RootedSparks

If you have a teenager starting a first job this fall, you probably remember your own. Someone showed you the register or the stockroom. Then the training ended, and the real questions began.

Who do I ask?
Is it okay to say I don't know?
What do they mean by "just jump in"?

Gearing Up was written for that part.
It begins with getting hired and carries a first-time worker through the first weeks on the job. It is a workbook meant to be used, not just read. The pages in this post are a few from inside.

Marisa was one of the first people to read it. She picked it up just after her summer job ended, while the experience was still fresh. What she told us has stayed with me:

"I had my first job this summer, and pretty much everything from the guide showed up during my job.

A guide cannot remove the awkward moments from a first job. That is not the goal. It can help a sixteen-year-old recognize what is happening, understand what is expected, and make a stronger next move.
Gearing Up turns twenty years of watching people learn these lessons into something a teenager can use before the first shift, not only after the mistake.

Gearing Up is available in paperback on Amazon under Chris M. Lomax, or learn more at rootedsparks.com/professional.

If you have a teenager heading into a first job, what is one thing you wish someone had told you before yours?

For the past year, most of what we've shared here has been about the classroom: helping kids pause, read a situation, and choose what to do next.

This summer we took the same idea a few years down the road, to the first job.

RootedSparks Professional Studio is a series of workbooks for the years when someone is starting out and nobody hands them a manual. Gearing Up is for the first job, from finding an opening through the first weeks on the shift. Showing Up is for the first ninety days in a career role. A third guide is close behind.

They came out of a simple observation from twenty years of hiring and managing people: the ones who struggled early were rarely short on skill. They just hadn't been shown how work works yet.

Both are available as paperbacks on Amazon under Chris M. Lomax, or learn more at rootedsparks.com/professional. We'll share a few pages from inside over the next few weeks so you can get a feel for them.

If someone in your life is starting their first job, what's one thing you hope they'll know before their first day?

"In most classrooms, about 90% of students want to learn. But a small number can consume most of the room's energy."

A teacher shared that with us. The result? A 45-minute lesson becomes 15 minutes of real instruction — and even kids who aren't acting out lose learning time.

Part 2 of our series looks at the piece schools can't fully control: what happens before kids walk into the classroom.

Try one thing this week. Pick a shared space — dinner table, car, grocery store — and practice one voice at a time. If someone interrupts, pause and reset. Calmly. Every time.

Full post 👇

Academic recovery is getting most of the attention.
But in classrooms, many schools are seeing something else underneath it.
This piece looks at the gap we don’t measure—and why it may be slowing everything else.

What Happens to the Students Who Don’t Get the “New School System”? The cohort caught between pandemic loss and the next school model

Kristin and I want to say thank you for all your support throughout 2025. We’re incredibly grateful for this community, and we’re so excited for what’s ahead in 2026.

We’ve been a bit quiet lately because we’ve been deep in product development, and the pivot we made was absolutely worth it. Right now, we’re lining up school pilots, and our RootedSparks for Schools program (Elementary, Middle, and High School) will be going to market over the next few months.

We can’t wait to share more with you soon. Happy New Year!!