Free PBL Coaching From Ryan Steuer | E176

Embark on a transformative journey with me, Ryan Steuer, as we unveil an ambitious roadmap for Project-Based Learning (PBL). Imagine a future where over half of our schools are engaged in PBL by 2051; it's a bold vision. How will you contribute?

Ryan will show you how to get the best out of yourself.

Get the inside scoop on summer training sessions designed to cater to every level of PBL expertise and learn how a simple composition notebook could become your most powerful tool for self-coaching and leading with finesse.

Then, let's wade into the deeper waters of personal growth and professional excellence. As educational leaders, the balance between work and life is a tightrope walk, but I'll guide you through using journaling as a catalyst for clarity and prioritization. With anecdotes from my journey and the success stories of my clients, we’ll explore the indispensable role of life and leadership coaching for those at the helm of our schools. Whether you're a principal, superintendent, or an aspiring leader, this episode promises to equip you with strategies to break barriers, implement impactful systems, and ensure your career thrives for the long haul.


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Transcript

Ryan Steuer: 0:00

Welcome to the PBL Simplified Podcast. I'm your host, ryan Stoyer, and what we're doing is we're trying to get 51% of schools using PBL by 2051. Today, we're doing that by coaching you for free. You're going to love it, we're going to get into it. You're going to need to have a writing utensil. You're going to want to sit down. Obviously, you can listen to it first to make sure it's worth it. It's going to be. You're going to love this process. Before we get into that, though, I want to tell you about some summer options for training. What we've got this summer is we've got in-person and we've got virtual.

Ryan Steuer: 0:33

Virtual has just become a piece that's convenient for people. You don't have to travel, so it's cost effective. It's time effective and you can send somebody for a jump start. And you can send somebody for a jumpstart. You can send somebody for level two in advance, and if you've got some high flyers, you can send them to get PBL certified so they can start training your folks. But if it's going into certification, they need to be experts. They're going to have years of PBL under their belt. It's a pretty rigorous process, but happy to talk to you about that, we're going to run a virtual.

Ryan Steuer: 1:01

In June and July we're going to be in person, though, in Indianapolis, at one of our model school sites actually model district in Perry Township in Indianapolis, on the south side. We're going to do two days. So we're going to scrunch your PBL jumpstart, get a little bit of pre-work so you can send teachers, do a jumpstart or an advance. Or, if you have your leadership team of five to 10 teachers, admins, your APsS, your coaches if you guys want to plan out the next three years, you should come. It's fantastic. So if you haven't done design days with us where we plan out the next three years and really get you momentum for your PBL journey, this is an option for you. So we're talking I think it's $500 a ticket for the in-person, which is a fantastic deal. Now, if we come to you to do design days, we're going to customize everything. When you come to us in Indianapolis, there's gonna be multiple schools there, which has its own advantages, because now you're collaborating with folks that are a little bit different than you and you can see what their plan is compared to your plan and make sure that your team is ready to go by the time you leave those emerging school times. That's kind of our open design days. You have a three year plan of implementation and your leadership team is ready to go with you and start creating PBL in that first year. So you have momentum that next summer when you really jump in. So we'll put a link in the show notes or the description wherever it goes, so that you can either come to the live PBL movement conference or you can jump into the PBL virtuals this summer.

Ryan Steuer: 2:25

But today I'm speaking directly to you, leaders and teachers you can jump into. This is how you get into some coaching absolutely free. I'm going to walk you through the process right now that I use personally to coach myself, coach myself. Yes, I'm also a mastermind. I believe in coaches heavily. That's how I've been here. Here's where I start with coaching clients.

Ryan Steuer: 2:48

If somebody won a gold medal in the Olympics and they turn to hug somebody and they don't have a coach, wouldn't that be weird? Like they win, they get the medal and they always go and hug their coach. Why is it that the best athletes in the world have a coach but you don't? Why is it that Michael Jordan had multiple coaches strength coach, phil Jackson, mental coach like he had all these different coaches in order to be the best in the world. The best in the world have coaches, and you should too, because you want to be world-class as you're leading your school in your classroom. So you need to get a coach.

Ryan Steuer: 3:24

But what do you do in the meantime? What do you do right now? What are some next steps that you could do? I'm gonna walk you through a coaching process that's absolutely free for you and it's gonna give you a ton of value. So buckle up. It's gonna be fantastic.

