Okay friends, so today's episode is going to be shorter and it's a follow up from last week on Imposter syndrome because I heard from a lot of people and there are a couple of things I wanted to address But it's gonna be like a hybrid episode it's gonna have you know a little bit of my usual content which is to give you strategies and inspiration and tips and And all those things to help you have a more positive teaching experience.
And then it's also going to have this very one inspirational quote that I'm going to have to explain just a little bit. Um, but that had been on. on the side of my desk so that I, only I could see it, to be honest, for the whole 20 years that I was in the classroom. And I hope that it really means, um, something or stir something to some of you.
So anyway, so that's where we're at. And I have to be honest, usually I, um, scripted, not scripted everything out, but certainly have outlined my podcast episode with talking points and, um, And some kind of structure so that it's easy to take away those kind of, I hate to say, kind of like a blog post, but you know, five tips too, right?
But today I'm just talking from the heart. So, um, it is unscripted, but there are some things I wanted to address. So I might have to be putting it on pause and getting my thoughts together and that's okay. But let me start with this. Last week, um, I talked about imposter syndrome and appealing to people that please that you know this famous book, The Five Regrets of the Dying, that the number one regret was the things in life people didn't do and so I was looking at this concept of imposter syndrome about how it holds us in And obviously I talked through the lens of teaching, but you may have noticed if you've been hanging around me for a while, um, this podcast is as much as life coaching as anything else, because, um, I did have quite a few people reach out to me with scenarios in their personal life where they felt like they weren't living their best life.
They were letting imposter syndrome, that voice, who do you think you are? Or whatever that voice was for them. A lot of it. stemmed if I was just to sum it up in one bucket around this worthiness issue, but what I wanted to address here was how it seems to be showing up in school for a lot of you, is where you want to do something different.
different within your school or within your district and you have this imposter syndrome. Let's say that you have gone back to school or you want to go back to school or a lot of districts will help pay for you to go back to school to get your administrator's credential. And you are worried about what other teachers would think.
Okay, or maybe you got your administrator's credential and now there is a VP position coming up or a principal position coming up and you want to apply for it. at your own school or in your own district and that seems to be where the getting the hung up piece seems to be. That if you were to go show up as a brand new Spanking VP or principal in another district, you feel you would have way less imposter syndrome than if you would now have a different role and responsibility with the school.
Your current peers, not just as an admin, but maybe a curriculum coach, maybe there's some kind of position at the district office that would have you coming into your former school now as a kind of a So, um, you know, so you're an expert in some other area and you're really feeling the weight of this.
Who do you think you are? That now people who you maybe sat in the lunchroom with, and joked or teased or criticized, the district office and now you're changing teams, um, Or maybe you feel really the weight of this, you know, gosh, she didn't know that much. How is she different from me? Now part of that you got to recognize is maybe, um, you know, kind of envy from other people who maybe they want to do something and get out of the classroom.
Maybe not, you know, maybe not forever, but just for a while and try a different role. And they're annoyed at themselves that they didn't go for it, right? Or that they didn't know it was a possibility. That maybe you had applied for it without talking to them. Um, for whatever reason, maybe you just wanted to maintain privacy.
Maybe you were worried about maybe not getting the position and wanting to save face. And so all of a sudden now, Oh, you're no longer going to be my teammate. You're going to be in this different role with the different interactions with me and that's where it seems to be coming up a lot. And so now that I'm talking about this, you know what I'm thinking of, um, which I love this show to death.
I mean, I feel it does a great job portraying teachers, not, not students. There's very little students in this scenario, but Abbott Elementary. I don't know if you know that show and love that show. Um, but, uh, in the new season, um, Quinta Bronson, I can't even remember her name on the show, but, um, Janine, I think.
So anyway, she goes from being a teacher to going to the district office. So anyway, that's just, it's kind of a humorous take on that. But, um, you see where I'm going. I'm sure this has happened to you. Whether or not you have been the person who has wanted to move on to something different and felt this holding you back, or you've had one of your teammates or another person On your campus who you interacted with in a certain way suddenly moves on to do something else.
So I want to reassure people that that is normal. It is normal to feel that. That's a normal human reaction. Oh my gosh, what are people going to think? All of a sudden I'm going to have a different role. Maybe I'm going to, um, you know, have to be less chummy with, with people when I'm in an administrator role or whatever else.
