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107 – Meghan Maloney: From Teaching to Instructional Design

TeacherCareerCoach

Meghan went from middle school science teacher to instructional designer. Listen in as we talk all about how Meghan found this role, what she did to stand out for it and what her day-to-day looks like.

Listen to the episode in the podcast player below, or find it on Apple Podcast or Spotify.

From Teaching to Instructional Design

Daphne:

Hey Meghan, thank you so much for being here today.

Meghan:

Hi, thanks so much for having me. I’m really excited.

Daphne:

I always start off the show just asking a little bit about your history working in the education system. Do you mind sharing about your experience as a teacher?

Meghan:

Yeah, that’s great. So I started my career in teaching and I spent a little over five years in the classroom and I am a formal middle school science teacher. So in my time in the education system I had a ton of different roles as I think most teachers do. I taught sixth, seventh and eighth grade science. I taught technology, I was writing curriculum and I was teaching an advanced chemistry class. I was a math team coach and I think that a lot of teachers can relate to all the different hats that we wear as teachers and I loved it. I loved teaching science. It was really fun and I loved getting to do experiments with the kids and teach them about the world around them. And I definitely think that they had fun to learning science and I have a lot of fond memories teaching and I kind of always say that I have some of the best memories teaching but also have some of the worst memories from teaching as well.

Daphne:

Was there a specific year in your teaching career that you started to find yourself falling out of love with it?

Meghan:

Yeah, so I think a lot of teachers can relate that COVID really put a damper on teaching in general. It changed a lot and that was year, I guess, four for me. So it wasn’t my last year, but it was my second to last year teaching. And that transition to online teaching put a big strain on me as a science teacher, everything that I knew and loved about science, teaching all the hands-on activities and things like that we couldn’t do. So within the span of two weeks we had to pivot to figuring out everything differently from doing online teaching. And my district wasn’t just virtual in the spring of 2020, we also stayed virtual for the 2020 to 2021 school year. And so when we came back at that school year, it was really, really tough to have to reinvent the wheel every day over and over and over again.

And looking back now, that really took a toll on me that I didn’t realize. I always thought that I was going to stay in teaching forever and I knew that it would be hard, but that’s what I was expected to do was to stay teaching. And so I kept saying, well this is what teaching is. And it wasn’t until I stumbled upon teacher quit talk really that I realized that teaching doesn’t have to be this way. And I started to explore some other options.

How Meghan chose a new career path

Daphne:

And I know we’re going to get into the role that you hold now instructional designer and later on, we’ll kind of talk about it more on a deep dive. But it sounds like you really love the education component of it. Many teachers do. And so did you find yourself naturally gravitating towards roles like instructional designer that still had a large element of learning involved in it?

Meghan:

Yeah, absolutely. I knew that I had skills in education teaching people, and I didn’t want to have to start over in a brand new career. So in my dive as I was trying to decide what new path to take, I really focused on what I do well and what I know I do well was teach. Even on my very last day, I still felt like I was a good teacher and I knew that I could do that well. It just wasn’t giving me the purpose that I needed anymore. I was giving everything to teaching, but it was giving me nothing back. In fact, it was taking things from me, which was very exhausting in a lot of different ways. And so as I was pivoting, I knew I wanted to keep that education in just in a different way. And there’s tons of different ways. Instructional design is just how I found it.

Daphne:

Yeah, I agree. There are so many different ways that you can still incorporate teaching into whatever you’re doing. Customer success managers help people understand what different products are available to them and how to best utilize that product. And that’s an element of teaching. Project managers look at everyone at a company and they say, this is what you need to do, this is the timeline that you need to do it. And then I’m noticing that you’re struggling with this one area. How can I help you be successful? That’s an element of teaching. There’s so many different ways that our skills translate and that we’re also still going to find enjoyment in it.

Instructional design though is one of the, I feel like when I started back in 2019 with teacher career coach, it was like the most talked about this is the role for teachers to go into, which I agree, but it’s also one of the more tech-heavy careers for teachers to go into. It’s you’re going to potentially need to learn some platforms and you’re going to have to maybe potentially put together a portfolio. So I’d like to hear a little bit about your process of identifying instructional design as a focus and what you did to actually land a position.

Meghan:

Yeah. So when I first started looking for a career outside of teaching and realized that was something I wanted to go down, I kind of cast a really wide net and I made a resume for project management and instructional design and for customer success and all those different resumes and just kind of threw it out there. And then I realized that that was not the best way to land a job, that wide net. And so I started focusing down on two main ones, instructional design and training officer, just because I felt like those were where my skills really fell in and I could beef up my resume and use a lot of the skills I already have to land one of those rules.

