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Today we present a great conversation with returning guest Danny Bauer of Better Leaders Better Schools and Glenn Robbins, superintendent of Brigantine Public Schools in New Jersey. Danny and Glenn have co-authored the new book Calm in the Chaos, applying ancient Stoic wisdom to the demands of school leaders.
Our conversation covers:
- Summary of ancient Stoic wisdom and philosophy
- The Obstacle is the Way - Ryan Holiday
- Why the authors applied this philosophy to school leadership
- Modern chaos in schools
- School leaders’ stress levels are high. What is stillness in the chaos?
- Four virtues: Wisdom, Temperance, Courage, and Justice
- Equanimity is the outcome — calmness of mind and soul
About today’s guests
Daniel Bauer is host of the Better Leaders Better Schools podcast, ranked in the TOP 0.5% of 3 million global podcasts, and author of books including Mastermind: Unlocking Talent Within Every School Leader, co-published by Corwin and the National School Superintendents Association (AASA). Subscribe to Better Leaders, Better Schools on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Glenn Robbins is the proud Superintendent of the Brigantine Public School District in Brigantine, New Jersey. He has been awarded numerous administrative national and state recognitions including the National Exemplar of Education Award, Northeast Innovative Superintendent Award, NJ Visionary Superintendent Award, Digital Promise League of Innovative Schools Member, NASSP Digital Principal of the Year, Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Winner, and SETDA Student Voice Award Winner. Glenn is passionate about helping school leaders create schools where every student and educator can have the opportunity to succeed to their utmost potential in a VUCA world.
About the host
Ross Romano is a co-founder of the Be Podcast Network and CEO of September Strategies, a coaching and consulting firm that helps organizations and high-performing leaders in the K-12 education industry communicate their vision and make strategic decisions that lead to long-term success. Connect on Twitter @RossBRomano or https://www.linkedin.com/in/rossromano
I also host Sideline Sessions, a podcast for coaches and parents of student-athletes. The show features conversations with coaches and performance experts in the NFL, NBA, NCAA, Olympics, and more. Listen here: https://bit.ly/3Rp0QGt
Creators & Guests
Host
Guest
What is The Authority Podcast — Expert Insights and Fresh Ideas for Education Leaders?
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Join leadership coach, storytelling strategist, and edtech advisor Ross Romano as he interviews the prominent education authors you already admire, up-and-coming voices, and experts from the worlds of business, personal development, and beyond — including Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Amazon bestsellers — to take a deep dive into their wealth of practical insights.
Ross Romano: Welcome in, everybody, to another episode of The Authority Podcast here on the BE Podcast Network. It is a pleasure, as always, to have you with us, and let's jump right into it. So my guests today are Danny Bauer. Danny's been with us before to talk about his book, Mastermind, and he's back today.
Danny is the Chief Ruckus Maker at Better Leaders, Better Schools. He has hosted the Better Leaders, Better Schools podcast since 2015. Through his masterminds, Danny has coached and mentored school administrators from every continent in the world. Danny is joined by his coauthor, Glenn Robbins, equals coauthors here.
Glenn Robbins is the superintendent of the Brigantine public school district of Brigantine, New Jersey. He has been awarded numerous administrative, [00:01:00] national, and state recognitions. Numerous is right. I'm going to touch on a few of these, but I'll give you the full list in the show notes. And if we don't run out of character count McLennan has been the National Exemplar of Education Award, Northeast Innovative Superintendent.
He's also won awards from Digital Promise League of Schools, NESSP, Samsung, CETA for student voice, for school leadership, for being a digital principal, all of the above. Glen and Danny have collaborated on a book called calm in the chaos. It's part of the school leadership success series from ruckus maker media.
Guys, welcome to the show. All
Glen Robbins: all right, it's great to be here.
Danny Bauer: Pleasure to be back, Ross. Thank you.
Ross Romano: right. So we only have time for one or two questions because Glen's bio is so long. So let's jump right now. Let's get to, so, so this book is. Based on ancient Stoic wisdom and philosophy and you know, some of our listeners may know a little bit about [00:02:00] that. A lot of them may not. So can you sort of, maybe Danny, I'll start with you.
Just. Summarize a little bit of, about , where that philosophy comes from and kind of what it's about in general.
Danny Bauer: Well, Glen's the better historian, so I'll let him talk about that piece, but you know, there's something, I think Ryan Holiday taught it to me, and I have it actually, it comes up in my to do list sort of personal daily reminders. You know, recite some affirmations. I I think about Memento Mori, right?
So Glen, we've talked about that before. So I consider my impermanence and my finiteness as a human being. And then something I believe I got from Ryan Holiday I meditate and reflect on Stoic philosophy, which could be boiled down to three parts, right? Control your perceptions. Direct your actions properly and willingly accept what is and what is not in your control.
