Practice

04/28/23 • 10 min

[00:00:00] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: One of the things that I hope for for this building public podcast is that.

It is not about a cognitive understanding. It is about an experience that I'm creating in this space first for myself second. for those who hear it. And then third, for myself when I hear it again later, from a different perspective at a different point in time.

And my hope is through opening myself up and allowing. The insights, understandings, and moments to flow through me as I let them go, as I embrace the courage it takes for me to share openly and publicly in this space.

that this space becomes a catalyst.

A catalyst where the changes that I am experiencing, the transformation that I am sharing publicly while I'm in it in the moment.

Sparks in others. You see, I do not have the answers for your life.

I only know that the answers for mine are inside of me

in order for me to access those answers. What I am learning is to be still is to settle the noise.

I believe elite performers have a unique ability to separate the noise and distractions. From the vision and mission that they have.

And in those moments, those quick moments of decisiveness where they again pull themselves back to the focus. Distraction comes pull themself back, distraction comes, pull themself back. Distraction comes pull themself back. Their ability

to remain focused when distraction comes seems like one of the keys to the success and impact. that those who we might consider high performers.

Just before this recording, I was meditating and what came to me was that. . The reason why people say they can't meditate or doesn't work for them, they don't like to meditate, is perhaps

because meditation is very much like opening the hood of our vehicle

and when we. , open that hood or open our closet door. Sometimes we don't like what we've seen

many times. I think about my closet, and I have places in my closet for everything where my shoes go. Wear shirts are hung. Winter shirts, summer shirts. Spaces and places for everything in the closet,

and I tend to keep my closet pretty tidy, but little by little if on the daily I do not specifically put something back or I just throw a sweatshirt in, or depending on when the dirty clothes wash or all the things. That happen because our clothes are a daily part of our lives, it can get a little disorganized, and part of it is seasons change and change in clothes, and part of it is just pure laziness and inattention to detail

and at times,

it can seem like our mind might be like our closet,

and for many of us, when we get still and get quiet and start to look around and begin to notice, all that is behind the door.

It can be very overwhelming.

It can be very distracting, making it very hard for us to sit and be to just notice the thoughts as they. Plow through or pop through or come and go.

But the first step, the first step in meditation is to sit and to allow,

allow, allow it to be whatever it will be. Kind, gentle, gracious with ourselves. Cuz I talk to so many people every day and connect with many people.

I often hear the way they describe circumstances or things in their lives. One thing I notice is that many times people are really hard on themselves. I know I was, and there are moments when I am still and what has really been coming forward for me as I am stretching myself and growing. in these businesses and in my building public journey is gentleness, kindness, meekness, humility towards myself, giving myself the time and the space and the grace that I would hope.

Others would extend to me that I would extend to others. Like a child,

A child learning to walk. You wouldn't scold the child for stumbling or misstepping. Certainly not. You support the child and reach your hand out and say, let's try again. We're just practicing. This is practice. It's all practice. . So if you are joining me on this Build and Public podcast for the first time, welcome.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for taking the time that you've listened and gotten to this point.

This is a journey, not a one time event. It's an experience that will continue to unfold and evolve. . So I invite you to join me on my building public journey for Stacy Gonzalez. I'm looking forward to it.

[00:00:00] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: One of the things that I hope for for this building public podcast is that.

that this space becomes a catalyst.

A catalyst where the changes that I am experiencing, the transformation that I am sharing publicly while I'm in it in the moment.

Sparks in others. You see, I do not have the answers for your life.

I only know that the answers for mine are inside of me

in order for me to access those answers. What I am learning is to be still is to settle the noise.

I believe elite performers have a unique ability to separate the noise and distractions. From the vision and mission that they have.

to remain focused when distraction comes seems like one of the keys to the success and impact. that those who we might consider high performers.

Just before this recording, I was meditating and what came to me was that. . The reason why people say they can't meditate or doesn't work for them, they don't like to meditate, is perhaps

because meditation is very much like opening the hood of our vehicle

and when we. , open that hood or open our closet door. Sometimes we don't like what we've seen

and at times,

it can seem like our mind might be like our closet,

and for many of us, when we get still and get quiet and start to look around and begin to notice, all that is behind the door.

It can be very overwhelming.

It can be very distracting, making it very hard for us to sit and be to just notice the thoughts as they. Plow through or pop through or come and go.

But the first step, the first step in meditation is to sit and to allow,

allow, allow it to be whatever it will be. Kind, gentle, gracious with ourselves. Cuz I talk to so many people every day and connect with many people.

Others would extend to me that I would extend to others. Like a child,

Thank you for being here. Thank you for taking the time that you've listened and gotten to this point.

Previous Episode

Build Along the Way

[00:00:00] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: Welcome to today's Build and Public podcast. You're joining me for the first time. I'd like to welcome you. This podcast is a place where we experiment, where we try new things, where we see who we are in between the spaces and so. , I invite you to enter into this space on this podcast tonight. It's called Build in Public because I'm literally feeling like I'm building my myself publicly through sharing and recording.

