[00:00:00] Bradley Poore: there will be adversity, there will be scary things that we try. And it's, shielding her from scary things that I want to try I want her to be there and to see that.
[00:00:13] Bradley Poore: Because even though she may choose completely different path in life, she will face adversity, right? She will hopefully try challenging things in life and seeing me do it and seeing me not be successful in something, she should see that? Because it's, everything's not so simple, right
[00:00:35] Dori Durbin: do your kids have big dreams of being superheroes or professional sports icons, maybe even a famous performer. If they do, you might laugh and celebrate how cute they are. But would you be willing to let them take the risk and follow their hearts? If, so how do we help them build bravery? Ignore outside perceptions. And take on a risk, no matter what the outcome is. [00:01:00] It could start as simply as a book. Curious. Today, we talked to it, businessmen, former musician, and now children's book author. Welcome to the show.
[00:01:10] Dori Durbin: Bradley poor. Sure.
[00:01:12] Bradley Poore: Thank you, Dori. Thanks for having me today.
[00:01:14] Dori Durbin: Yes. Thank you for taking the time because you've been super busy on tours, which is awesome.
[00:01:19] Bradley Poore: Yeah. Yeah. I just came back from Portland. There was a really big book festival out there. It was pretty overwhelming to see how many people were there at the Portland Art Museum.
[00:01:30] Bradley Poore: And it was a pay to get in event. It was not free to everyone. And so you don't really know how things are like that are going to turn out. And it was a really busy couple of days. Yeah. And yeah, I was, I did a reading this past Saturday at a bookstore here in Ann Arbor. And yeah, that's it's been a lot of fun.
[00:01:48] Bradley Poore: It's been a busy couple, few weeks. But it's been a lot of fun sharing the book with people.
[00:01:54] Dori Durbin: That's awesome. That's one benefit that people don't realize when you're a children's book author, is all of the [00:02:00] exhaustion of just sharing your book, but it's also so much energy that's positive,
[00:02:04] Bradley Poore: Yeah, I enjoy the question and answer that might come after, right? What you might get from children I read at a Montessori school, and it was, a lot of Children asking me questions and it's, do you have cats or, any sort of questions to, the book reading this past Saturday was a lot of adults, right?
[00:02:22] Bradley Poore: They were, folks, they're buying, maybe a book for their grandkids or who were just wandering around the store and they had very different set of questions. But both were fun, to hear the feedback and what do they think of the book at the end of the day and what, what Does it what do they envision or how do they think that they can, give it to somebody in their life that it might help them or it might, send a good message.
[00:02:45] Bradley Poore: Yeah, it's gosh, it's been a lot of fun.
[00:02:48] Dori Durbin: It's quite a bit different for you from your world of your IT businessman to becoming a children's book author. And we were talking a little bit before too about how your job, it's like [00:03:00] perfection, logic, it's quiet, everybody's focused. And yet, here you are on the side writing more books because you have actually three books.
[00:03:10] Dori Durbin: So I'll tell the listeners you have men of war, and then you have another book called A Journey to the Middle, how I embraced mediocrity and failed to turn my old vacuum into a rocket ship. Exactly.
[00:03:21] Bradley Poore: Both short story books, right? They are. A Journey to the Middle was first and then I started Opera Andy, my children's book after that was finished.
[00:03:29] Bradley Poore: And it, the illustration takes so long and there's so much work put into it that I started the second book of short stories, Men of War, which is not about war in any sort of way. Just, taken from a story inside the book. And so I was able to finish the second book of stories not too long before the children's book was finished.
[00:03:49] Bradley Poore: Yeah, it's, I just, I had the ideas, I had the time, and yeah. I think, there's probably some more to come for me. That's
[00:03:56] Dori Durbin: awesome. That is awesome. I was [00:04:00] thinking how, not only how different The two jobs are, but also how there's like this big risk for you because you are working with these professionals and what if this book doesn't go well, what does that do?
[00:04:13] Dori Durbin: Was that a feeling you had?
