Speaker 1: You got a thousand shirts sitting there to be lined up.
Speaker 2: I take my drug dealing kid and I say, look,
Speaker 2: we're gonna make two dollars on every single shirt that
Speaker 2: we print out there.
Speaker 1: We're gonna print nine hundred shirts an hour.
Speaker 2: How much money are you gonna make? And they're like, oh, man,
Speaker 2: eighteen hundred dollars. You know they're going to profit eighteen
Speaker 2: hundred dollars. And I'm like, man, that's drug dealing money
Speaker 2: right there, you know, and just kind of kick it
Speaker 2: back at them.
Speaker 3: Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
Speaker 3: I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
Speaker 3: I'm an entrepreneur, and I'm a football coach in inner
Speaker 3: City Memphis. And the last part unintentionally led to an
Speaker 3: oscar for the film about our football team. It's called Undefeated.
Speaker 3: I believe our country's problems will never be solved by
Speaker 3: a bunch of fancy people and nice suits talking big
Speaker 3: words that nobody understands. On seeing it in Fox, rather
Speaker 3: an army of normal folks, us you and me just deciding.
Speaker 4: Hey, I can help.
Speaker 3: That's what Bob's at the voice we just heard has
Speaker 3: done realizing that traditional therapy was failing kids with substance
Speaker 3: abuse and mental health challenges.
Speaker 4: He was sick of it.
Speaker 3: So one day, an average guy, Bob decided, I'm going
Speaker 3: to do something different. He started Project Lift. It has
Speaker 3: now grown to training thousands of troubled teens in eleven
Speaker 3: different trades. Ironically, they do therapy in natural settings rather
Speaker 3: than sitting on a couch. They get under the hood
Speaker 3: of the car and they do therapy while the kids
Speaker 3: are doing things they enjoy. Wait till you hear about
Speaker 3: the success rate. It's amazing. So let's get started. Right
Speaker 3: after these brief messages from our general sponsors, Bob zach
Speaker 3: thank you.
Speaker 2: How you doing man, I'm doing well, Bill, Thanks for
Speaker 2: having me on. This is great.
Speaker 3: What kind of name is zachio z A C C
Speaker 3: H e O? What is what is that?
Speaker 4: Greek? What is that? Really?
Speaker 1: That's Italian?
Speaker 2: My grandmother often used to say, I had to I
Speaker 2: had to marry an Italian in order to keep the
Speaker 2: bloodline going. Fortunately, I found a very very awesome Irish
Speaker 2: lady who really balances me out. So the funny part
Speaker 2: was introducing her to my grandmother, right, So I told
Speaker 2: her before and I said, don't don't tell.
Speaker 4: Her you're Irish.
Speaker 1: That could be that could be a problem.
Speaker 3: Could be a deal killer. Are you is your grandparents?
Speaker 3: Did you grandparents' first immigrants here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were my my grandfather and my grandmother on
Speaker 2: my on my dad's side, came through Ellis Island.
Speaker 3: Actually, unbelievable. That is very, very very cool.
Speaker 4: So would you grow up?
Speaker 2: I grew up in South Florida, actually the hometown of
Speaker 2: u At, Florida, which is on the southeast coast of Florida.
Speaker 2: My family moved here back in the early seventies. And nevertheless,
Speaker 2: so my family were, they kind of were in the
Speaker 2: drywall and aluminum stud you know trade up in New York,
Speaker 2: and one of my dad's brothers decided to move down here,
Speaker 2: and they all followed him and eventually kind of settled
Speaker 2: their little life here in a town that had about
Speaker 2: eighteen thousand people in it at the time, and now
Speaker 2: we're right around one hundred and fifty five thousand in
Speaker 2: our little town of Martin County. My uncle's all tell
Speaker 2: me the stories about how they, you know, went straight
Speaker 2: from putting the drywall in the twin tours to kind
Speaker 2: of the next jobs. We're building the condos out on
Speaker 2: the island, the Barrier Islands out here in South Florida.
Speaker 3: Hey, what something you may not know about me is
Speaker 3: my undergraduate degrees in psychology.
Speaker 1: I did. I learned that I'm watching the movie.
Speaker 3: I know why I chose that discipline to study. It's
Speaker 3: because I was really bad at math. Why did you
Speaker 3: choose it?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: You know, interestingly, Bill, Like you know, it was, you know,
Speaker 2: one of those things. I was one of the first
Speaker 2: in my family to ever go to college, right, and
Speaker 2: I had no business being there. And I would absolutely,
Speaker 2: you know, stand behind that, no matter who's on the
Speaker 2: phone with.
Speaker 4: Me, but.
Speaker 1: My family. You know, back in that time, I'm forty
Speaker 1: six years old.
Speaker 2: Back then, it was everybody went to college, period, right,
Speaker 2: and you had really no choice. So I go to college.
Speaker 2: I had no direction, I had no idea what I
Speaker 2: really wanted to do.
Speaker 1: And so I had gone.
Speaker 2: To play football up at a small Division III school
Speaker 2: in Philadelphia called Widduring University, really good Division III football team,
Speaker 2: and we enjoyed, you know, I enjoyed myself doing that.
Speaker 2: But so here's the reason why I went into psychology.
Speaker 2: There's no smoking gun on this but I go into
Speaker 2: it's going into my junior year, right, and again I'm
Speaker 2: you know, first want to go to college, have no
Speaker 2: guidance on any of this stuff. You know, probably should
Speaker 2: have just went for a business degree and kind of
Speaker 2: went on from their entrepreneurial you know components. But I
Speaker 2: go in to see my guidance counselors. I was just
Speaker 2: about to be a junior in college and she said, look,
Speaker 2: you got to choose a major. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I didn't really think about that, and she said, well,
Speaker 2: you need to choose one. I said, well, what will
Speaker 2: get me out of here.
Speaker 4: The fastest there it is?
Speaker 2: And she said psychology and I said, well, sign me
Speaker 2: up for that.
Speaker 1: I'll take that. So I kid you not Bill.
Speaker 2: That's how I decided on psychology. You know, got into
Speaker 2: some of the classes, really enjoyed what I was doing,
Speaker 2: but really the the reality was getting into do the
Speaker 2: internships and the practicums. I got opportunities to do things
Speaker 2: that was really in the field, and that's that's really
Speaker 2: what piqued my interest about psychology.
Speaker 3: I actually remember those days as well, and it's it's interesting.
Speaker 3: I mean, human behavior is interesting, it's often exciting, and
Speaker 3: heartbreaking as well. But you know, I guess that's what
Speaker 3: we're here to talk to you about. So you got
Speaker 3: a graduate degree, and you did that because you realize
Speaker 3: you really can't do much in therapy with just a
Speaker 3: bachelor's degree. And then you also, in your infinite wisdom,
Speaker 3: decided you wanted to work with at risk youth who
Speaker 3: are struggling with drugs and alcohol. It really easy, uplifting
Speaker 3: group of kids to work with. Bob, are you out
Speaker 3: of your mind? I mean, why did you want to
Speaker 3: work with this particular demographic?
Speaker 2: So when I did a practicum in Wilmington, Delaware, and
Speaker 2: I don't know, I probably told this story before, not
Speaker 2: to a ton of people, but I typically I try
Speaker 2: my best to not get emotional about this particular component.
Speaker 2: But I grew up in an intergenerational poverty family, right,
Speaker 2: so we didn't have a ton of stuff. You know,
Speaker 2: my parents loved each other to seem married. Wasn't like
Speaker 2: I grew up in a divorced home or anything like that.
Speaker 2: But but I ended up taking an internship in Wilmington, Delaware.
