November 4, 2025 • 39 mins
When Vanessa Elias saw a rise of incivility in her Connecticut town, she rallied citizens to host 40 neighborhood block parties that had 1,200 attendees, so that people can get to know their neighbors, realize that they don’t hate them, and even enjoy them. It got so much attention that she started Block Party USA to spread this simple solution across the country!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I had a third brother or a third child, second brother,
and he died three days later. He was born with
half a heart and had surgery that didn't save him.
When my parents came home from the hospital calling in
the driveway with the wood paneled station wagon and just
their faces right red eyed zombies, I ran to missus
Gilliam's house. She held me on her lap and rocked
(00:25):
me and told me about cherubs and that Justin was
an angel in the sky. To have, like, you know,
another adult that a child can run to, literally run to,
for support locally, is just so meaningful and so important
for parents, for families, for kids, for everyone.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
And that obviously had a big impact on my life.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
And boy have we lost that today.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I'm a foot ball coach an
inner city Memphis. And that last part led to an
oscar for the film about one of my teams.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
It's called Undefeated.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Guys, I believe our country's problems will never be solved
by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits talking
big words. That nobody ever uses on CNN and fogs,
but rather by an army of normal folks. That's us,
just you and me deciding, Hey, you know what, maybe
I can help. That's what Vanessa Elias, the voice you
(01:31):
just heard, has done. Vanessa has lived in twenty eight
different places across the world, which has especially taught her
the importance of neighbors and community, and when she saw
a rise of incivility in her current community of Wilton, Connecticut,
she rallied citizens to host forty neighborhood block parties that
(01:53):
had one thousand, two hundred attendees so that people could
get to know their neighbors, realize that they don't hate them,
and even get this enjoy them.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Got so much attention.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
That she started block Party USA to spread this simple
solution across the country. I cannot wait for you to
meet Vanessa right after these brief messages from our general sponsors,
(02:31):
Vanessa Elias, Welcome to Memphis.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Vanessa Elias is the founder of block Party USA. She's
from Wilton, Connecticut, and was kind of enough fly down
and join us. Fly down last night, listen to some poetry,
avoid the paper tag driving idiots and enjoy Kings.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, I gotta, I gotta take out the bb Kings
and took it up to the rooftop and pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Boy.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, it was great.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Good.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Well, I'm glad you enjoyed a little bit of our
fair city. You're not far from the National Civil Rights Museum,
by the way.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah, I wanted to go there, but I'm going to
They were closed by the time I got in.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Wasn't Well, that's probably Alex's fault for not scheduling properly.
So founder of block Party USA. Certainly we're going to
get to that. And I found reading about your childhood
really interesting and certainly Germaine to the whole block party focus,
I think, which I don't want to put words in
your mouth. You can explain that. But you and I
(03:31):
studied the same thing in college. Oh yeah, yeah, And
I think I want to start there with you to
give our audience a perspective, and then we'll go back
to your childhood maybe. But I think both pieces offer
really interesting perspective on why you've done what you've done
(03:52):
and how successful you've been. And by the way, it's
really really cool and I can't wait to kind of
unfold it for our audience, but start with what you
studied and kind of what that led to in your
world after your childhood, which some of them will double
back and go to that.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
So I studied psychology, but only as undergrad I never
went further with that, and I also had a minor
in German.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Of course, that.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Makes total sense.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Oddly, my degrees are in psychology and English, so there
you go. I couldn't speak another language. I'm not good
at that stuff, so go ahead anyway.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
And so I think psychology was always of interest to me,
and it's trying to figure out how the world works,
how people work, and understanding where people are coming from,
what causes them to be the way they are, things
that we can do to impact our well being. And
I mean, I just I loved it. It was a
(04:45):
lot of fun. And then I never, like I said,
and then I went into marketing and use that psychology.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Actually psychology makes sense exactly, but I think it's interesting.
I think you have people that struggle with some mental
health issues in your family tell.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Us about that.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
So growing up I think that was really I didn't
have the family life that I wanted.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
I mean, from the outside, everything.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Was great, but there was a lot of volatility at home,
and I didn't really feel like I belonged and didn't
feel connected and struggled to understand that it wasn't about me, right,
it was about the other person and the things that
they had struggled with and trying to make sense of
it all.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Stuff.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
My dad left one was four, mom was married, divorced
five times. And I'm pretty sure that my going into
coaching and psychology was also a result of kind of
me trying to figure out who I was and where
I fit in the world. So I found that interesting,
which in addition to everything else. Don't you run a
(05:49):
support group or something?
Speaker 1 (05:50):
That kind of came tell me, But I'll just say
one more thing about college. I remember I found some
old papers that I had written you typed up and
I was blown way because what I had written was
how I wanted to help parents and understand their impact
of a child's self esteem.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
And you feel like your self esteem was negatively impacted.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
Your answer was not to be a victim, but was
to fix it for other people. Yeah, that says a
lot about you done it. It's very cool. So tell
me about support group thing.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
So support group is.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
It's with NAMMY, National Alliance on Mental Illness, which is
a nationwide grassroots organization with local chapters.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
And when we were abroad.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
For six years and things were really hard with one
of my child's mental health issues and was part of
the reason we came back to the US, we just
weren't able to get the support we needed. And I
had struggled in silence for so long that when I
came back to the US, I knew that I needed
to speak and I needed to find other people who
were experiencing this. So I had said to a friend,
(06:57):
I need something like alan ON, but for me mental health.
And yeah, it's for loved ones of people who suffer
from alcoholism, right, and so it's like part of the
AA world, and uh.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
People who are really the victims of the folks who
are in AA and are struggling. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Right.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So I was just so lucky that she'd heard of it,
and she said, there actually is something. It's called NAMMY,
And there was a meeting once a month, you know, uh,
thirty minutes away, and I went and I felt like
I was in a room with people who understood the
things that we couldn't speak about. Outside and so felt
(07:40):
like I just understood and that there was a world
in people. You know, it wasn't my fault, right, so
it was, yeah, it was I'm tearing up because it
was really meaningful. And so then I got trained, Like
once I felt like I was on solid ground and
got the help that we needed, I got trained to
be a facilitator and I started that. I think it
was about two years later, and I've been doing it
(08:02):
ever since.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
We're running a monthly group.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
We were in person, now we're online on Zoom, so
it makes it easier for people to join, so once
a month, and it's basically parents of or caregivers of
kids who are struggling with emotional and behavioral mental health
issues with a diagnosis or with not. We generally say
kids who are twenty one and younger, so you know,
(08:26):
it really ranges from seven year olds too. I mean
there are still people who come with older kids because
they've been coming for We've been doing it for a
long time. It's our eleventh year, so you know, kids
are older that are still struggling. So but it's a
safe space where you feel understood and you don't feel judged,
so and you can find the resources right and you
get a support from other people in the group, or
(08:48):
you know, things that worked or things that didn't, or
you know, just just a space where other people understand.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
While this is not the topic of our discussion today
is about block party, it's not about this.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
I think.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
I think as I read about block party, how it's
so much more important than just having a party. I
think that that experience of going to school and studying
psychology and what we're about to unpackage your childhood and
then what you've done since then, I think it's all
(09:25):
kind of part of the same bucket, don't you.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
I agree, yep, it is.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
So let's explain that a little bit, and you've alluded
to it. I'll just set up what Alex told me
and then.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
You rarely ever listened.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
So this is nice, and well, this is crazy.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
You've moved twenty eight times, lived in eight states in
four countries. True, and you were always trying to fit
in and belong and be part of something, and you
were always the new kid of the new family. In
the minute you started subtle, it's time to go again.
