Shownotes:
Buckle up for an inspiring ride! Dr. Pep's honesty and vulnerability combined with his message of positivity and hope make this an engaging and delightful listen. Darrin provides powerful ways to create a culture and climate where everyone can succeed feeling seen, heard, valued, and trusted. Shoutouts to Betsy Parker, Eric Lillis, Jessica Peppard (wife) and Liz Peppard (daughter).
About Our Guest:
Traveler of the Road to Awesome, professional speaker, leadership coach, & author helping leaders gain clarity, walk in purpose, and find joy in their work - Host of the Leaning into Leadership Podcast.
Website: https://roadtoawesome.net/
Twitter: @DarrinMPeppard Instagram: @darrin_m_peppard
About Lainie:
Lainie Rowell is an educator, international consultant, podcaster, and TEDx speaker. She is the lead author of Evolving Learner and a contributing author of Because of a Teacher. Her latest book, Evolving with Gratitude, was just released. An experienced teacher and district leader, her expertise includes learner-driven design, community building, online/blended learning, and professional learning. Learn more at linktr.ee/lainierowell.
Twitter - @LainieRowell
Instagram - @LainieRowell
Evolving with Gratitude, the book, is now available! Purchase here!
You can also get bulk orders for your staff (10 copies or more) at a discounted price! Just fill out the form linked below and someone will get back to you ASAP! bit.ly/ewgbulkdiscount
Transcript:
Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Hello friends. Oh, I'm so excited. This is my first recording of the new year. , will come out in February, but I had a few of them stacked up and now I'm ready to have another friend on who I am super excited to introduce you to. And so we have on the show today, Darrin Peppard. Hello. Wait, I said your name kinda funny, didn't I, I kind of gave you an accent.
Darrin Peppard: No, you said it right. Actually.
Lainie Rowell: Did I?
Darrin Peppard: Oh. Well, I think so. I think so. Take another shot at it. I wanna hear it. I wanna hear it.
Lainie Rowell: Darrin Peppard. Do I say it funny?
Darrin Peppard: Very close. It's almost yes. Peppard.
Lainie Rowell: What am I saying? It's "pepper-ed". Okay. See I was adding like an accent. And it's funny too...
Darrin Peppard: Oh, it's okay.
Lainie Rowell: ...cause I listened to your show. I've heard you say your name. But I I will get that again. So, Darrin Peppard.
Darrin Peppard: Well, I'm, I'm pretty confident people probably get yours wrong sometimes too.
Lainie Rowell: Always.
Darrin Peppard: In fact, I think when you were on my show, you phonetically spelled it out like, like, here's how Rowell. Like, this is how, it's so...
Lainie Rowell: yeah.
Darrin Peppard: And so, no, no worries at all. No worries at all. Thanks for having me.
Lainie Rowell: I just, I try and be sensitive to it because it is wrong a lot and so I don't really care that much. But I, I don't want people to like say it one way for like years and then hear someone say it and they're like, have I been saying it wrong for years?
I have a friend who, this happens to her. Yeah. Her last name has been mispronounced by pretty much everyone we have in common. And I don't know how to fix it for her , so,
Darrin Peppard: oh. Yeah, so, so I, I have a distant relative who, I mean, he's, he's now since passed away named George Peppard, who was an actor forever in Hollywood.
A team, you know, all of that kind of stuff. Actually changed his name from "Pepper-ed" to "Peppard" because when he got to Hollywood, I guess it just, nobody could get it right. So he just gave in, it's like, whatever. But he's like, my dad's, I don't know, like fifth cousin, twice removed. I mean, there's like barely a relation there. But at least enough to where I know the story of how, how, yeah. Everybody called him George Peppard. And so that's what everybody thinks. That's how my name is pronounced and, but I'm not gonna give in, I'm not gonna relent and change it.
Lainie Rowell: No you shouldn't. I said it right at least dozen times off air.
