Maria Xenidou, host of the Impact Learning podcast, explores how great teachers expertly balance resources, guidance, coaching, and discovery to create opportunities for students to learn. Maria’s mom created a solid foundation for a lifetime of learning and Maria’s teachers served as leaders and mentors, influencing her thinking to this day. Maria created the Impact Learning Fund and supports that endeavor in a way that truly defines dedication and commitment.
Learning impacts life (4:20)
No space in pre-school (5:15)
Mom leading the reading and learning (5:30)
Learn, early on (6:30)
Obstacles serve as a catalyst for moving forward (6:45)
Different pathways to learning (7:40)
Self-directed learning (8:00)
Intentional learning (8:30)
Learning from others (9:00)
Learning from those who have experience (10:00)
Learning via interest and opportunity (12:15)
Create space and opportunity for learning (12:55)
What to teach directly and what to allow to unfold (14:20)
The most important conditions for learning (15:35)
Access to resources is vital (15:40)
Cultivating an environment that cultivates curiosity and exploration (16:40)
Independent learners and thinkers are problem solvers (17:15)
Learning by doing (17:30)
Put your learning into practice (18:40)
Focus on the most difficult parts (18:55)
Difficulty as an indicator of a potential learning moment (19:10)
Share as you learn, not only later (21:20)
“Teacher” means someone with more experience (22:25)
Sharing as teaching (23:25)
Maria’s elevator question (24:15)
Leveraging knowledge and skills to help others (24:30)
Helping others moves your own work forward (24:50)
Finding and solving problems as a key to learning (25:55)
Resources can become distracting (27:00)
Remove what you don’t need to learn, and learn only what you need (27:15)
What kind of work do you want to do? (27:55)
A teacher goes above and beyond (29:55)
Handwritten lessons and problems for Maria and her sister (31:00)
Figure out a way to get resources to people (32:20)
A teacher’s amazing insight, confidence, coaching, and mentoring (33:05)
Public schools, working class, low income family receiving great support (34:40)
The Impact Learning Fund (35:25)
Commitment – a year’s salary as a VP (35:55)
Fifty dollars or one hundred dollars can provide education for a child without access to resources (37:00)
Learning to reach out to “community” to make progress (38:00)
Connections help with decision making, especially in a world of abundance (38:50)
Content creation – podcast interviews and written resources (39:40)
GUEST CONTACT INFORMATION FOR LISTENERS
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariaxenidou/
Podcast - https://impactlearning.simplecast.com
David Reynolds: What matters most in learning? The challenge? The thrill? The benefits? Interacting with other people? Or something else entirely? What is the connection between leading and learning? Does change drive learning, or does learning drive change? What's more important, teaching or learning? Is everyone a leader, a learner, a teacher?
Want answers? Listen in as we address these intriguing issues through commentary and with guests who share their thinking and tell us their stories. Lead. Learn. Change.
Maria Xenidou: If I did not have access to learning and education, I would not be here talking to you, David. Obstacles are obstacles, but it doesn't mean that they stop us. They're there for us to solve them and move forward. Curiosity does not mean that I read everything and anything.
When you learn to think and find resources, you can solve any problem. Creating opportunities to put our learnings into practice, and usually the most difficult part is the learning by doing. When I know a few things that can be of benefit to others, then I have a responsibility to share them.
Sharing our experience is the most generous way of teaching. What is that you know or skill or gift or talent that you have that you can help another person? That's where a teacher plays a role of a mentor, of a coach.
Life is short and we don't know how short it can be. What kind of work do you want to do? Who do you want to work with and what problem are you solving? Where can you have impact when you leverage your experience and your skills and you do the work? Who can you impact with that?
David Reynolds: Today's guest on Lead. Learn. Change. is Maria Xenidou. Maria, thanks for taking your valuable time to speak with me, today.
Maria Xenidou: Glad to be here. Thank you for the invitation.
David Reynolds: Well, you always ask your guests when they speak with you on your podcast where they are today, so I'm going to steal that from you and say, are you in New York as I assume, or are you somewhere else, or where are you?
