Positively Leading

S2E5 - Self-Reflection, Emotional Intelligence and Leadership with Emma Gentle

• Jenny Cole • Season 2 • Episode 5

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What if you could turn an unexpected career twist into a fulfilling journey of personal and professional growth? Join us as we sit down with Emma Gentle, whose path from a teacher’s aide to an assistant principal and eventually a business owner is as inspiring as it is instructive. Emma takes us through her unique experience of balancing work and study, and how a pivotal moment in her life—her pregnancy—opened doors to new career avenues, including the creation of "The Grad Guide Mentorship."

Em's story doesn't stop there. We'll explore "The Grad Guide Mentorship," a program Emma developed during her maternity leave. This mentorship program is designed to offer new graduates practical, immediately applicable professional development, focusing on trauma-informed and neuro-affirming classroom management. Emma shares how a digital marketing course and personal strengths led her to create modules that address real-world classroom challenges and the importance of aligning educational practices with children's needs.

Em is dedicated to helping create a new generation of emotionally intelligent educators and leaders committed to changing schools from the inside out. Em firmly believes in prioritising the holistic development of every child and adult. She passionately supports and guides teachers and leaders, empowering them to craft classroom and school cultures that prioritise wellbeing and foster deep connections, authenticity and compassion, valuing these above all else. 

Tune in to hear Emma’s favourite resources for emotional intelligence, learn about her newly rebranded podcast, the EmPowered podcast, and get a sneak peek into her upcoming emotional intelligence course for school leaders. This episode promises rich insights for anyone looking to prioritize well-being and embrace imperfection in their leadership journey.

Did you know there is more? You can access every episode, show notes, links and more via my website Positively Beaming.

Jenny Cole:

Hello and welcome to Positively Leading the Podcast. It's great to have you listening with us again today. My guest today is Emma Gentle, and she's doing some amazing work in schools with kids, with teachers and with leaders and with parents, and I'm delighted to have her on to talk with us. Welcome, mma.

Emma Gentle:

Thanks so much for having me.

Jenny Cole:

My absolute pleasure. Emma does a variety of things and we're going to talk through what some of those are today, but she essentially helps teachers, leaders and parents build their own emotional intelligence and understand behaviour. But she also has a mentoring program working with graduate teachers. She's been a teacher and assistant principal and so maybe, em, if you could just give the listeners a bit of an introduction to your journey and your history so that we can understand where you've come from.

Emma Gentle:

Sure I'd love to. So I actually fell into teaching. I never thought I would be a teacher. I actually hated high school and when some of my friends found out I was going into teaching, they were quite shocked. It was by happenstance.

Emma Gentle:

I moved with my partner to like quite a remote location and I was struggling finding work. At the time I was a personal trainer and I was about an hour from our local town, so it was quite tricky. And we have a smaller town closer to us, that's 20 minutes away, that had a central school and the principal there was my partner's friend and she just randomly messaged my partner and said does Em want some work as a teacher's aide? It's only seven hours a week and at the time I was like sure, like I can't, you know I'm struggling to find work as a PT, so I'll just, you know, have a go at that and see how I go. And yeah, after two weeks in the classroom as a teacher's aide, I absolutely fell in love with the idea of being a teacher and loved working with the kids, and so literally two weeks after I started, I enrolled in a Bachelor of Education through Open Universities Online. Like I said, we were quite remote, so it was great to have the opportunity to study online. And then my hours went up to 14 hours a week, so for the next three years, and at the time it was awesome because I'm quite an impatient person. So I did three units at once rather than two, or sometimes I did four so that I could take a year off the course and I was considered mature age, which I don't think 20, I think I was 21,. Maybe it's really mature age, but I suppose when you think some, you know uni grads are coming out at 22. Anyway, so yeah, I studied for three years my Bachelor of Ed whilst working in the classroom for 14 hours a week, which I really attributed to my confidence.

Emma Gentle:

When I started as a grad, I felt like I sort of knew the ins and outs of the classroom by the time I had my own and I really I always recommend any pre-service teacher to try and get a job as an aid, because it's the best learning that you'll do alongside your degree. So I became a primary teacher, started in upper classrooms for a couple of years and then the school actually that I started as a teacher's aid in I left to go to town, which I was talking about earlier that's an hour away because there was more schools there, more opportunity. So I got another job as an aid for six months in town and then got my first graduate position from there and I spent about two and a half years in Victoria teaching and then a position came up at the school that I started at as an aide, which is New South Wales. We live on the river, so it was just a jump across the river, 20 minutes away. So, yeah, I spent a few years travelling an hour to work and an hour home, which was a bit of a challenge, but, you know, sometimes that's just what you have to do. Yep, and then I spent, I think, eight years at, yeah, my last school.

