S2EP69-Matt Newnham-From Marketing to Moonwalks: Matt's Journey to Children's Books

Herb: 00:00:19

And today I have the pleasure of introducing Matt Newnham. Matt is a British author who writes imaginative stories for children and young adults.

He is best known for the Space Ranger Fred series, which blends adventure, humor and gentle stem learning, and for his growing list of fantasy and middle age grade fiction. With a background in marketing and communication, Matt brings clarity, warmth and curiosity to everything he writes.

He lives in West Sussex and believes the best stories should entertain first and quietly teach along the way. Welcome, Matt. It is a pleasure to have you here today. Thank you for joining us.

Matt Newnham: 00:00:57

Absolute pleasure. And I love the enthusiasm. The way you say Space Ranger Fred. I think you've got the job as the TV announcer already.

Herb: 00:01:06

Yeah, I, I tried that. I actually have a voice studio and all of that. But, but doing it consistently, the business.

Matt Newnham: 00:01:14

Aspect of it, I'm gonna use, I'm gonna use that sound, I can tell you.

Herb: 00:01:19

Please do.

You know, I could actually maybe read it again afterwards because there's that little glitch right there in the middle of that sentence that, that maybe I bring that up for you for a bit.

Matt Newnham: 00:01:29

Oh, well, it's good to be here anyway, guys.

Kristina: 00:01:31

And most of all, we are really also excited because we have added another country to our international podcast. Bringing education home has become more international and with such a great guest as you, I am so excited.

Thank you, Space Ranger Fred and this thing called stem. What was the impetus? What was the pivotal point? That's like, you know what?

I need to do this instead of whatever else you were doing in your life before it?

Matt Newnham: 00:01:58

To be honest, my life, I, I had a couple of bumps in the road.

And those bumps in the road took me out of my marketing career, forced me down into the road of freelance writing and then a further bump in the road, change everything around that as well.

And in the process of all of that, I had a freelance writing gig to write a children's story for an English teacher in Australia, if I remember correctly. And I wrote this piece. I thought, oh, damn, that's way too good to be using.

So I pushed it to one side and then I wrote another little piece and I thought, yeah, that will do. Passed it off and yeah, did the job. It was all about space.

And then two or three years later, I was in another difficult position and I was staying with some friends and their young seven, eight, nine, year old daughter asked me, so, Matt, what do you write as a freelance writer? I said, well, have a look on my laptop.

So I opened it up and she found her way around and found this little story called Space Ranger Max showed it to her mom and her mum said, this is brilliant. Why haven't you published it? I didn't have a clue. Not a clue.

I was stuck at the bottom end of South Africa in Cape Town, most beautiful city in the world, and I just didn't have a clue about publishing it. I didn't even thought about it.

But what I didn't know was that I'd written a book that was one, a really good story and two, had these STEM learning elements in it absolutely naturally. So how and why I did it, the why is because I needed it was paying the bills as a freelance writing job. But why?

It just comes absolutely naturally to me. And the scary thing is now I know I've got to put more into it. I don't find it as easy writing it, if that makes sense.

Kristina: 00:04:09

I totally get that. I did that with my lesson plans for so many years.

It's like as the teacher was like, I, you know, I need to make sure I put these elements in there and when I would just sit down, just kind of let it flow.

Matt Newnham: 00:04:20

And you've just got to let it flow.

Kristina: 00:04:22

Yeah.

Matt Newnham: 00:04:22

Like I've just written. I've just written another one. I've got one with the. Just come back from the editor on what day? Wednesday. It came back on Monday.

And I've got another one which I've just started now. It's about jumping puddles. Really simple stuff. And that one I wrote in the space of a morning and I just wrote the book and I'll just let it flow.

Something happened and I saw some kids jumping over puddles. Jumping in puddles, I should say. And I literally wrote a story about it.

And without knowing it, I'd put in all the little pieces about STEM and something that we're now start. My team behind me is calling Menturity, which is the. I think I try, I can stroke, I can explain.

And it's getting kids to really understand how things work in a different way. And I've now put that into the book and it's absolutely natural for me.

And it all started, it was written because I stepped away from what I was doing every day.

Kristina: 00:05:30

Yeah, yeah. And so that's what we really want to encourage parents.

Matt Newnham: 00:05:33

Right.

Kristina: 00:05:33

Whenever your child is in that flow, let them create, let them go. Help our parents and audience who's listening, though, who might not understand stem, they should, but remind us what it stands for.

Matt Newnham: 00:05:47

Science, Technology, Education and Math East. See, it's, it's, it's all the, all the stuff that really should be interesting and fun for kids, but often isn't, if you know what I mean.

Herb: 00:06:02

Yeah.

Matt Newnham: 00:06:02

So the sciency stuff and the technology stuff and the engineering and the math can all get very bogged down. And I, I, I wasn't the brightest spark at school. I passed everything, I got through university and did all those great things.

But it's, I found I could learn better when it was more fun.

Kristina: 00:06:24

Absolutely.

