There are different types of stress and when we have just a little bit of stress in pursuit of something that is our purpose or valuesdriven um or something that we're passionate about we call just right stress or a just right challenge it actually puts us
into flow state if we can figure that out and it's that growth that we get through dealing with that challenge. So we have to steer into it. If we're constantly steering away from it we never grow. We just sit in our comfort zone. >> For Jolie Jones, the idea of
organizational development in a public school district is not a matter of either or. It's more of a yes and approach. The fact that Jolie runs DCSD's outdoor education facility is unique enough, but what she teaches there, along with everything she's
learned about teamwork, resilience, stress management, and leadership has led to an even more unique role in organizational development for the whole district. That kind of role is common in the corporate world. But in education,
most professional development is rightly focused on helping teachers become more effective at teaching. With Jolie's experience, DCSD leaders pioneered the idea that better teaching and staff development are not mutually exclusive.
Both can happen with the right approach. I'm DCSD communication director Jason Hackett and I was privileged to sit under Jolie's learning tree for this episode. And lucky for you, we had a couple of microphones so you can too.
Okay, so we're here with Jolie Jones and she is kind of minor celebrity, I'll say, within our school district. When she shows up for events, people flock to her. So, this is going to be a very exciting podcast. I'm I'm so excited to
to talk with you, Julie. And um let's just have you introduce yourself to people because you have an interesting set of titles with your names and I don't want to mess it up. >> Of course. Yeah, there's a there's a lot of hats within my title, but I'm my name is Jolie Jones and I'm the director of
organizational development and experiential learning, uh which encompasses the the organizational development piece encompasses culture and climate uh like healthy systems, that type of thing. And then I'm also in charge of uh Stone Canyon Outdoor Adventures, our outdoor ed and summer
camp down in Larksburg. >> So that's a like you said, a lot of different responsibilities. And >> yes, >> but it's really interesting, too, having gotten to see you for the couple of years that I've worked here, how well those work together and and serve you well and they kind of feed into each
other's the way the work is done on under both hats, I guess. >> Yeah, absolutely. I think that's that's really the the reason for the experiential learning piece in my title. Uh we were trying to figure out how to encompass Stone Canyon creatively, but really experiential learning is my
method. Um I work with adults mainly now in that organizational development piece, but let's face it, adults are just big kids. We're all kids trying to figure it out. And if I can get adults playing, we're able to get to the heart of of what's really going on, >> right? Can you talk first of all about
how unique your position is within the educational sphere because we've got 7,600 people that work for the school district. We're the largest employer in Douglas County >> and a lot of times for this is the third school district I've worked for. There's so much that's there for professional
development to help educators do the education piece well. But from what I've seen in a lot of other school districts, the education space doesn't do kind of the same thing that the corporate world does in regard to how are we doing with making sure our employees are engaged
and their mental health is good and we're putting things in place for them to lead well. And this district I feel is different from that. Can you talk about that? >> Yeah, you're not wrong. I'm a bit of a unicorn, which I love personally. But as as I was starting to figure out kind of
this role, I wrote this job description and and presented it because I thought we had a need for it. I was trying to look at other school districts to see what was out there to to mimic. And there just really wasn't. And so, uh, what I found was in the the nonprofit and the corporate world, I was able to
find exactly what I was looking for and bring it to Douglas County. And I'm I'm appreciative because in so many ways Douglas County is ahead of the game and ahead of the curve um and in bringing me on and allowing me and believing in me to do this role. Um we're ahead of the
curve there as well. >> That's great. Can you talk then about kind of what that work entails and and helping build up capacities and awareness and skills and all the stuff with our staff then? Yeah, it's been um I think I've been in this role for a
little over four years now and I've been trying to figure that out in those four years. I jumped in uh a novice as well in terms of the exact meaning and and words and definitions and that kind of thing behind organizational development. Uh but really what it's been is about how to number one we create awareness in
