How One Man Turned Discrimination Into a Mission ft. Russell Van Brocken

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What holds you to stop on the You mean stuff from all these amazing offers that I was getting any political science major in New York State was elevated?
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Oh, remember, I was a grad intern that's who they treated me as an undergrad.
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Nobody else ever had that ministry of the program.
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When it's the minus recommendation, I thought okay, maybe it'll knock it down to a plus b maybe minus.
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That was the that was the max truck that broke the campus.
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Proverbial candy fact.
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I said no more, never again.
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I'm fixing this.
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I'm not gonna live with this level of discrimination.
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Today I'm here with Russell Van Brocklin, who is a New York State Senate funded dyslexia researcher and founder of DyslexiaClasses.com, where his research challenges conventional approaches to dyslexia by applying neuroscience to help students achieve breakthroughs once thought impossible.
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Thank you so much for joining us on the show today.
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Thanks for having me.
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So I guess let's we you want to talk about the um the decision you made to even pursue New York State Senate funding.
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So maybe we should ground a little bit with what that means so that our audience understands.
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Well, it was literally mission impossible.
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It is incredibly difficult to actually get them to release any money.
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And the reason why I did it is because back then, this was back in the OOs, I was dealing with traditional Republicans.
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They want everything to go through the school districts, number one, and then they want things to go through the education department and all the sciences, but it has to come from the school districts, which means it has to go through the parents.
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And I knew that by pursuing this and succeeding would give me a credential that nobody else had, and nobody else would probably ever have.
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It was that difficult.
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I could have done it the safe way and just entered my university business plan competition where I eventually got 15,000.
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I could have done it all from there, but it would have been this prestige would have been very lacking.
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So I decided to swing for the fences.
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And what is like who can go for New York State Senate funding?
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Who are you competing against?
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Can you talk to us a little bit about the process for those of us who aren't in that realm?
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Sure.
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Well, Jesse, the person that my senator at the time was Senator Joe Bruno, who's the majority leader of the state senate.
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So he had a lot more access to money than anybody else, but that wasn't going to alleviate the process I had to go through.
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Number one, what they wanted to do is spend a very little money for maximum results.
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It's a very traditional Republican viewpoint.
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Get me something that's a lot better, that's a lot faster, that's a lot cheaper.
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And as I was going through the process, I found just how severe that was.
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I had to get the New York State Research Foundation on board.
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I had to, there was one guy, his name was Jeff Lawrence.
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He coordinated all the economic development in upstate New York.
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He had to get on board, which means he knew the teachers very personally.
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He knew the school district intimately.
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He knew what the businesses wanted.
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He knew what the community college wanted, what the four-year colleges wanted.
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Then I had to get it through the New York State Education Department.
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And you wouldn't believe that one.
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So I go over to the New York State Education Department and I say, this is my first stop.
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And what they said was, number one, they didn't like the fact that I came from the majority leader's office because that means they have to take me seriously.
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They said, Where's this out of?
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And I said, Buffalo.
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They said, okay, we want a New York State distinguished professor in psychology to review this and to support this, or you're done.
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I said, no problem.
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So I go out there and you got two mega colleges and university center.
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Psychology is their biggest department.
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And then I found out the hard news.
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There's two distinguished professors in Western New York.
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One just happened to be one who gave me an evaluation years beforehand.
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So she agreed to do it again.
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Her name was Dr.
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Holichka.
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And you want to talk about high stakes.
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If she didn't support this, I'm done.
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So the smartest woman I ever met tested me for three days, 20 hours over three days.
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At the end of that, she wrote, I tested this kid a couple of years ago.
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His base reading and writing was at the sixth grade level.
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I'm sorry, six-year-old level, six-year-old level.
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When he turns his system on, he's going, he's jumping up.
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His writing is about the 70th percentile of entering grad students.
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When he turns it off, it's back down to being a six-year-old.
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He's going from a part of the brain that doesn't work to the part that does.
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Here's the five pages explaining this.
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You should really go forward with this.
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And when I sound like we're might be jumping a little bit ahead.
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Let's talk about what was it that you were even trying to accomplish and go for?
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Can you tell us a little bit about your research and what what all of this is about and why you even needed any funding?
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Well, I did the New York State Assembly internship program.
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They make they recommended 15 credits of A- after massive accommodations because I had a first grade reading and writing level.
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And then my university, SUNY Center of Buffalo's political science department, said, We're lowering your grade from 15 credits of A minus to 15 credits of F because we don't like the accommodations the state government came up with.
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And that sent me to go to law school to learn to read and write.
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And went to audit a couple of law school classes and absolutely dominated it.
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My second day of contracts, I was called on, and instead of being just completely crushed by the professor, I argued with him as an equal for 15 minutes.
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And then I quickly learned to read in about a month, and it took me a couple of years to learn to write.
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So my whole point was what I wanted to do was to take those skills and show other dyslectics.
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And what I found is dyslectics excel in grad school.
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We own the place.
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So the writing test was called the Graduate Records Exam Analytical Writing Assessment.
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And I wanted to take students who were like me, highly motivated, highly intelligent.
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And what we found is that the reading and writing skills were essentially middle school level.
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And we wanted to jump the writing up to the average range of entering grad students in one class period a day for the school year.
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So that's what I wanted to do so they wouldn't have to go through the hell that I went through.
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Now understand or just understand what my competition was.
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It's four to five years full time at 75K a year.
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I was doing this in one sem one class period a day for the school year.
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With a small fraction of the budget.
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And who was this geared towards uh ultimately?
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This was geared towards highly intelligent, highly motivated high school juniors and seniors.
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Basically, think about your big state university, the selective students who had the intelligence and the motivation to do well there, if you could get past the reading and writing issue.
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And so what was the process that you found that you were able that worked for you that then you were wanting to take to all of these other students?
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Oh, well, it was so incredibly easy looking back.
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This is the top book on dyslexia, overcoming dyslexia by Dr.
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Sally Shaywitz from Yale.
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That's dyslexia.
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This is your K through college back part of the brain.
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You get all this neuroactivity.
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I got nothing going on.
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Front part of my brain, two and a half times overactive.
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This is grad school.
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It's word analysis followed by articulation.