Matt Newnham: 00:06:25

And that's what I kind of encourage with my books.

Herb: 00:06:27

Yeah. Where we live, we've lost a lot of our STEM classes and a lot of, of that kind of learning in our school system in general.

So you almost have to take your kids out and get them that independently right now. So. And they are very interested in it because that is something that they can hold on to. It's something like, that doesn't change.

It's like this, the stuff is, and.

Kristina: 00:06:49

The hands on that goes with it.

Matt Newnham: 00:06:51

And so the hands on, you've hit the absolute nail on the head as to what this thing called menturity is that we're starting to get to grips with. We've, we've created that the word doesn't exist.

We've got a website called mencharity.org and basically it's a learning methodology with a lot more hands on and getting the kids to, getting the kids to make mistakes. You know, that's the, that's the biggest thing. Kids are so easily shot down today. Oh, you've done that wrong. Do it right. Do it three more times.

Let the child make a mistake. That way around, they learn, they understand how and where that mistake was made. And yes, they'll make it two or three more times. We all do.

You know, I do it every time.

Herb: 00:07:43

I've been making the same mistake over 50 years, so I get it.

Matt Newnham: 00:07:47

Yeah. You know, my whole life is a mistake at times when I look back on it. But that's how you learn. And the schools today are so structured.

You must do this, you must do that. You've got to follow these instructions. The kids are becoming like robots, they're becoming brainwashed. And, you know, something has to give.

And my team and I had some discussions back in October out in southern Africa, and one thing led to another from a literacy project. But we wanted to understand how kids learn.

And then we understood the skill shortage and we realized there's a, an ex, what they call an experiential childhood gap. And you know, I can bridge that with my books.

You know, I'm not the only one doing it, but I'm probably the only one talking about doing it at the moment.

And it's bridging that gap to let the children be kids, let them make their mistakes, let them learn, let them use their hands and you will find that every kid will thrive. One, they're having fun. But two, there's no competitiveness, there's no, oh, he's brainier than me, he can do the quadratic equations and I can't.

Herb: 00:09:05

Comparison is the thief of joy.

Matt Newnham: 00:09:07

It is, absolutely.

But when it comes to doing things with your hands or actually doing something, whether it's jumping a puddle or tying your shoelaces or whatever it might well be, everybody's got the same capacity to do it, or I should say 98% because there are those with learning disabilities and other issues and what's the word I'm looking for? Other, other mental conditions? Yeah, yeah, autism and things like that.

But then you have to just slow things down, tone it down a little bit, change how you do things, become a little bit more with them. And even in the books, you know, I can do, I can get kids to believe they can do anything.

Herb: 00:09:56

They're, they're super easy, brains are wired that they can do anything.

Matt Newnham: 00:10:00

Yeah, if they don't want to do it, they won't do it. It's as simple as that. But they can do anything.

And it's creating some issues in the world today whereby one, we've got a massive shortage of plumbers, electricians and tradesmen like that in the US all over the world. But I know it's a huge problem in the US and that's because they focused on getting everybody through school with a degree.

And I'm starting with these books at a young level to make those sorts of things. Touching wires together to make a spark, putting two pipes together, a big one and a small one to make water pressure change.

Little things like that which are slowly coming into the books.

You know, the latest book I've just, I've just written, well, it's just been published, which is this beautiful thing here, Space Ranger Fred and the Great Galactic Bake Off. It actually takes my love of cooking and baking, but again, simple, hands on skills that kids can do.

But then combine that with the stem, the science and whatever, with some real facts in there and some made up bits which gets the child talking to mom or dad or class or whoever's reading the book to them.

Herb: 00:11:13

And that's why we're such big advocates for homeschool and why we help people take their children out of school and and preferably not put them in in the first place, because if the children can play until they're seven and not sit down in the classroom, then their creativity is exponentially greater. And then, then what happens is there is they get interested in something and they want to learn it, so they pull the learning.

So instead of putting them in a box and saying, this is what you have to learn, you open up their creativity and then they get an education on what they want to learn. And that is such a deeper level of integration.

Matt Newnham: 00:11:51

Telling them this is what you've got to learn frightens the living daylights out of some kids. Some kids just aren't geared to be academic. They're really not. And, but that doesn't mean they're not bright. They just don't.

They don't want to sit there reading a textbook, filling in their times table, knowing that 9 times 9 equals 12 or whatever it might be.

Herb: 00:12:16

She has a brother on purpose. He has a mother like that.

Matt Newnham: 00:12:21

Be there. They want to be doing something, they want to be active, they want to be learning. Learning as they move.

Herb: 00:12:27

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kristina: 00:12:29

And actually all three of my brothers, he said one brother, actually have all three brothers who were very much hands on, right?

Academics was fine, it was a struggle for them to be in school, but once they were out on the farm working on the tractors and things or, you know, looking at the water system at the.

Herb: 00:12:44

They're incredibly competent people. They can do just about anything. If it's physical, if, like, they see something that needs to be done, they can get it done.