Lack of consistency and lack of connectivity had to have
been really difficult. So why what were we all running from?
(10:10):
I mean what I mean, I want to say it
sounds like a military family, but I don't know. Unpack
your childhood, tell us about all of that, because again,
maybe it doesn't seem on the face of it, the
block party has anything to do with this, but I
think it has a ton to do with it once
we understand more.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Definitely, I've come to understand that myself. It was actually
Jenny Wallace, whose author of Never Enough, who pointed out
to me. She said, you're like a community architect because
of you were always looking for community as a kid,
and it never it was so obvious, but it had
never hit me the.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Connection, right, It's like, it's obvious.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
So my dad was in that he had gotten a
scholarship to penn State as a kid. He grew up
in his deal mining town and and he in Pennsylvania
and got kicked out. She played too many cards and
so had to enlist in the military, and was lucky
that he had taken German in high school and so
(11:12):
instead of Vietnam, he was sent to Munich, Germany, and
there he met my mom, who's German and worked for
the German Secret Service.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Are you kidding me? This is so cool.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
So your mom worked for the German Secret Service and
your dad's a smart dude but played too much just
in the military and Munich, and that's where they met.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
That's where they met. Had me got married.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
In order in that order he got it Germany.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
My dad was twenty one, my mom was twenty four. Wow,
and moved back to the US when I was two
and a half and went back to Penn State cut
his undergrad and his MBA.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Okay, so then so then he like in our first
home in state college was a trailer so we lived
in a trailer park while they you know, my dad
went to school, my mom worked, watched me called it.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
A German woman from Munich from the German Secret Service
hosted up in a trailer in state park. Okay, a
little bit of a culture.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Shock for her.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Well, I don't you know.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
She had a rough childhood. Her mom died when she
was really young. Did remarried. They were from northern Germany actually,
and she had moved down to Munich to be with
Hamburg north of Homburg.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Well you get north of Hamborough here.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Near Denmark.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah, the North Sea silt or something.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, the island that. Yeah, I've never been, but I'm
pretty impressed.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Yeah, thanks, okay, So go.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Ahead, and I lived there, went to school, lived off
the GI bill, and then moved to Michigan to work
with Ford Motor Company and then Missouri behind your so
had we had a solid, small brick home in Michigan.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
That's where my brother was born there.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
So got it keep going because we're talking twenty eight times.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
So it was it was which Actually last night when
I saw the Mississippi River, I was like, I think
this is the first time since I was nine years
old that I've seen it.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
When we lived outside of Saint Louis and.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
So Michigan and Missouri, Missouri to Simmsbury, Connecticut, to Eastern Connecticut,
and then I went to college in Boston, studied abroad
in Wurtzburg, Germany, where I met my husband, who was
an American studying abroad as well, and we went German.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
She was not then.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
And then I moved to London because I had a
German passport and it was part of the EU and
I wanted to live abroad for a year, and we
tried to move back to Germany for him to get
his master's and it didn't work and I was like,
I'm staying. So I worked for Herod's and Bloomberg Financial
Markets in London and then moved for Hares.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah, that was it was pretty great.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
The corner exactly, I know, it's great.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
So it was quite an experience. Al fay Ed was
running it then.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
I don't know if you know absolutely his son is
who was killed in the car with Princess Diana. Rightly.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Yeah, he was a pretty scary guy, so he kept
her head down.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
He really was a scary guy. It was really scary guy. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
That moved to d C, where my husband was finishing
his masters, and then we got married in d C.
We wanted to go somewhere, you know, new. We wanted
to be in your mountains, think about Vermont. And a
friend said you should go check out Utah. So we
went to Utah for our honeymoon to go skiing.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Fell in love with it.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Park City Valley we went to.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
We went to Salt Lake first and it was we
were like, what is going on? It's so quiet here,
and then we went up to Park City beautiful Updome.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
It was gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
We rented a house uh, moved back to DC, quit
our jobs, and moved out six weeks later. It was
it was like we've done all travel in Europe and
we were driving. I have pictures of me driving up
the Highway of eighty Interstate eighty because it was so beautiful.
I had no idea this existed in America. It was
(15:11):
so gorgeous, beautiful. So then my husband got a job
he was working with Morgan Stanley, got a job offer
in San Francisco, where we bought a house, lived a
total of six months. Hated it, and we got out
right before the crash.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
So we got lucky. Moved to Greenwich, Connecticut.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Then nine to eleven, we're like, everyone's like, oh, they're
going back to Utah, and we finally did. And then
you know, we had a kid in Connecticut, kid in Utah,
and then we moved to London. He got an opportunity
with Morgan Stanley in London, were there for three years,
had another kid, and then moved to Zurich for two years,
then back to Surrey, England outside of London, and then
(15:53):
we moved to Wilton, Connecticut.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Smoke first of all, honest, that's crazy. And now a
few messages from our gender sponsors. But first, I hope
you'll consider signing up to join the army at normal
folks dot us. By signing up, you'll receive a weekly
(16:18):
email with short episodes summaries in case you happen to
miss an episode, or if you prefer reading about our
incredible guests, we'll be right back. My question is certainly
(16:41):
has to be an adventure, but how do you ever
feel like you have roots and rule, friendships and connectivity
when you're never anywhere for any period of time?
Speaker 3 (16:53):
How does that work?
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Yeah, it's definitely hard, but I also keep in touch
with people.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
It's kind of it. Really, someone feels like a full
time job.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
There's only seven I mean, so yeah, that an outpost
on the moon. I'm sure you would have been there
at some point. That is incredible that you've moved like that.
So from a childhood standpoint.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Though, what was lack of connectivity for you?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
It was hard?
Speaker 1 (17:23):
I mean there were good parts of it because you
could every time you move, you can reinvent yourself, right,
you can show up as a different person and you're
you're still the same person. But you know, they don't
know that whatever happened in kindergarten, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
So there is a positive to it, and I actually really.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
I rolled with it as a kad and it just
became sort of who I was. That I never really
thought like, oh, how long are we going to stay
here now? That that didn't occur to me. But I
threw myself in really every single time. It was hard
when I moved in seventh grade to break into the
clip like that.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
That was a hard anyway.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, that was that was really hard. That was trickier
to try to make friends. And you know, these people
all knew each other since preschool. That's really what I
credit with learning how to do the work to make
friendships and throw yourself in.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
So that kind of sets who you are.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
You are a kid that's lived all over the place,
grew up with actually a really interesting family dynamic I
think is fair to say, I mean a German secret
service and all of that. That's really kind of cool.
And you've lived everywhere and you studied psychology because you
care about the connectivity of the human being, and you
(18:36):
show up in Utah, I think is when you started
having these ideas that we need to connect with people?
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Is that right? Am I missing that?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I don't know if it was Utah.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
I mean I always I enjoyed the block parties and
neighborhood connections of my childhood, like those were really important
to me.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Go into some of those stories, some of those stories.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Yeah, they remember moving in when we moved to Michigan
neighbor I was.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
In first grade, okay, first grade.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Six seven, six seven, Oh gosh, the meme. I remember
Missus Fisher coming from next door and delivering us a pie.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
And I thought I would have I would have thought,
for sure been a cast role. But go ahead. It's
what you did right, or what you used to do.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Right, what we need to be doing, even if it's
not homemade. And that really left an impression on me.
