Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can’t. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds aren’t late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays. Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear that time is running out.
~Mitch Albom

Isn’t it amazing that animals just know that it is time to migrate across the world, and geese know how to fly in chevron flight to cheer each other on as they move through their phases and stages, a reminder that we are not alone in the passages of our time? No one checked their calendar and micromanaged them. The animals didn’t berate themselves that they weren’t fast enough, good enough or on time. Perhaps you’ve noticed that the light has changed, the air has changed, and we will soon be changing our clocks in our mortal crazy attempt to “capture” the sun and the moon and get a grip on time. I want to suggest a different way.

We ran ourselves into the ground at the school year’s beginning. Whatever lesson we learned from the pandemic to slow down, breathe deeper and reconnect more intentionally and with joy faded into the crazy business of school year beginnings.

Stop and take a breather. Life is a marathon run, and our breathing and timing patterns must be different from a sprint. We cannot burn out this early into the school year.

Time for a free float. For a walk in the woods without your watch. For turning your phone off when you are ready for bed. For setting some boundaries.

Time for an inner reminder to take care of yourself, give thanks, find joy, pour love into the universe and get some back from the world around you.

The ancient Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi reminds us that we are imperfect, that our lives and our projects are incomplete and that everything is impermanent. As a result, instead of measuring and foolishly trying to capture time, why don’t we become more present today because it will be gone when the sun sets.

Here’s to taking control of our time and to getting the most out of our one precious life.

~Fran

Reflecting on what really matters

How often do you unplug from your cell phone, iPad or computer? Try this. Practice lengthening the time you stay away from your devices. Start with 20 minutes, then 30, then an hour… What would happen if you went an entire day unplugged? Try it. Annie Lamott, author of one of my favorite books, “Bird by Bird,” says “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes. That includes you.”

Check your social media feedback app telling you how many hours you spend scrolling through FaceBook, Instagram or Twitter. Four hours and 20 minutes per day. Really? Replace that time with a nature walk, a trip to the gym followed by a steam or sauna, a museum outing or reading a book that has nothing to do with education. You were able to find the time to read about everyone else’s lives. You are a much better time investment than aimless scrolling.

Where do you spend your time?

How much time do you spend each day addressing tasks which suck the living daylights out of you? Attending aimless meetings? Being with snarky people? Managing tasks you dislike?

Compare that with how much time you spend in the company of people who put a smile on your face or activities that provide a sense of meaning. What about identifying the tasks which bring you joy? Compare the two pie charts of time analysis, and start planning how to alter your use of time.

Smiling (and sleep) matter

Given all the time we spend responding to emails, you might as well ensure that some put a smile on your face. Once a day, send an email of greeting to someone you admire or adore. They will respond. Viola! A smile has just occurred as you reconnect.

How much time do you devote to sleep? Make it more. The amazing thing about work is that it will still be there waiting for you the next day. That reminder phone call you feel the need to make at 10:30 PM will also wait. Everything will wait except the need to replenish yourself.

5 of My Favorite Quotes on Disconnecting:

“Putting my phone down and picking my life up.”
“Offline is the new luxury.”
“Posting less, doing more. Comparing less, reflecting more. Discussing less, accomplishing more.”
“Do things that make you forget to check your phone.”
“There is no Wi-Fi in the forest, but you’ll find a better connection.”

5 of My Favorite Quotes on Time:

“We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own ‘to do’ list.” – Michelle Obama
“If you want to have a high quality personal life, plan a high quality personal life.” – Peter Turla
“There’s only one thing more precious than our time and that’s who we spend it on.” – Leo Christopher
“Time is what we want most but what we use worst.” – William Penn
“I like to do weird things in the shower, like drink my coffee, brush my teeth and drink a smoothie. It’s good time management.” – Michelle Williams

The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.
Elie Wiesel

It never ceases to amaze me. It always happens like clockwork at this time of year. It’s the power of a double helix combining the new school year with the Jewish New Year (the High Holiday season of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) which occurs simultaneously. I notice more of a bounce in my step, a happier spirit, and extra energy. I am filled with hope and gratitude for this annual gift. Every year at this time we get a “Do Over”. How great is that? It’s a “Get out of Jail Free” card every year for every reflective soul, of which I am one.

