Arise: The Art of Transformational Coaching, with Elena Aguilar

In this episode, we speak with best-selling author Elena Aguilar about her forthcoming book, Arise: The Art of Transformational Coaching. While the book is written with academic coaches in mind, the strategies and messages apply to anyone working in education. Our conversation ranges from the need to fulfill core human needs like belonging, autonomy, self-esteem, and purpose and meaning to the skills and strategies that can help us all meet those needs. As Elena states that by attending to these core human needs, “We can heal and transform our world.”  Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

Transcript

#292 Arise: The Art of Transformational Coaching, with Elena Aguilar

43 min
AVID Open Access

Keywords

teacher, feel, listening, strategies, talk, coaching, elena, coach, students, kids, book, emotions, love, people, conversation, experience, education, toolkit, disposition, change

Speakers

Elena (68%), Rena (11%), Winston (11%), Speaker 1 (7%), Paul (2%), Student (1%)

Elena Aguilar  0:00  

This book is intended for anybody who is focused on adult development and cultivating the social, emotional and academic growth of children, as well as perhaps more broadly just creating more healthy resilient communities in the world.

Rena Clark  0:20  

The topic for today's podcast is a rise the art of transformational coaching with Elena Aguilar. Unpacking Education is brought to you by AVID.org. AVID believes a single teacher can change the life of a student. To learn more about AVID, visit their website at AVID.org. Welcome to Unpacking Education, the podcast where we explore current issues and best practices in education. I'm Rena Clark.

Paul Beckermann  0:53  

I'm Paul Beckermann.

Winston Benjamin  0:54  

And I'm Winston Benjamin. We are educators.

Speaker 1  0:58  

And we're here to share insights and actionable strategies.

Student  1:03  

Education is our passport to the future. 

Rena Clark  1:09  

Our quote for today is from the introduction to Arise: The Art of Transformational Coaching by Elena Aguilar. She writes, "Every human being desires belonging and connectedness, autonomy, mastery and competence, genuine self-esteem, trust in oneself, and purpose and meaning." All right, Winston. So a lot packed in there.

Winston Benjamin  1:35  

There's a lot packed in there, but I'm gonna try to get pulled things out as I see it. I really appreciate the concept of genuine self-esteem. And that's related to autonomy in the fact that there's sometimes you're given things and you miss the value of it your hard work, your effort, your ability to recognize you to accomplish and overcame whatever difficulties that might have brought it. So I think sometimes in education, we try to make things a little bit easy for individuals. And that could come times under duress, underplay that genuine self-esteem of knowing that I was able to accomplish within my hardwork, and that even goes to that idea of purpose and meaning. So I love the idea of supporting an individual to trust their ability to see themselves as capable, and, being able to genuinely find value in themselves instead of others trying to put value into them.

Paul Beckermann  2:26  

Yeah, I love that finding your own self-esteem, in the what you mentioned, Winston. And I'm struck by the interconnectedness of all of this. It's like their ingredients to becoming a fulfilled human being. I think back to when I taught high school speech, you know, these were the things that kids needed to be successful in my classroom. And I know, as a former coach, these are the things that my teachers needed to be successful in, in not only their careers, but just as a human being to be self fulfilled and to be happy. And we have the potential to help people build those things up in themselves. So I think it's really powerful.

Rena Clark  3:04  

Absolutely, and I'm really excited today about our conversation that we're going to be having with our guest. So I would like to extend a very warm welcome to Elena Aguilar. She is a writer, leader, teacher, coach, podcaster, and the founder and CEO of Bright Morning Consulting. She's the author of eight highly acclaimed books, many of them my personal favorites, and then including her forthcoming book, which is Arise: The Art of Transformational Coaching, which we're going to be talking a lot about today. So welcome, Elena.

Elena Aguilar  3:41  

Thank you. It's great to be here.

Rena Clark  3:43  

And we're just hoping that you can tell us a little bit more about what this new book is about, and why you chose to write it.