Darrin Peppard: It's all good. It's your first one back of the year. You get a little latitude.
Lainie Rowell: Do I get a mulligan? I'm gonna take it. Thank you.
Darrin Peppard: There you go.
Lainie Rowell: All right. After that let me make sure and introduce you. It will be just a very quick intro and I'd love for you to, to jump in and add more.
So, you are an amazing prolific speaker writer. You are the author of Road to Awesome. I'd love to talk about your book. You're a leadership coach. You are. A host of a podcast Leaning into Leadership, which I was honored to be a guest on. And you know, one of the reasons we both do podcasts, cause I've heard you say this, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I can speak for both of us saying that we love to have guests cuz we get to learn from each other.
And so, you know, when I was on your podcast, and I probably did too much talking. I wanna talk to you now.
Darrin Peppard: I get that. I get that. You know it, it's interesting when I launched the podcast as we're sitting here doing this recording, we're 53 episodes in. So if this launches in February, we'll be, I don't know, 57, 58 episodes in whatever.
. It's amazing. You know, when I first started mine, I don't know what your, what your thought was when you launched, you know, this podcast, but I was like, you know, it's mostly gonna be me talking, and occasionally they all have guests and man, Lainie, I got like that third or fourth guest under my belt and I'm like, I don't want to have anybody listen to me talk.
Oh my gosh, I learned so much. And I, I just love all the connections. I mean, like, you know, you and I, even though we've been connected for quite some time. Our first conversation was when you were on my podcast. Yeah. So yeah, it's been amazing this this podcast journey. I'm really loving it.
Lainie Rowell: I just have so much fun with these organic conversations. I have done a few by myself but I try and keep them really short, and I hope people find them beneficial, but I really just wanna talk to people and amplify their voices. Not that they necessarily need me for it, but any, any chance to get the, the word out is always a good thing. So I, want you to tell more about yourself because I, I mean, I did talk about your speaker, author, leadership coach, podcast, or all that.
What else do you want people to know about?
Darrin Peppard: You know, I think the most important thing to know about me is I am a recovering high school principal. I was a high school principal in my home state of Wyoming. I, I was actually, I worked in that building between my assistant principal time at principal time for 11 years and when I say I'm a recovering high school principal, I say that with every ounce of love you can imagine. In my heart, I loved that job. I think it is the best job I've ever had. I had this crazy idea that I needed to chase the superintendency, which is what the next role that I took, and I don't talk about being a recovering superintendent, cuz that job was okay.
But man, being a principal was just, oh my gosh. It was so amazing. And the relationships that I built with kids and adults and community, I mean, just we'll, we'll get into that later when we talk about where I've seen gratitude, but I think that's one thing to know about me. Maybe a second thing.
I spent 26 years in public education, and even though this is my second year full-time as a consultant, you know, leadership coach and, and all the speaking and stuff that I do, I still consider myself a public educator. I, I got a message this morning from somebody, you'll find this funny
It was one of those like intro. Texts. So somebody that I know texts me, but they put somebody else in there and they're like, Hey, you know, so-and-so meet Darrin, Darrin meet so-and-so, you know, and in the text the person put Darrin as a retired educator who now does blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, hold the phone.
Lainie Rowell: Yeah.
Darrin Peppard: No, I'm not, that's, you know, number one, I'm not old enough to be retired. Number two, I'm darn sure not wealthy enough to be retired. I'm doing what I do in a little bit different space. Than, you know, being in an office every day. So I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a brother, I'm a son.
I'm a traveler of the Road to Awesome. That's, that's what I am.
Lainie Rowell: I do love that you say that and you're a great person, a great friend. I can add that to that now that we've actually had a chance to have a, a couple conversations live and Yeah, we've known each other on the socials for a while, so I always love these chances to talk and you, you have such a message of positivity, hope, and you're really inspiring.
