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Coaching Lessons I’ve Learned from Ted Lasso with Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D., ep. 220

Chrissy Beltran laughing while putting in headphones in a coffee shop. These words are at the top, "Coaching Lessons I've Learned from Ted Lasso". These words are at the bottom, "with Arthur Aguirre".

This episode is sponsored by Kind Cotton

“I would love to hear from Ted Lasso!”

That was an actual response to my podcast survey asking who listeners wanted to hear from about instructional coaching!

When I read that, I thought, okay, that’s funny! But he’s not a real coach. He’s a fictional character played by Jason Sudeikis.

Realistically, I can’t have Ted Lasso on the show, you know, because he’s not real! Plus, I doubt very much that Jason Sudeikis would accept an invitation from me to speak about instructional coaching.


But I love the show and wanted to figure out how I could have Ted Lasso on the podcast.

After some brainstorming, I came up with an idea!

In today’s episode, I’m sharing instructional coaching lessons I’ve learned from Ted Lasso. And to make this conversation even better, I’m joined by my friend, Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. Not only does he love Ted Lasso as much as I do, but he also has a podcast about leadership lessons learned from watching TV and movies.

What If I Never Watched Ted Lasso?

If you haven’t watched Ted Lasso yet, I highly recommend checking it out! It’s a heartwarming show that’s so good and everything he says is pure gold!

Even if you haven’t seen the show yet, you’re still going to learn so much from his coaching style and about loving your work as a coach!

Who is Ted Lasso?

In this episode, Arthur and I give you a brief introduction to the show and the character Ted Lasso. If you’re not familiar with the show, here’s a little bit about him.

Ted Lasso is an American college football coach who’s hired to coach soccer in England. The catch? He knows absolutely nothing about soccer, and he is not equipped to coach that sport at all! He’s a fish out of water! But what he does have is heart! He coaches with so much heart and joy that he makes a huge impact on his team!

Although he’s a fictional character, Ted Lasso has some real wisdom to share. He’s all about believing in people, which helps them believe in themselves. He takes time to learn about each person’s strengths and finds ways for everyone to contribute, no matter their role.

Coaching Lessons I’ve Learned from Ted Lasso

During the episode, Arthur and I share our favorite quotes and lessons learned from Ted Lasso. We discussed Ted Lasso’s leadership style, including his ability to understand people, empathize, and build belief in his team. Even when things get tough, he never gives up on his players. Ted is a real inspiration!

Here are a few coaching lessons Arthur and I discuss in the episode:

  • The importance of caring for others.
  • Believe in people, even if they don’t believe in themselves yet.
  • Focus on helping people become the best versions of themselves. Be resourceful and find ways to leverage people’s unique talents and abilities.
  • Success is doing the best you can with the team you have right now.
  • Be curious! Get to know your team’s strengths, weaknesses, motivation, background, and past experiences.
  • Approach challenges and conflicts with empathy, patience, and an openness to different perspectives.
  • Setbacks happen, but the key is to keep moving forward.
  • Everyone matters! Treat every team member with respect and dignity so they feel safe, valued, and appreciated.
  • Sometimes you have to coach things you never taught and that’s OK. You don’t need to be an expert in everything you coach.
  • Never give up on your team! Believe in your potential and other people’s potential.
  • Be authentic and consistent in your leadership approach.
  • Take care of yourself, practice self-care, and find time for personal interest so you can better support others.

To hear all our insights be sure to listen to the episode using the player below or wherever you get your podcasts!

Topics and Questions Discussed in Episode 220 – Coaching Lessons I’ve Learned from Ted Lasso with Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D.

  • Overview of the show Ted Lasso
  • Ted Lasso’s leadership style, including his ability to empathize and build belief in his team
  • Our favorite quotes and lessons from the show
  • The role of positivity and optimism in leadership and building a team
  • How Ted’s coaching style translates to instructional coaching

This episode is sponsored by Kind Cotton. Kind Cotton donates books to kids with the proceeds from every purchase.

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Podcast produced by Fernie Ceniceros

Coaching Lessons I’ve Learned from Ted Lasso with Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D., ep. 220, Instructional Coaching with Ms. B Podcast

Chrissy Beltran 00:01
Hey, Coach, I can’t wait to share this amazing business with you. Kind cotton is a small clothing company started by a former kindergarten teacher and her husband to help increase children’s access to books. For every item purchased, they donate a book to a child. To date, they have donated over 174,000 books. All of their items are unique, and you’ll find so many T shirts, hoodies and fun, meaningful accessories too. They make great gifts. I purchased the inclusive books tote bag as a Christmas present, and my friend loved it. Head to kind cotton.com and check out their website full of beautiful, kind messages for yourself or for a friend.

Chrissy Beltran 00:41
Welcome to instructional coaching with MS B, where we believe that every teacher deserves a coach, and every coach does too. I’m Chrissy Beltran, an elementary teacher who became a coach, and I had to create my own coaching program that worked now. I teach coaches how to design their coaching programs, build a school wide action plan and use differentiated strategies to support teachers. Plus, I’ve got a special spot in my heart for literacy coaches. Now let’s dig into the episode.

