Lesley Logan hosts an enriching conversation with Dr. Danny Brassell, a recognized expert in literacy and education. Danny shares his unique and innovative approaches to fostering a love for reading in children and adults. Listen as Danny offers practical tips and insights, demonstrating his commitment to transforming reading into a lifelong passion.

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In this episode you will learn about:

• Danny’s mission is to bring joy back into education in the workplace.
• Strategies to make reading a fun and habitual activity for all ages.
• The different ways we can teach kids to love reading. 
• The true science behind forming and breaking habits effectively.
• Actionable storytelling strategies for entrepreneurs and speakers.
• How closed captioning can enhance literacy in a simple yet effective way.

Episode References/Links:

• Dr. Danny Brassell Website
• Dr. Danny Brassell Social Handles
• Study on Habit Forming
• Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg PhD
• Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
• James and the Giant Peach
• Free gift from danny.com

Guest Bio:

Dr. Danny Brassell is a highly acclaimed speaker, author, and educator, recognized for his expertise in literacy and motivational teaching strategies. Renowned as the 'Jim Carrey with a Ph.D.,' he has transformed the lives of countless individuals through his engaging and innovative approaches to reading and learning. Dr. Brassell has authored 16 books, including his notable work 'Leadership Begins with Motivation,' and has addressed over 3,500 audiences worldwide, making a profound impact in both the educational and corporate sectors. His commitment to fostering a love for reading has been instrumental in developing successful literacy programs, benefiting students, teachers, and parents alike. Dr. Brassell's unique blend of educational insight and entertaining delivery makes him a sought-after consultant, helping entrepreneurs, executives, and small business owners enhance their communication skills and business impact.

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Episode Transcript:

Danny Brassell 0:00  

I gravitate towards people that are actually doing things. I'd much rather be around people that failed gloriously than the people that do the worksheets and fill in the fill in between the lines and they just live a safe, dull life. That's not what life's about. Life is meant to take risks.

Lesley Logan 0:18  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

Lesley Logan 1:00  

All right, Be It Babe. Welcome back to the Be It Till You See It podcast. I have a great interview for you today. First of all, do you know that the reason why I call it Be It Till You See It is like you're acting as if you are the person you want to be already. And a lot of times we wait till we have the thing to be the thing. So you be the thing. And then you'll actually do the things that that person that your version of that person would have if they were already there, and then you'll have the thing. So be, do, have. Be it till you see it. Anyways, that's my little lesson for you. Because what's about to happen is you'll get a lot of amazing lessons. So my guest today is Danny Brassel. You're in here he's doing four frickin phenomenal things. I don't know how he's doing all four of them, but he's doing them and it's really cool. For my parents listening, there's some great things in here for your kiddos. For my nan and parents. Hi, I see you. I got so much out of this and I don't even have kids. So do not skip to the next one. This is absolutely what you want to listen to and really like, I hope you take any one of the action steps that he gives throughout and then also the one at the end. We've never heard it before. And I bet you you're going to use it starting today. So please let us know if you do make sure you reach out to Danny, reach out to the Be It Pod and let us know what your favorite takeaways are. Here is Danny. 

Lesley Logan 2:26  

All right, Be It babe. I am so excited to chat with our guest today. Danny Brassel. He is here to rock your world for sure. I read his bio, the Jim Carrey, huh? I was like, oh my God, I had to talk to this man. So Danny, will you tell everyone who you are and what you rock at and maybe why they maybe assert Jim Carrey towards you and about what you do?

Danny Brassell 2:48  

Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me, Lesley, we need a lot more of you in the world, you're spreading joy and I appreciate that. We need you. My mission is to bring joy back into education in the workplace. And I do that in four different ways. First of all, I speak about 100 dates a year all around the world, primarily to schools and parent groups, but also to corporations reminding them take your job seriously. But don't take yourself too seriously. Because you ain't all that and neither am I. And if you think you're all that teach kindergarten for a week, they'll set you straight. Secondly, I've got the world's top reading engagement program for parents, which in just over two months shows parents how to get their kids to read more, read better, and most importantly, to love reading. I mean, I find that schools do an adequate job of teaching kids how to read. But the question I always ask people is what good is it teaching a kid how to read if they never want to read? I teach kids why to read because I've never had to tell a kid go watch TV. I've never had to tell a kid go play a video game. And I never want to have to tell a kid go read I want them to choose to do it on their own because they love it. Third, I work with entrepreneurs, small business owners and executives on how to create engaging presentations that get their audience to take the next step whether that's to purchase their product or to donate to their cause or even to invest in their ideas. And then fourth and finally, I'm the North American CEO of a company called CyberSmarties which was founded in 2015, in Ireland by a guy named Diarmuid Hudner, which is a social media platform for kids ages five to 12 and teaches kids how to use social media in a positive way. So the way it works is if you were to type in, Danny, I think you're fat and ugly. It wouldn't let you send the message instead says that's not nice thing to say to Danny. And our studies show that within three days, it frustrates kids so much that they can't send their message that they stopped sending negative messages altogether. And the programs basically completely eliminated cyber bullying in Ireland. Now it's in New Zealand, India, Turkey. I'm in charge of getting it here in North America. So all of these are all mission-oriented though. You know, I think life is too short. And we all have to smile a lot more. And so I listen to your podcast.

