Whose Permission Are You Waiting For? An Educator’s Guide to Doing What You Love

[00:01] Announcer:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome, everyone, to Principal Center Radio.

[00:13] SPEAKER_00:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to welcome back to the program my longtime friend and colleague, William D. Parker. Will is the founder of Principal Matters, LLC. He's an educator, author, speaker, and executive coach who equips school leaders with strategies for improving school culture, communication, and student outcomes. A former award-winning principal and Oklahoma educator since 1993, Will has presented at national conferences, led professional development, and supported leadership teams worldwide. He served as executive director for Oklahoma's Secondary Principals Association, and hosts Principal Matters, the school leaders podcast, with over 1.5 million downloads.

[00:49]

Through Principal Matters LLC, he offers virtual academies, coaching, and keynotes to inspire and empower educators everywhere. And he's the author of the new book, Whose Permission Are You Waiting For? An Educator's Guide to Doing What You Love.

[01:03] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[01:05] SPEAKER_00:

Will, welcome back to Principal Center Radio.

[01:07] SPEAKER_01:

Thank you, Justin. It's so great to be with you, and, I mean, when we say long-time friends, it has been a long time. You were one of the very first people I think I started following when I was dreaming of doing the kind of work that I'm doing now, and I was, like, looking around for good role models, and I found Justin Bader. So, thank you for the amazing work that you've done in school leadership for so long, and the wonderful books you've written, and the Just being my friend.

[01:33] SPEAKER_00:

Well, likewise, thank you, and thank you for, I think, modeling for so many of us what a good career looks like, and in particular, for opening the doors a little bit to give people a behind-the-scenes view of what a good career can look like, even if it's not strictly the pattern of getting promoted within your organization or staying in the same job. And it seems like you've written this book specifically for people who might be wondering if it's time to make some sort of move, especially some sort of non-traditional, possibly entrepreneurial, possibly experimental move. Tell us a little bit more about who you had in mind as the audience for this book.

[02:11] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I call this my coaching book because what I've discovered, especially over the last three years when I've been spending so much time coaching leaders, is a lot of times when people call and they have really hard decisions to make, whether it's in their career or whether it's in, right in front of them and the leadership that's happening within their school, A lot of times, I find myself saying the same things over and over again. So I decided, Justin, as a good writer should do, when I'm repeating myself a lot, how about I write down those things? So this book, in some ways, is kind of both a companion for how to navigate difficult decisions and the pathways in front of you. And at the same time, how to look at the work that you're doing with that same problem-solving mindset. So I hope readers can get more than just one thing out of this book. It's obviously a book I've written for the younger version of me.

[03:05]

I wish I had someone 30 years ago who had handed me this book to kind of give me some sense of... All the possibilities involved in this career of education, but I also wanted to write it for the more current version of me. A lot of leaders that I'm working with who are just sitting in the middle of some hard decisions, and sometimes they just need feedback of how to make a really good decision based on the complexities of what's right in front of them.

[03:30] SPEAKER_00:

I think that's an excellent framing because, you know, so often the question is asked in a very blunt and binary way. Like, should I quit my job? Should I, yeah, should I walk away? And you and I are both people who did that. And I don't know about you, but I personally have mixed feelings about whether that was a good decision at the time. You know, and a lot of great things have happened since then.

[03:50]

But sometimes, you know, if I look back and think, what was I thinking as a person with a secure job to kind of step out into... This kind of who-knows-what-will-happen scenario with the young family. And I know you've got a family as well at a kind of a different stage when you've made various transitions. But when somebody comes up to you and asks that question, hey, I really am inspired by you, Will.

[04:10]

Should I quit my job too? What's the first thing you say to them?

[04:14] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's a great question, Justin. I think the first thing that I would say to them is, tell me what's on your mind when you think about what it is that you want to do. Because what I've discovered is, man, and maybe this is just the wisdom that comes with age, or maybe it's just the stage I'm in right now, but it is a whole lot better to understand what's going on in the mind of someone before I start trying to give them an answer. So I'm, I don't know, just in the old days, I think I may have been more apt to be prescriptive. Let me just tell you what to do in this situation, and here's five steps of how to do it, and those things can be really helpful. But what I've discovered in coaching is it's a whole lot more productive if I first just understand what's going on in the mind of the person that's asking me the question.