ourselves. Um another bucket is stress management. Education is one of the the industries that's got the highest stress levels. I think it's next to uh healthcare. we're we're right there kind of neck and neck. How do we start to build resilience uh not only in our teachers but in our students when we can
model that for our students um that's that's the best thing. So uh trying to help staff and teachers do that. Have fun. How do we do well-being? Are we taking care of ourselves? Just getting up and finding better rhythms so that we're not sitting all day or we're not
staring at a screen all day. thinking about the broad cross-section of a school district. >> Most of our employees of course are the educators. Yeah. >> But there's so many other people that are helping to support those educators and put things in place and your
administrative level and your staff level and things like that. How do you operationalize working with all those different groups? >> For sure. That's also been a bit of a puzzle to try to figure out. Um, I like to work with teams and really be able to push in with teams. And I think what I
figured out in the last uh maybe year and a half is that I need time. The reason that I I wanted to create this role four years ago uh was because people were coming down to outdoor ed and they were doing just a quick day retreat and a day is just not enough,
you know, and it's not really a full day. were talking maybe four or five hours that I was working with them doing some team development stuff trying to work on whatever issues they brought to me in the needs assessment and it it just felt like whack-a-ole like I would work with one team and it felt really good and another team would come in with
the exact same uh kind of concerns and so in trying to systemize that I think I realized that I need about 6 months to a year to work with a team pushing in coming in um doing some of that team development work pushing in and helping in uh helping out with culture. Uh how
do we give feedback to one another? What does our decision-m process look like? What are our priorities? And when we start to really dig into that work and have longer, more intentional conversations around it, then the system and the team and the individuals within
those teams and systems starts to change. But it it it's not fast work. It's slow and methodical. Uh just like change is, right? And we don't our our brains don't like to change. Our bodies don't like to change, which is why it's so hard. And so when we can spend that long amount of time with a team, when we
all get in the same room and we're having those often times vulnerable conversations, that's where the magic is. >> Yeah. And and that's hard to get anywhere. It's hard to get people pulled in and get them to devote even a half a day or something like that. But
>> how often do you check in with people and do they have kind of homework with it and things like that? >> Yeah, that's what I'm trying to develop. I'm trying to be more intentional about those things and there's a handful of teams that I'm working with right now, including my own down at Stone Canyon. Um, they are lovely enough to be a bit
of my guinea pig. Um, and and they know that, but we're we're trying to figure out what is the cadence, how often. Um, and usually it's because of how busy we are and because we each have things that we're trying to work on, initiatives, and so on and so forth. Usually it's two
to three hours at a time. It might even be an hour. Uh but then yeah, there is some reflective piece that comes with that. There's homework of what does this really look like? Let me think about this ahead of time. And part of that is also designed to help with the different emergics profiles that we have across
the district. I've in being an associate emerging associate for close to a decade now, what I've realized is some people just need more processing time. And so if I'm able to give that homework, then I can get their voice in the room. uh they've had time to think about it and they're more willing to share as opposed
to just a big group circle and me asking a question hoping that I get uh the feedback that that's needed for for growth. >> Sure. Can you dig in a little bit on the emerging edetics piece because for people that aren't familiar with that I think within the school district we've
gotten that pretty well socialized and people know what that is but if you have people from the external side that are >> what is that? Um, yeah. >> Can you talk a bit about that? >> Yeah, sure. Well, it's a homegrown, it's it's based out of Centennial, uh, but it's a homegrown psychometric tool. When
I say that, it's a communication tool and it's similar to when you think of like a MyersBriggs or a DISC, but it is different. It is set apart and that um, this this particular tool has seven indicators. So, what we do is we pull thinking and behaving apart and you have
access to all of the behaviors. You have access to all of the thinking attributes. This meretics just measures where you prefer to go. And so I prefer to go to my analytical and my social um as opposed to structural and conceptual.
