening around you, whether or not that's in your classroom that's in your school in your district. And, you know, and I think that's what the book is really, truly about is trying to figure out ways that you can amplify those voices with everybody. And, and, you know, when we talk about leading from where you are like, that's, it's, it's everybody leads, it doesn't matter if you lead a group of two, if you lead a Department of Fire, if you lead a classroom of 27, who lead a school district of 150 or 10,000, you know, it doesn't matter is that, that you figure out a way to develop leadership capacity. And, and if you can, one of the things that we talked about in the book is that, you know, when you develop capacity to lead, it ensures that you never lead alone. And that happens a lot. A lot of times you feel like you're the only person in your position, whether or not it's a principal or a superintendent or a teacher or a paraprofessional, even if there's 10, paraprofessionals, right? You're you might be the only one doing your particular job, but the knowledge of the work that's happening in that space, and that gets to be really lonely, then it gets to be really isolating that gets to be really depressing, unless we figure out a way to amplify what that looks like. So that's been I think my favorite part is to see people, regardless of role, read the book, and and, and gain, not more knowledge, but almost like some momentum for stuff that they're already doing. Think it's like dropping little reminders. Yeah, bringing to the forefront, things that maybe we do, or reminding us what we're doing and why we're doing it. And one of my favorite things, because I've heard you talk about before the recognizing, acknowledging, extending, I absolutely love it. And before when we were talking before this episode, I told you that I was at a conference and I talked about this recognizing, acknowledging and extending because I believe in it so much, and we talked about the energy that you bring into each room, and matters and stress of a teacher Are stress of the administration, it can bring you down. But if I walk through those hallways, and I see someone that's doing some amazing stuff, and I work with all ladies, I'm in second grade Primary School. So I'm, I'm the only male general education teacher. And these ladies absolutely crushed it. And every single day, I can walk through those hallways, and I see someone doing something special. And like you said, stopping and letting them know, Hey, I saw you I walk by your classroom, your students were doing absolutely amazing, that makes the other person feel good. That makes me feel good. But also, I love how you said, that standing part, then I go to the teacher next door. And I tell them about the amazing things that I just saw. It makes me feel good, it raises the temperature of that room in a positive way. Because how many times sometimes we can let we're humans, we can let the stress get to us, where, you know, we start talking and maybe saying things that would bring it down. But when I go in, I extend that conversation in a positive manner, is lifting that room. So I absolutely love to recognize, acknowledge and extent now you also talked about in your book a lot about moments, that moments creating moments are so important. And using those as momentum. Can you expand upon that a little bit? Please? It kind of goes back to the conversation we had earlier about, you know, the winds that we see are reflective there, we see them the way that we want to see them, right? If we see them as just something that we do, we're not going to amplify him if we see them as you know, life changing, we're going to amplify them. You know, I mean, I think the concept that that has happened over the course of the last couple of years in particular is that, you know, I think we as teachers started, we stopped being proud of the work that we do. And we started defending the work that we do. And there's a distinct difference between being proud of something and defending something, right. Because you're probably the stuff that you're proud of, you'll talk about all day, I can tell people what they're proud of right now, if they just go to their phone and check out their photos app, I'll tell you exactly what you're proud of right. Our hunt, fish cabin boat, it's all on your phone, you'll talk about that stuff all day. But we don't talk about our classrooms like that, because we just think it's just something that we do. So we got to think about, you know, the fact that you're changing the lives of kids, it's something that should be talked about and discussed. And the moments that we talked about in the book are things that happen all the time if we're actually willing to lean in and understand that they happen all the time. And Chip and Dan Heath wrote a great book called The Power of moments. And Dan Heath actually wrote the foreword to lead from where you are, because we talked about the whole impact of moments. And, and they contend that people remember certain things about events. And so when when you think about these moments that are happening, I think it's just like, the concept of Well, everybody should tell their story. Well, that's great. But tell me how if everybody should create these moments, but Okay, great, but how? And we think about, we kind of reverse engineer that and say, Well, this is what people are going to remember about events. So how can we create things that they're going to remember? And people remember, according to Chip and Dan Heath, they remember a couple different things about events, they remember the peak pit, transition, the high low, and then the transition into it. They remember if the event boosts sensory raised stakes and breaks the script. They remember if if the work is meaningful, autonomous, and they have a choice to participate. And they remember if, if the moment elevates pride and then connects past to present. So I think those are, if you can just think about it that way. What are you doing in your classroom to break the script, think about how maybe think about all the things that we do throughout the course of the day that we do without even thinking about them. But our kids do that too. So how can you break the