Elena Aguilar  3:51  

Sure. So you were just referencing and talking about reflecting on the core human needs, which are not needs that I identified, just to clarify, but those are what psychologists identify as what humans need in order to thrive, in order to live the kind of lives that we want to live. And I've worked in the field of education for 30 years. And I have seen over and over and over as all of you just said, these are the kinds of experiences that young people, grown up people, all of us need in order to thrive, in order to feel excited about getting up every day able to overcome the challenges and the adversities that are going to show up, and able to deal with loss and transition and change. And my commitment to children to young people began really in the Oakland Public Schools in Oakland, California. And I worked in the district here for 20 years as a teacher and as a coach and leader. And I saw this consistency between what kids needed, what adults needed. When I started working in coaching, I was set up to do very traditional instructional coaching, talking about lesson plans, and formative assessment and engaging students and all that traditional, and necessary kind of coaching. However, I sat across from teachers in their first year of teaching, who were completely overwhelmed and could not stop crying. And I thought, I don't have any strategies. I don't know what to do I pass them the tissue box and then say, "Do you want to start here in the teacher guide?" I just didn't know what to do. I similarly came across all kinds of other challenges with coaching teachers who we would be talking about the instructional strategies, but then they would insert comments like, "Well, come on, I mean, these kids can't do this." And when they said that, I knew they were talking about a certain demographic, racial, ethnic, socio economic demographic. And then I would get a little stumped, like, why don't have any tools in my toolkit to respond to that. And the strategies that I did use just weren't very effective. And so I have spent the last 10 or 20 years I was forget, my son was born just when I started coaching, and he's 20 years old. So it's a good marker of how long I've been coaching. So I spent, I spent 20 years cobbling together strategies to work with adults to help adults reflect, grow, develop, manage, change, and transitions, and meet the needs of every child every day, meet those core human needs, as well as their academic needs. And so Arise is my eighth book. It is a compilation of everything I've learned, really in the last 20 years about coaching. But perhaps, in the last 30 years in education about how we not only develop individually, but develop as communities, because ultimately, we are social creatures, human beings, our harm and hurt happened in relationship to other human beings. And the only way that we can heal and transform our world is by changing our relationships to each other. And so I'm committed to helping individuals reflect and grow so that we can come together as a community, support all children, and really create the kind of just humane, joyful world that I know we longed to live in. And so this book is intended for, for coaches, for school leaders, for teacher leaders, for mentors, for anybody, I would say, who is focused on adult development. And I actually think there's a tremendous amount that can be relevant to cultivating the social, emotional and academic growth of children, as well as perhaps more broadly, just creating more healthy, resilient communities in the world. So I'll stop there, because that was a lot.

Winston Benjamin  8:25  

And I appreciate the a lot, because a lot of times when people are talking about the why of the book, and why they chose it, there's never really the context of the reader or the user of that material. So you kind of gave a little bit of it, in the end a conversation of who the book is technically for teachers, students, admin, coaches. But here's a question that I have in your definition of meaning and purpose. What is your core hope that this work does for those individuals who are reading and using your material? What is your hope for their for the outcome and impact of your work foot with them?

Elena Aguilar  9:07  

I love that question. I feel like my life is driven by a commitment to meaning and purpose. I'm going to say I have two big hopes. One is that people feel inspired and hopeful and that they feel like we don't have to live with the way the world is right now or our relationships or how we are inside. We don't have to live with this kind of disconnect or anxiety or feeling unappreciated or in effective ways. Like there's hope there are other ways that we can do living and relationships, identity, and school. And the second big hope is that people will have countless actionable tools. I am very committed to giving people things that they can use to do something differently this afternoon and tomorrow. And I think that feeds the broader sense of hope and inspiration. Because we can't change our world with just lofty visions and, and inspiring anecdotes. We actually need to know how to change our behavior, change our beliefs, and change our ways of being. And I can tell people how to do that. And that is one of the things that people often appreciate about my work and appreciate about the teaching that I do and the books that I write, is that they come away from it saying, oh, I can use this. This is a sentence stem that I can use. This is a strategy that I can use when I feel emotionally activated or triggered. This is a strategy I can use when I feel annoyed by the teacher that I'm coaching or my colleague. This is something I can say to help someone rethink their perception of student work. So those two big hopes for the outcomes go hand in hand, I hope people will feel deeply moved and inspired. I write in this book in a way that I haven't written before. Perhaps in a different voice. I mean, that's just what comes I suppose after 15 years of writing, but I write a lot about love, which I started that's I've said, I I've written about, and I talk about compassion. But in this book, I'm actually talking about love. And I hope that people will feel more deeply anchored in and connected to the power of love, and that they'll have 50 new things that they can say in a conversation tomorrow that might help someone reflect on what they're doing, and ultimately returned to the connection to love.

