Mike Rowe
Appearances
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And during the talent show, a skinny guy stood up and took off his pants, and then he took off his shirt, and he's standing there in his underwear. And he put his hands in front of him like this. So my arms are outstretched and my hands are clasped together. And then he started to jump back and forth. between the space created between his arms, like a jump rope, back and forth.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
But then, Dan, he brought it all the way over his head, dislocated both shoulders, dislocated both elbows, and then both wrists. And he did it in real time. And he literally started jumping rope
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
with his arms and it was basically a sideshow thing but I couldn't get it out of my head and I filmed it and I took it to a network and I said here's the show it's called look at me and it's just a bunch of people who can do these kinds of things doing them in front of modest audiences Um, nobody bought it, but I swear to God, what is, what is YouTube now? Yeah. Yeah. Is it? Yeah.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
No, no, but when you invoke TED Talk, I think that's a super interesting model that came along at a pretty precipitous time, in part because it so clearly honors the audience-speaker relationship. Like it really, it's almost pristine, right? It's a very, I did one in 2008. It was called a gathering, an entertainment gathering program. And I didn't know what I was walking into.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Discovery asked me to go down there and say a few words at this conference that they were sponsoring. When I walked in, this was down in Monterey, they had this, all the speakers, their faces had been put onto these banners that hung from the ceiling in some sort of not quite caricature-ish way, but some kind of exaggerated version of themself.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
So I'm being shot out of a cannon toward a sewer or something. That's when I learned I was a featured speaker, and I would have exactly 20 minutes to talk to this assemblage of luminaries about some topic. And it was so valuable an exercise for me to go through because I had never spoken before at an event that was defined by so much intentionality, you know, and by so much variety.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
So not only did I have to very quickly put together, you know, a rumination on castrating lambs with my teeth, which actually happened, and somehow make that relevant to the audience that was there. I got a chance to... to stand in front of people, really for the first time, who were kind of on the edge of their seats.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
They were so hungry and so comfortable being an audience that, in other words, there just didn't seem to be any bleed over. Like nobody was... at least to my sense of it, no one was sitting there going, man, I wish I was up there. They were really happy to be in the audience. And the people on stage, by and large, were really happy to be there. And everybody knew their role.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And so you could have this dynamic where for 48 hours straight, one after the next after the next came up to tell their stories and share their ideas to an audience who was enthusiastically game to be just that. And I guess maybe a better way to make the point, I'm not supposed to talk about this, but I was invited once to speak at the Bohemian Grove. Are you familiar with this?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Well, the Bohemian Club is the oldest men's club in the world.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Yeah, I mean, it was founded, I think, by like Jack London and, you know, some true bohemians of the day. Right. And today it's, you know, filled with world leaders and captains of industry and so forth.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's that thing that's out there in the zeitgeist and all the Alex Jones stuff. People have talked about it for years. I won't get into the details, but I'll tell you something I saw that crystallizes this point perfectly. Every year... They put on a terrific play, the Grove play, and it involves a full orchestra with some first chair players and all the relative sections.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
It involves Broadway actors. It involves a real score and a real libretto and a real script. I mean, it's a full-on production. And it takes place up there in the woods. And the first time I saw one, I was so struck by what happened at the end of it. They burned the script. And I wasn't sure why or what I was looking at, but part of me was kind of appalled and part of me was excited.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that, oh, this will never happen again on the face of the earth. This will never, this performance was one. It was a one-off. And done. And that's the opposite of Broadway. That's the opposite of podcasting. That's the opposite of look at me. That's the opposite of all of the things that seem to have real traction today. And what it does is,
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
is it elevates the importance of the people in the audience because now they're the only ones walking around with a recollection of this singular event. Indulgent? Maybe. But if you're looking for ways to think differently about how to elevate your audience, how to magnify the experience, well, you start with scarcity, which would lead you to never, ever run it again.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
It's the opposite of syndication, Dan. It's the opposite of what success looks like in our business.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Unknowable. I mean, look, it's two different things. You come out with new content constantly.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Occasionally is probably more accurate. I suppose your cadence is fluid, as they say. That's right. Now, I did 350 dirty jobs. It's aired every single day for 22 years. I don't know that it will ever stop. I'm pretty sure I'll never do another new one, but there it is. It has this weird evergreen quality. Thank God. Yes, yes, yes. It's nice to have those things in your world. the TED Talk...
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
to your point, was also really beneficial for me, but I didn't know it when it was happening. Right. So maybe there's, who is it, Heisenberg, the uncertainty principle?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Yeah, so the act of observing a thing changes the thing. Now, had I known when I took that stage that the story I was going to tell about oral castration and its legitimate role in modern day animal husbandry, had I known that that was going to be viewed four or five million times,
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
and opened the door, if I did it right, to an entire speaking business, had I been thinking about that, I suspect I would have bitched it up. Yeah, I was going to say, he shuts you down almost. Right. And this is the other thing that I think about now all of the time. Like when I...
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
When you think about how Lenny Bruce got great, when you think about how great comedians came up and the way they failed or were allowed to fail in small clubs and then slightly less small clubs, right? And then the failure became less humiliated. And then it turns out now they're not failing, but they're not killing it, right? They had a chance.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
to hone their craft in front of an audience that was as limited as the one I described in the woods. It never went beyond that. people weren't all armed with a state-of-the-art camera recording every full thing that the guy said on the stage. And they weren't running home minutes later to share it on whatever full platform they favor.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And so if you're a bad comic and you have a bad night early in your career, that can be the end of your whole deal. Because the 30 people who were there no longer count. They're just the first line of a massive amount of dissemination. Think about Michael Richards. Think about the unfortunate evening he had with in front of a hundred ruin your life one night. That's it.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Over. over. I had an old boss over at CBS at Capix. I was hosting a show called Evening Magazine and I used to really agonize over the quality of a story, a segment, whatever I worked on. I wanted it to be as good as it could be and we were on the air every night at seven o'clock and it was like that scene from broadcast news.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
We were always in the edit bay at 6.50 putting the show together and somebody had to run it up and slap it in the machine and then it would go on the air and I remember calling this guy, Mike Orkin was his name, and I would call him at like 6.30 and say, hey, man, how does the piece look? Is it good? And he would say, Mike, it's better than good. It's done. And so you can mourn.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
the ruination of your standards when you're in that kind of meat grinder doing a daily show or even a weekly show if you're under that, you know, Saturday Night Live is relentless pressure throughout the week and then it ends and then it starts again. But I'm so interested in your reticence to look back at your old shows. I I'm similarly afflicted.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And I think part of the reason is, and Dan Patrick made the point too, if you care about the work you do artistically or just from an accuracy standpoint, then all of your equity, all of your return is in the next thing that you do. But You and I are not paid for the next thing we do. We're paid for the last bunch of stuff we did.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
The stuff that ironically and perhaps even tragically we can't bring ourselves to look at.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Right. I'll tell you, man, that is a crucible. And I suspect I, if she looks back on that, I mean, You're telling her story on her behalf because that moment is exactly what we're talking about. It's pregnant. It's filled with portent and consequence.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And to make the same point in a more absurd way, I spent the first three years of my misspent career selling things on the QVC cable shopping channel in the middle of the night where there was no seven-second delay, no delay of any kind. And no script. And you sit there for three hours at a time.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
That's exactly what it is. You know, if you can talk about the health team infrared pain reliever for eight minutes or the Amcor negative ion generator and somehow keep it on its feet, then you, okay. That's kind of, it's not really, it wasn't on my wish list. It's not a thing to which I aspired. But once you exercise that muscle regularly, you can find other things to apply it to, obviously.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And boy, oh boy, I didn't talk about QVC for years. And then somebody started posting videos of me half asleep or half in the bag in 1989. Stuff that you don't even remember, yeah. No. And man, I don't know if there's a name for this. You can Google me right now and see me selling something called a cat sack.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
which is just a grocery bag lined with Mylar that your cat crawls in and just loves the crinkling sound so much that you'll pay $29.95 for it. Now, this happened in 1990. I know it happened because I can Google it, and I can see myself sitting there, clear as day, more hair, better looking, but there I am selling a cat sack. Dan, I have no memory of it.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
There's like, if somebody had pulled me aside absent that video, I would have said, look, I don't think that happened. That product sounds so completely insane and unbelievable. No. But then, so like, what's the name for the feeling when you see yourself doing something on a screen and you can't deny it's you, and yet you have zero memory of it happening?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Well, there are no new ideas, at least. I haven't seen one. I've seen a lot of variations on a lot of themes. But I think the first time you and I spoke, I told you that I see you as a denizen of the deep end of the pool. I live in the shallow end of the pool. The first podcast I ever listened to was Blueprint for Armageddon. Oh, wow. It was three and a half hours long. I was...
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I was, uh, I loved it. I had to listen to it at two speed. Cause you know, who's got that kind of time, but I loved it. I loved it. And I was also, it was, it was, I was equal parts impressed and intimidated. because I knew I didn't have the time or the facility to do a three and a half hour show. So I did an eight minute show, a six minute show.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I called it Brief Mysteries for the Curious Mind with a short attention span. I shamelessly stole Paul Harvey's idea. I did channel Charles Kuralt, a little bit of Osgood, a little bit of Studs Terkel, a little bit of George Plimpton.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
He really does. He was the first guy before the expression embedded reporter became colloquialized. He really wouldn't write about something until he had experienced it, whether it was Paper Lion. Paper Lion.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Exactly. No, you're right. He was. He's like Zelig. Yes. In that way. Yes. He kept popping up all over the place. But look, the whole notion of an apprentice or a cipher or an avatar or a dilettante, right? That was Dirty Jobs. I took that from George. And the reason was because... He was a man of letters. Yes. Princeton or something. He edited Paris Review. Yeah.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
He was the least likely cat to put himself into that world. And I just love that he did it. And if you take that sensibility and combine it with Kuralt's On the Road.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And then put Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story on top of it. Yeah, the structure. Yeah. Shake all that up. And what do you have? You've got a deep end of the pool with Plimpton and you have a true broadcaster with Harvey and you have a man in perpetual motion with Kuralt traveling the country on the road out there in his motor home. And those three sensibilities together really intrigued me.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And, and I, I know I'm zigging and zagging here, but that, that really informed, uh, My identity on Dirty Jobs. I didn't want to be a host. I'd been a host for 15 years, creating the illusion of competence and short bursts and doing my stand-ups and hitting the masking tape with the X and looking earnestly into the lens.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Again, look, it's out there, man. When you can't escape your past, you might as well embrace it. That's what YouTube really is for me. It's the evidence that demands a verdict. And in my personal case, it's just the... proof positive of all of the humiliations and fits and starts that eventually brought me to this conversation.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Could I permission to rant on that for a moment?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
But go ahead. Please rant away. Well, look, I mean, it does. It is adjacent to history. It's the history of broadcasting, which is, in a way, the history of television. Authenticity and authority. And these things are always in flux, in my view.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And the time you were describing, when the clothespins were making your wardrobe look just so, and the director had you in the right light, and you were giving the blue steel look to the camera. Green screen behind me. Yep. That was a time when... The protocols were universally accepted, and we all knew what trust looked like, live, local, late-breaking.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And then the trusted face comes in and embarks upon one of the greatest contrivances ever created, which is the singular reliance upon the teleprompter. And in those days, you never saw the wide shot of the studio. You never saw the teleprompter. All you saw was a performance that I think is right on par with any Academy Award nominee, not necessarily in execution, but in pretense.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Every single thing about the newscaster is rooted in a lie. The makeup, the lights, the crisp, well-modulated baritone, the music that ramps you into the event, but most of all, the teleprompter. This notion of a guy staring earnestly into the lens for the express purpose of making you believe he's not reading begins to read. The whole thing is a construct.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And the only political guy I've ever invited on my podcast was Vivek Ramaswamy. And the reason I invited him on is because I heard him say somewhere that if elected, I will never give a speech with a teleprompter. And I thought that was a bold claim. And I wanted to talk to him about why.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And what ensued was a conversation around this incredible shift that happened, not just in journalism, but in all of broadcast, where we transitioned from the age of authority, where we as the audience would actually accept the all of that bullshit, right?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
We would sit there and we'd like, we knew we were being sold a bill of goods by people who were reading somebody else's words, but we stuck with it and we stuck with it right up until we didn't. And the speed with which we left the age of authority and entered the age of authenticity, um, is not something I would ever take credit for, but I was there.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And, you know, Dirty Jobs, we didn't do a second take. We didn't cast anybody. You didn't do a second take, really? No. That's wild. Only if I was doing stand-ups and, like, a look-back special. You know, those I would like to get right, but at the end I would always show my mistakes because the real secret sauce of that show – Two things.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
First of all, when I realized that a guest had more credibility than a host, at least in the normal construct, the scales fell from my eyes. Oh, my God. All I have to do is show up and do the work. The real host, the real expert, is the anonymous person who's inspecting the sewers that we're profiling.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
That's it. Once I got that message, I was onto something new and something that I felt was kind of exciting. The second thing was really what kept the show on the air. And that was, and this is really the only thing I like to take credit for. It's the thing I'm most proud of. But I insisted at the end of season one to get, I didn't know what to call it.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
because a behind the scenes camera was not really a thing in those days. This is 2004. So I called it like a documentary camera. And then I just called it the truth cam. And so we hired a guy who never stopped rolling, who always stayed wide. That's great. And filmed us making the show. But it's like we were saying earlier, Dan, it was a nephema to the networks. This is us showing our ass.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
This is us. Like, that is the sausage being made.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
We gave it all up. And I mean, this saved my life in a thousand different ways. But from the mundane to like a plane flies over and screws up a take. Normally, the whole production shuts down. Everything stops. It's not usable. Except there was no such thing on Dirty Jobs. So the main camera guys, they might pause. But I would just turn to the truth cam and go, you know what's up my ass today?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
That's 747. Of all the places to shoot, we had to pick another flight path. I can't get a freaking break.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
That's right. But what it also did, for whatever reason, was it let the audience know that I won't lie to them. I might not get it right. I might screw up some facts. I might make all kinds of mistakes. But I won't lie to you. This is where I am. This is what I'm doing. These are the guys I rely on to do it.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
If I'm going to walk out on some gantry crane 600 feet in the air and I can feel my sphincter slam shut, I'm going to let you know that that sound you heard, that was my sphincter slamming shut. It was radical disclosure, and it gave me a weird level of credibility and trust, and
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
you know, not to overstate it, but it led to 38 different and new shows in cable that all sort of turned on that weird transition from the age of authority. And believe me, Discovery had it too, right? When I started there, it was all about David Attenborough, Richard Attenborough, Jane Goodall, Jacques Cousteau, really credible insiders, right? And if it was a narrator...
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
They all kind of sounded like this, right? That all ended. And the age of authority was replaced with what I call the age of authenticity and a genuine, no-second-take curiosity to see what's under the rock, to have a look, to come with us. I don't know where we're going necessarily, but you should come. It's going to be fun, and it's going to be honest. And that was the show. And boy...
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
The lessons I learned or relearned in 2004, 2005, getting that thing on the air, I didn't realize it at the time. But it was the midst of a seismic shift. And just to land the plane, real quick, what's it mean today? I went through my whole experience with that, but what's it mean for Bobby Kennedy? What's it mean for our elected officials? What's it mean for our science community?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Is there anything, Dan, less trustworthy today than a guy looking earnestly into the lens and saying, trust me or take my word for it? Like, in the blink of an eye, everything that used to be synonymous with trust has shifted. Maybe not for the whole audience. Maybe you still have people in their 70s, 80s, and 90s who take comfort in that old style of communicating.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
But hop on Instagram or YouTube or TikTok or any of them. We are in a we're in a different world and things that feel credible and things that feel genuinely trustworthy. They're they're different than they were.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And that was realize. Yeah, that's what you realize, Dan. In that moment, you realize that that guy has been performing. Yes. Yes. Oh, life.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
So there, I think I, I didn't mean to romanticize all of it.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Now I'm in trouble. Mike Rowe, you romantic. I thought I knew you. That's right.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Yeah. Um, Getting it right, being correct, all of that stuff is noble and good and a part of disseminating information. But it has nothing to do with the question I'm posing, which is what is persuasive? What is convincing? You know, the best quote, in fact, it's an epigram in my book, uttered by my favorite fictitious character, Travis McGee, made famous by John D. McDonald.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Guy lived on a houseboat and solved crimes, but he was also a modern day paladin, you know? So, just so many great rants in that old pulp fiction. But there's one paragraph in particular where he goes down the laundry list of all of the things that make him queasy, uneasy, and wary. And he talks about servomechanisms. This is like 1969. Servomechanisms? What does that mean?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Well, for about a year, a servomechanism was just another word for a rudimentary computer or some kind of machine that would help process your social security number and your bank accounts, et cetera. McGee always talked about this world of encroaching intelligence and robotics and servomechanisms and all these things that made him uncomfortable. It's a really fun list, but it concludes with...
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
But most of all, I am wary of all earnestness.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Well, what I would say is that you and I are of a very similar age and we've come through a similar crucible, not the same thing, but earnestness and sincerity have absolutely nothing to do with truth and accuracy. Zero.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And yet, if you're in the truth and accuracy business, either as a well-respected podcaster with a penchant for history who wants to get it right, you still need to think about how to present. What is persuasive?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
what would what is convincing you know you can't ignore those things otherwise you'll be right and accurate with no audience but conversely you can also over focus on what is persuasive and if the answer is as it was for many decades earnestness
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
then, well, it's no coincidence that Walter Cronkite and Eric Severide employed the same kind of earnestness as the spokesman of the day, who was simply hired to talk about Timex. In fact, I think Severide talked about Timex as well as gave the news. But it was always the same way, Dan. right? It was a furrowed brow and a thoughtful look into the lens and then a careful explanation.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
That's all just performance. It has nothing to do with whether you're lying or whether you're misinformed or whether you're spot on. So earnestness for its own sake is is a thing to be wary of, in McGee's view, and in mine. And I think, look, not to drag you brutally into the present, because I know you're bedeviled right now. I am.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I know. And we got to talk about that, man. Yeah, we do. Because, look... You have to help me. I don't know that I can help you, but I can sure as hell commiserate. Why? I mean... I don't know when this airs, but I know. Me either. I'm hoping it does air. We should do it live. Can't you just flick a switch and do it live?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
That's what I'm afraid of. I've had mine. I've had so many of those moments. Oh, God, man. What was it about Trump and Zelensky? that ultimately, never mind the geopolitical fallout, never mind all of the specifics that were said, what is it about that moment that so completely transfixed the country? I would suggest, in part, a complete absence of prompters.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
a complete absence of decorum and predictable interactions. It all went out the window. And so for a country who claims to be starved for transparency, who values it, who wants to see the sausage being made, for a country who is desperate for the truth cam— as I was in a sewer 20 years ago on Dirty Jobs, well, guess what, man? We just got it. We just got the truth cam.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And now a lot of people on both sides of the aisle are spending a lot of bandwidth trying to separate the signal from the noise. And what really happened there? What was it about that moment that was so galvanizing? And I've still read accounts of people saying, no, no, the whole thing was staged. The whole thing was a ramp up. Everything was carefully orchestrated. I don't know.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I watched all 50 minutes of that thing. I don't think it was. I think something odd and scary and human and common happened. in an uncommon place. And I think we all got to see it. And now we're all walking around trying to figure out what the rules are, maybe.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
How did you Forrest Gump your way? from blueprint for Armageddon into a commentator on the headlines of the day. Were you always there and this obligation that you feel? I'm super interested in understanding this because I can kind of relate some, I think. But the obligation to your audience, which is where we started, right? When did it start to bother you
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
in terms of their expectations and, and what, what should we be talking about given the gravity of all of it, given the absolute fire hose of information that the headlines have become and given, I think it was, was it McMillan after Churchill? Harold McMillan? Yeah.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Yeah, yeah. A reporter asked him to, I think, describe his plan for the immediate future. And his answer was very dismissive. And the reporter pushed back. He says, why can't you answer the question? And McMillan said, events, dear boy.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Events. Well... I've never lived through a time where the events come this fast. And I'm not saying anything new. I'm sure everybody in your audience is either like, no kidding, Mike, or maybe they're just nodding in quiet agreement because they like me. Maybe. I don't know. It's so hard to know if anybody likes me anymore.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Well, the love rolls right off my back. Well, then let's circle back to your wife real quick, and let me ask it this way. You mentioned that she was covering a mass shooting.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Okay. Now, a few years ago, after things went all to hell in Vegas, after that terrible shooting, right? Awful. So I had been working on... a project around my work ethic scholarship program. And we were in the midst of it. And I was going to put a big piece up on Facebook and I, and I had some videos that I was going to make, you know, this is the thing I'd been working on.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And I, I agonize over my posts and I, I try and get things just so. And, and then this happens right now, I'm not a historian. I don't, have a show really about history. I dabble. I don't feel any great obligation to respond to any particular headline unless it's firmly and squarely in my lane. And yet, I realized I can't
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I can't post what I want to post because it has nothing to do with the thing that everyone's talking about. And therefore I will either appear insensitive to the horrible thing that's happened. On the other hand, I... What am I supposed to say? Thoughts and prayers, obviously.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
But it's like, am I supposed to write 2,000 words now on gun violence in America and the Second Amendment and all of the things that everybody was talking about on that particular morning simply because I have 9 million people who, for whatever reason— or interested in my take on this, that, or the other thing? I didn't have an answer, Dan. I still don't.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
But my question is, are you experiencing that same curious paralysis that comes not from... Like, you just haven't had time to do the common sense that I bet you want to do. So does that mean you should do nothing between now and such a time? Or are you allowed to have conversations like the ones we're having right now?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And for that matter, are the rest of us allowed to get on with our lives without staring constantly into the next headline?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Well, you've spent your whole life reflecting on events through the lens of time. And now time has been... It's caught up with us. Well, it's been compressed. It's been compressed to a point where the rearview mirror...
