Choosing Peace Over Being Right

What happens when the need to be right starts to weaken trust, damage connection, and disrupt the peace around you? 

In this episode of Meditations on Leadership, Don reflects on the tension between conviction and peace, and the quiet ways a leader’s need to be right can erode trust, connection, and culture. He then sits down with educator Neal Walter Young for a thoughtful conversation about teaching, civic life, moral clarity, and what it means to lead with both principle and humility. Together, they explore how peace is not passivity, but a steady strength rooted in discernment, relationship, and wisdom. 

A timely reminder that peace is not weakness. It is strength disciplined by wisdom. 

To learn more about Don's work, upcoming offerings, and leadership resources, visit carpentercompanyconsulting.com

 If something in today’s episode spoke to you, I hope you’ll subscribe and continue the journey with me — because leadership begins within. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome to Meditations on Leadership. I'm Don Carpenter. What is leadership asking of you right now? Not out there in the visible part, but underneath, in the part that no one applauds, in the part where your motives get tested, your assumptions get exposed, and your character is quietly being formed. That is what this podcast is all about. Each week begins with a meditation, followed by a short reflection, and then a conversation, all in the service of doing the deeper work leadership requires of us. And today I get to enter that conversation with someone I deeply cherish. Today's guest is Neil Young. Neil is one of those rare people whose passion for history, teaching, government, and civic life feels less like a profession and more like a calling. As a high school student, he was involved in a wide range of extracurricular activities. But I believe one experience in particular helped shape the course of his life. The American Legion Boys State Program, one of the country's most respected educational programs in government and public service. Because I believe it sparked in Neil a deep love for debate, history, civic engagement, and the way democracy actually works. During those same formidable years, Neil was also part of Trekkers, which is where I first got to know him and his twin brother Stephen when they were in seventh grade. Even then, there was something distinctive about Neil, a depth of thought, a genuine curiosity, and a seriousness of purpose that has stayed with him. After high school, Neil attended the University of Southern Maine, where he earned his degree in political science. During his college years, he continued investing in young people through roles like serving as a Trekker AmeriCorps member volunteer and helping facilitate the Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program. He also had the opportunity to intern for Maine Senator Susan Collins. And in fact, in May of 2026, he will complete his Masters of Science and Criminology from Thomas College. Since becoming a high school social studies teacher in 2016, Neil has brought all of that passion, intellect, and experience into the classroom, where he is helping shape the next generation of engaged citizens and civic leaders. He has also remained deeply committed to the profession itself through his involvement with his local union and other educational organizations. Having known Neil for more than half his life and having shared many long conversations over coffee with him, I can honorly say he is truly one of a kind. I always leave our conversations energized, and I'm especially glad to introduce him to you all today. He lives with his family in central Maine. Neil, I'm so honored you're here. Welcome to Meditations on Leadership.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Yeah, well, uh just uh thank you so much for having me on. I'm very excited. I've listened to the podcast a lot and it feels a little bit of imposter syndrome included along with those incredible people. So uh thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Uh Neil, well, all right. Well, let's uh let's jump in. I'm gonna share meditation 34 from my forthcoming book. It's titled Choosing Peace Over Being Right, and it's a theme that Neil picked for our conversation today. And here's the uh quote I wrote down. It's a distilled teaching, often attributed to Eckhart Tole. It says this do you want to be right or do you want peace? Do you want to be right or do you want peace? This question has shaped my leadership probably more than any book training or strategic plan I've ever encountered. Whether we are leading a team, guiding a classroom, raising a child, or helping hold a community together, we are often taught to drive clarity, to take positions, to stand firm. But over time, I've had to ask myself, what is the real return on investment and choosing to be right over choosing peace? And I don't mean peace as passivity, I mean peace as the steady pulse of a healthy culture, peace as alignment, peace as harmony, peace as trust, as the kind of strength that allows people to do hard things without being diminished by them. The ego of a person who always needs to be right can fracture more than relationships, it can ensettle a team, a classroom, a family, even a community. I've seen it. I have lived it, and I believe it is one of the most common causes of burnout, disconnection, and mission drift. I have made this mistake more than once. For instance, early on, I held firm to a policy, 10 days of paid time off during an employee's first three years. As the founder who rarely gave himself permission to rest, I confused sacrifice with commitment. If I was pushing through, I believed others should too. And technically, I was right. The policy was clear, it was being followed. But clarity is not the same thing as wisdom. By holding the line, I created tension that slowly wore people down. Our staff were not lazy, they were not entitled, they were exhausted. Educators, mentors, expedition leaders, giving extraordinarily amounts of energy of themselves to young people in their care. What they needed was not another lesson and sacrifice. They needed rest. They needed dignity. They needed to know they were valued not only for what they produced, but for who they were. By insisting on being right, I was no longer protecting the mission. I was weakening it. And I was weakening the people and trusted to carry it. Eventually, I course-corrected not just the policy, but my mindset. I learned that principled leadership is not measured by how tightly we hold a position, but by how wisely we discern when that position is no longer serving the people it was meant to protect. When we lead from ego, we choose control. When we lead from peace, we choose connection. And here's the deeper truth peace in any human system does not come from perfect systems. It comes from trust, from a culture where people feel heard, respected, and safe, from people in positions of responsibility who understand the rules have a purpose, but human beings are not here to serve the rules. The rules are there to serve people and the shared purpose that binds them together. So the next time you find yourself at a crossroad, rules versus relationship, procedure versus discernment, ask yourself, does this serve the deeper purpose or does it just serve my position? Am I protecting what matters or defending my own need to be right? Is this a moment to enforce or a moment to understand? Is this a time to be right or to be wise? Because peace is not weakness, it is strength disciplined by wisdom. So let me just offer a quick few thoughts on a real-time reflection. There have been moments in my leadership when my inability to accept the circumstances or outcomes of a particular process collided with my own moral code. In those moments, I did not always respond with grace. Instead, I took the opportunity to make the case, often in very clear terms, for why someone's effort had fallen short of what I believed was the right way to do something. And if I'm honest, being right in those moments felt good. There is a certain satisfaction in naming what is flawed, inconsistent, or misaligned. It can feel like integrity, it can feel like courage, it can feel like leadership. But more often than not, it did not bring peace. Instead, it only prolonged disease. What I have had to learn over time is that moral clarity, while important, is not enough on its own. If it is not tempered by humility, compassion, and discernment, it can become a weapon rather than a guide. What begins as conviction can harden into rigidity. And what feels righteous in the moment can quietly erode trust, safety, and connection. I still believe standards matter. I still believe integrity matters. But I am learning that leadership is not only about naming what is right, it is also about discerning what is needed. Sometimes what is the most needed is the truth spoken clearly. But sometimes it is restraint. Sometimes it is patience. Sometimes it is grace. I wish this were a lesson I had fully learned. But as recently as the end of 2025, I found myself in a work-related situation where I felt strongly about what was right. And the result was not peace, but lingering misunderstanding and unresolved tension. I still carry some discomfort about that. Maybe that is part of the deeper truth. Growth in this area has not been neat or complete for me. I'm still learning when to stand firm and when to soften enough for peace to become possible. So, Neil, as you heard that meditation and reflection, what stayed with you? What stirred something in your own experience?

