Tom Cody – Top 20 Author
How did it all start? Michael Cole’s kids, Katherine and Peter, were in my Algebra II class at Cretin-Derham Hall High School. They were not doing well at the time, so Michael intervened on their behalf. He approached me with curiosity instead of blame. He was already working with Emotional Intelligence through his business at the hair salon and he was genuinely curious with what he could do and how he could help.
He gave a seminar [on Emotional Intelligence] at the school and about 15 teachers attended, but I am sure his eyeballs were on me the whole time! Still, he was easy to learn from because his approach was about helping kids, not changing me. It lit a fire in me and I was hooked. In the beginning, I was teaching this stuff more than living it and that’s not the way, but you have to start somewhere.
That summer we created Jump Start. This was a summer class for the bottom 25.
Read Tom Cody’s Entire Interview
Willow Sweeney – Top 20 Author
As one of the Fab Five Top 20 Authors, How did Top 20 Training get started?
I was teaching social studies at Cretin-Durham Hall, the same school as Tom Cody. Tom was teaching the TLC Top 20 class with Mary Cole. Mary got busy and Tom wanted another female to help teach the class. I had been a guest teacher in the class before, so Tom asked if I could help teach the class.
Parenting classes came next and then all five of us [Michael, Mary, Tom, Willow, and Paul] wrote the book. The book really pushed everything forward.
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Paul Bernabei – Top 20 Author
How did Top 20 Training Get Started? Tom and I first met as opposing basketball coaches in the 1990s. After a scrimmage between our teams, Tom shared with me a class he was putting together for his freshman students at Cretin-Derham Hall. He thought I might be interested in this endeavor and might have something to contribute. That invitation resulted in me meeting Mary and Michael Cole who were partnering with Tom on developing this class. We all began throwing our golden and not-so-golden nuggets into the curriculum pot. The students let us know which were golden and which were not. The curriculum kept evolving to meet the social, emotional, and academic needs of our students.
Do you practice Top 20 now? My level of self-awareness is a direct result of my practicing Top 20 principles. Last week, Kevin and I were teaching 300 eighth graders in the gym of a Wisconsin middle school. The students were having a very difficult time staying focused. As I addressed this issue, I was very much aware that I was Above the Line and I feel that I handled a difficult situation with grace and dignity.
As I was leaving the library recently and walking to my car, I noticed a bag on the ground. Instead of picking it up, I continued to walk down the street. Then I thought, “You go all over the country talking about ‘See the Problem, Own the Problem.’ If you don’t go back and pick up that bag, don’t ever present that concept to anyone again.” I turned around, walked back up the street, picked up the bag, and later deposited it in a trash barrel.
Read Paul Bernabei’s Entire Interview
Mary & Michael Cole – Top 20 Author
Michael shares, how it all got started: It was and continues to be a very organic evolution. You can use the word “serendipity.” Mary and I woke up and grew up in the beauty business. In that field back then, training started and ended with technical skills: cutting, coloring, texturizing. Our employer at the time had the mindfulness to coach and mentor us to be as intelligent at serving people as we were at styling their hair.
Top 20 Training not only exploded our income in the salon, it transformed every aspect of our personal lives as well. In a sense, the concepts of Top 20 Training is the closest thing that many people get to any kind of effective “psychotherapy” and they can access it without the stigma because it’s guised as business training.
Before Top 20 Training, I had all the technical credentials, certificates, and trophies to establish myself as a so-called expert. But the irony is I couldn’t establish a clientele because I was afflicted with the “isms”: negativism, egoism, criticism, rationalism, emotionalism. ISM [could stand for] “I’m Still Moody.” What I didn’t have was emotional intelligence and all the star qualities and social grace that goes with it.
30 years later, not only do we continue to practice Top 20 principles in all of our affairs, we train others on being and doing the same as well as “train the trainer” work. We have online classes that help salon professionals to learn, earn, and live better.
Read Michael Cole’s Entire Interview
Kevin Brennan – Top 20 Trainer
How did it all get started? When Tom, Willow, and Paul were experimenting with Top 20 concepts at Cretin-Derham Hall and developing them way back in the day, I was an English teacher at the high school. They were my colleagues and friends. I witnessed them test driving and creating Top 20. As they developed it further, and began training teachers and educators outside the building, I went to some of those early training sessions. The topics resonated with me and I used them in my life and in my class.
I left the classroom in the 2009-2010 school year to start a small business. Shortly afterward, Tom asked me to meet at Bruegger’s Bagels. They needed someone who had some flexibility and time in their schedule. Willow had suggested me. Both Willow and Tom knew me as a classroom teacher first and that gave them a sense of my potential as a trainer. They knew where my heart was in regard to education.
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Danna Evans – Your Host for Living Top 20
How did it all get started? Well, in 2009 I had just completed 180 hours of teacher education classes. Shortly after that, I met a Top 20 groupie (they exist) at a fund raiser. She insisted I attend a two-hour Top 20 Training.
You can imagine my enthusiasm was not on par with hers as I had just completed 180 hours of training! I was not eager for 182. However, I often lack the ability to say no and the next thing I knew, the training was over and “poof,” I became a Top 20 groupie!
So, I did what all we groupies do best—I told everyone who would listen about Top 20! I brought it to my kid’s elementary school, taught it in school, and wrote a grant to bring those rock stars out to Arizona. I began teaching before- and after-school Top 20 classes as well as during the school day. That led to parent classes and some corporate training that I did with Paul Bernabei.
As I continued to teach, especially the parent classes, I saw how much people wanted the opportunity to practice and continue to learn Top 20 skills. Often, the parents would just join up again for another session so they could keep practicing Top 20. That’s when I realized we needed a place to practice. People wanted more than just knowing about Top 20, they wanted to live Top 20—and that’s how Living Top 20 was born.