And that's the competency, intelligence. And I know so many people who are great in school.

I worked at intel, I had PhDs that were like the top of their, like their knowledge and they couldn't reboot a computer or figure out how to get out of the parking lot. So there's different kinds of intelligences. It's all over the place.

Matt Newnham: 00:13:14

With the, with the mainstream schooling system, all of those kids have been put into one big lump. So therefore they're going to be.

Whereas when you pull it back, either in homeschooling or smaller groups, depending on whether it's an actual homeschool, whether it's mum or dad, or whether it's a homeschool set up with just half a dozen kids, that close attention allows that child to be developed one on one. It makes such a huge difference. And again with the books, I encourage the children to sit and read it.

They can read it themselves, but I, I love to see it when kids are reading the story to each other and. Or when the teacher takes the book and hands them a page. Can you read this page? And they go through it. You don't get that.

You don't see that attention anymore. And it's so essential. And my books are full of less than standard words because I've got crazy names of places and whatever.

So it teaches the kids the phonetics of language and they're going to understand how a certain name or a place or whatever can be built. And it's completely make believe. And they like it because they've suddenly learned a new word that nobody else in their class understands.

Kristina: 00:14:30

That so reminds me of my son. There was a school, there was a cartoon program called the Magic School Bus when he was little.

Matt Newnham: 00:14:37

I remember the Magic School Bus. Yeah.

Herb: 00:14:39

Still life favorite. I love watching that.

Matt Newnham: 00:14:42

It's still very, very big.

Kristina: 00:14:44

Yeah, yeah. And he would pick up on words and start using words that I had no clue. It's like, where did you get that word from?

Are you sure you're using it correctly? It's like, mom, come watch this show with me. And you know, it's the same thing.

Matt Newnham: 00:14:55

It was so different to Sesame Street.

Kristina: 00:14:57

Yeah.

Matt Newnham: 00:14:58

The Magic School Bus just had something different, but really made it fun. Yeah, exactly.

Kristina: 00:15:05

And I love the way you're talking about, you know, the things that you've already seen and heard in England as well as the United States, because we talk mostly to, you know, the people in the United States because that's where we're based.

But it's amazing whenever we talk to people from around the world and these core principles of hands on learning, experiential learning, keys around parenting, around communication and giving your child, you know, the expectations of doing great things. When we hear it from around the world is like, okay, we're, we're not just, you know, tapping our own drum here.

We're saying, yeah, these are things that are things around the world.

Herb: 00:15:38

Yeah. And you know, part of the problem with our education system too is it's geared for an industry that we don't have in the United States anymore.

It was geared to put people into factories, into boxes and to make all this stuff happen a lot of the world. And then for the last 40 or 50 years, the governments have wiped out our ability to create manufacturing in the United.

Matt Newnham: 00:15:58

And I think that's the same, that's the same the world over. And you know, that in mind is very easy to go down the political path right now, but I'm not going to.

Herb: 00:16:09

But it's All I would take that down more of a money path than a political path.

Matt Newnham: 00:16:13

It's a money path more than anything else. But when you start looking at the way things are right now, it's. You've seen industries, things have changed.

We've become a global, a global market and the world has changed dramatically. And where the resources are, the factories have all changed.

You've got intel that you used to work for, you've got all these big software companies down in Silicon Valley, but they're limited in terms of the skills that they can actually employ. And today as AI comes in, some of those jobs are being taken away. And AI itself needs skills to actually make it work.

So the STEM stuff, for those that are a little bit more academic or can learn the programming, the opportunities are there.

But when you take it all the way back, as we're now looking now with Space Ranger Fred and the wider sort of bit of the group, rather than just the books, you know, bringing in a computer game, a video, a video game, animation, books, an education platform, and our menturity, as we're calling it, our menturity methodology for teaching, we're looking to say, okay, we're not so much filling the gaps, we're kind of backpedaling to where we were 30, 40 years ago and said, okay, what have we now got or not got?

Where we now need skills to develop and develop rapidly or if these industries aren't going to come back, where can the hands of the people be used better? And getting kids to think differently rather than thinking, oh, I want to go and work for intel or Microsoft or Apple or whatever.

They need to be able to think.

Well, there's a lot of, a lot more money to be made in plumbing or there's some money to be made in construction or there's money to be made in plants or food or anything. That's just not it.

That doesn't need mean you have to have a degree for as long as you've got the ability to learn, which starts with the early age reading. Once you have that ability to learn, the world's your oyster. You don't have to have the degree for it.

Herb: 00:18:20

Yeah, the only people who really think they need to have the degree are the people who are in school all the time because you get to the homeschool parents and they're not talking about sending their kids to school if their kids want to go to school later afterwards for college. It's targeted classes for specific information. It's not like going to find myself and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Kristina: 00:18:39

It's really for those who have, you know, those certain degrees, doctors, lawyers, teachers that you have to have.

Herb: 00:18:45

Stem is very important.

