EP: 08 | Building Amazing Student & Staff Culture

Meet Joe.

He is a family man who learned about learning by being curious. Since childhood, he has always been motivated by challenging himself. Heck, he was 1 of 10 kids. . . one could say he was born into a challenge! But he discovered his love of learning in an outside-the-box way. School for him was too impersonal, routine, and disconnected from reality. He would run home after school and spend hours in his backyard canyon creating forts, designing go-karts, and taking thins apart.

He discovered that learning is personal to the learner.

He has been a part of ten different educational spaces - with roles from Instructional Assistant to Campus Principal - he has developed a deep passion for changing the way we "Do School" and ultimately Learning.

States & School Districts can't 'buy' culture. Joe has mastered the art of creating amazing and dynamic school cultures and now, is working at Thrively to take his passions to the next level.

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:04

Welcome, everyone to the Rockstar teacher podcast. I'm Brian. And I'm Charlie. You know, Charlie, today, we get an interview, an amazing individual. And he used to be a principal of a school in San Diego called design 39. And what I noticed immediately when I walked into a school that his school was instantly just different because of the culture that he's created. And since then, he's stepped into a new role at thrive Li and where he is the Senior Vice President of education, I believe, yeah, and, and thrive. Lee is a company that offers software and resources to teachers, parents, for you to discover strengths within your students, and then give you curriculum and programs and activities that they can use to capitalize on their strengths. Meanwhile, also able to learn all the other things that you guys teach in your classroom. So they're really trying to recreate an energize teaching well, and how convenient for teachers to be able to, you know, sit their kids down for 30 minutes. And, you know, every teacher, their dream is to hit their kids in the sweet spot with the with the activities that are going to resonate with them and get them pumped about learning. And here is a tool that they can use with their students that really allows them to reach their students where their students are 100%. So let's jump into today's episode with Joe. Joe, welcome to the Rockstar teacher podcast. Oh, right here. Every time I see you and hear from you, man, you are you are literally a ninja. I try. I try. You know, I try to sneak around. It doesn't always work. But I'm stoked to have you here because we interviewed you last last time. But what ended up happening is well, COVID ended up happening by the time the episode was ready to hit publish the world completely has changed. And you come from a unique background that you are a principal of an amazing school. I remember walking into your school. And actually before I even walked into your school, I knew that it was different because I heard music playing like a concert. Like as I was leaving my car walking to the front entrance, and I'm like, Okay, this is going to be awesome. You know, what's cool about that is the kids pick the music. I mean, literally, like they get to pick the music that says hey, instead of hearing that bell, you know, we all heard when we grew up, and we're a kid and like, freaked you out? Like why not have some really awesome music that just like energizes you says, You know what, I want to go to that space. So we had this this conversation. It was really funny. That kid was standing at the gate, you know, we open them up so that kids can come in. And and the kid ran in and he said freedom. And his mom said freedom as she went the other way. So they gave us a freedom walking into school. So that was awesome. So yeah. Just the other way around, right? I just I just pictured the Mel Gibson movies, you know, frayed? Yeah. I noticed that as soon as I walked in even even the science on the what was the office hours on the front entrance to walking through the halls, seeing how the students greet, not just one another about how they greeted me, watching the staff, Brit come in and engage that's another as a speaker, I can usually tell the dynamics of a school, as the students are entering into the assembly on seeing how the staff interact with the students have even just a different class. And the dynamic, are they sitting there being like, Oh, this is boring or not, but your your staff was like, you know, it was was a level 10. And that just comes from the culture that you created within your within your school. So when you were working on creating that culture, what was some of the things that you really wanted to hit home? on when you give me way too much credit? First of all, it's about people, right? So you have to have just really good people on how do you get the best out of people. And it starts, like you said, with culture, but kind of funny when you talk about office, we don't have an office, we call it a welcome center. And it says instead of office hours, it says enter for a smile. And so that's why it fits perfectly with like the work that you're