Ask Sal Anything! Homeroom Tuesday, September 15

Um, hi everyone. Welcome to, uh, the homeroom live stream. Sal here from Khan Academy.

Uh, so we're gonna have a disappointing guest today; it is myself. So we're gonna be doing an ask me anything. So if you have questions about literally anything, I hope to be surprised by your questions, uh, within bounds. Uh, put them on the message boards wherever you're watching this, whether it's Facebook, YouTube, or maybe someplace else.

Uh, but before we jump into the ask me anything, I'll give my standard announcement. First of all, a reminder that Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization. We can only exist through donations from folks like yourself, so if you're in a position to do so, please go to khanacademy.org/donate.

I also want to give a special shout out to several organizations that have supported Khan Academy, especially through this COVID crisis. There's many others, more of the name you go to our supporters page, but especially as we're going into the COVID crisis, we were already running at a deficit, and you can imagine our expenses have only gone up, uh, with our server costs and us trying to accelerate a whole series of content and programs.

So, special thanks to Bank of America, Google.org, AT&T, Fastly, Novartis, and many others who, over the years, have supported Khan Academy. Many of you all, without that support, it wouldn't be possible. And we could—we are continuing to run at a deficit especially for next year. So, please think about making a donation. Everything makes a difference.

Uh, so with that, I'm excited to answer questions, and so the team has already started surfacing some questions. I think a few of these might have been from before. So let's see. Uh, these are all really good questions.

So the first question from YouTube, Vivek Desai: "How do we level the playing field in low funded schools?" It's a good question. Uh, you know, I think arguably Khan Academy, with a mission of free world-class education for anyone, anywhere, it's implicit that we are trying to level the playing field, especially for folks, uh, who are low income or might be attending schools with less resources or maybe don't even have access to schools.

And so one theory of action for us is that, you know, hopefully folks will be able to leverage things like Khan Academy. And it's not just students using it on their own, but, you know, half of our usage is teachers using Khan Academy as part of their classrooms where students are able to work on Khan Academy exercises, sometimes aligned to the student teachers' lessons, sometimes the teachers' students are doing it at their own time and pace, and teachers are able to then understand where all of their kids are and then support them more inside of the classroom.

Uh, we've seen a lot of efficacy studies that that could make a huge difference. Now, clearly, in order to use Khan Academy that way, there are some prerequisite things that have to exist—internet connections for sure, the school devices at the school ideally would be at the home and school. We're seeing that a lot with COVID.

But, you know, this is one area that we think we can help level—start helping level the playing field. I don't want to pretend like it's a simple solution and that you can just, you know, snap your fingers and that everything is perfect.

Um, some of y'all know I have another skunk work project. It is not a part of Khan Academy. It's—it's actually I'm incorporating it as we speak as a separate non-for-profit called schoolhouse.world to try to get more folks access to tutoring as well, uh, so that, you know, not only can you get all the practice, the feedback, the video supports, the instructional supports, the teacher supports through Khan Academy, but you can also connect to other people and really become part of a community of learning.

It's really my dream, uh, because in both of those cases, learning is not bound by time or space. Learning can meet you where you are and then, you know, the zip code that you live in or the income of your family or the neighborhood you live in should matter less. Unfortunately, it'll always probably play a factor, but it will hopefully matter a lot less.

See, there's a question. Let's see. Jim Sugar Brown from Facebook asks, "Sal, how do you see the future of education and learning? Can you differentiate between the two?" So that's a big question. I like that you're trying—you know, you're saying, well, the difference between education and learning.

You know, when I at least imagine education, I imagine all of the things that the education system does. There's a learning component of it, and we're traditionally thinking of, like, core academic skills. Then, there is a socialization; you know, a lot of us, we learn to kind of work with others in many years of school. And then another thing that the school system does is kind of a credentialing aspect to it.

Um, I think we're learning with COVID also the school system, especially for younger kids, provides a childcare function, but it's—it's really academics, credentialing, socialization, and kind of care of kids. And there's other supports that the education system does as well—things like lunch programs and other social supports.

