Hey everybody. I just got back from a week-long beach vacation and to catch you up on what
I've been doing I read this bo--oohhh, Buddy. The dog just farted.
Big thank you to everybody who watched and commented on the last Ask Cristen video 'How
to help a Suicidal Friend'. You all were so open and honest and thoughtful. Hannah Shoshana
who talks in the first part of her comment about issues that she's had with suicide,
'My advice to those on the other side of a suicide-related discussion is to never imply
that your friend's worries and thoughts are baseless and to never imply that your suffering
at their loss would outweigh their current suffering. Listening, with the understanding
that their experience is not something you can empathize with is the best thing in my
opinion. Thanks for that Hannah. FYTJ also had some advice. 'A friend of mine whose mother
committed suicide is now suicidal herself. Cristen gives some really great advice in
this video. I would add two little details: Don't panic, don't judge. If you start acting
fearful around them or immediately talk about putting them on suicide watch they will not
open up to you. They will feel even more isolated and that's one of the worst feelings in the
world. They already feel like a freak. Try your best not to accidentally treat them like
one.' Thank you and again thanks to everybody. Even though I realize that it is the summer
and I don't want to put a wet blanket on all of our pool-side fun-having, but school's
coming back. I wanted to answer this question from, uh, Satan Hazard. 'How important or
grades or marks?' There was an article about this not too long ago in Forbes magazine.
They found that the companies that care most about grades, we're talking out of college,
are investment banks, professional service firms and pharmaceutical companies. They also
cited a survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers which found that
sixty-seven percent of companies in their survey screened candidates based on GPA. I
have a feeling Satan Hazard that you are maybe not in college, maybe you're in high school,
maybe you're in middle school. That's when it can be a lot more challenging to feel like
your grades are going to matter at all. Yes grades are important but it's still the whole
student that matters even to colleges. All that said, is there a correlation between
your grades in high school and your future earnings as an adult? A recent study that
was reported on in the Washington Post found that yeah. The higher your GPA, the higher
your average earnings tend to be. The logic is the higher your grades in high school,
the better the college you're going to get into, the better job that you'll get down
the road. But a correlation between two data sets doesn't tell the entire story. For students
of color, specifically African-Americans and Hispanics the influence of grades on future
income was even stronger than it was for white students. Your GPA and the importance of grades
and where you go to college, it's going to depend on factors like perhaps your socio-economic
background which might perhaps be linked to your ethnic background. What your parents
do, what you're exposed to, where you live, what you're interested in. Of course, the
money that you make down the road is going to depend on what you want to be. I made really
good grades and I wanted to be a writer. Ummmmm, yeah. For those of you who are feeling the
heat from your parents, I would encourage you to try to talk to them if at all possible,
not to make excuses for you not doing your work. I think there is a line and maybe you
can talk to a teacher that you trust, maybe you can talk to a school councilor who can
help you strategize ways to talk to your parents about understanding a little bit more about
how that kind of pressure makes you feel and how beyond grades you are setting yourself
up for a bright and shiny future. Grades are important but they aren't everything. I wish
that I had known that and understood that, not so that I would have made worse grades
but just so that I could have relaxed a little bit. But now I want to know from you, in your
experience if you're an older person out of school, did grades make that much of a difference
in your future career? And if you're in school how do you deal with the pressure of making
good grades? On the same note, I get a lot of questions from you wonderful people about
things like focus and motivation and productivity. If you would like me to do maybe a mini-series
of videos on that kind of stuff, also let me know and as always ask me your questions
so I can give you hopefully at least B minus answers. That's not, that's not so bad.