Bringing America Together Through Localized Civic Service With Garrett Cathcart And Jake Harriman
What happens when a Marine who battled Al-Qaeda in Iraq returns home to find his biggest enemy isn’t a foreign power, but the division within his own country? And what if he teams up with an Army Cavalry officer who dodged IEDs in Baghdad to fight that enemy? This isn’t a Tom Clancy thriller; this is the real-life story of Jake Harriman and Garrett Cathcart, the founders of +More Perfect Union. They’re on a mission to bridge the political divide tearing America apart, one community at a time. Join us as we delve into their incredible journeys from combat zones to the front lines of a different kind of war – the battle to bring America together.
Check out the full series of “Career Sessions, Career Lessons” podcasts here or visit pathwise.io/podcast/. A full written transcript of this episode is also available at https://pathwise.io/podcast/garrett-cathcart-and-jake-harriman.
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Bringing America Together Through Localized Civic Service With Garrett Cathcart And Jake Harriman
Co-Founders Of +More Perfect Union
In this episode, my guests are Jake Harriman and Garrett Cathcart. They are the Cofounders of More Perfect Union, which is focused on bringing conservatives and liberals together to solve community problems. Specifically, they pair Americans with opposing political views for local service projects and civic engagement. They boast over 20,000 members across all 50 states. In our discussion, we’re going to be covering how Jake and Garrett came together to found More Perfect Union, their experiences in running this unique nonprofit together, and their prior backgrounds, which both included time in the US military with combat time in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Jake and Garrett, welcome. Thanks a lot for joining me on the show.
It’s a pleasure to be here.
Thanks for having us. I’m excited to be here.
I’m excited to get going with you guys as well. Jake, you go first. Talk a little bit about your story and what got you to co-found More Perfect Union.
The “Why” Behind +More Perfect Union
A little bit about me. I grew up on a little farm in West Virginia in poverty. I didn’t know it though. My parents were awesome. I lived off the land and all that stuff. I went to the Naval Academy for undergrad, graduated there, and became a Marine. I was a Marine platoon commander first in the infantry and then in a unit called Force Recon after that. I completed training and did a couple of combat tours in Iraq and a few other places.
It was during my time in combat when I saw this disturbing connection between the desperation that extreme poverty created in the areas we operated and how it was fueling the growth of a lot of the groups we were fighting, whether it was Al-Qaeda or eventually ISIS. The aid groups couldn’t reach these populations because it was too dangerous. We felt like this was a pretty critical gap in our national security strategy.
We couldn’t just “kill” our way out of this problem to address the violent extremism. We’re going to have to do something about that desperation and poverty. We decided to create a hybrid. What if we could take former operators like us, the no combat combined with frontline development professionals to be able to create these composite teams to embed in these conflict areas, live there for 5 to 7 years, work with local leaders to create sustainable solutions to poverty, and thereby build what we call resilience corridors, the spread of ISIS and Al-Qaeda? That was the idea.
When my time was up in the Marine Corps, I transitioned out and went to Stanford Graduate School of Business to build that company. It was called Nuru International. I graduated in June of ‘08 from there and moved to Africa in September of that year. Essentially for the next seven and a half years, I lived in these remote off-the-grid villages and conflict areas, building and testing this approach. I made every possible mistake in the book as a leader but I had a great team. We were able to have some great impact.
We empowered about 350,000 people out of extreme poverty, raised about $60 million, and built a global team of 230 staff. We started attracting some attention back in the US, which is where the story starts shifting to our conversation. I was invited back to the US. President Bush and Clinton started this new program called the Presidential Leadership Scholars Program, a new program to help emerging leaders who were taking on domestic and national issues take their models to the next level of scale.
To do that, I had to move home and be a part of the program. I hadn’t lived in the US in fifteen years. I was always deployed downrange in combat as a Marine or I’d live in these villages off the grid. I remember coming home for this program and I was shocked by what I saw. I did not recognize the country I left to fight for in 2000. There was this horrible fear and hatred ripping the country apart. There was this harmful extremism that had crept into politics, destroying all value for American citizens. I was sad.
All of us have been downrange fighting for the idea of America against ISIS and Al-Qaeda, only to realize it wasn’t going to be them that defeated us, it was going to be us. I got angry. I thought I was not about to watch my buddies pay the ultimate sacrifice to watch us tear ourselves apart here at home. I needed to do something but I didn’t know what so I had some mentors say, “You should run for office.” I said, “That’s a terrible idea. There’s got to be something else I can do.”
Bringing America: All of us have been downrange fighting for the idea of America against ISIS and Al-Qaeda, only to realize it wasn’t going to be them that defeated us—it was going to be us.
Finally, I had some of my donors come around who’d been backing me for about eight years. They said, “We’ve been trying to figure out a way to build a center in American politics to help the country heal. If you see a market gap, we’ll put together some capital to get you off the ground.” I spent about four months, nights, and weekends diving into the problem to understand it.