Emma Gentle:

So in the end of 2020, I applied for the assistant principal position, which wasn't something that I ever sort of had, you know, in my career path, but when the opportunity came up to apply, you know the principal and my partner were both like, well, you may as well have a go, like they've got nothing to lose.

Emma Gentle:

Um, and it was part of the role was learning, support and well-being, which I was really passionate about and I think, you know, starting as an aide, that was always a real passion of mine and something I loved um to learn about. So, yeah, applied and then got the position and then, three weeks later, I was pregnant, oh yes, which was great because we were trying, but I was I'm not going to lie I was a little devastated because I, you know, I actually said to Josh let's just put the family planning on hold for a little bit, because I really want to fulfill these three years. And anyway, that didn't happen. But everything happens for a reason. I don't think I would be here right now doing what I'm doing if that didn't happen. So, yeah, I started in my AP role in 2021 and then went on maternity leave in July and had my daughter in August.

Emma Gentle:

So, that's sort of my education journey, I suppose .

Jenny Cole:

Brilliant. What I love is when I talk to people on this podcast. People either start with I always knew I was going to be a teacher or I fell into teaching or leadership by accident. And so great example of there's no right way of doing it. Yeah that's right. It's about saying yes to opportunities or finding the thing that lights you up and following that shiny ball. Yeah, yeah, definitely for sure.

Jenny Cole:

S o the work you've been doing since you had your child - Did you make a decision not to go back to schools? How did all of that evolve?

Emma Gentle:

Yeah, so I had my daughter in August of 2021 and then the following year, so 2022, I went back after, I think, nine months and just went into the classroom two days a week. I had the opportunity to go back into my assistant principal position, even though it was temporary. They were still looking for someone at the time, but I into my assistant principal position, Even though it was temporary. They were still looking for someone at the time, but I couldn't get three days. So I decided to, you know, decline that and just go back into the classroom, and I'm glad I did, because it was quite a challenging class.

Emma Gentle:

I had taught a lot of the kids before, but we had a few new students who needed quite a lot of support. And at this time, I started working with my mentor, Lael Stone, and I'd heard her on the Imperfects podcast and pretty much stalked her and said how do I become you? Because I love what you're talking about and what you're about. And she agreed to mentor me and it was perfect timing because at the time, obviously, I was a new parent, I was back in the classroom and I was supporting kids with a lot of trauma and I suppose I had in my education journey, as you would know. You know the system has been based on the behaviorist paradigm, so rewards are often heavily used in classrooms to sort of coerce children to behave, and consequences as well, and you know that's sort of what I followed, alongside a very relational approach. I think that's why I love emotional intelligence, because I've always been someone who has found it easy to connect with people and kids and, you know, build those really strong relationships. So that always worked in my favour.

Emma Gentle:

But starting working with Lael and learning of her school as well, based on, you know, social and emotional learning and really connecting with kids and helping them feel seen and heard and safe, I started to reflect just on my own teaching and the current system and I couldn't believe how little I knew about trauma and how that affected, you know, kids' brains and nervous systems and I suppose I didn't really realize at the time that there was another way of supporting children with their behavior because, you know, none of that had been modeled to me. I hadn't been to PDs to learn about it or anything like that, and so I had a real passion for it because it really aligned with my values. And I know at the time too, like I went into a parent not understand, I went into parenthood not understanding. Um, attachment, parenting like all of my friends did say sleep training and all this other stuff that you know didn't really sit well with me and had quite a lot of anxiety because it just didn't feel right. So at this time all of these things were coming together and I was learning more about child development and attachment and how kids learn and how we really need to support them, and so that sort of started to change the way I saw the education system and I was like I need to do something about this because it's just not right. Like what we're doing doesn't sit well with me. And I went through a bit of a process, I suppose, where, you know, I felt a bit of guilt around how I had supported kids in the past and so that was a whole journey. But yeah, it really sparked me to do something about it.

Emma Gentle:

Initially I did a digital marketing course while I was on maternity leave because I was bored. Genuinely at the time I was like, why am I even doing this? I think in my mind I thought I could stay at home and still have a bit of an income. I think that's where it came from and I thought you know, everything's digital now it's going to serve me in some way. I'm, and my project for that was designing handbags and backpacks for teachers. That was my like fake project in the course and the teacher said like you should actually do this, Like this is a really great concept. And you know I was like oh rightio let's do it then.

