Empowering Change: Sharon McMahon on Unsung Heroes, Patriotism, and Local Action

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Stop thinking about trying to get your senator's attention and start thinking about trying to make changes at a level that you have a better chance of influencing.

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People actually have a tremendous amount of influence over their school boards.

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They actually have a tremendous amount of influence over their city councils.

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There's a really good chance if you email your city counselor, there's a very good chance they're going to get back to you, counselor.

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there's a very good chance they're going to get back to you.

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Welcome back to the United she Stands podcast, the show that brings kindness and women into politics.

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I'm Ashley and I'm Sarah, and we're two women from Ohio who are here to become more educated about American politics and build a community so we can all get involved and make an impact together.

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We hope we'll inspire and empower you along the way.

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to the United she Stands podcast.

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We are so excited to share this week's episode with you.

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Sarah and I had the incredible opportunity to interview Sharon McMahon, and if you don't know who Sharon is, well, you are absolutely missing out, and we're about to get you all caught up.

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Sharon McMahon was a high school government and law teacher for years before taking her passion for education to Instagram, where more than a million people who affectionately call themselves govern nerds, rely on her for nonpartisan, fact-based information as America's government teacher.

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You can find her on Instagram at Sharon Says so.

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In a time where flashy headlines and false information often take the spotlight, sharon is a reliable source for truth and logic.

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Sharon is also the host of the award-winning podcast here's when it Gets Interesting, where each week, she provides entertaining yet factual accounts of America's most fascinating moments and people.

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In all that she does, sharon encourages others to be world-changing humans.

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She has led her community in various philanthropic initiatives that have raised more than $9 million for teachers, domestic violence survivors, terminally ill children, medical debt forgiveness programs, refugees and more.

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In addition, she is the author of the Preamble, a Substack newsletter about politics and history.

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Sarah and I are both huge fans and we have been consuming her content for years now on Instagram and through her podcast, and we are also both recent subscribers to her newsletter.

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And the reason we ended up getting to interview her well, the stars aligned and they were just really like looking out for us that day but also because Sharon is now an author, and not just an author but a New York Times bestselling author.

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Her book the Small and the Mighty 12 Unsung Americans who Changed the Course of History from the founding to the civil rights movement, was released on September 24th 2024, and landed at number one on the New York Times bestseller list, number one in USA Today's bestsellers and number one on all of Amazon.

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And I just finished it last night and loved it, and Ashley's in the middle of it and is also loving it.

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So we definitely recommend you go check it out.

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Definitely so.

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In her book, she discovers history's unsung characters and brings their rich, riveting stories to light.

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For the first time, you'll meet a woman, astride, a white horse riding down Pennsylvania Avenue, a young boy detained at a Japanese incarceration camp, a formerly enslaved woman on a mission to reunite with her daughter, a poet on a train and a teacher who learns to work with her enemies.

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More than one thing is bombed and multiple people surprisingly become rich, some rich with money and some wealthy with things that matter more.

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Through Sharon's meticulous research, she has recreated the pivotal lives of 12 everyday Americans who did the next needed thing during times when the odds were stacked against them.

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In doing so, they all managed to positively change the lives of those around them and the lives of those who would come after them.

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So, without further ado, here is our conversation with Sharon.

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Okay, we are going to jump right in then.

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What made you decide to write a book on the Small and the Mighty, and who are the Small and the Mighty?

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The Small and the Mighty are what I call the auroras of history, the auroras being sort of this concept of the northern lights that exist only during the pre dawn hours, when most of us are asleep, and the idea that they don't actually go away when the sun comes up.

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You just can't see them anymore.

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And history is full of people like that.

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History is full of people whose stories have been eclipsed by the dominant sons, by the people with the political power and the most guns and all of the cash and the weirdly shaped rocket ships that blast off into space.

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There's so many people like that in history that it's so easy.

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It's both easy for us to forget people who did not have the access to the levers of power, and it's also, in some cases, intentional that these people have been excluded from history, and often it is these stories that I find the most interesting.

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So that's how that happened.

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Those kind of moments are just tremendously interesting to me, and I hear from so many people that they're interesting to them as well.

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Like, listen, we have had enough books on George Washington.

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Okay, we get it.

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Yes, exactly, we understand.

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Okay, he had dentures.

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And he George Washington.

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Okay, we get it.

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Yes, we understand.

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Okay, he had dentures and he was tall.

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Okay, yes, you know what I mean.

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There's no.

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Yes, george Washington is worth learning about.

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Of course he is, but nevertheless there are literally thousands of stories that changed the course of history in the United States that we just are never learning about.

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And again, I'm a longtime teacher.

