An Army of Normal Folks - Don Wettrick: 21st Century Learning (Pt 2)

Episode Date: June 11, 2024

Don is on the frontlines of challenging our broken 20th century education system with 21st century innovations. As a teacher, he brought unheard of things like “Genius Time” and “open-source learning” to his classroom. And his latest innovation is the StartedUp Foundation, which has helped Indiana teachers engage over 6,000 students with the most elite entrepreneurship pitch competition!Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney with An Army of Normal Folks and we continue now with part two of our conversation with Don Wetrik right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. When the Taliban banned music in Afghanistan, millions were plunged into silence. Radios were smashed, cassettes burned. You could be beaten or jailed or killed for breaking the rules. And yet, Afghans did it anyway. This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan

by creating their own version of American Idol. The danger they endured. They said my head should be cut off. The joy they brought to the nation. You're free completely. No one is there to destroy you. Last season, millions tuned into the Betrayal podcast to hear a shocking story of deception. I'm Andrea Gunning, and now we're sharing an all new story of betrayal. Stacey thought she had the perfect husband. Doctor, father, family man.

It was the perfect cover for Justin Rutherford to hide behind. They led me into the house, and I mean, it was like a movie. He was sitting at our kitchen table. The cops were guarding him. Stacey learned how far her husband would go to save himself. I slept with a loaded gun next to my bed.

He did not just say I wish she was dead. He actually gave details and explained different scenarios on how to kill him. He to me is scarier than Jeffrey Dahmer. Listen to Betrayal on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's take a moment to breathe. Deep inhale. Ext extend your spine. Remain focused on what you're doing.

If safe to do so, exhale slowly, leaning to one side. Inhale back to center. If safe to do so, exhale slowly to the opposite side. Find mental health resources at loveyourmindtoday.org. This message is brought to you by the Huntsman Mental Health Institute and the Ed Council. ["The Heart of the Mountain"] Well, it just dawned on me when you're telling me

about this awesome organization, Society of Entrepreneurs here in Memphis. That was my rule three. Your rule three was my rule three. It is the same rules. It's one of the reasons why I asked because we had three rules and they're not that dissimilar. Yeah, I like it's it's your rule three.

And I think that's that was also when students, especially as current generation Z is awesome. I really like Shin-Z. They really, if you point them in the right direction and you can kind of bring back things to first principles, they do wanna make a difference. And, or sometimes in the process of making a difference, they realize, oh, what am I fighting for here?

Upon further inspection, this is maybe not what I thought. Well, and you are more apt to help other people and engage in society in places that need help when you're engaged in things that actually interest you. Yeah, every yeah. Yeah. Although I will say, so I was having this debate about, like, some classes you have to take in college Easily one of my favorite classes

I never would have taken unless I had to get a certain credit and I took world mythologies and religions and It was there. I learned about Joseph Campbell and my life is forever changed. Well, you're gonna have to enlighten me Oh, man, you don't you do oh, oh Oh, man, we're gonna become friends now for life. Okay, Joseph Campbell was a historian and literally kind of an I won't say authority authority figure but like he was very acknowledged and understanding of world mythologies from Indic myths to you know from Indic myths to, you know,

Greek and Christianity and Christianity and everything else, like religions and mythologies. And he really found a lot of commonalities. The Hero's Journey is the same movie we've seen again and again and again, whether it's- Yeah, Luke Skywalker's with the protagonist Darth Vader. And they have to leave their home to go to a new world, fail, die, get reborn again. And even when they win, that's not good enough.

They have to go back home to bring a new reality. I do have to get into what the open source learning was because this is where the magic started happening like from a public sense. Kids are starting to work on things. Not everyone, by the way, I'm not gonna glorify it. This, there are some kids that just- There's slackers in everything.

Well, I mean, I'll be honest. Or there's there's kids that are like, yes, just want an A. Yes, absolutely. Right. Absolutely. And God bless those kids. I loved them, but they had a hard time. Like, I don't understand why I have to do this.

And I'm like, what do you want to do? And I want to get an egg. I got it, which is interesting as you say that because you think about in high school, we all went to school with them. Those ultra unbelievable straight A kids that at 45, you would have about in high school, we all went to school with them, those ultra unbelievable straight A kids that at 45 you would have thought in high school were gonna be the most successful kids in the world that are just doing okay.

And then that weird creative kid who didn't make really good grades, who is the one that invented something and is mega rich, it's the same thing in your class really. It's just exploring it earlier. Learning how to fail in a place where failure is not normally accepted. Yeah, that's interesting. And so I do have to back up and tell this last story. So I had a young lady, super nice, and she had straight A's, and it was getting close to grade time. And again, every two weeks, we would go over your process and we would assign

ourselves a grade and she was honest with herself. I don't know, C or B, she was going through the motions, but never really, nothing was ever dawning on her. So she would say, this is what I worked on and I don't know, I guess this is blah, blah, blah and super sweet girl. And so we had close to the last conference of the semester and she was starting to like try not to cry I'm like what's wrong. She's like Mr. Ritchie like this is the only B. I have and I go. Oh, okay. She's like well like what can I do to prove?

To get an A. I said do the things that you feel compelled to do and grow on them I don't I don't know, man." And I go, do you want an A? She says, yeah. I said, then I'll give you the A. Now I feel guilty. I said, listen, I don't want this to hurt your GPA if that's what you really want to go for. But my heart tells me that I hope someday you work on the things that you want to do,

not just for the sake of compliance. And again, sweet girl, but I might as well have said it in another language she didn't speak. And when I said, and she did, she felt like genuinely bad. I'm like, don't worry about it. I'll give you an A. Now ethically, like you can say, oh, she didn't deserve it. But like the whole point was for you to grow. And she, and by the way, she then didn't take the class in the semester. I mean that was it was supposed to be a two semester class she's like I'm just gonna part ways absolutely. I don't want to get in the kids way. She wanted to get into the best school possible and it would have hurt things but just it hurt my heart that instead of like using the

class to do the things that you want to do she still just played the game of I just want a good grade. Well it also speaks to the fact that some people prefer their own prison. Yes, it's exactly right. So people do prefer their own prison. It's better to be in prison than experience the unknown. Yeah, I shouldn't have compared school to prison. That was no, it's that's not right. But it's it's it it it explains the difference in people that are.

Systemized first creative thinkers. Afraid to step out. Yeah. So along those lines of creativity and it's in here, I I think it before we, and then we're stepping on, I think it's really interesting the perspective on a 20th century requirement for earning and keeping and advancing in a job or profession versus 21st century kind of model. Talk to us about that.

I think everybody knew where they were when they first discovered and tried on chat CPT. I started doing things like actually had a podcast and I was doing things live and I was on with my best friend Jamal and like I was typing in things about myself and Jamal and it was spitting out like Information about me. I said create a short story about Don Jamal and like it just was figuring out. It was shocking The jobs of the future allow on discernment and creativity. And there are so many things that are shockingly moving fast that there's no class right now.

