An Army of Normal Folks - The American Dream Needs Mentors—Here’s How You Can Help (Pt 2)

Episode Date: March 17, 2026

Is the American Dream real if you lack access to the Holy Trinity of mentors, education, and capital? The truth is that it's a distant dream for too many Americans. In this episode, Sky’s the Limit co-founder Bo Ghirardelli shares how he built the leading digital platform for connecting 100,000 underrepresented entrepreneurs to all three, including 10,000 mentors! And how the American Dream needs us—An Army of Normal Folks—to be fully realized for all Americans. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/#joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an Army and Normal folks, and we continue now with part two of our conversation with Boguerdele right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun, tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Jermaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Jermaine was sentenced to 99 years.

I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth. For 22 years, only two people knew the truth, until a confession changed everything. I was a monster Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the I Heart Radio app

Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?

I gave her some suggestions. to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness.

Mind games is the story of NLP. It's crazy cast of disciples, and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all, NLP might actually work. This is wild.

Listen to Mind Games on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Segregation and the day integration at night. When segregation was the law, one mysterious black club owner had his own rules. We didn't worry about what went on outside. It was like stepping on another world. Inside Charlie's place, black and white people danced together,

but not everyone was happy about it. You saw the KKK? Yeah, they were dressed up in their uniform. The KKK set out to raid Charlie, take him away from here. Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him. From Atlas Obscura, Rukokokokov. punch and visit Myrtle Beach comes Charlie's place, a story that was nearly lost to time.

Until now, listen to Charlie's Place on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I heart and TikTok have come together to create something new. I love it. Where the world of TikTok meets your playlist. Three words that will change your life. IHeart TikTok Radio. The biggest hits across IHeartRadio. What's trending for you on TikTok?

Tell me a sound that's better than this. IHart TikTok Radio. Plus TikTok's most influential creators all in one place. Search for IHard TikTok Radio. Make it a preset and stay connected all day. Babes, what are you doing? What? I'm just mowing the lawn. No, it's blazing hot and dry out here.

Don't you remember? Smokey Bear says... Avoid using power equipment when it's windy or dry. Where'd you learn this? Oh, it's on... Smokeybear.com. any other wildfire prevention tips. Right. Thanks, honey, bear.

Because remember, only you can prevent wildfires. Brought to you by the USDA Forest Service, your state forester, and the Ad Council. So today, everyone, sky's the limit is the world's leading digital platform for connecting underrepresented entrepreneurs with education, mentors, and access capital. The world's largest.

by some goofy guy from Oakland that found himself in Morocco by way of the Smoky Mountains. Crazy. Supported, since 2010, Sky's the Limit has supported 100,000 entrepreneurs, of which more than 30 were served in 2025 alone. They've launched and grown over 7,000 businesses, generating hundreds of millions of revenue and creating many thousands of jobs. They've awarded over three, quarters of million dollars in startup grants, and they have distributed over $100,000 in grants in

just 2025. It's just incredible. But that's really not the end. That's the beginning. I love one of the things you said, but I've loved you to talk about. Most of us don't like hearing that two-letter word no. But to make skies the limit the success it is today, your goofy self decided. I want to hear a thousand knows.

Explain it. I think that one of the things I've learned about about entrepreneurship is failure is a necessary component. But if you reframe it as learning, then, you know, everybody can get behind learning, right? But if you say, do you want to fail? People are like, no, I'd rather not, right? So I think that getting to a thousand knows means that there got to be some yeses along the way, right? But that's what I mean is like the more knows we have, every nose is shot on goal. That's how we think about and talk about it internally at sky's the limit.

So we're trying to get shots on goal because you have to connect what you're doing with a market, with a customer. And that's what we do in our fundraising is we, are strategic in terms of trying to ask the right people. We're not just going willy-nilly. But we are cognizant that a no means that you got close. And along the way, we've gotten enough yeses to make all the work happen. I'm a child of the 80s. And for those children of the 80s, you will remember names like Carnegie, Zig Zigler,

back before the digital age, and you could find digital mentorship or whatever, those of us who wanted to learn more and didn't have it available to us would pay $200 and go to a weekend seminar. I mean, that's really how you did it back then. And sometimes it was more motivational people like Zig Zigler and a cast of people.

