The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Nifty Neighbors: Mr. Rogers and Jesus Christ by Tracy Emerick

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

Nifty Neighbors: Mr. Rogers and Jesus Christ by Tracy Emerick https://www.amazon.com/dp/1972102060 This book explores the opportunities and the benefits of being a good neighbor and having good neighbors in personal and professional life. Two model examples are used, Mr. Rogers and Jesus Christ with explanations of characteristics, traits, and attitudes you can follow to improve your “neighborhood.” The text provides excellent food for thought and action in our daily lives.

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strategic marketing and publishing to help authors reach their ideal. audience and maximize their book's success, turning powerful messages into global impact, one story at a time. Today, an amazing man on the show, we're talking about his book series and his books. This one that we'll lead off with today is called Nifty Neighbors, Mr. Rogers and Jesus Christ by Tracy Emmerich. We're going to end it with him and find out all the deeds and the wonderful story he's woven here and told basically these two individuals that, man, if there was two people like Jesus, it's probably the two of them, because I saw that documentary on that there, Mr. Rogers. He worked a little too hard to be a nice guy. No, I'm just kidding. You can't do that.

Tracy, our author, is a retired business owner who spent over two days executing and consulting and training in database marketing. He served one decade as a state president or representative over two decades, also on the town's planning board. He's been a moderator of his congressional church, or congregational church. I'm having some problems here today, aren't I'm reading? For almost four decades, he has two children and five grandchildren, and he's just a citizen seeking to make the world a better place. He's authored multiple books, operated a direct marketing agency and business development consulting while running his work. He served as a state representative, moderator for his church, and chair of the town planning board. He's taught at several

universities at the graduate level, and his education includes a BA in philosophy, a master's in Business Administration and PhD in Business Administration. Welcome to the show, sir. How are you? I'm very well, Chris. Thank you. Thank you. And give us dot com's websites, where can people find you on the interwebs? You will find me at the leadership frontier.com, which is a podcast. Also, I have a new website going up called Tracy Emmerich, Ph.D.com. That's just going live about now, and that features my several books and a little background. How many books do you have in total so that we can, people can know. I wrote two marketing books back in the 80s.

Those don't count anymore. I have four books printed now all along the same theme, and I have three more in the editorial process right now. So it will be a total of seven in this series. Oh, cool. So it is a series. I guess it doesn't matter which order you take them in. They seem to be out different people in Jesus.

The first book I wrote, I actually wrote it because my son-in-law is a non-believer. Oh. So I thought he loved Apple products. Still does. I do too. Yeah. So I decided that Steve Jobs was a good target. And I looked at Steve Jobs as an entrepreneur and I compared him with Jesus Christ as an entrepreneur.

I've gotten a lot of flack about that one, by the way. Really? But it's a, it is a capturing title. That was the intent. Yeah. Yeah. To get people inside. of a, what do they call that, to bait?

Oxymoron. Title bait, something like that. Yeah, clickbait. Clickbait, that's it. You got it. You got it. I couldn't remember that. I'm just having a seizure here, evidently. You're stroking in the middle of the show, so I don't know what's going on with me. But tell us about this book.

Give us a little bit more in depth. How do you, you basically, do you basically compare side by side Jesus and Mr. Rogers, or how do you fold out the tail? That was a very easy one. Mr. Rogers was a very lovable character on television for about 25, 30 years. He did 800 and some episodes. So he was a household word. It was interesting because he came along about the same time as Sesame Street. Here was Sesame Street with all these characters running around, doing everything. And then you had Mr. Rogers show up, kind of low-key, putting on his

sweater and his sneakers and stuff. And the kids loved him just as well as Sesame Street. So it was interesting. But he is a, it was a minister. He was a believer. And, And he tried to bridge the gap, if you will, between faith and human interaction. But he wasn't preachy. He just told stories, much like Jesus did. Jesus would preach every now and again, but a lot of his were the parables, just telling stories. Because nobody wrote anything down back then, and so the only way the word was going to get out is telling stories. So Mr. Rogers adopted that same philosophy.

you, let's just tell them a story. Yeah. And the kids loved it. Yeah. It was very easy to have a parallel Mr. Rogers and Jesus Christ, because they ran along the same track. Yeah. They were very similar, especially when you see the background on him.

