SEL in EDU
SELinEDU Podcast is stories and insights from outstanding teachers, administrators, leaders, and students on all things Social Emotional Learning in education. These 30-40-minute podcasts are perfect for a commute, a nice cup of coffee, or a self-care walk.
SEL in EDU
077: Die Tired: Maximizing Your Impact with Dr. PJ Caposey
What if your greatest strength is simultaneously your biggest weakness? Award-winning superintendent and leadership coach Dr. PJ Caposey cuts through conventional wisdom to reveal a compelling truth: the qualities that make us exceptional are often the same ones holding us back from reaching our full potential.
Drawing from his experience as both a superintendent and cancer survivor, PJ shares profound insights about leadership as a relay race rather than a solo sprint. He discusses the liberating concept of "bringing all of yourself" to both work and home, breaking down the exhausting compartmentalization many leaders struggle with. Using the Enneagram as a tool for understanding our default dispositions, he demonstrates how self-awareness can transform not just how we lead, but how we live.
The conversation explores the "lighthouse" approach to parenting, finding joy in creating ripples of positive impact, and the courage to embrace our imperfections authentically. This permission to be authentically human while striving for excellence represents the core of PJ's leadership philosophy.
Whether you're seeking to maximize your impact as a leader, understand your behavioral patterns, or bring more authenticity to your daily interactions, this conversation offers practical wisdom that transcends typical leadership advice.
EPISODE RESOURCES:
- Connect with PJ via his website, Instagram, LinkedIn, and email: PJCaposey@gmail.com
- Check out PJ's books on Amazon.
Welcome to SEL in EDU, the podcast where we explore how educators bring social-emotional learning to life by sharing stories, strategies and sparks of inspiration. I'm your host, dr Krista Lay, owner of Resonance Education. Thank you for joining us on this SEL journey on this.
Speaker 2:SEL journey. I'm Shanna Martin, host of the Tech Tools for Teachers podcast, a part of the Education Podcast Network. Just like the show you're listening to now, Shows on the network are individually owned and opinions expressed may not reflect others. Find other interesting education podcasts at edupodcastnetworkcom.
Speaker 1:Dr PJ Capozzi is the superintendent of schools from Oregon, cusd 220. He is the former Illinois State Superintendent of the Year and a runner-up for the National Superintendent of the Year through the American Association of School Administrators. Pj is a best-selling author of 10 books, dynamic speaker and a transformational leader and educator with an incredible track record of success. Welcome back, sel, in EDU family and welcome PJ.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to finally be able to make this work out.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So for those of you who've been listening, we've been going back and forth for a couple months. My life, your life in general, has just been coming up and I've got three kids, you've got four kids and work, and that just pulls us all in different directions.
Speaker 3:It absolutely does, but I'm excited to finally make it happen?
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too, just a couple of minutes ago. I'm like so, do you want to know the questions I'm going to ask you? And you're like no, let's just have a conversation. So I am going to take us all the way back to an ASCD Emerging Leader conference that we had in the spring. It was the first time I got to meet you, I think, in person, but, like we had been in similar circles of educators, you were sharing one of your keynotes with the group and you said something that just bowled me over and I felt very seen and, oh shit, I need to talk to this guy some more. You said time management is self-management.
Speaker 3:It's an unspoken truth that I feel like we like to sometimes cloud ourselves with other vernacular that doesn't allow us to take ownership of how things are going. But we all have the same 24 hours, we all have the same seven days in a week, we all have that same amount, and life throws different things at us. So I'm not saying time management is easy by any stretch of the imagination, but when we focus on the time aspect, that is fixed, it's the part that's variable is how we respond to it. It reminds me of the poster that's like in every counseling office or dean's office in schools is the E plus R equals O. Right, so it's the event plus the response equals the outcome. The only thing that we control in that is the response. The only thing that we control in time management is ourselves, and so, until we're willing to take ownership of that, I think everything else.
Speaker 3:And look, there's 10,000 books on time management on Amazon, right? There's lots of speakers and lots of seminars that make lots of money giving tips and techniques and hacks, and what I like to say is like all of those things work. They absolutely work. It's just like doing a diet If you do them. The issue is that you have to figure out why you're not doing them already. When I talk, that's the approach I take.
