Latest / Aired Out / ** WARNING ** Powerful conversation that will stop you in your tracks and think

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** WARNING ** Powerful conversation that will stop you in your tracks and think · Aired Out

• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Big shout-out this morning to FGB Theaters here on the
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Aired Out podcast. And I know that some of you
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: are like, well, the colder weather's coming, we're going to
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: be indoors more, and worried about people getting sick, not
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: sure if we want to go out in public, you know,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: all that stuff. I know that there's some of you
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: that are like that. They've got UVC air disinfection UV
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: lamps at FGB Theaters. We're talking about both the Capitol
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Theater and... The Paramount right here in Barry's. So, yeah.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Which destroy airborne bacteria and viruses. So, yep, you're going
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: to be good to go when you head into the
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: movie theater. Don't worry about, you know, and I know
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: flu season is right in front of us and a
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: lot of you are concerned. But make this your week
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: to catch a movie at the Capitol and the Paramount
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Theaters in Montpelier. And by the way, get your tickets,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: get them online. It's really easy to do that in advance.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: You can skip the line, fgbtheaters.com. It is Wednesday. We're
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: looking at, well, they're saying partly cloudy. I'm going to
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: go with partly sunny, though. I think that's the better
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: way to put it. right into the 60s today. We're
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: already at 62 degrees. We'll make it maybe to 67 today.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Wednesday morning, happy hump day. Deb Phillips from The World,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: one of our presenting sponsors, is with us this morning. Deb,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: good morning.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Good morning, J.D.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: How are we doing over there at The World with
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Gary Haas and the rest of the team?
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Oh, very good. Papers are here. Everybody's getting out to school.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Send them out.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Awesome. What can we expect this time? I know you
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: guys had some real, real good details about the Tunbridge
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Fair in the last episode. What about today? What can
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: we look forward to?
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Well, with the weather getting cooler, it's really time for
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: fall home improvements. And we suggest people check out our
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: weekly service directory. They list many local professionals who are
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: here to help you with your fall projects. You'll also
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: find money-saving coupons on savings on oil filters, tire changeovers,
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Vermont inspections, and a whole lot more. And then we
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: also have your good health directory. Plus, we have on
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: the cover is the fourth annual Cabot Cheese and Culture
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Festival on Saturday, September 26th, which will be a whole
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: lot of fun.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: That's a big deal up there, man. just a ton
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: of people in cabot when that happens and just harry's
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: hardware store is just popping up there it's it's a
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: good good time yes and.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Uh so brag farm has their moms in so that's
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: a great place to visit to pick up some beautiful
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: moms that they have um and i keep trying to
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: think of anything other than that.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Well i mean of course you've always got the crossword
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: puzzles and um you know?
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Oh yes. Actually, they're the whole crossword puzzles right on
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: the back page. Can't miss it.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: And you know, here's the thing, Deb, I don't know
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: if maybe I'm getting older possibly, but I find myself
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: paying more attention to the obits, man. I'm like, you know,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: I'm sitting there sipping my coffee, but it's like, I gotta,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I gotta, I gotta see who we've lost in our community. And, uh, Honestly,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: without the world, there are some folks that I may
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: not have known about.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. A lot of people go right to
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: that section.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: You know, so, yeah.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: You guys are such.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: You know about your neighbors.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: You know, things like that.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Such a great community resource for all kinds of information. And,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: of course, everything that's going on in our community, too.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: There's so many happenings beyond Facebook, stuff that you're going
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: to find out about in the world. Deb, thank you
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: so much. VT-World.com for the digital version.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: All right. Thanks, J.D.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Deb. Absolute pleasure. Make sure you grab a copy
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: of The World today. Don't wait. It's going to be
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: hitting newsstands. Actually, it is right now. Ladies and gentlemen,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Josiah McKeon with me this morning. What's going on, brother?
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: How are you?
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: I'm amazing, JD. How are you doing?
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: I know you're amazing. Listen, I don't know when it
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: was the last time I had you on, but it
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: was a little while ago, and I always love having
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: you and your brother, and frankly, your dad had him
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: on one time, and he just freaking lit the airwaves
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  Speaker 1: on fire, dude.
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he'll do that.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: How is your dad?
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: You know, I think he's doing good. He really, he
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: is really taking to this work, and just loving it
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: and enjoying every second of it. I don't think, I
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: think he's, he's, uh, he's, um, becoming a little bit
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: on par with Tom with this is, this is what
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: he does all day, every day. I mean, if, if
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: he's not, um, with his, uh, step sons trying to
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: take care and help them out, then he's, he's working
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: on sweethearts and heroes work, which is pretty cool.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: It is pretty cool. Uh, you know, I, I've got, uh, in,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: in my notes here this morning, bullying versus sweethearts and heroes, uh, who's,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: who's winning.
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: You know, dude, that's a good, that's a really good question.
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: Bullying versus sweethearts and heroes.
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  Speaker 3: Um, I would say, uh, in the schools that, uh,
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: we're in, um, especially in a, in a consistent way. Um,
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: I think sweethearts and heroes is starting to rise above, um,
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: some of that, uh, specifically, um, even in the, in
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: the cap schools that I'm in, I'm in four right now. Um,
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: three of them are ones that I have not been
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  Speaker 3: in before. One of them I have been in before.
