Here's Where It Gets Interesting - The Importance of Hometown Change Makers with Michael Tubbs

Episode Date: February 11, 2022

In this episode, Sharon sits down to speak with Michael Tubbs, who was the youngest mayor to serve in an American city at age 26. Tubbs served as the mayor of his hometown of Stockton, CA. On a fast-track from Stanford University to the White House, Tubbs decided instead to return home, walking from door-to-door to campaign for a seat on city council and, ultimately, mayor. Sharon and Michael talk about what learning outside the box looks like, and how local politics is an ideal vehicle for change. Change can often happen faster at the local level, but making strides at the requires an across the aisle collaboration and willingness to innovate. Above all, one must be dedicated to serving the people with the ultimate goal of seeing your neighbors thrive. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, my friends. So excited to have you here. Today I am chatting with Michael Tubbs, who is the youngest mayor ever, Stockton, California. He's written a very interesting book and we immediately bonded over some of our own educational experiences as children, being the child that always annoyed their teachers. But this is so much more than that. Let's dive into my conversation with Michael Tubbs. I'm Sharon McMahon, and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. Oh, thank you so much for joining me. I'm excited to chat today. And I'm excited to have everybody dive into your book because I think they're really going to enjoy reading it. So thank you. Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm a total history government nerd. That was always my favorite subject in class. I would read the history books like the whole book before

this first quarter was over just fine. What's coming? What happens in 1850? I got to know now. Well, tell everybody what you do. If they're not familiar with you yet, tell everybody, give us a little introduction into who you are and what you do, and then we can talk more about your story. Yeah. My name is Michael Tubbs. I'm the former mayor of my hometown, Stockton, California. Before that, I was on city council and I was a teacher. So interesting. And your book is called The Deeper the Roots, and the subtitle is A Memoir of Hope and Home. And I would love to know why you called it that. For me, it really signifies the idea, and I think it's a motif in the book,

about being grounded in a place and being rooted in a place and being planted in a place and how that leads to all type of interesting fruit and experiences. I wanted folks to really understand it was a memoir focused on this idea of hope and home and really dealing with notions of what home means and home as a site of a lot of love, but also a lot of pain and just the complexity of this notion of home. I would love to hear from you more. Give us a little bit of the trajectory of your life. What was, first of all, starting with your childhood? I love how you describe your own birth in the book. Well, it's funny, but my family forever,

there's such mythology in my family. Yeah. And one of the mythologies are the start sense of my birth it's weird writing it but i even have to go back and check with my mom because i've heard this story so many times so to answer your question born and raised and in stockton my mom was in high school she's a teenager when she had me as was my father i was so blessed with love from my mom my aunt aunt and grandmother. And now as a parent, I realized that they literally just gave up their lives. And we're like, you know what?

My sole focus is on these children, me and my cousins. And I did not appreciate that. I thought that's what they're supposed to do. But I realized they literally went above and beyond and just made us their life. This is what we do all day, every day. So I grew up in Stockton and actually some of the parts that Larry ended up representing as a councilman and mayor. And loved school. Loved school, but school sometimes didn't love me. I was passionate. I was inquisitive. I would challenge all those questions. I would

oftentimes get kicked out of class. Like literally, there was one year where I spent more time in the hallway than in the classroom. It was just like taking notes and learning from the hallway. And then I was lucky enough my senior year to get a scholarship to Sanford. And that just changed my world. It made the world so big because Dalton was great, but it was also very insular. I love my childhood. The poverty is not fun, right? So being in a place of so much abundance and also realizing that

my classmates were smart, but they weren't smarter than me. And I went thinking everybody was going to be smarter than me and I was going to be lucky to graduate. And I was like, they're smart, but I'm smart too. And that was such revelation. And then also realizing that the big difference between sort of a lot of my friends and people I grew up with and my classmates at Stanford was really not talent or intellect. It was really like resources and opportunities and sort of investments made in them. So long story short, I ended up interning in the White House for President Barack Obama, working with mayors and councils. And I hated it. I hated it. And it was like a

precursor. And I was learning all these things mayors were doing, but I did it because it was the White House, but it wasn't my first pick. Longer story short, the same time, one of my cousins, Daniel James II, ended up being a victim of a homicide in Stockton. So it was like this judge position. Wow, I'm at Stanford, I'm in the White House.

And wow, my family's like literally dying. And what am I doing to actually help with that? Which caused me to run for city council my senior year in college. Then I ran for city council. The city had declared bankruptcy. It was a crazy time to run. Ended up winning, which was even crazier. So then I spent the first half of my 20s on city council and teaching, which was just the most exhausting combination of jobs. I would not run for mayor. Pick one, do them both. And then after four years of that, I decided to run for mayor.

