81. Teaching Happiness At Your School with Greg Angilly

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Aubrey: Welcome to Mindful School Marketing. I’m Aubrey Bursch. 

Tara: And I’m Tara Clays. Today we are joined by Greg Angley. Greg is currently the head of school at Virginia Beach Friends School. After completing a Yale course about happiness, Greg created a unique curriculum aimed at helping middle and upper school students better understand the human brain and how we can create true happiness in our lives.

He asks, Do you ever wonder? Can you actually teach people how to be happy? Greg certainly believes so, and he’s excited to share with us today, and we are excited as well. Thanks for joining us. Welcome, Greg. 

Greg: Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to join you guys. 

Aubrey: Yeah, Greg, we’re excited that you’re here and thrilled to discuss more about this topic around happiness and what you’ve done at your school.

But before we get started, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your role at your school? 

Greg: Yeah, happy to. So I am a I’m a 50 year old New Jersey native who’s had the opportunity, I think I define Generation X and that I’ve had a variety of different careers. I went to Wake Forest University.

I think if you talk to the deans at Wake Forest University, they’d likely say, Mr. Angley is talking about happiness. He seemed very happy at college. And so I thoroughly enjoyed my opportunities. Wake Forest was my first private school that I’d attended. I was a product of public schools in New Jersey.

And then I went to work in Washington, D. C. For a very small public relations firm that wasn’t really my dream job, but I wanted, my dad reminded me he paid for my college. It was time to move out and get a job. And so I worked for two years for an organization that I enjoyed the people, but didn’t love what I was doing.

And I found myself struggling to get up, to go to work and really didn’t believe a whole lot of, in what I was doing. So it wasn’t really fulfilled and had a really good friend that was a few years younger than me that said, let’s let’s go adventure on the look at the West coast of the United States.

And so we packed up and it became, I think that first time I ever felt truly free in my life and we drove across the country, Had a blast, ended up in San Francisco where I spent 18 years got reacquainted with a young woman that I went to Wake Forest with that, that I married had my, had two kids, Cooper and Leah out there.

But it’s that it’s in San Francisco where I started to really discover my passion for working with students and I used sports as a while to do as the vehicle was an athletic director and I was a realtor and a lacrosse coach for a long time that morphed into an athletic director, and then became a dean of students on the east coast when we moved back and now I’m ahead of school but I’d say the one thing that is defined my experience I think for the last 20 years is just a.

Passion to work with students and help them achieve their goals. And I guess my totality of my life experiences. There were plenty of students that were much smarter than me at Wake Forest University. I don’t know if anybody had more fun. I don’t know if at the end of the day, anybody looked to find happiness on a daily basis.

And when I reflected back on that. It’s what I wanted to work with kids on is to just optimism and happiness and finding the silver lining and all but working hard and enjoying what you do. It really became something that I thought was important given the generation of students that I’ve worked with that are so motivated by.

The end result, the money, the car, some of the materialistic things that I too, at a younger age valued. And it’s been a wild ride to become a head of school. And I have found the I found my place, I found a, an institution in the friend school that. Mirrors where my personal beliefs are.

And I think when you get to the point professionally, where getting up invigorates you you’ve found something unique. And so the Yale class sort of reminded me that I had yet to really do that. I was living in Virginia beach. I was enjoying myself. I left a lot at the door, so to speak, to do the job I was needed to do.

And of all things, my son took my happiness class and reminded me. You’re not living this you’re teaching it and not living it. And so he helped me figure out a way to live it. And I’m grateful for that. And then that’s where I’m at now. 

Tara: That’s fabulous. I love that. And also in my fifties, I can appreciate that great feeling that you have when the work that you’re doing is aligned with your own personal values and missions.

So I appreciate that so much. I also took the Yale course. By Laurie Santos. I think it was promoted during COVID, right? I think it was something that came out, like it was offered for free and I had heard it on a podcast or something, maybe Adam Grant or something like that. So she was all over and then she had a podcast as well.

So I’m really excited to hear more about your experience with it. I really enjoyed it. And I love that you took it and then you ran with it, right? You followed up and found a way to incorporate the concepts into your school’s curriculum, because this is a college course, right? So let’s start off, for those who may not be familiar with it, can you talk a little bit about Laurie Santos, the Yale course, and the overview and key takeaways of the course that you took?

Greg: Yeah, 100%. And I would guess like I took it for personal reasons. I was always looking for professional development has always been something that I sought out. And so I came across on Corsair of all things. I came across the psychology of happiness offered by, and I read a little blurb in the New York Times about it.