SPEAKER_01 11:28

I think one of the things is it being really relieving to hear that this is still something that you're working on, because I feel like a lot of things in leadership, it's not you learned it, fantastic, never make that mistake again. But just trying to, when you do make those errors, learn from it and improve. I remember one of them actually has to do with you because you know you're the founder of this great program. You you mentor me, you teach me all this stuff about leadership, and then I go on a trip that isn't led by you. So even my your uh our ideas of like what is right and what needs to happen and the certainty of it. So I just really appreciate all the program managers. I, you know, I had to go the first little bit because if Don didn't do it that way, then it must be wrong. And and if it's wrong, this program is never gonna work, right? And I would be so insistent. And then when I finally just took a breath with a lot of uh help from others and seemed like, oh, this is just a different way of reaching the same goal of building relationships uh with young people, I think that was really important one for me to learn that I may be convinced I'm right, um, but almost like Benjamin Franklin said, that kind of years teach you the humility that you can hold strong opinions and be open to being wrong and changing those opinions with more information.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Oh, I love the fact that you brought Benjamin Franklin to that. I I knew this was going to be an awesome conversation, and I knew that some of the um early founders will make their way into this conversation. So, well, obviously, your passion for teaching is uh I mentioned in your bio. And I'm wondering, has there been moments in your teaching when you're working with students and you're teaching them, and you knew you were technically right about something, but later realized that pressing the point to your students may not have been the wisest path? And if so, what did that teach you?

SPEAKER_01 13:39

I think part of it is trying to figure out the exact thing that's important to be right about, because we can in government, right, all the time, we're talking about US politics, we're talking about things in history. And what I realized pretty early on is if I just told students, hey, think this or think that, right? And then after a while, I'm like, wait, I've changed my opinion and now I've I've convinced them to think something that isn't true anymore. And even within the first couple months of teaching, I think that gave me the humility that, like, I don't know what the right answers are. And if I did convince them that this politician is good, this one's bad, this is the most important issue, well, by the time they're voting, most of the people aren't even in office. So I think it helped me understand that I don't have all the right answers. But the more important thing is to get students to start trying to grapple with what they think the right answers might be. And they're going to change their opinion a million times, but it gets them on that path of reflection.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

