[00:00:00] Roughly 95% of students with dyslexia don't get the help they need. [00:00:10] What if you are a loved one or one of those? I was, hi, my name's Tim Winneke. This is American Masculinity and in in our 16th episode, we're talking about dyslexia. I [00:00:20] was one of those kids that didn't get what I needed because of it. I always thought I was bad at school, and I never read a book until I was nearly 20 years old. As I went into college, I got lucky. I found some [00:00:30] people that helped me. I found the right tools, and because of that, I found my legs academically. I earned distinguished graduate of my master's program and I'm a college professor. [00:00:40] The right tools matter so much. This isn't about parenting failures. It's about wrong tools and skills. For the right problems, we can do better and to figure out [00:00:50] how to do better. We're talking to Russell Vaughn Brolin. He's an advocate and educator around dyslexia and has a long track record of helping people in unique ways make great strides. [00:01:00] He's gonna share with us his tools for figuring out what's going on and what kind of things might help you or a loved one improve. The conversation was wonderful. I got pretty mad at points. Uh, I kept it [00:01:10] together in the interview, but I couldn't help but thinking back to the kid I was and not getting what I needed and how that impacted me for years of my life. I hope that in hearing this and listening to this, [00:01:20] you either change something about your view of yourself or there's someone in your life that you could start asking new questions to, to figure out what it is they need. Think about those people through this [00:01:30] episode. While you listen, think about who in your life might benefit from some of the things you're learning, and we'll talk about it at the end. Let's get the conversation started.[00:01:40] Hey Russell, man, thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. I'm really looking forward to being here. So I [00:01:50] just cut you off trying to tell me about how you got started in this. Would you mind telling the audience as well? Sure. I started out, I went to law school with a, uh, audit to audit [00:02:00] contracts and property after college with a first grade reading. And writing mobility. Second day in contracts, the professor calls on me and what they love to do is they use the Socratic method. [00:02:10] They try to make you look like an idiot. You don't know an answer. They'll keep asking questions 'cause they want to train you as fast as possible to answer any argument, any time from any side. Things just slowed [00:02:20] down. Everything came together and I was arguing with my professor for 15 minutes. He couldn't beat me. Nice. I couldn't beat him. And at the end he said, Russell, you [00:02:30] couldn't be any more. Correct. He had to move on to the next case for time constraints. The students, I was there doing that when they graduated, they said they still couldn't do that. [00:02:40] So then about 15 days later, I started taking property quizzes. I was getting the highest grade from the fastest finish out of anybody. And everything just snapped [00:02:50] together. So then I wanted to take those skills and help other dyslexics. So my first project was I decided to, uh, bring the writing [00:03:00] skills of highly motivated high school dyslectic, highly intelligent, going onto college, how to basically bring the writing skills up to the graduate school level. The test used for that is the [00:03:10] graduate records exam, analytical writing assessment. The New York State funded this, uh, sorry, the New York State Senate funded this. So what happened is we took classes about five, five or six per grade [00:03:20] per time. And these kids had middle school writing skills. They were not gonna be able to go to college one class period a day for the school year. At the end of that, they're writing [00:03:30] average or above average of entering graduate students. They jumped seven, eight grade levels in one year. Spelling and grammar went from atrocious to clean at the graduate level. They went to [00:03:40] college. No accommodations graduate with 2.5 to 3.6 GPA, and it cost the state less than $900 a student. Can't be done. Yeah, nothing's ever been close to [00:03:50] that problem was we needed to move it over to everybody. And especially since dyslexia is perceived to be mostly for young boys, it's boys and girls, but [00:04:00] uh, boys are diagnosed much more often, so we had to drop it to everybody. And what I did is I took the research from this book from Yale. Mm-hmm. And it [00:04:10] shows the back part of the dyslexic brain is almost no neuroactivity, the front parts two and a half times overactive. And that deals with articulation, word analysis. So I switched it around to word [00:04:20] analysis followed by articulation, but that would not work still because these kids had typical motivation, not the awesome, I'll do [00:04:30] anything you ask for super motivation of the first group. So to get them involved, I talked to successful Dyslectic professors, and from those interviews I pulled out two main points. Number [00:04:40] one, you absolutely have to focus on the Dyslectic students' specialty, their area of extreme interest and ability. You step outside of that, you're down 80% for most kids. Why [00:04:50] is that? Because Dyslectic, we wanna specialize in our narrow little area that we're really good at, but our school system wants to make us well-rounded until [00:05:00] we can specialize near the end of college and especially in grad school. So most of us don't make it that far. The second thing was, and this was so overwhelming. Is that dyslexics [00:05:10] are much better. We can't learn from this general to the specific, but we can learn from the specific to the general. Why is that you ask a student in their [00:05:20] specialty, do they have ideas flying around their head at light speed, but with little to no organization, they're gonna say yes. It's like, okay, so we have to organize the brain. [00:05:30] Secondly, for severe dyslexia, I'll say, fingers, keyboard. Fingers, keyboard. You have something you want to say. You put your fingers on the keyboard, then the idea flies outta your head, leading you with an [00:05:40] empty brain. How can you write with an empty head? What we had to do was. That showed that we really had to focus on something very [00:05:50] specific, get an anchor point, and then go out in a linear order. So it forces us to think in a very linear step-by-step manner. And I tell them what we're gonna do is we're gonna [00:06:00] force your brain to organize itself. We're gonna measure how good we are with that by using writing as a measurable output. And then I'll ask the kid, we're gonna focus on a book that you're really [00:06:10] interested in with an accompanying audio book. Is this how you wanna learn? And they'll say yes. And that gets us, that gets us started now, especially the [00:06:20] difference between boys and girls. Boys are caught much more often because when they get frustrated, you know, in elementary school, you know it, they get [00:06:30] big. Yeah. Yeah. They, the girls will generally be much softer. More trying to be compliant and they'll put in, generally what I found, and this is [00:06:40] completely anecdotal, reasonable, more effort to try to not cause any waves, but for the boys especially the big break, the big problem [00:06:50] isn't at the end of third grade. 'cause K through three, we learn to read fourth and beyond. We read to learn and the blowups can get legendary. I've [00:07:00] had students who were in middle school, severely dyslexic, nobody thought of it because they worked so hard and they were getting like 85, 86, average. They're low [00:07:10] and honor students and then all of a sudden there's this explosion. They get tested and the kid's writing, reading at the second grade level and they're like, how are you overcoming this? And the kid developed [00:07:20] this elaborate, crazy way to overcome it. And that's what a lot of us do. We create our own methods as we're going and, but when I'm dealing with [00:07:30] that, with those students, I have to tell the parents. We're not gonna deal with reading and writing right away. We have to deal with just getting him grounded and back as a person. [00:07:40] Because you've got one really frustrated young man here. Yeah. And the parents are just looking at me saying, really? I said, yes. He is very frustrated. [00:07:50] And that's the first thing we had to start dealing with. It's so interesting to hear you kind of talk about the timeline, because I've got a mild reading disability, but I was also a traumatized kid. The [00:08:00] way that it played out was about fourth grade. I went from the talented and gifted pool to the kids that couldn't read. 