386. The Hidden Cost of Pretending to Have It All Together: Featuring Chris Valli

Speaker A: Happy Summer. Aspire Leaders. Before we begin today's episode, I just want to take a moment to thank Wild Heart Teachers Retreat for having me as a keynote speaker presenting on enhancing our capacity with healthy habits here locally in Divide, Colorado. It was such an amazing space. It was beautiful atmosphere and I'm grateful for the opportunity, especially as I'm getting super excited for the summer and all the back to school kickoffs ahead. I'll be traveling to South Carolina, California, multiple times, Minnesota and Kansas to help educators get energized, encouraged and equipped for the school year ahead. If you're looking for a keynote speaker half day session or a full day professional development, be sure to visit joshdamper.com um speaking to get more information about the various keynote and full day presentations available to you. I'm also excited to welcome my guest today, Chris Belli. Chris is all the way over in New Zealand. He's an author, keynote speaker, former journalist, educator, and the founder of the Voice Framework, which stands for Vulnerability Opens Inner Courage. After a highly publicized turning point in his teaching career, Chris transformed adversity into a platform for authentic leadership, helping educators and leaders embracing vulnerability as a catalyst for courage, connection and growth. Super excited about this connection, this conversation, so let's dive in. Welcome to Aspire Lead, where we empower educators and school leaders to grow, inspire and thrive. I'm your host, Joshua Stamper, author, speaker and leadership coach, bringing you conversations that spark transformation, challenge the status quo in education, and equip you to make a lasting impact on your campus or in your district. For more information and resources, visit JoshStamper.com as we're looking to ascend to new leadership heights together. Welcome back to A Spider Lead and I'm so fortunate. I have someone across the pond and we have listeners all over the world. I think we're up to 170 different countries that tune into this podcast and I'm so excited to have my guest, Chris Velley with me as we're going to touch on a lot of leadership topics. But before we begin, Chris, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Speaker B: Thanks for having me, Josh. It's, uh, it's a privilege, so thank you.

Speaker A: Yes, it's always fun to have guests that are like in the next day over from me and so I'm always excited to have these opportunities to jump online and be conn connected with folks that I really have no business to actually talk to. So Chris, it was great to connect with you earlier and learn about your story. I'm super excited about the Wisdom they're going to share today. But before we start touching about leadership, will you just share a little bit about your leadership journey and how you got to where you are today?

Speaker B: So a primary school teacher of 10 years. So primary school in the US context, sort of 5 to 12 year olds transitioned into secondary teaching around that time. I had a bit of a low eb. My marriage had broken up. They'd taken a cell phone off a student, which became an investigation. Lost my teacher registration from that back of that, wrote a memoir called Put the Phone Away off the back of that memoir. It's been a remarkable couple of years around proximity. Keynote speaking. Does leadership look like? What does it feel like? And it's been a blast the past two years around vulnerability and reframing masculinity. So that's where my leadership has taken me.

Speaker A: So Chris, you had touched on vulnerability. I want to kind of hunker down on that because you, you were pretty vulnerable just in that, in that statement, just with that experience that you had with that cell phone and losing your licensure there. So how do you define vulnerability, especially for our leaders who need to make sure that they're always having this Persona of strength and always having the answer.

Speaker B: For me, vulnerability is about alignment. It's about the why, the who. It's ultimately about a values lead conversation. You know, where is the empathy, where is the compassion, where is the positivity and the communication? So all those skills that are about being wholeheartedly human, to quote Brene Brown, but for me, vulnerability translates to open wound. And when you talk about challenges, you find proximity and you find solutions. So in the New Zealand context, there's a perception that if you're a male that you harden up or you be stoic or staunch, I think therein lies the conversation. You know, we need to take off the mask, we need to take off the armor and find trust through a rapport. And that rapport ultimately leads to relationships and, you know, effective leadership and communication.

Speaker A: I'm assuming that, you know, this was something that you took into action, right, as far as being vulnerable as a leader. Curious. Like when you're working with leaders or in your own experience, did that affect like school culture at all or trust with the relationships that you had with your staff members or even like the well being of your school as a whole?

