When a “no thanks” validates your mission.

As I enter my last 5 days as an employee, I have focused some effort into preparing for my life as a full-time entrepreneur. As part of my mission I wanted to give a platform to educators to “meet” privately, share ideas, thoughts, concerns and solutions, in a way that I wish I’d been able to, as a start out educational leader.

This aspect of my mission is an altruistic move, but also maybe a self-preservation move, as I know entrepreneurship can be a lonely place too – it’s possible that subconsciously I am fulfilling a need to stay connected to “my tribe”. So over the past few days I have set about sending out invitations to educational leaders via my LinkedIn network of 4,500 connections.

I have been truly amazed by the positive responses I have received, even though I was really hesitant about initiating it. In just a few days I already have nearly 60 members – result! Then, this morning I woke up to find a “no thanks” message in my inbox – a very polite “no thanks”….

So how did I respond?

With complete gratitude. You see I have been pulling this idea together for over a year now, and still I have those moments when I ask myself “What are you doing?!” – but this message is really special because it validates my mission and everything that I have worked on to bring executive coaching to educational leaders in an affordable and accessible format.

These are the words that met me… “I am not looking for any support thanks, I am a coach and I have a coach, I saw your invite and I liked the tag line on your profile. Coaching actually has the biggest impact on professional development compared to any other strategy, and yet schools struggle to embrace and invest in it, throwing money away on expensive professional development experiences which have far less measurable impact :)”

These words resonate with me so strongly and are the essence of my motivation in setting up this service and stepping out alone to make a difference. I thanked this person for their positive support, and would also like to acknowledge that the time and authenticity in this response, even though it was a “rejection”, is truly appreciated. So the moral of this story is – always seek the positive. The journey sometimes feels long and lonely, but seeking the small gains will give you the energy and inspiration to continue. If you are an educational leader please reach out via LinkedIn to join the group SupportEDu Leaders.

Summer Teacher Career Audit launch offer now available from 15th July to 23rd August Enjoy 3 one to one career development coaching sessions, free membership of the SupportEDu Coaching Cloud, access to Mindlab tools to help you to be intentional about your goals, includes a members only forum and receive a tailor-made career action plan for 2019-20. Limited to 20 places at an introductory price of USD 150.

Spend some time this Summer focusing on your personal and professional development needs.

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