I really loved reading your book. I wanna get into that cause you have big, big news to share about that too. Sure. So let's, let's get to that. But first, let's start off with what does gratitude mean to you?
Darrin Peppard: So, you know what, I struggled with this one. I'm glad you gave me a heads up that, that you were gonna ask me this question because to me it's more than just saying thank you or thinking about, you know, what, what is around you.
I mean, to me it's like, it's like taking that deep breath. You know, just that and getting re-centered on what you really care about and what really matters to you. And then cherishing those things, you know, and actually being able to say thank you for those things. But I think it takes that reentering, it takes that deep breath to really find what we are grateful for as opposed to just some blanket statement of, you know, oh, I'm grateful for this and this and this, and this, and this, and gratitude is, you know, saying thank you. I mean, it is, I'm not saying that any of those things aren't true, but I really think that that deep breath and remembering what you really care about as a human being, that to me is what, what gratitude really should be all about.
Lainie Rowell: Oh, that was lovely to hear. First of all, you said deep breath, the power of suggestion. I immediately started taking a deep breath and it's so...
Darrin Peppard: I watched you do it.
Lainie Rowell: So amazing.
Darrin Peppard: but I was doing it too. I dunno if you noticed. I was doing it too. I'm like...
Lainie Rowell: oh, we were in it together. That was our deep breath shared experience.
I loved it. Layering another shared experience on top of this conversation we're having, but I really think I keep coming back to this idea of like pausing, being present for it to be true gratitude, right? Because it's just so easy in our distracted lives and you know, we're recording in.
Gosh, it feels like my kids had a really weird break. They just are back to school and it's January 9th when we're recording. And so but it was a true pause. I've never done this where, well, not never, but it's been a very long time since I did a true pause where I'm not on the socials at least once a day where I'm not on myself about like, you need to be doing this. So that deep breath and that recentering definitely can happen at any time. But I think also the fresh start of a new year is helping me refocus on that.
Darrin Peppard: Oh yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. And you know, I, I think about like again, yeah, here we are with the beginning of a new year and you know, we all have, you know, new goals or, you know, maybe we're, you know, dusting off a, a new one word or you know, now there's the four word mantra. I didn't do that one. But you know, there's all these different ways for us to, you know, kind of get centered on our year and, and on what we want to accomplish.
And, you know, for me, I mean I say this is what gratitude is, but I'll be honest with you, I stink at some of this and it's something that I want to get better at. You know, so to just simply say, this is what gratitude is, because that's what I do isn't necessarily true. It's, this is what I want it to be.
And this is what I want to be able to kind of grow into more of that, you know, you were, you were saying just before we hit record about, you know, you being able to, Shut it down and, you know, go with the family and just, and just be, and I think the last time I did that would've been about May of 21.
So, I mean, we're talking a while now. And one of the things that I've written into my goals this year I, I think you know this, but the listeners may not Road to Awesome, my company, is totally a family company. It's myself, my wife, my daughter actually does a small bit of our work. She does our email marketing.
She's our webmaster, but I've written into the goals for the company this year, three retreats, and those are like, let's go somewhere. We'll definitely reflect and talk about where we are, adjust course, those kinds of things. But also, let's just do that deep breath thing, you know, let's, and I don't care where it is.
I mean, it might be last time we went somewhere, it was Indian Roxby Beach in Florida, which I would be happy to go back to, but you know, maybe it's just Kansas City's two hours away, you know, or I don't even know, wherever it might be. But just, yeah, we've all gotta be willing to disconnect and step away from the socials and step away from work and that's something that I'm really focusing on as we, as we get rolling here in 2023.
Lainie Rowell: Yeah. loving the, the idea of the retreat. And even though it's not just about location, it's really about a change up and taking that breath that you mentioned, recentering.
Darrin Peppard: Absolutely.
Lainie Rowell: That's so critical. All right. , I'm curious how you're gonna respond to this one, because I think there's a lot of ways you could talk about what you do and, and I would love it...