Speaker B: At the time I didn't really know much about it. You know, I just turned up and I was me, you know, extroverted, outgoing, enthusiastic, often would challenge things in a, in a management context because Ultimately, it's about, you know, the students that were in front of us. And you know, sometimes they were difficult conversations. But I think difficult conversations are really important to have that. You don't sit back and you just observe that there's a culture where you, you have a solution focused, but you have a culture where, yeah, it's about empowerment and it comes through voice and raising one's voice in a context that allows a greater purpose.

Speaker A: So with those hard conversations, I know some of our leaders, they kind of bristle at that. They see it and they are maybe adverse to it. Maybe they ignore some of the behaviors or they might skirt around the issue as far as the conversation, they don't get to the heart or root of what's really, truly going on. So for hard conversations, what advice do you have for our aspiring and current leaders? To make sure that they're having them, but then also successful in doing so.

Speaker B: I think it's about a one on one. Often people don't like those hard conversations in a social context. So when you have a moment to ask questions, but more importantly to observe, I think through observation, that's when you learn a lot. Body language, disposition, demeanor, people's headspace in terms of how they arrive to work. And so those connections at the start of the day are imperative. You know, that coffee that we talk about, that walk before work. So my advice really is to be vulnerable. You know, like it translates to vulnus, uh, the Latin word open wound. That when you show empathy and compassion, you'll be surprised how far it takes you, that you show your realness, uh, your authenticity. And authenticity is such a catch cry. Let's be authentic. I think authenticity is about what gets you up in the morning, what motivates you, what inspires you. And for me, the youngest of seven children, it was about people and people follow people. And I truly believe if people can demonstrate empathy, I think that's the key skill in any type of leadership. If you can relate to someone's experience, the relationships grow from there.

Speaker A: Picking up on certain words. You said vulnerability, empathy, compassion. I think if I'm trying to categorize it, maybe the umbrella is emotional intelligence. Is that something that you work with folks on and is that something that a lot of people even know exists or skills that we need?

Speaker B: As a leader, I'd suggest a lot of blokes, a lot of men don't know emotional intelligence. They think their role is to provide, to bring home an income. Yeah, and that's gotta be modeled. Emotional intelligence is the person that says, I'm, um, stuck, I need a hand. Um, I'm tired, I'm, um, buggered. Can you help me? That when you talk about being sad or happy or angry, that's a language which is not complex and it's a language which people get.

Speaker A: I know we're going to talk about an event later on, storytelling, and I know this is a passion of yours. I'm curious how storytelling can connect folks and create belonging in schools.

Speaker B: Is something from a New Zealand Aotearoa, where. Which translates to the land of the long white cloud in Mori language about a Korero, that's K O R, uh, E R O, which translates to storytelling passing on stories from generation to generation. And I used to remember growing up as a kid, you know, the youngest of seven, hearing stories that my mother would say, My mother used to say, or my father used to say, and at the time they just seemed abstract, they just seemed so far removed. Then you have all these life experiences and you become an adult and then you go, uh, I remember my mum saying that. And there's a connection and there's a recall around a visual or a smell. And for me, storytelling is about not only experiences, but it's about relating to people in a way that is face to face. And in New Zealand culture, we do that through a pint. You know, the old days of going to the pub and having a pint and a cigarette. My biggest concern at the moment is that we've got these smartphones and we're trying to connect. We've got people disconnecting to connect. And here we are online talking, you know, America, New Zealand, but storytelling for me, and to provide that context, I was the guy that was the local journalist, you know, for a number of years, telling other people's stories. And I never, never had told my story around my teacher deregistration. And so telling my story has been empowering. It's made me believe in the impact of vulnerability and reframing masculinity. The guy that was told to harden up, have a beer, she'll be right mentality, which over here means sweet as. Don't worry about it, just get on with life. There's a lot of noise at the moment, you know, and so how do we compartmentalize that noise and how are we present and how we engaged? And I truly believe we do that through stories.

Speaker A: You're right. Especially our leaders, you know, and. And I feel like in the States here, or probably where you are, like, this is pretty universal as far as the pressure that we feel as leaders. You talked about the noise, right? We're having noise on social media. It might be, uh, the community members, it might be your staff as far as expectations that they put on you, or maybe the dislike of a decision that you've made. And so is there something that you would say, beyond storytelling, that will help our leaders through some of those tough times to, to get on the other side and be successful?