Speaker 1  11:49  

You know, in this small part of the book that I was able to read, I really connected with that feeling and that voice that you're talking about. I felt your passion for teachers and your love for teachers and for kids and and for everybody in the educational system. That certainly comes through in your work. And I also notice the actionable element to when I'm going through your work. And part of your title is that this is Arise: The Art of Transformational Coaching. And to change, you know, we transform, can you talk about what you mean by transformational coaching? And maybe how your personal experiences have shaped that for you?

Elena Aguilar  12:29  

Sure, that's a great question. So let me give you a couple anecdotes to compare and contrast. So when I first started coaching, and I was using what I would say traditional instructional coaching, I would sit with a teacher who was designing a unit plan. And let's say a new teacher or a novice teacher. And the teacher would say something like, well, these are the standards. And I know I should do something to activate students sense of relevance. And I would offer them ideas. I would say, well, there's this great short story you could use as an anchor text. When I was a teacher, I took kids out doing this kind of field work. What about doing this? What about doing that? In a transformational approach? When a teacher says something like that? I would say in response, well, tell me what you know about your students interests? How do you think you might be able to get them engaged? What could you do to find out what their interests are, what they know what they're passionate about what they care about. I would be eliciting the answers from the teacher. I would be tapping into their strengths, their skills. I would be enabling them or building them up right from the very beginning to figure out how to take action to answer their own questions. Because ultimately, I want them to be able to make decisions when I as the coach, I'm not around. And so in transformational coaching, there are four foundational abilities. One of those foundational abilities is the commitment to activating someone's agency to helping them become more empowered, I think we are facing a crisis of disempowerment in our country and in our world, and teachers and children. And so in order to, in order to evoke transformation, we need to help people tap into their sense of power and agency ability to take action on what they think believe and know and doing that with new teachers in the very beginning. So in traditional coaching, we give a lot of answers. We tell people what to do. We point out we say have you tried this, you should do that? In transformational coaching, we cultivate agency, we invite people to explore their beliefs. Every action that we take, every behavior we enact comes from beliefs, whether we're conscious of it or not. And unless we address those beliefs, just surface them, explore them, sometimes shift them, we just tend to do the same thing over and over. And so that's another core element of transformational coaching, we explore behaviors, beliefs, and ways of being. And that ways of being includes exploring emotions. And that's another unique feature of transformational coaching: We actually acknowledge that human beings have emotions, and they are present. And they show up in tears, they show up in anger, they show up in defensiveness and shutting down. And they show up in that thing that sometimes we call resistance, or we label resistance, which is just strong emotions. And so a transformational coach knows how to recognize and then explore emotions.

Rena Clark  16:02  

I appreciate that. You did talk about the three B's which are behaviors, beliefs and ways of being and the role they play. And also, at one point, in your book you write,  "To be a transformational coach, you need to believe that the clients can solve their own problems when the conditions are right. And that your job is to create those conditions."  So you talked a little bit about listening, and kind of putting giving teachers more agency. But what do you mean by that? Like providing, creating those conditions, and making sure that the why is really at the center?