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This is no shade to teachers who are doing the impossible, who don't have enough time in the day to be like no, let's learn about somebody obscure.

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They don't have enough time to do all the things they need to do, as it already is, but often it is these stories that I find the most fascinating and also the most inspirational.

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Like I draw the most inspiration from people without access to the levers of power.

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I don't have billions of dollars, I'm not the president, I don't have a nightly TV show where millions of people are watching me, I don't have, like, all of the access to make things happen in this country, and yet these people are fantastic examples of what you can do despite that, and I just like there's just something in my brain that like lights up reading about and talking about people like that.

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Yeah, absolutely, and I've even felt that just with, like I said, the first half of your book I've been through.

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It's been really I have.

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I've found it so inspirational and just interesting to learn about these people who are doing what they can like with where they are.

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It's really, really cool yeah.

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Yeah, I am still amazed and feel bad for Morris, I think the first Gouverneur Morris yes, he wasn't.

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He's not in the play at all and he seems like how did he not make it?

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I'm just so confused by that.

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Yeah, I know, gouverneur.

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Morris doesn't make it, and neither does John Adams although John Adams is mentioned.

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John Adams, good luck.

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He's at least mentioned.

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Yeah, why isn't Morris mentioned when he is at Hamilton's bedside, when he dies, when he is there, when Hamilton's autopsy is conducted, when he eulogizes him at his funeral, when he's one of the pallbearers of his casket, why doesn't he make it?

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And maybe we'll have to ask Lin-Manuel Miranda that question someday.

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Yeah, I would love to get him on the line and ask him what's up with that.

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Yeah, let me know.

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Book him on the show and ask him that question Will do, will do.

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Yeah.

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Okay, so I want to talk a little bit about this idea of working within the system before we can tear it down.

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So one example of someone who did this in your book was Virginia Randolph, and you tell her story, the story about how Virginia was basically criticized for working within the system versus focusing on tearing it down like somewhere.

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With folks just in today's world being disengaged, feeling discouraged and many people thinking our system is broken.

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Can you just talk about this idea a little bit more?

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How does this idea of working within the system before tearing it down relate to us today?

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It's a great question and it's very relevant today because there are so many people who feel like, listen, I don't like any of these options, right, I don't like candidate A or B.

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I want a candidate who has bigger ideas, that is not going to just operate within this very dysfunctional system of American government, which we all agree.

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There's nobody who's like two thumbs up, it's all going great.

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You know like nobody thinks that.

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Everyone realizes that this is kind of it's bananas, that Congress is broken.

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It does not work on behalf of the American public.

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There's like we all have a million beefs that we would like to fix when it comes to government.

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But here is one of the lessons that I take away, not just from Virginia, but from other people in this book too, although she's a great example of it Two things have to happen at the same time in an effort to make lasting change, because it's very easy for quick changes to be made and then for those changes to be easily undone when the next administration comes in or whatever it is.

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Two things have to happen.

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Somebody has to be working within the system, right, filing the court cases, getting funding, access to, you know, whatever.

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Somebody needs to be working within this, and then there are people who need to be impacting lives outside of the system too, and both of these things, when these things coalesce, this is what leads to lasting change.

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This is how we get women's suffrage, this is how we get civil rights.

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It's people doing both.

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It's not only people going around on the hamster wheel of government change being like well, I can't believe Bob got elected, and blah, blah, blah.

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You know what I mean.

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This is an important component, but what happens on this government hamster wheel is often very influenced by the people who are working out here, by the people who were incarcerated in Japanese American incarceration camps, by people who are denied equal access to education, by people who are denied access to the ballot box.

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Both of these things have to happen.

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So if only this is happening, like I'm gesturing towards the people working outside the system, that's how you get violent, bloody revolution that is easy to then topple again because there's no stability within that system.

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Within the system is from where the stability comes, and this is one of the both infuriating things about American government and also one of the hallmarks of American government is that it's inflexible and difficult to change, and that's stupid.

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Many times I hate it and difficult to change, and that's stupid.

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Many times I hate it, but additionally, what it does is provide a level of stability that other democracies have not had, and this is why American democracy is almost 250 years old and nobody else can say the same thing.

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It is a system that is built to be slow to change but stable.

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So you need these external forces putting pressure on the system to change the system.

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So to your point about working within the system.

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It is one of the very important components for lasting change is working within the existing 250-year-old system almost, and, as infuriating as that can be for some people who want to just like burn it to the ground, you have absolutely no guarantee that what it will be replaced with is not worse.

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What it will be replaced with, power can be usurped by an unscrupulous human who seizes a moment and does more to reverse the rights of humans than it does to advance them.

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They say, be careful what you wish for, and that is absolutely true of revolution.

