Getting Unstuck: Unleashing Your Superpower to Drive Personal Change – a Transformation Story
“You can have it all, but you can’t have it all at the same time.”
Today on Getting Unstuck
Our lives are rarely linear. Most of us start out “here” and then make a series of twists and turns. Sometimes we’re the driver. Sometimes fate and opportunity take the wheel. And sometimes someone else says “I’ll drive.”
In this series we’re calling “Transformation Stories,” we depart from our traditional format where we talk to an expert about some aspect of change. Instead, here we interview one individual about how they came to be where they are today. We’ll focus on a turning point, or catalyst that propelled them from a less than desirable situation to one that’s more aligned with who they really are and where they want to be.
Today we’re joined by Stacy McCoy Prime, a former New York City school principal and now the inspiration behind the “Upstream Design Lab,” which creates transformational learning products and experiences for educators and students.
The Essential Point
We all have a superpower – a unique gift and talent to share with the world. The question is, how are we going to figure out how to unlock, grow, and share that gift and talent over time? Schools can help tap into our natural curiosity, but it’s also important for us to know ourselves, be willing to experiment, and turn down the volume of our inner critic.
Listen for:
The four themes that Stacy built into her new high school.
The pitfall of trying to do too many things at once.
The catalyst for giving up her principalship and the voices that initially held her back from doing so.
The four mental stages of change.
The internal drivers that led Stacy to enroll in the entrepreneurial program and start her own company.
The theory behind upstream problem solving.
How Stacy quiets the voice of the inner critic.
The “learning pit.”
“On paper, I had everything that I had hoped for at that point in my life. I had a child I loved. I had a career I loved. I had a husband I loved. We had a beautiful condo overlooking New York City. Everything on paper was was in place, but internally I was really struggling. I just felt overwhelmed all the time and exhausted, and I felt like I wasn’t doing any one thing particularly well.”
Could a book on how to effectively lead change in schools be more timely?
We’re pleased to announce …
…that our book Shifting: How School Leaders Can Create a Culture of Change is now available from Corwin Press or Amazon. If you purchase from Amazon, please consider leaving us a rating and review. Thank you!
From our publisher:
In Shifting, educators and leadership experts Kirsten Richert, Jeff Ikler and Margaret Zacchei empower educational change leaders to proactively and coherently navigate complex change in schools to achieve the desired outcomes.
Using a three-part framework—Assess, Ready, Change—this book leads educators to examine a school’s imperatives and readiness for change, identity the tools and abilities required to manifest change, and take action by defining the roles and processes necessary to effectively implement both sweeping change and smaller day-to-day adjustments.