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Speaker 1: You take somebody my age. Born in December of ninety eight,

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Speaker 1: I'm twenty four. I was I think two years old

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Speaker 1: when nine to eleven happened. I was going to middle

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Speaker 1: school when the Great Recession happened. I was graduated in

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Speaker 1: high school when the twenty sixteen presidential election happened. I

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Speaker 1: graduated college in twenty twenty when the pandemic hit the

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Speaker 1: capitol riots happened, and you had the Trump Byen election,

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Speaker 1: and now it's twenty twenty three. Not a great sample

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Speaker 1: size of democratic progress and growth.

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Speaker 2: Like that's the leg fat That's a really fair comment

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Speaker 2: when you look at.

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Speaker 1: It from that lens. I don't think it's necessarily meant

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Speaker 1: to excuse the skepticism and the critique, but I think

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Speaker 1: it's meant to demonstrate that if all you know is

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Speaker 1: a house on fire, then there's basically two options. One

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Speaker 1: you either try to will up and put out the fire,

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Speaker 1: which is what myself and my fellow young we doing,

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Speaker 1: or you escape the house, which is frankly a very

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Speaker 1: understandable notion.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.

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Speaker 2: I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, a father, an entrepreneur,

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Speaker 2: and I've been a football coach an inner City Memphis,

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Speaker 2: and the last part unintentionally led to an oscar for

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Speaker 2: the film about our team. It's called Undefeated. I believe

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Speaker 2: our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch

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Speaker 2: of fancy people in nice suits talking big words that

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Speaker 2: nobody understands on CNN and Fox, but rather an army

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Speaker 2: of normal folks US, just you and me deciding Hey,

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Speaker 2: I can help. That's what Mineu Meal, the voice we

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Speaker 2: just heard, has done. Mineu wasn't planning to dedicate his

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Speaker 2: life to preserving our democracy, but a riot broke out

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Speaker 2: on his college campus and he accidentally became a unifying

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Speaker 2: force for all sides. Today, he's trying to unify the

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Speaker 2: country as the CEO of Bridge USA, whose chapters at

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Speaker 2: fifty colleges and twenty four high schools create spaces for

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Speaker 2: students of all stripes to openly and constructively discuss political issues,

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Speaker 2: equipping the next generation with the skills to navigate conflict

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Speaker 2: and find solutions across differences. Manu brings me hope that

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Speaker 2: his generation can do this better than my generation has done.

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Speaker 2: And I cannot wait for you to meet him right

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Speaker 2: after these brief messages from our generals sponsors. Manu meal, no,

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Speaker 2: Manu meal, Manu Manu, yes, sir? Is that right?

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Speaker 1: Yes, sir, that's right. The second one my new meal.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Memphis. I hope you enjoyed your sandwich when

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Speaker 2: I was starving and you ate it in front of me.

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Speaker 1: You know, I had to, I had to buy the

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Speaker 1: sandwich specifically to show you off. But Dora is vegetarian

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Speaker 1: and only at Alvocado in it, so I don't think

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Speaker 1: it would have filled you up.

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Speaker 2: Well, not only would you not filled me up. I

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Speaker 2: hate avocados, so I would have spit it out.

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Speaker 1: Good. Good. That's that's very anti California of you.

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Speaker 2: I have nothing to do with California, so this is perfect,

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Speaker 2: and it's it's very West Coast of you, sir.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I definitely. I feel like I flew in

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Speaker 1: today and you and I were just talking about like

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Speaker 1: carbon sequestration and trees, and you gave me a full

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Speaker 1: lesson on it, and like I feel like if you

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Speaker 1: mapped my carbon footprint, I would look like a freaking

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Speaker 1: weird tech guy, you know, but I may For the record,

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Speaker 1: I maybe like half the money maybe a.

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Speaker 2: Third, maybe a third. Well, nonetheless, welcome to Memphis, Thanks

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Speaker 2: for coming to be with us and hang out at

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Speaker 2: the FedEx Forum. Yeah, are you going to be a

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Speaker 2: Grizzly fan now?

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Speaker 1: Definitely? Not?

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Speaker 2: Definitely not.

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Speaker 1: What are you The elevator is broken in the way up?

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Speaker 2: Well it was, but.

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Speaker 1: That's a bad sign.

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Speaker 2: I have a secret. It wasn't broken. You weren't a

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Speaker 2: fan something?

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Speaker 1: They were like, I'm not in with John Moran.

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Speaker 2: Well, what kind of fan are you? So?

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Speaker 1: I'm a Boston Celtics fan. I used to be a

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Speaker 1: Leaguers fan.

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Speaker 2: Well, then you should be a little bit of a

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Speaker 2: Grizzlies fan because Marcus Smart is now a Grizzly and that.

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Speaker 1: Makes that makes that makes me less.

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Speaker 2: He didn't leave on his own, accord, y'all traded him.

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Speaker 1: Which is a bad call. It is a bad call.

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Speaker 1: He had the heart, He had the heart and the soul,

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Speaker 1: no kidding, he had guts. He felt like a normal

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Speaker 1: person on the team.

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Speaker 2: It will be lovely having him to beat the Celtics

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Speaker 2: next time we play them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, is that true? At least at least, hey, at

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Speaker 1: least we've got a championship or two.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you do have those. No, but we're coming.

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Speaker 1: I really do appreciate being here, I think Memphis. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you give me a history lesson too, on the on

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Speaker 1: the zoom call that we had. But I'm somebody that

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Speaker 1: loves history, loves places that have a lot of transformation,

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Speaker 1: and I don't take the time for granted.

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Speaker 2: There's a ton here. I wish you could stay a

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Speaker 2: little longer. I love to show you around. Let's talk

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Speaker 2: about you, though, because that's what we're here for. First,

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Speaker 2: what'd you grow up? Tell me? Tell me about little Manu?

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Speaker 1: I'm still little young also, yeah, I'll tell you right.

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Speaker 2: How about five to fifteen year old Manu?

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Speaker 1: Okay? Cool? Five to fifty. Actually the interesting stuff is

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Speaker 1: one to five.

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Speaker 2: Five. Yeah, I think it's all interesting, but one to five.

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Speaker 1: So my parents moved from India. They were in a

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Speaker 1: New Delhi, northern India. They moved to the United States

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Speaker 1: in ninety seven. I was born in December of ninety

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Speaker 1: eight in Central Archie. Yeah, yeah, December night. My colleague,

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Speaker 1: my colleague, I'm very My colleague is a two thousand baby,

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Speaker 1: a millennium baby, and so I can only imagine how

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Speaker 1: young I must field ninety eight because when she says

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Speaker 1: two thousand, I'm like, man, that's young.

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Speaker 2: She's only two years.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, no, I'm I'm totally young, which is why

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Speaker 1: when you were like telling me about Little Minu, I

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Speaker 1: was like, that's presumptuous of me to be like, but

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Speaker 1: I was. I was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

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Speaker 1: Then my mom and my dad. My mom especially had

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Speaker 1: a really hard time settling in She, you know, her

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Speaker 1: entire family was there. She's very extroverted, she really cared

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Speaker 1: about family, and she had a hard time stay in

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Speaker 1: the United States, and so she actually went back with

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Speaker 1: my dad and the thought about, you know, potentially staying

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Speaker 1: in India. And I distinctly remember my mom telling me

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Speaker 1: the story. It's something I'll always be grateful to her,

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Speaker 1: fore Coach Bill, which is that she walked me past

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Speaker 1: this like school where I would probably go to school,

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Speaker 1: and it was there was like couch on the side,

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Speaker 1: and it was in India, in India, in New Delhi.

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Speaker 1: It was dirty, the doors were rusted, and she was like,

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Speaker 1: there's no way this guy's going to grow up here.

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Speaker 1: And so she basically bucked up and she and my

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Speaker 1: dad flew back to the United states where my mom

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Speaker 1: did all of her stuff to be a doctor. But

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Speaker 1: the reason why that went to five years important is

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Speaker 1: because I actually then lived with my grandparents in India

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Speaker 1: for those five years on and off, and so I

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Speaker 1: lived with my dad's side in New Delhi. I lived

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Speaker 1: with my mom's side in a village close to a

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Speaker 1: state called Haryana. And then I came back to the

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Speaker 1: US after those five years and basically moved around every

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Speaker 1: two years until what.

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Speaker 2: Did your mother and father get their doctorate?

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Speaker 1: So my mom became a doctor and my dad was

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Speaker 1: a computer scientist. It's a classic Indian.

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Speaker 2: I don't computer side to the doctor is the classic

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Speaker 2: in family.

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Speaker 1: It's a classic in duane family. And then look at me,

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Speaker 1: look at what happened.

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Speaker 2: To Well, we don't know that yet, so let's not

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Speaker 2: go there. But so why were you going back and

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Speaker 2: forth then? If because? And why were you moving every

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Speaker 2: two years? Because clearly they were earning well, I mean

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Speaker 2: they had their degrees in all right.

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Speaker 1: So I mean I I certainly did not. We were

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Speaker 1: not poor, but my dad's job was unstable for some time,

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Speaker 1: so we would move because of that. Then my mom's

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Speaker 1: job would change. I lived in New Jersey, lived in

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Speaker 1: Staten Island, New York, came back to Jersey, moved around

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Speaker 1: there twice, never spent again more than those two years,

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Speaker 1: and then basically went to high school in Lexington, Massachusetts.

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Speaker 1: And so you talk about money, what's interesting is every

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Speaker 1: move that we made, we actually my parents started earning

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Speaker 1: a little bit more money, a little bit more money.

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Speaker 2: And they're chasing the American dream a little bit.

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Speaker 1: They're chasing the American dream. They're chasing the American dream,

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Speaker 1: and not just the American dream, but they're chasing I

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Speaker 1: think just a I think they were just chasing a

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Speaker 1: foundation for where their kids could just make the most

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Speaker 1: of their sacrifice.

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Speaker 2: I get it.

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Speaker 1: I think that was it.

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Speaker 2: That's a beautiful thing, that is the American dream, especially

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Speaker 2: for immigrants what your parents are. Yeah, but you're an American,

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Speaker 2: you were born here.

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Speaker 1: I was born here. But what's fascinating is when I

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Speaker 1: came back at the age of five, I like, was

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Speaker 1: this like, first of all countries like India. And this

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Speaker 1: is me saying it is somebody that's from India smelled different.

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Speaker 1: I landed here and I just smelled like India. It's

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Speaker 1: a very distinct smell. It's like when you come live

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Speaker 1: in New York City or you live in Texas, you

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Speaker 1: live you live in a village, you know, or you

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Speaker 1: live in a farm you work on a farm as

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Speaker 1: opposed to and I had like when when you're oftentimes

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Speaker 1: in an area where there's a lot of dust, your

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Speaker 1: hair gets all matted and it sticks together, and so

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Speaker 1: I like, did not I think my first language was

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Speaker 1: Hindi even though I was born here, And yeah, man,

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Speaker 1: it was. It was fascinating to try and fit in.

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Speaker 1: It was it was hard.

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Speaker 2: Let's be real. Yeah, five years old trying to fit

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Speaker 2: in is not fascinating. That is not the word a

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Speaker 2: five year old would use about trying to fit in.

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Speaker 2: And I'm interested in this because I think it's your

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Speaker 2: main to what you're doing now. Actually, as I've thought

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Speaker 2: a lot about your story, believe it or not, I

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Speaker 2: have thought about a lot about a lot about it. Well,

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Speaker 2: I mean, you're in this interesting place, that one you've

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Speaker 2: grown up basically in India. You're an American, born in America,

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Speaker 2: grown up in India. You even said your first language

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Speaker 2: is probably actually Hindi. And you move every two years,

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Speaker 2: and the moving every two years and your parents trying

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Speaker 2: to get you the best opportunity in the world and

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Speaker 2: they're chasing the American dream. And I get it, and

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Speaker 2: that's beautiful. But I got to believe you had a

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Speaker 2: hard time fitting coming up, and that even if you

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Speaker 2: started develops some relationships and two years are gone again,

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Speaker 2: what was that like?

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's where the I hope as a five

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Speaker 1: year old, I was using the word fascinating, because then

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Speaker 1: I would be actually an odd kid. Then there's no

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Speaker 1: chance of me fitting.

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Speaker 2: A seven year old would say it would suck, not

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Speaker 2: that it was.

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Speaker 1: I'll tell me what the difference, though.

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Speaker 2: In hindsight may be fascinating.

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Speaker 1: Yes, it definitely sucked. I just my temperament is one

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Speaker 1: where I just have a hard time. I just don't

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Speaker 1: really try to associate negative emotions a lot of that

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Speaker 1: type of stuff, because it really did make me who

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Speaker 1: I am today. But that's only looking in hindsight. I'll

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Speaker 1: tell you, you know, trying to fit in, trying to

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Speaker 1: make friends, I mean, it did suck. I think I

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Speaker 1: used to. I had almost a bully in every sort

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Speaker 1: of stage. And this is something that I credit my

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Speaker 1: parents a lot with. You know, my mom had that

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Speaker 1: philosophy of if someone punches, you punch them back twice

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Speaker 1: and make sure they'd never get up. And I had

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Speaker 1: a real I mean, do I look like somebody that

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Speaker 1: can touch back twice? Lets less be real? Do I

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Speaker 1: look like a kid that can punch? I can punch

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Speaker 1: back my words? But that's only now I was. I

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Speaker 1: was like chubby, I was pudgy. I I did not

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Speaker 1: have that capacity, and so really it did suck. And

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Speaker 1: what sucked most about it, actually, Coach Bill, was that

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Speaker 1: I feel like you oftentimes have this feeling of America,

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Speaker 1: like in India, especially whenever I would go back after

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Speaker 1: coming here. I distinctly remember I was like seven, ten

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Speaker 1: thirteen people back home and say like, man, like you're

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Speaker 1: in America, Like that's that's the dream, that's the place.

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Speaker 2: Now was I think you were like fortunate lucky?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I mean you're you're basically you know, like

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Speaker 1: you're the you know. And that did not mirror the

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Speaker 1: reality of our life, which was that I lived in

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Speaker 1: apartments my entire life until we got to like eighth grade.

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Speaker 1: I grew up with my siblings in one apartment. Again,

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Speaker 1: fitting in was one where like kids would pick on

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Speaker 1: you if you take the this is so funny when

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Speaker 1: you asked me how to pronounce my name. Part of

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Speaker 1: the reason why I stopped really caring was because it

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Speaker 1: became such a subject of like intrigue and making jokes

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Speaker 1: that I was like, you know what, we got to

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Speaker 1: figure out other ways to keep going. What's interesting now

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Speaker 1: that I think about this is that it made me

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Speaker 1: somebody that understood how to just create space for people

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Speaker 1: to be idiots for a little bit so that you

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Speaker 1: can better accept them, they can better accept you, and

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Speaker 1: you can actually get somewhere. And the last thing I'll

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Speaker 1: just say on this point is you learn how to adapt.

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Speaker 1: And I think one of the things that I fear

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Speaker 1: a lot about the work I do now, and I

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Speaker 1: don't want to skip ahead, but like when people see

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Speaker 1: this like young person that can be super charismatic and

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Speaker 1: they talk and all of that, I know what that creates.

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Speaker 1: I know the vibe that gives off. It's like, oh,

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Speaker 1: this must be a trust fund baby, or this must

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Speaker 1: be whatever whatever. And frankly, my life really helped give

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Speaker 1: me the impetus to do the work that I do

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Speaker 1: because I think there's a lot of kids out there.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you worked with a lot of them in

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Speaker 1: your past that are just trying to fit in and

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Speaker 1: they're looking for space.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, So.

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Speaker 2: What you just said is the discovery that I was

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Speaker 2: trying to reveal, is that the podcast that came out.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to timestamp this, Alex, so no griping. He

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Speaker 2: hates when I time stamp stuff, so he's going to

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Speaker 2: have to just get that's producer stuff. Alex can just

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Speaker 2: relax on this one. So today's podcasts So we Are

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Speaker 2: podcast released every Tuesday. And the reason I really even

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Speaker 2: started thinking about you again was this podcast. And it's

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Speaker 2: about Stacy Horst and very shortly and if you guys

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Speaker 2: listening now haven't listened to it, go listen to it.

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Speaker 2: It's gripping. Her kid was autistic Asperger's level one and

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Speaker 2: this child, at sixteen, because of being bullied and ostracized

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Speaker 2: because she didn't fit because of her social limitations, she

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Speaker 2: took her own life and at sixteen absolutely floors me

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Speaker 2: when I think about what that family has done to

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Speaker 2: honor the legacy of their daughter. But as I was

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Speaker 2: thinking about you, obviously I'm not saying you were suicidal

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Speaker 2: or anything, but what I am saying is for the

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Speaker 2: son of an immigrant from India who goes back and

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Speaker 2: forth and is living and growing up with basically two

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Speaker 2: different cultures and moving every two years. I've got to

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Speaker 2: believe that you saw some of the worst in what

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Speaker 2: human beings can do and say and act towards one another.

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Speaker 2: And I just want to know if that's true, and

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Speaker 2: did that in some way compel you to have empathy

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Speaker 2: or compel you to have what is that like?

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Speaker 1: I think it forced me to find perspective because I think,

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Speaker 1: and again this is sort of my mindset and temperament

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Speaker 1: is I think oftentimes when you're experiencing hardship, and here's

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Speaker 1: the fact, you know your heart, you might be experiencing hardship,

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Speaker 1: I might be experiencing hardship. One of ours might be

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Speaker 1: relatively more. And yet that doesn't take away from the

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Speaker 1: fact that you and I both suffered hardship, right, So

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Speaker 1: any hardship that anybody's ever suffering is real, and that's

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Speaker 1: your hardship, and that's real trauma. That's real challenge. For me.

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Speaker 1: I often feel like the best way for me to

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Speaker 1: cope with that is to put my suffering and my

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Speaker 1: challenges in context.

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Speaker 2: There's put it in context. Put it in context, and

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Speaker 2: you're telling me at thirteen you're learning this.

