The Habit of Reading for Business Owners by Dr. Danny Brassell

In this episode, I talk to Dr. Danny Brassell, Author, Speaker, Coach, Results Leader:
✨  why reading is so important to business owners
✨  how to incorporate the power of reading into your busy schedule
✨Additional tips to make reading enjoyable

Websites mentioned
Free goodies: freeGIFTfromDANNY.com
Book recommendations: lazyreaders.com
Speaking: DannyBrassell.com

If you're reading this and looking for tips to get into the habit of reading, then this episode is for you!

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Transcript

Prithvi Madhukar: 0:00

Hey what's up everyone? Welcome back to the marketing Nomad show. It's your favourite marketer, a podcast host. My name is Patrick, welcome to today's episode, where we're here with international speaker and co founder of reading habit. Danny Purcell, Danny, how are we doing today?

Danny Brassell: 0:22

Fantastic. Thanks for having me on today print. And thanks for all that you do to spread positivity around the world, we need a lot more of it.

Prithvi Madhukar: 0:28

Thank you so much, Danny, already for those of you who are tuning into this episode today, we're actually going to be talking about developing good reading habits. As a business owner and entrepreneurs. We're going to be talking to Danny here today, we're going to be talking about how to cultivate the habit of reading. And you know how to basically read more, why is reading so important for entrepreneurs and business owners. And we're also going to be talking about actionable tips that you can implement so that you can read more, Danny, are we ready to go?

Unknown: 1:03

I'm ready. Let's go.

Prithvi Madhukar: 1:06

Alrighty, Danny, can you please introduce yourself? Let our listeners know who are you? And why did you start this mission?

Danny Brassell: 1:15

Well, so again, I'm Danny Purcell, my last name is really easy to remember how to spell spelt like braas Sal, No, I never took any grief over that as a child. And I'm on a mission to bring joy back into education in the workplace by transforming struggling and reluctant readers into more passionate and proficient readers. And it's ironic, because I grew up hating reading, my father was a librarian, and I always hated the public library, it always smelled funny to me, that furniture was always uncomfortable. There was always some elderly woman telling me to be quiet. There's always a freaky homeless guy thinks he's a vampire hanging out in the library always hated the library. But it wasn't until I started teaching in the inner city, where I recognised that a lot of my students didn't have the resources I had available to me as a child. And I pointed the finger back at me and I said, shame on me. You know what, I was very blessed. Both of my parents were married. And together. We weren't a very wealthy family. But we always had food on the table to eat. So we never had to worry about that. My parents read in front of us, they read to us, and they had plenty of reading materials around us. And it really became something very important to me. You know, watching the way schools work. I've been in education now for 25 years. And I always say, well, schools do an adequate job of teaching kids how to read. But the question I always ask people is, what good is it teaching a kid how to read if they never want to read, I teach kids why to read, because I've never had to tell a kid go watch television, I've never had to tell a kid go play a video game. And I never want to have to tell a kid go read a book, I want them to choose to do it on their own. And I see so many of my friends that are are now entrepreneurs and business owners that they claim that they don't read, and I can show them all kinds of quick tips to to incorporate reading as a habit, because reading is essential. If you're not reading, you're not growing, if you're not growing, everybody else is passing you by.

Prithvi Madhukar: 3:19

Wow, I think that we had such a mighty start, Danny, I think that you are absolutely right. When you say that, you know, if you are not reading, you're not growing. And if you're not growing, then will everyone saying bye bye to you? That's absolutely true. For me, personally, I think my dad actually used to make me read every night as a kid, you know, those lighted books? And he would say, No, no, you're not running away. Today, you're gonna sit here with me, you're gonna read for half an hour. And I think over time, I think initially I was very reluctant. I was just like you, you know, I'm like, No, I'm not going to read Why am I being forced to do this. And then over time, I think I gradually just got so enveloped into the world of books, and I started reading on my own. So I personally have developed the habit of reading over time. And I have my father to think that so thanks for that. So, you know, it's really nice when you were telling me that you know, your parents, your dad was a librarian, and he was very keen on you reading but you just didn't like public libraries. So everything.

Unknown: 4:30

The only thing I read as a kid was a TV Guide, I wouldn't read.

Prithvi Madhukar: 4:34

I really resonated with that. My parents would take me to the public library every single week on Sundays. That was one thing that they would do. So I have to thank them for that. I mean, it's really challenging to take a kid who does not want to be there to go to a public library. So that was really nice to hear. You're well and that

