Never Outgrow a Mentor | Why Experience Isn’t Enough - Ep 13

🎧 Episode Overview

If you’re a veteran leader, do you ever stop needing mentorship?

In this episode, Courtney and Mario reflect on their conversation with longtime mentor Dr. Phil Warrick and unpack the leadership lessons that have shaped their careers for over 20 years. 

They explore how even experienced leaders still need guidance, how mentorship evolves over time, and why the best leaders never stop learning from others.

The conversation dives into key leadership themes including systems leadership, decision-making, personal leadership growth, and legacy building. Courtney and Mario translate these lessons into practical strategies that leaders can apply immediately.

💡 Big Ideas from the Conversation

Mentorship never expires

Even veteran leaders still benefit from mentorship. Growth doesn’t stop with experience—it deepens through continued guidance and reflection. 

Motion is not progress

Leaders can stay busy all day without actually moving the organization forward. Clarity of priorities matters more than activity. 

Know what you believe

Strong leaders anchor themselves in clear beliefs and priorities so they are not pulled in every direction by new initiatives or external pressures. 

Slow down to lead better

Rushed decision-making leads to mistakes. Great leaders take time to gather information, involve others, and act with purpose. 

Systems create better decisions

Effective systems, protocols, and practice allow leaders to make thoughtful decisions even in high-pressure situations. 

Build leaders, not followers

The true role of leadership is developing others. Strong leaders intentionally grow future leaders through both coaching and real opportunities. 

Self-awareness drives leadership growth

Understanding your strengths—and how they evolve over time—is critical to growing into higher levels of leadership. 

Legacy is the ultimate measure of leadership

Great leaders leave something bigger behind by developing others who continue the work after them. 

🧠 Leadership Actions Recommended in This Episode

1. Write down what you believe

Document your leadership priorities and revisit them regularly so you can stay grounded when distractions arise. 

2. Stop chasing everything

Be intentional about what you focus on. If you add something new, remove something else to maintain quality. 

3. Build a strategic plan

Break vision into actionable steps over time—weeks, months, and years—to create clarity and direction. 

4. Practice your systems before you need them

Don’t wait for high-pressure moments. Build and rehearse systems so you can make strong decisions when it matters most. 

5. Mentor through questions and opportunities

Ask reflective questions, but also give people real ownership so they can experience leadership firsthand. 

6. Slow down your decision-making

Resist the pressure to move fast. Take time to gather input and make thoughtful, intentional decisions. 

7. Apologize without excuses

When you make a mistake, own it fully. Trust is rebuilt through honest accountability. 

8. Know your strengths and build around them

Understand your strengths and surround yourself with people who complement you. 

9. Build your leadership bench

Prepare others to step into leadership roles so your organization continues to grow beyond you. 

10. Lead with legacy in mind

Focus on developing people who will carry the work forward and make the organization stronger over time. 

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Join our growing community of school leaders navigating today’s challenges together.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

If you're sitting here today as a veteran leader, our question is do you ever stop needing mentorship? I'm Courtney.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

And I'm Mario.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

And this is the Ed Leadership Pair Podcast. And today we are reflecting on our episode from last week where we were really fortunate to interview one of our current and past and forever mentors, Dr. Phil Warwick.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Yeah, we took so much out of our conversation with Phil. Um, he, you know, he's the first ever guest that we allowed into our sacred podcast space. Sacred. Yeah. When the episode ended, Courtney and I sat back and just we took off our headphones and we said, man, we've known that man for 20 years or so. And just we walked away from the episode going, God, he just made us better. Yeah. And we've known him for so long. And so this episode, we thought we want to talk about even as veteran leaders and even as as as Courtney is a great leader. So even as a great leader, how you never stop needing mentorship. And so we're going to react to some of the things that Phil said, and we're going to make sure that we offer our expertise to carry on with what Phil taught us. And what we intend for you to do in this episode as listeners is we're going to dive a little bit deeper into some of the themes and um continue to give you uh some some sort of power takeaways from from the mentorship that Dr. Phil Warwick offered to all of us uh in the recent episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Right. And I worked, I actually only worked with Phil on campus at Round Rock High School for one year. How many years were you with him on campus?

