Unleashing Hope: A Teacher's Journey from Trauma to Transformation

In this powerful episode of the Making Hope Happen radio show, Dr. Donita Grissom shares her remarkable journey from legal assistant to passionate educator and hope researcher. After experiencing profound personal tragedy, including the sudden loss of her husband while conducting doctoral research in Haiti, Grissom discovered the transformative power of hope. She discusses her groundbreaking work on hope theory, focusing on how educators can rebuild their passion and help students overcome challenges. Through her book "High Five to Thrive" and her work with Best Questers, Grissom provides practical strategies for teachers to reconnect with their purpose, manage burnout, and create supportive learning environments. Her insights reveal hope as a cognitive skill that can be learned, practiced, and used to drive personal and professional growth, offering a beacon of inspiration for educators and students alike.

Transcript

Erin Brinker: 0:00

Erin, good morning, everyone. I'm Erin Brinker, and this is the making hope happen radio show. So glad to have you with me on this beautiful summer day. And I gotta tell you, I'm broadcasting from inland, Southern California, the Inland Empire. And we have had such a gloriously mild summer. Last summer, by this time, it was all over 100 degrees. And it's been in the upper nine, upper 80s to mid 90s for the last month. And it's been amazing. So I I always start out by saying what I'm grateful for. I am grateful for that. I am so grateful for that. So got a great interview to use the word great one more time. I've got a great interview for you today, and let's get started. Do you ever have those? Well, what I call God moments. I know this is not a faith based show, but what I call God moments, and I'm having one of those right now. My next guest, Danita Grissom, is a senior lecturer at the University of Central Florida. She's the CEO of best Questers LLC. She's a professional education consultant and coach, certified load certified life coach and motivational and keynote speaker. She's also the author of high five to thrive, Five proven practices to unleash your passion for teaching. And of course, you know what's more important than the education of our children? Danita Grissom, welcome to the show.

Dr. Donita Grissom: 1:36

Thank you so much. I'm so honored and happy to be here

Erin Brinker: 1:40

so so tell us about who you are and what led you into the teaching profession.

Dr. Donita Grissom: 1:46

Well, I've always been a kid magnet. I guess you would say I love children. I feel more comfortable with children than I do adults most of the time. Kids are fun, and I love to have fun. However, I'll just will add this really quick, teaching is my second profession, legal assistant, paralegal. I ran law firms for over 20 years, and then I went back to teaching, or went into teaching, I guess, for the first time. So that is sort of my, my history there, but since then, I have taught K through 12 ESOL students. I have I taught music for one year, and I have experience in all the grade levels, but my predominant teaching experience was at the high school level, and I fell in love with them so but ESOL is my passion. I love people from other countries and cultures. They feed my soul as I always try to feed theirs. And during that time, what I was finding with my high school students is that they all came to me with some sort of trauma, and I was concerned that we weren't able to meet all of their needs, their holistic, you know, teenage, personal needs in the classroom. And a lot of them came with a lot of baggage, whether it be just leaving their country and leaving everything they knew, including their language, leaving because of some sort of war, which I had, a lot of those students, lots of different deep situations. So fast forward, I began my doctoral degree because I wanted to, I wanted to help them, and I wanted to find ways to help them. So I was in a doctoral program. And two years into the doctoral program, I was in Haiti doing some research for my dissertation, and I left on a Sunday, and my husband had gone with me, and on Friday morning, I get a call that no one ever wants to get, and that call was that he had had an a construction accident, and he was gone. Oh my gosh. So that

Erin Brinker: 4:16

became, that's horrible. I'm so sorry. Let me sit with that for a second. That's okay, okay, that's that's incredibly traumatic. I think the only thing worse would be losing a child. It would be

Dr. Donita Grissom: 4:28

but it was in that moment. I mean, I was like, No, you know, you can't imagine. I just talked to him at 830 last night. How could this be? Everything in my world came crashing down. And the interesting thing was that I was working with people who obviously one year from the earthquake, and I was doing research surrounding some of that and interviewing people. But when I finished. Just that those interviews, and when this happened, I realized, you know, I can't transcribe those tapes because my husband's voice was in all of those, oh yeah. And so every, every goal that I had, every thing that I had hoped to do was no more. It died with him, basically, and I just didn't know what to do with myself. I didn't I couldn't pick myself. I was paralyzed for that moment. I was hopeless. Okay? So, oddly enough, my cognate I had chose was social work counseling, because that was going to help me develop, whatever it was I was going to develop to help you know, these, these people who are, are immigrants and Esau students.

Erin Brinker: 5:51

That was an ESOL is English as a second language, correct, English as a second language.