Lesley Logan 2:48  

Oh my God. Okay, so many amazing things I love. I love that you shared all of that, because I hope everyone heard like you can be multifaceted, and they don't all have to have the same facet. It's like, I would never have guessed the fourth one at all. And I know that all of the parents listening are like, how do we? Who do we need to call in our Congress? We'll put the Congress phone number in the shownotes, guys, I've got it memorized because it's on a sweatshirt. We have, who do we need to call to get that in because my goodness, even as an adult, I've been bullied online. So like, I can't even imagine what it's like for the kiddos. My first thing I have to ask you is, you know, so many people would have so many great ideas and then they don't know how to take that first next step, you do four incredibly humongous things that are mission-driven, and making massive impact. How did you, I guess the first one would be the hardest one but like, how did you make the steps because I'm sure people told you, Danny, you can't do all those things, you can't speak 100 dates a year and fix bullying and get kids to read like, I feel like that's a lot. So how are you able to make that happen with with all the obstacles that are out there? 

Danny Brassell 6:10  

Well, I have OCD I have I mean, and I, ADHD and every other type of acronym, an abbreviation you want to give. Really, what I want everybody to know is that in order to do anything, you have to screw up a lot. And me when I work with, I was working with an entrepreneur the other day, and we put together what we call his stump speech or how to introduce yourself to new audiences. And I said, you got to practice, you got to go on tomorrow and deliver the speech he's like, but it's gonna stink, I'm like, exactly. And the day after that, I want you to give this speech and it's gonna stink, but it's going to stink a little bit less than the first time you did it. And by the 20th time, you'll start feeling comfortable, and you'll you'll start to get the hang of it. But most of us we fear things because we've never done them. And that's what all of this audience has to embrace is we got to get comfortable being uncomfortable. And there's always going to be it's amazing how many people are experts about things, they have no idea about. They've never traveled the world and yet, they're like, oh, you can't go there it's dangerous, and they've never started a business and oh, you can't do that you'll you're you're gonna do that everybody's an expert, but they haven't done anything. And so I gravitate towards people that are actually doing things I'd much rather be around people that failed gloriously than the people that do the worksheets and fill in the fill in between the lines, they just live a safe, dull life. That's not what life's about life is meant to take risks.

Lesley Logan 7:39  

Oh my gosh, it's like you've heard the intro to this podcast, we always take messy action, do it scare like, it's it is interesting, you know, I feel like people are people been raised to get the A, right? Like you talked about schools, and my mom's a teacher and she's listening. Hi, Mom, you do great work. My trainer is also a teacher for kindergarteners. That well not really does humble you. And so there's obviously they there's amazing people in the educational world. But there's this there at some point, you get to a point where like, we have to get the A's because the grades only matter because then you don't get to the next step. And like your whole life will be ruined if you don't get this. So then we become these perfectionist, because that's the only thing that matters. And it's like we don't take that risk. I feel like little kids take more risks than adults do.

Danny Brassell 8:28  

You're absolutely right. That's why I love being around kids is you know, I'll ask adults, what's two plus two and I get complete silence. I can ask little kids, what's two plus two, and they'll raise their hands to be like four, seven, I got a dog. And I love that, you know, they just play with things. It's really it takes until about third grade, where the kids are just like that adult audience. They're completely quiet. They stay in their seat because school taught them not to take risk. And it breaks my heart all the time. We need to encourage you know, I read biographies of successful people Lesley, all the time and there's one common element most successful people in these biographies have, most of them dropped out of school. And as an educator that appalls me, I'm like, what are we doing wrong? How do we make sure to nurture those passions inside of those kids? And you know, I'm still growing and learning all the time. And that's, that's, again, people listen to, I'm speaking to the wrong people right now. These are the people that want to actually improve themselves. But that's what you do is you constantly challenge yourself to get better, because every day you're not learning you're slowly dying.

