An Army of Normal Folks - Manu Meel: The Accidental Unifier

Episode Date: November 7, 2023

Manu wasn’t planning to dedicate his life to preserving our democracy, but a riot broke out on his college campus and he accidentally became a unifying force for all sides. Today, he’s trying to unify the country as the CEO of BridgeUSA, whose chapters at 50 colleges and 24 high schools equip the next generation with the skills to navigate conflict and find solutions across differences. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You take somebody my age. Born in December of 98, I'm 24. I was I think two years old when 9-11 happened. I was going to middle school when the Great Recession happened. I was graduating high school when the 2016 presidential election happened. I graduated college in 2020 when the pandemic hit, the capital riots happened, and you had the Trump Biden election. And now it's 2023. Not a great sample size of democratic progress and growth. Like, that's the- That's a really fair comment.

When you look at it from that lens, I don't think it's necessarily meant to excuse the skepticism and the critique, but I think it's meant to demonstrate that if all you know is a house on fire, then there's basically two options. One, you either try to whill up and put out the fire, which is with myself and my fellow young leaders doing, or you escape the house, which is frankly a very understandable notion. Welcome to an Army of Normal Folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, a father, an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach and Intercity Memphis in the last part unintentionally led to an Oscar for the film about our team. It's called

undefeated. I believe our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits, stalking big words that nobody understands on CNN and Fox, but rather an army of normal folks, us, just you and me deciding, hey, I can help. That's what Manu Meal, the voice we just heard has done. Manu wasn't planning to dedicate his life to preserving our democracy, but a riot broke out on his college campus, and he accidentally became a unifying force for all sides. Today he's trying to unify the country as the CEO of Bridge USA, whose chapters at 50 colleges

and 24 high schools create spaces for students of all stripes to openly and constructively discuss students of all stripes to openly and constructively discuss political issues, equipping the next generation with the skills to navigate conflict and find solutions across differences. Manu brings me hope that his generation can do this better than my generation is done, and I cannot wait for you to meet him right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Deliciy Peretti. Do you feel chronic existential dread but love talking about delicious snacks? Call me! My podcast is relaunching! Subscribe and treat yourself to sound effects like this!

And this! Have you ever been attacked by a bear? Yeah! And moments like this! I have an apple sweet in front of the space here. No! And my whole leg from my knee down in my foot burnt until it's full of big bubbles. And this, kale chips are delicious.

They're too oily when I go. They shouldn't be soft at all. They should be really crispy. That's what I said every single time. You are yelling at me. And this. Do you want to go to the Clipper game with me tonight? Do you have 25 references of mutual friends that can tell me that you're not a murderer?

Um, and this. Hold on, I gotta open some peanut butter pretzels. [♪ Sound of fire, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, host of the new podcast, JoJoCewaNow. God would admit, I am so excited to finally be starting my podcast, JoJoCewaNow. I feel like I've grown up in front of the world. You know, the first time the world saw me publicly was at nine years old. Now, it's time to get real up close and personal. You're going to see why I am the way I am now. You're going to see who I am now and it's gonna be pretty fun.

It's gonna be like an inside look at what I've been up to in the last three years. It's basically like, I'm gonna be talking to you like I'm writing in a journal. You're gonna get all of a tea and all of a scoop. I'm also gonna be talking to my friends, the people I admire, the people that are trending right now. So you're gonna get like JoJo Siwa now like, now what's going on in the world. It's gonna be great. I really hope you like it.

You can listen to Joe, just see what now on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Get ready. Jack and Miles from your favorite podcast, The Daily Side Guys, are having a super fun event at State Farm Park and I Heartland They're gonna chat about generation gaps looking at all the differences between young people today

So don't miss this special event starting Thursday November 9th at 7 p.m. Eastern at State Farm Park and I Heartland Infortone I available all weekend long be sure to say hi to Jake from State Farm on the big screen Be this high score in parkour and snap a selfie at the selfie booth. Visit iHeartRadio.com slash iHeartland to start playing today. Manu Meele. No. Manu Meele. Manu. Manu.

Manu. Yes, sir. Is that right? Yes, sir. That's right. The second one. Manu meal. Welcome to Memphis.

I hope you enjoyed your sandwich when I was starving and you ate it in front of me. You know, I had to buy the sandwich specifically to show you off, but door is vegetarian and only at avocado in it. So I don't think I would have filled you up. You're, well, not only would you not fill me up I hate avocado, so I would have spit it out. Good. Good. That's very anti-California view. Well, I have nothing to do with California so I use this perfect.

And it's very West Coast of you, sir. Yeah, yeah. I definitely, I feel like I flew in today. And you and I were just talking about like carbon sequestration and trees and you gave me a full lesson on it. And like, I feel like if you mapped my carbon footprint, I would look like a freaking weird tech guy. But I made for the record, I make like half the money. Maybe a third. Maybe a third. Well, nonetheless, welcome to Memphis. Thanks for coming to to be with us and hanging out at the FedEx Forum.

Yeah. Are you going to be a Grizzly's fan now? Definitely not. Definitely not. No chance. What are you? The elevator was broken in the way up. Well, it was, but that's a bad side. I have a secret. It wasn't broken. You weren't a fan. So there were like, I'm not in with John Murray. So I work out. Well, what kind of fan are you? So I'm a Boston Celtics fan. I used to be a Lakers fan. Well, then you should be a little bit of a Grizzlies fan because Marcus Smart is now a grizzly. That makes me less. He didn't leave on his own accord. Y'all traded him, which is a bad call. There's a bad call. He had the heart. He had the heart and the soul. No kidding. He had guts. He felt like a normal person on the team. It will be lovely having him to beat the Celtics next time we play him.

Yeah, is that true? At least, hey, at least we've got a championship or two. Yeah, you do have those. No, but I'll just, we're coming. I really do appreciate being here. I think Memphis, I mean, you gave me a history lesson too on the Zoom call that we had, but I'm somebody that loves history, loves places that have a lot of transformation

and I don't take the time for granted. There's a time here. I wish you could stay a little longer. I'd love to stay around. Let's talk about you though, because that's what we're here for first. Which grow up, tell me about little Manu. I'm still little.

I'll tell you. Young Manu. I'll tell you. I'll tell you. I'd have about five to 15 year old Manu. Okay, cool. Five to 50. Actually, the interesting stuff is one to five.

One to five? Yeah. I think it's all interesting, but go 1 to 5. So, my parents moved from India. They were in New Delhi, Northern India. They moved to the United States in 97. I was born in December of 98. You are a puppy, aren't you?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. December 98. Still webbed on the ears. My colleague, my colleague, my colleague is a 2000 baby, a millennium baby. And so I can only imagine how young I must feel in 98 because when she says 2000, I'm like, man, that's young. She's only two years younger than me. But yeah, no, I'm totally young, which is why when you're like, tell me about little

and the new, I was like, that's presumptuous of me to be like. But I was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Then my mom and my dad, my mom especially, had a really hard time settling in. She, you know, her entire family was there. She was very extroverted. She really cared about family and she had a hard time staying in the United States. And so she actually went back with my dad. And they thought about, you know, potentially staying in India. And I distinctly remember my mom telling me the story. It's something I'll always be Grateful to her four coach Bill, which is that she walked me past this like school where I would probably go to school And it was there was like cows on the side and India in India in New Delhi. It was dirty. The doors were rusted and She was like there's no way this guy is

going to grow up here. And so she basically bucked up, and she and my dad flew back to the United States where my mom did all of her stuff to be a doctor. But the reason I had one to five periods of importance, because I actually then lived with my grandparents in India for those five years on and off. And so I lived with my dad's side in New Delhi. I live with my mom's side in a village close to a state called Haryana. And then I came back to the US after those five years and basically moved around every two years until What was did your mother and father get their doctorate? So my mom became a doctor and my dad was a computer scientist. It's a classic Indian

I went to the hospital. Oh, no, I don't even. I'm not. Computer scientists and doctors, the classic Indian family. It's the classic Indian family. And then look at me. Look at what happened to me. Well, we don't know that yet. So let's not go there.

No. Yeah. So why were you going back and forth then? And why were you moving every two years? Because clearly they were earning well. I mean, they had their degrees and all right. So I mean, I certainly did not, we were not poor, but my dad's job was unstable for some time.

So we would move because of that. Then my mom's job would change. I lived in New Jersey, lived in Staten Island, New York, came back to Jersey, moved around there twice, never spent, again, more than those two years, and then basically went to high school in Lexington, Massachusetts. And so you talk about money. What's interesting is every move that we made, we actually, my parents started earning a little bit more money, a little bit more money. And they're chasing the American dream, a little bit.

They're chasing the American dream. They're chasing the American dream. And not just the American dream, but they're chasing, I think, just a... I think they were just chasing a foundation for where their kids could just make the most of their sacrifice. I get it. I think that was it. That's a beautiful thing.

That is the American dream, especially for immigrants, which your parents are. Yep. But you're an American. You were born here. I was born here, but what's fascinating is when I came back at the age of five, I like was this like, first of all, countries like India, and this is me saying it's somebody that's from India, smell different. I landed here and I just smelled like India. It's a very distinct smell.

It's like when you live in New York City or you live in Texas, you live in a village, or you live in a farm, you were gonna farm as opposed to, and I had like when you're oftentimes in an area where there's a lot of dust, your hair gets all matted and it sticks together. And so I like did not, I think my first language was Hindi,

even though it was born here. And yeah, man, it was fascinating to try and fit in. It was very hard. Okay, hold it. Let's be real. Yeah. A five years old trying to fit in is not fascinating. That is not the word a five year old would use about trying to fit in.