Dr. Donita Grissom: 5:55

Yes, that that's the field that I that my PhD is in, and my master's degree and the whole thing. So so as the story goes, I woke up one morning, I was in the shower, didn't know what I was going to do. And I know you talked about faith at the very beginning of the story. This is my faith part. I felt the biggest hug on the inside of me, that's the only way I know how to describe it, and I felt this nudging that I had to get back to my doctoral work, and I had to finish this thing that I was supposed to do, even though I didn't know what that thing was. So I went back to school, and my social work professor called me in one day and began talking to me about, you know, what are you going to do about your study? And I said, I can't do what I was doing. It was about education, but it was something totally different, and I won't go into that. That's another day, another story. But I told her my past, which I kind of told you the Reader's Digest version earlier, and I said, I'm interested in the trauma, and I was measuring some things in Haiti with, you know, illiterate Haitian people there, and I didn't want to lose them, because it took too long to develop that relationship. When you do research in a third world country, it's not easy. And so she said, Well, you're too far removed to study trauma, but you can study hope. Ah, I had no idea what she was talking about, but I literally burst into tears, because in my prayer time, I'm not an artist, but I have been drawing these little hope chests, and didn't even know why. So it really resonated in my whole body, you know, spirit, soul and body. So that's what I did. I began reading and studying every single thing I could get my hands on about hope. And I did do my dissertation about hope. I measured hope levels of illiterate and people in Haiti, and it was a very interesting study and and maybe another day we'll talk about that. The results of that, however, I just want to throw this in really quick. What I found out is that anybody can have hope. It's related to our cultural nuances, our cultural differences also. So, for example, the Haitian people, their goals are not the same as Western goals. So they were able to find strategies to meet some of their goals in life. And it touched me so much to be able to work with these people and do that. But fast forward. A little bit. When I was doing my dissertation, I ran into some snags. You can imagine doing research in a third world country, indeed, yes. So I had some big snags. I had that moment one day when I ran out, I was I was out at the beach, and I ran out to the beach, and I was screaming like, you know, I don't know what to do. I'm having this brick wall moment and and it's like, am I going to have to throw all this in the trash can or what? So I didn't obviously have to throw it in the trash can. But what happened was my mama, who's no longer with us, my little mama, she called me up a couple days later, honey. I don't know if this will mean anything to you or not, but I read this today in the newspaper. This man just wrote a new book called making hope happen by Doctor Shane Lopez. And so I'm like, Mom, I don't know, but I'm going to find out. I went and got the book immediately. I read the book, and it literally filled, filled my heart with such hope.

Erin Brinker: 9:46

I bet it did.

Dr. Donita Grissom: 9:48

I contacted him, and he answered me, which was phenomenal, because a lot of people you know in his position might not have but he did. And. And I have to tell you that Dr Lopez was because he's no longer with us, unfortunately, and I'm so sad about that. The most incredibly kind person, hopeful down to earth. He was amazing. He he agreed to be on my dissertation committee. Oh, wow, yes, he helped me so much. And what I didn't know was that, unfortunately, he was not doing well then. But I didn't know, didn't know that he that was there for me. We got through the snags. He helped me so much because, you know, he was a senior Gallup Poll researcher, as well as all of the other things that he did. And so I always say, hope found me, you know, and his His work became foundational to me and in my personal life and in my professional life. So moving forward, we lost him too early, and now I feel that one of his many batons was passed to me. And so I've continued writing, researching, reading, talking about hope, everywhere I go to all people. Right now, I'm focusing on teachers, because that is the profession that I am in now. But I have been in the business world. So look out, business world. I'm coming for you later down the road.

Erin Brinker: 11:33

They need it. Boy, they need it. And I think it's important, like to kind of close the loop that I opened, saying that, you know that this is a God moment, the making hope happen. Foundation is the foundation where I work in this namesake for this podcast and radio show, and the the work that it supports the San Bernardino City Unified School District, and which also has a connection to Shane Lopez as our former superintendent, Dr Dale Marsden became, you know, became you know, became the superintendent in San Bernardino. He he wanted to inject hope into the work, because it felt very hopeless in the district. People were resigned to just let people, let the kids fail, like, you know, that they just well, those kids can't perform, you know, let's just they are who they are and whatever. And which is horrible, which is absolutely horrible, but that kind of malaise had had was a wet blanket over the district, and Dale Marson came in and said, Nope, we're not going to do this. And he turned the district around and and the graduation rate here went from 65% to about 90% and engaged families. Had huge town hall meetings with residents and employees. You know, teachers, both and so classified and certificated staff and all of the all the different parties. And he did that throughout his tenure, and really changed the motto of the district to making hope happen with permission from Dr Lopez and the foundation then was launched to help support that mission. And it really comes down to hope is the driving force for positive outcomes, how you see yourself, and how you see how you fit in the world and what's possible changes everything.

Dr. Donita Grissom: 13:20

You're absolutely 100% correct, and I would love to come to your school district, because everything that you're doing and your foundation and what's happening in the San Bernardino school districts, that's the mission for best Questers. That's what we do and what we're doing, and what we're wanting to do nationally and internationally, because our work does go from across the borders.

Erin Brinker: 13:47

Yes. So, so tell me about I'm really interested in the work that you did in in Haiti, and kind of how you how you then wrapped up your your research, and what you learned, and has anything come of that?

Dr. Donita Grissom: 14:01

So what became of that is that, obviously I've written some academic journal articles because I am, you know, a full time faculty member, and this that what I've found has informed the whole field. Okay? Because a lot of people, they look at third world countries and they think, for example, why are they sitting on the side of the road while there's just half made buildings? Why aren't they doing something? And what I learned was, first of all the NGOs, they use the money that they got to help Haiti, but they ran out of money. And one of the big key takeaways was, you know, you, you know the saying you can, you can train a person to see, what is it they to fish? If you don't treat them to fish, they can't catch their cells, right?

