Lessons Learned, How We View Mistakes, and Productivity with Dr. Naphtali Hoff

What's going on everybody? I hope this finds you striving and thriving and doing absolutely amazing. My name is Brian Martin. I'm a second grade teacher and host of the teaching champions podcast. And this episode is full of some great takeaways. So be ready. But before we get started, I just ask one small favor. If you think someone would benefit from the show, please share. It's all about trying to amplify voices and help lift others up. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so that new episodes come directly to you. Now, my guest today is Dr. Naftali Hoff. He is a former school headmaster, he's a president and executive coach for impactful coaching and consulting. He's a podcaster and an author. And in this interview, listen, as Dr. Hoff discusses, lessons were learned from his work in the business world. Listen, as he talks about instilling belief in our students, listen, as he talks about the importance of how we define success, how we should view the mistakes we make, and so much more. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. I am super excited for this episode, I have someone who has a rich knowledge base who has an extraordinary journey and has so much to share with us today. I have Dr. Naftali half on the podcast, Dr. Half Welcome, my friend. Well, thank you so much, Brian, I am super excited to be with you. And yeah, let's talk education. Awesome. For those people who aren't familiar with you. Could you give a little background of who you are? Oh, sure. So I'm a former classroom teacher. And a few years into my I started teaching on a high school level concurrent with that a few years in I began running some supplemental, I guess you would say religious studies programs and eventually became an assistant principal, and moved from there into the role of a head of school. So I moved from teacher from the classroom to head of school, I guess you would say K through college over the years, because I also taught in college for a bunch of years as well and, and really enjoyed every minute of that time in education. And last 10 years, I transitioned out of formal school, employment, I moved into coaching and consulting, do a lot of my work still, in the world of education, going into schools teaching, actually working with students directly, sometimes in a teaching capacity coaching. Teachers, I do a lot of that professional development training, I work with principals, leadership, all that good stuff. And I've also built a pretty nice coaching business with for profit business leaders as well. Yes, and it's such a it's such a rich experience that you've had. And I love the fact you know, you've taught your administrator, you taught that college level. Now you're doing like PD for teachers and education field, but you're also working with business leaders. And I think they're, there's so much that we can learn from the business world that might not be right at the forefront, or something that we don't see right now in education. So I think there are a number of things that the business world has to offer. You know, it's a different environment, obviously, one is for profit, one is not. And so immediately, when you think of for profit, you think of ROI return on investment. And you want to know what are what are the objectives, and because it's all about ultimately, it's all about the bottom line, even though you want to take care of your people and you want to have a good workplace culture and all of those things. They are important, but you're in business to make money. You know, and you want to think when it comes to education as well. Obviously, it's not about the money, but it is about the results. And I think it's important for us, you know, I It's often interesting when I talk to teachers, and I do professional development training, especially in an area something like formative assessment, I say we as educators need to be in the business of collecting evidence, and it sounds like the FBI. Sounds like law enforcement, but you need to be in the business of collecting evidence because you need to know did your students learn what you intended for them for them to learn? Right? If I said to you, Brian, I just delivered the best lesson ever, in all of my years of teaching, and then you go and you actually assess the students and you recognize they didn't learn a thing. All would agree that that was not a great lesson no matter how onpoint your delivery and how you, you did everything exactly as you planned. We aren't really teachers, we're facilitators of learning. I think that's an important distinction. And I say that to teachers all the time, your job is to ensure learning occurs, not that you taught or not that your materials were organized, not that everything was pretty imperfect, because many teachers are perfectionist myself as well. We like everything to be just so but we lose sight of what the real goal is. And that I think, out of necessity is something you see in business all the time, am I making money? Or am I hitting my goals? Do I have a clearer vision of where I want to go with this, and in the desire maybe to be more academic, and some other variables, maybe we don't think as deliverable oriented as we can. That's one thing that I think I see in the business world that that schools could learn from, and another one is change. Now I know changes is a difficult thing. For many people, I find resistance to change in schools to be extremely high. I'm not quite sure why. And I do feel like, you know, there's this idea