Educational Leadership with Principal JL
Principal JL is an educational leader who explores various topics facing educational leaders today! The Mission of this podcast is to inform and inspire other Educational Leaders on how to be their best for their Schools by honing their skills and talents so they may impact their teachers, staff members, students, parents/guardians, and community members positively for their School District! Come with a Growth Mindset as we journey through Educational Leadership!
Educational Leadership with Principal JL
Episode 18: Transforming School Leaders: Insights from Angela Kelly's Leadership Journey!
What happens when a single conversation can redefine your entire career path? Angela Kelly, a dedicated educator and leadership coach, shares her inspiring journey from a brief stint in studying finance to discovering her true calling in education. Her story is one of transformative growth, beginning with the Upward Bound program, which set her on a path to become the first in her family to attend college. Angela’s experience underscores the importance of mentorship, mindset shifts, and the power of aligning one’s career with personal passions.
Angela takes us through the challenging transition from teaching to school leadership, highlighting the obstacles she faced while earning administrative credentials and competing for principal roles. Her narrative is a candid reflection on the trials of opening a new school as a first-year principal, tackling everything from construction woes to personal struggles as a single parent. Through perseverance and the discovery of life coaching, Angela emphasizes the value of seeking support and integrating new skills into one’s leadership identity amidst complex professional dynamics.
In a world where school leaders often feel isolated, Angela’s insights foster a spirit of community and connection. From her emotional regulation techniques to the introduction of the STEAR cycle, designed to help principals manage their thoughts and emotions, Angela provides practical guidance for aspiring and current educational leaders. By sharing her experiences and the importance of building supportive networks, Angela offers a beacon of empowerment for those navigating the multifaceted challenges of school leadership. Tune in to explore Angela’s story and discover strategies to empower your leadership journey.
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Today I got to sit down with a special person that has helped me in my own educational leadership journey. Let's all agree that being an educational leader is tough. There's no doubt about it. But what if you didn't have to choose between success and balance? What if three things can be true at the same time? You can enjoy being a school leader, you can be great. At the same time, you can enjoy being a school leader, you can be great at school leadership and you can spend more time with your family without feeling overwhelmed. Well, you ask how? Well, I'll tell you how, through Angela Kelly Coaching.
Principal JL:Today I am joined by Angela Kelly, the creator of the Empowered Principal Podcast and the Empowered Principal Life and Leadership Coaching Program. She's a former teacher, principal and district administrator with over 25 years of experience in education. As a certified life and leadership coach, angela has made it her mission to help school leaders create exceptional results while actually enjoying the leadership journey. In this episode, we're diving into the mindset shifts, strategies and support systems that allow school leaders to thrive in their roles without burnout. If you've ever wondered how to lead with confidence, balance your personal life and truly love what you do, this conversation is for you. Let's get this episode started with Angela Kelly. All right, everybody. Today we have a special guest. This special guest is somebody that is near and dear to my heart, because they kind of helped me out as a principal throughout my journey. So I'd like to welcome to the show Angela Kelly. Welcome.
Angela Kelly:Hi there, jeff. It's so good to be here. Thank you for having me on the show
Principal JL:Hey, Angela, I wanted to kind of get things started here with just kind of talking about your journey in education. So tell me about how you got education. What is the reason that got you to become a teacher in the first place?
Angela Kelly:Wow, that goes back a few decades. So you know, like any kid coming out of high school, the big question is what are you going to do with your life? And for me, I actually need to start back into middle school. So I was in middle school, I was had moved a lot and there was this presentation in our you know theater and it was called Upward Bound and it was a program that was designed for students of families who had not. They're the first generation of students to potentially go to college, so nobody in my family line prior to me had attended a four-year university and you also had to meet certain requirements financially. So my family fit these financial goals and by the end of eighth grade I signed up for this program called Upward Bound. It was at Iowa State University.
Angela Kelly:I was born and raised in Iowa and it was the game changer for my life, because I don't know that I actually had sights on going to college. I didn't really contemplate what my future would look like. It was that life was just happening and I was just going through the motions of being a kid and going to high school. And then this happened and I started thinking about my future, actually thinking about what I wanted when I grew up, the kind of career I wanted to have, and I went through Upward Bound for five years. So from the summer of eighth grade, clear through the summer of the year I graduated. So five summers, instead of being the kid who you know went to movies and hung out with her friends and went out on dates, I was going to college. I was going to school through this program. The first couple of years they are prep courses to prepare you for the rigor of college and then the last three years you start taking actual classes with other college students while you're in high school and then you have an intense amount of preparation and support and tutoring to ensure, because if you're going to get anything lower than a C, they kind of pull you because they realize you might not be ready. So I was able.
Angela Kelly:By the time I graduated high school I had a semester of college credit and that was so invigorating and so motivating. I had this momentum going where, like, I started to identify as somebody who could actually go to college and get a degree. I have to highlight that because that program really did change my life and I credit the Upward Bound program to creating a vision for my adult life and my future. So I have to give a shout out to Upward Bound. And then when I got into college I actually my dad was like, well, you should go into finance. That just sounds very prestigious and you're really good at math.
