Why Education Needs Rebels (Not Rule Followers)

Welcome, Danny. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Hey Susan, I am so excited to be here and joining with you and your friends and let’s have a great conversation.

Fantastic. So I always like to start out by allowing our guests to kind of share a little bit about themselves so that you can kind of share what you like with our audience.

Yeah, sure. You know, I like to say that back in the day, I’ve learned to get out of some sticky situations by telling stories. And I was probably, you know, one more tardy away from a suspension. And there I am. It’s Mr. Rogers. What a classic name for a teacher. He’s teaching 10th grade geology. And I show up late. It’s not my fault. Right, Susan? It’s not my fault. It’s Lindsay’s fault. My best friend. And she is

Always late picking me up, but I decide, you know, instead of arranging other ways to get to school, I’m going to use use her as transportation. Well, I get to class. Mr. Rogers, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. On the way to school today, there was a house. The house was on fire. And the house was filled with Girl Scout cookies. Or excuse me, Girl Scouts.

And Girl Scout cookies, both, right? Mr. Rogers, what would you do if you walked past a house on fire filled with Girl Scouts and Girl Scout cookies? And the only reasonable answer is you would save the Girl Scouts, right? So I don’t know if it was the very real and made up story, right, that I shared, or the very real do -si -do, right? That’s my favorite kind. I love peanut butter, so.

I had do-si-dos, I gave some to Mr. Rogers. I got off scot -free, Susan. And so I learned that it pays to learn how to tell stories. And I’ve been telling stories ever since. I have a podcast like you, it’s called Better Leaders Better Schools. I’ll probably be changing the name, but it doesn’t matter. It’s been around for about 10 years. And I have five books and just love to teach through story too, so.

That’s a bit about me. We could dig into anything that you find interesting.

Amazing. that’s already you started out with an incredible story. And I think that’s something that resonates so much with with our audience with myself. I think story is what binds us together as humans. Right. So already you’ve done a great job of connecting. I love your title of chief ruckus maker. I am so curious. You talk a lot about making a ruckus on your website and your books and

That resonates with me like it’s a Seth Godin thing. We’ve had Seth Godin on our podcast before. Tell me more about this chief ruckus maker and what making a ruckus means to you.

Right, it is inspired by Seth. So I’ve read the majority of his books, you know, I’ve done so many of his courses, including when it was still going the Alt MBA, I ended up being a coach for that program for a number of different cohorts. And so he’s influenced my thinking and how I show up in the world in profound ways. He’s always talking about like go out there and make a ruckus type of thing. And yeah, it connected with me in a deep place. So I figured, let me see if this sticks with the type of school leader that I want to serve. Cause when I think of education, you know, something that folks really resonate with is this idea of education ain’t a bit disruptive than what are the students really learning? Now we know that schools need to change. But a lot of times, you know, thought leaders or whatever, we’ll just say, old factory model, school’s not working, and blah, but no solutions, right? And when I was a principal, when I was a teacher, so with students or with my staff, I’m happy to hear you out. I want to empathize, understand your position, that kind of thing. But if you don’t also have solutions, you could kind of keep your complaint into yourself. So in my view, ruckus makers do school different. Ruckus makers are those innovators, visionaries, rebels in education. And the idea of doing school different is making shifts, right? From the old broken traditional ways of educating to new different and creative ways, right? So that’s how I like to show up, how I like to support those ruckus makers. And I don’t evaluate the shifts that people wanna make that might be going from traditional rows to more like learning centers and collaborative centers. It could be buying an old amusement park that’s abandoned and turning that into a learning lab, right? So I’ve seen both on the spectrum, had conversations with both kind of ruckus makers and there’s no right or wrong. They’re all shifts, they’re all progress. So that’s what we’re after.

So what made you decide to really focus on leaders as your audience? Do this in your podcasts, in your books. I’m so curious why that leadership path.

Yeah. You know, I don’t know about you. I’d love to hear about how you started what you have. But for me, it was scratching my own itch solving a problem that I had. Right. And if I bring you back to 2015, September 2nd, 2015, right. That’s when I launched the show. I’m an assistant principal in Chicago. My principal is wonderful. He’s one of my closest friends. He definitely is mentoring me, pouring into me, developing me.

