The Power Of Education In Building A Resilient New Generation With Lizzy Johnson

Oh my God, of course you can. Plug away.

So Mindshift is change in mindset. It's just Carol Dweck. I would use that book with my administrators when I was director, assistant sup, things like that. And I started thinking, this is a parenting book too. Like, you have to be able to shift your mindset with another human in order to be better for them. And so I learned to do that with Chloe, and I learned to be flexible with her. And not that we didn't have discipline and order in the home, but I've learned that she's growing and I had to be able to do that. And so one of the things it says is positivity is key, ensuring that the person can learn to be positive about things because we all get down and out, we all get bad attitudes. That's just human nature. So when Chloe, every day when I would either take her to school or she would walk to school, we live in an incredible area where we had a middle school and elementary a block from our home. And so it It's such a blessing. And so one of the reasons why I chose to buy this house. And so every morning before Chloe left for school, I would say, Chloe Clyburn, who's better than you? And she would say, nobody. And there's something to be said about positive affirmations, especially with children. And so not only did I do that with Chloe, but I started doing that with my students in the hallways, in the cafeteria when I was an administrator. And then as I transitioned into being a central office administrator, I would do it with the the people that I supported, the principals, assistant principals, and things like that. And so it kind of became a mantra, and I just wanted people to realize that they can be the best at what they are and that just keep striving for that.

You're gonna make— literally even make me cry. I gotta believe people are listening to this right now literally tearing up.

Oh, Adam.

I know, I love you. You're just— this is the reason why I wanted you on the show. I mean, we don't even know each other but a minute, right? Literally like but a minute. And but I knew when we met months ago, and it was wonderful to be able to work together at one of your events. You're just amazing. So what you said is a reflection. Often we say things that are projections of things that we feel that are related to ourselves. And I'm gonna say this to you, Lizzy. Nobody's better than you. Nobody's better than you, Lizzy. Right? Isn't that true?

Yeah. That's right.

There it is.

That's right. You better, you better believe it and you'll achieve it. You'll get there. Yeah, for sure.

Good on Chloe. I mean, how she just, like, hit the mommy lottery is what I feel like. And that's the great thing about

her, she's cognizant of that and aware. She has friends and acquaintances and has grown up around other kids and realizes that she's got it pretty good. And, and I think some of that too is I waited until I was in my mid-30s to have her. And that was purposeful on my part because I wanted to be ready and prepared. Not that you're ever truly ready, but I really felt like I needed to be in a place professionally and personally to tackle that. And so that worked out as well.

I mean, I feel like I'm gonna, I don't say I gotta do this. I don't gotta do this. I wanna do this. We have 4 kids. I might've mentioned that to you along the way, but they hit the mommy lottery. And what's neat, so I just completely resonate with how you described what it's like when you take these kids home. And a couple of things I just wanna reflect on what you said. One is, yeah, they let you take the baby outta the hospital. It's like, what are you thinking? I mean, especially with the first one, but It's like, are you kidding me? Do you not know me? Because we were young at the time. I mean, we were really young babies ourselves. And it's like, well, the babies are taking a baby home and it's like, wow, that's crazy. But they don't come with a manual and you gotta figure it all out and you're gonna make, maybe it's a little bit like IKEA furniture. Like if you've ever bought an IKEA thing, right? And you put it together and I don't know if it's a male thing, but it's definitely a me thing. Yeah. That I'd be like, I can't deal with these instructions. There's too many of them. It's all in Scandinavian on one side. I don't know, even if that's— but so you put it together and you go, oh, wait, that's backwards. You got to take it apart and put it together again. And I think that's the way it is with parenting. You're going to put some stuff together backwards, and things are going to be a little sloppy at times. He goes through that with 4 kids. The one thing I can tell you for sure is that it's not a one-size-fits-all. Right. So to be agile or adaptable the way clothes he is, the way her generation— I wanna come back to that in a second here. I think that's one of the greatest skill sets resilience-wise of parenting. So if I was gonna write a book or a blog or something about resiliency in connection with our parenting—

Yeah.

