Transforming Classrooms by Empowering the Educator (with Lloyd Hopkins of the Million Dollar Teacher Project)
In this episode of the Knoodle Founders Hour, host Rosaria Cain sits down with Lloyd Hopkins, the passionate founder of the Million Dollar Teacher Project, to discuss the critical challenges facing today’s educators and how community activation can rebuild the teaching profession.
Lloyd’s path to advocacy began with a major career setback. After being fired from a job, a life-changing phone call with his younger brother—who told him, “Great, you lost your job. Now find your life”—prompted a deep period of self-discovery. Inspired by the book “Do You” and a Fast Company article on Richard Branson, Lloyd realized his true calling was in education. Having previously spent six years as a middle school teaching assistant, he had witnessed firsthand the immense workloads, low pay, and lack of support that teachers endure. He went back to Arizona State University to earn a degree in nonprofit leadership and management, using his academic assignments to build a comprehensive business plan. In October 2016, with zero dollars in the bank, he launched the Million Dollar Teacher Project.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
- The Realities of Teacher Burnout: The laundry list of systemic issues driving teachers out of classrooms, from overcrowded rooms and overloaded workloads to starting salaries that average around $45,000 a year—even for educators holding master’s degrees.
- Shattering the “Cushy Job” Myth: Why the public perception of teaching as an easy, 8-to-3 job with summers off is completely detached from reality, forcing many teachers to work second jobs and side hustles just to survive.
- Grassroots Activation in Title One Schools: How the Million Dollar Teacher Project partners with marginalized communities using a sustainable three-to-five-year model, helping schools implement teacher support programs before transitioning the ownership back to the community.
- Action-Oriented Support Programs: A look at the organization’s unique initiatives, including fully catered “Take a Teacher to Lunch” events, monthly “Teacher Spotlights” that celebrate educators in front of their students, and “A Teacher’s Net Worth”—a program providing vital financial literacy to help educators retire as millionaires.
- Keeping Classrooms Bipartisan: Why education must be protected from political weaponization, and how viewing classrooms as sacred, collaborative community spaces benefits the long-term talent pool of our workforce.
- An Unexpected MTV Past: Lloyd’s surprising background spending a decade in the music industry under the alias Atlas, running an independent record label, and coaching a Sedona high schooler as a rap coach on the hit show “MTV Made.”
Education advocates, nonprofit leaders, and business owners looking to strengthen their future talent pipelines will find inspiration and a clear roadmap for community impact in this powerful conversation.
Listen to the full episode of the Knoodle Founders Hour podcast to hear Lloyd’s incredible journey of resilience, and learn how we can all become “teacher fans” to shape a better society.
Full Transcript
Announcer 0:01
Welcome to the Knoodle Founder’s Hour, where we go founder to founder with host Rosaria Cain. Today, our special guest is Lloyd Hopkins, founder and visionary of Million Dollar Teacher Project, who’s fighting for stronger support systems for educators.
Rosaria Cain 0:16
Welcome, Lloyd Hopkins, teacher fam.
Lloyd Hopkins 0:19
I’m excited to be here!
Rosaria Cain 0:20
And founder of the Million Dollar Teachers Project.
Lloyd Hopkins 0:23
Absolutely, absolutely. On the Founder’s Hour, right?
Rosaria Cain 0:26
On the Founder’s Hour. Yes. Let’s start with what’s wrong with teaching today. Tell me. Give me a laundry list of all the problems teachers are facing so they can’t be their best teacher in the classroom.
Lloyd Hopkins 0:37
We’re dealing with overcrowded classrooms. We’re dealing with low compensation. We’re dealing with teacher burnout. We’re dealing with teachers with overloaded workloads. We’re dealing with teachers who don’t feel supported from leadership, from the community, from our elected Officials, we’re dealing with teachers who are trying to stay afloat, even in their personal lives. You know, they got into this profession because they care about kids, they care about the community, they care about our future, but they’re struggling to make a living while doing that, and that’s a travesty. And it’s truly hurting our profession and it’s hurting the future of that profession and some that as a community we absolutely have to address.
Rosaria Cain 1:31
Lloyd, is that all?
Lloyd Hopkins 1:32
No, that’s not all. Yeah,
Rosaria Cain 1:37
That’s a big load of problems that I can’t think another profession probably shares. So tell me about the Million Dollar Teacher Project and how you create what you call teacher fans.
Lloyd Hopkins 1:51
Yeah, so Million Dollar Teacher Project is a nonprofit that I launched in 2016 after working in and around education in different capacities for about 15 years, so I worked with youth offenders, after-school recreation, dropout prevention. But in my journey, the work that impacted me the greatest was the roughly six years I spent in the classroom as a teaching assistant in the Alhambra Elementary School District at Barcelona Middle School. The reason why I say that time was so impactful is that, one: It showed me I’m not cut out to teach. I don’t need to be in the classroom. I need to leave that for some other brilliant individuals. You don’t want me teaching your kids. The other thing that it exposed me to is the plight of teachers firsthand. How they’re often overworked, underappreciated, undervalued, underpaid, and that’s a community issue and something that we all should care about because did I say underworked or overworked?
