Today’s chat dives into the heart of optimism with our guest, Larry Aldrich, a guy who’s walked the walk from antitrust prosecutor to CEO and now, author! His new book, co-written with former Phoenix mayor Paul Johnson, challenges the doom and gloom narrative that seems to dominate our headlines. Instead, Larry shares a refreshing perspective on what’s right with America, highlighting the resilience of our founding principles and the power of individual agency. We’ll unpack his five key pillars of American greatness, from confidence to generosity, and how they can help us navigate today’s polarized landscape. Grab your favorite beverage, kick back, and let’s explore how we can all contribute to a brighter future!

Larry Aldrich, a seasoned figure with a rich background in law, leadership, and now authorship, joins us to share his insights on optimism and the future of America. His new book, co-authored with former Phoenix mayor Paul Johnson, dives into the core values that underpin our nation, even in the face of the current political polarization. The conversation flows from Larry's experiences as an antitrust prosecutor to his ventures in media and business, reflecting a journey that has shaped his optimistic outlook. He emphasizes the importance of individual agency, accountability, and personal power in a society that often seems dominated by groups and collective fears. Larry's perspective is not just a call for optimism; it’s a passionate plea for Americans to recognize their power in shaping their future. Through anecdotes and a humorous touch, he reminds us that while challenges are present, they can be overcome with the right mindset and actions. The episode is a delightful mix of inspiration and practical advice, sure to leave listeners feeling empowered and ready to embrace what’s right with America.

Takeaways:

• Larry Aldrich emphasizes the importance of individual agency and optimism in America, urging us to embrace our inherent powers and overcome societal challenges.
• The podcast dives into the concept that America was designed to empower individuals, highlighting the need for personal responsibility in today's political climate.
• A key takeaway from the discussion is the need for boldness and accountability in leadership, drawing from Larry's experiences as a federal prosecutor and business leader.
• Larry offers five characteristics that define America's greatness: confidence, imagination, grit, generosity, and optimism, stressing their importance in solving modern challenges.
• The conversation underscores the value of local media and community engagement, reminding us that we should not overlook the good happening in our own backyards.
• Ultimately, the episode serves as a rallying cry to believe in the potential for positive change, encouraging listeners to take action and support one another.

Links referenced in this episode:

• optoptamerican.com

Welcome back to the show. I am your guest, your host, Reverend Keith Haney. Today's guest is someone whose career spans law, leadership and now authorship.

Larry Ulrich is a first a former antitrust prosecutor with the US Department of Justice and has served as CEO of multiple organizations, from public and private companies to nonprofits, including the publisher of two daily newspapers in Tucson and a clinical arm of the University of Arizona College of Medicine.

Now Larry brings his deep experience and patriotic perspective to the page of his new book, co authored by the Honorable Paul Johnson, the former mayor of Phoenix and political veteran over 40 years, including service as an international delegate for the U.S. department of State.

He has founded numerous startup businesses, including Redirect Health, what's Right with America and How we Can Keep it that Way in time, in a time with permissive pessimism dominates headlines.

This book offers a bold and unapologetic optimistic view of America's future, rooted in its founding principles, resilient spirit and the power of individual agency. We welcome Larry to the show. How you doing, Larry?

I am doing terrific.

So glad to be here, Reverend Haney, and delighted that I'm sorry, your listeners and viewers might have to listen to me or look at this bald old head and maybe they can cover their eyes or maybe they can go just audio only. But delighted to be here and very impressed that you're focused on these issues in very meaningful ways.

Well, you know, we need to find ways to not look at the negative part of life because that just keeps us in the cycle of a drain that just keeps going down the tube. So I like to bring people on who have optimistic view because as a believer, I have to be optimistic because I know how this all ends.

So that's how I approach it.

There we go. That's the right attitude.

There we go. So I'm gonna start you off with my favorite question every guest has to answer. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Well, I think the best piece of advice came from my boss.

