An Army of Normal Folks - Brian Schwartz: I Want to Mow Your Lawn (Pt 2)

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

After losing his job, Brian felt called to contribute to society in some way while looking for a new gig. He found mowing his own lawn to be therapeutic, so he figured why not offer to do it for folks in need. His accidental nonprofit I Want To Mow Your Lawn has grown into its own army of 1,404 normal folks who’ve mowed the lawns of over 2,000 people!Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney with An Army of Normal Folks, and we continue now with part two of Alex's conversation with Brian Schwartz right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. In 2020, a group of young women found themselves in an AI-fuelled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts. This is Levertown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg, and Kaleidoscope about

the rise of deepfake pornography and the battle to stop it. Listen to Levertown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer, host of the podcast The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told. This season explores women from the 19th century to now. Women who were murderers and scammers, but also women who were photojournalists, lawyers, writers, and more. This podcast tells more than just the brutal, gory details of horrific acts.

I delve into the good, the bad, the difficult, and all the nuance I can find, because these are the stories that we need to know to understand the intersection of society, justice, and the fascinating workings of the human psyche. Join me every week as I tell some of the most enthralling true crime stories about women who are not just victims, but heroes or villains,

or often somewhere in between. Listen to the greatest true crime stories ever told on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Brendan Patrick Hughes, host of Divine Intervention. This is a story about radical nuns in combat boots and wild haired priests trading blows with J. Edgar Hoover in a hell bent effort to sabotage a war. J. Edgar Hoover in a hell-bent effort to sabotage a war. J. Edgar Hoover was furious.

He was out of his mind, and he wanted to bring the Catholic left to its knees. Listen to Divine Intervention on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I am Bob Pipman, chairman and CEO of iHeart Media. I'm excited to introduce a brand new season of my podcast, Math and Magic, Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing. I'm having conversations with some folks across a wide range of industries to hear how they

reach the top of their fields and the lessons they learned along the way that everyone can use. I'll be joined by innovative leaders like Chairman and CEO of Elf Beauty, Tarang Amin. Legendary singer-songwriter and philanthropist, Jewel. Being a rock star is very fun, but helping people is way more fun. And Damian Maldonado, CEO of American Financing. I figured out the formula,

I just have to work hard, then that's magic. Join me as we uncover innovations in data and analytics, the math, and the ever important creative spark, the magic. Listen to Math and Magic on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey y'all, I'm Maria Fernanda Diaz. When You're Invisible is my love letter to the working class people and immigrants who shaped me.

Season two, share stories about community and being underestimated. All the greatest changes have happened when a couple of people said, this sucks, let's do something about it. We get paid to serve you, but we're made out of the same things. It's rare to have black male teachers. Sometimes I am the testament.

Listen to When You're Invisible on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. One of the things you just said is that neighbors reaching out, that's interesting. I wouldn't have thought about that. Why are, I mean, I can kind of guess, but tell me why neighbors are reaching out being grateful that you guys. Well, that's a broad aspect, right? It's a blend of both neighbors reaching out on behalf of their home, their neighbors

who could use the help. Obviously we wanna speak with the homeowners directly for a myriad of reasons to get their permission. Cause it helps the overall neighborhood look good. Cause maybe that neighbor of reasons to get their permission because it helps the overall neighborhood look good because maybe that neighbor is trying to sell their property but they don't make that sale because the neighborhood isn't looking pretty right but at the same time also on premise I have I've literally seen like neighbors walk out of the door or look over the fence

saying thank you for doing that like They've been having some trouble. So it's multifaceted. And that speaks to the point of going back to August of 2020 at a time when I wasn't even thinking about creating a nonprofit. There was this perfect stranger, this woman in New York named Sloan, who sent a snail mail, like a letter in the mail that said, I saw the story about you.

Again, this was a person that I was not ever, we didn't help her with lawns, but I guess it was a time when she needed to hear or see something. I didn't know what she was going through. I didn't know this person. She wrote me a letter saying, or see something. I didn't know what she was going through. I didn't know this person. She wrote me a letter saying, dear Brian, I saw a story about you mowing lawns.

It gave me some hope and inspiration. And then she went on to say, I once saw on a t-shirt, be the reason someone believes in the goodness of people. And she left it off with, you are that reason, sir. And that, it made me cry and it was something that I needed to hear in that moment it made me feel valued like I was doing something meaningful and I wanted to scale up that feeling right like realizing I'm onto something just bigger than myself now and that

changed my whole mindset from doing something to keeping me busy until I figure out the next step, to finding meaning and purpose in something. And that's why I keep doing it. One thing with the gap of 10,000 requests and 2,000 people, you have a really funny line of like, there's always people out there that probably hate me. You're not putting it.

