Why Disengaged Students Don’t Need Another Intervention with James McLamb

00:03
Speaker 1
We pour everything into our students. Lesson plans, interventions, data teams, professional development. We still wonder why so many kids seem disconnected, defeated, or just going through the motions. Maybe what's missing is that nobody taught them how to think about themselves. Schools have gotten really good at what to learn. We've built elaborate systems around curriculum, assessment and performance. But ask a struggling 15 year old who they are, where they're going and why it matters and you might get silence. When a student doesn't know where they are or believe they can get somewhere better, all the content and strategies in the world aren't going to move them. My guest today is James McLand.

00:55
Speaker 1
He's from Generation Youth Coaching and there he has spent a decade certifying youth life coaches, working alongside schools to give students the mindset, self image, relationship skills and sense of purpose they desperately need. I'm Danny Bauer and this is Better Leaders. Better Schools, the original ruckus cast for visionary leaders who want to do school different even within a traditional system, so that we create campus experiences worth showing up for. And thanks to Ruckus makers just like you, this show ranks in the top 1% of nearly 4 million podcasts worldwide. So thanks for pressing play. We're glad you're here. And we'll be jumping into the main content after a few messages from our show sponsors. You know that career quiz that tells a kid that they'd be great at healthcare and then nothing happens? Next Orchard goes further.

01:57
Speaker 1
Every student builds an actual plan with steps they can take. This week you can see it for yourself by going to betterleaders Orchard Careers. That's betterleaders Orchard Careers. Want to know how top schools create collaborative learning environments that actually work? ODP Business Solutions has equipped innovative educators for over three decades. Visit odpbusiness.com education and let's make a ruckus together. That's odpbusiness.com education IXL takes the guesswork out of lesson planning for teachers. IXL's ready made lesson plans are aligned to your textbooks and state standards and so teachers can turn to IXL for the exact content they need to help their students. You can get started [email protected] leaders. That's ixl.com leaders here's a question for every principal listening. When was the last time someone coached you? You develop everyone else in your building, but who's in your corner?

03:18
Speaker 1
Kids First Education is this episode is brought to you by Kids First Coaching and Support built for the people who lead schools. Start at Kids First LLC Leaders. That's Kids First LLC Leaders There's a framework that built called the Ideal Week. It saves principals about 10 hours a month once they implement the system. Digital Danny can walk you through your version of the Ideal Week. Tonight, create your Ideal week and more@my principalcoach.com Ruckus. That's my principalcoach.com RuckUS. All right. And James, welcome to the show.

04:08
Speaker 2
Thank you. Dan, thank you for the opportunity to be on your show and share a little bit and learn a little bit more from you. You were on my show previously, and our audience really enjoyed that, and I'm looking forward to our time together as well. Cool.

04:23
Speaker 1
Yeah. And by the time this one goes live, that episode will have been produced and shared with the world. Do you want to say anything about it real quick and let people know about your pod? Maybe they want to go over there and listen to it.

04:36
Speaker 2
Well, if they want to hear Danny the Ruckus Makers episode, if they'll go to the Generation Youth Podcast, they can go to our [email protected] and find the podcast page, and they can find all the links, or they can just search on YouTube. The Generation Youth Podcast. Type in my name at the end. Because when we first discovered that we wanted to name it that, we found some other people had actually had the Generation Youth Podcast named, but they were not doing anything with it, so we had to add my name to distinguish ourselves.

05:09
Speaker 1
So, okay, yeah, James McLam is the name. And that's. I hate when you get an idea, you know, and then, like, the. The website's bot or. And the worst, it's just blocked. No, or it. Or they did it, and now they're no longer producing content. That's so annoying.

05:25
Speaker 2
But same thing with Instagram and. And the URL. Nothing associated with it, but it's gone, so.

05:32
Speaker 1
That's right. Okay, well, let's start with a story. You know, I want you to take us back to a moment where you received a text. I think it was from one of your coaches. But the. The parent told the coach, you have given me my son back.

