An Army of Normal Folks - Liz Scott: The Lemonade Stand That Inspired A Movement (Pt 1)

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Liz Scott's 4 year-old daughter Alex was fighting neuroblastama cancer and yet Alex decided to host a lemonade stand to raise money for childhood cancer research. From her first stand that raised $2,000 to raising $1 million by the time she died at age 8, Alex inspired a movement that has raised $350 million, with a literal Army of Normal Folks hosting lemonade stands for Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation.   Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

By 7 a.m., somebody's knocking on the door, saying I know it doesn't start until later, but I'm going out of town and I had to meet you and give you my donation. And it was non-stop. At the end of the day, I honestly thought it was too much for her. A lot of people don't realize this about her, but she didn't like attention like that. It wasn't about her. It almost embarrassed her. And at the end of the day, I said, what did you think, Alex, thinking this may have been too much for her?

and she said, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. She had raised $2,000. And I remember feeling like I was going to cry because I knew then that for all of my sort of, not mocking, but joking about the lemonade stand that's going to cure cancer, it really meant something to her. Welcome to an army of normal folks.

I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband. I'm a father. I'm an entrepreneur. and I've been a football coach in inner city Memphis and somehow that last part led to an Oscar for the film about our team. It's called Undefeated. Y'all, I believe our country's problems are never going to be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits using big words that

nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks. That's us. Just you and me deciding, hey, you know what, maybe I can help. That's what Liz Scott, the voice you just heard, is done. Liz's four-year-old daughter, Alex, was fighting neuroblastoma cancer, and yet Alex, at four years old, decided to dig deep. And she hosted a lemonade stand to raise money, but not for herself so she could get a toy, and not for herself so she could make herself happy. But this four-year-old, Cancer decided to host a lemonade stand to raise money for childhood cancer research. By the time Alex died when she was eight years old, her lemonade stand, get this, raised a million bucks, from four to eight years old. By her death at eight, she'd raised a million dollars selling lemonade.

And Liz, Alex's mom and her husband, Jay, have continued building their daughter's legacy ever since. Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation has raised an incredible $350 million with a literal army of normal folks hosting lemonade stands for them across the country. Guys, listen to every word of this interview. I cannot wait for you to meet Liz right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Imagine that you're on an airplane and all of a sudden you hear this. Attention passengers. The pilot is having an emergency and we need someone, anyone to land this plane. Think you could do it?

It turns out that nearly 50% of men think that they could land the plane with the help of air traffic control. And they're saying like, okay, pull this, do this, pull that, turn this. It's just... I can do my eyes close. I'm Mani. I'm Noah. This is Devin. And on our new show, No Such Thing, we get to the bottom of questions like these.

Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence. Those who lack expertise lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise. And then, as we try the whole thing out for real. Wait, what? Oh, that's the run right. I'm looking at this thing. See? Listen to No Such Thing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

I had this overwhelming sensation that I had to call it right then. And I just hit call, said, you know, hey, I'm Jacob Schick. I'm the CEO of One Tribe Foundation, and I just wanted to call on and let her know. There's a lot of people battling some of the very same things you're battling. And there is help out there. The Good Stuff Podcast Season 2 takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a non-profit fighting suicide in the veteran community. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring

to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. I was married to a combat army veteran, and he actually took his own mark to suicide. One Tribe saved my life twice. There's a lot of love that flows through this place, and it's sincere. Now it's a personal mission. I don't have to go to any more funerals, you know. I got blown up on a React mission. I ended up having amputation below the knee of my right leg and a traumatic brain injury

because I landed on my head. Welcome to Season 2 of the Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Our IHeart Radio Music Festival, presented by Capital One, is coming back to Las Vegas. Vegas. September 19th and 20th. On your feet. Streaming live only on Hulu.

Ladies and gentlemen. Brian Adams. Ed Sheeran. Fade. Glorilla. Jelly Roll. John Fogarty. Lil Wayne.

L.L. Cool J. Mariah Carey. Maroon 5. Sammy Hagar. Tate McCray. The offspring. Tim McGraw. Tickets are on sale now at AXS.com. Get your tickets today. AXS.com.

