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In Search of Catholic School Excellence
Exploring the programs, people, and practices making a difference in Catholic education. Join host Thomas Boles as we hear from principals, teachers, and innovators shaping the future of Catholic schools. Whether you're a leader looking for ideas or an advocate for Catholic education, this show is your guide to what’s working—and why it matters.
Be sure to check out the show notes, as each episode comes with a companion guide to help you implement the ideas discussed during the episodes.
** Transcript is generated automatically. Please excuse any errors.
Welcome back, folks. Another episode of the podcast here. We have our summer series where we're talking about great books, and we're bringing on friends from all over the place to talk about those books and, and share their experiences with them. So this week I'm joined by Erica Bryant of Piece of Cake Marketing who is who I've met through the network, which is a group of like-minded folks who wanna see each other do well in business.
Is that a good way to explain the network? Yeah, I'd say it's for consultants, solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, and other people who are in business who want business besties or a no competition zone. They just really wanna get together and gather and do really cool things and see each other succeed.
That's... I never would've come up with that, but that's exactly what it is. That's what exactly it is. I've met lots of folks who have who have helped me, organize my thoughts about business and, and I've been able to share my thoughts with them about their business, so it's been a great thing.
And Erica is our fearless leader. Yeah. So today we're talking about Mindset, a book by Dr. Carol Dweck which I think is something we all probably read a long time ago. I feel like it's one of those books that everyone thinks that they read or they're like, "I, I'm not sure if I read it," but it's so part of our kind of society and, and the discussion of this that everybody thinks they've got this thing mastered.
And as I was just, , rereading it again to prepare for our conversation I came up with a whole different, , ball of wax especially with the idea that, , it's not just a fixed... People are fixed or people are growth mindset, , oriented but that it's we're in both of those places all the time.
So, I'm excited for us to di- dive right in. How what's your reaction to this book or how has this book been a part of, , your business, your life, et cetera? Yeah. I read this book many years ago probably maybe around the time that it came out. And the concept really felt like it hit home for me in a, in a very easy way of oh, okay, that's the, that's the thing.
And what I found interesting about it was not only did I feel like I could understand the concept, but that I could also integrate it. It's a very easy thing to integrate, and just to bring awareness to how you're operating, and not only how you are doing so, but also how others might be doing so.
So, you can spot it in other people and then recognize how that might be directing the conversation that you're having, and then scoot around that. So, it has been a lovely journey of self-discovery for me in, in all the books I read and all the ways in which I participate with mindset, but truly to know what the framework is and then be able to integrate it and spot it and be able to navigate life through that too.
Yeah. I feel like it's it's, it's really easy to label things or to see things through this, this lens when it's, , somebody else's and you have to catch yourself doing this, , the same thing for yourself, right? Mm-hmm. And I think that's... , the real trip up is that it's really easy to label one thing or another.
But sometimes, , maybe fixed mindset might help us preserve ourselves, right, in the moment. Mm-hmm. Right? So that it has its time and place. But, , , how do you keep that in perspective? How can you get somebody else to help you bring that in? I guess, do we all need accountability partners for our mindsets?
I mean, that's 100% I'm on board with that. But to your comment about it being black and white or, , a spectrum or whatnot, I think that sometimes we have a fixed mindset in certain areas and a growth mindset in other areas. For example , if we look at some of our beliefs in certain areas, we might feel more fixed on those particular areas because of what you mentioned, like scare , fear and, and different things that might be threatening or we might need to preserve ourselves in the moment.
And so I don't even think of people being, like, one... in, in one way. I feel like people have maybe a fixed mindset here and a, and a growth mindset here, and maybe it's broader or, or smaller in different areas based on what might be happening in those areas. I think it also can be, be related in, in terms of timeline and where you are.
So for example, if I'm talking with a business owner who has maybe 10 years under their belt and they're like, I've always done it like this, and this is, , the evidence, the evidence that I'm seeing is showing me that I, that this is going to work," they might have more of a fixed mindset about that particular thing.