Danny Brassell: 4:53

was it. But that's probably one of the reasons you became a reader prayed. I always tell people all it takes is somebody significant. In your life to model that behaviour, and encourage you to do that, I mean, I don't care who I've ever worked with. Once a week, if I'm, if I'm working with students, for example, once a week, I'll give a kid a book, I'll say, hey, you know what? I was reading this book for it about this famous entrepreneur, I think you'd like to check it out. I always ask him, What do you think the odds are the prints going to open up that book, in my experience, 100%, you know, because somebody showed interest in you, you might not read it, but you are going to open it. And I find by the fourth time I do that with a person, they actually try and read the book, because there's nothing more powerful than somebody significant in your life, a parent, a teacher, a coach, a pastor, a buddy, an older sibling, saying, You know what, I was thinking of you when I was reading this. So it's very simple psychology on how to get people excited about reading. I mean, that's really one of the points I make to people about research is really clear on this. It doesn't matter what you read, what matters is how much you read. It doesn't matter if you're reading James Joyce, or James and the Giant Peach. You know, people who read more, read better. The happiest day of my life, besides my wedding day, was when I earned my PhD, my wife was asking me why I was so happy. And I'm like, because from now on, I pick the books. And so this is a tip for your listeners, you know, if you really want to become a reader, I've dealt with people that are 65 years old and never read a book. And I'm like, Well, you know, if you're unhealthy at age 65, does that mean you just give up you stop walking? Well, no, it's the same thing with reading you can I compete make you into a reader, we got to find out what you're interested in. So this audience is lot entrepreneurs. Well, I'm gonna find books that are interesting. I just read a wonderful biography by Ashley Vance about Elon Musk, I was fascinated tracking his life. You know, here's a tip for everybody out there. One of the things I have, since 2003, I've had one of the top book clubs online, according to Google. And it's called lazy readers.com. And it's a free subscription. But once a month, I provide 10 book recommendations three or four adult level three or four young adult level, and three or four children's level books are all under 250 pages. So you have something you can read when you're stuck in a boring meeting, or whatever. And it's one of the tips I actually give to people. I'm a lazy reader. Before I go to a party, I'll go to a bookstore and I'll go to the children's section. And I'll find a whole bunch of 32 Page picture biographies on famous people. And I'll learn a whole bunch of quick little tidbits about them. And then at the party, I sound like this really smart person, because I know all this stuff. I didn't read anything sophisticated. I read a kid's book, but that's still reading. And I can tell you, it was doing something like that, where I read a little picture book about Elon Musk where I was interested. I'm like, Oh, I'd like to read more about Elon Musk. I love reading about, you know, I love like Darren Hardy, reading about the entrepreneurial roller coaster. His book, the compound effect is fantastic. I'll read about I'll read books by entrepreneurs like Russell Brunson, and Ryan Holliday, you know, if you, if you really want to get good at reading, you got to figure out what your interest is. And you have to have a narrow reading on that. So if you're into leadership, I encourage you will read books about leadership. And if it's a boring book, put it down. There was over 4 million books written last year alone. Some of them are pretty good focus on those if it's not good. Think of reading like a piece of food. If you take a piece of food, you're like, oh, man, that's disgusting. Maybe it gets better. Oh, no, it's disgusting. Same thing with a book. If you don't like the first chapter, you're probably not gonna like the second chapter. Put it down, get something else. I'm sorry. I give long answers to short questions.

Prithvi Madhukar: 9:06

Oh, no, no, I'm enjoying this. I'm absolutely enjoying. And it is so interesting that you say that because I think that as a reader myself, there is this obligation that's there at the back of my mind that oh my god, I have to finish this book. And, you know, even though sometimes I feel like maybe the books aren't helping me, or I'm not grasping it the way I should. And that's on me. I feel like oh my god, I've committed to this book. So I have to finish it till the end. And there's always that sense of guilt that's like, oh, you know, that's always tagging me at the back of my mind and you're saying it's okay. It's okay to just dump the book. And I'm like, okay, that's really solid advice. Why didn't I just do that? Because like rethinking all those previous moments, that you know, I could have done that. But that's, that's really interesting. I love absolutely love your answer. I know that. There was a lot of information that was packed in that answer. We After a little bit about, you know, when you're 65, and you say you haven't read a book. Now, I know personally, a few business owners and entrepreneurs who probably are at the age of 30s, or 40s, and they haven't read before. Is it too late? I really want to talk about definitely