Angela Kelly:And I took one semester. I hated it. I was falling asleep in the class. I remember in economy class I slept through a quiz. It was just bad, it was bad news.
Angela Kelly:And I was sitting down with some friends over the summer and they were asking how college went and I said, well, it's okay. But I wasn't fired up. I was more fired up about the social scene and being away from family and being a little independent college student than I was actually my future and learning. And I had a very profound conversation about what did I want to do, what did I love to do? That conversation it came up like I love kids.
Angela Kelly:I babysat from a very young age. I loved being around kids, they lit me up and I loved school. So I think the combination of truly loving school as a student I always played school, I played the teacher and combined with my, you know, young adult love for children and I would say too, I really wanted to improve the experience of school for students, and not that I had a bad experience, but you know, I grew up in the 70s and 80s, so there were things that we could do to improve the experience of students and the emotional experience that students had and in addition to the style of learning that we did. So that really those combinations of of events in my life drew me into teaching and the minute I shifted into from finance into into education, it was like luck. I knew right then I was locked loaded. This was my life, I loved it, ready to go, and that was it. I never looked back and I ended up getting my early childhood credential along with my elementary teaching credential
Principal JL:Right, as a teacher. How long were you a teacher? You know?
Angela Kelly:I taught two years in Minnesota. So I graduated from Iowa State. We moved up to Minnesota. I taught pre-K. It was a birth through grade age five, early childhood program. I was the teacher and the coordinator for two years there.
Angela Kelly:My husband and I moved out to California in 95. For two years there, my husband and I moved out to California in 95. And I taught at the same school for about 15 years. So I taught primarily kindergarten. It's my love language is kindergarten and I also taught first grade and then I became an instructional coach.
Angela Kelly:I was a reading specialist so I did, you know, different seats on the bus, but I was definitely elementary, really profound love for early literacy and early childhood development and just the social-emotional development of children and I really loved working with parents. That's why I chose kindergarten, because you can just you get to bring them in and you get to cultivate them and their experience. And that was really important for me to set the stage for these families to have a positive experience with their school and to really love the school that they were sending their children to. So I did that for 15 years and in the meantime I'm going to say, like around 12, 13 years into teaching, I felt this desire for more. But you know, let's be honest on the podcast here. You know, when you're a teacher and you're like it's teachers, they have their mindset, perspective, and then admin. And as a teacher, you're looking at the admin, like I don't know about that, I don't know if I want to go to the dark side. I don't know that I could handle it. You know, deep inside I was like I don't know if I could handle it, but on the surface it was like I don't want to be like one of them, I don't want to have to do it like that. Or, you know, I just, like you, have thoughts and opinions about it because you've never experienced it. So you can only imagine. You know what it would be like.
Angela Kelly:And we go both ways. We imagine that it's going to be amazing. We're going to have this big impact and what you know, it's going to be better than ever. It's going to oh, we're going to get out of a classroom, we're going to be able to walk the campus and we're going to have all this freedom and power. And then you also think about ooh, that looks really hard. And they're the ones who stay last and they're the ones who eat last and they're the ones who, you know, take the heat and I don't know if I can handle that. Am I capable of leadership, actually leading a vision, a school, a community, and so? But I was feeling it and it was just kind of I was keeping it on the inside. Well, my superintendent at the time was offering this program. So if any of you out there listening are teachers or site administrators or district administrators which I'm sure there's a bunch of you out there listening this program was another like. I think about these little milestones in my story that at the time I had no idea the impact they were really going to have, but I could feel like it was a calling to go into that.
Angela Kelly:The second little milestone for me was this program. We called it EFULA. It was like, basically it was a leadership development program and my superintendent had the brilliant idea of like cultivating leaders from within the district and not always trying to hire somebody outside who didn't know our culture or understand, you know, our vision. And it was a two-year program. We'd go once or twice a week and it was pretty intense.
Angela Kelly:Actually. It was more than I thought it was going to be, but it was a profound group of people, of my own peers, and we talked leadership and we talked straight leadership. We didn't sugarcoat it. We talked about how it actually felt to be a leader, the real challenges, the work-life balance issue, time management how do you get planning in, just how you keep it all together emotionally when teachers this and that. And it really gave me perspective and insight. But the best thing it gave me was I went from thinking I'm not cut out, it's not possible to like I think I can actually do this, I think I can actually do this. Did you have that moment, jeff?
Principal JL:Yeah. So in my journey as becoming a principal, honestly I was a teacher in the classroom for 11 years. I was a math teacher and coached football, wrestling track, you know, did all those things. I love it. I love the connections with the kids.