doing, connecting the dots back to you know, the thing about making kids feel just awesome about who they are as an individual, and then ensuring that we're supporting the people because they're the most critical asset that we have on campus. And for the students at your school. You really wanted to anchor in every single student that no matter where they're coming from no matter what strengths they have, that everyone is welcome, and they play a positive role in your school community. And the most important skill that everyone has is how they treat one another that they need to treat everyone with dignity and respect. And that's when we launched the kindness challenge. Now, what was different ways that you used to kind of create that positive student culture within the school? Yeah, when you think about it, I was a kid, I was probably a pretty rough kid, I was the kid that would run out of school and go up in the back Canyon and go play and I couldn't wait to go do something different than school. Because it's typically like, oh, what's wrong with Joe? Like, what's wrong with him? And so I said, Okay, we have to have a different mind. I won't say that mindset. Because mindset means you like you're stuck to me, it's Mike, like a mind flex. So I have this mind flex this idea about thinking different. And the thinking different is language. So if we change the language, we could probably change the conversation specifically to this idea that, imagine if we said, What's strong with you, versus what's wrong wrong with you. And so that's the idea is that if we really look at a strengths based asset based approach to kids, you know that then every kid has a genius. And every kid has a genius inside of them. And then how do we unpack that? Typically, what we say to kids is like, Oof, you're an at risk kid. No, no, it's our responsibility to say you're at promise. Hello, Charlie. That's kind of funny. Right? Right. Yeah. So like, let's just flip the language and start, like having this approach to kids that there actually are good? And what, what is our responsibility to ensure that we can just uncover the goodness within each one of them. And that's why we need kindness ninjas everywhere. So um, Joe, it cracks me up. Because after years in education, the amount of times I hear and even as an adult, the amount of times you hear somebody say, like, hey, just follow your strength, follow your passion, be passionate about it. And you know, you get these kids are 10 to 20 years old, and they're going, what the hell is my strength? What am I passionate about? And we don't help them figure that out. So what's the trick? How do you how do you help a kid figure that out? Not only that, we send them to college, charge them $300,000. And then they're miserable when they get out. To declare a major when they're 17. What we've done is just prepare kids to get into college, not to actually figure out what the heck they want to do with their life. So yeah, the magic starts like the youngest ages. Here's a funny little, little story. So I was at the D school at Stanford. And at Stanford, they're having this literally $4,000 conference, and everybody's packed in there at the D school. And on the wall. It was a design process. It starts with empathy. I walk into a first grade class in the next day, it's the same darn thing on the classroom in a first grade classroom for free. Like the way we expect, like, oh, you're gonna learn all this really cool stuff. When you get to college? No, it starts in kindergarten, it starts the first grade. So you just start bringing and, and bring that wonderment and curiosity back into school. I think that's what Sir Ken Robinson really did a nice job about is just like schools killed creativity. So our job is to bring it back. Because it's not that the answers that kids are bringing, typically they're they're learning for the test. We want them to actually learn for the purpose of understanding who they are, what's their identity, and actually be curious. So it's not like I said, What job do they want to have? But what problem might they want to solve? And so it starts really early on of our curiosity, so they should have more questions than they have answers. And then they reach that age, though, that they're like, well, I want answers. I'm a teenager, I'm supposed to have answers. How do I tolerate not knowing? Yeah, I think that's the navigating ambiguity. Don't you think that's what COVID has taught us? Yeah, right. Like, who has answers, we might just have a lot of really good people. Because remember, the smartest person in the room is the room. And that's the cognitive diversity of bringing people together to actually solve the challenge. Like, I don't have to figure it out myself. But I can come with my strength, if you allow me to, like if you let me be in that space with you. So that's the point is that we need more people like you and Brian who are are being champions of kindness, thinking about like when we say social emotional well being what does it actually mean? Like what are we looking for? And so we have to partner with with really wicked good people. Yeah, I remember one of my college classes. I don't remember what class it was specifically. First