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  Speaker 3: And I'll tell you what, I do see a difference
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  Speaker 3: in the one that I've been in all of last
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: year as well. Um, in that exact realm of, of
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: sweethearts versus bullying, um, which is kind of pretty amazing
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: to me.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Explain to our listeners, give us a, who may be
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: new to what we do here on Wednesdays. We talk
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: about bullying, but we talk about a whole lot more
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  Speaker 1: than that, empowerment and empathy and hope and many, many
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  Speaker 1: other things. And we have been for a couple of
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: years now when we have Sweethearts and Heroes on the air,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: but just a brief snapshot of What Sweethearts and Heroes
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: is the role that you play? And then I want
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: to talk about these CAP schools and what that means
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: and all about that.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, man, you know, Sweethearts and Heroes is a student
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  Speaker 3: empowerment organization, but I would I would even argue, you know,
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  Speaker 3: a human empowerment organization.
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  Speaker 4: You know, we're reaching far more now than just into
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: into schools.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: We're reaching into the trades, and I know you've had
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: a number of people from the trade side come on
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: your show as well. But we really take a lot
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: of different things. One of our biggest things is these
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: talking circles, and that's kind of just what's been on
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: my mind recently because we've been doing a lot of
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: work with these circles that we do that we are
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: now labeling and calling smart circles. Um, and basically it's
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: taking the ancient talking circle, uh, bringing it to communities
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  Speaker 3: using science to upgrade it.
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  Speaker 4: Um, and then we're modeling it for, uh, each of
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  Speaker 4: the people that we.
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  Speaker 3: Go into, um, so that we can build trust and
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  Speaker 3: build community, um, within schools, within trades, within, um, the
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: Marine Corps.
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: Which Tom and Rick and Chad, I believe Chad just
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: went down there. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: To the, uh, base at Camp Lejeune, which is fantastic.
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  Speaker 3: In fact, we were actually, my wife and I were
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: down maybe 20 miles away from Camp Lejeune while they
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: were there.
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  Speaker 4: I tried to.
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  Speaker 3: Get together with them and have some dinner, but they
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: were so busy.
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  Speaker 1: Too busy for you, man?
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  Speaker 3: Well, you know, I talk to Tom so much that
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: we'll get some dinner up here sometime.
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 1: Incredible, man. And you bring this program into schools, and
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: as you said, you even bring it into the military.
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  Speaker 1: You bring it into IBEWs everywhere. You bring them into
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  Speaker 1: major corporations. Bullying is not just in schools. But that's
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  Speaker 1: just one of the layers of the onion, if you will,
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  Speaker 1: that you guys are starting to really chip away at
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  Speaker 1: and peel back. It's really profound what you've done. You
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: talk about the ancient practices of the circle, which is basically,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: in a nutshell, and you guys use that word so
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: freely that we have to remind people what we're talking about.
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  Speaker 1: We're talking about just people getting together, sitting in a circle,
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  Speaker 1: And one by one, going around the circle and either
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  Speaker 1: posing a question and folks answering it. But each person
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  Speaker 1: gets a turn to speak or not. There's no rules
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  Speaker 1: that you have to speak, but the one consistent rule
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  Speaker 1: is that you have to listen.
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: Okay. Right. Yeah.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: I mean that, that, yeah, that, you know, I think
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  Speaker 3: that would be, I don't know that I've ever gone,
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: gone into a circle and say, you've got to listen.
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  Speaker 3: But I think it is an unspoken rule though, when you,
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  Speaker 3: when you sit down and we give these, these guidelines
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  Speaker 3: to students, you know, to not talk without the talking piece,
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  Speaker 3: it's got to go in one direction. You can pass
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: if you want to. And then what's said in the
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: circle stays in the circle. But I think it is
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  Speaker 3: this unspoken thing that like, Hey you know, yeah, you
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  Speaker 3: should be listening. Um, and I'll say that sometimes in,
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: in the, in the format of, you know, circles about
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  Speaker 3: one thing and one thing.
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  Speaker 4: Only, and that's listening.
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  Speaker 3: And honestly, man, um, that's, that single thing has changed my, um,
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  Speaker 3: my life and, um, my perspective forever is just listening
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  Speaker 3: to other people.
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  Speaker 4: Um, I'm a pretty good talker.
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  Speaker 3: So, uh, working on, um, Just kind of shutting up
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  Speaker 3: and listening to other people has really just shaped my
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  Speaker 3: world in an unbelievable way.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Let's talk more about that on a personal level. I mean,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: we know that you do this for a living. You're
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: a huge, huge team member. But you have taken a
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: lot of what you've learned, what you've practiced with Sweethearts
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: and Heroes into practice. your private life, your personal life.
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, man.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: And I would say that's the, one of the toughest
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: parts of working with sweethearts and heroes is when you're
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: consistently working with this material, when you're working with the
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: phenomenal team that we have and all of the many
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: people that this work has touched, when you're working with
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: them consistently, it is, at least for me, almost impossible
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: to go throughout my everyday life and, um, not.