Principal JL:It honestly wasn't until I got into Omaha, where I was actually went from Millard North High School as a teacher to Ralston, and the main reason I went to Ralston was because of Dr Adler, who was the superintendent at Ralston. My main question was could I get into your leadership academy if I come over? Because at the current district I was in at Millard, I had to wait three years and I did not want to wait three years. I kind of wanted the training because I felt like it would be good for me to be able to have some more background and to become an educational leader. I had my credentials already. I had my curriculum master's and I also have my educational administration master's and so I was like I need to have something more like Leadership Academy. Maybe it'll make me more marketable.
Principal JL:And so I spent two years in the Ralston Leadership Academy with Dr Adler, which was a great experience and that kind of propelled me into becoming a principal and having some experiences and some just insights on what that's like. So kind of very similar pathways there. So tell me more about, like you know, you're going from a teacher into becoming, on the dark side now right, becoming a principal. You kind of talked about that you know piece, where you went into like a leadership academy and how did that propel you? What was the next step to making that transition from teacher to principalship?
Angela Kelly:Yeah, so that's a great question. I went through the program and it was the two years, so, yeah, it was like an academy and we graduated out of that and then shortly after that, so there's this period of time and I was in California at the time. I lived out in California for 30 years, so my career really spans primarily in California. But I there was a, you know, you had to go through the motions of getting the credential and because I already had a master's degree, I could go through kind of a. It was like a shorter term credentialing program offer because they were in need of administrators, so they had this kind of a. It was like a shorter term credentialing program offer because they were in need of administrators, so they had this kind of like limited time bonus. If you act now, you can go through this program through the county or the state and add on your administrative credentials. So I did that.
Angela Kelly:And then I you know you have to take the test. And I remember driving down to Santa Cruz, California, and taking this test and it was a handwritten. It was just old school like handwritten six hours straight of just writing and writing and I thought, oh gosh, I hope I pass this test and I just you know you're just like a kid again, like waiting for your ACT or SAT scores to come back, and it came back. And it's another thing to live the experience and to be in it. Right, and, Jeff, you know that the that is definitely true. There is the theory of leadership and there's there's the life of a leader and there's the leadership I think, day to day, Right.
Principal JL:Yep, yeah, yeah, and I know like for me, you know, transitioning from teacher and to becoming a principal, that I really know what I was getting myself into. Not really, I just knew that was my next step and for me it was like I was looking for that person to give me the opportunity and it kind of. I did a series of interviews because I, you know you're, there's a lot at my time, there's a lot more competitiveness becoming a principal in Nebraska at that time, because you know, everybody that was a teacher that wants to get into a principalship was trying to get into those or you're competing against other candidates that might have some more experience. So getting into it, you know it was hard. But once I got that opportunity, that's when I was trying to make the most of it and so that's part of like for me, you know, becoming a principal. I had the education, I had the academy, I had all this knowledge.
Principal JL:Now I had to put it in practice and that's the part that gets tough, because there's not a lot of professional development out there for principals and for people that are just get stuck on an island, because my first principalship was out in Southern Valley. It was, you know out, in the middle of South Central Nebraska we, our school, was set in a cornfield basically, and so you know we couldn't. I mean, we had our conferences principals, we had our in Nebraska, we had educational service unit which we go to to do some professional development, but there wasn't a lot of ton of stuff out there. And then for me, about two years in, I started searching for professional development. And that's kind of when I ran across your podcast for professional development, and that's kind of when I ran across your podcast, the Empowered Principal.
Principal JL:So tell me something about you know, going from that principal leadership what was that like? But then transition into getting into becoming the empowered principle person you are like. You basically help other principals manage not just the stresses of the job but also their life, and so kind of tell me about your principalship a little bit, but then kind of go into um, you becoming the empowered principal, which you actually wrote a book and I'll pull it out right here. So so the Empowered Principal by Angela Kelly, which kind of is the basis to what you do now. So kind of tell us about that journey.
Angela Kelly:Yes. So fast forward to my first principalship. I got tapped on the shoulder by the superintendent and here's what I want to say about this for the listeners out there. If you're an aspiring leader or you're even considering, you're listening to this podcast with Jeff because you're thinking about becoming a leader and he's inspiring and you're like, oh gosh, jeff can do it. I want to do it. I want you to know this.
Angela Kelly:It's an identity conversation with yourself, feeling capable, being capable. So, if you're not in the position yet, I want you just to imagine what it would look like, what it would feel like you know what the experience would be, and start to step into, even in just your mind, just kind of role play, what it might feel like to be a leader and get yourself into that identity of being a school leader. That's going to help you transition. It's going to feel easier to actually cross that threshold into into being that. So in my situation, my experience was I got tapped on the shoulder. It's your time, you've got to apply for this. I actually applied to be the AP of a middle school because I thought AP would be easier transition into leadership. Well, I didn't get that position. I was, you know, really sad at the time, but my superintendent said I have other plans for you, and so he hired me as a first year principal to open a brand new school, a brand new campus. So I who I wasn't.