that I developed my curriculum, I put in the hard years in the beginning, here are all my worksheets, here's my stuff. And now I want to be able to coast, you know, I want to be able to spend the next 2030 years more or less with my materials. And of course, I still have to teach well on all of that. But there's this idea that I don't necessarily have to keep upping my game. But in the business world, that doesn't work. That way, if you don't innovate, if you don't stay current, if you don't stay ahead of the pack, because of competition, by definition, you're going to fall behind. And so there's this continuous drive to get better. And I'm not suggesting that teachers don't want to improve. But I do feel that there is a certain baseline of complacency sometimes. Okay, so I saw it a little bit with myself, I certainly saw with many of my colleagues, where you just feel like you know, did that I'm not really that interested in so when change comes down the down the line, the principles pushing for this, or that we oftentimes will resist, because we feel like they're asking us to become different. And who wants to deal with that as it is, I got to deal with my students and the parents and all the other challenges. And those, by the way, are real, you know, teachers do a lot of great things that business leaders just stand in awe of, because you know, it is tough, there's no question about it, especially if you got an unruly bunch, to be able to engage them, inspire them, and all those kinds of things. So I'm not trying to beat up on you know, my colleagues in education, they do fantastic work. But I do think that if we recognize that every challenge, is the next opportunity for us to grow. Right, because for example, I work out every day, if I don't challenge myself with those workouts, if I'm still lifting five pounders, when I know that I can be lifting 20 3040 pounds at a time or curling, whatever it might be, my body's not gonna going to transform the way I want it to, because I'm not challenging it. So all of us need to embrace challenge as a way and change as a way for us to grow and become better. Because our kids need that from us. You know, they can't live in a 21st century world, on 20th century techniques or 20th century mindsets, we have to be able to adapt and to grow with them. Yes, I absolutely love that. Because I do think change is very difficult. Sometimes I you know, I see it in myself. Sometimes we're where you're hesitant? And do you think change in the educational world? Do you think maybe like the state testing, or just because we only have a finite amount of time with the students and that you perfect or like you said, the perfectionist, you have something going nice and smooth, that sometimes we hold ourselves back, because whenever you do change in the beginning is not always as smooth, as you know we did in the past. I guess the build off on that is how does the business world deal with that? Because I'm sure for the business world when they change it first, when they make their adjustments. It's not as smooth in the beginning as well. Well, change is very difficult anywhere, Brian and I think that research is pretty clear that most change initiatives fail. I'm talking in the business world right now. And that's largely because of the fact that the leaders who are pushing the change, don't do the foundational work necessary to get the buy in and to create the framework for that change, to take root and to really evolve the way that it needs to. So it's not because schools are not environments for change and businesses are I don't think that's true. I just think that there's more of a an understanding of foundational understanding within the business world that change is going to be part and parcel of how things evolve because technology changes, markets change Ain't regulations change, et cetera, et cetera. So you're in a more of a dynamic environment to begin with. Whereas education theoretically, could be more of a, you know, what's the word I'm looking for? It can almost exist in a vacuum to a degree, because outside of the fact that there's a world going on around us, math is still math. And for the most part, science is still science. And the English language, despite all of its complexities, is still it's still more or less the same language. We're adding interesting concepts to it frequently nowadays, but fundamentally, it's the same thing. So yeah, there are elements that do have to change. But, you know, we kind of view ourselves as being able to deal in something that that may not be as affected by the world around us. So again, coming back to that point before, it's what what you expect going in, and if there is an expectation that things will just be for the most part the same as they were, and we're going to resist change, because it would just makes us uncomfortable, that I would be, you know, not so happy with. But that doesn't necessarily mean that every change that's proposed, either through legislators, or even through so called educational experts is the right change, I recognize that not every great shiny new idea is the best idea for our kids. So it does require a conversation, but to be opposed on the principle as we opposed on the merits. That's a totally different conversation. Yeah, absolutely. Well, transitioning a little bit with this knowledge. If you were to go back to the first years that you are teaching, if you were to enter the classroom today, knowing what you know, now, what would you do differently? You know, it's a good question, because I know that what I'm about to say is