I wrote a 40-page white paper and sent that around to some of my mentors like John Allen, President Bush, and a few others. They gave me some feedback and said, “You should do this.” I put together a twelve-month transition plan out of Nuru, out of my organization, and handed off the reins in June of 2020 because I wanted to make sure they survived the transition and were crushing it. They had to get rid of me. In July 2020, I set up this new entity called More Perfect Union to help unite the country and strengthen our communities in this moment.
As a lead-off to Garrett, the first person I hired, or I should say, I tricked into coming to join me was an incredible veteran who had been leading and nationally recognized veteran service organizations across the country, mobilizing lots of volunteers, and building out entities that were lasting. That’s something I didn’t have experience here domestically. I didn’t have experience building out movements. After a series of “informative interviews” with Garrett, I gave him an offer and said, “You got to come join me and do this.” Gratefully, he said yes.
Garrett, do you want to do the same? Tell your background story.
It’s hard to follow Jake’s story but I will try. I’m from Indiana, originally in Indianapolis. I can get still behind me. I grew up loving to read and was always drawn to military history and biography. I remember I told my mom in the fourth grade, “Mom, I’m going to go to this school. It’s called West Point. It’s always famous. Charles went into it.” She’s like, “Okay, honey.” She didn’t know what it was and frankly, neither did I.
I never lost that goal because it ended up in the only school I applied to. I went to some little candidate luncheon as a sixth grader because my stepdad was a track coach. They invited athletes to these West Point recruiting lunches. I remember everyone laughing at me and patting me on the head like, “We’ll see you in ten years, kid.” When I showed back up in high school, they were like, “Holy cow, you were serious.” I ended up getting in by the grace of God but I started there in 2000.
911 happened in my sophomore year at West Point, which has an insatiable prod of stories and memories from that day. I remember my roommate and I thought, “We’re going to miss this war. We have to quit West Point and go enlist in the Army.” A great leader named Captain John Strange, our company tactical officer said, “Cathcart, you’re an idiot.” I said, “Yes, sir.” He’s like, “Trust me. There’s going to be enough war to go around. You need to stay, graduate, and be an officer.” I was like, “Okay, sir.”
He was right. We spent the next 20-plus years at war in 2 different wars. I graduated very quickly in Fort Knox. I was in the cavalry. A scout platoon leader is my first job in Iraq, besides mowing lawns for cash in Indiana. I show up in Baghdad during the search in ‘06. I started learning how to dodge IEDs and catch bad guys, which is like drinking from a fire hose.
Candidly, that was a very tough year for me and a lot of other folks. A lot of folks were wounded and killed in action. I was involved in an event where several of my guys were killed in action. We’ll come back to that later in the story but at that time, the op tempo for a conventional forces guy like me was 12 months on and 12 months off. We were in war for a year and came home for a year. During that year, you’re training nonstop to go back for a year. It’s unrelenting.
I went back for another year in Iraq. Quickly, I was supposed to be a staff officer. They said, “Cathcart, we’re terrible at up orders and slides. We need a major to go live with the Iraqi Army to train them, live with them, and operate out in the sector.” I said, “Cool, but I’m a captain.” My boss was like, “Garrett, I’m asking you if you want to do it.” I was like, “Okay.” I got to break out of the office and go live with the Iraqi Army for a year, which is an incredible set of stories, experiences, and lessons learned.
I then was asked to go lead Calvary troopers of 180 guys in Afghanistan, the same unit I was in where my commander was killed in action in Iraq, which is an emotional connection to the unit. I led guys in it for a year in Afghanistan, a lot of worker tribes fighting Taliban, and all kinds of high adventure before coming home. It was years of combat purpose, leadership, and high adventure. I thought maybe making money was a great career move. That’ll make me happy.
To make money, I got a job at Beverly Hills selling back screws to neurosurgeons. I don’t think about medicine, science, or sales. It was a real fish out of water scenario but it very quickly escalated my transition to working in veteran service nonprofits, which is my first background. I was spending time with folks I care about and realizing I needed purpose and community. I needed to do what I believed in to be happy. I left LA to move to Atlanta where I live and built a couple of better nonprofits. I helped build teams red, white, and blue. At the time, it was the fastest growing that was not prepping the country. After that, there was a more policy-focused one called Mission Roll Call.
That’s when I met Jake and he had this amazing/slightly crazy idea. “How do we leverage this incredible strategic asset of all these military veterans here at home, who know how to lead, solve problems, and are still the most highest and respected institution in the country, polling at about 71%? How do we do that to help heal the country and move it forward?” I went and gave him my ideas. He said, “These are great ideas. How about you come to do it for me?” I was like, “This was an interview? I had no idea.” He kind of tricked me. The idea was so amazing and powerful that I couldn’t say no so here I am.
Before we go on, I will say thank you for your service for coincidentally recording this a couple of days after Veterans Day in the US. I am an Air Force vet but I flew a desk at Hanscom Air Force Base outside of Boston. I will not ever compare myself to the military.