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
How strategic of you, Dan. Yes.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
is is not actually where we left it you know that one of the words objects in mirror may be closer than appear yeah that's that's where we're living everything is close everything is what was the movie everything all at once everything everywhere all at once
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Well, look, if you're damned if you do and damned if you don't, then the only sensible way to quote Travis McGee again, the only sensible way to go through life is with the attitude of the vaudevillian clown who knows with certainty he's going to be chased around the arena with a bladder and hit in the face with a pie, but nevertheless shows up for work every day. That's
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
in this environment, I don't know how else to remain sane. Because to your point, those metaphorical calluses built up because you got used to paying a price for saying the wrong thing. That's different than paying a price for not saying anything. And when you really think about the pressure that you have assumed Careful.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
You're going to put yourself into some kind of a box or into some kind of a corner. I know that I did. For me, 2016, maybe it was 2015, there was one remarkable week where I was out once again hawking my work ethic scholarship program.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
It's Dan Carlin. I cleared the day. I'm sitting here, I'm caffeinated.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I challenge you to go two and a half. I'm wearing a stadium pal right now. I have a bladder tucked into my sock. I could sit here all day.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
that's the joe rogan endurance experience he feeds you bulletproof coffee for three hours and there's no bathroom breaks and you either man up or you don't i did three hours and 15 minutes and the only reason we stopped is he i thought he was gonna piss himself he literally got up and ran out when we were that's hilarious we we we cut it that close crap where was i what were we saying just a second oh well we were talking you were talking about basically how uh how how
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
The most incredible week where I knew that Atlas had shrugged in some way in the context of this conversation. I was out hawking.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I don't know if you're going to take it. For someone to pick up if they can. So I go on real time with Bill Maher.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And we have a 20-minute conversation. And it's terrific. He's got a big audience. And a lot of people wound up applying as the result of our back and forth conversation. I also heard from, oh, I don't know, maybe 100,000 friends of mine who are right of center on the interwebs who expressed not just their disappointment, but they were shocked, Dan. Shocked, I tell you, and appalled.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
How could you sit next to that communist? How could you go there and talk to Bill Maher? It's Bill Maher, Mike. What were you thinking? Well, two days later, I had the exact same conversation with Glenn Beck. Exact same back and forth. And, you know, I'm still committed to staying in my lane. I don't show my slip much, really, you know.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
But same conversation, Glenn Beck, same exact response from my buddies on the left, who are more numerous, if I'm being honest. And they left me in droves. I lost, I don't know, half a million people. Wow. On Facebook. Not because of anything I said. And in this case, actually, not because of anything I didn't say. But simply because I sat next to the wrong guy.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And when I realized what the consequences of proximity were in 2016... I'm trying to give away a couple million dollars in scholarships, and I got crushed for having a conversation that I know my detractors like. I just got crushed because I had it with the wrong guy. And now this is common. I'm not saying anything new now, but nine years ago, that was an eye-opener for me.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
That's when I thought, oh, we are entering – a new, new rule, you know, new rule. Uh, wasn't quite sure what the rule was, but I knew it had real consequences and it had nothing to do with anything I said or anything I didn't.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I've lived my entire life in a state of perpetual... I am waiting. I'm constantly waiting for death from above or, you know, a rustling sound in the brush to reveal its venom. So whatever you got.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Space Force salute. I thought you said CPAP. And I'm like, I don't use that. No. Not yet, anyway.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Well, Rostand did it pretty well with Cyrano, right? What would you have me do? Seek out some wealthy patron and crawl like a clinging vine up the lordly tree, rising by deceit and trickery instead of my own strength? No thank you, right? I run a foundation. I have appeared probably in the aggregate more often on CNN, MSNBC, PBS, and and NPR than I have on Fox. I had a show on CNN in prime time.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I had a show on Fox Business in prime time. My foundation is supported by some liberal entities, but the bulk of it comes from people like Charles Koch. I make absolutely no apology for any of that. I don't feel like I've ever... deliberately done anything to antagonize either side.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
But I do understand that the rules have changed, and I do understand that I'm going to break a few eggs in the course of whipping up my particular omelet. What I say to my friends on the left when they learn that I gave a keynote at CPAC at the Ronald Reagan dinner is, invite me to your party, and I'll be there.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
What I say to them, in fact, I shared this last week because I did get some blowback for being there. I posted an open letter that I wrote to Barack Obama in 2009. And it was a congratulatory letter shortly after he won. And I said, look, I've read your Highway Infrastructure Act. And I see that you're pledging to create 3 million shovel-ready jobs. And I'm rooting for you.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
But take this for what it's worth. I've started a modest PR campaign to try and make a more persuasive case for the 2.3 million open positions that actually existed in 2009, even with 11 million unemployed. And I said, you know, a lot of those jobs that are open right now require the willingness to pick up a shovel. And employers are having a terrible time recruiting for all sorts of reasons.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
But many of those reasons are not the ones you think. The trades have been bedeviled for years by stigmas and stereotypes and myths and misperceptions that have dissuaded a whole generation from giving them an honest look. I believe that happened in the 80s and 90s when we pulled shop class out of high school. And I think the chickens really came home to roost back in 09.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
So my letter to Obama simply said, look, I'm at your disposal. Dirty Jobs is a big show. We're on in 140 countries. I'm invited constantly to go out into the world to speak about this. And my foundation is legitimate.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And bottom line, I think you're going to have an easier job filling these 3 million shovel-ready jobs if we can somehow make a more persuasive case for the shovel-ready jobs that already exist and perhaps acknowledge that our country has a dysfunctional relationship with shovels to begin with. Anyway, no wrong answer, but I put it out there in a big way, and I kind of leaned into it.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And I didn't really expect him to call me back. I'm famous at that point for crawling through sewers, and I guess maybe it was a little douchey to make that – public. But I wanted to call some attention to my foundation, and I truly did and do believe that this was a fundamental oversight. Creating jobs is different than creating enthusiasm. The skill gap is different than the will gap.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
You know, are we in the show now? Should I be as interesting as I can?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And I made all of these points in my letter. And the reason I went to CPAC, to answer your question, is that here we are 16 years later, and we have a president who is promising to reinvigorate American manufacturing. And you know something? I'm pulling for him. I want to see more reshoring. I want to see more factories come back to this country. I would like to see all of that happen.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
But I'm going to the BLS website and looking at the same numbers that your listeners can see. Right now, there are 563,000 open positions in manufacturing alone. There's 7.6 million open jobs, most of which don't require a four-year degree. There's 7.2 million able-bodied men who are not only not in the workforce, they've affirmatively punched out. They're not looking for work.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
The will gap is real. It doesn't need to be a big political retrospective on greedy, rapacious capitalists versus the lazy fault in our stars. It doesn't have to be that. But we can't ignore the fact that over half a million jobs are currently open in the very sector that he wants to reinvigorate by creating a couple million new jobs.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
If we don't have an honest conversation about the workforce and the incredible out of balanced nature in between these, I mean, I don't think it's accurate to to describe blue versus white collar anymore.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
But the evidence does demand a verdict. Steamfitters, pipefitters, mechanics, welders, my god, electricians, HVAC, those are the jobs that I'm trying, that I'm focused on, right? Jobs that require training, not necessarily a four-year degree. And Dan, they are in short supply.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
The best example I'll give you, and I promise end of filibuster after this, but I think I mentioned to you offline, Blue Forge Alliance, the company that oversees the maritime industrial base.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
These guys, this is 15,000 independent companies who are collectively tasked with building our submarines. They've got to deliver a couple of Virginia and a Columbia class sub. Every year, three nuclear-powered subs for the next 10 years. The cadence is not negotiable. We have to have them. Things go hypersonic with Taiwan and China. Our aircraft carriers are not in great shape.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
These submarines matter. These guys call me to say, Mike, we love the work with your foundation, and we would like to know if you can help us find some tradespeople. I say, how many do you need? They say 100,000. $100,000 for one entity that most of your listeners have never heard of that oversees 15,000 companies that are only tasked with the pointy part of our spear vis-a-vis national defense.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
They need 100,000 people. They say, do you know where they are? We can't find them. I said, yeah, I do know where they are, man. They're in the eighth grade. And I think... I think the reason you can justify to your listeners why we spent 20 minutes talking about what's persuasive, what's convincing to this generation is because that's precisely what I said at CPAC.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
These guys, along with the automotive industry, by the way, who have 70,000 open positions in auto technicians alone, you can go down the list. There's millions and millions of open jobs. We need to understand what is persuasive to Gen Z. And then we need to persuade them to give these opportunities an honest look. And if we don't,
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I know what I'm doing here. Well, everything you said resonates. But let me just add one thing to it from my perspective. It's super weird for me because I'm actually a fan of your show. Your podcast was literally the first actual podcast I listened to from start to finish maybe 10 years ago. And And so I have a, not to suck up, but I really respect what you've done and what you've built.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Our whole country is going to be caught up in a conversation not about, hey, did you know you could make six figures as a plumber? Or, hey, look, these plumbing companies really need more plumbers. They got a problem. It's not going to be about that. It's going to be about how long do Mr. and Mrs. Carlin want to wait for a plumber or an electrician when you really need one?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
How behind do you want the cadence for our nuclear-powered subs to get to? At what point do 330 million people actually realize that they have skin in this game and that whether it's the Democratic National Convention or CPAC or the White House or, like, if you guys really care who I'm talking to about this issue, then I... With great respect, I think you've missed the forest for the trees.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
The threat's real. It's existential.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Not to ambush you. No, you're not. But wasn't there a similar conversation in 1860? Yeah, about Irish people taking all the jobs. About the Irish, absolutely. But what about the slave population? Absolutely. The basic argument that... I'm not saying you are making it, but if you kind of distill it, we're saying, listen... We can't get 7.2 million American men to do this work, right?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
To get the work done, we're going to have to rely on a workforce that maybe don't consist of citizens. There, done. Easy, right? Well, actually, no. I don't think it's that easy. I think sometimes things need to go splat before they get better. And if we want to create an economy that incentivizes people to work – I'm not quite sure we can solve the problem you're describing.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Believe me, I get it. I know a lot of general contractors. I know a lot of people in construction. And it's not untrue to say that if you removed the Mexican contribution to the American construction industry, I'm not commenting on whether it's legal or illegal. I'm just saying, let's just... Take that race for a moment and imagine they don't work in construction. Well, guess what's getting built?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Nothing. Nothing. Now, I don't know how that should inform the debate about immigration. I totally get that they're related. But your earlier question, I think, is more important when you talk about what do you say to somebody who makes a career out of working at Burger King? What do you say about the argument when you say, well, wait a minute, this job is supposed to be a rung on a ladder.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
You're supposed to do it for a time. And it's crap pay. And you're not going to enjoy it, probably. It's really hard. Let's point that out. It's really hard. Yes, it's hard. You're on your feet. You're covered with grease. You're dealing with the public. It's customer service meets manual labor. There's all kinds of pressure. But It is what it is, and it's a really important job.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
But I also respect your audience because I'm part of the audience. But I also know that in my world, I have an audience and I think I know who they are. And you have an audience and I think I might know who they are.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And baked into that whole transaction is the idea that you're going to leave after six months or a year. And so if you arbitrage that out of the bargain, then we have no choice but to figure out how how to make that job sufficient to care for your family, I suppose. And now we've got a whole different problem, right? I mean, you're probably thinking of your first job right now.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I'm thinking of mine. I was an usher. you know, for United Artists. I was tearing tickets. And then I was selling the concessions. And then I was selling the tickets. I was a cashier. And then finally, I worked my way up to a projectionist. I went from $2.70 an hour to $13 an hour. And all of that ecosystem made so much sense to my brain.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I didn't like any of the jobs that led up to the one that I really liked. But I went through them and I had to do that. Sidebar, I just went to a theater in San Francisco and – The ticket was sold through a machine after I put in my credit card. The popcorn, same thing. It was basically robotically delivered to me. I paid for it.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I asked the manager when I was leaving what he was paying his projectionists, and he just laughed and showed me the giant disc that just pushed right into the machine. There's no film anymore. That whole ecosystem has changed, and here in California, Look, believe me, I know how much grief we'll get if we dive into the minimum wage, but God, the evidence demands a verdict. Those jobs are gone.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
The kiosks are here. The big fast food companies have atlas shrugged. Those jobs are gone. Those rungs are gone.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Well, I'll tell you, it's a sucker's bet, man. Trying to figure out, like on the one hand, it's so important to respect your audience and to understand them and to comprehend that on the most fundamental level, they are your boss. You are who, I mean, you work for them, right? But The moment, I believe, they sense you realize that, then all of a sudden, what are you doing now? Are you performing?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I think the people, I think when everything is working right, what happens is you can climb faster. I don't think the rungs fundamentally change in their inherent value.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Yeah, I bet. Well, look, this goes to nuance and it goes to the dangers of painting with too broad a brush. And, you know, we're so close to the thing that. really blew up in my face a few years ago, but I, I don't mind because, you know, talk about that though, man, talk about that.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I just want to bring you more grief and trouble than you already have. Unbelievable. This is uncommon sense. You will not be on the show again, probably. No, look, I really do feel I'm an open book, and I really do support many union efforts, but I don't support them all. And I've been honest about that because my foundation trains people So far, 2,200.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And a big percentage of them, 30%, 35%, work in unions. That's much higher than the national aggregate. Most are working in right-to-work states and are not in a union. So I don't have a real dog in that hunt. I think there's a difference between labor and work. And this foundation is called MicroWorks. And so I try and stay out of the eternal struggles between labor and
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
But it doesn't matter because to our earlier point, it's not what you say, it's what you don't say. And if I don't come out and universally embrace all unions, all solidarity, then I get pushback. I get real pushback. And I understand it. I was surprised and kind of disappointed. Might even hurt my feelings there back in 2004 and 2005 when it really came back at me.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
But I've since learned that, to your point, we really are in a kind of supply and demand thing. And I'll tell you a union story, a personal one, in a moment if you want to hear it. But with regard to your point, it's true that most of the plumbers I know today are making mid-six figures. It's true that many of them have come through my program. Same with electricians.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
It's true that most people don't believe you can make six figures welding or plumbing or doing electric. They just don't believe it. They haven't seen it. So a lot of what I do and a lot of why I do it is to simply say, I don't want to shove this down your throat, but I want your kids to understand there's a very short path to six figures working in the skilled trades. That's a...
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
To think otherwise is a misperception and a myth, and it needs to be debunked, and that's a lot of what I do. However, if you look at it through the lens of a union shop, would you rather have more plumbers than you need, the perfect amount of plumbers, or fewer plumbers?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
if you're one of those plumbers, would you rather have so much work that you can set your own schedule and your own rate and easily form your own going concern? Or would you want to have just enough to keep you busy for 40 hours? Or would you have too little, right? Clearly, if you're the union, you want scarcity. You want to represent scarcity.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
a number of plumbers that allow them to charge whatever they can get. And that's okay. I completely understand that rule in a micro economy. But in a macro economy, well, what does that do for people who share my addiction to indoor plumbing? Or affordable electricity. It's back to my earlier question, Dan.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
How long do you want to wait for that plumber who is so in demand that he can't unclog your nightmare of a commode for four or five days? How long should the country wait for the submarines to get built that we rely upon? So when you say, where do you draw that line? That is a fair question, and it is one that I have tried to answer, and I've paid a price for trying to answer it.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Are you telling them what you think they want to hear?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And I can live with that. All I would ask in return is to say, that's not really my fight. My fight is not to step between labor and management and make a more persuasive case for somebody's pay package. my fight is to step a bit further back and say, here's where the shortages exist in our country.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And that is such the right way to think about, I think, what's happening broadly in our country right now. The audience and the influencer have come together in such an odd melding. So too has the actual journalist with his or her audience and our elected officials and our experts in virtually every field. Because we all have the capability to broadcast right now,
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Ergo, here's where the opportunities exist for men and women who want to learn a skill that's in demand. And here is where the consequences lie if we don't plug this skills gap. It's going to affect everyone. So I'm not trying to hold myself above the labor management strife. It's real. It's important to a lot of people. And I don't begrudge it. It's just not my fight. My fight is different.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Thank you. I mean, it means a lot coming from you, truly. Because it's a hard sell, and it's a complicated thing to articulate sometimes. And there is something Ayn Randian about it. There's a class thing, too. I mean, there's a look down on thing involved also. I was going more for, I mean, for sure, the notion of vocational consolation. That's right. That's right. Exactly.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Look, if cookie cutter advice is indeed the enemy, and I think we agree that it is, how in the world are you to unpack free college for all, or everyone should go to college? When you use words like everyone and all, as a lot of elected officials did when they were getting behind this universal push for college, the language matters, and you immediately relegate
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
these other muscular trades, let's call them, to something subordinate. And that's been happening ever since we took shop class out of high school. The language matters enormously. If we're to talk about higher education and its benefits over here, don't we de facto have to acknowledge the existence of lower education. Now, we don't call it that because that'd be a bit too on the nose.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
We call it alternative education, the kind of education for your brother, in other words, or a lot of people that my foundation tries to encourage and help. These things, if you position them as alternatives to that group of people who are not either intellectually or otherwise suited for a four-year pursuit, you've already set the table.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
We all have the capability to develop our own audience. Our perspective in some way has become really... oddly redefined and like, like in real time, the president is going to speak tonight. He's going to address the, the, the, the Congress and, and the, and the country and the portent is going to be huge, but millions of people are going to listen to it.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And you've already told society it's okay to look at this class of workers through a fairly fishy eye, right? Now, my point with Rand, and I'm not a Randian, just to be clear about it, although I did enjoy the books, is that I'm not doing this because I'm altruistic, right?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I'm not doing this because I feel sorry for this group of people who can't find work or sorry for this group of employers who can't make a more persuasive case for the opportunities that exist there. My philanthropy is selfish. I wasn't kidding. You laughed when I said it because it is a laugh line, but I am addicted to
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
to indoor plumbing and smooth roads laughing again sorry i am addicted we're all addicted to that man that's where it starts dan it starts with gratitude it starts with a shared understanding that if the people i profiled on dirty jobs all call in sick for a week the party's over yeah
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And so it's very easy not to be properly gobsmacked by the miracle of this Riverside connection made possible by some guys who buried the fiber optic lines that you and I will never actually see that allow us to have the conversation that we're having. It's very easy to lose our wonder. You flick the switch and the light comes on. Big freaking deal. You flush the toilet and the crap goes away.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who cares? Right up until it doesn't. So yeah, I spend a lot of time talking about the fact that we've lost our wonder in the work that guys like your brother do. Because what happens when we start to really rely on something or somebody? It's funny how reliance is so adjacent to... Oh, resentment. How funny that we start to resent the things we rely on. I know I do.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I'd shake my fist at the construction worker who's made me late for my appointment because he's putting in an on-ramp that allows me to get onto the highway. We get frustrated when the power goes out. We have no patience. We have no tolerance when we get pulled back you know, a century or so because there's no electricity. But rather than applaud the linemen, we shake our fists at them.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
What's taking so long? What is going on? We had four days where I live without electricity a couple of years ago. I reckon we were two days from Lord of the Flies.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And then they're immediately going to go and, into influencer mode or in spreader mode. And that's different than audience mode. And so everything is always constantly shifting. And if I were to try and land the plane with this point, it would just be to say that I've never felt such whipsaw going back and forth between a consumer of news and
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Well, I mean, that's their job, right? They they they have to make they have to use bromides and platitudes. They have to trade in tropes and cookie cutter advice because they're looking to get elected. They they have. And we won't listen if it's too deep either. Well, that's probably true as well. But look, I'm. I'm micro works. They're macro works.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And I would think if I were on the macro side of things and if I were trying to cast the widest net possible, and by the way, I'm not. I'm looking at individuals. We have work ethic scholarships. You've got to sign a sweat pledge. You've got to jump through hoops. You've got to do all kinds of personal. I'm not trying to help the max. That's the way to say it.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And I get crap for this too, but I obviously don't care anymore. I'm not trying to help the maximum number of people. I'm trying to help a number of people that can constitute a critical mass who share my view of the world, who three, four, five years later I can sit down with and say, how's it going?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And listen to a story of a kid who took a $6,000 welding certification and turned it into a $3 million a year mechanical contracting business with three vans and half a dozen buddies who work in HVAC and plumbing. I'm looking for that guy. because his story is not anecdotal. His is real.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And if I can get his story in front of more kids like your brother who are coming into the workforce, that moves the needle in a big way. That's another reason I went to CPAC. I'm not trying to... I'm not trying to turn Microworks into some sort of .gov thing, but I'll take the help wherever I can get it.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I have 10 times the applicants for scholarships this morning as I did one year ago today, 10 times. So I know I'm kind of freelancing here, but to get back to your question, what would I do if I were on the macro side of things?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Yeah. If I were on some advisory council, I would say, look, linguistically, we must abandon words like all and everyone and never. Right. They don't apply. I get you have to talk to the masses, but you can't say the best path for the most people is the most expensive path. You can't do that and then scratch your head and wonder why it's 94 grand a year at Duke now.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
How could college get so expensive, they say to me. Well, how could it not, dude? You told a whole generation that they were screwed if they didn't get your piece of paper. And then you took shop class out of high school. And then you turned the working class into a punchline in virtually every social way that you can. Of course, of course college got expensive. Of course it did.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
What you need to do, Mr. Elected Official, is embrace the math. If you don't like my politics or if you don't like my phraseology or my examples or if you don't believe that stigmas and stereotypes are keeping kids out of the trades, then just look at the math. Five retire and two come in. It's been that way in the trades for over a decade, for every five who leave to come in.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
This, as Lincoln said, referring to something else entirely, is some really terrible arithmetic. Right? It's terrible math. And one thing math is, last I checked and always will be, well, I won't say always, at the risk of being a hypocrite. Violating your own rule. Violating my own dictum. But math doesn't care how you vote. Math doesn't care what you think. Five leave, two come in.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
That should be enough to scare the bejesus out of any elected official who has even a passing interest in keeping smooth roads, indoor plumbing, and affordable electricity somewhere near the top of the food chain. The math is what you've got to worry about, guys. We're not suffering. in this country right now from a lack of people with four-year degrees.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
a quasi-reporter of news, a fan of current events, a curious private citizen, a guy with a podcast, a guy with a TV show, a guy talking to you right now. And it's just a phenomenally odd time to be in our line of work.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
