Latest / The Elsa Kurt Show / A Memoir Of Law Media Politics And Fast Moving America with Cordell J. Overgaard

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A Memoir Of Law Media Politics And Fast Moving America with Cordell J. Overgaard · The Elsa Kurt Show

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: A conversation tells a story.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_02: And the best woman to begin with honesty, courage, and a little curiosity.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's what comes in.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: She's an author, an independent media personality.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: And this is where she brings real life to the table.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: Authors, thinkers, creators, leaders, everyday folks with extraordinary journals.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: Sit down, we dig in, talk about what matters, what's messy, what's beautiful, and what just might inspire you to look at the world a little differently.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: This is Elsa Kurt interviews, which fantastic.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone's welcome.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: What happens when one man lives through decades of change across law, media, politics, and technology, and actually stops to reflect on it?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: In this episode, Cordell J.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Overgaard joins the Elsa Kurt Show to share the insights behind his memoir, Watching Things Change, a candid look at how American systems evolved, where they fell short, and what the future may hold.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's part history, part warning, and entirely worth the listen.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_05: Well, hello, sir.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_05: Welcome to the show.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_05: It's so nice to meet you.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: Nice to meet you, too.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you so much for coming on.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_05: So I'm really excited because everything that you cover is in my world of things that I talk about and that I learn about.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_05: I I I'm so excited to talk about your memoir, Watching Things Change.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm a big fan of uh smart brevity.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_03: You know, the people who do who uh started Exos publications are you know, so many papers they they're too long.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_03: But uh I'm not too old.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and you know, in in this era, it's it's so smart of you because we are in the age of the short attention span, right?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_05: Where people just they can't focus for too long, right?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_05: Um tell me a little bit first.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_05: I I I would love to know what inspired you to write this.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it started out as a memoir for my grandchildren.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but as I was writing, I started to write about things that are going on in the country today.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um because I'm very concerned about things that are going on in the country today, such as the extent to which money has become such a big factor in elections.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_03: And this is mainly due to the result of a Supreme Court decision, Citizens United.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_03: And in my book, I talk about that decision, and I'm critical of the Supreme Court.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I think it's become highly politicized.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_05: You know, most of us are our average person really they don't have the time to look into these things.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_05: They're busy with their lives and they're just not paying attention.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_05: And these are things that affect all of us, you know, and and we're just so oblivious of it.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_05: So I love that you're you're touching on that.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_05: What do you hope readers will take away from your from your book?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: Well, first of all, I think they need to recognize that things are changing much more rapidly, more rapidly than ever before, and that you have to constantly be thinking about how it's going to affect you.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, as far as these things that I write about are my concerns in the country, I hope they share my concerns.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's not going to be easy to deal with these situations.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_03: And we'll talk about Citizens United later and how that's a difficult thing to overcome.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_05: Do you find that um uh the younger generation of today, and we're talking, you know, I'm talking like your twenties to thirties will say, do you feel that they're more or less engaged in what's happening in the world?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_03: You know, that's hard for me to answer because I don't have that much to do with young people like that.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um I hope they are.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_03: One of the things that we could talk about is the it the huge uh assortment of things people have to go to to, you know, uh emails and and also Gmail, not Gmail, but uh social media has become such a big thing.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_03: And and that's one of the things that we need to talk about is how people are getting their information.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_03: That's very important.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's it's gotten to be kind of the wild west out there, right?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_05: Everybody is an authority or an expert, and if everybody's an expert, nobody's an expert, right?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_03: Well, and also if the people that you're relying on for information have views that are not good and you don't recognize it, they're gonna taint your views too.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: So you have to be very careful about who you talk to or who you listen to.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you're so right.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_05: And you you see it's so widespread right now that you know anyone who sounds confident in what they're saying must be right, and people just run with it.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_05: It's uh it's such a different world than either one of us grew it up in.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you grew up in the Great Depression.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_05: How did those early experiences shape your worldview and your career choices?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_03: Well, first let me say that it made me more conservative financially and how I invested things, and it certainly shaped my career, and I'll tell you why.