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Uh we were together what had to have been three years on campus, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

And it is crazy to me how impactful he has been on our entire career. And I only had a year with him, and you only had three. And I know now you still are mentored by him in your current role as you're also traveling the country and working with other leaders. And I know you guys get time together where you are problem solving the stuff you're going through in your current role, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Yeah, and I'm I've been lucky because Phil and I are now on a on an event team. So our large events across the country through our Marzano resources events. Him and I are both key notable. And so we get to collaborate together a lot and we get to um problem solve, as you said, together. We get to share ideas of things we see around the country. So he has stayed in our lives in a little bit of a different capacity, but you're right. Imagine the impact when you talk about a legacy, a man like that who literally only led us in schools for one, two, or three years, and 20 years later, we still are using the lessons that he was able to show us and teach us. And so I think that's the goal for all of us, right? I know I aspire to that. Yeah, we can't be Dr. Wark, but but can you leave that kind of legacy? Um, and so that's what Cordon and I are gonna dive into again in this episode is let's dive into these themes and let's talk about what leaders can do in their in their immediate today to see if they can take some of this magical wisdom from Phil and see what we can apply.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Yeah. So he we talked about systems leadership. We talked about leadership mistakes with him, we talked about your personal leadership, and we talked about, like you said, building a legacy beyond you being in that particular role. So let's start off with systems leadership. And one of the things that he first talked about was this idea of um confusing motion with progress. And so I just wanted to start there and open that up. What did you take from that?

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Yeah, I think right now in the American school system, we have this. Um, this is such a trap because outside of leaders' control, federal initiatives, state initiatives, um, you know, sometimes a district is is is chasing a lot of good things, but sometimes a lot of things, MTSS, PLC, instructional leadership, data, data-driven instruction, um, camp campus safety, uh, teacher wellness. I mean, you can go down the list and just make yourself crazy, right? With the amount of things that we get thrown at us. And so um, I loved the idea that motion is not progress. We can be busy all day, every day, right? And you and I both have lived on campuses for so long. That's a job that you step foot on campus, you're busy. To the moment you step foot off campus, you're busy. But did you accomplish anything today? What progress did you make? And so, what I really took away from that, and I think for leaders, the action step here is Dr. Warg talk talked about having your priorities, understanding what you believe, know what you believe, and then focus on that and try not to chase every shiny object because you'll run yourself and your organization in circles, a lot of motion, no progress.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Yeah, and two things I also took away from that is when he talked about know what you believe, um, later in the episode, he mentions actually journaling and writing it down and having that on paper so that you can refer back to it. And he said, you know, he also talked about his priorities and that it's on a piece of yellow paper from however many years ago that we were not gonna identify, but just having that in writing so that you can go back to it and re-center yourself on what you know and believe to be important. I think that was a really good, valuable piece of advice. And then the other part that I like and appreciate that he said was the idea that this stuff takes time. You can't keep changing and shifting and not let it sit and settle, or you're never gonna get the flywheel, flywheel in motion, like in good to great. You know, it talks about getting this flywheel and it takes time to get it moving and it's slow and it, you know, it takes a lot of effort to get that progress. But then once you get it moving and you get the system in place and it's rolling, when you take the time to really let them get to the point where they are actually functioning well, then you're actually making progress. So I love the idea of allowing a leader to not chase the shiny things and not chase the new idea, really taking time to appreciate and and focus in on the things that you value and you know to be most important about what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Yeah. And this is a moment where I want to make sure that I share a little bit about my wife because you know, she's talking about writing plans down. Courtney is the um, it's not an agenda, that's the wrong word. Courtney builds out strategic plans in all aspects of her work. So what she loves to do, and she used to have like the same heading that she would put at the top with the same graphic. And so for her, like she's very visionary, but at the same time, she's like, okay, I you can give me a vision, but now I'm gonna start backing it down. What does that look like in a month? What does that look like in three months? What does that look like in a year? What does it look like in a year and a half? What does it look like in three years? So Courtney and and I, as we came up together, I would pick on her a little bit because um, you know, it's like Jim in the office where he's gotta make a list all the time. So I'm here and I'm thinking and I'm the big picture guy, and like Michael Scott, and we could I'm Michael Scott, we could do this, and then she's like, hold on, pulls out her little piece of paper and she's gotta write wait. What will that look like in a week? What will that look like in a month? And I think who needs to be involved?

