Striving, Thriving, and Making an Impact with Dr. Joy Karavedas

What's going on everybody? I hope this finds you striving and thriving and doing absolutely amazing. My name is Brian Martin. I'm a second grade teacher and host of the teaching champions podcast. And today we're joined by Dr. Joy Kara VITAS, she has 25 plus years of executive level leadership in independent schools and nonprofits. She holds a doctorate in organizational leadership and she teaches courses at the bachelor masters level. She's an author, consultant and coach. And before we dive into this amazing conversation, I just want to share with you an awesome opportunity from Kyle Hill and the recharge add family. Hey, education heroes, this is Kyle Hill founder the recharged family and host of the exhausted educators recharged podcast, I want to tell you about something amazing that's happening this summer called the recharge family back to school virtual bash. Our recharge family team is working to put together over 50 workshops provided by educational leaders from across multiple continents. The idea here is that we're all working together to help you and educators everywhere get ready for the new school year in the amazing feature of all this is it's all going to be video recorded workshops. You can watch them all year long. registration opens up on July 1. And as long as you register before August 1, you'll get everything for 10 bucks, you can register and recharge family.com That's recharged family.com. I'm so grateful to be part of this event. And I just can't wait to check out some of the sessions put on by some absolute rock stars. Now let's get into this conversation. And I want you to listen as Dr. Kerry VITAS talks about what the best influencers do. Listen, as she talks about the power of reflection, why it's important to identify our strengths and weaknesses. Why we should be asking where we can make our biggest impact. And so many ways that we can strive and thrive in the year to come. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. I am super excited for this episode. We have an amazing guests with us today. We are so lucky to be joined by Dr. Joy Kerr VITAS Dr. Joy welcome my friend. Thank you, Brian, glad to be here. Yes, this is gonna be an awesome interview. I'm super pumped after reading your book that's just come out. Can you share with the listeners a little bit about your story? Yeah, my story is actually written a lot of that is in that new books, from striving to thriving. I have been in leadership and executive leadership positions with primarily with nonprofits and private educational institutions and others for quite a little while, over 20 years of that journey. And I think that what you're going to read in that book, and then also just a little bit about myself, is how I've kind of progressed through that process from trying to make things happen, trying to figure out why, you know, what's going on here? How do I get from entry level to the next level to the next level? And what does that look like? And I think we all kind of have our own type of a leadership journey. I will say specifically, I received my doctorate in 2019. And that was a large moment for me. And that at that point, I thought, Well, great. This is the end of the journey. We've all been told, you know, education and do this. And I don't know if how many of your listeners have received a doctorate. But there's a lot of you're the expert and you know all of this, this is your, your research and your information. So I left my program with, you know, degree in hand thinking I'm the expert, and the world would be open and it really just wasn't. It was kind of Oh, really. So I realized there were still a lot of things even though I've been doing this leadership for quite a while I've been on this journey for quite a while there are a lot of things I had to bring together and internalize and to really understand my own value, my own style of leadership, my own influence and impact that I can bring to this to my journey. And once I was able to walk through that do a lot of the internal work. I was able to learn some practices and tips that I now bring actually when I coach others and a lot of those came out of those kinds of coaching myself. Oh minutes, and then turn those into coaching others as we, as they're on their same kind of a journey as well. That's excellent when I was reading your book, from striving to thriving so much that was popping into my head, like, what you're talking about your journey, and how that comes into the classroom sometimes, because one thing, and I've had so many conversations with my friends who are teachers, as well, sometimes we get lost in the fact when we talk about leadership. And we think that leadership is only like the assistant principal, the principal, but teaching is unique, because every single classroom, you're in charge. And it's basically like you're the leader of that space. One of the things I do talk about a lot is that leadership happens at all levels, it's really not about the position or the title, or you know, how much you're getting paid. It's really more about your influence and your impact. And we all have influence and impact. And whether you're in an administrative role, or your teacher role you to examine the work and that influence around you, and who is it that you're leading, I think can be a large part of understanding your own leadership, I, we tend to sometimes just look at that positions, and I in education, especially because we get