Lives, you have to be agile. You have to be able to adapt to the environment as it changes. That's what Darwin said. Wasn't about survival of the fittest, actually. It was survival of those who are the most adaptable to their changing Constantly changing environments. So amazing. Let's talk about for a second Chloe's generation. This doesn't come up on our podcast that often, and so I'm thrilled for it. A lot of goes out when we talk about millennials; they get a lot of crap, and then Gen Zs is a whole other thing, right? And Chloe, is she Gen Z or she's some other generation at this point?

Yeah, yeah, because she's seventeen. Doesn't that fall? She was born in '05. I think that's where that falls.

Yeah, she may be Gen Z, right? So a lot of things that are just— that we're looking at, these are kids coming out of a pandemic.

Oh, yeah.

By that, these are kids on their technology almost like it's an adaptation of, like, another hand or something. Right?

Right.

So there's that. But they're also— you said something like they're not so attached to the status quo the way a lot of other people are that have difficulty changing In the midst of the fact that the universe is nothing but change, right?

Right. Oh, so true. And, you know, like, even things now, technology's big, you're right. And they like the best technology. But I'll be honest with you, Chloe would prefer to go to a, like, a vintage thrift store and buy clothes than go to buy brand new clothes. They're very conscious of waste. And I've watched her friends do things and I thought, oh my God, like she's real weird about how we recycle. And she's taught me so many things and I'm like, oh my gosh. Even like little cotton balls or cotton pads, she's like, we don't buy those. Like we use ones we can wash. I'm like, okay. I mean, I just think about them and the amount of information that they have received in their lifetime. Like when I was young, to have an Encyclopedia Britannica was like the Pinnacle of knowledge, right? Like,

really, we're literally like brother and sister. We had that whole big set that some salesperson came to the door, convinced my dad to buy.

Amazing. And like, you could go open that and learn about other countries and cultures and just things. And there were pictures. And I was like, oh, this is great. Now, Adam, I grew up in poverty. And so that transitioned when I was around the age of 10. And my mother married my stepfather. And so we came into a change where we had another income and we had things like that. So when those books came into my life at 10, 11, I was just gobsmacked. I was like, oh my God, this is the craziest thing ever. And then I'm gonna tell you another funny story, but my first year of teaching, we didn't have the internet, right? No email, no internet. And within that year, you remember we had CDs, the discs that you could put in the computer

Yes.

And it was like an Encyclopedia Britannica. Like, you could Google, like, Martin Luther King and his speech would come up, or all these things about him, and you could watch it. So my cousin, who's very much like my brother, we were raised together, he had a computer in his home, and I stayed with him a little while during my first year teaching, and I would put those CDs in that computer and watch that stuff. And it was the same feeling, like, oh my gosh, it's amazing. But then the internet came my second year of teaching and thought I'd hit the jackpot as a history teacher.

Right.

Who would love to show those things at the quick instant, quick information all coming rapidly. And the kids were enamored by it. And so I wasn't the best teacher, but I had some great resources. Right. And so I think about Chloe and her generation and how they've been inundated from birth with visual images and videos and information, just constant, constant, constant. And so that's the reason why I think they are able to adjust and change rapidly, because they have to be aware of the things, A, that come at them that may not be truthful, right? That they have to—

I don't think that could possibly be the case. Let's definitely not go there.

Those kids and some of the younger millennials are the best private investigators you will ever find in your life. Okay?

They're like little Columbos. They are.

They don't have degrees in it or credentials, but you give them a name or an idea and boy, they can write a dissertation on it. So I think that's another reason why is they've had all this information thrown at them for so long that they've had to create or come up with that survival skill of really vetting and understanding what's true and what isn't, and then using that knowledge to their benefit.

Yeah, because I guess when we were kids and not to date us or anything, but that whole, it's like, My dad, when he got those books and he didn't buy anything from anybody. So it was hysterical that of all the things that got through and it was expensive. Like, I mean,

I

almost remember the price. I won't even say it out loud. And he was a civil servant. He worked for the parks department. He was a preschool teacher. He didn't earn $30,000 in his 30th year there. And he spent like almost $2,000 on this big set of books.

Yep.

And then I would ask him stuff or my brother would ask him things. He'd be like, look it up. Look it up. That was all he would say to us. Look it up. He would point at those books. Go crack that book open.

I know.