Maria Xenidou: I'm in northern New Jersey, and I'm a train away from New York. And it's a cloudy day, but it's Friday, so it's all good.
David Reynolds: Right. So Maria, for our listeners, is a coach in Seth Godin's Akimbo Workshops and serves as an independent consultant and advisor focusing on growth strategies for clients in a wide range of market sectors.
Maria holds a PhD in chemistry, has spearheaded project development, global marketing, and research in the adhesives industry where she filled more than one vice president role in the international corporate role, and has also collaborated on a recently published book project.
Maria has worked in Europe, North America, and Asia, and she hosts her own podcast, Impact Learning.
I do want to add one important item, and that is in addition to telling our guests, Maria, that you and I met via the podcasting fellowship, I want to take this opportunity to tell you that I'm honored to call you a friend, and I'm very happy that our paths have intersected.
Maria Xenidou: I could not have said it any better. It has been a gift to share our journey and learn together and create work together. It has been a privilege and a gift.
David Reynolds: Since the introduction to your podcast includes the question, can learning transform your life, I always hear that nice voice at the beginning of you podcast say that, and since you've been a guest on something like 800 podcasts, now. I don't know what the number is. I'm sure it's not 800, but it's been a lot. I'd like to ask you a simple yes or no question, and then we'll get into some meat.
Yes or no, has learning transformed your life?
Maria Xenidou: It's a big yes.
David Reynolds: And do you believe it can transform the lives of others?
Maria Xenidou: Yes, and the way I think about it is like if I did not have access to learning and education, I would not be here talking to you, David.
There is a lot of things that would have been very hard to do without learning and education. From my own experience in my own life, I can only say that it is the same for many people out there, millions of people who do not have access to learning and education, the way you and I had.
David Reynolds: With that as a backdrop, I'd like our listeners to hear a story that I know a little bit about, and that is one of your earliest learning experiences and how it was connected to missing out on a schooling opportunity. I think you know where I'm going with this, and what your mom did for you and your sister.
Maria Xenidou: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Thank you for sharing this. It's a special, it's a very personal story.
So I was, I think, five years old. So together with my twin sister, we were not accepted in preschool, because there was no capacity. I think they already had max 40, 50 kids, whatever they had. So we did not make the cut.
I remember that my mom brought home a couple of books from the library. My mom has elementary school education, but she was able to help us with that, so we started learning the basics. Alphabet, numbers, reading, writing words and sentences and all that. In the year that we had before going to first grade, we learned using books. That was the only resource we had available. Using books, we learned to study, read on our own, and we never stopped.
So it was not a gap. Actually, if anything, when we went to first grade, all the other kids compared to us, they seemed to know less things. Because we did not stop to a couple of books. We finished books and then we had more. I think there was a limit of a couple of books every week that we could get out, and we always maxed that.
I think the lesson here is learning is very important, especially early on. If there is an obstacle, if there is a lack of resource or a scarcity of resource, try to figure out a way, whatever way each of us can figure out, to turn this constraint upside down.
For my mom, the only way she could do it is to go to the library and borrow books. Today there are so many other resources, but to me, that's the key learning. And obstacles are obstacles, but it doesn't mean that they stop us. They are there for us to solve them and move forward.
David Reynolds: It sounds like that experience really did set the stage for how you approached learning from then on, regardless of a current coaching role, regardless of your consultant work, or even life in the corporate world that you've left behind.
So looking back on those different chapters or seasons in your life, what have your learning experiences been like in those different places and different situations? How does that connect to that origin of self- directed, taking the initiative to learn on your own?
Maria Xenidou: There are different pathways to learning and education. So the conventional one is going to school, follow the curriculum, read the books or doing the exercises and everything that others have chosen for us. And I followed this path. I did actually very good and I loved school throughout my education. But that was one path.
Then there is a path that is the self- directed, which is driven by curiosity, and it's also intentional. So there are books that I read, even when I was going to school, I would continue to go to the library. Today I continue to learn other things that they are outside of what I call the conventional pathway. And there are more resources today.
