I want to start with a question I hear underneath almost every conversation I have with school leaders.

They don't always say it out loud. But it's there — in the exhaustion in their eyes, in the pause before they answer when I ask how they're really doing.

The question is this:

How long can I keep doing this before I lose myself in it?

It is one of the most important questions in education right now. And I don't think we are giving it nearly enough honest attention.

There is a pull that most good leaders feel — especially the ones who care most.

On one side: Stay. Your people need you. The work is not finished. You made a commitment. You believe in this community. Leaving feels like betrayal.

On the other side: Go. You are running on empty. The system is grinding you down. Something in you is getting smaller every year, and you can feel it. You need to protect what's left.

Most leaders I know are living in that tension. Staying out of love and duty. But quietly wondering what staying is costing them.

I want to offer you something ancient this week — wisdom that is over fifteen hundred years old — because I believe it speaks directly into this tension with a clarity that most modern leadership frameworks simply cannot reach.

A friend and colleague of mine sent me this beautiful essay from The Center For Action and Contemplation titled “Stay. Learn. And Love”.

In it, the author, Reverend Cameron Trimble, describes the wisdom offered by St Benedict to difficult seasons and challenging work:

St. Benedict told his communities to stay: to root themselves in place, in relationship, in shared life. Stability, he taught, is how love survives collapse. You do not run every time the world shakes. You commit. You tend. You remain.

Reverend Trimble writes this beautiful line that I think has deep resonance for those of us in education and school leadership:

You can stay without surrendering your soul. But it takes practice.

Stay

Build Inner Ground

Create Small Deserts of Clarity Inside Your Daily Life

Stay Awake

Stay Rooted

Stay Practiced in Humility and Courage

Stay Shaped by Love More Than by Fear

These are the pillars from which true, sustainable leadership, especially educational leadership, can draw significant wisdom

Here is what I believe the desert and the monastery are saying to educators and school leaders in this moment:

It is possible for you to stay in this work without surrendering your soul

You can stay without absorbing the cynicism. You can stay without internalizing the dehumanization. You can stay without letting the urgency of the institution replace the depth of your calling.

But — and this is the part that requires real work — you cannot do that passively.

You cannot simply endure.

Endurance without interior formation is just slow erosion.

The desert tradition asks us to stay and gives us a blueprint, a map for creating the sustainable practices and rhythms that allow us to stay rooted in love, driven by hope, guided by an inner sense of peace

That kind of interior clarity is not a luxury for school leaders. It is a survival skill.

Benedict's genius was not just telling his communities to stay. It was giving them a rhythm that made staying possible without losing themselves.

Not intensity. Rhythm.

This is something I see missing in almost every burned-out leader I work with.

They are not lacking dedication. They are not lacking love for their people.

They are lacking the rhythmic practices that would make their dedication sustainable — the equivalent of Benedict's prayer, work, shared meals, mutual care, accountability, humility, and repair.

In the language of schools, that might look like:

A weekly practice of genuine reflection — not evaluation, not planning, but honest reckoning. Where did I lead from my best self this week? Where did I lead from fear or exhaustion?

A community of peers who know you well enough to tell you the truth. Not a professional learning community built around data. A group of people who ask: How are you really doing?

Rituals of repair — the willingness to name what went wrong, make it right, and keep going. Not the performative apology, but the genuine recommitment.

And underneath all of it, clarity about why you are here — the vocare, the calling that existed before the title and will remain after it.

Far, far too many educators and school leaders are in the process of a slow, quiet surrender — not of their positions, but of themselves.

Not because they don't care.

Because they care enormously and have never been given the tools to sustain that caring over time.

This is the work I do.

Not theory. Not another framework to implement.

But helping leaders rebuild the interior ground — the clarity, the rhythm, the community, the deep-rooted why — that makes it possible to stay in hard, holy work without losing the person who showed up to do it.

If you are reading this and thinking: I want to stay. But I need to learn how to stay differently — you are in the right place

This newsletter is precisely the place to ask those questions and engage them honestly

But the newsletter is just the first step

Once a month, a group of brave, kind, thoughtful, bold, creative leaders gather together to lean into community, purpose, meaning, clarity, experience, wisdom, and hope

This online Flourishing School Leader Cohort is filled with people just like you. School leaders who get the beauty and challenge of leading a learning community.

It’s not a workshop or a seminar. Instead, it’s leadership development as pilgrimage. We spend time engaging a topic facing school leaders and then reflect together on our own leadership mindset, routines, habits, practices, and impact.

If you need an even deeper dive, I also coach school leaders in a 90 minute monthly call that engages your specific needs, dreams, challenges, hopes, concerns, and vision for your school. This is where your best work comes alive! The best leaders in the world — athletes, executives, founders — don't navigate that weight alone. They get a coach. Not because they're failing. Because they're serious about what they're building.

If that sounds like what you have been looking for, check it out and let’s chat.

And I’m going to be opening up dates for the Ireland Cohort Pilgrimage soon.

It is possible to stay rooted in hope, meaning, purpose, and love…and not lose your soul

Blessings on the journey.

— Scott