Speaker 2: And this was back when I was in undergraduate school
Speaker 2: and my job at the Probation Office the Juvenile Probation
Speaker 2: office there in Wilmington, Delaware, was to transport kids from
Speaker 2: you know, Philadelphia. They'd been in a detention center up
Speaker 2: in the Philadelphia area, and I had to transport them,
Speaker 2: you know, through some of the inner city projects there.
Speaker 2: I had never seen it before, Bill, Like, I grew
Speaker 2: up in South Florida, so I didn't know what a
Speaker 2: row home was, or kind of a ghetto or.
Speaker 1: Any of that stuff. So here I am kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, transporting back and forth this you know, quintessential
Speaker 1: white guy, you know, driving back and forth through some
Speaker 1: ghettos and you know, picking up kids and detention centers
Speaker 1: and driving them down to Wilmington. And one day I
Speaker 1: picked up this kid and he was at back of
Speaker 1: my Car's fourteen years old. Yeah, you must have been
Speaker 1: six foot four.
Speaker 2: Just a great you know from what I could tell,
Speaker 2: Just a great young man, great conversation.
Speaker 1: He's in the back of the.
Speaker 2: Car and I'm driving down I ninety five between Philadelphia
Speaker 2: and Wilmington, Delaware in one of the you know, transport
Speaker 2: cars for the probation office. And I don't know if
Speaker 2: you know that area very well or not, but it's
Speaker 2: like twelve lanes of I ninety five, Like it's a
Speaker 2: very big highway. I'm driving down that road and I'm
Speaker 2: having this conversation with this kid back and forth, which
Speaker 2: was typical i'd have. I'd try my best to talk
Speaker 2: to him, you know, talk to whoever I was driving with.
Speaker 2: And all of a sudden, he jumps over the back
Speaker 2: of the seat of the car and grabs the steering
Speaker 2: wheel of the car and pulls it to the right
Speaker 2: and rams us into one of those guardrails.
Speaker 3: And he's apparently six foot four to two hundred something pounds,
Speaker 3: So you didn't have much you.
Speaker 2: Could do, no, you know, I was, you know, a minebacker,
Speaker 2: so it wasn't like I couldn't handle myself. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, it was like, holy, Honestly, what I
Speaker 2: thought happened was I thought we got rear ended. Like
Speaker 2: I thought we got it from behind, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. Like I couldn't comprehend what had happened. And
Speaker 2: he so all of a sudden, we're in this rail
Speaker 2: or we're in this you know, this concrete bunker right now,
Speaker 2: no cell phones. It's whatever, nineteen ninety eight or ninety seven,
Speaker 2: something like that.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, holy, which just happened. I you know,
Speaker 1: Squialdo has stop stop in the middle of the road.
Speaker 1: This kid jumps out of my out of my car
Speaker 1: and like leap frogs across every lane of the highway.
Speaker 4: Do you remember the arcade game Froger exactly?
Speaker 2: If you can, if you can visit this kid doing
Speaker 2: a Frogger across the north and southbound lanes of I
Speaker 2: ninety five between Philadelphia and Wilmington. So you know, it
Speaker 2: takes a little bit of time, but you know, police
Speaker 2: come and you know, rescue and all that other stuff.
Speaker 2: And and sure enough, my supervisor shows up to the scene,
Speaker 2: right and my supervisor says to me, I'll never forget
Speaker 2: this because it just pissed me off.
Speaker 1: He said, He said, what'd you let him run away for?
Speaker 3: Right? Sure?
Speaker 1: And I had the same reaction you just had, Bill Like,
Speaker 1: I was like, no, I.
Speaker 3: Mean I might have said if you ever tried to
Speaker 3: catch Froger?
Speaker 1: Yeah, right by the way, he was really fast. And
Speaker 1: how come we aren't thinking of it this way though?
Speaker 4: Bill?
Speaker 2: Like, because this is this is really the question is
Speaker 2: what made this kid so scared that he wanted to
Speaker 2: ram my car into a guardrail? And that was the
Speaker 2: that was the burning question that I had was and
Speaker 2: that's what really lit my fire more than any.
Speaker 3: Did you find out why he did it?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: I think I worked there for about a whole nother
Speaker 2: three days because they wanted me to fill out all
Speaker 2: kinds of incident reports and blaming me for the accident
Speaker 2: and all this other bolt and I you know, you know,
Speaker 2: bottom line, you know, I'm twenty one years old having
Speaker 2: been in a you know, horrible, you know, little incident,
Speaker 2: and I'm also processing my own personal growth right never
Speaker 2: been exposed to anything like that, And so really what lit.
Speaker 1: Me up was I knew at that point I had
Speaker 1: to go do something about that. Like I don't, I
Speaker 1: didn't know what it was that I had to do,
Speaker 1: but I do know that God was calling me to
Speaker 1: do something greater with my life, using my talents to
Speaker 1: help people at the highest level I possibly could.
Speaker 4: We'll be right back, Bob.
Speaker 3: You said you you grew up in a socioeconomically disadvantaged.
Speaker 3: Although you had a family, you clearly knew what it
Speaker 3: was like not to to probably have your basic needs met,
Speaker 3: but not to have a lot of wants satisfied. Did
Speaker 3: you identify with these kids at all.
Speaker 2: You know, looking back on it, I don't know that
Speaker 2: I was probably caught up in my own selfish, twenty
Speaker 2: one year old world. But you know, the bottom line
Speaker 2: was I grew up in what you know, what I term,
Speaker 2: you know, intergenerational poverty, is that my parents, you know,
Speaker 2: I'd go home at night and the electricity be off,
Speaker 2: you know, the mortgage wasn't paid, no food in the fridge,
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. But my parents loved me. It
Speaker 2: wasn't like there was not love in the house. You know,
Speaker 2: my my mom and dad stayed married, there wasn't divorce.
Speaker 2: My sisters and I had kind of that, like you said,
Speaker 2: the basic needs of everything that we could want, which
Speaker 2: is probably why they really wanted me to get out
Speaker 2: of there, go to college, get out and see something different.
Speaker 2: But I don't know that it's even appropriate for me
Speaker 2: to put myself in another person's shoes, especially that kid's shoes,
Speaker 2: because I don't know what it's like to walk a
Speaker 2: mile in that kid's shoes. And if I ever tried
Speaker 2: to convince that kid that I had walked a mile
Speaker 2: in his shoes, he probably would have called me a
Speaker 2: liar and told me to get out of the car myself.
Speaker 3: And I understand as well as the next guy. There's
Speaker 3: there's you know, in a situation like that, there's all
Speaker 3: kinds of differences that can help you feel for a person,
Speaker 3: but not not say you really get it. But in
Speaker 3: your case, it's interesting to understand now that you know,
Speaker 3: there were times that you would come home and the
Speaker 3: lights were off, and you know what it is to
Speaker 3: be scared and poor. And and as as a psychologist,
Speaker 3: you know this better than anybody that's listening to us.
Speaker 3: Is that, of course there is love in your house.
Speaker 3: And I hear that, and that's wonderful, but I don't
Speaker 3: I don't care how much love there is in the house.
Speaker 3: For an adolescent or a young teen to come home
Speaker 3: to the lights off, that has an effect. And there
Speaker 3: is some trauma in that, and and it, in my opinion,
Speaker 3: does guide where we go from there. Would you not
Speaker 3: agree with that?
Speaker 4: I really would?
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, you've got you know, trauma is trauma,
Speaker 2: and how we receive trauma is you know, different amongst us.