Matt Newnham: 00:18:46

Stem. But, you know, when you narrow it down, you have. When you come back, you find someone who might decide he wants to go and mow lawns for a living.

You know, cut grass in people's gardens. Stem is required there as well.

You know, understanding how the grass grows, what particular grass grows here and why, understanding weather patterns, Little things like that are essential. And, you know, the. The top dogs are, oh, you're just a garden boy.

But I know more people that run gardening and lawnmower companies that make more than some of the top tech execs in the world.

Kristina: 00:19:20

And if they've had the mechanical and the engineering part, then they're fixing their own equipment as well, instead of trying to ship it out all the time and losing money because they're getting no technique. Right.

Matt Newnham: 00:19:30

Exactly.

Herb: 00:19:31

Another way to look at this is with all of the science and technology and all of that stuff changing and making life easier and all of that, one of the things that's happening is we're moving more and more away from being human and having the relationships and touching and being with people and the reading and the whole turning the page and the being with friends, that. That needs to come back. We need to bring the children back.

Matt Newnham: 00:19:55

If I can high five you right now, I would.

Kristina: 00:19:59

High five.

Herb: 00:19:59

High five. Yeah. So it's not just about educating the kids on what to learn and what to do. It's about, hey, I'm in this body. What can this body do?

What are these feelings? What. So there's so much more to it than just, where am I going or how am I going to make money.

Matt Newnham: 00:20:16

Yeah. I had an email the other week and someone asked me to define where I'm. What I'm doing with the educational side of things.

And a sentence cropped up and I've just pulled it up on my screen now. It's childhood is not just what a child knows, but what a child can do with what they know.

Kristina: 00:20:37

Absolutely.

Matt Newnham: 00:20:39

You know, and if they can answer that, once they see that the world is so much bigger with all the knowledge they've got, and it might only be a small amount of knowledge, but what's their oyster? They can go anywhere and do anything, and they can. They can leave any country or stay at home or go to the big city or go to the countryside.

As long as they got the knowledge, they're okay. And that comes back down to reading and Writing and being part of themselves, understanding what their body can do, as you rightly said there.

And you know, turning the page, feeling the paper. You know, the majority of my books that sell are being sold on in paper and I think that's true for a lot of authors around the world.

Is that paper is still huge. Yeah. Yes. The cost of ink and the paper's gone through the roof in the last couple of years, but paper is still a massive, massive medium.

And it's something with kids. You know, when you give a kid a book, particularly if it's his or her own book, they can write notes in the margins.

Kristina: 00:21:45

Yes.

Matt Newnham: 00:21:46

You know, I've, I've had some of my late dad's storybooks. His is Wilbur Smiths and that of this World.

And I was reading one a couple of weeks ago and on one of the pages there was a note in my dad's handwriting. And my dad passed away two years ago next week and to find his writing to me said my dad was part of that book. And that got me thinking.

Kids become part of the book when they've got it in their hands. It's so important they start thinking differently. The notes down the side of my dad's page had absolutely nothing to do with the book whatsoever.

It was something.

Herb: 00:22:25

I have a so completely different view of that because books were so important to me that I almost revered them. Like, no dog ears, no writing. They had to stay like. Because they were so valuable to me that I could write notes outside of them.

But man, I did not, I did not mess up that.

Matt Newnham: 00:22:47

My dad was a scribbler and I.

Kristina: 00:22:51

Was just the opposite. My reaction to that was, oh my gosh, what a treasure to find. Absolutely have that your dad from so.

Matt Newnham: 00:23:00

And that's in a. And that gives you the personality types. You've got those that are going to treasure their books.

And I've got some of my books that I've had for 30, 40, nearly 50 years. And some of them are immaculate, some of them completely clothed and got crayon marks over them on all sorts because.

Herb: 00:23:18

I only read them 50 times once a year for.

Matt Newnham: 00:23:21

Yeah, but it's, you know, it's, it's, it's one of those things and I, I love the fact that, that my books are now in hardback. You know, I took a, spent a lot of time with this last book. We had them initially printed in a normal six by nine format. Yeah.

And I just didn't like it. And I ordered two samples and they sent me 200. So I got boxfuls of them here, which is kind of frustrating.

But I then took a step back and realized that kids weren't engaging with the book. So I thought, okay, what would make them engage that bit more?

And again, this is something that a lot of authors, particularly self published authors, don't take the time to understand. And now I've got these eight by five square books which are available in Barnes and Noble over there, if I'm not mistaken.

Kristina: 00:24:17

Okay.

Matt Newnham: 00:24:17

And these books are absolutely beautiful.

You know, when I, when I presented them to Waterstones Books here in the uk, one of the big book chains, the manager of the store saw the book and she just went, wow, that's beautiful. And that is a book that she said, she said, you don't really even want to hold this glove without this book, without gloves on.

Kristina: 00:24:45

Yeah.

Matt Newnham: 00:24:46

And it was a, it was a nice feeling.