So I do know that. Many educators choose to take on their new role in a new district. One, for that reason. Two, because they feel, you know, they want a fresh start. They want to be perceived as the person with the school board or whoever they report to. Everybody reports to somebody, right, that this is how they showed up in this role.
This is the role they have. This is the experience they have. Not that they used to be the kinder teacher or the, you know, math teacher or whatever. So it shows up a lot that way but that is understandable and if the response to that is to apply for a job in a new district, um, now of course many teachers don't want to lose tenure but a lot of times if you move into an administrative role you do not have a union anymore and so, um, You know, years of tenure can be renegotiated at different levels.
Anyway, so there are some logistics about that, but from the emotional kind of feeling and from a confidence background and from moving beyond this imposter syndrome, like, I don't want that to hold you back from taking on new roles in education that you're interested in. Okay, so that. was one kind of group of people who reached out to me.
I heard from a few people with that. And then the other was more like in their personal life, other things that they wanted to do. Maybe they felt compelled to. A lot of people asked me, Oh, you wrote a book when you were still a teacher. How did you go about that? What was it like? You know, what will people think?
Um, who are you? I mean, I, I remember thinking that. Oh my gosh, like I wrote um, my positive mindset journal. I had been writing for a long time. Um, but, um, in a different niche I had written, um, about habits. And I actually didn't, um, I used my maiden name, not my teaching name, um, primarily because I was writing about relationships and I was teaching first grade and I really didn't want any parent to have ever have made that connection that like I'm teaching your child and I'm writing about relationships.
So I had used my maiden name. Nobody really knew that I was a writer as well as, um, a teacher, but then when it came to publishing, um, my Positive Mindset Habit journal and then my Positive Mindset Habit book and that was as a direct result of people asking me and teachers asking me, what is it that you do differently?
How is it that you show up different than the rest of us? You know, share your secret, um, and so I wrote those books and there was a part of me that sometimes, you know, if I was having a bad day, because I'm human, um, and I always admit to those, you know, one of the books I wrote, um, starts off with me, uh, hiding under a desk in the fetal position during lunch.
I mean, it's really not on brand for the lady who, who purports positive mindset habits for teachers, right? But I'm still human. So I totally get that. Um, But also people reach out to me. Oh, what about podcast? You know, I've always wanted to start one and you know There are a ton of business coaches out there a ton of YouTube channels to give you support in that on you know What mic to get and what platform to use, you know, I'm more the mindset piece Here's what I'm gonna tell you if you feel called to To do something in your personal life or in your professional life.
Make sure that's what is holding you back is not the way of other people's opinion. Make sure it is not this imposter syndrome. You do not want to live with regret. That's really going to be difficult to bear. Okay. So go for it. Okay. So here's where we get to the kind of. Lunchbox love notes. Um, gosh, I always struggled to say that.
I should have called that something else. Um, but my little, you know, little motivational little love notes, like a virtual hug, throwing them out there into the universe. And so I have, um, a quote to give you and it's from, um, I see, I'm a little hesitant to tell you who it's from. It has been Um, attributed.
Is that the word? Like when you, to Nelson Mandela, um, for 25 years. I mean, I know that Hillary Clinton gave a commencement speech. All kinds of people have given speeches and said, attributed this, um, quote to Nelson Mandela and it is not from Nelson Mandela, um, at all. Um, I, and I got a question now myself why I feel like I would be more comfortable sharing it with you and saying, Oh, it was from Nelson Mandela.
I mean, in our minds we're like, he overcame so much. He represents a certain thing. But, um, the reason I know it didn't come from him is I got it from the original source back in a book I read back in the nineties. Um, and it was a book about, um, trying to, it was a book called Return to Love. And. I had been studying at the time, trying to study, trying to read, um, a text called A Course in Miracles.
Now, I am not a religious person at all. For the sake of this conversation, and for the sake of, you know, me reading this book, a miracle, um, in this book was a change of perception and the whole idea of the book was moving, it was 365 lessons, so one lesson a day is what you're supposed to do, and it was to move from this mindset of being trapped in this kind of delusion that we should be afraid of everything in the world, in the world, and moving to this Concept of love, choosing love over fear and so, which is a beautiful thing and is something that, you know, as I had struggled with anxiety my whole life, I could do with a little bit more love focus and a little less fear focus and I had tried to read this book, use this book Hmm Excuse me, um, a couple of times and I had always fallen off after less than, I don't know, 20, 30.