something that was important to me, even then, however, I would add maybe a little bit of extra emphasis to it, or maybe a depth of perspective, and that is to focus on the relationship side of education, as opposed to the emphasis on the academics. And I don't mean to say that the academics aren't important, I was a pretty rigorous teacher, my class was full of content, high expectations on the learning side, and all of that. But at the end of the day, people kids don't remember their teachers, because they taught them 10 Extra mathematical concepts, or because they did an extra chapter or two in social studies. That's not where the memories are created. And that's certainly not what, in the long term, you know, it's interesting, I don't want to, you know, always in the air, so to speak, because I actually have one to none, including a bachelor's I've got four, if you include rabbinic ordination, I've got four advanced degrees, two master's degrees, a doctorate, and rabbinic ordination. And with all of that, I'm more down on a lot of the formal education, and what's going on in our schools, especially in the schools of higher ed than I've ever been, just because I think there's a lot of stuff that either doesn't need to be taught, or too much indoctrination or whatever those issues are, what I think our kids need a lot of is relationships. They need a lot of adults who who care for them who believe in them. Because at the end of the day, you know, we all know that there are academic kids that go out into the world, and they don't necessarily do great. And they're those C or D kids. I'm talking about the grades now for going into the world and they knock it out of the park. Some of it is because there isn't a direct congruence see in my mind, let's say between school and life. But oftentimes it's a matter of, is there somebody did we instill within a particular child, the capacity to push through difficulty, to look for a new way to build deep, healthy relationships, because in the work that I'm doing, nobody asks me about my degrees. Nobody even asked me if I have a coaching certification. They just want to know if I can help them. Right. They just want to know if I and I think that ultimately, yeah, and in academics in particular degrees are important. And it's very much emphasized, I think, at the end that I mean, look, if I was a principal, I would take a teacher who doesn't even have a degree but maybe he's working towards one because you have to have something who can engage with the kids and his dynamic and you know, can can can do what needs to be done to make the the the classroom a healthy learning place, as opposed to a degreed, credentialed individual who doesn't have that, you know, connection capacity, that that whose classes are not engaging, who doesn't understand that another fact and another piece of information is not really what matters. You know, most of my kids don't remember almost anything, I'm imagining that I ever taught them, but they remember how I made them feel. They remember how I made them feel. And that was that's also important, you know, like there was a time I'll just mention something because you this'll this will probably be on the periphery of, of even what's allowed in our conversation, but I'll share it anyway. So I taught in a Jewish school, I'm a Jewish person, Orthodox Jewish. And so the, you know, our beliefs or values are very important. And one of the things that you study Jewish history, you know that, you know, the beginnings of Christianity stemmed from Judaism, I'm not going to get into all theological peace right now. But one of the questions it's always ask is, why didn't the Jews, you know, buy into so to speak that pathway? Why didn't they accept Christianity as their own choice? And also, I'll spare everyone all the details. But what I told the students is as follows. I said, the reason I'm teaching you this, and the reason I want you to understand is not because I want you to remember every answer. But I want you to know that when you go into life, and you're confronted with certain, let's call it philosophical or theological questions, you'll remember that you had a teacher who presented to you a logical presentation with that, that you could accept and understand. And even if you don't remember the answer, in the moment, you'll remember that an answer exists. And that alone will hold you firm. In a moment of crisis and a moment of questioning and a moment of confrontation, you'll have your anchor, because you because somebody gave that to you. And so expanding that to a much broader sense, again, it doesn't have to be religiously rooted. If I believe that somebody somewhere that I respect, believed in me, and gave me skills, and those kinds of things that I believe is going to be much more valuable for a kid to take into his or her adult life, then, oh, I had a fantastic sixth grade science teacher who taught us all about fungus, were all about mold and spores, and how that developed on pieces of cheese. You know, that might be interesting, right? But that's not that's not what's gonna carry most kids into their lives as adults and as contributing citizens. Ah, I love that. And I think that belief piece is so important. I always say, you know, I had a contractor stop by the house the other day, and this gentleman, he might, he might have been that student. That was that C or D student that didn't connect at school. But he got out in the real world, he discovered his gift with his hands. And he's just doing absolutely unbelievable. And I hope along the way that he had some teacher that