The best leadership lessons arrive in unexpected places.
Sometimes they're on a wall in the middle of a Tuesday errand run.
Ruckus Maker Erika Ide found one, recognised it immediately, and did what Mastermind members do — she shared it with the group.
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OFF CAMPUS
🏫 How School Design Affects Student Belonging (and what Principals miss)
👑 The Art of Selfmentorship: A School Principal’s Guide
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A MESSAGE FROM IXL
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DO SCHOOL DIFFERENT
THE DIFFICULT PATH
In 1959, Honda opened its first American office in a rented storefront in Los Angeles. A continent away from headquarters, with no dealer network and no brand recognition, American automakers barely noticed.
With that decision, Soichiro Honda did something unusual: he committed to the difficult path.
Ruckus Maker Erika Ide spotted these words on a wall while running errands recently and snapped a photo to share with the Mastermind group.
That single act captures something important about the Mastermind: members aren't waiting for the next meeting to level up.
They're out in the world making connections, finding meaning, and bringing it back to the community (this is Selfmentorship in action).
Erika saw a quote on a wall and immediately thought of her colleagues, and in doing so, embodied the very spirit of the words she was sharing.
That's the kind of community we're building in the Mastermind.
The words Erika captured — now displayed as company scripture at Honda's heritage museum — served as the operating philosophy from day one:
“We have consistently chosen a most difficult path filled with hardships. We must possess the will to challenge difficulties and the wisdom to create new values without being bound by established standards. We do not wish to imitate others.”
Read that again.
It makes a great motivational poster.
And it's also a strategic declaration.
Most institutions — schools included — are organised around the opposite impulse.
We watch what high-performing districts do.
We adopt frameworks others have already validated.
We benchmark against peers.
Learning from others has real value. But there's a big difference between learning from others and waiting for others to lead the way.
The difficult path Honda describes means refusing to let existing standards define what's possible.
Showing up before the road is paved.
We see versions of this philosophy in schools:
The program that had no model to follow, so an innovator built one
The teacher who couldn't find a mentor, so became one
The policy someone challenged because the data said it wasn't working, even though everyone else still followed it
That's the difficult path.
Chosen deliberately, and repeatedly. Honda went on to become one of the most innovative companies in automotive history, in part because they chose a different relationship with difficulty.
Leaders like Erika are embodying that same work in their schools, and in the Mastermind.
This week I'm wondering:
Where is your school choosing the difficult path, and how is that supporting students?
Choose the difficult path.
That's where it gets interesting.
SELFMENTORSHIP IN ACTION
See the spike on the right? That's the week we opened Digital Danny up beyond our mastermind and 1-on-1 coaching clients for the first time.
6,036 messages and counting. Two weeks ago he passed 5,000.
Here's what those numbers actually represent:
Principals are making 200 decisions a day. Some small. Some the kind that change a teacher's career or a kid's year.
The hardest ones — the moments where leadership actually gets made — are happening without a thought partner.
That's a choice.
Selfmentorship is the other choice. It's the practice of driving your own development — actively clarifying your thinking on the hardest moments instead of waiting for the right person to show up.
Digital Danny is how Ruckus Makers practice it. Always available. Never forgets. Evolves with you.
Even at 11:37 pm when you know what hits the fan.
SUNDAY VIBES
CLASS DISMISSED
Whenever you’re ready, here are 3 ways we can help you on your Selfmentorship journey.
If your campus runs you instead of you running it, meet Digital Danny — your 24/7 Ruckus Maker coach. Start here.
Experience weekly coaching and peer mentorship. Surround yourself with other Ruckus Makers in the mastermind. Apply here.
Keep Making a Ruckus,
PS … when the mic goes dead
