Interview: Russell VanBrocklen ~ Becoming The Miracle!

Russell regales me with several stories, but the most important one was the story he told about being diagnosed dyslexic! Highly intelligent, Russell had made do his entire life and it wasn't until he was college age that he realized that he needed to do something for those with dyslexia, who felt they would never fit it. So, he went about changing the world, as you do when you're on a mission!

Transcript

Hi everybody,

And welcome back to the next episode of the podcast.

This time I'm introducing you to Russell Van Brocklin,

And I think our conversation and Russell's being in the world really reminds me that sometimes the miracle,

Or the magic,

Or the mysteriousness of this universe is all encapsulated in one person.

Russell is the perfect example of someone being born who has the innate talents,

The innate qualities,

Can see the world in a certain way,

And then is able to help those who might need a little consolation,

Or a little education,

Or even a new way to learn.

Because Russell,

Quite honestly,

I believe,

Was born to change the world for those with dyslexia.

He's a dyslexia professor who's created a way to help kids who have dyslexia.

He saw this new,

Brilliant,

Fabulous way to help those for whom education and reading and being in school was really challenging.

And you know what?

It was because of his own journey with dyslexia as a kid.

So you know,

Actually,

In this interview,

Russell just starts off and kind of tells the miracle at the very beginning of our conversation and talks about the modality that he created that's changed so many lives.

And then we kind of get into the meat of the story of how Russell got to the place where he could help those with dyslexia.

So yeah.

So without further ado,

Here's my conversation with Russell Van Brocklin.

It really hit me when I was thrown into special ed as a kid.

And then what happened is at the end of seventh grade,

I was done with it.

In fifth grade,

I had two relatives on the Mayflower.

One was the religious leader,

One was the biggest troublemaker of the colony.

And they had a project in fifth grade.

I couldn't do it because I was in special ed.

So at the end of seventh grade,

I have a board member,

His son was a year younger than me.

We got our Eagle Scouts at about the same time.

And I said,

Get me the heck out of history for special ed.

Well,

I have the worst case of dyslexia people have ever seen.

And I get pushed back on that all the time.

Like,

How can you say that?

Well,

When I was in college,

I needed to get a new evaluation done.

And the only person available was Dr.

Ayam Hawichka,

Who was right by the South Campus of SUNY Center at Buffalo.

Little did I know at the time,

But she was a New York State distinguished professor in psychology,

Which is their highest rank.

And she was essentially considered about the best psychologist in the whole system of 64 campuses.

And she played and she basically organized my life in huge ways later on.

So what happened is I got the evaluation,

Said my basic reading and writing level when in college is that of essentially the first grade level.

So then the defining moment of my life came when I applied for the New York State Assembly Internship Program.

It was late 90s.

I wanted to know how government worked.

That's some theory I wanted to know.

So I show up and I say,

Oh,

I have a first grade reading and writing level.

And they looked at me and said,

This isn't going to work.

So they got a committee together and they put me in the majority leaders program in counsel's office because they had three administrative assistants.

And it worked out great.

Then for the academic portion,

We had to do a huge research project.

And they gave me the standard accommodation of doing a very long presentations with a very heavy Q&A session.

Other students didn't want to do this.

It was too much work.

So I did that and they recommended 15 credits of A minus.

Now,

That's not your official grade,

But it's expected that the university is going to accept this.

It happened to everybody before me and after me.

This is 27 years ago.

Instead of 15 credits of A minus,

They looked at the accommodations and said,

We don't like this.

So here's your 15 credits of F.

OK.

Do you have any idea what that does to a GPA?

Oh,

My God.

Yeah.

So at that point,

I was like,

I am so done with this.

So I wanted to solve reading and writing and teach other highly intelligent,

Motivated dyslexics.

And I was like,

I asked my professors,

Where do I go and take care of this in grad school?

And they kind of thought I'm joking.

They said law school.

So I said,

OK.

I went and I audited law school after college.

I specifically wanted to find a dyslexic professor.

His name was Professor Warner.

So I go for contracts.

And what they do is they ask,

They use the Socratic method.

So have you ever had a professor who,

When you didn't know the answer because you're not prepared or just don't know the materials,

You're brand new,

Where you'd answer questions and you say,

I don't know.

