Brian Kilmeade Show Best of 2023

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Search for Economist Podcasts Plus and sign up to our free one-month trial. Hi everyone, welcome to the latest moments of the Brian Kilmead Show. I should say a special edition of the Brian Kilmead Show because it's one of my favorite times a year. Number one, the holidays. Number two is because I have a chance to pull back some interviews, we all do, that stood out that I think you'll really like.

And for many of you, you listen to the show for the first time and you'll have an idea of what you're missing. When you don't listen every day, and hopefully that you'll change your habits. We'll get this hour going to be joined by Pete Hagseth, the host of Fox and Friends Weekend. He, along with David Goodrin, wrote a great book, The Battle for the American Mind: What Went Wrong with Our Educational System and How to Fix It. Huge problem.

Basic civics in our country. How many really understand the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution? Sadly, not too many people know the difference or the need to read the Constitution, which is insane. That really alerted Richard Dreyfus, the outstanding actor, the Academy Award-winning actor, to take action. He's like, I think we should be pushing civics.

He wrote a book about it, he talks about it. And Richard Dreyfus is going to be on this hour. Also, going to be joined by a book that was number one for week after week in our country.

Now, I know Fox books do well because you guys are so passionate about the topics and the issues and you're so loyal to the town. But Pete Hagseth and his co author His co-author did such a great job. His name is David Goodwin and the battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation. They put together an hour special on it. They did other specials about it, talking about it in great detail, doing a national tour on it.

Because after COVID, we all sat there and looked at the curriculum, saw how kids struggled in some cases, or saw how inner-city kids who didn't have internet connection or single-parent families were forced on their own and they just didn't learn. Grades dropped in math and reading across our country.

So we're worried about the performance. We're also worried about the curriculum.

So, battle for the American mind, the focus on civics. What perfect topics to talk about in the state of our country on the birth date of our country? We're coming up to year 250 in our background. I still remember 1976. I was in sixth grade.

The bicentennial, a big deal. Will 250 years be a big deal? Will people fully understand our country? That's going to be key.

So, as we talk about what's happening with education in the future, you focus on the fundamentals. And we'll go back in time with that.

So, have a chance to talk to Pete. You'll hear from David Goodwin and hear from Richard Dreyfus. And then I also want to hear from you. And you don't have to agree with anything Pete says, everything Richard Dreyfus says, it doesn't matter. They care about the country.

They want to see it go in the right direction. And most of all, what I hope you'll end the hour with is saying, I would like my kids to have a choice. And if you're living to paycheck to paycheck, it's just not fair that you can't just choose. The private institution you might want to send your kid to, and that's why school choice is so important in places like Arizona, Florida, Iowa, and Oklahoma, and many more. Richard Dreyfus, next.

This is a Brian Kilmeat Show's special presentation: Education in America. More with Brian coming up. Get out of the trenches of tedious tasks like managing order fulfillment and start growing your business with ShipStation. They'll help increase profitability by automating your workflow with their simple, easy-to-use dashboard. With it, you can pretty much do everything you need to quickly and easily.

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So make this year your most profitable one yet. Sign up for your free 30-day trial at shipstation.com and use the code Spotify. That's shipstation.com with the code Spotify. You're listening to a Brian Kilmeat Show's special presentation, Education in America. Who is Joe Biden's vice president?

I have honestly no idea. Ooh, great question. No idea. Tamara. I mean, what is it?

Kamala Harris. Can you name the three branches of government? Ugh. Republican, Democrat, and then I think moderate. legislation, judicial and Consecutive.

I don't know. Jew. Jew. Jewish. Who is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?

Judge Judy. Didn't it used to be Nancy Pelosi? John Tina. Jon Stewart How many senators are there? Two per state, like 200.

Sixty? Five? Six. Fifty. Thirty-five.

64. Higher 82. Higher 103. Lower. 98.

Higher. 99. Higher. 101. Lower.

100. Who was president in the 90s? Tennessee Ronald Reagan. His wife famously lost an election. Hilton.

Paris? Clinton was. Bill or Hillary? Bill. That's right.

Hillary will never be president.

So, that is an example. We went to, we brought the microphones out and we asked people some basic things. You see it on some of the late night shows, too. That was for Jesse Waters Show, just about how little people know about what's going on in the news today and certainly about history. Richard Drive is with us now, Academy Award-winning actor and author of One Score at One Thought Scares Me.

We teach our children what we wish them to know. We don't teach our children what we don't wish them to know. And Richard, great to see you in the studio. And if you're watching Fox Nation, you recognize him from every film that was any good.

So, Richard, you were listening to that. And what did you just tell me? And not really aim correctly because it's what they're taught. and what they are not taught. And teachers are not the guilty party.

But it's the policymakers who say Don't teach that. And Um School boards and You cannot uh blame Teachers and then, of course, pay them like kitchen help. You have to really Commit to an honest history. And when you do that You have to live up to it. and that means every sin we've ever committed, and we have committed sins.

every sin we've committed, every grand gesture we've committed. We have to have the same bragging rights for those. As we have for Telling the truth about our past. And you talk about You're concerned, people don't understand how great this country is. We never said you're perfect.

But you talk, you grew up, you always loved you personally love reading history. You love reading about our past. It's fascinating. There's no history quite like it. It doesn't mean we walk on water and that Jefferson was perfect and that Washington never made a mistake.

But the world is a better place because America exists. Yes. And you're concerned, like I am, that people might not realize that they'll live here.

Well, you have the. One day I was watching Denise D'Z D'Souza on uh On Mike Huckabee. And he was saying that he had written a book called America what the world would be like without us. And I got up. Went to the bookstore, bought the book.

Came back home, read the book. and then went Grumpy. Because In his book he didn't answer his title. He had named it. but he didn't get anywhere near answering it.

So they called me that day. Mike and said, You want to come down and be on the show? And I said yes. And I walked in, And there was a D'Souza and I he said, What did you think? and I said Uh I'm very confused and frustrated because You had an incredibly provocative title.

and I want to see that world. because I think that would be an incredible history class. What would the world be like without us? Wow. But you didn't.

All you did was say how great we were. You didn't compare it. But yes. I think if Dinesh D'Souza, I think in a way he's saying, look at how we change the world by our existence, how many democracies had come from there, giving people a a say in their government. But you see, they don't know that there was a change.

So that wasn't the um Thoughtful. uh conclusion of their thinking. they didn't he didn't compare it to anything. He just described how great we were. And And if he had compared it.

to any country, whether it was England or Russia or China or whoever. That would have been s of some value.

So what do you want to get across to our listeners right now?

Well, a lot of things, but there was a revolution, and there's a revolution only when you turn the values of the entire world on their head, And that's what we did. we turned the power of the sovereign Kick the sovereign out and handed that power to all of the people. And that was not only Not done. That was as revolutionary a move as you can. possibly create And we risked The nation On that idea That we could Confidently.

Educate our poorest. and educate our most enslaved And They would be smart enough to run the country. or to create art, or to create this or that. And They were out. To create intellectual resource pools.

And know and know that the people swimming around in those pools were all going to be smart enough. to be President or Senator or something. And they weren't ever. Educated That well. And I would say they tried to and gave it a good shot.

and then after World War two They said I don't think it's good to risk. are children on this any more and they Threw it away. Who's they? Uh educators. Educators and politicians.

And you write in your book that after World War II, it's our zenith. You know, we freed the world, we beat the bad guys, we led the world, and we rebuilt the places that we blew up with the Marshall Plan. And we And we didn't um brag about it, we did it. We did good things, not talked about them. And All over the world people admired us for all the right reasons.

And before you could blink. They had removed Civics The study of the Constitution, the study of the Bill of Rights, the birth tale of America. These things had always been taught. And now they were Not Well They didn't disappear. They were turned over to social studies.

Which is ones. Floor up and in the back of the building. And they were turned from actual events in our history to a gentle panorama. as a description of our way of life. And I remember one politician came out recently and said, you know, America was never that great.

You know, and maybe contrast to a president that said, America, make America great again. But what I always think is, people think when you say a country is great, it's perfect, and you make clear in your first words in your book, you never said that. But I think what makes us great, these are my words, is that we try to be. That we try to make it better. We identify it.

One party identifies, another party identifies, and we try to make it better. Was slavery right? Absolutely not. Do we fight a war to fix it? Yes.

Is Jim Crow terrible? Absolutely. Is there black and white water fountains now in the South? Are people telling go to the back of the buses? No.

We owned up to it. Riots in the streets. It wasn't pleasant. It wasn't pretty. But we fixed it.

And we, again, are still this country that wants to be better and better. And you're concerned that we don't understand that. We don't want the same things we used to want. And I hope to God we relearn that ambition and relearn that. Goal.

because I have seen audiences A choir outrage on their faces. when you describe what's happened. And they're outraged that their children are not getting what they should. And I have seen those same parents. Have outrage disappear from their faces before they get to their car.

And the commitment of making it work. disappears. And what is that commitment? It's the commitment to the idea that Jefferson wrote That said That These people, we are the sovereign power in this country. We have the same power in collective as the monarch.

And the sovereign.

Now Do we know that? Do we act on that? Or some in alch in some sick alchemic way. When we vote And we're voting some guy in He thinks he's been made our boss. And he's not only not our boss.

But somehow we've got to get across to him. If you don't listen to your constituency, if you don't listen to us, Who put you there? We will rip you out of that office so fast you would not blink. Right. and they are absolutely impervious to that because they know that we don't have the guts or the knowledge to do it.

So, also, Richard Dreyfus, our guest, you recognize the voice, of course. If you're not watching Fox Nation, you're not seeing them, but it was privileged to have him here. He's also got the Dreyfus Civics Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization launched in 2008. It aims to revive the teaching of civics in American public education to empower future generations with the critical thinking skills they need to fulfill the vast potential of American citizenship. It's up to all our responsibilities to do it.

Now, amongst us, Richard, there's been some great presidents along the way that we didn't know were great at the time. Like, look at Harry Truman. Name me a top five category when they went presidents. He's not great or near great along the way. Right.

He came, the guy's a farmer. You know, with everything of Andrew Jackson, the big plus is this guy is a self-made success story. He was basically an orphan by 13. No other country does that happen. It wasn't the ruling class of Jefferson, Monroe, and Washington, and Madison.

Then all of a sudden, you get an outsider who's president because he campaigned and he went to the people.

Well, there's a whole you can create a list. Starts with Thomas Jefferson. and it ends somewhere in the twentieth century. And it's the list of those presidents who happen to be in office. When There was a crisis and every other branch of government was closed for the summer or closed we've gone fishing.