And I'm interested in this because I think it's germane to what you're doing now actually, as I've thought a lot about your story, believe it or not, I have thought about a lot about a lot of, a lot of, a lot of, I appreciate about it. Well, I mean, you're this, you're in this interesting place that one, you've grown up basically in India, you're an American, born America, grown up in India, you even said your first language is probably actually Hindi, and you move every two years.

And the moving every two years and your parents trying to get you the best opportunity in the world and they're chasing the American dream and I get it and that's beautiful. But I got to believe you had a hard time fitting coming up. Yeah. And that even if you started develops from relationships until years are gone again. Yeah.

What was that like? I mean, that's where the, I hope is a five year old I wasn't using the word fatisidinating because that I would be actually an odd kid. Then there's no chance of me fitting. No, a five year old would, seven year old would say, what's suck, not that it was fascinating. Absolutely, with the difference, though. In hindsight, maybe, fascinate. Yes, it definitely sucked.

I just, my temperament is one where I just have a hard time. I just don't really try to associate negative emotions, a lot of that type of stuff because it really did make me who I am today. But that's only looking in hindsight. I'll tell you, you know, trying to fit in, trying to make friends. I mean, it did suck. I think I used to, I had almost a bully in every sort of stage and this is something that I credit

my parents a lot with, you know, my mom had that philosophy of someone, someone punches you, punch them back twice and make sure they never get up. And I had a really, I mean, do I look like somebody that can punch back twice? Like, let's be real. Do I look like a kid that can punch? I'm punching my words, but that's only now. I was, I was like, chubby. I was pudgy. I did not have that capacity.

And so really it did suck. And what sucked most about it actually, Coach Bill, was that I feel like you oftentimes have this feeling of America, like in India, especially whenever I would go back after coming here, I distinctly remember when I was like, 7, 10, 13 people back home would say like, man, like you're in America, like that's the dream, that's the place, and I was like, Did they think you were like fortunate, lucky,

I was awesome. Yeah, I mean, you're basically, you know, like, you're the sh- Yeah. And that did not mirror the reality of our life, which was that I lived in apartments my entire life until we got to, until like eighth grade. I grew up with my siblings in one apartment. Again, fitting in was one where like kids would pick on you. If you take the- this is so funny, When you ask me how to pronounce my name, part of the reason why I stopped really caring

was because it became such a subject of like intrigue and making jokes that I was like, you know what? We got to figure out other ways to keep going. What's interesting now that I think about this is that it made me somebody that understood how to just create space for people to be idiots for a little bit so that you can better accept them, they can better accept you and you can actually

get somewhere. And the last thing I'll just say on this point is you learn how to adapt. And I think one of the things that I fear a lot about the work I do now and I don't want to skip ahead, but like when people see this like young person that can be super charismatic and they talk and all of that, I know what that creates. I know the vibe that that gives off. It's like, oh, this must be a trust fund baby or this must be whatever, whatever. And frankly, my life really helped give me the impetus to do the work that I do because I think there's a lot of kids out there.

I mean, you worked with a lot of them in your past that are just trying to fit in and are looking for space. So yeah so What you just said is The discovery that I was trying to reveal is that The podcast that came out I'm gonna Tom stamp this Alex. So no griping He hates when I Tom stamp stuff. So he's going to have to just

get harder. That's producer stuff Alex can just relax on this one. So today's podcast. So we call podcasts release every Tuesday. And the reason I really even started thinking about you again was this podcast. And it's about Stacey Horst and very shortly and if you guys listening now haven't listened to it go listen to it it's gripping. Her kid was autistic, Asperger's level one and this child at 16 because of being bullied and ostracized because she didn't fit because of her social limitations, she took her own life. And it absolutely floors me when I think about what that family has done to honor the legacy of their daughter. But as I was thinking about you,

daughter. But as I was thinking about you, obviously, I'm not saying you were suicidal or anything. But what I am saying is for the son of an immigrant from India, who goes back and forth and is living and growing up with basically two different cultures and moving every two years, I've got to believe that you saw some of the worst in what human beings can do and say and act toward one another. And I just want to know if that's true and did that in some way compel you to have empathy or compel you to have, what is that like? I think it forced me to find perspective because I think, and again, this is sort of my mindset and temperament, is I think oftentimes when you're experiencing hardship, and here's the fact, you know, you're hard, you might be experiencing hardship, I might be experiencing hardship. One of ours might be relatively more.

And yet that doesn't take away from the fact that you and I are both suffering hardship, right? So any hardship that anybody's ever suffering is real. And that's your hardship. And that's real trauma and it's real challenge. For me, I often feel like the best way for me to cope with that is to put my suffering and my challenges in context. There's put it my suffering and my challenges in context. There's put it in context. Put it in context. And you're telling me at 13, you're learning this.

No, no, this is the thing I learned outside. I'm talking in hindsight. No. At 13, I was mad. Mad. And but again, my temper was not so much mad. It was just more subdued, quiet, withdrawn, insecure. I oftentimes ask people that knew me then.

I was never the somebody that you pick out in a class and you're like, this kid's going to do all right or do something. Where your rights go? They're average, middle, the pack. That's very unindian. Yeah, I'm very unindian in many ways. You know, the only, the most Indian thing about me is that I actually stayed very close to my culture.

So I love, you know, my grandparents, they basically raised me for those first five, six years. And my grandfather, he passed the one that really like was somebody that gave me a lot of values over time. And he and he really felt like another father figure. He passed away last year and I haven't been able to go back to India since, but I'm going to go in two to three weeks and finally go back to that home witness. And one of the things he would always say is he would say two things to me. And this is why I'm

actually starting to think about this. He would say two things. One is he said, you need to, you need to think about God. And the second thing he would say to me is that you are great. And I say that with the context of all of the crappiness that we went through as a child, there are very few people that I felt like gave me the real motivation or sense of self. At that point, I needed somebody to say that. And I used to make recordings of him saying that because now that I reflect, it really gives me that sense of purpose to keep doing. So all of that to say that I'm very unindian in some ways. In the Indian immigrant community, there's a term called ABCD. American born confused. They see.

And by the way, shout out to my friends who gave me that. And then right after that, I whip out the Indian man. They can't handle it. They can't handle it. They're like, this guy's not bad. Your grandfather, you say instilled values. Uh-huh. He instilled values.

What values? The first value that he instilled in me was beef fearless. Fearless. Fearless. I love that. He was, I think it's something that I actually, if you ask me, what is my weakness? My strength is the ability to empathize with people and try and care because I love people. To me, when you said, like, you've seen the worst humanity, no, you know, to me, I see

it as just ignorance, you know, everybody's got their issues. I've been, I'm sure I've been an addict to some people in my life, not even knowing it. But the weakness for me and that is I sometimes don't know when to push. I sometimes don't know when to be honest with what I think. And he was somebody that served in the military. That was his way of climbing the social ladder. In India, basically, you did two things

in the sort of the societal stratification that my family was in, which is you either be a farmer or you go in the military. So he went into the military. He fought three wars. I remember there's this one story that he always used to tell me, which is, I used to be scared of ghosts, like most kids. And he used to say, he used to say, I'm not that, that used to be my nickname from him.

He used to say, so you know, this morning, I was in the, I was in the shower in a ghost walk through the door. And he, he, the ghost massaged my legs. I, I, he watched me. There's another until they realize that you can't be mess with. And the ghost are gonna be for you. And so the first thing you always told me was be fearless. And it's something I have deeply appreciated. And the second thing was faith in God, something that he believed a lot in. I'm not that religious right now,

but I'm not that religious right now. I'm not that religious right now. I'm not that religious right now. I'm not that religious right now. I'm not that religious right now. I'm not that religious right now. it was be fearless and it's something I have deeply appreciated. And the second thing was faith in God, something that he believed a lot in. I'm not that religious right now, but I'm back on the hunt, I'm back on the search. And the final thing that he would always say is work hard not for anybody else, but just for yourself. And it, I mean, he was, he had eight siblings, I think, seven or eight siblings.

And he basically was the engine for our family on my mom's side to move up into society. He sounds like a phenomenal guy. Yeah. He's a good guy. And I can see the regard. You can see your face changes when you talk about him. Yeah. Yeah, I haven't actually ever talked about it publicly,

but like what I appreciate about the space you're doing is, you know, just create space for that honest conversation. And I know that most people have somebody like that in their life, hopefully. And it's good. It's important to have people like that. So, yeah. So, yeah. Subscribe and treat yourself to sound effects like this. And this! Have you ever been attacked by a bear?

Yeah. Yeah! And moments like this. I have to fall asleep in front of the space here. No! And my whole leg, from my knee down in my foot, burnt into a squall, was a big bubble. And this, kale chips are delicious. They're too oily when I go.

They shouldn't be soft at all. It should be really crispy. That's what I said every single time. You are yelling at me. And this? Do you want to go to the Clipper of Game with me tonight? Do you have 25 references of mutual friends that can tell me that you're not a murderer?

Um, and this. Hold on, I got to open some peanut butter pretzels. Listen to Call Chelsea Paredion, Will Ferrell's big money players network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. It's JoJoCeeWa, host of the new podcast, JoJoCeeWaNow. Godwin, I am so excited to finally be starting my podcast, JoJoCeeWaNow. I feel like I've grown up in front of the world. So excited to finally be starting my podcast, JoJo, see what now. I feel like I've grown up in front of the world.

