Special Guest Expert - Margaret Boersma: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

Special Guest Expert - Margaret Boersma: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
How many times have you said to yourself, I'm going to succeed? And yet you keep coming up short. You probably noticed that high achievers with heart. Do things differently, but you just can't put your finger on it. You're curious about why high achievers accomplish more and have more satisfying relationships. It's because success is the result of your mindset and the consistent actions you take. This show is designed with your success in mind by revealing these powerful patterns of our dynamic individuals and guest experts. You can model what they do and apply to your future success now. Let's roll up our sleeves and get started. My name is Brigitta Hoeferle and this is the Success Patterns Show. And welcome everyone to the Success Show where we bring you golden nuggets. Success patterns are more valuable than ideas. Let me explain. Ideas, while very powerful, require some trial and error and a lot of time to put into action to think about manufacturing. First you have this idea, then a proof of concept, then a working prototype, then small production batches, and then finally, maybe full scale production. This can take months, maybe even years. And you may have met some people that are great collectors of ideas, but they do little else. I know you're thinking of that person. Forget everything you heard about ideas. You're not looking for ideas. You are looking for success patterns. And that's why you're here. Success patterns are different and success patterns are better. Why? Well, success patterns are proven. Have a logical sequence of steps to follow, have an action imperative and deliver consistent results. In today's content rich program, you're going to learn valuable success patterns. And we have a very special guest expert today who is a specialist in social and emotional intelligence. Her name is Margaret Boersma, and she's an expert in exactly that social and emotional intelligence. With over 35 years experience in education. As an educational consultant, trainer, speaker, she helps educators and parents assimilate communication and leadership skills into their lives. What important work Margaret does? Her mission is to bring emotional intelligence to schools, families and the workplace, to enable people, children, parents to flourish.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
She has coauthored a chapter in Brian Tracy's book Emerge and is currently working on her own book, The Dynamic Teaching Model. I don't that's not a success at all in itself. She has trained teachers in various countries worldwide. She already has people from Trinidad and Tobago on Today we're going to learn more with Margaret Boersma right here at the Success Pattern Show. Margaret, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. It is so wonderful to have a fellow educator on my show. And it's interesting, although I am not a educator educator anymore, as in a traditional sense, I go to a school building and I teach children. I attract so many educators. And I think at the end of the day, we're all kind of educators, aren't we? I think so. And once an educator, always an educator, for sure.

Margaret Boersma:
In your mind?

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Always an educator. Absolutely. So, you know, I used in your introduction two words that I would almost find they're a little bit overused. But with your experience of 35 plus years in education and in this field, I'm going to say them and I want to really dive deep into social and emotional intelligence. First of all, will you give us a definition of social and emotional intelligence? Okay.

Margaret Boersma:
So social and emotional intelligence goes together really well. Sometimes I think of it as emotional literacy. We have all kinds of literacies in school, and we don't often refer to emotional literacy, but it's really the basis of all learning. And if we have in our social interactions, if we have emotional intelligence, then we know how to interact and we know how to get along in group work and we know how to get along inside our families and we can navigate challenges that might come up. So that's why I think the school system basically has put social and emotional learning together. Originally, I believe it comes from Castle, which is an American organization who has done a lot of work in research in the social and emotional learning area. And so I think the word comes from there. Castle stands for the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning. So in the systems, at least in well, in in a number of parts of the world, North America for sure. But I know that in other parts of the world, social emotional learning or SEL is often referred to in a school context. In the workplace, it would be emotional intelligence.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yeah. So it's been around for a hot minute and it's become this. I don't know. Had to have emotional intelligence. Maybe fad is the wrong term, but it's become very fashionable to have emotional.

