Dr. Danny Brassell
Affectionately known as “Jim Carrey with a Ph.D.,” Dr. Danny Brassell (www.DannyBrassell.com) has held a variety of titles and worked with leaders from a variety of fields and disciplines, but he has always considered himself first and foremost a teacher. He is a best-selling author of 18 books, including his latest, Misfits and Crackpots. For the past 25 years he has also been a lecturer and professor at a number of universities, including his current position as a faculty advisor for the CalStateTEACH program and distinguished visiting professor at the American University of Cairo.
A gregarious, sought-after author, speaker, accountability coach and business consultant, Danny is a recognized authority on leadership development, reading, motivation and communication skills and the co-creator of The Reading Habit™, the world’s top reading engagement program, as well as founder of The Lazy Readers’ Book Club™, which provides short book recommendations for busy people.
Danny’s mission is to empower leaders to transform their personal experiences into powerful business stories that inspire action, drive growth and create lasting impact. Thousands, from school districts to businesses to association conferences, have enjoyed his energetic, interactive and informative presentations. He has spoken to over 3,500 different audiences worldwide.
The co-founder of The WellCrafted Story Workshop™, he helps individuals, entrepreneurs and organizations around the world leverage speaking on stages as a major client lead source that converts.
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Danny
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/44xotc5jMbwRLINn56tjDV?si=meNEuKOZTp-Ih-OPAv5W-g
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Danny’s’ Transcript
Nigel Creaser (00:01)
Today I am delighted to welcome Danny Brussell, affectionately known as the Jim Carey with a PhD. He’s held a variety of titles and worked with leaders from a variety of fields and disciplines, but he has always considered himself first and foremost a teacher. He’s a best-selling author of 18 books, including his latest Misfits and Crackpots. For the past 25 years, he’s also been a lecturer
Nigel Creaser (00:28)
and professor at number of universities, including ⁓ Cal State Teach program ⁓ as faculty advisor ⁓ and visiting professor at the American University of Cairo. ⁓ A gregarious, sought after author. So this is going to be good. Speaker, accountable, ⁓ coach, business consultant. And Danny’s recognized as an authority in leadership development. ⁓ He is co-creator of The Reading Habit, ⁓ the world’s top reading engagement program, as well as
Nigel Creaser (00:57)
the founder of the lazy readers book club. ⁓ His mission is to empower leaders to transform their personal experiences into powerful business stories that inspire action, drive growth ⁓ and create lasting impact. ⁓ Danny, I’m not going to read the rest of it. There’s just too much to go there. There’s so much you’ve done there. Welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (01:17)
Thanks so much for having me, Nigel. Thanks a lot for that kind introduction and thanks for spreading some joy in the world. We need a lot more of you.
Nigel Creaser (01:23)
⁓ Yeah, I think we do need more joy. ⁓ And joy is a great thing. ⁓ you know, I ⁓ was ⁓ just tell us a little bit about you and where you are. And ⁓ people can guess from the accent where you originate, but it’s kind of a little bit more about who you are.
Dr. Danny Brassell (01:41)
Great. So I’m in Denver, Colorado in the United States. ⁓ If I was going to write an autobiography, it would probably be called Pivots because I feel like I’ve already lived nine lives. 30 years ago, I was a journalist. I worked covering President Bush Senior in the 1992 presidential election. I had a great job. I loved it. Got to meet every editor of every major daily. And one editor offered me a job doing the City Beat for $16,500 a year. ⁓
Nigel Creaser (01:54)
So, you. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (02:10)
Then a friend told me that they were hiring teachers in South Central Los Angeles in the inner city for $25,000 a year. So I became a teacher for the noblest of reasons, for the high pay. And I actually fell in love with teaching. I’ve taught all age levels from preschoolers all the way up to rocket scientists. I can make that claim because I used to teach English as a second language to engineering students at the University of Southern California. And then in 2005,
Nigel Creaser (02:29)
Yeah. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (02:36)
My wife and I attended a real estate seminar which turned out to be a scam and we lost everything overnight. And I could give you the woe is me story but I’m a positive person and I learned a lot from that experience. First of all, my wife is my soulmate. I put her through the wringer and she stood by me. She’s incredible. Second of all, I learned that money’s not everything because you can lose it just like that. Third, I try not to judge other people because…
Nigel Creaser (02:44)
⁓ You
Nigel Creaser (02:51)
course.
Dr. Danny Brassell (03:02)
If I was somebody who saw what I had done, I would have said, well, you deserve all of that. But now I realize if you don’t know everything about a person, you really don’t know anything about a person. Fourth, I became Christian, which I’m always embarrassed to admit, but the more I read the Bible, I’m not the first screw up to find Jesus. And then fifth, I didn’t want to have to file for bankruptcy. And my accountant said, well, you have to make this much more money this year. So I started speaking on the side and I hit his number right on the number.
Nigel Creaser (03:16)
Thank ⁓
Nigel Creaser (03:23)
I’m sorry. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (03:29)
Well, then the next year, Nigel, he gave me a much higher number and I hit that number right on the number. So in year three, I thought, well, maybe I should set a higher number. And basically during one of the worst economic downturns in world history, I was able to build up a very lucrative speaking business, which caught the eye of a lot of people who wanted me to coach them. And I always resisted being a coach Nigel because as a teacher, I’ve always had a very high standard for my students. I actually will not let you fail. I will hold you accountable.
Dr. Danny Brassell (03:58)
until you succeed, well, working with entrepreneurs and C-suite executives and business owners has been actually one of the most delightful experiences of my life because most of these people are highly motivated. They do the work and I just love seeing their success. And so that’s a very long answer to your short question. ⁓
Nigel Creaser (04:17)
No, that gives people a nice history of where you’ve come from because obviously where we are at the moment, our history frames us and shapes us in, like you say, positive ways and in different ways that we’ve taken it forward and different ways where we’ll rile against what’s there rather than accepting and working with it. And as leaders and the listenership on here will have gone through multiple different situations.
Nigel Creaser (04:47)
And to get to be the leader they are at the moment, whether they’re a great leader, a good leader, or an improving leader, most PMs generally, I ⁓ tend to find ⁓ we have a level of we could have done this better, because we go to the end of a project and it’s natural, you do those ⁓ lessons learned. So you’ve always got something in the back of thinking, ⁓ I didn’t quite go as slick as I’d like it to. ⁓ a thing that…
Nigel Creaser (05:15)
⁓ that struck me, there’s a couple of things that struck me in your bio. ⁓ Jim Carrey, love Jim Carrey anyway. ⁓ I was hoping I got Ace Ventura, I’m disappointed there’s no two two unless it’s ⁓ under the table sort of thing. ⁓ And so that was the first thing that made me think, yeah, that’s great. ⁓ And I think the other thing in there was around the fact that you talk about taking people’s story, as you’ve just talked about there and being able to use that and ⁓ using those stories to convey
Nigel Creaser (05:47)
messages and communicate with teams is something that sometimes we don’t want to do want to expose sort of raw nerves if you like. But I know that when I’ve had some of the most interesting conversations I’ve had with project teams is when I’ve talked about previous projects that have kind of south and how we’ve brought them back around and how I’ve made mistakes or things like that. I kind of
Dr. Danny Brassell (05:57)
Yeah.
Nigel Creaser (06:18)
long question, longer than your answer earlier. That’s sometimes the problem with this is my questions are longer than the answers. Just what was it that triggered you to think actually leadership was those working with those guys as coaching and obviously they asked you but what did you think actually? What did you think? There must be something in your brain thinking this is what I can bring to them. What was the thing that your USP that you thought
Nigel Creaser (06:46)
Yeah, I can. That makes the difference. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (06:49)
Well, you actually already touched upon something, Nigel, I think is really important when I’m working with people is ⁓ I see a lot of people bragging in presentations and it’s actually one of the big no-nos. And I try to teach people is stop sharing your successes, start sharing your failures because not everybody in your audience has succeeded, but they’ve all failed. And the more you talk about your own failures, the more your audience is going to see themselves in you. It’s a much quicker way to connect with audiences. ⁓ I’m working with a guy right now.