Chrissy Beltran 01:08
Hey coach and welcome to episode 220, of instructional coaching with mesti. Today’s episode is about instructional coaching lessons we’ve learned from Ted Lasso with my friend Arthur Aguirre. This is part of our loving your work with a really strong coaching mindset. Series. This is actually, I think, the last episode, right? Yeah, the last episode in that series. Next week. We are starting a new mini series in March, but, yeah, this is been a really great series, because I love trying to help coaches enjoy their work more. It’s really important. Arthur is going to join us again today on the podcast. He was a guest in season four when he chatted with me about better coaching conversations in episode 139 and now he’s going to spend a lovely half hour with us talking about lessons learned from Ted lasso. So where did this episode come from? And will you still enjoy it if you haven’t seen Ted lasso, the short answer for this is came from the survey that I sent out to coaches. And yes, you will still love it, but I’ll go into that more. This topic idea came from someone who filled out the survey. Turned it in, and it said, and the question, Who would you like to hear from about instructional coaching? She wrote, I would love to hear from Ted lasso. And when I read it, I was like, okay, that’s funny, you know, that’s funny because he’s a fictional character played by Jason sudancus, right? And I loved it. We watched Ted Lasso, my husband and I did. And, you know, I cried and laughed, and it was great theory. But the more I was thinking about it, I was like, Well, I can’t have, obviously, Ted lasso on the podcast, and I don’t think Jason Sudeikis would accept a request to speak to me about coaching, but what I can do is talk about what we’ve learned from Ted lasso. And so whenever I was thinking about that, the perfect person came to mind, which is Arthur, because Arthur, I know, loved Ted lasso as well, and he actually had a podcast about leadership lessons learned from watching TV and movies. And I was a guest on that podcast. I talked about Monsters University, and we talked about leadership lessons that I learned from Monsters University. And it was really fun. So I was like, Oh my gosh, this is this is perfect. This is a match made in heaven. And then the second part of my question was, will you enjoy this episode? If you haven’t seen Ted lasso, yes, you will. You will get so much information out of it about great coaching and loving your work, or the coach, because Ted lasso is like a coaching just he’s just a gold mine. Everything he says is good, everything he says is golden, and it’s amazing. So that even though we are going to be shoddy impersonators of Ted lasso, we will be able to express to you all the cool stuff you can learn from this kind of coaching style. And if you haven’t watched it, I do recommend that you do. It is a good show. It warms your heart even when it makes you sad and makes you cry. It’s a really beautiful show. You don’t he’s so the premise of Ted lasso is that he is an American football coach, college football coach, who is hired to go to the UK, to go to England, and to coach football over there, which is obviously what we usually call soccer. I say we may, you know, in America, United States, so he goes to coach soccer, but he knows nothing about it. And so he is actually not equipped to coach this sport at all, but he coaches with heart and so much of the joy that he has, it makes a difference in everybody’s life, and you can see the impact that it has on his team. I actually see, if I’m very much do this. I actually looked up with chat GPT. I said, if Ted lasso was an instructional coach at a school, how would he introduce. Himself, and so I’m going to read you what it said, but I want you to remember that I grew up outside of Dallas, Texas, and Ted lasso has a kind of a southern accent, and I can as well when I’m around people who have a Southern, you know, you slip back into that accent where, you know, not that I’m trying not to do it. I just don’t it just comes out more whenever I’m with certain people, if my life. And so I’m going to read it with my best accent, and we will see how it goes. And you have to promise not to laugh at me, or if you do laugh at me, but you never tell me about it, because it’s okay to laugh, but it’s not okay to hurt my feeling okay. So here we go. This is what he said. This is what he wouldn’t say. And I think we pretty much just took his introduction and kind of like introduction and kind of like jazz it up for instructional coaching. Well, howdy there team. My name is Ted lasso, and I’m just tickled paint to be your new instructional coach. Now, I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know much about teaching calculus, writing persuasive essays or how to wrangle 30 teenagers in 11 Shakespeare, but what I do know is that I’m here to help you be the best dang educator. You can be. My job’s simple. I’m your cheerleader, your problem solver, and sometimes just the fellow will sit and listen when the copier is eaten the last of your patients. I believe that every single one of you has something special to bring out in these kiddos, and I’m here to help you find it, refine it, and share it. Now I might throw out some wacky ideas, like how to make professional development more fun than waiting in line at the DMV, but I promise you, my heart’s always in the right place. We’re a team now, and there’s nothing more powerful than a group of folks who got each other’s backs. So let’s get to work. Let’s have some fun, and let’s make this the kind of school year folks write as Byron teacher memoirs about. Now I did mess up on the word persuasive, and if you laughed at that, that’s okay. We’re gonna welcome Arthur to the podcast now. So welcome Arthur to the podcast today, and thank you so much for joining us.

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 06:52
Oh, I was so excited for you when I got your email, especially given the topic, I’m a huge Ted lasso fan. I’m a little leery about the new season that they’ve like green lit without. I think it’s without Jason sedegas, okay, yeah, as far as I know, I should have looked that up before we started. But I am a huge Ted lasso fan, so I was just ecstatic when you asked me to do this.

Chrissy Beltran 07:18
Yeah, it’s such a good show for, I think, for this podcast to talk about. And it was, you know, I mentioned in the introduction, but that it’s somebody requested that I interviewed him for the podcast. And I was like, oh, that sounds really cute, but how on earth did I do it? So we’re gonna get as close as I could get.

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 07:37
Yeah, I thought, I thought about shaving my beard and just doing a mustache, but I don’t think my wife would be very happy

Chrissy Beltran 07:43
with me. Oh yeah, but I do love if you can’t, you can’t see it, but if someday this will wind up on YouTube, you’ll be able to see it if you watch it, where Arthur uses his background for his zoom call. It’s the locker room from the team. So that’s really cool.

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 07:59
Yeah, I was I last thing I thought, because I before I’ve done some with with some friends, and I have, like, the office background or something, and I was like, wait a minute, I bet you I could find something before we

Chrissy Beltran 08:08
get started. Yeah, it’s perfect. All right. So as a quick introduction, I would love to hear about a few things from you. Who do you help and how do you spend most of your time and energy at work?

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 08:17
Yeah, no problem. So I it’s funny that you asked that question, because that in I’ve had a little bit of like, you know, I’m about to turn 40 this year, and so I’ve been a little bit of a crossroads and trying to think about, like, what my purpose is. And one of the things that I came to, I guess, the conclusion, is it’s less about what I’m doing and what I want to do, and it was, you came down to just helping people. And so I like helping people in a couple ways. One, I’m professor in leadership and communication. I love teaching. It is why I got my PhD. It’s why I became professor. I just love teaching folks new things. I love seeing the aha moments when things start clicking with people. And I use media a lot in my courses. And so I’ve used Ted lasso before, I’ve used the bear before, I’ve used a number of different shows to help folks make those kinds of connections. And then the other job I have is I’m a mortgage loan officer, and so I like helping people in that way where it’s a little bit more of a like a tangible thing that you can see folks who are, you know, finally making the big jump to, like, buy their house. And I know, especially in today’s economy and the way things are right now, it’s not easy for everyone to do that, so I love that I get to be a part of that, or even folks who are just looking to refinance. So that is kind of how I help people. And I’m forgetting the second Oh, how I spend my time and energy. So outside of those two jobs, although those keep me pretty busy. I always like to I also, you know, spend my time and energy with my wife. We’re going on close to we’re about a year and a half married now, and spending time with my family. I back in 2018 I lost my father, and it kind of lined things up for me in terms of what is most important to me, and spending time with my family. Is just incredibly important. I don’t have any kids of my own, but I have a ton. I have tons of nieces and nephews, and a lot of them are getting into that really fun, like, teenage years, where we can, like, connect on a different level than when they were children, like much younger children. And so I spent a lot of time and energy with them. Yeah, I love and and this kind of blends into I know we have another question coming up, but I have, I have ADHD, and so I look for different ways to kind of turn my brain off really, kind of like, lower the static I hear most of the time. And I found something that does that. And I’ve been doing this for years. Whenever I just need to, like, turn my brain off, I play something just like fun and background on, like, background noise on my iPad, whether it’s a movie or a TV show, and I played Madden, the video game on my PlayStation, okay, same time. And for whatever reason, it just, like calms me. Like you would not believe how

Chrissy Beltran 10:49
interesting, yeah, because I think for me, that would, um, I don’t like to hear two sources of electronics at the same time. Oh,

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 10:56
I mute, I mute the game. Okay, you have I’m the same way. Okay, okay. Okay,

Chrissy Beltran 11:00
yeah, that many, yeah. I feel like my brain is like, flipping back and forth again this time. I

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 11:10
think a few years ago, my wife, before we got married, had like, come to visit me, and she walks in and like, I have the video game going on on the TV, I have my iPad going on next to me, and it was, like, a break. So I was, like, looking at my phone. She’s like, she’s like, What are you doing? You can’t be doing. Oh, like, she just made her nervous watching me.

