Dyslexia and the Entrepreneur: Russell Van Brocklen

Summary

In this episode, Christian Brim interviews Russell Van Brocklen, who shares his personal journey with dyslexia and his mission to help others overcome similar challenges. Russell discusses the scientific understanding of dyslexia, effective teaching strategies, and the importance of focusing on students' special interests. He emphasizes the role of writing as a tool for organization and expression, particularly for dyslexic learners. The conversation also explores the connection between dyslexia and entrepreneurship, highlighting the unique strengths that dyslexics can bring to various fields. Russell shares success stories of students who have thrived using his methods and offers insights into the future of dyslexia education.

Takeaways

• Russell's journey with dyslexia led him to seek solutions for others.
• Dyslexia is often misunderstood; it's a symptom, not the cause.
• Effective teaching strategies focus on students' strengths and interests.
• Writing can be a powerful tool for dyslexic learners.
• Dyslectics often excel in specialized areas, particularly in entrepreneurship.
• Motivation is key; students perform better when engaged in their interests.
• The importance of structured language approaches in teaching dyslexia.
• Success stories demonstrate the effectiveness of tailored educational methods.
• Dyslexia presents unique challenges but also unique strengths.
• Russell's methods can help dyslexics achieve academic success and beyond.

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:00.726)
Welcome to another episode of The Chris Project. I am your host, Christian Brim. Joining me today, Russell Van Brocklen. Welcome to the show, Russell.

Russell (00:10.84)
Thanks for having me.

Christian Brim (00:12.158)
Absolutely. So why don't you give the listeners kind of your your background CV? Why why you're on the show? What you bring to the table?

Russell (00:24.898)
Well, with dyslexia, this was the last thing I was supposed to do. I was supposed to be a bureaucrat for the state government. What happened is in the late 90s, I was finishing up college and I wanted to know how laws are created, not some class I wanted to know. So I signed up for the New York State Assembly internship program and I showed up and I said, here's my neuropsychological evaluation. I have a first grade reading and writing level. And the program director said, this can't work.

because the typical internship you got the assembly member, the chief of staff who was an intern a year or two before and the intern. And he went to the speaker's office and they said, we're not, you have to accommodate this kid. We're not getting rid of him because of dyslexia. So they took a rather strong solution after forming a committee. They literally pulled me out of the legislative office building and put me in the Capitol in the majority leaders program and council's office.

because they had three administrative assistants who could help me with my horrendous writing because I had to turn in things every week. What got me was when I went there is they said that they didn't know what to do with an undergrad intern. It was a graduate intern position, which is a real, which was a real staff position. So I thought that was great. I ended up for the academic portion doing a very long presentation, hours long with hours long Q and A instead of the paper.

Christian Brim (01:37.421)
Right?

Russell (01:50.297)
which was a standard accommodation for me back then. So they ended up saying, OK, at the end of the semester, here's your 15 credits of the recommended GPAs and A-. Goes back to the State University of New York Center at Buffalo's Political Science Department. They look at the accommodations the state made, and they said, we don't like these. So here's your 15 credits of F.

Christian Brim (02:13.93)
Okay.

Russell (02:15.052)
Yeah, they flunked me. And yeah. So I had enough of the discrimination. And I decided at that point, I wanted to solve dyslexia. So nobody else had to go through this. So I asked my professors where I could go in grad school to force myself to learn to read and write. And they said law school. So I went to law school. my s- well, well, it wasn't as bad as you thought because-

Christian Brim (02:16.777)
Okay.

Christian Brim (02:22.784)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (02:37.249)
Good God, that sounds horrid.

Russell (02:44.78)
What I found in grad school is when a dyslectic, I found out this later, is when a dyslectic goes to grad school, we own the place day one. Because as most people are really good in very broad areas, dyslectics were academic specialists. We excel in a very small, very narrow area. So what we focus on.

is so I was I was naturally if I like political science, I'm going to like law. So the second day of contracts, Professor Warner calls on me. He's a dyslexic professor. And normally what they do is they just squash you with a Socratic method. They ask you questions you can't answer until you can eventually adopt. That didn't happen to me. I didn't respond as a student. I responded as his equal. He kept trying to find ways to confuse me, to throw me off.

Christian Brim (03:25.783)
Mm-hmm.

Russell (03:39.881)
Nothing helped. I responded, as I said, at his equal five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. He couldn't shake me. At the end, he said, you couldn't be any more correct. I have to move on to the next case in the interest of time. I learned to read within a month. I learned to write within a couple of years. Then I went back to the New York State Senate and I said, I want you to fund my dyslexic research project, which they don't do. So that took years of additional work. And finally, after all these approvals,

They funded my research for a couple of years. It was at the Avril Park Central School District right outside of Albany, New York. I want everybody to know I kind of cheated. I took their best juniors and seniors that were highly motivated, highly intelligent. I wanted to work with students who were like me and solve their problems to give them the writing skills of a college graduate before they went to college so that they wouldn't go through what I went through. So they all had middle school writing skills.

