The Principal's Handbook

Mindfulness: A Vital Tool for Educators' Well-Being with David Richards (PH)
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Principal's Handbook, your go to resource for principals looking to revamp their leadership approach and prioritize self care. I'm Barb Flowers, a certified life coach with eight years of experience as an elementary principal. Tune in each week as we delve into strategies for boosting mental resilience, managing time effectively, and nurturing overall wellness.
From tackling daily challenges to maintaining a healthy work life balance, I'm Barb Flowers. We'll navigate the complexities of school leadership together. Join me in fostering your sense of purpose as a principal and reigniting your passion for the job. Welcome to a podcast where your wellbeing is the top priority.

Well, welcome everyone to the podcast. I'm so happy to be here today. We have a guest, we have David Richards with us, so I'm going to turn it over to David and just let him talk a little bit about himself and his journey in education. Excited to talk to everyone.
Yeah. So I had by burnout at age. [00:01:00] 30 and 40. It was an interesting decade, one decade at a time. So when I was 30, I was working corporate banking two blocks from the White House and really felt like I had like made it. And you know, the whole outside story looked really good, but I was really miserable. And Quite unhappy.
And I found this book by Martha Beck, who's a life coach from, I call her the OG of life coaches, but she had a book called finding your own North star. And I picked that book up at a borders right at the corner of 17th and L in Washington, DC, and basically could not put it down. I just read the whole, anything, the whole entire thing, cover to cover.
And that's when I just put the book down and I said, okay, I guess I'm going to become a teacher. So pretty big switch from corporate banking with, you know, three piece suit and quite the luxurious salary and all those things that you hear about corporate banking and just decided that it was time to drop.
Everything and move back to California where I'm from and go to grad school and become a teacher. So that was kind of like the mini burnout. And that was [00:02:00] the big, that's how burnout led. What is it like, you know, the, the breakdown leads to transformation. So, yeah. And I'm going to, if I could stop you right there, I have a question because I just did an episode on the power of life coaching.
Yeah. And I always say like people, if they've not experienced life coaching, that's how I became a life coach from getting it myself. It's amazing. So talk a little bit about how that book, um, like made that transformation for you. Like, what was it about her as a life coach that helped you transition from baking banking to being a teacher?
Yeah. Great question. And I'm also do life coaching now. And I worked with a Martha Beck trained life coach. I've actually worked with her for 10 years and it's been absolutely transformative. And so that book is sometimes a book can help, but it's like the, you know, from doing the coaching and receiving the coaching.
Something like this, like an intimate conversation is so amazing. And, and we know this as educators, right? Like the one on everyone loves the one on one, right? Because it's just so intimate and so powerful. So I feel like the [00:03:00] book, the reason that book was so powerful for me is because I had already knew, I already knew that I wanted to be a teacher and actually tried it out right after I graduated, but it was, I was teaching Spanish part time and.
It was just not a good setup. Like none of the teachers wanted me to be there. It was just kind of a weird setup and I had no training. Right. And so it was not good. And I kind of just got really scared after that experience, but the book itself, I think it was because it really asked you to really go deep within yourself and ask, you know, what is your North star?
And it just clarified everything for me because I knew that the people sitting around me were not my peers at the bank, right? I knew that that was not my life trajectory, but it was something about the book that really gave me the courage to actually take the leap and go for what I really wanted, even though it was very unconventional.
Yeah. And I always love stories about when people do things that are unconventional, because I think in society, we just, there's so many people who do what we're supposed to do. So I think, that's awesome. So you were in [00:04:00] banking, you read the book, had that transformation, went to be a teacher and then what happened next?
And I was going to add, you know, she talks about Martha Beck talks about the collective other, and whenever you're doing something that's probably in line with your heart, but not in line with. Maybe the conventional norms that there's always this group of the collective other. It's like, you know, the people you see on TV to your parents and your siblings, you know, so you really have to work against the outside forces that are convincing you to do something that you know is actually the right path.
So that's what I did when I turned 30. And then I started teaching in Oakland public schools. I went from like one extreme to the other, right? Like corporate banking to urban school. And I absolutely fell in love with the kids and it was a great experience when I was in the classroom. But every time I left the classroom and had to interact with adults, it was really not great.
