Shownotes:
Get ready for a paw-some episode with the charismatic Dr. Brandon Beck. He spills the beans on his furry friend Peaches and how she became the coolest classroom companion ever. Plus, Dr. Beck shares the secret sauce to unlocking your unlimited potential. Get ready, because this episode is filled with stories, purpose, and a whole lot of wagging tails! Don't miss out on the fun, fur-real!
About Our Guest:
Dr. Brandon Beck is a National Board Certified Teacher, Speaker, Results coach, and Author of "Unlocking Unlimited Potential." Brandon speaks to Teachers, School Leaders, Students, Athletes, and Coaches about the ultimate goal for ALL educators…to unlock unlimited potential in all whom you serve. He is also the host of the "Unlocking Unlimited Potential Stories Show. He also serves as an adjunct professor, a consultant, Results Coach, an editor and reviewer for AASA Journal of Scholarship & Practice.
Website: BrandonBeckEDU.com
Twitter: @BrandonBeckEDU
Instagram: @BrandonBeckEDU
About Lainie:
Lainie Rowell is an educator, international consultant, podcaster, and TEDx speaker. She is the lead author of Evolving Learner and a contributing author of Because of a Teacher. Her latest book, Evolving with Gratitude, was just released. An experienced teacher and district leader, her expertise includes learner-driven design, community building, online/blended learning, and professional learning. Learn more at linktr.ee/lainierowell.
Twitter - @LainieRowell
Instagram - @LainieRowell
Evolving with Gratitude, the book, is now available! Purchase here!
You can also get bulk orders for your staff (10 copies or more) at a discounted price! Just fill out the form linked below and someone will get back to you ASAP! bit.ly/ewgbulkdiscount
Transcript:
Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Hello, my friends. I have Dr. Brandon Beck with me today. Hi Brandon. How are you?
Brandon Beck: I'm good. How are you?
Lainie Rowell: Good. You're a podcaster? Maybe you notice this? My voice gets really high at certain points, and I, I really would like to change that. I need to get like a voice modulator or something in here.
But anyways.
Brandon Beck: You either have to start high or start low or somewhere in the middle. It's very challenging.
Lainie Rowell: It is. All I know is that I don't have the radio voice that you do, but I'm very happy that you're here. So thanks for being here, Brandon. And I wanna make sure we get started with people knowing a little bit about you.
And so I'm gonna do a quick little intro, and then you're gonna tell us even more wonderful things about you. Is that a deal?
Brandon Beck: Deal. Let's do it.
Lainie Rowell: Okay, so Dr. Brandon Beck is a classroom teacher, speaker, author, and coach. That is the most concise way I can say what I wanna tell you about Brandon, but there's so much more.
I mean, he's a nationally board certified teacher. There's like so much, and I, I won't do it justice. So Brandon, please tell us all the wonderful.
Brandon Beck: Oh God, it's it's, it is wonderful to be on this, this show. I know I've had you on my podcast not too long ago.
And you know, for me, I'm a, I'm in Westchester County, New York, so I'm outside New York City, probably about 25 miles and probably one of the most expensive areas to live in the world. And so it's a wildly dynamic population of people as you go within like a couple miles of each other, just a really diverse area.
And I work in a school district that I've been, I've been a fifth grade teacher for 16 years of my 18 year teaching career because I love it. And I also got into a dual language program as a monolingual, which is a story within itself and just fell in love with the language side of things, even like completely connected dissertation work.
That I was doing to that area to reinforce and learn more because I knew it was an area that I needed to grow and it was an area that I wasn't as confident in. And that lack of confidence in my education of having a national board certification, working towards a doctorate, doing all this work, and you know, to me that didn't seem like it was enough.