And so for me I'm not the [00:03:00] facts and figures. I couldn't tell you who was born when and how long it's been around type of thing. But I know in terms of big broad strokes and the big ideas that's where my understanding of stoicism lies. So Glen, do you have anything historical that you want to bring into the, it's up to you.
Glen Robbins: I think you really said it very well, and I appreciate that, the tidbits on that Historical wise, right, Zeno's the one that the founder of all this is supposedly of stoicism, but the one people know most probably are Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and you know, talking about being a leader in turbulent times and how do you stay grounded?
How do you make decisions? We were mentioning on the pre show about being sports fans and so forth and it's not always easy to stay stoic and you know, try to stay grounded and like to Danny's point, what can you control? And Amor Fateh, what is , you have to accept what is coming to you. So, I think this is why we wrote the book, right?
We talked about it for the reason of being, how do we help other leaders who are going through such turbulent times [00:04:00] stay somewhat grounded and or unaffected and or strong , to remain staying in there while the hits keep coming.
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Ross Romano: One of these concepts, there's a lot to give, but there's this, mention of stillness, right? And having stillness in the chaos and especially with high stress levels. And as you just mentioned, right, the sports fandom I think it applies here because it's the type of thing where controlling your emotions doesn't mean disassociating from or you know, stifling them, right?
If you're a in , a fan of a sports team, right? You want to have some measure of control, but still enjoy the experience, still have the passion for it. If you are an educator, an education leader you want to be able to manage. your reactions to and the way you navigate the stresses and chaos of it without losing the things that drive you to tackle the [00:05:00] challenges and the purpose of it.
So I'm wondering like what this stillness appropriate looks like , because some people also have heard that the term stoic and particularly stoic, small s right, maybe have that connotation that it means detachment or they think of a person, well that person's very stoic and you kind of, they don't seem to be emotional versus that they're managing their emotions.
But you know, when we're discussing that stillness and what it should be versus maybe what some misperceptions of it would be can you sort of, Contextualize that a little bit.
Glen Robbins: Yeah I agree. I'll go first on this one, Dan. We mentioned in the book, like, leadership's like being at a firing range. You're in a glass bowl and you can't get out. Everybody's shooting at you, but everybody's watching you. You know, everybody's waiting to see if they can make you have a reaction in some way or another.
And even people you don't think are watching you. So , you are highly contagious in many ways. So if you have a great [00:06:00] vibe and people are smiling. But yet you're struggling inside. People will feel somewhat a little more calm and relaxed , so I think that goes a long way.
Leaders, people want leaders who are calm and relaxed. They don't want somebody who's on fire and nonstop. They don't want somebody who's ranting and raving. You know, and Danny, I just saw this quote the other day from somebody, I don't know who it was from, but they mentioned like, anybody in the last two years, or I'd say last four years of COVID running a company should be given a PhD in social psychology.
You know, so think about that with all the different emotions and mindsets that you've had to deal with. I think it ultimately comes down to, as a leader, you need to be somewhat calm in the presence, because they're looking for you to make these right things. And if you make a decision out of anger, or a strick out of emotion it's not going to be your best decision you've ever made.
Danny Bauer: Yeah , I'll go ahead. Well, you brought up the misconception of sort of the stoic face, right? Where you seem detached and that kind of thing. And maybe your mind , intellectually, [00:07:00] maybe you're not getting gripped or hooked, right? But your heart still is. So that is a misconception that you no longer have emotions or care or turn into some kind of stone statue or robot.
Like that's all a hundred percent false. I think it was Glen, correct me if I'm wrong here, but didn't Marcus Aurelius like , lose multiple children? I know at least one, right? And I can't imagine, yeah, I can't imagine, I can't imagine the pain that he felt in those moments ? So I , I use that metaphor being hooked like a fish, and the psychologist Jonathan Haidt says the emotional tail wags the rational dog.
And that's very illustrative of, What we're talking about here, because we like to think that we're rational, logical beings, but we're actually emotional ones. And I think the difference between the stoic leader and the one that's not realizes that emotions actually drive. much of what we do.
Now, the [00:08:00] other leader, completely unaware, right? Emotional intelligence, self awareness, low. They're running around getting themselves in similar situations and they say, how did I get here? And what stoicism teaches you is by, force for the trees. willingly , accepting what's in outside of your control, controlling your perceptions, everything I mentioned earlier this allows you to be the observer versus the one being hooked and pulled around by your emotions.
Ross Romano: Yeah, absolutely. So what does this modern chaos look like? I think you know, modern chaos and ancient chaos are different, right? But particularly for school leaders, district leaders teachers, anybody working in schools, really there is , the various communities, stakeholder dynamics technologies, all these various conflicts going on.
But can we kind of put some specifics around that? I'll go with you, Glen, because you're still [00:09:00] in your district there. Like when we're especially thinking about, okay, we're taking this philosophy and applying it specifically to education leadership. What are some of those dynamics that we are thinking about.