Lesley Logan 9:38  

Yeah. Yeah, I am, I agree. And I think well, first of all, every single person listening to this, you know, they're seekers, but that's because there's people around them that can't give that like we're almost being the friend in their ear because the front in their actual ear is telling them you can't do that. You couldn't do three different jobs. You have kids, you have the how do we tell you all your stuff to do and it's like they need us in their ears to remind them that they're capable and it's going to be amazing. And it's going to suck the first 20 times. It's okay. Go listen to this podcast, the first 20 episodes, guys, take a listen. I'm sure it was fine. And I'm grateful for my amazing friends. But you get better over time we're, when this episode comes out, we'll have over 300 episodes out. So like, you just get better. 

Danny Brassell 10:21  

Wow, congratulations, Lesley. That's wonderful.

Lesley Logan 10:23  

I know it's kind of insane that how fast that happens. But you just you get better. And you get you're less nervous when you talk to a stranger. Like, there's just so many things, you just have to get started. So yes, we are speaking, you maybe are speaking to the wrong audience. But I think maybe we're just reminding the people that they can do it and they don't have to be perfect at it. 

Danny Brassell 10:42  

Well, at least we're speaking to an audience of people that are going gonna go out and do something, which is important. 

Lesley Logan 10:46  

Yeah, yeah. No, it's so hard. I mean, like, I've talked about this on that, on the pod before but like, I've talked to, I called my grandpa, I'm like, hey, Grandpa, how you doing? It's like, well, I'm waiting to die. And it's like, awesome. Cool. And then I go, well, I'm gonna go to Cambodia, he's like, you should be really safe. Like, that's very dangerous there. And I'm like, so I've been seven times, we're doing great, like, feel safer than here. Just gonna say it.

Danny Brassell 11:12  

Yeah. You know, that's an important point you just made, Lesley, you need to surround yourself with positives. I mean, I was watching a show on television the other day it was horrible. It was called the news. And it totally depressed me. It showed all these horrible things happening. And one of the things I learned from my life, my wife, I don't even know if she knows who the president of the United States is, she has no time for that. She watches I Love Lucy and Friends and she's a much better person for it. I mean, I used to volunteer for the Special Olympics. If you ever feel down, you need to volunteer for the Special Olympics, those individuals are some of the most extraordinary people, I just think that they have a secret that the rest of us don't realize, which is life is to be lived and to be celebrated every day. 

Lesley Logan 11:59  

Yeah. Yes, I agree to that. I mean, I mean, please also volunteer at your local dog shelter and you'll see that dogs don't judge you. They have no, they don't care if you're perfect and all those things, and it'll uplift your spirits. But that's really funny. Yeah, I know, the the news is the news is designed to make us scared to make us fearful and for us just to sit there for them to put up another ad in front of your face. Also, just so you know, that's what they're, that's why they do the clicky headlines and they repeat themselves all the time. It's so hard because there's FOMO I need to I don't want to miss out and you know this information and it's true, we do have to, there's got to be a balance there which is so hard to do. So I feel for the people who listen, who's like but I have to listen to news, Danny, but also I would like to just watch Friends and then you know, do my thing and stick with my idea. 

Lesley Logan 12:50  

I want to go into something that you talked about helping kids want to read. A lot of our listeners, not children, they want to read even though they're not kiddos, can you, can we dive a little bit into like, what will help because they want to read but it's also like making the time, what should they read? Like, again, they're perfectionist, so then there's the new obstacle of like, well, I want to read but I don't know what to read. How? Do you have any advice for us on that? 