Ryan Steuer: 3:37

So what do you need to get started with this coaching process? You don't actually need a download, you don. You don't actually need to download. You don't need anything fancy. We don't have to hop on a call. You need to go to the dollar store and get one of these composition notebooks. I have several of these. Uh, yes, I have a cool, fancy leather one that I do my gratitude journaling in, but this was a dollar, a dollar tree, and it's going to work just right.

Ryan Steuer: 4:01

I do some journaling. I do goals in it, in a journal, just like this. But you're going to coach, and here's where I coach myself. I'm going to work just right. I do some journaling, I do goals in a journal, just like this, but you're going to coach and here's where I coach myself. I'm going to ask you these questions and I want you to write down the answers. Now, I do this whenever I get stuck. I do it at least once a week, probably more like three times a week, to get ready for the week and make sure I'm working on the right things.

Ryan Steuer: 4:22

So I'm kind of constantly doing this self-coaching process and when I do it, I'm doing one of two things. One I'm picturing my coach saying what would my coach ask me? Or another great frame for this is what would my 85 year old self tell me? So when I'm 85, we've got 51 by 51. 51% of schools are using project-based learning, because it's past 2051 by then, and I've probably done a ton of speaking. I've written more books. I don't know, maybe I got a PhD. I've got all these things. I know I'm going to be wise when I'm 85, wiser than I am now. So, looking back after all this time, with all this patience, what would I be telling myself? That's one of the frames that I use for this.

Ryan Steuer: 5:06

For you, if you listen to the podcast often, or you watch the podcast often, or the PBL Simplified video series for teachers or for leaders. If you're used to me, kind of hearing my voice, then it's like what would Ryan say? Like let me coach you through this and how would I follow up? So the very first question you're going to ask yourself ready, you can write this down what's on your mind? What's on your mind? I only take five coaching clients a year and we do high level coaching, but it's one of the places I start.

Ryan Steuer: 5:36

I start with what's on your mind. Why? Because you're a high flying leader. You're thinking about things that matter. So you've already got something on your mind. I don't need to dig real far. So that's the first thing you're gonna do is you say what's on your mind and you're gonna write that down and I that's literally what I have as my first question. And then you're gonna see I have three cause I've done this before, but cause. Then you're going to ask yourself the second question, which is what else?

Ryan Steuer: 5:57

So what's on your mind? And then what else? Write down a few more bullet points what else is on your mind, get it out there and then, once you have a pretty good list going, we're going to say what's the most important thing on this list that you've just created, prioritize your list, and I just want the top three. If you wrote down seven, I want the top three. So you're going to say what are the most important things that are on your mind right now and you're going to list them out. One might be a staff issue. Maybe you have a staff member that has been difficult to deal with. You're not sure what to do about that, so that might go up there. Or you've got a district mandate that's coming out. Or you've got these literacy standards that just came on you from the state and somehow you've got to get this curriculum implemented. You're not sure how to do it and it's keeping you up at night, so that goes down there. So once you've got that now you're going to ask yourself another question.

Ryan Steuer: 6:48

Now you've got your most important item that you're looking at. So you're going to ask yourself why we always start with why? Why is this one so much more important than the others? Why is this the one domino that, if it falls, all the other dominoes fall? That's what you're looking for. You're looking for the priority that is going to give you the most bang for your buck. So why is it so important? And take the time to journal.

Ryan Steuer: 7:10

I don't care if you write in complete sentences, I don't care if you write in cursive. You probably wouldn't be able to read mine. That's not the point. The point is that I'm processing and I want you to do the same thing, so you picked your most important thing that's on your mind. Why is it so important? Now? What will it look like when you have it completed? Now, what will it look like when you have it completed, when this is completely done? What's it going to look like when you have a plan to implement this new literacy requirement from the state? What's it going to look like when it's done? It's going to look like you've got meetings scheduled out. It's going to look like you're set with district and you know how it's going to work in with your project-based learning initiative. All these things are going to be in line and you're going to have some things lined up. So now you know why you're doing it. You know why it's most important, right? You know what it's going to look like when it's done.

Ryan Steuer: 7:58

So what are your next steps? What's the next thing for you to do? The next right thing? Write that down. What's the next right thing? It might be research. It might be to make a small focus group with your teachers. Whatever it is, write that down. And then what else? What's the next right step after that? And give yourself about five steps. If that's how many you have, it might be a smaller issue, but give yourself about five steps, five next steps that you're going to go through.