You should, why not? It works around the telephone with a guy. I spent time at a Veterans Day parade in New York with a guy who won the Medal of Honor. He’s like, “I didn’t do a whole lot.” I’m like, “Everyone says they didn’t do enough, whether you got a Medal of Honor or not. Thank you for your service.” One of my critiques is if you raise your hand and take an oat to put a uniform on, you’ve done more than 99% of the population. Combat, no combat, crazy stories, no crazy stories, whatever, you’ve done something incredible. You take an oath to defend the Constitution. That still applies to folks when we take the uniform off.
You went to the Naval Academy, Jake. You went to West Point, Garrett. I would like to believe that we can all agree that the Air Force Academy is at the highest elevation.
It is the highest. I used to live in Colorado Springs when I was in the Army. I saw a lot of zoomies in the streets and yelled at them.
I was waiting for that.
You guys can apply your discourse agenda to the tri-party rivalries that go on across the different parties.
If we can heal the divide between the services, we can heal the nation.
You can solve anything. I gave a brief introduction to More Perfect Union but can you describe in more detail what it’s all about?
How +More Perfect Union Works
More Perfect Union is an organization that is attempting to unite the country and strengthen communities through social connection service and civic education. What we do is we try to tap into this great untapped strategic asset, these brave men and women coming home from combat from the wars who are looking for a new hill to take. They’re looking for purpose and meaning. As veterans, we need that purpose and meaning. There’s no greater hill to take than to help save our democracy and unite the country.
We have this great, untapped strategic asset: brave men and women returning home from combat, from the wars, who are seeking a new hill to take and looking for purpose and meaning as veterans. Share on XWe recruit top veterans from around the country. It’s just not veterans. Frankly, it’s anyone who’s served the greater idea of America. It’s Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, and Teach for America. Also, if you’ve served in a nonprofit here in the country. It’s those who understand the concept of serving others, putting your own needs aside, and serving other people. We recruit top leaders across those industries into this movement.
We train and equip them at a program at the University of Montana. Once they leave there, they go back to their home state to launch what we call Brickyard Operations. Those are our versions of the chapters. We call them brickyards because it’s building the country back brick by brick. The concept here is the veteran or the service member is the convener, the catalyst.
This is not a movement just for veterans. This is a movement for all Americans. The civil servant or veteran is the catalyst. They’re the leader who ignites the spark in the community. They’re the conveners because people on both the left and right trust veterans. We bring folks together in these brickyards around three common activities.
First, we do social connection activities to build understanding. These are fun things like concerts, fitness challenges, and potluck dinners to get folks to come together from the left and right and realize, “This person’s not a fascist or communist. This is a good person. There’s a lot of the same commonalities that we have.” Second, we transition to the next set of activities, which are community service activities to build trust within the Brickyard.
If you’re sweating together, getting your hands dirty together, or doing good things for the community together side by side, it’s hard to hate that person next to you swinging a hammer or building a house for somebody in the community. We build that trust through our service activities. Finally, our civic education programs are about building ownership. We want to build ownership in our democracy.
The idea of America is so powerful. With America comes all these freedoms and rights as American citizens. When you wear the identity of an American citizen, there are also responsibilities and duties that come with that identity. We train other Americans to be plank owners in our democracy. If there’s a local challenge that your community is facing, we give you the skills to be able to step up and address that challenge.
Learn how your local government and the city council works. Learn about the importance of voting and how our voting systems work. What does it mean to be a poll worker? What does it mean to be an observer in an election? It’s a lot about creating this sense of pride and new patriotism to honor democracy. That’s how our model works and how we’re building.
More Perfect Union’s Growth and Demand
Garrett, to maybe channel that captain who spoke to you, there’s a whole lot of words going around. There’s probably enough to keep you guys busy. What does the organization look like in terms of its shape and size?
We’ve come a long way in the years we’ve been around since Jake had an idea and a dream. We’re in 31 cities. We broke 20,000 members. We are growing at a quick rate because there’s a demand for community and connection. More Americans are realizing that we have more in common than we don’t. A lot of our members aren’t in one of our 31 cities so we’re developing activities and programming anywhere you live.
Every year, we scale to about fifteen more brickyards of leaders at the University of Montana. We have three in development in small towns of amazing veteran leaders who want to build a brickyard in their town. In a snapshot of 31 cities, we have 21,000 plus members growing frankly at a rate that we can’t keep up with the demand, which is a great sign. Most Americans from both sides of the aisle and from all walks of life want to serve their community and connect. They realize we have a real problem with polarity in this country.
Bringing America: Most Americans, from both sides and all walks of life, want to serve their community. They want to connect and realize we have a real problem with polarization in this country.
How do we connect? How do you meet people when you’re over 30 years old? We live in these bubbles. I watch my news station. Someone else watches theirs. My friends tend to be of one viewpoint group and so do the other persons. By creating these incredible spaces to serve our community, frankly, have fun and meet great people who care and learn about the way our government works at the local level. People are showing up and it’s working.
