I Brought Those Maladaptive Strategies From Teaching With Me

When I came across Mandy Brown’s coaching services, I was immediately intrigued by her trauma-informed, holistic approach. I’ve really begun to appreciate how much more there is to the teacher transition process than merely job hunting, resumes and interviews (as if that wasn’t enough!). I really appreciated Mandy’s approach to both the practical aspects of transitioning as well as her attention to wellness and mindset. Thank you Mandy!

Introduce yourself!

I’m Mandy Brown. I’m in Texas. I taught at a discipline alternative education program, which is a really fancy way of saying I taught the kids who were in trauma, the ones that got in trouble, the ones the system didn't really serve. I was the English teacher for all of high school.

I was there six years and then Covid happened, and I transitioned into instructional design. I am a senior ID for a consulting firm, on top of the career coaching stuff that I do and the newsletter that I write.

How did you get started mentoring transitioning teachers?

When I transitioned, I realized that a lot of these behaviors—making sure that people know I'm doing my work, documenting my work, always being in front of the computer and working all eight hours—all of these really maladaptive strategies came with me from K-12 into corporate. Because in teaching, that really did keep me safe.

So that became the focus when I started mentoring others: how do we get out of that mindset, so that when you start a job in corporate, you're starting with a healthier mindset? Because it all influences everything else. It's not these pretty boxes of “this is my home life” and “this is my work life.” It's all connected. 

Can you talk a little about the maladaptive mindsets you see people taking out of the teaching profession?

One thing I've seen with a lot of my mentees is this thing of, “I can do anything. I'll take any job.” 

And I have to say, “Okay, hold on a moment. I know what you mean is that you are really skilled and that there's lots of things you can do. And I absolutely believe you. I know from experience that teachers are incredible, like a Swiss Army knife–they can do all the things. However, you should know that when you say that to a hiring manager or recruiter, what they hear is, ‘I don't care who I marry. I just don't want to be alone.’” 

That completely changes how they see it. Because it’s like, “Actually, I want to be in project management, and I want to use these tools and these skills.” And I'm like, “Great, that's where we're going to focus.” Because it's true, you could do all those things. But what do you actually want to do? That isn't something that's ever really discussed as a teacher. You're supposed to do it all, right? 

So naturally, you enter corporate and you think you're supposed to also do it all. And certainly there are startups that often work that way, but even then you're on a team. But the teacher will come in and try to do it all. I often have to tell people to slow down, because we're so used to being fast that we get into corporate and we keep that pace as though that's normal. 

Actually we need to slow down, because it's not healthy or sustainable. So a lot of times I have to help mentees to slow down and recognize that they don't have to do everything, that going slow means they're going to be making higher-quality products. They don’t necessarily have to churn out six or seven things in a week.

We keep that pace now we don't have to, and it feels scary to slow down. Because what happens if you slow down? We've never been allowed to. Every single minute of the day has been scheduled out for teachers. So when we start a new role, suddenly we don't have that, and it can almost be like, “What am I supposed to be doing?” And because we were treated that way for so long, finding ourselves again is a little bit challenging.

When I ask mentees what they want, they start naming things like, “I want to be treated with respect. I want a healthy space.” Or, “Here's all the things I don't want.” And I go, “Okay, but let's assume that's the default. Now what do you want?” 

Because when we when we date, we don't go, “I just want someone who won't beat me.” That's not what we say, right? We say, “I want someone who's gonna go to sporting events with me, and I want someone who wants to be a parent with me.” 

But in work, we seem to go, “I just want to own my time, and I want to not have someone watch me all the time, and I want to have warm coffee and restroom breaks.” And I'm like, “This is normal. This is the default. So let's assume all these things are true in a job. What do you want now?” 

How do people respond to that? 

It's a surprising thing, like, “Oh, really?” Or, “You're right, but also I can't trust it.” 

So for instance, I often tell my mentees that when they are job hunting, even if they don't have a job right now, I want them to act as though they get the time that they want. So yes, you may not have a job right now and yes, you might really want to pivot, but I still want you to go on the walk that you want to have when you have that remote role. I still want you to take the breaks and have meals. 

Because what's going to end up happening is that you're going to try to create that habit when you get the job. And more than likely, you're going to lean back into not giving that to yourself. 

And I say all that because I totally did it myself. I was like, “I'm gonna rest when I get the job.” Then I got the job and I was like, “Okay, I got all my work done before 10am; I have to keep working. What more can I do?” 

And I realized, “Oh crap, I gotta slow down. If I keep up this pace, I'm just gonna burn out.” And it was because I wasn't practicing those habits to begin with. Then it became harder to do. 

So how did you start doing it? Totally not asking for myself or anything.

So I mark my lunch breaks as out-of-office. I put it in my calendar. I have breaks in my calendar. 

At the very beginning, I would finish something very, very quickly, and then I would hold on to it for three days before sending it in the email. Because then I would go back to it and go, “Oh wow, I missed this one little thing here.” But that's not something that we get as teachers. As teachers, we just got to keep going, going, going, and we can do revisions maybe next year.

I made a break menu for myself when I first started. But then I found I would get to my breaks and not know what I was supposed to do with this time. So I made a list of all the things I found restorative, like five minutes with my book, listening to a podcast while going on a walk outside, doing some yoga. Then if I couldn't decide, I'd just roll a die and whatever number it landed on, that was the menu piece I picked, and that was what we did.

The dice! That’s brilliant. I had something like that in my classroom for the kids.

That’s exactly what it is! I had to make strategies for myself so that I could take that break.