And then they keep asking you questions and embarrass you?

Ever have that?

No.

That's how they do law school.

If you're interested,

There's a famous movie in the 70s called The Paper Chase,

If you want to know more about it.

So he calls on me the second day of contracts.

And what I found later is that when a dyslectic enters graduate school,

We own the place day one or soon thereafter because it's in our speciality,

Our area of extreme interest and ability.

So he calls on me.

And everybody kind of gasps,

Thinking like,

Oh,

That poor SOB has just been called on.

He's going to get wrecked.

And for the first time in my life,

Things slowed down and organized.

And I answered back.

He commented,

Challenged me.

I went back to him.

Before we know it,

I'm leaning forward,

Literally yelling at him as loud as I can.

He's leaning forward,

Yelling at me.

This happens in law school and intense discussions.

And this went on for 15 minutes.

The rest of my classmates are just kind of aghast.

Then finally,

Professor Warner says,

Basically,

I have to stop this for the interest of time.

I have to move on to the next case.

You couldn't be any more correct.

My friends that stayed on,

Graduated,

Been practicing law,

They said they still can't do that,

Not with a professor.

I solved reading within a month.

I solved writing within a couple of years.

Now,

I need to go and get this in the real world and then get this at some major dyslexia conference.

I go back to my professors and I say,

OK,

I want New York State to fund my research.

And they said,

We can't even do that.

I said,

I'll make it work.

So I entered a university-wide competition.

And to do that,

They said,

Well,

Really,

You'd need some professor says this isn't some pie in the sky nonsense.

So I went back to my representative.

His name was Senator Joe Brun.

He was the majority leader of the state senate at the time.

They got very interested.

When you're dealing with Republicans,

They're very simple,

Better,

Faster,

Cheaper.

But unlike Democrats,

Who like to start off with a bill,

Republicans want to go right to the school system and hear what they have to say.

And they're not budging without that.

So they sent me over to the education department.

So I go over to the education department.

I said,

The majority leader of the state senate essentially sent me over here.

And they looked at me and they're like,

How do we get rid of this kid?

Oh,

We know.

We need a New York State distinguished professor in psychology.

Where's this out of?

I said,

Buffalo.

OK,

Go get us a SUNY distinguished professor in psychology to say this is real.

And we will then take a look at it.

So I look up how many there are.

There are two.

And lo and behold,

Dr.

Hlicka has the better reputation.

So I went back and said,

Remember me that neuropsych you gave me?

I'm back.

I told her what I was doing.

She said,

Sure.

The state paid for it.

She grilled me for 20 hours straight over three days.

The smartest person I'd met in my life was beating the hell out of me.

Because what I said was,

Because it was previous documented,

I can go from reading and writing at the first grade level,

Switch on my system,

I'm writing at above average of entering grad school level,

And back down again.

And then she wrote up a five page report,

Brought it back to the education department.

Oh,

You again.

Oh,

We got to take this seriously.

Well,

Now we need a senior professor to approve your curriculum.

Well,

We're not doing anything.

So I go back.

There's only one person I can go to.

His name is Professor James Collins.

He had a million and a half dollar federal grant.

And he wrote a book called Strategies for Struggling Writers.

So I said,

OK,

I need to take your stuff from mild dyslexia to severe dyslexia.

How long do you think it took me to get his approval?

You've been to grad school.

I don't know.

Less than two weeks.

It's the only thing I found out about being dyslectic.

So I go,

And he proves it.

Then I,

Because I didn't have any more time.

I was applying for a university-wide competition.

And I got $15,

000.

So then I go back,

And I go back to my old high school.

I said,

I got $15,

000 to test out kids.

So they started sending me their best and brightest.

First student,

Her name was Michaela Miller.

I can use her first name.

She gave me permission.

She scored in the 0 percentile in the GRE because she was a,

I want to be very clear to your audience.

I only went for the best.

I wanted the most motivated,

The most intelligent,

Excellent family,

Support,

College-bound.

And she was writing at the eighth grade level.

So if you're,

Remember the colleges you went to.

Honestly,

If you go in with an eighth grade writing level,

You don't know what's happening.

Not good.

Are you going to pass or flunk out in the first semester?

Flunk.

You're going to,

So we gave her the question.

She ended up scoring post-test average of entering graduate students.