And it made me think. Well, why do people feel unprepared? Why do people feel ready? What is it about self-efficacy? And so in a nutshell, that's kind of led me through to writing a book called Unlocking Unlimited Potential. And that happened during covid, and that turned into a really crazy side of my career because I am still a professional soccer coach. And have a professional soccer coaching business, and it all came from not having time to go on to soccer fields and dusting off that work from the dissertation, looking at it in a different way. Connecting experiences, stories, movies, other books, other great people, great authors, and putting it together into a system and format and workshops and speaking and keynotes and leadership and speaking to teachers and athletes and coaches and everybody that is out there, you know in the, the leadership field and, and talking about what it makes to, to build that collective efficacy and that self-efficacy. So, It's a really long-winded response.
Lainie Rowell: Well here's what I took away from it. I do know some of your story already cuz we're friends and we've known each other, but here's what I took away from that story.
It's like, okay, COVID happened. It freed up a little bit of your time. You decided to take on a bunch of stuff. And then as we have gone back to being able to get back on soccer fields and do all these things, you just kept going with everything. Does that sound about right? Like nothing has?
Brandon Beck: Yeah, pretty much.
You know, I gotta say I didn't really get into the speaking and, and workshop side of things until about 15 years into my career because of the, the amount of my soccer business that would take over my, my life, my wife, almost going on to 13 years ago she decided and we decided that the best thing for us to do was to have her take care of our children.
And my wife stayed home and she hasn't been back to work. And like I said, I live in one of the most expensive places in the world and I'm a public school teacher and I hustle like crazy because I have a family to feed. I have, you know, kids with dreams and goals and things that I want them to be able to accomplish and not be able to accomplish because I was a teacher or I wasn't able to, you know, to, to do more.
It's unfortunate that it's like that. I know being that it's, we happen to be recording this during teacher appreciation week and you know, it makes you reflect a bit on, you know, that piece. And I listen to a podcast about gratitude, right? I'm really grateful for the opportunity that I get to go to school every single day and bring my dog.
That is the single greatest thing that I happen to, to have. I have a dog named Peaches. I rescued her four years ago. I rescued her four years ago with the idea of bringing her into school because I read a Time for Kids' Magazine to my fifth grade students about these dogs in a program called Mutt-i-grees that go into schools and they're part of a social emotional learning curriculum.
And that curriculum is connected to Yale University's School for the 21st Century. And Marc Brackett is in the school for social-emotional learning across the street. You know, it's, it's literally one of the greatest things that's happened in my career was listening to my students say that question, why not? Dr. Beck, why can't we have a dog in class? And I was like, yeah. Right. Come on man. Gimme a break.
Lainie Rowell: Well, you made it happen and that does not surprise me. And your, I don't know if you're comfortable with the term brand, but your, the way you present the Unlocking Unlimited Potential and how you're always talking about individual efficacy, collective efficacy, you get so much done.
It's amazing. It's also quite helpful to hear that it's hard even for you, that there's a lot, right? It's a lot.
Brandon Beck: Yeah. I mean, absolutely. I mean, it's been tough. I mean, I have a small business and I had to, I had to keep it alive with, you know, the people that I run it with during the pandemic, and I don't know about you, but you can't play soccer unless you're on soccer fields and there were no soccer fields to go to, so playing in your backyard on a virtual screen wasn't cutting it for everybody, and it was challenging. And really, one of the hardest things that I ever went through as someone who runs the business was Covid. Yeah. And seeing people go down and, and having, you know, people who, you know, just uprooted and moved out and went to different places. And, you know, you talk about this podcast being about gratitude, man, I'm just, I'm just glad to be alive with every single breath that I take because we lost good people during that time. And, you know, finding whatever joy it takes, if it's a crazy idea to bring a dog to school. And it works and it does because I'm living proof of it and it is absolutely miraculous what I see. You know, the connections, the kids that come up and pet her together, the kids that come up and pet her next to me when I'm walking in the hallway, the teachers that say hello to my dog before they say hello to me.