Chrissy Beltran 11:29
Yeah, for sure. Like, I’ve seen that happen before. My husband’s a little bit like that. You know, you know, Bernie. Oh, I know. I know, like, always that stuff going on. I’m like, Hey, take it down. It’s your hobby that you love. Is it Madden? Is that your hobby? Yes, it’s Madden. Yeah, that’s it. Yeah, yeah. That’s a good one. My brothers used to love to play them. All those games is really cool.

11:51
Yeah, it’s like, the one thing that’s stuck for years now,

Chrissy Beltran 11:53
yeah, yeah, they hold on to that’s is that the only game you play now that’s you.

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 11:57
I mean, there’s a few other ones I might get into, but in terms of other hobbies, I don’t know if we’re getting into that question or question already. Yeah, okay. I was like, I don’t know if I just, like, steamroll this into it. No, you’re good. Perfect, perfect timing. So I mentioned that one right now. But the other thing, I love watching movies and TV shows in general. Like, not when I’m playing Madden. I like, you know, anytime, especially, I think Apple does a really good job with some of their their programming. I love shrinking. Shrinking shrinking has been one of my favorites for a while. On a personal level, my dad also had Parkinson so it’s I love being able to see how they’re doing that. I haven’t started the new season of severance yet, but I’m looking forward to re watching, re watching the first one so I can get into this. That’s

Chrissy Beltran 12:34
what I did last week. Yeah? So good. And the first episode, it’s good. They’re doing it, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah. So

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 12:41
that’s definitely a hobby. I’ve been strength training now for a few years, and started as power lifting, and now it’s more of just, it’s become more than just, like a casual thing, like, now that life’s a little bit more busy, I have to be more intentional, because if I just don’t do it, I’m just all out of whack, mentally, emotionally, everything. So that’s become a big hobby of mine, and I’ve been trying to make a more concerted effort since last year to read more. It hasn’t been all that successful. You know, I’ll get in. I like, I’m in the middle of, like, two different, radically different books right now, and I need to just finish one and, like, get completely into the next. So those are some of the hobbies I’ve been getting into. You don’t

Chrissy Beltran 13:20
have one book playing audiobook while you’re reading another book.

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 13:26
You want strange. I’ve been I’ve tried so hard to get into audio books because I listen to podcasts all the time, and I don’t know what it is about my brain that just will not let me do it. Interesting. Yeah,

Chrissy Beltran 13:37
for years, those are, like, the books. Whenever my kids were super little, that was pretty much what I read. Because as soon as because as soon as I cracked the book, I was like, like, I just fell right asleep. I was always like, sleep, drive. So audiobooks were like my lifeline, and I plow through a bunch of them, but, but I do appreciate, if I want to read a book that I think is going to be really good, I’m going to read the paper book. I want to look in my hands. I don’t want to do audio book for really good stuff. So then I, then I take no longer to get through those, obviously, but, but, yeah, it’s a good, good priority to try to squeeze that in. But I know you’re busy. I’ve just kind of made it my own. Of the focus is that I want to, you know, make sure I share with people. This year is about hobbies that people do, because, like this series about is about loving your work as a coach, but if you don’t make time for things that you enjoy. I don’t think you can love your work like you, you it’s it demands so much of you that if you don’t make time on your own for things that you’re enjoying, I don’t feel like you can really love your job. You don’t have as much to give, you know, yeah,

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 14:34
so you have to, you have to fill your cup in order to be able to continue to fill others. Yeah, yeah. And so

Chrissy Beltran 14:39
I’m hoping to just share ideas with people so they can think about, you know, any hobby doesn’t have to be anything special. It’s just something you like to do that you do.

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 14:47
Yeah? I think, I think we lose sight of how important it is to for that hobby to like, there’s a certain itch that you’re scratching when you do a hobby, even if it’s something that you’re not good at. Yeah? You know, for a while I was getting. Into drawing, and they were not good. It was, but it was just like, a fun process of like and using a part of my brain I don’t normally use,

Chrissy Beltran 15:07
yeah, yeah. I heard a quote that I really like, and it’s sucking at something, is the first step to being really good at something. Yeah, makes sense, because you can’t, you know, you can get better at your hobby and you can. You may enjoy it more when you’re better at it, but you get started. You have to start so, and you might not be great at it. That’s you enjoy it. Just keep at it. Yeah, you

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 15:26
know, one of the, one of the big lessons that I try to in workshops or in classrooms, that I like to take some time out to talk about is failure. Because I think we’ve, we’ve been conditioned because of, like, the school system, that failure is just such a large, impactful thing that could, you know, just derail your entire life, like an option,

Chrissy Beltran 15:44
like, that’s exactly we all had to read that our fault made you read, right? We all had to, yeah, you know, you know. And you know,

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 15:52
at the university level, they tell us, like, I think, and this may have changed, I don’t know. I’ve been doing this for a while now, but if you get an F on your transcripts, it takes, like, an A, three A’s just to get you to baseline again. And so it just feels like this big detriment. But you can’t get good at something until you fail, right? Like inventors are gonna fail a number of times before they figure out what works. You know, musicians write really crappy songs until they write a really good one, yeah, but it takes that first step of trying and failing before you get there,

Chrissy Beltran 16:20
yeah, yeah. I think that you’re, you’re sharing a little bit of Ted lasso expertise already. So how about we dig into the show? Yeah, if you want to give us, could you give us a brief summary of Ted lasso of the show?

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 16:32
So, I mean, this is absolutely going to have some spoilers, I am sure. So if you’re, if you’re listening to this, I’m assuming that some folks have already watched Ted lasso, but I guess the cleaner version is that there is a college football coach who gets hired to become the soccer coach for a FC Richmond. So he moves all the way over there to the UK and starts coaching, but with a lot of drama around his hiring and the intent for why he was brought there, I can leave it like that, yeah,

Chrissy Beltran 17:02
yeah. I didn’t want to give that part away either, but it was, it is important, but it’s uncovered in, you know, first few episodes, I feel like, but yeah, it’s, he’s a fish out of water, for sure. And his personality, it’s just so, you know, incredible and unique and fantastic, and really gives us some things to aspire to, I think. And he’s, he’s just highly quotable. So do you have a favorite TED lasso quote, something that you really love?

