Leadership Begins with Motivation

[00:01] Announcer:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.

[00:13] SPEAKER_00:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by Danny Brassell, PhD. who is a keynote speaker, teacher, educator, bestselling author of 16 books, and the co-founder of the reading engagement platform, TheReadingHabit.com. And we're here today to talk about his book, Leadership Begins With Motivation, 33 Unique Ways to Think and Act Like a Successful Leader That Will Transform Your Professional and Personal Life.

[00:40] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:42] SPEAKER_00:

Danny, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[00:44] SPEAKER_01:

Thanks for having me, Justin. That was a mouthful. I had to shorten my titles.

[00:47] SPEAKER_00:

Well, I'm very excited to speak with you. I've been following your work for a long time as an author and speaker and educator. And motivation is one of those things that, you know, often that we feel as administrators that we are supposed to attend to. We're supposed to motivate our staff. But often we get bogged down by everything else. Why is motivation so central to leadership?

[01:10]

And as you say, why does leadership begin with motivation?

[01:13] SPEAKER_01:

Well, Justin, anybody that's become an administrator, you think you're going to change the world when you become an administrator and you're like, okay, it's Monday morning, I'm going to fix this school. And they're like, well, The bus is going to be an hour late. You have to call the parents. All right, okay, so it's Tuesday morning. I'm going to fix this school. Yeah, we need you at a budget meeting at central office.

[01:31]

Okay, okay, it's Wednesday morning. I'm going to fix this school. Yeah, a kid brought a hunting rifle to campus. You've got to deal with this. And what happens is the same thing that actually happens to teachers is you get bogged down with all those little nonsense details and you forget your overall reason for actually entering education. And so leadership begins with motivation.

[01:53]

But I've always told people, you know, I can't motivate another human being. I can only inspire them to motivate themselves. True motivation, as far as I'm concerned, really has to come from within. You know, the old saying, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. And it's sage advice for us as leaders in our school sites.

[02:13] SPEAKER_00:

Well, Danny, one of the challenges that I think a lot of leaders are facing, both in the pandemic and coming out of the pandemic, is just this sense of disconnection from staff, that we see each other virtually rather than in person, and the sense that this is not what any of us signed up for. And you mentioned having to call parents about the buses or dealing with discipline issues and all the different investigations that we have to do. And we might not have signed up for that either, but at least we knew what we were getting into. You know, it's kind of that other duties as assigned. What we're dealing with now and what teachers are dealing with now is something that none of us foresaw. Like it was not foreseeable.

[02:50]

We did not know we would be doing this. And I'm seeing a lot of people just tired in ways that, you know, that they've never been tired before. And as leaders, you know, We did sign up for that kind of motivational role. But I have to say, this is not something that I am just good at. Like, this is not my zone of genius to get people, you know, kind of reconnected to their purpose and fired up, especially in times when this isn't really what we signed up for. Any thoughts on that?

[03:18] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, that's exactly right, Justin. But that's what's awesome about education is you're never going to have a dull moment. And things are it was the comedian Stephen Wright who said change is inevitable unless you're in front of a vending machine. And it's exactly right is we have no idea what's coming next. And it's our duty as leaders. to really, you know, I've always believed that the essence of leadership is I want to lead by example.

[03:44]

And that's the first thing that I'm never going to ask somebody to do something that I'm not willing to do. And then secondly, I really need to inspire people. I think people, that's what they're looking for in a leader is somebody that can get more out of them than they ever believed that they could get out of themselves. When I was a teacher, I used to always tell my little ones, and I've taught all age levels, but I always call them my little ones, but I always told them, you know, sometimes you need somebody else to believe in you before you believe in yourself. I believe in all of you, and they only give me the best and the brightest, so let's go change the world. And I think a lot of people need to hear that.

[04:20]

I've been blessed throughout my life to have a lot of people that encouraged me, and that's really what I see as my primary role as a leader.

[04:28] SPEAKER_00:

What I hear you saying there is valuing other people, letting people know that they are okay, that they can do this. And I feel like especially for teachers who are used to being good at what they do and thrust into all these roles and all these skills that they're not proficient with, or at least they don't feel as good as they usually do.