One class period a day for about 180 days, they increased from the zero percentile in the GRE writing assessment to the average range of entering graduate students. So they all went out of college, they all graduated GPAs at 2.5 to 3.6. Cost New York State taxpayers less than $900 a kid. And that's how I got started.

Christian Brim (05:01.385)
Okay, so let's define some terms. What in layman's terms is dyslexia?

Russell (05:09.806)
Well, I'm going to show it to you in an image. This is the top book in my field called Overcoming Dyslexia by Dr. Sally Shaywitz. She's a professor, a medical doctor at Yale.

Russell (05:24.098)
That's dyslexia. Do you see how the back part of your brain has all this massive neuroactivity? Now the back part of my brain has next to nothing. Do you see how the front part of my brain's about two and a half times overactive compared to yours? So I had this weird idea. Let's use that overactive front part of the dyslectic brain. Now,

Christian Brim (05:26.071)
Okay.

Christian Brim (05:31.233)
Yes.

Christian Brim (05:34.793)
Okay.

Christian Brim (05:40.704)
Yes.

Russell (05:49.679)
According to Dr. Shewitz, that's articulation followed by word analysis. So my first program, I chose the GRE analytical writing assessment because analytical articulation to me the same thing. But when I tried to apply that to typical students, it just wouldn't work. So I had to flip it to word analysis followed by articulation. So are you familiar with any dyslexic elementary school kids at all? OK.

Christian Brim (06:17.631)
No.

Russell (06:19.616)
So the typical example I like to use, her name is Sarah. And this is something I'm going to show your audience, how they can get their kids to write basic sentences with correct spelling and grammar. And instead of taking a couple of months to explain it, I'm going to explain in the next few minutes. So with Sarah, what we're going to do is we're going to have to use word analysis followed by articulation, because just again,

Russell (07:16.59)
You're going to type out on a laptop computer, not an iPad, not an iPhone, certainly not Android. And you're going to type out hero plus sign, what are we talking about? Then we're going to swap out Sarah's name for hero. So we got Sarah plus sign, what are we talking about? Then we're going to go and we're going to have a list of 10 things that Sarah really, really likes and 10 things she really, dislikes. First thing on the like list is swimming.

So we got Sarah plus sign, what are we talking about? We're going to swap out what are we talking about for swimming. Now we got Sarah plus sign swimming. See how we got there? OK. Now I'm going to try to fool you with the simplest questions ever. There are going to be two of them. If you answer them correctly, this will work. If not, it doesn't work. Do you think I can fool you with the simplest questions ever?

Christian Brim (07:51.979)
Yes.

Christian Brim (08:04.33)
Okay.

Christian Brim (08:07.862)
Probably, but you know, I'd like to participate.

Russell (08:13.206)
OK, let's go ahead and because most people when they get done with this have an epiphany on what dyslexia really is. So we got Sarah plus sign swimming. We got to swap out the plus sign for a word. Here's my question. Does Sarah like or dislike swimming?

Christian Brim (08:31.21)
Well, I'm gonna go with like.

Russell (08:33.484)
Very good. You got it exactly right for the first question. Now for the second one. This is a tough one. Go ahead and replace the plus sign with the word like. Sarah, plus sign swimming. Swap out the plus sign with the word like. What's the three word sentence?

Christian Brim (08:49.462)
Sarah like swimming.

Russell (08:51.48)
But that's not what I asked.

Christian Brim (08:54.718)
Okay, ask again.

Russell (08:56.93)
Does Sarah like or dislike swimming? You said like. Now go ahead and swap out the plus sign for like. What's the sentence?

Christian Brim (09:00.053)
Yes.

Christian Brim (09:05.67)
Still, Sarah liked swimming.

Russell (09:08.878)
Yep, but that's the you got it right the second time the first time you said likes You Yep, so you did what almost every educated person does You go ahead and you you corrected and added the s to make it a proper sentence Sarah's dyslexic. She doesn't know how to add the s So now we get into a technical idea, how do we get Sarah to add the s well if you're rich I mean if you're bill greats grandkids or great grandkids

Christian Brim (09:14.158)
I thought I said like, but okay, yes.

Christian Brim (09:28.822)
Okay.