[00:04:15] Bradley Poore: Yeah. So it's. It's the trickle of it's funny. I was asked this the past weekend. How do your colleagues feel about this other work that you do? And I said it's been a slow trickle over time, right? Some people you work with may just be colleagues. Some people over the years turn into more, right?
[00:04:33] Bradley Poore: They turn into friendships and I've tended to keep this somewhat quiet, not for out of embarrassment, but just that, that our typical day to day work days are so busy and so filled with works and projects and, rights, getting things correct and getting things right, that it was so different that I just didn't[00:05:00] get around to saying, Oh, by the way, I've written this book and it's up short stories or I'm working on this children's book.
[00:05:05] Bradley Poore: We just, it just seemed to never come up. And so some of them now, and they were surprised they were because like you said, my job is rather technical and it's a project base most of the time. And there's, it is ones and zeros at the end of the day, right? That yeah. Things need to be done and they need to be done a certain way or they will not work going forward.
[00:05:29] Bradley Poore: And there's so much space. To inhabit in a children's book or a world that you create that it's what, it's also a nice break for me to get out of this sort of regimented, ones and zeros world that, everything has to be correct that I can sit down and, make up a character or, a cat or, some sort of story that's completely different.
[00:05:52] Bradley Poore: It's good for, it's good for me. At the end of the day, so having that creative outlet,
[00:05:59] Dori Durbin: [00:06:00] that's, and it's definitely a risk that's paying off for you for
[00:06:02] Bradley Poore: sure. Yeah, I've had a colleague say, I didn't know you, you wrote you wrote books.
[00:06:08] Bradley Poore: And I said yeah. I just, hadn't mentioned it before. And they said I bought both of them, my short stories books. This was before my children's book came out and they said yeah. I bought both of them. They're on the way. I'll let you know. And and I've gotten good feedback from the folks that I work with who read it.
[00:06:21] Bradley Poore: But yeah, it's it's been interesting. I just never knew how to quite tackle it with sometimes that people at work. I wasn't ever quite sure. Say you do what?
[00:06:33] Dori Durbin: Probably actually more impressed and shocked that they didn't realize that it was a skill that you had than anything
[00:06:38] Bradley Poore: else. Yeah, I think it's a it's a certainly a different world now where it's a there's so much that is projected That's from your personal life or professional life and your day to day, right?
[00:06:51] Bradley Poore: there's all there's so much information that a lot of people put out there that When someone doesn't and they choose not to, they, yeah, [00:07:00] at the end of the day, somebody's really surprised and say, I didn't read this anywhere. I didn't hear this anywhere. And you're like yeah,
[00:07:07] Bradley Poore: I didn't, go around the office saying, what'd you do all weekend? I was busy writing my, next children's book. Guys, I. Never really said things like that. I didn't post things online. I didn't really have social media. And so no one knew. And it's all of a sudden it was just there, right? They were like, Oh, you, what you've written a couple so far. Okay. All right. Tell us about it. That's
[00:07:31] Dori Durbin: great. I love the fact that you. You not only have written these, but you've also found a way to incorporate your daughter in the actual delivery and the process.
[00:07:44] Dori Durbin: And and it goes back to taking risks and following your passion. You're literally. Having her participate and be a part of that. Do you want to share
[00:07:54] Bradley Poore: some of that? Yeah, we were talking before. So there's a book festival that's coming up that that's [00:08:00] down in Florida that I asked her if she wanted to go with me.
[00:08:02] Bradley Poore: So she's in fifth grade, so she'll be 11 at that point. She's about to turn 11 here next month. And she was more than happy to go. And I said, I might put you to work a little bit. And she said great, no problem. I said, you'll have to hang out with me. And I've talked to some people.
[00:08:15] Bradley Poore: And she said, yeah, that's no problem. That's fantastic. And I said, hey, I need your help drawing little cat faces in the book. Because in, in Opera Andy, he has two cats. And I've, I'm not very good at illustrating. And she's better at these things than I am. And I said, Hey, I'm going to have you, if I sign some books, to, to some people, I said, I might have you draw a little cat faces in it.
[00:08:33] Bradley Poore: And she was like yeah, that's, I'm more than happy to for sure. And yeah it's been really nice. She was at my book reading weekend and and this is, the topic that we've, we're touching on and that we were talking about before is that. It's not just challenges in life, right?
