Robert Rippberger and The Power of Storytelling

June: Welcome to Story for Good, the podcast where entertainment meets impact. I'm your host, June Neely. Anytime I become interested in any subject I always start off by doing one thing. A ton of research and it was no different when I started digging into social impact entertainment. That is how I came across the book, The Power of Storytelling. This book neatly explains what SIE is, breaks down how it's done, and why we should understand the significance of storytelling. So it's no surprise that my guest today is the author of that book. Robert Rippberger  besides being an author, Robert is a filmmaker and a producer, and he's the co-executive director of the SIE Society.

If you're wondering if this is the same Robert that Toby mentioned in Episode 1, Then you would be correct. So, without further ado, let's get into the show.

Welcome to the show.

Robert: Thanks so much for having me. Look forward to, uh, chatting, storytelling, impact and, everything in between.

June: So I always like to start off with, who you are, so how did you get your start in the entertainment industry and what brought you to Social Impact entertainment?

Robert: I really just started in entertainment from a love of storytelling, and I used to tell campfire stories to my friends and my cousins. Just kind of make 'em up as I went. I grew up in Colorado and, my parents weren't in entertainment. yeah, it was just loving to tell stories with friends.

And that was also, when, show Jackass was on the air. And so,going out and making movies with friends and, whether they were antics or whether they were, actual stories themselves and it just developed. And I think by the time I was like maybe 15, I had made like a hundred movies and then I made a feature film when I was 16. And I was just always clamoring for, to get it out there more and more. I remember calling Walmart and being like, will you sell my movie? And they're like, this is the helpline, but I like rented a theater in Colorado and sold out, like both opening nights, which ironically at that time paid for the entire movie because it was like on a shoestring budget. And yeah, I was always self-funding my movies. my parents had an art store and like local artists could make things and then sell them in the store. And so I would make candles and then sell them and then immediately take that money and, and buy camera equipment. So it really caught me. I mean, There's so many pieces of the storytelling process that are fun, hanging out and working with your friends and collaborating and, making fake blood. At one point we were making like candy glass in our oven. My mom's what are you guys doing?

June: That's amazing.

Robert: There was no shortage of, of adventure and creativity and, aa a kid with,friends. I just kept making films and I think they kind of slowly got less bad. I just started, getting at a higher level and, bigger distributors. I no longer had to call Walmart and, my films were just getting out there and at great festivals and I, also really loved horror films.

And just at that time, that was when, Al Gore's films were coming out and climate change the only thing you could think about. And I was like, man, am I gonna be, playing the cello as the Titanic goes down? Clearly I'd like to be more involved and bring light to issues and have impact. And so I, I studied philosophy at UC Berkeley, and the whole thing was like an existential crisis.

It was like, I know what I do. Does it have meaning? Does it have impact? Does it change things? Can it bring value to people's lives? And does it have value to the world? I just started asking that question. Tobias Deml, he and I met at in, in school and we started a magazine called Cinema of Change and a podcast that was asking this, does film have an impact?

And over the course of a number of interviews, we were like, okay, it does have an impact. It clearly has an impact. And we then met Miguel Sabido in Mexico City, who was the first to really pioneer, like, I wanna have impact. These are the results I wanna have, and then I'm gonna go out and do it, measure it, and replicate it. And once we met him and saw his process, it was like a complete revelation.

It was, wow. this is not only, quotes you would see on your dentist ceiling, but it's like it's actual scientific method. Measurable, people's lives are being changed. and that for me is where just the rubber met the road and, then I wanted to share it with so many other people. So that was also why, Toby, myself, and Will Nix, and Rebecca Graham Ford um we kind of took things we were doing at the Producers Guild, social impact entertainment task force and brought it over to SIE Society, which I run now.

The sheer purpose of, hey, we found this really interesting stuff and we wanna share it, and we wanna, bring people around the campfire and just yeah, keep expanding the power of, and knowledge of how to tell impactful stories and how to have further impact.

June: Is this what led you to writing your book then? The Power of Storytelling?

Robert: Yeah. the power of storytelling, it was two parts. I was really getting frustrated with people saying, oh, you do social impact entertainment. That's that thing that doesn't make any money. That’s like independent films. and documentaries There was a court case in New Mexico where this woman was making a documentary and the judge was like, the business doesn't make sense on this. this is not a business. This is actually a hobby. And so therefore you can't write off the taxes on it. It's a hobby.