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That's what we ultimately found.
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When I started off, I did articulation followed by word analysis, because that's essentially what the graduate records exam was.
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And so when you said when you turn it on, you did better, but then if you turn it off, you revert.
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What does that mean exactly?
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Oh, yeah.
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So yeah, this is confuses the heck out of almost everybody.
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Uh Dr.
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Holitschka's report says over five pages, when I turn my brain, my brain is off, I'm reading and writing like a six-year-old.
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When I'm turning it on, I'm writing at the 70th percentile of veteran grad students.
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I can read better than most reading teachers.
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And it's a light switch.
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I can turn it on and off.
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I'm essentially going from what doesn't work back here to what works up here.
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Like, so to make it maybe easier for somebody else to understand, is it essentially going from I'm writing with my right hand to I'm writing with my left hand?
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Are you literally just engaging a different muscle?
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Like how Yeah, I've been asked by numerous PhDs to spend my entire life explaining that.
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And I said no because I actually want to help other kids do it.
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It's simply going from the dysfunctional part of the brain to the functional that's way overactive up here.
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Even Dr.
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Holichka, who's one of the top psychologists in the world, could barely understand how I read the letter A.
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So it's it's just the fact that I developed and I read and write in colors.
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People have it they just find it very hard to understand how I do things.
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But I've been able to transfer it generally over to other students.
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That's much more simpler.
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So instead of how I do it, the main part is how do I transfer it so others can do it.
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And so let me get this straight.
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You're you're in grad school.
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I assume you're starting to wrap up and you're looking at what's next.
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And what's next is that you want to be able to take this to other students, and then to do that you need funding?
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Is that path for them?
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I I started all auditing law school classes at several different schools.
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All right.
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And finally, after a bunch of years, I could finally learn to write.
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I didn't care about getting the degree, I didn't care about grades, I just cared I had to solve it for myself so I could show others.
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And then at that point, I went back and I said, okay, I went to the New York State Senate and I said, I solved dyslexia.
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I want you to fund my dyslexia research program.
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And at that point, they sent me over to the education department, who told me to find a SUNY distinguished professor in psychology or I'm done.
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Well, Dr.
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Holichka gave me the evaluation before she agreed to do it again.
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And then she sent it back to the five.
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They paid for this.
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New York State government paid for this.
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And they looked at that and they were just completely shocked.
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This was not what they were expecting.
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So then at that point, they looked at me and said, okay, you have to connect this to current research.
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And in Western New York at the time, there was one professor that made any sense.
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His name was Professor James Collins.
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He wrote a book called Strategies for Struggling Writers, Default Strategies of Copying, Visualization, and Narrative.
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And I had to move his material from mild dyslexia to severe dyslexia.
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Given Dr.
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Holichka's recommendation, he was very eager to go ahead and do this.
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He had a million and a half dollar grant from the U.S.
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Education Department to fund this research.
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So I was told this was going to take years.
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Well, the business plan competition was coming up.
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I didn't have years, I didn't have weeks.
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I got his approval in under two weeks.
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People were shocked at that because he's really tough.
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But I got the curriculum approved actually in 12 days.
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Did you have to do any prep work to be like, yep, I'm going to go after this?
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Or how did you even approach that decision of whether or not I do funding versus the actual process of getting the funding?
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Oh, yeah.
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Everybody thinks this is all lined up like how to open a bookstore and go step by step by step.
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It's nothing like that.
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Dyslectics are pure chaos.
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You jump into the middle of the chaos and you just go where it throws you.
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I had no idea what was going on.
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So uh the the state education department threw me over to Dr.
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Collins.
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I got it and done in less than 12 days.
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It was supposed to take two years.
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And then at that point, the whole idea was I knew that the state senate wanted me to test this in school districts, which means I had to test it outside, which means I needed funding.
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So that's why I entered the business plan competition.
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So back up, just even before that though.
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So what researcher, what did you know about going after the fund the New York State Senate funding when you started that?
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Did you how did you even decide that that was the path that was worth pursuing?
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I just knew it was the hardest possible pass because I did the assembly internship program.
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And because of my dyslexia, they treated me like a grad student.
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I was in the state capitol, not doing the standard undergrad internship.
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I was doing grad work.
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So I got to see firsthand what it would what it took.
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So because my senator was the majority leader, I just went to him.
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And as I started going through it, I honestly had no idea what I was doing at any point in time.
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I was just constantly thrilled with new things, do this, figure this out.
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And I just did them as they came up.
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I knew I wanted to go in a general direction.
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I just didn't know what that direction was.
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And then I would push, I would bounce around, and then we'd eventually get there.
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People would ask, well, how can you do that?
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Well, if you start this is a very dyslectic thing.
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With a dyslectic, if you know where you're going to want to be, the most chaotic thing you just don't know what to do is what to do now.
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But if you go on a general tort path towards your goal, it gets more solidified as you get towards your goal.
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Genet people are the opposite.
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They know exactly what they're going to do now, but five steps out, the more the more and more less certain it becomes.
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And that level of chaos, what it allowed me to do is just, I just had to deal with things in the moment.
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When I entered the business plan competition, I ended up getting second place because the first place winner said, give me$25,000 and I'll bring a half million dollars back to Western New York.
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And it was perfectly believable in exactly what happened.
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So they gave me the$15,000 second place.
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And with that, now that I had$15,000, I went back to my high school that I graduated from, the Aver Park Central School District, right outside of Albany, New York.
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And I said, I need your best and brightest.
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Her name was Michaela, and I just happened to be really good friends with her, with her brother.
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So we I took the curriculum that I designed with Dr.
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Collins, and yeah, that didn't work.
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I had to modify it as we were going extensively.
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And what happened?
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So then I took the res I took the results and I sent it back over to Dr.
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Holichka, and she graded, just see what happened.
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Michaela was a high school junior, the most motivated, most intelligent student of that grade, and she had uh eighth grade reading and writing skill.
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On the pretest, so we give her a test of writing of entering grad students, and she promptly scored in the zero percentile.
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Her reading, her reading and her writing was so horrible.
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Her grammar was absolutely atrocious.
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Then on the five months later, we uh we gave her the post test, Dr.