[00:08:48] Bradley Poore: That there will be adversity, there will be scary things that we try. And it's, shielding her from scary things that I want to try or that I want to participate in [00:09:00] or if it's reading a book in front of a group or, traveling to a book festival. And I want her to be there and to see that.
[00:09:08] Bradley Poore: Because even though she may choose completely different path in life, she will face adversity, right? She will hopefully try challenging things in life and seeing me do it and seeing me try and seeing me fail or, not be successful in something, she should see that, right? Because it's, everything's not so simple, right?
[00:09:32] Bradley Poore: It's one of the themes of the book that Does it, does he become a opera singer? Does he not become an opera singer? It's, at the end of the day, it's maybe not about that, but it's about something else.
[00:09:45] Dori Durbin: About the journey of the process. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's so true. I think as parents, we tend to try to protect our kids.
[00:09:54] Dori Durbin: We try to save them, we have an experience where we emotionally were traumatized [00:10:00] from a failure or from something not working out the way we thought it would. And then when we turn around to raise our kids, we're like, Oh, a little, bubble. Gotta save them, gotta save them.
[00:10:10] Dori Durbin: And your story really which I'll have you talk about just a second here. I think it really hones in on the effort made. To try to follow a dream, the willingness to go through some of the painful pieces to follow the dream and then the actual Oh, did it happen? Or it didn't happen. I'm not going to tell you because then, but whatever it is, there's it's not a guarantee.
[00:10:36] Dori Durbin: There's no guarantee. You can do the hard work and not have a product at
[00:10:39] Bradley Poore: the end. That's very true. It's that you, we couldn't probably keep, being adults and, I'm, we'll be 50 soon. How many times that, that sort of thing has happened to me in life, from childhood to adulthood.
[00:10:52] Bradley Poore: You want a job so badly that you're such a good fit for, and you don't get it when you're an adult sometimes, and you're like, [00:11:00] what happened? I. I was perfect. I, what, I was such a good fit for something. And it sometimes, it doesn't happen. And it's dealing with that, right? And can we move on?
[00:11:11] Bradley Poore: And is it okay?
[00:11:14] Dori Durbin: So true. And your book, go ahead and tell us about your book.
[00:11:17] Bradley Poore: The book's called Opera Andy.
[00:11:18] Bradley Poore: This is an idea I had for more than 20 years that I just hadn't I knew The story I knew the characters, I knew how it, I wanted it to look, I knew the lesson in the book that I wanted and I was even thinking about these things, in my sort of 20s of how life can, present you with challenges and that you how do you feel about them when you succeed or you fail?
[00:11:46] Bradley Poore: And Andy lives with two cats, Ben and Max he works. at a big bank. It doesn't, I don't say whether he loves his job or not. It's not really the point, he dreams of [00:12:00] being an opera singer and he sings to his cats and they love it and they're his biggest fans. And sometimes in some of the book you can see maybe other little critters that crawl out from here or there or on the windowsill peeking in and listening to Andy.
[00:12:17] Bradley Poore: AnDy. sees that, the local theater is holding opera auditions and he, gets the courage up to go and try out for the opera. And so it's, the sort of the lesson and comes after that, right? What happens to Andy? How does, does he succeed? Does he fail? How does he feel about that?
[00:12:38] Bradley Poore: And so at the end of the day how does that work out for him there? I didn't give too much of
[00:12:46] Dori Durbin: it.
[00:12:47] Bradley Poore: It's tricky. I know. I know. It is. It is.
[00:12:50] Dori Durbin: It is. I think that, again, that process I, I saw some of the pictures. I know they can't see this, but the cats are adoring what he's doing.[00:13:00] The effort that he's making isn't just.
[00:13:04] Dori Durbin: It's in the middle of chaos and other people who want the same things. And it just really calls out to a lot of what we feel as adults, but I think we felt it as kids too. We've had some of those same, we just didn't have the baggage with it.
