Episode 407: What It Takes to Create the Teaching Life You Dream Of

In today's Teaching Middle School ELA podcast episode, I talked about how you can love teaching and still feel crushed by everything wrapped around it. We get real about the moment many middle school ELA teachers know too well: sitting in the car before school, bracing for the emails, the interruptions, the meetings, and the constant sense that you can’t fit it all in. I share my own story of hitting a breaking point, leaving the classroom early, and what finally helped me rebuild a teaching life that felt steady, joyful, and sustainable.

We also apply the framework to a super common middle school reality, short class periods, lots of ELA standards, and regular disruptions, and we show how one thought change can lead to different actions like batch planning, stronger routines, and lessons that still feel creative and engaging. If you’re dealing with teacher burnout, time pressure, or that constant “I’m not good at this” story, this conversation is a reset.

Subscribe so you don’t miss next week, share this with a teacher friend who needs it, and leave a review with the thought you’re choosing to practice next.

Transcript

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Hi there, ELA teachers. Caitlin here, CEO and co-founder of EB Academics. I'm so excited you're choosing to tune into the Teaching Middle School ELA podcast. Our mission here is simple: to help middle school ELA teachers take back their time outside of the classroom by providing them with engaging lessons, planning frameworks, and genuine support so that they can become the best version of themselves, both inside and outside of the classroom. And we do this every single day inside the EB Teachers ELA portal. This is a special place we've developed uniquely for ELA teachers to access every single piece of our engaging, fun, and rigorous curriculum so that they have everything they need to batch plan their lessons using our EB Teacher Digital Planner that's built right into the app. Over the years, we've watched as thousands of teachers from around the world have found success in and out of the classroom after using EB Academics programs. And we're determined to help thousands more. If you're interested in learning more, simply click the link in the podcast description. And in the meantime, we look forward to serving you right here on the podcast every single week. Well, hello, teachers, and welcome back to another episode of the Teaching Middle School ELA podcast. I wanted to start this episode by just reflecting a little bit on my teaching career, kind of where I started and some of the things that shifted for me in my last few years of the classroom and just how much of a difference it made for me in my life. You know, I get a lot of feedback a lot of the times that, well, you don't know what it's like, you're not in the classroom anymore. And I get that, that's correct. I am not in the classroom anymore. And that doesn't negate the experience that I had, and that I don't know what it's like to be a teacher, and that I don't remember how difficult it was on certain days. And there was a version of me when I was in my early 20s who I would just sit in my car before school in the parking lot and, you know, keep my seat warmers on and drink my chocolate or my chocolate milk, and I would just sit there. And it was like I would just sit there because it had gotten really, really heavy for me. And I actually quit teaching three and a half years into the profession. I did not stay through the end of that fourth year. I left in March because I was so done with it. And it's not that I like didn't love my students. It's not that I didn't love teaching English. It was like I hated everything else that came along with that, that I felt like was robbing me of my joy of being able to be a great teacher. And I think that the nuance of the language that I just used is really important. And it's gonna be maybe a hard thing to hear. And I also think it's one of the most important things to hear is that by saying I was robbed of the joy of the profession by these forces that were outside of myself, what I have done in using that terminology is I've given all of my power away to something that I can't control. I can't control the system, I can't control the emails that parents would send to me. I can't control what admin was forcing down my throat. Like there are uncontrollables in not just our lives as teachers, but in our lives as humans. And this episode is really gonna be about that because things shifted for me big time as a teacher in the last couple of years in the classroom when I stopped allowing the outside forces to impact how I was going to internally feel and approach my teaching life, right? This episode is titled What It Takes to Create the Teaching Life That You Dream Of. And the teaching life that you dream of is possible, but it takes a significant amount of personal work to get through it and to make that a reality. But it's there for the taking and it's there for you. And so if you've ever felt like I did in those first few years in the classroom when I did quit, maybe you've felt like quitting, maybe you have quit and come back. If you've ever like sat in your car with your coffee and you just take another long deep breath, like, God, please help me as I go into this. I don't know how I'm gonna do this. And you put your teacher face on and you go make things happen, then this episode is for you. And I really want you to know that I see you, like I really, really do, because I was you. And I know what that feeling feels like big time, like deep in my bones. Even talking about it right now brings me back to my red jeep that