Diversity And Inclusivity Of Membership
Do you detect any characteristics of the people who choose to join More Perfect Union as members?
It’s all over the place. We don’t ever ask you how you vote nor ever talk politics but our leaders are trained in community mapping. We go out and recruit from different groups of people to ensure that there’s diversity of thought, socioeconomic background, political background, race, and all of it is but we do some data matching on the back.
We are amazingly 51 and 49 R&D from all walks of life. That speaks to the draw of military veterans as leaders. We have Teach for America and Peace Corps America. There are several CA or former case officers who lead brickyards for us. They’ve done great things too for America and they care about this country. It’d be hard to pick a specific profile but they’re all walks of life.
They’re making some commitment to at least hearing the other side out and being open to understanding a different point of view from their own.
The power of this too is we have unique access to rural communities that a lot of other organizations maybe don’t. Where we come from but also veteran, the veteran brand has a unique appeal in rural communities. A lot of our veterans come from rural communities across the country. In rural communities and a lot of them across the country, there’s been a a pandemic loss of agency. They feel like they’ve lost their voice. They have no voice in their ability to change their situation. They have strong community ties.
They help one another out but they feel like they’re shouting into the wind. No one’s listening to them. We’re trying to reach out deliberately to a lot of rural communities and restoring that agency, giving them that voice, giving them that platform, and then bringing them into the national conversation of crossing this divide and bridging that political divide to begin to heal the wounds in this country and get us back to a better place.
Training And Facilitating Meaningful Interactions
When you get your leaders together, you talk about the training that you do at the University of Montana. Clearly, there’s part from the social outings and the community service outings that are the foundation of these brickyard groups. How do you train the leaders on engineering these interactions and discussions in a way that gets the results that you guys are aiming for?
Particularly post-911 veterans, the Global War of Terror, the GWAT veterans, a lot of us have experience in what we call counterinsurgency theory. I wouldn’t go out and have tea with tribal elders and sheikhs. One unique time, I had tea with a Taliban after a gunfight. The military spent a lot of time training us on how to go out to disperse groups and connect with them or security and governance in Iraq and Afghanistan. There’s a a base layer, at least conceptual understanding there.
What we add on top of that is facilitation training. Professor Michael wrote at the University of Montana as a master facilitator and teaches de-escalation. How do we train our people on how to facilitate a conversation to pull out stories? We don’t talk policy but we develop these conversation cards that you can download and use after your dinner, at the coffee shop, or the pub.
What does the American dream mean to you? Who is someone that represents that? Instead of asking how you vote, what I’m asking is a story about what you think America is and someone who represents that. I then ask about how we help others achieve that. It’s about you, me, and us. Some smart psychologists helped develop those cards. We’re asking about stories to create intergroup empathy, increase intellectual humility, and increase values-based listening and things we all measure for. We’re accomplishing our mission.
Our leaders go through that training. It’s not just in Montana. We’re developing online training. We have a facilitation course, which was completed by Michael Rode at the University of Montana. We’re going to give it away for free to all of our leaders so they can continue. It’s a value proposition for you as a leader who works for MPU as a volunteer.
We will continually invest in you with training and resources in the hopes that you’ll continually invest in us, which is investing in the country. Montana is the hub and pinnacle of our training experience. We’re building out the rest of it. If I answer the question, I get fired up but Montana, the online training platform, we’re in the process of developing a lot of conversation cues and de-escalation training.
How did you get connected with him and the university there?
Fortunately, a good friend of mine named Seth Bodnar is the university president there. He is a West Point grad, Special Forces, and served in Afghanistan and Iraq. We’d built a great friendship over the years. We had some interest from groups like The Aspen Institute who wanted to be our academic partner and maybe house the fellowship but we were looking for a different type of brand for this. We wanted to be approachable. We wanted every American to feel that they could belong and be a part of what we’re doing.
The Aspen Institute is fantastic. They have a little bit of an elitist-type brand that we didn’t think was as powerful for what we were trying to do. The University of Montana is a public university. It’s a stunning location and has a lot of iconic American imagery as part of the campus there in Missoula. It seemed like a perfect place. They have opened up their arms to us and facilitated this fellowship once a year. They also provided academic rigor and partnership to us to develop training materials. They help us run some impact studies to evaluate the effectiveness of our programming. They’ve been an incredible partner for us.
I would imagine the last years since you conceived this idea, you’ve done a fair amount of iterating of your delivery model. What did you learn in the early days? How did you adjust courses?
Fail Fast, Learn Fast, And Building A Culture Of Innovation
I’m always the dumbest guy in the room when it comes to my team. The secret to building teams is to hire people smarter, better, faster, and tougher than you are. I certainly did that. We’ve made a lot of mistakes early on. One of the powerful things that I learned early on in the Marine Corps and then also at Nuru was to build a component of your culture called Fail Fast, Learn Fast, which you probably know a lot about but it’s a concept that I took on board from Silicon Valley and then find it through my training through Nuru.