At this time of year, we’re all invited to reflect upon the year that was and what we learned from it. We get to re-establish community, belonging and connection. We are thankful to G-d for every blessing that has come our way, and ask for forgiveness when we know we could have been an even better version of ourselves not only to others but to our own selves as well. Like the round Challah bread which is only served at the Jewish New Year to signify the circular nature of our years and our lives, coupled with the traditional tastes of apples and honey for a sweet new year, I embrace joy and hope. In this new year of 2021-2022 and the Jewish new year of 5782, how are you going to be a good person?

~ Fran

Holy days are not only about religion, they’re also about reflection. I offer you some prompts to reflect upon yourself to start the new school year on the right foot.

• How will you show up for other people? How will you manage your ego to step outside yourself into the needs and dreams of others in the spirit of selfless support?
• How will you plan to flourish and not just survive? After the last eighteen months from Pandemic hell, what will your proactive practices be that will ensure joy and fulfillment?
• How will you be compassionate to yourself when your own unkind demons kick in? What will your self-talk script sound like?
• When you get so busy being busy that you are too busy to make yourself a priority, what is your plan to put on the brakes, get off the hamster wheel and breathe?
• How can you take all of the gifts you have inherited from your ancestors and send them forward to others along the way?

5 of My Favorite Grounding Websites:

1. The Faith Matters Network (View)
   Equipping faith leaders, community organizers, and activists with resources for spiritual sustainability and more 
2. The On Being Project (View)
   Pursuing deep thinking and moral imagination, social courage and joy, to renew inner life, outer life, and life together.
3. The Mystic Soul Project (View)
   Helping cultivate and grow a new generation of BIPOC, LGBTQIA+ leaders and teachers of spiritual well-being. Building networks and resources for and by people of color.
4. The One Life Institute (View)
   A nine-month Christian gap year program for students who want to grow in their faith, experience genuine community, serve others, and travel while earning college credit.
5. Rooted in Resilience (View)
   A group of local advocates helped catalyze a movement for more equitable, resilient communities throughout the Bay Area and beyond.

5 of My Favorite Books for Hope and Joy:

1. Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl
2. Peripheral Visions, by Mary Catherine Bateson
3. I and Thou, by Martin Buber
4. A Guide to Rational Living, by Albert Ellis
5. Getting to Yes With Yourself, by William Ury

I’ve found that no matter what life throws at me, music softens the blow.

~Bryce Anderson

During the last sixteen months we have been walking on shaky ground. We have learned how to be more emotionally and organizationally agile by necessity. We have given up the illusion of control over most things, have faced our fears and, at times, the smallest version of ourselves.

Welcome to the preparation for a new school year that is based on healing, humility and compassion, starting with ourselves. As you proactively plan for your inner-stability and the emotional stability of your staff, faculty and students, think about the power of music. Music helps us to feel steady and safe. It provides joy and spirit. Selected music has the power to move us beyond the fear of uncertainty. 

Let’s become our largest selves, with a big brass band welcoming our students back to school; with music playing in the hallways during class changes, and as background music in the cafeteria. Systematically raise the metaphysical vibrations of your own energy through the power of music. Find yourself humming, singing and gaining energy to counteract the fear and uncertainty. I have provided links to songs and the words of quotes which will invite you to consider the power of music in your roll-out plans. Use music to embrace this new year with renewed hope and vigor. 

If all else fails, listen to the pep talk lyrics of “You Gotta Have Heart”, from the musical Damn Yankees. Below is a sampling of the lyrics or you can listen to the entire song here.

You gotta have heart
All you really need is heart
When the odds are saying you’ll never win
That’s when the grin should start
You gotta have hope
Mustn’t sit around and mope
Nothing’s half as bad as it may appear
Wait’ll next year and hope

So, let’s become strategic in changing our tune (pun intended) from last year to this one. It is definitely time to embrace “good vibrations”!

~ Fran

At Truesdell Middle School, “The Hustle” by Van McCoy and “I Feel Good” by James Brown can be heard in the halls encouraging students to get to class on time. The theme from Mission Impossible starts playing one minute before classes start to alert students to get moving.
 
At West Jordan High School in Utah, television theme songs from the 50s and 60s are the musical choices of principal Jennifer Sinclair. Theme songs from Gilligan’s Island to The Andy Griffith Show remind students that classes are starting soon.
 
Before the morning bell and after lunch, Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” can be heard resonating in the halls at Southeast High School Wichita. Faced with a tardiness problem, Principal Leroy Parks chose music to encourage students to get moving and go, go, go to class.