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_03: My father emigrated from Denmark.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think he went past high school in education.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_03: He came to the United States and and he painted, became a house painter just by himself, in uh painting on the inside of houses.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_03: My mother was Danish also, but she had been born in the United States and she had brothers, three brothers who were lawyers.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_03: And uh every now and then we'd have a family gathering and the discussion would come around where we talk about what's going on currently, and the three lawyers would say, Oh, this guy Franklin Roosevelt is such a terrible person.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_03: What he's doing in this country is just awful.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_03: And my father, of course, would say, No, Roosevelt is a good man, he's doing such great things, and and and you're wrong.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_03: Well, needless to say, neither side won the argument.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but on the way home in the car, my father would turn to my brother, who was four years older than me, and say, Mitch, you're gonna be a lawyer when you grow up.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: Well, he never said that to me, but I got the message and became a lawyer.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_05: That's wow.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_05: And uh you graduated from Harvard Law School, so no joke there.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_05: No, no slouch right there.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you practiced corporate law.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_05: What were the biggest first of all, hang on, let me pause right there and just and just uh give some proper credit here because you you have such a storied career um and it's just so impressive.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um let's let me just put it mildly.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_05: There in no way I would be getting into Harvard.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_05: So let's just let's just leave it.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, I can't wait to hear what you have to say.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_05: Um, what were the biggest changes you witnessed in the legal profession over your career?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: Well, when I started Brexit Law, it was a profession where providing great service for clients was the most important thing.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_03: But then money became more important.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and clients were billed uh based on two factors.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_03: One was the number amount of time that the lawyer had spent on the clients, on the clients matter.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: And number two, the billing rate for the lawyer.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you would multiply the billing rate by the number of hours and they would get you the fee.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_03: Well, unfortunately, some lawyers started padding the hours.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_03: So that would help them maybe get more money for themselves, but obviously also increase the fees to the lawyer.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_03: I mean to the client.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um now getting more to the current situation.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_03: Now you have very large law firms.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_03: Both the the local law firm, and but there's a difference.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_03: You have large law firms that have hundreds of lawyers, and and these large law firms, some of them have offices in not only in various parts of the United States, but overseas as well.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and what happened with the large law firms, there was a book written called American Lawyer, which talked about what different law firms were doing.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the things it talked about was how much the lawyers and the partners in some of these firms were making.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_03: Well, as you can imagine, there were some lawyers who looked and saw that and said, Oh my goodness, I I'm worth more than that.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_03: So there was kind of a battle there for a while where lawyers were looking and then switched to another firm.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and it it got to be it got to be pretty rough.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_03: So now you have uh you have these large firms, as I said, a lot of them with hundreds of lawyers.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_03: And some of the partners are making millions, millions of dollars a year.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_03: Now, AI is gonna change the legal profession somewhat, and we'll see how that goes, but it's not gonna change the partners that are making millions.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's gonna change, you know, change the guys who are doing the the research and so forth.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, AI obviously has crept into every aspect of almost, maybe not even almost, pretty much every uh field, every career, every business.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_05: And it reminds me of the the phrase that my husband said many years ago, and it's a very simple one.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_05: He said, you know, honey, people ruin everything.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_05: It's just, you know, it's just like the simple, and it it right, isn't it?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_05: It's just so true.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_05: Everything that is good or has the potential for good and is valuable, people come in and they just go and ruin it.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_05: And you you made me think of it with the you know, the the greed, the money aspect of the lawyers and the the original premise of their purpose and the design of what they are meant to do and you know, and how the money comes in and you know, again, so I guess in that case, money ruins everything, but it's the it's the love of money that does it, right?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_03: There you go.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_05: How how long uh were you a lawyer for?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_05: How long did you do that for?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_05: Did that sour you from from doing that work?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_03: I did not witness a lot of that stuff because uh my career ended before uh much much of those things happened.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_03: And I retired and I got more involved in uh uh business as a one kind or another.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: Unfortunately, it would have been nice if I would be there to be able to get the millions, but I was not.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, that's funny.