An Army of Normal Folks - Why Half of America Is Socially Disconnected—and What You Can Do About It (Pt 2)

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

More than half of Americans are socially disconnected. But what if the problem isn't so much that we've forgotten how to connect—it's that we've stopped building the kinds of communities where connection naturally happens? In this thought-provoking conversation, Coach Bill Courtney sits down with Aaron Hurst, founder of the U.S. Chamber of Connection, to explore one of the largest challenges facing America today: the collapse of real human connection. After spending his career helping others build community, Aaron had a startling realization at age 50—he had very few close friends himself. That personal wake-up call launched a nationwide mission to understand why so many Americans feel disconnected and what ordinary people can do to rebuild community. Together, Bill and Aaron discuss: The six simple ingredients every thriving community needs Why serving together is one of the fastest ways to build lasting friendships Practical ways you can strengthen your community such as joining the "Welcome Committee" or starting a local Chamber of Connection  This isn't just a conversation about what's broken—it's a blueprint for rebuilding the relationships and communities we all need. If you've ever wished you felt more connected or wondered how to make a real difference where you live, this episode is for you.Learn more and take action: ChamberofConnection.org Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/#joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, everybody. It's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks, and we continue now with part two of our conversation with Aaron Hurst right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Do we want to jump right in? Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish right inside the free IHard Radio app. Make some noise. Wooee! Catch every laugh and eye roll on shows like Bestie Listen. Hey Jonas and Las Culturisasas. Now with full video. I'll just leave that there. It's the same hosts and the same chemistry with all the hilarious moments you've been missing right on your screen.

Open the free IHart Radio app. Search video podcasts and tap watch. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up y'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the host of everyone watches women's sports, a new podcast from Together and IHart Women's Sports. Because let's be real. Women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days.

So Kelsey Finler, she began. became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is, like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka showing out, she beat Sabalinka.

Shout out to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested. interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse. The world gets crazier.

And Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem. If you come over here to play games, I'm a check you. Okay? If you do some in the news that don't Sound good? I'm a play you. Join Yomeneika Saunders as she breaks down the week's most problematic stories on her new podcast. You're the problem with Yamanika.

Do you know I just found out who Sidney Sweeney was? New episodes weekly every Wednesday is part of my new network, the dear Chelsea Network. If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better or do less

so I don't have to do so much. So join Yomeneke each episode as she answers one question. Who's the problem? I'm Yamanika, and I'm out. Listen to you're the problem with Yamanika on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jake Brennan, and on the Disgraceland podcast, I explore the wild lives of rock stars and unbelievable true crime stories from music history. These are the stories you haven't heard, the kind you'll end up telling someone else.

Like the time Paul McCartney spent in one of the world's most notorious prisons. Imagine that. You're Paul McCartney. It's 1980. You're an ex-Beedle. And you're doing time in one of Japan's worst prisons right there alongside Yakuza gangsters and for a ridiculous charge. Or the bizarre crime Lady Gaga is accused of. Who is the artist Lady Gaga as being accused of doing the unthinkable to,

after allegedly stealing her music in style to become famous? And what about that time, Blondie's Debbie Harry escaped a serial killer? The man who had given her that ride she barely escaped from was Ted Bundy. Listen to Discrace Land on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Where'd you go to college? University of Michigan. I remember that. You're a third generation.

And my son's going in September. Fourth. I'm so pumped for a half. So pumped. So what did you study? So I made my own degree. Of course. I made my own degree.

They have an ability to like do your own thing. Of course, as he said. How come that does not surprise me? And it's interesting. It's mostly used by people like me and the athletes. Yeah, got it. So it's interesting. And I went to, I received a.

So vegetarian Buddhist and athletes. There you go. Exactly. Perfect. No, it's just so it's, I went, I was very honored to get this award from the University of Michigan as an alum for like, they call it the humanitarian award. It's their top award they give to alumni. Wow. I was really honored.

Yeah, I was really honored to get that. That's really an honor. That's cool. And I don't sure it to bribe. What I sure it is like I went to the ceremony where there are another 10 or so folks that were getting it. So many of them got up there and had the same make your own degree. Really? Because it's just people who like sort of dance to a different tune and I like want to go out and like figure out how to make things happen or aren't going to just follow the recipe.

So most of my focus when I was a student was actually creating a program to go teach, creative writing in the prisons. And I spent a lot of my time doing that. And I worked with different faculty to build a curriculum so that you didn't just think about service through the dimension of it being about sociology. It's also creative writing. It's teaching. It's understanding, like, all these different issues that, like, lead to that dynamic.

And we would go out and we'd take all these students out there, we'd teach. And then we had an hour drive back to campus. And it was during that hour where people were debriefing their experience and reflecting on the differences and, like, the luck they'd had in their life that they weren't in that same position and what does this mean in terms of society. So that was what hooked me. So my, when I sort of think about what my degree is, it was really in service learning. Like, how do we learn through service? And then I did my study abroad in Eastern Europe, because I wanted to understand, like, what was the experience being behind the Iron Curtain like for people? Sort of

similar, but very different theme. Estonians, Lithuanians, those guys. I met a incredible Latvian last night at the bar here in Memphis. Really? Yeah. He was, like, we talked for, like, we do business in Latvia. Those, those. Those. people. Furn off. So cool. They're hilarious. We talked for an hour and a half.

Tonight I'm driving to Nashville and he offered to drive me. Like, what a nice guy. Didn't take him up on it because of, you know, a bunch of issues there. But just the fact that someone at a bar, Latvian, of course, is part of it, like, offered to do that was like just, that wouldn't happen in Seattle. At the cookie canoe or R. I love that. Yeah. I just loved it.

I absolutely loved that. And he and I couldn't be more different. He sells fried chicken for a living. He sells fried chicken from Latvia? He's like he's moved here since then. And he now like does like I guess wholesale fried chicken. I didn't fully understand it. But I just, first of all being in like a hotel with the ducks.

Yeah. I was like, we got to keep this guy away from that hotel. And the fried chicken cell of Latvian. Yeah. And then obviously as a vegetarian myself, I was like. But you know what? That's an example of a cross differences. We were able to like actually have a great conversation.

And I left with a lot of respect for the guy. I found myself fascinated that Ignatius people. Riley didn't sit down on your left. Next time. Next time. Okay. One of my favorites. That gives us the idea of what you found as the problem, how you found it.

I don't know what your degrees in, but you're certainly a sociologist in some weird way. I think weird's actually a good degree. Maybe not. Maybe not, maybe not degreed in sociology, but certainly all these life experiences has made you a a sociologist. Would you not agree? I mean, I think of myself as an inventor-entrepreneur, but trying to address social issues. So I use that. And so it's tied to that. I think it's a lot of it's psychology, like really trying to understand why do people do what they do. And how can we help them make the choices that are in their best interest versus what companies are largely doing,

which is pushing people to make choices that are in their best interests. That makes sense. And I'm a psychology major, which is one of the reasons why I'm so interested in all this. Of course. Okay. So, six, 60% of adults say they want to connect with people different themselves. 68% are open to connecting across income, but few systems enable it. All backed up by everything you said. Yep. What in the world is the U.S. Chamber of Connection?

What are you doing? And how do you see this as a solution to all of the stuff we've talked about? Yeah. I think there's a couple of pieces to it. One is like, why do we call it the U.S. Chamber of Connection? I'm like, what is it? So when I look at the most successful organization, organizations in American history. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is one of them. It was founded by

the president, basically de facto, in the 1920s. And it was at the time, like America wasn't just all about business like it is today. And he wanted to basically find a way for business to have a common voice and to have business needs come together from a city all the way to the national level to sort of help drive the economy. And they were wildly successful. Like I would argue today, businesses have more rights than citizens do in this country when it comes to a lot of mentions and what they're able to do. A business can kill somebody and get away with it. An individual, not so much.

It's really fascinating, like, what the difference is. What do you mean, like, a workers' comp thing? Is that what you mean? How can a business kill someone get away with it? I mean, you think about these large companies, like, just the nature of what they have to do, like, people die all the time. So it's not the intention of like, I'm going to kill that guy. No, no, no.