I would sit in in the parking lot at the high school and just be angry at the world that I felt like this is not what teaching was supposed to be like. But today I want to talk about a shift that you can create, that you 100% have control of and over in your life so that you can love teaching. I loved teaching when I left the classroom. I wish that I could still teach. I just don't have the capacity in my life to do the work that I do here at EB and also still be in the classroom. I never wanted to leave when I got to a point where I just figured out how to make it work. And so much of that is what I'm gonna talk about today. And so much of it is internal stuff that you work on internally and not necessarily forcing outcomes or trying to control the surroundings of your life. And that's really what this episode is about. So this is probably one of the more important episodes that I've ever done that I've shared on the podcast. And we're really gonna talk about, and I know some of you are gonna hate this, and I'm sorry, but it's maybe what you need to hear. If you hate it, it's probably what you need. And I say that with love, right? We're talking about mindset, and it's not gonna be like hang in there, like you can do it, rah-rah. It's like, no, we need to go deep and like rethink about how we are approaching the actual thoughts and feelings and energy and all of those things that we bring into the classrooms that we love, and something that allows teachers, and I see it happen all the time inside of our membership, inside of our EB teacher community, because I harp on this all the time at our live events of how important their internal state is, of how important their mindset is, so that they can stay in work that they love and thrive as opposed to staying in survival mode. And the the output of the work is the same. It's the internal state and the way that we're viewing things that matters the most. So I know I may have lost some of you already, and I I those of you who are still staying with me, like this is gonna be a game changer for teaching, but for your life. Like, this really this framework I'm gonna walk through today changed my entire life. Changed my whole life. It's a thing that gave me the courage to blow up my life and leave a marriage where I was deeply unfulfilled and risk losing everything, which I did. And I'm still okay. And I'm not just okay, I'm thriving, I'm happy and I'm whole, and I'm I've never been at a place in my life where I'm so completely grateful and accepting of whatever happens and whatever comes my way. And no matter if something does or doesn't come my way, or does or doesn't happen for me, that I know that it's actually in my greatest interest, right? To just like have this belief, this unwavering belief that literally everything is happening for me. Everything is happening for me to be the best version of myself, for me to help more teachers, for me to be a better mom for my son. All of the things that I've gone through that have been so deeply challenging are things that I'm so grateful for. And it all really started with the framework that I'm gonna walk you through today that that was like the catalyst to just this change of how I view things and how I move through the world. And I want that for you so much because someone asked me the other day, it was my 40th birthday, and someone asked me, like, you know, what are you taking into your 40s or what are you excited about, your 40s? And the word that came to me was sovereignty. Like I feel this deep level of like freedom and conviction and belief in who I am and that I'm gonna be okay no matter what. And I really want that for you because when you have that belief and the framework I'm gonna walk you through is gonna help you like adopt that belief and like integrate it into your life. Things don't bother you. The copy machine being broken, oh well. Admins sending an angry letter, okay. Like you literally just move through life with a different perspective that is the greatest gift because you're happier, you're lighter, and things are no longer happening to you. You are no longer a victim to your circumstances, right? You are the creator of the life that you want. And it's all in your power to be able to do so. So I want to dive into it now. I know that was a little bit of a long intro, but I feel very, very deeply about this. And I really, really hope that this helps you. Like, really hope this helps you. So I want to start with like the dream, right? The dream of becoming a teacher. Of like, when did you know? When did you know you wanted to be a teacher? Right? Like, think back, go back in your mind, go way back. When did you first know, or have that like realization hit you? That you're like, man, yeah, that's what I want to do. I want to be a teacher. For some of you, it might be a second job, a career change in your life, a second profession. For others, it might have been something you've always wanted to do. But I want you to think back to that moment because I think most of us know. I think most of us know when that exact moment hits us. And for me, I never actually planned to be one, interestingly enough. And I know that's crazy coming from someone who's now a podcast of a or a host of a teaching podcast. And for those of you who know part of my story, right? I grew up in a family of teachers. My mom was a teacher, my dad was a teacher, my grandma was a teacher, my great aunt was a teacher, my grandpa was a principal, my grandma was a librarian. Like every summer I grew up helping my mom set up her classroom. I would grade her papers with her, I'd straighten desks. I loved it. I like lived for it, but I always swore I would never be a teacher. And that's probably