It's the sun they are pushing.
People aren't talking about a violent.
Rhetoric against us, but if we dare to fight back, we are the violent one.
Fifty five KRS the talk station.
ATO five, the.
Fifty five KRCD talk station. Brian Thomas wishing everyone a very happy Wednesday and welcoming to the fifty five KRC Morning showman X guest Bernie Mullen. Bernie is the author of the book We're going to be talking about Reimagining the American Dream, among other books. A founder and chairman of something called the Aspire Group, which works with partners and to maximize organizational effectiveness, grow revenues and attendance along
the sports line. Under his guidance, they have grown into a massive company generating over two hundred million dollars annually revenue and has served two hundred plus brands and properties across eleven countries and three continents in seventeen different sports. Which is his forte internationally acclaim management, marketing consultant and author. He is a chief executive and senior director at multiple organizations. Welcome to the Morning Show. Go on with your resume.
We'd spend a whole time doing that Bernie Mullen, author of Realigning America's Dream.
Thank you Brian for having me on. And yeah, that's that's enough background.
Well the subtitle making it attainable for all, and you talk about the erosion of the American dream and how a lot of people believe the American dream is increasingly unattainable, a lot of division in our country and a lot of problems. Generally, the pot's being stirred by multiple forces, both within and outside of our country. But let's start with the concept of the American dream. How do you
How does Bernie Mullen define the American dream? Because I imagine some people perceive the concept differently.
Very much. So, yeah, well I define it as you know, I grew up in England, so I'm an immigrant, and I had an uncle from Canada an uncle from New York who both spent extensive time in England. When I was a little boy, told me the dream, the dream was a better life, you know. So everybody thinks it's you know, own your own home and those other kind of things, which I think is very much part of it.
But it's a better life. And so I've been here fifty one years and in those fifty one years, I have been able to have a better life for me than I believe it would have gotten in England, and for my kids and my grandkids. So I think, in simplicity that's what it is. But I think in today's context, Brian, it is a uniting force that brings people together, particularly immigrants, but not just immigrants, every American well in a common theme and.
A better life. You know, when I was growing up, you know, one of my days and it's the old adage. I mean, I'm not the only family that grew up in an environment where you know, Dad, mom would say you are going to grow up and do better than I have done. And I always perceived it as a young person that that was always from an economic standpoint. You know, you're gonna end up making more money than me, You're going to be better off than me. And I
grew up in a very nice lifestyle. I'll be the first person to admit, and honestly, Bernie, my drive and my initiative to get a college degree, go to law school, practice law, and then for the last eighteen years do this was always you know, no one's going to be there to take care of me. I didn't grow up in a world where I was going to inherit my father's job. As odd as it is that I ultimately
did that. I practiced law for sixteen years. But my drive came from the lifestyle that I was accustomed to, and I didn't want to lose it, you know what I'm saying, Yeah.
Exactly, Yeah, you know, I grew up in very much a blue collar income, subsidized house council houses he called it in England. My dad worked in a local grocery store and had a terrible job. You know, he carried the meat in an out he cut up all the bones and ground up all the fat and couldn't cut up meat. I mean, eventually he went to sell life insurance and so about the time I was eleven, we moved to nice, middle class But to me, it was
it was always about maximizing your opportunity. I think one of the arguments we get hung up on is everybody's equal, Well, everybody's nutty. No, yeah, We're all entitled to equality, an equal opportunity because we all have our differences. So, you know, in the lives of the law and the state and the eyes of God, you know, I believe in or created the universe for anybody to believe that. Yeah, we're all in titled equal opportunity to prove our differences, to
maximize what we've got. And my dad taught me two things. Number one, hard work, elbow grief was the phrase you never hear today. Yeah, you know, it was a hard worker. And number two was values and integrity. Your word is your bond.
Honestly, well, that's exactly the environment I was brought up in, different economically speaking, but those, of course were the core values of the family, you know, honesty, integrity, treating people, you know, with dignity and respect. But you know, in modern society, it's like the participation trophy. You're going to get something just by showing up. And this is really watered down that drive and an issue to the young people used to have, you know, that sort of feeling
that I had. Listen, if I don't fend for myself, ain't nobody going to be there to fend for me. You have to use the tools that you have at your disposal to your advantage. And that just seems to be washed out the window on this whole idea that merit no longer matters and equity must be applied to everything across the board.