Nigel Creaser (07:09)
you
Dr. Danny Brassell (07:19)
and he’s climbed the highest peak on all seven continents. He did the Iditarod to the North Pole. He swam with sharks in Madagascar. I look at him, I’m like, nobody can relate to you. Nobody in your audience has climbed Mount Everest. But everybody, you know, everybody said something that was politically incorrect on a project site at some point, or they had a relationship go south, or I mean, I think ⁓ to be even safer.
Nigel Creaser (07:33)
⁓ on every planet, on every planet. ⁓
Nigel Creaser (07:40)
Yes.
Dr. Danny Brassell (07:46)
I love to, and this is the benefit of having taught kids, it’s those childhood stories are some of the best ways to connect with people. Cause everybody peed their pants when they were six years old. Everybody had an awkward middle school dance where they didn’t know who to, who to hang out with. And those are the ways you really connect with people. And that’s really, ⁓ I was actually working with some project managers recently and ⁓ you know, ⁓ one of them was highly successful and
Dr. Danny Brassell (08:16)
I said, you got to stop talking about all this. You ⁓ really got to focus on where do you struggle because you’re intimidating your team and it’s just not going to be effective as if you said, hey, I’ve been in your shoes before. I’ve had this problem. that’s really when you’re connecting with an audience, there’s two things that you need to do. ⁓ I run a company called the Wellcrafted Story Workshop with my two co-founders, coach Jimmy Hayes Nelson.
Nigel Creaser (08:17)
We ⁓ should stop. ⁓
Nigel Creaser (08:26)
I’m sorry.
Dr. Danny Brassell (08:46)
and Dave Ward, I call us the professor, the performer and the producer, because my background is in academia. Coach Jimmy was an actor on Broadway and Dave was an attorney and an AI specialist with some of the top Silicon Valley companies. ⁓ I, gosh, and now I don’t know where I was going with what, ⁓ I was saying that Coach Jimmy, ⁓ he says in the first five minutes of your presentation, you got to do three things and.
Dr. Danny Brassell (09:15)
You have to bear with me this entire episode, Nigel, because since I used to be a teacher, everything either rhymes or it’s alliterative. And so I say, in your first five minutes, you gotta rap. So you need to show you’re relatable, you need to establish your authority, and you need to show the audience your purpose. And so relatable is you need to show the audience, I’m just like you. I’ve had exactly that same problem. Authority is, and guess what? I solved that problem. And so you’re doing this when you’re sharing those stories.
Nigel Creaser (09:23)
So, I just wanted to give you a little bit a look at the process.
Dr. Danny Brassell (09:45)
with your teams and then finally your purpose ⁓ is, and now I work with people just like you because I don’t think we need to have those problems. Again, ⁓ the project managers I was working with, ⁓ one of them was a safety, he was safety coordinator. So he had to get everybody on board for safety ⁓ and nobody ever listens during his safety meetings. And so we came up with a story ⁓ about a three-fingered Tim and three
Dr. Danny Brassell (10:15)
Tim wasn’t paying attention and he lost two fingers. But what really got everybody to pay attention is he said, and now three finger Tim, ⁓ couldn’t ⁓ zip up the dress on his daughter’s wedding gown. ⁓ And ⁓ he has problems that he never anticipated before because he only has three fingers. Well, it’s those stories of all people. was Stalin who once said, a million people dead is a statistic. One person dead is a tragedy. Translation.
Nigel Creaser (10:43)
Yeah. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (10:44)
Facts tell, but stories sell. Facts inform, but stories transform. ⁓ And ⁓ I was on ⁓ a Christian podcast a couple of days ago, and I said, all you have to do is look at the Bible. I mean, I always read the Bible and I’m laughing all the time because I think Jesus is kind of fed up with the apostles all the time. He’s like, man, you’re so dense. Okay, let me tell you story so you get the point. You don’t have to be a Christian, and I guarantee you.
Dr. Danny Brassell (11:10)
You probably know the story of the prodigal son. You probably know the story of the good Samaritan, but I bet you ⁓ nine out of 10 Christians could not tell you the 10 commandments. Why? It’s presented as a list. It’s not presented as a story. I’ve never had a person Nigel like six months later say, ⁓ you know what I loved about your talk, Danny was that one PowerPoint slide that had 18 bullet points that I couldn’t read because the font was so small. Nobody’s ever said that. ⁓
Nigel Creaser (11:26)
and ⁓
Nigel Creaser (11:36)
The truth is, ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (11:40)
So that’s again, ⁓ another long answer to your short question, but ⁓ you actually already demonstrated it with your teams. I I love that you’re sharing, here’s some past failures. Here’s what I learned. Here’s how we’re going to get better. People are going to respect you a lot more for that. It makes you a much better leader.
Nigel Creaser (11:57)
Yeah, I was at conference last week. Was it last week? Week before? Week four, the Association for Project Management in the UK, they their two day conference and their keynote speaker on the second day. I can’t say his name because I’m going to have him on the show at some point. And the reason is I haven’t learnt to say his second name properly. It’s a Dutch name, his name is Root. And he was very engaging, very…
Nigel Creaser (12:27)
And ⁓ the topic of ⁓ the whole event was the projects for a better future. So how we as project managers can look at the UN 17 ⁓ items on the thing, I can’t remember what it’s called, and looking at sustainability. And he talked about a story and he told many, many stories through his presentation. And he was ⁓ fascinating, engaging. And one of the big ones he talked about was a
Nigel Creaser (12:55)
a young girl who’d gone to the UN who…
Nigel Creaser (13:01)
climate change was impacting her home and her country. And she didn’t say, she couldn’t speak very great English, more understood. And it’s probably a story that many people have heard before. I got a feeling I’ve heard it before, but it didn’t have the impact as it did this time. And then when she went round to the people out there and just looked and said, if not now, when? If not you, who?
Nigel Creaser (13:30)
And that was all she really said. And he talked about that. And he said, and then to you guys there, there’s project managers, ⁓ if not now, ⁓ when, and if not you, who? ⁓ Because we, if there’s change happening in the world, we as project managers are doing it. And like we changed the world, that’s our job. Yeah. And ⁓ there’s more of us changing the world over and over again. And if we decide to do something, we can do it. ⁓ it, but it was that, it, it could have just said that.
Nigel Creaser (14:00)
But the story of her ⁓ and ⁓ his PowerPoint slide was a picture of the little girl that was it. And I think it’s the UN Tower or something like that. wasn’t there wasn’t a, ⁓ as you say, a 50 point slide. It was but it was the story that was the power. And sometimes and ⁓ sometimes it’s our characters we try to we want to ⁓ convey all the information. I’ve been reviewing some slides recently.
Nigel Creaser (14:30)
⁓ And there’s lots of information. It’s not meant as a presentation, this particular set of slides, but ⁓ sometimes when you sit there, you’re just drowned in that data. And that data just didn’t give you anything. ⁓ You’ve got your well-crafted ⁓ story workshops and the way that you run those sort of business with entrepreneurs. And I think of project managers as entrepreneurs, be honest, ⁓ with varying levels of ⁓ guardrails around them.
Dr. Danny Brassell (14:53)
Definitely.
Nigel Creaser (14:58)
depending on the organization. When you talk to entrepreneurs, what is it that you what is it? think you covered some of that your purpose and things like that. How do you use it? How did your project managers? How do you advise them to find out what that relatable thing is? Find out what that purpose is and because it’s a bit of internal searching, I would imagine is what comes to my mind. How do you go about coaching them in that?
Dr. Danny Brassell (15:26)
Well, I’ll give your audience a quick strategy right now. Later on, get in a comfortable chair with a pen and paper, libation of choice. I wish I was ruining you with your libation right now. I’m stuck in water. ⁓ Okay, well done. Well done. ⁓ If your audience believes that one, we’ll tell you another. ⁓
Nigel Creaser (15:34)
Mine’s alcohol free, so there ⁓ you ⁓
Nigel Creaser (15:48)
No, I haven’t got a can here. ⁓ It’s a regular one for me. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (15:53)
Excellent. Well, so sit down later with a pen and paper, libation of choice and a comfortable chair. And for an hour, I want you to write down every story that’s ever happened to you. And I don’t mean the entire story. I just mean triggers. Like the time I locked myself out of the car in front of the grocery store. The time dad spilled mustard on his tie when we went to that fancy restaurant. You’ll find in about an hour, you can come up with 500 little anecdotes like this.