So this is the self- directed. But I think there is another component that has made a big difference to my work and my life. Along with self- directed comes intentional, because curiosity does not mean that I read everything and anything that I can find or I spend hours reading articles that other people have written.
Intentional means that I identify what I want to learn more about or what problem I want to solve, and then I'm using resources to learn more about that. I also learn from other people. I cannot quantify it, but I think probably I have learned more from others than I've learned reading on my own or trying to figure things out on my own.
Because I realized that learning from other people and their experience and their work, it was a good way for me to move forward. So that's the intentional, self- directed, and learning from others.
David Reynolds: And would you include that learning from others almost as a separate component of learning outside of traditional or stereotypical school/education setting?
When you say learning from others, do you mean just in the course of life and work, that's where you learn from others the most?
Maria Xenidou: I think learning from my teachers, right? Or learning from people who give lectures or people who, now, you can find their content online, that's what it means learning from other people.
But I like to learn from people who have experience. I think that's a distinct characteristic about my learning. Again, because I'm trying to solve a problem, so when I identify that someone else has figured out how to solve this problem or address this need, then at this stage of my life and work, this would be what I call my virtual teacher, the person I learn from. I have many of them, but they are changing.
I think it has been imperitive, David. I don't think that it's one pathway that we follow. I think it's about understanding and deciding and being intentional about it. Which of these learning approaches can help me right now?
If I am clearly in preschool, I need someone to help me learn to read, right? So that would be the first thing.
Right now at this stage of my career, I can find out and be very intentional about the people that I want to learn from and which learning resources I want to leverage.
David Reynolds: When you mentioned learning from people who have experience, it just makes me think of our son in medical school and the stark distinction between clinicians practitioners within these and those who are theoreticians or research or not interacting with patients or actually performing the procedures themselves and how much more he learns from those with that type of experience that he's trying to gain, so that makes great sense.
Maria Xenidou: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
David Reynolds: One thing I wanted to ask about is your recent trip home over the holidays, because you mentioned that you captured some of what happened, what occurred, interactions with people in a journal. So you wrote some things down and of course I've been wondering, did she record any of this stuff, so I'm just very curious, because you talked about learning from others what you really enjoyed the most or learned the most or learned anew or something that surprised you with your recent opportunity to sit around and talk with your friends and loved ones over the holidays?
Maria Xenidou: Yeah, so this is interesting, because I had an experience that I had not had before. So I have two nephews. One of them has actually has taken their podcasting fellowship and he has a podcast, and I was thinking that I would interview them and talk about different things of course related to learning and see how kids, they're teenagers, how they think about it and all of this.
And as we started talking about it and recording, I saw that they wanted to try that on their own. So after I interviewed the youngest one, he said, "Tomorrow, I want to interview my brother."
And what I learned from that is that how we learn and creating space for other people to learn and experience what we have experienced is beautiful. I never thought you would ask me that, and of course I created a space, I introduced them, and I said, "Go. You can interview your brother."
And I shared the segment, and it was a lot of fun. I'm learning, now, as I create, because we talk about creating resources and creating opportunities for others. For me, that was using what I know and leveraging my resources to create a learning opportunity for our youth, for our kids and our children, and for anyone else who wants to do.
So that was a very nice surprise.
David Reynolds: That sounds like a great parallel to your first story about you and your sister devouring books at the rate in which they were available.
And there was some process that you used to decide which book to pull off the shelf, and something that interested you. So having access to lots of content and lots of topics and being able to choose is exactly what happened with your nephews because they were exposed to this new content or opportunity, and it connected with at least one of them.
Like, hey, I want to do that now. And had they not been exposed to it, they wouldn't even have had the opportunity for that choice. I think that's really, really interesting.
So if you...
Maria Xenidou: And David, sorry to interrupt, there is one more parallel I'm just thinking now as you're saying this. My mom did not sit down with me and my sister to go page by page.
She realized that because we loved learning, she basically had to teach us a few things and then the books were enough.