Day School, the professor walks into the room, and he holds up a wired mouse right. And I feels like decades ago that we use wired mouse's, right? But he holds up a wired mouse and he asked the class, what do Everyone says mouse. And then he goes, would you agree or disagree with this statement, there isn't one person on the planet that can make this mouse from start to finish, and people who agree or disagree. And he says there isn't one single person on the planet that knows how to make this. And it goes, No one knows how to mine the minerals for the put into the circuit boards or to create the plastic to doing the coding to design the computer to do the coding. It's a collaborative effort of over 10,000 people within their respective fields to come together to create something as simple as a mouse. And, you know, his point was is like everyone has a superpower, know what your superpower is, or work to discover what your superpower is. Because when you use your superpowers together, in solidarity, that's when things happen, that's when, you know, things begin to change. And that was his challenge to the class, I'm going to give you group projects. And your goal is not to design the mouse by yourself. Because you won't, you'll fail, you need to figure out the superpowers of your team to create the end result, the end product. And that always stood out to me. And that like a lot of students are asked and getting the feeling that they have to achieve everything and know everything, in order to be happy in order to be successful in order to just be cool and light. And so it's a lot of pressure. But completely like kids are totally stressed out. So I was doing some research because we're thinking about creating a high school, because when we first started with design 39 the parents were like, are these guys gonna be ready for high school? And these were preschool parents, right? And then five years into the gig the parents like, can you create a high school because we kind of need this for our kids? And then they interview? So obviously, the person who's typically not in the room that we're designing school for guess, is the kid, we never bring the kids? Yeah, sorry. It's just like they're never in the conversation. So we actually said, What if we actually talked to kids and say, What would a high school look like? So we brought this one, when one cohort together. And she said she was walking to the nurse's station because you had a big old headache. And then she walked by the sign right by the nurse's station. And it said, 900 kids have a 4.0. And she said, Now I had to go into the nurse's station to get a Xanax, because I couldn't compete. Like seriously, like, we're just totally stressing kids out that they have to compete like I am defined by my GPA. Like that's what's that's what defines me. Now, would you say that, in the in the world of COVID virtual learning, I know that you're in California, where I think a vast majority, if not almost nearly all schools right now are virtual? Do you think that amplifies because as students are online, there's more students that are jumping onto social media. And when they go Instagram and Twitter and tik tok and all of these things, they see what can be described as quote unquote, happiness and quote unquote, successful and for them to now use that lens, that same lens to look at themselves saying, I don't have that, I can't do that. There's no way for me to be happy, or I'll be happy if and when I can achieve that or do that or be like that what I appreciate about you sharing there is that how might we define success? Right, and success for so long has been been equated to stuff. Like how much stuff do I have? Like, am I at the top of my class? And so you're always trying to achieve and someone's always going to be better than you in that space? And that defines the success for you then you never can achieve that. And so you become depressed? versus how might we have a different metrics of success? I heard someone say the other day to me, Hey, Joe, you know what research RIT really is, like, when we go research something. It's actually me search. I'm actually discovering about myself, because I'm going to go research more about those things that I'm not quite sure about yet. And so that's the whole piece that I'm kind of been in my my own space is around truth seeking. My truth seeking how do we get to the truth? And that's there's been a lot of noise in our space recently. Kind of like hijacking what truth is the closest thing I think we can get to it as when people tell a joke. And we can actually kind of unpack that. Maybe some truth there. But that's the journey. I think it's around a belonging when you talk about social media, and how do people feel connected, we want to belong, we want to contribute. We want to be a part of something awesome. And unfortunately, that space has turned a little bit negative. So I know that You have a passion that to inspire and every single child their strengths, and let them discover that and I know you have a new position now, at thrive Lee, and where it's a, it's a software company and a company that helps educators, parents, help their students discover their strengths in