Glen Robbins: I think it's pretty much everything. I think for the listeners out there, if you can stop for a second and think of two or three people that you know who lost it or left the profession, whether it is jumped out to another job, or if you're tired or just got voted out and or resigned. Like we talked about this before numerous times, the average superintendency expectancy in a district is 1.
9 years , so the heightened awareness or of the media scrutinizing education does not help any teacher. Teachers have been doing remarkable things for the last couple years, but how many people have left because of burnout , and how many have and or have bosses that can stay there and help fight for them or support them?
So my question is, who do you know who hasn't [00:10:00] left? You know, like there are so many different people with the media, the town, the social media the families, the , the, everything you can name, anything you can think of. You can't go a day without hearing something negative about a school, but yet you could go nonstop talking about all the amazing things going on at school.
Fortunately, it goes to criticizing, and it's a world that wants answers right away. A lot of entitlement right away. You know, there's no more gray area. We can agree to disagree. It's my way or this way. You have to have this book in the library. You can't have that book in the library. You have to have this type of technology.
You can't have that type of technology. You know, you have to be this type of political or you have to be that type of political , and I think. That's a driving force on so many different ways that educators have to be somewhat of a medium , especially the leaders, they have to be able to figure out a way to get everybody to work together.
And wouldn't that be awesome if we could do that as a country, if everybody could work together for a common good, but instead we try to drive each other apart. And I don't know why we [00:11:00] do that, but yet we continue to do that.
Ross Romano: Yeah, and I mean, I do think you, so you sort of referenced it a little bit there. And even though it's not the point of this book, I do think it's fair to bring up and important in my perspective , as you said, you can go on all day talking about the positives that are happening in schools and you should, right?
Like , there's a lot of this chaos that is invited, right? When we don't do that. I mean, when we don't communicate about. the good things we're doing or the objectives or the vision and all that , because a lot of the chaos is caused by what school board meetings or , parent educator interactions or misunderstandings or feeling that there's a you know, all I ever hear about are the bad things or
Danny Bauer: tie that to stoicism though, Ross, like , what's going on there. And the reason we're not talking about all the good stuff that's going on enough is because maybe we lack the wisdom and the courage required to actually talk about the good stuff. [00:12:00] So what I mean by that, it takes wisdom to understand.
what's worth your time and attention, right? And the typical school leader can easily fall into the trap of reactive mode , in putting out fires and all this kind of stuff. And there , there's a teaching that I have in my leadership community that says, Where I talk about , stop celebrating firefighters, this is a metaphor, stop celebrating firefighters, celebrate the architect who built the building that never caught on fire, right?
But we love to celebrate people that dig themselves out of holes or smooth things over, but we forget about all the people that don't cause the holes. Or build the buildings that don't catch on fire. Here we are just all in reactive mode, thinking that's what's most important in terms of using our time.
This is the wisdom piece. Versus understanding playing the long game, right, of what is [00:13:00] truly worth our time and attention and what's playing an infinite game and a game of significance.
Ross Romano: know.
Danny Bauer: There's a tension here. I'm not saying you don't attend to fires at all, although sometimes , if you don't attend to a fire, you'll find that they burn themselves out.
You know, so, but again, wisdom, knowing which fires burn themselves out, which one truly is an emergency that , demands my attention and understanding like short term gains versus long term gains. So that, that, that requires the wisdom. And then the courage, I think just comes around boundaries, just saying, I'm not doing that.
Right. Or having the courage to not respond to an email or some kind of provocation that is. Just clearly trolling in real life , versus the feedback you might get on social media , people do stuff to, to get you to act in a certain way that's not good for you or the school community.
So that's still, it's still a very stoic thing [00:14:00] that , wisdom, that courage when it comes to actually focusing on and telling the story of all the positives. Sorry to cut you off, but I had a
Ross Romano: no, I think you're, I mean, you're totally right, right, but and that's part of, right, I guess the point is that the stoic mindset and the application of the virtues, which we'll get into it begins
before the chaos arrives. I mean, like, there are certain things that are just part of modern society, modern school systems that are unavoidable. And there's others where some , some of our listeners, this may totally lose them. Some of them may totally get it. But it's , that the meme from, I think you can leave I think you should leave with Tim Robinson in a hot dog suit saying, we're all trying to find the guy who did this.
When the hot dog. shaped car crashed into the building. It's okay. Well , the reason why some of these things are happening are we have to take a [00:15:00] few steps back and say, we need to start earlier of being proactive about certain things. And to your point of where do we apply our attention, sometimes proactively applying your attention toward showing not , the positive stuff.
has a tenfold impact compared to how much energy you can put into putting out that fire once it's lit. Right. An ounce of prevention prevents a pound of pain or however that goes. But anyhow, let's go to, there's one other thing that is interesting to me before we kind of get into the specifics of the virtues, which is, There there certainly is an element of kind of that, that calmness and that patience, right? Not being reactive, not being led by those emotions or those emotional responses in those difficult moments and yet, a lot of times, these Stressful situations occur in a moment when [00:16:00] people are kind of looking for answers where it's not necessarily going to be satisfactory to just say, okay, well, we'll table that or think about that and get back to you.