[04:59]

And so, I share some reflective tools in the book that I use. One, one of my favorite is called The Coaching Habit. It's a book by Michael Zbigniew Stanier. He wrote it for business coaching. But I've just adopted these seven questions as a way to kind of really sit with the leaders. And there's so many reflection models you can use, but this one, and I'll give the listeners all seven questions right now.

[05:21]

Usually, I begin with, like, what's on your mind? Tell me that. And then... What else is on your mind?

[05:26]

Kind of takes you deeper, because there's usually something underlying the initial question that takes you deeper. Three, what's the real challenge here for you? Because what I discover is helping someone recognize how to frame in their own mind the words of, this is the current challenge I'm facing. And then four, what do you want? That question helps you then identify where I want to go next in whatever I'm trying to discover. And then five is when I finally ask, how can I help?

[05:57]

And then I might be able to give feedback and advice that could give them some ideas of directions that they could consider. And then the last two questions, six is a strategic question. If you're going to say yes to something, what are you going to say no to? Because you always have an exchange happening. And then seven is just simply a kind of a summary question. What was most useful for you?

[06:16]

And just reflecting together. That's probably too much of an answer for what do you say when someone walks up to you and asks this question? But that's also in the book, which is just the ability to... Encourage someone to walk down that pathway of reflection as a way to really identify where it is and where you want to go next.

[06:34] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And I think that that coaching, those reflective questions are so powerful because there is so much pressure. Once you start to get the bug to maybe do something else, especially if it has to do with, you know, working for yourself or business, there are so many specific sales pitches out there for a specific thing that if you just hitch your wagon to it, you know, maybe it's webinars, maybe it's some marketing technique, you know, everybody's got a technique that they want to sell you. And I really appreciate that in the book, you start kind of from the opposite direction. Like, where do you want to go? You know, what are we going for here?

[07:08]

And what is that journey going to look like? And you use the metaphor of the journey quite a bit. And you say, rather than see it as kind of a binary choice, you see it as more of an odyssey. Tell us about the odyssey.

[07:21] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I came across that term in a book. called Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and, uh, and I think it's Dale Evans or Dave Evans. I'm not looking at it right now in front of me. But those authors were Stanford professors in design engineering, Justin, and what they discovered is what you and I have discovered, is that highly intelligent, talented people often don't know what they're going to do next. And they were graduating these students in design engineering at Stanford.

[07:50]

You would think that, like, they would have the pathway already figured out, and they would come to their professors struggling with, what am I supposed to do now that I have this... Um, and I came across the term in another book years ago that led me to their book.

[08:20]

And I, I had this little aha moment because I had been doing this and I didn't know it was called something. And the idea is that if I'm trying to make a decision based on something in front of me, how do I create multiple options for the direction I could go? I could go A or B, or I could say, you know, here's my pros and cons for the two things in front of me. But the idea is to give yourself permission to think about three, at least three options, maybe even four. And then create a, for pathway A, here are the possibilities of the directions I could go, the pros and cons, the kind, the people I would need to talk to, the variables involved in, let's say, if it's income, or let's say if it's risk involved, and then let me do the same way with pathway B. I'm going to list out all the same...

[09:08]

If the potential is if I head down this way and all the different people I would need to have conversations with, the risk involved there, the outcomes I would hope for, but then I'm going to create an option C too. And so whenever I'm talking to leaders who are often looking at hard decisions in front of them, especially if you're thinking about your future, Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

[09:52]

In the book, I have a chapter where I just talk through, what does that look like? And how do you do that? And I give examples from some of the work that I've done or some of the work I've seen other people do, too. Because what happens when you begin to explore pathways is you begin to discover potentials that you'd never thought about before. especially if you take the next steps, which are talking to people that may already be on those same pathways or investigating, you begin to see doors open up and possibilities open up that may not have existed before in your own mind. So it's been a wonderful, I don't know, I'm going to call it, in some ways, it's playtime for adults.

[10:29]

You know, it's a sandbox, a place where you can sit and just play with the ideas of potentials in front of you, instead of getting boxed in to this idea that it's always between two variables.

[10:40] SPEAKER_00:

Love that. So, considering multiple possibilities, and it sounds like doing this at a time when you're not under pressure to make a decision between, you know, a job offer or staying with what you're doing, but really mapping it out and thinking ahead. And later in the book, you talk about backwards mapping. Talk to us a little bit more about backwards mapping and goals.