We're suffering from a lack of people who enthusiastically want to pursue the 7.6 million jobs that are currently open. Marco Rubio, okay, you'll love this. This really answers your question, I think. Better than anything else I can tell you. I watched the debates back in 2016.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I looked at 17 Republicans on stage and listened as Reince Priebus talked about the most extraordinary assemblage of options, right? So funny. We've got this one. We've got him. We've got her. Anybody but the guy in the middle, ironically. But whatever. There they are. And they have their debate. And Marco Rubio steps up at one point. And he has a great line, gets a ton of applause.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
We're talking about this basic topic. And Marco says, what the country needs, right? We don't need more philosophy majors. We need more welders. Crowd goes wild. Hour or so later, I go over to the interwebs. I check my socials. I have thousands of people saying, hey, man, this guy's singing your song, isn't he? And I said, oh, crap. No, no, no, that's not the song. That's not the song.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
We don't need that. It's like what we need are more philosophers who can run an even bead. And we need more welders who can have an intelligent conversation about Nietzsche and Descartes, right? And Kant. We need people... who are intellectually curious, but still able to build the school where we send the eggheads. That's what I meant too about the Howard Rourke and the whole Randian take.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
It's the muddy boots architect. It's the guy, it's the well-balanced worker who is still curious enough to understand that 90% of all the known information in the world is right there. If you have an iPhone, an internet connection, you have a liberal arts degree right in your pocket if you give a damn and if you're curious enough.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I just watched a lecture at MIT for free, for free on my iPhone, for God's sake. So I say this all the time to the people who apply to our work ethic scholarship program. It's like liberal arts is not your enemy, man. It's actually your friend. I just can't recommend you spend 200 grand to go get a piece of paper that proves the point.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
There are so many ways you can enrich your life, even as you master a skill that's in demand. So look, what I mean to say, and I'm probably guilty of the same sin. Maybe I overpromote the muscular trades because... The four-year college for all thing has been over-promoted as well. Maybe... Maybe that's just the nature of PR. Maybe it always goes too far. It certainly did with college.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
We weren't content to make the case for a four-year experience on its merits. We had to say, and if you don't do that, you're going to wind up over here turning a wrench, laboring in some filthy pit of despair and so forth. That's what PR does, Dan. It always goes too far in our attempt to persuade people We usually step out of our lane and say some fool-headed thing. And I hope I didn't do that.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I hope I don't do that. But I'm just plagued, to answer your question, by the math. We're not suffering from that right now. We're suffering in the same way the maritime industrial base is articulated. We've got a real skill gap compounded by a will gap, and it applies to a very specific set of jobs. And those things, I'll probably oversell it.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Look, man, I... maybe I don't know your audience that well. All I know is that I'm a part of it.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Well, look, I think everything we've talked about is relatable in some way. I think the things that are on most everyone's mind in some way, shape, or form, to some relative degree, are exactly what we've been talking about. Everyone is struggling to figure out kind of what's going on, but maybe even how they fit into whatever the new order is, who they are.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Are they an audience member or an influencer? Are you blue collar? Are you white collar? Everything feels fraught and everything feels binary. And a lot of things certainly do feel like we're the paint in the can that's being spread around with too broad a brush. So many assumptions are being made about so many of us. Look, maybe I shouldn't have gone to CPAC.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Maybe, maybe it's a mistake for me to think that micro works could ever be macro works. Um, maybe I should just stay in my own lane and count my blessings. I have many, but you know, a year ago we gave away a million dollars this month, this month, a year later, we're giving away two and a half. And like I said, we have 10 times the applicants. I,
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I talk to captains of industry and billionaires all of the time, and I've never really asked them for anything. And I think maybe I'm going to change my mind. I think now I'm going to say, look, I'm certainly not going to ask the taxpayers for any money, but why don't you give me a pile of dough? And why don't you let me do more of what we're doing already?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And why don't we get behind some kind of national effort? to reinvigorate the trades and remind people that it's still really possible to prosper as the result of learning a skill that's in demand and going to work. I've said a lot of bad things about PR, authenticity, authority. But look, one thing is for sure. PR does matter. It gets people elected. It sells soap. But it also shapes people.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
our collective relationship with lots of big things you're old enough to remember keep america beautiful you're old enough to remember iron eyes cody iron eyes cody crying at the litter weeping like a baby and i remember crying with him our country in you know the 50s and 60s we had a we had a dysfunctional relationship, nevermind green, but this was just basic pollution and littering. Totally.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I mean, there was no stigma, Dan. Like you saw it in Mad Men. They'd go on a picnic and they'd just leave all their shit behind. Nobody cared. Nobody cared. It was like, there's no stigma to throw it out the window. How do you change? How do you create a stigma? How do you influence people? A positive stigma, right? A positive stigma. What's persuasive?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
So you got Woodsy the owl, you got Smokey the bear, you got all this iconography, you got a weeping Indian who's actually an Italian actor, but whatever, people bought it, you know? And it took 10 years, but by every measurable metric, the campaign to keep America beautiful affirmatively changed the behavior of millions of people.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And that campaign was a function of some NGOs, some government money, some concerned citizens, and some big corporations like Coca-Cola who threw a bunch of money behind it and wound up with a lot of media. The National Ad Council was responsible for that. It worked. What do we need today? We need some kind of messaging that breaks the spell of college for all.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
We need to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you can make six figures working with your hands and live a happy and balanced life. We need to elevate and celebrate the people who have done that. That's what MicroWorks has tried to do for the last 16 years, and I believe we're rounding a corner.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I think that there is an opportunity to go out with a national message that tells the stories of regular people who have crushed it as a result of taking the path I espouse. Now, I don't know if it's on the same scale as Keep America Beautiful. I don't know if the feds play a role in it. I do know that I've worked with half a dozen governors.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I do know the success rates for this in South Dakota are off the charts. Kelly Ayo, I think, is going to do something in New Hampshire. We're talking in Nevada. You get a philanthropist to throw up a bunch of money. The governor matches it. Then we come in to tell the stories, and you've got a scholarship fund earmarked for kids who want to learn a skill or master a trade. I've seen it work.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I think something has to happen. And I can't for the life of me decide if it's beyond my pay grade or not. But I'm game to find out. It's why I mentioned to you offline that crazy conversation with Bobby Kennedy a year ago. And look, this is not my bag, man. I'm not a political animal. I was deeply flattered and freaked out when he asked if I wanted to run with him.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Oh, all right. Well, yeah, Bobby Kennedy asked if I wanted to be his vice president about a year ago. And obviously the answer is no, but I couldn't say it. I just couldn't dismiss such an outrageous offer out of hand. In fact, I looked over my shoulder, Dan, expecting to find a camera crew punking me. You know, like, really, Bobby? Seriously? I'd never talked to him before. I didn't know him.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I went to his home. I met his team. We talked for three or four hours. He was the one who said, look, I know we disagree on a long list of things. I know that. I've actually sued some of the people who support your foundation on the environmental side. I know that. But the stakes are awfully high. You know, I think we're on the same page with chronic disease and forever wars, whatever that means.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And I know we're on the same page with the middle class and with reinvigorating the trades. So run with me. Micro works will become macro works. We will close the skills gap. What do you say? That was intoxicating.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I, I was so, uh, yeah. Yeah, it really was. And it still is. And I'm still in touch with him. I don't know how to behave or how to think really or function in that world. But I'm taking meetings now that I would have politely declined out of hand years ago. And it's not because I have any skin in the political game. I would just refer you back to the first genuine letter I posted to Barack Obama.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Nothing has changed. I want our country to be enthused by all opportunities equally. And I want our country to make the things we rely upon. And I want us to be less dependent. I don't want us to be isolationist by any stretch, but I want us to be reliant, self-reliant to whatever extent we can. And that means
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
That doesn't mean being okay with seven two-point million able-bodied men choosing not to work. That's busted, too. I don't know how to fix it. But that's a thing, and it's right in front of us. And I think we ignore that at our peril.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And thank you for saying it because I am no enemy of college. I am no enemy. Of a four-year degree. Me either. My liberal arts education served me very well.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
But damn, it was 1984. It was two years at a community college and two and a half years at a university, and the total bill was $12,400. A man can live with that, yeah. Today, same exact course load, same exact schools, $94,000. Nothing changed. in the history of Western civilization, not energy, not health care, not real estate, not food.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Nothing has ever become so exponentially more expensive over such a period of time as a four-year degree. So look, the value of a thing and the cost of a thing, you can't talk about one without that. They're related, yes. Of course. So I completely agree with you. How are we going to get the cost of college down?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Unfortunately, you know, it's, well, look, they're making it easier than they've ever made it.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Well, and also, I mean, I'm not sure it's current events anymore, but, you know, that whole plagiarism thing, that's a bad look. Those protests, Claudine Gay, UPenn, Liz McGill, that's a bad look. You know, a lot of parents looked at that and kind of cringed. You know, $52 billion in endowments and...
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
1.7% tax on it and all the screaming against raising the tax on the endowment, that's a bad look. Higher ed is, talk about bad PR. They've made my job. Why do I have 10 times the applicants that I did a year ago? I think in part because a lot of parents are looking around and a lot of kids, too, and saying, yep, that's just too expensive.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Oh, and by the way, I don't like what they're saying over there. I just I'm just not really comfortable. with what's happening in our greatest institutions. So for a lot of reasons, I think they've made some unforced errors and I think they're suffering from some self-inflicted wounds. We haven't changed. I'm not saying anything different today than I did 16 years ago.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
We have to make a more persuasive case for these opportunities. And I would have been happy to work with President Obama And I would work with President Trump. And I don't know to what degree or how closely or how badly I'll get burned. I really don't. But I've worked with unions, and God knows I've taken it in the neck for some past comments on that as well.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
But I just don't know how else to have the conversation. I can't tiptoe around every third rail because I'm afraid of being boycotted, as I was with Walmart. Oh, my God. It happens. It happens.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Imagine the same thought process applied to, I don't know, pick a category. How about food? How about I no longer eat in restaurants that have anything on the menu that I don't like? I will only dine in a restaurant that has- I thought you were being serious for a second.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I'm like, really? No, I was just saying- Yeah, I get it, yeah. But imagine, I mean, like that, it's the same thought process. It's like, I can't listen to this podcaster unless I agree with 100% of what she says. I can't watch this show. I can't read this book. I can't eat this food. I can't clear my plate unless I love everything on it. I can't go to this restaurant. I can't go to this school.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
right? I mean, we have put ourselves, on the one hand, we've lowered our standards so far that I scarcely know how to think about it. On the other hand, we're so demanding of the places we go. We're so enamored of Glassdoor and Yelp, I mean, who listening hasn't checked Rotten Tomatoes before watching a movie on a plane or Yelp before going to a restaurant? We're so eager.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I mean, this is probably a good place to land the plane, though I'll talk to you all day. But I mean, it really brings it back to the audience, right? It brings it back to the audience, and it brings it back to the influencer, and it brings it back to the entrepreneur. We're in a world now— where we get to be the customer. We get to sit there. We get to be the consumer.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And then we get to go home and be the critic. And then we get to be the observer and sit back and watch the response to our criticism. Hmm, who agrees with me? Who disagrees with me? And what's wrong with them? I think I'll mix it up with this guy. And then we'll gin up the outrage.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Half and half and half and half only somehow applied to velocity. I listened... to one of your earlier addendums. Great title, by the way. Right up there with disclaimer, footnote, endnote, parenthetical, and who gives a crap.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
That's right. Look, there's not much new to say other than in the immortal words of Walt Disney, you must be this tall to get on the ride. And you are. You are, Dan Carlin. You're on the ride and you've got an audience and you've got an enormous brain and you've got a big curious mind and you have an obligation that you feel, whether it's real or justified, is beside the point.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I was so touched the other day when we spoke on the phone about whether or not to do this. I so relate to the basic quandary of, you know, you don't want to complain about the fact that you parachuted into a minefield, but nor do you wish to blow yourself up during your exit. You care so much about the work that you do, and you care about the people who listen to you,
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And that duty of care is wonderful. And the fact that you give a damn and the fact that you take the criticisms personally, that's a consummation devoutly to be wished. That's the essence of responsibility and character if you're going to wander into this miasma.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I just – I was so glad to hear – I was so glad to commiserate with you around this because this will sound horribly elitist, but it's a short list of people who actually –
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
You want it to be a good one. You don't want it to be the guy in the church basement jumping rope with his own arms just because he was bored.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I would watch it, too. That sizzle reel show has a home somewhere. Look, man, I'll leave you with this. Again, I'm repeating myself. Me too. Two things regarding Travis McGee. Be wary of all earnestness. It still holds up. And the only sensible way to get through this crazy life is with the attitude of a vaudevillian clown. Embrace the work ethic. Show up every day. Do your job.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Dot, ellipses, dot, dot, dot. Yeah. But you told a great story. I think it was, you say you won a revolution, right? And you were talking about a sizzle reel that you put together. Yeah. Well, I mean, my life is sizzled.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And when you get the pie in the face, you know, eat a piece. Smile. You must be this tall to get on the ride, dude. And you are. And I am so glad.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
I'm so grateful that nine and a half years ago, when I listened to you go on by yourself at three and a half hours at double speed, making me smarter about the First World War, that we get to sit here today, nearly a decade later, and talk about all the trouble in the world. and still find a way to laugh a little.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Dude, I'm fine. Believe me. I survived CPAC. I'll survive this. Fair enough. Hey, last thought, and this is a shameless plug, and I don't know, but for the dozen or so people still listening, I'm serious about the work ethic scholarships. We've got $2.5 million. We're giving it away right now in real time. It's at microworks.org.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
You've got to jump through some hoops, but if you or somebody in your world would benefit from learning a skill that's in demand, it would be my pleasure to assist.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
A buck a show is all we ask. Please go to dancarlin.com for information on how to donate to the show.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
Is that a good way to describe it? Exactly. In order to get the meeting that you need to have to sell the show that you think you want on the air, you need to do a treatment. You need to write it up. And then most producers today ask for a sizzle reel, which is just a... two or three minute, sometimes longer, but it's just an example of what your project will look like on the screen.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
And most executives today can't even contemplate a pitch without first seeing a sizzle, right? Because just like Moore's Law makes things smaller, imagination shrinks as well, and now we need to be shown. We need to be shown everything, Dan, everything all of the time. Well, I was laughing as you told the story of the sizzle reel you put together, right? For two reasons.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
First of all, I pitched a show to Discovery years ago called Sizzle Reel, which was just a collection of all the sizzle reels that had failed. That's actually brilliant. It was hysterical, but it required so much navel-gazing, and it required people who were never laughing to be in on the joke, right?
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum
EP32 The Show with Mike Rowe
If you're a producer or an executive, you've got to be willing to take the piss out of your own notion, and that's what failed sizzle reels do. So I couldn't get that on the air, but your story made me think... of one of the very first pitches I was ever involved in. And it happened because I went to a church basement one evening to watch a talent show.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Probably not, but because we're adaptable creatures, right? I mean, he and I used to have a shorthand years ago. Basically, the question was how many squares? You're in November. How many squares did you fill or how many squares are filled? Because most months started with 30 blank squares. And that is terrifying if you have no safety net.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
It's terrifying if there's no other certainty in your life and you're just living in this completely kind of random universe. But it also builds something like resilience and hope.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
I mean, I've listened to a lot of what you've said over the years. And to me, it just seems like the great balancing act that people are constantly trying to navigate is the certainty uncertainty principle.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
And the headlines today. Talk about our country for a minute. What are you worried about right now vis-a-vis the level of uncertainty? And is that informing some of the headlines and the drama?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
If people crave certainty, and of course they do, the media knows that. So the media is very long in certainty. And that's why you have a lot of certain sounding people who all kind of sound the same when they tell you the news. And they're all doing their thing. They're all in their trope. And they're all feeding that need to feel certain. But when you're certain, there's no need to be skeptical.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
And if you're not skeptical, right, then you'll buy anything. That's right. If you stand for nothing, you'll fall for everything. Fall for anything, yeah. And so I think that the country right now is really, really wrestling with this because, well, I'll just name some names. Sure. Because Anthony Fauci sounded really certain. Because every elected official during that time sounded certain.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
There was a lot of nodding and there was a lot of soothing tones. And it was a kind of infantilizing. Yeah, that's a great word for it. That's how I felt. It was like suddenly I'm surrounded by people in charge of our most important institutions who are talking to me like I'm 10. What is happening with that?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
In fact, if you don't, you can't come in.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
It's the boy who cried wolf.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Yeah. It's also attached to every other thing. everything becomes a talisman, right? It's not just a mask. If you're wearing one, you believe in these other things. It's all tangential, right? And if you're not, well, then somehow or another, you're a climate denier. In fact, you can just put denier after everything.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
What used to be thought of, I think, as kind of a skeptical take, you know, Michael Shermer, well, I mean, he's a skeptic society, right? I mean, His whole worldview is rooted in, I doubt that, and I'm going to doubt it until I don't, and maybe you can persuade me, and maybe you can't. Well, that attitude today is, that just makes you a denier.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
So again, if certainty and uncertainty get too far out of balance, then- the inertia of all of it kicks in and now suddenly nothing can be trusted over here. And maybe that's not so bad for knuckleheads like us who are podcasting and sub stacking and strong opinions weekly held is where I'm at, right?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Yes. Right. And certainty is the enemy of that. That's right. That's the biggie. It's like the minute you feel the comforting wash of certainty come over you, whether it's the climate, whether it's your elected official of choice, whether it's it just doesn't matter what it is. But the minute you start to really feel sure, the genuinely interesting and curious person goes, what am I missing?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
So when's the last time that you really affirmatively changed your mind in a way that like you heard your mind go, oh, I was very sure. And now I'm very wrong.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Well, actually, the reason I'm asking you is because I think you're really having a good time doing what you're doing. That's my impression of it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Right? And part of the reason I believe that is because you're still doing it. We were having this conversation the other day, the separating of the wheat from the chaff in podcastlandia. It's happening now, right? But five, six years ago, when we met, It was so nascent and it was growing so fast that you could really suck and still somehow find an audience.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Say action or begin or off we go.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
People were just coming to it and it wasn't so noisy and it wasn't so crowded. And today, it's a very different deal. And I have to figure out, am I going to put my big boy pants on in this space? We get our share. People like the show, but I do it once a week. And I do it because I like it and I enjoy talking to people. But you're at a whole other level. How many shows do you do a week? Three.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
That's a lot for a long form, right?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
So the reason I'm asking you about this is you've interviewed how many people?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
And not just random Joes, big thinkers.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
The show that we dare not speak its name.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Good point. I'm certain he did.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
I don't know how I feel about that.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
That is not a new show. Hey, first of all, thank you for returning the favor. We first met 2017, 16, something like that.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
This whole idea that two things can be true at the same time is vexing. It's vexing. For me, since you mentioned immigration, I talk a lot about the skills gap in this country. There's not a single construction company that I know of, and I know a lot of them, who aren't behind in every single project that they're working on.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
And they're behind because they can't staff up for every five tradespeople who retire to replace them. Every year that's been going on for decades. Well, 15, 16 years. Wow. And if you took the immigrants, if you took the illegal immigrants out of the equation, it would be much worse than it is.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
The first time we met, I had like 102 fever. You came over to one union recording in San Francisco where I had to talk like this about crab fishermen for about three hours. And then you came in and we did our thing. And driving home, I said, I have absolutely no idea how that went. I had already started to forget it. You know how you get in that fever state. Oh, yeah.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
And so what we're left with is this really uncomfortable kind of thing, right? And you'll find no bigger fan of the working man or school trades. That's my jam. And I'm sincere about it. But there's no getting around it. It's not just a skills gap. It's a will gap. Oh, yeah.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
And we're just not willing to take advantage of the opportunities that so clearly exist. That's a real problem. I think I've changed some people's minds.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
When I talk about, listen, this is not an ephemeral topic. This is your house, right? This is supply chain. This is where our food comes from. This is where our energy comes from. So riff on that, if you will, because I think it impacts everybody.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
And we have to figure out how to talk about it, right? I mean, Bernie Sanders put a 32-hour workweek bill in front of Congress last week, or maybe it was the week before, with no drop in pay. So this is an extraordinary thing, right?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
And when we started MicroWorks 16 years ago, the first little umbrella under which we all tried to come around, the first thing we could agree on was work is not the enemy. But it is, man. Work has become the proximate cause of people's misery. And I'm not saying that all jobs are pleasant. I'm agreeing violently with you, but it just seems like it's back to the infantilizing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
It's like, we need people to save us from work so we can retire sooner. Retire from what? What happens when you retire? I mean, not a single study indicates anything good. Talk about changing your mind about something. If you can get the masses to think differently about the benefits of retiring, everything would change. But that's a neat trick.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
And that's going to be hard to do because we're certain that retirement equals happiness. And we're certain that hard work leads to misery.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
And in so many surprising spaces. Surprising places, yeah. It's incredible where you can get your fluids, really. I mean, if you're focused on it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
That's true. It's amazing. But Jordan, it won't surprise us because we worked at a movie theater when we were kids. Teenagers. Yeah. We each did our time at United Artists.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
It was one of the first multiplexes in the country, Golden Ring Mall. So yeah, concessions, tickets, ushers.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
And then a couple of years later, you came back skinnier, fitter.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
You put a bunch of people in the dark and throw some suggestive images up on the screen. You reap what you sow. What was your first job? The movie theater.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
And what did you learn doing that job that you still use today?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
I was skinnier. I was fitter. I wasn't sick. And we had a great conversation. Yeah, that's right. And now here you sit at MicroWorks World Headquarters. I have so many questions for you.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
You'd write your own ticket.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Tell me what happened when you left the show that they're not speaking.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
And you hung out basically a new shingle, which means you're starting from zero.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
So what did your team do at that point? Did you have to just rehire?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
There'll be no money.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
I don't know how I feel about that. I mean, of course I do. It's an honor to sign a bottle for somebody who wants to share a weed ram with me in memory of my granddad. But yeah, man, it's a strange thing to write your name on glass or paper or anything glossy and then hand it to people. I mean, are you dealing with that now? Are you signing autographs everywhere you go?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Well, I mean, that's awesome. It rhymes in a weird way with your departure from Wall Street with your boss being like, hey, you know, maybe you don't have to keep coming in.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Maybe hoping that you still would. Like the whole notion of the slow no is one of the great tortures in the universe, especially in an airport, right? When they push your flight 20 and then 20 and then another 20.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Man, it's just talk about uncertainty.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