I've also really embraced journaling as a reflection piece. That is already something I was doing as a teacher. If there's ever a scary moment that triggers the survival response in me, I work to handle it, but then I also write an email to my future self about what happened and what the results were and how I handled it, that kind of thing. And then I schedule it for myself in the future so that I can remind myself that that thing happened. 

Those are the sorts of things that I've been doing to help kind of ease through my maladaptive stuff and rewire things for me. I make those recommendations for my mentees. Sometimes that's the strategy that works for them. Sometimes they find a different strategy.

What are some other things you see teachers struggling with in their career transitions? 

In K-12, what is often rewarded is all the hats you're willing to wear. So when we write our resumes, it's things like, “Managed the Glee Club and the Digital Tech Club, while also serving as the art teacher.” 

Corporate doesn't care about what you did. They care about what you accomplished. 

So a lot of times I have to help my mentees reframe their experience. Because they want to say things like, “Taught Honors English for three years.” That bullet means very little because we don't have anything behind it. It could mean that you had two students for three years in Honors English for private school, or it could mean that you had 300 students for three years, and they were in AP classes, right? 

But if you can say something like, “Closed skill gaps by 90% in Honors English,” that gives the impact of what you've done.

I created a resume email writing course that covers that. It's pay-what-you-can because things are hard enough. But basically the whole premise is, every bullet counts. So every single thing you'd have underneath your work experience should have the impact that you had. How many learners did you serve? How many hours of curriculum did you rebuild? How many stakeholders did you manage? 

What ends up happening is some teachers put all these things on their resume. “Here's all the things I do,” rather than, “Here's the impact I had.” Then they apply for jobs and wonder why they aren't hearing back from anybody. It's because their experience isn't put into context. 

You want to talk to the person who says, “I doubled website visits in a month by retooling the UX of the website,” versus someone who says, “I managed the school website,” right? There's one you want to talk to more. That's something that I've seen a lot of teachers struggle with understanding.

What advice or guidance or tips would you give a teacher who's struggling to transition? Both your practical, skills advice and your more holistic, mindset, self-care advice? 

My holistic mindset self-care advice is that they have to be closing in stress cycles. This was something I did not understand until I left the education system.

There’s a lovely book called Burnout, and it talks about how stress is an event that happens in your body. Your body fills with these chemicals that are supposed to keep us safe. The cortisol goes up, our heart rate goes up, our adrenaline goes up, our blood vessels shrink in our arms and legs, our breathing happens faster. 

All that happens because our bodies are trying to keep us safe, and we mistakenly believe that if we get away from the stressor, we will handle the stress. But actually, your body still holds on to all those chemicals until you're able to close that stress cycle. 

Your body doesn't speak thought language, it speaks body language. Body language is exercising. It's having a nap. It's snuggling up with your loved ones. It's the belly laughter that makes your face hurt. All of that signals to your body that you're safe again, and those chemicals can be released. 

So start closing your stress cycles. Yes, you want to get out of the classroom, but it's going to really help if you start walking on a regular basis, so that you can you can close those stress cycles before getting away from the actual stressor. 

Being in that stress space impedes the job application process. Because the survival brain is very short-term. The survival brain is built for, “There's a flood! We got to get away from the flood,” not for, “I need to find a new job so that my soul no longer dies.” That's such a long-term stressor that our bodies are not built for and have not evolved for. 

A lot of the job seekers right now are in that short-term survival response. And that isn't a dig at them. It's a very real thing a brain does to keep you safe. However, right now, it's not serving you. It's actually making it really hard for you to think long-term and making it hard for you to make good choices. 

So wellness-wise, I would say, to start closing stress cycles and start understanding that your body has to know you're safe.

As for job seekers, if you aren't getting interviews, you need to be updating your resume and networking, not just applying for the job and hoping for the best. Have the impact for your roles, the numbers: “I accomplished X by doing Y.” Have that in your resume. 

Then after you apply, go to that team's LinkedIn profiles and follow them. Email the hiring manager. Actually have a presence, because people hire people, so you have to have that element there.

Because we are in this instant gratification society, we want [immediate results]. Let's say, “I applied for 100 jobs last week. I'm not getting anything.” But actually, it’s like, “Whatever you did two or three weeks ago is what fruits this week.” So you have to keep up that momentum. “This week I'm going to apply for a couple jobs and talk to a few people. Next week I'm going to apply for a few and talk to these people.” It doesn't fruit immediately. Similar to that survival mechanism, job hunting time warps things so badly. So if you aren't getting interviews, that's where you focus. 

If you are getting interviews, then you need to be practicing for those interviews. What I sometimes see in my mentees is that they start getting interviews, and the interviews don't go where they want them to go. If you're not getting farther along in the interview process, then maybe it's picking better places to apply. Maybe it's practicing your answers, figuring out how to interview well. Maybe it's following up. 

What services and products do you offer? 

So I have a free newsletter and anyone can be on it. I try to send three articles in one email that focus on wellness, job hunting and business acumen, all in the hopes of helping you think corporate.

I have a pay-what-you-want email course for revising your resume. I have one-on-one sessions with people. I do have a sliding scale depending on what's needed there because I recognize not everyone can afford everything. I've got an ebook about job-hunting communications and how to communicate at the different stages in a job hunt. That was one thing that really threw me when I first started my pivot. It made me so mad to learn that cover letters aren't five-paragraph essays! 

And then I have a I have a membership program starting up. I'm calling it Design Time With Mandy. I’m going to be sharing corporate case studies and showing how to build assets for them with tools that are free. I'm really tired of watching these boot camps charge all this money. 

Check out Mandy’s full website and newsletter.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.