And coming from the corporate world, it's so different when you go into an urban public school, because it's just different. I don't know how to explain it. Other than the fact that it was like doing a study abroad. It was like a foreign country. I'm like, well, what is happening? But my first day on the job, the Spanish teacher.[00:05:00]
I was waiting in line for the bathroom and she slammed the door in my face and said, we don't have time to wait in line here. And I was like, Oh, okay. Welcome to you too. You know, so that was kind of the adult culture. And, and from there, I was kind of looking for something a little more, you know, where the kids were put at the center and the adults were not kind of having so much trauma.
And so I ended up going to charter schools and worked at a charter school organization and, and grew it from one schools to one school to 10 schools over almost a decade of being there. And that's when I got burnout. Again, so it was such a great opportunity, but it was so much growth so quickly.
So I went from teacher, I helped start our first school, then I helped start the second school, then I became a principal and started schools three and four. And then I became the chief of schools, which is kind of like an assistant superintendent. And trained all the principals on how to open schools.
And it was just crazy. And by the time I turned 40, I had two young children and I actually got really sick with Bell's palsy. And then I started changing my whole life. You said something that I resonate with and I think [00:06:00] listeners, if they haven't experienced this, this is what I always say about burnout,
it sounds like you were driven and you kept, it happened so fast, but you kept like climbing the ladder. And in the moment, it seems amazing. Like look at, you know, all the things that you're doing, but I always say it's great until it's not right. And then all of a sudden, because you don't have these strategies in place, that's when the burnout hits, you think I'm fine.
I'm fine. I'm fine. And then , you just can't handle the capacity that you're putting yourself at. That is absolutely precise. And what I always talk about is that you actually have multiple clues and signs and symbols all the time. And when you have a burnout story, you're like, how many did I miss?
I'm probably about 5, 000, you know, my bat, you know, it's the extreme ones, like you throw out your back. Like I never really missed work as a teacher. Cause I really enjoyed it. But when I was in that executive position, I was always like laid out with back problems. And I'm like, what is going on here? You know, so it's something as extreme as that to something as small as like, you're just tired all the [00:07:00] time and you're distracted and you're just not happy, you know, and you can't get to the gym or whatever it may be.
You're not taking care of yourself. And there's so many signs that you get. And like you said, you just keep going because that's kind of how we're taught. Right. It's like, just keep going and going achievement and going for the external outcomes. And eventually it catches up with you. And hopefully It's not as extreme as, you know, my health scare, but that you can catch it before it gets out that far.
And then people excuse it for you. If you're like, I'm super tired, people would be like, well, yeah, you're a mom and you are a principal. Like, of course you're tired, but I'm thinking, no, like, I think I'm abnormally tired, you know? And so I didn't like you, I didn't recognize the sign.
So I think that's such a great point. So what did you do once you found out about your health scare? Yeah. So I had this thing called Bell's palsy, which is paralysis of the face. And it's like, you're probably, everyone knows someone who's had it, like your eye kind of drooped and then your eye actually can't close.
So the risk is that [00:08:00] like something can fly. It's funny when you go to the doctor, they're like, well, it's really, there's nothing you can do other than like wear a patch because the risk is that you could like a, you know, something could fly into your eye. Cause you can't close your eye cause it's literally paralyzed.
So you have this, like this weird looking face. It looks like. You've had a stroke. And so my kind of waking up moment was I had a two and four year old, and my wife looked at me, she thought I was having a stroke and she freaked out and took me to the ER. And like the look in her face at that moment, I was like, this is not worth it.
It's not worth it. You know, just the thought of her being like, Oh my God, I'm losing my husband. And I'm thinking what job is more important than, you know, leaving my wife with two young children because I wanted to climb the ladder. Right. So it was like this real drastic moment where I was like, Oh, and even though the diagnosis was not that serious, it was inconvenient.
It's almost like mono, you can't do anything. You're just exhausted. So I just slept for like three months straight and took about three or four months off of the school that I was working at. And. It was, it was just such a wake up call. And from that moment [00:09:00] forward, I, I committed to myself that I would not be on the treadmill, you know, rat race at the same pace.
Like if I'm going to be in the rat race, you're going to be a rat, but at least do it in a pace that's reasonable for your own health. Yeah, I think that's so important because it's so easy to prioritize everybody else, especially when you get into, schools where you're serving others as a teacher, as a school leader, it can be a lot.