script for something that you do all the time that you're given a test like this, we had to add a guy, my high school English teacher did a great job of that. And in that we had a test every Friday but every Friday during the test, there would always be something we like he'd put a stickman drawing on a piece of paper like stickman shoveling snow stickman doing this stickman doing that you know, whatever it whatever it was, but it broke the monotony of the task right and it made people laugh a little bit and then when I just was like little things like that you don't have to it doesn't have to be groundbreaking. It just has to break the script for what you were you thought you were going to see And that's the stuff that you remember. So we want to be really cognizant of that and hopefully help people break the script in a way that makes them want to be better for the work that they do. Excellent. And what are a few other things that you guys do at Fall Creek, I love that about that. John, just a little stickman on paper makes the kids probably loved it, just the dissipation to see what that stickman is going to do next, what are some other things that you guys do in your district, off the top of your head a couple of Well, I think that a couple of them, we spend a lot of time thinking about meaningful work autonomy choice to participate, and we spent a lot of time thinking about boosting sensory raising stakes and break the script. So meaningful work autonomy choice to participate, we have a passion project model of professional development here, where essentially, our teachers get to lean into anything that they want to learn throughout the course of the year, anything it can be from mindfulness to meditation to engaging students in a certain way to connect it with the community to creating documentaries, one group created a business, you know, like all kinds of stuff that they whatever they want to do doesn't matter me. And, and we figure out ways that that passion can come out. And what ends up happening is they're bringing their passion out, then that ends up, you know, translating to more project based opportunities within the context of classrooms, which is really been cool. And the second thing probably is how we boost sensory raised stakes and break the script. And that's like, we're in the hiring season right now. And so we, we try to make our our hires, however we hire, we try to make them so meaningful, in a way that breaks the script from the traditional me calling and saying, Hey, I'd love to have you come and teach second grade in Fall Creek, Wisconsin or whatever, we try to make a meaningful event for that person. So they, you know, so they know and understand how much we care about them. Absolutely. And I read because you talk about in your book, a couple of different ways about that you make it impactful for that new hire to really welcome them. And give Would you mind sharing one of those ways? Yeah. So you know, we just think about the hire, you know, in a way that. So we've done things like, you know, we've had, when we make the job offer, we either, you know, we've gone to places to offer jobs to people, we've had them come in, and we offer in a certain way, like, you know, we have a candidate last year that had two kids, and they were gonna have to move across the state. And so when we offered the position, because they were across the state, we were doing a video chat, and we just got on the video chat and the and they, you know, we had these one for the kids with the Go cricket stuff on it. So, you know, we just asked them, hey, you know, how you think these are going to look on the kids and that kind of thing. So we're really, we're trying to create a moment, you know, we had a candidate that had a treasure box on her desk, and it with notes from her kids. And she was talking about this in the interview process. And, you know, when from her school kids, and when she was having a tough day, she'd go to the treasure box, and, and and read the notes, and it would make her feel better about her day. So when we offered her the job, we just had a treasure box in our room and asked her to go in the back room and she goes in the back room. And then in the treasure box is a note from you know, one note from every committee member telling her why we wanted her to come and work for us. So we just kind of make the connection to what they talked about in the interview. And we're really cognizant about the story. And I think that's been really helpful, just in terms of the recruiting and retention of people that want to stay here and people stay in Fall Creek because you know it because there's just incredible teachers that they want to work with. It has nothing to do with the offer. But at the same time people talk about the offers. So if they get a chance, then they go to the next level of hey, what what is it really like that there? And then when that comes out, then we can get people going in the right direction. Absolutely. And I love that. I think it's you know, right away right in that interview process. You're letting those people know that they're seen they're heard. They're valued, taking that extra step. I know one thing in my classroom and it's smaller, but trying to build that classroom community is I was asked the parents to send me like videos. So we had a couple of kids with their sporting events. They would send me one minute videos, and I would show that up on the screen and all the kids we would start cheering for the kids are couple of the young ladies were in a dance recital. And the parents sent me the videos of the dance recital. So we put those up on the big screen and we Watch that. And it's just building that culture, making those connections for everybody. Right? I totally agree. Totally. Now, I also love that you talked about education has come to the point where we stopped sharing our stories, and being proud of what we do in as men turn more into defending what we do. And by creating these moments by building on those momentum, I think that it can help us spark that story. Yeah, I hope so. That's, that's the whole concept. I mean, there's, there's so many good things going on that people don't talk about them, because they're afraid of what