Rosaria Cain 2:47
I think you said underworked, but I know you mean overworked.
Lloyd Hopkins 2:50
I meant overworked. I was trying to replay that. I meant overworked. Edit, take it back. Teachers are overworked, not underworked.
Rosaria Cain 2:56
No, they are overworked,
Lloyd Hopkins 2:58
And that’s a community issue.
Rosaria Cain 2:59
It doesn’t end at 3o’clock.
Lloyd Hopkins 3:00
It doesn’t end at 3o’clock. On average, teachers are spending eight to nine hours at best with our kids. Eight to nine months out of the year, we’re entrusting them with our most precious resource, which is our children. And it’s imperative on the community to make sure that our kids are being entrusted to somebody that’s happy, healthy, whole, engaged, has all the proper resources and tools they need to do their job, which is shaping our future. It’s something that, as a community, we all should care about. And so, after my time in the classroom, I decided I realized that there weren’t enough organizations focused specifically on that, when we talk about creating a more equitable education system, we have lots of programs that are focused on kids, and we have programs that are focused on technology and backpack drives, and even some that are focused on the building themselves. But not enough that are focused specifically on the teacher. And in my opinion, the teacher is the most important part of that entire equation that our education system will never fully live up to its promise if we don’t have a healthy teaching profession, and so instead of being somebody that was complaining about that, I decided to do something about it, and so I launched Million Dollar Teacher Project as a pathway for involvement. But the community, I launched it in 2016 after I graduated from Arizona State University with my degree in nonprofit leadership and management. I graduated May 2016 and launched October 2016.
Rosaria Cain 4:33
So you started as an entrepreneur, or you started as a founder.
Lloyd Hopkins 4:38
So I’m very much a social entrepreneur. I saw a gap, and I wanted to fill that gap, and so I created this organization from scratch. You know, $0 in a bank, no clear understanding how I’m a how I was going to rally support. I built a nonprofit structure and business model, and here I am, 10 years later. You know.
Rosaria Cain 4:59
What are the roots of the problem? So I mean, I think I mean, no matter where you stand politically, and we’ll talk about politics and how it screwed everything up because it screws everything up.
Lloyd Hopkins 5:09
But everything more complicated than that.
Rosaria Cain 5:12
It makes everything a fight. So, we all agree that teaching is incredibly important for our kids. I don’t think that you could find anyone anywhere that would dispute that, and yet there are so many issues. What are the roots of that problem?
Lloyd Hopkins 5:29
One, I think, I think apathy. I think as we get older in society, we kind of forget how important our developmental time was spent in classrooms and spent with teachers, and we forget that the the the teaching profession is the one universal profession we’re all impacted by in some shape, form, or fashion. None of us escape life within being impacted by a teacher, whether it’s a good experience or a bad experience, because those do happen as well. And so I think I think as we get older, we become a little bit more apathetic. There are a lot of people. The John Q. Public often views the teaching profession as this cushy job where they only work for eight hours and they’re off at three, and they have their evenings off. And that’s not the reality for most teachers. I don’t speak in absolutes because there are some teachers where that could be a reality, but that’s not the reality for most teachers. Most teachers are working well into the summer. They’re working second jobs. They’re having to develop side hustles to stay afloat. And I think there’s a disconnect between the community really understanding that and really understanding that the conditions that teachers have to live in, work in, to just stay afloat. You know, you shouldn’t have to be married to somebody wealthy to be able to sustain a decent lifestyle in the teaching profession.
Rosaria Cain 6:52
What is starting pay of a teacher right now in Phoenix?
Lloyd Hopkins 6:54
You know, on average, and there’s different data that says different things, but it ranges around like $45,000 a year for for um the is the average teacher salary, you know, and it’s and and and in some in a lot of instances you’re dealing with a teacher who has like a master’s degree, you know, and could be making potentially double that in the market, yeah, you know, um, and they’re choosing to take that pay cut because they want to do the very important work of shaping our future and working with kids. But I firmly believe that we shouldn’t take advantage or take that for granted. And yes, we want our teachers to be altruistic and we want them to be there for the kids. But I also want to see them get paid well for doing it. It should truly be one of the highest-paid professions instead of one of the lowest-paid professions.
Rosaria Cain 7:45
Well, you’re right. It makes a difference on every kid.
Lloyd Hopkins 7:48
You got it.
Rosaria Cain 7:48
And our workforce, even if you’re thinking about this from a completely business perspective, this is our future. And and the the kids coming up will be deeply impacted by by what they’re learning now.