It's more that, like, they just accept that, like, in the course of our business, we're going to kill 20 people a year. That's true. The actuarians will. Yeah. And you look at social media as killing people. There's no responsibility

for what they're doing. So we've gotten to the point where we really are a country largely driven by business. That's interesting. So I was like, that's not the outcome I want, but I love the model that got them there.

What if we did that for addressing social connection? What if we had a U.S. chamber of connection that was bringing together all the leaders who care about this issue in your neighborhood, in your city,

in your state, across the country, and we all pulled our power, our influence, and had a common agenda to actually drive this change. Then we might have a chance of standing up against what's happening in AI and what's happening in the country overall and in society. And that was really sort of at the biggest level, like what inspired me to start it and to name it that way. At a much more practical level, what I heard in Seattle was that the people who are like most easiest to help would probably be the people who moved to Seattle. Seattle is about 3 million-ish people. They get 140,000 new people every year. So you think about like...

Net? Positive of that number? That is not net. That's gross. But still? Yeah. But they're human beings who are like showing up at the airport, showing up at the train station, showing up out of their car, and like being like, who am I going to be friends

with? Who am I going to connect with? And a lot of them like really struggle. It's like a moment where a lot of people really struggle. And someone at one of the dinner said, what if cities had a program for onboarding people to the city the same way companies do a new employee. The chamber of connection for a city. Yeah, exactly.

That is so interesting. And it was just a powerful message that just took off. And the mayor got behind it. And we created like a full onboarding experience for new people to the city to help meet other new people, connect them to social clubs, help them think about like what is the life I want to create here. and we actually created a naturalization ceremony, but not naturalization to the U.S., naturalization to Seattle. Because what we heard in the dinners is multiple people said, I've lived here 15 years,

but I don't think I'm allowed to call myself a Seattleite. Think about that. Imagine someone on your football team is like, yeah, I've been on the team for 15 years, but I don't know that I can call myself a member of the team. Bulldog. Bulldog. Then, like, what would happen?

Like, they're not going to be playing very hard. They're not going to be engaged. Not going to be helping their teammates. And that's not theirs. It's not theirs. There's no belonging. They're not voting. They're not donating. They don't, they don't care because no one gave them permission to be local. Actually, I'll give you an example recently at Bill and Oxford. Somebody who was interested in helping the sleep in heavenly peace work. She moved here from, I think, Kentucky. And she's like, instead of calling it hottie toddy, I feel like we should call it hoity toady in Oxford.

Yeah, which I'd never heard before. But I get it like that feeling. And I mean, you probably heard the phrase too. Mississippi is an estate. It's a club. So for people like me who didn't grow up in Mississippi and didn't go a little miss, I mean, thankfully I've gotten good connections there. Yeah, from Chicago, went to Virginia and lives in Oxford, Mississippi at the University of Mississippi. You understand how people feel this way in a town. Are you an Oxfordian? An Oxonian. Oxonian?

Yeah, but here's a lady who just moved her in the last year and yet it feels this way. Yeah. Now, that is really, really interesting. And I am the guy who you said usually has friends. Yep. I grew up in Memphis, born and raised. Children here. my grandparents married here, my mother and uncle were born and lived here.

So we're like rooted in this town. Yep. So we do have those connections. We don't need a map. We know how to go anywhere, all of those things. So I have a hard time relating to someone living in a city and not feeling like part of it. But that's not my reality or my experience. But I can absolutely see how then that.

becomes a social ill because at some point you need your citizenry to invest in being a citizen. That's right. And so the Chamber of Connections seeks to bring in the new people and have them feel part of that. Yeah, that's really where we started. Like, how do you do that? And they range. I mean, you've got everything from immigrants to people who just moved from a county over. Sure.

You've got this wide range. And the majority of migration is not. international. It's people moving county to county. And my favorite stories in Seattle, when I talked to people who were from Seattle, left for five years and came back, and they really understood it in a way in which they didn't before, because they had to go be part of another community. And they had to almost reintegrate. And they saw how hard that is to do, even if you're from there and you go away for a while. And I just realized, like, we haven't built the systems. And we heard from a lot of people, like, I already have, the people like yourself, they're like,

I already have enough friends. I don't have room on my dance card. And this person, like, I'm going to go make friends with Alex, but he's probably going to move in two years. Like, why would I even bother making friends of this guy? He may not even be around. So there's this... Do you think people make that calculation? Oh, I heard it over and over and over again. I heard it a lot. It's like, just because of the churn.

And like in a big city, there's churn. And it's like, and I get it. Like, it's, you know, I meet someone who just moved to the city and I'm like, are they going to stay here? Is it worth investing in this relationship? Or is this just sort of a one-year fling as a friend, if you will, right? So, like, what is that... Brin fling? What is it? What is the investment I want to make? So we see a lot of that. And then people are just, I moved to Seattle as a trailing spouse because we moved for my wife's job. She immediately had built in community because Amazon onboarded her into that job and created an immediate community and network for her. I was here sort of not part of that world. And it's like you don't know where to reach out to. You don't know how to kickstart things, even though I've done it many times. So it is, I think, a very common experience. It's not just people moving. There's a lot of.

of these life disruptions that people have. Imagine getting laid off from a job you had for 30 years. And like all your friends are the people who you met at work. And suddenly like you're not really allowed to be part of that club anymore. You feel like you've been rejected. You don't really know where you are. And forget the paycheck. Losing that community, that sense of like connection, what that's going to do. And how many of those people are going to actually go in the wrong direction? Because they're going to be looking for purpose and not find it in productive ways. I'm glad you said that because it's a great segue to a question I had that was, you know,

the data that we talked about at the top of the show, that's the data, that is data, right? When I say how big a problem is it, I don't mean by the numbers, what's the percent? What I'm saying is the percent of people that fall into the groups that don't, that are experiencing loneliness. My question is, how big of a deal is that for people? I mean, we know from a health perspective, right?

Like, we know that it's right there with, like, exercise and diet, like it's as big a predictor of health and longevity. The surgeon general said what's the same as smoking 15 cigarettes a day is the impact of being lonely. So you think about that and what that means at a health level. And then you just think about life satisfaction, like being alone, we want it at times, but generally that's not a great experience. And then you look at the ripple effect into society and what that means for, like, we're actually about to do a study on the impact of social connection on consumer behavior. Because my hypothesis is disconnected people are not contributing to the local economy, the local nonprofit sector in the same way in which socially connected people are. And that there's like a really strong business case if we want to support local small business, local arts,

etc. that we need to get butts out of seats and into the community. So ironically, the chamber connection, the chamber of karma are sort of not that disassociated. We have, it's a Venn diagram like everything. We're two different pieces come together. But I think the bigger issue, so we actually had this group of people we put together across the country because we're trying to figure out how to talk about this because narratives matter. And I have to tell you about the narrative piece we didn't see out in a second because it's really, really fun.

We were like, what are the consequences? Because social connection, people have a hard time getting fired up about. They get it. They feel sadness around it, but like, we said, what's at stake? If we lose social connection, like, what's at stake? And we had a really interesting conversation about, like, what is it that we lose if we don't have social connection anymore? And moment as part of the coalition said, we lose our humanity. There's no humanity without social connection.

And if we don't have humanity, we don't have anything because that's what makes us human. So, like, that's the stakes at a societal level. This isn't like, oh, it's too bad these people don't have friends. This is our very humanities at stake, and right now we're trending in the wrong direction, and the technology is accelerating that. So we need to step up on a massive way, an army of ordinary people, as I think you would describe it, and, like, address this issue. But we also have to address it at a systems level. Like, this is a redesign of society around social connection to put it at the core going forward. That's what's at stake.

