Are You Leading or Just Surviving? Lessons from a CEO

[0:00]  you know I guess Rising Tides I'm messing up the phrase but rise is All Ships or the rising Tides rise ships but to me it means you know the better I do the better you do the better our students do right and the minute I stop growing is the minute our students stop growing um and you know we run a school in the north laale neighborhood North lale is growing it's vibrant um but it couldn't grow and it couldn't be vibrant if our school didn't play its part um and that is we educate students so they come to us because they shouldn't have to leave the neighborhood to go find high quality education but

[0:49]  then when they leave us they should be able to buy a home in the neighborhood they should be able to work in the neighborhood invest in the neighborhood and so I feel like we are one small small part of an ecosystem that together if we do the work we get it right together we all rise we were talking about the perspective of being somebody who stands up for for the rights of others and in moments like this the burden is so heavy because it almost feels like I'm not

[1:38]  trying to say this in a negative way but we have to show up for so other people so often that often it feels like we're not even giving ourselves the time to be able to breathe and feel these emotions like we talked about when we first got started here do you know what I mean does that make sense it's just like it's such a complicated time yes yes that we wake up post election or post big event and we say what are the people around me going to need before we say what do I need to do this work it's um I'll worry about myself after I make sure that everyone else is okay um and can I just say I don't know this is I know it's a wide audience but a show I love and I know

[2:25]  everybody people don't know I I'm in Chicago and so I love Chicago PD yeah and that's my show and but there's um there was an episode I was watching recently and one of their teammates was killed and and throughout the episode they were still looking for the the killer there was like a kidnapped situation and they kept saying feel it later feel it later and I think that's how I wake up sometimes it's like feel it later I don't have time to feel it I have to solve this problem I have to go towards the action and then maybe when I get a break and who knows when that will be a month from now um we don't know yeah I mean I was I was talking to another leader and we were talking about

[3:12]  the idea of compartmentalization taking the feelings that we have here in this moment putting them on the shelf right healthy compartmentalization means I can separate myself from this moment and go about what I need to do but I also have to come back when the time is right for me and open up that bottle to be able to feel those emotions now I feel like with so many people especially in this digital world that we live in where there's always something else to do we're always busy doing something a lot of our shelves end up being so stacked up that we don't want to go back to those feelings because how do we have the space to be able to actually let ourselves breathe in that moment and experience that emotion and this is a really scary part because what ends up happening is we end up with an empty cup and we're trying to pour into other people and we don't we can't pour into other people yeah you're absolutely right I think one of the most important

[4:00]  things that we can do in this work is to know that um and then to build in the time to get what we need and so for me I build in therapy time I know I just spoke with someone else who said they build in meditation um like partner meditation um and even if it's just an hour to say this is the time that is dedicated for me to unload or to take something off the shelf and it's not everything at all times but the maybe the highest priority or the heaviest um the heaviest feeling or emotion or feeling or compartmentalization then I think that allows us to lead better yeah how do you how do you systematically and

[4:49]  intentionally create space for yourself as a leader I'm really interested in this topic because a lot of people who have on the podcast often really struggle with the element of giving out so much of ourselves to other people that we don't intentionally block off that space so we can rebuild ourselves on a weekly basis or even a daily basis so how do you kind of tackle that challenge so I don't know that I I don't know if I I actually let me think I do I would say I don't know if I get to it daily but maybe I do maybe I do sometimes uh and it's just this this 30 minute routine for myself in my bath or shower that's that's that like I have to clean myself so why not but on a big picture um I do a couple of

[5:38]  things I'm not the best at it all the time but I do try to every six weeks block off my calendar um and it just says hold like hold for space um and it's just there on the calendar in case I need the space so I try not to schedule any meeting on that day at least um so then when I get to it or on the week before and I'm looking at the next week I I can say oh look at that I didn't schedule a meeting because I have this whole vacation yes yes um you know and then I put up in away message um to let people know when I'll get back to them and even though it's every six weeks it doesn't happen every six weeks but even though you know it might be