Yeah. There's a bunch of mechanisms that probably hate me. You're not putting it. Yeah. There's a bunch of mechanisms I've put in place, including simple things like autoresponder on all of our social media platforms and even some of the emails that we have set up just to at least confirm that we have received their message. I tried in the beginning to respond to every request even on social media. Now I think I probably have a pretty big backlog on

our Facebook page and I feel bad that I have not been able to get around to everyone. We do what we can when we can. I've definitely lost sleep over the fact that I haven't been able to help everyone that has reached out. And so we just try to celebrate the wins. One thing I would share, one of the reasons I wanted to bring it up is, I think almost every Army member,

member of our Army, normal folks, and people listening right now should sign up with you guys as a volunteer. And some will have more time and they can start getting rolling on it now. But part of what I was thinking when I was preparing for the interview last night is even if you just sign up

and then you get this ding of, hey, somebody around me needs help. I think you're more likely to go do it then. Even if you're not planning to do it the next week or so, I just happen to hear that, hey, there's a guy three miles from me who could use the help. You're likely going to do it. Right. And we serve as like, instead of going, I know there's people that are eager to help,

and we make those connections a bit more comfortable instead of going door to door, right? We're handling everything from A to Z, from fielding and vetting those inquiries before they even get passed along and those those volunteers even it's one time a year it makes a difference like that's the benefit of volunteering with us like there's no we haven't set any contracts or commitments and even if you get that lead that might be three miles away you can You have you can decline it. There's no like hard feelings There's no offense taken because we're also not share like until like both parties like agree like we're not sharing that contact information so you're just getting a general idea of

a profile of a home and the situation and Then if someone sees a volunteer listen on our website, they just see the general information. So we also try to like be that barrier of like safety, security, comfortability and flexibility. So other people are now using your platform. I think it like tell me about the partnership

with our friend Rodney Smith. So Rodney was episode like four or five in the podcast super early on and raising men and women long care for people who haven't heard his episode. It's an amazing one. And he's honestly one of the most humble and genuine human beings I've ever met in my life. And obviously one of our listeners, I need to pull up the email but before the end here, one of our listeners recommended that we interview

you and I thought about you know Rodney you know out the gate and thank you to whoever that hey like you guys are doing similar stuff like I was curious and then when I saw your website you have a partnership with them like that is amazing because so many people would just want to be competitors and not partner with an organization that's similar. But tell me about your whole Rodney story for sure. And just right out the gates, I want to say not in none of and not wanting to compete, but collaborate. Right. Like there's that saying words like one plus one equals eleven.

but collaborate, right? Like there's that saying where it's like one plus one equals 11, right? And so it was actually like in the early days when I didn't know about Rodney Smith and maybe like I subconsciously had in the past had saw something about like kids doing that and that maybe that's what is subconsciously maybe decide to mow lawns of all things.

For people who don't know, tell them a little bit about Rodney's story. Yeah. So it was in the early stages when I first got started, I didn't know much about Rodney. I might've subconsciously had seen some kids that were doing lawns for elderly back in the day, and that might've like stuck with me,

which might've been a part of the reason why I got started. But I had no idea about his organization. And it was actually I received an email when things started to pick up and went viral, in a sense, online saying, you should reach out to Ronnie Smith. He does something similar. So I researched him, and I saw he had a tremendous following.

And I reached out to him. something similar. So I researched him and I saw you like a tremendous following. And we actually I reached out to him and ultimately when he was passing through New Jersey, we had a chance to And one of his 50 state tours One of his 50 state tours. He was passing through New Jersey. And we had an opportunity to collaborate on one of my the homes that I had dated Teaneck, New Jersey. And just had a chance to just talk about what the nonprofits like and

asked him for some tips, got a video and some photos together. He gave me his Lay's potato chips that he had branded with his name on it. Yeah, he's like his face on the Lay's potato chips. Oh, yeah, like Frito Lay.

Yeah, I think that, you know think they put like heroes on some chips and he was one of the guys. So that was cool. And yeah, he was super nice. Like we, yeah, he was very easy to talk to and kept in touch. And just for people who don't know his story, I mean, I think they've had over 4,000 kids now

cut 50 lawns for those in need, especially the elderly and single moms and those kind of things too. But yeah, so it's something like 200,000 lawns cut for free. Right, yeah. So his program encourages the youth to go out and find homes on behalf of the organization. And after you hit those 50 yards,

Rodney personally travels to those homes to give them like all new equipment thanks to donations that are made to his to his nonprofit. And so you guys meet up and then so yeah we meet up and again like I'm trying to carve my own niche right back to the point of not trying to compete but find our own way and look at ways that we can partner. Because I think that's the only way that we could build. There's a lot of lawns to be mowed. It's obviously an evergreen industry, no pun intended.