I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the Psychology Podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about exploring human potential. I was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills and I get eye rolling from teachers or I get students who would be like, it's easier to punch someone in the face. When you think about emotion regulation, like you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome as a result of it if it's going to be beneficial to you because it's easy to say like like go you go blank yourself right it's easy it's easy to just drink the extra beer it's easy to ignore to suppress seeing a colleague who's bothering you and just like walk the other way avoidance is easier

ignoring is easier denial is easier drinking is easier yelling screaming is easy complex problem solving You know, takes effort. Listen to the psychology podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If a baby is giggling in the back seat, they're probably happy. If a baby is crying in the back seat, they're probably hungry. But if a baby is sleeping in the back seat, will you remember they're even there? When you're distracted, stressed, or not usually the one who drives them, the chances of forgetting them in the back seat are much higher.

happen to anyone. Parked cars get hot fast and can be deadly. So get in the habit of checking the back seat when you leave. The message from NHTSA and the Ad Council. Liz Scott, welcome to Memphis. Thank you. Yeah, where'd you, you flew in from Philly? Philadelphia. Yeah? Do you get a nonstop flight on that deal? Yes. Very easy. Very easy. Yeah, because we used to have a hub. We were a northwest hub. Oh, really? Memphis and we had non-stop everywhere with Delta Balt Northwest. We lost our hub and we lost a lot of our non-stops. Well, I think you could go nonstop to Philadelphia. Yeah, we can't now. That's a beautiful thing. Everybody, Liz Scott, um, is the co-executive director with her husband,

Jay, of Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. More important, Liz is Alex's mom. And we're going to talk about that first for those of you listening we are at firebirds wood fired grill in carrieville tennessee i think firebirds is a big old sponsor of alex's limits they have been a sponsor for 13 years we've grown up together a 13 year sponsor of alex's lemonade stand so thank you to firebirds and we are live in front of a group of people who are interested in liz and alex's story so say hi everybody Hi. Oh, that's weak. Say hi, everybody.

Hi. Thank you. So, um, fans, Liz. What do you do? I mean, there's live people who hear your story. Pretty cool. I think some of them are your fans. What's that?

Two. Your fans are your fans, too. No, they are not here to see me. No. If we said, hey, Bill's going to be at Firebirds, y'all come. We wouldn't have anybody here at all. So it's you. Um, your story.

has so much to it, and we could do a 10-hour show on it. But very briefly, where are you from? How'd you grow up? I grew up right outside Hartford, Connecticut, in a place called Windsor, Connecticut. Great childhood. Very lucky. A great place to grow up. One of nine. Children. Yes. So I grew up with a lot of love and family around all the time. and had a pretty typical... What did your dad do for nine kids? My dad was a saint, as is my mom. He was a nuclear power plant engineer.

Wow. Nine. So he specialized in, I think, like, how you get rid of the pesky waste. When you were your siblings stacked like kindling on each other in beds? I mean, how do you house nine? We all had our own beds. At least, I was number seven. So I, you know, may have had it a little more cushy than some of the older ones.

We all had our own beds, but we did, I shared a room until high school. And in fact, I remember when, you know, as somebody moved to college, that's it, your room after a little while, your room was gone. Yeah. And I remember my mom just assumed I would want to move or my sister moved to my other sister's room. And I was devastated. I loved sharing a room with my sister. That's awesome. So you and Jamie, where'd that happen?

We met at Windsor High School. We're high school sweethearts. No way. Yes. So we had a similar upbringing in many ways. He's one of five. We didn't know each other until high school. And we dated not only in high school, but all through college.

We both went to the University of Connecticut, go Huskies. I'm sure you've heard of them. They have a really good basketball program. Yeah, but they stink in football and that's what we care about. That's actually true. I know it is. All right. So sweet.

American Wonderful Life, married, I think, how many kids in total do you have? We have four children. So we got married right after college, young, 22, 23. And then we had our first, our oldest at 25. And Alex was born when I was 26, my husband was 27. So we would go on to have three kids in four years. And Alex was our second child. And then we have two other boys.

And what were you and Jay doing for a living? So after we graduated from Yukon, we, my husband really wanted, he had his own painting business in college that was like pretty big, but he didn't want to do that forever. So he decided he wanted to start his own business. And he very smartly researched and decided that coffee was the next big thing. This was 1992 and wanted to open like the first on the campus, what we called gourmet coffee, cappuccino espresso back in the day. And I was, you know, You tell me, as a founder of Starbucks, we're all leaving. Well, no, it was called the Java Joint. And because we were young, and as you can, now I know now as a 55-year-old, I would be like, yeah, we can't do that. We went to the school. We said we want to open something right in the middle of campus. They said, we would love that.

