EPISODE OVERVIEW

Duration: Approximately 22 minutes

Best For: Trapped entrepreneurs who know their business is valuable, yet struggle to communicate that value clearly to customers, staff, and the market

Key Outcome: A repeatable system to identify your unique message and communicate it with laser precision, using AI as your grunt work partner

He built a research methodology so effective that struggling students leaped seven grade levels in a single school year. Now he teaches business owners the same principle.

THE BOTTOM LINE

You built something valuable. You know you did. The thing is, every time you try to explain what makes you different, the words come out muddled. Your website sounds like everyone else's. Your team can't articulate your vision. And you're stuck doing all the communication yourself because nobody gets it quite right.

Russell Van Brocklen understands messy human struggle. As someone who entered college with a first grade reading and writing level, he had to develop systems where others could wing it. His New York State Senate funded research produced results that shocked academics. Highly motivated students moved from middle school writing to graduate level work in one school year. Every single one graduated university.

The same methodology that transformed struggling students now helps trapped entrepreneurs cut through the noise. Russell's word analysis system, combined with strategic AI use, gives you a process to finally say exactly what's in your head. Not corporate jargon. Not what your competitors are saying. Your message. The one that makes the right customers stop scrolling and start listening.

WHY THIS EPISODE MATTERS TO YOU

You'll stop wasting hours crafting messages that sound like everyone else, because you'll have a system that identifies what genuinely makes you different

You'll finally delegate communication tasks with confidence, knowing your team has the exact words and definitions to use

You'll use AI as a true partner instead of another source of overwhelm, letting it handle the grunt work while you make the decisions

You'll stop being the only person who can explain your business properly, which means you can actually step away without everything falling apart

KEY INSIGHTS YOU CAN IMPLEMENT TODAY

AI taught Russell what it can teach you. When you communicate poorly with AI and get rubbish back, that's a mirror. You're likely being just as unclear with your staff, your customers, your family. The thing is, people just nod and say yeah instead of giving you useless output. AI forces you to sharpen your thinking. That clarity transfers to every conversation you have.

Your business exists for a reason beyond money. Fortune 500 companies are in it primarily for profits. You're not. There's something about the business you chose that matters deeply to you. That's your competitive advantage. That said, most trapped entrepreneurs have never articulated it clearly, even to themselves. Russell's process forces that clarity to the surface.

Universal themes are too broad for modern marketing. Acceptance, freedom, success. These words mean everything and nothing. Russell's system takes your broad theme and drills down through AI generated synonyms with custom definitions until you find the word that actually matches what's in your head. Then every piece of communication filters through that laser focused message.

Let AI do the grunt work while you make the choices. Request 100 synonyms with custom definitions. Have AI narrow to the top 10 based on what you're trying to achieve. You pick the winner. Don't like it? Do another 100. This takes minutes, not hours. The human stays in control of meaning while the machine handles volume.

Context is everything, for AI and for your business. Russell's students learn advanced context before they touch AI tools. One company's customer service AI handled millions of tickets brilliantly, optimising for speed. It destroyed customer relationships because the intent was wrong. Speed wasn't what customers needed. Your messaging needs the right intent before you scale it.

GOLDEN QUOTES WORTH REMEMBERING

"We as small businesses to medium sized businesses, we're doing this for a reason. Yes, we have to make a paycheck, we have to make a living. That said, we want our customers to succeed." - Russell Van Brocklen

"The AI allowed me to take everything that I dumped in and come up with that idea." - Russell Van Brocklen

"Once we hit grad school, we own the place." - Russell Van Brocklen, on dyslexic entrepreneurs

"If you can write, you can read." - Russell Van Brocklen, book title that emerged from his AI clarity process

"There are six sharks. Guess how many are dyslexic? Three of them. Dyslexics make up less than 10% of the population. Half the sharks are dyslexic." - Russell Van Brocklen

QUICK NAVIGATION FOR BUSY LEADERS

00:00 - Introduction: Meeting the Dyslexic Professor and his unconventional path

02:15 - The Assembly Internship: How showing up with a neuropsychological evaluation changed everything

05:30 - Law School Breakthrough: Learning to read and write at grad school level within months

08:45 - The New York State Research: Seven grade level leaps for less than 900 dollars per student

11:20 - AI and Communication Clarity: What chatbots teach us about how we actually communicate