And so yeah, we had a chance to meet up a couple more times. And I proposed to him the idea of integrating his network of helpers, obviously with the parents' consent, the parents' contact information, and we were able to bulk upload over 600, 700 profiles of active helpers from his network directly in our platform so that individuals that are coming to our website now can potentially be linked up. And we made some successful connections as a result of this partnership. So I presume in the past, like when one of the kids with the 50 yard challenge, either

through their personal connections, they found lawns, or I'm sure often it's them posting on social media and people find it in their town. But we're another channel that like is expanding that net to help get them more lawns in order to reach their goals quicker It's amazing. So yeah, Ronnie he actually I was able to get more recently this past May My son goes a daycare and I couldn't he Ronnie has like this program called bubble mowing day for a kindergarten's and I convinced my daycare to have a bubble mowing day so we had hundred kids from like every level come outside and Ronnie traveled

all the way from Alabama to New Jersey to do a bubble mowing day and my kids daycare. What's a bubble mowing day? So these like little Fisher Price like toy mowers that have like bubbles come out of it and so like we just lined them up it was pretty much like controlled chaos of kids running around in the playground back with bubbles coming out of these little Fisher Price toy mowers doing races and stuff in circles. And my toddler, my son was there too.

Like he was helping me out. I was a designated gas man. So Ronnie's like sitting there laughing and I'm like in the middle of like thousands of kids saying, I need more gas. So I'm like sitting there laughing and I'm like in the middle of like thousands of kids saying I need more gas. So I'm like sitting there like filling up the... You're talking about bubbles? Yeah but they call it gas. So I'm like filling it up with like bubbles and like these kids mowers and my son started to help me so it was really cute. What's the point of it? Is he trying to get kids to be thinking about how you can serve others now so that

when they're older they can use the real m. Yeah, it's a, it's a blend of that. And yeah, each kid gets a t-shirt that they bring home and it shows like raising men, lawn care service. So they'll, they'll wear it at home and their parents might see it. And so it's almost like a top of funnel awareness campaign. You're using marketing words that not everybody's heard, top of funnel and bottom of funnel. It's a, yeah, just like internalizing it.

So when those kids become seven, eight years old, they'll think about joining the cause. I think Rodney even wrote a book that he's like giving away to these kids now, one lawn at a time. So yeah, I admire the platform and the reach that he's had. ["The Last of Us"] Why would you do that to me when I thought we were friends? We are friends. Los Angeles, 2021.

A friendly neighbor appears out of nowhere and promises to make all my dreams come true. Let's not forget that David Blum was a professional con artist, so you didn't stand a chance. But my dreams soon turned into a nightmare. Blum generally targeted people with money. And I was not alone. He took over a hundred people for over $15 million. One of the victims was his own grandmother.

I was married to David for almost 10 years. It was insane. I was barely functioning. And I just had this realization that he will not stop until he kills me. Getting a con artist to pay for their crimes isn't easy. Charge David Blum! I'm Caroline DeMore. Listen as I take down my scammer on Once Upon a Con on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Snakes, zombies, public speaking, the list of fears is endless. But the real danger is in your hand when you're behind the wheel. Distracted driving is what's really scary and even deadly. Eyes forward, don't drive distracted. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council.

If you're anything like me, you probably think of TikTok as a place for cute pet videos, get ready with me's, and viral dance trends. But a few years ago, a group of teenage girls used TikTok for an entirely different and utterly heartbreaking reason, to track down their friend Daisy's killer.

They put out something on social media and they put out my cell number. I'd get calls in the middle of the night all the time. And the crazy thing is, it worked. I'm Paris Hilton, executive producer of My Friend Daisy, a gripping new true crime podcast that uncovers the shocking murder of 19-year-old Daisy De La O,

and the teenage detectives who refuse to let her case go cold. It's like, how do you think you're going to get away with something like this? Like, you killed somebody. Our host, journalist Jen Swan, spent years digging into this story. The secrets, the suspects, and the system that failed Daisy. Listen to My Friend Daisy on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts beginning on March 26.

In 2020, a group of young women in a tidy suburb of New York City found themselves in an AI-fueled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts on my body parts that looked exactly like my own. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream. It happened in Levittown, New York. But reporting the series took us through the darkest corners of the internet and to the front lines of a global battle against deep fake pornography. This should be illegal, but what

is this? This is a story about technology that's moving faster than the law and about vigilantes trying to stem the tide. I'm Margie Murphy. And I'm Olivia Carville. This is Levertown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope. Listen to Levertown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast.