I'm sure the plane's going to take off. I just don't know that's going to happen today. Yeah. And I would really like to know.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
But I wonder too, like your relationship to debt. Like how do you feel? Yes. When you owe someone, not just money, but something, because there are lots of people who sleep like a baby. They've been at that their whole life. They're so used to it and they don't think they're ever going to get out of it. So they just adjust.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Where'd you go?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
You'd better be certain.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
You'd better be damn certain you're on the right path. Exactly. I mean, it's a big-
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
You might as well borrow $100,000 and buy $100,000 worth of lottery tickets.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
At that point. I mean, it's not just a bad idea. There are plenty of bad ideas and people make mistakes, but that bad idea... is packaged as an investment in your future.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
It's not even discussed as debt. I mean, the pressure we put on kids to borrow more money than they're ever going to be able to pay back when they are so profoundly uncertain. Absolutely. You're a podcaster by way of a law degree with a pit stop in Wall Street. There's no major for that.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Yeah, man. The health team infrared pain reliever. That's right. Hot damn. So how then do you think about debt forgiveness, student loan forgiveness?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
You know what's funny? I met Shaquille O'Neal in One Union, that place where you came to interview me. Have you ever seen him in real life?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
What about the incentives for the universities? I mean, how is forgiving a trillion dollars in debt going to encourage universities to lower their tuition?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
We might as well charge as much as possible.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Oh, and by the way, Harvard, $52 billion endowment right now. Yeah. $52 billion. Yeah. But that's on paper, Mike. That's just on paper.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Pass the paper. What did you learn on Wall Street, if anything? that was as beneficial or more than those lessons learned scraping up the unmentionable hardened fluids from the floor of darkened theaters.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
It's foolish to say, boy, he's big because right. People understand that. Right. But until you shake his hand, until you like have a meal with him or something. Right. You don't understand every single part of his body. His fingernails are like the size of my ears. His fingers themselves are like forearms. His forearms are like thighs. Right. He loved Dirty Jobs.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Also important.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Unless you're in a darkened theater scraping up fluids.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Do you worry? You're in the advice business. You're coaching essentially, right? I mean that's your real gig, right?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
So you change people's minds. Yes. I'm assuming Shermer was a Sunday guest.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
So do you worry about Not that you would give cookie cutter advice, but you have a big audience.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
And what's really true and really important for somebody to hear at any given moment might be really antithetical to somebody else who's in the same room.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
So like advice is a, you know.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
It is very individualistic, but you're not podcasting to individuals. You're podcasting.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
And he came up to me the first time, so friendly. And he kind of hugged me, which is super awkward because my head goes into like his navel, right? And then I laughed and I must have said something funny because he bent down and he put his arm around me and he stood up. I say it that way deliberately because it didn't feel like he picked me up. Right.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
I wrote about it in my book. But the business of being conned, the whole Madoff thing as a Wall Street guy, that must have really chapped your ass. And I've been in multi-level organizations.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
I have. Really? Yeah. I sold, there's a company called NSA. And it's not the National Security Agency. It's the National Safety Associates. And they make water purifiers. And they make all different sizes. These little thermos-sized things. They make big ones for your house. But I think they were out of Nashville, somewhere in the south. And they, it's a huge organization.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
And it's all built on a pyramid. But I liked the product. There was a lot of chlorine in the water in Baltimore. You know, and you could really smell it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Yep. Simple charcoal filter with a little silver stuff added to purify it and whatnot. Anyway, it made my water taste good. So I got into the organization just to retail the product because the wholesale difference was significant and I made money doing it. And then some friends came in and they made some money.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
But yeah, you peel back the layers and there are a lot of people who really are just moving thousands of water purifiers from one garage to another.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Well, in many cases, but not dumb people in a classic sense. Greedy people, for sure. Impatient people.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
For sure. People who can tolerate huge levels of uncertainty. Yeah. For sure.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
It just felt like he stooped and then stood again. And suddenly we were at eye level and he was holding me like two feet off the ground. It's like Darth Vader.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Well, look, I mean, last thing I want to do is make unnecessary problems for us, Chuck. Oh, geez. Well, look, I make my living in advertising.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
I mean, I sold out before I had anything to bargain with. QVC was the ultimate. And I got my start in TV on a 24 hour commercial. I understand the transactional reality of things. And I personally find it adorable when actors will refuse to associate themselves with a, who was it? I think it was Bill Peterson. Who did what? Great actor years ago. And I met like NCIS or one of those shows.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
He's in a shot. And the Chevy pulls up. Oh, right, right, right. And the camera actually tilts down just a little bit to hit the logo on the grill. And Bill was like, what the hell is going on here? And they were like, well, it's nothing, Bill. Sorry. You know, Chevy's a sponsor. And he's like, well, I'm not going to have anything to do with this. And it was like, well. That's weird.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
But, you know, the sponsors are paying the network and we're paying you. And look, if that's too much, you know, I mean, we'll do the shot again. But he's like, no, I'm not going to be anywhere in this shot. If that truck's in the shot. Right. So integrity. Right. But come on, man, you're in commercial television.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Right. Because the difference between commercial being in commercial television, being in a commercial is no different. Sorry, it's not. And so it's interesting where you make your stand.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
And in podcast landia, I've struggled a little bit. because it seems like the entire ecosystem is fueled by a certain kind of call to action.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
That's right. In seconds, you'll hear an ad and I'm going to invite you to go somewhere and there'll be a promo code like Mike. Now, I don't mind it because people need to know how they're doing, but I'm curious for you, how did you navigate that world? And I know you only work with sponsors that you use. Yes. Same here. But how do you find them? Do you approach them?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Chuck's hating that I'm opening this door this late in the show, but I'd be remiss if I didn't ask. Did you learn anything from getting kidnapped other than it's probably not great? Yeah. Avoid it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
How'd you get out of the car?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
That's how this episode ends.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
The second time. This is not your day, gringo. This is not your lucky day.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Oh, God, I wish this was recording.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
You don't want to go there.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
You dodged a bullet, obviously.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
So do you think of it often? Does it inform conscious decisions today?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Chuck, send a bill to Blake McCluskey over at Tom's Shoes. Sure. Just call it a, oh, how would we put this?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Don't judge, man.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Yeah, back when you thought you were truly bulletproof. And it'll never happen. It'll just never happen to me.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Branded, spontaneous mention, first 10 minutes that went on for, yeah.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Well, this is how we land the plane. We end where we began with the incident that probably did more to inform your thoughts on uncertainty than anything else, because even in a foreign country, that patternicity that Shermer talks about, it's so rooted in us that even though we're surrounded by new things, it's still never gonna happen to us. That's right. It's never gonna happen.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
And when it does, you're right. You're not the star of the show. Well, or maybe you're not the hero.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Every single thing is always on the table.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Listen, I feel terrible not asking you about your second kidnapping experience, but when you come back on the show, what you're going to do.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
That's what we call a tease, my friends. By the way, how many podcasts have you been a guest on?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Okay, good. Are you making a lot of money on your podcast?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Be serious. How are we doing? Good. I mean, my feeling is, because again, this is not the big rock in my world, but I still struggle with this. You've got such sides. You've got sides on your podcast. You've got a purpose. And I think I kind of do because I kind of tried to have a conversation about work ethic and debt.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Tried to slip that in there.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
But fundamentally, it's either a conversation or it's an interview.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
And the bowel movement you had. I didn't want to be too specific, but you were gone long enough. Someone's going to have to break that thing up with a plunger. That's right. So it's big boy in there right now. Taylor, when you get there, could you – there's a plunger and just – We got a Harbinger in aisle two. We got a big Harbinger. Look at the size of that Harbinger.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
It's Chipotle, folks. It's a short-term rental.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
You know what? I mean, anybody can get one. That's what it looks like from the outside. I'm telling you, it ain't that hard. It ain't that hard. Hey, you were terrific. Thank you for coming by. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Really good fun. Chuck, we're going to have to let you go. Thank you. Not this week. Maybe next week, folks. Tune in and see what happens. See you. Bye.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
What did I read? 11 million monthly downloads?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Follow your passion as a bromide is precisely what 98% of the people do who audition for American Idol. And they're lined up. Thousands of people who have been told, if you believe something deeply enough, and if you want something bad enough, and if you truly embrace the essence of persistence and your passion, if you let your passion lead you, stick with it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Well, following your passion is terrific advice. If the passion is taking you to a place where opportunity and your own set of skills will be able to coexist. Passion is something that all of the dirty jobbers that I met possessed in spades. They just weren't doing anything that looked aspirational. So it was confusing. So if a guy in a plaid shirt sipping a cappuccino, that doesn't make sense.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Well, guess what? Neither does a septic tank cleaner worth a million dollars.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
I actually counted them up once. I could be wrong by a couple, but I put over 40 people that we featured on Dirty Jobs as multimillionaires. Passion isn't the enemy. It's just not the thing you want pulling the train. But look, I don't say don't follow your passion. I say never follow your passion, but always bring it with you.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
What happened in October? Because Chuck started, it began with, it looked like a twitch just under the eye and then some stammering. And then the Tourette's came in. Yeah. The numbers are down. Yeah. So what's going on with the numbers?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
There's no one like Chuck, by the way.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
This topic comes up from time to time. And I used to worry that it was a little too inside baseball for the average person, like who cares? But when you think about the number of entrepreneurs and small business people out in the world trying to make a go of it in all these different vocations,
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
The thing that is relevant to me is that there's a list of stuff in your control and there's a list of stuff that's not in your control. And the stuff that keeps you up at night, right? It shouldn't be the stuff you can't control because let go, let God, right? What are you going to do? The sun also rises.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
It seems like people spend a lot of time worrying about stuff they can't control. For sure. When the stuff is right in front of you. Like this is a great example too. I have yet to ask you a really prescient question and I have so many, but I'm defaulting to what I prefer to do, which is just have a conversation. I can control how long this goes on or how good or bad it ultimately is.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
But why do people do that? Why do we focus on the stuff that we just can't do anything about?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
At eight knots.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
I mean, that's fast. Yeah. The odds of that ship hitting that support are no different than the odds of it hitting any aircraft. Other space in the open space of the same dimension, right? It's like it had to hit somewhere. It had to hit something, yeah. And so our minds do have a way of immediately tell your brain what to look for. It'll find it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
You're not going to be a caveman for long.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Sure it can. Yeah. Okay. So we crave certainty.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
I get that. We look for patterns. And maybe if we focus on the things we can't control, are we giving ourselves a built-in excuse?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Yeah. Yeah. Well, then what about uncertainty? Don't we crave that equally?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
You got a front row seat, right? Financial crisis.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Mortgage-backed securities.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
How accurate was the big short?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Okay. So when I talk about uncertainty, you immediately go there. Yeah. Right? Which makes sense because we're back to the category of things we can't control. But I think also for a lot of people, like I think of uncertainty also as a kind of variety. And I think of uncertainty as unscripted. And my life is unscripted. This podcast is clearly unscripted. That's just what I wrote you to say.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Right. And so that can be scary, especially if you're trying to pretend that you know what you're doing when you don't. I think we talked about this.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Like the submissive posture and the importance of admitting when you're scared.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Right. But what if uncertainty is also variety? Right. And what if we need the certainty of knowing the sun is going to rise, or at least the Earth is going to spin in a way that creates the illusion of a moving sun? Not to say the sun isn't moving, expanding universe. We're all moving. But you get the idea.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
So we need the certainty to know that tomorrow is coming vis-a-vis a sunrise and or sunset. But if the sunrise and the sunset always look the same, if there was no variety, if there was no variety in the weather, if there was no variety in the night sky, if there was no variety in the clothes we choose to wear, then we would, I think, probably start to really get bored.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1126: Richard Reeves | Rethinking the Purpose of Modern Masculinity
Follow your passion as a bromide is precisely what 98% of the people do who audition for American Idol. And they're lined up. Thousands of people who have been told, if you believe something deeply enough, and if you want something bad enough, and if you truly embrace the essence of persistence and your passion, if you let your passion lead you, stick with it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1126: Richard Reeves | Rethinking the Purpose of Modern Masculinity
Well, following your passion is terrific advice. If the passion is taking you to a place where opportunity and your own set of skills will be able to coexist. Passion is something that all of the dirty jobbers that I met possessed in spades. They just weren't doing anything that looked aspirational. So it was confusing. It's like a guy in a plaid shirt sipping a cappuccino.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1126: Richard Reeves | Rethinking the Purpose of Modern Masculinity
That doesn't make sense. Well, guess what? Neither does a septic tank cleaner worth a million dollars. That guy had a million dollar business. I actually counted them up once. I could be wrong by a couple, but I put over 40 people that we featured on Dirty Jobs as multimillionaires. Passion isn't the enemy. It's just not the thing you want pulling the train.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1126: Richard Reeves | Rethinking the Purpose of Modern Masculinity
But look, I don't say don't follow your passion. I say never follow your passion, but always bring it with you.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And those places, you know, they don't have the same regulations. They don't have the same requirements. They don't have the same conditions and factories, all that stuff. Right. You don't have to be fully awake to work. You don't even have to really be human. I'm not sure what the laws are. I just know that when the dust settles – it's a hell of a lot harder to do it here. So they do it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Good luck. Figure it out, man. You're on your own. And here we are. Well, remember the last time I was at your place, I had rolled out of the hotel, come to your house. I wasn't quite sure who you were or where I was or anything. And all I knew was I needed coffee and you ordered some for me and they brought it in. And it was so freaking hot.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
They're trying to do it. They do it elsewhere. They do it in South Carolina. They do it in South Carolina, American Giant. American Giant does.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
No, it used to be, I mean, the Rust Belt in particular, like that part of the Mid-Atlantic, those were factory towns. The Tetanus Belt, too, they called it. Well, I mean, it was, you know, there's so many rivers up there. And so the mills were by the rivers. And so the factories were near the mills and the cotton was spun there.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
But this guy Bayard, he's actually become a friend of mine and he's on a mission. And like flannel, like hand dyed yarn in flannel was something like those old thick flannel shirts that we grew up with. You can't get them anymore. So American Giants started making those. They started making these hoodies. And and the more I read about him, the more I liked him.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
So he's become like he's in my world now because I try it on my podcast. I'm not there yet. But I'm really trying to make sure all the sponsors have an American-made story just because why not? See, the thing is, man, if Trump succeeds at the reshoring effort – Yeah, that's part of it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
But if in general he gets manufacturing reinvigorated in this country, then there's going to be a challenge that a lot of people aren't talking about, which is labor. So there's – in January, there were 482,000 open positions in manufacturing in this country, right? 480,000 open positions. Right.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
If he gets his way and this all gets reinvigorated, you're talking about two or three million new jobs. But there's no workforce sitting there going, this is what I want to do.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
They're not – so there's a skills gap for sure. OK. But there's also – a will gap. Right.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
It gets, it's, I mean, not to turn it into a commercial, but I swear it's weird how soft it'll get. It gets softer and it gets thicker. It'll smell a little funky.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I didn't make a big deal about it, but we were like two minutes into our conversation. I thought, damn it, man. I just, I literally cleaved my tongue to the roof of my mouth there for a second. I wonder if I can still be interesting. And then I just powered through and decided, you know what? It's whatever.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
We do a lot of that. But this thing is kind of important.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Yeah, so it's two different conversations, I think. And obviously I'm not an economist. In fact, I don't know an economist who thinks tariffs are a good idea. I really don't. I don't know an economist. I know a couple, but the ones I'm most interested in are like slightly right of center where they don't agree either, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
So like everybody is either having a conversation about whether or not it's a good idea economically or I call that like a tier two conversation. You're having a tier one conversation. You're saying, well, wait a minute. What if there's something in the country that's actually more important than the economy long term? What could that be? The economy of the human spirit, I think. It could be that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And I get all kinds of grief for this, but I think it's a fair analogy. I think about – Well, hell, I think about slavery in 1870, right? And I think about the conversation that was going on in the country and a big part of it was, wait, if we get rid of this, do you have any idea what it's going to do to the economy? Not just for the south, which would collapse, but for the north.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Who's behind all the products. Who's all dressed in cotton. And, of course, there's the triangle trade, molasses, rum, slaves, right? This is an eternal wheel that had been going on for time immemorial. Yeah, dark rum, where do you think that came from?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
It's good rum. But if you fundamentally were to make the slavery decision based on nothing but whether or not it was good or bad for the economy – Well, we'd still have slavery. So we got to a point where people said, wait, wait, wait. This can't keep going. This isn't human. That's right. Right, right. And so it was bad. Right. The economy crapped the bed. We fought a war. A lot of people died.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And I don't mean to sound glib when I say it. I don't know what the real – I don't have a crystal ball. But I do think that the reason people are talking past each other with the tariffs is because some people are saying, look, it's a tax, period. It's not good for global trade, which is true. But if there's this other – if you're trying to transform Jackson, Mississippi –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Then you at least have to elevate the conversation to these – this other set of consequences that might happen if you shake the whole thing up. Now, again, I put a big like asterisk on that. I don't really know what I'm talking about. But I do believe that there are unintended consequences and intended consequences. And the consequences of messing with the tariffs are probably both.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Here's what I think. When I started my little foundation, which by the way, we're still doing it. We've got 3 million bucks we're giving away this month in these work ethic scholarships. So we're training people for skilled jobs. We're training people for manufacturing jobs. We've been doing it for years.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Oh, that's me in a cap and gown sitting there without any pants on as if to indicate optically that even though I have my degree, I'm not actually trained for any of the opportunities that currently exist. Oh, you don't think you just graduated from San Francisco? I'll say that, dude. Nice legs. It was an experimental. That's okay. My dad used to wear those shoes, dude.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Hey, you can see my shark bite there on my left knee. There you go. Looking at that hurt. Yeah, a lot of sharks over there in San Fran, those bays, buddy. So Trump's intentions, right? I don't know. I don't know the man. I'm rooting for him. But here's what happened to me. When I started that foundation – You started this. Yep.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Yeah. And how jacked up their teeth were. They were in constant pain. Yeah. People died of their teeth back then.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
If you click on scholarship right there up at the top, yeah, it'll take you to a – well, that's me and a bunch of people who got the – there you go. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
You can donate to it. Sure. Awesome, man. Yeah. In fact, we just auctioned off – these guys up in Ohio made me a truck. They made a MicroWorks work truck. Rogan's head exploded when he saw this. Yeah. This is a 1964 power wagon and they – They built it from scratch. It was beautiful. And they took it to the Barrett-Jackson auction, and we got $1.5 million for it. No way.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
So that all went to scholarships. I remember last time I was selling it. We're going to donate way less than that. I was auctioning off all kinds of crap from dirty jobs to raise money. We've given away about $12 million in these things.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
That is right. And the answer to your question regarding Trump actually starts with Obama because the year we started this in 2008, I don't know if you remember it, but he had a thing called the Highway Infrastructure Act. And it was big news, headlines everywhere. He was going to create 3 million shovel-ready jobs, right? And I was rooting for him.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And Dirty Jobs at the time was at its absolute peak. And what was weird as the country was going into a recession was everybody I was talking to on Dirty Jobs, there are 12 million unemployed people. But they all had like help wanted signs out. They were really struggling to hire. And their basic bitch was we just can't find people who are excited to pick up a shovel.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
We can't find people who want to do the work that we have. So I reached out in an open letter to the president in 2009 and just said, look, man, I am rooting for you. I think 3 million shovel-ready jobs sounds great. But part of making that succeed has to include a campaign to – to help make shovel-ready jobs cool because right now people aren't buying it. There it is. Look at that, man.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I'm saying it because it's about to happen again. Right. Donald Trump – is going down a road, and if he succeeds, he's going to create millions of manufacturing jobs in a country that currently has nearly 500,000 manufacturing jobs open because the people who run those factories can't find people who want to do the work. So it's not enough to create the jobs.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Yeah, I bit my lip the other day. And this is a funny thing for me anyway. But the third, like the first time you do it, it's annoying and it really takes you out of your meal, takes you out of your conversation. Yeah. And part of the reason is because you know it's going to happen again. And then when you do it again, it's a different kind of rage, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And look, a lot of your listeners are probably thinking, well, make the pay better. Make it more interesting. Make it more palatable. And then we can have that conversation for sure. But the bigger issue still is – There's no enthusiasm for the work. We took shop class out of high school. We robbed kids of the opportunity to even see what that kind of work even looks like.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Meanwhile, we told a whole generation of kids they were screwed if they didn't get a four-year degree, right? And so people say, Mike, how did college get so expensive? I know you know this, but nothing has gotten more expensive in the last 40 years than a four-year degree. Not real estate, not health care. not energy, nothing, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And so we keep telling kids they're screwed if they don't go in this direction. We free up endless money to loan them. So now you've got $1.7 trillion in student debt on the books. You've got 7.6 million open jobs right now, most of which don't require a four-year degree. And here's the other screwed up part.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
You got 6.8 million able-bodied men who are not only not looking for work, I mean, they're out of the workforce and not looking. So all of that together, we've never seen that before in peacetime anyway. So something beyond the tariffs, something beyond policy, is going to have to happen to make 22-year-olds go, yeah, man, I would consider doing that. Right.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Well, the college doesn't loan it. Sometimes you might get a scholarship from the college. That's not a loan. But financial aid packages can involve like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which sounds like your awesome aunt and uncle somewhere.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Because it's tinged with the inevitability. Like, it's going to happen. And then when you bite it the third time, it's just white, hot pain and like an anger at the universe. And it's irrational. But it's just one of those things. When I...