It is not just about friendship. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about our very core humanity. We'll be right back Now you can see it Do we want to jump right in? Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish Right inside the free IHR Radio app

Make some noise Catch every laugh and eye roll On shows like Bestie listen Hey Jonas and Las Culturistas Now with full video I'll just leave that there It's the same hosts and the same chemistry With all the hilarious moments you've been missing

Right on your screen Open the free IHR radio app Search video podcasts and tap watch. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your girl, Sam J.

And we're the host of everyone watches women's sports, a new podcast from Together and I heart women's sports. Because let's be real. Women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler,

she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is, like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over

your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka showing out, she beat. Sabalinka. Shout out to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that.

Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports. On the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse.

The world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem. If you come over here to play games, I'ma check you. Okay? If you do some in the news that don't sound good, I'm going to play you. Join Yomeneika Saunders as she breaks down the week's most problematic stories on her new podcast. You're the problem with Yomaniqa. Do you know I just found out who's Sidney Sweeney?

New episodes weekly every Wednesday is part of my new network The Dear Chelsea Network If he got a bunch of women Then I should have a bunch of men Do better or do less So I don't have to do so much So join Yamanika

Each episode as she answers one question Who's the problem? I'm Yamanika and I'm out Listen to you're the problem with Yamanika On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts Or wherever you get your podcast I'm Jake Brennan And on the Disgraceland podcast, I explore the wild lives of rock stars and unbelievable true crime stories from music history.

These are the stories you haven't heard, the kind you'll end up telling someone else. Like the time Paul McCartney spent in one of the world's most notorious prisons. Imagine that. You're Paul McCartney. It's 1980. You're an ex-beetle. And you're doing time in one of Japan's worst prisons right there alongside Yakuza gangst and for a ridiculous charge.

Or the bizarre crime, Lady Gaga is accused of. Who is the artist Lady Gaga as being accused of doing the unthinkable to after allegedly stealing her music in style to become famous? And what about that time, Blondie's Debbie Harry escaped a serial killer? The man who had given her that ride she barely escaped from was Ted Bundy. Listen to Disgraceland on the Eyeheartedly. Art Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Tell me about the Seattle thing.

Yes. So Seattle, I don't know if you guys have heard of the Seattle Freeze. Have either of you heard of this? Seattle is known for the Seattle Freeze. As one guy who is an older gentleman who is like a leader in Seattle said out, the unofficial tagline of Seattle is, leave me alone. Leave me alone. So it's like the Seattle freeze.

Oh, that's the freeze out. Leave me alone. That's right. I got you. We almost named our NHL team the Seattle Freeze, which would have been funny, but that's another story altogether. So what we realize is that this becomes a narrative of this identity of the city. Everyone in Seattle knows about the Seattle freeze, and they look for evidence of it. And there's evidence of the freeze anywhere you live.

But they look for evidence of it, and they start to romanticize it and lift it up as like a pride of culture in the city. And it just makes it worse and worse as a city. And what we realized was, as long as the Seattle Freeze remains the dominant anti-Strees, social narrative. Like, we can do a lot of things on the ground, but they're not going to stick because the narrative about the city is not going to work. So do you have bumper stickers called F the freeze? We don't.

Let me tell you how we solved for it. That would be very painful to literally do that. So, strong visual there. What we were like, we said, like, what would it be a good, how should it feel to move to Seattle? Like, what would we like it to feel like? We're like, it should be like a bear hug. Oh, no.

You just land and you're just like, bear hug. Like, you're just brought in. So, and we can all point to examples of people who had done that in Seattle, just like we could to the freeze. So he said, what if we replaced the Seattle freeze with the Seattle bear hug? And we ordered a life-size mascot inflatable bear that goes to all of our events, walks down the street, just giving out bear hugs. And it just like took off.

All the media started doing it. Everyone wanted to bear with their events. You mean like a mascot? Yeah. They were these blow up things or somebody walks around. That's right. Some big goofy. Just hugging folks.

Breaking the freeze. Yeah. And we would just walk down the street. Like we would do this walk down Lake Union and Fox News was there filming it. Just grumpy people walking down the street and like Bear would come up. Oh, hug. And like they started giggling like a kindergartner. Like it was just this amazing.

Like people just don't get that like embrace, but also just that silliness around it. Yeah. So that became. Was it hugging them without permission? It is Seattle. So there was always. they had to sign no. They didn't have to sign anything, but there was always like, would you like a hug? So it was not a salt. And then I say about the inflatable piece, too,

is like you don't feel like you're touching the person. Like, it does feel like it's not threatening that way. Plastic. Yeah, it's free, lovely thing. Such a big hit, though. Like, people just loved it. People are like, can I be the mascot? Like, can I be the volunteer to be the mascot? Which was great. And I think those kind of things matter, though. Like, it's a change in the story about like what you're sitting. Have you ever been inside the bear hug machine, the outfit? No. I got my son to do it. Oh, there you have it.

So it was actually during March Madness this year. And what I found out he was doing afterwards is that he had put his cell phone with the Michigan basketball game on in the nose, the snout of the bear. So you could watch the game while he was giving out hugs, which I was like, genius move. Oh, my gosh. Okay. So what else? Because you did the connection thing and the chamber of connection and all, but there's more. There is more.

But I want to tell you one funny story because I think you'll appreciate it. So I was telling you about dinner parties, right? And how I was doing a dinner party every two weeks. I was on a flight and I just had this like really stupid idea because I was like running out of like the dinners were getting a little boring because there was a lot of repetition. I was like, what if I did a dinner of only errands? Only errands. So I reached out to 60 errands in Seattle. Randomly.

This on LinkedIn. I was just like, how did you find them? Just search Aaron in Seattle and LinkedIn. And I like would connect. And I was like, would you be understood to come into an errand. dinner. And like, they all respond because they're like, what the does that mean? Yeah, that's the weirdest thing of the world. So we had, it ended being about a dozen errands that came over. They had to all be spelled correctly, A-A-R-O-N.

They walked in the door and they got a name tag. So we all knew who we were. So you had all these guys walking around with the Aaron name tag. And we had this like incredible conversation about like, what was it like to be an Aaron? Like, what is it like to be first in line most of the time? Because it's a double A. First in line most of the time. We get a lot more but dials. We used to because we're usually the first person and people's cell phone contacts. So we all have a lot more of our time has been spent on butt dials. And then we had some fun conversations like, did you ever date an ER-I-N? And several of them had and sort of talked about that experience. And then we talked about

self-hating errands. Like we asked, would you hire another errand? And like, half the people were like, no, I would not hire another errand. So it was just fascinating to like, think about things that bring us together. It was just an experiment about a totally different way of connecting. And it was the funniest thing I've ever heard. It was so funny. It turned out one of the errands was an award-winning National Geographic photographer who did, does like wildlife photography. And he showed up to this thing. People just like, like, I didn't know any of these people.

He showed up to the thing. And I was like. Did you have it at your house? Yeah, yeah. It was a potluck and you had to bring an A, a food that started with an A. Of course. And it was super fun because he was a photographer. I was like, can you have us, we'll do with our bodies spell out the word Aaron in our bodies.

And it had him from the roof to like photographs of us. filling it out. It was just just like really fun, goofy night. But it's around the point, like you can gather people around anything if you want and just have fun with it. Did anybody drink Absolute? I don't think there's any absolute or absinthe that was consumed. I don't remember actually what the drinks were. There's a lot of asparagus. So a lot of stinky pee the next day. Apples, apple, like apple. Poplar. Alicado. Perfect. Absolutely. I ate well, as I usually do.

So anyway, I thought you'd enjoy that story of just ways of experimenting in my own life to like just play with connection. Oh gosh that is so have you heard of I got a theory right now for our service clubs yeah that we played around with and this is a great one for our service clubs to play around with too like these naming dinners would be fun for them to do no doubt so we just interviewed I'll come out soon this hush hush nomadic cafe you heard of this one or Oregon I don't think so no oh so they have these semi-seeker coffee gatherings Portland guys not far from yeah so bed in Oregon um and you only get the location of the coffee gathering until you RSVP.