pointed out to him, you know, maybe you don't enjoy reading those books, or maybe you don't enjoy, like, certain math concepts, or writing out paper, but you have such a gift. And, you know, to work with your hands, sometimes their students in our classes sit there, and they don't see their gift. They don't know that people believe in them. So like you said, right, that letting our students know, we believe in you. And that's going to get them through that hard time. And every single one of them need to hear Dabo Swinney 20, he's the head coach at Clemson football, one story that I love to tell is, every single meeting, he brings them when he's meeting with the whole football team, these 18 to 23 year old alpha males, you know, they walk around the campus, and they're huge, and they're super athletic. And people would think that they had these huge egos, and they don't have like the, the self doubt. But he said, he carries that as a sign that says, I can't crossed out. So it says I can, and another sign that says belief, and he carries those two to every single meeting. And if he forgets them, the players asked him a coach who can start the meeting, you don't have those signs. And he says, because the world is full of people that will tell you who you are not what you can't do, that we need people to tell us who we can be that we belong. So that I can just add one other point. And that is, you know, we as teachers, also, we need to think differently about how we measure success. Because again, we're framed in the education that we were raised in. And so for us, it's it's almost all academic, and maybe a little bit in terms of social success, like you know, you mentioned the football team, the prom, you know, maybe there's a performance or production. But what I think we as teachers need to do a better job and is to recognize that the world's definition of success does not mirror the definition of success in school. And I alluded to that before, a lot of valedictorian types do not knock it out of the park in life, because they have a an approach of mindset. That's very good about telling me the information. I'll process it. I'll tell it back to you. I'll master it. And there's a place for people like that there's no question One, but the world needs more people also, who can be creative who can go beyond just giving back content. And so the more that we put them in positions to be creative to think critically to think entrepreneurially. Right? What, what kind of inventions of the world does the world need, and on top of it, and to the degree, we can usually, excuse me know, most teachers are not business people. So they don't necessarily have that comfort where they can say, Okay, so let's now take your skill or your desire to draw or to create or to whatever and turn it into a business, maybe we can take them all the way to the end. But at least we can open their minds to that, and help them define success already from a young age through multiple options. So that not only are they are they do they have self esteem, but they don't waste years of their life, feeling like a dejected, incompetent, only to then come to a later realization that they really are more capable than they were led to believe. Oh, absolutely love that opening their minds, allowing them to see the greatness that they have within them. So good, their doctor off. Now you also have a podcast called lead to succeed. That's right. And could you tell us a little bit about it, and maybe some great lessons learned because one of the best things about a podcast that you get to meet with people from various backgrounds, various journeys, and there's just so much takeaway. So can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, just popped on the podcast art for you. In the background here. It's an interesting journey. You know, I wrote a book back in 2017. It's called becoming the new boss. It's the first of two books that I've written. And that book was the outgrowth, it's just as a brief aside, anyone who's thinking about writing a book, there are a variety of different ways to skin a cat. My approach was to write a bunch of leadership blogs. And then eventually, I pieced them together, because of the fact that I had a somewhat of a rocky journey on the leadership side, especially as head of school with a lot of dynamics, that complicated things, but I'm not going to get into all the specifics. It led me to want to write as I started my coaching career, and to help people avoid many of the same mistakes that I made, it eventually became a book. And I went to this author's conference to learn how to market my book and put it out there and leverage it for speaking opportunities and things like that, and maybe more than one, but certainly one person, very powerfully pitched the concept of podcasting. And so I decided to pursue that and I felt minimally, would give me an opportunity to meet really, you know, cool and successful people. And it really has, you know, Mark Victor Hansen from chicken soup of the soul. Some some, a bunch of Evan Carmichael is very well known on YouTube, a lot of really successful people. And a lot of people most folks haven't heard of, but are still very smart, very accomplished. And so the folks that I have on the on the podcast come from a wide range of backgrounds, some are educational leaders, I have for them, some university CEOs or, or other leaders in higher education. I've also had many, many business leaders and coach consultant types. And you know, what I've learned from them. I mean, there are a lot of things I've learned from them. One of