Speaker B: I guess I'd answer the question through. I don't know if you heard of Jacinda Ardern, former New Zealand Prime Minister, Female Prime Minister. So her story was around Covid, you know, the pandemic 2020. All of a sudden the economy shut down, the world shut down. And her leadership model was based on kindness. Now there's a lot of impact on that in terms of the economists, what that looked like in terms of the next pay packet and job restrictions, et cetera. But I think the leadership model around kindness is about delegation. It's about finding a proximity of people that align with your values. And interesting in the word leadership is the word lead. I truly believe that leadership comes from having delegation or having people around you that make you better. Leadership's not one. Leadership's collective. And I don't need to tell you that, you know, aspire to lead, aspirations to lead comes from this internal conversation around, I'm going to try it. If I make a mistake, I learn from that. And so making those mistakes makes you more empathetic, more compassionate. Yeah, it's, there's a lot there to digest.

Speaker A: Yeah. I think a lot of people are struggling with like, self capacity. And I think you're onto something here is like, we can't do this alone. Unfortunately, a lot of people put on the Superman cape or Superwoman cape and they think, okay, I'm going to take on all of the problems, solve them, take, uh, on all the initiatives. And, and you talked about delegation. I think a lot of leaders too have a tough time of like, giving things away because I know what I can do, I know what the outcome will be if I put my hands on it. But, but I think if you have trust and you have good people around you, I think they can support you in a lot of different things. Yeah.

Speaker B: Ah, absolutely. And I often wonder. Leadership is often the ones that listen to understand, don't listen to give an opinion or solve. Yeah. Cause sometimes those solutions aren't overnight. And it's about creating a culture. And it's a word that it's used a lot in high performance sport you know, what's the culture look like examples over here. A few years ago, we had a New Zealand cyclist who took her own life because of her mental health problems. And she didn't feel like she had the ability or the aptitude or, uh, the opportunity to talk about her headspace because of the culture within, um, that setup at the time. And so, you know, from a mental health perspective, there's a lot going on, and we can only listen to understand, because when we listen to understand, we have greater communication. And I was talking to my partner about it recently, and she said to me, you've changed since I've met you. And I said, what do you mean? She said, four years ago, you would have reacted to that comment. And I don't know about you, Josh, but as you get older, uh, sometimes you don't sweat the small stuff. You know, you go, I've got perspective, I've got gratitude. I'm doing okay. And when you do what you're doing now, and those beautiful moments of just nodding or listening, that sits, and it allows you to process what's been said. And in many ways, that's the action of emotional intelligence, the ability just to understand.

Speaker A: I want to talk about your book a little bit, because this is a tough story. This is something where you were vulnerable and sharing. I'm curious, before we talk about the book itself, how did you find the courage to actually use your own voice for this resource?

Speaker B: It's a story that sat with me for a number of years, since 2019. And I remember turn 19 because there was a Rugby World cup on that year spot, the Rugby Head. It came off the back of the headline. The headline read, aggressive Teacher who Bullied Students struck Off. It came out in March last year, two weeks later. I was working as a journalist at the time. And then two weeks later, I lost my job because of that headline. And it was the darkest part of the whole journey. So to provide that context, it's complicated, but the book was about telling my story, my truths, my context. A guy whose marriage had broken up, a guy that was unfaithful in his marriage, a guy that had been consumed by musical theatre. He'd done numerous shows in 2019. Phantom of the Opera, a local charity event, Stars in Her Eyes, where I dressed up as Boy George. And so the guy that was the teacher escaping all the teacher stuff, I didn't recognise at the time how exhausted I was and how burnt out I was and how disconnected I really was. So the book, Put the Phone Away is about me taking A cell phone off a student in 2019. I remember arriving into secondary teaching in term three of that year in August. I had no toolbox, no strategies around behavior management, became isolated, turned up to school one day really angry with all these kids on their cell phones. And so that incident became an investigation, a 30 month investigation. I had to sign an undertaking not to teach in July 21st and around that time was on full pay or discretionary leave as they called it. And it was unusual, it was a weird time. I was like, do I, do I wait for an outcome or do I get on with life? And so I had trained as a journalist when I left school and ended up getting a position in the local newspaper here as the editor actually. So the book for me was, it was complex. I wasn't too sure if it was about honesty, vulnerability, courage, screen time. There's all those themes within the book. But I sit here 18 ah, months on, um, from that book and I've never been more proud of my journey. And I remember at the weekend I've just come off a keynote talk in Auckland around vulnerability and the courage. That's my framework. It's just empowering when you go, this is what I went through and it almost gives others permission. I miss teaching, I miss the social interaction, I miss the banter, I miss the mateship. But I truly feel leadership is about how you respond through adversity. And so the book for me has been almost like my business card, like, here's my book, here's my story, this is what I went through, here's what I suggest, here's what I encourage you, what to do with the leaders that