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Speaker 1: No, No, this is something I learned after. I'm talking

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Speaker 1: in hindsight. No, at thirteen, I was mad, mad, and

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Speaker 1: but again my temper was not so much mad. It

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Speaker 1: was just more subdued, quiet, with drawn, with drawn, insecure.

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Speaker 1: I oftentimes ask, you know, people that knew me then,

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Speaker 1: like I was never somebody that you pick out in

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Speaker 1: a class and you're like, this kid's gonna do all right,

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Speaker 1: or do something. They're average, middle, middle of the pack.

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Speaker 2: That's very un Indian.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm very Unindied in many ways, you know. I

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Speaker 1: The only the most Indian thing about me is that

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Speaker 1: I actually stay very close to my culture. So I

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Speaker 1: love you know, my grandparents. They basically raised me for

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Speaker 1: those first five six years. And my grandfather he passed,

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Speaker 1: the one that really like was somebody that gave me

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Speaker 1: a lot of values over time, and he really felt

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Speaker 1: like another father figure. He passed away last year and

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Speaker 1: I haven't been able to go back to India since.

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Speaker 1: But I'm going to go in two to three weeks

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Speaker 1: and finally go back to that home. Witnessed the and

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Speaker 1: one of the things he would always say is he

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Speaker 1: would say two things to me, and this is why

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Speaker 1: I'm actually starting to think about this. He'd say two things.

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Speaker 1: One is he said, you need to you need to

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Speaker 1: think about God. And the second thing he would say

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Speaker 1: to me is that you were great. And I say

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Speaker 1: that with the context of all of the crappiness that

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Speaker 1: we went through as a child, there are very few

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Speaker 1: people that I felt like gave me the real motivation

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Speaker 1: or sense of self at that point. I needed somebody

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Speaker 1: to say that. And I used to make recordings of

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Speaker 1: him saying that, because now that I reflect, it really

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Speaker 1: gives me that sense of purpose to keep doing. So

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Speaker 1: all of that to say that I'm very un Indian

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Speaker 1: in some ways. In the Indian immigrant community, there's a

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Speaker 1: term called ABCD American born confused. They see and by

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Speaker 1: the way, shout out to my friends who gave me that.

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Speaker 1: And then right after that, I whip out the Hydian man.

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Speaker 1: They can't handle it. They can't handle it, like this

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Speaker 1: guy's not that your grandfather.

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Speaker 2: You say. Instilled values.

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Speaker 1: Instilled values what valus? The first value that he instilled

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Speaker 1: than me was be fearless, fearless, fearless, love he was.

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Speaker 1: And again it's something that I actually if you ask

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Speaker 1: me what is my weakness, my strength is the ability

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Speaker 1: to empathize with people and try and care because I

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Speaker 1: love people. To me, when you said, like you've seen

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Speaker 1: the worst human need know you know? To me, I see,

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Speaker 1: it's just ignorance. You know, everybody's got their issues. I've

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Speaker 1: been I'm sure I've been an add to some people

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Speaker 1: in my life not even knowing it. But the weakness

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Speaker 1: for me that is I sometimes don't know when to push.

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Speaker 1: I sometimes don't know when to be honest with what

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Speaker 1: I think. And he was somebody that served in the military.

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Speaker 1: That was his way of climbing the social ladder in India.

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Speaker 1: Basically did two things in the sort of the societal

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Speaker 1: stratification that my family was in, which is either be

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Speaker 1: a farmer or you go in the military. So you

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Speaker 1: went into the military. He fought three wars. He I remember.

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Speaker 1: There is one story that he always used to tell me,

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Speaker 1: which is I used to be scared of ghosts like

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Speaker 1: most kids. And he's say, you say not that used

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Speaker 1: to be my nickname for me. He say, you know,

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Speaker 1: this morning I was in the shower and a ghost

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Speaker 1: walked through the door and he he the ghost massaged

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Speaker 1: my legs, he washed me. There's another ghost that came out.

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Speaker 1: He drove my car with me. He basically said, all

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Speaker 1: these ghosters butlers, And I was like, the ghost of

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Speaker 1: your butlers. He's like, yeah, don't you know that the

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Speaker 1: ghosts are going to mess with you until they realize

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Speaker 1: that you can't be messed with and then the ghost

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Speaker 1: here before you. And so the first thing he always

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Speaker 1: told me was be fearless, and it's something I deeply appreciated.

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Speaker 1: And the second thing was faith in God, something that

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Speaker 1: he believed a lot in. I'm not that religious right now,

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Speaker 1: but I'm back on the hunt. I'm back on the search.

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Speaker 1: And the final thing that he would always say is

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Speaker 1: work hard, not for anybody else, but just for yourself.

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Speaker 1: And it I mean he was He had eight siblings,

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Speaker 1: I think seven or eight siblings, and he basically was

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Speaker 1: the engine for our family on my mom side to

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Speaker 1: move up in society.

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Speaker 2: He sounds like a phenomenal guy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a good guy, and I.

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Speaker 2: Can see the regard. You can see your face changes

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Speaker 2: when you talk about him.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I haven't actually ever talked about him. Publicly.

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Speaker 1: But like, what I appreciate about the space you're doing is,

402
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Speaker 1: you know, just create space for that honest conversation. And

403
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Speaker 1: I know that most people have somebody like that in

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Speaker 1: their life hopefully, and it's good. It's important to have

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Speaker 1: people like that.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, we'll be right back.

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Speaker 2: So where do you graduate? High school?

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Speaker 1: Twenty sixteenth?

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Speaker 2: Sir?

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Speaker 1: Where twenty sixteen in Lexington, Massachusetts?

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Speaker 2: Lexington, Massachusetts, which.

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Speaker 1: Which by the way, is basically it's a public school,

413
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Speaker 1: basically a private school, really comedy school. There's literally a

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Speaker 1: hill in Lexington called Nobel Prize Hill where the Nobel Prize.

415
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Speaker 1: There's seven Nobel Prize winners that live in Lexington. Good grief,

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Speaker 1: it's freaking insane.

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Speaker 2: Insane. Okay, So you say you're an average student, but

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Speaker 2: you went to cal Berkeley, so you're full of crop

419
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Speaker 2: because average students don't go to Berkeley. Yeah, so how

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Speaker 2: does that work?

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Speaker 1: Average is relative? I see?

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Speaker 2: Now this is very Indian, but I have an Indian

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Speaker 2: friend who would get a's and a's and a's and

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Speaker 2: they'd have one a minus and their parents would ground

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Speaker 2: them for an A. This is where the the the

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Speaker 2: the world and the expectations are stressful.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is something I benefit a lot from, which

428
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Speaker 1: is that I had very little expectations for my parents.

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Speaker 1: They did not imposed much on me. I didn't do

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Speaker 1: all no and actually, if you pull up my transcripts,

431
00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:07,600
Speaker 1: I had mostly bees throughout high school. Actually I was

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Speaker 1: never that type of kid. When I say average, it's

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Speaker 1: because and this is again a personal story, and this

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Speaker 1: oftentimes sounds out of touch, but it depends on where

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Speaker 1: you grow up and what you're doing, what community you're in.

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Speaker 1: Lexington was basically a feeder school for Harvard and MIT.

437
00:23:21,760 --> 00:23:22,840
Speaker 1: That's where everybody lives.

438
00:23:23,359 --> 00:23:26,520
Speaker 2: And it's that type of everybody, you mean, like most

439
00:23:26,560 --> 00:23:28,400
Speaker 2: of the kids, not.

440
00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:32,480
Speaker 1: Most, but sixteen kids in every class wow, which which

441
00:23:32,640 --> 00:23:37,439
Speaker 1: tells you the environment that it was. It's a pressure cooker.

442
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:41,159
Speaker 1: But for me, again, it's about perspective and context. I

443
00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:44,960
Speaker 1: love competition. I love to compete. I love to be pushed,

444
00:23:45,359 --> 00:23:47,159
Speaker 1: and so for me, it was it didn't feel like pressure.

445
00:23:47,160 --> 00:23:49,480
Speaker 1: It just felt like you're not as good as you

446
00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:52,760
Speaker 1: think you are, and so pick yourself up and start

447
00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:56,080
Speaker 1: working hard. And here's the thing though, is I was

448
00:23:56,200 --> 00:23:59,080
Speaker 1: I was so bad in the classroom, Like you say

449
00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:00,720
Speaker 1: so bad, how bad, can you be? You went to

450
00:24:01,280 --> 00:24:04,600
Speaker 1: cal First of all, I got waitlessed. I barely got in.

451
00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:07,320
Speaker 1: I barely got out too, by the way, and so

452
00:24:07,359 --> 00:24:09,440
Speaker 1: I barely got I barely got out. I barely made

453
00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:12,119
Speaker 1: it in. They tried to keep me there then, But

454
00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:15,280
Speaker 1: for me and my brain never worked in the class.

455
00:24:15,760 --> 00:24:18,320
Speaker 1: It was just I was never I have to work

456
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:20,680
Speaker 1: three times as hard as you to get it. Get

457
00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:22,960
Speaker 1: like a B plus I get it. Yeah, you know,

458
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:24,000
Speaker 1: all right, but I do.

459
00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:27,880
Speaker 2: It's effort and all that. So I got to interject

460
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:30,280
Speaker 2: this quick story for you. It's hilous. Let me here.

461
00:24:30,600 --> 00:24:33,800
Speaker 2: So when I was coaching a Manassas, this dude came up.

462
00:24:34,560 --> 00:24:38,879
Speaker 2: Well nobody. My first games that Manassas had three people

463
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:41,240
Speaker 2: at them. Yeah, I mean we were four winds years

464
00:24:41,359 --> 00:24:47,879
Speaker 2: wait years, oh man, dude. Two thousand and two is

465
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:50,880
Speaker 2: about the first year, and literally three people in the stand.

466
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:52,719
Speaker 2: It'd be two thousand on the other side. And we

467
00:24:52,760 --> 00:24:56,440
Speaker 2: had the bus driver, I bet, principal, and a lady

468
00:24:56,520 --> 00:24:59,480
Speaker 2: named this guy who was like eighty year old graduate

469
00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:01,560
Speaker 2: of Manassa who never missed a game. That was it.

470
00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:06,080
Speaker 2: As we started winning and kids started coming and getting better, yeah,

471
00:25:06,359 --> 00:25:09,240
Speaker 2: more fans more people and people from the neighborhood would

472
00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:12,359
Speaker 2: want to help out, and most of them were well intentioned,

473
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:15,720
Speaker 2: and some of them were like dudes that wanted to

474
00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:18,119
Speaker 2: relive the glory days that I didn't have any time for.

475
00:25:18,280 --> 00:25:20,680
Speaker 2: One of the well, those dudes showed up and said, hey,

476
00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:23,720
Speaker 2: you know you didn't need help coaching. I'm good on

477
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:26,960
Speaker 2: the d line. And I said, well, let's talk about that.

478
00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:29,840
Speaker 2: And I said, you know, what did you play ball?

479
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:35,640
Speaker 2: He said, yeah, I played a Cow. Now, now this

480
00:25:35,720 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 2: is a guy who's from North Memphis who didn't have

481
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:45,920
Speaker 2: a job, and said he went to cal Well Carol.

482
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:49,720
Speaker 2: And I said really, And I said you played football

483
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:53,680
Speaker 2: Cow and he said yeah. And I said, wow, that's interesting.

484
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 2: And I said, so you graduated from Cow. He's like,

485
00:25:56,600 --> 00:26:01,399
Speaker 2: oh no, no, no, I left early. Hold it, I left early.

486
00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:04,959
Speaker 2: I went overseas to chase that big money and played

487
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:09,359
Speaker 2: in Canada football. Hold it. Listen to what I just said.

488
00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:12,880
Speaker 2: I went overseas to chase the big money and went

489
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:13,560
Speaker 2: to Canada.

490
00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:15,480
Speaker 1: Hey, there's a great lake.

491
00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:19,800
Speaker 2: Last time. Look there wasn't an ocean between col and Canada.

492
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:22,600
Speaker 2: At which point I said, thanks, man, we'll give you

493
00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:25,159
Speaker 2: a call if we could use you. But that was

494
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 2: pretty much my full exposure to Cal from Memphis.

495
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:29,840
Speaker 1: Have you ever been to Berkeley?

496
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:30,359
Speaker 2: What's up?

497
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:31,240
Speaker 1: Have you ever been to Berkeley?

498
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:31,560
Speaker 2: Yeah?

499
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 1: Once, It's a crazy place when you go, you're.

500
00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:38,080
Speaker 2: Five six years ago, just passing through. Lisa and I

501
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:41,240
Speaker 2: drove up the coast and did the one. Well, yeah,

502
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:44,240
Speaker 2: we went to Pepperdine, saw that campus, went to Cal.

503
00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:46,920
Speaker 1: How do you think? Do you see how freaking beautiful

504
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:47,520
Speaker 1: that campus was?

505
00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:48,280
Speaker 2: Pepperdine?

506
00:26:48,520 --> 00:26:49,960
Speaker 1: How do you get any work done on the camp?

507
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:52,760
Speaker 2: How do you how do you ever leave when you're

508
00:26:52,840 --> 00:26:56,879
Speaker 2: on when you're midway of campus? Yeah, and there's deer

509
00:26:57,000 --> 00:27:00,359
Speaker 2: or walking across the campus and the campus is blow

510
00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:03,560
Speaker 2: you and then there's the Pacific Ocean. But worst go

511
00:27:03,640 --> 00:27:06,600
Speaker 2: to a baseball game. I wouldn't ever watch a ball

512
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:10,080
Speaker 2: get pitched because you got the it's gorgeous, it's beautiful.

513
00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:12,000
Speaker 1: I give a speech. I gave a speech up there,

514
00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:16,000
Speaker 1: and midway through I forgot my words because the sun

515
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:20,159
Speaker 1: was set over the beauty. Let me just say like,

516
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:23,200
Speaker 1: there's look, you could hear me talk. That's much more.

517
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:26,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's absolutely you went up and you went so

518
00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:29,600
Speaker 2: But that's my question. You show up to Cow, right, yeah,

519
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:33,199
Speaker 2: first blush feel how'd you feel when you got that

520
00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:36,760
Speaker 2: the campus? And you know, how did how did this

521
00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:39,240
Speaker 2: eighteen year old kid who's moved all over the place

522
00:27:39,320 --> 00:27:42,639
Speaker 2: went to this crazy competitive high school against Cow? What

523
00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 2: were your first impressions of it as a kid as

524
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:47,360
Speaker 2: a freshman? I mean, what was that long?

525
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:49,119
Speaker 1: And the context here, by the way, is like I

526
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:52,119
Speaker 1: grew up in a village in India interspersed.

527
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:53,840
Speaker 2: Yea, and you showed up to America with Maddie up

528
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 2: stay here.

529
00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:57,080
Speaker 1: And Staten Island. We lived in an apartment where like

530
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:00,680
Speaker 1: we would play a game of what cockroach is the

531
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:04,199
Speaker 1: fattest that you've seen today? Like, so I'm giving you

532
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:07,680
Speaker 1: context because it's fascinating to see. And this is again

533
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:10,560
Speaker 1: credit to my parents. You know, we have complicated family dynamics.

534
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:13,320
Speaker 1: But putting all that aside, that's something that you know,

535
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 1: nobody can ever take away from them and their hard work.

536
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:18,880
Speaker 1: But given all that context, I get come to Berkeley

537
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:22,679
Speaker 1: and what's interesting is, first of all, Berkeley's like the

538
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:25,960
Speaker 1: size of a small country. Like there's like sixty thousand

539
00:28:26,040 --> 00:28:30,360
Speaker 1: kids there. It's it's like ut it's huge, It's massive,

540
00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:33,639
Speaker 1: and the second thing is that I came as a

541
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 1: somebody that's probably going to be a pre med student, right,

542
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:39,840
Speaker 1: And you and I talked about this, and I had

543
00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 1: done debate in high school, and I really got this

544
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:44,720
Speaker 1: bug of like I kind of liked this idea of

545
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:47,840
Speaker 1: beating up people with my words, you know. And I

546
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:49,320
Speaker 1: was like, I kind of liked this idea. And I

547
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:51,440
Speaker 1: wasn't that great. I was average. Again, I was average.

548
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:54,080
Speaker 1: I had never found my thing, and so I had

549
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 1: this debate thing. I'd come in as kind of a

550
00:28:56,560 --> 00:29:01,320
Speaker 1: pre med person. I took my bioclass. And the crazy

551
00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:03,480
Speaker 1: thing about cal was that, again, it puts you in

552
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:06,040
Speaker 1: your place. What I love about public schools in this

553
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:08,680
Speaker 1: country as opposed to private like Ivy schools and which

554
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:10,400
Speaker 1: just came from the University of Notre Dame, which is

555
00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 1: a beautiful private school, is that how do you win

556
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 1: in an environment where there's no advisors and no coddling

557
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 1: sixty thousand people? You have to fight for it. And

558
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:22,959
Speaker 1: that was essentially that first semester. It's crazy, though, is

559
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:27,280
Speaker 1: second semester. I had this inkling President Trump had just

560
00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 1: been elected. I had that political bug, like I was

561
00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 1: interested in politics, because of debate, but I was still

562
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 1: interested in sort of trying to do the med thing

563
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 1: because of my parents and also because I felt like

564
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:38,760
Speaker 1: that was something that I wanted to do as well

565
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:42,920
Speaker 1: at that time. And then we had so Trump. We

566
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:45,960
Speaker 1: had at this pre met thing and campus is crazy.

567
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 1: Berkeley is oftentimes known as the Republic of Berkeley. You know,

568
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 1: it's politics are off the charts, and it started becoming

569
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:56,040
Speaker 1: a centerpiece for a lot of tumult and a lot

570
00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 1: of those things that you today Sarah culture war issues.

571
00:29:59,240 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 1: At that point, we're at the forefront of campus, but

572
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 1: not mainstream. February second, twenty seventeen, the College Republicans invite

573
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 1: the speaker to campus by the name of Milo Annapolis.