That made me feel welcome as a kid. And we
had a great I mean we had sidewalk and so
got to know all the neighborhood kids.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Like that was the joy, right just.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Being outside mixtage, play up and down the sidewalk with
my bike, you know, crashing, you know, things, things happened.
It was a great pushing my little baby brother around
in a stroller, and so you know, that was that
was the belonging first. Before you know, I was in
missus Nassa's class, and I'm still friends with a friend
of mine from from first and second grade. Crazy, And
(20:02):
then moved to Saint Louis, Missouri, where we had We
lived on a dead end street near a farm.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
And we had the best block party of my memory
there and.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
It was just it was full of joy, Like it's
sort of an all American experience, you know. We were
chasing fireflies, playing flashlight tag. The adults are having fun,
us kids are having fun. There's a there was a trough.
I have a picture of an old cattle trough where
they you know, for the water, and us kid swimming
and my dad getting in with a full suit, you know,
(20:35):
and just the joy.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
There's a picture and the joy on my face of
that experience.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
So it was just it was just so much fun,
and those neighborhood connections were so important.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
I vividly remember the story.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
So I had a third brother or a third child,
second brother, and he died three days later. He was
worn with half a heart and had pioneering surgery that
didn't save him. And when my parents came home from
the hospital, you know, pulling in the driveway with the
wood paneled station wagon, and just their faces right red
(21:06):
eyed zombies. And I ran to missus Gilliam's house down
the road and she had four kids, and she held
me on her lap and rocked me and told me
about cherubs and that Justin was an angel in the sky.
And to have like another person that you can, you know,
another adult that a child can run to, literally run
(21:28):
to for support locally, is just it. It's so meaningful
and so important for parents, for families, for kids, for everyone,
And that obviously had a big impact.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
On my life.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
And boy have we lost that today.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Yeah, I remember sitting here listening to you, who hadn't
even thought about this before now. But I remember always
having two or three phone numbers of our closest neighbors.
And I remember always as a kid feeling comfortable that
if something bad happened, I could go to my neighbor. Yeah,
and my neighbor knew me and everything else. And the
(22:06):
truth is I only have the phone number of one
neighbor right now.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
You got any phone numbers your neighbors.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
Alex, Yeah, I actually I do, probably got four or
so really, But it's the topic I've we've talked about,
I think on a shop talk that you probably are
familiar with the art of neighboring. Yeah, probably want to
interview that guy, but his whole thing of trying to
know your seven closest neighbors and writing it down, so
it's it's front of mine for me. But yeah, I
mean a lot of people don't. A lot of people
(22:33):
couldn't say that well.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
And I think we've also lost something that you know,
video games and handhelds have replaced kicked the can and
Hide and go seek. And when you play hide and
go seek and kick the can, you're usually doing it
in the eight or nine or ten houses up and
along your street, and adults are sitting there looking at
you out the window, and there becomes familiarity and that
(22:55):
kind of thing. And I think we've lost a lot
of that connectivity for sure.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
I think there's a couple of reasons for I think
cars definitely play a role in that our streets are
so busy, Yeah, lack of sidewalks, but also fear parental
fear of letting your kid outside on supervised and also
I mean well founded because a lot of times people
get in trouble for letting their kids outside unattended. Now,
so I mean I've been working to reverse that problem.
But also, you know, we think is a good neighbor
(23:23):
now is someone that stays quiet, takes their trash on
time and you know it doesn't bother you.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
And Carris a little plastic bag for their daughters totally.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
So you know, Bill, if you really wanted to get
into your neighbors, you know you would do.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Walk around undressed and leave the dripes open. You need
to get rid of your gate.
Speaker 5 (23:41):
You bulldoze your gate.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Yeah, you could do.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
That black party, but you know I'll be following up
with both of you.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
All right, So those were experiences. There was a point
I think I've read and Salt Lake maybe I'm wrong,
that led to Connecticut. It's well, oh but you were
having some block parties in Utah, right, we did.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
We had neighborhood block parties too there. But I was,
you know, just a participant.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
That's what I'm saying as an adult.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
As an adult. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
So then on your four hundred and sixty seventh move
you go to Wilton, Connecticut. Yeah, which is where you
are now. And this is what I read. That are
your words, I think, so in our town of Wilton, Connecticut,
in twenty sixteen, there was a rise in incivility on Facebook. Man,
that hit me when I read that, a rise and
(24:35):
incivility on Facebook, a lot of vitriol. There was a
legislator who talked about how she was receiving horrible emails
from constituents on Facebook messages, but when she met them
in real life, they were lovely people. She had an
entirely different experience. The reason that hit well, there's about
(24:55):
nine reasons that information hit me. One was an army
of normal folks. It's literally about connectivity and that how
I don't care how you vote, who you love, what
you espouse, or what you look like. If you're doing
something extraordinary for someone in our community, I can celebrate you. Likewise,
(25:18):
if I'm doing something extraordinary for somebody in my community,
you can celebrate me. And all of a sudden, those
barriers of political affiliation, race, religion, creed become really less
important because I see you as a human.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
So we talk about that all the time on the
show You Do.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
I also absolutely believe that one of our biggest problems
in leadership and all over our country is that there's
an enormous amount of power and wealth garnered by people
who continue to increase both out power and wealth by
(26:00):
crafting narratives that divide us. I think they work at Fox.
I think they work at CNN. I think they work
up and down the halls of Congress, and I think
they are in government businesses connected to those people's and
halls of Congress. I think they work in Silicon Valley.
Certainly they work all over the country. But you get
what I'm pointing now, And I think it's high time
(26:24):
that we quit like sheep being led around by these
folks as if they're shepherds, because they are anything but
a shepherd. And I think it leads to a rise
in civility, which continues to break down our country. And
most recently, Alex gave me some information that wouldn't make
(26:45):
me throw up. But did you know that just this
year they did a survey of Americans who said that
in some cases, at least some cases, thirty eight percent
respondents said that violence against another person if I don't
(27:06):
agree with what they say is acceptable. Now, that is
the definition of incivility. And I think it's really easy
to be all brash and and civil on a computer screen.
Last thing I want to say is one of our
guests said, it's really hard to hate somebody you sit
(27:27):
down across from. So when you compound all of that
stuff we've been talking about for the last six months.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
And I've never met you, and I read so.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
In our town of Wilton, Connecticut, in twenty sixteen, there
was a rise in incivility on Facebook, a lot of vitriol. Basically,
we could replace so. In our country of the United
States of America in twenty sixteen, there was a risin
incivility on Facebook, and a lot of vitriol just happened
to be you lived in Wilton. There was a legislator
who talked about how she was receiving her emails from
(28:00):
stituents on Facebook messages.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
We could be saying.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
There's legislation of public people that are being assassinated in
the public square.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Today we can say that.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
But then she met them in real life, and they
were lovely people, and she had an entirely different experience.
She's exactly what we're begging people to do. Meet get
out of your comfort zone, get out of your vacuumum thought,
and you might find that people can be lovely and
have a difference and opinion of you. But civil liberal,
(28:35):
open discourse can break down so much of what is
destroying our civility, thou.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
We will be right back.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
When I was twenty sixteen, I were in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Yeah, and so when I read you said that, I thought, well,
my gosh, there has to be some huge governmental program
to fix this. There has to be some huge top
down proclamation. We should start locking people up, or maybe
we should start passing laws against things like this, or
(29:24):
maybe we can have a bottom up approach where just
a normal person says.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
I know something that can help this. That's why I
love your story. Thanks, So why don't you take it
from there?