I worked for a period of time with the Justice Department as a federal prosecutor and then got hired by Gannett Media up in Rochester, New York, where they used to be headquartered. They published USA Today.

And the general counsel at the time, Tom Chappell, basically said, larry, you are willing to be bold, you are willing to speak your mind, and you're willing to defend it with data and support. Don't stop. And probably to a fault, I don't stop.

There are occasions I probably should pull some punches and slow down, but I try to Be, as one of my former colleagues, employees told me, brutally honest. I want people to be clear. I want to be clear with them if I'm expecting things.

I want people to know that without having to guess or connect dots, just tell them very clearly what my expectations are and then hold people accountable. So being bold, tied into the accountability, being responsible, having those good conversations, probably the best piece of advice I got.

I love that. That's great advice and very inspiring. Thank you for sharing that.

Absolutely, absolutely.

So let's get to your book, cause I'm dying to dive into this. Your book is entitled what's Right with America. What inspired you and Paul to write such a book on optimism?

When let's be honest, we're living in very polarized political times.

We are. No kidding. Yeah, it's been pretty difficult.

My co author, Paul Johnson, the former mayor of Phoenix, has a podcast called the optimistic American optoptamerican.com and he's been on the optimism journey for a long time, even when he was mayor. But really trying to have those conversations, people talking about, you know, what is great about being an American.

And he's a running buddy of mine, or I'm a running buddy of his.

And one day we were, you know, sitting around after having breakfast after the run and I said, you know, Paul, you need to write a book because you gotta reach people that you know are readers. And he goes, well, I've written a book. And he actually has written several books.

He said, I'll be happy to write a book as long as you'll write the book. And I said, okay, I have not, I've written a lot over my career, but I've never written a book and I've always wanted to and so I did.

And so I was inspired by Paul.

And then I was inspired by, inspired by the ability to go back to the library, as old fashioned as that sound, and pull down the books and as you know, doing the research and then connecting those dots and those concepts together and to really start to provide this optimistic voice in a comprehensive way. And I will just slide towards kind of the premise of the book, which is really, you know, we are in America.

We are, we have been designed, we have a designer, we have several designers, but one we have in America.

And those are the founders, our founders in the 18th century who, you know, happened to come up at the right time with the right philosophers, really designed America. And so they built a structure and a constitution as a lawyer, the rule of law around this design.

But that design principally empowered individuals so the power of America, designed by our founders, is the power of the individual.

So let's dig into that, because I think we sometimes lose sight of that, especially now as I think about our political atmosphere, our political culture is. The individual isn't the key right now. It's groups. And we get into our camps and we find people who agree with us.

And I think we lose that individuality and our uniqueness as a country. So dig more into that for us a little bit.

Absolutely. As we start from the beginning of the power of individuals, we obviously, if we're only an individual, don't have a family, we're pretty lonely.

If we have neighbors, but we don't interact with them, we're probably in trouble. So we ultimately have the power. And we as individuals choose to release some of that power. Power.

And some of that power is released in the forming of a country. And so we now have a consensus about America and the rule of law and what we can do individually and what we can do collectively.

But we always retain those powers to basically step back and maybe not do things collectively. What happens, though, is we have a tendency to just get pulled into that power situation.

Those groups that you mentioned, Reverend Haney, how do they possibly, you know, kind of tell us what we need to do as opposed to we telling them what we need them to do?

And so we've gotten ourselves caught into this notion that whether it's political leaders or church leaders or community leaders, they're the ones got to tell us what to do, as opposed to us taking that responsibility to hear what we hear and to make choices that we choose, but not to cede that power. And, you know, my co author talks about that being agency. You know, it's the agency of individuals.

You know, we have these inherent powers, and often we have those inherent powers based upon our faith and our freedoms. You know, the founders also talked about these inalienable rights by the Creator. These are freedoms given to us, not given by founders to us.

They were given to us. And we have to step back and say, okay, I hear what that individual is telling me. I hear what the political party is telling me.