[00:13:19] Bradley Poore: Yeah, no, for sure. For sure. Yeah it's, it made me feel like it's the story of, there's probably been a thousand of these stories written, but it's the young boy whose best friend is his dog, right? It's the young girl who, whose best friend is the cat who snuggles with her in bed and that she always has and she can rely upon and it's, they're always there for him, right?
[00:13:42] Bradley Poore: That's. mY thought, right? When I put them in there, is that they're the faithful companions that, we all hope our pets will be, right? When we have them, right? That the cats will love us and the dog will love us and sleep with us on the couch or snuggle with us in bed.
[00:13:57] Bradley Poore: And yeah, I think that they're, they [00:14:00] come off that way. At least that's what I hope.
[00:14:03] Dori Durbin: Definitely do. I know that it's going to be difficult, but can you read us just about 30 seconds?
[00:14:08] Bradley Poore: I will. Okay, so we'll start
[00:14:14] Bradley Poore: one day on his way to work.
[00:14:16] Bradley Poore: Andy sees something very exciting and Andy's standing in front of a theater and it says opera auditions tomorrow. And the next page says he's always dreamed about seeing his name in lights. And now the theater is lit up, and there are people waiting in line, and the marquee says, Opera Andy tomorrow. He goes to work and starts practicing.
[00:14:38] Bradley Poore: At first, Andy's friends at work are not sure what he is doing. And at this point, Andy is singing, Fa presto. And his co worker says, huh? Because Andy has headphones on and he's singing. And what that means in Italian is hurry up! A lot of these things from the book are taken from [00:15:00] Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, from that opera.
[00:15:03] Bradley Poore: After work that night, he practices some more. Andy puts on another great show for Ben and Max. He feels ready for his audition tomorrow. That night, while he sleeps, he dreams of the theater. And he's dreaming about the marquee and with his name on it. And then it says Ben and Max dream too. And one is dreaming about tuna fish and fish.
[00:15:26] Bradley Poore: And the other is dreaming about a ball of yarn and some toys. Andy is nervous when he gets up the next morning. What if he isn't good enough? Andy says goodbye to Ben and Max and heads off to the theater. And so Ben and Max are saying goodbye. There might be a little guy also peeking around saying goodbye to Andy when he leaves off to the theater.
[00:15:52] Bradley Poore: There. I will leave it there.
[00:15:55] Dori Durbin: yOu hit it at a good point. What if I'm not good
[00:15:58] Bradley Poore: enough? Yeah. I [00:16:00] think it's all, it's the doubt that we all have, right? Whether we're, I don't know. Fixing our bicycle or, or in math class in school or, any number of things are right?
[00:16:12] Bradley Poore: Trying out for the opera. It was, all of us would probably have that doubt in our minds somewhere.
[00:16:19] Dori Durbin: I have to ask, is this based off of you?
[00:16:21] Bradley Poore: No, so I cannot sing, though I do, when I read the book, there are places that I have picked things from The Marriage of Figaro that I will say things out loud and opery, but they're very short.
[00:16:35] Bradley Poore: And I can get away with them. But overall no. I can not sing. It's, again, it's the end of the, at the end of the day. I just had the characters in mind. I had the arc of the story in my head. And so when it was time to put it all down, it all just flowed out and was done quickly.
[00:16:52] Bradley Poore: Illustration, which I know everyone can't see is, It's done by a woman who's in Arizona who did it all in watercolor and it was, it [00:17:00] took a long time for us to do it, which was fine. I'm, there's no complaint there for me, but it's really nice. And what I've been doing is taking um, actual I've got a frame that you can swap, pictures in and out of that.
[00:17:11] Bradley Poore: I got a local place and and I'll take a picture with me. From her watercolor that she has because I have them all locked away at home. And so sometimes at, book festivals and stuff, I will take this this page with me so people can see this, beautiful artwork that she was able to do.
[00:17:29] Bradley Poore: I wish I could have done it, but I can't. I don't have that skill set.
[00:17:33] Dori Durbin: I did see a few pages and it is, it's gorgeous. It's absolutely beautiful. So that's one thing, if they are listening and they haven't seen your book, they need to go check that out.