Erin Brinker: 15:02

You give them a fish they eat for a day. Yeah? You teach them how to fish, they'll eat. That's

Dr. Donita Grissom: 15:07

it. Thank you. Thank you. Sure. So that's what was happening, and what I learned through all my research was that they wanted to do something, but they didn't know how, so they they were paralyzed. And what we call, we call that hopeless. And so what I tell people is, and what, what I've learned through that desperate situation was, no matter what situation you find yourself in, hope, research says you don't have to stay there. Things can change, but hope requires making a choice, right? And so it does, yeah. And so if you don't mind, can I just kind of go into what hope it really is? Yeah, please, please do. Because what we also learned is that most people don't really know what hope is. What are we talking about? So Dr kelchner, who's one of my partners, Vicky kelchner and I, we did a study several years ago because we were working with teachers, and we were wanting to help teachers help, you know, raise the level of hope in their children in the classroom, because Dr Lopez and others that worked with him have done so much research on the benefits of children having high hope and in the classroom. So we were, we were working with teachers in that regard, and what we found out is, whoa, we gotta back up and punt because they don't really know what it is and how to how to raise those levels, because they don't really know what it is. So we did a whole study and and that article, by the way, has been one of the most cited articles in in the field regarding those regarding those topics. So I know you asked me about how it relates to Haiti, but Haiti is my my my big personal visualization when I think of hopelessness, because at that time, they were feeling hopelessness regarding a lot of their situations. But then, but then once, I started learning what hope is, which I am fixing to share what it really is, I began seeing how we could help them with strategies and strategies, how to make their particular goals come to life. So what is hope? A lot of people think it's just wishful thinking, you know, like, I wish I had a million dollars. I wish that I could go to Hawaii, you know, things that they dream about. And there's nothing wrong with that, but for actual hope to be in existence, you have goals or problems. So I usually ask everybody, is there any people in this room who don't have any problems? Of course, it doesn't exist. You don't exist, right? You're not real. Do you have goals? So the way I like to frame that is that problems can become goals with possibilities. Okay, so we look at goals and problems, and I kind of wrap those into the same bucket. Let's turn that into a goal. Let's turn that problem into a goal. And education is a perfect place, because we work with goals every day, with our students. But anyway, nevertheless, that the next component is you have a strategy. That's the pathway, that's how, how are we going to do this thing? And then we have the agency factor. And the agency factor is that place where we get the gas in our tank to keep moving from point A to point B. It includes motivation. It includes the mindset. That's the place where I work a lot, because neuroscience will tell you that your thoughts become your actions. And so in order for you to get from one place to another, if your thoughts aren't lined up in a way, we call it hot hot, hot thinking. Hope operational thinking that we've coined that little phrase hot thinking. If you don't have that, then you're going to be detained and hindered, because you're not going to have the courage to take that next pathway step. So those three ingredients must be in operation for there be true hope to happen. So we work, we dissect those three components, and we work on those we work on goal setting. We work on how to make those goals where they're smaller. We call them small biggies, you know, because all three of them work together, they weave together constantly. It's not like, Okay, we're going to work on this, and now then we're going to work on our thoughts, and now we're going to work on our motivation. It doesn't work that way. It's all working together at the same time, simultaneously, and a big factor. Is celebrating too. So when you make you realize that small Biggie, you celebrate some way. And you know, we don't do that enough.

Erin Brinker: 20:07

We don't, we don't celebrate the small wins at all.

Dr. Donita Grissom: 20:11

And that is really like stopping at the gas station and putting more gas in the tank. Oh, wow, I did that. I can do that again. Okay, you know, it may be something a little different, but it's like, you know, I've never done this before, but I'm going to try this strategy now. There's another notion, and it's not a component of Doctor Snyder's hope theory, which Dr Snyder was the theorist who developed this theory that Dr Lopez, and many of us work on but he does talk about it, and we call it the hope agent, the connector, that person who's been there and done that, who's going to work and walk with me, because there's a whole strand of incredible research about the benefits of not walking alone, and what happens when we are in isolation. I mean, think of covid for goodness sakes. Look what all happened to us. You know, we got we got depressed, we did and gained 25 pounds or more, and some people became alcoholics, and, yeah, many, many other things. So with that being said, we're not making a theory or a component out of it, but we we preach it, we talk about it, we include it, because I think it's really most important. You know, together we're better. That's one of our things that we say all of the time. And let me tell you why, because the theory does say that there's some people when you measure hope, and by the way, we do measure hope, we can measure hope with instruments developed and researched highly by Dr Snyder. And by the way, his theory is the most researched and most written about theory in the field of positive psychology. So let me just put that in out there anyway. With if you measure hope and you look, some people are stronger. They may have a stronger level of pathway thinking where they know, hey, I have ideas. I just don't have the motivation or the mindset to carry them out. And that's when you need someone to help you with your motivation and your mindset and your your I can do thinking kind of thing. And what we're

Erin Brinker: 22:29

talking about is not toxic positivity, because there's a lot of conversations being had about people who are are positive to the point of being toxic, where they're not looking at reality at all. And that's This is very different from that, very