Speaker 2: All you know, you know, hearing my kids, my own
Speaker 2: kids complain about, you know, not having whatever the next
Speaker 2: great thing is, and I you know, you you process
Speaker 2: it differently through your developmental stage. Here I am forty
Speaker 2: six years old processing what that must have been like
Speaker 2: for my dad to have to see that when he
Speaker 2: came home, you know, and for my mom to have
Speaker 2: to deal with those things. Which what you know, in
Speaker 2: generational poverty, whether whether it has to do with not
Speaker 2: having you know enough, you know, cash assistance or whatever
Speaker 2: it is that you have going on, is that you know,
Speaker 2: it's followed by depression, anxiety, stress, attention deaths to hyperactivity
Speaker 2: is very predominant in that type of setting. And then
Speaker 2: also the family functional issues and substance use disorders, like
Speaker 2: all of those things follow suit, you know, and when
Speaker 2: you when you kind of are predestined in a lot
Speaker 2: of ways because your parents really don't even know that
Speaker 2: they're in it, or don't know what it is that
Speaker 2: they're dealing with, or know how to help you understand
Speaker 2: what the next step of your life is.
Speaker 1: Supposed to be.
Speaker 2: Well, how the heck am I supposed to teach that
Speaker 2: to the next generation? How am I supposed to teach
Speaker 2: that to my kids? You know, you got to have
Speaker 2: a pretty considerable amount of self awareness to make it through.
Speaker 3: And how are the kids supposed to know anything different
Speaker 3: when that's all they see coming up.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: And you know what the interesting part was, I think
Speaker 2: more than anything was the dignity associated with it, right
Speaker 2: there was There was dignity associated with you know the
Speaker 2: fact that I could get a free meal at school
Speaker 2: or you know, I know it's a weird comment to make,
Speaker 2: but it's the reality is that that's kind of where
Speaker 2: we found our dignity was you know, hey, the the
Speaker 2: cash assistance just came in, that was kind of our
Speaker 2: dignity going to the mailbox.
Speaker 3: Here's why all this matters, Tommy. I want to I
Speaker 3: want to go forward and talk about the amazing things
Speaker 3: that you and your organization have done. But this program
Speaker 3: is an army of normal folks, and most importantly is
Speaker 3: that our listeners are normal folks. And all too often
Speaker 3: we talk about the amazing things people have done. But
Speaker 3: I think it's important that we qualify what a normal
Speaker 3: folk is. And a normal folk is a guy who's
Speaker 3: the grandson of immigrants, who moves to Florida with his family,
Speaker 3: who lives in generational poverty, who lived the lights being
Speaker 3: turned off in their house, and who played football, and
Speaker 3: who went to school and got an internship at twenty one,
Speaker 3: and through that process learned that they wanted to be
Speaker 3: in the psychology field. And a kid plays frog or
Speaker 3: across an interstate and it makes you interested in what
Speaker 3: makes them tick. But in your own real experience, you
Speaker 3: also understand some of what makes them tick because you
Speaker 3: lived it. And I can't think of a more average
Speaker 3: guy than that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just kind of want to cry a little bit, Bill, Like,
Speaker 2: I haven't really heard my life summarized like that, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, except for the conversations I have in my
Speaker 2: head about you know, the components of you know, the
Speaker 2: reality of people not really understanding what I've been through.
Speaker 3: You experienced what you experienced, you grew the way you
Speaker 3: grew It made you part.
Speaker 4: Of who you are.
Speaker 3: And now you're psychologists dealing with kids who are poverty
Speaker 3: at risk, kids who've been in and out of trouble
Speaker 3: with the law, and you're and briefly, just tell me
Speaker 3: so that those listening to us can understand it. You're
Speaker 3: sitting in your desk and you're spending forty five minutes
Speaker 3: with a kid, and you're trying to build rapport. But
Speaker 3: it's Phil's feudal yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean the reality is, you know, I did have
Speaker 2: the altruistic views of you know, sitting inside of a
Speaker 2: clinical office and doing you know, doing treatment with families
Speaker 2: and teenagers and and so I specialized working with fourteen
Speaker 2: and nineteen year old teenage boys that were struggling with
Speaker 2: drugs and alcohol. That was my specialty. And rightfully, so
Speaker 2: it's what I gravitated to. I understood it. I really
Speaker 2: enjoyed that part. And it's probably a lot you know,
Speaker 2: like you were saying, had to do with hey, what
Speaker 2: could have I done better? Which is, you know, you
Speaker 2: have the transference components of psychology that you be really careful,
Speaker 2: right transferring your own emotion onto another person. But you know,
Speaker 2: one day, just sitting in my office, just very very
Speaker 2: frustrated with doing treatment inside of that clinical office because
Speaker 2: you just don't get anywhere. I mean, if you ever
Speaker 2: you ever asked to sixteen year old boy how they're feeling,
Speaker 2: you get the one word response, right, it's like good, fine, fine.
Speaker 1: You know, and that cool fine f you how about
Speaker 1: that one?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that's two words, bob.
Speaker 1: That is two words. Sorry in Italian though, it's one fungal.
Speaker 3: But we can agree that you get a very dismissive tone,
Speaker 3: short answers, because, let's face it, a sixteen year old
Speaker 3: boy really isn't interested in telling you about his feelings.
Speaker 3: A lot of it was judges making them go see Bob,
Speaker 3: and therapists like Bob basically had fifty minute appointments to
Speaker 3: change their lives, which is ridiculous and will never work.
Speaker 3: So Bob said, there's got to be a better way.
Speaker 1: So let me kind of, you know, brief you on
Speaker 1: this story.
Speaker 2: So one day I brought a fish and rod to
Speaker 2: work with me, and I had no intention of doing
Speaker 2: any treatment with any of the kids I was working with.
Speaker 2: I just was going to tie a dry fly on
Speaker 2: the end of a fly fishing rod. Is a plastic
Speaker 2: bait on a fly fishing rod, and you could you
Speaker 2: could actually make them.
Speaker 1: It's like coming these little kids, you can make them.
Speaker 1: So I'm sitting there with the first kid.
Speaker 2: We tie out this knot, we put it on the
Speaker 2: end of this fly rod, and I said to the kid, now,
Speaker 2: and we had no conversation. We didn't talk at all, right,
Speaker 2: because you don't talk because that's what's happening.
Speaker 1: It's like good will hunting in there. So I said, like, hey,
Speaker 1: how about we bring this rod out to the back.
Speaker 2: Of my office. There's a little pond back there. I'll
Speaker 2: teach you how to cast the rod. The kid's like, great,
Speaker 2: let's do that. We go to the back and I
Speaker 2: start teaching him how to cast this fly fishing rod
Speaker 2: and with this little bait that he made on the
Speaker 2: end of the rod the end of the pond, and
Speaker 2: literally before the bait was hitting the water, the kid's
Speaker 2: telling me all about his you know, promiscuous mom, his
Speaker 2: drunk dad, and all the anger that he felt. And
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, that was easy. I got him
Speaker 2: out of the office and he starts talking right, hands
Speaker 2: moving their mouth and obviously their their mouths start opening.
Speaker 2: So what I found was there was nothing unique about
Speaker 2: taking a kid fishing. But what I did next was
Speaker 2: really unique. I called a buddy of mine who was
Speaker 2: an AS certified mechanic and I who was also in recovery,
Speaker 2: so he understood the processes of substance use disorders. And
Speaker 2: I said to him, I go, hey, would you teach
Speaker 2: these kids how to do automotive repair while I do
Speaker 2: psychotherapy underneath the hood of a car.
Speaker 1: And that was thirteen years ago.
