S1 E2: What Success Looks Like - Dr Marck Abraham (His Story - His Book)

Meet Dr Marck Abraham.

Dr Abraham is a successful High School Principal from Buffalo New York. As an educator, he built a track record of turning underperforming schools around by improving "the graduation rates of Black and Brown children". His book: What Success Looks Like,  connects Dr Abraham's research with his lived experience, where he successfully implemented the strategies in order to raise attainment. In this episode, you will hear about the "NOs" he received from publishers and the incredible work needed to market his "secret sauce".  This interview is full of energy and you will leave this episode fired up to make a difference. What Success Looks Like is available in all major publishing platforms and as Marck says, "holler at him" if you need more details. 

Follow me on Twitter @mathter.

Chapters

• 4:29 Making a difference
• 7:03 A systematic issue
• 10:41 The Secret Sauce
• 14:44 The No's
• 19:48 A Bigger Footprint

Transcript

Megel R Barker  00:30

All right, so today's guest is Dr. Mark Abraham. Dr. Mark Abraham joins us from San Diego, where he's on his travels. I know you're everyone's looking and keen to meet Dr. Abraham. He's published author. His book what success looks like is literally tearing up the United States. So Dr. Mark Abram, welcome to the program. Welcome to your book, your story.

Dr Abraham  01:01

Thank you for having me, brother. Yes, I am in California. I am in ways from Buffalo, New York, in ways of Miami, Florida. So I opportunity to travel around the country, supporting school leaders on practical strategies on how to create a successful school. And so, you know, my book is titled what success looks like increasing graduation rates for young men. As being sold all over the United States is being sold in the UK was being sold in China, being sold in India is being sold anywhere you could think about it, you can get your hands on that wonderful, best selling internationally published books. So it's amazing. Thank you for allowing me to be on your on your platform today. But I appreciate

Megel R Barker  01:49

and thanks for joining us. I think your story is one that will warm many hearts and inspire many souls to to achieve great things. So your book what success looks like, you know, want to talk about the book, we're going to talk about you as well, the author, so tell us a little bit about you.

Dr Abraham  02:07

So a little bit about me. I am originally from Miami, Florida. And I grew up out of bikers out of bargains, right. I grew up in very, very humble beginnings. I always tell people this, you know, we were poor poor when when I grew up, I mean, two pairs of jeans, three pair of shirts. You know, no lights on water out. had to deal with rats in the house. I mean, yeah, you know, we we were, you know, this type of poor ways to play poor games. Like, you know, that's my car, you know, games like that.

Megel R Barker  02:48

I can connect, I can connect.

Dr Abraham  02:51

Exactly. You know, we have with challenges once you have some neat books, you add some bread, right? So I grew up with two best friends Ty and Steve. And these are my homeboys. This is my brothers who did everything together. We went to school together, we talked to girls together. We play sports together. We play football, play basketball, man, these guys are way better than me in athletics. They were amazing. I mean, they were doing things that you see on TV right now. They were doing it in the early 90s. I mean, they were dope. Wow. And we all went to elementary school together. We went to middle school together in high school, we went to three different high schools. I went to high school when I walked on the campus, they said, Listen, you're gonna play division one football. Now mind you, they didn't really care about my academics. Yeah. And they cared about my body because I was big. Yeah. That the Tyrone has a book called black male when he talks about that. But nevertheless, they cared about my physical abilities. And they said you got paid to visual football, and everything was cool did put in a place was to assure that I played football. For years. I graduated high school. I had at least 17 fellowships until my boys tire Steve. They went to different schools, they went to discipline first school they went to, they went to those schools where it's like, we kicked you out. If you act up, we throw you out. They got suspended over and over again, found themselves in nefarious activity. And by the end 25. They didn't have a high school diploma and still can go, wow. So a little bit about me is I got an education at a at a young age, knowing that I wanted to make a difference. But young people are like, Yeah, I got an education. And I graduated, I said they didn't care about my academics, but I graduated high school and I was illiterate. Now I tell you this and I tell educators, it's not because I'm looking for a roundup of all that I'm looking to say, hey, he's an anomaly, and he's the only one I could do it because he's special. No, I tell you this because what changed my Live. And the reason why I'm here right now is because I had educators that cared enough to make sure I walk across the stage. Hence, hence why I wrote the book what success looks like. Yeah, I wrote the book to let educators know that with the right systems, with the right support, all students black and brown, yellow, orange, purple, all students can have success. Yeah, if they believe it. So. So I'm an educator. I'm a father, I'm a friend, I'm a consultant. I'm a speaker. I'm a I'm someone that principles. I'm a coach. I'm a business owner. But most importantly, I would challenge and I'm someone who loves people, and believe that all kids can be successful. And I gave you a roundabout answer. I know, you probably never had an intro that long. But