You know, the first time the world saw me publicly was at nine years old. Now, it's time to get real up close and personal. You're gonna see why I am the way I am now. You're gonna see who I am now. And it's gonna be pretty fun. It's gonna be like an inside look at what I've been up to in the last three years.

It's basically like, I'm gonna be talking to you like I'm writing in a journal. You're gonna get all of the tea and all of the scoop. I'm also gonna be talking to my friends, the people I admire, the people that are trending right now. So you're gonna get like JoJo Siwa now and like now what's going on in the world.

It's gonna be great. I really hope you like it. You can listen to JoJo Siwa now on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I Heartland. They're going to chat about generation gaps, looking at all the differences between young people today. So don't miss this special event starting Thursday November 9th at 7 p.m. Eastern at State Farm Park and I Heartland in Fortnite, available all weekend long. Be sure to say hi to Jake from State Farm on the big screen. Be this high score in park at iHeartRadio.com slash iHeartLand to start playing today. So where do you graduate high school? 2016 sir. Where? 2016 in Lexington, Massachusetts. Lexington, Massachusetts. Which by the way is basically it's a public school basically a private school.

A really good public school. There's literally a hill in Lexington called Noble Prize Hill where the Noble Prize there's seven Noble Prize winners that live in Lexington. It's good grief. It's freaking insane. Insane. Okay, so you say you're an average student but you went to Cal Berkeley. So you're full of crap because average students don't go to Berkeley. So how's that work? Average is relative. Now this is very Indian because I have an Indian friend who would get A's and A's and A's and they'd have one a modest and their parents would

ground them for an A. My. So this is where the world and the expectations are stressful. Yeah. This is something I benefited a lot from, which is that I had very little expectations for my parents. They did not impose much on me. They didn't do all that. No, and actually if you pull up my transcripts, I had mostly bees throughout high school, actually. I was never that type of kid. When I say average, it's because, and this is again a personal story, and this often

times sounds out of touch, but it depends on where you grow up and what you're doing. What came into your mind? Lexington was basically a feeder school for Harvard and MIT. That's where everybody lives. Good grief. And it's that type of thing. Everybody, you mean like most of the kids with MIT and all? No, no, not most, 16 kids in every class.

Wow. Which tells you the environment that it was. It must be just. It's a pressure cooker. But for me, again, it's about perspective and context. I love competition. I love to compete. I love to be pushed. And so for me, it didn't feel like pressure. It just felt like, you're not as good as you think you are. And so take yourself up and start working hard. And here's the thing though, is I was so bad in the classroom. Like, I used to say

so bad, how bad can you be? You went to Cal. First of all, I got wait list, I barely got in. I barely got out too, by the way. And so I barely got out, I barely got out. I barely made it in. They tried to keep me there then. But for me, my brain never worked in the class. It was just, I was never, I have to work three times

as hard as you to get a, get like a B plus. I get it. Yeah. You know what I do. It's effort and all that. So I got to interject this quick story for you. It's hilarious. Let me hear it. So when I was coaching a manassas, this dude came up that, well, nobody, my first games of an ass has had three people at them. Yeah. I mean, we were four wins and 95. What year was it? Oh, man, dude, uh, 2002 is about the first year. And literally three people in the sand, it'd be 2000 on the other side. We had the bus driver, I bet.

The principal and a lady named Miss Guy, who was like 80 year old graduate of an asses who never missed a game. That was it. As we started winning and kids started coming and getting better, more fans for people and people from the neighborhood would want to help out and most of them were well-intentioned and some of them were like dudes

that wanted to relive the glory days that I didn't have any time for. One of the, well those dudes showed up and said, hey, you know, you didn't need coaching. I'm good on the D line. Yeah. And I said, well, let's talk about that. Yeah. And I said, you know, what'd you, did you play ball? He said, yeah, I played a cow. Cowl. Yeah. Yeah. Now, this is a guy who's from North Memphis who didn't have a job. And said he went to... To Cal.

Wow. Cal. And I said, really? And I said, you played football, Cal? And he said, yeah. And I said, wow, that's interesting. And I said, so you graduated from Cal? He's like, oh, no, no, no.

I left early, hold it. I left early. I went overseas to chase that big money and played in Canada. Football. Hold it. Listen to what I just said. I went overseas to chase the big money and went to Canada. Hey, there's a great leg. Last time I looked at what an ocean between Cal and Canada. At which point I said, thanks, man. We'll give you a call if we can use you. But that was pretty much my full exposure to Cal from Memphis. Have you ever been a Berkeley? What's up? Have you ever been a Berkeley? Yeah, once. It's a crazy place. So when you go, wait a year, five, six years ago, just passing through, at least then I drove up the coast and you did the one.

Well, yeah, we went to Pepperdome saw that campus went to Cal. How do you think, do you see how freaking beautiful that campus was? Pepperdome, how do you get any work done on that campus? How do you, how do you ever leave when you're on, when you're midway campus? Yeah. And there's deer walking across the campus and the campus is below you. And then there's the Pacific Ocean. But worse, go to a baseball game.

I wouldn't ever watch a ball get pitched because you got the, it's gorgeous. It's beautiful. I gave a speech, I gave a speech up there and midway through, I forgot my words because the sun was set over the. It was just the beauty of the city. Yeah, let me just say, like, there's, look, you can hear me talk. That's much more.

Yeah, it's absolutely gorgeous. But anyways, he went up and you went to. So, but that's my question. You show up to cow, right? Yeah. First blush feel. How'd you feel when you got that the campus? And, you know, how did, how did this 18 year old kid

who's moved all over the place went to this crazy competitive high school gets gal. What were your first impressions of it as a kid as a freshman? I mean, what was that like and the context here by the way is like I grew up in a village in India interspersed. Yeah, and you showed up to America with Maddie up Stacey here in Staten Island. We lived in an apartment where like I we would play a game of what cockroaches is the fattest that you've seen today. So I'm giving you context because it's fascinating to see, and this is again credit to my parents.

We have complicated family dynamics, but putting all that aside, that's something that nobody can ever take away from them in their hard work. But given all that context, I get come Berkeley. And what's interesting is, first of all, Berkeley's like the size of a small country. Like there's like 60,000 kids there. It's, it's like UT. It's huge. It's massive. And the second thing is that I came as a, somebody that's probably going to be a pre-med student, right? And you and I talked about this. And I done debate in high school. And I really got this bug of like, I kind of like this idea of beating up people with my words, you

know, and I was like, I kind of like this idea. And I was not great. I was average again, I was average, I had never found my thing. And so I had this debate thing, I had a comment is kind of a pre-med person, I took my bio class, and the crazy thing about Cal was that again it put you in your place. What I love about public schools in this country, as opposed to private like IB schools, and it just came from the University of Notre Dame,

which is a beautiful private school, is that how do you win an environment where there's no advisors and no coddling of 60,000 people, you have to fight for it. And that was essentially that first semester. It's crazy though, is second semester, I had this inkling present Trump had just been elected. I had that political bug. Like I was interested in politics because of debate, but I was still interested in sort of trying to do the med thing because of my parents. And also because I felt like that was something that I wanted to do as well at that time. And then we had, so Trump, we had this pre-med thing, and campus is crazy.

Berkeley is oftentimes known as the Republic of Berkeley. It's politics are off the charts, and it started becoming a centerpiece for a lot of tumult, and a lot of those things that you today share culture war issues at that point were at the forefront of campus, but not mainstream. February 2, 2017, the college Republicans invite the speaker to campus by the name of myeloynopolis. All right, hang on. Yeah.

You're getting there. Yeah. But first, yeah. And we're going to this next. You're competing. You're trying to find your place. You're fitting in. Your mother wants you to be a doctor, and you're being pre-med and you're doing that.

But you love debate, and clearly, you have an inkling toward an interest in the public debate. Maybe not politics, but the public debate. But the public debate. Yeah. Well, you're in the right place, because it's Berkeley. Yeah. Because they will protest, protest, they protest everything. They will protest protesting. Absolutely. If they're protesting, let's protest their protest. That's my joke about Berkeley. It was true. Right? And sometimes the things that they protest are, it'll make you pause. You can give us one.

I mean, a great example. Give us a ridiculous protest. Well, in this case, they weren't actually, they were just made up in issues that they didn't have to go to class. And again, this is like, it is not me throwing shade at Cal. Like there's a lot of people that protest legitimate things. We have a lot of union stuff there. All the employees are unionized.

There's a lot of action. I'm not saying all protests are ridiculousized. There's a lot of action. I'm not saying all protestors dickless. I'm talking about some bubble or coach bill. Let's just say that Berkeley holds the record for how many publicly nude people I've seen. Oh, really? Absolutely. It's a fascinating.

Is being nude part of a protest or are you protesting? I've seen protestors. No, I've seen protestors be nude. I've seen protestors protesting nudity. I've seen people I've no I've seen protesters be nude. I've seen protesters protesting nudity. I've seen people animal rights folks doused in fake blood on campus, you know, sitting in a cage a fake cage. I've seen Christian preachers stand there talking about the fact that like the heavens are gonna break tomorrow. You know, Berkeley is a place that attracts

have them, they're gonna break tomorrow. You know, Berkeley is a place that attracts interesting people that like have deep convictions, crazy people and normal people that are just trying to get a job. And I fit that most ladder category. I think I would protest naked people protesting. Would you be naked doing it? Have you seen me?