Speaker 1:And it's philosophy that kind of trickles into every other aspect of my leadership in life as well. Planning, organization, self-motivation, self-discipline was always my weaker area. I was like, no, I don't feel like doing this today, but when I was motivated I could knock something out. In your coaching, when you're working with people around leadership and culture and time management, what are some of the things that you offer to support people not uncovering what's holding them back and helping them move forward?
Speaker 3:I use Enneagram a ton. Enneagram is one of many different types of personality type behavioral assessments and people either subscribe to them or they don't. So if I find someone who likes Myers-Briggs they've also taken DISC and they've taken this and they've taken that and then other people see them as pop psychology and dismiss them writ large. When I was introduced to Enneagram I was somewhat in the middle where I was curious. I think anyone that does anything with brain science knows the brain likes learning about the brain. So they were intriguing. But I also was somewhat dismissive of them, largely because I felt most of them told you like definitively what you were. What I like about Enneagram is it tells us what our dispositions are, not necessarily what we are. In many ways it's limitless instead of limiting. So when I do Myers-Briggs again which I think has value, but I'm an INTJ and that's just what I am when you do work with Enneagram it tells you this is the kind of your default, but here's the work you can do to behave differently in different situations. I use that as a backbone of a lot of my coaching. Some people are responsive to it, other people aren't, and then I just use it anyway by asking them questions and essentially not using any of the vernacular.
Speaker 3:The kind of the thesis of how I work with people is typically most people's superpower is also their kryptonite, which is a really weird thing to conceptualize. So the thing that makes me successful in my life is also the thing that brings me the most trouble. So for me it's the fact that I love conflict. I am willing to have very difficult conversations. I'm willing to say things that everyone in the room might be thinking but no one has the courage to say so.
Speaker 3:I'm that guy and so in many ways that's great. I'm really good in crisis. I'm good in areas where there's a void in leadership to assume. The bad part is that not everything needs to be a fight right. What I found in my career is that I self-sabotaged a ton because I was constantly seeking conflict. That's just my own personal example, but in coaching I find it is the same way a lot of times. It's whatever is what makes us elite and is our superpower and gives us all of the juice that makes us really successful in what we do. Typically is also the same thing that, when we look at the foil of that, is what's holding us back. My role as a coach is just helping expose that to the person so that then they can make different decisions, so that they don't keep getting the same results that they have previously.
Speaker 1:I've worked in the Enneagram before you and I started talking, and I know that it's tricky too, because you take the survey, but your scores don't necessarily mean that's what you are. That's what I've been learning from somebody who works in that area. So I might've been high in one, but then the more we dove into it and I know, if you recall, you thought I was firmly one number, I'm like no, I'm pretty sure I'm a four wing five. I still go back to that and how some of them get mistyped, because you really do have to do deeper work in that to uncover where you're at. Don't they talk about a shadow side? And is that the site? Is that what you mean when you talk about the thing that is your strength can also be the thing holding you back, or am I thinking of it incorrectly?
Speaker 3:So they talk about wings. And then you have different angers, like different levels of integration. For me, and some people call it the shadow side. But so, whatever type you are, you have different angers, like different levels of integration. For me, and some people call it this chaviside. But so, whatever type you are, you have a type that you tend to act like when you're healthy. That isn't your actual type, and you have a type that you tend to act like when you're unhealthy, which isn't. And so, depending on what place you're in and the title of this is SEL so like wherever your emotional, mental health is at a time, you can, when you take the survey, end up in completely different places depending on where you're at.
Speaker 3:For those familiar with Enneagram, my description probably gave it away I'm a type eight. Type eights, when they're healthy, act like a type two. So if I'm in an exceptionally good place and I take the survey based on how I'm behaving, it's going to show that I'm a two. I'm about the furthest thing from a two, except when I'm healthy. That's how I behave, and so there's lots of times where we get ourselves in very interesting positions. If you take the Enneagram, you'd be like no, it says it's this. I'm that.