others are going to say. And that doesn't help us move forward at all. So now, you said inside your book, that the most important thing that you wrote was that we need to start in end our day with joy. And you've talked a little bit about that. But can you expand upon that? Why is that important? And how do you do that? Well, I think it's important because it puts your you put yourself in the right mindset for to be present and engaged for the people that you're with, if it's at school, or if it's at home, but the end what ends up happening if you don't start and end your day, and it's just as much as starting and end your day is just as important as the joy in that conversation, right? Because if you don't, that's where people start to cycle. And when you cycle, then you get used to get burned out. And I think, you know, as administrators, I think we're we're horrible at this and that, and I shouldn't say it like that, as an administrator, I was horrible at this, in that I wouldn't start and end my day at all, I just keep going because I always wanted to be perceived as the hardest worker in the building. And I and there was, I had a misconception that the hardest worker was the one that was here the most, and it's just not right. It's not right at all. But at the same time, that's what I was thinking. And I would send text messages and emails late at night, just to get stuff off my chest. And, and I felt really good that I got, you know, got it taken care of. But what I didn't realize was, it wasn't off my chest, I was still thinking about it when I went to bed. But more importantly, I had just taken it off my chest and thrown it right on somebody else's right before they went to bed. So when they get up the next day, and they're mad when they come to work, and I'm like, Well, what are you mad for? I told you, all right. And if we didn't have to tell me at 10 o'clock, you know what I mean? Like, giving them let me sleep a little bit. So we kind of changed the mentality of that where you know, if we have a, if we have off on Friday and Monday, I'll we'll I'll send an email to everybody on staff and just let them know on Wednesday that hey, you're you're not, don't check your email, because you're not going to get an email from an administrator all week, all weekend, you know, you get an email from an administrator when you come back on Tuesday, but don't check your email. And that does two things, it gives them license to break away. But it also tells our administrators don't don't email these people, like let them have some time. That's a but be you need some time to so get away from your office and you know, be with your family or go fishing out here. Do whatever you want, but, but don't be in your office, you know, so do something that makes you smile. That'll help you start and end your day with joy. And that book puts everybody in a different spot. Absolutely. I love that. Now, a question that I asked all my guess is, what is a podcast? Not necessarily within the education field outside of the education field because I think that the more we expose ourselves, the better the more well rounded we're going to be and we can bring that into the classroom. So what's the podcast? Maybe that you listen to this not education based? And is there any books that you might be reading right now that you would recommend to others? Oh, man, that's great. Boy, I don't know I think I don't listen to a lot of podcasts outside of sports podcast when it because I honestly when I want to break away and I'm in the car. Like if I go speak to a group of people, and then I'm driving from the venue to the, to the airport. I'm not like I just literally sit in silence for an hour or two hours because it's just kind of nice to have nothing to think about it that point and I like that so I listen to a lot of sports podcasts just because I'm keeping up with stuff going out to packers and going on with it with golf and going out basketball so I don't really spend a lot of time thinking about you know, the educational podcast or any any pocket like motivational podcasts. I just think I kind of use them to decompress a little bit. The best book, The the book, the book outside of education that I recommend Everybody without hesitation is the power of moments. And I talked about that a little bit why but it is, without hesitation, the best book I've ever read when it comes to how do you how do you move a voice forward? So I I've been, I love it, I love it I love I'm chipping down either brilliant, but and if they want me to stick their out, switch decisive. There are a bunch of New York Times bestselling books and of all of those books, Dan, he just wrote upstream, which is a fantastic book. But of all the books. Power of moments is my favorite by far. Excellent. And I got a brand new podcast where Dr. Sam flip and one of my buddies here. He's one of the top podcasts for the Buffalo Bills. So get off the Packers. It's called the shout podcast. So Bill's information, tune into that. And I second you know, one of my favorite author they ever say, Hey, do they have a segment on overtime? Let me mean, no one that saving comes up. I just want to know how they feel about overtime. You know, when they talk about grown man cry, and I know I wasn't the only one in Western New York. But don't worry, I've been there, man. All they got to do is all packers got to do is catch an onside kick. That's all they do. And they go to the Super Bowl. I mean, little little things just like it's crazy. How will anyone think about Yeah, I'm done talking about that. So yeah, like one play Halloween all the way down to one play. So awful. It was. Yeah. And I want a second, one of my favorite authors, Chip and Dan Heath, one of my favorite all time books made distinct from from a public speaking perspective. And I can't tell you how many guests that have been on the show and have referenced the power of moments. So cool. Yeah. So that that's a huge book. And if your listener and you haven't checked that out, definitely a great read. And yeah, and Dan, Dan, he's one of the nicest people I've ever met. Like, it's he's, like, amazing. And to, and I've met him at a at a conference. And he was speaking, I spoke and then he spoke after. And so we