Find it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, y'all. I'm Maria Fernanda Diaz. My podcast, When You're Invisible, is my love letter to the working-class people and immigrants who shaped my life. I get to talk to a lot of people who form the backbone of our society, but who have never been interviewed before. Season two is all about community,

organizing, and being underestimated. All the greatest changes have happened when a couple of people said, this sucks, let's do something about it. I can't have more than $2,000 in my bank account, or else I can't get disability benefits. They won't let you succeed. I know we get paid to serve you guys,

but like be respectful. We're made out of the same things, bone, body, blood. It's rare to have black male teachers. Sometimes I am the lesson and I'm also the testament. Listen to When You're Invisible as part of the MyCultura podcast network. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

["My Heart Will Go On"] Where do you hope to go from here, Brian? Just continue to innovate, right? Like I mentioned the text messaging and the translation of voicemails, finding ways to continue to automate and scale, as well as build partnerships. We have equipment partners that we have everything from Milwaukee tool to

Ryobi to steal that are helping us upgrade active helpers to continue to nurture those relationships. Your active volunteers can get new equipment from those suppliers. Yes, that's awesome. Yeah. So we have a helper down in Maryland's. He's a Navy veteran. He's been with us for a few years. And we had a couple representatives from Mid-Atlantic Steel bring like just a whole suite of new equipment to him with battery power,

mower, trimmer, blower, chainsaw. In a perfect, I would love to like someday would love to have you know physical libraries of sorts where people could pick up to do work that they can maybe use for themselves but like almost like a I don't know I haven't thought about it too deeply but like a form of like sweat equity where they could either earn it by doing community service or just doing it and using it for themselves, but then returning it. So that's one way. Yeah, you had an interesting point that I read of, I mean, say like the average lawnmower

is, I think you said, you know, 28 or 29 days of the month, it's not being used. At the very least, I'm sure 25 or 26 days of the month, you know, it's not being used. So it's like you have these things sitting in their garages. There's got to be interesting ways for other people that use it for good. There is. And you just reminded me about you reminded me about a funny point that actually inspired a specific feature of our website. In the early days, people wanted to not just financially contribute, but donate equipment,

mostly operational. And I said yes to everything. Didn't make my wife happy because it filled up my own garage until I found the right home for it, for a volunteer to take it on. And so that inspired me to launch a marketplace on our website, similar to Facebook marketplace. It's called Pay It Forward. So it allows for homeowners to either lend or donate equipment that our volunteers

can exclusively put to meaningful use. Obviously the lend part is talking to the point of a mower that they might not be able to use 28 days out of the month that someone else could be using in that vicinity Street over you were for lawn care the poor man's version of over there's lots of like Yeah, poor man's version of that either app still isn't like it's actually kind of frustrating for how I'm sure you've experiences for how big of a Company they are like how many times there's you're the pickup point is there's a disconnection between what it shows on your phone and the driver.

So it's like even Uber's not figured this out perfectly yet. Yeah. Lots of work to be done. Yeah. Do you have favorite stories either of, you know, it could be both of you being able to serve somebody or, you know, or a volunteer Who's told you their story?

Got a couple good ones that I know of directly one is We had the opportunity to mow the lawn of the sanctuary of a World War two veteran who stormed the beaches of Normandy on D. Day veteran who stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. What do you mean the sanctuary? The grounds. Okay. Where he where he lived. Did you really just call that the sanctuary? That's amazing. The grounds. Because you respected this man so much as long he became a sanctuary. Yeah. Yeah. He yeah a residence up in northern New Jersey of a

guy named Peter he lived 105 years old so we not myself mostly about I was there once but a couple volunteers were there regularly mowing his lawn and he actually had owns a riding mower by Cub Cadet that after he passed we attended his funeral because you know we you know built a relationship with him after he after he passed his family donated the Cub Cadet riding mower that I picked up and was able to lug it down two hours down to Philadelphia to donate to the groundskeeper of a cemetery primarily made for African Americans veterans that served like during the Civil War and Buffalo soldiers because I was there one time prior and seeing the groundskeeper literally pushing around

to push mower. So it was just right before Veterans Day that I was able to donate, pay it forward, a riding mower from a veteran to help the grounds of other sacred grounds. So that was a fun trip. Another Korean War veteran that we started helping in the summer of 2020, helped regularly for four years, thankfully to some local helpers. Ultimately, we had a professional landscaping design company that wanted to give back in this home

literally received like a full yard transformation that we posted to our YouTube over 200,000 subscribers on our YouTube channel and we pretty much documented a before and after of like a complete overhaul of the front and back and it was truly special to see him come down on his stairwell his What's that the? The the rail on his on the stairs and we push him around on his Wheelchair and pretty much saw like a whole new Backyard and that was pretty special