Margaret Boersma:
Yes. And I think what's become fashionable is not necessarily to have emotional intelligence, but to to talk about it and to check those check boxes that you're actually teaching it, which does nothing really, you know, have an issue with that. Because if you don't internalize it into your everyday life, you really haven't learned it for any purpose.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yeah. Amen. I mean, preach right here. So it has become in German, we would say flügel this what a almost a word with wings, because it will fly anywhere where people want it to fly and it'll fit in any box that you want it to fit. But truly, honestly, I hear people say, Well, it's only women that have emotional intelligence and men don't have intelligence, have emotional intelligence by default. How do you love that laugh? Tell me about this laugh.

Margaret Boersma:
Well, I would say that when I started on the trek to developing my emotional intelligence in a really intentional way by taking courses, I'm married to my husband who was sitting on the fence for 15 months and then realized, oh my goodness, I have to take part in this. And there's lots of men that take part in it, but I think they're just a little more reluctant.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Why is that? What do you think? I don't know.

Margaret Boersma:
I kind of wonder if. If sometimes I mean, this isn't with everybody, but it could be the ego gets in the way for women to actually you know, you just don't you just don't talk about things like that. And, oh, that's all, you know, airy fairy and those kind of comments and think, wow, But if you actually knew how to calm somebody down in one sentence, wouldn't you want to know that? Like there's really practical things that come out of this that really help you with all your relationships? Why wouldn't you want to know that? Right.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yeah. You know, I like to use the word when emotions are high, intelligence is low. And when we have emotional intelligence, does that mean that all logic goes out the window?

Margaret Boersma:
Now. Just the opposite. Ha!

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Tell us more.

Margaret Boersma:
Honestly, the emotion, if you have emotional intelligence, logic, has to stay put. If you stay calm, you can keep logical. If you. If your emotional temperature goes too high, then you're in a different brain almost. And, you know, sometimes we act like two year olds in that brain, even though we're adults. And and that doesn't serve anybody. So if you know how to keep yourself calm and, you know, then you can stay in your logical being, reasoning, being, and you can get a lot more respect from anyone you're around.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
How how would benefit teachers and administrators? You know, I'm going to come to the children and to the parents, but I want to start with teachers and administrators. How will it benefit them to have emotional intelligence? Where are they? So there's a two part question. And then where are they lacking emotional intelligence?

Margaret Boersma:
Um, well, it would really benefit them if, you know, their child or one of their students, um, was having like was having a hissy fit or, you know, there's lots of expressions for when you kind of resort to that child like behavior because you can't tolerate what's going on around you emotionally. And so you turn into a child and sometimes adults, not just teachers, but parents as well, when they have children that fly off the handle, they fly off the handle, too. And, you know, that means the emotional temperature in the room is escalating rather than being calming down. And to be fair, you know, teachers don't really learn these practical strategies in teacher training and and neither do parents. Parents don't you know, they don't become parents and have a handbook given to them. And this is how you handle it. And I think if we don't take it upon ourselves to learn some practical ways of thinking, ways of looking after ourselves and strategies for when people lose it, or how to make it right when you mess up things like that. Like if we don't learn those practical strategies, then it impacts us in the family, in the workplace and on the street, in the traffic, everywhere.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Mhm. Yeah. Um. Well, let's let's table that and come back to, you know, having being heated in traffic because I live in Atlanta and that that can happen. Um, but you go in and you you consult teachers or more administration. Who do you consult?

Margaret Boersma:
I like working with both teachers and administrators. And in my program called Wisdom, I have done that. And both of them get so much out of it. And the roles that they serve are different. And parents have done a lot with parents as well. And it's different roles, but it doesn't matter. The techniques are the same if you want to call them techniques, the little tools are the same. The way of thinking is the same. And I think when we want to transform with effective change a whole community, you have to work with the whole community. So in a school setting, administrators, teachers, parents, the rest of the staff, the custodial staff, everybody needs these these tools. And when and then you can expect effective change and shift to happen in the culture.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yeah. And I would assume the the the more challenging the behavior of a child, the more efficient it would be to have emotional intelligence or the more helpful it would be to have emotional intelligence. Would you agree on that?

