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January 15, 2024 17 mins

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Faster isn't always better, and "more" doesn't always hit the mark. That's what we're talking about in this episode, where the art of patience isn't just a personal virtue, it's also a very smart professional strategy.

If it feels like it's taking forever to get your campus on the right track, it might help to know that embracing the slow and steady approach in building your school counseling program, despite the world's push for quick fixes, can lead to a more authentic and impactful development of counseling services in your school. Recognizing the benefits of scarcity, too, remind us that a program doesn't need to be "perfect" to be significant.

Are you stuck in a cycle of feeling like you're not doing enough, fast enough, or don't have enough of what you need in your school counseling program?

Tune in for an episode that promises to nurture your patience and strengthen your resolve in a world that tests us in both.



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School for School Counselors Mastermind
New Year (re)Start
Get the Job!

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Steph Johnson (00:00):
I recently ran across a little snippet of
something on social media and Iwish I knew the source of this
material.
I hate that stuff like thistravels around and we don't know
who to attribute it to.
But it said this.
It said most great things inlife from love to careers to
investing gain their value fromtwo things patience and scarcity

(00:25):
.
Patience to let something grow,and scarcity to admire what it
grows into.
But what are two of the mostcommon tactics when people
pursue something great?
Trying to make it faster andbigger.
It's always been a problem andalways will be same as ever.

(00:45):
That really struck me when Iread it.
It made me think about you.
It made me think about yourschool counseling programs and
developing your influence andcloud on campus.
In this week's episode, I wantto dive in to the ideas of
patience and scarcity and howthose two things can help you

(01:08):
build a better school counselingprogram.
Hey school counselor, I'm soglad you're here with me this
week for this episode of thepodcast.
I'm Steph Johnson, as always,full-time school counselor, just
like you, so excited andhonored that you've chosen to
spend a little bit of your timewith me this week.

(01:28):
Thank you so much.
Well, let's dive in to ourconversation about patience and
scarcity.
Now, these things seem to notreally go very well hand in hand
.
As a matter of fact, as I'mrecording this, I'm not even
sure when I'm going to titlethis episode, because it just
seems so weird.

(01:49):
How patience can benefitbuilding your program Okay, that
makes sense.
How scarcity can benefitbuilding your program Feels a
little off.
These two ideas don't seem tocommingle very well.
But when you go back to thedescription that I read at the
beginning of the podcast episode, it makes perfect sense.

(02:10):
A lot of times when we set outto build these comprehensive
school counseling programs thatwe've been told are the
expectation, we've been told weshould develop these
comprehensive programs with allthese components, that they
should be done within thesespecific frameworks, and on and
on and on and that's really theextent of the information that

(02:31):
we get exposed to in grad school.
When we get on campuses, we allof a sudden realize that not
all schools work that way andwe're not called upon to build
comprehensive programs right offthe bat.
And it can be prettydemoralizing for a lot of people
.
I've even seen some schoolcounselors slip into a little

(02:53):
bit of a grief process over itbecause they had such high hopes
and expectations for theseawesome things they wanted to do
and then felt like they gotslapped down as soon as they got
on campus because they weren'table to do all the things.
Now, be honest, there mighthave been a little bit of that
for you when you started schoolcounseling too.

(03:14):
So we've got to be able to getto a point where we can really
accept the realities of whatbuilding a school counseling
program looks like Not onlytrying to gain some
comprehensive program status,but the flip side of that
gaining the buy-in, convincingpeople that it's important for

(03:37):
students being able todemonstrate the outcomes of a
program like that.
And so we do really need tofocus on the two components of
patience and scarcity.
When we look at patience inbuilding a school counseling
program, we have a lot of thingsthat we have to be patient

(04:00):
about.
Right, because, as I said, weusually don't jump into a school
counseling program and hear ouradministrator say all right,
it's all yours, do whatever youneed to do.
You have your own ticket, youcan write your own plan, you can
do whatever you want to do.
Just let me know about what'sgoing on from time to time, just
so I know what's going on.
Take this and run with it.