'cause it was the nineties, actually this was back in the eighties. So they had [00:08:10] no, like you were either special needs or gifted. There was no like acknowledgement of the scope of learning and ability that people had. And for me, it [00:08:20] wasn't an anger, I just shut down. I just took that and like, okay, so I'm not good enough. And I didn't pick up a book again until college. I would just force, and like you [00:08:30] said, we all find our own way. My thing was is I had a powerful personality and so if I wanted to learn something in a class, I could get the teacher to talk about it and I'd make them talk about the thing I wanted to learn. I could [00:08:40] bring the room around. And it wasn't until college where I, I got into some safety. I, I lived with a couple that both have PhDs were incredibly supportive, but I had to go back and take a [00:08:50] semester and a half of remedial classes to get to like where I could start functioning in college. It's hard. I mean, I went through college literally with a first grade reading and writing [00:09:00] level, and people ask me, how, how is that possible? I'll give you like one of the hints at it. I would tell a professor, I'm [00:09:10] going to plagiarize a paper, and they would look at me like, this is the Scarlet letter. You can't do that. So let's say I was doing a paper [00:09:20] on World War ii. I would take a paper that was written in World War I completely different and I plagiarized the writing style. [00:09:30] So if that paper did a paragraph on this, I wrote a paragraph on this, and at the end the professor looked at that and said this, the content has nothing even close to [00:09:40] each other. You, yeah. This isn't plagiarism. You're just taking a style pointer. You're no, you're plagiarizing how this was written, paragraph by paragraph. I'd never seen anything like [00:09:50] this. You're, you're trying to take, uh, basic organizational writing ideas and you said, I, I've never seen anything like this. Your, your ideas were a plus. Your [00:10:00] writing was horrible. Here's your C or here's your d Sure. And I would be like, thank you. Mm-hmm. Made it, and I, I did, I would get almost a hundred percent on every multiple choice [00:10:10] test, and that's how I passed. Mm-hmm. How did I force my, if I really concentrate, I could read for the briefest moments for a test. [00:10:20] And it was very, very difficult. But I got through it, uh, until I went into law school. Then everything just came together and I was the top guy just right away. 'cause this is easy. [00:10:30] I always think of that when I'm working with those guys that don't have what they need but are bright guys. Mm-hmm. And then they get it and everybody's surprised at what happens when they have traction. It's like they've been a high [00:10:40] powered car spinning on the ice and all of a sudden somebody puts some rocks down and they just take off. So let's take one of those guys that you're talking about so I can give you some ideas on how to further it. Let's just call the [00:10:50] guy John Doe. Tell me about John. I'm kind of interested in the adult learners that didn't get the diagnosis early. Okay. Like the 30 and 40 year olds that decided school wasn't for them. [00:11:00] Mm-hmm. And they've been in the trades or somewhere else where they didn't have to do much reading and then they find out because their kid gets dyslexia that they have it. Okay. So let's, first of all, I see this [00:11:10] all the time. Let's go ahead and find out if they're dyslexic. So you said you kind of went through this. I'm gonna go through those two questions with you. I need you to tell me your special, your specialties. Here's the question. It's a [00:11:20] Saturday morning. You have nothing to do, no responsibilities. What are you gonna do all day? What do you love doing? What are you good at? So for you, that would be what? So depends on the [00:11:30] weekend, but probably watching some content trying to do this better lately. Okay, so working on your podcast. So I want you to think about it when you're [00:11:40] thinking about your podcast and how to improve it, do you have ideas flying around your head at light speed? Key question, but with little to no organization. No. Did that ever happen to you [00:11:50] at any time in your life? No. Okay. Guess what that gets rid of? I don't have dyslexia. That gets rid of A-D-D-A-D-H-D or mild dyslexia. I'm just gonna ask you the second [00:12:00] question. When you ever think about how to improve your podcast, fingers, keyboard, fingers, keyboard. The idea is in your head, you take your fingers, put it on the keyboard. Does the idea fly outta your head, leaving you with an empty brain? [00:12:10] It doesn't go away. Like, I can get it down, but No, no, it's in your head. I'm not the, the idea's in your head, you put your fingers on the keyboard idea flies away. Empty brain. Is that you? [00:12:20] Oh, uh, no. Okay. So for your listeners, if they answered yes to the first one, it's A-D-D-A-D-H-D or mild dyslexia, it doesn't [00:12:30] really matter. The solution is the same for all three. Mm-hmm. If they said yes to the first one and, and no to the second one, again, mild that it's one of those three, if they say yes [00:12:40] to both, that's dyslexia. Now, you could go and spend $8,000 on a neuropsych. It'll give you more details. But you know who wants to spend $8,000 [00:12:50] and some people do. So now the question is, you're a grown man, you're in the trades. How do we fix this? So in our [00:13:00] educational system now, a lot of people, if they're gonna go into the trades, they'll go to a two year community college. And they need to learn how to write a basic five paragraph essay. Why a five [00:13:10] paragraph essay? Because when you're dealing with, you're in the trades and you're on a site and there's a problem, you need to communicate this. And that's, [00:13:20] again, typically your basic five paragraph essay, introduction, conclusion, two points, uh, that are problems, three points, whatever it is. And you, you write a paragraph per point. Mm-hmm. How do you [00:13:30] learn that as an adult? If you wanna go with the traditional method, there's a place called Landmark College. Absolutely fantastic. Take you about, [00:13:40] uh, two to four years, one of the most expensive colleges in the country, and they'll show you how to fix everything. People can't take two to four years off. They don't have the price of a house to pay for it. [00:13:50] So how do we go about doing it? There's a book called The Craft of Research. Are you familiar with it? I'm not. Okay. It was published in the, in [00:14:00] 95 by the University of Chicago because their PhD students didn't know how to write advanced research papers. What they came up with was a three step concept, context, [00:14:10] problem, solution. Okay? Mm-hmm. But for most, if you're in the trades and for most adults, context and problems will, will fix it. [00:14:20] Mm-hmm. So how do we go about fixing this now, the guys you're talking about, can they read it all? Can they write it all, or where, where are they? Yeah. For, for the guys that I'm talking [00:14:30] to, it's usually more the shame and frustration. Okay. Around it. I got really lucky and I had people that, that saw me and helped me shake that off. Okay. But when you're convinced so young that you're bad at [00:14:40] school mm-hmm. It's really hard to shake off that. You shouldn't be doing that kind of learning later on. And so a lot of the guys I work with, they got their kid, they want their, they want better for their kid. That's [00:14:50] why they show up. The kid gets into schools having problems like them. The kid gets the diagnosis and the person that did the testing looks at them and says, well, if it quacks like a duck and makes ducks.[00:15:00] You might wanna get tested. Yep. Okay. Right. Can these guys read at all? Can they, what's the reading level? What's the writing level generally? So I'm not the one testing the reading levels, but [00:15:10] they've, I've never had one that couldn't make it through my fairly involved paperwork. Like they could get through Okay. The assessment's. Okay. And they usually even would put down a word or two if there was a fill in [00:15:20] question. Okay. Can they write a basic five paragraph essay? Probably not. Okay. Here's, so I'm just gonna tell you the solution pretty quickly. [00:15:30] This mm-hmm. The other ideas out there will take literally months to explain it. This takes minutes. You remember what I said? We have to force the brain to organize itself using writing as a measurable output. Mm-hmm. So what [00:15:40] I'll have, and with my process, the older you are, the quicker you pick it up the exact opposite with a traditional method. So I'll ask the parents, uh, that you're talking about.