Speaker 3:The first few times I took the Enneagram it turned out that I was a type three and I behave a lot like a type three and I like type threes. That's who I hire the most when I'm not paying attention. That's what I'm attracted to. But I'm an eight. And so I went back to my boss. I think I'm a type three. He was very vested in the processes, Are you sure? And I'm like, yeah, I don't think so. He's like take it again. So I took it again, type three. And so he's here, an eight man, and I'm like, and domineering, and all these things, Like I don't want to be an eight. I'm like, no, I'm a three. And he's go home and have your wife take it as though she was you. And I was like off the charts and eight. I was like, all right, I'm an eight. So then I leaned into it and figured out how to develop my self-awareness and to leverage the parts of my default personality that I love and to work to mitigate the parts that I didn't love as much.
Speaker 1:You reminded me of something that I was watching, where they said whatever the number is that, you're like hell. No, that's not me is probably the one that you are.
Speaker 3:There's one of the first things I read about eights in the, when my boss told me he thought I was an eight and I was trying to rebel or reject that said, eights, when they're extremely unhealthy, become murderous and I'm like that's like the worst, like literally the worst possible thing you can say right and so. I'm reading that and I'm like I don't really love that. It's got the good side. It says it can be magnanimous when things are wrong. I'm like no. Like it says murderous brother.
Speaker 1:This is not a good thing. That hurdle as well. I'm still doing the work on myself and I'm still digging and I have a whole bunch of books. I just bought another. Where did I? Took it off of my professional shelf and put it over here?
Speaker 1:It's in the queue of things to do this summer. So hopefully, if you come on again, I might be like yeah, maybe you're right, I'm a six, but I'm still believing. I even looked before we got on. I'm still thinking on the four and I'm not super proud of all the four stuff.
Speaker 3:I'm like oh, so fours are by far the most statistically rare type as well. So if you are a four, you are I mean it's true like very rare, like unicorn status.
Speaker 1:So let me also go back and say that in the Myers-Briggs I'm an INFJ and that is also the rarest type of the Myers-Briggs Okay, I'm an INFJ and that is also the rarest type of the Myers-Briggs Okay, and I have taken that for the last 25 years and it shifts because it gives you the percentages right. So sometimes in my life I've been like overly introverted, but when I needed to start the business or when I went back to school and left my job at the school district, I moved back towards introversion because I had to if I wanted to achieve my goals and there were things with that. But I do think we shift a little bit, but I've always been an INFJ.
Speaker 3:If people dabble with Enneagram and you're like, oh, I don't want to be a type like. Any type can behave exactly like any other type. So when you read something you'd be like I really. So. For me, when I read a type three that looks attractive to me Now I'm not saying it is or it isn't, there's no one type that's better than any other type but for me, when I read type three, I'm like that looks like what I aspire to be.
Speaker 3:Any type can act like. It just takes you more energy. So the reason they brought up is when you brought up the introversion, extroversion, I'm an introvert, I can act extroverted. I'm a speaker right, I have to be extroverted. At times I do book signings. That requires that I'm just exhausted at the end of it, right? So my wife and I go to a dinner party she's an extrovert, I'm an introvert. We act the exact same. At the end of that night she's fired up and I need a three-day nap, right? Well, the same thing happens with Enneagram.
Speaker 3:As an eight, I can act like a one. It just is going to take me mental, emotional, physical energy to get there. That's where the self-awareness comes in. It's like I can be and do whatever's required of me in the situation to either exhibit empathy or to be kind or to be the leader needed in that situation. It's just going to wear me down.
Speaker 3:My default is being very command-controlled, dictatorial and directive. So that's who I am. Completely filter off. The other thing that gets asked all the time is I'm this at home and I'm this at work. Nope, you're one human being. How you are at home when you are proverbially naked is who you actually are. Now you can put on a great face at work, but that is probably exhausting you by the time you get home. Part of what's happened in my work in doing this is authentically leaning into the fact that I am incredibly flawed and unique and in some ways odd, and allowing myself to be authentically who I am at home and at work, because then I am not in this state of exhaustion all the time trying to play somebody like I'm on screen, as opposed to just being authentically who I am.