Margaret Boersma:
Oh, yeah. We I think when we work with children and so many of us do, we're parents, you know, a lot of us are parents to like, what do you do when your kid, you know, is anxious or showing signs of depression or or, you know, withdrawing completely or is totally aggressive. And and and it boils down to the strategies, the mindset, the self care, the philosophy, the way of thinking that you have as a parent. Even young young babies can pick up on the energy of a parent. It's not what you say to people. It's not your tone necessarily. It's all these things, but it's also the energy you emit that communicates. And your words might be totally neutral, but if your energy is high and angry, people pick up on that, even even week old babies. It's incredible.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
For sure, Absolutely. I think the younger the more intuitive they are. Now, I'm looking back, you know, you've been in this field for over 35 years. I'm looking back at younger. Margaret. Were you always interested in this? Oh, there's got to be a different way. I mean, you know, for 35 years ago, no one knew what emotional intelligence was. Maybe only a few select people knew what that was. How did you get to that?

Margaret Boersma:
Um, I got I was the younger Margaret was always interested, but I never really knew where to go to get that kind of training and my own life experience as a child. Um, kind of got me going into I really need to explore this to overcome some of my own hurdles. Do you want to hear my. A little bit of my story or.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Please. Yes, we'd love to hear.

Margaret Boersma:
Okay, so, um, up until grade three, I did okay in school, third grade. And then after that, I was 11 years old. I remember standing on the the doorstep, and I overheard my mother on the phone, and I knew she was talking about me, and she said she just can't learn. And it just underlined for me all the nights that she would spend helping me with homework. You know how I had to read, comprehend, answer questions, regurgitate it all on a test? And it didn't mean anything to me. Just that I was missing my playtime outside. And in that moment, I thought, I'm stupid and I will always have to work harder than anyone else just to be average. It was a horrid feeling, but I think it was looking back, it was a landmark for me and it set me on a trajectory to really figure this out. I didn't learn in the the regular ways that kids would learn at school in the regular ways teaching was done. And therefore my self esteem was down and therefore I was bullied. So I thought next, like in my last year of high school, I thought if I could become a teacher, I would address the bullying issue and I would teach in a way that every kid can learn and not just the few. And that's what I spent my teaching career figuring out. And that's what I teach teachers now and principals how to reach these kids that are like me. And there's lots of them and everyone can benefit from it, not just. Kids who don't normally do well in the system, not just the special ed kids. In fact, the special ed kids need to be combined with the regular kids and amen. They need to be role models for them. And then the way I teach, they are and they shine and they beam. It's it's just incredible.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Thank you for the work that you do. And thank you for, for for integrating and bringing together and not splitting up. Because in any family it's not being split up either. It is. It is. It's community. It's it's the younger learning from the older it's the you know, it's the stronger learning from the weaker or the weaker learning from the stronger. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Right? We don't need to put them in boxes. No. That is such important work that you do, Margaret. Thank you.

Margaret Boersma:
Thank you.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
And and I wonder, you know, it it is challenging work. I'm pretty sure you sometimes, you know, find yourself just beating, wanting to beat your head against the wall and go, why is that? Can't be that hard. Why are people not understanding this or why are they not hearing me or, you know, whatever y question you might ask yourself, what's your secret to staying sane? Well.

Margaret Boersma:
I pray.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
I pray loud and hard.

Margaret Boersma:
Sometimes I, I reach out to friends and sometimes I can't divulge what's going on more than in general terms because it's confidential, but it still helps to change my brain waves. And sometimes I even get lost in a good story, whether it's through reading or through for, you know, the internet. Um, yeah, those are my main ways. I love walking through the woods and I swim three times a week. And in swimming I actually get amazing creative ideas without thinking about them. And so I find that physical that physicalization helps clear your mind enough to get new ideas without even being intentional about thinking about it. So I think there's some research on that too. I haven't looked it up yet.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yeah. Is it is it your subconscious mind just literally swimming freely? Yeah. As it may just flow.