But we would open up the book, that Encyclopedia Britannica, and it had some authority. You know, almost like when I became a lawyer and I would open up the law books, it was like whatever was written in that book was the quote. That was the truth. That was the gospel. Right? Right. And I think you're right. Today, information content is coming from so many places. They're taking in so much more content. By, I don't even know what exponent you could even attach to it, but so much more. And they really have to discern not only so much more, but also so much more quickly than required to discern between things so that we could know where we stood. It's a very different environment. Yeah.

And, you know, I think people of you and my generation and older, you would hear something and you would believe it 100%.

100%, right?

No doubt. Like, whatever it was, whoever said it, then that's what we do. And that's another key component to them is I think they, I know, I don't think, they're seekers of the truth and they are going to ensure that this world course corrects and gets back to that way. And some people dismiss them because they're young, right? I mean, I'm 2 years older than Chloe. I used to tell parents that when they would come in my office and get frustrated at their middle school kid, like, I had shoes older than your child and their brain is not formed. Why are you so frustrated? Let's just tap the brakes here.

Right.

This is what school's about. They're learning and they're learning how to work through these things and how to be better citizens. And so I just think they're the key to us figuring out how to be a better society because they don't just take things for face value.

No, I want to bring something up that I'm not bringing it up to be controversial. In fact, it never shows up in this podcast, opinions about politics or things like that. So I'm bringing this up and this is my disclaimer. There's the lawyer in me, but this is the caveat for people listening that I'm not taking a position one way or the other on the thing I'm about to bring up, but more on the point that you're making, Lizzy, which is that in the timeframe that we're recording this podcast right now, a lot of demonstration in Tennessee, in the city of Memphis and in Nashville. And these 2 particular lawmakers, African American young men, one that I've been just listening to a bit, seeing it, et cetera, he's 27 years old, which just happens to be, because you brought up MLK earlier. So Dr. King was 27 around the same time when he was also protesting and being jailed. And in hindsight, I don't think anybody would debate or dispute the fact that Dr. King was both a person of peace And a person with incredible influence well before the influencer thing, right? He would've been the whoever Kylie Jenner or whoever has the most kind of thing. He was an influencer about something that we all needed to take notice of. We needed to be influenced. Our world needed to change. And powers that be all that excited about making a change when that change might impact different people in some way. Yeah. So I just feel like there's a 27-year-old person, and I don't remember how old the other gentleman is, but let's say he's about the same age. Who stood up to power, are making quite a stand in that area. And regardless, and I mean this truthfully, regardless of whether you're in favor of the thing that they were objecting to or you're not, that's not the point. I think the point is what you're saying, that that's a generation of young people that are going to have at it. And that's what we want. Let them have at it. Let them get their turn to decide the kind of world that they want to live in and raise their children in. And that's the way it's supposed to be.

Absolutely. They are next in line. And of course, there's bad humans and good humans, and I'm not going to dispute that at all. But I do think that sometimes we discount people because of their age, and that is a really dangerous thing to do because I have been around some really smart, very young people who may not have all the life experiences as an older generation or older person, but that doesn't mean they don't have the will, fortitude, and knowledge to make good change that we need. And so just because you said that, I'll say this as well. Those kids are all getting ready to be voting age. And when I turned 18 and could vote, no matter what side of the aisle you're on, that was a huge deal for me because I had a teacher who was very good about telling us That is your civic duty. You live in a country where the vote is an honor and a privilege, and there's so many people who want that that don't get it, so you better use it. And he was just such a great mentor to a lot of students at my school. He was an English teacher, and I'll never forget that. And I thought, well, I have to go sign up to vote because Mr. Henry said that's important. We have to do that, right?

Yeah.

And so I think the majority of our group in that class that had him felt that way. But that's not the norm. That wasn't the norm when we were young, right? And still to this day, I come across people my age that still don't go vote. And I'm like, I don't care how you vote, you should go vote. Everyone should vote. We are letting a small group, a minority group of people, of numbers, decide big decisions for a swath, a huge swath of population. I'm gonna tell you, changes are coming, Adam, because these kids— Oh, I mean, they are chomping at the bit to get registered to vote, and they know what they want and what they want to see their world to look like. And so I think that's going to enact change in other areas to meet them in the middle.