He had since passed but that was effectively like a $15,000 transformation free of charge on behalf of the landscaping company. So just glad to be able to have played a part in that and showing him that good still exists. Are you still mowing it all yourself? Or are you too slammed running the whole shebang? All the above. I definitely am not able to do what I was able to do When I first got started obviously with other commitments on the home front But I'm still very much involved like hands-on on the back end Getting around to do things when I can or even dabbling with it's never gonna replace it

but like robot mower companies now want to give it a test run. So they're gonna like more of like a marketing thing, but like bringing the robot mowers along to like help with doing the lawn while we do some of the more trimming. But yeah, no, I'm still, I'm still gonna be on the ground floor as much as I can when I can because it's a nice workout. to be on the ground floor as much as I can when I can, because it's a nice workout. Yeah. Man, let alone what I'm sure it's done for you, spiritually, emotionally.

I mean, can you speak about that of what has this done for you as a person? Yeah. It definitely, obviously with my, it's just adds another layer of meaning and purpose to do what I do. Obviously with my two kids at home, that's amazing in itself, right?

And so this is just icing on the cake to do something that could potentially be a legacy of sorts. And that's inspiring to me, knowing that it never sat well with me, all of us one day, or no longer to be living here. And it never sat well with me that we'll be forgotten 100 years from now.

So what inspires me is to do something that outlives me. Because I was hinting at the fact that as I'm speaking to you now, connections are being made. So I want to leave a legacy. And maybe not through my nonprofit. Maybe it's someone that hears us now that does something even bigger. Or maybe it's my son who's just internalizing things I'm doing,

does something that is bigger than himself. So maybe it won't be I wanted to mow your lawn that becomes this huge empire, but maybe it's just a spark. I mean, the history books are so small that I think almost none of us are going to make it in there. But I mean, the legacy of your kids, like them knowing what you did is incredible and what an example for them, you know, to hopefully give for others and not just be selfish and think about themselves. And obviously the 1400, you know, volunteers that you've helped inspire to take

action. I mean, it's, I think it's silly how we often think about legacy and fame and all the people that are on TV and stuff, and they're only what matters. But I mean, the beautiful individual actions that you've taken and your own army of normal folks that you've built, you have taken as a legacy that's probably more meaningful. For sure.

Thank you. And again, you see some of these billionaires starting philanthropists. I'm doing it in reverse. It was at a time where my back was against the wall and it did something, I guess, to benefit humanity. Also, I'm Catholic and most Christians have heard the story of the widow's miter. Have you heard it? So what you've done is more impressive than what most billionaires have done. So there's the story in the Bible of

You know these wealthy people come in and they give you know an amount of money to the church, you know But this widow who has almost nothing gives almost everything, you know to it and who's given more You know somebody who gives out of their excess or somebody who gives out of, you know, really they don't have the money to give and so it's honestly it's much more, you know, impressive for your level of gift than what most billionaires have done in this country. Like most of them can learn from you and give a higher percentage or more. So actually, I mean, to give him credit, one I once interviewed Ken Langone, one of the co-founders of Home Depot. And he tells a great story of he calls his dad and he brags about a $10 million gift

that he gave. And his dad said, so what? Like did it actually hurt you? Like call me back when you've actually made a gift that hurts you. And even now, like he's given a lot to NYU. He's made like a couple hundred million dollar gifts. And he's like, it's a it's a bunch of zeros in my bank account. I mean, it means nothing like it actually hasn't changed my lifestyle in any way whatsoever.

So it's like, I mean, he's more sacrificially giving than most billionaires are. And it's still not like actually know, like actually touching his life. Like what you've done in both time and money, you know, is much more sacrificial. And I think we all need to do that. And army and normal folks need to do it and more billionaires need to do it. And I think it's a more beautiful way to live and when it's more fulfilling to. For sure. Reflecting back, helping others help me. And yeah, and again, helping others help me.

And yeah, and again, back to my kids, like I just want them to know that just more than anything, like my late father said to me, he just wanted to impart two things on me. Be a good person and find problems to solutions, find solutions to problems. And yeah, just want them to know their dad never gave up on himself. Snakes, zombies, public speaking, the list of fears is endless. But the real danger is in your hand when you're behind the wheel. Distracted driving is what's really scary and even deadly.

