181. Teaching Kids to be EcoHeroes with Brett “Mr. Eco” Edwards

Brett, Mr. EcoEdwards is the founder and chief eco officer of the EcoHero show.

He created Mr. Eco in college and has brought the brand to life since 2014.

He is an environmentalist, an educator, an entrepreneur, a Grammy voting member, a YouTuber,

and a philanthropist.

Welcome Brett, so nice to have you here.

Thanks for having me.

Well, I've known you for a while now and had the pleasure of working on some curriculum

projects for you and with you, and I'm so excited for our audience to learn a little

bit more about EcoHero show and the work that you're doing.

So can you start by telling us about the EcoHero show, what is it, and why did you develop

it?

Yeah, for sure.

Well, thanks for having me.

And thanks for the curriculum that you have developed for us, super exciting.

I believe that big change begins with youth, and I combine my passions for hip hop and sustainability

into an environmental rap superhero, and then Mr. Eco, that uses music to educate and

empower elementary aged students to become eco-heroes who know they can change the world.

And that morphed into the EcoHero show, which I started about 12 years ago.

I started Mr. Eco when I was in university about 15 years ago.

And now we perform for, we perform thousands of presentations a year and have a lot of

talented performers that go in person to schools.

We also do virtual programming as well.

And so yeah.

So cool.

Can you tell us a little bit about how did this idea come to you?

Like you're blending these two passions where you're like, all right, I'm taking it to

schools.

Or how did it kind of come to you?

It's pretty random.

I, it really stems from my love for wild animals that I had grown up, would go camping with

my dad, and loved watching Animal Planet Discovery Channel.

Steve Irwin, the crock at Alejandro, was a big hero of mine.

I was him for Halloween, the fifth grade, and then in eighth grade, I was actually 50

cent for Halloween.

He was my first favorite rapper.

So that shows the kind of, yeah, the blood there.

And then I had a teacher in high school, Mr. Merrigan, my junior year, AP Environmental

Science, and he inspired me because in that class, I started to learn about some of the big

environmental problems that I planted with spacing.

And I knew that I wanted to dedicate my life to make an impact in a positive way.

I always wanted my own business.

And I was like, wait, why don't I rap because I was rapping for fun at that time with my

friends about normal high school stuff.

And then in college, I was like, why don't I rap about the environment?

And so then, yeah, combined the two and started performing at some local elementary schools.

So cool.

I love that.

Yeah.

So tell us a little bit more.

You started at the local elementary schools.

Got to come up with these wraps on your own.

And then how of eco hero shows offerings grown over time.

Yeah.

So, you know, I mean, as with all businesses that they start, start or founder typically

does everything.

So I was performing.

I was scheduling.

I was getting sponsorships from cities and counties and I realized, you know, I could

only be one place at one time.

So I was like, well, let me see if I can have other people perform the content.

And so then that's when I started training other eco hero performers and they don't go

as Mr. Eko.

They go as ecosystem or Eko Luna or Eko Eden.

They put their own spin on create a character that then uses our content and performs at

the schools.

And we've really been able to do this through sponsorships from cities and counties.

We've been sponsored by over 160 different municipalities mostly in California and then

also are starting to work more with school districts that then allow us to perform at

the schools for no cost.

It seems so relatable to me, you know, having my own business and healthy, many educators

have their businesses that it's like, we often go through this phase of starting business

where it's just us and we're like kind of trading time for money, right?

And then we run out of time.

And so it's like, yeah, you couldn't be at all these schools at all different times,

you know, just like a virtual teacher, right?

Like couldn't be teaching all the students at all times themselves.

And so talk to us a little bit more about finding people to help you, you know, coming

into something that you built and training them.

How did that go?

Oh, Gabe, I've probably shouldn't have said this day, but the first performer didn't have

a chance.

I had no idea what I was doing.

I was training someone and I was way too hard on him.

And then luckily, I really hit with the second one, Equal Hero Lexi.

And then, but yeah, it's, most of them have been actors who are looking for a better

job than being a waiter, you know, for example, and also much more rewarding and fun while

they're still pursuing an acting career.

And then through that, we've been fortunate that most of the new hires have been referrals

from the current team of their friends who are also in acting.

We have had also one, there's one former teacher.

I would love to hire more teachers in the future, for sure, who have, you know, had their

teaching credentials and such.

But the training process has evolved a lot and it really stems from us, you know, giving

an overview of the mission, having examples and teaching them the dances and then going

and having them step by step start to build.

So like the first day, they just perform one song and then the second day, they might

do three songs and then they do three songs in trivia.

And so it, so you can just be comfortable in kind of the, the kids and I think, I mean,

we're still, we're still surprised from time to time, but I think we've seen pretty much

the gamut of what can happen at a school in terms of just, you basically, you have to

just be ready for anything is the main qualification of this.

You don't know.

Yeah.

And you can't mess up, meaning like, just go with it.