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_05: Um now you made a pretty dramatic shift in my in my mind from from that to uh being involved in early FM radio and cable television.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_05: First of all, how did how did you even get into that?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_03: Well, when I was practicing law, I was asked to represent a man who was in Birchstown, Illinois.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_03: He was uh in the in the uh real estate business, but he had an AM radio station licensed to Birchdown.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_03: And he was smart, he went to the FCC and he kept getting a stronger signal, and he kept increasing the signal.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_03: And lo and behold, all of a sudden, this AM from Beardstown, Illinois was covering St.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_03: Louis, was doing well there.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_03: Well, he sold it and made a good bit of money.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_03: And at that time, AM was in its early stages.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, FM was in its early stages, and people who had FM stations didn't really realize what they had.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_03: And uh they weren't really making much money, if any, with their FM station.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_03: Well, this man, Woody Sudbury, went out and he bought six FM stations.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_03: And then he he worked with a man called Shoki, Jim Schocky, who had a beautiful music format uh for FM.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_03: These were all FM stations we're talking about.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: Shoki had this beautiful music format with match flow.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_03: There was one song with go for the music, no singing or anything like that.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_03: And the voices were low too.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_03: They now really would talk about the commercial, but not much else.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_03: At any event, uh they became very popular because they have stations with the beautiful music format.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and Sudbreak was able thereafter to sell his stations for a considerable amount of money, much more than he had paid for it.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_03: And Schulky was lucky enough to sell his format to Pax Broadcasting.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_03: And he got a good amount for that too.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_03: Well, their timing was perfect because thereafter you had more and more different types of broadcasting coming into the FM and AM forming, more different formats, one kind after another.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_03: And then you got to the point where the internet was bringing in stations too.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_03: Uh of course, as time went on, broadcasting AM and FM both became less popular.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but at the current time, I'm told or read that one company has 600 radio stations in the United States, which is unbelievable.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it is.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_05: It is.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_03: AM became more involved with like a lot of it was ethnic and religious and things such as that.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, AM is basically considered, like to this day, like it's mostly talk radio, right?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_05: Like it's usually that's the the format typically, and of course, FM is is mostly music, of course, but the DJs, I would imagine.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_05: So you've obviously seen that whole transition in real time, like you actually were a part of of that happening.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_05: Tell me a little bit about like each of these major significant changes.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_05: Did you view them at the time?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_05: Because we we tend to just naturally resist dramatic change.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_05: Did you view them even then?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_05: You know, the switch from the AM to FM uh in popularity, did you view that as a good thing, as a bad thing, indifferent?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_05: Like each one of these changes, really, I guess that would be my question.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: Well, as a listener, I I had joined and changed to FM.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_03: But as a as a as a business, small businessman, uh, we couldn't afford FM radio.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_03: But I got I joined with another man, and we had AM radio stations.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_03: Matter of fact, uh it got to the he died, and I sold my last AM radio station a year ago, and it's for you'll never guess the format.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_03: Hmong H M-O-N-G.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_03: The Hmongs worked the Hmongs worked with the U.S.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_03: in the Vietnam War.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of them came to the United States.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_03: But needless to say, that was a lot of it was Hmong, the language was Hmong.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_05: That's fascinating.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_05: Who would I yeah, I never would have been able to guess that, by the way.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_05: Um thank you for being kind and and not like making me put out a guess on that because I would have failed miserably.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_05: I would have froze.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_05: Um and again, now you have another.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, please do.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: Cable, I was involved with cable in its early stages too.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_03: And and in its early stages, cable was in small towns where people could not get TB signals.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_03: And so what happened is a company would come in and they put up a tower.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_03: And the tower would have a thing at the top which uh would pick up the signal from a big city nearby.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_03: And they would then amplify that signal and send it through cable into the area that they were serving.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_03: Umfortunately, they were able to run the cable on telephone calls.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_03: But then uh as time went up.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_03: So I got inv I got invested in c cable too.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_05: What decade was that?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_05: Do you happen to remember like time frame?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_03: I I really I would say it would have been in the uh sixties or something.