This Yale professor who had, at Yale, you don’t expect the sort of the fluffy class a little bit. And it seemed and she had talked about the first cohort of students that she had in there is this an easy a, and what they realized was it was a life changing opportunity for those really for that high achieving student.

What a perfect age to hit them with that life is more than just the paycheck and the next job or the a on the test or the spouse or all those things that there’s far more. personal work to do. And so I dove in thinking this was going to make me a better husband and a better dad and a better member of my community.

I never thought that I would try to take this information and then teach high school students or middle school students how to be happier. And so And my big takeaway is I love that. I love the time dedicated to the science of the brain, and I think Dr Santos does a great job of putting her science hat and her professor hat on and a little bit more in a lecture manner, show you some of the things the human brain does that are counterintuitive to this idea of personal happiness, right?

The fact that we get. So used to things. I think the term hedonic adaptation, the thing that makes me so happy, I get this brand new pair of shoes and I love them on Monday, but by Thursday, they’re just shoes, right? And I think I was at the age where that resonated with me, right? Like when I was a realtor, I really wanted to pick up my real estate clients in a Mercedes Benz.

That was that big thing that status moment if I drive a Mercedes Benz and I still had to pick up clients and do work in that Mercedes Benz. It didn’t do the job for me. And it suddenly just became a car that was more expensive to fix than the Ford that I used to own. And that part, I think my mom and dad really worked hard with me as a young man about materialistic things versus other things.

But intrinsically, you go back to once you pay your mortgage, once you pay your taxes, money is money matters. And I think that aspect of it was really cool to step away and see, in some ways, the human brain is not trained to keep you happy. And so you have to pause and see those different things that it does, and then to redefine some of what the expectations are around the idea of happiness.

And so one of my first memories of telling one of my buddies that I was taking this class is what, Oh, once you’re done with the class, you’ll be happy every day. And I think that’s a key takeaway is the class teaches you The habits and the ways to train yourself to do it.

The class does not teach you how to take an awful day and turn it around to being that was great news. I lost my job. I should be happy about it. And so sometimes as I adapted the course, I found it necessary to remind folks, these aren’t multiplication tables, right? I’m not going to teach you the causes of world war II and you’ll know them forever.

We’re going to talk about the habits and things you need to put in place. To provide happiness. And I think that’s the big takeaway for me was this course in itself doesn’t make you happier. This course provided me the tools to pause. Some of the activities that we were asked to do in the class, the gratitude, some of the gratitude work, I think is just really helped me.

grow as an individual, be more in touch with my emotions, but also that concept behind gratitude, behind savoring things, right? Really savoring them. The idea of planning trips and looking forward to them and creating experiences as opposed to purchases, right? Those were some of my favorite takeaways from the class because they hit me where I was at my age and with my career in that there are ways to There are ways to compartmentalize and make sure you might not love everything that you do, but I guarantee within that my workday a few years ago, there were plenty of things that if I paused and showed some gratitude for reflected on looked forward to really helped me become a happier human being.

And so those are my favorite things in the class. I would also say she is a superhuman being. I finished it. I emailed her. I said, thank you. And I have this idea. And in the world we live in today, she could have said cool idea, Greg, don’t paraphrase. plagiarize or take anything from my Coursera course and use it without my permission.

And she knows what she’s doing. Exact opposite. Paraphrase, plagiarize, and take everything I’ve done. Adapt it. Share with me how it’s working for high school students. Be open to failing in this because it’s not always easy. It’s a difficult age to teach it. Bounce things off of me. And I did.

I got to the point where I felt like I was bothering her more than I needed to and I wasn’t compensating her. But she couldn’t be a more. She’s an amazing person for sharing some of this and being open to sharing her experiences and letting people as she said, if we could make this a happier country and world, we do it we don’t stop and say, but what about mine right and so a big thank you to Dr.

Laurie Santos for putting this out there. And I think since she’s done it, this psychology of well being is really, University of Pennsylvania’s pro grad program is unbelievable. And I’m seeing more and more schools do it. My alma mater just sent me this opportunity to do some mindfulness work.

And yeah, I’m working Oddly, this evening, I’m interviewing two guys who have started the PV project, which is all about mindfulness through athletics, right? And just like the different things that they’re doing. And so I think we’re right at the tip of something amazing. And I think it is the perfect time, given what I see.