Zig was broke from Yazoo City, and he actually got to start selling waterline cookware door to door. And the lessons he learned along the way, he crafted into narratives that were both funny and inspirational and thoughtful. And same with so many of these other folks. One of the ones that made the most impact on me was a seminar took that it was all about the close rate. And what you needed to do over a certain amount of time was sod, spin of the dial back when the phone was a dial and you tracked how many people you contacted could possibly contact in a day and how many yeses you got out of that contact and if it if if you could call

a hundred people a day that's 500 people a week and if you got two yeses a day that's 10 a week so you knew that 500 spins of the dial every week would do you get you. get you 10 sales. And it was a numbers game. And at that point, you just pound it. And if you've got the guts and the temerity and the entrepreneurship to just pound it 500 times a week, you were going to get 10. That was the metrics.

That's how we came up with it back then before smart people and computers and all your friends in Oakland figured out how to do it digitally, right? That's all you're saying is you want a thousand knows because you know there's a closed right inside those thousand nose. And I think there's a lesson there for every single entrepreneur, because now you're talking about 10,000 nose. And there's another great lesson from Zig Zieg, I'm glad you brought him up because he has one of my favorite quote.

What are you doing Zieg? You're not my age. I can respect his greatness. You dug up some, you went to an old school library and found some Zieg stuff. But yeah, go ahead. I love it. He said you can have anything you want in life if you help enough people get what they want first.

It's true. And that is, that's entrepreneurship, because you're helping other people get what they want, right? That's creating value for other people. And along the way, you capture a little bit of that, not too much, not too little, and that's how you build a business. I want to talk to you about your business mentors in a minute

because I think that's cool to be able to use your passion abilities to virtually mentor and underrepresented entrepreneur, which is a lot like what we're talking about in our service clubs. And I think that's something a lot of people attending this live podcast and those listening to all the country could be. But first, what are some of your favorite underdog entrepreneurs that skies the limit has supported? Yeah. Tyrone, Tyrone grew up in foster care in Oakland, California. And he, in foster care, you know, switched a lot of home.

he learned about a conflict resolution technique and process called restorative justice practices. It's a big group of learnings and applications and it changed his life, right? So he practiced this and he aged out of the foster care system and became a barista at Starbucks and realized that this was not what he wanted to do with his life. what he really wanted to do with his life was teach other people about restorative justice practices and apply that, you know, apply that passion to a business. And so he had nowhere really to start, but he started with us. And we helped him figure out how to, you know, we couldn't teach him anything about restorative justice practices.

Like that was his talent, right? He was like, he knew this. He had a passion for it. He knew how to teach. but we can help build a business around that. And that's really the story of Skies the Limit is that there's all this talent out there doesn't know how to build a business around it.

Well, actually, that process isn't easy, but it's doable. We can teach you that. And so he and his co-founder, Tiffany, started out small. We helped them get their first contracts, city of Oakland, Oakland Unified School District,

And basically started winning more and more contracts to, and we connected them with a mentor who was a head owned a consulting company. And that mentor was like, here's how you win deals and like here's how you structure RFPs. And so this is all the support. And of course, they got some money from us. And then they turned that into a million dollar business. And they're still alive today. This was over a decade ago. And they, you know, have employed a lot of local people, and they're still going.

And that's, I think it's a beautiful, you got to chase his passion and create a real job from it. I mean, he's making, you know, making a real wage, you know, for himself, but not even a wage. He's an owner of a company. Stories like that inspire everybody. And it's one thing. I mean, I'd just be real candid here, right? my dad left home when I was four and my mom was married and divorce five times

we didn't grow up with anything I didn't have a front yard to cut until I bought my own I grew up in apartments but if I'm being truly raw and honest

about my business and whatever success I've been able to enjoy I at least went to school and had friends who's fathers were attorneys and bankers and accountants. And although that access wasn't organic to my family, I still had friends of friends who knew somebody. We need to get our arms around. There are people growing up in this country right now who never make it out of their neighborhood. And there's nobody in their neighborhood who has professional access to anything.