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Hulichka graded, and it came in almost exactly at the 50th percentile.
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Key point is the spelling and grammar was clean at the grad level.
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Clean at the grad level.
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That really got the school district, and they really talked to her.
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Then I said, next, I want a genius with really bad writing.
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And I got his name was Adam.
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His teachers just knew that he was a freaking Einstein.
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They just knew.
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He literally flunked the New York State Registration with a 47 and a 52.
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He was held back twice.
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So I give him the GRE.
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And Dr.
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Holitschki was so angry, I never saw her angry before, said teachers shouldn't have to deal with this stuff.
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So what ended up happening is he ended up scoring in the sixth percentile because his analytical skills were so high.
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All right.
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Then on the post-test, he scored in the 70th percentile.
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My score finally transferred over.
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So what happened to Adam?
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He went on to college, uh, English 101 and 102 at a community college, no accommodation, he got beats.
00:16:21.120 --> 00:16:27.200
So at this point, the school district went to Senator Bruno and said, We want this.
00:16:27.759 --> 00:16:31.360
Because they're talking to every they're talking to the parents.
00:16:31.519 --> 00:16:36.240
The parents want this, they have their disability chair, went and said, These are the results that we have.
00:16:36.399 --> 00:16:42.080
I purposely kept the student-to-teacher ratio to five to one or six to one, because that's what the private schools generally are.
00:16:42.240 --> 00:16:45.679
We just gave it to them for one semester and we got the funding.
00:16:46.639 --> 00:16:46.960
Okay.
00:16:47.440 --> 00:16:50.000
We lit we got the funding for two years.
00:16:50.320 --> 00:16:52.559
I also demanded their best teacher.
00:16:52.639 --> 00:16:54.080
Her name was Susan Ford.
00:16:54.799 --> 00:17:00.080
The key thing is that uh took Susan less than five hours to win my process.
00:17:00.639 --> 00:17:02.240
My competition's two years.
00:17:02.720 --> 00:17:05.920
And then she rewrote it to meet how she wanted to teach it.
00:17:06.480 --> 00:17:11.119
And then she goes in and teaches it, and they didn't go quite as far as we did privately.
00:17:11.359 --> 00:17:17.440
They went from the zero percentile to about the 30th or the six percentile to about the 50th to 70th.
00:17:18.160 --> 00:17:26.319
All the kids went on to college, they all graduated GPAs of 2.5 to 3.6, cost New York State taxpayers under$900 a student.
00:17:26.880 --> 00:17:33.200
The key thing is my competition was only hitting a 33%, a 25 to 33% success rate.
00:17:34.079 --> 00:17:34.400
All right.
00:17:34.559 --> 00:17:36.079
And they cost over$100,000.
00:17:36.160 --> 00:17:37.839
So we were less than 1% of the cost.
00:17:38.400 --> 00:17:41.839
And that was the presentation I presented in New York City in 2006.
00:17:42.480 --> 00:17:46.559
So, but so this show, we really like to break down the decisions.
00:17:46.720 --> 00:18:00.559
And so I really want to understand what what was propelling you at that time and what thought processes were you going through in order to know that pursuing this funding was even worth it?
00:18:00.640 --> 00:18:02.480
Because it sounds like it's very arduous.
00:18:02.559 --> 00:18:08.480
Um it sounds like you found out after the fact that it took some time, go through the trial with with one or two students.
00:18:08.640 --> 00:18:13.200
Sorry, I can't remember what you said, but then then you did it with 11 students to get your funding.
00:18:13.359 --> 00:18:17.440
So tell me a little bit about how you even decided that it was worth it.
00:18:18.079 --> 00:18:21.680
Because I knew the process was going to be hell on earth.
00:18:21.839 --> 00:18:26.480
I knew I had to go through so many institutions, so many different people.
00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:34.960
And I knew that when I got done with this, I would have, for example, on the professor's end of things, I had Dr.
00:18:35.119 --> 00:18:43.680
Holichka's recommendation, which carries an astronomical amount of weight because she's a SUNY distinguished professor in psychology.
00:18:44.240 --> 00:18:55.119
I also knew that I was going to have support from the business community because Jeff Lawrence, who quarterbacked this whole thing, ran, was the executive director of the Center for Economic Growth.
00:18:55.279 --> 00:18:59.440
I would know that the community colleges got what they were looking for.
00:18:59.599 --> 00:19:07.039
I knew what the four-year SUNY colleges were looking for, I knew what the parents wanted, I knew what every level of the school district wanted.
00:19:07.279 --> 00:19:10.000
I just knew that was going to happen in some way.
00:19:10.160 --> 00:19:18.319
And I would have to say the point that illustrated this is when I went to the market, I was originally supposed to present with Dr.
00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:22.160
Barnett, who was the chair of the communications department of SUNY Center of Buffalo.
00:19:22.319 --> 00:19:24.720
He looked at me and said, No, you don't.
00:19:24.960 --> 00:19:28.480
You're going to take Averell Park down with you to present.
00:19:28.880 --> 00:19:32.960
And that was probably the biggest education I ever got.
00:19:33.359 --> 00:19:36.640
Because when we were presenting, we had the teacher who taught.
00:19:36.880 --> 00:19:42.480
We had the disability chair who went and literally talked to the families, and then we had the director.
00:19:42.880 --> 00:19:47.440
And in the audience, they said in the beginning they needed a miracle.
00:19:47.519 --> 00:19:49.440
So I said, I think I got that for you.
00:19:49.759 --> 00:19:53.759
So then they started asking questions like, What has motivated me?
00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:58.400
And the disability chair got up and said, Yeah, we had an interesting time with that one.
00:19:58.480 --> 00:20:00.799
And she explained how she figured that out.
00:20:00.960 --> 00:20:03.759
And then when it came, how do you know how to teach this for this?
00:20:03.839 --> 00:20:07.279
And the teacher taught, This is peer-on-peer.
00:20:07.680 --> 00:20:16.640
And that's when I found out that peer-on-peer for somebody who actually worked through all of this is more important than a five million dollar study from Harvard.
00:20:17.359 --> 00:20:19.119
That was the critical insight.
00:20:19.839 --> 00:20:24.880
But what made you pursue this method even for yourself?