You know, the learning you could consider is broader—it's a lot of that, uh, but you could—you know, when I imagine learning, I imagine, you know, me using YouTube to figure out how to fix my toilet, which I've done several times, uh, especially during COVID.

Uh, or, you know, just learning how to play guitar. And arguably, some of these things could be part of the education system as well. But I think, in either case, we're going to be moving to a world where there's going to be far more paths that people can take, and they're going to be far more customizable to the needs of the individual.

And as these paths that you can take become more personalized and more diverse, then there's going to be more universal ways of proving what you know—creating a signal to, you know, you could call it a credential so that other people can understand, uh, what you are capable of.

Uh, I also think you're going to see—I've talked about the schoolhouse.world project, which is separate from Khan Academy, but I also think you're going to see more mechanisms where communities of people are going to be able to support each other in kind of a very grassroots way, which I think could be very powerful.

You know, I think historically, the last 200 years, education and learning has been a very centralized affair. Uh, it's—it's been, you know, a couple of folks get together in a room. I mean, famously, the courses that you—many of y'all learned or we all learned in high school were determined by 10 university presidents in 1890, uh, and then there's the community of 10. You could look it up.

Uh, and so that's obviously as centralized as it gets. So I think you're going to start seeing a lot more diversity in paths, but you're going to start seeing much stronger ways that you can prove what you know and really community being a very powerful way to learn.

So there's, uh, from YouTube, SmartBear asking, "Sal, can you tell me how did you make it to where you are right now, founder and CEO of Khan Academy?" I often times wonder that myself. Um, you know, I think growing up—I think we all have this kind of angst, and frankly, the answer hasn't gone away yet, that, you know, we have one life; how do we make it count, or how do we make it worth something?

Uh, and you know, we can debate what it means to count or what it means to work something. My—I believe that I've evolved over time. You know, when I was a teenager, uh, or in my early 20s, I think, you know, I imagined counting, making a dent in the universe, being all about kind of external—whatever impact external.

You know, whether it's discovering a new, you know, drug that could like cure disease, or, um, impacting people in a certain way, or, you know, I'd have to admit, especially early and probably even now, but early in my life, I probably was motivated to saying, "Hey, I would like to be able to—" you know, I grew up not so wealthy.

In fact, you know, my mom, I think made sixteen thousand dollars in 1994, which was the year that I had to help her fill out the taxes to get financial aid for college, so we didn't have a lot of money. Um, you know, she was making roughly minimum wage.

So there was in me a lot of, I would say, a fire in my belly to try to be financially comfortable, uh, and not have to kind of go through some of the financial uncertainties that we had growing up. Um, and you know, so I did what I thought would make sense there, but I never like was just one of these kids that was just like, "Okay, what do I need to do to get a job? You know, what's going to be on the test? Let me just ace it."

I—I naturally— I mean, I think y'all can tell my personality—no matter how pragmatic I try to be, my—I do a lot of daydreaming. My personality tends to wander into the, uh, I don't know what you would call it, uh, the aspirational, the delusional, uh, the imagining what the world could be.

Uh, and I've often felt this angst that, like, you know, we only have so many decades on this planet; let's make it interesting. You know, let's not just try to—let's not just try to go through the mold that everyone else has. There's certain things we have to do to be able to pay the bills and, you know, hopefully get a house and pay off your debts, etc., etc., support your family. Uh, but, you know, we got—let's make it interesting, too.

Um, so anyway, you know, college, uh, I tried to do my best, you know, to kind of get a good job. I had a good job when, you know, in 1998 came out here to, uh, Silicon Valley, worked with Oracle as a product manager. It was a good job. I had a really good boss named Thomas Curry, and he's actually quite known in tech circles now; he runs all of Google Cloud.

But I—I was one of the first people he ever hired. He was in his early 30s at the time, uh, and then, you know, it was startup—it was the dot-com mania. I went and joined a startup; that was a great experience. But then, you know, the Nasdaq started to tank, and I said, "I should I should take some shelter in business school and try to figure out what I want to do with my life."