[10:59] SPEAKER_01:

Well, let me say this before we go to backwards mapping. I'll just give you a quick example of how those pathway thoughts can be helpful. So, I had a call a couple of months ago from a teacher who just finished a degree in head leadership and was looking at the possibility of moving from classroom teaching, also doing some instructional coaching, into school admin. I was just trying to figure out, okay, what should I do next to go down that pathway? So before I gave her advice on that, all those options, I said, oh, I want you to think about that's just one option. What's something else that you would love to do based on your skill set that might also be a good fit for...

[11:40]

this degree and, or the degrees you currently have. And she was like, oh, that's a good question. So she actually gave me two other things that she would love to do that weren't even connected to being an assistant principal. So I gave her the assignment. Well, just start exploring the possibilities within each of those pathways and...

[11:57]

This was a one-time conversation, and so I found out, actually, just last week, and I won't share names because I don't have permission, but my wife, who's a former educator, had run into this person, and she just said, oh, by the way, I had this conversation with your husband. He did give me some complimentary coaching, and I left that conversation and started pursuing these other pathway options, and you know what I discovered? I don't want to be an assistant principal. I was looking at all the different options in front of me, and I realized the things that I would be involved in doing every single day in that option would not bring me joy. And so, as a result, I have had some long conversations with my principal about some new innovative things I would like to do within the role I currently have if I could add on more responsibilities in coaching teachers. And next year, this is our plan.

[12:45]

And she was so excited that my wife came home to tell me, Will, I just had this wonderful conversation. So, I'm just stopping there for a second, Justin, to bring, like, a real-life story to what happens when we give ourselves permission to think outside the binary. What I'm really trying to encourage people to do, and that's why I wrote the title, Whose Permission Are You Waiting For? An Educator's Guide to Doing What You Love, is to examine the pathways in front of you, but always with the value. What do I know is going to be the best match for the thing I'm the best at? So how do I make sure that I'm still staying connected to something I love to do, but I also know it's going to be great for the people that are receiving value from what I'm doing too.

[13:28]

So before I jump into backward mapping, anything you want to reflect on that? Because I just want to give you a quick example of how that works.

[13:36] SPEAKER_00:

I think that's a great example, and I think often people are hesitant to ask for the kind of position that they have in mind to be created for them, and often are surprised when it works out that, you know, maybe nobody had thought of it before, but, you know, leaders often are eager to say yes to great people on their team, so I think it works out more often than people would expect.

[13:58] SPEAKER_01:

I would agree, and I'll take it all the way back to the beginning of the conversation you and I were having when you said sometimes we second-guess. You know, should I have headed down this pathway? Should I have stepped out of the traditional role that I was serving in K-12 education? And my answer to that question is, well, I don't know. We can't go back and undo our histories. But I do know this about you, Justin, and I know it about myself, too.

[14:20]

We wouldn't have taken those steps forward if it hadn't matched something that we knew was bringing us incredible satisfaction, incredible joy, was keeping our batteries recharged. And so, I don't... I'm gonna sound preachy right now, but...

[14:35]

Probably the most important thing to me, if anybody got any value out of this book, would be this, is that whatever you're doing, if you're not finding joy in it, then either rediscover the joy that's available in what you're currently doing, or find that thing that's gonna keep your motor running. Because as soon as we... If we don't settle for doing something that's no longer keeping us energized and creative, then we're no longer serving well. Because it's, whether it's in a classroom, whether it's in a school setting, whether, whatever it is, the people on the other side of us deserve to have somebody who is still passionate about the thing they're doing.

[15:12]

None of us wants to be on the other side of a teacher who's lost their passion for their subject or for their content or for learning. And so that's why these practices have been so useful for me, is it keeps me centered on the thing that not only brings me joy, but hopefully brings other people value, too.

[15:26] SPEAKER_00:

I think this is where a fair number of people find themselves, is they do the backward mapping from a position that they've had in mind as their destination. Like, I want to be a principal or I want to be a superintendent. But the next step on that journey is assistant principal. And, you know, there definitely are lots of great people who want to be assistant principals, but for a lot of people, it isn't ultimately what they want, and it is not where their passion is. And especially, you know, even if you do want to be an assistant principal, there are parts of the job That very few people wake up in the morning and say, you know what? I really want to suspend some kids.