them is that you often look at people who are very successful, and you feel like they're either stuck up, or they're not interested in talking to regular people. But I find that maybe even more, so they want to get their message out, they want to give back. And so even though, you know, there are some podcasts out there that, you know, if you get on that podcast, you'll have half a million a million listeners, that kind of thing. That is not my podcast yet. But people are still willing to come and talk to me because they want other opportunities and other platforms to share their message. So that's that's one thing certainly that I've learned from people, I've learned that every great person has made a lot of mistakes. Because that is a question that I asked her what is the biggest mistake you have made. And I hear it, I asked it from everyone because I want everyone to be able to, I want all my listeners to continually hear the fact that mistakes are part of your journey, that you're not going to have a perfect you know, hockey curve type trajectory to the top. And even when you get to the top there are many, many issues you have to be leery of. And I know I made a ton of mistakes. And that's why I want that point to be reiterated again and again, that all of us make mistakes, but it's a question what do you do with them? How do you how do you view them? And how do you respond to them? So right off the bat, those are some things that I would say, really valuable. And then coming back to what I said before if you want to meet great people, but you don't know how to do it, because you're not necessarily going to networking events or even if you are if you're An education you're typically going to wear, where other teachers go. And there's nothing wrong with meeting other teachers. They're awesome. But if you want to meet people, let's say in other areas or domains, and you feel like a little awkward, I'm going to a business conference or I'm going to a specific industry conference, and I'm not in that industry, how do I meet people, but now all of a sudden, you have a podcast, and you're talking about matters that are relevant to you. So if it's a teacher to teach your podcast, then of course, your circle will be limited to that type of that type of guest. But if you broaden it, you can theory attract people from all stripes of life, and then get perspectives and things that you never would have gotten otherwise. Yes, I love that. And, you know, when you talk about reaching out when people want to share, a lesson that I learned a long time ago is I was assistant coach for a really good basketball team at my high school for about 1415 years, and the other assistant coach, he absolutely loved basketball so much. So he would reach out to all these Division One schools all the other time to these head basketball coaches, and just ask them questions about their basketball system. And it was amazing how many programs got back to him. It wasn't necessarily like the head coach, because the head coach is super busy. But there was other members of the team that would take the time and make sure that my my friend got all the information that he asked for. And it's that simple. We'll never get a yes. If we don't ask. People want to share. And what I also love that is you talk about, you know, asking people about their mistakes. So I'll ask you doctor off, what would be one mistake, you really learn from my friend? Yeah, also, I I'll answer like my guests, you I made many. But I would say the one that I probably repeat the most is the mistake for I guess they're related. And one of them is believing my own my own press. Say when I came when I came as head of school, there was a lot of positive energy around my hire. My predecessor was very energetic. And unfortunately, his tenure ended under less than ideal circumstances, his wife was in the process of passing from terminal illness. But at the end of the day, he had been in with the school for a really long time, and it was much older than me. And they were looking for young blood. And they found some guy who was technically savvy and that the Dow all this stuff credentialed beyond and all of the things I mentioned before. And so I started to believe that I was as good as people were saying. And because of that, I didn't take this as really sort of a dovetail into the other point, didn't make enough of an effort initially, to listen, and to build equity. And so we know with leadership that you could have the greatest message, you could be on point 100%, you can be the smartest person in the room. But if you can't get the people around you to bank you, you're not going to be successful, no matter what your message is. And on the other hand, if people back you 100%, despite the fact that your ideas may not be so great all the time, they'll help you find another way forward. So building that equity is more valuable. And I think in a school in particular, where again, culture is very different people are often there for a really long time, change is very slow. And so if you want to be a change agent, because the board is telling you to and the school hasn't been updated in X number of years and all these reasons, but you don't take the time to build those foundational relationships with the people you're asking to change. Oftentimes, that will backfire. So that that to me was probably the biggest thing. And I've learned over the years and my dissertation reinforced this is that teachers are less interested in you being the curricular, all the All Knowing curricular guide, you're not necessarily so