And so the entrepreneurial ability and the American dream for them is at best distance and maybe unreachable. And that may be an inconvenient truth and that may step on the toes of the societal preconceived notion that you get a free education and this is America. And all you've got to do is pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you're going to be okay because I believe that at one time. And then I worked in the inner city and found out that is horses for some people. Yep. We'll be right back. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families.

Late one night, Bobby Gumpright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun. Tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Tremaine Hudson as the purpose. traitor. Germain was sentenced to 99 years. I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth. For 22 years, only two people knew the truth, until a confession changed everything.

I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app. or wherever you get your podcasts. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car,

you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness.

Mind games is the story of NLP. It's crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all? NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Segregation and the day integration at night. When segregation was the law, one mysterious black club owner had his own rules. We didn't worry about what went on outside. It was like stepping on another world. Inside Charlie's place, black and white people danced together. But not everyone was happy about it. You saw the KKK? Yeah, they were dressed up in their uniform.

The KKK set out to raid Charlie, take him away from here. Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him. From Atlas Obscura, Rococo Punch, and visit Myrtle Beach, comes Charlie's place. A story that was nearly lost to time. Until now. Listen to Charlie's place on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I heart and TikTok have come together to create something new.

I love it. Where the world of TikTok meets your playlist. Three words that will change your life. IHart TikTok Radio. The biggest hits across IHartRadio. What's trending for you on TikTok? Tell me a sound that's better than this. IHart TikTok Radio.

Plus TikTok's most influential creators all in one place. Search for IHard TikTok Radio. Make it a preset and stay connected all day. The more you listen to your kids, the closer you'll be. So we asked kids, what do you want your parents to hear? I feel sometimes that I'm not listened to. I would just want you to listen to me more often and evaluate situations with me and lead me towards success.

Listening is a form of love. Find resources to help you support your kids and their emotional well-being at soundedouttogether.org. That's sounded outtogether.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council and Pivotal. How does your organization fix that? Honestly, this is why I admire what you're doing with this Army of Normal Folks podcast because it, do you have the answer?

It's in the name of your podcast. At least that's what I believe. And let's take this, let's take this down to Memphis. And hopefully I got my research right. But I was looking at the 800 initiative. that here in Memphis to help scale some businesses to become, you know, multi-million dollar businesses. And along the way, I saw that there are about 40,000 micro entrepreneurs who are making on

average about $13,000 a year from their business. Now, you can't live off that, right? But that represents a tremendous pool of entrepreneurial ambition and talent. And what we do at Sky's Limin, why we exist is because there are a lot of programs to scale a company who's already hit 500 grand in revenue or a million in revenue. There's venture capital. There's private equity. Family offices. Family offices.

You've got a lot of options. But the valley of death for entrepreneurs is between zero and 250K. This is where the dreams die, is where businesses die. and where future jobs are, they're eliminated before they can even exist because we're not wrapping our arms around entrepreneurs early enough. We're not making that available. And so that's what Sky's the Limit,

and that's where we are, very firmly focused. If you get to a million dollars in revenue with Sky's Limit, amazing, like Tyrone, Tiffany did, amazing. But that is not, that's rare. That is very rare. It's very rare for any business to get to a million dollars in revenue, despite what people think. It's like less than 3% of all businesses

break a million in revenue. Right? So when we're talking about small business, we're talking about companies less than a million. But if you go down and segment that even further, the zero to 250K is where there are more entrepreneurs than any other stage of entrepreneurship. And when you don't have a lot of resources,

you don't have a lot of time because you need to pay rent, so you're working that full-time job. or working three part-time jobs trying to piece it all together and you're trying to start a business, it is an incredibly fragile time, right? So what you need when you're starting a business at that stage is everything. Sure, you need capital. And it'd be nice if you didn't have to, you know, start loan repayments the next month on that capital

because revenue doesn't just appear like that. And I think most importantly, it starts with understanding because we've all seen people start businesses, make money, and then lose it all. So you can get a lot of money. You see it in lottery winners. You know, people are often lottery winners die broke more often than not, right?

