leadership

Borrowed Soil

~ mrsprairie ~ Leave a comment

I do not think we name the generosity of international life often enough.

You arrive, and somehow there is a place for you. Work. Community. Friendships that form faster than you would expect. Purpose that feels immediate. You are allowed to grow. And at the same time, there is an unspoken understanding you learn to live with. This soil is borrowed.

For more than two decades, my life unfolded far from where I was born and raised. I built a meaningful life, not in one place but many. I became an educator, a leader, a partner, a parent. I put down roots that mattered, even as those roots learned how to lift.

Living abroad teaches you to adapt quickly and belong efficiently. You connect deeply while knowing permanence is not part of the deal. You build systems and relationships you care about, fully aware that one day you will dismantle what you built, pack up what you can, and leave the rest behind for someone else to steward. It is simply the agreement. You may grow here, but not forever.

And then, sometimes quietly, you return.

I have been back in my sweet hometown, New Port Richey, Florida… and recently started volunteering at the West Pasco Historical Society’s museum. The museum is housed in a schoolhouse built in early 1915. The floors creak when you walk, the good kind, the kind that lets you know you are not the first person to stand there. After a career spent in schools all over the world, I find myself back in one again. Smaller. Older. Much quieter.

On the surface, the work is modest. A few hours a week. Learning procedures. Researching. Asking where things go. I am new enough that I carry that polite uncertainty of someone trying to be helpful without getting in the way. Which, if we are being honest, is not my strongest skill set.

This week, a 103-year-old World War II veteran came in with his family.

They had flown south from Washington, D.C., escaping winter. This was not his hometown. His daughter told his story for him. He listened as she spoke, and he smiled. A big, gorgeous smile. He met my eyes in a way that made it clear he knew exactly where he was and exactly what was being said.

He listened.

I went back to greeting other visitors, the floor creaking under my steps, and kept thinking about that smile. In a museum full of local history, his presence reminded me that some stories stay, some travel, and some do both.

Volunteering has surprised me. Being in service has always been central to who I am, but for much of my career it came with titles, visibility, and outcomes. Service was easy to explain. This is different.

At the museum, no one is interested in my resume. I am being trained. Corrected kindly. After years of leading complex systems, I find myself genuinely content learning how to label things correctly and put them back where they belong.

It turns out I am perfectly happy being useful without being impressive.

There is something clarifying about that.

I am noticing how much identity lives in simply showing up. In listening. In contributing quietly to something that existed long before me and will continue without me. It is humbling in the best way. It is also, unexpectedly, a relief.

And it has me wondering, not urgently but honestly: who am I when I am not arriving or leaving? What does leadership look like when no one is watching or asking for it? What parts of me were shaped right here that I have been carrying across continents without realizing it?

Borrowed soil gave me so much. I am grateful for every place that allowed me to grow and learn. But there is something steady about standing where your story began and asking a simpler question.

How can I serve here?

Most days, the answer looks small. Opening the door. Greeting a visitor. Listening to a story. Walking across a creaky wooden floor in a schoolhouse that has seen far more than I ever will.

For now, that feels like enough.

I am showing up.
I am listening.
And I am letting the roots do what they are ready to do.

Dig deeper.

Author’s note:
If The Year I Stopped Trying to Be Impressive was about stepping away from titles and expectations, Borrowed Soil is about what I am stepping toward. Volunteering, listening, and returning to the place where my story began have helped me notice how identity shifts when achievement is no longer the measure. This reflection feels like the next honest chapter.

The Year I Stopped Trying to Be Impressive

~ mrsprairie ~ Leave a comment

For a long time, I thought good leadership meant being impressive.

Not flashy- impressive. Not keynote- impressive. But quietly, consistently impressive… the kind where you smile, nod, and say, “Of course,” even when your inner voice is whispering, Please don’t ask me to do one more thing.

I was raised to suck it up. To be agreeable. To smile no matter what. To respond with a cheerful “I’ll be glad to,” even when what I really meant was, I need a nap and a boundary. Over time, that reflex became so automatic that I stopped noticing how much energy it took… until, slowly, I did notice. And once I noticed, I couldn’t unsee it.

This year, I stopped trying to be impressive.

There’s a version of “fake it till you make it” that serves us well early on. It gives us courage. It helps us walk into rooms we’re not quite ready for yet. But there’s another version, too, the quieter, more exhausting one. The one that feels less like growing confidence and more like putting on a costume. I’ve said more than once that it began to feel like I was performing my own competence. Saying the right things. Holding the right posture. Playing the part of someone who always had it together.