[6:26]  every 12 weeks but at least I have it built in somewhere you almost have like a mental carrot that when times are tough I just had to push through this next couple weeks before I got my block day yes yes and it's not it doesn't typically fall on the same holidays that everybody else takes you know that's what I learned in the work too I was like oh days that other people get off I don't get those days off so let me go ahead and block some time uh for myself and like you said mental care that I forget about mhm I just feel like especially leaders who are doing such fundamental work in the space of inspiring the Next Generation right it's so easy for us to get lost in the hustle in the busy trap of always trying to pour into others and I love being able

[7:13]  to dive into these areas on the conversation and the podcast is Because unless our leaders can be vulnerable enough to show that this time is necessary it's easy for us to get caught up in the facade that just because we're at the top of an organization means that we don't deal with with these type of challenges and so I really appreciate your willingness to kind of share your space with us and kind of how you kind of navigate this stuff it's super important yeah I um something I tell my team my immediate team is that I need them to model taking time off and that we don't need to be heroes in the sense of oh I've taken a day off and now I'm going to also show up for this meeting or that I have to model right now that I work all of the time and I do think in this fast-paced world I think like you

[8:04]  said internet social media just things that didn't exist before there's there's almost accolades in um feeling like you're on all the time or the perception that other people think that you're on all the time it's like a social badge almost yeah and I I've also and I've had to check myself on it too because I believe even in the high in the highest roles at times it can look like you're not doing anything cuz my work doesn't look like someone else's work on a daily basis and so sometimes I feel like I need to prove to people that I am working just as hard as they are and that also can cause burnout and

[8:52]  so I I said you know what I need to prove to people that I also rest and let me model that and I need the rest of my team to to prove to people that they rest and when we say that it's a day off let people actually have their day off and when we say that they're sick let people um actually be sick and actually if I'm going to be personal for a second here with you if it's okay I feel like I don't want to mess up the podcast you can edit me but no you're good but we were scheduled to talk you know weeks ago and and I couldn't make it but how hard it was for me to say I can't make it um because for all I know you're going

[9:41]  to say that we missed it oh she's unreliable whatever it is right all the mental things that go into trying to show up for someone else or the perception that you have of someone else but I couldn't make it because I pregnant and because I am pregnant sometimes there are limitations on what I am able to do physically um and I needed to go to the doctor and really I even feel like I shouldn't have to share that I should feel confident just saying I can't make it today but for the sake of this story I just um I'm saying we we should not feel in our society like we must prove that we're always working minute to minute and if

[10:30]  we're not working it's cuz we're sick you know and there's no in between dude I mean like that that hits heavy for me because I always feel like I'm the person who has to be there 24/7 up before everybody else logging off after everyone else does as well right The Keeper of the castle but I thought when you reached out to me and were're like hey I'm not going to be able to make it I was like a symbol of strength because this person's respecting their time right and if they can't make it that's okay it's like you're I am not the person who holds you accountable to making sure you're showing up as the best person you are you are and if you have to take time to step away and then come back so we can do this like we're doing today it was obviously meant to be but that experience of having to justify ourselves to other people is a scary one and I feel like we spend a lot more time

[11:17]  doing that than justifying to ourselves why we need to be able to take time off and just be true to ourselves more often does that make sense yes and that's it hits home like that was per perfectly said perfect I'm like oh Preach Today to me talk to me uh you know one thing that I thought was really important and it kind of goes in line with what we're talking about here is you said you guys have a phrase which is a philosophy more so which is Together We rise why do you have that philosophy and what does that mean yeah that means that you know I guess Rising Tides I'm messing up the phrase but Rises All Ships or the rising TI rise All Ships but to me it

[12:03]  means you know the better I do the better you do the better our students do right and the minute I stop growing is the minute our students stop growing um and you know we run a school in the north laale neighborhood North lale is growing it's vibrant um but it couldn't grow and it couldn't be vibrant if our school didn't play its part um and that is we educate students so they come to us because they shouldn't have to leave the neighborhood to go find high quality education but then when they leave us they should be able to buy a home in the neighborhood they should be able to work in the

