Are You Heading in the Right Direction?
Ever see the movie, Planes, Trains and Automobiles with Steve Martin and John Candy?
I love the scene where they are heading down the highway and everyone is beeping at them and yelling...you're going the wrong way...
It's more funny to see it (watch it here) 2 minutes
The sad part is...this just happened to me the other day.
I have a lot going on right now...my mind is cluttered with emotions and tasks at hand.
I was trying to get back to my school when suddenly I realized, I was going the wrong way. Not the wrong way on a road (like the classic scene). The opposite direction of my school.
This is probably why I constantly use my GPS on my phone. 
In order to get from one point to another I need to know:
1. Where I am.
2. Where I am going.
If I get off track, the GPS will adjust my route.
Wouldn't that be great to have as a school leader?
Do you ever wonder.....
How to build a GPS for your school leadership.
How to measure where you are and...
Goal Setting Mistake (Requiring to Know HOW)
Hello {{first_name}},
Nine years ago today I earned the right to turn the tassel, earning my Doctorate in Education Leadership!
When this picture was taken I was still a middle school director of a very successful rural charter school.
I did not know that a few weeks after I would get recruited by the NC Department of Public Instruction Office of Charter Schools to assist the growth of public charter schools as the Legislation just eliminated the 100 school cap.
I did not know HOW to write a charter application let alone lead the process that would evaluate over 250 applications that resulted in the opening over 50 charter schools in the following three years.
I did not know HOW to support and prepare charter school leaders opening their school from scratch. But I did.
When I quit that government job to start my own business supporting school leaders in growing themselves and their schools, I did not know HOW to start a business.
I did not know ANYTHING!...
Finding Your Focus
Finding your focus can often be a challenge when you’re in a leadership position, but is a necessary attribute as agreed by many. In HBO’s documentary Becoming Warren Buffett, there’s a scene that explores Buffet’s friendship with fellow billionaire, Bill Gates, during a dinner party hosted by Gates’ mother. She asks guests to identify what they believe attributed to their success in life. Gates and Buffett shared the same one-word answer: Focus.
In school leadership, finding your focus can be a challenge when other people are always vying for your time and attention. Take fire drills for example. Fire drills, though necessary, can always serve as an opportunity for someone who “just needs a few minutes of your time. “ It’s easy to get sucked into the vortex of somebody else’s priorities and lose focus, especially when the scheduler is an upset child or parent. However, just because it’s easy to lose focus, it doesn’t...
Fall In Love With Your 2020 Goal
This is one of those topics that I could write about all day every day. Goal setting, goal achieving, goals goals goals!
We all have goals. Each and every one of us.
Some of us think we gave up a long time ago and don’t have any but we do. Every day we wake up with the goal to live another day. Ok, maybe that is a stretch but don’t we all have goals to some extent? And why is it so important to have goals?
The most successful people on this planet didn’t wake up one day with an idea and a few minutes later after they got dressed became successful… No way. They had an idea and they developed a plan. Within that plan there were goals – some big, some little – some attainable, some way out there.
And each day, they worked at it – chipping away, having triumphs and failures along the way but tweaking and re-evaluating and working toward goals. Goals!
We have had goals from the day we were...