Eyes forward, don't drive distracted. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. Why would you do that to me when I thought we were friends? We are friends. Los Angeles, 2021. A friendly neighbor appears out of nowhere and promises to make all my dreams come true. Let's not forget that David Bloom was a professional con artist, so you didn't stand a chance. But my dreams soon turned into a nightmare. Bloom generally targeted people with money. And I was not alone.

He took over a hundred people for over $15 million. One of the victims was his own grandmother. I was married to David for almost 10 years. It was insane. I was barely functioning. And I just had this realization that he will not stop until he kills me. Getting a con artist to pay for their crimes isn't easy. Charge David Blum! I'm Caroline DeMore.

Listen as I take down my scammer on Once Upon a Con on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're anything like me, you probably think of TikTok as a place for cute pet videos, get ready with me's, and viral dance trends. But a few years ago, a group of teenage girls used TikTok for an entirely different

and utterly heartbreaking reason, to track down their friend Daisy's killer. They put out something on social media and they put out my cell number. I'd get calls in the middle of the night all the time. And the crazy thing is, it worked. I'm Paris Hilton, executive producer of My Friend Daisy, a gripping new true crime podcast that uncovers the shocking murder of 19-year-old Daisy De La Hau and the teenage

detectives who refuse to let her case go cold. It's like, how do you think you're going to get away with something like this? Like you killed somebody. Our host, journalist Jen Swan, spent years digging into this story. The secrets, the suspects, and the system that failed Daisy. Listen to My Friend Daisy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts beginning on March 26. In 2020, a group of young women in a tidy suburb of New York City found themselves in

an AI-fueled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts on my body parts that looked exactly like my own. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream. It happened in Levittown, New York.

But reporting the series took us through the darkest corners of the internet and to the front lines of a global battle against deepfake pornography. This should be illegal, but what is this? This is a story about a technology that's moving faster than the law and about vigilantes trying to stem the tide. I'm Margie Murphy. And I'm Olivia Carville.

This is Leittown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope. Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey y'all, I'm Maria Fernanda Diaz. My podcast, When You're Invisible,

is my love letter to the working class people and immigrants who shaped my life. I get to talk to a lot of people who form the backbone of our society, but who have never been interviewed before. Season two is all about community, organizing, and being underestimated. All the greatest changes have happened

when a couple of people said, this sucks, let's do something about it. I can't have more than $2,000 in my bank account or else I can't get disability benefits. They won't let you succeed. I know we get paid to serve you guys, but like be respectful. We're made out of the same things, bone, body, blood. It's rare to have black male teachers. Sometimes I am the lesson and I'm also the testament. Listen to When You're Invisible

as part of the MyCultura podcast network. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. One other thing I want to plug is I know you're trying to encourage corporations to get involved too with you know their folks being able to do this like you know say once a year you know a company can have you know a mowing day and get everyone out there and what it does for you know their employees and I think you're aware of some studies you know how it actually helps you know the employees in the company if you can you can expand upon that more. Yeah, so there's obviously proven research that improves productivity and morale when you enable individuals from companies to go out and do something for the community.

And we've actually been able to facilitate some events, like for instance, we work with Keller Williams on their volunteer service day down in North Carolina. And so, yeah, work with a few other companies and some of them offer grants for volunteer hours that are put in. So we've been able to get some grant for volunteer hours like through Motorola and even Google for volunteer hours that were put in. So yeah, no, it's definitely proven to show like corporate social responsible companies like are there for a reason, you know, helps boost morale.

Yeah, and even if, you know, they start with one day, a lot of their employees participating it might decide to do it on nights and weekends, you know, on their own thereafter. And that's what we're exhibiting. One thing we want to again reize is we're not taking business away from professional landscapers. We're working with people that generally can't do it themselves or can't afford it. And that's why we exhibit at landscaping conferences

to get more professional landscapers on board. Because maybe they might have an extra 30 minutes on their route to add someone to their route that they can help. So. Brian, if somebody wants to contact you, first can you share the website? And then if you're open to sharing your email address, we ask folks to do that too. And it's kind of unique. I think we may be the only podcast that does that, but almost every guest shares their

personal contact info in case somebody wants to get involved or has questions for you, and hopefully some good comes out of our time together today. Yeah, I appreciate that. It's www.Iwanttobowyourlawn.com. You can also do.org. One of the many things that we have in the pipeline is the transition from the.com to the.org, but it's still the same just so that it sounds more official as a nonprofit. I know that many nonprofits are.com, but that was just the first thing that just worked in the beginning, but I want to mowyourlawn.com and you can reach me at

Brian B R I A N at I want to mowyourlawn.com. Do you ever want to do this full-time? Have you thought about if you can scale it enough that you could? I get that question a lot. I would love to be able to focus on it full-time and especially just more on the the marketing and the creative and finding the right people. If I ever get enough money to pay a salary, I would rather pay someone else, to be honest, to oversee the operations and keep it going where I can just be a sounding board. But if we have enough...