Mm-hmm ... and they may not see that it's holding them back, versus somebody who's a year or two in their business who's "Yeah, give me all the goods. I'm ready to expand. I'm ready to whatever." So it could be on a spectrum of where you're at in your journey, whether it's business or parenting or religion or, , whatever, friendships or whatever you're working on at the time.
Yeah, I like the, the idea of the timeline. , And I think about it, , most of the folks who are listening are in education and, and maybe the number line is also another good way of looking at it. But if, , this started off with looking at abilities, right? So that, , this idea that we have an ability to be able to do something, we have a fixed ability, or we have the ability to grow our abilities, right?
To, to build skills. And w- no matter what, what area you're talking about, , you start off somewhere on that timeline, somewhere on that number line. And it's, it's really about how can you get better how can you grow? And, , your growth, you might grow 15%, and that might still be,, at the back of the line, but your 15% could be at the front line.
It, it doesn't really matter, it's your growth, right? Mm-hmm. And I think one of the things I, I like to say in lots of our podcasts, we talk about getting 1% better, right? If, if our career is gonna be 40 years, right, if you can get 1% better every year, then you're, you're actually getting somewhere, right?
As opposed to feeling like we're stuck in the same place all the time. But that's, I think having that idea that we might end up at different points on that number line, that timeline, but as long as we're progressing, then we're, we're chasing the right things, right? Mm-hmm. Absolutely. To that end, I, in my advisory services that I do with my business and the people that I coach one of the things that I tell them to do...
Actually, there's a bunch of things that I could think of that I tell them to do that would be relevant. But one of the things that I tell them to do is track their success. And a lot of people will just come in with the, "Oh, I had this particular success," and it's a closed deal or a dollar amount or something that is at the very end of that line.
And one of the things that I really appreciate about Carol Dweck's research and in this book is how she talks about praising ourself for the effort that we've made along the way. Mm-hmm. And recently actually I, I journal a lot. Mm-hmm. And I have one journal that I will journal in and then I'll get another one, get another one, et cetera, but I don't normally carry two journals with me.
But recently I started carrying two journals, and I have one journal that is just a success journal. And it is not success like you think, the end results. Right. It's more of, All the little itty-bitty things, all the little,, tiny decisions that I made differently. I chose this instead of this today, or I , experienced this or, , I vacuumed the floor, right?
Who wants to celebrate vacuuming the floor? But if my ultimate goal is to, , have a clean house and like- Mm-hmm ... change a behavior or something like that, celebrating those little small wins and the effort that I made in order to get to that bigger win is actually going to create a situation where I wanna do it more.
Yeah ... so back to your point of, , like we're on this spectrum, 1% better, and her, , what she talks about is how to navigate that and celebrate those small wins along the way so that you then do create a growth mindset and you are feeling that momentum and propelled to do better and more.
Yeah. And if we- Mm-hmm ... if we put that in the frame of, of education, , whether it be the teacher themselves thinking about, well, how do, how do I wanna get better at what we're doing? Mm-hmm ... or we're trying to help students see that or, or our employees, right, in the business world- Mm-hmm ... or our clients that we're, we're directing.
The tracking of the little steps, right? The, the little steps that I'm doing in order to get to where I need to go is really the secret sauce, right? It's, it's less about, , did everybody, , achieve this, achieve this goal? In some cases, yeah, sure, some things are truly finite where you have to be able to, , for, for lack of a better example, you really do have to know your timetables.
At some point, you gotta know, right? So you do have to achieve something, but it's, it's far more what are the steps I'm doing along that way in the process that are making this great? And if... , the school year makes it so easy. We have 36 weeks or we have 180 days, and you can just take a bunch of little steps to get there.
Whereas, , folks in business, we're just , it's today, and then I'm gonna repeat tomorrow, right? So maybe not so easy to look at that. Maybe you look at quarters or whatever. But I do love this idea of like little small steps and tracking that in your success journal or however you do it is I think a really, a good way of, of practicing that.