[00:15:50] I'll say, okay, here's the first thing we're gonna do. We're gonna start off with a simple sentence. It's based on a hero, a universal theme, and an ultimate villain. Why a [00:16:00] universal theme? Because once you understand a universal theme, you can discuss things endlessly. So for example, do you like movies? Of course. What's what? Gimme a [00:16:10] name of a movie that everybody knows. That's one of your all time favorites. The Matrix. What's the universal theme of the matrix? Oh, man. Yeah, it's a hard question. I should be, I should be able to [00:16:20] answer that question after all these years. Uh, self. How about self-determination? I think that's a good one. Okay. Self-determination or that, you know, punching robots is cool, but if you [00:16:30] now think about self-determination, you can now discuss it in that context. It, it just focuses everything. Dyslexia is a, we think so quickly. Remember little to no [00:16:40] organization. So we have to work through universal things. So say, right, take a hero. Hero wants to do something, write out a sentence. Does a hero like, uh, what does a hero like to do? And they'll write [00:16:50] out. Sentence, paragraph, whatever. Then you're gonna have to look for two types of words. Remember, we're we're starting off with the front part of the brain word analysis first. So we're looking for an [00:17:00] action word that'll take a hero in the general direction they want to go. And the most important word you find those, figure out which way you want to go. That's start of word analysis. Then that's your base universal [00:17:10] thing. Next step, we go to the thesaurus, depending if you wanna do five synonyms, 10 multiple levels, type out the word, type out the definition [00:17:20] and find the one that best matches what's in your head. So when you start off doing, it's gonna be very broad, and then you're gonna find one that's much more narrow, that best fits in your head by typing out the word and [00:17:30] typing out the definition from Marian Webster's. Online dictionary not cut and paste. You gotta type it out. Over time as you practice this, you're gonna develop a vocabulary of hundreds of [00:17:40] evolved words. Yeah, you need to put in the reps. Right? But it's, it's, it's exactly like putting in the reps. I don't know if you'll have to type out the same order definition two times, 10 times, 50 times, [00:17:50] eventually you're going to get it. And the kids that I do this, the boys at are 10, 11. By the time they take the SATs at 16 or 17, they, the vocabulary [00:18:00] sections, just the vocabulary test they remember, they're huge. 70 to 80% of the definitions all those years later. So then you have your post universal theme. Then we pick an ultimate villain [00:18:10] person or a concept that could best be there to prevent the hero from accomplishing their goal. Sure. We separate those by plus signs. Ask 'em to read it out loud without the [00:18:20] plus signs. Does it sound correct? No. The plus signs tell you to basically move the words around or fill in something so it sounds correct. You come up with three reasons. I try to [00:18:30] have guys do this from books. Find a book that you like, do this with a hero. From the book. Mm-hmm. Alright. Get an accompanying audio book that you like, like the narrator. [00:18:40] Then what you do is you come up with three good reasons. Each reason you look at it and say, what's a basic universal theme for this? So you can go and find a quote. Once you find the [00:18:50] quote, you answer who, what, when, where, how wide. Based on that quote. We separate that with plus signs. I have you reorganize it. Does it sound generally correct when you read it out loud? No. [00:19:00] Add words, subtract words, move it around until you got a basic paragraph. This is just gonna get you to about the fifth grade level with all three reasons. The [00:19:10] next one, once you get that down, 'cause what this allows you to do is once you're in the body paragraphs and things just aren't working, you know there's grammar [00:19:20] problems, spelling problems, you can then work on it in there, be shown how to correct it. Because you're working with the front part of your brain so much, it's a lot easier to [00:19:30] learn. Practice that until you get it. Honestly. Uh, for a lot of guys, if you're in a committed relationship with whoever that is, your [00:19:40] wife, your girlfriend, your B your boyfriend, your whoever, whoever you're in a committed relationship with, ask them for help. You would [00:19:50] be surprised. They're not going to look at you, look down at you because of this. They're gonna be looking up to you because you're finally, they [00:20:00] knew that there was some sort of issue, but now you're working towards it and that really helps in the relationship category. I've never had a guy who comes in like the John Doe we're talking about, the guy with the [00:20:10] kid that figured it out that way. Mm-hmm. I've never had one of those guys not have spousal support, and a few of 'em even got it from exes. You know, they're doing the co-parenting and they're apart, [00:20:20] but your kid learning and figuring out how to help 'em. Everybody involved is gonna wanna jump on helping you do that better. Exactly. But remember I said that's gonna leave you at the [00:20:30] fifth grade level. Sure. Here's the final step to make it. I said, this will get you through middle school, through college. Once you get done with that, you're gonna want to take those body [00:20:40] paragraphs and condense it down to the context, which is a medium to a long sentence, not a run on sentence, but a medium to long sentence. [00:20:50] And you're gonna look at, and you, you, you got the quote. You got who, what, when, where, how, why. Are some of these not needed? Like when or where? If they're not really needed, not get, just get [00:21:00] rid of those and then condense it down to one sentence, one medium to long sentence. Take some practice. You still need some help. The, uh, chat GT's really good at helping you do that with [00:21:10] practice, but you gotta do it on your own eventually then well, so let's say that a guy's trying to do this. Mm-hmm. Is there a set of prompts they can put into chat? GPT? They're gonna help keep 'em on track. [00:21:20] Chat. GPT changes all the time. People say, we need to learn prompt engineering. I said, well, no, because every model that goes out the window, you need to prompt engineer your mind. [00:21:30] So all you're simply doing is taking like a body paragraph or the three paragraphs and put it into a one medium to long sentence context. So if you ask Che GPT for some [00:21:40] help, how to do that, how you do that? Do you have the quote? And you got who, what, when, where, how, why, if any of those questions are not really relevant, just check 'em out. Check out that information [00:21:50] and then work with it to summarize it. And it's, it's intuitive. It's easy enough to do that, even with the free version. Well, and once you're, once you're going, right, like the, [00:22:00] um, I like how it takes the expansiveness of, you know, that kinda speci specificity that you talked about where I'm really interested in this, but I can write about it forever. And helping [00:22:10] them use that to narrow it in and, and get what I would call clean writing. Right, right. But we're not, we're not looking at clean writing. This next part [00:22:20] is pure cognitive. Okay, so the bot, this is just mostly in your head. You're trying to organize your thinking and generate ideas. So this is where you don't wanna worry about the, [00:22:30] you, you just don't want to be making like run on sentences or obviously crazy things. So you, you get down to the context, it's a medium of long sentence. Then you take the [00:22:40] context and there's obviously, there's a problem that's a short to medium sentence. Chat, GBT can help you with that until there's a theory from a book called, uh, strategies for [00:22:50] Struggling Writers by Professor Collins. It says, have the tutor almost do it for you and then give you less and less support as you learn how to do it. Yeah, chat, GBT can play tutor for you, [00:23:00] so you don't have to, you know, hire somebody. Once you get that down to a problem, short to medium sentence, see how we're getting more and more concise, you're gonna want to change that. Take the problem and [00:23:10] put it into a one word universal thing. And as I just showed you with the matrix, this isn't, this isn't easy. You may have chat, GPT, do it for init for you initially. [00:23:20] You want to keep practicing this until you can come up with a good universal theme at least half the time. And then the final thing, you take the context and you [00:23:30] look at the universal theme as a lens, and you look at the context through, through the lens, and you come up with three good [00:23:40] solutions. Now those three good solutions aren't gonna be innovative. They're gonna be what you would expect from a well read person for whatever age group you are, whatever your intelligent level is, [00:23:50] you know, whatever your educational level, you put those together and those responses will be pretty obvious solutions that, that, that you come up. And then we use that as a [00:24:00] basis for writing the more evolved paragraphs. Mm-hmm. Okay. But that simple process, that's the same thing you do with your kids. Now. We have some basic sentences to do with [00:24:10] kids before that to make sure they, you know, if they can't rate C spot run, that's, we have to be able to put, put all this together. But that's basically