00:20:25.759 --> 00:20:38.480
Well, when I was looking to figure out where to force myself to learn to read and write in grad school, I asked my professors and they said, remember, I just had 15 credits of A minus, dropped to 15 credits of F.
00:20:39.440 --> 00:20:39.759
Okay.
00:20:39.920 --> 00:20:42.559
Still 29 years later, still in my transcript.
00:20:42.720 --> 00:20:43.759
It still hasn't changed.
00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:45.599
Only time in the history of the program.
00:20:45.839 --> 00:20:49.920
So I asked my professors, where can I go to force myself to learn to read in grad school?
00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.160
And they said, well, if you like political science, if you like creating laws, it's obvious.
00:20:54.400 --> 00:20:55.440
Law school.
00:20:55.839 --> 00:20:58.640
So I just went to audit law school classes.
00:20:58.880 --> 00:21:05.359
What were you, just sorry, for clarity, what were you studying at the time and what trajectory were you even on?
00:21:06.480 --> 00:21:09.359
I finished up a major in economics.
00:21:09.519 --> 00:21:11.279
I was mostly done in communications.
00:21:11.359 --> 00:21:13.200
I was mostly done in political science.
00:21:13.359 --> 00:21:17.920
I when I was finished with it with the assembly internship program, where was I going to go?
00:21:18.079 --> 00:21:22.799
You have to remember, I was in the majority leaders program at council's office that ran the assembly day-to-day.
00:21:23.119 --> 00:21:25.119
I was I could have become a lobbyist.
00:21:25.200 --> 00:21:31.759
I was offered all these senior positions because I could pick up the phone and talk to people that ran the place day to day.
00:21:32.079 --> 00:21:34.400
I stayed nights and weekends.
00:21:34.559 --> 00:21:35.599
Nobody asked me to.
00:21:35.759 --> 00:21:36.559
I just did.
00:21:36.720 --> 00:21:39.279
They had an extremely high opinion of me.
00:21:39.440 --> 00:21:41.680
I was acting as a grad student.
00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:46.240
So I had all of these options and I turned it all down to do this.
00:21:46.720 --> 00:21:50.160
And how then that might be really interesting to mention.
00:21:50.240 --> 00:21:54.240
So then why that sounds like you almost found a purpose.
00:21:54.400 --> 00:21:59.279
So talk to me a little bit about that situation of here I'm headed on this trajectory.
00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:05.920
Was it just the simple fact that you got those grades and you're having to take a step back and relook at everything?
00:22:06.079 --> 00:22:10.799
Like what compelled you to stop on the trajectory that you were already on?
00:22:11.279 --> 00:22:18.240
You mean stopped from all these amazing offers that I was getting that any political science major in New York State would celebrate for?
00:22:18.400 --> 00:22:20.079
Remember, I was a grad intern.
00:22:20.400 --> 00:22:22.000
That's what they treated me as an undergrad.
00:22:22.079 --> 00:22:24.240
Nobody else ever had that in the history of the program.
00:22:24.640 --> 00:22:33.200
When they sent back the 15 credits of A minus as a recommendation, I thought, okay, maybe they'll knock it down to a B plus or a B, maybe a B minus.
00:22:33.359 --> 00:22:40.720
But once they flunked me, that was the Mac truck that broke the camels, the proverbial camel's back.
00:22:40.960 --> 00:22:43.359
I said, no more, never again.
00:22:43.519 --> 00:22:44.720
I'm fixing this.
00:22:44.880 --> 00:22:47.599
I'm not going to live with this level of discrimination.
00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:50.000
I mean, think about what happened.
00:22:50.240 --> 00:22:54.880
The speaker's office himself came up with these accommodations.
00:22:55.039 --> 00:23:01.519
His response was to my first grade reading and writing level was they're going to accommodate the living heck out of me, and he didn't care the cost.
00:23:01.920 --> 00:23:04.240
These were extraordinary accommodations.
00:23:04.400 --> 00:23:09.680
And then some professors and SUNY Center of Buffalo's political science department said, we don't like this.
00:23:09.759 --> 00:23:15.200
So here's your 15 credits of F, and it's still on my transcript 29 years later.
00:23:15.519 --> 00:23:15.839
No.
00:23:17.920 --> 00:23:19.119
I was done.
00:23:19.519 --> 00:23:36.240
And so that's really you were like and so and so was it that feeling of I'm not getting the opportunities that other people who don't have this disability are getting, and therefore I want to help other people not end up in this same spot?
00:23:36.640 --> 00:23:39.839
No, it was pure unadulterated discrimination.
00:23:40.319 --> 00:23:40.480
Right.
00:23:40.720 --> 00:23:44.319
And so I'm asking, like, so I was just going to solve it.
00:23:44.400 --> 00:23:51.359
I had to solve reading and writing because the current way of doing it was quite frankly insane.
00:23:51.519 --> 00:24:00.000
Unless if you have a half a million dollars sitting around and send your kids to one of these private Orton dyslectic schools, which do an absolutely beautiful job.
00:24:00.160 --> 00:24:04.000
If you don't have that half a million, then the other stuff just doesn't work.
00:24:04.240 --> 00:24:04.559
Okay?
00:24:04.799 --> 00:24:06.480
It had to be fixed.
00:24:06.880 --> 00:24:07.200
Okay.
00:24:07.359 --> 00:24:15.119
And so now, so I'm I guess what I'm saying is how it sounded like it was a turn on the dime decision then at that point.
00:24:15.279 --> 00:24:25.200
You had something happen and it was life-altering or eye-opening, whatever, whatever expression we want to use, that you were like, I've found my purpose.
00:24:25.599 --> 00:24:26.079
Yes.
00:24:26.319 --> 00:24:37.680
Well, it wasn't I was just knew I was going to do that, and I had the obstacles, like just to get accepted to audit law school classes, was ridiculous.
00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:43.200
And then I I show up and now I have to read law school stuff.
00:24:43.359 --> 00:24:44.240
And I can't read.
00:24:44.400 --> 00:24:48.000
So I had to figure out how do I force myself to read so I can do this.
00:24:48.160 --> 00:24:52.559
And then I walk in and it's my second day in contracts, and the professor calls on me.