14:00 - The Universal Theme Process: Finding your laser focused message using AI as grunt work

17:30 - Practical Application: How Russell developed his book title and course messaging

19:45 - Dyslexia and Business: Why half the Shark Tank sharks share this trait

21:30 - Next Steps: The book, the course, and the path to TEDx

GUEST SPOTLIGHT

Name: Russell Van Brocklen

Bio: Russell Van Brocklen, known as The Dyslexic Professor, is a New York State Senate funded dyslexia researcher whose word analysis methodology produced remarkable results. Students moved from middle school writing to graduate level work in a single school year, all for less than 900 dollars per student. His bottom up, interest first systems now help entrepreneurs and educators who were never built for one size fits all solutions.

Connect with Russell:

Website: https://www.DyslexiaClasses.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/russell-van-brocklen-2007ab87/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dyslexiaclassesus/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dyslexiaclasses/

YOUR NEXT ACTIONS

This Week: Choose one aspect of your business that you struggle to explain clearly. Write multiple paragraphs about why it matters. Then pull out the single most important word from each sentence and list them together. You've started Russell's process.

This Month: Run your word list through AI. Ask for the top 10 words with custom definitions based on what you're trying to communicate. Pick the one that resonates most. Request 100 synonyms with custom definitions for that word. Find your laser focused universal theme.

This Quarter: Filter every piece of communication through your chosen word and definition. Website copy, team briefings, customer conversations, sales calls. Watch what happens when everyone finally speaks the same language about what makes you different.

EPISODE RESOURCES

Book: "If You Can Write, You Can Read" by Russell Van Brocklen (forthcoming)

Book Reference: "The Craft of Research" published by University of Chicago, 1995

Book Reference: "Overcoming Dyslexia" by Dr. Sally Shaywitz from Yale

Course: Russell's dyslexia course on School platform, 147 dollars per month

Platform: Pod Match for podcast booking and reviews

AI Tools Mentioned: ChatGPT Pro, Claude Opus 4.6

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READY TO ESCAPE THE TRAP?

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Book a Free Strategy Session: https://www.atpbos.com/contact

Let's discuss how to build a business that works WITHOUT you.

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CONNECT WITH YOUR HOST, ROY CASTLEMAN

Roy is the founder of All The Power Limited and creator of Elevate360, a business coaching system for entrepreneurs ready to scale without burnout. As a certified Wim Hof Method Instructor and the UK's first certified BOS UP coach, Roy combines AI automation, wellness practices, and business operating systems to help trapped entrepreneurs reclaim their freedom.

Website: www.atpbos.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roycastleman/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@allthepowerltd

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Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are in

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the world Today. I'm here with Russell and Russell has

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got some interesting things to share with us about dyslexia,

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about business, maybe a bit about AI. And welcome, Russell.

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Thank you for joining me. Thanks for having me. So

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let's go back a little bit. I always ask business

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owners this question. How did you get started in your

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business? This is the last thing I was supposed to

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be doing with my life. I was supposed to be

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a bureaucrat for the government with this one. This is

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probably going to be one of the weirdest stories you

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heard of because it all started back in the late

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90s when I was finishing up college. I wanted to

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know how laws were created. Not some class, I wanted

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to know. So I did something absolutely absurd. I went

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and I applied for the New York State assembly internship

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program and I was accepted. People asked, what's absurd about

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that? I showed up and I said, here's my neuropsychological

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evaluation. I have a first grade reading and writing level,

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which means I can't do the internship. Because how it

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worked back then is you'd have the elected official, you'd

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have the chief of staff, who's probably an intern a

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year or two before, and then you have the intern

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and that's it. I had to answer phones, write down

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messages, copy things, write things up. So the director freaked.

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Went up to the speaker's office. They said, you're not

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getting rid of this kid because he's dyslexic. So they

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got a committee together. They're senior people. And they decided

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to pull me out of the legislative office building into

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the Capitol to the majority leaders program and council's office

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that ran the assembly day today. When I walked in,

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I could see immediately why they did it. Three administrative

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assistants that could help with my horrific writing. For the

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academic portion, I gave a really long presentation for hours

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instead of the paper. Very common accommodation. Then they wrote

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up. They said, we recommend 15 credits of a minus.

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Goes back to the political science department of the State

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University of New York center at Buffalo. They look at

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these massive accommodations, they don't like them, so they flunk

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me. Instead of the A minus that was recommended, they

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flunked me. I got sick and tired of the discrimination.