I can I can do structural and conceptual but give me data and give me people and I am happy. That's my my happy happy place. And then there's the behavior aspect as well. Um and what this does for us in a team development setting or just in the daytoday it allows us to
communicate more fluidly with one another. If I know your profile, Jason, and it's different than mine, well, how do I flex to help my message get to you um in a more effective way? If I just keep communicating from my profile and what feels good to me, I might miss the
mark if you're not into data and I go into big numbers and that kind of thing, you I might just lose you entirely. But how do I frame my message to you? And you can do the same thing for me. It becomes this two-way street of communication. And we become more innovative. We come be become more
creative and effective in our communication when we do that. >> And it it helps to give everybody a common language to talk about how we work together then and understand each other, right? >> Yeah. Absolutely. >> Okay. So, so for people understanding that then the emergetics piece pulling
then everybody together on a team. How big of teams are you usually working with? Is it big teams, little teams? >> All of it? >> Really? >> Yeah. So I've worked with whole schools like elementaryaries and that kind of thing. I've done presentations for big high schools. I don't work with that as in terms of like culture design just
yet. I'd love to be able to get there. Uh right now I'm doing smaller work with departments and I've done a lot of uh work with veil uh which is fantastic. I work with their students and uh have gone in and pushed in and do stuff with their leadership team and their teachers which has been wonderful. >> That's amazing. That that would be
really interesting to get students set up to like understand themselves and how they work well with each other. And then with the entrepreneurial >> Yes. >> aspect of Veil especially. >> Oh, that's really interesting. Holy cow. That really would set kids up then. >> Yeah. We've we actually Veil partnered
with Stone Canyon this year and a lot of this the work that I do with adults too um has been we did um so this last year was our first year. We did a dur immersion week >> is what it was. So every grade came down that first week of school um and we got to play with them in the outdoors and
get them away from their phones and that type of thing. And we had a theme for each class, but the through line was values. What are your values? And I I am amazed by these kids cuz I didn't have that language when I was their age. I think I didn't really start talking about my own values from maybe the last
six or seven years. And so we we talk about those as a through line and how do they shift from freshman to senior year and for those seniors, how does that start to shift as you're looking at college or trades or whatever it might be as as the next step as you enter the world? And I love that because those are
the same conversations I have with adults. What are your values? How do they drive what you do? Drive your purpose and how are they shifting? Mine shifted years ago and they're still shifting to some degree. But I think often we don't think about that in how the decisions we make, are they values
driven? Are we going against our values? Why does that decision not feel good? And that's a lot of what I try to get adults in the system, the teachers, directors, coordinators, whatever role it might be to start thinking about in the work that they do. That is fascinating because as I'm thinking about this, the metaphor I'm coming up
with in my head, especially thinking back to when I was that age, you know, your high school, thinking about college and things, I almost think about it as like driving on an icy road, >> okay? >> And and tell me if this is crazy or not, but driving on an icy road, you're just,
you know, kind of clenching the steering wheel and hoping you can do it right. But if you have this background, this this researchbased profiling system that that helps you understand yourself and others. >> It helps you kind of steer through that
stuff. And if you slide a little bit, it's steer into the slide versus steer against it and figure out how to navigate your way through. Is that is that >> I love that metaphor. >> Does that work? >> Yeah, it does. And I I really love the idea, right? Like we know that when you steer into it as opposed to away from it
and think about that just that particular part of the metaphor in terms of conflict, >> right? >> Right. or challenge. And so often we want to navigate and and uh like pull away from the the thing that is hard and the courage that it takes to go I'm
actually going to, you know, steer into this because the only way through it or you know like to get past it is to go through it. We have to have the hard conversations. We have to you know keep working on that subject that we don't like or you know keep working with that
task that we don't like in order to grow. And I think in terms of stress, we have this tendency to want to avoid stress. And that's not all stress is equal. I think we have to to realize that is that there are different types
of stress. And when we have just a little bit of stress in pursuit of something that is our purpose or valuesdriven um or something that we're passionate about, what we call just right stress or a just right challenge, it actually puts us in the flow state. If we can figure
that out and it's that growth that we get through dealing with that challenge. We have to steer into it. If we're constantly steering away from it, we never grow. We just sit in our comfort zone, which is akin to sitting on the couch with our favorite pint of ice cream or dessert or whatever it might be
watching our favorite Netflix show, right? It's nice and comfortable, but we have to actually get up off the couch and try something different. >> It's the same thing as building up muscle or things like that. You have to work at it. Break it down just enough. Yep. >> So that it grows. >> Exactly.