05:46
Speaker 2
Wow.

05:47
Speaker 1
So what was that story all about?

05:48
Speaker 2
Well, it was a. We certify adults to be youth Life coaches. And this particular lady was working in a school system. She was a volunteer. That's what she was doing. Trying to make a difference in the school system. She would come in and sit at the front desk and answer the phones while the front desk staff and some of the admin would take their lunch break or, you know, run some errands or do whatever they Needed to do. Every school needs. Danielle. That's her name, Danielle, to come in and do this. And she saw that there was a need, a desire to help young people in that school grow more than just academically, but emotionally, through the different products that she felt like she could do. So she started a coaching program, and she was very excited about it.

06:34
Speaker 2
She was coaching about 19 young people in groups of three to four several times a week. You know, she had different sessions. And after she'd been doing it for about a month, she received a text from a mom of one of the boys that she was coaching through the process. And it was a very simply, it says, you've given me my son back. And that is such a powerful statement that this mother. You know, there's a lot that we could unpack on that. First, how did the mother feel like she had lost her son? What are the things that were happening or not happening to him that caused her to feel, he's gone from me. I don't no longer have that. And second, why?

07:21
Speaker 2
What was happening that this young man saw light at the end of this dark tunnel he was in, that he started responding more? And then exactly what did she mean by giving me a son back? Is it just he was responding to his parents more? Was his personality more alive? Was he academically better? What were all the things that were going on? This, no matter what it was, it inspired Danielle to expand what she was doing, to grow even more what she was doing, and to share that message with others, to say, look, there is hope. There is hope for someone who is struggling academically, that's struggling to connect, struggling to determine who they are as a. As a young person. So I was very excited to receive that text.

08:07
Speaker 2
I love telling about that, especially to those who have a desire to dive in deeper and help guide you through this process of growing and maturing.

08:19
Speaker 1
Right, yeah. So talk to us a bit about life coaching for students. I've heard of that for adults, for sure, but I've never heard of that for young people, and I could see how they could benefit from it. But. Yeah, do you mind talking about what that is and what the model might look like?

08:39
Speaker 2
Well, you know, when I was a teenager back in the last century, many years ago, the teachers that I had enough bandwidth in their day, the coaches that I had, the athletic coaches, they had enough bandwidth in the time that they were spending with us to help guide us through life, to help pour into our lives, to guide us to where we want to go. Well, my daughter, who's in her fourth year teaching freely says that, dad, I just don't have the time to do it during the day. There's so many pressures about making sure I've covered this lesson, making sure I've covered this aspect of the, what the school needs, what the administrators needs. She still pours into the students, but it's a much more, you know, selective in the time youth coaching fills that gap.

09:24
Speaker 2
And Danny, the way we explain coaching is we go back to the root word of the word coach. The word coach is originally a mode of transportation. It is a vehicle, like a carriage in a stagecoach, air coach, motor coach. So it's coach is a trip, a word that implies transportation. You pick up somebody where they are and you take them to where they want to go. So when we're life coaching, we help identify where are you at in life, where are you at and how you feel about yourself, where are you at in your relationships? Where are you at in discovering your purpose and goals, your mindset? Where do you want to go? Let's figure out where you want to be in a week, a month, a year. Sometimes they don't know where they want to be in a year.

10:07
Speaker 2
You just take them as far as they can see now, and then they get there, they'll see farther. But my process, then that's what coaching is helping young people from where they are now, taking them from where they are now to where they want to go. In our process, we got them through four different modules working on their mindset. We want them to have a growth mindset, not a fixed mindset, one that looks at things as opportunities and not obstacles when they encounter problems that they don't say, hey, I just, I'm just not good at math, I'm not good at this. But look at it as an opportunity to grow. Helping them identify who they are through self image. That's one of the big questions they ask is, who am I helping them define that in themselves.