the meat of the situation. And [00:24:20] what happens is, as you, as you practice that, uh, I've had students who just mastered those skills and it got 'em through. I can't believe it was that they [00:24:30] accepted this, but that got 'em through a four year college. The last part, the innovation, the coming up with a solution that's a quite a bit more complicated. But unless if you're going on for an [00:24:40] advanced co uh, for a college graduate position or grad school, you don't really need that. Well, it's hard to fail folks out of college these days. Like as a professor, I [00:24:50] can tell you like giving somebody a bad grade, even when they've earned it, is difficult. Well, what you're go, what I was told by professors is until if, if you're a student who [00:25:00] honestly wants to go to a four year college, here's some statistics for you. There are 2 million fewer college traditional four year college students now than there were in 2019. The kids [00:25:10] are going into the trades. Why? Yeah. They can make more money. They're not gonna be, they're not gonna have a mortgage of a house payment when they're, when they're done. And [00:25:20] literally with, and I'm not, I'm not saying it's good, bad, or indifferent, I'm just saying this is what it is with Trump's tariff policies that's putting companies right now [00:25:30] where they say, we don't, we're, we don't let, we don't have certainty, so we don't wanna do anything. So they're stopping and they're seeing how much the ai, which has just [00:25:40] exploded in the last couple of months, how effective that can be to not needing people. Yeah. And I've seen so many good college [00:25:50] graduates. I'm talking about engineers science. Mm-hmm. Really good kids who last year they were, people were running to get 'em. And these kids can't get a [00:26:00] job, they can't get through the door. Yeah. I've got a, a family member who works at Microsoft fairly high up, and his kid went [00:26:10] through Washington States. Computer program. Wow. Which has been a feeder program from Yes. From Microsoft Forever. Couldn't get her an internship. And that's [00:26:20] with like family on the inside of the company. It's, it's a rough time right now. And so one, like I, I think respect for the trades has been lacking for 30 years [00:26:30] and it's terrible. And two, I'm hoping that these kinds of things cross over. Like I remember we were coming at some of the local high schools because they were sending [00:26:40] us kids who couldn't read, and the trade schools joined us. They're like, you keep sending them to us not being able to read. Have you seen our manuals? Do you understand what the [00:26:50] trades involve? Now you cannot get through a trade school without like a basic reading level. Oh, everything's too complex. Uh, I'll give you an example. My second student, his [00:27:00] name was Adam. Uh, his teacher said, this kid is a genius of geniuses. Mm-hmm. He was a 19-year-old college senior, failed the English Regents with a [00:27:10] 47 and a 52. Took him through that original program. He ended up with a, uh, escorting of the 70th percentile of veteran graduate students. And by the way, that was by, that was graded by a [00:27:20] SUNY distinguished professor in psychology, their highest rank. Uh, he went on and joined the trades. Uh, it was the big boilers that people have. He pulled [00:27:30] him off, uh, from vacation. He comes in, comes out day and a half later, he's all sweaty and said, I'm sorry it took me so long to figure this out. They said, [00:27:40] we've had teams on this for over a month. He could just see it in his head. You talked about how boys are more often diagnosed and there's [00:27:50] not a distinct. Gender difference and how often people are struggling this with this. It's just 'cause boy are easy to find. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah. Is a is a general rule. That's, that's what [00:28:00] you're finding. They're they're getting, girls are getting diagnosed much easier now because honestly, if you go to, if you just go to Google and type in Yale dyslexia, they have a [00:28:10] test that is very inexpensive. Takes a matter of minutes with over 90% accuracy rate. Yeah. And that's enough to get you through the door to, if you [00:28:20] need the bigger one for accommodations or something. Well, no, but they always, but literally what, what a lot of school districts are doing is in kindergarten, they just test everybody. It's not that expensive. [00:28:30] That's fantastic that they're doing that so early and it's so reliable. Well, here's what you need. This is what parents need to understand. And I'm talking about the legal system now. If a school did that in [00:28:40] kindergarten, first grade, and then they're like, oh, you're dyslexic. And then they implement, just go to Yale. Again, this is K three. I don't fi, I don't fight with Yale, L and K three. [00:28:50] They have all these programs that are million plus dollars federal funded, you know, top science. You can imagine if the school implemented that and at the end of third [00:29:00] grade they failed the English, you know, their reading, writing test. Because remember K three, you learn to read fourth and above. You read to learn. So if you fail that third grade test, it's not, it's 9 1 1 [00:29:10] emergency. You, you sue the school district and goes to the federal court and the school goes, listen judge, we, we tested the kid in kindergarten, first grade. We implemented what the si, what Yale said, we're [00:29:20] close. They're not there yet and we're gonna do this other intervention. The judge will almost always say, parents, the school was doing their job, let 'em go. We'll see where [00:29:30] we are in 12 months. But if they did nothing and now it's fourth grade, we had that happen in New York State. The, [00:29:40] the senator's name was Senator Homan, his daughter. Was in fourth grade when they found out and they told him, and this is very public, they told him, if you did this [00:29:50] kindergarten, first grade, it's not that hard of a fix. Now, in fourth grade, it's a $75,000 a year private school, her evaluation was $8,000. His family can [00:30:00] can afford it, but because of that, that almost can't. They did a whole statewide task force on how to change K through five. A hundred of the top people in the [00:30:10] state from all across specialties, parents, dyslexics, teachers, researchers. They came up with a report and now they had implementations. What they were gonna essentially do is [00:30:20] if there's dyslexia, because they're tested, they get an additional 45 minutes a day of science-based education in addition to what they're currently getting until it's fixed. [00:30:30] Guess what? The state, the education committee in both houses said, we can't afford this. Yeah. So they passed a $250,000 supplement [00:30:40] to try something this year, of which I, yeah, so of that, there's a small part of that is available for like teacher training and everything. Guess who's gonna be trying to use that to [00:30:50] solve the problem Anyway, it, it boggles me. I was taking a class for, my original thought was I was gonna go be a school counselor mm-hmm. Because I'd just gotten outta the military and I was like, I know how to bark [00:31:00] at teenagers. Maybe I'll go do that for a living. And I took one school counseling class and realized it wasn't gonna be for me, but one of the things that I learned in the class stuck with me. Mm-hmm. [00:31:10] Where the professor he is, he's a great guy. He's, he was talking about how we've misappropriated education funding. He's like, I'm teaching grad students and [00:31:20] I'm a good teacher and I do my job well, but I could literally hand you the textbook and expect you to learn it. And we screened you to make sure that you could, my job doesn't have to be hard. I [00:31:30] make three times as much as somebody who's working with a 3-year-old whose brain is developing at the speed of light and arguably needs the most specialized support in whatever their [00:31:40] learning style is to set 'em up. Well, our system is entirely upside down. What state are you in? Colorado. Okay. I'm in New York. We're the highest tax state in the country. [00:31:50] Sorry, California. We beat you. Um, what I can tell you is in, in my state, the teachers are, especially in the public schools, are very well paid. The private dyslectic [00:32:00] schools where, uh, it's 75 grand a year. Those teachers make a fraction less, much less. Yeah. No, I've, I've worked with teachers that have moved to New [00:32:10] York Yeah. From Colorado, because that, like, they can't make a living here, but they can make a living there. Oh yeah. I have, uh, yeah. I actually had a friend in college who, he's kind of a interesting dude. [00:32:20] He's very conservative. But he's a militant union member because he, he went into teaching for the money. People are always gonna be a little self-motivated. Right. We know that there's [00:32:30] no distinction between boys and girls. Is there any data on non-binary folks, or, I wouldn't