About Michael Consul
Micheal (@MikeCLeadership) is a DJ, Fisherman, Father, TCDSB Teacher, Student Leadership Facilitator, 7 Habits Trainer, and was the OECTA Teacher of the Year back in 2016. His energy is infectious, and his passion to help students become the best version of themselves is obvious.
In this episode, we talk about the 7 habits of highly effective teens, and how they relate to creating students that have a positive impact on society. When Michael isn’t in the classroom, you can find him on the TV show, CFN Fish-Off.
Connect with Michael: Email | Twitter | Linkedin | Instagram | Website
Listen Now
Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.
Resources Mentioned
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Workshop)
Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens (Book)
Catholic Student Leadership (Website)
I-Lite Student Leadership Conference
CFN Fish-Off (Tv Show)
The Transcript
**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.
Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Michael Consul. Our guest today is not only a veteran teacher and educator, but also a professional fisherman. He’s a DJ, a father, a Toronto Catholic district school board teacher, a student leadership facilitator, a seven habits trainer, and was the OECTA teacher of the year, Back in 2016. His energy is infectious and his passion to help students become the best version of themselves is evident and obvious. In this episode, we talk about the seven habits of highly effective teens and how they relate to creating students that can have a positive impact on society. And as I mentioned, when Mike isn’t in the classroom, you can find him on his own TV show and fundraiser called the CFN fish off. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did having it talk soon. Michael, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educator podcast. Can you tell the audience who you are, why you do the work you do with youth and what initially got you involved in it? Wow.
Michael Consul (01:09):
That is three big questions right there. Thanks for having me, Sam.
Sam Demma (01:15):
It’s going to be a great conversation.
Michael Consul (01:17):
So my name is Michael Consul. I work at the Toronto Catholic district school board, and I have the awesome job of facilitating, organizing, and putting together anything to do with Catholic student leadership. We will say, what does that mean? Well, basically, no I’m of the frame of mind that everyone has the potential to be a leader and you’re not born a leader like you grow into leadership. And so whether it’s conferences, overnight camps service trips, abroad PD for teachers workshops for kids, how can we develop something so that our students can reach their fullest leadership potential, find that leader within them? What skills do they have already? And how can we develop those skills and give them more skills so that they can reach their leadership potential? Hmm.
Sam Demma (02:11):
I love that. And what got you into this work? It’s a very specific calling. I would say you could have been just the teacher. Not that that’s any less of a job. There’s so many roles in a school. What directed you specifically to leadership?
Michael Consul (02:29):
Wow. When I look back, I have no idea how I got here, but I love that I’m here. They have the best job in the world. And I do because I, I get to work with amazing students and amazing teachers to try to find that leadership potential in every single one of our students and, and in their teachers. I started out at my old high school and that’s same mother Teresa in Scarborough. And that’s where I started to teaching. I left McGill university with two teachables religion and phys ed. And so those were the subjects that I taught. But while I was in high school, I was also a part of student council in my last year. When we back in the days when we had always see brief your team. So, you know, when I went back to mother Teresa, I said, Hey, who’s the student council moderator.
Michael Consul (03:22):
I would love to be that person because I know my student council monitor moderator, Mr. O’hara. He had such a positive impact in my life, and I want it to be that positive impact on the current student council. And they said, you know what, perfect timing. No one’s running student council. If you want to take it, it’s all yours. And I love that opportunity. And I love that challenge. And through student council, you know, that’s all about putting students in positions of leadership. And from there we developed a leadership course within, within the curriculum and within the day. So now not only did I have my student council like meeting at lunch and meeting after school, but I had a group of 30 leaders meeting me every day, second period. And we, we talked about leadership. We tried to find roles for them within the school.
Michael Consul (04:13):
We learned about the seven habits of highly effective people. And we did outreach to elementary schools. And so throughout this process, people started to say, wow, that that program you did is amazing, or that outreach you did to the grade seven sevens and eights. That’s awesome. I got a phone call from the school board saying, you know, all that we could stop that you’re doing in Scarborough in terms of student leadership, how would you like to come to the board level and not just serve those that pocket in Scarborough, which is the Malvern community, but what if you do leadership throughout the T CDSB and, you know, expand the awesome work that you’re doing in Scarborough. So that’s how I got to the position I’m in now where my whole job is treading, trying to create opportunities for kids to find that leadership potential within them.
