Maurice Elias Transforms Education

Show Notes

Recorded
02/13/2026 MIN 37 SEC 35

Released
Date 03/04/2026

Episode
#10 Maurice Elias Transforms Education 

Shaping Our
Story shares exemplary leaders’ success to inspire you to thrive. 

In this episode of Shaping Our Story, Louise Krikorian sits down with Dr. Maurice J. Elias, professor of psychology at Rutgers University and a leading voice in social-emotional learning (SEL).

Together, they explore how purpose, character development, and emotional intelligence transform schools and lives. Dr. Elias shares why inspiration matters more than punishment, how helping students discover their strengths can change behavior, and why building SEL skills is essential for long-term success.

Whether you're an educator, parent, leader, or lifelong learner, this conversation will inspire you to build skills, nurture purpose, and create environments where everyone can thrive.

If this episode resonates with you, follow, share, and help spread the impact of SEL

👉 Follow, comment, and share to inspire others.

Information

Louise Krikorian’s outline of questions comes from her years of researching the psychology of learning, motivating students, and researching Dr. Angela Duckworth’s work on Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance (Scribner, 2016). For more information on Dr. Angela Duckworth, you can visit https://angeladuckworth.com/.

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Links

Rutgers.ed

melias@psych.rutgers.edu

edutopia.org

https://psych.rutgers.edu/ssse-certificate/brick-by-brick

www.secdlab.org

https://www.youtube.com/live/m-dTuNCEEUg?si=TBZ3GOkC3NuX-H9M

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Available
on Apple Podcasts and Spotify

Hosted
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Information

Louise Krikorian’s outline
of questions comes from her years of researching the psychology of learning,
motivating students, and researching Dr. Angela Duckworth’s work on Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance (Scribner, 2016). For more information on Dr. Angela Duckworth, you can visit https://angeladuckworth.com/.

 HashTags

#RutgersUniversity #MauriceElias #SEL #AngelaDuckworth #Edutopia #EducationLeadership

Creator: Louise Krikorian

Years Active: 2025

Episodes: 10

Rating: Clean

Hosted with Buzzsprout www.buzzsprout.com

Transcript

Hi, I'm Louise Krikorian, and this is Shaping Our Story where I talk with exemplary leaders about THEIR passion, purpose, and perseverance, to encourage you to thrive.

Today, our guest, Dr. Maurice J. Elias, a Professor of Psychology at Rutgers University, Director of the Rutgers Social-Emotional and Character Development Lab, and Co-Director of the Rutgers Collaborative Center for Community-Based Research and Service. A nationally recognized leader in social-emotional learning and character development, he has received lifetime achievement honors from the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). Dr. Elias is a prolific author, speaker, and advocate whose work advances emotional intelligence, school success, inspiring hope and purpose around the world.

Hello and welcome. Dr. Maurice Elias. It's great to be with you. Yes. It's been a couple of years. Uh, a couple of decades maybe.

Yes. More likely. Yeah. Yes. But we look exactly the same as we did in 1986 when I took your class in Psychology 101 at Rutgers University, where my friend Wendy and I sat sort of like close to the back of the auditorium. Well, that was always my favorite seat when I was, when I was an undergraduate. So, yeah.

But I slowly moved up to the front and then I ended up taking an independent study with you, which was phenomenal. Um, I worked with one of your graduate students. Mm-hmm. Which she was amazing. And then, um, eventually we ended up working together and traveling around the East coast presenting your work to teachers and administrators.

Yep. And, uh, that the stuff that was presented then is just as relevant now. Yeah. Well, I, I find that there's something else that we both have in common is that we both love the New York Yankees. They are a favorite, and in fact, you, you can't see it, but opposite me that I, that I'm looking at is a, uh, frame picture of Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter with a couple of signed Yankee baseballs.

Wow. That dear friend got for me for a birthday. That's great. Well, I will be going to, congratulations on that. I will be going to spring training 'cause we have it right now here in Tampa. Oh yeah. Right. Yeah, that's right. They're, they're arriving very exciting. Yes. Yeah. Well, you also love your grandchildren.

Yes, very much. You present and conduct research around the world. You teach, uh, psychology at Rutgers University with a social emotional and character development lab. You also have a blog with Edutopia. And that states there that I know that you've written several books. You did invite me to write a chapter in one of your books.