SPEAKER_01 7:17

How much time is this gonna take? I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Yes, and and that's so valuable because we're being forced at times to chase a lot of shiny things, and so taking the time and the permission, like you've heard Phil work give you permission, Courtney is giving you permission, Mario is giving you permission to slow it down and don't chase everything and decide here's what I believe about what schools need to be, and we're gonna focus on building an effective system, which means we're gonna have to be strategic and we're gonna have to be detailed and we're gonna have to be intentional with a plan.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Yeah. He used to be like, oh, is there an agenda for this? Oh, isn't there that's what we used to call it, just make fun of the agenda that I would have. And it literally was the same format every time it looked the same. But what I've learned about myself is I just love a good strategic plan. Like that's all. That's all it is. And what happens when you have nerdy at the well, it works. If you have a really solid strategic plan, and yeah, this does sound really uber nerdy. Um, but if you have a really good solid strategic plan, what's really nice is when these new shiny things show up is you can hold up your strategic plan and go, okay, cool, I'm gonna add this, but what comes off the list? Because right now, if me and my team are at capacity, then something has to come off the list. And so what am I saying? This is a higher priority than so we can take it away. Because if you don't take something off, then you're gonna do a crappy job at all of it.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Hey, talk to any teacher around the country right now. And he tells me, gosh, they will run through a wall for kids. Good teachers will run through a wall for kids. But the thing they say to me all over the country is will our leaders please stop giving us more to do and just let us get good at the right things to do. And she's right, right? This is all tied to this, Courtney's saying whether you're building a Courtney agenda, and we'll we'll share that with you if you want it. We will show you a Courtney strategic plan, right? It the details of it will build you the bones. Whether it's that formal or not, quit chasing everything, get strategic, build really good systems, and then get up and walk with purpose and don't just keep adding stuff for the sake of adding stuff. And that's hard because sometimes we're being forced to think that way from it from external pressures.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Yeah. And you want to be applauded like that in a faculty meeting, then stand up and say, This is what we're doing, and here's what I'm taking off your plate instead. And here's what here's what we're changing.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

And I think it's important that we talk about he is we love his story about the big possum walking late, right? And I remember we love Phil because he came from Nebraska and we are Texans and you know, cultures are different, and so we had to learn his stories. And we said, Phil, what is that what does that mean? The big possum looks like you would just say it.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Yeah, you're like, Well, you know, big possum walks late. And we were like, What?

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Yeah, and and nobody wanted to be like, what the hell is that? So we just all kind of looked at each other, but you know, maybe me. Hey, Phil, will you explain that for us a little bit? So, this is what we're saying, leaders, know what you stand for, don't chase everything, and be real intentional. Don't run out there because being a good leader is taking your time, listening to people, he said, right? Bringing the right people around the table to help you collaborate and make a plan and then have a good plan and get up and walk with purpose. Yeah, walk with purpose. And that's what the big possum is. Little possums are out there running around airy in the night. And then the big possum gets up and says, Okay, people, let me show you how we're gonna do this. And that's what he means is great leaders don't run out fast to be first. Great leaders sit and study and bring the right people and the right information. And then when they get up, they get up and they walk with purpose. The big possum walks late. That's a really powerful tenet that I keep with me to this day as a leader.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Um, okay, so one last thing that he did talk about with systems leadership is he talked about the idea of building future leaders and mentoring and how you can mentor future leaders. Um, so we've talked about this a little bit before, how the importance of building your bench and knowing that if you if one of your APs or one of your directors was gonna leave tomorrow, is somebody trained to take that next step. It is really good to have a solid, ambitious, but thoughtful leader who has intentions of leaving. Those are really great, great leaders.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

