I have worked every summer of my life since I was eighteen years old. I was a camp counselor, educational director at an overnight camp, graduate student, university instructor, professional developer, or on a 12-month educational contract. There was no such thing as a summer off…until now. I am trying something totally new this summer. It’s called a “Summer Sabbatical!” I have no intention of making you jealous. It is just how opportunities presented themselves for this summer.

Within 80 days, my partner and I have been invited by a beloved friend to be on a Croatian cruise around the Adriatic. I’m stunned. And, for the second time, I’m raising money for Ukrainian refugees which includes riding my bike for 60 miles from Auschwitz to Krakow, Poland, supported by the Ride for the Living and the JCC Krakow. Since there is some time between getting off the cruise boat and showing up in Krakow ready to pedal, and since we have to change planes in Rome to get there anyway, you got it. We’ll be playing in Italy.

In July, I will be spending a week at our beach house entertaining a beloved friend, enjoying a family reunion at a resort in Carlsbad, California, and climbing mountains in Colorado Springs where my daughter and son-in-law just moved. In August I’ll be working, but it gets to be in Naples, Florida, the Cayman Islands, and Vilnius, Lithuania. I top off the summer both working and playing in Israel.

I am grateful that I get to see my family and hike some more. I am excited to be running, doing, sailing, hiking, biking, and just having fun without a deadline in sight. I will not be researching, writing books, or thinking academically. I want to see where my mind will wander and listen to what the universe has to tell me. I can’t do that when I am catching planes, racing to a zoom call, or writing a proposal.

Floating. What a concept. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I know that I am very blessed to have wonderful friends, family, and client schools in beautiful places which makes all this possible. I also know that the idea of a “summer sabbatical” is not dependent on getting your passport stamped and hopping on a plane. It can be in your backyard or embedded in a book you can’t put down.

What is your summer sabbatical plan? How will you push pause on your metaphorical treadmill and be still, deep in thought, or deep in laughter and appreciation? It’s food for the soul and we all need feeding.

Warmest regards,
Fran

Let these quotes inspire you to consider a summer sabbatical:

1. “Summertime. It was a song. It was a season. I wondered if that season would ever live inside of me.” ~ Benjamin Alire Sáenz
2. “And so, with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” ~ The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. “Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.” ~ Sam Keen
4. “Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” ~ Henry James
5. “I’d like to call back summertime, and have it stay another month or so.” ~ Joni Mitchell

Five books to enjoy for a summer sabbatical:

1. The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese
2. What Happened to You: Conversations about Trauma, Resilience and Healing, by Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce Perry
3. Hello Beautiful, by Ann Napolitano
4. The Boys from Biloxi, by John Grisham
5. The Wind Knows My Name, by Isabel Allende

Classic feel-good summer songs we all love:

1. Under the Boardwalk by the Drifters
2. Summer Breeze by Seals and Crofts
3. Urge for Going by Joni Mitchell
4. Hot Fun in the Summertime by Sly and the Family Stone
5. School’s Out by Alice Cooper

June, July, August 2023

June 1, 2023
Lead Team Leadership Training, Arlington Public Schools, VA
June 8, 2023
Principal Coaching, Arlington Public Schools, VA
June 10-14, 2023
Croatia, Cruise
June 24-27, 2023
Italy
June 27-July 3, 2023
Poland, Auschwitz to Krakow Ride for the Living
July 7-21, 2023
Beach, Lewes, Delaware
July 24, 2023
School Board Training, Louisville, KY
July 26-31, 2023
Family Reunion. Carlsbad, California
August 1-3, 2023
Teacher Leadership Training, Arlington Public Schools, VA
August 10-20, 2023
Cayman International School Organizational Development, Cayman Islands
August 22-28, 2023
AISV and VIS. Vilnius, Lithuania
August 29-Sept. 7, 2023
Hebrew University, Israel

My grandmother was a clothing designer. As a kid, I would envision outfits in my mind that I wanted to wear, sketch them, and then give my pictures to my grandmother. She would then take these ‘visions’ and cut patterns out of newspaper (the Philadelphia Inquirer to be exact) and sew entire wardrobes from what I had imagined in my mind. Sure, there were companies that made patterns of other peoples’ designs that you could buy, but that was cheating. Creating your own designs from your imagination was key.