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (29:36):
So I saw this over and over again. And also
with my work I used to call excellent. I still
do call people's homes.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Little silos of hell because they're so isolated.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
From others, and what they're struggling with is stays in
their home. What they need is their community, our village.
And so that experience of I'm needing, you know, more
face to FaceTime coupled with I was running a nonprofit
and had established a Free Play Task Force a free
(30:12):
Play so it basically was helping educate parents and community
about the importance of well mixtage play.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
So basically neighborhood play. Right.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Kids are so structured, right, they go to school, they
listen to, you know, the adults in charge. Then they
go to Kuman for math and they have to do
what they're doing, and then they go to ballet and
then they have.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
To do what they're doing. But it's the same thing.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
But it's the same thing. It's adult led and there.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Is which is have about right. They all fit in
our lives, but it had overrun. Kids were having played
deficit disorder and they still do. This is not a
real term.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Okay, this is.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
So, and trying to find a way for kids to
connect with each other was again block parties came in here,
so I saw it coming back from Europe, from specifically
from Switzerland. So it's only changed me in a big
way my parenting in terms of what I learned kids
were capable of. But you don't realize how much your
(31:18):
culture affects you and your parenting and so well, the
number one thing was I learned how to stop saying
be careful, so that.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Therese that's assumed because it's unimportant.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
It is you have confidence and the kids going to
figure it out, and you don't need to. What I've
learned now with my own kids, distract them by your worry, right,
and it's it's almost.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
Like slow down your second because that's that's profound. Don't
distract your kids with your own worry. Let them figure
it out, don't quash their own creativity and problem solving.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yeah, and take them out of their zone.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Right if they're climbing up something, you want them paying
attention to what they're doing, not the be careful that
you know, derails them from their concentration and also feels
like you're supposed to do that, like it was a compulsion.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
What's the cf How how do you let them climb
up the tree as.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
High as they you know, maybe you say like you
give a you know, so how are you You're pretty
high up there?
Speaker 3 (32:25):
Right?
Speaker 2 (32:25):
How are you feeling about?
Speaker 3 (32:26):
That?
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Is something I would suggest to American parents, right.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Well Swiss parents, but you wouldn't say anything, nothing, anything, no,
And I still don't.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
I mean, you know, it's it's you try to find
a balance here.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Right, like just get help. But that is so interesting
to me, really.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah, nothing shelf out, Well, I moved there and all
of a sudden kids. I literally I saw a kid
with a broken arm. Okay, and I lived in Utah,
so it wasn't great. It wasn't just buttoned up Connecticut
and I saw kid with a broken arm, and I said,
I thought to myself, I didn't know kids still got those.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Man.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
So many of kids when we grew up, everybody had
a broad It was a thing beside the broken leg.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
You name it, right, And it was such a different culture,
Like we weren't allowed to drive our kids to school.
They came home for lunch. My kids had like a
mile walk to and fro. The headmaster was like, this
is not we are not that's not the culture we
have here. We don't let your kids walk. And they
walk from four and five years old.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
They have like a.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Little safety tag. They're taught how to do it, but
they they walked to and from school in kindergarten. I
mean literally, my kids would walk four miles a day
when they come that. Yeah, So it was just a
different It was really an adaptation. Like and now, the
one vivid memory I have is of like a I
must have been a sixteen month old trying to climb
(33:49):
on this steel railing around an ice skating rink and
it was snowy, right, and so they were trying to
climb up it and their mom is right there and
I literally have to buy my tongue not.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
To say anything. But they see their kids, they know
what they're doing. He falls, they just pop them back up.
He goes right. It's just it was such a different culture.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
And then we moved back to the US and there
was a Facebook rant I did of how I had
to go in and sign my nine year old out
after a club and my Facebook rant was like, what.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Are we doing? We're creating a weak.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Children Like it was just a whole you know, fragilizing,
like we're so paranoid about safety and fear and liability
in this country that it kills a lot of the
you know, things that our kids would be able to
do because somebody is going to be mad if a
kid got anyway.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
I could rant on.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
About that, talk about that forever, helicopter parents, all of it.
I mean, you're right, and my Bailey Wick, our kids.
We were fortunate that when our kids were coming up,
we lived on three acres, I mean not a farm,
but enough land. And I love my wife for about
a thousand reasons, but this is one of them. She
(35:05):
would literally, at six and seven years old, tell them
to go in the yard and find something to do
and shut the door and not come in until eleven thirty.
And if they got thirsty, there's a hose.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Awesome, that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
It is awesome. Awesome.
Speaker 6 (35:20):
The boys got to pee in the yard. They can't
come here in the yard. The girl's pete in the yard.
I mean, what's wrong with the girl pee in the yard?
I mean, it's no big deal. I'm serious. We had chickens.
And but the point is our kids are pretty creative
because they had the problem solve and they had to
come up with ways to have fun.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
And there weren't nothing that you could plug in the
wall was outside with them. Yeah, and I think that
is really uncommon these days.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Unfortunately, unfortunately, and you see it. We already have the
evidence kids are I have parents of kids who's seven
year olds want to die right, eleven year olds that
have attempted suicide right that are in and we are
taking why why they are they feel so unhappy? I
(36:16):
think there's a lot of reasons. I think that our
are limiting their free their freedom limiting their finding joy. Right,
they're so programmed that there's little room for joy.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
It really is almost institutionals.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Wow, it's I wrote an article for Lecro londonar Skinesi's
organization I know Alex knows, and it was the headline was,
we're raising our kids in captivity and expecting them to
survive in the wild. It just sums it up right.
Speaker 5 (36:52):
You might find this of interest bill for your PRAP.
I pulled some data on this whole topic, and so
forty years ago, sixty six percent of kids walked her
bike to school. Today only ten percent do. In A
twenty eighteen survey found that American children spend thirty five
percent less time playing outside for ly than their parents did.
Speaker 4 (37:12):
I think the hi way taking your kid to structured
soccer practice is not what I call playing outside.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
No, thank you, m it's not practice.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
Playing outside is go in the backyard, build a fort,
build a tree house, exactly, dig a hold of china, exactly,
get some bruises, if you get dirty, if you get stitches,
well you get stitches.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
But culturally then that's like were you watching them right?
Like the parent?
Speaker 1 (37:43):
The parental blame piece in terms of them getting stitches
or getting hurt or all of those things, right, or
we as parents feel like we've done you know, could
be external or could be our own internal worry.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Don't cripple your kids by your own worry.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
What was I don't remember what I said, but that
sounds yeah, basically that was it. Yeah, I mean that
goes that's that's a huge I mean, that's cell phones
in schools and you know the pushback on bell de
Belle bands is because parents are terrified, right, it's their
own parents. Like obviously, school shootings are an issue. That's
true and right, just connectivity with your kid doesn't doesn't
(38:22):
mean you know, it's it's a parent's anxiety that wants there.
We had it in our town when we first introduced
it a year ago. Parents went crazy and they want
the bell to Bell school band on cell phones. So
that meant they went in a lock pouch. Anyway, I'm
going off topic, but but yeah, it's it's it's the
biggest pushback was from parents in terms of not being
(38:45):
able to get a hold of their kids.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
And that's all.
Speaker 5 (38:48):
The front office folks, parental anxiety.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Right, it's about our own fears that are getting in
the way of giving our kids the opportunity to pay
attention in class, not be worried about bullied or filmed,
and actually have a conversation, learn social skills in the
lunchroom and in the halls.