[15:59]

I really want to get yelled at by parents. Like, I mean, we're all going to face those unpleasant tasks either as part of doing what we love or on the way to a job where we see ourselves really doing what we love. So, any framing advice there for thinking about those things? Like, hey, this is just part of, you know, the process of pursuing my goals that I've mapped backwards from. And then, yeah, how do we do that?

[16:21] SPEAKER_01:

No, that's such a great question, Justin. So, I'll respond to that in the way that I've responded to a lot of things I've done that involve parts that I don't like. And that's just life. The degrees that we have...

[16:35]

Most of the time, I mean, there are parts of getting that degree I enjoyed, and there were parts of it that I loathed. But I also knew that it was a ticket for me, in order for me to do something else that I wanted to do. And so if I'm willing to pay the, to sacrifice the pain that it takes for me to have access to the thing that I want to do, then I'm willing to go through the hard parts. It's just like anything else that comes...

[16:57]

I mean, it's not any different than achieving a new workout goal or achieving a new eating habit or achieving... You know, whatever it is, it's gonna...

[17:04]

There's always the other side of the hard, sacrificial part of what's going in. So, what I don't want to be heard saying is you should only do things that make you happy. That's not what I'm saying. Because to me, there's a difference between joy and happiness. Happiness is that feeling that we get when everything's blissful and life's going great and you have so many comforts. Joy is the ability to stay centered and still find hope and still find an opportunity to see the best in others and to laugh, even when...

[17:32]

I'm facing things that are really, really hard. And I'm not going to pretend like that's, like, the version of Will Parker every single day when I wake up. So I do think sometimes that you have to navigate, what am I willing to sacrifice if I'm going to pursue a pathway? Because there's going to come challenges with all of them. I mean, in my work, in some cases, I was the school principal. I was also an author and a blogger and a podcaster.

[17:59]

As an executive director of a state association, I was leading work across my state while also still writing a blog and being an author and being a pod... So, and you know how hard that work is. So, I'm sacrificing time to continue to develop this thing on the side that is such a passion for me. And eventually it led to being able to do that work full time.

[18:21]

It's very possible that it never would have. And if it hadn't, it would have been a great part-time occupation for me because it still brought me so much joy. So it was worth the pain because of how much joy it brought me. So if someone is sitting here thinking about the pathways in front of them, I will say this, though, that especially I was an assistant principal for nine years before I became high school principal. So that was a huge part of my career. And I was determined to be as good at that role as I possibly could be, even knowing that at some point I wanted to move on and do something else.

[18:52]

So if you're not committed to being the best at whatever that role is that you're hoping will get you to the next thing, then I would ask you not to do it, because your kids deserve for you to show up performing at your best, whatever that role is. And teachers deserve that, too. So there are sacrifices. I have a superintendent certification that I've never used. And I've never used it because when I do the cost-benefit ratio analysis in my own mind, and I sit down and do all my mapping, I have yet to see how that's going to bring me the kind of joy and fulfillment necessary for me to make the sacrifice that I know would be involved in that role. So those are the things that go through my mind, Justin.

[19:29] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, very well said. And I'm thinking about what you said, Will, about, you know, being committed to being the best at what I'm doing right now, even if I plan to do something after that. Even if I see this as a stage on a journey to something that in my mind is greater, I don't want to act in the meantime like what I'm doing now is beneath me, or I'm probably not going to have the opportunity... to take that next step.

[19:54]

And I think that attitude worked out pretty well for you. It sounds like if you had not had that attitude, that this was, you know, the task before you, you were going to do it to the best of your ability. If you had acted like being an assistant principal was beneath you, you probably never would have had the opportunity to become a principal and to become a state association director. Is that how you look at it?

[20:15] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's a great point. And I think that's a good reminder for everyone to think about in your own leadership that I call it, you're, like it or not, you're always interviewing for the next thing, Justin. And so, the commitment that you have to the current role that you have is creating the opportunities that you're gonna have for what you're doing in the future. I grew up on a farm, so I also call it your seed corn. Like, whatever you're working on right now is often going to be seed that you're sowing, or maybe even storing, for the next time something needs to be planted and harvested. So it's all connected.

[20:51]

And I don't think anything we ever do is in isolation.