Wow.

And then we did that a couple of times.

And the school went to the,

Went to Senator Bruno and said,

Yeah,

We want this.

So then they decided to fund it for multiple years.

But I picked their very best teacher.

Her name was Susan Ford.

And well,

They picked her.

And one class period day for the school year,

They went from middle school writing to average of entering graduate students.

They all went on to college.

They all graduated GPAs of 2.

5 to 3.

6.

No accommodations compared to the best to select a college at the time,

Landmark College.

We were a 3X more successful.

We're less than 1% of the cost,

Less than $900 per student.

We're less than 125th of the effort.

And I presented New York City and I thought I was done.

I thought I was finished.

I was wrong.

How do you think the presentation went?

Oh,

I don't know.

I'm a little nervous to answer.

Well,

What they wanted,

There are two groups of people.

They said,

Would this work for normal students?

No way.

They can't take the GRE.

Then I was told,

Go back and create things for other students,

Okay?

For normal students.

And then I was also told by the professor,

Some of your students scored in the 70th percentile of entering grad students.

We don't care.

We want the craft of research.

Are you familiar with that book?

I'm not,

No.

Okay,

Did you do a master's thesis?

Not really,

I mean,

No.

Or do the big paper?

No,

I've never done,

I mean,

I've done a ton of papers,

But no quote unquote big papers.

That's what it's for.

It was written by the University of Chicago in 1995 because the PhD students didn't know how to write their dissertation.

Okay.

It's broken up into three parts,

Context,

Get everybody on the same page,

Problem,

And then a solution,

Where the reader learns something substantive or don't write the paper.

And I was told to teach that to high school kids.

In the fifth edition,

Only the most advanced high school kids can even look at that material.

No private school in New York City touches it.

It's too evolved.

I've dropped it to nine-year-olds.

♪♪ Well,

I wanted to ask you,

You know,

What was your first intimation when you were a kid and you thought,

Oh,

My brain works a little differently than everyone else?

It really hit me when I was thrown in special ed as a kid.

And then what happened is at the end of seventh grade,

I was done with it.

In fifth grade,

I had two relatives on the Mayflower.

One was the religious leader.

One was the biggest troublemaker of the colony.

And they had a project in fifth grade.

I couldn't do it because I was in special ed.

So at the end of seventh grade,

I had a board member,

Where his son was a year younger than me.

We got our Eagle Scouts at about the same time.

And I said,

Get me the heck out of history for special ed.

He did.

I ended up getting,

He said I was going to flunk out.

I had the highest grade in the class.

Perfect hundreds on everything.

I remembered everything the teacher said.

I couldn't take notes.

Went on to high school.

End of my first semester,

I did 95 average.

Couldn't read or write worth a damn,

But I did that.

You get very creative when you're dyslectic.

Yeah,

It sounds like you developed an incredible superpower of memory.

Oh,

Absolutely.

I had to remember everything.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

I could not take notes.

I mean,

What a massive gift.

I was thinking,

Here you are.

You say you go into college.

You're at a first grade level for reading and writing.

Yet,

Yet earlier in life,

You have these incredible grades,

These incredible scores.

Your brain just works differently than other people's and you learn to adapt.

I mean,

You're obviously highly intelligent.

So was there ever a time where you kind of beat yourself up for how your brain worked and how did you get over that?

Well,

There's a painful,

I'm gonna tell you a very painful thing that happens to dyslectics.

That if you go to a dyslectic kid under college,

They freak out and don't want you to know.

All right,

And professors know nothing about this because they haven't experienced it.

It's limited to the highly intelligent,

Highly motivated with severe dyslexia.

Sometime in elementary school,

What happens is we're told we have to pass an academic task.

And if we can't,

We're gonna be held back.

So especially for young,

I want you to think,

You're in third grade,

You're told you're going to lose all your friends when you're eight years old,

If you can't do something.

Adults can't help you.

Can you imagine the amount of stress and shame you put on yourself?

It gets to the point,

Go ahead.

No,

I just,

I can't imagine,

That's horrifying.

It is so bad,

It gets clinically dangerous.

And the kids get so frustrated that eventually they find a solution and they move on.

And then this happens so many times that they just think it's normal.

