Episode 151: Building SEL Muscles with Lori Woodley-Langendorff of All It Takes

This week, I’m joined by Lori Woodley-Langendorff, the co-founder and Chief Visionary Officer of All It Takes, a nonprofit that equips youth and mentors with vital emotional intelligence skills. Lori has 30 years of experience in education, having worked the majority of it as a middle school counselor before starting All It Takes in 2010 with her daughter, actress and producer Shaylene Woodley.

Lori and I have a good time talking about working in education and how it becomes your identity. Then we get into the creation of All It Takes, before diving deep into the importance of Social Emotional Learning. We also dive into the process of writing her new book, SEL Muscle Mastery: 6 Tools for Building Resiliency and Connection in Schools and Communities. Tune in!

 
 
 
 
 

Read the transcript for this episode:

Welcome to Educator Forever, where we empower teachers to innovate education. Join us each week to hear stories of teachers expanding their impacts beyond the classroom and explore ways to reimagine teaching and learning.

Lori Woodley-Langendorff is a pioneering leader in education, emotional intelligence and social impact. As an acclaimed author, speaker and expert in social emotional literacy, Lori empowers schools, families and communities to foster resilience and connection. Her upcoming book SEL Muscle Mastery: Six Tools or Building Resiliency and Connection in schools and communities. Introduces her groundbreaking SEL muscles framework, six essential skills that build emotional balance and create joyful, resilient environments. Lori is the co founder and chief visionary officer of All It Takes, a nonprofit she launched with her daughter, actress and producer Shaylene Woodley, and continues to grow alongside her son Tanner Woodley, AIT's creative director. Through All It Takes trainings, film series and curriculum, Lori equips youth and mentors with bi vital emotional intelligence skills addressing urgent challenges like student disengagement, social media addiction and mental health struggles. Welcome, Lori, so nice to have you here.


Lori Woodley-Langendorff  1:02  

Thank you, Lily. It's really an honor to be here. I'm excited to have this conversation.


Lily Jones  1:07  

So am I! So I would love for you to tell us about your professional journey.


Lori Woodley-Langendorff  1:12  

So I'm an educator, not I was only a teacher for a few years while I was getting my counseling credentials. So I have three decades, 30 years as a school counselor at variety of levels, mostly k8 and primarily in the middle school arena. And I just love the education system. I love kids and the colleagues that I worked with. And eventually I did move out of being on a school site in public education after I started our nonprofit. A few years after that, I became full time in it, but continue to be in service to with everything I do the education system. So it's, it's my family, it's, it's my purpose.


Lily Jones  2:00  

Wonderful. Yeah, I feel like so many of us feel the same way, right? That's why Educator Forever is called Educator Forever. Because when I left the classroom, I was like, Oh, well, I'm still an educator.


Lori Woodley-Langendorff  2:12  

Forever! Forever!


Lily Jones  2:13  

in all the things we do, and it can look many different ways. But I think I felt like there was such a narrow view of what I thought I could do at the beginning, and it's just a continual expansion of like, Well, everyone, I think, at some level, is an educator and a learner all the time,


Lori Woodley-Langendorff  2:29  

Right? I mean, if we're not learning or educating somehow influencing others, then you know, what's the purpose to be here? Right? That's what I think of like, yes, yeah, there's always something more


Lily Jones  2:41  

Absolutely. So tell us a little bit about your nonprofit. How did it come about? What does it focus on?