No, in first, you would fly. In first, we would fly. No, not this guy suffice it to say though, if you're a freshman and you're rolling up to this atmosphere. Oh man. It's 2016 just happened. Yeah, it's a culture shot. Right? It's gotta be a little bit of culture shot. But the other thing I would think is that after a while you get a little numb to the protest. It's almost like, hold it, why did anybody protest into that? Yeah. When they, I mean, it protest is so common

that they almost lose their bite because everybody's always protesting like this, whatever. But that changed on the day you're about to tell us about because this became more than a protest. Yes, so. Tell us about this day that ultimately changed the direction of your life.

about this day that ultimately changed the direction of life. But first, a few messages from our sponsors. Hello, I'm Chelsea Paredi. Do you feel chronic existential dread but love talking about delicious snacks? Call me, my podcast is relaunching! Subscribe and treat yourself to sound effects like this. And this, have you ever been attacked by a bear? Yeah.

Yes! And moments like this. I have an applause seat in front of the space here. No. And my whole leg from my knee down in my foot burnt until it's squalled with a big bubble. And this, kale chips are delicious. They're too oily when I go. They shouldn't be soft at all.

They should be really crispy. That's what I said every single time. You are yelling at me. And this? Do you want to go to the Clipper game with me tonight? Do you have 25 references of mutual friends that can tell me that you're not a murderer? And this.

Hold on, I got to open some peanut butter pretzels. Listen to Call Chelsea Paradeon, Will Therill's big money players network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. It's JoJoCeeWa, host of the new podcast, JoJoCeeWaNow. God would admit, I am so excited to finally be starting my podcast, JoJoCeeWaNow. I feel like I've grown up in front of the world. So excited to finally be starting my podcast, JoJo Siwa Now. I feel like I've grown up in front of the world. You know, the first time the world saw me publicly

was at nine years old. Now it's time to get real up close and personal. You're gonna see why I am the way I am now. You're gonna see who I am now. And it's gonna be pretty fun. It's gonna be like an inside look at what I've been up to in the last three years. It's basically like, I'm gonna be talking to you

like I'm writing in a journal. You're gonna get all of the tea and all of the scoop. I'm also gonna be talking to my friends, the people I admire, the people that are trending right now. So you're gonna get like JoJo Siwa now and like now what's going on in the world. It's gonna be great.

I really hope you like it. You can listen to JoJo Siwa now on the I I Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Get ready. Jack and Miles from your favorite podcast, The Daily Side Guys, are having a super fun event at State Farm Park in I Heartland. They're gonna chat about generation gaps looking at all the differences between young people today. So don't miss this special event starting Thursday November 9th at 7 p.m. Eastern at State Farm Park and I Heartland in Fortnite, available all weekend long.

Be sure to say hi to Jake from State Farm on the big screen. Be this high score in parkour and snap a selfie at the selfie booth. Visit iHeartRadio.com slash iHeartland to start playing today. If you were telling me this is what I would be doing, what days it's a, you know, October 3rd, 23rd. Tom stay up. There you go Alex. I didn't do it. I guess did it.

I can't see the day. Sorry. You know what? Nothing live. That's too bad. He can get over it. Yeah. Yeah say the date. Sorry. You know what? I'm just having life and so I'm too bad. He can get over. Yeah. Yeah. We're on October third today. So it's an army of normal folks and a full

fledged time staff. I love it. Alex is like the time portal guy. Yeah. He's very upset. But essentially, yeah, February 2, 2017, I was walking back from the seminar. One other thing I didn't tell you was because I was waitlisted to college,

Berkeley is 60,000 kids. Now it's even more, I'm pretty sure. They don't have enough housing for students. So they have a homeless student population, believe it or not. No, I'm being serious. What somebody should protest that. Yeah, see, that's what I'm saying. If you protest everything,

you lose the bite of the issues that actually matter. Right, that's it. So that's the problem. You've solved Berkeley's issues in like 10 minutes. So essentially, I would be, so I was as part of this program, they've now shut down called the fall program for freshmen. San Francisco. Now, Berkeley, if you know anything about the geography, Berkeley's on this side of the Bay and San Francisco's on this side of the bay. Nobody told me that for the entirety of first semester, every morning at 7 a.m. they would bus me on the F bus all the way to San Francisco to take class. I was so average that when I got there, I wasn't good enough to take class in Berkeley. And so I would take a bus every morning with some of my friends that are now still my friends,

the F bus, show up to F P F, or F P F San Francisco, take class there and then bus back. You know, it's really ironic by the way now? I live two blocks from F P F San Francisco now. But that's a whole nother thing. So I'm doing this busing thing, second semester, they're like, okay, now you've earned your spot, we've enrolled some new kids,

you can take classes on campus. So I started taking classes on campus. Now I'm walking back from this math seminar, right? And so it's February 2, 2017. So we're about three weeks into this semester. I'm walking back and that day, that day specifically, I remember I wanted to walk. I love sunsets and nature's a big thing for me. And so the way that the sun sets in Berkeley, the way that the Main Street Telegraph intersects

on campus, you can see the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean right above the Goline Bridge. It's beautiful. Wow, but that is amazing. It's amazing. And the bridge is very far away. I've seen that from the Presidio believe it or not. Which is, it's a much better view, but because Berkeley is all the way across the bay, but

you can see it in the distance. And then suddenly I hear like helicopters flying overhead and shouting in the distance. And I have the exact same reaction you just did, which is like, it's Berkeley, you know, we protest everything. There's helicopters. Yeah. You know, somebody's getting protested.

Hopefully it's a real issue. And then this cafe window is broken in an inside where it was a cow dining hall where the food, where the food is served for students. And inside it said, CNN UC Berkeley students protest free speech. I was like, wait, this is actually something different. And inside I said, CNN, UC Berkeley students protest free speech. I was like, wait, this is actually something different. What this crazy was that the film grew that was filming that

was standing right next to me. And you're saying it. And I'm seeing it. And that was like the breaking the fourth wall. Where most of us are usually the normal people are just observers of politics, of media, all these things. Suddenly, I actually felt like a participant. I went from being an observer to a participant.

And so then the question became, what do I want to do next? Well, as the curious, angsty, pre-med, interested political Berkeley student I was, I was like, I'm gonna go into the middle of it. And so I heard the shouting, we went into Sproul Plaza, and I have these pictures on my phone, still. I went into Sproul Plaza and there you had hundreds of students protesting this guy's speech. Now, you're like, who's this guy? What's a speech? The speaker came to campus in Milo

in Opolis at the College of Republicans invited. Now, for anybody that's listening, Milo, is this like random kind of provocator guy? He's not interested in good faith conversations. He's basically been sidelined now at that time. But he was heavy right. He was heavy at that time. He was very big at that time. And he would do this college tour thing where he would basically show up and like provoke angry college liberals and like say stupid things about them and get them really angry and

frustrated. And in some ways actually like attack them. Basically, he made a living at a bullying people. That was his thing. And... Which, let's be honest, there's nothing good about that. Nothing good about it. But it did nothing for his cause.

But it's his right. It's his right, exactly. So what happened, you go to, it's his right. What's fascinating about Berkeley is, now, this is 2017, right? These protests are happening. Students are protesting. In defense of my fellow students,

what we found out was also that outside groups came in because the other thing about Berkeley is there's tracks a bunch of people. So a lot of far right people show up, a lot of far left people show up. It's basically a way for people to get a platform. And so all these people start showing up. The history now of this place is in the 60s, Sproul Plaza was where Dr. King spoke. It's where Mario Savio started

the free speech movement. At that time, the liberals were on the side of, you know, at least the the very extreme ones are on the side of free speech. And so it was such a fascinating cultural shift. You could see it happening in front of you. It's almost like Memphis in some ways. You know, you go to certain places and they've changed completely. And I saw in those protests of violence, I saw students crying, I saw a journalist whose face was punched, his nose was broken in,

the stores were shattered, there was hundreds of police officers they brought in California state police, CPD. And let's, let's be candid. This is all because people Who didn't agree with what this far right guy had to say yeah We're we're doing everything they could to keep him from saying whatever it was he wanted to say which is the irony of See I read the moment opposite of free speech

So there's two things I'll say to this, because this is a little bit of a copia, and this is where actually people get hold up, because they're like, all right, so coach Bill manure not talking about this far right person being protested, they must be a bunch of conservatives that care about free speech. And that's not the message, because first of all, free speech should not be a liberal or conservative value. It's an American value, it's a human value. And secondarily,

is that free speech is throughout history. It's the value that people use that feel like they're under attack because it's your weapon. It's your access card to society. So in the 60s, it was those anti-war protesters and liberals and civil rights activists. So for them, free speech was a thing. Now, a lot of conservatives on campus has feel under attack. And so it's their thing. What we have to recognize is that free speech is a value that moves the society forward. And it's very short-sighted to say, well, manoeun coach bill are talking about this far. I can kick off. This is where I sign off on this podcast because it must mean that there are a bunch of conservatives that want, you know, liberal kids see it hurt. No. So here's the two things I'll say now about that moment. First,

is you and I, the intent of those protests was to shut down my low We're now six years later. We're still talking about him That protest single-handedly raised this guy's profile to the stratosphere That is interesting and true His name you and I are only talking about him because he got protest that day that day if nothing had happened I probably would not be doing what I'm doing and you and I probably would have never met and we sure are only talking about them because he got protest that day. That day, if nothing had happened, I probably would not be doing what I'm doing. And you and I probably would have never met. And we sure would be talking about this guy. And this Greek British dude would have no relevance. So that's first thing is let's try to understand and let's not let this moment convolut our tactics.