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: Change, man.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: Um, and you know, I was just talking about this
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: with a, with a principal, one of my schools, um,
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: the other day, uh, and you know, we got to
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: talking about some pretty crappy things that have happened in
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: her life and some pretty crappy things that have happened
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: in my life. And, um, some of these principles that,
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: and she's a huge proponent of sweethearts and heroes. She's
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: an elementary school principal. And we just got really talking
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: about what it means to kind of continue this when
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: nobody else is looking, or maybe it's just your family
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  Speaker 3: looking in your home. Cause it's really difficult for me
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  Speaker 3: personally to go into a school and talk about all
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: this stuff. And then to come home, you know, tell
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: kids to have empathy and tell kids to have patience.
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: Tell teachers to have patience.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: And, man, I'll do a great job at having patience
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: with seventh graders in a circle who are just going nuts.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: And teachers will come up to me and be like,
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: how do you have that much patience? I just don't understand.
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: Oh, I practice a lot.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: But then I come home and my kid, you know,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: does something and I flip out on him, you know.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: It becomes a pretty ugly feeling pretty quick. Because now
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: all of a sudden it's like, man, if anybody ever
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: caught wind of this, they just look at me like
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: any other person that's a hypocrite and say, wow, dude, yeah,
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: real nice treating your kid like that.
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: So it's constantly on my mind, man.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: It's funny that you say hypocrite because I was just
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: thinking of hypocrisy. I mean, listen, practicing what you preach
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: is– is not easy. It's not easy, especially in, in
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: real life. Like you say, when, when no one's looking, um,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: how we, how we respond to things or, or react
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: to things. Uh, we're all human beings and we, and frankly, um,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: I think we need to give ourselves a little bit
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: of a break at times, uh, sometimes be more accountable
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: to ourselves, uh, to others.
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: But, but more to ourselves and just to at some
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: point take a, a pause, go back and reflect and
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: at least recognize and acknowledge where you could have. And,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: and you could have done better. You should have done better.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: And it just be aware of it. If you're not
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: aware of it, you're not recognizing it. That's a whole
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: nother bag.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, man. And, and, um, you know, that self-awareness piece is,
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: is something that, um, You know, I grew up, and
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: before I started working with Sweethearts and Heroes, if you
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: had asked me, I would have said, yeah, you know,
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: I'm pretty self-aware.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: And then you start hanging out with somebody like Tom.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: Somebody like Rick.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: And you start to realize that, you know, maybe you're
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: not so self-aware.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: Because you do these things, and you start getting into circles,
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: and you do these things that everybody else does.
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Not a whole lot of other people recognize it, but.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: You start seeing it in other people.
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: And I think you have two choices.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: You can either say, wow, glad I'm not like that
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: or say, dang.
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: That's just what I'm like.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: Maybe try to fix that, you know, which is a
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: pretty important thing to me. It's really near and dear
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: to my heart.
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: You know, I've seen.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: A number of different people in my lives who have
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: preached one thing and done something different. And I think
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: it's one of my biggest goals in life. I'm not
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: going to be perfect. And I know I'm already not
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: because I mess up every day, but to be as
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: genuine as possible and to be Joe, wherever I'm at,
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: you know, whether I'm in a school, whether I'm at home,
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: whether I'm at a funeral, whatever it is to be Joe, Um,
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: you know, I think there's a little bit of cheesiness,
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: like be you, um, be who you are. But I
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: think that, um, you know, the more that you are
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: that way, the more self-awareness you can actually build because
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: now you can reflect on, on who you actually are
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: and you're going to see some ugly parts. Yeah.
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: Um, and, uh, you just got to confront those.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: You've heard of the term empath before. Um, What's your
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: definition of that stamp?
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: An empath.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: What's your definition of that stamp? Somebody who just embodies
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: empathy to a point that is unhealthy for them? their
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: own mental state where they're thinking about caring about too
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: much in other directions other than themselves. They're putting themselves
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: in other people's shoes maybe too much. Is that your
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: kind of definition of what an empath is?
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: You know, man, um, yeah, I think, I think it
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: would be, and you know what, it's, it's funny as
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: you were talking and I don't know that I've ever
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: contemplated this before, but as you were talking, you know, uh,
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: my mother came into mind. Um, you know, uh, I
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: grew up with my mother, uh, putting everybody, um, before herself, uh,
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: and in so many different ways, including me and my brothers, uh, And,
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: you know, I think it wasn't until, you know, my dad,
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: you know, left that she started to realize that she
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: had some some personal work that she needed to do
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: and she needed to start putting herself, you know, in
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: front of others in some ways, you know. So when
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: you say empath and I start thinking about that, I think,
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: you know, that was that was kind of my mom
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: growing up, you know. you know, she, she, uh, just
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: to the detriment of herself, putting everybody before herself. And, um,
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: you know, the divorce really, uh, really shook her and, uh,
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: you know, 10 years ago. And now today, um, I have,
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: I don't know that I've seen it's, it's becoming a
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: little bit of a battle now between my mom and dad,
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: not between them personally, but in my own mind, um,
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: you know, because my mom has made so much, um,
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: so much progress in the last 10 years as a
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: human being and, and working hard against that, um, really
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: self-degradation that she, you know, struggled with. And that has
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: impacted my life in, in just a huge way because, um,
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: It becomes easy, I think, when you're in this world of.
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: Empathy to toe that line sometimes.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: And you want to do the best for everybody. But
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: it's kind of a sick little lie.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: You know, because if you don't do the best for yourself,
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: and again, this sounds, this is hard for me to accept.