Lori Woodley-Langendorff  2:47  

Well, originally, All It Takes started in 2010 so we're just about in September, our 15 year anniversary. And my daughter and I started it from this lens of, oh, we're going to focus on a couple of things she loves and I love. So I did youth leadership as a counselor, right? And then it was going to be health awareness and environmental stewardship. And then eventually she got super busy, and so it became really more my thing, and eventually turned into my son working with us, who's now our, you know, creative designer, Creative Director. And we started it under this lens of, let's improve the circumstances for people. And again, it could be, you know, whether it was health or environmental or for us youth like I could see, as a school counselor, some things and some traits that I was concerned about. And this is 15 years ago, so the pandemic put a big old spotlight on a lot of it, but I was already starting to see, 15 years into my career, some concerning issues with our kids and a and a shift in our ability to be responsible for things our parents, ability to let kids grow up in a way that helped them grow agency. So there were a lot of things that you know originally from this, like, let's be kind anti bully lens, but really, over time, all it takes has become a leader in the field of social emotional literacy. Trauma informed stewardship. Trauma Informed classrooms. And really powerful experiential trainings to help educators not just understand a topic, but embrace the topic. And so that's really over the course of 15 years where we, you know, really were and we changed from a slight educator focus prior to the pandemic to probably, I'd say 60% of our focus now is on educators themselves, the education ecosystem. I think of educators as not just teachers in the classroom. I mean, I was a counselor, but consider myself an educator, absolutely. But I think that the bus driver is an influence. Serve kids day, and they're an educator like you. We said at the beginning, you know, we're all educating, and I think of it influencing our young people every day if we're in their presence. So custodians and office, you know, office staff and nurses and, you know, our admin, like everybody, has a stake in the wellbeing and productive upbringing of our kids,


Lily Jones  5:25  

Absolutely, and I think, thinking about the focus on SEL for educators, I definitely appreciate. I think, so much of what's being hard about or what's hard about being an educator is often we're teaching kids things. Maybe it's social and emotional learning. Maybe it's getting them to see different career pathways, you know, whatever it might be. And so often we can't really do that for ourselves. And so that's where this mismatch comes of being like, Well, okay, like, I need some of that too, and so I appreciate that focus on educators. And we'd love to hear more about, you know, how you use these tools to help educators, and particularly around burnout,


Lori Woodley-Langendorff  6:03  

Yeah. So I think of our own well being, not just physical and not just emotional, but like a whole package, right? And so in 2020 during the pandemic, I wrote a curriculum that started with these five muscles, and now there's six in this published book. But at first they were like, their own separate category. And the more I worked with them and worked with educators or whoever in the ecosystem, I was like, wow, these are actually well being tools, because if I can navigate a tough situation, if I can navigate, you know, a hard moment with a student, a challenging moment with a colleague, an administrator that I don't feel respects me or is willing to listen to me, we tend to get so upset about what's not going right that, like, this really big lens for me was like, this, aha, like, oh, wait if I'm really upset, and then I'm not self regulated in a good way. Now, it can, I call them, you know, tongue in cheek, adult temper tantrums, like we have them too, right? Like, and it could be the silent treatment we give people. It could be, you know, isolating ourselves away. It could be combative, like, you know, some of us are combative, but if we're not regulating well, but we're being asked to regulate, help our kids learn to regulate well, then we're either not able to ask them and teach them and demonstrate for them, but we're also hypocrites to them. And our older kids, or older kids are like, they are. They have hypocrisy radars, and they're like, you're asking me to be not pop off at you. But what you just so to a parent like, car just cut you off and the way you just screamed out loud in the car, you can do but I can't, absolutely, and so I feel like, what happened with the SEL muscles was it became self preservation. It became, oh, if I can calmly respond rather than react to so much of the stimulus that's coming at us that is hard right now in education, and it's been getting harder since before, I think before the pandemic, because kids and parents were becoming more combative, but then the pandemic, and then you have all the mental health challenges and the trauma responses and like, there's so many things and that adults don't even understand that our kids are dealing with, but then they haven't really had the lens or the time or the breath to be able to look inside and go, Oh, not just the kids who's dealing with this, it's me, too. I'm taking it all personal, everything that's going on that's one of the muscles like I'm taking everything they do personally I put, I pour into them in a way that I know how, which might not actually be really greatly skilled, really skilled at teaching math, but not really skilled about asking a true question about how a student is really emotionally doing, and not really skilled at it. We might not even ask our kids need us to, but we don't really know how, and if I don't know how, and I feel really uneasy about it, or uneasy about the answer I might get, then I'm not going to ask, then I'm not going to have the relationships where the kids are respecting me, and then I'm going to be upside down class cycle.