And when I see a kid,

Let's say they get low 80s,

They're brothers and sisters,

They're fighting to be valedictorians.

And I say,

I ask a couple of questions and they say,

Yes.

And I say,

I know what your secret is.

They don't want their parents around.

They don't ever want them to know.

They're like,

How do you know this?

And I said,

You think you're the only one.

Okay,

So there,

But what essentially has happened is the dyslectic has started doing literally doctoral work in elementary school.

So you wonder why once we get to grad school,

We own the place.

And just so you know what dyslexia,

Your audience knows what dyslexia is.

This is the top book in my field.

It's called Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz.

It's a medical doctor,

Brain scans.

That's dyslexia.

Okay.

Yeah,

That's fascinating.

Wow.

So just so you know what it is,

So the back part of the dyslectic brain,

For those of you listening,

You see how the mass that has,

Your brain has massive neural activity in the back part and mine has next to nothing?

Yes,

Yes.

But the front part of my brain is about two and a half times overactive?

Yes.

Okay,

That's word analysis followed by articulation.

That's what I focus on.

So if you wanna know how to work with dyslectics,

First thing you do is you have to focus on their speciality,

Their area of extreme interest and ability,

Which you know in graduate school is hyper-focused in a narrow area.

That's why we excel so much.

We get them a book and an audio book in that area,

Couple of years ahead.

Then we don't teach them from the general to the specific like schools do.

So if you'll ask them a question,

What effect did Martin Luther King's famous I Have a Dream speech have on the American civil rights movement?

It's like asking us to grab fog.

We can't do it.

But if we ask a specific to a general question,

What personally compelled Martin Luther King to wanna get his famous I Have a Dream speech,

Then we can look it up,

Find the answer,

Another question presents itself,

We answer that and keep going.

That forces our brain to organize itself by using writing as a measurable output.

So for example,

If you ask a dyslectic,

Do you have ideas in your speciality flying around your head at light speed,

But with Littleton organizations,

They're gonna say yes,

Okay?

That's the secret.

We force the brain to organize itself by using writing as a measurable output,

Then word analysis followed by articulation.

You do that during an intervention period,

And we're fine once we get up to grade level.

Before that,

Trying to ask us to be in a normal classroom,

Teaching us outside of our speciality,

Specific to the general,

As a general to the specific,

With not doing word analysis followed by articulation,

And you're just killing us,

It's horrible.

Once we get up to grade level,

Then we're fine.

Okay,

Yeah,

I was gonna ask,

Were your parents supportive of you?

While you guys were trying to figure out what was going on?

They tried everything.

My parents had upper middle class jobs,

And they drove the oldest garbagey cars,

And we went on holidays,

We went camping.

I was an Eagle Scout,

So I actually got my own tent.

My sister shared one,

My parents shared one,

And instead of a hotel,

We're spending 20 bucks a night.

So they had money for other things,

Okay?

And they tried everything,

And nothing worked.

Nothing worked until I walked in with Professor Warner and had that experience.

Wow,

Wow.

I am sure your parents experienced an incredible feeling of just,

Oh my goodness,

Finally,

You must have also just had this kind of like,

Oh my goodness,

Finally.

Well,

Yeah,

But that was the starting point,

But then I had to show other people.

Right.

And I presented my process in 2006,

When at that point,

I was 32.

Then I had to take eight years off before I could come back and say,

Here's how you work with typical students.

Yeah,

It's been crazy.

Well,

And I mean,

When you were a kid and trying to kind of learn how to navigate the world successfully,

Did you have any dream or concept that you would bring this to the world or this is what you'd be doing?

No,

I want my uncle graduate top of his class from Clarkson from 65 to 95 and get all the cool stuff with the space program.

I wanted to be that.

When I was in college,

I failed calc one and calc two seven times.

I hate calculus.

I just didn't have the brains for it.

Neuroscience was much simpler.

Oh,

Yes,

I love how you say that because there's so many people would say,

Neuroscience is not easier,

But it's different brains can do different things.

Well,

The problem with neuroscience is,

I remember I was taking a class,

First year grad level,

Last year seniors.

It was written,

It was taught by a SUNY distinguished professor in teaching this course.

So she's like the very best at teaching this out of the entire system.

And almost every class,

Somebody would ask her a question that she wouldn't know the answer to.