And the second thing is the question of like, well, who's allowed to speak and who's not? This is where I think it's a little bit of an onus on the people that are inviting these speakers and bringing on these people. It's, you know, what's your goal? What's your intention? I do think that a part of it is to stir the pot a little bit.

You're trying to provoke a little bit. You know, if you actually want real conservative thought on that campus at that time, bring somebody semi-serious. You know, and simultaneously for my liberal friends and folks, recognize that protest is very important, but at that moment, us protesting him only led to not only more violence, but the campus community has shaken. I think it costs the University a million dollars in damages, a million and a half.

And forget the UC system. Maybe out of the blue. Well, in my understanding, as a lot of that was caused by people that weren't even Berkeley students. Yeah. And they were masked. And were they not masked? Yes.

A lot of them were masked. It was outside groups. And what that also did, by the way, was it set up precedent for an hour over the next three, four years, you would see rallies on campus and in communities that had nothing to do with the students, but people knew that if they went to Berkeley, it's just a cultural iconic place, and so they're gonna get attention.

I wanna tell you a story about my alma mater. Yeah. James Meredith was the first black man admitted to the University of Mississippi, and Kennedy was the president of them, and there were three days of riots and people died. What they found out, that'd be out, found out after they did the investigation,

is that the student body was there doing what student body does. But the gunfire and the true violence were from people from four different states, not from the University of Mississippi. So while there was protest, and there was the heart of the civil rights question, and there was all kinds of things that went on that were wrong. That hopefully history will show that we continue to try to do well with and continue to prove on. The point is the vast majority of violence, everything came from outside the city, outside the state, and the outside the campus. But what happens is situations like that give a theater and a platform to the crazies. And it sounds to me like that's what happened at Calda. Have you heard the term conflict

entrepreneurs? Oh yeah. Sure. One of our good friends, name is Monica Guzman and her friend, Amanda Ripley, Amanda wrote this book, I think it was last year or two years ago called Healthy Conflict. And one of the things that comes up in that book is that right now, the people that divide us,

and this is something I say a lot, is my assumption and belief is that, I think Coach Bill, the people that divide us understand human nature better than the people trying to bring us together. Oh, I think you could fill gymnasiums full of those people who currently work in our national media with that one skill. Yep. And I call it the outrage and desial complex. And the idea behind that is that people understand that you and I have a much stronger propensity to hate each other than love each other.

I think hate is like gasoline. It burns really quickly, but it disappears also pretty quickly. But it's very quick. It's high propensity. I think love is like rocket fuel. It takes a wild ignite, but once it ignites and sustains, it's very strong. And I think the problem right now is

because our attention spans are so minuscule because you and I have to go after this podcast to produce all these short clips so people can't watch things more than 10 seconds because we barely ever now interact with people that are different than us because somebody that lives in Washington, DC, and somebody that lives in Richmond only probably drive between those cities

and have never interacted with anybody between those two cities. For all of those reasons and the siloing and the fact that our politicians and our capturing and capitalizing on that, you've got people that are turning us into tools for their money. And then you and I are giving up on each other because we're buying their bullshit. And that's basically the moment. So. And that's what those people, those people that show up the campus, that's what they're

doing. Before you were in school, one of the things that I learned when I was a young man was this phrase, I may vehemently disagree with everything that comes out of your mouth that I will fight to my death for your right to say it. That was a very strong American ideal for many, many, many, many, many years. I think we've lost it. And I think that's what was lost in Berkeley that day years. And I think we've lost it. And I think that's what was lost in Berkeley that day. Why do you think we've lost it? Because you've seen America much more than I have.

You've lived here longer. You know things. What's your assessment? Money in power. Money in power. I think there's an enormous amount of power and wealth that has been generated in places like New York and our media centers and an enormous amount far too much money and power generated in the halls of Congress.

And that like you say, people have developed a unique skill and a keen understanding that I can generate more money and power if I can divide. Because if I can scare the hell out of people and divide them and get them into my camp, I can use that fear to generate more power for myself and therefore more money. I believe narratives and politics are crafted in order to sustain and grow that money in power.

I think we got to fix that, which is why your story is so important because after all this happened on in cow, something happened inside of you and it leads to what you're doing today. So tell me about, I think it was 12 of you, right? Tell me about that. Yeah, you know, by the way, I have to say one thing. The fact that you just recalled that it was 12 just for anybody that's listening, coach bills a busy, busy man. The fact that you remembered that means a lot to me. These are, it means that, that's a tough thing to do. And somebody that also does this and

learning from you and hearing from you, I think one of the things that you're doing powerfully, especially in this conversation, but in general, and what I think is part of what we need to try and flip this problem in the set is you're making somebody feel like the story matters. You're sure it does matter. Okay, but the point is that right now, I think a lot of people just feel, feel purposeless. I think a lot of people feel lost. I agree. I don't know that I don't know that I'll agree with you. The lot of people feel purposeless, but I absolutely agree with you that a lot of people feel

lost and I don't mean lost inside their own homes, but I mean lost in our culture. And unfortunately, it's our freaking culture. It is not DC's culture. It is not New York's culture. It's our culture. And until an army of normal folks take that culture back, we're going to continue to fill lost in it. And I think that's a shame.

And I think that's why you're here is because I think the work you're doing is one of the things that helps fix that. But I got to have our listeners here. Why the 12 and what you did. Yeah. So those 12 people were essentially not an army but a squad. You were a beat up platoon. Yeah. We were smaller than a flatoon. Yeah. We were squad. A squad. We were a squad was like a squad of Berkeley people of Berkeley people, which is very

not formidable. And so essentially what happened was that next day, right? After, after, after the protests, after the violence, where mace noses were broken, the police stepped in. The police jumped in, they shut down campus, helicopters, and ultimately, the campus decided, well, this guy can't speak, it's too dangerous, and they pulled him. Yeah, they pulled him. So for the day, the protesters won, but as you so well put it, we're talking about them six years later to ultimately they law they won, they won the battle and they really lost the, they lost the war. They lost the war the next day you and the 12th. So me and the 12th, uh, you should be called disciples. We should, there were 12 of those. There, there, there were,

there were, it's funny. So I did not know any of these people and the next day What happened was that all these students suddenly were rattled? I mean imagine your campus just goes upside down overnight You have like every television crew there and even in a place where protest on protest I'm protesting even even Barkley this was like kind of like out Yeah, I don't know the exact fact here, but I'm pretty sure it was one of if not the largest protests since the 60s anti-war protests. Wow. So in terms of damage, in terms of impact, in terms of narrative, and the next day essentially was a very human emotion.

It was I mean, I just felt bad for campus. That was it. And I think a lot of people felt bad. And so what we started doing was a lot of kids started showing up the spread plaza. And we essentially started just picking bad for campus, that was it. And I think a lot of people felt bad. And so what we started doing was a lot of kids started showing up to spread out plaza and we essentially started just picking up the trash, picking up the broken bottles. These kids, I was so proud of that community at that time

and showed me the best of humanity. It was like, you know, forget all of this for a second. Like let's just help out our communities. That's, you know, that reminds me of the, of the, of the, the, um, the citizens in Ferguson afterwards that were out in the streets cleaning up. After the person has seen it, it didn't matter which side of that you are. They were just trying to clean up. Is our community was hurting?

That was it. And, and that's where the human over democracy comes in. And so, there, then after people started picking up stuff, these like, many groups of people started forming just naturally. And each of these groups, people are like, saying, like, you know, I can do this to help or what just happened. And I, because it's Berkeley, I call them therapy circles. And so these kids are all like, you know, commiserating, and all of us are commiserating together. And suddenly, randomly, I go into this one circle, and there's a couple people there, and they're like, hey, you

know, we were thinking about creating this organization that was focused on bridging political differences. And this just happened. Talk about political differences. This is a tsunami. And I was like, well, what if we, and we were like, what if we created a, like, this literally in this group? It's like, maybe our first event could be, let's just talk about this. And essentially what we did was a couple of days later, and between this interim, I essentially circulated this petition on campus because there was this bad rap going around that UC Berkeley students were violent,

and it was enough students. It was just the random people from the outside, we circulated this petition, published it on the news, it said UC Berkeley students condemned violence. I circulated across campus. And again, it was just like my tiny attempt to like try and do my part. It wasn't anything substantial. Then we held that discussion and man. How many people show it? So this is crazy. So mind you, I have like no background in organizing anything like this, like the closest I've been to organizing is, you know, like dissecting a frog in biology class. Like there's there's literally no intuition here.

All we did was we started fliring on our dorms and we like through flyers all our friends. We say, Hey, like we're going to host this discussion and a bunch of people are like, is this a civic architecture frat because it's called bridge Berkeley? It's like, which bridge are you going to build? I was like, do I look like I'm going to build a bridge? And so we like, we held this discussion. And I think like 80 to 75 to like 85 people showed up in a classroom that was meant for, I think 30 people. And give me the demographics.

So that is what's cool about it is the people that came or some of the people invited the speaker. It was some of the people that invited the speaker, it was some of the people that protested the speaker, there were some faculty there, there's some administrators there. It was a real group of some of the key stakeholders in that environment. And everybody, what can you imagine imagine you're holding a town hall meeting or attending your local PT or school board meeting and something very controversial happened, what happens?