10:49
Speaker 2
Not letting their peers or not letting social media determine that for them. And then relationships, you know, that might come in the form of, hey, we got to get them strong enough in their relationship skills that they can overcome any kind of bullying or peer pressure they might encounter. And then lastly, it's helping them to find the purpose and you know, what their purpose is for this season of life, not their purpose in life. Because, you know, 14, 15, 16 year old may not know what their purpose is in life, but how about that purpose for that season in life now and helping Them with a goal setting process that helps them achieve some of those goals based on that purpose. So that's where our process comes in. That's what we do.

11:29
Speaker 2
And, and we're very excited about the opportunity to train adults who really want to pour into young people to do these things.

11:38
Speaker 1
It's fantastic work. And you know, I like that idea of moving, you know, moving them here to there, you know, where they are now, where they want to be. What kind of skills, you know, are required, I guess, for some of those students to make those shifts or leaps or growth, you know, that however you want to describe that?

11:57
Speaker 2
Well, I think, you know, one of the initial things that we want young people to learn is that they themselves can control their destiny and they themselves can control what their relationship skills are and what their self image are. So it's a lot about that mindset of saying, you know, you're in charge of your destiny, you're in charge of this. So initially we're just trying to help them with their mindset to open it up to see the opportunities. And maybe that's what was going on with that young man that Danielle was working with, is that he looked at things as just being already set in stone for him. I grew up as a very optimistic person. I think I inherited it from my mother. I think, you know, I, I grew up thinking there's always these possibilities in life, you could do things.

12:42
Speaker 2
I know I got that from my dad. He was a great entrepreneur. So I saw things in a different light. And when I started teaching and I was in the classroom for those eight years, and I saw students who did not believe they could even dream to better than the circumstances that they were in. It was a little bit of an eye opening experience for me.

13:01
Speaker 1
Sure.

13:01
Speaker 2
And so that's what we want to do, is we want to open them up to those possibilities of saying, look, you know, you've got to have a positive attitude towards things here, and we want to help you do that. So we want to work with their mindset first. So that's phase one of the four phases. We got them through.

13:17
Speaker 1
Okay. Mindset. I think that resonates with me and I think aligns with a lot of the work that I do at Ruckus Makers. I've noticed over 10 years of doing this right. That all my frameworks start the same way. And it's always with the individual leader. Right now, what they want, I think is the third step. You know, for me, I have fade three Phases, and those are the student outcomes, or what we like to say is creating a campus experience worth showing up for. But you don't. You don't get there until you're the type of leader that you need to be. Right. And that your community needs. So it's all mindsets, all internal, individual. Then it's team and cultural. Right. And then it's that system and the results that we want to see. So I love that you know, about your approach, too.

14:04
Speaker 2
You know, we talked. We talked about you, and I talked about how I'm a Ziggler fan, Ziglar fan. I love his quotes.

14:10
Speaker 1
Right.

14:10
Speaker 2
My favorite quote is what I believe the mindset is. And it is very simply, you are what you are and where you are by what goes into your mind. You can change what you are, and you can change where you are by changing what goes into your mind. And so that's where we start. Let's start with changing what goes into your mind. Let's change those things. Let's put the pure, the powerful and the positive in and get all the garbage out. Remember when they started computers? Remember Digo? Garbage in, garbage out, GI Joe. That was the principal, foundational principal of computer programming that. That was happening last century. So that's the same thing in your mind.

14:51
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's true today, you know, with. With prompting, you know, with artificial intelligence, LLMs, like. And I have. I don't know if you. I didn't. I don't think I've told you this on the show, but I'll reveal, you know, I've cloned myself. Right? So not. Not genetically. Right. There's not another, like, 3D version of me walking around yet. Okay, not yet, but digitally, I've cloned myself. So the 10 years of my work with school leaders, the podcast, the frameworks, the coaching, the masterminds, that's been trained in what I'm calling it is sort of like this agentic co. Principle, right, that sits in this vacant chair right here that can help you go through and solve all your biggest problems and whatever.