I also say, you know, I went to business school because I was lonely, and I had this theory that in Boston there were a lot more students and I could probably find, you know, a life partner. Um, and so I went back to Boston for—this goes true; both things happened. I figured out what I at least wanted to do career-wise for my next stage, and I met my now—actually, I met my wife back in 1997.

And, you know, I—I had always, uh, aspired to get to know her better for many years, and but then in 2002, I got—I—I was successful. And, um, she hasn't—uh, she—she hasn't figured it out just yet that, you know, I've definitely been the winner on this, uh, situation.

But the, um, anyway, I’m probably going into more of my biography than you're asking. But, you know, it was kind of—it's been like this kind of, uh, very circuitous path. But it was—I think many of y'all know you could find videos on YouTube and other places of me telling the Khan Academy genesis story, but it was really 2004. I was an analyst at a hedge fund; a cousin needed help.

And but in the back of my mind, I had always thought about that, you know, maybe technology could be a really powerful tool to scalably help a lot of folks. Uh, and so that's when I started tutoring cousins. Word spread that free tutoring was going on, that I started tutoring more cousins. I started making software for them, videos for them. People who are not my cousins, like yourselves, were starting to use them.

By 2009, I had trouble focusing on my day job. 2000—so I quit it. We were living off of savings; that was scary. I mean, you know, you're asking how do I get here. You know, yeah, you're going to have these moments of having to kind of jump into scary things, and you're going to question yourself, and you're going to—you know, that year that Khan Academy had no funding, and I was living off of savings, our first child had been born.

It was creating all sorts of stresses. I was waking up in the middle of the night, you know, wondering what it had done to my family, what—what I had done to my career. So you're gonna have your moments of self-doubt.

Um, but then, you know, it's been—we eventually got funding and we've been on this journey. And, you know, and—even now, I have my moments where I'm super excited. I'm like, "Wow, we're going to be in a position one day to impact billions of folks." But then there's days where I feel that, you know, something went wrong or, you know, I thought we were going to get some funding for—for some big project, and it doesn't happen, or, you know, we were trying to build something and we realized that, you know, there's—there's mold in the attic, so to speak, and it's gonna take more work than we expected.

Uh, but you try to power through those things, uh, because—because, you know, it's—it's—I consider myself very fortunate to be able to work on a mission, uh, like this and to, uh, be able to work with really great people. You know, the Khan Academy team's over 200 folks now. We've had thousands of volunteers.

Uh, so it's a—you know, it's—if you get to work on something that's intellectually interesting, can make a dent in the world, and you're able to work with other really good people, you know, I—I don't think you can really ask for—for more than that.

So, uh, you know, I hope to be able to do this until the day I die, which is hopefully many decades from now. So, um, Rude Rene Mandal from Facebook: "If you were not in this profession, what other profession would you go for?"

So, you know, some of—if I'm honest, you know, before this I was an analyst at a hedge fund. Um, so maybe I would still be an analyst at a hedge fund, although even while I was an analyst at a hedge fund, I know some of you are wondering what is a hedge fund. A hedge fund is essentially an investment management company. Think of a mutual fund.

The difference between a mutual fund and a hedge fund is a mutual fund is heavily regulated, but because it's heavily regulated they’re allowed to market more broadly. But they’re essentially mutual funds buy stocks—a basket of stocks, and you know, you’re using your money, and if it does well, it does well. Hedge funds also are buying or selling a basket of things, but they're less regulated. So they can buy other things; they can buy options; they can buy debt; they can even buy—you know, they could buy literally anything.

And they can they can do more exotic things like, you know, futures, or they could short things, or, uh, you know, have options. So, so, uh, I—I was already in that industry. There's definitely a world where I would have stayed in it. But I used to tell my friends my rationalization. I did enjoy that work; it was very intellectually stimulating, and it paid well.