Dr. Donita Grissom: 22:43

different. And I'm really glad you brought that up as matter of fact, I just wrote something about that yesterday. So so let me just give you an illustration. So one day we were driving down the road, and, you know, you get to this mountain, and it's like, well, I the map is telling the GPS is telling me to go straight, but if I go straight, I'm going to we're going to run right into that mountain. Okay, many times in our goals, we run up upon obstacles. Okay, well, toxic positivity is to pretend basically that that mountain and that obstacle is not there, and, oh, that doesn't matter. We're going to get through it. We had that ability. We can do everything's okay, just get over it, whatever, whatever, whatever. And that's not true. Or, you know, it could be someone sick, but that positive psycho, or, excuse me, toxic psychology would say, Oh, I feel great when you have 103 temperature. That's toxic. What is positive, and what we call, you know, gives you hopefulness, is when you take your you're going to have obstacles. Sometimes, believe me, it doesn't matter if we come together with the best hope action plan, where we really talk about our goals and we really get our pathways, and we really get our thinking straight and our motivation, we have our hope agents. We're going to have obstacles. Any person out there who is a motivational speaker, you know, self help person, and they tell you we have all the answers. Run from them as fast as you can, because no one does, because noone does. And what I say is, if you want change, if you want these things to happen, and you do nothing, you will get nothing. But if you do something, something will happen. And so we, we help with that. That's why we, we put five proven strategies and practices in our book, not 10, because people can't handle all that the same time. We're we're realistic, right? Yes, so let's go back. I'm glad you said the toxic stuff, so we got that out of the way. No, this is cognitive. Hope. Is very much a cognitive psychological construct. It's how God made us as humans. We all have, whether you believe in God or not. That's just the way we're made up. And hope can be learned. It can be taught. It can grow. It can diminish at times, as you know, I told you my story, my personal life, earthquake story, you know, at that point in time, I was hopeless. I wasn't a hopeless person in in general, I'm pretty hopeful person, but at that time, so there's two, there's two different kinds of hope, but that's a whole that's a little bit deeper topic. So let's go, let's go back to the things that we can do. So if do you have any questions so far?

Erin Brinker: 25:39

Well, I, first of all, I'm riveted. This is, this is really wonderful. And I have things, you know, it really seems to me that hope is the difference between life happening to you and you happening to life. Oh my gosh. I love that. Everything, everybody has those horrible things. I mean, in Haiti, we'll use Haiti as the example. You know, earthquakes, famines, corrupt government, you know, all the things that they deal with on a regular basis, and if and if, hope can be instilled there. What a difference that could make. Because it is a mindset shift that, again, you're not a victim, you are a how do you go from victimhood to survivor. And a survivor is a powerful position. Victim is a powerless position.

Dr. Donita Grissom: 26:27

And I love how you said that. And then I take that a little bit step further. Is that each person who becomes a victor. Now you go, help somebody else. Be one indeed. You go be that hope, agent and and we, you know, I was just working in the schools. I think about, well, teachers. And this is, let me just kind of tell you why we decided to stop and write this book. Because my field is in, you know, English for Speakers of Other Languages. And I've traveled the world training teachers how to do that. That's, you know, and I do that at the university, but because I've always been interested in the person and the people, actually, we'll just whisper this actually more than how to teach them English, but English is a great tool, and they need that. But I'm dealing with people, and so that's why I became a life coach. And you know, I'm so interested in hope theory, because it, it's so higher people with higher hope levels. They're happier people. They stay at their jobs longer. They're able to strategize and work themselves out of those big problems better. They're able to give, give that hope, and they're able to set more goals, realize more goals that at school. A few little facts about that. Children with higher hope levels, they have been proven to make a grade whole grade level higher than the lower hope students. Wow, that that's right there. That's all I have to say. When I go talk to teachers, their ears perk up. What? Because, you know those teacher evaluations are important, so student achievement and outcomes, that's important, right? And there's less discipline problems when you have children with higher hope. And so there's many, many more benefits, but those are some really great benefits right there to start out with. So I was thinking, as I was going out and training teachers, teachers would say to me, I know you have great strategies for for teaching in the classroom, but please don't teach us anymore, because we'll have to be responsible for and we're responsible for so much right now. Yep, they have such fatigue, and I'm so overwhelmed. Yeah, that,

Erin Brinker: 28:45

and I have to speak to that really quickly, yes, not to interrupt. But no, they are. They are. Education is a bright, shiny object, meaning, meaning that everybody pays attention to it, and everybody thinks they know how to do it because they were students. And new, this is terrible new fangled ideas, or, you know, crazy new theories, or just new theories are dumped on them all the time. So they're trying to manage their classroom. They've all these different personalities, kids coming to school hungry, not cared for, you know, all the things trauma, all the things that kids come to school with, and maybe they're not ready to learn, and teachers have to do to manage all of that, and then, plus learn whatever new fangled thing is being laid on top of it, they are overwhelmed and underappreciated and burned out

Dr. Donita Grissom: 29:38

absolutely and those children that come to school that way, research tells us that when these children are greeted with teachers who are emotionally healthy, they show up in the classroom. Uh, they're mindful in the moment, and they create these atmospheres where the effective filter is low. What I mean by that is they have a trusting, caring, safe environment for those students, and whenever they feed into those needs of their students. Students are going to learn better. Their outcomes will be better. However, when that teacher is stressed, burned out, overworked, fatigued, the children feel that stress. And there's a part in the back of the brain. And I can't say the word very good, but anyway, it starts with an A, and it shuts off. That's