[00:17:44] Bradley Poore: Please it's really nice. We had a lot of people just be curious at Portland Book Festival and pick it up.
[00:17:49] Bradley Poore: And they were really impressed. And like I said, I took a picture with me and a lot of people stopped to look at it and marvel at the things that she had done in the margins. And, little sketches and the way she, got her [00:18:00] colors right for the whole picture. It was, it's pretty amazing.
[00:18:03] Bradley Poore: Like I said, I wish I could do it. I just don't have that skill set in me.
[00:18:07] Dori Durbin: That's okay. You have other ones.
[00:18:08] Bradley Poore: Hopefully. Yes. Yes.
[00:18:10] Dori Durbin: So this podcast, now that it's, that's good parenting. It's providing simple steps to make parenting less stressful, right? What suggestions would you have for a parent who's having a hard time letting their child take a risk for the purpose of
[00:18:25] Bradley Poore: passion?
[00:18:27] Bradley Poore: I think it's that tough balance, isn't it? That, that we do as parents, that we need to remember from when we were kids that we did fail. And that a lot of these Things were done through adversity. We were talking about there was, they can't see, but there's a bloat of skateboards on my office wall behind me.
[00:18:49] Bradley Poore: This is a really good example of trying and trying and trying to overcome the adversity that comes with something like skateboarding or my daughter When she was learning to [00:19:00] ride her bike in our cul de sac and how difficult it was and how upset that she had gotten and it started to rain and she was out there in the rain getting wet, trying to learn how to write it.
[00:19:10] Bradley Poore: She's crying at some point and it's that without with patience and without pushing that. They will accomplish it, right? That, that you try to hit the sweet spot of, being patient and giving empathy to this sort of really hard thing they're doing because you were, we were all kids once and we all had that difficult time riding that bike or our parents, took the training wheels off earlier than we had belonged to them too.
[00:19:43] Bradley Poore: And we had to learn how to You know, deal with this two wheel thing and the joy and the confidence that we got once we were able to do that thing like riding a bike and that, even standing out there with my daughter and it being raining and her being [00:20:00] upset, she was still wanting to try.
[00:20:03] Bradley Poore: And I didn't haul her in because the weather got bad. Obviously, it wasn't lightning or anything, but I didn't haul her in because the weather got bad because she was still wanting to try. And it was hard as a parent to stand by and watch her be upset, her struggle, her fail.
[00:20:19] Bradley Poore: You, you, Just have to hope or have faith that it something that will come out of it, right that they will that doing this scary thing and doing this thing that is really difficult that the outcome will be this sense of independence, right? That something like a bicycle gives a child to be able to just take off down the street.
[00:20:39] Bradley Poore: If you live in a place where they can do that, or, this self confidence that gives them to say, you know what? I remember when I tried hard at that. We've told her in the past remember when you learned how to ride that bike, and you remember when it was raining and you still stayed out there and did it?
[00:20:56] Bradley Poore: And she said yeah, I remember, right? It's difficult parenting and [00:21:00] we all with children understand that it's not, it all can't be perfect. And when it. Goes well in this, in a case like this and trying to teach her how to ride a bike that the outcome was she learned at the end of the day in the rain.
[00:21:16] Bradley Poore: She was, through her tears. She got it through trying hard and through us being there and being supportive and just trying to let it happen. And it's just that balance, right? Protecting and encouraging without pushing, at the end of the day. So that's what we try to do. It's hard.
[00:21:37] Dori Durbin: I feel like there are probably moments during that whole thing that you thought I'm not being the best parent right now. My kids out here in the rain and the neighbors are watching, right?
[00:21:46] Dori Durbin: Major crash. And what if this, what if that, but in the end. Not only did she learn how to ride her bike, but like you said, she overcame these obstacles that were even beyond what the normal would [00:22:00] be and knows that she can do that, and so it is good parenting in the end, that moment where you thought, oh gosh, I just messed this up, yeah, but that resiliency and that, confidence to take those risks is
[00:22:13] Bradley Poore: priceless.
