Hold Onto Your Dreams

0:01 This program is designed to provide general information with regards to the subject matters covered. This information is given with the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas. At the end of the day, it's not about what you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up, who you've made better. It's about what you've given back. Denzel Washington, welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to do the same. Matthew, welcome to the show. How are you, doctor Doug co I screwed up my own doctor Doug had the hell? Are you good? Good? Good? Hey?

1:03 It's great to have you on this show. It is great to have a fellow podcaster on the show. That's fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. I want to interest myself to you first and foremost. My name is Matthew j. Canellis. I'm a high school English teacher out of Staten Island, New York by way of East Brunswick, New Jersey's been doing it for about ten years now. I'm co host of my own podcast called The Classroads Podcast with one of my former students and current friends. Eighteen and four amateur boxer, but his name is Anthony Letta. Hopefully by the time this comes out, he'll be in nineteen four, twenty and four amateur boxer. So yeah, very very happy to be here, doctor Doug, very very happy. Well, and I appreciate that. And you know what I find interesting is the story behind what brought you to this point. Now, obviously you've become a teacher. I'd love to know why you became a teacher number one, But number two, what motivated you to start your podcast? What was the what were the things that said to you, Okay, it's time to start a podcast and then talk about the things you're going to talk about. Yeah, So becoming a teacher was not an easy choice, but was a simple choice.

2:14 I always wanted to help people, that's my moo just in life in general. My mother was an English teacher as well. She was more with the elementary school kids, but my forte is obviously the older grades, high school kind of nine to twelfth grade, from about fourteen to eighteen. But I wanted to help people, and English was my best subject. I'll just be honest, That's why I wanted to do it. It was almost where I saw myself fit in and ever since then, I consider myself a mentor to a bunch of my current and former students that have stuck with me throughout the ten years that I've been doing this, and I'm very, very grateful for all of them. And that brings me to the podcast. I actually, as I did my intro, I do a podcast with a former student who is one of, if not one of my best friends, Anthony Letta, and we formed this podcast because when I was his teacher many moons ago.

3:17 He goes, you should start a podcast, And I had a podcast back in twenty fourteen. That show will remain nameless because I don't know how to log in. I don't know how to log into the old YouTube account, and those episodes are still up there. Maybe on my podcast we'll get it to those, but at a later date. But he goes, why don't you why don't you do the podcast? And as a joke, I kind of said, yeah, okay, yeah, if you do it with me, and he said, okay, I'm in, and I go, really, you're in, And he goes, yeah, why not, It'll be fun, And I go, you know what, if you're in, I'll buy all the equipment, all the updated equipment, all the updated software.

3:58 I'll put in the legwork and we'll do it together. Because the reason why I never did a podcast, and I always talk about it, I couldn't really find the niche for it. I couldn't find where I would go into this ever growing podcast a market, because let's face it, everybody has a podcast, and you don't want to have a podcast that talks about the same thing over and over again. You want to have a podcast that could maybe appeal to different walks of life. And we are, and I credit us as being the number one live teacher student podcast in the world as far as I know. We're the only one of its kind where we're live tape and we talk about our generationalities, our commonalities, things that make our lives so parallel. I'm a thirty I'll be thirty two in June. He's gonna be twenty in July, and it's the concept of it is to show how similar our lives and our upbringings are and to show where we do contrast in different elements. And I'm sure by the time this comes out, we're going to have episodes that come out where we do argue about different things. And he sometimes doesn't get my references because about twelve years older than him eleven years old in him. So, in a nutshell, that's kind of why we started the podcast, because I feel like we do have this this area that

5:30 we can foster, facilitate and hopefully grow. That's great. And so as a high school teacher, Yeah, how did that affect How has that affected you? I mean, you know, it's interesting how teachers have different personalities and so forth. But for your ten years, how has that affected you as a person? How has it changed you? If it has, oh it one trillion percent? Has I am not the same person that I was when I set into a classroom for the first time in twenty fourteen. I have grown immensely in terms of mostly patients. I never thought I would develop the patients that I have would and I don't think I would have had I not become a teacher because not saying that I was a hot head. But I'm from New York. Let's face it, New Yorkers. Do we have patients. I don't know. I'm not sure if we're exactly known for our patients. So in that way, but also to not be as judgmental and be a lot more understanding, because I teach all walks of life. If you can name it, I've taught it. People who come from different background socioeconomically, different religions, different races. People have taught me or tried to teach me different languages, and I don't have a knack for different languages, but it's nice that they try. But definitely not being as narrow minded.

