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This is your Morning Boost, recorded in the forward Ed
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Network studios, a weekly spark for educators and school leaders
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ready to lead, teach, and live with greater intention. This
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is your morning Boost.
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Good morning, everybody, Welcome back to your morning Boost. One
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of the biggest surprises I had when I first became
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a school leader was realizing that explaining something well doesn't
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necessarily mean people understood it. As teachers, we spend our
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careers trying to make ideas understandable for students. We check
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for understanding, we ask questions, we reteach when necessary. Then
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we become administrators, and somewhere along the way, it's easy
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to start believing that if we've said something clearly in
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a staff meeting, or if we put it in an email,
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then we've done our part. If people don't understand it
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after that, well maybe they just weren't listening. I've come
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to think of this different. I think one of the
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most important responsibilities of leadership is helping people picture what
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success actually looks like. Because here's the reality. Words don't
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create consistency. Shared understanding does. And I've learned that lesson
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more than once. One experience in particular, has stayed with
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me several years ago, I was part of implementing a
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new PBIS style behavior system, and this was in an
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eighth and ninth grade building, and looking back, I think
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it was a really good system. Eventually it became a
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very important part of how we taught behavior instead of
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simply just reacting to it. It gave us more consistency
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as a staff, and students understood expectations better, teachers had
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common language, and overall it made our building stronger. But
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the rollout wasn't nearly as smooth, not because the ideas
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were wrong, because the language certainly was. When we designed
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the system, the room was full of educators, and educators
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have a language all their own. We talked about behavioral expectations, interventions, reinforcement,
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student ownership, tiered supports positive behavior, and all of those
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words made perfect sense to everyone in the room. Nobody
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in the room needed an explanation. We all shared the
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same background knowledge. Then we introduced the plan to our
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students and parents. That's when I realized something. We hadn't
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written the plan for students. We'd written it for educators.
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Our families don't speak education ease, our students certainly don't either.
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To them, many of the words we thought were perfectly clear,
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we're really just educational jargon. And here's the interesting part
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the plan itself. It wasn't the problem. The language was.
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We had confused familiar language with understandable language, and those
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are not the same thing. I think that's something that
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experts struggle with in every profession. The longer we work
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in something, the easier it becomes to forget what it's
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like not to know the vocabulary. We skip steps, We
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used tons of acronyms, We assume background knowledge, and not
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because we're trying to confuse people, because we've become so
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fluent that we don't even notice we're doing it anymore.
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Schools are no different. Think about a word like respect.
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Every school I've ever worked in has talked about respect.
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Every parent wants respectful children, every teacher wants a respectful classroom,
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Every administrator wants a respectful culture. It's one of the
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most common expectations you'll hear in education. But here's the question,
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what does respect actually look like? What does the word mean?
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I'm not asking for a definition. What would I actually
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see if I walked into your hallway during passing time?
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How would I know students were being respectful. If I
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walked into a classroom during group work, what would respect
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sound like? If two students disagreed with each other, what
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behaviors would tell me they were still being respectful. It's
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a different conversation because now we're moving beyond vocabulary. We're
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creating a picture, and pictures are much harder to misunderstand
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the labels. That realization changed the way I think about expectations.
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I no longer assume that because everyone nodded during the presentation,
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everyone is imagining the same thing. Instead, I ask a
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different question, can people picture success? Because if they can't
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picture it, they probably can't consistently produce it. And I
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think that's where leadership begins. We're going to take a
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quick break here, but when we come back, I want
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to talk about one question that has changed the way
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I communicate expectations with both staff and students. So hang on,
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we'll be right back.
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This segment is sponsored by Grunmeyer Leader Services. Since twenty thirteen,
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the Midwest, specializing in ex executive recruitment and leadership support.
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They believe that great schools start with great leaders, and
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they are here to help you find a perfect fit
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So that question I'm talking about has become one of
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the filters I use anytime I'm introducing something important. Can
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people actually picture success? Because if they can't, there's a
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good chance they'll each create their own version of what
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success looks like. And that's where inconsistency begins. I think
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about some of the language that we use in schools.
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We want students to be engaged. That sounds great, but
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what does engagement actually look like? If I walked into
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five different classrooms, what would I expect to see. Would
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students be discussing, writing, working, collaborate relatively, answering questions, or
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listening quietly. These could all be examples of engagement, depending
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on the lesson. Now, imagine asking five administrators that same question.