Lloyd Hopkins 8:00
Your talent pool is in today’s classroom. The challenge when I when when I when I have those conversations with people, especially business people, sometimes that concept is too far out, you know. And the reality is that the ROI from teachers is a long term investment.
Rosaria Cain 8:18
Well, it’s it’s short term to think otherwise.
Lloyd Hopkins 8:20
Right, right. It’s short term to think otherwise, and so you don’t always see. You’re not going to always see the effect of what’s going on with the teacher immediately. But you can see it from 15 years ago, right now. There you go, and you got to appreciate the data. And then also where you can see immediate impact of teachers is in our communities, like when schools are functioning well, schools should operate as community centers, or we’re bringing people together. You see parents active on the school campus. There’s collaboration and partnership between the community and the classroom. And when that’s really happening, it creates safer, more productive communities. And that and all of that starts with us empowering our teachers and understanding that, and really viewing them as community leaders, you know.
Rosaria Cain 9:11
Do you think parents are doing their part? You’re seeing some trends on that.
Lloyd Hopkins 9:15
Yeah, you know what? What I’ll say is that there’s no two districts are alike. You do have some areas where there is great parent involvement and parents are involved. Often that is in the more well resourced communities where…
Rosaria Cain 9:33
Because they’re not working two jobs.
Lloyd Hopkins 9:35
Exactly. They don’t have to work two jobs and they’re more available. But when you get into the more distressed environments and the communities where they lack resources, parents are having to work two jobs and they want to be involved. One, they don’t have the time to, and then two, they’re often not invited to. I’ve been in environments where you’ll have school leaders. That are actually looking down on the community that they’re serving, and they create these environments of low expectations. And human beings understand when you’re welcome someplace and when you’re not, you know. And so often, some schools are creating environments where parents don’t even often feel welcomed onto a school campus to even get involved. So there’s often those disconnects with them not only knowing they can be involved, but then understanding how to be involved. And so that’s where Million Dollar Teacher Project comes to play. Like we are a pathway for involvement. We work with Title One schools and marginalized communities to create grassroots programming designed to help schools increase how their teachers are recognized, drive more support directly into their classrooms, and create innovative ways to impact how teachers are compensated. We don’t want to be the owner of the solution. We want to come into these communities and partner with them, collaborate with them in the school to give them the tools to solve their own problems. You know, our structure is just the pathway to help them do that. To give them some strategies, give them some direction, give them some programmatic ideas that then they can take hold of and then continue. So when we come into a community, we create focus schools and we partner with those focus schools for three to five years. In the first three years, we do the heavy lift of program implementation, and then in year four and five, we help the community and we help the school build the infrastructure to continue our programs on their own, and then we move on to another school and repeat that process.
Rosaria Cain 11:36
So, Lloyd, you do actual work.
Lloyd Hopkins 11:38
Yeah.
Rosaria Cain 11:38
And I’m not I’m not just saying that to be facetious, I didn’t know if you just advocated for schools because I looked at your website, and I it wasn’t clear that you actually do program builds.
Lloyd Hopkins 11:49
We have programs that we bring onto the school, so our work really revolves in two kind of categories. One, there’s definitely the advocacy. I view this type of stuff as advocacy because I think it’s important. Because as I mentioned a moment ago, I think as we move into adulthood, we become a bit disconnected from what’s going on on school.
Rosaria Cain 12:09
We just forget. We just forget. Yeah.
Lloyd Hopkins 12:11
And so there needs to be an organization. There needs to be entities that’s reminding people, like, no, they’re still still teachers there…
Lloyd Hopkins 12:16
So you’re their voice.