7:05 I can give you an example of that. I remember years ago, when I first started, I was the teacher that I thought I had to go into the classroom and be the guy that didn't smile. And I don't think I've stopped smiling since I've been on this call with you. That's not my personality to be like, hmm, no, do your work, do your work? Come on, come on, everybody, This is not me. But they teach you in college that's how you have to be. And I never I subscribed to that school of thought when I first went into the classroom, because I thought that's what I didn't do, but sinstead, I haven't subscribed to that thought because I remember an instance where the class completely turned on me and was like, why would we listen to you right now? What?

7:47 Just because you're this mean guy? You're trying to teach us about Shakespeare? And I remember giving too much away of anybody's personal stories. I remember a couple of the students pulling me aside and like talking to me on a personal level and almost being like, you know, you don't have to you don't have to put on this act anymore. You don't have to be like this mean guy, because we're talking to you now like it's normal, and like you and I are talking at this very, very moment. And that helped shed that hard exterior that colleges do put on you. And I was trained great doctor Libman from Saint Francis College is and still is a mentor of mine, and he was the only one that kind of steered me in the direction where we have to care about our kids. And as I've grown as a teacher ten years in I feel like I care almost too much about my students now. It's almost a blessing and a curse. Well, and it isn't it interesting how we experienced this whole concept of this is you need to do, this is how you need to be, and we buy into that.

9:03 And you're right. It happens in college, it happens. It happens in every environment we think of, whether it's just the family, or whether it's our friends, or whether it's religion, or whether it's college or school or whatever, and what have you? As you observed that in your students, here's the question. I mean, for you, you came out of that with some experiences that caused you to make that change, which which I find really comes down to the fact that you have become who you really are. So when you're working with your students, how many of your students do you observe doing and being who they quote need to be or who they should be, or how they should act. And if you're observing that, how do you help them to make that change? To understand that you know what you need to become who you really are and honor that and appreciate that and love that. That's a that's a definitely great question, great question, and it's a loaded one too. As best I can, I have the luxury of being an English teacher. That's what I'll start off by saying. I can have kids write about anything, really, as long as it somewhat confines to the curriculum that I'm teaching. But we have a lot of free reign to have different writing assignments, and that's usually in September, where I give

10:37 a lot of personal and reflective essays or just like writing prompts to give, and a lot of the times they will open up in those initial writing prompts. Sometimes they don't, but that just comes with their personality and how do I get them to open up and be who they really are? Usually, and I'm about building connections. I try and build a connection with everybody who walks into my door. And without those connections, I don't think that they can even learn what you're trying to teach him content wise. So I read all of the essays that anybody writes, all those reflective essays that I give in the very beginning of the year, and I'll try and take a piece of that essay and connect on a very very at first very superficial level, and then use that as kind of a groundbreaking area in order to get below the surface. For instance, I had this kid a couple of years ago.

11:45 I'm a used per wrestling fan, and he was wearing a stone Cold Steve Austin shirt and I was like, Oh, I love Stonecold Steve Austin the minute that he walked into the room. That's not part of the reflective essay, but I remember building that connection with him over the of just him wearing wrestling shirts, glass and talking about wrestling. And then I became sort of a mentor to him after he was like opening up about something and I'm like, yeah, we're talking about wrestling today, but something's going on with you. I don't understand what's going on. Now you want to talk about it, And then they want to talk about it a little bit more because they've already gotten that relationship developed with you through whatever your mutual interests might have been. For me and this kid, it was pro wrestling at the time, and that helped us form a deeper bond. So with the reflective essays that I give, sometimes I'll see that maybe we have a similar movie in common. I remember a time, somebody wrote down that they were a big fan of Space Jam with Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny, and I went over to him and I at the time, I had a Bill Murray Space Jam Jersey from the actual movie, and I brought it in. I was like, isn't this cool? So it was a really shy kid and we were able to open up and actually talk about the movies. And you know, from there, and I know you asked how you get these people to be who they really are? I feel like in general, I've gotten a lot of kids that wouldn't normally open up and haven't opened up maybe in the four