a way that will hopefully get them to engage more in learning and make it more fun, because it's something that they genuinely care about how does thrive, we go about providing that for educators, because I know even for me, because students are vastly different. And some of them you can discover what their strengths are right away, because they're super vocal, some of them, it requires a lot more digging, to figure out are they interested in math, science, astronomy, art, language? You know, what is it their thing that they have an a personality, they're an introvert or an extrovert. How does thrive Lee weave through that to help educators discover those strengths and students? I love when you say this idea around learning. So what thrival is really trying to become is to democratize awesome learning experiences. Imagine that. So we think about most places where kids go to get awesome learning experiences, it's after they leave school. So they go to after school enrichment, or they have ASB clubs, or they go to play sports or whatnot. What if we flipped that, that the awesome learning experiences are actually inside the school? And so how do you create the condition for awesome learning experiences? Well, you if you really want to have we talked a lot about equity, like equity based learning. If you don't know the strengths of your students, and they don't understand their own strengths, there's no way you can build on equity. Because you're not, you're then doing a one size fits all to every single kid that you have to fit this mold. And that's my perception of what success should look like. And that's why the system has to be reformulated. And so it's around finding those strengths. That's what Riley does, it starts with with strong with you. And so then we can look at you as an individual and say, you know, what, you actually have gifts and talents, and they were probably mature over time. And so let's like, unpack that together, and define that. And so when you think about grouping, so like when you and Charlie and I get together, we actually look at it, what strengths can we be built upon, and then I'm going to bring my social entrepreneur, you're gonna bring your advocacy, I'm gonna bring my leadership like all of us come with that asset. And so now we see each individual as a contributor to creating something that doesn't exist yet. And so when we say that jobs aren't, we don't know what jobs are going to be there. That's, that's a pile of crap. It's the jobs that we create, the future is the place we mindfully create. So it's the ones that we put kids out there, but what happens is we'll have to wait status quo keeps going. And then the other people who are in charge kind of build out that for us. So we don't want kids to have been numb, like in terms of they just are listening. Like right now, this is a monologue with me talking with you. But when we dialogue, and we actually contribute, we're then going to create something awesome. So what's the biggest roadblock you found with with reaching teachers with that message? It's really around how they have been, I'm going to promise it brainwashed into a system. Right? That works perfectly. There's nothing wrong with the system, just how the system was invented. I saw a funny video the other day that a school put together, it said, like, schools or systems, right? And then they have rows. And then what's what if you're, if you're in a row, like what does that really good for? If you're rowing in a boat in the Vikings time. That's when you really need that skill set. But how we've actually created like school to actually put people in boxes, you makes you wonder why the brainwashing continues into adulthood, right? I mean, I've run programs where you tell, hey, we're going to have a group meeting, and it's going to be in this hotel conference room. And this is how we want the chairs set up. We want them set up in a circle. And the organizers of the room just look at you like you're nuts. They're like no, we do we do rows, we do presentations in rows. And you know that old habits die hard. What do you what do you tell them to kind of break the spell? You know what's interesting? So my wife, she's a second grade teacher, and she allows me to be audacious and crazy. And she's going through that same process. And I said, what was that thing that helped you change your methodology? She said it was room environment. Once I started to change my furniture, I had to start changing my teaching. Because if kids had choice in terms of how they sat did they sit up on a stool? On a beanbag, or they access learning a little bit differently, I had to actually pivot the way I address and kind of bring learning with them into them. So yeah, it's the room environment is actually quite an interesting and powerful tool to pivot people into a new new way of thinking. Now, what are some of the unique discoveries that teachers have had? By using the thrive Lee? process program curriculum? about their students? Yeah, when you look at it, typically, they're funny, like, is this a an LMS? Let me I can't stand acronyms because they make people feel dumb. So LMS is a learning management system. Okay? Doesn't that tell you there's something