If you can get a teen leader in each sector of a student population, you can pull people in. Everybody wants to get involved, but most are too afraid. When they see a person they think is cool leading it, they're first to join.

I'm just kind of taking a break now and enjoying the freedom of making my own choices. When you're on a television show for six years, they run your schedule.

I'd never been a teacher before, and here I was starting my first day with these eager students. There was a shortage of teachers, and they had been without a math teacher for six months. They were so excited to learn math.

The most important role models should and could be parents and teachers. But that said, once you're a teenager you've probably gotten as much of an example from your parents as you're going to.

You start to think bigger when you see how quickly a TV show can catch on in a whole country. That confidence, and thinking big, opened a lot of doors.

We started a movement... to build character, citizenship and confidence in young people.

Teenagers too often have to deal with loss and death. You had to cope with the untimely death of your brother; how can young people deal with such tragedies?