So that Thomas Jefferson had to create a Navy to answer the Tripoli pirates, and Lincoln had to do what he did in order to respond to the Southern secessionist. And I think it's so important, too. Nobody would have predicted that Lincoln was going to amount to be this great leader. Only in this country does it happen. And when you talk about Thomas Jefferson, this guy didn't want to get a platoon together to help fight a militia together to help fight the war.

But he ends up one saying, telling Adams, I need this Navy, and we're going to have to tell the whole world we're willing to fight for our freedom and had to send a message. An unlikely person, a great intellect. A guy who would have voted against that Navy in a second. And yet, because he was president, he knew what he had to do. Right.

And I'll bring you to another one that I think you could appreciate and you brought up before the show, Sam Houston. Sam Houston is a guy that was not achieving much as a kid. His brothers are much more enterprising. Joins the military, finds a mentor in Jackson, has some problems. He drank too much for a while, had a problem with his marriage.

Governor would just leave and with the American Indians. But then, at the right person, at the right time, when the war is about to start in the South, he's like, We're not going to do well. We should not get into this war. And they said, Hey, if you don't vote for this war as governor, You're out. He's like, I quit.

So he left rather than fight for the South in the breakup of a country. That's character. Yeah. That's character, and we don't even think to include that in our little li list of checks and boxes and and what do we care about. If we cared about character, we would not have had the last Number of presidents.

So, one thing I get from you: you're a patriot. You feel fortunate to be born here and you're concerned that people don't appreciate it and you're taking action.

Well, without America Yikes. I mean, uh just imagine 1945 without the United States of America.

So that is Richard Dreyfus, his passion for education. We'll see if he stays with it. Two people I know are staying with it, the author of The Battle for the American Mind, Pete Hagseth, you know him from Fox, you're right here at Fox, and David Goodwin, his good buddy. They teamed up to find out what was wrong with their educational system and also how to fix it. It'll help parents, grandparents.

It'll even help kids. Special edition, the Brian Kill Meat Show. Keep it here. You're listening to a Brian Kilmeat Show special presentation: Education in America. Welcome back, everybody.

As promised, Pete Hakeseth and David Goodwin sat down with me to talk about their book, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation. You will love this interview.

So, you're one of the few people I understand that was not surprised by this 1619. uh movement. You saw this stuff coming. We did. We I couldn't have predicted exactly how it came, but we certainly knew that they'd set the beachhead up and we knew where they were coming.

We just didn't know what they were going to do when they got there. When did they start attacking the curriculum in schools? Oh boy, 1915. They redesigned the curriculum from the ground up at about that time for Gary, Indiana, at a model school that they had there. They ran that for a few years, and when it was successful enough, they moved it to New York.

And that's where a lot of our research came in, is what the people of New York were talking about when they brought that here. And what year are you talking about? 1915, 1918, something like that. 1918. Yeah.

And then what was the goal, Pete?

Well, the goal was societal change. It was a recognition that the The traditional values of Western civilization and biblical wisdom prevented the kind of radical social change, atheistic change, frankly, that they wanted.

So you had to remove God first. Once you did, there was a lot of power in the classroom. In fact, those early progressives talked about studying what Frances Willard did in the 1870s when she put anti-alcohol curriculum in third-grade classrooms. Voila, 40 years later, you had a constitutional amendment banning alcohol and the sale of alcohol in America. The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation can be the philosophy of government in the next.

Progressives studied that, targeted the school, removed God, and then thought the sky's the limit. And look at what we see today. Right. And was there, at one point, was drinking allowed in school? Like early days, do you have your research research?

Maybe in the one-room schoolhouse. You could bring Brewer to school on Long Island. Right, on Long Island, where I'm from. Not Minnesota, where they grow them bigger.

Meanwhile, so when did you first come across David?

Well, it was actually a product of Fox and Friends.

So you might be able to say that because of Brian Kilmead and Fox and Friends and diner segments, this entire project came together. And I'm not kidding, I was at a diner in North Carolina. I met a wonderful family that went to a classical Christian school there in Whispering Pines. They said, you got to meet this guy, David Goodwin, who runs the Association of Classical Christian Schools. We connected.

I was passionate about education, wanted to get more involved and research. He had already done a lot of the research on where this problem came from. And so as we started talking, we thought, man, if we teamed up, this could be really effective. He runs a network of schools, has done the research. We're in the media world.

And so his research starts at the beginning. My stuff starts today. And we basically. Basically, pulled the threads together of what the progressive movement has done for 100 years, basically meeting together in the 50s and 60s over the unions and what the Supreme Court did. But when you add it up, it is an intentional project the left has been immensely successful in.

But what makes this book special is the research that David did and that I did, we did on what the early progressives' goals were. And you never learn it because progressives write the textbooks, so you don't know the actual history.

So, Battle for the American Mind. What?

So, in other words, Was this, did the water gradually get warmer, David, or did it come in? blistering hot.

Well, when I started this project, I had heard a lecture where somebody referred to an issue of the New Republic in 1915 and the word, we need to capture the plasticity of the child. And that seemed like a weird word to me.

So I started looking into what they were trying to do. That's when I realized it really wasn't about indoctrination, which we hear a lot about today. It was about removing the ability of students to learn to think. Because if they can't think, you know, in the old system of classical education that had been around for 2,000 years, they trained citizens how to think through issues so that they could vote and so that they could vote without being persuaded By uh An eloquent tyrant, if you will. And that was the whole thing: is that when you train students that way, they're very hard to control.

You can't steer the course you want to steer. And the progressives had a very aggressive plan to steer the course.

So, Pete, why do we even have any Republicans? Like, why are there any conservatives? Why did the conservative movement take such root in the 80s? And many people think POI is to re-establish itself in the next midterms.

Well, a lot of the madness we see happened gradually and then suddenly. I think what David and I talk about in the book is something called the Western Christian Paideia, and it's a word that's long forgotten, but it's basically the affections or the vision of a good life amongst our youngest kids. There was enough of a residue from 1776 and churches and communities and schools. If you went into a school on Long Island in 1900, there's a Bible in the classroom. There's prayer being said.

There's history being taught of Western civilization. There was enough residue of that. Amongst parents and grandparents and others, and then in church and in communities, that the instinct of Americans, these sort of the osmosis and absorbing, was there. Hey, I want to be free. I believe, you know, God is good.

America is good. That could be channeled. You even saw it, you saw it through Reagan, you saw it through Trump. That's still there. But how long can we live off the fumes of that paideia before an indoctrination of a generation of cultural Marxists turns out and says, no, God is dead and America is evil?

It's tough to undo that when you're t or men are women and women are men when you're teaching that to five, six, seven, eight-year-olds. And that's how young they're going at it now. Right. And David, are you surprised? It seems to be the pandemic working to stop this.

Could you describe how the pandemic shed a light on this?

Well, Pete brought to the book the idea of the COVID-16-19 effect, which was that suddenly parents who had previously, just like we think of our congressmen, right? The Congress is evil, but our Congressman's a good guy, right?

Well, there's a parallel to that axiom about the public school. The public schools may not be great, but our public school is good. And that was suddenly a Torn wide open, they were able to see it sitting behind their kids on a Zoom camera and see what was actually being taught. And that's why, you know, by a great providence, Pete and I started this project in March of 2020.

So all of, if you think about everything that's happened since then, we basically just stepped into the right. We started before all of that was exposed. And as we're writing this book, we couldn't keep up. No. And you're updating chapter after chapter.

Things are happening here and there because everything we were writing about seemed to be Coming to fruition at a moment. And that is the silver line, Brian. Parents realize it a lot more now. And what we're trying to do with the book is equip them to make a big choice about how they educate their kids. And then you look at the university, what happened in Virginia.

Yes. I mean, isn't that the fundamental when the school board flipped and they said, well, Republicans are just trying, you know, trying to insert themselves in a purple state? Republicans would never be able to organize and target school boards. Are you kidding? Yeah.

And I think it gives me hope that finally the issue of education will translate into a priority in electoral politics. It just hasn't been. It hasn't been for conservatives, Christians, patriots, and as a result, The Democrats and their union allies have taken, I can't underscore this enough, have taken over every single institution of education that controls K-12 on the public and government side. Every single one: testing, standards, curriculum, pedagogy, teachers, colleges, you name it, they control it. Which is why our part of the solution is you've got to consider a tactical retreat, leave if you can, find alternatives, and eventually, educational choice is going to be critical.

And Republicans, conservatives should be running on that as their top issue, because if we lose the kids, we lose the country. And also, what about charter schools? Where do you guys stand on that? Is that a relevant and ample pushback, David?

Well, I think in the battle, as we've called it, and it was great to co-author this with a former military guy, I think in the terms of a battle, you've got to use all the resources that you've got at your disposal. And charter schools are certainly one of those. But I think that we are prescribing the book more of a transformational change than an incremental change. I think it's long past time that we do something transformational in education in America. And I think charter schools can help with that.

But I think at the bottom, parents have to take a much more serious look at things. Right. The other thing is they're not being funded.

Now, more and more of these cities are walking away from charter school funding. Which makes absolutely no sense. Because they want the monopoly to continue. The monopoly on the mines, the monopoly on the money on kids, because outcomes long ago, they've known for decades their schools don't. Don't work.

They know they don't work. They haven't delivered excellence for half a century, and they know it. It is now about consolidation of that power. COVID showed it with union. They feel like they've got open season to push that control.

And what David is talking about is playing within that system, you're going to play within their confines. I went to public school. You went to public school, I think, Brian. We got progressive educations. You may not have known it.

I didn't know it. We did. Every assumption of that education was progressive, which is why the classical Christian schools, David, is helming, they've overturned the apple cart completely to rediscover a form of education that created the miracle moment of 1776. It was classical Christian education that educated our founders. A lot of Scottish, right?

Scottish influence. And by the way, I'm so glad I didn't pay attention to school, or I would have been totally. I didn't think about it. Think about that. The Harvard youth poll you have in your book: only 31% of Americans 18 to 24 have a positive.

outlook on America. Where does Common Core come in? And remember, Jeb Bush ran on Common Core. Uh it comes in toward the end. As part of the consolidation of federal control, right?

So we think of schools as having effectively being local control. Local school boards, local superintendents, state assemblies are setting the prerogatives. Common Core attempted to tie money towards certain standards that states would enact in order to align with the prerogatives of federal educators. And along with that came changes to the SAT, which now aligns to Common Core. But inside all of that Common Core curriculum and prerogatives were the diversity, the equity, inclusion, and all the woke stuff we barely knew anything about at that time.