Darrin Peppard: Come at me.
Lainie Rowell: I would be happy if you shared a story that you shared when I was on your podcast. I was able to sneak one question in for you, but take this in whatever direction you want. So what are the ways that you are experiencing and expressing gratitude?
Darrin Peppard: Oh man. You know, when I think about some of the best stories, the best times when I've seen gratitude being expressed, it's those authentic, just genuine moments that occur when. We've invested a relationship, you know, we invested ourselves in a relationship.
I was thinking about this earlier today and maybe I should have gone back and re-listened to the episode of my podcast with you on there, cuz I don't know which story I told. But I'm thinking about what, what I refer to as just those bamboo moments. You know, the, the thing about Chinese bamboo, just real fast, for listeners who maybe don't know this, Bamboo takes five years from the time the seed germinates until it actually like shows up above the ground.
It takes five years, but then once it germinates, it can grow as much as 80 feet in as little as six weeks. I mean, it's, it's a remarkable plant. and I talk about bamboo because to me it's just this perfect analogy for what we do in education. You know, we invest and we invest and we invest and we cultivate and cultivate and cultivate and you know, we're, we're watering those seeds constantly and we're nurturing those seeds.
And it could be 10 or 15 years later that you hear from a kid and it's a genuine moment of gratitude when they reach out and say, I just want you to know how much being in your class meant, or, you know, I remember when you talked about this, or because of you, I am now doing this in my life.
And it's also one of the hardest things I think about being an educator, because we don't make widgets, you know, we don't walk away at the end of the day and say, look at what we got done. You don't know that for years, and so I could probably tell you a thousand stories, but to me that's kind of where, where I kind of went with that was just all those bamboo moments and here's why I think they're important, Lainie, right now we're, we're at a time in education where holy cow, it is so hard and our teachers are, man, they're struggling and I think about our early career teachers, I think about our early career leaders who maybe don't have any bamboo, you know, they haven't been at it long enough to have had that moment at Walmart or on Facebook or whatever, where, you know, a kid reaches out.
I had a kid reach out to me 20 years after I had him in class just to tell me about how everything had changed in his life and to apologize for not being like, totally engaged in my class as a senior in high school. , it was biology too, dude. I don't care if you were engaged in it, but he's telling me now about how now he's, he's a practicing veterinarian and all this stuff he went through in his life and wanted to reach out to me and just say thank you.
I mean that's, that's genuine gratitude. Hmm. And as educators right now, especially our early career people, we gotta share those stories with them cuz they don't have that and you know, that could easily cause them to say, You know, this is just a job and I don't, I don't wanna be a part of this, and it'll take a while before they get that bamboo.
So anyway, I don't think I really answered your question, but...
Lainie Rowell: I think you answered it beautifully.
Darrin Peppard: That's where I wanted to go.
Lainie Rowell: There's no rules on this podcast. People have even teased me about it. I really love that. I wanna go back to how you even started with it, with talking about the authentic.
you know, when you're authentic and you're investing in people, like you said and I love the, the bamboo. Would we call that an analogy? Is it a metaphor?
Darrin Peppard: Yes. Yes. I believe I always get that one wrong. I was a science guy. I don't know. I got the bamboo part. I mean, if you wanna call it an analogy, this analogy.
Lainie Rowell: We're gonna say the bamboo story.
Darrin Peppard: I actually think it is. Yeah. .
Lainie Rowell: So when you were talking about bamboo moments, which is beautiful. I was listening and I was trying really hard to not go off and think about some of the stories and the moments where I've had that and so intentional in thinking about, we have to share those with those who don't have them yet.
And I think that that's a really important thing. I think that's gonna help twofold. One, it's good for us to remember them, especially in the tough times. Right. It's gonna help them who haven't had them yet, so it's a nice shared experience to be able to reflect on, I didn't think I was doing anything and then this came about.
