Radio Host Manny Munoz joins us for a conversation about what’s dividing us and what might bring us back together

Transcripts

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:39:08
Thom Mozloom
And welcome to the official podcast of the M Network. I am Thom Mozloom. And the big issue we’re going to explore today is our divided community. Like it seems like polarization is the hottest trend going right, whether it’s political or ideological, religious, social, whatever it is, it’s almost like no matter what you say, you got to walk on eggshells for fear of angering or alienating somebody.

00:00:39:10 – 00:01:15:18
Thom Mozloom
Here’s a cool stat according to an Ipsos poll in 2024, 81% of Americans say we are more divided than ever. The New York Times and CNN teamed up last October. They confirmed this. Their study said that nearly 70% of Americans believe we are too divided to address our problems effectively. So how can we communicate with one another, whether that’s through branding and marketing or through news and information or just through, you know, our day to day dealings with each other when everything you say might be weaponized against you.

00:01:15:20 – 00:01:28:20
Thom Mozloom
So joining me to sort all of this out is our good friend and host of the Manny Munoz Show that airs daily on iHeart radio here in Miami. 610. WIOD. Manny, welcome to the show.

00:01:28:22 – 00:01:33:16
Manny Munoz
Thank you for having me. It’s a real honor. You’re saying there’s a chance we can get unified?

00:01:33:18 – 00:01:43:16
Thom Mozloom
I don’t know. I’m. That’s why you’re here. But first, I mean, how does it feel? Normally, you’re the one peppering me with questions. The shoe is now on the other foot. How does that feel?

00:01:43:18 – 00:01:49:04
Manny Munoz
Well, it feels weird because you can see I’ve got a face for radio, so I’m not sure. I used to think I’m good enough to begin with.

00:01:49:06 – 00:01:50:20
Thom Mozloom
No, it’s all good.

00:01:50:22 – 00:02:16:21
Manny Munoz
I really think that that part of those numbers that you were just citing our, social media, our politicians thriving off of keeping us divided. So we’ll be more active at the voting booth. And the outrage economy, what I call cable news and everything that lends itself to it, as you’ve told me in the past. Unity and reason don’t sell, but anger and fear and violence do.

00:02:16:23 – 00:02:31:01
Thom Mozloom
Yeah. I mean, let’s dive into that. How does the situation impact the way people actually get their news? And quite frankly, is this top of mind when you’re delivering the news?

00:02:31:03 – 00:02:55:18
Manny Munoz
Oh, it constantly is, because thankfully, I don’t have to do the news anymore. I can actually opine about all of these things. And the beauty I think of what I do on the show is every day we give an hour to the listeners. And what I’ve learned so far, there are those who are incredibly angry and divided and swallow the Kool-Aid of whichever political party they follow, right?

00:02:55:20 – 00:03:11:22
Manny Munoz
Because both of them love dividing us. But far and wide, I think the vast majority of us, and I know it’s cliche, have a lot more that we agree with than we than what we disagree with. And I also think the vast majority of us who don’t live in the social media space every day, just trying to live our best lives.

00:03:12:00 – 00:03:23:00
Manny Munoz
We don’t look at each other as enemies, even when we disagree politically. We can still get together with our friends who are MAGA or liberals or whatever else, and give them a hug and have a beer with them and enjoy a barbecue.

00:03:23:02 – 00:03:45:02
Thom Mozloom
Yeah, but because news is about ratings and politics is about votes. Like, there’s this idea that we’ve kind of stopped giving people what they need, and instead we give them what they want and and what they want is they want a good argument. We know that that’s where their ratings are. They like friction in storytelling. They like the drama, and they like stuff that fits their own worldview.

00:03:45:03 – 00:03:57:08
Thom Mozloom
So do you see this as, you know, reality, or do you think that there’s just so many different options out there that it provides opportunity for more propaganda?

00:03:57:10 – 00:04:22:23
Manny Munoz
Well, two things about that. One, it all changed, I think in the mid 80s, there was a guy down here named Joel Chitwood on Channel seven, when news changed from bringing the public information and being as unbiased as you could be and presenting the whole story, and to marketing, we needed to market this. We need to, if it bleeds, it leads and all of those things that led eventually he went to Fox News, set that up, and all of those things.

00:04:22:23 – 00:04:42:10
Manny Munoz
So that’s that’s one thing is news as we remember it. Walter Cronkite, and all of that doesn’t exist anymore because it is now a business. The other thing, and I was having this debate the other day, and I’d love to hear what you think. Are things really as bad as we assume they are these days, or do we just have more information?