Speaker 3: So Bob left a job where he's making one hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty thousand dollars a year to start this nonprofit,
Speaker 3: Project Lift, where the first salary he took was thirty
Speaker 3: one thousand bucks. But Bob couldn't not do this. He
Speaker 3: felt called to try to save these at risk teens,
Speaker 3: most of which are sent to him by judges for
Speaker 3: substance abuse of mental health challenges. And now they're doing
Speaker 3: therapy alongside a lot more than cars.
Speaker 2: So Project you know, this is the thirty second elevator
Speaker 2: speech on it. Aarilard pitchar is that Project Lift is
Speaker 2: a mental health and substance abuse program that utilizes the
Speaker 2: vocational trades as a vehicle into a kid's life, right,
Speaker 2: because we have to take a look at replacement behaviors
Speaker 2: in a much different way. Right, That's what that's all
Speaker 2: cognitive behavioral therapy is. It's replacing behaviors. It's resilience based.
Speaker 2: So how do I enact resiliency inside of a kid
Speaker 2: and effectively replaced behavior and nefarious behavior? So when I
Speaker 2: went in front of a judge and I said, Hey,
Speaker 2: this is what I'm going to be doing. I'm going
Speaker 2: to be teaching them the trades, and we're going to
Speaker 2: replacement behavior with automotive repair and carpentry and boat building
Speaker 2: and welding and all these other you know, anything that
Speaker 2: we could get our hands on. We build airplanes here
Speaker 2: now with h VAC programs. We have eleven different trades
Speaker 2: that we teach. And when I went to them and
Speaker 2: told actually, we even do metal forging here. So that
Speaker 2: was a funny one going in front of the judge
Speaker 2: and saying, hey, we're making knives now with these kids.
Speaker 2: Thing adjudicated, which was which was a lot of fun,
Speaker 2: and that actually happened on.
Speaker 3: A homemade party.
Speaker 2: That was a funny one because we were up doing
Speaker 2: an appearance with one of the kids doing an update
Speaker 2: and the judge said, his name's Judge Levin, one of
Speaker 2: the best judges in the universe. Universe totally got this
Speaker 2: system and was on board from day one.
Speaker 1: He was actually the chief judge at the time.
Speaker 2: I'm standing there with one of the kids and the
Speaker 2: Judge Levin said, so, so how's it going over there
Speaker 2: project lift and the kid goes, it's awesome, I made
Speaker 2: a knife. What we know is that if I'm sitting
Speaker 2: in a clinical session with a kid and having a
Speaker 2: behavioral session. Emotional or behavioral doesn't matter. And I open
Speaker 2: up that therapeutic window on that kid and then close
Speaker 2: it back down with some tools that that kid can
Speaker 2: go home with so that he can deal with the
Speaker 2: fact that he's getting the crap kicked out of him,
Speaker 2: or he's dealing with the lights being off like we
Speaker 2: talked about earlier, or just dealing with the shortage of assets,
Speaker 2: or depression, anxiety and stress. Well, the bottom line is
Speaker 2: those tools are only going to last so long in
Speaker 2: that kid's toolkit, right, and then eventually they'll disappear.
Speaker 1: And what we find is that the original.
Speaker 2: Behavior gets worse because the tool, the tools that we
Speaker 2: were teaching inside that forty five minute session, we're gone now.
Speaker 2: But instead if we replace it with something that has dignity,
Speaker 2: hope and promise in the future, right, like twenty eight
Speaker 2: hundred degree oxya settling torch, like teaching a kid how
Speaker 2: to how to weld, Like giving them something that ninety
Speaker 2: nine point nine percent of the rest of the world
Speaker 2: has no idea how to do right, gives them dignity,
Speaker 2: It gives them an effective replacement. So instead of being
Speaker 2: a really great drug dealer, like, oh you know, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm really good at this. I'm really good salesman. I
Speaker 2: always say, my drug dealing kids are all they're entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2: They're the easiest ones to change, right, because all I
Speaker 2: have to do is just teach them the value of.
Speaker 3: Money, about the drugs, it's about the bunny.
Speaker 1: It's about the money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's about the economy. Stupid, it's it is.
Speaker 2: And they're incredible entrepreneurs, right, And I I often pitch
Speaker 2: it like that so that I can get that kid
Speaker 2: to really see it in a much different way, right.
Speaker 2: It's I try to tell them like, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: how much does the average drug dealer make, Especially when
Speaker 2: we're doing one of our manufacturing components here, you know,
Speaker 2: one of the things that we have a partnership with
Speaker 2: with a trust company here in our town, and they
Speaker 2: we teach them how to build the basic frame room
Speaker 2: of a trust. And so I'm starting to teach them,
Speaker 2: you know, the value of Each instructor actually teaches them
Speaker 2: the value of what you can make on the construction
Speaker 2: of that trust or T shirt printing or whatever it is.
Speaker 3: That we do.
Speaker 2: And I always say to the kid, like, hey, how
Speaker 2: much do you think the average drug dealer makes.
Speaker 1: And they're like, man, I'm.
Speaker 2: Such and such brings home two grand and I three grand,
Speaker 2: you know whatever. And I go no, I'm like, they
Speaker 2: make three dollars and thirteen cents an hour.
Speaker 5: And they're like what and take all the risk and
Speaker 5: they take all the risk, And I said, no, google it,
Speaker 5: And sure enough, you can google it right, you'll find
Speaker 5: that the average drug dealer makes about three dollars and
Speaker 5: thirteen cents per hour.
Speaker 2: And I said, and you're the one that goes to
Speaker 2: jail at night. And I said, now, let's talk about
Speaker 2: the guy that just built this trust, you know, and
Speaker 2: what he's taken home per hour and what that looks like.
Speaker 2: And or we'll do a manufacturing component that has to
Speaker 2: do with our T shirts. So we print thousands of
Speaker 2: T shirts a week out of here, out of our
Speaker 2: social enterprise that we have here at Project Lift, and they,
Speaker 2: you know, got a thousand shirts sitting there to be
Speaker 2: lined up. I take my drug dealing kid and I say, look,
Speaker 2: we're gonna make two dollars on every single shirt that
Speaker 2: we print out there. We're gonna print nine hundred shirts
Speaker 2: an hour. How much money are you going to make
Speaker 2: and they're like, oh, man, eighteen hundred dollars. You know
Speaker 2: they're going to profit eighteen hundred dollars And I'm like, man,
Speaker 2: that's drug dealing money right there. Just kind of kick
Speaker 2: it back at them, and you know, and that's the
Speaker 2: way O track. Our staff is trained. They're trained with
Speaker 2: the I love you, I care about you, and I
Speaker 2: can't wait to see you tomorrow attitude.
Speaker 4: Here's the deal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you got Bob who's a psychologist who says this
Speaker 3: isn't work and catches lightning over a fishing rod, gets
Speaker 3: a buddy who's a recovering addict to help them in
Speaker 3: a mechanic shop. And it has grown to how many
Speaker 3: kids have been through your door?
Speaker 1: Now we see about one thousand a year.
Speaker 3: On thousand a year, And what is the success rate
Speaker 3: of the kids that come through your program that that
Speaker 3: don't I guess is recidivision.
Speaker 4: I don't know what the right word is.
Speaker 1: What's what's the word your recidivisms?
Speaker 4: Right? Is?
Speaker 2: You know how many are you know reoffenders are adjudicated.
Speaker 2: So we've been actually measuring that for thirteen years and
Speaker 2: we compare that number from juvenile record to adult record,
Speaker 2: and we compare it every year, every single kid that's
Speaker 2: been through Project Lift, which is now we're looking at,
Speaker 2: you know, well well over five thousand kids at this point.