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: Because I grew up with a, with a mother like that.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: But if you don't accept that you, um, I learned
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: this in EMT school when I got, when I got
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: certified to become an EMT down in North Carolina, you know, um, they,
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: they would always tell you don't rush into the scene
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: because now you're a part of the problem. You got
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: to make sure the scene is safe and you got
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: to make sure you are safe before you go and
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: rush in because now all of a sudden you're a
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: part of the problem. And if you can't work on
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: yourself and do things for yourself that are going to
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: improve you as a human being, you're going to become
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: a part of the problem, man. And I've seen that
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: in my own life. I've become a part of the
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: problem too many times. And I've seen my mom do it.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: I've seen my dad do it. I've seen all my
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: brothers do it. I've seen most everybody that I meet
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: do it.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: But it's this....
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: Switch when you realize that taking care of yourself is
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: really about making sure you're not becoming a part of
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: the problem. Yeah.
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: You're going to help solve the problem.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: And I think, uh, fair to say that many of us, uh,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: might kind of think that, well, if, if we're taking
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: care of ourselves, uh, too often or too much, or,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: that even thinking that there's, there can be an element of,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: of guilt. Oh, now I'm being selfish for lack of
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: a better term.
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And I think you can be, I think you can.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: Be, but you know, I'm a, I'm a, if, if
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: I read, you know, Tom tries to get me to
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: read a lot of different articles and things like that.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: And I, I do try because it's a part of
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: my job, but I'm not a big reader. Sometimes I'll
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: listen to them, but there's one thing I read is,
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: is it's my Bible and there, there's something always sticks
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: out to me.
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: Love your neighbor as yourself. How are you supposed to
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: love your neighbor?
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: If you can't love yourself, you know, how are you
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: supposed to show that kindness and empathy? If you can't
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: have it with yourself, how are you supposed to have
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: grace with people? If you can't have grace with yourself.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: And so, I think, you know, and even if you
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: look at the core competencies, you know, the social emotional
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: learning core competencies by James Comer, you know, self-awareness is.
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: The first one.
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: Why is self-awareness the first one? Well, because we've got
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: to be aware of ourselves and aware of what we need.
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: And then self-management is the next one. And how to
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: manage that. Because otherwise, we're not.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: Going to make responsible decisions, which is the third one.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: And we're not going to become socially aware.
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: And we're not going to be able to build relationships,
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: which is the last one.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: But we have to become self-aware so that we can
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: manage ourselves. But that includes taking care of ourselves. And
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: I'm a firm believer that we've been given this life.
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: And if we.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: Cannot learn how to steward our own lives. We will
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: not be able to learn how to help shepherd and
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: steward other people's lives. You know, there's another great adage.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: Look at the log in your own eye before you
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: take the little speck out of your brother's eye.
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: Like, how do you expect to help.
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: People if you can't help yourself? And I think that
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: that's where, you know, I look at somebody like Tom.
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: And, you know, he's my uncle. I grew up knowing him.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: And he's a different guy than when I was a kid.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: And it's because of this work, man. It's because of
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: sitting in thousands and thousands of circles and listening to
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: other people's perspectives. that have shaped him. And now, you know,
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: for example, man, I'm sitting in a circle with him
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: the other day, which it's kind.
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: Of rare nowadays that I get to sit in a
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: circle with Tom.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: And it's even more rare to sit in a circle
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: with Tom and my dad.
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: And my dad was the one leading it.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: It was pretty crazy to me to think about. But,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: you know, I had some ugliness going on in my
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: heart that I didn't even realize at the time. You know,
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: and I made a comment in the circle, and I
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: know what's said in circle stays in circle, but this
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: was my comment, so I have the.
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: Autonomy to say that. And, you know, I said, you know,
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: made a joke.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: We were talking about butterflies in our stomachs and nervousness
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: and anxiousness and whatnot. And, you know, I made a joke,
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: thinking it was a joke, you know, about Tom. Tom
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: spends his life on this work. And I kind of
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: took it and made a little fun of it. Um,
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: because you know, well, he's always thinking about it, which means,
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: you know, as an employee, well, okay. He's always calling
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: me up and making me think about it, which is
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: not the case, but I was joking around thinking I
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: was joking around.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: Well, Tom and I ended up having a conversation. He
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: didn't say much. Um, after then he was sitting right
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: next to me, man.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: And we ended up having a conversation, um, Afterwards, where,
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: you know, we may have butted heads a little bit
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: for sure. But, you know, he brought that up and
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: how that kind of really hurt his feelings. And and
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: we started talking about it and he brought up what
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: was really going on in my heart. And he could
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: see it, man, because he spent time in circle hanging
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: out with people, tons of people talking with them.
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: And he's done the work on himself.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: And he just kind of brought it to light, man,
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: right over the phone as we're talking.
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: And I didn't even think about it. And then I
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: had to do a little reflection.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: And I realized that there was some real ugliness in
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: my heart, you know? And that type of stuff happens, though,
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: with Tom, because he's put the hard work in to
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: doing the work on himself. And when he looks at
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: another young man who is struggling with something that maybe
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: he's struggled with in the past, he can say, dude,
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: like that had some ugliness in it, man. And you've
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: got to work on that. And so I had to apologize.