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Be careful what you wish for.

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Yeah, I really like that point because I do think it's so easy to be frustrated but it's sometimes harder to remember.

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There is some good to that things being hard to change, because I do think we all want to see progress, but, to your point, it has to be fought for and, as frustrating as that can be, it can also be kind of a good thing.

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Most progress requires a significant amount of struggle, and humans don't like to struggle.

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We don't.

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We're hardwired that way.

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If it's too hard, we don't want to do it.

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That's just how our brains work.

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We want to conserve the calories.

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Our brains are using the most calories of anything.

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Your brain uses way more calories than running a marathon each day.

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So your brain wants to conserve energy and it wants to protect you and it wants you to feel safe and it doesn't want your life to be hard.

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And so when it seems like, why must I struggle?

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I must be doing it wrong, I must be.

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You know, we have a tendency to shy away from it.

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We have a tendency to be like, never mind, the system is too corrupt, never mind, you know like we want to give up.

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You know like we want to give up.

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And stories like this in this book, I think, illustrate the point that our ancestors did not give up in the face of adversity and they did not grow weary in doing good.

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And I think it's too easy for us to grow weary in doing good today, when we have robots that deliver packages to our houses, you know what I mean, when it's easy for us to grow weary because struggle seems like something we're entitled not to do.

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We're entitled to not have to struggle, when that's never been the human perspective.

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People have always struggled and suffered, and that was just how life was.

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It's always been hard and now you have a reasonable chance of living to an adulthood.

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You have a reasonable chance of not being killed by your infected tooth, right Like you can go to the dentist, get it removed, get some antibiotics.

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You're going to live till tomorrow.

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It's going to hurt for a while but it's going to be fine.

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We've made so much progress that it seems like struggle feels wrong, when in reality that's how real change happens.

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Is the struggle Very often, yeah absolutely Two things.

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That was something else that I noticed throughout your book how many people, including children, did not live out their parents and just like there was so much death and yeah, it was, I know at one specific part you said I don't even remember who it was, but they could have survived if penicillin was in existence at that point in time.

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So yeah, that was crazy to me.

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But also, just to wrap things up on the working within a broken system, I think it makes it more manageable to actually participate.

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You know you're not going to go in or it's a whole lot harder to go in and completely blow up the whole system.

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You know that, hey, that's probably really impossible.

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It's a lot more manageable and a smaller bite of you know whatever to bite off, to actually just participate within what we currently have set up and just try to do and make, you know, make the best of it.

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So I think and I think that's something that Ashley and I have experienced with creating this podcast you know, starting with something small to participate and help make the world a better place.

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We're not, you know, blowing up our whole system and democracy by making this podcast, but I do think we are, you know, providing an outlet and educational resources for folks who, you know, are in kind of the same kind of the same wavelength that we're in, and I think that makes a huge difference.

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Yeah, I agree that it feels less overwhelming.

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If you're like we need to start from scratch.

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How does one do that in a country of 335 million people?

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How do?

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We start from scratch.

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If that's the task, that seems like never mind right exactly, yeah if you think about how tiny the colonies were, you know, like we like to, we like to hold up the american revolution is like, oh, a small group of dudes with muskets.

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Look at what they took on the british empire, you know, and yeah, to an extent that's true, um, but they, a lot of the dudes, were also domestic terrorists that took on the British Empire Quite literally.

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We would put those dudes in prison today.

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Do you want domestic terrorism in each state capital?

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Is that an interest?

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Is that of interest to you?

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Do you know what I mean?

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Like most people would say no.

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Is that of interest to you?

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Should we break down the doors of people's homes and shoot them and put musket or put gunpowder in their house and blow their house up?

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Should we do that?

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Does that sound like a good plan?

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Most people would say no, like that.

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No, of course we're not going to do that.

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Well then, stop idolizing the past, as though the past is something to you know, know.

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Romanticize to the extent of like, oh, they were the true patriots.

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Yeah, they did some really interesting things that we should still study.

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But uh, shouldn't we also celebrate the fact that we no longer use political violence to achieve things like?

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isn't that what's celebrating seems like maybe even a larger win.

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Yeah, yeah just a thought.

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We don't blow up people's houses to achieve stuff anymore.

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Okay, seems like a win yeah, yeah, absolutely.

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So let's talk along the lines of being disengaged.

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We know people feel powerless.

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I think we kind of were dancing around um that a bit in the that last question and we've spent the past two years getting informed and engaging.

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So we're no.

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We, like I said, we know we're not without power, we know we are making a difference, but how can we help fight the sentiment that others feel of being power, powerless, and why is it so important for us to do so?

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Yeah, that's a really great question.

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To do so, yeah, that's a really great question.