Like teachers right now are figuring out in real time how to detect an essay written by Chad GPT. Ironically enough, I'm asking like, why did you make them write that essay? And like, because like, they can tell me what I want to hear, which is normally what you say having an essay like, this is what you're supposed to take from it. But if they could have chat GPT do that for them, they're asking like, really, the students has like, I'm just gonna jump to the soup.

Like, are you solving a problem? Is I think what some of the students are going for and that like, you know, you want me to write an essay about this, I will and they put in chat GPT and it's done. Well, I think there's a lot of merit for you to use your own creativity. This is very similar to like, don't use a calculator on this math problem. Why? It's there for a reason. It's a great tool. How to use it is something different. So I think a lot of things we're just learning in real time and

There's gonna be so many jobs unbelievably disrupted Do we have to figure it out? I think that's interesting because I'm sitting here thinking about like AI is the new big thing in business Right. Yep. I'm in the lumber business and I'm about to spend an ordinate amount of money to integrate AI into my systems. But if you're learning AI today in school as a freshman, by the time you're three years, which would be seven years later, into a job at an AI business,

what you learned is probably completely obsolete by them. Absolutely. And that is that is completely different. It's just the information and the flow and the turnover of of information, creativity and everything in the 21st century is nothing like from the 1960s to the 1990s when, you know, we just didn't have that speed in manufacturing and in creativity and all of that. And so what you're saying is,

is we better be turning out students who are autonomous and can be creative or they're not gonna be prepared for the 21st century marketplace. Correct. Right. If they can use, learn how to use that tool to adapt, then they may be onto something. If you're saying, I bar you from using it, first of all, the kids are going to use it. But it's also like figuring out how to either be way more productive, although that's in itself a problem too. Like I'm deeply, deeply, deeply concerned about a lot of this. So I'm not trying to glamorize that AI is the solution. Oh my gosh, it could be,

there's a lot of things could be bad. And then even on the creative side, I had two alumni of Innovate Within host a workshop and they're going through all these different works, these different platforms and things you can use. One of them is that it writes songs for you. It's shocking. So we were messing around and I said, okay, write a song and I was made up something like in the style of thrash metal and reggae fusion, writing about the Rocky Mountains and the beauty in December. And the song it spit out was amazing. Really?

15 seconds. That's scary. We kept messing around with it. You could tell it. Now, sometimes some of them have like, if you put in somebody specific, they're trying not to do that now. So if you said, you know,

create a song that sounds like corn, but is in the musical lyrical stylings of John Lennon, and make the, you know, make the chorus of the song say something about Christmas and July, and like, but it does it, it's shocking. So I'm also, I'm not trying to take it too hard of a left turn here, but like,

those creatives that know how people think and feel can now write things instantly, as opposed to somebody. So like, as opposed to somebody, this puts in a general prompt. Some could argue then, it is even more important that we have human beings that are keeping up with the creative.

Absolutely. Because humans are still humans. Right. And a great, this is why like prompt writers are going to be a bigger thing. But eventually, the AI is also going to learn how to create its own good prompts. So I'm not trying to say that like life is starting to become like, So I'm not trying to say that like life is starting to become like, um, what is that Disney film? Wally Wally. Remember Wally? I'm like, I'm starting to get a little bit concerned here. Um, but yes, but yes, the crazy because I didn't get the relationship until you said

that. Yeah. We're starting to get a nation that just like flies around space and watches TV because there's nothing else left to do except the entertainers, by the way. Okay, so here's the weird thing. We've heard all this. All right. And then I read this. Don is lectured across the US Europe, South America and Africa about collaboration, social media use

and work environments that enable innovation. There is travel is worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley to Ghana and seeks to bring that entrepreneurial mindset into classrooms. Don works with educators, students and entrepreneurs to bring innovation and collaborative skills and education. OK, that doesn't sound like a guy teaching high school. So there was a.

A professional shift, and it's time to get to that. The other thing is all of this is very cool, but. You were a teacher, right? It didn't really fit yet. The mold of an army of normal folks, which is a guy who sees an area need and fills it outside of what he does for a living. And so we've given the background to set up all of what's going up now with started up, which is spelled start it up. The ad is a little bit.

Yeah. It's a startup mentality. It's squeezed in a little bit in the education. Squeeze a little bit of the education. Start education up, start it up. So tell me when you made the fundamental shift from being a high school educator to what you decided to do and what has led to all of what

I just said and the Started Up Foundation and who are we serving, what are we doing, and how's it going? Oh man, thank you for asking that, because it's, yeah, this is really important. Because it was certainly a leap of faith too and a risk on your part. You were leaving a job. Yeah, and one I loved.

I think part of the origins of Start It Up really started with how we got attention from some people. So again, the- Meaning as you were still teaching. Yeah. We started getting some press. Like, one thing that really drove me nuts is when we as educators go, the press doesn't cover the good stuff,

they only cover the bad stuff. We'll call them. They're slow news days. And every now and then like student will do like, that's cool. All right, call the local affiliate. They may show up, they may not. So I was a showboat for sure.

I'm like, you gotta go see what this kid did. I was never afraid to call. But the open source learning part is where it got crazy. So because I kind of modeled it, the whole thing was based on Dan Ping's TED Talk. So I was thinking, well, I should call, I didn't know that he's semi-famous, right? In the author world, it's a pretty big deal.

So I was like, I'm gonna call this guy and tell him I wanna start a class and maybe he'll help me. And I did and he did. That's cool. And he's like, good for you. That's awesome. And so as I was mentioning before, some of the students were like telling me who these

thought leaders were. I was like, let's call them. Now I have to say, I was in the right place at the right time. This is right when YouTube started to monetize. So sometimes these people that are legendarily awesome YouTubers, like my favorite is Zach King. He was a soft maybe a junior in college and he was calling in my class. Another guy, Chris Milk, who had done all the music videos for like YouTube and Kanye,

he's calling my video class. We're open sourcing our learning. And maybe one of the most pivotal moments was two things that just blew us away. I had them read a section of Tim Ferriss's four hour workweek. And I forget which chapter it was, but basically he talked about he visited a college classroom and he says, who would you want to talk to? Who would you want to work with?

And I think he offered up like a $2,000 bonus, whoever could get to that person. And he wrote in the book, he's like, no one even tried. Like, oh, you even tried? Yeah, they're like, oh, no one's gonna respond to me. Now, mind you again, social media wasn't as big as it was, but supposedly, they tried.

So I'm having the students read this and they go, I go, well, who do you guys want to reach out to? And they're like, well, let's try Tim Ferriss. I go, well who do you guys want to reach out to? And they're like, let's try Tim Ferriss. I go, yeah. We'll be right back. When the Taliban banned music in Afghanistan, millions were plunged into silence. Radios were smashed, cassettes burned. You could be beaten or jailed or killed for breaking the rules.