I wrote a quote down right here. A leader's job is not to build followers, a leader's job instead is to build future leaders. I was always trying to surround myself with people that were looking for that growth. And Phil said that carefully, right? He was like, you need you need to round out your team with all kinds of people, but a really important kind of person you want on your team are those that are that are not gonna be there with you forever because they're growing. And so how do you do this? You as a leader through exploration with them, not just questions, not just questions, what do you think? Yes, asking them, what do you think? How would you handle this situation? How do you guys think this is best? So, yes, questioning the coaching through questioning. But what I found too, beyond just questioning, was giving them opportunities to step into leadership roles with your guidance. So Phil told a story on the last episode that he gave me the ninth grade um building of our big high school, and he said, Hey, you're gonna go be a mini principal inside of this big um school and you're gonna run it. And I tried to do that with all of my people was what can I give you? What project, what, what department, what what initiative can you own? And then you're gonna run it. You're gonna feel that leadership because Phil said something I thought was really cool, and he's right. He said, you know, it's kind of like in sports where people say, you know, you play you play college basketball, and then when you get to the NBA, the game just moves so much faster. He said, That's what school leadership is. Every level you jump, it moves faster, and so you have to be that much uh more able to handle that speed. And so I think when you're developing leaders around you, you've got to give them a taste of that jump up speed, right? I can't have held back everybody and said, I'm doing all the big things, and you've never felt the big things. And then if you get into the big chair, you're like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize the speed was gonna go this fast. So beyond questioning, yeah, it is giving them these opportunities to feel the speed of leadership, but you're still there. You're still there to guide them. So I think that's a big, big takeaway for all of us is mentoring through coaching uh is is partly questioning and it's partly giving them opportunities with your guidance to step into roles and take on things that that um they wouldn't otherwise if you don't give them those opportunities.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Yeah. And that leads into kind of the next big topic we had with them that before you sit in that seat, you don't really know and understand how fast things start to move and it can be really overwhelming. And so we started getting into leadership mistakes. And he said, the mistake that you can run into with that is to feel like you're being forced to make these decisions really fast. And you have to be the one that knows all the things, and so you're expected to make them and move quickly. And he said, that is a huge mistake. And he said, You've got to slow down. And you talked about with a big possum walks late, and he talked about it with a lot of other areas, but he did move into that is one of the biggest leadership mistakes that you can make is to move too fast. And I felt like as an assistant principal and with um my personality, that is something that I personally struggled with was trying to move too fast. And it took a few hard lessons of doing that. Like he said, he talked about um, he tried to get tried to get rid of a club day. And I was like, oh my God, I can't imagine that. And now, but I could totally see myself having done that as a first or second year AP, where it's like, hey, this sounds like a good idea. Let's get rid of something super fun that everybody loves. And no.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