That reminds me of um just being able to kind of what I loved about what you said was that you're trying to get young people to really think about what they believe, not regurgitate what they heard from you in order to ace the test, so to speak. And um it reminds me of an experience we took, I don't think you were on this trip, I think it was before you were in 10th grade, but we took a group of students out to the Pacific Northwest, and we went to you might have been on a trip, I'm not sure, but we went to the Redwoods. And what we did was we first did a hike in the Redwoods, and then at night afterwards, we got, you know, what did you think about it? What did you feel? And you know, it was like, oh, it was awesome, it was so sacred. I mean, it's just mind-boggling, you know, all these things that opened up their hearts, and then we went to visit the tree sitters up in the trees who were trying to save these, you know, trees from being cut down by the logging company. And so we met with them, and we're the next night sitting around the fire, and they're like, oh. And it led to this conversation about like, what would you sacrifice your life? You believe something so much that you would sacrifice your life to do, and they're like, I could do that, I could, I could go be in that tree for a year, or I could be a runner to help get the food to let that person be in the tree. So it led to this incredible conversation, and then the next day we went to the logging company and we met with the people there, and sure enough, the guy who was going to give us a tour, showed up in this F-150, and uh he gets out and he's got this great dog. And you know, at this point, everybody, all the kids went in ready to just kill these people, you know, and uh they're like, he looks like just like all the guys back home in in Maine on our peninsula who were fishing, and uh he's got that cute dog, and then he gets he's like caring, he's kind, he's thoughtful. Anyway, we do the tour, we go back that night, and the kids were so confused, they didn't know what to think, they didn't know what to feel, and I just loved it so much because if I we weren't trying to say this, that, or the other. All we were wanting to do is try to get as many angles on the issue as possible so they could make up their own minds rather than trying to feed force feed them what they should believe. So, anyway, I I I know I just went off on a tangent, but I I thought that was worth sharing.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Well, no, and uh that's so important too, because when I talk to students, we're learning about US history, and we're like, you know, is it a good or a bad country and in a lot of these things? What I have them do is I'm like, okay, sit down and think. Now, raise your hand if you've ever done something incredibly kind. There's not a reason for it, there's not a reward, you just did a selfless act, and all of them raise their hands. And I'm like, this one's gonna be harder. Have you ever thought of or done something that's objectively cruel? You did it just to inflict pain upon someone, right? I'm like, that's all of us, right? Of being able to see that there can be really good and bad elements within a person, but also within a thing that occurs. There's very few things that are a hundred percent good or a hundred percent bad, and how much value you put on the good in something or on the bad can really determine what side of it you end up being on.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Yeah, that's um the self-lex act versus the intentional cruelty or cruelty that's not intentional, where we kind of live in that dichotomy that two things can be true in ourselves, and we've got to then choose what we want to be like in the world and work on that. Well, and knowing you you touched on it a little bit, but you're helping shape young people during this time of deep polarization and distrust in public life. How do you invite students into civic conviction without feeding cynicism, arrogance, or performative certainty?

SPEAKER_01 19:24

I think one way I go about doing it is I start talking about some of my family members, right? And I'll be like, oh, you know, great person, you know, great moral character, all this. And I'm like, you know what? But they don't vote the same way as me. So they have no relationship with my daughter, and I wouldn't even show up to their wedding or anything else, right? They're completely dead to me. And they're like, well, that's wild. And I'm like, wouldn't that be wild if I did that? And what I try to point out is that if I'm sitting across the table in Thanksgiving, I'm gonna have family members who are completely different people for politics, and just reminding them that at the end of the day, we're talking about other human beings. And if we focus first on the fact that we're disagreeing with a human being and we have more in common than different, then I think it gives a better foundation for disagreement so it doesn't become as aggressive and caustic because at the end, you're like, hey, we're in the same boat together. Let's try to figure out the exact reasons why we disagree. And it may just be that from your perspective, one thing carries more weight than something else. Um, and you may not convince them, but you can understand them a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Yeah, yeah. Well, well, I wish I had you as a teacher, Neil. That would have been fun. In a classroom, I make the distinction that leadership is really about this idea of holding oneself accountable for seeing the potential in someone else and then actively figuring out a way to bring that potential out in them. And so educators are incredibly important to that because when you to when you ask students who their favorite adult is, you know, in their adolescence, nine out of 10 times, if it's not a family member, it's a teacher. It's usually a teacher that they had in in early, like elementary or uh middle. But nonetheless, all this is to say is that educators are incredible leaders. And I want to ask you in a classroom, peace is not necessarily the absence of tension, like where there's there's um, you know, that people all feel like all everyone's completely aligned, but what does peace actually look like? To you as a teacher, how do you know when you are cultivating it well? What does peace mean in a classroom?