Sometimes that's okay, but sometimes not. So what are some of the ways that. Understanding what these challenges are. And most of them are, they repeat themselves. They're not necessarily novel. So as a leader we can typically. anticipate what some of the challenges are that might come up that we know we're going to have to navigate, manage the emotions through.
Are there some strategies , for example, visualization, preparation, other ways of saying, okay, when I'm in this meeting, there's going to be some high, levels of emotion here. I'm going to need to manage myself in this way. These are some of the things I might be asked to respond to. And in order to make sure I can do it effectively in the moment, [00:17:00] let me think ahead.
Let me visualize what that situation is. Think about what I might be asked. What do I want? Want to say things of that nature, right? To say that, I guess, stillness, calmness, stoicism doesn't necessarily mean not responding in the moment but , responding and reacting might mean two different things versus That's what it is.
being prepared to do that. If either of you have thoughts on that, you can jump in at your leisure.
Glen Robbins: Danny, you want to jump in, or?
Danny Bauer: Well , Ross, you brought up visualization and one technique that stoic supply is actually negative visualization. And I think that could help you be proactive as well, because essentially it's basically like a pre mortem , post mortem, somebody expires and dies and You know, they look into and investigate what caused the death.
Right. And so, in, at least in business , increasingly in education, certainly 100 percent of the leaders I [00:18:00] support know this concept, but a premortem is thinking about any plan initiative project that you're working on. And spending some thinking time identifying why can it go all wrong? And it's not that you're trying to manifest right.
Bad stuff in terms of your projects and whatever it's to be clear. about trends or patterns that you've seen , learning from failure from the past as well. So anyways, when you do this negative visualization or premortem and you consider those kinds of things, now all those obstacles can be turned into opportunities, right?
So instead of sticking your head in the sand or just believing we're going to get it and all kids are going to read at grade level, sounds good. Put it on your website. But really what are all the reasons why that won't happen? And now you're identifying opportunities for professional development, crucial conversations you need to be having, maybe resources that should be provided [00:19:00] that weren't on your radar, and so on and so forth.
That's one way to be more proactive versus reactive.
Ross Romano: Yeah, I think that's it can be highly effective. It makes me think of , oftentimes in coaching, I work with people on planning to have, difficult conversations at work. I want to talk about this to my boss and I want to, I feel like I'm not good at advocating for myself or once I'm in there and it's a little stressful, I don't really articulate what I'm thinking.
And so we'll talk through, okay, how, where are you? What's the dynamic? Who are you? You know, what are you looking at? What do you, how do you want to explain yourself? And then, okay, after you've made your case and you've really said what you want to say, what are you going to do if the answer is no?
Right? Okay, so you've laid it out exactly everything you possibly want to say, and you don't get the response you want. And that's the piece that We don't always go far enough to say, look, that's when it's really challenging to say, okay, there's not really [00:20:00] anything more, right? So it's maybe reaching an agreement to revisit the conversation later or something like that.
Otherwise it's just going to be a bunch of back and forth, repeating ourselves and getting frustrated. And guess what? Sometimes wisdom might mean I have to trust in the wisdom of my counterpart. Either maybe they have a good reason for feeling the way they feel or maybe given the benefit of a little time and sleeping on it, they might come back the next day and say what?
I thought more about what you said. And actually, I do , I do agree. Right? That, that part of, I think maybe the true application of some of the virtues is trusting that other people can also develop those virtues and be equally virtuous, but everybody comes about it on their own schedule.
Glen Robbins: Yeah, I think you talked about that relinquishing fear, right? Like Danny said, visualizing all these different things, and you're talking about talking with the boss , and to paraphrase [00:21:00] Seneca, we all, we suffer more often in imagination than in reality, so we will drive ourselves mentally insane about how this conversation is going to go, and normally it doesn't go that way, or things don't actually happen that way.
Yeah. And to your point about talking with people, I know there's empathy, I know there's compassion, I know there's wisdom and all that, but something I recently picked up on was perspective taking action. And basically , instead of being empathetic or sympathetic, you're trying to understand the perspective that the other individual is trying to come from.
So you're talking about, like, you want to get a raise. Right. So you can say, Hey, I did this, and this, and I have three businesses calling me and they want to steal me. Well, the second you start saying you have three businesses, now you're intimidating the other people ? So you want to have, you want to say, what is their perspective?
What do you want? Right. And what is their perspective? Are they going to let you go and hire somebody cheaper or do they really want you? So I think that's a unique angle to think about it, but I think it often goes back to we suffer more in our imagination than in our reality. [00:22:00] So , if you can stay sunk around there, there's been a lot of times, man, where I just want to get up, run across tables and scream, hoot, holler, and , do whatever it is, right?