Thank you so much. But you have a book for young children called Talking Treasure. And on top of that, you also started a leadership, a webinar called Brick by Brick. Now, with all of that work, what would you say is your greatest passion or your greatest interest? I think my greatest interest and, and it's a passion, is developing, uh, materials of different kinds that people can bring into their lives to make their lives better, more enriching, more fulfilling, greater potential for them to achieve their goals.

And you know that, that's why I work in so many different formats. Because people need to be reached in a lot of different ways, and I've got a passion for figuring out how to do that. Uh, you know, many academics are able to communicate well within the academic discipline, but as a colleague once said to me, how many people read an academic journal article, you know, maybe your family members and two or three other people. Um, but when you get something, uh, on, in an Edutopia blog or uh, an op-ed piece that's in a newspaper or a webinar, you can capture hundreds and hundreds and thousands of people and, and that's really my passion.

So you started teaching psychology at Rutgers in 1979, which is the same year that your first daughter was born. You were already working in clinical psych, which is treatment. So on one side, that's treatment. But then with your first daughter being born, you decided to start working in prevention and you were learning more about early childhood development and you switched to prevention in schools and parenting. 

But what I'm really curious about is, was it a 5-year-old Maurice that knew I wanna study behavior and I wanna bring this to a lot of people. At what age did you know that you wanted to study psychology? 

Um, probably not until my senior year of college. And the only reason that I studied psychology was because I had a major in something. I had not chosen a major yet as of my senior year. And my choices were English, history, philosophy, or psychology. I could have majored in any one of those. And the other three, uh, other than psychology would've been more intrinsically interesting to me.

But, uh, those disciplines seemed to only lead to a job in academia, and I had no interest in a job in academia. So I chose psychology. But while I was, uh, an undergraduate, I never, um, I never engaged in any clinical work. Uh, I didn't have, uh, a huge interest in understanding people in depth. Um. I was interested in events, I was interested in politics.

I was interested in what was going on in the world around us, 'cause now, you know, we're talking about the seventies, um, more than I was interested in individuals, uh, which is why I gravitated toward the field of community psychology. Hmm. Because that's the area of psychology that focuses on prevention, focuses on systems, focuses on our social structures.

And, uh, and, and has an interest in how do we promote wellbeing and health and not just, uh, reduce symptoms. Mm-hmm. That's kind of how I found my way into psychology. It was, uh, not a, not a direct, intentional path.

Okay. Well, I kind of found psychology because I thought I wanted to study education and um, I wasn't really happy with one of the first education classes I took, so I started going more towards psychology and you were one of my first professors in psychology, and I don't know if you know it or not, but that made a big impact. I mean, considering the fact that I took the independent study course with you and then I ended up working with you. Um, and then you introduced me to Myrna Shure, who was your mentor. You were my mentor. She was yours and then she became mine and she was in Philadelphia. Then I went on to the University of Pennsylvania because of all of these connections. Yeah, but so you know who inspired me? It was you and Myrna Shure. 

Who inspired you? 

Well, I, I actually had some inspiration from a friend of my parents. Her name was, uh, Paulina Fernandez, and my parents met her and her husband, Hector, who worked for the United Nations in, um, just through circumstances relating to immigration and Paulina worked with Dr. Stella Chess and Chess, Thomas and Birch were the people who were most responsible for bringing the concept of temperament into public discussion and conversation.

And so Paulina Fernandez was just somebody that I admired tremendously. And I'd see her only in informal situations. She, she never rare, she rarely talked work, uh, in my presence, but just the way she conducted herself and her inquisitiveness and the questions she would ask, uh, it was something that really, really inspired me and I think that motivated  me to wanna go on into higher education and learning, You know, no one in my family had ever gone into college. Uh, very few people had graduated high school. So, uh, but, but Paulina obviously had done all that and she had her doctorate and so she sort of opened up some possibilities for me that I otherwise wouldn't have thought about.

And at what point in your life did you meet her? 

Uh, she knew my parents from before I was born, so I had met her very early in life. Oh, wow. And yeah, so, uh, our, our, you know, my family grew up with her family. I mean, her, her kids who are now obviously grown, um, were, were, you know, they were kids that I played with. Um mm-hmm. So, yeah. So it was a, it was a very long standing relationship. 

That's, so that sort of gave you a foundation then?  It did. It did. Because you know, I was born in 1952. Mm-hmm. Um, and I, I, we knew and interacted with the family, you know, during all the years that I was in, uh, elementary school, junior high school. College. Yeah. 