Russell (09:38.743)
you're looking at a Morton Gillingham structured language multisensory approach. It's $75,000 a year for about four to five years in a private dyslexic school just for tuition. It's where you see it, touch it, hear it, every sense you can imagine to help you overcome this. It would take you about two additional years and $11,000 in a non-for-profit to learn the process. I'm going to show you how to do this really quick right now. What we would do is we would ask Sarah to read what she wrote out loud.

She first of we would ask Sarah, do you like or dislike? She would say like, like you did, Sarah likes swimming. And then we would say, Sarah, does that sound generally correct? She's going to say no. Then I'll say, Sarah, fix it. Sarah likes swimming. Okay. Do you see how by making it, does it sound generally correct? No. Make it so it does sound correct. And then she writes it out properly. Does that make sense? Okay. That's how you get around it.

Christian Brim (10:34.783)
Yes.

Russell (10:38.22)
Now, when it comes time when you're also doing this, do you see how like and dislike is a very simple form of word analysis?

Christian Brim (10:48.89)
Well, so it appeared to me what you were doing is you had a sentence that was a formula and you were replacing objects with words. So maybe not, maybe I don't understand word analysis. mean, maybe I'm over-complicating it.

Russell (11:15.17)
Well, like and dislike, you see the process we went through? It's a very simple form of word analysis. We're analyzing different words, doing different things with them.

Christian Brim (11:19.402)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (11:27.858)
So it's not a matter of choosing which is correct or is that part of the analysis?

Russell (11:34.371)
Well, you're kind of overthinking it. At a very base level, what we're just simply doing is we're asking Sarah, because remember, we're starting off with 10 things she really likes and then 10 things she really dislikes. There's no gray area here. And then with like, what we're doing is she constantly doesn't add an S. So we're showing her how to add the S. We're doing a very simple form of word analysis here.

Christian Brim (11:38.591)
Okay.

Christian Brim (11:50.998)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (11:59.413)
I see, okay.

Russell (12:04.652)
And then after because, then we say reason one, the reasons are a very simple form of articulation. So essentially what we're doing is again, I'm going back to the science here. There's no brain activity in the back part of the dyslectic brain here essentially. It's almost nothing. We're pulling that forward to this. So we're dealing with a part of the brain that Sarah actually works.

Christian Brim (12:04.669)
Okay.

Christian Brim (12:12.31)
Okay, all right.

Christian Brim (12:30.46)
Okay, maybe it would help me understand and the audience understand what are the two parts of the brain, what are they doing? What are the different functions of the brain?

Russell (12:41.484)
Well, I'm going to really oversimplify massive neuroscience. So the back part of the brain I want you to think of is kindergarten through high school, generally college. The front part I want you to think of is more graduate level.

Christian Brim (12:44.234)
Good, because I need it.

Christian Brim (12:51.382)
Okay.

Christian Brim (12:56.831)
Okay.

Russell (12:57.998)
Okay, really higher order thinking material. So what we're essentially just trying to do here is to pull the process from the back part of the brain where we got next to nothing with the dyslexics going on to the front part where we have two and a half times the neural activity.

Christian Brim (13:14.608)
Is there, is there some other way dyslexia presents itself other than through reading and writing?

Russell (13:23.532)
Yes, do you have dyslectics who are wizards at math, dyslectics who are horrible at math? I focus on reading and writing because the perception is that dyslectics have issues with this because of dyslexia. It's a symptom, not the underlying cause. And this is what everybody's generally trying to fix.

Christian Brim (13:44.051)
Okay, so I'm just wondering, so what you're describing, which I find, I find neuroscience fascinating, mainly because even the smartest people don't really understand. And so it's really kind of a black box in a lot of ways. And it lends itself to hard science, as well as, you know, metaphysical when you when you start

looking at the human mind. So it's fascinating. So what what you're describing to me is whether it's dyslexia or other

what I would call them out of norm aspects of a human brain. Usually there's some kind of trade off, right? Like it's not like brain damage where you've lost the functionality of part of your brain. Your brain has overcompensated or it was designed that way or developed that way where you have a weakness but now you have strength. Yeah.

Russell (14:55.725)
Yes.

Christian Brim (14:57.608)
And so I'm wondering what that looks in practical application beyond reading and writing. like what else would you struggle at as a dyslexic that you would have a superpower?

Russell (15:15.502)
Okay, let me finish up this part and then I'll tackle that one. right, so what happens is, because the other big issue that your audience is going to find is these kids are writing a bunch of, the spelling is horrendous. So, well, I'm going to show you how to fix it with these kids now. So give me a reason why you think a 10-year-old girl would like swimming because...

Christian Brim (15:18.358)
Okay.

Christian Brim (15:30.644)
My spelling's horrendous.

Christian Brim (15:42.326)
She wants to be a mermaid.

