Leadership - Am I Enough? My #OneWord, 1 of 3

Am I enough? I can't tell you how many times I ask myself that question.

To some, yes. To others, no.

As a leader, I sometimes struggle with the Imposter Syndrome. The imposter syndrome as defined by Ryan Holiday in his book Stillness is the Key is "nagging, endless anxiety that you're not qualified for what you're doing - and you're about to be found out for it" (p.70). Sheesh!

It was around New Year's while I was reading Stillness is the Key; it was also around this time when people were sharing their One Word. My word, which I'm just now getting around to sharing (late-February), was inspired by what Holiday had to say about how we combat the imposter syndrome. Confidence. Confidence is my word in 2020.

• "Confident people know what matters. They know when to ignore other people's opinions...

• ...Confidence is the freedom to set your own standards and unshackle yourself from the need to prove yourself." (p.72)

• "But confident people are open, reflective, and able to see themselves without blinders. All this makes for stillness, by removing unnecessary conflict and uncertainty and resentment." (p.72/73)

• "Confidence is what determines whether this will be a source of anguish or an enjoyable challenge." (p.73)

*This is the first of a brief, three part series that I've written to share some of my thoughts on leadership and confidence, my #OneWord in 2020.

My Musings about Email Pt.2

This is the second of two posts that I've written to share my musings about email (Part 1 is linked here). While the majority of the first post centered around receiving email, this second post will focus on some tips and tricks for sending email. Here they are; take them for what they're worth, though, they're purely based off of my experiences with email.

Punctuation - use it sparingly; standard punctuation rules apply to email, too.

Fonts - the companies that provide email service, in my opinion, they have a pretty good idea of what they're doing. The standard fonts that they are using are probably a pretty safe bet.

Bullets, bold, and other text features - use these things with caution; if everything is in bold, you might as well have nothing in bold.

Long paragraphs - avoid them at all costs.

Multiple long paragraphs - definitely avoid them at all costs...if you want people to read what you have to say.

One action item per email - the likelihood that the action item is accomplished will significantly increase if it is limited to one item.

Not for dialogue - no one has time for this. Pick-up the phone - call or text - or find the person to have the conversation in real time.

Not for delivering bad news - again, pick-up the phone, go find the person, talk to them. No one wants to be delivered bad news, have questions that they want answered, but have to wait for a response. Furthermore, the tone in which an email is read is too open for interpretation; so be careful, be very careful. Plus, think about the time that we spend drafting emails that we are apprehensive about sending; think about how much time we'd save by opting for a conversation, think about how much time we'd have to do other worthwhile things.

Don't let your feelings dictate your response - receive an email that causes you anger and/or gives you feelings of anxiety, walk away from it. I caution you to hesitate with your response via your initial reaction right away. Give yourself time to reflect and make sure that your head is in a good place before responding. I can't tell you how many times I've drafted emails only to send them to myself as opposed to the intended audience. While my response might make me feel good, I know that in the long run it is unlikely to do the situation any good. Like I said in my previous post, I'd rather respond well than respond quickly.

“The email you think you need so desperately to respond to can wait.” 

- Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key, p.225

While this post may seem to be another post about email, it is really about mindfulness and self-care. Recently, I started reading Sakyong Mipham's book, Running with the Mind of Meditation. I was astounded by the coincidence of my finding the following quote while drafting this post.

"When we become overwhelmed by longer hours at work, more e-mails, or more parenting duties, we become more irritable, moody, or unhappy. It doesn't occur to us that our mind is out of shape. We put more stress on ourselves because we assume we should just be able to handle it all." p.24

Take care of yourself. Self care isn’t selfish. As educators, our job is to take care of others. But we can’t care for others, if we haven’t first cared for our self. We can’t pour from an empty cup. Self-care matters. You deserve it.

My Musings about Email Pt.1

As a form of communication, email as we know it has been around since the early part of the 1970s. Its popularity skyrocketed during my childhood in the mid 1990s, and it's usage has never looked back. Currently, according to Radicati, the number of active email users is approximately 3.9 billion. And those 3.9 billion emailers are sending over 245 billion emails, each day. That equates to the average American worker receiving an average of 126 emails per day. Wow!

"Email Usage Statistics in 2019." Campaign Monitor, July 11, 2019, https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/2019/07/email-usage-statistics-in-2019/.

I am willing to admit that the inbox of my email can cause me anxiety. And I'm guessing that I'm not the only one. I'd imagine that other people dread their inbox the same way that I do. So while this post may seem to be one about email, it is really about mindfulness and self-care.

So how can we navigate through our emails? This is the first of two posts that I've written to share my musings about email. I have some ideas and tips to share will hopefully will help anyone who has to both send and receive emails.

I want to start with a passage from Ryan Holiday's book, The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living.

“We check our email because it’s part of our job, and soon enough we feel the phantom buzz of the phone in our pocket every few seconds. Soon enough, these harmless habits are running our lives.” p.16

Who can relate to those words? I do. And as much as I love Apple and all of the products that they create, I feel as though they (and the other companies that make similar products) are at least partly to blame for allowing email to run our lives. I have an iPhone, I wear an Apple watch, I'm always accessible.

Nonetheless, I've done things to shield myself from this reality. A game changing conversation at the National Principals Conference in Philadelphia, 2017 (with friends Danny Bauer, Hamish Brewer, Andy Jacks, Nick Proud and Todd Schmidt) about strategies to employ such as turning-off notifications on your phone, putting your phone on airplane mode, and hiding apps within folders to name a few. These are things that we need to do for our own mental wellness.

I remember being a first year principal and how great it was to be given an iPad that I could take with me as I maneuvered through the school. Two birds and one stone. I was able to do the work that mattered, be in classrooms visiting with students and teachers, while having access to receiving and responding to email as it arrived. Inbox Zero was always my goal. But there's a problem with striving for Inbox Zero; as soon as you get you reach Inbox Zero it is only a matter of time before you will receive a new email. Email never stops (more on that in a couple of paragraphs).

I've changed in the sense that I've had to become okay without striving for Inbox Zero. I now try to carve-out time that I can read and respond to emails. While some emails only need a simple response, others require a more thoughtful reply; I'd rather respond well than respond quickly. As a general rule, I try to respond to email within 24 hours. And just because email is easier, or at least more convenient, it doesn't meant that it's the best form of communication. If/when possible, talk to the person; always.

So email never stops. Okay, true. But as individuals, we can slow it down. While I may draft emails and responses to emails at night and over the weekend, I try to refrain from sending emails during those times; I want to be respectful of people's time for self, family, and friends.

As I start to wrap this up, I'll share another quote from Ryan Holiday, this time from his book Stillness is the Key.

“As a general, Napoleon made it his habit to delay responding to the mail. His secretary was instructed to wait three weeks before opening any correspondence. When he finally did hear what was in a letter, Napoleon loved to note how many supposedly “important” issues had simply resolved themselves and no longer required a reply.
He had to be selective about who and what kind of information got access to his brain.” p.30

I wrote the following words for a previous post that I shared via NAESP's Principal magazine, but I'll remind you, "A mentor once told me that there is rarely an educational emergency." You shouldn't expect email to be instantaneous, it isn't going anywhere.

I hope that at least some of this resonates with you. While the majority of this post centers around receiving email, I'll focus on some tips and tricks for sending email in the follow-up that I have drafted. And since you've made it this far with this first post, I hope that you'll consider coming back to read the next one.