00:24:52.640 --> 00:24:54.559
And what they use is the Socratic method.
00:24:54.640 --> 00:25:01.440
If you don't know the answer, which nobody does the first week, they embarrass you by asking you questions you can't answer until you eventually adopt.
00:25:01.599 --> 00:25:04.319
Well, I answered him, and then I attacked him.
00:25:04.480 --> 00:25:06.319
And you should have seen the look on his face.
00:25:06.480 --> 00:25:07.920
We're going back and forth.
00:25:08.079 --> 00:25:11.359
I know where he's going, he's now where I'm going multiple steps ahead.
00:25:11.519 --> 00:25:15.039
At 15 minutes, he threw up his arms and said, Russell, you couldn't be any more correct.
00:25:15.200 --> 00:25:17.839
I have to move on to the next case in the interest of time.
00:25:18.079 --> 00:25:21.279
Reading took another month before I had that down.
00:25:21.519 --> 00:25:24.720
Then I had to learn to write, which was hell.
00:25:24.880 --> 00:25:26.319
And that took years.
00:25:26.720 --> 00:25:27.039
Okay.
00:25:27.200 --> 00:25:32.559
And so so you've made you've made the decision that this is this is the direction you're gonna head.
00:25:32.640 --> 00:25:34.079
You're gonna help other people.
00:25:34.319 --> 00:25:38.720
Um you're gonna solve the reading and writing challenge, as you as you said.
00:25:39.519 --> 00:25:44.000
Actually, I was going to solve writing because that assumes you can read.
00:25:44.160 --> 00:25:46.319
If you can write it, you can read it.
00:25:46.559 --> 00:25:48.160
That was the other big distinction.
00:25:48.319 --> 00:25:50.559
Everybody else in my field is all about reading.
00:25:50.799 --> 00:25:52.640
I don't teach I don't teach reading.
00:25:52.720 --> 00:25:55.200
I teach writing, but if you can write, you can read.
00:25:56.160 --> 00:26:00.720
And so did you were the next steps clear on what you needed to do?
00:26:00.880 --> 00:26:03.759
Was the next thing like, I know I need to go for the funding?
00:26:04.480 --> 00:26:07.759
Well, the next nothing was clear at any point.
00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:11.599
So after I figured it out, I went back, as I said, to the Senate.
00:26:11.839 --> 00:26:15.440
And they said, Well, you got to get the education department on board.
00:26:15.599 --> 00:26:16.960
So I go and talk to them.
00:26:17.039 --> 00:26:17.839
That sent me to Dr.
00:26:17.920 --> 00:26:18.799
Halichka.
00:26:18.880 --> 00:26:24.720
And when she came back with, yeah, you really need to do this, it just shocked the living heck out of them.
00:26:24.799 --> 00:26:29.200
They were not expecting this, especially that level of endorsement.
00:26:29.279 --> 00:26:32.640
So then the obvious was go get it connected.
00:26:32.799 --> 00:26:34.319
Okay, that I go and do that.
00:26:34.400 --> 00:26:36.240
I knocked that out in less than two weeks.
00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:38.640
People are jaw-dropped because it takes years.
00:26:38.799 --> 00:26:45.599
And then it was like, okay, let's take that approval and let's go get the money from the business plan competition, which I did.
00:26:45.680 --> 00:26:52.640
And then it was like, okay, I got the money, and then the school's like, well, go test it out for a couple of years and a couple of different kids.
00:26:52.799 --> 00:26:55.839
And then they had to work through their process.
00:26:56.079 --> 00:27:00.640
They're talking to everybody as we're doing this over that couple of years.
00:27:00.960 --> 00:27:08.079
And what was profoundly interesting was the kids kept saying, I'm not the best in my class.
00:27:08.160 --> 00:27:11.119
And we're like, your teachers think you're the best.
00:27:11.440 --> 00:27:19.279
And when they listened to them so carefully, when those kids talked to the kids coming behind them, talk to those kids' parents.
00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:21.839
We had to figure out what that looked like.
00:27:22.079 --> 00:27:26.400
And that took a while until the school district was finally said, Yeah, well, now we're ready.
00:27:26.559 --> 00:27:42.160
And when the school district went to the state senator, they then went around, talked to the education department, the SUNY Research Foundation, uh, Jeff Lawrence, a quarterback, putting the whole thing together to make sure the entire community wanted this.
00:27:42.480 --> 00:27:45.279
You got to remember what I what I had to do.
00:27:45.519 --> 00:27:51.279
I had to make the teachers happy, I had to make the PhDs happy, I had to make the kids happy, the power.
00:27:51.759 --> 00:27:57.119
I had all of these people that wanted everything the way they wanted it.
00:27:57.200 --> 00:28:04.319
And I had to, and it was so frustrating because this is not how I was told it was supposed to happen.
00:28:04.960 --> 00:28:11.599
And so during this time, how did you stay motivated and focused when you maybe and maybe not?
00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:21.759
Could you have ever had a moment where you're like, man, it'd just be so much easier if I just went and worked for the government or be a lobbyist or whatever than pursuing this path that I'm on?
00:28:22.319 --> 00:28:23.519
Dozens of times.
00:28:23.839 --> 00:28:24.799
Dozens of times.
00:28:25.039 --> 00:28:30.559
And then I would always think back to the time when I got that 15 credits of F and I kept going.
00:28:30.960 --> 00:28:38.880
Again, you have to understand that my competition, effective competition is two years of training.
00:28:39.039 --> 00:28:42.319
I did this in under five hours for the best teacher.
00:28:42.559 --> 00:28:49.519
I had to bring these kids to a level of performance that these private schools take four to five years to do.
00:28:49.680 --> 00:28:51.920
And I had one class period for the school year.
00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:57.359
I am literally having these kids tested their writing as if they're going into grad school.
00:28:57.519 --> 00:29:04.880
And the evaluator isn't some uh time-pressed PhD candidate working at the educational testing service.
00:29:05.039 --> 00:29:14.720
It's the best professor the SUNY system has in psychology, and she is being massively hard on me because she's putting her name on this.
00:29:14.960 --> 00:29:17.359
This whole thing was mission impossible.