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 17:28
So there’s a couple of them, and they kind of bleed into, like the lessons we’re trying to pull from, but one of them that he says to Rebecca, he says, You know, I think that if you care about someone and you got a little love in your heart, there ain’t nothing you can’t get through together. I think that’s really impactful. I think especially with how there’s just so much conflict with folks, you know, I think things are, there are a lot of sensitive issues that are going on and being talked about, of course, in society. But I do think if you focus on like, the care that you have for one another, it can go a long way in making progress and kind of healing some of those relationships. And though, the one that really just resonates with me the most, he says, success is not about the wins and losses, it’s about helping these young fellows be the best versions of themselves on and off the field. Yeah,

Chrissy Beltran 18:21
I wrote that one down too. That was a good one. And that’s as a coach, that’s, you know, we are told all the time, as an instructional coach that, you know, look at your data, I can tell. I was talking to a board member from another district not long ago, and I said, you know, I can’t tell you if a school is a good school or not by looking at some paper. I need to go see I need to see what’s happening. And she goes, Oh, no, not for me. It’s all about the data. It’s all about the data. I said that data can tell you what happened on that day, but it does not tell you why it happened. And that is to me, like you have to go see people in action. You have to see teaching and learning, to know if the school is being successful. Do you want your kid there just because they have good test scores? Maybe not. And, and so that, you know, success, we’re very concerned with pass and fail and schools we’re very concerned with, you know, we get our data back at the end of the year from the state, and it just, you know, we’re so happy if they did well, and we’re just destroyed if they didn’t. And, right? You know, there are consequences for that. So obviously, it’s important, right? Because there are consequences about that data that we didn’t get to pick. But you know, did you help your teachers become something? Did you help them grow? Did you help the kid? Are the kids different than they were before? And all those intangible things, those are the successes that we can look at that. It’s easy to forget about those because we’re so overwhelmed with did they do it or not? Did they reach that score or not? You know, it’s just done. So I really like that one. I love that one a lot. And,

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 19:53
you know, there’s a there’s a great clip, and I think it’s still on YouTube, but I use it in my my research class. From John Oliver Last Week Tonight, and he talks about, I mean, you can grab any data and make whatever argument you want with it, you know, and if it doesn’t say it doesn’t fit your narrative, you can kind of skew and look for a different set of data. But if you are only looking at the data, you’re missing, like a large piece of that puzzle.

Chrissy Beltran 20:16
Yes, you have to see the picture. It paints the picture of the data for you. The data is just these raw numbers. And then whenever you look and see what’s going on, that tells you what’s really happening. And I feel like and that explains the data for you, you know? And you can say, Ah, this is what this is what the real situation is. So I think that was, I really like that, looking for the intangibles and the the successes in people and not and the best versions of themselves. The other one that I wrote down was also about success. He said success is doing the absolute best you can with what you’ve got. And I love that so much, because we’re all looking for the same success, and we all want it to look the same in terms of schools and kids and learning and teaching. And that is not we did not all start out with the same stuff? No, you know. And so whenever people are like, well, school should be run like a business. Well, where are we getting the materials? These are people. We’re not receiving shipments of, you know, aluminum to make pipes. Here we are. These are people, and they are all different. And you are working with what you have in your school. So if you did the best that you could have possibly done with what you’ve got, that has to be your measure of success. And I really love that.

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 21:27
Yeah, you know, I was, I was fortunate the last semester I was teaching both our introduction to leadership course for our undergraduate students. And I don’t teach that class often, but it is folks who are, like, 1819, years old. So it is their first college class. You know, we’re in El Paso, so for some folks, is their first class in English, potentially. And on the other end, I’m teaching my night class to, you know, see a liver senior level military officials in a graduate course. And so it’s nice to go back and talk to my undergrads and kind of get back to the basics for myself. And one of the chapters we were covering was talking about some of the traits of leadership of a good leader. And one of them that, just like, stuck out to me, and you kind of forget about it, is being resourceful and knowing, like, what do you have? What are people’s strengths and weaknesses, and how can you take advantage of that and put them in positions to succeed?

Chrissy Beltran 22:17
Yeah, I like that, and that actually brings me to one of the lessons that that I feel like we can learn from Ted lasso, if we want to dig into those. He talks about a lot of it about like, knowing people you know, knowing who your people are. And so he talks about, be curious, not judgmental, which he said he references Walt Whitman. There’s a scene where he’s he’s playing a game. He’s challenged, like a game of darts and and with kind of like a villain in the show, the guy who serves as a villain. And you know that he people don’t know what to expect from him because they didn’t bother to ask. And so he talks about how, you know we we need to get to know people. We cannot. We don’t pass judge. We pass judgment on people so often that we don’t allow ourselves to get to know people. He said, another one that he said was all people are different people. That one too. Yeah, that was a good one. All people are different people, because we might look at people, you know, let’s say, in teaching, we say, Oh, that’s a new teacher. They’re going to be eager to learn. Oh, that’s a veteran teacher. They’re going to be set in their ways. Oh, that, you know, we put people in these categories, and really, we need to get to know each person individually, and dig beyond whatever characteristics or qualifiers we have that, you know, make us think that we know who they are. Yeah,

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 23:41
you know, we one of the I mean, almost regardless of which workshop I’m giving or what speech I’m giving, I do a little bit on communication, and I show this graph of people talking, or it’s a model. It’s a interactive model of communication. And one of the things I love talking about is that right above each person that’s speaking is something called your field of experience. And so I asked folks what that is, and essentially it is anything you’ve ever experienced in your entire life, like movies, you watch TV shows, you watched the friends you had when you were a kid, how you were raised, what church you went to, all of those things. And so it makes something as simple as like, which do you prefer Coke or Pepsi? Like, for some folks, like that is a big deal, right? And it’s like it is ingrained in you from your that’s what your mom or your dad drank, or whatever it might be. And so even if something as small as that which beverage you prefer, then you can start seeing why we’re so different on so many different levels, and why conflict and communication happens. And people lose sight of that. They just make this assumption that the person should be operating the way that they’re they themselves, are thinking, and you already put that person in this box that already, you know, does not fit them right. And so that’s that’s why I wrote that quote down as well, that all people are different people, because I think we need to take some time. And I know that’s not something a lot of folks that’s not a resource that a lot of us have. But. Taking that time to get to know your people, to see what those strengths and those potential areas of improvement are, yeah,

Chrissy Beltran 25:06
yeah. I totally agree. And I like that you brought up the conflict thing there too, because we are as a coach who are working with teachers in teams at times. You know, in groups, there’s like history there half the time you don’t even know it. You know, like, sometimes you hear the stories of what happened before you got there, and it just like, remember what and nobody’s done anything. Like there was like a rivalry of like, 30 years, these people that worked in the same grade level, and it was no everybody knew it. It was like, that was just how they are, and it was ugly, and that I that I jumped into, you know, like, Well, no wonder this is such a dysfunctional group. You know, there’s, there’s like, history here. And so whenever you’re dealing with conflict like that, you know, it can be it is hard and it is exhausting, and the way to get to know people, or the way to get to help people work together, is by getting to know them. And we can’t give up on people, even though it can be so frustrating. You know, there are scenes in TED lasso where he is communicating with people, sometimes as kindly as he can, honestly, but kindly as he can, and they are just shutting him down at completely disrespecting his role as the coach, because they’re like, you don’t even know this sport. You don’t even know you have nothing to offer us. And so these this team, they’re like large amounts of them that are just like, you have nothing to give us, right? But he doesn’t give up on these people, even though they are so against him, which is interesting, because I feel like sometimes modern culture is telling us, you know, Oh, you, do you and, yeah, I mean, just kind of like, let like, letting people, just writing them off. And he doesn’t do that. He has all these negative interactions with people, but he believes, over time, that it can get better, so he doesn’t let those smaller negative interactions get to him as much.