[04:48] SPEAKER_01:

I think it's a great point, Justin. I mean, I've been working with some pretty major speakers recently, and I've been telling new speakers, I'm like, you've got a huge advantage because a lot of these people have been speaking for 30 years on stages, but stages just became this new little box on a screen. And so it just really evened up the playing field for a lot of people. And it's making a lot of people uncomfortable. But that's what leadership is, is getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. Every day is a new challenge and we need to embrace it, not run away from it.

[05:20]

And I think it's a great it's something great to model to kids. I always tell teachers, you know, how do you ever expect a kid to take a risk if you're not willing to take a risk? I am a horrible artist. And so I draw in front of my students every single day. I am a horrible person. singer, terrific dancer, but a horrible singer.

[05:37]

So I sing and dance in front of my students every single day. And inevitably, on the first day of school, I would misspell a word on the on the whiteboard. And some annoying kid would say, Mr. Bissau, you misspelled a word. I'm like, yeah, this is a game we're going to play all year long to make sure you're paying attention. Which word was it?

[05:56]

You know, we need to laugh at ourselves, Justin. I mean, I'm One of the most important things I learned is I'm not all that, and neither are you. And if you think you're all that, teach kindergarten for one week. Those little ones will set you straight. I once had a little girl, LaShonda, she's like, Mr. Purcell, when are you going to trim your nose hair?

[06:16]

I'm like, this afternoon. Thanks for bringing that to my attention, LaShonda. I ain't all that. And I think a lot of us really just, and this is why it's important about listening to podcasts like this, is we all need a little bit of inspiration. We need to hear about other people's trials and tribulations. how they get over them.

[06:32] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And that sense of just knowing that these may be situations that we've never dealt with before, but for every challenge that we face, someone has faced a greater challenge, right? Someone has been through something much worse. So yeah, tell us some of the stories that are in the book, Leadership Begins With Motivation.

[06:48] SPEAKER_01:

Well, I'll start with a funny one because I always taught in the inner city in South Central Los Angeles. And I was usually the only man at my school. I was usually the only white person at my school. I taught with a lot of elderly African-American women from the South who all had been teaching for at least 20 years. And I just adore them because they allowed me into their sisterhood. I've had great administrators that I've worked with, and I've had horrible administrators.

[07:12]

And I've learned to praise God every time I'm working with a competent human being. But I simply cannot fathom how people get through tough situations without laughing. I've worked with great educational administrators and horrendous ones, and it soon became apparent that whenever I had a great administrator, I should praise God every day. Mrs. Washington was one such administrator. She knew when people needed a kick in the backside and when they needed a pat on the shoulder.

[07:35]

Faculty meetings had always been torturous to me, as I'm the sort of person who prefers to take action rather than form a committee to discuss it. But Mrs. Washington had such a kind way about her that my colleagues and I always participated and paid attention. And Mrs. Washington, too, had a way of getting us all to laugh. One day after hearing a bunch of negative announcements, courtesy of our state's Department of Education, Mrs. Washington decided to share with us a positive note.

[08:00]

Our school had recently held a luncheon in appreciation of the senior citizens from the nursing home down the street. They would come once a week to read to various classrooms at our school, and one woman, Mrs. Jackson, who, quite frankly, had a pretty ornery disposition, wanted to thank us for the radio she had won at the luncheon. Mrs. Washington read aloud the elderly woman's letter word for word. Dear teachers and staff, God bless you all for the beautiful radio I won at your recent senior citizens' luncheon.

[08:29]

I am 87 years old and have lived at the nursing facility for the past 10 years. All of my family has passed away or forgotten about me. I am all alone and it's nice to know that someone is thinking of me. Mrs. Bradley has been my roommate for all my 10 years here. She is 95 and has always had her own radio.