a us versus them. You're the admin, you're the leader, we're the Teachers, this is our role. And I think if we look at that a little bit differently, and take that responsibility for No, I am also a leader, I'm a leader within my classroom, I have these 1520 30 young minds in front of me that are saying, Teach me Tell me, and we certainly have leadership there. But I also think that we can, specifically as teachers, we can lead with those our colleagues and with those around us, how are you influencing the newer teachers? How are you influencing those teachers that have been around for a while and might be, you know, kind of reevaluating whether they want to continue to do this? What does that look like? So it's really leadership's about influence? And how do we use that influence? With those around us? Yes, and you have such a unique background. Because when I look at like your bio, and all the different leadership positions, like you weren't just boxed into assistant principal or principal position, that you have a vast array of knowledge. When you look at influence, and when you look at the people that you've worked with along this journey, what were some of the things that you would say, the best influencers? did? Oh, that's a great question. Thank you. I would say that, and one of the things I've tried to emulate more in my own leadership is I think those who are the best at influencing others, actually really take the time to build those relationships. And it's authentic and natural. Maybe natural is not the word. Maybe it's authentic and intentional, that's probably a better word, I would use the there's a concept and actual management concept called leadership by walking around management by walking around. You have to get out of your office, if you're a principal assistant principal, you have to get out of your office and walk around the campus. Yes, we all do that. But are we actually talking to our teachers? Are we in the classrooms, not just to evaluate them? But just because there might be something wonderful going on that day in their classroom? Are we stopping by and talking to students and teachers? Are we talking to teachers about, you know, the things they're doing in their classroom, the students, what students are saying, how they're influencing and encouraging them, I think, those who have been the most influential leaders in my life, were able to take that relationship with me as my boss sometimes and sometimes as a colleague, and use that to intentionally speak into my life, they found out what is it that you're interested in? What is it that you like to do? Where is that? And would speak into that and then kind of helped me build those skills, you know, going, well, they say you're doing this really well. This is a niche for you had that direction or, you know, maybe you should try that again. So I think that it starts with caring about the people that you're with, not just as you're leading, although certainly those should be the first people that you're hearing that but just those around you and and opening your eyes to seeing seeing people. Oh, that's so good right there opening your eyes to seeing people because when we're in the workplace, we're also busy. There's always small stressors. that are happening. And sometimes we get that tunnel vision that we're so focused. But when you open your eyes, and you see the great things that other people are doing it bonds it strengthens you especially like you said, when you talked about like speaking with intentionality. I mean, that's so key. I was listening to the great John Maxwell, I'm sure that you're familiar with John Maxwell. And he was talking about communication. And one of the big things he said was, is a leader, or just as a person, like we said, teachers and leaders to be intentional in how you talk to others. I think that's great. And I think that we have to put ourselves to do that we have to place ourselves into those intentional spaces. So many people say, Oh, I have an open door policy come in and talk to me anytime. Yes, you know, that means that they are you're asking people to come to you. We're asking those who are leading to come in and say, Hey, Boss, can I do this? Or can you talk to me about that, or we're just saying, asking colleagues to hunt you down out of their busy day and come over and for a chit chat. I think that's why I think it's really important to get out and get into those spaces and be intentional about that I tried to get out when I was on a, in different roles on campuses. Probably at the end of each, you know, Bell period, I would be out walking around and then just hanging out at right around for a while. And then I would get out, you know, several times a day and just kind of wander around, wander into classrooms that became so that our teachers weren't always afraid when you showed up in class. I want to step in, I do that now, even though I don't have, at least with our on campus teachers, I don't have a direct responsibility for oversight of some of our on campus teachers. But I see things going on down on the science hallway in our physics classrooms, and I'll step in and say Hey, can I just come in? This looks like fun, what's going on, talk to the teachers talk to the students about what they're engaged in, and really kind of pour into people. And if we can just be intentional about that. I'm thinking that thought in my head, and I know I might be headed a different direction a little bit. But we talked about this concept of active listening, you