But we're not giving you electricity. We're not giving you water. So we had a cart made that was electric powered, propane-powered, espresso machine, opened up shop. And from day one, we loved it, and the campus loved it. And my first son was born shortly after we opened that. And then after it was very successful, we were actually the week Alex was diagnosed. We were having a meeting with the owner of another shop that was in Hartford. So we were going to open our second location.

And we ended up canceling the meeting. And ultimately, because of her diagnosis, we not only canceled and didn't open the second shop, but we sold the Java Joint. So the point is, briefly, just to establish. establish kind of who you are, you're one of nine. Your husband's one of five. High school sweethearts. He paints. You go to college. You start your life and you have a little boy and now you have a little girl. You have this budding business. You're starting a wonderful kind of normal American dream, but just a life, just a normal person, living life. And Alex comes along and you're giddy because you have her second child. And at one, I think, is when

the story of Alex really begins. Take us through that. You're absolutely right. I mean, we sort of we had a vision right for what life could be at that point with the two young kids and the growing business like we all do and Alex was diagnosed two days before her first birthday and everything changed after that so much good came from it but certainly you know there were many many harder times and we ever anticipated as parents when you have children of kind of what might happen, that was not really something that we thought would happen, a child with cancer. Tell me what it was.

So she was diagnosed with neuroplastoma, which is the most... But originally, she had a tumor. That's all you knew. Yes. Kind of, kind of, everybody listening and joining us needs to understand. I'm asking questions about ultimately the death of your daughter. So I want to be empathetic and respectful, but I also think it's really important for people to have perspective. So I don't want to be pushy here, but I think it's important that people understand the evolution of your mind as a parent, as well as what Alex went through.

Because I get she had neuroblastoma, but really your first thing was my daughter has a tumor. That's right. That's right. Thank you for saying that because when she was first diagnosed and we were told it was a tumor, I still didn't think she had cancer. In fact, my sister gave me a book that was called When Your Child Has Cancer or something along those lines. And they put us on the oncology floor. And I was not happy about it. I don't, I don't need this book and I don't need to be on this floor. She has a tumor. She doesn't have cancer. So it took me a little while to accept the fact that we were, what we were dealing

with was cancer. So what they have to do for this tumor? Well, the first thing they did was they felt she needed an immediate tumor resection. So surgery to remove the tumor. It was very large in her abdomen and wrapping around her spine. So they felt like it needed to come out. They did that surgery the day before her first birthday. She came out of surgery.

They were doing it in two parts, front and then back. So belly and then spine. after the belly surgery to remove the bulk of the tumor, she came out and they said, you know, we might wait to do the spinal surgery now. And she was in the ICU. It had been a long day. And they started to seem like they were concerned about something they asked us to leave. And a few minutes later, they came back in and told us that during removing this large tumor

was so large that some of her blood vessels were in the middle of it. And her spinal cord blood flow was compromised. And she was paralyzed from the chest down. And they wanted to bring her right back into surgery to make sure it wasn't the spinal tumor that was causing it. So she went back into surgery, came out of surgery at 1 or 2 a.m. on her first birthday. And I just remember sitting there, people had brought balloons for her and some presents for her. And just holding her hand and thinking, this is your child's first birthday, right? There's so much meaning in that.

And just wondering what life, if she survived, what kind of life she would have if she was going to be paralyzed. And it was one of our lowest moments, but I think really quickly she just showed me, as she did many times in her life, that that's not what you're thinking about in those times, right? What you're thinking about is moving forward and getting better and enjoying the good days. And she really did that from the very beginning. She showed us how to do that. And now a few messages from our generous sponsors. But first, I hope you'll consider signing up to join the Army at normalfolks. Dot us.

By signing up, you'll receive a weekly email with short episode summaries in case you happen to miss an episode or if you prefer reading about our incredible guests. We'll be right back. Imagine that you're on an airplane, and all of a sudden you hear this. Attention passengers, the pilot is having an emergency, and we need someone, anyone, to land this plane. Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50% of men think that they could land the plane with the help of air traffic control. And they're saying like, okay, pull this, and tell this.

Do this, pull that, turn this. It's just, I can do my eyes close. I'm Mani. I'm Noah. This is Devin. And on our new show, no such thing. We get to the bottom of questions like these. Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence.