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: And I had to work on it. And I'm still
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: working on it, you know.
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: There are just things that happen to me all the time.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: And it doesn't have to have Tom in the circle.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: It just has a kid in the circle that says
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: some profound self-awareness thing. And I go, Holy crap. I'm
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: acting the same way right now. I need to check myself.
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: Man.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: That's that's dude. You know, I, I said, I said yesterday,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: I'm like, Josiah is coming on. This is a, uh,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: this is going to be an episode coming up tomorrow
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: with that. I know it's going to stick to the
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: bones and you're here. You're man, dude. So true. And
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: you know, we, we need to be wired more like,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: like that way of thinking, even when we're not in
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: a circle, even when we're just talking to our kids,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: our wives, our partners, our coworkers, our, Try to keep
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: herself in check. Not easy to do. Especially these days, man.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, listen, we all go zero to 60 in
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: a half a second. That's crazy. We've got our blinders on.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: And we're so quick to get pissed, especially if you
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: throw some politics in the mix, especially right now. I mean,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: my God. It's like this whole community that we're in
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: right now, Nobody can have, at least not from what
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: I've seen, can have a constructive conversation about the school budget.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, everybody has worked up about it. You're either
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: for it or you're against it. And there is no
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: middle ground. And there's a lot of contentious language and
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: behavior that's It's just consumed social media. I mean, it's everywhere, dude.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: It's everywhere.
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, it's fascinating.
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: You say politics And I think there's definitely a huge
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: component of that But then you threw in the school
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: budget And, you.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Know Relationships are ending over this Really? Friendships It's crazy.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: But, dude, you know, that's I hate to come back.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: I don't hate to come back to it. But, you know,
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: the root of, you know, money is the root of
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: all evil.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: You know, it is ridiculous.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: And, you know, I've I've I've known that forever. But and,
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: you know, I'll be even I'll be even more real
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: with you. You know, one of the one of the
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: big ugliness in my heart with that whole situation was time.
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: Guess what? It was over.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: What?
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: Money, dude.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: That's a tough thing to say, you know, as a
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: Sweethearts and Heroes representative. And if Tom were here, and,
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: you know, hopefully I'm not speaking out of line, but
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: it was over money.
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: You know why?
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: Because I went and bought a house. And then all
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: of a sudden I got hit with some real life, man.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: Because I've been living with my grandparents over the last
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: three years, trying to take care of them. But you
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: know what they've done for me? They let me live
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: there for free, man. Did I do a bunch of
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: projects for them?
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: Sure. Did I help them out? Sure. But you know what?
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: They know how hard it is.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: Harder than I've ever known it. They came up to
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: New York from Philadelphia. They had like $ 300 in their
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: pocket after they bought their house with no jobs. And
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: I've been kind of living, which I think I would
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: look at any young person and say, if you get
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: the chance to stay at home, you should in today's economy.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: But when you finally go out yourself, it's tough.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: But money, man, will corrupt anybody.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Anyone. I know.
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: And that's a tough conversation to have because we need it.
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: You know, we need it to survive. And so we
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: have to make it. We have to work for it.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: I wish I didn't have.
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: To work for money.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: I wish I could work for Sweethearts and Heroes for
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: free and not worry about money.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: Because it corrupts, man.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Sure. Quick. Yeah.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: So school budgets, I mean, it hurts me to hear
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: that it's ending friendships and relationships. I don't know that
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: it surprises me, though, because I've seen that own kind
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: of ugliness within my own heart.
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: And I swore I'd never do that. Yeah.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm listening to you. I remember very well
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: 23 years ago when I bought my first home and
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: the excitement and everything and literally showing up with the
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: U-Haul and the key in my hand for the first time.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: without a real estate agent or anyone, and putting the
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: key in the door and walking into my first ever
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: home and turned the lights on and was so happy,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: so happy. And the stench of sewage, the whole septic
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: line had.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Blown, failed. And the whole basement was full of sewage.
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Um, so yeah, uh, needed, needed money. Didn't have it.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: And I needed it, uh, right now.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: Um, wow, dude, that's, that's crazy. Oh my goodness. I
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: can't imagine what, What you started thinking of then.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: You know, it's almost like there was somebody that was
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: just kind of standing there.
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Flying the old flag right in front of me. You know,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: big sucker punch. But, yeah, man, I know. I get it.
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: Dude, what did you learn from that, though?
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: I learned that I was blessed. with my mom and
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: dad who came through for me, not financially. Wow. Not financially.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: They came through for me emotionally and consult me and
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: was like, you'll get through this. You'll figure this out.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: But they were not writing checks. They were not throwing
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: cash at me. I was lucky for that, number one.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Number two, I was very blessed. I was very fortunate
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: to have a real estate agent who answered my phone
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: call on that Sunday night and jumped into the mix
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: and got involved immediately and and helped me out. So
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: what did I learn? I learned that sometimes you can
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: have people that have your back when you don't realize
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: it or don't expect it.