574
00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:14,760
Speaker 4: All right, hang on, yeah, you're getting there. Yeah, but

575
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 4: first yeah, and we're going to this next You're competing,

576
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:23,000
Speaker 4: you're trying to find your place, you're fitting in. Your

577
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 4: mother wants you to be a doctor, and you're being

578
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:28,920
Speaker 4: pre mad and you're doing that. But you love debate,

579
00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:34,640
Speaker 4: and clearly you have an inkling toward an interest in

580
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 4: the public debate. Maybe not politics, but not the politics,

581
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:41,240
Speaker 4: but the public debate. Yeah, well, you're in the right

582
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 4: place because it's Berkeley. Yeah, because they will protest protesting.

583
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 1: They protest everything.

584
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 2: They will protest, protesting.

585
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:48,520
Speaker 1: Absolutely.

586
00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:51,120
Speaker 2: If they're protesting, let's protest their protest.

587
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 1: That's my joke about Berkeley.

588
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:54,960
Speaker 2: Well, it's true, right.

589
00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:58,400
Speaker 1: And sometimes the things that they protest are it'll make

590
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:02,600
Speaker 1: you pause. She I mean a great example.

591
00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 2: Give us a ridiculous protest.

592
00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:06,280
Speaker 1: Well, in this case, they weren't. Actually they were just

593
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:07,680
Speaker 1: made up in issues so they didn't have to go

594
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 1: to class. And again, this is like tall my, this

595
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:14,120
Speaker 1: is not me throwing shade at cow. Like. There's a

596
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:15,840
Speaker 1: lot of people that protest legitimate things. We have a

597
00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 1: lot of union stuff there. All the employees are unionized.

598
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 1: There's a lot of action.

599
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:20,280
Speaker 2: I'm not saying.

600
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:28,280
Speaker 1: Coach Bill. Let's just say that Berkeley holds the record

601
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:32,440
Speaker 1: for how many publicly nude people I've seen absolutely, it's

602
00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: a fact. Being a protest or are you protesting protesters?

603
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:40,440
Speaker 1: I know I've seen protesters be nude. I've seen protesters

604
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 1: protesting nudity. I've seen people, animal rights folks doused in

605
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:47,640
Speaker 1: fake blood on campus, you know, sitting in a cage,

606
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 1: a fake cage. I've seen uh, Christian preachers stand there

607
00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 1: talking about the fact that, like the heavens are going

608
00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 1: to break tomorrow. You know, Berkeley is a place that

609
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:08,160
Speaker 1: tracts interesting people that like have deep convictions, crazy people,

610
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:11,560
Speaker 1: and normal people that are just trying to get a job.

611
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 1: And and I fit that ladder most ladder category, I.

612
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:23,520
Speaker 2: Think I would protest naked people protesting?

613
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:25,840
Speaker 1: Would you be naked doing it?

614
00:32:27,720 --> 00:32:30,120
Speaker 2: Have you seen me? No?

615
00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:32,040
Speaker 1: Fly?

616
00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 2: No, not this guy. Suffice it to say, though, if

617
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:41,800
Speaker 2: you're a freshman and you're rolling up to this atmosphere, man,

618
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:43,680
Speaker 2: it's it's twenty sixteen.

619
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:44,240
Speaker 3: Just happened.

620
00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:47,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's got to be a little bit of culture shot.

621
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:51,800
Speaker 2: But the other thing I would think is that after

622
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 2: a while, you get a little numb to the protest.

623
00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:58,760
Speaker 2: It's almost like, hold it, Why did anybody protested today? Yeah?

624
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 2: When they, I mean, is so common that they almost

625
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 2: lose their bite because everybody's always protested, like whatever. But

626
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:11,800
Speaker 2: that changed on the day you're about to tell us about,

627
00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 2: because this became more than a protest.

628
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 1: Yes, so tell us about.

629
00:33:16,320 --> 00:33:20,640
Speaker 2: This day that ultimately changed the direction of your life.

630
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 2: But first, a few messages from our sponsors.

631
00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 1: If you were telling me this is what I would

632
00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:38,800
Speaker 1: be doing what days it till you know, October third,

633
00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:41,240
Speaker 1: time stamp.

634
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:43,920
Speaker 2: There you go, Alex, I know what the guests did.

635
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:45,480
Speaker 1: I can't see the day guy.

636
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 2: Sorry, you know what. That's too bad. He can get

637
00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:55,000
Speaker 2: over it. Yeah, we're on October third today, so of

638
00:33:55,080 --> 00:34:00,960
Speaker 2: normal folks at a full fledged timestam. Yeah, I love it.

639
00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:05,240
Speaker 1: Alex is like the time portal guy. Yeah, but essentially. Yeah,

640
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:08,440
Speaker 1: February second, twenty seventeen, I was walking back from the seminar.

641
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:10,719
Speaker 1: One other thing I didn't tell you was because I

642
00:34:10,719 --> 00:34:14,120
Speaker 1: was waitlisted to college. Berkeley has sixty thousand kids. Now

643
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:16,480
Speaker 1: it's even more. I'm pretty sure they don't have enough

644
00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 1: housing for students, so they have a homeless student population,

645
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:21,640
Speaker 1: believe it or not. No, I'm being serious.

646
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:23,680
Speaker 2: Somebody I should protest that. Yeah.

647
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:25,800
Speaker 1: See that's what I'm saying. If you protest everything, you

648
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:27,680
Speaker 1: lose the bite on the issues that actually matter.

649
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:28,680
Speaker 2: Like that's it.

650
00:34:28,719 --> 00:34:31,200
Speaker 1: So that's the problem. You've solved Berkeley's issues in like

651
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:34,960
Speaker 1: ten minutes, and so essentially I would be So. I

652
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 1: was a part of this program that they've now shut

653
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:42,200
Speaker 1: down called the Fall Program for freshmen San Francisco now Berkeley.

654
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 1: If you know anything about the geography. Berkeley's on this

655
00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:46,719
Speaker 1: side of the bay and San Francisco's on this side

656
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:48,920
Speaker 1: of the bay. Nobody told me that for the entirety

657
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:51,200
Speaker 1: of first semester, every morning at seven am, they would

658
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:53,160
Speaker 1: bust me on the F bus all the way to

659
00:34:53,160 --> 00:34:56,759
Speaker 1: San Francisco to take class. I was so average that

660
00:34:56,800 --> 00:34:58,719
Speaker 1: when I got there, I wasn't good enough to take

661
00:34:58,760 --> 00:35:01,680
Speaker 1: class in Berkeley. And so I would take a bus

662
00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:03,839
Speaker 1: every morning with some of my friends that are now

663
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:07,240
Speaker 1: still my friends. The F bus, show up to FPF

664
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:10,520
Speaker 1: Berkeley or fps San Francisco, take class there, and then

665
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:12,839
Speaker 1: bust back. You know what's really ironic. By the way,

666
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:16,040
Speaker 1: now I live two blocks from FPF at San Francisco now,

667
00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:20,200
Speaker 1: but that's a whole nother thing. So I'm doing this

668
00:35:20,239 --> 00:35:23,000
Speaker 1: bussing thing. Second semester. They're like, okay, now you can.

669
00:35:23,040 --> 00:35:25,960
Speaker 1: You've earned your spot, we've enrolled some new kids. You

670
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:28,680
Speaker 1: can take classes on campus. So they starting classes on campus.

671
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 1: Now I'm walking back from this math seminar, right, and

672
00:35:30,640 --> 00:35:33,120
Speaker 1: so it's February second, twenty seventeen, so we're about three

673
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:37,640
Speaker 1: weeks into this semester. I'm walking back and that day

674
00:35:37,760 --> 00:35:40,960
Speaker 1: that day specifically, I remember I wanted to walk. I

675
00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:43,319
Speaker 1: love sunsets and nature's a big thing for me. And

676
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:46,200
Speaker 1: so the way that the sunsets in Berkeley, the way

677
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:48,799
Speaker 1: that the main street telegraph intersects on campus, you can

678
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 1: see the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean right above

679
00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:55,040
Speaker 1: the Golden Ape Bridge. It's beautiful. Wow, it's amazing. And

680
00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:58,600
Speaker 1: the bridge is very far away, which is it's a

681
00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:01,239
Speaker 1: much better view, but because Berkeley's all the way across

682
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:02,760
Speaker 1: the bay, but you can see it in the distance.

683
00:36:03,520 --> 00:36:06,319
Speaker 1: And then suddenly I hear like helicopters flying overhead and

684
00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 1: shouting in the distance, and I have the exact same

685
00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:10,040
Speaker 1: reaction you just did, which is like, it's Berkeley. You know,

686
00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:15,239
Speaker 1: we protest everything. You know, somebody's getting protested. Hopefully it's

687
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 1: a real issue. And then this cafe window is broken

688
00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:22,799
Speaker 1: in an inside where it was a cow dining hall

689
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 1: where the food, where the food is surface students, and

690
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 1: inside it said CNN you see Berkeley students protest free speech.

691
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:30,640
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, this is actually something different. What

692
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:33,200
Speaker 1: was crazy was that the film crew that was filming

693
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:36,440
Speaker 1: that was standing right next to me, and you're seeing it,

694
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:38,600
Speaker 1: and I'm seeing it, and that was like the breaking

695
00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:40,480
Speaker 1: the fourth wall, where you know, like most of us

696
00:36:40,520 --> 00:36:44,759
Speaker 1: are usually the normal people are just observers of politics,

697
00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 1: you know, of media, all these things. Suddenly I actually

698
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:50,520
Speaker 1: felt like a participant. I went from me an observer

699
00:36:50,600 --> 00:36:53,239
Speaker 1: to a participant. And so then the question became what

700
00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:56,960
Speaker 1: do I want to do next? Well, as the curious, angsty,

701
00:36:57,600 --> 00:37:01,759
Speaker 1: pre med interested political Berkeley student I was, I was like,

702
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:03,680
Speaker 1: I'm going to go into the middle of it. And

703
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:06,200
Speaker 1: so I heard the shouting. We went into Sprouplaza and

704
00:37:06,239 --> 00:37:09,120
Speaker 1: I have these pictures on my phone still, and went

705
00:37:09,160 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 1: into sporal Plaza and there you had hundreds of students

706
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:15,319
Speaker 1: protesting this guy's speech. Now you're like, who's this guy?

707
00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:18,200
Speaker 1: What's a speech? The speaker came to campus a Miley

708
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:22,520
Speaker 1: Annopolis at the College Republicans invited. Now, for anybody that's listening, Milo,

709
00:37:23,160 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 1: is this like random kind of provocateur guy. He's not

710
00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 1: interested in good faith conversations. He's basically been sidelined now

711
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:31,520
Speaker 1: at that time.

712
00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:33,000
Speaker 2: But he was heavy, right.

713
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:34,359
Speaker 1: He was heavy at that time. He was very big

714
00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:36,799
Speaker 1: at that time, and he would do this college chour

715
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:40,080
Speaker 1: thing where he would basically show up and like provoke

716
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:43,520
Speaker 1: angry college liberals and like say stupid things about them

717
00:37:43,560 --> 00:37:45,680
Speaker 1: and get them really angry and frustrated in some ways

718
00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:48,400
Speaker 1: actually like attack them. Basically, he made a living out

719
00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:49,120
Speaker 1: of bullying people.

720
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:54,040
Speaker 2: That was his thing, and which, let's be honest, there's

721
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:55,200
Speaker 2: nothing good about.

722
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:57,040
Speaker 1: That, nothing good about it. Well, he did nothing for

723
00:37:57,080 --> 00:38:01,920
Speaker 1: his cause, but it's his right, which is right exactly.

724
00:38:02,040 --> 00:38:06,760
Speaker 1: So what happened you go to it's right. What's fascinating

725
00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:10,680
Speaker 1: about Berkeley's Now this is twenty seventeen, right, these protests

726
00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:14,560
Speaker 1: are happening. Students are protesting in defense of my fellow students.

727
00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:16,919
Speaker 1: What we found out was also that outside groups came

728
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:19,000
Speaker 1: in because the other thing about Berkeley is it attracts

729
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:21,000
Speaker 1: a bunch of people. So a lot of far right

730
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:22,759
Speaker 1: people show up, a lot of far left people show up.

731
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:24,800
Speaker 1: It's basically a way for people to get a platform,

732
00:38:25,080 --> 00:38:29,200
Speaker 1: and so all these people start showing up. The history

733
00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 1: now of this place is in the sixties, Sprout Plaza

734
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:36,840
Speaker 1: was where doctor King spoke, It's where Mario Savio started

735
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:38,680
Speaker 1: the free speech movement. At that time, the liberals were

736
00:38:38,719 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 1: on the side of you know, at least the very

737
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:43,279
Speaker 1: extreme ones are on the side of free speech, and

738
00:38:43,320 --> 00:38:45,680
Speaker 1: so it was such a fascinating cultural ship. You could

739
00:38:45,680 --> 00:38:48,239
Speaker 1: see it happening in front of you. It's almost like

740
00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 1: Memphis in some ways. You know, you go to certain

741
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:53,560
Speaker 1: places and they've changed completely. And I saw in those

742
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:56,720
Speaker 1: protests violence. I saw students crying. I saw a journalists

743
00:38:56,719 --> 00:38:59,080
Speaker 1: whose face was punched, his nose were broken in the

744
00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:02,560
Speaker 1: stores are shattered. There was hundreds of police officers, they

745
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:05,360
Speaker 1: brought in California State Police CPD.

746
00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 2: And let's let's be candidate. This is all because people

747
00:39:11,600 --> 00:39:14,680
Speaker 2: who didn't agree with what this far right guy had

748
00:39:14,719 --> 00:39:19,920
Speaker 2: to say. Yeah, we're doing everything they could to keep

749
00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 2: him from saying whatever it was he wanted to say,

750
00:39:22,640 --> 00:39:28,120
Speaker 2: which is the irony of the opposite of free speech.

751
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:30,200
Speaker 1: So there's two things I'll say to this, because this

752
00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:31,680
Speaker 1: is a little bit of a copy. And this is

753
00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:33,840
Speaker 1: where actually people get hold up because they're like, all right, so,

754
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:36,600
Speaker 1: Coach Bill Manu, are not talking about this far right

755
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 1: person being protested. They must be a bunch of conservatives

756
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:41,239
Speaker 1: that care about free speech. And that's not the message,

757
00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:43,360
Speaker 1: because first of all, free speech should not be a

758
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 1: liberal or conservative values and American values a human value

759
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:52,880
Speaker 1: more and Secondarily is that free speech is throughout history.

760
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:56,239
Speaker 1: It's the value that people use that feel like they're

761
00:39:56,320 --> 00:39:59,000
Speaker 1: under attack because it's your weapon, it's your access card

762
00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:02,400
Speaker 1: to society. Sixties, it was those anti war protesters and

763
00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:04,800
Speaker 1: liberals and civil rights activists, so for them, free speech

764
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:07,480
Speaker 1: was a thing. Now a lot of conservatives on campuses

765
00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 1: feel under attack and so it's their thing. What we

766
00:40:09,640 --> 00:40:11,760
Speaker 1: have to recognize is that free speech is a value

767
00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:14,640
Speaker 1: that moves the society forward. And it's very shortsighted to say, well,

768
00:40:14,719 --> 00:40:16,560
Speaker 1: Manu and Coach Bill are talking about this farraka and

769
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:18,640
Speaker 1: kicked off. This is where I signed off on this podcast,

770
00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:20,640
Speaker 1: because it must mean that there are a bunch of

771
00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:22,839
Speaker 1: conservatives that want, you know, liberal kids see it hurt.

772
00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:26,080
Speaker 1: So here's the two things I'll say now about that moment.

773
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 1: First is you and I the intent of those protests

774
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 1: was to shut down my Low. We're now six years later,

775
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:37,440
Speaker 1: we're still talking about him. That protest single handily raised

776
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:40,080
Speaker 1: this guy's profile to the stratosphere.

777
00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:43,239
Speaker 2: That is interesting and true his name.

778
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:45,120
Speaker 1: You and I are only talking about him because he

779
00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:47,560
Speaker 1: got protests that day. That day, if nothing had happened,

780
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:49,879
Speaker 1: I probably would not be doing what I'm doing, and

781
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:51,960
Speaker 1: you and I probably would have never met.

782
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:53,920
Speaker 2: And we sure would be talking about this guy.

783
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:59,120
Speaker 1: And this Greek British dude would have no relevance. So

784
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:02,879
Speaker 1: that's first thing is let's try to understand and let's

785
00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:06,080
Speaker 1: not let this moment convolute our tactics. And the second

786
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:09,560
Speaker 1: thing is the question of like, well, who's allowed to

787
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:12,640
Speaker 1: speak and who's not. This is where I think it's

788
00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:14,040
Speaker 1: a little bit of an onus on the people that

789
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:16,319
Speaker 1: are inviting these speakers and bringing on these people. It's

790
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:19,680
Speaker 1: you know, what's your goal, what's your intention? I do

791
00:41:19,719 --> 00:41:21,040
Speaker 1: think that a part of it is to stir the

792
00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:22,839
Speaker 1: pot a little bit. You're trying to provoke a little bit,

793
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:25,600
Speaker 1: you know, if you actually want real conservative thought on

794
00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:29,239
Speaker 1: that campus at that time, bring somebody semi serious, you know.

795
00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:35,320
Speaker 1: And simultaneously, for my liberal friends and folks, recognize that

796
00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:39,440
Speaker 1: protest is very important, but at that moment us protesting

797
00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:41,920
Speaker 1: him only led to not only more violence, but the

798
00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:44,200
Speaker 1: campus can be shaken. I think it cost the university

799
00:41:44,239 --> 00:41:47,799
Speaker 1: a million dollars in damages million and a half and

800
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:49,400
Speaker 1: forget the UC systemic.

801
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:51,400
Speaker 2: Well, in my understanding is a lot of that was

802
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:54,600
Speaker 2: caused about people that weren't even Berkeley students, and they

803
00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:55,360
Speaker 2: were masked.