Russell (15:44.185)
She wants to be a mermaid. Sarah likes swimming because she wants to be a mermaid. Do you see now how we have a whole mess of misspelled words here? Here's how we fix that. What we do is we tell Sarah to read what she wrote out loud and does it sound generally correct. We're just working on grammar now because the school districts have huge problems with massive grammar mistakes. This gets rid of that. Once that's done, we tell her if there's a misspelled word, she has to keep retyping until it's correct.

Christian Brim (15:51.662)
yeah, yes.

Christian Brim (16:13.11)
Mm.

Russell (16:14.284)
So she's going to do that between 3 and 13 times. Each time she's going to tell herself, I'm not going to make that mistake. And she keeps making it again and again. So she concentrates harder and harder. Around 9 to 13 times, you can start seeing sweat coming down her forehead. It's that intense. That's where the magic happens. Eventually, she gets it correct. And then you make sure that everything is spelled correctly for 10 likes.

for 10 reason ones, for likes, 10 reason ones for dislikes. And then spell correctly for reason one and reason two, and then reason one, reason two, and reason three. So you're doing at least 80 sentences. When that's done, you're looking at a student who is reading and writing at least at the end of second, beginning third grade level. the reading has improved a lot, because here's a key thing. If you can write a word, you can read it.

Christian Brim (16:47.862)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (16:53.91)
Okay.

Russell (17:12.524)
If you can write it, you can read it. So that improves drastically as well. Now, that was step three of the program. But I found that in reality, I couldn't get these kids to do anything. So if you're talking about another superpower, the first thing that we need to look at with these kids is their speciality. If you're to get them to do anything. And just to give an extreme example.

Christian Brim (17:34.506)
Mm-hmm.

Russell (17:38.499)
Just so your audience knows, I never saw this before. I will never see this again. This was a one-off, extraordinary motivated kid. Her name was Casey. I met her at the end of fifth grade when she was 10. She turned 11 over the summertime, and she was reading at the second grade level. So she was really interested in Theodore Roosevelt. So I assigned her this little book called The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. All 900 pages of it. This book

won the Pulitzer. All right. So Casey wanted to do reading first and she was adamant about it. So I said, okay, here's the process. I thought she'd be doing 10, 20 minutes a night, couple nights a week. I didn't know Casey. She went up to her room, locked herself away for three hours a night for six months. At the end, she knew every word in that book. She jumped eight grade levels in six months. I worked with her for 15 minutes a week.

Christian Brim (18:09.397)
Okay.

Russell (18:39.596)
Now, why am I spending so much time on this? Because I want you to look at her motivation. Her mom wanted to know what would happen if we were moved from a book that she liked to something that she didn't like so much to see if the skills transferred over. So I assigned her this little thing. It's called Walt Disney, The Triumph of the American Imagination, all thousand pages of it. This is my most popular book because have you ever been to Disneyland or Disney World? Did you feel the Disney magic?

Christian Brim (19:05.086)
I have.

Absolutely.

Russell (19:09.806)
It's two universal things. First one's easy to find. Second one is not. Took Casey three months to find it. Here's why I'm spending so much time on this. I had her mom come on to our last call, because I thought she'd get a kick out of it, which she did. I said, Casey, how did you like that Walt Disney book? She said, I hated it. And I said, OK. How much did your motivation drop when you went from something you really liked to something you disliked? The most motivated kid I ever worked with.

went down about 50%. Most kids, it's down 75 % to 90 % if you're outside their speciality. So I want you to think about a dyslexic intervention program to get the kid to grade level. You step outside that speciality. For most kids, you're down 75 to 90%, which is pretty much going to just wreck any chance of this succeeding very well. So the first thing that I found is during the intervention period only,

Christian Brim (19:47.286)
Okay.

Christian Brim (19:59.297)
Okay.

Christian Brim (20:04.085)
Yeah.

Russell (20:09.622)
until they're at great level or above, we have to focus on their speciality, their area of extreme interest and ability. The next one I think you'll find interesting as well. Do you remember in school and college, we would start off with a big picture that eventually over time would get down to the little details? Well, with dyslectics, that's horrible. So if you ask a dyslectic this, what effect?

Christian Brim (20:27.85)
Yes.

Russell (20:36.302)
Did Martin Luther King's famous I Have a Dream speech have in the 1960 civil rights movement? We don't even know where to begin. It's like grabbing fog. But if we ask a specific to a general question, what personally compelled Martin Luther King to want to give his famous speech, then we can look up the information in his biography that will find the answer. That answer will give us another question, which will give us an answer, which will give us a question, which will give us an answer.

that forces the dyslectic brain to organize itself using writing as a measurable output. Let me go over that again. It forces the dyslectic brain to organize itself by using writing as a measurable output. So if you ask a dyslectic, this is really important, in your speciality, do you have ideas flying around your head at light speed but with little to no organization? We're gonna say yes.