already wrong there that we're gonna manage your learning? So number one, thrive is not a learning management system. It's an awesome learning experience platform. And so how do you like create conditions where people can think about learning differently? And so when you start to like, it's not an LMS? It's actually like, how do we create awesome learning experiences? Well, it starts with this, let's connect the dots because it can be project based, and it can connect with businesses, you think there's a few businesses that right now that have some problems that kids can engage with. So how to kids not get into this clarity of resources that's inside of Thrive only. And then the big piece, too, is just connecting back? Right now? Everybody's on zoom, right? But what the kids want to know is, do you care about me? Typically, kids can walk down the hall and make connections. And so how do they make connections so primely allows connections to happen engagement to happen, and allows kids to, to really be collaborative in those learning experiences, so that they can contribute with each other. And it starts with their strength. Now, let's poke a little bit behind the scenes how, how is this done? If a teachers saying this sounds great, what's the process look like? Is it Hey, each child needs to fill out a 65 question survey and I'm gonna get a, an Excel spreadsheet with a bunch of you know, 1998 Microsoft graphs and know what's was actually like, it's a very engaged because it was built by to kind of leading neuropsychologists for pediatrics, and they built that specifically for for thriving the kids, it's really engaging, it's like, it's just this idea that it's multimodal, and kids are engaging in this process, that's about 30 minutes. So they get a sense about who they are a very uplifting and enriching kind of sense that, hey, I'm, I'm creative, I am a contributor I'm like, so it gives us portfolio about who they are as an individual. And so then what's powerful in that space is, as you break it out, you can now see who are entrepreneurs who are kids who have a really social mindset, who are kids who really want to have advocacy in kind of that social entrepreneur space. And so now you can start to group kids thoughtfully. And that's the power of Friday. So for grouping right out of the gate, then that's powerful too, because I know when I go in, and Charlie does leadership workshops, and I'll do it with students and some staff is, sometimes I tried to break down the misconception of what is a leader, a lot of people assume a leader isn't a personality, they're the person that is willing to go up behind the podium and shout to the masses and lead the charge, where a leader doesn't have to be that person, a leader could be the person who's silent in the back and be a silent leader. And I think it's also flipping it that every student has a superpower that they can use and, and use it to lead their own journey to success. And that, you know, you don't have to be the social entrepreneur, outspoken extrovert, you might be the more of the analytical thinker, that helps solve problems a little bit differently. I love the way that you use superpower. I think you've said it twice. Typically, that kind of has been hijacked with comics that the superpower is I can fly. But when you think about superpower, like you said, I have a really super powerful brain that is analytic. How am I be able to use that. And so also leadership I love that you brought that forward to Ryan is that leadership is also the ability to step back so others can step up. And so how do you have that understanding around your ecosystem, and what am i contributing? And how am I listening? as I share with you I come in things often, what we ask our students to do as well as come in with a not knowing mind. And so if I'm not sure that I'm able to be really, authentically empathetic in that space, and so then I can actually be inclusive with those and understanding what gifts and talents Do they have. And so we ask kids to ask more. questions so that, you know when have you ever been in researching and you're doing your own research, and you just go down that rabbit hole? Because you're super curious. And all of a sudden, like, you spent an hour and you're like, Why? Why am I in this space? Something happened in there, right? And you got to look back and be like, Huh, it was curious from you. I was like, curious in that space. And so then you start to do some self discovery. And that's when you know a little bit more about yourself, so that you can be audacious and bold in your superpower? For sure, yeah, that not knowing mine reminds me a lot of beginner's mind. Yeah, yeah. This this sense of coming in a at peace with not being attached to your knowledge of whatever history you're bringing to the table, that that can be really intimidating. Especially when you are in a position I My heart goes out to so many teachers these days who who really feel like they're cornered by, you know, maybe a parent body or, you know, students that are that are really putting them against the wall and not necessarily treating them with the respect that we'd hope that they would. I'm really curious, this the strength