Margaret Boersma:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it just flows. I came home yesterday and I had three things to write down for this five hour workshop I'm doing with, with another group with children and youth ministers. So yeah, so it's really, I love breaking complicated concepts down into step by step ways of remembering things and learning.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
A true educator.

Margaret Boersma:
Yeah, and that's how I learn best too. So.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Aha. That's what I wanted to come to. You became an educator because you wish you had someone like you.

Margaret Boersma:
Yeah.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
That.

Margaret Boersma:
And that's often the trajectory that's you know what you struggled with in, in childhood especially. They say your misery becomes your ministry and I feel that way.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Oh, right. Brian says he's going to try that swimming idea. He just moved. He just moved to the beach, too. So that's going to be easy for him. Perfect.

Margaret Boersma:
Perfect. Yes.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So swimming through it, if you imagine this is a magic wand and I give it to you, what would you do? What would you wish for? What What would happen with this magic wand?

Margaret Boersma:
What I would want is to have access to any open minded educator so that we can form a team and make the difference that needs to be made, not just in education but in society. So I'm open to I would be open to business leaders coming on board and going, Margaret, you're up to something here. What can we do? Because honestly, all those people that are in businesses and in the workforce right now were our students. And I feel we've let them down and it's never too late. So that would be my biggest my biggest wish is get those people in touch with me. Let's go. Let's do this already.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Let's lock arms and do it. And I love how you said open minded educators because there's there's educators out there that I think we can agree on, have no business being an educator. And I don't I don't even know why they're in it because it's really not that good of a money to be a teacher in the public school system. No.

Margaret Boersma:
Whatever tough. It's it's it's challenging. Right? It's very challenging. And for whatever reason, they chose it. Some of them are leaving again. Like, you know, you really need to be knowing that I think it's a calling. Like for me it's a calling. And what I'm doing right now is a calling or you won't stick it out.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
I agree with you. It's definitely I met a guy I was sitting on my porch the other day reading a book, and this man drove by in his pickup truck and drove by very, very slowly. And he saw me on the porch and he stopped and just kind of rolled down his window and looked over to me and said, Can I help you? And he goes, Yes, I have been I live in the neighborhood and I have been watching you and I want to learn from you. So I invited him on my porch and we had just a chat. He was super nice, like like I think he's like 26 or 27 years old. Young dude. And we just had a really good conversation. Turns out he is a teacher in one of the schools here in Atlanta and really, like he is with heart and soul and all of his like energy. He is a teacher and he is driven and committed to making a difference. And I'm like, you go. So I met with him several times just to pass on. What? I know. That's beautiful. I want to support these guys. Oh, yeah? They're not a whole lot out there, honestly. Unfortunately.

Margaret Boersma:
Well, yeah. And you know what? I think there are probably more than we know of. You know, people don't really know how to reach out. And honestly, within the public school systems, there's a lot of courses being presented as options in emotional intelligence that are not necessarily. Proving that the results are there. A lot of teachers are, you know, they're overwhelmed, stressed and overwhelmed. And they just want social emotional program for their students. And it's workbook oriented and really social emotional learning is about interacting. And we are losing the people skills that we need and we so don't teach it that way. I it's interactive and I'm putting my program online, but it's still going to be interactive with a group coaching call. And, you know, like we need it to be interactive and so do the kids. And that's how I teach the kids. I'm still in the classroom every spring.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
I think. I think everyone learns really well in some sort of fashion being interactive. I just finished writing a syntax for a tree that I'm going to do this weekend in in Las Vegas, and I put in a lot of exercises like, I'm not going to be the talking head for the entire time. They're going to start working through it. And it's just like swimming. Working through it. Yes.