>> This is fascinating. >> And and in a way, I mean, yeah, it's it's the muscle. It's your brain. Your brain muscle, right? And and that's what we're here for for education. So Exactly. >> It all ties in together. That's fascinating. >> And so how does that then because you mentioned resilience and I've seen a couple of presentations of yours
recently um talking about resilience. That feels like that's that's a big piece of this right now and in where you're steering things. Yeah, it's uh this is I mean I've been doing resilience stuff for some time. Uh but I recently just got certified as a resilience coach through um an
organization called the Resilience Institute and they're based out of Sweden and they've been doing work since 2002 and all researchbased. It's fantastic. But I have had a chance to do some pilot programs uh with this and it is fascinating to see there's 50
different factors associated with resilience according to their research and there's a diagnostic tool um that folks can take and uh it measures each one of those those 50 factors and so you can see where you're doing really really well and where you struggle. Multitasking is one area for instance
that a lot of people struggle with, right? because there's so much to do, but we're really not giving the task that we're focused on enough attention, right? We might work on something, then our phone buzzes, and so we flip our attention over here, and then someone walks in the door, and there goes our
attention. We're constantly task switching. And what that does is it actually kills our resilience. It pushes us down and down and down because we can't number one, then the things pile up. But when we can't find that focus, it's draining. And so we lose
creativity, we lose innovation, efficiency, all of that. And so really being able to think about resilience from like three major buckets. So performance mindset and that's like how do I thinking and feeling do I have purpose? Am I aligned in my role? Um
there's the well-being aspect which is how am I taking care of myself? Which is where a lot of people struggle, right? Am I getting the right amount of sleep? How am I eating? All all of that. Am I getting movement throughout the day? It doesn't mean that you're working out, right? It doesn't have to be, you don't have to turn into a gym rat, but are you
moving throughout the day. Um, and then if you can work out, awesome. But that's the well-being piece. And then there's the bounce. And that's when we start to really lose resilience. It's when we start avoiding hard conversations. It's when we uh procrastinate. It's when we
start to get a little defensive about maybe a decision we've made. We get sad. We start to like lose uh connection to our purpose. And that actually puts us into a resilience hole. But if we can do a few different things here and there, we actually start to bounce back up um
and find our resilience again. And the thing about resilience, it's not a steady number for a particular like time in your life. It es and flows throughout the day. And I think when we think about stress and resilience, if we can be
mindful of the fact that it does eb and flow, I think it takes some of the pressure off. Like if you can change your mindset, have have this little mindset shift and say, "Oh, that was a stressful meeting. I'm going to take a few breaths. I'm going to get up and maybe walk around the building or or say
hi to some people." And then move into your next task, your next meeting, whatever it might be with a fresh mindset. Then you're not taking that stress with you from the last meeting. And then you don't get home and say, "Oh, that was a stressful day." All right. So, how do you from moment to
moment shift your resilience and shift your stress through changing that that that mindset? >> Oh, wow. It's so many questions that came up from this. This is this is fascinating stuff because >> if you think about the well-being piece, you you think about central staff and there's so much email that goes around
for people. It's just so much email and you we've heard about all the studies that you know all the interruptions from emails and texts and Slack messages and things like that that that takes a toll on you. Yeah. >> But then I I flip it and I think about teachers in the classroom. >> Like you've got so many individuals in
your classroom, whether it's at the elementary level, you're responsible for 20 plus individual kids and you need to really know them. Or you're at the secondary level and you've got a couple hundred possibly that are in and out of your room and you need to know them and
know how to reach each of them. >> Yeah. and then you maybe can almost get into a flow and then the bell rings or something, right? And and so do you find that that piece of the the well-being and the and the interruption is is
something that is common across the district and that's one of the things that has to be tackled. >> Yeah, I think that's exactly it. Right. We're we have become uh addicted to notifications, addicted to whatever it might be. If it's our personal or if
it's email on our phone, whatever it might be, a text message, even again, someone walking in your door is is essentially a notification popping up on your phone. It's just a social one, right? Um and so we yeah, we that's one of those things that we need to shift. But again, also for for those teachers
that that are in the classroom, I like how you said, you know, you almost get into a little bit of flow. I think again, how do you create the mindset around if I'm in my classroom, yeah, I'm I'm working with Johnny over here and then Susie over here and and I'm might
be switching between kids, but is it all in in service of the same purpose of for that period or or for that lesson, whatever it might be, that is still flow. So, if you're teaching a lesson and then your watch goes off and you look down, that is what pulls you out of
flow, you know. Um, if you go check your computer in the middle of the lesson to see if that email that you've been waiting for came through, that pulls you out of flow. And so, how do it's really when we're talking about flow, it's presence. How do we be present with the thing that