Very interesting. So, um, I was trying to find out where you grew up. I know you went to college in Queens and then you, you went on to UConn, the University of Connecticut. Mm-hmm. So did you grow up in the New York City area? 

Mm-hmm. I was born in the Bronx. Okay. I went to elementary school in the Bronx for a couple years. Then we moved to Queens and went, finished out, uh, elementary school, middle school, what was junior high school and high school in Queens. went to Queens College. And then went to UConn, right? 

I actually presented your program at UConn.I was like, yes. Well, a lot. A lot of intersecting circles. Definitely. And you were in an interview with Classcraft, and I'll put that link in the show notes. And you had said that we often neglect purpose, and Dr. Angela Duckworth talks about purpose. She wrote a book called Grit in 2016. She's at my alma mater, my other alma mater besides Rutgers. Mm-hmm. The University of Pennsylvania. Mm-hmm. 

And I was just really curious what you believe your purpose to be. 

I think my purpose really is to, uh, to do the kinds of things I've been doing, to, to be a, uh, a skill builder and really to be a hope inspirer. Uh, you know, I feel like I've been very fortunate in my life.

I've had a lot of supports, family supports, friend supports, material supports, and I've seen and worked with many kids who have not had that. Yeah. And there's absolutely no reason why they should not have, except for accidents of birth and location and bias and prejudice. I mean, there are all these things, um, are separating kids from success that they should have. And, and, you know, it's more and more obvious to me, uh, let me take a step back and just connect with something you said earlier. You were talking about the, the role of purpose. One of the things that we had kids do is write what we call purpose essays.

Essays about their own sense of purpose. Hm. And teachers were very resistant to this idea because they felt it was one more thing they would have to look at, but they integrated it into their regular assignments. And so as part of Language Arts in this, uh, in six Jersey City, New Jersey middle schools, kids all wrote about their sense of purpose and the teachers were flabbergasted by what they read.

Wow. They said that these essays were X-rays into the soul of the child. Yes, yes. That they had not seen before. Yeah. And revealed their aspirations, revealed their potential, revealed their sense of possibilities. And reading those essays myself, I, I mean, I wasn't as surprised as the teachers were, but, but reading those essays cumulatively made me realize what the society loses by not allowing more people to reach their positive purpose because most of these kids had this sense of positive purpose, wanted to contribute to music, to civil rights, to medicine, uh, all fields. And yet, if you ask them, most of them would say they didn't expect that they actually would.

Oh my goodness. And statistically they would be accurate. Hmm. But they had the potential. So, uh, so I see myself as being mission driven, if you will. Mm-hmm. To help as many kids as possible to have access to what they need in order to reach their potential. And a key part of that is their own social, emotional and character development. Mm-hmm. And the opportunity to reflect on their sense of purpose and, um, and, and own it and feel like they can reach it. 

It's, it's like the golden key. I, I think so. Uh, you know, I, I'm, I'm finding it no less relevant to anything I do, even with adults in organizational contexts. Mm-hmm. Uh, having a shared sense of purpose seems to catalyze many other good things happening.

Mm-hmm. Not to mention, when you have a shared sense of purpose, it catalyzes your own growth. It catalyzes your own commitment to learning more, to being better. Why? Not just for yourself, but because you have this sense of purpose that you can help attain if you bring more to it. So yeah, we find we've, we've really found, and we've done some research that supports this, um, the idea that adding purpose into the mix is important because you can have a lot of skills as an individual, but if you don't think they're going any place mm-hmm. You're not gonna put them to, to use. Mm-hmm. And if you do think they're going someplace well then you not only wanna put them to use, you wanna improve them. Mm-hmm. 

So, and if, if you told us, you told a story in another interview where, um. A student felt a sense of purpose in school because she was gonna help braid other children's hair. And she felt like, okay, now I can go to school because now I know that I have a purpose because I'm gonna help these other children. Right. And just having that sense of purpose in school gives children that sense of, okay, I'm, I want to go, number one, but I'd really like to ask parents the same question, and I'd like to ask teachers the same question and the administrators and the counselors and the cafeteria workers and the bus drivers. I just see it as a whole, like you said, you were studying systems like a whole community.