[20:53] SPEAKER_00:

It also strikes me that there is a skill element, that we are building skills that we may have the opportunity to use in our next steps. that if we're not attuned to that in the moment, we may never develop the skills we need for that next step. And one of the things that I think people overlook a lot, especially in educational leadership, is just self-discipline. And it seems like so much of your book is about building habits and putting in the work and being consistent. So, thinking for someone who might want to do something different at some point in the future, maybe immediately, maybe a few years down the road, maybe on an uncertain timeline, what are some of the areas in which people can apply that consistent effort? And maybe they're not gonna take a whole bunch of time off to do something, maybe they're not gonna quit their job in two weeks, but they want to start doing something.

[21:42]

As I said earlier, I think there are a lot of people in the business world who will sell you a particular technique, And you and I, I think, took a fairly similar path in writing articles, speaking at conferences, doing podcasts. What are some specific steps that you think people might consider if they are looking at scaling their influence and finding different outlets for their leadership?

[22:04] SPEAKER_01:

That's such a great question. So let's get really nitty gritty. And I'm gonna just give credit to the person I learned this from. But back when I was exploring, like, what do I do? I knew that I was skilled in the role of an assistant principal. I also knew that it wasn't what I wanted to do forever.

[22:22]

I also had skills I wasn't exercising at the time, because I wasn't doing any writing at the time, and I had formerly been a writing teacher. And so I came across a book by Michael Hyatt called Platform, Getting Noticed in the Noisy World. And at the time, when Michael Hyatt wrote that back in, like, 2012, you know, blogging was still kind of a cool thing. He was a really famous blogger. He had started a podcast, and he had formerly been the president of Thomas Nelson Publishing. But his own blog had taken off and it had turned into an opportunity for him to start his own business and write books.

[22:55]

So I took that book camping once with my son, Jack, in Arkansas, where you live. And when he was sleeping, I was just laying there reading it. And he said something that struck me because he was talking about content creation and people that write blogs or people that try to get noticed in a noisy world. And he was just talking about consistency and how that...

[23:12]

In his analysis, a lot of people are like, I want to do something new, and let me create this skill, or let me start exercising this new skill, like, for me, writing. And he said a lot of people do that for a year. They'll write, or they'll post, or they'll try to get things published. Really committed people might do it for two years, some even for three. But he said the people that he had seen the most momentum that had built up over time and then finally saw a real return on that time would do it for at least five. And I was just, I don't know, in my brain, Justin, I just decided, laying in that tent, all right, I'm going to start writing something every single week I've been learning about leadership.

[23:50]

It doesn't have to be long, 500 words, 800 words, a thousand words. And I'm going to share it on my website. I can share it with friends. I don't have to have it, even have a publisher. I'm just going to create content every week for the next five years. And I'm going to see what happens if I just start sharing it out.

[24:06]

And the best decision that I made in that moment was just a commitment decision, because a commitment to consistency, because what that did was it gave me time to practice a craft. I didn't think of that at the time, but it gave me time to practice a craft over time. It gave me an ability to start looking now for lessons and through a lens that I hadn't been looking at before. It gave me the ability to share that out and then get feedback and then realize, oh, that really resonated with people, or this didn't help them, seem to help, and this, maybe this would. It gave me a lot of content. After two years, I was able to go back and collect all that content and realize, I think I have a book here that I hadn't even realized I was writing something that could be turned into a book.

[24:49]

And so, you know, fast forward to five years later, Solution Tree Press reached out to me. Two publishing companies reached out to me at the same time asking, would I consider doing a book on school communication? And I said yes to Solution Tree and wrote Messaging Matters. And that may have been how we met, because I know you did your first book with Solution Tree too, but I think I was already following you by then. But long story short, it's my commitment to consistency over time helped me build a new skill. And a lot of the assumptions that I had about what that would look like were so wrong, because I thought, I can just have this huge following, and maybe I'll be kind of an educator influencer.

[25:29]

And all these things that were, like, ideas in my mind, what I've discovered was that hard work requires commitment and time. It requires building craft and skill. It requires connecting with people. But if I had made that commitment, Justin, there's no way I would be sharing this book with you today that's my fourth book. Because I would have never started the consistent skills that over time give me an opportunity to build muscle that I can be using in another context. So in some ways, I married my worlds.

[26:00]

The world of what I was doing with the world of things I wanted to do more of And it actually created a new world for me to step into. So, if someone can pull lessons from that... I know in the book, I share a lot of ideas of, you know, things that have worked for me, but also things I've seen work for other people, too. But that consistency piece is a big part of that.