Danny Brassell 13:20  

Absolutely. Well, I was that kid. I grew up hating reading. My father was a librarian. I always hated the library. It always smelled funny to me, the furniture was uncomfortable. There was always some elderly woman telling me to be quiet. There was always a freaky homeless guy hanging out by the shells, thought he was a vampire. I always hated the library. And it wasn't until I started teaching in the inner city in South Central Los Angeles where I saw a lot of my students didn't have a lot of the advantages I had growing up. I mean, I was very blessed Lesley, both of my parents were in the home. We weren't wealthy by any means. But we always had food on the table. And my parents always read in front of us kids, to us kids. And we always had plenty of access to great reading materials. And I basically said shame on me. It's my job to really expose my students to all kinds of ways to love reading. I mean, I was that kid I'll never forget in high school, I was forced to read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and no offense to people that love Nathaniel Hawthorne, I mean, I don't want to offend anybody but, basically the story is about Hester Prynne commits adultery, so she's forced to wear an A on her chest. And I raised my hand in class one day and I asked my teacher if I could wear a B on my chest because I was so bored reading that book. I absolutely hated it. And I think that's one of the most important things we have to understand is, you know, it has to be fun, like, make reading fun for you. And the research is very clear on this. It doesn't matter what you read. What matters is how much you read. It doesn't matter if you're reading James Joyce or James and the Giant Peach, people who read more read better. 

Danny Brassell 15:01  

You know, when I got my Ph.D., my wife was looking at me because I had this huge grin on my face. And she's like, why are you so happy and like, because from now on, I pick the books. And I think that's what reading should be. You know, if you want to read, you know, a lot of the people in your audience are entrepreneurs, well, you don't have to read classic literature to be a good entrepreneur, you need to read about other entrepreneurs. What's their journey? You know, I get so many boys interested in reading because I find out what they're interested in. I mean, I use (inaudible) if the kids are talking about NASCAR, get on some NASCAR books, if they're talking about JLo, get a biography on Jennifer Lopez, you know, interest drives reading, and that's something that's going to be sustained all the time. I mean, I, I see things all the time. It's, America's crazy, like we'll say, oh, you know what, you should finish whatever you read. I'm like, well, that's stupid advice. I mean, think of think of reading a book, like eating a piece of food. You try a chapter. Oh, my gosh, that's disgusting. Well, maybe it gets better. Oh, no, it's disgusting. I mean, if you find a book, you don't like put it down. There's over 4 million books written in English last year alone. Some of them are pretty good. Don't waste your time on the lame ones. 

Danny Brassell 16:12  

Here, I'll do something for your audience right now, Lesley, for all those people who have that large book on your bedside table that you started three years ago, I can do this because I'm a Ph.D. I absolve you of that book. Get another one. You know, I like reading. I have one of the top reading clubs online. It's called lazyreaders.com. If you go, it's a free subscription once a month for the rest of your life. I update it with 10 book recommendations, three or four adult level, three or four young adult level, and three or four children's level books all under 250 pages. So you have something to read when you're stuck in a boring meeting or at the doctor's office. You know, when I hear people say, oh, I don't have, I don't have time to read. I'm like, yeah, who has time to read after you watch the game on TV, have a couple of beers, go out shopping? I have a friend that's a time management expert. I always give him a hard time, Lesley, because I say there's no such thing as time management there's only priority management. Harvard did a study, whenever I say research, I would say Harvard did a study. Harvard did a study 100 years ago, they found out that people only had 24 hours in their days. Well, it's how are you using those minutes in your day? So the people that have a hard time getting interested, you know, I'll work with parents and they're trying to figure out how to get their kids into reading. So there's two numbers in my reading program. There's two numbers I have everybody focus on. The first number is 67. So a lot of people say it takes 21 days to change a habit. And to those people I say, show me the research on that it's a completely fabricated number. I know exactly where it comes from. It comes from, what's that?

Lesley Logan 17:44  

It's 100% fake, it doesn't work and we can talk about it. But I studied with BJ Fogg from Stanford. So you know, the West Coast. And you can actually create a habit in a moment, like you can it's all but an emotion. Your emotion derives things but that's...

Danny Brassell 18:00  

You can do a lot, yeah, well, so when they did a clinical study so the the number comes from there was a great book written in 1960 by Dr. Maxwell Maltz called Psycho-Cybernetics. I encourage everybody to read the book. But in the preface of the book, Dr. Maltz, who's a plastic surgeon and he flippantly said he noticed it took most of his patients about 21 days to get used to their new faces. Well, a lot of personal development gurus, a lot of people I respect by the way, started telling people it takes 21 days to change a habit, it's completely fabricated. So. 

Lesley Logan 18:33  

It sounds really good.

