I’d like you to meet gutsy leader Dr. Esmeralda Carini. Esmeralda is a K-12 literacy leader based in Hawaii and its first and only Literacy District Education Specialist for the Hawaii Department of Education (HIDOE).
A few years ago, Esmeralda developed an award-winning success model, Hawaii Lab Cohort, for teacher professional learning which is now being used across the state and in school districts on the mainland. Although Esmeralda is an established educational expert in her home state when she first joined GLA (Gutsy Leadership Academy) she wanted to use her voice in a bigger way to support all educators, not just limited to Hawaii. Now if you’re just getting to know me here, I like to give some gutsy S-T-R-E-T-C-H challenges. That which will stretch, but not freeze you. So I encouraged her to go bigger by being interviewed on a podcast.
I am pleased to share her podcast interview with another fellow gutsy leader here at In Our Shoes, Director of Literacy and Development at The Education Partners: Kia Brown-Dudley. Listen to the education podcast on Professional Learning Communities here. Now that Esmeralda has sat for one interview (podcast), she can go on and do any number of them. That’s Gutsy Leadership. You take one small “risky” action or gutsy move and that one step frees you up to do many more.
Before I continue, I want to be sure you know about my career leadership audio course  (it’s free); it’s designed to show you how to own your authority, and ommunicate your value with confidence!
You are your own brand. You may love and appreciate the organization you work for, but they did not define you. You developed and grew into a “product” that serves a specific set of clients giving them certain results that you can package and bundle up anywhere you go, and replicate your results.
Today, podcasts are the new stage, although I still encourage you to speak from behind a podium. If you want to find peers who will advocate for you and refer you on, beef up your network, or become an influential member of a networking group, but you are not quite 100% there yet, then I encourage you to speak publicly. You will never be ready. At GLA, we give you the exact scripts to use, the contacts to reach out to, and the accountability to ensure you commit to action. But really, this is about committing to yourself and what you believe is possible. You’ve got to wake up every day, with full faith and expectation that you can get to where you want to be. Whatever you want in your life, you are never ready, until you just are. That’s how it works. Your gutsy moves are waiting…