wanted to talk about communication, which is our, you know, how are we talking to people, but I'm thinking, listening. And that's hugely important, because we need to make ourselves available for that. And then listen, for the words behind the word. Sometimes I I have a scenario in my mind that I can see as plain as day where I had one of my people that I work with one of the fish, she report, a direct report, I hate to use different words like that. But she came up to in my office, and I can picture her standing there. And I knew she had a question about something going on. And she's just waiting. And I'm like, Oh, just a minute. I just need to finish this. Oh, just a minute. But I'm thinking, You know what, whatever I'm doing is probably she's obviously distressed. It's not am took the time, we just talked about walking into the office. It's close to computers and closing the door if necessary. What do we need? And what do we need to talk about? And I think so often, as leaders, the reason a lot of us get things done is because we can focus and get things done. Sometimes that works against us as being able to step back. It's and remember what's most important, and those are those people around you in the you're going to impact them, you're going to have influence over over these people one way or another. And I think most of us would prefer that to be in a positive light than in a negative light. I think they're both I 100% agree like that active listening because we can pick up so much like when we choose to listen in that's not an easy skill. There has to be some intentionality. When you do that act of listening. You know, it's funny to talk about skills, my doctoral dissertation. And then since then, a lot of my research has focused on skills development for leaders. And a lot of time, especially with those middle management level, whether that's is an educational setting or in a corporate setting. We continue to move people up there into these middle management roles. Now they did well here so we're moving them into the next role. They're doing well there, we keep moving them up. But we might teach them skills that have to do with programs and systems and meeting goals and needs. But we rarely are focusing on the the skills needed to be a leader. The what used to be called soft skills, but I think we're realizing a lot more important skills. How do we build relationship? How do we maintain emotional intelligence or development if we don't have it? How do we create that awareness awareness of it? both how others read how to read a room of how others are. But what is the perception they have of us? And what are we bringing into those situations? I think developing those skills is a little bit of a place that we missed the mark, sometimes is teaching people how we tell them what, this is nice. But we don't teach them how to do that. And we then we then were surprised when there were when they don't do it. Well. Well, why don't I've not had opportunity to perfect that. So I think that's one of the things that I have been looking at in my research and in what we're doing, how do we do that better? Yeah. What are you thinking? Like? Have you come across have any ideas yet about how we can do that better? Yes, I do. I mean, I think when you look at my book, part of that, from striving to thriving, I, there's a middle section in there I call surviving. A lot of times, if somebody reads the book, you'll see we talk about a journey of, you know, you're striving to get out of a job, you don't like the job you're in and you want to go on to the new place, do you think you're better than this? Or for whatever reason, and I've had all of them in my own life. That you're, you're striving, you know, there's one story I tell, I think I filled out over 60 applications in a certain number of months trying to get a new job just because I wanted out. And how do we do that, and you're just striving to get out instead, if we switch that focus sometimes, to hear I'm in a role I may not be, it may not be my favorite. It may not be where I want to be for the rest of my life. But what can I learn here, and a lot of times those middle roles, those roles, where we're just sort of surviving, if we step off of this driving wheel, and we start looking, what do I learn, those are great places to hone leadership skills. They're great, because the work might be work that you already know, you've been doing it for a while. I'm gonna say you can phone it in, but kind of you can. And we talked about that. But it's a place where you can go, so how do I develop better relationships? And this role? What am I seeing and not seeing? How am I more aware of myself? And how I'm being presented? What's my executive presence? When I walk into a room? What am I giving off? How do I start looking at a lot of times leadership, we have to it's, it all starts inside? I think we know that. But sometimes we have to give ourselves our own professional development, it's not always going to be somebody giving us classes and workshops and things students, sometimes we have to take responsibility for that ourselves. And look at the skills that we need to be able to build. And a lot of that starts with, you know, the relationships and communication. You mentioned that earlier. When I'm in conflict with somebody, how do I how does that make me feel? How do I make them feel, and then just start using I like those middle times when we're when we're in those roles, where we're not quite sure where we're gonna go, yet we know this isn't the end of our career goals, to maybe start using those to kind of work on ourselves. 