Branding Power Moves

Speaker 1: [Music] hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the she builted experience with Melanie you're here because you want to experience the life and business that you crave join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in Dr Ana Riley has been in education for over 30 years for just under the last 15 she's been the Principal of an elementary school she is currently the president of giant step 6 LLC the author of the book five buckets of leadership speaking in the moment and the host of the ask Dr rley show which can be found on foxo weekly Dr rley thank you for joining us today you are a principal business owner author and show host what gives you the courage each day to keep moving forward in all that you do thank you for that each one of us are provided with special talents there is an account in the Bible that talks about one was given one Talent one was given five talents one was given 10 talents and depending on what each one did and they returned to the master with it they received a feedback whether they did good well well done or they were called wicked because that is how I live my life and that's my lifestyle I know that the talents that I'm given I need to be able to multiply them so I'll he well done that good and faithful servant that's such good advice and that's what makes us beautiful all of our unique talents and abilities is what makes us who we are and we're all different we all want to do different things and we all want to live our lives in different ways and I want to make sure that everyone knows if you are the one that has a one Talent or you're the one that has five or you that's 20 it doesn't matter you are capable of just as much as the person that has one as the person that has five do your talent work your talent and make sure that your talent is the best when you give it to humanity and give it back to humanity sometimes we get in a lane and we don't think we can change we think this is become who I am so it's great that we can pivot in those moments and say okay maybe I did this maybe I want to do something else in addition or maybe I want to do something else completely yes also I want to highlight the fact along those lines social media has gotten us into the space of comparison and comparing you may think that what you have to offer or what you've been blessed with is not enough because you're constantly on social media comparing looking at what other people are doing looking at other people may be succeeding and you may think that you're not good enough but you are because all you have is all you need you have all you need right inside you were born with the talent you were born with the gifts whether it's one gift as I said or two gifts those gifts are for you because you have a plan for the people that you have been blessed to serve and if that one Talent changes and you want to do something else with that one Talent go ahead and do it have freedom I don't know if it makes sense but I'll give you permission to be free I love it yes yes and we've all been there in the scroll where we think okay I have to put my phone down and I can't because you see other people doing something that you want to do just put it down walk away you know have trust and belief in yourself yes and I think that's why affirmations are becoming so popular and and people are grounding themselves in affirmations because you start off saying I am and you're coming from a place of abundance versus a place of deficit when people are saying the I am affirmations and leaning into that then generates this positivity in your life and you begin to see and believe and do and so yeah I am so true I love your outlook thank you you moved from trauma to Triumph yes what were your experiences and how were you able to do it we've been able to verbalize it right give it give it a name people are now understanding trauma and it's becoming a normalized verbiage in our society trauma because before it was what's wrong with you and it was all of this negative connotations assigned to someone who experienced traumatic events but we didn't call them traumatic events but now that we know that these events can cause trauma how do we move past them because what I found and I'm glad that I had become a statistic is that we get paralyzed and we experienced this trauma paralysis and for something that happened maybe 20 30 40 years ago I know people that are 72 that are still Paralyzed by an event that happened to them when they were eight but but I also know people who experienced what I would say most horrific traumatic events but their lives are so successful they are living this beautiful life and they have taken that trauma and been triumphant and so I said let me go on this journey and what I found in that journey is that you heard about the person after everything happened and you see the person in their beautified state or healed State and I never really saw anyone or knew any person that said while you're in it you can still be triumphant you don't have to be downtrodden you can still see the sunlight at the end of the tunnel while you're still in it that is my life's work because I believe everybody is either going through a storm coming out of a storm or in the middle of a storm at some point in your life that's going to continue to happen so even though you may be out of one big storm gear up because another one is coming and what do you do it's so true because we all have these things that we push down in our lives and it's interesting when they Bubble Up and sometimes they can bubble up when you least expect it and take something weight loss someone who's lost massive amounts of weight you see them at their first size and then you see them having lost weight but we don't always see you're right their transformation mhm and that just makes us all relatable to each other because exactly what you said we're all going through something and I'm glad we can now talk about it yes and I'm glad that Society is becoming more open and hearing that that's why we're now labeling mental illness there's mental health issues right I think it's because we weren't allowed to talk that we stuffed it all down that we were told to keep going and especially we as women we just keep going and we keep giving and we want to be super women and we just give and give and give and unfortunately is at the detriment of ourselves but knowing that we can talk about it and knowing that we can have success and knowing that we're not alone adds to the mental health on the positive side that we also desperately need you are the author of five buckets of leadership speaking in the Moment In your experience what is the most important aspect of leadership the first thing that comes to mind is knowing yourself you as a leader must know who you are must know your pain points must know your limits your boundaries your parameters and then know where your gaps are because if you are clear about what you are capable of doing and what you need some assistance with then you can be a better leader I always say that every leader needs a coach so if your coach does not have a coach then you have the wrong coach great advice and I say the same thing with the leader so if have a leader who isn't a follower who isn't leading someone else whether that be through books or videos or they actually have an in-person person then you don't have the right leader so you start to question that leader and that leader who has that Mentor is going to help him or her be more solidified in who she or he is and help them with their blind spots which is extremely important and if you think about it professional have coaches like why shouldn't everyone have one in life and business yes I say that about Michael Phelps All the Time Michael Phelps is the person that I kind of refer to a lot when I talk about this prior to his last Olympic run he was already made history he was already swimming at his top at his best but when you listen to him he says if I didn't surrender to his last coach he would have not been historical he wouldn't have made this historical moment at the Olympics and so you sit there you go wow Michael you're right he did things in his last run he