[26:23] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think that's so well said, and not to take it at all away from the many specific chapters you have in the book on how to do this and some areas to explore. I thought I would do something I don't think I've ever done on this podcast before, and that is read a quote from someone else that I think speaks to what you're talking about. And I'm sure you've heard this quote from Ira Glass, host of This American Life. He says, uh, And I'll pause here and say, you know, you and I probably read lots of books that we admired, and we thought, you know, I would like to be the person who writes these books, not just reads them. And then I'll continue the quote here.

[27:03]

But there's this gap. For the first couple of years, you make stuff. It's just not that good. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. The most important thing you can do is a lot of work.

[27:17]

It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap. And your work will be as good as your ambitions. It's gonna take a while. It's normal to take a while. You've just gotta fight your way through. Again, that's from Ira Glass, who started a little podcast over 20 years ago.

[27:33] SPEAKER_01:

That's good stuff.

[27:34] SPEAKER_00:

I, in his podcast.

[27:37] SPEAKER_01:

Oh, my gosh. And, you know, I can't listen to This American Life without just constantly, just being immediately pulled in to the stories that they create there. And I've never thought about using that analogy of your taste is what attracts you to something that you want to do, too. It's funny, Justin, because...

[27:56]

Something else that's been an aha moment for me is, now that I know so many educators, I just assumed everybody wants to do things I want to do. You know, like, like, everyone wants to be a writer, everyone wants to speak, and that's just not true. I think, though, I get attracted to people that like to do the things I do, which is one of the reasons I'm friends with you. This may not be a book that resonates with everyone. But what I've tried to do is write this for the 20-something-year-old who's stepping into education and looking down those pathways and can see a potential future for herself that maybe she hasn't seen. Or for that person that's at the end of their career that is just kind of thinking, what do I want to do next that I would absolutely love?

[28:35]

Or for that person that's just right where they want to be, but maybe they just want to rediscover some things that are going to make them better in the pathway that they're currently on. So I hope people find it helpful.

[28:46] SPEAKER_00:

I think they absolutely will. And I'm glad you highlighted, you know, the variety of different scenarios people might find themselves in. Because I think as a young educator or someone at the beginning of your education career, you do need a bit of a roadmap to think, okay, where could this go? I have maybe a default path in mind, but maybe I need not a binary choice, but an odyssey, you know, multiple options for how things could go. And often people later in their careers find themselves with multiple options. You know, if you have had a successful career, sometimes you'll get offered multiple gigs that you ultimately have to turn down because, you know, there could be multiple people who are interested in working with you.

[29:21]

And you've got to do what makes the most sense for you in the moment. But also, I think you do such a good job of this in the book, Will, is think ahead and work backwards from, you know, possible futures that you might be able to realize by... Doing some work in the meantime, and being patient, and putting in that work over time.

[29:40] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I never answered your question about backward mapping, so here, I'll give it the 30-second drop, but... I have a good buddy who's a sailor, and he also was a school principal, and so whenever he's getting ready to navigate a big trip on the water...

[29:53]

You know, he's going to take a look at the map and know exactly where he's going to go, and he's going to backward plan it all the way to where he is. But he also used that same skill in school leadership, and years ago, he said that to me. He was just like, well, if there's something extraordinary that you want to accomplish... Then create a backward map.

[30:09]

Don't just, like, create a list of to-dos, but, like, start with the end date and then set little deadlines for yourself all the way back to where you are now so that you have a really practical step-by-step map for yourself moving forward. And so that's been something super helpful for me, especially as I'm transitioning between things to have a map moving forward, but also have a map that kind of helps me step backward too. So sometimes for me, that's looked like, how do I exit something while also entering something at the same time? So you can find that in the book too.

[30:42] SPEAKER_00:

Well, it is quite a gift to anyone who is in search of that guidance and that mentoring. So the book is Whose Permission Are You Waiting For? An Educator's Guide to Doing What You Love. And, Will, if people want to learn more about your work or maybe get in touch with you, where's the best place for them to go online?

[30:57] SPEAKER_01:

Well, they can find me at my website at williamdparker.com, and I'm usually by that name on social media, too, but that's the easiest way to find me, Justin.

[31:07] SPEAKER_00:

Wonderful. Well, Will, thank you again for joining me on Principal Center Radio. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, my friend.

[31:12] Announcer:

Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.