we are doing? And in one of the trainings that I did just last week, we were talking about that how do you even just microchunk your your flow and your tasks because we are so used to switch switch that if I say you know what for 10
minutes I'm just going to work on this thing. Cool. Just do that for 10 minutes and be present with that task. And maybe the next task is only two minutes but for those two minutes you do that. If we start to practice that and there's a lot of different like simple things. Number one, like just turn your phone over,
right? We both came in here with our phones today, but we both made sure that we turned off our notifica or you turned silenced it so that we weren't distracted by that. Right? I've got my phone. I've learned to turn my phone over. All right? So that I'm not distracted by because when I see the screen, if something lights up, my
attention gets pulled. So by doing that, it's a little bit of a hack to find my presence, right? I put on a certain type of music that doesn't have lyrics that pulls me out of my flow. Uh there's a lot of little little things that can help you microchunk that presence. And
then from there, like you said, the muscle that you build, suddenly your ability to focus and stay with a task longer or stay with a lesson longer gets bigger and bigger and bigger. >> That's a fascinating piece that I think about even I was almost feeling guilty about this and I'm I'm going to turn my
phone over right now because I'm feeling guilty about that right now. But no, like being in the office and talking to a colleague about something we're working on and yet in between them and me in the middle distance is my computer screen >> and I can just quickly look at this and
there's been I was actually trying to type an email while still carrying on a conversation with somebody and I got done with that and I was like how rude is that to that person? That's me telling them that they're not that important or not important enough. >> Yeah. >> For me to fully pay attention to them
and I'm typing away. >> Yeah. >> Like that's it's one of those things. And is that kind of along the lines of make those little changes and be more aware of what you're doing. >> Yeah. It's those little things, right? That's that multitasking and we're addicted to doing it. Um because let's
face it, right? And and not to get like too philosophical, but that's what the social media scroll has done to us, right? We're looking for a next dopamine hit. We're looking for something that gives us a little bit of like a jolt of joy or something like that. And we we
can't hold attention for much longer than or you know, longer than we used to anymore. Um, and so yeah, you're listening to that person across from you, but then you see this shiny screen like just out of your, you know, in your peripheral and you start doing that and
our kids do it in the classroom and then we do it in meetings, right? And then we wonder why we're annoyed when someone isn't giving us their attention, but we do the same thing. It it's just part of our culture now. And it does, it takes intentional effort to just kind of close
that screen just a little bit and say, "You've got my full attention right now." And if you have something that that you need to be you're waiting for something, hey, my phone might ring. I do have my phone um on on vibrate right now because I am waiting for something.
That's super important. But just letting people know that, right? Um I let sometimes that happens for me. and just letting someone know that then you're not saying, "God, they're just ignoring me and sending that text out right now." Simple things like that. >> It's countercultural to where we are in
society right now. And so, how hard is it to swim upstream in that regard? I guess >> it's it's really really hard, right? But that's why I think we were talking about like small moves earlier, small consistent moves. If you try to go cold turkey on any of these things, that gets
into what we would call intensity. Right? And intensity never works in terms of change. Um we you fall down. It might work for a little while and then it gets really really hard and you fall off the cliff and then you try again with intensity. You bring that intensity, all that energy, you fall off
the cliff again, right? It's just like when we try to go to the gym at the beginning of the year with a New Year's resolution, right? It most resolutions fail by February. So I think it's like 90% something like that. But small consistent effort that is what moves the needle and that's what helps us swim
upstream, right? We swim upstream a little bit, we grab a rock and breathe. We do it a little bit more and then suddenly we can go for longer and longer and longer. But it's just I think what I've seen over and over again and I did this as well in my in my wellness
journey um when it started years ago was you you try for these big heroic efforts and it never works, right? And so what what is something that you are willing to do like I can try that and for me uh those small steps have shifted into
major major changes in my world um that I feel every day now like I don't have my work email on my phone. Um that was a lot a lot of leaders in the district know that about me. I talk about it a lot um at our district leadership uh meetings, but a friend uh in the district challenged me to do it on my
birthday and I like most people if you're listening and you you hear you know me say take your email off your phone, you probably cringe a little bit and you get a little anxious. I did the same thing but I tried it. I said I'll try it for a month and suddenly by the time a month rolled around I wasn't
looking anymore. And so little by little that muscle started to build and I was able to also take other notifications off my phone that were keeping me from being present in my personal life outside of work. >> That's a piece that I feel like society again we have just jumped in with both
feet with these phones and notifications and all this stuff and we can't help but standing in line at the grocery store. I can't have a moment. I I can't have my own thoughts. I need to like scroll some social media thing or something like that. And like >> what happened to us?