Benefits of Music in Schools

Studies have revealed that listening to music can do much more than encourage students to get to class on time. While there can be some initial challenges to integrating music into schools, studies have revealed that music can have a major impact on students (and teachers!). Playing music in the hallways, between classes, and in the classroom and lunch rooms not only promotes a positive, fun environment, it can benefit students by:

• Adding an element of fun leading to positive mood changes
• Helping children release tension while reducing feelings of anxiety and stress
• Helping motivate them to participate in class
• Giving their brain a break, allowing them to absorb more pieces of information 
• Enhancing the way children process language and speech
• Making it easier for children to understand the sound and meanings of new words

Integrating Music in Schools

• Use music to teach young kids lessons or rhymes in a musical way
• Play background music to welcome students as they enter the school
• Play uplifting songs in the halls between classes and after the lunch period
• Play music from a variety of genres in the hallways before first period – especially on late-start Mondays – and after the last period on Fridays 
• Place an old piano in the hallway or lobby which can be played whenever a student or teacher is available to play it

According to research by Johns Hopkins School of Education, regardless of the number of music integration techniques used, if the method is consistent, serves a purpose, and has appropriate tone for the intended environment, it will enhance the learning processes in your school (Brewer, 2012).

That’s music to my ears!

Music and Learning: Integrating Music in the Classroom, by Chris Boyd Brewer

5 of My Favorite Songs to Reframe, Heal and Bring Hope for a New School:

1. Rise Up, by Audra Day (View)
2. The Rising, by Bruce Springsteen (View)
3. Little Birds, by Bob Marley (View)
4. Oooh Child, by The Five Stairsteps (View)
5. I’m Still Standing, by Elton John (View)
   BONUS SONG BASED ON INDECISION:
6. Coming out of the Dark, by Gloria Estefan (View)

5 of My Favorite Music Quotes for Countering Pandemic Effects:

1. “Music brings us pleasure and releases our suffering. It can calm us down and pump us up. It can manage our pain, help us run faster, sleep better and be more productive.”
   ~Alex Doman, Author of Healing at the Speed of Sound
2. “Music has a healing power. It has the ability to take people out of themselves.” 
   ~ Elton John, Composer and Singer
3. “Music brings a warm glow to vision, thawing mind and muscle from their endless wintering.” 
   ~Haruki Murak, Writer
4. “Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace and abolishing strife.” 
   ~Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese Poet
5. “Music has real health benefits. It boosts dopamine, lowers cortisol and makes us feel great. Your brain is better on music.”
   ~Alex Doman, Author of Healing at the Speed of Sound

Slow down, you move too fast
You got to make the morning last
Just kicking down the cobblestones
Looking for fun and feelin’ groovy
Ba da da da da da da, feelin’ groovy
59th Street Bridge Song (“Feelin’ Groovy)
~Simon and Garfunkel

VERSUS

“and here I am
once again
alone at 2 am
drowning in love to give
knowing that the people
I want to swim with
Refuse to get in.”
~ Bridgett Devoue

If we have learned anything from this ebbing pandemic, I pray that we have learned to slow down, give up our “hustle culture”, and not equate our self-worth with the number of overtime hours worked and the hours of sleep we never got.

In case you are new to the concept, the Finery Report defines “Hustle Culture” as:

“A fast-paced environment that feeds off long working hours and a restless sense of striving for some type of goal.”

Hustle Culture repeatedly tells us that no one cares what we have done up until this point—that we just need to keep going.

Hustle Culture tells us that if only we work just a little bit harder, accomplish a little bit more, make even more of a difference, then we can finally be worthy.

Worthy of what, you ask?

Worthy of finally loving ourselves because we have done “enough.” Worthy of “proving our unforgiving inner voice wrong” with all of the things we have achieved.

Those of us who have linked self-worth to the hustle culture know that nothing we do is ever enough…

…no goal is ever big enough
…no quantity of money makes us feel secure
…no amount of “proving our inner-voice wrong” makes us feel like we made it in life

Thus, the never-ending hamster wheel of more, more, more is real. So is the constant story in our heads that we are simply not enough. Add a pandemic, and the hamster wheel we are on is out of control. That is precisely why the World Health Organization has named our mental health the number one health issue in the world. As the world starts looking familiar again, WE MUST SLOW DOWN…or risk cracking up.

Here’s to slowing down!
~Fran

These days, our roles are asking more from us while delivering less. And… we should feel grateful or guilty (or both).