When we're done recording, I'm gonna go reflect on some of the stories. And I'm thinking about like this letter that one of my second graders wrote. I had done something and I'm not gonna get into it cuz this is your time. But I literally have this opened on my laptop right now because I've been going back and re-reading it over the last few months.
I don't know why, but it just was something that I was receiving gratitude in such a special, authentic way. This eight year-old wrote this really long letter and she was not someone who spent a lot of time on writing.
So that was really special to me. I love the bamboo moments. So I'll remind you of the story that you told when I was on your podcast. You'll know immediately. It involves a wooden box and tape.
Darrin Peppard: Oh, yeah.
Lainie Rowell: See, I got it. Yes, there it is.
Darrin Peppard: It's right here.
Lainie Rowell: So I would love for you to share that with our listeners, although they should also go back and listen to your podcast every episode. But if you would briefly share that with us.
Darrin Peppard: Of course. So it's actually right here in my hand. I love that you brought that one up. When I was a second year teacher, my first principal, Betsy Parker, God love Betsy Parker best, best mentors I've ever been around.
She decided she wanted to do a handwritten note for everybody on staff, and she hid them in our classroom, like right at the beginning of the school year. And you know, I think part of it was, let's see how long it takes them to find it. And two, I think she was just having a little bit of fun and well, mine, I have this wooden pencil box and it's sitting on my desk here in my office right now. But it sat on my desk in, in every classroom that I taught in. And then also every office that I was in, as you know, principal, superintendent, that kind of thing. So she put the note in this pencil box. It was made by my grandfather.
I mean, it means so, so very much to me. And then I opened it up one day, year two as a teacher. And here's the snowe from Betsy and I still have that note. I, I, I swear it has gone through 20 different pieces of tape to keep it on there. Cuz the sticky on the sticky note is long gone. But I still have it and I always will.
And you know, I have many opportunities through the course of my life, even though she lives in Arizona where I started my teaching career and I live, you know, now in Nebraska, I've had numerous occasions where I'm in the town where she lives, and I always make sure I go and, you know, spend a couple of hours with her and invariably that story will come up.
And she tells me kind of what she was thinking behind it and what, what I love about it. And what it drove me to do as a school leader was to do those handwritten notes. I did them every year and I did 'em quite frequently, and I would notice, just like with this one sitting in, in the pencil box on my desk, I would go into teacher's classrooms or I would go into the cafeteria or I would go over into the bus barn or wherever, and you know, that that handwritten note maybe went with a coffee Tumblr, or maybe it went with, you know, a pin or a button or a shirt or whatever.
Because anytime we did that stuff, we didn't just shove 'em in people's mailboxes. I would go in on a Sunday and put it in wherever their location was. You know, I mean, it, it's a few hours out of my time, but, but to put it right in their workstation, put it in their bus, in the driver's seat or whatever, you know, it meant a lot to them.
But I would find those notes. I mean, people would lose the coffee tumblers. The, the year we did coffee Tumblers Lainie, I swear I lost like seven of those coffee Tumblers, . So I know others did too. Yeah. And so be it, it was a coffee Tumblr, but I, I would still find those notes just like this one I have, you know, with a, a magnet on their filing cabinet or under the, the glass, you know, that, that covers their desk or whatever. I mean, it, the handwritten note to me, man, that's like the greatest leadership tip ever . For building community, building culture. It's, it's just like those handwritten notes that you would do on, on papers for kids. They'd go home and they'd go on the refrigerator. Right?
Lainie Rowell: Yeah.
Darrin Peppard: You know, I mean, Do it for your adults. They love it just as much. Obviously I do, you know,
Lainie Rowell: I know. I mean, decades later, years later, it's, yeah. Yeah. We don't need to get to the number exactly, but decades later.
Darrin Peppard: No, no, no. I don't wanna do the math.