And yet Afghans did it anyway. This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol. The danger they endured. They said my head should be cut off. The joy they brought to the nation. You're free completely. No one is there to destroy you.

I'm John Legend. Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Last season, millions tuned into the Betrayal podcast to hear a shocking story of deception. I'm Andrea Gunning, and now we're sharing an all new story of deception. I'm Andrea Gunning and now we're sharing an all-new story of betrayal. Stacey thought she had the perfect husband. Doctor, father, family man. It was the perfect cover for Justin Rutherford to hide behind. They led me into the house and I mean it was like a movie. He was sitting at our kitchen table. The cops were guarding him.

Stacey learned how far her husband would go to save himself. I slept with a loaded gun next to my bed. You not just say I wish he was dead. He actually gave details and explained different scenarios on how to kill him. He to me is scarier than Jeffrey Dahmer. Listen to Betrayal on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check the backseat.

Check the backseat. Hi, come here. Check the backseat. Check the backseat. Check the backseat. Gets in your head, right? Good. Because every year, dozens of children are forgotten in the backseat of a car by a parent or caregiver. All never thought it could happen to them. But with changes in routines, distractions, or a sleeping child, it can happen to anyone.

Parked cars get hot, hot fast and can be deadly. So get it in your head. Check the backseat. A message from NHTSA and the Ad Council. So we get on Twitter and we started tweeting at him, nothing. And I was like, oh, let's choose somebody else. And so a girl came up to me the next day

or two days later and she goes, I got an idea. She says, how about we do this? She says, I'm gonna get three other students and we're gonna like look really sad. And you put, hey, at T Ferris, we're so disappointed and sad that we're taking your advice and you're not getting back with us.

And so we're sitting in class and I send it and we're like, this is a kid who came up with absolutely. And this is also the genius part of the class. I think there's like 25, 30 students in that class. So all 30 of them retweet it. And so it gets, so it gets bumped up and I happened to, I had a lucky break, right? I had a blue check mark. And so that also kind of gets helped too. And so this was before you had to buy a check mark,

which I don't anymore because I don't want to buy it. But so all of a sudden a notification goes off, ding, ding, Tim Ferriss follows you. Oh my gosh, guys. And the kids were like, oh. And then all of a sudden, like 20 seconds later, DM from T8Ferris, ha ha, you got me. Let's go ahead and schedule a Skype tomorrow.

I love it. Now my kids were like, we can get to anybody. Nobody's outside of our reach. They got liked about, these were kids that were fanboying on Tim Ferriss. I would dare say there's not a lot of high schools like Tim Ferriss, that's cool, but that's the culture we wanted to go for. Yeah. Not Kim Kardashian. Oh, can we put a pin on that? I want to talk to you

later about that whole, we'll put a pin on that. Okay. And how it relates to my daughter. So who's next? I mean, have Tim we like he gave us two hours Thank You Tim Ferris for watching this so the kids were like again This is like ten years ago, and they're like ninja. Let's see if we can get a hold of ninja so ninja was a video game streamer and Basically we send out a request to him I mean he's got this is at his height. And once again, all of a sudden he likes it, sends a video back to us responding and the kids was like, we can do anything. But it was that thing. But how about that? How about a bunch of kids in

high school screaming, we can do anything? That's cool. And so then they started like, the intrigue of the class was the draw. So then my kids got really good at saying, hey, famous YouTuber or whoever they want to connect with. Sometimes it was a CEO that I had never heard of and that's fine. It was in their genre. I had this class where we're supposed to connect and open source our learning through really awesome people and you're that awesome person. Would you call into our classroom or just

set up a private Skype with me? Now, if that doesn't touch your heart, I mean, by the way, some people still either didn't respond or we weren't batting 100%, but we were hitting better than Ted Williams. That's unreal. And, again, we're at the right place at the right time.

This was early. This was when social media was a little bit more wholesome. But it, but you know, it's back to that. Hey, I'm just a kid like mean Joe green signed my Jersey, right? It's I am a high school student and my class is predicated on talking to you. Do you want to help? Yeah. So, which to help? Yeah. So which is awesome.

Absolutely. So back to your question. Sorry, had to take a side step there. Um, the the state's innovation chief information officer David Roberts was with a group called the Indian Economic Development Corporation IDC. And he had heard and seen some things that we had done. Your class in my class. Yeah, yeah. And so he had heard and seen some things that we had done. Your class. In my class. Yeah, yeah. And so he approached us and he says, Hey, the IDC has been kicking around this idea of wanting to start a shark tank for kids for Indiana. And I go, good luck.

Those are dumb. Thank you. Why? Thank you for asking. Because I had seen things that they were they were speech competitions. And they would say something big and grandiose, like, I'm going to cure world hunger through an app that I don't know how to write. Or the most cliche thing, I want to start a food truck, even though I don't know why or what the costs are. And I said, you know, I just, I don't have time. And they go, what would you do differently? And I go, probably make it a lot more practical. And I said, you know, I just, I don't have time. And they go, what would you do differently? And I go, probably make it a lot more practical.

And I like would have them solve smaller problems because they can always learn how to scale up. And they go, help us out. So in year one, there's this thing called Innovate Within, capital I-N for Indiana. And we had a hundred students that in year one, it was still a big idea competition. In year two, they said, we'd like for you to stand side

by side with us. And in year three, they go, hey, man, it's yours. We think an educational thing should be ran by an educator. And that's how Start It Up was born, really with a great partnership through the state's chamber, I mean, the commerce secretary and David Roberts, and we ran with it. And so year one, it was 100 and now it's over 3000.

What is it? It is a pitch competition where you see a problem as an opportunity. And for that reason, it is all over the place. Which is, by the way, exactly what we talk about. See a problem, view it as an opportunity, and fill the need. Yes.

And that is exactly what you're doing. Kids, tell me stories. How long do you have? I'll give you some of my favorites. I told you this would be, so one of my, I shouldn't play favorites, but here we are. I'll start with the one that's sweet and wholesome. So in our, by the way, the first couple of years, this was for schools that were upper middle class suburban. So we decided that if a kid from the inner city or rural participated, they were stumped on the judge's first question,

which is usually, what is your product market fit? What is your market validation? What are your costs? Yeah, they can't answer a question because they don't understand the question. Right. So we put out curriculum and immediately inner city shoots up.

Matter of fact, Gary, Indiana was like, just grew as our fastest area of growth, Gary. Which by the way, Gary is a great city. It's on the rebound. That's good news. It is. That a great city. It is on the, it's on the rebound. Um, that's good news. It is. That's great. It is.