So it's just getting money is not just the answer, right? It is part of the answer, but it starts with human relationships for us. So we start mentoring first. We want to get people into relationship, and it's entrepreneurs with their peers, it's entrepreneurs with mentors who maybe have run a business before, and it's entrepreneurs with advisors who are those subject matter experts. And for us to fix this broken American dream, it's going to take. an army of mentors and advisors and people in community.

And if we, you know, there's one way to do this where you go city by city and you try to do that in brick and mortar, but it is expensive and it's slow and it's fragile because then all of a sudden you're reliant highly on local staff. You lose a key person and you lose your community. and so we took the technology approach and we have a ton more to do still on it but we think as we as we refine this model and software development is a living breathing beast that consumes money and and a lot of time so that's what we're but what it is is just a tool it's a means to an end right and so the platform we build as a means to an end to creating those human relationships to kill connecting entrepreneurs to education and connecting them to capital.

Over 4,000 business leaders have served as virtual mentors for underrepresented entrepreneurs with skies the limit. 4,000. That's an old number, but... Okay, here we go. You can segue it how you want to. I think we've got to get more people off the sidelines into the game of service. Yes. How's that work?

Yes. I think you said it. How do we do it? I think we need to take out the friction involved in volunteering. I think we might need to rebrand volunteering. You know, I think that the decline in church attendance, which is, you know, where I started out in doing service trips, they, I was brought to me on a platter, right, said,

here's the trip and go build houses and let's go do that. and then we have all of our service organizations are declining in membership as well. So there's something there around selling service and volunteering and helping people understand the value to them. And then making it easy. Unfortunately, we've gotten, I think, you know, used to things becoming easier. And I think technology can be a part of this. that solution, but certainly not sufficient. And then I think, last but not least, I think we need to like your local service clubs

that you're starting out in this concierge match that you're talking about. You like that, don't you? I do like that. That concierge match is cool. It's pretty cool. Nice job, Alex. Good idea. So we actually call it concierge.

We have a concierge match service within Skies of the Limit, too. You do? Yeah. You cheated. You copied them. It's not public, so he probably couldn't have found it unless he's talking to our corporate partners. But that's the idea, right? Make it easy.

That's it. And make it meaningful, right? Alex has some data on this, and I'm going to butcher it. But I think it's important to hear it. It's interesting you said church because church attendance, church membership is down. But so is involvement in nonprofits. I think the data says that nonprofit engagement is an all-time low. But here's the irony.

Research also suggests that 70% of people in the United States want to serve more and want to be involved in their communities, but they all say their own health. So when philanthropic giving is down, when hours of volunteer work are way down, Yeah. Yet 70% of the public says they'd like to do more and give more. They just don't know where and how. That's the idea behind the chapters. That's the idea behind Skies the Limit is if you will give your money and your time, we'll set up a system and a way for you to do it and make it easy on you.

If you'll just get off your ass and get out of your comfort zone and engage. I think it's going to take money, too, right? I think, you know, people are bombarded by marketing constantly. All you entrepreneurs in the room probably spend a fair amount of money on marketing, at least at some stage in your business. So you understand that, you know, we got to tackle this like a company would tackle it, in my opinion. And it's going to take marketing spent to really get out the word and compete with people's attention. Lord knows we're trying.

Last question before we go to Q&A. Devil's advocate here, make sure you know that some of these questions are not exactly the way I feel, but I feel like there are questions that people listening may have, and I want to give you an opportunity to possibly answer to it. Some might say if an entrepreneur's idea is good enough, the market will back it. And if an entrepreneur's idea is not good enough or their execution of that is poor,

they'll go broke. And that's capitalism. And that's the cream rises to the top and that's how American exceptionalism actually became a thing. So really, we don't need a nonprofit like sky's the limit because if the ideas are good enough, they'll find their way.

What say you? So I would say probably you've never started accompanying with that question. And I would also ask you, like, you know, could you have gotten your first job without going to school? All of these things that wrap around you, that influence your life,

the people you learn from, the books you read, the experiences you have, does all that not make you part of who you are? And does that, is that not where your skills were built from? I mean, sure, there's some innate intelligence, innate talent.

maybe you're better at one thing than the other. You learn it faster. You learn it slower. But ultimately, entrepreneurship is about being, you know, you can be taught and you can learn entrepreneurship. And most often you're learning best from your customer. And I would just give them this person, whoever this person who I don't like, who asked that question. I would say this. So if you are playing darts at the bar, a rich kid has a bunch of shots at that dartboard.