Yeah. And I found that helpful. I have a, a nine-year-old daughter who , because I learned about this concept so long ago, I've been able to praise her effort. Mm-hmm. And I can really see how that has really helped her, , navigate things like picking up lacrosse or, or picking up an accelerated math class or other things like that that she might be doing where she's "Okay, yeah, I know I can do this little piece today and, and my effort is, is important," versus, "I have to wait all the way until the end of what?"
Right? "I have to wait until the end of the season to know if it's an undefeated season, or I have to wait until the end of the year to see if I, , got whatever on the big milestone test or whatever that might be." Yeah. So it's just really... It's cool to see that, , in her molded mind be, be transitioned in that way because, , I, I don't know that a lot of us got that when we were growing up- Right
because it wasn't really a concept, right? Yeah. It was so outcome based. Yeah. It's hard to teach that process- Mm-hmm ... and, and stay in the moment of, , one of the questions we'll, we'll , purposely asking my son these kinds of questions, right? Similar idea where it's , "What happened today?"
And he'd be like, "Nothing." , "Okay. Well, let's- ... let's, let's go a little bit further down this line. , "Did you help somebody today?" "How were you challenged?" And his response which we always, you know, my wife and I will talk about, his response is always "How was I, how was I-" , treated poorly or like how, how was I attacked, right?
So he thinks a challenge is an attack. Uh-huh. And I'm like, "No, no, no. Like, how were you... , how did you push your brain? How did you step outside of your, , your comfort zone or whatever?" And so we end up asking that, both sides of that question. 'Cause his initial answer is like, "Well, some kid was, , messing with some other kids at lunchtime and, , that wasn't cool."
And I was like, "Oh, so you were challenged?" And "Should I go do something?" You- Mm-hmm ... you kind of like boil that back. But having that kind of language where you're constantly putting the, the process and the idea that the challenges are good as opposed to, "Oh, today was so easy. Nothing happened.
I got an A on my test." It's yeah, that's all fine, but what are all the experiences you had, right? Mm-hmm. And that's, obviously with kids it, it takes a certain point. With adults, it, the same thing. If I had the same day every day, I think I'd be gone already. I just can't- Mm-hmm
I need a challenge. I need a, I need a change. Yeah. Totally. And I think, with this, with this concept that she talks about, it creates a space in which we can flourish, right? It creates a a construct where it's oh, okay, if there is something that's challenging, I can, I can move past it because I have a growth mindset, because I have this awareness about what is happening.
Oftentimes people... I say like fear exists in the dark. If you can't acknowledge a thing, of course it's gonna be scary. The minute you can shine a light on it and get some understanding to it and, and use your, bo- body intelligence and the way in which you're thinking about these things, it becomes less scary- Mm-hmm
to know, oh, okay, I can, I can meet that, and I can meet that with a growth mindset, and I can... Right? And I can use these tools that I have at my disposal instead of thinking that it's scary and being fear-based always. Yeah. And so, it's, I think it's a really good tool to help navigate those different aspects of childhood and even into adulthood too.
Yeah. Speaking of, of navigating that how have you... Have you developed or have you used any strategies that when you know, like you realize that you're in that fixed mindset, that you can kind of like pull yourself out? Mm. Yeah. I actually use a framework by Gabby Bernstein called the Choose Again Method.
And she talks about it a little bit in her content. But it's acknowledge the thought, forgive yourself for having the thought, and then choose again. And you choose something that is also true, but in a, in a version of, whatever that might look like. I would have to say that acknowledging the thought is probably 80% of the- Yeah
of the rub, right? And it's stopping yourself in the middle of that and, and being able to recognize what's happening, and then the shame and blame that comes behind that is why she talks about forgiving yourself for having that thought, 'cause we don't even wanna go there, and then choosing again to be on a better path.
For the stopping myself and the awareness, that has taken so much intentionality over the years. Yeah. So many different, coaches and different people that I've talked to that are really that have helped me understand where my, blind spots are and helped me understand, oh, okay, yeah, I tend to go to this area and I need to...
right? And I can use that here, and I can use that here. And just through a lot of intentionality, I've been able to use that method and many other methods to get myself on track to where I, I can notice what's happening and then do something about it. Yeah, that's so hard. I feel like I definitely don't have that.