13:16 years that they've been in their high school, to open up to me for whatever reason. And I think it does start with building initial connections. Well, and you know, it's interesting. I hope I answered your question. You did. And the thing that I am thinking about is, you know that there's so many educators out there. There's so many teachers, and there are some really fantastic ones. I have had some wonderful I had some wonderful teachers in elementary school, in grade school, middle school, high school not so much because I went to a large high school and I actually went to very different high schools, so it half of high school teach on behalf of high school teachers everywhere. I apologize, yes, anyway, it was really fascinating. And as I think about it, then I think about my dad, who when he passed away, they did an honorary thing for him at Northwestern University. He was a voice teacher and they had a memorial service for him, and it was fascinating to me as I came out of that service, and because they brought all these incredible singers into singing and to talk and so forth, and I recognized that he had done the same thing that you had done. You know, here he was a really great voice teacher.

14:43 But the message that I was getting was how he had literally affected their lives to help them to become more successful, to learn to enjoy life, to love all those types of things. And I recognize that there are teachers out there that do that consciously or even subconsciously. And then there are many teachers that kind of still get into that role that you initially were in, where this is how I have to be and this is what I should do, and so on and so forth. What would your message to your fellow teachers be based on your experience of how they can really focus on helping the children and you know, developing that relationship with the children in an appropriate way rather than just being that teacher. I have a quick one line sentence for that or two lines centers for that. I always say, be who you want to be, don't be who they want you to be. And by that I mean you have to develop a style that is right for you. And listen, some teachers may not be able to build the connections that I'm able to build, and that's okay too. Maybe they're is in content and that's okay. But at the same time, don't be that drill sergeant if you're not that drill sergeant and that's not your personality, because kids see right through it. It's so easy to see a transparent teacher. We've all had them,

16:18 and I'm sure when you were just reflecting on your own teachers, you probably remember the teacher that put on an act. And I firmly believe that teaching is your own personal character times ten, and your personality is blown up. And even though like mister Canelli's is this high school English teacher that's not necessarily all I am, So you have to find out what you want to do as a teacher. You can't just be this guy because if you follow everything people tell you to do from a college level even to an administrative level.

17:00 And I'm very, very, very lucky to be where I am, where an illustration is very supportive with all that we do. Gives us tremendous amounts of freedom to be who we are in the classroom. But you can't just take advice blindly. You can just take educational advice blindly, because if you do, you're going to be transparent and you're going to have these kids turn on you like they did on me when I was twenty one twenty two years old trying to control a classroom. And it is what it is. Kids are smart. Kids are smarter now than they were ten years ago, twenty years ago, thirty years ago. They are more with it in the world now, don't get me wrong, or they bogged down by societal influences just as we were. Yeah, But at the same time, I think that a good teacher shines through no matter what, if their personality is able to shine through. Because we talked about this on my podcast as well, and me and Anthony were kind of going back and forth on this a little bit. Anybody can teach writing, anybody could teach how to analyze literature.

18:15 Anybody can teach you some strategy to answer multiple choice questions. That's not necessarily the hard part of the job. The hard part of the job is the connections. And it's also the easiest part, which is something that we got into on our show. But it's again, I guess a long way to answer a shorter question, it's be who you want to be, even if it means going against what some people are telling you. And I know that there's obviously other factors, but let your personality shine. That's what I have to say. Well, and you know, the one thing that you haven't talked about that you have in a way is this concept of how do we develop better relationships with our children, you know, with those in a business if we happen to be a manager or whatever, you know, as a teacher, and the one thing that you have done is number one, focused on the one by looking at each of your individual students and then seeking to understand a way in which you can find some commonality and then start communication.