Are you just saying that because your current employer might be listening? No, but yeah, no, if the opportunity presents itself, somehow, some way, we'll love to focus on it full time. Because I feel like to be able to do what we've done with all volunteers, just on a charity basis and with the limited funds that we have received over time I think even more impact could be done those 10,000 might have been able to have been reached with full dedicated time yeah and there's 330 million people in the country so there's way more need out there beyond the 10,000 aging population rising costs and the grass is gonna keep growing hopefully yeah I would anything else you want to cover Brian in the very

moment no I mean I guess we get pay tribute to your wife for allowing you to do this. Thank you to my wife. Thank you to both of our moms, just helping out on times where I have to step out. Grandma's helping right now, so while you can be here with us. Yeah. Yes, grandma's helping. We have, well, it's very early projects. I think you've heard about that.

Well, the media is potentially building. Yeah, talk about it. A film. If you can talk about it. Yeah, I can give you the general public. It's on the Internet. It's on deadline. It's on IMDB.

Yeah, tell us about it. So it was actually in 2022 that I had posted to my LinkedIn network. Well no, it was actually 2021 that I had posted to my LinkedIn network that was gonna be on the Drew Barrymore show and I think some of my network took notice of that and just followed the journey since then. And it was like a year later that I made more public that had a panic attack, actually, that I didn't speak about. Like weeks after getting the layoff, just like everything happening all at once. Like it was actually my wife that brought me to the hospital.

And it was funny cuz like a month later she'd be the one I'd be driving. And so I told everyone about mental health and reflecting back how others helped me. And I showed a before picture with me at the hospital, and then an after picture of a clip. I think it was in the Washington Post or Fox News or something. And I guess this one producer named Sam like continued to follow and it was that year it was the summer of 2020 it was the summer of 2022 we had a segment come out on USA Today and this producer messaged me and we got a chance to connect and speak about like the whole experience and then like

20 minutes into our conversation. He's like I think you have like a story about a movie and I was talking to him about like the scenario with my father battling his terminal illness and the scenario with my father battling his terminal illness and Two years later ultimately Yeah, like pretty much sold life rights to Walden media to did they just reach out to you cold Sam the producer had reached out and he like joined up forces with a co-producer named Adam and They brought the story, the synopsis of it is kind of more on the family side and not so much the lawn care like the

personal aspects of like the struggles like the mental health aspect and the relationship And they brought it to Walden media that they purchased the life rights to pretty much come up with a film. The supposed proposed title is Grassroots. And you know they've produced some pretty interesting, some pretty good films. For people that don't know, they've done Lion Witch and the Wardrobe, Holes, Amazing Grace, you may know of some other titles. Chronicles of Marnia, they were a part of, and Rey. It's just surreal to have that conversation right now. When I got laid off and decided to just mull on and keep busy, I never thought it would become a possible feature film movie. They did Charlotte's Web too. I just thought about it. Yeah and flinch with Tom Hanks. Still early stages like

it's there's many moving parts in order for it to actually go into production but the fact that we're even having that conversation is just surreal because there's so many other stories and individuals and organizations that are deserving of a film nonetheless media coverage So I'm just I'm truly grateful and humbled and honored and just along for the ride. Hopefully it inspires others It's a message of resilience and community.

We're in early stages, speaking to some screenwriters right now just to get the right script. But that's where we are. That's awesome. You know, and our host, Coach Bill Courtney, happened to get his story told at Undefeated. And he had a very similar sentiment to what you just said. I'm a guy whose story just happened to be told

and there's millions of others out there who also deserve to have their stories told and we shouldn't do this to have our stories told because most of us won't have our stories told but the greatest story is what it does for us. You know, and Bill always says you get a thousand times more out of it than you ever put into it

and you know, that's the greatest story. But if yours happens to get told and it helps more people, that's a beautiful thing. Yeah. Pretty cool. All right. So Brian, you just dropped on us late in the story about having the panic attack, you know, early on, you know on after losing your job and it makes it even more humble that you didn't share it

and you were kind of downplaying your struggles when you were talking about it originally. But now that you've said it, can you bring the audience more into it and what was going on? So it was early June when I did Lowe's My Job and that was soon after I just, early June when I did lose my job. And that was soon after. That's when I decided to do the community service project.