It's so easy to go from zero to 60, right? Yeah. And you're just like, "I'm already beyond that." Yeah. The, the thing that I would, I would typically use or, or I would take a step further back, so, I grew up in a Salesian place where everything is about prevention, right? Mm-hmm. And so, if I think about using tiny experiments or even Noah Kagan's Failure Olympics- Mm-hmm
where you're practicing very small versions of these things in a safe environment so that you build up that muscle towards to be able to be like the Princess Bride where he's, if you drink the poison slowly over years type thing. No so, whether we do this with our, our businesses or teachers and students in a classroom, the tiny experiment where it's can I try this thing and can I fail and does it not matter quite so much yet?
As opposed to do I have to make that kind of decision or do I get confronted with that kind of level of thing in the biggest possible moment, right? And I think it's if we spend a lot of time at the beginning especially, young in our careers or young in our learning, that we're trying things out, that it's safe to fail, it's not a big deal that we can slowly start to get out of that discomfort of failing.
And even one of the little offshoots of this book is a, a book for kids. So how do kids work on their growth mindset, and it talks about, FAIL is, is an acronym for First Attempt In Learning, right? Mm-hmm. So it's okay, that was just my first try. It was my- Ah ... my rough draft.
And I, I really like that because it's, it's true. If, if there's low stakes to it, then I can try a bunch of things and I can do well with it. And similar with the Failure Olympics, if I go to Starbucks every day and ask for a free coffee- Maybe they'll give me one, but I'm, I'm also not gonna feel the pain of having them say no because- Mm-hmm
I'm gonna be so used to it, and I might even have fun with the way I'm gonna ask for that every day, right? And so this, this is the idea that we have these little tiny experiments to play with, hopefully build up some resistance to that mindset and be able to, stay in the growth mindset versus having to recover from it.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I think w- once it's integrated and once it's something that you're, that you can tune into at any given time- Mm-hmm ... it's so much easier. I think diving into, some of those tiny experiments or just going into it and be like, "All right, I'm just gonna learn this and dive into it," once you've integrated it, it's not a big deal.
You don't... It's, it's subconscious. It's a- Yeah ... habit now. But getting to that using those frameworks, I love that idea. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's fun. I think thinking about some of the other things to watch out for. So, strategies that we can get ourselves out of it, but I think, like you said, 80% of it's recognizing that you're in that moment, right?
So I think that's something that we probably spend our entire life doing. Whether, one we're thinking it ourselves, two, if we're saying it out loud especially the section where I, I wanna say it was chapter seven. Really, chapter seven's, like, where teachers should be focusing their energy on 'cause it's a lot of practical things.
But where they talk about how- We get stuck in thinking that we- we're communicating a certain way, but it's actually being heard a different way. Mm-hmm. And so whether, whether we need to recognize it in ourselves or how we're translating that to somebody else, and maybe further making their fixed mindset a problem I think it's, it's important to look at some of those things that, that pop up.
And some of the things they talk about is, group think, beware of group think. Beware of how you use your pronouns, if you're talking about I and we or you, right? It's like them, whatever it is. Where... What else... what are the some of those signs that you, that might be helpful for folks to recognize that either they're talking about it or somebody else is in that fixed mindset?
Yeah. One of the frameworks that was insanely helpful for me to get in, it just create that growth mindset and re- acknow- the acknowledgement that you're talking about is the cognitive distortions. So in cognitive behavioral therapy, there's a whole 10 types of twisted thinking, and there's things like overgeneralization and all-or-nothing thinking or exaggerations, and there's 10 different types.
And if you, you- anyone can Google twisted thinking PDF, and this thing will come up, and there's 26 different ways to untwist your thinking that comes along with that PDF. And acknowledging the different types of thinking actually is an extremely helpful. So for example, a fixed mindset is going to be probably on that list of cognitive distortions.