[08:51]

But before I received one, she would never let me listen to hers, even when she was napping. The other day, Mrs. Bradley's radio fell off her nightstand and broke into a million pieces. It was awful and she was in tears. Her distress over the broken radio touched me and I knew this was God's way of answering my prayers. She asked if she could listen to my new radio and I told her to kiss my backside.

[09:21]

Thank you. Sincerely, Yolanda Jackson.

[09:25] SPEAKER_00:

Didn't see that coming.

[09:27] SPEAKER_01:

No, no, but none of us ever see it coming. And that's what, that's what I love the camaraderie of, you know, just, Being part of this tribe where we can all just sit here and laugh at each other's anecdotes. One of my mentors, Mrs. Turner, you know, she saw me when I was teaching. I was starting to let things get to me. And she's like, you're never going to last if you let it get to you.

[09:49]

You got to learn how to laugh about it. Because and I know you've had this situation, too. We see some pretty tough things. And, you know, I was crying a lot and I was drinking a lot and I wasn't going to last. And It was a whole bunch of elderly African-American women who would just sit there with me and we would talk about it after school and joke about it. And that's what really got me through it.

[10:16]

And that's the serious types of things that a lot of people during the pandemic, they need to understand that they are not alone. Neither are you.

[10:25] SPEAKER_00:

One of your big skill sets that you bring to keynote speeches is being able to tell stories and being able to use anecdotes. And I think sometimes we feel like every story that we tell has to be a personal story, like it has to be ours or it has to be you know, just right for the situation. And you seem to be able to, you know, to use those stories, you know, naturally and flexibly. Any tips for leaders on how to know when it's an appropriate time, you know, to, to tell a funny story or a serious story or like, how do you, how do you work this in? Because like, for me, I'm a very straightforward person typically. Like I just kind of say what I mean.

[11:00]

How do you, how do you work those in and how do you know when is the right time?

[11:03] SPEAKER_01:

Well, that's actually why I wrote these books, Justin, was I worked with a lot of people and they're like, uh, I'm not like you, Danny. And I'm like, well, you shouldn't be like me. I have a rule. If you're not funny, don't tell jokes. And what I mean by that is there's only one of you in the world. You have your own strengths.

[11:20]

You know, some people collect football cards. I've always collected stories. And, you know, I have my Irish background where, you know, we never let the truth get in the way of a really good story. And it was actually I'd read Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin about President Lincoln. And, uh, president Lincoln had this ability, even when he was a country lawyer, people would come from 20 miles to the pub because he would, he would stand by the fire and he would just tell stories. And during the darkest moments of the, uh, the civil war, he would, uh, share these stories to loosen up the room.

[11:56]

Actually, there was one story I loved, uh, where, um, there was a tense moment of some battle and, uh, So the Secretary of War is very concerned, and President Lincoln starts telling a story. He's like, don't tell another story. But of course, President Lincoln tells it anyway. He talks about Ethan Allen was one of the founding fathers and became an ambassador to Great Britain. And the British play a joke on Ambassador Allen. They posted a portrait of George Washington in the outhouse.

[12:27]

And so they were playing cards, and the British were waiting for Ambassador Allen to have to go do his duty. And he eventually went to the outhouse, and he came back, and the British officers were laughing. And they're like, well, did you notice the portrait of George Washington in the latrine? And Ambassador Ethan Allen says, oh, why, yes. And this kind of— took back the British soldiers. They're like, well, weren't you offended?

[12:59]

He said, why, no. Every American knows that the sight of George Washington scares the crap out of the British. I mean, how would you not love President Lincoln? I love this man. You know, so I usually like doing happy, funny stories. There's actually a story in here because we had had a student who had passed and It was kind of a somber occasion.

[13:25]

And, you know, you have to understand you can't use humor during a somber occasion, but you can still inspire people. So here's a story I'd written. I say a prayer before I go on stages to speak. Basically, I ask God to use me as an instrument to inspire others. There's a neat line in the Bible in Ephesians 5, 1, where the Apostle Paul writes, Be imitators of God as beloved children and live in love as Christ loved us. Loving one another without judgment is something all of us could do a little more, but I often wondered what it means to live in love.