June: Interesting.

Robert: Year after year, we see articles about this, about how documentaries are just struggling. A couple breakout, make a lot of money. There's streamers that, that buy 'em, but for the most part. Seven years of one's life and and it's just a little bit hard. So there were two pieces with the book. As I said, I want to really show people that, they can bring in multiple sectors to get their projects going. But moreover, that social impact entertainment is not the art house cinemas only, it's the highest grossing movies of all time. And this is everywhere. And it's not just, Avatar and having a huge boost, in the environmental movement, it's every form of storytelling. It all is communication. It all has impact. And storytellers should be more aware and whether they want to be active in that or passive, but still aware, it's super important that they realize, showing people in different lights, representation, all of that has an effect on an audience. And it can be a negative impact or a positive impact, but it's really up to them to steer it, and it's really to an extent, their responsibility.

One of the chapters was on 13 Reasons Why, and that show sought to have a positive impact on mental health, but they broke one of the cardinal rules of depicting suicide in, media, which is don't actually show it because it can then spawn a lot of copycats. And there's a lot of research on this. This is not new.

But the show decided to do otherwise and they did go back and re-edit it, which is good. But there's just all of this stuff out there. You know, for example, the depiction of violence. People are always wondering, will there be copycats? They found that for the most part, no. And also the context of the violence is extremely important. But this is just, things that storytellers need to be familiar with. And also it is a way to have, resonance, more humanity, more reach, and more marketing. Nothing like, word of mouth marketing.

And when a movie matters, people are gonna talk about it outside of the theater. So that's the long version of, of why I wrote the book. But it was really to say these are the biggest movies of all time. Star Wars, Avatar, Titanic. these movies are really about something and their social impact entertainment message may be a little bit more discreet, but that's also needed, that's also important.

June: That's a very important thing to note because I do feel like a lot of people think of social impact as Supersize Me and not film like Black Panther, which very much highlighted, Black people in stem. Which I think after that there was a lot of, young women who looked up to Shuri and who was like, oh wow, this is really cool, maybe this is something I can get into.

Robert: Totally.

June: Back to intro of your book, you state that storytelling is an essential part of being human and that it changes along with us. How have you seen, storytelling evolve over the years and where do you hope that it goes in the future?

Robert: Yeah.

Studying philosophy was a lot of asking very basic questions and one of those, is what makes a masterpiece, a masterpiece or what makes a great piece of artwork, great. And the idea being is it brings people together to be able to articulate and have a common reference point for things that they're feeling or going through, individually or as a culture at the time.

And so certainly, the way that films are relevant and the way that they have progressed and, whether it's our relationship to a, to technology or whether it's, political situations, at the time, think about a movie like Ides of March, at such a specific point in American politics. I think it always is the thing that, keeps us alive and helps us find hope and find a direction. And that too is, sometimes you can be solitary in a room, writing a script, but be conversing with the whole world. And that I think is very powerful and also is important that these things are a conversation. That you ask yourself like, why now with this particular project? And I think definitely the evolution of what I've seen is a lot more willingness to be more heavy handed on social issues even to an extent where I'm like, are we going a little too far?

Because we wanna still acknowledge the value of entertainment for entertainment's sake.

There’s a great movie by Preston Sturges called Sullivan's Travels. And at the end of that movie, there's this director who's really, adamant about making a social change movie.

And through a series of misfortunes, he ends up in a, mistaken identity. He ends up in a chain gang. I. And he's brought through this field at night to this church. And on the projector they show this movie and all of the fellow prisoners are just brought to life smiling, jovial. And he realizes, ah, there also is inherent good and value in just simple entertainment for entertainment's sake. And so I think it then, is up to each individual artist and also the kinds of stories that they wanna tell. But I think as long as they're, making  it personal, it then, can global.

June: Very true. Yeah. When you create stories, as a writer, as a filmmaker, you usually start off with what you want the story to be and you get this kind of idea, but you don't necessarily think of the social responsibility part of it, the social impact part of it. That may come, it may come first, but it may also,come later in the process.

Robert: Yeah.

June: When it comes to creating these type of stories. 'cause you did mention 13 reasons why and how they did have this intention, but the intention ended up turning, to the negative side versus the positive side.

You think it's important when, creators are creating these stories that they think of, the effects that this story may have? Should they be. More aware of the, the responsibility that comes with telling these stories.