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Well, actually, what it is is some faceless bureaucrat in a tall, soulless building in Kansas City that's just crunching the numbers, right? Right.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
So, sure, the people loaning the money are getting interest on the loans. But it's the colleges themselves that – like right now, literally as we speak, there's a screaming headline. Trump just put a hold on $2 billion of federal money that was going to go straight to Harvard. That's right. Yeah. Now, why would he do that?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
You know, people are screaming, oh my God, it's something about free speech. And, you know, $2.2 billion in grants to Harvard has been paused due to activism on campus. Where in the headline does it tell you that Harvard has a $52 billion endowment? Nowhere. But they do. They've got over $50 billion in an endowment. Yeah, that might not even have an effect.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Well, I mean, look, colleges, especially the top tier colleges, have an awful lot of money and they have a steady stream of customers because in our society, we have completely bought into the notion that what you're purchasing in these schools is an education. What you're actually purchasing is a credential. Right. Whether or not you're educated or not, your experience may vary. Right.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Look, dude, I'm looking at my iPhone right here. If you've got an internet connection, well, you have access to 98% of all the known information in the world.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
That's you. So it's not fair to say that you can get a liberal arts degree on your iPhone, but you can. It's not fair to really compare lying in your bed like I did two weeks ago watching a free lecture at MIT and saying it would be the same experience if I were there in the classroom. But it's close enough to say, well, wait a minute.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
If the first one cost me $0.00 and the second one is going to keep me in debt for over 20 years, what am I doing? So I don't know, man. I feel badly about painting with too broad a brush. My liberal arts degree served me really well. I graduated – Four years after you were born, I'm guessing. 1984, I graduated. Beautiful year. All right. It was a great year.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
and maybe four or five times you're going to bite it, and it's going to be like that for the next 24 hours until your body finally sends some sort of message and the swelling starts to go down. But it's a horrible moment in your day when you start that crucible.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I went to two years in a community college. A lot of hot chicks then, too, huh? Couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a prospect.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
You know those collectible dolls on QVC? Mm-hmm. It was very, very similar. Yeah. It was a good time to be alive. I was also singing in the opera back then, too.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Well, people pay attention, man. That's what, like in the first season of Dirty Jobs, I sang – I didn't even know the cameras were rolling. I was just blown away by the acoustics in a sewer in San Francisco. Oh, yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
of a dude wearing a rubber suit, squatting in a sewer, covered with other people's shit, singing Puccini. To your point. Literal Puccini. Poop-cini, that's good. Yeah, people didn't know what to do with that. You don't know where to... It's like a lot of cognitive dissonance in your brain. There's a lot going on at once. And there's a parallel here. It's kind of what's going on right now.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
That's it. People... Like if you sing opera, you shouldn't be in a sewer. If you're in a sewer, you should be getting paid crap wages. But what do you do – what do you say about a guy in a sewer who's a multimillionaire, right? Like what do you mean he owns his own septic tank business? What do you mean he worked his way up to become a successful entrepreneur without a college degree?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
How is such a thing possible? Every day, Theo, we've got 2,200 people have gone through MicroWorks. I'd say 30% of them are welders. I'd say half of them are making mid-six figures. Nobody believes it. I spend most of my time now in this space sitting down with people who are 25 years old and looking at a camera and saying, hey, I get it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Don't take it from the opera singing rich dude covered with other people's crap, okay? I get it. I'm not persuasive.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
But listen to her. Listen to him. Right. Right. And so that's how the needle starts to move. And that's that's part of what has to happen.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
It's not just PR. It's ethos too, you think? What is ethos? Bring it up. Yeah, bring up ethos. Antelos and all these Greek words, you know, the Aristotelian definition of a tragedy. Anagnoresis and peripatia, a characteristic of spirit, a culture, era, or community is manifested in its beliefs and aspirations. That's it. A challenge to the ethos of the 1960s.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
So can I have an ethos on myself, kind of like my own spirit? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So – If it's an individual, it's a worldview. I think an even better way to think about it is a code.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Yeah. Yeah. Like, look, man, this will sound really outdated and hokey. Integrity, you mean? Yeah. I do mean integrity. I mean, when I was a kid, like the first time I had to raise my hand, well, the first time I had to take a pledge, it was the Pledge to the Flag. I didn't really know what it meant. I was too young. I just memorized it, right? But later in the Boy Scouts,
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I had a scoutmaster who was a retired army colonel. He was a hard ass and he took this really seriously. So you like raise your hand and pledge. You take the scout oath. Now I'm only like 12 years old at the time. But I remember thinking, this feels like there were candles lit in a darkened room, and it was serious. It was as serious as could be. It's easy to look back and laugh and poke fun.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
It mattered, man. On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country. Like, wait, that's just the first sentence. Never mind whether you like it or agree or disagree. Challenging kids to take an oath and to make a pledge. My foundation has a thing called a sweat pledge. You have to sign it if you're applying for the particular pile of money that I've accumulated through donations.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
You must assume individual responsibility, but you must do that in the presence of other like-minded people. So my sweat pledge, which I ironically wrote – after some bourbon, stands for skill and work ethic aren't taboo. I was just looking for a way to make people make a promise. And you can find it out here.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
It's now a curriculum, actually, in 70 schools, but it's based on the 12-step recovery process and the Boy Scout law. Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent, combined with these really old-school rules
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
affirmations around things like gratitude and delayed gratification and personal responsibility and work ethic and an aversion to debt. I actually have something on the sweat pledge that says I would rather live in a tent and eat beans than pay for things I can't afford. Now, people call me. They're pissed. Their parents call, right? There's a tenant on the pledge that says I –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
You know what? Maybe I should. I used to drink black all the time. And then I went two creams and one cream. And you know what I find? It upsets people when you change your coffee order. Like the people around you in your circle, like I always thought you were a black coffee guy.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I believe that my safety is my responsibility. I understand that just because I'm in compliance doesn't mean I'm out of danger. Now I believe this because I nearly got killed half a dozen times on dirty jobs. There it is, number six, right? So this thing makes people crazy. They resist it. But this is a code really here. It's my code. It's your code. And it starts right at the top, man.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I believe I've won the greatest lottery of all time. I'm alive. I walk the earth. I live in America. Above all things, I'm grateful. Wow. Now, you can disagree with that, and we can still be friends. But when I get calls from parents or teachers or kids who are going through this application process, and they say, look, I'm not really comfortable signing this –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Then I say, well, then this particular pile of free money might not be for you. It's okay, man. I mean I work really hard and I raise a lot of money and I give a lot of it away. And I make no apology for wanting to help people who at least see the world. The same way you do. Or something adjacent. Oh, I agree. I think that makes perfect sense. But you can't run a business that way. No.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Like you can't hire people based on their worldview regarding gratitude or personal responsibility, at least not in California.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Yeah, I do. I think – well, look. Again, painting with too broad a brush sucks.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And now what's with the cream? Or what's with the almond milk? You don't want to do that. That sends a whole different message.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
There's a lot, but what you're really saying is, like, what is a good job? What is a bad job? What is a clean job? What is a dirty job? And once you start to create some sort of hierarchy, which makes sense, everybody's free to do it, you ought to do it. But, you know, if Bayard were here, the American giant guy, He would tell you a story about the individuals who made that sweatshirt, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
He would show you the factory line. He would introduce you to the farmers who grew the cotton. He would show you step by step how his entire supply chain is insulated from these tariffs. These tariffs hadn't affected him at all because he doesn't rely on any of them. He's totally independent. So he's taking kind of a victory lap right now. But his big point would be
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
You would have to see the enthusiasm among his group of workers when they created a sweatshirt that became the greatest hoodie ever made. And you can look at that and go, it's a freaking sweatshirt, dude. But it's not a sweatshirt. It's not about the sweatshirt. And this might put it into even better focus, just so your listeners understand how jacked up things are.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I got a call six months ago from a company I bet you've never heard of called Blue Forge Alliance. All right. Blue Forge Alliance. Is it siding or no?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And if you're looking for them, you are a Randy character. Well, you can't. I mean, curiosity would require some kind of cursory inspection from this milk delivery system with no nipples. Oh, look at you, Zach. That's amazing. Thank you very much.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
No, the same siding. We had a whole racket. They would bring us the siding that was stolen from the neighborhood. And I would sell it in between collectible dollars.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Siding on a ceiling. It ain't supposed to go there. This is basic. Crazy phase, dude. It was a crazy phase. But back to Blue Forge. This is crazy. Okay. This is crazier than that. Okay. Blue Forge Alliance is in charge of the American Maritime Base, and there they are. Okay. The American Maritime Base is in charge of delivering three nuclear-powered submarines every year to the U.S. Navy.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Two Virginia, I think, and one Columbia class. These things are – longer than the Washington Monument is tall. They are the pointy part of our national defense. Yeah, they'll seat about 40, won't they? Well, look, if things go sideways with Taiwan or China and get hypersonic, I worry about our aircraft carriers. They're exposed like they haven't been before.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
If things go sideways with Baltimore, we'll send one over there, you know? So it's the subs that matter. Now, Blue Forge, represents 15,000 individual companies, and these companies have to deliver three a year for 10 years. They called me, right? And they say, look, we're hiring tradespeople, and we're kind of in a rush. I'm like, well, what do you mean a rush?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And they said, well, we're desperate. And can you help us find them? And I said, I don't know, man. It's pretty skinny out there right now. There's a lot of competition. How many do you need? The guy says 140,000. Wow. I swear to God. And you can find it on the site there.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
They're hiring over the next nine years 140,000 welders, steam fitters, pipe fitters, electricians, all of the construction trades, plus all kind of electronics and technical stuff. Very, very few of those positions require a four-year degree. 140,000 openings. And the guy says, Mike, we've looked everywhere. Do you know where they are? Can you send me a few phone numbers?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I said, actually, honest, I said, yeah, dude, I know where they are. They're in the eighth grade. That's where they are. And if you want to get them, holy crap, they put my face on it. I want you to work in the trades. Who's doing that back there? I don't know, dude, but what we need are robots, R-O-W-E-B-O-T-S. Would you send me that?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Whoever you are doing this amazing non-authorized copywritten stuff, I'm going to use that. I thought robots was a good pun that deserved a little bit more than that, but. It's not bad. You could have Mike robots, little tiny versions of me.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Let me land the plane. Okay. Here's the point. That crisis that right now is impacting our submarine base, I think you can draw a line between the enthusiasm –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
of the workers who build one of these subs and believe me you should meet these guys they're like they understand they're moving the needle they understand that they're the pointy part of the spear with regard to national defense it's a big deal you can compare not not the work but the feeling to the satisfaction that comes from making the greatest sweatshirt in the world and if you can do that you can do it for virtually every product in between
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Did you really? Oh, my. You went to the corner to get me some of these little poisonous pods. These are good. There's a whole. Oh, yeah. Why is everything? They have melatonin in them now. I'm like, should coffee creamer have melatonin in it? I don't know. Isn't that the stuff that makes you tired? Yeah. It's like, what's going on? That is a mixed message. I know.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
That's what I'm talking about. There's somehow or another – and I started talking about this early on in Dirty Jobs. It just became clear that in our society, we had identified work as the enemy. It's like the proximate cause of all our misery is the fact that our freaking boss is up our ass. And every day for 8 or 10, 12 hours, I got to go make little rocks out of big rocks. And life isn't fair.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And damn it, something ought to be done. And this whole thing is modeled around the idea that I have to do whatever it is I have to do until I get to the point where I can retire. So like I'm retirement age now. Like the idea of retiring is so insane to me. There's still work to be done. There's more than ever.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
So look, to answer your question, I'm super sympathetic to Gen Z. I want them to find meaningful work. But the meaning, it's not inherent in the work. It's in the dude. Right. It's in you. Right.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And you get to assign whatever level of meaning you want to that sweatshirt or that nuclear sub or this cup of coffee or this poisonous cream that your people brought me that right now is either making me tired or jacked up. I can't decide yet.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
You're going to tell us where you keep your favorite wood whittle. My greatest fear. Is a whittle a thing at all? A whittler could be a person who whittles. A whittlet could be a thing that you whittle. But a whittle flunk is the actual tool in question. And you can Google that. Now, you won't find anything to confirm any of it. I just felt like it was my turn to talk again.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Here's some caffeine with a little sedative for you. We'll just let your body sort it out. Yeah, it's where we are. Next thing you know, you're biting through your lip. Curse in the universe. Oral Vietnam. Die into your teeth. Oh, dude. Dude, do you have any idea how much feedback I got? I don't know. I don't know if this happens to you.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Why do you think people lost their shit when Obama said you didn't build that? You didn't do that. We all did that together. It was an insult to what you're saying. That part of us. It doesn't mean that we're not all part of a team, a country, a concerted effort. But it does mean – like if you rob an individual of that feeling, then you have reduced his work – to only the transactional companies.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
It's just a paycheck now. But I'm telling you, my life changed. It was early on in Dirty Jobs. And we weren't even really filming yet. Or it was after we shot. And I was working with a mason. And I was in his pickup truck and he was dropping me back at the hotel. And as we're driving down, we were in some little Midwest town and we were driving down some easily forgettable street.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
But the architecture on either side was super cool, right? And as we're driving, he was like pointing up to the facade. He goes, yeah, we did that one. And then around the corner, he's like, yeah, we did that one too. and see over here the way this, that one took.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And as he was talking, like his, his eyes were filling up and he was, he was driving past his life's work and it was there on display to be seen. And, um, I was very happy for him to be able to have that but also very mindful of the fact that you can see the same wonder in the sewer, right? Like the architecture down there and the technology.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Except you'll never see it and you'll never see the guys who tend to it because it's all out of sight and it's all out of mind. And that's part of the point too. You don't – that thing you described – I got a call from – have you heard of Moog, M-O-O-G? You'll let us down to your neck of the woods. It's actually Boaz, Alabama. Oh, damn. Okay. Little – it's not so little.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Moog makes virtually every ball bearing. in your car or your truck. They've been making ball bearings for years, forever and ever. They turned 100 a couple years ago. And the guy called me. They're part of Federal Mogul Motor Parts. And they were like, can you maybe just come down here and look at our factory? And can we film you looking at it? And can you just talk to some of our people?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And I said, well, yeah, probably. Why? And they're like, well, we just think it would be great if somebody were paying attention to the fact that we've been doing this for a hundred years and that there is no automotive industry without us. Wow. So I did, I went and I, and I brought a little crew with me and I wound up giving them a 60 second love letter.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
You know, I know a place in Boaz, Alabama where people understand, right. They played that at their annual thing. And, um, and I got a video of, of people watching the video I made. Yeah. Tears streaming down their face. Purpose. Pride. Code. Integrity. All that stuff, man. Well, there it is 30 pounds ago, you fat bastard. But there I am going the extra mile. American Pride with Mike Rowe.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Like you see yourself maybe on YouTube, and it's clearly you, right? This is a thing. You don't dispute it. It's you. You did whatever it is, whatever conversation you're having. But you don't have any real recollection of the conversation. You're just seeing yourself. Right? Like this happened to me a lot years ago when people started uploading these incidents on QVC.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Last time we spoke, I said there was no justice if you didn't put spunk minions on a hat. I told you a story of artificial insemination. You coined that term. At least I'd never heard it before. The coffee came out of my nose, and I said, for God's sakes, man, please. Hot coffee came out of your nose. It was still hot. Hot coffee cooled down with some of this, you know—
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
But yeah, yeah, I remember last time. That conversation, I'm not blowing sunshine, dude. I got more people, more of the people that my foundation tries to reach Reached out to me. Really? Yep. To say, I heard you on Theo Vaughn, and I would like to apply for a scholarship. What do I do? Wow. I mean— That's awesome.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Like in the middle of the night where I had been fired for various inappropriate interactions with the product.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
No, you need to understand—well, I'm sure you understand, but it was—I do this all the time. Hundreds of people. Hundreds of people. Because the problem is, man, I preach to the choir a lot. You know, I talk to people who already—you know, you're— your audience is the future of this country. A big chunk of them are anyway. I don't know about the others.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Oh, yeah. Yeah. But when I look at those old clips and I can't deny that it's me but I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen. Yeah. Or what I'm going to say next. It's very unusual. It's like biting your lip. There's nothing you do about it. You just sit there and you watch yourself doing things you don't remember doing. And you just hope to God you don't blow it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Well, look, man, I, uh, I'll, I'll never say no to a couple of bucks, but I don't need it. What I need is what you're doing, right? I mean what I need is for the people listening to – like if they're serious about what you just framed, the book to read is called Men Without Work. It's by a guy called Nick Eberstadt. He is a real economist and I know him.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And he wrote this thing years ago but republished it during the lockdowns. And that's where – That's where the real truth of this is, man. That's the real story, Theo. At the time he republished this, there were 7.2 million able-bodied men, not only not working, but not looking. Now the question is, well, what the hell are they doing, right? Right.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
The research goes deep and wide, and it's horrifying. By and large, the majority of them are spending 2,000 hours a year on their screens. They're scrolling, they're looking, they're inward, right? And what that means is they're not in the Jaycees or the Kiwanis Club or the Boy Scouts or the Lions Club or the YMCA, right? They're not in their local church.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
They're not volunteering in their community. They're not doing anything at all except living some version of what – What was it, Thoreau? Lives of quiet desperation. And I want to tell you one other thing, too, that really blew me away. I knew of you. I didn't know you. And it's cool that you texted me and stayed in touch over the last two years since we talked. Oh, thanks, man. No, no.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Most people don't do that. Really? Yeah. They don't. And I had so much fun talking to you that I took a deeper dive and one night just was scrolling through and I watched you sit here or maybe you were in Nashville. I don't know. But somebody called in and they told you a story.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And it was a common story but it was a sad story and it was a combination of addiction and struggling with that and a kind of hopelessness and this kind of desperation that my friend Nick writes about. And what you did, you did two things that were really interesting to me. The first thing is you sat and didn't say a word. I've never seen anybody do that before.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
You just sat and looked at the camera like you're looking at me, like you actually listened. And then you talked for about three minutes in about the most empathetic way I had ever seen. I took that clip and I sent it to my little network and I said, look, man, this war is going to be fought on a lot of fronts. It's a war of public opinion to your point. It's persuasion. It's all these things.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
But what this guy is doing right now in this space in this way is important. So – Yeah, man. I don't know how big you're going to get and I don't know how wide your audience is going to be. But the fact that it's as big as it is, yeah, you're funny. You're funny as hell. I was going to crash one of your shows in – I forget what town I was in. It was like – what is it? The rat?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
The rat was back or something? Return of the rat tour.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
You're resilient. We're resilient. And that's – I mean Louisiana doesn't have a lock on that. But I'll tell you what, man. You're –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Well, the stakes are big. Right. I mean, $37 trillion in national, that's the national debt. Yeah. $37 trillion. Most people, like you really don't have to be an economist. You don't have to, you don't need a pedigree to understand that that's getting a little wobbly. And it's not sustainable. So something radical has to happen. Something really unpopular is going to have to happen.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Yeah. I mean, they're lonely hearts. They're, you know, look at my nails. So nicely manicured and all that. That was 1989. Are you selling those? Or 90. Were you going to a poison concert? What were you even wearing those for? You know, I mean, as long as you're going to do it, find the cat sack. That's when I knew my life had taken a weird turn. This was 1990. It was my first job in TV.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
It's going to be uncomfortable. It's going to be wildly uncomfortable.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I go back to the slavery thing. I mean the idea of getting rid of that in 1860, right? It was – so many otherwise rational people who were walking around, influencers of the day with columns and people giving oratories and speeches. Really smart people were saying – We can't do this. The country will collapse.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And other people were like, well, then let the heavens fall because that's a hill I'll die on, right? So every now and then something rises to a place where you just can't talk about it the way you'd been talking about it. And look, man, I really wonder 150 years from now, What our great, great, great, great grandkids will be saying about us. Like how – what will be the slavery of today?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Will it be the fact that we let our country become completely dependent on other countries who really don't like us much? I mean – They don't have any care. It's insane. China – I interviewed a guy. who you would love, Jan Jekielek, he's called. He writes for the Epoch Times. He's a senior editor over there. And he has been on China hard for 20 years.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And he believes one of the greatest untold stories right now is the fact that 60 to 100,000 human organs are being harvested from prisoners in China every year as we speak. They're called the Fulong Gong, and they were 70 to 100 million of these people have been persecuted forever.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I'm going to quit ordering it. Dude, you have to. It is bananas. Fulong Gong. When you look at the number of prisons in China that have hospitals built right next to them, you have to go, well, what's up with that? And when you talk to these people – and there are countless examples who are scheduling open heart surgeries. They're scheduling kidney replacements, right? You can't schedule those.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
You go on a list and then you wait for – for somebody to become brain dead. And a motorcycle accident. That's right. Because you can't take a heart from a cadaver. You have to take it from a living but doomed person. Yeah. Right? And so cutting that line is about the rudest thing ever. Right? I mean, that's a lie.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
We just drove over here. I can't even imagine what that is like, but I can tell you this, the organ industry is in China is a $9 billion industry and people are scheduled. They're making appointments for livers.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
It's not based on the, yes, it is based on knowing when they're going to die. Exactly. Because they kill them. And, and you know what they tell you is, ah, well, you know, look, he's on death row anyway. And so like they, they tell you a lot of things and you'll go, okay, OK. And so it's back to slavery. It's like, well, you know what?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I don't really want to look at the reality of organ harvesting. If my kid needs a heart, please tell me a happy story about how. The inmate is a murderer, right? And right before we kill him, we're going to anesthetize him and take his heart. Tell me that story. It's not much different than in 1860. It's like, look, I need clothes, man. My kids need clothes.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Please don't show me the raping and the whipping. of these poor people. Please don't show me the middle passage and what happened, the unspeakable conditions on those ships. I don't want to see that. I just want my clothes. Now, when I'm talking 150 years from now, maybe I could be talking about 150 days from now. Please don't show me the abortion. I don't want to see that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
That would – please don't show me the diseased lungs in your attempt to get me to stop smoking. I don't want to see that. Please don't make me shoot the cow in the head. I did that on season three of Dirty Jobs.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I slaughtered a cow and butchered it with a mobile butcher just to show viewers where their food comes from and what it takes to make a porterhouse, what it takes to get a sirloin, the difference between all these different things. People's heads exploded because the truth is, man, they don't want to see where their food comes from. They'd prefer to think it's growing on a hamburger tree.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And we really don't want to know the truth about a lot of this. I mean, look, we're joking about this, but you really want to know what's in this little creamer? You really want to know why this thing can sit on the shelf for years? The answer is nothing good.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
So this is a lava lamp, right? And I'm, uh, I have no idea how to behave. I just want to know if it's really hot. Well, guess what, dude? It's hot, man. Hey, put two creamers in it. It's like... That lava – I mean, obviously, it's not really lava. It's magma. No. That's not lava? I open this thing up on the air just because it's 3 in the morning, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
They know. So look, we're ostriches. And we got our head in the sand on a lot of different things. And a lot of parents, to bring it back to kind of where we started, they don't want to see that that 200 grand they invested in that college degree can't get their kid a job in his chosen field. We don't want to look at $37 trillion in debt.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
We don't want to look at the fact that our country is making only 2% of the clothing that we wear. Dude, we have in this country. A third of the United States is covered with timber. Covered with timber. Now, our forests are rotting and they're burning because we're not tending to them. Meanwhile, guess who the leading importer of timber is in the world? Us. Us.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Oh, we're the leading importer of it, but we have a great deal of it. We have more than anybody, and we're the leading importer. California has so much timber, and they import 80% of what they need. How much energy are we sitting on? Right. Right? I just look at all of it, and I don't – It's not political. It's some weird combination of virtue signaling and head in the sand.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Well, look, I mean, there are a lot of thoughts on that. And I know there's not one perfect answer. There's not. But you can learn, I think. I mean, you have to understand that – Those jobs, minimum wage jobs, were never designed to be careers. They're rungs on a ladder. But for some people, they are careers, though. Have that conversation next.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
But the first thing to understand is you don't – like the purpose of work is not to merely make money. It's probably the biggest reason. You've got to put food on the table. I get all of that. But you don't go from a kid into a fully actualized, mature working person. You have to go through all kinds of – like a crucible of fits and starts and good jobs and jobs that make sense.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And, you know, whether it's fast food or whether it's maybe digging a ditch or maybe putting siding on a house one hot summer, right? It's like these jobs that don't pay very well offer something else that's really, really, really important to a person who, who is maturing and growing.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And you're just trying to make sense out of whatever they bring you next. It could be the Amcor negative ion generator. It could be the health team infrared pain reliever. It could be a lava lamp. Oh, yeah. It could be a child's diaper that sorts coins. They brought me a – A cat sack, K-A-T-S-A-K, it's a cat sack. I thought it was a joke. It's not. It's like a grocery bag lined with Mylar, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
It's like a buffet. I remember that now. It's a buffet, man. You don't... You're not going to eat all of it. It's not all going to taste good to you. Yeah. You have to experience a whole long list of shit, and most of it is going to leave a funny taste in your mouth. Most things aren't for most people. It's a giant process of – of figuring it all out and also learning who you are. Now, I get it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
That doesn't address the fact that somebody busting their ass with inflation being wherever it is and the cost of goods being wherever that is can't afford to feed their family on that salary. Now, the other side is going to say, yeah, why did you have a family? What are you doing? Why would you have a family before you have the means to provide for them? And then we're going to have that whole
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And it's going to get politicized. But if the basic argument is, wait a second, the people at the top of this company are being unfairly enriched at the expense of the work, I totally get that. I totally get it. And I'll tell you something that gives me hope, right? Because I get constant – Thank you.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