Daily, and it's interesting because when I talked to my podcast producer about this show and what it meant to build publicly, he mentioned that it takes a lot of courage and. I didn't really feel that way when I said yes, I want to build a daily podcast. I just knew that I had something inside of me that I needed to share or wanted to share in a way that would be authentic and relatable.

I didn't know it would challenge me to grow in such profound ways, because showing up for yourself consistently every day, trying to have something new or have a reflection. that is insightful, that other people might wanna listen to instead of asking myself the question as I sit here in my, in my room alone, recording a podcast to myself of what do I need to remember today?

And so I invite you. to ask yourself that question because what I am learning for myself is that what I need is a space and a place where I can be completely safe in my bedroom by myself recording this podcast.

And I can have a place and a space where my voice is heard and will be potentially heard again by someone else,

and learning to use my voice has been a really huge learning growth for me. . Hmm. Learning to use my voice, learning to trust my voice,

learning to embrace my voice, all of it from that part of my heart and soul that is the most genuine

inviting you to yours. that space and place inside of you, where you are just you. And so I realize tonight's podcast was a bit of a departure.

I brought a different perspective, a different focus to try something in a way that might work for me better. I don't know. But this podcast, this space, this moment is about creating and learning to create. That is what I am building. Whether I'm talking about building a business or I'm talking about building myself, I'm building, and so

I'm letting go and I'm inviting you to bring your journey, your growth next to mine, and together, together we'll learn. A thing or two along the way. I'm Stacy Gonzalez. This is my Build in Public podcast. Thank you.

Next Episode

Leadership

[00:00:00] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: Welcome to today's Build in Public podcast. I'm Stacy Gonzalez, and I'm currently building two businesses simultaneously, which is not recommended for most people. However, I tend to not be most people, and so today is Friday. and it is the end of a long work week and there's been much progress made, um, in both of the businesses.

But for me this week, the focus really was on the education work that I'm doing on the growth path. And that work is work to support our school leaders work to help. Um, those on the front lines, leading public education in brave, bold, and innovative ways. One of the things that I'm learning for myself through this work is that it is requiring of me to be brave, bold.

And a new leader in a new way. You see, I spent 20 years inside of public education working my way up from a classroom teacher into the highest offices in some of the largest school districts in Illinois. And. While I had a really good ability to understand the nuance of education from a headspace, um, just an and, and a good ability to multitask and, and project manage and lead teams and people, and I did that at a great personal cost.

To myself. And so now what's really cool is I've got myself, Renee, and John. John is the founder of the Growth Path. He's been working with corporate leaders and corporate teams on this growth path, and Renee and I have partnered with him. to bring the growth path to the education space. And the interesting thing about education is once you build a solution that is quality, that begins to have a little bit of momentum behind it.

Doors. Doors begin to open. And this week I had just some really interesting doors open. And through those, through those meetings and conversations, it illuminated a bunch of things for me. But one thing that I did not anticipate was some of the missteps that I took as a new founder. Someone trying to build an entire company.

And that misstep, that miscalculation was in the area of my integrity. And I have a very, I have three core values, trust, communication, and integrity. And I violated my own integrity, um, between John Renee and I. And as a result of that, I needed to, for myself and for the team, um, have some conversations with them and own, own the fact that I lacked integrity in a decision and a choice that I had made.

And in the past, well, first in the past, I probably would've not even have done anything about it. I would've let it go. I would've swept it under the rug and been like, oh, it's fine. It's fine. But instead, I thought about the situation, um, reflected and knew we had this important meeting today at 10 o'clock.

Um, or I can't remember what time exactly, but we had an important meeting. So half an hour before the meeting we were gonna pre-game about the meeting and I knew that I had to out myself and open myself up to sharing my misstep, make no excuses about it, and allow myself to just share that with the team.

And it was so interesting cause I spent a lot of time and got some insights from my coach on how to approach this. And at the end of the day, once I actually met with the team and shared what I shared, they were like, oh, okay. I mean, it was, it was almost as if, um, they got it. They got it and they made the space for me.

It was safe for me. And that was that. And the lesson for me is, and then things, things just naturally opened up, um, from that point on for the rest of my day. And it really reminded me that this whole. Business opportunity. Um, and the opportunities that I'm creating with these two businesses, is my work, my leadership, my life, my hope to have a, a restart.

A new way of being, a new way of, of thinking. Um, a new way of moving forward as, as a leader. in ways that I couldn't do before because I was so busy and I was running in a a million different directions. And even if I wanted to be this kind of a leader as an educator, I, I didn't have the capacity to do it.

I didn't have the awareness, I didn't have the insights. And so what I appreciate most about this opportunity, Is in these early stages, what building these businesses is doing. For me personally as a human, I am a better person who has greater integrity as a result of this work. So if you are joining me on the growth path, I invite you to self-reflect with me.

I'm using this, uh, podcast as an exploration. As an experiment and I invite you to to join in with me. So thank you. Thank you for listening and being here on this Building Public podcast.