“I believe in an entrepreneurial theory of social change. For me, I'm not interested in just changing the way people see the world. I'm interested in changing the world that people see.” — T.K. Coleman
In a world of political, economic, and social upheaval, how can we enact positive change?
Curt Mercadante interviews T.K. Coleman, director of entrepreneurial education at the Foundation for Economic Foundation (FEE).
This episode originally aired in April 2020.
FULL RAW TRANSCRIPT OF THIS EPISODE:
[00:00:00] T.K. Coleman: I don't care about what the people who love freedom have to say, show me what the enemies of freedom do whenever they wanna stop things because whatever they're afraid of, that's where the power is. That's where I want to be.
[00:00:14] Curt Mercadante: Hey everyone. This is Curt Mercadante with the freedom media network here with another incredible interview, with someone who is changing the world, we're here with TK Coleman. He's the director of entrepreneurial education with the found. For economic education and host of their incredible program, revolution of Juan TK.
[00:00:32] Thanks for joining us today. Man's
[00:00:34] T.K. Coleman: good to be here. When you think about why people change their behavior, it's, it's rarely because you beat them in an argument. Now I know that breaks a lot of people's hearts to hear, and I'm not dismissing the power of argument because my life has changed because of the power of argument.
[00:00:49] And I have seen that happen with other people. On a large scale. Why do people use Uber? When at the time people were talking about it as an idea, [00:01:00] everyone had nothing but objections to it. In fact, I'll give you an example. I saw this video of bill gates on the David Letterman show. And bill gates was trying to explain to David Letterman.
[00:01:11] The internet, like the potential of the internet. Right, right. Yeah. And, and, and Letterman's like, so confused by this idea, right. He's like, so, so what does it allowing me to do? And, and bill gates is getting smashed in this debate. If you just judge it by people's reactions, he, he try, he starts with, uh, with saying things like, well, you can like listen to a baseball game.
[00:01:29] And, and Letterman's like, uh, you ever heard of radio and the audience will laughs at bill gates. And he is like, yeah, but you can listen whenever you want. He's like, uh, you ever heard of like VCR, you know? And, and, and then, and then bill gates tries to tell him like, well, you can read information that you like, if you're interested in sports, uh, you ever heard of magazines and, and the, the whole bit just goes on like that.
[00:01:50] And it's a great illustration of how you can have a vastly superior. And people will mock it and laugh at it because they, they have no ability to [00:02:00] taste and touch and smell and see the instantiation of that idea. But what happened when entrepreneurs got involved in the game of, of materializing and manifesting that idea without even making a conscious decision to, to take an ideological.
[00:02:16] People just got into the internet, right? And now we look back at that clip. And this time around, we laugh at David Letterman and we laugh at ourselves. This is why I believe in an entrepreneurial theory of social change. For me, I'm not interested in just changing the way people see the world. I'm interested in changing the world that people see, you know, if you walk into a room.
[00:02:36] And it's dark and there's someone, you know, walking around like a bumbling idiot, knocking things over bruising themselves, as they bump in into the wall, you can scream at them all you want, Hey man, be careful and they won't change. But then if you just flip that switch, they will begin to act like a person who sees.
[00:02:52] And how do we flip the switch? We flip the switch by taking the ideas of freedom, applying them with a spirit of entrepreneurialism and [00:03:00] giving them to people in a. That they can viscerally engage. This is why every socialist regime has focused most of their attention at outlawing art at mu music bubble gum, blue jeans, and so forth because the enemies of freedom always know where the real power is, but the people who love freedom.
[00:03:19] We don't get it. What does bubble gum have to do with freedom? What do movies and music have to do with freedom? You're watering down the ideas. Oh no, no, no, no. I don't care about what the people who love freedom have to say, show me what the enemies of freedom do whenever they wanna stop things because whatever they're afraid of, that's where the power is.
[00:03:34] That's where I want to be.