And then he actually caps it at 35 people to try to keep it intimate, but he's had like 140 people show up before. But these just kind of really curiosity forward, weird things that people seem to love. These guys hike coffee. They don't make coffee and then hike it. They go to some nondescript place in the woods and set up and they grind the beans and make some of the greatest coffee you've ever had in the woods. And they, and it's hush, hush, cafe.

and 50 or 60 people show up and they hang out for an hour and a half and have coffee in the woods. It's so fun and it's so fascinating to see all this, like, creativity. I have a podcast myself called How We Connected. And every week we interview one of these people who has one of these, like, crazy fun. You have got to get in touch with this. He's also hilarious. You would love him.

Bring it on. And like a state neighbor. You need to have a hush, hash cafe with the connection thing. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, there's so much creativity. I was just, this week's podcast was about this guy who does paddleboard raves. in Seattle where he gets hundreds of people on paddle boards, like out in the lake,

and then they have, like, a floating barge with a DJ. And they've just created these, like, incredible. Like, he just had the idea and just did it. And now it's, like, hundreds of people. They're not dancing on the pedal boards, though. They are, in many cases. I mean, it takes a lot of abs, which I don't have. But, like, that, I just love all these things people are doing that are just bringing out a lot of creativity of folks.

I think Instagram, frankly, people want things also that they can photograph because they want to be able to share a story. So it's a motivator. With their friends. Yes. Exactly. I brought her. All right. So you want to know, like, what else are we doing in terms of?

Yeah. Yeah. So we just launched four more cities. So on top of Seattle, we've added San Francisco, San Diego, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh. So we're really little more. Yep. It's an interesting city. It's a really interesting city.

It's a real mix of a lot of different stuff going on. Yeah. And some really, like, a lot of amazing reasons for hope, but also a lot of really big challenges. Yeah. Baltimore and Memphis are not that similar. Yep. So that's why I said Baltimore. That one is interesting.

Why are those five cities? Did you have friends there that wanted to take this? I set up an application process or people had to apply to see if they wanted to create a chapter. And it was a 26-page application for them to really think through, like, what is it that you want to create? And these people came out. There was a handful of additional folks that didn't end up following through with it. But these are the folks that stood up and said, I want to start one of these. And, like, I'm not paying them to do it.

They're doing it. Most of them are doing it close to full-time. and they're raising the money locally to get them set up. They're building out their connection councils, which is a group of leaders across the city that are taking ownership for connection for the city. They're commissioning research on their city, and then they're starting to run these programs,

like the newcomer programs. And our goal is to be in 50 cities by the end of the decade. Like, have this be everywhere and not just about newcomers, but let's look at these other life transitions and let's really, like, build it in. Like one of the things we did last year, which I think you'll appreciate is we went to our NHL team, the Seattle Cracken.

And we said, can you have a game, dedicated to newcomers. And they were like, awesome. They got Alaska Airlines to sponsor. We had a thousand newcomers come to the game, did a reception beforehand. They loved it. And now sports teams across the country are like, can we do newcomer games? So just thinking about like, what are all these ways we can integrate these moments into

existing institutions? How can we start creating some of these broader changes? And we're getting everybody together this October in Seattle for the Connected City Summit to really come up with a design for what is the future of cities that is connection forward, that's designed around connection. And I'm really excited. We've just got incredible people coming. There's not a single speaker, not a single panel.

It's all just co-design together. And it's going to produce a blueprint for the future of cities. And then we're doing something that we're launching in September called Inviteathon, where we're just going to try to see if we can get over a million people just to invite someone to do something with them and track it. And Inviteathon. I love it. Because that's really at the end of the day, like the starting place. Like, how do we end?

Like, invite chicken? Invite. and give someone permission to invite. So we're sort of creating this huge movement around that. And then we're recruiting people to form as volunteers to be welcome committees in their neighborhoods across the country and giving them the training and community to like start to actually start doing potlucks and doing block parties and looking for new people and inviting them in.

So looking at like how do we create this sort of large, you know, group of folks that are out doing this work? Because the reality is like in the 1950s, a lot of this work was done by women, honestly, before we had as many women in the workforce. If we would actually take that same workforce and apply it to today, it would be $500 billion in labor. Wow. And we've lost half a trillion dollars in labor by moving to like a two-income household,

which is a great thing. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I think that's fabulous. But the fact is. But the consequence is there was a ton of work that was happening that was creating social connection. Who is welcoming people? Who is going and doing all these activities and drinking? off a pie who was putting together dinner parties that brought men together through their wives.

And some men did that, but by and large, yeah, I think that's right. So if we're going to address this, like we've got to basically find a way to recreate that, but not have it be all on women this time. We as guys need to take a lot of that responsibility. A woman or men more lonely. Different research says different things. We found they're almost identical. The biggest difference is actually income.

We found low income is twice as likely to be lonely. than higher income. Now, that's interesting because they have two jobs or... I think it's a mix. There's a, I mean, a lot of it's conjecture and trying to, like, look at what other research says. I think part of it is, like, finances and the ability to, like, pay to go do a lot of these things and cost money. A lot of times in low-income neighborhoods, they're just fewer third places.

The parks aren't in the same shape. There's less of that infrastructure. You've got a lot of people working, like you said, multiple jobs. You have a higher level of exhaustion a lot of the time because of that. So I think it's, we've got to really understand that this is, and there isn't a quality piece to this that's built into it around like how are we building cities that actually enable everyone to have social connection. But the thing that's really different about this, unlike any other cause that I've been a part of, 30% of every population, even if you're fabulously wealthy, white man, right, is lonely. So this is like unlike any other issue, like it really affects every population. And it's the one thing we can actually come together to address because we're all experienced.

it. This is not a red or blue thing. It's not a male or female thing. We found people of every age you're struggling with this. This is a universal American experience now. And if we could come together as a country and say, this is the thing we're all struggling with. Like, let's solve this together. I think it could start to close some of the divide that we're seeing more broadly. So it's a sort of interesting paradox. We have to acknowledge that low income is much more likely to be struggling with this. We also have to embrace the fact that this is a shared human experience. And if we can address it together and not further silo our society by trying to just address it with one population and another, I think we could really bring the country together.

So founding chapters, how are you going to get the next 44, 46? This podcast is going to have a lot of people listening to it, and they're all going to contact us and start chapters. So that's strategy number one. Beyond that, what we're doing is we want to have those up for a year, like getting those going. And we've already got about 20 cities, people in cities that have shown interest in us. We're also looking to find some national funders who are willing to help seed chapters because it is really hard for someone to start with nothing from scratch. So really looking at who are some forward-looking philanthropists who say, I want to be part of solving the social connection challenge. And I want to help seed a change in my city or in multiple cities because that's what's really going to make that happen.

But our goal is to have it show enough data to show that it's working that it's going to be weird to be in a city that doesn't have one. And when you move eventually from Memphis to Chicago, like, you know there's going to be a chamber of connection there and you know to call, even before you sort of get in your car to make that drive because you know the chamber of connection will help you sort of set up your life in Chicago. You know, I think of cities. Almost every city. I think of Memphis. I think of every city. They have a chamber of commerce. That's right.

And most have something that looks like, pick a title, but a visitor's bureau. For tourists. For tourists. visitors and tourism bureau, both of which have very specific designs and are by and large effective for the cities there. I can absolutely see a chamber of connection as just kind of, like you say, it would be weird if Memphis didn't have a chamber commerce. It would be weird if Memphis didn't have a chamber connection or Birmingham picked a city. That's where we need to get to is just sort of like it becomes part of the expectation of the

infrastructure of a city, that there is a group of people, who are taking responsibility for it. They're working across the city and education and health care, et cetera, just to look at like where there's needs, help address them. They're helping advocate for changes in government. Like, one of the biggest challenges we hear is people want to have a block party. It takes them 60 to 90 days to get a permit.

You should be able to have a block party without having to go and, like, go through all of that red tape. Like, we need also advocacy to change some of these rules, so there's less red tape around connecting. We talk about red tape for business. There's actually quite a bit of red tape for actually connecting, which is the same. And just moved to Memphis. We won't have a block party.