How Meghan prepared to apply to positions outside of the classroom

And so I did notice that a lot of times the instructional design positions asked for Storyline certifications and things like that. And so I started to get into that a little bit. But the position that I ended up landing really focused more on my ability to translate the heavy scientific topics into meaningful learning for our audience, which is the fire service. And they saw my skills and they said, okay, we’re going to actually help you upskill into this role. And so they paid for my Storyline certification and things like that, which I don’t think is very common, but I was very lucky that that happened for me.

And so in my interview process and things like that, I was able to showcase more of I have a wide range of technology. I might not know the specific technology that you need, but I’m a quick learner. I have applied all these different technologies in my classroom very quickly. And so they saw those skills and I was able to pick up Storyline within a month of my employment. And so I don’t think that when you see those technologies and things like that, it can be really overwhelming because you have no idea. But then when you get into it can be really similar to some of the technologies that you already used in the classroom. Articulate Storyline, that’s the one that we use comes from a lot of things that you see in PowerPoint. There’s a lot of similarities. And so the technology can translate.

Daphne:

I 100% agree and inside the teacher career coach course I talk about when you are writing your resume, when to leverage being a subject matter expert and when to kind of remove everything about the curriculum that you taught from the classroom. There’s going to be times where it’s so hard to take away the accomplishments and take away that part of your identity when you’re translating your resume, but there’s going to be times where they’re like, I don’t care that you were a fifth grade teacher. I don’t care that you taught students. What I’m really looking for is how much you know about Excel, how many times you worked with adults. Specifically for this role, if you’ve ever done video editing before and all the rest of it makes me less likely to see you in this right position because it’s muddying the waters and it’s hard for me to understand why you’re applying to this position if you’re telling me about this specific experience that’s not relevant to it. But with this specific role, absolutely keep your science and subject matter expertise on if you are working in a science field.

So a lot of instructional designers, I know that it’s pretty heavy and construction and healthcare industry hires a lot of instructional designers. So for construction that’s a little bit different. But with the healthcare industry, I would absolutely play up if you had a science expertise, that’s something that I would still leave on your resume.

Meghan:

And I think it’s all about doing that dive into every position that you apply for. I think when you get on some of the websites, you just want to hit easy apply, easy apply, easy apply, because it’s right there and it can be so tempting. But where I found the most success in getting callbacks was the ones that I really tailored my resume to that role, realizing what they might need and how my skills fit in into it. And your skills fit into a lot of roles and that can be sometimes overwhelming, but it’s definitely important to dive into that job posting and what the company does and really make sure that you’re highlighting those skills for every role specifically.

Daphne:

It’s such great advice and I just put a question up in my stories and I just asked teachers what resume they’re applying with and over 60% of them are applying using a resume that unfortunately is not going to make them stand out. They’re saying that they either one are just using basically their teacher resume and they’re like, former teachers got hired, so someone’s looking at these teacher resumes and this might be enough. Which unfortunately usually is not the case unless you have a really strong connection inside that company that can help bring your resume to the front and get you an interview. But the second group is someone who just threw in some corporate translations, but for a very general, here’s my teacher to corporate translated resume, but not specific to the roles. It’s really important for anyone who’s listening to this to make sure to identify what the company’s really looking for. We have other podcast episodes where we talk about resumes, go back and listen to those episodes to get a deep dive into that. But I want to talk a little bit more about your interview process. Did you interview for any other instructional design roles prior to this one?

Meghan:

So I didn’t interview for any other instructional design roles. I did interview for a few training officer roles because I was going down both paths. I could have seen myself happy in both paths and ultimately I’m very happy that I decided to accept the instructional design position over the training officer position. But I did not have the opportunity to interview with for any other instructional design positions.

Daphne:

About how long were you looking for roles outside of the classroom and actually applying?

Meghan:

I would say from the very first application to when I started was about eight months. But to when I really started to listen to the podcasts and dive in and do what I’m talking about, which is this advice comes from experience because I failed many times using that resume that’s just the teacher resume and things like that to when I started was probably closer to four months. So I did see, once I really took the time to do the resume and apply, I did see an increase in people calling me back and HR interviews and things like that.