imagine. I, there's much going on there. It's be, uh, honestly, I haven't looked at it [00:32:40] because I, I rarely run across that. Mm-hmm. Or simply, I don't ask. My job is to work with the dyslectic. To me it's the [00:32:50] dyslectic brain. And if you're gay, straight binary, um, trans, that doesn't interest me. The fact is that you're a dyslectic brain. That's what interests me, and [00:33:00] that's what I focus on. The so, so for you right. You've, this is your specialty and you know how to find it. My concern is, uh, for [00:33:10] instance, right. I'm a licensed clinician. Mm-hmm. I'm pretty good at my job, but I work primarily with men. Mm-hmm. My ex-wife has a DD and got an adult diagnosis. I thought she was [00:33:20] anxious. I'm a clinician. I've been trained, but women with a DD look different. Like you were saying, the boys get angry, they act out. People look girls, they shut down, they get [00:33:30] quiet and they just look like they're anxious. And so it, for me, it's an visibility issue and, and part of this is having these conversations to help people recognize that just do the simple [00:33:40] test that exists now for any kid, any kid at all, so that we can get ahead of this so they don't have happen. What happened to you and me back in the eighties? Yeah. So those two [00:33:50] questions that I gave you, that, that is to give you a general idea, what is probably is one thing I can say in New York is they just, again, because of what happened to Senator [00:34:00] Mann's daughter, they passed something where if you think your kid's dyslectic, if you want to do, go about it. Smart. Go to your pediatrician. If they say Yes, I think this kid is Dyslectic, [00:34:10] insurance companies now have to pay up to $5,000 for a neuropsych. Good. That's a PhD with a lot of additional training that gives you the best evaluation [00:34:20] possible. So, you know, I didn't get mine until I was in my twenties. I never did one, but, but it wasn't required for me. I got pretty lucky since I started the [00:34:30] community college. The community college was a lot better to integrating your high school needs. Mm-hmm. And then that got me into the university where I didn't need to go get the test. They just scaled everything up for me. Mm-hmm. Plus, I [00:34:40] just had a really good advocate. If I needed extra time, I got it. I just don't think many people are that lucky. Y you have to advocate for yourself, but [00:34:50] especially when you're dealing with a disability office. Because a lot of them, like for example, it's about 20 years ago they had this amazing specialist at SUNY Albany State University of New [00:35:00] York at Albany. Mm-hmm. And you'd go in and she would say, gimme all your classes. You would outline what you need to do, take her less than an hour. And then [00:35:10] for the next week you had your 20 to 30 hours of homework. You just followed that and everything was fine. Okay. Now, because of the budget cutbacks, they're [00:35:20] going in, they're, they're taking the evaluation, seeing what it says and giving you what, what it says. That's it. The other thing you need to understand is when you're in high school [00:35:30] or K through 12, if the school really screwed up, an accommodation might be an $80,000 a year private school. The moment you step onto a college, you, you'll [00:35:40] have trouble getting a $50, uh, accommodation. It's two completely different sets of laws. Yeah. You're always better, like you were talking about. Right. The earlier we [00:35:50] catch struggles, the easier it is to treat them in most cases, and people are always more patient giving funding to children than they are adults, even young adults. The one exception we had is when I was [00:36:00] doing veteran transition work, so before I was a therapist, when I was in grad school, I worked as a peer support. Mentor. Mm-hmm. And I built out a program, and so our job was to run around campus, [00:36:10] making sure all the resources lined up for vets. And unsurprisingly, guys who chose the military instead of college the first time have a lot of learning disabilities. I know everybody's, everybody's blown away [00:36:20] that that happens. And so we got pretty close with the accommodations office and we were able to get. Extra funding and visibility because people were more willing to help a veteran. [00:36:30] Oh, much more so. But also when you're talking about that specific population, what a lot of my, 'cause I had some clients that have gone into the military and what they've [00:36:40] generally, they, they pretty much all pretty much said the same thing. If they're going in it listed, the reason why they're doing it is they're saying, listen, I'm not college material yet. [00:36:50] I'm a screw up in some way. I am taking, I'm not, I'm not taking advantage of things. I'm not doing, I, I, there's something wrong with me mentally. You need to structure, I need to grow [00:37:00] up. And what generations of older men will tell them, you go in the military, they will straighten you out. For me personally, [00:37:10] I was, this is one of the stupidest decisions I had and I ever did in my life. Mm-hmm. I had a scout master that went to West Point and [00:37:20] taught at West Point. Oh wow. He finished up as the chair. His name was Tom Ruso. He finished up as the chair of the math department at Sienna College. He [00:37:30] invited me up 'cause I was an eagle and my congressman of that year was Gerald Solo. Very conservative guy. He only wrote recommendations for Eagles. [00:37:40] West Point was available. I went up, I could get the, the congressional appointment, which is by far the hardest thing. And I looked at it. I, I [00:37:50] started talking to some cadets and because my scout master was with me, they would be much more open to a former graduate and former teacher. And they said, I'm like, why are you walking on the [00:38:00] road and not the sidewalk? He said, well, I haven't earned the right yet. That's for upperclassmen. And me being this 18-year-old bozo said, [00:38:10] well, if I can't walk on the sidewalk, I'm not going here. Stupid. That could have saved me 10 years of being an immature person. To grow up. Maybe [00:38:20] not everybody grows up in the military. Right. But they kind of drive if you're, if you go to West Point, everybody I know that's been there, they drive out the maturity of you of very fast.[00:38:30] It's one of the best educational institutions in the country, in the world. It's, yeah, just, it's harder to get into than Harvard. It's extraordinarily respected. Yeah. I have not spoken to anybody [00:38:40] who went there that they said, while they may not have been happy every moment they're there, because it's just so hard. It's hard. They said after they've graduated, they [00:38:50] would not be the person they are today without going there. Yeah. They've been figuring out how to help people form up into. Military useful. Oh yeah. Very. For a hundred years. And now looking [00:39:00] back, I can see why you're not allowed on the sidewalk until you earn it. It, it makes all the sense in the world now. It, it's one of the things that people tend to struggle with, with the military dynamic is you have [00:39:10] to learn to respect hierarchy. And as Americans, we're intrinsically uncomfortable with that. And so a lot of people, the military is not gonna be for them for that. But for most [00:39:20] folks, when you're on the inside of it, it's not as stifling as you think. Oh, like, that's, that's the reality. Yeah. But I want to, like, we're kind of coming up on time and I wanna make sure we [00:39:30] leave. So we've talked a little bit about what people can do for themselves. We've talked about the adult that struggled. What about the people around them? What about the people who aren't dyslexic that are watching their [00:39:40] kid, their husband, their wife, their loved ones struggling? What is showing up? Well for them, look like the main thing that you need to do is [00:39:50] understand the, the just the hell these. The dyslectic, especially when their kids are going through. Let me try to, I I, if this [00:40:00] goes over a little bit of time, I think we should go with it, because this part is so important. Let me just tell you how hard it is. In some dyslectic, I will tell if, if I had a kid who comes to [00:40:10] me and they're, they're 90, 85, 90 average student, but they're really struggling with dyslexia. And let's say they're in high school, I, I'll tell them, I [00:40:20] know your secret. And they'll say, what do you mean? And I said, I can discuss it with you privately or I can discuss in front of your parents. They always want to go private. And I'll [00:40:30] say, here's what happened. Sometime around second or third grade, maybe fourth, you were told you had to pass some academic test. If you didn't, you're gonna be held back. And especially for [00:40:40] girls, it's horrible losing their friends, bad for boys, horrible for girls if you didn't pass the test. So they would get really frustrated. And with that extreme [00:40:50] frustration, then the answer would