But to get a book now that the kids can really hold, really engage with, not just in the terms of the reading of the book and so forth, but actually feel it. Turn the pages on quality paper with quality ink, high color images, you know, kids can be drawn into that book in so many different ways.

You know, the book can be chewed by a three year old and the gums are going to go into it and a two year old is teething would love them. But the books are something that a child will teach treasure, which I've.

So I've done them in paperback as well, which can be read and done whatever with. But the hardback ones really feel like something special for the kids to have or for anyone to have for that matter.

And going forward, all the books I'm having written are going to be in this format. A soft, a soft back and a hardback. But this square style because it engages with the kids so much better.

Kristina: 00:25:47

I love it. So take us back a little bit.

Tell us a little bit about where Space Ranger Fred came from and maybe one or two of the adventures that he has had or is going to have.

Matt Newnham: 00:26:00

I honestly don't know where it came from.

Kristina: 00:26:03

Okay.

Matt Newnham: 00:26:04

That is, that is God's honest truth. I, it's, I'm one of these writers, when I sit down and write, I just write and whatever flows, flows. Sometimes it's complete garbage.

And Space Ranger Fred came out. I was literally had the task of just saying I need a little story for kids to, for me to be able to talk about space in my class here in Australia.

That was my brief.

So I literally had a kid that went up to a couple of planets, a rocket Came down, he joined another space ranger and went up into space and they saw a few planets.

But then I started thinking, once I'd written the story and given that one over to him, the one that I had left, which I further developed, I thought, well, he needs to do something. He needs a superpower. So that superpower is what the six year old. What are six year olds great at doing or not so great at doing? Either way.

And I came up with Tying Shoelaces. And the first book was called Space Ranger Fred and the Shoelace Adventure. And it's done, it's done quite well, I'll be honest.

And it's just, it was a story that just resonated with me. I put in a little poem about how the poem that helps you tie your shoelaces and things like that.

And all the way through I had this kid with great morals. He was always says his pleases and thank yous and things like that. I kept it almost sickly, squeaky, squeaky clean, if you know what I mean.

But at the same time I was able to bring in a little humor. I had this, got this. He's got a, an older character that he travels with called Xando Centauri. And Xando is, yeah, he's a bit clumsy, a bit funny.

There's a good South African word for him. He's lost cop, which means he's a bit soft in the head. Okay.

And he's, he's just a bit, he's highly intelligent, but in a way that kids will find humorous, if you know what I mean. So he's got a thing about brushing his teeth all the time. And he's going for the, the brightest smile in the universe.

That's a common theme that comes through it. And then he has little gadgets in the space rocket which are all oversimplified, really complicated devices.

In the second book they've got, it's called the Umbrella Rescue. And in that one Fred goes to space to rescue an alien.

It's a retelling of the Good Samaritan with a couple of twists in it which I, I thought was quite nice. I wanted to get a little bit of my Christian faith into some of them.

And underneath all of them that is something that is flowing, I have to admit, which I, I quite like. So he goes up to space in the second one and they rescue an alien who's crashed on a planet who's driving a garbage truck.

But in the back of the garbage truck are box fulls of umbrellas and he has to Go to a party. And at the party, the party's now outside, they're all complaining and Fred says, hang on, I can solve this. And they all go outside with umbrellas.

But I've overcomplicated the umbrella, which we all know is a little click and up it goes. Little button type thing. Well, I've over complicated it with three buttons on it, different colors and everything. The buttons don't do anything.

But the kids start thinking, what can this umbrella be doing next? What's he gonna do? But the buttons don't do anything. And that's one of the silly bits about it.

And then in the spaceship in the third book, which is Tick Tock Tale, which is about telling the time, kept it very straightforward. I've also started to bring in a bit more of the family here. Greg's grandmother appears and thinks Fred's grandmother appears and things like that.

But in this one there's a, a peg, a powerful anything, a powerful everything gripper. And it's on the side of their seats. And Fred looks down to where this is and he sees, well, powerful everything grip is a peg. And there it is.

Sticky tape to the armrest is a clothes peg. It grips everything.

And it's, it's made out in the book to be a super advanced, highly advanced, super technological way of holding bits of paper still in space. And then that starts to trigger the question of why did. Why does paper float around in space?

So the adventures that we've got in the book are all over the place. They're a little bit. Every single time. It's a really simple or downright stupid theme.

Yeah, the one that's being edited right now is called Space Range of Fred and the ghoulish cries of E. It's. It's one that I literally wrote on Halloween, believe it or not.

And they go to another planet where they've got a problem and they're having a party and the planet's called Een and the ball is called the Hallow Ball. So it's the Halloween Ball.

Kristina: 00:30:59

Yeah,.

Matt Newnham: 00:31:01

Masks and whatever. It's quite. It's. My editors had a good laugh at this one. But in this one it's problem solving again.

And they've got a noise that's blowing through the, the windows and the French doors and whatever, and they're rattling and they think the ballroom's haunted. Meanwhile, Fred sees it and just realizes wind blowing through the, through the, the gap between the doors and.

