Shownotes:
If you are ready to discover how to elevate the energy of the collective in the room, you have come to the right place! In this electric episode, Marlon Styles gifts us stories of provoking joy and energizing our learning communities. Plus, learn about how Grandma Watson can inspire each of us to dish out to-go plates of joy. This is a tasty episode you don’t want to miss!
About Our Guest:
Marlon Styles is a recognized inspirational speaker and educational leader. In 2017, he was named a Top 30 Digital Trailblazer by the Center for Digital Education. Under his leadership at Middletown City Schools, the district was awarded the ISTE Distinguished District Award in 2019. He testified before the United States Congress in 2020 to advocate for access and opportunity for all students. K-12 Dive recognized him as the Superintendent of the Year in 2020 for his advocacy and leadership to close equity gaps on a national stage.
Website: https://marlonstyles.com
Twitter: @Styles_MarlonJr
About Lainie:
Lainie Rowell is a bestselling author, award-winning educator, and TEDx speaker. She is dedicated to human flourishing focusing on community building, social emotional learning, and honoring what makes each of us unique and dynamic through learner-driven design. She earned her degree in psychology and went on to earn postgraduate degrees in education. As an international keynoter and a consultant, Lainie’s client list ranges from Fortune 100 companies like Apple and Google to school districts and independent schools. Learn more at linktr.ee/lainierowell.
Twitter - @LainieRowell
Instagram - @LainieRowell
Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available here! And now, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You is available too!
Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.🙌
Just fill out the forms linked above and someone will get back to you ASAP!
Transcript:
Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Hello, my friends. Oh, it's a treat day. It's a treat day. I'm giving you a treat right now because I have Marlon Styles with me. Marlon, welcome.
Marlon Styles: So good to see you. So good to see you. Thanks for having me. Ready to have some fireside chat type fun. Let's go.
Lainie Rowell: Let's do this.
Okay. I'm going to properly introduce you, Marlon.
It will not be enough so I want you to jump in. Marlon Styles is a recognized inspirational speaker and educational leader. He has been named a Top 30 Digital Trailblazer by the Center for Digital Education. Under his leadership at Middletown City Schools, his district was awarded the ISTE Distinguished District Award. He has testified before the US Congress advocating for access and opportunity for all students.
K-12 Dive recognized him as Superintendent of the Year and he is just amazing. There's so much to know and so Marlon, that was just scratching the surface. Please tell us more, help make it better.
Marlon Styles: Yeah, I don't know if I can make it any better. I'm just a normal educator that just loves giving back to people. Marlon Styles been a superintendent, Middletown City Schools the last six years, currently in transition as a partner at Learner Center Collaborative, doing some amazing work as a team in a company with school districts across the country and also a brand new inspirational speaker just trying to discover message that gets educators excited about being in the field of education and serving kids. A lot of gratitude to celebrate today. I'm just thrilled to be here. Looking forward to having some fun with you.
Lainie Rowell: Let's have some fun, and let's start off with the, the question that I like to ask first, and then we're gonna dive deeper into your work and all the goodness you're putting out there.
So, knowing there's no right or wrong answer, Marlon, what does gratitude mean to you?
Marlon Styles: Fun question, right? Fun question. For me it's about people. You started out with awards, but the story behind the awards are the people. gratitude to me just means being able to just sit, I mean, locked arms, shoulder to shoulder, right alongside people and just serve others.
And I've been fortunate to, in my career, especially the last six years in Middletown, to be alongside some amazing educators just working to serve the community. gratitude to me means being able to go in the cafeteria on the first day of school when it's breakfast and it's kindergarten, lunch, and being able to help out kindergartners open up those syrup packets, knowing that it's gonna end up all over your clothes and your shoes.
gratitude to me means being able to show up for bus duty alongside outside some of the educators and just greet students as they get off the bus and arrive to school. gratitude to me just means being able to help a child, to help an educator, an adult, you know, discover the start of a dream they didn't see coming, that that's gratitude.