got a chance to kind of connect and talk and, and I just literally called him after and talked about and just said that the work that you do as more of an impact on education than you know. And we just got to talk and and I asked him to write the foreword, for our for my book, and he was so willing, he was wonderful. And I think it's, it just goes to show that I think that there's a market out there for him and chip. Well, both of them, but then in particular, in the educational world. And there's just so much value in that in that content. Absolutely. And he had a very high praise for you in that forward. Yeah, I paid him a lot of money. He's fancy, fancy, I was very, it was humbling to read. So it was, it was wonderful. That's awesome. Now as we wrap up here, if you could have the listener, walk away with one thing from this episode, what would that be? Put yourself in the right mindset to see great things. Without I mean, we don't need to sugarcoat this thing at all. I mean, honestly, it is like, what are you doing to recognize great work, acknowledge great work and extend great work? So what are you doing to start your day to put yourself in the right mindset to see great things, right? So you recognize him? Or you acknowledging like you said to the person that's doing the great things, but then are you extending the conversation to somebody who wasn't there? And, you know, it's got to think about you get more momentum, the farther away you get, right? So if I go next door, I shared stuff, that's great. But if I go two doors down, I get more momentum. If I go across school, I get more momentum. If I got if I talked to that person's parents, or that person's spouse or that person's kid, I get more momentum. So extend the conversation beyond the event, you're gonna find yourself getting a ton of momentum moving forward, and it's not when it turns into a job, you won't do it. So you don't have to do like, everything you do. You don't have to live with that mentality. But if you can extend two things a day. That's 10 things a week, man. That's 360 things in the 180 days school year, like, can you imagine if everybody did two things? Heck, if they did one, that's the 180 extensions of great things a day. I mean, a year per teacher. I've got 60 teachers here, right? I mean, Holy Hannah, you're talking about 1000s of stories being told. by just sharing one That's powerful. And I think that's a great note to end on Dr. Sam Flippo. And you talk about I want, I want to thank you for being here. And in your book, when you, you're wrong. Thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. And when you went in your book, you talk about extending your school store, and you talk about, you got to pick your place. Because if you walk out onto a football field, it doesn't matter how loud you yell. If nobody's on that field, then that story gets lost. And I think what you do, I've had so many conversations with other people. So this just doesn't come in from me. Your football field isn't empty, what you do with your message with your one minute walk to work with the weekly show that you have on YouTube, with your speaking engagements, you're going out there, and you're talking to people, and you're filling them up with so much joy, positivity, you're helping them create a view in the world where like you said before, we've been defending ourselves a lot, but you're helping pick people up with that message. So on behalf of myself, and everyone else that follows you, thank you so much for what you do and keep keep shining bright, my friend appreciate them. We will try. I appreciate the time. Absolutely no wonder go crickets, crickets always go crickets. That was such a great conversation with Dr. Sanfilippo, he definitely brings them out. Now, this is the teaching champions tape, where I share three of my favorite gems from this conversation. The first gem that I loved was Dr. Sanfilippo said, There is no such thing as a small win. He said there's wins in those wins happen each and every single day inside the classroom. And it's important that we take the time to see those wins. And that we really feel those wins. Because if we're not intentional, those wins slipped by us. And we don't get that gratification from what we do like we should. And that's the truth. The second gem that I loved, is when he said that we need to stop saying, I'm just such as I'm just a teacher, or I'm just a paraprofessional, or I'm just a custodian. And I loved how he talked about that when we do that. We devalue what we do. And when others outside of the school hear this, it gives them permission to devalue what we do. So pay attention to the words you say about yourself. Because you definitely are not just ah, anything. And the third gem that I believe to be so powerful is when Dr. Sanfilippo talks about how we should be intentional with our data, that we should be recognizing the amazing things that are happening all around us, that we should acknowledge those great things to that person. And then we need to take that and extend it and share it with others. And Dr. Sanfilippo. He said, Imagine the school culture that we can create if every single individual told to positive things about others, every single day. One person doing this one person elevating others over 360 times throughout the school year. Now who wouldn't want to work in a school like that? And I just want to say a big thank you to Dr. Sanford Lippo, for sharing his words of wisdom with us today. And thank you to all of you for stopping by for being part of the teaching champions community. And if you think someone would benefit from hearing this message, please share it. This community is all about encouraging, supporting and lifting each other up. And be sure to subscribe to the podcast that way it comes to you directly every time a new episode is released. And always remember, it doesn't matter whether you're from rural America, to urban America, to Canada to Spain to Bahrain. We're all on that same team. We're all on that same mission. And we're always better together. Keep being A my friends and as you go out into the week, May you step into your strength, may you step into your shine, and let's build our champions up. Have a great week, everybody