Speaker A: are reading it for the educators. What's the takeaway from that? That you hope you know, everyone that's reading this will bring with them. Um, and maybe it's even with your keynote too. I know you do keynotes connected to that too.

Speaker B: That courage is about being brave, that there's a shame and a guilt when you have a public fallout, when you take the time to work on your own well being or your own self, when you work on your own headspace, when you work on the physical to improve the mental, that you start to find your identity again, that you start to grow in ways that you never thought you'd grow before. There's a classic saying over here in New Zealand, I'm not sure if you say it over there, but you got to go through the, to come out of the. And when you go through that headspace, you start to find people who go, oh, oh, I've had the same problem. So hearing your story makes me go, I can, as opposed to I can't. Yeah, it's, It's. It's about the true blessing that is about being vulnerable. I hear it in news items, and I hear people say, I was watching the news last night around social housing and vulnerable people. It's still got their deficit discourse. You know, there's still a perception around the language that is a weakness. And so my advocacy, my leadership, is about changing the narrative. And if we want leadership to be all encompassing, the true leaders are vulnerable. You know, I've got the Patriots top on today. How many times did Tom Brady, you know, not throw the winning pass? How many times did Michael Jordan not hit the winning shot? And so through those mistakes, you want it more. And then long days, I'll be honest, Josh, you know, these days when you go, oh, uh, it's happened so long ago, turn 19, how do I move forward and just have a 9 to 5 job? But I also go, how boring would that be just to have a 9 to 5 job? Do you know what I mean? Totally. You know, this is the brain, man. It's a beautiful computer, and we've got to rewire it, we've got to talk to it, we've got to nurture it. And so just like, you know, doing exercise, we've got to exercise the brain. And that comes from reading, learning, research, listening. All good stuff.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's how I feel about this podcast, is it's exercise from your brain. Every time I have these conversations with great folks like yourself, I feel definitely energized. I feel like I have more passion about education and of course, keeps me going. So I love what you're saying about the book, the resource. We'll make sure the link is in the show notes for folks. It'll be on my website also joshsamer.com for folks to get a copy for themselves. I want to talk about a project that you're super excited about, and I, uh, am, too, which kind of leads into what we're talking about before called Stories that Stir. So I know you're trying to connect people, also share a little bit more about various stories. So will you just talk through that project?

Speaker B: Yeah. It's an interesting language, a Stories that stir. You know, you hear stir, it almost sounds like, oh, it's a bit of a negative take on, you know, trying to be a troublemaker or cause a bit of angst. I think when you are a stirrer, you know, you get the visual of stirring the pot. You know, you're trying to create something, the, uh, metaphor around what's it coming to in terms of fruition? Stories at Stir came out of Australia. A lady called Monica Rosenfeld, who I met through Speakers Institute, New, uh, Zealand and Australia. We connected on LinkedIn about six months ago. Monica had come from a sort of media radio background and had mentioned that she'd started this business out of Sydney, uh, or Melbourne, one of the two. And the premise for it is basically creating a space, a space where local people, often they have six people, can turn up for 10 minutes and share a story, Share a story about an aha moment, a moment of epiphany, a moment of motivation, resilience, courage. And the platform is that they have 10 minutes to talk and it's often at a cafe or a bar and they have an audience turn up and there's a Q and A at the end of it. There's some hospitality, some finger food, a few drinks. But, uh, ultimately being vulnerable and standing in front of people they don't know in a public setting and sharing some wisdom, sharing their failures, sharing their success. And so the past few weeks was really fortunate to become the New Zealand licensee host of that. So great that it's come across the Tasman Sea from Australia into New Zealand. And we're looking at running that, uh, here locally, here in Blenheim, Marlborough, the next sort of six weeks, two months. At the moment, we're talking to a lot of people around where they like to be part of it. And it's really exciting. And it's a small community that I live in here, and at times everyone probably feels like everyone knows their own story through village Gossip and the old Chat 101. But ultimately it's about being genuine, rocking on up and having a yarn and ultimately just being buzzed about that. And yeah, man, the power of storytelling. Yeah. And I liken it to. We watch movies and we go, oh, that's a great movie, because. Or we go to a musical theatre show and we go, oh, I just saw Hamilton. That was wicked. Because I truly believe storytelling, it's about values. The values that we talk about, the values that we need to put into action. And those stories create leadership and that leadership creates community. Yeah, I can't wait for it to kick off.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's so powerful. I love that you're doing that event. And you're right. I mean, everyone too will, uh, hear these stories. And. And that connection is made is because there's similarities in all of us. And That's. That's why we connect with movies, and that's why we connect with book, and that's why we connect with theater productions, is because we. We find little pieces that we identify and. And that are like us and pull that in, and that could be from a character or that could be from a greater, uh, story. But I love that you're bringing that to New Zealand.