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy It's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. It's a little bit like when you're a young person and you see someone who's succeeding in sports or in music or some other thing. Right. You go, that's a model for what's possible for me. Literally, if that person can do that, then there's absolutely no reason why I'm not also able to do the same or something different. And you know what? It's the other side of it too. So people listening to this and going, there's a lot of just age discrimination on both aisles, ends of the aisle. Right. So you got young people that are dismissed, as you said, and you got people that are older. And by that, I mean people that are in their 60s or 70s or older than that. Who are dismissed, have been dismissed in our society for a very long time. And to this day, there's a lot of sort of ageism in that area too, where what would be more important, I think, than almost anything is to cultivate the wisdom of people that are at a place where they're not necessarily want to get out there and hustle every day for a living, but have all this knowledge, information, wisdom to share with people. That's not always looked upon nicely. Again, it's a funny thing when you think about the people who are running a lot of the show right now. They are older, as it turns out. And while I'm fine to be critical of practices, policies, decisions, performance— be critical— I just can't wrap my head around is why you dismiss a person because you call them old.

Right. Oh, absolutely.

I mean, that just— I go, you got to be kidding me here.

Well, and I think we have to also realize age is a different factor than it used to be years ago because of the way we live and how we take care of ourselves now.

Yes.

The medicine and science has come so far in the last 50 years that someone in their 70s today is a very different person than in their 70s in the '50s, or even in the '60s, '70s, and even early '80s. I think those are just different people now. I'm going to tell you what's so crazy. In our city, we have a senior center. It's through Parks and Rec, which you're probably familiar with now that you just told me your dad worked at Parks and Rec. You know, it's a gathering place. They have programming and seniors go there. They have card games, all that kind of stuff. Well, when I first moved here to my community was in 1995, or excuse me, 1996. And that was a place where they would have like square dancing, right? Bridge games. They'd do quilting, those kind of things. '96.

Those kind of things. Right.

Today, oh, no. That is a different place. They're doing like Zumba and they're taking trips all over the state together. There's weight rooms in there. I mean, it's a totally different atmosphere. And look at how short a time that was ago. So I think that's a great point that you're making and to reflect on how age has changed over the years.

Yeah. I mean, our brain hygiene, because I'm a resilience speaker, but researcher as well. And I'm constantly just culling through information about things like our brain health, because you're right, our bodies are gonna last longer. You, we are all anecdotally able to see that around us as well. People are gonna live longer. But I also have a business partner whose mom is dealing with dementia right now. And you know what? The idea that we'll live 10, 15, 20 years, who knows, longer than we might've, and our brains aren't fully functional at that moment, that's not negotiable for me. Right. So when you think about it, it's like, what are the things you do? Like, I'm drinking, I got a green drink right here. I use this stuff called Athletic Greens, which I love. There's lots of other great products. I know some people that use Momentous. Some people just make their green drinks. That's what we used to do. But with a busy schedule and all that kind of thing, I've been using this. Sleep, how you sleep, figuring out how to sleep. There's a lot of ways to actually get better rest. Moving your body, exercise and, and the like, and hydration. I mean, these are basic things. And then there's some out things that people don't always hear about, but studies have shown that if you get in a sauna 3, 4 times a week, you could buy a sauna or go to the Y or some other place, a club that has a sauna, 3, 4 times a week reduces the incidence of early onset Alzheimer's dementia by 60%, by more than 60%. That's remarkable.

Small things. Small things.

Small things.

Right, right. To your normal routine. I have a friend that I went to college with and we travel sometimes together with a group of us and we were on a trip together, and I said, have you drank water today? And he goes, I'm going to have to tell him I told you this. And he's like— and I said, you need to drink some water. So now he has this water jug he takes with him everywhere because he always thinks Lizzie says drink water. I got to drink water. It's time to drink water today. And I always text him every once in a while and say, have you drank water today? Because it blows my mind the amount of people that do not drink enough water. That is life essentials right there.

Isn't that trippy that we don't understand better? I mean, we're only like 70% water ourselves, right? So it's like, who You would figure. But what I understand is that sometimes when we eat, we think we're hungry. We're not. We're dehydrated. You have a little ache and pain in your body and you think, oh, I've got to rub something on that or take a pill or whatever it might be. It's like, no, you're dehydrated. Yeah, it's like water.

It's literally the answer to the majority of the problems that people have.