Danny Brassell: 10:18

not too late. But, you know, with my teams, I always tell them, remember, next time, you need to give me an excuse, I want you to give me this excuse, say, Peru has a new dictator. And they all say, Well, what's that got to do with anything? I'm like, well, one excuses as good as another. It didn't get done. Did. You know people always will say, Well, you know, I don't have time to read. I'm like, Yeah, who has time to read after you have a couple of beers, watch TV, go out shopping. I mean, when it's time to read, I mean, I have a friend who claims to be a time management expert. And I always laugh at him about that. I'm like, There's no such thing as time management. There's priority management. I was reading this book that and it said that over 100 years ago, people only had 24 hours in their day. Also, it's how you use it, ya know, and so you can incorporate reading and believe me, I've done so much research on this. There's plenty of readers that don't necessarily become successful leaders, but I have never read about a successful effective leader who was not also an avid reader. And if you're looking at entrepreneurs, you know, you look at a guy like Richard Branson, who's dyslexic? Well, he could use Dyslexia as his excuse not to read but he he reads all the time. Here's here's a quick tip for anybody that's dyslexic out there. By the way, you're in good company over half of the Fortune 500 company CEOs are dyslexic, famous people in history like George Washington was dyslexic. Tom Cruise is dyslexic Richard Branson, Sir Richard, you know, but Dyslexics, they process things a lot better auditorially. And so that's the tip I give those folks is we'll put in an audiobook, listen to audiobooks while you're driving to and from work. I mean, if your commute is, is an hour a day, multiply that by however many days a year you're working, let's say you're you're going to work 280 days a year, well, that's 2800 hours of time that you have now listening to actually that's more than 2800 hours. That's 28,000. I mean, it's almost a that's almost a college degree right there. And it's ridiculous. But that's one way. You know, Warren Buffett is one of the wealthiest people on the planet. And he spends eight hours a day reading, Elon Musk still reads three books a day. And he runs for companies. So when I hear people say they don't have time to read, read, well, if Elon Musk can find time, I think that you can find time and there's tonnes of other examples. But that's what I'm always looking for. You know, there's a book I think everybody needs to read. It's an oldie but a goodie thinking Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, was written by the in the 1930s. And one of the concepts that Napoleon Hill discusses in there, which I think is vital for entrepreneurs is the concept of a mastermind forming a group of people from diverse fields, and brainstorming ways to help each other solve each other's problems. It's actually, though I've been in several masterminds and the best masterminds are when you have people like, this is a school teacher, and this is an entrepreneur, and this is a real estate agent. And this is an accountant. Because when you have people coming from different fields, they think differently. And sometimes they do something in their field where you're like, wait a sec, I could apply that to my field in a different way. And the great thing about the mastermind is, you know, if it's just you, you can still study famous people from history. I mean, I have people you know, if I'm, if I'm looking at compassion and empathy, well, maybe I'll I'll study, Gandhi and Mother Teresa, and Abraham Lincoln, if I'm looking at leadership, maybe, maybe I'll look at Nelson Mandela. What did he do differently than people? What did Teddy Roosevelt do differently? What was Margaret Thatcher's key to success? So I'm constantly I mean, this is why I love technology. I mean, first of all, you can be in Bangalore, and I can be in the United States, and we can have this conversation and in real time, it's wonderful. And what really gets me excited as an educator, because even though I left the classroom, I'm still a teacher at heart. And I love working with the kids. Because right now, there's some impoverished child somewhere in the world. It's on a dirt floor, you know, barefoot, maybe hasn't eaten dinner. But if that kid has a laptop, and an internet connection, they had the same access to As the president of Google, the whole world just got a whole lot smaller. And I get excited, because you don't have to be born in New York City to change the world anymore. There's some kid maybe in Ooty, in Tamil module on some mountain. And that kid might be the person that saves the planet from climate change, you have no idea. And I get very excited about that. I, you and I have had this discussion. I've done a lot of work around the world. And India, my time in India was just precious, I can't wait to get back to India, everybody is just beautiful, and so hospitable. And I was speaking at a school of 5000 girls, and these two girls come up to me after the presentation. One wanted to be a doctor. Other one wanted to be a lawyer. I said, that's great. Are you going to go to university here in India, or maybe you'll go to Great Britain or the United States, and he said, Oh, we're girls, we can't leave India might get back in that auditorium. I got them all back in. And I said, now is your moment, ladies, you know, within five years, India is going to become the largest country in the planet in terms of population, you know, you're very young democracy, you're just over 70 years old, yet, you've already elected a woman prime minister, America still hasn't elected a woman president. I mean, right now, there are twice as many women in India, as there are people in the United States, there are actually more women in India with a graduate degree than there are people in the United States. And I looked at all those young ladies and I said, Hey, you just made it my mission, the next CEO, the next successful entrepreneur, the next really good parent is coming out of this audience. I'm like, you know, I always tell this to my students, sometimes you need somebody else to believe in you, before you believe in yourself. They only give me the best and the brightest, and we're going to succeed, you got to have a mindset. And the way I keep that kind of positive mindset, you know, one of my mentors was a guy by the name of Zig Ziglar. And he said, motivation is like bathing, it's temporary. That's why we suggest you do it regularly. And so that's one of the tips I give to all entrepreneurs is take during your lunch break, when everything's freaking out, take 10 minutes and read something that lifts you up, whether it's reading about entrepreneurs, you know, reading something spiritual, reading something that makes you laugh, you know, maybe like murder mysteries, we'll read a read a murder mystery, but something that relaxes your brain, it'll actually help your brain work better throughout the day. Again, a very long answer. Sorry,

Prithvi Madhukar: 17:38

no, no, no. Like I said, there's just so much of information I'm writing down as well, as you go. And I first off, let's talk about, let me talk about the picture book that you picked up. And I think that for people who struggle with reading, you know, people, they see Oh, page of words. And this is something that people have personally come and told me, they get scared, you know, it's like, they can't get through the entire book, because they see the first page, it's just a lot of words. They're not used to it, and they don't know how to get to the next page. And I think that your advice of, you know, even just taking a picture book and going through, it can actually give you so much value. I have not thought of it in the way that you know, when you said you had a book that a picture book that taught you about Elon Musk, and then you were able to gain more interest about it and then move on to a bigger book with lots of words in it. And I think that that's such a good starting point as well. You know, for people who get scared when they see a book, or they're just unsure, they feel like maybe 40s not the age where they can pick up a book or 30 is too late. I really liked that. And I think that audio books as well, really great idea, because I think that we travel all the time, like I mean we're in either in the car or on the train or you know, when usually not in one place. And if you can't have a physical book with you to take around, there are podcasts that you know, go over the audiobooks, there are audiobooks that you can buy their YouTube channels that go over these books as well. So I think that that's also a really nice idea. In case people are scared to pick up the book or words just scare them so I personally really liked those ideas and I think that from now on if someone asks me, you know, what do I do because I do have some of my previous clients have actually told me that their said, I know that you read a lot but I'm terrified of reading you know, I don't I don't I just can't do it and that I never had an answer. So this is definitely something that I feel it can be easily implemented by people so they

Danny Brassell: 19:51

get even better let's let's serve society even better. So if you are a person that fears that well, why don't you volunteer to school with a young child Holdren and volunteer to read that picture. And you can read picture books about entrepreneurs, if you want to the little kids, I think that's actually better I think little kids should be seeing at a very early age, you know, it's not just about Goldilocks and the Three Bears, it's about, it's about people that start with not that I mean, everybody loves that story is the person who starts with nothing that becomes very successful and, you know, either, you know, with money or or in spiritually, or, or, you know, health wise or whatever, everybody needs to see those types of stories. And I, you know, as Walt Disney, who said people think in pictures, and he's absolutely right about that, as as a speaker, I'm constantly looking for anecdotes. And so I'll get anecdotes out of children's. There's an anecdote I tell right now, in one of my speeches where I'm talking about a story where there was a king, who had this childhood friend who had this annoying habit, no matter what the circumstance, whether it was positive or negative. He always said the same thing. This is good. Well, the king was out hunting with his friend one day, and the king's friend was always in charge of loading the king's rifle. Well, something went horribly wrong this day. As the King fired his rifle, it blew off his right thumb, to which his friend replied, This is good. The king was furious that his friends that he put his friend in prison. Well, a year later, the king was out hunting and forbidden grounds when he was captured by a tribe of cannibals. And as the cannibals tied the king to the steak, and put logs at his feet to set him a flame to make Him their dinner. One of the cannibals noticed that the king was missing his right thumb, well, being a superstitious tribe, they never believed in eating anything that was not whole. And so they released the King to his freedom. The king could not believe his good fortune. And as he was running back to the palace, he recalled what his friend had said a year earlier. So we redirected to the prison, released, his friend apologised, told his friend, the entire story, to which his friend replied, This is good. The king couldn't believe his ears. He's like, how could it be good? I just put you in prison for a year. His friend looked at him and said, What if you hadn't put me in prison? I would have been out hunting with you. And the cannibals would have beaten me. So everything is about perspective.