Sam Demma (05:10):
Awesome. And you mentioned the seven habits. I know you’re also a facilitator of them. I’m curious to know what, which of the seven habits do you think is the most important during a time like COVID and why?
Michael Consul (05:23):
Oh, wow. I know for myself, sometimes I’ll look in the mirror and I’ll be like, I really need to practice that habit right now. But then there’s other times in my life where I’m really good at that habit. And I need to focus on a different habit. So if we’re talking about these unique pandemic times, what habit, no really stands out that we should really focus on. That is interesting. That is interesting. You know, habit number one is, is be proactive and that’s basically one, don’t be reactive and to take initiative rather than waiting for things to happen. So is that what we need to do during this pandemic and, you know, be less reactive and take initiative. I don’t know, having number two is begin with the end in mind and basically that’s the habit of goal setting. So that’s definitely a habit that, you know, where do we want to be as, as society or as, you know, as a city or as a country come, come may.
Michael Consul (06:28):
So have a number two is important. Having number three is put first things first, which is the habit of time management. So what are the most important things we need to be doing right now versus instead of wasting time on other things. So those three habits are so important and they called those three habits to private victory because you can practice those habits all by yourself. If you’re on a loan on a stranded island, you can practice those three habits. And that brings us to habit number four, which is think when women. Yeah. And that might be the most important in this pandemic because we need to think when we need to think win-win, how are we going to serve our students in school? How are we going to make sure our economy is running? How are we going to, how are you going to serve those who are greatly affected by the pandemic?
Michael Consul (07:20):
Like the elderly or those with existing problems. So thinking win-win is definitely a philosophy that we need to, we need to look at when we’re trying to solve this pandemic crisis. Habit. Number five is seek first to understand then to be understood is the habit of listening. So getting all the information first, before forming your own opinion and then creating a solution based upon all those pieces of information would definitely be important during this time have a number six is synergize, and that’s basically the habit of cooperation. So I can do a lot by myself. But if I have a team around me and we’re synergizing and using each other’s gifts and talents, then that’s what synergy is all about. And I know the only way we’re going to beat this pandemic is if we synergize, you know, whether it’s the government plus the school board, plus the public plus all the other players.
Michael Consul (08:21):
If we work together, then we will definitely come out of this faster than if we work in silos. And then a number seven is sharpen the saw. So taking care of your heart, mind, body, and soul so that you can better practice the other six habits. And I know having number seven is the one I struggled with because I’ll burn both ends of the candle and realize like today here I haven’t ate nothing. And I have this in my bag, it’s a cookie. So I have to be not just a good teacher, but I have to be good to myself in terms of whether it’s praying, eating well, exercising. So having number seven to sharpen the saw, which people often often forget, because unless you take care of yourself, then you won’t be good at the other six habits. So I’m not sure if that answers your question.
Michael Consul (09:12):
I kind of gave you a preview of all seven habits. But yeah, they’re definitely all important. And I know when I took the course and became a facilitator, made me a better parent, made me a better son, made me a better partner, made me a better person. So for those listening that have not read or heard of the seven habits, it’s definitely definitely a book that you should read or maybe listen to the audio book. There’s two versions. There’s the teen version w and that’s the textbook that I use when I teach my leadership class seven habits of highly effective teams. And then the original version, which is seven habits of highly effective people, exact same habits, exact same titles for each habit is just the stories. And the way the authors write it is, is a little bit different ones geared to older people. One’s geared to teenagers. But both amazing. Stephen Covey develop the habits, the late Stephen Covey and his son, Sean Covey said, dad, you know, those habits that you teach in the corporate world, or those habits you teach adults, teenagers should learn those habits too. So he took the book, took the same habits and then rewrote it. So that it’d be easier for teenagers to follow.
Sam Demma (10:33):
He was being proactive.
Michael Consul (10:36):
He was, I wish I learned the seven habits when I was in high school. Oh man. Yeah. It would’ve been a world of a difference.