19:32 And as interesting as one does that I've just had an interesting experience with that, and I'm not going to get into it, but enough other than to say that by opening up a conversation, I was able to have the opportunity to really help someone to work through a process that otherwise they may not have been able to work through on their own. And I think that's so important that we realize as individuals, whether we're teaching or whatever that happens to be, that as we look around us and look at those individuals with whom we might be able to have an effect, particularly as parents, and understand that the only way we can do that is to open up that communication line.

20:17 And the only way that we can really open up a communication line is to find commonality and then seek to genuinely get into that and then open up that conversation. So I think one of the things that you're doing and sharing today is you know, in a very different way, is how important that communication is A one hundreds I agree with you, And it leads to other things too. It opens the doors for all this stuff. I used to have a professor in college getting my master's degree. He used to say, the kids might not want to work, but they'll work for me. And I took that to heart from the day that I heard that, And I feel like that's one hundred percent true, And it comes from what you just said about building connections. And again, these are strategies at work, I feel outside of the classroom, not just as a teacher. I feel like, you know, middle management, middle management jobs at an Amazon warehouse could use the same exact strategies that I've used in order to get productivity out of employee.

21:25 So, Jack, and when you've talked a lot about Anthony, there's got to be an incredible story behind this. So would you mind sharing with the audience that story? Sure, there's so many to list. Is there something specific that you want to know? Well, just the background of he was in your class, I assume, yeah, And what were his struggles and how did you start to communicate and and what have you done to literally change his life? Sure? And to be completely honest, I think I probably chang. He's probably changed my life more than it always always happens, always happens, right, I know? But yeah, so I met him.

22:11 Oh boy, it feels like it feels like a much longer ago. But in two thousand and seventeen, or so when he was a freshman in my class and he was just this random kid in the class. He was nobody. I told him this. I don't recall the first time I met him, and I always feel like, oh, something came up, was mane the silence of my phone. But yeah, so I remember not much about him in the first initial meeting, but we over the course developed this student teacher relationship that I hope translated into a mentorship role as time went on and then the pandemic happened, And before the pandemic happened, I remember him talking all about his boxing career and about how he wanted to be a boxer, how I wanted to be an amateur boxer, and foolishly I said, oh, okay, that's great, that's awesome. But in my head, I'm like, Okay, he's another guy with the dream. And I've had students come up to me and be like, I'm going to be the quarterback for the Giants, I'm going to be an a spar driver, I'm going to be a millionaire inventor, And then they never come to be anything, and you're supportive of them, but in your head, you know, it's like Okay, nice dream kid, but come on, move on, And I almost wrote him off as nothing else. I still wanted to see him box. I still wanted to see all that. But at the end of the day, I just thought he was another story, and another story that

23:45 would end after he graduated. So the pandemic happens, and I didn't write him off, but I kind of lost touch because we are a million different responsibilities back into that in twenty and he especially as a teacher, and he didn't really contact anybody in the school and I wasn't his teacher anymore, with somebody else. And he came back his senior year after COVID was in the rear view, and I remember he came back in this tip top shape and he was like, I'm still boxing, I'm still going at it. And I'm like, you know what, Like I'm starting to believe in this kid, because he went from freshman year to senior year and he kept boxing, and he kept at it, and he never wavered. He transformed his body from this short little guy with not an ounce of muscle on him to a guy who's ripped to the gills and a guy that is in the boxing gym.

24:47 We actually talked about this. We recorded episode five last night. He goes into the boxing three boxing gym three hundred and thirty five days out of the year. Wow. So he puts in a lot of effort, and I give him. I can't give him enough credit for the amount of work that he puts into this, but yeah. So the relationship built up his senior year, and we kept talking about his boxing while also talking about our own lives and what made us so similar, and we discussed hour upbringings, and I became more and more of a believer in him. Not that I wouldn't have if he wasn't a boxer. I would have always believed because we had formed this developed relationship beyond all that. And he kept inviting me to go to see in box towards the end of the senior year and I'm like, I'll come to one. I'll come the one February passes. He wins in the find and I'm like, oh, that's awesome, and he shows me the video. He doesn't you got to come to the next one.