Uh, was, uh, I said I would do this until I could be—I could—I could kind of do whatever I wanted, and then I would start at school one day. So I did always have these dreams. But obviously, the—the school happened in a different way through Khan Academy. It happened well before I was, uh, able to do it—able to do it on my own.

Uh, you know, I think in alternate realities, I—I, you know, I would—I probably could have, you know, maybe been a science fiction author. That—I'd like to believe that, who knows? Um, anyway, who knows? But I probably would have would have stayed in the hedge fund world and then eventually transitioned to becoming some type of an educator, I think.

So from YouTube, Akshay Murthy is asking, "What type of global impact could Khan Academy have, and why does my school not use Khan Academy? Is there a way to make Khan Academy more widespread?"

Well, actually, you're asking three questions that I'm constantly asking myself and the team at Khan Academy. We're constantly asking ourselves what kind of global impact can we have? Why is it that school is using Khan Academy? And how is there a way to make it more widespread?

Uh, you know, the global impact we could have, I—I, you know, we—we have over 100 million registered users now. We have about 30 million folks come to the site every month and do some type of a learning action. It's a smaller subset of that that is doing it at like a very regular rate, but obviously, there's hundreds of millions, arguably billions of students in the world who could benefit from Khan Academy.

And there's 46 translation projects going on of Khan Academy, uh, so, you know, my genuine dream is, if we're talking five, ten years from now—that let's say 10 years from now—there's billions of folks who are using Khan Academy; it's their lifeline to get practice, to get feedback, to learn a lot of things.

Ideally, they're able to use it in conjunction with schools; it's able to unlock a kind of true personalization in a school setting. Teachers' jobs get easier; they can use that data; they don't have to, like, you know, assign things and grade things, and all of that can happen automatically. And they get really good data so that when they get together with students, they're able to dig a little bit deeper, motivate them, unstick them, do projects, do simulations, etc.

And I hope, you know, because it's at a scale of billions, we're able to, you know, move the dial on whatever you want to call it—impact scores, test scores, outcomes, uh, on the scale of nations or on the scale internationally. So that, you know, in 10 or 20 years, people like, "Could you imagine there used to be a day where 70% of folks had to take remedial math in college or this large chunk of humanity thought that algebra was difficult?"

Now everyone knows how to do it. It's like, you know, it's—it's just a basic skill that all of humanity has. And I don't think— you know, and we're not—our vision is not just to stop at math. You know, we already have a lot of science and social sciences and humanities on Khan Academy. I think math is where we're strongest now, uh, probably followed by science, and we're actually hoping to accelerate a lot of the science over the next few years.

But eventually, we want to cover all core academic subjects, and we want to create ways for people to prove what they know to the broader world. So it's a big vision. You know, why is your school not using it? I don't know.

I think there's going to be a video version of this. You should—you should, you know, Akshay's school: please use Khan Academy. We want to make life easier for you, um, and, and we think your kids will enjoy it. Your teachers will enjoy it. We're here to support all of you teachers, so, Akshay's school, think about it.

Uh, and then how do we make it more widespread? I think we just have, you know, on Khan Academy's side, we just have to make sure we understand the needs of teachers and keep improving on the software, the content for them, the use cases so we can support more and more of what they're doing.

And then we just have to work with all of y'all in the world and corporations, whoever else, to spread the word. You know, I think a lot of people are like—they don't fully understand that, one, we're not for profit; we're not selling anything. Everything we're doing is philanthropically supported and free.

Uh, so—and it's frankly the most efficacious thing out there. Some people think that if something is free, it must not be as good as the expensive thing. But if you, you know, do your research, if you look at efficacy data, if you look at—if you just talk to people who've used Khan Academy versus other tools, I think this is one of those worlds where I'd like to believe that the best things in the world truly, truly are free.

So help us spread the word. So there's so far from YouTube, Prussian Beau asking, "Is Khan Academy going to be primarily for homeschooling or just for practice?" Well, it can be used for either of those things. We know a lot of homeschoolers around the world lean quite heavily on Khan Academy, especially for math and science, but in other subjects as well.

