Midwest Local Politics: Grounded Dialogue

It started with a simple question from a voter that proves our government is broken: "What is a senator?"

In this in-depth conversation, I sit down with Marcie Grzywacz, an ICU nurse, mother, and candidate for Michigan State Senate (District 4). We discuss her fight for transparency on her local city council, the frustrating "blurred lines" that disconnect voters from their government, and the kitchen table issues—from outrageous DTE bills to crumbling roads—that Lansing needs to solve.

This isn't just a political interview; it's a diagnosis of a system that has lost touch with the people it serves.

Learn more about Marcie Grzywacz and her campaign:
https://www.marcieg.com/

Chapters:
(00:00) - The Question That Proves the System is Broken
(04:16) - Who is Marcie Grzywacz? (Nurse, Mom, Union Household)
(09:05) - The $1 Million/Mile Problem with Michigan's Roads
(11:40) - THE RECEIPTS: Her Fight for Transparency That Was Voted Down
(18:46) - Your DTE Bill: A Kitchen Table Crisis
(25:37) - The Plan: A Different Kind of Leadership for Lansing

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the middle ground. I've got a great guest here that I've gotten to know a little bit over the last month. Uh she was gracious enough to invite me to some places. Her name is Marcy Griswack. She's running for state senate here in Michigan. Marcy, I appreciate you coming on the show. Introduce yourself to everybody a little bit about who you are.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Well, first of all, thank you for having me. This is my first podcast experience ever in my whole life. So I'm very excited to be here. And more importantly, to keep it local and to talk to someone who's who's here in district, which is amazing. So, yes, my name is Marcy Griswack. I am a mother of three. I have an older child who is a sophomore in college right now, going to school for engineering, not sure what kind, but some sort of engineering. And then I have two children at home. I homeschool my middle child and then my youngest child. She made the decision after being homeschooled. She didn't like that. So she said she's gonna, she's gonna go to public school. So she she goes to Carlson. So I have three kids. I am married. I've been married for seven, eight years now, excuse me, to a union carpenter. He's been in the carpentry business for over 20 years doing commercial carpentry. And I just recently decided to run for office in the city of Rockwood, which is where I live. And so now I serve as the mayor pro tem here in Rockwood. So those are a little bit more about me in my working life, what I do for a living. I'm a nurse. I've been a nurse for 13 years, worked in the hospital for a little over 15, put myself through college by being a what they call a, there's a couple different words for it, a CNA, uh PCT, basically a nurse aid. I did that for several years while I was putting myself through college. And so I I do that full-time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Whoa, you got a better stomach than me because I can't handle that type of stuff at all. That that's not my forte. I'm a I'm a number cruncher and an analyst. You asked me about that all day long. You asked me about a hospital.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

I wasn't actually sure how I was gonna handle it either. I hadn't really had any exposure to what a nurse was or does or did, or how a nurse, how many different areas a nurse can cover. There's so many different aspects of nursing, but I had no idea actually any of it. Didn't even know what kind of nurse I wanted to be when I went into nursing school. I just thought I think this is what I want to do. And through throughout the four years I was in school, I learned what I didn't want to do. That was kind of how I narrowed it down. I was like, no, I don't like that. That's not me. And then I found my way into the ICU where where I'm just I'm in love, I'm in love with ICU nursings. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