>> Yeah. Well, yeah. It's the the we got really addicted to our phones. >> Mhm. >> Right. It's just this this personal way to not deal with the world and it's always right there in front of us. We don't know how to be bored anymore. And it it's hard, right? And we see that. We
see it in the classrooms. We see it in meetings. We see it when we go to professional development. if we're the ones standing up there giving uh that professional development, people get distracted really easily. And I think it's the loss of boredom that's really really hard. I mean, I think when we were kids, we we didn't have any of
that. And and not to, you know, be too nostalgic for an older time, but there was something really wonderful about that is that we through that boredom, we figured things out. we figured out problem solving, critical thinking in an entirely different way that unfortunately the data is showing that
this generation coming up is actually struggling with that. And so that's why you see books like Jonathan Heights, the anxious generation um and and a lot of talk around that. You have a generation coming up trying to go back to flip phones, which God bless him, love that.
>> Yeah. just to take that that step in, you know what, I'm going to be intentional about this >> and not have these distractions in front of me. >> Yeah. >> And and another thing that you mentioned, you mentioned the district leadership meetings and something that
you said a couple of sessions ago talking about that idea of end your meeting and then take a little bit of a break Yeah. >> for yourself before you jump into the next meeting. And it was funny when you mentioned that the day before I had back-toback online meetings like a Zoom
call or Google Meet thing and one literally like sign off, sign into the next one and there was no time to switch and then right after that was an in-person meeting. >> Mhm. >> And I got out of that and was just completely mentally drained.
>> Yeah. even though I didn't do anything physical but it was like switching from this subject immediately to the second subject to a third one >> and then also trying to be present with the person that I was talking to in the last meeting and then the very next day you talked about that and I was like it
it was like a light bulb moment but it's almost like it shouldn't be a light bulb moment right >> it it it it's easy right like we we yeah it's we know that inherently but we the the way that our culture works, the way that even just the culture of our our
district works is go go go, right? And that's not anyone's fault. It's just what's become the norm. And so, yes, just I I've tried to be really intentional now just personally and uh I know some other leaders that started
doing this and I love that they do is that they block their meetings for 45 minutes now. And so they have that built-in 15 minutes and sometimes it goes over and that's okay. with that allows you to go to the bathroom. It allows you to get some water, stand up and stretch, get that breath into your
body. Those little things like that create a world of difference. There's a I'm going to try to describe a slide that I use really quick. So, um Microsoft's human factors lab. Um I love this slide. It's one of my favorite things to talk about. They did a study
where they had two groups of people um that went to backtoback meetings. Uh, and so they had them wear the EEG caps, so they had bad hair the rest of the day. >> Um, but the first group went to those meetings back toback with no break. So
we went four meetings back to back, no break. And what they saw, so the the coloring um for this is blue is less stress all the way up through the the rainbow to red being high stress, right? And you see their brains getting progressively redder and redder and
redder. It's like the brains are overheating and that's what happens when we don't give ourselves a break. And so if you think you explained exactly what is happening for those people's brains, right? You're like, "Am I even paying attention to this person? Can I even thoughtfully ingest what's happening
right now to give them the best feedback or the best collaboration?" So that's what's happening when we go back to back to back. Group number two got a 5m minute break in between 5 minutes. Their coloring is almost all blue. So they're able to stay um in that less stress
because they took just five minutes break. It doesn't take much to get to to help reset our brain so that it can actually show up to the next meeting fully, you know, and so and at the end of that you see a little bit of like the
coloring start to like tick up and system stress, but it's pretty even blue across the map. And so five minutes is all it takes. And if you don't even have that as a teacher, how do you take just the couple minutes that you do have to
take a breath to move your body? Or here's the other thing, invite your students into it. So start and or end a class with a team breath. All right? Because what you are experiencing, your students are experiencing. What you as a leader are experiencing, your team members are experiencing at the
beginning, the end of a meeting as well. And so I use this thing called a team breath. And it's just I get everyone 1 2 3 inhale and then an exhale collectively. All right. And that just that brings breath into our body. It slows our heart
rate down and it calms the stress and the cortisol in our system. So simple things like that keep our brain in less stress, nice and blue and calm. That's one of those things that like just a a small little adjustment in your daily