The same thing, I did not have to teach my nephew how to do these things. I showed him where to press record. I said, "Here it is," some of these things he knew as well, so basically I provided resources.
The way that my mom brought the books to us, because as a five year old, I did not know I could get books from the library, my nephew now used resources to figure out and learn what he wanted to do.
So offering resources and then let the kids develop what I call self directed exploratory muscles.
David Reynolds: So taking all of that into consideration, what do you view as the most important either aspect of or maybe condition for, is a better way to ask it, what are the most important conditions for learning?
Maria Xenidou: I think the first thing is having access to learning resources. For us, it is not a big problem because we do have access. But for a child, a girl or a boy who are growing up in a village in an emerging country in Africa and India, you name it, who don't have access to that, whether it's a school, it's books, it's library. So resources is the first one.
You don't need a lot, but you do need certain access for resources, because without that, basically they have nothing. When they don't have access, it's almost like they're handicapped. They cannot develop the learning muscles. That's why I support literacy and I try to offer what I call resources to others in many different ways.
The podcast is one way, the Impact Learning Fund is another way, so I can offer resources. I think that's the first one, David.
We don't think about it sitting often where we sit, but thinking of my story or my mom's story, or now that I know of other people, this is the first priority.
And then, assuming we have what I call the basic need, the access to resources, to learning resources, it's about cultivating an environment that we learn through curiosity, so through exploration. We can learn independently. So we give guidance as important resources, but we don't give specific instructions.
I always say, "Give guidance." Like show what they can do, but then let people become independent learners. I think it goes together. An independent learner, for me, is a problem solver. They go together.
Because when you learn to think and find resources, you can solve any problem. You can solve any problem, then hopefully you can solve other problems, bigger problems.
And then the other thing that is very important, creating opportunities to put our learnings into practice. That's what I like, learning by doing, working on projects.
So for example, would I buy books or only buy materials and offer as resources? Or would I offer an experience like a workshop, like a project? It could also be a problem that they can solve. It can be a volunteer thing.
But I think it's a lot of learning by doing, because then we learn to take the resources we have and the knowledge and put it in practice.
David Reynolds: It sounds like that you would say that you know you've learned something when you're able to decide to go deeper with the content, because you've sought out some information or a skill, and then that becomes secondhand almost or automatic, and now you wonder what next.
Is that an apt description of how you know you've learned something, or is there some other quality that I've missed that you would add to?
Maria Xenidou: That's definitely one, so being able to use the knowledge and the learning and put it in practice, to further your work to solve a problem. That's one.
The other thing that I always ask myself when I look at the different learning opportunities I have, I always ask myself, from all the different things I could be learning right now, which one is the most difficult?
And usually the most difficult part is the learning by doing or doing something for the first time, because the learning curve is very steep. When we feel tension, whether it's a topic we want to study or some work we want to do, and we feel what I call difficulty, we feel, okay, this is now putting a lot of stress on me.
You can feel it. It's different than something else that's just comfortable. That is a sign that we are in a good place, that if this is what intentionally we want to learn better, we need to persist. Because we don't know it yet, we're at the beginning of the learning curve, we haven't had enough experience, but if we keep doing the work and learning, a month from now, a year from now, we will be forward. We will be further forward on this aspect.
So that's another thing. So two things, how did I put these things in practice? How did I use what I learned to further my work? And which part feels more difficult?
David Reynolds: And that also connects back to this whole podcasting journey that both of us have been on. You are farther along than I am, but I remember the early lessons last spring.
If I had simply watched the videos, or listened to the prompts and explanations, or even read all the directions, no matter how good they were, that never would have been enough to have me actually learn it. I would have some awareness and I would have very little familiarity, and I would have never developed expertise.
There is that huge moment of tension, and it's not necessarily gone after one attempt, but that's when you know that you're struggling and when you push through that point as you described, you know you've learned something.
You also talked about looking at what you want to learn and almost intentionally selecting that which might be the most difficult, because you'll probably get more mileage out of that because it will pull some other things along by default.