Ryan Steuer: 8:24

And now, how are you going to feel once you've gone through these five steps? What's it going to feel like? I can tell you right now, once you complete that, like, if you're driving and you can't do this right now, go back and pause it. But as soon as you answer this question, your shoulders are going to go. Oh, it's going to feel great to have this big decision done, and what you're going to find out is that in less than 20 minutes, you're going to have a really good plan. Your shoulders are going to come down. This is going to feel great and you're going to be able to start on that next important thing, to get that most important item done.

Ryan Steuer: 8:58

And now, if you have time, you're going to go through your other priorities the same way, right? So you go to your second priority and you say why is it important? What's it going to look like when it's done, what are my next steps? And I'll go through three of these at this point, like I'm I'm pretty proficient at this type of coaching self-coaching and once you give it some time, if you get over, like maybe it feels a little geeky, like run this YouTube video, run it again and then just pause it right after I asked the question. Just pause it and get three of these priorities done. And once they're written down, like you can see, mine I took about three pages to get this one down to when I was coaching myself, just like I'm coaching you right now. And you might add some more questions that'll come to mind. I do when I'm coaching live. But one that I also put is is this clear enough, like when I look at my next steps? Is this clear enough for me? Is it clear enough for me to communicate to others? And if not, it's going to take a little more work, and that's okay, right.

Ryan Steuer: 9:54

So that's how you can coach yourself through these priorities that are currently on your mind, cause don't you get overwhelmed sometimes because you say, well, what's the most important thing? It's all important, like I've got, my email box is like overflowing. I've got these district mandates. I've got teachers that need my leadership. They need additional training. How am I going to do this? There's so many things, but if you can pause that's the beauty of coaching you pause, it's 100% worth the time, and you make yourself prioritize these things, you get the biggest domino to fall and now you see things clearer, you can see the path. You can see the path, you can see what it looks like and it makes it much easier to walk down that path. So this is how I'm going to coach you for free. This is it right here? So play this podcast back or go onto YouTube. Go to the Magnified Learning YouTube channel and you can find this podcast. Sometimes it's easier to kind of click and see these things as I walk you through it.

Ryan Steuer: 10:51

But get yourself a Dollar Tree journal. I'm not asking you to commit a whole lot, you don't even have to download anything A pen and a Dollar Tree composition notebook. I like to get the ones that I had in high school, these black and white ones. I don't know why. I mean Mr Barlow would be proud. I think I'm filling up a composition notebook, my AP composition teacher, so I think that's why I do it. I just, I appreciate it. But maybe you get a nice fancy journal, like I love fancy journals as much as the next guy.

Ryan Steuer: 11:17

So do that, though. Make it a special coaching journal, just for you and your thoughts, so you can go back to those thoughts you had. And now when you go to sleep tonight, you don't have to think about any of those thoughts. They're in your journal, right? So your three most important things that you're going to be thinking about at night or trying not to right, they're down, they're recorded. You're ready to go the next day because you've already thought through it. And wouldn't that be great. Just raise your hand, even if you're driving one hand on the wheel, just raise your hand. Wouldn't that be awesome if, at the end of the night, your three biggest priorities were planned out and you didn't have to worry about or think about those things. Some of you say, well, I don't worry. Yeah, but you think about things a lot and you're concerned about it. Sometimes we call that worry. You don't have to right, it's such a positive process.

Ryan Steuer: 12:07

You need a life and leadership coach Again, just like Michael Jordan, just like Olympic athletes, you need a coach. But this is a great place to start. So start with this kind of self-coaching piece and see where it takes you and reach out. Let me know. I would love to hear how this works for you. I know how impactful it is for me and for clients that I work this through. So I take five clients a year and we start working on, yes, some of these questions, but we get a little bit deeper. We set some goals.

Ryan Steuer: 12:36

One of the first things and you can actually add this to your list if this is big for you but I walk through with principals, with superintendents, educational leaders what are you working on the weekends? How many hours are you working on? The? Every coaching client I've ever had decreases or eliminates hours on the weekends. Now, can you shut your cell phone off on the weekends? Probably not.

Ryan Steuer: 13:02

There are some things that, as school leaders, it's different than the business world. It's different than the entrepreneurial world. You have a different environment, so you're going to have your phone on. There's going to be things, but there's also things that you don't need. I worked with one principal and we found out that she was actually the one that was printing report cards on the weekends because she wanted it to be done right. And we walked that through and it was like once a nine weeks we saved five hours, right Like on the weekend, because it had to be a separate project. You've got projects that you're saving for the weekend and you shouldn't be because we're going to walk through.