[12:50]  neighborhood invest in the neighborhood and so I feel like we are one small part of an ecosystem that together if we do the work if we get it right together we all rise and so that's that's how I see it so I think it it's it's small inside our building our students our teachers what we do here our students do better I do better but then if North La lale does better North laale Rises and this is a predominantly black neighborhood in the city of Chicago then the city of Chicago does better I think about the the pivotal role that schools play in our lives you know very transparently I'm going go a little bit of soapbox here um during the pandemic right all the kids are home

[13:39]  from school what happens parents start losing their [ __ ] minds because like it's so tough to take care of these kids that distracting me all day and in that moment I had a realization of shouldn't we be appreciating the role that these Educators these institutions in our community play towards Rising I'm sorry raising the children in our community like what a fundamental Cornerstone of our community but yet it seems like they are not as appreciated as they should be why do you think that we keep [ __ ] that up I think we take schools and Educators for granted I think it is um I I heard something somewhere where um everyone thinks that they can run a school or a restaurant because

[14:26]  everybody's been there um and I was that is so true right it's like yeah I went to school for this many years of course I know until you're on the other side to find out what actually goes into running a school and educating kids and um and making these institutions safe and also full of knowledge and to care for for kids and I I do think it's just this idea of like well I went to school so I know what it takes to do this you know what we should be doing um without actually knowing everything that goes into the educational process what do you think about the responsibility especially in a city like Chicago right that schools play in

[15:17]  creating and cultivating a safe space because if I think about very transparent I'm not talking like negatively at all about Chicago but the media does an amazing job at making this sound like one of the most dangerous places in the world to be and when I think about specifically African-American culture often education is looked at as kind of like a secondary and when we think about the enablement platform that puts people in Opportunities right to explore and be curious and create an opportunity for them to impact their Community it often starts in the school so how do you think about the responsibility to be that culture and that Cornerstone of your community yeah I it's something that's fundamental to our school and our organization and so something we call it is Phoenix

[16:07]  Rising so our mascot is the Phoenix but call it Phoenix rising in its college career and Chicago and that by the time our our students graduate they will have had significant exposure to college to career opportunities um and Chicago and I'm like that means our students have to leave their neighborhood we it is our responsibility to take them out of the neighborhood to see the north side of Chicago the South Side the lake because if they don't feel like this is their City then why would I take care of it right if I don't have a stake in this if I can't explore this place and if this place doesn't feel like it is mine and

[16:55]  it is my home then sure why not why not go get into some debauchery but I I really think that is is our responsibility as Educators and I think some schools have the resources and the abilities to say we can we can afford to let our students explore and I think there are other schools who feel like we don't have that because this is um because we have to we have to make sure that we're getting our students caught up to grade level or providing what they what they don't have academically and I think the place where I see education and

[17:43]  where we live is it's both we can't take one or the other we can't negate one for the other um because we are where students and young people spend most of their hours yes and that's why I wanted to go back to the element of saying that like the education experience right your guys' institution is a Cornerstone of life we spend so much time from wake up to go to sleep from most of our prevailing years 15 to 18 years old where we're spending time in these spaces when you mentioned something about catching people up I'm really interested being a CEO of a Preparatory School

[18:30]  right how much catching up are we having to do with this younger generation coming out of the pandemic are you guys still seeing like major impacts or like what's like the real going on inside of like the youth and the education experience yeah so across the city um we're doing pretty good job catching students up but the reality is the pandemic put students behind in ways that we're we're going to see for a while and it is it's not just academically it's social and emotionally um it is when you don't have really anybody to interact with or someone to help model positive interactions when you get back together with your

[19:18]  peers it is oh well now I don't actually know how to have a proper conversation or I don't know how to control my feelings or my anger um and so what we saw post pandemic it's a lot of schools providing a lot of extra social emotional learning support right and tackling the social emotional needs before we started tackling the academic losses um what does that look like yeah so rebuilding community so again if you think that your school is community um and you know the this is where you spend most of your hours and then someone takes that away it's like how do you build that back how do you bring your family back

[20:05]  together what North laale College Prep was able to do um and my predecessor was able to do was she kept the school open now we weren't open every day but when most schools were closed during the pandemic we did staggered schedules so that our students wouldn't fully lose the community but it still wasn't the same as being able to say I'm here five days a week with my full class and then bringing students back when everybody was able to come back it was a lot of check-ins how are you feeling how are you how are you doing can we get you hooked up with an intervention if you're not feeling well you know um can we do more team building so that you get to know your peers um all of those things to be able to get to a place where now everybody's