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Oh, well, because of course you have the uh social element, which is uh can be a little bit more interesting and uh uh tricky. When it comes to their their views, I think a big part is one, knowing that their perspective has no bearing on their grade, knowing that whenever they put out an opinion, I'm always just gonna ask for them to provide reasons, give some evidence for it. And I think after they tried a few times, I I pride myself that uh every couple of years I'll ask kids, hey, you know, which side of the political spectrum, where do you think I end up falling? And I've hit almost 50% thinking this, 50% that, and then some will throw out libertarian, someone throw communists. And to me, what that shows is as we know, young people, if they connect with an adult, they they like, they tend to assume they have the same views, right? And so really what I take from that is that they, no matter what their viewpoints are, feel comfortable that when they share something, it is a focus on their thought process as opposed to do I align with their outcome? And I have them practice that in a group too. So I'll say, hey, we're gonna pick something bare bones, right? Immigration system. And we learn about the details of it. And then I say, okay, we're gonna go around. You have to say one aspect that you think works well, one aspect that you think needs to be improved. And when they see people giving different answers and it not turning into an argument, I think that sort of experience gives them more confidence that next time I can also share my opinion and it's gonna be respected.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Oh, that's great. Yeah, I could see if they feel safe enough to share their opinion, it means that you're doing something right around creating that kind of harmony in the classroom. Would you say that like I I remember one of the activities we used to do? I don't think we did it with your group again, but whatever the issue was, there were two, usually two or three sides to the what people felt about whatever the issue was. And we told them that we'd say, go into one of these three camps wherever you feel, and they would go and pretty much divide it evenly within the three groups. And then we would say, you need to take the opposite argument of this and present the 10 reasons why. And we would do it with each group, and they were like, wait, we we came here because we actually believed this. And I said, No, I know, but just entertain the possibility of getting in front of your peers taking a stand on the reasons why the opposite of what you believe. And then by doing that, they were presenting and they grumbled a bit about it, but at the end, we were able to really look at it and say, was there any shift in thinking? And tend to get, yeah, a little grayer, you know, just a tiny bit grayer. And again, all that is just to kind of uh taking, you know, based on whatever the topic is, and and kind of recognize I loved what you said at the beginning, which was like I might have really strongly believed something with a whole lot of opinion and conviction. And then a couple years later, I I felt differently. How often does that happen?

SPEAKER_01 25:56

It happens a lot. I noticed that if it's you know, spur of the moment, you need to come down one side or the other, which I'm now always more and more hesitant to do. Um, it's about more like core values of, you know, of course, I teach democracy, right? Really. So, you know, that we the people govern absolutely, that we all have natural rights, absolutely. But I think it's because if I do start getting passionate about an issue, I try to fully take on what the best argument for that would be and I get fully wrapped up in it. And then I'll go and read someone else to intentionally get fully wrapped up in it. And so if I'm being intentional, it usually takes me a few weeks to actually come down to what I think on something. And one of the things I tell students is that it's healthy when you first sit down and think about politics, even write down what you think is important and why. And then let that kind of be a good starting point because it can be easy. We're social creatures. If we see X and Y and Z being discussed, then I give them a good example of stuff like uh train derailments, right? Where you have these awful things and the trains go off the track and there's pollution and the rest. And that will be the number one topic. You ask people what's one of the biggest crises for our community, they may say something like this. But when it falls out of the headlines, it then falls on people's list. So I say what's more important is determining for you, and then you follow that, right? Regardless of what's the top tier. And I also tell them, like, that's where you can actually do the most good. Before it's been embroiled in this partisanship, if there's something that's important to you, you can reach out on that issue, and people may be more receptive than they are if it's the top 10 uh issues that tend to divide people.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Yeah. Man, I'm so glad you're doing that work in the classroom.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

I my my favorite uh it happening in real time was there was discussion about removing buoys off the coast. And I, you know, my whole family's lobstered and cushions since 1760. I grew up uh lobstering, and navigational buoys are very important, right? Um, my dad actually back in uh 1990, he his navigation system just wasn't working, right? And he actually ended up hitting a ledge and had to dive in with the rescue safety suit uh on there and and get rescued from it, right? So you know, like why these things matter. And when they talked about removing these buoys, I'm like, oh, they just don't know what they're doing. So apparently I and thousands of other people reached out to the government and said, hey, there's a value in these staying, and they kept them there, right? So I use that as an example to kids where I'm like, raise your hand if you feel strongly about navigational buoys here in central maintenance. No one does, right? But I'm like, those can be the ones where if you work at, you can see results if you and other people kind of work together on it.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

So as a teacher, it comes with a little bit of uh with some powers, with some authority as the head of the class as a teacher. But of course, the best teachers are also know how to make room for relationships. How have you learned to balance structure, accountability, but also grace and relationship building in the classroom?