He did a lot of great things. Mr. Rogers did. He was very humble. I think Jesus was very humble. And he lived a life that was he gave to children. He gave to people. He genuinely liked people. And, yeah, I really like Mr.

grew up watching Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street and all that stuff. And they were just fun to watch. And he would give important lessons. He took on racism and different issues that were going on at the time. And he sometimes would take them head on and try to explain to children in a good way that this is, there's some kind of some better ways to behave towards other people around here. And yeah, he just, he always struck me as the nicest guy. You'd watch the show. But when you watch the documentary and other stuff, behind the scenes he was he's one of those few people that you see that they were who they are on stage yeah they weren't they weren't they didn't walk their talk or did i say that right they walk their talk and so yeah there's a lot of great things about him and then maybe jesus should

have gotten a tv show but he's definitely done well as an entrepreneur welcome welcome to a little house and Bethlehem or something on jokes. What was the reasoning that you told me why you wanted to write the book, that makes sense and to help other people? And was there an aha moment did you had? Was it mostly to help your family member? Or was it like an aha moment where you? My observation back when I wrote this book is that basically the church has become

something that's over there. It's, oh, you go there on Sunday and you leave and it, It stays over there. And what I tried to do in all of these books was help people understand that the church, the God, is in here. It's not over there. And so all the books reflect that. They provide the bridge for people who don't necessarily believe to at least have an opportunity to ask the questions. My books don't give the answers.

I'm just saying, look, here's a parallel. Here was a guy 2,000 years ago, X, Y, Z. here's a guy, you know, last century, X, Y, Z. And so I try to draw the similarity so people can see the connection. And hopefully from themselves, they can say, that's not bad. Let me look into that a little bit. That's my intention is just to provide a bridge. Yeah, characteristics, traits, attitudes, and things that people can use to maybe improve their neighborhood.

So that you kind of give them some tools to work with there. that's the idea yeah maybe we should all work to be more like mr rogers and jesus mr rogers is the guy was such a nice guy but i'm not into sweaters i like short-sleeved shirts but maybe now now if you ever want to do a spinoff parody book or book on tongue-and-cheek funny maybe you should do mr roberts in jesus christ and that's the mr roberts with oh who's the big famous comedian from s&l remember You ever see Mr. Roberts from SNL? Eddie Murphy did a take on Mr.

Rogers. I guess you never saw it, but you'll have to check it out. But, yeah, I don't think it would be, I don't think there would be anything similar to Jesus Christ with Mr. Roberts. I think it was definitely a funny bit. Now, you've got several other books in the series, and they kind of fall on the same theme

where you talk about quality people, entrepreneurs. Tell us about some of the other books. Nifty Neighbors is the one of the primary, Conumate coaches is Bill Belichick in Jesus Christ. I have to go to England. Most people call him Darth Vader. How did he get aligned with Jesus Christ? It's a good coach.

He was a good coach. Yeah, that's true. I also did Martin Luther King and Jesus Christ in constant courage. Oh, that would be interesting. That was also fairly easy compared. It was along the same lines as Nifty neighbor. Yeah. Just like Jesus.

I think he knew he was going to, I think he knew that it was going to come down to a bullet. Yeah. Yeah. And then we mentioned the extreme entrepreneurs with Steve Jobs in Jesus Christ. I've written three more, Soaring Souls, that's Oprah Winfrey in Jesus Christ. Then I've got projecting power. It's Donald Trump and Jesus Christ. Now is the Oprah one where her and Jesus are always trying to lose weight?

Is that, no, I'm just doing it. Well, actually, it was her skills, her skills of communicating with people. She had a great connection with people. I think that's when your souls get along. Yeah. So she was very disarming as an interviewer because of her skills and her sense of people. It's just funny because she was always, she was always on a diet. Seriously, it was funny.

It's like, oh, she's on a diet. Oprah's on a diet again? Again, or still. Yeah, it's the thing. I think she went on that GLPs or whatever they're called and she's lost a lot of weight. So good for her. I lost a lot of weight. I know how hard it is, so anybody loses weight.

