Day 289: Mike Kuczala

July 16, 2010 at 12:01 am, Category: Inspiration

“… given the opportunity to work with people and help to change their lives, I really thrive in that opportunity.  That inspires me to do the best work that I can do, to take their life to a new level, whether it be a teacher in a professional setting or personal setting.  I really get jazzed about helping people to find new levels of living.”

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Mike, for agreeing to be part of this Project today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Mike Kuczala: Sure.  My name is Mike Kuczala, and I am an educational consultant.

Toni: Okay; and Mike, when you think of the word inspiration, who do you inspire, and how does that happen?

Mike: Well, I work with people who work with children, and that’s who I really attempt to inspire.  That could be parents, it could be educational administrators, but most of the time that means classroom teachers.  And I have had the great pleasure of working with a company called The Regional Training Center that has really allowed that inspiration to flourish.

So when we talk about how we inspire people, it happens through professional development, it happens through graduate courses, it happens through my work in school districts, and most recently it has happened through a book that I authored called The Kinesthetic Classroom:  Teaching and Learning Through Movement. So there’s different venues that we have to work with teachers to bring their classrooms alive, and we do that for them in a professional way, and also in a personal way as well.

Toni: Can you give me an example of how that happens in a personal way?

Mike: Sure.  I’ve also had the opportunity to design graduate courses for teachers, and so it’s happened three times.  I’ve designed the course – co-designed, actually, with Traci Lengel – a course called Wellness:  Creating Health and Balance in the Classroom.  And so we really attempt to have the teachers make changes in their own lives so that they are ready to face their kids every day, that they are feeling well, they are feeling dynamic, they’re feeling motivated, so that when they are in front of the kids, they are at their best, because frankly the kids deserve nothing less every day.

Then they can also take those wellness principles and they can bring them to their students, because wellness is such an issue for all of us these days, and they then have tools to be able to do that with their children.

Toni: Do you get the opportunity to see that happen?

Mike: Oh, absolutely.  It’s been the most fun thing and very rewarding.  After people have gone through the course, they will come back and tell me how their teaching is different, they are motivated to move, they’ve lost weight, they’ve made dietary changes, how they manage their stress – which is very important for teachers – has changed, and it has made the relationships with students different and better, and then they in turn are able to better inspire their kids to, you know, greater heights and better academic achievement, and I see that all the time.

Toni: That’s fantastic.  When you witness this and you’re developing the strategies for the teachers and the professional development, how do you think then in other ways it helps them to explore their potential and, you know, as far as maybe reciprocating that back for you as well?

Mike: Well, what I do … I’ll give you a specific example here.  Another course that I worked with is one based on motivation, and one of the things that helps me to really fulfill my potential is I usually have a goal out there somewhere, something that I’m working on that inspires me.

You know, goals help us to go from here to there, and that creates pressure, and that’s a good pressure; it moves us and keeps us in motion.  I teach teachers how to create those goals so those goals are inspirational.  In turn, once they go through the process and achieve those goals, it is a very big “ah-ha” moment for them.  Then the end of that process is taking it back to their students.

So we have this process where I’m involved, where the teachers are involved with goal-setting and goal achievement, then they take that back to their students, because one of the things that I think lacks in public education is that kids are not taught how to properly set goals.  And this is really a three-way process that happens that includes myself, the teacher, and the student, that takes students to, you know, great heights.

Toni: I’m wondering if you get the opportunity to see it from the student’s perspective?

Mike: Well, I do.   Usually, it happens through the teachers.  They stay in contact with me, they tell me about what their students achieve through the goal-setting process, and it is really fantastic.  I’ve even been involved with, you know, seeing how test scores have risen and how students feel better about their schooling process, which makes them more engaged.

You know, a third of freshmen in this country won’t graduate?  You know, when we’re working to meet kids’ basic human needs — and a part of that is feeling competent in goal-setting — we really are helping the whole educational process; and so I do get to see that process with students take place.

Toni: So what inspires you, Mike?

Mike: What inspires me is being around … I purposely put myself around people who are inspirational to me, especially when it surrounds the goals that I have.  Also, given the opportunity to work with people and help to change their lives, I really thrive in that opportunity.  That inspires me to do the best work that I can do, to take their life to a new level, whether it be a teacher in a professional setting or personal setting.  I really get jazzed about helping people to find new levels of living.