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The idea that nothing I do makes a difference.

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That's a really normal way to feel.

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That's how a lot of people feel You're like, but I wrote the letters and I voted you know what I mean and nothing changed.

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It's a very common way to feel.

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So if anybody's listening to this feels that way, know that doesn't mean that the struggle, because it's a struggle, doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.

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It's normal.

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But here's what I would encourage somebody to think about.

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We all talk about how we want to make a difference in the world right, but the world is big and there's a lot of problems.

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We could be here all day and all night talking about all the problems of the world and it seems like somehow it's our job to fix all the problems and to also to care about all the problems equally.

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That I have to care equally about rainforest deforestation and I need to also save the manatees.

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Additionally, I need to prevent every childhood vaccine preventable disease.

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I need to keep every child from dying of malaria.

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I also and I need to care about people who are not getting access to lawyers in prison, like the list of things that we should care about is extremely long, and all those things are worth caring about they are.

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But there's a few things that I would do.

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When people feel like a sense of disengagement, because they feel hopeless, there's like, too, it's too overwhelming, and they're like how should I make a difference?

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I need to make a difference on all these things.

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I can't.

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I'm literally like I go to my work and I have all these kids and I'm trying to put them to bed and like I'm real tired at the end of the day, these children want to eat 365 days a year and that's weird.

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Stop eating.

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You know what I mean?

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I have one of those.

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Yeah, yeah 365 days a year.

00:20:10.569 --> 00:20:10.871
It's crazy.

00:20:11.232 --> 00:20:15.748
We're not doing that, it's normal to feel very overwhelmed.

00:20:15.748 --> 00:20:18.768
As a human, I want to make a difference in the world, but I don't know how.

00:20:18.768 --> 00:20:30.135
The first thing to stop doing is to stop thinking you need to make a difference in the world and to start thinking about how you can make a difference in a much smaller community.

00:20:30.135 --> 00:20:34.307
How can I make a difference in my town?

00:20:34.307 --> 00:20:37.094
How can I make a difference in my neighborhood?

00:20:37.094 --> 00:20:40.614
How can I make a difference in my church or my house of worship?

00:20:40.614 --> 00:20:42.383
How can I make a difference in my child's school?

00:20:42.383 --> 00:20:43.368
How can I make a difference in my office?

00:20:43.368 --> 00:20:44.354
How can I make a difference in my child's school?

00:20:44.354 --> 00:20:45.961
How can I make a difference in my office?

00:20:45.961 --> 00:20:48.626
How can I make a difference in my home?

00:20:48.626 --> 00:20:55.565
And the idea that you have to make a difference in the world is too big.

00:20:55.565 --> 00:20:57.748
That's too big of an ask.

00:20:58.409 --> 00:21:10.563
Most people's communities are not the world, and most of the people in this book did not set out to make a difference in the quote unquote world.

00:21:10.563 --> 00:21:18.605
They set out to make a difference in a specific time and place and they often did not have grand designs of like.

00:21:18.605 --> 00:21:22.201
Here's my 25 part plan for how I'll make a difference in the world.

00:21:22.201 --> 00:21:29.310
They just kept doing the next needed thing, and for some people that was a much larger impact because they had more money.

00:21:29.310 --> 00:21:34.131
Some of us have really large platforms and so we have the ear of more people.

00:21:34.131 --> 00:21:38.690
Some of us teach preschool and we deal with 12 three-year-olds all day long.

00:21:39.030 --> 00:21:49.229
You know what I mean, and the idea that somehow I'm supposed to make a difference in the world is not an idea that almost any of our ancestors grappled with.

00:21:49.229 --> 00:22:02.423
They thought about making a difference in their immediate communities and for some people that grew like you think about the FDRs and the Teddy Roosevelt's and whatever, who are born into money.

00:22:02.423 --> 00:22:17.865
They started out by making a difference like New York city, which was a lot smaller at the time, and then they that grew into like state government or, in the case of Teddy Roosevelt, like the police department, and then that grew into like, okay, I'll, maybe I'll be in Congress.

00:22:17.865 --> 00:22:20.980
Um, teddy Roosevelt did all kinds of stuff.

00:22:20.980 --> 00:22:24.825
We talk about him a different time, but you know what I mean.

00:22:24.825 --> 00:22:35.383
Their capacity grew as their influence grew, but they did not neither of them set out to be like I am going to.

00:22:35.383 --> 00:22:43.311
Someday there's going to be a war and I'm going to be the leader that gets us through the war and you know like they didn't have these big grand designs.

00:22:43.311 --> 00:22:58.323
So, um, I'm not saying there's nothing worth planning for, but when you stop thinking about making a difference in the world and start think about thinking about making a difference in your community, and if it seems too overwhelming, shrink your community.