Emma Gentle:

So all of a sudden, I was going to have this business making backpacks and handbags and then I quickly realized that that is definitely not a strength and I have no freaking idea how to do that. So if you're going to start a business, how about you do something that you're actually good at, that you love, that you're really passionate about? Yeah, and that's where the idea for the grad guide came along.

Emma Gentle:

Initially, I had a course in mind and then I felt that I wanted grads to have the support, so have, um, you know someone in the corner they can ask questions to, and things like that.

Emma Gentle:

So, yeah, I created the Grad Guide mentorship, which I launched in January last year, which it seems like, honestly, years and years ago, um, and yeah, we've supported like over 300 graduates throughout the program and yeah, it's been amazing and that's evolved into so much more. I didn't realize it was going to happen, but I started my podcast and obviously, you know you said you found me on Instagram, started Instagram, had LinkedIn, and then I just started getting messages from principals and leaders and teachers saying can you come and run some professional development for us? And you know we really love what you're about and we'd love to move more towards supporting children non-punitively and, you know, building our staff's emotional intelligence. So, yeah, all of a sudden, I started doing workshops and full day PDs and all these other things and yeah.

Jenny Cole:

Goodness me, I love that, because I am also somebody who just goes oh okay, that sounds like a good idea.

Jenny Cole:

Let's give that a whirl. Let's start with the mentoring and support you've been providing graduates. Yeah, I mean, we know the statistics around graduates leaving in their first couple of years and feeling unsupported and unseen. What sort of support have you been providing and what are you moving towards?

Emma Gentle:

So in TGM we have modules that they can go through. So there's, you know, routines and expectations, holistic classroom management. So supporting children using a trauma-informed approach, neuro-affirming approach, just understanding rewards and consequences, because all the stuff that I teach. I literally got an email yesterday from one of my grads in the program saying this is the most practical PD I've ever done, Like you actually just give me things that I need to know, need to use, and I can go in the next day and implement it and it actually, you know, gives me a result. And that was always a gripe I had with PD. I'm a really passionate person, so I'd go to a PD and be fully immersed in the day and love it, and then I would go back to school and if it wasn't embedded which it hardly ever is, and that's one of the problems I think with PD I would maybe take, you know, I'd take one or two things away and try and change my practice, but it still, you know, wouldn't really integrate unless the whole school was doing it.

Emma Gentle:

And that's the biggest trouble I find with the grads is that I support them in so many ways. They're really on board with the approach. It really aligns with them, they understand it. And then they go back into their school and they have leaders telling them no, you have to put their name on the board or you have to keep them in for detention or start a sticker chart with that kid, or you know, no, they need to be sitting quietly, they can't make any noise. And you know, no, they need to be sitting quietly, they can't make any noise. And you know, the grads are receiving the opposite advice from me, because they're understanding how kids' bodies work and how their brains work and they realize that what they're doing is actually going against how children operate. And so no wonder they have so much resistance.

Emma Gentle:

And I think that's the hardest thing for me, I find, is when schools are on a different, you know, have a different approach and don't align, but they so many of them just feel so grateful that they've had the opportunity to learn this from the beginning and feel like they actually, like they feel more control, Like they know what they're supposed to be doing because they've got the knowledge behind them and the skills.

Emma Gentle:

But you know, they struggle with their wellbeing a lot of them as well and that I think they think that they have to work themselves into the ground to look like they're doing what they should as a teacher, and there's so much. We go through mindset wise and yeah. So that's sort of how I'm currently supporting them, because my work has opened up and I want to dive into other opportunities Now that I'm a qualified coach. I love coaching and so the mentorship will go to a course format at the end of the year and there'll be Q&A sessions offered as well, so they get to work their way through the modules and sort of learn a self-paced you know, in a self-paced option, and then they still have opportunities to have sessions with me, to ask me questions and things like that.

Jenny Cole:

Yeah, yeah, because that's what they want. They want a bit more knowledge, but they also want to have connection with you. So that sounds brilliant. One of the reasons that I've really enjoyed watching you and some of what you post and share is that it's really made me think. So I was very much trained as a behaviorist, as someone who worked in disabilities. It, um, we were doing, you know, aba, which is behaviorist stuff, you know on Yep, but we always knew that there was a prevent, teach, reinforce, and the bit that we weren't teaching teachers how to do is the prevention, so how to provide a safe place for students. What sorts of techniques and strategies can you use to make sure that kids feel so that they are more regulated, so that you can teach them? I mean, we always knew you can't teach a child who's dysregulated. So I guess we kind of did the social-emotional learning by accident rather than by design, and so you've really got to think about what are some of the preconditions before we even get to teaching kids new and more appropriate behaviours. And it certainly has never been a name on the board. Punitive has never worked. No.