Well, they've just had to pick up a whole pile of, of this gaffer tape, masking tape, whatever the stuff's called. And they, Fred says, I know how to fix this. The next thing you know, he's going round with his hero.

They're going around putting this sticky tape all over the windows and suddenly the noises stop. So he stopped a draft coming through. So the, the stem is in there. The, in there is the, the maturity, this experiential stuff and whatever.

Why does it work? How does it work? Yeah, if I do this, I can do that. And tucked away in amongst it all is all sorts of crazy bits of humor.

It's like they go on a roller coaster ride around the castle to get from literally from one door to another, which are only a couple hundred yards apart. But you take, I take them on this amazing roller coaster ride and my editor's just gone, where on did this come from?

Kristina: 00:32:16

Right. That's amazing. I love it. Oh my gosh, I need to go.

Matt Newnham: 00:32:21

To crazy stuff into it. And I love writing the books. I love reading the books to kids. I absolutely love it.

And I'm probably the luckiest man in the world to do what I do every day.

Kristina: 00:32:34

That is so amazing. I love it. So if a parent were listening is like, how do I maybe inspire my child to do something kind of like this?

Create some stories or, you know, start problem solving some things around the house. Do you have any ideas for them? Let's give them some tips on this maybe.

Matt Newnham: 00:32:52

Yeah, I, I come up with these questions all the time. I start with, if you could go.

To start with something that's completely improbable, if you could go to space, where would you go and who would you take with you? That who becomes an important bit.

Because while they're telling their own story, they've got someone in their story with them that gives them a little bit of confidence. So I try and encourage them to have someone with them. You know, Batman's got Robin and all those things like that. And they tend to understand that.

And I, I asked kids, what would your superpower be? And it's.

And I said, but it's got to be something that you can do or something you want to be able to do, like tie your shoelaces or something, right?

And I say, okay, now tell me you're going to go to that planet that you've just told me about with your person and you're going to do your tying shoelaces. It was in my book, whatever. And tell me how you're going to go there, what you're going to do, why you're going to do it. Who.

Who will be happy because of it? And then how do you get back? And just tie them into a little bit of a loop. So they've got to go there, do something, make someone happy, come back.

And it's something that the average 6 year old can do and they don't have to have to write it down or anything.

And you can do things like that or, you know, if they're more on the not so much the storytelling side, you can say to them, okay, what have we got around the house that we can make a space rocket with today? Cardboard tubes and things like that. How can we make a space rocket?

And then as you go through, you ask them all the questions, okay, what makes it blast off? But then you say to them, how will it land? Is it going to come straight down like that? Is it going to come in like an airplane?

Is it going to come down in some other way? It gets them exploring all the possibilities that are there.

So writing the story around that and putting all the pieces together, you know, I don't just make stories up for a living. I have to think things through because if it's not logical, it isn't going to work. And trust me, kids will tell me if it's not going to work.

Yeah, they are. They are my worst critics. I love them to bits.

Herb: 00:35:23

And it's so simple because you. You wrote a story about tying shoes. A really. Another great cartoon that was out when my kids were little was Phineas and Ferb. They had an.

Matt Newnham: 00:35:34

Now we're talking my language.

Herb: 00:35:36

They had an entire episode just about aglets, which is the little plastic bit on the end of a shoelace. A whole episode on.

Matt Newnham: 00:35:45

While. While I was writing the book. I actually have watched that episode a number of times.

Kristina: 00:35:52

I love it.

Matt Newnham: 00:35:53

You're making me smile because I remember finding the bit on YouTube about it and I thought, can I put. Can I put that in? I didn't put it in in the end, but.

Kristina: 00:36:02

Right. Oh, yeah.

Matt Newnham: 00:36:04

But yeah, it was a nice distraction for me.

Herb: 00:36:06

Yeah. So, you know, they don't have to be about super amazing things and superpowers. Knowing what aglet means and that, that.

Matt Newnham: 00:36:15

Brings it back to the reality of the world out there, you know, super amazing.

Herb: 00:36:21

Yeah.

Matt Newnham: 00:36:21

You've got to have a degree to do this. No, you haven't. If you can. If you know what an aglet is for the, for the shoe, you can do anything.

If you can tie your shoelaces, you can be a football player, baseball player, soccer player, anything else.

Herb: 00:36:35

People's dogs. You know how much people pay dog walkers to walk their dogs? Oh, you.

Matt Newnham: 00:36:39

I do, but I'm away.

Kristina: 00:36:44

Exactly. Oh, my God.

Matt Newnham: 00:36:46

It's easy money. It's easy money.

Herb: 00:36:49

They like their children most of the.

Matt Newnham: 00:36:50

Time, but there's no. The thing is, there's no, there's no shame in doing such a. A menial task. Is that the right word? I don't know. There's no shame in that.

You know, in a way, you know, when you listen to all these world experts, these academics talking about AI and the way going forward, it's reducing the number of jobs, so finding these jobs going forward, the jobs are going to be the more simplistic way of life. Dog walking, growing your own grain to make your own bread, you know, simple things like that.