804
00:41:55,480 --> 00:41:57,600
Speaker 1: It was outside And was I not masked, Yes, a

805
00:41:57,600 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 1: lot of them were masked. It was outside groups. And

806
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:02,839
Speaker 1: what that also did, by the way, was it set

807
00:42:02,840 --> 00:42:05,279
Speaker 1: a precedent for an how over the next three four

808
00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:09,279
Speaker 1: years you would see rallies on campus and in communities

809
00:42:09,960 --> 00:42:12,200
Speaker 1: that had nothing to do with the students, but people

810
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 1: knew that if they went to Berkeley, it's just a cultural,

811
00:42:15,280 --> 00:42:17,200
Speaker 1: iconic place, and so they're going to get attention.

812
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:20,160
Speaker 2: I want to tell you a story about my alma mater. Yeah,

813
00:42:20,840 --> 00:42:25,360
Speaker 2: James Meredith was the first black man admitted to the

814
00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:30,640
Speaker 2: University of Mississippi, and Kennedy was the president then, and

815
00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:37,040
Speaker 2: there were three days of riots and people died. What

816
00:42:37,160 --> 00:42:39,799
Speaker 2: they found out that BI found out after they did

817
00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:45,840
Speaker 2: the investigation, is that the student body was there doing

818
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:50,399
Speaker 2: what student body does, but the gunfire and the true

819
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:55,279
Speaker 2: violence were from people from four different states, not from

820
00:42:55,360 --> 00:42:59,480
Speaker 2: the University of Mississippi. So while there was protest and

821
00:43:00,160 --> 00:43:04,080
Speaker 2: there it was the heart of the civil rights question,

822
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:07,719
Speaker 2: and there was all kinds of things that went on

823
00:43:07,840 --> 00:43:12,440
Speaker 2: that were wrong that hopefully history will show that we

824
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:14,840
Speaker 2: continue to try to do well with and continue to

825
00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:18,360
Speaker 2: prove on the point is the vast majority of the violence,

826
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:23,120
Speaker 2: everything came from outside the city, outside the state, and

827
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:29,080
Speaker 2: the outside the campus. But what happens is situations like

828
00:43:29,160 --> 00:43:34,600
Speaker 2: that give a theater and a platform to the crazies. Yeah,

829
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:37,160
Speaker 2: and it sounds to me like that's what happened to

830
00:43:37,200 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 2: cal that day.

831
00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:41,319
Speaker 1: Have you heard the term conflict entrepreneurs?

832
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, so sure.

833
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:48,319
Speaker 1: One of our good friend's name is Monica Guzman and

834
00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:52,080
Speaker 1: her friend Amana Ripley Amanda wrote this book, I think

835
00:43:52,080 --> 00:43:54,520
Speaker 1: it was last year or two years ago, called Healthy Conflict.

836
00:43:54,840 --> 00:43:56,000
Speaker 1: And one of the things that comes up in that

837
00:43:56,040 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 1: book is that right now, the people that divide us,

838
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:03,600
Speaker 1: And this is something I say a lot. Is my

839
00:44:03,640 --> 00:44:06,080
Speaker 1: assumption and belief is that I think, Coach Bill, the

840
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:08,920
Speaker 1: people that divide us understand human nature better than the

841
00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:10,040
Speaker 1: people trying to bring us together.

842
00:44:10,120 --> 00:44:12,520
Speaker 2: Oh. I think I think you could. I think you

843
00:44:12,560 --> 00:44:18,160
Speaker 2: could fill gymnasiums full of those people who currently work

844
00:44:18,239 --> 00:44:24,960
Speaker 2: in our in our national media and with that one skill, yep.

845
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:29,239
Speaker 1: And I call it the outrage industrial complex. And the

846
00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:33,759
Speaker 1: idea behind that is that people understand that you and

847
00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:37,200
Speaker 1: I have a much stronger propensity to hate each other

848
00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 1: than love each other. I think hate is like gasoline.

849
00:44:41,600 --> 00:44:45,120
Speaker 1: It burns really quickly, but it disappears also pretty quickly,

850
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:50,440
Speaker 1: but it's very quick. It's high propensity. I think love

851
00:44:51,520 --> 00:44:54,120
Speaker 1: is like rocket fuel. It takes a wild ignite, but

852
00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 1: once it ignites and sustains, it's very strong. And I

853
00:44:57,560 --> 00:44:59,719
Speaker 1: think the problem right now is because our attention spans

854
00:44:59,719 --> 00:45:03,040
Speaker 1: are so minuscule, because you know, you and I have

855
00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:05,120
Speaker 1: to go after this podcast and produce all these short clips.

856
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:08,480
Speaker 1: People can't watch things more than ten seconds because we

857
00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:11,160
Speaker 1: barely ever now interact with people that are different than us,

858
00:45:11,239 --> 00:45:14,200
Speaker 1: because you know, somebody who lives in Washington, DC and

859
00:45:14,239 --> 00:45:17,799
Speaker 1: somebody that lives in Richmond only probably drive between those

860
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:21,320
Speaker 1: cities and have never interacted with anybody between those two cities.

861
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:25,080
Speaker 1: For all of those reasons, and the siloing and the

862
00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:28,200
Speaker 1: fact that are politicians are capturing and capitalizing on that.

863
00:45:29,080 --> 00:45:31,880
Speaker 1: You've got people that are turning us into tools for

864
00:45:31,920 --> 00:45:35,000
Speaker 1: their money, and then you and I are giving up

865
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 1: on each other because we're buying to their bullshit. And

866
00:45:38,680 --> 00:45:41,960
Speaker 1: that's basically the moment. So and that's what those people,

867
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:44,000
Speaker 1: those people that show up the campus. That's what they're doing.

868
00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:47,440
Speaker 2: Before you were in school. One of the things that

869
00:45:47,480 --> 00:45:50,400
Speaker 2: I learned when I was a young man was this

870
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:55,000
Speaker 2: price I may vehemently disagree with everything that comes out

871
00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:57,440
Speaker 2: of your mouth, that I will fight to my death

872
00:45:57,520 --> 00:46:01,440
Speaker 2: for your right to say it. That was a very

873
00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:05,640
Speaker 2: strong American ideal for many, many, many, many many years.

874
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 2: And I think we've lost it. And I think that's

875
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:10,759
Speaker 2: what was lost in Berkeley that day.

876
00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:13,200
Speaker 1: Why do you think we've lost it? Because you've seen

877
00:46:13,239 --> 00:46:16,120
Speaker 1: America much more than I have. You've lived here longer,

878
00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:19,560
Speaker 1: You know things. What's your assessment?

879
00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 2: Money and power? Money and power? I think there's I

880
00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:30,440
Speaker 2: think there's an enormous amount of power and wealth that

881
00:46:30,600 --> 00:46:35,680
Speaker 2: has been generated in places like New York and our

882
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:39,920
Speaker 2: media centers, and an enormous amount, far too much money

883
00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:43,480
Speaker 2: and power generated in the halls of Congress, and that,

884
00:46:43,719 --> 00:46:48,279
Speaker 2: like you say, people have developed a unique skill and

885
00:46:48,480 --> 00:46:53,160
Speaker 2: a keen understanding that I can generate more money and

886
00:46:53,280 --> 00:46:58,320
Speaker 2: power if I can divide. Because if I can scare

887
00:46:58,360 --> 00:47:00,600
Speaker 2: the hell out of people and divide them and get

888
00:47:00,640 --> 00:47:04,920
Speaker 2: them into my camp, I can use that fear to

889
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:08,560
Speaker 2: generate more power from myself and therefore more money. And

890
00:47:08,719 --> 00:47:13,880
Speaker 2: I believe narratives and politics are crafted in order to

891
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:19,480
Speaker 2: sustain and grow that money and power. And I think

892
00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:23,520
Speaker 2: we got to fix that, which is why your story

893
00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:28,440
Speaker 2: is so important, because after all, this happened in col

894
00:47:29,719 --> 00:47:33,680
Speaker 2: something happened inside of you, and it leads to what

895
00:47:33,719 --> 00:47:36,400
Speaker 2: you're doing today. So tell me about I think it

896
00:47:36,480 --> 00:47:39,279
Speaker 2: was twelve of you, right, tell me about that.

897
00:47:40,040 --> 00:47:43,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know. By the way, I have to say

898
00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:45,400
Speaker 1: one thing, the fact that you just recalled it was twelve.

899
00:47:45,520 --> 00:47:48,520
Speaker 1: Just for anybody that's listening. Coach Bill is a busy,

900
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:50,840
Speaker 1: busy man. The fact that you remembered that means a

901
00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:53,640
Speaker 1: lot to me. It means that that's a tough thing

902
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:57,080
Speaker 1: to do. And somebody that also does this and learning

903
00:47:57,120 --> 00:48:00,759
Speaker 1: from you and hearing from you. I think one of

904
00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:03,280
Speaker 1: the things that you're doing powerfully, especially in this conversation

905
00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:05,799
Speaker 1: but in general, and what I think is part of

906
00:48:05,840 --> 00:48:08,200
Speaker 1: what we need to try and flip this problem in

907
00:48:08,200 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 1: the set is you're making somebody feel like the story matters.

908
00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:14,759
Speaker 1: Your story does matter, okay, But the point is that

909
00:48:15,719 --> 00:48:18,839
Speaker 1: right now, I think a lot of people just feel purposeless.

910
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people feel lost.

911
00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:23,480
Speaker 2: I agree I don't know that. I don't know that

912
00:48:23,480 --> 00:48:25,879
Speaker 2: I'll agree with you a lot of people feel purposeless,

913
00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:28,719
Speaker 2: but I absolutely agree with you that a lot of

914
00:48:28,719 --> 00:48:31,080
Speaker 2: people feel lost. And I don't mean lost inside their

915
00:48:31,120 --> 00:48:34,640
Speaker 2: own homes, but I mean lost in our culture. Yeah,

916
00:48:34,680 --> 00:48:42,640
Speaker 2: And unfortunately, that's our freaking culture. It is not DC's culture,

917
00:48:42,680 --> 00:48:45,319
Speaker 2: it is not New York's culture. It's our culture. And

918
00:48:45,400 --> 00:48:48,160
Speaker 2: until an army of normal folks take that culture back,

919
00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:51,200
Speaker 2: we're going to continue to feel lost in it. And

920
00:48:51,280 --> 00:48:53,960
Speaker 2: I think that's a shame. And I think that's that's

921
00:48:54,040 --> 00:48:57,160
Speaker 2: why you're here, is because I think the work you're

922
00:48:57,280 --> 00:49:00,279
Speaker 2: doing is one of the things that helps fix that.

923
00:49:00,480 --> 00:49:03,640
Speaker 2: But I got to have our listeners here. Why the

924
00:49:03,719 --> 00:49:05,400
Speaker 2: twelve and what you did? Yeah?

925
00:49:05,480 --> 00:49:10,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, So those twelve people were essentially not an army

926
00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:11,240
Speaker 1: but a squad.

927
00:49:12,640 --> 00:49:18,000
Speaker 2: You were a beat up two. We were smaller than

928
00:49:17,280 --> 00:49:18,480
Speaker 2: we Yeah.

929
00:49:18,320 --> 00:49:19,280
Speaker 1: We were a squad.

930
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:19,800
Speaker 2: Squad.

931
00:49:19,840 --> 00:49:22,360
Speaker 1: We were a squad with a squat of Berkeley people,

932
00:49:22,480 --> 00:49:26,600
Speaker 1: of Berkeley people, which is very not formidable and so

933
00:49:26,600 --> 00:49:30,279
Speaker 1: so essentially what happened was that next day, right after

934
00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:32,280
Speaker 1: after after the protests, after.

935
00:49:32,280 --> 00:49:36,640
Speaker 2: The were mace noses were broken, a hundred some thousand

936
00:49:36,680 --> 00:49:40,040
Speaker 2: the police jumped in, they shut down campus helicopters, and

937
00:49:40,120 --> 00:49:43,920
Speaker 2: ultimately the campus decided, well, this guy can't speak, it's

938
00:49:43,960 --> 00:49:45,399
Speaker 2: too dangerous, and they pulled them.

939
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:46,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, they pulled them.

940
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:49,400
Speaker 2: So for the day, the protesters won. But as you

941
00:49:49,520 --> 00:49:52,680
Speaker 2: so well put it, we're talking about them six years later.

942
00:49:52,719 --> 00:49:55,320
Speaker 2: So ultimately they lost. They won, they won the battle,

943
00:49:55,360 --> 00:49:56,480
Speaker 2: and they really lost them.

944
00:49:56,520 --> 00:49:57,839
Speaker 1: They lost the war. They lost.

945
00:49:57,880 --> 00:49:59,879
Speaker 2: The next day, you and the twelve.

946
00:49:59,760 --> 00:50:04,080
Speaker 1: So me and the twelve uh Sholes, we should there

947
00:50:04,080 --> 00:50:07,840
Speaker 1: were those, there were, there were. It's funny. So I

948
00:50:07,880 --> 00:50:10,560
Speaker 1: did not know any of these people. And the next

949
00:50:10,680 --> 00:50:14,120
Speaker 1: day what happened was that all these students suddenly were rattled.

950
00:50:14,160 --> 00:50:16,680
Speaker 1: I mean, imagine your campus just goes upside down overnight.

951
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:19,040
Speaker 1: You have like every television crew there every.

952
00:50:18,880 --> 00:50:21,920
Speaker 2: Day, and even in a place where protest on protests big,

953
00:50:22,200 --> 00:50:27,480
Speaker 2: even in this was like kind of like out.

954
00:50:28,160 --> 00:50:30,480
Speaker 1: I don't know the exact fact here, but I'm pretty

955
00:50:30,520 --> 00:50:33,480
Speaker 1: sure it was one of, if not the largest protests

956
00:50:33,520 --> 00:50:36,680
Speaker 1: since the sixties anti war protests. Wow, So in terms

957
00:50:36,719 --> 00:50:39,040
Speaker 1: of damage, in terms of impact, in terms of narrative,

958
00:50:39,520 --> 00:50:42,400
Speaker 1: and the next day essentially it was a very human emotion.

959
00:50:42,480 --> 00:50:45,000
Speaker 1: It was I mean I just felt bad for campus.

960
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:46,319
Speaker 1: That was it, and I think a lot of people

961
00:50:46,320 --> 00:50:47,840
Speaker 1: felt bad. And so we started doing was a lot

962
00:50:47,880 --> 00:50:49,640
Speaker 1: of kids started showing up to Sprout Plaza and we

963
00:50:49,680 --> 00:50:52,440
Speaker 1: essentially started just picking up the trash, picking up the

964
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:55,440
Speaker 1: broken bottles. These kids, I thought, I was so proud

965
00:50:55,680 --> 00:50:58,920
Speaker 1: of that community at that time, and showed me the

966
00:50:58,960 --> 00:51:02,239
Speaker 1: best of humanity. It was like, you know, forget all

967
00:51:02,239 --> 00:51:03,920
Speaker 1: of this for a second, like let's just let's just

968
00:51:03,960 --> 00:51:04,800
Speaker 1: help out our community.

969
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:06,680
Speaker 2: That's you know. Now, that reminds me of the of

970
00:51:06,719 --> 00:51:11,960
Speaker 2: the of the the the citizens in Ferguson afterwards that

971
00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:13,880
Speaker 2: were out in the streets cleaning up the pres and

972
00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:15,600
Speaker 2: it didn't matter which side of that you are on.

973
00:51:15,640 --> 00:51:16,640
Speaker 2: They were just trying to clean up.

974
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:17,920
Speaker 1: Our community was hurting.

975
00:51:18,040 --> 00:51:18,480
Speaker 2: That was it.

976
00:51:18,520 --> 00:51:21,480
Speaker 1: And and that's where the human of our democracy comes in.

977
00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:24,680
Speaker 1: And so there then after people started picking up stuff,

978
00:51:24,680 --> 00:51:27,840
Speaker 1: these like mini groups of people started forming just naturally.

979
00:51:27,840 --> 00:51:29,640
Speaker 1: And each of these groups people were like saying, like,

980
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:31,840
Speaker 1: you know, I can do this to help or what

981
00:51:32,040 --> 00:51:35,480
Speaker 1: just happened? And I, because it's Berkeley, called them therapy circles.

982
00:51:35,520 --> 00:51:37,840
Speaker 1: And so these kids are all like, you know, commiserating

983
00:51:37,880 --> 00:51:39,920
Speaker 1: and all of us are commissering together and suddenly randomly

984
00:51:40,120 --> 00:51:42,520
Speaker 1: go into this one circle and there's a couple of

985
00:51:42,520 --> 00:51:45,719
Speaker 1: people there and they're like, hey, you know, we were

986
00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:49,400
Speaker 1: thinking about creating this organization that was focused on bridging

987
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:53,400
Speaker 1: political differences, and this just happened. Talk about political differences,

988
00:51:53,400 --> 00:51:56,040
Speaker 1: this is a tsunami. And I was like, well, what

989
00:51:56,080 --> 00:51:58,240
Speaker 1: if we And we were like, what if we created

990
00:51:58,280 --> 00:52:02,680
Speaker 1: a like literally in this group, It's like maybe our

991
00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:07,479
Speaker 1: first event could be let's just talk about this. And

992
00:52:08,080 --> 00:52:10,800
Speaker 1: essentially what we did was a couple of days later

993
00:52:11,400 --> 00:52:16,279
Speaker 1: and between this interim, I essentially circulated this petition on

994
00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:19,000
Speaker 1: campus because there's this bad rap going around that UC

995
00:52:19,120 --> 00:52:21,719
Speaker 1: Berkeley students were violent, and it wasn't enough students, it

996
00:52:21,760 --> 00:52:24,440
Speaker 1: was just the random people from the outside. We circulated

997
00:52:24,440 --> 00:52:27,040
Speaker 1: this peedition, published it on the news that said UC

998
00:52:27,160 --> 00:52:31,040
Speaker 1: Berkeley students condemned violence. I had circulated across campus, and

999
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:32,920
Speaker 1: again it was just like my tiny attempt to like

1000
00:52:33,400 --> 00:52:36,640
Speaker 1: try and do my part. It wasn't anything substantial. Then

1001
00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:39,480
Speaker 1: we held that discussion and man.