[20:54]  ready to learn wasn't it interesting um um when I was going through my high school experience so 2006 through 2009 right I feel incredibly senior now um we always thought that there's no way that we should have to come to school every single day especially with computers and the ability to kind of do like virtual rooms and XYZ that stuff was just starting to come into the world we always thought there was an opportunity for you to just do school remotely 100% and we're like there's not going to be any impact on my life in general I just won't have to spend time here but now when we get kids into that scenario we realize that it was so corrosive on their humanistic elements of being able to be a person that it seems like it's really scary and also puts institutions

[21:42]  like you guys in a situation where you have to dump a ton of resources to R I would say round out these human beings to be able to go out into the world and impact their Community yeah um socially teenagers um their brains they need to connect with one another um and so it is you know when you see the the kids especially like the girls on the phone or they're on the phone at night it's like because our brains are wired to be in groups we want to be around people and that was lost and so I don't ever see there being a world where you can just do everything online because you miss the human connection and what you also Miss is the body language and

[22:31]  the Nuance of being in person and I think even even us doing this there's only so much I can see right and there's only so much you can see of me but it's it you know is my body turned are my legs crossed in a way what does a head down look like and I think you know I I also have kids at home so I was part of the watching this remote learning there's only so much you can do with somebody who's on a screen whereas teachers are taught even body proximity is a way to get a student engaged so if your head is down right now there's only so many times I can say Keenan you know tap tap tap for your sleep versus me standing next to you or you know coming

[23:21]  over and maybe putting a Post-It note on your desk to check in like those connections those small pieces were lost and would be lost if we completely went digital so are we saying that the answer to social or to preventing social isolation and loneliness is not social media is that what we're trying to say here is this like what you're trying to queue at a little bit I think I think we have to be together how do we get groups I mean because I mean why do all those people run a marathon this sounds terrible to me I'm sorry it does sound terrible it's like why and even though it's an individual sport often people do it in groups right like you're you're running together you want to be connected with someone there's only so

[24:09]  much you can get from social media from the internet from texting you want that proximity with people do you ever get worried about how quickly social media has kind of shaped our worldview as an example when I was going through high school right feelings of comparison right were based on my local community aka the kids who went to my high school the kids who I could see in the parking lot maybe the kids who were in school districts around me who we spent time with now we live in this world especially everybody younger lives in a global community and I don't think we can truly understand the impacts in living in a global Community via access on our devices to our mental health and the way in which we look at even social

[24:57]  interactions I could never compare myself to kids who lived in Miami I could never compare myself to people who live in Dubai but today those are all the type of images that people see on social media so as a leader of an institution do you ever worry about that impact on the mindset of younger kids when they're comparing themselves to the world instead of people in their high school all the time um all the time I don't I am hard pressed it's hot take but I am hard pressed to see why why children need cell phones um because living in a global Society I think is absolutely fabulous I think learning um studying abroad learning from other people who are different than

[25:44]  you diversity I think we will have such a robust tapestry as the generations grow but but on the flip side it is one it's the comparison but to it's the addiction um and it's the I just think things are faster moving for our kids in a way that is stopping them from being able to be kids um just the the play the outside the Hobbies uh this conversation about social like social interaction and do you get it from social medias well what else would you be doing if you didn't have a phone or technology you would actually physically go to someone and go

[26:33]  play a sport or just go hang out or sit sit somewhere and chat and so to your point about the comparison it's I think there's comparison and isolation and there's only so much of that that's going to make you a better person before it starts to just make you feel bad about yourself yeah and I think the going back to Together We rise now when we're together me doing better means that I get to lift you up and you doing better lifts me up because we're we're physically in it together a really important element which I think is important for us to hammer home here this is a thought experiment okay what do you think would happen to our communities if in a best practice World

[27:21]  there was a digital apocalypse where all social media disappeared off of our phones Instagram didn't work Facebook didn't work Tik Tok Snapchat all these different type of things but we could still text and call each other how do you think interactions would change amongst people who are younger specifically what do you think they'd be doing over those couple years uh good good thought experience I just think after the initial freakout right I think they would text and call each other to go hang out in person right I just I just think like what would what else would you do exactly we were talking about this in a group the other night and we were