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I asked my professors where I could go to grad

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school to force myself to read and write so I

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could teach other dyslexics. They said, if you like politics,

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go to law school. So I did. I audited a

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couple of classes my second day of Contracts. The professor

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called on me. Instead of responding as a student, I

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responded as his equal for 15 minutes. I couldn't beat

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him, he couldn't beat me. Within a month, I learned

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to read. Within a couple of years, I learned to

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write. Then I went back to the New York State

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Senate and I said, I want you to fund my

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dyslexia research program, which they don't do. After years working

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with the state Education department and the SUNY Research Foundation,

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I got funded for a multi year study. We went

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into the Avery Park Central School district right outside of

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Albany, New York sur State Capitol. We took the most

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motivated, the most intelligent, dyslexic high school juniors and seniors.

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They're writing at the middle school level, one class period

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a day for the school year. We increased the writing

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to the average range of entering graduate students. They all

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went to university, all graduated GPAs of 2.5 to 3.6.

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Cost New York State less than $900 a student. We

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were literally 3x as successful as the best to select

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a college at the time for less than 1% of

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the cost. And that's how I got started. Well, very

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good, very good. And how has that gone on from

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then? That's where the AI comes in. Because when I

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went and presented this in New York City, I thought

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I did something amazing. I thought I was done. I

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was wrong. The professors came to me and said, you

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had two students who went from the middle school level

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and to average writing of the 70th percentile, approximately veteran

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grad students. We don't care. We want the craft of

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research. I was like, the craft of what? The Craft

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of Research was published in 1995 by the University of

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Chicago to help their PhD students write their doctoral dissertations.

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It sold over a million copies since then. I'm like,

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you want me to teach high school kids to do

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essentially doctoral level work before they come into college? They

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said, yes. I said, okay. So I looked at it.

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What you're looking at is context. Getting everybody on the

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same page coming up with a unique problem statement that

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you can actually do, and then an innovative solution. Now,

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I want you to think about artificial intelligence. You're hearing

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words like, make sure they have the correct context. Make

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sure you have, especially if you're going to use agents,

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what's the intent? So that like, for example, there was

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one company, their AI appeared to be brilliant. They fired

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almost all their customer service people. AI did a couple

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of million tickets, but it solved it for speed and

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not for customers. So if you had a customer who

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said, I want a little something extra. They've been with

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us for years and you're not supposed to do it

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and it's not going to cost you much. The human

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is going to give that to them every time just

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to keep them happy. The AI did, so they had

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to go back and rehire everybody. So you have to

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put the intent all this advanced stuff, or it's going

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to be all screwed up. So when I. The way

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that I teach it is I teach my students how

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to go through first before I even get into the

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context. I'm sorry, before I get into AI, I show

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them how to do advanced context. Okay. Then that's the

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only time we start doing anything with artificial intelligence. I

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think one of the things that's taught me so well,

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and I've been doing it for three years, one of

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the things that it taught me so well is about

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communication. And, you know, initially you start playing with ChatGPT

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as it was back then, and you start communicating and

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it gives you rubbish out. Yeah. And you give it

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more and it gives you more rubbish out. And if

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you're analytic enough and can accept that you're not perfect,

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then you can start looking at yourself and Celeste. What,

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what should I be saying? Yeah. And when you start

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being very clear and concise context, all these things, suddenly

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you start getting better out. And it taught me that

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I was actually being less clear with my staff, with

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my customers, with my family than I thought it was

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because we talk from our own position and people will

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just say, yeah. And half the time they don't actually

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get it because I wasn't being clear enough. So that's

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really helped me in my own clarity with everybody else.

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Yeah. And the. Just my background with AI, when the

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ChatGPT came out with their $200 a month pro plan,

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I bought it that day. I got rid of it

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in December and I moved over primarily to opus 4.6

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now, just because it just does writing much better. But

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when you're talking about clarity, that's one thing I wanted

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to share with your audience. So when I'm dealing with

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dyslexics for advanced context, a lot of times people have

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trouble trying to say exactly what's unique about them in

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their head. As a business, if you're talking Fortune 500,

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they're in it primarily just for the money. We as

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small businesses to medium sized businesses, we're doing this for

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a reason. Yes, we have to make a paycheck, we

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have to make a living, but we want our customers

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to succeed. Because there's something about the business we chose

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that is very important to us and that is how

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we need to be able to communicate that. So I

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just want to give your listeners a quick process that

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I use to help dyslexics. That works perfectly with this.