00:04:42:10 – 00:05:04:04
Manny Munoz
Are disappearances and child molesters and all of these things more prevalent in 2026 than they were in 1976, or that had happened just as often back then. We just didn’t hear about it like we do now because of social media and news coverage in the 24 hour news cycle. It’s something that we can certainly debate, and I’m not sure there’s a right answer there.

00:05:04:06 – 00:05:27:09
Thom Mozloom
Are you familiar with cultivation theory? No. Okay, so there’s this. I’m going to get really wonky here. I’m going to geek out, so I apologize. I love that that there was this dude. His name was George Gardner, and he was a communications prof. He taught at Temple and Villanova University, Pennsylvania, you know, up in the northeast where I was and at the time that he was a communications prof.

00:05:27:11 – 00:05:56:14
Thom Mozloom
TV was, you know, that was the primary source. We’re talking the 60s and 70s. And, at that time, Vietnam was being, you know, beamed into our homes on a nightly basis. There were race riots, the assassination of MLK and RFK. And this is this is what dominated the news. And Gerber posited that people are watching so much television and they’re forming their opinion of reality based on what they see on TV.

00:05:56:16 – 00:06:20:08
Thom Mozloom
This. He also coined the phrase the mean world syndrome. Like he demonstrated through research that people believed their world was significantly more violent and divided, even though it wasn’t because they were watching so much television. And that’s what that’s what television was doing to them. So this cultivation theory might be at play with social media, right? All the friction and the drama and the arguments.

00:06:20:09 – 00:06:35:04
Thom Mozloom
Well, that gets ratings. But it’s also true with social media, because all that stuff gets clicks and that’s how that’s how ratings are formed at how money is made. So, it leads to a constant showing of the worst of us.

00:06:35:06 – 00:06:36:03
Manny Munoz
Well, there’s no question.

00:06:36:04 – 00:06:37:21
Thom Mozloom
Do you believe that you’re buying into that?

00:06:38:00 – 00:06:55:07
Manny Munoz
Yeah, I absolutely do. And the numbers, every piece of research that I’ve seen is a matter of fact, I don’t remember what school put it out a couple of weeks ago. But it followed people who disconnected completely, not only from social media, from their screens, their phones, their laptops, their iPads. And I think it was for a week.

00:06:55:07 – 00:07:13:14
Manny Munoz
And the amount of stress in their lives, the amount of aggravation that they felt came down precipitously, like going for a walk in the woods for an hour. You feel so much better as time goes by when you’re not, you know, being hit in the face with everything on social media, the news, whatever. And it has nothing to do with partizanship or what news you follow.

00:07:13:17 – 00:07:24:16
Manny Munoz
It is being constantly bombarded with everything that is happening in the world, whether it’s, hurricanes and thunderstorms and brush fires or mirrors and divisions and everything else.

00:07:24:18 – 00:07:31:16
Thom Mozloom
Yeah, I was having this conversation on the last podcast with a guy named Aaron Rosen. He’s the do you know, he’s, with the.

00:07:31:17 – 00:07:32:18
Manny Munoz
I saw part of.

00:07:32:18 – 00:07:51:23
Thom Mozloom
It, World Affairs Council. And we were talking about, you know, well, yes, it is good to, you know, stick your head in the sand and get away from it all. But that’s not a real strategy for dealing in branding and marketing or running a business or or dealing in the news. So how do you differentiate between staying tuned in and not getting burned out?

00:07:51:23 – 00:07:55:05
Thom Mozloom
What’s the strategy?

00:07:55:07 – 00:08:08:14
Manny Munoz
I’m not even sure I can answer that question. It’s funny because, just the other day on my show, I had a guy that called up, and insulted me. I said that I, I tried to respect the president of the United States.

00:08:08:14 – 00:08:10:03
Thom Mozloom
Is this Javier?

00:08:10:05 – 00:08:13:10
Manny Munoz
It is Javier. Very good. Yeah. So you play that clip?

00:08:13:10 – 00:08:16:21
Thom Mozloom
I was going to play that game for you because I thought it was so funny.

00:08:16:23 – 00:08:31:12
Manny Munoz
Well, and I and I try to respect the, the, the president of the United States because I respect the office. I don’t care who is in that office. If I were invited to the white House, I would go to meet the president, because that’s my house. It’s your house. And I respect the office, regardless of what I think.