Dave, if you can add anything to that, you know it will.

Well, it was kind of a backdoor to deal with some of the disparities between the various ethnic groups in that by creating a test you can study for, which the SAT was always supposed to be a test that you couldn't study for, by creating one that you could study for, and that's what the Common Core was, is a set of standards. When you look at the standards, they don't seem that bad. But when you see what they're doing, they're taking reasoning, which is what the original SAT measured, they're taking that out because reasoning is not teachable and they're replacing it with content, and therefore it's really supposed to be leveling the playing field, but it really doesn't do that. I mean, some of the talk was, well, rich people can get people to teach 'em to uh how to take the SAD and it wasn't fair. There's always going to be an opportunity to do additional training on reasoning or approaching a test.

There's no doubt. I mean, that's the reality of. Money and wealth and inequ and inequality and all that. The idea of the Of the SAT was to measure not whether or not the engine could run, but how well it runs and measuring how well you can reason. That is a reflection of the type of education you got K through 12.

We should do better on educating kids K through 12 so they reason the same when they encounter the SAT across all racial backgrounds, as opposed to changing the SAT and making it dumbing it down so that it goes to the lowest common denominator. Hey, Pete and David, congratulations on the success of the book. Thanks so much for expanding on it here in the studio. Remember, it's Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation. Pete joins us a little bit later.

You're listening to a special edition of the Brian Kill Meat Show. This is a Brian Kilmey Show's special presentation: Education in America. More with Brian coming up. You're listening to a Brian Kilmeat Show special presentation: Education in America. All right, back to wrap things up now.

Just a quick statement on patriotism in our country. You cannot go wrong talking about our founding fathers, as well as adding in the frailties of slavery and things like that. And also, put it in perspective, they lived in a different time. And people will go back and look at people in 2023, that's you and me, and they'll say, I can't believe you did X, Y, and Z. But you should respect those periods in which people lived.

Go back and study it. Don't judge it. I've always believed that.

So back to education. And as opposed to indoctrination. And that brings me to my question for Pete. Pete, I got to ask you, what steps, and by the way, Pete Hanks said three joining us now. Pete, what steps can you make to make sure that parents, listening right now, get the right kind of education for their kids, education that...

It's America first rather than, I don't know, indoctrination.

Well, the first thing is to be honest with yourself. Don't say, oh, my kid's just fine. My school's fine. I think it's okay. Do the work.

Go in and ask for Walk the halls. Just look at the information coming back in your kids' backpack. Look for the buzzwords. You know, diversity, equity, inclusion, climate, environment. You know, there's a lot of different things you can see that give you a sense of what the school's focused on.

It's the summer. Like, look at your options. Find out whether or not there's a classical Christian school near you, classicalchristian.org. There are a few on Long Island, there are a bunch in New Jersey, there are a bunch. In almost every state, you'd be surprised.

how many there are. and how affordable they are compared to so-called elite options.

So I just think But check out the series, Miseducation of America, the book, Battle for the American Mind. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. And the most precious thing we have is our kids and grandkids. And to think that we would Allow them to ride off on a yellow school bus. hoping they're okay.

and then counting on deprogramming them. They're too valuable.

So I find the best option. that's true educating your kids.

So I think Pete's 100% right. That's why I wrote the book. That's why it was number one for so long. Because parents and kids care about education. You want the results.

You want the quality or else you're not going to get the results in life. Also, you want to know when you drop your kids off, you don't have to worry about it for six, seven hours. You want to be intrigued about what they're intrigued about, not wonder if they're being indoctrinated or coming back different than you want them to be. And I was pretty amazed too as I had a chance to talk to Condoleezza Rice when she came in. One of the things I asked her, too, is what else is a top issue in America?

Knowing she wants nothing to do with elections. And she said to me, education. She says, I'm shocked how many people come to me. They have no idea about our past or they have a misconstrued idea of what America is about. And this is a woman that grew up in the segregated South.

And just the idea. And the idea that people might want to overcome and feel like America is a much better place now and better than any place in the world is a fear for a lot of people.

So, not only do we need education, get the math up, obviously, learn to read better clearly. How about the context of what you're learning? And then to have a chance without traveling, because we're not able, not everybody can travel around the world. I don't think I got, I didn't get a plane, I didn't get on a plane until after college.

So, not many people are traveling around the world.

So, you sit there and you run down your own country forever. You have a horrible image of the nation which you live in, you feel it's a racist, horrible place. And then you go travel and you bring up that message around the world. When if you travel with open eyes, you'd understand there's a reason why people are trying to get here. But I just think the main thing that would answer most of these problems is school choice.

Because there will be a school For the marketplace that thinks that America is first, that think we are a great country, that think math and reading do matter. And when you get better results and get more students, and people start leaving the public school because they have an agenda, that and only then and only then. Will schools change the way they do things? And will people Look at the curriculum and say, okay, yeah, I'm gonna hop on the bus. I'm gonna take my 12,000 maybe in New Jersey, 7,000 if you're in Iowa, the 7,000 allocated by me by the school dollars that I still pay, I'm gonna take that to another school.

And if you want me back, change it for my next kid. But if you aren't getting it, you better send my next cut. I'm taking that $7,000 out of the public school system, and it's traveling with me to that charter school down the block, the Catholic school two miles away. And it'll be worth it. As you'll know, they'll be accountable too because they actually recruit.

When you go to a private school, they want you to go. As opposed to public schools, you sit and deal with it. And if you don't have any money, you have nowhere to go.

Well, the school choice will change of that. In Iowa, Arizona, in Georgia, in Oklahoma, it's a done deal already. Uh in Texas. Done deal. In Florida, done deal.

Your stay too. You should have that too. I'm Brian Kilmead. Special thanks to Richard Dreyfus. and of course the great Pete Hagseth for helping me out.

Brian killed me, too. Special edition. Oh, you are going to love this hour. The man that really held the keys to success to help Michael Phelps win all he did and have happiness in his life. and Tom Brady.

He's known him since college, and Tom Brady simply says without him, I don't become the Hall of Famer that we all know he's going to be. Here's my interview with his life coach, one of the real stars at the University of Michigan. Greg Harden.

Well, good morning indeed, young man.

Well, I'm pumped up already.

So, Greg.

Now, why is this the right time for you to write your books and unlock and let everyone know your secret to your success? Is it because Tom Brady colded a career?

Well, no, it's because people like Tom and Desmond Howard have been harassing me, bothering me. poking at me to get something done and put it out there so that people can see that it's not about sports. What I taught them is what I'm teaching anyone that will listen, and that is how to become the world's greatest expert on one subject. Yourself. And who taught you?

Man, that's a great question. God has a sense of humor, that's for sure. And I had to learn the hard way how to get out of my own way. And that's what we're trying to do, is get people to understand that usually their limitations are self-imposed. And so Uh I learned from I had great mentors.

I had amazing people in my life who who signed up and believed in me before I believed in myself.

So, is this about success or is this about happiness? Ooh. Amen. See, that's a great question because a lot of people, when you ask them to describe success, If they don't include happiness, they're confused. Because you and I know.

You and I know people who are extremely successful. who are not happy. who are depressed and miserable. might even take their own life.

So yes, success comes. when you are pursuing happiness, but the pursuit of happiness has to include trying to have amazing relationships. trying to be somebody that Can share with care, compassion, and concern who they are and what they want. How did you start using some of the principles at the University of Michigan? How did that come to be?

Well, I was invited to come in and talk about alcohol and drugs. And I told them 18 to 22 year olds don't need lectures about alcohol and drugs. They know more about it than we do.

So then I suggested that perhaps. or we could do some programming to teach people how to identify Self-defeating attitudes. and behaviors. The ways that I act, The ways that I might Have that could sabotage my dream. Everyone in an institution like a university.

has big dreams. And so if we can teach people how to identify and eliminate self-defeating attitudes. we increase their chances of success.

So we're talking about how to be the best possible version of yourself. I teach people, first become the world's greatest expert. And that's how it all started. And so if you can come in and talk to somebody about anything as minute as I'm dating a fool all the way till I'm I hate myself. That that's a wide, wide continuum of care.

And so you've got to give people somebody to talk to about life and the pursuit of happiness, what's working, what's not working. And so that's what we did. We created this model, which was now going to become behavioral health care. And we started it like years, decades before anyone else was talking about it. And could you give us an idea of this curriculum?

Because it seems to be effectively the biggest name in sports for him. As I mentioned, Jim Harbaugh, when he was a player.

Now he's a coach. He probably needs it more now. Tom Brady, who was buried in the bench at the University of Michigan, thought he made the bad choice. A guy ahead of him was actually, I think, the coach's son. And next thing you know, he becomes a starter, got to share the job with Drew Henson, becomes a six-round draft pick and the greatest quarterback ever.

He says this: Greg Cardin has and will always be one of the most influential people in my life. He has helped me with my own struggles, personal struggles in both athletics and in life. What I learned from Greg is still a part of who I am today. When he writes that, what do you think? I immediately started thinking about how important it is to share with anyone that this book is not about Tom, it's not about me, it's about them.

And it's about them learning the same things I taught and teach anyone that will listen. The first thing I had to teach Tom Brady at 19 years old. Is to stop worrying about what everybody else thinks. I don't care what your coaches think. All I care about Is what you think.

I don't care if they don't believe in you. All I care about is: do you believe in you? And then you teach them how to talk about controlling what they can control. I can't control what they think or how they operate or how they make decisions. What I can control.

It's how I respond. What I can control, what Tom Brady can control, is how he walks out on the field and if he's in the sixth, seventh slot, he acts like he's a number one quarterback every chance he gets. I know he wrote about that in his book, too. That's the way he approached it. His practices were his games if he wasn't going to get in the game.

The name of the book, you just mentioned your subtitle, How to Control the Uncontrollables and Thrive. I want everyone to hear a clip from you at 60 Minutes. It's Tom Brady and you talking about basically what you bring to the table, Cut 48. You know, he's probably the first person in your life that says, well, you don't deserve to really be on the field. He said that to you?

I don't remember if that's exactly what it says, but he said, look, there's a reason why the other guy is out there. Tom Brady went to see him when Tom was in college at Michigan. Because he was feeling badly, he's just frustrated. He's tired. And he knows that he has to do something different, and he can't figure out what.

