June 4, 2025
076: Cultivating Resilience Through Hope: A Conversation with Nikolas Tsamatoulidis
Feeling overwhelmed by negativity in schools? Niko Tsamatoulidis, Administrator of Student Supports and Wellness for Bethlehem Area School District and Chief Hope Officer of Hope Does LLC, unpacks the science of hope and explains why it's crucial for educator and student well-being.
Drawing from 33 years of experience in education, Niko reveals that hope isn't merely a feeling; it's an action that flourishes through social connections. "Hope begets hope begets hope," he explains, detailing how willpower (agency) and waypower (pathways) form the foundation of hopeful thinking. This science-based approach shows why simply telling someone "it will get better" isn't enough; we must help them see and create multiple pathways forward.
This episode examines how our social environments impact our hope levels. Through the lens of neuroscience, Niko explains how mirror neurons cause us to co-regulate with those around us. "If you're consistently showing up in a negative state... you attack and neutralize hope," creating a powerful case for mindful boundaries with persistently negative influences while approaching such situations with compassion.
Post-pandemic, many educators are experiencing what Tsamoutalidis calls a "post-COVID numbing—a neutrality that sits between positivity and negativity on the hope continuum. The remedy is reconnecting with our imagination as an "instrument of hope" and surrounding ourselves with what he calls "transition people" who support us through challenges.
Whether you're struggling with burnout, navigating complex school climate issues, or simply seeking ways to build more resilient learning communities, this episode offers practical wisdom for cultivating hope as a daily practice.
EPISODE RESOURCES:
00:00 - Introduction to SEL in EDU
00:43 - Meet Nicholas Samatoulidis
04:45 - The Social Nature of Hope
12:37 - Defining Hope Through Science
17:05 - Willpower and Way Power
22:33 - The Impact of Negativity
29:29 - Courage in Relationships
32:31 - Hope as Action and Connection
35:13 - Final Thoughts and Resources
WEBVTT
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Welcome to SEL in EDU, the podcast where we explore how educators bring social, emotional learning to life by sharing stories, strategies and sparks of inspiration.
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I'm your host, Dr Krista Lay, owner of Resonance Education.
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Thank you for joining us on this SEL journey.
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Hi, I'm Chris Nessie from the House of EdTech Podcast, a part of the Education Podcast Network.
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Just like the show you're listening to right now.
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Shows on the network are individually owned and opinions expressed may not reflect others.
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Find other interesting education podcasts at edupodcastnetworkcom.
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Nicholas Samat Toledis is a first generation Greek American, a proud husband of 29 years and father of three.
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With degrees from Westchester, lehigh and Moravian universities, he has spent 33 years educating and coaching youth, including 28 years as a K-12 educator and 20 as an administrator.
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He co-led Liberty High School's transformation into a trauma-informed school with a pioneering wellness center.
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Currently, he serves as the administrator of student supports and wellness for Bethlehem Area School District, is an ICF, acc certified coach, an educational consultant, an adjunct faculty member and chief hope officer of Hope Does LLC.
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Welcome back SEL and EDU family.
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And speaking of welcoming you back, I am very fortunate to have an opportunity to welcome back a dear friend and colleague, nico Samatolidis, and this could not have come at a better time.
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This topic those of you who are listening I have to share that I got a text from a friend who said that their school board is changing the terms trauma-informed practices to sensitivity to student experiences, which I get, and that is what we're doing.
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But this idea of changing things and eliminating things, and then the idea of restorative practices being called accountability practices, which they are, but what's wrong with those initial words?
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And I do have to say that in talking to people who have said to me before why don't we use this word or that word anymore?
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It's because it hurts people's feelings.
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I'm curious how these words trauma-informed practices and sensitivity to student experiences hurts people's feelings.
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I really want to know, because I think there's a difference between not using a word because it hurts somebody's feelings, because I don't think you want to hurt somebody's feelings.
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I don't think we should be throwing around language that's hurtful, and our topic today is on hope.
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I have to tell you that I just saw an article where they're wiping out historical photos from archives, so they're looking for anything that says gender or gay, and so the Enola Gay came up, and the Enola Gay was the plane that dropped the atomic bomb.
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It was named after the guy's mom.