Principal JL:You're a new principal and you got a brand new school. Let's talk about adding on the stress. Yeah, I had I had enough issues with just um, the construction, construction and putting a new HVAC last summer and getting the building ready, and I'm going in my seventh year and I was in enough stress to do that. I could not imagine being a first year principal, opening a new building and having all those things added to it. So, yeah, tell me more about that.
Angela Kelly:Yes, well, I'll tell you those first two years. So I was opening a brand new site, so it was a brand new group of people, brand new community, brand new physical buildings. So I was dealing with construction and I always I love to tell this story. It was a back to school night. It's like a week into the brand new school year. It's my first five days on the job with people on campus. Back to school night, parents are coming, children, campus is full of people and the office calls and she said you know, houston, we have a problem. She said the main water pipe broke and there is raw sewage running down the central campus.
Principal JL:Oh man.
Angela Kelly:So I had to be like, okay, everybody to the side, but I mean metaphorically, that's how I felt. I was literally wading through. All of you know the newness and the craziness of school leadership and these crazy moments were happening. But you know, all humor aside, it was the hardest two years of my life. I was a single mom at the time. My son had just transitioned into middle school, he was a sixth grader and I was a single parent trying to operate a brand new school and you know, I had to really set the foundations. I had to create this site council team and you know all of this, all of the teams had to be developed, vision, all of that. And so that was not the empowered, principal moment that I was having. It was like probably the most disempowered two years of my life.
Angela Kelly:And there were some moments I just felt like it was happening to me Like the job is coming at me with a fire hose. I can't keep up. I was staying so late at work, having other people pick up my son, other people take him to his events, going in super early, staying super late, working nights and weekends, and I really thought how did I get myself into this? And I don't know how to get myself out of it, and that's when I really felt like I had no power. So, fortunately, the district assigned me a mentor and, by the way, I forgot to mention that not only was I a brand new principal at a brand new school, they only allowed me to work there three days a week, and they had me working at the district two days a week to fill another position. That was yeah. So I, I was spread a little too thin. So, and all of that to say, if I've gone through that, I'm sure somebody else listening has been through that too. So we feel you, we hear you out there and you can only do so much, right you. Just everything gets watered down. So you do the best you can.
Angela Kelly:But I had a moment, two years, the second year into my school leadership where I thought I don't know if I can do this, and that's when I was searching online for help. And you're right, jeff, that was the first time I noticed there's a huge gap in support at the admin level. It's kind of like, hey, you got hired, we're so happy you're here, here are the keys. Go live with you know, go figure it out, live a great life, but please don't come back to the district asking for support because we're too busy dealing with other things and so you really are figuring it out on your own and it's very isolating and it's scary. There's a lot of there's a lot on your plate, a lot of responsibility, and you're thinking about students, staff, community. You know, of course, test scores come in and scare the. You know the GVs.
Angela Kelly:I was desperate to be successful. I wanted to want the job, I wanted to want it and I wanted to be good at it. And that's when I've literally Googled where to look for help. And you can go to a conference, you can read a book, you can talk to your peers. That was about what was available and I love going to conferences, I love socializing, I love learning, but there is you go and you're motivated and inspired and then you come back into the realities and it's hard to integrate what you've learned for the long haul, like integrated into your identity as a principal, your methods and your approach into leadership. And so the next how long was I a site leader? Two years at that school. Then they moved me back to my homeschool. Now I am the boss of my peers of 15 years, so I don't know if you've experienced that. I think a lot of principals become the leader of their peers. That is an interesting dynamic to have to navigate.
Angela Kelly:And so, again, there wasn't internal support. I sought support outside, but what I found was life coaching. I didn't know what life coaching was, but I knew I needed one because my life was a big mess. I was not feeling like I was doing anything well, being a parent, running my household, being a good principal, being an instructional leader. So I found this person, dr Martha Beck, and I signed up for her program, not to become a life coach, but to learn what it meant to coach my own life. I wanted some empowerment back, I wanted some agency, I wanted a sense of control somewhere, somewhere along the way. And from her I learned just some techniques to just kind of regulate myself emotionally when I was overwhelmed, or to stop and take time for myself to just literally make sure that I'm drinking water, make sure that I'm eating lunch we weren't running around so busy making sure that I put time limits on the amount of work that I did.
Angela Kelly:So I started playing around with this idea of I'm a human in a school leadership role versus. I'm a school leader and that's my only identity, because that job's never done. We all know that, and the same goes for students. If there are students listening to this, you might just think like the studying's never done, the learning's never done. And on one hand, you're right because we are lifelong learners, but on the other hand, there needs to be something more than studying, learning, test scores, achievement, and that there needs to be living. So there's all the doing, but then there's also the living, and that's where I got my first little breath of fresh air, like I'm going to be a human in this job, not just a robot trying to keep up with the demands and the wildness of school leadership. Yeah, so, yeah, yeah.