Speaker 2: Is we compare h that juvenile record to the adult record,
Speaker 2: and what we found is that seventy two percent of
Speaker 2: the kids they come through Project Lift never get back
Speaker 2: into the system.
Speaker 3: Again, what is the national average that So you're three times.
Speaker 1: Better, three times better.
Speaker 3: These are not a thousand kids, These are a thousand
Speaker 3: of the most challenged kids, right.
Speaker 2: You know, eighty seven percent of the of the teens
Speaker 2: and young adults that come through Project Lift can successfully
Speaker 2: complete our programs. Ninety three percent successfully complete them drug free,
Speaker 2: so meaning that only I'll kind of give you the
Speaker 2: statistics on the back end here too, is nineteen percent
Speaker 2: of the kids that come to Project Lift on intake,
Speaker 2: only nineteen percent of them can pass a drug test, right,
Speaker 2: so the other you know whatever, eighty one percent can't
Speaker 2: even pass a drug test. And here we are with
Speaker 2: ninety three percent of them at discharge passing their urine
Speaker 2: drug testing. You know, scenarios and you know, to me,
Speaker 2: that's really what it what it boils down to, is
Speaker 2: clear minded decision making.
Speaker 4: We'll be right back, Bob.
Speaker 3: I think about the seventy two percent success rate, and
Speaker 3: I think about all starting with mister Frogger going across
Speaker 3: the interstate, and you know, from that number one to
Speaker 3: five thousand, tell me your favorite story. What is what
Speaker 3: is your favorite success story so far?
Speaker 2: Oh man, there's I got so many of them, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna I have to go with two. The first one
Speaker 2: met this this young man.
Speaker 1: This is going back years ago.
Speaker 2: His name was Bruce Thomas and uh, you know roll
Speaker 2: Enclave out of you know, the you know, kind of
Speaker 2: western side of our town, and you know, he was
Speaker 2: the bread winner for the family. Uh you know, he
Speaker 2: was probably sixteen at the time when I met him.
Speaker 1: And I mean it's you know, pretty pretty.
Speaker 2: Normal, you know, Hispanic family and uh, you know likely
Speaker 2: you know, so many different things were happening, right so
Speaker 2: I know one of the components was his dad had
Speaker 2: gotten deported and uh, you know, it's right around a
Speaker 2: time when they were really cracking down on illegal immigrants
Speaker 2: and all kinds of crazy things were going on. And
Speaker 2: so I got hold of this kid and his family
Speaker 2: had been through some pretty significant trauma.
Speaker 1: You know, I had an uncle who.
Speaker 2: Sure got caught in a chopper and you know, one
Speaker 2: of those wood choppers and dragged him in, and just
Speaker 2: just horrible trauma that had gone on in this family's life.
Speaker 2: And you know, after that, that's kind of how I
Speaker 2: started seeing him, was because of this trauma. And then
Speaker 2: you know, shortly after that, his sister was killed in
Speaker 2: a car accident coming around one of the bends. And
Speaker 2: at the time, we had kicked off Project Lift with
Speaker 2: boat building program restoration and boat building, because that's pretty
Speaker 2: big in our area. And again, you know, when you
Speaker 2: look at, you know, expanding these programs, you have to
Speaker 2: see what the communities are doing.
Speaker 1: And so we started teaching that.
Speaker 2: So we started teaching what's called carbon infusion, right, So
Speaker 2: it's a technique of vacuum bagging holes of boats so
Speaker 2: that you can make them nice and smooth and then
Speaker 2: you can stand them down. And we started teaching Bruce
Speaker 2: this technique, got him connected with one of our industry
Speaker 2: partners and kind of cleaned him up a bit, and
Speaker 2: just in terms of his his life, got him cleaned
Speaker 2: from drugs and alcoholic right, drug testing all the time.
Speaker 1: So he was numbing himself.
Speaker 2: I mean, the trauma that kid had gone through. I
Speaker 2: didn't did not blame him one minute for wanting to
Speaker 2: numb himself, right sure, and got him clean and sober,
Speaker 2: got him kind of into the end of that position
Speaker 2: of you know, feeling loved again and feeling hope and promise.
Speaker 1: Taught him how to do this vacuum bagging process.
Speaker 2: Now, this vacuum bagging process, it's not a whole lot
Speaker 2: of people know how to do it, and it's you know,
Speaker 2: carbon infusion.
Speaker 1: You see these big sport fishing vessels that do it.
Speaker 2: And we got him a job at a company called
Speaker 2: American Custom Yachts, one of the largest boat builders in
Speaker 2: the country. Right, They're they're known for their sport fishing
Speaker 2: yachts and all this other stuff.
Speaker 1: So it must have been.
Speaker 2: Two years three years later, you know, after he had graduated,
Speaker 2: been through, had the job. I hadn't seen him for
Speaker 2: a little while, and I was just at I was
Speaker 2: at seven eleven, normal guy, right, normal guy seven eleven,
Speaker 2: walking through thing, and I hear mister Bob, mister Bob,
Speaker 2: and I look over and it's Bruce, right. And it
Speaker 2: took me a second to grab his name, right, because
Speaker 2: you know, you know how it is with the amount
Speaker 2: of kids that you see through stuff.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh my god, Bruce, how are you?
Speaker 1: How are you doing? He's like, he pulls up on
Speaker 1: his phone.
Speaker 2: And shows me a picture of a seventy two foot
Speaker 2: sport fishing vessel that he just finished vacuum bagging, and
Speaker 2: he was just like, mister Bob, like this is the
Speaker 2: great you know. He just was so proud to show
Speaker 2: me everything that he was doing. Then he pulls up
Speaker 2: a picture, you know, of his kid and all the
Speaker 2: things were going on in his life, and I knew
Speaker 2: that he had had done it now, you know, telling
Speaker 2: that story it's not like this this big burning bush
Speaker 2: story of something right. But to me, it was like
Speaker 2: I had done what I was supposed to do, you know,
Speaker 2: And that's what was important to me. That moment of
Speaker 2: seeing this kid who had had never even heard of
Speaker 2: a vacum came back before in carbon infusion and all
Speaker 2: this stuff. Now with supporting his family in a way
Speaker 2: that I was Hike would struggle doing. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: just an amazing.
Speaker 1: Let me move on.
Speaker 4: That is.
Speaker 3: But that is that is I mean, just think about it.
Speaker 3: Father deported, uncle killed in the chipper sister killed in
Speaker 3: a car wreck, sixteen years old, drug and alcohol abuse,
Speaker 3: supporting a very broken family, whatever was left over left
Speaker 3: of it, and through this, through this work, you've done it,
Speaker 3: through the organization. He's got a smile on his face
Speaker 3: and he has hope and he's clean. I mean, I
Speaker 3: get it.
Speaker 1: That's it was awesome.
Speaker 2: And for him to tell me the story, he's he's like,
Speaker 2: I'm the he said he was the lead on that
Speaker 2: he I remember him saying I was the lead.
Speaker 1: I was the lead, right, you know. And I maybe
Speaker 1: I'll just tell that one story because it's enough for me.
Speaker 3: I know, I want to know the second one.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: Now you got me a little choked up. I want
Speaker 3: to hear number two.
Speaker 2: I got to say probably this one was this story.
Speaker 2: And you know, we have tons of recent stories, but
Speaker 2: I like the old ones because it was just me.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I think that's the weird part,
Speaker 2: is like it was just me and a couple of
Speaker 2: volunteers at the time. And you know, one of the
Speaker 2: things that we like to do at Project Lift is
Speaker 2: we like to give away cars. So we've given away
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty five cars now, so we get
Speaker 2: cars donated to us in our automotive repair program.