How do I feel about that? What do I think I need to do? How do I work with other people? We're all Americans, and unfortunately, in this world we're in, there's so much hatred.

I hate those people.

You know, we saw that breathtaking, you know, kind of split screen on the tragedy of Charlie Kirk shooting and the memorial service in, where I live in Arizona, in the West Valley, of Arizona and where his spouse got up there and said, you know, I forgive people. I'm taking that risk. I am owning that agency. I can choose to be angry and I can choose to hate. I don't. I choose forgiveness. And that is powerful.

It is powerful. So you have you identified five defining characteristics that have propelled the US to greatness. Can you walk us through those? Sure.

And I use I am not a smoker but as close it's called ciggo because the only thing I can hold onto in my brain are mnemonics. And so ciggo C I G G O And the first C of that is confidence. We have confidence in terms of our ability to solve problems. I is imagination.

We can imagine solutions to new issues. We imagine better solutions to problems we've already solved. America is just an amazing land of imagination and, and confidence. And then grit is.

This is the third of the sego g for grit. You know, we, you know, have learned how to, you know, roll up our sleeves, dig, dig in and power forward, not just giving up when things get hard.

And we have that grit. The fourth is generosity. And America is a generous country. And that generosity extends to friends, family, neighbors, communities across the country.

But we've also extended that generosity around the world. You know, we've made the, we've made the world a much safer, healthier, productive place.

The power of individuals have in our capitalistic system has created wealth that we have shared around the world. And it's an amazing spirit and one we sometimes forget we have. And then that ultimately flows into the o optimism that you know.

And I would say as we get to optimism, Reverend Haney, you know, optimism, but is viewed by some people in today's world as naive, as delusional. How can you say, how do you have hope and optimism? It's not. Optimism is eyes wide open. It's steady. It's looking at, it's being realistic.

It's recognizing there may be better ways to do things or we have got to back up a little bit and be focused. So optimism is not an area of naivete or delusion. It's an area of choice and the ability to roll up our sleeves and, and get to work.

Because we know if we do that collectively, we know if we put the power of individuals in place, we can solve societal's problems.

I love that way you define optimism because to take that from a Christian perspective, we talk about hope, we don't say hope. And I hope my team wins the World Series this year.

Because if your team is the Oakland Athletics, for example, you can hope they win the World Series, but it's not grounded in any reality. Whereas the Christian, when we talk about hope, it's grounded in something that is solid.

Like our hope and our salvation is grounded in what Jesus Christ has done. So it's not like I'm reaching for something that's unattainable, but it's grounded.

So the optimism you describe is not just you optimistically hope that it works out well, but that optimism is grounded in something foundational. Those other four pillars that you just mentioned.

Absolutely. You know, it's really an issue of resolve. You know, we, you know, we, we. We are not in denial. We are resolved to solve that problem.

You know, maybe I can. Can ask you as our host, if. If you, you know what, what makes you optimistic? You know, I know you live. You live in the. In the great Midwest, which.

Midwest, which some talk about flyover country. But, you know, as you look around to your community and your neighborhood, you know, what, what gives you optimism these days?

You know, the funny thing is people. The beautiful thing about living in Iowa is the people here are just phenomenal. Whether they no match for which way they vote.

They are the most kindest, generous people I've ever run across. When I moved from Illinois here, the one thing I noticed right away was people here will stop and talk to you whether they know you or not.

And you can't drive down the street without somebody waving. And it threw you off. When you're driving, you always was focused on the road. But there's someone's gonna wave, so you gotta be.

Be ready to get your hand up and wave here. Cause someone's gonna talk to you. If you go into the grocery store to buy something, someone's gonna strike up a conversation.

It is that agency you talked about before of the individual. And people here see you as individuals, and they have this, you know, I'm not gonna get in your way.

And you live your life, but I can still respect and see you as a human being, as a person. So I see the humanity here, and it's just refreshing.

That's great. And I assume, especially in Iowa, you don't have to rely on your local community, your state, your federal government to do things for you.