And when we don't take care of ourselves, we do feel it eventually, even if we think we're fine. Yeah. So then what were some strategies that you put in place after that point to help you, get your health back on track? Yeah. So I always talk about this one. I found this course. With a woman named Dr.
Shefali, she's a child psychologist and my wife and I actually thought we're doing a parent course and it was really about kind of like your mindset and your spiritual journey and she was really big on you need to meditate every day. And at that point I was like, I'll try [00:10:00] anything. And so I started meditating every day.
And she was also really big on like, you don't have to follow some sort of specific framework. Like now they have insight timer and all these really cool tools. But back then it was just like go to YouTube and type in, you know, guided meditation. And so I just started doing that. And I just committed to doing that every single day.
And 20 minutes was too long at first. So I started with about five or 10. I think I found this, a UCLA had a meditation on their website that was for like beginners. And I think it was like 12 minutes. And I just committed to doing that every single day for, you know, several months. And then that one got kind of, okay, now I can go to a different one.
And so I got kind of just like brushing your teeth. You know, I got into a routine of I'm not leaving the house without doing my meditation. And. And then when I did leave the house without doing my meditation, this is a story I always tell that I think is really funny. I'm like, can you not find 10 minutes a day to meditate?
Right. It's like, that's our excuse. I don't have time or whatever. And so what I did is I was like, I got really disciplined about it. And I would actually go into the janitor's [00:11:00] closet of our school because as the principal, as you know, There's not anywhere you can hide, like they will find you. They will.
That was a one place where nobody ever knew to look to this day. Well, unless they're listening to the podcast I'm doing to this day, they don't know that I was in there. And so I would actually go in there. I had a little chair and agreement with the janitors, leave the chair there. And I would just sit and do my guided meditation for 12 minutes.
And I would walk out of that room and it was like the whole world looked different, right? Cause I had just taken that sounds crazy to say out loud, but I just taking 12 minutes for myself. And focused on my own kind of energy for the day. And my, you know, what I was thinking about my priorities for the day were, but more importantly, it set the pace for the day, set the tone, right.
It wasn't going to be like crazy busy and I wasn't going to push myself to the point of breakdown. Yeah, that's amazing. And I've been doing, a lot of research and listening to a lot of podcasts right now about the same type of idea. One lady I was listening to said five minutes a day can totally Restructure your nervous system.
And I'm like [00:12:00] five minutes a day. And you know, we are all like, we don't have time and it totally changes how your body regulates itself. Absolutely. And then what it does is I feel for me, from my experience, what it does is it starts to change, like speaking of your nervous system and kind of your daily routines, it just changes the way you go through your day.
Because something like your body's clued in and your nervous system is a little more calm, you know, things are more stabilized. And so then when you're, you know, the, as a principal or a teacher, there's always a crisis, you know, there's always a kid or a parent or something coming at you, you can just like take that pause.
Even though they might not know you're doing it, you're just kind of taking a pause and you're like, okay, I'm, I'm going to handle this differently. And which just allows you not to be so high strung and stressed out all the time, because you just have a little bit more of a calmer nervous system. So how would you recommend teachers implement this throughout their day?
Yeah. So I would start with. Five minutes, like you said, no more than like 10, five, 10 minutes. And like I said, treat it like brushing your teeth. One of the [00:13:00] meditation teachers I follow, he always talks about the fact that we have this kind of common agreement that we're going to bathe and brush our teeth before we go out of the house.
Right. It's like, everyone does that for the most part, right? Like that's our agreement. That's our agreement. And we all do it. And we've all been conditioned to do that yet. We go out with like our mind and our. A whole self just so busy and stressed out. So he's like, just treat it like your morning routine.
You know, it takes you two minutes to brush your teeth, do a meditation for five to seven minutes. And so that's what I recommend. And I know teachers are really busy. So, but there's gotta be a way that you can get out, out of bed five to seven minutes earlier, and you can go right from the bed to, you know, wherever you want to meditate.
And that's the other thing you don't need. a whole, you know, like shrine and 40 pillows and all these different things. Anywhere. Like I said, janitor's closet. , I have just a simple chair that I use. You can just sit in a chair, you can sit across like, or whatever's comfortable for you, but it's, it's like five minutes.