It’s important to be okay to fail and give the people on your team enough rope to be able to make mistakes and fail once in a while. Some of that has to be controlled failure. When everything’s on the line, you don’t want to necessarily fail but you need to allow failure. How you as a leader react at that moment will set the culture and tone for what happens after that. Your people will not try things or take risks if they feel like they’re going to get crushed every time they make a mistake.
When everything is on the line, you don't want to fail—but you need to allow for failure. How you, as a leader, react in that moment will set the culture and tone for what happens next. Share on XAt More Perfect Union, we’re passionate about this Fail Fast, Learn Fast mentality. All of our program managers are told, “We want you to try new things. Go out there and break glass. Try things and break things. Let’s mix it up.” To innovate, we have to be willing to try new ideas that haven’t been tried before and challenge assumptions, including my assumptions. I encourage my team to push back on me and the ideas that I have. It’s important that we are able to push the envelope.
One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned in building things, especially when you’re trying to do something to make an impact in the world or the country, is there’s no room for ego in this business. You got to get over yourself. It’s not about you. It’s about what you’re trying to accomplish. We have radical transparency and radical ownership in what we’re building.
Beyond the work that you sourced from the university up in Montana, what are some of the other areas of research that you’ve tapped into along the way to improve the effectiveness of the work and the facilitation that your team leaders are doing?
Our biggest is our people on the ground. Every time they do an event, there’s a pretty intense what we call an Accurate Review Process. We’re like, “What did you do? How much did you spend? How many people showed up? How did it go?” That’s shared across the organization. We’re fairly flat. Every time someone does something in America, it goes in Slack or this long form. Everyone can passively read, why did it work? Was it on a weekend or Friday? Was it breakfast?
A guy in New Orleans, for a civic engagement event, hired a Grammy award-winning jazz musician as the draw so he could talk about civics, which is probably not as exciting as a jazz concert. That was a light bulb. To Jake’s point, it’s like, “Can I do this?” “Yeah, that sounds awesome.” People saw it and learned from him. It was learning from each other from the bottom up. Not what works in New Orleans is going to work in Cedar Breaks, Wisconsin, two of our brickyards but some things are universal.
Why are you going to leave your house and show up? What’s the value proposition? Are you going to learn something? Is there something like a free meal? Are you going to meet cool people? Across the organization, we’re learning from each other about why people are showing up but also why would someone come back.
We want you to come back to more than one event because we’re also learning the more touch points you have with us and the more events you come to, the higher rates of increased intergroup empathy and vice versa listening. It’s like any relationship. The more time I spend with someone else, whether it’s a brand or another human being who’s from a different walk of life and different political background, the deeper the relationship. How do we keep doing that and going further?
Maybe to add to what Garrett said, a lot of our most rich lessons do come from our frontline members and leaders on the ground. In addition to that, we try to be students of this business. We are painfully aware we’re new to this game. There’s been bridging organizations out there who’ve been in this fight for decades. We do our best to do our homework and learn from others. We know the players in the space. We study their models, what worked, what did not work, and why.
Let’s not repeat mistakes that have been made in the past nor duplicate efforts to duplicate efforts like to go out there and do something. Let’s do it in a smart, informed way and build off what others have already done. Also, partner where possible. There’s no room for egos. If somebody else is doing something better than we are, let’s partner with them and pull them inside. That’s important. One important partner to talk about is a group called Civic Health Project run by a woman named Kristin Hansen out of Stanford. They’re an incredible leader in the bridging space. They provide a lot of great counsel and incredible data to us as we’ve been building that’s helped our growth.
You guys are chosen to focus on political discourse but there’s broader applicability to other areas. What’s the work that you’ve been doing over the past few years that taught you about how to break some of the habits that we all fall into when we’re in the midst of words or have varying views?
For me, in person is something we do. All of our events are in person. In-person human interaction is a way to build a relationship, whether that’s a cup of coffee, swinging a hammer to build something, or serving someone else rather than yourself. It’s a cause other than yourself. At the core, how are we building trust and relationships? It’s a shared purpose.
In the Army, there’s a lot of shared hardship, which I don’t relate to. We’re in the hard part but it’s a common purpose and mission. It’s creating spaces that are warm, safe, inviting, and frankly, fun. You want to spend your free time and also learn and connect with other people. In-person relationship building is very difficult to replicate, arguably even impossible. When it comes to building trust and relationships, we take a lot of time and learn from a lot of different folks, what works and how we apply that.
Jake, I don’t know if you know this but we had a call with the Rotary Club, which wants to partner with us in pilot programs. It is the grandfather of civic clubs across the country, which is validating for us and also will help us reach new people. Into Jake’s point about partnership, we don’t want to reinvent the wheel. Other folks are doing incredible work. How do we come alongside them and offer value to them and their people and vice versa?