Like we talked about the human emotion and this is the Philadelphia Eagles fan in me, right? Like I just, Want to come out , like we've got to do this, and you snap out of it and realize it was like a cartoon in your head that you did this and you have to stay somewhat calm and chaotic , stoic, and you can go for the run later , you can punch the air later, you can get angry at the air later but I just think we have to realize that if you have the right wisdom and you play it out, like, here's what could happen , and I think that's the advantage of this book, like Danny and I , we can coach, we can mentor, all of us can do that, right?
And I highly suggest you have coaches and mentors. If you don't have that, you're doing something wrong. But that's the beauty of the book, is we put in countless numbers of case studies in here for the leaders to have conversation with their leadership teams and say, what would you do in this situation?
Having those [00:23:00] intentional conversations that most leaders don't do, instead, it's alright, you got your job, go do it, don't talk to me and come back to me with good things only , you want to build up that psychological safety of your team to be able to build a team together, because that's ultimately your goal, right, to create more leaders and people who are going to go out one day and take over another school or an organization or whatever it may be, your job is to grow more leaders.
So with this book, we give you the opportunities to go through the book. All scenarios that Danny and I have gone through in our lifetime as leaders, and , it gives an open concept to opening up those conversations that they may never have.
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Ross Romano: so there's these four virtues, wisdom, temperance, courage, justice that we can talk about a bit. So wisdom, Glen you know, one application of wisdom might be when do we kick the field goal? When do we call the Philly special? Right. But in a school scenario, what's , what is one of those examples of this is the time when you really need to lean on that virtue?
Like, what does that mean? And [00:24:00] is it. Does the wisdom typically lead to an objective answer or is it really going to be seen through the lens of that person, that situation, and it's the process of paying attention to and working through that process that is going to at least lead to a well thought out response?
Glen Robbins: First off, you gotta put your ego to the side, right? That's the biggest part of wisdom. It's not about me. It's, I'm serving everybody else and how did they run the school better? And I think we get too often caught up in that. I mean, you often get so centered and ourselves are thinking that we're the leader.
We have to do it all. You know, you have great people around you. You need to lean on them. Like I mentioned, mentors and coaches. You know, what are you reading? You know, for me, I'm constantly reading leadership books from historical past and so forth and or current to see how they might have dealt with difficult situations.
And at the same time, I know to pick up a phone and [00:25:00] call friends across the country and say, Hey, I know I've already done this 15 times before, but here's what's going on. What would you do differently? You know, so leaning on so many other creative minds can go such a long way, but I think ultimately we have to realize that it's not about ourselves, it's about the greater good of the organization, and you have to understand that you're going to make decisions that are not going to make everybody happy all the time, but if it's for the greater good of the organization, and people have input, and people have some sense of a belief of why we're doing this , for the betterment of this school, then it can be pushed forward.
But if you're going to push it by yourself, you're not going to be there very long. You're not going to be very successful. So lean on people, collaborate, relationships, network, and you are never going to be perfect and you have to keep learning each and every day.
Ross Romano: You know, so temperance, Danny I mean, I think there's also is a take your ego out at peace because ego can certainly contribute to a [00:26:00] lack of temperance and but this is a real challenge , when we talk about , Some of the most common chaotic situations that we may face in, in, in interactions in our communities, in our buildings, right, and being able to navigate through them in a way that is, contributes to progress versus a particularly the risk of a real setback, right?
If we're not able to apply this, but yeah, can you talk a bit about what temperance is, what that's all about and how that comes into play?
Danny Bauer: In the book of these you know, we talk about the ideas of temperance in relation to self control, discretion, moderation, composure, balance, right? Something that I've struggled with in the past, believe it or not, because people experience me as a pretty calm guy, and I am. Right? The best compliment I ever received was from a sixth grade counselor who said, Danny, you brought this calming influence to our environment.
And that, that was amazing to receive. [00:27:00] And she was right, but I also have a temper and I also struggled with anger at times. So that's something I've been working through and I'm getting better at, a lot better at, thank God. But Marcus, you really said , when it comes to anger, When you start to lose your temper, remember, there's nothing manly about rage.
It's courtesy and kindness that define a human being. That's who possesses strength and nerves and guts, not the angry whiners. To act like that brings you closer to impassivity and so to strength. Pain is the opposite of strength and so is anger. Both are things we've suffered from and yield to. So , that challenges me too, as a guy, right.
And I want to be in control masculine and whatever that means, but losing control is not it ? And and there's times when the temperature is really turned up. And there's times that , educators, as much as we want to believe that everybody gets in it to do right by kids, right. And make a difference.