Daphne:

It’s hard to let someone know on the first few stages of a career transition how much work this is going to be because it is… You do have to understand when you’re reading job descriptions, you have to look at the bullet points and understand if it’s a long shot or not a long shot. That’s why I have an entire course that walks you through step by step what to do so that you don’t waste that four month time applying to jobs. Because there are going to be instructional design jobs that are very clear. We want you to have three years of working in the construction field and managing a team of other instructional designers. Those are not going to be as open to a career pivoter as one that is written. The way that the job descriptions are written are very not clear because there always is some wiggle room with them.

But for me, I can just scan through job descriptions and say, okay, that one is going to be open to a pivoter. That one’s going to be more of a stretch. I’m really going to have to work hard to be able to show my skills here. That one’s going to be great for a pivoter. This one might need prior experience in a different field. Still not impossible, but being able to read the job descriptions is also equally important. Did you find yourself getting better and better at reading job descriptions as you went along?

Meghan:

Definitely. And I found myself too, initially I was like, I’m only going to take a remote job. I was like, I don’t want anything else. It has to be remote. And I finally said, okay, let me see what else is out there. And the job that I landed ended up being in person and it’s amazing. I think I was so scarred from teaching with driving into work and being coming home emotionally exhausted and feeling like I didn’t have anything else to give, that I had a negative connotation to any job in person where I was like, if it’s in person, I have to, I’m going to be exhausted, I’m not going to like it. But that’s totally not the case.

Daphne:

That is something that I hear from so many teachers and there are people who absolutely are going to land remote positions. I do not want to say that there are not remote positions out there, but it is far harder to find a remote position because you are up against everyone in every state with different experience levels as opposed to being open to either hybrid or in-person roles. And I think coming from a place of trauma like you expressed is one of the reasons why so many teachers are so hesitant because they’re hearing all of this dialogue. People are fighting for remote work. People are fighting for remote work. We find remote work flexible, we love it, look at our lives are so much better with remote work. And so teachers are, they’re coming from this poopy place of terrible work environment and they’re like, I want the thing that everyone’s fighting for that they’re saying is amazing.

However, I knew that I’m coming here from a place of privilege. For me, I personally like in-person work and I know that people are not going to like me saying that, but after five years of working remotely, when I was working at Microsoft, when I was working at Go Guardian, I was in office for a little bit and then remote again. I realized that my work-life balance is better when I am actually in an office and I’m able to shut down and go back home. Right now my life is blurry. It’s easy for me to be reachable at any point of the day and for me to accidentally start working at 6:30 or 7:00 because it’s the same computer that I’m working at in the same room at 1:00 PM.

And so there’s pros and cons to both approaches, but there’s definitely a pro to having less competition, especially in a competitive market. So I’d love to talk a little bit more about how long have you been in this position and what does work-life balance look like with being an in-person job?

Work-life balance in Meghan’s Instructional Design role

Meghan:

Absolutely. I started the role in April, so I’ve been there just about eight months now. And I definitely walked in on day one feeling those feels of what’s this going to be like? Is this going to be teaching and am I going to be still miserable? Am I going to still be exhausted? But I was willing to take the risk and I can say with full confidence, it’s not like that at all. I do end up working hybrid now, so I’m three days in the office, one to two days at home depending on the work week, which is perfect. And I love that. That wasn’t something that I originally thought was going to be with the job but has evolved over time and my work-life balance, it’s nothing compared to teaching. It is eight to 10 hours a day. I close the computer, I walk away, I open the computer the next day I do my work, I close the computer and I walk away.

And I don’t think I truly realized that until I took a vacation in October and I put on my calendar, I was going away. We left the country, my husband and I and I didn’t get contacted from work once. I didn’t worry about what was going on with my sub. I didn’t worry about if I left enough copies or left work. And then I didn’t have the anxiety on the plane ride home as to what I was coming home or coming back to school with. And I never even felt like I relaxed in the summer because there was professional development, there was meetings. At the end of the day, you’re anxious for the new school year. And so I don’t think it really hit me how much better the work-life balance is until that where I got to close my computer and walk away.

And that’s not every day, of course there’s days where things come up, but in general it’s not the norm to feel like you have to work every second of every day. I’m the master of my schedule. I’m the project manager for my project. I know my deadlines, I know my things that need done and so I decide and I can prioritize it and I can work to get it done when I need to get it done. And that autonomy is something that you never feel in teaching as well.