Those who lack expertise lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise. And then as we try the whole thing out for real. Wait, what? Oh, that's the wrong. right i'm looking at this thing listen to no such thing on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts i had this like overwhelming sensation that i had to call it right then

and i just hit call said you know hey i'm jacob shick i'm the CEO of one tribe foundation and i just wanted to call on and let her know there's a lot of people battling some of the very same things you're battling and there is help out there the good stuff podcast season two takes a deep look into one tribe foundation a non-profit fighting suicide in the veteran community. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick

as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. I was married to a combat army veteran, and he actually took his own life to suicide. One Tribe saved my life twice. There's a lot of love that flows through this place, and it's sincere. Now it's a personal mission. I don't have to go to any more funerals, you know. I got blown up on a React mission.

I ended up having amputation below the knee of my right leg and a traumatic brain injury. Because I landed on my head. Welcome to Season 2 of The Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Our IHeart Radio Music Festival, presented by Capital One, is coming back to Las Vegas. Vegas. September 19th and 20th.

On your feet. Streaming live only on Hulu. Ladies and gentlemen. Brian Adams. Ed Shearin. Fade. Chlorilla. Jelly Roll.

Chon Fogarty. Lil Wayne. L.L. Colche. Mariah Carey. Maroon 5. Sammy Hager. Tate McCraig, the offspring, Tim McGraw, tickets are on sale now at AXS.com.

Get your tickets today. AXS.com. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the Psychology Podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about exploring human potential. I was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills, and I get eye rolling from teachers or I get students who would be like, it's easier to punch someone in the face. when you think about emotion regulation, like you're not going to choose an adapted strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome as a result of it

if it's going to be beneficial to you. Because it's easy to say like go you, go blank yourself, right? It's easy. It's easy to just drink the extra beer. It's easy to ignore to suppress seeing a colleague who's bothering you and just like walk the other way. Avoidance is easier. Ignoring is easier. Denials is easier. Drinking is easier. Yelling, screaming is easy. complex problem solving, meditating, you know, takes effort. Listen to the psychology podcast on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Don't let biased algorithms or degree screens or exclusive professional networks or stereotypes. Don't let anything keep you from discovering the half of the workforce who are stars.

workers skilled through alternative rocks rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time to tear the paper ceiling and see the stars beyond it. Find out how you can make stars part of your talent strategy at tear the paper sealing.org. Brought to you by opportunity at work in the ad council. As a parent and my children, Alex hates when I use this adjective, but I consider my children delicious. I savor them. You know what I mean?

They're the greatest blessing in Lisa in my life. And whenever any of our children have been sick, and we dealt with one that had some real problems, in that moment you want to be tough and strong for your kid, but you're also dealing with this juxtaposition of devastation inside you. Balance that for me, because that, am I wrong or is that? You are absolutely right. I remember after being told this news and sitting with her for a minute,

they had this little room we could go into that was private, and Jay and I were both sitting in the room, not even able to comfort each other, just crying, you know, sobbing. Sobbing, hands on head, just spiraling. And then one of the nurses knocked, and she said, you know, we already mentioned I have a big family that a couple of my sisters were there.

And I literally said, I can't do this. I can't talk to anybody else right now. I can't do it. But very quickly, something inside me just said, you have to do this. You have children depending on you. Right? You can't sit in here and feel sorry. You have to get out there and do the things that you need to do as a mom and opened that door, honestly, and never really look back to that moment except to say that I'm glad something inside of me told me just to stop. Get out there and do what you need to do.

As we unfold the rest of the story, the reason I wanted to hear that from you, which you and I've never met her. talked ever before now i had a sense that that's what you'd say and i think it's important because these years later as we celebrate this amazing organization and all that you've done and we see this you've said it so i'm allowed to do it now 55 year old woman who's raised a family and we celebrate all of this i think it's really important that we're cognizant of and remember the trauma and the tragedy and the pain and then the strength to overcome it um normal folks experience that normal people we have money problems family problems sick people we have marital problems we have financial issues

we have all this crap that heaps up on us and beats us up in life And the beauty of an army of normal folks is people who overcome that and do things not because they're bequeathed with this great opportunity, but despite what they're faced with. And that strength is what's inspiring. And I just want to remind everybody this is born from a family who were devastated. by a one-year-old dying child. And certainly there's a lot to celebrate, and we're going to get to that. But if we lose fact of the true obstacles

and the true trauma of this, I think we diminish the beauty of the success. So that makes sense. It makes a lot of sense. And I really appreciate you saying that because I often feel that the hardship that Alex went through pretty much her entire life is easily overlooked because of the incredible inspiration that she left us and even the stories I tell which are very inspiring

about her behind those stories was the fact that she had this strength and she had this perspective because of what happened to her in her life and her life was really really hard So, you're left with a child who is now possibly paralyzed, one-year-old, and she grows. Tell us about it. So as far as the paralysis goes, within a few weeks, she started showing signs of being able to move her legs when we asked her to and started physical therapy. And without spending too much time on that whole story, eventually she really, She screamed and fussed through every physical therapy session, but she did what she needed to do. Her goal was to be able to walk without leg braces, and she eventually did it.