There's some educators that do some really terrible [00:28:00] things, right. To adults and the kids. And it's hard not to flip your lid , in those situations. But it's important, right? So how do we act with moderation and hold back in those moments? So I will say this, like, listen, I'm not going to give you many answers like , during our conversation and that kind of thing.
And the big reason Glen and I wrote this book, our favorite part is that we have these case studies. And if you have an opinion on them, Ross, good or bad, we'd love to hear it on this show and don't edit it out. But , listen, Ryan Holiday is like the modern expert on Stoicism. We're not trying to reproduce anything he's already created.
We're trying to do something different, which is Stoicism and applying it to a very specific context. that of education, where Glen and I are experts. And so what we did at the end of every chapter is include different case studies, [00:29:00] where it invites the reader and their team. This is a perfect book for a book study.
And how would you respond to this incident? You know what I mean? And so, yeah, that's to say, like, we've , We've created a great framework for people to engage with the virtues. We don't necessarily have all the answers.
Ross Romano: Right. Well, and as Julius Caesar said, your temper is the one thing you can't get rid of by losing it or was that not him? But , that, but that's the one, I mean, it stands out in my reading just differently a little bit because of the, the , backwards movement that can be created by really failing to focus on this. A lot of the other time , lack of courage in a certain situation, it certainly can delay or defer progress. But , but the lack of temperance can, I mean, it can eliminate your ability to ever make a difference, right?
I mean, you could. lose your position in a moment [00:30:00] of you know, misapplication of even righteous anger. And that's , why I mentioned the ego piece of really understand this is not about me. This is about the mission, the purpose. This is about why we're here. And those things, I mean, when you really believe in them, they can certainly make you angry.
But it also makes you. unselfish and understand, look, I'm not going to help anybody by making a mess of this situation. And if I want to, if you want to be able to win the game, you have to stay in the game. In other words, and say, okay how do we address this? How can we be strategic about this?
and go about winning hearts and minds here towards our cause and what we're trying to do here. And that's not going to be So , that's why I felt like there's, there is some uniqueness [00:31:00] to the way that virtue can go in, in one direction or the other. And also it doesn't mean having a lack of passion, right?
When we talked about the misperception, there are connotations around stoicism. I mean, certainly. There's a reason to be passionate about this cause and the purpose and the things you're trying to achieve in schools and school districts and classrooms but having the the wisdom the ability to carry that out and execute and articulate that in a way that is going to be productive and constructive toward the end goal is so critical to really making that difference.
How about courage, Glen?
Glen Robbins: I think you really let into that well, to be honest with you. So , Danny talks about the plate safe principles and superintendents and. You know, Seneca said, give me courage to meet hardships, make me calm in the face of the unavoidable, like, you are a leader, you're going to be dealing with things that are going to be [00:32:00] very uneasy, and I think, you mentioned all the great things that I've had success by, but you didn't mention all the things that I went through hell to get to where I am.
You know, and all the stumbles that I've had to get where I am. So, but it's a courage to keep going, right? So how many times were you rejected on interviews? How many times were you passed over in positions? How many times you know, that you get knocked down, yet you get back up? And I had plenty of those.
And I love, I listen to all kinds of different music and so forth One band I've listened to every once in a while, it's called Blackberry Smoke. It's an old southern rock band. I don't know if anybody heard that, but he talks about like, I'm still holding on. There ain't much left to me. Thought I hit bottom, but I ain't there yet.
You know, so it also keeps me grounded, but here's the thing. We're in the job for kids, right? And as long as we're doing the job right for the kids, that's what matters most. And that's the hard part, too, because you have people with different personalities who think there should be different ways on how you can help these kids.
But your ultimate job is [00:33:00] to make sure that they're preparing the kids for the future of tomorrow, not the future of yesterday. You know, and that's a , you hear the old cliche, I went to that school, I was fine, why are you updating anything? All right, fine, I'll Britannicus, we'll use the textbooks that you have, we'll put them in the same book desk that you had, And we'll prepare them for the world right now that has cell phones and everything else in AI.
That does not work. You know, so you have to have those courageous conversations with a parent, with staff members, with school board members. You know, that's the hard part for some of our counterparts right now. These school board members who have changed over for various reasons. And how do they deal with that?
How do you keep leading a school forward when you want to be courageous to do new incentives, but yet your school has based on such strong intraditions that it's very hard for you to try to change that?
So, I think it's the courage to make teams work together. I think it's the courage to have conversations with people, to find out why things are certainly set in certain ways.
Like, it goes back to having the courage, like we talked about multiple times, putting [00:34:00] your ego aside and say, how can we work at this together to make this a stronger thing? Or you can be, as Danny says, the plate safe principal and just keep your job every single day and go by day, but what good are you doing for me?
You know, if my child was in your school, I'd be infuriated knowing that , both my children, my boy and girl are just getting the basic education. I want them to have better and better than ever before because I don't know what their world's going to be, but I certainly want to give them the inquiry skills and the questioning skills and the , the critical thinking and asking those hard questions.