So we have to force the brain to organize itself by using writing as a measurable output. That also works for ADD and ADHD kits.

Christian Brim (21:38.72)
Okay.

Russell (21:39.65)
Okay, so do you know any ADHD kids ever?

Christian Brim (21:42.698)
Probably me, I've never been diagnosed, but...

Russell (21:45.706)
Okay, well let's go and ask you a couple of questions and give you a diagnosis. Are you ready? What is your speciality? What is it that you're really interested in doing?

Christian Brim (21:49.974)
Okay.

Christian Brim (21:59.479)
I have lots. don't know that, I mean, you're asking my profession or in general.

Russell (22:05.302)
No, I just in general, what do you love doing? What are you really good at?

Christian Brim (22:11.094)
I like solving problems.

Russell (22:15.01)
solving problems. Now when you're thinking about solving problems, do you have ideas flying around your head at light speed but with little to no organization, now or ever?

Christian Brim (22:23.958)
100%.

Russell (22:25.792)
Okay, now when you're thinking about solving problems and you want to write about it, fingers, keyboard, fingers, keyboard. The idea is in your head, you take your fingers, put them on the keyboard, does the idea then fly out of your brain leaving you with an empty brain? Does that sound familiar or not really?

Christian Brim (22:44.438)
I think that the process of writing helps clarify and order my thoughts for sure. I think what's left is the distilled understanding or organization. So I would say that the ideas don't go away, but they become ordered in my brain, if that's answering your question.

Russell (23:06.414)
Okay, yes, so it's a nodule to the second question. So what's that telling me is that you are most likely ADD, ADHD, or mildly dyslectic, not severely dyslectic. When you were in elementary school,

Christian Brim (23:19.998)
Okay. Well, I can't spell so that, that, that does help.

Russell (23:24.982)
Okay, so you're still having issues with spelling.

Christian Brim (23:26.838)
I when I graduated high school they give you you know everybody in the state this assessment I was you know 99 Which was the highest score on everything except? Reading and writing and I was at a second grade level not not spelling. Sorry not reading writing I didn't have any problems reading but I do find that I

I see words, they're like whole words. I don't necessarily spell them out, sound them out in my head. It's just like I identified that that object is that word, if that makes sense.

Russell (24:04.91)
Okay. Yes. So, were you ever threatened to be held back because of you couldn't pass some academic desk? Okay. Now, okay. So basically then that means you're probably ADD, ADHD or mildly dyslectic. So the way that you'd go about correcting that, you know, besides that original process that I showed you, a more evolved way is

Christian Brim (24:11.414)
No. No. No.

Christian Brim (24:20.938)
Mm-hmm.

Russell (24:35.086)
What we would do is, for example, when I'm showing dyslexics how to read, we would tell them, this is where I came up with this, tell me the name of a movie that you really enjoy, that's one of the best of all time, that everybody knows about.

Christian Brim (24:51.604)
Godfather. the best movie of all time.

Russell (24:52.962)
Godfather. OK, now I'm going to ask you a question that's going to require you to think for a moment. Reduce that movie to a one-word universal theme. What's the word?

Christian Brim (25:08.278)
Family?

Russell (25:09.752)
family. Okay. Now, if you were to go back and look at reviews from The Godfather written by Ivy League educated movie reviewers, could you would have shocked you that most of them would be this happened and this happened and this happened and this happened. Kind of like explaining what happened to a football game you recorded and then somebody tells you, this is what the final score was. It was a real nail biter. It's like, why bother watching the movie? Why bother?

Watch the sporting event now that you know what happened. Sound familiar? So here's a much simpler way of how to actually write a review. You would take the universal theme of family and then write, how did the director, the actors, and the screenwriter do with that universal thing? And then you discuss it that way so people can see what you thought about the movie, but you're not spoiling them for it. Make sense? But here's the problem. Do you see how family is

Christian Brim (25:39.656)
Right, right, yes.

Christian Brim (25:54.102)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (26:00.681)
Okay, yes.

Russell (26:05.622)
really, really a very broad universal thing. Too broad that it can't really encapsulate the way that you really saw the movie. OK. Right. But here's how we actually go and reduce it not only to one word, but to really make it the one that best represents what's in your head. So let's say we're going by, I do this with pretty much anything.

Christian Brim (26:16.32)
Sure, it's hard to reduce it to one word.

Russell (26:32.898)
We would go and look at, let's say we're writing about the Godfather. You would reduce it to the hero. So who's the hero and what does the hero want to do?