That kind of acting is surprisingly draining.

Letting go of that performance has been unexpectedly freeing. I no longer feel the need to arrive as the expert with answers neatly tucked away. Instead, I show up as a thinking partner. A listener. Someone willing to say, “I don’t know yet; let’s talk it through.” And something interesting happens when you do that: other people stop performing, too.

The longer I’ve worked in education, the more I’ve learned that what people often need isn’t a solution… it’s space. Space to think out loud. Space to name what’s heavy. Space to admit they’re tired without being met with a to-do list. More recently, I’ve noticed how powerful it is to replace certainty with curiosity, and how much trust lives in a simple, honest pause.

Admitting that I’m tired has been part of this shift. Educators are remarkably good at pushing through, and many of us were taught, explicitly or not, that fatigue was something to hide or apologize for. This year, I’ve been practicing telling the truth. “I’m tired.” “That feels like too much right now.” “I need to think before I say yes.” The world, it turns out, does not fall apart when you do this. What happens instead is a softening. A quiet relief in no longer pretending I have endless capacity.

Stepping away from the need to be impressive hasn’t meant stepping away from care, commitment, or purpose. If anything, it’s clarified them. I’m far more interested in presence than polish now… less “watch me lead” and more “let’s walk this together.” Modeling wholeness, rather than perfection, feels like the most responsible kind of leadership I can offer.

This wasn’t a bold declaration or a neatly packaged New Year’s resolution. It was smaller than that. A series of gentle permissions: to pause before responding, to say no without a smiley face, to be kind and boundaried. In a culture that often rewards busyness and performative competence, it feels like a quiet rebellion… and one I’m willing to keep practicing.

I don’t know exactly what this year will bring, and I’m surprisingly okay with that. I’m no longer interested in being impressive. I’m interested in being honest, present, and real… especially with those I’m lucky enough to walk alongside.

And that… feels like more than enough.

A, E, I… oh, Q!

~ mrsprairie ~ 2 Comments

When I was in elementary school, I was tested to see if my IQ was high enough to be considered for the Gifted Program. I think I was singled out as a potential genius more for my EQ than for my IQ. I wasn’t super smart or anything, but I knew how to figure things out, how to read people, and how to please teachers.

This has remained true throughout my personal and professional life. I’m never the smartest person in the room, but my EQ reminds me that I’m okay with that. I appreciate learning from and with others. I love to laugh while working hard. I care about others and am curious about their superpowers.

In COVID times, a different type of quotient has emerged from the EQ bucket and has begun to grow legs, the Adaptability Quotient (AQ). 

Our world has become more complex, more uncertain, and more ambiguous. Each day it seems we are navigating relationships and responding to situations that feel different than ever before. 

According to Amy Edmondson, a professor of leadership and management at Harvard Business School, your IQ might help you get through exams to become qualified in your chosen field of work; your EQ might help you connect with your interviewer, get the job, and build relationships with coworkers and clients; but it’s your AQ that will ensure you can keep up with innovations and new ways to work in an everchanging future.

The Creative Thinking Institute

I believe these are skills that can be honed and grown, no matter your age or stage. In fact, the 6Cs from New Pedagogies for Deep Learning use progressions that help users better understand where they are in those specific competencies and what it looks like as they keep growing their AQ. 

Below, I have included just a few of the competencies where I see what having a high Adaptability Quotient (AQ) looks like. 

from the 6Cs Learning Progressions by NPDL

What can we do?

As educators, we need to help students not only build their AQ muscles, but we need to be explicit about what it looks like when they are being adaptable, when they aren’t showing the skills of being adaptable, and why this will help them throughout life.

Of course, we first have to start with ourselves. Take a look at the competencies above. Which of these do you feel confident in? Which do you see room for growth? How might you consider a goal to work towards? Who could join you as an accountability partner? Maybe a class?

Self-Awareness and Self-Reflection

Under the Communication competency, I am committed to checking for personal bias. I know that this is an area of growth for me. In fact, in a recent meeting, I recognized that my own biases might be interfering with my ability to make a specific decision and asked for a barometer check to ensure that my decision-making was fair and accurate. 

Hey! Will you look at that?!

I used my IQ to remind me that I might be wrong. I used my EQ to humbly recognize that my thinking might be biased. I used my AQ to remain open and curious about other perspectives.

Maybe I AM Gifted after all!