Everybody shows up with their guards up. It's like, we're ready to fight or I'm ready to like not say anything. It's exactly what happened. And this is where the group of us that helped organize this, we're now some of my best friends and still work on this organization, Bridge USA with me. What we did was we just relied on our instinct. It's like, okay, imagine you have a room of a bunch of stodgy people that hate each other and probably miss perceived each other's intentions. How do you help them break through? Well, let's start

just talking about our vulnerabilities and stories. Here's an idea. Yeah. Let's have a conversation. Let's have a conversation. Let's have a civil, non-threatening chat about importing stuff and see what we think of one of them. Now you sound like an alien now. I sound like what an alien well What I'm saying to you. I have said in keynote speeches. I've said in stages. It's in my book Yeah, it's it's it's it's the fundamental tenant of my book against the grain. We got to go against the grain of societal preconceived notion that if you don't think like me you must must be my enemy. And we gotta get out of our backgames and our comfort zones and talk. So I agree with all of that. And as a young person, when somebody says,

so what's your like innovative product? I'm like nothing. I'm like, what are we innovating? And so like when you say that, like I have to ask, like I always ask people that have much more life experience than me, I'm like, to me it just sounds like family dynamics.

And like let's talk to each other. To me it sounds like two parents, you know navigating a divorce. You know this stuff is not complicated. And I think like in this hyper technical environment, and that's what happened actually, I think our naivete in that moment, organizing that actually helped us.

It sounds like it. Yeah, because we were naiv, we're like... Well, and it was... It was legitimately... A heartfelt outreach. Yes. And nobody convinced you yet that that was stupid. Yep, yep.

And we had no idea the challenge we were embarking on. Oh, I bet. But that's the best part. When you started journey, I mean, when you were a coach in that football team, I bet one of the tenants of it is don't look how far away that championship is. Stay by day. We'll be right back. Hello, I'm Chelsea Paredi. Do you feel chronic existential dread, but love talking about We'll be right back. And moments like this I have an applause sleep in front of the space here No, and my whole leg from my knee down in my foot burnt until it's Oh

Big bubble and this kale chips are delicious. They're too oily when I go they shouldn't be soft at all They should be really crispy. That's right. That's what I said every single time you are yelling at me and this Do you want to go to the Clipper game with me tonight? Do you have 25 references of mutual friends that can tell me that you're not a murderer? Um, and this. Hold on, I got to open some peanut butter pretzels. Listen to Call Chelsea Paredion, Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. It's JoJoCeeWa, host of the new podcast, JoJoCeeWaNow.

God would admit, I am so excited to finally be starting my podcast, JoJoCeeWaNow. I feel like I've grown up in front of the world. You know, the first time the world saw me publicly was at nine years old. Now, it's time to get real up close and personal. You're gonna see why I am the way I am now. You're gonna see who I am now. And it's gonna be pretty fun. It's gonna be like an inside look

at what I've been up to in the last three years. It's basically like, I'm gonna be talking to you like I'm writing in a journal. You're gonna get all of a T and all of a scoop. I'm also gonna be talking to my friends, to people I admire, to people that are trending right now. So you're gonna get like JoJo Siwa now, and like now what's going on in the world.

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When you get these people together and they start talking about their realities and I can imagine you've got a college Republican and you've got somebody who'd formerly been naked protesting about some animals or something in the same room. My belief set is, and I'm testing this with you. My belief set is that we all want safety, we all want health, we all want our families to do well, we all want our children to be better with them we were. Now we all may think there's 15 different ways to go about that, but we all ultimately kind of want

the same as love hierarchy needs to be filled. Does hearing that people want the same thing, although they want to go about getting it differently, does at least hearing that people want the same thing have any kind of calming effect on the room? It does, but I think what helps even more is to share each other's suffering. Now that's interesting.

I actually think that the most powerful tool, the knife that cuts through hot butter is vulnerability. I think when you and I actually can see each other's vulnerability and have a no BS honest understanding that this was your hardship and this is why you are what you are. actually can see each other's vulnerability and having no BS, honest understanding, that this was your hardship and this is why you are what you are. And here's an example of my vulnerability. I think suddenly what it does is it makes us fundamentally human. Which means that empathy leads to understanding. Exactly.

And that's when you can start talking about common values. Because I think it's the difference between showing and telling. And you know, when I talk about my childhood and growing up, imagine if the only thing you talked and said to the amazing people listening to this right now is when you went to a competitive public high school next to Harvard and MIT, then went to Cal Berkeley and now leads a nonprofit organization. And he flew in from Chicago today. The thing this guy's probably an asshole. and nonprofit organization. And he flew in from Chicago today. The thing this guy's probably an asshole.

You know. So what you did was you're like, all right, let's like actually go through your life. Let's have a conversation about who you are, why you do what you do, tell me about your grandfather. I'm sure not all of that was relatable to everybody, but pieces work. And I think vulnerability devastates and creates the pathway for love.

It is so strife. So in this room, are people vulnerable? 100%. But why do people come to you? What I think I know why I'm going to answer my own question. No, I'm not. I'm going to let you answer. I'm going to tell you what I think.

I think maybe the shock of what happened on campus allowed people to maybe be vulnerable in that moment. Yes, so that's I would say 75% of it, which is it got so bad that. People for a second or like let's just exit this game and like understand that real people are hurt, You know, this is not fun and game anymore. This is real. This is what happens when you invite somebody, protest, and it all becomes a cocktail. So that's a piece of it, is that when things get so bad, I think people come back to it.

But the other piece of this was that they actually did not show up ready to be vulnerable. As I said, most people showed up with their guards up. It's very natural. So that's where I think leadership comes into play. That's where the people that are in that room of the model that you're looking for. And the first thing that we did,

the 12 of us that were helping organize this were like, we shared our story. Forget all this, like we talked about, this is where I come from, this is who I am, this is what I believe, this is why I believe what I believe. And you suddenly create a norm of honesty. It's as simple as if everybody in this room Wasn't wearing shoes and I walked in I'd probably take off my shoes

Okay, everybody's not wearing shoes. That's the norm. It's best setting a norm You set a norm and then you enforce that norm and you enforce and you say hey look if you don't want to follow this norm I'm sorry. This isn't the space for you, no problem. We don't have to do that to anybody. Because when people started seeing each other share, then you kinda feel, I can't be left out of this. It creates social pressure. And it also says, well, hey, I want you to hear my story.

I want you to hear my story. And that's essentially what a bridge discussion does. Is it creates a space that is safe for liberals and structured for conservatives. Say that again. Say for liberals and structured for conservatives. Why do liberals need safety and conservatives need structure? I'm not smart enough to answer that question, but I know that's what they want. Wow. So that's just, I give conjectures, but I don't even like to create those divides,

but the reason I'm saying very openly is because again, it's about meeting people where they are. Right. So we've created the space. The second part about the space is that it's pure lead. So there isn't some faculty facilitating this. There isn't some, it's the members of your own community, right? It's like, if you have something that happened in your school board meeting, you want the teachers there and the teachers talking to the teachers, right?

It's peer-led, no power dynamics. The third thing that's really powerful about this is you're setting these norms. Each bridge discussion is four norms. You listen to listen, not to respond. You don't interrupt our side conversations. Each of us represents ourselves not larger social groups. So you don't represent all white Americans. I don't represent all the confused aces out there. And, and you know, do you realize there's plenty of confused white people? Well, yeah, that's for you to decide. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

And see W-O-A-C-W-A. That's funny. Confused why people of America. You should change the name with that. I don't know how I want. But in case anybody's wondering whether they see as a word for Indian people that Indians use in Hindi. And then the fourth norm is that you respond to the argument, not the person.

So like, let's say you said, I love that. So you said, that's to me. Is the definition of civility. Yeah. But here's where I'll push back really quickly is we never use word civility. And the reason we don't use the word civility is because I think that we live at this moment where a lot of people are hurting and they want change. Left or right doesn't matter. A lot of people, there's a reason why the conflict entrepreneurs can make money off of that. And so what we found is we initially used to call it civility because that's what makes

sense to me as well. But what we found was as people started hearing the word civility, they thought, ah, this is some combaya, let's hold hands. Civility does not invoke that feeling of healthy conflict because what we're doing these discussions is oftentimes the objective is not for you and I to arrive at a common understanding. Oftentimes, it's for you and I to understand why you and I disagree with each other because that gets us somewhere, right? And importantly, we can't lose the fact that if we want more and more people to have these dialogues, these conversations, they have to feel like they're entering the space, not having to feel like that they're grind down their edges.

Show up with your edges. Show up with your fight. The problem is not whether we're fighting. The problem is how we're fighting. In other words, it's okay. I mean, it's not what you say, but how you say it. It's not what you say, it's how you say it, but also how you engage. So, all of those four norms, right, listen to listen rather than to respond, is not telling you to suddenly disband your ideas, saying, listen to your ideas for a second, right? When I say respond to the argument, not the person,

show up with your argument, but just because if coach builds has something that you disagree with, that does not make coach build an evil person. You might think the argument's dumb. And that's fine. Let's have that conversation, but right now we're not even having the conversation. Right? I love this. You are putting into practice stuff that I've talked about for years. I mean, I absolutely love this. So we got to tie it together, though. You have this first meeting. What happens after that?

We have a second meeting where five people show up. So nobody showed up. I'm. So, nobody showed up. I'm honest. So nobody showed up. And this is part of, again, normal people doing stuff like, you know this is when you're building something, it's really hard to build anything or do anything. Nobody showed up. And the reason I nobody showed up is because a lot of rumors started flying about what happened

in the space and a lot of people, people don't want to believe what happened. And also, probably couldn't. Couldn't believe what happened. the space. And a lot of people, people don't wanna believe what happened. And also, probably couldn't. Couldn't believe what happened. Especially at Berkeley. At Berkeley, at Berkeley. And then what we did was, we said, well, let's actually intentionally pursue this.