Christian Brim (26:44.054)
I don't know that there are any heroes, but if there is one, it's the sun. I can't remember his name.

Russell (26:52.47)
Which one? Sonny or the guy played by Al Pacino? Okay. So we would say that character's name and what did that character want to do?

Christian Brim (26:55.37)
Al Pacino.

Christian Brim (27:03.014)
He wanted to preserve his family ostensibly. I would say there were undercurrents, personal undercurrents, but I'd say that on the surface was what his stated intent was.

Russell (27:09.399)
Right.

Russell (27:15.8)
So what we would have you do is what's the most important word of that sentence, preserve. But then we would put it into the thesaurus and you would probably pick the top five, top 10 words, maybe the entire level or going down multiple levels. And you would find the word that best represented what's in your head. Okay. Now that word is much more specific. So how do we help you to overcome your

Christian Brim (27:19.958)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (27:35.211)
Mm-hmm.

Russell (27:44.907)
Spelling issues and your reading issues. Okay, well, you don't you don't have reading issues with spelling issues I have my students literally type out the word go to the Marion Webster's online dictionary They don't copy and paste they pick their definition and they copy their definition All right, and then we have them keep doing that as they're going through their book. They don't recognize the word They don't recognize the definition exactly. They type out the word and type out the definition at some point

Christian Brim (28:00.822)
Okay.

Russell (28:13.89)
They're going to know that word and that definition permanently. I have these kids doing this at age 10 and 11. When they're studying for their SATs and their ACTs, they don't need to remember hundreds of words because they've done it when they were kids. They remember 70 to 80 % of what the definition is because you can't do word analysis without knowing what that word means. You literally can't. So that's how we build that up. then.

Christian Brim (28:28.361)
Right.

Christian Brim (28:36.47)
true.

Russell (28:42.018)
We have you pick the ultimate villain that could best prevent the hero from accomplishing their goals, a person or a concept, put that into a sentence. And then we have you come up with three really good reasons. Now, to help these kids with their writing at a more evolved level, OK, once after we're done with the basic body paragraphs, this is how we show dyslectics to write better than a lot of their AP English students, their older peers.

I want you to think about, have you ever thought about applying a warrant? Do you a warrant is applied to a body paragraph?

Christian Brim (29:18.047)
A warrant?

Russell (29:19.47)
Yes, a warrant.

Christian Brim (29:20.968)
Not in that context, no.

Russell (29:22.764)
Okay, do you remember in school how you would write your thesis, your topic sentence to a paragraph, and then you would put in your data? And it just didn't seem to flow very well? There seemed to be something missing? Well, at the PhD level, there's a book called The Craft of Research from the University of Chicago. It teach PhD students how to write their doctoral dissertation, sold over a million copies in the last 30 years. College professors want students to know how to do that process before they come to college.

Christian Brim (29:29.675)
Yes.

Christian Brim (29:34.41)
Yes.

Russell (29:52.527)
It's context, get everybody on the same page, problem statement solution. So one of the more advanced context levels, what I would do is once you came up with a good reason, we would reduce that reason to a simple universal theme so that you could go and find quotes in that universal theme at the beginning of the book and at the end of the book. So if we're looking at The Godfather, we could be looking at the beginning of the movie or the end of the movie.

find the best quote for the beginning of the movie and the end of the movie, we would take those two quotes and that's our data. I show students at the middle school level how to then take those two quotes and then form a topic sentence. And then I apply one warrant, and that is essentially answering a how and why question to connect the topic sentence and the quotes. Now once

Christian Brim (30:29.002)
Yes.

Christian Brim (30:43.039)
Okay.

Christian Brim (30:46.613)
Okay.

Russell (30:49.152)
A university professor looks at a body paragraph and they see the students using a warrant. They're like, this is college level writing. I love this because the AP students have no idea what a warrant is. Their teachers have no idea what it is. And now we have elementary, mean, middle school kids writing structurally more evolved body paragraphs than their high school peers.

Christian Brim (31:15.67)
Okay, I'm very curious how this might apply to the entrepreneurial brain because I don't know the data. I know that a lot of entrepreneurs present with symptoms of ADD and ADHD. I don't know about dyslexia, but it wouldn't surprise me if there was a skew.

to entrepreneurs having that disorder or I don't even know what the correct term for is. One of the things that I think I've experienced is what you asked me that question and determining ADD is how to get these ideas into some kind of order.

because oftentimes the ideas are overwhelming because it's not just the idea for a problem I'm thinking upon, it's random thoughts about problems I was thinking about a year ago, or maybe it's completely tangential to the problem, like it has nothing to do with business. These thoughts can be overwhelming at times, just a number of them.