Emma Gentle:

No, I just put a post up. It was a little bit controversial, but you know saying, in all my times of, you know, putting kids on verandas and putting names on boards and moving the name down the peg chart or whatever, it never changed their behavior. The same thing would happen day after day after day. But that, and that's just what we did, and I think that's what stresses a lot of teachers out is like I'm doing what leadership are telling me and I'm not getting no change in behavior and I'm so frustrated. But what you said before is a huge of the puzzle.

Emma Gentle:

I remember going into my assistant principal position and two of the kids that had gone into year one, they would just pull the piss in that, they would run around the classroom, they would not listen to me and I was at this like my wits end, being like I don't know what to do with these kids.

Emma Gentle:

But this is my job, I don't. You know, I'm just trying my best. But at the time I had little to no understanding on. You know how trauma affects the brain and they were in stress responses, even though they didn't look at it because, look like it, one of them would laugh at me and ignore me and that's what I would think that he was just being, you know, cheeky and just disobeying me, because that was definitely the lens I saw behavior through at the time. But now that I reflect, knowing what I know now like I didn't set them up proactively at all, we had no proactive measures in place, it was just spot fires and we were just it was just bandaid approaches and that's what I say so often is like leaders are just coming really reactively to take kids out of classes, to give teachers reprieves up, rather than actually thinking about how can we all get on the same page and put in some proactive measures and then learn how to actually respond to behaviour when it does happen.

Jenny Cole:

Yeah, yeah, and it makes me laugh because teachers will say the leadership team just come and take that kid and do nothing with them. And we're like, yeah, the point of them taking them is to help you regulate and get back down to normal and to help the kid regulate. We're not going to teach new behaviors. That's not why we take kids out of class. Um, that's that happens in a classroom with a teacher who's got good strategies. So you've moved, so you're still supporting grads, but you've got this real passion for social and emotional learning. Tell me what that looks like. And you're focusing not only on teachers, but leaders and parents. Share with me this new chapter.

Emma Gentle:

Yeah. So the underlying theme right from the beginning has always been emotional intelligence. I think it's the missing element. A lot of you know everyone wants the strategy. It's like tell me what to do, and yeah, we have plenty of strategies that do help, obviously.

Emma Gentle:

But if we don't work on ourselves and build our own emotional intelligence, we can't support behavior non-peditively, because we get reactive and then we, you know, feel activated and we want to either just stop the behavior right then and there and that's usually when the carrots come out or the consequences get slapped on. And that is just what we've all grown up with because we were parented that way and that's how we were also educated at school, and so naturally a lot of us just fall back onto that. And if we are to help children with their behavior and especially their emotions, because they're inextricably linked, when children are feeling these big feelings, then that obviously influences their behavior and we can't support those feelings first if we're not. We can't support those feelings first if we're not okay with being with those feelings in the first place. And often that's what I find and what and a lot of this is because this is how I felt.

Emma Gentle:

So I really connect with educators and parents, because I've done this work myself and that's where it all started, because I would feel quite, um, you quite heightened by certain behaviors, and then I would get frustrated and then, unintentionally, I would take it out on the kid and get really frustrated and then try and make them pay in a way that would make me feel better, and then I'd start the guilt cycle and it would just keep happening.

Emma Gentle:

And so I am really passionate about helping people understand why they feel the way they do about certain emotions and really helping them be able to sit with them so that when they do want to support, you know, their child's or their student's behavior, they are able to stay regulated and grounded. And that doesn't mean we do every time because we're human, but it's just about having that self-awareness to understand why you might show up the way you do, why you might, you know, feel certain ways about emotions or why you want to suppress them. You know, once we sort of work that out, then we are able to stay in our logical brain and be there for the child when they're having their big feelings and behaviours be there for the child when they're having their big feelings and behaviours, and so all of that work happens well before the behaviour occurs.

Jenny Cole:

You know you're talking about working on yourself outside of the classroom or outside of the office. What sorts of things are you helping people to develop or to become aware of?