Megel R Barker  05:50

it's now we, when we, when I talked, when I said, this is about your book, your story, your story is very important, because you mention your story. And it kind of gives the almost a pre a prologue, so to speak into how you come to decide that a book of this significance had to be written. So I don't want to take yours. So you've shared your story, one that is coming from, you know, really, let's say poverty in that sense, and pretty much odds stacked against you. Right? And you have examples of friends who were the odds, it didn't work in their favor, or at least it went with the odds. And so you are here in a one at one point in your life, you decided, I'm going to write a book, tell us a little bit about how you got to that process of saying I'm going to write a book and where were you in your studies and life at that time?

Dr Abraham  06:45

And that is a great question. I think you're the first person I've asked that question. Well, I was working as a high school principal, I took over a school that had a 60% graduation rate. And I was, while I was doing that, I was also working on my dissertation, working on my dissertation, I realized, you know, I was gonna go to traditional route, which I was going to start looking at, you know, because because of my past, that was my passion. My passion has always been black and brown mouse, because of where I came from. And so the thought process was, well, I should do the traditional route for what I see everybody else do, which is, look at black males and the problem. Yeah, like, what can they do to navigate the waters to get to success, right, and kind of look at my story and what I've done, but my dissertation chair, she pushed back on that. She said, Hey, you're in a leadership program. She says, she says, For you put, will you to look at black males, as if what they need to do with negate the fact that this is just a seemingly liquid looking at this as seemingly looking like a systematic issue. Yeah. So when when were you looking at big schools, districts like Chicago Public Schools, Miami, Florida, New York City, and when you see high failure, when you see graduation rates of 25% 35% for a cohort that has, you know, 200,000, do you say, Well, what's happening? Do? Do do 100,000 black parents around the country don't care about their kids don't care about their black sons do 100,000 black boys don't care about their future? No, that's not the case. What I realized was that the system, the issues with the more systematic, and so what I needed to do is provide principals with the support needed so that they can create a culture within the school that will increase graduation rates for this subpopulation.

Megel R Barker  08:57

Yeah, yeah. So So you then decided to move towards writing the book? Yeah, based on what you're finding in the research.

Dr Abraham  09:08

Right, right. So based on what I was finding the research, I said, Okay, let me write this book. And not only do I want to write this book, I want to apply what I'm learning from the book to my own school. So consequently, I you know, I call it my secret sauce. It's the secret sauce. It's a special sauce, man. It's, it is what's needed in the schools today to have to create academic success. So I tried the secret sauce myself, apply to my school. And you know what happened? I had a graduation rate of 60%. Within three years, we were at 7%. No, three years. We're at 2%, four years, 87% and 92% for black males, one of the highest in the country. Wow. And it all came from the secret sauce. Yeah, it all came from the strategy that I actually took is the strategy from the book, I applied it and said, Oh, this is good. Yeah. And then now I go around the country, show him principles, how to apply those same strategies so that they can have success. Yeah. Is wonderful, is wonderful. So there's only but

Megel R Barker  10:19

so say you had a dissertation that you're working on. I'm just trying to look at the jump from the dissertation to that, because,

Dr Abraham  10:29

yeah, because here's the thing. The dissertation is very scientific. Yeah, yeah. And so so what happens is, when a scientific piece of work, most people will get lost in chapter one, yeah, dissertation, so I had to take, I had to extrapolate what I had in the dissertation, make it palatable, and give it to principals in a way that they could chew it up, and then apply it. My book is about 168 pages, but it breaks it down, step by step by step, Do this, do this, do this. And not only did I have I have the book, I also created a resource guide. To break it down. Do this, do this do this. Beautiful. Yeah, he's wonderful.