Principal JL:So you're talking about, just you know, hey, yeah, I'm a school leader, but I'm also a person, right. Yes, and your journey on that?
Angela Kelly:It was profound because what I did was I started paying attention to what I needed as a person. You have physical needs, right. You need sleep, you need food, you need movement and exercise, you need rest, you need to have pleasure and playtime in your life. You need this full experience. So the more I tuned into me, the more I started realizing that we are more connected than separate. That was the profound change where I started seeing teachers as just fellow humans, as fellow people on the planet. We're all here for the right reasons. We're all here doing the best job we can trying to figure this thing called education out, trying to figure out life. We're all here and we all want to feel good. We all want to feel included, significant, important, valued, connected, appreciated, cherished. We all want to feel the same feelings. And so that, when I realized what we're striving here, what we're striving for in education is human development, we're striving to, you know, support our young ones, our students, with tools and skills to navigate the human experience, not just the learning, not just academics, but their body, physically changing and developing and growing, and their ability to interact with their peers and to build friendships that have meaning and fill their hearts with joy and fun and laughter and memories, and same with teachers. Teachers go into this for the right reasons and if you believe in that and you believe that your story is more similar to their story than separate, we aren't admin and teachers, we're humans, we're educators. And that team when I really saw that we're a team we want the same things. We want kids to be happy and successful. We want them coming to school. We want to feel good about ourselves as teachers. Whether we're an admin, whether we're the secretary or the nurse or the counselor or you know, tech support or bus driving or maintenance, we all want to feel good about who we are and what we're contributing. And that's when I realized equal contribution, but different, equal value. So our contributions whether you're a teacher, whether you're a maintenance crew, we all are contributing something valuable. It just looks different. So we're more together than separate.
Angela Kelly:And then I started teaching that with kids and they would come into the office and have their disagreements and have their conflicts and I would be able to start talking with them about the similarities and how we want to feel the same way and what we really want is to feel good about ourselves and our connections with people and then from there it just it's. It started rolling. I started getting how to be a leader, which was connection and similarity over separation and disconnect. That's when, in 2015, I was looking like how do I get more of this, how do I become a stronger leader, a better leader? And you know, jeff, again there's a little bit out there for school leaders. It was starting to percolate. There's organizations that provide incredible learning connections. I love it, and there was just this little piece for me personally that was missing, and that's when I found the Life Coach School.
Angela Kelly:I went and got certified in 2015. School I went and got certified in 2015. And I applied those concepts for two years as a principal. Then I got promoted to the district level. I was the RTI coordinator for the entire district we had. We were able to build a really robust academic RTI and behavioral RTI program at my site, and then I was supposed to go and help my fellow peers do the same at their schools.
Angela Kelly:Well, one year at the district office is, if you've ever moved from site to district leadership. That's like a whole nother level of perspective and I was like, okay, I can do this, but I did. I felt disconnected from kids. So I spent a lot of time at the sites and I was like, okay, I can do this, but I did. I felt disconnected from kids.
Angela Kelly:So I spent a lot of time at the sites and what I learned is that principals were coming together in the district at the leadership team meetings. Everyone had a smile on their face, everyone was saying everything was great and this is what they're going to do problem solvers. And then when I go back to their sites and we'd close the office door, the truth came out of how they really felt and the struggles they were facing and the pain they were in and the insufficiency that they felt and the disempowerment they felt. They felt a lack of ability to inspire and create influence and impact in their school as a leader. And it's because that identity and leadership skills and all of that was missing from the conversation. It was be this task, manager, and I'm sure you run a school because you went from a small school to a big school, right, jeff?
Principal JL:Yeah, I went from a school with about 175 students to a thousand. Yes, I made a pretty big jump and kind of the great thing was is when I was getting ready to make that jump. That's when I found your podcast.
Principal JL:Yes, that's right Kind of what you're doing. I think we had like a free consult and we kind of worked through some things because I was getting frustrated. I'll be honest, I went on like in the last two years I was like on 18 or 19 interviews because I was looking to be like, ok, I want to take that next step. There's other circumstances I'm not going to get into for for what I was doing in this situation, but yeah, that's where I because I was looking for at the time, how can I become a better leader? But also I need help because of something I'm doing is not working and what is it. And I think that's when we talked about you know a lot of about your mindset. You took me through the steer cycle. We did some brain drains and we were really really able to focus in on kind of what I needed to do to get into you know the right mindset for that, to show people my value, show people that you know, envision myself into their school and how do I do that. And so we worked you know worked a lot on that. And, of course, I was following you on Facebook and I listened to your podcast, and so I was just kind of following along because I needed something to kind of help me through the journey. Because you're right when you talk about you know, go to these conferences, you network, you do these things. I even go to, you know, our regional and state conferences, our regional meetings and things like that. But then you go back and then you're on your own again. So what can you get daily? And I think that's kind of where you're kind of fitting into that piece, to where you can help principals on the daily with becoming a better leader but also being the best version of themselves. So, honestly, this podcast is a derivative from working with you because you know, knowing that there is not a lot out there.