Jen, I see a mental health crisis amongst our youth and I see it getting worse and worse with the advent of more technology and more apps and more ways to remain in my own little world and not interact that I think it is the perfect time for us to be thinking about it. And really what I’ve tried to do with my schools that I’ve done this with is create potentially a model for others to say.

We want to do this too. And that’s why I chose to volunteer to speak at the VAS thing was. We’re tapping into something and if we can collectively do it, maybe we’ll have a happier state in Virginia and we could be a model state for different people to come and look at. But I just, I’ve seen too many sad situations where I think it’s too quick to medicate, too quick to do some things that man, if we could just pause and actually teach kids some things.

Cause I think I, you had referenced Tara, we’re in that same generation. I didn’t, I wasn’t exposed to some of the technology that, that is hurting some of the things kind of simple life, but loved it. And I never really struggled with, I had ups and downs. I had failures. I didn’t make teams.

I got my heart broken plenty but. I felt like we were more prepared to deal with some of these obstacles. And so then I pause and say, it’s not just students. I’d love to offer this to the parents of the kids that I’m offering it to too, because it needs to be a complete approach. And I think some of the problems we face today, I go back and think about how I parent my kids and the pressure I might be putting on them for results.

instead of enjoying the ride that they’re on, right? And so I think it’s a great opportunity for us to pause as a country and say, what can we do to be happier? Because we’re not a very happy country right now. I don’t think so. 

Aubrey: Thank you so much for sharing. I’m so glad that we connected with you at VAS because I love this topic.

I’m both a middle school parent and an independent school leader. So this is very I feel like this is, timely in so many ways, especially there is a crisis out there, right? We hear from school leaders all the time about what’s happening with our young adults and mental health. So I’m curious so there’s this idea around happiness.

There’s this course around happiness. So how did you get the idea to take it to the middle school? And then What was involved in that whole process? Like when you talk to administration about, how do we weave this in? And how does it differ from other things out there? Like the college course that we just spoke about.

Greg: Yeah. Great question. I’ll start with the last thing I said, the difference, look, There’s no right age to start this at the way that Dr Santos presented it. There’s some things about her class that just you have to remove from anything you’re going to do with middle and high school kids in particular in the independent school world.

What’s the first thing most independent high schools tell you is that they’re going to help your son or daughter. reach a four year university level, a high achieving academic career. And so much of what Dr. Santos is saying about that really two days after the F or the A, you’re back to that median level anyway, it’s a little bit of a boost or a little bit of a drop, but it’s never as, as great as you think it’s going to be or as bad.

That’s hard to sell to a high school senior. Don’t worry about that. That. That too, you got on the AP exam, isn’t gonna have an effect when reality is it’s, it might mean the difference between Vanderbilt or a, a different school. It might mean the difference. You can’t tell the aspiring high school baseball player that the day he went over four and the Vanderbilt coach was watching.

It’s okay. Now you’re going to go play baseball at a division three school, but you do have to be careful and mindful of telling kids the results don’t matter in a world where you also know the results matter. That was my biggest challenge was, how do I peel away this concept of money won’t make you happy.

Without really angering a group of parents that are going to say, we all don’t need to be French artisan philosophers wandering the earth. Greg, my kid needs to make a living one day. And so that was my challenge was to try to pick and choose how to say money won’t ultimately be your the happiness guide when you are you.

35. Trust me to have a kid say, I don’t come from a lot. I can’t fathom why having a little bit more money wouldn’t make me happy. So you got to be open to the idea that as you’re teaching them these things and putting new different activities and opportunities in front of them, you’ve got to let them talk their way through it.

And I found that. The math teacher can say no solving for X. X does not equal seven. You cannot look at a kid and say the amount of money you get paid at the end of the day for your job will not be inherently what makes you the most happy until they’ve had that opportunity. And so the cool part was to create activities.

And then I leaned on some teachers that I’ve had in my life that ran the type of classrooms like that Harkin style where you I brought up a topic and let kids talk about it. So the challenges are you got to have buy in from your administration at a school because you are going to have things that are brought up that are not traditional curriculum age appropriate things of course, but 18 year olds that live in Virginia are talking about, when an 18 year old wants to talk about substances and the role they play in that world.

You’ve got to have a relationship with your counselor and you’ve got to have administration understand that’s a topic that got discussed. The way I handled it, if you guys were parents of kids in my class, we had a weekly thing where I’d let you guys know what we talked about. If you’re, if kids ever bring up things that warrant, an immediate attention from a counselor, you walk them right over to the counselor’s office.