interested, although they would like your support and your insights I'm sure they're more interested in are you meeting their interpersonal social emotional needs, then you are sort of driving their academic agenda. And again, it's not even because of the fact that you might be asking them to change when you're trying to push academic reform or trying to improve things. It's just more about the idea that people are motivated by by others who care for them by others who connect with them. Yes, I think a you know, it all gets to the point. We always talk about people wanting to be seen heard and valued. And it's not just the young people. It's everyone in the US and that's important for teachers to also remember with their students, you know, I have a poem that I wrote called The the the leader in you and it's just the idea that teachers often think of administration as the leaders in the school, but teachers are plenty leaders, they're leaders of their classrooms, for sure. But they're also leaders of their peers. And sometimes they even lead up or should lead up to the administration. So it's good advice for all of us to think about the way you want to be treated, is the way you should be treating others. And that also is true for students, despite the fact that historically in schools, teachers have not always been so careful in that area, especially with the kids who give them the hardest, the hardest time. Yes, absolutely. And, you know, one time I heard someone talk about leadership, and they said leadership or leadership is influence, it doesn't mean that you're that the top of the pyramid, and we all influence everybody that we meet that we come across with our words and with our actions. So what are we choosing, we're choosing to influence people positively? Or are we choosing to influence people negatively? And sometimes that takes looking in the mirror? Because, you know, I know for myself, unfortunately, and I know from watching other people, sometimes we're not aware, unless we're very deliberate and very conscious of how we affect others with our words and with our actions. So that's exactly right. Now, I know we don't have a lot of time to get into it. But you also have a book about productivity. If you could just get one simple, I could slide it in here where you can actually becoming the productive boss, if you can just give one productivity hack for everybody. What would that I? Well, the most important thing, I think, in terms of football, there's a bunch of here's the hack, Thaman, hack, schedule, everything. That's really the bottom line, if you have a to do list, a to do list is a starting point, it's maybe a collection area for the things you need to do. But to actually ensure that they get done. First of all, you got to prioritize your list. What are the most important tasks? Think about the Pareto principle, the 8020 rule? What are those 20% of activities that will produce those 80% 80% results? Or that disproportionate result for you? That's the first question once you have your list. And the second question is, how do I schedule it and block out the time to ensure that it gets done, because if you let others control your calendar, you will always have somebody who will take your time. But if you are protective of your time, and deliberate and you think about when do you have the most capacity or opportunity to focus with the least distractions, that's usually when you want to do that kind of work, whether it's curriculum development, personal development, you know, writing correspondences to parents, whatever is important to you, scheduling it, that will guarantee that it gets done. Yes, one of my favorite podcasters authors Jaco willing, he says, own the day, or the day will own you. Yeah, so I love to like schedule your day. Now, Dr. Hoff, two of my favorite questions. And I know you're a well read individual. So I'm looking forward to this. What are outside of your amazing books that I will put in the show notes, what is some of your favorite books and or a favorite podcast that you listen to? So on the favorite book side, there are many I love atomic habits by James clear, because it teaches us the importance of not only developing healthy habits, but a means by which to do so. And a lot of it just has to do with removing the things that prevent, you know, good decisions or behaviors from happening on a regular basis. So for example, you want to exercise, you want to be in good physical condition, you've got to schedule it on your calendar, I wake up every day at about five o'clock, because that's when I have x, I create exercise time before prayer. That's my morning routine. Typically, I also will take out my exercise clothes the night before, put it next to my bed. Because it's one less thing to think about. It's one closer step towards the outcome of the desire. And so you start to build habits around healthy, consistent decisions. Another one that I reference often just because of the productivity work that I do is leadership in the One Minute Manager is a really nice easy read on what's called situational leadership helps you understand that when you're working with different people based on their experience, their attitude, their motivation, you delegate or you work with them differently to ensure that they are still doing effective work and you simultaneously can can focus as the leader on those most important tasks are the things you weren't supposed to be doing. As far as podcasts honestly, I don't listen to nearly as much as I should. I listened to a ton of audiobooks. In fact, most of the books that I read, I'm