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There's a whole debate around the dropping of the atomic bombs, but we're just doing this blanket getting rid of and they're not allowed to talk about the Tuskegee Airmen and they're taking away images of brave men and women who have fought for our country.
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I'm just afraid if they do this blanket get rid of everything without actually looking at things and understanding the context, we're really going to be losing significant portions of our history that hold meaning for so many people, and so, now that I'm off my soapbox, our session is on hope, and I need this right now.
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Nico has been researching hope and working in schools with educators and students around hope, so, nico, thank you for listening to me.
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I know we've talked about this on a regular basis, but thank you for being back here and please fill my bucket this morning.
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Thank you for being back here and please fill my bucket this morning.
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Thank you so much for inviting me again and it's always a pleasure to connect with you, to communicate with you.
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I was tracking everything you were saying, so it's always awesome to be able to just sit together in a space where we just get to go back and forth and communicate and really through friendship and connection.
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That is how we elevate hope within one another, because it's a social gift that we give to each other, and so that is awesome In our journey in humanity right, sometimes I'm down and you're up and vice versa, and just being with someone who just might be in a better state, a better place on this specific day, just spending time with that individual, we end up connecting deep into the level of brain-based science.
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We have that incredible effect on one another, for good or bad, all depending on how we show up and how we view the other person, especially in the unspoken.
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Unspoken.
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In that sense, we have this incredible power within ourselves that sometimes we forget and is a coming upon us.
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At least.
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I believe that, with all the stuff swirling around today, that there may not be much that we can change on a grand level from a circumstance and condition standpoint, but what we can have influence on is how we interact with other people, what we say and how we say it.
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That's just sounds simple, but it's super powerful and exciting stuff.
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Yeah, and two things are making me chuckle right now.
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One is he talked for two hours yesterday about other stuff.
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So that reminder of that hope happens in social contexts it's not something that hope happens in social contexts it's not something that we can do all by ourselves.
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Is it just a really good reminder for me?
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I think that keeping in mind who you're surrounded by and the type of energy they're bringing to you is super important.
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So even days when I just need to unload real quick in two minutes, like I just dumped all that onto you and you're still smiling and I know I'm going to be smiling, but I just needed to get onto you and you're still smiling and I know I'm going to be smiling, but I just needed to get that out and then be like okay, give me some hope, let's talk about hope.
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I'm actually curious because I don't know that we've talked about this in a long time.
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But where did you start getting the idea that hope is where you wanted to focus in on.
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Wow, that's a really great question.
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You're right, we never really talked about this, even offline conversation, so this is super cool.
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I think it's a combination of two things for me, maybe three, and so the first part is that just really my experiences working with folks during and post COVID and recognizing that even in a loving home, in a home where we are pretty open and vulnerable which is one of the ways to elevate hope you have a safe space where you can pretty much let your hair down and just talk about things.
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Even in that space that I saw how differently the pandemic and all the closures were affecting my kids differently.
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It got me thinking, too, what about the individuals and all the closures were affecting my kids differently?
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It got me thinking, too, what about the individuals and kids who don't have somebody to turn to?
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It's not a safe space that you can really download what's between your ears.
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I think that really was eye opening to me.
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We came back and then the kids came back that really started building this fire in me, started building this fire in me.
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At the same time, one of the many different hats that I wear also part of a faith-based community myself and another group of individuals.
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We literally planted a church and we meet at the high school where I used to work at on Sundays.
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I know from my faith-based lens who hope is and the hope that lives in me.
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At the same time, I know in the marketplace that not everybody shares that belief that I have.
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So for me, knowing that this is part of my DNA and at the same time, knowing I want to message it in a way that isn't me imposing my beliefs on anyone else, and seeing just really the circumstances and conditions around us, for me low levels of hope are when I would see individuals just really flatline, just very neutral In the hope continuum.
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That's despair.
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I'm not in a state of apathy just yet, but I'm moving towards that place and I'm just neutral.
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I'm not positive, I'm not negative.
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They called it the post COVID numbing and I still see that today.
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All that really built a fire to me, and you and I have talked about this before, krista, about we're doers, we get stuff done, especially in the realm of education, but how many times do we take a step back and know all this doing comes from our source and that source comes from our being?
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Why don't we ever take a moment?