Lily Jones  9:41  

Yes, for sure. And I think it's so interesting just having that -- you said time and space, right? Teachers don't have much of that right, and so we're part of a system often that is really kind of stacked against a lot of the things we know work in terms of connection and social, emotional learning and regular. Conversation. And so I think carving out that time and space, not only to do the thing, but just for reflection, is so important. And even having teachers go through the experience themselves, I think makes them a better teacher, because instead of abstractly talking about, you know what to do when you feel big feelings or something like that, you're like, hey, yesterday, I was feeling really frustrated, and these are some strategies that I used, and some worked and some didn't. And it's more realistic, rather than just like, we use the strategy and it works all the time, which doesn't really happen.


Lori Woodley-Langendorff  10:31  

No, it doesn't happen. And the kids know that. 


Lily Jones  10:34  

yes. 


Lori Woodley-Langendorff  10:34  

And our call and our colleagues know that, you know the teacher who's like, I do this, and it always works. Well, it doesn't always work, right? And then, and we lose our credibility, right? We we lose our credibility when we talk in all or nothings, or we talk about perfection, and we don't show that vulnerable side. And then to, you know, one step further when you're like, yesterday, I felt frustrated like then to just open it. And this is one of the things Lily that I think about. How do we find the how do we carve time for ourselves? Well, we can do it right with our kids, like, for three minutes at the start of class. We're just going to take a moment and whatever that looks like, it's a journaling but I'm going to journal too, like, or, or, you know, how many of you have ever felt that kind of frustration, and all the hands go up, and now all of a sudden, you're in life together. Your kids are like, Oh, you're human. And then we see a side as the adult in the room. We see a side of students. It's like, oh, human, right, like they're frustrated and and we know that cognitive Lily, but we don't necessarily know it in the moment practically,


Lily Jones  11:44  

It's so powerful. I think it's so powerful for both teachers and students of CO creating this environment together and really building agency and connection and buy in. Like you said, you know, students, even little kids, are like, yeah, no, you actually need to get right, like they know. And so it's like, Why teach things that aren't applicable to students life? Like, let's lean into the things that really matter, right?


Lori Woodley-Langendorff  12:11  

 And if we don't, again, you know, we lose credibility. We have no authority. And some people, like, kind of get rubbed wrong about that word. But I actually think it's our job to be the authority in the classroom or the authority in the office, but authority isn't authoritarian, and authority is a safety thing, like I'm in I'm in charge of your safety and your education and your parents trust us, you know, hopefully to provide those things for you, but I have to earn that, and that's a difference between when I was a kid, we were expected just give it to adults, right? But today, there are kids aren't the same kids, you know? They have different exposures to so many things, and and we have to be able to meet them where they are. And in order to do that, well, we have to meet ourselves where we are.


Lily Jones  13:02  

And I think even thinking about that difference of like, Oh, is that authority just built in, right? I do think that it's important for grown ups to do that introspection of like, sure, I might be the authority in this situation, but how do I want to lead? I do think it's important, not only for kids, but for the grown ups, to do that introspection of how we want to lead. You know, in this position of power within a classroom, what do you want students to take away from that? And how can you show them, both explicitly and also implicitly, by how we teach and how we interact?  


Lori Woodley-Langendorff  14:19  

Yeah, and that's the, that's the internal SEL stuff is like, how do I interact with you that preserves my self care and your self care, right? And how do we learn to take care of each other in a way that holds each other as very valuable, important human beings, both directions, both directions. I love directions. Yeah, like valuable, important human beings each of us like. And how do we find our passions? And how do I help you do that? And how do I, you know, impart on you that it's okay for me to do that also?