SPEAKER_01 29:28

That is hard because it's so individual specific in what each student needs from me. Because we are authority figure, as is no surprise to you, uh just massive percentage of students have suffered really severe trauma. And the ways that shows up in the classroom uh can be intense sometimes. And one of the things I feel like that does the most work for the relationship is the being open and excited to see them at the start of each new class. That whatever happened last class was last class. We're here now. And I noticed that a student and anyone only needs to be told what they did wrong and how to improve it once. That the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth time doesn't really add anything good, but it does uh take away. On the other hand, people can be told any number of times uh about an instance where they've succeeded. So I feel like that's uh two ways is being sure that when it's a tricky situation they have to work through with a student, we address it, move on, clean slate the next class. But when they do something well, I really try to uh cheer them on. I'll I'll tell the assistant principal, reach out to their parents, you know, tell their special ed teacher or case manager. And I think that does a lot of the work.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

Yeah, uh, it reminds me of just really being uberly aware of the strengths that students are bringing into the classroom and recognizing those strengths and successes, as you mentioned, rather than always focused on where they're falling short. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

And making them feel like they matter. When I start civics and government, I remind them that their job is to run the most powerful country the world has ever known. And we can't do it without you. So that the class is a user's manual for how do they participate in this incredible opportunity and incredible responsibility that we all have as members of this country? And I think if they feel like this matters, I have to do something important, it's easier for them to buy into why it matters.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

Yeah. When you get into that conversation with them, how how do they respond to it? Do they at first, is it like, yeah, it's a good speech, Neil, but or is there, do you feel like they get fired up? Like I just got fired up.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

It depends on factors outside my control. Uh, I feel like for a lot of students, it it does connect. And I think that's the tricky thing with teaching, is and and mentoring is the this, you know, one size doesn't fit all. I'm gonna have kids sometimes who, you know, I had a kid who was disengaged in class and they were always exhausted. And I was like, Well, you know, why are you so tired? And they're like, Well, we don't have heat in the room that I have to sleep in, so it only starts getting warm enough for me to go to sleep when the sun starts coming up. Or you'll have uh another kid who their parent has recently passed away from suicide, or there's all these things. So I feel like we do the best work when kids are in a position to be able to really engage with it, but that we're doing just as much work when we are kind of giving them space and looking for our openings. Because I'll have some kids where I had them back-to-back semesters, right? We do semester base and first quarter, nothing to do with me, angry, wouldn't do any work. Second quarter, third quarter, and we got near the end of the fourth quarter and they were chatting with me. They wanted to complete some work, and that's the tricky part is doing push them so that they can reach their full potential, but always be willing to keep going back without getting burnt out because you don't know when that one is. My first year teaching, I had this kid who hadn't done anything for a quarter, rough upbringing, right? And they just turned on the jets one day and they're like, I need to graduate. Can you please help me? And we stayed there until 10 o'clock at night, and I didn't give anything. I always agree with that. You make them earn it, but he earned every single point that he needed. And my goal was just to kind of be there to help guide him on the path that he wanted to be on.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

Yeah, God, I love it. I love it, Neil. So this is uh when I came up with this question, I was gonna be really interested in what your answer was. So when students, colleagues, or systems fall short of what you believe is right, what helps you respond with discernment instead of simply frustration? Like, what keeps you grounded in those moments? Because I I I've been on the other end of that sometimes over the years. So I'm just curious, like, what what do you do?

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Oh I'm sorry for laughing, but in public education, yes. Um failing uh is is a constant thing we're we're butting up against. Those ones are I think trying to do the best with what you have takes time because what we're trying to do is so important. If you have a student who's referred for testing for an IEP, right, in special education, and you know that's gonna be six, seven, eight, nine months before they're gonna be able to get the testing. Or if you know a kid really needs to stay after school, or there's kind of countless things that you know that the kids need and you know they're not gonna get, is trying to just do the best you can in your classroom. Because one of the things I did earlier in my career is I, you know, like you had to have a really clear sense of this is right, this needs to happen. But a lot of the things that need to happen are unfortunately not inside my control. So then you're trying to balance of how much can I give of myself without burning out, with still having enough for my family, and accepting that there's going to be stuff that you can't impact. It's so what do you do in those? I think that that's the the part is just show up, do as much as you can, and also be able to just hit pause when you leave because it doesn't make you callous, but you are hearing about horrific things that happen to kids on a regular basis and seeing the direct impact of that, and being all the focus on the moment of okay, they're in front of me now. What is something I can do that is useful now? And also recognizing your role. I do like structure because if one of the best pieces of advice I gave is that the guidance counselors and the school board and the administration and the teachers, you don't have the same job. You are focused on different things, and you're gonna have conflict because of that. But the conflict isn't because they don't know better or because they're you know not compassionate. It just is that there's a set of tasks you need to complete, and which task kind of rises to the top is is by necessity going to be a little bit different.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Well, when when when you run up against the you know, the institutional walls is what I would call it within the job, and you get really frustrated because of your own moral code, yeah. What do you do with the frustration? I mean, per I'm speaking to you personally, and not as a teacher, but as a person of like, do you are you do you have an easy time letting that go and choosing peace over wanting to be right? Or do you you know come home and talk to Mackenzie and just like work it through? Do you go for a long walk after you know, you go for a hype? Like, what do you do to like handle that?