When I find myself in the hallway, actually, like talking for my dog, like, they're like, Hey, how's it going, Peaches? And I'm actually answering like she's good, you know? I know we have a problem, but a good problem. And Yeah, I just also happen to be a part of a really great school and I've had an incredible career in this school cause I've been there this entire time with incredible staff and I'm part of a unique school.
It's a fifth grade school only. It's one of the only schools like us in New York state. And there's 17 fifth grade classes in it. So it's about 450 kids and it's all in one building. So they go from a three, four to a fifth grade and then to a sixth, seven, eight. So it's like it's an island. I always say it's an island because I sometimes won't even see them for years to come.
And when we take this dog around the school, because the students created this, this whole thing cuz they created this Kid's Helping Pause program. They DIY donated dog toys. They did all this crazy stuff. Now, we started a show where we go from class to class to and schools. We went to the high school, fifth graders got on stage, they were speaking, they were like TED talking these 10th graders with a dog sitting on the stage.
And it was really incredible because I don't really get a chance to talk about this dog part as much because I've always been in that place of, ah, There's so much here that a book needs to come out, and I know it will.
Lainie Rowell: Yeah.
Brandon Beck: But I, when I just don't know if I'm ready to become the dog guy yet.
Lainie Rowell: I think you have plenty of other things going on that no one's gonna just simmer it down to the dog guy, but...
Brandon Beck: I just think it's a good thing and it works. I have to say it's in my experience, you know, maybe it's just my dog, but it's been incredible and we're adding more dogs. We've written a bunch of grants to fund.
I wanna personally get funding for the training for the teacher to have the dog. So that the teacher, as soon as they get the dog, they can take her to a training right away and get, get the dog going cuz it's expensive. Mm-hmm. You know, I, I went all in, you know, I got a right away, got a trainer, I brought my kids to the trainer.
I wanted her from day one to know what it was like to be around dogs. Cause I had no idea what I was doing. I never had a dog before either. That was the other little thing. I was like, now I'm gonna get a dog.
Lainie Rowell: Wait, this is your first dog. Is your classroom dog?
Brandon Beck: Yeah, it's my first dog.
Lainie Rowell: Is the one that is like with you 24 /7.
Brandon Beck: Yeah.
Lainie Rowell: Your first dog ever is...
Brandon Beck: you know, before what we did is we started watching dogs for Guiding Eyes, for the blind. And what they do is they take little eight week old pups and you take them first out of the kennel, like the first experience that they ever get, like outside of being away from their mother.
And you take two or three of them at a time. They come to your house. They, you know, they use your whole house as a restroom and then they basically go back after four days and you and your family are like, we're good. That was a lot of work. They were crazy. And we put 'em back and we're good and we, we had our puppy fix and then read that Time for Kids Magazine and that's it.
That's what happened.
Lainie Rowell: That's amazing. I love that. Random story. I remember when I was teaching second grade and I told one of the parents, I'm like, oh, I'm getting a puppy. And they're like, you're getting a puppy. Oh, I'd take a newborn again over a puppy. I guess it's, you know, helpful that newborns aren't like running around the house.
Brandon Beck: It's funny, It's funny you say this. Once again, I am also very grateful to be able to have children and after we had the dog, we had been going back and forth about trying for, for number three and after that I was like, I'm good. I could totally do another kid.
And now I have a, you know, two, almost three year old. And my wife and I were sitting at the beach. She was about eight months pregnant and our two kids were running in the ocean. They didn't need any supervision. And we were in beach chairs, just chilling. And we're like, this is great. And we look at each other and I see her and I say, it's not gonna be like this for a while, is it?
And we just laughed. So it hasn't, I'm in shadow phase right now with a two year old.
Lainie Rowell: That's funny. Well, I mean, you're doing so much. I do know, cause you and I have talked about this before, that gratitude means a lot to you and I hear it as you're talking about it. I also am just gonna throw this out there, this quote, I saw it on Instagram, Mark and Angel, I don't know if you follow them.