And can I tell you a quick story from my experience on the on the speed of leadership? So it's really tangible. It's a very specific example. I was a high school principal for many years, and and um, you know, in this era, there is a there is something that is scary, which is our schools get threats of different kinds, like physical threats. And so there was a situation in my school where um we had a physical threat that we thought was real. And so we had been practicing protocols for a long time. And I'll tell you something that I figured out was in those moments, you, the principal, have to make some really quick decisions. Do we go on lockdown? Do we go on lockout? You know, uh, we've got kids at lunch. Where are we? So the more we practiced it, right? We didn't want to just be accidentally in the moment, like, oh God, how do we do this? So we set up protocols. We would practice, not with the whole school. We weren't having kids freak out, but as a team, as an admin team, we'd bring our counseling team in. Courtney, actually, because you were the chief of operations, you came and trained my team on some of the I Love You Guys protocols. ILoveGuys.org. Yes, where it's like training schools in crisis situations. And Courtney had been trained on this for a district level. I had her come to me and train my team. But we would run drills within the team when this happens, if this happens, what if that happened? And so listen, when it really happened in real life, we had systems in place so that my decision making got slower, but quickly. So I just the the way it worked, we had a real threat one day, or at least it was real until it wasn't, thank God. But one of the things I did was my crisis team met in the conference room that was within arm's distance of my office, like literally across one door. I did not start the crisis um intervention in that meeting because you got a lot of people talking and making what if this, what if that's me and my number two, Aaron, who we've talked about before, we went into my office alone and she went back and forth so that I could sit in a space. My secretary was in there with me because she was on the phone with my boss or on the phone with someone from the district level. Aaron was bringing me information from the team in a different room, and I got to sit in a space where I wasn't in chaos. So I was making good decisions quickly, but not rushed decisions. And that doesn't happen by accident. You have to build systems. We practice, we build protocols. So when we say don't rush to decision making, it's not simply like take a breath and be Zen Buddhism and breathe. That that's not that that's not gonna cut it. When you're talking about how do I not rush decisions, it goes back to I have to have protocols, I have to have procedures, I have to have systems, and I gotta know what I believe so that I can center all my work around that. And so I think just wanted to give that tangible example of how you got to bake it into your systems, or you will end up being pushed around by the job and making fast decisions that are not good decisions.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Yeah, and you and your team practiced it. I mean, that is so beautiful to have practiced with your team. Your crisis team really legitimately knew how they were going to respond in that situation because it is when you get into that and you've got police department, you've got counseling services, you've got your district personnel coming in asking you a ton of questions because they're getting asking asked questions from the community. And then you've got communications and it's it's department after department after community organization that is coming at you for answers and questions and access. And so you really do have to separate yourself out from that so that you can make good, solid decisions.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

So I mean just well done. That's uh it's a very, very tangible example, and it's a scary example because we all live it now in American schools, with schools probably across the country. Um, but it's just one slice of an example that I would urge you leaders to like multiply out. How do you not make fast decisions? You got to build in systems and then you gotta rep it, you gotta practice it. It doesn't just happen when when you're in the moment and you're in the fire, it's too late to practice. Right. Yeah, you had to have run through those things before it's it's live and and you know, real time.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

And another thing that he brought up when he was talking about leadership mistakes, and before we move on, is I love this quote. He talks about when you make a mistake, the importance of an apology. And he said, never offer an excuse when it's an apology that's necessary. And being able to go back and say, I did not do that correctly. I am sorry that I impacted the organization in a negative way. Let's go back and fix it. And so he was he was talking in this example of getting rid of the club day. But I mean, the power in an apology and in owning that mistake is huge. It's huge. And it it rebuilds, it's the beginning of the rebuilding of trust between you and whatever part of the organization that you have just impacted in that negative way. And owning it instead of trying to excuse it away or justify it or say why that happened is really powerful.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

That was a mentoring moment for me, even sitting here, you know, as the episode was being recorded. Um, because it I think that's just a good relationship rule for humans, right? Like, I mean, heck, every husband listening, yes, say it again, right? Never offer an excuse when it's an apology that's necessary. I think that goes a long way just with humanity. In our last few episodes, we've been talking about how our American society is in a little bit of a rough spot right now. We're probably not in our finest hour. I think that little, that little nugget from Phil Warwick, like never offer an excuse when it's a simple apology that's necessary. I think that's a great leadership tenant. I think there's a great human tenant that maybe all of us can just put put on our on the front of our brains and take that with us.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