Principal JL:My goal with this podcast is basically to connect people with other people, but also tell other people's stories, but also try to help other principals in these situations or in these leadership roles to be the best they can be. And if I can help inspire and give them some nuggets of knowledge here and there, that would help them so they don't have to go through some of the hard things you had to go through or other previous principals had to go through as well, because I think you're going to go through some dark times as an educational leader, but to have somebody kind of support you through that is an important piece. And I find that's kind of where what you're doing now, going from your district leader role, now you're the empowered principal, guru, life coach. You kind of help people with that and you stay pretty busy doing that. So talk about that transition you talked about. You know, I went to become a life coach. You are starting to implement practices.
Principal JL:I think the one thing you really kind of talk about in your book is you know your mindset, your thoughtfulness or just how do you think you know your brain works and your STEAR cycle kind of. So kind of talk about you know the STEAR cycle. Why is it important to help you become an empowered principal?
Angela Kelly:Yes, of course I first have to do a shout out for Jeff, because Jeff and I worked together as one-on-one client and also he was a member of my group coaching program at the Empowered Principal Collaborative. But what I want to highlight about Jeff was how quickly our conversations went from just talking to him implementing and I don't mean so much like he didn't add more to his plate, he implemented, he adjusted his approach. He didn't add to his plate, he adjusted his approach by broadening his perspective and it the other day we were talking about. You know how we support fellow adults to have conflict and conversations and conflict and to resolve those as adults and we have to be able to hold space for them. And I just think Jeff does an incredible job of implementing mindset plus skillset and that supportive approach and that really the belief that hey, we're all here to feel good, to do our best, we are on the same team. I see that in your work, jeff. I see it in your post, in your work, in the conversations that you and I have, and this podcast is really a manifestation of that work that you have done right. I was there to initiate those conversations with you and to provide that awareness and to get you feeling aligned to what you value and who you are. But from there the momentum was all used. So Jeff is an incredible leader and I'm I couldn't be happier that he started this podcast, because he has so much wisdom to share with you guys. And what I love is this is just the beginning. So I I have to say that because I respect him, I appreciate him and and this, this work that he's doing. He's not just talking at you in this podcast, he's living it and sharing his stories and experiences with you in real time. So I really honor and respect that. So yes, so sorry, I had to say that. No, no, I appreciate it, yeah, yeah.
Angela Kelly:So back to the question was how I transitioned. So that one year at the district I saw people suffering is really what happened. I saw my peers suffering and it pained me, it ached me and I thought we really are the same. I felt that way, too, I. It ached me and I thought we really are the same. Like I felt that way too. I didn't. I thought I was alone and isolated. I thought it was just me. I thought I was the one who was insufficient, or I didn't have what it took, or I wasn't charismatic enough or smart enough or, you know, organized or disciplined enough.
Angela Kelly:But I see that it's the job. And so if it's not the people that are the problem, it's the job. And so if it's not the people that are the problem and the job is the job, it's just the reality. If we can't go in and fix, we can't go out and change what in the job, even on the hard days, or even when the test scores don't land where we'd like them to, or even when we're working with a kid who's really struggling to regulate emotionally, or working with an adult who is really struggling to regulate emotionally. And why don't we just have a space where principals can talk about this, talk about, like I'm barely emotionally regulated right now, let alone being able to help somebody else regulate emotionally. We expect kids to emotionally regulate, yet we sometimes don't have the capacity to do that ourselves.
Angela Kelly:So, just in my own observation of me, that's where and through the Life Coach School, I came up with it's. My coach calls her work the model and and I took that and ran with it and created the STEAR Cycle. But it it's just a tool, not just it's a powerful tool, it is a tool that helps you observe your what's your brain is offering you, your thoughts, and just observe them. Kind of give a little distance between you and your thoughts to create that space so you can write them down on the paper, type them up, and that's what the brain drain is, where you can just like, wow, what is going on for myself right now? And I've I've shifted a little bit. Like I wrote this book when I was a baby coach, a brand new coach, and you know I it was like my, my pride and joy at the time, and I'm writing another book right now. Actually, too, what as I've been this? Yeah, breaking news. Yes, breaking news. It's good, you have to let me know when it's out at your thoughts.
Angela Kelly:But what I realized is that the emotional experience we're having is truly the compass. So you still look at your thoughts, but what I would offer to you now is what are you feeling? Being able to identify, because sometimes you're feeling all worked up and you don't know really what's going on inside and you're going to have a brain drain, trust me, like, if you're upset or you're frustrated or you're overwhelmed, the brain is going to go. Well, there's this, this, this, this, this and let it. Let it drain all out. Eventually you're going to be like, okay, I got, I said my piece and you'll feel a little release of energy there.