00:22:58.323 --> 00:23:09.055
Make it about the people in your at your office or the people in your friend group, or the people in your neighborhood, or the people in your at your office, or the people in your friend group or the people in your neighborhood or the people in your house of worship.

00:23:09.055 --> 00:23:17.951
Shrink your community until it feels like it's a manageable size and from there your influence and capacity can grow.

00:23:18.913 --> 00:23:21.224
You know I've been a teacher most of my life.

00:23:21.224 --> 00:23:42.182
At no point when I was in college did I think to myself someday I will be on a giant book tour in rooms of 3,000 people who are paying to hear what I'm saying, or that I have millions of people reading what I write, that five and a half million people read my articles every month.

00:23:42.182 --> 00:23:59.116
If you had told me that when I was 19 years old in college, I would have run away from that that would have been paralyzing, right, but my capacity has grown as I have flexed the muscles that I have spent years developing right.

00:23:59.116 --> 00:24:02.588
Very few people actually are like overnight sensations.

00:24:02.588 --> 00:24:03.573
That's not real.

00:24:03.573 --> 00:24:04.214
That's not real.

00:24:04.214 --> 00:24:05.820
Yeah, you know what I mean.

00:24:05.820 --> 00:24:08.287
That's not actually real, yeah.

00:24:08.346 --> 00:24:09.951
And a lot go ahead, Go ahead, no go ahead.

00:24:10.640 --> 00:24:16.188
I was going to say a lot of those people who are sort of like overnight sensations air quotes, you know, like that become TikTok famous or whatever.

00:24:16.188 --> 00:24:21.806
Like what's rolled up in the rug in that one lady's yard, she's not going to be famous in a month.

00:24:21.806 --> 00:24:22.827
Do you know what I mean?

00:24:22.827 --> 00:24:30.016
Unless she does something else, she has 15 minutes of fame, her influence, and this is no shade to her, it's just my.

00:24:30.016 --> 00:24:37.259
It's an illustration of the fact that, like overnight sensations, it's usually like a flash and a burn.

00:24:37.259 --> 00:24:38.622
They don't have.

00:24:39.262 --> 00:24:43.592
So let go of this idea that you know your capacity has.

00:24:43.592 --> 00:24:45.986
No, you have no ability to grow your own capacity.

00:24:45.986 --> 00:24:49.807
Almost everybody in this book it's the exact same story.

00:24:49.807 --> 00:24:59.605
Their capacity increased as they grew stronger, not that they were tasked with the impossible when they were first starting out.

00:24:59.605 --> 00:25:02.986
Most of these people started small and their capacity grew.

00:25:02.986 --> 00:25:09.624
So I just I want to encourage people who are listening to this Let go of the idea that changing the world is your mission.

00:25:10.055 --> 00:25:18.580
You can change the world and usually most people that change the world start really, really small and it grows from there.

00:25:18.580 --> 00:25:20.762
What's the next needed thing you could do?

00:25:20.762 --> 00:25:22.921
Maybe it's writing postcards.

00:25:22.921 --> 00:25:26.384
Maybe it is bringing somebody a meal who's sick.

00:25:26.384 --> 00:25:28.962
What is the next needed thing you can do?

00:25:28.962 --> 00:25:35.383
The worst that can happen is you realize like, oh well, I don't need to do that thing anymore, I'll do this other needed thing over here.

00:25:35.383 --> 00:25:41.300
That's the worst that can happen is you decide I'm not going to keep doing that thing, I'm going to do this other thing over here.

00:25:41.300 --> 00:25:44.603
No work for liberty is lost.

00:25:44.603 --> 00:25:47.474
It all becomes part of the fabric of the country.

00:25:47.474 --> 00:25:50.779
You've changed the country for the better when you work for the betterment of other people.

00:25:50.779 --> 00:25:57.715
So, anyway, when people tell me that they feel hopeless, they need to right-size their communities.

00:25:57.715 --> 00:26:02.346
Stop thinking about fixing America you know what I mean.

00:26:02.346 --> 00:26:09.586
That's not the work of one person and start thinking about impacting a smaller number of people.

00:26:09.586 --> 00:26:12.542
That's actually how human society is meant to be set up.

00:26:12.954 --> 00:26:14.721
Yeah, two comments.

00:26:14.721 --> 00:26:17.071
One, we looked at your book tour dates.

00:26:17.071 --> 00:26:21.503
We unfortunately couldn't make it to any of them, but if you come to Ohio, let us know.

00:26:21.503 --> 00:26:23.236
I really would love to be in that room.