Lloyd Hopkins 12:17
And what’s going on. We’re a part of being their voice. So there’s that advocacy part. And so but what we want to do is after I remind you that hey, teachers are struggling; they need your support. And when that light bulb goes off, and you’re like, you’re right, and you start thinking about your favorite teacher and who impacted your life, and then you’re now now you’re looking to how you can get involved. So not only do I want the light bulb to go off, I want to now give you ways to get involved. Give you pathways where you can get involved with our programs. You can become a donor, so you can become a classroom volunteer through our work. You can participate in our classroom supply drive, the teacher tree. You can invite me onto your podcast. These are all ways that, through our program model and through our approach, you’re helping to shed light on what teachers are going through, and which which can be used to rally support. You know, and so one part of everything we do is is that advocacy, reminding you how important it is, and the other part is activation, getting people actually moving, connected, working on school campuses. Whether you’re helping us do a one of our take a teacher to lunch events, which are full catered lunch celebrations we bring on the school campuses, just to tell teachers thank you for the hard work they do every day. We do monthly teacher spotlights where we do a green carpet gift display to one amazing teacher a month-a teacher that’s nominated by their peers. You know, somebody that their peers respect, or or from the community, from parents, from children. We pick one of those teachers. We work with our partners to bring in an amazing gift basket for those teachers, and then we give it to the teacher in front of the whole campus because we want students to see their teacher being celebrated and honored because we want the teaching profession to be aspirational. We want kids to say, “Oh, I want to teach. My teacher; people are showing up and celebrating them. I want to teach.” And we also create opportunities for people to volunteer in classrooms through our classroom support team, where people can volunteer 10 hours a week from September to March and help address teacher workloads and boost student achievement, help teachers diversify and differentiate instruction, work directly with students one on one and in groups, and assist teachers with classroom management so they can better diversify and differentiate instruction. And then we also have a financial literacy program we do on districts and on school campuses called a Teacher’s Net Worth, where we’re bringing financial literacy to educators. So, in teaching them how to financial plan and things of that nature, so ideally they can retire millionaires, you know, and get more enjoyment out of. Their compensation, even as it is, so we are definitely active with with program. I’m not just a guy that’s out here running my mouth, you know, because…
Rosaria Cain 15:10
You can still appreciate that, and you do. But you have very specific programs that you do as well. Which, to tell you the truth, I had never heard of.
Lloyd Hopkins 15:20
Yeah, yeah, and that’s we’re kind of like a great secret, and a part of this we were talking earlier is that when you’re a growing nonprofit, even with us being around 10 years, we’re still very grassroots operation. We don’t have the capacity to invest in savvy marketing and things of that nature. You know, we’re boots on the ground. We’re out doing the work, and when I created this and founded this. Like I really understood that I had to go from being a guy that was just talking about we need to support teachers to an individual that was doing something about it. You know, and truly, that was the heart of why Million Dollar Teacher Project was born.
Rosaria Cain 15:56
That’s amazing.
Lloyd Hopkins 15:57
I appreciate.
Rosaria Cain 15:58
Well, tell me why teaching has become a political hot button? Because it seems like it should– we talked about this before– it should be bipartisan. Everybody has kids. Democrats have kids. Republicans have kids. Independents have kids. Why is it a political question?
Lloyd Hopkins 16:17
Yeah, it absolutely shouldn’t be. The reason why is because we have weaponized classrooms for political fodder, for the self preservation of politicians that need talking points to drive an agenda so they can stay elected, be elected, whatever the case may be. But my personal opinion is that you know, and I really saw it ramp up, especially around COVID, and you know whether the mask, vaccinations, and things of that nature, and then people were using our classrooms as a talking point to create division, and our school campuses, our classrooms should be sacred ground. You know, it’s bipartisan. It doesn’t matter what side of the aisle you sit on. Your kid is more than likely sitting next to somebody from a family of Republicans, or a family of Democrats, or a family of independents, or whatever it is, like more than likely, that’s the environment your kid is learning in. So there’s no room for politics in it. What we truly have to focus on is what’s best for our students. What’s the best environment that’s conducive to learning for all of our kids? Because the reality is, what comes out of this classroom affects the future of our electorate and what it looks like. It affects the future of business and what your employees are going to look like. It affects our communities in real time today. So there’s just no there’s in my opinion I hate to see I hate to see it and, you know, and again, in my opinion, I just think there’s no room for politics in the classroom, in our education systems, and I think it’s more destructive often than it is helpful.
Rosaria Cain 18:12
Well, tell me, I’m fascinated by this. How do you get the motivation to do something completely different?
Lloyd Hopkins 18:19
Yeah.
Rosaria Cain 18:19
and and and choose teachers as something. Well, and it is certainly worthy. But why teachers? What made you do this?
Lloyd Hopkins 18:27
Yeah. So this, I’ll kind of give you the abridged version of this story. But ultimately, this the idea for this started when I was fired from a job. You know, I was working with a company, and I had worked my way up. I was fairly successful and wasn’t necessarily seeing eye to eye with my boss at the time, and wound up getting let go. And in that process, which was a very hard time in my life, I made two phone calls that put me on the path to be here today. One was to my wife, who came over, kind of helped me do my unemployment, got a napkin and helped me wipe my tears because I hadn’t been unemployed since I was 16 years old. You know, so that was a very tough moment. But then I made a call to my younger brother, who always has a way to tell me something that I need to hear when I need to hear, and when I called him, I was like, “I lost my job. I was feeling down on myself,” and he said, “Great, you lost your job. Now find your life,” and that hit me like a ton of bricks. You know, like he’s right, because at that time I was a very kind of shallow version of myself. I was chasing status. I was chasing material things, you know. I was chasing all those type of things. Even though I’ve always been involved in community work, I needed to reassess my motivations behind that. And him telling me that sent me on this process of reevaluation. Like, really, what means the most to me? Who do I want to be when I enter the room? What do I care about? I don’t want to just chase a check or another job. I want to chase my purpose. And so I read two things that gave me some clarity. One was a book named “Do You,” where in that book it talked about. We all know what we want to do for whatever reason. We talk ourselves out of it, you know. But that thing that keeps coming back to us, instead of talking ourselves out of it, we need to lean into it because that’s our true north. That’s our purpose here on life. So I started thinking about okay, what’s that thing? What is that for me? And it and it kept being education. I kept hearing education. I believe in the power of education. I think education is the great equalizer. And then the other thing I read was a fast company article by Richard Branson, and he was talking about how he started all of his companies out of discontent as a customer. So I was like, all right, what am I most discontent about? And again, that brought me back to…
Rosaria Cain 18:50
Love Richard Branson. Yeah.