Listening And Humility As A Leader
Maybe a couple of other lessons to think about that we’ve learned along the way that I’ve found powerful is this concept of humility and listening. First on the humility side as leaders, it’s important to be able to admit when we’re wrong, when we make a mistake, or when we fail. Admit that mistake and don’t pass the blame to other people. Own it as a leader. Own the mistakes and failures. Learn from it and move forward. Don’t blame other people.
The second component of listening is so powerful. A lot of leaders and organizations talk about listening but I’m speaking from experience here. This is how I used to think about listening. The other person’s talking, I shake my head, nodding along, and waiting for them to stop talking for a second so I can jump in and tell them what I’m thinking. I’m trying to formulate my point not paying attention to what they’re saying.
What I found is, “No, Jake. You need to shut up and truly listen. Try to understand their viewpoint in a genuine way and understand that it’s powerful for us to learn from everybody we come into contact with.” There’s something I can learn from every single person I come into contact with. Your job as a leader is to find out, “What is that gem I’m going to learn from this interaction?” If you take that attitude into every conversation, you’re going to have a much richer discussion and a much greater impact on what you’re trying to do.
There are a couple of great exercises you can do. They’re somewhat artificial but only allowed to ask questions, can’t respond, or have to play back what you heard from the person until they tell you that you got it right, which can sometimes take a while, particularly if it’s your spouse. There are some good things that you can do but it’s hard.
You’re thinking about what you’re going to say next. I find myself doing that all the time, even in these interviews. You’re trying to keep the conversation flowing but also trying to listen. It’s hard to do both for most of us. Do you have aspirations to broaden the work you’re doing outside of the political arena or do you want to stay focused?
Building Trust And Relationships Beyond Politics
Let me say this, and Garrett, I’d love for you to jump in. It’s important for people to understand that More Perfect Union is apolitical. We do not pick a side. We do not talk about politics or controversial cultural issues of the day. That’s intentional. What we are trying to do is build trust and relationships around a common American identity. We’re not Republicans or Democrats. We’re Americans.
Building that relationship and trust is critically important. We’ve got a pretty bold vision. You might know of the work by Robert Putnam where he wrote Bowling Alone. He talked about this tragic erosion of the civic fabric in this country. People are not meeting anymore. We’re lacking these meeting places. Garrett alluded to Rotary.
Rotary Club, Lions Club, and Kiwanis Club are incredible visionary organizations of their time. Sadly, a lot of the folks are not joining those organizations anymore, especially the younger generation. We have a vision of More Perfect Union. We want to be the next generation of civic organizations for the country and the new meeting place for America. We want a more perfect union brickyard in every small town, community, and city across the country.
When kids apply to college, it means something when they put on the college application that they served at More Perfect Union Brickyard. When they go to get their first job, they can say on their resume, “I was a Brickyard Captain at my local brickyard.” It means something about civics and service to their larger community. That’s our larger vision.
To build on that, we don’t ever talk politics. Our leaders are trying to go out and recruit different groups of people to ensure that we’re in a space doing the event or having a meal that’s people from all walks of life. Our mission is to unite the country and strengthen communities. The side benefits that flow out of that is inspiring the next generation to serve, whether that’s teaching or joining the military.
It is a leadership development program, where you learn how to lead and interact with the government, whether it’s a pothole on your road or the parks commissioner. It’s building better citizens, how to be a good citizen, and becoming a better leader. At the same time, you’re meeting people outside your bubble and building real relationships. All that flows into uniting our country and at the same time, strengthening our community.
Bringing America: Uniting the country starts with strengthening our communities—building better citizens, better leaders, and real relationships beyond our bubbles. It’s about inspiring the next generation to serve, lead, and make a difference, all while learning how to create lasting impact, from fixing potholes to shaping the future.
It’s a grand idea but to Jake’s point, it’s going to become an institution where it’s a scholarship for a college application. It means something to be an MPU fellow and to be a brick early. It already does in communities. We are being invited in small towns to come guest speak at the Chamber of Commerce. “Who are you? You’ve done great things.” In one town in Texas, they sponsored the local JROTC unit.
They said, “We heard you’re good people and you sponsor things and lead in the community. Can you help us solve this problem? They can’t go to this event to do their drill team and competition.” That to me was an incredible market indicator of when a town comes to an MPU brickyard and asks to help solve a problem, we know we’re doing something right. How do we continue to grow that and build that brand?
How do you guys raise money? Other than donations, is there a membership fee? What are the other ways that you guys sustain yourselves financially?
Funding And Sustainability Of The Organization
It’s all donations. Fortunately, there is no membership fee. We don’t want Americans to have to pay to join this movement. We want this movement for everybody. It doesn’t matter where you’re at on the socioeconomic ladder. We’ve been fortunate to have some high net-worth individuals, as well as everything from folks giving 7-figure contributions to $10 and $25 contributions. We’ve been humbled by the folks who have come out of the woodwork to fund this work.
