Sunday Seven
Each week, Dave Burgess, Inc., shares a “Sunday Seven” —- Seven facts about an author that may not be known by readers. (If you want to subscribe, you can click here.) As such, I share some behind the scenes insight behind Personal & Authentic, as well as some other non-education favorites that just might interest you!
So, here you go:
1. Author’s Secret: Inside each of the five books that I’ve authored or co-authored, you’ll find the names of my children, Paisley and Caden, often portraying a fictitious teacher or student. Anyone that’s written a book can attest to the hundreds of hours spent writing, editing, re-editing, re-editing again, and finally launching the work. During my first book, I decided that in every book that I write, I’d hide my children’s names so that they knew that they were on my heart as I spent time away from them during the book writing process. When I get to hold one of my new books for the first time, they are the first to go through it and search for their names hidden within.
2. A Life-Altering Innovation For My Family: In Chapter 3 of Personal & Authentic, I wrote about the “hidden stories within”, and with her permission, vulnerably shared part of Paisley’s story - the main inspiration for that chapter. Born with severe food allergies, she underwent an innovative desensitization treatment for 18 months, known as Oral Immunization Therapy (OIT), and finished in early 2019. Having previously been hospitalized for less than one seed of sesame, Paisley now consumes the equivalent of 2,000 seeds per day to keep her safe. For more on this treatment, check out oit101.org. I will forever be grateful for doctors that don’t have the “that’s the way we’ve always done it” mindset. For my family, this innovative treatment could be life-saving.
3. Two Non-Educator Recommendations: Confession time. Most of what I read in my free time and the podcasts that I subscribe to are not education-related. So who are two people who I read and listen to everything they put out? Dave Ramsey and Gary Vaynerchuk. Both push my thinking and motivate me to be better.
4. Favorite Places to Visit: Traveling each week, people often ask me my favorite U.S.-based locations for some downtime. Without a doubt, they are Austin, TX, Nashville, TN, and anywhere in southern California!
5. Three People to Follow on Social Media: Personal & Authentic includes the voices of over 50 educators, who share practical tips for you to implement in your school or classroom - tomorrow. Three people I respect tremendously, who significantly added to the book and are must-follows on social media, are Inky Johnson, Dr. Rosa Perez-Isiah, and Ken Shelton. They each have very different lenses and life experiences than I do, and I’m grateful to learn from them regularly.
6. Favorite Educational Resource: As the Director of Innovation for Future Ready Schools, I have the opportunity to work alongside a few thousand school and district leaders each year. Whether you attend a two-day institute, a full-day workshop, or leverage some of our ongoing professional learning opportunities, we raise money each year to provide all that we do for free. Check out the resources, frameworks, and tools to support school and district leaders!
7. If I wasn’t an educator, I would…
That’s easy. I’d want to help people become more financially savvy and better able to handle their money. No, I wouldn’t want to be some Wall Street stockbroker or insurance salesperson. Not at all. I’d want to find ways to help people alter their behavior around some needed principles of living within one’s means, the dangers of debt, term life insurance, and saving for retirement. As an educator, one of my continuous frustrations with the K-12 system as a whole is how, in many places, teaching personal finance, something that will impact every person, every day for the rest of their life is optional or a one-time occurrence, yet things that are often required won’t be used by many in the course past some final grade. As an example, many kids will spend more time learning sine, cosine, and tangent than they will about how to handle their money post-graduation. Need some help in this area? Financial Peace University and the Every Dollar Budgeting App, are two things that have helped guide me personally.
All for the kids we serve,