But all principals have a capacity of time, right? It’s finite. He can’t spend all day with me and answer all my questions. I knew I had more to offer the community. And I also went to an event called the Global Leadership Summit. And from the stage, the host said, when you get better, everybody wins, right? As a leader. And that really, that shook me to my core. Besides this event, I looked at my calendar. I had nothing else on the schedule, right?

I’m a big reader, that kind of thing, but I didn’t have a coach, I didn’t have a mentor, there were no more conferences. And at the time I was in Chicago Public Schools, third largest district back then, and as assistant principals, it’s not like we had a lot of opportunities for growth and development. So, a crossroads, do I throw myself a pity party, right? And try to win the award for the assistant principal that has it the worst, or do I take my learning and develop into my own hands? And really the show started off just trying to talk to the Susans of the world, learn from your, you know, stories of success and failure. And most importantly, take action on one idea, which I didn’t know doing that learning in public would change my life, right? So it started out as a personal project and along the way people wanted to learn with me. And so that, you know, changed my life, opened up a lot of doors.

And to this day, you know, I’ve impacted a lot of ruckus makers, like I say.

Yeah, which is great. And one of the ways that you’ve done that is through several books. myself have read the Build Leadership Momentum. There’s so many wonderful ideas in your books. What inspired you to take that pathway to writing those books? what’s one big idea that you would love for people to take away from the stories that you bring?

Yeah, well, I’ll share another story about the stories, right? And I was writing my second book, which became my first bestseller called Mastermind, Unlocking Talent Within Every School Leader. And I turn in my first draft to my editor, Ariel, who I love, and she says, Danny, the book sucks.

my gosh, I’m so nervous it’s gonna happen. I’m in the middle of writing my very first book and I’m like, no, I’m so worried that my editor’s gonna tell me that.

Well, Susan, you want your editor to tell you that because then you could begin to improve it, right? I like to say there’s no such thing as failure only learning. So Ariel says, Danny, the book sucks. And I know it sucks. One of the lessons here is that I was trying to serve two audiences. So the concept that a mastermind in like 30 seconds or less, it’s a weekly way for ruckus makers to gather to get coaching and mentorship, right? Not only from a trained coach, but from their peers.

The problem with the book, why it sucked, is that I was writing to two audiences. I was writing to the school leader to say, hey, this is what we do and how we do it, right? Maybe you want to join. And then I was also writing to sort of the edupreneur side of things, like here’s how to build one if you want to start one, right? And because of that, the book was no good. was speaking to two, you got to niche down, you got to be specific, right?

If I wanted to do that, be for two bucks. So, all right, what do I do? How do I change it? I went to Berry Park, which is just a couple blocks from where I live here in Syracuse, New York. I took Alba, my dog, you know, I take a picture of her, put it in our Friday newsletter every Friday. And we just got into nature, let my mind wander and start, you know, dreaming, rethinking, reimagining what the book could be and walking the path of Berry Park around the pond, it clicked. And I was trying to build a framework. People like to learn frameworks, right? I think it communicates confidence to an audience. Like here’s the steps, especially if it’s tight, you know, three to five steps. And I also want to see if I could align it to like something connected to education. So ABCs. And in my mind, I’m like, all right, authenticity is important. The concept of belonging. And then the challenge piece to actually grow, right? And that was it. So ran back home, of like redrafted an outline, explained the framework to Ariel and she said, you got it. The book no longer probably doesn’t suck. And so write that book. I did. And the proof’s in the pudding, right? It became my first best seller. So that’s the story of a story.

I love that. And I also so enjoy what you shared about when it all goes to pot, right? Like you walk outside, you give yourself a break and in that, in the space, I always say the magic is in the space that you give, right? So the margin, the magic is in your margin. And as part of your creative experience of writing it, giving yourself that space, I think speaks volumes, right? Do you find other methods of creativity that support you in your work.

Right, so I’m glad you highlighted the space piece because the margin is where the magic happens. And often school leaders get it wrong in that they think putting in more hours, like gripping the wheel, your knuckles are white. This is not the way to break through. Bruce Lee used to talk about to be like water, right? And so it’s sort of this gentle letting go approach that creates the breakthrough. So for me, you know, that’s that’s pretty much what it’s about. The other ways, like besides being in nature and like hikes and that kind of stuff, it’s the gym or on the meditation cushion. And both of those are pauses, right? There are different ways I get inspired. You know, one’s more physical exertion, obviously, and one is focusing on the breath and the internal landscape. But both, you know, provide positive impacts in my life for sure.