Robert: I mean there's, you're totally right in that, yeah, you can start with the story or you can start with impact and I think there's a way to do both. And I think James Cameron is a perfect, model for this is because he obviously is a huge environmentalist and he's looking at what's happening globally and he's like, there needs to be a sort of religious awakening around our connection to nature and our valuing of nature and that it's not something to be warped and turned for our means, but something that needs to be sustainable.

And from there he built the story. And what he took first is, all right, I'm gonna take this kind of hurrah military guy, and I'm gonna show his slow evolution. And that is the change, right? You become, you project yourself onto that character. Or you're already there, right? You're already part of the Navi and you're an environmentalist and you're here. And then you're understanding more about, what it is to have this military mindset. And so I think there is a way to do both and that sort of two different worlds coming together.

Another great example of this is Barbie and Titanic. I mean, you have drastically different worlds coming together to understand them with change. And, Barbie, it's okay, this is Barbie's world. And then, okay, now this is Ken's world representing that’s, that’s more, patriarchal and then the other one that's more matriarchal and each one is going back and forth and not liking it. And not liking it, and then coming together with a shared meaning and understanding and what's more powerful than that? you capture the entire demographic and then are able to expand, understanding and empathy through a story that's also wildly entertaining.

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June: So say I am a filmmaker or a writer and I am, just coming into learning about what social impact is and how I can create impact. And then you have, SIE society with all these resources, information, how would I start down this path of trying to create some impact with the work that I'm doing?

Robert: Yeah, I think it would be first knowing your story, I wanna make a story about this is what I've been thinking a lot about is, indigenous women are getting kidnapped on reservations in absurd numbers, and it gets very little focus. And, so say that was your story, then SIE society is built to find like-minded people who care about something, who are working on something similar, at a very base, it's coming to the conference, it's going the website and reading all of the different, areas. as I say that we actually don't have one yet on, Native Americans, but we should.

It's then saying, okay, I'm interested in political polarization or environmentalism, and you can click into that and see a bunch of playbooks for other people who have told these stories, what worked, what didn't, how they marketed it, how they found financing, how they found funds. And when I talked earlier about how difficult it is to make a documentary or even a film in general. SIE Society's ecosystem is built so that you can find corporate partners, nonprofit partners, at different sectors that can create a mutually beneficial relationship for your project. And so it really focus on story, find those partners and, then just be relentless in, in driving it forward.

June: so you did mention, you know, which I do wanna bring up is that you, had your first conference back in December, which is, where we met. It was a great conference with, a lot of, great speakers. Talking about the importance of, Impact Plus Profit. how did you guys come up with that title for the conference and, what was the importance behind it?

Robert: we're combating this notion that social impact entertainment is philanthropy or that it's nonprofit, and of course it is, but that these things can be wildly successful. And also if we look at whether Academy Awards or whether it's box office, we look at the types of films doing exceptionally well. Of course, you've got your Marvel movies and your superhero movies. But the films that are really doing well are out there to say something and are out there to say something in a way that is not, propaganda, that's not, preaching that is a way that is humanizing. And That was our goal is really to, and will continue to be, our goal is this needs to be sustainable. We're all in a capitalist world and so how can we do both? How can we have impact, make money and make more movies or media.

June: And I feel like it's also important for those bigger movies that do have, these messages to actually do something with them. I don't know how much Marvel creates any sort of impact campaigns because they do have especially with like Panther and, people in stem or with, captain Marvel with, Just, female empowerment. I don't know how much on the backside that they are doing. it does help that they're creating these stories, but that impact part along with it also is beneficial.

Robert: Yeah, I. Largely you're seeing that emerge because it's filmmaker driven. Ryan Coogler cares about these things immensely. I mean, he's writing the scripts. you look at a movie like Fruitvale Station, was his first. and so I think in that way, artists are driving this.

but also to an extent. Studios will give the audience what they want and at the same time put in what they think they want. So certainly, and especially after Covid, know, I think there has been a big,big shift in people saying Hey, we actually care about social issues in our movies.

Like,that's what we're thinking about. That's what's, relevant now.so why not what you know, why not? But I do also agree with you. I think there can be and ought to be a lot more impact campaigns, included with films, which, take myriad of shapes, Hey, here's an organization, that is aligned with us.

And, look, if Marvel's cross promote with McDonald's, cross-promote with a charity. There’s no reason that sort of thing can't happen too, because that's how you reach people.