Ryan Steuer: 13:36

What would you do with that extra time? I'm going to ask you what hobbies do you have? Or what hobbies did you have before you got new administration? What's one family goal? What's one future career goal? What's one systems goal that, if you implemented it, would make things easier for you? These are the kind of questions that I go through with some of my coaching clients and I think that you would love it. But again, you can play that back. You can self-coach yourself on those same questions. I would say that when you get a coach whether it's me or somebody else that they're going to be able to give you some insights that maybe you don't see. So I would definitely have you look into coaching. You might need to get a grant for some of this higher level coaching to get into, but I guarantee you that it's worth it and it's worth putting into your school budget.

Ryan Steuer: 14:24

So many of you as leaders. You're servant leaders and, yes, you should be a servant leader, but you also need to be feeding yourself, you need to be taking care of yourself, you need to have time to work out, you need time to have a hobby, you need to be with your family because you're saying, well, if I just work this hard for three years, then I'll get there and I can take it easy. But that's not true, because if you set up your life like this for three years, that's what your life is going to be for the next three years, and the next three years it doesn't change, because that's what you've set up. That's the boundaries that you have. You need somebody to come in and disrupt those boundaries and show you a different way of doing work, and doing really great work. Your work is not going to suffer. It's going to be the exact opposite. You're going to have margin to think about these things in a different way and you're going to solve problems before they're problems. Right? That's what happens when we start coaching and you get a coach and you start looking at this from a different perspective. You have somebody asking you questions that you wouldn't normally ask yourself and, as you're doing this, it may seem impossible for you to not work the weekends, but I guarantee you that it's possible.

Ryan Steuer: 15:32

There are some mindset shifts that you need to make. There are some systems you need to put in place and it can absolutely be done, because I don't want you being a principal for three or six years. I want you to make. There are some systems you need to put in place and it can absolutely be done, because I don't want you being a principal for three or six years. I want you to be a principal for 20 years, right? I want you to have a career where maybe you're at the same school, which the research says is unlikely. There's only like what? 11% of principals are at a school for 10 years or more, and I know some pillars that are doing that. They're pillars in their community. They're crushing it, but it's because they have systems in place that allow them to do that that they don't have to move on. They don't even want to move on because they're in their sweet spot.

Ryan Steuer: 16:07

So I want you to find that sweet spot, because that's where your longevity is going to be and that's where your wisdom is compounding, right? It's just like compounding interest as you save and you earn interest on your interest right In that 401k or 403b that you have. It's the same idea as you're gaining wisdom, right? You've been in tough conversations, so now you know how to do those tough conversations. You've done enough strategic plans that you could do them in your sleep, right? So it's all that wisdom builds up. Your best work is probably 10 years out, and I hope that's not discouraging. It should be encouraging. You're getting 1% better every day. As you do that. You're getting better. But we need you to have a long career so that you can get to that huge hockey stick at the end where you're gaining on that compounding interest of wisdom and experience.

Ryan Steuer: 16:57

All right, so I'm fired up about this. I love coaching. There's life transformation in this. It's transformed my life being in masterminds, being in personal one-on-one coaching, and I know for a fact I'll do the same for you. This is a great place for you to start. It's going to cost you $1.07, depending on your state tax, right? So go get a composition notebook, run through these questions and, as you get comfortable with them, run your staff or run your APs through these questions. It's something we should all be doing. If I can help you in this process, if you're trying to set up this system, I'd be happy to right. So just reach out via the links that are in descriptions and that, and we can set up time to do that. I'd be happy to do that.

Ryan Steuer: 17:39

Thank you for tuning in to this leadership episode of the PBL Simplified Podcast. Super excited to be on the PBL journey with you coaching you now, and I'm excited to see what dividends this pays and how it helps build the PBL movement. Go lead inspire. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the PBL Simplified podcast. I appreciate you and honor that you tune in each week. Would you please take two minutes to leave a rating and a review? When you leave a review, it lets the next person know that this is a podcast worth listening to. When they go into their player and search project-based learning, and PBL Simplified popped up. When they see those reviews, they know that high quality, visionary leaders are listening. So they tune in too and they can find their way into the PBL journey. Thank you so much for leaving a review. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you.