The Best Teachers Are the Best Learners | The Power of Teaching with Marianna Lead

“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” Many of us are familiar with this quote from Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching. 
 
 What our guest, Marianna Lead would want us to focus on is the next line in the Tao Te Ching: “When the student is truly ready, the teacher will disappear.” And that is because they can become one. In sharing her superhero power of Teaching, Marianna highlights that “the best teachers are the best learners.” 

Marianna owns and operates a Internation Coaching Federation (ICF) approved coach training program, she’s an ICF-Certified Master Coach, she’s a life-long learner, and she recently joined the podcast to share with us her passion for teaching...which for her is synonymous with learning.   

In this episode, Marianna answers the following questions:
 - What is teaching and why is it important?
 - What makes a good teacher?
 - Why are open-ended questions valuable?
 - How do your values and your needs inform your purpose and your brand?

At the end of the episode, we go a little deeper into her book, "Me, My Brand, and Why?" and talk about how it uniquely connects the concepts of purpose and personal branding. In the section on purpose, Marianna and her co-author smartly walk the reader through one's values and needs to reveal their true purpose, and I even take a stab at re-writing my purpose statement: "I believe I am unlocking my potential when I'm working with others to unlock their potential."

My favorite quote from the episode: “It’s important to remember that [coaches can] provide resources if you are an expert in something…but it’s like a gift you give [and] the client doesn’t have to unwrap it.”

What I know to be true about the episode: I love how Marianna connected one’s needs as a contributing factor for discovering one’s purpose.   

What I learned from the episode: Marianna has me questioning my own thinking about how a teacher should always learning. For the classes I’ve taught, I don’t think I’ve continued to be as curious about those topics to continue to learn about them. Then again, maybe I’m not interested in leaning more about project management as I am about other things like curiosity, purpose, and neuroscience.  

Resources mentioned in this episode:
 
 - Marianna’s book: “Me, My Brand and WHY: Infuse WHO You Are Into What's Most Important” by Marianna Lead and Maureen Miller B. Ed https://bookshop.org/p/books/me-my-brand-and-why-infuse-who-you-are-into-what-s-most-important-marianna-lead-m-c-c/18565772?ean=9781458392541

- “  First Break All the Rules” by Marcus Buckingham https://bookshop.org/p/books/first-break-all-the-rules-what-the-world-s-greatest-managers-do-differently-gallup/594575?ean=9781595621115

- Marianna’s company: https://www.goalimageryinstitute.com/ 

If you like the episode, please do us a favor by leaving a review, hitting that like button, and subscribing. This helps others discover the podcast.

Music in this episode created by Ian Kastner. 

 "What Do You Know To Be True?" is hosted by Roger Kastner and is a Three Blue Pens production. 
 
 "What Do You Know To Be True?" is recorded on the ancestral lands of the Duwamish and Suquamish people. To discover the ancestral lands of the indig