And then from there, You just kind of find one that works for you. So, like I said, there's the calm app, there's insight [00:14:00] timer. You can go to YouTube, find one, like you like the voice, you like the music. For me, I really needed music. They have like binaural beats, which is like a certain megahertz that kind of calm your, your nervous system and your mind.
I really needed that. Cause I just had a lot of trauma in my body and I was really stressed. So that helped me just calm down. And just listening to that. Yeah. And, you know, people also really beat themselves up like, Oh, I didn't do it. Right. I didn't meditate. Right. And it's like, it's not about that. It's not about the outcome.
It's just about the practice. It's just doing it, just do it every single day. And if you miss a day or two, that's fine, but try and get to it almost every single day, like brushing your teeth. You know, there's the book atomic habits and it talks about if you can create your own habits and, and. I always tell the story about with flossing my teeth when I turned 30, I had like 12 cavities.
It was awful. I never saw it. It was like something about that age. I never flossed my teeth. Then I read that book and it was one of those habits books. And I was like, Oh, I'm just going to literally every day before I go to bed, I'm going to floss my teeth. Like, I'm [00:15:00] just going to start doing that for whatever the, what's it?
Three months, 21 days. I can remember. So I did that for whatever the recommendation was. And now I cannot go to bed without flossing my teeth. It's like, something's off. Like I will never go to bed without flossing my teeth. So you just build a habit to where it becomes part of your subconscious kind of nervous system, you know, activity.
And you don't even think about it. And now what next, you know, you're just meditating every single day, it's part of your routine. And like you said, once you get used to it, it's probably like if you don't do it, you feel off. Feels weird. I have personally found, I do Body, beach Body, and they actually have meditations on there too.
You might be able to find it on, YouTube, but I am really into sound meditations. Yes. Because she plays instruments. Yes. And so I can focus on the instrument and that helps keep my mind present on the meditation versus thinking about other things. Exactly. It's really hard to start out. I think people have this conception that meditation is like sitting in silence, but it's like anything as educators, we know growth mindset, you're not just going to start out and sit in silence [00:16:00] and meditation.
Like you have to build up to that. So for years I listened to music, the binaural beats, like a guided, someone talking to me, it took me years to be able to sit in silence and not have the busyness of the mind. Well, and the other thing, when I was a principal, I talked to my staff about this, the importance of when you do meditation and practice mindfulness, then you can start to practice mindful listening and just being present in everything that you do.
So it's not, you don't just do the practice as an isolated thing. You do it so that throughout the day you practice presence. Absolutely. That's it precisely. And so once I started doing that, it really did change. My whole entire life and then as time went on, I started doing longer meditations and I started, you know, I joined this group that they did every morning we'd do it for an hour.
Now it's harder when you're in the classroom, I was at that point I had actually moved on to consulting for a couple years so I had more free time but you could do it at night or whatever but we did an hour a day, and it was. It's so crazy the way it changes your life. And that was the kind of the [00:17:00] leader's whole point is like, just do this with me for three months and tell me how your life is different, you know, and we're all like, Oh my gosh, our life is so different.
So I'm not saying people should do an hour, cause that's a big jump, but you start to want to do that kind of stuff. You start to want to like do a slower walk or when you're, when I was working out is beach body, like part of P90X. Is that the same? Yeah. Okay. So I used to do P90X and it's like, when I started meditating now, when I work out, I would have like 4, 000 epiphanies.
Like the last 10 projects I did was like, I did a meditation in the morning, then I went to the gym and it's like the mind body connection. It's like, Oh, it's going to be this. And it was just like, all came to me during the workout. So it just starts changing your life in so many different ways when you can really focus on it.
Yeah. And on another note, I was listening to, Brendan Burchard this morning. I'm in an app where he gives like, morning motivation. And he was talking about it's. And I think this is so interesting. We never just like are present in the moment. And so people talk about feeling not motivated or, you know, they're [00:18:00] struggling with whatever they're doing, whatever job or building their business.
And basically he was saying it's because we're always consuming and we're never just present and being in our thoughts. And letting herself be creative and dream and think, and I thought, what a good point. I am always consuming. We all are. Yeah. We've been set up for that. Or haven't we just to be constantly like scrolling and consuming, like thinking about the next thing.