Maria Xenidou: And I want to research, I want to understand it. That's where my curiosity comes from, and I'm choosing to use the podcast to invite people who are creating the learning ecosystem and learn about their work, but also share all these learnings.
I don't wait to do all my interviews and publish a book and share it. I'm sharing it as I'm learning it.
Later on there may be collective, whether it's a book or another way of collecting these resources and sharing them, but as I'm learning this one person at a time, one resource at a time, I'm sharing it through the podcast.
I'm learning a lot. I think I'm learning way a lot. And also I'm not teaching, I'm sharing. I'm trying to connect and offer that as a resource to others. That's what I'm doing right now.
David Reynolds: So you're taking personal responsibility, because you want to, to focus on the learning ecosystems and looking forward, having this forward thinking, future oriented approach so that you can be on that leading edge, it sounds like, to help other people come along with you on your learning journey.
Maria Xenidou: Mm-hmm (affirmative) I heard something very recently from a friend. The word teacher in Japanese means someone who has more experience.
I will go and read about that and write about that, because it's a very interesting point. So to me, a teacher is someone who has some more experience or is a few steps ahead on the journey.
We think of teachers as someone, including yourself, who has a certain degree and qualifications and all of this is good. But today, as I think of a teacher, when I know a few things that can be of benefit to others, then I have a responsibility to share them with others.
It's a teaching, although again, sometimes when I coach, it's very specific because I'm teaching the things I know. But also when I share information when I blog, I don't know who may be reading that.
So I'm sharing, and hopefully people will find the resource and learn from it. But yes, I think when we have experience, even if we are a couple of steps ahead, sharing our experience is the most generous way of teaching.
David Reynolds: Seth Godin talks about an elevator question versus having an elevator speech ready. What is it you would ask someone to pique their interest about everything that you're involved in or to get them thinking about their own learning? What would your elevator question be versus your elevator speech?
Maria Xenidou: I would ask a question that I ask myself and I also ask young students. What is it that you know or skill or gift or talent that you have that you can help another person?
Including resources as well, but I think we need to start a little bit more from what is it that I know through experience or knowledge, mostly from experience, and what gifts, what skills do I have that I can help another person?
I think when we start that, I think we start moving our work forward. Many people tell me, "I don't know how to get involved." That's my question.
And then of course we define the problems, who needs that? Where can you have impact when you leverage your experience and your skills and you do the work? Who can you impact with that?
And that's how we find what it's for and who it's for and everything, but it's very simple. It's not complicated at all.
David Reynolds: When you think about your own learning experiences, what is it you think teachers in a more traditional setting, a school setting or college setting, what are the most important things that a teacher can do to really create this robust learning environment where students thrive and are hungry for learning and improving their own understanding of things?
Maria Xenidou: I would start with giving them problems or helping them find the problems that they care enough to solve, and then guiding them, but not instructing, so supporting, provide guidance and enough resources to help them solve the problem.
Because when they solve the problem, they will be helpful to others, but also they will learn. This is what I would do. If I were a teacher, I would help students to find the problems and then guide them.
But again, don't tell them step by step what to do, because we want to create independent learners, thinkers, and problem solvers. I think that's something we learn early on.
Or the sooner we learn it, the better prepared we are. I think being intentional about which resources to leverage is very important. It is becoming much more difficult now than it was for us.
To me, when I look at what kids are exposed to, it's just overwhelming. It's an abundance of resources, but it becomes distracting. They need guidance on what they need to learn. That's why I always talk about intentional learning.
So you need to remove probably 99% of what you don't need to learn, and learn what you need, and put this into practice. The part that you talk about the connections and being in the right community or surround yourself with the right people to help you, that's very important. And that's another role that I see myself that I can help with is help people to decide what they need to learn.
I will not tell them what they learn. They will do it. Each person needs to do that for themselves. But have a decision making process of what are you learning, why are you doing this, what kind of work do you want to do, and also give them... I think this is where network and connections play a role.
We need to expose them. If they think they want to be a chemist, find a project related to chemistry and get them exposed early on. Same thing for if you want to become a doctor, or a nurse, or a lawyer, or a politician.