Yeah, you'd like them to support some of the things that can help. But basically, you and your friends and neighbors and family, you're the ones who solve those problems every single day.

And we kind of, you know, back to your comment about this, you know, kind of this contention, this diverse Diverse thinking, which is basically now harmonizing on non diverse thinking, which is everybody who doesn't like me is a bad person and an enemy. I mean, we don't, we don't do that.

You know, I'm sure in, you know, in churches and synagogues in Iowa, there's very different political persuasions, but those folks are loving each other and working together and not going, You're a Republican or a Democrat or, you know, and it's just, you know, you know, you're, you're a member of the congregation, you're a neighbor, and you know that, you know, it does seem for many people, yeah, I guess, naive. I mean, look at neighbors in the Middle east, you know, a wonderful time today to be celebrating the release of the hostages. But look at that hatred.

Yeah, look at that hatred and say to yourself, would you want that in America? Do you, do you want Iowa hating Illinois? Do you want, you know, where I live, Arizona hating New Mexico? Different political voices across.

No, they're my. They're my. They're my. They're patriots. They're Americans. They're my.

You know, I may not agree with their views, and I'd love to understand how, why they view that. And I may walk away from a conversation without any change of my view. I.

But I want to hear what people say and why they believe what they believe and then maybe push back, but then walk away and go, you know, you know, let's get a cup of coffee or beer or sandwich. And, you know, we've lost a little bit of that.

It's just, you know, whether it's social media, I mean, I, when, when I was at the newspapers in Tucson, we actually launched the fifth newspaper on the Internet. And, you know, there's some interesting stories about how, you know, that kind of a sense that will bring democracy to the, to, to America.

And it actually brought, it brought hell to America in many, many ways. And, you know, it's a shame because I think that I think the tools were there for it to have turned out differently.

It's just, I don't know how we get that into a different place over time. We'll see.

Yeah. One of the goals of this podcast, too, was to invite different voices on to have a conversation.

I remember the old, the Fox message a long time ago was fair and balanced. So my goal was, I don't know everything, but I'd love to give people the opportunity to have a conversation. We don't do that often.

I don't always agree with all of my guests, and they don't always agree with me, but at the end of the day, my goal is to have a respectful conversation and hope that we all grow from it.

Yeah, absolutely. And I admire what you do.

So I want to get into something else in your book. We touched on it, but I want to dig deeper into it. Individual empowerment over collective fear.

We see that playing out so much in our political system today. Talk about that and how your book kind of tries to address that.

Well, I think we try to address it in part through stories. Talk about.

The book has a number of stories, and one of the ones with profile is Paul, when he was mayor of Phoenix, happened to have the opportunity to meet with Rosa Parks in Phoenix, and she was showing him some pictures of how the Montgomery boycott came about and the horrible times. And Paul said, I turned to her and I said, look at the face of that young white cop there with his baton. That's a face of oppression.

And he said, she just looked at him and said, mayor, he's just doing his job. That's not the face of impression. That's the face of somebody doing their job. The system has changes.

And, you know, he said he broke, brought him to tears because he was not even appreciating the lessons that Rosa Parks had brought to him to Phoenix. And I think a lot of that, you know, we're trying to bring those lessons that there's so much to be excited about in America.

Yes, we have huge problems. I mean, I don't know if you saw Reverend Haney.

There was a research in the New York Times that just came out and said, two thirds of America thinks we're so divided we no longer can solve society's big problems.

Wow.

That is wrong, but hard to argue with two thirds of America, but that's wrong. But it's breathtaking and it can't stand. We have gigantic issues that we have to solve.

We have gigantic issues that impact the world, and they impact our ability to grow food in Iowa and other places, our ability to have enough water. We worry about water all the time in Arizona. We have to solve these big problems. We have to do them together.

And the hard thing is getting people get back to the power of the individual to basically say to their leaders, that attitude does not work. You need to figure a way with that. Let's say you're talking to your Republican legislator.