Growing your own vegetables to make your own whatever it might be or sell them. People are going to go that way. And I think kids need to understand that you don't have to have a degree to have a successful and happy life.

Herb: 00:37:44

People, they are some of the most down to earth. They have a lot.

I know a couple of them, they live very simply, they have a lot of money, but they're not flashy, they don't need to spend it, they're not caught up in this. I have to be that they did the work, they got their life and they're very happy within it.

And it's not, I have to have more, I have to have this, I have to have.

Matt Newnham: 00:38:08

That all boils down to happiness.

Herb: 00:38:10

Yes.

Matt Newnham: 00:38:11

If the kids are happy reading and writing and learning, they're going to be happy all the way through their life.

Kristina: 00:38:16

You call that love of learning? If they have that, the love of learning, it's love.

Matt Newnham: 00:38:21

Every day for me is a school day. I'm learning things every single day.

Herb: 00:38:25

Yeah.

We started this targeting entrepreneurs because entrepreneurs have this mindset of always learning, of always growing, of there's always the next business class, there's always the next personal development, there's what can I do better to make my business and get more reach out there. If you get children that way early, then they just become unstoppable.

Matt Newnham: 00:38:47

Yeah. I had a brief chat on LinkedIn today with someone and we were talking about paper boys doing paper round deliveries, delivering newspapers.

How that young entrepreneurial spirit in 10, 12, 13 year olds is, once you foster that at a young age, it's something that is there for the rest of their lives and, you know, it's something that they can teach others. And I'm asked all the time, entrepreneurial type things and whatever.

And how can I help in a class or how can I teach this or how can I, can I advise on this or something like that. I'm no genius, but I've learned it through the school of hard knocks over the years and you know, it's, it's something nice.

And very often if I'm talking in a school and reading the books, it can, if with, particularly with the older age groups, it can move over to something a little bit more entrepreneurial. And there's nothing wrong with that. And the kids love to do that.

They all, I think if you ask them all, there's, there's some want to be doctors and, and things like that and teachers and things, but I think inside all of them there is this entrepreneurial spirit that wants to be, I want to be my own boss. I want that freedom, I want that happiness. And I think it's something that's absolutely vital to teach kids from a young age.

Herb: 00:40:11

Yeah. And the best way to do that is to teach them yourself at home, not in school. Because school will not teach you that.

Matt Newnham: 00:40:16

Absolutely.

Herb: 00:40:17

They do not, they do not want you.

Matt Newnham: 00:40:19

If they're Harvard gifted and that sort of bright, yeah, fine, send them there because they're. Yeah, but there aren't many that will.

Kristina: 00:40:28

And if for some reason you can't take your child out of school, give them the experiences after school, on the weekend, explore all of these things as much as you can as a family.

Matt Newnham: 00:40:38

100.

Herb: 00:40:39

You know, your children are the best thing that are ever going to happen to you. They are the future. And so while you have them under your care, do the best you can. It's exhausting.

Matt Newnham: 00:40:49

My boy's 23 now and I still love him to bits. And you know what? Yeah, we're, we're, we've just booked a small vacation between the two of us in a cup in the middle of March.

And it's dad and son time away. You can't put a price on that.

And you know, I used to read stories to my son when he was little and I, I'm an advocate of parents taking that five minutes just to read to their kids, you know. You know, as an author, I, I would say, look, read my books, don't read any others. Read, read only my books. You'll be fine.

Kristina: 00:41:24

There you go.

Matt Newnham: 00:41:27

But, but the truth is that five minutes, switch that off for five minutes.

Kristina: 00:41:33

They got, Turn off the phone, shut off the world. Yep.

Matt Newnham: 00:41:36

Go and find a book, anything, and sit and read with your child. And I know one thing, you're both going to come out better off. That five minutes of reading before bedtime is so valuable. You know, I started.

I know my whole thing started because I was making up stories based on the wallpaper on my sister's wall. She's 10 years younger than me, so I was about 15, she was about 5 and wouldn't go to sleep.

So I'd start making up stories about spot the dog or patch the dog, whatever it was called on her wallpaper. That's where it started with me.

But that five or 10 minutes became such a part of our routine that when I stopped doing it, it was part of me was missing. And, you know, when a parent stops doing, only stops because the child's grown up.

But there's absolutely nothing to stop the parent, even when the child's getting older, to sit down with a book together. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Kristina: 00:42:43

We actually did.

Matt Newnham: 00:42:44

Five minutes before bedtime is so crucial. And I think I'm fast learning that. Stories that send kids to sleep. Yeah, it's a great idea. It's the whole idea of it from mum or dad.

But if you can give them a story like one of my crazy books that has the child laughing, they're still going to drift off, but they're going to end up with their brain doing different things and their mind is going to be filled with the laughter and the happiness and the crazy ideas. So while they're sleeping, they're sort of at the same time still learning and their brain is.