[13:58]

Then I heard the story of Tony Campolo. Tony had a hard time sleeping one night, so he got up at 3.30 a.m. and went searching for an all-night coffee shop. He found one and ordered a donut and a cup of coffee when two prostitutes came in.

[14:12]

They were loud and crude and quite disagreeable company. Tony was ready to leave when he overheard one of the women say that the next day was her birthday. Her friend sneered, so what do you want from me, a birthday party? To which the woman replied, why should you give me a birthday party? I've never had a birthday party in my whole life. Now, when Tony heard that, something clicked inside.

[14:36]

He went over to the waiter and asked if the women came in every night. The waiter said they did. Then Tony asked if he could hold a birthday party for the one woman, Agnes. The waiter thought it was a wonderful idea and agreed. Tony was back at the diner the next night at 2.30 a.m. to decorate.

[14:52]

He brought some crepe paper decorations and made a big birthday sign out of pieces of cardboard. He covered that diner from one end to the other. Somehow word of the party must have gotten out because pretty soon the diner began to fill up with friends of Agnes. At 3.30, Agnes and the other woman entered the diner. Everyone shouted, happy birthday, Agnes.

[15:13]

I'm sorry, this chokes me up. And began singing happy birthday. Well, Agnes was stunned. Her mouth fell wide open. By the time the waiter brought in the cake, she was crying. A little later, Tony led the group in prayer.

[15:27]

Now, anyone who can read this story without shedding a tear is much stronger than I'll ever be. When I think about how Tony Campola looked at this woman as another human being and treated her with such dignity and kindness, it was a wake-up call. How many other people are out there in the world, like Agnes, who've never been shown a bit of kindness or shown the least bit of gratitude or given a birthday party? There is so much darkness in the world, yet any one of us can lead others to new heights, often with just the simplest consideration. So that was a story I shared, you know, to get us all thinking about most of us focus on what we cannot do rather than the simple things that we can do. And as leaders, all of us can do simple things.

[16:09]

One of the things I actually loved about your book, Justin, was just some of the basic things that we can do in terms of providing feedback on a daily basis. I think we provide too many evaluations and not enough daily feedback to show people that they're on the right course or the wrong course. those simple things that make the biggest difference in the fine line between success and failure.

[16:34] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Just noticing people, just paying attention. And as in the story, just listening to someone else reveal something pretty big. Nobody has ever thrown me a birthday party. And just being ready to act on that. And I feel like so much of the opportunity that's in front of us as leaders will pass us by if we're not attentive like that, if we're not attuned to those little moments, those opportunities to make a difference.

[16:59]

So Danny mentioned serious stories, funny stories, talked a little bit about figuring out when's an appropriate moment For leaders, I feel like often we're also pressured by the agenda, right? Like there's just so much to do. What's a good indicator that like the time, like I need to pause for a second, I need to pause the agenda and I just need to like consider the fact that we're a room full or a virtual room full of human beings here. Like what's the feeling that tells you like this is the moment when I need to stop talking about the upcoming assessments, you know?

[17:31] SPEAKER_01:

This is a takeaway for all of your audience right now. So school districts will bring me in for two days. On day one, I work with the teachers. On day two, I work with the administrators. But on the night of day one, I work with the parents because I think you need all three of those players on the same page. That's how you move mountains together.

[17:47]

And one of the best tips I give to administrators is to get rid of faculty meetings and replace them with potlucks. Words matter. People don't like faculty meetings, but they like potlucks. And when you have your weekly potluck, I want you to run it like King Arthur. Because if any of you remember, the rule King Arthur had was when the knights sat at the round table, they were only allowed to talk about their triumphs in the field. And if any of the knights had a problem, they would share their problem and the rest of the knights would go around and offer possible solutions to the problem.

[18:21]

as opposed to most faculty meetings, which usually degenerate into my life is tougher than your life. You're never going to get anything accomplished that way. I really think praising the good to the order, really recognizing people, hey, it's actually something, you know, now he's been scandalized, but Steve Wynn, the founder of the Wynn Casinos in Las Vegas, he never had employee of the month. He has over 12,000 employees, and what he would do is he would have employees talk about how they went above and beyond in service. And what happened is when people heard that, they're like, well, what can I do to go above and beyond? And all of a sudden, everybody was striving for that.