The voice that says, “We should be grateful”
While we are giving more and more of ourselves, we are still supposed be:

• Grateful we didn’t grow up in the Great Depression or during the time of the Spanish Flu.
• Grateful that we have jobs to begin with.
• Grateful for our ability to fly the airplane while we are building it, and bear it all with a smile.

The voice that says, “We should feel guilty”
And then add guilt and a voice that shames us by saying:

• “It’s not that you don’t have the time; you just aren’t willing to make it.”
• “If you really cared about it, you would be doing it.”
• “Building your dreams takes a 25/8 type of work ethic.”
• No wonder so many people are depressed, exhausted, and too depleted to do anything but get through the day.

Hope is Coming
There is hope for all of us and our mental health.

• Hope in choosing to slow down and live more simply.
• Hope in analyzing our lives and asking ourselves over and over again, “What feels valuable to me today?”
• Hope in recognizing that we don’t have to prove ourselves and our worth to anyone—that we are inherently worthy just as we are.

Mental Health Matters
There is nothing more important than staying in good mental health. You can call in sick to protect your mental health. You can choose to do less, and slow down. You can go outside and feel the breeze on your skin. You can cook a meal while listening to your favorite playlist—or in complete silence. You can sit and stare at the ceiling if that helps calm your mind.

What you do is not who you are.

Here is your permission to no longer define yourself by your work or “Pandemic Progress”. We got out of bed. Hurray for us.

It ‘s summer. Lie on a hammock. Read a book. Learn to kayak, bike, hike, play tennis…or sit and do absolutely nothing because you want to. You are enough, and you have more than earned this break.

5 Favorite Reminders to Slow Down Once the School Year Starts:

1. Put a ping-pong table in the hall. Before you pass, play four volleys.
2. Create a “Deep Listening” corner. Talk to “Lucy” who will listen. (That’s a Charlie Brown reference.) Share your thoughts with no judgment, interrogation or someone’s need to fix you.
3. Bring in “Sigmund’s sofa” in the teacher’s lounge…lie down for a friendly five of nothing.
4. Schedule weekly registration for school sponsored yoga, meditation, or lunch time laps around the track.
5. Find a Secret Self-Care buddy and create a plan together to be accountable to take care of yourself.

5 Favorite Rest and Recuperation Quotes:

1. Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials. – Lin Yutang
2. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going fast, you also miss the sense of where you are going and why. – Eddie Cantor
3. The most important gifts you can give are your love, time, and attention. Slow down, take time to smile and enjoy loved ones. Life goes by way too fast. – Carla White
4. Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. – Robert Brault
5. Sometimes our stop-doing list needs to be bigger than our to-do list. – Patti Digh

Perhaps this might feel familiar to you.

When you wake up, do you know what day of the week it is? How about month and year? Are you aware of the weather? Do you remember why you walked into a room to retrieve something, and then stand in the room with no idea why you are there? Welcome to “Pandemic Brain”. 

Pandemic Brain is what happens when you have been in lockdown/COVID confinement for an average of fifteen months, binge watching Netflix until you glaze over, omitting any activity that could stimulate your brain, i.e. a visit to a museum. Add an undergirding of extended trauma and anxiety which ignites your amygdala and, just like that, your thinking brain shuts down. Our ability to focus and retain information has been diminished. Welcome to the pandemic world of “Digital Dementia”. 

Don’t get me wrong. There have been many positives which have come out of this pandemic. People have become more vulnerable, authentic and digitally connected. Conversations about mental health are now more common than ever before. In pre-pandemic times, these conversations were either hidden and hushed under a veil of shame or they didn’t take place at all. Another silver lining is increased family time within your particular “bubble” of safety. However, I am dedicating the June Newsletter to why so many of us have lost our marbles, how we can find them again, and the habits we need to practice during the summer to get our neuroplasticity back on track.

~Fran

Is your brain in hibernation mode?

If you have experienced a lack of stimulation (see bullets below) for an extended period of time, such as the past fifteen months of the pandemic, then your brain has migrated into hibernation mode. The only way to wake it up is to enroll in a metaphorical “Brain Training Boot Camp”, starting with this Newsletter.

Examples of putting your brain into hibernation mode:

• Not having an adventure to a place where you have never been
• Not experiencing an art museum in person where you have analyzed light, shadow, meaning and perspective among many different paintings
• Not having a sense of awe and wonder about anything (i.e., a sunset that takes your breath away)
• Not having adequate cardiovascular exercise

The Four Ds

It is going to take an intentional mental workout plan to strengthen your mental muscles, and fight back against the Four Ds. 