00:08:31:12 – 00:08:51:08
Manny Munoz
Who’s sitting in the Oval Office. And he said that I take that I it’s a it’s a lie. I take every chance to insult the president. Anything good that he does, I try to turn around, make it into something bad, that I’m a nobody. And that the only reason where I’m sitting, where I am, is because at one point, I got on my knees, and I responded and I said, thank you very much, because that’s what we do.

00:08:51:08 – 00:08:53:02
Manny Munoz
We let everybody have their say. He didn’t.

00:08:53:06 – 00:08:55:12
Thom Mozloom
He didn’t mean you got in your knees in prayer, I’m assuming.

00:08:55:12 – 00:09:12:11
Manny Munoz
No, no, he was not talking about the Pope. And so, and so I responded to him and I said, but you know what? You’re listening to every syllable coming out of my mouth below. And that was yesterday. Lo and behold, today Harvey comes back and he goes because he agreed with something I said today, I can’t figure you out.

00:09:12:11 – 00:09:32:04
Manny Munoz
You’re like the girl. I don’t know whether she likes me. She doesn’t like me, whether I’m going to ask her to go out and she’s going to agree or she’s going to turn me down. And so I think it’s frustrating to run into somebody that maybe, doesn’t care about the letter next to your name and cares more maybe about what’s right and right or what’s good and bad.

00:09:32:06 – 00:09:50:17
Manny Munoz
And, and I think maybe that’s the way to approach things, because I really believe that the vast majority of us look at things that way, and what we’re not bombarded with the propaganda from whatever party or politician we want to hear the propaganda from or whatever social media the algorithm works. Yeah. I mean, is what’s destroying us.

00:09:50:22 – 00:10:07:15
Manny Munoz
I say this regularly. I truly believe despite some of the good that’s come out of it, social media is the worst thing to happen to society since the atomic age. Because look, look, what do we do to. We certainly look what we allow it to do to us. I think the very things we’re talking about right now.

00:10:07:18 – 00:10:23:09
Thom Mozloom
I don’t disagree with you, but your show is a little bit different. Like you, you you don’t really dwell on the drama and the friction and all of that. And is that maybe that’s because for all intents and purposes, you’re like the last man standing, right? Like, yeah, yeah.

00:10:23:11 – 00:10:25:06
Manny Munoz
Or I can only hope.

00:10:25:08 – 00:10:41:18
Thom Mozloom
Or maybe you’re the last man standing because you are measured in your approach and you do sort of criticize both sides as well as praise both sides and try to stick down the middle. Is that intentional or, you know, is that just a function of your personal views? Is this part of your editorial framework?

00:10:41:19 – 00:11:02:22
Manny Munoz
Yeah. So I don’t know. It’s just it’s just me and I don’t know anybody. And I’ve never met anybody who agrees with 100% of what any candidate or any party stands for. It’s the frustrating thing when I see people just voting for a letter next to someone’s name, as opposed to learning who someone is as a candidate, what issues they really believe in and where they come from.

00:11:02:22 – 00:11:16:07
Manny Munoz
And I think that’s the two party system. Keeps is what keeps us divide us. And I truly believe that’s our biggest problem in politics right now, is that the two parties fight tooth and nail against one another, but they certainly work together to keep any other legitimate party out.

00:11:16:09 – 00:11:37:19
Thom Mozloom
Now there’s there’s branding and marketing, and this is a branding and marketing podcast that we have to get into it a little bit. There’s branding and marketing implications here, like when brands are associated with the hyper Partizan or even the divisive events and emotional content that rubs off on their brand. And in other words, the context matters.

00:11:37:19 – 00:11:54:10
Thom Mozloom
And when brands get pulled into the maelstrom, you know, well, you know, you call me and we come on the show and we talk about it and have a good laugh sometimes. But do you see this happening more? Do you do you find that more brands are making news for all the wrong reasons than ever?

00:11:54:12 – 00:12:10:18
Manny Munoz
Yeah. I mean, I think it started, I guess it’s been almost two years now with Bud Light and the fact that they had the gall to have a small campaign with a transgender activist and saw what happened to them, no longer the best selling beer in the country. It’s happened a couple of times in the last couple of years with target.

00:12:10:22 – 00:12:27:10
Manny Munoz
I had you on my show just a few weeks ago to talk about the politics, about whether corporations should support the 250th anniversary of our country. And if they did, how they should do it so they don’t offend anybody politically. Right. It’s insane.