No, but you gotta love what you do. That's yeah, that's something that everybody it changes for everybody. We were talking a little bit before the show about state government, right? And how a lot of people don't, you know, how a lot of people don't understand it. That was a little surprising for me. Closed off sometimes with certain things, and that was very shocking to me because you think you'd want to know what's going on out in your front yard. Not that I'm knocking anybody who doesn't, but you would think that would just be a little bit more obvious. Apparently it's not. Tell everybody a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Well, to what you just said, I think people are connected and they are concerned about things that are going on around them, whether it's in their community or statewide. They just don't know who to contact or who's responsible for what. Even myself, I've been guilty of that, where I'm like, well, I don't know who handles that. Is that the county? Is that the city? And so I can share in frustrations with people because there are definitely some blurred lines there as far as who do I contact and when, and about what specifically. But yes, so we were talking about before the show, you were I have been going door to door as part of my campaign talking to people and trying to understand better what is what are people's main concerns? What are their hot topic items? And one lady just flat out said to me, What is a senator? What are you actually responsible for? And yeah, and like I mentioned to you earlier, I I I applaud her courageousness to say that because I think that more people have that same question or same concern than than they admit.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Yeah, and that that part is just very shocking. I mean, really? It's very surpr I g I guess no, and yes, I mean, okay, it just seems because a lot of people vote for governor, right? But you think it would be like, hey, why aren't my roads fixed and things of that nature? So I guess I but I'm also somebody who asks I'm very curious, right? I always tell people, hey, just ask questions. The worst thing someone's gonna do is tell you no, get lost, yeah, yeah, or just ignore you.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Get lost, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Well, so that's where I go after it.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Even in my role as a councilwoman, it's been such a huge learning curve for me because I didn't completely understand the funding of the roads, how they're funded, who funds what and when, how often can it be funded. So it's not, I don't think that it's crazy to say that people should that it's wrong for people to not understand who they should talk to and when, which is but but we need to, as leaders, as servant leaders, we need to better educate the people that we serve to say, hey, this is who you should contact and win. And I think that like even just having a quick reference like fact sheet just passing out to people would be incredibly helpful. So say, say again, if you live in an HOA, who takes care of the road in front of your house? Who takes care of the drain when you're in Sumter Township and your entire yard is flooding? Is that the senator? Is that the county? Is that your governor? So I think that's important that we educate people, especially when we're going door to door, we have that opportunity to do that.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Yeah, and I mean that's that's just I mean, it's key, especially the door-to-door. I mean, grassroots is where a lot of things are always we find out a lot about what's really going on in perspective.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

From from what you've learned, what are some of the biggest things that you're seeing from voters that they're like, hey, I feel like I'm being ignored no matter who it is, or what are some of those key things that you're seeing out there?

SPEAKER_00 5:36

So that is such a good question because it's not a one size fits all. So the needs and the concerns of people that's that say that live in Grow Zeal are completely different than the needs and concerns of people that say live in Van Buren. And so you genuinely have such a swing of, I guess, conversations that you're having with people. And so it's been such a learning curve for me, too, to say that they're not concerned about property taxes over here. As you would think that would be a main concern for most people are property taxes. They have a higher priority, whether it be data centers in their backyard, whether it be the cost of food, you know, it there's really such a such a swing of needs and issues and desires. I haven't heard anyone say, to your point, that they don't feel like they're being heard. So I want to give props to local government, to their council members or their board of trustees, because that's really where the conversations start, right? Well, I'm not being heard. My my neighbor is fertilizing my yard or their trees hanging over my yard, and I don't like that. Who takes care of that? Is that me as a senator, or is that your council member who can take care of that? So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Right. No, and that's I'm glad to hear that. It's a lot because a lot of I think maybe that might be more at the federal level where people don't feel heard.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Local, since obviously you're mayor pro tem, like local government versus Lansing, you know, from what you're learning and what you've learned in South Rockwood, like what seems to be like the biggest hurdles that people may not understand that your views and approach can really help change.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

What do you mean as in Lansing?

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Yeah. So like how okay, hey, Lansing is not performing certain tasks a way that would help our local governments out to be more effective.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Yeah. So, well, number one, it's keeping and maintaining local control. And I like, I appreciate the perspective that I can bring to the table where I am in local government. So I understand the relationship, first of all, that needs to be built with your senator or with your house rep when you're at the local level. Otherwise, you're gonna be completely ignored, right? If you have issues and you don't have a relationship with the people who are supposed to be serving you, then forget about it, right? Forget about an ask, forget about education, forget about having a relationship, inviting that senator into your city to talk to the people, that's not, that's just not gonna happen. But we also understand when decisions are made, how they directly impact us at the local level. And so the key really, even though we're in Lansing, is that no one knows the situation or the issues that are facing local people better than the local people. That's why there has to be that relationship there. But I come with that understanding that, hey, listen, it's local or bust, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:13

So and that's I mean, that's very key because a lot of like you were saying earlier, a lot of people don't understand like what different roles there are for certain things.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

You know, and especially with the roads, because here in Michigan, the roads are like the number one thing we, you know, what do they call what do we always call it? Um, construction season, right? It's already happening, it's already out there.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

It's you know it's always it's always construction season. There's never a time where there's not an orange barrel out. While I can appreciate that, it gets frustrating, right? It's like, when are these roads gonna be fixed? Are they going to fix it?