Emma Gentle:

Yep, so the two main things that I really start with is just their self-awareness. So I used to think that I was self-aware, but the more aware you become, I suppose you know that's just a natural progression. But just spending time actually being aware and getting curious around your thoughts, your behaviors, behaviors, your feelings, and not judging them, but just noticing that's always the first step is just spending a few weeks not making any changes, not wanting to change things, but just noticing things. And I really love journaling because it's a time where you get to get everything out of your head onto paper. And it's a really great time for your subconscious thoughts to come out on paper. Sometimes you write something down and you think, oh, where did that come from? I didn't even realize that was a thing. Or just talking to someone. Or you know some people like to voice note or talk into their phone while they go for a walk. But just finding a way to try and get it out of your head on paper so that you can sort of think about it. I love to encourage my grads to take time throughout the day to reflect, because reflective practice, especially when you're new at something, is, you know, the best strategy to get better, because we have to notice what we're doing in the first place, and it's not about beating yourself up or going oh God, I reacted to that behavior, or I did this or I did that. It's just more about going. Oh, that was really interesting that that was the way that I showed up. I wonder why. And then spending some time thinking about why Some people say you don't have to know why, you just need to know that you're doing it and then it can change it.

Emma Gentle:

But for me personally, I like to know why. It doesn't mean it doesn't change what you do next. But I like to know, because it just helps me understand why I might show up that way. And then I can lean into the self-compassion and be like, well, yeah, no, you know, no wonder you showed up that way, like you weren't. You weren't allowed to cry, you weren't allowed to get angry when you're a kid. So when a kid does that in front of you, it brings up all these emotions inside of you from when you're a child. So of course you feel that way. I think it's really important that we do look at why.

Jenny Cole:

I agree, we've got a bunch of narratives in our head and unfortunately, we've dragged them with us from childhood. I'm a lot older than you and I'm not quite at the children must be seen and not heard, but there were very strong rules around what children were allowed to do, and so by the time I became a teacher, I was bringing all of that baggage with me from a father who's a great deal older again. So you know we bring all of that. You know we do. I look now and think, god, I made these kids sit for so long, these boys who just needed to get stuff out, and I'd be like gosh, you need to sit.

Jenny Cole:

This is school and I'm like yeah, these are humans who are dysregulated.

Emma Gentle:

They need to move yes, but oh, if we only knew what we knew now. Right, that just goes for everything. I'm sure 50 years I'll be saying the exact same thing, like oh God, things have changed again so much. But I think that's why the self-compassion element is so important, and I always, you know, I love saying you know, give yourself and others the most generous assumption, because we all are just doing the best we possibly know how. And I truly believe if people knew how to do better, that they would know how, and I truly believe if people knew how to do better, that they would. And so that's just part of the journey.

Emma Gentle:

And then we move into actual emotional regulation, so understanding how emotions feel in our body, what comes before, what comes after, and and then employing strategies to be able to feel the emotion. We have so many people who are going around trying to skip that part, and that's what leads to chronic illness and so many issues. So that's a huge part of it is just feeling into the actual emotion so that we can let it wash over us like a wave. That's what emotions are designed to do, but that's not how we've been taught. So that's a huge skill in itself that takes a long time to cultivate.

Jenny Cole:

It certainly does, and if people have been listening to this podcast for a while, I've probably told this story a hundred times. I was 40 something before I realized that emotions were called feelings, because you felt them. You think they actually happened in your body and they were, you know, those little pre-warnings that something was about to happen, either joyful or upsetting, but they were feelings and we felt them. And when we felt them, then we could start thinking about them and assigning a story to them and letting them wash over us and all of those sorts of things. And my friend and yours, brené Brown, taught me that. So you know, cheers to Brené. I know you're a Dare to Lead facilitator as well, aren't you?

Emma Gentle:

I have done the training, yeah.

Jenny Cole:

Yeah, Brilliant, Brilliant. I just want to ask about the paradox around sort of self-reflection, because most of us are pretty clueless and also a little bit you know. You don't know what you don't know, and how do you get people to self-reflect in a way that's truthful and honest? Is it just by starting and getting better at it, or you know how do you get people to self-reflect?