So, do you go to all-or-nothing thinking immediately? Mm-hmm. Is it, Is there only two different outcomes? And if so, how can you untwist your thinking? Can you think in this different terms to see if there's something else that might be possible? I know a lot of people that I talk to in my advisory services and coaching is they will over- they will overstate all the negative things that are happening to them, and they will understate all the positive things.
Mm-hmm. Right? And so that creates a sort of- fixed thinking mindset of oh, well this is going to happen because it's happened to me before, because I am focused on all these negative things happening- Right ... of course it would happen that way. And it's well, you talked about this problem that you have for 45 minutes, and then when I'm like, "Hey, what's the success?"
You actually had three really big successes, but you skipped over them very quickly. Yeah. So how can we not discount the positives, right? Going to that, and noticing that we're discounting the positives, and then blow those up a little bit more so that we're talking about the effort that we made, and even if it didn't work out the way we wanted it to, but all the, all the really cool things that happened.
So to your question, I think it's can you, you- Can this framework be combined with other frameworks that- Right ... create a situation in which you can recognize it much easier than all the different ways you might be in a fixed mindset? And then I think the other thing to recognize is, one is not bad or good or otherwise, it just is.
Yeah. Right? So your fixed mindset, sometimes it's, it's necessary for you to be there. And a growth mindset, sometimes it's necessary for you to be there, and not, one is not better than the other. Yeah. Yeah, this, the negative self-talk can really be- Mm ... well, it can be damaging on so many different levels.
Yeah. But that, that'll keep you in that place, right? So recognizing, the I want to say it was James Altucher, I can't say his name right. Famous writer. Mm. Anyway, his challenge to folks was like, try not complaining for seven days, right? And it's you'll never, you'll never get through it, but it'll be great chasing that deal, right?
Because we complain, and whether that be projecting on somebody else, like it's their fault, once again, a fixed mindset. Somebody, somebody's happening to me, something's happening to me, or I'm terrible and it's all happening to me- Mm ... is s- that doesn't do us any good, right? So, like- No ... that, that's a pretty big sign that something needs to, something needs to happen.
So flip that on its head. What about some ways, like how do we create the environment where... Like once again, we're trying to recognize this in ourselves, but whether in our businesses with the folks that we're, on our team that we're working with or in a school, a classroom, the, the staff the administration with the families, et cetera.
How do we create an environment where we're more likely to be in those happy places where we can think with a growth mindset? Yeah, I think when people are, are responding, they are responding from a place of their beliefs, right? Mm-hmm. So it's beliefs turn into thoughts, thoughts turn into words, words turn into actions.
And so oftentimes it's word choice that creates the, that lands with somebody- Yeah ... that either c- pushes them in a growth mindset or pushes them in a, in a fixed mindset. And so really being cautious about our words and how we're thinking about it, but not just... It doesn't start with the words. It starts with the thoughts.
Right. And then even before that, it starts with the beliefs. Yeah. And so examining our beliefs, do I believe that this kid in front of me is giving me a hard time, or do I believe that this kid in front of me is having a hard time? Mm. If I believe this kid in front of me is having a hard time, the way I'm going to approach that- Mm-hmm
is going to be very different and probably gonna be more growth mindset oriented than if I'm like, "Well, this kid is giving me a hard time," and then I, now I'm on the defense, right? Right. And I would say the giving me a hard time is actually a fixed mindset, because there's 100 million other different possibilities that they could be doing other than giving you a hard time.
Yeah. And so sometimes just recognizing, and I love Dr. Becky's work on, on this, and some of the other creators, like Big Little Feelings, and- Mm ... there's a bunch of creators online who talk about these different small little mindset shifts that will help you, your... It'll change your beliefs so that the words then become different and you don't even...
It's now a subconscious, because beliefs are, are really deep-seated in there. Yeah. That, that self-reflection, the kind of looking in and saying, "What am I? What do I, what do I really think about this?" And, it's not just, she talks about in the book about the fake- Mm ... the fake growth mindset where people are like, "This is what people want me to say," or, "This is what enlightened people say, and therefore this is what I should say."