Angela Kelly:But that practice gives you some space in your mind to say, okay, I've acknowledged how I'm feeling. I'm overwhelmed or I'm upset. Here's why. So what are you feeling? Number one why are you feeling it? That's the brain drain, all the thoughts are going to pour out, and then you have some space there to be like huh, all right, I'm acknowledging that I'm overwhelmed or I'm really upset right now. Valid, fair enough. Now what?
Angela Kelly:And you can look at the thoughts. You separate them from your mind because they kind of just one. They go on repeat, they loop over and over and it feels like there are 200 thoughts when actually there's probably 20. And they're just on repeat and loop and then they get all jumbly and entangled in your mind and you kind of go down these rabbit holes. But putting it on the paper helps you, it finites them. You start to see like there's only so many and then you can say, okay, here's what I'm thinking. How is that feeling? Which ones of these feel terrible and which ones feel a little better? Let's lean over there, and that's what my next book is going to be about.
Angela Kelly:It's called Feel Good Goals. It's about the goal here is to feel good and we use this process to, like, lean back into what feels more aligned, what feels true, what feels good, what do we want to believe about ourselves, about others, about our school and that? So that's the gist of the empowered principle is how can I take back, empower myself to feel better, to learn what's working, what's not, what do I want to shift to do differently? But also this is another secret is that if you're having a thought that feels terrible, like I'm not good enough, or I really messed this up, or I'm a failure, I'm insufficient, in some way we all have the not enough thoughts.
Angela Kelly:When they feel terrible and you feel like you're in so much pain, the little secret is that they're not true. That's just your brain's way of saying like, hey, you know what? I don't want you to feel the pain of failing. So I'm going to just tell you in advance don't even try, because I don't want you to fall down and scrape your knee. I'm going to protect you and keep you safe.
Angela Kelly:And the brain can't differentiate between real pain and perceived pain. So it's just it's going to freeze you and say like, please don't try this at home. This could end, this could result in pain, whether that's physical pain, emotional pain, mental pain, psychological pain. We're so afraid of pain. But if we lean into it and we're looking at the steer cycle and that's like, ooh, I'm really feeling some pain here, like let's say we failed, let's say we did and we acknowledge it, it's better to validate that, acknowledge it and lean into it and be like you know what, and this is true. I think I taught you, jeff, something called the land of and where it's like this might be true, but also equally true is this other side where you can start to feel better. So even on those hard days, it's like yep, today was hard and dot, dot, dot. What's equally true are these other things that are good. There's the duality of our jobs. There's really hard days, heartbreakingly hard days.
Angela Kelly:I just moved here to Nashville and in real time, I don't know for those of you who know there was a school shooting recently, just this past week, and there is a principal out there and a family, multiple families, who are in the biggest pain of their life and to me, losing a student on my watch is one of the most unimaginable things and that principal is in so much pain and we can feel compassion for that principal and it is like probably our biggest nightmare and fear as a principal is losing a student on our watch, when it's our job to protect them and also knowing we do our best but we aren't in control of the world. Then it becomes how do I navigate this heartbreak, this pain? So, and pain is pain, right. Whether you've lost a student or you've lost a staff member or whatever tragedy of any kind that's happened at your school. And hey, if you haven't had a tragedy, don't feel bad that you haven't had one. You've had it in just a different format, right.
Angela Kelly:Whether it's like an IEP that didn't go well or a parent that got upset and left your school, or there's different kinds of pain, we all experience it. So acknowledge your pain, lean into it and just know people like Jeff are out there and Jeff's been through pain too. He's been through really hard times and really hard conversations. He's had to lead people, he's had to coach people. He's had to coach people up, he's had to coach people out. So you do both, but your willingness to expand your capacity to feel pain also lets you expand your capacity for joy, and that's the duality of this job.
Angela Kelly:So that's really what I do in a nutshell is I help people navigate this thing called educational leadership. I help you navigate the hard stuff emotionally, mentally but I also help you visualize and learn and expand your potentiality and your possibility about what you can be, what you can experience. And, hey guys, at the end of the day, we're all here to support, to love, to have a good time and to create memories, to create success stories, to be proud of ourselves, our students and the work that our teachers and our team are doing. And that's your legacy, that's what you want to leave behind. But here we are. Today, jeff, this will be a memory locked in time, an experience that you and I are creating, and then tomorrow this will just be a memory and it will be a beautiful memory and it's one that we want to lock in and remember this forever. But all of us are doing this, we're all out there at our schools, you're present in the day, and that tomorrow, the next day, this day is a memory.
Angela Kelly:So that brings me to just kind of I know we've been talking so long here but wrapping up this podcast episode, it's really about intentionality, who we want to be, not perfection, we don't even want perfection, that would be very robotic. We want to experience it all. We want to have the capacity to experience it all, and that's something that I see Jeff modeling, not just as a school leader. Jeff models it as a husband, as a friend, as a father. I see him on his Facebook, empowered way, so that you can enjoy your life. You can enjoy, you can have balance, you can work hard and go home and play hard. You can get the rest you need and put a lot of effort in. You can have both, and believing that it's possible to have both is where we start.