Help them decide by giving them access first to resources, and second to activities and projects that they will get experience of what it is. I think a lot of people right now are overwhelmed. They say, "I want to be this. There is all these resources, so what am I going to do?"
I go back to the question that you asked earlier. What do you want to do? What kind of work do you want to do? Who do you want to work with? And what problem are you solving?
Decide that first, and you will figure out which resources and you will decide which resources to learn and leverage to be able to do that.
So learning is a tool. It's a tool. And I think with self directed learning, it's problem solving.
David Reynolds: Think back on your interactions with teachers. Is there a story or a teacher that you would like to highlight and tell us about?
Maria Xenidou: I actually have at least two stories. So the first was my math teacher. I was in middle school. I was really good at math. I was in a public school and he suggested to apply and go through a test to be at a school that was for the A students, but very few students would go there.
I could get a scholarship. I did not have to pay because I couldn't afford it. Both myself and my twin sister applied for that. We went through the test, and both of us were qualified to go, so we passed the test, but they could give scholarship only to one of us. Because they only gave scholarship to one person per family. That was the rule, which is respectful.
We could not afford to pay for it. We did not have enough money in my family, and my sister and I could not separate because we were very, very close.
So what my teacher did, he realized that we wanted to learn more than others, but we couldn't because of what I explained. So he would basically bring us, on top of the exercises we had in the book of the approved curriculum, he would bring to me and my sister extra exercises from the curriculum they did at the school.
And I say that and I get chills. I remember this guy. He would spend his break eating his sandwich he had from home, his lunch break, and he had handwritten these exercises on a piece of paper. Think about years ago, now, and my sister and I would hand write it. There were no copies, nothing like that. If you think about that for a second, for two years we worked together, because he was teaching there as well
So basically he was making resources available to me that I was chosen or approved, but did not have access to, but he was finding a way to make them available. And I remember I always had all the tests done quickly before other students, and then I would work on 20 more exercises.
And I remember that there were only two or three at the end that I couldn't solve. It was fascinating and then I had to wait until next day or next time I could see him and I would say, "Okay, we are stuck here. We cannot solve number 79 and 80. Help us." And he would do all of that.
So to me, it's above and beyond. I think it's very personal. When I see people who don't have resources, it's like I feel a tightness in my chest. I have to figure out a way to bring resources to them. I cannot solve everyone's problem, but at least I can solve the problem of a few people.
But that's an example of what a teacher can do. So to me, my learning and the way I learned math and physics and others, all of these things were affected by that.
The other one is later on. I was in Greece. The process to go to the university, these are public universities, so you go through national exams. So I wanted to study chemistry, but I was debating between chemistry and physics, because I like them both.
My physicist said, "Maria, you are better with chemistry. You want to do chemistry." At night, before I had to file my application, I changed it. I put physics. Because I loved it. It was something very dear to my heart, and I couldn't decide.
So I go in the morning, I give him the application, I said, "Here it is. You can fax it." And he said to me, "Why did you change it?"
I said, "Because I want to be a physicist. That's what I want to do." And he looks at me and he said, "You will be a chemist, and you will work for a corporation, and you will do very well."
And to me, this is amazing. I get again more chills and he has passed away. I never had the chance to go back when I became a vice president and all these great things to say thank you. To me, that's where a teacher plays a role of a mentor, of a coach.
I did not have coaching, and mentoring, and guidance about my career and my plans at home, because my father died when I was very young and my mom, as I said, finished elementary school and then she started working.
So I did not have these resources available, right? But the guy knew. He knew what I wanted to do, and he basically, I don't know how he knew all these things, I'm grateful he did, but he played the role of a parent, of a coach, of a mentor, of everything. And he provided really good guidance.
And I know where he came from, so I'm very grateful that I had people that they did above and beyond. This is now, just to put things in perspective, working class low income family public schools. The first story is from middle school, the second one is from high school.
So creating a way forward, helping, coaching, helping someone make a decision, because often we cannot do that. There are so many different ways we can help, and teachers and educators can help.