Work with your Democratic legislature and solve that problem. I don't know what the answer is. You're elected to solve those problems. The public puts you in office.

You don't Put us in voting for you and solve your problems. And, you know, last part of this story I read.

A friend of mine, a business friend in our area, was a former columnist for the Arizona Republic, Bob Robb, and he wrote a column about the whole. How outrageous this whole government shutdown is. Both sides, both parties been doing it for years.

And he said, you know, if you want to criticize the Republicans, they had full control of the government. They have presidency, the House and the Senate.

And if they had passed their budget bills on time, that is not that it could not be filibustered by the Senate.

So if they had just got down, worked on a couple of things with their Democratic colleagues, pass budget bills, they would have then gotten to the Senate and it would have been a majority vote. But because they failed to do their job, put the power in the hands of the Democrats, Democrats on the hand are filibustering like crazy.

And for 13, 14, 15 times under President Biden, they said, that's just outrageous that no one should shut down the government. So, I mean, we as Americans should look at those people and say, who are you? We need to find better people to serve us.

Because you're not, we didn't send you to Washington to fight. We send you to Washington to fix. And we're not getting a whole lot of fixes. We're getting a whole lot of attitude.

One of, one of the things I did in my doctoral dissertation was we had to go to Washington, D.C. to learn how policy is made. And one of the ugliest things in the world is to figure out how the sausage is made.

So, you know, and you, if you ever read, if you ever read legislation, I mean, I'm a lawyer. I do a lot of writing, a lot of reading.

And hopefully you get a better outcome. And we need better out. We need, we need prettier and better outcomes. Comes to.

We do. I'm curious, how do you think about you and Paul and your different backgrounds, you in media, him in healthcare.

How has your past experience impacted your view of America going forward?

Well, I was, I was lucky to.

I mean, and being a federal prosecutor, I was in my mid-20s and 20s, able to stand up in court and say, you know, representing the people of the United States. Your Honor, there was times that judges occasionally said, you seem pretty proud of that, Mr. Aldrich. And I go, well, I'm quite proud, you, Honor.

They go, shut up and call your first witness.

So occasionally I got the old snap back, which was probably appropriate, but, you know, I got to do that, and then I got to be hired by one of the larger media companies in the country.

And then I had the amazing opportunity to come out and run the newspapers in Tucson and actually now be on the front lines and see the impact of the First Amendment, both free speech and freedom of the press. I mean, there are very few businesses that are actually expressly articulated in the Constitution.

And free press and press, covers radio, television, social media, newspapers, is just, you know, it's an incredible responsibility.

And every day I'd look at that American flag out of my window, and every day I would run verbally or mentally up the flag of the First Amendment because we had great responsibilities. So, you know, kind of that combination of. And every lawyer thinks they're a constitutional lawyer.

So, you know, so I certainly thought I was a constitutional lawyer and did some work on that.

And then connecting that to the free press and free speech, you know, kind of made me just incredibly patriotic because I saw in, you know, every single day the power that we put in place for people to hear information they would not otherwise hear and to have information they could act on. You know, today, unfortunately, you know, too many people get their. Get their.

Their daily news, a little blurb on social media, which may be wrong, may not have depth, may not have context, certainly doesn't have depth or context, and it's very difficult to think, hmm, how might we look at that differently? So I was very lucky, and I also was lucky that the newspaper business was a wonderfully big, great, successful business back in the 90s.

It's unfortunately a shell of itself today.

I want to talk about that a little bit more because I think people are very frustrated with the media, because I think they saw the media as that independent advocate who would call or even hold our leaders accountable.

So, like we just talked about, the fact that Watch how the sausage is made is very frustrating, and neither side is really working with the other side. There was a time when the media would hold both sides accountable, and I think that helped get the voice of the individual out there.

How can we continue to be optimistic advocate when we don't seem to have those people holding the people in power accountable?

Reverend, let me ask you a foundational question before I answer that question.

Sure.

How would you Define the media.