because that's my personality that if everyone's going left, you better believe I'm going right. Like if everyone's wearing that, I'm wearing the opposite. I try to always be the a con a contrarian almost and like forge my own path in life. That's just my personality. And it was very interesting because senior year of college, I was finishing up a communications degree, I was going in a completely different direction. And then one morning I woke up and I was like, oh no. Like that was, it was like a it was like a sinking feeling almost, like a realization of, oh no. Like I think I want to be a teacher. And I was like, damn. It was more like like a reckoning, if you will. It was like something deep in me had already decided long before that this is what I wanted to do. And like my brain was just catching up with my soul. And hopefully you can understand that as an English teacher, right? We go deep as English teachers. And it was May of my senior year of college. I have a communications degree, and I applied for teaching jobs. I sent my resume out to 50 local private schools because you didn't need a credential. And I thought, all right, let's do this. This is gonna be everything. Like, here we go, right? The reckoning, like it's coming, I'm doing it. This is what I've been called to do. I really believe that. But then the first year of teaching happened and it literally almost broke me. I vividly remember a phone call from a parent calling my syllabus, a word that I will not say on the podcast. And I was 22, and she was yelling at me and said these awful things to me, and I will never forget the word that she used. And I was able to keep my composure while on the phone with her, but I hung up and I just started sobbing. And I was like, Are you kidding me? Over a policy on my syllabus, you're gonna speak to me like that. And I was like, dude, how on earth am I gonna handle this? You know? And I think that there's this like gap between the dream that we had about being teachers and then the reality when we get into it, right? We dream of this moment of students looking at us and going, like, oh my God, like light bulb moment, I finally get it. Or we dream of our students being engaged and creative projects, or maybe you're like me and you just freaking loved English. Like, I just loved English. I love talking about the human condition and poetry and analyzing and why we think the way that we do, and just this like metacognition with my students. Like, that's what I love. And that's when I felt genuinely alive. Like, even talking about it right now, my whole body has changed. My facial expressions have changed, my hands, like there's just an energy that's different about me when I talk about this because I love it so much. Like teaching the love song of J. Alfred Proofrock, forget about it. Like, I cannot. That is one of the greatest things ever. Or Emerson and Thoreau, like that's why I became a teacher is to just talk about these beautiful pieces of literature and like what it means for us and how it touches our soul, right? All of that stuff. I dreamt of that mattering to my students. That's what I thought teaching was. And then I got into the classroom and it was like, oh, how foolish you were, Caitlin, to believe that that's what it would be. Right. I'm dealing with, and you are too, essays, IEP meetings, yard duty, parent emails that are sent to you way too late at night that are accusing you of things that simply aren't true, report card comments, faculty meetings that are not of any worth anybody's time, right? Or having to bring in food and feed people once a month. Like we had to do that at one of my schools, and I was like, really? Like, I can't even cook for myself. You want me to cook for the faculty? Like, this is crazy. Assemblies that completely derail everything. And Sunday sucked. I mean, let's be honest. In those first few years of teaching, Sunday was brutal. I never understood Sunday Funday, what my friends were talking about who are in corporate America. I was like, what do you mean? Sunday's a work day, right? None of that is what we dream of when we go to become teachers at all. And the part that nobody talks about, and the part that I really want to sit with today with you is the gap between that dream that you had and that reality that you experienced can sometimes make you feel like something's wrong with you. Right? Like maybe like you're just not cut out for this. Like maybe the teachers who seem to love it just like have that certain like je ne sais quoi that you don't. But that's not true. Because I was you. I was that teacher who quit, who was like, uh-uh, I'm not doing this. No way, bro. I am not cut out for this. Absolutely not. But when I came back and I had different tools under my tool belt for how I was going to choose to handle my thoughts and my reactions and my emotional state and my nervous system and all of that stuff, I now know that the dream is possible, but we have to do some internal work in order to get there. And we have to stop being less reactive to our circumstances and more in control of how we choose to see things, because how we choose to see things is going to dictate our reality of things. And by the end of this episode, I really hope that you get to see that transformational experience of, oh, I am actually much more powerfully in control of how my teaching experience goes. And that's not to say that bad environments do not deeply impact us. Yes, we are who we surround ourselves with. 100% that is true. Some of us can make changes and move schools and go to different places that nourish us in a better way. But there will always be problems at any of the schools that we go to. And you could be leaving from a