(04:21):
This is yours, you can dowhatever you need to do.
That probably does not happenabout 99% of the time when you
get on a campus.
It already has its schedules,it already has its functions, it
already has its preconceptions,it already has its biases about

(04:42):
what school counseling is orisn't, and so you're kind of
stuck in the middle of all ofthat mock and you got to find
your way through that forestinto a little bit of a clearing
where you can start to buildsomething of your own.
So it's really important that wecultivate this sense of
patience.
We have to have it to overcomeall the red tape that we've got

(05:05):
to get through all the resourcesthat we need to get our
programs established.
Sometimes that's materials,sometimes that's time, sometimes
that's space.
How many school counselors havewe heard of that are working in
closets?
Who are working in hallways orin shared spaces with other

(05:26):
people on campus?
It's going to take patience toget through these administrative
hurdles.
We also need to have patience inbuilding trust with others on
our campus.
We need to remember that ittakes time to establish
meaningful connections withteachers.

(05:46):
It takes time for parents toget to know us, and it takes
time for students to begin totrust us.
We have to be persistent withthat, but we also have to be
patient.
So often I see schoolcounselors show up on a campus
and expect others to immediatelyunderstand how invested they

(06:09):
are in the school counselingprogram, how desperately they
want to serve students, and theyexpect this instantaneous
rapport, instantaneous trust andthese wonderful relationships
right off the bat.
Most people aren't wired thatway and remember too that we're
coming out of a global masstrauma.

(06:32):
We've had a lot of things goingon, even since then too, that
have affected people's abilityto want to get to know other
people, to be able to trust themwith pieces of their lives, and
so this takes time.
It takes patience.
I think too, sometimes weneglect to have patience when we
just look at educationcircumstances as a whole.

(06:56):
Education is evolving all thetime, but often it changes at a
glacial pace.
It feels like it just takesforever, and part of that is
because we are just so ingrainedin the way we think about our

(07:17):
schools and how they run, andpart of that is because there
are so many things that have tohappen in order to create any
sort of meaningful change.
Budgets, space, personnelallocations, changing the hearts
and minds of school boardmembers all these kinds of
things happen in these little,tiny, minuscule crumbs of action

(07:41):
that eventually combine toeffect some sort of larger
change.
So we've got to be patient withthose.
It's not as easy as some peopleon the internet make it sound,
where they say, you know, justadvocate for your program and
make them see your way, makethem come around.
Things aren't set up to workthat way.
Education is a bureaucracy forsure, and so it's going to take

(08:05):
time to implement the changesyou want to see.
So I think in all of this it'ssuper important that you have a
long-term vision for what youwant to accomplish and that
you're okay, both in your mindand in your heart, with knowing

(08:26):
this is going to take some time.
We often tell our new schoolcounselors and our mastermind
they need to expect three tofour years of solid work
performance before they reallyfeel like they have their feet
underneath them, they feel likethey know their place on their
campus, they know the ins andouts and the nuance of the

(08:47):
social structures and the workexpectations and they really
start feeling like they're apart of the team.
Typically we see that takesthree to four years.
Tack on top of that the timenecessary to effect change.
This is going to depend on thesize of the change that you want
to see.
But tack that onto the back endof this three to four years and

(09:11):
you can see how you're quicklylooking at a little bit longer
timeline than you know.
Okay, guys, I've been here forsix months and we haven't
changed anything yet.
Do those kinds of things happensometimes, but not often.
Not often in my experience andso you've got to be willing to
have the patience to see thesechanges through.

(09:35):
Scarcity is the other componentof growing your program.
Scarcity allows you to be ableto appreciate progress and to
appreciate accumulated successes.
Sometimes, when you havelimited resources, sometimes
when you feel like you're tryingto build a program with one

(09:58):
hand tied behind your back,we're going to have to look and
celebrate the small victories,and sometimes that can be way
more powerful than just walkingin and saying this is how I want
it and all of a sudden itmagically comes to be.
If we step into a program thatis ideal by our standards, I

(10:20):
don't know that we oftenappreciate the sacrifice it took
to get that program there, andso I think we really need to
have an eye towards I don't wantto say a scarcity mindset,
because I don't want youthinking about your program in
terms of scarcity, but I do wantyou viewing it through a lens

(10:41):
of scarcity, looking at qualityover quantity.
How can you make yourinteractions meaningful?
How can you make them impactful, instead of just blathering on
and on about what you want tobuild and why it's important for
kids?
Those are two different things.

(11:01):
It's kind of like what I talkabout often with regard to
handing an administrator aprinted list of appropriate
school counseling duties andinappropriate school counseling
duties and expecting them justto see the light and change
their ways.
Y'all.
That never happens.
That's talking at people, right.