So I spent the last four years as mayor of the city of Stockton, and all before 30 years old. I would love to chat a little bit more about your school experiences, because first of all, I am a former teacher as well. And I also recognized a little bit of myself in you in that I had a real, real smart mouth. Some of my teachers didn't like me and I would get into trouble for asking too many questions and I would get into trouble for working ahead, you know, where, and then I would try to bring up stuff that was going

to come down the road. And the teacher would be like, we will get to that. We're not talking about that yet. You know, like one step at a time, but then I would get bored. And I, you know, I'm sure you're quite familiar. Oh, no, no. I'm like, did you like, were you just, were you my classmate? Like where we, so you were probably reading the book and like, Oh my gosh, this is my twin. Oh yes. I recognize so much of myself in you as in school. But one of the things I really admired about you when I was reading this book is that even though you had some teachers who were like, I don't know what to do with this child. We're going to have a meeting because his attitude is terrible. He needs to fix it. Even though you were challenging to some teachers because you were disrupting the social

order, right? You were disrupting the norm of how students were supposed to be acting in class. You'd always had great grades, but you were always so interested in student leadership, government leadership. And meanwhile, you rejected the leadership of the teacher in that classroom. I remember in eighth grade, we had to do a project to describe ourselves. And I said, I'm a rebel without a cause. I think I've always just been like, want to lead the insurgency. I want to lead against the establishment. I want to be part of leadership against sort of the- The establishment against the establishment. Like when to be part of leadership

against sort of the- The establishment. The establishment, yeah. It's funny because it's like a juxtaposition. But I would also say if like folks, some of my teachers who had authority, if the authority was legitimate in my eyes, I was okay with it.

I 100% relate to that. I reject your illegitimate authority. 100% of the time. Do not try to tell me what to do. I do not accept your position of authority over me. And the title is not enough. Like you being a teacher does not mean for me, it's like, show me you show me once you have me in, I'm your best soldier. turn it again once you have me in I'm your best soldier what was it that made you so interested in leadership what was it that you were like you know the path for me is in government leadership I think it comes a lot from growing up in the church and I think just from time I was seven years old being called upon to go up and speak or to explain this or to build a youth leadership team

and sort of hearing pastors and people always say you're going to be a leader you're like I think it was so ingrained that this this one's supposed to be because authority I found legitimate has said Michael like I remember sometimes a pastor would just be preaching and be like Michael stand up you're going to be a leader and I'm'm like, okay, I guess, right? So I think that's part of it. And I've always been obsessed. Like even when we played sports, I was always a captain. Even if I wasn't good at the sport, like I wasn't that great at football,

but I was always first captain. It's like I pick a team. I could make, I could get a team together. We would win. And just being in groups of people and helping organize towards a goal is something I've like, I've enjoyed doing my whole entire life. And as I got older, a lot of the books I would read like in high school were like leadership books.

Like I was reading like John Maxwell in ninth grade, like 21 Law and Leadership and stuff like that. And then in terms of the government piece, that just came from realizing that the people making decisions weren't different than any other people. They were selected, which sounds very basic, but I thought there was something special. And then I was in high school and city council meetings or even at the White House. I was like, no, government's people. They're just normal people who say, you know, I would spend time on this. And lastly, I think I realized in college, like, government is ultimate scale.

That some of my classmates were doing, like, startups and doing, like, social entrepreneurship, which was all cool. And I was like, well, that's great for, like, the hundred people you're working with or the thousand people you're serving. But if you want to touch everyone, that's government. If you want to touch everyone, particularly those who need, those who are the most marginalized or those who are the most on the margins, like government has to work. That's such an interesting point too, that government, if you want to impact everyone, government is one of the ways to do that. But your small business is fantastic. I support that. If that's your dream, I love it. But you only have a finite number of clients. You don't have the capacity to impact everybody, but government does. And I think I've always been obsessed with that and also obsessed with like,

well, if rules or laws or policies that government's made has created so much harm, why can't we just make different rules? Like, if there's a process in place, why not use the process to create the outcomes we want to see? It's such a simple, but powerful question. We already have the process in place. Why can't we use it? Like, explain why. And literally, that's my question. I'm like, why can't we use it? When I was mayor, people get annoyed with me because I would say, like, blah, blah, blah. Like, so can we change? Like, where does it say we can't change that? Or they would get really upset when I would say, what will it take to change that?