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_03: I I met this man who was a broker for radio stations, and he talked me into investing in a cable company.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_03: Just a tiny little system in it in Illinois.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_03: And then he went and he got franchises in towns along the Illinois-Wisconsin border on the Illinois side.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and he formed a new company.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: I was able to get some of my clients to join me and invested in this new company.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and we got to the point where we had to decide what equipment we would use.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_03: He wanted to use uh equipment which was new.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_03: I said, This is great stuff, it'll really work better.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_03: I said, No.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_03: We're a build company.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_03: We should not be the first kid in the block with this company.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: So we split the company in two.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I rolled home that night to think, what did I get myself into?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_03: In any event, I then did some branching on the Wisconsin side and built a uh cable system and had these clients of mine investing with me.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_03: Subsequently, we sold it because it got to the point where cable was starting to have programming and selling the advertising, and we were too small to be able to do that.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: So we sold it.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_05: I'm so fascinated in trying to get in your mindset at those times of these changes.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_05: So what was it just I hate to use the word luck because I don't know if I really believe in luck, but um what sparked your interest in each of these different fields?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_05: Because what was it something that, you know, were you watching, I hate, you know, trends.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_05: Were you watching what was trending?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_05: Did you you feel like you had like that kind of innovator eye that you were seeing things that were about to become something?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_03: The lesson for people is you have to watch what's going on and take advantage of opportunities.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I never in a million years would have thought I was going to get involved in radio station ownership or cable television.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_03: But you just have to you have to get involved, you have to meet a lot of people and and see what the opportunities are.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_03: And they may be in areas you never would have conceived of or even thought about.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's that leap of faith in yourself too, that or in what you're interested in, because most people, a lot of a lot of people um will fear will hold them back, you know, uncertainty.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_05: And it's that's the difference right there, right?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_05: Like the decision makers, the quick decision makers.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_05: And now you went you made another shift or added.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_05: Actually, let me ask that.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_05: Were you just adding each of these things that you've done throughout your life?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_05: Were they added on or were they actual pivots and shifts?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_05: Or they just adding more?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_03: It was more adding more and in some things, take things taking some off, like law, you know, where it's not for actually law.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_05: And the next thing you added then was uh getting into politics and public service.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_05: You were politically active, and uh that includes working with the White House and staff ethics, um I'm sorry, ethics commissions.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_05: How did your legal background influence your political involvement?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know that it really did.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um when I was in law school, I really was not much of a uh thinking about politics, and even when I graduated.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_03: But what got me into it was that my wife and I moved to Evanston, Illinois, and a classmate of mine uh had a young Republican organization which was very active and had a lot of good people.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_03: So I and it was a way to meet people and get to know and so forth.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: So I I I and I at that time the Republican Party, believe it or not, was very good.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_03: In Illinois, particularly.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so I got involved with that.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_03: I even wrote a newspaper article criticizing the John Burke Society and things such as that.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_03: And then at uh one point our congressman nearby was Donald Rumsfeld.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_04: Oh wow, okay.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um he saw what I was doing and he talked to me and he recommended to the White House that I become a part-time advanced man.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: A president part-time presidential advanced man, and I was the president at the time.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it was part-time, so foolishly or not, I agreed to do it.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_03: And uh was cleared by the Secret Service.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_03: I only maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but I only did one advance for Nixon.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_03: That was he was doing a motorcade across the state of Ohio, and I was sent to Columbus.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_03: And what as was typical, you would get there seven days or so in advance, meet with the Secret Service, and you had two goals.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_03: Number one, safety to make sure that what where the president was, he would be safe.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_03: And number two, appearance.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_03: You wanted him to look good there.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_03: In this situation, I was able with a a young teacher to get three high school bands to come out.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_03: And they were playing uh music with the crowd was coming because it was and they were uh playing with their band.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the motorquay was overdue, and I was really worried about whether they would be there.