And those are the special moments that really filled my heart with joy. And I know there's a lot of educators right now in the field to get a chance to do that every single day. It's that feel good moment.
Lainie Rowell: Well, you're feeling my heart with joy and those listening too, and I wanna add those syrup packets are tough and I don't even think it's just kindergartners, right?
We're all struggling with them.
Marlon Styles: Have you ever tried at kindergarten lunch to open up a packet of syrup on breakfast lunch day and then turn right around with the same student and they say, Hey, can you help me open up my chocolate milk carton? That's difficult.
Lainie Rowell: I feel like I've been there and you know, I actually was a kindergarten teacher.
That was the very first grade that I taught. And back then you could have a four year old in kindergarten. Ooh. And that's just not even fair to give them those, those syrup packets because here I am, well, well, well into my forties and, and I find them stressful.
So understood they need secure packaging so that they don't come, come on all over the place. But I love how you gave those very, very specific examples, these moments in a day as an educator that are so special with kids and with adults. And that really resonated with me because I do think it's very easy to lead a distracted life and not notice these things.
But when you are being so intentional and focusing on those very important little moments that are actually really big moments, I think that makes all the difference.
Marlon Styles: Yeah. The cool part about it is always try to do an energy check. Like, where's your energy?
Not necessarily my mind, but where's my, where's my spirit at right now? I'm always try to think about those special moments in time, especially during the school year, where if you really put together this powerful moment and this experience for the people who you're trying to impact, if you take time to really think intentionally about creating that moment and the experience in that moment and the impact it'll have.
It's actually fun, right? Mm-hmm. Let's take convocation for example, right? Some of your listeners might hear this right around the start of the school year. But convocation is a cool moment. I mean, a fun moment, right? We tried to create a standard when I was a superintendent that can it be so fun and joyful, so electric, so energizing that after winter break, people are still talking about convocation.
A 60 minute moment, a 60 minute moment. But can the experience be that energizing for everyone in the audience and the staff that they're talking about how energizing it was around Christmas break. That's a cool moment, right? So you talk about intentional moments. I would encourage leaders, educators, anyone in the field, think about those moments as you stand in front of people, as you sit at the same table with them, and you're doing that unique, really powerful, powerful work together.
Don't forget those special moments to really can energize your spirit, energize the people around in the circle, and really elevate the excitement of the collective group. Those are the feel good pieces that I don't encourage you to think about.
Lainie Rowell: Absolutely. So I would love to hear. And you can take this whatever direction you want. It could be in your role as a superintendent, in the work you're doing currently, or both, what are some of the practices, the rituals if you will? How do you see gratitude fitting into your life, and you're talking about it in these moments, but I wonder if there's any other ways, other tips that you would have for listeners about how they can move to that grateful disposition.
That's what I hear you talking about is being super intentional to get to that grateful disposition. What do you do and what would you suggest others do?
Marlon Styles: Yes. What do you care about? Right. So for me one thing that's always been a practice, personal life, professional life, take the title, position off of it professionally.
I always try to focus on the give back moments, right? And I try to make commitments around paying it forward. Somebody did it for me. The only reason I'm on this podcast is cuz there's a laundry list of people who invested in me to get me to this point in my career. I hope I listened and learn from them and try to apply it, and the hard work is really paid off, but I try to make sure I make the commitment to live it every single time I can as I interact with people to be able to pay it forward.
The first thing that I would share is as you interact with different educators in your community just listen, right? Listen to what their aspirations are, something we practice at Learner Centered, but listen to those aspirations. And really make a commitment to helping someone reach and fulfill all those aspirations.
It's not necessarily about me telling you how to do it. It's not about me giving you advice on how to do it. It's just me making a commitment to pay it forward by investing in you. So number one, listen to those aspirations. Hold true to those, and really try to invest in other people. And your heart will be filled with gratitude.
Number two, what I'll share also is to celebrate, right? When you discover and experience really moments of gratitude, just pause, right? Collect the energy in the room. Engage the people who are present in that joyful moment. And, and recognize it. And celebrate it, and take your watch and put everything on pause.