Elena Aguilar  16:47  

Yeah, so let's dig into the conditions in which we can learn and change. So learning requires vulnerability, it requires that we can take risks. For a teacher, it requires that we can say something like, I'm just feeling so ashamed, because I lost it today. And I screamed a student, and I can't believe I did that. And I don't know what to do. And I'm horrified that I could do that to a child. So that's when change is really possible. When a teacher can say something like that to another teacher to a coach, it would be ideal if they could say that to their school principal. So what are the conditions number one is trust. You could say that to your school principal, if there existed that kind of deep trust in which you knew that your principal would listen and say, I know how horrible it feels to do something that feels so misaligned with your vision of yourself with who you want to be in the world as a teacher. And that is really painful. And that is so brave of you to share that with me. Let's talk about it. You're not condoning the behavior. You're not saying, "Yeah, okay. Shout at your kids when they're out of line." You're saying you're human, you made a mistake. Let's process this and talk about this and explore some emotional regulation strategies. So number one is, is cultivating a relationship in which there's trust. Now, for a coach to do that, or a teacher, or an administrator, we can kind of roll that back a little bit into what are the dispositions that a coach or teacher administrator needs to be working from? And so a disposition is an attitude, a sort of a feeling state. And you have to believe that the other person, you have to believe that people can change. You have to believe that there's goodness within everyone. You have to believe that there is a way to explore what's coming up and to shift behaviors. And so in my book, and in my work, I talk about a coach working from a set of dispositions and those include curiosity, compassion, humility, trusting the process. So there's, there's so many layers to this model. And when we get down into how do we create the conditions, we talk about the internal dispositions. So the sense that we don't need to fix people, we don't need to give people answers. We need to be curious. We need to activate their agency we need to help them connect to who they want to be. We need to help them meet their core human needs, their sense of purpose and belonging, their need for connectedness, their need for mastery or competence. Those are core human needs, I often say, this is just science, we can either work with the science or we can fight it. And so when I say this is science, right now I'm saying this is there's neuroscience behind all of these strategies, there's psychology, there's sociology, there's anthropology, we can either work with it, and see the results we want to see for kids, for schools, including, when I say the results, one of the things that concerns me and so many of us I know is the turnover of teachers and the hard to staff, schools and positions. And we can do something about that. And so when I say we can either work with science or against it, this is what I'm talking about, we can work with our core human needs and and talk about and train people on how do we meet those. Or we can keep doing what we've done for so long and see the same results.

Winston Benjamin  20:53  

I actually personally enjoy your work versus as a person of color, who is in coaching experiences, sometimes some of those conversations that you were having, especially as you mentioned, the undertone statement of those kids, right? I'm thinking about my own personal experience and the experiences of an educator of color, who's in the transitional coaching place. How does identity and those particular pieces roll in together into this disposition, right? Because I can be you know, we need to move we need to move. But how does that impact how I shift my disposition? If that, like personal question makes sense in in context of your work?

Elena Aguilar  21:38  

Sure. So I'm hearing you asking the question of what is the role of identity? And what is the role... We'll start with what is the role of the, the identity of the coach or the leader. So one of the principles in transformational coaching is that we start with ourselves. We start with knowing ourselves, we start with exploring our behaviors, beliefs, and ways of being. And so for, well for anybody, but for people who have identities that have been marginalized, for people of color, for women, for anybody with a marginalized identity that begins with understanding that experience exploring it and beginning to do the work of healing from the the harm and the hurt that we've experienced. Because otherwise, what happens is, we aren't as strong as we could be, we take that hurt into situations. So when we talk about getting triggered or getting activated, that's a really uncomfortable experience. So for many years, the teachers that I coached, I experienced so many moments where I felt triggered by them. They would say something like that phrase, you know, well, these kids can't.. well, you know, who their parents are, what what do you expect from him. And I just the sort of current of discomfort and pain that coursing through my body was hard. And then I would react from a place of harm and anger. And, and so starting this is big work. And it's big work when you have identities that have been marginalized, and it can feel sometimes unfair, like why do I have to do double or triple the amount of work, and it's the path that we're on. And ultimately, as we do that healing, regardless of what position we're in, we feel better. And it feels really good to not be activated. And then you can access a whole lot of tools. And then you can see the change you want to see for kids, for yourself for your community. So we start with understanding ourselves. We start with recognizing our hurt and our pain, and really just learning some strategies and some skills so that when in this process, while we are engaging in our own healing, we can go to a classroom tomorrow and have a conversation with a teacher. And when they say a phrase like well, these kids can't... We can respond with say more about that. I'm really curious when you say these kids can't... what do you mean by that? Tell me about your experiences that have led you to think that. There's so many ways that we can respond when we hear someone express something racist, or classist or whatever, there's so many ways that we can respond. And sometimes what happens is we're flooded with, we're flooded with all the neuro chemicals and the hormones that that actually make our prefrontal cortex less optimal to respond. And so there's strategies that we can use for that. But there's also just words that we can use learn that we can use in those moments so that we're not frozen or attacking. Right So when something like that happens, we can go into, into a state of fear and into a state of response. And we can freeze, we can flee, we can fight, we can appease, and we can learn strategies so that we don't tumble into those rabbit holes.