But a lot of work on my syllabus to understand what you were walking into. Biggest challenges for middle school and high school kids. There is no place for sarcasm in this work. I am likely one of the most sarcastic people that I know. And it was really cool for me to have Dr. Santos to go through that class and understand how my self deprecation or even my humor growing up with a bunch of boys in New Jersey, the way we showed affection was to give each other a hard time.

That’s counterintuitive to making people feel good about themselves. And so that was you, in order to be in my class, you have to sign. the syllabus and the syllabus did say you had to come into the classroom with an open mindset every day. You had to come in with respect for your peers. You could not take shots at them and we were going to if you couldn’t do it, you couldn’t take the class.

So in my five years or six years of teaching it at my former school, I had one student say, I can’t do this. And I love him for it. He’s still, he’s 22. He’s in his he’s at Ole Miss finishing up right now. We talk a lot. He’s become almost a younger brother to me, but I was so proud of him for knowing at that age.

I’m going to make a joke all the time in here. It’s how I handle my insecurities and Bravo, but we’ve done so much of this work, like just as two guys now that, that talk a lot. And but again, I think the challenge was for me, to remove some of the things that are counterintuitive to where they are in their lives.

Yes, your grades matter. Yes, they do. But then the focus was on, you think you want to go to Harvard so badly, but you didn’t get in, but you’re going to the University of Virginia. It was pause, throw all the expectations that you thought about Harvard out the window. You’re not going there. Be so happy you get to go to a new community.

And what can we celebrate about that? So it was more of trying in some ways to teach some of these kids. When rejection and unhappiness presents itself, how do you appropriately handle those moments? So it was really fun with high school seniors because they were getting those affirmations or rejections from schools.

And they were dealing a lot with the athlete that wasn’t getting recruited versus getting recruited. And so it made for some really rich, deep discussions that, that piggybacked on some of the things Dr. Santos did. For the most part, though, this is an activity driven class. This is not a sit and listen.

This is discussion oriented, but we did a ton of really cool activities that I either took from dr Santos or I created through different things I had done at different times of my life. I did a lot of icebreaker work with freshmen and different things as they enter community. So a lot of the activities we did were really fun.

and kids would come back and what they realized was when they saw the impact they were making on their high school or their middle school through the work they were doing, it played it forward that, hey, Mr Ray, this works right? Like we’re not just doing this to make ourselves feel better. We are positively impacting our Community and I think the last group I worked with was my favorite in just that I’m on a text group chain with them still now they’re freshmen in college.

They asked me to go out to lunch two days before they all left for school. All of us went back out to lunch together and they were expressing, I’m nervous, I’m scared I’m, what if I don’t make a friend? And I didn’t say a thing. They solved all, they all talked to each other. And we’re going out I think on the 18th of December, we are going back out to Bobo’s Chicken to once again meet and hear how the first semester went.

Who’s happy? What are you not happy about? What’s going good? What’s going badly? But it’s, that’s been the rewarding part for me is that they’re, they’ve put things in place. that are working. Now, that doesn’t mean they’re happy every day, right? That doesn’t mean every moment that my son has at Rhodes College is great.

It’s not. He’s a normal 18 year old guy with ups and downs. And, but I think all of them know that when they get back and they start to do their mindful journal, they start to write down five things that they were grateful for even on the worst day, right? And I tested this with my son. He struck out in a huge moment in a baseball game last year against an arch rival team.

It would have secured them a great seed in their state tournament. And he had a terrible, he had a bad at bat. He didn’t advance the runner. They lost one, nothing. And he took the bus home. I knew well enough. I’m a good sports that I didn’t bother him. But When he got home, he sent a few text messages, one to his coach, a coach.

Thanks. We were in every position to win. Appreciate that we got up there to play those guys. He texted a few of his teammates. He pitched great. He expressed his gratitude to others for what they did well and it buoyed his spirits. He was the captain of the team. And instead of pouting, he made sure other people knew you did something great today.

Don’t let the result dictate how we feel about this. And it changed how he felt. Now, I watched that same kid as a sophomore strike out, not eat dinner, tell his mom where she could go and just be an absolute pain in the tush for 24 hours. And I think sometimes you realize you’re getting through as an educator.

I was lucky enough to have a kid I got to see at home live it. And so it’s rewarding, but it also is a great reminder, like more, we gotta keep doing more. And as my son told me he now relies a little bit on the comm app for some of the things that, that are not being taught to him, but that he can remind himself to do.