So how do you apply what you teach to that situation?

Russell (32:52.11)
So first of all, as far as entrepreneurship, did ever hear of a show called Shark Tank?

Christian Brim (32:57.683)
yeah.

Russell (32:59.426)
There are six sharks. How many of them do you think are dyslectic?

Christian Brim (33:01.055)
Yes.

Christian Brim (33:04.583)
Hmm, no idea.

Russell (33:06.722)
half of them, Barbara, Damian, and Mr. Wonderful. half of them, this is very common with entrepreneurs, dyslectics are way over representative with highly successful people in these spaces. So what essentially we're looking at is remember when I told you, when I asked, do you have ideas flying around your head at light speed but with little to no organization?

Christian Brim (33:10.006)
Okay.

Christian Brim (33:33.237)
Yes.

Russell (33:34.147)
That is essentially the problem that needs to get solved. So literally, what we use is we use writing as a measurable output. So with adults, I go back to that original program that I created. And with the GRE, I use Vintages from the early 2000s for the writing assessment. And what we're looking at is for the argument is these

Christian Brim (33:37.684)
Yes.

Russell (34:01.866)
The argument appears to make sense, but it's really quite stupid. So what your job is to do is to find out why it doesn't make sense, why the data doesn't support it, and then to express that in writing. And what we show you how to do is to do that repeatedly, where we outline the essay. the thesis statement and conclusion are very much

Christian Brim (34:17.428)
Okay.

Russell (34:31.776)
just plug and chug as I like to put it. And then we, you know how it's difficult going from one paragraph to the next? We show you how to do a transition and then you simply ask, why does the data not support this ridiculous opinion? And we keep practicing that. The amount of practice is extraordinary. And then give me, give me an example. I taught one guy,

Christian Brim (34:39.465)
Yes.

Russell (35:00.226)
The most advanced guy I taught had an MBA from the University of Columbia and he did very well there. And I said, okay, what is the ridiculous opinion in this GRE prompt, this paragraph? I could walk into any freshman AP English high school class in the country and a 14 year old would tell me instantaneously, no more than a second or two. He took almost a minute to tell me. That's the

So that's the thinking so rapidly up here where he just can't pull it out because it's just chaos. After he practiced it a lot, we get faster at it. So what I found with my kids is that the gen ed kids will read faster, they will always write faster. But as we advance in our education, especially at the graduate level or entry graduate level, once our brains are properly trained, we can think in orders of magnitude faster than they can.

Christian Brim (35:37.333)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (36:00.864)
So in that situation, the MBA was essentially experiencing.

dead data overload, like too many thoughts and your process teaches them how to filter that. Am I saying that correctly?

Russell (36:20.844)
Well, remember, it's like three or four or five sentences. That's it. That's the prompt. And there's three data points and a really insanely stupid argument that appears to make sense. So all he had to do was to read that and then just tell me what the primary opinion is. Any AP English 14-year-old would do that instantaneously.

Christian Brim (36:27.734)
Okay.

Christian Brim (36:31.604)
Right.

Christian Brim (36:36.598)
Okay.

Christian Brim (36:44.831)
Right?

Russell (36:50.208)
one or two seconds delay at the most. This is a full grown man with an MBA from Columbia where he got like a 3.8 GPA for two years. It took him almost a minute. So how we overcame that problem is we just had him practice again and again and again until he became extraordinarily fast at it. When my students finished up, they would read the prompt.

Christian Brim (36:58.858)
Right?

Russell (37:18.242)
And then the essay would essentially pop into their head. Because what we've again found is that once we're properly trained, our brains can process information in orders of magnitude faster than our gen ed peers. That's the advantage. That's what happened to me in law school. So when the professor asked me questions, I responded as his equal.

Christian Brim (37:36.63)
Okay.

Christian Brim (37:40.138)
Okay.

Russell (37:46.191)
Because all this just organized itself and just popped in my head in just that moment. And my classmates, even to this day, after they've been practicing attorneys for decades, said they still can't do that. Not to a professor, not in their area of expertise.

Christian Brim (37:50.998)
Right.

Christian Brim (38:02.902)
Okay, so do you practice law? No.

Russell (38:06.474)
No, I know there was no way I could keep up with the legal research and write. You have to read so fast and write so much. could never I could never keep up. I did know there's a very famous African-American woman who is dyslectic, who is now a practicing attorney in New York City. And she listens to material at about 500 words per minute.

Christian Brim (38:14.837)
Yes.

Christian Brim (38:34.464)
Wow.