Dr. Danny Brassell (16:20)
So that’s the first part of the exercise. The second part of the exercise is then I want you to think about, what’s this story really about? Oh, this is a story about building up my team. Oh, this is a story of never giving up. Oh, this is a story of trust. And on my computer, I literally have hundreds of folders with probably thousands or tens of thousands of these little stories that I’m trying to make a point in the presentation.
Nigel Creaser (16:21)
So I see the rest of you in the next few minutes. ⁓
Nigel Creaser (16:35)
Very nice.
Nigel Creaser (16:43)
So these little stories, you might read, times the size of a little star. It’s gonna be fun one.
Dr. Danny Brassell (16:47)
I have different stories to follow on. ⁓ I’ll demonstrate one. So ⁓ I can do this at the beginning of a talk. I’ll say, you know, when I was an elementary school teacher, every other teacher at my school went through hundreds, if not thousands of band-aids every single year. mean, kids love band-aids. They work better than smokes on the prison yard. Well, every year I went through exactly one band-aid and my colleagues always ask me, what’s your secret? Well,
Dr. Danny Brassell (17:14)
On the first day of school, I always have one chubby little boy in class, we’ll call him Paco, and Paco’s picking at his scab all morning long, and finally after lunch, he has success, and the annoying little girl next to him raises her hand, rubs her nose, and says, Miss Brissau, Paco’s bleeding. I’m like, oh my goodness, Paco, you know what you need? You need a band-aid. Now 33 little heads look at me and I say, you know, I have a drawer full of band-aids in my desk.
Dr. Danny Brassell (17:42)
And I don’t have just ordinary Band-Aids. I have Mighty Morphin Power Ranger Band-Aids. And I’m gonna give you the Green Ranger, cause he’s the coolest. Now Paco’s smiling, all the kids are grinning ear to ear. I walk Paco to my desk, I say, ⁓ before I put on the Band-Aid, we have to clean out the wound. And I show all the kids the bottle of rubbing alcohol. I say, ⁓ squeeze onto my hand Paco, this might sting a little bit. I start pouring on the rubbing alcohol, he’s, ⁓
Nigel Creaser (17:42)
⁓ Do I?
Nigel Creaser (17:57)
Thank you. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (18:11)
There you go, anybody else need a band-aid? My students, they have a skull fracture and they will never ask me for a band-aid. Ladies and gentlemen, today I’m not gonna give you band-aids, I’m gonna give you practical strategies on how to create a well-crafted story that inspires action, drives growth and creates a lasting impact with your audience. And so what I’ve done is I’ve taken a story and again, I always, yeah.
Nigel Creaser (18:16)
Last year, was Amazon. I think it was Amazon.
Dr. Danny Brassell (18:41)
I’m a little bit different than a lot of coaches. A lot of coaches will tell you, you have to talk about a traumatic ⁓ moment in your life. And there’s three reasons why I don’t do that. First of all, the world just survived the global pandemic. Everybody’s had a lot of bad stuff happen to them. I don’t think we need another sad story. I we need more stories of hope. Second of all, what I’m teaching you, what Jimmy and I coach our clients to do is how to create what we call a well-crafted story. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (19:07)
politicians would call it their stump speech. ⁓ Superhero movies, they say it’s your origin story. You can call it peanut butter and jelly. It doesn’t matter what you call it. This is a way you’re gonna introduce yourself to new audiences again and again. Do you really wanna talk about the worst day of your life again and again? I mean, I have a friend, his daughter was killed in a school shooting and he’s told that story to over a thousand audiences. I have no idea how he does it. You have to be stronger than me to do that. And then third, and this is where,
Nigel Creaser (19:25)
Hmm.
Dr. Danny Brassell (19:36)
people get angry with me, I have one objective when I’m on stage. I want you to leave feeling better than when you came in. I want you laughing, smiling, happy. I think there’s something admirable about that as an objective. I believe the people that tell you the same sad story again and again, by the 20th time they’re telling it, now those are crocodile tears and now they’re being manipulative. And I’m not saying it’s not an effective sales strategy, it’s actually a very effective sales strategy. But I personally,
Dr. Danny Brassell (20:02)
Don’t want have to a shower after I get off stage because I just manipulated my audience. There are ethical ways to get people to want to continue to do business with you. And so I always like to add humor. experience has taught me that people remember funny stories. ⁓ And ⁓ it’s actually the movie Inception. ⁓ There’s a great scene where they’re trying to implant this idea in this man’s head. And one of the guys says, ⁓ let’s put in this negative memory. And Leonardo DiCaprio, the main character is like, no, no, no.
Dr. Danny Brassell (20:31)
always put in a positive memory because a positive memory always trumps a negative memory in the end. And I agree with that. ⁓ so that’s what I’m trying to do is trying to get, I’m trying to pull out. I, again, I like to use humor. I work with a lot of people. I was just working with ⁓ some ⁓ engineers in Silicon Valley and one of the gentlemen ⁓ was a really nice Indian guy. Just so you know.
Nigel Creaser (20:51)
Thank ⁓
Nigel Creaser (20:57)
Got it. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (20:59)
Engineers are kind of introverted and he’s ⁓ scared to death to speak. He’s like, Danny, please help me. You know, you have to make me funny. So people will listen to me. And so he has a very difficult name to pronounce. I’m not going to give you his real, I never tell my real names or clients ⁓ or company. We’ll say his name. So, so we changed his presentation. He starts off now. He’s like, hello, my name is Shubhannakar Majahardin.
Dr. Danny Brassell (21:27)
Gee, sure hope I’m pronouncing that correctly. ⁓ all you’re trying, you don’t have to be a comedian. All you’re trying to do is to get the audience to smile and to nod like, ⁓ this is somebody that doesn’t take themselves too seriously. Nobody likes a person who takes themselves too seriously. That’s a jerk. mean, ⁓ yeah. So you want to be relatable ⁓ is the most important thing. And so I, and I love working with executives because
Nigel Creaser (21:45)
Yeah. Yeah. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (21:54)
Like you, I’m happy that you at the ⁓ project manager conference in the UK, that they were smart enough to get this Dutch guy who was relating to the audience. There’s nothing worse than a bad speaker. ⁓ You’re just sitting there, ⁓ the clock, it feels like it’s going backwards. like, when is this thing going to end? There’s nothing worse. And so I can’t stand.
Nigel Creaser (21:55)
Thank
Dr. Danny Brassell (22:20)
bad presentations, can’t, and don’t get me wrong, I help people, a lot of them will talk about a traumatizing moment, but my rule is if you talk about something sad, there better be a happy ending. I want hope. ⁓ I can’t stand the people that are like, know, they’re a country western song, they’re like, well, my wife left me and my dog died and then my truck got a flat tire and then I’m like, geez, does anything good ever happen to you? It’s miserable. ⁓
Nigel Creaser (22:26)
talk about it, how it’s used.
Nigel Creaser (22:47)
Thanks.
Nigel Creaser (22:50)
⁓ Yeah, I know what mean. I can see that. ⁓ I find that ⁓ I ⁓ generally and it’s an interesting thing because ⁓ there’s the and I’m sure you’ll have heard of the office ⁓ and the British office and I’ve found ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (23:09)
It’s better, the British one’s better, I like that. British humor’s more irreverent, I love it. ⁓
Nigel Creaser (23:15)
Yeah, ⁓ but to be fair, the American office is very good as well. But the ⁓ there’s a I found myself doing the things that ⁓ I forget his name now. ⁓ Anyway, Ricky Gervais’s character, ⁓ Andy Milman. That’s his name. ⁓ Yeah, when he’s when he’s doing no, that’s in these other one extras. Well, I can’t remember his name. I’ve got David Brent. That’s his name.
Dr. Danny Brassell (23:19)
Great, too.
Dr. Danny Brassell (23:32)
stack. ⁓
Nigel Creaser (23:43)
I’ve watched his film as well, is ⁓ hysterically bad taste ⁓ and very good. ⁓ But it’s there where you see that and the trying to be relatable and how you balance that relatability, man of the people, ⁓ knowing ⁓ where that sits. And as a manager, I found myself going, hang on, am I just being David Brent here, the entertainer?