SPEAKER_01 38:18

Yeah, and I I think even that question draws to that why we do have such a high turnover. You know, most teachers, most people graduate with a degree in education, don't make it more than three to four years. Um, we lose, I think it was, you know, hundreds of teachers every year, not to retirement, but just because they they need to go. The burnout of kind of the moral burnout is is really high. And what I do to try to process it is I'll basically set up to say, hey, here's this problem. Here's what I think is a realistic thing I can do to try to make an impact. And I make sure I accomplish that. And then I have to just, you know, tell myself, you know, uh, give me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, uh, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I say that to myself probably a couple dozen times a day. Um, and a big thing I learned, like you were talking about with staff, and you're like, you know, 10 days of you know, paid time off and three years. And what I realized is that when early on I was working probably 80 hours a week at teaching, and I was just miserable at points. And I realized that if I was burnt out and miserable, I couldn't be as effective. So sometimes the best thing you could do at the end of the day was to go to sleep and get rested and go for a walk and spend time with your family. As I'm sure you know, you and me both share, being outside is huge. So I'm awful at hunting, but whenever turkey season comes around, I know that the best thing I can do is not focus more on a lesson plan, not stew about some awful thing in society that is impacting the students, but sometimes it's go and sit in the woods and see if I can uh get a turkey.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

Oh, so well said, Neil, so well said. Because you teach history, I had to ask this question. You spend a lot of time with examples of leaders who were morally courageous. Uh, what do you think history teaches us about the difference between being principled and simply needing to be right?

SPEAKER_01 40:33

I think one of the biggest things is, you know, I think about even let's say like Ulysses S. Grant, right? And he's leading the Union Army and just a huge horrific toll every single day. And when he was sending in, you know, wave after wave into battle, instead of being strident and saying, yes, this has to happen, and you all need to get on board, and you know, tough choices need to be made, at the end of the battles, he would be found curled up in the fetal position in his tent, bawling his eyes out for everyone who lost their lives that day. And one of the things that makes me think is that it's not someone who can make the tough decisions if the decision isn't tough for them to make. So, whatever thing outcome you end up going with, I think the best leaders are ones who have the courage to really appreciate and understand what the cost is of their decision. And I think that helps guide them to never, you know, expending a life, never taking something for granted, but always kind of caring for the decisions that they need to make. And um, sorry about that.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

No, it's it well, no, I mean, I think that it it it brings up a real tension point, which is, and I appreciate you bringing it up. It's like people who have to are super principled, are people who and they have to make tough decisions, they're weighing the costs of individuals, they're weighing the cost of their team, they're weighing the cost of their you know, soldiers, whatever it might be in the case of history or within uh the school. And I'm thinking about your involvement in the organized labor that you were talking about in your union, and I'm thinking about you bringing your own voice into that, but also knowing there's going to be disagreement, but also knowing that you can try to be right and create a lot of tension, or you can try to pursue some kind of harmony in that. And it that doesn't always happen. Labor and management don't usually come together in a way that anyone would describe as peaceful. So when you have found yourself in those spaces, what has it taught you about how adults can contend with one another in a way that can move a process forward to try to get towards more of a consensus perspective?

SPEAKER_01 43:21

I think recognizing in, let's say, negotiations on a contract that the school board members are chosen by the people of those communities, and they are doing their best to carry out the will of the people. And you're showing up at the table, doing your best for the students, also for the community, also, you know, for uh your fellow teachers, and just appreciing that no one's there with a malicious intent and that there can be a solution, even if things get a little rough. That there can be a way to move forward and that it can be a better outcome. Because when your ideas and thoughts and beliefs are being tested, you have to sit down and actually contemplate them a lot more. And I think that when you're being more thoughtful with your position, you can get to a better one than you would have if your first, you know, thing out there had been accepted. And even I think about with the main education association, uh, government relations committee, um you have a lot of really diverse views because again, they're representing, you know, the teachers out there. And I got better at picking and choosing what was a very uh important position to kind of stand firm on and what was going to just disrupt the group and really prevent us from moving forward. So I think compromise is always an important part of being able to go back to the person in the negotiation, in the government relations committee, and try to figure out what is the most important thing for this person, why do they feel that way? And is this something I can just give ground on? With the parenting part, too, where this factors in, is me and my wife came up with a system when our daughter was young, and of course, new parents they don't sleep a lot and there's a lot of uh struggles, is we would talk about something and we'd say, how first off, not just what my position is, but how important is this position to me? So if we came into a conversation and I was really firm that this is the right thing, but the level of importance was a three, and she felt differently, but the importance was an eight, she won, right? And then if we were intense on something and we realized that both of us were at a two, then we're like, okay, why are we even talking about this? So I think that is good of always checking how important something is to you, and being sure that you're not kind of rupturing a relationship because you're really clinging to a one that at the end of the day doesn't impact you that much.