Emma Gentle:

Hmm, that's a good question. I think that it doesn't matter how it goes in the beginning, as long as you do start, but I think you do need some guidance around it. I feel that I built this skill really early on because I grew up riding horses and training dressage. So you know the horse was not going wrong unless the rider was doing something wrong. So I had to be very reflective and very brutally honest with myself in you know how what I was doing and how I was showing up was affecting the horse, and I always took that mentality into teaching. So you know, we all have an ego and that's what keeps us safe, and I think that that is what blocks a lot of people from reflecting honestly. However, it's because often when we grow up, you know if we have received a lot of people from reflecting honestly. However, it's because often when we grow up, you know if we have received a lot of criticism and we've felt a lot of shame and we attach a lot of shame to things and make it mean something about ourselves, then self-reflecting can be like a really dark place that people don't want to go into, because you know we are meaning makers and so often that's sort of what I teach to the grads is that we all, like you said earlier, carry these narratives and these belief systems around things and we can choose what we make things mean. And often we don't get taught that skill either, because we just think that, well, this is how we grew up and these are my belief systems, so they just have to stay like that. And so that's something we talk about is that your belief systems can change at any moment and you can also attach whatever meaning to whatever you want. So when we are looking at the reflective practice process, it's about you know, reflecting on, maybe how you showed up or what went well, or maybe what didn't go well, you know, and just focusing on one area at a time and then just getting curious around it. So, like you know, why might that be happening? Why did I react that way? How can I respond better, or what can I do different next time, or what can stay the same, because I'm doing that really well, I think.

Emma Gentle:

Often I have a lot of ambitious grads who are continually wanting to improve, and I relate to that because that was me so often. I'm asking them to also reflect on what they're doing really well. So that's part of we actually have reflection templates in TGM that help them reflect either daily, weekly or like the term wrap up, and one of the first things is like what am I doing really well? Because I think it's really important to acknowledge how far you come and what you're doing well.

Emma Gentle:

Otherwise, you're always thinking that if I just do this, if I just do this, you know, then I'll feel this certain way, but we never get to that point because we're always wanting to learn more, which is awesome. So, yeah, I think it's just about getting started remembering that you do have an ego that's there to keep you safe, and that a lot of the coaching I do with people, too, is going back into childhood to understand why they might attach shame to things or why they might attach certain meaning to things. And it always makes sense when you know you end up talking about either how you were parented or you know just your environment, and that, I think, really helps people move forward with their reflection in a self-compassionate way.

Jenny Cole:

Yeah, I agree. You've talked a couple of times about self-compassion. Talk to me about what that is and how we might do it as educators.

Emma Gentle:

It's funny because this is the biggest skill that I've had to learn, because I've always been really hard on myself and that skill has gotten me, you know, to many places, which is great, but I've always also always felt that it's held me back a little bit because I haven't um, I've, you know, always beat myself up about something or I want to do things perfect or right or whatever, and obviously that comes from my conditioning and the belief systems that I picked up throughout school. But I actually I can complete EQ assessments now on parents and leaders. It's a really great tool.

Emma Gentle:

And when I did my own, I came out really low in empathy and I was like that's not me, like I cry at ads, like I'm the most empathetic person, I feel, like I genuinely feel other people's pain. And my assessor was like, what about for yourself? And I was like, oh yeah, maybe that's why, because my own empathy for myself, so my self-compassion, you know I was really low in because I really did, you know, beat myself up a lot of the time. So if we, we really need to lean into that self-compassion and give ourselves love and forgive ourselves when we make mistakes, because we are human and again, I find that a huge part of my coaching with people is going back to understand why maybe they can't give that to themselves yet and how we can start to give ourselves that love and that acceptance you know along the way.

Jenny Cole:

It aligns beautifully.

Jenny Cole:

And this is where coaching is just fantastic is because a coach can provide a bit of a mirror and some feedback about the words that you're using, the phrases you keep saying, you know, to poke you a little bit and ask you those uncomfortable questions.

Jenny Cole:

But this takes me back to the work that I do on on confidence and perfectionism and all of those things, all of those good girl um conditioning. You know, all the way through school girls are given positive reinforcement for getting things right and we we just launch into our lives thinking I've got to get this right, I've got to do this well, I've got to make this look good and I've got to smile and do all of the right things. And if we're not careful, that becomes perfectionism, which gets in the way of our confidence and all of the rest of it. And the antidote to all of that is self-compassion, which is I can't possibly get it right. Teaching is a hard job. I did the best I could today. I made the wrong decision as a leader or as a parent, and you can beat yourself up or you can say doing the best I can with what I've got, try to do better tomorrow, exactly.

Emma Gentle:

Exactly One of my coaching clients. One of her tasks the other day was to go and do something she's not great at. So she went bowling and I was like just see what happens If you suck at something, because nothing bad's going to happen.

Jenny Cole:

No, it doesn't. And one of my coaching clients just recently is going through a really interesting time in her corporate job Interesting as in lots of redundancies that she's responsible for and I asked her a couple of questions and she's so empathetic but it was all about everybody else, as long as the people in the business get some stability, as long as they, as long as they. And I kept saying but what do you need? I just need this to go right. No, no, no, what do you need? And she really couldn't articulate it because, again, I think we're conditioned to put everybody else first and if you're a teacher and a mum and a female, you are putting everybody before yourself and sometimes that way.