So when I was thinking about leaving teaching, something that always came through my mind is I feel like there’s a lot of scare tactics in the classroom where people try to scare you into staying. They say, oh, the corporate life’s awful. Look at all those people on the rat race running the gerbil wheel and stuff like that. And I’m not saying all positions are perfect because of course they’re not. But in general I needed to take a step back and realize that information probably isn’t accurate. They’re just trying to scare me from leaving. And when I left, it turns out that it’s great. It’s the complete opposite.

Daphne:

There’s a term that my therapist shouts at me and she doesn’t shout. She’s the kindest person, but there’s a term that she uses and it’s black and white thinking patterns. And it’s when you’re coming from a place of high stress, you’re only looking for what is confirming it’s okay for you to stay in this unhappy position. You’re only looking for the negatives of this is going to fail. Why am I going to keep doing this? Or once I do it, I’m also going to be miserable. But what if it’s a lot better? What if it works better for you? If your brain is not naturally allowing you to have what if good things happen? It is coming from a place of high stress. It’s people who are really, really struggling right now. Their brains are kind of playing tricks on them.

It does not mean that it’s a perfect fit for every single person to leave. It does not mean that it’s a perfect fit for people to be in an office environment. There are people who would absolutely hate instructional design because instructional design can be somewhat isolating. And they would realize at the end that they actually really want to talk to people for half of their day. That’s the part of teaching that they enjoy. And then there are other people who are going to get training positions where they talk to people all day where they’re going to say, oh shoot, I think I want some alone time. I might like something else.

But it just is very much dependent on what level of burnout you are coming from. I was probably at a two or a three on the happiness out of a scale of 10. A four would’ve been a freaking win for me. A five would’ve been a good win for me. Working anyway towards a 10. But I don’t think staying in teaching was going to ever get me there. And so that’s such a personal decision, but it’s important to really look at that.

Challenges Meghan faced in her transition

Did you find yourself talking to yourself in a negative or a positive way during the transition process?

Meghan:

Well, I was dealing with a lot of different things during my transition process because when I first expressed that I might want to leave, I wasn’t really met with too many, yeah, you should do it. It was a lot of, you shouldn’t do that, you’re such a great teacher, the kids need you, the kids this and so much teacher guilt that I was both trying to work through that guilt. And I do stand by this. I was a good teacher, but I was miserable. I was leaving work crying, coming home from work crying, completely numb to everything outside, just everything. It was it an awful experience for me at the end. And so working through all of those emotions was very, very tough. And then on top of that, trying to prioritize coming home, feeling numb, but then knowing I need to get out and putting in all the work to get out, that was just a really hard time in my life.

And so I felt myself trying really hard to say, Meghan, you got this, Meghan, you can do this, Meghan, you can. But it was hard when you are the only one telling yourself that. I do have some very trusted friends and support systems and a therapist as well that really helped me see that. But it’s tough when you’re hearing it from people at work and from society to be fair and your administration that you’re going to be making the biggest mistake of your life if you leave teaching. It’s hard to keep telling yourself you’re making the right decision. And I fully stand by my therapist helping me so much through that because he was a real voice of reason in saying, it’s okay, life can be better. And I don’t think I let myself feel that until he kind of gave me that you’re allowed to want something different than what anyone else wants from you. And it’s tough. It’s really hard to not be negative all the time about it.

Daphne:

I understand where people are coming from. They are scared for the state of education, but it is so strange and it’s gaslighting and it’s emotional manipulation to tell someone who is absolutely miserable that they can’t start looking for something else based on how it impacts other people. Like that just does not happen in other careers outside of teaching. Kudos to you for continuing to do the work and pushing yourself through because not everybody is able to overcome that really very real emotional barrier that society puts up for teachers who are trying to leave. I want to go a little bit more into instructional design and the technical aspects of what is it that you do? What does the day-to-day look like for you?

Meghan:

So I work for a nonprofit who focuses on fire safety. And so we take our research that they do and we translate it into online trainings for the fire service. So that’s kind of the big picture of what I do. I take scientific topics and turn them into trainings for online, but with that comes totally different things every single day. We are the project managers of an entire training course. So it goes from planning everything, reading the research reports, storyboarding what we’d want the online training to look like, coming up with objectives, gathering all of the resources that we need to make that happen, whether it’s in-person interviews or attending experiments. We work collaboratively with a lot of different people in our organization to make that happen.

And it kind of sounds overwhelming when you think about making a whole training course, but when you take a step back, as a teacher, I was doing a lesson plan every single day, multiple times a day. And these training courses happen over months. And so it really, I think about it as a teacher’s role spread out over long periods of time. And so there are a lot of days where I’m just building things in Storyline, which is the course authoring tool that we use. I think of it more like Google Slides. It’s like your way of presenting the information, but much prettier.