Speaker 4 (39:11):
And that concludes Part one of our Conversation with an
us Elias, and you don't want to miss part two
that's now available to listen to. Together, guys, we can
change the country, but it starts with you.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
I'll see in part two.
I had a third brother or a third child, second brother,
and he died three days later. He was born with
half a heart and had surgery that didn't save him.
When my parents came home from the hospital calling in
the driveway with the wood paneled station wagon and just
their faces right red eyed zombies, I ran to missus
Gilliam's house. She held me on her lap and rocked
(00:25):
me and told me about cherubs and that Justin was
an angel in the sky. To have, like, you know,
another adult that a child can run to, literally run to,
for support locally, is just so meaningful and so important
for parents, for families, for kids, for everyone.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
And that obviously had a big impact on my life.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
And boy have we lost that today.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I'm a foot ball coach an
inner city Memphis. And that last part led to an
oscar for the film about one of my teams.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
It's called Undefeated.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Guys, I believe our country's problems will never be solved
by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits talking
big words. That nobody ever uses on CNN and fogs,
but rather by an army of normal folks. That's us,
just you and me deciding, Hey, you know what, maybe
I can help. That's what Vanessa Elias, the voice you
(01:31):
just heard, has done. Vanessa has lived in twenty eight
different places across the world, which has especially taught her
the importance of neighbors and community, and when she saw
a rise of incivility in her current community of Wilton, Connecticut,
she rallied citizens to host forty neighborhood block parties that
(01:53):
had one thousand, two hundred attendees so that people could
get to know their neighbors, realize that they don't hate them,
and even get this enjoy them.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Got so much attention.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
That she started block Party USA to spread this simple
solution across the country. I cannot wait for you to
meet Vanessa right after these brief messages from our general sponsors,
(02:31):
Vanessa Elias, Welcome to Memphis.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Vanessa Elias is the founder of block Party USA. She's
from Wilton, Connecticut, and was kind of enough fly down
and join us. Fly down last night, listen to some poetry,
avoid the paper tag driving idiots and enjoy Kings.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, I gotta, I gotta take out the bb Kings
and took it up to the rooftop and pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Boy.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, it was great.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Good.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Well, I'm glad you enjoyed a little bit of our
fair city. You're not far from the National Civil Rights Museum,
by the way.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah, I wanted to go there, but I'm going to
They were closed by the time I got in.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Wasn't Well, that's probably Alex's fault for not scheduling properly.
So founder of block Party USA. Certainly we're going to
get to that. And I found reading about your childhood
really interesting and certainly Germaine to the whole block party focus,
I think, which I don't want to put words in
your mouth. You can explain that. But you and I
(03:31):
studied the same thing in college. Oh yeah, yeah, And
I think I want to start there with you to
give our audience a perspective, and then we'll go back
to your childhood maybe. But I think both pieces offer
really interesting perspective on why you've done what you've done
(03:52):
and how successful you've been. And by the way, it's
really really cool and I can't wait to kind of
unfold it for our audience, but start with what you
studied and kind of what that led to in your
world after your childhood, which some of them will double
back and go to that.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
So I studied psychology, but only as undergrad I never
went further with that, and I also had a minor
in German.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Of course, that.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Makes total sense.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Oddly, my degrees are in psychology and English, so there
you go. I couldn't speak another language. I'm not good
at that stuff, so go ahead anyway.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
And so I think psychology was always of interest to me,
and it's trying to figure out how the world works,
how people work, and understanding where people are coming from,
what causes them to be the way they are, things
that we can do to impact our well being. And
I mean, I just I loved it. It was a
(04:45):
lot of fun. And then I never, like I said,
and then I went into marketing and use that psychology.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Actually psychology makes sense exactly, but I think it's interesting.
I think you have people that struggle with some mental
health issues in your family tell.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Us about that.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
So growing up I think that was really I didn't
have the family life that I wanted.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
I mean, from the outside, everything.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Was great, but there was a lot of volatility at home,
and I didn't really feel like I belonged and didn't
feel connected and struggled to understand that it wasn't about me, right,
it was about the other person and the things that
they had struggled with and trying to make sense of
it all.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Stuff.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
My dad left one was four, mom was married, divorced
five times. And I'm pretty sure that my going into
coaching and psychology was also a result of kind of
me trying to figure out who I was and where
I fit in the world. So I found that interesting,
which in addition to everything else. Don't you run a
(05:49):
support group or something?
Speaker 1 (05:50):
That kind of came tell me, But I'll just say
one more thing about college. I remember I found some
old papers that I had written you typed up and
I was blown way because what I had written was
how I wanted to help parents and understand their impact
of a child's self esteem.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
And you feel like your self esteem was negatively impacted.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
Your answer was not to be a victim, but was
to fix it for other people. Yeah, that says a
lot about you done it. It's very cool. So tell
me about support group thing.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
So support group is.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
It's with NAMMY, National Alliance on Mental Illness, which is
a nationwide grassroots organization with local chapters.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
And when we were abroad.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
For six years and things were really hard with one
of my child's mental health issues and was part of
the reason we came back to the US, we just
weren't able to get the support we needed. And I
had struggled in silence for so long that when I
came back to the US, I knew that I needed
to speak and I needed to find other people who
were experiencing this. So I had said to a friend,
(06:57):
I need something like alan ON, but for me mental health.
And yeah, it's for loved ones of people who suffer
from alcoholism, right, and so it's like part of the
AA world, and uh.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
People who are really the victims of the folks who
are in AA and are struggling. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Right.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So I was just so lucky that she'd heard of it,
and she said, there actually is something. It's called NAMMY,
And there was a meeting once a month, you know, uh,
thirty minutes away, and I went and I felt like
I was in a room with people who understood the
things that we couldn't speak about. Outside and so felt
(07:40):
like I just understood and that there was a world
in people. You know, it wasn't my fault, right, so
it was, yeah, it was I'm tearing up because it
was really meaningful. And so then I got trained, Like
once I felt like I was on solid ground and
got the help that we needed, I got trained to
be a facilitator and I started that. I think it
was about two years later, and I've been doing it
(08:02):
ever since.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
We're running a monthly group.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
We were in person, now we're online on Zoom, so
it makes it easier for people to join, so once
a month, and it's basically parents of or caregivers of
kids who are struggling with emotional and behavioral mental health
issues with a diagnosis or with not. We generally say
kids who are twenty one and younger, so you know,
(08:26):
it really ranges from seven year olds too. I mean
there are still people who come with older kids because
they've been coming for We've been doing it for a
long time. It's our eleventh year, so you know, kids
are older that are still struggling. So but it's a
safe space where you feel understood and you don't feel judged,
so and you can find the resources right and you
get a support from other people in the group, or
(08:48):
you know, things that worked or things that didn't, or
you know, just just a space where other people understand.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
While this is not the topic of our discussion today
is about block party, it's not about this.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
I think.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
I think as I read about block party, how it's
so much more important than just having a party. I
think that that experience of going to school and studying
psychology and what we're about to unpackage your childhood and
then what you've done since then, I think it's all
(09:25):
kind of part of the same bucket, don't you.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
I agree, yep, it is.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
So let's explain that a little bit, and you've alluded
to it. I'll just set up what Alex told me
and then.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
You rarely ever listened.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
So this is nice, and well, this is crazy.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
You've moved twenty eight times, lived in eight states in
four countries. True, and you were always trying to fit
in and belong and be part of something, and you
were always the new kid of the new family. In
the minute you started subtle, it's time to go again.
Lack of consistency and lack of connectivity had to have
been really difficult. So why what were we all running from?