Throw your phone on the floor and just celebrate that joyful moment. Oftentimes we get in the hustle and bustle of do, do, execute, rip this off, check this off the list, let's go do that. When we have those moments of gratitude, you know, to be able to sit and celebrate with someone who's a colleague, who's a partner, who's a friend who's a teammate it, it just can really electrify the environment.
And being able to do those consistently. That'd be the second thing I would share consistently. Celebrate all those joyful moments. It'll really electrify your heart, fill you with joy, but more importantly, it'll really elevate the energy of the collective in the room.
Lainie Rowell: You know, as you were talking, I was thinking about the listen to and invest in others and to celebrate with intention, collect that energy consistently. I feel like we live in a culture that kind of glorifies busyness, like, oh, I'm so busy, and you know, oh good. You're doing things. You're getting stuff done. And I think what I hear you talking about is slowing down in the best way possible to really honor people and to truly get to know them and to truly be there for them. And then also just, I love that idea of collecting the energy.
To me, I wanna savor that for a minute because I think that's something that's very easy to move past. Allyson Apsey and Jessica Gomez have a new book out called Lead with Collaboration, and one of the things they talk about is, when you're doing that starting, you know, you can call it an icebreaker, but there's sometimes better words for it.
Sometimes there's already energy in the room and then you're like, stop we ought to do an icebreaker is an example that Allyson gives and it's like, wait, you already had that energy going? Why are you putting a halt to that and moving onto something else that might actually diminish that.
And so I really love what you're saying. Nice little shout out to Allyson and Jessica. I really thought that that resonated with me because I do think we tend to, like I said, just kind of glorify the busyness and actually really there's something very special about the slowing down and honoring people.
Marlon Styles: Think about the busy, right, the busy versus enjoying the moment. If I'm busy, then my educator joy starts to diminish, potentially. If I'm busy, then I might get in this mindset where I've had enough. But if I slow down and I enjoy the moment, I recognize the moment we celebrate the moment, then something different might happen that something different might move you from I've had enough to really getting excited about answering the question. Have I done enough? It might get you excited about exploring the potential to take advantage of an opportunity to do something special. More importantly, it might create an opportunity for your educator joy to start to elevate itself.
So really considering the choice in the moment to really think about do I wanna acknowledge the busy or don't wanna enjoy the moment, really could put you in two different mindsets. As an educator, I know which one I prefer and not sure about you.
Lainie Rowell: I'm with you. And it's, it's really trying to savor.
Sometimes it's just small moments. It doesn't have to be like an extra hour or anything like that. Sometimes it's just two minutes, three minutes, five minutes. That makes a huge, huge difference. And lately I've been thinking a lot about this idea of time poor versus time rich. And maybe it's partly reflecting and thinking about heading into this next school year, is just this idea of when we have this mindset of time poor, and I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy, and we don't take those moments to slow down...
I think when you feel time famished, that's not great for your wellbeing. That's pretty bad for your wellbeing. So I think it's heading into the new school year with that mindset of how can I savor these little moments? I still have stuff to do, but that doesn't mean I can't take these moments too.
I love that. Collect the energy, listen to people. So good.
Marlon Styles: Think of your, think of your joy, think of your educator. Joy as an asset, right? If you know anything about value in assets and if you invest in your assets, they will appreciate. So that age old saying, what you appreciate, will appreciate.
Let's attach the word joy to that educator joy. If you appreciate your educator joy, your educator joy will appreciate meaning if you invest in it daily, you invest in it weekly. You invest in it moment by moment with the colleagues who feel your heart doing the same passion driven work that you are over time, your educator joy is gonna appreciate it itself. And you'll be looking up and there'll be somebody at the other end of the stick who discovered a dream they never saw coming. It could be a student, it could be a colleague, could be a family member, a friend. But somebody's on a discover a dream they didn't see coming. All because you're making investments in your asset, your educator joy. It's gonna fill your heart, it'll feel good.