00:26:24.038 --> 00:26:29.459
But second, I just want to kind of comment on this whole idea that you just articulated really so well.

00:26:29.459 --> 00:26:39.823
It actually hit me like a couple of weeks ago you had an Instagram post and I think it said like if it's a problem we're solving, it's worth solving for one person.

00:26:39.823 --> 00:26:47.615
And I don't know why, but that line alone just resonated so much and I was like cause I do think even I'll say this, even with the podcast we feel this way.

00:26:47.615 --> 00:26:51.642
We were kind of like how can we like help Ohio, how can we help the United States?

00:26:51.642 --> 00:27:01.645
It's like sometimes that's such a good reminder, I think, for people to just start with one thing, start with one person even, and you know how can that make a difference.

00:27:01.645 --> 00:27:10.141
And the example that you gave was you know if it's worth solving childhood hunger, feed one kid, like I just really hit yeah, really hit home Totally.

00:27:10.961 --> 00:27:11.323
Thank you.

00:27:11.323 --> 00:27:14.788
And nobody would say to a surgeon that like saves one person's life.

00:27:14.788 --> 00:27:21.742
Nobody would be like, oh my gosh, you haven't ended car accidents nationwide, so your efforts were in vain.

00:27:21.742 --> 00:27:26.066
You only saved one person today and one person tomorrow.

00:27:26.066 --> 00:27:29.329
That's not nearly the number of car accidents that have happened.

00:27:29.329 --> 00:27:30.214
Do you know what I mean?

00:27:30.214 --> 00:27:31.358
We would never say that.

00:27:31.358 --> 00:27:32.824
We would be like dang.

00:27:32.824 --> 00:27:36.817
That person actually is changing the world by saving one life at a time.

00:27:36.817 --> 00:27:43.320
Who knows what that one person whose life is saved will grow up to do or what they will do in the future?

00:27:43.320 --> 00:27:51.284
We would never say that to somebody who's saving one person's life, but yet somehow that's the standard we're holding ourselves to.

00:27:51.284 --> 00:27:53.857
That's not the standard we hold anyone else to.

00:27:53.857 --> 00:27:58.849
Oh my gosh, you only taught 12 three-year-olds this year.

00:27:58.849 --> 00:27:59.711
Loser.

00:27:59.711 --> 00:28:01.135
You know what I mean.

00:28:01.135 --> 00:28:08.237
That's not the standard we're holding anyone else to, but yet somehow that's what we envision for ourselves.

00:28:08.237 --> 00:28:09.397
No, how about?

00:28:09.397 --> 00:28:11.662
Hold yourself to the same standards you would hold other people.

00:28:11.662 --> 00:28:15.047
What you're doing is important, the end.

00:28:15.507 --> 00:28:17.569
Yeah, yeah, such a good message, I love it.

00:28:18.055 --> 00:28:18.936
It absolutely is.

00:28:18.936 --> 00:28:22.565
And just one quick comment on the next needed thing.

00:28:22.565 --> 00:28:26.441
That was also, you know, throughout your book and I loved that.

00:28:26.441 --> 00:28:28.767
That is something that I struggle with.

00:28:28.767 --> 00:28:31.108
I'm like, oh my gosh, I need to be doing this, this and this and I don't know where to start.

00:28:31.108 --> 00:28:31.568
That I struggle with.

00:28:31.568 --> 00:28:33.471
I'm like, oh my gosh, I need to be doing this, this and this and I don't know where to start.

00:28:33.471 --> 00:28:34.372
But what's the next needed thing?

00:28:34.372 --> 00:28:37.015
And I think that's well.

00:28:37.015 --> 00:28:38.858
Ashley came up with this podcast idea.

00:28:38.858 --> 00:28:39.862
She came to me with it.

00:28:39.862 --> 00:28:43.018
So I think, ashley, we were both kind of like we want to be doing something.

00:28:43.018 --> 00:28:43.859
What should we do?

00:28:43.859 --> 00:28:46.826
And we were like the next needed thing?

00:28:46.826 --> 00:28:51.807
Or Ashley was like the next needed thing is education, and that's how this was born.

00:28:53.315 --> 00:28:54.577
I love that.

00:28:54.659 --> 00:28:55.380
So what?

00:28:55.380 --> 00:29:07.840
The entire message of your book being about the small and the mighty, how can an ordinary person help change policy and what would you tell folks listening today who are wondering what they can do?

00:29:07.861 --> 00:29:08.402
Yeah, this is another.

00:29:08.402 --> 00:29:17.119
Just to keep on the same thing If it seems too overwhelming to you to be like my senator is terrible.

00:29:17.119 --> 00:29:21.948
I hate Bob, whatever it is.

