Ideas & Inspirations

 I was watching the World Cup when I found myself paying more attention to the referee than the players. Clément Turpin, working the England-Norway match, had just made a call and was standing there while a few players continued to argue it. He didn't raise his voice to compete. He didn't try to win the exchange. He simply waited, silent, until the players ran out of things to say, and only then did he speak. I thought immediately of the classroom, where the same instinct shows up in teachers who stop talking rather than shout over a noisy room, trusting that silence will do what volume can't. But watching Turpin longer, I found myself thinking less about classroom management and more about leadership itself, and about what it actually asks of the person responsible for the whole field. A referee has to track everything happening around him while staying fixed on what matters most. He has seconds to decide what needs action and what can wait for review. He has to listen wit...

The crack of the bat, the rhythm of innings, the slow unfolding of a game that refuses to be rushed. Opening Day always feels like a reset, not just for teams but for anyone paying attention. The air shifts, the sun lingers a little longer, and the grass begins to reclaim its color. There is something grounding about it, something that signals movement, growth, and a return to possibility. I have always loved baseball for that reason. As a lifelong Cubs fan, I know something about patience, persistence, and the belief that the work eventually pays off. The game teaches you things if you let it. So there I was, tuned into the second game of the season, when a comment from the broadcast stopped me. The announcer mentioned a player's batting average, sitting around .300, and then said something that I could not shake: that player fails seven out of every ten times he steps to the plate. Said plainly, almost as an afterthought. And yet it landed like something worth sitting with. Becau...

Last week, I wrote about the beauty of a lived-in life. The idea came during a morning walk through my neighboring subdivision. It is brand new, while mine has clearly been around for a while. The new development was spotless. Fresh paint, perfect landscaping, sidewalks that looked untouched. Walking back into my own neighborhood, the contrast was immediate. Landscaping stones slightly out of place. A mailbox leaning just a little off center. Grass worn thin where people had cut across the yard instead of following the sidewalk. Nothing looked neglected. It just looked lived in. And honestly, I found it more interesting than the new one. Those small details told a story. Life had happened there. Since writing that piece, another thought has been sitting with me. It surfaced while working through a couple of repairs around the house. The first one involved a section of subflooring near the center of our home. Beneath the carpet, the wood had weakened over time. That part of the house co...

This morning I went for a walk through the neighborhood. Next to our subdivision, a new development is being built. Streets are paved, houses are standing, and fresh sod has just been rolled across the lawns. From a distance, everything looks immaculate. Out of curiosity, I wandered through it. The houses were beautiful. Clean lines. Fresh paint. Landscaping rocks arranged exactly where they were placed. The sidewalks looked as if no one had ever walked across them. Most of the homes had not even been lived in yet. Everything felt pristine. As I turned the corner and walked back toward my own section of the neighborhood, the contrast was immediate. Our subdivision is still very nice, but it tells a different story. Landscaping stones have shifted slightly from their original lines. A mailbox leans just a little off center. Some houses show small chips in the paint. Lawns are worn in places where people cut across the yard instead of staying on the sidewalk. Nothing about it look...

There was a time in my leadership journey when I took quiet pride in being essential. If I stepped away and things got messy, I noticed. If decisions stalled without me, I noticed. If people came to me afterward saying, “We needed you,” I definitely noticed. And if I am being honest, part of me liked it. It felt like proof that what I was doing mattered. Proof that I was making an impact. Proof that the organization was stronger because I was there. At least that is how I interpreted it at the time. Over the years, though, I began to notice something that made me uncomfortable. The more things depended on me, the more limited they actually were. Progress slowed when my attention was elsewhere. Growth was constrained by my availability. Improvement only happened when I personally pushed it forward. What I once viewed as influence began to look more like bottleneck. That realization forced me to reconsider something I had never really questioned before. What does it actually mean ...

I recently helped facilitate a leadership training session with school leaders. During our time together, we posed two simple questions: What is a recent leadership win? and What is a current leadership struggle? A pattern emerged immediately. When leaders spoke about wins, nearly every response centered on their team or their school. Success was collective, shared, and outward-facing. When we turned to struggles, the shift was stark. Almost every answer became deeply personal. Leaders spoke candidly about their own shortcomings, blind spots, and areas for growth. When we pointed this out, the room grew quiet. The realization landed. Reflection matters. Continuous improvement matters. But so does recognizing your own victories. Too many leaders are experts at accountability and amateurs at celebration. I know this because I live it. I struggle with personal praise, with public recognition, with allowing myself to simply receive a compliment. A therapist could likely trace that bac...