I think about this invitation to imagine and create which I was raised with, and I generalize the skillset of visioning to all aspects of our lives. Imagine your own future, what you want to do for a living, the type of people you would like to spend your time with, and what you want to do with your time…the list of possible visions is endless. Stepping into pre-cut, pre-made ‘patterns’ is cheating, as my grandmother said. We are robbing ourselves of designing a perfect custom-made fit. Design your own way, path, and vision, and then receive my grandmother’s applause!

The old adage of ‘think outside the box’ is moot here. There is no box, so why spend any energy trying to crawl out of our own self-imposed design? It starts with visioning as well as with your end goal in mind— doing a task analysis and then studying the gap. At our ultimate earthly end, what do I want people to remember about how I lived my life and with whom. In our present lives, how far off is our current reality from our vision of what we hoped and wished it to be? If there is a big gap, then it’s time to get busy and take the steps to close it.

I believe that the idea of inventing and reinventing, of choosing to get lost on a totally new path and seeing where it leads you are some of the most important life skills that we need to address along our journey. Starting now, let’s strengthen our creativity muscle, and strengthen our mental elasticity and flexibility. Start making connections between unlike things building a broader mindset. These are unprecedented times. It’s time to think in unprecedented ways. That beings with visioning. Let’s consciously start now

~Fran

Go deeper into Visioning with these amazing books:

1. Your Life’s Purpose: Life Visioning Practices for Activating Your Highest Potential by Michael Beckwith 
2. Vision to Reality: How Short Term Massive Action Equals Long Term Maximum Results by Honoree Corder 
3. Purposeful Vision by Linton Bergsen 
4. Visioneering by Andrew Stanley 
5. Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams by Lucia Capacchione

Let these quotes be an inspiration to you:

1. “If you will it, it will be.” ~ Martin Buber
2. “The greatest danger for most of us is not that we aim too high and we miss it, but that we aim too low and we reach it.” ~ Michelangelo
3. “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” ~ Helen Keller
4. “If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.” ~ Steve Jobs
5. “A vision is not just a picture of what could be; it is an appeal to our better selves, a call to become something more.” ~ Rosabeth Moss Kanter

May 2023

May 1-5, 2023
Leadership Site Visits with Principals. Arlington Public Schools, VA
May 8, 2023
Senior Leadership Team Training. Arlington Public Schools, VA
May 9, 2023
AAIE Board of Trustees Meeting
May 10, 2023
Aspiring Principals Training. Virginia Beach City Public Schools, VA
May 11-12, 2023
Building Teacher Capacity. Arlington Public Schools, VA
May 15, 2023
Planning meetings for the design of school board retreats in Kentucky
May 18, 2023
Executive Coaching. Leadership Team. Arlington, Public Schools, VA
May 23, 2023
AAIE Communication Committee Meeting
May 24, 2023
School Board Retreat Facilitation. Bullet County, Kentucky
May 25-26, 2023
Executive Coaching. Leadership Team. Arlington, Public Schools, VA

My brand new, bad-ass son-in-law is a Green Beret in the U.S. Army, and he never ceases to amaze me. I marvel at his unshakable self-trust and inner core which never wavers. He has an invincible and humble sense of self and a belief in his own competence and in the competence of his team. He knows he is extraordinarily trained and he carries himself with a quiet self-trust and confidence in his capabilities. It is really something to behold.

No, I do not want to become a Green Beret. But I do want more of my son-in-law’s quiet appreciation of his own competence and unshakable belief in his great capacities.

Short of a self-imposed mental and physical boot camp, I wonder about how we can all expand these traits within ourselves and in those around us. Wouldn’t it be something if we could ‘boss’ our nervousness rather than our nervousness running the show, or embracing and managing our fear to take on a daunting challenge? I am certain that when a teacher deeply believes in their own competence, it becomes irrelevant if an administrator observes them or not. They provide their own self-talk like, “Aren’t I something? I cut off a problem before it became one,” or “I moved mountains today, yay me.” And more so, “I deeply know that I expanded capacity in this person,” or “I knowingly eased someone’s pain,” or “I deeply listened to hear someone correctly.”

There is no limit to how many times we can be in dialogue with ourselves with a spirit of quiet appreciation. Imagine your own two-way internal conversation where you can simply say, “Hurray. I did it!”