practice or your hourby- hour practice that can make a huge difference. I mean, think about the the ramifications then of somebody that had a very red brain >> by the end of the day. >> And what does that mean for the rest of their day then when they go home and try
to be with their family or or whatever? Or if they've got, you know, you mentioned it was 4 hours basically. So that's a half a day. what's the other half of the day like >> exactly, >> you know, versus the people that >> took care of themselves and were intentional about it, >> then they could continue being intentional and be there with their
family and friends and whatever it >> Oh, this is fascinating stuff. So thinking about that then too and talking about the the district leadership meetings. Those are the ones with director level and above >> and principles and and all the
administrative side >> that get together once a month to talk through a lot of the logistics. I mean it's all kinds of things from >> new laws going into place and talking about budgets and all the all the things that they have to do. >> Exactly. But how valuable is it that you
get to have a part of those meetings and affect so many leaders with within the district? >> It's it's a gift that I have time at those meetings. Leadership is is important and the district's not the end all be all, right? But what we do and
what we model matters, right? And leaders are also trying to take on so much. And so to be able to provide them with some some tools and strategies that not only that they can use but so many of the leaders that that attend DT um I
love it. They reach out to me asking for slides or the tools that I use so that they do it uh they can do that with their staff as well. Um or they'll invite me into their schools uh and it just which gives me a bigger audience and uh allows this work to grow organically uh throughout the entire
system. Uh, and so I love being able to get up there, uh, and and chat with them and help invite them into a lot of reflective conversations about how they're showing up in their own work, uh, how they're showing up for themselves and how they show up for those that they serve.
>> Yeah. I think about like, you know, when you see those videos of people setting up like a big domino thing and like a a whole gym or something, you know, and you get those people in the district leadership meetings, they're the first dominoes and then it goes, you know, and if they can set the tone and encourage their staffs
>> and and get more thoughtfulness >> so that people can become more resilient and more present >> and just feel better about what they're doing because again to talk about the stress side of things, >> I think about, you know, from working in school districts, you see how much
responsibility is on the shoulder of a teacher. >> Yeah. >> Not just to educate their students, but ensure that their well-being is is good, you know, because if a kid comes into a classroom hungry or they didn't sleep or they're not feeling well or there's
something else going on, >> teacher still responsible for teaching them. And how do they do that? And they take on a lot of that, right? >> Absolutely. How do you work with that side of things with how much they take onto themselves and >> I guess give themselves some grace to be
able to like think about how they can be resilient? >> Yeah, that's a big question. >> Sorry. >> No, no, it's okay. It's an important question and it's when I say big, I mean in terms of its implications. >> Yeah. >> Um I think that we a lot of us struggle with that taking on too much, right?
It's the compassion fatigue. We care about our students. care about our staff and and the community. Um, and that's a lot. If we if we don't learn how to offset that or put it away, uh, when to put it away, it will drown us, right?
And and that will absolutely drop our resilience and and create more stress for us. And so, part of that is simply understanding what is yours to control and what is not, right? You can have empathy for a student. you can continue to help give them strategies and help
them through a hard time and not take it on yourself and understanding what within that dynamic can you control and if you can't control it it's learning how to let it go and saying that that piece if I continue to proceverate on it
will put me into a dark place has the potential to put me into a dark place right uh people have different just kind of natural resilience resiliency within their own nervous systems but I think that's a huge piece I think how do you stay regulated yourself? I have a
colleague that created a framework. She she's brilliant in terms of how she works with the nervous system. That is that is her expertise um area and then working with youth uh serving organizations from camps to schools and all of that. But her framework starts
with grounded leadership. And grounded leadership is a teacher, a coordinator, a principal, a director, whoever that might be. But how do you take care of your own nervous system first? Right? If you were starting to feel disregulated, what are the things, the strategies that
you can use? Is it that breath? Is it a little bit of movement? Is it just shaking it out in the middle of the class? Right? You if obviously you're teaching, you can't get up and like go walk around the building, but can you invite yourself and your students into a bit of like movement and move that through? So like keeping yourself
grounded and regulated because you can't help a student if they are disregulated. if you were dregulated, right? You will code disregulate together. And so, you as a teacher have to find that that groundedness within yourself and help bring them back down to regulate. And that's something that I learned myself.