You know, and being ready for technology advances. That's what the world is right now for them. But if you're going to play it safe and just do the basic arithmetics and so forth in a classroom because you're afraid of losing your job or afraid of doing anything monumental, why are you in the job to begin with?
Maybe you need to start looking at yourself differently. So it takes courage to get back up. It takes courage to keep fighting forward, but it also takes courage to know when to talk and when not to [00:35:00] talk and who to talk to and who not to talk to , and how to build these things up as a team. So I may have rambled on a little bit there, but I think Danny had a couple of things.
I saw a nod on his head. At least thinking ready to say something,
Danny Bauer: No, not nothing to add, just really enjoying what you're sharing. So it's more of a resonation that it's fun always learning something new when we get together type of thing.
Ross Romano: Yeah. I mean, I, really to do the job well just really requires that courage, right? Because there's a strong correlation between stakeholder voices that are the loudest and the ones that have the most incentive to maintain the status quo, right? Those who are traditionally well represented and have had the better outcomes, have less reason to be looking for disruption.
And they're usually the ones that you're hearing from. And, but you know, as the leader, look, there's a lot of things here that we can be doing better. And that's going to require surfacing some new [00:36:00] ideas, challenging some assumptions, the courage to Be proven wrong from time to time or to , to accept that what, I have new information now and now I think differently.
And so we're going to try something new and I'm not going to try to hide that. We're going forward with it. Right. I just saw Something today, I won't go into too much specifics to get in the the politics of it, but from a particular , candidate for you know, a congressional position not somebody who I'm inclined to agree with much, but , the, they were being called out online for, well, you, last time you ran, you had this position, now you seem to have changed your position.
And the description given was because this is what the voters. have proven that they believe in. So I , I'm running to represent them right now. Who knows how authentic any of these particular people are in that, but I'm thinking, well, [00:37:00] that's what you're supposed to do, right? If you're being elected to be a representative of a certain population, you should be fighting for you know, the things that they believe in.
And if that means that you have to be willing to change your perspective on things from time to time that is a courageous act in this society where we want to look back and say, well, 10 years ago, you said this. Well, if none of us are evolving over time and learning new things and coming to new conclusions, and it's just considered a bad thing to ever change one's mind that's not.
where we want to be, right? So it, but it takes that courage to say, look, this is what we know. This is why we're doing it. This is what we're standing for. And if you disagree, we can talk about that. But we're not hiding it. And,
Glen Robbins: you know, I think there's nothing in the constitution that says you can't change your mind. Right. You can't grow. You cannot grow. You cannot , unlearn and relearn new things , and I [00:38:00] think about this too. Like we talked about these new ideas and the hardships, but I think a lot of times, like when people are doing board meetings or thinking of that one parent that's writing an email or angry or whatever it may be, where's the other 95, 98%.
Yeah. They're on the other side and they're okay. I think it's wrapped up sometimes on that small population that we forget about, the larger population that is very happy and or content of what things are doing. So, I think , once again, it's taking that rising level up to look at a 40, 000 feet down.
Overview. I think that happens a lot of times in meetings, we get wrapped up on one or two loud people, and we forget about the majority of the constituents. So it's been courageous enough to remember that.
Ross Romano: And the the wisdom and then, and the irony I find is that , in addition to the fact that, well, actually this goes along with it. I mean, the lack of courage undermines our own values, our own, the own preparation, planning and work we've put into it. Right. It's the times [00:39:00] when as a leader, we think, oh, well, I'm not really sure.
Like, I really believe in this thing we're doing, but I'm not sure how people are going to respond to it. So let's kind of. Keep it under wraps. And then inevitably, right, the community finds out about it. They say, well, if you were keeping this hidden, you must, there must be something to hide. And now we're , assuming that there's ill intent to a program that should be nothing but positive or either things like that, where it's like, look, If you believe in it, come out and talk about it and have the confidence and the courage that people will understand where you're coming from and the wisdom to understand that the one or 2 percent that are complaining are only one or 2%, right?
So justice, the fourth virtue Danny, do you want to talk about justice?
Danny Bauer: Sure. You know, I think if we look at comics or TV and movies and pop culture, right? A lot of times we mistake justice [00:40:00] and. We think vengeance is justice, right? You know, I think of Unassure I just came across on Disney Hit Monkey. Have either of you seen that by any chance?
Ross Romano: I know, I don't even think I've heard about it.
Danny Bauer: Yeah.
It's wild. It got renewed for a season two. I was reading about how it got renewed. So I'm like, Oh, I'll check that out. Cause I'm really into superhero stuff. I, my first job ever, Fat Duchy's comic book shop as a sixth grade student. Right. So my love for comics and actually that's what my love for reading was birthed as well.
And I remember like, like, characters like Punisher in this case, Hitmonkey. goes through a tragedy, right? Where's his clan, his family or whatever they're taken out by some bad guys and then he's off to go get vengeance. It feels like justice, right? We're cheering him on to, to settle the score.