Speaker 1: We we we.
Speaker 2: Repair them and then we have the kids give the
Speaker 2: cars away to people in the community.
Speaker 1: That need cars.
Speaker 3: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: Well, it helps change their thinking, right it Well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because instead of taking, they're given.
Speaker 2: They're given right, And it's a paradigm shift, right, And
Speaker 2: a lot of times these kids that are giving cars
Speaker 2: away like this with us every every year, they're given
Speaker 2: at bigger levels than most of the you know, most
Speaker 2: of the people in our community give. I mean, you're
Speaker 2: giving away five six thousand dollars car to a family
Speaker 2: that's in need. Like it's it's something special. So I
Speaker 2: wanted to do that right right from the very beginning,
Speaker 2: I knew we needed to give away something to our
Speaker 2: We need to teach a kid how to give. And
Speaker 2: I had this young man named Ray who was working
Speaker 2: for Project Left. And I say working because I think
Speaker 2: it's an important delineation, right, it's destigmatize the processes. It's
Speaker 2: mental health programming. But in their minds, they were coming
Speaker 2: to work, right, They're coming to work because that's a
Speaker 2: destigmatization process. So the new local newspaper had caught wind
Speaker 2: of us given away a car. So they sent over
Speaker 2: their you know, best reporter, and she comes down and
Speaker 2: I got this a couple it must have been three
Speaker 2: or four kids. I was working with at the time,
Speaker 2: and it was a Toyota four Runner. It was a
Speaker 2: I don't know, it was a nineteen ninety five Toyota
Speaker 2: four Runner or something like that.
Speaker 1: And the family were given the car to There was
Speaker 1: like seven the lady had seven kids, right, And I said, look,
Speaker 1: you gotta stop having kids.
Speaker 3: They don't make a big enough car.
Speaker 2: Like I don't know how I got to give you
Speaker 2: two cars, but you don't have anybody old enough to drive.
Speaker 2: So so I'm standing there with Ray and I got
Speaker 2: my arm around him and we're all kind of posing
Speaker 2: for this picture and the kid Ray looks at me
Speaker 2: and he goes, just just just before the picture is taken,
Speaker 2: I actually have the picture somewhere.
Speaker 1: I gotta find it. But he looks at me and
Speaker 1: he says, mister Bob, I'm used to stealing.
Speaker 2: Cars, not giving them away. That was the moment that
Speaker 2: I knew we always had to give away cars. So
Speaker 2: he was fast forward. Ray did really well. He ended
Speaker 2: up learning welding from us. It's kind of that introduction
Speaker 2: of welding, and we got him a position at the
Speaker 2: Pipe Fitters Union down in Palm Beach County. So he
Speaker 2: did go through an apprentice program and ended up going
Speaker 2: into the welding you know, field working across the country
Speaker 2: doing you know, pipes and all kinds of crazy things.
Speaker 1: And so anyways, fast forward.
Speaker 2: And one of our other kids that came through Project
Speaker 2: if they're all not successes, but you know, we worked
Speaker 2: with him for a while. His name was Tyler, and
Speaker 2: unfortunately he was my dad would have called it like
Speaker 2: shylock and you know guns right, he would loan guns
Speaker 2: out and so on, and and we're working with him
Speaker 2: and trying to figure out how to get him out
Speaker 2: of that scene and get him clean and get him
Speaker 2: a job and a career and all that stuff. But
Speaker 2: unfortunately the street caught up to him and he was
Speaker 2: shot and killed.
Speaker 1: So I I'm.
Speaker 2: Sitting right where I was sitting when I heard the
Speaker 2: news of that, so kind of a little memory just
Speaker 2: flashed in my brain. And then so anyways, I talked
Speaker 2: to his mom, and you know, we go out there
Speaker 2: and we end up doing a I get an opportunity
Speaker 2: to speak at his funeral and you know, I had
Speaker 2: some scripture, and you know, there's nothing that can make
Speaker 2: any of this better, right, it's, you know, the worst
Speaker 2: thing that can happen. It's your worst day as a
Speaker 2: as a therapist, it's your worst day as a mentor.
Speaker 1: It's nothing good about it.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: So I leave and we're walking down the street and
Speaker 2: I was with my dad. I brought my dad and
Speaker 2: my daughters with me, and we're walking out of the
Speaker 2: out of the church, and up comes from behind comes
Speaker 2: Ray and he says, hey, man, I just want to
Speaker 2: say can I can we go out to lunch?
Speaker 1: Right? He wanted to go out to lunch. I hadn't
Speaker 1: seen him in years.
Speaker 2: He had been you know, doing his thing out working
Speaker 2: in the field and the pipe pipe fitters.
Speaker 1: Fields and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: I said, yeah, I would love to write I wouldn't
Speaker 2: have recognized him if you had, you know, told me
Speaker 2: it was him.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So we go out to go out to eat.
Speaker 2: And this was the really the part. Again, these are
Speaker 2: the moments that that.
Speaker 1: They're just the great stories.
Speaker 2: And I sat down with him and we ate dinner
Speaker 2: or ate lunch, and he's telling me about his family
Speaker 2: and about all the things he was doing, and you know,
Speaker 2: he said, I would just want to say thank you
Speaker 2: for for taking me in. At the time, he was
Speaker 2: a Jamaican immigrant family from that was living out in
Speaker 2: one of the rural enclaves again of our town. And
Speaker 2: the check came to the table, and I went to
Speaker 2: go grab the check, right, because that's what we do, right,
Speaker 2: is we we do this, We get the check, we
Speaker 2: take the check, because that's what we do. And he
Speaker 2: slapped my hand down on the table and grabbed the
Speaker 2: check and he's like, I got this. And to me,
Speaker 2: that was one of the single best moments I ever
Speaker 2: could have imagined. And I wasn't going to steal his blessing.
Speaker 2: I I you know, I let him pay for the
Speaker 2: meal because it was something that he really really wanted
Speaker 2: to do to say thank you, and it was I
Speaker 2: don't know, it's just it was a moment for me
Speaker 2: of this major success of this kid that not only
Speaker 2: did he make something out of his life in a
Speaker 2: really bad situation because he did come from you talk
Speaker 2: about generational poverty and raising him sof health, he was
Speaker 2: he was way down on that pole and for him
Speaker 2: to come in and just say thank you and grab
Speaker 2: that check to me was I'll never forget that.
Speaker 3: It is a unbelievably satisfied and rewarding thing. It's happened
Speaker 3: to me as well. When you see a kid who's
Speaker 3: had almost had been forced to grow up patently selfish
Speaker 3: to survive, to show as a result of some of
Speaker 3: the work that he's done self lessness, it is, it is.
Speaker 3: I feel that story because I've seen it and I
Speaker 3: understand it.
Speaker 2: I should tell you a success story after success for
Speaker 2: a jobs and and you know, families and families being repaired.
Speaker 1: But when you see it at that level in a
Speaker 1: one on one moment, yeah.
Speaker 3: It's very personal.
Speaker 1: It changes you.
Speaker 4: We'll be right back, Bob.