She could kind of walk across the room with touch points, and that alone was an incredible accomplishment because she was still considered pretty significantly paralyzed and had no sensation in her legs. She also went on to, so when a child is diagnosed with cancer, there's a protocol, typically, unless it's super rare. and the protocol is designed to be the same at pretty much every institution that's treating your child and it's designed to get your child to a cure ultimately, hopefully, except for those unfortunate, rare ones where there's no cure still. And in her case, there was a path to a cure. And we started

down that path, which included surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, had a lot of stops and starts because it would work and then stop working. So we were seeking second opinions and third opinions in collaboration with our doctor in Hartford. We were in Hartford still at the time. After three plus years of treatment, all of our second and third opinions agreed that there really wasn't much anything left to try for her. She was three going on four, and we were told she was incurable, and we were out of options, known options. So that's when, again, another moment where we had to face this reality. That's a gut shot.

It was even harder than the diagnosis. Because when she was diagnosed, you have this hope that she's going to get better. You know, you're going through this treatment with the idea that your child is going to be cured and you can picture them in 10 years or 20 years or, you know, at their wedding or whatever, you know, whatever it is you dream about for your children as they grow.

but once you hear incurable all of those things are taken away immediately i'm trying to put myself in your shoes and i guess my my reaction as a father would be well first question how long do we have and second thing is what are we going to do to make the best of that time Is that what you do? More or less, I mean, our thought was, along the lines of how much time, we felt like there were stones left unturned and we weren't ready to just take one, two, three opinions and assume that that was the right path. And the biggest reason we did that, because that is a path, and sometimes parents have

to make that decision, is because she was doing pretty well on her good days when she felt good. The cancer in her bones, which is what the problem was at this point, was causing her so much pain that we felt like not treating her would only make that worse. So the days, however long she had, would not be good quality time. So we started approaching different places to find out if they had something that could help her. And that was probably the words we used. We didn't ask for a cure. We knew that no one was going to promise that, but we wanted her to have a treatment that was different than what she had and something that could maybe give her good quality time and relieve her pain. And that is literally what we found with a doctor in Philadelphia,

which honestly has led to so much, including her lemonade stand. That's the power we learned of research. But first of all, y'all just said, okay, and you moved to Philly. Yeah, so we didn't move right away. We traveled to Philadelphia for a consult. This was incredibly exciting. It was a targeted therapy back in 1999, which was kind of a buzzword then, but not necessarily a reality. something that would, her tumors would soak up, but had far less toxicity than chemotherapy and everything she had been through. He really felt like it would help her. He had given it to one child before. So we traveled here with so much hope. But at the same time, you know, you always guard yourself from having too much hope because so much had disappointed. And she came out

of that hospital room. She was in isolation for three days. Essentially, we could go in and out, but not for extended periods because she herself was radioactive. from this treatment. She came out of that treatment, all smiles, and she said, that treatment worked, let's go shopping

because that was her fun thing to do when she felt good. That treatment worked, buy me something. Yes, and we went shopping for a Christmas dress, and that was also, like, very symbolic

because sort of dreading the upcoming holidays, now we had this child who said, I feel good, let's go get a Christmas dress, and we went back to Connecticut, and we continued to travel back and forth to Philadelphia

with our home hospital, still being Connecticut, kind of coordinating things. But after a year of doing that and me, after a long day at the hospital, deciding we should just drive home, getting on the Garden State Parkway South, which might not mean much to anybody here unless they've been on the Garden State Parkway, not realizing I was going the wrong way because I was very distracted until two hours later when we were like almost in Cape May. Oh, yikes. And then turning around and having to drive six hours home, got home.