Don't go to Greg if you don't want to hear the truth. He will hit you between the eyes if he will. And they told me this all the time, if you don't believe in yourself, then why is anyone else going to believe in you? What matters is his heart and his mind. You can't measure that boy's heart.

You can't measure his mind. And in that sport, all they do is measure. How high can you? How big are your hands? How much, how tall are you?

How much do you weigh? They don't even want to get to know the person. All you have to do is watch the combines to see that. You're the opposite, right? Yes, sir.

I'm that guy that has the audacity to believe that while you can measure how high I jump and how much weight I can lift and how fast I am, you cannot measure my heart or my mind. They cannot, look, Brian, you know what you've done. I don't have a clue what you've done, but you know. You don't look like what you've been through. You know that you have pushed yourself when everyone questioned and doubted you and you rose above it.

That's all we're trying to teach people is to do with the most successful people that we've ever heard of. have to do. They have to get outside of themselves. They've got to be so clear about who they are. And their self-love and self-acceptance has to overrule wanting everyone else's approval and acceptance.

I don't want to put down everyone who talks about this next generation not being tough enough, but I do know one thing pretty consistent. in terms of clearing obstacles and scaring and scaling hurdles, that doesn't seem to be something they're thriving at, where they might have the great intellect, they might be a bit smarter, whatever you want to say. I think we've lost the toughness. Uh Well, I tell you what, I'm going to disagree with you politely. You ready?

I think that we are Not taking any ownership for how we're training them. We pampered them, we spoiled them. We set them up to be. Privilege them. I don't want to.

Why am I I had a I had a person mother call me and ask me why they did I didn't hire their son. Oh no. Right. Come on, man. But we have to begin to understand that.

These young people today are capable and qualified, and we've got to walk in and expect. Expect the best from them and push them more than we have. That's my opinion. Don't let him fail. Come on, man.

Let them fail because I've got to learn how to manage failure. I'm teaching people how to manage success. Girl, you know we gotta teach 'em how to manage failure. And to understand that Failure, loss, grief, disappointment, trials, and tribulations are predictable and therefore manageable. Most importantly, How do you recover?

When we talk about physical fitness, we understand recovery time. when we talk about training for mental fitness, That's to balance out our quest to remain mentally healthy, to not just wait until we're in trouble and in chaos, but to practice, train, and rehearse, being more successful than the average person at recovering as fast as I can. From the crisis and challenges I face. Greg Horden's my guest right now. He's the author of Stay Sane in an Insane World.

By the way, what did you say to that mom that called up and said, why didn't you hire their son? I asked. her to perhaps she should consider calling someone else because That's not what we're going to talk about. I don't know you. I didn't interview you.

Have your child call me and ask me why. Understood.

So I don't know if this really is exactly what you're talking about, but it just reminds me of what Mike Rose said to me. You know, he goes out there and does dirty jobs and he deals with a lot of blue-collar workers who travel the country and find out what they're about. And he's amazed at how much happier they are than the Hollywood news community that he also hangs out with. He says, here are people not making as much, but they had a certainty and occupation and a pride in which they did, and which, for the most part, broadly based, and a pride in what they did, and they had balance in their lives. He goes, it's amazing to me how much happier they were.

How does that fit into your philosophy and policy? Kill me, you know, you're knocking that out the park. Think about what you're saying. We're talking about regular folks. whose self-worth and self-esteem is not based on someone else's measurement.

It's not based on how much money they make. It's not based on whether or not they got an award. It's based on self-love and self-acceptance. Remember the person in your neighborhood who didn't have everything, but you couldn't wait to go to their house? Yes.

Because of that energy and the atmosphere and the attitudes in that house just drew you in.

So belief in myself. Belief in having a life worth living. That's not doesn't come with money. It comes from something inside you.

So I imagine if it does do that, for example, the 48-year-old cop that retires, that identity was wrapped up in that uniform as a firefighter or cop, or somebody that retires or is no longer acting or performing, if their identity is wrapped up in their athleticism, like Tom Brady retires at 45 years old. I mean, if his identity is wrapped up in his occupation, that adjustment is going to be huge, let alone the 26-year-old who no longer feels as though any football team wants to sign him and was struggling to make a roster to begin with. Though do you g get a lot of those clients? Yes. Well think about this though.

Earlier you posed a question and I set you up just right. What we're talking about is teaching anyone that will listen. That how I feel about me must not be based on other people's opinions. opinion. who I am.

Imagine telling a 19-year-old Tom Brady, a Charles Woodson, a Desmond Howard, a Michael Phelps. You've got to decide with or without. Football. Your life is going to be amazing. And once you believe that, Football becomes What you do.

Not who you are. You just happen to do it better than most.

So, so when you go up to a guy that's a six-stream quarterback at the University of Michigan, who's rail thin, who wonders if they made the right choice, maybe they could be in Tom Brady's case, I think he could have played baseball, some people said.

So, when his answer is, well, it's what you think of yourself. If his answer is, I don't think much of myself. You know, I'm not that good. Don't know many people on campus, kind of 1,500 miles away from my family. I don't, I don't, if his answer is, I don't have that self-esteem, then what do you say?

You say, then that's what we're going to be doing. I can't tell you how to throw a ball. I can't tell you how to read defenses. What I can teach you. is to believe in yourself without question or pause.

to believe that your life has meaning and purpose. It may not be football. But we're going to find out who you are and who you want to become. And that takes work. Cobra.

You train to be physically fit. You have to train to be mentally fit. You don't just, you know, say, well, I came in and I saw Greg Harden and, you know, six months ago, and I can't remember what he said. You have to get coaching. You have to have it has to be recurring theme that you're going to work out on your mind.

Understood.

And, you know, just because you're not going to win a Super Bowl, hold up the Lombardi trophy, it doesn't mean you can't be a winner in life, nor should you judge yourself on that. Last thing, I also think, too, for younger people listening to us right now, a lot of them say, I don't know what I want to do. I don't know what I want to major in. And my answer has been, go find out. What does your neighbor do?

Are they happy?

Well, what is going on? What does interest you? Why don't you find out what it is like to own a business, a deli, a dry cleaner? What does it enable you to do? You want to be a lifeguard?

Go talk to a lifeguard, but you got to aggressively attack it. And even if you decide, hey, that's not for me, that's still a victory. Brian, killed me, your stock just went up with me. Are you ready for this? You said exactly what must be said.

I remember I told God if I lived to see 25, there must be some purpose. I hit 25, I was like, oops, squat. I made a promise. And so, okay, I've got to find my purpose.

Well, guess what my first purpose was? to find my purpose. Yeah. to pursue it, to find out what clicks. to experiment like you said bruh you nailed it.

Well, I got news for you. You sold a lot of books. Greg Harden, Motivating America, one radio show at a time, and one quarterback at a time. Stay sane in an insane world. Greg, congratulations on it, and great talking to you.

Thank you so much, sir. I appreciate you. All right, when we come back, I appreciate you. I will take your calls. And no excuses.

Get on the phone. Don't tell me you're at work. You heard me. Starting out 2024 on a good note, it's the best of the Brian Killmeat Show. He's so busy, he'll make your head spin.

It's Brian Kilmead. You never have enough time to talk to a guy like Greg Harden, who's seen so much in his life, is very humble about it, did not have the greatest start to his life, had problems with school, kind of pressure to excel, didn't know what direction he had, was a really good track athlete, and then he ends up using his life lessons to help inspire kids at their most vulnerable time. And they're all mostly elite athletes. If you're playing sports at the University of Michigan, you're a great athlete, even if you don't get off the bench. But what he did for people like Desmond Howard, what he did for people like Tom Brady, what he did for Michael Phelps, and so many others that you may not know really pushed Greg Harden to write a book.

And go out and pick it up. If you want to inspire somebody, by the way, it's a quick read. And the anecdotes of the people that you know make it really fly by because you know what they became, but you didn't know their hinge points in their life. His book is called Stay Sane. In an insane world.

It was one of the interviews that I did where so many people were texting me saying, What was the name of that book again? Listen, when we come back, Lindsay Berra joins us. She's a very charismatic young lady, the granddaughter of Yogi Berra, wants to keep her grandfather's name alive and legacy. Put together a great movie. She talks about that and talks about what Yogi meant to the Yankees, and most importantly, to her.

If you listen to the Brian Kill Me Joe special edition, you're getting a taste of what you might be missing, and hopefully that changes. Keep it here. To have Yogi not included in the greatest living players of 2015. I mean, that makes no sense to me whatsoever. I don't quite understand that.

There are only two people with more than 350 home runs and fewer than 500 strikeouts in the whole history of Major League Baseball. And their names are Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra. And that is Joe Madden and Marty Appell. Joe Madden, a great manager. Marty Appell, unbelievable insight.

He's a PR guy for the Yankees, been around forever. And he really knows just about every Yankee worth knowing, including Yogi Berra. Lindsay Berra is in studio with us now. If you're smart enough to get the stream, you're watching her. She is the granddaughter of Yogi Berra and executive producer of the new documentary, It Ain't Over.

Lindsay, great to see you in person. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

So, what made you realize you were getting concerned that people were forgetting about your dad and how great he was? Yeah, we opened the documentary at the 2015 All-Star Game, and they had a ceremony pregame presenting the four greatest living players. And it was Hank Aaron, Johnny Bench, Sandy Koufax, and Willie Mays. But I was sitting there watching the presentation with my very much alive Grandpa Yogi, and I looked at him and I said, Are you dead? And he said, Not yet.

Because while all of those players are amazing, and I don't think he should have replaced any of them, he should have been the fifth person out there with. 10 World Series championships, which is more than all four of them combined. But at that point, I hadn't really started thinking about making a documentary. Grandpa was still with us. He passed away a few months after that.

It was a few years later when our producer, Peter Sobiloff, he actually saw the Mr. Rogers documentary and wondered why there was not a documentary like that about my grandpa Yogi. And he brought the idea to my dad and uncle. Did you call him Yogi? I called him Grandpa.

Grandpa, Grandpa.

So when you watch the documentary, I actually narrate the documentary, and it was really hard for me to call him Yogi or Yogi Berra.

So I kind of go back and forth between calling him grandpa and calling him Yogi in the dock when the director said, we're going to have to use his name sometimes, Lynn. I understood.

So in terms of, did it bother him that he wasn't out there? Did it bother him that sometimes people thought... Yeah, didn't know how what he did on the field because he was such a fun-loving guy. My grandfather was very able to let things roll off of his back. When he first broke into the big leagues, they said that, and they, writers, other players said he looked like a gorilla.