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: So we started marching to bands on the street.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_03: Finally, the motorquake came and uh Nixon's limousine stopped just right next to where I was.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_03: The front of it opened up.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_03: Nixon stood up with a microphone and gave a speech.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_05: It wasn't so that I understand.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_05: So you your task was uh basically prepping all of the things that are supposed to happen before his arrival, so that everything that happens when he gets there is on schedule, everyone's where they're supposed to be and doing what they're supposed to.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_05: Gee, no pressure, right?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_05: No pressure at all.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_03: Well, another example, I did one advance for Ford, you know, who succeeded Dixon, and that was in an auditorium where he was going to speak.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and in that situation, what you did was you would open up various parts of the auditorium depending on the crowd.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_03: Because the last thing you wanted was to have bacabras looking at us empty seats in the auditorium.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_05: How did you even how did you know what you were doing?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_05: Like how did you I mean that's confidence to walk in there and go, yeah, I've never done this job before, but I got it.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I did have to, I did spend some time, not a lot, at the White House.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_03: Right, okay.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_03: I was in the White House shortly after Watergate.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I was with these group of people in at a table, and there was this one one guy who I knew, but who pretended he didn't know me.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_03: And he said, Well, we would never do anything like that.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it turns out they did.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_05: I just I can't even imagine those experiences.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_05: I can't imagine it from the perspective of just jumping in the way that you did is so impressive.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_05: Again, not that you were jumping in blind and you didn't know what you were doing, but to be able to figure out and navigate uh all of that, uh, all those new experiences in high pressure scenarios is just uh is that in itself is just so impressive.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_05: In your book, you talk about uh surviving and an adapt and adapting in a rapidly changing world.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_05: Can you elaborate on the Charlie Davis rule that you mentioned in the book?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_03: Charlie Davis rule.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Was a tax lawyer in the firm I was with.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_03: He was an unusual person.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_03: And he would he was very polite.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_03: He would open the door for you and he was constantly thanking people.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: He would thank everybody and thank you, thank you, thank you.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I looked and I saw people like to be thanked.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I started doing it myself.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_03: They would be thanked.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_03: And it helped.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_03: He was good for one other thing.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_03: There would be meetings where people would be discussing things and he would be quiet.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_03: And then when it was over, people would turn to him and he would have the answer because he he was listening to what everybody said.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_03: He was quite a guy.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's a skill in itself.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_05: And I agree with you so much.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_05: The thank you rule is is people really do underestimate how valuable a thank you is.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_05: It changes, it changes a tone almost instantly.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_05: It's amazing.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I love that.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_05: I love that.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_05: I I like to do that as well.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_05: I think I think it's just simply, you know, good manners and courtesy and kindness.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_05: And right, that's it right there.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_05: When somebody says thank you, it makes you want to do things for them.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_05: So I hope everybody takes that valuable advice and runs with it.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_05: There'll be a lot of thank yous going around, hopefully, today and tomorrow.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_05: You talk about also in your book, you talk about personal challenges, uh, like dealing with the Steve Small kidnapping case.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_05: Um, tell us a little bit about that and how that out shaped your outlook on life.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it was a dramatic incident.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_03: My wife and I were in bed at 11:30 at night, the phone rang.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I picked it up, and this man said that he was Steve Small's son-in-law, and that Steve Small had called him and told him he'd been kidnapped.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_03: And the kidnappers wanted a million-dollar ransom.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_03: And Steve said to the man, call courting.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: Don't call the police.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_03: And he had him call me because he thought I could raise the money and so on and so forth.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I put the phone down and right away I called the FBI and told them about it.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_03: And they were fantastic.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_03: They were able quite soon to identify who the kidnapper was.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_03: And I think the main way they were able to do that is the kidnapper went to pay phones at gas stations and so forth.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_03: And in some way or other they were able to track that.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_03: At one time, I think they had a plane that was even flying over.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_03: This was in Kankakee, Illinois.