Lainie Rowell: So I wanna kinda savor this for a minute because I think there is really something special.
I think we can all appreciate the handwritten, but the going into the person's space and specifically... Now, I don't want anyone to get mad at me about this. There's a time to put something in everyone's mailbox. That's fine. But a lot of times when that happens, , it seems so cookie cutter that the authenticity, even if you spent hours upon hours writing personal detailed letters, it just loses something when, mm-hmm.
I go to Lainie's mailbox and I see everyone else has something in theirs, and so I love the putting it in the space and she happened to choose a space, or maybe she knew that that box meant something to you, but now that box means extra to you, right? Like it's from your grandfather and it's got this note from Betsy.
And so there's something much more personal to me about that I love the idea of the bus drivers seat, right? Like that's what they see when they open up the bus. And so I think that's really special and I think there's a lot of ways that we can do just the littlest things make a big difference, where it's like, no, this is not something I just blanketly did.
Like I thought of you and I thought it would be fun for you to find it in here.
Darrin Peppard: Well, that's the key right there, what you just said. I thought of you. You know, it's. Man, what's the best way I can say this? I'll just, I'll just say it this way. We are in the people business period, right? I mean, the work we do, the product is a person, you know, for, for the nine months that you have the kids in your classroom, your job is to make them a little bit better people.
That's your job. You know, your job isn't to crank out test scores in spite of what some people might believe. It's not your job. Your job is to make a person better. So it's the same with our adults. If we want our adults to make our kids better people, we then have to invest in making our adults better people.
And you do that by showing gratitude, by genuinely caring for them, letting them know that they're seen and they're heard and they're loved in their workspace. And yeah, for me, you know, when I first did that and went and, you know, put stuff in classrooms, it was when I was a school principal, the first thing I ever did that I also included handwritten notes.
I had noticed my teachers at parent-teacher conference and one in particular, and she had this big line of parents. You know, you go to parent-teacher conferences and there's some teachers who get like five people. And then there are the people who make the mistake of saying, oh, I'll give you extra credit, and they have 10,000 people.
And then you have the others who just genuinely have a lot of parents who need to talk to them. This teacher was one of those, she was that part of that group three. And she's just like tearing little sheets of paper, constantly writing her email address down, you know, and, and writing the office phone number down and like handing it to parents.
And I finally asked her, I'm like, what are you doing? And she's like, well, I'm just giving them my email address and stuff. And I'm driving home that night. I'm like, wait a minute. So we're professionals. We expect people to treat us like professionals and we don't have a simple thing like a business card.
It's just stupid. So I had business cards made for everybody on my staff and I went and put 'em in their spaces. And I just wrote a simple, I mean really simple, you know, handwritten note. And it was probably something like, you know, one professional to another, have a wonderful day or just something simple.
And holy cow, the gratitude that came back from people. I gotta tell you this. We were sitting in an interview interviewing for teachers, and we were using my office, but I wasn't leading that interview team. One of my assistant principals was, so I was just in the room and they were interviewing this, this young man, his name's Dustin.
We ended up hiring him, and this isn't why, but when asked, you know, why do you wanna be at our school? He said, you know, I did my homework and I found that your principal was giving business cards to all the teachers. He's like, I wanna be somewhere you're gonna treat me like a professional.
And so, yeah, we're, we're in the people business and we want to treat our people like professionals, but we also want to treat them in a way that they know that, Hey, I see you, I hear you. I love you. I care about you and you know I'm gonna support you.
And just one more thing I wanna say on that. And that's the in their space. It's not just doing the handwritten notes. If you need to talk, and I'm talking to school leaders right now, if you need to talk to a teacher, go to them. Don't ask them to come to you. Their time is infinitely more valuable than yours. Go to them. Talk to them in their space, in their area, on their turf.
If it's a personnel issue, obviously it comes to your office. But anything else, good Lord, get out and go see them. Go to them. You're just telling them how much you care about 'em when you do that. So that was a big rant. Holy cow. That was a rant. But...