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Yes, yeah. Yeah, so you know, I it was and obviously I'm happy that they addressed Gibraltar Road a little bit down here in Flat Rock because I mean it was it was awful. Yeah, but I was really bummed out that they did it with asphalt and not concrete because now there's already a small spot in it that's already missing a piece of asphalt, and I'm like, oh man. So now the potholes are already forming.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

So I actually toured the city of Romulus with the mayor recently, and he explained something to me and he gave me a different perspective. Obviously, asphalt is not a long-term solution, right? It's a short-term solution, and it's much more inexpensive than concrete. So he was saying that he said, Well, you're gonna see a lot of asphalt patches as we go through the city. We want our residents to know that we are addressing the situation, that you we hear you, that there's a pothole over here and this and that, but we don't have the funding to do to complete this road right now. We just don't have it. But we hear you and we want you to know that we're listening. So, in the meantime, this is what we're gonna do for you. So I wonder if this is just in the meantime, hopefully it is, right? It's never a long-term solution to to patch something. But again, it takes a million dollars a mile or something like that. Wow. Yes. That's the statistic that I heard recently. I'm like, that's that is alarming. A million dollars a mile.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Man, I wish I was getting paid that kind of money. Wow, that's a lot of money. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

I mean, that's what it takes per mile is to complete that whole project. It's about a million dollars. Wow. My small city of Rockwood, we there we cannot afford that. That's not something that we have built into our budget. It's astronomical. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Yeah. State and local governments aren't allowed to run a deficit like the federal government is. That's right. I'm gonna run a $50 billion debt, and hopefully we'll get around to paying it someday.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Yeah, we'll work it out sometime. Yeah. I'm glad we're not. I'm glad that we don't have the uh availability or the option to be irresponsible with our funds. I'm I'm thankful for that. Yeah. And I'd like I'd like to see that at the federal level too, but I obviously I don't have any say in that at this moment.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

It would be nice, and I think we'd be better off for it, but hey, that's a whole that's a whole different topic.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

What is one of the key issues for you that people may not know about you that is important to your constituents that that you think is very important? Like I'd say, like probably one of your key tenants that really gets you going.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Wow. That is a really good question. I will just t give you a little bit of history about my tenure on council. It doesn't necessarily directly reflect my campaign right now. But one of the issues that I had when I ran for council was the lack of transparency and accountability. It frustrated me. It frustrates me right now. I might get my blood pressure up, but I'm like, these people who are set to serve us are not serving us in a way that they're not even reporting back to what's going on, what they're doing, what they're planning on doing, what has been done. There's no accountability there. But accountability goes with transparency. They're brother and sister, right? So I said when I ran my campaign, that was the first thing that I was going to work on. Like when something's going on, we should the residents have a right to know whether or not you want to inform us or whether or not we want to look into it and be engaged is another story. You still have a responsibility as an elected official to inform us of what's going on. So this wasn't happening in my city. It's getting better, but there's a lot of room for improvement. And so that was one of the things that I wanted to work on as a councilwoman is saying whether or not you want to look it up on the internet or scroll Facebook to see what's going on or go up to City Hall to see what's happening. The information should be provided to you. That is that is like a number one thing. And so for me in running this campaign, I feel the same way. Although that's just a small portion of who I am. I feel like I serve you. I am here for you. So that means what I'm doing, you should know what I'm doing. You should know what I'm not doing. You should have the ability to contact me. And I should be and want to be and expect to be held accountable. And that requires showing up, right? That requires for me as a councilwoman today, I have office hours, right? That means I am here for you to hold me accountable. And I expect and understand that's part of this. So if I'm not available to you in person, on the phone, via email, then what am I doing? What is the purpose of having a public servant if I'm not holding myself to the standard of being held accountable and then also offering transparency? So I went off on a tangent on all that, but no, that's perfect. I say all that to say one of the again, actually the main thing I ran on in Rockwood was transparency and accountability. And so my entire three years that I've served, that is what I have been doing. Been a strong advocate for making sure everything is transparent. I asked the city council to take record all of our meetings so that our residents who voted us into office could see what we were doing. That was voted down. We have the ability and the technology to do that, and it was voted down. The other thing that was voted down is I said, hey, listen, I want every single person in the city of Rockwood to have access to the documents that I have. These are the documents that help me make a decision and help me vote on certain projects or whatever's happening in the city. There's a packet that is given to us, and then we base our decisions based on this packet. Sometimes it's 20 pages, sometimes it's 400 pages, although there hasn't been one like that. But in other cities, they are very, they're they're packets, right? And I said, you know what? The residents should have this. They deserve they deserve it, they should have this, and then it helps them understand better how I'm voting on things or why I voted on something because they don't have access to this. Now they could have access to it. I want to clarify if they go up to City Hall, if they make a written request and pay for the associated fees that are sometimes associated with a FOIA request and then wait 10 days to get that packet by the decision has already been made. Okay, so they can't come into a council meeting and say, hey, uh, what's this item A that you're voting on? So, so, anyways, I brought this to council and I said, listen, let's give the residents access to this. They can then hold us accountable. Then we're also being transparent and we're building trust with the people that we serve. And they wouldn't even entertain a vote on that. They wouldn't, they there was no second motion for that. I don't know if you saw that on Facebook, but wow.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