It is. I really, I really didn't know that. Shout out to our girls from iron works. I had two students that went through this and they ended up starting there. So they just graduated from Purdue and they have a young entrepreneurial hub and Gary to 22 year old girls are doing destinations and kind of dojos for start young startups. Ironworks. Love you. See again, I have ADD. They didn't have that term when I was 52. Now I

just turned 52. So what was I saying? Yeah, yeah. So ironically, no, these these girls were from Gary, these other girls are from here. So in the curriculum, we're like, solve a problem. And so they they were working with their their teacher, who was a legendary teacher, Dan Schultz from Hobart High School. And they said, our problem is our humane society is a no kill shelter and they're lacking funds. It's a no kill, no kill shelter.

So what are they doing? Just mounding up animals everywhere that's trying to get them adopted It's a no kill shelter. No kill shelter. So what are they doing? Just mounding up animals everywhere? Trying to get them adopted and like begging fosters. It was a problem. It was a problem. That was a problem. And so Dan was like, all right, what are you going to do?

And they're like, we want to like sell like dog toys. And maybe we'll take the money from the dog toy sale and then that'll, we'll give the money to the Humane Society. And so what they decide to do is Dan asked, and I'm maybe getting some of the facts on what they came up with, what Mr. Schultz came up with, so I apologize to the Patchables girls, but they said second problem was that they also didn't like up psych, they didn't like fast fashion that you throw away. And so the girls went to the farmers market because I this is actually I'm getting this correct. They want

to the so they wanted to start selling at their local farmers market. But the first thing they started asking for is donations of jeans and old t shirts that you were going to throw out. And so they started shredding the t-shirts and the jeans pattern they'd cut out to make a little bone pattern and they were stuffing them with old shirts and using the jeans. Then they'd go to the farmer's market and sell out immediately. So much so that people were giving them money even though they didn't have any bones. So their problem was they couldn't keep up the capacity.

So this is where it gets really fun. Why I like using tax dollars for good. Part of the process is if you make it past round one, you are required to meet with your small business development center. And these girls were like, we've got a problem on our hands. People love our product. They love that it's helping the local humane society. And they love because it's getting fast fashion out of landfills.

How wholesome is this? Wait, it gets better. So this SBDC counselor goes, so your problem is assembly and production. They go, yeah. And there she goes, oh my gosh, about 10 miles from your, I don't know if it's that far,

very close proximity to your high school. There is an organization called Tradewinds and they hire special needs adults to sew and assemble things together. Two 15-year-old girls solved three problems, helping your main society, getting landfill off of landfill, and helping employ the most underemployed I Couldn't script a better movie than that and they wins the first time freshmen won That may be forever hard to beat that story that's I'll start showing that Nominal I'm hoping to try to shop that to like NBC's making a difference

That's a great story. And so all of this comes from was that part of started up? Yeah. That's from this thing. Yes, part of our curriculum, see a problem, solve it. And because of great teachers, no, like, part of that's from us. They had a little dare, 18 year old girls go on to do with their life after that. They're still in high school. They're still in. Are you kidding me? Oh, you keep asking the most great questions

because now it's gonna sound even better. They haven't participated in Innovate Within because they already won. And so they're mentors, they're mentors for students that are older than them. Teaching them how to do started up stuff. Amazing. And one of the universities. So it started up stuff. Amazing. And one of the universities.

So it started up now an organization that you're the executive director of or whatever. How's that work? The CEO. And so you're now running this, is it an annual competition? Yeah, so man, I wish I could always do interviews, this accommodating.

So yes, our big, our big, one of our big things is innovate within. That is the big pitch competition that is statewide. We have six regions. So if you took a map of Indiana and you bolded it in half and you cut it in thirds, those are our six regions. So we get thousands of teams to apply and then we boil them down through a rubric

and a lot of judging. Do we break down a top 10 in every region? We have those in person. So now we have 60 groups. Mm-hmm. Okay. And then those competitions are pretty amazing. I bet they are. Once you boil it down to them, again,

with our partners at the Small Business Development Centers, they help coach them. A lot of to them, again, with our partners at the Small Business Development Centers, they help coach them. A lot of legacy teams, those kids come back and coach up their schools. From there, we have six finalists and we have four wild cards. Luckily for us, there was a consistent judge at all six with the SBDCs and the IDC. And so we basically have four, because in some cases, second place, it's too good. So we have a top 10 team. My favorite thing is those kids I'm hoping to know that by the way, if you made it to the top 60, we have an alumni association.

I hope to know them for the next 20 years, which will make me 72. You're kidding. No, no, no. By Governor Holcomb asking for it. Slight turn, again, people are like, dear God, this man's ADD. But one year he was listening to this girl, so he shows up early,

and I'll say this about Governor Holcomb, he really loves Innovate with N and started up. And so he was talking to this one young lady, and he looks at me and he goes, she just made me feel so stupid, this is awesome. And he goes was talking to this one young lady and he looks at me and he goes, she just made me feel so stupid. This is awesome. And he goes, where is she going? And I'm like, oh, don't worry about it. She's going to Indiana University. She's going to IU. He goes, no, no, no, no, no. In five years, where is she going? And I was like, I don't know. And he goes, are you going to keep in contact

with her? And I go, actually, this was like the year three or four. And I go, we actually do stay in contact with a lot of them. And he goes, you should have like a better tracking. And so we started an alumni association to really refer. And then why don't we get into other people we're dealing with and working with. They want referrals to other people. And we do that for them. And then the other big thing we do is

though those top 10 teams, whether you came in first or 10th, they all go to another city, ironically, to incentivize them to stay in Indiana. The last two years, so the first year was New York City. And we're trying to show them, like, they got to meet Seth Godin and John Ford of CNBC and these other cool, like, cool things.

And then they're meeting a great network and we're over their side, like whispering there, but you should still like stay in Indiana. Cause like, you know them now and it's cheaper to stay here and your mom and dad love you. So don't leave, right? And so that's the crown jewel is innovate with them.

And that whole process. I gotta believe there's kids standing in line to be part of this thing. Man, oh, at some schools, this will go down as my favorite interview ever. Um, thank you, dude. You're just serving and you weren't, we weren't, we didn't rehearse. We did not rehearse. You would think, and at some schools it is becoming popular,

because of what you just said, I will not be flying to your house and washing your floors. Okay. There we go. From our previous conversation to your house and washing your floors. Okay. There we get from our previous conversation. All right. Good. Good. Good.