1. DIGITAL DELUGE
   You’re not imagining it. Every day your email inbox more than doubles with messages and thus it takes significantly more time and focus to read through each message to decide what’s important and what is junk. Effectively, we find ourselves on an endless hamster wheel trying to get ahead of the curve only to find ourselves buried under an email avalanche that demands our attention. 
   
   How many of you have bought books thinking you’d have all the time in the world to read, only to find them piled up in stacks collecting dust? Let’s call it “Shelf- help rather than self-help”. This digital deluge has prompted information fatigue, zoom fatigue, compassion fatigue and overwork fatigue. It’s no wonder we don’t know what day it is anymore. 

2. DIGITAL DISTRACTIONS
   Our ears are now trained to hear and delineate the difference between the infamous “ring, ding and ping”. It means that our ears are auditorily multitasking while our brains are clouded and on overload. Ring, ding and ping breaks our flow, mental momentum and what we were in the middle of, perhaps never to return again.
   
   There are specific ways to train your brain to focus and not get distracted: DO NOT start your day with answering emails, which represent other’s agendas; DO NOT peruse Twitter, Flipboard or Facebook. Your brain will become trained to be reactive, your own agenda more elusive and before you turn around, your morning has disappeared. Change up your routine by brushing your teeth with the opposite hand to keep you centered and paying attention to the task. Another challenge toward this end is to ask yourself and then write down what is most important to accomplish today. Nothing else gets your attention until it is completed. Full stop.

3. DIGITAL DEMENTIA 
   Memory is a muscle, and we either use it or we lose it. For example, ask me the most important phone numbers of my childhood. In a Nano-second, here they are: DE8-8725; RA1-0218; ES9-8135. These are the phone numbers of my grandmother, my favorite aunt, and my childhood home phone. But if you asked me about the phone numbers of each of my children, my father or my dearest friends? I have no idea. I’m clueless. Take a look at how you have experienced digital dementia. Do you use calculators for simple math that you could otherwise solve in your head? Do you memorize phone numbers with frequency or do you need to write numbers down immediately, lest they be forgotten? Along with our mental health, we need to work on our mental fitness.
   
4. DIGITAL DEDUCTION
   Lastly, consider the effects of digital deduction. (DDD). Our phones are doing the thinking for us. I need my cell for every person and connection in my life, including my children. Digital algorithms have robbed us of any impetus to think. Our memory is shrinking. Our retention is limited. Our depth of thought is becoming more shallow. Pushing and testing capacity is the only way to work this muscle. Be humble, uncomfortable, and stretch your mind!

5 of my Favorite Books to Jump Start your Mind:

1. Limitless: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life, by James Kwik
2. How to Make the Most of Your Mind, by Tony Buzan
3. Drawing on the Right Side of Your Brain, by Betty Edwards
4. The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking, by Roger L. Martin 
5. Unlimited Thinking: How to Improve Memory and Concentration in an Extraordinary Way, by James Blaze

5 of my Favorite Ways to Focus:

1. The Memorization Game: Find ten unrelated objects from your home. Put them on a tray or a plate. Stare at them for three minutes while memorizing them. Then move the tray out of sight. Write down every object from memory. Repeat this process every day with new and more numerous objects, or memorizing names in an audience or what is on your grocery list. Keep working your mind.
2. Synectics: Make connections through a direct analogy, the more the better. Based on creativity research, your most unique connections will usually happen after the eighth idea, so let them roll without judgment. “My life is like a circus because….” “The pandemic is like a blender because…” “My work is like a box of chocolates because…” “Apartheid is like a toaster oven because…” “Fear is like a cave because….”
3. Categorizing: Google a list of anything: headlines from a decade; song titles; famous actors; movie titles, etc. Reorganize them by category, and reconfigure your list. For example, use a list of movie actors and actresses. You can organize them under tall, short, handsome, ugly, never heard of them, saw them in bad movies, least famous, favorites, most memorable lines, won as Oscar… you come up with the categories and watch your brain expand.
4. Vocabulary Tic-Tac-Toe: Brain storm nine words from a favorite sport or hobby of yours. For example, if you like tennis try the following: love, lob, backhand, ace, break point, deuce, bye, advantage. Write each word on a single post-it note for a total of nine post-it notes, arranged like a tic-tac-toe board. Then link three of the words (vertically, horizontally, diagonally) and create a connections story that links the three words of your choice. You can also explain the words to a colleague and see who winds first!
5. Rebus Puzzles: Stretch your brain by getting out of a thinking box and go under it, over it, look sideways or backwards instead. Can you answer the Rebus puzzles below? Check out the Leadership Lessons newsletter online for more Rebus puzzle examples.