Lily Jones  14:57  

Yes, and that's true inspiration, you know. I think about teachers that I've had over my life, or teachers my kids have had, they're like, full, well rounded humans, right? Who are out dancing or creating art or writing books or doing sports, you know, like they have all these different parts of them. And so I think valuing that in the classroom is so important.


Lori Woodley-Langendorff  15:21  

Yeah, and yeah, nurturing it and learning to know our kids a little bit, and then also be like, Ah, I think you told me you're going to have something this weekend, and I forgot what it was. Like, it's okay to be human. It's okay to not have especially if you're a secondary teacher and you've got 150 kids a day. I totally get there. I don't have time. I don't have time, like, but you're spending 10 minutes redirecting an unruly classroom. So those 10 minutes could be like, developmental like, let's get to know each other. Like, you could throw out activities. As you know, the experiential stuff that I really believe in power like, is the power for change. But we don't have to just finger wag when things don't go well, we literally can be like, okay, clearly, it's not going well right now. We do have to get through this lesson, but it's not going to be right this minute. So let's have this conversation, or, you know, let's check in with each other, whatever it is. Because when we give our kids that time, and we see the risk like we see the hum of Oh, then we can internalize like, oh. I created that. I didn't have to be this person I'm not proud of. I didn't have to be this finger wagging, yelling, threatening, negotiating, defeated teacher. I can feel powerful in my way that I manage my own approach to whatever's coming at me.


Lily Jones  16:45  

So powerful. And so thinking about SEL is something that we teach in the classroom, and we hopefully, you know, model in the classroom, and then thinking about the next step, like, how do you see SEL is important beyond school, in our lives, in the workplace? 


Lori Woodley-Langendorff  17:01  

Oh, gosh. Well, I don't think it stopped. I think that's why I call it SEL also social emotional literacy rather than learning. And education is usually learning, because I think these are life skills that help us navigate whatever's coming at us, and we transition to the workplace, and we have to be able to navigate that someone's telling us what we that they expect of us, and then they expect it and and some of these things that maybe we didn't learn. And I feel like that's a big transitional issue right now, that a lot of our students are, you know, moving into adulthood, at least on paper at 18, right? The law says, but they're really struggling. Our employers are really struggling to find people who young people, but adults who can be responsible to getting to work on time, or responsible to not having their phone in the middle of, you know, program or or middle of the day, or responsible to you know, you don't get a mental health day a day and a half every week. Like, and that's a big thing. Like, like, I talk to employers all the time. They're like, Oh my gosh, the mental health days are kind of out of control. And so how do we, how do we, like, raise agency, you mentioned that earlier, raise our kids to actually have some the agency to get through the, you know, the wherewithal, right, the internal, like mechanisms. That's like, yeah, I don't feel great today, but I can anyways, and then I could choose to go home and just have a chill night, yes, right? But I can still do the responsibility things, and if I really don't like what I'm doing, I have agency to go change it up, but the responsibility of probably not until I find that new job, should I quit this job? Like...


Lily Jones  18:51  

Yes, yes, absolutely yes, for sure. I mean, I think that part is so important that it's like tolerating uncomfortable feelings, not, you know, being able to be okay with things not being okay and persevering knowing about like, yes, you have agency to change it, but that sometimes, to make that change, we have to go through uncomfortable times, and that those uncomfortable times are not something we're trying to avoid, you know, and so really having that muscle, as you say, to get into them.


Lori Woodley-Langendorff  19:21  

And then I think that's how we feel more well. We feel more capable and like, really proud of ourselves, like, oh, I can do this. And so when a teacher in a classroom or someone on campus, it doesn't matter who is able to be like, you know, I didn't want to get up this morning. I was exhausted. I didn't really sleep well last night. You don't have to tell all the deep details, like educators are like, it's not their business. Well, you don't have to tell them You didn't sleep well because you had a fight with your partner. You can just say I didn't sleep well, and today I'm a little more cranky, a little more impatient, and it took everything I had to get out of bed. Does anybody ever have that? Kind of morning that's not sharing, in my opinion, too much of our personal life, but it's sharing enough to man to model for the kids, resiliency and and the ability to just like own like is not my bit, not my favorite day, not my best day, or it is my best day, but I bet my best day is meeting somebody else has maybe not had a best day. Is anybody else like not in the same space? I am like to really acknowledge in our actions that are traits of SEL mastery.


