188 Starting Therapy For Real

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Home From Atlanta And Gratitude

SPEAKER_00 0:13

What up, Doe, and welcome back to Um Growing Man. Shaman John D in the building. The family and I just returned from Atlanta to support my a good friend of mine's daughter. She graduated from high school. Congratulations, Amaya. It's pretty dope to get to watch these kids grow up. You know, they're going by so so it's going by so fast. I wanted to start by giving a shout out to Miss Peralee Redeemer. Rest in peace. She recently passed, and we will be celebrating her this week. I just wanted to make sure I gave her a

Therapy Setbacks And A New Plan

SPEAKER_00 0:50

shout-out. Oh yes, you know, I've been meaning to get back on here and try to give you guys an update on therapy. The first person I booked, he had 30 years of experience, was excited. He told me his secretary is going to reach out, never did. So I ended up getting another person that canceled on me. He sent me a message, like, pick another date. I picked another date and he canceled on me again. So my wife and I came to the conclusion maybe I need to have a female therapist. And when I the reason why the male therapist has been very difficult, because I need a therapist that has enough experience to be able to reel me in, because sometimes I could take over a conversation, especially when I think I know something, and I figured if I could get somebody with some experience, they could at least know uh where I was coming from and could help me uh fill in these gaps I'm looking for. But now I just recently booked a couple consultations and I'm looking forward to it as early as tomorrow. And really I just want to, I want to just like remove the gaps I have and have a better understanding so that I can respond accordingly. My life has been such a blessing that I just feel like as intentional as I've been, I need to at least try to fix those areas that I can't do by myself. So I'll start paying for some professional help and hopefully again fill in those gaps.

Family Background And Marriage Blind Spots

SPEAKER_00 2:23

You know, one thing was that when I thought about this, you know, I wasn't raised by a black woman. So the idea that I understand black women is is all is like for show. Like what my wife is showing me, or what I assume black women would be like. But growing up in, you know, with a mother that's Korean, it made it really difficult for me to understand so many things because my mother was really the breadwinner in the beginning, and she worked really long hours. So she wasn't even a mother in the household. She was really just going to work. We would see her one day a week, and on that day, she was making a lot of food, a lot of Korean food. But my mama worked her whole life really hard. And for me to get to know my wife, I think this will allow me to reduce some of the like discomfort I may cause. And I'm not saying I do at all, but I know that our relationship has still areas to improve, although we're really good in our relationship. But I want to continue to find those areas where we could we can experience different things because we've healed in areas that we didn't even know about because of my ignorance. So me going to therapy, uh specifically me choosing now a black woman with experience. Remember, experience is very important to me. I told my wife, I I would love a therapist who loves their job because I think that they could really help me. Now, if you're just going to work just to be getting paid, I don't know. But I'm not here for that. Like uh my principal told me that, you know, take your time, find the right one, and I will. Uh hopefully I can find them in the next couple of opportunities because I really want to get this part of my life started.