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: That's fantastic, man.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: Wow. Incredible.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: So I want to, I want to, I want to
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: ask you, This was a question I wanted to ask you.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: I was thinking this morning. What your definition of bullying is.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: You talk to young kids. You talk to teachers. You
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: talk to adults all the time. You have these cap schools,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: which I want you to talk about. But what is
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: bullying in your eyes? And I've had conversations with Tom
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: that it's unwelcomed physical or verbal behavior that is repeated,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: that it's a power imbalance. I've had all of these
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: words come into it. And Tom was like, hmm, interesting
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: that we're having this conversation for the last 30 minutes,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: but I'm curious why you're asking, J.D. And I said,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: because it seems like what I'm seeing on social media
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: is more and more people pinning the word bullying on
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: stuff that's maybe not bullying. I mean, if... we have
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: a disagreement and we bump into each other in the
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: grocery store and I tell you to pound sand and
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: you tell me to go fly a kite and whatever.
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, dude.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: That's not, that's not, that's not bullying.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And I would say my, my definition is, is
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: more narrow than most people's, Definition that I meet, especially
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: in schools today, you know, we have our four things
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: that make up bullying, you know, and you reference to
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: some of them.
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: It happens over and over again. It's mean or scary.
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: It makes the person feel smaller or weaker on the inside.
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: And it happens on purpose. And, you know, the conversation
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: changes a little bit. when you get into online bullying,
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: but for the purposes of physical face-to-face, you know, contact,
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: I run into a lot of cases where somebody says, well,
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: they were bullying me. Yeah. Well, first off, dude, if
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: you're saying it that way, you don't sound very scared
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: to me.
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: You sound pissed off. Mm.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: You don't sound scared to me. Um, I've met kids
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: that have gone through real bullying situations. I've met kids
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: that are going through real bullying situations and I've even
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: witnessed some of it. Um, but there is a lot
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: out there and you know, I did a little bit of, um,
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: I can't remember what project I was working on for
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: Sweethearts and Heroes.
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: But there's this idea of concept creep.
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: And you can have a horizontal concept creep and you
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: can have vertical concept creep. Horizontal concept creep generally is
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: a good thing. It means we need to broaden the
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: definition of a term or a word to include things
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: that are on the same level. So for instance, bullying,
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: cyberbullying is slightly different, but it is on the same
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: level as actual bullying. Bullying online is different So we
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: need to broaden.
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: We used to never have cyber bullying back in the day.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Now we do.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: So we need to broaden horizontally to include cyber bullying.
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: That's a pretty good concept creep.
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: Here's the issue when we start doing vertical concept creep,
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: where we start including things that are not at the
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: same level.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: Of the actual word.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: For instance, somebody's being annoying to you. That's bullying. Dude,
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: you've just, you've just lowered the standard.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: To an everyday human occurrence. Yep.
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: People annoy me all the time. My son annoys me.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: Is my son bullying me? No, he's not bullying me.
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: He's annoying me. Me and my friends get into a
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: big argument and fight and we're not friends anymore.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: That's not bullying.
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Right.
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: No, no, you, you suffered a very, a very hard thing.
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: I will give you that.
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: Losing a friend is terrible, especially in the middle school age,
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: which happens all the time. Sure.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: But, but, and here's another word that's been very vertically.
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: Moved. Trauma.
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: Well, losing my friend was traumatic. Hang on a second.
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: Hang on a second.
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: I've met some people who have had some real trauma
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: in their lives, beat by their fathers, left outside, you know,
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: not allowed to get back. All sorts of things, man.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: Stories that make my gut just wrench.
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: Man, that's trauma.
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: And I'm not saying that there aren't horizontally– creeping things
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: that we need to include into that definition. But there
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: are everyday occurrences that happen to all of us human
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: beings that we can't include into the term trauma. Likewise,
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: we can't include into the term bullying. So my definition
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: is sometimes a lot more narrow than And I really
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: do hold to, especially for face-to-face interactions, those four things
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: we talk about that they talk about in their presentation.
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: And when you look at each case that comes up
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: before you, it's like, I don't know, man, there's a
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: lot of stuff going on that is just not bullying.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: And I've said that to students before. I've said that
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: to teachers before. Like, dude, that's not bullying. Just pushing
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: a kid even one time. Maybe the kid was afraid.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: But dude, it only happened once. He starts doing that
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: every day over and over again. Now we got a
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: big issue. So, and Tom will say this, but there's
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: bullying behavior, right? But bullying behavior is, doesn't necessarily constitute bullying.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: You can do something one time and that might look
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: like bullying, but if it only happens one time, it's
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: not bullying. And, you know, you just, you have kids, especially,
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: and I was thinking a lot about this, man, because
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: I was homeschooled and I was thinking about, I was
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: thinking about the diversity that we have in our school
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: systems today, which is phenomenal. But we also have so
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: many kids coming from so many different backgrounds.
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: We're in one family.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: You don't just throw a punch at somebody because they.
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: Piss you off.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: But in another family, you do. That's diversity, but it
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: makes it difficult to deal with.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: Because we're not all on the same page. And I
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: don't know that, you know, we're supposed to get on
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: the same page with everything. But I think schools and
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: this work, This is where a lot of our work
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: ends up really becoming huge on the social emotional level.
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: Because we've got to.
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: Have some sort of standard for social emotional skills. We've
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: got standards for math. We've got standards for English. We've
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: got standards for social studies. And those are things we
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: need because we should be on the same page about
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: what happened in 1942.
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: I agree.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: But we should also be on the same page that
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: we don't swing at people when.