25:47 And I'm like, okay, I'll come to the next one. Next one passes, he goes, I want again, you didn't come and I'm like, oh, okay, I'll come to the next one, and he goes, you better come to the next one. I go, okay, come, I promise you I'll come to the next one. And I go to the next one. And we talked about this on the our episode two and I bought in fully when I was able to see him box live, and he impressed me more than anybody else that I've ever seen play a sport that I've had as a student that had and I bought in just as he did for I feel like my class. And we developed this friendship that lasted after he graduated and to this day where we don't just do the podcast together, we hang out, we go to UFC events. I believe he was with me when I got one of these gloves signed. But yeah, I'm a friend with all of his family members. He's brought me into his crew in a way. I'm hoping that I'm still able to mentor him. I send him a text message every before every fight. I always say, good luck if you lose this, I'm right there corner. He's yeah, he's a great guy, and I'm probably call my friend and I hope I answered your question. I feel like, I feel like I screwed around your questions out there, Doug, and I'm sorry. Well, so I'm going to go deeper. So yeah, go deeper, as you know. And here's an

27:21 interesting observation that I've made so many times. We do things for people and we make a difference in their lives, but we never get the feedback. And it's rare that someone will come back and say, Wow, you did this for me and this is the result. So my question is, has he ever done that for you? Has he ever come and really said, you know what, you have no idea what you've done for me, but this is it. Oh, I hope I don't embarrass And one hundred percent he has. He sent me this nice message on my birthday this past year that was really kind of him, and it's about how I was always in his corner no matter what, and I was, and even on our podcast, he said that I was one of the only people that reached out to him after his very first loss, and that meant a lot to me.

28:14 I didn't know I was the only person, as said, of his immediate family that reached out to him. And he said without that, not necessarily that he would quit or anything like that. But it meant a lot that somebody else outside of his family was in his corner because when and he's told me this privately, when he's had that initial loss, because he was undefeated for a very very long time, and when we had that initial loss, it did shake his confidence quite a bit. And to have somebody there that's not sugarcoating things, that's saying, hey man, you'll get back in there. Hey man, it's not the end of the world. You're gonna win your next fight, and even if you don't win that next fight, you don't win the next one after that. And he said mostly after or after the fights, how much those text messages mean to him. I remember texting him. He went on a bit of a losing skid towards the middle of twenty twenty three of last year, and I remember texting him the day of his fight when he finally got that win back, saying like, look, don't be in your head. Don't do anything like that like safe focused, And he doesn't. I would never say that he credits me with the wind because that would be ridiculous, but he did say how much it meant to him that I was the one that reached out, that I was able to, you know, connect with him on that level because a lot of his

29:48 friends are obviously much younger, and I was his teacher, and I guess it's nice to have because now I've I'd no longer consider myself his men tour necessarily, but I feel like I am that older friend that is in his corner, that does have life experience, and then that he does come to for advice because if I've lived something already, he'll be able to be like, hey, canelis are I'm thinking about doing this? I'm not sure if I should, and I'll be like, yeah, here's the pros and cons of it. So he's never not thanked me for anything that I've said to him or done for him. There he knows. I think we we both know how much we mean to each other on a very personal level. And without him, there's no podcast without me, I'm not sure. But but on that that note, yes they answer your question, yes he has well, and and then I give you long winded I give you long winded answers for guessing no questions. And I think the important thing for people who are listening to understand is that you can make a difference in someone's life if you're just willing to number one, open up that communication, Number two not judge, and number three be there as a support when they fail, and even

