David Laroche

David Laroche: You are specialized in reading. Why it is so important to have the ability and the commitment to read? Danny Brassell: Well, as I know, just reading your biography I was so impressed by all the different books that you have read and you've really read about a lot of successful people and that's what makes you such an expert now on success. It is anybody that really wants to become an expert in their field needs to read a lot about that, whether you're Will Smith trying to be the world's greatest actor he reads a lot about acting. Bill Gates read every single thing he could ever get his hands on about computer, and so did Steve Jobs. I guarantee there's nobody that's ever been a president of any country that wasn't a voracious reader. Harry Truman said that all readers aren't necessarily leaders, but all leaders are readers. And I think that that says a lot. David Laroche: Good point. I would like to ask you something, but I would like to think in a way that maybe people that aren't thinking about that. Forty years ago, for example, they weren't any Youtube, Dailymotion and all these videos. What do you think about the fact that we can learn maybe only with videos? Because it's the leader in the past don't have the access to YouTube, that maybe the reason. Do you think that we have to read books because books are power or do you think we have to read books because it is a way to access to this kind of information? Can we replace books by videos? Danny Brassell: People always ask me that and I would say, "Of course. It's not a problem what you read-like when I was doing research about you, I loved watching your videos in French that were subtitled and I was like, "Wow, this is… That is reading." If you look at the test scores of students across the world, the best test scores always come from students in Finland. Well, they were wondering why Finnish students did so well, well, most of the TV shows in Finland are American shows that are subtitled in Finnish. So the kids stood there watching TV but they're reading the Finnish subtitles and that's what made them really good readers. So I love books and I love newspapers, but if a person loves reading just updates on their cell phone or iPad that's reading as well. So reading is a door that opens up a broader world to you. I think that video is fantastic and I think that reading really works well with the video. David Laroche: I would like to ask you something. Do you think that there is a difference in the way we learn between a video and when we read? Do you think it is something different in the brain when we read and when we see some things? Danny Brassell: Absolutely. It's the same reason as when I used to teach kids, I used to always encourage them to see the movies of books after they read the book because the kids always said the same thing. They're like, "Wow!