June: so you've made . quite, a few amazing films like, Seven Days in Syria, Strive, and then most recently The Inventor. When it comes to picking a project, how do you choose which stories you want to tell? How do the project usually come to you? What's the process there?

Robert: Yeah, project come in a whole series of ways. All over, whether it's my mom saying, I have a friend who's got a script or whether it's a Uber driver or I, I had somebody who wrote me, he is a French security guard, and he wrote me through Google Translate, and said, I have this script idea, and I said. I’ll read it. And he is like, well, it's all in French, so I'll Google translate it. You can read it in English, can imagine how that looked. But I loved it and I was like, look, we’re adjust it a bit. But, but yeah. And so I ended up buying it from him. It’s every which way.

And the things for me are I think what I feel connected to. And, that can be different, year to year. but also films that I think will do well, at the box office financially with distributors. That is what yeah, buyers are looking for. And a thing is a movie that I can visualize getting made. I think so often people are working on projects and fighting uphill and it, and their film doesn't get made.

And so for me, for example, the script that I bought, the whole thing takes place on a yacht. And so I, I see that and I think, oh, okay, this gives us a lot o flexibility. We're not in a post-apocalyptic era, with robots and like in space. But I know generally what the budget will be and then. If we find somebody who has a yacht and is gonna let us use it all the better. So it, it's something that I, 'cause just time is so important and entertainment, projects can take, I think on average they say, a film takes seven years from beginning to end. so you're forever. And so I wanna make sure that okay, two years in, three years in, I know for a fact. that time is well spent and I'll end up with a finished film. otherwise it's, you start slowly going in insane.

June: How long was the process for the inventor? Usually animation takes a little bit longer.

Robert: 12 years,

June: Wow. that, that is a really long time. How did that project come together? 'cause you have some pretty, big names, voicing it and now it's, you know, it’s eligible to be, nominated for an Oscar,

Robert: And just yesterday we were nominated for an award, which is like the Oscar in, specifically in animation. So that was,very exciting.started. I had my office in Berkeley at the time, and I got introduced to Jim Capobianco, who wrote, was nominated for an Academy award for writing Ratatouille. And he said, I've got this script and I previously made a short film about Leonardo da Vinci and now I wanna make a feature and I wanna do it in stop motion. And so actually, at that point, he didn't have a script. It was just an idea. I said, all right, let's, I think this is amazing.

I'd love to be a part of this. It's about the meaning of life. It's about education, it's about art. I'm on board. And we then went to Ireland and found some partners there. They committed to half of the budget. Jim was like, I guess I gotta write a script now.so he wrote the script and things ultimately didn't work out with those partners. But for a long time I was traveling all over to find the right partner and that was somebody that I knew could deliver a very quality film that, could jump in, weeds with us. and fight to get this And also just that we, liked collaborating with. And yeah, I went to Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, all, all over. And ultimately, which is where we wanted to do the film in the, from the first place went to France and we partnered with a studio there called Folio Scope. and then we put together the whole studio and raised a bunch of equity.

And I, I was hugely involved on all pieces. And even bringing in all the cast, we were doing the whole thing on a modest budget, and so we didn't, we couldn't afford to have a casting agent. So I, called CAA and negotiated all those deals and Universal on board, I found Universal, negotiated that deal and even our US distributor. And it was just kind of like anything to push our way forward. And, yeah. And what we have now is a film that is, just phenomenal and I'm very proud of it. And Steven Fry, Daisy Ridley, Marion Cotard, Matt Berry, you know about the meaning of life. It's fun, it's it has heart And, fingers crossed on, on being nominated for an Oscar. we're up against films that have campaigns, in the tens of millions of dollars, and ours is a tiny fraction of that. But, even then, it's just to be able to sit in a theater and, watch the movie that you, read on page is often worth it in itself.

June: Yeah, 'cause it's definitely a lot of work that goes into it and I'm always in awe of people who do stop motion films 'cause I'm like, I don't know if I have the patience, but it's always . amazing to see how it comes out.

Robert:When I was younger and I knew I wanted to do narrative features and love, love that. There were two things I was like, I'll, I won't do documentaries, which obviously changed. And the other one was watching like the behind the scenes on chicken run and being like, Ugh. Two seconds of animation a day. Never.

June: Yeah. It was the same way watching Tim Burton films. Yeah. I was just wow.