So it’s this ongoing education. It never ends. Yeah, and we know that as adults that there’s always another day and you always tell kids that are, you know, high school is one phase college is another phase post college is another thing. And but when you don’t have that perspective, sometimes you do have to remind people that I didn’t teach you.

You have to keep practicing these things to stay happy. 

Tara: Yeah. Wow. I I would love to be in your class. Sounds really like a lot of fun. I wish my kids could have been in your class. It sounds great. Is this a program that other schools can incorporate? Yeah. 

Greg: Yeah. 100%. Great. It is. And that’s what kind 

Tara: of school I guess, right?

Are there other types of schools? 

Greg: I used to think. I used to think this can only work at a private, independent, non secular school, right? This could only work and as I dug deeper with that group of kids I had last year, young men and young women who were agnostic, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant you name it, right?

They crossed, they, they were men, they were women, they identified as being straight, as being non straight, as being somewhere on the LGBTQ spectrum, wherever they chose in that world. And so it, it started to hit me that, Yeah, I think this could work anywhere now. Could any, it’s not, you have to find the right person.

And that was what I was saying at the V. A. Asking was in every one of your schools, there is that teacher that somehow kids gravitate towards, that they want to talk to you, that they want to in some schools, it could be a counselor or the counseling department. I’ve even tossed it out to, I think college counselors could do a great job effectively running this at the high school level.

They have these kids, attention and they’re the most important person in some of these kids and families lives. So I think it can be adapted to any school in so much as I’m at a Quaker school right now. And so we pride ourselves on simplicity and peace, integrity, community, equality and stewardship.

That plays really nicely into things like gratitude and savoring and and being a community minded individual doing things for others. And so I think if I worked at a school that identified as being a Catholic school, you just incorporate some of the aspects of Catholicism that are deeply rooted into your school’s community.

And their and their core, I would argue it could be done. Really, the only place I’m not sure we could do it and I tested this in our covert year we did this class online. I would say the only schools I think and ironically here I took it online, and I would say, I don’t know how to teach it online, I don’t know how to tell you because so much of it for me is the social interaction piece is the actual relations with other folks that it would, I found it very difficult to teach this class in our little Brady Bunch box world, because I didn’t have your full attention I didn’t have your If we were going to pause and take a 20 minute meditation.

I don’t know what we’re doing. I don’t see you. I’m not able to honestly hear that silence and feel it in the room, but I think it’s applicable to just about every school community and what my aha moment was when I got hired here at the friend school was I’ve started this too late. 18 is not the right age, right?

Like 18 might be the right age to offer a Yale course, right? But 18 is not the right age to start to talk to kids about happiness, about gratitude, about some of the habits that you need to put in place to ensure that you are going to live a healthy and happy life. And that’s the fun part is now to rebuild the curriculum and start at the fifth grade.

And what that looks like at the fifth grade. And in some ways it’s so fun to have three and a half and four year olds on your campus. Talk about kids who don’t know anything other than how to be happy. Like they’re not, every day. They’re like puppies, right? They wake up. I’ve reminded myself that like our kindergarten kids remind me of my golden doodle and that every day they’re so excited to come to school and have a new experience.

They don’t realize that wow, january is a really long month, like your high school kids and middle school kids have that. And so the younger that you start this I’m really excited to beta test this with my fifth graders and see what they look like in a few years in terms of what their ethos is and how they’re giving back and what they’re like with our younger kids in our school.

Yeah, I think it’s applicable everywhere, but the challenge is to Finding someone who wants to put themselves out there and do it because it’s not as simple as teaching catcher in the rye and knowing the prompts that you want, you’ve got to be able to, you really have to want to be the type of educator.

Who authentically sits and listens to students. And so they exist in every community. Where I’ve left the school I was at, I could tell you there are three other people in that upper school that could have taught it and probably even better than me because I was the Dean of students, so I didn’t have them.

Some of them saw me as Darth Vader. And so it’s difficult. It was a difficult transition there. And so I also think it’s applicable to, I’m throwing the idea around of having a parents group that we do this with too. 

Aubrey: That’s amazing. I love it. It’s it has a domino effect, right? Wherever you start it, you’re going to see, like you said, if you started in fifth grade, what does that look like when they’re eighth graders or 18 year olds?

I love this. I’m curious. Now you did hint about this. But what has surprised you in the way that students have responded and how have they changed as a result of this? 

Greg: Yeah, I think the number the surprise was just when I offered it, I really genuinely thought I was going to get a great group of kids who wanted to get an egg, right?