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All right, so I use universal themes. And this is

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going to seem completely off base for a moment, but

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then you'll see exactly how. Why I teach you this

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way. I want you to think about a movie that

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you saw that you think is one of the best

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of all times that everybody has seen, that you know

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really well. What's the name of that movie? The Green

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Mile. Okay, now I'm going to ask you a really

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tough question. I want you to tell me one word,

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one universal theme that best represents the Green Mile. Acceptance.

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Acceptance. Now, if you look back when the Green Mile

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came out and you looked at the top publications, have

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you noticed that they tend to tell you this happened

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and this happened and, and they pretty much ruin the

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movie when you read the review? Yeah, sometimes, yeah. Okay,

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here's how you write it properly. You would take the

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universal theme of acceptance. Pick the main actors you want

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to discuss, ask how do they deal with the universal

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theme of acceptance? How did the director do? How did

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the screenwriter do? You put all that together. Now you

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have a proper review. People can decide to watch it

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or not based on that review. They don't want to

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watch it. You haven't ruined it for them. You've enhanced

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their experience and because now they know what to look

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for. Okay, here's the problem. When you're using the universal

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theme of acceptance, it's broad. It's like you can only

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paint with a very broad brush, not something laser focused,

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which what we need for a modern day marketing. So

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how do we fix that? Now I'm going to traumatize

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some people by going back to high school. All right,

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I want you to think of your standard Shakespearean play.

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You had a hero. The hero wanted to do something

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based on one or more universal themes. Then there'd be

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an optimum villain, a person, a concept or some combination

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there too, trying to prevent the hero from accomplishing their

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goal. They would have a conflict starting in act one,

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escalating act two, resolving act three. Sound familiar? Yep. Here's

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how we simplify that. And reason why I'm using Shakespeare

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is because for communicating in English, the guy's the man

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for this. He's the top guy around. So what we're

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going to do is we're going to simplify that and

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make it so we can actually use a universal theme

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to help focus our messaging. So we'll start off with.

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Let's just talk. Let's start off with a business. Give

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me a name of one of your customers that you're

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going to make up to protect their privacy and tell

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me what it is with their business that they want

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to do. John is totally overstressed. He works

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14 hours a day, seven days a week. He just

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needs peace. He needs to be able to step away

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from the business. What is his business? He's a social

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worker. He has a bunch of social workers. Okay, so

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what is it specifically that. What is the essence of

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the business? Why is John in the social working business?

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Because he sees there's a need to help people and

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he's really trying to help them get to a better

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place. Okay, so you're now going to take that and

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you're going to write multiple paragraphs on it. And you

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can use AI to help you with that. Okay, then

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what you're going to do is you're going to go

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through each sentence and pick out the most important word

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for each sentence. You're going to list all the most

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important words together. Then ask AI based on what you

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want to do, whatever, everything you wrote, what are the

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top 10? And you're going to tell them to give

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you those words with custom definitions. Then you, as the

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human, have to pick out the one that you think

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is the best. Okay, that's going to be your base

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universal thing. But just like the one that you use

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for your movie review, it's still very broad. How do

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we get this more specific? Then you tell the AI

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you want 100 synonyms with custom definitions, and

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it goes as and does that. Then you say based

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on what the hero want, what we want to do,

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pick the top 10. Then you pick the one with

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the definition that best matches what's in your head. If

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you don't like it, do another hundred and do another

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100 after that, who cares? The AI is doing the

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grunt work. This is all done in a matter of

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minutes. Then you're never going to find it perfect. But

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when you find a word that really does match pretty

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much what's in your head, that's going to be your

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universal thing. Now we can laser focus. So now every

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time you want to do anything, that's the word and

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that's the definition you're going to use to try to

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tell what your branding message is, what you're trying to

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communicate. If you're trying to do a LinkedIn article. That's

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what you're going to focus through. Let me just give

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you an example with my business. So when I was

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looking to figure out the title for my book, what

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I did is I went to the AI. I went

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to all the reviews. I have 185 positive reviews on

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PodMatch. And I just said, just, here's everything. What

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I do is I gave it all the competition from

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the books in the field. And what it said was,

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what I do is completely unique. I do writing to

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read. Everything else is just reading. And there's very little

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on writing. So when I tried to come up with

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what is the best type of word for what I'm

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doing, it came out with the title, if you write,

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you can read. If you can write, you can read.

