Teachers in Transition

Teachers in Transition – Episode 251: Finding Value in your Uniqueness, Time Management Archetypes, and Understanding your Value

• Vanessa Jackson • Episode 251

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In this empowering episode of Teachers in Transition, Vanessa delves into the transformative journey of recognizing and embracing your unique value, especially during career transitions. Drawing inspiration from Secretariat's legendary Triple Crown victory, we explore how traits perceived as different or even weird can be your greatest strengths. We also discuss the challenges teachers face in valuing their worth and provide practical strategies to manage time effectively amidst life's distractions.

Key Takeaways:

  • Embrace Your Uniqueness: Just as Secretariat's distinct traits made him a champion, your unique qualities can set you apart in your career journey.
  • Recognize Your Value: Teachers often undervalue their skills due to systemic norms. It's crucial to reassess and acknowledge your true worth beyond the classroom.
  • Time Management Strategies: Learn to identify and navigate "side quests," "task cascades," and "productivity goblins" to maintain focus and productivity.
  • Find the Right Environment: Like the rare car in the story, being in the right setting is essential for your value to be recognized and appreciated.

Secretariat's Historic Races:

Experience the races of Secretariat through these videos:

 

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The transcript to this podcast is found on the episode’s homepage at Buzzspout

Are you a teacher who is feeling stressed out and overwhelmed? Do you worry that you're feeling symptoms of burnout - or are you sure you've already gotten there? Have you started to dream of doing something different or a new job or perhaps pursuing an entirely different career - but you don't know what else you're qualified to do? You don't know how to start a job search, and you just feel stuck. If that sounds like you, I promise you are not alone. My name is Vanessa Jackson; and I am a career transition and job search coach, and I specialize in helping burnt out teachers just like you deal with the overwhelmingly stressful nature of your day-to-day job and to consider what other careers might be out there waiting for you. You might ask yourself, What tools do I need to find a new career?  Are my skills valuable outside the classroom?  How and where do I even get started?  These are all questions you deserve answers to, and I can help you find them.  I’m Vanessa Jackson. Come and join me for Teachers in Transition.  

***Hi!  And Welcome back to another episode of Teachers in Transition. Today on the podcast, we are going to talk about how the things that make us feel different (maybe weird) can be the exact things that make us valuable, I have a hack to identify time management issues, and we talk about your value. 

I think it’s really interesting how much chance can influence where we end up and what we’re doing.

Lately, I’ve been seeing Secretariat everywhere.  And of course, the more I click on things about Secretariat, the more I am fed Secretariat in the algorithms.  Also, I am more sensitive to seeing things about Secretariat.  I drove past a Secretariat street this morning!  In case you don’t know, Secretariat was hands down the greatest athlete of the 20th century. And he was a horse.  Yes – a horse. He was the triple crown winner in the early 70s, and in the most recent running of the Kentucky Derby, every single horse on the track could trace their ancestry to him. And he wasn’t the most likely candidate for greatness, although there were definite hints.  He had bloodlines, and everyone commented on how well proportioned, how well-tempered, and how smart he was.

There’s a quote from the movie Secretariat, which seems rooted in fact, where a potential trainer says something like:

“He’s 1,100 pounds of baby fat. He eats too much—the only reason he’s not eating more is because he’s asleep. And he’s lazy.”

Not exactly a glowing review. Despite his impressive lineage, Secretariat didn’t look like a favored child in the making, and it was really because someone believed in him that we have the horse whose records still stand 50+ years later.  

His owner, Penny Chenery, only got him because she lost a coin toss. The way they arranged these breeding deals back then was complicated, but essentially, they’d breed two potential racehorses and whoever won the coin toss got first pick. Penny lost. Which meant she got an unborn foal. They didn’t even know if it would be a colt or a filly. That horse turned out to be Secretariat.

He was beautiful. He stood early, nursed early, and he loved to run. 

In one of his very first races, he got into a pretty significant collision coming out of the gate. From then on, he had a habit of not blasting out of the starting gate. Instead, he made up for it with sheer power later in the race which led to some very dramatic come-from-behind victories.