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: They call us a name. Yeah. because you got to
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: learn resilience.
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: And I'm not saying that person who called you a
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: name did something right. I would say objectively, they probably
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: did something wrong, maybe subjectively. But we got to have
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: some standards of how we act as human beings. And man,
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: if you look at the hunter-gatherer tribe's these happened naturally. Yeah.
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: Everybody's got autonomy.
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: Everybody needs to share like just things that happen naturally. And, and,
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: and we need those things if we're going to continue
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: to function as a society, because we'll crumble if we
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: don't have these human skills that we need. So, In
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: the terms of bullying, man, I try really hard to
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: watch out for vertical concept creep because there's a lot
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: of it.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: Man, what an answer. I mean, I'm over here taking notes.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: I said yesterday, I'm like, Josiah's coming on tomorrow. That
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: means I'm going to be going back and rewatching that.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: It's just amazing stuff, dude. It's fascinating. And here's Tom
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Murphy saying, we don't have a bullying problem. And I'm like,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: what freaking planet is this guy on saying that we
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: don't have a bullying problem? Basically, I think... you can
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: illustrate this better than I can, is that Tom and
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Sweethearts and Heroes, maybe as a whole, kind of would
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: suggest that the problem isn't the bullying. The problem is
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: how others, students, teachers, co-workers, whatever, society, is... reacting to it.
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: I would say that's a great way to put it, man.
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: And I would, I don't have enough.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: People standing up for themselves and standing up for others
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: and saying, look, we're just not going to tolerate this anymore.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: Even as a third grader, a fourth grader, We need
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: to work together and say, yo, collectively, we are all
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: saying stop.
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: We're not going to kick your ass at recess or
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: at the end of the school day, but we're all
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: going to stand up to you and say, We're going
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: to say stop. I mean, is this the stop, drop,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: and roll of bullying? What is that?
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: No, it is, man.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: And, dude, this– it just– it goes right back to
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: these hunter-gatherer tribes where, you know, they would– start to
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: ridicule and make fun of the person that didn't do
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: the socially accepted thing. They didn't share, oh, Jimmy, don't
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: ask for his beans because he don't like to share.
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: And they start joking around and making fun of the person.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: You know, a lot of times we're like, oh, you
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: can't make fun of somebody. Listen, if somebody's not doing
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: something socially acceptable.
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: They need to know.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: Like they need to know it's a disservice to that
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: person and society at large for them not to know
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: that what they're doing is not acceptable.
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: In our society.
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: And I think there is some difficult stuff when you
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: talk about diversity because we want diversity. But that's why
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: we can fall back on these human skills. It doesn't
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: matter on the culture throughout history. These hunter-gatherer tribes would
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: have these social societal norms that must be upheld because
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: if they're not, the society will fall apart.
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: And we really believe that the these human skills.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: And if we're not standing up and saying, bro, I
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: get that your life is difficult. We've got to work
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: with you, though, to have some social awareness and to
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: manage your own self. Because throwing a punch at a
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: kid because they called you a name or going up
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: to the kid that is weird and different. And I
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: don't mean weird in a negative term.
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: I'm a weird guy. So am I. I beat certain people.
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: But the different kid and bullying them over and over
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: and over again.
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: Because you've got stuff going on in your life and
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: that's how you make yourself feel better.
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: That's what you tell yourself. Dude, that's not acceptable.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: The power imbalance.
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: The power imbalance.
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: So we need people at large, the community at large
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: to stand up and be the heroes that they can be.
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: And man, if we were to just chuck out so
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: much of our are social norms that gather around being
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: popular and being, and being cool and being fitting in
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: to says, because here's the thing. Our society does not,
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: does not do this. They do not stand up. That's
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: why we have a problem. But it used to be
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: that all societies would stand up in that hunter-gatherer tribe.
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: Hey, and those that didn't fell apart.
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: Because we need to collectively come together and say, hey,
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: each individual needs to be working on themselves. This comes
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: right back to what we were talking about. Each individual
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: needs to be working on themselves and improving. And when
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: you see other people not doing that, and doing things
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: that are not socially acceptable, we need to bring them
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: back into the fold, man, and say, listen, you can't
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: do that.
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: And we're not going to stand for that.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: This is such a important conversation. It is all the time, especially,
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: you know, here we are in the middle of September,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: National Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month. Kids are back in school.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: Kids are learning, for lack of a better word, their place,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: their pecking order, if you will, within not only their
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: school or not only their class, but also their schools.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: This is when the rest of the year is kind
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: of unfolding. What will it be for us? Who am I?
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: Am I popular? Am I not popular? Am I stamped
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: as the geek, the loser? This is a really important
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: time to be having this conversation. I want to ask
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: you about Highland Central. I want to ask you, what
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: are CAP schools? I want to ask you about your
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: work with students and teachers and just give us a
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: snapshot of just the last week alone in the life
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: of Josiah McKeon. Yeah, man.
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, these CAP schools, this was a new initiative.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: What is that? What's that an acronym for?
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: Community Ambassador Programs.
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: And, you know, some of this came out of the
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: goodness of Tom Murphy's heart because, you know, he knows
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: that I've got two young kids, a third on the way,
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: a wife at home. And, you know, traveling around all
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: across New York and up to Vermont and down to
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: PA is difficult on the employees.