And we said, this isn't working for us anymore. My son was in first grade. We, he liked to come with us. We were getting a notice from the school that he had missed too much school because we kept pulling him out to travel. My husband had a commission sales job in Connecticut, which was great, but he needed to work to make money. A lot of things weren't working for us, except for the fact that we had this amazing support

system. And then one day, his boss said, how would you like to transfer to Philadelphia, which was selling medical books, which was a bigger territory. It was less overnight travel. And essentially, it would be a great opportunity. And we felt like we couldn't say no to that. It was a place we wanted to be for our child and for our family. So we jumped at the chance. But it was a very, very hard move. We'll be right back. Imagine that you're on an airplane and all of a sudden you hear this.

Attention passengers, the pilot is having an emergency and we need someone, anyone to land this plane. Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50% of men think that they could land the plane with the help of air traffic control. And they're saying like, okay, pull this, do this, pull that, turn this. It's just... I can do it in my eyes. I'm Mani. I'm Noah.

This is Devin. And on our new show, No Such Thing, we get to the bottom of questions like these. Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence. Those who lack expertise lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise. And then, as we try the whole thing out for real. Wait, what?

Oh, that's the run right. I'm looking at this thing. See? Listen to No Such Thing on the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Our IHeart Radio Music Festival, presented by Capital One, is coming back to Las Vegas. September 19th and 20th. On your feet.

Streaming live only on Hulu. Ladies and gentlemen. Brian Adams. Ed Sheeran. Fade. Cholrilla. Shelley Roll. John Fogarty.

Lil Wayne. L.L. Cool J. Mariah Carey. Maroon 5. Sammy Hagar. Tate McCray. The offspring. Tim McGraw.

Tickets are on sale now. at AXS.com. Get your tickets today. AXS.com. I had this overwhelming sensation that I had to call it right then. And I just hit call. I said, you know, hey, I'm Jacob Schick. I'm the CEO of One Tribe Foundation.

And I just wanted to call and let her know there's a lot of people battling some of the very same things you're battling. And there is help out there. The Good Stuff Podcast Season 2 takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a nonprofit fighting suicide in the veteran community. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. I was married to a combat army veteran, and he actually took his own life to suicide. One Tribe saved my life twice. There's a lot of love that flows through this place, and it's sincere. Now it's a personal mission.

Don't want to have to go to any more funerals, you know. I got blown up on a React mission. I ended up having amputation below the knee of my right leg and a traumatic brain injury because I landed on my head. Welcome to Season 2 of the Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the psychology podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about exploring human potential. I was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills and I get eye rolling from teachers or I get students

who would be like, it's easier to punch someone in the face. When you think about emotion regulation, like you're not going to choose. an adaptive strategy, which is more effortful to use, unless you think there's a good outcome as a result of it, if it's going to be beneficial to you. Because it's easy to say, like, go you, go blank yourself, right? It's easy. It's easy to just drink the extra beer. It's easy to ignore, to suppress, seeing a colleague who's bothering you and just, like,

walk the other way. Avoidance is easier. Ignoring is easier. Denial is easier. Drinking is easier. Yelling, screaming is easy. Complex problem solving. meditating, you know, takes effort.

Listen to the psychology podcast on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If a baby is giggling in the back seat, they're probably happy. If a baby is crying in the back seat, they're probably hungry. But if a baby is sleeping in the back seat, will you remember they're even there? When you're distracted, stressed, or not usually the one who drives them, the chances of forgetting them in the back seat are much higher. It can happen to anyone. Parked cars get hot fast and can be deadly. So get in the habit of checking the back seat when you leave. The message from NHTSA and the ad council. So now you're in Philly. You have some hope that at least there's some quality of life,

even though that's not a change. That sets a stage for this kid wearing you out and irritating you about wanting to start a lemonade stand. Yes. And that's kind of the beginning. It is the beginning. In fact, a lot of people don't know this. Her first stand started in Connecticut. So after we came to Philadelphia and that treatment worked,

she, about a month later, started talking about having a lemonade stand. Which was actually irritating. Well, it wasn't so much irritating as, yeah, maybe a little pestering. So the first time she mentioned it, she was still pretty sick. She was in the hospital for an extended. stay for another therapy. And I just said, as we all do, when you have, especially when you have many children, you know, you put them off sometimes when it's not something that's important to you. And it was January in Connecticut. So I said, oh, sure, we can have a lemonade stand when

you get out of the hospital when it gets warmer. But then she would ask every month. And then nobody in January is going to be buying lemonade on the street in Connecticut. And then she persisted for about six months, persisted. And yes, I would say at times I was a little felt pestered by the lemonade stand talk. So finally one day in June of 2000, she was four and a half. She was doing pretty well because of the response she had to this. She still had cancer, but had reduced it a lot. She was feeling good. She said, we still haven't had my lemonade stand. And now it's hot out. So she would not like the Memphis heat. She did not tolerate heat very well. And now it's too hot. It's hot out. And I said, Alex, what do you want to buy so badly thinking, let's skip the stand?