Speaker 1:That has me thinking back to my first couple years of teaching and I really felt I was young to be teaching high school just because of my birth date and I was 21 teaching upper level grades and I always felt for the first couple of years I was two separate people. I was my person at home and my person at work and over time those started to merge and at different times in our lives. It's a year and a half ago I was grappling with what does it mean to be quote a boss or to own a company and yeah, you're laughing because I've talked to you about this I'm like I don't know, but when I've leaned into who I am, authentically showing up whether it's what I think other people are expecting as a business owner or not is when I've had the most success. So I love that you're talking about the bringing not even bringing those two together, but just being authentically you as a whole person.
Speaker 3:And we're all like this beautiful messed up thing, right, like the most impressive people I know. When you get to know them, like we all have a soft underbelly. Right, there's the public image and there's really you and what I've tried to do, and part of the reason I think I've had success as a superintendent is I'm just trying to be me as much as I can. I have to tone down the cussing and some of that stuff. Right, I normally do, but in different settings. But I've leaned into being exactly who I am. Right, like I'm not a suit and tie suit guy. That's not who I am. And when I quit doing that, guess who? Cared? Nobody. So I'm a quarter zip guy, which I know is a silly, simple example. But there's so many people like superintendents that have been in the job for 15 years and they'll come visit me because we're doing good things and they'll come check out our district and they're like oh, you're awfully casual today. I'm like this is actually pretty dressy for me, brother, this is who I am.
Speaker 3:This goes to some of the talk that I do on time management as well, these social mores that we put on ourselves, that nobody expects of us, that we expect of ourselves and then we end up almost growing contemptuous over that again, nobody is assigning to us. Just because you're a boss doesn't mean you have to be a jerk. Just because you are an employee doesn't mean you have to be subservient. There's all kinds of different things, and if we just have the courage enough to identify why we think we have to act in a certain predisposed way and start to wrestle with that internally, I think that not only can we have more success, that we can actually have more joy. Our life's work is important and we're going to spend so much of our adult lives doing it, but we should be able to have some fun doing it too and be able to do it with integrity and feel good when we get home that we didn't just play a role, that we actually got to be who we are. So you just mentioned joy. What does joy mean or look like for you? My perception of joy is probably a bit warped. So I'd say that I have deep gratitude and that's easy for me to be grateful for the fact that I've got four healthy kids that in their own ways, are like perfectly imperfect, the same way that we all are, and getting to know them as they're growing and seeing the beauty in who they are and also the beauty in who they aren't and how they are internalizing some of the things that we tried to teach as parents and rejecting other things that I think they'll come back to in a few years. Being able to watch all that allows me to have incredible gratitude, I would say.
Speaker 3:Joy for me comes in a weird manifestation. I talk about this a lot publicly, but I'm a three-time cancer survivor, so at 44 years of age, I've been through some stuff and for me, a lot of times what I try to do is measure am I actually and this is a sports analogy, so for non-sports people stay with me for a second but am I leaving it all out on the field, right? Am I going as hard as I can possibly go, because the time that we have here is not promised and I feel like I've been blessed with some talents and am I doing everything I can to exhaust my talents for good? And so am I trying to create ripples in the universe that might make education a little bit better, that might make leadership a little better and, most importantly, might make individual humans a little bit better as we go through.
Speaker 3:For me, I think, joy looks like at the end of the day, was I true to myself? Was I a good husband and father? But did I create some ripples in the universe that day that might lead to positive impacts, whether it be in the two districts that I currently serve or in the greater educational or leadership communities? So joy for me is actually interesting. We just had graduation this last weekend and our final student speaker ended with a very simple statement, but it really resonated with me. It was like and it just said die tired. And that's it for me really. I just want to die tired. I want to give as much as I can for as long as I can know that I didn't leave anything in the tank.
Speaker 1:And you said that was from a graduating student. I said something about students these days. Kids these days are brilliant and I don't think at that young age I would have had the maturity or the wherewithal to, or the insight to even think something like that.
Speaker 3:It was pretty powerful. I was pretty happy with him.
Speaker 1:I keep quote books and I look at movie and I would have found it somewhere, but I wouldn't have been able to put it into those words in that way that it would have meaning that I'd want to share it out with people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, jack, washburn is a student's name, so shout out, jack. No-transcript is that on your last day on earth you get to meet the man or woman you could have become?