Summer School Leadership And Culture Work

SPEAKER_00 4:20

We have one week of school left, and I'm excited because we have a lot of days planned for the summer that we're gonna work on to get next year in order, and I think the preparation that she and I are gonna take to move forward with this school year is going to put our students in a better place. And I'm excited about, you know, how much I can grow this year in comparison from the beginning of this year to this point, I want to continue to grow. I'm going to seek innovative ways to inspire my teachers to push themselves to become better. There are so many different things in the classroom that we as educators can improve on, but it has to be on purpose. And if you don't prepare, it's really difficult to improve. And when you have students who are looking for structure and organization, if you are not on top of it, they could run you ragged and make you wonder, like, what am I doing? So as a leader in the building, I want to be able to put words together to give to my teachers so that their intent changes. And when I say intent, I mean like they look forward to putting in some extra hours on improving their craft. You know, uh working in a district that we work in, it was it was different for me because I've never heard educators talk so much about a contract. And my wife said, you know, the contract is to protect the educator, and I definitely believe that it does, but I think it sometimes it can limit the amount of work we can actually do over the contract because it's not in there sometimes. We only want to do what we want to do extra. When as an educator from my past experiences in all the districts, there are educators that went over and beyond their contract in all calls of duty. Like you don't have to, but if you want something to change, it will require that. And we have to be ready to to stretch a little more if we're going to change the outcome or trajectory for our students. You know, I really am excited about putting this work in so that all of my staff, when they come in in the fall, they can see the difference or the amount of work I put in so that we can have the best school year they have ever had. And that's what I want to do. This last week I'm excited. There's a lot of events going on, but overall, I'm just I want to get the students that are returning something to look forward to for the new school year. And so my last day is like maybe a week and a half after the kids. I'll be out for like a month and a half. But like I said, in that month and a half, she and I are going to meet several times, whether it's the school improvement team, the guided coalition team, working together so we can just get these schedules, like the calendar, like you know what's so crazy. I've never done this in my past with my uh principals. But I don't see how you can't do this because it's just so much in leadership to lead educators and students and meeting deadlines and trying to improve the overall culture of a building. It it just it requires so much more effort. And to be a part of this, I feel like these next two to four years are going to change a lot of people's lives. And I'm and I'm just I'm just happy to be a part of that.

Routine Reset And Body Transformation Goals

SPEAKER_00 8:14

So, this upcoming school year in the off-season, like I'm talking about, I am going to work on my routine. And my routine, I told you guys, I wake up at four in the morning. But what I want to do is incorporate a physical routine that that can get my body in the shape that I'm imagining. Now, I don't have a problem with putting the work in, but I just need to make sure that when I'm doing it, I'm going in there and I'm not wasting time because I literally have things I need to touch in order to feel like I was productive before I go to school or go to work. So this summer, you guys are gonna hear a lot about that because I intend on making a body transformation, continuing to monitor what I put in my body so that I can enjoy the delicious foods that mankind has spent so much wonderful time to create so that we could become addicted and make poor decisions. I'm just playing with you. But I do want to make sure that I am being responsible and taking care of my body. And I do want y'all to know, I I tell my students, you know, if they don't watch the podcast, I do have students to watch my podcast. They told me some of their parents were watching it. But I talk to my students one-on-one and talk about health practices. One thing that I can say, if I don't talk to them, I'm hoping that they're just gonna stumble across some kind of information and like grow. Like I think as educators, we have to do more than just like be present. Like we have to be intentional with our presence. The seed is so important. And I think a lot of times we don't know what's important as an educator. And the reason why I'm saying this,

Better Teaching Through Preparation And Intent

SPEAKER_00 10:00

I think before I learned how to control the culture of a room, I never learned the curriculum because I was a a career changer, but I never had a career. It's just that I ended up finding education, but I didn't go to school for it. But looking back, I never mastered the delivery of instruction or through learning the curriculum. And I think I now look, everything comes together. I didn't learn all of that because in my mind I was I was on a trajectory of that I was gonna move up. And I didn't take advantage of the practice that I had because in my I was already looking up. So I felt like if I just did what I was supposed to do, asked to do extra duties so and have conversations, try to find ways to improve my presentation of becoming administrator, that I didn't have to really learn how to teach. And I didn't realize the importance of that until I came back into the classroom in the last four or five years. And I hate that I didn't practice that because to deliver some instruction for somebody to be like, I get it, that is a different type of educator. And and and this is what I'm saying. Depending on your audience and how they receive it could determine how really good you are in your craft. And when I say that, I mean I've been in top-notch schools, I've been in struggling schools. And what I've noticed, the teachers that really plan their lessons, they have the least amount of classroom disturbances because they have learned to effectively manage their classroom. And when I say that, in order to get good at classroom management, you're you're you're so you should go look at all of your peers, find out what they're good at, and you take them all and you make them, put them in your bag. They all work. You just have to find what worked for you. Like, and and like I said, with you at the top or the bottom, I hear different complaints. When you're dealing with students that are pretty smart, you got to deal with parents who have these expectations, and then you have, you know, how mature they could be, and they could possibly challenge you because they believe they're so bright, and then you have students that don't care at all, and you're supposed to motivate them to get to this point, right? But as an educator, you have to figure out how to meet them where they are, not teach what you know, meet them where they are. And I don't think that we understand that. We believe that when we're at a grade level, those students have to get this curriculum and it has to be delivered this way. That's not meeting them where they are. And I think that's the part that we need to help educators because preparation is key. And if you don't prepare like for groups, uh independent word, peer, peer-to-peer lessons, U 101, U1 to groups, we have to, as educators, become more intentional in improving our craft. And I believe, I do believe this part. If your students can teach it, they know it. So I think that if we could get more interactive students in leading classroom lessons and teachers facilitating, just helping the uh the students. And not only this, this will help confidence. It will give other students an idea that they can do it because their peers are doing it. You are staying away from the front, the traditional look, your classroom is more engaging. Students feel like they can be closer to that by watching their peers versus watching you. And we all know that. Depending on the type of educator that's in front of you, it could be really boring or it could be really engaging. But as an educator, if you're not engaging, I don't believe you're stretching to become that impact that they need. Our students, and I mean all, our students need better educators. And that is the plan for me. I'm going to become a better administrator so that my teachers feel inspired to want to become better also. And at the same time, we could give this energy to our students because once they leave us, we want them to still continue to work that energy that we're trying to give them. We have to plant the seed. And even if we can't watch it grow, we have to believe that if we give them enough, they'll be able to help nourish their own seed.