Jenny Cole:

But a bit of self-compassion doesn't go astray. Any tips for how to be just a little activity, to to remind yourself to be self-compassionate, or how to be self-compassionate?

Emma Gentle:

yeah, I just put up a post actually about going into a shame spiral because I made a mistake the other day and I I did, I felt absolutely sick, like, and then I started going Emma, how could you do that? Like, you know so much better than that? You idiot pretty much. And I did, I felt absolutely sick and then I started going Emma, how could you do that? You know so much better than that? You idiot pretty much. And I was beating myself up and I let myself sit in that for a little bit and then I decided to change the way that I was viewing that situation, because I always like to think if my partner or if my sister or someone close to me came to me with that that same you know circumstance, what would I say to them? And then that's what I do to myself or say to myself.

Emma Gentle:

So, you know, instead of beating myself up, or you know, I got the shame stick out for a little bit, and that's fine because it allowed me to sit in those feelings, because everyone wants to rid the unpleasant feelings, but all feelings are there to help us.

Emma Gentle:

It's all data, and so it's really important not to skip those feelings and to really just sit in them and feel them and then, when you're ready to move through them and to sort of change the way that you're thinking about this scenario, you can. So I don't recommend trying to quickly skip over that part and be like toxic positivity everything's fine, I'm fine, you know, whatever because that's what causes so many more issues. So, yeah, I just allowed myself to sit in that for a bit and then decided that it's not helpful for me to sit here and continue to beat myself up, and I wouldn't want that for my daughter, I wouldn't want that for anyone else. So and that's sort of the motivation that really drives me to then change and then over time, you know, our brain starts to rewire and that's just our automatic response. When we muck up, we acknowledge it, we sit in those unpleasant feelings and then we choose to love ourselves anyway because we're human.

Jenny Cole:

Oh, that is such brilliant advice because it is so easy to turn to the fridge or open another bottle or do a scroll, and I'm sure there was a bit of doom scrolling happening. You're allowed to do that for a little while.

Emma Gentle:

The chocolate comes out still. That's still one of my strategies, that sometimes helpful, sometimes not so helpful.

Jenny Cole:

Sometimes not so helpful, but knowing that that's you know, you can sit eating that chocolate, knowing that you're in a shame spiral and then still working through the process. So again, we don't have to beat ourselves up and say, oh, you shouldn't be doing this, or you shouldn't be doing that, you shouldn't should on yourself. You should just let those feelings be what they are.

Emma Gentle:

Yep totally I like to remind to all the people that I work with is that our behaviour serves us at some point in time. So all those perfectionist behaviours, all of those behaviours that we see as not ideal, they serve us at some point in time. So we need to thank them for actually helping us through scenarios, because that's why, you know, we started behaving that way, because it helped us at the time, and I think that's where the self-compassion and awareness comes in is like okay, this behavior helped me for a certain period of time, but now it's not so helpful, so how can I acknowledge that and choose a new behavior?

Jenny Cole:

and that, again, is the crossover between the sort of behavior approach that you're recommending a more compassionate, compassionate behaviour approach and the more functional. But it's the same thing. Behaviour has a function, it serves us, it's to get us something or get away from something, and being aware of what it's trying to get us to or get us away from is key. And then, yeah, noticing what you're doing, noticing where you go, and then being kind to yourself. Exactly, talk to me about I'm thinking now more about leaders in schools. They've got really busy jobs. They're, you know, managing staff in a really difficult time to find staff. You know kids are whatever. Is there anything in particular that they could do or how are you supporting them in this, using this work?

Emma Gentle:

I think that right now more than ever, people need to lean in rather than lean out, because when things get hard, often we just, you know, we want a solution right away and we just want it to go away. And we need to do the opposite. We need to come in closer and connect and be closer. So I think, like having emotionally intelligent staff right now is like one of the most important things that you can, you know, do in your school is to support your staff, to build their emotional intelligence so that they can handle the stress and so that they can feel present and connect and really prioritize what's important in schools at the moment. I think that you know what it's like in education. It's like let's put this on top and this on top and this on top and I saw a post from Edutopia this morning. It was like we need to have the subtraction mentality or something where it's like what are we taking away? And 100%, let's strip it back and go back to basics and really think about what we're doing in our schools. That's important because your staff will not be happy, students will not learn if they are just stressed, stressed, stressed to their eyeballs. I don't care if it's the newest thing and you shouldn't be doing it in your school. Who cares, honestly, if you look around and everyone is just unhappy like wellbeing.