100% 100% and, you know, like, what we focus on? What can I learn here is so important. And when I was reading your book, and you know, we talked about leadership, and bring it back, like leadership classrooms, where leadership in the community is a big sensor, and you kind of talked about that right there about reflection, like there has to be a level of self reflection. Do you like on for yourself? Do you have any like system that you specifically use to self reflect or something that because I know you do coaching as well, for your clients that what I do, and I know, I think that a lot of this a lot of people reflection is number one, I will tell you even back when I did my dissertation, when I talked to in my role, I was looking at higher ed, I was in higher ed at the time. And I interviewed several higher ed leaders from presidents and Provost and others, you know, what were the skills they needed? And how did how did they learn them to get there. And almost without exception, every said we need to take time for reflection to reflect on situations and what we did and on. And also without exception, they said but we don't take enough time, even in their levels. There's just not time. And this has come across in a lot of places in my journey. A lot of different people I've talked with and so everybody says we need to do it, but then we don't do it. So why don't we do it? And that kind of goes to the long way to answering your question. Most people when they don't take this time to reflect I think it's because they haven't found something that works for them. Everybody. I don't want to be all inclusive or exclusive, but not everybody but most people many people think that oh that means I have to keep a leadership journal. I recommend it Do my book, keep a journal write down. And for a large majority, this is great. They reflect at the end of the day. So I'm reflecting the beginning of the day someone will say, This is what works for me. What worked? How did the day go? How did not go? I'm not a huge journaler. Just to tell you the truth, I've seen them with you. I've tried and stopped many times, I have three different journals at home that I write in, but they're not all daily, I've just see is is tough for me, even though I do recommend it, if that works for you. But what I've seen in a coaching others, you have to find what works for you. The way I personally what works for me, I use that Notes app on my phone. And I and I, as I'm driving down my down the freeway, I live in Southern California, so I have a commute, and turn on the microphone. And I can get rid of thoughts like that, while I'm sitting in the car. Nobody's with me. And I can kind of empty my head and think through that process with that notes that yes, it's a bit form of a journal. But it's not that I'm setting aside time to do this and have deep thoughts, it might sometimes I just need to clear my mind. So I use that Notes app of if you'd seen prior to actually writing the book, if you'd look through my phone, you would see all sorts of just random thoughts, and how these situations and experiences and what I've heard or heard on a podcast and what I think about that all through my phone, and all sorts of notes. That's how I tend to somewhat journal, other people need to talk with somebody else they go to coaching, coaching is a reflection. And a lot of people would take that a lot of my clients, they'll come in and they just want to talk through the day. And we'll just talk about how did that work for you. So you're in this situation again? What what what do you see that's working, what is not working? What would you change, a lot of those, they just need somebody else to talk with. Some people are verbal processors that way and they need to kind of the minute they start talking more comes out and they can see it, which might not be so you don't see that when you're journaling. So I find with the whole reflection, number one is to set it, I don't even say set aside time, but set aside a decision to do it whenever you can. I'm very sporadic. It's whenever thoughts hit my head whenever I need to clear my mind. That's how I that's what works for me. Others, it's every evening or every morning, others it's when they're in a therapy or coaching session, whatever works, and you find what's going to work for you that will help you be consistent. That's the most important part. And then to to kind of take a look. I mean, when you look back on what you wrote, you know, a year ago, two years ago, five years ago, and you really I thought that it can be quite interesting, quite, quite eye opening, actually. It's encouraging usually, hopefully, you've grown since then. And you go, Oh, I see that differently now. Yes. Now, that's great. And I think the most important part is like you said, what works best for you. This isn't the most important part. Sometimes we we try and say a system is perfect for you know, everybody, but it's we're all unique. We're all different. I would say that's, you know, I honestly think you know, when I look at leadership as a whole, and that's what we're talking about here. How do we become better leaders? How do we use our influence? How do we, you know, determine our strengths? And what are those growth areas that we might need to work on. And it is so personal, it begins inside, we are the ones that have to recognize what those areas are, and we can if we take time and focus