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And that title just really gravitated and people like, oh,

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that is completely unique. So the AI allowed

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me to take everything that I dumped in and come

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up with that idea when I was looking for things

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for the course I created. I'm putting up $147 a

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month course on school, the learning platform. What kept coming

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back was, number one, this is 90% moms. So I

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put moms in the title. And what kept coming back

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shocked me. It was that the parents were,

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there's nothing you have to tell the parents. There's nothing

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wrong with them. And you can get the solution in

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10 to 15 minutes a day. Those numbers kept coming

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back. So the main things that kept coming back was,

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they're not the problem. Ten to 15 minutes a day,

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mom tried everything. Those were the words that kept coming

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back. And then I used the AI going back and

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forth between the three main models until I finally came

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up with a title that just worked. And I went

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out and I tested on a bunch of my clients,

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and they said, yeah, that's exactly what I would want

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to hear if I was buying this. Cool. Amazing. So

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where does it come from? Where do you go from

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here? You've got a book you're releasing, you've got a

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course you're releasing. Busy man. Oh, it's a starting. This

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is what I did is I cheated. Because back when

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we were kids, what you would do is you'd go

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to a city when you had a new book, you'd

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get on a radio show and you'd sign at a

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local bookstore. The bookstores have disappeared. So what we do

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is we go on podcast Instead. I have 185 reviews

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on pod match and I have 150 shows that want

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me back to discuss the book. I've already set up

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these things. So now once the book is launched, we're

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going through famous last words from any author, going through

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the last edits. Okay. I'm going to go back on

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those 150 plus shows. All right. The key thing is

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when you're looking at things from a book, you want

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to get 50 fast reviews and then slowly to 150.

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Then after that it doesn't matter. Then I also made

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a deal with another podcaster who's done two TEDx speeches.

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She's going to get me on a TEDx stage, and

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then after that I can come back to the top

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podcasts in my area. All right, Just so everybody knows

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what my numbers are, this is for Pod Match. I've

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done. This is my 215th podcast. I have 185 reviews,

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87 more scheduled 27,200 listeners

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with 2.9 million social media impressions. So once I can

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say I'm in little niche, best selling author and TEDx

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speaker. Okay, you put that in the subject line. I

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can apply to the big podcasts. They have five, 10,000

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people in my niche, so I do six or seven

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of those. And it's more audience than I've done with

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the other 215 podcasts on Pod Match. And that allows

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me. And then I can move up to the really

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mainstream ones. Yeah, I'll probably be spending 5001000 bucks a

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time to go on those podcasts, but it's worth it.

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Yeah. So we'll just touch quickly on dyslexia and business

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owners because I think there's quite a lot more people,

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even from the mildly dyslexic all the way up through

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that gravitate towards business. Have you found that? Oh, yeah.

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I'll give you an example. Do you ever hear this

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little show called Shark Tank? Yeah. There are six sharks.

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Guess how many are dyslexic? Three of them. Barbara, Mr.

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Wonderful and Damien. But dyslexics make up less than 10%

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of the population. Half the sharks are dyslexic. It's really

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unfair once you're. When you're dyslexic, because once we hit

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grad school, we own the place. So just. You know

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what dyslexia is? This is the top book in my

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field called overcoming dyslexia by Dr. Sally Shaywitz from Yale.

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That's dyslexia. See how the back part of the typical

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brain has this massive neural activity, but the back part

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of our brain has next to nothing but the front

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part of our brain is two and a half times

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overactive. That's what I tap into. It's word analysis

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followed by articulation. Okay, cool. All righty. I will point

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everyone towards your book. I'll ask you that afterwards. I'll

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point everyone towards your book and I want to see

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you on TEDx when your TEDx is coming out then

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let me know. Do you know the process to get

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to that yet? Yeah, I know the process. As I

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said. I met another podcast who's done it twice and

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in exchange for one of my curriculum she's going to

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go through and help me go through the entire process.

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And it's I, I've already edited the speech 67 times.

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Yeah, that's the joy of these things. Thank you very

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much for joining me, Russell and I very much look

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forward to reading the book when it's out and yeah,

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just understanding a bit more. Thanks. Thanks for having me.