31:22 be there as a greater support when they succeed, and continue to encourage them. It makes such a difference. And the one thing that I have discovered, you know, as I've been doing the podcast and just in my life in general, I remember initially, all right, I just want to touch millions of people. I want to have an effect on millions of people. And finally, you know, I kind of slapt myself in the face and said, you know what, all that's really important is the one If I can reach one person and make a difference in their lives when they start to pass that forward, and then when we start to look at the generational aspect of that, that's going to make a difference in generations for a number of people. And I think that becomes the key for our audience is to recognize that, you know what, you only need to touch that one and if you can do that, that's going to make such a difference. I want to change topics just a little bit because as a teacher, I'm sure, you have really observed this concept. It's really interesting. I got a message from a friend the other day and they were talking about how one of their son's friends was being bullied. I think they were a little bit, you know, they had some disabilities that they were born with and they were being bullied, and ultimately, apparently as a young child, they just tried to commit suicide. And the one thing that I have been fascinated with and really

32:58 you know, focused on in the past us was this concept of suicide and bullying and the emotional effects that occur with that. As a teacher, have you observed a fair amount of bullying that goes on within your classroom? Yeah, so, as best I can to protect any identities and stuff like that, I would never obviously give any of that away. Bullying is probably just as big a problem as it's ever been. It's unfortunate and a lot of the times nowadays it starts online and cyber bullying is a huge thing because we have all these apps now, we have Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok. Facebook is somehow making a comeback. I don't know how that's even possible, But you can't escape anymore like we did when we were younger, and that's one of the most unfortunate parts because we can we can quell bullying in a classroom setting. How do we do that is up to the individual teacher, but that also comes from building connections as well, where hopefully a knock on wood that somebody they respect you enough not to do it in front of you and not to and want to not have it get back to you. But yeah, it's just as prevalent now and that's terrible that kids still think that or

34:30 are driven to suicidal ideation. It's it's crazy that it's still a thing that kids don't know in twenty twenty four how to treat each other when the only thing that we have to model it we have to be the models for respect in society. And I take my responsibility as a teacher very very seriously. I give respect and I expect respect back, and there's no there's never a disconnect there. And yeah, let me let me ask you a question, and is there a story that you could share with the audience, because I think this could be an example if there is a story where you had some bullying going on in your classroom and how did you handle it and did that in fact make a difference and stop the bullying and help whoever was being bullied come out of that a little bit emotionally. So I can only speak kind of in generality on this story just because I have to protect whoever is in it exactly. But the best I'll just, you know, for the sake of the story, I'll make up names. Let's say the kid was Bill, and he was being bullied, and he was being bullied on the fact

36:00 that he was a different race and he was not fitting in in this group project. The best way that I saw to address this situation was you have to call it out. You have to call it out, and you have to say, look, why is there a problem with anybody in this classroom? And you have to speak in generalities. You can't be like, this is the problem that we have in this classroom, because guess what, they know. They know that you're talking about them, even if you don't call it out directly. And that's what happened in this case. I remember Bill, the kid that was being picked on, after I called it out in very general terms, being like that was about me, wasn't it? And I go yeah yeah, without saying yeah yeah, and he goes thank you, and I go literally anytime, and did it work? Did it get him accepted into a group? No, but it didn't also develop. It was almost like a fire that was being started, and it could have gotten so much worse, where people would have picked on him even more because of his background. And I feel like from that moment forward, we almost had people not jump in to save him because that's that would be wrong of me to say, But we had people who also picked up on what I was

37:30 saying to the class and yeah, that's that's a big bullying sorry that I couldn't recall. There's another story too, about getting word that students were being cyber bullied. And it's not enough to just do a lesson on cyber bullying, because that's not enough. They're gonna be like, who the hell is this talking to us about how we interact on social media. It's just this old man, right, even though I'm only thirty two, I'm gonna be thirty two giving us this lesson. You have to confront it and make it a part of your lesson without making it the lesson. And I remember having these students who were being cyberbullied almost stopping it because now our eyes are on you. It's almost like we're watching. Now we know about it. And if sometimes an adult knows about something going on, sometimes it stops because they don't want to be that jerk who's doing that online. They don't want to maybe they didn't realize that. Maybe the bully didn't realize how much of a negative effect they were having on other people. And I think that happened with this whole cyber bullion thing because I remember addressing it in class, being almost calling it stupid that people were cyberbullying in today's day and age, when everything is recorded online, nothing ever leaves the internet. It's something that I try

39:06 to tell the kids on a daily basis. Don't write anything online that you don't want repeated to your parents or whoever's watching you at home, because it's there forever or your bosses, your future bosses, think about your future self. And I don't think kids like being called out, and I feel like even if they think they're being called out, I think that helps stop bullying almost added source. So, and do you find there's a reason. Is there a commonality among those that kids that are bullying or even adults, But is there a commonality that you have observed as to maybe why they are bullying others. Yeah, I mean it's always people that are not confident in themselves.