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It's not this fluffy, wimpy stuff, but why don't we ever take a moment and focus on the being?
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And so for me it's something that resonates with individuals who could say that I'm hopeful 29 out of 30 days in a month, or 30 out of 31,.
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I recognized in our line of work and then in greater society when I would just study folks and just see that pizzazz, that spunk, that positivity, and no one was inherently being negative.
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But what I also recognized in my last few years of observing classrooms and evaluating teachers is that there was a state of neutrality.
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So, okay, that's giving me some signals and signs.
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I really want to start digging into the science of hope, which, when you live in a multicultural, pluralistic society, you can talk about that.
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Go back to what I said earlier.
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Whatever your faith is or maybe not, but let's for a moment camp at faith-based individuals.
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Regardless of what the major faiths are, when you look at the science of hope, it definitely would resonate with whatever your specific.
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If you want to call it holy book or holy scripture, it fits right in.
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I've had family members who perhaps want to just dig into the science and may perhaps they're atheists or agnostics it still resonates.
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It all fits.
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It's just a beautiful thing.
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We're living in some interesting times, as the unpredictable continues to rise and the research and science shows how many people feel lonely.
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This is a perfect segue into just really infusing some oxygen into people's souls.
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We've talked a lot about the faith piece before, because I'm somebody and I never said this on the podcast who has practiced several different faiths and still finds myself searching.
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I believe very deeply that we're all connected and that there's something bigger.
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I'm not sure what that is.
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You mentioned having a who is hope, but you also mentioned what is hope, and that's what I'm thinking.
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You're talking about the science piece, and so, for those who might be atheist or agnostic or spiritual on this journey, what is hope?
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Dr Anneke Vandenbroek.
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Great question.
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So, purely from a scientific standpoint, when we unpack this, hope isn't a feeling, it's an action and it's a verb.
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The beautiful thing about hope is that it's a social gift that happens in relationships and connection with others and never, ever in isolation.
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We're social beings.
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Hope begets hope begets hope.
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The beautiful thing about the science of hope that imagination is an instrument of hope.
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The ability to future cast forward thinking that, even if right now, in the here and now, it's not so good, but the ability to know that this too shall pass.
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Imagination is an instrument of hope, which is why teaching kids to dream and set goals is so critical For us.
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As adults.
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We had certain goals, we dream certain things.
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Why are we right now, in the place that we're at, in this current juncture?
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Are we still doing that?
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And if not, why not?
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What are some things that we can start dreaming about and goal setting about?
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That is so exciting because I've never met a parent, I've never met a teacher, a human, that said, no, I'm good, I'm resilient enough.
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So if we're really about being more resilient, if we're really about passing resiliency to our personal children, if we're really about passing on resiliency to our students, if we're about that, then hope precedes resiliency.
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If we can elevate people's hope levels, we elevate their resiliency, their ability to endure, persevere, bounce back.
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If you're more resilient, you're more hopeful, then you're even healthier.
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So higher levels of hope, higher levels of resiliency, then as a human, you're healthier.
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Let's specifically talk about kids for a moment, and teens.
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When that happens, then increased hope levels improves their attendance, their grades, gpa, their grade level, promotion or high school graduation rates, and college or post-secondary or employment going rates.
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It drives us to practice habits that enhance whatever it is we're looking to go after.
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So that's really awesome and exciting whatever it is we're looking to go after, so that's really awesome and exciting.
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The part that I really want to hold on to there is practice habits, because knowing what we know about brain science, especially for our youth, is that you mentioned future casting, and so that's part of the and feel free to correct me because I know with your counseling and psychology background, that it's your prefrontal cortex that helps with the future casting and being able to see ahead and see natural logical consequences and to actually see your future.
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That doesn't fully get developed until now.
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They're saying 26, but that doesn't mean that we can't practice on working towards there.
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So just saying to somebody like it's going to get better, I know that's a start, okay, you're telling somebody, but if they're not feeling it or seeing that path, there's more that needs to happen with our youth.
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I've heard you talk about way power and willpower and this idea of agency, and when we actually break it down and help, our students have not only the feeling of hope but the pathway to that.
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Could you talk more about what that looks like in your work?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Thank you for asking that, earlier.