Because I don't know what it is, but I love, what I love about my work the the most is I love the idea of somebody walking into a room, sitting down and leaving 10, 20, 30 minutes later, completely changed about their expectations of somebody that's different from them. It is like one of the coolest experiences ever. That is one of the coolest things. It's transformative. And it doesn't happen. Every time sometimes it backfires. No, I don't get that. But that's the arduous process of building.

And so what we did was we held the next discussion. Five people showed up were like, damn, we didn't market that. We didn't do anything. We just assumed people are going to show up again. Now it's like two weeks out of this event, right? And so classic marketing, you got to step in, you got to start building. And so we were like, hey, let's actually build an infrastructure here. So we got a team.

Those 12 people, we all took our roles. We started doing our thing. Each of us was doing something. And then what happened was we had one faculty member sitting in that discussion, named Bill Scheirman. Same for us name is you. And Bill Scheirman, who's now the chair of our board, was sitting in the back of the classroom. And he knew these two people at Notre Dame and a Colorado Boulder. Notre Dame, this guy named Roger Carma, and Colorado Boulder, this woman named Cortland Carpenter. And believe it or not, they had built something called bridge CU and bridge ND because the idea of bridging seems like a very normal metaphor. And they connected and they started creating this thing. They were like, what if we build this on different campuses and Bill came up to us and said, well, let's make this full on bridge Berkeley and let's combine everything. And so we started doing this

stuff, but we weren't thinking about a national organization, no vision, nothing. We just kept holding those discussions. People started showing up. It became a name on the cat. And the people that are showing up, yes, there's some faculty and all that there, but we're talking about college kids. College kids. And here's the other thing, just to quickly fast forward just so people understand, now they're thinking, well, this must be probably for just elite college kids

at Berkeley and Harvard and Stanford. I'm like, no, we have yet to have a single Ivy League school chapter. We now have high school chapters. We have 60 college chapters, 20 high school chapters we're growing almost five, six chapters a month right now on the goals to scale that up because the demand is really high.

But the other thing I'll say is on the college side, the goal is let's go to our community colleges. Let's go to our vocational schools. One of our best chapters, one of the first seven chapters is the college in Linbenton Community College up in seven chapters, the college in Linbenton Community College, up in Northern Oregon, the border of Linbenton County and the point of all of that is for me to say that this work is highly not only accessible, but normal people are doing it, not just elite college

kids. And that's powerful because they think it's going to be a better man. That's hugely powerful. But doing it is getting a group together of people from all different walks of life, religious, political, social and cultural belief sets and talking. It's just doing the American experiment. That's it. There's literally, again, there's nothing profound about what I'm doing. I am so looking forward to the day when somebody's like, you know what? I'm going to steal this IP because the moment they steal that IP, the country's going to be back on track. Because our IP is just human nature. It's like, let's have a conversation talk to each other and then I look forward to the day of like retreating to the medical books. Give me one of your greatest stories of a meeting that you've experienced and watched. Two people from alternate realities. Find commoners. So I'm going to give you

another Berkeley story because it connects actually a couple of things you're talking about. Connects a student homelessness question, it connects protesters and it connects the power of a group discussion. Was anybody naked? Nobody was naked. Nobody was naked. Nobody was naked. Nobody was naked. Nobody was naked. Nobody was naked. No, no, no, the, the, well, I'll tell you is a context. So a couple of quick context facts. Berkeley is this place called People's Park. Now, People's Park has a lot of interesting people in it to say the least.

And it was basically a place created in about the 50, 60s that now has become this massive ground for, you know, everybody from like drug addicts to hippies to people that want to live in Berkeley to homeless people is just a thing. Now, as I said, Berkeley is also a massive college and there's a homelessness problem with students because there's not enough space for university to build housing. And so 2019, which was our junior year. So this is a fall of 2019. I might be wrong in the month, but fall of 2019, I'm pretty sure. This crisis speaking, the university proposes,

let's build a building on People's Park. And man, it started a whole, another shindig, right? They're like, People's Park, this is the People's Place, it's been around. And oddly enough, in this case, the students are actually protesting the very interesting people's park people because they're like, yeah, we need housing. Yeah, we need housing, but not here. And so, but but a lot of kids also wanted that housing because they were like, we just, we need a place to live. And Berkeley branch is

to be context, by the way, I lived in one of the cheapest and most crime-ridden parts of the city where like the next year, tragically, a student lost his life down the street, $800 a month, rent, $850. That's the cheapest. So it's just giving context for how crazy the housing is there. For student. For student.

And there's no dorms beyond freshman year. So you gotta live in that rent or you gotta figure something out. Point of all this is we said, hey, let's, let's host a discussion. Now, there's a wonderful partner organization that your, your audience might be interested knowing because you're like, hey, we're adults. We don't, we're not on college hands. So what do we do?

It's a great partner organization called Brave Rangles that has these associations across the country. And so we called them up because we're like, this could be a really big discussion. And so they have this thing called the Brave Rangles debate, where it's a very similar to bridge discussion with some sort of caveat. So putting that aside for a second, we're like, let's, let's hold a discussion and let's hold this debate. Let's bring everybody in.

So we invite the homeless students they show up. We invite the protesters in people's park. We extended an invitation to the administration, but I don't think they showed up. We invited some Berkeley City officials, and we had a room of, I would say, 75, 80 people that were all sort of key people that were affected. So not like RANDO's that have no personal stake in the issue, like actual people at opinions.

And it started off just like the Milo thing, and this is a common pattern. When you put humans together in a room that fundamentally mistrust each other and have their guards up, how are they going to show up, not ready to communicate. By the end, so this initial person was like, I'm going to protest this. He showed up, sat down, and then stood up and said, I'm going to protest this. I was like, I'd give it a moment, just give it a chance. He's like, no, no, I'm going to protest this right now. You know what's hilarious is by the end of this conversation,

Coach Bill, that guy was participating the most in the conversation. He was one of the homeless people that came and he brought his posse of people and they were jumping in. You got homeless students, you got cows students, you got homeless people, you got and by the end of it, we actually broke some common ground. And what came out of that discussion was a real proposal around what could be done. And I don't remember the specifics, but the process of it was like, I was like, this is again, time and

time again, we underestimate how common we are and we overestimate how different we are. And we've completely given up on the process of this, which is a conversation. And so now we'll tell you what my challenge is. My challenge is what we experience after that my love event where only five people showed up, which is you work in a lumber business. If a tree falls on a forest, nobody saw that tree fell,

it never fell. If nobody sees this work happening, and they only see the crazy people in the news, they're never going to believe it. And so what we have to do is in what you're doing with this podcast is build a cultural movement and a change where you're empowering everyday people to say that that's not okay. And this is possible. So sorry, that was another tie read, but like, that was one more example that often sticks to my mind that I think brings

to have a lot of different parts of the story. And from all of this is born, Brad USA, Brad USA. We'll be right back. Hello, I'm Chelsea Paredi. Do you feel chronic existential dread but love talking about delicious snacks? Call me! My podcast is relaunching!

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Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. It's JoJoCiwa, host of the new podcast, JoJoCewaNow. God would admit, I am so excited to finally be starting my podcast, JoJoCewaNow. I feel like I've grown up in front of the world. You know, the first time the world saw me publicly was at 9 years old. Now, it's time to get real up close and personal. You're gonna see why I am the way I am now. You're gonna see who I am now.

And it's gonna be pretty fun. It's gonna be like an inside look at what I've been up to in the last three years. It's basically like, I'm gonna be talking to you like I'm writing in a journal. You're gonna get all of the tea and all of the scoop. I'm also gonna be talking to my friends, the people I admire, to people that are trending right now.

So you're gonna get like JoJo Siwa now and like now what's going on in the world. It's gonna be great. I really hope you like it. You can listen to JoJo Siwa now on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thursday November 9th at 7 p.m. Eastern at State Farm Park in I Heartland in Fortnight, available all weekend long. Be sure to say hi to Jake from State Farm on the big screen. Meet his high score in parkour and snap a selfie at the selfie booth. Visit iHeartRadio.com slash iHeartland to USA is today.

So Bridge USA is an amazing group of young people. Our entire team is under the age of 26. Recent college grads I graduate in 2020. And each of us have many different things that we could have done with our lives. And I had some good mentors and people that were like, you know, take the risk. And I love this work. And so we jump right into it, 2021 full time from Berkeley.

And since then, we're now a team of about 15 people. We have about 60 college, 20 high school chapters, last semester we engage about 3,500 students across our semesters and campuses. And I think that's nothing. It's a great data point, but our goal is to reach 250 chapters. And the- Which would be the 10,000 students.

It would be around 12,000 students a semester. Wow. And all with a goal of getting young people. Yeah. Who have been infiltrated with social media and parents and whatever goes on in the schools and professors and teachers and the national media and all of which have shaped these very impressable minds to come together and talk and talk. But I'll say two other quick things. One is it's not just young people talking. This is about creating norms change in this country. What I mean by norms change is this is about what I call the hopeful majority, what you call the army of normal people to essentially be heard. That's it. It's it's what Ronald Reagan did. So

Newt Gingrich did it with the moral majority. It's what Nixon did with the sound majority. It's what Barack Obama did with change. Yes, we can. It's what Trump did with the populist right is our fundamental task and I think challenge is to give power and voice to the sense of fear, the egg shells that everybody's walking on, the desire to have human connection and yet that does not exist, that's our objective. And the reason why I think young people are so crucial to the effort is take any social movement, I'll give you three, civil rights movement. Take any social movement, I'll give you three. Civil Rights Movement.