present itself. So what happened as they kept progressing through school, it happened so many times, they've lost track of it, and it can get [00:41:00] so bad that they think I'm a failure, I'm worthless. Especially since their older brothers or or younger brothers and sisters are fighting to be valedictorian. And I see [00:41:10] that all the time. Mm-hmm. And they, they get to telling themself that they are so worthless, that if they don't pass this test, that the frustration gets [00:41:20] clinically dangerous. And then eventually the idea presents, the solution presents itself, it's what I like to call controlled frustration, where [00:41:30] increasing frustration done correctly can increase performance. So I, I do not like to use that often and only with adults and very specific needs, but the amount [00:41:40] of pressure these kids are under, and they always say, how did, how did you know that? Nobody knows that. No, don't ever tell my parents. I mean, they're, they're terrified of it. Yeah. These kids are put [00:41:50] under so much pressure. So what can you do? Don't yell at them. It's not a behavioral problem. Sit back, try to be supportive. [00:42:00] And those two questions that I gave you, focus on that. See where this is, is the mild case, is this a severe case? And then once you figure that out, what I [00:42:10] was telling you about that process that we went over earlier, we extend that process. So you learn how to do that. That'll bring their writing level up so they can get through [00:42:20] middle high school, maybe most of college. It's that simple. So patience, unsurprisingly, some curiosity. Mm-hmm. With [00:42:30] some aim and then resourcing. Like helping people get to the right tools, right? So that's what a loved one can do. Yeah. And if anybody has any questions, you can visit [00:42:40] me@dyslexiaclasses.com. There's a form you can fill out where we can and where I can get right back to you and answer your question. But it really is that simple. So for example, remember I told you [00:42:50] about how to come up with something original to say? Mm-hmm. I want you to imagine this. It's English class, you got 20 students, they're doing Shakespeare. The teacher's been teaching it for [00:43:00] 25 years. What's the chance of the teacher learning something original from a, from a high school kid next to No. What if I told you [00:43:10] every kid in that class, let's say they're 25, the teacher could learn something moderately original from every one of them. I'd be impressed. That's been reduced to a formula. [00:43:20] The whole thing from beginning to that point is less than 20,000 words. And one of the primary things I do is train parents to train their kids [00:43:30] how to do this. Because let's face it, these private schools, I, I just had a member of my networking group in New York City ask about pricing for a certified Orton-Gillingham instructor. That's [00:43:40] what Bill Gates would use. 325 an hour, multiple hours a week. They start in middle school, they're in grad school if they're still there with them. [00:43:50] It's been interesting just looking at the progression of kind of mental health and learning disability support is we're [00:44:00] getting more and more knowledge, so this level of specialization is going down. Right, so the average age of a psychiatrist is 57 right now, [00:44:10] because people aren't going to become psychiatrists. They're coming, becoming nurse practitioners. We're, as we get more and more specialized and as we get more and more effective [00:44:20] things we can operationalize. It's a beautiful thing. Like half of my job is knowing what the operationalization of your problem is, depending on if it's anxiety, depression, [00:44:30] PTSD, whatever. It's giving you a framework to operate in with kindness. It's gonna be interesting as we keep seeing this move forward, right? Because those [00:44:40] people that are charging $300 an hour, there's a reason for it. They worked really hard to learn what they learned to do what they did, and they can charge for it. But the next generation of folks coming up probably aren't gonna be able to need to do that. [00:44:50] Well, actually, the just, again, that's a very special high-end market in New York City of parents mm-hmm. Of who are Wall Streeters who have make millions a year after tax. Well, it's [00:45:00] New York City, man. Yeah. You gotta make a living wage and I'm not mad at anybody charging $300 an hour for anything trying to live in New York. Oh, yeah. It, it's, it's, it's, but I'm just saying that's the high end of the [00:45:10] market. It's still to just, you know, to get that Orton certification. It's a four year degree. Mm-hmm. Two years of full-time study. Cost 11,000 on a non-for-profit, [00:45:20] then you have to go and you want years of experience before you start charging that. But it's, uh, I had moms go through that before I, I started working with them because that was the only [00:45:30] thing that worked. And I said, oh, I can show you how to do all of that. I mean, I, I, I can train, I trained teachers how to do all this Yeah. In like two days. [00:45:40] Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Once you get something done and do a system, they can, you, it can really help. And it's not that those specialists aren't required for some folks. Mm-hmm. It's just most people with a, with a [00:45:50] problem set, that problem becomes less of a problem once you understand what your normal is, is how I always frame it Right. The way you think is normal for you. Mm-hmm. You just gotta figure out how to get the [00:46:00] rest of the world on board. Yeah. And it's, um, and that's, and that's why I like coming as a guest on a podcast to let 'em know, okay, look at this came [00:46:10] out 22 years ago and um, people aren't. Taking advantage of this science. Here's one thing that'll shock you, that, that Orton, it's because [00:46:20] people don't know, oh no, this is the number one book in my field. You go to Amazon, this is number one. Mm-hmm. But you look at Orton Gillingham, that's what guess. Uh, [00:46:30] Orton passed away in 48 Gillingham sometime in the fifties. And it, it, it had some minor, some decent changes going forward, but it's still basically that system. [00:46:40] But now that we know what's going on with the brain, we can do things so much more efficiently. Yeah. But my field is stuck in the fifties. I'm, I'm really pumped up [00:46:50] about the idea of if we can ever get to the point where I can put a hat on you and take an mi of your brain to diagnose you. I'm hoping that happens in my lifetime. I'm so excited about [00:47:00] that. Oh, we, we already have that. It's gonna be, it's gonna be awesome. When I, I was, uh, when I was that program I was telling you about, uh, New York State paid, uh, Dr. Sun, [00:47:10] you distinguished professor to work with me for 20 hours of testing. 20 hours and she found that there are five areas of the brain. Mine are really abnormal in all [00:47:20] five. This is the, the beauty of your normal not lining up with everybody else's. You're gonna come up with a new idea. Oh, I had to, it's, it, it's what you'd say. The, and [00:47:30] that's the beauty of it. That's the beauty of diversity. It's why we're moving away from calling learning disabilities. Disabilities and just calling it, like, I, I, one of my friends calls it neuro spicy and I think that's my favorite term for it these [00:47:40] days. Oh, spice, I, that's a good one. They're, they're calling it learning difference. But here's what I'd like to say to the school system. I said [00:47:50] the central issue is we wanna specialize in a very specific area immediately. You are forcing us to become well-rounded before we [00:48:00] can specialize. You are the problem. Let us specialize in what we wanna play with. 'cause I'll give you a little hint right now. You're a psychologist, right? Uh, counselor. Oh, you're a counselor. Okay. [00:48:10] People don't care if you can do advanced math. So if, if we can, uh, what I'm trying to tell the educators, let the kids focus as much as possible on the area that they're really [00:48:20] specialized in. Because going forward we need to contribute, come up with original ideas in whatever we're going into, much more. So what I'm [00:48:30] finding with the artificial intelligence is its purpose is, you know, that first draft of the paper that took you forever in college and grad school. Yeah. It gets me to that first draft within a [00:48:40] couple of hours. And then senior people have to rip it apart and rewrite it and get it polished up so it's ready to go. But it saves all that time to get there. And it will keep [00:48:50] getting better at doing that. It will get much better at doing that. But the thing is you have to know, like what I'll tell my kids who I trained in the craft of research context, problem solution, they'll [00:49:00] come out and they'll get a job and they're saying, I don't know what to do. We have to perform like a media. I said, you've been trained in this. What's the context? So we'd go through, they'd come back, I got the [00:49:10] context and what's the problem? Same thing. Now what's the solution? And they go back and forth and they're complaining a lot. 