00:12:27:12 – 00:12:48:23
Thom Mozloom
Yeah. It is, it is, it is silly. But what catches your attention of all that, though, when a brand gets sucked into this, do you think to yourself, wow, how did they let that happen? Or are you talking about it because the response they made, like a lot of times the public response just makes things so much worse.

00:12:49:01 – 00:13:05:02
Manny Munoz
Well, but to to your point, and the reason I usually come to you is how can they possibly think this was the way to respond to this? What did you know, what kind of statement to put out or anything else? I think they probably need somebody like you by their side to handle their crisis management most of the time.

00:13:05:02 – 00:13:30:12
Manny Munoz
Honestly, my reaction is really, this is like what we’re offended about right now with everything else going on in the world. We’re upset about, you know, a transgender activist trying to sell beer, or, you know, a corporation supporting gay Pride Month. This is what we’re going to allow us to divide, ourselves with now. I mean, sometimes it’s the most inane or ridiculous stuff that is the outrage of the week.

00:13:30:16 – 00:13:32:10
Thom Mozloom
Yeah, but you cover it. Well, I mean, you.

00:13:32:10 – 00:13:51:08
Manny Munoz
Well, because it’s what’s making headlines. It’s what it’s what has people. There are people. And I, I’m blessed to be able to travel a lot and what I and when I travel, especially to parts of our country, it is amazing to me just how nice people are, how thoughtful people are, most importantly, how people are just trying to live their lives.

00:13:51:08 – 00:14:08:05
Manny Munoz
They are not they don’t know what’s going on in Congress. They’re not paying attention. Every true social post by our president, or the latest outrage that people want to boycott a corporation for. They’re just out there trying to live their best life, make their money, you know, maybe go on vacation with their kids and save some money for their retirement.

00:14:08:05 – 00:14:17:12
Manny Munoz
They’re not caught up in all of this stuff that I really think it’s like, you know, 8 to 12% of us who pay attention to this stuff on a daily basis are.

00:14:17:14 – 00:14:23:07
Thom Mozloom
Yeah. I mean, on the one hand, you have people that are just checked out. They’re not following the news, they’re not on social media, they don’t.

00:14:23:09 – 00:14:24:09
Manny Munoz
Have no interest. Right.

00:14:24:15 – 00:14:29:10
Thom Mozloom
And that’s and and part of me goes, wow, I’m really jealous of that.

00:14:29:10 – 00:14:31:04
Manny Munoz
I it is bliss.

00:14:31:04 – 00:14:55:02
Thom Mozloom
I’d like to be that. I mean, like I told you over, over lent, I, I did a social media I had and it was great. I didn’t know when I logged back on. I mean, I had like a million messages of why I’m a jerk, but it was fine. It was. It was all good. But, you know, being that checked out is healthy, but being that checked out is also out of touch, out of touch with the things.

00:14:55:02 – 00:15:14:13
Thom Mozloom
And there’s times where the news impacts you directly, especially when it’s local. So given that, and we know that news is still important, it’s still critical for people to know what’s going on around them. How in this world do we bring people back to news without burning them out?

00:15:14:15 – 00:15:34:13
Manny Munoz
And that’s the sad thing, because you’re absolutely right. I believe that that the government that affects us is from the bottom up. The things that happen in our local community, our mayors, our town councils, our commissioners, they’re the ones that have the most immediate impact on our lives. And there’s barely any local news anymore. I mean, I don’t know, the last time you grabbed.

00:15:34:15 – 00:15:54:15
Manny Munoz
I love holding a newspaper. I always have, I don’t see many people holding newspapers anymore. Well, that’s the Herald of the sun. Send the local news across the country. Whether it’s newspapers or local news, coverage is not what it was. And it’s a shame, because that’s the information that people really need that will affect their lives, what goes on in their state capitals.

00:15:54:15 – 00:16:10:16
Manny Munoz
Another big deal. You know, the national stuff, the federal stuff gets all of the attention. And it’s all that, you know, the, the frustrating stuff. But sadly, you’re right. It’s the local stuff that the people need to be aware of, and that’s the least accessible these days.

00:16:10:21 – 00:16:33:18
Thom Mozloom
Yeah. How do we drag them back in? How do, it’s a it’s a catch 22. Let’s pretend your show just started covering large swaths of local city hall, County hall, politics, and then ratings go down. So you’re sort of pulled back into, well, we need to cover things that get ratings.