He looked like an ape. He looked like a fire hydrant. He looked like a fat girl running in a too tight skirt. He was too ugly to be a Yankee. They wrote in the newspaper he was too ugly to be a Yankee.

First of all, I don't know what that means. Second of all, if you look at pictures of him when he was young, he was kind of handsome.

So I don't know what they were talking about. He very famously said, I never saw anyone hit with his face.

So he didn't really care what other people thought. I think that's a product of that generation. He went through the D-Day invasion at Normandy. He was a machine gunner on an LCSS going ashore, providing cover fire for our troops at Omaha Beach. You don't live through an actual life or death situation and come home without some perspective.

He was very grateful to be here when so many other men were not. And he really did approach the rest of his life with gratitude for every minute and a profound sense of joy. The man was playing a kid. Game for a living, and that was what he cared about. What personalities from his own block?

Yoga Rajiola, who ended up being this big personality and hosted the Today Show, he was a catch with the Cardinals. And he said, No one ever thought I was great. He goes, I wasn't even the best person on my block because I grew up with Yogi Bera. They grew up directly across the street from each other, 5447 and 5446 Elizabeth Avenue on the Hill in St. Louis.

And Jack Bucks actually grew up down the street. And then there were also five guys from the Hill who made the 1950 World Cup soccer team who beat England for the first time. They were such great athletes on the Hill. It's crazy. And they all.

What do you mean by go? What's that? The Hill was the Italian section in St. Louis. Wow.

That is fascinating. I did not know that. That was the greatest game. Here's Derek Jeter and Roger Angel talking about what kind of person and what kind of player he was, Cup 44.

Sometimes a pitcher gives away their pitches to a hitter if you're paying close attention to their pitcher. You could come down so far for a fastball, come down low for a curveball. You watch him. Nanogi hits one out in the right field. He hit with power.

The amazing thing was almost never struck out. Because he swung at everything. Yeah, that's the key. You can't strike out if you don't get two strikes, right? If you don't get to two strikes, and Yogi swung at everything.

He's probably one of the best bad ball hitters there was in the game. That's interesting that Jeter would know that. Yeah, so Grandpa went, had his feud with Steinbrenner for 14 years and then made up and went back to the ballpark in 1999 and then spent 13 years going to spring trainings. And he really got to be close with Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Tito Martinez, Paul O'Neill, that whole next generation of Yankees. But what they're mentioning there, what Roger Angel says about grandpa abolishing the strike zone, he really never struck out.

There's only two players in the history of all of Major League Baseball, not just the Yankees, with more than 350 home runs and fewer than 500 strikeouts. It's Grandpa and Joe DiMaggio. And if you look at his 1950 season, I think it's one of the greatest seasons in the history of baseball. 656 played appearances. He hit 322 with 28 home runs, 124 RBIs, and struck out 12 times in the entire season.

What did managing mean to him? He really loved to mentor younger players. And he, my Uncle Dale, who played for my grandfather with the Yankees and he played with the Pirates as well, he talks about what a great players manager Grandpa was because he cared about the kids, the players, so much as people. You know, if Dave Regetti, you know, blew a game or something, grandpa would knock on the hotel room door three hours after the game and, hey, kid, are you all right? I just want to make sure you're feeling okay about tomorrow.

You're going to do great. Like, managers don't do that. He really cared about the people, like teaching the game to folks. And, you know, he did that with both the Yankees and the Mets. He was only the second manager in history to bring teams from both leagues to the World Series.

And it was an important part of his career for him. Was he a manager of the Mets in 73? He was. That brought him to the World Series. One win away from beating the athletics to come back like he did.

That was a big comeback year, wasn't it? And that's the origin of his most famous yogism ever: It Ain't Over Till It's Over. Right. And then, too bad the Athletics were so talented. That was a great team.

Were you a big baseball fan? I I mean, you could not be in my family. The games were just always on. He grandpa was a fan of all sports, so he got me into ice hockey growing up. I played hockey in saw in high school.

How many grandchildren did he have? Eleven. And did you find yourself more akin to him? Did you feel yourself more attached to him, maybe than the others. I think I was just around him for the most time.

My parents also got divorced when I was young, around five, and I was spent a lot of time at my grandparents' house. They were kind of like a second set of parents to me. And grandpa and I kind of bonded over a lot of things. He got me into boxing as a young kid. We used to watch fights together.

He used to come to all my hockey games in the winter because he was around during the winter because baseball only happens in the summer. You know, he was real into Seinfeld reruns. We'd be up there watching those with him and making meatballs on the holidays and whatnot. He was really involved with all the grandkids, but as the oldest one, I obviously spent the most time. Wow.

Is it hard to do this and not miss him? Oh my god, absolutely. I'm constantly amazed with how close to the surface the emotions are with regard to both my Grampy Yogi and my Grammy Carmen. And it's such a gift, this movie, with all the archival footage and being able to see. Video, there's not many 45-year-old people who have video of their grandparents in their mid-20s, and I can see them talking and their mannerisms.

He looks just like my brother Larry, which is great. I didn't, I didn't know my grandpa at the age that my brother is, but they look just alike. And then also just to be able to see that old archival footage in the documentary of grandpa hitting. He used a really big, long, heavy bat, 34-inch, 35- or 36-ounce bat, which is unheard of today. And he wasn't the biggest guy.

And you watch him manhandle it through the strike zone and basically do whatever he wants with the ball. It's really cool to be able to watch all that stuff. I mean, his wrists and forearms must have been massive. Yeah. That's the way you said it.

I should have said that.

So iconically, I never saw him play, but famously, when Don Larson tosses the perfect game, Yogi hugs him. Here's Don Larson talking about that, cut 45. Lorrison is ready. Gets the sign. This strikes for one.

Here comes the pitch. Strike three. A no-hitter of perfect games with Don Larson. Yogi Berra runs out there. He leaps on Larson.

And he's swarmed by his teammates. Luther of this crowd roar.

So we didn't hear him talk about that, but he does talk about what did that mean to him? Grandpa used to say that was the that was a perfect game in the 1956 World Series. And grandpa used to say it ain't been done before and it ain't been done since. It's the only one. My favorite little-known fact about that game, though, my grandmother was watching the game in the stands with Whitey Ford's wife, Joni.

And the final batter in that game was Dale Mitchell. And my grandmother is seven months pregnant at the time. And she says to Joni Ford, if we get this batter out and he gets this perfect game, I'll name my baby Dale. And I have an uncle Dale. That is unbelievable.

I remember Dale Bear played third base for the Yankees. Yep. Wow. That's unbelievable. I did not, no one probably knew that.

All right. And that was great.

Now, Don Larson was a little bit like David Wells, who would also be from the same town, I think, and also throw a perfect game. They liked to party. Didn't they have their reputation? They do. And Don actually didn't know he was pitching that game and may or may not have been out a little too late the night before.

And when he rolled up to Yankee Stadium, the ball was in his locker. And surprise, surprise. But grandpa was able to. That was one of the things that Grandpa was known for: being able to get the most out of pitchers and get the most out of their stuff on any given day. And Don says that 97 pitches, he never shook Grandpa off once.

Wow, that's unbelievable. Lindsay Barris here. The documentary is now out. It ain't over. When we come back, we're to see it and at what timing we can go over this, right?

Sure. Because you put your heart and soul into this. You want everyone to check it out. I do. Don't move.

Brian Killmeat Show. Bringing in the new year with the best of last year. It's the best of the Brian Kill Meat Show. Till the day he died, he knew Jackie was out. He knew Jackie's out.

He got volatile. He's out. Just ask Yogi, right? I mean, he told that story year after year, and you could get him going with it. Yogi?

Jackie Robinson's out. What do you mean he was out? Oh my God. No, forget about that.

Now, when you wanna get Yogi upset, Yogi, I think he was safe. And he looked at me like, Moreno, he was out. Yeah, Yogi. I mean, I'm looking at the video. I think he was safe.

He was out. He used to get mad at me too, man. I used to go, oh, Yogi, he was safe. You know, he was safe. And he used to go, oh, oh, bo, Willie, bo.

He was out. So that is uh uh that is all Yogi Bearer's Friends and teammates and opponents talking about Jackie Robinson, whether he is out or safe. Set the scene for me, Lindsey Berra. After all, you have a documentary out about your grandfather. It ain't over.

So Jackie Robinson stole home in the 1955 World Series, and the umpire, Bill Summers, Called him safe, and it's the maddest I've ever seen. My grandfather in real life or on video, he jumped out of his crouch, and I always say he was like rooting tooting mad. Like, you know, somebody saying the veins popping out of his neck, screaming and yelling at Bill Summers. And you know, it just it's become one of the most famous plays in in World Series history. Grandpa insisted until the day he died that Jackie had been out.

But, you know The Dodgers won that one, right? The Dodgers in in 55. But I always, I kind of like to take the high road on this and say with Jackie Robinson, safe or out didn't really matter. What mattered was that he was in in the big leagues. But grandpa and Jackie were very, very good friends, and the families stayed very close even after Jackie passed in 1972.

At Grandpa Yogi's 90th birthday party in 2015, Rachel Robinson, Jackie's widow, rolled in. And there's a whole bunch of people in the theater at the museum. And she sees Grandpa through the crowd and she makes the safe sign with her arms and grandpa makes the out sign with his fist and then she went and gave him a big hug and a big kiss.

So we, Vera's and Robinsons agree to disagree on that one. That is so interesting. And just to be, you know, to see the polo grounds, I never saw it. I never saw Ebbetsfield. Yankee Stadium still exists.

It just moved across the street as they got it rebuilt again. Uh so you're th When they talk about, and I know people are listening around the country now. When they talk about the polo grounds in Ebbisfield, when your grandfather used to talk about it, did he talk about the rivalries between the Giants and Dodgers in? It's funny. People ask me this a lot, and he talked less about the rivalries and more about his friendships with guys on the other teams.

You know, he was very, very close with Gil Hodges, you know, yeah, and like Roy Campanella and Duke Snyder, and they were all just buddies. And when. That this shot hit Round the World home run. Grandpa was at the game. Like he was, he would go over there and watch on his days off the games on the national to know who he would just kind of check out who he'd be playing in the World Series.

But they would attend each other's games, they would go out to dinners together.

So, yes, while the rivalry, it was a great kind of Subway Series rivalry happening there in New York, they were all kind of buddies. And Lindsay, I never knew that. What you just said, that blows me away. I thought they might each other at card shows, but I didn't know they were, when they were contemporaries, they were actually friendly. Back then, grandpa and my grandmother and my Grandma Carmen used to talk about New York being a really small town back then.

