June's 20/20 Hindsight

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I got pink-slipped in February.

You would think a person with two decades in public schools, a cute little doctorate, a cute little book, and a cute little nonprofit she built from scratch would be fine.

You would think.

I still believe that careers are mostly dumb luck.

There is luck in timing. There’s the luck of the draw on whether the job posting was real or already promised to someone’s former colleague’s cousin. Or whether the person across the table understands what you actually do or just sees words like “leadership,” “coaching,” and “professional development” and decides you are probably exhausting (I am).

But I think it is more profound than luck.

Careers are not just ladders. They are belief systems.

I have watched people race toward the district office like it is the safe house at the end of the apocalypse…like if you can just get far enough away from the cafeteria duty, the parent phone calls, the sub shortages, the teacher tears, or the hallway chaos, then maybe you have made it. You are safe. You are successful. You have finally arrived.

But the ladder does something weird to us if we are not careful. It convinces us that proximity is something to escape instead of something to honor.

And I almost believed it again.

Early in the process, I got to the final round for a role at a tech company doing “people work,” whatever the hell that means.

And I could feel myself trying to make the story make sense.

Maybe this is the next level. Maybe this is how I prove the model works beyond education. Maybe this is what it looks like to hit the “ceiling” for someone in professional development. Maybe I am not really a school person anymore… Maybe I am a “people” person.

Underneath all of that, a quieter, more dangerous belief was forming: Maybe the work I have given my life to is too small for me now.

Whew. That one makes me want to throw up a little. It is not true, and it was never fucking true.

Systems teach us things, even the systems we love and are trying to change. They teach us that status means being farther away from the problem. They teach us that credibility comes from leaving the room where the work is hardest. They teach us that if you are still close to the mess, you may not have “made it” yet.

And that belief almost got me.

I never wanted to abandon my mission. I was just scared. Rejection makes you start auditioning for lives you do not even want. When a door closes, you will sometimes sprint toward any open one just to prove you are still wanted.

But thank God for the closed doors. Thank God for the rejections. Thank God for every “we went in another direction” that kept me from going in the wrong one.

Because the truth is, I do not need to prove that Burn the Script works in other industries. I know it does. It is not magic. It is not niche. It is not a cute education trick. It is what happens when human beings are under pressure, and their old beliefs start driving the bus.

Of course it works in other industries. It is called being human.

But my mission is not to chase abstraction. My mission is to serve the children of my city. Period.

So please enjoy this small thank-you note for my rejections.

Thank You, Rejections

You hurt my feelings.
You bruised my ego.
You made me spiral in ways I will pretend were intellectually productive.

But you also gave me something back. You gave me disruptive clarity. You reminded me that the point was never to prove I could leave. The point was to choose, again, where I belong.

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Burn the Script Live

Burn the Script Live will NOT meet this week because I am trying not to lose my money at the St. Louis backgammon tournament. We will be back next week. Make sure to order your book now so you can jump into the practice.

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Congratulations to you!

Congratulations. You survived part 1 of the great EduCoach subscriber purge.

I made the slightly brutal but necessary decision to remove some folks from this list—not because I enjoy clicking “delete” like a tiny tyrant, but because I want this community to reflect the people who are actually here, actually reading, and actually connected to the work.

As EduCoach grows and potential partnerships enter the conversation, I want to remain honest about the size and strength of this community. Inflated numbers may look impressive, but they do not build trust. Real people do.

So if you are still here, thank you.

You are officially part of the “made the cut” crew, which is either meaningful or deeply concerning, depending on how you feel about my inbox energy.

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Most Popular Action Step

Still going a little off the rails on literacy this month. But here’s something that resembles an action step.

@educoachbyjoAny other strategies to build in knowledge without side-questing? #educoachbyjo #microlearning #literacy #reading #scienceofreading

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Love,

Jo