PJ Caposey

Overnight Success is a Lie

Last year, I had the opportunity to attend the Final Four—an unforgettable experience for any basketball fan. But what made it even more powerful wasn’t what happened on the court. It was what I read in the stands. A USA Today article highlighted a fact that stopped me in my tracks: three of the four coaches on college basketball’s biggest stage were coaching high school basketball just twelve years earlier. Let that sink in. Dan Hurley? He was literally driving a minibus… Read More »Overnight Success is a Lie

“Breaking” People

I had a young leader I was working with mention that they had to “break” down a team of individuals they were working with so they could build them back up. In schools, I would imagine that we may hear this more from our athletic coaches talking about their athletes than anywhere else, but that is not the only place you hear this type of language. I say this because this is quite literally the underlying ethos of movies Hoosiers, Miracle,… Read More »“Breaking” People

Innovation.

I have been thinking a lot about something and I am not 100 percent sure I have distilled my thoughts at this time; but it is on my mind so I am going to write about it. I hope you read it and help me get to a more concise and clear thought pattern.  I recently had the pleasure of meeting with someone who was wildly accomplished – particularly for the stage of their career that they were at. In… Read More »Innovation.

Ego.

“There’s going to be enough people in life that try to limit what you can do… Don’t limit yourself.” Lorraine Wagner When speaking on different topics, the topic frequently meanders to the topic of ego. I like to challenge the audience to attempt to define ego with as few words as possible. They oblige and almost always the definition I hear back is “sense of self”. While that is the commonly understood definition and very similar to the definition you… Read More »Ego.

Leadership Malpractice

There are plenty of good leaders and plenty of bad leaders in this world. I know for a fact that I have been both – and likely I have been both in the past week. As I have reflected on a handful of things in the past few weeks one thing has become abundantly clear to me as certifiably being leadership malpractice. It is a simple practice that takes no skill to remediate, but is still pervasive in both corporate… Read More »Leadership Malpractice

How to Get More Done

Every once in a while someone will ask me about my routines or daily structure at work. This is typically built from the fact that I seemingly get a lot done for my district and in the educational space at large and they are looking for a tip or a hack that I MUST be using to get ahead. They simply want to know how to get more done! My answer has always been the same – do less.  The… Read More »How to Get More Done

100 Percent

I love finding excellent reflective questions that make me think deeply. If you are a frequent reader of the newsletter, you are clearly able to see my commitment to trying to provide those types of questions for you. This week, I read a reflective question that gave me pause for multiple days and thus, I would like to share it with you.  The question was: AM I TRYING MY BEST OR AM I JUST TELLING MYSELF I AM? My personal… Read More »100 Percent

B – C – D

I write and talk about Blame, Complain, and Defend behavior ALL.THE.TIME.  A quick search of my newsletters from the past 18 months show that I have referenced it four times. I thought it time to dedicate an entire newsletter to it for a very important reason. After years of talking about this, lecturing my kids,  and frequently using my son’s car-talk after a basketball game as an example of BCD behavior – he FLIPPED THE SCRIPT on me.  For those… Read More »B – C – D

The Circle of Sameness

Life keeps score. We can say it however we want to, but there is no doubt that our behaviors absolutely lead to our outcomes. Yes, it is profoundly true that not everyone has the same opportunities. Everyone, however, does have the same opportunity to make positive changes in their life based on the choices they make.  If you are wondering how this applies to you, I ask you to look inward. Take a minute to deeply examine the six core… Read More »The Circle of Sameness

Goals That Are Not Really Goals

In my work with someone I coach outside of the world of education and through the coaching process they arrived at this conclusion—the primary goal that they wanted help in achieving was financial. This person was the Founder/CEO of a company and had decided that they wanted to double their revenue stream in the next 24 months. Given the relative size and infancy of the company along with the talent of the person I was coaching, this was eminently doable. … Read More »Goals That Are Not Really Goals