Lloyd Hopkins 18:53
I was like it. It brought me back to education because I really think if you’re trying to give people the tools to create the tools for their own salvation to live their version of their best life, it starts on school campuses. It starts in classrooms. And as I’m unpacking that, what I’m also uncovering is I’m a teacher fan. Like I truly believe in the power of that profession and its necessity in society. It’s one of the most important professions that we have, and we just don’t do enough about it. So I put those two things together, and it’s like, all right, I care about education. I care about teachers. How am I going to do something about that? What’s the business model? What does that look like? Like,
Rosaria Cain 21:46
And this is after you went to ASU.
Lloyd Hopkins 21:48
So this actually drove me back to ASU.
Rosaria Cain 21:51
Oh, okay.
Lloyd Hopkins 21:52
And so as I’m going back to ASU, I decided to get my degree in nonprofit leadership and management because I kind of did it in reverse. I got the work experience first, and then got the degree to match. So a lot of my work experience has been in the community, has been nonprofit. So it’s like, oh, I’m gonna get a degree in nonprofit leadership and management. And I used my time because now I’m an older student, so I was very focused. I used my time back in school to build the business model for this organization. All of my assignments revolved on some level of research and me exploring what’s going on with teachers. What do they need? What’s happening? All of my professors became consultants, and I would show them versions of my business plan and allow them give me feedback. And I graduated May 2016 with a fully fleshed out business plan, and I launched October 2016, and haven’t looked back. And actually, this year, this October, we celebrate. We’re celebrating 10 years, October 23rd at Heritage Square downtown. I would love to have you there, whoever’s watching this, to come out and celebrate a decade of impact, but it was that process that, in that process of uncovering and self-discovery, and me realizing my true passion around education, my care and affinity for what teachers do, their importance in society, all coming together and converging that led me creating this organization and doing this work for the past decade.
Rosaria Cain 23:26
Were you born an entrepreneur or did you develop into one?
Lloyd Hopkins 23:31
You know what’s funny is, I think I’ve been an entrepreneur since I was like in third grade. Before I even knew what entrepreneurship was, I would go to school, and I used to sell candy on my school campus. I came from a family of limited means. We didn’t have lots of money, and so I started trying to innovate. Even at in third grade, I’m like, all right, there was a store in my neighborhood. I was able to go get cheap candy, and I went to the campus and would sell the candy for more than I bought it, and like was making a decent profit in third grade, you know. But I didn’t even realize that was entrepreneurship, you know. And right out of high school, I dibbled and dabbled in entertainment and launched an entertainment company. So I think I’ve always had that entrepreneurial bug, and I think more so what it is is that I’m just a solutions-focused person. I don’t live in the problem. I live in the solution. I acknowledge the problem. I know problems are there, but I live in the solution. It’s like, okay, how can I fix this? Nobody’s coming to save you. So how do you fix this? What are you going to do to help yourself? And you can’t sit around waiting for other people to try to help you. So I think I’ve had that bug in me ever since I was a little kid. Ever since I was a little kid, and I’ve been daring and bold enough to just believe that I can do things. And I think that was a testament. My mom, you know, breeding this sometimes irrational confidence in me that you can do whatever you set your mind to, you know. And when you practice singular focus, you know, where you focus on something intently until you make it happen, that typically creates good results, and I’m one of those people that’s crazy enough to believe we can change the world. You just have to create the right solution. Like I look around me every day and look at things that have changed the world. Just even in my lifetime, like when I was a little kid, social media wasn’t around, podcasting like this wasn’t around. This was would have been a radio interview. These things weren’t around, but these are all things that have developed in my lifetime that have changed the world. How we communicate when Facebook came out, and now we’re able to spy on our childhood friends and see all the things they’re doing without having to call them. You know, like you can look at these things on Facebook. Google is a verb. If I say to you, Google that. You know exactly what I mean. It’s an action. When I was a kid, that that was a we had we needed an encyclopedia. You know now this is all in our phones. You know, and so these are things that have changed the world in my lifetime. And so why can’t we do that for teachers? Why can’t we do that around education? You just have to create the right solution, so I’ve just always had kind of that belief that like you can do anything, and I think that has contributed to that entrepreneurial spirit and in energy that I have, and wanting to be a part of creating solutions that make people’s lives better, you know. So it’s really driven and motivated by trying to help folks in some shape, form, or fashion.