Winston Benjamin  25:18  

I think this is a reason why I appreciate your work, because it's still puts the coach the educator as a learner, right? It's not an expert, we're still going through the process. And I really appreciate that ability to allow us to do humanity as well as we engage with our teachers, or students, or anyone. So thank you for that answer. I really appreciate that.

Elena Aguilar  25:41  

Thank you.

Speaker 1  25:42  

And one thing that that I'm struck even in this exchange with us, Elena is is your ability to listen so well and to to ask questions back and things like that. And I was really struck by chapter four in your book, and I love the title, it's "Caution..." or it's "How to Listen, Caution, This will Change Your Life." I mean, if that doesn't suck into a chapter, I don't know what will. But why is listening such a key component in this whole coaching equation, and probably even bigger than just coaching? But why is listening? So central in all of that?

Elena Aguilar  26:21  

Hmm, that's such a great question. So our primary core human need is the need for belonging and connection. There are a couple of ways that we create belonging and connection with each other. And one of those ways is through communication. And there is no true communication without listening. And so there's really no way to create deep belonging without listening to each other. And when we listen, we're listening and tuning into the words that someone uses as well as to their nonverbal communication, their facial expressions, their body language, their pitch, and pace and tone of volume, of tone of voice and their volume. And so when we tune into all of that, that's what gives us a sense of connection to another. So even though we're meeting on a virtual platform, and we're seeing each other in video, it's we've had this experience in last few years, as we've had a lot of experience on Zoom, and so on. We can still feel a sense of connection, that's actually really kind of remarkable. Of course, being in person together does feel even better. And so when we are with young people, or in a meeting, or in a coaching session, the way that we tune into each other is listening. And that's what that's, that's what I come back to so often when I see people struggling, whether it's in a coaching situation, or responding to students or to their colleagues, or really, in any relationship, it's how are you listening? Are you formulating answers in your head while the other person's mouth is moving, and you register their sound coming out of them? But you're already preparing your answer what you're going to say, how you're going to argue back, how you're going to counter, what you're going to suggest that they do, or are you actually taking in the human being in front of you empathizing with them? Are you fully present? Are you really with them? So this is, so many times people read my books, or come to my workshops, and they say, you know, this is great for me as a leader. And I'm also realizing I can use these strategies with my partner when I get home today, or with my kids or with my neighbors. And I say, yeah, that's a kind of a sneaky sort of little thing that I'm doing here as well, because I really, I want to see people connect to each other more authentically, more fully. It's the I do think it's, it is the pathway to transforming our world when we really listen to each other. And we experience that kind of on both sides, when we experience that kind of empathy for another and when someone really listens to us, it's transformative. It's really incredible.

Rena Clark  29:26  

I agree with you and so much of your work I have taken into my personal life. My husband will often say, "Are you are you coaching mode right now? Because my tenses will change. So I appreciate that. And as we know, this new book arrives, it is a coaching book, but it really does feel bigger than that. And I love that you're talking about working with the science, the neuroscience. So you alluded to this a little bit but how might listeners who are not educators, or educational coaches, specifically maybe their classroom teacher, as admin, or just want to read the book, how might they use those skills and strategies that you talked about in the book, maybe with students or others in their lives, as you alluded to just now?