Yeah, yeah, you’re so right that I think so many of us think the more we do, the better the outcome, but it’s often letting it go, giving yourself that space. now I do want to gears slightly. Our audience really loves the practical and being able to understand how we can put some of this into practice. And I know that you work specifically with your workshops and in your masterminds with school leaders on their challenges, what’s your approach to making those sessions really effective for leaders?

So how to make the sessions effective.

Well, you mentioned the practical piece, you know, so that that’s important. Not just talking theory, you know, in ivory tower type stuff. Pardon me. So within the mastermind, you know, one of the things that makes it so effective is that we solve your number one challenge. I’ve had a frog in my throat for like weeks. I need to probably see a doctor. We meet people where they are, you know, superintendent might ask me, what’s the curriculum?

There’s no curriculum. You’re the curriculum, right? The school leader who ends up joining. And so there’s an insight there in terms of just meeting people where they’re at, working on whatever’s challenging them in the moment and solving that problem, right? Doing that over time is incredibly valuable. But we create tools too, right? So I realized there wasn’t necessarily a curriculum. And I think the innovation began last year was this idea I thought about what if we created these automatic schools, like schools that were run so effectively, so efficiently they almost run themselves. Now, in some respects, it’s kind of a lie. Like schools don’t run themselves, right? You know, it’s like, but can we get closer to that ideal? You know, that’s the punchline. And of course we can. So I think about working on the individual leader.

I think about working on your teams and then working on your systems, you know? So when we talk about the automatic school, it’s connected to those three stages. And then I started dreaming up, what are practical tools that a leader could implement, right? Working on themselves, working with their teams or working on systems. And so that’s some of the practical stuff we teach. So here’s a personal tool and it’s connected to like the margin piece as well.

I’m pretty sure it’s free on the website too. If you go to betterleadersbetterschools.com slash resources, there’s six freebies. But one of them is the ruckus maker mindset tool. And shout out to a coach Ron who really inspired this tool and then I adapted it for school leaders. And here’s the thing, a lot of stuff that really works and is supportive of exponential growth, it’s simple stuff, right?

So the ruckus maker mindset tool, focuses on the fundamentals, eating, sleeping, moving, meditating, unplugging, right? And what I have ruckus makers do one through five, one terrible five, great. How are you doing, right? Putting high quality food in your body. How are you doing on your sleep, right? Are you getting movement? And I mean, that could be from a walk to something intense, like in terms of training, but again, no judgment, just make sure you’re moving.

Meditating, know that. It could be prayer for some people, so something like that. And then on plugging, just like turning off notifications, walking away from email and the work, Because again, I think we need a break for sure. You can’t pour from an empty cup if you’re always on. You’re going to drain the battery. If you were a car, you’d burn your engine out, right? So this is fundamentals. After looking at that one through five, identify where you are right now.

Where do you want to be in 90 days? Right. And then just make a one or two bullet sort of action plan to improve each area. think, you know, leaders, I know leaders have a lot of wisdom. I like to say, I remind powerful people how powerful they are. Right. And so they can make a plan. And then because, you know, if you’re in a context of a mastermind or whatever, working with a coach, like they’re holding you accountable and checking in and that kind of thing. So

I’ll share one more story about that tool, which taught me something because I always thought like, let’s movement as an example. If I rate myself a one or two, that’s bad. And a five is always great. Well, I was in Adams, Adams 12 outside of Denver, Colorado, beautiful place, awesome system. And I’m, I’m talking to, I don’t know, like a hundred leaders, like it’s all their principles, all their APs, blah, And

This AP says, I’m currently a five with movement and I want to be like a four or a three. And I’m like, huh, tell me more about that, right? Because I’m thinking five is the best. like other things that show up in our lives, she was sort of addicted to working out and it was taking time away from her family. So she knew something had to change and she couldn’t invest so much time on that whatever was driving, right, her desire to work out. And so she wanted to scale it down. And so I found that super interesting and I wanted to share it here with the audience because sometimes you might be a little too intense on some of the stuff and it’s time to pull back as well. So that’s the mindset tool and some stories around.