Russell (38:34.702)
because that's what most lawyers read at. And she said, it's just a requirement of the job. I literally can't do it. But that's how she gets around it. And then she uses a lot of dictation, which quite frankly, every attorney does nowadays. They've been doing it for decades. And that's how she gets around things. But I literally, I can't do it. I couldn't keep up with the practice.

Christian Brim (38:41.834)
Right.

Christian Brim (38:52.757)
Right.

Christian Brim (39:03.68)
So do you continue to work with, I mean is that what you do professionally is continue to work with dyslexics?

Russell (39:13.07)
Yes, that's primarily to give you an example. Parents for years asked me for an example of a parent working with their dyslexic kid, and I could never tell them because nobody wants to share their data. Last December 27th, I met with Kimberly and her son Reed. She said I could use use them as an example. She just spent $700 to have the state of Ohio test her son. He was in fifth grade.

reading at the 11th percentile, writing at the fourth percentile. Eight months later, he was in public school because his friends wanted him in public school for social reasons, and they tested him again. His mom wasn't within miles. This is strictly in the public school. His reading went to the 64th percentile. His writing went to the 65th. He's getting A's and B's in class now. She worked with him for an hour and a half a week for about six months.

Christian Brim (40:10.261)
Using your program, your techniques? Okay.

Russell (40:10.646)
And that fixed everything. Yes, yes. A homeschooling mom taught her son seven times faster than the school could ever hope to do. And she did it in less than half the time they spent with him, and they would have spent with him, because this were actually teaching him how the brain actually works. Now that was during the intervention period. It was in his speciality. Now he's in public school doing just fine.

You don't have to do the speciality forever just until they're a grade level or above.

Christian Brim (40:45.577)
Do you work with adults? Yes. Okay.

Russell (40:49.132)
Yes. My, I typically use my initial program for adults because they don't have time to go through the craft of research context problem solution. And typically when I work with adults, like I just literally walk them through that process. It's so much faster. All right. You're, you're an adult. can handle the GRE material and they just fly through it. And typically at the end, when they get finished with it, instead of having that chaotic thinking,

They want to write something and the essay literally just pops in their head.

Christian Brim (41:23.669)
So I would assume that entrepreneurs in the audience that might not be diagnosed, may be diagnosed, they feel some resonance with what you're describing could benefit from using your program.

Russell (41:40.397)
Yes, it has helped out literally hundreds and hundreds of people. We're now in the process of putting everything up on a learning platform called school so that we can work with more families. But it's a process that, again, it forces your brain to organize itself. We use writing as a measurable output. And especially if you want to go through my full craft of research process.

Christian Brim (41:50.837)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Russell (42:08.226)
This is what everybody's doing out there now, trying to, what I show people how to do is to find a problem, like when we're doing a problem statement, where there is actually a real problem, something that really does need to get solved, then how to solve it where you have a complete original solution. And once we hit the problem statement level, I'm very heavy into artificial intelligence.

Christian Brim (42:34.121)
Okay.

Russell (42:34.862)
I'm one of the people that when chat GPT came up with their original Pro a level account last December was 200 bucks. I bought it that day This month I have moved back to the their plus account because with 5.2. don't need the PhD level stuff anymore. That's good enough I spend about $100 a month on on Claude and I use their 4.5 version

And that helps out tremendously with the writing. then for some ways of doing some amount of research, also use Google's products. But primarily, I use 4.5 from Claude and ChatGPT Thinking 5.2. And that allows me to do probably about five to 10 times more work than I could 18 months ago.

Christian Brim (43:28.361)
Yeah, I could see where that would help. Okay, so how do people find you if they want to learn more?

Russell (43:37.678)
The best thing to do is just go to dyslexiaclasses.com. It's plural with an S, dyslexiaclasses.com. There's a button there that says download free guide. Just click on that, answer a couple of questions, you'll get a free guide on dyslexia. And then the most important thing is to set up a half an hour with me. So actually schedule it so I can help your child find out what their specialty is, what they're really interested in. Find their book, find their audio book, and help you get started.

Christian Brim (44:05.961)
Final question just popped into my head. Is dyslexia genetic? Okay, so if you have it, your kids probably have it. Okay.

Russell (44:12.45)
Yes. It is. It is. Yes, it's absolutely genetic. Typically, I will work with families where an older brother and sister is fighting to become valedictorian. And then you have the dyslectic kid and then I show them the full craft of research and they start turning in papers where their teachers actually learned something substantive and it drives their older brothers and sisters nuts because they're writing.

Christian Brim (44:27.391)
Mm-hmm.

Russell (44:41.706)
at a far higher level. Drives them crazy.

Christian Brim (44:45.193)
I love that. Listeners will have those links in the show notes. If you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. Until next time, remember you are not alone.