at least a couple beams of it. The doldrums and the problem almost always happens because it's door number one or door number two. Everything is binary. So in this conversation, it's well, are you union or are you management? Are you labor or are you management? And like people have to choose.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Now, it's easy to forget that these are two sides of the same coin because we always pit them against one another. And then people wind up in interviews like this or any one of a thousand other conversations, and they're going to get tagged as one or the other. So – My hope is in an organization called Opportunity Works. And I learned about these guys pretty recently.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Two years ago, a company called Groundworks, who you'll love – hired me to give a speech in Virginia Beach when their CEO turned 5,500 of their frontline workers into owners. So here's what Groundworks does. Groundworks will fix the foundation on your house. They will encapsulate a crawl space. And they will waterproof your basement. Oh, I was hoping you'd say hide your stepmother down there.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Well, that's an upsell. I mean, look, you got to know who to talk to. But they – like if you scroll through that, that's Dirty Jobs 101. Yeah. I spent the first – a big chunk of the first season – underneath houses doing this kind of work. Now, a lot of these people, they've got a high school education.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Some went further, but a lot of the 5,500 guys I met on that day, they spend their life doing backbreaking work. They were made owners. It's like an ESOP plan, and it goes all the way down, all the way through the company. Wow. And it's another one of those moments, Theo. I'm sitting backstage, and I'm watching. These guys are there with their families, and this is a financial event.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Like, it changes their life. So I said to the owner, hey, man, I'm – I like this because now I don't think there's any, frankly, need for – like how does a union negotiate against a member if they own the company? It's like you just took all the air out of that tire. And he said, well, if you like this, you got to meet my friend Pete Stavros. Pete works for KKR.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Ooh, that third letter I wasn't sure it was going to be. No, no. I was like, whoa. Whoa, Mike. I'm not feeling hopeful. We're trying to head forward. KKR. These were the original barbarians at the gate, you know, the whole Nabisco. Like that world of private equity gets a really bad rap and in some cases I think probably deservedly. I don't know about them. Well, it's a – That's okay.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
It's a deep dive. But it's like when you think – when people talk about roll-ups, What they're talking about. I don't know about that either. Okay. Let's say you've got a heating and air conditioning company. Yeah. Plumbing company, electric company.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And your cat crawls in it, and it makes a crinkling sound, and cats love it. Oh, that's nice. So this is the kind of thing, man. I would sit there for three hours in the middle of the night trying to – there was no training program or anything. They would just bring you these things that looked – Look like you'd get them out of that machine on the carnival midway with the claw. Oh, yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Let's say you've had it for 25 years and let's say you'd like to retire but you really can't and you got 30 employees and you love them and it's their job and so forth and so on. So the industry – consolidates when private equity comes in and says, wait a second, we'll buy you, okay? We're going to make you more efficient. We're going to put you under somebody, some other name, okay?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And you'll be able to retire because you've worked hard and your people will, well, you know, we're going to do, in some cases, it's good for the workers. In other cases, it's not so good because in the name of efficiency, you can gut a company. So that's the negative wrap on private equity has been that. But now what's starting to happen, at least in these home services businesses,
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
is that this ownership works element, this guy Pete Stavros, who works for KKR, has done this groundworks deal. There's Pete. He's awesome. They've done this with like 70 companies where they'll go in and they will work with management to make everybody in the company an owner. And it's a tough sell for management because they got to let go of some stuff. But the research is incredible.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Over time, what happens is these companies explode. They stay alive and people are excited about it and hopeful about it. Dude, there's – I mean who do you want to come to your house to fix a plumbing problem? An employee who, you know, is the epitome of a stereotypical plumber, butt cracked, hanging out, pissed off, overweight, right? Like everything you've seen plumbers portrayed as.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Yeah, drugs, coke. Or would you like the owner of the company to come out and fix your problem? it changes everything. And I've seen, like you guys should take a deep dive if you want, but look at some of these videos where, like I saw one the other day, a company, I think they were outside of Chicago, Nucor maybe, they make garage doors.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
It's another one of these companies you would never think about. It's like Moog and their ball bearings and what is that? Well, all of a sudden, Like you've got truck drivers in these companies who have been there for 12 years. And when this scheme goes into place, they leave this gathering with a check for $400,000, $500,000, $600,000. Changes the – That's a financial event in their life.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And it changes the way you think about that sweatshirt, right? That's what I'm talking about. There is a way forward that doesn't keep us stuck in the binary of labor management. I agree.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
It's just you and me in here. Stay on that bull for eight seconds and we'll hope for the best.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
It was really just stuff that had failed to sell in prime time. And so if you're new, there's no training program. They just put you on in the middle of the night and they just bring you this stuff, man. One thing after the next and you talk for eight minutes.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Oh, yeah, big time. Which is pretty crazy and scary. Oh, dude. I mean there's so much to think and say about Facebook. Mark's coming in here specifically?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Yeah, they're down the peninsula from where I live north of you. Amazing campus. Check out the roof. Really? When you go there. Yeah, I don't know if it's changed. Is it good? Is it siding? It's sushi and a lot of siding. Yeah. Sushi and siding. It's pretty amazing. Oh, a roof is just brave siding. Let me tell you what Mark did for me, just so you get a sense.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I mean, there's just endless things to say about the guy.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Well, I wouldn't be here without Facebook. I know it's crazy because there's clips of me out there telling Jay Leno I'd rather have hot needles stuck in my eyes than book a face or send a tweet or whatever that was. Oh, yeah. But once I realized that all the shows I work on could be programmed basically by the people who watch them, That was amazing to me.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
So I got, you know, eight, nine million people out there now. Six on Facebook and a couple. That's great. Oh, no. Look, this is my – these are my bosses, you know. And I'm super late to the YouTube party, but I just got a million over there.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Well, I mean, QVC is still on. It's just that back in those days – No one really knew about it. They didn't have any big vendors or anything. Today, you know, they do $6, $7 billion a year. Do they really? Giant. It's huge. Home shopping is huge.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Right. And that show wouldn't exist without Zuckerberg. Okay. So let's hear about it. So six years ago. Mark invites me down to Facebook, and he talks about this thing called Watch, Facebook Watch. And the thought was, who are we going to be 10 years from now, and who are we really going to compete with, and how is that going to work, and could we be Netflix? Should we be a kind of Netflix?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
So that company basically committed to spending close to a billion dollars to answer that question. So how do you figure it out? You green light a couple of shows and they did something called Ball in the Family, some famous basketball player. They did something with Jada Pinkett Smith and they did something with me. What they did with me was a show called Returning the Favor.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Returning the favor, I think you would dig. Basically, I would look for and Facebook would tell me about people in these little towns that you probably couldn't find on a map that were doing something super cool in their neighborhood in a totally selfless way. So it's like bloody do-gooders running amok, right? And so we would go in there and we'd meet these people.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And we would tell them, like, I'm not there at this point. I would send the crew in and they'd say, hey, we're working on a documentary about your town. We understand you're doing some good work, maybe with foster care, maybe with PTSD. Right. And we would love to talk to you about that. So meanwhile, they're filming that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And I come in later, and parades are arranged, and we free up a big chunk of money, sometimes 100 grand, to maybe build something that allows them to do more of what they're already doing. Oh, that's beautiful. Some kind of gift. So the show, it was a feel-good show, but it was also the making of a feel-good show. Now, here's where it gets crazy. We do 100 episodes, which is a lot.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
The show's a hit. It's a lot. It's downloaded 450 million times. No way. Okay? Dude, congratulations, bro. You're an infection, and it's a good one. It gets crazier. I win an Emmy, okay? Like, I never wanted it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Oh, man. Is she cute or not? Sorry, that was a bad joke.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
No, she's a good one. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, she's talented. Rossum damn near killed them, huh? That's an old Emmy Rossum joke. So what you got to know is this never happened. Hits are hard. Emmys are hard. Of all the things that I've worked on to be recognized this way, right? So we got to 100 episodes. I win my Emmy, and we're canceled two weeks later. Now, that's impossible.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
But what happened at Facebook was – They decided after four seasons that this whole watch platform, they're just not going to compete with Netflix. So no harm, no foul. But it was – we had two million people on a Facebook page who would watch that show like on the edge of their seat. It was a giant community of people who really gave a shit and they were super interested because remember –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Not so long ago. In fact, today, the country is so divided and there's so few things everybody can agree on. This show was, I think, one of them. It was just a celebration of the neighbors you wish you had. I don't own Returning the Favor, but we're relaunching it next week, May 2nd, under a new title called People You Should Know. And dude, I'm not like overly earnest.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I'm not – I'm in. I'm in. Look, there are no new ideas. Like I joked the last time I was at your pad in Nashville, it was like I really felt like you had tapped into like a Wayne's World meets Charlie Rose, right? And so all those old ideas will come back. Telethons will come back.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I get all my sentimentality is taken care of in my foundation. But this thing, I mean, whether it's addiction or – you're going to meet a guy – on this show called Steve Hotz. He runs something called the Black Horse Forge down in Fredericksburg. The PTSD thing, you're up to speed with how bad that is? Not how bad.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Well, last year, 6,407 service people killed themselves. And divided by 365, it's like 17.5 a day. But that doesn't count overdoses. That doesn't count death by misadventure, addiction. You add up all of the deaths, the preventable deaths of despair, and the number's way beyond that. So on Returning the Favor, we profiled.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Like we – the number of things people are doing to combat this you would love. We hunted pythons in the Everglades. I hate them. They're annoying. They're big and they're very snaky. Putting motorcycles together in Indiana. You got to get these guys out of their head if you want to help them. This guy, Steve, the Black Horse Forge, has had 22,000 vets come through. Wow. Zero suicides.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
He's batting 1,000. Steve Hotz? Yeah. We got to get him in here. Dude, you would. So this guy was like a dress designer, an interior designer. All right. He goes sideways with his boss. He decides to enlist. 82nd Airborne. Has hundreds of jumps. Yeah. Compresses his back. Damn near breaks it. Loses an eye. Comes home, absolute rock bottom. He's just, it's everything he loved is upside down.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And he starts making knives in a forge and realizes that when you're forging, the only thing you can think about is really what you're doing and don't burn yourself, right? And it so completely took him out of his head.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
He's made hundreds. Wow. He's got a whole line called the Jackalopes named after cryptozoological creatures, right? Like the Beast of Bladenboro and all these things. Yeah. So he's one of the guys we'll be featuring on this thing. That's him. There he is right there. That's him, man. One-eyed Steve. Fucking tough son of a bitch.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I like them. Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. Am I conflating Panic at the Disco? Yeah, you might be. They should combine. You'd have Widespread Panic at the Disco.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
One massive stadium extravaganza. Yeah. That'd be something, dude.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Kings and queen of the stone age. Like I have a little family. That'd be amazing. Yeah. Or just like, yeah. Or trans of the stone age, you know? Yeah. I was going to say Kansas and Boston. Get all this. Kansas, Boston, and Chicago. That'd be amazing. God, that's a great idea. I'll tell you what else they went to. This whole QVC thing dragged forward with a guy like you.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
If you'd have me, I'd do it too. But a celebration of American-made products done at like with this level of production. What you really need is a back office to help you with the stuff. Do you know Josh Smith, Montana Knife Company? Yeah. Get his ass in here.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Yeah. This guy makes some of the most – he's a master bladesmith. He was on – what is it? Forged in Fire. And I met him about a year ago. This guy – I mean, talk about a quest. He makes all, everything is in America, just like Bayard over at American Giant. I love that. Only he's up in Montana. These knives are amazing.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
He comes on my podcast and full disclosure, he's not a sponsor, but he said, you know what you're doing with micro works, anything I can do to help. And people offer, they say nice things, whatever. So I said, well, I tell you what you do. If you want to make a MicroWorks blade, real limited, I can – I promise you my people will buy them like that because your knives are amazing.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And when they go to your site, maybe they'll get a sense of who you are and what you've done and how many jobs you've created and so forth and so on. And he makes 300 of these things. Wow. They're unbelievable. They're not cheap. We sold them for $350. Let me keep every – we raised like $70,000. Let's go. Immediately. Immediately. Now they're doing a knife and my foundation participates.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And I'm going to talk to Bayard about doing something similar because to your point, you got to fight fire with fire.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Here's something you have to, you have to win the game up here. First, you got it. It's, you know what it is. It's, it's a, it's asymmetrical warfare. You have to think that like in this conversation, typically you, Walmart is the devil because the rap is, oh, well, they're buying stuff super cheap because people need it super cheap and that's what Walmart is and whatever.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
The thing people don't know – and I don't work for Walmart, but I'm just telling you I know them pretty well. And they have spent nearly $700 billion on US supply chain. So what happens is – God, I hope I'm not talking out of turn.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Yes. That's what I'm going to tell you. And this is what your audience needs to understand. And this is why it's really hard to get, you know, good guys and bad guys with black hats and white hats. It's not that simple. So you got a company like American Giant who makes a great T-shirt and it says like American made on the front. It's thick. It's indestructible. I got one. Bad news, $75.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Now, most people can't pay $75 for a T-shirt no matter how rad, right? You just can't. It's not in the wood. But what happens if a company like Walmart, the biggest retailer in the world – Sets aside a real chunk of money and calls a company like American Giants and says, I tell you what – We love that shirt.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Well, do you remember Jerry Lewis doing the telethons? Yep. Jerry's kids. Jerry's kids. He was real – I mean he raised like a lot of money. He did a lot of good in that world. But you got in 36 hours into a telethon. You've been up 36 hours. Yeah, you're on QVC, man. There were times on QVC where it snowed and the next ghost couldn't come in.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
If we order a million of them, or even half a million, as opposed to the normal five or 10,000 IPO you might get, if we blow this thing up, what kind of price could we actually get at that level? And then the price starts to come down, 15, 20 bucks. Under $20, you can get an American-made T-shirt. That's what you're talking about. It's not going to happen with the current way of thinking.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
The problem is if I go out in the world and tell that story, there's a whole long list of union people who are going to say, Mike, you don't understand. Walmart's the devil because this, this, this, this, and this. And I say, look, I get it. That's your fight. And I don't particularly have skin in that game. I'm sympathetic to your cause. Right.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
But it's back to that tier two, tier one conversation. You don't talk about tariffs like it's only an economic thing or you want to talk about it up here. If you're going to talk about it up there, you can't just look at Walmart as the devil because you've been told they're the devil. And you can't look at American Giant as a small, scrappy U.S.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
company that makes things that are too expensive because— Because they're doing the best they can with the way the table's been set. But if you get these two guys together and all of a sudden you get a different kind of investment in a supply chain in our country in a different way. And that's how a T-shirt can be made in this country for a price most people can't afford.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And that's a story that – look, that can happen with knives. That can happen with anything.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Well, look, man. That's rod busting 101. Look what you just did. I sound like Dennis Rodman. Full on metaphor there. Like that's – I did a job a couple years ago with these rod busters. They're iron workers, right? And they carry the rebar, right? So you got a chunk of rebar. Say it's like, I don't know, whatever the gauge is. It's thick. These things weigh a couple hundred pounds.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And you get like eight of them. So you got 800 pounds on eight guys' shoulders. And that's the only way you can move them. You have to put the weight on your shoulder. Where it gets crazy is, well, that guy's short and that guy's 6'3". Now, if you're 6'3", you're screwed.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Right? So it's like the whole – it's really a great metaphor because when you're humping the iron up to the top of the skyscraper, you're stepping through a grid of rebar that's already been laid. And if you trip and you go down – You take everybody with you. So it's an incredible metaphor for teamwork, consequences, stakes, working together, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And to your point, there are other ways to get the rebar to where you need to set it. But this is the best way. And it really does take a different way to think. And then, ironically, of course, have you ever seen a bridge before they pour the concrete where the whole thing is just like a skeleton of steel? It's- Sounds very nice.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Well, it's beautiful, and it's artistic, and it's like what you were talking about before. Like, there it is. That's like a whole panel of rebar there, right? Oh, yeah. And that's just on the floor, but when you see like an overpass being built- It's like some kind of a dinosaur, and it's all done with hundreds of tons of iron. And like the guys who do this work, there you go, that kind of thing.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
It's just mind-boggling. And then when they come, like the concrete guys come, and they bury it, man, forever. No one ever sees the artistry. No one ever sees the work of the iron worker. you know, for 100 years. That's a good point. It'll live in the concrete. Well, that's – like so much of that is happening to people today. They feel like their good work has been covered in concrete.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
So when you've been up for that long and you're on live TV and they bring you a collectible doll and you're hallucinating and you don't even understand that people collect dolls, but they do. Right. They do. And so you're just sitting there like this doll would be next to me and her name would be Rachel and she'd be dressed up like a tramp from Little Women or something. Oh, yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
They feel like it's invisible. They don't feel appreciated. They don't feel like they're moving the needle. They don't feel like they're part of a team, you know.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Dude, it's you. Look, whatever it is, it starts with you. That's why the first tenet on my stupid sweat pledge is about that gratitude. I don't think you can feel sorry for yourself if your default position is grateful.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
my God, you, you, you would betray your negativity. Yes. And thereby let yourself down again. Yeah. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
No, no, no. It's a great question, but it's like, okay, so the iron workers we were just talking about – Yeah, that was a cheap question to me to just fling at the end. Well, look, my own problem, first of all, 2,200 people through MicroWorks, I'd say maybe 20, 25% of them are working through a union shop. Most of them are electricians, some plumbers, but by and large,
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
You know, the percentage in my cohort of scholarship recipients and workers is – it's actually bigger than the – I think the national right now, 8 percent of workers are in a union or something like that, maybe a little less. You can check and I'm not sure, but it's close to that. So, yeah, I don't – I don't want to paint with too broad a brush, but it's like tier two and tier one with tariffs.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
If you're going to have a conversation about how best to negotiate between labor and management, there you go, 10% in 23, 11.2 in 23, 6.7 private sector. That's really what you're asking. Look at that, 6.7% in 2024 in the private sector, like iron workers or plumbers. 35.7% in the public sector. That could be the post office. That could be teachers. That could be the SEIU.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And you just give them stories, you know. Pride and prejudice. Exactly.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I call it door number three. You can't just give me... one or two, left or right, blue collar or white collar. Republican or Democrat. No.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
It's a sucker's bet. Yes. It's like the color of collars is no longer for sale. Don't talk to me about blue or white collar. That's the point of the groundwork story. You got a guy covered with mud under your house, your greatest investment, okay, doing something to save the foundation, right? Now, are you going to call that guy a blue-collar worker? You're going to call that guy just a grunt?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
That's right. And he's also an owner of the company. So now all of that other pride of ownership – all of that other code-driven integrity thing, right? You can start to see how you might be able to build a cohesive unit around something other than a paycheck. And that's not an excuse to say the paychecks couldn't be better.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I'm just saying that if you only look at the economic ramifications of a tariff, that's not much different than only looking at whether or not you like your job based on what your paycheck says.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And if you take the bait on that, the next thing you know, you're going to be having an argument about UBI, universal basic income, and you're going to get sucked into this whole conversation about, well, what are people going to do if there is no work and we ought to just pay them not to do anything? And then you've got all kinds of moral and ethical questions. It never stops.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Well, this is like what you just did is exactly what I would do every night. It was free associating over whatever they brought. I wasn't a very good salesman, but I was good at like starting sentences with no clear end and just keep going. Yeah. So the next thing you know, you're given these dolls, like very elaborate backstories.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
That guy, Bayard, who you brought up, he's a Wall Street guy. And 16 years ago, he said, no, I've just – his family came over on the freaking Mayflower, just so you know. That's who this guy is. And he said, nope, redo. I'm going to build a company called American Giant and I'm going to prove that this country can still make quality clothing.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Now, that's a very personal mission that could only be embarked upon by a genuinely hard-headed dude, okay? But 16 years later, they're still standing, and they're doing it. They're proving it, right? Now, can you do it to scale? This is a whole other conversation.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
It's not just that. It's every great accepted truth today began as madness. It was dismissed. And then it was grudgingly considered. And then it was slowly accepted as fringe. And then it was more widely believed as possible. And then it got a consensus. And then it became the truth. And then it became the self-evident truth. That's how it always, always happens.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
It's going to happen with every single thing right now, from tariffs to climate change to meat eating to addiction, all the things we think we know. about all of these different things are in a state of evolution. I agree. And I don't know where or how it ends, but I'll tell you this, man. It's exciting. We are long in certainty today, and we're very short in understanding.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And it's just going to take time. It's just going to take time to be as certain about these other things as we are about slavery. It takes time for people. I don't know. I don't know how it ends. But look, again, you're engaged. What you're doing matters. I can see that you love it. You love it on stage, you love talking to people, and you love helping your audience.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
My hope for everybody who is listening is that they can find a pursuit that gives them a measure of that. And I've seen it in welders. I've seen it in plumbers. I've seen it in entrepreneurs. I've seen it in writers. My mom just wrote her fourth book. She's 87. This woman wrote every day for 60 years, Theo. Cleaning up after my dirty son? Well, that was kind of her second one.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
You know, like, you know, she's a doll that gives you just a hint of possibility. She says no, but there's yes, yes in those eyes. And then the camera guy pushes in close, really close. And I'm sitting here like this looking at a monitor, looking at myself, looking at the doll, and a million people are watching.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
But no, for 60 years, her dream was to be a bestselling author. She never got published until she was 80. And then she went to number four. And now she's had four books. I only mention it because I talk about work ethic all the time. I talk about my pop. I talk about dirty jobbers and everything else. My mom, right in front of me, you know, is a four-time New York Times bestselling author.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
And she's 87. And that's a second act. It didn't really happen for her until she was 80. So whatever level of hope or hopelessness or despair people are in, man, there's... I feel like we've just talked about a lot of inspiration.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
You're a hillbilly from Louisiana who just interviewed the president of the United States. Oh, yeah. Are you kidding me? Yeah, that's a great – Are you kidding me? That is a great point, dude. When people tell me – By the way. Three and a half weekends, dude. You talk about shirts. I can't believe you got a wardrobe rack here. Oh, yeah, we do. And the whole smiley face on the thing.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
That's exactly what you were talking about. It's like your credo. It's your code. It's such a simple thing. What's it say on the back?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Tell me how it's working with $37 trillion in the hole. Tell me what's working, okay? This whole thing is cobbled together with Kleenex and spit. And we've confused the fact that we're still living in a workable situation with a situation that truly works. It's very wobbly.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
It was phlegm, but it was – Well, if you're clearing your throat, you're cutting up the phlegm. You put the phlegm in the glue, and then the next thing you know, it's all in one of these little Sunny Delight things. And I'm feeling weirdly caffeinated and subdued.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
It is a continuation of – It's a celebration of the neighbors you wish you had. Returning the favor, thanks to Mark Zuckerberg, set the standard. People you should know is what I'm going to do. Look, I don't even – I don't know what else to do except point the camera at people who –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
who are actually making a difference, whether they're making a sweatshirt or a submarine or saving lives by making knives in a forge, man. These stories, Theo, that's where we land the plane, with your permission. If you're looking for hope. Yeah. It's in the forge. It's in the sewing machines. It's with a welding torch.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
She's new in town, and she's keen to make some friends, and there's really no telling how far she'll go or how far you'll let her, because it's really up to you, caller. For three easy payments of $29.95, young Rachel here will be on her way to you, and whatever you do with her and the privacy of your own curio is between you and your Lord.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
It's with an attitude that says, I'm going to cheerfully take hold of that son of a bitch and I'm going to lift it up and I'm going to do my part to get the rebar to where it needs to go. I'm going to do my best. I'm going to try. And if I fall, I'm going to stand back up because life is a journey, brother. And it's a job. I'm not going to say a dirty one, just a job.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I'm just here to tell you that she's on sale, and she looks like a sport. All righty, what's next?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Well, you know, aren't we all just passing through, Theo? When you really think about it, this whole notion of permanence as it relates to porcelain dolls, I think that's something we can dive into to kill three, four, maybe five minutes.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
They're stuffed with styrofoam. And I'll tell you, it was a bold move on a manufacturing level. A Russian cotton, as they call it. That's right, because when you get it wet, it swells up a little bit, like those nesting dolls in reverse.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
When you see that little princess diabeanie baby swell up like a tick, your heart's going to beat with anticipation and wonder about what could possibly happen next.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I say massage. I say cavity search because with the Beanie Baby, it's really your property. That's the beauty, especially the Princess Di Beanie Babies because with a touch of royalty, well – They're dressed in purple, too, the color of kings, Theo.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
So it's really going to shake things up because who knows who's going to get it and who knows what's going to happen next.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
You really got to work for it. You want to be in the labor force.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Bayard Winthrop. Bayard Winthrop, yeah. Is the CEO of American – are you messing with like – I swear to God, dude. Bring it in.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
I'll tell you a true story about this guy, Bayard Winthrop. 16 years ago, he sent me a sweatshirt in the mail because he saw me on dirty jobs getting the absolute crap knocked out of me and he saw my clothes being destroyed right and left. He goes, this is an indestructible sweatshirt. It's 100% made in the USA and Slate Magazine had just written a story about called the World's Greatest Hoodie.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
So it wasn't cheap, but it was made from cotton that was literally picked, like outside of Gaffney, maybe, or Middlesex, South Carolina, where their factories were. They showed me pictures of the employees who stitched it, the yarn, everything. And I still have it. Wow. I wore that thing. It was completely in it. There it is, Slate Magazine. This is the greatest hoodie ever. This is December 2012.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
So he sent me this sweatshirt and I wore it and I gave him some love on Dirty Jobs because it really is amazing. You know, it's the kind of sweatshirt. Do you remember the champion sweatshirts? Yeah. With the reverse weave. Yeah. Yeah. There were like the varsity sweatshirts, the Harvard crew guys. It's the kind of sweatshirt your girlfriend steals. It's those.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
So anyway, I never knew what happened to the guy, but he reached out a couple years ago, and American Giant is still doing it. Yeah, they're making clothes in America, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#577 - Mike Rowe