Danny Brassell 18:34  

There was a study done by, Harvard did a study in 2009. It was actually University of London, it was a habit formation study and they determined it took anywhere from 18 to 254 days to change a habit and the average was 66 days. Well, I don't like the number 66. So I throw in a bonus day, 67 days to change a habit. And it really depends on the type of habit you're trying to form. So it can be a moment. Like if you want to drink a glass of water before breakfast every day, that might take 18 days to make that into a habit. But if you want to quit smoking, that can take 254 days. And here's why this is important, Lesley, let's say you go on a diet, you follow it religiously for 21 days, but on day 22 you fall off the wagon. Will you blame yourself? Well, research shows it takes three times longer than that to form most habits. So I just think it's very, I have a problem when I hear people throwing out these numbers and everybody, everybody's a little bit different. I was a teacher. I always say different strokes for different folks. Some kids get it in 10 minutes, some kids it takes them till April, but where there's a will there's a way. 

Danny Brassell 19:40  

The other number I want people and this would be good for your audience to know, is, is the number is 20. So researchers were looking at patterns among successful students around the world. And they were looking for what are the characteristics what are the common characteristics they have? They stumble upon something which floored them. It was the number of minutes spent reading outside of school. So they looked at the low kids, the average kids and the high kids. So the first group was the low kids, the kids in the 20th percentile, some of your F students, they average less than a minute a day reading outside of school. Well, that didn't surprise anybody. It's probably why you're at the bottom of your class. But the next number did startle the researchers, the kids in the middle of the class, the 78th percentile, C students, they average 9.6 minutes a day reading outside of school. And so if I'm doing a live training with parents, this is when the room gets really quiet and the first hand raised is in the parents' side that says, wait a sec, are you saying if I can get my kid to read 10 minutes a day, I can take them from an F to a C? That's exactly what I'm saying. There's actually a lot of research to support this. But this next number really floored the researchers, the kids near the top of the class and 90th percentile A minus students. Do they spend three hours a day reading for fun outside of school? No. Do they spend an hour a day outside of school reading for fun? No. The average was just over 20 minutes a day. So my entire program is showing parents how can we find those 20 minutes every single day. And there's two things people have to understand. First of all, the number the minutes don't have to be consecutive. So you can do a minute here, five minutes here, three minutes there. And secondly, being read aloud to is just as good as reading on your own. So I work with a lot of dyslexic students. A lot of people don't realize over half of the Fortune 500 CEOs are dyslexic. Well, dyslexics, they process information really well with their ears. And so now I just say we'll turn on the audiobook, let somebody else read it to you. You don't have to read it. It's just as effective.

Lesley Logan 21:43  

I'm so excited. Because, first of all, I'm like, oh, so if I read 20 minutes a day, the overachiever in me is like, I'm gonna be an A student. I'm not even in school, but I feel like it's just gonna make me a better person. But also, I hope y'all heard that he said, audiobook works as well. And so like, guys, if you're got a 20-minute commute, instead of listening to your news podcast, you can listen to ours. But you then should listen to a book for 20 minutes. That's such a great thing. I love that. Also, there's this interesting thing. One, if you love to read, read BJ Fogg's Tiny Habits book, you will love it. Two, it's also emotions. So if you are trapped, like, first of all, we can all remember back during the pandemic, when we wore a mask everywhere, every single day, then they took us out a mask for like a week. And they're like, oh, hold on, actually, you said to wear the mask, at the grocery store, how many times you have to go back to the grocery store? Everyday, everyday, because you didn't like wearing the mask. So you never created the habit. So if you don't like the thing, it's not going to stick because the emotions around it are not exciting. So that's why the repetition doesn't work because it has to have an emotional pull that you'd actually like to do. And then second on the like breaking a habit or unwrap a, BJ will say unraveling a habit because habits are prompted by different things. If you are a smoker, there's a prompt that happens, if you eat a snack, if you eat candy at your desk, there's a prompt, you have to remove the prompt you have to figure what that is. And you can't have nothing there because it creates a vacuum. So you actually do have to find so that when those do take harder or if you're if your habit is to like emote, like beat yourself up, like if you're someone who just like, judges yourself has bad thoughts when someone says anything critical type of a thing, those habits are actually the hardest to break because you have to be really good at acknowledging like, oh, I'm doing the thing that I don't want to do. So that's why, that's why the numbers...

Danny Brassell 23:40  

Make sure you have him listen to this podcast, he'll be so proud of you. You're a great student, you learned a lot, you know.

Lesley Logan 23:45  

I know, BJ will love it.

Danny Brassell 23:49  

The other thing is Habit Stacking. So for example, like, I was watching too much TV, and I wasn't working out enough. And so now when I go on the bike, I, you know, I'm watching, I'm almost done. I've never watched The Sopranos when it came out. So now I'm on season six, I'm halfway through. But I only want Sopranos when I'm on the bike after I finished the Sopranos, I'll go to my next show. So it's really what you were talking about with the grocery store. It's amazing how primitive our brains really are.