Rosaria Cain 26:25
What makes a good leader? And I think you’ve got all the pieces, Lloyd.You have all the pieces. Well, that and you’re an outstanding communicator. And you’ve got that beautiful deep voice.
Lloyd Hopkins 26:52
I’m flattered.
Rosaria Cain 26:52
You have all the pieces. Well, that and you’re an outstanding communicator. And you’ve got that beautiful deep voice.
Lloyd Hopkins 26:59
I appreciate that. I got a voice for radio, but I got a face for radio.
Rosaria Cain 27:07
And and not only the content being so good,
Speaker 1 27:10
Yeah.
Rosaria Cain 27:10
But the the way it’s delivered. I appreciate something people can spend their whole lives learning and not achieving.
Lloyd Hopkins 27:17
I appreciate that. That means a lot. That means a lot. I think it comes from truly caring about the work. In my opinion, the things that make a good leader: humility, empathy, a true connection to the work that you’re trying to do. You know, it has to be real. You know, you can’t you can’t phone it in. It can’t just be doing some. It can’t be something that you’re just doing because you’re chasing accolades or you’re chasing money. People will see through that, and there’s only so far that you’ll be able to go because true leadership is work. Like it’s not easy, you know. Because being a leader, you have to understand that the same way you show up for a podcast invite or an award ceremony where you’re getting a trophy, you also have to show up on the hard days when you’re getting criticism, where you’re getting feedback where you or your team have dropped the ball when the community you’re trying to serve is angry at you for something that maybe you didn’t deliver that you were supposed to deliver you also got to show up on those tough moments as well you know so you have to have a bit of a tough skin. Also, got to be able to accept constructive criticism, and on a certain level, you have to be able to not take things so personal, you know, and understand that there’s only so much you can do, and understand your limitations, but as long as you’re putting your best foot forward, you can live with the results of it. But understand that sometimes you’re not going to hit the mark. You can’t expect perfection, you know. But every day you can put forth your best effort, and you should and you can hang your hat on that, you know. So I think those are some of the components of good leadership, because I, because even though I embraced and I appreciate your compliment about the ability to deliver message, because I do think there’s an element of being a charismatic leader, but sometimes leadership is messy. Sometimes the messaging or what’s coming out isn’t as clean and cut and dry, you know. But I still think even with that, people can still find ways to tap into their leadership. Because I don’t want people to think they have to have it all figured out. Because that was something that I that even as I endeavored to launch this organization. I gave my permission. I gave myself permission to not have to be perfect and not have it all and not have it all figured out. Like I launched Million Dollar Teacher Project, $0 in the bank. Like I had never ran a nonprofit before. I had worked in nonprofits, you know, and did those things. And I understood that I may not do things the right way the first time out, and that’s okay. You’re gonna learn. You’re gonna re. You’re gonna iterate. You’re gonna tweak things as you go. You’re gonna invite new people into your space, and you’re gonna learn more. You have to understand that you’re forever a student. You’re always learning. You’re always involved, evolving. And I think as long as you create space for that, even as you’re figuring things out and understanding that you may not do it perfect right away, you may bump your head against the wall a little bit, but as you’re going through that process, you’re going to get better, and you just got to trust the process, and it and again, it would typically yield good results. But I just want to make sure that anybody seeing this understands that leadership doesn’t have to be perfect, and often sometimes it is going to be a bit messy, and sometimes because you’re trying to figure things out. But when you’re when you have that when you can start with that commitment level, and you and you come to it with a humble spirit, and you’re and you’re collaborative, and you’re allowing people to inform you, and you’re learning from each other, I don’t think we should enter any room like we know it all. None of us know it all. We’re all still learning. We’re all still trying to figure it out. Nobody has mastered this thing called life in all capacities, you know. But you just have to have the stickituitiveness to just continue. Like Jay Z has this quote that really just sticks with me. He said that in the early days of Rockefeller Records that he launched with his partners, he said the only genius thing they did was not quit, and I look at myself that way. It’s like I’m far from a genius. I’m far from having it all figured out. The only genius thing I did when I decided to launch this thing is on those tough nights whenI didn’t think it was possible to make it here 10 years later, where I didn’t think it was possible to scale an organization like this. I just didn’t quit. I just kept doing the work, you know. And then, and I think that if you can at least master that level of genius, anything is possible. Anything is possible.
Rosaria Cain 32:36
What do you see in the future of the Million Dollar Teachers Project?