If something goes wrong, the school that you're performing for doesn't know and it's

long as nobody gets hurt and everybody's having fun, it's, it's a wait, right?

It sounds like teaching where it's like, yeah, you don't know where you're going to get,

right?

You come in with your best plan and you're like doing the best you can with whatever is

thrown at you.

For sure.

And so how about the kid experience of coming to an eco hero show?

What do you notice that really resonates with kids?

So I've performed in over seven countries, over 1,000 schools myself and with the students,

the thing that rings true is just how empathetic and wanting to help.

I think they are and also kids are kids everywhere like that they want to have fun and they want

to help.

And our message, the whole mission of this is to empower the students to become the eco

hero.

So our superpower is creating more superheroes.

So it's such a pure cultural like exchange of energy and good vibes, which I love because

and yeah, I thought about this, even if they don't take environmental action after which

I hope that all of them are, but you know, you can't win them all, but they're still,

it's still a fun, positive experience because they're, they're laughing, they're dancing,

they're having a good time with their teachers.

So yeah, that's the thing it really is that kids are kids everywhere and they want to

help.

And I love that mission too of really empowering this whole new generation of heroes and getting

kids exposed to that in a way that's really fun and engaging too.

Appreciate it.

So talk to us a little bit more about where you see eco hero show going next.

Oh, baby, tell us more about things.

So what we've, we've discovered that there's actually kind of, we backed into this because

I started writing these children's read rap long books.

It's like Dr. Seuss meets Jay-Z and they're actually launching on our day, been working

on them for almost two years now because I wanted to be able to tell a story of an environmental

topic that was longer they could fit into a song that has to have the pre hook and then

the course be the same repeating things.

And so because of that, we created this book series and then realized, oh, wait, literacy

is an actual issue across the United States and something that school districts want to

help improve.

And so then our program is kind of shifting a bit to be where, I mean, obviously we're

environmental at our core, but we're a literacy steam program that happens to be about the

environment versus just being an environmental show.

So I'm really excited about that and all the curriculum that we've developed around

the read rap long books with educator forever and yeah, looking to be working with more

and more school districts as we do in-person whole group assemblies, we do individual literacy

workshops where the kids create their own wraps and art pieces and then we also are creating

this virtual press play program that has the curriculum activities for them to do following

along with our book that has a video component to it as well so that it can be done without

us having to physically be there.

So that's the futures is working more and more with school districts.

Also we, on Earth Day, we do a global live stream so I encourage all of the educators

out there for as long as you're an educator and as long as we're eco-heroes to join that

Earth Day live stream, it's an amazing concert with tens of thousands of kids from all over

the world. They zoom in and the energy is just wonderful.

So yeah, that's on Earth Day every year, unless it's a weekend, but the other Friday closest

to it.

April 22nd, join us.

Yes, absolutely.

That's amazing.

And I love this new direction.

I think it's so cool.

I mean, it's been so fun to work on this curriculum and see the books that you've created

and also just to see how you've taken something that works in schools and just fleshed it

out so much to be this cohesive offering for teachers.

And so I'd love for you to talk a little bit more about our teacher listeners out there

who want to add some environmental education into their classroom.

Do you have any advice for them?

Yeah, check out our YouTube.

Spotify would be the first place that I would go to.

And then from that point, I mean, if there's a way to talk to your district, that would

be a way for us to get this press play programming to hopefully the entire school district.

So yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm being...

There's a lot of great resources out there around the environment, but I am obviously

biased that let's start and start with the equilibrium show in our YouTube just by

search in Mr. Eco, you'll find the videos, all the books come to life as well.

So all of the characters have voice actors tied to them and then we have an animated version

where me and ecosystem, the co-creator are actually moving on screen and such.

So yeah, that's the starting point.

Those are great resources too, because I know as a teacher, you know, sometimes you're

looking for something just to get started with, right?

So it's like having a video, like play a video, right, doesn't have to be all the things

at once.

It could just be started with something small and then kind of following the direction

of the kids and what they're interested in too.

Yeah, I know on that, I guess, because I've made over five albums now have 30 plus

music videos and then these read rap along books that we have like four or five different

versions of content to all of them that we're releasing on YouTube.

So yeah, there's a lot to start with with the Eco Hero show.

So I want to change directions a little bit and talk about your personal experience growing

this business and some of our listeners out there are looking to start their own business

or their own venture of some sort and it likely feels overwhelming to them.

So I'd love to start by just hearing from you, like what have you learned through this

experience, like this idea you've had and seeing it grow over the years?

I think really the just consistency is the main thing for me that you just keep showing

up and if you're wise big enough, you'll figure out the how you have to start with why.

And that problems are actually a good thing because if you don't have problems then you're

not in business or you're not trying to make a big of an impact.

So it's really the thing that I work on the most is my personal state and mindset because

I think that the leader of an organization, that's the main bottleneck to growth oftentimes.

It's some of these things have to just be learned experiences.