Lainie Rowell: I love that though, because that has not come up on this show at all, and I think that's such a, such a very nuanced, thoughtful step that I hadn't thought very deeply about until just now, and I really love that. And just the whole idea of honoring them enough to go to them and appreciating them as professionals and just this respect that you're showing, which is so important. I'm very excited about that and I think that's a very easy thing for people to implement right now. Right? And teachers can do it for students. Go to their desk, don't call them to your desk. Right? Like, I will come to you. I love that.
Darrin Peppard: We model what we expect people to do. You know, that's a pretty simple thing.
Lainie Rowell: Yeah. Oh my goodness. Well, I could talk to you for hours and hours, but I know you're very busy and I'm gonna just ask you for the third thing before we ask, you know, to share how people connect with you.
First, who do you wanna give a shout out to?
Darrin Peppard: You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do just a couple well, I'm gonna do three, but one, you know, all the way through this, this difficult time up until this, you know, year and a half ago when I left my superintendency to be to be in the space that I'm in. I go back to my very first day on the job as a teacher, and so new teacher day.
We'll just say it was a long time ago. And I walk in the room and there's a guy sitting there. I'm wearing a Wyoming shirt. I'm a Wyoming kid through and through University of Wyoming graduate multiple times. There's this guy sitting there in an Iowa shirt and Wyoming and Iowa had played in the, in the Holiday Bowl many years before.
And the first thing this guy says to me, it's nice Holiday Bowl cuz Wyoming had lost by three. And I thought, I'm not gonna like this guy. Now 20... I don't know, 28, 29 years later, Eric Lillis, who is the superintendent of Kingman Academy of Learning Charter School in Kingman, Arizona. Still to this day, one of my very best friends, one of my best confidants.
He's carving his own space in you know, in the education world. But I will tell you, Him , him being there as, as kind of a sounding board. I know we do this for each other. But he's somebody that, that truly just, just really means a lot to me and, and has been an incredible support.
He even helped to facilitate the work we're doing on the new cover, on the updated books. So shout out to Eric Lillis. I wanna shout out my entire Road to Awesome family. So, Not just, you know, the team here, you know, at the house, but all of our authors all of our clients, we've just got some amazing people we get to work with.
Our authors are truly incredible people out there in the space, they are doing amazing things. So I'm really grateful for each and every one of them. And then, grateful for my wife and my daughter too. So there you go.
Lainie Rowell: Awesome. Now, I want you to know I was not gonna let you go without talking about the re-release of your book so you were never gonna be off the hook for that. Tell us about it. This is exciting. I'm so happy for you.
Darrin Peppard: It is.
Lainie Rowell: And I've, I've read your book, Fivestar review on Amazon, Good Reads, all that fun stuff. Actually, I need to make sure I did it on good reads too. Sometimes it doesn't. You know, when you do the digital, it's supposed to put it in both places, I dunno if it did it. I'm gonna go double check.
Darrin Peppard: Doesn't always happen.
Lainie Rowell: It doesn't always and I'm like really offended by that.
Darrin Peppard: Yeah, I know, I know. So, so my book Road to Awesome was released in July of 2020. You know, something that you and I also share in common. You know, being pandemic book baby individuals.
Now yours was like, right when it all started, mine was at least a few months later, but nonetheless, you know, it was released during the pandemic. It, it had a lot to do with me being able to, to move forward in the work that I'm doing. But reviewing through that, you know, and, and you get this, I mean, you, you have a book out right now and you're speaking about it all the time.
And same thing. I have been talking till I'm blue in the face about this book for the last two years, and. There's some things that, that honestly have changed and you know, I, I think the way I look at some things have changed a little bit. I was telling you before, before we hit record, that, you know, here's a book on school leadership that doesn't talk about instructional leadership.