And you are really good at that.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Oh, well, thank you. I I try not to make mistakes, but turns out I do.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Turns out We all do. We all do. Um, all right. The next thing that we jumped into with Bill, and I super love this, and he kind of got me nerdy about it too. We jumped into personal leadership qualities, and I thought this was really fun. He brought up the book, um, Strengths Finder 2.0, which is from here. It's the Gallup book where you go in and you take a little assessment and it'll tell you your top five strengths out of a list of, I don't know, there's like 40 something strengths in here. And it tells you one to five what your top five strengths are, and it kind of puts them in order, gives you the order of your strengths. And then he discussed um using this and and your strengths to build a team. And I love that so much. And even now, but I definitely want to know what their strengths are. Because I think it makes you work better together and it makes you appreciate, even if it's a strength that you're kind of at odds with. Like when I have somebody that really likes to explore every avenue of every problem or every aspect of an issue, it is, it can be frustrating to me because it slows me down and I'm very much activator, achiever, like to move forward. But knowing that that is their strength actually helps me appreciate that they are doing that because it is preventing my strengths from becoming a weakness and going too fast. So I wanted to bring that up. Um, him talking about the strengths finder. And I know we you and I have had a ton of conversations about this and our strengths. Um and I know yours kind of, if you take it more than once or you take it while you're in different roles, your strengths can change, right?

unknown 22:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

So Phil introduced it to us when we were first time assistant principals. I used it on all my teams all the way through for all the years I was a leader. And what's fascinating is my strengths changed over time, which I would offer to leaders that that's an important aspect of leadership. As I grew into leadership, my strengths completely grew with me. And I think that's vital. Who you are today matters. But as you change roles, the strengths you activate better start to morph, or else just because you were good at the previous role doesn't mean you'll be good at the next role. There is a sociological phenomenon that talks about people rise to the level of their ineffectiveness. In other words, you're good at this job, so they move you to the next layer up and you might suck there, right? So as you are developing your own leadership, Phil reminded us to have a center and a core of what you believe. But then we would also offer to you as you rise up the ranks, you better grow as a leader and your strengths better start to grow, or else you may not be a fit for that level anymore.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Yeah, another thing that he brought up along those same lines is if two people always agree one of them is not necessary. And I like that idea in terms of what you're saying, because if you don't have someone challenging and stretching you, then you're not gonna grow beyond where you currently are. And so you have to have people around you that are gonna push you in directions where maybe you weren't fully comfortable going. And so I love that idea. And it's all in alignment with this idea of building teams around these strengths and knowing who's gonna help and support in some ways versus others. Um, and it was really interesting for me because I have um, I remember the first side that I have were activator, achiever, learner, harmony, relator. At some point, relator changed to empathy, which wasn't totally different. And some people probably would laugh that it was empathy.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

Hold on. Everybody, like my wife barely remembers the names of our four children. Stop. She certainly can't remember much about last week. But did you hear what she just did? She went back 20 years at to the spot on her strength finder. There they are. So she self-proclaimed. I don't think I'm saying anything to Sunshine. She self-proclaimed, doesn't have a great memory, but wow. Terrible. So it turns out she does have a memory for things she actually cares about.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Which also 90 days alternative music. I know every word to every song, so I can go there too if you want me to. Uh Specie Boys, you want me to go?

SPEAKER_00 25:28

You know, no, she loves 90s alternative and her strengths binders family, and it's on the next tier. That one's not quite on the memory tier. I'm sorry for interrupting.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

It's okay. It's fair. Back to the fair. Your comment is very valid. So um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

I think the key is if if you don't know yourself, then it's really hard to then manage and lead others. So I would urge all of you to, whether you like strength finders, there are others, of course, out there, but it's a really valid exercise and valuable exercise to to for yourself, for the leadership team you serve with, um, to know who what is everybody's strengths. And you know what I love about strengths finders, it doesn't talk about weaknesses. There are some assessments out there that they pick on you're weak at this, you're weak at and I'm you know what? Um I I I can't find the bleep button fast enough, so I just won't use it. But don't don't tell me all about my weaknesses. Instead, strengthen my strengths, lean to my strengths and let's know your strengths and let's cover for each other and compliment each other. I don't, I'm not a real big fan of any assessment that's gonna start picking in on your weaknesses.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