Daphne:

I’ve definitely used it a million times just based on any of those trainings that you do of click here if you… Are you going to use this cleaning product or this cleaning product? What’s safe inside this school system? All of those types of trainings are usually built in these types of authoring tools.

Meghan:

And if you think about your compliance training that you take, probably as a teacher, that’s built in Storyline more than likely but we work to make ours a little bit more fun and engaging and prettier. And that can be some of my day where it’s just sitting there and working on that. But it’s not always that. And that’s where the dynamic mix of my job comes through. And so while I’m an in instructional designer, I also take on the hats as we did as a teacher of multiple different parts of it, tons of collaboration for me in my instructional design role. There’s our whole entire team, in fact really our whole entire organization works together to push these training courses across the finish line.

One thing for instructional design collaboration that’s really important is with our subject matter experts. And so I wasn’t the one out there doing the research. I wasn’t the one who was collecting the data and writing the reports. And so those authors are our subject matter experts. And so it’s my job to make the training course, but it’s their job to help me make sure that it’s accurate and representative well and helps make sure that it’s going to the correct audience, which for us is the fire service.

And so for some people, I know instructional design can be a lot of working and just working on Storyline, but for me in my role, everything. It’s collaboration, it’s work, it’s project management, and it encompasses all of that.

How Meghan combats imposter syndrome in her new position

Daphne:

One of the more intimidating things that I feel happens, especially when you’re looking for instructional design or even corporate training roles, and I feel like everybody gets imposter syndrome about is this is a corporate training position, but for a law firm or for the healthcare industry, and I have no experience, I can’t do a training on something I don’t understand. But what I found with my own training experience and instructional design experience after the classroom is you have a lot of time to learn and it’s a single subject. I was a fifth grade teacher, so I don’t know, I can’t even remember, it feels like it was so long ago now, but six different lessons of different subjects every single day, where this is one subject that you’re going to really dive into for two full weeks, three full weeks, one thing. And you have someone who’s an actual expert that you’re going to ask clarifying questions of and you’re just in charge of what is the most important aspect of this that someone is reasonably going to learn within a one hour timeframe or within a three hour timeframe. Did you find yourself intimidated when you went into this position?

Meghan:

Absolutely. I’m mean, my sister is a volunteer firefighter. But that was pretty much the extent of what I knew about the fire service. And this was walking in on day one. It’s like, oh my gosh, what did I sign up for? Where are we? I started sitting down and looking at some of the research reports and just being like, ah.

But one thing that I love about my role is no one was ever going to let me fail. I have always felt like I jumped in and started working, but I never jumped in and felt like I was jumping in alone. It was not my first day of teaching where you’re there and you’re like, well, you’re just going to figure it out. You know, had the support to figure it out along the way. And everyone is so willing to answer your questions. Those subject matter experts are the people. They want to talk about their work, they want to work with you and they want… Everybody’s working on the same goal, which is making this training course or whatever course it is and doing it well.

And so I think that that is just such a different environment than Oh, and you also have the time to do that, right? If you know need extra meetings to sit down and talk to somebody, you’re not trying to work around one hour planning sessions or planning periods every single day. You can schedule a meeting with someone and sit down and talk to them for an hour without the worry of a bell coming and things like that.

So I feel like it’s such a different environment that it can definitely seem overwhelming, but just know when you get there, they want you there. If they hired you, they want you to be there and they want to help you succeed and they will help you succeed. As myself, as a teacher, I always felt I had to be the best, no matter what. It was on me to do everything better. You’re always working to be better because if you weren’t being better, if you weren’t the absolute best, you were failing the kids. And I always felt alone in that because I had to do that on my own. I had to do extra professional development, I had to do stuff all summer and everything like that. And here, well, we want to do this for you, we want to support you and we want to help you and you don’t have to do it alone. We’re going to help you do that. And so don’t be intimidated. It can be really good environments.

Daphne:

Yeah, I feel like having the adults in the room is such a change in dynamic that teachers do not realize that they are missing. You have those one hour a week collaborative meetings and not every job is going to have as much collaboration. So it is going to be very dependent on what your role is, what the environment is, how big the company size is. But one of the biggest changes for me as well is I was so used to and adapted to, I have to learn this on my own. Everybody else is really busy and overwhelmed or I have one hour to ask questions when we meet once a week. And in new roles, it’s sitting next to someone, if you are in office for six hours and you’re able to say, oh shoot, can you just look at this and make sure I’m on the right track? Thanks so much. Instead of me struggling for three hours trying to figure out if I’m on the right track. It’s like quick feedback is such a game changer for growth.