Elena Aguilar  30:12  

Well, I think the strategies around listening are an immediately relevant transferable skill set. And so when I teach those strategies, and what I read about in this book is there are... You know, we say sometimes, like, we just need to listen, listen better. But what does that mean? This is why I say like, I want to be really actionable. Let's break that down. What is it that allows you to listen well? What gets in the way? And so I think, you know, we do this, so much of what I do is informed by my, my really 15 years of teaching kids and I taught middle school primarily. And so sort of that comparing and contrasting like, let's, what is it that blocks your ability to listen? When in a lot of times, it's when we're not present. We're distracted. We're worried about other things, we're worried about, what will someone think we want to get our point across. And so this is where we have to address the experience of emotions. There's so many schools that or maybe not so many, but there are schools that are doing social emotional learning with kids. And that's wonderful. And it's powerful. And I know very few adults who had any kind of social emotional learning as children's. So I didn't get it. I didn't get I didn't start this learning until I was in my 30s. And I wanted to figure out how to be a better coach. And some people do some learning about emotions if they go to therapy, or some kind of personal development. But we need to start understanding what it means to work with our emotions, and how our emotions show up when we're listening. And so for example, when coming back to this, when we're listening, and we have uncomfortable emotions that come up, like, ooh, I don't like what you just said, or what did you mean by that, or I feel like you're attacking me, those are emotions that are feelings that are arising. And when we have strategies to work with those, we can be more present, we can fully take in what someone else says. So there's, that's just one example. I'm digging deep, deep into this listening. But if we dig into how do we respond, how do we formulate questions? Or how do we share our opinions? How do we disagree? How do we provide feedback? How do we? Where do we set boundaries? And so I mentioned I have a 20 year old son, and I have used these coaching strategies with him, especially when he was in high school, where it was like, you're late again, but I'm not going to stand here screaming at you because I have a broader skill set and some other tools. But when do we as parents or teachers say, this is not a topic for conversation? This is not me asking you to share your thoughts and feelings. This is not acceptable. You can't do this. These are the boundaries. And now let's talk about how you can shift that behavior. So it's not that we're always taking a stance of like, tell me more. Tell me more about you how you made that decision. It's like, no, there's also times when as coaches we say to teachers, I'm really glad that you recognized that it wasn't okay for you to scream at a student. It's not that harms children. So let's talk about how you can shift those behaviors.

Winston Benjamin  33:38  

I appreciate the question, because that leads into the next part of our conversation. And yes, I was listening because all of what you added were tools that we could put in our toolkit on an every day. So it's now time to answer the question. What's in your toolkit? 

Student  33:59  

Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What's in the toolkit? What is in the toolkit? What's in the toolkit? Check it out.

Winston Benjamin  34:10  

This is an opportunity to think about what are the things that we can take away from our conversation and use either immediately or try to practice in our life. Rena Paul, which one would you like to go first? What's in your toolkit?

Rena Clark  34:23  

I'm happy to go I know that Elena's website brightmorningteam.com. I access the podcast which is Bright Morning, I believe. That's the title but the podcast is great. But you can also sign up for the newsletter there which I really appreciate it coming to my mailbox and it seems like it's always fitting the moment that I needed the little nuggets of advice or just I feel like affirmation or inspiration. So if you sign up for those newsletters, I personally have found those very helpful.

Speaker 1  35:00  

Yeah, they are great. I'm going to focus on part of the conversation we've had today. And that's the listening thing. I remember when I taught speech class, students would say, nobody's ever taught us how to listen, just teach us how to speak, you know. People are just kind of waiting for their turn. And then they're not really listening. They're not engaging. And I think that that is so key. I'm struck by the one statement that you said, Elena, "There's no way to create belonging without listening." We don't develop those relationships, unless it's both sides of that communication process. And I think it's just really transformational to kind of work on ourselves and improve those skills for ourselves.

Rena Clark  35:41  

Paul, it reminds me of those moments where somebody they're raising their hand, they always just want to go first, because then they can get it over with so then you can listen. So it's like learning how to listen, even when you're waiting to speak. I know, that's something I'm constantly working on.

Winston Benjamin  35:59  

So I'm gonna say, Elena, some of your conversations about the fact that we as adults never really learned how to do emotional regulation. And as a Jamaican, that is just something that my family never ever, ever taught me. So for me, I would like to throw in onward cultivating an emotional resilience in educators, I think, because a lot of times I get frustrated with my students and the way my parents taught me how to love comes out that way. And it's not always the best way. So for me taking the chance to dig in and like do the real personal reflection and think about how to be better for them has really been helpful. So I really just want to say thrown into the specific book onward has been very beneficial to me. Would you like to add anything in our toolkit, Elaine, anything that you think would be beneficial for us?

Elena Aguilar  36:51  

I think the last thing I would add, connected to what a number of you have said is that listening is not just a strategy for creating for for creating something or connecting to others, but it's actually something that feels really really good. Like there's a self serving, connecting to emotions and what helps us shift. What we need to learn how to regulate, or respond to the the difficult or uncomfortable emotions, but we also need to learn how to experience more of the ones that are pleasant and enjoyable. The the love, the connection, the joy, the belonging, and I have found there's I just I love listening to people, it's the most incredible feeling to connect to someone like that. I feel incredible joy and calm and peace. And so I think sometimes it's it there's a shift we make from ooh, now I'm listening effectively, my mind isn't running to oh my god, this feels so good. So I just add that in there. It's not just a sort of like, okay, now I'm doing a good job. But actually, this feels really good and and where are there opportunities to sink into the feelings that are just that we all want to be experiencing more of. That's how we change the world is by experiencing those more often.