Good for them, man. That's a tough road. I'm still trying to lose it all. The last one I wrote is Fantastic Futures, and that's Elon Musk and Jesus Christ. The trouble with the Elon Musk book is he keeps, he's dynamic. The other people I wrote about, except for Bill Velichick, I had the whole story. He couldn't change it. But Elon, every time you've gone.

online, there's another YouTube with Elon in it. He's got a different idea or a little wrinkle on an old idea. And so I finally just had to say, let's just pick this point in time and we'll write about it now. So that, by the time it gets done through editorial and everything, it'll probably be like a history book. Oh, those are good ideas back then, but look where I am now. So anyway, interesting guy. Yeah. Maybe you can do it. and Elon ketamine cowboy musk.

And, yeah, a lot of that's the ketamine. That guy's got a problem. That's kind of why he's all over the place with Elon Musk. But, yeah, I don't know. I don't know if Jesus ever did ketamine. We have to check in with the boss or something on that one. But, yeah, he's got a problem that needs to get fixed, I think, when the ketamine. He believes in large families.

He's got 14 children from. four different women. So he's, yeah, he has a big, he has a big family. He's trying to build a football team or a basketball team of the family. So I don't, yeah, that or he just wants, he just wants more people to work for free, maybe. Old days. Yeah, just like the old days or currently if you work for him. He's a great union buster. Does, do you see this series continuing on? There's a lot of great people you could probably profile and, and do this series on. I, I, these last three took me three years. Wow.

And I'm 79, so I don't know how many more books I want to do. Yeah, it does take a little while to through all that, huh? Yeah. Yeah, totally. Now, there are any other forthcoming books you're working on? Or you usually do this series? Anything else that might be coming out for you in the future people should know about? I tried your industry for a little bit doing podcasting.

That's right. We want to get a plug in for that. Too much work. Too much work. You've got to have almost a team of people to support you. And it's like, wow, this is way over my head. I'm swimming in the deep end right now. All right, you've convinced me.

I quit. I'm out. He validated when I've always stuff. It's too much work. Screw this. Writing's a lot easier because you're by yourself. That's true. That's true.

It's when you open your mouth and start saying stuff, you can get yourself in trouble. That's right. Mind policy. But no, it is difficult. People think it's easier to, do a podcast. And that's why so many of them start them and they fail. It's tough. It's tough to be interesting. It's tough to talk about stuff. It's tough to carry a conversation. It's tough to be a

good host. Hosting is hard. I spent, I didn't realize at the time, but growing up watching Carson and Letterman and some of the great stand-ups, I didn't realize that I would use that talent years ago by, but I still pull a lot of Stephen Colbert or two. I pull a lot from, He has a really great way of delivering stuff that's serious in nature, but making it funny so people can at least go, let's think about that. That's a real key, because if you can make stuff funny, that's serious, people will look at it and see the fallacies and the hypocrisy sometimes of our humanity and go, yeah, we do do some stupid shit as humans. But yeah, it's tough to be a good host. It's tough to do. But you really have to love it.

I enjoy talking to people. This is a job that I not only would do for free, but technically when I'm out in public, I do. I entertain people everywhere I go. I make friends with people on the plane, elevators. I bug everyone wherever I go. I like making them laugh, telling a comedic joke. I walk by some gal I was out doing some photographing with at some of the big events. She had some funny thing on her shirt, and I just read it as I went by, and she was like, what?

And I was like, your shirt. I just get walking. But she had some funny thing, and I just said it to her. I'm like, well, it's your shirt. And, yeah, it's just, I think people are interesting. I enjoy talking to them. I'm bored of me, man. I'm 58.

I'm over me. I'm sick of my shit. I don't need to tell any more stories about it. You've heard it all before, huh? Yeah, I love hearing about what other people up to because I'm like, oh, that sounds really cool. That's a good idea. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.

And you really have to have that deep seat interest. Because sometimes people come on, come on, and not you, but some people can come on and be really challenging just to get an interview out of. You're like, tell me, tell me about your book. It's got 50 pages. And you're like, we got a half an hour to go here. You're killing me. Work with me. Work with me here.

You've got to give me one word answers me. Or worse, they just go off on a speech for the whole half an hour. And at the end, they go, they go, uh, how can you need to ask more questions? I'm like, I, you were just, you ran off with the show. I couldn't interrupt you without being bad. You got the podcast. People can check that out. And do we get the name of the podcast or UL?