00:29:17.599 --> 00:29:27.359
And then I go down to present it in New York City, and at the end, people really wanted it until they started asking this question: Does this work for normal kids?
00:29:27.519 --> 00:29:29.119
And I said, absolutely not.
00:29:29.440 --> 00:29:35.119
And they said, come back when it does, which I did eight years later.
00:29:36.880 --> 00:29:42.960
Because then the other thing is the professors told me we don't care about the 70th percentile of under grad students.
00:29:43.119 --> 00:29:51.200
They wanted a book called The Craft of Research, which is teaching people how to do their doctoral dissertations, context, problem statement, original problem statement solution.
00:29:51.359 --> 00:29:58.640
And they wanted me to teach that to high school dyslexic kids, and no private school in the country goes near that material because it's too evolved.
00:29:58.960 --> 00:29:59.839
So I did that.
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:03.119
Those two combined, and that took eight years to figure out.
00:30:03.839 --> 00:30:15.200
And so when you were when you were going going through this, well, before you started this path, when you decided to to change your trajectory, did you talk to anyone around you?
00:30:15.359 --> 00:30:16.640
Um, did you get advice?
00:30:16.720 --> 00:30:18.240
And what were those people saying?
00:30:18.640 --> 00:30:26.640
Yes, I was talking to teachers, I was talking to business people, I was talking to professors, and they all gave me very contradictory advice.
00:30:28.079 --> 00:30:33.599
And well, the professors wanted to know why this works so well.
00:30:33.759 --> 00:30:37.119
They wanted me to spend the rest of my life figuring that out.
00:30:37.680 --> 00:30:46.400
The teachers said, um, and I'm not joking here, uh, what normally takes my competition weeks or months to teach.
00:30:46.559 --> 00:30:48.400
Uh, we only have a couple of hours.
00:30:48.559 --> 00:30:50.960
We would prefer to learn it over lunchtime.
00:30:51.119 --> 00:30:55.759
And by the way, you have to make it so simple that a 14-year-old AP English girl can take care of it.
00:30:57.200 --> 00:30:57.519
Okay.
00:30:58.079 --> 00:31:02.960
The the parents wanted it, because that we teach parents how to do this.
00:31:03.279 --> 00:31:04.000
Get this.
00:31:04.160 --> 00:31:06.880
They spend 10 to 15 minutes set uh sessions.
00:31:06.960 --> 00:31:07.519
That's it.
00:31:08.559 --> 00:31:20.720
So I had to make it so easy they could pick it up, and then I had to I had to make it, I had to explain it to a to the normal dyslected kids, not the super motivated ones, how to get them motivated.
00:31:20.880 --> 00:31:23.359
So I had to figure out how to do that.
00:31:23.599 --> 00:31:34.240
So I just had all everybody wanted something different, and I had to make it better, faster, cheaper by orders of magnitude, not a little bit, by orders of little magnitude.
00:31:34.640 --> 00:31:38.720
It sounds like you're talking about the program, but what about your path?
00:31:39.119 --> 00:31:41.119
Were your parents or were you married?
00:31:41.359 --> 00:31:44.319
What were people saying about your decision to pursue?
00:31:45.119 --> 00:31:46.559
I had to put my life on hold.
00:31:46.640 --> 00:31:48.319
I'll probably get married in about two years.
00:31:48.480 --> 00:31:50.640
I had to put everything on hold to do this.
00:31:50.880 --> 00:31:53.839
I had to sacrifice everything to do this.
00:31:54.319 --> 00:31:54.559
Okay.
00:31:54.640 --> 00:32:01.680
And so what were the people around you saying when you started this path about you and the decision you're making, you know, wanted to make?
00:32:02.720 --> 00:32:15.599
Um well, my parents and family knew when I got my Eagle Scout when I was a teen that once I get something in my head, I'm just too stupid to stop.
00:32:15.759 --> 00:32:17.359
It's basically how they put it.
00:32:17.599 --> 00:32:23.119
And they're now just beginning to understand what it is that I'm able to do.
00:32:23.680 --> 00:32:26.960
You know, one like one parent I worked with, her name is Kimberly.
00:32:27.039 --> 00:32:29.200
She had a couple, you know, she's a homeschooling mom.
00:32:29.440 --> 00:32:32.720
She solved this in an hour and a half a week over eight months.
00:32:32.960 --> 00:32:33.279
Okay.
00:32:33.519 --> 00:32:35.039
She has a few college classes.
00:32:35.200 --> 00:32:41.440
Her son's now in genetic classes, getting eight and eight minus is starting off with 11th percentile reading, fourth percentile writing.
00:32:41.599 --> 00:32:43.759
All that was fixed within nine months.
00:32:44.480 --> 00:32:44.799
Okay.
00:32:44.960 --> 00:32:51.680
To make it so simple that a mom with a couple of college classes could figure it out and be very effective at it.
00:32:51.920 --> 00:33:00.160
And then to make it even simpler, now we're putting those things up online, it's just they're now beginning to understand what it is that I've done.
00:33:00.880 --> 00:33:05.759
And honestly, yes, I've really am starting very late, starting a family and everything else.
00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:12.319
But what I can tell you is for those of you out there, your most productive decade is your 50s.
00:33:12.480 --> 00:33:17.759
And what I can do is when I look back at the end of my life, I have done something major.
00:33:17.920 --> 00:33:21.119
I know so many people that I went to school with now.
00:33:21.359 --> 00:33:29.599
Yes, their kids are out or their kids are in high school or in college and they're wrapping up, but they realize that they have never done anything significant with their life.
00:33:29.759 --> 00:33:31.519
They haven't left anything behind.
00:33:31.839 --> 00:33:33.279
And I certainly have.
00:33:33.759 --> 00:33:38.160
And and so looking back at that, well, that is looking back.
00:33:38.319 --> 00:33:51.359
So when you know, when you were in when you were in um when you were facing this decision, you said you've you had to basically give up your whole whole life and at the time and and go all in.
00:33:51.519 --> 00:33:55.039
And so what made you comfortable doing that?
00:33:55.200 --> 00:33:59.119
And what made you think I'd rather do this than regret not doing it?