We just have a block party. Nobody bothers us. I love it. All the duck hunters get together on the block and just... Clearly, the southeast is different than the northwest, so I get it. Every city's different, though, right? It's special. But they're all at the end of the day humans, and I think the need is universal.

People are like, well, it's different here. I'm like, do you have two human beings? Yes. Okay. At the end of the day, like, it's the same as anywhere else. And I mean, it's not anywhere. You can meet a Latvian fried chicken salesman. I know.

I mean, what are the odds? With the ducks. It was around in a fountain right behind you. Living the dream. I don't know. Live in the dream. When you look at what actually creates connection to community, is it our current class of elites or is it normal folks?

It is by and large, normal folks. Like, folks sort of looking out for their neighbors is starting to look at, like, how do we fundamentally, like, rebuild that fabric at the neighborhood level? But I do think that there is a component of this in which we need to change some of the systems that are actually preventing us from having social connection. If we're going to change the rules around AI

and be able to make it so that that's not going to be how important for friendship, like that's going to require some organizing and some people with power to be able to make that change. If we're going to start making some of these changes, like removing red tape around social connection, that's going to require some of that power. If we're going to get companies to actually think about the social connection of their employees, like that's going to take some of that. So I think this is every American from top to bottom needs to be part of this movement

to redesign our country. And the bulk of that is going to be everyday folks that are going to be doing this work. It's about starting with your own life. It's starting with your neighborhood. starting with your community. But we do have to change some of the systems because a lot of the systems we've built in our country, like we can take two steps forward.

We're going to take three steps back because of what we've done as a society to prevent people from connecting. That makes a lot of sense. The answer is yes. I mean, it's everybody. It is. Including the institutions that govern us.

The government us, the companies, the media, like they all, like we're starting to have a partnership with a large media company because part of what media companies are realizing now is that there can't be in the content business anymore, they need to be in the connection business. So there's a shift in, like, we're seeing more and more companies start to realize

they need to get into the connection business because that's what consumers want now is connection. So we're starting to work with large retailers to rethink, like, what would a gap look like if it's optimized for social connection? What would a Macy's look like? What would a Lululemon look like? How do we start to reimagine these spaces

and start to optimize things for social connection? How do we change our schools? So they're actually teaching kids how to do this in their lives. It's really systemic. We'll be right back. I'm Ruby Carr, the host of the podcast, OnCore. Check out our brand new episodes featuring music from the show

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This is way off prop and off the, yeah, but I was in London last week. Yep. So it was my wife. I wonder if you saw her. Really? Probably did. Yeah. Who would know?

If I knew her, I would be able to tell you. Lisa took two of the days to drag me around all her favorite stores. Yep. And it was miserable. Do they have the couches for the guys to sit in? Well, yeah, sometimes. And sometimes it was like, please don't sit here, so I sat there. Perfect.

Anyway, and I mean, lots of stores. Yeah. Everybody goes to Harris because they won't go to Harris. But there's a Fortinam and Mason. There's all these cool shows. Yeah, totally. And then there's lines of stores with boutique stuff, and of course, all purses and shoes. And then big department stores.

And it was bustling and it was hot. as in London last week. It was really, really warm for London. And it dawned on me. And I'm just making the connection talking to you right now. But it did dawn on me. And I said it to Lisa, I said, you know, man, I miss this. Yeah.

So much of what we do, if you do not live in New York or DC or L.A. So many of us in the flyover states that don't live in Dallas or Atlanta. We do our shopping online. Yep. We just do. Yep. Convenience. And Memphis once had many, many, many department stores, one of which was a

locally owned one called Goldsmiths that Macy's eventually bought. And it literally shut down about three months ago and they're tearing it down now. And it was massive. You would always run into the somebody you knew at the store. You would always bump into somebody. And if you went to the store three or four times a year, the sales associates would get to know you. There was actually a social connection going on in the act of driving and parking and walking in and touching and looking at the products that is completely wiped out by a computer screen.

And it was in London just last week that I thought I hate being drug around these stores and my feet hurt. But you know what? I'm actually enjoying myself to see people. Yeah, just being out and about. It's so on point. Isn't it interesting that online shopping has something to do with this too, I think? Oh, it's removing friction. Like, connection happens through friction, generally.

And what technology is? Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean connection happens through friction? So, like, if you need sugar right now because you don't have it for the cake you're baking tonight, back in the day you'd go knock on your neighbor's door. Do it. You'd send your kid over and get a cup of sugar. Amazon can deliver sugar to my house in an hour.

Why would I talk to my neighbor? I would talk to the person at the grocery store when I checked out. now I have an automated checkout system. So I don't need to talk to anybody doing that. I love Lyft and Uber. I talk to the riders. Now we're getting driverless cars, which also means like we're not going to have that interaction.

Removing friction. Amazing. I was talking to a guy on our podcast last week who runs conferences, and he asked people, where did you make the best connections at the conference? And as a conference organized, you're like, oh, you hope it was like, this session was really amazing. And people got a lot of value. The bar.

Close. In line for food. It was being at the friction of having to wait in line, forced people to talk to each other. that wouldn't otherwise and gave him a safety to be able to talk to people. It's these moments of friction where we actually usually connect with people. When things are really efficient, like you generally are just moving through and you're not actually having that interaction.

You're not getting to that human ability. And it takes 200 hours to make a best friend. So if you don't have those time together, like it's just not going to happen. You're going to feel like you know people, but you don't really. So I think you're spot on about that challenge. I stood next to a guy in one of these stores and bored to death. And he was Australian, and his wife was also shopping, and he was bored of death. I was holding bags.

He was old bags, and I looked at him, and he looked at me, and we kind of grinned at each other. Because I think we saw each other in that moment in one another. And I said, how long has this one been for you? And he said, about four hours. I said, yeah, about four and a half. And we just laughed. And then we started talking. That's not a real friendship or anything.

But the point is it is connection. No, and research shows those are really important. Really? Those little touches. You need to have those. It makes you feel like you belong in a place. It makes you feel safe and like it's home. And there is like some sort of neurochemical that releases that's good for you.

So it's not the same as a bestie, a ride or die friend. But we actually need those. And if you just had like tight friends and didn't have that kind of interaction, like you would feel that as well. But the AI and the online shopping and everything are stripping that from us. Right. They're removing all the friction. So we got to replace it is your point. Right.

We've got to create intentional design where we actually have to get together and it's not about convenience and it's about just sometimes hanging out. It's waiting in line. It's sitting there in the store with the other three guys where you're waiting while your partners try and close on. It's all these things actually that, you know, we lament, but they're actually the places where we tend to meet people. I'm a 50-something-year-old married guy for 33 years.

Congrats. And the singular greatest experience of my life. that and being a father. So this question is not really about me, but I think we can't ask this question without having this conversation be a complete conversation. According to the 2025 National Dating Landscape Survey, there is such a thing. Of course. 64% of men and 74% of women ages 22 to 35 have either not dated, I cannot fathom these numbers,

But according to the 2025 National Dating Landscape Survey, and they talked to a lot of people, probably 2,173 like you did, 64% of men and 74% of women ages 22 to 35. At 22 to 35, I was hanging out with everybody. Ages 22 to 35 have either not dated at all or have gone on dates, quote, only a few times in the last year. And the scary statistic to me is that only 51% of this group even expressed interest in even starting a relationship. Which means when you par that with the 50% of people who say they're lonely, I think it screams, hello.

Do you have a sense of what's going on there? Because we're not talking about people like us. We're talking about people like our children who are lonely and two-thirds to three-quarters aren't dating and half say they're not even trying because they don't see the point. Yep. That's an illness in my mind. Can you talk to this? By the way, does this make sense to you?

I mean, absolutely yes and absolutely no, depending on how you answer that. No, no, no. Does the question, I mean, does this data fit in your work? Yeah, I mean, I've got two kids that are, you know, teenage, like late teens and seen firsthand some of these things with their friends, more broadly. I think COVID messed a lot of people up, first of all. I think that was a major disruptor for people. Porn, I think, has had, like, a real impact. And talk about frictionless.