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 27:17
And I would even argue it’s almost like he unders. He takes that second to understand, like, I know why you feel this way, but yeah, and I’m and that’s okay, it’ll change.

Chrissy Beltran 27:28
Yeah, yeah. He tries to understand their motivation. And whenever we can understand people’s motivations and we can have some empathy with them, one of the things that I do as a coach whenever I’m working with somebody who is really, really trying. My I am not the most naturally patient person in the world. I’ve had to earn that the hard way through years of teaching and working with kids and then adults and then my own children, which is a whole other thing. Whenever you’re trying to parent a tiny version of yourself, Oh, that’s a rough one. But whenever I am working with somebody that is just constant, like a brick wall. They’re just constantly just coming at me. I try to give them a backstory, and that’s kind of weird, because I don’t know their actual backstory, but if they’re not giving me anything, I gotta make it up, because I need something to get me through those interactions and to have patience and to have empathy for them and to try to understand and so obviously, the backstory can evolve once you know more about people. And I can think of one person in particular, I wrote a backstory for them in my brain to help deal with the constant negativity and criticism and like, like, you know, just pushing back on everything and I mean downright rudeness sometimes. And so I wrote this backstory for this person, and then over time, I actually learned part of their backstory. They shared it with me. I was so surprised that they did open up and share it with me. And it just reminds me of those moments that Ted has, like with Jamie, where Jamie is this player who’s used to being the best. He’s a cocky little jerk, arrogant, but he’s very good at what he does, but he doesn’t want to be coached, and he doesn’t want to be part of a team. He’s like, they’re holding me back. And, you know, Coach lasso has to work so hard to interact with this person, and he the only thing that gets him through it is just believing that there is something motivating this guy, there is something not right, that is keeping him from just, you know, being a human with other people, and over time, you learn what his backstory is, and Ted does, right, and it changes their relationship, yeah.

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 29:34
And I think, I think we don’t just in general, but we’re both in the workplace, but even outside of it, don’t take that moment to do that, right? I think we, I like using the the example, like when we’re in a hurry and someone is driving slow, right? We are, we are taking our own urgency and putting it on this person. I can’t believe this person is getting in my way. This person has now become an enemy to you for no other reason than you’re in a hurry. Right? But then, you know, and I don’t like using the example, you know, folks have like, the baby on board, like, you know, stick around the back of their car, because I know that could be helpful, letting people know why you might be driving a little more carefully. But even something as simple, you know, we’re from El Paso, and we have, like, I know, a lot of folks get menu though, on Sunday morning, and let’s say you’re driving with that pot of manure, like, all of a sudden you’re driving very carefully, and you’re like, why is this moron behind me, like, honking and getting all upset because I’m going so slow, don’t they? Know, I have this pot in here, you know? But if you flip it back to where you were, the person who was in a hurry, you know, it’s just hard to make that switch of, like, why that person might be driving that way? Yeah, right. And it’s, I think it’s a, it’s a it’s a really nice microcosm of, like, that same mentality. When you’re trying to lead people right, trying to understand why someone might be hesitant to do something like it might there’s a good chance it’s not because they don’t understand. They’re just worried about making a mistake, right? But you don’t know that until you start getting to know why they’re behaving in the way that they’re doing. That’s

Chrissy Beltran 30:58
true. Yeah, and sometimes, like, you’ll get lots of questions. I actually mentioned that in an episode, in an episode that came out a few weeks ago, where you can, if you get a ton of questions about something new, it can feel like that’s resistance. But sometimes they are just like, I don’t I’m letting this is what’s happening in my brain, and I’m letting you into what’s happening in my brain right now. I don’t have to, generally. So even if the questions are delivered with anger or frustration, it’s not that they, they’re they’re saying, I won’t do that. They’re saying I have no idea how to even do that, right?

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 31:29
So I’ll share one of mine. Yeah, go ahead. There is an episode. And again, I don’t want, no, there’s not any spoilers or anything. But one of the players says, My father says, I’m in safe hands with you. And I think that’s a big lesson that leaders can take, is that your team, whoever you’re responsible for, should always feel like you have their best interest in mind, right? I think one of I did another podcast a few weeks back, and they asked me what you know the hallmark of a good leader, and I said, someone who can create other leaders. And that even means like, I’ve done such a good job that you have surpassed me, and I’m letting you get a different job, somewhere else, or whatever it might be, or I am pushing you and helping you do that, because I want the best for you, right? And you know, we see Ted do that all the time, right? We see that. We see him push his team, however, whatever way would make sense for them, but always with the best intentions for that person on an individual level, an individual level, and not necessarily just them as a player.

Chrissy Beltran 32:34
Yeah, that’s a good point, and people can tell there’s a quote from Elena Aguila, who writes a lot about instructional coaching. She says people don’t want to learn from somebody who thinks they suck. And if you, if you really are, if you’re putting that out there, yeah, people are not interested in learning. And we, you know, we have, we all have thoughts. We do. We are humans, but we do have to remember, these are human beings I’m working with also, and this, this, if this is like, they’re really trying, like, I have to be patient with that. And and if, if we’re putting out there that we want to support them and help them grow because that is good for them, then they are more likely to want our support than if we try to, like, fix whatever is going on

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 33:20
right, and going back to the idea of being resourceful and understanding, like, what their strengths are, what their areas of improvement are, and I think, and there’s two sides of it, because, because, you know, like I said, when I’m teaching this introduction course, I’m picking up some things that I have in time a minute, and I know there’s this, like, belief, like, if someone has some weaknesses, you focus and work on those weaknesses. And that definitely can be one approach, but another one can be like, Hey, this is not your strong suit, so let’s just put you in a different area, or put you in a different spot where you can focus on those strengths, and we can get someone else on the team to focus on this area that maybe not be your strong suit, and that’s a completely different approach that some people don’t believe in or don’t think it’s necessary, but you could also just leave that person kind of drowning for a while, if you’re just insistent on, like, here, no, we’re going to make this weakness better for you. Yeah,

Chrissy Beltran 34:10
we used to do that as as teachers, you know, we had, there were certain times a year where we would do like, little review counts and things. So each of us would take a certain subject or content a specific thing, and provide and provide like intervention to kids in those areas. And when I was in charge of that as a teacher, I mean, I was, I just took charge of it because somebody had to do it in our grade level, we would kind of delegate responsibilities, and I would just ensure that people, hopefully had something that would align with their strong strong suits, instead of, you know, there are some teachers that were like, You know what? Let’s not, let’s not throw them problem solving. Let’s throw that somewhere else. You know, you just like, you use what you’ve got, use your resources, and if they have a strength that you know you’re going to do, fact, fluency, that’s what you’re going to do. You know, you do have to use what, what they’ve got, and what they’re bringing to the table, because. It’s kind of like they say about kids. Whenever principals tell teachers, the parents aren’t keeping the good ones at home, they’re sending their best, right? That’s what teacher it is. With teachers, the this, they’re bring, this is what we got. They are bringing their best skill sets here, okay, this is what they’ve got, and so we have to work with what they’ve got.

