In this heartfelt episode of Counselor Chat, I’m diving deep into one of the core challenges many school counselors face: feeling like the effort you’re putting in doesn’t always lead to visible results. Inspired by a powerful anonymous post from a fellow counselor,
Through real-life stories and insights, I share how just being present for a student, offering a kind word, or modeling integrity can have a lasting impact. This episode is all about recognizing and valuing the subtle yet profound influence you have every day in the lives of your students and colleagues.
Episode Highlights:
- Feeling Overwhelmed or Unnoticed?
- How to address those moments when it feels like your work isn’t making a difference.
- Introducing “The Power of One”
- Why focusing on small, meaningful actions can be transformative in a school setting.
- Real-Life Stories of Lasting Impact
- The Ripple Effect of Kindness
- How even a single positive interaction can spark a chain of compassion and connection within the school community.
- Mindset Shift for Long-Term Impact
- Simple shifts to help you remember that you’re making a difference, even if you don’t see it right away.
Transcript
Carol: You're listening to the Counselor Chat podcast, a show for school counselors looking for easy to implement strategies, how to tips, collaboration and a little spark of joy. I'm Carol Miller, your host. I'm a full time school counselor and the face behind counseling essentials. I'm all about creating simplified systems, data driven practices and using creative approaches to engage students. If you're looking for a little inspiration to help you make a big impact on student growth and success, your you're in the right place because we're better together. Ready to chat. Let's dive in.
Carol: Hello school counselors. Welcome back to another episode of Counselor Chat. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm just going to dive right in and get to the meat of it. So I was on the on Facebook the other day, specifically in the elementary school counselor exchange group and I read this message. In fact I have it pulled up right now and I'm going to just read it. It was written by a member who left this message anonymously and it says this. Anyone else feel discouraged thinking they don't actually make a difference? I work in an urban school and only do one classroom lesson a day and it's not even evidence based curriculum. I just don't see my individual kids making progress and it seems like such a big unattainable issue. Our kids behaviors are all over the place and how do I even begin to teach pro social behaviors or provide sufficient empathy for the challenges they face? And I just want to respond to that. I want to respond to that, to not only this member but to others that I know are feeling, I think those same feelings that are feeling discouraged, that are feeling like no matter what, they aren't making a difference. Today's episode is really all about a mindset shift. A very, very powerful one. Now I think you guys might have heard the famous phrase one is the loneliest number. It's from the group Three Dog Night and it was a song. One is the loneliest number that you'll ever see. Sorry about my singing, but I'm sure you that you've heard the song before. Today I'm really going to challenge that mantra. I'm here to introduce you to something I like to call the Power of One. Because my friends, let's face it, school counseling can sometimes feel like we are on an uphill battle with caseloads of hundreds. And it's so easy to think am I even making a difference? But here's the thing. Making a difference doesn't always come from these big grand gestures. Often it starts with the power of just one small action. If you've been hanging around podcast for a while, you've probably already heard me say that a lot of the work we do just can't be measured with data. I mean, it just can't be. There are so many times that we do this work and we can't measure it. We can't measure the results because maybe we don't know. We have kids that will come back to us later on that'll say to us, oh, my gosh, I was in such a funk one day, and you just sat with me on the couch. You didn't even say a word to me. But just your presence at that moment when I needed somebody the most, it made all the difference. Or the kid that comes back to you years after they graduate and they come back and they say, because of you, I went on to college and I graduated and this is what I'm doing now. Or the kid that stalks you on Facebook and says, do you remember me? I graduated 10 years ago. But I just wanted to say you really made an impact on my life. If you're young, you might not, and have only been doing school counseling for a little while, you might not have heard these things yet, but I think that's the key word yet, because some of these things take time. We don't hear them all at once. And like I said, they just. They can't be measured. Now, if you're as old as I am, you might remember the Breck shampoo commercial. And for those of you that are a lot younger than I am, go to YouTube and look it up. But the Brick shampoo commercial, you might know that one person tells two friends about the shampoo, and then each of them tell two friends who tell two friends and two friends and two friends and so on and so forth. This simple action of just telling two people multiplied and created a huge impact. And just like in that commercial, each of your small acts of kindness, every lesson you give, every student you listen to, it all matters. A few years ago, I was working at school. I was in a middle school, and I had fairly recently moved to the middle school. I mean, I had been a high school counselor in the same district for. It seemed like a gazillion years. And I'd watched a lot of kids graduate, and there were a lot of kids that I had worked with over the years and their families. But here I am sitting at the middle school on my desk, and I get this phone call, and it went something like this. Hey, Mrs. Miller, it's Anatoly. Do you remember me? And I was like, oh, my gosh, Anatoly, how could I forget you? You were the thorn in my side. Which, of course, produced a couple giggles. But, yes, I totally. This was one kid that I totally remembered. And you know why? Because we had a ton of talks. Well, I was kind of confused why he was calling me after all these years. So I was like, well, what's going on? What's new? And here's the thing. He told me that he went to college, had just gotten married, he was about to buy a house, and he and his wife were actually about to have their first little daughter, their first child, a little girl. And he's like, I'm calling because I remember you used to talk to me about doing the right thing and integrity all the time. And I'm about to be a dad, and I really want to teach my kids that I'm a good human, that I make. I do the right thing, and I want them to know that I'm a man of integrity. And he's like. And