That's a lot less friction than having to go out and ask a girl out. So we're seeing that, I think, have an impact. You just took a time you've actually mentioned porn. Yeah. Is it a, is it's, it has a role in all of this, doesn't it? a real role. Yeah, it's, it's an efficient way to meet and need well enough. Well enough.

And it's like absolutely heartbreak. But that's, I think, where that, where a lot of that comes from. When your expectations are no greater than well enough. Well, it's relative to the fear, like a fear of rejection. There's no rejection. There's like all that friction that you get with dating can be very painful and it can be scary and, like, that's absent. So that becomes attractive to a lot of folks.

What happens when AI makes, oh my gosh, I can't even believe. This just popped in my head. It's a little sick. This is kind of a family show, so I'm going to be careful with this. But what happens when AI invents actual three-dimensional porn experiences? I think I said that as careful as part. I think there are a few movies on that topic. Is it really?

Yeah, I think it's this idea of like these robotic women who are. Are AI-driven. Yeah. Is that happening or coming? Do you think? I think that there are people, there's components of it. Like the interaction part is starting to happen. I think you're starting to see it around some of the synthetic people that they're being created.

And then you see, like, most of the innovations happening in warehouses and with robots from sort of that commercial need. But if you look at most, like, the Internet porn was the first thing that, like, got it moving. Like, each of these things, it tends to be the first mover in new innovation because it's so easy to. raise to generate money on it. So you tend to see it show up really quickly. And you're already seeing like all kinds of synthetic relationships around that. And this again, it's just friction. Like when you remove friction, it's easy and good enough.

Like people at the end of the day, like things that are scary, we tend to avoid. It's the way we're designed. So I think that's part of what's going on. The other thing I found that my son told me, which I thought kind of blew my mind, is that these social media feeds. So kids spend way too much on social media. We all know a lot of the problems with that are on body image. and around, like, just all these issues.

But also in the algorithms, the algorithms are different for boys and girls and the patterns around it. So what he was saying, which was very different than my experience, he's like, I don't have anything to talk to girls about it because we don't have the same feeds. Wow. So, like, the cultural references are different. Like, you and I watch the same show on NBC as a kid and we could talk about it. That's not the reality. So, like, there's these huge gaps in the cultural difference because they may be sitting next to each other, but what they're looking at is dramatically different.

I don't know how big of a factor that is, but I was really eye-opening for me from my son said that. That's really interesting because you're right. We would talk about Love Boat and Fantasy Island because we all watch the same show. Yep. And what you're saying is because the algorithms are feeding the girls something different on their phone that they're saying the boys

that they don't even have the same context to have discussions because they're looking at different stuff. Yeah, and there's some overlap there. I don't want to overstate it, but there's a significant gap there. And I see even in like my own marriage where like, my wife and I just have such, she's always like, you're not on the internet. I'm like, I'm on a different internet than you are.

Like, I'm not seeing the Real Housewives content. I'm seeing mostly Yankees baseball content and the other things that I'm interested in. So we start having these like totally different experiences through our synthetic, you know, relationships, if you will. So do you think that affects dating? I mean, I think it, I would imagine it does because, again, it's like that ability to have the relatability, the ability to have like learn conversation, have conversation. My sense of it with him was more about like small talk and then it was about third date. Like what do you still talk about?

Because you sort of run out of topics and you don't have that the social media piece to feed the ongoing conversation. 2,500, 5,275 unmarried young adults in their prime dating years, 25, 22, 35, 22, 35, of three quarters of women and nearly two-thirds of men had essentially stepped back from dating altogether. It's kind of essential to the survival or species that people date and marry. Is that how that works? It is. It has been this one, I know. There's no, there's no guess about this one. Although they are working on synthetic ways to fix that one actually as well.

But that's, but put that aside. No, it's a huge. I mean, that's why Elon Musk and so many people are very concerned about sort of population decline. and what that's going to do to the economy, to society. Like, everything we have is built on growth and that that's showing it. And you see it in a lot of countries now where they're having population decline. Did you know there's only four countries on the face of the planet that have a 20-year expectation of population increase? Wow. We're one of them.

But it's only projected increase? Projected increase? Based on immigration or based on child? No, total. Total net, net increase. I'm surprised ours is. Dieter, Theol. Yep.

The end of the world is just the beginning. Got to read it. Yeah. It's interesting. You'd love it. No, and I think the work they've been doing and sort of thinking about some of these issues, I think it's partisan,

but there's pieces under it that I think people need to hear just around why they're concerned about these issues. So I totally agree, and it is a risk to our very survival as a species. Like, we need to probably... So if anybody's wondering about why this connectivity stuff really matters. Yeah. I mean...

You start. hearing these numbers and you think about your children, your grandchildren, you think about what the next generation of 15-year-olds is coming up and going to have to be dealing with. I mean, my goodness, it really is. It could be epidemic-like if we don't work on it. I'm going to score a hat-trick right now and mention porn for the third time. Okay. Porn does not produce babies. No, it does not. No, it does not and it produces a whole lot of other stuff typically you built the largest non-profit consulting firm in the world from scratch is that true that is true what is taproot foundation and why did you ultimately walk away from it and how in that did you build the largest non-profit consulting

firm of the world that's kind of crazy that's cool it was a lot of fun uh so the taproot foundation I'll sort of do the short of it. But I think the core idea is I was talking to people in the nonprofit sector about what their needs were, especially from companies. How could companies support them? A lot of them said, I don't need more volunteers. Like I end up having to spend so much energy managing the volunteers to do projects that I don't really need done. So I actually had a room like the one we're in right now that they just had volunteers come in and repaint different colors from companies just because they didn't want them sort of bothering them. What they did want is help with a website, with a donor database.

they wanted help with an HR strategy. They wanted help with finance. Those are the areas they needed to help with. And I realized the precedent from the legal profession of pro bono service, where we all know lawyers are expected ethically to provide a certain percentage of their time pro bono and similarly law firms are supposed to do

a certain percentage pro bono. That wasn't true of these other professions. Huh. That's interesting. That's a neat thought. And that's where a lot of my work is. It's like, what if? What if we took the ethic from the legal profession

and brought it to marketing tech, HR, finance, et cetera, and engaged people in pro bono service doing consulting for nonprofits. That's so cool. And we started partnering with companies around the country and sort of just building out this army of business people who are just doing consulting for, I'm using your, yeah, use your metaphor. Yeah, when I left Tupper, the market for pro bono service was about $15 billion a year. Like it's, it really grew up over that period of time because nonprofits needed that help

and people wanted more meaningful volunteering. And then we started so cool. Why'd you leave? I think I had this sort of question of like, is this going to be what I do the rest of my life? Because I'm at that moment where it's either I'm going to be the taproot guy, or am I going to like take the risk and potentially fail in the next thing or try something different? And I also just found I like invention and I like doing things that are like bold and new. And at a certain point in some organizations time, like that's not what they need in leadership.

And I was finding, like, I was drawn to like new challenges and wanted to work on those. So I took that sort of that leap. It was a scary leap because I was very safe there. There was a lot of stuff I loved about it. Paid well enough and just sort of started the next chapter. But it feels like you're taking that experience, that really good experience, and you're implementing it on top of Chamber of Connections. Yeah, I mean, I think all of our careers, right?

Like you used what you did in the previous thing, and you sort of build on it based on the new insights, what you're seeing needed. And at the time, I saw the need for the not-propos. sector to get a lot more help from business and also to bring these two communities together because there's a lot of discrimination between sectors. It's amazing how many people think like nonprofit people are not effective and how many not profit people think business people are just greedy. I'm like, you're just human beings and like creating opportunities from them to actually get to know each other. So a lot of this seeds were there. Even in that program I shared about the prison creative writing,

it's like getting people to come together across difference and find that sense of shared purpose is like what I'm all about. We'll be right back. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Do we want to jump right in? Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish right inside the free IHard Radio app. Make some noise. Wooee! Catch every laugh and eye roll on shows like Bestie Listen, Hey Jonas, and Las Culturistas.