horrible school to a great school, and you might still notice, like, oh, the same problems are still here. But there's this great quote, it might be Carl Jung, I'm not sure who it is, but it's it goes like wherever you go, there you are. Wherever you go, there you are. So you are taking you with you. And you're taking all of your thoughts, all of your beliefs, all of the perceptions that you have about the world with you, no matter where you go. I've shared this, I don't know if I've shared this on the podcast, but I've certainly shared it at Art or Batch Planning Live events. So forgive me if you've already heard this story. But I think it's such a great story of perception, right? Each of us has a different, unique lived experience. Like we really all view the world differently. We really genuinely do. And when this was so incredibly apparent to me, it became so incredibly apparent to me in the story I'm about to tell you. Like I got it, I understood like intellectually, like, yeah, sure, we all have different perspectives. But it didn't hit me like a ton of bricks and like really integrate into my understanding of how the world works until I had this experience. So I'm flying home from LA to Oakland. I fly into Oakland, and I'm a nervous flyer. I've gotten a lot better because I've decided I'm no longer a nervous flyer, just telling myself a different story, a different belief about flying, that it's fun. Um, but we're flying from LA into Oakland. And because I'm an anxious flyer, I'm like hyper aware of everything. Like I know, okay, the engines are being pulled back, we're gonna start to descend. I know when we get to 20,000 feet, this thing happens. And I also know the flight path extremely well flying from LA to Oakland because I've flown it for years, having lived in LA and having family up in Northern California. I mean, I've probably flown that flight path scores of times, if not more than that. And we're not landing on the flight path that I know from the south. The plane starts to go past the airport, and I realize we're gonna land from the north. So immediately I'm hyper-vigilant. I'm starting to freak out. I'm like, okay, this is not the way that we're supposed to go. Okay, Caitlin, it's gonna be fine. It's not a big deal, right? They're just changing the way the plane's landing because of the wind, the weather, whatever it might be. And I'm sitting in the window seat. And then we start to bank and like turn to come back to land from the north. And we're going down through the clouds and it's raining and it's like a whiteout, right? Like you can't see outside of the window. And the turbulence starts happening like ferociously on the plane. And I'm sitting there, like, I'm a cat, I grew up Catholic. I'm saying, like, hail Mary's. I'm like, please, Jesus, like, don't let the plane go down. Like, I have to get to my son. And I am 100% having a massive panic attack, freaking out because we didn't land the way that I thought we were going to, because we were experiencing probably very minor turbulence, if we're being honest, through clouds. So I couldn't see anything. And I'm freaking out. I'm like, this is it. I this is it. I always knew that I was gonna go down in a plane crash, right? And I turn and have the awareness to look at the woman sitting next to me. She's probably 75, 80 years old, and I'm sweating, like sweating, hot as can be, heart racing. I'm gonna die. And I look at this woman sitting next to me, and she is just so calmly, happily sitting there doing her Sudoku puzzle. And it was like bam, it hit me like a ton of bricks. We are both experiencing the same exact thing. We are both on the same plane, we are both in the same circumstance, but our experiences of that circumstance could not have been more different. And it was all because of the beliefs, the perceptions, the thoughts that we had about flying and about what turbulence means, and about what not being able to see out the window means. And it was wild to me to have that experience. And so, to me, what that showed me is oh my gosh, my thoughts have such an impact on how I experience the world. Right? We all know those people that just are good vibes, they're just happy people, they're great to be around, you know, they don't come. Complain about things, like nothing's really a big deal to them, you know, but they still have feel like they're good, they're not like sociopaths who have no feelings, but they just experience the world differently. And then we also know those people who are bad vibes, and you're like, bro, I do not want to be around that person. They just bring negativity everywhere they go, they complain all of the time, right? Their experiences in in the classroom are gonna be largely the same, but how they experience them is gonna be totally different based on who they are. Wherever you go, there you are. And so I want to share a framework that's really going to help change everything for you. And this is a tool from one of my life coaches from years ago, but it also has been used in a multitude of business circles that I've run in where we really work on mindset and mental toughness and all of that type of stuff. And that's from my life coach, her name is Neil Williams. And some of you may have had the um the luxury, that's not the word I'm looking for, of listening to Neil speak. And I'm hoping she's gonna be able to come back this summer to batch planning live to talk to us. But Neil is extraordinary, she is absolutely extraordinary in that the way in which she coaches is through a very simple model. And it was a coaching model that was developed by Brooke Castillo. And when I first heard it, I was like, huh, that's simple. And it's funny because anytime I hear