Yep, they're doing it. They're actually doing it. People don't understand how jacked up this is. Back in 1988, 80% of all of the clothing we wore was made in America. And today it's 2%. It's bananas. It's unbelievable. The problem that those guys have is there's a labor challenge because what's happening is they're competing – Obviously with China and with Vietnam and with a lot of other places.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
People just don't believe you can make six figures working with your hands. There are 8.7 million open jobs. Most of them don't require a four-year degree. What they require is training and the mastery of a skill that's in demand.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
It wasn't thumbs up or thumbs down. That didn't matter. It was like, hey, come and let me show you what I do. And that was the moment for me. I thought, man, there's something here. And even though CBS let me go. They let me take the tape with me, and I got their permission to try and sell a show. I called it Somebody's Gotta Do It back then, but everybody said no.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I took it to every network, every place you can take a show to sell it. The only people who didn't say no were Discovery, and they didn't say yes. They just said, look, we'll let you do a pilot, like three episodes. They hired me to be sort of the Discovery guy. They wanted me to go on expeditions around the world and
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
see the titanic and climb kilimanjaro with experts and i was totally into that and they let me narrate pretty much everything they did for about 15 years there but this thing we call dirty jobs was not supposed to be a hit it wasn't supposed to be a series it certainly wasn't supposed to be a franchise and it sure as hell wasn't supposed to launch 38 different shows it did all those things happened
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And as they started to happen, I realized for the first time in my life that I was actually working on something that I did care about. That's when I went to work in earnest, truly, for the first time in my life, when that thing went on discovery and hit, and we were overwhelmed again with the same response, only this time it was thousands of letters.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
That's when everything changed, because my mom called and told me to do something that looked like work.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
So much of what eventually came out of Dirty Jobs was an alternate compendium for living. And it was somewhat contrarian. I had seen, and I'm sure you and all your viewers have too, these successories, right? They hang on walls everywhere. They say things like, stay the course. And it'll be a picture of some guys maybe rowing in a shell or kayaking.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And at some point during Dirty Jobs, when it really blew up, I started to realize that the people I was working with almost always had a different take on conventional wisdom. So stay the course is a great example. It makes great sense to tell somebody to stay the course if they're going in the right direction. If they're not, it's probably the worst thing in the world you can tell them to do.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Dirty Jobs became a hit in 2006. By 2008, it was the number one show on cable. There were 12 million people looking for jobs. But the crazy thing was on Dirty Jobs, everywhere we went, we saw help wanted signs. Those jobs are real. They're not vocational consolation prizes for people who can't do the other thing.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Never quit. Never give up. So to answer your question, if the subject is passion and the topic is your dream, then Well, I'd wager most people listening right now have been told from an early age, just as I was growing up, to follow your dream, and to never give up on your passion, and to be resilient, and to be stubborn in this regard.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And boy, sometimes that is great advice, but my God, the evidence to the contrary is voluminous. We've all seen American Idol, and we've all heard, you know, Beyonce, Lesnar, Lady Gaga and Cher and all the rock stars of our day say, look, never give up on that dream. I've heard them say it when they're standing there clutching their Grammys. And yet, what's the real lesson from American Idol?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
The real lesson isn't the winner. It's the thousands of people who audition. And it's the many, many, many hundreds of those people many of whom are in their early 20s, who realize that, incredibly, they're not going to be the American Idol. In fact, many of them realize, to their wonder and horror, that they can't sing at all. And they realize it on national television.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
As they're standing there, watching their dreams crumble around them, watching their passion drain out of them when they realize, like I said earlier, just because you love something doesn't mean you can't suck at it. And conversely, just because you don't feel passionate about a thing doesn't mean you can't change the way you feel about something.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I get a lot of pushback in this conversation, Hala, because it sounds like what I'm saying is screw your dreams. I don't care about your dreams. Don't follow your dreams. And then it's true. I am saying all those things. And I say them every day, many times to people who apply to our scholarship program. But I'm not saying your dreams aren't important.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
What I'm saying is your dreams are way too important. Your passion is way too important to follow. You don't follow a thing that's important. If you identify a thing that's important, you take it with you. You put it in your pocket.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
and you say, okay, I'm a passionate person, and I'm passionate about learning how to build homes, but if I can't crack that nut, am I really going to spend 50 years beating my head against the wall, or am I going to change my course?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
So look, it's a hard thing to do on your own, and that's why friends are important, and that's why books are important, and that's why the unexamined life is a tragedy. You You have to kick your own tires. And sometimes you just have to pick up the phone in your cubicle so your mom can tell you, no, not that way, this way. Try this instead.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Wouldn't it be fun if your pop could see you doing something that looked like work? She didn't call and say, hey, you know what you should think about doing is maybe changing the topography of the Discovery Channel by taking reality TV at its literal definition and reimagining yourself as a guest instead of a host.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And she said that I would have hung up on her and told her to stop drinking so early in the day. But all she said was, do something that looks like work. And it was just the right thing for her to say and just the right time for me to hear it. At 42, had this happened to me 10 years earlier, I would not have been able to handle the success of a show like Dirty Jobs.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I just wasn't mentally prepared for it. So you never know.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Just because you love something doesn't mean you can't suck at it. Follow your dreams. Follow your passion. The trap with that is...
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I'm just sitting here nodding in violent agreement. It's back to cookie cutter advice, unfortunately. We all need to hear exactly what you just said at some point in our life, but we don't all need to hear that at the same time because we're on a trip. This is a journey. I just had this conversation with my mom again, not to drag her back into it, but it's really apropos.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
This woman wrote every day for 60 years. I'm not even kidding. Her dream was to become a published writer. And she gave up on that dream after 40 years of beating her head against the wall. But she never stopped writing. She kept doing it because she knew the work. She found a passion in the work. Her dream of being a bestselling author was out the window until she turned 80.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Then she sold a manuscript and it went to number four on the New York Times bestseller list.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And then two years later, she freaking did it again. I mean, if you want the persistence rap, this is the story. She's 80 and she writes a book called About My Mother. She's 82 and she writes About Your Father. That thing also top 10. Then she writes Vacuuming in the Nude and Other Ways to Get Attention, which goes to number one.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And then she just wrote her fourth, Oh No, Not the Home, True Stories About Life in this Retirement Community. I don't mean to turn this into a commercial for her books. What I mean to say is, what are we to learn from a woman who wrote every day for 60 years before she got what she wanted? It actually contradicts and makes my point at the same time.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Based on that, I said, Mom, so what do you tell a writer who comes to you and says, do you have any advice? Because it's a very heavy thing. If you encourage somebody to do what you did, the odds are very good they're never going to get published. And they're going to spend 60 years making little rocks out of big rocks.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
But if you discourage them, then you're this sweet little America's grandmother who's going around killing people's dreams. How do you square that? And she said, oh, Michael, you know what I do? I tell them that I encourage them the way somebody in the crowd of a marathon does. might encourage a runner. I just stand there and I applaud as they go by.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And maybe I offer them a sip of cool water to make their journey a little more pleasant in that moment. But that's all I can do as somebody who finally got to do what she wanted to do at 87. All I can do is encourage you at whatever point you are in your race that you better be enjoying the race because there is no guarantee that you're going to hit the finish line.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Well, in a lot of ways, I think one way is exactly what we've been talking about. We've told kids that job satisfaction is a result of their ability to make their dreams a reality. It kind of starts with that. And so you put this incredible burden on a kid to say, look, if you want to be happy with your life, you need to identify right now the thing that's going to make you happy.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
and then we'll embark upon a plan to borrow vast sums of money in order to get you the proper credentials that will permit you to pursue this goal. That's baked in. It's kind of like, not to digress, but it's like a soulmate. If you're out there looking for your soulmate, That's like looking for your dream job. It's really hard to find.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Better to find a job and then craft it into the thing you want. Better to find a good and decent person you can trust and then find a way to love him or her. I know I'm saying the same thing in a slightly different way, but we've got it so inculcated in the minds of this generation that they could be the next American Idol. All you have to do is want it bad enough.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Thank you. Do I still qualify as young? I mean, profiting, I understand, but I'm not sure the young thing still applies, but I'll take it.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
So yeah, to that, I do say bullshit. I'm sorry, but wanting a thing is not enough. So the first order of business is to get a more realistic set of expectations. Then you have to take an honest look at the opportunities that exist. Again, I'm not saying ignore your dreams.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I'm just saying take a breath and just push them aside for a minute and look around to where the opportunities really and truly are. Right now, there are 8.7 million open jobs. Most of them don't require a four-year degree. What they require is training and the mastery of a skill that's in demand. That's not my opinion. That's just the way it is.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Other facts worth thinking about are the $1.7 trillion in student loans that are currently on the books. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. . . . . . ., the, P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P,實 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , a in in companies are beginning to realize they need to make a more persuasive case for a whole bunch of good jobs that are really important to all of us.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Yeah, guilty as charged. I grew up on a little farm outside of Baltimore. My granddad lived next to us and he was a magician, not a literal magician, but he was a tradesman. He only went to the seventh grade, but he could build or fix or fabricate anything from scratch. He just had that chip. So as a boy, I grew up with a front row seat to all kinds of different work,
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
all kinds of trade work, and just an incredible work ethic, both in my dad, my granddad, and my mother, by the way, who just finished her fourth book at 87. The woman has written every day for 67 years now. But the point is, I got really good cards as a kid. We didn't have a lot of money or anything like that, but I
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And they need to do that in junior high and high school. On the other hand, right now in real time, as I'm talking to you,
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
We need to make a more persuasive case for those eight and a half million jobs that currently exist, which is all a long way of saying, I don't know how many people who are listening to this thing should be working in the trades, but I can tell you that the opportunities are absolutely real. And there's never been a better time to at least kick the tires in that world.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I just had a great example of what worked looked like and a really great exposure to the trades. And I was pretty sure I was going to follow in my pop's footsteps. That's what I wanted to do. But the handy gene, tragically, is recessive. The things that came easily to him didn't come easily to me. It was my pop who suggested that I could be a tradesman.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
and see if it makes sense to your brain. Because we've helped 2,200 people get the training they need. And their stories, their stories are way more persuasive than my own. And I hear them every day.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
My God, there's so many. Please hook me up with Ms. Sanchez.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Yeah, I'd love to meet her. But I'd love to know too, before I answer you, how, I mean, you just described what you do in a pretty broad-based way, but like if you really distill it, what do you do? Like if you had a business card, what would it say? What's it come down to for you vocationally?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Okay. So I would go back to, I think, one of the very first things that came out when we started talking, which was my pop, if he were still around, would say, oh, this woman, this hollow woman, yeah, she's a tradeswoman, clearly. And if you pressed him, he would say, well, think about how she approaches work. She has many different clients.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
She advises them in different ways, depending on their needs. She's a jobber, probably has short-term contracts with some, longer-term contracts with others. She's probably paid on her results at some point. At some point, you're going to say, well, if I grow your business to this degree, how can I participate? Or are you purely time and materials? I don't know.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
No wrong answer either way, but those are all questions that tradespeople with an entrepreneurial bent will ask themselves. I look at myself, I think, much the same way you do in the sense that I do a lot of different things, but I'm really not trying to define the work by any one thing.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
One of the things really missing from the conversation today, whether you want to be an influencer or whether you want to be a plumber, the question is, are you an entrepreneur? Do you think like a freelancer? Do you even like the whole notion of a gig economy? Because the gig economy, that's under siege today. Freelancing is under siege. Here in California, it's a real thing.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
If I really wanted to, I just needed to get a different toolbox. That's when I realized that being a tradesman is really a state of mind more than a mastery of a specific set of skills. It's both, obviously, but I think today a lot of people really think about being in the trades in a very narrow way. It's very much a state of mind.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
There's a thing called AB-15. It's an assembly bill that turned into something called the PRO Act, which is currently in Congress. And there's a giant effort in this country to discourage people from freelancing. They want more employees. That's the relationship that a lot of people are being pushed into. And I think it's kind of tragic because it kills their entrepreneurial spirit.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
So to answer your question, I got a call the other day from... And this happens all of the time because early on in MicroWorks, there was nobody but me to tell anecdotal stories of dirty jobbers and things that I had seen. What's happening now, and the reason the foundation is so robust, is that for the first time, I'm able to go back five or six years ago to check in with somebody who we helped.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
and ask questions like, so how's it going? And what I do is I bring a small crew with me, and I've been recording the answers to that question. And oh my God, the stories are amazing. But Dirty Jobs is the, I mean, it's the granddaddy of essential working shows shot through with an entrepreneurial spirit. And I could just talk for hours about all of them. Not all of them. That's a bit rich.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
We did 350 different jobs, and all of them are important. Some are critical. Some are small businesses. Others were independent contractors. Others were big companies with an employee focus. It was a mosaic. But I'll tell you what shocks people to this day, and they just straight up don't believe me when I tell them, but I swear it's true.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
If you go back and look at old episodes of that show, I think the exact number was 41. 41 of the people we profiled were multimillionaires. And you would have never known it because they were covered in crap or something worse because they just didn't look like the modern version of what a successful aspirational entrepreneur looks like. But they're there and their stories are amazing.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
It's a privilege to tell them.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Way leads on to way. And part of what I think we've lost is patience. We want to see a playbook. We want to understand, if I do this, this, this, and this, am I going to get to where I want to be? And it's reasonable. Well, it's just not accurate. It just doesn't happen that way. And this is my complaint, aside from what I think is a preponderance, a proliferation of cookie-cutter advice.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
When I accepted the fact, honestly, that just because you love something doesn't mean you can't suck at it and started to put together a different toolbox in a community college and with a couple of really great mentors and the way I just kind of was able to Forrest Gump my way into the TV business was was a real blessing. And it started with the attitude of touch everything like it's hot.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
It's just this tendency among successful people to look back and say, let me tell you how I did it. Here's what you do. And there's nothing wrong with doing that. In fact, it's fun to do. But it presupposes the idea that the people who are reading your book and taking your advice are you. And of course, they're not. Like I said, the phone call I got from my mom, I got exactly when I needed it.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And the 15 years I spent freelancing, I wouldn't trade for anything. I loved it. But neither would I trade where I am now. And really, I mean, I'll take my own advice, even though I couldn't master any of the trades I was interested in. my pop explained were beyond my grasp. I don't know if I've mastered anything necessarily, but I've become fairly facile at the things I get paid to do.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
So I don't waste anybody's time. I know how to narrate. I can write. I know how to do what I'm good at. And so once you find that out, and maybe you've seen this in your own business, but I've done, I don't know, probably seven shows starting with Dirty Jobs that are all out there. But the truth is, honestly, they're all the same show. I just change the title every few years.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Dirty Jobs, Somebody's Gotta Do It, People You Should Know, Returning the Favor, Six Degrees even, some history shows I've worked on. They're all a version of me tapping the country on the shoulder and saying, what about her? What about him? Get a load of that. Look at what they're doing over there. That's my brand to the extent that that can be a brand. That's my trade.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And that's why I asked you before, how do you really see yourself? And that, at the risk of contradicting myself, that is some advice that I would offer to really to anyone. It's really like take your own inventory and be really honest with yourself and ask yourself, how have you been defining yourself? Because who you are and what you do, it becomes more crystallized when you hang a label on it.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
for better or worse. And so for me, it was useful for a while to see myself as a host and to see host in the credits. Okay, that's what Mike does. He's a host, and I'll work for a bunch of people being a host. But the truth is, I would probably still be doing that kind of thing had I not had that moment in the sewer. The Greeks call it a peripeteia.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
It's a moment in the narrative when the hero of the story or the protagonist realizes that everything he thought he knew about himself was wrong. And it's like, those are the moments that I that I find myself most interested in, in, in people's lives. Not when they realized they were on the right track, but when they knew they were on the wrong one.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And like, if you're, if you're really interested in storytelling and you start to look for parapetias, you'll, you'll find them everywhere. You remember the sixth sense?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
That's a great example of a modern parapetia. You got Bruce Willis, spoiler alert, but you got Bruce Willis and he's a psychologist and he's helping this little kid who sees dead people. And all through the movie, their relationship develops and Bruce is very fond of this kid, but he's crazy, obviously.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
He's mentally troubled and that's what Bruce Willis believes and that's what informs everything he does. And then in the final act of the movie, he realizes this little kid really can see dead people. And therefore he realizes in that moment, oh shit, that's why he can see me. I'm dead. I've been dead the whole movie.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
So like when you realize you've been dead the whole movie, when you realize you're actually not really a host. You're not really the thing you've been seeing when you look in the mirror. And it's true, I think, honestly, of all of us. We are who we see in the mirror, but we can decide to call that reflection whatever we want. And that makes a difference.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Don't swing for the fences. It's not about home runs in this game. It's about singles and doubles and do as much work as you can in as many different categories as you're able. And so I got a liberal arts background. a healthy sense of curiosity. And consequently, I tried a lot of different things. And the ones that stuck, I doubled down on. And before long, I had my toolbox in order.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
So if my buddy Jake sees himself as a welder, period, he's never going to go on to run a mechanical contracting company. And if I see myself as a host, period, then, hey, look, Ryan Seacrest had a pretty great life, but that's not the life I want. I don't want to be a host. Not forever. I wanted to change that. I would say to people, like, really think about it.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Are you sure you're a lawyer or are you something else? Are you sure you're a brand consultant? Or maybe, maybe that's exactly what you ought to be right now. Maybe that makes sense. Maybe everything's firing on all cylinders. But a year or two, it probably won't be. And you'll probably be looking around going, ah, God, somebody moved my cheese, right? Something changed.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I want to mix it up a little bit. Well, what are you going to do? How are you going to mix it up? I would say maybe one of the ways is to think about a different business card, different label.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And yeah, I was singing in the opera. I was doing infomercials. I was guest starring in sitcoms. I was doing pilots for talk shows. And God, I wasn't terribly proud of the work, but I wasn't ashamed of it either. And spent probably 15 years probably doing maybe 200 different jobs in the entertainment business before Dirty Jobs even came along.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
The happy answer is we need to carpet bomb the country with myriad examples of guys like Jake and women like Chloe Hudson, another scholarship recipient who's living basically the exact same life. People who are thriving as a direct result of mastering a skill that's in demand.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
To make the skills gap close and to challenge the primacy of a four-year degree, we need to make sure that parents and guidance counselors and everyone in every state has a steady diet of examples of the very thing I'm talking about. And the good news is those examples are out there. My job in the missionary side of things is to do a better job of sharing those stories.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
The more cynical part of me says what needs to happen for people ship to truly turn around and for the Blue Forge Alliance to find the 100,000 tradespeople that they need in the next nine years is, unfortunately, things need to get a little worse before they get better. And going splat is never fun, but sometimes that's what needs to happen.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
For people to really think twice about the value of the Ivy League, maybe they need to see the Ivy League affirmatively discriminating against free speech. Maybe they need to see the leaders of certain universities be found guilty of plagiarism, which they clearly were. Maybe these bad things need to happen in some ways to create some kind of wake-up call inside that institution.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Maybe in order to understand that the only way to really live in harmony with nature is to control burn, to clear the forest from time to time, to do the thing that's uncomfortable to watch. And to get that through our head, maybe the palisades need to burn. Maybe Santa Monica needs to burn.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I hate to say that, but maybe we don't get enough skilled workers to build those submarines until we get into some kind of hot conflict and we realize, you know something? The aircraft carriers that we used to believe were the pointy part of the spear are now on the bottom of the ocean because they have no defense against hypersonic missiles.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Submarines do, but oh my God, we didn't know that, but now we do. And I hope it's not too late. but I hope we start to think differently about the definition of a good job before those kinds of things go splat. I don't have a crystal ball, but I'm basically a glass half full kind of guy. And I know that from where I'm sitting, I can see the ship starting to turn. I have seen more and more people
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
step back and think a little more critically about the opportunities that exist and the way they might interact with their own sense of dreams and passions and hopes and so forth. But all we can do is what we can do. It's quixotic, but I've been tilting at windmills my whole life and pushing the rock up the hill. No, wait, that's not quixotic. That's Sisyphean.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
So there's a weird but bright line on my resume that I would call before Dirty Jobs and after Dirty Jobs because really everything changed in a huge way once that show hit.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Whatever it is, all we can do is what we can do.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
There's no age limit. In fact, I'm more excited when I get applications from people who have hit the reset button at 35 and 40 years old and want to go back and right, just kind of start from scratch. It takes a lot of balls to do that, and I appreciate it, and I admire it.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Typically, though, we're talking about men and women who are just coming out of high school or a partway through college and realizing that They want to change the road they're on. If you're that person, what you do is you go to microworks.org and you just click on the apply button and you apply for a work ethic scholarship. No guarantees, but the scholarship game is simple.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
There are lots of different scholarships out there, by the way. Some focus on athletic achievement, others on academic, others on art. There's scholarship for everything. Ours are for work ethic and the skilled trades. So if a four-year degree is in your future, I can't help you. But if you're open to any of the other jobs that require a different kind of education, I'm your guy. Check us out.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
We're here to help.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Well, again, I would contradict myself if I actually answered that directly. Because I don't know what leads to profit, especially like tomorrow, if you mean that in the literal 24-hour sense. It took me 42 years to figure out my career. So I don't know about tomorrow. But I will tell you this. There's nothing new to say about failure.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I'm sure everybody who's ever come on your podcast has talked about failure is just learning. Failure is that's where we learn, blah, blah, blah. So I won't say that. But I will make a case for the importance of being uncomfortable. If you're willing to be uncomfortable, that's a step in the right direction. Because discomfort doesn't necessarily mean failure.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
It really doesn't mean anything other than, are you willing to be uncomfortable? Actually, it was my old scoutmaster who who told me this, and I hated him for saying it at the time, and I didn't believe him for a long time. But you will hear that character has a lot to do with a willingness to be uncomfortable. But what I'm saying is slightly different.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
It's great to be willing to do a hard thing or to agree to volunteer for a difficult thing. That's well and good. The next level, though, is to figure out a way to like it. That's what Mr. Huntington said to me. He said, look, man, if you want to go somewhere, it's not enough to simply endure being uncomfortable. You have to find a way to like it and look forward to it.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
That's what Dirty Jobs was for me. It was uncomfortable. I took a pie in the face in every single episode. There were broken bones, and I seared off my eyelashes and my eyelids. I mean, it was painful. It was painful. But the Navy SEALs say the same thing. Embrace the suck. Look forward to it. Take a cold plunge. It's good for you, and it's miserable, but you feel great afterwards.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
There's so many things you can do, little things, to reintroduce yourself to the kind of discomfort that usually leads to something good.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Well, a couple of things come to mind, but I'm going to go with the word you used earlier because I love it. And the word is pivot. It has to do with changing your course, but still being persistent. It has to do with... a word you don't hear a lot about anymore, which is initiative. God, talk about what's in short supply.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
That's what every employer I know is just dying, dying to find, people with initiative. But I'll go back to pivoting. I've always known it was important, but it wasn't until the lockdowns that I saw just how clarifying that was. And I mean, it was pivot or perish. It was adapt or die.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And how many businesses went out of business because they just sat around waiting to be told what to do, where they just got into that, okay, two weeks to flatten the curve. All right, I'll wait another two weeks. I'll wait two more. Meanwhile, life is happening right in front of you. I remember two weeks into that, I called the president of the Discovery Channel.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And I said, Hey, this can't be good for you guys. I mean, your whole pipeline of content relies on people going out into the world and working, and we can't go out into the world now. And she said, uh, look, I know, I know, we're freaking out over here. Any ideas? And I had just read an article on this thing called Zoom. I'd never heard of Zoom.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I thought it was just some adjective or something like Zoom, whatever. But I looked at it and I'm like, wait a minute, people are talking. People are having meetings. This thing is connecting people in a totally new way. I said, what if we call the crab boat captains? from Deadliest Catch, which I've been narrating for 21 years. And I'm like, what if we do a Zoom call and record it?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And what if you put that on at 9 p.m. as a show at a time when we're all literally like in the same boat? What if you go to crab boat captains to talk about what's happening in the lockdowns and get their take on it? So we did it. And we were the first Zoom show to ever air in prime time. That happened about a month into the lockdowns.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And then after that, I was like, look, I don't care what it takes. I'm going to put this show back in production. I got my old crew together and we went out into the world and we started filming a new season of Dirty Jobs. That show went out of production in 2012. We went back into production in 2020. And I'm proud of that.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Not because it was particularly great, although frankly, I thought it was pretty good. I was proud because my crew was so anxious to pivot. And the network was willing to pivot. And I was desperate to pivot. And being allowed to pivot when you feel like that's what you got to do, man, that's freedom 101. And being willing to pivot, even into something uncomfortable, that's life.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Well, it helped me for as long as it helped me, and then it didn't. And that's the thing, really. I mean, the thing about advice is that I've lived long enough to know that the best advice I've ever gotten only applied at the time I needed to hear it. And I don't know...
