Tag: mindset

June 5, 2025

Culture Audit

How do we investigate the culture of our workplace?

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How can you determine the culture of a community as a new member or as a senior member? How do you know how people are perceiving the culture of the community you are currently leading? These are questions that have been on my mind lately, especially as we enter the summer months, which are more poised for reflection.

There are often layers to community culture. There is the outward layer of culture that institutions often name in their mission statements on their websites. Then, there is the more hidden culture that is harder to understand and define. We mostly find this out after we have entered a community and have spent some time there. How do we find this out?

I have worked in many different institutions in my career. This has enabled me to observe and investigate culture in each place.

May 14, 2025

How are you making room for failure?

How do you make room for failure in your leadership practice?

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

How do you make room for failure in your leadership practice? When I was new to my career and leadership, I often painstakingly tried to avoid failure. I would spend enormous amounts of time thinking, planning, creating structures, and backup plans just in case something went wrong. When something inevitably went wrong, I blamed myself and tried to prepare even more! I soon realized that this process was not effective. I was not growing and learning about myself as a leader with this method. I needed to try something different.

Try not to control everything.

Try not to control everything, especially the things that are not in your control. I try to spend time thinking about what parts of each situation are actually within my control, not in my control or maybe within my field of influence.

April 4, 2025

Humility is Strong Leadership

Photo by Jaspinder Singh on Unsplash

Humility is an essential aspect of being a strong leader. Louise Penny creates the ultimate example of a leader who expresses humility in her Three Pines series, Inspector Gamache. Recently, I have been thoroughly enjoying the Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny. Gamache is often described as positioning himself as a mentor to young folks in his field and teaching them how to be leaders. He is noted for teaching his mentees to say the following at crucial moments in their careers.

I don’t know.

I need help.

I’m sorry.

I was wrong.

-Inspector Armand Gamache

I don’t know.

In my leadership journey, it took me a long time to realize that saying, “I don’t know.” showed great strength. People actually appreciated my honesty in admitting I needed time and space to consult and research before getting back to them. As an educator, I used to draw a small circle on the board to indicate ‘what I know’ and then a much larger circle around it to indicate ’what I don’t know’.

March 17, 2025

My Path to Citizenship

“In this country, all of us are free. That Freedom Is founded on the principle that this nation is a country of laws, not of men.”-Judge Schwartz

Photo by Chalo Gallardo on Unsplash

Recently, a dear high school friend of mine shared a note from her father that spurred a strong memory for me, the memory of my path to citizenship. 

Each of us, except for a tiny few, came to this country from other lands. We are here because our fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, our forebears, journeyed here in search of a better life for themselves and their children; to find a land where they and their families would be free.

-Judge Schwartz

In 1994, I had the opportunity and privilege of becoming a citizen of the United States. My family came here in the early 70’s from Sri Lanka shortly after the 1965 Immigration Act, the Hart-Celler Act.

December 19, 2024

Practice Stillness

What’s your stillness practice?

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

During this time of year, possibly packed with family events, time with friends, and work colleagues, travel and so much more it can be hard to find a moment to be still.  Do you have a stillness practice that works for you during this busy holiday and new year?

Being still can look different ways. I joined a meditation group a few years ago and we practice together in a community led by a beloved and skilled teacher most weekday mornings. I also enjoy a quick quiet moment first thing in the morning in bed, a time for gratitude and a big stretch to start the day. This lasts just a minute or two. I also enjoy the quiet time before sleep, reading a book, reflecting on the day. Some of my ‘stillness’ practices require movement, a type of mindful movement that allows me to connect with my body or nature.

November 6, 2024

Sitting at the Water Hole

Photo by ActionVance on Unsplash

I sit at the water hole and let my thoughts come to me.

Sometimes, I feel like my thoughts are chasing me and they keep finding me. Gayathri Narayanan, my meditation teacher, encouraged us to ‘sit at the water hole’ and wait for our thoughts to come to us. She said that her teacher, Gil Fronsdal, talked about it in terms of being a wildlife photographer. You could either follow the footprints and chase the wildlife around their territory or you could simply sit at the water hole knowing all animals will eventually need to drink. The first helpful step for me is to stop chasing my thoughts and stop letting them chase me. I sit at the water hole and let them come to me.

As my thoughts come to me, I label them. Is it useful? Is it pleasant? Unpleasant? Neutral? These questions have been helpful to me as I navigate times in my life that consume my thoughts.

September 5, 2024

Balancing is a Series of Falls

What would it look like to view falling as a part of balancing, mistakes as a part of learning and growing, and a necessary means to an end?

Photo by Caique Nascimento on Unsplash

Balancing is a series of falls. My yoga teacher said something about how balancing is just the process of falling in and out over and over again. While I wobbled slowly in tree pose, I had a light bulb moment. Balancing is just a series of falling in and out. Someone rarely balances right into a tree pose. You need to ground yourself, ready your limbs, fall in and out of balance, practice a lot, and reflect! 

When I taught at an independent school in Marin County California, there was a class called Energy Time, a sort of combo of meditation and Aikido. At that time, an experienced and skilled teacher taught us to fall and get back up.

August 14, 2024

Understanding the Shadow Side of Your Strengths

Do you know the shadow side of your strengths?

Photo by Martino Pietropoli on Unsplash

One of the most intriguing parts of learning about my strengths was also learning about the blind spots or as I like to think of them: the shadow side. As I read about the blind spots in my strengths report, I felt as though my husband and children wrote the statements because they are the people who know me best. The statements spoke the truth and were such keen observations. For example, discipline is one of my top ten strengths. I bring order to processes and see the details, I am prepared, and the shadow side or the barrier is that I tend to be rigid. My family knows my shadow side very well!

Paying attention to your strengths is important. Reflecting on what happens when we lean too far into those strengths without reflection is vital.

July 29, 2024

Leveraging Your Strengths

Leverage your strengths to discover your full potential.

Photo by LOGAN WEAVER | @LGNWVR on Unsplash

Leverage your strengths to discover your full potential. When I was new to teaching, I used to think of strengths and weaknesses as two different things on opposite sides and disconnected from one another. Your strengths were in one silo and your weaknesses in another. As I gained more experience in life and as a teacher, I realized that our strengths can be used to leverage our areas of growth. Strengths and areas of growth are connected. This helped me immensely as a teacher of young children. Working with a student’s strengths builds confidence,  a clear understanding of how they learn best, and a way to influence their areas of growth.

As a student this summer these ideas were reinforced when I completed my training as a Clifton Strengths Finder Coach. Before the course, I took the Clifton Strengths Assessment and learned about my top 10 strengths in depth.

June 12, 2024

Reflect and Reset

Pause. Breathe. Resume. Reflecting can lead to resetting.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Take the time to pause, breathe, and look ahead. It can be a valuable process. When we take the time to look back, we can also take the time to look forward more effectively. Looking back helps us make sense of what happened and looking forward helps us use this information to grow. As the seasons change, the days get longer, and the school year comes to a close, this can be a time ripe for reflection. 

Reflection is a powerful tool, especially when paired with looking ahead. Before you close the doors in your mind on the past, it’s valuable to remember, process what happened, ask questions, and seek other perspectives. 

Look back and look ahead…

  • Process what happened:
    • Decide how you process best: writing, talking, listening, a stillness practice (meditation, breath work), or some combination of these.