15:35
Speaker 1
But my point, okay, is not to talk about digital Danny when you start using him, he says the more context you give me, the more descriptive you are, the better my answers to you. And that's true. That's true with any digital tool, Right. The more specific you are, the better the output, or garbage in or just general in. Then you get peanut butter out, right? And it's not good enough. And you're like, well, this isn't so cool. Well, it's because your prompt sucked, that's why. So anyways, garbage in, garbage out. I could have just said I agree, but I didn't. I told a bit of a story.

16:12
Speaker 2
I love that story. And I want to find out more about Digital Danny. I like, I like that. I was thinking when you said digital Danny, I was like, dog, there's nothing that goes with Jay. You know, Digital Danny.

16:23
Speaker 1
We can figure it out. Yeah, we could word Smith it and jam on that later.

16:29
Speaker 2
We need to give Digital Danny to come up with the words for us.

16:32
Speaker 1
Absolutely. You could do that for sure. He's a creative guy. So phase one's like mindset. Do you want touch on the other three phases real quick just to give like the ruckus maker listening. An idea of the framework.

16:43
Speaker 2
Yeah. The other phases are working with self image, relationships, goals and purpose. And where do we come up with those was we interviewed 2,500 teens, well from middle school up into like mid college. So you're looking at, you know, 13 year olds to 20 year olds. And we asked them a simple question. What is the biggest problem facing your generation? Then we, yeah, all these answers. Now no one said, my biggest problem is my self image. But they would say, I feel like a failure, I can't measure up. They would say those things and most of the time they would say something that was in maybe a couple categories. And once we had all those answers, we started to see similarities and were able to put them in those three big buckets. Self image, relationships and goals.

17:28
Speaker 2
And the answers that we had the percentage wise were in that order. So most of the students, I think it was like 86.4% said that they were dealing. I always just say 85%, but the exact number is 86.4. They said something related to self image. So that's the. After we get with mindset, we get them to see there is possibility, we start diving into discovering, all right, who do you think you are? Who do you want to be and how can you become the person you want to be? How could you believe in yourself enough that you have that strength to overcome the. The constant negativity, the constant garbage, the constant stuff that's fighting you. Relationships was second. And that could be relationships with peers or parents or teachers, bullying, peer pressure, some romantic relationships.

18:20
Speaker 2
For answer, not too many, but some of them were. And then lastly was, you know, why am I here? Type question. You know, once they figure out where they belong or where their people are, they want to know why I'm here. And how do I accomplish the purpose that I'm here for? And we really want to make sure that, as someone who's being coached, that they understand is when you're 16, 17, 15 years old, it's not necessarily important for you to have your math, you know, your life mapped out. This is what I was born for.

18:49
Speaker 1
Yeah.

18:50
Speaker 2
How about, what is your purpose this year? What is your purpose right now for the next six months to 12 months? Most of them don't even know that. And we want to help them see that by understanding what their purpose is for the next six and 12 months, how much they can accomplish once you have that clarity.

19:09
Speaker 1
That's fantastic advice too, because, you know, I love doing vision work. I love setting goals and thinking about, you know, where I want to end up. And I've realized, like, life has taught me the tough lesson that usually my dreams and plans aren't what actually happens in reality. You know, sometimes they kind of match up and pattern match a bit and directionally like the same sort of area, but it never plays out like how I think. And that's okay. That's okay. It makes life interesting. Right? And, and you, you rebound and you're resilient and all that great stuff, you know, But I guess what I'm trying to say is, like, you're only right here with me right now, right on this show, and what happens in even 30 minutes from now, we'll see, honestly, is how it is. So that's pretty cool.

20:01
Speaker 1
You, you mentioned something about goal setting, so I wanted to ask you because I just, I love that topic, like sort of goal setting and what you want to achieve, who you want to become. Is there, do you think there's anything around that topic you believe that would be sort of counterintuitive or, you know, sort of like unique, like to how goals are usually taught. You know what I mean? Like.

