Rethinking #whatsyourbackflip

It’s 11pm. I’ve been trying to go to bed for about an hour now and I’m not having any luck. I can’t stop thinking. I have made a lot of decisions about my life in the last few weeks. I buckled down to make decisions about writing a book. I’ve set in motion some big ideas for OnEducation. I’ve also made some pretty huge decisions about my health. I think, for the first time in my life, I feel overwhelmed, but not with negative issues and stuff I have the deal with that is bad, but overwhelmed with all the positive things I am working on, or would like to do. It’s stress, but good stress. Is that a thing?

I suspect impostors syndrome Mike will make an appearance any day now and remind me everything is going to fall apart any minute now - but let’s try to live in the moment for a few minutes. I’d like to talk about something.

“#whatsyourbackflip was a call to set aside fears, face them - even ignore them sometimes - and DO THAT THING, whatever that thing was, that you’ve been holding back from doing because you were afraid.”

Back in May I delivered my keynote for the first time as the spotlight speaker at CONNECT 2019 in Niagara Falls. It was called #whatsyourbackflip and it was primarily about encouraging educators to set aside their fears. We fear so much as teachers: not having the answers, bad parent interactions, learning new things, wanting to learn something but not knowing where to start. Recently, I was on the Planning Period Podcast and said that the biggest problem in education is fear. It is. If educators could just feel like they were trusted, and their fears diminished, we’d change the world. I absolutely believe that. #whatsyourbackflip was a call to set aside fears, face them - even ignore them sometimes - and DO THAT THING, whatever that thing was, that you’ve been holding back from doing because you were afraid. I challenged people to share those “backflips” with me and the response was awesome - #whatsyourbackflip trended in Canada for a short time the day I spoke, it was an amazing feeling! People spoke about writing books, speaking in public, and even flying airplanes. It was amazing to hear what people were wanting to do.

I shared some of my own “backflips” that day. I spoke about doing more keynoting, and I spoke about losing weight. This backflip specifically has got me thinking about what #whatsyourbackflip really is. #whatsyourbackflip is a promise to yourself. A promise to do better, to do more. It’s a promise to live your best life and not let fear hold you back from doing it. It’s a promise to be determined to make your backflips whatever they are, reality instead of a dream.

So I’ve come to realize that what’s important in this is that I keep my promises to myself. I’ll land these backflips because I am stronger now than the fear that was holding me back.