Creativity Habits And Daily Self-Improvement

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Oh, yeah. I want to get back in the painting. I talked about this, I think, a couple episodes ago. Like, I really enjoy trying to create something. I really love podcasting. You know, when I go, when I have the opportunity to sit down with people and we have conversations about self-improvement or relationships, I feel I feel wonderful because I feel like those areas are constantly evolving into something better. Like, if you're not working on yourself, you're going to remain the same. And I think that if we can, if I can like put words together to inspire people to work on themselves every day intentionally, like write it down, like create a routine, and you check off the boxes after you finish. After so many days, you are going to see the person that you've become, whether it's physical, mental, spiritual, if you don't work on it, it can't get better. And I feel like if I keep working on, well, as I continue to work on communication, I will be able to put simple words together that I can give it to somebody and be like, I can do that too. And when you can do that for yourself, now I've said this over and over, your quality of life changes. When your quality of life changes for the better, you have energy to do more, whether it's for you or others. At the end of the day, the environment's getting a better version of you. So however you decide to spend your time, if it's productive, you will receive a benefit that only you can appreciate, but it has to be done by you. But I'm telling you, if you don't do it, you cannot, yeah, I guess you can. You can complain about everything. You know, I I've gotten to the point where I limit my complaining to if I can't work if I can't control it, I can't worry about it. So if I end up complaining, it's about something that I'm disappointed that I didn't recognize I should have done, or I want to make sure that it doesn't get, it doesn't repeat itself. I will say though, as I've gotten older, I have to write a lot of things down, or I will forget I need to do it. And and I don't think anything's wrong with that. It's just that I need to be more organized with making sure I'm working on these small things that I keep talking about. Like, so as I tell you guys, I do, I like I'm telling you, I have a root, a real routine, but I want to sharpen my routine where I can feel like I'm stretching myself because I think I have gotten very comfortable in it. I'm still learning, but the growth isn't as much. I just know if I keep working on it, it'll get better. But I am going to stretch myself this summer and come up with a super duper top-notch routine that by the return in August, this next school year will show so much growth in the students that we get to interact with because the work was put in.

Motivation To Be Great On Purpose

SPEAKER_00 17:40

So, those of you that's in this growth mindset that you're trying to find ways to improve, work on yourself. Every day. Like, as if your life depended on it. Because it's hard to get motivation if you really don't know how important you are. Like, really. I told you guys this. You are the most important person in the world. But it does not matter if you don't believe in it. Like, your family depends on you. I know that might sound like pressure, but just imagine if you actually fulfilled your destiny, you would look back and remember that you almost didn't get there because you didn't know how important you were. Now that will blow your mind for sure. Uh, y'all make today better than yesterday. Don't worry about anything you can't control. G A T A. Get after that action, or that action will get after you. Be great on purpose.