SPEAKER_00 46:08

Yeah, yeah, that's great. Choosing your battles in some ways and which hill you want to die on or pursue or fight on. Uh, it reminds me, you know, in terms of your work with the union, but a lot of the themes that we that you've brought up and we've talked about reminds me of the four agreements. You're familiar with the four agreements uh by Don Miguel Ruez, I think is who it is. And and the four agreements are this to be impeccable with your word. So really taking time rather than just reacting to what somebody is saying because you want to get your point of view, just be incredibly impeccable and intentional with your words, to practice ABI, assuming best intentions, which is really what you were talking about just a minute ago. The third is to not take things personally, because as you said, they all have a job to do, they're all in their space, and you know, they've been elected by other people and by the community, and they are elected for whatever mandate they ran on, and it's bumping up against whatever policy or procedure or protocol that you are as a teacher might be facing. And then the final one is simply do your best. That we're making these agreements to do our best to be impeccable with our word, to not think things personally, but also to assume best intentions. Now, I return to these four things a lot, meaning that I know them by memory. I want to say I know them intuitively. I want them to be etched on my soul all the time because I really believe in these four things, and yet it can be so hard to do them. So, anyway, you're you made me think about those as you were answering that question. So I've only got a couple more questions for you, Neil. This has gone by pretty quickly. One curious question I have is what do you hope your students carry with them about disagreement? Meaning, like, not just about on how to argue a point, but how to live and and be in a world where they will constantly be faced with the with difference, with the tension of different beliefs and and competing truths. Like, what do you hope um you could instill with them? What do you think that you want them to carry?

SPEAKER_01 48:47

One thing is reminding themselves that the person they're disagreeing with is a human being, and that that person has value, and that their beliefs and political opinions, even if you disagree, are only kind of one part that makes up that person. One of the greatest things we have is that's how we change things, is we talk to people, we convince them. If we don't get our way one time, well, we go back to it a little bit later on. And if they can also be aware of the role that anger plays in energizing their engagement with content or conversations, then they're going to be aware when they're falling into that type of trap. Like, am I this passionate about this issue? Is what I'm doing going to make an impact? Or does it just feel good to be angry? You were mentioning earlier, right? It feels so good when you kind of moral clarity and be right. And few things feel good at angrily howling at some imagined foe across the table. And um with you know, social media and how quickly content goes, it just feels like it gets ramped up because we can kind of hit that button of feeling that power of anger, you know, even without intending to if you scroll through it. So I think that's a big thing is remembering that you are engaging with other human beings, that most of us have the same exact core views, right? I asked them, what do you think Democrats want for their children? Right. And they're like, probably want them to be safe. Yes, good education, absolutely. We kind of go through the list. I'm like, well, what about Republicans? And they give the same thing. I'm like, isn't that funny that both Republicans, Democrats, Libertarian comments, they all care about their kids and they want them to do well, right? And I tell them that if you dropped anyone in the United States in North Korea and they interact with someone else, they'd be like, oh, we agree on everything because we only focus on the difference when what is common between us is way more in the country, but also just in being a person. You know, there's uh a lot of great difference and variety amongst people throughout the world, but a lot of the core stuff of wanting to feel loved, wanting to feel safe, wanting to feel connected, wanting the people you care about to be well. Um, that's kind of a universal thing.

SPEAKER_00 51:27

Well, let me end on this question. I I mean, I love your answer there so much, which is you know, reminding them that we all have more in common than we have in difference. And and that, you know, like no one's ever changed their mind when somebody is shouting at them about what their opinion is. I mean, so that's it is what it is in terms of kind of the current trajectory that we're currently on. But what I'm trying to get at in this particular meditation is that I I as somebody who wants to create peace in other people, in the community I'm around, how do I do that? And yet I have these this moral code that bumps up against other people's particular belief systems. So it's sometimes having to choose which one I want more. Do I want to keep the humanity, the person that I'm I'm engaged with? Do I want to keep that humanity front and center, or do I want the position or the argument to take hold? It's a tough one, it's a tension. And I'm just wondering in my final question for you is when you think about your life right now, where is this question most alive for you? Do you want to be right or do you want peace? And how is that question still forming you? And I know two things can be true and you can want both, but I'm um being a little provocative here in terms of like when you think about these relationships in your life that might be torn apart or tattered a little bit by strong opinions. Would you rather have harmony in those relationships, or would you rather have peace and ease? And just curious what your thoughts are on that.