Sam Demma (10:44):
How do you think as educators, we live out, especially the first habit of being proactive in a time like COVID, especially for principals, for student activity, advisors and directors like yourself, where it’s tough to put on events or it’s a little, I don’t want to say challenging, but it’s a little bit different. How do we still exercise that first habit? Have you maybe made some mistakes that you learned from, or through some spaghetti against the wall that stuck, that you think is worth sharing?
Michael Consul (11:14):
If you asked my girlfriend, I always tell her that I don’t make mistakes and I’m always right. But that is really not true because she’s the one who’s always right. So yeah, being proactive is key. And that’s really, you know, if you’re going to run an event or if you’re going to have students in your building, or if you’re going to run this extracurricular activity, like think of all the different scenarios. So that rather than being reactive and putting a band-aid and dealing with it, when it comes up, you’re being proactive. So that issue doesn’t even doesn’t even arise. So whether that’s making sure if we’re bringing students into this building, let’s make sure that they’re physically distance. Is there hand sanitizer or are we disinfecting surfaces? Is it too tempting for them to socialize if we do this activity? So all those things you kind of have to, you know, troubleshoot before it even becomes something to troubleshoot. And that’s, that’s really what being proactive is about.
Sam Demma (12:21):
You told me about a software before we began the podcast that might be useful for other educators who are thinking about doing virtual events. Do you want to share a little bit about it and your own experience using it?
Michael Consul (12:31):
Yeah. We’ve been using software called stream yard and it’s free. There is a free account, and then you could also purchase a license for a, you know, for the higher level of that an account, but the free account is awesome because you can do so powerful. And it’s basically a software that we’ve been using because now I can’t run those conferences with 500 people, or I can’t run those monthly leadership meetings with 200 people, however I could run it virtually. So streaming mode is a software is a platform that allows you to broadcast a live stream and we broadcast it to YouTube live and you can also broadcast it to Facebook. So it’s your choice, or you can broadcast to both at the same time. And so similar to what we’re doing here, where, you know, I’d be speaking to the camera and I can have an audience of however big I want, because it’s basically a YouTube live link that the participants click onto.
Michael Consul (13:31):
And I think our highest was over 2000 students watching at the same time. So there’s no, you know, there’s no limit on the amount of viewers and there’s also some interaction involved because there is a chat box feature on YouTube live or through stream yard where I can ask a question and say, okay, how many people here? And then the question can be anywhere. And then the chat box will just blow up. Or I could use online tools and say, everyone in the chat box, I am going to put this link, click that link, and now bring you to this website, or I want you to fill out a poll. And in that poll, I can ask whatever I want, but streamlined is a great, great tool because it allows me to have a guest, like, let’s say I’ll have you as a guest and me, and you can be on the screen together.
Michael Consul (14:21):
I’ve had a panel and you can have nine people on the screen all at the same time. And so, you know, I could be hosting the panel and post questions to different members of the panel. So powerful tool. I could show my slideshow at the same time, I can embed a video. I can put up banners or a ticker tape at the bottom. So it’s free. So easy to use. It’s I mentioned before, it’s kind of like an iPhone. It’s very intuitive. Even. You’ve never used it before. If you jump onto the first time, it’s like, so I click this. That happens, oh, that’s easy. Like it happens the way that you want it to happen, which makes it, which makes it easy in it. And it’s free. So it’s an alternative to zoom. It’s a, you know, alternative to Google meets and it’s most powerful if it’s an, if it’s an a, you know, a webinar capacity. So if I’m meeting with 20 students, I wouldn’t use it because I could meet 20 students and on zoom and I could see all 20 at the same time, but if I’m meeting 200 students, I can have 200 little zoom icons. And so streamline allows me to have a larger audience and still be able to interact at the same time
Sam Demma (15:44):
That I think it’s important to share because educators are looking for ways to continue doing events. And there’s someone who was proactive and who’s figured some things out that I thought were valuable to share those experiences, the classic camps, you usually run camp Olympia, your conferences, they change young people’s lives. And I’m sure over the years, you’ve had students reach out to you. Maybe even after they graduated and wrote you letters telling you how big of an impact it had. Maybe some of them are now good friends that you stay in touch with. I’m curious to know if there’s any story that sticks out in your mind about how leadership changed a young person’s life, and you can change their name for the purpose of the story. If it’s a very serious one. And I want you to know, the reason I’m asking is because an educator might be listening and is a little burnt out right now. And I think it’s these stories of transformation through education that reminds educators, why it’s so important, the work that they continue to do.