Yeah, well, the participation trophy yorks me more than anything else. It's not American, you know. I came to America in nineteen seventy three. In nineteen eighty six, I was CENIVP oft the Pittsburgh Pirates, back in our battles with the Cincinnati Reds and then with the Braves, and never went in the National League. And to me, I grew up with as one winner and the second place is first loser. And you know that drives you. And we've dumbed everything
down in schools. With dumbing things down, We've got rid of standardized tests because they're perceived to be racially biased, and they may well be. And I understand that. And my book, you know, is the journey of all the
different places I've lived in America. I've worked in three times, I've worked in all four time zone, lived in three or four time zones, and come to see the beauty of American American values and American values is competition is what made us different, what made us the greatest country
on Earth. I grew up in Europe. I've worked in eleven countries around the world for my business, and I know that we are the greatest country on earth, and yeah, we've got some wartz, but then why are people dying to get in here? You know, if we're that bad? And we've got to stop this nasty division at the political level, with the extreme right pulling in one direction, extreme left pulling in the opposite direction. According to Pew Research,
sixty five percent of Americans are in the middle. Like me, I'm fiscally conservative with a warm heart and a social conscience, and I think the way they solve it and recommendations in the book is to push from the bottom up by making the American dream truly attainable for everybody, which is all about education. I believe, hmm, an opportunity.
Well, and that's where I wrote the word nefarious down because I do believe the dumbing down of America is nefarious in intent. Children are not thought critical, skinking thinking, logic and reason have been thrown out the window. And whether or not you think standardized tests are right or not, at least testing is being done some places, when they throw out testing, they end up I don't know what they even use this criteria to see if you're qualified. I mean, last thing I want is a doctor that
is an equity higher. You know, someone who hasn't shown the ability in college to actually master the subject matter. No, that person shouldn't be advanced in a grade level. This person should be held back until they can achieve that level and then move on with the skills they need for the next level. This is crazy what we're doing in America. It's nefarious.
Well it is. It is briant. When I got to the Pirates, we had a fully integrated team on the field, and we had two minorities. One was a clerk and another one was a secretary in the entire front office. And we diversified, but we diversified based upon quality, based upon qualification. And you know, political correctness has its place, but political correctness tends to cover up a lot of people's feelings. And I think a lot of the frustration and anger is COVID being stuck in a home all
of that length over it. And also it is the political correctness that we can say what we really feel. And I think that's one of the problems in the election. I think one of the reasons why people like Trump is that he says what he feels. One of the people, one of the groups that don't like him is because he says what he feels. And I'm not a Trump supporter. I am right in the middle politically, and I can
see the craziness of the wokeness of the left. And you know, the book talks about starting with preschool, free preschool for everybody. It's not entitlement, it's not just minorities, it's for everybody. So a kid goes into into kindergarten able to read, right to basic math, be socialized the success by third grade. Anybody who cannot read at third grade level is five times more likely to go to jail, get involved in crime, teenage, pregnancy, and all the other
you know, substance abuse, all the other antisocial programs. So it's one hundred one hundred billion a year. It's what we'll pay for, you know, the storms that are heading in Florida right now. It's what we've given to Ukraine, It's what we've given to Gaza in Israel. And I'm saying invest that in all of our youth, every one of them, and do it well. And I'm not number one.
I get that point, Bernie. But the problem is is that the vehicle through which they're supposed to learn to read has become just a mere indoctrination camp. They're not being taught to read, they're not being taught mathematics. I mean, if you look at the statistics in the testing scores across this great land bards, I mean notably like Baltimore and Chicago, they're like the low double digits of eighth graders who are capable of reading at grade level. They
are not doing the service to our kids. So you end up getting they get indoctrinated in political correctness, gender terminology, then in global warming propaganda. They're not learning the critical skills. So in an ideal world, I agree with you, kids should be able to read by third grade. They will benefit the American economy and help us be better. But we're putting them in schools that don't do that.