But that is vengeance. That is seeking revenge. That's not justice. And so when I think of justice, I think of a couple of things that distinguish it. One You know, advancing stuff for the common good , not to like settle a score and I think about [00:41:00] also protecting the vulnerable, right?
And those are two places that all the virtues are connected. It requires courage to step up. Right. And to do what's right, especially for the vulnerable. I remember Glen talking about during COVID and realizing that some of his students and stuff , not having access to internet and those kinds of things , so what do you do?
You step up to the plate and you figure out like, how am I going to get hotspots and access to, to online, right. So that all kids can learn. You know, and then he's running school in person way before, safely, right, way before everybody else and really lead in that charge as well. But that's an example of justice because you're doing something for the vulnerable for those that are going to be falling further behind if we don't step up as leaders and do something that's right for the common good.
So I think that's all I want to say about justice today. It just it's really hard to [00:42:00] resist temptation to get back, especially in a, you have positional power, right? The teacher says something really nasty about you, maybe even your thinking in front of everyone. And so it's like, all right, can't wait for their evaluation.
It's coming up next week, baby. It's gonna be, ah!
Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah.
Danny Bauer: how to do it. You know, so Marcus, last thing I'll say, Marcus Aurelius said, leave other people's mistakes where they lie. It's hard to do. It's good to do.
Ross Romano: And I mean, justice, certainly, as you said, they're interconnected and , the wisdom and the courage clearly apply because justice is the one where it applies to so many of the biggest questions in education and the question of what is justice, right? I mean, justice certainly underpins any, Discussion of equity and access and what opportunity means for student groups and what [00:43:00] is just and what's just for everybody, right?
And there's endless debates about that and, but it requires wisdom to be able to look at that and determine what we feel is right. Courage to then stand for that. Justice is not, there's not necessarily one answer in a situation, right? There's a incident that occurs between two students and We have to determine what is a just outcome for each of them, and it might not just be, okay, there's one thing, this one gets punished, this one, or , the, because what's , what's the right outcome?
And so it certainly is an application of all of those Those virtues together. And then you know, toward the end outcome, we've talked about the calmness, the equanimity. Is that end outcome of these four virtues to be able to then have that peace, [00:44:00] calmness that , the understanding that, the belief in the process?
I , I guess I would phrase it okay if I've. thought about this the right way. If I've applied these principles to my decisions, if I've gone about it the best way I know how, I then have to be okay with that outcome and believe that I did the best job. You know, that I could in that situation and next time, if I know better, I'll do better, or if the circumstances change, we may do it differently but there's certain things, certainly when it comes to wisdom, calmness, stillness, what's outside of our control, what's in our control, and if I am I'm not going to be effective as a leader.
I have to focus on the things that I can influence, that I can control. I can't spend all my energy on things that I really can't do anything about. That's not going to work [00:45:00] too much. Awesome. Well, as we're kind of wrapping up here you know, is there anything additional that either of you would like to add, or do you have thoughts on where , where a leader can start with this, or how even the book is used?
I've seen it referred to in one of your testimonial quotes as a desk reference for every leader. Is that, how you would recommend that leaders use the book, kind of have it to refer back to, or what can somebody expect once they actually open up the text here?
Glen Robbins: Yeah, Danny, you want to jump on that?
Danny Bauer: Well, I alluded to the case studies and how this book is perfectly positioned to be a great leadership team book study. So that would be my call to action. Does anybody that enjoyed this conversation? And would enjoy experiencing calm in the chaos, like pick one up and pick it up for your team.
Right. And probably because of that framing and that setup is the reason that this book , became a bestseller within a week I think, which was pretty tremendous. And Roz, you touched on the idea of equanimity, this sense of peace, this [00:46:00] sense of calm. That's the gift, right? So if you are the the leader that's experiencing the burnout and the stress and the little sleep and this might be an option for you, right?
Check it out, test it, put into action the ideas that we present, and if you get a positive result, keep doing it. Like Mike Lobelfeld, that's who you're referencing there. He said it'd be a a best reference for every school leader everywhere. you know, high praise. We think we could live up to that.
And if you test it out and you don't get the result then throw it away , but I don't I don't think that's going to be your experience. So I'm just a strong call to action. Pick up the book.
Ross Romano: Excellent. Awesome. Well, listeners, you can find the book Calm in the Chaos on Amazon, or you can kind of link through Danny's website to find it. We'll put the links below to where you can check that out and and see if it kind of helps you in your own process. You can also, if you [00:47:00] haven't already, please do subscribe to the Authority Podcast for more author interviews like this one coming your way every week, sometimes more than once a week.
Glen and Danny, thanks so much for being on the show.
Glen Robbins: Thank you.
Danny Bauer: Pleasure to be here. Thanks Ross