(10:10):
I mean what I mean, I want to say it
sounds like a military family, but I don't know. Unpack
your childhood, tell us about all of that, because again,
maybe it doesn't seem on the face of it, the
block party has anything to do with this, but I
think it has a ton to do with it once
we understand more.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Definitely, I've come to understand that myself. It was actually
Jenny Wallace, whose author of Never Enough, who pointed out
to me. She said, you're like a community architect because
of you were always looking for community as a kid,
and it never it was so obvious, but it had
never hit me the.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Connection, right, It's like, it's obvious.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
So my dad was in that he had gotten a
scholarship to penn State as a kid. He grew up
in his deal mining town and and he in Pennsylvania
and got kicked out. She played too many cards and
so had to enlist in the military, and was lucky
that he had taken German in high school and so
(11:12):
instead of Vietnam, he was sent to Munich, Germany, and
there he met my mom, who's German and worked for
the German Secret Service.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Are you kidding me? This is so cool.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
So your mom worked for the German Secret Service and
your dad's a smart dude but played too much just
in the military and Munich, and that's where they met.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
That's where they met. Had me got married.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
In order in that order he got it Germany.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
My dad was twenty one, my mom was twenty four. Wow,
and moved back to the US when I was two
and a half and went back to Penn State cut
his undergrad and his MBA.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Okay, so then so then he like in our first
home in state college was a trailer so we lived
in a trailer park while they you know, my dad
went to school, my mom worked, watched me called it.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
A German woman from Munich from the German Secret Service
hosted up in a trailer in state park. Okay, a
little bit of a culture.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Shock for her.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Well, I don't you know.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
She had a rough childhood. Her mom died when she
was really young. Did remarried. They were from northern Germany actually,
and she had moved down to Munich to be with
Hamburg north of Homburg.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Well you get north of Hamborough here.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Near Denmark.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah, the North Sea silt or something.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, the island that. Yeah, I've never been, but I'm
pretty impressed.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Yeah, thanks, okay, So go.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Ahead, and I lived there, went to school, lived off
the GI bill, and then moved to Michigan to work
with Ford Motor Company and then Missouri behind your so
had we had a solid, small brick home in Michigan.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
That's where my brother was born there.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
So got it keep going because we're talking twenty eight times.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
So it was it was which Actually last night when
I saw the Mississippi River, I was like, I think
this is the first time since I was nine years
old that I've seen it.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
When we lived outside of Saint Louis and.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
So Michigan and Missouri, Missouri to Simmsbury, Connecticut, to Eastern Connecticut,
and then I went to college in Boston, studied abroad
in Wurtzburg, Germany, where I met my husband, who was
an American studying abroad as well, and we went German.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
She was not then.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
And then I moved to London because I had a
German passport and it was part of the EU and
I wanted to live abroad for a year, and we
tried to move back to Germany for him to get
his master's and it didn't work and I was like,
I'm staying. So I worked for Herod's and Bloomberg Financial
Markets in London and then moved for Hares.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah, that was it was pretty great.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
The corner exactly, I know, it's great.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
So it was quite an experience. Al fay Ed was
running it then.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
I don't know if you know absolutely his son is
who was killed in the car with Princess Diana. Rightly.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Yeah, he was a pretty scary guy, so he kept
her head down.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
He really was a scary guy. It was really scary guy. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
That moved to d C, where my husband was finishing
his masters, and then we got married in d C.
We wanted to go somewhere, you know, new. We wanted
to be in your mountains, think about Vermont. And a
friend said you should go check out Utah. So we
went to Utah for our honeymoon to go skiing.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Fell in love with it.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Park City Valley we went to.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
We went to Salt Lake first and it was we
were like, what is going on? It's so quiet here,
and then we went up to Park City beautiful Updome.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
It was gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
We rented a house uh, moved back to DC, quit
our jobs, and moved out six weeks later. It was
it was like we've done all travel in Europe and
we were driving. I have pictures of me driving up
the Highway of eighty Interstate eighty because it was so beautiful.
I had no idea this existed in America. It was
(15:11):
so gorgeous, beautiful. So then my husband got a job
he was working with Morgan Stanley, got a job offer
in San Francisco, where we bought a house, lived a
total of six months. Hated it, and we got out
right before the crash.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
So we got lucky. Moved to Greenwich, Connecticut.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Then nine to eleven, we're like, everyone's like, oh, they're
going back to Utah, and we finally did. And then
you know, we had a kid in Connecticut, kid in Utah,
and then we moved to London. He got an opportunity
with Morgan Stanley in London, were there for three years,
had another kid, and then moved to Zurich for two years,
then back to Surrey, England outside of London, and then
(15:53):
we moved to Wilton, Connecticut.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Smoke first of all, honest, that's crazy. And now a
few messages from our gender sponsors. But first, I hope
you'll consider signing up to join the army at normal
folks dot us. By signing up, you'll receive a weekly
(16:18):
email with short episodes summaries in case you happen to
miss an episode, or if you prefer reading about our
incredible guests, we'll be right back. My question is certainly
(16:41):
has to be an adventure, but how do you ever
feel like you have roots and rule, friendships and connectivity
when you're never anywhere for any period of time?
Speaker 3 (16:53):
How does that work?
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Yeah, it's definitely hard, but I also keep in touch
with people.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
It's kind of it. Really, someone feels like a full
time job.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
There's only seven I mean, so yeah, that an outpost
on the moon. I'm sure you would have been there
at some point. That is incredible that you've moved like that.
So from a childhood standpoint.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Though, what was lack of connectivity for you?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
It was hard?
Speaker 1 (17:23):
I mean there were good parts of it because you
could every time you move, you can reinvent yourself, right,
you can show up as a different person and you're
you're still the same person. But you know, they don't
know that whatever happened in kindergarten, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
So there is a positive to it, and I actually really.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
I rolled with it as a kad and it just
became sort of who I was. That I never really
thought like, oh, how long are we going to stay
here now? That that didn't occur to me. But I
threw myself in really every single time. It was hard
when I moved in seventh grade to break into the
clip like that.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
That was a hard anyway.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, that was that was really hard. That was trickier
to try to make friends. And you know, these people
all knew each other since preschool. That's really what I
credit with learning how to do the work to make
friendships and throw yourself in.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
So that kind of sets who you are.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
You are a kid that's lived all over the place,
grew up with actually a really interesting family dynamic I
think is fair to say, I mean a German secret
service and all of that. That's really kind of cool.
And you've lived everywhere and you studied psychology because you
care about the connectivity of the human being, and you
(18:36):
show up in Utah, I think is when you started
having these ideas that we need to connect with people?
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Is that right? Am I missing that?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I don't know if it was Utah.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
I mean I always I enjoyed the block parties and
neighborhood connections of my childhood, like those were really important
to me.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Go into some of those stories, some of those stories.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Yeah, they remember moving in when we moved to Michigan
neighbor I was.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
In first grade, okay, first grade.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Six seven, six seven, Oh gosh, the meme. I remember
Missus Fisher coming from next door and delivering us a pie.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
And I thought I would have I would have thought,
for sure been a cast role. But go ahead. It's
what you did right, or what you used to do.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Right, what we need to be doing, even if it's
not homemade. And that really left an impression on me.
That made me feel welcome as a kid. And we
had a great I mean we had sidewalk and so
got to know all the neighborhood kids.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Like that was the joy, right just.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Being outside mixtage, play up and down the sidewalk with
my bike, you know, crashing, you know, things, things happened.