Michael Consul (16:39):
Yeah, it is. It is important that we do, you know, I might be biased, but I think a teacher’s job is the most important one in the entire world. You know, you might be a doctor or a lawyer or a carpenter or, or, you know, a broadcaster or a utuber, but at some point there’s a teacher in your life that taught you what you needed to know. So without that teacher, where would you be? So I definitely think the teaching profession is definitely the most important profession you could ever enter. And I see like planting seeds because I never know what I say or what I do or what experience I create or what opportunity. And I’m able to make for a student, how that seed is going to grow. And sometimes it’s immediate sometimes next semester because of the cause they went to this camp or because I went to this conference or because they wanted this meeting next semester, it changed person, or it might be five years down the road where the student comes back and says, I never realized is that, that particular speaker that I heard at that conference made such a impact in my life.
Michael Consul (17:53):
So you never know, you never know how big that tree is going to come from that tiny, tiny seed. I remember I was speaking to, I went to a gradient graduation and the valedictorian had a speech. And in her speech, she talked about a guest speaker that we had at our Eyelight conference. And I told this, I told the guest speaker, Hey, I went to this graduation and they S they were talking about you. They were talking about you. And, and the speaker, his name is Andrew. Andrew’s like what, who? And I described the grower. And he goes, oh, I think I remember who it was, but she sat in the back corner and she didn’t say nothing. And now she’s the valedictorian of her grade eight class. And she’s in, I was like, here’s the speech? I got a copy. And she had like three different quotes that he said within that one hour.
Michael Consul (18:50):
And she’s, he’s never met this girl before. And they only had that one hour together at this one conference. And she’s quoting him saying this piece of information has allowed me to X, Y, and Z. And so we never know what we see or what we do, or how much impact our words can have on a particular student. And there’s so many stories. I have tons of reference letters that I’m writing for. Cause cause now, because of whatever influence I’ve had or whatever, you know, whatever experience they had with me now, they want to be teachers and they want to, you know, they want to pay it forward and they want to also be that influence on other people. So I have a ton of students that want to be teachers. I have a bunch of students that said that camp that I went to, oh my gosh, it changed my life.
Michael Consul (19:47):
You know, it sounds cliche and stuff, but I you’re. Right. It’s true. And I never realized how impactful these things are until people come back and, and tell me, there’s I had the best job in the world because not only do I have fun doing it, but it’s extremely rewarding. When a student comes back and says, Hey, I’ve, I’ve entered the police foundations. And the reason why I did so is because when we went to smile camp, you had five police officers there. And they were such a role model to me. And I, it made me want to become a police officer, or I take kids overseas to do work in the Philippines where we, we build houses with, with the poor. And we work in the orphanage and we do a clean community cleanup, but then I’ll get, you know, I’ll get pictures sent to me the year after. And student says, Hey, I went back to the village that we, that we went to or where we were building with the people. And they, they show me all the donations that they’ve accumulated throughout the year. And they went back to themselves to bring it back to the community. So stuff like that is like, it makes you smile and it is super heartwarming.
Sam Demma (21:04):
That’s awesome. That’s so true. And I wanted to ask, because, you know, an educator might be listening and it might be their first year in education. And they’re thinking, what the heck is going on in this, in this world right now, this is not what I was prepared for. And I want you to think back for a minute, to your first year of teaching and with all the wisdom you’ve accumulated over the years. Now, what advice would you give yourself looking back? Because there are some educators that might be listening who are just getting into this profession and are a little bit flustered and not sure what to do, how to manage themselves. And what’s going on.
Michael Consul (21:41):
When I look back, wow, I thought I knew everything. I know way more now than I did back then. One, be yourself, be yourself. You know, everyone has their own strengths. You might be a funny person, used your funny personality. You might be super organized. Use your ability to, you know, be super organized be yourself too, is you gotta get involved outside the classroom in terms of extra extracurricular activities. You can bond a lot with students in the classroom, for sure. But the level of relationship bonding that you can have with a student, you know, on the soccer field, like I know you’re telling me stories of your coaches or in the student council room or at camp, because you’ve decided to become, you know, a chaperone for the grade nine orientation or sitting on the bus three hour drive to camp Olympia, like that level of conversation.