Right. Well, you know, when the, when, when a school as a community has its own purpose mm-hmm. And, and everybody understands it, then all of a sudden everybody's job becomes more important because it's all part of a greater whole. Right. 

And I just wanna make a friendly amendment to the story you just told. Okay. The, the girl in question was a girl who was having extraordinary behavior problems. Mm-hmm. And not only did she not have, not have a positive reason to come to school, her reason to come to school seemed to be to disrupt everything.

Right. And this, this is the, the, the difference between treating a problem and providing inspiration. Mm-hmm. And so for this, this girl had been through numerous treatments and behavioral programs and all that kind of stuff, but what she didn't have was anything that tried to inspire her. Mm-hmm. And so, identifying this skill, which in her case was braiding hair.

You know, it wasn't math, it wasn't science, it wasn't Language Arts. It was braiding hair. But identifying that skill and giving her the opportunity to do that and seeing that when she misbehaved, she lost the opportunity to do that. Mm-hmm. Was transformative for her. Hmm. Right. And she had a, she now had a purpose in being in that school.

Now, you know. Yeah. Most teachers would say that I want my students' purpose to be math or science or something connected to, to academics. But the reality is that once students are committed to being in school, they'll learn the other stuff. Right. But their commitment to being there, it doesn't have to be based on that stuff.

Right. Gotta be based on something. Could be art. Mm-hmm. Could be physical education. Mm-hmm. Could be, could be dance, it could be a lot of things, right. But gotta be something, something that's real to them. 

So, so speaking of that, um, what was your biggest professional failure and what did you learn from it?

I'd say my biggest professional failure had been in, uh, in the, uh, awful domain of grant getting, oh, um, mm. My biggest professional failure was a National Institute of Mental Health grant early on in my career that I worked very hard to get. And, uh, we were, we had a site visit from, from the NIMH grant folks.

Mm-hmm. And they really liked the work that we've been doing in the schools around problem solving and prevention and all that. But they said that in order to get funding, we would have to say that we were gonna prevent something specific. We were gonna prevent anxiety, we were gonna prevent suicide.

Right. But we had no evidence to suggest that the work that we did prevented something specific. Mm-hmm. That what we were doing is strengthening the kids. And as you strengthen the kids, you, you prevent potentially a lot of things from happening. Right, right. But we couldn't name one of them responsibly.

So we didn't get the funding and, and, and a lot had gone into it and a lot of relationships, uh, built around it and, and all that. And it took a little while to recover from that. But, um, you know, one of the, one of the things that people will tell you about me is that I, I have a certain amount of perseverance.

Mm-hmm. And soo, uh, we began to cultivate sources other than federal sources because it was clear that in order to get the federal funds, we were gonna have to compromise on integrity. Right. And that that wasn't happening. Right. So we developed relationships with private foundations and, um, and with those private foundations came greater latitude to do the work we wanted to do.

Mm-hmm. Uh, so, uh, that, that setback pushed us, pushed me in particular to, uh, find, uh, better situations, which we did fine. Good. 

Do you, do you think that your work in this field comes naturally to you?

Um, I, I'd say yes and no. I'm, I'm not inherently a people person. Yeah. All of our curriculum activities involve some kind of a sharing circle or some opening exercise or some, some, uh, uh, you some icebreaker or something like that. Yeah. And, and, and we always have, I hate that personally. I, I can't stand it.

I never knew. I, I, I would, uh, you given a choice. I wouldn't participate. Oh my gosh. My, I know it's good. I know it's appropriate, I know it's value, but given a choice. Wow, yeah. That wouldn't be what I'd be doing. Yeah. So, so, uh, so, so in that sense, it doesn't come naturally to me. Mm-hmm. But other elements of it do come naturally to me.

The, the curriculum development, intervention development. Mm-hmm. Intervention implementation. Um, you know, I see situations in my brain already starts to think about how this could happen, how that could happen. Right. Uh, I, I had a colleague earlier in the day, I got an email from a colleague who wanted to share with me, uh, what he did.

And what he did was extraordinary. He created the lyrics to a song about peace, and then he used this AI program called Suno. Mm-hmm. To make that, those lyrics into a country and western song. Right. Now, he doesn't sing, he doesn't play any instruments. Right. But, but I heard this, this song, which sounded like it was from a country and western star that he did.