And things like our SAT prep, which goes into math, reading, and writing. We have Khan Academy Kids, which is math, social-emotional learning, reading, and writing. But it's not just for homeschooling; it can be used for practice. In fact, that's where we put most of our resources—to have kind of a practice platform where you can get, especially in math—and we're starting to have in science and other subjects—practice as much practice as you need on all the core skills with game mechanics and make sure you retain it, that you can really master the content.

But we also have video supports and hints and articles that you—so you're not just doing that practice in a vacuum. If you're having difficulty, you get more supports, and if you're doing it in a classroom context, your teachers—or actually, it could even be your parents—could be your coach—can understand what more help you need so that you don't get stuck with just the supports that we're able to provide, like the video.

So, uh, we like to see it as all of the above. From YouTube, Maheka to Prani: "Hey Sal, you always talk about how you had a huge passion for learning even as a student. Have you, along the path of your education, ever strayed from this passion? How did you deal with such slumps?"

You know, I've always—I've never, I guess, not been curious. Um, I've never—I've never, like, had a moment where I'm like, "Oh, learning's no fun. I don't want to understand this mystery called life." No, I've never been there. I've never been there.

Uh, I have been in places where I've been demoralized, feeling insecure, wondering whether, like, everything I've ever done has been pointless. So I've definitely—I've definitely had those moments. Um, and I've definitely had moments where I'm just stressed about, "Is something going to turn out the way I want it to be?" or, you know, I'm working with a colleague or I have a manager or boss where I'm like, "Oh, I don't think they understand what I did," or "I don't think they like me," or—you know, I—we all go through emotions like that.

Um, the way that—I deal with the what you could call slumps is I remind myself, you know, once you have a little bit of a hindsight of all your past slumps, and I've got to believe, Mahika, you have your slumps. You've had your slumps. And if you look back on your slumps, you know, some of these things that in the day that you were completely stressed about, you're like, "Oh, it's the end of the world. I can't believe this happened," and someone said this or whatever, this is going to happen. Oftentimes, a week later, like, you—you even forget what that thing was.

And even if something is—something more serious that has longer-lasting implications, you know, I remind ourselves we have a finite number of years on this planet. This planet is a speck in this broad universe. You know, even these things that we identify very, very strongly with, you know, I—I identify very, very strongly with the name Sal Khan. I identify very strongly with, you know, this appearance, with, um, my role, and with my family, uh, with society, my job with Khan Academy.

These are all things that I identify very strongly with. You know, my—my ego, and like, you know, the technical ego—not the like braggadocious ego, but like my identity ego persona, whatever you want to call it—it is connected to all of these things. And the times where you often feel the most stress is when you feel that some aspect of your persona, some aspect of your identity is under threat.

You know, my identity, I think I'm an honest person. Why does that person think that I'm not honest? Or, you know, I think I did a good job. I think I'm capable, but maybe someone else doesn't think so. Or, you know, my persona is tied to the success of Khan Academy, but wow, I just got a data point that maybe Khan Academy is going to have trouble in that area.

That causes stress. And the way I get through that is one, reminding myself that a lot of these things resolve on their own—usually for the best—but even if it resolves in a negative way, to not tie my—who I am, my identity to that outcome, uh, because that's not going to benefit anyone. That's just going to make me miserable; it's not going to change the outcome.

Uh, you know, in Eastern philosophy and Vedic philosophy, there's this notion of sac—sac—sattvic action, which is do what you think is right, but don't get caught up in the outcome. Don't do something because you think it's going to have a great outcome, or because you're afraid that if you don't do it, you're going to have a negative outcome. Do it because you think it's—because you think it's the right thing to do, and then the chips fall where they do.

And if you do that, it can—it's actually very, very liberating. You do what you think is right, but you won't obsess about it. You won't regret things as much, and you'll just be a happier person, and you'll just be more open to kind of just, you know, positive things out there.

Another thing I'd recommend—I've talked about this before—is I do a lot of, uh, meditation. Um, and, you know, I think the benefit of meditation, which is really just sitting quietly and giving your mind a chance to steal itself. You know, most of us, our minds are constantly jumping. It's like a circus in there. You're like, "Oh, I got to pay my taxes."