He can miss the whole board and hit the wall and keep shooting because he has that luxury, because he has money, he's got a support network, he's got a lot. A low-income entrepreneur maybe gets one shot at that board, or they're not even in the bar in the first place. And that's what I think is wrong with that mentality. And it's why we can't just say the American dream is for everybody. It's disingenuous at best. And at worst, it's putting your head in the sand and ignoring the challenges that our country faces. I didn't ask the question because I agree with you.

So there you go. So everybody, that's Bo. co-founder of CEO of Skies the Limit in Seattle, Washington, and amazing, amazing story, especially how it started. I didn't even know all the part about Spoky Mountain stuff. That's hilarious. And how you've gotten to where you are, and I know there's so much more growth coming.

We'll be right back. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpbright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun. He tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Tremaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Germain was sentenced to 99 years.

I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth. For 22 years, only two. Two people knew the truth until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if mind control is real?

If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good friends. feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind games is the story of NLP. It's crazy cast of disciples, and the

The fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all, NLP, might actually work. This is wild. Listen to mind games on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Segregation and a day integration at night. When segregation was the law, one mysterious black club owner had his own rules. We didn't worry about what went on outside. It was like stepping

at another world. Inside Charlie's place, black and white people danced together, but not everyone was happy about it. You saw the KKK? Yeah, they were dressed up in their uniform. The KKK set out to raid Charlie, take him away from here. Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him. From Atlas Obscura, Rococo Punch, and visit Myrtle Beach, comes Charlie's Place. A story that was nearly lost to time.

Until now. Listen to Charlie's Place on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. IHeart and TikTok have come together to create something new. I love it. Where the world of TikTok meets your playlist. Three words that will change your life. IHeart TikTok Radio. The biggest hits across IHeartRadio.

What's trending for you on TikTok? Tell me a sound that's better than this. I heart TikTok Radio. Plus TikTok's most influential creators all in one place. Search for IHard TikTok Radio. Make it a preset and stay connected all day. The more you listen to your kids, the closer you'll be.

So we asked kids, what do you want your parents to hear? I feel sometimes that I'm not listened to. I would just want you to listen to me more often and evaluate situations with me and lead me towards success. Listening is a form of love. Find resources to help you support your kids and their emotional well-being

at soundedouttogether.org. That's sounded outtogether.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council and Pivotal. Alex has a microphone. He's going to run around like Phil Donahue. And please do speak up loudly when you ask your question. Thanks, Bill.

And Bob, this is Doddy. for Justice, summary full associates, and with the small business council of the chamber. Savo, when you look at all these applications, there are criteria that you look at. What is that entrepreneur, that budding entrepreneur, not have that we need to begin to teach? Those are the basics, not they,

those of us who've ever sat there with someone who said, I want to start a business, when we start asking questions. What are those basics that you look for those applications that has that spark that says, this one can make it. This one needs a whole lot of help. Because if we're going to start that army of normal people and skies still go across the country, you're going to have to teach us how to help. That's a really, really, really thoughtful question. Not what makes you accept the ones that you accept, but what do the ones that you can't

accept need and let's fill that need too? That's a great question. So let's flip all of that on its head. we're not accepting or denying anyone right we what we are is a place for you to practice entrepreneurship right so we are trying to be the right support from the right people at the right time in your entrepreneurial journey each person comes with different skills different resources different connections and so what what uh so that's the first thing is don't try to judge. You know, the U.S. government would say, you know, we have score. If you've heard of score, it's a business mentoring program.

And that's our answer to this problem. And there's a congressional appropriation, which I would love to snag and plow it into skies the limit at someday that score gets. And score does this. They judge you right away. They say, oh, that's not going to work. I mean, how many entrepreneurs have, I mean, Elon Musk heard that. Oh, it's not going to work.