1002
00:52:39,400 --> 00:52:40,520
Speaker 2: How many people show up?

1003
00:52:40,640 --> 00:52:43,440
Speaker 1: So this is crazy. So mind you, I have like

1004
00:52:43,480 --> 00:52:46,200
Speaker 1: no background in organizing or anything like this. Like the

1005
00:52:46,560 --> 00:52:49,560
Speaker 1: closest I've been organizing is you know, like dissecting a

1006
00:52:49,600 --> 00:52:53,640
Speaker 1: frog in biology class. Like there's there's literally no intuition here.

1007
00:52:54,040 --> 00:52:56,840
Speaker 1: All we did was we started flying on our dorms

1008
00:52:56,840 --> 00:52:59,120
Speaker 1: and we like through flyers all our friends. We say, hey,

1009
00:52:59,120 --> 00:53:01,719
Speaker 1: like we're gonna host this ussion. And a bunch of

1010
00:53:01,719 --> 00:53:04,399
Speaker 1: people are like, is this a civic architecture frat? Because

1011
00:53:04,400 --> 00:53:06,160
Speaker 1: it was called Bridge Berkeley, It's like, which bridge are

1012
00:53:06,160 --> 00:53:07,719
Speaker 1: you going to build it? I was like, do I

1013
00:53:07,719 --> 00:53:10,560
Speaker 1: look like I can build a bridge? And so we

1014
00:53:10,680 --> 00:53:13,920
Speaker 1: like we we held this discussion and I think like

1015
00:53:14,520 --> 00:53:17,200
Speaker 1: eighty to seventy five to like eighty five people showed

1016
00:53:17,239 --> 00:53:19,480
Speaker 1: up in a classroom that was meant for I think

1017
00:53:19,560 --> 00:53:22,600
Speaker 1: thirty people. And give me the demographics, yees say, this

1018
00:53:22,960 --> 00:53:25,640
Speaker 1: is what's cool about it is the people that came

1019
00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:28,239
Speaker 1: were some of the people that invited the speaker. It

1020
00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:30,359
Speaker 1: was some of the people that protested the speaker. There

1021
00:53:30,440 --> 00:53:33,640
Speaker 1: was some faculty there, there's some administrators there. It was

1022
00:53:33,760 --> 00:53:37,600
Speaker 1: a real group of some of the key stakeholders in

1023
00:53:37,600 --> 00:53:41,680
Speaker 1: that environment and everybody. What can you imagine, imagine you're

1024
00:53:41,719 --> 00:53:43,600
Speaker 1: holding a town hall meeting, You're attending your local pt

1025
00:53:43,760 --> 00:53:47,160
Speaker 1: or school board meeting and something very controversial happened. What happens,

1026
00:53:47,160 --> 00:53:48,920
Speaker 1: everybody shows up with their guards up. It's like, we're

1027
00:53:48,960 --> 00:53:51,160
Speaker 1: ready to fight or I'm ready to like not say anything.

1028
00:53:51,440 --> 00:53:55,200
Speaker 1: That's exactly what happened. And this is where the group

1029
00:53:55,239 --> 00:53:57,239
Speaker 1: of us that helped organize this, who're now some of

1030
00:53:57,239 --> 00:53:59,399
Speaker 1: my best friends and still work on this organization bridge

1031
00:53:59,480 --> 00:54:02,200
Speaker 1: USA with me. What we did was we just relied

1032
00:54:02,200 --> 00:54:03,799
Speaker 1: on our instinct. It's like, Okay, imagine you have a

1033
00:54:03,880 --> 00:54:05,879
Speaker 1: room of a bunch of stodgy people that hate each

1034
00:54:05,880 --> 00:54:09,600
Speaker 1: other and probably misperceive each other's intentions. How do you

1035
00:54:09,600 --> 00:54:12,200
Speaker 1: help them break through? Well, let's start just talking about

1036
00:54:12,200 --> 00:54:13,480
Speaker 1: our vulnerabilities in story.

1037
00:54:13,520 --> 00:54:16,280
Speaker 2: Here's an idea. Let's have a conversation.

1038
00:54:16,520 --> 00:54:17,000
Speaker 1: Have a conversation.

1039
00:54:17,120 --> 00:54:22,040
Speaker 2: Let's have a civil, non threatening chat about importing stuff

1040
00:54:22,080 --> 00:54:24,600
Speaker 2: and see what we think of one Now.

1041
00:54:24,560 --> 00:54:26,560
Speaker 1: You sound like an alien? No, I sound like what

1042
00:54:26,719 --> 00:54:27,240
Speaker 1: an alien?

1043
00:54:27,560 --> 00:54:31,120
Speaker 2: Well, what I'm saying to you I have said in

1044
00:54:31,239 --> 00:54:34,560
Speaker 2: keynote speeches, I've said in stages. It's in my book.

1045
00:54:35,239 --> 00:54:39,799
Speaker 2: It's it's the fundamental tenet of my book, Against the grain.

1046
00:54:39,840 --> 00:54:44,400
Speaker 2: We got to go against the grain of societal preconceived

1047
00:54:44,440 --> 00:54:46,279
Speaker 2: notion that if you don't think like me, you must

1048
00:54:46,320 --> 00:54:48,440
Speaker 2: be my enemy. And we got to get out of

1049
00:54:48,480 --> 00:54:52,000
Speaker 2: our vacuums and our comfort zones and talk.

1050
00:54:52,640 --> 00:54:56,279
Speaker 1: So I agree with all of that. And as a

1051
00:54:56,320 --> 00:55:00,000
Speaker 1: young person, when somebody says, so, what's your innovative product,

1052
00:55:00,200 --> 00:55:04,200
Speaker 1: I'm like nothing, I like, what are we innovating? And

1053
00:55:04,239 --> 00:55:06,200
Speaker 1: so like when you say that, like I have to ask,

1054
00:55:06,440 --> 00:55:09,520
Speaker 1: like I always ask people that have much more life experiences. Mean,

1055
00:55:09,520 --> 00:55:12,400
Speaker 1: I'm like, to me, it just sounds like family dynamics.

1056
00:55:12,680 --> 00:55:14,680
Speaker 1: I'm like, let's talk to each other. To me, it

1057
00:55:14,719 --> 00:55:18,040
Speaker 1: sounds like two parents, you know, navigating a divorce. You know,

1058
00:55:18,120 --> 00:55:20,160
Speaker 1: this stuff is not complicated, And I think, like in

1059
00:55:20,200 --> 00:55:23,239
Speaker 1: this hyper technical environment, and that's what happened. Actually, I

1060
00:55:23,239 --> 00:55:27,040
Speaker 1: think our naivy tae in that moment organizing that actually

1061
00:55:27,040 --> 00:55:29,520
Speaker 1: helped us. It sounds like it, yeah, because we were naive,

1062
00:55:29,560 --> 00:55:30,759
Speaker 1: We're like, well and.

1063
00:55:30,680 --> 00:55:41,240
Speaker 2: It was it was it was legitimately a heartfelt outreach. Yes,

1064
00:55:41,320 --> 00:55:46,240
Speaker 2: And nobody convinced you yet that that was stupid.

1065
00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:48,960
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. And we had no idea the challenge we

1066
00:55:48,960 --> 00:55:51,520
Speaker 1: were embarking on. But that's the best part is when

1067
00:55:51,560 --> 00:55:53,200
Speaker 1: you start a journey I mean, when you were coaching

1068
00:55:53,200 --> 00:55:54,960
Speaker 1: that football team, I bet one of the tenants of

1069
00:55:55,000 --> 00:55:57,560
Speaker 1: it is, don't look how far away that championship is.

1070
00:55:57,840 --> 00:56:02,840
Speaker 1: Stay by day.

1071
00:56:03,320 --> 00:56:16,080
Speaker 2: We'll be right back. When you get these people together

1072
00:56:16,160 --> 00:56:19,640
Speaker 2: and they start talking about their realities, and I can

1073
00:56:19,719 --> 00:56:24,600
Speaker 2: imagine you've got a college Republican and you've got somebody

1074
00:56:24,680 --> 00:56:28,920
Speaker 2: who'd formerly been naked protesting about some animals or something

1075
00:56:28,960 --> 00:56:34,000
Speaker 2: in the same room. My belief set is, and I'm

1076
00:56:34,040 --> 00:56:38,160
Speaker 2: testing this with you, my belief set is that we

1077
00:56:38,200 --> 00:56:41,200
Speaker 2: all want safety, we all want health, we all want

1078
00:56:41,200 --> 00:56:44,000
Speaker 2: our families to do well. We all want our children

1079
00:56:44,040 --> 00:56:46,480
Speaker 2: to be better than we were now. We all may

1080
00:56:46,600 --> 00:56:50,400
Speaker 2: think there's fifteen different ways to go about that, but

1081
00:56:50,440 --> 00:56:55,400
Speaker 2: we all ultimately kind of want the same maslov hierarchy

1082
00:56:55,400 --> 00:57:01,279
Speaker 2: it needs to be filled. Does hearing that people want

1083
00:57:01,320 --> 00:57:03,760
Speaker 2: the same thing although they want to go about getting

1084
00:57:03,800 --> 00:57:06,920
Speaker 2: it differently, Does at least hearing that people want the

1085
00:57:06,960 --> 00:57:10,520
Speaker 2: same thing have any kind of calming effect on the room?

1086
00:57:11,239 --> 00:57:14,239
Speaker 1: It does, But I think what helps even more is

1087
00:57:14,280 --> 00:57:16,520
Speaker 1: to share each other's suffering.

1088
00:57:17,520 --> 00:57:18,920
Speaker 2: Learn all that's interesting.

1089
00:57:19,360 --> 00:57:25,160
Speaker 1: I actually think that the most powerful tool, the knife

1090
00:57:25,160 --> 00:57:29,720
Speaker 1: that cuts through hot butter, is vulnerability. I think when

1091
00:57:29,920 --> 00:57:33,480
Speaker 1: you and I actually can see each other's vulnerability and

1092
00:57:33,480 --> 00:57:37,240
Speaker 1: have a no bs honest understanding that this was your

1093
00:57:37,280 --> 00:57:39,480
Speaker 1: hardship and this is why you are what you are,

1094
00:57:39,600 --> 00:57:42,160
Speaker 1: and here's an example of my vulnerability. I think suddenly,

1095
00:57:42,240 --> 00:57:45,880
Speaker 1: what it does is it makes us fundamentally human.

1096
00:57:46,360 --> 00:57:49,560
Speaker 2: Which means that empathy leads to understanding exactly.

1097
00:57:49,600 --> 00:57:51,840
Speaker 1: And that's when you can start talking about common values,

1098
00:57:52,520 --> 00:57:56,280
Speaker 1: because I think it's the difference between showing and telling.

1099
00:57:56,920 --> 00:58:01,160
Speaker 1: And you know, when I talk about my childhood growing up,

1100
00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:04,920
Speaker 1: imagine if the only thing you talked and said to

1101
00:58:05,000 --> 00:58:07,000
Speaker 1: the amazing people that are listening to this right now

1102
00:58:07,080 --> 00:58:08,880
Speaker 1: is when you went to a competitive public high school

1103
00:58:08,880 --> 00:58:10,800
Speaker 1: next to Harvard Mit, then went to cal Berkeley, now

1104
00:58:10,880 --> 00:58:13,920
Speaker 1: leads a nonprofit organization, and he flew in from Chicago today.

1105
00:58:14,160 --> 00:58:20,080
Speaker 1: The thing, this guy's probably an asshole, you know. So

1106
00:58:20,160 --> 00:58:22,160
Speaker 1: what you did was You're like, all right, let's like

1107
00:58:22,200 --> 00:58:24,560
Speaker 1: actually go through your life. Let's have a conversation about

1108
00:58:24,560 --> 00:58:26,320
Speaker 1: who you are, why you do what you do. Tell

1109
00:58:26,320 --> 00:58:29,800
Speaker 1: me about your grandfather. I'm sure not all that was

1110
00:58:29,840 --> 00:58:34,200
Speaker 1: relatable to everybody, but pieces were. And I think vulnerability

1111
00:58:35,240 --> 00:58:38,280
Speaker 1: devastates and creates the pathway for love, it is so strived.

1112
00:58:38,600 --> 00:58:43,439
Speaker 2: So in this room or people vulnerable? But why why

1113
00:58:43,440 --> 00:58:45,400
Speaker 2: do people come to you know what? I think? I

1114
00:58:45,440 --> 00:58:47,920
Speaker 2: know why. I'm gonna answer my own question. No not,

1115
00:58:47,920 --> 00:58:49,680
Speaker 2: I'm gonna let you answer, but I'm gonna tell you

1116
00:58:49,720 --> 00:58:53,920
Speaker 2: what I think. I think heios maybe the shock of

1117
00:58:53,960 --> 00:58:57,680
Speaker 2: what happened on campus allowed people to maybe be vulnerable

1118
00:58:57,680 --> 00:58:58,320
Speaker 2: in that moment.

1119
00:58:59,800 --> 00:59:02,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's I would say seventy five percent of it,

1120
00:59:02,960 --> 00:59:08,080
Speaker 1: which is it got so bad that people for a

1121
00:59:08,160 --> 00:59:10,800
Speaker 1: second orre like, let's just exit this game and like

1122
00:59:11,040 --> 00:59:14,720
Speaker 1: understand that real people were hurt. You know, this is

1123
00:59:14,800 --> 00:59:17,000
Speaker 1: not funny games anymore. This is real. This is what

1124
00:59:17,080 --> 00:59:20,200
Speaker 1: happens when you invite somebody protests and it all becomes

1125
00:59:20,200 --> 00:59:23,200
Speaker 1: a cocktail. So that's a piece of it, is that

1126
00:59:23,240 --> 00:59:25,680
Speaker 1: when things get so bad, I think people come back

1127
00:59:25,720 --> 00:59:28,080
Speaker 1: to it. But the other piece of this was that

1128
00:59:28,120 --> 00:59:30,800
Speaker 1: they actually did not show up ready to be vulnerable.

1129
00:59:30,880 --> 00:59:32,680
Speaker 1: As I said, most people showed up with their guards up.

1130
00:59:32,920 --> 00:59:36,120
Speaker 1: It's very natural. So that's where I think leadership comes

1131
00:59:36,160 --> 00:59:38,280
Speaker 1: into play. That's where the people that are in that

1132
00:59:38,360 --> 00:59:40,960
Speaker 1: room of the model what you're looking for. And the

1133
00:59:41,040 --> 00:59:43,360
Speaker 1: first thing that we did the twelve of us that

1134
00:59:43,360 --> 00:59:46,280
Speaker 1: were helping to organize this, where like we shared our

1135
00:59:46,360 --> 00:59:48,280
Speaker 1: story forget all this, like we talked about this is

1136
00:59:48,320 --> 00:59:49,760
Speaker 1: where I come from, this is who I am, this

1137
00:59:49,800 --> 00:59:52,120
Speaker 1: is what I believe, this is why I believe what

1138
00:59:52,160 --> 00:59:55,680
Speaker 1: I believe, and you suddenly create a norm of honesty.

1139
00:59:56,800 --> 01:00:01,479
Speaker 1: It's as simple as if everybody in this room wasn't

1140
01:00:01,480 --> 01:00:03,760
Speaker 1: wearing shoes and I walked in, I'd probably take off

1141
01:00:03,800 --> 01:00:07,000
Speaker 1: my shoes. Okay, everybody's not wearing shoes. That's the norm.

1142
01:00:07,320 --> 01:00:09,520
Speaker 1: It's a best setting a norm. You set a norm

1143
01:00:09,560 --> 01:00:11,520
Speaker 1: and then you enforce that norm, and you enforce it

1144
01:00:11,520 --> 01:00:12,800
Speaker 1: and you say, hey, look, if you don't want to

1145
01:00:12,800 --> 01:00:14,960
Speaker 1: follow this norm, I'm sorry, this isn't the space for you.

1146
01:00:15,080 --> 01:00:17,320
Speaker 1: No problem. We don't have to do that to anybody.

1147
01:00:17,600 --> 01:00:22,480
Speaker 1: Because when people started seeing each other share, then you

1148
01:00:22,600 --> 01:00:24,640
Speaker 1: kind of feel I can't be left out of this.

1149
01:00:25,040 --> 01:00:29,640
Speaker 1: It creates social pressure and it also says, well, hey,

1150
01:00:29,800 --> 01:00:32,040
Speaker 1: I want you to hear my story. I want you

1151
01:00:32,040 --> 01:00:35,440
Speaker 1: to hear my story. And that's essentially what a bridge

1152
01:00:35,480 --> 01:00:40,720
Speaker 1: discussion does is it creates a space that is safe

1153
01:00:40,720 --> 01:00:46,040
Speaker 1: for liberals and structured for conservatives. Say that again, safe

1154
01:00:46,040 --> 01:00:48,080
Speaker 1: for liberals, and structured for conservatives.

1155
01:00:48,160 --> 01:00:51,320
Speaker 2: Why do liberals need safety and conservatives need structure?

1156
01:00:52,880 --> 01:00:54,480
Speaker 1: I'm not smart enough to answer that question, but I

1157
01:00:54,520 --> 01:00:55,360
Speaker 1: know that's what they want.

1158
01:00:56,080 --> 01:00:56,400
Speaker 2: Wow.