But this really resonated with me and I, I wanna get your thoughts. The quote is, "being positive doesn't mean ignoring the negative, being positive means overcoming the negative, and there's a big difference between the two."
And so as I hear you, I hear you sharing the things that are challenging, but to me what I see in you and the work that you put out there is this overcoming the negative. It's not that it's not there, we're acknowledging it, but that overcoming, it's a big deal to me, let's celebrate that.
Brandon Beck: Oh my God. That's literally the foundation of all the work that I get to do and it's so true, you know? There's so many times, and I think the, I guess the best way to say it is anybody like yourself, anybody who's a writer, anybody who takes the time to write, if you're a blogger, posting, you know, even on Instagram, whatever it is, influencer you're writing.
And you're reflecting and you're, you're putting it out there because it is valuable to others. It really is. It's education. People should keep, you know, they should post a lot more about education, I'll put it that way. It's, you know, for me it's, it's using, it's seeing those challenges, but being able to write allows you the opportunity to really, you know, to practice that gratitude A and also B, it also gives you the opportunity to, to really reflect and I think for me, I, I've always been about a lot of different stories and a lot of the stories that I have have always led me to places where I thought I wasn't enough and worked as hard as I possibly could to, you know, to earn what I deserved in terms of what made me feel better. And that always made me think and think deeply about what makes people tick, what makes people, you know, and then digging more into that and then into that whole self-efficacy side, because the root of my work was always in how do you feel? How do you feel about your preparation? How do you feel about, you know, your work? How do you feel about what you're doing?
Because that's literally the core of it all. Because if you don't have joy in the journey, if you don't have the fire is lit and it's, and it's flowing because I'm not gonna ignore the fact that every single day, I don't go through moments in my life where I limit myself. We all do. We all do. When we step on the gas pedal and we go past the steep speed limit and we see the speed limit sign, we slow down.
That's a limit. We have limits everywhere we go in life, and I think sometimes we believe that we're gonna go through life without them. And that we see other people out there. We're always comparing ourselves to pictures and images and videos and things that people write, and things that people do and, and forget that that is also part of a vision.
I think that that is also is critical and the work that I do and I get to do with athletes, with coaches, with teachers, with school leaders. Has been incredible because it comes from that place. You know, I talk about three things. I talk about your story, your why, and your purpose. And those three things right there are the core of how you get yourself to unlock that unlimited potential in yourself and in others.
Because we have to empower others by utilizing stories that's culturally responsive. That's growth mindset, that's social emotional learning. That's everything. And our why has to be clear in everything because the kids are always gonna ask why. In fact, they should ask why seven times? Because if you ask why seven times, you really get to the root of something good, and we also need to know why.
And if we know why we're doing what we're doing. We have to remind ourselves of it. We have to be grateful for it. We have to, you know, that's where that, that gratitude list, that journaling, that gratitude journaling, it all comes in because you're reminding yourself of it. And then we have to be clear in our purpose.
And, and by really empowering those three parts, that's the work that I get to do. I work with athletes in, in college athletes. I've had schools that I work with now that are contacting me and I'm working with captains. I'm working with the captains cuz they don't really understand that leadership, how that perspective is.
The coaches, the technical, the tactical, they work the leadership, but they never really have the time to have a, some other third point perspective to check in with them. And so, That's been incredible to see and, and have the opportunity to work in that capacity too, because it was just kinds of, puts together all the, the pieces of everything and I think it's all about putting together all the pieces of all the things that you love and being clear and all that.
Lainie Rowell: Listening to you share your story and your why and your purpose is that you have just such a wide range of experiences and the things that you're doing every day are in such different spaces. I know there's through lines for sure, but being the teacher, being the coach, being the speaker, being the writer, being the podcaster, I mean so many different spaces and with different people.