~Fran

Reflect on these 5 questions on belief in your confidence:

1. What are some favorite skills about yourself which you carry with you wherever you go?
2. What was a very hard task that you weren’t sure you could manage and you succeeded in the process?
3. What do you do and how do you respond when you receive a sincere compliment about your competence?
4. What do you want to ‘get smarter’ about within your own repertoire of skills?
5. What do you savor about yourself?

Let these quotes be an inspiration to you:

1. “Trust is a function of two things: character and competence. Character includes your integrity, your motive, and your intent with people. Competence includes your capabilities, your skills, and your track record. Both are vital.” – Stephen Covey
   
2. “Competence means keeping your head in a crisis, sticking with a task even when it seems hopeless, and improvising good solutions to tough problems when every second counts. It encompasses ingenuity, determination, and being prepared for anything.” – Chris Hadfield
   
3. “Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age. And let the chips fall where they may.” – Jon Stewart
   
4. “…true self-esteem comes from competence, not the other way around.” – Susan Cain
   
5. “The five Cs of expanding your capacity” – Sheila Heen
   • Build your confidence
   • Expand your connections
   • Improve your competence
   • Strengthen your character. If character is not strengthening your capacity is weakening. We need to check our leadership for leaks.
   • Increase your commitment”

April 2023

April 3, 2023
Meeting with S.C.O.P.E. – planning
April 4, 2023
AAIE Governance meeting
April 5-7, 2023
Passover Seders
April 10, 2023
Board training planning; Bullitt County Public Schools, Kentucky
April 13-14, 2023
Leadership site visits; Arlington, Public Schools, Virginia
April 17, 2023
Leadership site visits; Arlington, Public Schools, Virginia
April 18- 19, 2023
Principals Training; Arlington Public Schools, Virginia
April 20-21, 2023
Leadership site visits; Arlington, Public Schools, Virginia
April 25-26, 2023
Leadership Coaching; North Little Rock Schools, Arkansas

The war against Ukraine has passed the one year mark this week, and I take it very personally. All four of my grandparents are from Zhitomir, a town just outside of Lviv, and I ache for every missile explosion and destroyed city. And then there’s a new prime minister in the Middle East intent on taking down democracy for his personal gain; a military coup that’s been ongoing for fourteen months in Sudan; and 47,000 people and counting who lost their lives from a massive earthquake in Turkey and Syria. The tumult of this world assaults my grounding and takes up space in my heart and mind. Thus, I dedicate this month’s newsletter to something that goes far beyond the concept of self-care. I’m talking about self-sanity here.

I recently attended an international conference and began interviewing friends and colleagues from around the world on what they do to stay grounded when surrounded by people and geography who are decidedly not. Here’s what they told me. To get his stress out, Paul B. literally knocks down walls on a home he is renovating. Ted M. shuts down his computer and walks his dog. Rachel sings and Peter does yoga every morning and stops to appreciate the sameness of his morning bowl of oatmeal. The methods went on and on … to intentionally find moments of magic and to pay attention to sunrises and sunsets.

My colleagues suggest listening to music and surrounding themselves with great art; to choose to spend quality time with only people who are good for you, and to find a mountain to hike and birds to watch. They often rerun mental movies in their mind of moments in time that they will always savor.

Our grounding and sanity are a conscious, intentional inner journey and a full-time job which requires our focus and attention. Standing on a globe and with people who are more on tilt than ever, we need to take every form of nourishment seriously. And, as the world heats up and the polar ice cap melts down, remember that we don’t have to. Let’s reconnect and breathe. Lightening the burden of this world begins with us. Let’s get moving.

~Fran

Reflect on these 10 questions on strengthening your grounding:

1. Which works of art have moved you or touched you in some way?
2. What poem makes you stop and marvel at the author’s word choice and artistry?
3. What song makes you want to sing along?
4. When have you been consciously inspired?
5. Which friend do you call who never fails to bring you joy?
6. What are your top three things to do? How soon can you do them?
7. What can you schedule this month that you will actively look forward to?
8. Who can you call who you love and haven’t spoken to in a while?
9. What is your favorite meal? When can you go and order it or make it at home?
10. Envision the faces of people who you love in this world and thank the universe for them.