Lily Jones  20:39  

Yeah, I think that's so interesting too, because it's really modeling and normalizing these experiences. Because I think sometimes young people think because they're experiencing a bad day, right? Like, then it means exactly the things you said, right? I'm calling in sick. I'm not doing the things like, I'm just not feeling well, right? And they don't see necessarily, that there's a lot of people having quote, unquote bad days who are still there, right? And they're still showing up, and maybe not at 100% but normalizing that the experience is not necessarily like because I'm feeling this way, I'm just closing up shop. I'm gonna go forward and do these things anyway.


Lori Woodley-Langendorff  21:17  

Yeah, and it's not working when we, you know, get to be adults like that. Kind of thing is not earning the respect as the unique, special human we are that we deserve, but we're kind of earning it, right? So how do we help our kids do that better? I think the best thing we can do is start with ourselves.


Lily Jones  21:38  

Yes. So I love hearing a little bit about the SEL muscles. And I know you recently wrote SEL muscle mastery. Can you tell us more about the SEL muscles and this book? 


Lori Woodley-Langendorff  21:48  

Oh, so yes, it's like my, you know, like, finally got a book published, right? So in 2020 when we obviously, we were an in person group, just like so many others, everything went sideways, and we had this opportunity to write a film or make a film, which we did, and I wrote a curriculum, and you know, 2am this idea of muscle mastery, like, Oh, our adults are going to need to have that well being for themselves in order to take on and help Our students, like re engage with learning in a classroom setting. Re engage and become, well, if they really had a hard time through the pandemic, like, there's just so many things and and that's just grown. And now there's this book, and there's six SEL muscles, and they're really the key, I think, key communication traits and skills that help us acknowledge who we are, what we're going through, in a way that's adult and responsible and accountable, that we're not blaming the kids for anything we're going through. And that's a big shift. Like, if you were quiet, we could do this lesson. If you were this, if you were that, like we are demonstrating to our kids all the time blame of others for our moods and actions and attitudes. And if we're going to bring our kids back into engaging in their own personal development and healthy ways, we're going to have to do it ourselves and and each of the tools help us feel better about ourselves, not worse about ourselves. And it's interesting, when we train them, teachers are like, I'm like, these, this is a bit of an ouch. We do this. And then on the other side of it, they're like, I felt like I was at a training that was a retreat. Because naming, you know, and having fun together and naming our breakdowns, but within a in an environment where others are doing the same, and it's has permission for us not to be perfect, and permission for us to be like, Oh, that's a skill I can work on. And that one's I'm that one I'm pretty good at. And just being able to see it, name it, and practice it is really a beautiful opportunity for us to grow our own emotional literacy.


Lily Jones  24:06  

 I love hearing about how this idea came to you too at two in the morning, like, hey, it could be muscles. I would love to hear a little bit more just about the experience of writing this book. I mean, congratulations. That's amazing, and it seems like a result of so many years of great work. And I'm curious about the process that you went through, kind of taking things that you'd learned and putting it into the book,