Lesley Logan 24:17  

They really are. But it's that dopamine hit. And also like because you want to watch that show and you have really good boundaries and willpower. It's really so but it's so I just want to say I thank you for going over the reading thing. One, every parent in here is so excited. They just learned something about their kids. So I'm happy to give them that but two, you know, we've gotten questions from the audience before about like just wanting to have time to read. It's like you don't just like put the book in your bag or put like have the audiobook on your phone. And then instead of when you're on line at Starbucks, going on Facebook, you could hit play for a couple of minutes. So my husband. 

Danny Brassell 24:54  

May I share another strategy with you, Lesley? This is for everybody in your audience. I'm not too sharp and I like to look like I'm sharp to people. And so before I go to parties, I'll go to either the bookstore or to the library and to the children's section. And I'll read like 10, 32-page picture biographies of famous people so that, you know, I can, oh, Elon Musk, did you know this about him? Well, I got it from a picture book. But you know, I've raised like, wow, he knows all these amazing things. I don't know why it is, as we get older, they take the pictures out of the books, I'm like, oh, I like picture books they're a lot easier to read. And you don't have to be judged. But I used to tutor athletes that were they had earned scholarships to universities, but they were, you know, academically ineligible. So I had one gentleman, and he had a full-ride scholarship, he was going to be a defensive lineman, who's six foot, nine inches tall, 325 pounds, he had a full ride, but he was the 12th grader reading at a first grade level. And so they gave him to me, and they're like, Danny, can you get him up to his sixth grade in six months? And I said, okay, I'll do it. And so I had to get him reading. But he wants, he wants to read this, but he's reading at a first grade level. Well, first grade level books are about like bunny rabbits and puppy dogs. Well, 12th graders don't want to read books about bunny rabbits and puppy dogs. But that was his reading ability at that point. And so what I said is, okay, what we're gonna do is we're going to write a book for a first grade class. But before we write the book, we got to figure out what do first graders like to read. Do you know? He's like, no, and I'm like, okay, so here, we'll start reading all these. You see what I just did. Now he has permission. So when his buddies see him reading first grade level books, now he has permission, because oh, because I'm writing a book for first grade class, you know, and we were able to get him up to a sixth grade level in six months, but it's just figuring out is, this is what every good teacher of anything, does. They figure out where you are, and then they take you to the next level, you know. The problem in most education systems, is we think every kid is at the same level. And I'm like, no, I mean, kids are entering at different levels, they have different interests. You know, having taught young children, I have no idea how men even evolved because you give me a six-year-old boy and a six year old girl and almost to the tee, I can tell you that girl's about three, three levels above that little boy, I mean, boys are nincompoops. They finally catch up eventually, at least most of them do. Some of them, maybe I shouldn't say most, some of them do. But it's fascinating. I just love looking at, well, what turns this kid on to learning? And you know, same thing with adults too. I'm when I'm working with adults I'm like wow, this is what proves effective with this person. I, to me, that's the fun part.

Lesley Logan 27:41  

Yeah, I know, my mom has a really good time, like coming up with different ways to teach different learning styles, but it makes you go, how can we aren't just letting the girls go in at kindergarten at this age? And why don't we just let the boys come in a year later, like, well, that the product I know, guys, we don't have childcare in this country. Sorry, we'll get it figured out. We'll figure that out. And then we could figure out because it is really funny that we almost hold one age group back and then we expect another, another person to like rise up. It's it's not fair to anyone, no one is actually having a good time. And then the teachers are exhausted. So and then the parents sorry, and then the parents are exhausted. 

Lesley Logan 28:15  

So okay, I have one more topic I wanted to bring up with you because you have so many facets, you mentioned that one of the things you do is help people, like help people take an action like, right, okay. So, we do have a lot of entrepreneurs here who are hoping that people take an action. Also, there's a lot of people here who are hoping that they'll just take an action. So do you have anything for us, like, I'm sure it is a long journey to figuring that out. But like what is like a hot like simple tip to taking action or to getting people to take action?