Lainie Rowell: What I'm really appreciating, and again, I'm, I'm in this mindset of like, okay you and I are both about to hit the road and get to have these amazing experiences helping schools start off their year.
And I, I really think I hear you saying you want all of us to find that joy. And it's been a hard few years, but I think we're to the point now where we can really go, no, this is a good profession. This is, you know, not that it ever wasn't a good profession. I don't wanna come off like that, but just I think we're to the place now where I we've learned a lot. We've grown a lot, and now this is what we get to do.
Marlon Styles: Yeah, I mean, every day we get a choice and a chance. You're guaranteed it every single day. It might be your choice and chance that you're giving yourself or somebody else presenting it to you, but you get in a choice and a chance every day to be excited about filling the, the space you sit in with others and around others with joy.
You get a chance and a choice every day to, to take advantage of time, to create moments of, of, of joy. I'm talking, I don't know about you, but I'm a goosebump guy. A goosebump, joyful moment. Not sure if you've ever had any of those as an educator, but when you have those goosebump joyful moments, it just absolutely sets your world on fire and those around you that you're serving.
So as you walk into the start of the school year, it's a great time to not just refresh your educator joy, but to invest in that asset and treat it like if it was your favorite pop, your favorite ice cream, something you gotta have nonstop. But, but really appreciate that asset. You know, protect it, invest in it every day and celebrate it.
Right? Let the whole world know how it feels to be an education and serve others right now. And it's okay to say I'm having a good time doing it. It's okay to say it.
Lainie Rowell: Yeah. And social contagion is a big deal. And so what we put out there others feel that. And this is a time where we're really wanting to highlight those joys, those positives, because we want other people to join this profession.
We love what we get to do. Not every moment. Let's acknowledge that. That's fine. But there's so much good in what we do and I think we really need to make sure and be very loud about the good things because we want people coming into this profession. We want people to also appreciate it when they're already in it.
And I think it's really easy if, if we hear the constant challenges and negativities, and it's not to ignore them, but to overcome them and to also really point out, here are the wins. Here's the really great thing that I get to do today. Even if its opening a syrup packet for a kindergartener, that's a win!
So, Marlon, I feel like you're a storyteller, and I'll cut this out if you don't wanna use this, but I would love to hear, what is a moment in your career that you were just so grateful. Again, it could be maybe from classroom time, it could be from a superintendent role, or maybe even just something you're doing right now.
I'm putting you on the spot, so I'll edit it out if you're not up for this, but if you've got a story ready to go, I'd love to hear it.
Marlon Styles: A story?. Ooh, okay. One year...
Lainie Rowell: you got it already? That's fast.
Marlon Styles: Oh yeah.. It's a people story. So one year in Middletown, hopped online and I bought this flathead, I mean, a full body flathead of Justin Timberlake. I don't know if you like JT or not, but I get down with JT the drop of a dime. I won't sing right now. I'll go back to the story. We bought it and we had it shipped to the office in Middletown, right?
So I hopped on my social media account, took a picture with Justin Timberlake, as if the guy was there in person, and I put this teaser post out on social media, tagged everybody in the district talking about it. Convocation this year we're gonna catch the feeling that song came out and fell in love with it.
We teased convocation around a, a theme for the year about catching the feeling. And JT was the heartbeat of that whole, whole energy and that whole vibe. We took him around the district, we posed him at different locations, had him in a, a suit and tie. I know that's one of his songs. But we, we teased it for like 30 days leading up to convocation.
A special moment. I'm gonna shout out Creekview Elementary right now. Creekview Elementary, the entire staff, right before convocation, they put a video together as a staff around one of JT songs, catch the Feeling, and they had a staff-wide dance around that. So when we talk about moments, right, if you intentionally think about how you can create the vibe in your school community, for me it was a flathead of JT getting people excited about convocation coming back to school, that the moment that really filled my heart was watching a whole staff of adults, whether they could dance, sing or not, doesn't matter, but to come together.