Where's he now? So, I mean, who are we to say that is or is not going to work? I think that's, I think taking the judgment out is the one thing. And if you've ever been part of a just stalt mythology type of group like entrepreneurs organization, EO or YPO, Young President's Organization, they talk about it as as an experience share, share your experiences instead of give advice, right? Because that experience share is an authentic connection, first and foremost. It's going to help your relationship with another entrepreneur. And secondly, there's so much that the entrepreneur is able to learn that's good

for their timing, their perspective, their insights. And now to like, that's that second piece. The third piece I would say is getting your first customer as fast as you can is everything. You've got to get to revenue because revenue makes it real. And your customer is your best teacher, in our opinion. So get that customer. And in the pursuit of trying to get a customer, you will refine and adapt your product or your service to find a market. And then you need to figure out if you have a healthy margin on that sale. You need a healthy gross margin.

And you need to make sure that you can build a replicable, repeatable system so that this one sale becomes 10 a week. And then you can build a business off of that. Hi, I'm Lindsay Reagan. Thank you guys so much for having this. This was kind of a boondoggle that I took while I'm seeking out what to do next. And I wanted to ask you, how are you seeing AI play into faster success, faster return on ROI? Are you leaning into that with your tech-leaning relationship? I was so thrilled to hear about that.

Yes, great question. So I will say first and foremost that I think that technology is part of the solution along with people. My co-founder, Nick and I wrote a book called Building Businesses Together. And in it, it's basically guides for how entrepreneurs and people who support them can, they ask the right questions, first and foremost. And so what AI doesn't do is ask you the right questions necessarily. So that's still a big, that's a trap. I'll start with the trap of AI because it doesn't know what you don't know. And it's not necessarily good at making you think about the right questions.

So we wrote our book in 2024. It's 10 years of learning, of helping thousands of entrepreneurs launch a business. And we wrote it with a keen eye on AI. And we said, how do we write something that, not obsolete next month. And it was real, right? And we did not use AI to write that book, although sometimes I think we should have. It is an incredibly powerful tool. It's incredibly powerful. I wish that I could have had somebody do my social media, do my marketing plan. I mean, there are so many things that you can get if you use AI correctly for a solo, low-income,

entrepreneur, I mean, spend 20 bucks a month on that for sure. So what we're trying to do is build it into Sky's the Limits platform. And we have. We launched it in December. And we have Accentures funded a whole, what we're calling co-founder AI, which is essentially your buddy to help you launch your business and, you know, won't cheat on you and won't leave you when you're, you know, like maybe another real co-founder might, and is there to help you build the company. So I think a lot of, there are a lot of things. But at the end of the day, AI is not making purchasing decisions.

Like people do that. So you see it's only a tool. You know, it's just like a calculator. Somebody said, oh, I'm not going to use that to do this equation. You know, I mean, we kind of look at them crazy today. I mean, that's what I say. That's how I think about AI. It's just a really good calculator.

Anybody else? Next. Okay. So, before everybody gets up, please give three more minutes or four more minutes of your attention to, I don't know, what do we call this person? The co-president, the club president of the budding first, one of six, inaugural chapters of an army of normal folks.

Tell everybody about what we're doing. Please stand up and tell everybody about it. Also a former guest. Hey, everybody. My name is Lydia Rosencrantz, and I do have the distinct honor. Y'all, I am so excited about the opportunity to be the club president

for the Army of Normal Folks Memphis. So as Bill mentioned, like seven 70% of people want to be involved and they don't know how. And so our goal with our club is to build a community that redefines civic engagement for the 21st century. And the way that we're going to do that is we are going to make it fun. Okay. Number one, we want to make it so much fun. And two, we want to make it intergenerational. So bring your kids, bring your parents. And three, we do want to make it easy, right? So we're doing that through Army activations. where we have service projects already set up, just come as you are and serve.

We're doing it through the service concierge. And actually, I'm spending my snow weekend, building out some of those opportunities to serve where you can use your passions and your skills and serve exactly where you want to. It can be hard to figure out. We have like, what, 12,000 nonprofits in Memphis or something. Figure out where the opportunities are. And so we want to make that easy for you. So our kickoff meeting is actually March the 1st.