They wanted an easy class and that they would dive in, but it would be foot on the boat, foot on the dock type of thing with Oh, we’re in your classroom and we’ll go for this. As I feel like I improved as a teacher and was able to learn from all the cohorts of students that I taught.

I think the takeaway for me, the big aha moment was a few years ago, a young woman was a freshman at Virginia Tech and she texted me and said Hey, I wanted to let you know. I’m literally following like our core syllabus day by day. I’m not meeting my, I haven’t found my people yet.

I’m a little overwhelmed. I don’t know if I’ve picked the right place. And so I took the advice of the class and I found three clubs that I know I love the SPCA that made me happy. I love trivia and I really like to work on I like being around athletics and I’m not in athletics. So I volunteered to be part of the, the Non revenue sports club where we go and cheer for the teams that don’t otherwise have fans.

Young woman’s name. She’d be proud of Amberlee Butler. Unbelievable came back and spoke to my class about, Hey guys, everybody doesn’t, you’re not going to love the first semester of college right off the bat, if you’re not on a team or you don’t know friends there, it’s a little overwhelming and to know that it worked.

She didn’t leave this school. She found amazing friends. She was open to changing her major a year and a half in, cause she realized computer science does not make me happy at all. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to be cybersecurity anymore. And just that’s where it hit me that if we do this right, we might really be working on creating a happier generation of kiddos.

The takeaway from my last year was if we try not just to make our cohort happier but if we play this out the activity that I did for this group last year was the 19 of them had to find three members of the senior class weren’t in our room, and for a few weeks. Random acts of kindness, and it would be as simple as you would’ve a note in your locker, Aubrey, that said Hey, I really, I thought your hair looked really nice today.

And I purposely made sure that young men understood We’re not flirting. We’re not. There’s no prom date here. And it is okay, to compliment a young man on, man, I love your style, like the way, I love the sneakers that you have on. And what I saw, I had countless kids that weren’t in my class begging me who’s doing this, who were writing these things to me.

And what I did in the class was say, pick someone out of the three people that you’re going to pick. One of them has to be someone you don’t have a great relationship with. One of them has to be either your ex or someone that you lost your starting spot to or that you don’t, you just don’t think that you share the same political view.

So you don’t think that you’ll like, you have to lean into the uncomfortable. And that was where I that’s that was the as proud as I’ve ever been of something I was part of was to see what happened to this class. Zero clicks. I joked around with our head of school. I don’t always think we love what they were doing on Friday nights.

But man, if they weren’t inclusive and doing it with all 92 of them, everybody was invited, right? And I joked around because it’s not what you want. But when someone makes sure that every kid in his grade is invited to whatever activity they’re doing, man, is that a game changer? Man, does that start to make kids feel appreciated?

And it made the kid who was saying, we’re all going over to. my house. It made him happier knowing that no one got left out. No one felt like they were not good enough or that they were being judged. And we created this class of 2023 at this school. They really looked out for each other and supported each other in a way that was really neat.

When they’re all showing up to a swim meet to the final swim meet of the year, no one goes and watches high school swimming other than moms and dads. And I watched like 75 kids show up to support the seniors on that team, their families, like what’s going on was really the question what is going on?

Where did this come from? And it just came from this sense of. This makes us happier. This makes us a stronger group of kids and they felt better about it. That’s where I guess you start to see, hey, this is having an impact. When you get now, that’s where I would say everybody has to be taught.

I did. I did a disservice to the 70 something kids that weren’t in my class. If it worked, then we got to be doing this, right? And so where I would say it belongs is in advisory programs within school. Every independent school has an advisory program. This is the curriculum that should be guiding it. This is what we should be doing.

Because I feel badly and I know I had some kids that didn’t get in the class that were really funny with me with if I’m unhappy next year, it’s your fault, Mr. Angley. And it’s and that’s a cool, it’s a backhanded compliment. 

Tara: Excellent. Thank you so much. Such enthusiasm. This is great information.

I’d like to ask you something that we talked about on our show. And you’ve already really talked about this topic, probably with everything that you’ve shared, but we are mindfulness. podcast as well. I’d just like to ask you, like we asked all of our guests, how you define mindfulness and what’s the, maybe what’s the connection between mindfulness and happiness?

Greg: Yeah. Awesome. And so for me, mindfulness is I, I look at it as that ability to step away from myself and can and look at my surroundings and be aware of. My presence right now, where am I, what am I doing in the now? Not I had a brother in law who gave me this awesome book about the art of letting it go.