we can. But if we're willing to take that journey, and to just kind of be brave enough to look inside and be brave enough to kind of be honest with ourselves about what our goals are, what our wants and desires are. Where we want to take that I think that we can kind of you get to kind of coach yourself in some ways that we have responsible, we have to be responsible for looking inside and being willing to take that hard look at ourselves. And it's not easy. It's not it's a little frightening sometimes. No, I 100% agree. I was actually, you know, when I talked about the reflection process, I don't have a set reflection process either. It's the actually the best reflection happens for me when I'm out on walks. And this morning, I was out on a walk. And, you know, I My mind was flipping back to June and I had little situation in the classroom that, you know, it was a situation and there was a lot to grow from it. And something that I heard a while back says you know, you reflect you learn from it, you grow from it, and you move on from it. And that just when you say it's hard sometimes being honest with yourself, and the big part is not beating yourself up. How can I grow from it and what's the best next step? I think it's interesting what you just said too, is that you said you had that on a walk today or whenever you about a situation maybe a month or so ago. And I think that's reflection doesn't have to happen immediately. I think it best happens after we stepped away from a situation for a little while. And now we can see a little bit more clearly about what went into it. Why you reacted the way you reacted, why the other person might have reacted, the way they reacted, I think sometimes waiting a little while before we can kind of clearly open is going to give us a little more clarity. I also like what you say about them move on. I don't know, if you're a TED last. Or if you're used to be like a goldfish, you know, old fish have very short memories. And so, after we've figured out, we've figured this didn't know, and then move on. And I think that's really either apply than what we've learned, if there's something to be learned, or move forward, and I think when we move forward, what's also important is to let that other person if it's if this is a conflict between you and a student, you and a colleague, something we need to allow them to move forward to, and allow them to have their journey and kind of be able to say, Okay, this didn't go the way we all thought, but we're gonna try again, another time another way, and then give them that grace to continue their own journey as well. I love that having you know, talking about that Ted last, so, um, you know, fans, fantastic show. One thing that pops in my head, right, then when you talk about showing others grace, if you're a TED last or fan, I think you'll understand this. He's watching the video of a gentleman who didn't, who wronged him, we'll just say speaking broad. If you're not Ted, last fan, somebody's wrong Ted Lhasa. And Ted was talking to his friend, and I believe he was talking about, I'm never going to judge somebody by the worst moment. And I think that's powerful, where people, I mean, we're gonna have unfortunately, moments when our best self doesn't show up. And if we can own that, and others can own that, and let them you know, shown that grace. Exactly, exactly. I, as you're describing it, yes, I remember that situation. But I mean, we all we're all gonna make mistakes. We're humans. And none of us, at least I haven't met anybody yet who's perfect. The best leaders, even the best colleagues or friends, we're all going to, we're going to slip. And I think if we allow that, and allow that and allow people to move on. Now, to be clear, we're not talking about toxic leadership, or people who are constantly doing the same thing over and over, protect yourself in some situations. And we want to be clear about that. I don't know where you're, the situation's of all your listeners. And so we hear about that. But I think those are far more rare than what we want to give them credit for. And I think most of the time, if we can be a little more gracious to people, and and hopefully, they'll be a little more gracious to us when we slip up too, because I know, I've got plenty of times I've failed in my leadership and other ways as well. Yeah, my all of us have all of us have. So we go from striving to thriving, what would be some things for those people in the schools that could help us not just, you know, survive throughout the school year, but but thrive going in the next school year. So I think thriving, I think, if we want to look at thriving, what really has changed that for me, and I might add it. You know, for those of you who read the book, you'll see this story. But the position I'm in right now, I would say I am thriving, I love what I do. I love coming to work every day. It's been. It's fun. I like you know, things that it's challenging there. I go in on occasion, and I say, I'm not sure I can do the work that they think I can. So, but I love that. And I think that's what thriving in your work life should look like. It is not the job I dreamed I would have. I will also say that my original goal and position that I would thought I was headed for that track. This is not it. But I think and I was by my choice. But I love this job. I love what I'm doing. And that's because I'm thriving. And I would say to do that. I think one of the things we when we're striving I think one of the things we get lost