Robert: Yeah, but it's actually an incredible process. we spent a year of building these, little books and little cups and little sets, and we recreated the Sistine Chapel at a fifth scale. And, then we animated for another full year. And you've got 12 stages operating simultaneously with, animators doing, two to three seconds per day. and just to watch the animators work, it's so impressive. literally taking a photo, moving the puppet or multiple puppets in the same image, and then again, and just to watch them come to life and, To be able to connect to, these little, often 3D printed or, kind of clay models. is, yeah. It's what makes, cinema so magical.

June: When it comes to, telling the stories that you do as a producer, as a filmmaker, how do you, ensure that they have an impact but are also still entertaining?

Robert: Yeah, it's a good question. I, I think I just used kind of my own, barometer or show it to people. And if people are like, rolling their eyes, it's alright. and, but also like knowing who it's for. I think that's the key. I direct and a lot of these films I've directed, a film called Visions for the Future about this Harvard law professor named, Roberto Mangabiera Unger, I knew that I was making this film specifically for people that followed him, or specifically for people in philosophy. So it was okay for me to just hold on a shot and really just let him, get extremely pedantic because I knew that this wasn't for everybody and that was the point, Is. He was presenting a very high level version of putting theory into practice that for people interested in this, subject matter, he needed to be pedantic that is key.

I just watched, Killers of a Flower Moon, for example, and there's an opening scene where, they're having a conversation in a taxi and next door there's like this race going on, but the race has nothing to do with the conversation. It's just clearly to like, infuse energy into the early part of the movie. there's a lot of ways to bring entertainment into a film So I, yeah, I think it really is knowing your audience and testing with your audience and, okay. Are they getting bored? Maybe I need to do something about it, maybe that entire needs to be cut.

June: Yeah. So you have a lot of, projects that are coming up. one of them which will be premiering at SXSW, which is exciting and that one is How to Build a Truth Engine. How did that project come about?

Robert: So I was at the Movies that Matter, film Festival in The Hague, which is partnered with Amnesty International. And I met a filmmaker there, Fritz Moser, who made a film called The Good American. I was just shocked by it. Just the level of cinematography and the way that the story was told, just phenomenal. And so we became friends and, there’s a couple projects we've talked about over the years about doing together and he came to me and said, look, I've got this two part documentary and I, would love your input on it. And I was like. it shouldn't be two documentaries, it should be one documentary because then you have to finish both of that.

It's and also I think you have the subject matter for two, but for one it's extremely compelling. So I came on to, to produce then also through another colleague of mine, Amina, we brought George Clooney on. And, and then Fritz, really found the story and found what this is in terms of disinformation.

The film's about disinformation how to protect us, mentally and also, through, journalism, fake news. just going rampant online. Fritz has made a phenomenal film. I think it’s, I’m definitely biased, but if I try my best to not be biased, I will still say, I think it's one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. And, it's extremely thoughtful, extremely compelling, and we're ecstatic to have it out SXSW.

June: I think it's especially, great time for it, just 'cause we're coming up on another election year and there's so much, misinformation that happens this time of year.

Robert: Yeah. Big time.

June: so I think it's definitely a great time for this film, to come out and it's super relevant.

Robert Yeah. our goal is to premiere it in March, obviously, at the festival, and then to try and have it out around the election.

June: It's definitely, definitely needed. You have two other projects that are coming up, Renner and The Mouse that Roared. Would you like to talk about those?

Robert: Yeah, The Mouse at Roared is with, academy Award nominated director Judith Elrich, and that is looking at, she did a documentary prior about, Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers and, transformed a lot of how the Vietnam War was portrayed. And this documentary is a look at current day whistleblowers and what it is to be a whistleblower, why it's important for democracy to have whistleblowers and what the future may hold.

And the other project you mentioned is called Renner. This is a project that I directed and it is, starring Frankie Muniz and Violet Bean and Taylor Gray, and is about our relationship to artificial intelligence. The goal was really to, have it be wildly entertaining, but also, just have us re acknowledge not only, potential pitfalls, but also the value of just human to human experience.

So the movie is about a guy, Renner who is trying to get the courage, through this self-help AI that he develops, trying to get the courage to meet this woman across the hall. And in creating this AI, he accidentally programs his manipulative mother into the AI. And so it wreck havoc with the relationship and with his,but yeah. It's more on the entertainment side, than sheer, look at AI. But certainly both.