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_03: So at one point they were questioning him and he said, We better hurry.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_03: And he took him to this wooded area uh outside Kankakee where he had buried he put Steve in a box and buried the box.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_03: He had a tube running out of the box to the surface so he could breathe.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: But it wasn't big enough in Steve.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_03: He he just died.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_03: This man was he was obviously convicted and he was sentenced to death.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_03: Well, there's another part to it.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_03: One of their neighbors was a man who was then lieutenant governor of the state of Illinois.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_03: And uh he went on to become governor.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_03: And when he became governor, he ended the death sentence for people in Illinois.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_03: And so the kidnapper did he he didn't get the death penalty.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_03: But the but the governor went on to do some stuff and he got convicted of something and went to jail.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_05: Oh boy.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_05: Oh what a harrowing experience.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_05: Um I I can't even imagine getting a phone call like that.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, and I would imagine I I think about how I would feel that personal responsibility, and then of course that investment in in all of it and you know, tragic outcome.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_05: Um, how did it how did it affect your outlook on life that had to have a profound effect on you?
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_03: It had me be very careful and cautious about what I was doing and where I was and so forth.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, absolutely.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_03: It was just amazing.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_05: It's uh it's incredible the things that that change you and mark you and um just just that, just make you see things very, very differently.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, the the tragic, scary big things that happen in life, it's like those moments you you almost wish you could go back to having that childlike innocence of just not knowing, you know.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_05: But unfortunately, we don't get that luxury.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_05: We uh we do have to know.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_05: And if we utilize it the right way, right, it it actually benefits our lives and and the people around us too.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_05: We I think we do become more protective, right?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_05: Of of every aspect of our life, of our of our own safety, um, emotionally and physical, and uh our loved ones as well, right?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_05: Um with the uh lifetime that you've lived and the experiences that you've had, both personally and career-wise, I would imagine that you are just a fountain of phenomenal advice.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_05: So I have to ask you, what advice would you give to young professionals uh navigating careers in law, politics, um, television, radio, any of those things that that you have this tremendous wealth of knowledge in?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: Well, these are more difficult times than we've had before because of the way things are changing.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_03: And my advice is you know, there's no easy answer, but my advice is you have to be informed.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_03: You have to see what's going on and and and and what the opportunities are, and constantly be seeing, well, now what can I do or should I do, if anything, differently?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_03: And maybe you should leave the job you have and and uh start your own business, whatever it is.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_03: You have to be constantly thinking about it and getting and getting to know other people, get involved.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_03: That's so important, but it's not easy.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, you're so right though.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_05: Like you have to, you have to just, I hate to use the phrase, you have to just do it.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_05: Like stop thinking about it, stop wondering about it, stop questioning it, just do the things.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_05: Don't worry about falling or failing, just do the things.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_05: And now, you know, like you said, things are so different, um, you know, in good ways and bad ways, but in the good way, that there's so many more resources out there.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_05: There's so like anything you want to learn about is literally at your fingertips.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_05: So the the opportunities are are out there right now.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I love that your book touches on so many different aspects that that people are dealing with right now.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_05: You touch on AI, uh, income inequality, and of course the broken US political system.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I have to ask you, how do you think that society should even respond to these challenges?
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_05: And I know you partially answered it there, um, that just getting involved, I that's probably I probably just stole your answer from you.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_03: And I apologize if I did, but well, you have to first start out by getting your information from a good source because there are a lot of social media sites that don't give you good information.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: So you need to get good information and you need to evaluate candidates, and one of the most important things is find out where they're getting their contributions.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_03: That's extremely important in this day and age.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um but it's hard.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_03: And and you need it, but you need to be involved.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_03: That doesn't necessarily mean that you become uh going door to door for a candidate or so forth, but you need to evaluate the candidates as best you can in this changing climate.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_05: Would you recommend people getting involved on the local level?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, because you have to start somewhere, right?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_05: Like that's where you begin, right?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_05: Tell me a little bit about um if you were to be looking back now, which accomplishments are you most proud of and why?