00:16:33:20 – 00:16:34:12
Manny Munoz
Right.

00:16:34:14 – 00:16:37:02
Thom Mozloom
It’s a it’s an odd dynamic.

00:16:37:04 – 00:17:05:23
Manny Munoz
I, I always thought even when I worked in the news and I was a news editor, that, some people judge what the news is by what the media is covering. And I always ask myself, who cares about this? Does this story affect the majority of the people? And going back to the marketing, the majority of people listening to my product, because our demographic is different than, you know, might be listening to NPR or some other, news organization.

00:17:05:23 – 00:17:30:05
Manny Munoz
So I have to cater to the people that are listening to me and ask the question, does this affect them? Are they going to care about this? Because it’s going to matter in their lives and their children’s lives or parents lives or whatever else? And I’m not sure every news organization these days ask themselves that anymore. Like we discussed a little bit earlier, like they might have in the 70s and 80s, because now it’s about marketing.

00:17:30:05 – 00:17:50:14
Manny Munoz
You’re going to see a newscast, on television, local newscasts lead with a fire at a trailer park because they’ve got good video. Nobody, nobody injured. There weren’t any dogs or cats in the trailer park. But there’s really good video of a fire and firefighters. And that’s going to attract people, just like the car accident on the turnpike that that isn’t affecting traffic anymore.

00:17:50:18 – 00:17:58:14
Manny Munoz
But it’s video from six hours ago. We’re going to show you, because it’s more interesting than the debate taking place today over cell phones at the school board meeting.

00:17:58:17 – 00:18:19:08
Thom Mozloom
Yeah, it’s and I’m glad you brought this up because there again, part of marketing is public relations. You know, we have a team of people that pitches guys like you on stories. What are you interested in? What type of stuff gets your attention and what type of stuff makes you go, oh no.

00:18:19:10 – 00:18:40:05
Manny Munoz
Well, the things I don’t love are the people like you that don’t know who you’re pitching stories to. Because I’m born and raised in South Florida, I have been blessed to be in radio down here for 37 years, and I still get emails every year from, you know, marketing people saying, I’ve got an interview for you to winterize your vehicle, or how to deal with heating your house this winter.

00:18:40:07 – 00:18:58:03
Manny Munoz
Look, I’m on my like, we were just talking about my show. We talk about what the big story of the day is, what people are going to be most interested in, or what’s going to have the biggest impact on their lives, or something that is going on locally that you might not be aware of. And I could draw some attention to it because I think it’s important to our community.

00:18:58:03 – 00:18:58:23
Manny Munoz
I’ll do it.

00:18:59:00 – 00:19:16:19
Thom Mozloom
So like we’re the good guy agency, you know, it’s written on the wall behind me, right? Choose to do good. So a lot of the stories were coming to you guys with is, you know, hey, this is an awesome story. It’s going to make the world a better place. And, you know, we get blown up a lot of times on those because it’s, you know, they’re not the rating getter.

00:19:16:21 – 00:19:35:21
Thom Mozloom
And so we find ourselves in this conundrum of saying, well, we we think it’s an important story. We, we, we think homeless is homelessness is an important thing. We we think foster care is that isn’t the important thing. Children and family advocacy is an important thing. But a lot of the news stations, sometimes.

00:19:35:23 – 00:19:53:16
Manny Munoz
That as a matter of fact, that’s the last thing I remember working with you guys on, was the amazing job that’s taking place in Miami Dade County and reducing, the homeless population. And you’re right. Good. You’ve told me this before. Good news doesn’t sell as much as bad news. But let me tell you something. I. Before the holidays, every year.

00:19:53:16 – 00:20:12:22
Manny Munoz
I started a tradition. A few years ago, while I was still working the morning show. And there was, like, so much bad stuff going on, and we would sit with our bosses to God, everything’s just so negative. And so the the our final show before we took time off for the Christmas holiday and the new year, all we did were good news stories.

00:20:13:00 – 00:20:31:12
Manny Munoz
An old lady survived getting hit by a car. You know, a guy saved somebody from drowning. And I started doing that on my show. But with my show, it’s different because I take calls. So what I do the final hour before I leave for the holidays, I only want to hear good news stories, people. I just I just beat cancer.