No, I didn't I I've seen the transparency part, but I didn't see that.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Wow. Yeah, there's been a there's been there's been a there's been a multitude of things that I bought brought forth that just have not made it. So this is a one thing that I'm passionate about is transparency and accountability. And and I that comes with that's that's who I am. So that comes with me when should I be voted into Lansing? That comes with me. That's a part of who I am. And I want to be on the oversight board. That was one question I was asked is what committee are you gonna serve on? What do you want to do in Lansing outside of some of the policies you might want to write? Like, you know, we serve on committees. That's that's what we do. And I said, oversight. I have a huge passion for oversight. And so I'm getting excited talking about it. But I'm like, this is something that I really am passionate about. But yeah, so that's one thing I think people should know about me is that this is this is important to me that you hold me accountable.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

And that's very key because I I can't remember when I've seen it, but Michigan's one of the lower ranked states in terms of that state government about transparency.

unknown 16:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Out of uh there's been a lot of polls and data about about sometimes we're not the most transparent government. Like we're on the bottom half of the country in terms of that. And I know that's a concern of a lot of voters here.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

And you know what? Actually, we're in the bottom half of a lot of things. So that doesn't shock me. It's sad though, but until something's done about it, I mean, we're not we're obviously it's it's not gonna trend upward until there's there's a there's a change in mindset and a change in thinking and a change in leadership where we say, we want leaders, we want leaders, servant leaders, first of all, that that put us first, that put that give us that give us the ability to be alongside of them when they take a vote. We understand what they're voting on. And if we don't, they'll help us through that, right? They'll help us. Here's the resources that you need to understand this vote. I'm gonna explain it to you. I'm gonna talk to people about the vote before I vote on it. Uh like we talked about earlier before the show, is that this is a bottom-up type of leadership where we say, hey, listen, I'm not bringing my party to Lansing. I'm bringing you to Lansing. I'm bringing those people that I've served to Lansing's. How how do I do that? I go and I talk to them directly and I say, what are your biggest concerns? What are you most passionate about? What do you want to see change? What's bothering you right now? So how I can't vote on, I vote, we call it, you know, we vote our district, right? We don't vote our party line, we vote our district. And in tying back into the people in Grosil versus the people in Van Buren, they're two totally different, they're two totally different worlds as far as what matters most to them right now.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

I can only imagine the property tax part. Woof, my property taxes keep going up every single year. I swear, and how they value your home is insane.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

I live in this world too. My my property taxes are going up, up, up. My water bill is going up, up, up. And in the city of Rockwood specifically, we have the ability, we own and operate our own wastewater treatment plant. That's a lot of people don't know that about the city of Rockwood. So we have the authority to regulate rates, water and sewer rates. And so they're astronomical, in my opinion, in the city. Um, a lot of that does have to do with the rate we're being charged from Gleewa specifically, but we also have the authority to press pause or we have the authority to problem solve in a different way for these rates. And so I was the only council member that voted against raising water and sewer rates this year because I said raising the water and sewer rates and putting that on our residents who are already struggling to survive right now or struggling to pay their bills should be a last resort, not a first resort. That's not the first thing that we do. Have we exhausted all of our resources and options and thought, you know, did we have a workshop? Let's talk this through. This should be the last thing we do to our people, not the first thing. So yeah, it's frustrating.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