But it wasn't all just smooth sailing. I didn't just get right into just mowing everyone's lawns. I was actually doing some other things along the way to keep myself busy, my psyche. I took on Instacart gigs delivering groceries. I even attempted to do like print-on-demand e-commerce design products, writing blogs and articles, none of which was giving a whole lot of meaning and purpose. And I think it was towards the tail end of June, three weeks later

after the layoff, where that was when everything just started to really hit me that we were going into the mortgage for barons. I was slated to collect unemployment thinking about how everyone's working from home and I'm now competing with not just with people locally but people everywhere for jobs that you know trying to recuperate that income. And I'm just sitting outside on my patio and I start to feel like this like pain in my chest that I haven't felt before. Mind you, I might have, I think I've had only like

a handful of like semi anxiety attacks over the last prior 10 years where I had to like breathe into a bag to calm myself down but this was different like I literally felt physical pain and it felt as if I was having a heart attack for sure. And my wife, you know, eight months pregnant brought me to the hospital to get checked that IV hooked up and EKG and monitors and wires. And ultimately, it was decided it was just a bad panic attack. And they gave me some meds to calm me down.

And that was an important part where I had wires hooked up to me. And I realized there that I had to start taking care of myself or else I can't take care of anyone else. And it was there when I decided to really dig in on this mowing concept and keep myself busy and focus just on family and keep things cool and not get too stressed out.

And so. I mean, after that attack, like how worried were you, you know, by yourself or how worried was your wife? All the above. And so, yeah, I mean, they were just, you know, I surrounded myself with family and I think continued to doing the mowing thing, staying active and get just getting to the sun and just eating right, not drinking too much caffeine, did some more juicing, eating healthy was important because that was a scary time for sure. And hindsight, thinking back to when I brought my wife to the hospital a month later,

brought my wife to the hospital a month later, I haven't had that feeling since. So I think everything that I might've had done helped me, but yeah, the mental health was definitely a factor, for sure. So getting out there helped me. It's you guys have helped 2,000 people, but this has also really helped you. Helping others save my life.

It's almost like the name is I wanna mow my lawn or I wanna mow your lawn, but it's also I wanna help myself. I guess, yeah. There's another spin on it. It's been a form of therapy for sure. Yeah, mowing, gardening in itself is an active thing. It should be on Apple Watch,

like gardening and landscaping as an activity. But yeah, it's therapeutic. Well, thanks for sharing that Brian. I know it's probably hard to share, but I wish more people shared their stories like that too. There's a great quote I always think about from Dietrich Bonhoeffer whose story we told on the show. And he said, the problem with Christians is they're lonely with their sins, whereas the sinners of the bar have so much more fellowship with each other because they share everything. And so obviously that's not, you don't just have to be a Christian to relate to that, but just the idea of so many of us hold these things within ourselves and feel lonely because

of it, but it also deprives other people who are going through this who just feel like, hey, I'm the only one experiencing this, and I'm alone. And no, there's lots of other people experience this, and the story also shows you can get over it. And service is one of the best ways to heal from it. Absolutely. Thanks for being here, Brian. I really appreciate it. Thank you. I really appreciate the time. It's really cool. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Really appreciate the time. It's really cool. I really appreciate everything And thank you for joining us this week. If Brian Schwartz has inspired you in general or better yet

to take action by signing up to become a volunteer with I Want to mow your lawn, getting your company to do a service day with them, donating to them or something else entirely. Please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at Bill at NormalFolks.us and I promise I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends and on social. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it. Join the Army at NormalFolks.us. Consider becoming a premium member there. Any and all of these things that will help us grow an Army of Normal Folks. I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do what you can. In 2020, a group of young women found themselves in an AI-fueled nightmare.

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radical nuns in combat boots and wild-haired priests trading blows with J. Edgar Hoover in a hell-bent effort to sabotage a war. J. Edgar Hoover was furious. He was out of his mind and he wanted to bring the Catholic left to its knees. Listen to Divine Intervention on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Bob Pipman, Chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia. I'm excited to introduce a brand new season of my podcast, Math and Magic, Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing. I'm having conversations with some folks across a wide range of industries to hear how they

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Because these are the stories that we need to know to understand the intersection of society, justice, and the fascinating workings of the human psyche. Join me every week as I tell some of the most enthralling true crime stories about women who are not just victims But heroes or villains or often somewhere in between Listen to the greatest true crime stories ever told on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Hey y'all, I'm Maria Fernanda Diaz your podcasts. about it. We get paid to serve you, but we're made out of the same things. It's rare to have black male teachers. Sometimes I am the testament. Listen to When You're Invisible on the iHeartRadio app,

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