something that can like radically change your life, it's typically very simple. But that doesn't mean that it's easy. And that's kind of the difference. It's like it's so simple, but it's not easy. To integrate it and to live it is a whole other ball game. However, when I applied this coaching model, this self-coaching model that I'm gonna talk to you about in just a second, and I know I may have gone off the deep end and gotten woo with you, but I am telling you, this stuff changes your life. And when I applied this in my own life, my whole world cracked, cracked open to I can live a totally different way. I no longer became a victim to being a mom and that motherhood so hard and complaining all the time. Instead, like my relationship with my son, because of how I've been able to control and experience my thoughts in a different way, to keep my nervous system calm in difficult situations. Like it's it's changed, it's changed my life and it's changed the way in which I experience everything in this world. And I so want that for everybody else, too. And so the model is called the CTFAR method. And if you've already heard of it before, keep listening because something's gonna come up for you inevitably as we walk through it. And basically, it's a formula for understanding like pretty much why your life looks the way that it does, and exactly how we have the power to change it. And so here's what each of the letters stands for C stands for the circumstance. So this is literally like the facts, the neutral objective reality of your situation. So in my plane example, the neutral objective reality is that the plane was landing and we were going through clouds and there was turbulence. That's it. That was a circumstance. Well, the T is what comes next, and this is where we have the power to change things. So T is the thought. And this is what your brain tells you about that circumstance. So my brain was telling me, this is it, we're gonna die, the plane's gonna crash, I can't see anything, blah, blah, blah. All of those thoughts that I was telling myself. Well, I'm sure the nice lady sitting next to me doing Sudoku was like, hmm, I wonder if this is number nine or number five, right? She's not even thinking about the circumstance that is literally causing an existential crisis in my life. She's just doing her damn Sudoku puzzle, right? So that thought then that I had, what happens? I have an emotion, I have a feeling, right? The CTF is the feeling, the emotion that that thought creates in my body. And that emotion at that time was fear, like deep fear, panic, anxiety. Holy, you know what, this is the end. And so my action, what you, this is what you do or you don't do, C T F A. My action is that I look around, I'm more hypervigilant, I'm paying more attention to the sounds, I'm even more aware of what's going on. My body's sweating. It's this whole physiological reaction to my thoughts, to my feelings, and my body is now reacting in a very heightened state. And now the result is what's the result? C T F A R. The result that I have because of those actions is that I'm afraid of flying. And that thought, that that result that I'm afraid of flying confirms my original thought, which then deepens the feeling, which then drives the same action. So it becomes this cycle, becomes this habituated cycle that a lot of the times we don't even know what we're doing because we aren't even aware of our thoughts. I was reading something the other day that like the greatest sign of emotional intelligence is metacognition, which is like the ability to think about your thoughts. The ability to think about your thoughts. So, do you ever have a thought that comes in and you're like, huh, I wonder where that thought came from? A lot of the times we don't, right? That thought, those thoughts just keep us on autopilot. We don't ever question them. But when you have a thought that comes in that's not helpful for you, it's a huge strategy to your benefit to catch that thought and be like, hmm, is this thought helpful? And if it's not helpful, what thought could I use instead? And so the whole unlock with this is that the circumstances don't change. The actual facts of your situation do not change. Teaching might still entail faculty meetings at a certain time that maybe could have been meetings. They also teaching also entails district-mandated curriculum that you don't want to teach, right? There are actual facts to our situations. The only thing that creates a new loop for us in our experience of that circumstance is the thought. And once we interrupt that thought and we change that thought, the whole loop changes. So I want to show you what that looks like. So let's say that it's a Tuesday morning, and your circumstance is the following. You have 43 minutes of class time, you have lots of ELA standards to cover, and at least once a month, that class period gets cut short for an assembly. Those are just facts. It's neutral, it's true for almost every middle school ELA teacher in America. But here's what your brain does with those thoughts, those facts, rather, those circumstances. Your thought becomes the following I can't fit it all in. I'm always rushing, my students aren't mastering the standards, there's no time for anything creative or fun. I'm not good at this. And those thoughts, which feel so real and so true and so justified, create your feeling. Your F. And what is that? Pressure in your trust, headache that starts by second period, the eye twitch that you're really exhausted that keeps showing up, the sense of dread before the day even begins, anxiety, panic, fear, resentment. And those feelings all drive your actions, which is your A. So what do you do? You grab your phone and you scroll