[00:22:14] Bradley Poore: Yeah, it is. And it's, sometimes they don't always go the way you want them to, but that's also the lesson, right? That sometimes it doesn't always go the way you had hoped. But yeah, the bike riding thing, definitely. It went well. Whew. Yes, I was looking, definitely looking around at the neighbors were, are they standing at their windows saying, what are those people doing to that child out there torturing that poor child out there in the rain?
[00:22:39] Dori Durbin: She's fine. She's fine. It's okay
[00:22:43] Dori Durbin: You have some events coming up. I definitely want them to know about.
[00:22:46] Bradley Poore: I do. So I had this very sort of new edition. I the day isn't set. One of the things I'll be doing, which isn't obviously open too much to the public, is that be invited [00:23:00] to read to my daughter's school next month.
[00:23:02] Bradley Poore: She goes to a Waldorf education school up here in Ann Arbor. And so I'm going to go and read to the, to those kids. My daughter and I. Because she's agreed to come with me and hopefully help me sign some books. There's a Sunshine State Book Festival in Florida, late January. So January 27th and I don't obviously expect to come down from up here in the north.
[00:23:24] Bradley Poore: But it looks like there's a lot of authors that are going to go. I am, committed to getting the book out there and trying to get the message out. Because I think it's a good one for parents. As I've Oh, so anyway, so that's the 27th of January. It's in Gainesville, Florida.
[00:23:41] Bradley Poore: As I've, mentioned to a lot of parents and when I was at the Portland Book Festival I said, listen, opera is a big subject, right? I don't want. Parents or children to be scared of the book because they don't know anything about opera because it's it's so unfamiliar. It's nothing they've ever [00:24:00] heard.
[00:24:00] Bradley Poore: Maybe they aren't interested in the theater or isn't that kind of music that I think that it's a I Have said many times, it's a light touch at the end of the day. Like it's not heavy on the opera, it's not confusing for a child. There aren't big words. There is aren't big chunks of the book, which have a lot of opera in it, that it's a light touch and it's, I don't think it's off-putting in any way.
[00:24:23] Bradley Poore: Just, I like the opera, uh, and I've seen this particular opera that that I talk about in the book, but I understand. That it's strange to some people, and I didn't, and I didn't want that to be off putting to anyone, because it's not, it's a light touch in the book, it really is. I could have said Andy wants to, join a rock band, or whatever, right?
[00:24:44] Bradley Poore: I could have done any of those things, but, I, I enjoy that style of music, so that's what I had picked,
[00:24:49] Dori Durbin: where
[00:24:50] Bradley Poore: can they find your book? So it is available on Amazon and we can, put a link there. Yep. There's also, that's probably the best place, [00:25:00] really, at the end of the day.
[00:25:01] Bradley Poore: We, we, the publisher does, Gets it through Amazon. So it's not actually Amazon printing. It's a local printer here in Michigan that we use and then we send the books off to Amazon. And so what you're getting is the sort of the quality book that we want you to have, which is what you would get if you came to an in person event with me or Schuller Books here in Ann Arbor has actual copies that we had printed because we like the quality of a local printer a lot better than the Amazon printing.
[00:25:33] Bradley Poore: So yeah, we funnel our books to Amazon and so they, they sell them at the end of the day. So it's we know you're getting something good at the end of the day, right? That's good quality. So yeah, that's probably the best place.
[00:25:46] Dori Durbin: And then where can they find you
[00:25:48] Bradley Poore: bradleypore.
[00:25:49] Bradley Poore: com is a website that I have that I update. There's a fun little graph that I put up recently that says what I'm working on and what are the, where I [00:26:00] am in particular stories. There's a couple of children's books that one that I've Pretty much finish the story and another one that's that I'll probably work on after this and a novel that I'll work on when I get time.
[00:26:11] Bradley Poore: And so I've got this fun little graph of where I am in that. And then there's links to, let's say my Instagram from bradleypoore. com. And so that's usually the easiest place and there's events. And if you need to get in contact with me for anything, that's all there too.
[00:26:26] Dori Durbin: Fantastic. Bradley, I thank you for taking the risk of being on the
[00:26:30] Bradley Poore: show.
[00:26:30] Bradley Poore: Jerry.