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 35:21
One of the other ones I have here is sometimes you have to do the right thing, even if you lose. And I think that is, I’m a firm believer that as a because leader in whatever industry, right you know, I’m an education but I think in any industry, I think too often, success from a leader is determined by, like, how much revenue they’re making, or whatever it might be, like, what lists they’re on the top of. And I think it too many people see it as it has to be either that or like, Ted lasso making, focusing on making good people. And I think you do both at the same time, you know? And that’s okay if you have, like, these, these, you were just talking about failure, you know, having these smaller setbacks if it’s still the right thing that you’re doing right, and I’m not saying that you should, it’s okay if your entire business fails right, that’s that’s definitely not the point either. But I think it’s okay to take a loss every so often if it’s for the greater good.

Chrissy Beltran 36:18
Very, true. Interesting. Yeah, it’s something to think about for sure, because you can’t control all the factors. And sometimes the best choice isn’t the one you would make if you had all the option,

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 36:28
right? And I think even just from like, you think about it, from like teams playing against each other, like talking about sports, like, sometimes your team just had a bad day, you know, like, I’ve seen that on just like a even as an instructor or as an educator, there have been definitely times where, like, I’m halfway through my lecture and I’m like, this is a snooze fest. I don’t know what I was thinking when I put this together. Like, let’s just trudge through this thing and then, like, let them out, because this is not going very like, that is my own, like, loss, and that’s okay. And then I learned from it, and the next time I teach that lesson, it’s going to be better. And we’re kind of getting away from, like, doing, you know, lose, even if you know, to do the right thing. But I think the same lesson can be, can be kind of the takeaway here, where sometimes, like, it’s just not going to go your way, and that’s all right, like, so if that’s going to happen, then you should be doing the right thing no matter what.

Chrissy Beltran 37:18
Yeah, that’s a good one. Another one that I wrote down was that so specifically for instructional coaches, you sometimes coach things you’ve never taught. And much like Ted lasso, who is coaching a sport that he has very little knowledge of, and what he does, though, he knows about the athleticism, he knows about teamwork, he doesn’t even know the rules of the game. He doesn’t even know the vernacular, but he knows you know how players play games together and win, and he knows how to build a team. And so whenever you’re a coach, sometimes like whenever I first started coaching, I was coaching Kinder through fifth, and I only taught third and fourth, so I was like those little people in kinder and first grade. Well, those are not my favorites, you know. And and I I really had to become comfortable with learning in those classrooms, observing people who are really good at at what they were doing, because I didn’t have that background like Ted lasso says he goes, heck, you can fill two internets with what I don’t know about this sport, and he still believes he has something to offer these people, even though he doesn’t know the content, right? Obviously, it’s good to know content. I mean, it’s helpful and it’s important, you know. But if you don’t, that doesn’t mean you don’t have anything to offer. You can learn that over time. You can learn it by watching people who are really good about it and intentionally learning it. But you have all the other things to offer. You know what good teaching looks like? You know what good lesson planning can look like? You can build teams. You can help people help each other, and use your resource as well, even if you are not the best resource for maybe what goes into that content lesson. So

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 39:02
it’s interesting because I’m using a lot of the examples I pull from some of my workshops here. And I, for those who don’t know, I’m very much into the NFL, into football, and so I use a lot of players and coaches as examples. And you don’t have to know about football to understand this one, but there is a player named Antonio Gates, and he started in college as a basketball player, wanted to get into the NBA. It’ll give you the short version of it. His agent said, I don’t think it’s going to work out that way, but there are some NFL scouts who are really interested in you, because Antonio Gates is, I believe six four is 244 pounds and runs like a four or 540 which That’s absurd. And so these NFL coaches are like, I can’t coach someone to be 642, 44, pounds and run a four or 540, but I can see talent, right? And I can, I can find some like Emily said I saw like, I understand athleticism, I understand the rules of sports to a certain degree, and I can make this work. And I think we should be doing. That more often, right? Finding out, again, because you have to get to know your team, finding out what their strengths and weaknesses are, not just when it comes to their job. Another example I like using is if you are, for example, have an accounting department and there’s someone on your team who also just happens, you get to find out that they love making reels at home, right? Like, just for their own social media, and you’re like, hey, you know what our social media team or our marketing team, why don’t you go work with them every other Friday, right? Like, just take that day, work with them, and you get us, you get them that opportunity to develop that part of something that really means a lot to them, right? But one, you wouldn’t know about that until you get to know them. But two, you have to be willing to allow that to happen, right? You have to be okay with this person not being a part of their normal department for one, one or two times out of the month, or whatever it might be, as a very specific example. But I think it can be really beneficial, both from a morale standpoint, but also just from, like, a personnel standpoint, and understanding what the the way that that team member could contribute on a variety of different levels,

Chrissy Beltran 41:07
yeah, looking at what they have to offer as instead of just what their maybe their job is at this time. You know, another thing that I was thinking about, obviously. So there’s fine that Ted make does believe right? Fix it on the wall. And it actually plays a pretty important role for many episodes. And lots of times in schools, we basically get posters that say, believe them. Get them put on the wall. You know? I mean, we all the time like things like this, you know, whether you can, or you What do you think you can? Or you think you can’t You’re right, things like, right? And then people are like, I believe you can do it, and then you’re just left to do it. And so what I like about the way Ted lasso does this is that he even says belief doesn’t just happen because you hang something on the wall. Instead, he kind of manifests the belief. He becomes the belief. And he’s like because I believe this is what we’re going to do. And so that belief is motivating him to coach in a certain way, and it motivates the players to behave in a certain way. And there is action tied to the belief, because I feel like many times we have like, wishes, goals, things we would like to happen, but then we don’t do any of the actions to make them happen, right? And so he jumps in there, and he’s like, because we believe this is how we’re going to act, and that change that shapes and changes the way that they interact with their work. And I

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 42:42
think the other part, I love that, I love that you pulled that out, because I think that’s a big through line through most of, like, the entire show, is, yeah, he is the catalyst, right? He believes. And like, slowly over time, you start seeing more and more people start joining that crowd of Ted lasso and coach beard, right? It’s them too, right? They are the ones who believe coach beard of the assistant coach, yeah. And you slowly, like player by player, start seeing folks jump on board. And I think that’s really emblematic of what leadership can look like or should look like, right, like, even if you don’t have all the enthusiasm behind you, as you would like, right? And I tell folks all the time, like, oftentimes if you’re getting put in a leadership position, it’s because someone got let go, and so they’re looking for someone to come in and spark some change in some way. But that also means that you are a complete outsider, and people there’s gonna be people there just gonna dig their heels in. It’s like, I don’t care if it’s a good move that you’re making, like, I don’t know you. I’m just, you know, you’d like the example you gave, like, someone who has 30 years of like conflict ready to go like they might not be ready to, like, change directions. And so you have to have enough faith for them where, like, I believe in this so much I’m gonna, you know, whatever you don’t have, I got it. And as soon as you’re ready to take off this burden of belief, like, I will let you have it, and I will be patient until you get there.