39:52 That's nine times out of ten when I've seen bullying, it is because somebody else not has been bullied, but they're uncomfortable with who they are, as opposed to going out of their way and doing something because they want to. They I really feel and I'm I'm a big proponent of my students, and I always try and give every single one benefit of the doubt. I always feel like they are and obviously not the victim, but they are the ones who wake up in the morning and they are the ones who are unhappy about themselves, so they make others unhappy about themselves and or try to maybe and you know them in being in the adult world, because it happens.

40:37 We have other people like I remember being I was a deli guy at stopping shop, and I remember having bullies there, And not that I was bullied at stopping shop being a deli guy, but I remember these miserable people who hated their job and were just looking for the next thing to do, and they would take out their aggression on somebodybody else. So the commonality is that I feel like they all are trying to make up for something that they don't necessarily have, and it's sad. And beyond that too, you see a lot of it in a lot of it, from my experience, has stemmed from jealousy. A lot of them, a lot of bullying stories that I see, whether I first hand their second end accounts come from bullying people for things that others have that they want, whether it's the girlfriend that they don't have, or the boyfriend that don't have, or the new car that somebody is driving, or the new job that somebody is begging to have. And there again, just I always feel that way. I've felt this way for since I've become a teacher, that if you do bully, you're just unhappy with yourself. And on the flip side of this too, a lot of them and choose to believe them or don't. But a lot of people who are accused of bullying don't realize necessarily that they're a bully. A lot of

42:10 people realize don't realize that they are having a deleterious effect on whoever they're choosing to pick on that day because they'll try and play it off as I'm joking, Oh it's fake, Oh we're friends. Oh it's this, it's that. And that's a commonality that I've seen that's been very prevalent in today's society, more so than five years ago even Okay, yeah, yeah, So as we close the show today, with all of the experiences you've had as a teacher, is an individual, as you've seen all of these things going on, what would be a message that you want to share with the audience that hopefully are some teachers, some parents, some individuals that maybe are bullying, some individuals that maybe are being bullied. Overall, within less than a minute, what would be the message you'd like to share with the audience.

43:09 So my main message is to never stop being who you are just because somebody else doesn't like who you are. That doesn't mean that you have to stop or change yourself. If you like yourself, there's no reason to change. If you're proud of who you are, keep going, keep pushing, no matter how hard you have to push, you have to keep going forward. And look, I'm a prime example of this. I had a failed podcast ten years ago, and now I'm coming out with a new podcast, and we're relatively successful already. Anthony he failed at his a couple of his fights. Guess what he's going and he's going to win another tournament. So never stop pushing. If you have a dream, you have to hold on to it and shoot for the stars, because if you shoot for the stars, you can do You really can accomplish anything, and I firmly believe that you can comp anything. I love that, And Matthew, thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate your insights and what you're willing to share in the fact that you're willing to be open and really talk about these things. So I appreciate you being on the show one more time.

44:14 What's the name of your podcast? Yeah, so we're the Classrooms Podcast. You can follow us on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook at the Classroads podcast and a whole social media YouTube. We're putting up all of our episodes on iTunes, Spotify, Apple, wherever you get podcasts. Again, it's The Classrooms Podcast hosted by meeting Matthew mucnell as a high school English teacher and my co host is my current friend, former student amateur boxer Anthony visit Lana fantastic folks, Thanks for listening. I hope this has made a difference for you, and I really want you to consider what's been said here and see if there's ways that it can help you to change your own life and also help to make an effect on other people. Who you can help is doctor Dog.

45:00 Thanks for listening. Folks. I hope you'll join us against