Lloyd Hopkins 32:42
Yeah, so I see us, I see us being an international entity at some point. I think as a global society, we can just do more for teachers, even in areas like Finland and or or places internationally where they’re doing a great job of celebrating their teachers or appreciating teachers, I think we can always do more. I just think as a global society, we can do more for teachers. I see Million Dollar Teacher Project contributing to turning, supporting, and appreciating teachers into culture, becoming a part of the way that we just do things, the way that we have the Fourth of July, or we have Christmas, or Kwanzaa, or other traditions and cultural rituals celebrating teachers should also be that. It also should be a part of that.
Rosaria Cain 33:36
Where does that start? So, so I think there was a simpler time when teachers were more celebrated.
Lloyd Hopkins 33:44
Yeah.
Rosaria Cain 33:44
And it seems like these days there’s less of that. Yeah, there’s more division. There’s more angry parents. There’s more kids not going to school. How do we fix that?
Lloyd Hopkins 33:57
You know what? To be and and again, I I think the there’s that saying: the best way to eat an elephant is one
Rosaria Cain 34:05
One bite.
Lloyd Hopkins 34:06
One bite at a time. Building culture takes time, and you take it one step at a time, one brick at a time. What I will say to you is, I think we’re already doing it. You know, the fact that you saw the work that we’re doing and wanted to invite me in to have this conversation. There’s people. There’s a million people doing a million things that would be honored to share this space with you. And you saw what we were doing and said, you know what? That’s worthy of a platform. You know, so that’s a part of it. You know, that’s a seed. And so those seeds grow. We just have to keep planting those things and inviting more people into this conversation. How do we create convenings? How can we all use our platforms or our circle of influence to further this conversation? How can we support organizations like Million Dollar Teacher Project and help them grow and build their capacity? Because organizations have to be around, so this type of messaging can happen consistently. You don’t achieve anything without being able to do it consistently. So we have to put the systems and the institutions in place so these conversations can happen on an ongoing basis. And I think that’s a part of what that road looks like to us creating a culture, but it is going to take time. But I feel optimistic by even just you inviting me here today that we are moving in that direction, you know. And then you just got to be patient. I wish we we were able to make it happen 10 years ago, You know, but all of this happens on God’s time, not my time. And the only thing that we can do is keep showing up and doing the work and celebrating each small victory along the way that’s moving us in the right direction. And so I really have to thank you because a part of you welcoming me to this platform and sitting with me today and letting me run my mouth is helping move us in that direction. So I, so I’ll say we’re there. We’re we’re moving in the right direction. It is just going to take time, and we have to build coalition and community. It’s going to take more than one guy. It’s going to take more than one organization to change the system, you know, and to really create that culture, it’s going to take more than just one thing to do that. And it, and the only way we get there is through collaboration, through coalition, and by us working together and us inviting more people into this space, and cutting through the division because truly supporting teachers is just something we all should care about.
Rosaria Cain 36:46
It almost sounds like a calling. Is it that deep for you?
Lloyd Hopkins 36:51
It is. I truly feel like I’m doing…
Rosaria Cain 36:54
Is that where this sense of enthusiasm and conviction comes from?
Rosaria Cain 37:00
Yeah, yeah. I I think that um, I think I’m doing what I was put here to do, you know that this work is important and it’s necessary and somebody has to do it. And I picked up the call, you know, when that phone rang. You know, I saw this. I was watching this comedy special with Trevor Noah the other night, and he has this line in there where he was saying, “Who will you be when history calls?” Like, who will you be when history calls? And when that moment calls, I want to be a guy that was out here fighting for teachers because I believe that if we win that fight, society benefits. I think again, education is the great equalizer, and if the higher and the greater our education system functions, society benefits from that, and teachers are the center of that, and so I just want to see more people live their best life. You know, be able to have the tools to achieve their version of their best life, and for me, the throughline for that happens through education because there’s so many problems in the world. We can sit here and run down a list, like you were asking me earlier about just a few teachers. Just there’s a laundry list of of problems, but I but I firmly believe the way to really address a lot of those problems is with education, is with teacher.
Rosaria Cain 38:39
So many things start there.
Lloyd Hopkins 38:41
So many things start there. Like if we can, if we can shore that up, and we can really strengthen that, and where more people get access-not even more people-where everybody gets access to a quality education, despite background, social economics, what side of town you live on? Everybody gets access to great teachers, quality education, the way that we move our society forward, the way we speed up how innovation happens, the way we strengthen how we care for each other, which is also what happens on school campuses, because kids are taught how to interpret and understand the world they’re going to inherit. That starts in a school classroom. Teachers are the shepherds of that. When they’re when kids are on a playground playing together, they’re also learning how to work together. That trickles into our workforce, you know, people that understand how to interact with people that may look different than them, may come from different places than them. But on those school campuses, and in those classrooms, starting as early as kindergarten, kids are learning to see through that and see each other as human beings and see each other. As a friend, or a collaborator, or a partner on a class project, all of that impacts our workforce. All of that impacts our home lives. All of that impacts how we date or meet people, or it it it impacts how we elect people into offices, everything to me comes back with education, and so I feel like this is the most important work that I can be doing to be a small part, just a small part in some shape, form, or fashion, and helping us build a greater society, this ideal society that we all dream of or strive for.