Speaker 1:Sometimes, as I'm trying to make decisions, I think about my core values and I think about is this something I'm going to regret not doing or doing at some point in my life? And if it passes through my core values, then it goes on to that one Am I going to really regret doing this or not doing this?
Speaker 3:That's interesting and that's a statement that comes up and I've discussed with a few people before is but regret's. So interesting because I think if I had unlimited money right now would I be making different. So there's all these permutations in the universe and so I think about that quite a bit. There's so many different things that could go in so many different ways and try and make the best decision given the current context, but knowing that if the context changed I would make a different decision, is a weird mind journey to go through. I'm not sure if you follow Marvel comic book movies at all, but Dr Strange is the guy who's like there's all these permutations, this is how it could end up. Like I feel like I do that more than the average human probably should, and all these permutations like that could happen if I do X and it leads to Y, which one is going to have the greatest possible impact, is something that happens quite a bit.
Speaker 3:But regret's an interesting word because there was a time in my speaking career and this is, I think, right when we first met pre-COVID, where it almost became it was financially illogical for me to continue being a superintendent, I guess is the easiest way to say it, and so I went through all those permutations. I decided to stay in it and then COVID hit, and thank God it did, because it changed the entire business landscape of consulting and speaking. But all of those things come in different ways. So regret's interesting. That's not a word that I think about very much, but I do think of all the permutations, of all of the different choices you make and how they could lead out.
Speaker 1:I do love all the Marvel movies. We've watched them numerous times as they came out and then re-watch them again in the order that you're supposed to watch them, according to the disney channel. There is a world out there where I am a panda bear caretaker. Okay, yeah, there is I like it. Yes, that's. I imagine that there's a krista out there who was like I don't think I can do people. I think that I need to take care of panda bears and animals maybe dogs. I have a different version of myself out there.
Speaker 3:So you're going through the permutations too.
Speaker 1:Yes, but I do think that's a piece that's important when you think about responsible decision-making. When working with students, there's not always just one path, and so when you take one step, what is that going to lead to? You mentioned ripple effects earlier, and so if we can think out some of those pieces, it might take us to ahas that we hadn't thought about. Or, as we start working through it, kind of new ripples that didn't exist before come up. So stick with me here too, because I might be getting a little too deep, but I think about when I was invited to apply for a tech coaching position. I was so happy in the classroom, but if I had not stepped outside, other doors that I didn't even know existed wouldn't have opened, and so that's what I think about when you think about those permutations.
Speaker 3:People ask me a lot what's the five-year plan, and I always say that I want options. So if I do my job well enough that I have a litany of options in front of me, that's what I want, and I know that seems like a non-answer, but that is truly what I want. If I am crushing it as superintendent here and I'm continuing to write and speak and do all the things that interest me outside from a business or even a self-advancement standpoint, I'm going to have plenty of options right. That's what I preach to my kids too. With a 19 and 18-year-old is do the work now so that at 25 you have options, because ultimately, who knows what's going to happen? Who knows what the interest is going to be, who knows what finances are going to be, who knows what personal relationships are going to be All of those things. The context matters for every decision, so for me it's always can I make decisions that are ultimately going to give me or the people that I serve the most options down the road?
Speaker 1:And you just brought up something that another colleague and I, dr Kari Garippa, talk about, in that she has three kids who are older too, and we talk about what it's like to quote SEL our adult children. So you know, you have this idea on how you want to guide them, but at some point you need to step back and you're hoping that you're still a sounding board, but really they do make these decisions and it sounds like you're in that era right now with your oldest two where they get to be the decider of their lives. But we're all hoping, as parents, that some of the SEL skills and background that we established for them will resonate forward.
Speaker 3:Well, there's two things that come to mind there. One and my wife and I differ sometimes philosophically on this in terms of raising our kids, but I want them to suffer a little bit. I want them to have insulated failures. My 18-year-old right now did not get into the school. That's been his dream school for 10 years and I'm ecstatic about it because ultimately he can go to community college if he wants to for a year and he'll get there If he wants it. He won't get there. It's an insulated failure.