Let these quotes be an inspiration to you:

1. “In order to deal with the chaos that exists in the world today, you need some grounding. That grounding best comes from knowing who you are.” ~Michael Ray
2. “My heritage has been my grounding, and it has brought me peace.” ~Maureen O’Hara
3. “All the world’s major religions, with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness, can and do promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I believe the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.” ~Dalai Lama
4. “One of the great exercises you can do is to stop and acknowledge the colors around you… If you’re constantly distracting yourself, then you’re never really experiencing anything fully. It can cause you to feel like you have no center, like nothing is grounding you.” ~Sheryl Crow
5. “My best sources of grounding are animals and nature. Animals live more in the moment and don’t worry so much! And nature is proof of a greater power than me. Both put things in perspective, or at least gently move us forward.” ~Kristin Bauer van Straiten

March 2023

March 1, 2023
Executive Coaching. North Little Rock Public Schools, Arkansas
March 2, 2023
Leadership Site Visits. Arlington Public Schools, Virginia
March 3, 2023
Women in Leadership Training, Indiana Association of School Superintendents, Indianapolis, Indiana
March 6, 2023
My newly married daughter’s birthday! Party time.
March 7, 2023
Advanced Communication Strategies for Leaders, ECIS, London, UK
March 8, 2023
Aspiring Leadership Training Virginia Beach City Public Schools, VA
March 9, 2023
Leadership Site Visits, Arlington Public Schools, Virginia
March 10, 2023
Leadership Site Visits, Arlington Public Schools, Virginia
March 13, 2023
Leadership Site Visits, Arlington Public Schools, Virginia
March 15-19, 2023
CEESA Conference, Keynote speaker and workshop. Vilnius, Lithuania
March 19-24, 2023
Site Visits to international school, Paris, France
March 27-31, 2023
Executive Coaching and Leadership Training, North Little Rock, AK

It’s February, and Valentine’s Day is around the corner. I am still recuperating from my daughter’s wedding, and it was one big loved up event. And I have been thinking a lot about love since the wedding. Yes, there is romantic love, filial love, and even love that is borne from the work you adore … and there is love as self-respect as well. The purpose of this newsletter is to talk about self-love and why it must be the foundation for any leader to be effective in their work.

Let’s unpack self-love. It’s a noun that means regard for one’s own well-being and happiness. It also means a state of appreciation for oneself that grows from actions that support our physical, psychological, and spiritual growth. So how do you love and nourish yourself? Your great skills? The parts of you that you may wish you didn’t have, but what contributes to your realness, vulnerability, and empathy for others? How do you be your own best wingman whom you trust in a crisis, and who will always serve you well?

Stephen Stills’ song lyric, “Love the one you’re with,” goes only so far and I would add, “begin with yourself.” When thirty psychologists were interviewed to discuss why self-love is so important, their responses included comments such as, we can finally examine those parts of us we may deem unlovable and honor and accept them, whether we like, want, or support them so we can create space and awareness for love to flow to all parts of ourselves for compassion, healing, and growth. We can look after ourselves like someone we would care for, that we are someone who deserves to be taken care of.

This all starts within us, way before self-care. When we work with the deepest layers of forgiveness, compassion, acceptance, and healing, that’s when quantum leaps forward in health and happiness occur almost effortlessly. Once you let your true self lead, you can make the contribution to the world that only you can make. It’s a sacred daily ritual that evolves as you evolve and in the process transforms your world and the people you lead.

~ Fran

Reflection questions on self-love to ponder:

1. What gets in your way when practicing self-love?
2. What script could you read to yourself which describes what you value about yourself, provides forgiveness and acceptance toward what is hard to embrace about yourself, and reminds you that you have great capacity?
3. What does self-love look like in your daily life?
4. How do you invite the people around you to consider the concept of self-love?
5. How does self-love manifest itself in your leadership?

Powerful self-love quotes to inspire you:

1.  “We are unlikely to accept a relationship that is worse than the one we have with ourselves, and thus the person who is happy and comfortable with themselves is in a great position. The person with healthy self-esteem doesn’t have to jump into any relationship because they already have a great one wherever they go.” – James Clear
2. “Self-love is not selfish. It’s the best thing you can do for the people you care about.” – Mary Ellen Ciganovich
3. “I truly believe that self-love inspires selfless love.” – Keishorne Scott
4. “It is only when we are able to accept all of ourselves that we can begin to truly consider whole self-love.” – Shannon Worley   
5. “Self-love empowers you to claim your wholeness and worth because it fuels authenticity over perfection.” – Melody Godfred

February 2023

February 2, 2023
Leadership Coaching and Site visits. Arlington Public Schools, Virginia

February 3, 2023
Planning Meeting. The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC.