Margaret Boersma:
Yes, we have to work through it. I think you have sports. It's a nice analogy for working through it. In sports, you have to build certain muscles in order to become good at a sport. And in emotional, social, emotional learning, you're also needing to build muscle. You can know something intellectually, but before you can actually act on it and be that way in person, you need to fail a few times. You need to build incrementally and that that takes something. And I think if for real change to happen, we need to be willing to go there. And that's why we need open minded people.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
I agree. I agree. And my students. I like to say there is no failure, right? There is a constant doing. And as they might, if we see traditionally as a failure, they might fail. But there's information that's being gathered through that failure. Yeah, and there's learning. So it's not a failure, actually. Feedback.

Margaret Boersma:
How many times was the light bulb worked on by what's his name? Uh, Thomas Edison, was it? Yeah.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Edison.

Margaret Boersma:
Yeah. I mean, at least a thousand, you know. And. And he doesn't look at it. He never looked at it as failure. He said that's a thousand times the ways that don't work. So that's grit. That's resilience. And a lot of us don't have that now, it seems. And that's what we want to instill not just in our students, but in our adults, too.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
I agree. My my niece just had backpack two boys like they're they're 11 months apart and and so there's he's the little one's one and the oldest just turned two and when they started walking and they started both started walking at different times one was like 15 months and the other one was ten months. Um, we didn't just one day, you know, say, Oh, you know what? I'm done with toddling. This whole walking thing is just not working, therefore I'm just not going to do it. Right. So we do all have that, but somewhere we're losing it. Somewhere we're being discouraged by someone that we, you know, like in your story, we hear and it has an impact on us.

Margaret Boersma:
Yeah. And I think. The Internet, too, right? Like computers provide immediate gratification and kids and adults spend an awful lot of time on computers. And so they think that everything should come very quickly. And so we get the wrong blueprint. Right. It's not it's not a good role model.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yeah. Yeah. So, gosh, time flies when we're having fun. We could talk on this for hours. So we have folks that are listening in and watching us live and they ask, how can we access this fabulous training?

Margaret Boersma:
Well, I'm actually converting it from the live Zoom training to the online, so you'll get short little videos for each of six modules and a group coaching call, which will also be recorded. So educators have said, Oh, you know, we can't make that time. So I'm making it so that it works for everybody. And I also do private coaching and all of it can be accessed through my email me at Margaret boorsma.com that's Boersma Yeah there it is And the anybody who wants to ask me a question we can book a call I'm piloting that program now so the it'll start the end of October and it'll be a very, very reasonable fee. It'll never be that low again. So if people want to take advantage of it, this is your chance.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yeah, absolutely. Go get it. Now I'm going to put in the email again at Margaret boorsma.com. That's Marguerite b o e r s.com. And Margaret, I think you also came bearing gifts, did you not?

Margaret Boersma:
Yeah, I did. I'm happy to provide a free coaching call if people are listening to this and they would like it, they should reach out to me and you can check my email which is at Margaret boorsma.com and you can reach out that way too. There's a lot of information on my site and so I invite you to go there as well.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yeah, I would say find Margaret Boersma on LinkedIn. You're also on LinkedIn. You have a huge following on LinkedIn. Find her on LinkedIn. Get with her. Her email address is Margaret boersma.com. That's really easy. Send the email to me at Margaret boersma.com. That's the email and find her on social media. She's up to incredible things and I agree with Brian Kelly who said phenomenal show. I agree. Margaret. It was such a pleasure to have you here with us at the Success Pattern Show. Do more great work with the work that you do. Thank you for being here.

Margaret Boersma:
You're so welcome. Thank you for having me.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
All right, folks, tune in again next week, same time, same place. Make sure that you invite others to come on as we always have. Incredibly phenomenal content, Rich guest experts. Until next week. Thank you for tuning in and you will notice opportunities to apply success patterns daily while eagerly anticipating next week's content rich success patterns.

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