You are. Yeah, it's the leadership frontier.com. Yeah. I think it's great because it ties them with your books, because your books are about, you know, entrepreneurs, leadership. All these guys were leaders, really, in their, in their thing. And so you can dig through that with them. But yeah, I think it's an important nuance.

And, yeah, Jesus sold a lot of books, so he was a great entrepreneur. And the Bible's what, the number one selling book in the world? Go, Jesus. Yeah. I think I've got some monograph copies of his around. I don't think he's giving royalties. Oh, he's not. Yeah.

He's probably, Mary probably set that up to where it goes into her trust. She probably, wasn't she there? We were talking to somebody yesterday about the crucifixion and how long it took. It was like nine hours. evidently is the estimate by this researcher. And that's a lot of time to hang out on a cross. I think Mary was there, and she was probably like, she's probably, hey, Jesus, sign this, sign this will and testament really quick.

And leave me all your cash. She was also the one that discovered he had left the tomb. Yeah. That's why she was so upset and crying because she knew that the will was invalid at that point. No, I'm just teasing. I'm going to hell. I'm just teasing. We're doing jokes with.

Mary was a fine woman. And she had Jesus, so that tells you how fine she was. Anyway, so what else do we want to plug for you? Is there any offerings on your website, interaction communities, emails, things that you do, letters, newsletters? I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. Is there anything else on your website that you offer that people should know about or any other activities? My books are on Amazon, and I actually put them in Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish. Wow.

Because I looked at two populations and said, where's the largest language populations? Mandarin Chinese has about 800, 900 million. And Spanish has about the same numbers spread out over more territory. But I thought, if you're going to go after readers, it may as well get in a language they understand. That's true. Yeah. And there's a lot of people around the world that big fans of Jesus.

But you've got to get them in their language. Yeah. I tried the, I had representatives of the, Hong Kong book show, but the Chinese government's not real thrilled about books about Jesus Christ, that's for sure. Really? No. What's that about?

They allowed them because they were not preachy, and now we're trying to convert people in China. So I made it through that show, but not a lot, I don't know if there's any sales or not, because that goes through, that goes through the publisher and I don't know. Oh, yeah, it's really interesting. And how do you draw these up? Do you sit down or as a present in the book, do you do a sign-by-side comparison or do you do say, hey, here's some things they did similar. And how does that work? Each one of them positions the individual differently. Entrepreneurring is a lot different than a nifty neighbor. But you're right. What I do is I look at what are the common characteristics? How do they support the title? And also then, is there a story to tell? These people all had great stories.

They were standalone stories. I didn't have to create anything out of that. I just had to get the parallelism. And so once you get the parallelism and the track, once you get the big idea of the relationship, everything kind of flows out of that. That makes sense. That makes sense.

Totally. As we round out the show, give people a final pitch out to get to know, you better, find out more about what you're up to and all that good stuff. Like I said, I've just got a new website going up, Tracy Emmerich Ph.D.com. So they give it a go there. They can go there and check it out. And then watch for your future books, right?

Yes. You have it coming out? They can be out by the end of the year. You think all three of them? I think it was. There was three, right? There were some publisher issues, and so they've been sitting on a shelf for a while. So I set up my own publishing company so that I have a little more

control. That's the back room part of the publishing world. Yeah. So that's why they've set it on the shelf, but now I can move them through the process. All right. Sounds good then. We'll look forward to seeing all the work, and thank you very much for coming to the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your time, Tracy. We really appreciate being here. Folks, pick up his books, wherever fine books are sold. Nifty neighbors, Mr. Rogers and Jesus Christ. That could be a great maybe sitcom coming to a TV near you, maybe, huh? Wouldn't that be kind of interesting? maybe? I don't know. Mr. Rogers and Jesus Christ, they're kind of like the odd couple. Maybe remember that movie, the show The Odd Couple?

With what, who this too? Anyway, Randolph. Anyway, it might be interesting. Jesus, you leave the toilet seat up again, Dern it? No, that sort of thing. Whose sweater is this in the washer? That sort of thing. Who left the cap off the milk again, darn it? Jesus and Mr. Rogers fall in hard times. They got to move in together. And we really find out how nice Mr. Rogers is. Yep. Yeah, I could see this being. Amazon should pick this up, man. This would be great. All right, folks. So order up his book where refined books are sold.

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