You know, that's difficult because it used to be what we would consider the mainstream media, as some have called it, now the newspapers, television. I think the media has shifted now to more independent content creators, and their voices are elevated.

Some rightly so, some not rightly so, maybe not as accountable as we talked about before as those who had to meet certain standards. So we can put things out quickly now that may or may not be accurate.

So I think the media has shifted to not a center or central group of individual companies, but it's kind of a whole host of various voices.

Yeah. And, you know, a slight. A slight trick question, because I, I t. I often ask a question about the media, and I go, well, you're.

You're talking about broadcast media or you're talking about social media. I come from the newspaper business. It's different. We don't do what you just carry. You know, as some will characterize, the media does this.

I go, that's not the newspaper business. The amazing thing about the newspaper business, you know, still a.

An amazing number of people that get a newspaper every day, in some cases on their driveway, often on their iPads or other devices.

You know, most communities in America still have, I would say, most larger communities in America, in Maybe the top 500 cities, most of them have a daily newspaper. It might not be seven days a week, might be five or whatever in most communities. And probably in Iowa, you know, it may be a weekly paper.

And those folks. The amazing thing is every single day.

And it's been harder and harder as the successful profitability of those companies has declined because they've lost reporters, lost editors, and so it's harder to do their work. But the most important thing that impacts people in America is what happens in their local community. What did the city of, you know, what.

What did Iowa City do today? What did that council do? What did the county do?

What are they doing in terms of, you know, we're hearing some issues about some pests in our waste products or in our pigs. What are they doing? And it's harder and harder for that information to be uncovered.

And then where things don't work so well disclosed, you know, media is.

They're showing up at the courthouse, they're showing up at the council meetings, they're reading press releases and hopefully rewriting press releases. Fewer and fewer of those today. And social media has filled some of that gap.

But we still get into this notion everything's about Washington, New York, Louisiana. You know, it's not how we operate. We operate Every day in Iowa or in the greater Phoenix area. And we need the local information.

You know, I just would encourage everybody and it doesn't cost a lot of money to be a subscriber to a bonafide daily or weekly newspaper. Subscribe because they are representing you every day or every week.

And so as we kind of break apart those issues still, because the decline of economics has made it much harder for those organizations to have as many reporters and editors to do the work they used to do. So it feels like they're not representing us well. There are fewer. The work they do still represent us well.

But it's harder and harder to make that math work in a world of free social media.

I like that answer, and I think is you're so right on. Because we can get so caught up on what's happening around the world that we over we're inundated with bad news from around the globe.

As opposed to the good, feel good stories in your own backyard.

Yeah, yeah.

And they're, and they're, and most of these, they're writing the story about which high school team, you know, how the football game went Friday night or Saturday morning. And they're looking about, you know, what happened in little league. And you know, I'm a sports junkie, so sports will be normally first.

But there's lots of what's happening. What's happening.

I mean, you obviously, you know, in your neighborhood churches, there's communication, you know, maybe the bulletin in some cases though, that's published. And that's what everybody deals with. We do ultimately deal with state and national issues, but they should be a smaller part of our life.

And we've unfortunately just made it so intense that it's become a so much bigger part of our life. We are voters very rarely in a year.

And it's kind of like even though I was in the medical business, I don't think of my patient myself as a patient very often. I'm mostly a person and we're voters, but we're mostly people. And voting is a small piece of it.

Important to be informed, important to put pressure on your local communities to get better your states and federal government, but not get obsessed on issues that really don't impact your daily life.

Yeah. So what do you hope readers take away from your book?

Well, I mentioned that study in the New York Times. I hope they take away that two things. We stand on the shoulders, on many shoulders of many generations, this country a quarter of a millennium old.

We've gone through unbelievably Difficult times, the Civil War, the Great Depression, the Great Recession, Vietnam War, civil rights movement. There's a ton of things that we have done, gone through and gotten better. We are better now than we ever have been.

We are stronger now than we ever have been. Just one little side is just one.