that we're finding in kids, does that extend to teachers? Can they start to look at like, Hey, this is the let me reconnect with why I got involved in this and find my strength. Again, I think there's a lot of permission seeking right now in education. teachers get into the gig, right? Because they want to go change the world. And then something happens in that space, and they start to get disenfranchised. And it comes back to like, what is the conditions that culture that you talked about, Brian, that the culture is bringing forward, so that there's less permission seeking. So every time that a teacher has to ask a question, to be able to do something, because doing what what is right doesn't require permission. And so what happens though, because of someone permission, seeking that, guess what the teachers do to the kids, because now become idle, and sit and wait and ask for permission. And so what we're trying to do is crack the code on that. So you have to be vulnerable, which is an actual superpower, so that you can say, if I don't know, but it's okay, we're going to try this for and it's our best version yet. And so how do you create the next best version, and the next best version, and so you allow folks to kind of have that grace, Renee brown does a pretty good job of talking about grace, I call it 10%. So your 10% might be my 90%. And so we have to give each other grace that I can move forward at my 10% that little bit, and it's okay. As long as I'm trying to move myself forward, and you're encouraging me in that space. Yeah. And one thing I love is I remember about this is going in to that parent teacher conference in high school, I remember this vividly. And I remember talking to my brother, as we're sitting outside in the car, while mom and dad are talking to all of our teachers. And I remember having the conversation great, they're gonna come out and tell us how horrible we are at all these different things. And I can only imagine what it would be like, if we flipped that conversation, that they're going to come back and tell me how amazing I am with these things. And it completely shifts from what am I not good at? versus what am i great at? And what can I use that my greatness to improve my weaknesses? I'm just laughing and cycling like to know just one more bit, the thing that was getting hooked on is just think about the whole concept. It's a parent teacher conference about you. Which is that they shouldn't be the student led conference that I'm talking about my awesomeness to you. And I'm proving my proof points. I'm showcasing my competency. And I'm telling you what I'm doing in the world and what what advocacy I have in my space. And here's the project that I'm working on. And this is what how I'm doing that. Now. We're gonna sit back and be in the back corner, you know, parent teacher conference. Yeah, or booted to the car. And you don't even know what those talks about. Yeah, so that's what happens. It's like we it's just been invented in a really curious kind of way. So you're spot on, that we want our parents and our allies to kind of actually think and talk about what's smart about us. We also want our students have great agency, so they can do the same. Yeah, that's got to be powerful for teachers because when you see your students having a great time and excelling and actually enjoy learning, then you're not doing the hair pulling out like sit down Let's learn some algebra you know, and be like I in the teachers bind the head knows that the students hate this. They hate teaching it and it's just, it's just not a great environment. But I can only imagine it's also quite liberating for teachers to now be able to teach them way that kids are genuinely interested in wanting to learn, scary and liberating. Because typically, if you want to make that pivot, they've kids have had 10 years of mind numbing, do this, do that. And so when the students have to actually step forward and have agency, they're not quite sure how to do that. So it becomes chaotic. And so how do you navigate through that process to say, like, ah, how do we give kids agency because they had to just sit and get their whole life? And then we wonder why kids can't be thoughtful in their jobs? And they're waiting for the tell me what to do boss? Well, because that's what they had to do is they're been learning for the test. And so we're looking for, for him inside of agency is that, you know, it's scary. And definitely a scary space, because it's ambiguous. And, and, yeah, I want to highlight that a little bit, Joe, because what was going through my mind the last 10 minutes as you sit here, and you tell a kid, you're fantastic at this, you got superpower in this, you got any we know how kids brains function, a lot of times they'll they'll over attach to that message. And they'll get in a fixed mindset about it. And then when they come to the hard moment, that moment of real challenge, where they fail at that. They go, Well, wait a minute, I've been told I've been so good at this for so long. And this is the message that I'm supposed to be superpower. And yet here I am failing. So if if our teachers aren't giving opportunity for agency to the kids and the process, then they're