Chrissy Beltran 44:07
Yeah, I like that. Like that, sharing the burden of belief. No, because I remember, you

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 44:13
know, whether I’m talking to friends or I’m talking to my wife, and you know, I’ll hear someone say, like, well, I’ve just, you know, you got to have faith. And, like, why don’t have any right? Now, I’m like, That’s okay. I’ll have enough of faith. Enough of faith in you until you’re ready to pick it up in Europe, you know. And I think, you know, I think people, I think we should be able to do that for one another, and for a lot of folks in the leadership position like, you need to do that.

Chrissy Beltran 44:34
Yes, because many of us are very much like I will believe it when I see it. I will believe when I see that it is possible because something has happened, show me it possible. And so we have to start doing the work. And then certain people, certain people will believe because you believe, or because they believe. And then some people have to wait and see. And so if we can start doing the work, we can show that something changes. But if we don’t, those people never come. Around. You know they have to see that. Yeah, they

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 45:02
have to see you match the that enthusiasm in thought and in Word needs to start coming with action as well. Yes. And if those things are together and you have that momentum going forward, it’s going to happen, right? It might not be for everyone, right? Depending on how big of a group you’re trying to lead, they’re all there are almost always going to be some folks who are just, I’m here to get my paycheck eight to five, whatever it might be, or, you know, eight to 330 or whatever it might be, yeah, but I think the folks who can really see that authenticity, because I think that’s the other aspect of Ted lasso that we haven’t touched on too much, the fact that he is, he is Ted lasso all the way through, right, whether it is on the on the pitch, or whether it is in his office, or whatever it might be like he is who he is. I think there’s like a small moment where you can kind of see him get a little heated with Jamie, yeah, in, like the first season, yeah,

Chrissy Beltran 45:52
you know what? He was, like, disappointed in Jane, because he believed he could be better, right? And so I felt like that, even that was coming from a place of you are better than that. And, you know, obviously you can’t yell at your teachers like players. But, you know, I did like the motivation for that I understood, you know, I think it’s also

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 46:19
there. There’s a another lesson that I kind of pulled from from Ted, is that he is always trying to stick up for those who are like vulnerable in some way, right, whether it is like the picture of Keely in the locker room or, you know, in the second season. And again, I’m not trying to do any spoilers, but he, instead of speaking for one of his players, he allows that player to come and say, Hey, like, I’d even preface it by saying, like, usually, for some if something like that happens to someone like me, this news coverage, like, you’re going to cover it no matter what, but I’m going to go ahead and let this player speak on on his own behalf, right? And so I think that that ability to always care about those folks. I think that’s also kind of why he got so heated with Jamie, because he saw that not only are you just being a not great person to your teammates, but like you are really being you’re also doing that to some of the staff who don’t deserve that. Yeah,

Chrissy Beltran 47:14
yeah. There’s an expectation of how you treat each other, and that’s not okay. I like that. The last one that I wrote is maybe not lesson that is like, well, it’s not like all the other positive lessons that we talk about. But this one, I thought was really important, because he at Finally, he gets to a point where some of the things that his personal life. And you know, his upbringing, all of these things as all of us have, you know, baggage, um, they start to wear at him, and he is struggling, you know, with some emotional issues and mental health issues. And he realizes, finally, eventually, that he has to take care of himself. But he, I mean, you know, people do realize this once they go through these things. Sometimes we don’t, we don’t do this. We don’t try to take care of ourselves before the stuff happens. We wait until something happens. And so like Ted is like that perpetually positive person, and that comes at a cost. So sometimes, if we are not being thoughtful about ourselves and how we take care of ourselves, and we’re just constantly pouring into our work and pouring into our work, we’re missing something. And so I felt like that was a good message to walk away with. Is, you know, yes, we do be need to be the cheerleader, and we need to be the supporter. We need to be all these good things, but you are also a person, and you need those things for you too. You need people who are going to be your team, and you know, at that level, who are going to support you, who are going to listen, you know, if you need to talk to somebody, those are all things that that you have a hobby. You know, those are all things that you you can do to help yourself, and you have to help yourself and take care of yourself, because nobody else can do it.

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 49:02
Yeah? And then, you know, like I said, I’ve been, I’ve been strength training for a while, and one thing that one of my coaches, my powerlifting coaches, told me, is, if you don’t take the time to address your mental and physical health, then eventually they will that your physical and mental health will make you take that time. Yeah, yeah. You know, at some point, like you, you that’s going to be due, like that time is going to be due. And so it’s better if you’re doing that proactively,

Chrissy Beltran 49:27
yeah, absolutely. You have another, yes,

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 49:30
I have, I have one last one as well. And it is just, and again, it’s not like a quote or anything, but it’s just the idea that everyone matters. You know, I think from the very beginning, one of the trainers, he says his name and remembers it, and you can clearly tell that his predecessor didn’t, you know, just from that kid’s reaction. And there’s little, there’s one that always sticks out to me, where Ted’s gonna go and try to save this event. And he asked Higgins, like. Come, come with me. He’s like, You want me to go with me? He goes, Yeah, forget the rest. I want the best. And it was just like this small little thing, like, you didn’t have to say that, but you probably made that guy’s day. Then, yeah, you know, these he finds these small little moments to let everyone know that they matter. And it doesn’t have to be like this big, grand gesture, you know, like, I’m just thinking about me personally. If someone like Ted said that to me, I’d be ON CLOUD NINE for like, a week. You know, yeah. And as he says it with his little like Southern charm, or whatever it might be. And I think finding little ways like that to let people know that they matter. You know, one of the things I advocate for in terms of how to communicate as a leader is called Invitational leadership, communication, and a big part of it is it comes from this idea of invitational rhetoric. And one of the basic tenets is that everyone has imminent value, right? Like everyone is just everyone matters. And I think we, you know, I’ve been saying the same phrase over and over, but we lose sight of that, that because of whatever history of conflict we might have, or because we’re tired or because, you know what, all these different aspects of life that are going to get in the way. We forget that this is still a person who matters. And I think throughout every episode, we see that even if it’s folks who are hurting him or being disrespectful to him, he still, still tries to find a way to let them know that

Chrissy Beltran 51:22
they matter. I like that kind of like in those certain interactions, you have to pull your your eyes out of your own brain and see from a different perspective. Because, like you talked about with a menu, you know, we are so caught up in seeing out of our own eyes, then, of course, we are, you know, that’s how we were programmed and made it’s all about survival, and you’re in the way of my survival. But I think that that’s a really good way to think about it, is that everybody matters, and you have to use some it takes time, and you have to deliberately think about, well, what are they seeing? What are they feeling? Where are they coming from, and what can I do to to lift them up, you know? What would, what would be meaningful to them is that small thing that he said, just, yeah, it does. It perks that guy right up, because he’s like, Oh, I, I’m something to this organization, yeah, yeah.