That's a Sunday and we're going to do it at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. So usually a pretty dead time for most of us. And we're going to be at Grind City Brewing. So March the 1st at 4 o'clock, come as you are. There are no barriers to entry. You can come and go as you please. We, as I said, we're going to make this fun. We're going to make it easy.

We're going to make it about service and it's going to be a community. And we as an army of normal folks can absolutely change Memphis. So I hope that you will join us. Thank you, Bill, for the opportunity. Yeah. And y'all, I know first meetings like that can be uncomfortable. You know, it's a bunch of weird people you don't know. You're all going to get around and hold hands and circle up, do something nice.

It's not going to be that. It's about serving our community. And it's one thing to tune in and listen to a podcast. But here's how an army and normal folks started. There are by-ducks and roads in our town right now that when you drive home today from work or leave here, you hope you don't have a flat tire. It's one place you're like, Lord have mercy,

do not have a flat tire down here because you're worried if you've got to pull off the viaduct or by that street and get out of your car and spend 45 minutes outside, at the very least somebody's going to call. you for some money, but very worse, you might get mugged. You're like, don't have a flat tire here. But then as you pass by and you look over that byduct and you safely pass it or you go by

that street, you look down it and you think, man, somebody ought to do something about that one day. When you see that abject despair and that poverty and that disenfranchisement and what the politics and the race have done to the people who live in those areas that are disaffected, that are underrepresented, that despite their great idea, cannot become entrepreneurs. And you think, man, somebody ought to do something about that one day. And our question is who is somebody? The government has proven woefully inadequate, to your point.

Maybe you need to kick that rearview mirror about 15 degrees of the left and find out who somebody is. It's you. It's us. The only people that are going to do something about that proverbial that one day is us. So my argument is it's not the government. It's not some big NCOs. It's not some anything. It's an army of normal folks. Just black, white, Christian, Jewish, agnostic, Muslim, gay, straight. I don't care how you vote. I don't care what you look like. I don't care who you love and I don't care how you worship. If you can do something to serve someone in your community that isn't as blessed as you,

then I can celebrate you. And you can do the same for me. So an Army of Normal folks has the power to fill need and to break down these artificial barriers that these people in New York and L.A. keep putting in front of us with the narratives on social media and the national media. We've got to break them down. An army of normal folks, serving our communities and serving one another. That's who ought to fix that one day.

And that's what these clubs and chapters are about. You're not doing anything sitting here but being entertained. The work is when you leave here. So I hope you will listen to the show. I hope you will be inspired by our guests. I hope you will take up what they have done like great people like Bo. And what Bo does, maybe you're not passionate about.

But with 300 shows out there, there is invariably someone who is doing something, some work that meets your skill set, your discipline, and your passion. And all you've got to do is listen to the show, and it's a roadmap to success. And if we had an army of normal folks, millions of people inside these clubs across all these cities, with all this help, making it easy, joining together to be that who is going to do something about that one day. Maybe this division that continues to tear us apart goes away, and maybe those most disadvantaged among us get to step up and join the ranks of the taxpayers. And the folks who contribute to society and make a world a better place. That's what the Army of Normal folks is about.

That's our call to you. I appreciate the cause. But guys like me and Bo, we'd much rather have the action. So I hope you think about that as we sign off. Bo, thanks for coming to Seattle to join us. I appreciate it. Thanks for joining us, everybody. And thank you for joining us this week.

If Bo Guerrdele has inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action by becoming a virtual mentor with skies of the limit, signing up as a mentee, getting your company, or city involved with them, or something else entirely. Please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at bill at normalfolks.us, and I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends, share it on social, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it.

Join the Army at normalfolks. Any and all of these things that will help us grow, an Army of Normal Folks. I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do it you can. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpright became the victim of a random crime.

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Listen to Mind Games on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When segregation was a law, one mysterious black club owner, Charlie Fitzgerald, had his own rules. Segregation and the day integration at night. It was like stepping on another world. Was he a businessman? A criminal. A hero. Charlie was an example of power.

They had to crush you. Charlie's Place, from Atlas Obscura and visit Myrtle Beach. Listen to Charlie's Place on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Come check this. IHeart and TikTok have come together to create something new. I love it. Where the world of TikTok meets your playlist. Three words that will change your life.

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