We run a skeleton crew and a lean team. We keep that lean startup mentality. It’s tough because we have so much growth. We’re having trouble meeting up with demand. Capacity is a problem. We’re starting to grow our team even more. Thankfully, our donors have gone from small donors and high net high-net-worth individuals. We’re getting some institutional funding, multiple-year commitments, and that kind of thing as well. We’re a 501(c)(3). We require donations to continue to scale. I encourage any audience who is interested in our work to help join the fight with us.
You both have some things going on outside of your work with More Perfect Union. Garrett, I’ll let you start with some of the things that you’re doing, have done, and are doing that fill your broader professional journey.
Veterans’ Transition And Purpose After Service
Leaving the military as you know is a transition. I go from this world where it’s not a job, it’s my identity. It’s purpose and all these things. It’s a built-in community and family. When you leave that, it’s hard. I had a winding road to get to where I’m at. I’ve learned that doing things I believe in and helping other people are the keys.
I spend 90% of my time with MPU, which I love but there are a couple of side things. One of which is I left active duty in 2013 and resigned my commission. After working in the veteran service space for eight years and being this professional veteran, for lack of a better term, I still have some gas left in the tank. I don’t want to be just a veteran telling war stories and helping folks transition. I reapplied to get reappointed into the Army Reserves and that led to this hobby of teaching.
I taught for four years at Georgia Tech, ROTC, which was an incredible experience mentoring and coaching cadets who want to be Army officers. It’s a way to transition to a place to put 8 years or 9.5 years of combat-focused experience. That has turned into teaching at West Point, the US Military Academy, which is amazing because I barely graduated. I get to teach leadership there. Army Reserves is another one.
I have a small role. I got my MBA when I was here in Atlanta. It was at a school of business at Emory University. A couple of other veterans who are very successful financially and business owners realized that other veterans didn’t understand how raising capital works like the traditional VC pipeline and how to pitch. I’m a member of what’s called 550 Capital Partners. It’s a veteran-focused VC firm where if you’re raising for your startup or seed round, we can help you.
We raise money from mostly veterans but not always to invest. The education at MPU too is raising money for things you believe in. People say, “How are a VC and nonprofit?” I’m like, “They’re the same. The only difference is the ROI or the impact.” It’s money versus helping the world. I love that I get to work and make a living here at MPU with Jake. It’s not the vast bulk of my time. To do what you love with great people is the dream. I get to do that here at More Perfect Union.
What about you, Jake? What are some of the things you have going outside of More Perfect Union?
The most important thing I do in my life is try to live up to this amazing woman that I married. I married up to be a good husband for her and be a good father for my daughter. That’s a real focus for me, number one. Number two, I was a Marine and then I became this nonprofit warrior, which means I don’t make much money. With that, I take on some other side opportunities to be able to bring in some extra income for the family. I fell into that. I was coming back from overseas in Africa to raise money. I was getting asked to speak at a lot of conferences and larger forums.
Out of that, I do keynote speaking and a lot of leadership training and coaching for C-Suite executive teams and help high-performing teams navigate tough strategic challenges. I work with them on those things. I’m an academic partner at a VC firm. I help coach a lot of founders and entrepreneurs in rapidly growing organizations to be able to meet some of those challenges. I also help teach a managing growing enterprises course at Stanford Graduate School of Business that teaches a case on Nuru International. Those are a few that I do on the side.
You guys are both good examples of having a portfolio career. Garrett, coming back, I’ll use your Georgia Tech ROTC experience. What were the 3 or 4 things you wanted to instill in those cadets about leadership? What was most important to you that they took away from that class?
When I first got the gig, it was Keishon College freshmen. I had one of the benefits of a break in services. One of my classmates and friends was the head of Fordham University’s ROTC, which is all the schools in Manhattan. I said, “What do I do?” He was like, “Your number one job is to make them excited about the Army,” which I did but I taught them a lot of mistakes I made. They want to hear a lot of war stories but my failings as a leader is when I pardon them, it’s lead by example. They’re clichés for a reason. You’re a character and integrity, no matter the cost.
Taking care of your soldiers means a lot of things. There was a dramatic example when I thought I was taking care of a soldier and it turned out that you get to Afghanistan, he’s smoking hash in a guard tower, guarding his compatriots, sleeping at night in enemy territory. It is a hallmark of leadership. It is accountability, honesty, and integrity. You are leading by example. You’re out front.
Even some of the symbols of that like leaders eat last and some things they’ve never heard before. How do you demonstrate caring for your people? How do you show that you’re being the example? How do you hold people accountable? There are some good stories making up a side of the Army as well. We throw it in there too. We’re getting excited about the future. That was an incredible experience and honor for me to be able to be trusted to teach cadets.
Jake, imagine you were teaching those cadets. What would you want them to take away?
Leadership Principles And Advice For Entrepreneurs
I’ve made so many mistakes along the way. When I do my leadership workshops and training, I train on the things I failed at and what I learned from that. I always say the most powerful lessons in leadership I learned from those I had the privilege of leading on my team. I’ve found the most powerful form of leadership ever is servant leadership. It works in combat, in the boardroom, down range in Africa, and in the athletic field. It’s a compelling form of leadership.