I used to be someone that would be so worried about this interview. How’s it going to go? What if she asks me this? What if she asked me that? What do I do this? What if this doesn’t go that way? And that’s the exact opposite, in my opinion, of mindfulness of not, you don’t have to accept your current station in life.

You can always improve it, but you’ve got to be present. And so for me, mindfulness is that. Art and act of being present and thoughtful and aware of my surroundings and how it plays into happiness is they’re tied together. For me, mindfulness also contains an opportunity to pause every day.

I do 10 minutes of meditation. And what I loved about bringing this to the high school kids was high school, Mr. Angley, things are popping into my head. I can’t clear my head. That’s okay. It’s mindful to recognize that thoughts there. I’m aware that I’m really concerned about the game today. I’m going to let that go for the time being and can see up now it’s popping in that I forgot to get my girlfriend a present and tomorrow’s her birthday.

I’m aware of that. I’m going to let that go. It’s an art. It’s a practice. There are days I feel like I’m far more mindful than others, but for me, it’s a, it’s an, it’s really the act and art of being present and aware of my presence and how my presence affects those around me. And then I think it helped me a little bit.

Mindfulness for me also has a little tiny Buddhism in there of if I, if somebody is comes into my office and is very upset as a New Jersey Italian guy, my response used to usually be defend. And I think mindfulness has taught me a little bit as you come in and you’re very upset about something to pause and to truly consider why are you upset?

What is making you upset? What are other factors that could be going on? I don’t have a thought bubble for you. I don’t know what your day looked like. I don’t know if you have a family member that’s sick or if you’re dealing with something. And so to be a little bit more thoughtful and caring.

Not just for myself, but to everyone around me, mindful that everybody is dealing with something. And the life example I give to high school kids is you’re driving to school today. And that car that cuts you off to make the right hand turn onto the street, the school’s on the average person leans on their horn, maybe shows them a finger with how they care about them is very upset.

For me, the mindful person Is the first thought is, wow, that person’s in a rush. They must really need to get somewhere. We had a hospital next to the school. And so I always thought to myself, that person’s got to be hustling to see somebody at the hospital. There must be something really wrong. And so it’s to, I think, mindful of being thoughtful and careful and kind and forgiving to myself and to the people around me.

And so how that plays into happiness, I think, You don’t harbor ill will towards people. You don’t make assumptions. You don’t hold grudges per se. If you do something awful to me, I’m not going to necessarily forgive, but I can move forward without looking to punish. And I think meditation and mindfulness.

are directly tied to how happy you truly can be. I practice mindfulness in the morning. I practice mindfulness in the evening. And I feel like it helps me. One of my big things is authentically listen to those that are talking to you, not to respond, but to hear where they’re at. And That makes me a happier person.

Some of why it makes me a happier person is I know that people that are interacting with me leave more, more satisfied and they feel like they’ve been heard. And that makes me feel better as a manager that I’m not always going to say yes, you can come in my office and say the decision you made really bothered me.

And you’re going to know that I’m going to spend some time pausing and thinking what’s working great here. That’s quakerism. Quakerism is that opportunity to pause, reflect, sit in silence, and it just, it’s perfect. I have a group of mindful second graders that don’t even know they’re being mindful.

They just think they’re sitting in silence and honoring Quaker traditions. And as they become more Quaker. As it becomes more apparent to them what they’re doing in those moments is actually mindfulness is, it’s going to be a really fun aha moment. 

Aubrey: That’s so great. Thank you so much for sharing that.

I love the mindful driving piece, because I always try to talk to my kids when I’m driving I’m like, Oh, I know that person just cut me off, but I wonder what they’re going through. Stay calm. 

Greg: Think about other people. If Walt Angley, if my father is privy to this, he’s going to call on the show and say, I don’t know who that guy is because he, I was not a mindful young man.

I was, and that’s what I think the fun part is to know you can make, you can change. And I think I demonstrated, I think the reason the kids jump into the class, and this is the type of teacher I think that is needed. You got to go for it. You got to share with them. You got to live these things.

And so I would take the same happiness test that they would. And I would, I’d be authentic and say we’re, I’m a 2. 78 out of five. You’re not that happy. And it was like, no, I guess I’m not. And so I think the kids were more willing to do things and to go for a week without social media or to do gratitude exercises or a dream journal.