Prithvi Madhukar: 22:36

Oh, that's a great story. That's a really great story. And I like the fact that, you know, you as an adult, you're still reading children's books. And for me personally, I didn't think I was gonna mention this. But you know, recently I picked up a, I think, two Enid Blyton books, because I was at like a spa retreat somewhere a little far away. And the only books that they had in their library were in it like ebooks. So I picked up two of them. And I was like, you know, I should probably try reading these because I remember them from my childhood. And I realised that there's actually a lot of lessons in them. It's just so beautiful, how it may seem like a children's book, but it's got a lot of value. And to be honest, like when you're reading it as an adult, a couple of years later, you your perspective is very different. The way you absorb the material is very different as well, maybe because of experience or age or maturity. I don't know. But I realised that I probably should go through all my children books once more, because it definitely I mean, I was an entrepreneur at that time. I mean, I am, but at that time, I had just started my business, and there was something about positivity, and you know, how to be positive, even in the worst circumstances. And I applied so well to my life at that point in time. So I think that, you know, reading children's books, as an adult is not, you know, it's not something that you should be ashamed of, or because I personally was like, you know, I was laughing to myself, I was like, Oh, my God, if anybody could see that I'm reading children's books right now. And I'm actually associating with it. I think people would make fun of me. But I think now now that I see it, I think that that was a very wrong thought process of mine. And thank you so much for you know, like telling. I think, I think it's, it's beautiful. It's, I'm looking back and I'm feeling so happy that I actually picked up the book and I'm looking back and I think, yes, okay, I did the right thing. And I should be proud of it. And I should, you know, that's something that, you know, an international speaker and the co founder of reading habit, you know, if you're seeing it then yes, there's a lot of value. There's a lot of value to it. So I'm quite um, thank you so much for Are that and one one thing that I picked up when you said, you know, it doesn't have to be a book in your field. You know, if you really like murder mysteries, go ahead. If you really liked something else, go ahead, don't just, you know, focus on one aspect because you never know where you get your ideas from, you never know where you get your inspiration from. And I thought that was wonderful. I thought that was amazing. Because even for me, as a marketer, as a content creator, I don't look at other accounts that are in my field, I actually look at accounts that have no relation to marketing. And that's where I get my ideas from, because something triggers something else. And that spark leads on somewhere else. So I really liked that idea. I've not implemented it for books. So I that's definitely something that I'm going to try out and experiment as well. So thank you so much for that, Danny. Yes. All righty. So now let me like, share a bit of a personal question that I have for you. And that is, for me, as a business owner and an entrepreneur, I'm juggling a lot of things. I'm a podcaster, I'm a YouTuber, there's a lot of things that are happening in my life at any given point. One thing that I struggle with as much as I love reading and love books is lack of time, or at least my perception of the lack of time, I think that would be a more accurate way of putting it. So Danny, in your experience, how do we as business owners and entrepreneurs with such busy lives, overcome that feeling or that perception of lack of time,