Meghan’s experience learning Storyline

And I want to talk just really quick second about Storyline in particular. This is something that I know that there’s a one month free trial that teachers sometimes use to help them with Storyline and then you can also purchase it, I believe, at a discount for using your education email address. I would double check that before you listen to me say this and then come at me if they change whatever the promotion is. But how long did it really take for you to feel like you understood how to use Storyline? And I know that you were lucky enough that you got training on the job to do it, but there are many people who are planning on upskilling and learning this prior to even applying. What’s a good amount of hours that you feel like you needed to put in to understand it?

Meghan:

So I think there’s different levels to that because a basic understanding, which is pretty simple. I feel like you could get within 20 hours of work if you want to make sure that you know how to make new slides and do the interactions, which is really the important part of Storyline. The important part is that you can interact, you can click next to continue, you can click here and have things pop up and do those interactions. That basic, I would say, about 20 hours.

And if I did need to upscale, because I originally thought that I was going to need to, the HR person that I was working with told me that I would need to obtain a certification. So I did look into that and then the hiring manager actually said, no, we’re going to invest in her once we get her there. So I had looked into it and there’s some two day courses, so that would be 16 hours online that really give you a good overview of understanding.

And then what I would do or I did in my first few weeks of working is take some of my old teaching PowerPoints and then put them into Storyline just to see, make them a little bit. I already had some content that I was working with and make them a little bit more interactive and more flashy you could say. And so I would say within a month I had a very good strong foundation. But if you are tech savvy as most of us teachers are, I could say that you could get a basic line in about 20 hours. Keeping in mind that you’re not going to learn everything. There’s still things like I’m like, oh, I want to do this, and then I go to YouTube University, just look it up and find myself there.

Daphne:

Yeah, that’s a great answer. And just one thing that I’m going to add as advice as, man, I know you were teaching science, so the materials that you put in, the work that you put in, was still applicable to the work that you are doing and you already had the role. I do not recommend using Articulate Storyline projects with very kid-heavy work if you’re using it for your portfolio. Making tweaks to it of whatever you’re putting in, of making it more specific to an adult learner audience so that the hiring managers can see you in that role and not specific to children. Because that is one of the hurdles that you’re going to have to overcome. So you don’t want to necessarily just do a lesson for third graders, but in Storyline, you want to do something like, here’s how to help the parents of those students actually log into the learning portal and check their students’ grades, something more applicable to adult learners as well so that the hiring managers can see you using it in that way.

Before I let you go, my favorite question to ask, because this process takes a lot of grit and determination and we learn a lot about ourselves along the way. What did you learn about yourself throughout this entire career change?

What Meghan learned about herself through her career transition

Meghan:

It’s a hard thing to be reflective upon yourself and see, but as I come up to my year outside of the classroom, it’s good to look back and just see how much of a different person I really am. I don’t think if you had told me a year ago you would’ve been strong enough to leave that you would’ve been strong enough to go through what you went through, I would’ve believed you. And so without a doubt like that strength is important for me to have learned.

Also, I was passionate about teaching, I loved teaching, and I thought that I was only ever going to be able to be passionate about teaching, but I learned that my passion comes from me being invested in things that are amazing. And so teaching was amazing. So I was passionate about that. The work that we do here, my job where we’re sharing free trainings to 75,000 people who are active on our LMS, that’s amazing. So I’ve become passionate about that.

And so learning those things that I was proud of myself of as a teacher weren’t just because I was a teacher, they’re there because I’m me and I can be strong and I can be passionate and I can be hardworking outside of the classroom. And that it wasn’t the classroom that was making me that, it was me that was making me that. And so I think that that has translated into being a much happier person in a new role, and I’m very, very happy with the transition that I made.

Daphne:

Well, I’m so happy for you and proud of you for making this journey. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing all of your advice with this audience and your story and being vulnerable and sharing about the struggles of it. You are amazing and I’m just so excited to see where you go in the future.

Meghan:

Thank you so much and for everything that you did for me and for all of us. We wouldn’t be here without you. So thanks.

Mentioned in the episode:

Step out of the classroom and into a new career, The Teacher Career Coach Course