But it's no, I need to internalize that. Mm. It really needs to be a part of, of who I am. Therefore, what comes out naturally is already that kind of way, right? Mm. And then all of my communication is- is, with thought, the communication's coming out with that kind of open and growth mindset for lack of a, another, another word, right?
Another phrase. It's, it's more about calibrating and getting, getting yourself set so that that's what naturally comes out, right? Yeah. You're leading with curiosity. Right. I think curiosity might be what you were looking for. It's like- Yes ... if I could lead with curiosity, the outcome is gonna be so much better than if I go in- Yeah
with knowing what this kid is doing, or knowing what this person is doing, or know- right? I, I'm coming in with preconceived judgments about- Right ... right? Right. I think the other thing that's interesting too is w- and I think about I think about with my own child and in other, school related things, is all behavior is communication.
Mm. And so I it's my job as the adult in the situation to find the unmet need and go meet it. Right. And I think if I can find the unmet need, then I am then opening them up and regulating their nervous system, and opening that up to to having curiosity and having that growth mindset. If I am not, and I think that all their behavior and if I start to label them, because I think a theme throughout this entire book is labeling.
Yeah. Do not label. Like bullying- Yeah, don't judge ... starts with la- bullying starts with labeling, right? Right. So when you label somebody as something, then your belief about them, right? And then subsequently your words about them. And so if you can refrain from labeling any of those things, it just is this, "Okay, this is behav- this behavior is communication"- Mm-hmm
then you get curious about it, well, then you don't even ever go there. Yeah. And I think that just gives, it's such a beautiful exchange and it's so much lighter. Yeah. If you think about the word choice, I, I think about this sometimes- Of some words are heavier than other words, right? Mm-hmm. So if I'm like, "Oh, all behavior's communication," feels very light to me.
Mm-hmm. Versus I'm labeling this kid as bad or this kid is generally, a, a, not al- not doing what they're supposed to do. That feels heavy to me. Yeah. How can I make things lighter? And then therefore, the way I'm going to treat that person is going to be differently, and I can, I can usually, see how my words might land differently and into the growth mindset piece of it.
Yeah, yeah. In the same way that we praise the process, you also want to not necessarily... If you, if there's gonna be any judgment whatsoever, th- that should be on the process and not the person, right? Mm-hmm. Because what ends up happening is, and this is a this quote I actually remember, is that, conflict turns into blame, which turns into a character flaw, right?
Mm-hmm. So there is some sort of communication usually a negative one, that has, brought on a situation. And so you're gonna go and then say, "Well, there's, there's some reason for this thing," and it's, and instead of dealing with that, that reason, it's somebody's fault, right? Mm-hmm. And so then it becomes, well, that kid or that person is, I can't work with them.
They're just, they're a bad person or whatever it might be. And that's not getting anywhere. Like you said, if, if, if behavior is, is some sort of communication, what am I trying to get out of here? What's the grain of... take it all with a grain of salt. What's the message that I'm missing? Yeah. And then I can, I can address that.
And I think they talked about, Dan Olweus from, I don't even know if that's how you say his name, but in Norway in terms of the bullying, and it's like just talk about, the right kind of behaviors that we wanna see. Talk about the things that, that they're doing good or bad, and talk about that, not as them being good or bad, right?
So- Mm-hmm ... same thing with ability. It's, it's not about your, you've got more ability than the other person. You just had a different starting point. But we're talking about what kind of progress can we make in all of these things, mm-hmm. And I think that's where, that's the hammering home of this is stay on the process, and let's just get better at that process.
Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah. Totally agree. And I just lo- I love how many places in life this is applicable. Yeah. It feels like it's applicable in all the, in all different areas, and starting with awareness and then mastering it all the way through to integrating it. Just it, it's really cool to see how it, it just becomes this this thing that actually I would say has become a foundation for a lot of people's research and work.