And if you really can get your self, that's where I think meditation is so awesome. Is that. You really are in the present moment. Like you're right here right now. And then that starts to reorient the way you operate in the world, because you start to notice, like, how often are you in the past, like you're thinking about something that happened or what, the way it works is your nervous systems actually set up to, you know, worry about something that's happened in the past.
Like it's into your body, you know? So it's like I had a traumatic event or something bad happened to me. My boss yelled at me, right? I had a really bad principal when I was a teacher and she [00:19:00] was just me or whatever. Then like 10 years later, something about your new principal reminds you of that person.
And every time you see them, you like, you kind of notice that you tense up and then you're Freaking out about something that happened in the past, though this person has, is not the same person. And then you start projecting all your fears into the future, like, Oh, they're going to yell at me again.
And all these things, and all this is happening subconsciously. It's not happening in your conscious brain. So when you can slow down and you can start to just take a break and be in the present moment and be like, okay, I'm safe right now. Like the principle is not firing me. I'm not getting yelled at.
It's not something that I have to worry about. It's like your body starts to calm down and then you can, like Brenda Bouchard was saying, then you're open. You're in the moment. And when you're in the moment, that's where the creativity comes in. The ideas come in, you start to feel better and everything starts to open up for you.
Yeah. And I think another good point is, which kind of goes with what we're talking about with life coaching too, but our brains. Automatically go to the negative. Like when we're in go, go, go, [00:20:00] like you said, even subconsciously, like every situation, if we don't want to be in that negative, we have to practice reframing all the time and we don't even realize it.
And so I think, like you said, being present and really slowing down. So, you know what those thoughts are so that you can catch it. I always say like, My brain is being crazy, you know, like I'll think of something and I'm like, that's so dumb that I was worried about that, but that's what our brain does.
Yes. So really , bringing that to the subconscious so that you can focus on what those thoughts are that are holding you back, I think is really important too. Yeah. And I worked with a coach for a while that would always recommend that. You actually, when you start to know, cause your body, there's a book, I can't remember the author, but it's called the body keeps score.
And if you really start to pay attention to how you feel, you'll notice, you know, like maybe your back is tight or your shoulder or something starts to affect you. And so she would always recommend that, You take a deep breath and you say out loud or to yourself, like, I'm safe right now. You [00:21:00] know, I'm in the room.
It is, you know, nine 28 on Wednesday morning. And I'm sitting at my desk because that then calms down that part of your subconscious brain. That's actually operating in the negative. And I'm worried about something bad happening to you, but it just kind of like calms you down. So I'll regularly do that when I'm, I noticed something coming up in my, Heart rate starts increasing or my back tightens up and then I'm like, okay, something is starting to trigger me.
So I'll just take a deep breath and just be like, okay, I'm here right now. It's this time. And it's something about it within like 30 seconds. I'm like, oh, okay. Nothing bad's going to happen to me. And then I can take a deep breath and move on. Yeah. . So , great strategies. And I am so passionate about these things that we're talking about, like meditation, mindfulness, all of it, because I think these are topics we don't talk about in education enough.
And so it's great to be able to have this conversation with you. So how can people reach out to you? What services do you offer if people are interested in learning more? Yeah. So I do a couple of different things. Easiest way to find me is davidkrichards. com. [00:22:00] And so it's , pretty simple. And my main projects are, I do the one to one coaching for leaders and teachers, and I also help people open schools.
So we didn't really talk about this a lot, but if you're interested in micro schools, I started helping a bunch of people open schools. And now a lot of my clients have opened micro schools across the country. So I'm just launching up a program now to help people open micro schools, but it's all tied into what we talked about, because you're finding your true passion.
And. You're really understanding like what drives you, what makes you feel happy. And for the people that I'm working with now, it's opening a micro school or it's staying in the school they're in and then finding ways to be really happy in that space. So that's the easiest way to find me. And thanks so much for having me.
Of course. It was great having you today.
If you are interested in one-on-one coaching, I would love the opportunity to work with you. I have a link to schedule a session with me. I do free consultations where we can talk about what life coaching would look like for you and decide if we would be a good fit to work together. You can do that by scheduling an appointment in the Calendly [00:23:00] link. in the show notes.
So keep in mind that you do have the power to shape your life. According to the mindset you choose. I hope you have a great week and I'll see you back here next time.
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