I have something to admit. He's like, you remember when that computer went missing in the high school? And everybody was like, oh, somebody stole a computer from the high school? I was like, yeah, because I'm from a tiny little town in a small little district, and everybody knew everything, and things like that just didn't happen. So computer was big ticket item, and back in the day, still is. I was like, yeah, yeah, I remember. And he's like, well, it was me. I took it. He's like, and I'm on the path of trying to make it right, because I don't have that computer anymore. I don't even know where it is. He's like, and I know I can't give it back, but there is something that I can do. And he's like, I want to make a donation. And he's like, I have $500. He's like, I think that would probably cover the cost of what that computer was. He's like, and I want to give it to the school. And he went on to say that he didn't want to just give it to the school, but he wanted to give it to me for one of the programs that I ran, because he knew how important that program was to me, which was our Giving Tree program. And our Giving Tree program. It bought jeans and clothes and all kinds of stuff, basically holiday presents for our kids that really needed it most. He's like, I have this donation, and I want to give it to you. He's like, but here's the thing. My parents go to all the board meetings, and they're really invested in the school district. He goes, and I also know, because they're always at the board meetings, that once there's $500, that it has to be approved as a donation by the board. And he's like, I don't want them to know what a disappointment I really was. He's like. Because I've already let him down quite a few times. So I want to just give this, but I want to give it anonymously. He's like, and I was hoping that I could write a letter, an anonymous letter, and I could send it to you and you could present it as the donation for the board that. He's like, I would like to go to you and your program and. And have you buy kids what they need. And that was so touching. And I did. I had. I always kind of suspected that maybe Anatoly kind of took the computer because, I mean, we had lots of conversations because he did some things that weren't always the best choices. And I always kind of suspected that it was him that took that computer. But I had no real proof, and I certainly wasn't going to judge him or say that he did it when I didn't have the proof. And I wasn't going to condemn somebody for something I was unsure about. But I would drop these subtle little, oh, you know, we have to have integrity as we go through, like, we have to be able to do the right things, and we have to. All the things about integrity, and we just kind of weave them into different conversations. And like I said, Anatoly and I, we seem to spend a lot of time together because he was usually out of class a lot for getting in, finding the trouble. But I would have never known that any of those words had any impact on him had he not called. And, yeah, I mean, it was years later. I can't measure that data. I can't say, oh, let me go back 10 years and record that whoop, that talk I had with this kiddo. It made a difference. It had an impact on him. Because some of the work that we do takes time to swirl around in their little brains and fester in there and bubble and boil and do all the things to resonate. And we don't know that we're making that difference until maybe they tell us years later. Maybe they will never tell us. But, my friends, it matters. All those things that you are doing that you think I'm trying all these things. I'm only going into that lessons once a day or once. I only see them once a week or once a month. It matters. I can walk into a classroom and the kids say, oh, yeah, I remember when you talked about that before. That's pretty cool. So don't give up on yourself. And every time you're thinking, I'm doing all this work, I'm putting in all this time, I'm doing all the things, I don't know if anybody's noticing. You really are. You are. The stone that's being thrown into the pond, it's causing the ripple to happen. Sometimes the stones go right to the bottom, but you're still making a ripple. Because even when the stone goes deep into the water and hits the bottom, the sand moves. We just can't see it. School culture is determined by one person's. Well, by people's positive energy. And one person and their positive energy can completely transform the vibe of a meeting. I mean, think about that. Even in a classroom lesson, that one kid that can totally throw the whole lesson off, or the one little. The one person that laughs and lightens the whole mood, or everyone's dark and dreary and somebody walks into the room and they have a big smile on their face and all of a sudden it seems like the sun is starting to shine, that is you. You are that person. You are that little ray of sunshine. You are that transformation of the meeting. You are the encouragement that a struggling kid might need. And every time you extend kindness to a colleague, to a student, to a parent, even if you don't see any changes, you're really. You're planting the seeds. You're that stone going to the bottom. You're that pebble that causes the ripple. We don't know where the ripple goes. And it doesn't mean you're not making waves. So imagine this. You help one student today, and that student feels empowered to be kind to a friend tomorrow. And then that friend then decides to reach out to someone sitting alone at lunch. And that person, having felt a little bit of compassion, might then volunteer somewhere. You see where I'm going with this? Is that Breck commercial all over again. So, my friends, the next time you feel overwhelmed or you think that you're not making any type of an impact, remember the power you have. Shift your mindset from I'm one person and I can't do it to I am the power of one. All it takes is one. Because, my friends, you're one and I'm one, but together we're a really powerful collective of difference makers. You are doing amazing things. I can't say that enough. You're amazing. Keep doing it. But part of being in this profession for a really long time all has to do with our mindsets. So thanks for listening today. Go out there and be that one that makes a difference. Who knows what amazing things might happen because of you. So until next time, keep shining and keep believing in the power of wine. I hope you have a great week. Bye for now.
Carol: Thanks for listening to today's episode of Counselor Chat. All of the links I talked about can be found in the show notes and at counselingessentials.org podcast. Be sure to hit follow or subscribe.
Carol: On your favorite podcast player.
Carol: And if you would be so kind to leave a review, I'd really appreciate it. Want to connect? Send me a DM on Facebook or Instagram at Counseling Essentials until next time. Can't wait till we chat.
Carol: Bye for now