Right. So, you know, that was great. But the, the second I heard it, I said, this has to be turned into a lesson plan. Oh. This has to be turned into something that any high school student could do also. That they could develop their lyrics and all of a sudden put it into a song that could be put out onto the internet.

And so that's just, just, that's just the way my mind went. Yeah. And, and goes so, so in some, some of, some aspects of it come naturally to me. Mm-hmm. And some don't, the, the, some of the research stuff, I'm not a math person. Mm-hmm. Yeah. A lot of, a lot of math. You have to take calculus in order to get into, into the program.

Well,  not to mention, you've gotta have a, an increasing amount of statistical sophistication. Mm-hmm. And training. None of that comes naturally to me. No. Um, but you know, you have to do it. 

Right. But you don't, you don't give up easily when things get hard. No, no. Like, no. Yeah, yeah. I don't, I don't. No, no. 

Well, one of your contributions includes your evidence-based work with the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning, which is called CASEL. And I know that you work around the world, which I find amazing. 

So with all of your work, what's the one thing that keeps you inspired?

I think the, the success of it. The reception that it gets. Um, I, I, I feel like I'm on the right track. Mm-hmm. And I find that very, uh, encouraging. Mm-hmm. And so, uh, so, you know, these, these things have a way of building on each other. One opportunity leads to another opportunity, leads to another opportunity.

Um, so, so it's the appreciation of the work and, uh, the opportunities to continue to do it, to reach more people. Mm-hmm. Um, one of the places that I've had a good working relationship with in the last six, eight years is Singapore. Mm. Now, you know, how would I have ever imagined. Oh. So, you know, a colleague of mine who works with me in Singapore, Dr. Ed Dunkelblau.

Oh my goodness, I haven't heard his name in a long time. Yeah, he's wonderful. Yes, he is. And we just came back from a, a week long visit to Singapore working with the Ministry of Education in November. And as we were on the flight home, we basically looked at each other and we, and we just said, could we possibly imagine that two boys from the Bronx, 'cause he's also from the Bronx, that two boys from the Bronx would just have spent a week with one of the most impressive countries in the world where they were listening to us tell them how to improve their education system. Right. When their education system is one of the top education systems. Hmm. So it's things like that that kind of just mm-hmm. Keep you. Keep you engaged, keep you in the game, keep you going. Yeah. 

Well, I was gonna ask you, what do you hope to do next? 

Uh, I don't, I don't think, uh, I have any qualitatively new plans. I think I'm interested in continuing the track, um, that I'm on. I, I, I think that we have yet to reach a critical mass of people who believe this work is important to the point where we don't have to worry about it being threatened every minute. And you know, we've had recent setbacks. 

There are some states where you can't use the word social emotional learning. You can't use those words. Can't use SEL. Hmm. Um, and this is very sad because it means that those children in those states are gonna be deprived. Right. Of something that's gonna make a very big difference in their lives and will put them at a competitive disadvantage for jobs and education in the future. Yeah. So as long as we have those situations, um, I'm, I'm motivated to stay in the game.

Okay. All right. And that's, you know, that's my current plan. I, as long as Edutopia will have me, I hope to continue to, to write for them. Um. As long as I have something to say, I hope to continue to publish, uh, books and as long as people will listen, I will, uh, be involved in doing webinars.

So what would you say is your best advice for someone starting their own journey? 

I would say if you're starting your own journey, you have to not think of it as your own journey. That you need to be gathering people with you who are going to be on the journey with you. Uh, I have been blessed over the course of my career. Mm-hmm. With fantastic colleagues. I've had tremendous students, I've had great colleagues, and I've never felt as if I've been doing this work on my own or that the journey was my own.

Mm-hmm. And, you know, sometimes it's, it's easy to think that you have to take all the credit and that if you collaborate with people, uh, people won't know what you do. That's those, those are superficial concerns. Mm-hmm. Um, you will, through your collaborations, also be seen for the individual work that you do.

Mm-hmm. But collaboration makes you wiser. It makes you have a better sense of perspective. It brings new ideas to you that you otherwise might not have. You learn that collaborators can sometimes cover your weaknesses with their strengths and in just so many ways, I would say you wanna find people to be with you on the journey or, and certainly be open to gathering people with you on the journey.

Mm-hmm. That's great advice. Sort of like find your team. Yeah. That's great. And that could, that could go for any type of work that you do. Absolutely. Anything. Yeah. Yep, yep. 