So this is the thing that this, one of the reasons why we now have this teacher fellowship in the beginning. Um, when we put out the curriculum, we started to see some growth in certain schools, when we looked at it, it was not the school. It was an individual teacher. There was absolute Trojan horse. I was talking about Dan Schultz, Sarah Ackerman, Jose Moda, these absolute stellar. Great teachers. Yeah. And so we then started having more conversations with them on how do we grow

it. And they were the pied pipers. And I will say our Secretary of Education and just our DOE in general, they take some risks. We had some changes in our new requirements and we're being criticized for them, but in a lot of ways they're very friendly towards the trade. So I personally think that people are,

I think what India is doing is wonderful. But I asked her, hey, I'm starting to identify these unbelievably great teachers, let's start a fellowship. Plus, a friend of ours, and now one of our newest board members, he is a White House fellow, and he's telling me about if you make things like fellowships are powerful. And so we propose that we have this fellowship of innovative educators. It's exclusive, like I'm talking, we're trying to get some awesome things for you.

It's a bad business model, but it's good for teachers. So a lot of times, like I'll bring in money and I'll pay them more because, and it's not a whole lot, but it's better than working 30, 40 football games and basketball games at the gate. Not that there's anything wrong with that. You should still work the gate. But we also gave them other incentives.

Every now and then it'd be like a panel speaking thing and we wanted the teachers to go. We had a couple, and this is where hopefully people are like, you lucky son of a, we're in Indianapolis, so it's the motor sports capital. There is a wonderful company called Delara. They're the innovation leaders in motor sports. And they're in the Italian Motor Valley. And so they like some of our teachers and students and we went out to

Italy. Teachers didn't pay for that. And, and, and, you know, we've had other opportunities where we would get crazy relationships and we wanted to make sure the teachers got to work or talk to them. Just this last year, thank you, Indiana Pacers, the Indianapolis, the Indiana Pacers hosted the NBA All-Star game this year, and they brokered an awesome BO this with 50 Cent. And 50 Cent sponsored, wanted to sponsor two teams from certain high schools around the Indianapolis era. And so some teachers and students got to meet 50. Like we wanted to, like we want to, like we want to. Like we want to, like we want to

celebrate ties, great teachers. And if you celebrate ties them enough, they get picked up. So we're like, all right, let's bust our butt to have better incentives for them. Cause like schools can't pay you for like, ironically schools normally don't do like bonus pay for turning

out amazing stuff, but I can. Yeah. We'll be right back. When the Taliban banned music in Afghanistan, millions were plunged into silence. Radios were smashed, cassettes burned. You could be beaten or jailed or killed for breaking the rules. And yet, Afghans did it anyway. This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.

The danger they endured. They said my head should be cut off. The joy they brought to the nation. You're free completely. No one is there to destroy you. I'm John Legend. Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Last season, millions tuned into the Betrayal podcast to hear a shocking story of deception.

I'm Andrea Gunning, and now we're sharing an all new story of betrayal. Stacey thought she had the perfect husband, doctor, father, family man. It was the perfect cover for Justin Rutherford to hide behind. It led me into the house. And I mean, it was like a movie. He was sitting at our kitchen table. The cops were guarding him. Stacey learned how far her husband would go to save himself.

I slept with a loaded gun next to my bed. You not just say I wish he was dead. He actually gave details and explained different scenarios on how to kill him. He to me is scarier than Jeffrey Dahmer. Listen to Betrayal on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Snakes, zombies, sharks, heights, speaking in public,

the list of fears is endless. But while you're clutching your blanket in the dark, wondering if that sound in the hall was actually a footstep, the real danger is in your hand when you're behind the wheel. And while you might think a great white shark is scary, what's really terrifying and even deadly is distracted driving.

Eyes forward, don't drive distracted. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. ["Distracted Driving"] All right, so last year, let's just take last year, all right? Last year, there's these 60 teams. Yeah. Or are they teams? Yeah.

All right, 60 teams. Are they, is that usually two students or three? I was just gonna say, sometimes they're solopreneurs. We actually pay out a little bit more if you're a team. Okay. Yeah. So there's 60 competitors. All right. Do they all present at the same place? And who do they present to? So depending on the location, a lot of times they're at universities. Um, we had one at a maker space this year, but they all top 10 teams for that region, one, the consistent judge was Anne Marie. She was from the IDC.

And then at a lot of times it was like a university president or provost, or sometimes like the, the business department, um, lead, but they weren't us. So, yeah, so they would, these top 10 teams would make that pitch. And again, a lot of these people had business backgrounds, so they were asking him real questions. Yeah. And it, I think that's why it has gotten so competitive. It's also where it breaks my heart because competitions make everything better, but they also like, like I hate to see, you know, kids like walk away dejected. Like last year I started freaking crying at state finals

because I felt so bad. It's like, like all 10 teams were amazing. And I was like, the second place team, I was like trying not to, because I'm way emotional. Okay, so, so how long were these presentations that they did? Yeah, six minutes with four minutes Q&A. So these kids could work conceivably all year and they first identify an issue and then they come up with a solution they come up with a solution. And then they implement that

solution. And then they get shot down by their teacher fellow. I think what what they have the superpowers is they have them the power to say, this is not good. Start over. And so they do until they come up with a problem, a solution and an implementation for it. Yep. And then they, in six minutes, after working conceivably a year on this, stand in front of some adults that are judging them,

and they have six minutes to sell you on, this is a real problem, this is the way we're going to innovate to solve the problem. And here's how we implemented it. I don't think you could learn any better. Can I add just one more thing on that? Please? The harsh, first of all, this is every pitch competition, right? You boil down things down and you have to be concise. But most of the top teams, and this is again,

I'm not pandering to my governor, but he pointed it out last year. He goes, he took the stage and after all of them, he says, all 10 teams had advisory boards. And they weren't moms and dads and aunts and uncles. That's also part of our curriculum. Understand your network. Who do you reach out to? Who do you get advice from?

Good advice. Not like my dad says, oh, that's the reality of the world, but they have gotten to be so savvy. We've had several kids this year as they were going through their slides and they'd show a graph on expenses and like, here's basically a snapshot of our expenses. I'd love to go into more detail in Q&A. They're baiting the judges to ask. What is wrong with that? I love it. It's, again, you watching like, I am stupid.

At this age, I was trying to impress my girlfriend, who thank God is my wife now. But like, you go like What and and and and why actually there's like two or three teams that they go later And they're all live stream is like all of ours are live streams And there's other so man first mover advantage is not a first mover advantage So God bless the kids in region one because I know that Region 3, they're literally like popcorn watching.

Maybe they don't serve popcorn, but they're all watching and they're like, that's good. And so there's been a couple of kids that blazed the trail of I'd love to go into more detail. You can ask me that in Q&A later, you know, follow up. But that's like it. So after they make the system presentation, then there's a panel of judges that then get to do the shark trac drilling. Absolutely. And they've got a snap off answers. And if they if they try to, if they try to snow it or don't have real answers, it's it shows. You're done. Yeah. Matter of fact, we've even kind of coached them up of like, there's nothing wrong with admitting I don't know that answer. I don't know is better than a snow job. Absolutely. And then I think the other

really interesting part of the Q&A is just I think that's where it's won and lost. That's what I would expect. Yeah, especially anybody can make a nice PowerPoint. Right. Yeah. How do you respond to the real questions? And those who have really had mentors that are in this, and then there's certain high schools that it has become so competitive. Like that's their sport now. Has any of these become ongoing entities? Tell me one. Again, not trying to show favoritism, but probably one of our bigger success stories.