When they knew that their teacher was willing to jump into the boat with them and they could see they knew there were days last year when I was in a job search and teaching this class that I used that class to help me. And I think they appreciate and see that and I think that’s the mistake too many educators make is that we’re not willing to be vulnerable.

Vulnerability. is kids gravitate towards people that they think are human, right? Like I never wanted to disappoint my professor at wake that I, for my, for the life of me, I couldn’t see one thing. The guy ever did wrong versus my favorite teachers at wake were the professors that met me halfway.

And we’re like I did something similar when I was in college. And then you gotta, you got that common thread to start an authentic conversation. And so that vulnerability that I think I was willing to show. I was nervous. I, when you tell a group of high school kids in the classroom, you’re right, I’m not my happiest.

Are you going to run home? Am I going to end up in the head of school’s office? Greg, what are you doing? And I did end up in the head of school’s office quite often. And I would say, to be complimented for trying to move the needle and push these kids to be healthier. Yeah, great. 

Tara: Thank you. Thanks.

We are going to move on to our rapid fire questions. So real quick what is one book that you would recommend as mandatory reading on a high school reading list?

Greg: I’m going to say the art of letting it go. I think our high school kids really in this generation, I’m thinking about my own daughter right now is waiting to hear early decision from Vanderbilt, what she’s got one in one, a 6 percent chance she’s done everything she needs to do, and if it doesn’t work out for her, I know this book is going to positively impact her because she’s going to be able to say, that’s not the place for me.

What’s next. And so being able to let go of your failures doesn’t make you nonchalant. I’m not telling you not to care. Care, prepare, do your best. Results are out of your control sometimes. 

Aubrey: That’s great. What is one app you can’t live without? 

Greg: Okay, the athlete in me is going to say ESPN. Okay, but it’s the comm app.

I have, and I’m so proud of that organization for offering it to educators for free for a while. And it’s the comm app. It’s everything from, Matthew McConaughey reading you a good night story. You can’t beat that to just 10 minutes of daily meditation practice. It’s just an amazing act. 

Tara: Thanks.

Next question. What are you reading right now? 

Greg: I’m I’m an avid, like I’m an audible guy, so this is bad, but I listen to books because my eyes stink. But I just finished Here it is. I just finished an awesome book called The Culture Code and it’s a management book about how to create a safe environment for your employees to work and prosper in.

And so much of what’s embedded in there are these core keys that mirror the happiness thing. And it’s a, it’s big case study. It’s a lot of case studies, which I love because a lot of them are applicable to what I’m doing right now professionally. And then it helps me in my personal life too.

Aubrey: That’s awesome. We’ll add it to our Goodreads podcast list. What is one great piece of advice you would like to leave us with? 

Greg: I think it’s that this is work we can do together with students. This is work that we can we’re, my generation of parents should pause and ask ourselves, Why is there a mental health crisis in the country?

I think there are some things that are out of my control. I didn’t invent the iPhone. I didn’t invent social media. I didn’t invent the pressures that are being applied, but I’m part of it. And I’m part of a result oriented group of parents who are trying to remove life’s obstacles and make it an easier path for their kids.

And I look back to how my dad and mom did this. I didn’t make a team. It was because I wasn’t good enough or there was someone that was better than me. It wasn’t because the coach didn’t like me. And so I think as I would remind all of us as parents, we can do this work. We can rely on schools and it should be done at schools, but we can do this too.

And we can do it with our kids in a way where we grow with them, but we can show them the appropriate way to live a happy life. And that can happen in Married homes that can happen in divorced homes and separated homes. We all as adults can model some things for this generation of kids and help them become happier.

Because I’m nervous. I would say reading books better than taking an antidepressant. And so that’s what I want. My goal is that other adults join me in this quest to make ourselves better parents, better adults. And then through that, we’ll have a happier generation of kiddos.

Tara: Awesome. Thank you so much. This has been fabulous. Greg, where can people find you online? 

Greg: You can find me on the friend’s school website, VBFs school. org. And what I would say is the same thing I said at the VA is conference. If you guys, if there’s people out there that want to do this, let’s do it.

Because if we could create a consortium of schools and we could share my happy kids, or you’re talking to your happy kids and they’re happy kids. The coolest thing, I would love to go back to Dr. Santos and say, do you want to facilitate a discussion with 31 groups of students from 11 different states around the country that all want to do this work?

And find me, email me and let’s let’s go get happy together. 

Tara: Great. Thank you, Greg. Have a great day. Bye. 

Greg: Appreciate you. 

Tara: Bye.