Don't tell me how difficult this is. Tell me, is it possible to change it? It's like, oh, it takes three votes of my colleagues to change that? OK, I'll be it takes three votes of my colleagues to change that. Okay, I'll be back with three votes. But it's really, I think, part of the inertia we see and part of the frustration people have is that it's just, it's like, why isn't government working? Like, I don't think the process of government is broken. I think the people operating in government are in many ways broken. The process is the same. Like, here's the idea. Here's my bill. Let's vote for it. Yes or no. That remains unchanged. What has changed is the people who are arguing about it. And in many

cases, especially at the national level, just not even voting on anything, like not even discussing it. And I think that's why local government is so exciting because, I mean, when I was mayor, I had four Republicans and two Democrats. So everything had to be in discussion. Everything had to get consensus. Everything was a debate and it was, you know, it was me slow and get on my nerves, but we were doing things. We were trying to solve problems, right? At the national level, it just feels like it's theatrical. It feels like itism further renders the system ineffective because we keep elevating and electing the same type of people. Or people just turn off and say, you know, it doesn't matter, even though it actually does matter. It seems like, especially at the national level, so much of what is happening, particularly in Congress, is designed to feed their fundraising machine. And they know they can raise money

when they have these super inflammatory soundbites that rile up their base. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. And together we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind-the-scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! It is my girl in the studio! Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from The Office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink.

You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. Part of the reason why I wanted to write the book was to like, not inspire, but like show people like you could actually do things in government

that we actually need people to think about like public service, run for school board, be a planning commissioner, like there's ways to be involved, there's ways to That's the maximum level. I would love to hear more about your campaign for city council. What was the reason that you decided to do it and what was that like? Yeah. So it started after my cousin was murdered and going back to the funeral and feeling really guilty and saying, you know what, I gotta find a way to help Stockton. And I felt so at peace in like this gym in a community meeting trying to figure out what I'm going to do about violence. And it felt like, it felt like alignment, but that's crazy. I'm 21 years old. There's no way I can go to city council. And finally I said, you know what, I have to run for city council. And part of the feeling was that the signs, the alignment, everything felt so right. I was scared what would happen to me if I didn't do it.

And I also thought that, hey, you know what? I'll do it. And if I lose, I can say I did it. And I don't feel, I won't have any guilt. I won't feel like I forgot about my city. And then I decided in January to run for city council. And I mean, everybody was just like, what? It was so like shocking. It's like, wait, city council? Because at the time I ran, Stockton had just declared bankruptcy. Stockton had more murders per capita than Chicago.

It wasn't like the opportune time for a 21 year old to learn how to govern. And then the campaign was just so scrappy. I'd never worked on a campaign before. So I just, I like to simplify things. So I was like, what does it take to win? You have to knock on doors. You have to talk to people. Cool. So I just would take my volunteers and knock on every door in the neighborhood, not knowing that there's like lists of people who are like likely to vote and those are the doors you knock on not literally every single door but in doing so I learned I got so much insight in terms of what people were feeling what people were interested in what people were motivated to see government do

and then I hired a real campaign manager and a campaign guy, a little bit more professional. And I had to learn how to fundraise. And I mean, it was only like a hundred thousand dollars total to run for city council, but my mom made 40,000. I felt it was such a big number. My mom makes 40,000. I have $5 literally in my checking account right now.

Like won the primary, then won the general election in January 1st, 2013, 22 years old. I was a councilman representing 50,000 people in the South part of the city I grew up in. I love the story too about the time that you met Oprah at Stanford. It was so surreal. I announced in February, I was running in March. I got called into this luncheon with a special guest and I have a tendency to be a little bit late. So my mentor, Jen Barker, Alexander, she called me. She says, Michael, you can't be late for this one. I was like, you're always late too. Like, what do you mean?

I'm trying to tell me not to be late. I was like, you're going to be late. She said, no, I promise you I won't. I was like, why? She said, it's with Oprah. And the funny thing is, I knew Oprah is, but I was about a 21 year old. It was like, okay, I know she's very wealthy. I know people love her.

I had no idea her singular ability as a cultural influence i had no idea the world cared in that way like what she did so that's the context i thought it'd be cool tell my mom get mom guess what i did today at school i had lunch with oprah like you know i thought that'd be cool and they would be really excited and that's my only expectation so we get there and she had two of her daughters from her leadership academy with her and everybody was like trying to impress oprah my superpower particularly when i was in college was knowing that you can't impress impressive people with like anything more than who you are like there's nothing you could say that's going to make them think like like she's oprah winfrey like she doesn't even remember this

because it's just like a blimp on her on her day so i'm going to make them think like, like she's Oprah Winfrey. Like she doesn't even remember this because this is like a blip on her day. So I'm going to spend time with these girls. Everybody was talking to Oprah, fighting on Oprah, but the point of the meeting was to get these girls to learn about Stanford. So I'm talking to them

and cracking jokes, that's my question. But I can see her looking. They were from her South African leadership academy. From the South African leadership academy. But I could see her, she kept looking at me. So I thought,

I was like, I hope she doesn't think I'm flirting with was like I hope she doesn't think I'm flirting with them I hope she doesn't think I'm like trying to hit on these like these high schoolers I'm just like but I could see her just looking and then we were doing introductions and as I introduced myself I thought I don't want to mention I'm running for city council because I want her to be like oh he's just trying he's here for these other reasons I said I'm not gonna mention that at all so I was like hey I'm Michael Tubbs. I'm from Stockton, blah, blah, blah. I studied in South Africa.