Emma Gentle:

At the moment we have so many students with mental illness and it starts with our adults. If they're not well, our kids can't possibly be well. So let's support our leaders to actually, you know, help them delegate and feel more anchored and grounded in schools. Everyone get around one another. It doesn't matter if it's your role or not, if you have capacity to hold someone's hand or to, you know, put your arm around someone's shoulder and say, hey, I can help in this way, like that's what people need right now. It's's everyone banding together. It doesn't matter what your title is. I think everybody can lead in a school and because I think too, these times where everyone feels really stressed, they start to move into the judgment rather than self-compassion, so everyone starts to judge others and that is just not helpful. So I think leaning in and sort of getting around each other is really important and just connecting. Like when was the last time you all just sat around and just connected? Yes, without a purpose.

Jenny Cole:

It's whatever day today, and we have to dress up in whatever colour, we have to Just actually connected. I wrote connected, belonging and community. And so, as mammals, that's what we want. We want to know that we belong, and that's the attachment stuff. We want to know that we're cared for, we want to know that you know that we're part of the tribe. And if we don't feel that, that's when we get anxious and that's when our mental health and our wellbeing starts to spiral.

Emma Gentle:

Yeah 100%.

Jenny Cole:

You've been a teacher and a leader and now consulting and coaching in this space. What's your favourite go-to resource? What's your favourite reading? What do you love to watch or follow that maybe other people could watch or follow?

Emma Gentle:

Hmm, I love podcasts. That's why I had to start my own, the Imperfects podcast. I've learned so much through that podcast and I don't think I've missed an episode in like I don't know how many years they've been out six, seven, eight, I don't know. Um, I love that podcast and any of Brene Brown's work. Like, she's amazing. She has a book for everything, so absolutely recommend that. If you want to learn more about emotional intelligence, atlas of the Heart is a really good one of hers. Yeah, mark Brackett has a really great book called Permission to Feel. Yeah, any of my work.

Emma Gentle:

So my podcast, which I've just rebranded from let's Get Schooled to the Empowered podcast. So my first episode comes out today, which is the 1st of August, and I have an emotional intelligence course coming actually at the end of August and it's a self-paced course or you can sign up. There's group coaching round as well. So if you want a little bit more support and to be a little bit more personalised and to be able to have access to me, there's group coaching. There's also a VIP option where you can add in one-on-one coaching as well, which would be perfect for leaders in schools to really learn more about behavior and how that links in with emotional intelligence.

Emma Gentle:

But yeah, do you know what? What's her name? I can't think of her name, but the term infobesity. That's something that I've absolutely experienced since starting my business. Like because I'm an overachiever I tend to be I got into the habit of like just over consuming, so I was reading books, I was listening to podcasts, I would scroll social media and save posts which I'd never look at it again, like we all do do. But just so much in the last 18 months that I've had like a full detox because I hit a wall and almost burnt out. I think you can overdo it with the information, like if you are just trying to learn something from everywhere.

Jenny Cole:

Sometimes it just gets a little much so I think that's a really big yeah, I agree, and I quite often see people posting this is the book I read this weekend. I'm like oh God, don't read school books on the weekend, Read something different.

Emma Gentle:

Go outside in nature, yeah exactly, I love the imperfects.

Jenny Cole:

I wish they would just shut up and make it a bit shorter.

Emma Gentle:

Well, I still travel an hour, so it always suits me.

Jenny Cole:

Um, I will link to those and your course. Um, so this podcast will probably be out just about the same time your course launches, so that'll be perfect timing amazing thank you yeah, I would love people to listen to your empowered podcast. I listen to let's get schooled, because it's shorter than the imperfect, so thanks for that my pleasure.

Emma Gentle:

Um note taken.

Jenny Cole:

Thanks for the feedback is there any final thing that we've not talked about that you'd like to mention before we leave today?

Emma Gentle:

I think anyone listening who is an aspiring leader just remember that you're not supposed to know everything and that's just the journey. Like I think, people think they have to be super prepared and look. Admittedly, that's why I'm so passionate about emotional intelligence. If you can really start there, it's going to serve you in every area of your life. But you don't have to know everything about everything to be awesome. You just have to have the willingness to have a go and that ability to self-reflect and not make it mean something about yourself.

Jenny Cole:

Yeah, beautiful advice, Em Gentle, thank you so much for joining me on Positively Leading today. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. I've had a blast.