Speaker 3: I'm not a very smart guy, which makes me kind
Speaker 3: of meat potatoes, and if I've got to boil it down,
Speaker 3: But if I listen to you, if I understand our conversation,
Speaker 3: it turns out if you give kids something interesting to
Speaker 3: do and reward them and allow them to change their
Speaker 3: addiction from weed to actual dollars, give them a glimpse
Speaker 3: of what employing those things in their life and as
Speaker 3: an adult can do for him, it turns out they
Speaker 3: might be able to find some success in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, it's more than my you know, we have evidence
Speaker 2: to support that. It's pretty much a guarantee. You know,
Speaker 2: when you put an effective replacement behavior in and it's
Speaker 2: something that has dignity associated with it, that's the key,
Speaker 2: right you know. I gotta I'd be remiss if I
Speaker 2: you know, I cannot say that this is all me,
Speaker 2: you know, number one, I point point to my Lord
Speaker 2: and Savior like that. I gotta tell you, like, I
Speaker 2: can't do this without being faced down on the ground.
Speaker 2: The people that work for these kids every single day,
Speaker 2: the staff that we work with, they have the same mantra.
Speaker 2: It is I love you, I care about you, and
Speaker 2: I cannot wait to see you again tomorrow. And when
Speaker 2: you have that as your as your first steps in,
Speaker 2: when you start with love, when you start with just
Speaker 2: that basic, minimum viable product of love, that's where you
Speaker 2: see an amazing staff and amazing team come together and
Speaker 2: change change lives.
Speaker 3: That is beautiful stuff. It is absolutely true. I have
Speaker 3: felt that in my own life. I've seen that my
Speaker 3: own life. I've been on I've been both the giver
Speaker 3: and recipient of that.
Speaker 4: And it is.
Speaker 3: True, and it doesn't You are living proof, Bob that
Speaker 3: it doesn't take a bunch of money, it doesn't take
Speaker 3: some special degree. It's just an average guy paying attention
Speaker 3: to the things around him and finding a place where
Speaker 3: they can fit in and make a difference. And you,
Speaker 3: my friend, have answered a question. And for decades, I'm
Speaker 3: fifty three years old, and I think the question has
Speaker 3: been asked by the right, the left, Christian, non Christian,
Speaker 3: every race under the sun. We continue to, decade after decade,
Speaker 3: ask the question, how do we break the proverbial cycle?
Speaker 3: And to hear that you are a guy who's found
Speaker 3: a way to help break that cycle, not only through
Speaker 3: being creative, not only through Billy being willing to work hard,
Speaker 3: but by also just showing some genuine human compassion. And
Speaker 3: you know what, that's something every single body on the
Speaker 3: face of this planet can do to make their culture
Speaker 3: and societies better. And that is what it means to
Speaker 3: be a part of the army of normal folks.
Speaker 1: Now, you're right, you know I am.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I watched you watch the documentary, and you know I was.
Speaker 2: I had so many knee jerks watching what you were doing.
Speaker 2: And the biggest knee jerk I had, Take the football away,
Speaker 2: Take the torch away, Take everything out of it. What
Speaker 2: resonated the most with me was when you'd wrap your
Speaker 2: arms around those kids and say I love you, and
Speaker 2: it was like they'd never heard it before.
Speaker 3: No, they hadn't. And I'll tell you a story.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: That was your seven year two. I can't remember which
Speaker 3: player it was, unfortunately, but the kid was having a
Speaker 3: bad day. He showed up the practice, pissed off, he
Speaker 3: screwed up a couple times. And I've got a coaching
Speaker 3: mantra that is, you can beat him up all you
Speaker 3: want to, as long as you love him up twice
Speaker 3: as hard as you beat him up. And so I
Speaker 3: ripped on him pretty good because I hold my players accountable.
Speaker 3: And boy, I could tell he was angry or was frustrated,
Speaker 3: he was sad, and so, you know, just tongue in
Speaker 3: cheek as a joke. I looked at him. I said, man,
Speaker 3: you need a hug, and he's like a hug. Grown
Speaker 3: men don't hug, right, And I said, now come here,
Speaker 3: we're gonna hug. And I mean he turned and he
Speaker 3: turned from a seventeen year old six foot to two
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty pound behemoth into a three year old
Speaker 3: child in the matter of seconds, he melted, and it
Speaker 3: dawned on me that kids who haven't had a lot
Speaker 3: of hugs have a long way to go. And if
Speaker 3: you just show them a little bit of love and
Speaker 3: you're willing to give to them a little bit of
Speaker 3: your time, you can change some things. And that is exactly, Bob,
Speaker 3: what you've done. And I am, I am, I am
Speaker 3: just in awe of the work you've done. So last
Speaker 3: question for you, how do we scale this?
Speaker 4: Bro?
Speaker 3: How do we take your dream? How do we take
Speaker 3: what you've stumbled across and then been creative with and
Speaker 3: then built and have such a passion for How How
Speaker 3: does if we want to break the proverbial chains? How
Speaker 3: do we how do we scale this? And is it scalable?
Speaker 3: And is there a way that other people could reach
Speaker 3: out to you if they want to scale this in
Speaker 3: their community?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I am like that is my the
Speaker 2: million dollar question. It's the question that I have on
Speaker 2: my brain. Actually every single day I put together expansion
Speaker 2: plans and playbooks and you know, you know, leaning on
Speaker 2: my football days to make sure that everybody understands exactly
Speaker 2: how this should work. And this is probably the most
Speaker 2: transparent program you'll ever see in your entire life. Because
Speaker 2: if we don't teach it to everybody with transparency and
Speaker 2: fidelity and really, you know, putting the research behind it
Speaker 2: to make sure that that it is, you know, a
Speaker 2: viable solution for every municipality or for every county across
Speaker 2: the country, then we really don't don't have anything, you know.
Speaker 2: But the bottom line is, you know, my vision and
Speaker 2: mission and vision on this is that we should be
Speaker 2: in sixty cities, one hundred and twenty thousand people out
Speaker 2: of poverty and thirty thousand kids served in the next
Speaker 2: ten years. Now, that was a big vision to have
Speaker 2: four or five years ago, and now I see no
Speaker 2: reason why we really can't see this in every single
Speaker 2: county across the country because it's a it is a
Speaker 2: solution that you can bite the tire of. It makes sense,
Speaker 2: it doesn't. It's not like you you you know, you
Speaker 2: go to a program and you're and you've got to
Speaker 2: wait to see what's going on, and you walk in
Speaker 2: the doors here and it's like every kid has walked
Speaker 2: into their into their workplace.
Speaker 1: Every person is here. It's a shared work environment.
Speaker 2: Everybody's treated equally, they're given opportunities that they never would
Speaker 2: have been able to dream of. But it's all about
Speaker 2: the path to make that happen in any in any
Speaker 2: municipality that's across the across the country. You could scale
Speaker 2: Project Lift the way it is just you know, go
Speaker 2: in do your development. You have three teams operations, development
Speaker 2: and finance and administration, you know, components of it. You
Speaker 2: take those three components and you you intertwine them equally,
Speaker 2: yoke of them, equally, yoke them, work your development out,
Speaker 2: Understand where your funding needs to come from. Have an
Speaker 2: ambassador from every city that wants to do this, because
Speaker 2: I got to tell you, without an ambassador, you don't
Speaker 2: excale anywhere. You know, it's very very difficult for Bob
Speaker 2: Zachio or you know, or for Bill to go into
Speaker 2: some community somewhere and say, hey, we're going to start
Speaker 2: this program without having that one person who believes deeply
Speaker 2: and understands the community, because you can't just force stuff
Speaker 2: on a community that does does or does not need it.
Speaker 2: And then you could do it in a lot of
Speaker 2: different ways. One, you can put the programs you know,
Speaker 2: you know as they sit. You can't bastardize it. You
Speaker 2: got to you got to you got to pull the
Speaker 2: emotional intelligence components together with industry partners to make sure
Speaker 2: they're all working together, because that's where the disruption is.