Erin Brinker: 30:46

the amygdala. Thank you. That one

Dr. Donita Grissom: 30:50

hard time with that word. My southern English just doesn't want to say that word, right? And but it shuts off. And it's like that mountain. There's nothing going in, baby, yep, and they're scared and they're and that they're going to act out, or they're going to zone out, and teachers are going to get mad at them or upset with them. Why aren't you paying attention? Or whatever they do. Now, not all teachers do that. Okay, I'm not saying everyone does that, but that's part of the big problem. And so they all want the same thing. They want the student outcomes, but we've got to back up and punt again. What are we going to do for the teacher? And that's why high five to thrive was born, because my partners and I stopped and it's like, whoa. We have got to do something to help teachers, because in helping the teachers to develop, you know, we can't, we can't erase. I want to take a big eraser, and I want to erase all the low salaries, and I want to erase all the leadership issues that, that, you know, that we have. And by the way, principals and superintendents and the staff and counselors, they're all overworked and underpaid and overwhelmed too. Okay, so nobody this. This is in the whole entire field of education right now, even people are university level. Let me just say there's so much happening in the world right now in education. Education is being shut shake

Erin Brinker: 32:19

it to the core. It is, it is. It absolutely is yes. So this

Dr. Donita Grissom: 32:23

is why we wrote this book. Because we want to help educators to thrive, so their students can thrive. We all want the same things. But guess what? Professional development doesn't always value professional development, regarding teacher wellness and self care, because they want that new fangled idea out there, but that new fangled ideal is not even going to last with the teacher because they're too overwhelmed. So you know, how do we get school districts to realize that we gotta take care of our educators, no matter if they're superintendent, principals, para professionals, teachers, counselors, whoever. And so we came up with these ideas, and we wrote this book with stories from the field and our proven practices, we tried to make the book fun as well, because we, you know, and engaging not too long. But it's powerful, and we're seeing teachers be able to regain their energy and their joy. And one of the things, the first thing in our book, actually, is an exercise to reconnect to their why? Why did I want to become a teacher? Because those we call it the dream not so true days, and those dream not so true days when your your class is falling apart, you know, they're throwing spit balls at each other, or whatever you're having. One of those days you can forget, why did I want to become a teacher? But see teaching to us is a calling, and if you have that heart of a teacher, you're always going to be a teacher. But it's powerful to reconnect to your why it sounds simple. And guess what? Most of these strategies are simple, but as I talked about hope earlier, it always requires a choice, and then it becomes required to make it a habit. And we teach you how to do that in the book and in our workshops. By the way we work on how do we make this a habit? And then, obviously, I have two chapters in the book devoted completely to every, you know, all the aspects of hope and and how we're going to do that. And then we have a chapter regarding the connections. And it's, it's very it's very powerful. And then we have the mind body connection. Because, see, we, you know, we always forget about that, because people think that's

Erin Brinker: 34:58

kind of, woo, woo. You. If you have trauma, the body remembers, and that's physiological. It's not, it's not airy fairy or whatever it is. It you your mind may be putting it aside, but your body remembers, and so it'll manifest itself in aches and pains. It'll manifest itself in a chronic cold, or, you know, whatever, because it suppresses immune system, headaches, all of that. Yeah,

Dr. Donita Grissom: 35:21

yes, anxiety attacks, panic attacks, all of those things.

Erin Brinker: 35:25

But you really talking about that? The challenge in a school is it's a teacher can certainly create an oasis in his or her classroom, but it's it's challenging because the school itself has a culture, and a district itself has a culture. So if you don't have buy in on a school level or a district level, it becomes more difficult to create that, that space in your own classroom, because you're impacted by, you know, a child goes, say, middle school kid, he goes from classroom to classroom every 55 minutes. And, you know, once one the culture in one class could be vastly different from another, and he's wound up from one class, and he's not going to come into your class and be calm. And so, you know, how do you, how do you change the culture and organization in an organization, a whole school or a whole district, so that you that you have a better aligned or a better working system? Well, that's, I know, that's a big question.

Dr. Donita Grissom: 36:18

That's a big question. And actually last week, I was in Nashville at the innovative school Summit, where there were 3000 educators from around the United States and like minded people talking about all these things that we're talking about today and more. And we have to get the message out there. So one of the things that we're doing today here on this podcast, hopefully we're getting that message out there. You want you want change, then you are right. We have to address this. You talk about teacher retention. We have to address these things, but for it to be a more transformative change, you're right, it needs to happen from the top. I hate to say top down, like down is better or worse. I'm not putting a quantifier on it, but I'm talking about all the people involved, even the parents, okay, especially parents. And that will getting that whole community together, like you did in San Bernardino, and working with all of the stakeholders in education, and then take it that even step further of well, let's how so now we're that we're doing this. How are we going to work with the children on this? And how are we going to have accountability? You know, you can pick up this book, but without having this follow through, some people will, will put those practices into into play, but others will not, because they really need those connections, which we, you know, we help provide, and I'm teaching them how so our whole notion is what you just said. We want to be able to work with everyone and provide a place for them to do that.