So there's a whole new chapter on instructional leadership and some other things that we've changed. We reacquired the rights to the book and, and now it'll be re rereleased is the second edition. It's gonna be an updated edition. We've made a lot of changes to the book. Not just, I mean, literally cover to cover.
So I mean, the cover's completely different and a lot of the content inside, some of it, some of the really great stuff remained. But then, yeah, we added a couple chapters, pulled some things out, and just kind of an updated and refreshed look at what it means to be a leader on the Road to Awesome. So should be out by the time this podcast releases, it should be out.
Lainie Rowell: Okay, cool.
Darrin Peppard: We're hoping for very end of January, or very early February of '23.
Lainie Rowell: Well, please do me a favor. Once it goes live, shoot me the link and I'll put it in the show notes so people can find the second edition.
Darrin Peppard: I'll do that.
Lainie Rowell: I read the first one. Very happy. I mean, the way you're able to inject your energy and joy and help us do that in our work. That's just amazing and it doesn't surprise me that you wanted to improve upon it. That's the toughest part about a book, right? At some point, it's supposed to go to press and you're like, yeah, but wait, there's more.
Darrin Peppard: You have to let go wait. Yeah, so that's, that's where I am now though. I mean, it's, it's in editing right now and it's, this is weird now too though, because it's in editing, but it, the editing is in my house, so I still have access to it. And there's actually the last chapter I'm still writing. But I know that, yeah, here in the next like three or four days, it's gonna be okay, you gotta let it. because , it's gotta be outta your hands so it can get done. And that is tough. It really is.
Lainie Rowell: But It was already a masterpiece and I'm so excited that you got this opportunity to...
Darrin Peppard: I appreciate that.
Lainie Rowell: ... to refresh and re-release. And also people can continue to learn by getting that book once that comes out. And then also, and hopefully by the time they're listening, it is out. But also you've got your podcast that people need to check you out on.
Darrin Peppard: Absolutely.
Lainie Rowell: So Leaning into Leadership is a great podcast and I am...
Darrin Peppard: thank you.
Lainie Rowell: ...a subscriber, a listener, and a fan.
Darrin Peppard: So greatly appreciate that. Yeah. Well, again, that's been a fun ride doing the podcast. And I just, I, I love being able to kind of bring some unique voices and then also just, just some outstanding voices to, to leadership. You know, I, I'm bringing people who aren't just educational leaders, but people who, you know, are outside of that space.
So it's just an opportunity to learn. Cuz great leadership's great leadership.
Lainie Rowell: Absolutely. And you're, you're an exceptional host, so people get to learn from you and your guests, and I, I really appreciate that. Okay, so I'll put all this in the show notes. What are the best ways for people to connect with you, the socials, your website, all that fun stuff?
Darrin Peppard: Sure. Yeah. So the website is roadtoawesome.net. And you know, from there hit the contact link. Every single page has gotta contact us link. In fact, when it pops up, click on that and subscribe to the newsletter because then you're gonna get stuff from us all the time. On socials, everything is DarrinMPeppard.
Whether that's Twitter or Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok who am I leaving out? Instagram. I'm sure there's somebody else, but, but if there's a social media, I'm on it. And I'm DarrinMPeppard.
Lainie Rowell: Perfect. Perfect. Well, I know people are gonna wanna connect with you, so I'll make sure to have all of that in the show notes.
I am so grateful for you, and I thank you for this time. I thank you for continuing to put great stuff out there and as a publisher, amplifying the voice of so many amazing educators. So you're really putting your own stuff out there, but you're also lifting so many other people up and a lot of our friends in common that I'm very excited about their work too. So thank you for all you do.
Darrin Peppard: Yeah. Well, I appreciate that and thank you Lainie for everything you're doing and just leading the way with gratitude. It, it means a lot. And I'm grateful to be connected to you and call you my friend.
Lainie Rowell: Absolutely, my friend. Thank you. And thank you all for listening.