One of the key things that kicked it off were four students that walked into their local FW Woolworth outside of North Carolina and set in the lunch counters. It looked like a Mendella, the 90s South Africa. It was a contingent of young people that allowed him to achieve tremendous cultural power. The fact is that I think young people

have a lot of cultural power and I think old people have a lot of material power and I think old people a lot of material power. And if you can combine the cultural narrative power and a material power into one, it's really powerful. The only other thing I'll say with respect to our broader objective, and this is where I'll defend my generation a little bit. And every generation's got their tests. Just for some context, I was born in 98. a little bit. And then every generation's got their tests. Just for some context, I was born in 98. And people often say like, Manu, why does a lot of Gen Z either seem highly skeptical of politics or does not care or is so buried in their phone or does not believe in the possibility of democracy? In fact, there's a poll created by the Harvard Institute of Politics two years ago that said,

I think it was like 47% of young people are like 51 or something. It was pretty sizable. It was like, they don't believe in the power of democracy. Is he system for free? Any change? That was born in 98. Which by the way, I read and I do that. That is heartbreaking to me. So again, this is a simple marketing challenge. It's like, all right, that's the problem. Simple. Why? So we can meet them where they are. You take somebody my age, born in December of 98. I'm 24. It's 23 right now. I was, I think two years old when 9 and 11 happened. I was going to middle school when the great recession happened. I was graduate of middle school when the Great Recession happened. I was graduate of high school when the 2016 presidential election happened. I graduated college in 2020 when the pandemic hit, the capital riots happened, and you had

the Trump Biden election. And now it's 2023. Not a great sample size of democratic progress and growth. Like that's the really fair comment. So I say that now many, so I talked to a lot of people in the 60s that were in Berkeley at that time, which was also very tumultuous time. That was probably the most comparable decade in some ways to what we're going through right now.

And when you look at it from that lens, I don't think it's necessarily meant to excuse the skepticism and the critique, but I think it's meant to demonstrate that if all you know is a house on fire, then there's basically two options. One, you either try to whill up and put out the fire, which is with myself and my fellow young leaders doing, or you escape the house, which is frankly a very understandable notion. And so how do we challenge it? That's our objective. I think that's, I think it's really well stated. A lot of wisdom from a 24 year old kid who, you know, from India.

Hey, we're not that bad. You know, hey, India, if this is a hot take. And so India's world's largest democracy. Yeah. So also, it's got a lot of corruptions. I think it's world largest country. I think just this year it took over China and population, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So being in democracy makes it, it's the world's largest anything. Yes. That it is. But part of the reason why, again, I became very invested in bridges because we saw how dysfunctional in the democracies too.

But the other thing that India is, I think, this is something that I've been seeing over the past couple of years, because when I started in 2017, when we started doing this, my mom would be like, it should be like, my not, there's no Indian people out in politics. And weirdly, I don't know if you've been seeing this, but there's a lot. Oddly, what's going on?

Well, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Kamala Harris, Kamala Harris, I know. We had on the podcast, Bobby Jindal, you speak the guy in Louisiana. Bobby Jindal, yeah, you've got the vague morph you don't be sleeping on these. I know. Hey, hey, this is there's a hotter draft pick than the Memphis Grislaus. So here's the deal, dude. I mean, grow up, born American, grow up half Indian, half American, be the, the, the, the revelation about your grandfather's impact on you. I think is significant because you

talk about a normal guy, that's your granddad. And to have him be such a significant imprint on you, I think is telling and to go to Berkeley and having grown up apartments and your immigrant family chasing the American dream. And here you are at 24, having lived that reality and then gone through probably the biggest protest thing to happen at Berkeley in 40 years. And to now be heading up an organization specifically meant to fix our American democracy. I think it's a beautiful, ironic tale and speaks to the power of an army of normal people. Absolutely. And what it can do, if someone wants to get involved or hear more about it, how do they contact you? I appreciate that. You, you think this is going to be a cop out, but if you go to contact at bridgeuacid.org, that email goes straight to my inbox.

Perfect. And when I'm late, it's like 11 p.m. in some hotel room far away and like Kansas or something, and I'm sitting there and I'm lonely, that's what I do. I read that inbox. That's, that's good. And really contacts easier than menu. So exactly. Just call me contact. I'll say one last very quick thing, which is as you were telling me, like, you're repeating the 24 year old thing and us doing all the stuff and all that. The reason why it gives me goosebumps is like, and I don't know where this comes

from for me. Like I genuinely have no idea, but I love this place this you know when we used when we were growing up in In India and then we would move back and forth and then I would travel back and forth I was really interested in arming medic for a very long time and it was a thing in my family a lot like I used to ask my grandfather Like should I join the Indian military should I join the Indian military? Should I join the American military? What do you think should happen? And he was like, which house feeds you? And I said, well, you know, what do you mean?

He's like, which soil do you live on? What soil cares for you? You know, who showed up at our doorstep when 9-11 happened? In India, to check on you. Can you believe that? State Department set somebody to a state in India out of the conflict because they're doing checks on foreign citizens. And, you know, I love history. And all of us play an extraordinarily insignificant part in history. You take your footnote of who your favorite leader is in American history, whatever,

and they maybe get a sentence in the book of human history. We all have a small part, but what's so amazing about this place is, we're trying to imagine I told you there's a society of 330 million people that are all different from each other, and you're now 1,000 years in the future, and you've studied the species called humans that have existed for 100,000 years. And in those 99,000 years, they were violent and they fought and they lived in tribes and they were essentially not what

you see today in society. And that's their history. And now you're saying these 330 million people are trying to live together, heavily armed, and giving each other a voice and living a system of governance where you and I are valued. That is the most ambitious experiment in the history of humanity. And just the last day, our team had just hired a few new people and we were having all hands meeting. Now, and with this, we were like, you know, why do you do what you do? And I said, like, look, you know, one of our mentors that passed away last year, knew his Rob Stein, he talked about his legacy when he was dying.

And he, he, he was somebody that gave us a lot of knowledge. And he said, you know, Manu, what I most care about as I pass away now is not the things that I did, but the things that I think people like you will do. And that really changed my perspective. It says that, you know, our team, I said, imagine now you're eight years old, you've thankfully got get grandkids. and they ask you, what were you doing

the 20s? You know, one of them was divided times in American history. And you said, I tried my best to try to solve one of the most pernicious problems countries faced. And maybe you failed, but that's a proud answer. And so I love this place. I don't know where it comes from. I wish I was faking it because it would make it so much easier for me to walk away from it, but this is humanity's best shot And that my friend is why you are absolutely a member of the army of normal folks here at Build the army here. You're a guy who sees a need and fills it and it's an amazing story and I got to tell you it gives us 55-year-old goose bumps to look at a 24-year-old kid say I love my country. I don't want to make it better We just need a whole bunch more of you, bro

And the work you're doing is phenomenal and I hope people will start chapters support you financially Check you out and Let more people know about the fact that all these 20-year-olds run around here are not anti-democratic, change the world in the worst way possible people. There's a whole host of guys like you that love this country that want to make it better, and are not trying to do it in a vacuum, but rather in a very inclusive way.

I've always said we can be a forward thinking evolving society without abandoning the core principles that got us here in the first place, and I really genuinely think you are an embodiment of that. And congratulations to what you've done so far. I can't wait to see where you go. And I really appreciate you joining me today. Thanks, Rob.

We got a country to build. And thank you for joining us this week. If Manu or another guest has inspired you in general or better yet to take action by starting a bridge USA chapter by 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 normal folks dot us or call or text us at 901-352-1366. And if you enjoyed this episode, share your friends and on social. Subscribe to the podcast,

rate and review it. Become a premium member at normalfoces.us. All these things that will help us grow. An army of normal folks. Thanks to our producer, Iron Light Labs, I'm Bill Courtney and I'll see you next week. Hello, I'm Chelsea Peretti. Do you feel chronic existential dread but love talking about delicious snacks? Call me! My podcast is relaunching! Do you fear wild, dangerous animals to the point where you're constantly watching attack videos and reading articles about wild animal tech survivors or those who succumb to attack? Call in! We can also discuss reality shows and emergency room footage.

Listen to Call Chelsea Paredion, Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. It's JoJoCewa, host of the new podcast, JoJoCewa Now. It's time to get real up close and personal. We'll be talking to you like I'm writing in a journal. You're gonna get all of the tea and all of the scoop. I'm also gonna be talking to my friends, the people I admire, the people that are trending right now.

So you're gonna get like, JoJo Siwa now and like, now what's going on in the world. It's gonna be great. I really hope you like it. You can listen to JoJo Siwa now on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Get ready. Jack and Miles from your favorite podcast, The Daily Side Guys, are having a super fun event at State Farm Park and I Heartland. They're going to chat about generation gaps, looking at all the differences between young people today. So don't miss this special event starting Thursday November 9th at 7 p.m. Eastern at

State Farm Park and I Heartland in Fortnite, available all weekend long. Be sure to say hi to Jake from State Farm on the big screen. Beat his high score in parkour and snap a selfie at the selfie booth. Visit iHeartRadio.com slash iHeartland to start playing today.