A Big Day in Noosa with Queensland Principal Leaders

Another Queensland event. This time in the beautiful Noosa!

Travelling around speaking in this beautiful country, I’ve had the chance to meet some special people and visit some spots that are just as special.

Noosa is definitely one of those.

This event was for the ACSSQ Deputy and Assistant Principals Conference, bringing together a huge group of school leaders from across Queensland.

The brief from Amanda Jameson (a new friend of mine!) in the lead up was to create something that wasn’t just a straight keynote. They wanted a combination of presentation, conversation and workshop style learning.

That worked perfectly for me.

I ended up delivering a 90 minute keynote around teacher wellbeing, followed later in the afternoon by another hour long workshop where we could take some of the ideas from the keynote and go a little deeper.

For me, these kinds of sessions work really well because we can get beyond simply talking about wellbeing.

We can actually look at what’s happening underneath it.

The patterns we fall into. The pressure we carry. The conversations we avoid. The way we speak to ourselves. The things we know we probably need to change but keep putting off.

And when you’ve got a room full of leaders who spend most of their time looking after everyone else, sometimes it’s important to turn that attention back onto themselves for a while.

I’m blessed to spend a lot of time speaking at conferences and events across Brisbane and Queensland, but getting up to Noosa for this one was pretty special.

Melbourne to Noosa

I arrived late the night before after an event in Melbourne.

And let’s just say there was a noticeable improvement in weather stepping off the plane compared to stepping onto it.

No complaints from me :-)

I was staying at Peppers, where the conference was being held. It’s always a treat staying right where the event is happening. I come with a bit of baggage when I’m speaking.

Literally.

Everything from my box of filtered water, salt and a heap of other stuff that helps keep my energy and nervous system where I want it when I’m presenting.

I also usually have copies of my book, Stabbed Ego, with me.

So being able to walk downstairs rather than drag everything halfway across town definitely makes life easier.

A brilliant bunch of Queensland school leaders

Anyways, it was a solid day with a huge bunch of insightful and occasionally cheeky people.

My kinda peeps.

There was plenty of laughter throughout the day, but also some pretty honest conversations.

That combination is always what I’m chasing.

You can talk about wellbeing, resilience and mental health without making the room feel heavy for hours on end.

Sometimes the humour is what lets people drop their guard enough to actually hear the serious stuff.

Amanda and Brendan were absolute superstars and I loved hanging out with them throughout the day.

They’d organised a dinner for the attendees afterwards and I would’ve loved to stick around, but after all the travelling and speaking, plus an early morning flight back to Sydney, I made the responsible decision for once and called it an early night.

Probably practising some of the wellbeing stuff I’d just spent the day talking about.

The feedback afterwards

Always nice to see messages like this come through after an event:

“Very inspiring presentation. Great mind reset ideas and advice.”

A massive thank you to Amanda, Brendan and everyone involved with the ACSSQ conference.

Noosa was a beauty.

Hopefully I’ll be back again soon.