I oftentimes train folks around four principles of servant leadership. I talk about the power of leading with decisiveness in times of uncertainty and chaos. I talk about leading with the power of humility. I always say that the humble leader always wins in the end and that the three most powerful words you can say are, “I am sorry.” I talk a lot about leading from the front as the third principle.
The fourth principle, which is probably, I believe the most powerful is others first, you last, putting the needs of others ahead of your own. Whether it’s a shipment from the Naval Academy who is getting into the service, young Marines along the way that I’m trying to coach, or entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley that I’m trying to help build their business, these are some of the principles that I like to try to instill in them.
Last question for both of you. Any final advice you want to give to our audience?
If you can find what you’re passionate about and do it with purpose, that’s a key, at least for my life and happiness. For veterans, specifically military veterans and combat veterans, healing is a long journey and it’s not a straight line. You have to look at some hard parts of your past and reflect to move forward. It’s been an important part of my life.
If you can find what you're passionate about and pursue it with purpose, that's key to happiness. Share on XLife’s a journey. I love the people I work with and my experiences and being able to help and serve others to Jake’s point about servant leadership. One of the reasons I love working here is he practices what he preaches. He is one of the best servant leaders I’ve ever had the honor of knowing and working with. I don’t know if that’s advice or cathcartisms but enjoy life while you can.
Maybe something that I found very powerful in my journey, maybe a thought for anybody out there who wants to build something and found something who’s thinking about being an entrepreneur, I always tell folks that to do that, you have to have what I call the Get Out of Bed factor. That means as an entrepreneur, a founder, or anybody who’s trying to build something worth building, you’re going to face incredible challenges, failures, and things that are going to break your heart and people who are going to let you down.
There are going to be days where you simply don’t feel like you can get out of bed and take on the day but in those moments, you have to have that thing inside of you that burns, that reason for why you started the journey that you’re on. What is that moment in life? What is that thing that your family member said to you? What is that incident that happened with your friend or that incredible opportunity that changed your life and caused a great awakening? What is that moment that burns inside of you and gets you out of bed every time when those failures come? If you don’t have that, it’s tough to keep going when times are hard but if you have that, you can be unstoppable.
Thank you both. This has been great. You’re both incredibly accomplished with everything you’ve done along the way. I was impressed by both of your backgrounds. You guys are taking on something that I would say the country desperately needs, as we’ve seen as a selection year has played out in the US. Thank you again for that, your service, and this conversation. Good luck with everything.
Thank you, J.R. It’s an honor to be on the show.
Thanks for the platform.
Thanks, Garrett. Take care, guys.
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I want to thank Jake and Garrett for joining me to discuss More Perfect Union. It’s an interesting work that they’re doing to bridge differences and their journeys from the military to the private sector and beyond. If you’d like to work on your career journey, you can visit PathWise.io and become a member. Basic membership is free. You can also sign up on our website for the PathWise newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. Thanks. Have a great day.
Important Links
- More Perfect Union
- Civic Health Project
- Bowling Alone
- 550 Capital Partners
- LinkedIn – PathWise
- Facebook – PathWise
- Instagram – PathWise
- YouTube – PathWise
- TikTok – PathWise
About Garrett Cathcart
Garrett served 9 years as a United States Army Cavalry officer and is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Garrett’s service included three years in ground combat leadership roles. He served as a Reconnaissance Scout Platoon Leader in Baghdad during the Surge in 2007, colloquially known as the bloodiest year in Iraq, as an embedded military advisor living and operating with the Iraqi Army in 2008, and as a Cavalry Troop Commander in Afghanistan responsible for the security, governance and development for two Afghan districts in 2010. His final assignment on active duty was serving as Aide-de-Camp to the Commanding General of the 4th Infantry Division. Garrett’s awards include three Bronze Star Medals, an Army Commendation Medal with Valor Device and a Meritorious Service Medal. He is also a Major in the Army Reserves where he serves as an Associate Professor of Leadership and Military Science at Georgia Tech.
Garrett graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 2004 and the Goizueta School of Business at Emory University in 2018. He holds a certificate in nonprofit executive leadership from the University of Georgia, and he is a George W. Bush Veteran Leadership Scholar. He is also an accomplished public speaker who has addressed the Atlanta Hawks, New York University, The Home Depot, The Federal Reserve, and guest lectured at the US Military and Air Force Academies.
About Jake Harriman
Jake graduated with distinction from the United States Naval Academy and served seven and a half years in the U.S. Marine Corps as a Platoon Commander in both the Infantry and Force Recon. Following his service, Jake enrolled at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. While at Stanford, he founded Nuru International to eradicate extreme poverty in the world’s most unstable, vulnerable regions to help end violent extremism. Jake played a vital role in drafting, introducing, and passing groundbreaking new legislation called the Global Fragility Act of 2019 that equips America with new authorities and resources to prevent conflict and stabilize some of the most fragile regions of the world.