But Penny believed in him. Imagine if he had gone to someone else - someone who didn’t see his potential – who just saw a big, lazy, chow hound. When her father died, and she couldn’t afford the taxes on the estate, and instead of selling Secretariat, she syndicated him. She sold shares of him based on his previous years runnings. That gamble paid off. He went on to win the Triple Crown and still holds records that haven’t been broken. I will link those videos in the show notes.  They are stunning.  

In his last race, he won by 31 lengths. At Belmont, they actually put in a marker—the Secretariat Pole—to show the distance between him and the next horse. In the video, the jockey turns around mid-race, and when asked why, he later said:

“I couldn’t hear the other horses anymore. I didn’t know what was going on.”

Secretariat was described as a “tremendous machine.” After he died, they discovered that his heart was three times the size of a normal horse's. Literally. He also had unique physical features that made him an elite runner: a wider stride (his legs would stretch ot 100 degrees instead of the regular 80-90 degrees), a steeper flank for more powerful movement, and the ability to cover more ground with each step.

And maybe the reason I keep seeing Secretariat lately is BECAUSE: Every single horse in the most recent Kentucky Derby could trace its lineage back to Secretariat.

No other athlete has left that kind of legacy.

And it all came down to a coin toss, an owner who believed, a trainer who worked with what he had, and a jockey who knew when to let the horse run free.

So, how does this apply to our normal motivation and inspiration segment?

We don’t get the luxury of hindsight until it’s all said and done. Sometimes we make great decisions and still don’t get the outcome we wanted.  Sometimes we stumble into greatness by accident. The point is: we can’t always control the outcome.

What we can do is make sure we’re not getting in our own way as we run toward our dreams.

Secretariat’s unique features—the very things that made him different—are what made him great – the over-sized heart, the wider angle in his stride so he could cover more ground in fewer strides, and joy in his running.

Michael Phelps is another perfect example. His physical traits—like an unusually long wingspan, the ability to point his toes further than most, and his body’s efficiency in the water—gave him an edge. But here’s the kicker:
 He only found swimming because his mom was worn out and needed to keep him occupied—so she sent him to the pool with his sisters.

Imagine if Michael Phelps had never gotten in the water. What if they’d pushed him into gymnastics instead to work out that energy?

Those abnormalities that made him the perfect swimmer would definitely gone to waste in other fields of athletics (like gymnastics)_.

So the things that make you different might just be your superpower, and maybe you would be a beautiful fit in a different place you haven’t even considered yet.

Make sure that you don’t limit your possibilities and your options.  This is why it’s so important in the clarity step to ponder what we love and what sets us apart. 

And moving on to today’s hack, we are going to talk about more about time management – I’ve alluded to the things that come up when I’m trying to get things done. 

When I’m working on something, I can find myself distracted by things I find interesting.  I call them side quests. A side quest is technically defined as a part of a computer game that has its own aim and story but is not part of the main game: The game is broken up into main missions and side quests.  In my personal view of a side quest, these are things that are interesting  - think shiny and fun – and the only thing wrong with them is just that they aren’t main goal of the hour or day. 
 
 Then there’s a task cascade – a phrase I first heard from Gretchen Rubin.  In this distraction from our goals because we go to take care of a quick task or chore and then that unfolds into MANY sub tasks to finish the initial one. Most recently for me it was trying to set up a new router which cascaded into a couple of hours tied up waiting on tech support, printing out a return label and a trip to the UPS store at my earliest convenience.  And all the paper said was to set aside 20 minutes.  (You can’t see me, but I rolled my eyes just now). 
 
 I’ve recently identified a couple of categories for things that aren’t exactly side quests and aren’t exactly a task cascade.  Side quests are optional.  Task Cascades are accidental.  But what happens when things come up that are neither? 