So what's one thing that you do consistently every day as a routine? Because I've heard you talk about how important structure is. Mm-hmm. So this talks about structure, but it also talks about dedication, which is part of grit. 

Yeah. Yep. Well, I, I would say, um, being on the treadmill. I, um, I've, I've started to make sure that I hit those 10,000 steps every day, had some health issues last summer, and that. Mm-hmm. Just sort of reinforced my motivation.

Yeah. Um, but I do try to get on the treadmill that we have in our house, um, every day for about 50 minutes. And that gives me a, a good headstart on my 10,000 steps. And on that treadmill, as I'm doing my steps, I, I'm able to read. Mm-hmm. And so it becomes a, a very positive time. Mm-hmm. For me, uh, productive, positive health, giving life, giving knowledge, giving.

It's good 50 minutes. Good. That's great to hear. I'm, I'm really happy about that 'cause it's important that we, you know, you give so much to other people, but you also need to take care of yourself, so that's for sure. I'm really happy to hear that. Yeah. 

So I was wondering if while you're on the treadmill, you're answering your emails.  Never, but is that a good way for people to reach you is via email, or would it be better for them to go to a website?

Best, best way to reach me is via email melias@psych.rutgers.edu. 

And, and people can learn about my work, uh, from the website of, of our lab, which is www.secdlab.org. 

And, uh, that lab is, is the gateway to other various projects that I'm involved with that you can learn about from that website. Um. And one thing that is the newest thing that we've done that we're very excited about is the development of an online course for educational leaders.

Course is called Brick by Brick. A leader's guide to bringing social, emotional and character development to your school. 

And it's, it's a way of anyone who is a leader or an aspiring leader to get started and understand what does it take to transform a school, to be a school of social emotional competence and character.

It's within any administrator's reach to do this. Um, but a lot of times, uh, it hasn't been part of their coursework. Uh, they're too busy, whatever. Um, this is a relatively brief course that people can take. Uh, it's five modules, 1.5 hours each, and it will really get you started down the path. Being able to build social, emotional and character development into your school. 

I like the fact that at the very beginning you were talking about how you wanna reach as many people, and I, I used to think of, you know, the classroom, elementary school, you just have 24 students for the entire day. Then I moved up to middle school where I had 120 students for an entire day. Then in college I taught, and that was about 24 students.

But I've always thought that having a podcast would be the largest classroom. Mm. And having a webinar is the best way for you to reach so many people that wouldn't be able to come to Rutgers University and take one of your classes. Yeah, that's exactly it. That's exactly it. People can, people can't park when they come to Rutgers University, but they can get on Brick by Brick wherever they are, on their phone, on their tablet, on their laptop, on their desktop, and uh, and do it at their, it's completely asynchronous.

They could do it at their leisure. Mm-hmm. Good for some people that's what they can do. And I also like what you write on edutopia.org. Well, I hope most people know about Edutopia, uh, all the tickets you've paid for Star Wars things. Um, you know, George Lucas could have done a lot of things with his money.

But he chose to set up this educational foundation, and Edutopia is a phenomenal source of vetted information for problem based learning, character education, civic education, civic engagement, service learning, all those skills that we know are so important for kids to have. Um. Mm-hmm. And it's the one stop shopping center for that.

And I'm privileged to have some opportunity to put some things in there, uh, every, every bunch of weeks or so. 

Well, thank you so much. I've been doing that for a couple of decades now, actually. Yeah. Yeah. It's, yeah. And that's wonderful. And they've, they've taught you how to hone your skills too, which is wonderful. Well, that's for sure that that is for sure. 

Yeah. Well, I just wanna thank you for your time and for helping develop, to develop my character. I really do appreciate all of the work that you do, and I, I look forward to working with you again. That's something that I wanna find as a way to do that. So. 

Well, this has been a, this has been a, a terrific reconnection. Yeah. And I'm so, so pleased to see that you're doing this podcast. Yes. And, uh, to be part of it.

Yeah. Thank you again. I look forward to seeing you soon. My pleasure. Be well. Bye.

Thank you for joining us at Shaping Our Story and thanks to our guest,  Dr. Maurice Elias, whose consistent work as a skill builder helping others achieve their goals and inspiring hope is proof that he combines his passion with perseverance. If you enjoyed this week’s episode click on follow and leave a comment to inspire us or suggest a guest. And remember…. If this made you think, please share the thought. See you next time.