1159
01:00:56,880 --> 01:01:01,320
Speaker 1: So that's just I gept conjectures. But you don't even

1160
01:01:01,360 --> 01:01:03,600
Speaker 1: like to create those divides. But the reason I'm saying

1161
01:01:03,720 --> 01:01:06,600
Speaker 1: very openly is because again, it's about meeting people where

1162
01:01:06,600 --> 01:01:10,880
Speaker 1: they are, right, So we've created the space. The second

1163
01:01:10,880 --> 01:01:13,680
Speaker 1: part about the space is that it's peer led. So

1164
01:01:13,760 --> 01:01:17,400
Speaker 1: there isn't some faculty facilitating this. There is some it's

1165
01:01:17,440 --> 01:01:20,240
Speaker 1: the members of your own community. Right. It's like if

1166
01:01:20,280 --> 01:01:22,560
Speaker 1: you have something that happened in your school board meeting,

1167
01:01:22,600 --> 01:01:25,240
Speaker 1: you want the teachers there and the teachers talking to teachers. Right.

1168
01:01:25,240 --> 01:01:29,120
Speaker 1: It's peer lead, no power dynamics. The third thing that's

1169
01:01:29,160 --> 01:01:31,800
Speaker 1: really powerful about this is you're setting these norms. Each

1170
01:01:31,840 --> 01:01:35,160
Speaker 1: Bridge discussion is four norms. You listen to listen, not

1171
01:01:35,320 --> 01:01:38,880
Speaker 1: to respond. You don't interrupt our outside conversations. Each of

1172
01:01:38,960 --> 01:01:42,040
Speaker 1: us represents ourselves, not larger social groups. So you don't

1173
01:01:42,040 --> 01:01:44,600
Speaker 1: represent all white Americans. I don't represent all the confused

1174
01:01:44,640 --> 01:01:45,439
Speaker 1: dacs out there.

1175
01:01:45,920 --> 01:01:48,960
Speaker 2: And and you know, do you realize there's plenty of

1176
01:01:49,000 --> 01:01:55,880
Speaker 2: confused white people, Well, please, that's for you to decay and.

1177
01:02:00,240 --> 01:02:04,720
Speaker 1: Confused America, you should change the name of that. But

1178
01:02:04,720 --> 01:02:07,640
Speaker 1: but in case anybody's wondering whether they see is a

1179
01:02:07,680 --> 01:02:11,080
Speaker 1: word for Indian people that Indians use in Hindi. And

1180
01:02:11,120 --> 01:02:14,960
Speaker 1: then the fourth norm is that you respond to the argument,

1181
01:02:15,000 --> 01:02:17,280
Speaker 1: not the person. So like let's say you said that,

1182
01:02:17,360 --> 01:02:17,960
Speaker 1: so you said.

1183
01:02:17,760 --> 01:02:21,440
Speaker 2: Something, is the definition of civility.

1184
01:02:21,800 --> 01:02:25,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, But Hare's where I'll push back really quickly is

1185
01:02:25,080 --> 01:02:27,680
Speaker 1: we never use word civiility. And the reason we don't

1186
01:02:27,720 --> 01:02:31,440
Speaker 1: use the word civility is because I think that we

1187
01:02:31,560 --> 01:02:34,040
Speaker 1: live at this moment where a lot of people are

1188
01:02:34,080 --> 01:02:37,240
Speaker 1: hurting and they want change. Left or right doesn't matter

1189
01:02:37,280 --> 01:02:39,000
Speaker 1: a lot of people. There's a reason why the conflict

1190
01:02:39,080 --> 01:02:41,600
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs can make money off of that. And so what

1191
01:02:41,680 --> 01:02:44,040
Speaker 1: we found is we initially used to call it civility

1192
01:02:44,720 --> 01:02:46,920
Speaker 1: because that's what makes sense to me as well. But

1193
01:02:46,960 --> 01:02:49,200
Speaker 1: what we found was is people started hearing the word civility,

1194
01:02:49,240 --> 01:02:52,000
Speaker 1: they thought, oh, this is some kombaya, let's hold hands.

1195
01:02:52,400 --> 01:02:55,439
Speaker 1: Civility does not invoke that feeling of healthy conflict. Because

1196
01:02:55,480 --> 01:02:58,520
Speaker 1: what we're doing these discussions is oftentimes the objective is

1197
01:02:58,560 --> 01:03:02,800
Speaker 1: not for you and I to arrive at a common understanding.

1198
01:03:03,160 --> 01:03:06,240
Speaker 1: Oftentimes it's for you and I to understand why you

1199
01:03:06,320 --> 01:03:09,000
Speaker 1: and I disagree with each other, because that gets us

1200
01:03:09,000 --> 01:03:14,120
Speaker 1: somewhere right. And importantly, we can't lose the fact that

1201
01:03:14,200 --> 01:03:16,440
Speaker 1: if we want more and more people to have these dialogues,

1202
01:03:16,480 --> 01:03:20,560
Speaker 1: these conversations, they have to feel like they're entering the space,

1203
01:03:21,120 --> 01:03:23,640
Speaker 1: not having to feel like that they're grind down their edges.

1204
01:03:24,480 --> 01:03:26,720
Speaker 1: Show up with your edges, show up with your fight.

1205
01:03:27,480 --> 01:03:30,560
Speaker 1: The problem is not whether we're fighting. The problem is

1206
01:03:30,560 --> 01:03:31,280
Speaker 1: how we're fighting.

1207
01:03:31,920 --> 01:03:36,320
Speaker 2: Of course, in other words, it's okay, I mean, it's

1208
01:03:36,360 --> 01:03:38,320
Speaker 2: not what you say, but how you say it.

1209
01:03:38,320 --> 01:03:39,680
Speaker 1: It's not what you say, it's how you say it,

1210
01:03:39,720 --> 01:03:43,320
Speaker 1: but also how you engage. So all of those four

1211
01:03:43,400 --> 01:03:46,680
Speaker 1: norms right, listen, to listen rather than to respond is

1212
01:03:46,920 --> 01:03:51,120
Speaker 1: not telling you to suddenly disband your ideas. Saying listen

1213
01:03:51,160 --> 01:03:53,960
Speaker 1: to your ideas for a second. Right, when I say

1214
01:03:54,240 --> 01:03:56,960
Speaker 1: respond to the argument, not the person, show up with

1215
01:03:57,000 --> 01:04:00,800
Speaker 1: your argument. But just because if Coach Bill says something

1216
01:04:00,840 --> 01:04:02,800
Speaker 1: that you disagree with, that does not make Coach Build

1217
01:04:02,800 --> 01:04:06,680
Speaker 1: an evil person. You might think the argument's dumb, and

1218
01:04:06,720 --> 01:04:08,720
Speaker 1: that's fine. Let's have that conversation. But right now we're

1219
01:04:08,720 --> 01:04:10,200
Speaker 1: not even having a conversation, right.

1220
01:04:10,800 --> 01:04:17,560
Speaker 2: I love this. You are putting into practice stuff that

1221
01:04:17,640 --> 01:04:22,600
Speaker 2: I've talked about for years. I mean, I absolutely love this.

1222
01:04:22,760 --> 01:04:25,960
Speaker 2: So we got we gotta tie it together. Though. Sure

1223
01:04:27,200 --> 01:04:32,360
Speaker 2: you have this first meeting. What happens after that, we.

1224
01:04:32,280 --> 01:04:36,960
Speaker 1: Have a second meeting where five people show up. Nobody

1225
01:04:37,000 --> 01:04:39,600
Speaker 1: showed up. I'm honest, So nobody showed up. And this

1226
01:04:39,720 --> 01:04:43,080
Speaker 1: is part of again, normal people doing stuff like you know,

1227
01:04:43,160 --> 01:04:45,360
Speaker 1: this is when you're building something. It's really hard to

1228
01:04:45,360 --> 01:04:48,280
Speaker 1: build anything or do anything. Nobody showed up. And the

1229
01:04:48,280 --> 01:04:49,760
Speaker 1: reason why nobody showed up is because a lot of

1230
01:04:49,840 --> 01:04:52,880
Speaker 1: rumors started flying about what happened in this space, and

1231
01:04:53,000 --> 01:04:56,080
Speaker 1: a lot of people people didn't want to believe what happened,

1232
01:04:56,320 --> 01:05:00,000
Speaker 1: and also probably couldn't couldn't believe what happens, especially at

1233
01:05:00,440 --> 01:05:05,040
Speaker 1: at Berkeley at Berkeley. And then what we did was

1234
01:05:06,040 --> 01:05:10,520
Speaker 1: we said, well, let's actually intentionally pursue this because I

1235
01:05:11,200 --> 01:05:14,440
Speaker 1: don't know what it is. But I love. What I

1236
01:05:14,440 --> 01:05:17,760
Speaker 1: love about my work the most is I love the

1237
01:05:17,880 --> 01:05:22,960
Speaker 1: idea of somebody walking into a room, sitting down, and

1238
01:05:23,080 --> 01:05:28,960
Speaker 1: leaving ten twenty thirty minutes later, completely changed about their

1239
01:05:28,960 --> 01:05:31,080
Speaker 1: expectations of somebody that's different than them. It is like

1240
01:05:31,120 --> 01:05:32,400
Speaker 1: one of the coolest experiences.

1241
01:05:32,400 --> 01:05:33,959
Speaker 2: That is one of the coolest things.

1242
01:05:34,000 --> 01:05:38,000
Speaker 1: It's transformative, and it doesn't happen everything sometimes at backfires. No,

1243
01:05:38,040 --> 01:05:40,320
Speaker 1: it died, but that's the arduous process of building. And

1244
01:05:40,320 --> 01:05:42,080
Speaker 1: so what we did was we held the next discussion.

1245
01:05:42,080 --> 01:05:44,920
Speaker 1: Five people showed up. Were like, damn, we didn't market that.

1246
01:05:44,960 --> 01:05:46,520
Speaker 1: We didn't do anything. We just assume people are going

1247
01:05:46,560 --> 01:05:48,000
Speaker 1: to show up again. Now it's like two weeks out

1248
01:05:48,000 --> 01:05:50,320
Speaker 1: of this event, right, and so classic marketing, you gotta

1249
01:05:50,600 --> 01:05:52,440
Speaker 1: step in, you gotta start building. And so we were like, hey,

1250
01:05:52,520 --> 01:05:55,120
Speaker 1: let's actually build an infrastructure here. So we got a

1251
01:05:55,160 --> 01:05:57,360
Speaker 1: team those twelve people, we all took our roles. We

1252
01:05:57,360 --> 01:05:59,640
Speaker 1: started doing our thing. Each of us was doing something.

1253
01:06:00,280 --> 01:06:03,680
Speaker 1: And then what happened was we had one faculty member

1254
01:06:03,720 --> 01:06:07,360
Speaker 1: sitting in that discussion named Bill Shireman same for her

1255
01:06:07,400 --> 01:06:10,040
Speaker 1: name as you. And Bill Shyrman, who's now the chair

1256
01:06:10,040 --> 01:06:11,960
Speaker 1: of our board, was sitting in the back of the

1257
01:06:11,960 --> 01:06:15,080
Speaker 1: classroom and he knew these two people at Notre Dame

1258
01:06:15,120 --> 01:06:17,360
Speaker 1: and at Colorado Boulder Notre Dame. This guy named Roj

1259
01:06:17,560 --> 01:06:22,560
Speaker 1: Karma and Colorado Boulder, this woman named Courtland Carpenter, and

1260
01:06:22,680 --> 01:06:25,720
Speaker 1: believe it or not, they had built something called Bridge

1261
01:06:25,840 --> 01:06:29,800
Speaker 1: CU and Bridge n D because the idea of bridging

1262
01:06:29,800 --> 01:06:33,800
Speaker 1: seems like a very normal metaphor. And they connected and

1263
01:06:33,800 --> 01:06:35,600
Speaker 1: they started creating this thing. They were like, what if

1264
01:06:35,600 --> 01:06:38,640
Speaker 1: we built this on different campuses. And Bill came up

1265
01:06:38,680 --> 01:06:42,560
Speaker 1: to us and said, well, let's make this full on

1266
01:06:42,640 --> 01:06:45,880
Speaker 1: Bridge Berkeley and let's combine everything. And so we're like okay,

1267
01:06:46,480 --> 01:06:48,479
Speaker 1: And so we started doing this stuff. But we weren't

1268
01:06:48,480 --> 01:06:50,960
Speaker 1: thinking about a national organization, no vision, nothing, But we

1269
01:06:51,000 --> 01:06:53,160
Speaker 1: just kept holding those discussions. People started showing up. It

1270
01:06:53,160 --> 01:06:54,200
Speaker 1: became a name on CAM.

1271
01:06:54,240 --> 01:06:56,280
Speaker 2: And the people that are showing up Yes, there's some

1272
01:06:56,400 --> 01:06:57,919
Speaker 2: faculty and all that there, but.

1273
01:06:58,280 --> 01:07:01,480
Speaker 1: We're talking about college case college kids. And here's the

1274
01:07:01,520 --> 01:07:03,960
Speaker 1: other thing. Just to quickly fast forward, just so people understand.

1275
01:07:04,040 --> 01:07:06,560
Speaker 1: Now they're thinking, well, this must be probably for just

1276
01:07:06,600 --> 01:07:09,520
Speaker 1: elite college kids at Berkeley and Harvard and Stanford. No,

1277
01:07:10,680 --> 01:07:13,320
Speaker 1: we have yet to have a single IVY League school chapter.

1278
01:07:13,680 --> 01:07:17,480
Speaker 1: We now have high school chapters. We have sixty college chapters,

1279
01:07:17,480 --> 01:07:20,680
Speaker 1: twenty high school chapters. We're growing almost five six chapters

1280
01:07:20,720 --> 01:07:22,880
Speaker 1: a month right now on the goal is to scale

1281
01:07:22,920 --> 01:07:25,000
Speaker 1: that up because the demand is really high. But the

1282
01:07:25,040 --> 01:07:26,720
Speaker 1: other thing I'll say is on the college side, the

1283
01:07:26,760 --> 01:07:29,800
Speaker 1: goal is, let's go to our community colleges, Let's go

1284
01:07:29,840 --> 01:07:32,240
Speaker 1: to our vocational schools. One of our best chapters, one

1285
01:07:32,240 --> 01:07:34,320
Speaker 1: of the top the first seven chapters, is a college

1286
01:07:34,360 --> 01:07:38,320
Speaker 1: nam Lynn Benton Community College up in northern Oregon the

1287
01:07:38,360 --> 01:07:42,040
Speaker 1: border of Lynn County in Benton County. And the point

1288
01:07:42,040 --> 01:07:43,680
Speaker 1: of all of that is for me to say that

1289
01:07:43,720 --> 01:07:47,560
Speaker 1: this work is highly not only accessible, but normal people

1290
01:07:47,600 --> 01:07:51,640
Speaker 1: are doing it, not just elite college kids. And that's powerful,

1291
01:07:51,920 --> 01:07:53,720
Speaker 1: because that's powerful.

1292
01:07:54,000 --> 01:08:01,240
Speaker 2: But doing it is getting a grouped together of people

1293
01:08:01,240 --> 01:08:06,680
Speaker 2: from all different walks of life, religious, political, social, and

1294
01:08:06,720 --> 01:08:09,960
Speaker 2: cultural belief sets and talking.

1295
01:08:10,080 --> 01:08:13,880
Speaker 1: It's just doing the American experiment. That's it. There's literally again,

1296
01:08:13,920 --> 01:08:16,760
Speaker 1: there's nothing profound about what I'm doing. I am so

1297
01:08:16,920 --> 01:08:20,160
Speaker 1: looking forward to the day when somebody's like, you know what,

1298
01:08:20,520 --> 01:08:22,559
Speaker 1: I'm going to steal this IP, because the moment they

1299
01:08:22,560 --> 01:08:24,439
Speaker 1: steal that IP, the country's can be back on track.

1300
01:08:25,040 --> 01:08:27,479
Speaker 1: Because our IP is just human nature. It's like, let's

1301
01:08:27,479 --> 01:08:29,240
Speaker 1: have a conversation, talk to each other. And then I

1302
01:08:29,280 --> 01:08:31,040
Speaker 1: look forward to the day of like retreating to the

1303
01:08:31,040 --> 01:08:31,679
Speaker 1: medical books.

1304
01:08:31,680 --> 01:08:33,960
Speaker 2: Give me one of your greatest stories of a meeting

1305
01:08:34,080 --> 01:08:39,320
Speaker 2: that you've experienced and watched two people from alternate realities,

1306
01:08:40,280 --> 01:08:41,320
Speaker 2: fine commonness.

1307
01:08:41,360 --> 01:08:43,120
Speaker 1: So I'm going to give you another Berkeley story because

1308
01:08:43,120 --> 01:08:44,679
Speaker 1: it connects actually a couple of things to talk about.

1309
01:08:44,680 --> 01:08:47,360
Speaker 1: Connects to the student homelessness question, it connects protesters, and

1310
01:08:47,400 --> 01:08:50,000
Speaker 1: it connects the power of a group discussion.

1311
01:08:50,040 --> 01:08:50,800
Speaker 2: Was anybody naked?

1312
01:08:51,520 --> 01:08:57,000
Speaker 1: Nobody was naked? Nobody nobody was though the well, I'll

1313
01:08:57,000 --> 01:08:59,479
Speaker 1: tell you a context. So a couple of quick context facts.

1314
01:09:00,000 --> 01:09:03,080
Speaker 1: Berkeley is this place called People's Park. Now, People's Park

1315
01:09:03,360 --> 01:09:06,760
Speaker 1: has a lot of interesting people in it, to say

1316
01:09:06,760 --> 01:09:09,479
Speaker 1: the least, and it was basically a place created in

1317
01:09:09,560 --> 01:09:13,320
Speaker 1: about the fifties sixties that now has become this massive

1318
01:09:13,360 --> 01:09:18,599
Speaker 1: ground for you know, everybody from like drug addicts to hippies,

1319
01:09:18,680 --> 01:09:20,800
Speaker 1: to people that want to live in Berkeley to homeless people.

1320
01:09:20,800 --> 01:09:23,519
Speaker 1: It's just a thing now. As I said, Berkeley is

1321
01:09:23,560 --> 01:09:27,000
Speaker 1: also a massive college and there's a homelessness problem with

1322
01:09:27,080 --> 01:09:30,719
Speaker 1: students because there's not enough space for university to build housing.