Brain fog?

Water? Yeah, drink water. Like Chloe, she is a water connoisseur, like both of us. We drink water all day long and that's all we drink. When we go to restaurants or I may have a cocktail every now and then at a restaurant if I'm with my friends, but I'm a water drinker. And I love that I've instilled that in her because it is the solution to a lot of problems people have with their bodies. Absolutely.

Interesting. Well, it's not a pivot in your business, but would you share, bring us up to speed on some of what you're up to? Because along the way in your stories, which I love, that's why you are fabulous. I know you don't speak for a living, but you'd make a fabulous speaker. I mean, you literally Knock the COVID off the ball if you ever want to do that, okay, on top of everything else. But you seeded along the way some of the things that you've been doing, that you were in the classroom and then you were an assistant superintendent and you've worked with schools. You are passionate. If I'd say anything that I know about you, you are passionate about kids. You're passionate about education and helping parents and communities better serve their kids. So how does that lead into the work that you do in the world today?

Oh, great. So like you said, I spent 25 years in public ed and I started as a classroom teacher and I just I loved it. It was like the best thing ever. And that gig just, I was meant to do it. You just know in your life when you find what you love to do. And along the way, like most educators, you start getting challenged by others. Like, you should think about this, or what's next in your career? And honestly, I just was very resound being a classroom teacher and being with students, you know, in the majority of my day. I started coaching swimming and I loved that. It was just another outlet and seeing kids achieve. And then eventually I worked my way into a master's degree and decided to go into central office and did a lot of different positions at central office, but never superintendent because I always joke I never wanted 7 bosses. And most superintendents have a board that they answer to and they have 7 to 9 bosses. And that just wasn't a good gig for me. I don't even want one boss.

I hear you. I hear you,

sister. And so after doing all those different positions and being in schools and just realizing We as educators, at least in Texas, I'm not sure about other states, I can't speak to that, but sometimes we just kind of sit back and let others make decisions for us. And I started getting really involved being vocal, especially when I left the umbrella of the public atmosphere and started my own company in 2018. And what we do is we go out and advocate for kids in various types of program management for school districts. So one of the big things my company Transcend4 does is we assist school districts with their community members who are putting together a potential bond package for their citizens to vote on, which of course leads to better facilities, new facilities, improvements, safety and security upgrades, all those kind of things. They're very important in our world today because I've done even research with a couple of research partners that I work with. We all have our doctorates. And we've done research on why schools are important for student and teacher engagement and how ensuring that those schools live up to those expectations for our kids. And so we do that in the bond area. And then we also love to go out and help school districts with their collaborative visioning, which some could liken to strategic planning, but we prefer to call it something different. We do it a little different as well. It just helps the district cast a vision for the next 5 to 10 years so that their citizens and community know what they're doing for students. And Adam, all this work revolves around kids, like all of it. Everything is always pointed towards what's the best decisions for students. We don't do work about adults. Now, ultimately, our teachers benefit, our campus administrators, district office, they'll benefit from these things, but the decisions made in these rooms are all about students. And then we do different kind of program management as far as helping school districts with different things that they need to move forward in and have continuous improvement as far as academics or leadership coaching for principals and things like that, or aspiring principals. I, that's one of my favorite things to do. I love to work with people who are in a role in a school district but want to be a principal because, Adam, that is the hardest job there is in education. Is leading a school campus. And I would even say it's harder than superintendent because you know exactly the direct impact you have on students with outcomes and teacher effectiveness and all of the change and things that happen in schools. That principal has got to be strong. And so we love to work with aspiring leaders. That's like one of the just joys. I don't even feel like it's work. It's just such a blessing to be able to do that. And lately we are branching out into working with cities and municipalities to bring this similar type of atmosphere that what we're doing in those spaces is good for the citizens of that community. Education is the bedrock of any strong community, any strong civilization. It all goes back to education. And if we don't take care of kids and we don't have the best environment for kids, then we've not done our job. And then on my spare time, haha, when I'm not raising a kid and taking care of all others' kids. I really like to go out and advocate for strong school boards. We're under attack around our nation, and we have to be resilient in making sure that our school boards are not politicized. Yes. Because a school board is not the place for a Republican or a Democrat to gain notoriety. A school board is a place for leaders to come together and to work to make the best decisions for kids. And school boards are governors, not managers. And in our society, we've got to get course correct and get back to a time and a place where we have school boards that are not chaotic. Because I have worked in situations in my career where the school board became very chaotic, and I'm going to tell you what a direct result was of that. And that was student outcomes declined rapidly because the focus shifted away from kids and onto adult drama. We got to stop this nonsense in our society, and we have to go back and reset and make sure in your communities that the people that want to be on school board want to be on it for the right reasons.