And I know that h- this book is, is quoted so often- Yeah ... in so many other bodies of work. In fact, I just did a, a book club on on this book, Feel Good Productivity, and it's quoted in there. Yeah. And it's just like- Yeah ... it's all over the place. Yeah ... and it's just cool to see how it can be applicable in, in so many different areas of our lives.
Yeah. So as we get to maybe the end of this, I mean, we probably could talk about this stuff forever. Yeah. Is there something that you, that you would say that you really want folks to pull out of this? If, if you could take like your main thing from this book- Mm-hmm ... what would that be? Oh, man.
How do I... I mean, such a staple, how do I do that? Sorry, good question. I would... Yeah. I would say that your mindset and having a growth mindset is the number one thing that you can invest in, in yourself and in other people. And you will see other people around you transform when you start looking at your beliefs and aligning them with, with who you wanna be and your authenticity.
Yeah. And this is just one view into a piece of it. And like I said, so many people have written all these different books, but this is just a starting point for, oh, if I can get this concept... And it's such a great, easy-to-navigate and easy-to-grasp concept. If you can get that and then infuse that into all the other, then right?
You don't... The work, it, this is the heavy lift, right? Yeah, yeah. And it, and it does become a success point for a lot of people. And I can tell you a business owner or a a person is going to be ex- exponentially more successful if they can grasp onto a growth mindset and stay there. Yeah. Yeah, I love the, the idea that we're in charge- Yeah
of what we, what we get to learn, right? Mm-hmm. So if if you don't take charge of that, then you're, you're, you're letting somebody else dictate who you are and what you'll become. So- Mm-hmm ... I would say my, my thing that I pull from this, and I, I use this a lot is, is that learning how to learn is probably the first thing that we, we all need to do.
Of course, you have to learn some things along the way. Mm-hmm. But at a certain point, especially in middle school and high school when kids start to fall out of love with the st- daily stuff that they're doing, it's if they learn how they like to learn and how they can learn and get more and more tools in their tool belt, then that's, that's really the best thing we can do for them, and I think for adults too.
If we don't know how we learn, if we don't know how we wanna operate, how we want to engage other people, then we're gonna have a really hard time. So, investing the energy and figuring it out for ourselves and as, as the adults in the room, we've gotta give people tools, right? Mm-hmm. I know that, I know that you've, you've definitely given lots of tools to all of us folks trying to figure out our own things.
So that's, but that's, that's the job, right? That's the job. Yeah. Perpetual learner, for sure. Yeah. That's, I mean, I've, I love all these books and I, I appreciate the book clubs and et cetera, and all these things. It's just, it's so, it's so much fun to keep learning. Mm-hmm. That's what we're after here.
Right. So as, as we're done here tell us a little bit more about Piece of Cake Marketing and The Network. Yeah. So Piece of Cake Marketing is my consulting firm. It's been around for quite some time, and I help people with strategy and all kinds of different advisory services to help them have a better business.
Sometimes solopreneurs, entrepreneurs and companies up to 10 million without a marketing team. In addition, I also run a whole bunch of different groups and this Slack network called The Network for solopreneurs, entrepreneurs and consultants who want to just have a community, like I mentioned earlier.
I do lots of different events, speed networking book clubs, in-person events and things like that, and it's a free community to join, and it's just the most generous community I have ever been a part of, and I'm just grateful to be in it, and I'm grateful that you're in it too, Thomas. Yeah. I'm glad to be a part of it.
It's been one of the, the most consistent and positive things that I've, been able to do over the last, I guess, couple years already. Oh, it seems crazy. Wonderful. And for anybody who's listening out there, school heads I know that some of this might feel daunting, especially when it comes to marketing.
Erica is a very valuable asset. You should at least engage with her a little bit at a time, talk through some ideas and maybe e- even find that next little nugget that you need. Yeah. Thank you. Well, thanks for joining me today and for sharing your ideas and thoughts about mindset. It's always fun talking books with you.
Mm-hmm. And talking any business with you is always good. So, maybe we'll have you back for another book another time. Would love it. All right, see you next time. Thanks.