I love that finding that balance is often so key, right? And also the tool sounds super simple, right, as you said, but I find often that it’s not necessarily how complicated or simple something is, it’s the consistency with which you do it, right? And so I think that consistency is key with those simple items, it’s just following through, that’s where the difference comes in, right?

For sure, I mean, you can’t see it behind me, but I have one of these culture walls that says, ideas are great, but not the greatest, right? So I actually, I’m starting a second project and I don’t know that it’s relevant to talk about here, like why, but the point is, when I’m doing the newsletter there, I’m telling people, hey, here’s two easy steps as you first subscribe, like that I need you to do. And they’re very simple, like reply yes to this email.

So you tell Google that you want to hear from me. And then if I landed in promotions or spam, move me to primary, right? But I also underneath, say, if you’re not willing to take these two easy steps, unsubscribe now, because everything I teach you, right? About growing your education business, it’s not going to work. So just unsubscribe. So to your point, Consistency, taking action, we’re all in the results business. And so if you’re not, if you’re not doing that and following through then.

What’s the point?

Absolutely, absolutely. So now I know you do these things called hot seat sessions, right? Where it helps leaders get creative with their challenges. Tell me more about a hot seat session. What does that look like? And if you have a memorable one that you can share, that would be great.

Hmm. Well, all right. So hot seat, you can see that behind me, although it’s probably shown up backwards on the video. But the hot seat is a cool experience. And and really, that’s that’s just when you share your problem of practice with a trusted board of advisors, you know, your peers. And again, you know, within the context of a mastermind, if you’re meeting with the same people week after week, you know, there’s a lot of trust there. Right. And relationships. You know, I do these summer live events, too. And one that I had last year in Nashville, I have people stand up. If you’ve been in the mastermind one year, two year, three years, we got to seven years, eight years, people were still standing. So I share that just to say, like, can you imagine unpacking school leadership with people that you have grown to love, right? For eight years, like they know you and they can give you that tough feedback that you need. So essentially you just,

Briefly share the context right that’s where a lot of people go wrong. They go way too into the weeds We don’t need all that just the context of what’s going on why it’s a challenge or conversely like maybe what’s a project you’re trying to get off the ground and the goal you you aspire to achieve all right, and then basically there’s a few rounds in the protocol where Your peers ask you clarifying questions

And then there’s a moment where you actually need to shut up, which a lot of people on the hot seat find super valuable. Leaders are used to talking, right? A lot of people listening as well. And so being able to be silent and just observe and hear your peers discuss your problem as if you’re not even there, like you’re a fly on the wall is actually, you know, really insightful. So people do that. They offer some feedback. Maybe they share some stories of success and failure and things to think about, but at the end of the day, right, then you have a chance to come off mute, so to speak, and say what was most helpful and what you plan to implement, right? And we just rinse and repeat, you know, that sort of process. You know, the hot seat questions, they vary. They can be something like, you know, a professional goal in terms of a promotion. We’ve had APs turn to principals, principals, assistant, soup, assistant, soup to soup, you know, so that happens.

And there’s tragic events, right, where we’re all crying because a faculty member or a student, know, a tragic loss of life, right? So, and everything in between, you know, nothing’s off the table. And interestingly, sometimes when the comfort and trust is there, people will bring a challenge that might be personal, you know, it’s actually not school related. And that’s important too, because you can’t, you know, I believe you can’t separate the two.

And I think it’s BS advice to try to separate the two. That’s terrible, terrible advice. What happens at home impacts what happens at work. And we’re these complete, complex humans. And so we go there too if people want to. Does that work for contacts?

Yeah, that’s great. That’s a great concept, yes. So do you have a memorable one where somebody turned something around that they didn’t think it was going to or something that really came out of a hot seat that was incredible that you were surprised about?

Yeah, I’m going to try to keep him sort of anonymous because what he revealed and what we worked on was a breakthrough, but he’s sort of prominent out there. So I won’t give the name. It’s a guy. But I see this actually a lot in folks in this sort of this moment of internal awareness. And finally, this person said, you know, I’ve been talking about the same issue week after week, I’m starting to wonder if I’m the issue.

And for months, I’ve been thinking, man, the way you respond to this stuff is like, you know, we give feedback and that kind of thing, but he wasn’t like internalizing, I need to change, right? I need to do something. It’s not necessarily changing my people, it’s changing me. Well, that person went on to become a principal of the year.