Lori Woodley-Langendorff  24:30  

Yeah. So, as you know, like 30 years is a lot of stories and but then also, not just as an educator, but as a mom, right? I'm a parent too, and my kids are, you know, 34 almost 34 and almost 31 so they're proper adults, functioning, doing, you know, great things in the world and the learning for myself, like, where was I not in my greatest strengths? And I could see it a lot of times. For others, I could train some of the things that I had to turn the mirror on myself. Myself and be like, Oh, I am asking others and and actually promising others that this will work for them. But then not all of these things am I doing really well myself, and I found myself in 2020, like really reflecting on some of those tools that our educators were going to need, and how many of them actually came from my own growth and development, and then the process of writing, you know, finally, I just was like, I have to do this. Like, this is, I don't have to. I guess none of us have to do anything. But it just became the moment about 18 months from, you know, let's do it. It started as, let's just do a small little book on, put it on Amazon to then just thinking back, and, you know, to your point, like, educators don't always have to stay in a school setting, but, you know, always an educator forever, right? Like, and I think that for me, it was the, how do I take what I've learned and put it on paper? Well, part of it is to always look at the trail we've lived right look at the journey. And I remember talking to a publisher few years before in like 21 who was like, Yeah, write me a proposal. I was like, I just not ready. Like, I just it was so overwhelming. And so then I went back to my emails and just reached out to her. And I think that sometimes we get trapped in this is my role. This is what I'm supposed to do. This is how my retirement looks. And I don't know, somehow I was just like, there's something more I have to offer. And I just, I have to do it like for me, that's been the thing and my purpose. I was great on a school campus, great with edu, with my staff and my kids and and I just needed to do it bigger, which became all it takes. And then we then became films. And then, you know, it's like, Oh, there's more to say. And I'm really also a purpose driven person, and if this book wasn't actually serving people, I would shelve it and just do the next thing. But that's not what I hear like. I It's so much fun to have people feed, give feedback for the relief they feel, even at the same time as they're developing their muscles. 


Lily Jones  27:14  

Yeah, good for you. I mean, I think that's amazing, that allowing yourself to, like, wait for the perfect time in some ways, you know, or not perfect time, but a time, I guess there's never a perfect time. I'm correcting myself, yeah, because I think nobody should wait and be like, Oh, it's a perfect time, because that perfect time will never come. But I've had experiences before, too, where it's like, okay, now I'm ready, you know. And even, you know, talking to the book agent a few years before, you know. And maybe it wasn't just the right time, but you're kind of planting the seeds, and so knowing that there are alternative paths, and you talked about this a little bit of, you know, feeling stuck like, this is what I'm supposed to be doing, or, you know, this is only way to go, or No, I said no to that book person, so I shouldn't reach back out. Great. There are always other ways of looking at it and seeing these possibilities, and allowing yourself to have that feeling of, like, now's the time, and then make that path forward,


Lori Woodley-Langendorff  28:05  

yeah, and that's a confidence thing, right? Like, I matter enough, and they might say no, right? Like, we're being able to, that's a social emotional skill, right? Being able to take a risk and then get the answer we get, like, I reached out to two different people. One never responded to me, and one did, but it could have been crickets on both sides, right? But so that's one of the things that I think of, like we have, each of us have some unique, special gifts, and we're talking about in the education system, and I just think all of us should just keep leaning into those gifts, because there's so much we can do, whether we choose, you know, to stay in a classroom our career. I have a friend couple, and he wanted to be a history teacher and never change, and she was bored after every few years, and she was up and up and up into administration. And he's like, I'm perfectly content and happy here. So I think that we could, we're modeling for our kids the development of ourselves, and it's showing them what's possible for them when we're actually honoring our journey. 


Lily Jones  29:08  

Mm, hmm, yes, embracing the evolution and the many ways that we change over the course of our lives, right? Yeah. Well, Lori, it's been such a pleasure talking with you and learning more about your work. Can you tell people where they can connect with you? 


Lori Woodley-Langendorff  29:22  

You can connect with me at all it takes.org or selmuscles.com so like both of them will get you to to the other but I would love to hear from you. Yeah. 


Lily Jones  29:34  

Wonderful. Thank you so much. 


Lori Woodley-Langendorff  29:36  

Thank you, Lily. Appreciate you.


Transcribed by https://otter.ai



Lily Jones