Breakfast Club Blog

The BOOST Breakfast Club Blog is a curated space where bloggers from around the world contribute content on a continual basis about a variety of topics relevant to in and out-of-school time. The BOOST Breakfast Club blog is at the heart of an ongoing dialogue where expanded learning and education professionals share their personal thoughts and stories from the in and out-of-school time field. They also tell us what they ate for breakfast!

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Enjoy the brain food.

The BOOST Breakfast Club Blog is Brain Food for In and Out-of-School Time Leaders!

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Surviving Your 20’s For An Even Better 30’s

At the age of 31, I moved back with my parents. Sleeping on the couch in my parent’s basement, I reflected on the “dumb” choices I’d made. I realized that at the root of my problems was my inability to manage my impulses. However, had I not fallen on my a** – several times – I don’t think I would have been able to see the error of my ways. My 20’s was a crucial time in my life; full of temptations and distractions. But with great reflection, I realized all the decisions I...Read More

My Resolution For A Better Me

As we begin 2018, how many of you made a New Year’s resolution? I know I am taking advantage of this opportunity to make a commitment to myself and to make changes in myself. A new year is a perfect time to engage in a fresh start. I, like many people, could resolve to eat better, exercise more, or curb frivolous spending, but instead, I am going to take steps toward better mental health in the new year. For inspiration to help with my resolution I am turning to Mahatma Gandhi. His gentle approa...Read More

A New Year’s Resolution

Today is the last day of 2017. It’s been a strange year. I feel like we’re living in some Bizarro World version of America. It’s as if one day we will wake up and realize this was all just a bad dream. A year ago I thought, “Well, I lived through eight years of W, I’ll get through this.” I didn’t think it would affect me personally, but it has. It does, every day. I live in Irvine, a diverse suburban community in which less than half of the population is white. A multitude of languages can be he...Read More

A Holiday Invitation, Highs and Lows: What Will You Choose?

Happy December! It’s the season of holidays for many of us, though I know not all.   I embrace the holiday season, and Christmas is my holiday. I love it all—the lights, the trees, the presents, the magic. I love that the first snowfall usually comes during this season. I love the opportunity for gathering with people to enjoy eating, drinking, and merriment. I love that I have a fireplace and can light a cozy fire during this season. I love the Christmas music playing in the background (fo...Read More

The Flawed Leader… Follow Up 6 Months Later

Social Power is defined as the degree of influence that an individual or organization has among their peers and within their society as a whole. 6 months ago, I shared in this blog my challenges with my own leadership and that of the organization I started and grew over the past 15 years. I poured out on the table the comments my staff made in relation to my leadership flaws, and the ways I needed to be better for my team. Since then I have openly spoken in three different states in front of lar...Read More

The Flawed Leader

For the past 15 years, I have developed and grown an afterschool program model from its infancy serving 20 kids in a church to serving over 600 kids across three cities, demonstrating incredible success rates. By all means I have been deemed as a visionary, strong, competent leader.  Each year as we get larger and stronger, the pressure mounts as the praise continues, and the expectations build.  However, what most people on the outside looking in don’t see is with all the ambition, the drive fo...Read More

Foiled: Lesson Learned!

I went face-to-face this weekend with the single most evil thing in the face of parenting and humanity. The thing that makes you come face-to-face with your faults and imperfections, which reminds you that you are undeserving to even be taking up space in the room in which you are currently standing. The thing that tests you to your human limits. When I die, if I end up in hell, my particular level will have me wrangling this thing 24 hours a day. It answers to a few different names. Saran wrap....Read More

Keep The Channel Open

I’ve been sitting in contemplation of this quote by dancer/choreographer Martha Graham for a few weeks now: “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with...Read More

BOOST Master Class: Strengths Based Leadership

I’m grateful for the opportunity to host a Master Class on the topic of Strengths Based Leadership on Wednesday, April 19th from 2:30-4:30 pm during the BOOST Conference. In nearly 20 years of learning from and working for Gallup, I can’t think of a more exciting and impactful topic to share with conference attendees this spring. Gallup research proves that people succeed when they focus on what they do best. Each person has natural patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that ca...Read More

Tending You

What does personal development have to do with professional development? I’ve had many people ask me some version of this question. In other words, why bother working on myself? I should spend my time working on my job skills, my staff, my responsibilities, my “stuff.” And, okay, I get that. Tending to others, as I’ve pointed out, gives me a purr for sure. But here’s the thing that I’ve come to realize (slowly and begrudgingly and after being repeatedly put in...Read More

A Journey of Self-Discovery

The students in our programs come from diverse backgrounds and face unique challenges in navigating the world they are growing up in. It is a privilege to be their guide in this journey called life. Many of the students we have in our programs are having experiences that may be similar to the staff working in our programs. The true challenge is being able to create an environment that supports the staff and students to feel emotionally and physically safe and not just survive but thrive in spite...Read More

2017: I Am Here (with love)

Starlings In Winter, by Mary Oliver Chunky and noisy, but with stars in their black feathers, they spring from the telephone wire and instantly they are acrobats in the freezing wind. And now, in the theater of air, they swing over buildings, dipping and rising; they float like one stippled star that opens, becomes for a moment fragmented, then closes again; and you watch and you try but you simply can’t imagine how they do it with no articulated instruction, no pause, only the silent conf...Read More