Danny Brassell: 26:35

I'll give you a couple of little tips print because again, I always laugh when people talk about time management, like there is no such thing. First of all, there's a book I read that you don't have to read because I already read it called Essentialism by Greg McEwan. And he had one line in that book that changed my life. He said in Greek, the word priority can only be used in the singular, that changed my life. Because every day now I give myself one priority. I can I can get more stuff done, but I have to get the priority done. And you'll find you'll get more accomplished if you give yourself a focus of one priority every single day, because I'm a person that loves list, and I'll have 20 items on my list. And if I finished 19 of them, I still consider the day of failure because I didn't finish all 20 Or number 20 was the one I really should have been focusing on. And I wasn't doing that. And so and your priority, you know, I'm a big believer in well rounded your priority, it doesn't always have to be a business priority it can be my priority today is to spend time with my family quality time with my family. My priority today is to take a five mile jog for my health. My priority today, you know is to do something time for another human being whatever, whatever you want it to be, is a priority. This is an exercise I've always done with my teams, when they tell me they don't have time. I'm like, Okay, I'm like, I want you to prove it to me. For two weeks, I want you to keep a journal. And I want you to be completely honest. And I want you to write down how you spend every minute of your day. Just do that for two weeks. And you will be amazed how much time you are wasting every single week. I mean, I usually have the typical person I'm working with spends between eight to 12 hours a week on social media. I'm like, that's one and a half business days that you're spending on social media. Now. I mean, if you're a marketer, and that's your job, that's something else. But I don't think most people that's what it is. It's, you know, posting pictures of what they ate for breakfast. You know, so there's a time thing when I'm working with parents. So I created the world's leading reading engagement programme, which teaches parents how to get their kids excited about reading. And I always tell people, I'm like, well, at least here in America, the average American spends 15 minutes a day on the toilet. We'll make a little library next to the toilet. And while you're on the toilet, you can be reading something on the toilet. My I have three children of my own. And when I'm packing their lunches for school, and they're at breakfast, I open up my computer. There's this wonderful free website brought to us by the Screen Actors Guild. It's accessible anywhere in the world called storyline online.net storyline online.net And what they do is they have all these famous entertainers, you know, different movie stars and famous people and they read aloud children's books. And what's great is every read aloud the books are also closed captioned, there's subtitles at the bottom, you know, so this is a big thing. I've always taught English as a second language around the world and a lot of my students are trying to figure out ways to learn English I'm like, Well, if you like watching TV, turn on the subtitles. And it actually helps you. You start to really and it actually puts it in calm. I'm text and so for people that say they don't have enough time I just challenged them. It's like when people say they're busy to me, I'm like, okay, yesterday, I gave six speeches, I gave four interviews, I spent time with my family, and I had time to take a walk. So show me what you did yesterday. And I love it. I love being competitive with people on that. I'm like, Hey, if you can actually prove to me that you're busier than me, then that's fine. But I'm I'm betting we can find time throughout the day. And that's the important thing. So the whole, the whole context of my programme, it's built on two premises. So a lot of people will tell you, here's the two numbers, I want you to remember. 67 and 20. So the number 67. A lot of people say it takes 21 days to change a habit. And to those people, I say, show me the research, it doesn't exist. It's a completely false number. I know where the number comes from. It comes from a wonderful book written in 1960. By Dr. Maxwell Maltz, called Psycho Cybernetics. It's a wonderful book, everybody should read it. Dr. Maltz, was a plastic surgeon. And in the preface of the book, he mentioned that he noticed it took most of his patients about 21 days to get used to their new faces. Well, a lot of self help gurus, a lot of people that I respected, admired, took that number and started telling people Oh, you can do this and 21 days is completely fabricated. There's no research on that. We're researchers at the University of London in 2009, did a habit formation study, and they found it took anywhere from 18 to 254 days to change a habit. And the average was 66 days. I don't like the number 66. So I throw in a bonus day 67. And it depends on the type of habit that you're trying to change. So for example, if you want to drink a glass of water before breakfast, that might take 18 days to form that habit. But if you want to quit smoking, well, that's going to take 254 days, it's much tougher, and here's why this matters to me for it. Let's say you go on a diet, and you follow it religiously for 21 days. But then on day 22, you fall off the waggon. Well, you blame yourself. And that's wrong. Because research shows on average, it takes three times longer than that, to form the habit. And so I think it's very dangerous when people throw around numbers that aren't based on any type of research whatsoever. Now, the other number, and this is what's important for everybody in your audience when I'm talking to parents of kids. But even if you're not a parent, if you're an entrepreneur, just trying to figure out how to read better, here's the tip. So researchers were looking at patterns among successful students worldwide. And they found a characteristic that totally surprised them. It was the number of minutes spent reading outside of school. So they looked at the low students, the average students and the high students. So the students at the bottom of the class and the 20th percentile, the F students average less than one minute a day of reading outside of school. That's not much of a surprise. That's probably why they're at the bottom of the class. But this did startle researchers, the kids in the middle of the class in the 75th percentile, the C students, the average students, they average 9.6 minutes a day reading outside of school. And so when I'm doing a live training with parents, this is when the first parent usually raises their hand and says, Wait a second, are you saying if I can get my kid to read 10 minutes a day at home, I can take him from the bottom of the class to the middle of the class. That's exactly what I'm saying. The research is pretty conclusive on this with this was even more amazing. The kids at the top of the class near the top of the class and the 90th percentile. Your best students, how much time do they spend reading outside of school? Is it three hours a day? No. is a one hour a day? No, it was just over 20 minutes a day. The whole basis of my programme is in just over two months, we're going to develop a habit where you're always getting in at least 20 minutes a day of reading at home. And here's two beautiful things. First one we already mentioned. It's just it counts to listen to it just to as much as it does to read it on your own. So audiobooks count. Second point, that's really important. For people, I'm sorry, I'm getting so so it counts that it that it's audio. And then the second point is they don't have to be consecutive minutes. So if you have two minutes here and two minutes there, that's fine. I mean, I think you know, I'm a big believer in starting and ending your day with something positive to read. You know, so I read a Bible at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day, you know, but I mean, I also like to read things that make me laugh, so I'll read something funny. I try to avoid the news because the news doesn't serve me and it just puts me in a foul mood. You know, I like to read about people that do inspirational things. So that's the tip for the people that say they don't have time. I'm like, No, again, it's a matter of priorities. And I want you to actually, and it's a great exercise. I've done that exercise myself, were just spend two weeks and you don't have to show anybody just honestly show how you spend every minute of your day, and it will actually freak you out. You're like, oh, my gosh, I have no idea. I was wasting this much time.

Prithvi Madhukar: 35:35

That's fantastic. I really liked your tip of you know, your study where you said, it was just 20 minutes for a little over 20 minutes for the top students. And I think that my problem with, you know, my perception of lack of time is that I think I need to, say, one hour a day or two hours a day, and I but you know, now that you're saying that even 20 minutes, or you can just two minutes here and there is enough and audiobooks count. I think that that's really turned my perception around, frankly speaking, because I think it takes a lot of pressure off you as well, because 20 minutes, yes, I can do 20 minutes. But you know, you tell one hour or one and a half or two hours, you know, that's when it gets a little bit tricky in terms of my perception of lack of time. So I really

Danny Brassell: 36:27

think of it the same way as your house. I mean, think of like, just like, instead of taking the escalator, taking the stairs in parking a little bit further away from where you have to go. So you get to walk a little bit further, I mean, just getting in an extra 20 minutes of physical activity every day, as I mean, again, entrepreneurs, a lot of us are sitting on our butts all the time. I mean, I have a little alarm on my phone. So at the, at the 58th minute of every hour, I had to get up for two minutes, and I did jumping jacks or I run in place or something. And it's just those couple of minutes. So they accumulate and it keeps your blood flowing. And same thing with reading, just give yourself a little bit of time. It's the lit we, we always underestimate the power of little changes in our lives.