And we'll go buy it. Go to the store, get the $10 toy and just call it a day. And she said, I'm not keeping the money. I'm giving it to my doctor so they can help kids the way they helped me. And that's why I believe... At four and a half. It was born out of that brand... We told her it was a brand new treatment that helped her and made her feel better.

And she wanted other kids to have that same opportunity. And yes, she was only four and a half. That in and of itself is extraordinary. it really is, and, you know, her older brother was similar. She was always sort of beyond her years. So with the two of them, it wasn't actually, it was cute to me, and I was surprised, but it wasn't surprising that Alex would come up with that. But then when I had my two other boys, and I don't know if they're going to listen to this,

really, they were just normal four-year-olds, I'm going to say. But one day my husband and I, when one of them was four, was like watching them play, and they were, like, banging something on the wall, and then, like, trying to hit their head, on the wall, maybe to see if it felt different. And he was like, this is the age she was when she started her lemonade stand. And now we have two meatheads. Yeah. But they were more, I realized then that that was more typical than she was, but she didn't have a typical life to that point. And I would say my older son also did not because he grew up with this. So you warned her, okay, fine, Alex, that's sweet because you're being sweet and everything will have this stupid lemonade stand.

I didn't say it was stupid. Well, I'm my words. And I didn't think it was stupid. And you're going to make 10, 20 bucks, just be prepared. Yes, so I did think, right, I didn't think it was stupid. I did think it was really sweet and it was adorable. That was my main thought was, just keep in mind, this was 2000. Kids weren't doing lemonade stands for charity.

I think that's part of why people gravitated to this idea. This was something Alex helped create for kids, and kids do lemonade stands, not just for us, but for all kinds of causes now. So, but mostly I thought, this is so, Alex, she thinks she's going to cure cancer with a lemonade stand. Isn't that adorable? And I called my sister, one of my sisters who also has four kids and said, you know, can you, what do you do in Saturday? Can you come by? Alex is having a lemonade stand. I'm afraid no one's going to show up, and she's really excited about it. And as we were hanging up, I said, oh, by the way, she's donating the money to the hospital.

And she said, you're kidding me. And I said, no, like, sort of like, isn't that so Alex? She said, I'm going to call the newspaper. And I thought that was the funniest thing. I was like, no one's going to care about her lemonade stand. And she said, oh, they're going to care. Do you know in the South what we say about people that have these grandiose ideas that are obviously ridiculous? What?

Bless their hearts. Yes, exactly. Bless her heart. She's going to cure cancer with a lemonade stand. Exactly. It's precious. But bless her heart. hard. And I even, you know, thought it, so we were all about it, right? So we immediately set up

that weekend. My sister ended up calling the paper, and she was right. They did care. They did a little. And, you know, you have like, back when we had printed newspapers and everybody read them, the local section, that's like two-year geographical part of the city, they printed something right on the front of that about the little girl having a lemonade stand and donating the money. And even then, we weren't necessarily anticipating that people would come out who we didn't know. But that morning, she knew. She knew. So the night before, of course, she had to get a new lemonade outfit, the night before she went to bed in her lemonade clothes because she said, I think it's going to be really busy. I want to be up early and ready. So her and her brother, and also

keep in mind, she was still not a steady walker, but her and her brother got up early the next morning. Yeah, let's keep in mind. This is a girl who's got no feeling in her legs and dealing with treatments and four and a half. Yes. Getting ready for eliminated. So any of you that can't get up for work on time or school on time, George, if you can't get up for school on time, you remember that. So she got up early.

George say yes, sir. Thank you. Go ahead. George is Alex's kid. I think George is an early riser. I bet George loves to get up in the morning. All right. So here she is.