And the one that you're just talking about, like, it doesn't have to be good looking slides and well versed. You just have to have something that makes sense. We had two young men, I mean this lovingly, they would start, they're the kind of young men that would start off a sentence with, I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. Tell you what. They were they're good country boys. Got it. And this was at the state finals where.

Things were polished, slides look good. A lot of times kids were in suits. These young men were in car hearts, right? Their problem was. By the way, I love them already. That's my guy. What would I say? Like you'll get what their problem was.

So their problem was, their problem was the lures you get at the Walmarts aren't right color and consistency for crappie fishing in the spring in Indiana. Well, that's a problem. So they started SIBCO, which stands for Southern Indiana Bait Company. And what they were doing is they were listening to fishermen and what color combinations work best for crappie and then bass and then. So I think now their point of sale, they have like 50 different products. Are you kidding?

They made their own plastic injection molded shad worms, crawdads. I mean, like. Yes, frogs. The problem is the problem is the is the tackle out there available to attack crappie. You're telling me the people that made those for a living had not figured out the best color combinations. Probably had in a general mass market, but they started off hyper niche. They started off wanting to help Southern Indiana fishermen. Southern Indiana fishermen for the crappie and those ponds. And now they have sales in all 50 states in Europe.

You are kidding me. By the way, he also, if I'm getting this wrong Zion, I apologize. I think that he also started the Bass team in his high school. And now he is among, I don't know if he's the, I don't know if he's the president, but he also helps run the bass team at Purdue.

Is it a business? Sibco is, yeah. And they started from this thing in high school. And let's talk about the- And the boys go to, like their other thing is, they listen to Fisherman and what do they do? Most of their money is because they do trade shows. They're on tour during trade shows.

And these are country kids in cars that would have never ever ever gone down that path had this not been there for. Right. And ironic, well, no, no, these boys were, they were destined for this. They already started it in a minor way and then they kept expanding it. So credit where credit's due, these were inventive young men, brothers, by the way, Zion and Xavier. But their ability to listen to fishermen and work trade shows, and honestly, what is their secret sauce?

Their age. You made these? Yes, sir, I did. And then went through the process of learning how to package and make sure the packaging looks good and everything else. So again, like last year's winners, right? They came up because they had a legendarily awesome teacher, Craig. What was their problem?

They were in a biomed class, so they went to a hospital and started asking a lot of questions. And what they found was the problem. Right. So they, they, they realized that a lot of people that had catheters and lots of people at the site, right, you'll get infected. And then how do you know you have infection? It gets, it gets warm and it gets red around where the catheter goes into the body. Right. So they're like, yeah, that's a real problem. Right. And normally when you detect it, you're like, why is this sore? So they're like, why isn't there like a little interceptor in the tube you can tell an infection before it gets bad? Wow. And some people are like, it's actually not rocket science. Why aren't we,

it's actually not rocket science. Why aren't we, why aren't we doing that? And? And they, they, they won. Are some of these kids like patenting these ideas? And do they have helped a copyright or patent, whatever they're doing? Yes. And, and matter of fact, uh, so you'd be a high school kid figured out what, Oh, it still needs more research. Make no mistake about that one. Like, like the things that are in the biomed area, you have to be careful. Now that what they have was basically like an antigen test or like it's an interceptor. So it really doesn't affect,

it can be done a little bit easier. So if they said, I've got a cure for blah, blah, blah. Still the fact that these kids are walking around hospitals asking what's the problem and then coming up with solutions. That is- That's the thing. But that's learning. That's education. Yes. that's it's education in

standing in front of people. It's education, entrepreneurship, it's education and being creative. It's education and asking questions. It's education, developing relationships. It's education on entry to market. It's education, how to inspect budgeting and how to invest investor, how to spend investor budgeting. And how to invest in investor money. In finance? I was just about to say finance. The kids that win regional know.

Again, they watched the years before. They know that one of the statements that all the judges like to see, how did you spend your regional money? Research and development. Marketing. Paid ourselves back. Because like, if you win the region, it's $1,000 per person per team plus an all-expense trip to this year's Washington, D.C.

So the prize money should not go to, you know, Mountain Dew and whatever. As a matter of fact, at the state level, it's a $25,000 seed fund. We take 0% equity, but there was a joke in year one. What happens when you give a kid a $25,000 check? He buys a used Mustang. So now the expectation is, and because sophistication has gotten better, they know that that's an investment in them. So they're not going to go buy a used car. They're like, I'm going to grow this thing. We'll be right back. When the Taliban banned music in Afghanistan,

millions were plunged into silence. Radios were smashed, cassettes burned. You could be beaten or jailed or killed for breaking the rules. And yet, Afghans did it anyway. This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.

The danger they endured. They said my head should be cut off. The joy they brought to the nation. You're free completely. No one is there to destroy you. I'm John Legend. Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Last season, millions tuned into the Betrayal podcast to hear a shocking story of deception. I'm Andrea Gunning, and now we're sharing an all new story of betrayal. Stacey thought she had the perfect husband. Doctor, father, family man.

It was the perfect cover for Justin Rutherford to hide behind. They led me into the house and I mean it was like a movie. He was sitting at our kitchen table. The cops were guarding him. Stacey learned how far her husband would go to save himself. I slept with a loaded gun next to my bed. He did not just say I wish he was dead. He actually gave details and explained different scenarios

on how to kill him. He, to me, is scarier than Jeffrey Dahmer. Listen to Betrayal on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Snakes, zombies, sharks, heights. Speaking in public, the list of fears is endless. But while you're clutching your blanket in the dark, wondering if that sound in the hall was actually a footstep, the real danger is in your hand, when you're behind the wheel.

And while you might think a great white shark is scary, what's really terrifying and even deadly is distracted driving. Eyes forward, don't drive distracted. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. drive distracted. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. Fun fact. This year's crop of Forbes 30 under 30, we have two. This year's crop of Forbes 30 under 30. Two came from this. 19 years old. You are kidding me.

Nope. This should be done in every state. I would like your help. It's been a lonely, weird existence. It's, which is why I was so excited to do this podcast. Cause you're leading an army of normal people and normal people go, what, why isn't my son's school doing that? And yet it's been really difficult.

Can private schools be involved? Absolutely, homeschool cohorts. Homeschool's awesome, yeah. Yeah, you had a guest on about homeschool cohorts. So yeah, I mean, yes, yes. I want every high schooler to at least have this option. And by the way, I'm giving you the best case scenario. We still get a lot of really bad pitches,

but they're thinking, okay, one way. Who cares? Exactly. There's part of education also to be told that's a bad goal. That's not a proper dream, but I like your thought process. Refine it and come back. Yeah. Which is exactly what a bank's going to say to me when I want to start a business.