And she said,

Even if you get a PhD and you're looking at a very specific part of the brain,

You can't keep up.

And when I look at neuroscience,

What I try to do is to say,

Let's simplify it.

Drives neuroscientists crazy.

So for example,

My original program,

I looked at it and they said it was the front part of the brain is articulation followed by word analysis,

Articulation,

GRE,

Analytical writing,

Analytical articulation,

Same thing,

My view.

All right,

So we're gonna do that with a limited amount of word analysis.

When I had to move to typical students,

I had to flip that over to word analysis followed by articulation.

That was the base that I couldn't get them to do the work.

So I had to go in their speciality.

And then I found talking to a lot of professors that made it full professors that are dyslectic.

They always did much better when the teacher taught from the specific to the general.

And from that,

I had to extrapolate some major principles that has allowed me to,

When I talk to dyslectics,

I'm like,

I'm gonna ask you some questions that are gonna freak you out because I know what you're gonna say based on how you answer a few questions.

And they always do.

How did you know this about me?

I said,

Well,

You think you're the only one,

But it took me decades to figure that out.

Yeah,

And what I- Oh,

Sorry,

I was just gonna say,

I can't even imagine how inspirational you are for all these people,

Seriously.

I mean,

Just the way you show up,

The way you demonstrate that you have walked this path,

That you are successful,

That you've created this really vibrant life,

But this modality for other people,

It probably inspires everyone you come in contact with.

Right,

But what I wanna do is solve the problem.

So to give you an example how effective this can be,

Last December,

2024,

I met Kimberly.

I have full permission to tell a story.

She's a homeschooling mom.

Because as a grad school,

You know about some numbers.

In Ohio,

She paid 700 bucks to have her kids tested.

Her son,

Reed,

Is dyslectic.

He scored a 190,

Which is somewhere in the second grade level.

At the end of the school year,

He would be expected to increase by 2.

8 points the rest of the school year to score 192.

8.

Grade level is 211.

Reed did not increase by 2.

8 points.

Increased by 20.

Wow.

To 210.

One point from grade level.

I essentially call it grade level.

Kimberly worked with him for half an hour a day,

Three times a week on average for the next six months.

Little under six months.

Then Reed's,

I worked with her maybe half an hour a week on average.

That's it.

Then Reed's friends come to him.

They say,

We want you to be in school with us.

You know,

Public school.

He did that in December.

He would have been placed in special education.

Would have been extraordinarily frustrated because he couldn't be with his friends.

Now he's in mainstream general classes doing just fine because his mom solved things that even the private schools can't do in that time frame.

That's what happens if you focus on the kid's speciality.

For him,

It was Wolverine.

Teach him from the specific to the general and do word analysis followed by articulation.

His mom did what the private schools are not capable of.

They take their 75 grand a year on average,

And after fourth grade,

You're with them for four to five years,

And then you're completely corrected in every conceivable way.

She did it in six months.

That's astonishing.

Oh my gosh.

Thank you for sharing that story.

I just love it because it's a real world demonstration of just a mother who wouldn't give up and a son who was also unwilling to give up and willing to do what it would take.

And then you,

Who created the program that could lift him up to where he could really shine and show up in the world.

So thank you.

We had an issue,

Which I think parents will find this really amusing.

I'm really evil to these kids because I asked them 10 things they like and 10 things they dislike.

And then I,

Because this happens all the time.

They don't wanna do the work and they start getting really stubborn.

And I said,

What's the thing you dislike the most?

What's the worst chore?

He said,

Cleaning out the rabbit cages.

So I'm like,

Okay,

If you ever don't do your work according to your mom,

You're gonna have to go and clean the rabbit cages.

So I threatened him with that because he was just kind of putting himself on strike.

I said,

Your mom's gonna videotape it and I'm gonna be in your,

Everybody in your family is gonna be,

We're gonna have a great time.

Go ahead and stop.

Just don't do your work.

I'm looking forward to this.

He jumped right on and became a really motivated kid again.

This is probably one of my most fun stories.

I had a kid the same way.

Older brother had a younger sister.

He did her telling him what to do.

He wouldn't do any,

He wouldn't do,

He just put up his arms.

I'm not doing that stuff.

Okay,

Fine.

He was also a very clean kid.

Very untypical.