Um, "Am I watering my lawn enough?" You know, "Do I need to, you know, do my laundry?" Um, "I wonder if I'm going to be able to fundraise enough for that effort on Khan Academy." Um, "Is that team not aligned? I need to talk to this person." We have this constant narrative in our heads.

And sometimes, it's just like completely random stuff—like if a bear attacked me, what would I do? It's, you know, there's all sorts of stuff that is going on, at least in my mind. But when you meditate, um, you—you kind of say, "Okay, self, give yourself a chance to just pause. Don't be worried about what's happened in the past, what's in the future. Just be in the present and just let your mind just—just be in awareness."

Don't think about "I am Sal." Don't think about "I hope Khan Academy succeeds." Don't think about what people think of you or all of the chores you have to do—just be there, aware. And at first, it's difficult, but once you start doing it regularly, you'll actually find that it's incredibly peaceful and it's incredibly liberating, and it kind of stays with you the rest of the day.

Where if something happens that would traditionally have triggered you or make you feel off-balance, you'll be like, "You know what? This is just happening in material reality. This isn't really affecting my true self."

So, you know, you do what's right. If you have to correct something, if you have to say something, say it. But then don't get caught up in it. But anyway, I give you a longer—I kind of ended up giving you kind of a whole life philosophy lesson.

Uh, take it for—and look, I don't want to pretend like I'm in like a permanent state of zen or nirvana either. I have my moments. But my coping mechanism is definitely to, kind of, get more grounded, centered, not fixate too much on my persona, and realize that most of the stuff resolves itself and we have only so much time on this planet.

Uh, let's not spend that time obsessing or feeling low about ourselves, if we can avoid it. If we can avoid it, I know. And there's many cases where it's much harder. And—and if it's in a tough situation, definitely seek help because, you know, that's the other thing I would say—if you're in a really bad situation, uh, or even a medium bad situation, because sometimes it's worse than you might realize, uh, fine, find help. No, don't be afraid to ask for help or embarrassed.

Um, so from Facebook, Selena Chang: "What are some problems in the world that high school students can help solve by creating their own initiatives?" Well, well, Celine, I gotta say there’s an—as time goes by fast when you're giving advice. Uh, so, there's there's a ton that you could do right now.

I, you know, there's never been more opportunities for people your age, outlets to help the world. You know, we live in a world, and you know, there's a lot of positives and there's a lot of negatives—people talk about things like social media and YouTube and all that, but there's a lot of positives as well—like you can create content that can help teach people. You can create content that builds awareness.

You could create software that helps solve real problems for folks. You know, in this COVID world, it surfaced all sorts of new problems. But the—the other side of the problem coin is that these are opportunities for things that need to be fixed. You know, I talked earlier in the COVID crisis about creating mechanisms to help elderly in your neighborhood get the things they need so that they don't have to be exposed.

Um, there could be mechanisms. You know, everyone is rethinking about how they do everything right now—from how they get their groceries, to how, you know, what they do for entertainment, to how they stay connected with friends and family. These are all huge opportunities.

I've always said, you know, people focus on so many things in the day-to-day, but they often don't focus on some of the most important things, like the memories of their family and all of that. I wanted to start a project that I haven't had time for. I've been trying to convince every young person I can talk to to start it. I would be a customer if you started this of, uh, doing really comprehensive interviews and documenting the life narratives of essentially everyone in my extended family.

Because how powerful would that be? You know, I had an uncle who passed away recently, and you know, I kick myself that I didn't, you know, sit down with him for a few days and just record like every little detail about his life history. One, to help remember him but also those—those stories are going to get lost.

And if you think about it, those stories, those memories are the most valuable thing that my family has, but no one's thinking about that. And I want to do that with, you know, I wish I did it with that uncle. I want to do it with his wife. I want to do it with my mom. I want to do it with everybody.