Speaker 3:So all of the lessons that we tried to teach him along the way of yeah, buddy, have a little bit less fun, study a little bit more, do a little bit more here All of those were manifested because this lesson was learned and now he was miserable and I have no joy in his misery, but I do have joy in the lesson learned and the fact that he had an insulated failure in order to go through that. The second thing that comes to mind is I just gave our baccalaureate speech. I was pretty pumped. The students chose me to give the baccalaureate speech in our community, but I feel like there's a lot of different analogies or labels that get put on parents, whether it be helicopter, now lawnmowers become one, and the one that I like the most is the lighthouse parent.
Speaker 3:Where you're this navigational beacon. You help keep them away from danger. You're steadfast, you stay in a particular spot. They know they can return to you. If they return to you, it provides them the sense of direction that they need to navigate, but ultimately they have to navigate on their own, and so for me, that is the hope, is that we're this lighthouse. So when everyone's like, how are you going to tell if you're a successful parent? For me, I always go back to if, at 25, my kids have options and they choose to come back and drink beer and watch football with me on Sunday. I did a hell of a job and I know that seems like a low bar. Other people are shooting for Harvard and I just want them to have options and want to have a beer with me and watch football, but that's ultimately what I want. If they're good people have options and want to come back and hang out once a week, I'm really happy about it.
Speaker 1:I'm liking that you're saying this because it's reminding me. My boys call me once a week. I message them, but if they, of their own accord, reach out to have a conversation with me, I feel like I'm winning. I like the lighthouse piece as well and I think about Jared, my middle, who is at college right now and he took Orgo one and two this year his first Dede ever in learning and we had weekly talks and I'm like it's a hard. They're two really hard courses. Are you learning more than what you knew before you started? Are you a better thinker, better learner? Do you have a good rapport with the people in the class and the professor? I'm like it's okay. Like you said, in the whole scheme of life this is not going to be a big deal. This isn't your major. You did something because you're interested in it and you stuck it out. So I hear you on those pieces.
Speaker 3:Any other parents that are listening to that. Please start thinking of athletics that way as well. So I've had the fortune of having two good athletes that could have played college sports if they chose to. Athletics are a ground for teaching life lessons. If your kid is the 0.001% that's going to be a truly elite Olympic professional athlete, you already know They've already stood out. There's no amount of hard work that's going to do that for everyone else. It's just an avenue to teach, so please treat it as such.
Speaker 1:Thank you, because it's a piece, it's a process and you know what? I think this could be an unpopular opinion, but I think about that in terms of social, emotional, learning skills and academics. So it's not this extra thing. I've been working with middle school and high school teachers that these are skills that are helping to enhance our learning, our ability to learn from each other, to learn about ourselves. It's part of the process and not thinking about the end goal, but the journey. Yeah, you've mentioned that you're working at two communities and I know the story, but I know that people who are listening are like wait, did I hear that right? Let's rewind. Do you mind sharing just a little bit about that?
Speaker 3:I would start with zero of 10, recommend I'll start with that. It's only going to be for about another six weeks here, but we had a really unique situation. So I love the district where I cut my teeth as a superintendent and people complain about boards or communities or like I had the world's best. They let me be authentically who I am. They let me make mistakes. They supported me and what occurred was two things happened at once. One we had all kinds of success, won national awards. I was fortunate to be our state superintendent of the year, finalist for national soup of the year, and meanwhile they're letting me do all kinds of stuff, speak, be on the road, so everything sounds perfect. The issue is, as I talked to you, a little bit about self-awareness like I needed a mountain to climb. We got to a place where and we weren't the perfect district I don't want to make it seem and I definitely wasn't the perfect superintendent but we went from pretty dysfunctional to very good. I don't think we were great or excellent, but we got to very good. That was probably as far as my leadership could take it. They needed a new voice, so there was part of me that knew that. Then we had the unique circumstance where my home district was coming open, where my kids went to school, where my wife taught and where my best friend was superintendent and godfather of my son. So like when I say it I'm not just saying that flippantly right About three years ago, if you remember, there was crazy board elections throughout the country, far right, far left wing. So the board that was leaving in the district said, hey, we want to get the new superintendent announced before anything crazy can happen. I was named the superintendent of the district I was heading to two years early, which gave me this really weird lame duck season.