He made sure his room was like a Marine barracks.

Perfect everything.

His parents sent his younger sister in to mess it up on purpose and then to tell him to clean it up.

And then when he was done,

They said,

I don't think you got the message.

Do it again.

And they videotaped this.

So after he's graduated from college,

Occasionally we still talk,

His mom will whip out the video.

Everybody's laughing except him.

He's red in the face.

And I'm like,

Oh,

This is just classic.

I never had an issue with him again.

My God,

That's so funny.

Thank you for telling me those stories.

Oh my God.

Well,

I'd love to ask you the second question,

Which is,

Did you grow up in a religious household?

And if so,

What was that like as a kid?

And then as you got older,

How did that change or shift?

Or do you even have a relationship with anything that's beyond us?

There's no right or wrong answer.

I just asked this question of everybody.

I'm so curious.

I was raised in a Methodist household,

But as a dyslectic,

I can tell you,

I really didn't like going to church.

We had our Bible study was run by a retired Air Force Colonel called Mr.

Markinson.

And he was fascinating.

I remember I eventually got my Eagle Scout at 17.

And he's a retired Air Force Colonel.

And I found it much more interesting.

And then I got spoiled when I was getting confirmed.

My minister,

Her name was Reverend Jan.

And my church was,

There was just disproportionately hugely to very old retirement people.

And she was always at the hospital,

Like the first or second person.

She was always where you'd expect the minister to be when a member needed it.

And unfortunately,

I thought this was normal.

I thought she was normal.

I was wrong.

So my church back then had this horrendous rule where they had to switch the minister every five years.

And then she left,

We got Reverend Russ that came in,

And we were vinegar and water.

He was just the exact opposite,

Did the exact opposite.

She wasn't doing what I thought a minister should do.

And after that,

I went to Bible study with Mr.

Mark and since I stopped going to church because I didn't like,

I just got so,

It just left an impression on me.

So now I just do Bible study.

I don't go to,

I hardly ever walk to church anymore,

Maybe twice a year.

So that's a little bit different,

But I just got so much used to with being a intellectual discussion than sitting there and singing because if I sing,

Then I should be arrested for cruel and unusual punishment.

I have one of those voices.

Well,

I think,

I love that you brought up the point about sometimes the head,

The community head,

The pastor of the church,

The reverend,

They can really make or break a congregation or a church because everybody has a different personality,

Especially in the clergy and someone who shows up at hospitals,

Who shows up at the bedside of people who need assistance or clarification in their lives.

That's very different than this second person that you're talking about.

And she sounds like she had a lot of compassion and empathy and understanding.

Yeah,

And even now,

40 years later,

Since she was there,

People that have been there the entire time are still saying she was by far the best they ever seen.

And I got spoiled.

And if you can't,

I've occasionally met ministers that would meet up to that expectation,

But just ever since that,

I've just found I like the Bible study,

The discussion a lot more than going in and singing hymns.

So that kind of shifted me towards something a little more,

I don't know if you know,

The founding of our country with the Mayflower,

But I would say that pushed me more towards the congregational aspect of going to church.

And just so people know,

The congregational church at the founding of Plymouth was,

Their whole purpose in life was to have a little community by Brook.

They cared about the next life,

Not the current one.

And then their children went away from that.

And that pretty much explained American history ever since that point.

I do,

I wanna ask you,

Okay,

Russell,

Because you piqued my interest and you kind of glided over this a little quickly,

But you alluded to ancestors on the Mayflower and you said one was a troublemaker,

I think,

Or something.

What did this person do?

Okay,

One was the spiritual leader.

Okay.

And one was Hopkins,

Who was the biggest troublemaker in the whole colony.

The other family that gave him a run for the money were the Billings.

But the Hopkins really were the biggest troublemakers.

He actually was on a ship before and tried to lead a mutiny.

That was from the historical account that Shakespeare focused on his famous play,

The Tempest.

Okay,

So then he comes back and he was going to have his feet bounded and basically put in stocks for a punishment,

But it was his first offense,

So Governor Bradford let it go.

But he was just,

I mean,

I tried to use the excuse when I was a kid.

I said,

Well,

On the Mayflower,

One side,

The most religious,

Brewster,

And the other side,

The biggest troublemaker.

