It’s 7:00pm on a Wednesday night and Chris's furnace stops working.

He's not handy. At all.

YouTube tutorials? Useless.

His wife's taking their son to basketball practice. He's alone. And he has his Mastermind call in 30 minutes.

He's trying everything. Nothing's working.

7:15pm.

Chris calls his neighbor up the street. The guy's helped before. He shows up. Still can't fix it.

7:25pm.

Chris joins the Zoom. Ten minutes late.

Nobody blinks.

The group doesn't skip a beat. He contributes. They solve problems. Someone gets unstuck.

The point is: Leadership isn't about having perfect circumstances.

It's about having people who show up when life gets messy.

Here's what Chris knows about school leadership:

Budget cuts hit. Staff drama erupts. A parent loses it in the parking lot. Your kid gets sick. The furnace breaks at 7pm on a Wednesday.

You can't control any of that.

The question isn't IF chaos happens.

It's whether you have a community that steadies you when it does.

Most principals face the hard stuff alone.

Isolation is the norm. Not the exception.

You sit in your office spinning your wheels on a relational problem. You second-guess yourself. You wonder if you're doing it right.

And the crazy part?

Other leaders are facing the exact same challenges.

They just don't have a place to talk about it.

That's what Chris found in the Ruckus Maker Mastermind.

Seven years ago, he joined as a brand-new assistant principal drowning in imposter syndrome. He thought: "Why are they even letting me in this group?"

Now he's Head of Lower School at his campus.

The transformation didn't happen because he suddenly figured it all out alone.

It happened because he had a community that showed up. Week after week. Whether the furnace was working or not.

Every Wednesday night, Chris shows up. Sometimes he's on fire. Sometimes he's late because life happened.

Either way, his people are there.

He workshops the messy stuff. The people problems. The conversations that keep leaders up at night.

And he leaves steadier than when he arrived.

If you're tired of navigating leadership challenges alone, then apply to the mastermind. We’ll reach out within 48 hours to see if the Mastermind is right for you.

Because when the furnace breaks at 7pm on a Wednesday, you'll want your people in your corner.

Keep Making a Ruckus,

Danny