And if you were a famous person, if you were an actor, a politician, a musician, a famous athlete, there were only like a few places, like high-end places, where those kind of folks would hang out. It was Toot Shores, the 21 Club, the Copa Cabana, the Birdcage up in Harlem.

So you ran into all those folks. You know, my grandfather had a crush on Sophia Loren because he saw Sophia Loren on the regular at. The 21 Club or wherever the heck they would go. And I remember my grandmother would tell me about eating dinner with Roger Bannister when he was trying to break the four-minute mile. It just it was a smaller town and kind of everybody knew everybody and those friendships existed.

Which it brings me to my next question. They needed off-season jobs. They weren't multi-millionaires back then. I mean, so he made the most he ever made in one year was? $60,000, but more years it was like $45,000, $48,000, $50,000, which is about the equivalent of a half a million dollars today, which is a good living, but it's not like, you know, crazy Boku bucks like guys are making today.

He had to have jobs in the off-season. What are some of Yogi Berra's jobs? He sold Christmas trees in a like landscapey type lot on the hill in St. Louis. He worked at the American shops in Newark selling suits, men's suits.

He worked in a hardware store. He was not good at any of these things.

So he and his buddy Phil Rosuto, shortstop for the Yankees, in 1958, they opened a bowling alley in Clifton, New Jersey, Rosuto-Barra Lanes, and that was their off-season source of income for many years. And did it do well? It did. It did great. It was there for a while, and then it became Astro Bowl in the 80s, I think.

But it was like a real family affair. My grandfather's brother, John, moved from St. Louis to run the bar, and Phil's brother actually managed the bowling side of it. That's fantastic.

So you put together this documentary because you're concerned about people forgetting how great your grandfather was. Where can we see it in the theaters?

So right now it is open in theaters across the country, New York, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Chicago, San Diego, San Francisco. It's opening in more cities each week throughout the rest of May and June.

So Dallas and Kansas City this weekend, then Denver, all over Florida, Atlanta, Portland, New Orleans. You can hit the website, itainovermovie.com and check the listings near you. How does your uncle and your father feel about them keeping the name alive? I mean, they're all thrilled. My dad and my uncles are all in the movie telling fantastic stories about grandpa and what it was like growing up with him and Grammy Carmen.

It's a really nostalgic film, and my whole family is very proud of it. But I do want to make it very clear that while there is a lot of baseball in the movie and it will satisfy the Uber baseball fan, you don't have to be a baseball fan to see this. Movie as a first-generation Italian immigrant, a veteran of the D-Day invasion. Grandpa had a beautiful 65-year love story with my Grammy Carmen. There's something in this movie that appeals to everyone as a human story, and you really don't have to be like a baseball nut to enjoy it.

And the yogisms throughout? The yogiisms throughout. Even though I do think that personality and the yogiisms overshadowed grandpa's accomplishments on the field, the yogiisms are a big part of who he was. And I think the film really highlights the brilliance of the yogiisms. If you initially say, oh, that's silly, maybe, but then when you really think about it, they're profound.

And I think they are. I love every time I go to see a crowded place, I go, that place is so crowded, nobody ever goes there. I think about that's yogaism. I use it's deja vu all over again all the time. My favorite is the world were perfect.

If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be. And who can really argue with that? It ain't over. Lindsey Barrett, thank you. Hi, everyone.

Welcome to the latest moments of the Brian Kill Me Show, or should I say the best of the latest moments of the Brian Kill Meet Show. Our chance to put together some of the moments I think define what made last year so great and some of the intros that really stood out. One of which is my longer interview, long-form interview with Jordan Peterson. When you sit down with Jordan Peterson, you don't talk about the weather, you don't talk about what you had for lunch or what the Yankees need to do to turn their season around. You talk about what life is about.

How do you get some meaning? How do you deal with controversy? And most of all, How do you acquire happiness? He thinks he knows the key. He's researched it.

Here's some of my interview with Jordan Peterson. Let's listen together. It turns out new hires in 2023, according to a new study, are totally unprepared for work and life. Not saying everybody, but a lot of them. Psychologist and author Dr.

Jordan Peterson joins us now. Dr. Peterson, great to see you. Thank you very much.

So, when this study popped up, we thought you got to weigh in on this. They say that Gen Zers come in, they're sincere, but if they have no necessary Instinct on what to do next. Find them a lot sitting idly by waiting for instructions on what to do next. Does that make sense to you?

Something about this generation that would have trouble being self-motivated.

Well, I think that if you set up an education system that's designed To do nothing but demoralize young people and to convince them that their ambition is. Dangerous and, well, even world-threatening for that matter, a manifestation of patriarchal oppression. On the social front, and then a danger to the survival of the planet on the natural front, then. And you don't do anything to foster that ambition and to Channel it into a manner that might be productive and to tell young people why their ambition might be useful, then you're going to get exactly that.

So you hit what you aim at if you try hard enough, and the education system has been trying to demoralize people for 60 years. One of the things that really stuns me, you know, I haven't been able to figure this out yet. I've been trying to talk to Republican governors about this. I cannot understand why conservatives have been daft enough to allow the faculties of education to retain their hammer lock on teacher certification for the last 60 years. It's insane.

You mean the criteria to get the certification? Exactly. You have to be trained in a faculty of education to become a teacher. Why? They're the most woke element of the entire rotten university carcass.

And they have the hammer lock on 50% of the state budgets. You know, the Conservatives are always complaining about the culture war. It's like, well, you handed all the young people. to the faculties of education, right? Their research is terrible.

It's low rate. Their students are generally very incompetent. comparatively speaking on the academic front, you know. It's foolish. And this is the outcome.

It's not surprising. And it's a way to work on the foundation. And when you have an RNC chair or a DNC chair, if you have an agenda, that's what to work on. Don't get Mr. and Mrs.

candidate elected. Start focusing on the direction you want the country in and find out how to give people an education that will allow them to, at the very least, think, but not what to think.

Well, the left-wingers in the 1960s were. Far-seeing enough, the more radical types, to envision a decades-long march through the institutions, right? And one of their goals was the capture of educational institutions, and that's happened completely, and that's been absolutely abetted by. Conservatives who tend to get lost in the details.

Well, then you think now you have young people who are demoralized and directionless.

Well, they're never taught anything about how to acquire a direction. You know, we did a study, I used this program I developed called Future Authoring. We did a study where we had three studies actually, where we had university students sit down essentially for 90 minutes, 90 minutes, this was it, and write out a goal, a series of goals for their life, right? Who could they be in five years across seven important dimensions of their life and where might they be that would be terrible if they didn't get their act together? We dropped their dropout rate 50% and raised their grade point average by 35%, three separate studies.

Not me, I was lucky enough to keep working, but I had to work remotely. Everyone's life changed. And people took a deep breath and they said, Why am I in this job? Why is it necessary for me to do this? If life does stop, nothing will change.

It seems like our population got off the treadmill and said, Why get back on? And they're having trouble getting back on. When they get back on, they're not as motivated because they don't know why they're doing it. And you said to me in the break on Fox and Friends this weekend: it's because they don't have goals, they don't have a vision. If you have a vision, that leads to happiness.

Why? Because you have a mission, you have a direction, because you know what you want the end game to be. And that's back to your 15 minutes. It also put that 15 minutes and you find out what your end game is. Don't tell me you don't know.

Work on it. It does two things: having a goal.

Well, if you have a goal and it's a collective goal, That unites people.

So, a collective vision is what unites people because then everyone is heading in the same direction. Everyone regards the same things as positive. Everybody uses the same structure to protect themselves from anxiety, and their emotions are aligned.

So, a goal, a united goal, a collective goal, is what unites us. Then, on the individual front, If you have a goal and you see yourself taking steps towards it, that is what produces positive emotion and positive motivation, that enthusiastic desire to get up and go. And it also stops anxiety because. You either have a goal or you're fragmented. If you're fragmented, you don't know which direction to go in, that gives you too many directions.

That makes you anxious. That's what anxiety is paralysis. I don't even know where to go. I'm out. I'm out.

And I think that what you just said with that 15 minutes is so important because, especially with teenagers, just in college, just graduate, I don't really know what I want to do. What do you want to do?

Well, it's fine to know that, but you got to take action to solve that. To do that, you got to go take action to go find out. What does Dr. Jordan Peterson do? Why does he seem so fulfilled?

What about the guy down the block that owns a garage? Why does he seem happy every day?

Well, he always wanted to be his own business, goal, his own shots. He wanted to help people. But you have to go work at finding out what is effective. I think you have an obligation to make the most out of life. And I think people get the worm.

Definition on happiness. What is happiness? Happiness is not high-five and necessarily smiling. It's having a mission.

Well, it's also not the gratification of immediate desire. Like, there's actually two forms of positive emotion, eh? There's the emotion that you feel, let's say, after having a good meal, after a Thanksgiving dinner. That's just satiation.

Okay, but satiation puts you to sleep. Right now it's pleasant because You don't need anything. But it isn't motivating. Motivation comes in a pursuit. You have to be pursuing a goal.

And so then you have to figure out what your goal is. And it's not optional. You know, the other thing for people to think about is: well, You know, you might say, Well, I'm the sort of person that doesn't plan. It's like, well, that's because you're afraid. That's part of the reason, and you should overcome that.

But it's also the case that if you don't have your plan, Someone else has a plan for you. And whatever responsibility you abdicate will be taken up by tyrants, and whatever direction you don't provide for yourself will be provided by other people who don't have your best interest in mind. That's how it works. Coming up after the break, more Dr. Jordan Peterson.

You're listening to Brian Kilmead on the Brian Kilmead Show. Bringing in the new year with the best of last year. You're doing a great job. Keep it up. Thank you, sir.

It's the best of the Brian Kilmead Show. Hi, everyone. Thanks so much for listening. As promised, here's more with Dr. Jordan Peterson.

So, Dr. Pearson, I watch you too in the break. People like young men, especially, walking up to you, kind of your autograph, asking you a quick question.

So, you're helping people. And that must be a good feeling. A lot of people think, well, how do I feel satisfied? One of the things I think is universal is there's nothing better than helping somebody. And one of the things you can do when you have a family on a regular basis, you're training, you're solving problems, bring them to practice, get them to a better school, going doing your best to make an effort to be a good parent.

And that leads me to what would be an absence in my life without a family. It would just be, it would almost be like not having an appendage. And now I also see in America more and more people having less kids or no kids, deciding not to get married or decide to be childless. And I respect everybody who makes that decision, that's fine. But do you think it points to a bigger story in the world today, in this country today?