Podcaster asked me a few months ago, wasn't because I wanted to be an aerospace engineer, I wanted to build rocket ships. And I went to Georgia Tech basically to do that after the moon landing. And he said, wasn't that the height of our innovation?

And I go, did you see Elon Musk's chopsticks, mechanizilla, whatever he calls it. Did you see? I mean, I cried. I was tearful. So those issues are coming up every day.

So wondersam, we stand on a foundation that's incredibly firm and been tested and gotten stronger, and now we have the ability to solve these problems. We may not have the people in place to solve them. So change the people. You know, vote out the bums, as they say, if they're not getting the job done.

And make sure you articulate you, you individually and collectively. What is the job? You know, is the job to sit there and go to a microphone and make a speech? I don't think so.

I think the job is to work through that very painful process of sausage making, you know, creating a bill and getting it agreed to and getting it signed by the president, getting it upheld by the judiciary. But, you know, that's what democracy is all about.

And so I always hope that people, one, will have, will know we will stand on the backs and shoulders of many, many, many generations, and two, just have the hope that we can solve these problems because we have in the past, and we will tomorrow.

Yeah, we need to send that little video I used to watch on Sunday morning to Congress. I think about how the bills are. So as we wrap up, I like to ask my guests this question. What do you want your legacy to be?

Well, that's a very good, very good question. I mean, I have been very lucky in my life. I've been successful in Major park as I've just been lucky.

I happened to be a white male born in the 50s, and Bill Gates was a white male born in the 50s. 50s. Steve. Steve Jobs is a white male. Board. That was. That was good timing. I was born in New York, and New York had a fabulous education system.

And my parents were very adamant about the importance of education. And that propelled me into undergraduate college and then propelled me into law school. And those propels led me into my business.

So I've been very lucky. I've been, you know, sometimes a little arrogant in terms of saying I can do that when I wasn't sure I could.

But sometimes I got the chance and more or less they worked out. And so I think the legacy is to say, you know, I recognize that I am a product of this strength, this gift America has. And it's a gift we all have.

You know, another quick comment.

A friend of mine down in Tucson one time, he built this amazing semiconductor business and he said, all I do in my business, all I've done in my life, in business is position myself to be lucky. And he said, everyone in life has some luck. Some have more than others, but everyone has luck. Now your eyes have to be off your toes.

Your eyes have to be up so that you can recognize the luck that's come to you and take advantage of that luck. And he said, that's, that's how I built my business. And the luck came around, as it always does. I took advantage.

And I think too many people think they don't get luck and they're so focused on their toes that they don't see what has come around.

So I'd like my legacy mostly to be that you can do every single person in the amazing place that is America with the education system that we have, with the university education system, you can get the tools, you can get the training, you can get the help, you can get the support, you can get the leadership, you can get the mentorship to help you be more successful. So I hope people have walk away saying, yep, I can, yes, I can do that.

That's great. So on season six of the podcast, we have something new now and that is a surprise question. Pick your surprise question between one and six.

I will take four.

Oh, here we go. I love this one. Who would you most like to sit next to on a 10 hour flight and why?

I have to probably say my co author, Paul Johnson. I mean, the man is just a font of stories and a font of positive attitude.

And you know, there are times I'm just going, I am not going to talk to that son of a. You know what, you know that person's a J E R K and he'll go, hey, you know, he's an American, he's a person, you know, what's the issue?

And you step back and you think about what he, he is just, he is, he was a politician as being a very young mayor of Phoenix and his ability to basically harmonize and solve problems required bringing people together. I wish I had that gift. I wish I was better at it than I am.

I keep trying, but I'm preaching towards the end of my life, so I'm not sure I have much more Runway but he would have one story after the next. He's also a good conversationalist, so he would peel it back and say, now tell me what you think about that. And I would walk away.

Pretty it would seem like a pretty quick 10 hour flight.

Wow. Well, thank you so much, Larry. Thank you for sharing your insights and your passion for America's future.

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