I love that when you share things, you share them authentically and the things you share are very actionable. And I wanna give you an opportunity, if you're up for it, to share some of these things that you have in your book that you, and I know you have guests on your podcast, but you share wisdom there too, so it doesn't have to be specific to gratitude, but just something that you wanna give to people as some, some actionable things that they can use to unlock their unlimited potential. What would you wanna share? And I did not give you a heads up on this question, but I think you're locked and loaded with this one.
Brandon Beck: Locked and loaded. You know, one thing I actually include in my, in my book, in one of the action steps is I talk about the story of Michael Phelps and how Michael Phelps had ADHD and he had a fifth grade teacher who told him he would never amount to anything and nearly, you know, left the school.
Michael Phelps' mom she was a principal at the time. She realized that when he would go to swim practice, he would be so focused for six to eight hours straight. Realized how staying in his lane was really something that was effective. And I, we all know the story of Michael Phelps and, you know, the most decorated Olympian and it's amazing because one of the things, he's very big into mindset coaching and he had a coach for mindset and his, he had his list and he talked about keeping his, you know, himself mentally strong, his mental health. And I just thought it was important to know that everybody, that he does a gratitude list as he's, you know, one of the best athletes in the world.
And I think that that's important to remind ourselves that we can't forget how hard those athletes work out there or those teachers or those people in business or anybody who's anywhere who works really hard, right? We can't forget cuz you don't see what goes on behind the scenes. And so I think that that's, I I, that to me is, I'm gonna keep that simple.
I've already talked about, you know, I personally, I definitely start every day as much as I can. With, you know, two sentences, speech to text in my phone. You know, it's May 5th, blah, blah, blah, boom. Grateful for this, grateful for this, and then all of a sudden I'll start writing and sometimes that'll turn into content for me that I'll use later on.
Or sometimes it'll turn into something that I'll put in my newsletter that I'll send out to, to you know, my subscribers, because I love to provide free, helpful tips and resources as much as I possibly can, as I reflect, because I just put it out there because if it helps one person. It's helpful to me, and I'm not trying to own anything.
I'm just trying to share so that we can continue to keep going forward in the journey.
Lainie Rowell: I appreciate that. I think that's the best mindset you can be in when it comes to putting content out there is that I'm, I'm putting the best stuff out in the world because I want it to help people that I think that that really does...
it's almost like a pay it forward kind of mindset, but it definitely is empowering and it helps us to kind of hone in on what our message is and what our, you know, like you said, your story, your why, your purpose. Like that's us constantly revisiting that and, and, and growing with it. Evolving with it.
You mentioned Michael Phelps and I just posted on Instagram. It, it's gone viral in a bunch of places, but Michael J. Fox talking about gratitude and it kind of reminded me of this very famous quote. It's been kind of attributed to a bunch of different people, but I go to Brother David Steindl-Rast and its, "happiness is not what makes us grateful. It's gratefulness that makes us happy."
And again, going back to that, this is about overcoming. And I am sure people could say that Michael J. Fox has had a wonderful life. I mean, he's a wealthy man, well-known actor. But he's been battling Parkinson's for 30 years and it's not easy.
And if you hear him talk about his journey, it's remarkable that he is so optimistic. He just did an interview and he said, "with gratitude optimism is sustainable". And when I hear you talking about unlocking unlimited potential and you're doing all of these things, it's not because it's easy, it's not because everything is sunshine and roses and bunnies being chased through fields or anything like that.
The work is hard. It's hard.
Brandon Beck: Yeah. And you know what, it's, it's rewarding. Mm-hmm. You know, the more, I mean, I act, one thing is I still do is I still actively coach a high school team. I have a very, very strong high school soccer program. And I love it, and it gets harder and harder every year, but it's one of those things that I'm not trying to push it out of the way yet because it's not in a position that I need to do that yet. But what happens is it becomes for, you know, for the, the, the kind of future that I know that I'm, I'm going in and then, and what I want to be able to continue and what I see of, of this work is it's evolving in a way that it's happening because of these certain things that have happened and the challenges and how we've kind of faced them as a family and how we've faced them you know, in our organizations it's, it's shaped a, a way forward and it's a unique way forward. But I think that's what really is, you know, it's funny because I didn't go to get school administration.