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: Well, forgive me for saying this, but um I'm most proud of the fact that I went from a situation where my parents couldn't afford to send me away to school.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: So I had to do it myself.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I volunteered for the draft, so I got the GI Bill.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I also was able to get a scholarship to the University of Illinois.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um I the first two years were at the Navy Tour in Chicago, so I could live at home.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_03: And then I got downstate um and graduated from the University of Illinois with honors and also passed a CPA exam.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um I was planning to go to law school at the University of Illinois, my brother said to me, Well, Corey, why don't you apply to Harvard?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I thought, you know, uh that's crazy that I'd never be able to get into Harvard Law School.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_03: But I applied and to my astonishment I was accepted.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um I got a scholarship.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_03: So I went to Harvard and uh was able to graduate with honors, uh Magnicum Lauding, and was on the law review.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so that's what I feel best about my accomplishments.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I listen, no apology needed for that.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_05: I think that's so well deserved.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_05: I think there's so much to be said for being self-made.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_05: And and, you know, we all know that there's people in your life that support you and applaud you and cheer you on and all of those things, but to pull yourself up from um, you know, against the odds is, I think is so impressive.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_05: And I think it makes you value everything that you have and that you accomplished so much more.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_05: This has been such an honor and a privilege to listen to you and and learn your story and and all of the things that you've done over the years is just amazing.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_05: Um, the the book sounds absolutely incredible.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_05: I feel like it's um, you know, I feel like it's it should be treated almost like a how-to guide because it's I'm not saying that it is, guys, but you know, it kind of sounds like you should be having that mindset when you read it.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_05: If you if you want to see and get kind of a firsthand account of what it looks like to um, you know, to create such a carve out such a uh unique and fascinating life.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, this is the book that will will help you do it.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_05: Can you tell everyone where to find the book?
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_05: And uh, if you're doing, I'm sorry, I don't know if you're doing any in-person book signing events or anything like that.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_05: But if you are, please feel free to uh share, share where they are and website, all that good stuff.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the book is available at Amazon, it's also available in Barnes and Noble.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, maybe available elsewhere.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_03: And it it was featured at the uh book fair in London.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so it it should, I think it was a little backdoor back ordered on Amazon recently, but it should be available there.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_03: So nice.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_05: That is not a bad problem to have.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_05: That means they're buying it.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_05: That means they want it.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_03: But I really want people to get involved, and it's these times we're in a very concerned, I'm very worried about what you say.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_05: I agree.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_05: I agree.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_05: The more you get involved, the more you educate yourself and learn about what's happening in the world and in your own communities, um, the the better you'll be able to contribute something meaningful to the world, right?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, thank you.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, guys, everyone, I will be putting those links in the show notes for you so you'll be able to click right on it, go right to that Amazon site and uh check out the book and all that good stuff.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_05: Again, I thank you so much for coming on the show today, and it was a joy to talk to you.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_03: Well, thank you so much, Elsa.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_03: I very appreciate you hearing.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_05: All right, guys, take care.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_05: We'll see you in the next episode.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_05: Bye-bye.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: Bye-bye.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: You've got a story worth sharing.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's time to tell it well.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're an author, entrepreneur, influencer, or podcast guest, stepping in front of the camera or microphone can feel overwhelming.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: On the other side of the mic is your practical, encouraging guide to becoming a confident, authentic, and engaging interviewee.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Written by media personality and best selling author Elsa Kurt.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: This book blends real world wisdom from hundreds of interviews with a touch of humor, grace, and heart.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's more than a how to.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's a roadmap to presence, professionalism, and peace in every conversation.