[28:08]  talking about this specifically because people in my generation specifically Millennials I've seen a prevalance of a conscious choice to stop being on social platforms Instagram Tik Tok YouTube all of these things and literally leaning into our social networks AKA our friends and going to meet people in person I have gone through places where I've struggled with my mental health because I've found myself naturally going to a place of comparison because the images that I see on social platforms because I'm a business guy entrepreneur I see people who share their stories which are often fictional where they're talking about how much money they're making at the age of 23 and like I live in Miami I've got this highrise blah blah blah I'm making hundred, do a day XYZ and I started realizing that it started

[28:56]  degrading my personal self-esteem because I was comparing myself to somebody who I've never met somebody who I will never know and somebody who I'll never interact with and I feel like a lot of people are swinging the pendulum back in that direction I'm not sure if you've ever had the urge to do those things yourself or if you have anybody else in your life who's also thought about that to to get off of social media yeah I will say if I'm thinking about myself the the positive of social media is I am able to connect with people who I would never meet in real life had I not met them on social media and or keep in touch with people who I would have never kept in touch with just because of

[29:46]  what it takes to make a phone call or schedule and now all of a sudden I get to see someone's lives um but I'm sure there's a phrase for it but basically I think I just curate my social media so it only gives me things that are going to bring me joy um and blocks out everything else um but I had to get to this point too because you're right when you're doing almost anything there's always seemingly somebody who's doing it better and but and when it's somebody who's doing it better and you don't know them and you can't talk to them and you don't see their struggle um then I like then I look at myself like how come they can do perfect example for her being pregnant I am

[30:36]  struggling through this pregnancy people make fun of me a little bit cuz they're like girl you got like three more months to go I was like I know and this baby is kicking my behind right but when I go on social media then I see other pregnant one they look great photo shoots hanging out chilling dancing I'm like I could barely walk down the hallway without someone asking if I'm okay and and and it's funny but I actually started to internalize that a little bit like I'm doing pregnancy wrong because I can't keep up and maybe I didn't do what I was supposed to do um yeah to to to be able to car this carry this baby with the correct energy

[31:23]  and um but back at you because because where I feel is like then I feel like it becomes my responsibility to lend my voice to say hey this thing is hard let me try to be on social media as the opposite voice of somebody who doesn't have it altoe even if you think I do kind of thing and I'm wondering if there's a place for that because I I do find positivity on social media if I can see examples of people particularly who are in a situation like mine or who look like me killing it you know um so I wonder about that for you I mean I think that it's it's interesting to me because when I do observe social media I've seen a pattern that started to emerge in front of me which is you also you're always

[32:11]  going to have people who are going to fake it till they make it right but it's the people who are often more transparent about their struggles and what they're trying to accomplish that seem like they get genuine admiration and encouragement from the social ecosphere and I feel like that is a sign of sub consciously we are yearning in our lives for people to be real more so now than ever and that's why they get so much traction on social media I'll give you an example there was this young kid who I saw on Instagram maybe four or five months ago and he was really getting into the ice bath process and he was like it's day one of sitting in an ice bath and it's this younger kid he's like a little bit chunkier and he was just like so genuine and making his video close it down kept doing that for a full year and by the end of it he had like a million followers and and in the

[32:58]  comments it was just people being like you got this man keep going and I was like why is it that we can show up as this genuine encouraging version of ourselves for people who are doing what they want to do rather than faking it it just seems like the Playbook is right in front of us but we continue to try and be copy and paste versions of other people if that makes sense it was easier to be the copy paste version or attempt to be the few Stars you saw on TV but now anybody can be a star and anybody can be um an influencer and I think that that's also what I'm watching with my own girls at home and um some of the young women it's there's almost like more more examples to attain to and they're not

[33:46]  all positive whereas I think what I used to get out of at least watching TV is it I feel like it was more curated you know it was more there were certain things that weren't going to be shown on TV um you know more censored in a way and look how old you said it earlier but I'm like oh look how old I sound censor that TV but you know but there's also but there is a part because now my older eyes are like it's too much it's too much input and it's too much to try to discern when you're you're a child of what is right what is wrong um who am I supposed to be how do