Rosaria Cain 40:48
Wow, that’s deep. So, so being that this is all encompassing.
Lloyd Hopkins 40:54
Yeah.
Rosaria Cain 40:55
I mean, you live this.
Lloyd Hopkins 40:56
Yeah.
Rosaria Cain 40:56
Every day. What do you do for fun?
Lloyd Hopkins 40:59
Woo!
Rosaria Cain 41:00
I hope, I hope you…
Lloyd Hopkins 41:01
You know what? I I make time for fun. We we travel. I have a I have a beautiful family. My wife makes sure that I make time for fun.
Rosaria Cain 41:09
That’s good.
Lloyd Hopkins 41:09
Which is great. We just went on a trip to Europe, and my son celebrated his 25th birthday in Amsterdam, and you know so when you’re doing this type of work, you actually have to really be intentional about self care.
Rosaria Cain 41:10
Right?
Lloyd Hopkins 41:11
Because you can’t…
Rosaria Cain 41:16
It’s so encompassing. You
Lloyd Hopkins 41:27
You can take it home with you, and so I’ve really kind of curated my life to also make sure I’m incorporating wellness. You know, making my wife is a yogi. So she’s a yoga instructor. So she has me doing yoga. So I do yoga three times a week, and I go on walks with my dog every day and listen to a funny podcast. You know, because everything can’t be serious. You got to make time for fun. Make time to really connect with friends that really believe in me and that I trust. So I’m so I’m also intentional about making time. It all everything you do can’t always be about the work. You especially when you’re doing very serious, important work. You also have to think about yourself, and you have to think about your whole self, mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and you have to be intentional about carving out that time. Because if you don’t, you’re going to be forced to make time in the wrong ways. You know, you’re going to make you’re going to be forced because your health declines, and now you’re in a hospital. You know, for whatever reason.
Rosaria Cain 42:36
Something will give.
Lloyd Hopkins 42:36
Something will give. So you have to be intentional about making time for that, and so I take that just about as serious as I do my work.
Rosaria Cain 42:47
And that’s important. So let me ask you this: This has been so powerful.
Lloyd Hopkins 42:51
I appreciate that.
Rosaria Cain 42:52
Oh no, I I mean that. What’s the one thing about you that would surprise people?
Lloyd Hopkins 42:58
The one thing about me that would surprise people. Wow.
Rosaria Cain 43:05
Well, like for instance, that you sold candy in the third grade. That’s a that’s a pretty cool thing.
Lloyd Hopkins 43:11
I sold candy on my campus in the third.
Rosaria Cain 43:13
You were enterprising at an early age.
Lloyd Hopkins 43:15
I was enterprising at an early age. I spent about a decade pursuing music. You know, yeah, I used to perform here locally. Like I mentioned earlier, I launched a independent record label. I used to perform under the the alias Atlas out here, and um, this is what I’ll say. I was featured on MTV.
Rosaria Cain 43:38
That’s cool!
Lloyd Hopkins 43:38
I was featured on MTV. They had a show called MTV Made, and I was a rap coach to a young girl that she was in high school named Genevieve, who went to school in Sedona, and she aspired to be a rapper. We helped her prepare for her high school pep rally. So this was early 2000s. So that would be somebody may be able to find it out there, dig it up. I’ve looked on YouTube; I can’t even find it.
Rosaria Cain 44:05
I guarantee you, somebody could find it.
Lloyd Hopkins 44:08
So that was… I was a rap coach to a to a young girl in Sedona years ago, and helped her prepare for a high school pep rally.
Rosaria Cain 44:19
On that note, wow, you have a great story.
Lloyd Hopkins 44:23
I appreciate.
Rosaria Cain 44:24
On that note, we’re gonna say goodbye. I thank you for your time. And I think your cause is so necessary.
Lloyd Hopkins 44:34
I appreciate that. I appreciate that. And I want to thank you again. Like this is you have an amazing platform. You create such a welcoming environment. You’ve made me feel important today, and I appreciate that. And I’m and I’m grateful. I’m grateful for you allowing me to talk about our mission.
Rosaria Cain 44:55
You are important.
Lloyd Hopkins 44:56
Yeah.
Rosaria Cain 44:56
And your cause and your mission is important. So thank you for coming today.
Lloyd Hopkins 45:00
Thank you.