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: Of Sweethearts and Heroes.
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: And it was kind of born out of this idea that, hey, maybe,
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: We could find a couple of schools in your area, man,
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: where you can make some serious impact in with this work.
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: And then, you know, over the course of three to
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: five years, you'd leave them with the ability and the
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: culture to carry the work of Sweethearts and Heroes on.
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: And then you'd move to some other local schools and
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: do it in there. And that's kind of what it
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: was born out of. It was really born out of
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: some compassion on Tom's heart looking at, um, somebody like myself,
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: somebody like Pat fish, um, driving around somebody like himself.
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: I know, I know, I know wishes he could be
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: at home more, but the call of this.
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: Work is just too important.
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: So he does the hard work and the hard thing.
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: Same with Rick, same with anybody that's signed on with
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: sweet arts and heroes. So it was born out of that. And,
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: and really the last week, you know, um, I've gone
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: into the school that I was in last year and
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: then three other schools, one of which Pat was in
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: all of last year. And I have been making connections
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: with the principals, with the counselors, with the social workers,
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: with the teachers. And in order to start this year
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: off to where I am scaffolding this work that we
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: do to these teachers so that they can carry it on. Um,
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: and so I'm getting students excited about our work, but
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: I'm really looking at teachers and saying, Hey, let me
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: show you how to do our smart circle practice. Let
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: me show you how to do these bully drills. Cause
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: we've got the, we've got the two different sides, man,
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: the sweetheart side and is this smart circle practice, these
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: circles that we do to build 16th century bullies and community.
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: And then we've got the hero side. Stand up for
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: what's right. Jump into action.
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: Practice these bully drills over and over and over again
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: so that we as a collective know what to do
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: when we see these real human societal norms break down.
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: And so that's what I'm in schools this year to do, man.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: And if your kid is struggling, parents, wake up. Pay
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: more attention to your kids at the end of their
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: day or before they go to bed. What's on their mind?
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: What they're thinking that they may not always verbalize so freely.
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: Do some poking, some prodding. Pull it out of them.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: Talk with them and maybe even role play with them
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: how to have a conversation with the butthead that's sitting
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: behind you who may or may not be bullying you.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: But at least role play with your kids and teach
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: them how to interact the right way, which is not always...
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: Raising your voice or being a shit, but rather being
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: strong and what that looks like. And maybe it's saying
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: something that's not necessarily hurtful, but powerful and doesn't have
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: to be loud either. And then turning and walking away.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: Role play with your kids. Do the bullying drills at
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: home too. It doesn't have to be a huge level.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: It could be a small level. It doesn't even have
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: to be bullying. But just interact more with your kids, man.
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: Amen, dude.
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: Amen. Anxiety rates and suicide rates skyrocket. And this is
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: a tough conversation. But when school starts again, they plummet
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: in the summer. And they start to skyrocket again. School
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: is difficult. School's tough. Necessary, I agree. But take the
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: time to talk with your kids. Love your kids. And recognize, too, that, hey,
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: I'm a father, too. It's not an easy thing to do.
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: But they're some of the most important people, if not
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: the most important people in our lives. And let's make
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: them know that.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: Closing out this morning, brother, I want you to look
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: right into the camera and talk to the parent and
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: or the teacher or administrator at any school anywhere, especially
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: up here in the North Country. We've got two schools
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: right here in our backyard that have never had Sweethearts
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: and Heroes there. But tell them how easy it is
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: to learn about what you guys do. I know there's
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: a ton of stuff to unpack with Sweethearts and Heroes.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: What's the baby step? Why is it so important that
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: you get into a school? All schools have issues. Some
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: have bullying issues that are just not being dealt with
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: aggressively enough. Why is it so important to learn about
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: Sweethearts and Heroes?
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: Because it's about human beings. And that's all we are.
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: And, you know, Sweethearts and Heroes is more than just
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: talking about bullying. We're talking about how to bring back,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: and maybe even better than it ever was, human skills
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: that I myself sometimes today lack. And we all lack
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: at times. So You know, one of the best ways
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: to do that is to get on our website. We
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: have a team that has poured their heart and soul
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: into making our material on our website accessible, making what
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: we do known.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: We have a Facebook page, Instagram. We have it all.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: Get on it. Start just following and looking at the things.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: You're going to see some amazing things this year, I
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: guarantee you. Um, and, and, and it, it, even if
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: you just watch a 30 second reel, um, I, I
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: guarantee it's gonna, it's gonna touch you. So, and I
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: think the biggest thing that I want to leave people
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: with is, um, something that I try to think of
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: quite a bit, but it's to be quick to listen,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: slow to speak.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: And slow to become angry.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: That's, uh, something I try to live my life by because, um,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: we can, uh, We can build some amazing relationships if
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: we do those things.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: Amazing. Loved my conversation with you.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: Same here, brother.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: Be back on the couch tonight re-listening to this one, man.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: I appreciate that.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, brother. I look forward to seeing
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: you again. I don't know when it's going to be,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: but I hope it's going to be soon.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: Me too.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: Peace, man.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: All right, buddy. Josiah McKeon. Right there on the Aired
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: Out podcast.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: Incredible.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: Keep the comments coming. I want to hear what you
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: have to say. Your thoughts. Right here. Aired Out.