Danny Brassell 28:47  

(Inaudible) I use, I'll do two-day seminars with entrepreneurs when we're creating a speech and I have a formula for it. And I'm like, once you learn the formula, you can use it for anything. But here's an action strategy for everybody that I tell them to do is tonight, get a libation of choice a pen and paper and I want you to write down every story that's ever happened in your life. And I don't mean the whole story just mean triggers. So like, the time I locked myself out of the car in front of Costco, the time dad spilled mustard on his tie in that fancy restaurant, and in an hour, you'll probably come up with about three to 400 stories like that. So that's the first part of the exercise. The second part is now you have to associate what's the teaching point here? So you're like, oh, well, this is really a story about loyalty. Oh, this is a story about taking responsibility. Oh, this is a leadership story. And then what you do is put them in folders on your computer. So the next time you have you're asked to speak anywhere and you need like oh, a story on love. Well, here's 20 stories on love I have right here at my disposal. Just a really easy and then, you know, I'll work with some people. They say, well, Danny, nothing's ever happened to me. I'm like, well, whatever. Everybody said, a million stories. But even for that Debbie Downer that has to be negative and say nothing's ever happened to them. Here's the next tip. I get that I'm no I'm I broke my rule. I don't give tips. I give tips to waiters not to people. I'm gonna give you a strategy. So the strategy is, if you look at personal development books, one of the most successful personal development books of all time is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, in which he includes no personal stories. Every story he includes is based on interviews he did with the millionaires that he interviewed, I mean, you can definitely just based on the 300 guests you've had on your podcast, you could easily create a whole big compendium of all these different stories you've gotten and all the different teaching points. And so if you have if you find you're completely boring, well, then you have to be a student of the world. And I mean, this is why I'm watching things all the time that helped me like, oh, I'm addicted to a show on History Channel called The Food That Built America where they tell you, they show you how different foods came about. I'm like, oh, this is amazing. And so I have stories about that. I watch sports all the time. And my wife's like, why do you love sports? And I'm like, because at any given moment, something extraordinary can happen and they happen all the time when you see like that one act of sportsmanship, you're like, wow, that's really neat story or you see somebody that's hurt and they play a part in it. Wow, that's endurance. And so that's why again, it's, and it's the same thing by listening to this podcast is, oh, I'm learning. I'm learning all the time. I'm hearing you know, you, BJ gave you all these great, I'm like, wow, you learned a lot. And he gave you some stories. But people they don't remember, you know, it was actually Stalin, who said a million dead is a statistic, one dead is a tragedy and he's right about that. It's the way you connect with people is through stories. I think one of the I think it was President Reagan was the very first president of the United States that during his State of the Union address before Congress, instead of talking about health care, which nobody understood, he'd say, yeah, hey, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe Thompson, get up, stand up. And all of a sudden, this guy in the gallery waves, that's Joe Thompson. He's like, Joe works at the GM plant in Louisville, Kentucky, and Joe got injured on the job a couple of months ago, but he didn't have health insurance and its costs and he can't make his rent he can't, and so now, when we think health care, we think Joe, we've put a face to the problem. And now we're starting to understand it a lot better. This is, you know, into my, my biblical people out there, Jesus was like the greatest salesman ever. That's what he always did. Jesus didn't say, you know, four to five of my apostles have to do this. No, he would always give you absolute actual stories. I mean, that's how we remember things is from stories. And so, again, long answer to your short question, but those are a couple of action items for your audience to take right now.

Lesley Logan 32:58  

I love that because it's so true. I write I have to write, you know, at least two newsletters per week. And then I have all the social media content that goes out. And I don't care what people say about no one reads the captions. People read my captions. You want to know how I know, because I put an action step in there at the very end and they have to comment and it's always different. It's like drop your favorite color. Do what's your favorite number, whatever. And people do it all the time. I take up all 2200 characters on Instagram guys, they do but I need stories because no one wants to just hear, like, the facts are great, like the facts about why you should move why you should work out, the fact about habits is all fine. But if you don't tell a story, no one's really interested. And then when they when they read the story and they take an action because they I feel like they attach, that story can relate to them in some way. Or that you know, that's what you're saying. So anyways, I love that. Thank you for that one. 

Lesley Logan 33:49  

Okay. You're amazing. You do so many things on this planet. Like love to have you back. I can't wait for Brad to listen to this because he is just really going to love because he's an a, I'm just gonna share this with y'all. He does this gentleman thing once a quarter and all the guys like read actual, like the biggest thick books. One of our friends has an entire library. He's like reading so many books at a time. And they all bring a book to talk about and Brad, it's like their book is like okay, we're gonna bring a book about America. We're gonna bring a book or whatever the theme is. And Brad's like, so I'm listening to this, like, I don't know, you guys. He's talked about so many times. Oops. Anyways, it's something about time and it's about a god, the author died a long time ago. And some other people are writing the books. There's like 15 in the series, and he's starting them all over, and he listens to them. And he loves to listen to a book because he can listen to it while he's walking the dog. He can listen to it in bed, like right before he goes to bed. And so I just really think he's gonna love that you said we can listen to the books. He doesn't have to read them. 