It was a great pushing my little baby brother around
in a stroller, and so you know, that was that
was the belonging first. Before you know, I was in
missus Nassa's class, and I'm still friends with a friend
of mine from from first and second grade. Crazy, And
(20:02):
then moved to Saint Louis, Missouri, where we had We
lived on a dead end street near a farm.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
And we had the best block party of my memory
there and.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
It was just it was full of joy, Like it's
sort of an all American experience, you know. We were
chasing fireflies, playing flashlight tag. The adults are having fun,
us kids are having fun. There's a there was a trough.
I have a picture of an old cattle trough where
they you know, for the water, and us kid swimming
and my dad getting in with a full suit, you know,
(20:35):
and just the joy.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
There's a picture and the joy on my face of
that experience.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
So it was just it was just so much fun,
and those neighborhood connections were so important.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
I vividly remember the story.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
So I had a third brother or a third child,
second brother, and he died three days later. He was
worn with half a heart and had pioneering surgery that
didn't save him. And when my parents came home from
the hospital, you know, pulling in the driveway with the
wood paneled station wagon, and just their faces right red
(21:06):
eyed zombies. And I ran to missus Gilliam's house down
the road and she had four kids, and she held
me on her lap and rocked me and told me
about cherubs and that Justin was an angel in the sky.
And to have like another person that you can, you know,
another adult that a child can run to, literally run
(21:28):
to for support locally, is just it. It's so meaningful
and so important for parents, for families, for kids, for everyone,
And that obviously had a big impact.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
On my life.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
And boy have we lost that today.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Yeah, I remember sitting here listening to you, who hadn't
even thought about this before now. But I remember always
having two or three phone numbers of our closest neighbors.
And I remember always as a kid feeling comfortable that
if something bad happened, I could go to my neighbor. Yeah,
and my neighbor knew me and everything else. And the
(22:06):
truth is I only have the phone number of one
neighbor right now.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
You got any phone numbers your neighbors.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
Alex, Yeah, I actually I do, probably got four or
so really, But it's the topic I've we've talked about,
I think on a shop talk that you probably are
familiar with the art of neighboring. Yeah, probably want to
interview that guy, but his whole thing of trying to
know your seven closest neighbors and writing it down, so
it's it's front of mine for me. But yeah, I
mean a lot of people don't. A lot of people
(22:33):
couldn't say that well.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
And I think we've also lost something that you know,
video games and handhelds have replaced kicked the can and
Hide and go seek. And when you play hide and
go seek and kick the can, you're usually doing it
in the eight or nine or ten houses up and
along your street, and adults are sitting there looking at
you out the window, and there becomes familiarity and that
(22:55):
kind of thing. And I think we've lost a lot
of that connectivity for sure.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
I think there's a couple of reasons for I think
cars definitely play a role in that our streets are
so busy, Yeah, lack of sidewalks, but also fear parental
fear of letting your kid outside on supervised and also
I mean well founded because a lot of times people
get in trouble for letting their kids outside unattended. Now,
so I mean I've been working to reverse that problem.
But also, you know, we think is a good neighbor
(23:23):
now is someone that stays quiet, takes their trash on
time and you know it doesn't bother you.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
And Carris a little plastic bag for their daughters totally.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
So you know, Bill, if you really wanted to get
into your neighbors, you know you would do.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Walk around undressed and leave the dripes open. You need
to get rid of your gate.
Speaker 5 (23:41):
You bulldoze your gate.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Yeah, you could do.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
That black party, but you know I'll be following up
with both of you.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
All right, So those were experiences. There was a point
I think I've read and Salt Lake maybe I'm wrong,
that led to Connecticut. It's well, oh but you were
having some block parties in Utah, right, we did.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
We had neighborhood block parties too there. But I was,
you know, just a participant.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
That's what I'm saying as an adult.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
As an adult. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
So then on your four hundred and sixty seventh move
you go to Wilton, Connecticut. Yeah, which is where you
are now. And this is what I read. That are
your words, I think, so in our town of Wilton, Connecticut,
in twenty sixteen, there was a rise in incivility on Facebook. Man,
that hit me when I read that, a rise and
(24:35):
incivility on Facebook, a lot of vitriol. There was a
legislator who talked about how she was receiving horrible emails
from constituents on Facebook messages, but when she met them
in real life, they were lovely people. She had an
entirely different experience. The reason that hit well, there's about
(24:55):
nine reasons that information hit me. One was an army
of normal folks. It's literally about connectivity and that how
I don't care how you vote, who you love, what
you espouse, or what you look like. If you're doing
something extraordinary for someone in our community, I can celebrate you. Likewise,
(25:18):
if I'm doing something extraordinary for somebody in my community,
you can celebrate me. And all of a sudden, those
barriers of political affiliation, race, religion, creed become really less
important because I see you as a human.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
So we talk about that all the time on the
show You Do.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
I also absolutely believe that one of our biggest problems
in leadership and all over our country is that there's
an enormous amount of power and wealth garnered by people
who continue to increase both out power and wealth by
(26:00):
crafting narratives that divide us. I think they work at Fox.
I think they work at CNN. I think they work
up and down the halls of Congress, and I think
they are in government businesses connected to those people's and
halls of Congress. I think they work in Silicon Valley.
Certainly they work all over the country. But you get
what I'm pointing now, And I think it's high time
(26:24):
that we quit like sheep being led around by these
folks as if they're shepherds, because they are anything but
a shepherd. And I think it leads to a rise
in civility, which continues to break down our country. And
most recently, Alex gave me some information that wouldn't make
(26:45):
me throw up. But did you know that just this
year they did a survey of Americans who said that
in some cases, at least some cases, thirty eight percent
respondents said that violence against another person if I don't
(27:06):
agree with what they say is acceptable. Now, that is
the definition of incivility. And I think it's really easy
to be all brash and and civil on a computer screen.
Last thing I want to say is one of our
guests said, it's really hard to hate somebody you sit
(27:27):
down across from. So when you compound all of that
stuff we've been talking about for the last six months.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
And I've never met you, and I read so.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
In our town of Wilton, Connecticut, in twenty sixteen, there
was a rise in incivility on Facebook, a lot of vitriol. Basically,
we could replace so. In our country of the United
States of America in twenty sixteen, there was a risin
incivility on Facebook, and a lot of vitriol just happened
to be you lived in Wilton. There was a legislator
who talked about how she was receiving her emails from
(28:00):
stituents on Facebook messages.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
We could be saying.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
There's legislation of public people that are being assassinated in
the public square.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Today we can say that.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
But then she met them in real life, and they
were lovely people, and she had an entirely different experience.
She's exactly what we're begging people to do. Meet get
out of your comfort zone, get out of your vacuumum thought,
and you might find that people can be lovely and
have a difference and opinion of you. But civil liberal,
(28:35):
open discourse can break down so much of what is
destroying our civility, thou.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
We will be right back.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
When I was twenty sixteen, I were in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Yeah, and so when I read you said that, I thought, well,
my gosh, there has to be some huge governmental program
to fix this. There has to be some huge top
down proclamation. We should start locking people up, or maybe
we should start passing laws against things like this, or
(29:24):
maybe we can have a bottom up approach where just
a normal person says.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
I know something that can help this. That's why I
love your story. Thanks, So why don't you take it
from there?
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (29:36):
So I saw this over and over again. And also
with my work I used to call excellent. I still
do call people's homes.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Little silos of hell because they're so isolated.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
From others, and what they're struggling with is stays in
their home. What they need is their community, our village.
