📖Turn the Page📖

Hi Friends! This is the final email in the Leverage mini-series — a 4-part conversation about how to use what you already have to build what’s next... even if you still have 2 feet and most of your brain in the classroom 😉

If you missed the others, you can catch up here

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👉 [Leverage Your Experience]​
👉 [Leverage Your Skills]​
👉 [Leverage Your Network]​

Hiya Reader,

Before we close out our Leverage series, I want to talk about something that sits right at the heart of why so many teachers feel stuck when they start thinking about their next chapter:

Teachers learn to quiet themselves long before they ever learn to advocate for themselves.

Most educators I know — myself included — have decades of experience, degrees (sometimes more than 1 Masters degree 🫥), many certifications, endorsements, specialized trainings, hours of PD, and a depth of knowledge that could rival any expert panel.

And yet…

—They still hesitate.
—They still shrink and qualify and water down their opinions.
—They still feel like they need to double-check whether they’re “allowed” to say something out loud.

Why?

Because the system trains you to:

• Accept constant oversight (ahem, that micromanaging admin anyone?)
• Defer to people who may have less on-the-ground expertise than you
• Question your instincts
• Prioritize compliance over confidence

(I legit received "feedback" from one supervisor after an observation, and one of the only things on the paper was, "Meredith frequently forgets to turn the smart board off 🥹)

After enough years of that, you begin to believe that maybe you aren't all that good at what you do. You might even forget that you ever had a strong voice to begin with.

(If you know me (you will soon), you know it's difficult to muzzle this yap. 17 years if that ya'll.)

But here’s the truth I need you to hear today:
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You are an authority.

Your experience has weight and value.

You do not earn authority by waiting for someone to hand it to you.
You earn it by recognizing what’s already yours.

Over the last few months, I’ve been stretching my own voice in new (and sometimes scary) ways—saying yes to more visibility, more conversations, and more opportunities to speak from lived experience.

And let me be honest: it hasn’t been seamless.

I’ve sweat through my many shirts (sorry for the TMI)
I’ve felt my throat tighten when the mic turned on.
I’ve wondered afterward if I “said the right thing.”

But each time, I walked away with the same realization:

My voice is stronger than my fear.
And yours is too.

Let me say that again:

YOUR voice is stronger than YOUR fear.

But you have to actively choose to feed one over the other.

One of the biggest challenges teachers face when transitioning careers isn’t skill— it’s permission.

No one ever showed you that the way you think, communicate, teach, and lead is valuable in places far beyond the classroom.​
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So you learned to wait.
🫠To ask.
🫠To be called on.
🫠To hope someone else would validate what you already know.

But here’s the shift that opens every single door in your next chapter:

Stop waiting for the "go-ahead."
You, Reader—YOU are the go-ahead.

Your voice becomes leverage the moment you start using it.
Not perfectly—just honestly.

As you move forward, whether you’re still in the classroom or knee-deep in exploring a new direction, I want you to hold onto this:

Your voice is not loud because you talk over people (teachers know it's in the getting quiet that kids listen 😂).
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Your voice is loud because it carries truth, lived experience, and a skill set forged under pressure most people will never understand.

That’s not something to mute.
That’s something to amplify.

More soon,
​Meredith

P.S. Hit reply and tell me:
What’s one thing you wish you felt confident enough to say out loud about your skills, your expertise, or your next chapter?
I’d love to hear it LOUDLY—and cheer for it.

P.P.S Stay tuned: next week I'm going to announce a FREE event I'm hosting JUST FOR YOU. You won't want to miss this!