00:20:31:16 – 00:20:53:15
Manny Munoz
My child just graduated from high school, you know, and they got a full ride at Harvard or whatever. My, my, I’m going to be a grandfather, whatever it might be. And it is the show that people talk about the most. The reaction we get to that is more than anything we get throughout the year. People love hearing that stuff, but it’s not going to sell on television or, you know, anything like that.

00:20:53:15 – 00:20:59:02
Thom Mozloom
But I was going to I was going to ask about your ratings. Do your ratings hold up during that time?

00:20:59:04 – 00:21:15:07
Manny Munoz
They do. Well, it’s usually on a Friday and right before the holidays. So not as many people listening because a lot of people are already on vacation. But I don’t have an open phone line for the entire hour with people wanting to share good news. And then I get a reaction on on social media and stuff to people saying, wow, that was a great story.

00:21:15:07 – 00:21:20:14
Manny Munoz
I had tears in my eyes or brought a joy to my heart or whatever. Sorry. Yeah.

00:21:20:16 – 00:21:39:16
Thom Mozloom
Look into your crystal ball. Where do you see this going? Are we just going to keep going further and further apart and get more divisive? Or are we coming together, and is there going to point, like you pointed out, the difference between commentary and news a couple of times on this? That line has gotten really blurred.

00:21:39:16 – 00:21:47:15
Thom Mozloom
And I don’t know that the average listener or viewer can tell the difference anymore. Do we see?

00:21:47:15 – 00:22:04:18
Manny Munoz
I’m not even sure it’s anymore. I mean, I, I can’t tell you how many times going back to the 90s where people would tell me, I get my news from Rush Limbaugh, and I had to explain to them, rush Limbaugh is not a journalist. He’s an open writer. He’s an entertainer, above everything else. But they that’s where I get my news.

00:22:04:20 – 00:22:29:12
Manny Munoz
And it happens this day of people, you know, get their news from whatever source. But when they tell me, well, this is where I get it, I’m like, really? That’s you think that’s news? But, to your point, and we what we started off with, I guess we’ll begin closing it off with what we started. You’re saying there’s a chance I think we will continue to be divided as Americans and as a country, if we allow ourselves to do it?

00:22:29:13 – 00:22:49:18
Manny Munoz
I think we we can talk about China and Russia and Iran and everything else. All of our global adversaries. We as Americans are the ones that will either, continue this experiment for another 250 years, or we will be the ones that will blow it up a little by little from we are our existential threat because of this stuff.

00:22:49:22 – 00:23:14:21
Thom Mozloom
Yeah, I think so too. My big concern is that it might take another 911 type event to bring us back together. I mean, that’s the last time in my recollection that the parties in the world views and the people on this side and the people on that side and those folks over there, and we all checked back in for a period of time and said, okay, we got to make this thing work.

00:23:14:21 – 00:23:38:00
Manny Munoz
And all right, that’s the last. Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I agree, that’s the last time that it didn’t matter whether you were white or black or Republican or Democrat, or what religion you were. We were all Americans in the days and months and weeks after, 911 and I, I’m not sure seeing the way we react to things anymore, whether that would unite us.

00:23:38:00 – 00:24:02:10
Manny Munoz
Because what we’ve seen the last few times there have been major things happen is immediately politicians will point fingers. Well, this happened because of you. This happened because they, they passed this policy or or this law, and the divisions continued exacerbates the divisions. I was really I went on the air naively a couple of weeks ago, when when the Artemis launch took place.

00:24:02:12 – 00:24:20:12
Manny Munoz
And I was born in the summer of 1969. Right. And I always loved the space program, the shuttle. I saw the shuttle launch a bunch of times, but this was different. We’re going back to the moon. We’re the only country that’s ever done that. But man on the moon and returned them safely to Earth. And now we’re trying to do that again.

00:24:20:14 – 00:24:44:11
Manny Munoz
And so I naively went on the air thinking, maybe this is something that we can all get behind that will remind us that we as Americans can do amazing things. Why don’t we work together? And, I mean, I got a few people way in. Yeah, I hope you’re right. But the rest of it was crickets. Because, again, the people listening and calling into my show are people that are dialed in to these divisions on a daily basis.

00:24:44:13 – 00:24:56:04
Thom Mozloom
Well, maybe, maybe the, the number of people tuning out and, hiding and going, maybe that’s the solution. Maybe if we all get back together, we don’t want that.

00:24:56:06 – 00:24:59:21
Manny Munoz
We want them to be tuning out. Well, not not to you or not to me.