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 52:13
I think people want to know that they play an integral part of whatever they’re doing, you know? And I think there’s, there’s little, small ways, and we can do

Chrissy Beltran 52:21
that. Yeah, their contributions matter. I like that. One time I had a our principal made us sit in a circle with each grade level and each like support staff member was kind of like liaison to a grade level, like would kind of help them, you know, hope, just facilitate certain meetings and would share their concerns with admin and stuff. And so she made us each go around and say one thing that we appreciated about each person at the table. And you know, some of many of them were like teaching things that I appreciated, but I remember one person I had to really like look for something. And I did find, I did appreciate things about it, but they were hard to like, verbalize, maybe, yeah. And so then I found one, and I that I sincerely meant and I shared it to her with her. And then whenever that person came around and and she had been very belligerent throughout the year, whenever she came and had to say something about me, she said, you know, what I appreciate is you treat us all with respect as we deserve to be treated good, and that I don’t remember what the other people said. Isn’t that funny? I don’t remember what those other very nice people said. I remember what that person who had not been nice to me said, because I was like, Oh my gosh,

Chrissy Beltran 53:40
because it had been, you know, it’s very difficult in those moments where you’re being attacked sometimes. And I’m not saying you take it, and I’m not saying you, you know, smile and act like everything’s fine. But if you can hold your peace and you can can be the the adult in the room. Sometimes, when other people are not in a good place, to be the adult, it can sometimes pay off. And that person appreciated that she had been treated with respect, even when she was not always behaving respectfully. And that sounds like Well, then why? You know, but I she she did start to behave respectfully, and she did start to listen to me, and maybe doing that exercise helped her realize that in that moment, maybe she had to think real hard of something she liked about me, you know what I mean, and that’s what she settled on. But then she that’s what she came up with. And after that, things really had took a turn, you know? And so I feel like, if we can hold out, if we can hang in there, even those people that make your job not the place you want to go, sometimes things can change, yeah, but they can change over time. So and I have

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 54:43
one more I’m going to sneak in, because I feel like not that they stole it from me, but it’s something that I’ve done for folks who I know, who I have, some people that are close to me that their success at work is essentially how they they deem they’re successful as a person. Yeah. And again, I won’t give English spoilers away, but there’s a scene where someone is kind of essentially having that kind of a crisis. So they ask this person’s like niece, like, when you think about this person, what do you think of and it’s all these different traits, and it has nothing to do with what his occupation is, uh huh. And I try to tell folks all the time I do the same thing, you know, ask your nieces or nephews or your kids, because even when I think about someone like you, you know, like you are so good at what you do, but I that wouldn’t be the first thing off the top of my head if someone told me, like, what do I think about Chrissy, you know? And I think we, I think it’s important that we, that we find that purpose in what we do. But it can’t be the only thing that we wrap ourselves into, because there are just so again, going back to that idea of our imminent value, that value isn’t only determined by the profession that we have. That’s

Chrissy Beltran 55:48
such a good point. And I feel like in lots of professions, probably hard to do that. In teaching, you feel like you feel like it’s a calling, so that can very easily become your identity. I’m a teacher. I’m a teacher. It’s why you need hubbe.

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 56:01
You get going back to the very beginning. Pick up some Madden if you want to pick up Matt.

Chrissy Beltran 56:10
Yeah, it’s easy to be. I mean, teaching is even a persona at school. You’re miss something, or Mr. Something, or what you know, you’re, you’re not even your whole self all the time. So it’s, it’s, it’s easy to make that your identity absolutely and you’re right. I think that the things that people value about us there probably aren’t even that thing that we do for, you know, eight to 12 hours a day, yeah.

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 56:32
And I think we get caught up in the idea that leadership happens just in the workplace, but I think we, you know, we lead in our household, we leave and lead in our communities. Like there’s different ways of being able to lead in a way that makes sense to us. Yes,

Chrissy Beltran 56:44
I love it. That’s awesome. Thank you so much, Arthur, for sharing your wisdom with us today and for chatting about Ted lasso. I had a really good time.

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 56:51
Yeah, me too. Thank you so much. And if anyone is interested, you can find me on Instagram. It’s Arthur Aguirre, M, L, o, so that’s a r, t, h, u, r, A, G, U, I, R, R, E, M, L, O, I share. Obviously, it’s a lot of that has to do with like mortgage loan officer stuff, but I do incorporate some leadership and communication in there. So by all means, please go over there and follow me on Instagram. Awesome.

Chrissy Beltran 57:17
Thank you for sharing that, because I was going to ask you, and then I scrolled down and I lost it. So I’m glad you remember.

Arthur Aguirre, Ph.D. 57:23
Yeah, please and, and just like a little plug for myself, if anyone is interested in in in Texas, purchasing or refinancing a home, you can also reach out to me there, and I can help you out as well.

Chrissy Beltran 57:33
He’s a man of many talents. All right, thanks, art. Thank you so much. I love chatting with art. I love talking with them about leadership. I love talking with them about TV and movies, because he knows a lot about it. But I really hope that you enjoyed that episode, even if you’re not a TED lasso fan. Basically, we’re talking about believing in people, believing in yourself and and you can make change happen at your schools. If you are looking for something to give you a good foundation, if you’re feeling like you’re floating around, you need some guidance. Get the free jump start course that I’m offering. It’s buzzing with me, Miss b.com sorry, buzzing with Miss b.com/jump Start, and it sends you like a five day mini course, where it will help you figure out your what you believe about coaching, what your goals are, what your personal statement is, all of that stuff that can help you if you’re feeling like you’re having a hard time finding the joy in your work, this is a really good place to start that’s buzzing with Miss b.com/jump start next week, I am starting a New mini series. It is developing a coaching action plan. And so the first episode is a question I’ve gotten a million times, which is, what do you focus on at different times of the year for instructional coaching? And so I’m gonna share some ideas. Of course, there’s nothing set in stone, because every school is different, but this is one way that you can approach it, and I’ll give you some modifications. It’s gonna be your year long guide to instructional coaching that’s coming out next week, and until then, happy coaching.

Chrissy Beltran 59:08
Now that you’ve got so much to think about, head over to buzzing with Miss b.com to grab some free downloads, become a VIBee and check out the podcast show notes. Happy coaching!

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