00:29:21.948 --> 00:29:23.710
He never calls me back.

00:29:23.710 --> 00:29:29.444
That's probably how most people feel when they think about their senator.

00:29:29.444 --> 00:29:30.548
He never calls me back.

00:29:30.548 --> 00:29:34.599
Most people feel when they think about their senator.

00:29:34.599 --> 00:29:36.104
He never calls me back.

00:29:36.223 --> 00:29:43.001
Stop thinking about trying to get your senator's attention and start thinking about trying to make changes at a level that you have a better chance of influencing.

00:29:43.001 --> 00:29:46.818
People actually have a tremendous amount of influence over their school boards.

00:29:46.818 --> 00:29:49.955
They actually have a tremendous amount of influence over their city councils.

00:29:49.955 --> 00:29:51.240
There's a really good chance.

00:29:51.240 --> 00:29:54.426
If you email your city counselor, there's a very good chance they're going to get back to you.

00:29:54.426 --> 00:30:02.786
There's a very good chance that if you show up at a city council meeting or a school board meeting that you're going to get your time at the mic you know what I mean.

00:30:02.786 --> 00:30:15.844
Like there's a really good chance of that and from there you can grow your capacity to make connections for organizations that, let's say there's a change you want to see statewide.

00:30:16.295 --> 00:30:32.704
We want to ban book bans, or we want to make sure that all schools have the resources that they need, or we want to make sure that it's not easy for somebody to walk into a Bass Pro, buy an AR-15, and drive to a middle school.

00:30:32.704 --> 00:30:34.836
We want to slow down that process.

00:30:34.836 --> 00:30:37.261
So it's not a 15-minute endeavor, right?

00:30:37.261 --> 00:30:50.304
Whatever it is that you want to work on, joining organizations at a state level is a fantastic way to do that, because those organizations have contacts and infrastructure that you alone don't have.

00:30:50.704 --> 00:30:56.482
I think so often we think about it like I need to make it harder to get an AR-15 to shoot up a school.

00:30:56.482 --> 00:31:09.607
Me, personally, I need to do that when, in reality, there are fantastic organizations that you can participate in, give money to and volunteer for, who have all of these connections that you personally don't have.

00:31:09.607 --> 00:31:26.298
And then from inside of that organization whatever it is Moms Demand Action or even just something smaller like the PTA at your child's school that from within that organization, you can develop more capacity, more context, a better understanding of how the system works.

00:31:26.298 --> 00:31:35.159
Whatever is feeling too overwhelming for you, whatever is feeling too overwhelming for you, join up with other people who feel overwhelmed Right.

00:31:35.179 --> 00:31:40.888
Very infrequently is there somebody who is like I'm not overwhelmed by the enormity of the world's problems.

00:31:40.888 --> 00:31:45.355
The number of school shootings is fine with me.

00:31:45.355 --> 00:31:53.741
Very infrequently is that the perspective of an individual worth following Right, of an individual worth following Right.

00:31:53.741 --> 00:32:07.092
Join up with other overwhelmed people who are like the enormity of the problems in this state or this school or this world are too great for me alone, and together we can help shoulder each other's burdens.

00:32:07.092 --> 00:32:08.451
Together we can figure it out.

00:32:08.451 --> 00:32:17.721
You know, like my team likes to tease me, that my middle name is figured out.

00:32:17.721 --> 00:32:19.407
My name is Sharon, figured out McMahon, that that's my name and I will figure it out.

00:32:19.407 --> 00:32:22.236
Uh, and you better don't tell me that I can't figure it out, cause I'll just make me figure it out harder.

00:32:23.258 --> 00:32:26.983
Um so that, but that's my personality bent.

00:32:26.983 --> 00:32:31.070
Uh, I am not equipped to teach 12, three-year-olds at all.

00:32:31.070 --> 00:32:33.094
Okay, like I, that is not.

00:32:33.094 --> 00:32:34.195
I'm not good at that.

00:32:34.195 --> 00:32:35.179
Don't ask me to do that.

00:32:35.179 --> 00:32:36.863
I have mad respect for people who do.

00:32:36.863 --> 00:32:38.757
Somebody needs to be good at that job.

00:32:38.757 --> 00:32:42.945
That's not me, but I will figure it out whatever it is.

00:32:42.945 --> 00:32:45.617
That's my like, unique personality traits.

00:32:45.617 --> 00:32:57.376
And that that actually leads me to my second point, which is that all of us are meant to do something different, and the idea that, like, we're all supposed to do the same thing, that's silly.

00:32:57.376 --> 00:32:59.664
That's silly that we're all supposed to do the same thing.

00:32:59.664 --> 00:33:03.336
Um, that's not how any other part of the world works.