'cause I, they never learned how to use chat GPT. Then they come out with a [00:49:20] report, they bring it to the boss and every time they say, oh, that's an idea we haven't seen before. Let's give that a try. And all the other ones who haven't come up with that [00:49:30] contributing idea, they just dismiss them. Those are the ones that lose their jobs. Yeah. So because you've been trained in tho in in the craft of research. That [00:49:40] allows you to become effective in what you're doing? Yeah. I would say the single most underutilized resource on a college campus with the librarians. [00:49:50] Oh, absolutely. Hands damn. The like going in and trying to do a research paper is a grad student with a disability. They were [00:50:00] magicians at pulling data for you. It was wonderful. One of my mentors, his name is, uh, Dr. Cintas, he grew up in Turkey. [00:50:10] The school master told him he should, told his parents he should be, uh, uh, sweep floors, menial stuff. And his mother said, I did not give birth to an [00:50:20] idiot. Mm-hmm. Work hard. He's scared as hell. He's working extremely hard. And then for him, it came out when he was in medical school [00:50:30] and the head of the medical school said, in our graduation ceremony, our top student carries the flag. You're carrying the flag. He had no idea he was. Okay. He was just terrified the whole [00:50:40] time. Exactly. Remember what I was telling you about controlled frustration? Yeah. You put so much pressure on the kid to where it's clinically extremely [00:50:50] dangerous, but then the solution does present itself. I went through that all the time. Richard Reeves wrote about this really eloquently in his, um, [00:51:00] problems, uh, of boys and men, what's going on with 'em, what to do about it. He talked about how we are perpetuating the idea [00:51:10] that the boy is the problem in school. They're twice as likely to be suspended. They're much more likely to be contained. And it reinforces [00:51:20] this idea that you're supposed to just work hard and figure it out on your own. And no one that's done anything great has done it that way. There's not a single [00:51:30] person Yeah. Who has done anything worthwhile on their own. Exa. I would have to say that I remember when, again, when I was in scouts, my scout masters were [00:51:40] ex-military. Mm-hmm. And one thing, again with Tom Russo, he was educated in the way that, you know, officers don't fraternize with enlisted men. He was there. [00:51:50] He wasn't there. He let us grow, make mistakes, but once we were approaching something where we were gonna do something stupid that could have real ramifications, he [00:52:00] stepped in and we just listened to him. I mean, I was a rebellious little jerk when I was that age, but I just got the sense from him, this is not some guy you pushed that [00:52:10] with. Alright. Yeah. And he kept, he got me through to being an eagle. And if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have accomplished that. Well, I think that's, that's another thing that we've talked about, [00:52:20] about how, I can't remember if it was him or Scott Galloway, but talking about how boys need guardrails, right? Like we need, we need men that we can respect to kind of bounce off [00:52:30] as we figure out how to do things. Mm-hmm. That try harder myth that we keep throwing on men and boys. We wanna stop that. We wanna get curious, [00:52:40] we wanna get resources and we wanna be kind. How we help people with this problem. Exactly. The, because a lot of the, 'cause I'm just gonna tell you what happens with these kids. One of two [00:52:50] things generally happens. There's not that much in the middle. They become the most motivated kids you're ever going to meet. Or they become shattered as a person. Yeah. [00:53:00] In which case they'll need your services until to build them back up. So we can start working with them. But I have seen kids that were the most motivated kids [00:53:10] you would ever imagine. I mean, I would go like, uh, like one of the boys, I'm just gonna call him Tom. I asked him that last question about the, about the [00:53:20] frustration. He said, yeah, that's me. What his parents didn't know is he would go to bed early and he's up in his room studying until two o'clock in the morning [00:53:30] to be a, a low honor roll student. And I immediately switched him over and said, we're gonna take six months off. Alright, we're just gonna f forget about homework, we're gonna focus on [00:53:40] this. And he went back and he was a high honor roll student, putting in an hour and a half a night. Yeah. Not the typical six hours. I see it all the time with mental [00:53:50] health stuff. Right? Guys don't come into mental health until their life's on fire for some reason. Right. We're really bad about going, I'm gonna go get help. And so I'll get these calls from guys, you know, like, how do I get my wife to stop leaving me? I'm like, I don't know, man, but [00:54:00] come in, let's see what we can do now. Mm-hmm. Right. And it's that myth. It's that story we tell young boys that you just have to try harder. That you are the problem. [00:54:10] Instead of, Hey, what's your normal kid? Like where, how's your mind work? Let's play with it. Let's find out. Let's be curious. 'cause the minute we do that and you give [00:54:20] people the runway and the direction they need, they do amazing things every time. I see it every day at work. Yeah. And with dyslexia, it's [00:54:30] just, you need to be more patient. Like, uh, this morning one of my clients, I'm just gonna call him John, for John Doe, he had to move on to something else. [00:54:40] Something more advanced. Yeah. And his mother was so frustrated that he, she's literally trying to sit him down to force him to do things. And this is a very compliant kid. And for the first time [00:54:50] in his life, he's saying, no. It took me almost an hour to figure out what the problem was. And I said, okay, let's walk through the, the, the solution. And each step, I got his [00:55:00] permission. We said, no. I say, okay, let's try this. And eventually what I was telling you about, I was having him on a, that context stage. I just jumped him up to the problem stage. And he [00:55:10] went to, are you ready? And now he's much, he's much happier. Yeah. Yeah. The right level of challenge is so important. Well, so I wanna, I wanna respect your time. You've been incredibly kind. I [00:55:20] want to ask you the question so that we can learn a little bit more about you and hopefully normalize some things for some guys. Mm-hmm. So the, the first question I have asked everybody is, what's the truth about masculinity you learned [00:55:30] before you were 12 that still holds up as true today? The first thing that I learned, just, you know, my father was pretty traditional, a [00:55:40] former Marine is number one, be polite around women and don't swear. And how did that relate? When I was in [00:55:50] college, I joined, uh, my college cheerleading team, and I was the only guy there. And what I found was being polite. Being supportive, [00:56:00] taking their problems onto my shoulders, not putting problems on theirs, really helped me in a very short amount of time, develop a very [00:56:10] deep relationship with 'em. And just, you know, those guys who know when you join a cheer team, you're automatically in the brother friend zone. Okay. Which is a very powerful place to be. [00:56:20] But I can tell you when it came to dating their friends, it helped out tremendously because the trust was just right there. Alright. [00:56:30] But especially what I just found, you know, I said being polite and don't, and it's a very traditional view, but I found that most women, even today, where [00:56:40] they will curse openly, they, they feel a lot more polite, a lot better around guys who tend not to do that. So you are. [00:56:50] Behavior, albeit social behavior can create safety as well. Yes. It, it just, I found and that carries it. Yeah. And then that carried over that when I was dealing [00:57:00] with other boys, I was try, I was trying to be more polite. And how has that affected me later in life, as you're aware? Uh, [00:57:10] you know, correctly. So there's been a lot of, you know, uh, gay students coming outta the closet, not being treated horribly anymore. The trans issue and [00:57:20] everything. And even when I was like, I don't really know much about this, but how can I just be polite, everybody not how to be, how to just [00:57:30] provide, how to be kind to everybody. And you know what, it just made people feel a lot better. E even if you don't know much about those particular, uh, [00:57:40] communities or issues, if you're just polite about things, it just makes everybody feel, um, and much, it's 90% of the way. A hundred percent. I've got a whole [00:57:50] video and I'll, I'll link it in the description about how to show up as a good neighbor. Mm-hmm. And you don't need to know