It's easy to read a book and just think, oh yeah I'm going to do that but really you just have

to keep showing up, be consistent and truly have something you care about.

Did your why is big enough to figure out any how?

That reframe is so powerful too, but not being put off by problems, right?

Like problems are a good thing in many ways, right?

Like it's how we learn and even thinking about like back of the day teaching little kids,

right? Like it's how kids learned by failing, by having problems, by struggling through them.

And the same thing is true for us and so I love that you brought that up as part of the process

and the mindset piece too, that being a leader is kind of like setting the tone of a whole

organization and thinking about how you're going to show up and it really makes a big difference.

And then lastly, yeah, having the why, right?

Like that's what makes it worth it not only for the impact that we all hope to make but also

just personally being able to persevere through all the things. We have to be kind of anchored

in the why there. What's your why? I mean having learning be fun. I think it is my why for

curriculum, right? Like I didn't like school growing up and I felt like it wasn't fun.

Like I felt like I was learning all these things outside of school and I was like, well why can't I

learn in school? And so that was my why for becoming a teacher too of like, oh let's make learning fun.

Like let's make it things that kids are actually interested in and feel connected to their own life.

But and then my why of our teacher side of educator forever is like helping teachers be

the superheroes that they actually are, right? Like helping them actually be able to have career pathways

and like hopefully prestige and know that their education experts in a system that tells them

that they're not. So okay so thank you about teachers. So who want to do something new? What

advice do you have for them when they feel kind of it feels overwhelming? I do I do have one thing

that I want to touch on to about around that the mindset that there's this book The Game versus

the Gap for the Gap versus the Game. It's part of this business coaching program that I've started

strategic coach which has been awesome and the whole and for someone starting a business it's

imagine trying to chase a rainbow or a mirage in the desert and you're walking walking walking

that goal post keeps on moving moving moving. So you can't measure where you are today in your

business versus the ideal because if you're always thinking about the ideal you'll always be

not happy with your progress but if you turn around and measure how far you have come to where you

are at that exact day then that's a mindset shift that you can have where you're always looking for

wins which didn't create more wins. So like I do this exercise that's from the book every day right

three things that were a win for that day and then three things that I want to have a win for tomorrow

and that book is a wonderful resource for mindset for entrepreneurs.

And then you have the question about for starting something new as teachers?

Yeah like if somebody's like I want to start something you know like a business,

organization, a project and they just feel stuck. What advice would you give them around getting

started? If you want to take the island burn the boats. I'm a I'm a I'm a ready fire aim personality

so it is a little easier for me to just say because I know not everybody's wired the same way

but what I you know it really is unless you try you'll never know and you don't

and you learn by trying things out and pivoting from the successes. I mean that's what I did

is Mr. Epo like I could have you know focused on a couple of not stellar things that happened

for my first performances and when I look back and watch the videos I'm like oh my gosh

what was that but what I focused on the positives you know and then built built on that so

yeah just do it. Yeah I mean I think just the way that you put it around like you have to try

to know how it goes we can get stuck in our own mind sometimes we're like oh well maybe you know

it's like you don't know tell you try like you owe it to yourself to try and it doesn't have to be

like on the huge scale to start but I think that action is really what gets us unstacked.

And also like what's worst case scenario I mean I often think about that and so like really

map out your there's a thing called fear setting. Tim Ferriss is a do you know who Tim Ferriss is?

I'll put it forward quickly. Yeah huge huge impact on my life and his podcast and all he gets

to go through there but fear setting is one activity from that book before our work week where it

makes you actually list out your fears and because everybody puts their goals right but then wait

what's your fear so it's a different way to look at it too to make you realize oh like worst case

scenario would this be altering my life where I can't go on anymore and most of the time the

vast majority of the answer is no so you can just yeah you can do it but but we we create these

problems in our head as being much bigger trust me I've been I've been there many a time where

it's on repeat and something that's not useful so it is nice to just write it out and

do that for your setting exercise. Yeah flipping the the script you know being able to see it as

something that's workable rather than a blocker you know and also normalizing it I think too like

yeah everybody has fear right everybody has their first performance that sucks or whatever you know

like we all have that like I always saw the story of like the first webinar I ever did like so

long ago it was like super awkward like all these like tactic the difficulties I was stumbling over

my words and it's like yeah the next one was like maybe slightly better but I got better because

I kept showing up and doing it and I think that just normalizing like we all you know do a not

amazing job the first time we try something. For sure so it's been so inspiring talking to you

hearing more about your journey can you tell folks how they can connect with you. Yeah for sure

YouTube Mr. Eco MR ECO also Instagram Mr. Eco and then Earth Day Baby let's go eco.live

that's let's go eco.live that's how you can sign up and yeah I hope that as long as you're an

educator you'll be joining us on Earth Day all the educators out there. Amazing I really appreciate

you coming on and I'll talk to you soon. All right thank you so much. Ready to find rewarding

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