Enter Productivity Goblins – these items come in and aren’t optional, neither are they fun.  Think paying bills or cleaning up a mess that a pet just made.  And when enough of these Productivity Goblins get together, they create a Chore Swarm.  Those are like locusts, but for your calendar.   The thing is – you can’t always avoid them. As much as possible (think bills again), you can bundle them together and create space on your calendar just for them. Then in the instance of things like something breaking, it’s important to take a deep breath and roll with it.  
 
 The hack here is to pause long enough to brain dump things onto a list to pick up later.  When the you’ve chased the goblins from your room. 

And moving on to our career transition and job search segment, I think one of the hardest things for a teacher leaving the classroom is to have an accurate assessment of your own value.
 Let me illustrate what I mean with a story from the internet: 

A Father said to his son, “You graduated with honors.  Here is a Volkswagen Beetle that I bought many years ago.  It is over 50 years old, but before I give it to you, take it to a dealership downtown and ask how much they are offering you.” The son went to the dealership, came back to his father and said, "They offered me $10,000 because it looks very used." The father said, "Take it to a pawn shop."

The son went to the pawn shop, came back and said, "They only offered me $1,000 because they say it is too old."

Finally, the father asked his son to take the car to a classic car club and show it there. The son took the car to the club, came back and said, "Some people at the club offered me $100,000! because it is a very rare car and sought after among the members."

The father said to his son, "I wanted you to understand that the right place appreciates you in the right way. If they don't value you, don't be angry, it just means you're in the wrong place. Those who know your value are the ones who truly appreciate you. Never stay in a place where they don't recognize your value!"

Teachers are asked to donate their time. Every. Single. Day.
 If they protest—if they just want to work their contracted 40 hours—they're told they're selfish, that they don’t care about kids, or that they’re not really dedicated. The unspoken rule is: your value is measured in how much you’re willing to bleed for the job. Not in your training. Not in your results. Not in your innovation or ability to change lives.

You're assigned value based on who has the biggest trials: the largest class sizes, the worst resources, the most unpaid overtime, the last car in the parking lot.
 Burnout is worn like a badge of honor.

And if you say no? If you decide to protect your peace? Suddenly, your worth is questioned. They don’t say it directly, but it’s there - in the tone at faculty meeting, in the emails, in the extra duties.

So when you leave the classroom, it’s no wonder that you don’t understand your true value. You’ve been taught not to see it. You’ve been conditioned to hand it over and donate your time.

But let me be clear: You are, in fact, the rare car.
You have knowledge, patience, adaptability, insight, emotional intelligence, and a wicked ability to juggle chaos with a smile. But if you're in the wrong setting if you're trying to get your true value assessed at a pawn shop—you'll always walk away feeling undervalued. You deserve to be paid for your time. 
It always been valuable - you just need to show it to the right audience, and here’s the hard part – you have to be willing to own your own value.  We’ll talk more about this in upcoming weeks.

So, if you’re in the middle of a career change and you’re feeling stuck or unsure, I want you to remember this:

Your value was not and is not defined by how much you suffer for a paycheck.
 It was not and is not defined by someone else’s lack of vision.

Your value is defined by what you bring to the table - and when you find the right place, they'll see it too.
 You are a classic, and the right people are out there looking for exactly what you bring.
 
 When it’s time to negotiate – don’t sell yourself short.  You are, as the commercial used to say, worth it!
 Whether you’re still deciding to stay or leave the classroom, starting to clarify what you really want, or ready to build something new... If you’re tired of spinning your wheels and want support tailored to your journey, I’m here to help. I help teachers just like you find their way out of the classroom and into their next great career.  Visit teachersintransition.com/calendar to book a free discovery session and see how coaching can move you forward. Your transition doesn’t have to be a solo mission, and you don’t have to run this race without a support team.

That’s the podcast for today! If you liked this podcast, tell a friend, and don’t forget to rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Tune in weekly to Teachers in Transition where we discuss Job Search strategies as well as stress management techniques.  And I want to hear from you!  Please reach out and leave me a message at Vanessa@Teachersintransition.com  You can also leave a voicemail or text at 512-640-9099. 

I’ll see you here again next week and remember – YOU are amazing!