And it wasn’t until he had that breakthrough, right? So I won’t tell you the state because like I said, he’s kind of prominent out there, but you know, what a learning. I had another assistant principal come to me and she was super new to the mastermind. Also prominent, also an award winner in this story. And, and, she said, you know, my colleagues, not that anybody here listening can relate. My colleagues are driving me crazy.

They’re the worst. They’re so annoying. Like, how do I change them, Danny? Right. So I said, let’s talk about you. It lets you know, because here’s the thing. You don’t control other people. This is the hardest part, like a lesson to learn in terms of school leadership. Right. That’s my niche. That’s what I work with. you can’t control others. You can’t control the student outcomes that your school is measured by.

Can’t control yourself, right? And how you show up. And so the advice I actually gave her, cause she was really open to mindfulness meditation stuff. And there’s a specific type of meditation called loving kindness. have you ever heard of that one by any chance? I’m like, yeah. So you’re wishing well to others, you know, may you be happy, may you be filled with peace, right? May you be free of suffering. And I said, you know, since you’re in the meditation, do that for your staff for like, a week or two, and then let’s have another coaching call. Well, she did. The staff didn’t change. Her heart changed, right? She became AP of the year in less than six months after joining the mastermind. So, you know, the stuff works, but the big, big idea there, look in the mirror often, right? Especially when you want, want to break through at your school.

Yeah, I totally agree. We talk about that in our team all the time. 100 % responsibility, 100 % of the time. That it’s, you know what I mean? have, and that’s for some of my team members, I’ve actually lost team members who did not agree with the philosophy and was like, I’m out, I can’t, I know. And I was like, I wish you well. Yes, I wish you well. But that is, for me, that’s a key piece, you know, you have, because you don’t have control over anybody else but yourself. Absolutely right. But that is also where, the biggest opportunity to grow comes from, right? Is when you are willing to take that on for yourself. So go ahead, yeah.

For sure. Well, let me throw in very, very short. I’m not going to add a story to it, but I just want to make one point. This is often a mic drop moment when I’m doing keynotes and workshops. People usually hate me for it, but I’m right. because Jim Collins, great book, great author. And so a lot of people talk about, ooh, the bus. And are they on the right seat in the bus? And so so fast school leaders, let’s get them on the improvement plan.

We’re gonna move them out, right?

I’m not saying don’t do that. For a lot of educators, especially the ones that clearly don’t love kids, you know, you need to get there. But before getting there so quick and doing that bus riff, what if you could be like the top school, if that matters to you or whatever, right? Create the school of your dreams, let’s say, that’s more important. What if you could create the school of your dreams, but the constraint was you couldn’t change any of your staff? What would need to be true, right? And so I think that’s a fun one to think about, you know, and it’s also true.

Absolutely, it’s wonderful. Now before we head out, I always like to kind of ask my guests about how creativity has impacted their work and how they see creativity impacting schools of the future. So I would love to get your take on both of those ideas.

Well, I just play a lot and I mean, creativity is like everything I do, right? Honestly. So that’s fundamental. And you know, when you’re a ruckus maker, I also like to say ruckus makers are visitors from the future showing us how education can one day be, right? So play it safe principles. They protect the status quo.

Nothing wrong with that. It’s just not like my jam. They do improve, but they only incrementally get better. And like I said, ruckus makers see this ideal future, they bring it to the present and they’re playing a different game of exponential improvement. The only way to bring the future to the present is through creative solutions, right? What got us here won’t get us there. We know that we’ve heard it said all the time, but yeah, creativity is the foundation of everything.

Yeah, I love that, thank you. So for people who want to stay connected with you and your work, what’s the best way for them to follow you?

Yeah, so that you know, Danny at better leaders better schools dot com or Danny at ruckus makers dot club. Both of those are email. If you want to call or text me, go ahead 312 -788 -7595. You think that like I’d be bombarded by messages. Very few people do that. You know, they probably think like, I don’t want to bother and then I’ll pick up and they’ll say, I didn’t Danny. Yeah, this. Yes. And I didn’t think you’d pick up. Why not? I gave you my number. Anyways, yeah, so those are the ways to stay connected.

Fantastic. Great. We will put those out in the show notes as well. Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciated learning from you.

Yes, thank you so much for having me on the show and talking to your friends.