not learning how to push through those moments of those opportunities to fail and then rise again. So I really think that agency is even more important or, or equal importance of the superpower. Yeah, I love that. And this interesting concept that's been in my head two things I want to talk maybe around personalized learning. But we have actually demonized failure, by to a point where we're so averse to it, that you know what, that's where the brilliant moments happen when we go through the other side of that failure. So how about we embrace it, we create conditions where kids are actually dumped into failure, or we give every kid a trophy. I remember going to my daughter's third grade teacher and saying, Please give her something that she gets like a D on this year, I just want her to experience it now. Life, right? Life is filled with turns and twists. And so unfortunately, education has tried to create a straight line with education, like in terms of learning. School has in design 39, kind of wrapping it back to them. So we asked the kids to basically go through a shark tank experience in second grade. Right? And so they're they're pitching their ideas. And here's the kicker. Out of all the kids, only 39 groups go forward, that means two thirds of them do not. So what do they have to do? They have to rewrite a resume that pitch their strengths to the other team to say, How can I be utilizing this space? Like, here's a strength that I have, you're going to need this. So instead of giving this kids a trophy, you leverage that sense of failure as a sense of opportunity. So let's stop demonizing failure. Yeah. And that's important now, because when they when a student grows up into high school, and they don't learn how to fail, and how to look at themselves and deal with that, they internalize that in a much different way. When I do my teacher workshops and keynotes and even for parents, I walk everyone through some, some allusions through my slides, and that they think they're looking at a slide that is a picture of x, until I point out, that's actually a picture of why, right? And then boom, everyone sees it. They're like, Oh, okay, now I see it. Right. And that I do that throughout the entire presentation in and what I highlight with that, is right now and especially in 2020, more than any every year ever, we're surrounded by negativity, we're always reminded that we're not good enough that mediocrity is acceptable. And here's all of the reasons why the things that are going wrong with the world. And for high school students and middle school students, specifically that I noticed is that once they start noticing all the negative things that are around them, well, when they look in the mirror, they look in the mirror with that exact same lens, they start noticing all the things that are wrong with them. And you can't help Also be careful about that as an adult because it impacts adults just as much as it does students and teachers. And by reinforcing what the positive attributes in a student, you're now shining a beacon of light and hope that saying, Yeah, let's let's just, you know, put all the negative aside because there's still things that we can celebrate. And there's still this positive move for that. Like I love how you you mentioned, you know, let's not figure out what you want to do and you grew up, let's figure out what problems you want to solve. And now you're looking at that problem as an opportunity versus a problem. There's a problem. And now I have the opportunity to fix it. And that completely flips the script. I love it. I think there's a lot of good self talk in that what you're, you're chatting about in terms of, you're good enough. So I need to look at myself, I am good enough. So you're able to look at yourself in the mirror and look at all the things and all the warts and pimples we all have. That that is the beauty of humanity. Right? The things that make us unique. Imagine that, right? That's what allows us to be human. And this idea that just go out and be an awesome kindness ninja. Could be nice to people. Yeah. So here's maybe I know, we're probably coming too close. So I might my grandma, she lived to be 96 years old. She was born in 1899. Write quite a bit of time ago, she went through a few things in her life. So she's on her deathbed. And she going in, you know, young adult, start trying to kind of guy that spend time with grandma. And so my question was, like, just give me this enlightenment, like the meaning of life conversation, I was super excited and getting in there. And, you know, ask the question, kind of meaning of life, what is it? And she said, just be a good person. I was kind of deflated, actually, it took me 10 years to unpack that, to what she actually meant was like, pick that person. But that resonated with me for a long time. You know, here she is 96 years old, and her words of wisdom was that. And I can only imagine everything that she's lived through and seen. And at the end of the day, the thing that lets you go to bed at night, is knowing that Yeah, you're you're a good person that you care about one another. It's totally so thrive Lee, I I'm super stoked. And on where the the the impact, that it's going to