Toni: Have you always shown up this way?  Have you always been this way, where the mentality, the mindset of bringing that goal to life, so to speak?  Because that’s what I wrote down here, is that I’m almost … I can visualize this goal-setting, and that’s very hard to do, you know?  Just writing a goal down on a piece of paper is one thing, but it’s almost like you’re breathing life into these goals that’s carried forward between you to the teachers to the students, and that’s what I’m hearing in this interview, which I think is so cool – but were you always like that?

Mike: I wish I could say yes, but the truth is, no.  I was not.  You know, I like to give teachers tools, and along with those tools I like to make it personal, so I’m often offering my own personal stories about things.

I barely graduated from high school, and I didn’t do very well the first years of college.  I probably shouldn’t have even been there.  But something just clicked.  I started to change myself physically, and I started to gain confidence and momentum and it all just … with it snowballing downhill, I started to read anything I could get my hands on about personal performance and peak performance and motivation.

It’s been a process, and it’s been work, and every time I can check a goal off, it just takes me to a new level.  And so it has been probably a process of two-and-a-half decades of getting to this point, and now what I’d like to do is share that knowledge and information with others.

Toni: Mike, it’s really important and so incredible that you mentioned your own story to get to this point, and I’m wondering, people are listening to this interview all over the world and through the Get Inspired! Project there’s been a lot of talk on these interviews about purpose and passion and moments in time when people knew things were right or they were wrong, or the process of changing – was there a moment?  If you didn’t show up this way, can you remember something that happened that you went “That’s it!  I’m done!”

Mike: Yes, and it was when I started teaching these graduate courses with The Regional Training Center.  I was still in a public school, I was enjoying my job very much, but I started teaching these courses part time, and when I got to work in front of adults where I knew my influence could grow a hundredfold, I knew at that moment when I started getting feedback from people, this is what I want to do.  I want to be in front of audiences, I want to inspire people, I want to write, I want to do as much as I can to spread, you know, the information that I have.

It was in those early moments of my early teaching of graduate courses that I knew, you know what, this is it, and I’m not even close to reaching my own potential, and I want to take people along with me to really show them the tools that can get them where they really want to take their life.

Toni: That is a very powerful statement that you made, which is that you wanted to be in a place where your influence could grow, and just being aware of that; that’s very powerful.

What are you doing now?  What do you do currently to explore your own potential, to keep doing the type of work now that you love?

Mike: Several things.  You know, I think one of the things … the kind of life that I want to lead is engineered by a healthy body, and so what keeps me inspired is to stay around people who are fit, who are on that same path.  I mean, people have many things they want to do in their life, and they often fall short because they don’t have that physical mechanism to support what they need to do.  So part of my inspiration every day is to make sure I’m physical every day, you know, to exercise, take care of my body, and that provides the framework.

You know, what I’m also doing to keep my inspiration, I think, is to take on new projects.  I love that.  As I mentioned, I’ve done some graduate course design.  I’ve worked with Traci on writing a book  recently, and it has been so humbling, and I’m giving talks around the country, and I just am looking to grow this sphere of influence, just to be able to help people.  At the end of the day, it’s about helping kids.  As I go and work with teachers, more and more students are helped, and that keeps me inspired.

Toni: So it’s really remembering what it’s all about.

Mike: Sure, absolutely.

Toni: Mike, you’ve just given a wonderful interview, not only with who you inspire and how that happens, and really how many people it touches.  I mean, it’s what you develop, and then what you transfer, but then what they transfer, and how far-reaching that is.  That is really an amazing transformation that happens, and I just … I so appreciate you being part of this Project and sharing your own personal struggles, but to where you are and how you’re working on this purpose for the greater good, working for kids.

Mike: Well, thank you very much, Toni.  Your Project is also very inspirational, and it’s just helping the whole process grow, and I thank you very much for allowing me to be a part.

Toni: Oh, you are quite welcome.  Take care, Mike.

Mike: You too.

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For more information about Mike Kuczala:  www.thertc.net, The Kinesthetic Classroom

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