Yeah.

And I am working on empowering people within communities who don't work for the school district, but who are concerned citizens and who have the vested interest in their community. I'm empowering them and working with them to basically create a bench of people who would be good for school boards. And to educate them, not just say, hey, I'm tapping you, you should run for school board. That's not enough. We have to make sure that we are working on teaching them what it's about to be on a school board, what kind of service you are providing to your community, and why it's such a big deal. And this is not 15 minutes of fame. It's not an ego trip. We got to stop this nonsense. So I'm really engaged in that space right now. Now my child's getting ready to start her senior year, and many people would probably walk away at that point. But I'm not leaving this area, and I'm not leaving Texas, at least not for anytime soon. And I want to make sure that we get back to a spot where our kids, over 5 million of them in our state alone, have the best support and the best leaders that are working for them. They are our clients. And we have to make sure that we stop this nasty rhetoric and that we do the right things for kids.

Oh, wow. The idea of creating almost like a farm system for the school board, the way in baseball there's a farm system that when somebody's ready, they get moved up to the major leagues and all that kind of thing. But the idea that people in the current environment that are quality, quality people, by that I mean they have the right heart for that service, they have the right agenda for that service, they don't have a conflict of interest in that case, et cetera. Like you said, they're not looking for fame or an ego trip or whatever it is. Those kind of people are not going to be attracted to the type of boards that exist in the moment right now. And those kind of people are not attracted to politics. But we're not going to try to clean up, at least I'm not, spend time trying to clean up politics in part because that's the way politics have always been. Right. It's always been a very kind of a dirty business and not very polite. I do think that we've gone Way too far there. It used to be that even in the dirtiness of politics, that the wheels stayed greased. You could grease the wheels so that people could work together and get stuff done. I'm not certain that that's happening too efficiently anymore. And that's a big problem nationwide. To start with something so fundamentally important, like, as you say, the people who are impacting the direct experience of our youngest, of our kids. Right. There could be no room for conflict there. There just can't be. And you got to have the right people there. And that means vetting. And that means training. And that means not creating an environment or allowing, tolerating an environment that would keep good people from wanting to get involved.

That's it. You're right. We've had a school board here in my community that's been very strong for many years with educated people who get it and who understand the role they play. And recently, we are experiencing a shift where we have outsiders who haven't lived in this community long who now want to be on our school board, but not for the right reasons. And it's going to take some committed citizens who are vocal and who have some circle of influence to right this. And I've stepped up to help and I've recruited others. And we all have a vested interest. But I think this is around the country, we're seeing this, Adam.

For sure.

And I understand change is good and change is needed. But it's got to be the right change. And it has to be for the right reasons. And if you have a struggling school district, and the leaders are not doing well and nobody's checking them, then yes, I think there needs to be a change on your school board. Absolutely, 100%. But if you have a very stable school district that has outcomes that are knocking it out and doing right things for kids, and you've got kids succeeding and programs that are meeting all of their needs— not just college kids that are geared for college, but I'm talking kids in every vast arena— if that's happening And then you have people attacking your school board and attacking your leaders. Something's wrong there. They're not in it for the right reasons.

Indeed.

Yeah.

Yeah. Wow. Holy smokes. I didn't expect we'd go there, and I'm glad we did. I really am. 2018, you created a brand new business, which was a leap. It was a pivot. Yeah. Wow. Anything you wanna say about that just for the folks out there that might be inspired by? Because I think, as you said, we're living longer and we're gonna be healthier and We'll be out there getting our black belts in karate at age 70 and all kinds of great stuff, right?

And Zumba

and all that. So why not a second career or a third or a fourth, right? I mean, so—

And that's so funny you say that because in our space in Texas and K-12 public ed, people retire, but they're not elderly, right? They've put in their work and they're in their late 50s, maybe early 60s, and they still got a lot of life in them. They're ready to work and think of the experience they bring to the table.