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You heard me say that it's a social gift that happens in relationships, right and connection and out of isolation.
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So really just the power of those relationships and how someone shows up.
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I talk a lot about weight, power and willpower.
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In academia we talk about agency.
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For me, that's nothing more than really talking about mental and emotional endurance.
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I refer to that as willpower.
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A lot of times when we're under duress, on a long stretch of adversity or trauma, that diminishes in us greatly.
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It's incredibly important to be able to have someone in our life one or more, as I call it, transition people that are there for us, a person they can turn to and they can share them on and be there to encourage them.
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They have that freedom and space and trust to be able to also just challenge them to go after whatever it is that they're doing.
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And so the three levels are you just mentioned before, krista is goal setting.
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So what are some things that you want to go after?
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And being able to measure and track agency, which, as I mentioned, is that willpower, the pathways is knowing that thing I want to go after.
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What are the different ways I can get there?
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There's multiple ways to get there.
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There's multiple ways to get there, and if that isn't a strength to me yet or perhaps I'm low in just knowing I don't know how many ways to get there, and also I don't anticipate when a roadblock or an obstacle comes in the way, how do I readjust?
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And frequently I think about the ways that when I'm driving six hours to go see my kids in Virginia, the satellites are helping the app on my phone and they're telling me if I need to reroute rego, go a different way, depending on an accident, traffic, et cetera, to still try to get me in that reasonable amount of time that it initially predicted I was going to get to Virginia.
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And so connecting surrounding yourself with people or at least one person that can encourage and support you, a person who can help you think strategically with the way power, aka pathways to overcome those obstacles and really help you in achieving your goals and anticipate.
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If you know what I thought at the moment that goal made sense, but now not so much, and I still want to stay to it but modify it.
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Having that person who's a good strategic thinker to help you carve out.
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How do we re-goal and measure this?
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I've gone around in schools and we've measured it in staff.
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Right now the focus phase one is on staff, but ultimately, down the road, love for them to be able to unpack this with kids and have individuals see I want to know the hope levels in my classroom.
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What are my kids' hope scores?
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Parents doing it with their own personal kids and the beautiful thing about this is let's just say you don't like your hope score.
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Let's just say it's low in your mind.
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Here's the awesome thing you can always elevate it, but the key to elevating it is being connected with someone, and so, at a time where we see a lot of brokenness or challenges that are splitting in our society and community, this fosters a way to really bridge community in schools and other spaces in society and workplaces.
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It's definitely makes you think I really want this, I want to go after it, I want to elevate my hope levels and part of this is how can I connect with someone else or others to do that?
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Everything that you've shared here around hope directly aligns to research from the Search Institute around developmental relationships.
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They interviewed and collected data from millions of students on what they need from trusted adults in their lives.
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It talked about that we need somebody who can challenge us and stretch us but also support us along the way, and the last part, the last piece of that was somebody who will invest in me and help me see a pathway that I didn't know of before.
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We all have blind spots.
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There's pieces that we don't know until we know.
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So what role can adults play in students' lives to help them see pathways?
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That, whether it's because of experience or brain development, I like how you also said accountability partner, and I don't think of that as a bad thing.
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I think of that as somebody who it doesn't mean you're always going to be successful, but that somebody who, like you said, is going to walk along with you.
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In the research around the developmental relationships, they interviewed students and they said they don't like the term mentor because in their minds it's somebody who has to be with them, who is paid to be with them, not necessarily somebody who is there authentically.
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When you have an accountability partner, that's a social pact that you're making to check in with somebody.
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That's quite powerful work that I do working with staff on how to support students.
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We talk about that.
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But I know that at the level you're, at district-wide, you're working with staff and I know there's a slide that you have at the end of your piece and I see you smiling already.
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This is one of those times when I'm like, oh man, I wish we were doing video.
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But when we think about increasing hope levels among staff and you talk about there being accountability, partners and social pieces, can you speak to that slide in particular, because that is really going to resonate.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Thank you for asking.
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You almost build it into a mental crescendo, if you will, to try to get folks to really be like oh, I'm tracking this, Some of the parts that I know.
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It's just human behavior, human nature.
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I embed things without them knowing about.
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I like that acronym I learned in graduate studies with WIFM.
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What's in it for me?