Well, one of the Points that I've put forward that has become rather markedly popular is the notion that. The meaning that sustains you in times of trouble will be found as a consequence of adopting responsibility. See, and this is another thing conservatives haven't been very good at. communicating to young people because conservatives tend to be Somewhat finger-wagging in their morality. You should do this.

And you know, fair enough, there are things you should do. But there's a better story there, and the story is the one that you started to outline, which is.

Well, if you look at what you have at hand when times get rough, let's say, which they certainly will, you'll find that most of the genuine self-esteem that you feel and the cessation of anxiety and the pursuit of happiness is a consequence of bearing responsibility. You bear responsibility for yourself over the long run, for your wife or your husband over the long run, for your family, for your community, and that's a reciprocal interaction, so you'll get paid back. By the people you're helping for doing that, but it also is an intrinsic thing. You don't do it for any reason to do it. No, no, you do it because everything works if you do that.

So, the other thing, see, we thought for a long time, and this is actually could be laid at the feet of psychologists to some degree, that your happiness or even your mental stability is somehow an internal thing. It's psychological. But that's not exactly right. Your mental health and your happiness, so your freedom from anxiety and your happiness, is dependent on the harmony that you establish within the systems that you're embedded.

So you can't be sane and happy without a long-term partner. And the data on that is quite clear because married people are a lot happier than unmarried people. You can't be sane and together within a couple without having a family. It might be your parents and your siblings, but it should also be children because you have to knit that together. And then your family can't function without a functioning neighborhood and then a community and then a state.

And the sanity is the harmony between all those levels. It's not something you carry around inside you. And it's partly. Key to sanity being embedded at all those levels because none of us are capable in and of ourselves of regulating ourselves. Like when you and I are even talking right now, the communication regulates, we regulate each other with the communication, right?

You're saying things, I'm saying things, we're trying to keep it interesting, we're trying to move forward, you know, in a production. We're both stimulated and intrigued. Exactly. Well, right, right.

So we have a container, which is the goal, and then there's interest being manifested. And if we do that right, we pull everyone in.

Well, that's a good situation, right? And then your emotions are well regulated when all of that is happening. That's key to that is responsibility. You know, we talked on the Fox and Friends episode about the fact that young men are turning more towards conservatism. And I really believe, and I've watched this a lot, that that's because they're starting to understand more explicitly the utility of adopting a heavy load of responsibility.

Now, I mentioned that, you know, I think the girls will go along with that in a few years. And I was thinking that through the other night. Boys go out with younger girls. There's a dichotomy between the political position of boys and girls that are the same age, but Girls the same age as high school boys aren't their peers. The boys are with younger girls.

The younger girls will change in that more conservative direction if the boys change first. That's what will happen. Real quick on education, you talked about accommodations.

So, someone has ADD, they're told, dyslexia, other things. In the public school now, there's a lot of accommodations. I'm going to give you more time for your test or things to that nature. I have trouble tracking across the line. You think accommodations, in many cases, don't show progress, can be limiting.

Why? Well The problem with the accommodation hypothesis is something like: the advantage is, well, You want to do what you can to help people who might have obstacles that could be overcome to learn. That's not unreasonable. But the problem with the accommodation hypothesis is.

Well What happens when you have an actual problem to solve? You're not going to be accommodated. You're not going to be accommodated in a workforce that requires genuine competition. Because if you're accommodated in a workforce that requires genuine competition, you're just going to be taken out. There's no time for that.

You might say, well, there should always be time. It's like, well, not if there are important things at stake.

Well, it's, there's going to be. That's foolish, right? Because when you're making important decisions, you're always balancing one catastrophe against another. You don't have the option that everything's going to turn out. And so the problem with accommodation: well, first of all, it's going to be gamed and it's being gamed like mad.

And second, it gives the person who's being accommodated to the wrong picture of the world to which they're going to adapt. Think about this with parenthood: how should you treat your kids?

Well, as a mother and father, you should be a proxy for the world. Maybe a slightly more merciful proxy. But basically, the message you send your kids about their behavior is the same message that the world is going to send them. It should be. Because otherwise, you're not preparing them for the world.

You know, so maybe your kid's annoying as hell to you and your wife, and you don't do anything about it because you think, well, we're all mercy. It's like, that's just fine until your kid has to make a friend or, you know, deal with an adult that's not you, in which case they're going to get slaughtered. There's nothing merciful about that. And if you accommodate people beyond what the environment itself would allow, you misinform them about the... The world they're going to inhabit.

And plus, it can be gamed, and it's being gamed constantly. Yeah, and lastly, I just noticed too: as much as you know the crowds that you draw, you told me you're going over to the Middle East where you have this huge foundation. It's unbelievable what you've done. I always find, too, when you talk about yourself and your relationships. You sound like you have the same issues that everybody has.

Of course. But I think people, that also helps tell the Jordan Peterson story. I'm trying hard to be successful relaying what I learned, but I'm still dealing with the same stuff.

Well, it's important for people to know that people who are successful, let's say, aren't. The people who are fortunate enough to have no problems. No one is in the category of fortunate enough to have no problems. People like that don't exist. Everybody deals with aging and death and severe illness.

And I know people. You've dealt with that and your wife at the same time. Yes, yes, and my daughter too, all of us at the same time. And you know, it's the case for everyone.

Now, you meet people now and then, and I met lots of people like this in my clinical practice who have so many things going wrong at the same time that it's just an unutterable catastrophe. But the fact that there are people like that, and there are people who are clearly Clearly, experiencing higher levels of misfortune, say, than the norm, doesn't mean that the successful people are the ones who have no problems. That's just the successful people are the people who keep on going. And they're fortunate enough to be able to do that often, to keep on going regardless of what's being thrown at them. And that's in the nature of success, right?

Don't take for granted one day that it's going to continue if you put your hand, take your foot off the gas. Yeah, that as well. Online school, you and your daughter working together. What should we know and how do we get it?

Well, we've got about thirty courses. Recorded so far in a studio in Miami. They look very good, they're very professionally produced. We are trying to find the best lectures in the world.

So, if you think you're a good lecturer and you want to participate, give that some thought. That's Peterson Academy. We hope we'll be ready to roll in November. We want to make sure that we have the best lectures that we can possibly provide on the most germane topics, and then we're going to ally that with a very stringent testing and accrediting system so that if you are a graduate of this particular institution, the people who hire you will know that you. Learned what you were Aiming at learning and that you did the proper work.

And that's extraordinarily important because employers need to know that. Absolutely. Dr. Jordan Peterson, I know you had a few hurdles to clear to get here. I really appreciate your time.

I know our audience does. Best success comes in your direction. And well, if you want to go see you in person, just go to JordanBPeterson.com. There's some tickets on sale for a show I'm going to do in London. I started this alliance.

I'm participating in this Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, which we're trying to produce a worldview that isn't for the future, that isn't predicated on fear and compulsion. And so there are tickets on sale for London now at the O2 for the public part of that. Wow, you don't do things small. Dr. Peterson, thanks so much.

Hey, you've been to see you, sir. Thanks for the invitation. I'll tell you, it's always interesting talking to Jordan Peterson. That is why so many people identify with him. Every minute, every word, you're learning something.

But he doesn't do it in a lecture. He does it in a way in which he told. Totally draws you in. It's just a real gift he has. Up next, Yuri Levine, founder of Ways and author of Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution, a handbook for entrepreneurs.

You're gonna love this. It's fascinating. You're listening to Brian Kill Me Cho, special edition, don't go anywhere. All right, Yuri Levine is the co-founder of Waze. You're probably using it right now if you're in your car, the world's largest driving traffic and navigation app.

In 2007, he put it out there, and he's the author of a brand new book, Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution. He's the ultimate entrepreneur. Steve Ozniak says that, one of the most successful people in our country. Yuri, great to meet you in person. Thank you.

So smart of you to see the title on your shirt there. First off, Waze 2007. This is the anniversary of Google buying Waze, isn't it? Exactly. So, first off, where did you get this idea for using satellite technology, not only for GPS, but make it even better?

So, for a second, I would say, you know, I hate traffic, right? And in many cases, when you face a problem, that is going to be the beginning of trying to address that. But it was only in 2006 that I realized that what I really need is someone to be ahead of me on the road. And tell me what's going on. And it was only in 2007 when I met the other two co-founders of Waze, Amir and Ehud, and we decided that this is what we're going to build.

How did you do it?

So the magic of Waze is that Waze crowdsource everything, not just traffic information and speed traps, which are really, really important, but the map data itself.

So when you drive someplace, then we know that there is a road there, right? If there is an intersection that no one is making a left turn, then we can figure out that no left turn is allowed, right? If there is a road that there are 100 people going into one direction and no one else driving the other direction, that will be one-way street, right? But you don't need somebody to hit it in. It's picking up most of it automatically.

The part that you cannot do automatically, like street names and house numbers and points of interest, the community of the drivers actually provided that information through map editing tools that we have built for them.

Software. Exactly. Okay.

So you start putting this together, but how is that different from, let's say, Maps on Google?

So back then, maps on Google was just display, right, or search. You cannot do textbooks. Here's the road, make a right, make a left, okay. It doesn't say you'd make a right, make a left. It basically said this is the road, and then you need to figure out the directions yourself.

And we were pretty much. I mean, Google Maps, I'm sorry. Not just maps, okay. But but all the maps in but in that sense, right? Because Navigation was actually really expensive, and we were the first one to offer turn-by-turn navigation free.

And the focus of that was on the daily commuters, right? Which is very different than everyone else, right? Everyone else. And you know, if you would ask 100 people that are using Waze how often they use Waze, They will tell you every day, right? If you would ask 100 people that are using Google Maps or Here We Go or Apple Maps or whatever, how often they use that, they will tell you.

when I need it. True. And Waze is because even if I had to get there, I need to know where the traffic is. Exactly. So in fact, that's what I used last night.

If I I was one way I was going to go, I knew how to go there. I'd go and put it in ways. They had me going in you had me going in circles, a place I haven't been there, a very rural section of Long Island, Waze technology.

So you b you start this in two thousand, what year? 2007 we started the journey in Wii. Raised capital in 2008, and this is where we officially started the company. And we sold that to Google in June 2013, exactly 10 years ago. And did you have any hesitancy to sell this to a monster like a monster company like Google?

You know, Google is acquiring companies in order to keep them, not in order to destroy them, right?

So YouTube is an amazing example, right? And they wanted ways to. Do competition, right? You were competition to Google Maps. Yeah, yeah, before that, yes, but not exactly right.