SPEAKER_01 53:35

I think a part is trying to determine if my being right will be productive. Is the moment I'm in, the person I'm interacting with, is that going to move the needle on this? And if it is, I think that's a different calculation than am I getting into an argument with someone and just kind of entrenching them in their position where even if I convinced them, there wouldn't be a big thing. One of the things that makes this question so hard, though, is I am in an incredibly privileged position to be able to just say, oh, well, this is a really important, oh, and this one I can let go. A lot of people could have their life on the line or their families are at risk, and their humanity is being challenged and questioned. And that is why it's so hard because I'm trying to figure out how can I do good works without getting burned out, with maintaining my relationships, but in another position, I don't know what my answer would be. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:54

Yeah. Thank you for that. Thank you for that perspective. Because it's again, as I said, a lot depends on the context, a lot depends on the situation one is in. And we when we think about the classroom, that's one thing. When we think about an organization, that's another thing. When we think about someone's, you know, ability to live and thrive in terms of what's at stake, is a whole different thing. And so I I get that there are this is a multi-layered cake that I'm trying to get at. But at the same time, I I do know that I have made mistakes in from that place of privilege of not honoring the humanity of somebody else's experience and perspective by not giving them the benefit of the doubt and wanting to get my point across. And um anyway, I I appreciate this conversation so much, Neil. And um, I thank you for your commitment to loving kids. I'm proud of you. I can't believe I can't say enough of how proud I am of you, the journey you've been on, um, the family you've created, the uh just the incredible gifts that you have. I'm just I'm really overwhelmed by how much I appreciate and love you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:24

Well, I love you too. And part of the reason I'm able to do all this is, you know, Don Carpenter around in the hallways, always giving a wave, checking in, even when I'm all grumbling and stuff. And I think that it's an incredible gift to have people get to invest in your future, right? And that's one of the reasons I love teaching is you invest in them and you know, you do everything you can, and it can be a benefit to them, but also you get to see the yeah, kind of fruits your labor. So when you see me, you get to see, hey, you know, this is what that hard work of relationship building um can help people accomplish. So uh we always love you and appreciate you.

SPEAKER_00 57:06

Yeah, well, what a testimony, what a testimony, thank you. Um well, if you could stick around for a couple minutes, I will uh close this out. And for the audience, I I just want to, there's so many things I could pick in terms of what I wrote down, but here's a couple things I just want to uh acknowledge about what I'm taking away from my time with Neil. He mentioned that he wanted to create an environment in his classroom where there was enough peace and harmony and trust where a student would know that their opinion on any given topic would have no relation to what their grade would be. And what I love about that is that we should be creating environments for our own kids at home, our classrooms, our schools, our organizations, our teams, where people feel that trust and peace enough where people can express their opinions without the fear of retribution or anything of that nature that can infect their ability to be at that job or be anywhere. Of course, there are boundaries that I'm aware of that people can't cross, but at the same time, we need to gather people's thoughts and agency uh in the process. So I really love that. I love the fact that he wanted to choose, uh, not just telling young people where they might have messed up or reminding them where they could improve, but he wanted to look for ways where he could circle back with them to say, hey, you really did a great job here. You really were successful here. And I just wanted to applaud you on that. We should be doing that all the time with the people we work with by as leaders to be able to look around and not just focus on what's wrong, but focus on what's strong in people, but not just focusing on it, but sharing it, explaining it. I also love two more things. One was that he talked about the fact that if teachers aren't thriving, how do they expect kids to thrive? And that takes an incredible amount of discipline, takes incredible amount of uh of time, energy, and effort to make sure that they are getting, at least in Neil's case, getting the time he needs outdoors and being and reading and doing these other things that can give him a sense of wholeness so that he can get into the classroom and teach from that wholeness, as opposed to being empty and trying to teach from that emptiness. And if we're trying to model for kids how they could thrive in this world, we've got to show up in ways that where we're thriving as a way to model what that looks like in terms of that level of engagement. And then finally, this idea that we have more in common than we have separate from one another or or difference from one another. It's just powerful wisdom. And um, I feel like uh Neil's an old soul, and he uh continues to teach me many, many things. So I just am so grateful he was here today. So I want to leave you, the listener, with two questions for your own reflection. The first one is where are you defending your position more than serving the people in front of you? And what is that costing? Where are you defending your position more than serving the people in front of you? And what might that be costing? That is at the heart of what servant leadership is all about. And then the next question is what might change if you choose peace, wisdom or understanding instead of defending your position? What might change if you choose peace, wisdom, or understanding instead of defending your position? Again, big kudos to Neil for joining me today. Uh, it's been a journey of an amazing journey of self-discovery that both of us have been on together in our relationship, but also I've just watched him grow so much into the man he's become today. And I'm just grateful you could feel the energy, I'm sure, uh, when he was speaking. And what he brings to that classroom must be incredible. I want to thank Omar for producing this episode. He's he's really a magician, so I just want to thank him. If you found something meaningful here today, would you consider sharing this episode with someone else? I mean, that simple act really does help grow this community. And I just want so many people to hear people like Neil speak and that passion that he brings. And if you have a reflection or thought you'd like to share with me, I'd love to hear from you. You can reach me anytime at Don at Carpenter Company Consulting dot com. Thanks for listening. And please remember the journey of leadership begins with it.