All right, that's a perfect time to jump into our next segment, which is our one thing. 

Rena Clark  38:06  

It's time for that one thing.

Student  38:11  

One thing, one thing.

Rena Clark  38:18  

It's time for that one thing.

Speaker 1  38:31  

 All right time for final takeaway today. Rena, why don't you go first.

Rena Clark  38:35  

I feel like this line really sums up a lot of what we talked about today is that there are other ways we can do living. So I really appreciated that and thinking around centering around love.

Paul Beckermann  38:48  

Winston.

Winston Benjamin  38:50  

For me, I think it's the act of practices, right? Like a lot of times people give emotional conversations or ask you to take away with the emotional centering. But I love that there are actual practical steps that we can enact. That really help us move forward. So I think for me, that's a really important one thing is think about those practical steps to be better. Awesome.

Speaker 1  39:15  

And I'm dwelling on a couple of phrases that you said Elena, like, it's a pathway to transforming our world. And how this is bigger than just teaching and coaching. I mean, it's critical for teaching and coaching. And I think it's super powerful for that. Because through that we can change the lives of our kids, we can change the lives of ourselves and things like that. But if we do those little things, and we do it on our own individual basis, we can change the world, you know, one person at a time, one relationship at a time. And I do think it's transformational in a lot of ways. So that's that's kind of sticking with me. Elena, how about you one final thought for our audience today.

Elena Aguilar  39:56  

I'm just noticing in myself how much I'm appreciating this conversation we've had. And I'm intentionally noticing the way that I feel more connected to three people who I'd never met before, never had a conversation with. And the little elements of yourselves that you brought into this, whether that is, as a teacher, a coach, a partner, a son, those anecdotes that you share those elements of who you are, are part of what I feel like has just for this short period of time, created this little sense of connectedness. And I'm grateful for that. And I am reminded of how much how much easier it could be or how easy it can be to create authentic, meaningful connection that's nourishing. And this was a wonderful way for me to start my day. So thank you.

Speaker 1  40:53  

That's awesome to have you say that. And we feel the same right back at you. I'm just wondering one more thing, before we go to Rena, to close things out today, can you just tell our listeners how they might access your books, I know that there's an opportunity to preorder right now. And if you do preorder, you actually get a few extra benefits. Do you just want to share a little bit about that before we close off today?

Elena Aguilar  41:13  

Sure. So the book is coming out in the end of July 2024. And books, the more pre orders that books get, the more they get out there. And so authors have to encourage or plea for people to preorder their books, which is an uncomfortable part of this that I'm not crazy about. However, if you preorder, we've got some bonuses for you. And you can read all about those on my website, which is brightmorningteam.com. And you can pre order from any place that you like to preorder books from. And yeah, that's a there's there's all kinds of ways that I connect to people and try to support people into creating the kind of world that I know we all want to live in. And as you mentioned, that includes through the podcast and my newsletters. So there's a number of free ways to to continue this conversation and then the book and workshops and other offerings.

Rena Clark  42:19  

Wow, I am so appreciative of you taking the time and making my morning a bit brighter as well as my colleagues here who were speaking with us. I know we all have learned a lot from your work and working with others. So thank you so much. And just one more plug. Remember that Elena's new book Arise: The Art of Transformational Coaching is coming out soon. So again, thank you so much for your time and for creating a little bit of connectedness this morning. Thank you. Thanks for listening to Unpacking Education.

Winston Benjamin  42:58  

We invite you to visit us at avidopenaccess.org where you can discover resources to support student agency equity and academic tenacity to create a classroom for future ready learners.

Speaker 1  43:13  

We'll be back here next Wednesday for a fresh episode of Unpacking Education.

Rena Clark  43:17  

And remember, go forth and be awesome.

Winston Benjamin  43:21  

Thank you for all you do.

Paul Beckermann  43:22  

You make a difference.