00:24:59:21 – 00:25:27:01
Thom Mozloom
Oh, right. It it hurts our business, there is no doubt about it. But if, if people are spending more time talking to their neighbors and, wandering around their neighborhood in their community and meeting real people and getting away from, you know, these things, you know, maybe if relationships are more face to face with people that don’t necessarily look like you or act like you, or come from a different background, rather than letting the algorithm figure out who you’re going to have a relationship with.

00:25:27:01 – 00:25:29:13
Thom Mozloom
Maybe, maybe that’s the solution.

00:25:29:15 – 00:25:56:15
Manny Munoz
But, again, excellent point. The solution is, is we are the solution, first of all, as Americans. And secondly, the solution is local because you might not like your neighbor because you had a Maga flag, or you had a, you know, a Kamala Harris flag, you know, yard sign during the last election. But if there’s a hurricane and your fences blow down and you’ve got no power, I guarantee you, you’ll be there for your neighbor to help him clean up or ask him over because you’ve got a generator and they don’t.

00:25:56:18 – 00:26:13:21
Manny Munoz
We’ve seen that repeatedly here in South Florida. So again, I think that’s why we constantly show one another that we are more good and agree on more things than divide us. But it feels like these divisions are insurmountable and universal, and they’re not.

00:26:13:23 – 00:26:34:22
Thom Mozloom
So you, you now have a new phrase for it. It’s called cultivation theory. It was developed in, the 60s and 70s. Last thing you know, we want our audience, to dig deeper. So my audience is mostly my clients. I just send this out, and this is topics that I think they’ll be interested in, but we don’t want to leave them at the end of the episode.

00:26:35:00 – 00:26:51:08
Thom Mozloom
And that’s it, that we always put an article about the episode on our website. What are some other areas that people could go to, including your show from ten to noon onward here in Miami, nine to do nine, nine to noon. I almost cheated you out of an hour.

00:26:51:11 – 00:26:54:04
Manny Munoz
I understand you’re a you’re a late riser. I got you.

00:26:54:06 – 00:27:04:18
Thom Mozloom
Hahahahaha. Yeah, thanks. Well, but where can people go to to stay plugged in and not get crazy?

00:27:04:20 – 00:27:28:04
Manny Munoz
Well, you talked about the state. If you unplug for a while, I think that will help you without without question. I think if you do your best one to inform yourself with opinions that you disagree with, I think that will go a long way into at least helping you understand why people don’t believe the way you believe, whether it’s in corporate America, whatever it is.

00:27:28:04 – 00:27:46:08
Manny Munoz
I mean, great CEOs, I think, always surround themselves not with yes men, but with people who have different strong opinions. And then they’re the boss, so they make the final decision. But if you if you’re only surrounded by people who are going to reinforce your beliefs, you’re doing yourself, your company, your country a disservice.

00:27:46:10 – 00:28:08:12
Thom Mozloom
And those beliefs that aren’t like yours are not dangerous. They’re not going to hurt you. We need to sort of get over that concept that if somebody thinks something that I don’t think that’s going to somehow harm me, or even if they say stuff that I don’t like, that that’s somehow going to harm me, I think we need to get past that and move on.

00:28:08:14 – 00:28:27:23
Manny Munoz
I don’t know how that started or where it came from. In our country. We’ve had we’ve had divisions before. We were a country. I mean, part of the reason why we are a country, right? We disagree with things, but we were always able to discuss these things and hash out our problems. And maybe sometimes it was ugly. We’ve got a lot of scars and scabs, as a country and as Americans.

00:28:27:23 – 00:28:33:00
Manny Munoz
But how are you going to grow if you don’t hear things that you disagree with?

00:28:33:02 – 00:28:37:02
Thom Mozloom
I’m going to let that be the last word. Manny. Thank you. That was a quick half hour, wasn’t it?

00:28:37:04 – 00:28:38:00
Manny Munoz
It was. Wow.

00:28:38:05 – 00:28:38:13
Thom Mozloom
Yeah.

00:28:38:14 – 00:28:39:08
Manny Munoz
That’s fast.

00:28:39:10 – 00:28:41:15
Thom Mozloom
Okay. We’ll have to do this again.

00:28:41:17 – 00:28:42:16
Manny Munoz
I love it. I’m on it.

00:28:42:16 – 00:28:49:04
Thom Mozloom
Thanks. And, we’ll see you next time.