David Reynolds: I do want to go back to something you made a reference to earlier. I believe you have an Impact Learning Fund. You talked about helping other people have access to resources.
Maria Xenidou: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Thank you for this opportunity. I would like to talk about that.
When we talk about learning and resources, for those who have access and we look around and we see an abundance of resources, everything we just talked about is important.
There are millions of people who don't have access to this abundance of resources we do. And this is where I am choosing now, not later, to try to contribute my small part.
So I established the Impact Learning Fund. I actually put the salary of the last year that I was a vice president before I left corporate and I founded that. And all the income that I create from Impact Learning related projects, they go into this fund.
What do I do this fund? I'm researching and finding organizations who support learning and education for people in need, like in India, in Africa, in places that they don't have the basic things. They don't have school. They don't have books. They don't have libraries.
I'm supporting them. Again, my small part, but I feel that I'm responsible to do that and I want to do that now, not later. Because life is short and we don't know how short it can be.
So I started it a couple of years ago, and I started choosing different partners and people that I found with that. I don't need any help from anyone on that, but I want to invite others to think about $50 or $100 can provide education for primary or secondary school for a kid in a country that they don't have access to resources the way we have.
If you think about what a few hundred dollars can do, I don't know many things that can have more impact than enabling a girl or a boy to go to primary school or secondary school, so think about that.
David Reynolds: Is there anything else that is just a burning topic or something you want to make sure that you share that maybe I didn't uncover?
Maria Xenidou: I think we talked about a lot of things, and thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to talk about things that I really care about.
There is one thing that I think, David, you touched upon a little bit. In the current situation, especially when we are young students, but also it could be professionals at any stage of our career, if we are considering a change, we can be overwhelmed by what choices do we make? How do I decide the right thing?
For some people it may be very clear, but for others it might not be. I think leveraging the community, the family, family is where everything starts from, but learning to reach out, leveraging school, my teachers, my educators, leveraging other people that I can learn from to help me move forward.
It's a world of abundance, but it doesn't mean that we cannot find a few people who can help us. You and I are part of the podcasting alumni community, and it's part of our work. We learn, we share things, we celebrate our wins, these are all important things.
And when we have a decision to make, we talk about it. So I want to emphasize in a world of abundance and connection and everything, the importance of having people that we can connect closer, be part of a smaller community to help us decide, to support us, and help us move forward our work and our life.
David Reynolds: Thank you. Those are great comments to really draw to a close with.
Is there anything else that we haven't mentioned that is next for you professionally? Projects, ideas? What's maybe tickling the back of your brain that you haven't really started yet, but you think you might do, we just haven't talked about it?
Because you write regularly as well, and you've been part of that recent book project. So is there another one in the works?
Maria Xenidou: Well, thank you for asking about that. I know we both like writing and enjoy writing a lot. Yeah, so part of the content I'm creating with the interviews, not necessarily today, but eventually, they will become resources in writing.
I can see that as an Impact Learning series where I share the specific resources, because this can become a lot of information that I can put together in a collection. It can be in different books, different collection, in a way that is useful to people who like to read, because not everybody likes listening, but also put it in a format that's more organized. So this is what I'm thinking. Again, I look at that as a research project. The podcast is the front and center of it, and I'll start creating some of this content also in writing but more in a book or a series kind of thing.
That's where I'm headed, but I don't have immediate plans for that.
David Reynolds: Well, keep me posted. I'm buying a copy.
Maria Xenidou: Thank you. I appreciate your questions, the opportunity to discuss and share what I know from experience about learning. Thank you so much, David, really, really I enjoy full discussion. I always love talking with you. Really great discussion.
David Reynolds: Ditto. Have a good one.
Maria Xenidou: Okay, bye bye.
David Reynolds: Thanks for listening today. Find the Lead. Learn. Change. Podcast on your search engine, iTunes, or other listening app.
Leave a rating, write a review, subscribe, and share with others. In the meantime, go lead. Go learn. Go make a change. Go.