She's going to bed. She gets up early, you know, gets us out. out of bed early, she's got to make the lemonade. Wouldn't you know it by 7 a.m., somebody's knocking on the door, saying, I know it doesn't start until later, but I'm going out of town and I had to meet you and give you my donation. And it was nonstop. I think my husband must have gone out for lemonade. I don't know how many times that day because we kept running out. At the end of the day, I honestly thought it was too much for her. A lot of people don't realize this about her, but she didn't like attention like that. It wasn't about her. It almost embarrassed her.

can probably relate to this, made her a little uncomfortable that people were talking about her and asking her for things. And she was very gracious as a four-year-old, as gracious as a four-year-old can be beyond. But at the end, and it was hot. So I kept thinking how she'd been saying it was too hot. And at the end of the day, I said, what did you think, Alex, thinking this may have been too much for her? And she said, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. She had raised $2,000. And I remember feeling like I was going to cry because I knew then that for all of my sort of not mocking but joking about the lemonade stand that's going to cure cancer it really meant something to her it really meant something to

her so much so that after he moved to Philadelphia she starts talking about having a lemonade sand again so Alex passed at eight years and a couple months old yes eight and a half Eight and a half. And incidentally, everybody, it's July, I'm not supposed to timestamp because Alex back there gets mad at me about time stamping. Alex, the producer. Oh, incidentally, if anybody ever gets involved in something where you have a producer, you will find out the producers are pains in the butt. Everybody else likes them, but if you're in my shoes. So anyway, I'm timestamping this for everybody. Today is July 30th. Alex died on August 1st. So we are two days. from the anniversary of Alex's passing. Yes. And from that four-and-a-half-year-old pestering, bless her heart, four-and-a-half-year-old little girl, until the day of her passing,

this child raised a million dollars. She would have an annual lemonade stand. More and more people heard about it. It became like a national news story, and it really lit a fire in her. And honestly, as she got sicker in 2004, we weren't talking about lemonade. We knew if she made it to her stand in June,

that it would be her last stand. And she decided she was going to raise a million dollars that year before she passed away. And once again, I thought, I was sad because I thought there's no way she's going to raise a million dollars in this amazing thing, the best thing that ever. Yeah, not even so much bless her heart as this incredible thing that she's accomplished

is now going to be disappointing because she's not going to reach that ultimate goal. But when she was asked, she said if everyone has lemonade stands, I think we can do it. And it became this amazing call to action that turned into a movement of lemonade stands, all happening at the same time to help her reach her goal. And by the middle of July, we were able to tell her she would reach her goal and she passed away, not even two weeks later. So she was obviously holding on to see that goal met. And she was very determined that things were going to be different

for kids after her than they were for her. Into a certain level of stubbornness, and I would say almost like a fixation on meeting the school, even when we were saying things like, you know, you're too sick to travel to do that interview. It's okay if you don't go to the stand. you don't have to do this, she would just shut it down and say, I have to do this. And that concludes part one of my conversation with Liz Scott, and you don't want to miss

part two that's now available to listen to. Together, guys, we can change this country. And it starts with you. I'll see you in part two. It's important that we just reassure people that they're not alone, and there is help out there. The Good Stuff podcast, Season 2, takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a nonprofit fighting suicide in the veteran community. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the front-long. minds of One Tribe's mission. One Tribe, save my life twice. Welcome to Season 2 of the Good Stuff.

Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the psychology podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about how to be a better you. When you think about emotion regulation, you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome. is easier. Ignoring is easier. Denials is easier. Complex problem solving takes effort. Listen to the psychology podcast on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Our IHeart Radio Music Festival, presented by Capital One, is coming back to Las Vegas.

Vegas. September 19th and 20th. On your feet. Streaming live only on Hulu. Ladies and gentlemen, Brian Adams, Ed Shearrett, Fade, Chlorilla, Jelly Roll, John Fogarty, Lil Wayne, L.L. Cool J, Mariah Carey, Maroon 5, Sammy Hagar, Tate McCray, the Offsprint, Tim McGraw, tickets are on sale now at AXS.com. Get your tickets today. AXS.com. How serious is youth vaping? Irreversible lung damage serious. One in ten kids vape serious, which warrants a serious conversation from a serious parental figure like yourself. Not the seriously know-at-all sports dad or the seriously smart podcast. It requires a serious conversation that is best had by you.

No, seriously, the best person to talk to your child about vaping is you. To start the conversation, visit talk about vaping.org. Brought to you by the American Lung Association and the Ad Council. Why are TSA rules so confusing? You got a hood of you. I'll take it all! I'm Mani. I'm Noah. This is Devin.

And we're best friends and journalists with a new podcast called No Such Thing, where we get to the bottom of questions like that. Why are you screaming? I can't expect what to do. Now, if the rule was the same, go off on me. I deserve it. You know, lock him up. Listen to No Such Thing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

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