And do something pretty daggone, special dancing around in the hallways, all around a song. When they walked into convocation that year, I'll tell you what, they lit the place on fire. I don't wanna tell you everything they did but, but the singing, the dancing, the stereo, the music that outfits, the crazy hair, the wild things they did that year, convocation, it just really made it such a, a gratifying moment.
Something I'll never forget that, that whole 30 day sprint right there leading up to convocation a lot of fun, lot of fun.
Lainie Rowell: First of all, my heart is bursting. Yes. JT fan over here. In fact, I think my whole house is full of JT fans. You mentioned earlier, if you can put on a convocation that they're talking about at winter break.
I bet they were talking about that at Winter Break
Marlon Styles: Blast. The kids came out and they performed a song live in person, and the staff didn't know they were coming out. We kept it a big secret. We had hype dancers and the crowd staged certain staff members. We swar 'em the secrecy and they kept a big, big secret.
But the tail end of that was this giant performance of about a thousand people in our arena, and the kids lit it on fire as one of the most magical moments in Middie Rising that I'd ever been a part of. And it just started with people. It wasn't me on the microphone, it wasn't the principal on the microphone.
It was Middie's of all walks of life, just lighting that environment up for that eight minute segment. People bobbing their head, clapping their hands, stomping their feet, dancing, singing place was standing up, rocking. It just was a magical moment.
Lainie Rowell: I feel it. I'm smiling ear to ear and I can envision it.
You told that story so beautifully. I can completely see it and feel the energy in the way that you're even describing it. I feel the energy and earlier when I was doing the intro I know people are not necessarily going to brag about themselves so I wanted to give your accolades on your behalf, but you immediately took it back to the people.
And when I say, oh, do you have a story to share? It's about the people. And I think that community that you cultivate, that, you're leading, that you're a part of that's just really, really special. It's contagious and that's having such an impact, not just the staff or the kids, but that that spreads out to families.
That is far reaching. What a great way. And so people will be listening to this... I'm so out of my recording schedule, but people will be listening to this in probably August, so they might not have had theirs yet. Just depends on, you know, we're on a very.
Nowadays we're on a very interesting, who's starting in July, who's starting in August. My kids start in September. But if you have not already had your convocation this year, I encourage you to think of a way to really light it up like that. You know, I spend some time with Instagram reels.
I like to make them, and I'll go look for inspiration. And there's, Coldplay does a concert. They give you these wristbands with lights on it. It is a vibe. The energy that they put out is amazing, but you don't even need those wristbands, right? Even if you just dim the houselights, pull out your cell phones, turn on your screen, turn on your flashlight on your camera, whatever, start waving those things around and then, like you said, Marlon, have the kids if you can, have the music that you can, get that energy going.
Marlon Styles: Every convocation. I started this before I even introduced myself to the staff as their new superintendent. My first year had 'em pull their phones out and we took a five minute window and we just called it Selfie Moments. Right. Could you imagine just the invitation to not have to talk business for a minute and just grab whoever's near you that you probably sat down next to on purpose, because you're just so excited to see your people when you come back.
And for five minutes we just took a bunch of selfies and we, we blew social media up. Community gotta see how excited we were to be back. Some of those pictures, people still hold on today, but some of the biggest smiles you've ever seen, all because of convocation. We took a few minutes. Turn the microphone off and just created selfie moments.
I mean, arms out like this, taking pictures, people hugging each other. Just again, it's about feel good, it's about joy. And if you can create joyful moments your joy's gonna appreciate.
Lainie Rowell: Oh, that's so cool. You can even do that at a staff meeting. Like just turn on some super fun music upbeat that's gonna get the energy in the room up.
All right, we've got three minutes for selfies. Let's go.
Marlon Styles: Go, let's go. And then you gotta go jump in the crowd and take some selfies too.
Lainie Rowell: Oh, that's so great. I love that. I am definitely going to borrow Selfie Moments, if that's okay with you.
Marlon Styles: Make it happen. Make it happen.