Yeah, I I actually worked for an organization that used one of the ones that did focus on your weaknesses. Um, and it would it would tell you your strengths and the things that you lean toward, but then it also said these are your kind of areas of growth or whatever, but we all know what that means. It's just your weaknesses. It's your area. Yeah, and then it just became this weird, icky kind of, oh yeah, but you suck at that. So, like it was kind of permission for people to acknowledge that that was a hard thing for you. And on that team, it became kind of a toxic part of information about you as a human that then got attacked a little bit. I didn't like it at all. I way more prefer the strengths. And maybe as a leader, you want to know your real weaknesses so that you can improve upon them and move them forward. And I think there's value in that. But in terms of like building your team and using strengths versus weaknesses in conversations with your team and strengthening your team, I totally agree. I really prefer the idea of using your strengths instead of laying everybody's weaknesses out and having it be something that then becomes an attack. That was kind of groati. I didn't like it. Um, okay, let's go to the last part that we talked about with Phil, which I thought was really great, this idea of building a legacy, that you guys have both been really phenomenal at that, of building leaders behind you in your wake.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

And he talked about legacy building with his team, with leadership team, and he complimented both of us, which was of course great to hear when your mentor says nice things about you that always just makes you feel good. But I am proud of the fact that and and they, I think all listen. So I'm just gonna say some names and and I I it it's it's important to me because they have been like, hey, I know you're talking about us, so I'm just gonna see if I can get get as many in as possible because there is, of course, Aaron and there is Laura, and there was one Jessica and a second Jessica. There they there were two just with different Jessica. We we have um Brad and John and Heath, um, going back, Yvette, um, Brianna, Layla, um, Christina, Jackie, Jackie, thank you, good catch. I think I just counted nine to ten, and that's not about me. That is really about Phil, because Phil taught me that building that legacy is really the highest calling of leadership. And it's not about my legacy, it's about taking what what our mentors taught us and putting it into our schools and then growing other leaders in that same belief set, in that same, in that same tree, and letting them go off and continue to impact education. Um, and Courtney and I talk about this metaphor a lot is our leadership tree, right? And and it's like we just start naming them. And I know you have them too, but I know my guys are listening because they text me, like, hey, was that about me? And so I wanted to throw that out there and put it on on the recording. But I love what Phil said. He said, Life builds leaders on its own. But when leaders collaborate with the people around them, it builds leaders faster. And guys said, you know what, man, that's that's what I tried to do. That's what he taught me to do, and that's what I tried to do. And of course, don't want to leave you out of this conversation because you also have a tree of leaders that you fostered, not only at the campus level, at the district level as well. And actually, in your job now, they keep taking your good people and making them leaders, and you have to start over with new people.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

So And that's the fun of it, right? Like the the rebuilding. I enjoy that. I like working with and building new leaders. I think it's really fun, and I think it's a cool aspect of the job, and it kind of feeds your ego a little bit, but it also just feeds my soul to see them succeed and to be able to go beyond what maybe even they thought was possible and push into new roles and positions. So I I think we had a really cool talk with Phil. Every time he talks to me, I learn something new and different and I think about things maybe in a little bit different way. So I appreciate him taking the time to come on. I know that his time is highly valuable because he, like you, travels all around the country all year long working with uh teachers and school and district leaders in state departments. And um, so I I appreciate him taking the time to be with us.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Me too. And so I think if you're listening and you're like, how do we get a little Phil work in our circle, right? Uh, if you'll go to Marzano Resources.com, that's the company that Phil partners with.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Yeah, you can you can also find his his books there that he has authored, co-authored, um, and things like High Reliability Schools and the Handbook for High Reliability Schools and some other instructional books that he's written that are phenomenal and great resources and literature that I have used in past and current career.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Both of us, yeah. Well, so maybe let's just close with the core message that really is marrying two episodes together. So hopefully you heard Phil and you're a direct from him. Now you've heard Courtney and I put our spin on it and try to give you some strategy behind the great wisdom. So let's kind of close out this little pair of podcasts by summarizing for ourselves the core message. And I think it was this great leaders know what they believe, right? A, they move with intention, okay, and they build leaders instead of followers. Ultimately, great leaders leave something bigger behind than what they inherited.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Thank you so much. We appreciate you guys joining us today. I'm Courtney.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

And I'm Audio. Thanks for listening.