Megel R Barker  11:13

So you own your secret sauce, you said, and you'll take some, I'm just looking at the process here. So you're doing your dissertation, you wanted to look at a particular aspect of the black experience. And your dissertation supervisor said, Why not folk, this clearly is a bigger issue than just something to report that it's something you can actually impact on. So you started to research that and realizing that it was not only nationwide, it was worldwide, what you were saying you did, at some point, you know what I'm going to move from this kind of scientific writing. And I'm going to turn this into something more palatable. That's why you're describing right. So

Dr Abraham  11:56

this is a was that after I finished the dissertation

Megel R Barker  12:01

after you finish, okay, so it was finished. And then you said the next stage is to that. Did you do your studies while you were a high school principal, or?

Dr Abraham  12:09

Yeah, I did. And it was. I know. But here's the thing, though. It was so hard to because I work as a principal, I got a vote of no confidence. Yeah. I was fighting a union so much. I thought that the union put me the union president in New York put me in a new So Mike, I thought I will run for local government, man. Wow. Well, because I was holding I was holding it, I found out so my research is is is successful strategies, secondary principles used to increase graduation rates for black males.

Megel R Barker  12:42

Wow. Okay. What's your research? Yeah, see,

Dr Abraham  12:45

see? Because a lot of times, what I was finding out in the research was that people would people look at black and brown children from a deficit model. I was looking at it from a completely different lens. I wanted to know what was when people were having success with this subpopulation, what were they doing? Yeah, yeah. And then I started to implement those strategies in my brother. Okay. And then it made people uncomfortable. Because part there's a there's a section in my book, I believe, it's chapter six or seven, called teacher accountability. See, we cannot have success in a school without accountability.

Megel R Barker  13:23

100% See, everybody

Dr Abraham  13:25

wants to be everybody's friend now. Like, oh, yeah, that's my friend on a teacher by project of building relationships that are important, but relationship out of accountability is abuse. Yeah,

Megel R Barker  13:37

yeah. Do you find as you? So once you got your book out? Did you run this book through? Like a publishing house? Or did you self publish? How did you arrive at the publishing phase of your book? And how are you?

Dr Abraham  13:52

Yeah, so Well, my book is published by Roman a little bit. And Roman a little Phil is one of the largest publishers in the country. Wow. And they did on a punishment put me in a, that's why the book is being sold internationally is that Walmart is all over. Wow, he did that. I wanted to get a publisher because I wanted a bigger voice behind such a very important topic. Yeah. I didn't want to just be the only one. Talking about this. I need other people. And once the publisher read it, they said, Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah. This is God. They take the book and they publish it immediately. They didn't wait no time they gave me this guy's where we need

Megel R Barker  14:43

a connection to them. How did you end up did you just do a random search or did someone recommend?

Dr Abraham  14:48

No, I have a literary agent. Okay.

Megel R Barker  14:51

Oh, so yeah, the process that we went through to get to

Dr Abraham  14:55

know now, a lot of no's. A lot of people told me no A lot of people said, no, no doubt Abraham.

Megel R Barker  15:03

I'm trying to get to because the noes are where we kind of need to get people to realize there will be noise, right?

Dr Abraham  15:09

Oh, man, I got so many nose. I got so many no letters that I can I can wallpaper my whole house. Yeah, I got a lot of nose in the nose wasn't because the content wasn't good. The nose was like, Well, you don't have enough social media presence. We don't know, you don't have a big enough name yet. To get a publisher. There's difficult there's. So anybody out there that's kind of like want to publish a book. If you don't get a publisher. Don't feel discouraged. So I'm going to publish it as part publish was very difficult. Most people would never do it.

Megel R Barker  15:40

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So once you got your publisher, and they took on the book, and they gave you a big Yes. After that, it was just getting yourself positioned right to do the marketing and so on.

Dr Abraham  15:54

Yeah, so Robert, a little bit as good as they are, they do very minimal marketing books, okay. I have to do all my marketing, I have to do all my ratios. And I have to do everything I do that all my my own, I go out and beat the pavement, I go out and speak. I talk about the book, I let people know about it. And then I take that book as my guide to go, you know, that's what I do when I go to Turnaround Schools.

Megel R Barker  16:19

Yeah, yeah. So I got, I see you on social media. And you know, when I follow you, and I can tell that you're traveling, so on those travels, is that part of your tell us a little bit about that site? Because it seems like the book has opened that gives you that opportunity now to use that secret sauce and share it around. So how is that is that what I'm seeing is is that or is that something different?

Dr Abraham  16:43

Yeah, so the book is my guide. You know, it's the guide that I use for School Turnaround, there's 10 steps in the book. And in those two steps, I take every principal, every school district, from Alaska, to California, New York City to Long Island, to Chicago to every place I go, I take the book as the guide is our Bible of school turnaround. Yeah, it is, it is it is the compass that we use to get us and I go in and I assess the school, through my system, and give them back a report and show them where they are. And then we start applying the strategies that we know work to turn the school around. So I would tell anybody, if you if you want a successful school, if you want a winning culture, if you want a school where every kid will succeed and graduation rates will rise like never before and test scores will shoot out the roof. Get the book and if you read the book, and you have a difficult time reading the book, get the Resource Guide. If you read the resource guide, it's still like holla at me calm and I'll help you. My team were coming.

Megel R Barker  18:00

I see you beat in the royal regularly. Mark. I see you in Alaska, seen in California. See you all across so you're flying around. And that's where you're going in and working with with schools, as you said, turning around schools. How are you feeling? I know you get in I get to a few days, it seems. What's your impact at the moment? Are you are you feeling that?

Dr Abraham  18:22

And I feel great. We had a school last year that was facing a graduation rate of 59%. Summertime, we had a mad 90% I'm trying to tell you this is no joke. This is a real difficult problem. Yeah. Work. I got to school right now. He's on New Jersey. They hired me the faces 75% graduation rate I told him by the end of this day, we're gonna be at 95% No problem at all the kids are gonna be no issues. Just works, man. Yeah, I wish I wish I wish I had this book when I was a principal. I wish I had me as a coach when I was

Megel R Barker  19:03

No, but it's true. But you're right. You say, you know, there's some saying I came across one day that said, I always said that somebody should do something about it. And then I realized one day that hired I was the somebody. Right? You know, and it's a piece because at all times we tend to see a problem and sometimes we think you know somebody else should do it. But sometimes if somebody is actually you and I think you're saying that in some ways. Many principals would benefit and EU as a high school principal benefit. So at the moment, are you working as a school leader? Are you doing just consultancy work?

Dr Abraham  19:39

Well, I don't like would you think yes, we'll publish the work. Yeah. No, but no, I'm no longer I don't have the time to work as a high school principal anymore. And so now, my focus is, you know, being able to have a bigger footprint around the house. because I did it at my school. I did it every year, every year that every year that I got the strategies, I applied them, they got easier. It got easier, and it got easier. So I said, Man, this is easy for me. I love what I do. But I need a bigger challenge. I need to show other principals who are who are having also who are having the waters, who feel like they can't make it that they're burning out and let them know you don't have to leave the profession. You don't have to go nowhere. I got your back. Let me make your job easier. Let me show you how to work smarter, not harder. Yeah. So

Megel R Barker  20:31

you're at the moment if some if a school has these issues, as you're pointing out, like graduation rates are failing black kids, how do they? I mean, they can buy the book. And as you said, if there have been challenges, they can look at the resource resources that go that were cut in anything holler at you, but how do they holla at you, as you said,

Dr Abraham  20:53

are they holla at me, man? I see. Listen, I like how you said they got their bread and butter making it sound like accent king. He said that again? To hear all the time. Yeah. So the way Hi, let me know all the way to get in contact with me. Email address. Let me let me do this for your people who don't watch this. I don't know how many people have a statue. But I know you have great personality, you probably got millions of fans. I mean, I'm gonna give you all my cell phone number is 7162487648716248764. If you are over in the UK, you don't want to use the long distance. M E AE, Mark, Edward Anthony, M E. A consultants llc@gmail.com. Call me text me email me. Whatever you need to do. I'm here. I'm flying to you. I'm pulling up and I promise you. So you've stopped now?

Megel R Barker  21:55

Yes, that sounds like I'm what success looks like. So I mean, I can tell you about here in the UK. Those issues are similar, you know, the minor user term graduation rates, so much rarer us term. But the reality of it, we do have low graduation rates for students who are in, you know, people of color, and so on. So I'm sure there are many, many people who will see, hear your story, hear about the book and begin to see how that might be able to change your life. So they gave you a phone number and gave you an email address. I'm just one final time on Mark, just tell us who needs this book.

Dr Abraham  22:34

anybody, any educator, any parent, any superintendent, any principal, any teacher care about the plight of black and brown children. If you love children, and you're tired of seeing the film, and you want to see them be better, you want to see them be successful. You need to put I promise you it's gonna change your life. It's a wonderful book.

Megel R Barker  22:58

There you have it. And this is a book that as Mark said, coming from many many knows before there was a yes. And it's tried and true, proven methods of raising standards in school. We have Dr. Mark Haber, on your book your story telling us about what success was like. And I know Mark before I even change, I know that you have some merch that you you do have I see from time to time tell us a little bit can people get those merch or is it some special?

Dr Abraham  23:29

Well, it depends. It depends. I got I got the I was like shirt. That's that's a beautiful page. Right? We get that to you just email me I got into Give me your order. And then we have our most successful site all black fit. Yes, yes, those. It's been it is really nice. It has more success in the back. But then there's the mea shirt. Yeah, so the mea shirt. That's when you sign on to the team. That's when you become a consultant. That's when you want to my partners and I get you out on the world carrying the banner. And so you can't buy it, you can only get you could only earn the almost consensus like, really what that's about is that's about letting young people and teachers know. And every educator, you know, we got to believe that we're successful because we can actually help somebody else be successful. We got to believe that we're winners believe that we're brilliant. I didn't believe that when I was a young person. I came from an abusive household. My stepdad he called me dumb and stupid. Every day. I thought it was part of my blame. I felt inadequate. I couldn't read coming out of high school. And it was only to a teacher touched me and said, Hey, you are brilliant. You are intelligent and didn't change my paradigms. And I started to say no. And now that I've made that affirmation, I say it every single day. I am successful. I am really good. I am somebody I can be successful. And that's the energy I'll walk in your builder with it. And that's why we changed the route because as a man or a woman thinketh in his heart. So are they, that is the beginning of the work, changing the thought process.

Megel R Barker  25:12

My brother, were so inspired by the work that you're doing. So thank you for coming on the show. I know you have a lot to do very often. Next.

Dr Abraham  25:21

I'm off to Buffalo, New York. Wow.

Megel R Barker  25:24

I called I think that back home,

Dr Abraham  25:27

back home for a week. And then I'm off to New York City. And then I'm off to Binghamton, and then I'm off to Detroit. And then I'm off to New Jersey, and then I'm off to Alaska. And then I'm off to New York City. And then I'm off to Thailand. So we all like this is what it is, ma'am. We change one school at a time.

Megel R Barker  25:49

No, no, you keep doing the good work, man. Keep doing the great work. I think we need people like you on the foot right at the front of the battle. And it seems like you have the right tool to have success. So thank you for coming on. All the best.