June: there's gonna be a lot of discussion even more when it comes to AI just 'cause even, the program I'm using right now to record this has a lot of AI in it. And they're like, that you can use to even simulate your own voice. And I'm like, what is that? That makes me nervous.

So I always think that,It's a discussion that we need to continually have, especially 'cause it's come up in, the writer's agreements. It's come up in Hollywood about, what is AI? How much of it can we use? How much can it integrate with our lives for it ends up taking over our life. You know, I'm excited to, see this the movie.

Robert: Yeah. and I think it also. The movie is also just a look at the limits and sort of the confines. And, a professor at Berkeley I worked with, who was very influential, to me. and this, was very much, in memory of him, his name is Hubert Dreyfuss. He wrote a book called, What Computers Can't Do. I think there is, there are considerations for AI, but at the same time it can only go so far. There's a lot that can be human, directed AI. I can go in and say, okay, I want a cat, you on a rocket ship. And do it. But to be able to generate that, to be able to, you. To put context, to put relevance around it. That is something that's human. And essentially what, Dreyfus kind of put was that the thing that's distinctly human is to be able to select in this huge data set what is important and what should be ignored. And if we look at, the whole history of Siri, if any of us hired Siri to be our. our intern, even they would be fired.

So, it's, I think, ultimately humans are always behind these things. and as far as, regulation, how. Humans push these things and in what directions, know, it's important and, and certainly, for the protection of jobs, it's important. and so lots of conversation to be had. but I think as far as this, ultimate place that all these things end up, it may not actually.

June: So with every interview I do, I always end with the same five kind of rapid fire questions. Are you ready?

Robert: Let's do it.

June: All right, name one TV show, film, or a podcast that has had a profound effect on you and why.

Robert: the film would be Schindler's List and. As far as cinema, it's just harrowing and poetic. And there's something about understanding why people do terrible things that is so important so that those things don't happen again. that for me is a movie that, I think about often.

June: It's such a beautiful and moving movie.

Robert: Yeah,

June: What is a cause that is closest to your heart?

Robert: It not necessarily environmentalism, although that's it, but it's more carbon capture. I'm very interested in how we can. Pull carbon out of the atmosphere by, planting more trees or, just all the ways that you can yeah, just pull it out of the air. I did the math at one point of, okay, if we wanted to get to, 350, parts per million in the atmosphere, how many trees would we have to plant? And, it came to about a trillion trees.

June: Wow.

Robert: But you can plan to tree for a dollar.and $2 trillion was released into the US economy, during Covid. So you look at that and you're like, oh, this problem is solvable. We just aren't there yet, or we don't want to be there yet. for me it's very fascinating.

There's all kinds of different technologies and. Ironically, all of the ones are are organic that are I think, most worthwhile. But there's certainly historical warming of earth, and, the acceleration humans are, doing. But there are ways too in which, that can be moderated.

June: If you could name. One nonprofit to lift up right now, what would it be?

Robert: That's a good question. I would say the SIE Society. We have a lot we are wanting to do, not necessarily like financially, we are volunteers and putting in our own thing, but there is really so much we can do together around impact and if we have more people coming together and we are the place to, bring people together across sector. And I think that was really proven at the conference. that's the goal is really have everybody who thinks about impact no matter, where they come from, aligning around specific topic areas. That's. I don't think it could better than that.

June: I love the plug. I love it. if you could collaborate with anyone, who would it be?

Robert: That's a good question. I think it would be Joaquin Phoenix. I think he is a phenomenal actor and, as a director, that would be a just an extraordinary experience to collaborate with him as director actor relationship.

June: And the last one, which is a little bit silly. if you could choose one song to play every time you walked into a room, what would you choose and why?

Robert: So easy, it's a, it'd be  My First Song,by Jay-Z. It's, yeah, I've listened to the Black album and now 444, probably thousands and thousands of times. So,yeah, it'd be my first song. There's a lot of. strength and insight in that track.

June: It's amazing. Thank you to everyone who is listening and thank you, Robert, for coming on the show.

Robert: Yeah. Thanks so much, June.

June:   Thank you for joining me today on this episode. Story for Good is created, hosted, and produced by June Neely. For more information about the organizations or projects talked about in the show, or for media and sponsorship inquiries, visit us at storyforgoodpod.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe to the show, and be sure to share it with a friend.