And you might as well learn that. Now, exactly. I'm going to, for those watching on videos, I know this is mostly an audio, but I'm going to do exactly. So round one, it's a video pitch because we have to go over a lot of them. And this is one young man from a school that did not have a lot, gave the a thousand yard stare. And the video looked like this. He looked at the camera and he goes, I've been listening to people complain and I think I'm onto something.

His a thousand yard stare, seriously, in that moment, I knew that the mindset was there. In his eyes, he was like reflecting, like, this is cool. And I just love the fact that our theme has been, see a problem as an opportunity. And he's like, I've been listening to people complain, and I think that I'm onto something. That was everything to us. He didn't go on and win. He didn't make it to the regionals. But it's that beginning muscle memory of saying, like we say this again and again and again in our curriculum, people of influence solve people's problems. The gold standard right now for kids in entrepreneurship is Mr. Beast.

Is what? Mr. Beast. He is the gold standard right now for kids in entrepreneurship is Mr. Beast. Is what? Mr. Beast. He is the gold standard. This guy, years ago, was doing dumb things on, I shouldn't say dumb, he was doing stunts on Twitch. Like, I'm going to watch the Macarena for 48 hours and livestream it. But he would make money and people would feel sorry, give him five bucks here, ten bucks there, everything. And he's like, hey, I'm gonna plant 10,000 trees now from the money. And this guy is the biggest YouTube influence.

Like he makes more, he's making bank. I think he may be with the B now, not just the M. Wow. He is making more money than anybody, anybody. And like a couple of my favorites, he went to a buy here, pay here a lot. Matter of fact, fact check me, it may have been in Tennessee. A lot of times they're in North Carolina, but he went to a buy here pay here a lot, obviously in a buy here pay here a lot, not great area. And he bought every car

and he started putting in window stickers that said $1 and $5. And people are like, they had cameras and people are like, are you, what are you doing? You drive a hard bargain, I'll give you $20,000 to take it off our hands. For people that needed it. Went to a grocery store like an are you, what are you doing? Is you drive a hard bargain, I'll give you $20,000, take it off our hands. For people that needed it. Went to a grocery store, like an IGA, a smaller one, bought the grocery store, everything in it. Got on the piece like, hey, if anybody here is shopping, you just could go ahead and leave, we're just gonna pay for all of it.

One end of something, his fans. Love it. One of his fans brought in like refrigerated box trucks, took in all the food food and then started making deliveries to food shelters, food entries, I mean. You're kidding. No, this guy has monetized nice. Got it.

So a lot of times he'll do good things. So people are like, you know, he's making all his money off of YouTube. No, he's not. He sells merchandise. I have a Mr. Beast hoodie and I'm 52 years old. I have a Mr. Beast hat because when people see like, especially when he was first like not because when people see like, especially when

he was first like not too popular is like, if you know, you know. So when I'd wear my Mr. Beast hoodie, the kids are like, ah, wet trick. All right, hold on. It's time to introduce somebody else. If you're a listener of an army normal folks, you know, Alex, who is our producer and, um, often my straight man who I like to make fun of. But there's another guy named Cassius who's our videographer. Cassius owns ISF productions and if this podcast where we do many of our podcasts, which you can attest to pretty cool outfit, right? It's sure.

Anyway, when you said Mr. Bees, that's the first time I've ever heard you say a word doing a record. Gashis, you know who Mr. B is? You watched him? Really? Is he hilarious? Alright, so what you're saying is your kids are all like Mr. B's. He's the gold standard. Mr. What? Mr. Beast. Like he's the beast.. Mr. What? Bees, like he's the beast. Mr. Beast. Yeah.

But when I go into schools, sometimes that, I want to, like I'm making a lot of school visits. This is my thing. I love my team, they're fantastic. My, actually my former student is one of my co-founder. That's awesome. But I want to go and visit schools. And so a lot of times, like who's this older guy and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, hey guys, have you ever heard of entrepreneurship? And I started them off really boring. And I said, you know, ask me who my favorite entrepreneur is.

And they're like, is it Elon or is it Jeff? I go, Mr. Beast. I go, it's Jimmy. And they all, they, cause if you know who Jimmy is, they're like, you know what? I don't know Mr. Beast. Oh, that's okay. There's so many names.

And so they're like, what do you mean? I go, he's an entrepreneur. And like, no, he's not. He's a YouTuber. And I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, I don't know, you know what? I don't know. It's Mr. Beast. Oh, that's okay. It's his real name. There's so many names.

And so they're like, what do you mean? I go, he's an entrepreneur. And like, no, he's not, he's a YouTuber. No, he's an entrepreneur. And I break it down and they're like, that's what I want to do. Because he, cause here we go, this episode is called, cause he does rule number three.

Nothing that he does is about just him. It's about helping others. He has monetized nice, which now we're going to get to the Kim Kardashian thing. This is a new high for me and remembering my ADD and circling back something. Years ago, I had my daughter, she just wanted to have a day off school. So I had released a book and I was starting to speak a little bit. One of them was going to be in Chicago, so I was going to drive to it. So Ava was like, hey, dad, can I kind of go with you and hear you speak?

I've never heard you speak. She just wanted to get out of school. God bless her. So we're driving and celebrity gossip radio comes on and they're talking about, and I think it was Kanye and Kim or whatever and about somebody getting a divorce. And my daughter turns off the radio and she goes, that, that's my generation's problem. And I go, what do you mean? And she goes, we're looking up to the wrong people. And I was like, yeah, I agree.

She's like, Gen Z just needs better mentors. And she went, mentors, mentor. I should start a podcast called mentors with a Z on the end. And I should interview better mentors for generation Z and not just like make it Kim and Kanye stuff. And she launched it. You're kidding. At age 16 or maybe she was 15th time. Yeah.

No kidding. She thought it was coolth time. Yeah. No kidding. She thought it was cool because dad was starting to do it. And she's like, well, I mean, like, plus she's like, that person got back to you. Maybe you can ask him to be on my show. But like, but she's like, it started off by her being disgusted

and going back to the, my kids were introducing me to thought leaders. Who's Gary Vee? Cause they were getting into this learning advice from people that weren't just showboating. And I think that's why Mr. B is so cool. I would argue it started off with her dad. And I would say that

this infectious disease called innovation and creativity can be contagious. But in the most positive, amazing way. Do you ever think, holy crap, I was teaching language arts and now we're doing this. Do you ever think, you know, I was teaching language arts in here? I guess what's the 15, 20 years? How long from when you started in education to when you started up started? I think I was in, ironically enough, I think it was in year 20 or 21.