Prithvi Madhukar: 37:15

I think I think that's beautiful. I think that's really the highlight of today's episode for me personally. Because, like I said, I think that there, I put an undue pressure on myself saying, Oh, my God, I have to dedicate this amount of time. But the fact that you're saying that, you know, five minutes here and there, it's fine. You know, 20 minutes, it adds up, these little things add up, that really makes a difference. And for me personally, it resonates because I don't like reading the news before asleep, because like I said, this was too much negativity. And I also like to read something that's funny. Like, I have aspects that I picked up. I'm doing an asterix marathon right now. And that's one thing. I think about six months back, I struggled a bit with focusing on reading books. And I think that there was this growing frustration in me that I was not reading, because I love reading like I really into it. But at that point, I felt that I was not able to dedicate time or you know, it was really not able to cultivate that habit back again. And it was really frustrating me. So that's when I challenged myself to have these marathons like a Harry Potter marathon or, you know, like an asterix book, calm comic book marathon, or no some kind of and that's worked, that's actually worked, you know, because I feel like I'm in a sprint. And I have a goal at the end of it. And for me, that has helped me implement my habit of reading. And as you said, it's it's probably 20 minutes a day that I spend on reading. Yes, but I didn't think that it weighed. But now that you're saying it does, it really makes me feel good and happy that

Danny Brassell: 38:59

it is a treat print. That's what I really liked listening to you. I remember in college, I'd have to pay about $800 for all these textbooks for my classes, and all my friends always made fun of me because I buy all these textbooks, but then I'd always also buy like a $10 John Grisham novel, and people are like, Well, why did you buy that? I'm like, if I'm going to spend $800 for a bunch of books, I want at least one of the books to be a book I want to read.

Prithvi Madhukar: 39:29

That's true. That's absolutely true. Yes, I totally. I totally agree with that. And for me personally, I don't like reading business books is part of my job is how I take it. I don't keep it as a hobby for me. My hobby would be my Astrid comic books or or you know other my romance novels or something like that, because I feel like when I'm reading business books, I'm constantly thinking about business. So I don't consider that to be part of my hobby. be timed. So business, it's easier for me to implement reading business books because it's a part of my job. So I take it that way. And I take it very seriously. And it's easier for me to get into the habit for that. But it's those relaxed hobby reading time that I feel like I miss out on. And I struggle with a lot, especially to take some time and enjoy getting into a different world altogether, whether it's fantasy, or you know, something else. So it's really nice that you say 20 minutes is all that it takes. And that absolutely has made me feel really liked and happy about the whole thing.

Danny Brassell: 40:39

And the great thing great about reading is, I've never watched a TV show, and afterwards, Wow, I feel really fulfilled that I watched that TV show. But every time I finish the book, I feel like I've actually accomplished something.

Prithvi Madhukar: 40:54

Absolutely, I definitely feel that it definitely feel that and, you know, on a personal note, I want to ask you, what has reading like, how has reading changed your way of life or your perception of life? Or how has it added value to you and your life?

Danny Brassell: 41:15

Wow, I mean, for it? That's a great question. I mean, it is my life at this point. I'm, uh, you know, some people collect cars, some people collect stamps, I collect stories, I love being able as a as a speaker, you know, you know, and I speak to different audiences. So if I'm speaking to a corporate audience, I need a certain set of anecdotes for the corporate audience as opposed to parents, I have to have different stories for parents, men versus women are different stories, you know, speaking in India versus in Egypt are going to be different stories. So I'm constantly reading to learn things. I'll give you an example. I'm a I'm a visiting Distinguished Professor at the American University in Cairo. And before the pandemic, I was in Cairo for a month. And beyond my university duties, I wanted to really go out to schools and work with parents and help them get their kids excited about reading. And so they booked me for a Muslim school, and I've never been to an Islamic school, and is incredible threat. I mean, two o'clock in the afternoon, 400 parents showed up for a training, and all the guys had long beards. And all the women were in burkas. And we were talking like you and I are talking right now. And I thought shame on me. I had a lot of preconceptions. And I'm like, wow, people really are people. And it turned out to be my greatest audience. Because the story I told them, I said, Well, I was reading this book the other day, have any of you ever read the Korean? And they all laughed and like, oh, well, then you know, the story in the Qur'an, where the angel Gabriel appears to Mohammed in the cave, what's his first instruction of Mohammed? Because the first pillar of Islam is to read. And so I looked at the parents, and I said, so not only should we get your kids reading, it's actually written in your most sacred texts, it's your duty to get your kids reading. And all of a sudden, everybody who's like this, I'm like, Oh, my gosh, this is like my ideal audience, I would have never gotten that story. Had I not invested this time in reading the Quran, you know? Where am I like, so when I was in India, I kept on seeing pictures of this guy when I was in Tamil Nadu. So I'm like, I gotta get a book on this guy. And, and Abdul Kalam is just this amazing human being. And I'm like, I've never even heard of him. And I, it's actually the book I'm writing right now. The last book I wrote was called leadership begins with motivation. And it's all kinds of short stories about successful people in different fields. And this was interesting print. After I finished it, I read it. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, almost all of my examples are of white male Americans. I'm like, This is ridiculous. And so the book I'm writing, and that was interesting. I'm like, Oh, I wonder why that was. But so the book I'm writing right now is the same type of book. But all of the stories are about minorities, females and international people. And so one of the stories I was just writing a couple of weeks ago was about this. This farmer boy, he was like 18, in, in northeast India, in this river. And on the island and the river. There was such a bad drought, he noticed there was 200 Dead snakes. And basically, he was a farmer and they weren't able to farm anymore because the drought was just destroying the land. And so the next day he planted a tree, and the day after that he planted a tree. This is a guy who doesn't know how to read and write just a poor farmer. Well, in 2015, the Indian government gave this guy their highest honour, the forest that he's created from planting one tree a day over the last For two years is over 2000. It's like 2000 acres, it's twice the size of Central Park. There's a herd of 100 elephants that live there. Now there's like all these animals, rare birds. And all that simple man did was he did one simple thing a day, this gets back to you prep with your reading, just spending the 20 minutes. It's the little things, not the big things. And the reason I'm writing this book is I'm just going all around the world with people I'm like, Huh? It's fascinating how we all focus on this person. I mean, again, when I was in India, India was a real joy to me, because Gandhi had had a huge impact of me, not just the book acts of the movie, also when I saw the movie, and so I'm like, Oh, I have to take trains across India. It's just the colours are so vibrant. And India was actually better than I could have ever expected. I could be a vegetarian. If I lived in India, Indians know how to use spices. It's fantastic. But it was just fascinating learning. So I'm an I'm an naive American. I thought, I thought Indira Gandhi was like, Gandhi's daughter not, has no, she has no, right. And I'm related to him. And I'm like, oh, so it was interesting, just learning about all the and then learning about one of the things that impressed me the most about India, and I'm sorry that I'm just focused on India right now for the audience. But there was something that really impressed me was, if you look at the top 20 most admired people in India, they were all business leaders, entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists, and teachers. In America, it's all movie stars, athletes, singers. And I'm like, I keep on warning American, like, you better watch it. India is going to surpass us very soon. I mean, it's true. I see it. When I was working with little kids, and watching the math that they were being taught, I'm like, this is like, you're like six years old. They don't teach this until they're 16. In America, you're like, I mean, when I left India, I seriously started telling people in America, I don't know if we should teach math and science anymore. Because we are so far behind India, be so far behind, you know, and that's not to disparage America, America has other things that we're better at. You know, and that's what freaks me out people, we look at negatives, and I'm like, No, let's look at the positive, let's figure out what we can learn from one another. You know, I've always said, it's a really a big mistake in America, we get a lot of India's best students to come to our universities. And then we don't allow them to keep their visas to stay here, which I think is a big mistake. Because now they're going back to India, and they're starting businesses that are in direct competition with America, and their businesses are better. It's happening right now. And I'm getting very excited about that. You know, my, my reading programme, I was speaking with the Minister of Education. And, you know, he's very nice to me, as well done. My product in America is 297 US dollars. And he's like, oh, you know, we love your product on it. But we, it is way too expensive for us. And I said, Mr. Minister, I'll give it to you for $1 A kid, just make sure every kid in India gets it. And the reason I got that idea, this is your entrepreneurial brain was going into a McDonald's in India, I noticed that the price of a value meal was like a 10th of the price of what it would be in America. And then I realised I understand its volume. You can sell it at a cheaper price if you're selling it to a billion people a day. And I'm like, oh, that's India. And this is, I mean, there's two things I would emphasise to any human being is you need to read a lot of books, you need to travel the world. Because you get insight, you start to see, you really start to look at things in different ways. And you try and see things from people's points of view, which I think serves you well. So again, that's a very long answer to a short, short question, but I get really excited about these things. And, wow,