[34:35]  I find my own identity if if I'm just copying someone else's identity there was a trend that I saw on social media maybe like six months ago um you ever heard of a guy named Gary vaynerchuk Gary ve on social media oh yeah yep okay so Gary ve and some of his content he always talks about when he was a younger kid seven eight years old whatever he had a real affinity for going up to people in the park in New York right in Jersey or whatever and talking to the elderly people and asking them questions about their life and asking them what are some of the biggest regrets that you have and often the regrets that these people had was first of all not taking the chance not believing in myself and trying to be a version of myself that I truly wasn't and it seems like there's an underlying message of authenticity in there that when you get to the end of

[35:23]  your days you're going to wish that you were more of yourself in getting there and I often think about that today because we have an opportunity to morph and shift and code switch if you will with people in every different scenario especially as Leaders but when we start to get more comfortable on our skin it's interesting to see how people show up more of themselves because they have a track record of being successful and being able to deliver results not just how they're dressed does that make sense yeah and and I love that and I think it's and I think I think sometimes you can't so back to the social media piece I think as a young person if you look at yourself when you were younger I look at myself when I was younger there's only so much you can tell a young person um and age and wisdom hopefully

[36:15]  come together at the same time where you recognize something like that like oh I wish I was more of myself and I don't believe that it is our job to dictate the Journey of children per se but I do believe it is our job to help them not Veer so off course that they never can get to a place where they have these realizations when they're older MH um and yeah so what you just said it it resonates me or what Gary said uh because I I think some of the ways that you find yourself is through your community and to your point if your community is everything and

[37:03]  everybody then how are you finding yourself through that because part of the way you find it excuse me from younger especially at the teenage years especially at the teenage years because the teenage years are where you start to break apart from your nuclear family to try to explore who you want to be as an individual before you come back to your family you know as an adult self and if there's if you have an example of what you want to be without any real feedback from these people about who you actually are if your Social Circle is not a real Circle then you're not you're only getting the outputs you're not getting any input for yourself you know and real um real- time

[37:51]  feedback have you ever heard the science behind why it is as young tweens and teenagers we start resisting our nucleus family and we start looking for other examples of people who we can look up to I don't know if I've heard the science the brain this is this is this is really interesting so in our DNA we have a trigger that says when we become a mature age where we can start reproducing and that's younger and younger every single yearh we start looking at our parents as being stupid but rather that's because that is actually a scientific genetic I would say um determin or deterent from inbreeding so you're supposed to look at

[38:39]  your parents as people who are stupid and you shouldn't listen to them and that's why if you have a tight community of friends and often you listen to their parents where you'll say something to your kid and say you shouldn't do that and they say mom you don't know what you're talking about but then they go talk to somebody else's mom and they say you should shouldn't do that and they're like Well I obviously shouldn't do that that makes a lot of sense it's really interesting how we have these genetic codes in our systems that will push us away from our nucleus our nuclear family and start pushing us into the community and that's why it's so important that we have well-rounded responsible empathetic compassionate adults in Our Lives who can be that sounding board of voice that we don't want to hear from Mom and Dad mhm isn't that interesting yeah yeah um I had not heard that part that'll help

[39:28]  me in my own teenage years um but it's also it goes back to why I think schools as an institution are so important so important um let alone these middle school high school where now that I know that there's actual signs that the brain is telling you you need to do this you want to be able to trust where you're sending your kids and who you're sending them to and the examples that they have and I think when we're tying it back to social media I don't trust everybody on social media I don't trust every image and I think it's getting harder to discern what is real and what's not and it's also why I feel the college prep education is so important because when I hear college prep and what we offer is we're offering

[40:17]  critical thinking and questioning you know why why is this is this real is this you know is this thing that I'm seeing um actually the thing or is there something behind it and do I know how to research and fact check I think the more that we are in the digital age the more that factchecking and research is important and being able to question and have conversations and um and critical conversations um is going to be so important as a Cornerstone for our our youth how do you say about the future so I was listening to a podcast I'll give some context to what do you think about the future um I was listening to this