Nigel Creaser (24:11)
And, and you mean you, you, kind of literally last month I was in here and we had a team, so 30 people there. And I was doing the, just after lunch, just talking through what we were going to be doing the rest of the day and sort of things, which got all together, very indifferent things going on. I said, I won’t kick, so you’re all sleeping now, aren’t you? know, cause you just had your lunch and you’re a bit tired. And I noticed one of our teams, she was yawning.
Nigel Creaser (24:39)
And I looked at her and said, see, I told you. And she ⁓ looked utterly confused. And I was looking at her thinking, and then from there she just carried on looking confused. And I’m like, ⁓ well, she hadn’t heard what I’d said before. ⁓ I pointed at her. But at that moment, I had a complete David Brent moment thinking, ⁓ I just, what have I done? I, is it, have I done the right thing, the wrong thing? ⁓ And, and ⁓ later on I went over and said to her, said, saw that, blah, blah. then she, ⁓ I hear you.
Dr. Danny Brassell (24:56)
Yeah.
Nigel Creaser (25:09)
It was just, but at that moment you think I’m being the comedian and it’s landed not in a trying to make everyone laugh, just making it a little bit there. And it is something that I find that sometimes I’m very self-conscious though I’m, I can’t stop myself trying to make the joke that obviously comes up with sometimes we’re growing up in the seventies and eighties means I’ve got to stop my brain being my dad and the TV at that time.
Nigel Creaser (25:36)
⁓ But ⁓ which is much better than it ever used to be. But ⁓ the thing now is still that joke of ⁓ making the joke, seeing it land or not land and then that as a speaker when it doesn’t land, ⁓ that utter panic inside. ⁓ You just plow, I just plowed on. ⁓ And how do you, because I imagine there’s people out there that you’re coaching who aren’t like you say, aren’t natural speakers, ⁓ who that
Nigel Creaser (26:06)
that whole thing of not just getting the message across but that trying to land something and it just goes down like a lead balloon. How do you help, how do you coach people to go through that? Because it’s going to happen to someone or something isn’t it? ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (26:17)
Yeah, I mean, that’s, yeah, that’s a great question, Nigel, because most of the people I work with either don’t like speaking or they’re terrified of speaking. And so I always tell people there’s two ways to get better at speaking. First of all, you should watch lots of speakers. I watch 10 speakers a day. I watch politicians. I watch televangelists. I watch comedians. I watch them in front of big groups, in front of small groups, in front of men, in front of women. Here, I’ll give you a ninja strategy. I watch a lot of televised award shows.
Nigel Creaser (26:34)
Thank you. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (26:47)
And people always ask me why. I’m like, well, when you win the Academy Award, you only have 45 seconds to connect with your audience. I wanna see how people use their time. Now, most people waste their time. They get up there like, I wanna thank God, I wanna thank the Academy. It’s stupid, nobody’s paying attention. But every now and then, a person does a brilliant job. So a few years ago, there was a gentleman by the name of Joe Walker who won the Academy Award for best film editing. Now, Nigel.
Nigel Creaser (26:52)
So.
Nigel Creaser (26:56)
Peace.
Dr. Danny Brassell (27:15)
This is the important people in Hollywood or in the audience in the front, the actors. And you can tell they’re not paying attention. The camera’s showing them they’re not paying attention. It’s film editing. ⁓ And Joe Walker gets up there and he’s British and he decides to speak slowly and deliberately. And he says, a lot of people don’t know this, ⁓ but when phrased properly, the term Academy Award nominee can be used as an insult.
Nigel Creaser (27:15)
Not this ⁓ one.
Nigel Creaser (27:20)
⁓ Thank you.
Dr. Danny Brassell (27:41)
Well, now the camera’s scanning the audience. You see people leaning in like, what’s he talking about? And he says, for example, yesterday I got into an argument with my 17 year old daughter and she said, well, Academy Award nominee Joe Walker. All of a sudden you see everybody laughing hysterically. He gets off stage, ⁓ Zell Washington wants to meet him. Sondra Bullock wants to meet him. Brad Pitt wants to meet him. Time Magazine said it was one of the highlights of the Academy Awards. Well done, Mr. Walker.
Nigel Creaser (27:59)
Good luck.
Nigel Creaser (28:05)
.
Nigel Creaser (28:09)
Yeah.
Dr. Danny Brassell (28:10)
That’s how you connect. ⁓ So first of all, you should watch lots of people. The second way you get better at speaking. I’ve been blessed with lots of wonderful coaches and mentors in my life. One of my coaches was a guy by the name of Jim Rohn. And Jim used to say, you can’t pay other people to do your pushups. Translation, you’ve got to practice. You got to do the reps. You got to, even the smallest towns have lion’s club, optimist club, rotary club, ⁓ juanist club. They got schools, they got
Nigel Creaser (28:29)
Yeah. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (28:39)
churches, temples, synagogues, chambers of commerce. mean, ⁓ I love that you have this podcast, Nigel. I guarantee you, the first time you did this podcast, you sucked. And the second time you did it, you sucked. But you didn’t suck as bad as you did the first time. And now it’s like a well-oiled machine. You’re going over your checklist before we went on air and you have a whole routine now and you’re feeling comfortable. ⁓ Well, it’s fine. That’s why you have a ⁓
Nigel Creaser (29:03)
I still missed my mic though, didn’t I? ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (29:09)
But you see, it’s a skill. You can learn it. And that’s what, when I’m working with people that are terrified or whatever, or they don’t land jokes, I mean, I do say this, it is a rule. If you’re not funny, don’t tell jokes because jokes can really screw up a lot of, I mean, and the office is a perfect example of that. But what I loved that by you giving that example, that’s actually demonstrating to your audience, maybe you feel like you don’t have anything funny about your life.
Nigel Creaser (29:27)
Yeah.
Dr. Danny Brassell (29:36)
So why don’t you refer to a funny movie or a funny TV show? That’s good. And it’s a lot safer. mean, uh, definitely a lot safer, but if you are going to use humor, the safest thing to do is just always put it on yourself. I always, if I’m going to make a joke, I’m going to make, I’ll give you an example. Um, when I first started speaking, I spoke primarily to teachers on how to get their kids reading. And in one of my presentations, I said, you know,
Nigel Creaser (29:51)
us. ⁓
Nigel Creaser (30:01)
It’s written.
Dr. Danny Brassell (30:03)
Some kids don’t like books, so make sure you have newspapers, have magazines, heck. You got a bunch of fat kids, give them menus, they’ll read those. Well, three obese teachers complained that I was insulting. And so I used the same, so here’s how I changed it. Hey, some kids don’t like to read books, have newspapers, have magazines, heck. When I was a kid, the only thing I used to do was eat. You got a kid like that, give them a menu. I’m making the exact same point.
Dr. Danny Brassell (30:33)
but now I’ve made myself the butt of the joke and people like it when you make fun of yourself. And I don’t like people that make fun of other people too, especially, know, it’s all right. Again, even when I’m watching the Academy Awards, it’s all right to make fun of Brad Pitt or George Clooney. Why? Because they’re at the top of the heap. It’s not all right to make fun of like some actor that was famous 50 years ago and now they’re not so famous. Now that’s just a little bit.
Nigel Creaser (30:35)
I think that’s
Nigel Creaser (30:56)
Yes. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (31:02)
degrading. ⁓ So you gotta ⁓ be careful with humor, but the easiest way to be careful is to put it on yourself.
Nigel Creaser (31:03)
Yeah.
Nigel Creaser (31:11)
Yeah, I ⁓ get that. It’s one I’ve… ⁓
Nigel Creaser (31:19)
⁓ My wife nailed me once with something where I was trying to be funny. ⁓ And she said to me once, you’re so funny, you should be a project manager. ⁓ that’s something that if I’ve got anything where I’m in a career conversation about project management, I will use that because ⁓ she stung me completely really on that. It just hammered me. It was just like.