And I think that's very cute, people know, especially with the electric rates in Michigan and the data centers here locally. I believe Gibraltar put a moratorium on it for a year.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Yes, yes, they did. And again, I can't speak for them, but I was there at that meeting and I was involved. And the thought is, and really any moratorium, is to just press the pause button to say, wait a minute, give local the local people here an opportunity to think about it, to talk it through, to problem solve, and see if this works specifically for our community. And so I'm thankful to the city of Gibraltar for doing that. I and I think the residents are too. They're thankful that the government said, we're not going to make a decision right now. We don't have enough information to make a decision.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Right. And that's a lot of people don't didn't realize, I should say, until the last six months or so, that a lot of times when these data centers go into areas that their electric rates were going up. And this was part of what was fueling it. And uh candidate Tom Leonard, who just dropped out of the governor's race recently, because one of the big things that he talked about was the commission in Michigan that approves the rate hikes and he's going, they keep approving, they keep approving.

unknown 20:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

We're all struggling here, and he made a big point of that. And I was like, man, finally somebody's just coming out and saying it.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

And and he was a real big proponent of putting a pause on it for a year. And I excuse me, I really liked that. So I guess that part was a little bit of a bummer to see now you don't got that voice pushing it in the election as much. But it I think that was very key because I swear to God, like a year ago, my electric bill was only like two digits of electric gas, and now it's like 400. I'm like, man, I put a new furnace and the seat unit in. It should be going the other way, not this way.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

And and we switched all of our bulbs to LED, right? That the the um energy savers. So I was like, oh, this would be amazing. This would be a front-end investment on the bulbs, but in the back, on the back side, the long term, we're gonna see our rates drop. And then I also just recently learned, I guess it was not recent, more recently, last year, that there's a peak time that they that DTE charges you double the rate.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

I can't two to seven.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Yeah. And so over here in the Griswack household, we're turning everything off from two to seven. We don't even do laundry. And I have a note on my washer to this day that says do not do laundry between two and seven p.m. because you're gonna be I'm gonna be charged double for that load of laundry. We'll pass.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Yes, yeah. And in the summertime, I tell my wife we're gonna we watch TV and everything around that time in the basement where you don't have to have the AC pushing as hard. Yes, it keeps it nice and cool down there. And she at first she was like, that just seems a little weird or overkill. And I'm like, no, you can have that thermostat about five, six degrees higher. Yeah, because at night it's not gonna feel as warm when the sun's not beating on the house. And she was like, Okay, and then she seems she was like, Oh man, that was a great idea. And I'm like, Yeah, we had bought some of those, I would even call them like reflectors on your windows. It's like transparent, but it reflects the sunlight away, and that helped too. And I was like, Oh, okay. I'm like, I put that on my my studio, has a window, I put that on there too, and yeah, I was like, man, it makes because The DTE bill, and I think what is it this month? They're going to be voting on another rate hike or something of that nature.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

And I'm it's just insane to me. It's insane. It's wild. That's the word I use for it. Is it's wild and crazy that as you and I sit here right now, we're talking about how to be more efficient with our energy. Yes, okay. But also the fact that we have to pause our lives between 2 and 7 PM because we're going to be charged double for what we do. And between 2 and 7 is when people are home, right? So that's that's the time that people are having dinner. That's the time that our kids are doing our homework. It's backward to me. I again, I don't, I just, it's just outrageous. It's absolutely outrageous. And like you said, this month they're the rates are going up, right? So how that correlates directly with the data centers, it's unknown right now.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

But no, that God, the electric thing, if they could fix that problem and see that would just solve if you want to talk about a tax cut, that would be a tax cut if there ever even wasn't one. Yeah. The the daily household budget. Those things are just it's insane. And it just seems like even with a lot of things that have been done to try to bring down inflation, it just keeps going up and up and up. And you're like going, man, where does that pause?

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Where does it end? Where does it end? And then but then it's not translating into the real world where wages are not going up, right? So wages are s stagnant and yet the cost of living is just skyrocketing. I families are hurting right now and they're they're feeling it at the uh at the pump, feeling it at the grocery store, and they're feeling it when they're mailing in their DTE bill. And now someone just told me that now we're gonna be charged a convenience fee to pay via credit card for DTE. I think it's a I don't know if there ever if there is currently a fee, but they were telling me that the fee is increasing. So now it's just nickel, diming, everything.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

They're supposed to be nonprofit.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

Well, what do you think about that? You think they're nonprofit.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Oh, they just like a billion or two last year they made. And I'm like, why do you need to raise rates again if you cleared that much money?