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Because let's be real. Women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. in the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports.

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Listen to everyone watches women's sports. On the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse. The world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem. If you come over here to play games, I'ma check you.

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Do better or do less, so I don't have to do so much. So join Yamanika each episode as she answers one question. Who's the problem? I'm Yamanika, and I'm out. Listen to You're the Problem with Yamanika on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jake Brennan, and on the Disgraceland Podcast, I explore the wild lives of rock stars

and unbelievable true crime stories from music history. These are the stories you haven't heard, the kind you'll end up telling someone else. Like the time Paul McCartney spent in one of the world's most notorious prisons. Imagine that. You're Paul McCartney. It's 1980.

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The man who had given her that ride she barely escaped from was Ted Bundy. Listen to Disgraceland on the I-Heart Rale. radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm embarrassed that I did not know this prior to your rival, because had I, I would have read it. But you wrote a best-selling book that basically, according to what I could find online, if I'm a surmise it for the question, predicted the last decade of how people think about work.

I don't know if that's right or not. That's my words. Yeah. Um, one, can we sign a book for each other and mail it to one another? Sure. Good. I'll send you mine. I would love to read it.

I would really like to do that. Yeah, that'd be fun. And I will read your book because I find so much of this fascinating. But tell me about the book a little bit. And we don't have a lot of time to go on the book, but just, you know, the purpose economy and what it's all about. but specifically when I read online that it basically predicted the last decade of how people think about work, what I want to understand is what you saw that so many missed. I think Taproot was this incredible sort of front row seat to seeing a change that was happening,

that we saw all these people who were willing to donate five to 10 hours a week on top of their 50, 60 hours they were working, to do work they weren't getting paid for because there was something fundamentally missing. and they were willing to contribute that much time to do something. So I saw this quest for people trying to find meaning in their work, and they weren't finding it in the workplace, and they were seeking it elsewhere. They were having an affair, if you will, with their job, which started to point to that difference.

I mean, this is very busy people with kids, full work, etc. I think similarly working with a lot of brands, I was seeing that consumer behavior, people were trying to look to spend money on things that would bring them a sense of connection and a sense of purpose as well. So you started to see this sort of shift in consumer behavior and in marketing to people,

which was focusing more on psychological benefits, focusing more on the idea of tying a cause to a product when you purchase it. And it sort of saw this broader trend where you're seeing that in work and in consumer behavior, there was this quest for purpose, fulfilling a gap of what people were missing in their lives, and they wanted to either buy it or they wanted their workplace to provide it and felt like the companies that were able to do that

were going to be the ones that were going to thrive. And the ones that weren't were going to struggle. And it really built off my uncle's work, who was an economist, and he had predicted the rise of the information economy. So his hypothesis was at a high level. We went from an agrarian to an industrial, to an information economy. Like, we've made this evolution. And my basic hypothesis was we're now entering a fourth era where our quest for meaning and purpose was actually going to start to fundamentally change how we spend our money and how we spend our time. And that the organizations that understand that are the ones that are.

going to really thrive going forward. Do you think that's bared out in large part to be? I think yes and no. I think it has, I think, in a lot of ways that were unexpected. I think a lot of the challenges we've had as a country have been a product to that because people are looking for meaning and they're basically joining groups and getting radicalized in different directions because they need purpose and because that needs not getting met at work.

It's not getting met in their neighborhoods. So a lot of the radicalization I didn't like predict. I was looking more at the workplace and consumer behavior, but I think that radicalization piece has been that third leg of that change, because when people need purpose, they look for a place to do it, and as someone that gives that to them, even if it's not productive or healthy for society, they tend to go to it. Yeah, but it's interesting that what you're doing now, connection gives purpose. Yep.

I mean, isn't that interesting that all of the work you did at Taproot, the book you wrote, and everything else, it really does culminate into this healthy connection fills that purpose, which is probably a much better thing for humanity and society, a large long term, than finding your polarized group elsewhere. Yeah. I think it does in part. I don't even know if I said that right. No, I understand what you're saying.

I think for me, it fulfills purpose because I care a lot about making this change. I think you can build connection with purpose and without purpose. I think the version that's with is when you're actually intentionally trying to be a great friend. You're trying to help support the community. And like there's an intentionality behind it that brings purpose and shared purpose. If you're doing it sort of transactionally and just sort of bumping along in that process, you may not be getting that same need met. So a lot of it has to do with like how you approach it and that intentionality.

And I'm trying to bring that intentionality. And then I think there's a shared purpose now as a society to build connection. And it's introducing this like whole wave, especially the next generation, the innovation that's happening is really. remarkable around people, you know, doing things like we talked about earlier with the coffee. Like people are finding creative offline ways to gather people. And I think we've got something similar to what we had 100 years ago where you just start seeing the civic generation emerging that knows that the workplace is not going to be better than their parents had. And they're trying to find a new path and they're looking at what's broken in our society.

And they're saying, I'm going to do something different here. I'm going to actually build community. I'm going to build connection with my life. What does give me hope is that I think human beings are, waking up to the realization that for all of the great things that technology has brought us, we got to have our humanity.

We got to have our connections. We got to have our friendships. And the technology will never replace that for our humanity. Yeah. I think it's that story and then there's Terminator on the other side. And the question is the terminator part. I mean... Those are the two choices. That's... And it's an intentional choice. All right.

Normally, this might have been at the top of the show, but I think this is just a little bit of research on you, which I find really cool. If I'm right, your grandfather was one of the first naval officers inside Hitler's bunker after World War II. And I think you grew up Jewish, so what I've said? He was Jewish. Right. he helped rebuild Germany, the country that tried to exterminate his race, and later came up with the idea for the Peace Corps. It's fascinating. And you grew up Jewish, but inside a Tabassian Buddhist community, which I want to hear about that, that's a ton of history and unique experience to carry around for a guy who goes to the University of Michigan to study whatever that.

wants to study. Tell me a little bit about all that and how it shaped you because you are a unique character. And I almost find it, I find it ironically interesting that that's the guy that wants to make friends. I think that's really cool. Oh, thank you. I think as a kid I didn't always appreciate the upbringing that I had. It wasn't wealthy, but it was, you know, we often struggled financially, but it was always

clearly making an impact is what matters. And that is what sort of the bar was. And I think my grandfather, did your grandfather really start the P-Score? Yes, I mean, like the quick story of it, like when I was, I don't know how old I was, probably like grade school. He took me into the closet in his apartment, and this is not a creepy story. took me in the closet in his apartment, and he took out a box. Let me just say, this is okay to hear.

Exactly. This is PG. And he pulled out this box, and he pulled out a piece of paper. It said Adolf Hitler on it. No way. It was a piece of stationary stolen off of his desk, and that was sort of the entry to the story. And it was creepy just to like, we didn't even know what to do with that thing. Like, he kind of want to burn up, but he also feel like it's a piece of history.

But anyway, that's a whole aside. Especially as a Jewish kid. Yeah. It's just there's something like profoundly creepy about it. and still fascinating at some level. It's like that close to the devil. Was it all so scary? And a ghost kind of way, not like that's what I mean.

Yeah, yeah. And an odd, like, just spooky, eerie. I mean, the man probably touched that paper. Yeah. His DNA was probably on it. Probably, although I don't know that I've touched all of my stationery. But you understand what I'm saying? Yeah, no, yes.

I mean, as a Jewish kid to be that intimately close to something that, to a man that seek to erase your entire existence. Yeah. Wow. But your grandfather doesn't seem like he was filled with hate from it. No, I think he, I mean, he was just always someone who found joy and potential in things. And the fact that, I mean, I really think one of the greatest accomplishments of our country was the Marshall Plan. They were able to have a war, devastating consequences, and then invest and rebuild it.