Speaker 3:In my current district we named an internal candidate to succeed me in. Meridian is the district that I had been for about a decade and I was going to a district called Oregon. We had this our transition plan was brilliant on paper. We literally spoke at conferences about how smart we were. Plan was brilliant on paper. We literally spoke at conferences about how smart we were.
Speaker 3:Then, in the final turn of the transition plan, the person who was supposed to succeed me was going through some personal struggles and decided he wanted to spend more time with his girls as he was going through some stuff. So he resigned essentially like right now last year, which gave my district that I had served for about 11 years exactly like five weeks to find a superintendent, which in Illinois right now we are in a dramatic superintendent shortage. We talk about the teacher shortage a lot but we have about almost 10 percent of our districts with interims right now because we just have such a shortage. They were not going to be in a good position. They asked if I would stick around. There was all kinds of back and forth between the two boards as to how is this going to work and it was complicated and muddy but one way or the other, here we are A year later.
Speaker 3:Everyone's happy and survived. They've hired my successor now from the outside in Meridian, who I've gotten to know over the last few months and he is a really smart, intentional, thoughtful man. So I am happy to hand the reins over to him, although it is hard. It was one thing when it was my guy right. The person who was going to succeed me before was like a little brother to me and I trained and taught a lot of administration and leadership and we thought very alike.
Speaker 3:The new person who they've hired to replace me, I think is actually going to take the district to better heights than I ever did. But part of the reason he's going to is because he's different than me and, as he's starting to make his entry-level decisions, it's weird. It's weird to go through because, even though I'm leaving the district like I'm still in love with it, and so it's like watching someone date my girlfriend right In a weird way. So it's a weird letting go process there. But June 12th will be my last board meeting there and then we get to focus back on one district and get back on the road and do some of the speaking things that I gave up this year to try to lead both districts.
Speaker 1:As I'm hearing that story again.
Speaker 3:It shows one yes, you knew what was right for you, but, more importantly, the love that you have for your district and community to know that they could go further and that it was a time for you to step back and let somebody do that for them. Leadership's a relay race and I truly deeply believe that Our job is just to gain on the competition or on the benchmark or whatever. We're racing, but ultimately we're going to hand it off to somebody. At a lot of superintendent conferences, when people talk about SEL and wellness, one of the comments that gets thrown around which I don't like, to be honest but is if I were to die, the job would be posted before my obituary is written. That'd actually be true, but that's the job. We are running a relay race. We're going to hand the baton off at one stage or the other, and so for me, people say that with like almost malice.
Speaker 3:For me that's almost comforting.
Speaker 3:The job isn't my identity and I'm going to give a hundred percent to it because I believe that's what integrity is and it's just how I'm wired anyway.
Speaker 3:So like I don't have to talk myself into that, but I am like I say with my kids all the time is, I'm raising you to leave, and so I am growing this district and I am going to leave the point of me trying to grow. It is so that you're successful without me. That's a view that I've taken in leadership and that's not always been my view. That's been my view because as a principal, I had a ton of success. I left and the school faltered a bit and I realized it faltered because everything that brought us success was dependent upon me. And so, as a leader of a district, I've tried to not to talk in third person but essentially PJ proof the district. A leader of a district, I've tried to not to talk in third person but essentially PJ proof the district. How am I building it so they're successful without me and it's time to hand off the baton and see what the next person can do.
Speaker 1:You just shared one of your takeaways in leadership about it being a relay race, and you've written so many books around culture and assessment and leadership and coaching. What would you say would be another through way of all of the work that you're sharing from your experiences? If you could think of maybe one or two other pieces, that's a thread through all of them, what would you?
Speaker 3:share Self-awareness is. The biggest thing is like from a leadership standpoint is if we're not going to work on understanding who we are, why we are who we are, which dovetails perfectly with SEL. I don't think people see self-awareness work as SEL work a lot of times, but I think it's the core of it Understanding who you are and why you react to certain things. Ultimately, we are our greatest limiter. I think. In many ways, a lot of the coaching that I do and a lot of what I do is just to empower people to be their unabashed self and to bring all of them to their job. So one of the things that my mentor, my buddy who I replaced here in this district, says all the time which again is a very simple truism and he says it so simply, but it's I bring all of me wherever I go, and so I can't just bring you the good parts, right? I say this to my board all the time You're going to get flashes of brilliance, but you're also going to get stubborn and combative, because I can't undo that. So I'm going to bring all of me wherever I go and just to be okay with that and to lead that way and to be authentic in that because so many people I feel like are trying to mitigate whatever they see as their flaws so much and to hide those as opposed to letting their strengths flourish.