everything to not be the asshole. You just need to [00:58:00] show up with some kindness, politeness, and some curiosity. And you can only make such so big a mistake. It goes a long, long way. What did get, so I think that's lovely. I'm glad you got that from your dad. Well, to give you an [00:58:10] example, um, I just extended that. I had a student who was, it wasn't cheer, but it was in another sport that was, uh, mainly female dominated, that he was joining. [00:58:20] And there was a trans boy, biological female, trans boy who came in. The kid was just, you know, picked on [00:58:30] horribly in school. Mm-hmm. And they were roommates and he said, okay, what can I do? I don't know really anything about your community. What can I do to make things better? [00:58:40] And just that question. Allowed trans boy to have a good experience and went back to, he went back to his mom and [00:58:50] said, you know what? I was really regretting scared about camp, and this was one of the best experience I ever had. Mm-hmm. And he said, I didn't know anything about what to do. I was just being [00:59:00] nice and asked questions. No, a little kindness always goes a long way. Well, kindness and asking, what can I do? Pardon my ignorance, what can I do? [00:59:10] Yeah. And if anybody gets mad at you for that question, they're not a good host, just leave them be. Yeah. I've, I've only had that happen very few times as someone mad about you [00:59:20] asking, you know that you should know this thing. The next question on the docket is, tell us about a time where pursuing manhood hurt you. I can [00:59:30] remember when I was, I was on a cheer team, uh, in college and I tried to exhibit the, the problem when you're on a cheer team in, [00:59:40] in college is the only guy is, it makes you hyper masculine. Alright? Yeah, yeah. You've gotta over perform. And, well, I mean, it's just, uh, I, I reacted to a lot of [00:59:50] the girls very traditionally, and most of them appreciate this. I would open up the door for them, I would pull their seat out, you know, and these were my teammates that were, I'm in that [01:00:00] pseudo brother role. Mm-hmm. Well, one of the girls I opened up the door for, I'm just gonna call her Jane to protect her identity, and she was so angry. She [01:00:10] said, she almost slapped me. She said, how dare you open the door for me. I can open my own door. I can solve this, I can solve that. I was like, [01:00:20] I went to the captain. I said, what the heck did I do? She said, well. She's a very strong [01:00:30] woman who doesn't want any man doing anything for her. And I was like, okay, so what do I do? And she said, I don't know. And what I just simply [01:00:40] did is I just kind of stood away. 'cause I, to this day, I don't know how to react to women like that when I try to open the doors and pull out the chairs and just be [01:00:50] traditionally nice about it. And, uh, but I find it's rare. But that was the one time that still just got me. I still don't know what to do with it. It hurt you. [01:01:00] Yeah. That when, that lesson that your father taught you, that's been so true and so useful. So many places when it failed you, you didn't know what to do. I, I, I still have absolutely no [01:01:10] concept what to do in that situation. I've been into it a few other times. I just backed away. I studied distances in, in college, I stood at [01:01:20] least six feet. 'cause within six feet is our personal space. I'd back up to at least nine and I'd say, I'm sorry, I didn't know what I did to offend you. Pardon my ignorance. And then [01:01:30] just take on the, the additional yelling and try to excuse yourself. Well, if they're still yelling after that for holding a door, I don't think you really need to tolerate that. Just ignore them and move on with your life. [01:01:40] I just, I just left the scene and got outta the way. And moved on. Exactly. And, and whenever it's like that, you know, this is usually somebody hit a breaking point because you're the fifth thing.[01:01:50] Yeah. That hour I'm the straw that broke the back isn't. Yeah. And so at that point it's not on you to try to fix 'cause you can't, they're too, they're too dysregulated. So you're best [01:02:00] just extricating yourself from the situation. Yes. And I, I would just get away and I would assume that somebody in their life would send them to go see a counselor to get things. But it's not something, but [01:02:10] it, it's rare. I'm talking about things that happen maybe once every 10 or 15 years. Yeah. They don't, they don't happen much anymore. I think people are easing off about it. But like the, the thing to that I always try to remember is [01:02:20] we look like who hurt them, right? Yes. As bigger white guys like mm-hmm. We're, if they don't know anything about us other than what we look like, they've gotta assume some [01:02:30] safety concerns. Yes. Right. Unfortunately. And so the minute that something trips and it pings off, just it's gonna ping off. I'm glad that he didn't [01:02:40] let those moments where it hurt you get, get rid of it entirely. It sounds like it served you in so many other ways, so. Well, I'm glad you never lost it. Oh yeah. No, that was the one thing my father [01:02:50] drilled into me. I remember when I was 10 and it was time to do dishes and he didn't like how I did dishes, so he dumped them into the sink and showed me how to redo [01:03:00] them until I did it right. Yeah. Okay. And to this day, I will go over to friend's places. Thanksgiving dinner, you know, at a friend's place and it's [01:03:10] like, oh yeah, there's a big pile of dishes with my name on it. Get it, I got it. Check. I can do that. Well, the last question I always ask, we always wanna go out on [01:03:20] a high note. Tell us about a time pursuing your men had empowered you. It was when I had to do the last push for my Eagle Scout. [01:03:30] I was a, the last rank right before Eagle when I was late 13. I didn't finish up until I was almost [01:03:40] 17. I was literally doing a Merit Badger weekend and that final push crossed the line. So then I was 18 and I was like, 'cause I, I, I had, I [01:03:50] was held back a year because I was dyslectic. And I was like, okay, so I got my Eagle. Big whoop. Well, then I found out it was a big deal. That's when I found [01:04:00] out I could get the nomination for West Point. That's when I found out that when I started applying for internships that nobody could get, I said, well, I'm an eagle. Oh, you got the [01:04:10] job. That was it. And it was a big deal through my mid twenties when there was a position that I wanted right outta college, I mentioned that I [01:04:20] was an eagle. The guy said, you know, I tried to do what? I got to start. I just couldn't finish. You did it. You're hired. I would have to say that was, that was the biggest one. Well man, thanks for doing what you do [01:04:30] and very sincerely, please let me know if there's anything that I can do to support your work going forward. Okay, fantastic. It was great having great being on the podcast, and that's our [01:04:40] conversation with Russell. Just a few things to kind of fact check and clean up some Nuance. Russell's program reports outstanding numbers. The average for people getting the right help is about a single grade [01:04:50] level. This isn't me detracting from anything that Russell's doing or what he's saying. We just can't get to those numbers, and it's not like an academic study. This is his experience. After as many years of helping folks, not all [01:05:00] programs are gonna be created equal, but that doesn't mean those tools aren't gonna be incredibly helpful for whoever needs them. The next thing that needs nuance is the 95% number of students not getting what they need for the problem. While [01:05:10] I believe that number to be accurate, it's not supported by academic research. It's an estimation by people who are in the field as advocates, educators, et cetera. So I wanna be really [01:05:20] clear that's from people within the field. It's not an academically triggered number. Now that we have those outta the way, I hope that you took as much as I did on how to help find out [01:05:30] who's got this problem and who's suffering with dyslexia with the wrong tools. I really sincerely hope that you took the direction from the beginning and really thought about whether it's you or [01:05:40] someone you love and what they might need differently. I know when I think about this, I, I get so upset at the kid that I was and how untended to he was. I just [01:05:50] imagine what my childhood and early education might've been like if I thought of myself as someone who was smart and instead of someone who just wasn't trying hard enough. I hope that this helps [01:06:00] you bust that myth and helps you bring it to some people in your life. Leave a comment and give me a message. Let me know which of these tools is gonna be most impactful for you. I'd love to hear your story about it. Thank you so much [01:06:10] for listening. We'll see you next week when we talk about the stories Men Tell. Take [01:06:20] [01:06:30] Care.