February 6-10, 2023
AAIE Annual Leadership Conference. Leadership presentations and Board of Trustees Meeting, Washington, DC.

February 13, 2023
Leadership Coaching and Site visits. Arlington Public Schools, Virginia

February 14, 2023
ECIS Advanced Communication Skills for Experienced Leaders. Part One. Virtual.

February 16-17, 2023
Leadership Training and Coaching. North Little Rock Public Schools. AK

February 21, 2023
ECIS Advanced Communication Skills for Experienced Leaders. Part Two. Virtual.

February 22, 2023
Aspiring Principals Training. Virginia Beach City Public Schools, VA

February 23-26, 2023
Self-love in Key West! Hello sunshine.

February 27-28, 2023
Principals Leadership Training. Arlington, Public Schools, VA

When I saw Michelle Obama discussing her new book on her book tour in Washington, DC last month, she got me thinking, “Where and what is the light that we carry within us?” I’ve posed that question to myself ever since her talk. This newsletter will share my conclusions.

I am thinking about a room filled with a group of women superintendents with whom I worked a few months ago. Only a few of them could answer the reflective prompt, “In what areas of leadership do you believe you have great competence?” Many didn’t believe in themselves because they gave in to fear, and they lacked self-trust to do really hard things … like lead through a pandemic. To find our light means that we have an opportunity to decode fear, analyze it, challenge it, talk to it, embrace it as a known entity that will not bring you down. That is a real skill which we can study and embrace.

Our light also invites us to celebrate, enjoy, and see as a gift that each of us can shine our own light on everyone around us. That means we get to have a little celebration every time we see someone we love. We light up and share our love with them. It means we embrace the fact that we can make every person feel seen and valued. We have that power and that gift. Why wouldn’t we use that gift to make someone else’s day better?

Self-trust to counteract fear also means that we invest in the growing of our own competence. The strongest, best version of competence is a humble, rock-solid belief in yourself. Belief in our own competence means that we truly know that we can figure out the challenge, we know who to call when we are stumped, we know that we can do hard things and not melt, and we know that there is an opportunity at hand to strengthen that self-trust and be grateful for it. Our inner strengthening only comes with taking on huge feats and challenges even when we were unsure of the outcome. Clearly, it does not come from playing it safe.

We are poised at the top of the new year, 2023. Let’s celebrate our own light and shine that light on everyone in our midst all year long. Imagine what a joyous year this can be.

~ Fran

Find your light with these reflective questions:

1. Am I safe? What is at risk? Can I afford to make my world a little bigger by embracing something new? 
2. Am I afraid because I am in actual danger, or is it simply because I’m staring newness in the face? 
3. In what ways have my hurts turned into my fears? How have my fears turned into my limits? Can I afford to make my world a little bigger?” 
4. Do I belong? What do others think of me? Am I seen? Do I celebrate myself and what I bring to the table? 
5. Whose rules am I playing by? How guarded should I be? How assertive? How real?

Love these quotes about finding our light!

1. “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” – John Fitzgerald Kennedy 
2. “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”  – Nelson Mandela 
3. “I see your fear, and it’s big, I also see your courage, and it’s bigger, we can do hard things.”  – Glennon Doyle 
4. “We are each other’s harvest. We are each other’s business. We are each other’s magnitude and bond.”  – Gwendolyn Brooks 
5. “The stories of past courage … can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this, each man must look into his own soul.”  – John Fitzgerald Kennedy

These are five of my favorite books on about finding our light:

1. Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World by Dr. Vivek Murthy 
2. The Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell 
3. Becoming by Michelle Obama 
4. The Light We Carry: Overcoming In Uncertain Times by Michelle Obama 
5. Nerve: Adventure in the Science of Fear by Eva Holland

January 2023

January 3-5, 2023
Leadership Coaching, North Little Rock, Arkansas
January 9-11, 2023:
Principal Leadership Training, Arlington, VA
January12, 2023:
Aspiring Principals Training, Virginia Beach, VA
January 13, 2023
Principal Leadership Training, Arlington, VA
January 18-20, 2923
Leadership Coaching. North Little Rock, Arkansas
January 25 and 26, 2023
School Culture Facilitation, Bavarian International School, Munich, Germany
January 30 and 31, 2023
Leadership Coaching, North Little Rock, Arkansas