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If each one gives
a different answer, we don't actually
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have a shared expectation. We just have a shared word,
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and those are very different. The same thing happens when
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we tell teachers we want strong communication with families. Okay,
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what does that look like? Is that weekly emails? Is
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that phone calls or newsletters or responding within twenty four
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hours forty eight hours? Is this about frequency? Is it
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about quality? Is it about accessibility? All of these things
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are terms that we use constantly, and again, if everyone
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fills in those blanks differently, we shouldn't be surprised when
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implementation looks different from classroom to classroom. I think that's
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why one simple question has become so valuable for me.
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Instead of asking did I explain the expectation? I try
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to ask as could someone describe what success looks like?
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Those are completely different questions. One measures my communication. The
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other measures there understanding, and leadership should probably care more
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about the second one. Here's another example for you. Imagine
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you tell your staff we really want collaboration in our
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PLCs this year. Everybody's going to not on because that
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sounds really good. Now, ask one follow up question. If
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I walked into your PLC next Tuesday, what would I
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actually see? I bet the conversation changes. Instead of talking
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about collaboration as an idea, we're talking about collaboration as
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an observable practice. Would teachers be analyzing student work. Would
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they be discussing instructional strategies or planning interventions. Would everyone
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have a voice in the conversation. People can picture this now,
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and once people can picture success, they have a much
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better chance of actually creating it. I think that's one
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of the hidden responsibilities of leadership. Our job isn't simply
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to communicate expectations. Our job is to remove ambiguity, to
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make the invisible visible, to take ideas that exist in
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our heads and describe them clearly enough
that other people
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can see the same picture. Because here's what I've learned,
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when expectations are vague, people usually aren't being resistant. They're
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just being reasonable. They're filling in the blanks with their
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own experiences. They're doing exactly what any of us would do.
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The inconsistency. It's not a character problem, it's it's a
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clarity problem. And once I started looking at it that way,
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I found myself changing my own leadership. Instead of spending
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more time explaining, I started spending more time asking questions,
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what would this look like, what would we hear? How
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would we know if we are doing this well? Those
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questions almost always lead to better conversations than another explanation
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ever can because the moment people begin describing success us together,
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they begin building shared understanding together, and that's when consistency
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starts becoming possible. Leadership isn't explaining expectations. Leadership is making
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expectations visible.
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Strong schools don't just happen in classrooms, They happen in conversations.
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Bright Path Family Connect helps schools and families stay aligned
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with simple updates, reminders, and meaningful communication that actually get
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seen because when families are informed, students are supported. Bright
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Path Family connect, better connection, better learning.
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As I wrap up today, I want to leave you
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with one challenge for this week. The next time you're
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introducing a new expectation to your staff, your students, or
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even your leadership team, resist the temptation to ask yourself,
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did I explain it clearly? Instead ask that different question,
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Could they picture it? Could they describe what success actually
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looks like? Could two different people independently explain the expectation
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in roughly the same way, Because that's really the goal.
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Leadership isn't measured by how clearly we think we communicated.
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It's measured by how consistently other people are able to
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carry that vision forward. When we're not standing there in
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the room looking back that pbis system. It eventually became
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one of the best things that we implemented in that building,
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and not because we changed the vision and not because
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we lowered any expectations. We simply became better at helping students,
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families and staff understand what those expectations actually looked like.
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The plan it didn't even change very much, but our
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communication did and that made all the difference. As school leaders,
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we spend a lot of time talking, We present, we
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see and tons of emails, handbooks, we lead meetings. I mean,
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communication is a huge part of what we do, but
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maybe our real work isn't simply communicating. Maybe it's creating
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shared understanding. So as you head to your building this week,
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listen for the words you're using respect, engagement, collaboration, ownership, responsibility,
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all of those words you're going to use that are
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super super important. But don't stop at the word help
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people see it because when people can picture success, they
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have a much better chance of creating it. And that's
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what leadership is really about. Thanks for spending a few
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minutes with me this morning. We really appreciate the work
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you do every single day for your students, your staff,
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and your communities. Have a great week. Everybody. We'll see
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you again next time. Here on your Morning Boost.
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That's your Morning Boost from AWB Education and Media. If
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this episode helped you reset your thinking or take your
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next step forward, share it with a colleague, and don't
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forget to subscribe so your next boost is ready when
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you need it. Keep showing up with intention, keep moving forward,
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and we'll see you next time.