Speaker 1: Bill.
Speaker 2: It's like, if we don't follow industry partners through what
Speaker 2: it is that they need, Like, for instance, your lumber company,
Speaker 2: you're you're gonna need I don't. I don't know lumber
Speaker 2: at all, so I probably shouldn't even speak intelligently. But
Speaker 2: you've got you've got, you got, you got certain positions
Speaker 2: that you need filled there. You have a talent acquisition
Speaker 2: issue going on, you probably have a retention problem. Why
Speaker 2: are we not teaching emotional intelligence inside of the workplace
Speaker 2: and why aren't we teaching it to fourteen year olds?
Speaker 2: So we need to know exactly what it is the
Speaker 2: lumber company would need in order for us to teach
Speaker 2: that to a fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen year old so
Speaker 2: that they'd have more success in the future. They're going
Speaker 2: to spend ninety percent of their life at your company.
Speaker 2: It's a career, that's their new family. We better teach
Speaker 2: them how.
Speaker 1: To work well in that environment.
Speaker 2: Another way that you can scale project lift is you know,
Speaker 2: by using already existing foundations.
Speaker 1: That are that are running already. You know.
Speaker 2: One of the ways we've done it here is, besides
Speaker 2: just the traditional scaling components are we worked with the
Speaker 2: Police Athletic League.
Speaker 1: So police athletic leagues.
Speaker 2: Traditionally don't have strong foundations foundational supports in their environments,
Speaker 2: so we teach them how to do that, and then
Speaker 2: we put our operating system inside of different programs like that,
Speaker 2: so you have your job readiness, employability, mental health components,
Speaker 2: hands on, high touch vocational training, and then obviously destigmatizing
Speaker 2: other mental health processes. Here's the process, here's the operating system.
Speaker 2: Plug and play that right into your system that you
Speaker 2: have there at the Police Athletic League or Boys and
Speaker 2: Girls club or a Big Brothers and Big Sisters, and
Speaker 2: so you can kind of use the uber ride path
Speaker 2: of the system itself to do that. You even do
Speaker 2: it with veterans.
Speaker 1: I just I just piloted a program built with homeless
Speaker 1: And I got to tell you, most people, when I
Speaker 1: say the word, hey, we're working with homeless folks, you're automatically,
Speaker 1: you know, switched to access to diagnosis schizophrenia and all
Speaker 1: these other things that are going on.
Speaker 2: And I got to tell you it works with them too,
Speaker 2: with that population as well. You can deep dive this
Speaker 2: system in just about any plug in play scenario. I
Speaker 2: choose my mission and vision fourteen and nineteen year olds
Speaker 2: because we haven't taught them anything.
Speaker 1: We need to get them in that position.
Speaker 2: So I don't know if that really answered your question, Bill,
Speaker 2: but I agree with you. I think it should be
Speaker 2: across the country, not just because I'm the founder of
Speaker 2: the organization, but because it makes sense.
Speaker 3: It works, Bob plug it. How do people find it?
Speaker 4: What where do they? What are they?
Speaker 3: Google?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Just google project lift dot org U r G h
Speaker 2: O P R O j E c T l I
Speaker 2: F T dot O r G. You know, just jump
Speaker 2: on our website. You'll see everything I talked about is
Speaker 2: on there.
Speaker 1: Again.
Speaker 2: Transparency is our number one policy. You can even call
Speaker 2: my cell phone number if you want is seven seven
Speaker 2: two three five nine two five five four.
Speaker 3: Call me. I hope that you get one hundred thousand
Speaker 3: calls tomorrow. Buy not that I want you to have
Speaker 3: to deal with it, but I hope that that people
Speaker 3: listening us understand the phenomenal work that you and your
Speaker 3: organization are doing, and and and the success and and
Speaker 3: and I hope folks see that. You know, you can
Speaker 3: be a grandson of an immigrant and a son of
Speaker 3: a sheet rock guy and do amazing things in this country,
Speaker 3: and Bob or one of them.
Speaker 4: I I I have really.
Speaker 3: Enjoyed speaking to you about this this evening me too.
Speaker 2: I cannot tell you how much I've enjoyed this conversation.
Speaker 2: I've been looking forward to it all week. And and
Speaker 2: I can't tell you how how much of an honor
Speaker 2: it is to be on the phone with you and
Speaker 2: having this awesome discussion about things that I'm just so
Speaker 2: passionate about. And I could see that in this you know,
Speaker 2: I get to see the film, and and also you know,
Speaker 2: one of the conversations that you've had on this but
Speaker 2: having a conversation with you as a whole new level.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you for that.
Speaker 3: Bob. I wrote down a bunch of stuff. I don't
Speaker 3: even know what I said. Everybody, Bob Zachio Project left
Speaker 3: and Palm City, Florida. It's taken five thousand kids. And
Speaker 3: I'm not talking about just normal kids. I'm talking about
Speaker 3: at risk kids who've had drug problems and been in
Speaker 3: trouble with the law. And the court sent them to Bob,
Speaker 3: and he's taken five thousand of them and seventy two
Speaker 3: percent of them have straightened their life out, as compared
Speaker 3: to twenty seven percent of those kids nationally. It's a
Speaker 3: guy who's an average guy. He's an army of normal
Speaker 3: folk making a difference in our world. Bob zachioh thank you,
Speaker 3: my friend.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Bill. I can't think enough awesome time, Bob.
Speaker 3: I think we are good to go. Look, I mean
Speaker 3: there's some production here and some cutting and editing and
Speaker 3: all of that, but I hope we do a good
Speaker 3: enough job that a lot of people hear the story
Speaker 3: because it's not for the production of the show. When
Speaker 3: I tell you, I genuinely believe what you're doing is
Speaker 3: freaking phenomenal, Dude. The success rate says it. And you
Speaker 3: are one by one changing the community. And if we
Speaker 3: could just get people to see people like you and
Speaker 3: what you do, we could fix a lot of what
Speaker 3: ails us. And Dude, you are a part of that
Speaker 3: army for sure.
Speaker 2: Man, I'm humbled and thankful to have had this conversation
Speaker 2: with you. And do you ever need me how I
Speaker 2: definitely will. All right, my friends, Thank you for a
Speaker 2: great evening, guys.
Speaker 3: To join an army of normal folks, just go to
Speaker 3: normal folks dot us. That's right, normalfolks dot us and
Speaker 3: sign up and become a member of our movement. It
Speaker 3: only takes committing to doing one new thing this year
Speaker 3: to help somebody else. And there will be a ton
Speaker 3: of awesome ideas on this podcast from the folks for featuring.
Speaker 3: Some of them may resonate with you deeply and others
Speaker 3: may not at all, and that's okay because we're called
Speaker 3: to do different things with the different talents that each
Speaker 3: of us are blessed with. But together with each of
Speaker 3: us doing what we can, we genuinely can change this country.
Speaker 3: We'd love to hear what you do. And if there's
Speaker 3: stories you've heard that you think we must tell, we'll
Speaker 3: tell them. Write me anytime at Bill atnormalfolks dot us.
Speaker 3: As you've heard everyone, we're featuring, myself included, we're sharing
Speaker 3: our direct contact information. We're not just putting on a show, guys.
Speaker 3: We're hoping to build a real community that's unlike anything
Speaker 3: America has ever seen. And if you enjoyed this episode,
Speaker 3: rate it, review it, share it with friends. On social
Speaker 3: all these things that will help us grow an army
Speaker 3: of normal folks.
Speaker 4: I'm Bill Courtney.
Speaker 3: Look forward to seeing you next week.