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Yeah. And one of the things, one of the things that my campaign is focusing on was getting rid of the state property tax to help struggling families or to help all families in Michigan, right? So there's a six mil property tax that this the state is directly looking at to say, hey, let's cut this. And depending on what your property value is, that could be a couple thousand dollars back in your pocket. And so that's something that that the state as senators and house of representatives, we have a direct impact on. And someone had said to me, well, how does that impact our police and fire? Again, that's local, right? So there's there's just this re-education that we're not trying to cut your safety, we're not trying to cut your fire, we're not trying to cut the schools. This is directly related to the six mil assessment for the state property taxes.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

Can we educate the voters better on these things? That is so key. Because that's like the biggest theme from what we both have discovered is the education of all this.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Yeah. So a couple of things when you say that, number one, we were talking about earlier is that people don't want to listen to extremists, right? They're not willing to get educated from extremists. So, but like you said, when you come from a perspective of I'm just here to educate, I'm not left, I'm not right. I just want to talk to you about what I'm noticing or what we're seeing is an issue, right? And that issue is education or re-education or reminding people. For me, I haven't had a civics class in 20 years, right? So I we is so some of us just need a refresher to say, oh, right, this is the branch that handles that, or, or this is who I talk to again about my drain out front, or what have you. We can't expect people to know and understand all of the different facets of how government works and who serves what and when and where. So, how can we educate people? That is a really good question. I don't have an answer to that, other than maybe at this moment I don't have an answer to that, other than what maybe what I'm doing, which we can't all do, is just going door to door and talking to people and saying, let's have a conversation. So maybe it starts with a conversation and then giving people the resources to say, hey, this is who you contact, when and where. But people like you who are coming and saying, hey, you're seeing an issue and you're willing to problem solve on this issue about education. There are people who are out there that have podcasts and things like that are also wanting to educate people from a middle ground, right? Not from a left versus a right, but just from a pure education perspective where it's just facts, right? It's just fact-based conversations.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

Yeah, and that's key. Yeah and that that's what that's where I really liked about it. I know your time's precious.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

So is yours.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

So is yours. I go all day long. I usually work a day job and then I get home, hang out with the family for an hour or two, maybe three, and then going on to the network till 10, 11 o'clock, sometimes one o'clock in the morning, just doing things and non-stop. One of my downsides as an individual is I'm overly analytical. I can sit there and run side. It'll it'll drive me nuts to a point where I'll run things through a million simulations, pick it apart. Like, why is this? Why is this that? And then yeah, my wife will she'll come out, she'll be like, hey, don't you think you should get some sleep before tomorrow? And I'm like, I just gotta I gotta figure this out. It's bugging it, because if not, I'll just lay there in bed till two o'clock in the morning just thinking about it. And it's probably why I'm 41 and more gray hair than most people at 50.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

Listen, I don't see that as a downside. I see that as a beautiful talent that you have that you're harnessing right now, right? This is this is what you're doing. You're living your American dream, and you're all of your analytics have got you to where you are this very second. So you might think of it as a downfall, but there are people who don't analyze things just quite enough.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

Yeah, and that's yeah, definitely that is sometimes folks should. And yeah, the problem with that is you only got one brain, and then my wife is a lot more the I won't say bubbly, but she's a lot more of the she makes things a lot more presentable. She's the one who puts the good the bow and tie on everything, and I'm over here, not the grumpy guy, but I'm the guy that's going okay, this, that, but she's like, Yeah, everything's gravy, and it's we we defaulted to that traditional format or whatever she wanna call it, not even intentionally, it just kind of happened.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

Well, it sounds like you two are a good team, you're a good teamwork. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Yeah, without her, I praise my wife all the time. Without her, this doesn't happen because she handles a lot of stuff with the kids for little things while I do this. Yeah, she's probably my biggest fan, my biggest advocate. I couldn't do it without her. She's enabled me to pursue my dreams and go on. I can't thank her enough. Marcy, I really appreciate you taking the time today.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Hey, thanks for having me. Yes, it's actually it's my pleasure. Like I said, this is my first podcast, so I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you for inviting me to talk to you.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Oh, yeah, no, no problem. Everybody, Marcy's website, everything you need to know about her will be down in the description. So check her website out, get to know her a little bit more. Always look at your local leaders. Local politics and state politics, like I've said so many times in the show, matter way more to your daily life than what's going on in DC. DC is so disconnected from us on a day to day basis.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Look to your local leaders for true problem solving with your day to day problems. Everybody, I thank you for tuning in. I hope everybody has a good day.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

All right. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Thank you.