have the projects that are going to come out of it. And I know you only have a small sample of teachers, what is it like a million? Just a million that are currently using? If anyone out there if a principal, a parent or a teacher is listening right now? Where can they get more information about either giving it a test drive, seeing what what the process looks like? Because it's a top notch program. It's it's slick, it's looks user friendly, working, it was more, you're so great. And so kind of show that so it's thriving.com. So you just go to primary comm there's a free version of it. I've asked some educators, you know, after we give the demo around how this is transformational for education, and for students learning and their agency, how much do you think this cost? Like 80 to 100 bucks per year? Well, no, it's$4 per year per kid, it's not even a cup of coffee for kids. So like when you think about it from the scale, it's just super approachable. And so you would go to thrive, play calm. I'm head of education with thriving now. And so you get to interact with me, and we'd have a good old time talking together. So and that's one reason to sign up right there. Now. That's a good, good reason. Now we just have a great team. And it's this opportunity that, you know, we get to interact with amazing educators, there are so many things that are going right. With education, I would put that in a different bucket than school. But there's a lot that's going right with education. And so I would really hope that we continue to have this partnership together. Because the work you're doing is really wicked good. Because it's looking at what's right for kids. Well, thank you. Thank you, she. Well, thanks for jumping on the rock star teacher podcast, Joe. It's been great to reconnect and see what it is you're working on. And more importantly, seeing the amount of students and teachers and schools and lives that are going to be impacted from from your work. So thank you. Let's go get in good trouble. Thanks, Joe. All right. Brian, that was awesome. What did you think of it? Joe was so great. I kind of not gonna lie. I want to take the assessment. I want to spend the $4 to know what are my strengths and weaknesses. I mean, if I, my wife would say give me $4. For two, thank you. Literally how powerful a tool would that be? I mean, I remember doing an assessment like that in college, the Briggs, Myers Briggs, Myers Briggs, I think that's supposed to be a farmer. Is that the assessment where it tells you you're supposed to be a farmer? Or a cop? Oh, great. I gotta change my head. History of dance major. Yeah. But the cool part about it is that if students are able to really discover their strengths as young as first or second grade, and also for parents to discover the strengths in their children, and usually for parents, you recognize it, but maybe you're not able to define it as much, because you can see the magic is there. But you're like, Okay, there's something here. They love playing the piano, but what is it about the piano? Well, maybe it's deeper than that. Maybe it's something about the music or the rhythm or, or the analytical mind connecting the notes or whatever it may be. And so even for parents that love the element of discovery for your kids is, is awesome. Well, Brian, listen, it's it's 2021. Thank God, but it was 2020 for a long time there, and a lot of us have just forgot to look for that. Right? We're busy dealing with life. And what a gift to remember that like, Oh, yeah, that's right. People have strengths, let's go find them. Yeah, or to think like, wow, I have a strength, you know, or for students to be reminded of their strengths when they're all virtual learning. And trying to figure this out, but also for the teachers, students, do you think of a strength of virtual learning? Probably Absolutely. Zero, I doubt that's even an attribute being like, that shows up on the test. On the computer screen, for six hours, were the same way I can also see liberating for teachers, because I know teachers, genuinely they want to have something fresh to teach. And that's got to be liberating when they have something new. And it's also probably really stressful for them to constantly reinvent on what to teach, especially when you know you have students with all these different strengths, and how do you link them all together? And frankly, helps make that happen? Yeah, you know, and I think he really hit it hit the nail on the head by saying thrival is not a learning management system. This is not something where it's a one more thing you have to do. This is a gift. This is something where you get to learn from it and then apply it however it's however it fits your model. Well, this was an awesome episode. If you guys want more information about thrive Li You can check out the shownotes You can also connect with Joe directly. So please be sure to like and subscribe to the rock star teacher podcast. And if you would like to be featured or know someone that should be featured on the rocks at teacher projects, just go ahead and leave us a message you can check us out at think kindness.org slash podcast. Take care everyone. I hope you have an amazing unkind rest of the day.