20:27
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, I think most places teach the smart goal format, and I have nothing wrong with specific measurable table, all that kind of stuff. However, I do think that smart goal format does not give the specific steps that a young person can grasp really easy. It's kind of an ambiguous thing. It kind of describes what they should be, but not how to get there. So when I was in high school, the organization, student organizations that I was a part of that were sharing with us how to set goals, we're using Ziglar 7 step goal setting program. And so I've known this since I was like 16 years old, man. You're talking 40 years that I've been, I've known this.

21:12
Speaker 2
And as a result of that I saw that it was very easy to get from point A to point B, if I understood that process. Now there's some preliminary things that as a part of his total goal setting program. But the seven steps are really easy, you know, to understand.

21:30
Speaker 2
You know, identifying what it is, you know, figuring out who you want on your team to help you get there, what are the obstacles, what skills do you need to learn, you know, where are the steps that need to happen, what's the completion that all those types of things and I'm not throwing them out there, all seven in order, but all the, that giving a young person a formula like that's easy for them to see, that can be visual in front of them, helps them clearly understand how to get from point A to point B. It's, you know, you're giving them the GPS to get from here to there, where before it was just kind of giving them a description. It's over in that area somewhere and this is what it looks like. Go get it. Now they're going to.

22:19
Speaker 2
Some of them may show up to the location, but some of them may be driving around town looking for the place that you wanted them to go to. So we want to give them a step by step go process. When I first started teaching this, I used to equate it to MapQuest but now I'm dating myself if I talk about MapQuest, people don't even know what that is anymore.

22:37
Speaker 1
So it's all good. You know, Zigs, Ziggs goal setting formula is the best. And I added a few steps to it and then packaged that up, you know, for Ruckus makers for sure. But I remember back in the day, I don't know if you ever follow Seth Godin's work, but he, you know, he had a program called Alt mba and if you know anything about him, he basically credits Ziggler with so much in his life. Like he used to just be in his car listening to the tapes, memorizing all of Zig's speeches. And then Seth became this, you know, I guess maybe another iteration of that motivational, just incredible thinker, right, that has impacted so many people.

23:22
Speaker 1
But long story short, in Alt MBA there was a project around goals, you know, in the beginning of the program and lo and behold we all watched a YouTube where Zig was teaching us on goal setting. So it's really neat to See, sort of like the coaching tree, so to speak. Like a football team, head coach, his assistants, and then they go off to be head coaches and that kind of thing. It's just fantastic. And I love that we have that connection.

23:48
Speaker 2
Well, ironically, that you brought it. Seth Dodin, he created a booklet based upon his interpretation of Zig's goal setting formula. And I actually have it on my.

24:02
Speaker 1
Oh, the ship journal.

24:03
Speaker 2
No, it's. It's a smaller version. Okay, I'll show it to you when we get off because I'm way over there in the corner. But it is. He. He narrowed it down to like four major questions and stuff.

24:15
Speaker 1
And Interesting.

24:16
Speaker 2
When we first started working with you in this iteration of Generation Youth, the organization were using, somebody hit that product to do that. And Seth was on the Ziggler documentary. They did. The producer did a documentary about him and he was one of the people that is featured prominently sharing his experience with it.

24:37
Speaker 1
Yeah. Let's talk to us in the ruckus Maker. Listening or watching this episode. How does your program come alongside, you know, teachers? So you got those, you know, student life coaches, but there's the classroom instructor. So what does that partnership look like?

24:52
Speaker 2
Well, you know, there's a big push now for emotional learning in school systems, and our coaching program does that. So it can be an aspect where a teacher can become a certified coach and it can be a part of a school curriculum day. There are schools in Long island, there are schools in Minnesota, there are schools in Virginia that are using variations of this kind of coaching program inside the school system where the principal or administration has decided, hey, we're going to back off maybe two hours of your week, Mr. Teacher, and you're going to be coaching, you know, young people. Now, I will say it is most predominantly for their athletes. They're using it for athletes, but they're starting to see others grow into it.