Dr. Danny Brassell (31:29)
Yeah ⁓
Nigel Creaser (31:45)
Yeah, but yeah, those sort of things is kind of an enhanced reason I’ve got this career. No, that was from a while ago. it is. It’s a really difficult thing. I’ve had conversations around with Peter Taylor, who’s the and it’s gonna be interesting because you’ve got the lazy readers book club. Peter Taylor is the lazy project manager. And he’s a speaker. Always want to have fun. The project manager that smiled is one of his books.
Nigel Creaser (32:15)
And Pete was my first interviewee on this show. So the crap interview that we’re all about, that’s the one with Peter. ⁓ was my first guinea pig. ⁓ But Pete, Peter and I have talked about how using humor in ⁓ management, in project management is ⁓ how it’s ⁓ really useful. you’ve got to, as we’ve talked about it before, how you make sure that you ⁓ make the right humor, how it can be used and how it shouldn’t be used. ⁓
Nigel Creaser (32:44)
You need to think you can’t just tell as I go back to 1970s working men’s club in Britain, you can’t, you can’t and shouldn’t tell the jokes that are around in those days because and you’ve got to be conscious, I think of society’s move and how society changes because what even now what is acceptable now as a joke may not be in 10 years, depending on what happens in the world globally, societally, whatever, there’ll be things that won’t be right. So you’ve got to be conscious of what you’re doing.
Nigel Creaser (33:15)
And that kind of get ⁓ kind of spins me into and the mention of Robert Ron because I’m very fortunate to have seen Robert speaking over here in the UK ⁓ and listen to a few of his speeches at different times. And I’ve got his book ⁓ upstairs somewhere. I can’t think where ⁓ it’s definitely upstairs. ⁓ And ⁓ you’ve got the lazy readers book club and the ⁓ reading habit.
Nigel Creaser (33:42)
engagement program. Do want to tell us a little bit about that? Because, again, conversation I had last week with a gentleman was talking about how he’s done a book where he’s tried to distill down multiple bits from lots of different books so that you can pick it up and read for five minutes, 15 minutes, half an hour, an hour, but drag it, but being able to pick up a single book and go, whichever, whatever time you have, you can do one of them.
Nigel Creaser (34:12)
⁓ And so ⁓ the whole ⁓ and the reason he talks about it is so reading becomes a habit. ⁓ Why did you start and how did that come about?
Dr. Danny Brassell (34:23)
So it’s ironic because I grew up hating reading. My father was a librarian. I always hated the public library. It always smelt funny to me. The furniture was uncomfortable. There was always some elderly woman telling me to be quiet. There’s always some freaky homeless guy thinks he’s a vampire hanging out by the bookshelves. I hated it. ⁓ And ⁓ it wasn’t until I started teaching in the inner city and I saw a lot of my students didn’t have a lot of the resources I had growing up. And I basically said shame on me. I mean,
Nigel Creaser (34:47)
It’s not a lot of
Dr. Danny Brassell (34:52)
I was blessed. Both of my parents were in the home. We were poor, but we always had food on the table. And my parents always read to us kids, in front of us kids. We had plenty of access to reading materials. ⁓ And ⁓ I started watching my students and figuring out why, in my opinion, they weren’t reading. so, and this was a good thing about having lots of different age levels too, watching what it was. I’ll give you an example. When I was teaching ⁓ second grade, eight year olds, ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (35:21)
I had a little boy named Kiara and Kiara’s first grade teacher told me, Kiara don’t know nothing. I’m like, well, thank you for that. Well, Kiara, who don’t know nothing, comes into my classroom one day. like, Hey, Mr. Brassell, you see Barclay last night, had 18 points and 16 rebounds. like, thank you, Kiara. Because from that point forward, every day after lunch, I’d sit Kiara on my lap. We’d read the LA Times sports page together. And by the end of the year, Kiara was one of the best readers in class.
Nigel Creaser (35:29)
you
Nigel Creaser (35:33)
for selling your seat for not just buying it.
Dr. Danny Brassell (35:50)
all that kid ever read was sports. the research is very clear on this. I always tell people, it doesn’t matter if you’re reading James Joyce or James and the Giant Peach, people who read more read better. The little boy who only reads Captain Underpants is going to become a better reader than the little boy who refuses to read anything. Captain Underpants is the gateway drug to Shakespeare, but we gotta get the kid hooked first. And so I’m constantly, I…
Nigel Creaser (36:03)
We’ll be back in a minute.
Dr. Danny Brassell (36:18)
I see that as a problem. Actually, I was just on a podcast in Nigeria the other day ⁓ and they were asking, how do we help Nigerian students? I’m like, well, Nigeria’s school system is still based on the British system. And so they’re forcing kids to meet Paul Dickens and William Shakespeare and Jane Austen. There’s nothing wrong with any of those three authors. They’re fantastic. Great. But I think maybe a lot of those kids would benefit from reading somebody like Juhui Chappie, who’s Nigerian.
Dr. Danny Brassell (36:46)
This is somebody that the kids could relate to. ⁓ When I was in high school, one of my teachers forced me to read the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. And no offense to people who love the Scarlet Letter. ⁓ The story is about Hester Prynne ⁓ commits adultery, so she has to wear an A on her chest. And I raised my hand in class and I asked my teacher if I could wear a B on my chest because I was so bored reading that book. ⁓
Nigel Creaser (36:49)
Yeah.
Nigel Creaser (37:09)
you
Dr. Danny Brassell (37:15)
Think about if the teacher just found something that I was interested in. And that’s what I do with my own children is I just figure out what they’re interested in. And then I find things that they’ll read because the way you make reading a habit, people avoid things they don’t like. So you got to make it something that you like. And so ⁓ if you love knitting, read about knitting. ⁓ If ⁓ you like ⁓ the premier league football, ⁓
Nigel Creaser (37:31)
Yeah. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (37:45)
Read about career league football. mean, that’s what’s gonna get, ⁓ I can’t tell you how many boys they say that the kid can’t read, but I’m like, you give them trading cards, they can read everything on that trading card. ⁓ I worked with kids, like little kids, even kindergartners, and they say, this kid can’t read. I’m like, really? The kid can read Kidditch, they can read Hogwarts.
Dr. Danny Brassell (38:09)
⁓ They understand Dumbledore. Those are pretty complicated vocabulary words, but they’re meaningful to the kid because they’re interested in it. If the kid likes vampires, read vampire books to them. So that’s why I became, and then it drives me nuts when people say they have no time. That’s why I created Lazy Readers Book Club. People say they have no time to read. I’m like, yeah, who has time to read after you watch the game on TV, have a couple of beers, go out shopping. mean, who has time to read anything? Life is all about priorities. And so.
Nigel Creaser (38:17)
Thank
Dr. Danny Brassell (38:37)
You gotta make reading something, and the way you make it into a habit is you just ingrain it into your day. I do a couple of things. Here’s a strategy I share with parents is ⁓ turn on the closed captioning on the television set. And people say, well, wait a sec. If the show is in English and the subtitles are in English, what good does that do? I’m like, well, that’s a fair point, but let me make a point.
Nigel Creaser (38:51)
to get on top of this.
Dr. Danny Brassell (39:01)
Have you ever watched a show with subtitles and not looked at the subtitles? It’s actually very difficult to do. Your brain is actually directed towards the text. And there’s actual research that supports this. If you look at reading scores around the world, the more kids watch TV, the their reading scores are in every single country on the planet, except for one. The country where kids watch the most TV also has the highest reading scores in the world. It’s Finland.
Dr. Danny Brassell (39:26)
And people always ask, well, how can that be Danny? I’m like, well, because Finland makes really bad TV shows. And so what they have to do ⁓ is they have to import all these old American sitcoms like ⁓ Good Times and Welcome Back Cotter or British shows like Faulty Towers. And they’re translated into Finnish the kids are reading all the time. So turn on the closed captioning you want your kid to read. ⁓ I have three children and when they were little, I figured that the kids are gonna watch TV, whether I like it or not.
Nigel Creaser (39:52)
and figure out the best way to get it you’re not going to destroy it.
Dr. Danny Brassell (39:55)
And so I allow them to watch television, but the price of admission ever since they were little is they had to bring me a book and we would read the book and then they could turn on the TV. Now my kids are older and so they’ll bring me like their iPad and we’ll read a news story or something together. But it’s just a habit. And that’s what you have to do with people is when I created the reading habit, there’s two numbers people need to know. The numbers are 67 and 20.