[19:02]

And it wasn't this thing. I think too often in education, people tear down the good ones. Oh, if this person is doing well, we have to tear that person down. And I always...

[19:13]

I always tell faculties, I'm like, I've never seen an inspirational teaching movie about the teacher that went into the inner city and was able to inspire his children by using the state's mandatory scripted reading program. No, I've never I've never heard that. But people do it in different ways. Now, again, every teacher is different. Every leader is different. And you have to play to your strengths, you know.

[19:36]

I've never been the disciplinarian. Always cracked me up because everybody sent me discipline problems because I was the dude, just assuming I was the disciplinarian. I'm like, man, my kids are all over the place. But that was me. One of the best disciplinarians, I was watching a teacher. She was a fourth grade teacher.

[19:51]

She may have been four feet, seven inches tall and 98 pounds. And she was dealing with you know, some pretty large males. And those guys did everything she said because she was like an ex-Marine and she had them. It was all about order. And she was a great teacher. That would never work for me because that's not my skill set.

[20:11]

And it's kind of the same problem I have with any kind of nationalized education. They're always looking for an answer. I'm like, you're asking the wrong question. You know, the answer is there's 38 answers. And the pandemic is actually revealing some of those answers as well. Some kids actually prosper in when they can do school at their own pace from home.

[20:30]

Now, some kids, they don't. Some kids need direct attention and things like that. And that's what I'm always, I get excited about in education is just, I'm very curious about how people learn differently. And it's the same thing as a leader. Everybody on my team, they're all members of the body. They all have their own strengths.

[20:48]

And I always tell people that education, we're not checkers players, we're chess players, because checkers, all the parts move in the same way. Chess pieces move all over the place. And so we have to be really good chess players as leaders.

[21:03] SPEAKER_00:

So the book is Leadership Begins With Motivation. And Danny, if people want to learn more about your work, more about bringing you in as a speaker or finding your books, where are some of the best places for them to go online?

[21:16] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so thank you for that, Justin. I appreciate that. So Leadership Begins with Motivation, I actually believe, is available free if you have unlimited Kindle. I think that's pretty cool. But I wanted to serve your audience. And so if all of you go to freereadingtraining.com, again, freereadingtraining.com, I'll provide all of you a complimentary copy of the book Read, Lead, and Succeed, which I told you about earlier, plus a couple of digital trainings I do with parents that

[21:42]

My reading engagement program, we have the largest reading engagement program in the world. It's not a reading program. I find that schools do a decent job of teaching kids how to read. But my question is, what good is it teaching kids how to read if they never want to read? So my program teaches kids why to read. And in just over a couple of months, I'll get those kids to read more, read better, and to love reading.

[22:07]

And it's important to me, Justin, because I've never had to tell a kid, go watch TV. I've never had to tell a kid go play a video game. And I never want to have to tell a kid go read a book. I want them to choose to do it on their own. And so that's what our program does. And I just really appreciate all that you're doing, Justin, because especially what we've been talking about during the pandemic, there's a lot of people hurting.

[22:29]

And I think all of us need to pause every day and listen to a positive podcast or watch an old episode of Andy Griffith or, you know, listen to inspiring music, take a walk. All of us need to really smile a lot more and realize this too shall pass. I'm very serious. I listen to your podcast. I've been listening for a long time. It's actually one of the better ones out there because I just think it's really practical.

[22:57]

And I really think you're doing a huge service because there's a lot of people out there. Some of these people, they get a lot of laughs because they're bitching about education all the time. And I'm like, to me, it's a cheap laugh. I don't think you should focus on the problem. I think you should focus on the solution.

[23:12] SPEAKER_00:

Well, Danny, thank you so much for joining me on Hospital Center Radio.

[23:15] SPEAKER_01:

Thank you, Justin.

[23:16] Announcer:

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