25:42
Speaker 2
So it has become a part of it where that administrations are beginning to see, we need to do some coaching along with this because there's so much force upon these kids. We're. We're forcing them to live in this world we created for them, but we're not giving them the tools anymore to do this, and we need to be able to provide this. So there are schools that are starting to integrate this type of coaching in their school day. Some teachers are using it as a source of side revenue that they're coaching on their own time, outside of classroom time outside the classroom, and they're being able to guide Students through that. Most of the time that happens during the summertime program, not during the school year. And I would highly recommend that kind of format because that.

26:31
Speaker 2
That may be too much to try to pull in, you know, during. We want. We want teachers to have a break. We want them to be able to refuel and generate themselves, but they can use that as a side of the income. So it is becoming a part where educators are starting to say, hey, we can teach them math skills, we can teach them language arts, we can teach them science, but we also need to give them the skills that they. Once we give them this knowledge, they know how to apply it, they know how to learn it, they can get to point A to point B.

26:59
Speaker 1
Brilliant.

27:00
Speaker 2
I will say, yeah. For years we have been, and I did this with my children. We have been paying athletic trainers to do specialized training for our young athletes. Teach you guys to hit a baseball farther or pitch faster or a girl to hit a volleyball better or swim faster or somebody shoot the basketball better, whatever. You know, gymnastics, you know, cheerleading, all types of extra stuff. They're willing to do that to make them more competitive. When we know that less than 2% of all high school athletes now this is 2% of all high school athletes did a scholarship to play sports in college. Maybe a little bit more play sports in college as walk on or at D3 schools where they don't offer those types of scholarships.

27:52
Speaker 2
But all of them can benefit long term from these skills of mindset, self image, relationships and thoughts. It can help them forever. So we're beginning to see a shift now that were beginning to see this is just as important as teaching them to run faster, jump higher, you.

28:09
Speaker 1
Know, lift more, absolutely 100% back to the mindset piece. And, you know, within our leadership community we call the Ruckus Maker Mastermind, there was one member for years, he was bringing a similar conflict challenge for the group to help him solve. Right. Week after week. And it wasn't. It wasn't a quick insight, but it was a powerful insight eventually. And he framed up the challenge. But then he said something different he had never said before, James. And he said, what if the problem is me? Oh, all right, now we're getting somewhere. We can. Let's dig into that. Like, what do you mean? And I don't want to reveal his name. But the second. The second he said that, I saw him go on to do all sorts of legendary work that got recognized out there in the world.

29:03
Speaker 1
And so much so he became the principal of the year of his state. Right. And it was fun to be a part of his story. Right. I'm not going to say that we created that for him, but we did create some conditions for a time in his life where he could be deeply reflective like that and become the leader he needed to be, which is really cool. But to your point, it's on mindset, right? Because you can learn all this stuff like the external skills and that kind of thing, but no matter where you get dropped, right? That, that person getting dropped into the environment, that person that's you. It doesn't like the environment might change. But you know, have you changed on the inside. And that's the again, back to both our frameworks.

29:46
Speaker 1
That's where the real work starts, you know, on that mindset piece. So thank you for letting me share that one too. Quick word from our partner Orchard Here's a student you already know. Good grades, no discipline issues, never shows up on a single report as a problem. Then senior year hits and they're sitting in the counselor's office panicking, with no direction, no goals, no plan for what's next. They were invisible until it was almost too late. Orchard catches that kid early. Early enough for you to do something. Every student builds a career plan starting as young as middle school, and counselors can see exactly who's falling behind by grade before it becomes a crisis. That's how you shift from reacting to leading. Learn for yourself. See it for yourself at BetterLeaders Orchard Careers. That's BetterLeaders Orchard Careers.