Michael Consul (22:47):
And that level of relationship building can’t happen if you’re only in the classroom, so definitely get involved. And when you have those students that you’ve bonded with in those extracurricular activities, now they’re in your classroom. Those are your biggest allies. Those are the ones that are taking initiative. Those are the ones that are telling everyone else to be focused. Those are the ones that, you know, help run the class with you. So yeah, definitely be yourself, get involved and then number three, and I’m still bad at doing it. And I started teaching in 1999 and it’s, it’s 2020 right now. You gotta take care of yourself. You gotta take care of yourself. Whether that means, you know, a couple evenings or one evening, a week, spend time with your partner and close your phone, close your laptop, no email, no marketing, and just have quality time with your family or the people that you love.
Michael Consul (23:54):
Whether it’s saying no, because as a new teacher, you’re going to always have principals and administrators and other teachers say, Hey, you want to be part of this program. Hey, can you do this? You know, you are allowed to say no. And I know you want to make a huge impression, especially if you don’t have a permanent contract yet, but say yes to everything, but you also have to say yes to yourself. So if you’re finding your way too busy, and now you have to drop going to the gym, you might have to realize, you know, figure a way out that you could still go to the gym. Don’t drop that exercise part of your life. Or if you’re finding, because you’re doing all this stuff, now you’re skipping breakfast. You gotta either say no, or find a way so that you’re not hurting yourself. And I guess that happened. Number seven, sharpen the saw, and you can’t be an effective educator unless you sharpen the saw because eventually if you keep, like if you never stopped to fill up for gas, you’re going to end up empty. So from time to time, you have to fill up that gas. Awesome.
Sam Demma (25:06):
I love that. Mike, this has been an amazing conversation. If there are educators listening who want to reach out to you, bounce some ideas around here about the conferences you’re running, maybe even get involved in some of the virtual stuff you’re doing. What’s the best way for them to reach you.
Michael Consul (25:22):
A couple of ways. You can send me an email and my email is Michael dot Consul@tcdsb.org. So that’s Michael dot Consul, C O N S U L at T CDSB, which is Toronto Catholic district school board that org, or you can check out our website, it’s Catholic student leadership.com. So every time we have a new conference, a new camp or new PD opportunity, we always posted on the website and that’s Catholic student leadership.com. Or if you look up Michael Consul on Facebook, not on Facebook, on YouTube, we’ve got Michael Costa on YouTube, our live stream. So, you know, we have different, we have different live stream events, student leadership meetings, guest speakers, it’s all on my YouTube channel, which is Michael Consul. And on there, you also see, you know, footage from different events prior to COVID, you’ll see footage there from our service trips to the Philippines, you’ll see footage there from camp Olympia.
Michael Consul (26:24):
So there’s a whole bunch of stuff that you’ll see there as well. If you YouTube Michael Consul, there’s two things there to come up. They’re giving you my teaching career and my fishing show. So I also have a a fishing show called the CFN Fisher, which airs on the sportsman channel Canada and the world fishing network on in the states. So know that two things will come up click the one that’s me smiley face without holding a fish. And then you’ll get to my education side. Watch both. You can watch both for sure.
Sam Demma (27:05):
All right. Awesome. This has been again, an amazing conversation and I look forward to staying in touch.
Michael Consul (27:10):
All right. Thank you so much, Sam. You’re doing amazing work and I can’t wait to hear all the episodes and all your amazing guests.
Sam Demma (27:17):
Another interview was done on the High Performing Educator podcast. Mike is a close friend of mine and someone, I really look up to an education. And if you got some actionable ideas, consider connecting with him to bounce ideas around and have a very fruitful conversation. I’m sure he’d be open to it and also consider leaving a rating and review. If you enjoy these episodes, it will allow other educators like yourself to find this podcast and also benefit from the conversations we’re having. Maybe you’re a person who has ideas you’d want to share, or you know, somebody, a colleague who has ideas that they could share. If so, please reach out by email: info@samdemma.com, so we can share your story and inspiration on the podcast. I’ll see you on the next episode. Talk soon.
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