So people would tell me, why don't They merge it, right? And I would say, wait a minute, they have different use cases. And the use case of Waze is that you use that every day, right? The use case of Google is different. And the result is that if you're gonna merge them, you might end up as creating a monster that no one likes to use.

Right, and they haven't. And they haven't. They haven't. They've kept it.

So, did you stay on for a while? I actually left the day after, so I can build more startups. Right. You know, my destiny is about value creation. And I will figure out multiple ways to create value.

And some of them is through building startups, and some of them is through doing presentations or teaching, or my book that is essentially going to help. professionals to become more successful.

So what did you learn along the way to make you going to have the best idea, but how you execute that idea is everything, how you get the word out.

So what makes you a g more than just an idea guy to a guy that executes and accomplishes?

So the understanding the journey of building a startup, building something from scratch is really complex. I can describe this journey in three different dimensions, right? The first one is that this is going to be Are roller coaster journeys with ups and downs and ups and downs.

Now, if you'll tell me that all the businesses in the world have ups and downs, I agree. But the frequency of those in building a startup is way higher. I think that I heard the best quote from Ben Horvitz. Ben Horvitz is one of the founders of Adris and Horvitz, a venture capital firm. And before that, he used to be a CEO of a startup, and he was asked whether or not he was sleeping well at night as a CEO of a startup.

And he said, oh, yeah, slept like a baby. I woke up every two hours and cried. That's really the reality. But it's also a journey of failures. And you know, we're trying to build something new that no one did before, and we think that we know exactly what we are doing, but the reality is that we don't.

So, we try, we try one thing and it doesn't work, we try another thing, we keep on trying different things until we find one thing that does work. It's exciting, though, too. People you want that excitement, it's almost exactly. And once you figure out that this is going to be a journey of failures, then there are two immediate conclusions. The first one.

is that if you're afraid to fail, in reality you already fail because you're not going to try. Albert Einstein used to say that if you haven't failed, that's because you haven't tried new things before. If you're going to try new things, you will fail. The other part is that you need to fail fast, because the faster that you fail, you actually still have plenty of time to make another attempt, to build another version, to take another approach. And the more attempt that you have, eventually you're going to increase the likelihood of making it.

How do you know An idea that's just not deserving of success when this product isn't unique enough, not good enough, the market's not ready for it, as opposed to, I will persevere until it's successful.

Sometimes, do you have a product or a technology that just isn't nearly as revolutionary or the market's not ready for it, and you have to know when to stop, know when to say when? Entrepreneurs don't know. They, you know, what makes them successful is eventually is the perseverance, is the never giving up attitude.

So an entrepreneur will never give up. Is there some time to give up? There is, but an entrepreneur in general wouldn't. For a second, I would say there are two reasons why you should. if the problem disappears.

Then you should give up. Gotcha. And if you have a team that is not right and you're unable to change that, Then you should quit. How do you identify how do you go about identifying an area in the market that needs something? For example, you knew that people want to beat traffic.

That's the goal of everybody since the invention of the car.

So you got that.

So how do you pick the place in society that needs help? And how do you decide what's going to fulfill that? I would say start with a problem. Think of a problem, a big problem, something that's worth solving, something that the world will become a better place if you solve that, and then ask yourself, so who has this problem?

Now if you happen to be the only person on the planet with this problem, You know what? Go to a shrink. Way cheaper and faster than building a startup. And if a lot of people actually have this problem, what you really want to do next is go and speak with those people and understand their perception of the problem. and only then go and build a solution.

If you follow this path and your solution works, It's guaranteed that you're creating value.

So so Wai Waze is a runaway success and Google proves that and today we you all use it. Can you give me other stuff, uh examples in your background that have worked out?

So um you know, and I actually have another major acquisition, which is uh move it, which is uh the ways for public transportation that was acquired uh um three years ago by Intel for a billion dollars. Which was it? What is it? Move It. Move It is the Ways for Public Transportation.

In answering the same question, how do I get from here to wherever I want to go right now, but using public transportation? I'm building 10 different startups. Many of them are actually trying to address a major problem. If they are going to be able to figure that out, they will be extremely successful. Problem is always the beginning because the simplest way to create value You solve a problem.

To solve a problem. Right. Um. How important is mentoring other people? Not looking at this competition, but help?

Do you mentor a lot of people in your life? You know, I do because. For a second, I would say I have two very strong personalities. One of them is an entrepreneur. That one everyone knows.

The other one is a teacher.

So I will feel equally rewarded when I guide someone to build stuff. where I build stuff myself. And so I guide and coach my CEOs. I wrote the book in order to fulfill my destiny as a teacher and share the know-how of building startups and building value. You're Levine here, co-founded Waze.

He's the world's largest driving traffic and navigation app, as everybody knows. And now he's got a brand new book out. It's a handbook for entrepreneurs. And the book is called Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution. Got it.

I remember they wrote a book, I think it was I forgot, it was about Israel called Innovation Nation and just about how they how there's so much movement in Israel to innovate and then be and bring these products around the world. How do you How do you fertilize that thought? And do you fear as though in America we're getting caught up in regulation and it's stifling innovation?

So I I think that in some places, yes, right, at the end of the day It's the key question: what is it that makes us move forward, right? Because fear. is slowing us down, right? and concerns are slowing us down. opportunity and enlightenment and is actually moving us forward, right?

And so if we follow the vision and we basically take the approach that, first of all, We're going to do stuff, and then we'll figure out exactly how do we deal with the rest. then we will actually embrace innovation. You see excuses in a lot of people's explanation, and you cut through it. Exactly. Look, fear of failure is stopping us from making decisions, right, from moving forward.

And in many cases, what happens is that you build a startup, you start with a A nothing-to-lose approach, right?

So, I'm going to try something, I have nothing, so everything that is going to end up is way better than nothing. And you figure out along the journey the product market fit and the business model and the growth and so forth. And then you become a corporate. And when you are a corporate, you actually have lot to lose and you stop innovate. Because you have that salary, you have that income, and you don't want to lose it.

For a second, I would say it's more from the ego management perspective, right? What do you mean by that?

So look the If you want to disrupt a market, you need to start with a statement that's saying whatever we are currently doing is wrong.

Now, if I'm alone in the room, I have hard time to tell myself that I'm wrong. Try to do that in a corporate way. Just imagine a VP in a management meeting is saying, you know what, everything that we are currently doing is wrong. And corporates don't like that, right? And so that part is of the ego, right?

The other part is that most of the entrepreneurs, they are troublemakers. They don't survive. in corporates. And so the corporates don't have the right DNA. Um because of a lot of fear of failures and because we don't have the right personnel to actually go and innovate internally.

And they need to figure out a different way to innovate. Understood.

When we come back, I want to, Yuri, can I talk to you about AI? Absolutely. And where do you stand? I know ChatByGBT and some of the limitations there. Yuri Levine's here, co-founder of Waze.

He's got a brand new book out, Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution, a handbook for entrepreneurs, among the people that says this is the Bible for entrepreneurs. Steve Bozniak, don't move. You listen to the Brian Kilmeat Show. Starting out 2024 on a good note, it's the best of the Brian Kilmeat Show. Welcome back, everybody.

Got a few more minutes with Yuri Levine, co-founder of Waze, the world's largest driving traffic and navigation app that I know you're using. You probably use it today. Even if you know how to get places, you need to know where the traffic is. I used it last night, obviously, sold to Google 10 years ago, but now he's got a book out to help you fall in love with the problem, not the solution, a handbook for entrepreneurs. Yuri, I got to ask you to talk about AI.

I've never seen so many smart people who are in on the inside of AI, concerned about the future of AI. Are you? Um actually not. I think that it definitely brings more opportunities than threats. And it's very possible that over the years we will need to figure out what is the right thing, what is the right use and what is the wrong use.

And probably eradication. People keep saying we don't have years. We have to set up the rules now. Do you think so? Actually, I don't think so.

I think that right now, and this is what actually is slowing down innovation as we discussed earlier. Right now, we don't need the breaks. We need to move forward to see what the value that is being created by AI in general, and specifically by the chat or the language generations capabilities.

So you point out to me that ChatGPT has been around for seven years, not seven minutes. It's seven years. Open AI. is seven years old company. And so far, what do you think of the impact it's had on society?

So, I think that we are still in an exploration phase, right? Because we haven't defined the use case that is significant for a lot of people. We find some use cases that are pretty significant for very few people. Those that are in the content space are using ChatGPT or other GPT engines in order to generate context and text. But the massive use case for consumers, we haven't seen yet.

And you pointed out to me that if you ask 100 people, do you have used it? I'm one of them. And I go, yeah. And you say, Are you still using it? Most people are saying no.

What does that tell you? What it tells me is that um we haven't figured out product market fit yet for consumers. But if you ask those that will tell you yes, w what is it that you're doing in your job? Do you use that on the personal life or on your business side? It's on the business side.

And it's helping to generate you know, you can generate emails, you can generate content, you can generate marketing, you can eventually generate if you train the system, then you can actually have customer support way better than before because no one is going to wait uh in line for that.

So people are worried about AI actually being more powerful than human beings. Never. imaginations because of creativity, because of our brain is so much more powerful than anyone else, than anything else. But if you commission this to outthink the to be smarter than human beings and to outsmart them or to adapt to the challenges of human beings, in theory, wouldn't that Trump them and decide: hey, you know what? I think I'll wipe out humanity.

It's standing in my way. You know, we have seen too much of Arnold Schwarzenegger in that movie.

So, you don't worry about it? I don't think so.

So, where do you think when the internet came aboard, people didn't see the negativity in it? And obviously, in social media, there's a huge downside. Do you have a worry with it? I know you're an optimistic by trade, but do you have a worry about it? Look, at the end of the day, if you think of many of the leapfrogs that have changed our behaviors, so internet is one of them, right?

And internet-enabled communication and internet-enabled flow of information, right? And so, this is definitely pretty significant. Obviously, when you enable stuff, there will be bad use cases as well, right? Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it.

And by the way, they are usually the most innovative, right?

So, you think of fraud and fraud is happening without AI, without the internet. And obviously, if you build the tools that is empowering them, that will empower them. And their rules to rein in fraud too, so we could use that. Fall in love with the problem, not the solution, the name of the book. Pick up the handbook for entrepreneurs.

Change your life today. Yuri, thank you. Thank you.

I appreciate it. Listen to the show ad-free on Fox News Podcast Plus, on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music with your Prime membership, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Mm.