30:52
Speaker 1
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31:48
Speaker 1
You can get it all from a single supplier that helps you simplify ordering and streamlining budgeting while staying compliant with easy access to cooperative contracts. However you want to advance, ODP Business Solutions has 30 years of experience helping districts like yours get ahead. Visit ODPbusiness.comeducation to learn more. That's ODPbusiness.com education. What makes an assessment effective? I would argue giving teachers access to quick, reliable, and useful results that inform the next best steps for teaching. And that's where IXL really stands out. Teachers get powerful insights into student performance on a daily basis so they can address issues the moment they arrive. Imagine that adjusting instruction in real time before it's too late. Your teachers have a tool that helps them be even more effective. And your students? They grow. And they grow.

32:55
Speaker 1
Check it out for [email protected] leaders that's ixl.com leaders here's something we don't say enough. The person that's holding a school or district together is often the one that gets the least amount of support. Principals, assistant principals, district leaders. You're coaching everybody else. Kids First Education is built to support you, and the results speak for themselves. 99% Of educators found their kids first coach knowledgeable. Nearly all said the sessions they led connected to the district's priorities. And 98% of participants walked out ready to use what they learned that week. That's what happens when professional learning is designed around your context, not pulled off a shelf. Partner with Kids first and learn more at Kids First LLC Leaders. That's Kids First LLC Leaders. One of my favorite moments in coaching is when a principal realizes they don't have a problem.

34:09
Speaker 1
They just have a problem someone else has already solved. Meaning there's an automatic school tool that I've built for it. They just didn't know which one to grab. Reactive calendar Then use the ideal week new principal trying to figure out the first 90 days. Then you go to the entry plan bottleneck happening in your own office. That's a lead domino conversation. I've built 36 tools across the automatic school framework. Most leaders don't need more strategy. They need the right tool applied in their exact situation. Tonight, Digital Danny does the diagnosis. He knows every tool I've ever built, when to use it, and how to walk you through it for your campus. You get started with Digital Danny at myprincipalcoach.com/ruckus. That's my principalcoach.com Ruckus.

35:13
Speaker 1
You you have a fun story where I think one of your former student teachers back in the day is now a superintendent, right?

35:22
Speaker 2
Yeah.

35:22
Speaker 1
So that's a cool thing to see him, you know, grow and achieve in that type of way. But these days, I think you were telling me in the pre call that he's wondering how to help his teaching staff actually perform more like Coaches to the students. So anything you want to add, you know, to that story?

35:41
Speaker 2
Well, he is very concerned about doing things from a different approach, trying to figure out how to empower his staff, you know, the, the immediate ones who report to him, the principals, the assistant principals, how to empower them and in such a way that they become leaders and coaches to their staff as well. So he sees it, you know, as layers. I need you to pour into them so they in turn can pour into the ones under them. So he spends a lot of time training them, working with him, encouraging them to do leadership conferences that are outside of educational realms. He doesn't send them to conferences or allow them to go to conferences that are just, you know, to learn how to do a new teaching program or he wants them to go and learn. I'll give an example.

36:32
Speaker 2
I, I went to the author, John Gordon, who wrote the Energy Bus and just a host of Long Buzz. I went to one of his days of development. He's a friend of mine. I went to his data development. It was about three hours from here. And when I got there, sat down, I was at a table talking to some people and the table next to me, I looked over and I saw that they were a elementary school group, the principal, assistant principal, and all the key leaders in that school. It was his, one of his schools that was there. And so I talked to him, I said, you know, what is, why are you guys here? They said, because he believes so much and pouring in yourself and investing in yourself that he does that for himself.

37:19
Speaker 2
He models that for us, that he encourages us to find opportunities. So much so that if a school has not done something, even if it's just, you know, a day program or an hour or two program, if the administration does that, he's calling up and going, hey, Danny, I haven't seen that you guys are doing anything. How are you bettering yourself? How are you investing yourself? So I'm excited for what he's done. He's moved from a, a medium sized system to one of the larger school systems in the state of North Carolina now. And I think he's going to have an amazing impact. They're probably one of the fastest growing counties that we have in North Carolina because of its location and the things that are pouring into that. He just very adamant, You've got to invest in yourself.