Danny Brassell 34:43  

Awesome. 

Lesley Logan 34:45  

So, thank you. Okay, we'll take a brief break, find out where people can find you, follow you, work with you, hear more of your stories.

Lesley Logan 34:51  

All right, Danny, where do you hang out? Where can people stalk you in a good way?

Danny Brassell 34:56  

Well as a thank you for you and your audience bearing with me, I wanted to give everybody a couple of freebies. So if you go to freegiftfromdanny.com again, freegiftfromdanny.com, I'm gonna give everybody a complimentary e-copy of my book, Read, Lead & Succeed. This is a book I wrote for a school principal who was trying to keep his faculty and staff positively engaged. So I said, okay, I'll write you a book. So every week I'll give you a concept, I'll give you an inspirational quote, an inspirational story, a book recommendation on a book you should read, but you're probably too lazy because you're an adult. So I also give you a children's picture book recommendation that demonstrates the same concept, you can read that in five minutes. I'm also gonna give everybody access to a five-day reading challenge I did online last summer for about 700 parents around the world, where every day for an hour for five consecutive days, I give you basic, basic strategies. These are the space the basis of my reading program online, where I show you how to get your kids to read more, read better, most importantly, to love reading. Again, you get those at freegiftfromdanny.com. And I just really want to thank you, Lesley, for having me today. You're making a positive difference. Every day everybody has a choice, you know, was what it was either Socrates or read in The Shawshank Redemption who says you can get busy living or you can get busy dying so everybody out there, get busy living and celebrate. Thank you, Lesley, for all that you do.

Lesley Logan 36:25  

Oh my goodness, thank you so much. Hilarious that you quoted Shawshank Redemption. My girlfriend and I in college had one DVD for about three months and it was the Shawshank Redemption watched it every day. (Inaudible) What are you gonna do? Anyways, before I let you go, you've given us so many amazing strategies. But we like to end the episode with a Be It Action Item. So bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted steps people can take to be it till they see it. What do you have for us today?

Danny Brassell 36:56  

Well, you know, I was telling you to get those 20 minutes a day reading every single day, whether you're a kid or an adult and people that they'll often tell me well I have nothing to read at home I'm like oh, but you do. President Bush Senior over 30 years ago signed a very important law in this country. It says every single television set sold in America has to have closed captioning. So here's the quick strategy. Turn on the closed captioning. People say well, wait a sec. If this shows in English, and the subtitles are in English, what does that do? I'm like, well, that's a fair point. But let me make this point. Have you ever watched a show with subtitles and not looked at the subtitles? It's very difficult to do. Your brain is directed towards the text. There's actual research that supports this. If you look at reading scores around the world, the more kids watch TV, the lower their reading scores are in every single country on the planet except for one. The country with the highest reading scores on the planet also watches the most TV on the planet. It's Finland. And people always say well, how can that be? I'm like, well, because Finland makes really bad TV shows. And so what they have to do is they import all these old American sitcoms like Happy Days and Gilligan's Island and Brady Bunch, they subtitle them in Finnish the kids are constantly reading. So this isn't just for kids. This is for adults as well. But you know, turn on the subtitles, you'll be amazed at how it will help progress and advance your reading.

Lesley Logan 38:17  

Oh my gosh, blown away. Never have had that as an action item. Love it also had to do it on a flight recently because I could not hear the show. So I put the subtitles on. And I was like, I am not even watching the show. I'm just reading this. Well, then, you know, I did two hours of reading that day. Wonderful. Danny, thank you so much. This has been so wonderful. Just a joy. I love what you're doing on this planet. You're making amazing things. You'll have to let us know when we can get this, this social media thing for kids to the U.S. and also what other countries my listeners are in those ones. If you have kids and you're there, guess what? There's something for you. So y'all take a look at the links below. Make sure you check out Danny's freebies. They're all in the show notes. And until next time, Be It Till You See It. 

Lesley Logan 39:03  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. 

Lesley Logan 39:30  

Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @Be It Pod.

Brad Crowell 39:45  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 39:50  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell 39:54  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 40:01  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell 40:05  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.

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