Dr. Danny Brassell (40:25)
So a lot of people say it takes 21 days to change a habit. And to those people I say, ⁓ show me the research on that. ⁓ It’s completely fabricated. ⁓ And I know exactly where it comes from. It comes from a great book written in 1960 called Psycho-Cybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz. Dr. Maltz was a plastic surgeon and in the foreword of the book, he said, he noticed it took most of his patients about 21 days to get used to their new faces.
Nigel Creaser (40:46)
It’s so expensive.
Dr. Danny Brassell (40:53)
Well, a lot of self-help gurus, personal development people, people I respect by the way, they started saying it takes 21 days to change a habit and there’s no research to support that whatsoever. So in 2009, University of London did a habit study to see how long it takes people to form habits. And in their study, they found it took anywhere from 18 to 254 days to change a habit. And the average was 66 days. Well, I don’t like the number 66, so I threw in a bonus day, 67 days.
Dr. Danny Brassell (41:22)
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, that could take over 250 days. And this is why this is important, Nigel, is let’s say you go on a diet and you follow it religiously. And then on day 22, you fall off the wagon. You blame yourself.
Dr. Danny Brassell (41:48)
Well, that’s wrong because the research shows it takes three times longer than that on average for people to form a habit. So the first number ⁓ is 67. The second number is 20. ⁓ Researchers were looking at reading scores around the world. They were looking at what makes successful students successful. So they looked at the highest students, the medium students, and the lowest students. So they looked at the 20th percentile. The 20th percentile, they asked them how much time do you spend reading a
Dr. Danny Brassell (42:17)
reading outside of school. And this fascinated them. The kids in the 20th percentile spent less than a minute a day. That didn’t surprise the researchers. That’s why the kids are probably at the bottom of the class. But the next number did surprise the researchers. The kids in the middle, the 70th percentile, your average students, they averaged 9.6 minutes a day reading outside of school. And so when I’m doing a live training with parents, the first parent raises their hand and says, wait a second.
Dr. Danny Brassell (42:47)
Are you saying if I can get my kid to read 10 minutes a day at home, I can take them from an F to a C, from the bottom to the middle? That’s exactly what I’m saying. There’s actually a lot of research to support this, but the next number floored the researchers. The kids in the 90th percentile, some of your top students, do they spend three hours a day reading outside of school on average? No. Do they spend an hour a day outside of school reading on average? No.
Nigel Creaser (43:02)
20 minutes.
Dr. Danny Brassell (43:13)
The average was just over 20 minutes a day, 20 minutes a day. That’s what I’m trying to get parents to promote at home. And there’s two things that they need to know. First of all, being read aloud to is just as good as reading on your own. ⁓ I mean, I read with, I work with a lot of dyslexic students and dyslexic students, ⁓ Richard Branson’s dyslexic, George Washington was dyslexic, Tom Cruise is dyslexic. Well, dyslexics tend to process things very well with their ears. And so I say, put on an audio book.
Dr. Danny Brassell (43:43)
Those minutes count. mean, and then the other thing that’s great is the minutes don’t have to be consecutive. So let’s say it takes you 10 minutes both ways to drive your kids to and from school, put in the audio book, listen to it on the way to and from school. So again, it doesn’t have to be so complicated, but I think that, I think people, I’ve always said that, you know, readers don’t necessarily become effective leaders, but I’ve never seen an effective leader who’s also,
Nigel Creaser (43:44)
Thanks.
Dr. Danny Brassell (44:12)
not also an avid reader. ⁓ and especially in your business and project management, ⁓ Nigel, just the stories that you can come up with from reading, ⁓ are ⁓ crucial in being an effective leader.
Nigel Creaser (44:15)
to you.
Nigel Creaser (44:23)
you
Nigel Creaser (44:30)
It’s interesting because reading for me has been an interesting relationship with reading for me because as a kid, I’m not sure what I was like when I was really little. can’t really remember. I assume I was quite interested. But I remember doing English language and English literature in secondary school. So this is in the 80s. So in the UK. And it was Shakespeare. And it was Caesar. It was Julius Caesar. And for whatever reason,
Nigel Creaser (44:59)
I ⁓ couldn’t get on with it. Been understanding, which is no interest to me. My brain still goes there, why the academics and nowadays it’s slightly different, but why an academic would choose something like Caesar, which is ⁓ a very complicated ⁓ Game of Thrones-esque ⁓ political drama. ⁓ Whereas something like Midsummer’s Night ⁓ is just about daft names. It’s got the name Bottom and it’s about boys and girls. You make this. ⁓
Nigel Creaser (45:29)
it’s a bit lewd. And maybe that’s why but you know, I mean, there are so many great Shakespeare plays that are just about that are funny. There’s great jokes in there. There’s interesting action going on in there. Macbeth even is another one that kind of nowadays, having seen that. But so that knocked me on literature. And we did cider with Rosie, which is
Nigel Creaser (45:55)
I’ve come to like a bit differently in that from the understand a little bit differently on that one. But I ended up, but I was kid who’s I was Star Wars 1977. My religion started with Star Wars as a Jedi. And that’s how much influence it had on me kind of thing. I kind of like I was just obsessed with Star Wars. And so I ended up dropping down into a lower set. But that was where you chose your own classic. And I chose HG Wells. And I had
Dr. Danny Brassell (46:06)
Mm-hmm. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (46:23)
Mm, great.
Nigel Creaser (46:24)
First Man on the Moon and I read The Island of Doctor Moreau and I read, just, First Man, what’s it called? War of the Worlds. And I just got utterly into his writing. And I’ve revisited his writing again in the last five years and it’s hysterical writing because it’s so.
Dr. Danny Brassell (46:36)
Yeah, Journey to the Center, they would follow those.
Nigel Creaser (46:51)
It’s in ⁓ the 1800s. was one bit where there was one line was ⁓ on First Man and the Moon when they, ⁓ it might have been Portal Worlds anyway, nothing was with First Man and the Moon. They were on the moon and the one of them said, it was as out of place as a cockney in the countryside. ⁓ Was the phrase that the guy used, that these characters used in it, which just had me howling. ⁓ Just because it was just ⁓ of its time and talks about the…
Dr. Danny Brassell (47:06)
Bye.
Nigel Creaser (47:17)
the suburbs of London, there are suburbs of London now about massive countryside walks between them. And just, I love the descriptive nature of his writing and engaging in print. But that got me, but then again, I didn’t read much from there. then a mate of mine gave me a Terry Pratchett book, who for me, from a writing perspective, is just up there with humour, satire, political commentary, brilliant all the way through, parody.
Dr. Danny Brassell (47:43)
Mm-hmm.
Nigel Creaser (47:47)
And I got every time I read his book and I kind of have read self development books and things like that. But I always have a thing where I get in habit of it and then drop off that habit. ⁓ But I do ⁓ find that with the job as a project manager, the actual energy of reading, not reading something new, but ⁓ I’m reading emails every day, I’m reading documents every day, I’m writing every day. But I always find that that ⁓ external habit.
Nigel Creaser (48:17)
for me is quite tough. But ⁓ what you’ve just said there is if I’m reading 20 minutes a day ⁓ of something that is going to ⁓ inform or enrich me rather than just doom scrolling on Facebook or ⁓ Instagram and reading a list clickbait, that’s helping me with my development.
Dr. Danny Brassell (48:19)
Yeah.
Dr. Danny Brassell (48:39)
Mm-hmm.
Nigel Creaser (48:40)
And that 10 minutes isn’t that much, is it? And I really, yeah, I need to get back into that. We’ll have it with a keep the book. Go on, sorry.
Dr. Danny Brassell (48:44)
Not at all. Not at
Dr. Danny Brassell (48:48)
Well, I love that you found somebody like H.G. mean, you know, one of the first books ⁓ when people ask me my favorite book, you know, I have lots of favorite books, but one of the first books that I loved was The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adam. ⁓ It was the first book that I had to put down because I lacking so hard. ⁓ so then I started
Nigel Creaser (49:00)
⁓ Fantastic. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (49:13)
And then I realized something like, cause I love British humor. I love Monty Python. And I was like, wait a sec. They have books about Monty Python. And so I would just, I actually just read, I read Eric Idle’s autobiography and John Cleaves’ autobiography. used to read all the Michael Palin travel stories, even though they weren’t really funny, but it was Michael Palin and I loved Michael Palin. ⁓ but I, just couldn’t get enough of that. And I think that’s what people have to do. I, I love it when, ⁓ if I’m with a little kid.