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I'm going to get to that slide in a moment, but when I bring up the Netflix documentary Live to 100, right, One of those five blue zones are where my father's family was from, Half of my family's from.
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There People can focus on the climate and they can focus on the nutrition.
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And yes, that's all real.
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But really, when you dig down deep, why do these individuals forget to die?
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They routinely live over 100.
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They don't have any recorded cases, or extremely low, of neurological disorders like Alzheimer's and dementia.
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Number one all these places have a faith in something bigger and beyond themselves.
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Number two their social bonds and relationships are so strong.
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Now I couple it with the loneliness rate in America is up to pandemic levels.
00:21:12.867 --> 00:21:22.915
People are reporting through the Gallup Research Center and through Harvard Business Journal that folks are lonely.
00:21:22.915 --> 00:21:32.843
One out of every five Americans are reporting that I go about my duties, I do my job, I do my duties at home, but internally, inside, I feel lonely.
00:21:32.843 --> 00:21:38.376
I would say in every space I've been in when I'm doing faculty staff trainings, there are people in there.
00:21:38.376 --> 00:21:39.648
They're like he's speaking to me.
00:21:39.648 --> 00:21:47.164
That's exactly how I feel and so, even though it's important I was a free lunch kid as an immigrant coming to this country.
00:21:47.906 --> 00:21:53.404
We have been really educated on socioeconomic status Absolutely, country.
00:21:53.404 --> 00:21:55.088
We have been really educated on socioeconomic status Absolutely.
00:21:55.088 --> 00:22:00.526
But that's not the only source of poverty, of being hungry, of being perhaps homeless, of food and house insecurity.
00:22:00.526 --> 00:22:02.150
I get that, that's real.
00:22:02.150 --> 00:22:17.415
But we forget sometimes the poverty that's around us of staff members, of colleagues, of friends, of students, of families who feel unwanted, staff members of colleagues, of friends, of students, of families who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for, isolated and lonely and, quite frankly, that's a poverty of the soul.
00:22:17.415 --> 00:22:18.938
People can make the argument.
00:22:18.938 --> 00:22:23.501
That's even more excruciating, perhaps, than some of the tangible things we need.
00:22:23.501 --> 00:22:26.213
That's debatable, but that's also just as real.
00:22:26.213 --> 00:22:33.666
So we build up to this, we talk about how it's working in places and what's the reality in our society, in our communities today.
00:22:33.666 --> 00:22:49.772
Then I bring them to the slide, which is an incredible quote from Christopher Emdin, and the quote is the kind of teacher you'll become is directly related to the kind of teachers you associate with.
00:22:50.496 --> 00:22:53.867
That teaching is a profession where misery does more than just love company.
00:22:53.867 --> 00:22:56.574
It recruits, seduces and romances.
00:22:56.574 --> 00:23:02.219
It Avoid people who are unhappy and disgruntled about the possibilities for transforming education.
00:23:02.219 --> 00:23:06.010
They are the enemy of the spirit of the teacher.
00:23:06.010 --> 00:23:08.921
I can sum that up with negative people.
00:23:09.402 --> 00:23:13.446
If you're consistently showing up in a negative state, I always make people laugh.
00:23:13.446 --> 00:23:24.746
If you show up as Mr or Mrs Cranky Pants frequently, you attack and neutralize hope and that's not good for your health or the health of the people that are around you.
00:23:24.746 --> 00:23:25.888
So we have them.
00:23:25.888 --> 00:23:28.214
I know we have family members like that.
00:23:28.214 --> 00:23:31.007
Hey, I love you, but I have to love you from a distance.
00:23:31.228 --> 00:23:38.119
I can't spend much time with you because micro neurons and co-regulation are super real.
00:23:38.704 --> 00:23:46.214
It's one thing, Krista, if I'm like, all right, I'm either venting or okay, now I need to wrestle through this, I'm looking for some solutions, that's okay.
00:23:46.846 --> 00:23:52.218
But if I'm always coming and talking about how my job stinks, this is going on all that.
00:23:52.218 --> 00:24:13.407
If I'm spending like more than five minutes with you and I'm at that state you start co-regulating with me, unless you excuse yourself, Mirror neurons in our brains activate and we start mirroring one another, which is so powerful powerful when we are in a regulated state.