Principal JL:Yes, and that's really what I love about the work that you're doing is how you're helping principals not just manage the job, the task at hand, but also how can they just be someone that can enjoy just being. You know a husband, a father, you know a good friend, you know somebody that's. You know we are people outside of this job. We're not just, we just don't go home and do nothing. We got, we got interests, we got things we like to do, and so you being able to tap in, I think there's not a lot that. You're the only person I know that has the experience being a teacher, a principal, a district admin. But then this life coaching adventure you're on, where now you're helping people navigate that job, navigate how to find the joy out of it, cause, like you said, it is, it's a tough job. There's going to be, um, you know, great days and there's going to be good days.
Principal JL:I always say, cause I I'm not, I'm a non-traditional educator. I worked in a factory for three and a half years and I always tell people the worst day in education is better than the best day of my factory job. So I just enjoy what I do, but at the same time, I think it's that mindset that we come in with. Having someone like Angela Kelly here to help you navigate is something that I would encourage principals and educational leaders to tap into. So, angela, tell us what you're up to with the Empowered Principal. How can people connect with you? How can they reach out to you? I'll probably well I'll put some your email or some connections down in the show notes so people can easily find you in the podcast. But you know how can people connect and get in touch with you if they're really thinking about you know what a lot of the things that I heard today resonates with me, and I really want to learn how to have that work-life balance.
Principal JL:How can they connect with you? Angela?
Angela Kelly:Yeah, absolutely so. Yeah, I jumped into this job around, I think, 2017. So I've been coaching for the last eight school years and I started with one-on-one coaching, as Jeff knows, and then the demand expanded into I do have some one-on-ones. I don't coach you know a ton of one-on-ones anymore, but I do coach one-on-one with some principals, but the majority of people are coming into the Empowered Principal Collaborative, which is a group coaching program, and what I love about that is the synergy. It's the you don't feel alone, like one-on-one is where we have those confidential, private conversations and I do offer one-on-one sessions to the members of EPC if there is something confidential in nature or sensitive in nature that we need to discuss offline. But what's so great about the group is the collective wisdom, the collective desire to feel good, to improve, to expand their impact on their schools, to also to like not take it all on themselves, like to lighten that load, to not feel alone. I think it's.
Angela Kelly:I thought teaching was isolating because you're in your school, in your classroom, by yourself, but you have your colleagues, you have your grade level team or your department team, and then you get into admin and, for me 550 students, you know 27 teachers, you know about 70 staff members at my site and one admin on campus. That felt isolating and I was like, okay, we need, we need. There's got to be a place to go mingle and have some conversations and have a little bit of fun and actually just lighten up about it, laugh about it. Some of the stories you cannot make these up and you've got to be able to have a place where people understand you and they can laugh and have a good time. So EPC, the Empowered Principal Collaborative, is my group coaching program. So if you are interested in learning more number one, you can just listen to the podcast and kind of get to know me.
Angela Kelly:The Empowered Principal Podcast. You can pick up the book audio. It's on Audible, it's on you know. You can buy the hard copy if you want. And then you can find me on my website, angelakelleycoachingcom. But the Empowered Principal is where I'm at. I hang out primarily on Facebook and Instagram, but you can also find me on LinkedIn. Reach out if you have any questions or concerns.
Principal JL:You bet All right, Angela, it was really great to have you on the show today. You know it's fun to listen to just your journey as an educational leader and how you became the empowered principal you are today and I really appreciate the work you're doing because it's meaningful and it's, you know, something that we, as educational leaders, need and you know I hope today's podcast helped someone out there today get connected with you, to you know if they're really needing and searching for something to help them become a better educational leader. So thank you for being on the show today.
Angela Kelly:It's so wild to be a guest on a show Like I have my own podcast and I spend my time being the interviewer, and so it was a blast to be here with you, jeff, and I'm excited to actually share this interview with my audience as well, for them to hear your story, but also I don't know that I've ever really shared my story to this depth. So it was really fun and just thank you for the privilege and the honor of being here today. I had a lot of fun.
Principal JL:Awesome, thank you. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode with Angela Kelly.
Principal JL:I am truly honored and grateful that she came on this podcast to share with you guys how to be an empowered principal. She gave you guys a lot of great insights on her own journey, which I very much appreciate, because we all have our journeys out there when it becomes a effective school leader. So, if you enjoyed this podcast, I would truly love it if you guys would subscribe or follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app. I would also love it if you leave a review, because when you leave reviews, you make the show more discoverable for other school leaders like you, so we can build this community of educational leaders together. If you would like to get in touch with Angela Kelly and learn more about the Angela Kelly coaching, I will drop her website in the show notes for you so you guys can reach out to her if that's something that you would like to do. Well, I hope you guys found value in this episode. It was a lot of fun doing it and until next time, always look to be 1% better.
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