Erin Brinker: 38:01

You know it's business school 101, that you cannot expect your employees to treat your customers any better than you treat those employees. Oh, that's beautiful and, and it's true, right? So if you have a toxic work environment, your customers aren't going to have a joyful experience in your store or whatever. And the same thing. And I would say even more so exists in education. It's absolutely, there's, you don't sell widgets, there's, it's a people business, and creating that, that environment that has both accountability and support, because you need both, is critical to that being successful. And it's, it's, it's, it's simple, but it's not easy,

Dr. Donita Grissom: 38:43

and it goes back to a choice. It it's a choice and it's a habit. You know, when we when we think about what we call flip the script, those mindset changes, and we call it hope hacking thoughts. And we want those thoughts to be flipped into hopeful thoughts that give us that, the thoughts to make actions that are going to get us where we're closer to where we want to go. So I wanted, oh, sorry, please forgive me. That's okay. And Dr Carolyn Leith, she's a neuroscientist. She has a lot of books out there, and I've read every one of them. I love her work, and she'll tell you that it takes about 62 days for you to notice a hope. We call it, like I said, a hope hacking. Thought, I don't like to call it negative or positive, but I know that that's what they use in positive psychology. But for me, I like to just say hope hacking, and to to we call catch it in the in our book, we call it catch it. You have to notice it. See, sometimes we don't even notice that, that we have those thoughts that come, and you have to notice what they are and and we talk about that in our book. But then you have to catch it, and then you have to release it. You can't. 10 that it wasn't there, and some of those thoughts you have to grieve them and leave them, grieve it and leave it okay. You know knowledge that it's there, but don't internalize it like there's something bad wrong with you, because that's not true. And no it can be fixed. So once you recognize it and you catch it, you release it. Now we start replacing it. Well, when I first started doing that in my own personal life, I had no idea what to replace them with, right? So we, we have a whole section in our book, not for every single, you know, whole packing thought there is in the world, but to give a lot of illustration of where to start, you know, where do we start doing this. And so you can write them down, put them on sticky notes. You know, different, different tactics we have in the book of how to do that, but after you practice that. So for example, you know, you want to, you want to lose five pounds, and you think, I'll never do this. You know, I I'd love donuts, and I whatever. I'll never do this. But then I catch myself saying, I'll never do it to the next step. I might say, well, I'm going to try, you know, and I'm going to tell my daughter, hey, when you next time you hear me say, I you know, I'm no good at this. I can't do it. Remind me, Hey, Mom, you said you were trying. Oh, that's right, I'm trying. So I got my help agent to help me get this momentum going. And what happens in your brain. We call it neuroplasticity. That's the big scientific word. But your your brain can change with making those changes, those pivots, with those flipping the script thoughts, and in two months, if you're really paying attention, then all of a sudden, one day, it's just going to be an automatic that whole packing thought will not be your automatic go to when you're when you're looking at donuts. So, and I can attest to that my own life, that I can't tell you that every single thing's changed. I have to work on this all the time, right?

Erin Brinker: 42:06

It's an ongoing thing. You know, this is not a mastery thing. This is an ongoing I'm continuing to learn kind of thing that is

Dr. Donita Grissom: 42:13

so true, and we have to remind each other. You know, my business partner this morning was reminding me of some some thought patterns, you know, in her own life. And I'm like, You know what? It's so true, we have to reread our books cuz we're forgetting, you know. And so I don't want anyone to think that, you know, put the book down before they even start, because they think, Oh, I can't do this. No, that is not. This book is written from the perspective of, hey, we've been there and we've done this, and we're still doing this, but let's help each other. Let's, let's get together,

Erin Brinker: 42:51

hope. And I love that. And I am thinking about, you know, back to the teacher, talking about teachers, there's a lot of fear in classrooms right now, part of it is because of cell phones, because anybody could take a random clip and then, you know, take it out of context and blow it up, and you know, your career is at stake. And what's happening is teachers are afraid to break up fights. They're afraid to get in the middle of confrontations, because they're afraid that something will end up on Tiktok that will end their career. And people say, Well, if they're not doing anything wrong, so if you don't understand, the most innocuous thing can be blown up into well, they should have known this, or they should have known that, and they're inadequate, inadequately trained. Did you at this conference that you went to in Nashville, or in your other work? Have you all talked about that level of fear?

Dr. Donita Grissom: 43:40

I was not at any workshops, unfortunately, that talked about that. However, I I do know that there was a lot of talk about fear, but from different angles. And there were some, some workshops there about guns in the school, keeping children safe. You know, I could go down the list of things. There were workshops there, but I wasn't in those. So I'm sorry I can't. No, that's okay, and I need to add, but I will say one thing about that. First of all, is the awareness. Second of all, is learning how to talk about difficult subjects. And number three, is putting the people together to to come up with a plan together and and that's a hope action plan. We have this problem, right? Indeed, yes. So, so you can't just ignore it. You've got and you've got to do something about it. So put your teams together. And there was a lot of talk about folks connecting and collaborating teams, starting from the top down, put all the people together and then put it into practice. It so for whatever that, whatever it is,

Erin Brinker: 44:51

and I, I think that's important, you know it. I think the biggest thing is that people, they feel alone. And like you said, that this, this work. Not possible in a vacuum, right? You have to do it connecting with the people around you, because they become not only your accountability partners, because that has a negative connotation, but your but your cheerleader, your support, your your hope partner.