Prithvi Madhukar: 49:15

well, it's really heartwarming, it's so nice, I can really see the passion. I mean, for those of you are listening on the podcast, you know, there's definitely going to be a YouTube version of this video of this entire podcast episode. And you know, I can see the fire in your I can see the passion in you and as an entrepreneur myself, I think that it's the very few lucky people who get to find their passion in life, and they get to follow it as well. They get to see it through and it's so heartwarming for me to see how passionate you are you found your passion, you are doing all you can to make sure that you are doing your mission of getting everyone to cultivate reading habits, you know, kids especially and that's Really nice. It's really nice Danny. And I think one thing that I want to point out is I've had the privilege of being exposed to three different education systems in my life, Singapore, while going up India for my engineering, and then us for my MBA, and they are extremely distinct education systems. And they have, I don't know, each education system has given me so much ammunition because they have been so different from each other. And even as an entrepreneur and a business owner, I can see how each of these education systems have contributed to me holistically, you know, I do something business related. And I'm like, oh, okay, that's a little bit of Singapore there. And then I do something else. And then I was like, oh, that's I learned that from India. And then another thing is like, America is coming in right over here. So when you say, you know, the different education systems, the power of different education systems, there are pros, there are cons. Yes. But if we were to take the pros, from each of the education systems that are available, I think that really enriches your life in a very different way, in a very positive way. And I think travelling the world yes, absolutely. Reading books. Absolutely. I think these are two things that have enriched my life as well and change my perception on the world changed my perception of the kind of life that I want to lead as well. So I think, you know, it's a more fulfilled life. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I definitely, I definitely resonate with that. And yeah, I was one of those people where the visa might, you know, I did my MBA in a US university, and then the work visa didn't get processed. And I had to come back to India. And for me, you know, starting a business when I'm in India, it has been, it has been challenging, but at the same time, it has been very, very fulfilling as well. And, yeah, I mean, I really, I hope that someday, I'll be able to tell young Indian girls that it doesn't matter where you are in the world, you could even be in India, and your parents don't want to let you go out. It's time you can find your success, wherever you are. And I hope that someday I get to tell them that I hope that you know, I do that. So I will support

Danny Brassell: 52:17

you in that anytime you need. And then I mean, those little girls, there's something that you have that I'll never have is you're an Indian woman, like they look at you and they're like, Hmm, if she could do it, maybe I can do it. That's very important.