So I just tried to point that as an ancestor,

So that's why I was acting a bit crazy.

And my father said,

Nice try,

Not accepting that.

What happened is as a dysleptic and ADD,

ADHD,

They tried to give me medication.

The more they gave me,

The crazier I got.

Okay.

Until I was at the point where they gave me their legal max and I was just a little terror,

Until finally I started pretending I took it and I flushed it down the toilet and then I was a normal kid again.

Okay,

Okay.

I was one of the very rare people where I had the opposite effect of what they wanted.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Well,

First of all,

Okay,

Thank you so much for telling about your ancestors.

I feel like in any group,

There's always some sort of trickster or troublemaker who keeps things fresh and maybe less than ideal every once in a while,

So.

He was less than ideal 24 seven.

When I mean he was the biggest troublemaker,

He was the biggest trouble,

And I was like,

Is it this or Billings?

And there was a book called The Mayflower,

And I think it pretty much included my ancestor was more of a troublemaker than Billings,

Which was pretty hard to do,

But he managed it.

Well,

I guess he didn't get the memo of what the intentions were for landing in the new country and building a community and- Oh,

No,

What happened is they had a ship called the Speedwell,

And this is historical speculation,

But the best I could figure,

They're supposed to land up in Manhattan.

The Dutch wanted it,

So that Speedwell,

They put on a mask way too big,

And it kept leaking,

They had to go back.

So then they had to put everybody on one ship,

And half of them were what they called the strangers,

And that was Hopkins or one of them.

He was not a member of the church.

Okay,

Got it,

Got it,

Okay.

Wow,

Okay,

I love history,

So thank you for just indulging me with this.

I appreciate it.

It's actually super fascinating,

And how interesting to have kind of these two different ways of being in your lineage,

This very religious dress right dress lineage,

And then you have this on the other side,

This little bit of a,

Well,

This big bit of a troublemaker,

Let's say.

I'll appreciate it.

Yeah,

He,

Yeah,

It made the colony rather interesting.

I love that,

That's probably the understatement of the century.

All right,

Dear ones,

I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Russell,

And I hope you enjoyed the reminder that sometimes angels walk amongst us.

To be honest,

I was just thrilled to know that there's this new educational modality for kids with dyslexia.

I myself dated someone with dyslexia for quite a long time,

And he actually,

No one ever discovered he had dyslexia.

He just kept getting passed over and over and over again in his schools.

He even got through high school,

Graduated,

Admitting that he had a really tough time reading,

And it was practically impossible,

But the teachers in the system just kept passing him because they didn't wanna deal with it.

So it was actually while we were dating that I noticed he spelled things backwards,

And I said,

You know,

I think you might have dyslexia.

So yeah,

I mean,

It doesn't serve anyone if we're not tending to kids' educational needs.

You'll notice that there's no bite-sized option for this little episode,

And that's because it is petite already.

Usually my episodes run to about an hour,

But this one was cute enough and short enough that I thought,

You know what?

This time we don't need a bite-sized episode.

Thanks so much for listening,

Everyone,

And this is the moment where I ask for ratings and reviews.

If you could take the time to smash that button for how much you like the podcast,

Or maybe just take the time to write a few words about what you appreciate about the podcast,

I would be ever so grateful.

Thank you for listening,

And here's my one request.

Be like Russell.

I mean,

Russell really discovered what was unique and different about himself at a very early age,

And instead of feeling defeated by it,

Instead of feeling overwhelmed by it,

He used it to make his superpower,

Which was the ability to see things differently,

To view the world in an entirely unique way,

And then help other people while doing so.

I mean,

He did have his parents who had his back,

But yeah,

Now Russell has discovered how he can have the backs of those with dyslexia.

And guess what?

This one person is changing the world.

And so be like Russell and discover what's unique about yourself,

And then bring that gift to the world and bring it to other people,

Because we're going to need a whole lot of angels,

A whole lot of guardian angels,

And a whole lot of good human beings to lift everyone up in this world.

I know you're out there,

And I'm just waiting for you to discover your gifts,

And then you know what?

We're going to band together,

And we're going to bring everyone along.

And as I always say,

Pretty soon this world won't stand a chance,

And there's going to be so much beauty and so much bravery and brilliance.

We will all stand back in awe.