Dr. Donita Grissom: 45:15

It becomes, well, let me just tell you a little bit of the research about connectivity with people you know, you know the saying that our bodies have happy endorphins, they do and and happy juice, I guess you can call it. And when you're in a fruitful, thriving relationship with anyone, your body is giving you that happy juice, and so when you get that happy juice, then you're more let's more inclined to look at things with more of those hopeful ideas. Doesn't mean that the real obstacles are there, but those obstacles are there, and we're trying to work out solutions. But if, versus if, you're in isolation and you're not connecting, you're not having happy juices and you're doing nothing, then, as I said earlier, that's hopelessness and you're paralyzed and nothing's going to happen. So it's a choice. Some people don't like to be involved with other people, and that's a fear, or whatever it may be. It might just be their preference. Maybe they don't even know that they need other people. Maybe they're just, you know, I've known some people that think I can do everything by myself, but guess what? You can't, right? I mean, you can, you can, but, but you're gonna think about picking up a heavy object. You're just gonna pick it up and get it further if you have help you

Erin Brinker: 46:47

do and your circle doesn't have to be 1000 people. It could be five.

Dr. Donita Grissom: 46:51

It can be two sometimes, you know, I mean, whatever it takes. And, you know, relationships are funny things. I mean, that's a whole other thing of how to operate in good relationships and in good collaborations. That's a whole nother field of study. But you have to start somewhere, because right now there's so many things flying around and happening with loss of funding, you know, with teachers leaving the field, with new standards, with people not being sure of what they are supposed to do, with having new things in this school, but only one or two people are doing them, not everybody, and so on. All the different things. All of those can't be solved overnight. But leaders, we need you to get your healing so you can pull your team together.

Erin Brinker: 47:46

You know, yes, you can't pour from an empty cup.

Dr. Donita Grissom: 47:49

That's it. And we, and I call hope is that gift that keeps on giving. You know, when you're doing these things, and you include all of different ingredients of hope, and those help levels rise, because they will. And you celebrate the successes, you know. You don't just complain about it, you do something about it, you know. And so that's when we're going to see results. We may not see all the results we want all at once, but we sure are going to get from point A to point B. And that's one of the things Dr Lopez used to always talk about point A to point B. And I use that a lot because I can picture that in my mind, you know.

Erin Brinker: 48:29

So you are a full time lecturer at the University of Central Florida. How are your as you're as you're talking to students who want to become teachers or be out in the business world. How hopeful are they? What are you seeing from our young people?

Dr. Donita Grissom: 48:46

What I'm seeing is they come to us hopeful because, you know, it's new, it's exciting. But I talk to them about the realities because our children, especially our English language learners, they need a lot, and I always have. I call it my come to Jesus meeting. So, you know, it's the why you want to be a teacher moment. Because, remember, that was the first thing in our book. You gotta reconnect, right? You gotta connect with your wife. So I start with that every, every year I start with that. Because once I start training them on all the things that are necessary for these students, I want them to always remember, man, this is hard, but this is why I became a teacher, because I want to make a difference in those students lives. You know, every profession in this whole wide world is there because of a teacher. A teacher trained those children right all along the way, and so I have them connect to their why. And, you know, we have some I've had some students come to me after we had that big discussion, and they decide, you know, maybe I don't need to be into teaching because I just wanted to be a teacher because I thought I'd get summers off the. And I'm like, I'm 68

Erin Brinker: 50:03

that's the wrong reason to go into that profession.

Dr. Donita Grissom: 50:07

You think you get off at 230 or three, don't? You? Don't? I used to go to school. I taught high school. I had to leave my house before startup, and I didn't get home till after the sun was down. So it was like living in Alaska, I don't know.

Erin Brinker: 50:26

So, and that's an important lesson. You know, if you if that deciding where you will thrive and what you need and what your real reason is, you have to do that. You have to know and figure out what your needs are, and it's okay if those needs change. So you are teacher for 10 years, or you work in the legal profession for 10 years, and you decide, you know this isn't for me anymore. I'm going to do something else. That's okay too. That's

Dr. Donita Grissom: 50:47

okay too. But the and you know what, only you can know that you know if you wake up in the morning and you know, I still miss my kids and I used to teach, but I I know I saw the need out there. I tell everyone I should have bought stock in Kleenex, because I dried so many tears. You know, they came to me because they didn't understand what was happening in all their other classes. So that's what was my driving force, to go back to school, get my PhD and become a teacher trainer. And so that's why I did that, but it was always with those babies. I call them my babies. They were teenagers. Teenagers are just babies in bigger bodies, indeed,

Erin Brinker: 51:29

actually. So one of our programs here at the making hope happen foundation is and kits, Carnegie and toddler success. And I've talked with the faculty at our partnering University, and they they refer to some of our kids as three majors, because the the brains of a three year old and the brains of a teenager, there's a lot in common in how they react to things, how they internalize things, how they think. So, yes, a three major.

