One Door, Not Every Door

Last week I sat through two really hard conversations.

Two days in a row.

Different people.

Different situations.

But the same challenge.

A leader I respect shared some hard news in front of a room of peers.

I know they are capable, thoughtful, and all in on the work.

And yet in that moment, they looked like someone sharing a verdict.

The second one, I was the one talking.

Delivering hard news is part of my job. When I let a staff member know they won't be back, I think they deserve to hear it from me with no confusion.

Honest. Clear. And above all, kind.

Two rooms. Two roles. And the same thing happened in both.

The story took over: This is happening to me. I have no say in what comes next.

And that's what I keep coming back to.

Because there's another story available. It just takes a reframe.

The kind of questions a coach would ask:

What's in your control? What will you do next? Where do you still have a say?

It’s worth noting that I didn't walk into either conversation cold.

I used Digital Danny to get ready, a coaching tool trained on Danny Bauer's decade of coaching school leaders. It's built for principals who need a thinking partner and can't wait until their next call.

I wanted to think clearly, and I wanted to take the emotion out of the conversations, as much as possible.

Mine and theirs.

So Digital Danny pushed back on my framing more than once.

He asked me what I wanted the other person to walk away with.

He reminded me what I was responsible for. And what I wasn't.

And he slowed me down. Told me to breathe.

That's Selfmentorship in practice. Doing your own work, on your own time, before you walk into the hard thing.

And you can make that choice again and again.

Around the same time, I was listening to the Ruckuscast.

Danny's been in the guest chair lately, sharing ten years of watching leaders grow. On one episode, two questions stopped me in my tracks:

Simple questions, but they move you from passenger to driver.

The leaders who treat hard news as final, something that happened to them and ends there, never get to ask those questions. They already answered. Game over.

The leaders who stay curious find something else. A constraint they can work within instead of a wall.

That's the part I'd missed.

Hard news rarely closes every door. It closes one.

The leaders who grow are the ones who get curious about the doors still open.

We work in an industry built on learning. We ask students to push through hard things. To sit in discomfort. To try again.

And we forget we're learners too.

Step back from the feeling long enough to ask: What can I learn here? What does this make possible that I hadn't seen?

Danny put it plainly on that episode:

Most of us got into this work because we believed we could make a difference.

Hard news makes us forget that.

One question brings it back:

Given this reality, what needs to be true to move forward?

It's not a finished plan. It's an invitation back into agency.

You're not as stuck as you think.

If you're walking into a hard conversation or sitting with one that already landed on you, Digital Danny is there. 24/7.

He’s always there. Never forgets. Evolves with you.

Before you clock out for the year, consider these three questions.

One for tomorrow, one for this week, one for before the school year ends.

Tomorrow: Face one hard moment — a conversation you've been putting off, a decision you need to make — and ask yourself: Where is my agency in this? Just ask the question and see what surfaces.

This Week: Identify one situation you've been thinking of as a wall, or a closed door. Write down three things that are still within your control. No need to make a plan or take action. Just name them.

Before the Year Ends: Sit with a staff member who had a hard year and ask them directly: How are you doing? Do you feel like you belong here? Then just listen. Agency starts with being heard.