on is we're focused too much on a position or a role, or a place or a salary, rather than on what the work we're actually doing. And I think to be thriving, we need to step back and look at what do I want do how do I want to spend my day? What will give me purpose in life and make me want to go to work each day? I think we focus on those things. It might not be the title we thought it was, it might not be the at the location or building or organization, we thought, but I think you'll find that you actually really want to be there. There are a couple of situations that we talk about in the book, I gave some titles to certain things. And one of them you and I were talking when we chatted before the podcast about the Daydream believer. I have a My if my daughter ever hears this, she'll she'll appreciate this story. But I have a granddaughter who is older now, but she was it. She totally believes in unicorns. Unicorns exist in unicorns are real. And but Kara did? Have you ever seen one? Well, no, I've never seen this, are they? No. Have you ever seen one? No, no? Is it Well, then why are they real? Because I want them to be this. She's a little older now. But that was because. And I think about that as the way we approach jobs. Sometimes this dream job, this is what it's going to be like this is what's going to happen when I get there. And when we ask ourselves, what do you know that to be true? Have you seen that? Have you done and said no, but that's what I want. So I'm going to focus on this title or position or this location, if I worked here, I would be better. And this would either be happy. When I think that we forget, it's really not about that. And so everybody wants to have a job that gives them purpose. People work more than they work for anything else. They want to feel, you know, we say, oh fulfilled, well, that fulfilled is I feel like I'm making a difference. I have a purpose in my life. And so what is that? And that if we can find a place and do a little reflection? On what is it that I want to do? How do I want to spend my day what's going to give me purpose that will make me feel like I'm making a difference? I have impact and focus on those things and head toward those things, I think we will find that the job kind of finds us in some ways. As directing our lives towards purpose, we sort of invite those other things situations into our life. He asked asked, and I love what you said, like, Where can I make impact that in my position, I was listening to somebody talk on pretty big podcast, and the gentleman was saying, like he goes, I wouldn't suggest that people you know, leave their jobs and go for something that they're extremely passionate about. It goes fine for him. And this is just speaking from this gentleman who's, uh, you know, he's ultra successful, he said, find where you can make your biggest impact. You know, where ask yourself, Where can I make my biggest impact? When you look at your job, no job is perfect. And some that it's helped me some inside the classroom, I love teaching, but they're stressful days. They're stressful moments. It's really being intentional about like, finding that moment that day, that you can grab on to that moment of joy or grab on to that moment impact. It's hard teachers, especially I really appreciate and value that because teaching is one of those professions, you don't always see your impact for years, if ever you you know, your third grade student is not always coming up and say, Wow, you did a great job today. You really impacted my life. You know, I'm in high school settings. That doesn't happen very much there either. But on occasion, they'll come back and they'll come back and say, Well, Mr. Martin, you were great. I really you had a big impact in my area. They'll tell you that. But that doesn't have it's really bad. But we all remember the teachers in our lives remembers those who had a real positive impact on us. I can talk to you about Mrs. Young, I can talk to you back about Mrs. Thompson. I can talk to you about teachers. We also remember those who did who maybe had a negative impact on our life, I won't name their names and what they how they impacted us. So we get to choose that even though we're not always going to see it. We don't always see it, especially teachers. And I mean, my husband was a teacher for years. He's now in administration. I have both my kids are teachers. I've got friends who are teachers and been in the profession for years and years and years. And I've seen it I mean, I've seen that when they get the accolades and people coming back but have also seen it when they're pouring their heart out for students and doing that day in and day out. And maybe they're, you know, maybe it's just another day and they just never know. So I admire that that ability to just kind of hang in there and find where the impact is fine where the impact is, but I would just think cause them to know that you're you're making you're making when you're making an impact somewhere. Well, I appreciate those words there. Dr. Joy. Now, you also, you know, a lot of this, it's been so good is you ask a lot of questions. Like when you're talking, you're talking about asking questions of ourselves when I say that, um, and I was reading your book, and one thing that popped out that I loved is SWOT, because I had never heard of that. Would you? Just give a brief synopsis of what SWOT means? Yeah, great. Happy to I originally came out of a business background. And in the business world, we all talk about a SWOT