Dr. Donita Grissom: 51:56

I haven't ever heard of that. That's a good one. I love it. So back, back to the university students, really quick. What I love about them is they do come with fresh ideas, and especially, let's just for just two seconds, we'll talk about AI. So with AI, for example, teachers are scared of that right now, and AI is not going to replace us. I mean, it may replace certain aspects of our job, this can't replace us. Okay? The AI does not have the heart of a teacher. No, not even close, not even close. And so I tell them, we've got to get with the program, and we need to learn from our three majors and our college students in class about how to use this to make education better. That's all so that. That's a little state, you know, a little advertisement for that, and that's what I'm trying to do at my university. I remember when, when power points and and Google and all of that was starting to be new, and I always took the idea I'm going to learn so from them, and so I would assign my high school students to do PowerPoints. And guess what? That's how I learned to do problems. I

Erin Brinker: 53:02

see, there you go. You learn by by teaching.

Dr. Donita Grissom: 53:06

You know, we we have a lot to learn. I will say that there are a lot of people in the university that are choosing not to go into teaching because of the landscape of education. Now I'm hoping that we can make that better with the work that we do in the schools and in our districts and in schools and with teachers around the world as well. And that's my goal, and that's what I wake up every morning to do. And let me just say this. You know, we started at the beginning talking about the book and how the book is. This book is for teaching. We work with people, people in the workplace, people that are parents, people, people. And so these practices are applicable to people. It's just this particular book is The stories are related to teachers, because they're the ones that are going to affect our T our students, excuse me, in our classrooms. And so that's our audience, and that's our experience, but we can help train other people how to maneuver with these spa proven practices, which includes hope and all the elements of hope. And so I just kind of wanted to put that out there, that if you picked up the book and you were not a teacher, you could read the book that would help you, and then you could give it to a teacher who needs it, indeed. Well, I'm going

Erin Brinker: 54:35

to be buying it and giving it to my husband, who is a teacher. Thank you. So so the Danita Grissom, this has been, we're about out of time. This has been so incredible. The book is high five to thrive, Five proven practices to unleash your passion for teaching. How do people find and follow you on social media? How do they engage you as a professional education or certified life coach, etc? Yeah.

Dr. Donita Grissom: 55:00

Okay, so our book is on Amazon. It's also on Barnes and Noble, and I believe that you will have the QR codes for that. We do have an ebook. The eBook is not available on Amazon, just the paperback copy, but it's available with at Barnes and Noble. And our information, you can get in touch with best Questers at info dot best excuse me info@bestqueesters.net and we have a telephone number there, but if you just want to contact me, which is perfectly fine, you can contact me at Doctor D grissom@gmail.com or you can call me, 407-417-2765, I would love to speak with superintendents, principals, teachers, PTA members, board members. Anyone interested in having workshops? Our our newest workshop. We call it stay thrive, and it's a 70 theme. They have 70s themes based and Debbie Simoes, Vicky Keltner and myself. That's the three of us who wrote this book. We do dynamic. We call em retreats because teachers need to have fun too. Indeed, they walk they walk away empowered. And we have follow up activities and things, because I it's not a one stop all, and so we want to talk to people out there, so you can contact us at that address. We're on Facebook, we are on LinkedIn, we are on Instagram as best Questers. You can get us there. And yes, we want to get out there and spread hope wherever we go.

Erin Brinker: 56:50

Well, Dr, Danita Grissom, this has been delightful. Is this interview has been fantastic. I hope that you join us again. Thank you for so much for joining me today,

Dr. Donita Grissom: 56:59

and thank you for this incredible opportunity and how you make hope happen.

Erin Brinker: 57:04

But that is about all we have time for today. I'm Erin Brinker. You've been listening to the making hope happen radio show. For more information about the making hope happen Foundation, go to www.makinghope.org That's www.makinghope.org Have a great week, everybody, and I'll talk to you next week.

Noraly Sainz: 57:30

Hi, my name is Noraly Sainz, and I am Program Coordinator at uplift San Bernardino, a collective impact initiative at the making hope happen Foundation. And this is my story in November of 2017 my husband our four young sons and I moved away from our families to San Bernardino with the hope of reaching our goal of home ownership. In 2018 as our oldest son started kindergarten, I connected with the school district and learned about making hope happens. Kids program with my oldest in kindergarten and my twins at preschool, I had the opportunity to tote my youngest to the kids parenting classes. In January of 2020, my husband and our family's breadwinner unexpectedly passed away. I found myself in a pandemic with my sons and an uncertain future. It was then that that oasis that I found at kids turned into my support system as the staff and friends rallied around me while my sons and I struggled to find our new normal. In October of 2020, after seven years as a homemaker, I joined the making hope happen foundation as a program coordinator for uplift San Bernardino. This career opportunity reignited my family's dream of home ownership in November of 2022 through the mutual support of the uplift San Bernardino Housing Network, my family was able to buy our first home in my role as program coordinator, and as I connect with other families in our community, I can wholeheartedly attest to the opportunities that the foundation is bringing to our community and truly making hope happen. For

Erin Brinker: 59:01

more information about the making hope happen foundation and to make a donation, please visit www.makinghope.org That's www.makinghope.org your donations make our work possible. You.