Speaker 3:Of course we have to mitigate some flaws, but I will say for me, as a leader, I am not naturally a strong collaborator. I'm not. I am a good role player. You tell me what to do, I will stay in my lane and do my role. I am good at asserting control and leading, but just having an equal voice I am not good at. So I can either spend all of my effort trying to be better at that or just amplifying my strengths and being honest with the people I work with, of saying, if we're all going to have equal voice in this thing, one of two things is going to happen. I'm going to tune out or tune up and then having people that are my accountability partners and keep me in check and rein me in and all of those things.
Speaker 3:But if I am so focused on mitigating my weaknesses, I could never amplify my strengths, and so far too many people in leadership have a hard time. They're trying to be so perfect or play a perfect role all the time instead of just letting their natural strengths which is more than enough just be amplified in leading in that image. That kind of ties to everything that I talked about. We have to have awareness. But then don't be so concerned with all of your weaknesses. You're flawed, you are, I am super flawed. I can tell you my flaws, probably the second best of anybody in the world besides my wife. So we know our flaws and it's okay to be flawed. You can still be amazing at what you do. So don't let those flaws hold you back, but focus on those strengths so you can go through.
Speaker 1:This is a perfect opportunity to, as you're moving back into coaching and speaking and sharing your awarenesses and takeaways from all of your years in leadership. How would people get ahold of you, PJ, if they're like, hey, we need you to come out and work with our leadership or do a keynote, or I need you to coach me to be the best version of myself, like I did? How did they get ahold of you?
Speaker 3:So I'm at PJ Capozzi just first name, last name. At most social platforms he Capozzi. At Gmail is the email, but if you just Google me you'll find all the contact information and speaking and written examples. The one thing that I encourage whenever I go on a podcast, I have a weekly newsletter that I send out. I share my thoughts spray to all fields. Sometimes it's leadership, sometimes it's parenting, sometimes it's very school specific. But I try to avoid school specific because I've got CEOs of different companies that are in there, so that's the easiest way to get to know my work. So if you're intrigued and I want to see how this guy thinks about things, every week it's going to a different place. Just whatever kind of stirs my soul is what I write about, so that's the easiest way to get to know me. Contact me. If you Google my name you're going to find a million ways to get ahold of me.
Speaker 1:Thank you, and if you go to the show notes those of you who are listening it'll be typed down at the bottom there and very clickable, so you can follow PJ on social media and be able to email him right away. As we close this season, we've been focusing on music.
Speaker 3:I'm curious, what's on your playlist right now? So always on my playlist is Jimmy Buffett. I'm a lyrics guy, not a musicality guy, so even when people are like, oh, the musicality of this, I can't hear it. I'm just not naturally gifted in that way, but I want someone to tell me a story or write a poem. I feel like Jimmy Buffett's one of the great American storytellers. So that is number one and always on the playlist. The song that I've actually listened to the most in the last couple of weeks is Ordinary by Alex Warren, which is actually what I wrote my most recent newsletter on, because there's a line in there that says we'll make the mundane our masterpiece. And I feel like that's. Our job as leaders in schools is to try to take every day and make it a masterpiece and to make it memorable for kids and our adults.
Speaker 1:That is like a mic drop right there, tj, thank you for your time and sharing your expertise and your experience. I hope you'll come back again when you can share more. We can pick your brain about not just self-awareness, but leadership as well. So I appreciate you, my friend. Thank you.
Speaker 3:Beautiful. Thanks, Krista.
Speaker 1:Thank you again for tuning in to this episode of SEL. In EDU, at Residence Education, we equip educators with knowledge, skills and resources to design learning experiences that foster students' academic, social and emotional growth. We believe that every small action to foster connections and growth creates ripples shaping the future.