[41:04]  guy he was a number 12 I think at Facebook he's a big investor now multi-billionaire and he was talking about the Advent of artificial intelligence right when I came through school it was if you have a research paper you need to go to the library go to the Dewey Decimal System find your book bring it back cite it put it into the report XYZ students today have unlimited access to information at their fingertips through large language models and chat gbt and AI one of the comments that this guy was making in the future when our society catches up to having the understanding that you have unlimited good information at your fingertips our teachers are going to become cornerstones of our society and the highest regard why because they're going to be teaching students how to think about their problems not just go down this path and do this protocol

[41:53]  these steps but how are we going to get creative in gathering all of our resources to tackle this problem to attack this challenge what do you think about the role of the teacher and being the formulator of how people think about these problems rather than just how to get things done I 100% agree um I and that even back to my comment about college it's like I believe it's the teachers's job to help our students think and even our curriculum the way that um we're doing things in education Chicago Public Schools our school um everything still Builds on here's the foundational learning but then how do you get your students to talk with one another what is the protocol that they

[42:41]  use to agree disagree build on one another's thoughts um and and problem solve um and come to a conclusion or a solution and I don't think that's ever going away and um it probably is more important than ever now as AI can shoot out any answer for anything and I want our our kids to be able to push back or question and say do I believe this to be true um something that comes to mind from a time when we were younger is um remind me where you grew up what what um I grew up in Detroit Michigan

[43:28]  okay okay so 100% you're you're gonna follow this um I didn't always trust the weatherman and I was fool to do so I you give me the information that I need you tell me it's going to be warm today I'm still going to bring a jacket you know like until you show me a bunch of days in a row and I can confirm for myself that it is warm I'm bringing my winter jacket you know what I mean cuz I can't be outside call you say it's not going to snow and I didn't wear the right boots and I just feel like that that was like our form of AI or whatever it is it really was our critical thinking test really was you can't trust Al Roker he's not going to tell you what's going on in your city or your neck of the woods correct they say they're going to but how many times have

[44:16]  I walked outside and it started raining and y'all told me it was going to be sunny right so I have to look at the clouds for myself and be able to put together I hear what you're saying but let me think this Pro from my own reality that's an amazing analogy I'm bringing that into all my conversations in the future that's a really good one I love that here so let's here's a here's another question for you today after we hop off this podcast you are met by an incredibly friendly individual and they give you a package and they say inside this package is a time machine you can go back in time to any point in your life and have a conversation for 5 minutes with a young younger version of yourself what advice would you give to that younger version of yourself that would help them

[45:03]  navigate the time between then and us sitting here today what would advice would you give to that person um what a good question I would tell myself that there are more women of color and girls of color who are going to do great things and that are going to be leaders um and that the examples that you have now don't scratch the surface and so you don't so the people that you're I think it goes back to comparison I think I tell myself the people you're trying to you're trying to emulate now are not your people they're not the right people and you just don't have enough examples right

[45:51]  now of what you could be and what you could do and I think that if I yeah if I look back at myself I'm like that would have helped me because I had a very different vision of who was supposed to be in charge who's supposed to be a leader who's what Smart looks like I I told myself you're smart you're smart you're beautiful you're great you're not in a time right now where any of that is appreciated but man what a tough pill to swallow when we're younger right thinking that we have the world figured out and recognizing that three four years from now life is going to change and take you in directions that you can never even fathom it's a lesson I think we all need to lean into a little bit more um man so one of the Traditions that we have here on the podcast as we

[46:38]  kind of put the the gears down to land is our previous guest wanted to ask you a blind question if you had unlimited resources and could work on one project for the rest of time what would that be I think it would be what I'm doing now I would be working to educate as many black and brown children as I can um and to get them in a place where they have access to college and Beyond and critical thinking skills to be able to be resilient in whatever comes in the world well it's easy to understand why you are the definition of heart and hustle and why we had you on the podcast

[47:25]  here today this has been incredible conversation and I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart and for everybody else who's tuning in watching and listening today thank you so much for spending this time with me I really appreciate it thank you for having me and that's a wrap