00:33:59.759 --> 00:34:09.119
Well, again, just the fury of when these professors had the I don't know what you want to call it.
00:34:09.280 --> 00:34:19.840
I'm not gonna say anything because it could be not polite, but just to have the the nerve to just cancel what the state government came up with.
00:34:20.239 --> 00:34:21.760
Who the heck do they think they are?
00:34:21.840 --> 00:34:25.760
And then deflunk me because they didn't like the accommodations?
00:34:26.000 --> 00:34:28.400
I I I just said never again.
00:34:28.639 --> 00:34:30.079
I was tired of it.
00:34:30.320 --> 00:34:35.679
People uh so many people like me who went through the same thing said, we're going to solve this.
00:34:36.239 --> 00:34:37.360
I actually did.
00:34:37.599 --> 00:34:45.840
So now the insanity of it is I constantly I've done over 300 podcasts in a little over a year.
00:34:46.159 --> 00:34:49.679
And I've explained this, agnosium, in every in all these different ways.
00:34:49.840 --> 00:34:56.320
And people are still coming up saying, Yeah, that makes sense, but this nobody else in the field is doing this.
00:34:56.480 --> 00:35:00.480
And I said, Yeah, they haven't changed much since the 1950s.
00:35:01.440 --> 00:35:01.920
All right.
00:35:02.079 --> 00:35:10.159
So what frustrates me is I'll get I'll start talking to a dyslexic kid, and I'll ask him, there's three questions that I ask.
00:35:10.239 --> 00:35:12.320
Normally I don't get past the the second one.
00:35:12.480 --> 00:35:14.400
And they're like, Yeah, that's how my brain works.
00:35:14.559 --> 00:35:16.480
I said, Okay, would you want to do it this way?
00:35:16.639 --> 00:35:19.920
They're like, Yeah, and the parents are like, We can't afford this.
00:35:20.159 --> 00:35:23.039
I said, Yes, you can because you're doing the teaching.
00:35:23.199 --> 00:35:27.840
And I show them how they can do 10 to 15 minute sessions and make it work.
00:35:28.079 --> 00:35:32.400
And they're just like, Okay, how come nobody else is doing this?
00:35:32.880 --> 00:35:39.360
And I said, Well, because they're doing a version that hasn't changed much since the 1950s.
00:35:39.760 --> 00:35:40.079
Right.
00:35:40.239 --> 00:35:40.719
All right.
00:35:41.119 --> 00:35:48.880
And yeah, it's just interesting because even now that I found as much more productive way trying to convince the field.
00:35:49.519 --> 00:35:51.039
That's where I learned one thing.
00:35:51.119 --> 00:35:52.480
And here's one thing I learned.
00:35:52.639 --> 00:35:57.360
On Shark Tank, half the sharks are dyslectic, even though we make five to ten percent of the population.
00:35:58.239 --> 00:35:58.559
Mr.
00:35:58.639 --> 00:36:05.679
Wonderful, the bald guy, said when he was his educational company, he spent 90% of his time for 10% of his revenue trying to convince the teachers.
00:36:06.239 --> 00:36:10.480
He spent 10% of his time and got 90% of his of his revenue for parents.
00:36:10.960 --> 00:36:14.320
So we focus on parents, which a lot of people find weird.
00:36:16.159 --> 00:36:16.960
It is weird.
00:36:17.199 --> 00:36:25.360
So if you had to boil this down to what was the driving principle, it was it crusading against discrimination?
00:36:25.519 --> 00:36:29.679
Like what what Yes, that's exactly what it was.
00:36:30.400 --> 00:36:30.960
All right.
00:36:31.119 --> 00:36:38.880
I want you to imagine if you did the New York, let's say you're 22 and you just finished up the New York State Assembly internship program.
00:36:39.119 --> 00:36:45.599
You're about to graduate and you had 15 credits of A minus, but they said, you're a woman.
00:36:46.320 --> 00:36:48.239
We don't like women in politics.
00:36:48.400 --> 00:36:50.880
So we're gonna drop you to 15 credits of F.
00:36:52.639 --> 00:36:54.480
Or we don't like brunettes.
00:36:54.639 --> 00:36:58.079
Because you're a brunette, we're gonna drop you to 15 credits of F.
00:36:58.719 --> 00:37:01.760
You can't tell me you're just gonna sit there and take it.
00:37:02.239 --> 00:37:03.760
No, I'm pretty headstrong.
00:37:03.920 --> 00:37:05.119
I'd find something.
00:37:05.280 --> 00:37:08.559
I mean, I don't I don't know if I would have done done what you did.
00:37:08.639 --> 00:37:17.360
Um that that took takes a lot of fortitude and perseverance, but I would have found some sort of path to whatever I thought was greatness.
00:37:18.400 --> 00:37:22.880
Well, here's one of the interesting things is when I went to the teacher, I was told by Dr.
00:37:23.039 --> 00:37:26.800
Holechka, you just tell the teacher what to do and they'll do it.
00:37:26.960 --> 00:37:30.480
So you can have, you know, 10 schools, 10 classes, same stuff.
00:37:30.719 --> 00:37:33.519
Well, I found out the teachers freaking hate that.
00:37:33.760 --> 00:37:37.039
They in New York State they have two-year master's degrees and a lot of experience.
00:37:37.280 --> 00:37:45.760
So she so Susan, the teacher, came and said she wanted to be not only to be, she didn't want to be a passenger, she wanted to be a copilot.
00:37:45.920 --> 00:37:47.599
She rewrote everything I created.
00:37:47.679 --> 00:37:50.000
I didn't even know what it looked like when she was doing it.
00:37:50.239 --> 00:37:50.559
Okay.
00:37:50.880 --> 00:37:54.320
So what did that mean why I went through this process?
00:37:54.559 --> 00:38:01.039
Because now I go and I I've been training New York State public school teachers for over a decade at the Everyone Reading Conference in Manhattan.
00:38:01.199 --> 00:38:04.480
And they come to me and say, I don't like that about your program.
00:38:04.719 --> 00:38:05.519
I said, Great.
00:38:05.679 --> 00:38:08.800
Change it any which way you want, and it'll still work.