So my dad's prophetic words. Unbelievable. Yeah. Actually I think it was exactly. That is, that is. Well, you took his advice. But I mean, what a trip. Yeah. Yeah. What's next?

Ironically, not, again, thank you for asking these questions. They're deeply personal to me. In a lot of ways, I'm trying to build what I wanted when I was a classroom teacher. In a lot of ways, I wanted access to my local mayor. I wanted access to great leaders in my community because therefore my students had access. And that's what we're trying to do. I've been unusually blessed with having strange encounters and now a network of like,

I can't believe that I get to meet with blank. It's been strange. Like three weeks ago, no was, no, nevermind. It's just stupid. I'm a black guy. No, three weeks ago. I met Richard Branson. You what?

Met Richard Branson. How cool is that? That's a longer story. But like, and somebody in online, like, how do you do that? And I said, the best thing I can answer is people, one, it was a stroke of series of good luck in a board member. But something he said, the best thing I can answer is people, one, it was a stroke of series of good luck in a board member. But something he said, I appreciate what you're trying to build. There's trying. A lot of people are like, dude, you're trying to take on education.

And so I am looking for one Trojan horse in a high school. If it's a huge high school, I'd like two or three. And so that's what's next. I want an army of exceptional teachers that are normal people. Because they see the writing on the wall. They see that some kids that like just went through it and graduated and have all the debt and none of the skills to not their fault. And so we're trying to build an army of teachers

that are our Trojan horses. They get inside the school walls To your credit they make it infectious Problem-solving can be cool and it takes leadership and leadership means you have to be accountable to somebody and that is your teacher if I can build that army, then I'm happy and I Will live up to my dad's legacy. And that's what I want. I like more than anything.

Probably one of the most like, I don't know how much he remembers of this, but like back when there was a thing called a mall, like kids would see my dad. And it was funny, cause like when you're a kid, when you see your teacher outside the school walls, you're like, oh my gosh gosh you don't live in school but I just remember this one encounter where a student stopped my dad and he

just start talking to him and he looked at me and he goes it must be so awesome to have a dad like you. Wow. And I think that's sorry. There are so many teachers out there that are that, and I want them to have more. And then I don't want to have them to say, I mean, like I wish I could do this for every teacher, but for right now, I want those creative Trojan horses to go in and really disrupt education.

Maybe in a kinder way, maybe in a less obtrusive way of how I started. But if we do that, you get students to really work on things that are impactful. And that's what we're gonna do in time. It just takes me longer than what I thought. It's phenomenal. Thank you.

If somebody listening wants to, wants to one, support what you're doing, or two, and even maybe more impactful wants you to share with them how this all works in Deanna for their state or three is an educator that just wants to do this in their class. Yeah. Or four is the. The president of some big school district that says, we need to do this in our city school system or whatever, because I mean, my gosh, as I listened to you,

I think about 50 different places, this model could be applied. How do I get in touch with you? There's always email. So D wet trick, D W E T T R I C K at started up foundation.org. Sorry about how long that is. That's good. Uh, Don wet trick on, on LinkedIn. I think those are the two best ways. And how do you find out more about startup foundations or website start ed up foundation.org and um, yeah.

And then we're relaunching. I used to have a podcast. It's done a two year pause. So I'm going to be starting that back up. What's it called? Started up podcast. We have two different segments. Yeah. So one is today's guest teacher. Definitely you're going to be a guest teacher. We'll make sure we record that. So we have some people of influence that they're teaching today's lesson. Got lesson. And then we have another section called Finding Purpose and we feature teachers because I'm hoping that we have on some really cool guests. And the teacher goes, I was on the same podcast as so-and-so.

That would be awesome. And you know, on an Army normal folks, we do the small blips of shop talk. I love shop talk. Thank you. I think wouldn't it be cool if you had small blips of students who've participated, just tell their experience too. Yep, yes, yes, noted, I'll do that.

That would be interesting for sure. Yeah, the proof's in that pudding, yeah, yeah. Don, thanks for coming to Memphis. Thanks for telling the story. Thanks for the work that you're doing with Start It Up and beyond all of that, there's lots of different ways to get to places and I just feel like there's so many kids in our school system that just kind of go through the motions to get lost. And this thing creates so much more and it is a different way to learn. And so thanks for all that you do and thanks for starting it up. But more importantly,

thanks for what you figured out from a Ted talk and then you instituted in your school and now you're instituting in your state that genuinely, positively affects kids. That is a phenomenal thing. Back at you. Last little Donism we want, I was wanting our students to be producers, not just consumers. Producing now has never been easier. You can upload your world to YouTube and influence people. I since Weston introduced me to you when I started digging in your podcast, the people

that are sometimes too humble to brag, the people that are doing the real stuff. When I saw that that was a thing, and then I saw that you had the documentary and all this other things, like that that was a thing. And then I saw that you had the documentary and all these other things like you're giving a voice. I don't want to say the voiceless, but you're giving a voice to like people like, you're doing that. So back at you. I just I love that when everybody else is chasing celebrities. You are chasing people with purpose and I got you man.

Well, I humbly say thank you for that but it was Alex's idea and all I do is talk to the people that he worked so hard to find so it's a lot more than just me. Say no Mo's on me. Thanks for joining us on An Army of Normal Folks, and I will absolutely keep up with you and Next time I'm in Indy, which won't be long from now. Maybe we Maybe we go get a bite to eat at st. Elmo silly. All right, buddy. Thanks for being with us And thank you for joining us this week And thank you for joining us this week. Guys, if Don Wettrick or another guest has inspired you in general or better yet to take action by bringing Genius Time, open source learning or start it up to your community, donating to them or something else entirely, please

let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at bill at normal folks dot us and ask around. I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends and on social subscribe to the podcast rate and review it. Become a premium member at normal folks dotks.us. Do all these things that will help us grow an army of normal folks. The more of you out there, the more impact we can have. I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week. Last season, millions tuned into the Betrayal podcast to hear a shocking story of deception. I'm Andrea Gunning, and now we're sharing an all-new story of betrayal.

Justin Rutherford. Doctor, father, family man. It was the perfect cover to hide behind. Detective Weaver said, I'm sure you know why we're here. I was like, what in the world is going on? Listen to Betrayal on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. MTV's official challenge podcast is back for another season.

And so are we. I'm Tori Deal. And I'm Anissa Ferreira. The wait is over, guys. All Stars 4 is finally here. And this season takes it to a whole new level. Old school legends, modern power players, ex-lovers are all competing in Cape Town, South Africa

for the prize of $300,000. And we're going to be right here along with you fans covering every episode on the podcast. Listen to MTV's official challenge podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol. The joy they brought to the nation.

You're free completely. No one is there to destroy you. The danger they brought to the nation. You're free completely. No one is there to destroy you. The danger they endured. They said my head should be cut off. I'm John Legend. Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.