Recently, I was walking on the beach in my hometown with one of my son’s, my wife and my father. One of our traditions is to look for beach glass, which is glass that has been worn smooth by the waves. As we are doing this and enjoying ourselves, I can’t help but think of a few things to take away from there that relate to my work as a school leader.
While the beach itself has been there my whole life, I feel every time I am there it looks a little different somehow. The sands have shifted, new rocks have been uncovered, the tide is higher or lower. It’s the same beach, but at the same time it isn’t.
Lessons Learned: Nothing stays exactly the same, and that’s an ok thing. Change is inevitable, some is good and some is less good, but at the same time you can still enjoy the experience in the here and now. You may want it to be like it was, but that’s largely out of your control. All you can do is take things as they are.
The more time I spent looking for glass, the easier it became to find it. The first few pieces were tricky to track down, but the more time I spent at it I was finding them faster and faster.
Lessons Learned: The more you do something, the easier it becomes. While this seems obvious when developing a skill, it is also true when it comes to training yourself to look for things. In this case, we were looking for beach glass amongst the pebbles. In schools, I am looking for the bright spots as well. The more I train myself to see those bright spots, the easier it becomes to find more.
I noticed that the more time I spent looking at what was right in front of me, the less time I was looking up and taking in the view. My father on the other hand has walked this beach nearly every day for most of his life. For him, he can always see the view in his mind’s eye even when he is looking down in front of him. I can as well for the most part since I grew up there, but since I don’t get to spend as much time there anymore, I still like to stop and take it all in. My son on the other hand, hasn’t been there as much so he missed out on the wider view of it since he was looking right in front of him for the beach glass.
Lessons Learned: It’s important not to get too focused on what’s right in front of you and look at the bigger picture sometimes. It is easy to fall into that trap, but it is so important to take a step back to take in how it all fits together. Do this enough times, and you can still keep the big picture in your mind, even when looking at the small parts right in front of you. For leaders, it’s maintaining the Vision while seeing how the daily interactions fit into that Vision.
Whenever I walk the beach I feel calm and it helps me to recenter myself.
Lesson Learned: Taking time to slow down and recenter and re-calibrate is an important part of being a leader. This is the time when creativity flows and your mind can calm, it’s like hitting the reset button. It allows you to reset perspective as well which allows you to be a better leader in the moment since you can put down the things you are carrying for a little while.
This last one can be difficult sometimes with all the demands we encounter in the day-to-day. I actually keep a picture of the same beach in my office as a visual reminder to do exactly that. While it’s definitely not as good as smelling the salt sea air or the sand under my feet, it does help me to calm my mind when it feels it’s all going a little fast.