I went from being a teacher and I went and got my doctorate. And everybody was in there and was like, oh, you're gonna become a principal. You're gonna become a superintendent. And I was like, I'm, I'm actually not. And they were like, what do you mean? What do you mean? I'm like, well, you know, this is, well I do this, like I'm a, you know, I have a soccer business.
And I started explaining what I, what I was doing, and it made me realize that. I'm more passionate about running that administration side through sport. Mm. And I'm, and I, because I am leading, I'm out there, I have 25 coaches, we've expanded rapidly. We're, you know, across a, a wide range, probably about 4,200 total members in our organization.
So it's a, it's a pretty big deal. And I'm out there putting out lesson plans. Putting out coaches, going to fields, seeing them. I'm an instructor for the United States Soccer Federation, so coaching education has always been my background. So, as well as all of the other education. But what my point is, is I think we just kind of, I, I think that a lot of these things sometimes that come naturally to us, they come through our passions, and I think I've always led passion first.
And I, and I've always felt that that's a good way to end up on your feet.
Lainie Rowell: Absolutely. Oh, I know you have so much more wisdom to share, but believe it or not, we're actually running out of time, and I believe you have a sleeping toddler somewhere.
Brandon Beck: Yeah, she, she might run, she might jump out of a crib and run down at some point, but she, we'll be all right.
Lainie Rowell: Yeah. I wanna make sure and give you time for your shout outs. And then tell us how we can reach out to you.
I mean, I know how to reach out to you, but tell our listeners.
Brandon Beck: Absolutely. All right. I'll give a shout out. I'll give a shout out to my man, Darrin Peppard. Cause that's just my guy. He's my brother from another mother.
Just an absolute amazing, incredible dude. I, I know this isn't gonna be on video, but I, I actually have his book right here.
Lainie Rowell: I got it too.
Brandon Beck: Yeah, I did. Let's do,, after this we're doing a picture.
Lainie Rowell: There we go. There we go. I'm like, look in my bookshelf right now where I know it's, I know it's close.
Oh, I can see it from here. Okay. We'll get it and we'll do the picture
Brandon Beck: Absolutely. To my, we did a Jeep wave this morning. So Darrin and I, we've we discovered each other through the, the book journey and we we both connected and started a coaching results coaching program and. Basically what it is, is, you know, we have, we have a large group and we have a mastermind and we have a we have individual coaching clients.
But what's been a crazy and so rewarding about it has been the fact that the, the, there's always three of us on the call, so it's always myself, Darrin, and the person we're coaching, and it's always great for the three of us to kind of triangulate. Yeah. And it's always, it's been really, you know, I, a lot of the other coaching I do is usually one-on-one or in a small group by myself, so it's always awesome to be in the same room with an amazing coach.
So just shout out to, to Darrin.
Lainie Rowell: To Dr. Pep.
Brandon Beck: It's Pep Rally.
Lainie Rowell: I know, right? There's so many things we can do with that name. We love him. Love his name. Okay, I'm gonna grab my book in a minute, but in the meantime, please tell people it will be in the show notes. Of course, this is not my first rodeo.
I know to put this in the show notes, but please, Dr. Beck, how should people reach out to you?
Brandon Beck: Yeah, absolutely. I keep it real simple. Everything is @BrandonBeckEDU, and also my website is BrandonBeckEDU.com.
Lainie Rowell: Very good. Well my friend, thank you so much for being here. It is always a joy chatting with you and I'm looking forward to sharing this episode with our listeners.
So thanks again. I'm I wanna make sure I'll put everything in the show notes so people can reach out to you. And again, just thank you for your time.
Brandon Beck: Thank you.
Lainie Rowell: Thanks everyone for listening.