1323
01:09:31,920 --> 01:09:35,160
Speaker 1: And so twenty nineteen, which was our junior year, so

1324
01:09:35,280 --> 01:09:39,040
Speaker 1: this is a fall of twenty nineteen. I might be

1325
01:09:39,080 --> 01:09:40,760
Speaker 1: wrong on the month, but fall of twenty nineteen, I'm

1326
01:09:40,760 --> 01:09:44,439
Speaker 1: pretty sure this crisis speaking, the university proposes let's build

1327
01:09:44,479 --> 01:09:47,920
Speaker 1: a building on People's Park, and man, it started a

1328
01:09:47,920 --> 01:09:50,920
Speaker 1: whole nother shin dig right. They're like People's Park, this

1329
01:09:51,000 --> 01:09:53,960
Speaker 1: is the people's place it's been around. And oddly enough,

1330
01:09:54,000 --> 01:09:58,479
Speaker 1: in this case, the students are actually protesting the very core,

1331
01:09:58,720 --> 01:10:00,960
Speaker 1: you know, interesting People's Park because they're like, Yo, we

1332
01:10:00,960 --> 01:10:01,479
Speaker 1: need housing.

1333
01:10:01,840 --> 01:10:06,200
Speaker 2: Yeah we need housing, but not here and so and so.

1334
01:10:06,280 --> 01:10:08,320
Speaker 1: But a lot of kids also wanted that housing because

1335
01:10:08,360 --> 01:10:10,000
Speaker 1: they were like, we just we need a place to live.

1336
01:10:10,040 --> 01:10:12,200
Speaker 1: And Berkeley rent. Just to give you context, by the way,

1337
01:10:12,760 --> 01:10:14,840
Speaker 1: I lived in one of the cheapest and most crime

1338
01:10:14,880 --> 01:10:17,519
Speaker 1: written parts of the city where like the next year,

1339
01:10:17,600 --> 01:10:19,920
Speaker 1: tragically a student loss his life, like down the street

1340
01:10:20,320 --> 01:10:23,479
Speaker 1: eight hundred dollars a month rent, Wow, eight fifty that's

1341
01:10:23,479 --> 01:10:26,200
Speaker 1: the cheapest. So it's just giving context for how crazy

1342
01:10:26,200 --> 01:10:29,240
Speaker 1: the housing is there for student for student, and there's

1343
01:10:29,240 --> 01:10:32,200
Speaker 1: no dorms beyond freshman year, so you got to live

1344
01:10:32,280 --> 01:10:34,919
Speaker 1: in that rent or you're you got to figure something out.

1345
01:10:35,200 --> 01:10:37,160
Speaker 1: Point of all this is, we said, hey, let's let's

1346
01:10:37,160 --> 01:10:39,920
Speaker 1: host a discussion. Now there's a wonderful part in organization

1347
01:10:40,000 --> 01:10:42,640
Speaker 1: that your your audience might be interested knowing because you're like, hey,

1348
01:10:42,640 --> 01:10:44,400
Speaker 1: we're adults. We don't we're not on college camps. What

1349
01:10:44,479 --> 01:10:46,320
Speaker 1: do we do. It's a great part an organization called

1350
01:10:46,320 --> 01:10:50,240
Speaker 1: Braver Angels that has these associations across the country, and

1351
01:10:50,280 --> 01:10:52,400
Speaker 1: so we called them up because we're like, this could

1352
01:10:52,400 --> 01:10:54,120
Speaker 1: be a really big discussion, and so they have this

1353
01:10:54,160 --> 01:10:57,400
Speaker 1: thing called the Brave Angels Debate, where it's very similar

1354
01:10:57,400 --> 01:11:00,400
Speaker 1: to Bridge discussion with some sort of caveat. So putting

1355
01:11:00,400 --> 01:11:02,880
Speaker 1: that aside for a second, we're like, let's hold a discussion,

1356
01:11:03,080 --> 01:11:05,840
Speaker 1: and let's hold this debate. Let's bring everybody in. So

1357
01:11:05,880 --> 01:11:09,400
Speaker 1: we invite the homeless students, they show up. We invite

1358
01:11:09,640 --> 01:11:14,960
Speaker 1: the protesters in People's Park. We extended an invitation of

1359
01:11:15,000 --> 01:11:17,479
Speaker 1: the administration, but I don't think they showed up. We

1360
01:11:17,520 --> 01:11:20,519
Speaker 1: invited some Berkeley city officials and we had a room

1361
01:11:20,520 --> 01:11:22,760
Speaker 1: of I would say seventy five eighty people that were

1362
01:11:22,800 --> 01:11:25,559
Speaker 1: all sort of key people that were affected, so not

1363
01:11:25,600 --> 01:11:27,759
Speaker 1: like randoms that have no personal stake in the issue,

1364
01:11:27,800 --> 01:11:30,760
Speaker 1: like actual people out of opinions. And it started off

1365
01:11:30,840 --> 01:11:32,639
Speaker 1: just like the Milo thing. And this is a common

1366
01:11:32,720 --> 01:11:36,200
Speaker 1: pattern when you put humans together in a room that

1367
01:11:36,400 --> 01:11:39,080
Speaker 1: fundamentally mistrust each other and have the guards up. How

1368
01:11:39,120 --> 01:11:41,480
Speaker 1: are they going to show up not ready to communicate

1369
01:11:42,160 --> 01:11:44,439
Speaker 1: by the end. So this initial person was like, I'm

1370
01:11:44,439 --> 01:11:47,360
Speaker 1: going to protest this. He showed up, sat down, and

1371
01:11:47,360 --> 01:11:49,040
Speaker 1: then stood up and said I'm going to protest this.

1372
01:11:49,120 --> 01:11:50,760
Speaker 1: I was like, ed, give it a moment, just give

1373
01:11:50,800 --> 01:11:52,439
Speaker 1: it a chance. He's like, no, no, no, I'm going to

1374
01:11:52,439 --> 01:11:54,760
Speaker 1: protest this right now. You know what's hilarious is by

1375
01:11:54,800 --> 01:11:58,640
Speaker 1: the end of this conversation, Coach Bill, that guy was

1376
01:11:58,680 --> 01:12:01,439
Speaker 1: participating the most in conversation. He was one of the

1377
01:12:01,479 --> 01:12:04,040
Speaker 1: homeless people that came and he brought his posse of

1378
01:12:04,120 --> 01:12:07,360
Speaker 1: people and they were jumping in. You got homeless students,

1379
01:12:07,360 --> 01:12:10,479
Speaker 1: you got cow students, yet homeless people, you got end

1380
01:12:10,680 --> 01:12:14,759
Speaker 1: by the end of it, we actually broke some common ground.

1381
01:12:15,080 --> 01:12:17,759
Speaker 1: And what came out of that discussion was a real

1382
01:12:17,840 --> 01:12:21,880
Speaker 1: proposal around what could be done. And I don't remember

1383
01:12:21,920 --> 01:12:25,320
Speaker 1: the specifics, but the process of it was like I

1384
01:12:25,400 --> 01:12:29,240
Speaker 1: was like, this is again, time and time again. We

1385
01:12:29,840 --> 01:12:34,400
Speaker 1: underestimate how common we are, and we overestimate how different

1386
01:12:34,400 --> 01:12:37,880
Speaker 1: we are, and we've completely given up on the process

1387
01:12:38,240 --> 01:12:41,519
Speaker 1: of this to the conversation. And so now we'll tell

1388
01:12:41,560 --> 01:12:43,519
Speaker 1: you what my challenge is. My challenge is what we

1389
01:12:43,600 --> 01:12:46,280
Speaker 1: experienced after that mile event where only five people showed up,

1390
01:12:46,680 --> 01:12:50,600
Speaker 1: which is, you work in the lumber business. If a

1391
01:12:50,640 --> 01:12:52,559
Speaker 1: tree falls down in force, nobody saw that tree fell,

1392
01:12:52,600 --> 01:12:56,160
Speaker 1: it never fell. Nobody sees his work happening, and they

1393
01:12:56,160 --> 01:12:58,160
Speaker 1: only see the crazy people in the news. They're never

1394
01:12:58,200 --> 01:13:00,360
Speaker 1: going to believe it. And so we have to do

1395
01:13:00,479 --> 01:13:02,800
Speaker 1: and what you're doing with this podcast is build a

1396
01:13:02,840 --> 01:13:06,920
Speaker 1: cultural movement and a change where you're empowering everyday people

1397
01:13:07,439 --> 01:13:10,480
Speaker 1: to say that that's not okay and this is possible.

1398
01:13:10,960 --> 01:13:13,960
Speaker 1: So sorry, that was another tiree, But like that was

1399
01:13:14,040 --> 01:13:16,439
Speaker 1: one more example that often sticks in my mind that

1400
01:13:16,479 --> 01:13:17,960
Speaker 1: I think brings up a lot of different parts of

1401
01:13:18,000 --> 01:13:21,360
Speaker 1: the story.

1402
01:13:21,439 --> 01:13:24,679
Speaker 2: And from all of this is born Bridge USA.

1403
01:13:24,800 --> 01:13:28,600
Speaker 1: Bridge USA.

1404
01:13:29,280 --> 01:13:46,760
Speaker 2: We'll be right back tell us what Bridge USA is today.

1405
01:13:46,840 --> 01:13:50,840
Speaker 1: So Bridge USA is an amazing group of young people.

1406
01:13:50,840 --> 01:13:52,639
Speaker 1: Our entire team is under the age of twenty six,

1407
01:13:53,680 --> 01:13:57,920
Speaker 1: recent college grads. I graduated in twenty twenty and each

1408
01:13:57,920 --> 01:13:59,439
Speaker 1: of us had many different things that we could have

1409
01:13:59,439 --> 01:14:02,640
Speaker 1: done with our line. And I had some good mentors

1410
01:14:02,680 --> 01:14:04,599
Speaker 1: and people that were like, you know, take the risk,

1411
01:14:04,680 --> 01:14:06,479
Speaker 1: and I love this work, and so we jump right

1412
01:14:06,520 --> 01:14:09,360
Speaker 1: into it twenty twenty one full time from Berkeley, and

1413
01:14:09,680 --> 01:14:12,439
Speaker 1: since then we're now a team of about fifteen people.

1414
01:14:12,720 --> 01:14:15,800
Speaker 1: We have about sixty college twenty high school chapters. Last

1415
01:14:15,840 --> 01:14:19,120
Speaker 1: semester we engage about three thousand, five hundred students across

1416
01:14:19,200 --> 01:14:22,360
Speaker 1: our semesters and campuses. And I think that's nothing. It's

1417
01:14:22,360 --> 01:14:25,679
Speaker 1: a great data point. But our goal is to reach

1418
01:14:25,720 --> 01:14:27,600
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty chapters.

1419
01:14:27,640 --> 01:14:30,919
Speaker 2: And the which would be then ten thousand students.

1420
01:14:31,040 --> 01:14:35,479
Speaker 1: It would be it would be around twelve thousand students

1421
01:14:35,520 --> 01:14:35,920
Speaker 1: a semester.

1422
01:14:36,040 --> 01:14:40,759
Speaker 2: Wow, And all with the goal all of getting young

1423
01:14:40,880 --> 01:14:47,600
Speaker 2: people who have been infiltrated with social media and parents

1424
01:14:47,640 --> 01:14:51,920
Speaker 2: and whatever goes on in the schools and professors and

1425
01:14:52,040 --> 01:14:57,120
Speaker 2: teachers and the national media and all of which have

1426
01:14:57,360 --> 01:15:01,920
Speaker 2: shaped these very impressible minds to come together and talk

1427
01:15:02,920 --> 01:15:03,439
Speaker 2: and talk.

1428
01:15:03,680 --> 01:15:06,519
Speaker 1: But I'll say two other quick things. One is it's

1429
01:15:06,560 --> 01:15:10,439
Speaker 1: not just young people talking. This is about creating norms

1430
01:15:10,520 --> 01:15:12,920
Speaker 1: change in this country. What I mean by norms change

1431
01:15:13,520 --> 01:15:17,439
Speaker 1: is this is about what I call the hopeful majority,

1432
01:15:17,439 --> 01:15:22,400
Speaker 1: which you call the army of normal people to essentially

1433
01:15:22,640 --> 01:15:29,240
Speaker 1: be heard. That's it. It's what Ronald Reagan did, so

1434
01:15:29,360 --> 01:15:31,679
Speaker 1: Newke Gingersh did with the moral majority. It's what Nixon

1435
01:15:31,720 --> 01:15:34,040
Speaker 1: did with the solent majority. It's what Barack Obama did

1436
01:15:34,040 --> 01:15:37,240
Speaker 1: with change Yes we can, It's what Trump did with

1437
01:15:37,280 --> 01:15:41,160
Speaker 1: the populist right. Is our fundamental task, and I think

1438
01:15:41,280 --> 01:15:46,599
Speaker 1: challenge is to give power and voice to the sense

1439
01:15:46,640 --> 01:15:51,040
Speaker 1: of fear, the eggshells that everybody's walking on, the desire

1440
01:15:51,120 --> 01:15:53,800
Speaker 1: to have human connection and yet that does not exist.

1441
01:15:54,360 --> 01:15:56,160
Speaker 1: That's our objective and the reason why I think young

1442
01:15:56,200 --> 01:15:59,639
Speaker 1: people are so crucial to the effort is take any

1443
01:15:59,640 --> 01:16:04,400
Speaker 1: social movement. I'll give you three. Civil Rights movement. One

1444
01:16:04,439 --> 01:16:06,439
Speaker 1: of the key things that kicked it off were four

1445
01:16:06,479 --> 01:16:10,160
Speaker 1: students that walked into their local F. W. Woolworth outside

1446
01:16:10,160 --> 01:16:12,000
Speaker 1: of North Carolina and set it in the lunch counters.

1447
01:16:12,520 --> 01:16:15,519
Speaker 1: It was like a Mendela the nineties South Africa. It

1448
01:16:15,560 --> 01:16:17,760
Speaker 1: was a contingent of young people that allowed him to

1449
01:16:17,800 --> 01:16:21,599
Speaker 1: achieve tremendous cultural power. The fact is that I think

1450
01:16:21,640 --> 01:16:23,320
Speaker 1: young people have a lot of cultural power, and I

1451
01:16:23,320 --> 01:16:25,800
Speaker 1: think old people have a lot of material power. And

1452
01:16:25,840 --> 01:16:29,280
Speaker 1: if you combine the cultural narrative power and a material

1453
01:16:29,320 --> 01:16:34,280
Speaker 1: power into one. It's really powerful. The only other thing

1454
01:16:34,320 --> 01:16:37,559
Speaker 1: I'll say with respect to our broader objective, and this

1455
01:16:37,600 --> 01:16:39,840
Speaker 1: is where I'll defend my generation a little bit. And

1456
01:16:39,880 --> 01:16:42,799
Speaker 1: then every generation's got their tests. Just for some contexts,

1457
01:16:42,840 --> 01:16:45,600
Speaker 1: I was born in ninety eight, and people will often say, like,

1458
01:16:46,520 --> 01:16:49,400
Speaker 1: why does a lot of gen Z either seem highly

1459
01:16:49,400 --> 01:16:52,240
Speaker 1: skeptical of politics or does not care or is so

1460
01:16:52,320 --> 01:16:54,720
Speaker 1: buried in their phone, or does not believe in the

1461
01:16:54,760 --> 01:16:56,920
Speaker 1: possibility of democracy. In fact, there's a poll created by

1462
01:16:56,920 --> 01:16:59,200
Speaker 1: the Harvard instut of Politics two years ago that said,

1463
01:16:59,439 --> 01:17:01,720
Speaker 1: I think it was like forty seven percent of young

1464
01:17:01,760 --> 01:17:04,480
Speaker 1: people are like fifty one or something. It was pretty sicizable.

1465
01:17:04,479 --> 01:17:06,160
Speaker 1: It was like, they don't believe in the power of

1466
01:17:06,160 --> 01:17:09,599
Speaker 1: democracy as a system for creaty change that was born

1467
01:17:09,560 --> 01:17:10,639
Speaker 1: in ninety eight, which.

1468
01:17:10,439 --> 01:17:14,520
Speaker 2: By the way, I've read and I god do that

1469
01:17:14,520 --> 01:17:16,360
Speaker 2: that is heartbreaking to me.

1470
01:17:16,880 --> 01:17:20,400
Speaker 1: So again this is a simple marketing challenge. It's like,

1471
01:17:20,640 --> 01:17:22,760
Speaker 1: all right, that's the problem set Why so we can

1472
01:17:22,800 --> 01:17:25,559
Speaker 1: meet them where they are. You take somebody my age

1473
01:17:26,439 --> 01:17:30,000
Speaker 1: born in December of ninety eight. I'm twenty four. It's

1474
01:17:30,760 --> 01:17:36,960
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three right now. I was I think two

1475
01:17:37,080 --> 01:17:40,360
Speaker 1: years old when nine to eleven happened. I was going

1476
01:17:40,400 --> 01:17:43,400
Speaker 1: to middle school when the Great Recession happened. I was

1477
01:17:43,439 --> 01:17:46,599
Speaker 1: graduated in high school when the twenty sixteen presidential election happened.

1478
01:17:47,160 --> 01:17:49,840
Speaker 1: I graduated college in twenty twenty when the pandemic hit

1479
01:17:50,240 --> 01:17:54,040
Speaker 1: the capitol riots happened, and you had the Trump byden election.

1480
01:17:55,040 --> 01:17:57,839
Speaker 1: And now it's twenty twenty three. Not a great sample

1481
01:17:57,880 --> 01:18:00,759
Speaker 1: size of democratic progress and growth.

1482
01:18:01,880 --> 01:18:05,479
Speaker 2: Like that's the lett That's a really fair comment.