00:33:03.336 --> 00:33:03.858
Guess what?

00:33:03.858 --> 00:33:05.182
I need somebody to fix my car.

00:33:05.182 --> 00:33:07.596
I need somebody to do heart surgery.

00:33:07.596 --> 00:33:10.942
I need somebody to whose job it is to teach the three-year-olds.

00:33:10.942 --> 00:33:13.025
I need somebody who knows how to build bridges.

00:33:13.025 --> 00:33:20.942
Those can't all be my job, right, we would all be dead because the bridges would collapse and the heart surgery would fail.

00:33:22.084 --> 00:33:24.297
We would all be dead if all those things were my job.

00:33:24.297 --> 00:33:25.239
That's silly.

00:33:25.239 --> 00:33:29.016
We don't have that standard for anybody else, that everybody do everything.

00:33:29.016 --> 00:33:36.840
It is actually okay and needed and necessary for you to have skills and talents that you are good at.

00:33:36.840 --> 00:33:39.807
I can speak on a stage in front of 3000 people.

00:33:39.807 --> 00:33:41.880
I can probably make them laugh and cry.

00:33:41.880 --> 00:33:44.185
That's my skill.

00:33:44.185 --> 00:33:47.615
I can, you know I can do these other things.

00:33:47.615 --> 00:33:50.142
I can't build you a bridge to go jack.

00:33:50.142 --> 00:33:52.287
We ain't going nowhere if that's my job.

00:33:52.654 --> 00:33:53.277
You know what I mean.

00:33:53.277 --> 00:33:58.415
We're staying home, and that's not just acceptable, that's needed and necessary.

00:33:58.415 --> 00:34:00.961
We need people to do both of those things.

00:34:00.961 --> 00:34:07.542
So give yourself permission to have a couple of things, or even one thing that is like your thing.

00:34:07.542 --> 00:34:16.681
That's actually how you move the needle much faster than if you try to just throw spaghetti at the wall and be involved in absolutely everything.

00:34:16.681 --> 00:34:20.668
The world needs what you bring to it.

00:34:20.668 --> 00:34:25.474
The world needs your skills and your viewpoint and the things that are on your heart.

00:34:25.474 --> 00:34:27.719
I would argue that you are given those things for a reason.

00:34:28.780 --> 00:34:39.876
I care a lot about education and I believe that I was born to be a teacher and those are my skills and my giftings and they're not other people's, and that's actually great.

00:34:39.876 --> 00:34:43.449
That's actually great that it's somebody else's job to do brain surgery.

00:34:43.449 --> 00:34:45.335
That's really great.

00:34:45.335 --> 00:34:48.304
And I don't look down on them because we have different skills.

00:34:48.304 --> 00:34:51.599
And the same thing is true about how you want to make change in the world.

00:34:51.599 --> 00:34:55.045
We need you to care about whatever it is.

00:34:55.045 --> 00:34:58.400
We need you to care about the trash on the side of the road.

00:34:58.400 --> 00:35:01.648
Somebody else needs to care about the school bus lanes.

00:35:01.648 --> 00:35:06.425
Somebody else needs to care about paid family leave Somebody else.

00:35:06.425 --> 00:35:12.835
You know like all of these are good and worthy things to care about, and it is okay if they're not all your thing to care about.

00:35:13.096 --> 00:35:13.556
Yeah, I think.

00:35:13.556 --> 00:35:15.603
Two things just from that.

00:35:15.603 --> 00:35:28.471
One is I love that you talked about getting involved with local organizations because since we have started the podcast and got engaged, especially in Ohio, we know a lot of people.

00:35:28.471 --> 00:35:32.445
Now Our network involves a lot of people from grassroots organizations here in Ohio.

00:35:32.445 --> 00:35:38.324
Rank the Vote Ohio, ohio Women's Alliance Ohio had an abortion amendment on the ballot last November.

00:35:38.324 --> 00:35:49.625
We were heavily involved in helping share accurate information on that ballot amendment, telling people where they could sign petitions and signatures, and so if you get involved locally, you do.

00:35:49.625 --> 00:35:53.885
It feels so nice because you see the impact you can make.

00:35:53.885 --> 00:35:56.882
Yeah, and not even that you don't even have to join these orgs.

00:35:56.882 --> 00:36:01.059
But I would just tell people listening they love to have you.

00:36:01.059 --> 00:36:08.626
We have met so many people and not a single person has ever looked down on us for not knowing enough information or turned us away.

00:36:08.626 --> 00:36:11.934
Right, I mean, they are so happy to engage with people.

00:36:11.934 --> 00:36:12.978
That is what they want to do.

00:36:12.978 --> 00:36:15.065