broke barriers in his Olympic Swim tell us about your experience as a principal as your a teacher or assistant principal sometimes we think what is the next step and the next step is becoming a principal like you want to advance in your career or you could have this mindset of I want to change education I want to have influence over the learning environment for students I want to make sure it's Equitable fair and I think my want or my desire to become a principal Encompass probably all of that but it was really with a air of naive because as much as I was instructionally sound as much as I was um a great leader as much as I knew about systems and structures I wasn't prepared for the political aspect of the position no one really told me and I don't think no one really shares that the position is extremely political you know the superintendent's position is political you know that but I don't think you really aware of how political it is nine times out of 10 is really not about instruction it's really not about that and I see how you would want to focus on the educational piece and the children's growth piece and having that political piece would change the role of it changes it so much it changes the whole Dynamics and if you are not cognant of that if you're not aware of that and if you're not balancing the instructional SL educational peace with the political aspect then it's going to create in you the opportunity to question your morals and slant your moral compass if you're not grounded I've seen many of people go against what they believe in I've seen many people get jaded because they W weren't able to balance this political aspect of it and now that we are coming to the tail end of the pandemic we saw how political education was and now coming back how do you balance that so I say all that to say that I enjoy my time um as being a principal and I'm glad that I was able to make impact in my 17 years of doing the work but at some point you know okay now it's time for me to add value in other ways and that's what I'm going to do I'm going to add value in other ways so I'm moving on from being a principal of 17 years of an elementary school and assisting others principles because leadership trauma is real you are the owner of giant step six what gave you the courage to launch it and what do you like the most about what you do so going back to um my story about a coach I have a coach um and his name is Dennis McKey he is the CEO of OSG the official off school grounds which is really a coalition of politicians Educators that come together to help change The Narrative of children he's been my coach for the last 10 years he began speaking to me and pushing my thinking about so what's next you're not going to continue to be a principal for the rest of your life that's not going to happen we know that whether you believe it or not it's just not going to happen because at one point you will retire so what are you going to do next how are you going to give back and so in our conversations we started just thinking about it he caused me to dream again to Envision again to think about how I can have a bigger impact from those conversations was born giant step six so giant step is really about taking that leap taking that giant step into where you want to go no no baby steps no little no itty bitty steps no Tiny Steps but take a giant step and just go for it and the six just happens to meaning on two levels six represents the number in my immediate family me my husband and my four children so that's six of us so I'm taking this giant step for the six of us and then the number six also is the ways in which I coach so there's six steps in coaching to help people take their giant step forward I love the name name and the meaning behind it and isn't it so interesting how we have to take time and space to dream because you think I have thoughts about what I want to do next but it's really in that space and The Quiet Moments and working with someone that will help you get to that place you we have to take time because we get so consumed with what we're busy doing with social media we're always distracted it's really good to take that time because our lives change and as our lives change we change yes you begin to see things differently and your vision expands you begin to see different opportunities and different Visions from other people that expand yours or make you question why did I ever think like that or why did I why did I never think about that you asked the question have you ever wondered how Pros are able to provide quick succinct and intelligent answers in high pressure environments what do they know that someone else might not they know who they are that question comes from the why of why I wrote the book The Five buckets of leadership speaking in the moment because you look at leaders who are in the spotlight or on stage public speaking it appears that they're always able to be clear and succinct and have the right answer so if you find yourself then they always have the right answer or how do you always know what to say that comes out of the fact that they are clear about their vision and what they want want and their message if you listen they're not saying anything new they're giv the same message but they're packaging it for Their audience they may have three message points that they are clear about that's who they are that's what their brand is about that's how they lead so they're not leading from 15 different places for me I know that I'm a leader around traum a trauma leadership so I'm going to talk about trauma I'm going to share about trauma and depending on who the audience is how I will package how I deliver that message and so that's what good leaders do that's what sucin leaders do if you look listen to any CEO of a company like the most successful CEOs when you look listen to Apple Amazon CEO Nike CEO was thinking Nike just do it as it relates to you know sports or as it relates to business or as it relates to life so really good advice for messaging yeah that's it this just knowing what your message is and being clear so whenever anyone questions you or asks you you're not trying to be opport capricious but you're messaging and the same message that Nike's gonna have for the multi-million doll investor they're going to say the same exact thing to the fiveyear rold but they're going to package it so that the 5-year-old understands what just do it means and they're going to package it for that hedge fund investor that's the key I ask this question at the end of every episode because I believe it's so important to intentionally bring joy into our daily lives magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what is one way that you make sure to find and live your joy each day yes one thing I've learned is that I'll get really overwhelmed sometimes because I want to do so much and help so many people and if I feel like I'm not doing it on my self-imposed timeline I've learned that if it doesn't get done today you it'll get done tomorrow and in that because I've learned that that's a trauma response that uh I've learned that that's a trauma response of mine I've learned to take a deep breath and enjoy the present moment and let tomorrow take care of tomorrow so enjoy today be present today and what you can do today you do today and in that release and in that permission and in that Grace that I've given myself I'm such so much more relaxed so much more joyful and it's coming from the inside and the peace is there and I feel so uptight I love it you can enjoy the moments and experience them yes you are building an incredible business and have had an incredible career thank you for joining us today can you please share with us how and where we can find you if there are Educators out there who need some assistance and would like someone to coach them to be their strategic think partner you can go right to my website giantstep 6 llc.com you can email me at info at Giant step6 lc.com and I'll gladly reach back out and we can talk about how I can assist you and being triumphant in your trauma thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our shetit website or at Sheed on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave