Skip to content
‹ Back to IndustriesEducation Technology

Living in Joy, Empathy and Imagination with the Co-Creator of Kid President

Change Starts Here and host Dustin Odham, Thought Leader for FranklinCovey Education, are back with another thought-provoking and inspiring episode – this time featuring a bona fide legend in the field of education.   In 2013, a video swept through the internet, bringing joy to all who viewed it. It featured then-11-year-old Robby Novak, dressed to the nines…

This story was produced through MarketScale. See how Education Technology teams put it to work with Executive Thought Leadership.

Promoted content from FranklinCovey on MarketScale.

Share
Living in Joy, Empathy and Imagination with the Co-Creator of Kid President

Free workspace

Turn your Education Technology expertise into content.

Record interviews, organize footage, and write with AI on a free trial of the MarketScale platform for qualifying companies. No demo required, no credit card.

Try it Free

Change Starts Here and host Dustin Odham, Thought Leader for FranklinCovey Education, are back with another thought-provoking and inspiring episode – this time featuring a bona fide legend in the field of education.

In 2013, a video swept through the internet, bringing joy to all who viewed it. It featured then-11-year-old Robby Novak, dressed to the nines in a suit, tie and sneakers, delivering a pep talk as the now fabled “Kid President.”

Brad Montague, Novak’s brother-in-law, was part of the dynamic duo that made that video happen. Since, Kid President’s videos have been viewed over 100 million times.

Montague, whose stated mission these days is to “create stories that cultivate empathy and imagination in kids and former kids,” joined host Dustin Odham on this episode of Change Starts Here to explore how he and his family are “joyfully rebelling” against the way things are to craft a better world.

Since Kid President, Montague has authored “Becoming Better Grownups” and helped bring to life “Kid President’s Guide to Being Awesome,” and his conversation with Odham centered on ways to focus on love and your “why” as opposed to the simple “what” of your day-to-day journey through life.

Montague told a story about how he and Novak met Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who sidestepped Montague’s most-dreaded question, “What do you do for a living?,” with a new one – “What do you love about what you do?”

“It’s really cool when you hear somebody put words to their love,” Montague said. “I’m a words person, so I need to hear those things. I think for any team, anywhere to hear from their fellow team members why they love being with them, why they love the little things about their work. … That breathes life to even more good.”

The opinions in this episode do not necessarily reflect those of FranklinCovey or the Change Starts Here Podcast. You can access the full notice and disclaimer at this link: https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:e498c459-cdca-4a53-80c5-33d53c9a1359

FranklinCovey

Part of this channel

FranklinCovey

Behavior change that produces measurable organizational results

Visit the channel

Your experts belong here

Every story in MarketScale Education Technology starts with a company putting its implementation leads, instructional designers, and district partners on the record. Buyers are already reading this topic. The only question is whose experts they find.

Procurement teams read long before they ever call, and your implementers get to answer their questions first.

Book DemoSee how it works15 minutes, straight to a calendar.
B2B Weekly

The week in Education Technology, and sixteen other industries, every Monday.

Ten stories, one-line takes, five minutes. Free.

Education Technology: are you visible to AI?

Before they reach out, Education Technology buyers ask AI engines which vendors to trust. Explore how your experts, customers, and partners can become useful content for buyers and AI search.

Free Trial

You just read one Education Technology expert. Your company is full of them.

This article was produced through MarketScale. The same platform turns your implementation leads, instructional designers, and district partners into the articles, video, and social content Education Technology buyers are searching for. Start a free trial and see it with your own people. For qualifying companies, no credit card, no demo required.

NPS +73 · 1,000+ creators · 38+ countries

What your free trial includes

Hands-on access to the MarketScale platform
Media requests to your crowd, remote recording, AI writing tools
No demo required. No credit card.
For qualifying companies. Company confirmation required.

More Education Technology Insights

Organizational support is positively tied to faculty agility in a survey of 497 faculty

Organizational support is positively tied to faculty agility in a survey of 497 faculty

A study of 497 faculty at public and private universities in India finds organizational support positively and significantly associated with faculty agility. Agility, in turn, partly links digital transformation to sustainable work outcomes.

  • 01Faculty agility partially mediates the link between digital transformation and sustainable work outcomes, suggesting that a campus AI plan should pair tool adoption with explicit faculty support and readiness efforts, not treat implementation as a software purchase alone.
  • 02The findings come from a cross-sectional survey, so they show association rather than cause, and they sit alongside other research where the proposed middle step did not carry AI's effect through.

Sep 26, 2026

Strada's $25M HBCU bet started with listening, not a program to fund

Strada's $25M HBCU bet started with listening, not a program to fund

Strada Education Foundation committed $25 million over eight years to HBCUs in August 2020 and, instead of imposing a pre-designed program, ran a listening tour with presidents and chancellors to surface needs. The framework that emerged now runs at 47 institutions, pairing a $7,000 scholarship with $1,200 per student per year in flexible funds to remove work-based learning barriers—shifting power from funder control to campus ownership and helping seniors complete internships at rates above national figures.

  • 01Strada Education Foundation committed $25 million over eight years to HBCUs, then developed a work-based learning-focused framework after a listening tour with campus leaders.
  • 02The foundation prioritized listening to the institutions before creating the scholarship program.
  • 03The initiative allows HBCUs to direct funds according to their specific needs.

Sep 24, 2026

Hermantown to add Dunwoody dual-credit courses in fall 2026, including VR DC Circuits labs

Hermantown to add Dunwoody dual-credit courses in fall 2026, including VR DC Circuits labs

Hermantown High School plans to add two hybrid CTE courses with Dunwoody College of Technology in fall 2026, with dual credit and high school credit. Fundamentals of DC Circuits includes VR vision goggles for parts of the lab work.

  • 01Two hybrid CTE courses with dual high school and Dunwoody college credit launch at Hermantown High School in fall 2026.
  • 02Fundamentals of DC Circuits students use virtual reality vision goggles for portions of lab work.
  • 03MPR News reported Dunwoody is launching a fall pilot in six Minnesota school districts to bring college-level technical classes into high schools.

Sep 23, 2026

Explore More Education Technology Insights

Read more expert perspectives from across Education Technology.

Browse Education Technology Hub

For B2B teams

Your experts could be publishing here

Stories like this one run on content MarketScale captures from real practitioners. See how your team's expertise becomes coverage in Education Technology and beyond.

Book a Demo

Or call us. No forms required. We pick up. 214-945-2512