Want to try Rebus puzzles?

• Start with these easy Rebus puzzles. The answers are in the comments.
• See if you can decipher these harder Rebus puzzles. The answers are at the bottom.
• Really stretch your brain and try solving these hard Rebus puzzles from Reader’s Digest.

The answers to the 3 puzzles pictured above are: blackeye peas, minimize, and decide

The most incredible thing happened last week…

I already knew that I wanted to dedicate the May newsletter to “Digital Dementia” and what the pandemic and our world has done to our shrinking thinking capacity. Well, scratch that. I am saving that for next month.

Listener Poet

This month is dedicated to this amazing happenstance that I am about to describe. Picture this. I was exiting the hospital elevator after my 6-month medical checkup (everything is great, thank you!), turned the corner, and there it was. I stopped dead in my tracks. There was a table with a lovely lady and her little typewriter sitting behind it, and two signs on the table: “Tell us your story” and “Listener Poet”. You are invited to sit down, tell Jenny (the listener poet of the day) your story. She listens deeply and creates a poem from your story. I learned that she represents goodlistening.org, an organization which promotes good listening in hospitals to support patient safety, physician wellbeing, and nursing resilience. That’s all I needed to hear, and my mind was running at full speed.

I have been researching the concept of deep listening for years. I am currently working on a book and a course about this concept. I have identified the ways in which unmanaged egos, lack of empathy, narcissism and egocentrism derail this most important skill for connection and relationship building. In fact, unadulterated listening without judgment, only kindness and inquiry, is one of the greatest gifts each of us can give to one another. Deep listening, without a hidden agenda, a rebuttal or a debate, and just being open and present to whatever the speaker chooses to share is incredibly healing and a great blessing.

So, there I was, telling Jenny, the listener poet, about what was on my mind. That poor woman. She filled up a legal pad, and that was just from this week! She laughed, cried, had moments of incredulity, and said absolutely nothing in response. Zero. Not one word. She just took notes. As I ended my story, filled with tangents, improbabilities, pain, hope, embarrassment, humor and self-deprecation, she said, “Thank you. Do you have a specific subtopic you would like me to write about? If not, I will analyze the themes, and I will send you my poem shortly”.

That was it. Jenny is my new BFF.

~Fran

Implications of “Deep Listening” in the World of Education

Think about the primary and secondary effects of deep listening might have on administrators, teachers, students, and even yourself.

Providing Deep Listening

• What would happen if we promoted good listening to support administrator, teacher and student wellbeing?

• In what ways could you provide the gift of deep listening to others?

Managing our Ego and Withholding Judgment

• What might the secondary effects be when we learn to manage our own egos?
• What are the effects of withholding judgment of others?

Understanding Deep Listening

• What is it that deep listening provides which strengthens psychological safety and the willingness to trust?
• What are the key attributes of deep listening which makes us choose to be vulnerable, honest, honest and embrace our broken pieces as we share?

Receiving Deep Listening

• When have you received the gift of deep listening and what was its impact?
• If you deeply listened to yourself, what would your inner knowing tell you that you have been trying hard not to hear?

5 of my Favorite Books on Listening:

1. Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope for the Future by Margaret Wheatley
2. Listening Path: The Creative Art of Attention by Julia Cameron
3. Listening Well: The Art of Empathic Understanding by William Miller
4. The Listening Leader: Creating the Conditions for Equitable School Transformation by Shane Safir
5. You’re Not Listening: What you’re Missing and Why it Matters by Kate Murphy

5 of my Favorite Quotes on Listening:

1. “Listening is an art that requires attention over talent, spirit over ego, others over self.” – Dean Jackson
2. “Earn the right to be heard by listening to others. Seek to understand a situation before making judgments about it.” – John Maxwell
3. “Most people don’t listen to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” – Stephen Covey
4. “Sometimes all a person wants is an empathetic ear; all he or she needs is to talk it out. Just offering a listening ear and an understanding heart for his or her suffering can be a big comfort.” – Roy Bennett
5. “Deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of another person. You can call it compassionate listening. You listen with only one purpose: to help him or her to empty his heart.” – Tich Nhat Hanh