Speaker B: Thank you. And there's no irony lost that, you know, here we are talking about, you know, the escape, and I'm actually promoting sometimes not to escape, to take off the mask, to take off the. The armor. But, you know, I think the big. The big goal moving forward, Josh, is to get males showing that emotional intelligence. I don't know what it is over there in the US at the moment with reframing masculinity off the back of, you know, documentaries like the Manosphere and what that looks like from a digital perspective, but, man, we've just got to get off screens, you know, we've got to just get back to being parents, walking up hills, snowing, skiing, you know, swimming, all that good stuff. That is the experience of a childhood and modeling that as adults. We've got to get back to connection.

Speaker A: Couldn't agree more. Well, I'm so glad I got to connect with you today. As we wind down, I like to have an actual item, as you know, Chris. So, you know, it's great that they're probably taking notes, they're listening from your stories, but I would love for them to do something. So if there's one thing that they could do tomorrow or next week to enhance their leadership journey, what would you recommend?

Speaker B: Turn to someone they trust or a loved one and say, this is what I'm carrying at the moment. This is what's heavy, this is what's hard. And I need to have the courage to tell you actioning that will create understanding and create more effective relationships.

Speaker A: Do you think that'll create some potential support also in that hard thing?

Speaker B: You hope so. Hope's a powerful word because when you share what you're going through, ultimately that's about in empathy. And my partner's been a good example of that. I've become a better listener as opposed to a better talker. And I think she feels she can have the courage to tell me now because she knows that I'm present and I'm listening to understand.

Speaker A: Love it. All right, well, for us, it's summertime. I hope everyone is taking note of that. And, you know, especially for those leaders who are looking at Next year already maybe dreading some of the things that are coming up. I want you to make sure that you're doing what Chris just advised, because I think we need to work on ourselves now to make sure that we're better, you know, when the school year begins. So with that, Chris, I'd love for you to share out to our listeners about ways they can connect with you via social media, via your website, or if they have a question and want to shoot that out to you, how they can get ahold of you.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'd love that and that'd be cool. Uh, for me, LinkedIn is the big one, just through Chris Valley V A L L I Facebook. Got two pages set up there, my own personal one, and then the voice framework on the same page, and that's pretty much it. Haven't got the website up and running yet, but that's going to take shape the next wee while. You know, there's something really powerful. The fact that we're stuck here in NZ and we're not stuck because of the isolation. In recent conversations, uh, with people in North America has been, um, been wonderful. So that's where you'll find me.

Speaker A: Awesome. Well, we'll make sure those social media links are also in the show notes for folks. And Chris is amazing. I want you to definitely follow him in those spaces. And of course, dm, if you have any questions, pick up his book as soon as possible. It's on Amazon, so we'll make sure that link's in there too. And then with that, Chris, I just wanted to thank you so much for all of the inspiration that you're providing through your story, the adversity coming on the other end of it, and also just changing the way we view leadership, because I think that there really does need to be a shift.

Speaker B: Thanks, Josh. I really appreciate those words and I think what you're doing, it's a wonderful platform. So thanks, Phil.

Speaker A: This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better Podcast network. Better Today, Better Tomorrow, and the podcast to get you there. Explore more podcasts@www.teachbetterpodcastnetwork.com. we'll see you on the next episode.