(11:21):
What we want to be doing istalking with people.
When we talk with people aboutthat, we're focusing on the
quality of the conversation, notjust beating them over the head
at every given opportunity.
I think, too, when we're facedwith scarcity, these kinds of
limited resources in ourprograms can push us to get

(11:43):
really innovative.
They can push us to approachthings in a really
cost-effective way where we cancontinually grow.
We can serve students well.
We can build a wonderfulprogram, but we can do it with
an eye toward being responsibleand sustainable.
I think that's an importantcomponent of scarcity.

(12:05):
So often people just want morebudgets, more space, more this,
more that.
But if we build these rightthrough the lens of scarcity,
when we do acquire those things,we have a better appreciation
for them and we're able toutilize them more wisely.
I think, too, appreciatingscarcity on our campuses and in

(12:29):
our school counseling programshelps us create a culture in our
school where we can value andcelebrate every achievement, no
matter how small thatachievement might be.
I think that's important.
I think we really need to looktoward the little things.
The students that you know haveshown up three days in a row.

(12:53):
That might be a little thing toa lot of people, but to some
kids that's huge.
We need to celebrate thosekinds of things.
The kids that rarely raisetheir hands, are not real
outspoken, but walk across thatgraduation stage.
That's a big deal, but it seemssmall to so many people.

(13:13):
Keeping this lens of scarcitylets us admire what our school
counseling program grows into.
It lets us really appreciatethe steps that were necessary to
get it to where it is, and itlets us appreciate the road
ahead, for the things that wecan yet do to make our programs

(13:36):
even better for serving students, for serving our families and
for serving our campuses.
In our moment-to-momentfast-paced here-there everywhere
kind of world, with instantgratification wherever you turn,
it's really hard to appreciatethe need for patience when we

(14:02):
want to dive in and have all ofthe resources we need at our
fingertips.
We want the budgets, we wantthe offices, we want the
opportunities to be able toserve students.
It's important to be able toappreciate scarcity.
If we can cultivate thesemindsets, oh my goodness, what a

(14:24):
difference it's going to maketo our practice of school
counseling.
How can you practice patienceand how can you appreciate
scarcity in your schoolcounseling program?
I would love to hear about this.
I would love to get yourfeedback.
Please email me at hello atschoolforschoolcounselorscom.

(14:45):
I would love to hear how you'recultivating patience and
appreciating scarcity where youare.
Alright, I hope you enjoyed thatepisode this week and before I
go, let me remind you we've gottwo things happening right now
that you might be interested in.
Number one is our New YearRestart.

(15:06):
This is a completely 100% freeseries for you.
You can go sign up on ourwebsite,
schoolforschoolcounselorscomslash restart and receive a
series of emails designed tohelp you get on top of all the
little loose ends, all thelittle pesky, naggy things that

(15:27):
jump up and bite you later on inthe semester.
You're going to get all thosetaken care of through the New
Year Restart and, like I said,no obligation on your part
whatsoever.
We just want to extend this asa help and a service to you as
you're getting the springsemester on track.
So again you can go toschoolforschoolcounselorscom
slash restart to check that out.

(15:49):
And the second thing that wehave going on is the revival of
our Get the Job program.
Now this program is oftenimitated, never duplicated.
It is the original interviewprep program for school
counselors.
And I tell you what.
We have hundreds of commentsand testimonials and messages

(16:12):
and emails from folks who havebeen through Get the Job with us
that say this program is secondto none.
We dive into interview strategy.
We dive into the resume, insand outs, cover letters, letters
of introduction, all the thingsyou want to know, portfolios
I'm trying to remember all thethings that are in there because

(16:33):
there's just so much.
But the best things about it arethat.
Number one it doesn't soundlike any other interview prep
program you've ever seenanywhere.
And number two, we provide anintensive live coaching
opportunity to go along withthis.
So you have the opportunity toreally work on your interview

(16:55):
strategy, one-on-one with me, todevelop an effective plan for
putting your best foot forward.
And so many folks have saidthat's the best part of the
program.
I feel weird telling you thatbecause I feel like I'm tuning
my own horn, but I promise you Ireally want to support and
empower you in finding theperfect school counseling job

(17:16):
for you.
So if you want more informationI won't be labored this any
longer you can go toschoolforschoolcounselorscom
slash Get the Job to get all thedetails on that.
Alright, I will be back soonwith another episode of the
School for School Counselorspodcast, and until then, I hope
you have the best week.

(17:37):
Please go out there, servestudents with love in your heart
and take care.
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