And so that experience of I'm needing, you know, more
face to FaceTime coupled with I was running a nonprofit
and had established a Free Play Task Force a free
(30:12):
Play so it basically was helping educate parents and community
about the importance of well mixtage play.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
So basically neighborhood play. Right.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Kids are so structured, right, they go to school, they
listen to, you know, the adults in charge. Then they
go to Kuman for math and they have to do
what they're doing, and then they go to ballet and
then they have.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
To do what they're doing. But it's the same thing.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
But it's the same thing. It's adult led and there.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Is which is have about right. They all fit in
our lives, but it had overrun. Kids were having played
deficit disorder and they still do. This is not a
real term.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Okay, this is.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
So, and trying to find a way for kids to
connect with each other was again block parties came in here,
so I saw it coming back from Europe, from specifically
from Switzerland. So it's only changed me in a big
way my parenting in terms of what I learned kids
were capable of. But you don't realize how much your
(31:18):
culture affects you and your parenting and so well, the
number one thing was I learned how to stop saying
be careful, so that.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Therese that's assumed because it's unimportant.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
It is you have confidence and the kids going to
figure it out, and you don't need to. What I've
learned now with my own kids, distract them by your worry, right,
and it's it's almost.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
Like slow down your second because that's that's profound. Don't
distract your kids with your own worry. Let them figure
it out, don't quash their own creativity and problem solving.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yeah, and take them out of their zone.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Right if they're climbing up something, you want them paying
attention to what they're doing, not the be careful that
you know, derails them from their concentration and also feels
like you're supposed to do that, like it was a compulsion.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
What's the cf How how do you let them climb
up the tree as.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
High as they you know, maybe you say like you
give a you know, so how are you You're pretty
high up there?
Speaker 3 (32:25):
Right?
Speaker 2 (32:25):
How are you feeling about?
Speaker 3 (32:26):
That?
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Is something I would suggest to American parents, right.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Well Swiss parents, but you wouldn't say anything, nothing, anything, no,
And I still don't.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
I mean, you know, it's it's you try to find
a balance here.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Right, like just get help. But that is so interesting
to me, really.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah, nothing shelf out, Well, I moved there and all
of a sudden kids. I literally I saw a kid
with a broken arm. Okay, and I lived in Utah,
so it wasn't great. It wasn't just buttoned up Connecticut
and I saw kid with a broken arm, and I said,
I thought to myself, I didn't know kids still got those.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Man.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
So many of kids when we grew up, everybody had
a broad It was a thing beside the broken leg.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
You name it, right, And it was such a different culture,
Like we weren't allowed to drive our kids to school.
They came home for lunch. My kids had like a
mile walk to and fro. The headmaster was like, this
is not we are not that's not the culture we
have here. We don't let your kids walk. And they
walk from four and five years old.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
They have like a.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Little safety tag. They're taught how to do it, but
they they walked to and from school in kindergarten. I
mean literally, my kids would walk four miles a day
when they come that. Yeah, So it was just a
different It was really an adaptation. Like and now, the
one vivid memory I have is of like a I
must have been a sixteen month old trying to climb
(33:49):
on this steel railing around an ice skating rink and
it was snowy, right, and so they were trying to
climb up it and their mom is right there and
I literally have to buy my tongue not.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
To say anything. But they see their kids, they know
what they're doing. He falls, they just pop them back up.
He goes right. It's just it was such a different culture.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
And then we moved back to the US and there
was a Facebook rant I did of how I had
to go in and sign my nine year old out
after a club and my Facebook rant was like, what.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Are we doing? We're creating a weak.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Children Like it was just a whole you know, fragilizing,
like we're so paranoid about safety and fear and liability
in this country that it kills a lot of the
you know, things that our kids would be able to
do because somebody is going to be mad if a
kid got anyway.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
I could rant on.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
About that, talk about that forever, helicopter parents, all of it.
I mean, you're right, and my Bailey Wick, our kids.
We were fortunate that when our kids were coming up,
we lived on three acres, I mean not a farm,
but enough land. And I love my wife for about
a thousand reasons, but this is one of them. She
(35:05):
would literally, at six and seven years old, tell them
to go in the yard and find something to do
and shut the door and not come in until eleven thirty.
And if they got thirsty, there's a hose.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Awesome, that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
It is awesome. Awesome.
Speaker 6 (35:20):
The boys got to pee in the yard. They can't
come here in the yard. The girl's pete in the yard.
I mean, what's wrong with the girl pee in the yard?
I mean, it's no big deal. I'm serious. We had chickens.
And but the point is our kids are pretty creative
because they had the problem solve and they had to
come up with ways to have fun.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
And there weren't nothing that you could plug in the
wall was outside with them. Yeah, and I think that
is really uncommon these days.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Unfortunately, unfortunately, and you see it. We already have the
evidence kids are I have parents of kids who's seven
year olds want to die right, eleven year olds that
have attempted suicide right that are in and we are
taking why why they are they feel so unhappy? I
(36:16):
think there's a lot of reasons. I think that our
are limiting their free their freedom limiting their finding joy. Right,
they're so programmed that there's little room for joy.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
It really is almost institutionals.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Wow, it's I wrote an article for Lecro londonar Skinesi's
organization I know Alex knows, and it was the headline was,
we're raising our kids in captivity and expecting them to
survive in the wild. It just sums it up right.
Speaker 5 (36:52):
You might find this of interest bill for your PRAP.
I pulled some data on this whole topic, and so
forty years ago, sixty six percent of kids walked her
bike to school. Today only ten percent do. In A
twenty eighteen survey found that American children spend thirty five
percent less time playing outside for ly than their parents did.
Speaker 4 (37:12):
I think the hi way taking your kid to structured
soccer practice is not what I call playing outside.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
No, thank you, m it's not practice.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
Playing outside is go in the backyard, build a fort,
build a tree house, exactly, dig a hold of china, exactly,
get some bruises, if you get dirty, if you get stitches,
well you get stitches.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
But culturally then that's like were you watching them right?
Like the parent?
Speaker 1 (37:43):
The parental blame piece in terms of them getting stitches
or getting hurt or all of those things, right, or
we as parents feel like we've done you know, could
be external or could be our own internal worry.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Don't cripple your kids by your own worry.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
What was I don't remember what I said, but that
sounds yeah, basically that was it. Yeah, I mean that
goes that's that's a huge I mean, that's cell phones
in schools and you know the pushback on bell de
Belle bands is because parents are terrified, right, it's their
own parents. Like obviously, school shootings are an issue. That's
true and right, just connectivity with your kid doesn't doesn't
(38:22):
mean you know, it's it's a parent's anxiety that wants there.
We had it in our town when we first introduced
it a year ago. Parents went crazy and they want
the bell to Bell school band on cell phones. So
that meant they went in a lock pouch. Anyway, I'm
going off topic, but but yeah, it's it's it's the
biggest pushback was from parents in terms of not being
(38:45):
able to get a hold of their kids.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
And that's all.
Speaker 5 (38:48):
The front office folks, parental anxiety.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Right, it's about our own fears that are getting in
the way of giving our kids the opportunity to pay
attention in class, not be worried about bullied or filmed,
and actually have a conversation, learn social skills in the
lunchroom and in the halls.
Speaker 4 (39:11):
And that concludes Part one of our Conversation with an
us Elias, and you don't want to miss part two
that's now available to listen to. Together, guys, we can
change the country, but it starts with you.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
I'll see in part two.
Host
Bill Courtney
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com