You know, uh, my wife—two of her grandparents are still alive. I tell her every day, like, we got to get them on Zoom and record their life story. You know, one day we're just going to kick ourselves for not doing it. But I could imagine a service that does something like that—kind of like what, you know, StoryCorps and NPR, but on steroids, so it can like— it can document your entire family.

Uh, I—I would pay for that. I think that would be more valuable than anything else that I could- I could do. So anyway, that's just a—there's a lot that could be worked on right now. And maybe at some point we could—we could have an AMA where we brainstorm, uh, either not-for-profit or business ideas.

Uh, so I'll end on that. Looks like we're almost out of time. Let me see. Um, well, I'm gonna answer one more question just 'cause it's a good one. There's a lot of good questions here. I have about two more minutes.

From YouTube, Justjit Singh is asking, "I was always told my grades decide my future. Is success without good grades possible?" I think saying your grades decide your future is a strong statement. I think grades might influence your future, and—and they definitely—good grades can open up opportunity, and not so good grades, unfortunately, can sometimes close opportunities.

That's why I've been a big fan of mastery learning because in mastery learning, essentially, your grade is never permanent. You can always improve yourself. If you're at a C level today, that just means you haven't learned it fully yet. You can get to a B or an A. So definitely have that mindset.

I would say earlier in your life, your actual grades are more feedback for you and your family. So if you're, you know, in—in elementary and middle school, what really matters is that you eventually really master the material so that when you get to high school and college—uh, which, you know, I wish they were mastery learning as well or were more mastery learning—but that's where the stakes unfortunately, in today's world, get a little bit higher.

But I've seen time and time again, there are many folks, you know, don’t be down on yourself if you’re making your best effort. You know, go back to that software—action. If you’re taking the action, you’re saying, "Look, I'm doing what I think I need to do to the best of my ability. I'm making the effort. I'm stepping out of my comfort zone. I'm willing to try things that seem a little bit difficult for me, but stick at them," then the chips fall where they do.

You know, the grades are what they are. And then, um, you know, what I've seen is there are folks where, uh, you know, the grades can bring the opportunity. But there's also folks with great grades, but, you know, they—they don’t know what to do with it, or the opportunity, or life kind of throws them off balance one way or the other, and— and that's tough.

And I know folks with, you know, not so great grades, uh, who've done incredible things. So definitely don't think that your grades determine your destiny and definitely don't let that be a source of being down on yourself, because then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If your grades—if you're doing your best effort and then you're still not getting the grades you want, and then you think that that says something about yourself, it's going to affect your self-esteem, which is just going to become a self-fulfilling prophecy where you're going to be less confident.

If anything, the people that I've seen most successful in life are people who have invested themselves, making sure they have some set of really valuable skills, people who—and they are willing to kind of put themselves out there into the world and sometimes fail, you know, sometimes be embarrassed, sometimes be told no to, sometimes being rejected. But they're constantly developing themselves. They're constantly putting themselves out in the world.

And they—you know, we all have our low points. I have my low points, but, you know, you—you’re able to kind of pick yourself up from them and hopefully, uh, put—you know, and—and fight the next battle. I think puts you in a pretty good position, regardless of what your grades are.

Uh, so anyway, I'll leave you all there. Take everything I say with a grain of salt. I am not like a paid—like anything. Well, I—for—in terms of advice, um, so, you know, but hopefully—hopefully it's helpful, but these are really great questions.

Uh, thanks everyone, and I think it's next week. Let me see. It's gonna be Thursday. Actually, we're gonna have, uh, Jeff Rosen, who I consider a good friend from the National Constitution Center. It is a Constitution Day, so we're going to talk about the United States Constitution, which is also always—and I'm not saying this sarcastically; I actually generally read it because I love learning. It is actually an amazing thing to talk about, because we—we talk about it in in popular culture a lot, but when you actually read it— and I encourage everyone to read it and digest it—it’s quite readable.

I think it's a very powerful document. So, anyway, I look forward to seeing you all on Thursday as we talk about the U.S. Constitution.