Bright Morning Blog

Best-selling author and coaching expert, Elena Aguilar, shares her wisdom about coaching, leading teams, and designing and facilitating transformational professional development.

End-of-year reflection questions for you

April 22, 2024

These reflection questions invite you to consider your ways of being—and they’re ones you can offer coaching clients as well. At the core of Transformational Coaching is the concept of the Three Bs: Behaviors, beliefs, and ways of being. We know that it is only by coaching in these three domains that we create sustained, transformative change in schools; our behaviors emerge from our beliefs and our ways of being.

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End-of-year reflection questions for you

April 22, 2024

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“These kids can’t…”

April 15, 2024

My newest book, Arise: The Art of Transformational Coaching (July 2024), has two chapters dedicated to coaching for equity. And another three on coaching emotions. And even more on preparing ourselves to coach. And of course, a lot of concrete strategies. It has so much because in many ways, this is complex. And it’s also simple: when we tend to ourselves, we can tend to others.

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How trust develops

April 8, 2024

In my newest book, Arise: The Art of Transformational Coaching (July 2024), there's a short section about trust—what it is and how we build it—and this got me thinking about how, at the end of the school year, we often reflect on how our relationships developed. We might think back to what it felt like to start coaching a certain teacher or managing a certain staff member, and how we initially misjudged them, and now we really love them, and how initially they were standoffish, and now they’re open and vulnerable. This is a reflection on the development of trust.

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Who do you find hardest to listen to?

April 1, 2024

In my newest book, Arise: The Art of Transformational Coaching (July 2024), there is a portion about listening, how we listen, and what it takes for us to listen deeply.

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Is there “us” and “them” drama on your team?

March 18, 2024

As a coach, I was perceived as being “them”--as being on the “side” of admin. I didn’t know how to deal with this. I felt hurt and angry. I felt rejected. I became defensive and decided to ally myself with the admin. But I also didn’t align in any way with the site administrators. I felt very lonely and unable to deal with all the tension.

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Addressing the Teacher Exodus

March 11, 2024

March has always been the month when educators contemplate what next? Stay in this school or position? Or request a change? Or get out? But in recent years, there’s been an exodus of teachers from schools.

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Being a Coach Transformed My Parenting

March 4, 2024

A few months ago, I had one of the most meaningful conversations I’ve ever had with my son. He’d just finished his first semester in college and we were on the beach in Kauai. He was sharing a lot—more than usual—about his first semester. He’s very interested in ethics and philosophy (although he’s a biomedical engineering and neuroscience major) so I thought I’d ask him about his values. He’d also mentioned having done an activity in his leadership program about what made him who he is (“Mom made me who I am,” he’d said, 🙂).

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Do You Trust Your Team?

February 26, 2024

The majority of team leaders and facilitators that I’ve met want to build their team’s capacity. They want to see their team do good work; they want to see teammates thrive. But when I ask them this question: Do you trust your team? They freeze.

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