Exactly.

So that, I'm going to tell you, was one of the biggest jumps for me, was to undertake this business and to cut myself free from my stable world. And Adam, I know nothing about business. I do not have a BA. I am not business savvy. I mean, I'm gonna tell you right now, that was a big deal. So, I mean, I'm an educator. I don't know anything about marketing or Any of that stuff. But I did know something. I knew that I had a lot of experience and a lot of life experience as well in the area of K-12. And when I stepped away and started this, my goal was if in a year I can't pay the bills, I just, I'm gonna go back to what I know. But it just didn't happen. I mean, we have expanded and we have moved forward so rapidly. As you know, Texas is one of the fastest growing states in the nation, and because of some things that we offer business-wise, but people are moving here and they're not leaving. Some states see an influx of people, but then they see people leave as well, but we're the opposite. And so when students move in, I have a superintendent, dear friend of mine in my community, it's my child's superintendent. He said this the other day and it was just so resounding. He said, Lizzie, These kids are coming, but they're not bringing schools in their backpacks. And he's right, right? And they're not bringing teachers and all these other things. So we gotta meet 'em where they're at. So I think what happened was this business started at exactly the right time when we started seeing the surge in our state and the need for educators to help other educators. And I'm a huge proponent of K-12 vendors. I like to call 'em partners. People who work with educators, provide services and goods and all of that. They're good people. They're solid. But you don't find a lot of them that have former educators in their ranks and in their organization. And the thing about my company is, myself and all of my amazing consultants, and even our executive assistant, who is an angel from above, all of us have worked in school districts and been in various positions and led school districts and led initiatives. And it just, all that experience comes into this company now and It's priceless. And I will say one of our mission in our company is we make decisions for students. And I think that's why we've been so successful is because we talk the talk, we walk the walk, we've been there, and we can really help school leaders. And so even though I knew nothing about business or about a company or starting a company, I did know good practice and doing things in the space that made sense.

Yeah. And you didn't even read the book Pivot to do it.

So— But I did read the book Pivot later.

But yeah. You read it later. So you and I, just to recap for our audience, we'll take a couple more minutes here. We met at one of the events that you put on, and that was exciting for me. That's how we got to meet. That event took place at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium. I don't know what Jerry Jones calls that stadium these days.

AT&T Stadium. There it is. AT&T.

Because he's a smart businessman. So he's got a big-time sponsor for his stadium, right? But that was a blast to have that conversation. And I know there were some superintendents that were there. I've spoken to a lot of school superintendents and school districts, but I haven't yet spoken— I mostly speak to corporate audiences and the like. Right. But lately, like I just got back from the city of Palo Alto who had me come up there and do 2 days worth of training in resiliency for about 1,000 of their municipal employees. And I haven't yet had an audience of just principals. And you said earlier, that's the toughest job in the whole thing. So I'm gonna put it out there. I'm gonna intend that I ended up being able to talk to some principals soon. But if you ever choose to pivot again, Lizzy, you just like— you're a dynamo. I mean, we'll get you on stage anywhere, and people will be like, oh, she's amazing.

It'd be like stand-up comedy, I'm afraid.

Oh, it's always good to make them laugh, man. If you can make them laugh, make them cry, just do the whole thing. If I could do a backflip still, I would do other stuff. But yeah. So I just have so appreciated your time and your presence here today, Lizzy. Thank you for that. We've got show notes for our audience. transcend4.com will be in those show notes. You can find out more about the work that Lizzy and her team, her consultants, and everybody are doing there. And if you've got questions, either questions for Lizzy, for myself, you can go to adamarkel.com/podcast, leave a question, comment, anything there. It will be answered, I promise you. And it won't be by a bot or AI. It'll be a real, real person, real human. Also, if this conversation resonated with you, if there's somebody else in your life, colleague, friend, family member that would just enjoy listening to some of what was discussed here today, feel free to share this episode. And it's actually a request that I make. I started doing this a couple of months ago and it just feels true. It's right to ask for the support. The algorithm as it goes tells us often What we want— it assumes what we want to see in here and all that kind of thing. We want to see this show end up in front of more people. So the more you can refer it out to others, the more you can give it a 5-star rating, if that makes sense to you, or some other thing on the platform that you consume it, the more it helps us to see this show proliferate. And we appreciate that support greatly. That's the last thing I want to say other than to wish everybody just an amazing rest of your day or evening, wherever you are at the moment. Lizzy, again, thank you so much for being a part of our show today. Thank you.