Dr. Danny Brassell (49:43)
and they like a Berenstain book, Bear’s book. I’m like, great, because there’s 400 to choose from. ⁓ know, J.K. Rowling, God bless her. I mean, she wrote these books that like, I think what, seven volumes or eight volumes? I think it’s seven volumes. But I know kids that were never interested in reading that they just, they can’t get enough of it. I mean, think about you with Star Wars. So they make the movie, but then they come up with a comic book. They come up with book series. I mean,
Nigel Creaser (49:58)
Yes. ⁓
Nigel Creaser (50:12)
Okay.
Dr. Danny Brassell (50:12)
You know, and you’re right, I ⁓ don’t know if I can prove it, but ⁓ I think organized religion ⁓ actually dropped after Star Wars, that Star Wars actually kind of created its own religion, because people will read. ⁓ It’s fascinating to me. Plus, ⁓ when people make fun of it, I’m like, well, I mean, I’m a Christian, but I mean, think about it. ⁓ Where’s the proof? mean, ⁓
Nigel Creaser (50:25)
Yeah.
Nigel Creaser (50:36)
Click this one.
Dr. Danny Brassell (50:39)
It’s all about faith. Star Wars is faith too. It’s very faith. And it actually has, you know, instead of saying, ⁓ you know, do unto others as they do unto you, you know, they’re like, may the force be with you and ⁓ things like that. It’s fascinating to me. And I, and this is why I read is because I, when I find out I have something in common with a person, I want to be, ⁓ I want to be interesting. I want to be able to contribute to the conversation. I want to be able to say, ⁓ actually I just read, ⁓
Nigel Creaser (51:02)
you
Dr. Danny Brassell (51:08)
one of the best biographies I’ve ever read. was on George Lucas by Brian J. Jones. ⁓ And I actually wrote him. I said, I learned so much and he wrote me back because authors usually write back. But ⁓ learning that George Lucas, you know, just thought this was the worst thing he’d ever written. ⁓ And, ⁓ you know, the names of characters were different and the plot was very different. And just watching the evolution, it’s fascinating to me. I thought it was very interesting.
Nigel Creaser (51:36)
⁓ Yeah, I think it’s the same book that I’ve read. got upstairs again, the George Lucas one. ⁓ When I read that, again, George Lucas being ⁓ an amazing ⁓ creator of this world for me that has continued to just give for me. ⁓ Because I still watch every single one of them as an eight year old. Yeah, I was eight when they came out. I’m still eight when I put the telly on and it’s Star Wars. ⁓ And just I love the…
Nigel Creaser (52:05)
I love the storytelling in it. love this characterisation and I love that world. And you do get that. And I find that with a box. I think that’s the Harry Potter stuff as well. You get that. My daughters are into Percy Jackson. They started reading the Percy Jackson stuff again. ⁓ You create the world. The Game of Thrones. We talking about Game of Thrones earlier on. The world creation and you go back. ⁓ Terry Pratchett wrote a really ⁓ interesting comment about fantasy writers. ⁓ And ⁓ his comment was, ⁓ all fantasy writers are essentially
Dr. Danny Brassell (52:16)
Yeah, every fear is great.
Nigel Creaser (52:34)
people rustling through Tolkien’s drawers. ⁓ So when you got the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit and the ⁓ Cimmerillian and all those sort of things, these epic stories ⁓ that ⁓ also have ⁓ kind of a moral story and a moral background in a lot of them as well that you can kind of ⁓ put in there that are really good. And I think that from a business perspective where I’ve ⁓ enjoyed some books.
Dr. Danny Brassell (52:37)
Mm.
Nigel Creaser (53:03)
of where they’ve been parables, ⁓ or with the development books, whether that storyteller goes back to our ⁓ telling the story at the beginning of your presentation, ⁓ that business education when it’s a story, and you can relate to it, and you can see someone’s journey from it, I find those to be quite powerful, because they really, they become quite realistic for you, ⁓ for those characters. ⁓ And yeah, so ⁓ just, ⁓ just I’m just thinking now that
Nigel Creaser (53:34)
You’ve got a book there, I love the name, called Misfits and Crapots. Do want to tell us a little bit about that?
Dr. Danny Brassell (53:41)
So thank you for that. Well, first of all, you got me thinking now Star Wars, because I’m a Star Wars addict as well. ⁓ And I would make the argument, mean, show me another movie that has had that long of an impact on society. ⁓ mean, you know, obviously you have the James Bond movies, ⁓ but those are too far in between now. ⁓ But Star Wars has created so many different ⁓ things. So I absolutely love that. And so again,
Nigel Creaser (53:42)
So, thank you.
Nigel Creaser (54:06)
Yeah. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (54:08)
When I find a kid that’s interested in something like that, I’m like, great, because there’s a zillion things I can ⁓ direct you to. ⁓ When I was a middle school teacher, teenagers, I was the only teacher at the school that none of my students were ever late to class. And the reason was because I always read aloud a Paul Harvey story. So Paul Harvey, when I was growing up as a kid, he’d come on the radio every day at 12, 15 and say, I’m Paul Harvey with the rest of the story. And for five minutes,
Nigel Creaser (54:12)
⁓ Yeah. ⁓
Nigel Creaser (54:22)
Thank
Dr. Danny Brassell (54:34)
You’re trying to figure out, who’s he talking about or what’s the company? And my students loved it, but the problem was, you know, Paul Harvey passed away and his stories were about people like Fred Astaire and companies like Sears Roebuck, which, you know, a kid today doesn’t even know what these things are. And so I wrote, ⁓ I wrote the book, Leadership Begins with Motivation as an homage to Paul Harvey and it’s stories of more, more contemporary people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and people like that.
Nigel Creaser (54:43)
Yeah.
Dr. Danny Brassell (55:03)
But the thing was, this was interesting, Nigel, after I wrote the book, I read it, I’m like, huh, that’s interesting. Completely unintentionally, a lot of my stories were of white male Americans. And so the reason I wrote Misfits and Crackpots is most of these stories ⁓ are of women, minorities, and international people. ⁓ And it was probably the most fun I’ve ever had writing a book because I didn’t even know about some of the people out there that are fascinating. ⁓ Have you ever heard of… ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (55:33)
Cliff Young.
Nigel Creaser (55:35)
No.
Dr. Danny Brassell (55:36)
So yeah, I’d never heard of Cliff Young. So there’s this ultra marathon race between Sydney and Melbourne in Australia. It’s about 550 miles. so every year, yeah, so every year they run this ultra marathon. so it was around 1983, all of the ultra marathoners line up to race and all of a sudden Cliff Young shows up. Cliff Young is a 61 year old potato or sheep farmer.
Nigel Creaser (55:40)
different ways of doing things. ⁓
Nigel Creaser (55:59)
something that I’m sorry I didn’t say.
Dr. Danny Brassell (56:06)
And no, I think it was a potato farmer where sheep, ⁓ I don’t know. know he ran after sheep. ⁓ So ⁓ he, yeah. Yeah. He’s 61 years old. has fake teeth. ⁓ He’s wearing his, ⁓ his overalls and galoshes and people are looking at them like, are you serious? And so they start the race and everybody’s well ahead of Cliff Young, like everybody thought. ⁓ But that night something interesting happened.
Nigel Creaser (56:10)
Yeah, potato. ⁓ Potato, just, I just got picture of him the other day. Yeah. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (56:34)
Everybody else went and slept on the side of the road and Cliff didn’t know you could sleep. So he ran through the night. Well, the next day, everybody else sleep through the night. Cliff runs through the night. Here’s the interesting thing about Cliff Young. He didn’t even run. had a, it’s, he had a kind of a fast walking pace, which they call, they now call the Cliff Young shuffle. Well, Cliff Young, not only did he win the race, he beat the record by ⁓ a couple of days and he finished
Nigel Creaser (56:40)
Thanks for watching.