And I would say in many ways, Germany, like, is one of the highest performing best cultures out there. because of that partnership. And we did it, like in partnership with the Soviet Union, in partnership with the German people. With real intentionality. With real intentionality and long-term thinking. And clear on what the consequences are because we knew that the Terminator went back to other story,

like, was the other option. Well, candidly, had they done it in World War I, World War II may never have happened if anybody wants to understand history. And World War III was likely prevented. That's true. Yeah. So I think about like our division in our country right now,

like it can't be worse than that. Jewish working Nazis, former Nazis to rebuild a country. It gives me hope. And I think he saw that that shared purpose for something that actually mattered. And like uniting people around something that they all cared about brought the best out of people. And that was really the insight that led him working for President Kennedy to recommend the idea of the Peace Corps. Like what if we had all Americans go and do their mini martial plan, which is really what the Peace Corps was about. Like a mini martial plan.

like go into a village, go into a town, and like spend two years just helping work side by side of someone to like make that town like a little bit healthier, a little bit stronger. And through that process, like truly understand that culture. Don't go into someone who's better than them. Don't go in someone who's like can teach. But like arm in arm, like actually create that change. And you meet people who've been through the Peace Corps and like I changed them because they didn't. They weren't tourists. They were actually became local in that experience.

So it was that same year. They endorsed themselves. Yeah. So how do you, how does this, how does the grandson of this guy end up in a Tibetan Buddhist community? A whole other podcast episode, but the shirt of it was my parents really rebelled against their parents and were trying to find something that was dramatically different. And that would be it. My mother, when she was in college, had a bad acid trip and had to drop out. And she met a Japanese monk who headed a.

a temple in Japan. And he convinced my grandfather to let her go live for a year in an all-male monastery in Japan. There's photos of her like in her full robes, head shaved, like she was full on like

Zen monk for a year. Oh, and that like really shifted her trajectory. And then she met my dad when we were living in Aspen. We lived next to Hunter S. Thompson like in a little cabin.

And before that, they were living up in a teepee up in the mountain. So they were, they were sort of trying to be the opposite of their parents, which I think a lot of that generation did. And I think in,

Tibetan Buddhism in the U.S. I mean, there's thousands and thousands of people in the Sanga, the community around this at a Boulder. It got in the 70s. It really got a foothold. It did. And it became huge in the 80s. Yeah. And I went to a Buddhist elementary school in Boulder, Colorado that was like all members of this community.

And it was really helpful in that I think it, I don't have it as a faith, but I think a lot of my values came out of that. And it's really interesting to combine Jewish values, which are largely around repairing the world and asking questions with sort of the Buddhist sort of mindset, which is just around like relativism and about like being present in what you're doing. And I think those are sort of core values of mine that emerge from that, even though I don't practice either religion formally. And I think combined that with my grandfather who just, he sort of just had like, it needs to be world class or don't do it. And I think I've approached problems not saying like, how can I fix this in my neighborhood, but how can I, I can fail and it's fine to fail, but like how do you

solve this for your country or for the world. And that's the sort of lens that I try to solve problems with. And that's how taproot becomes the largest one of the country of its kind. And that's how the Chamber of Connection, when you say you want it to be odd for a city not to have one, you mean it. Yeah. And I'd rather shoot for that and fail than just sort of assume that that's not possible. That is phenomenal. The only thing I regret is my name is not Aaron and I couldn't have attended the party. You can actually legally change that, you know. There is hope for you.

What's your middle name? I actually don't have one. Oh, really? It's just Aaron Hirsch. They could not. They barely agreed on Aaron. My mom wanted to actually name me Acorn. And my dad was not down.

That didn't happen to you. I love squirrels, though. So it may have worked out all right. Okay. And I was born the day after Hank. But if you'd have had an acorn party, nobody would have shown up. You'd have been the only one. Me and a bunch of squirrels.

Right. That is true. It would have been a very different journey. And I'd have to have a very, like, I always think I would have to get a bowl cut or something to look like an acorn. But I was born the day after Hank Aaron broke the record for home runs. So his name was all over the newspapers and my dad saw it. He's like, it's got an A, like, Acorn and O.N. And like, Acorn became Aaron.

Pretty close. I suddenly became named after a black baseball player, which is like super random. So it's kind of amazing. And then I ended up giving my son the middle name Satchel, sort of in the honor of that. Of course. Now we're going to go with the... Now it's a tradition. Yeah. So maybe your grandson will be named Otani. Anything's possible.

Anything's possible. More like Judge, but... Got it. Oh, you're a Yankees fan. Sadly. Got it. Aaron, I know you're a busy guy. We all are.

And Saddle's a long way to come to Memphis to hang out with me for an hour and 45 minutes. and I know you're headed to Nashville. I'm really glad to get you stay at the Peabody and meet a Latvian fried chicken salesman, but I'm really appreciative of your time. And I can't thank you enough for sharing all of this with us, and I think this will be vastly interesting to our listeners and inspirational.

If somebody wants to hear about the U.S. Chamber of Connections, how do they do it? Chamberofconnection.org. Chamber of connection. Singular. dot org. That org. And please, I'm on LinkedIn a lot.

So if anybody wants to connect on LinkedIn, would love to hear from folks. And would love to anybody who's interested in getting this going in their city or town. I would love to hear from you. Anyone just wants to be a volunteer. I would love to figure out ways for you and I to partner. I think a lot of the work you're doing is a lot of similarity

to what we're doing. Our service clubs and the chamber connections somehow have to figure out how to G-Haul a little bit. And you really do need to get in touch with Hush, Hush, Cafe. Yes, I definitely want to do that. So you guys have to help me do that somehow. Yeah. And I will get Alex to get our information shared because I want to trade books.

Done and done. See, we're buddies. We're friends. We just got an extra one on the list. There we got two hours. We have a 198. 198 board to go. But I'd be willing to invest some of those hours of you.

I think we could have a lot of fun. Right on. I love it. Thanks for being here. My pleasure. Love Memphis. Hope to come back soon. And thank you for joining us this week.

If Aaron Hurst has inspired you in general or better yet to take action by sharing this episode, joining the welcome committee or one of their local chambers of connection, exploring starting one in your own community, your business, partnering with them to get your team more connected, or something else entirely, let me know. I really do want to hear about it. You can write me anytime at bill at normalfokes.us, and you can ask anybody who's ever emailed me there. I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode. Share it with friends. Share it on social. Subscribe to the podcast. Rate it, review it. Join the Army at normalfolks.com. Join or start one of our local service clubs. Take the 10-level

challenge and represent an Army of Normal Folks by buying our merch. Oh, by the way, we don't make any money on the march. All of these things that will help us grow in Army and Normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do it. You can. On Raiders of the Lost podcast, we explore cinema like no one else, including huge interviews with stars like Ryan Gosling on Project Hail Mary. It was like the Jaws Shark. Didn't always work, came with its own problems.

That's what made it great. The cast of obsession. On set, there was so much magic happening with each scene we were putting together. Deep dives into classics like 2001 of Space Odyssey or Fight Club, plus weekly episodes on all industry news. to Raiders of the Lost podcast on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And for more, follow at Raiders of the Lost podcast and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your girl, Sam Jay.

And we're the host of everyone watches women's sports, a new podcast from Together in Iheart women's sports. We're breaking down the biggest headlines. Naomi Osaka, show it out. Shout out to you, Naomi. The viral moments. I've been obsessed to me. with Kashan Rock's boxing journey. She looks good. Her combos are swift. And the stories everyone's talking

about across women's sports. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jake Brennan. And on the Disgraceland podcast, I explore the wild lives of rock stars

and unbelievable true crime stories from music history. These are the stories you haven't heard. The kind you'll end up telling someone else. Like the time Paul McCartney spent in a notorious prison Or the bizarre crime Lady Gaga is accused of Or that time Blondie's Debbie Harry escaped Ted Bunny Listen to Disgraceland

On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get in your podcasts This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea Every week the news gets worse The world gets crazier And Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible You're the problem Do you know I just found out who Sidney Sweet and he was. If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men.

Do better or do less, so I don't have to do so much. I'm Yamanika, and I'm out. Listen to You're the Problem with Yamanika on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.