Thank you, Adam. It's been a pleasure and honor, and you sign me up anytime.

Awesome. Well, I don't think I oversold this podcast at all. Lizzy, she is just amazing. Dr. Johnson is somebody that truly, truly, when you meet somebody that really walks the talk, is just so congruent as a mom, parent, as an educator, administrator, and now as an entrepreneur that's supporting Oh, school districts impact students. For her at the moment, it's across the state of Texas, but it really is a global or a national movement. And I would imagine at some point it'll be global because how can it be? We have to recognize that where our greatest assets are and our greatest assets are with kids. It'll always be that way. I think it's always been, and hopefully we will start to recognize it, that we can't take our kids and their start in life, their education. We can't take these things for granted and we certainly can't let things interfere in what is truly in their best interests and not allow— there's other things to get in the way of that, other conflicts of interest to impede what is in the best interest of kids and how we get there. But today's conversation only covered just a bit of that. We talked about so much more, starting with what parenting is all about from the very beginning, which is kind of being the blind, you know, like literally no manual, no handbook for how to be a parent. They just let you take that kid home from the hospital. It's shocking. I remember. My wife, Randy, and I, when our first child was born, our beautiful girl Chelsea, we just literally looked at each other and go, they're going to let us leave? Like, when are the doors going to close and the alarm's going to ring? Like, these guys don't know what they're doing. They're just, they're clueless. They're babies themselves. They're having babies as babies. So we had a laugh about that. And, but that led into talking about how adaptable kids are today. So Lizzie's youngest is 17. Our youngest is 22 now. And they are just so adaptable. They have learned how to be so agile. And there's a lot that we can learn from them in terms of being agile and adaptable. And that is truly what resilience is about. That's what Darwin said. He, he really didn't talk about the survival of the fittest. It's the survival of the most adaptable to changes in the environment. That's what we're talking about there. And I loved how she talked about her daughter in such glowing terms and says to her daughter, Chloe, nobody's better than you. Nobody's better than you. She asked her, who's better than you? Her daughter's answer is, nobody, mom. And that's the statement that accompanies how she sent her daughter off to school since she was a little kid. I think that's just brilliant. I so enjoyed talking about how it is that we are seeking greater truth in the world and our willingness to learn from those that have a new perspective. So from the ones that are are coming online literally from the time of birth on up to their teenage and early 20s and how we can learn from those folks as well as how we have to cultivate the wisdom of people who are later in life that have seen more and done more and experienced more and that we can't apply or diminish people or dilute the importance of people or discriminate against people based on their age, whether it's because they're young, they're in their 20s, they're wanting to see change happen in the world and they want speak up and be heard on subjects, or that people who are older are sometimes thought of as not as capable anymore and relegated to things that are less consequential. And that kind of discrimination is just as insidious, just as deleterious to our society. We got to cover and talk about a bunch of that. Sounds awful serious, but honestly, today's talk was light and funny and just a breath of fresh air. So as I leave you to it, I hope you'll share this episode with your friends, colleagues, friends, family members, I should say, and that it always helps us when you do that, helps the podcast grow when we get more people that are downloading and subscribing and all that. If you haven't subscribed, we'd love it if you'd do that. If you'd leave a review on your platform of choice, that's also super helpful in connection with the algorithm. And if you have yet, yet to determine your own resilience level, and by the way, this is a snapshot in time, so even if you did it a month ago, You might find that your results are different today. You can simply go to resiliencerank.com, resiliencerank.com, and in three minutes you'll get your assessment results. It's entirely free, and then you'll get some amazing resources to help you to develop even greater resilience mentally, emotionally, physically, and even spiritually. That's all there for you just for being a part of this community. I want to say thank you again, and I want to leave you with the words of. Dr. Lizzie Johnson, when I say nobody is better than you. Nobody's better than you. Thank you.

Thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change-proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, Visit adammarkel.com. To get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com.