That's why I'm in this meeting. And then Jan stopped me. And she was like, he's also running for city council. And then she looked. And I was like, who? And I was like, oh, me. And then she started grilling me. It was like a, not an Oprah interview, like a job interview.

She was like, well, how big is Stockton? Why Stockton? Why are you going to the back? Who supports you? Who doesn't support you? I literally had just started my campaign and like Oprah Winfrey's like I'm in and but then I mean she's Oprah Winfrey so I don't it's like we're talking every day so I don't hear anything from her until one particularly rough day of door knocking I was so defeated because no one showed up like no one was there it was like just me and I was like well man maybe I'm not supposed to do this and then I go to the mailbox and there's like this check that says OWM and I thought it was like a bill or something I was like oh my gosh like OWM like

what is like what collection agency yes yes and then I opened the check and it was a $10,000 check from Oprah Winfrey. And the number 10,000 is huge, but it was literally the exact amount I had told her I had raised. She was like, how much have you raised so far? I was like, $10,000. So like she wrote a $10,000 check that came like a month later

at a time where it was so, and that was just such a, I'm getting emotional thinking about it because it was just a reminder, even while mayor and losing reelection, like even when things haven't been like perfect, I've never got back to that moment where I'm questioning

because that was just the ultimate answer. Like you're fine. One of the other things that I noted about your story before we wrap up, when you were growing up, there were people who identified character qualities in you. And they said, this boy's a leader. He's smart. He's sassy. And that those are great leadership skills. You have other, other things about you that the people in your life,

like you're saying your pastor would say, stand up. He identified things in you. And the idea that people then spoke those words over you continuously, like you were almost bathed in this idea that you are a leader. This is who you are. This is a character quality that you possess. It then just sort of soaked in, like seeped into your skin and you, it became part of your identity. And so that idea that we have the ability to do that for other people, that we have the ability to identify something positive about somebody else and to speak it over them so that they too can absorb that and, and take an embody that character quality in a way that maybe they would have felt too reticent to do on their own had other people not encouraged

them to do it. The impact that that has had on your life, like probably your, your mom and grandma and aunts, probably they didn't know that was going to be the outcome of what they were doing. But now you can look back and see those breadcrumbs. And I think that's something that we can all take and say, this is what I want to do for my, my children. This is what I want to do for the children that I serve in a school. This is what I want to do from people that I work with. It doesn't have to just be a child, but. No, that is such a beautiful summary of, that's going to be my new answer when people ask, what do you want people to take away from the book? Because that literally, what it like, despite all of the societal forces, despite statistics, despite what, despite the present, like people were always speaking about what could be. And I was,

particularly when you're young, you believe what the adults and authority people in your life say. And there's research, there's even research around that. Like when a leader or someone in authority prescribes something or says something, people really internalize it. And I've been so blessed that despite some negative messaging, the most message I received was very positive about you're here for a reason.

You're a leader. There's a plan for your life. You can change the world. And I was crazy enough to believe it. Oh, this is what it is. And I do think sort of for all the folks listening and watching this idea of your words have such power. and watching this idea of your words have such power and you have no idea sort of the affirmations you give today, what they mean for someone's trajectory, for someone's life 30 years later. Right. And I think that's what's so powerful. Yes. They did not know that Michael Tubbs would someday write a book called the deeper, the roots, and that you'd be speaking on a podcast about that very issue. But yet you can see now the fruit that was planted when you were a child, they planted that fruit and that fruit has grown into something that they couldn't see,

but I bet they're glad they planted. A hundred percent. This has been just a delightful to chat with you. It's always fun to meet a kindred spirit where you're like, and I was also very sassy. I refer to myself as fifth grade Sharon. Fifth grade Sharon was real sassy and constantly got harped on by her teachers. Fifth grade or no fifth grade and 10th grade were particularly, yeah, especially 10th grade. Cause I was like a little bit older. I was like, just give me the homework. I'll just do it. This is not going to work today.

I used to walk in like, I think you have an attitude. So how about you tell me what we're supposed to read and I'll see you tomorrow. But see, that was smart though. Yeah. Make it easy for both of us. You clearly don't want me here. I don't want to be here. It's fine. Yeah. This is the easy way out. Or we can do it the hard way, but this is the easy way out for both of us. Michael, thank you so much for being here. This was just a delight. And your book again is called The Deeper The Roots. And I really enjoyed reading it. Thank you so much for having me and hope to talk soon.

Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or a review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. This podcast was written and researched by Sharon McMahon and Heather Jackson.

It was produced by Heather Jackson, edited and mixed by our audio producer, Jenny Snyder, and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. I'll see you next time.