One time I made it to 50. It was kind of inaccessible. Um, it was just difficult and so somebody had written a book, Return to Love, which was their thoughts on Um, of course in miracles and made it very accessible. So when I tell you the person, there's a charge around this person now, um, it's Marianne Williamson and some of you may only know her as her, um, presidential, um, bid right now, and I want you to remove politics from, um, from your mind when you listen to this quote, cause it is a beautiful quote and I used to, she used to live stream every Monday.
Um, from a church, again, I'm not religious. So it was strange that I felt connected to her message, which was always about how do you go about your life, choosing love over fear and, um, this, this miracle being a change in perception. So I found her. easy to listen to. She took these concepts that were very hard to follow in the book and turned them into practical, um, beautiful ways of living your life.
But even though it was spiritual, she's a little kind of rubber to the road kind of girl. Like you gotta, you know, show up. It's not enough to say these things. You've, you've got to show up and do them. So anyway, that's where it came from. Um, and the, again, the book was called A Return to Love. She's written several books since then.
And now she is way more famous than she was even before the presidential bid. She was known as, I think, um, I seen her referred to in the press a lot of times as Oprah's spiritual advisor. Um, I'm not sure. Um, that's, I really think as a way to, um, Really just to dismiss her, which is really sad. So anyway, here's the quote and it does have the word God in it, which to me used to be a very emotionally charged word.
Um, but I think if we move beyond, um, that word, um, I think what she says is beautiful. And I'm trying to wonder why was it on my desk, like why did I feel compelled to have this on my desk for, or on the side of my desk where only I could see it for the whole time that I taught. I'm really trying to wonder why, what did I have imposter syndrome about when I first started teaching?
And I really think it was because I had dared to have the audacity to want to live a different life than the life I'd been living, right? I was a corporate VP, um, All the trappings that came with that and I decided I wanted a very different type of life and a lot of people didn't understand that and were very critical of me for that and maybe that's what it was.
But anyway, here's the quote, um, because I promised you a shorter episode and now I've been talking a long time. All right, so it is from Marianne Williamson, Return to Love, um, which was Reflections on a Principle. In the principles of Course in Miracles. Okay, so here's a quote. You might have just heard the first bit.
And again, you're going to say, Oh, I always thought that was Nelson Mandela. It was not. It was her. Okay, here's a quote. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, Who are you not to be? You're a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. We're born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let Our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. Okay, I really, I have always been moved by that. And here's the point. Your playing small does not serve the world.
It doesn't serve you, and if it doesn't serve you, and if you are not, here's what I'm going to say. Here's the whole point of A Course in Miracles. If you are not loving and trusting and believing in yourself, it's not serving the world. The mass delusion, um, is that you, you know, we are not perfect.
connected, that we are separate, um, and people are against us. Now, I do have a foundational belief that we are all connected. And so, um, whether or not you believe that, I want you to hear this. You playing small does not serve you. And if it doesn't serve you, it doesn't serve the world. Right? Who are you to be brilliant and gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Who are you not to be? Right? Oh, who are you to be a curriculum coach? Or a VP or an admin? Suddenly you know more than us. Like, who are you not to be? If that's what you feel called to do. And if there's something in your personal life that you feel called to do then you playing small And not doing it simply because you have imposter syndrome is really a shame.
So I just wanted to tell you that and, um, I believe in you. I am so proud that you take time to listen to podcasts like this, which, again, go beyond the tips of, you know, How to use Google Classroom or whatever else, but really get to, well, those are all necessary too. But this podcast really gets to the core of what does it take to be a good teacher, to take care of yourself so you can show up as your best self for your students, as you know, I always say.
Your energy teaches more than your lesson plans. So I believe in you. I'm proud of you. I hope that, um, whatever you're feeling called to do, you examine it and listen to that voice. Um, because I'm telling you, sometimes a voice starts off as a whisper and then you try and ignore it and that voice gets louder and louder and louder and then one day you get hit with, I think it's Gabby Bernstein who says, The Cosmic 2x4.
Right. Suddenly that voice is a smack around the head and you don't want to live with that regret that you wasted time. So that's it. I will see you next week. And in the meantime, create your own path and bring your own sunshine.