Their brain is doing something different to them and that it's. Is vitally important for them.

Kristina: 00:43:28

Absolutely. They say often that whatever you're thinking about when you go to sleep, that's what you think about when you're waking up. Right.

Or the mood that you're in when you go to sleep is the mood you're in when you wake up. And don't we want our kids to be happy, healthy?

Matt Newnham: 00:43:41

It's 100. True. I always try and switch off at the end of the day. You know, I'm a. I'm a big fan of this author here, Nick Louth. He's a British author.

Kristina: 00:43:52

Okay.

Matt Newnham: 00:43:52

He's very, very good. And, you know, I'm a big fan of his and it's pure escapism. And his last book sold a couple of million copies. You know, he's.

I actually had the pleasure of actually being at his last book launch and going out for dinner with him after the book launch.

Kristina: 00:44:08

Beautiful.

Matt Newnham: 00:44:09

I take that there's something that even for the parents, if you can read 10 pages a day of something, it will change your life. But if you can read 10, if you can read five pages of fiction and five pages of non fiction, it will change your life more.

That's something that I was taught a couple of years ago and I pick up business books and all sorts of things like that and I might only read four or five pages of it, but that's all I need to do every day. And as with a book, I, I pick up a book. You know, my books are also on Audible, but the audiobook is great for the car.

But you can't, a child can't absorb an audiobook, right? It's like getting a child to read a book on an app, on a Kindle or whatever. It's not quite the same.

Or having Alexa reader story to them at night or Siri, it's not the same. There's that, that engagement's lost. There's engagement from the page or engagement from the parent. That touchy feely.

Either way, that emotion that you have to have with the book, you cannot find it in the digital world. You just can't. Whether it's audio, whether it's video, whatever, it's not gonna work. The child, the communication is only one way.

And that's partly what I'm trying to break down with my books and the, the methodology that we're putting together and I'm, I'm open to anybody talking to me about it.

That's the one thing, you know, it's a brand new thing they're putting together this menturity and the more people that I can be talking to about it, the more I can make this thing grow and the more I can pull other authors into it to get the stories out there that the kids need so they can get this touchy feely thing.

It's about, you know, getting them to learn differently in a way that is, is meaningful and, and drives purpose, not learning for the sake of learning. And you know, it's just so important for me.

Kristina: 00:46:17

And this is the perfect time for you to tell parents how to get a hold of you. How can they do it? Of course we have some things in the show notes, but say it out loud.

Matt Newnham: 00:46:24

Oh, loads of show notes. They're down there. By the way.

Spacerangerfred.com that's by far the best one that's got all the links to menturity.org you'll find the Matt Newnham one, which is my freelance writing web page, is now being turned into more of our Production studios and things like that. But spacerangerfred.com follow us on social media and. Yeah, and the books are available.

Barnes and Noble is always the best one because I, as much as I'll support Amazon, they've. They've been good to me over the years. Barnes and Noble is a better place because you can get the actual physical copies from there as well.

Some of the shops have them in stock. I don't know which ones do at the moment, but they are available.

You can order it on Barnes and Noble and they'll be delivered in two days or something silly, which is quite good.

Kristina: 00:47:16

Excellent.

Herb: 00:47:17

I'm happy with that now.

Kristina: 00:47:19

I love this conversation.

Thank you so much for going with us and sending us out into space with Space Ranger Fred and then bringing us back to Earth and really talking about what can really help our families and our children grow. Thank you so much for this wonderful.

Matt Newnham: 00:47:32

It's been an absolute, absolute pleasure. And if you leave me your address at the end, I will make sure that you get signed copies of the book sent over for you.

And what I'll also do is I'll also arrange a couple of books so that you can do a giveaway to some lucky listeners. Is that a good deal?

Kristina: 00:47:52

That would be.

Matt Newnham: 00:47:53

Always happy to do that.

Herb: 00:47:55

And I would also like to thank you for being here today. Your enthusiasm, your. Your drive to help the children, that is so beautiful.

So many people have that and then they turn it away, but you are actually grabbing it and running forward with it. And that is the hero's journey. You're facing the dragon. You're charging ahead and you're making it work. And you're making a difference in the world.

You are making a difference in the world.

Matt Newnham: 00:48:18

You've made me feel very, very happy tonight. Thank you.

Herb: 00:48:22

Thank you for being here today. It's been. It's been a pleasure.

Matt Newnham: 00:48:25

An absolute joy.

Kristina: 00:48:27

Awesome. All right, audience, you know what to do. We need to get Space Ranger Fred and Matt out to the masses and let them know what it is happening.

Matt Newnham: 00:48:35

And I'll even come over and pay you all a visit if you want me to. I've got some time spare later this year.

Kristina: 00:48:40

Sounds good. Awesome. So make sure you like and review and help the podcast spread. Bringing Education Home is here for you and your families always and everywhere.

Thanks for being with us today and we'll see you next time. Bye.

Herb: 00:48:52

Bye for now.

Matt Newnham: 00:48:53

Bye, guys.