Some weeks ago a colleague and I were at the South Dakota Special Education Conference offering a breakout session designed to inspire teachers to recognize the profoundly positive effects their efforts can have on their students throughout their lives.  

During the conference, I opened a door into a room I hoped contained breakfast.  Instead I walked into Chase Mielke’s keynote address.  I was immediately hooked.  He’s very funny with standup comedian timing.  He has a light heart.  The audience was laughing and having a splendid time.

I was intrigued by what he was saying and found my way to a wall and listened.  Chase spoke about things that can make a teacher’s work life immensely stressful and offered ideas on how to navigate this stress in powerful and uplifting ways.  He pulled in concepts from positive psychology and talked about very practical ways to implement these concepts in daily work life.  I was enthralled.

As I was standing there, it became crystal clear to me that Chase has ideas all of us can use.  I left his keynote with a hungry tummy and a heart full of inspiration.  

This is definitely one to watch.  I feel immensely honored to share this man’s profound and deeply empowering message with each of you.  There can be so much stress in our personal lives, so much distraction in the world around us, and it can become easy to lose sight of our power to make a difference and to offer kindness to those around us, and then to gracefully receive kindness in return.  

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**Video broadcast available** on YouTube @imperfectbest

**Learn more about Jason Freeman** at AwkwardlyAwesome.com