00:24:13.407 --> 00:24:17.540
We can guide a kid or someone else with just enough support by how we show up our presence to help them manage their emotional state.
00:24:17.540 --> 00:24:21.894
We can easily say I love this person or I love my coworker.
00:24:21.894 --> 00:24:30.535
But truly, if my disposition and my countenance frequently is not a positive state, I'm neutralizing and diminishing hope levels in you.
00:24:30.535 --> 00:24:35.411
I'm having a direct impact on you and it's not good for anybody's health.
00:24:35.411 --> 00:24:40.148
It leads to inflammation, which then eventually leads to the diseasing process.
00:24:40.148 --> 00:24:45.909
That's some fascinating stuff to really consider and know if I really care about you and I really love you.
00:24:45.909 --> 00:24:54.608
What am I doing to consistently show up in a way that's encouraging, inspiring and hopeful and, at the very least, not negative or neutral?
00:24:56.894 --> 00:25:08.886
We've had conversations and every time we talk, I have new ahas and new conditions, and it's wanting to not push away the people who are negative.
00:25:08.886 --> 00:25:14.689
But there's a balance there, too, with your own boundaries, your own health and wellbeing.
00:25:14.689 --> 00:25:19.931
That leads me to being able to have courageous conversations with people that you're around saying.
00:25:19.931 --> 00:25:26.148
Here's what I'm seeing and hearing specific descriptive information.
00:25:26.148 --> 00:25:27.711
This isn't healthy.
00:25:27.711 --> 00:25:32.680
I care about you, I want you to be well, and here's what I'm noticing.
00:25:32.680 --> 00:25:36.133
And I want me to be well and here's the patterns that I'm seeing.
00:25:36.133 --> 00:25:37.998
How close are you to this person?
00:25:37.998 --> 00:25:45.371
Is this person somebody that you do need to step away from for a bit, or somebody that you care about deeply and you want to have that courageous conversation?
00:25:45.371 --> 00:25:56.372
And it leads me to think about the differences between empathy and compassion compassion, where empathy is in the feelings, but compassion is action.
00:25:57.114 --> 00:26:20.942
The piece that comes back to me again about hope is that it is feeling but it's action at the same time absolutely I didn't know all of this until talking, continuing to learn from you yeah, and I really love the way you've always explained that.
00:26:21.363 --> 00:26:21.983
I've learned from you.
00:26:21.983 --> 00:26:25.157
The compassion piece, right the action, just that simple definition.
00:26:25.157 --> 00:26:28.053
I had a different definition but I really like yours.
00:26:28.053 --> 00:26:29.355
Yours really makes sense.
00:26:29.355 --> 00:26:33.711
It's putting hands and feet to it because empathy is a good place.
00:26:33.711 --> 00:26:44.700
The science shows that when there's empathy between individuals, that doesn't mean I agree with you, but I understand you and I view you with value and worth and belonging.
00:26:44.700 --> 00:26:47.818
That changes even our neurophysiological states.
00:26:47.818 --> 00:27:10.718
Empathy really has the potential and the opportunity to heal and save lives because it really has such a state where it at the moment can pause someone's cortisol and adrenaline of being in that fight flight freeze mechanism that's always on the hamster wheel for some people because of their challenging traumatic event or current events.
00:27:10.718 --> 00:27:28.082
That's still happening and we have such incredible opportunity with how we show up to push that back and really help people with chemicals like oxytocin, serotonin and dopamine, just of our presence.
00:27:28.082 --> 00:27:30.476
That's important for educators to remember.
00:27:30.476 --> 00:27:32.703
It really puts you on the hook to think about.
00:27:33.266 --> 00:27:40.207
Every interaction matters and every interaction counts, and if I get it wrong let's go back and fix it.
00:27:40.207 --> 00:27:42.574
You said something really important before that.
00:27:42.574 --> 00:27:43.015
You're right.
00:27:43.015 --> 00:27:50.682
You don't want to shun someone, but do you have the relationship with them to take that risk in that relationship and say, hey, I care about you.
00:27:50.682 --> 00:27:51.852
Are you okay?
00:27:51.852 --> 00:27:55.621
Because I've noticed some things and I know that's not what you're about.
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