My my son had a lot of trauma and issues. And so, I had to learn that lesson the hard way, too, that if I was disregulated, I couldn't parent him uh effectively. And so, how do we start with ourselves, right? It's it is quite literally the the oxygen mask on a plane. You got to put your mask on first
before you can help somebody else. >> Right. I I feel like I could keep asking more and more questions, but as we're talking about how much time to devote to something, I'm noticing we've been talking for 40 minutes. I want to leave you time to be able to take a breath before the next thing got to do here.
But can we wrap up really quickly on a bit of a shifting gears, but to talk a little bit about the outdoor adventures piece? >> Sure. That that's another piece that if people aren't familiar >> is another kind of a unicorn that this school district has. Right.
>> Yeah. It's h what a passion like project that has been for me. So Stone Canyon Outdoor Adventures uh we've been open since 2012. Uh we started just as an outdoor ed center in the district. We have 99 acres down in Larkpur. Wild animals. We have forest. We have a bunch
of different ecosystems down there. But now we also run summer camp in the summer for for any kiddo. They don't have to be Douglas County. Um, and then conference and retreat. So, if you want to just bring your team down, um, or you have a community organization that wants to come out, we support a lot of community organizations within Douglas
County and the surrounding areas. It's really about getting people outside to experience one another. Our why down at Stone Caning is we transform how people experience. And we invite you as a client or someone coming down to spend
time with us to fill in that sentence. How did we transform your experience? What did we transform your experience of? But yeah, it's really about engaging in the outdoors, engaging with one another in nature >> and using that to again restore some of that groundedness as well. Right.
What I what I love, right, we have our our outdoor ed program where a lot of our elementaryaries come down and they've bring their fifth or sixth graders and like these kids that may not always interact uh in the day-to-day suddenly become friends, right? Maybe
the kid that struggles in the the four classroom walls gets out there and thrives, right? That is their environment. And I had a kid like that when I was an instructor 20some years ago. That is actually what brought me into this field. I saw it happen in real
time. And so the fact that that is still a truth about this industry uh about outdoor education and experiential education, it it makes me so happy. And anytime we have those kids that come down, even when they do thrive in the classroom and they come out there and they thrive in a different way, they find a new passion or something that
they're excited about that that fills us up and lights us up down there. >> Well, and it's also a bit of a like we live in Colorado. It's sort of a duh. >> We would think. >> Yeah. But one of my daughters graduated from another school district in Colorado. Okay.
>> They never did any kind of an outdoor thing. >> What? >> Yeah. Why? Why not take advantage of that >> and start them early on appreciating what they've got right in their backyard >> and what they can do and how that also just restores your mind and your body
and your soul. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Well, and it allows we invite high school students down to volunteer with our outdoor ed program and with our summer camp to be a junior counselor, but they get to come down. They get community service hours for it. and to
watch the number of high school students that come back even after they've completed their hours and they still want to come back because they found something that they're really great at out there um and they thrive. And often times those those high schoolers that keep coming out will apply to be a
summer camp counselor once they graduate, right? And that's what we really want to do is is build that that ability for them to keep coming back and serving themselves but also our community. And so we've had plenty of high school leads come back and they will align it to where they come with
their elementary school. And so they get to see their teachers, which is such just a cool part of our community down there. That's the community that we're trying to build. But then again, those students just keep coming back and they figure out that that helps them when they go to college, right? That now ah I
have this this love of the outdoors and hopefully they know to use that to to help them with their own stress when they're in college. >> Absolutely. Wow. >> Yeah. Well, congratulations on having literally the coolest job in the world. Thank you. This is H.
Hopefully everybody else listening to this comes away extremely jealous of you. Having the best job to just help so many people in so many good and grounded ways that just goes beyond a single subject or a single classroom, but
really can affect people for their entire lives and then also ripple out to other people in their lives. Thank you for taking the time to explain some of this to us. Hopefully we can have you back sometime because it is just an absolute joy to be able to hear about this and talk with you about this.
So, thank you. >> Yeah, thanks for having me on and yeah, I'm be happy to come back. I love talking about this stuff and love being able to in whatever way I can share about the work that I do. So, because I hope my hope is that it impacts the most amount of people so that we can all be healthier in in the work that we do so
we can pursue the work that we do. >> For sure. And I hope that other school districts see the example that you're setting here and start thinking about let's let's take care of our staff. >> That'd be the dream. >> Yeah, that'd be great. >> Yeah. >> Thanks so much. >> Thanks so much, Jason.
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