Lainie Rowell: That's a great one. All right, my friend. You already gave a lovely shout out to Creekview. Do you have any other shout outs you'd like to give?
Marlon Styles: Yeah. I'm gonna shout out my Grandma Watson, if that's cool.
Lainie Rowell: Please tell us about Grandma Watson.
Marlon Styles: Grandma Watson made two things. Well, several things. The best sweet potatoes you've ever had in your life, the best macaroni and cheese you've ever had in your life.
Best homemade ice cream. The best fried chicken made the best. Right? And I mean, I stack my grandma's fried chicken up against anybody, but I'll get back to the the question, but I wanna shout her out because I think there's a lesson we can take from Grandma Watson. It'll really get the education field really excited, right?
The idea of to-go plates and grandma's house every time you went over there, she was always dishing out to go plate. She always had something to eat and you always got it to go plate. Packed up to go to the point where people were showing up on the Tupperware cuz they knew it was coming. So I like to shout her out because she taught me to provide to go plates, right?
And I believe as educators we should be dishing out to go plates of joy as different experiences happen. As you capture the moment of somebody doing something super joyful to really invest in the community. Dish out a, a, a to-go plate of joy, right? As you're having a conversation for some with someone, make sure your conversations are provoking joy in that colleague and that person and that individual and that student. And give them a to-go plate. Be careful who you give to-go plates to make sure they appreciate the joy that you're really handing out to them. But my grandma made sure every time someone left her house, they had something in their hand they could be joyful about.
I really wanna shout her out because she's gonna inspire a lot of educators here as they start dishing out to go play to joy this upcoming school year.
Lainie Rowell: I think that is a beautiful shout out. I almost lost concentration when you said sweet potatoes, because those are my favorite. A hundred percent. I mean, yeah, like we're both drooling right now.
Marlon Styles: Right now
Lainie Rowell: To go plates of joy is profoundly beautiful and I think that I'm like just really processing it because that's so special. It's not just while we're together, it's, I wanna send you off with this, wow. That's a mic drop.
Grandma Watson man. I'm impressed. I love that.
Marlon Styles: Also. I mean, she was the real deal. I mean, if you not taking care of your business, I got in trouble, Ms. Thornton's class one year in fifth grade, I pulled a chair out from somebody. She called home.
My grandma found out I got in trouble at school. Best believe that next Saturday morning. I didn't get it to go plate.
Lainie Rowell: You gotta have consequences. Oh my goodness. Grandma Watson. I don't know you, but I love you. Well, that was beautiful, my friend and I, I gotta let you go, but I would love it if you could please share how do people connect with you?
What's the best way on the socials website, we want the full, we want the full to go plate. How do we get, get more of you after this.
Marlon Styles: Absolutely a, I would love to come out to your school community and just share some inspiring words as a guest speaker, as someone could just connect with their education community.
You can check me out on my website, www.marlonstyles.com. Hit me up with a message on all social medias, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. Check me out. Hit me up any chance you can. If you just want to talk, if you're just an educator looking, just have some conversation. Get excited for start of school year.
Shoot me a message. Happy to connect with you and get you fired up. Welcome back in the start of school year here to serve man. Here to serve more importantly here to ignite unifier. That's my calling in life.
Lainie Rowell: Well, you certainly ignited me and our listeners and so I am thrilled to get this episode out into the world.
Cannot Wait. I will be sure to put all of your info in the show notes. Make it as easy as possible cause I know people are gonna wanna connect with you. A S A P, Marlon. Thank you for this time. Oh my goodness. I could talk to you forever.
Marlon Styles: Back at ya. I appreciate you having me. I had fun. I'm not sure about you, but you had a lot of fun.
Lainie Rowell: My, my honor. And I really do. Hope we get to chat again soon. And Friends, Marlon, you gotta, you have him out to your district. Have 'em out to your school. Connect. It's all in the show notes. So alright my friends, that does it for this episode and thank you all for listening.
Marlon Styles: Thank you guys. Enjoy the rest of your summer.