38:08
Speaker 2
He and I were talking years ago and we, he, we both use the water pitcher analogy that he says, you know, my teachers, my administrators are pouring, filling up glasses of water to all the people who need it, whether it's the teachers, the students, the parents, he said. But one day they got to stop and fill that water pitcher up. If they don't stop and fill it up, they're going to one day be pouring it out and it's going to be empty, he says. So they need to take time to refill themselves. He's very adamant about allowing that kind of space for that.

38:42
Speaker 2
He says it's better for them to be away for three or four days to refuel and rethink than it is for them to be on task for those three or four days, he says, and then have burnout at the end of the school year.

38:54
Speaker 1
Yeah, sounds like a smart guy. One of the favorite sayings of ruckus makers, they love it when I say you can't pour from an empty cup. So just, you know, we're, we're, we have so much alignment in so many ways. James, I'd love to bring us to the last few questions we ask all our guests. And so if you could put one message on all school marquees for a single day, what would your message be?

39:18
Speaker 2
Let's go with a Ziggler quake, a very simple one that would be on the marquee. Failure is an event is not a person. And a teacher needs to know that, an administrator needs to know that, a student needs to know that, and a parent needs to know that. Every aspect, every shareholder in the school aspect needs to know that Failure is an event, it's not a person. And if they're able to unpack that, they use it as learning opportunities for growth. It can help them in so many different ways if they can believe it.

39:51
Speaker 1
Absolutely. And James, if you were building your dream school right, there were no limitations in terms of resources. Your only constraint was your ability to imagine what would be the three guiding principles of your dream school.

40:07
Speaker 2
I'm an agriculture education former teacher and as such we have a motto as a part of our student organization and it's a four line motto, but the principles apply that, and that's learning to doing to learn, earning to live and living to serve. So if we can take it the four levels instead of three, that would be the principles is that we want to learn to do. We want them to actually not just get information and knowledge for the sake of having it. We want them to learn to do something. We want it to be hands on. We want it to be something where they're interactive that they're growing. They see the product of their work. We want them to see that all this can help them live. Earning to live. Earning can be money. It can be opportunity.

40:51
Speaker 2
It could be a variety of different things. It doesn't necessarily just have to be financial. But lastly, too, is that last statement. We want them to learn to live to serve. That we want them to, when they leave this school, to have a mindset of, I've got all these resources. I've been blessed with all this opportunity. Now I need to help others. I need to serve others. So I know that's four instead of three, but just that motto, learning to doing to learn, earning to live, and living to serve would be how I would kind of create the entire school.

41:22
Speaker 1
Lucky for you, I can't count past three. And I also don't take myself too seriously. So only one of those things is true. Is all right. So, hey, it was lovely having you on the show, James. Of everything we discussed today, what's the one thing you want a Ruckus Maker to remember?

41:40
Speaker 2
I really want them to understand that youth are not a problem. Teens are not a problem to be solved. They are an opportunity for our future and that we need to give them that kind of mindset that their future is bright, that they can make it to be what they want to be. They've got so many things that are pouring into them right now. That garbage that's pouring into them right now that we need Ruckus makers who are going to pour into them the pure, the powerful, and the positive instead of the garbage.

42:13
Speaker 1
Hey, Ruckus Maker, thanks again for pressing play. I hope you enjoyed today's episode as much as I enjoyed creating it for you. And before you go, if today's show shifted something in your mind or sparked an idea about how you could do school different, then I think you'd be a great fit for what we call the Ruckus Maker Mastermind. The Mastermind is a private community of innovative school leaders who meet weekly to grow, reflect, and disrupt the status quo. You can create the campus experience your staff and students deserve. Applications are now open and go to betterleadersbetterschools.com apply to put your application in.

  Transcribed by https://fireflies.ai/