analysis, its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. And it's used in a business sense, quite a lot. When we're talking about marketing, we're talking about our business where we, you know, new business opportunities, we'll kind of look at the environment, look at the market around us and do that a bit of a market analysis. Well, a personal SWOT, which is what I talked about in the book is much more in depth look at us personally. And this is kind of a tool you can use to kind of about, talk again, about what are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, strengths and weaknesses are internal, whether in an organizational setting, or, you know, what am I good at? You know, what? And that might not be Oh, I'm very good at communication. Look at your last few jobs, I say, look at your last few jobs. Is there anything in common? What do you think that you keep seeing that keeps coming up over and over again, but be specific, I know, I said on my, my SWOT, I have discovered about myself, I'm pretty good at bringing people together, you know, leading collabora, bringing people together to make change I've been, I've just overwhelmed look at my career and said, This is something that I'm pretty good at doing. That's real specific. That's not just oh, I'm good at, I'm a good team player, that's no less. So I think when you do this, you have to be pretty specific. My strengths, be just as specific about your weaknesses, you're there, you're not going to be able to grow in those areas, if you're not willing to name them. So I think that is important. And then looking at, you know, what are those growth areas? And what we can do? Now opportunities and threats are external? Those are going to be a little bit. What are we're looking again, at the world around us a little bit? What are my opportunities out there? If I'm good at these things, and I want to do something different, what are those opportunities? Maybe I want to work in higher ed, well, do you have do what degrees do you have? What experience you had? Are you doing making presentations and things like that? What are you doing to get there? So what are Oh, well that might not have that it might be a weakness? So I need to look at what are those opportunities for me to kind of improve those weaknesses, or those do different things to get there. So look at those opportunities, and also those threads, sometimes we have an idea in our head, you know, back to my unicorn story. Something supposed to look like, but we haven't looked at the reality of the situation. I may say I am going to be the dean of the loss of a law school. And then I look back and say, Well, I really don't have a law background. So and law schools are not hiring right now. And where I'm looking at, that's a threat that's not good in my background. So I have to let's be realistic. And the external reality of some of those things is that you where you're located, where your you are, I had a lot of opportunities at one point to take different positions, but I wasn't willing to move away from my, my, that's a reality. That's a threat in that my my current location did not have the jobs that I was looking for, at one point. Be realistic about that. So we're able to take this SWOT analysis. And I got I give a few more tools on how to drill down in there. We ask ourselves, and how do we look at that as a tool to kind of guide us for what we really want? And again, this gets what is the work I want to do, rather than just the position or the location of the job title? Yes, thank you so much for explaining that. Because whether it's in the professional life or the personal life, there's so much that we can grow from so much that we can learn and using a system like that can can really help us especially you know, earlier we talked about like that personal PD, how do I want to develop myself and the only way to do that is you know, identifying, you know, strengths, weaknesses in different things. So, the book is phenomenal. Dr. Joy, so, appreciate you sharing so much about it. Two of my favorite questions is what What is a book recommendation that you might have and a podcast recommendation that you might have? I read a lot of leadership and probably ones that people have heard about. I think the book I just finished just recently was by a think, again, by Adam Grant, I don't know if you're him or with the book, it's really good for helping us to kind of refocus and look at things a little differently then challenge some assumptions and perceptions we might have had over a lot of years. So it's been helpful to me to kind of think about the way I think, yes, and by Adam Grant, and another one I read years and years ago, and actually, I just brought it up again for something, some other reason. And that's, by her mania, a bar is called act like a leader Think Like A Leader. And the reason I like that is because it kind of flips what we typically think we typically think we have to go in and have all the answers and be a leader, think have all the knowledge when it really talks more about taking action first. And that's that building that leadership inside yourself, what is what does that look like? And if we act later and start working on that, first, I think that we will find some of those other opportunities follow. So those are kind of my book choices that I that I really like podcasts. I do listen to podcasts again, I'm a commuter. So I do listen to them. But they're probably not. They're all the usuals that I think leadership people