Prithvi Madhukar: 52:32

Absolutely. So I'm definitely you know, I'm so like, happy that I met you and, you know, try getting an insight such a close insight to what you do for children across the world. And obviously, you know, helping adults helping parents because I'm pretty sure they're quite lost. Um, you know, when it comes to cultivating, reading, have good support their kids. I mean, like, I know that my dad really struggled because I was really mischievous, I will try to find ways to make him forget reading time every night, or, you know, say I'm sleepy. I know, he struggled a lot to get me going in the library, I think I was running around. Probably, you know, getting scolded by the librarian, doing all sorts of things, embarrassing them and stuff like that. So I know, they went through a lot to get me to read. So I'm sure that parents must be really lost and you know, helping them like, understand that, yes, this is something that you can do. This is a mindset change that you can you have to first make for yourself, and then for your kids. And then now as an extension of that helping business owners, helping entrepreneurs, it's really nice for me just have such a close insight to all the good work that you're doing. So kudos to that. Thank you. Alrighty, Danny, if we were to wrap up like this entire episode, which I feel like we've spoken so, so much, and I've like I've definitely written down every single tip that you've mentioned, there's a lot. But if we were to wrap up this entire episode into three actionable tips that can help my viewers to start reading right away right after this podcast episode. What would it be?

Danny Brassell: 54:06

Well, the first one I'm going to give you is I want to serve you and your audience and give everybody some gifts. And so if you go to free gift from danny.com, free gift from danny.com, I'm going to give everybody a complimentary copy of my book, read, lead and succeed. This is a book I wrote it for a school principal who was trying to think of ways to positively engage his faculty. So I said, Okay, I'll write your book. And so every week I give you a concept, an inspirational quote, an inspirational story, a book recommendation on a book you should read, but you're probably too lazy because you're an adult. So I also give you a children's picture book recommendation that demonstrates the same concept and read that in five minutes. And then I'm also going to give you access to a five day reading challenge I recently did online for about 700 parents worldwide, where every day for five consecutive days I give you an hour We have all kinds of tips on how to get you and your child excited about reading. Because the more excited you are to read, the more likely you are to read. And the more you read, the better you get, you'll also be probably receiving at least one positive message a week for the rest of your life from me, keeping you positively focused, but losing too much of the positivity in the world. That's why I want to be around the prince of the world. Like we need your sparkle, your magic, that shine. As far as a couple of practical tips on how to get people reading more, you know, the first thing I always recommend to parents is turn on the Closed Captioning on the television set the subtitles, and people say well, wait a sec, if the shows in English and the subtitles are in English, what good does that do? And I'm like, well, that's a fair point. But let me make a point. Have you ever watched a show with subtitles and not looked at your subtitles? It's very difficult to do, your brain is directed towards that text. And there's actually research that supports this. If you look at reading scores around the world, the more kids watch TV, the lower their reading scores are in every country on the planet, except for one. The country that watches the most TV has the highest reading scores in the world. It's Finland. And people say well, how can that be? I'm like, well, because Finland makes really bad TV shows. And so what they have to do is they import all these old American comedies like Happy Days, and Brady Bunch, and they have to subtitle in Finnish all the time. So turn on the Closed Captioning, you know, and I guess I'll end with what I think is what your dad did, the single most important thing all of us can do as parents is to read aloud with our kids. And I've actually worked with parents that don't even need to know how to read, it doesn't matter. As long as you can look at the pictures, you can tell the story. And I've had kids that actually learn how to read from a non literate parent, and then they realise their parent wasn't literate. And there's a lot of stuff there. I mean, this is a little bit more, we can't have a research about it. But you know, it's that bond. Did you hear how highly you spoke of your father print. I mean, I love those stories. At the end of my programme, I always tell people, my Hey, it's been 67 days, I know your kids reading more, they're reading better, and they love reading, you know, our typical student boosts their reading ability by two to three grade levels in just over two months, which is all fine and good. But what's really cool, and what's exciting to me is that the kid now is going to be a reader for life. They're not reading because they have to they're reading because they get to, and most importantly I point out to parents is I just forced you to spend 20 minutes a day one on one with your child, how many of us adults would not have died to have had 20 minutes of attention from our parents every single day. I mean, I just gave you the gift of time with your child. You know the world. We've mentioned time management a couple of times in this interview. And we're making things happen too quickly. I think I'm hoping that one of the positive lessons from the pandemic is that people learn to slow down and value family and friends, sharing a nice meal together and a conversation, not having a bunch of screens in front of us all the time being able to talk to one another. And hopefully and that's the most important thing is what can we do to be a little bit kinder to one another. And so print the thing that I've always told my students, they always have to hear the same refrain, whether it's my little ones or my older ones. As they exit my classroom, I always say the same thing. I always say Remember kids, education is valuable. But execution is priceless. Knowledge is not power, only applied knowledge is power, knowing what the right thing to do. And doing the right thing are two very different things. So go out, do the right thing, and make this world a better place.

Prithvi Madhukar: 59:08

That's really, really wonderful. And I'm so sure that my listeners are gonna have so many valuable lessons to take away from this podcast episode. Thank you so so much, Danny, it has been such a pleasure to have you on my podcast episode. You know, it's just been such an honour to talk to you, and to have you give your valuable knowledge to us.

Unknown: 59:31

Likewise, great, thank you. Namaste.

Prithvi Madhukar: 59:33

Thank you so much. For those of you who are listening, you know, Danny, if they want to find you, where can they find you? I know you've given a few links. But let's, you know, kind of give them maybe your website, your social media pages, where can they find you?

Danny Brassell: 59:48

I'll just I'll just send you that so you can put it in the notes because it's perfect. All right. I don't want people getting in an accident listening to my hashtags.

Prithvi Madhukar: 59:58

Okay, that's a good one. Alright, guys, I'm going to definitely put them in the links in the description below. So definitely do check that out. If you want to reach out to Danny, he's on LinkedIn, I'm sure. And he's also on Instagram as well, from what I know. So I'm gonna put those links in the description box, definitely do reach out to him if you have any more questions, or if you'd like to follow Danny, to see more of the wonderful work that he's doing across the world. For those of you who are listening all the way up until here, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. It has been a pleasure for me to record this episode for you. And I hope that you have taken away as many wonderful lessons as I have personally taken from this podcast episode with Danny so thank you so much. I will catch you guys in my next podcast episode. Bye guys.