Dr. Danny Brassell (57:04)
in five days, ⁓ a whole 10 hours before the second place finisher finished behind him. So that was awesome. But then the other thing that was awesome is that he was awarded the prize of $10,000. He didn’t know that there was a prize and he felt bad that the other competitors were competing and they didn’t win anything. So he gave all the money to his competitors. And now the race is named after him. And I just love stories. I think people need to hear ⁓ stories about ⁓
Nigel Creaser (57:26)
This is a set.
Dr. Danny Brassell (57:33)
You know, ⁓ I have a couple of British stories in here. Let’s see. think one of them is Welsh. That was British. Let’s see. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (57:46)
Okay, so here’s one. Can I give you a check? Can I just read aloud this story to you? ⁓ the story is, ⁓ some thought she had drowned, others speculated she’d been murdered. Still others believed it was all an elaborate publicity stunt. No one knows exactly what happened, but the clues held the key to unlocking the hidden truth. It began late one December, Friday night when the housewife left her home, got into her car and vanished.
Nigel Creaser (57:47)
Okay.
Dr. Danny Brassell (58:14)
Her abandoned car was later found with an expired driver’s license and closed inside, but there was no sign of her. Her disappearance sparked a nationwide manhunt with the tabloid press reporting that more than a thousand police officers, 15,000 volunteers, and multiple airplanes scoured the rural landscape to find her. The curious case of the missing housewife made the front page of the New York Times and held the public captive for nearly two weeks. In fact,
Nigel Creaser (58:29)
Thanks watching! ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (58:42)
The missing housewife had always led a life of mystery. The youngest of three children, she was born into a wealthy upper middle class family. Though she characterized her childhood as very happy, her siblings were considerably older and the neighborhood lacked many children. As a result, a significant portion of her time was spent playing in solitude, often accompanied by her pets and imaginary friends. Her upbringing stood out for the fact that her father homeschooled her.
Nigel Creaser (58:59)
and I want to know what your thoughts are. So, I’ll leave you with that. Thank you.
Dr. Danny Brassell (59:10)
Her mother, a captivating storyteller, held off on teaching her to read until the age of eight. However, her spirited and determined daughter taught herself how to read by the tender age of five. At the age of 11, her world shifted with the loss of her father. This, along with financial challenges, led to a change of homes and a new chapter in her life. By the age of 12, she found herself enrolled in boarding schools with the intentions of pursuing studies in music and song.
Dr. Danny Brassell (59:36)
While these paths ultimately did not lead to a musical future, they undoubtedly shaped her creative spirit. As she grew older, her life blossomed into a whirlwind of social engagements. Embracing the vibrant social scene, she blossomed from a shy young woman into a confident individual. While brief relationships and engagement offered fleeting solace, they fueled her desire for true love. Then, at a dance one night, destiny smiled upon her. Enter Archie.
Nigel Creaser (59:42)
Thank
Dr. Danny Brassell (60:05)
the man who stole her heart. Their whirlwind romance culminated in a wedding three months later, marking yet another new chapter in her life, one filled with love and unwavering commitment. Unfortunately, it would not last. ⁓ One day, Archie confessed he was in love with a woman called Nancy Neal, whom he had been having an affair with for months. He announced to his wife that he wanted a divorce. Following an argument, Archie left to spend the weekend with friends.
Nigel Creaser (60:24)
That’s it. ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (60:33)
Later that night, his disconsolate wife vanished. But what happened to her? The public devoured everything the press could write about the case. A shadow of suspicion descended upon Archie, the last person to see his wife alive. For 11 agonizing days, police scrutiny intensified, combing the countryside while ⁓ relentlessly questioning him. Hope flared anew with a single phone call. Archie’s wife had materialized safe and well.
Dr. Danny Brassell (61:02)
She had been spotted at a spa where she had checked in using the surname of his husband’s mistress. She could not explain the previous 11 days. Doctors confirmed memory loss, yet theories raged. Had a breakdown swallowed her whole fueled by grief and betrayal? Was it a theatrical escape, a desperate bid for attention, ⁓ or a cunning revenge plot? Her husband’s affair, the motive? Whispers of truth or calculated deception? Public scorn and intrigue swirled, questioning the authenticity of the housewife’s plight.
Dr. Danny Brassell (61:32)
Lost in the maze of her own mind, Stallone held the only key to the truth. In the end, all that is known is that Archie and her divorced a little over a year later. Relishing her role as a housewife, she would remarry, this time to an archaeologist, Max Malawan. An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have, she jokingly once said. The older she gets, the more interested he is in her.
Dr. Danny Brassell (62:01)
While she tended to keep a low profile, always writing Housewife on any official forms required when she was living, she did so much more than her duties as a housewife. During the course of her life, she wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. She also wrote the world’s longest running play. ⁓ And while it remains a mystery why she disappeared for those 11 days in 1926, the housewife’s identity is no mystery. In fact, the mysteries she loved to write
Nigel Creaser (62:02)
Thank
Dr. Danny Brassell (62:30)
have remained popular with generations, which is why she will probably always be best known for being the best-selling fiction author of all time, penning 66 novels and 14 short story collections under her first married name, Agatha Christie. So that’s how I get the kids excited about reading. I just think people ⁓ need to hear interesting stories like that. ⁓
Nigel Creaser (62:32)
So, going to go ahead it off.
Nigel Creaser (62:47)
⁓ Yeah, yeah, it’s a fact. ⁓ I sitting there racking my brain thinking I’m sure, sure this is a but I couldn’t remember the names in the different places. I remember it was heritage turned up in, wasn’t it? It’s a way like that. Yeah. That’s brilliant. ⁓ I’ve noticed we’ve just I said we I’d keep us around 50 minutes to an hour and we’ve just gone over the hour. ⁓ I’m sure there’s loads we could carry on talking about. ⁓
Nigel Creaser (63:18)
Was there anything that you wanted to talk about that I stopped you talking about? ⁓
Dr. Danny Brassell (63:23)
⁓ I always say that you can guide me whatever direction you choose and whatever serves your audience best. as a thank you for having me, Nigel, I did want to give everybody a free treat. So if you go to freestoryguide.com, guide like a tour guide, freestoryguide.com, I’d like to give everybody their own complimentary well-crafted story blueprint. What this is is the actual process that Coach Jimmy and I take our time through.
Nigel Creaser (63:28)
direction. ⁓
Nigel Creaser (63:47)
Thank ⁓ you.
Dr. Danny Brassell (63:51)
on creating their own well-crafted stories. What this does for you is it takes the guesswork out of where to put things in your talk and why to put them there. And we answer those questions for you. And what this means for you is the peace of mind that you have a compelling presentation going to engage audiences and more importantly, convert them to clients. And you can get that at freestoryguide.com. And I just want to thank you again, Nigel, for having me. I really love this podcast and ⁓
Nigel Creaser (64:06)
Thank you.
Dr. Danny Brassell (64:19)
⁓ I’m sorry I got us off you ⁓ when you started talking Star Wars. I got very excited. So I apologize for that little detail ⁓
Nigel Creaser (64:26)
level ⁓ of detail. No, it’s never a detail with ⁓ Star Wars. It’s always a destination ⁓ for me ⁓ in most things, as you can probably see from behind my head. There’s that many things there anyway. ⁓ So ⁓ people want to carry on the conversation, out more, grab all your books. What’s the best way of getting in touch with you, Danny?
Dr. Danny Brassell (64:46)
Oh, I’m sure if they go to freestoryguide.com, we’ll put you on some kind of email list for eternity. But again, people can work with me. My name is Danny Brassell. My last name is really easy to remember how to spell. It’s spelled like bras, cell. No, I never took any Greek for that as a child. But if you just go to freestoryguide.com, that’ll show you, I’m sure that puts you in contact with me. It’s something on the funnel.
Nigel Creaser (65:01)
You
Nigel Creaser (65:09)
⁓ Yeah. ⁓ Brilliant. Fantastic. So again, thank you so much for being on the show. And yeah, you have a fantastic rest of your day. ⁓ Thanks, Danny.
Dr. Danny Brassell (65:21)
Take care, God bless.