not actually using my eyeballs to read, it's because of the fact that I do have living in the greater New York City area, one of the blessings, if you want to call it that are longer than average commutes, I would say that many other readers or listeners may be used to. And so I do have time to listen to a variety of books. I mentioned a couple just now. And in fact, I've never read atomic habits. I just have listened to it multiple times. And there are a bunch of others as well. Yes, absolutely. And I'm the same way like Amazon audible, that that's where I get all my books as well. Now, Dr. off if people wanted to connect with you, if they wanted to bring you into their school for PD, what's the best way to get in touch? Sure, well, my website is the best place to start impactful coaching.com specifically on the educational side, forward slash education. You can find me on all of the major social media platforms, LinkedIn is where I'm most active. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. I think I even posted Tiktok for somebody helps me with that. A lot of my educational videos, are there. Little snippets and why not real so people can see it YouTube shorts, and YouTube in general. So everywhere, is it pretty? Pretty much you can find me? And yeah, it would be an absolute pleasure to speak with anyone listening, because one of the things that I really focus on during my professional development is the outcomes for the participants. I want it to be engaging, I want them to be self reflective. And I want them to make commitments around what they're going to do to improve their craft by virtue of the time we spent together, rather than just having somebody else preach to them for an hour or two, and then move on to his next stop. That's not my approach. And certainly, that's what I try to bring to, to my audiences. Excellent. And if you could have the listeners, walk away with one thing, what would that be, be kind to yourself, I think you have to be kind to others to certainly, but be kind to yourself, because like I said before, we all make mistakes. And it's easy to live in a world of regret. It's easy to say I coulda Woulda, Shoulda A. And that really is irrelevant to everything. You know, if you're a teacher, you've made mistakes in your interactions with kids, you've said things you shouldn't have said, you've made mistakes in terms of how you taught things, you've made mistakes, maybe in terms of a career choice. We all have, we all have. But if you if you if you wallow in that, I won't say even self pity. But if you if you spend too much time thinking about where you should have gone rather than focusing on what can I learn from what happened? And how do I take the very best best next step forward from this point on? That, to me would be a very powerful way for a person to live, as opposed to unfortunately, as so many people do choose to live. Yes. Oh, that's That's so good. Be kind look at those mistakes is, you know, what can I take away? How can I grow? What can I learn from this? And then take it a step forward. Well, what can I do next time? So good. Dr. Hoff, my friend is been awesome. Connecting. You have so much wisdom, so many gems that you shared here, and you're doing some great work. So thank you. Thank you for this time. Keep blessing others, my friend. You got it. This conversation was so good. Dr. Hoff had so much to share, and he absolutely crushed it. Now this is the teaching champions take where I share three of my favorite gems from this conversation. And the first thing that I loved was when Dr. Hoff talked about instilling the power of belief in our students. And he talked about how important it is for our students to know that is they travel along in their journeys, that they know that someone somewhere believed in them, and that that person nurtured skills within them, so that our students can handle the situations that come their way. And that's so powerful. And the second gem that I loved, is when Dr. Hoff talked about expanding our views of what success truly is, and Alban, our students understand that success can be viewed through multiple different options. Because there's students that are sitting in classrooms today. They're unbelievably gifted, but because of the traditional view of success, these individuals, these children, they feel like failures. They feel incapable of great things. So I think it's important that we pause and we think about how we define success, and how do we celebrate success in our own classrooms. And the third gem that I love was how Dr. Hoff talked about mistakes, and he really emphasized Sighs that each and every single one of us makes mistakes. And the most important thing is to not define ourselves by these mistakes, not to let these mistakes have a stronghold over us, but to learn from them to grow from them. And to think, what's the best next step forward? Now this conversation was so good, hit me up on social media and let me know what were some of your favorite takeaways. A big thank you to Dr. Hoff, for sharing so many gems. And a big thank you to all of you for being here. For being part of the teaching champions community we support, we encourage we lift each other up. And always remember, it doesn't matter if you're from rural America, to urban America, to Canada, to Spain to Bahrain. We're all on that same team. We're all on that same mission. And we're always better together. Keep being amazing, my friends, and as you go out into the week, May you step into strength, may you step into shine, and let's build our champions. Have a great week, everybody