00:38:08.960 --> 00:38:12.159
And they're like, I said, I explained what happened with Susan.
00:38:12.239 --> 00:38:13.920
They're like, Yeah, that's right.
00:38:14.159 --> 00:38:17.199
But I said, I had to go back to Dr.
00:38:17.360 --> 00:38:22.480
Holitshka and say, we need you to exchange your experimental design.
00:38:22.719 --> 00:38:23.760
This is huge.
00:38:24.000 --> 00:38:25.199
And she did it.
00:38:25.519 --> 00:38:31.599
So now, I swear decades later, full professors get what happened.
00:38:31.760 --> 00:38:38.079
But the junior professors, the assistant, the associated professors, look at and go, This is not correct.
00:38:38.320 --> 00:38:39.920
You need to go and change this.
00:38:40.079 --> 00:38:43.599
I said this was done by a SUNY distinguished professor in psychology.
00:38:43.840 --> 00:38:46.800
You will never accomplish 10% of what she did.
00:38:47.679 --> 00:38:53.679
And then they're just left puzzled because they can't disagree with her, but it makes no sense to them.
00:38:54.400 --> 00:38:59.360
And they want me to make it make sense for them, and that's something I'm not doing.
00:38:59.440 --> 00:39:09.599
It it's just one of the fun things because having the teachers be able to adapt it to their teaching style, who they're teaching with, that is critical to get their buy-in.
00:39:10.559 --> 00:39:13.840
And if I didn't go through the Senate process, I would never have known that.
00:39:14.559 --> 00:39:35.440
So if somebody were talking to you about heading down a path that you could tell was going to be very arduous and take a very long time and was going to require them to have a lot of perseverance and grit, what advice would you give them about making the decision of whether or not to do it?
00:39:36.159 --> 00:39:40.960
Partner with a dyslectic who has a$200 a month anthropic subscription.
00:39:41.440 --> 00:39:42.320
Seriously.
00:39:42.639 --> 00:39:43.760
No, absolutely serious.
00:39:43.920 --> 00:39:49.199
We are you are now entering a position where you're entering the chaos.
00:39:50.159 --> 00:39:50.559
All right.
00:39:50.639 --> 00:39:57.920
And a dyslectic with a$200 a month anthropic uh subscription, that's now their writer, let's just call it.
00:39:58.480 --> 00:40:07.280
Partnering where you where they cover your weaknesses and you cover theirs, which is because our brains are different, completely opposite, is real easy.
00:40:07.760 --> 00:40:10.079
That is what you need to get where you're going.
00:40:10.239 --> 00:40:16.800
Because if you think if you're entering one of these projects where you're just going to plan it out step by step, I can tell you it's the exact opposite.
00:40:16.880 --> 00:40:17.599
It doesn't work.
00:40:17.920 --> 00:40:22.880
But a little bit before that, how do they decide it's even worth going after?
00:40:23.280 --> 00:40:30.559
Not how are they going to actually do it, which is partner with somebody, but how are they how do they decide to take the next step?
00:40:31.039 --> 00:40:34.079
I would literally pick your top model.
00:40:34.239 --> 00:40:37.039
If you're using Chat GPT, I'd use the pro model.
00:40:37.360 --> 00:40:39.119
Just drop 200 bucks for a month.
00:40:39.280 --> 00:40:40.800
Stop, just do it.
00:40:41.039 --> 00:40:41.280
Okay.
00:40:41.599 --> 00:40:47.840
And ask it, work it out, have it do the studies, and figure out if this is worth it for you.
00:40:48.559 --> 00:40:48.800
Okay.
00:40:49.119 --> 00:40:53.440
I went in blind and I just I just went for it, and it took decades.
00:40:54.559 --> 00:40:54.880
Okay.
00:40:55.599 --> 00:40:58.880
But go in with your eyes open.
00:40:59.039 --> 00:41:00.480
Now you can have studies done.
00:41:00.559 --> 00:41:08.400
You can say I have literally sat down with some of my kids who said, I think I want to do like one of my one of my kids, she said, I want to become a doctor.
00:41:08.639 --> 00:41:09.840
I said, Really?
00:41:10.239 --> 00:41:13.039
Well, let's go through and go through the AI with it.
00:41:13.199 --> 00:41:18.159
And then she realized if she became a pediatrician, she would only deal with the weird cases.
00:41:18.559 --> 00:41:22.719
She wouldn't make a hell of a lot more than a nurse practitioner, and she's working all the time.
00:41:22.960 --> 00:41:34.800
So what I showed her was get your associate's degree as a nurse practitioner, your four-year degree, get a bunch of years of work experience, and then get your your nurse practitionership, and then you're doing 70 to 80% of what comes through the door.
00:41:34.960 --> 00:41:39.599
And if something's a little off that may kill the kid, you send that up to the doctor.
00:41:39.679 --> 00:41:40.400
It's not your choice.
00:41:41.199 --> 00:41:42.400
It's not your fault.
00:41:42.559 --> 00:41:44.079
Okay, you turn it over to them.
00:41:44.239 --> 00:41:48.639
And by the way, you're working 40 to 45 hours a week and you have holidays off.
00:41:49.039 --> 00:41:54.000
We went, she's working towards it, and she is so much happier.
00:41:56.079 --> 00:42:00.159
You can do that now with AI that you could not do this even six months ago.
00:42:00.559 --> 00:42:00.960
Yep.
00:42:01.119 --> 00:42:06.400
I kind of did the same thing for my daughter, trying to decide if she wants to be a psychiatrist, psychologist.
00:42:06.480 --> 00:42:19.840
And I put all the different categories that you could be in with it, all the fields, and you know, and laid it out like how much do they get paid, how much do they work, how much does it cost to get the education, how long is the education?
00:42:20.079 --> 00:42:22.239
She hasn't made a decision, she doesn't need to yet.
00:42:22.400 --> 00:42:25.760
Anyway, thank you so much for taking time out to be on the show today, Russell.
00:42:26.079 --> 00:42:27.360
Well, thanks for having me.
00:42:27.679 --> 00:42:27.920
Yeah.
00:42:28.079 --> 00:42:34.960
And to our audience, until next time, make the decision, act on it, be accountable, and stay unstoppable.