listen to. I love Brene Browns daring greatly. She speaks a lot about being vulnerable, and how leaders need to show up. I've listened to a couple of others, Sharon McMahon's? She just changed the title on it. I think it's now called isn't that interesting? It's not on leadership or anything else. But it's just kind of fun. And she takes like interesting facts. A lot of them historical. She was a formal former history teacher. And like, did you know why this happens? Or why? You know how the Continental Congress was formed or just strange. Yeah, we'll take that can just kind of expand your mind and kind of, for me, it's sometimes good to think about different things that I don't typically wouldn't pick up and read. But then just the various fun pocket podcasts that I would listen to as well, which is allotted a lot of different leadership podcasts out there. for just about anybody, anybody who's listening, you might want to try to find a few. And of course, I listened to yours. But as people listen, there's a teaching and learning podcasts by DT Well, that's a corporation, they're just starting it out. And it's really focused on teachers and and a lot of higher ed, but also moving down a little more focus in the K 12 inch network as well. Awesome. Some great suggestions right there. Dr. Carrie VITAS, if someone wants to connect with you, what would be the best way? I have a website, Dr. karabiners.com. And you can put that in the show notes if people can't spell kerevi? Absolutely. Dr. karabiners.com does have a contact page there as the best way to probably get a hold of me. It shows some of the what I do. Where do I workshops that I will be. I'm typically presenting although I've done a lot of different things for different school districts, as well as individual coaching as well. And that's probably the best way to get a hold of me. I have emails and all of that that I can give you to put in the show notes as well. Also, you can follow me on Twitter, and on Instagram and on LinkedIn and all the places I'm I'm out there on all of the other social media platforms that are out there. So when again, Dr. Kerr VITAS. Excellent. Now, if you could have the listener walk away with one thing, what would that be? I think the one thing that I hope that listeners would walk away with either from this podcast, reading my book is that they have the opportunity to take responsibility for their own leadership journey. And I would sum that up by saying Be brave, and willing to do it. Be bold and step out and step into those places. But above all else, be yourself. Because you're the only leader that you can be in has to be authentic. So such great words Dr. Kerr VITAS and so true. And we're all leaders, and we're all on this journey. So absolutely love it. Thank you so much for everything that you've shared. It's been such a pleasure and I can't wait to listen back to this because there's going to be a lot of notes to take my friend. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Thank you. This podcast is a proud member of the teach better Podcast Network. Better today. Better tomorrow, and the podcast to get you there. Explore More podcast at WWW dot teach better podcast network.com Now let's get on to the episode. This conversation was so good. Dr. karabiners was dropping so many pearls of wisdom. Now this is a teaching to champions tape where I share three of my favorite takeaways from the conversation. And the first gem that I loved was when Dr. caravita has talked about building relationships, and doing it authentically and intentionally. Whether it's a relationship with our students, the parents of our students, or our colleagues, those relationships matter, and they need to be nurtured and cultivated. And we need to take an interest in others and find ways to connect with them. And if we come from an authentic place, in our intention, we can just cultivate some amazing relationships. The second gem that I loved was when Dr. Caribbean has talked about being brave, and taking an honest look at ourselves, identifying our strengths and weaknesses, developing plans for our growth, and really understanding how we can maximize our strengths and minimize our weaknesses. But in order to do this, we have to have those honest conversations with ourselves. And the third gem that I loved is how Dr. Kara Vita has talked about showing ourselves grace, and showing others grace as well. Because we're all living this human experience. And with that, there are going to come slip ups, and there's going to come stumbles, and along this journey. We have to allow ourselves the gift of moving on. And we should extend that gift to others as well. Now, these are just a few of my favorite gems hit me up at be Martin real on Twitter, or teaching champions podcasts on Instagram, and let me know what were a few of your favorite gems. A big thank you to Dr. Kerr VITAS for sharing so much wisdom. And a big thank you to all of you for being here. For being part of the teaching champions community. We support we encourage we lift each other up. And if you think someone would benefit from this conversation, please share. And always remember, it doesn't matter whether you're from rural America to urban America, to Canada to Spain to Bahrain. We're all on that same team. We're all on that same mission. And we're always better together. Keeping amazing my friends and as we go on to the week, May step into your strength may step into your shine, and let's build our champions. Have a great week, everybody