1483
01:18:05,800 --> 01:18:07,880
Speaker 1: So I say that now many people, So I talk

1484
01:18:07,920 --> 01:18:09,439
Speaker 1: to a lot of people in the sixties that were

1485
01:18:09,439 --> 01:18:12,000
Speaker 1: in Berkeley at that time, which was also very tumultuous time.

1486
01:18:12,600 --> 01:18:14,639
Speaker 1: That was probably the most comparable decade in some ways

1487
01:18:14,640 --> 01:18:17,920
Speaker 1: to what we're going through right now. And when you

1488
01:18:17,960 --> 01:18:20,240
Speaker 1: look at it from that lens, I don't think it's

1489
01:18:20,240 --> 01:18:24,479
Speaker 1: necessarily meant to excuse the skepticism and the critique, but

1490
01:18:24,560 --> 01:18:28,479
Speaker 1: I think it's meant to demonstrate that if all you

1491
01:18:28,600 --> 01:18:33,240
Speaker 1: know is a house on fire, then there's basically two options.

1492
01:18:33,280 --> 01:18:35,280
Speaker 1: One you either try to will up and put out

1493
01:18:35,280 --> 01:18:37,439
Speaker 1: the fire, which is what myself and my fellow young

1494
01:18:37,479 --> 01:18:42,240
Speaker 1: leaders doing, or you escape the house, which is frankly

1495
01:18:42,280 --> 01:18:46,800
Speaker 1: a very understandable notion, and so how do we challenge it.

1496
01:18:46,840 --> 01:18:47,559
Speaker 1: That's our objective.

1497
01:18:48,920 --> 01:18:53,000
Speaker 2: I think that's I think it's really well stated. A

1498
01:18:53,000 --> 01:18:55,280
Speaker 2: lot of wisdom from a twenty four year old kid

1499
01:18:55,360 --> 01:18:59,040
Speaker 2: who you know from India.

1500
01:19:00,040 --> 01:19:06,519
Speaker 1: Hey, we're not that bad, you know, Hey India, there's

1501
01:19:06,560 --> 01:19:09,760
Speaker 1: a hot take. And so India's world's largest democracy. It's

1502
01:19:09,800 --> 01:19:11,439
Speaker 1: also it's got a lot of corruptions.

1503
01:19:11,800 --> 01:19:14,000
Speaker 2: It's the world's largest country. I think just this year

1504
01:19:14,040 --> 01:19:17,280
Speaker 2: it took over China and population right, yeah, yeah, so

1505
01:19:17,680 --> 01:19:20,439
Speaker 2: a democracy makes it. It's the world's largest anything.

1506
01:19:20,760 --> 01:19:22,760
Speaker 1: Yes, that it is. But part of the reason why

1507
01:19:22,880 --> 01:19:25,120
Speaker 1: again I became very invested in Bridge is because we

1508
01:19:25,160 --> 01:19:28,080
Speaker 1: saw how dysfunctional the democracies too. But the other thing

1509
01:19:28,080 --> 01:19:31,720
Speaker 1: about India is I think this is something that I've

1510
01:19:31,760 --> 01:19:33,320
Speaker 1: been seeing over the past couple of years because when

1511
01:19:33,360 --> 01:19:35,760
Speaker 1: I started twenty seventeen, when we started doing this, my

1512
01:19:35,800 --> 01:19:40,360
Speaker 1: mom would be like, She'd be like, not, there's there's

1513
01:19:40,360 --> 01:19:43,280
Speaker 1: no Indian people out in politics. And weirdly, I don't

1514
01:19:43,280 --> 01:19:45,240
Speaker 1: know if you've been seeing this, but there's a lot

1515
01:19:45,439 --> 01:19:52,519
Speaker 1: oddly's leave well Hale, Nikki Haley, Kamala Harris Ramaswami. We

1516
01:19:52,560 --> 01:19:55,360
Speaker 1: had on the podcast, Bobby Jindle, you speak the guy

1517
01:19:55,400 --> 01:19:59,640
Speaker 1: in the Louisiana Bobby, You've got the vake Morphew's.

1518
01:19:59,280 --> 01:20:00,759
Speaker 2: Nobody sleep at on these Indians.

1519
01:20:00,840 --> 01:20:03,680
Speaker 1: I know, Hey, hey, this is a hotter draft pick

1520
01:20:03,760 --> 01:20:04,919
Speaker 1: than the Memphis Grists.

1521
01:20:07,040 --> 01:20:13,879
Speaker 2: So here's the deal, dude, I mean, grow up born American,

1522
01:20:13,960 --> 01:20:16,360
Speaker 2: grow up half Indian, half American.

1523
01:20:16,560 --> 01:20:18,320
Speaker 1: Be The.

1524
01:20:20,160 --> 01:20:23,280
Speaker 2: Revelation about your grandfather's impact on you, I think is

1525
01:20:23,640 --> 01:20:28,640
Speaker 2: significant because you talk about a normal guy that your granddad,

1526
01:20:29,040 --> 01:20:33,479
Speaker 2: and to have him be such a significant imprint on you,

1527
01:20:33,600 --> 01:20:37,280
Speaker 2: I think is telling. And to go to Berkeley and

1528
01:20:37,400 --> 01:20:41,640
Speaker 2: having grown up apartments in your immigrant family chasing the

1529
01:20:41,680 --> 01:20:46,160
Speaker 2: American dream, and here you are, at twenty four, having

1530
01:20:46,320 --> 01:20:51,960
Speaker 2: lived that reality and then gone through probably the biggest

1531
01:20:52,120 --> 01:20:56,280
Speaker 2: protest thing to happen at Berkeley in forty years, and

1532
01:20:56,400 --> 01:21:02,760
Speaker 2: to now be heading up and organizations specifically meant to

1533
01:21:03,000 --> 01:21:08,919
Speaker 2: fix our American democracy. I think it's a beautiful, ironic

1534
01:21:09,040 --> 01:21:14,280
Speaker 2: tale and speaks to the power of an army of

1535
01:21:14,360 --> 01:21:18,240
Speaker 2: normal people and what it can do if someone wants

1536
01:21:18,280 --> 01:21:20,400
Speaker 2: to get involved or hear more about it, how they

1537
01:21:20,400 --> 01:21:21,000
Speaker 2: contact you.

1538
01:21:21,479 --> 01:21:24,880
Speaker 1: I appreciate that you think this is going to be

1539
01:21:24,920 --> 01:21:27,000
Speaker 1: a cop out but if you go to contact at

1540
01:21:27,040 --> 01:21:31,400
Speaker 1: BRIDGEUICAD dot org, that email goes straight to my inbox perfect.

1541
01:21:31,520 --> 01:21:35,840
Speaker 1: And when I'm late, it's like eleven pm in some

1542
01:21:35,960 --> 01:21:38,760
Speaker 1: hotel room far away in like Kansas or something, and

1543
01:21:38,800 --> 01:21:40,800
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there and I'm lonely. That's what I do.

1544
01:21:40,920 --> 01:21:41,800
Speaker 1: I read that in box.

1545
01:21:41,920 --> 01:21:46,280
Speaker 2: That's good and really contacts easier than MANU.

1546
01:21:46,560 --> 01:21:52,040
Speaker 1: So exactly, just just call me contact. I'll say one

1547
01:21:52,120 --> 01:21:54,320
Speaker 1: last very quick thing, which is as you were telling me,

1548
01:21:54,880 --> 01:21:57,120
Speaker 1: like you're repeating the twenty four year old thing and

1549
01:21:57,240 --> 01:21:59,280
Speaker 1: us doing all the stuff and all that. The reason

1550
01:21:59,320 --> 01:22:01,400
Speaker 1: why it gives me bumps is like and I don't

1551
01:22:01,400 --> 01:22:03,759
Speaker 1: know where this comes from for me, Like I genuinely

1552
01:22:03,800 --> 01:22:07,880
Speaker 1: have no idea, but I love this place. This you know,

1553
01:22:08,040 --> 01:22:10,679
Speaker 1: when we used to when we were growing up in

1554
01:22:10,680 --> 01:22:12,519
Speaker 1: in India and then we would move back and forth,

1555
01:22:12,560 --> 01:22:14,760
Speaker 1: and then I would travel back and forth. It was

1556
01:22:14,760 --> 01:22:16,439
Speaker 1: really interested to being an army medic for a very

1557
01:22:16,439 --> 01:22:18,200
Speaker 1: long time and it was a thing in my family

1558
01:22:18,240 --> 01:22:21,040
Speaker 1: a lot. Like I used to ask my grandfather like

1559
01:22:21,120 --> 01:22:22,960
Speaker 1: should I join the Indian military? Should I join the

1560
01:22:23,000 --> 01:22:25,320
Speaker 1: American military? What do you think should happen? And he

1561
01:22:25,439 --> 01:22:30,400
Speaker 1: was like which house feeds you? And I said, well,

1562
01:22:30,760 --> 01:22:33,679
Speaker 1: you know, what do you mean? He's like, which soil

1563
01:22:34,160 --> 01:22:37,120
Speaker 1: do you live on? What soil cares for you? You

1564
01:22:37,160 --> 01:22:39,160
Speaker 1: know who showed up at our doorstep when nine to

1565
01:22:39,160 --> 01:22:42,160
Speaker 1: eleven happened in India to check on you? Can you

1566
01:22:42,200 --> 01:22:46,880
Speaker 1: believe that State Department sent somebody to a state in

1567
01:22:46,880 --> 01:22:48,800
Speaker 1: India out of the consult because they were doing checks

1568
01:22:48,840 --> 01:22:55,800
Speaker 1: on foreign citizens. And you know, I love history, and

1569
01:22:56,560 --> 01:23:00,000
Speaker 1: all of us play an extraordinarily insignificant part in history.

1570
01:23:00,920 --> 01:23:03,360
Speaker 1: You take your footnote of who your favorite leader is

1571
01:23:03,400 --> 01:23:07,080
Speaker 1: in American history or whatever. They maybe get a sentence

1572
01:23:07,120 --> 01:23:10,120
Speaker 1: in the Book of Human History. We all have a

1573
01:23:10,280 --> 01:23:13,880
Speaker 1: small part. But what's so amazing about this place is

1574
01:23:14,840 --> 01:23:17,479
Speaker 1: we're trying to imagine. I told you there's a society

1575
01:23:17,520 --> 01:23:19,840
Speaker 1: of three hundred and thirty million people that are all

1576
01:23:19,880 --> 01:23:22,559
Speaker 1: different from each other. And you're now a thousand years

1577
01:23:22,600 --> 01:23:25,919
Speaker 1: in the future, and you've studied the species called humans

1578
01:23:26,360 --> 01:23:29,040
Speaker 1: that have exists for one hundred thousand years. And in

1579
01:23:29,080 --> 01:23:32,800
Speaker 1: those ninety nine thousand years, they were violent, and they fought,

1580
01:23:32,880 --> 01:23:36,360
Speaker 1: and they lived in tribes, and they were essentially not

1581
01:23:36,479 --> 01:23:38,719
Speaker 1: what you see today in society. And that's their history.

1582
01:23:38,760 --> 01:23:40,719
Speaker 1: And now you're saying, these three hundred thirty million people

1583
01:23:41,400 --> 01:23:45,200
Speaker 1: are trying to live together, heavily armed and giving each

1584
01:23:45,240 --> 01:23:47,320
Speaker 1: other a voice, and living a system of governance where

1585
01:23:47,320 --> 01:23:50,840
Speaker 1: you and I are valued. That is the most ambitious

1586
01:23:50,840 --> 01:23:54,000
Speaker 1: experiment in the history of humanity. And just the last day,

1587
01:23:54,120 --> 01:23:55,920
Speaker 1: our team had just hired a few new people and

1588
01:23:55,920 --> 01:23:58,400
Speaker 1: we were having all hands meeting. Now'll end with this.

1589
01:23:59,600 --> 01:24:01,000
Speaker 1: We're like, you know, why do you do what you do?

1590
01:24:01,040 --> 01:24:03,920
Speaker 1: And I said, like, look, you know one of our

1591
01:24:03,960 --> 01:24:05,840
Speaker 1: mentors that passed away last year, name was Rob Stein.

1592
01:24:05,920 --> 01:24:08,000
Speaker 1: He talked about his legacy when he was dying, and

1593
01:24:08,040 --> 01:24:11,080
Speaker 1: he was somebody that gave us a lot of knowledge.

1594
01:24:11,080 --> 01:24:13,120
Speaker 1: And he said, you know what I most care about

1595
01:24:13,120 --> 01:24:14,720
Speaker 1: as I pass away now is not the things that

1596
01:24:14,800 --> 01:24:17,160
Speaker 1: I did, but the things that I think people like

1597
01:24:17,240 --> 01:24:20,200
Speaker 1: you will do. And that really changed my perspectives. I said,

1598
01:24:20,280 --> 01:24:22,439
Speaker 1: you know, our team, I said, imagine now you're eighty

1599
01:24:22,479 --> 01:24:25,040
Speaker 1: years old, You've thankfully got get grand kids. And they

1600
01:24:25,040 --> 01:24:27,800
Speaker 1: asked you, what were you doing in the twenties, you know,

1601
01:24:27,840 --> 01:24:30,599
Speaker 1: one of the most divided times in American history, And

1602
01:24:30,640 --> 01:24:33,599
Speaker 1: you said, I tried my best to try to solve

1603
01:24:33,640 --> 01:24:36,040
Speaker 1: one of the most pernicious problems the country's faced, and

1604
01:24:36,080 --> 01:24:39,120
Speaker 1: maybe you failed, but that's a proud answer. And so

1605
01:24:39,280 --> 01:24:41,960
Speaker 1: I love this place. I don't know where it comes from.

1606
01:24:42,520 --> 01:24:44,479
Speaker 1: I wish I was faking it because it would make

1607
01:24:44,479 --> 01:24:46,280
Speaker 1: it so much easier for me to walk away from it.

1608
01:24:46,800 --> 01:24:48,960
Speaker 1: But this is humanity's best shot.

1609
01:24:51,200 --> 01:24:55,400
Speaker 2: And that, my friend, is why you are absolutely a

1610
01:24:55,439 --> 01:24:57,080
Speaker 2: member of the army of normal folks.

1611
01:24:57,120 --> 01:24:58,759
Speaker 1: You're a build the army.

1612
01:24:58,960 --> 01:25:01,800
Speaker 2: You're a guy who sees a need and fills it.

1613
01:25:01,880 --> 01:25:04,320
Speaker 2: And it's an amazing story. And I got to tell you,

1614
01:25:04,880 --> 01:25:07,479
Speaker 2: it gives us fifty five year old goosebumps to look

1615
01:25:07,520 --> 01:25:10,080
Speaker 2: at a twenty four year old kid say I love

1616
01:25:10,120 --> 01:25:12,080
Speaker 2: my country and I want to make it better. We

1617
01:25:12,280 --> 01:25:14,400
Speaker 2: just need a whole bunch more of you, bro, And

1618
01:25:14,439 --> 01:25:17,080
Speaker 2: the work you're doing is phenomenal, and I hope people

1619
01:25:17,200 --> 01:25:22,640
Speaker 2: will start chapters, support you, financially, check you out, and

1620
01:25:24,200 --> 01:25:27,800
Speaker 2: let more people know about the fact that all these

1621
01:25:27,840 --> 01:25:32,280
Speaker 2: twenty year olds run around here are not anti democratic

1622
01:25:34,520 --> 01:25:38,840
Speaker 2: change the world in the worst way possible. People. There's

1623
01:25:39,000 --> 01:25:42,439
Speaker 2: a whole host of guys like you that love this country,

1624
01:25:42,439 --> 01:25:45,080
Speaker 2: that want to make it better and are not trying

1625
01:25:45,080 --> 01:25:48,800
Speaker 2: to do it in a vacuum, but rather in a

1626
01:25:48,920 --> 01:25:52,920
Speaker 2: very inclusive way. I've always said we can be a

1627
01:25:53,000 --> 01:25:57,439
Speaker 2: forward thinking, evolving society without abandoning the core principles that

1628
01:25:57,520 --> 01:25:59,360
Speaker 2: got us here in the first place. And I really,

1629
01:25:59,400 --> 01:26:02,920
Speaker 2: genuinely I think you aren't embodying me of that. And

1630
01:26:04,160 --> 01:26:06,200
Speaker 2: congratulations to what you've done so far. I can't wait

1631
01:26:06,240 --> 01:26:08,800
Speaker 2: to see where you go. And I really appreciate you

1632
01:26:08,880 --> 01:26:09,559
Speaker 2: joining me today.

1633
01:26:09,880 --> 01:26:10,559
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me.

1634
01:26:10,560 --> 01:26:18,400
Speaker 2: We've got a country to build, and thank you for

1635
01:26:18,479 --> 01:26:22,519
Speaker 2: joining us this week. If Manu or another guest has

1636
01:26:22,560 --> 01:26:26,280
Speaker 2: inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action

1637
01:26:26,760 --> 01:26:30,400
Speaker 2: by starting a Bridge USA chapter, by donating to them,

1638
01:26:30,520 --> 01:26:35,439
Speaker 2: or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love

1639
01:26:35,520 --> 01:26:38,679
Speaker 2: to hear about it. You can write me anytime at

1640
01:26:38,800 --> 01:26:43,479
Speaker 2: Bill at normalfolks dot us, or call or text us

1641
01:26:43,680 --> 01:26:47,840
Speaker 2: at nine oh one three five two one three sixty six.

1642
01:26:48,400 --> 01:26:51,080
Speaker 2: And if you enjoyed this episode, share with friends and

1643
01:26:51,160 --> 01:26:55,000
Speaker 2: on social, subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it,

1644
01:26:55,400 --> 01:26:59,360
Speaker 2: become a premium member at normalfolks dot us. All these

1645
01:26:59,400 --> 01:27:03,559
Speaker 2: things that will help us grow an army of normal folks.

1646
01:27:04,000 --> 01:27:07,360
Speaker 2: Thanks to our producer, Iron Light Labs, I'm Bill Courtney

1647
01:27:07,840 --> 01:27:09,000
Speaker 2: and i'll see you next week.