The Promise He Kept for His Father | Brady Wald

At the Brink with Erica Brinker · Aug 5, 2026 · 49m

Brady Wald was raised by two educators in North Dakota — a father who taught for 37 years and a mother who taught kindergarten for 34. He followed them into schools and has spent 25 years there himself, most of it in leadership. Then his father visited one of his Arizona schools, sat in his office for a day, and told him he had to start writing about the work. Not long after, his dad died unexpectedly.

That conversation became The Principal Diaries, Brady’s first book — 15 years in the making, finished after the one person who asked for it was gone. In this episode he takes Erica through the…