Instagram to get a mental break, or you pour a glass of wine at night to decompress, or you grab a quick lesson off of TPT at 10 p.m. because you don't have the energy to plan something original, or you get lost in an episode of something on Netflix. Will and I are watching Million Dollar Secret right now. It's so good. And I'm gonna interrupt this because he just we're on episode two and he went and watched the finale and told me who the millionaire was. I was like, bro, no, I don't even want to watch the season with you. But none of those things are wrong. There's no pointing fingers. It's not saying that we're wrong. I have done every single one of those things. I have done all of that. But here's what they all have in common: those actions, those behaviors do not change anything. They do, yes, provide short term short-term relief from a long-term problem, but they're not fundamentally shifting our entire experience of teaching. And so what happens is your result, your R, is exactly what you feared in the first place. The rush class, the uncovered standards, the scramble, which then confirms your thought, which deepens the feeling, which drives the same actions, which produces the same results. And it goes around and around and around forever until something interrupts that pattern. And that something is in your control because that something is your thought. So here is where you can interrupt the loop and set yourself free. The same circumstances. I'm gonna give you an example of how we interrupt this thought. We have the same circumstances, 43 minutes, same standards, same once-a-month assembly. Nothing about the external circumstances or reality has changed at all. But watch what happens when we change the T, when we change the thought. Let's give ourselves a new thought. Oh, okay, those are my circumstances. Well, I'm a great ELA teacher. I have everything that I need to make this work. And I can cover my standards in a creative and engaging way, and my students are gonna love it. That thought creates a very different feeling. It's not forced positivity, it's not fake, it's just a different thought. And so what happens? Ease, excitement, the feeling of being in control of your classroom. And that feeling drives entirely different actions from you.

unknown 32:22

Right?

SPEAKER_00 32:23

You might then go back and listen to a podcast episode that I have about fitting it all in. You might pull out your standards checklist and plan intentionally by batch planning 90 days out. You might build bell ringers that actually move the needle, right? We are creating different actions because we're like, oh, I've got it. I know what I'm doing. And the result is that your lessons are planned in advanced, your students are engaged, your principal leaves you an amazing note after coming in on a surprise observation. You walk to the car at the end of each day, and you're like, you know what? I'm kind of a badass teacher. Same school, same students, same 43 minutes, different thought, different life, different thought, different life. Man, that's so powerful. And I will tell you right now, with the plane situation, when I was flying recently, I told myself I've flown a lot in the last couple of months, more so than I had in a long time. And I told myself, I was like, you know what? I'm done with this. I'm so over being quote unquote afraid of flying. Like, let's stop making that a part of my identity. So I got on the plane and I was just like, you know what? I'm not afraid of flying anymore. And while I'm not like 100% awesome on the plane, I'm not having panic attacks anymore. And when I get into those situations on the plane where there's turbulence, I tell myself a different thought. I go, oh man, being on a plane is the safest place in the world that I could possibly be. Man, this pilot really knows what he's doing. Or I say, oh, these are just bumps in the sky, no big deal. I'm telling myself different thoughts to create a different experience in my body of being on the plane. And that's exactly what this does different thought, different life. So, what this really means for you, you are not stuck, even though it might feel like it. You are not a bad teacher, even though it might feel like it. You are not too far gone and done with the profession, even though it might feel like it. I remember my dad telling me before basketball games as a kid how much mental toughness mattered, how much staying focused mattered, how much staying out of your head mattered, how much staying positive in the game mattered, how much not letting what's happening on the outside change, what's happening on the inside of your internal state, how much of that mattered. And I thought that was just like my dad giving me like a pep talk, right, as a kid. But it turns out that's a whole game. That's a whole game, baby, in every area of your life. CTFAR isn't just a tool for you as a teacher, it applies to the conversation that you had with your principal that didn't go the way that you hoped. It applies to a difficult parent relationship, it applies to how you feel about your own goals as a person, as a human being, just trying to figure this crazy stuff out that we experience in life. The circumstances just data. But your thoughts about it are a choice. And I know that that's the uncomfortable part because if our thoughts are a choice, we can't fully blame the circumstance anymore. And I know none of us want to hear that. We have to give up the story that it's all the administrator's fault, or it's all the curriculum's fault, or it's all the 43 minutes' fault. And that means taking radical responsibility for your life a hundred percent of the time. A hundred percent of the time. And that is hard.