Couldn't agree with you more. And the unions, you know, the union position all the way through COVID. Given the kids at home obviously massive it pay increases. You know, what we've got to do is we've got to go back to the basics. You know, I grew up in Liverpool, England and get a Catholic education and they always used to joke, but the nuns will teach you the three odds, yeating, writing, and arithmetic. And that's what I got, and we have
to go back to incentive. I do that, and I have many members of my family who are teachers, and they say, it's not about teaching to the test. It is teaching the fundamentals and the basics, which is what we've got to do. And then if those kids came into school being able to read and write, into basic maths, then the teachers could spend more time on what we want them to educate them on, unless on all the other crap that is. I agree with you, that is
being taught in so many schools. But then the other part I'm recommending in the book, Brian, is that before going into high school, every kid in America goes to an eight week boot camp, and that we have a four year program in high school where they get paid and they get paid minimum wage. So a kid can come out of high school at age eighteen or twenty five thousand bucks. This is a kid in the hood,
you know, this is everybody. If they work those four years eight week boot camp on how to be an adult, teaching them what it means to be an adult and have responsibility. Then one summer working in a business, one in a non for profit, and one in a government agency. So at eighteen they decided they want to go to college or not, and if they do go to college, what their major would be, or get a professional degree,
which I think is more and more important. We need plumbers and electricians as much as we need doctors, and we don't need lawyers, the plenty of them, you know. And that's my little bias. My middle daughter is a district attorney, by the way, in Denver. That's okay, very careful.
I refer to myself as a recovering lawyer since I no longer practice, although I do keep my license up. But it's interesting you say we need to teach them what it means to be an adult. And I know you, Bernie, and it's family I grew up in. As I mentioned earlier before, that's something my parents taught me, you know. I mean, it's the erosion and disappearance of the nuclear family. I think is at a core of so much of what you've written about in your book, Reading America's Dream.
I couldn't agree with you more. Brian single biggest problem we've got is minorities Black families. Seventy percent of them after year high sixties at birth, seventy percent after one year are in a fatherless home with single parent moms. And that's why all the proceeds from the book and my consulting that I do goes to the Aspire Difference Foundation.
We focus on single parents with preschool kids designed, and the test is can they read and write and do basic math when they go to grade school and start kindergarten so that they've got a chance of success. And that's the single biggest issue. And then what I'm recommending is that if these kids do this full year program so that they would have that nest egg, they would have generational wealth, which is the single biggest problem in so many of these poor families in America. You know,
my dad's soul life insurance. I got four thousand pounds when he died. I put it down in a house, sold a house and no mortgage, four thousand pounds house, you know, in the early seventies, and sold it for ten thousand pounds, brought that money, bought a house, designed, and bought a house in Lawrence, Kansas. When I was in grad school, and that is now I own two properties, each of with her are multimillion dollar properties.
That's the way.
That's the way America works. And so I'm willing too, you know, recommending free college for anybody that does the four year program through high school. I've you know, I learned that you earn everything if there is no free lunch. We've got to stop giving them the free lunch. The all of these grants that we give to people, all of these welfare programs and give to people, don't teach them how to work hard. They don't teach them how to fish, they don't teach them how to be sustainable.
They are bad programs.
Bad programs. Read all about a reimagining America, his dream making it attainable for all by my guest today, Bernie Mullen. Bernie, it's been a real pleasure talking with you, and I appreciate your writing the book and sharing your time with us. This morning, we'll have a copy of that available at link on my blog page at fifty five KRC dot com, so my listeners can easily get a copy of the book.
Keep up the great work, Bernie, It's been a real pleasure eight, twenty fifty five KRC DE Talk station Get Touch with Color Electric for your residential electric needs. Family own an operator since nineteen ninety nine, Andrew Cullen has got a great team working for him and he's proud
of it. He's proud of their honest reputation. He's prout of the A plus with a better business brill that he and his team have earned through providing wonderful residential electric work from little projects like installing an outlet to rewiring your whole home or have your generator installed by CULH and they did that for me. It works great, ten year warranty on everything that they do for you. They're wonderful folks. You can count on Cullen Electric online.
It's Cullen cul and Cullen Electriccincinnati dot com. The number, the scheduled appointment. You can do it online or call him directly and please tell them Brian said, Hi when you do five one three two two seven four one one two five one three two two seven four one one two. This is fifty five KRC and iHeartRadio station.