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
The way I heard it is probably playing right where this podcast is playing, Spotify, Apple, wherever people get podcasts. I talk to people I find interesting every single week. I write a lot of short stories, mysteries that we put on the podcast. That turned into a show, and those have been a lot of fun as well. The shows are all out there. I'm still narrating a bunch of stuff.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Dirty Jobs is still on every day on the Discovery Channel. God bless them. Working on a new show called People You Should Know. That'll be coming to YouTube. There's a website with my name in it called micro.com. And of course, nine or 10 million people somehow or another on Facebook and Instagram still pretend to care what I say. So I'd be honored if you join them.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And most importantly, microworks.org. You know, we got a big pile of money there. I'm desperate to give away to people who want to learn to trade. So if that's you, go get some.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Thanks for having me.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
who's listening to this conversation right now necessarily or really what they need to hear all i know for sure is that i i live two very different lives in the course of the career that i've had and both were fun and both were necessary but neither could have happened
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
contemporaneously so the mercenary thing you read about was probably me talking about my foundation today and how i squared this kind of bloody do-gooderism with the business of actually making a buck in an industry that is in fact very mercenary and um In those conversations, I typically say something like, look, I think there's a missionary position and a mercenary position in all things.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And I think both those positions are somewhat underrated. But prior to Dirty Jobs, it was all mercenary. I was a freelancer in every sense of the word. By the way, do you know the etymology of that? Where freelance comes from? No. I didn't either. And when I learned about it, it really resonated with me that the word is actually medieval. It refers to a knight who served no lord or no king.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
His lance, in other words, was for sale. He was a freelance, not an inexpensive one, but he was free to work for anybody he wanted to. That attitude combined with the tools in the box my pop told me to assemble, a willingness to relocate whenever necessary, those things really informed the first 15 years of my career. And I loved that life.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I loved looking at every job like it had a beginning and a middle and an end. I enjoyed doing the best work that I could, but I also love knowing that I wasn't going to be tied to any particular project the way success demands. And so I carved out a really fun niche in the entertainment business where I owned virtually nothing. I was working on multiple projects at the same time.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I had clothing deals, for instance, with like American Eagle and Nordstrom's and Different shows had different deals. So I didn't really own any clothes except the ones I picked up in whatever town I landed in. I was working for American Airlines at the time doing a traveling show. So I had a free pass to travel anywhere in the world I wanted to. I had deals with hotels.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And so I was like a nomad for 15 years. I flew wherever the work was. I did the best I could on the job. And I mean, not to sound too cynical about it, but honestly, in those days, when I was in my late 20s and 30s, I was affirmatively looking for work and ideas that had been so poorly conceived that no amount of execution could possibly save them. That's the thing nobody talks about in Hollywood.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
There's so many ideas and so many of them are bad. And if you associate yourself with these ideas that don't turn into hits, but do a good job working on them, you'll get a good reputation and you'll get hired. For virtually, I got hired a lot. I got hired for a lot of things I auditioned for. And I never really got punished for the fact that most of those things didn't actually work long term.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And so by the time I was 35, I realized I'd been taking my retirement in early installments. I'd been traveling a lot, working maybe seven months a year on projects that didn't really matter too much to me. But I didn't care because at that point in my life, it all made perfect sense. I'd made enough money to save and be comfortable, and I had enough time to enjoy myself.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And so for a long time, I thought I'd cracked the code. And I was pretty satisfied with all that until I wasn't.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
It was very strange. What happened was I was 42 and I was living that freelance life and everything was great. I had moved up to San Francisco to work temporarily as a host for a show called Evening Magazine, which is one of those local shows that comes on after the news. And I was the host of this show, and it was a pretty good gig.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I would go to wineries up in Napa, and I would go to museum openings, and I would basically host the show every night from these different locations. It could be anywhere. I had settled into the job, and my mom called me. I was sitting in my cubicle at KPIX here in San Francisco, and she called to say, Michael, your grandfather turned 90 years old yesterday, as you know.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And, you know, I was just thinking he won't be alive forever. And wouldn't it be great, she said, if before he died, he could turn on his television and see you doing something that looked like work. And so remember, my pop is the guy who could build a house without a blueprint. He's the guy who can, he was a tradesman's tradesman.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And I laughed a lot when I think about what he must have thought when he saw me singing in the opera or selling things in the middle of the night on the QVC cable shopping channel or doing all of these jobs that I had been doing that I didn't really care about that made absolutely no sense to his brain. So my mom calls and kind of gives me this good-natured challenge, as she always does.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
She still does, in fact. But she was right. I'm like, why does Evening Magazine always have to be hosted from a winery? or a museum or opening night at a theater or something? Why can't it be hosted from a factory floor or a construction site or a sewer? And that was the question I asked my boss back in 2002. I said, I want to host tomorrow night's episode from a sewer. He said, I don't care.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Do whatever you want. Nobody's watching the show anyway. I took my cameraman, I went into the sewers of San Francisco, and what happened down there is a book that I got around to writing a few years ago. And the massive lesson that I learned down there was that I was basically unable to do my job.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
between just an endless river of crap that kept knocking me over and rats the size of a loaf of bread and millions of roaches that completely covered us. I mean, it was so disgusting and so impossible to be a host. I stopped trying. And instead, I just asked the sewer inspector who was down there sort of as my guide if I could if I could help him do whatever it was he was doing.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
He was replacing the bricks in the wall. That was basically his job. So my camera guy filmed me working alongside this sewer inspector, and our conversation was captured on the video. And I thought when I looked at this footage of me working with Gene Cruz, the sewer inspector back then, it was like, why does the authority figure have to be the host? Why can't they just be a regular person?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And if that happens, then what am I if I'm not the host? And the answer was, well, maybe you're an apprentice or a guest or an avatar or a cipher of some kind. It might not seem like a big distinction today, but back then it was huge.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And this idea, like after 15 years of impersonating a host, if all of a sudden I could work instead as a guest and find a dynamic where I could spend time with regular people doing real work, would anybody watch that? That was the question. Well, holy crap, man. I put that That segment went on the air on Evening Magazine, and the response was telling.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
It wasn't that people said, God, that was enjoyable. People were horrified. They were trying to eat dinner, and I'm crawling around in a river of crap. It was just totally inappropriate for that show. In fact, I was fired ultimately for putting that on the air.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
But the feedback that I'll never forget came from hundreds of viewers who just said, hey, Mike, if you think that was dirty, wait till you see what my dad does. Why don't you come and drive the food truck at the zoo or replace a lift pump in a pumping chamber at a wastewater treatment plant and so forth? And I just thought I'd never seen that kind of reaction to anything I'd ever done on TV.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
People just don't believe you can make six figures working with your hands. There are 8.7 million open jobs. Most of them don't require a four-year degree. What they require is training and the mastery of a skill that's in demand.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
It wasn't thumbs up or thumbs down. That didn't matter. It was like, hey, come and let me show you what I do. And that was the moment for me. I thought, man, there's something here. And even though CBS let me go. They let me take the tape with me, and I got their permission to try and sell a show. I called it Somebody's Gotta Do It back then, but everybody said no.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I took it to every network, every place you can take a show to sell it. The only people who didn't say no were Discovery, and they didn't say yes. They just said, look, we'll let you do a pilot, like three episodes. They hired me to be sort of the Discovery guy. They wanted me to go on expeditions around the world and
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
see the titanic and climb kilimanjaro with experts and i was totally into that and they let me narrate pretty much everything they did for about 15 years there but this thing we call dirty jobs was not supposed to be a hit it wasn't supposed to be a series it certainly wasn't supposed to be a franchise and it sure as hell wasn't supposed to launch 38 different shows it did all those things happened
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And as they started to happen, I realized for the first time in my life that I was actually working on something that I did care about. That's when I went to work in earnest, truly, for the first time in my life, when that thing went on discovery and hit, and we were overwhelmed again with the same response, only this time it was thousands of letters.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
That's when everything changed, because my mom called and told me to do something that looked like work.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
So much of what eventually came out of Dirty Jobs was an alternate compendium for living. And it was somewhat contrarian. I had seen, and I'm sure you and all your viewers have too, these successories, right? They hang on walls everywhere. They say things like, stay the course. And it'll be a picture of some guys maybe rowing in a shell or kayaking.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And at some point during Dirty Jobs, when it really blew up, I started to realize that the people I was working with almost always had a different take on conventional wisdom. So stay the course is a great example. It makes great sense to tell somebody to stay the course if they're going in the right direction. If they're not, it's probably the worst thing in the world you can tell them to do.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Dirty Jobs became a hit in 2006. By 2008, it was the number one show on cable. There were 12 million people looking for jobs. But the crazy thing was on Dirty Jobs, everywhere we went, we saw help wanted signs. Those jobs are real. They're not vocational consolation prizes for people who can't do the other thing.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Never quit. Never give up. So to answer your question, if the subject is passion and the topic is your dream, then Well, I'd wager most people listening right now have been told from an early age, just as I was growing up, to follow your dream, and to never give up on your passion, and to be resilient, and to be stubborn in this regard.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And boy, sometimes that is great advice, but my God, the evidence to the contrary is voluminous. We've all seen American Idol, and we've all heard, you know, Beyonce, Lesnar, Lady Gaga and Cher and all the rock stars of our day say, look, never give up on that dream. I've heard them say it when they're standing there clutching their Grammys. And yet, what's the real lesson from American Idol?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
The real lesson isn't the winner. It's the thousands of people who audition. And it's the many, many, many hundreds of those people many of whom are in their early 20s, who realize that, incredibly, they're not going to be the American Idol. In fact, many of them realize, to their wonder and horror, that they can't sing at all. And they realize it on national television.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
As they're standing there, watching their dreams crumble around them, watching their passion drain out of them when they realize, like I said earlier, just because you love something doesn't mean you can't suck at it. And conversely, just because you don't feel passionate about a thing doesn't mean you can't change the way you feel about something.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I get a lot of pushback in this conversation, Hala, because it sounds like what I'm saying is screw your dreams. I don't care about your dreams. Don't follow your dreams. And then it's true. I am saying all those things. And I say them every day, many times to people who apply to our scholarship program. But I'm not saying your dreams aren't important.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
What I'm saying is your dreams are way too important. Your passion is way too important to follow. You don't follow a thing that's important. If you identify a thing that's important, you take it with you. You put it in your pocket.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
and you say, okay, I'm a passionate person, and I'm passionate about learning how to build homes, but if I can't crack that nut, am I really going to spend 50 years beating my head against the wall, or am I going to change my course?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
So look, it's a hard thing to do on your own, and that's why friends are important, and that's why books are important, and that's why the unexamined life is a tragedy. You You have to kick your own tires. And sometimes you just have to pick up the phone in your cubicle so your mom can tell you, no, not that way, this way. Try this instead.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Wouldn't it be fun if your pop could see you doing something that looked like work? She didn't call and say, hey, you know what you should think about doing is maybe changing the topography of the Discovery Channel by taking reality TV at its literal definition and reimagining yourself as a guest instead of a host.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And she said that I would have hung up on her and told her to stop drinking so early in the day. But all she said was, do something that looks like work. And it was just the right thing for her to say and just the right time for me to hear it. At 42, had this happened to me 10 years earlier, I would not have been able to handle the success of a show like Dirty Jobs.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I just wasn't mentally prepared for it. So you never know.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Just because you love something doesn't mean you can't suck at it. Follow your dreams. Follow your passion. The trap with that is...
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I'm just sitting here nodding in violent agreement. It's back to cookie cutter advice, unfortunately. We all need to hear exactly what you just said at some point in our life, but we don't all need to hear that at the same time because we're on a trip. This is a journey. I just had this conversation with my mom again, not to drag her back into it, but it's really apropos.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
This woman wrote every day for 60 years. I'm not even kidding. Her dream was to become a published writer. And she gave up on that dream after 40 years of beating her head against the wall. But she never stopped writing. She kept doing it because she knew the work. She found a passion in the work. Her dream of being a bestselling author was out the window until she turned 80.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Then she sold a manuscript and it went to number four on the New York Times bestseller list.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And then two years later, she freaking did it again. I mean, if you want the persistence rap, this is the story. She's 80 and she writes a book called About My Mother. She's 82 and she writes About Your Father. That thing also top 10. Then she writes Vacuuming in the Nude and Other Ways to Get Attention, which goes to number one.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And then she just wrote her fourth, Oh No, Not the Home, True Stories About Life in this Retirement Community. I don't mean to turn this into a commercial for her books. What I mean to say is, what are we to learn from a woman who wrote every day for 60 years before she got what she wanted? It actually contradicts and makes my point at the same time.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Based on that, I said, Mom, so what do you tell a writer who comes to you and says, do you have any advice? Because it's a very heavy thing. If you encourage somebody to do what you did, the odds are very good they're never going to get published. And they're going to spend 60 years making little rocks out of big rocks.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
But if you discourage them, then you're this sweet little America's grandmother who's going around killing people's dreams. How do you square that? And she said, oh, Michael, you know what I do? I tell them that I encourage them the way somebody in the crowd of a marathon does. might encourage a runner. I just stand there and I applaud as they go by.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And maybe I offer them a sip of cool water to make their journey a little more pleasant in that moment. But that's all I can do as somebody who finally got to do what she wanted to do at 87. All I can do is encourage you at whatever point you are in your race that you better be enjoying the race because there is no guarantee that you're going to hit the finish line.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Well, in a lot of ways, I think one way is exactly what we've been talking about. We've told kids that job satisfaction is a result of their ability to make their dreams a reality. It kind of starts with that. And so you put this incredible burden on a kid to say, look, if you want to be happy with your life, you need to identify right now the thing that's going to make you happy.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And then we'll embark upon a plan to borrow vast sums of money in order to get you the proper credentials that will permit you to pursue this goal. That's baked in. It's kind of like, not to digress, but it's like a soulmate. If you're out there looking for your soulmate, that's like looking for your dream job. It's really hard to find.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Better to find a job and then craft it into the thing you want. Better to find a good and decent person you can trust and then find a way to love him or her. I know I'm saying the same thing in a slightly different way, but we've got it so inculcated in the minds of this generation that they could be the next American Idol. All you have to do is want it bad enough.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
So yeah, to that I do say bullshit. I'm sorry, but wanting a thing is not enough. So the first order of business is to get a more realistic set of expectations. Then you have to take an honest look at the opportunities that exist. Again, I'm not saying ignore your dreams.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I'm just saying take a breath and just push them aside for a minute and look around to where the opportunities really and truly are. Right now, there are 8.7 million open jobs. Most of them don't require a four-year degree. What they require is training and the mastery of a skill that's in demand. That's not my opinion. That's just the way it is.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Thank you. Do I still qualify as young? I mean, profiting, I understand, but I'm not sure the young thing still applies, but I'll take it.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Other facts worth thinking about are the $1.7 trillion in student loans that are currently on the books. That's a fact. It's a fact that most of the people who hold that debt don't even have a degree. Debt includes people who got halfway through a college experience and threw their hands up and said no. Well, yeah, you can walk away from the university, but you can't walk away from that debt.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
It's a fact that many people who did graduate in their chosen field are either not working at all Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Yeah, guilty as charged. I grew up on a little farm outside of Baltimore. My granddad lived next to us and he was a magician, not a literal magician, but he was a tradesman. He only went to the seventh grade, but he could build or fix or fabricate anything from scratch. He just had that chip. So as a boy, I grew up with a front row seat to all kinds of different work,
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
all kinds of trade work, and just an incredible work ethic, both in my dad, my granddad, and my mother, by the way, who just finished her fourth book at 87. The woman has written every day for 67 years now. But the point is, I got really good cards as a kid. We didn't have a lot of money or anything like that, but I
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
We need to make a more persuasive case for those eight and a half million jobs that currently exist, which is all a long way of saying, I don't know how many people who are listening to this thing should be working in the trades, but I can tell you that the opportunities are absolutely real. And there's never been a better time to at least kick the tires in that world.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
and see if it makes sense to your brain. Because we've helped 2,200 people get the training they need, and their stories, their stories are way more persuasive than my own, and I hear them every day.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I just had a great example of what worked looked like and a really great exposure to the trades. And I was pretty sure I was going to follow in my pop's footsteps. That's what I wanted to do. But the handy gene, tragically, is recessive. The things that came easily to him didn't come easily to me. It was my pop who suggested that I could be a tradesman.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
My God, there's so many. Please hook me up with Ms. Sanchez.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Yeah, I'd love to meet her. But I'd love to know too, before I answer you, how, I mean, you just described what you do in a pretty broad-based way, but like if you really distill it, what do you do? Like if you had a business card, what would it say? What's it come down to for you vocationally?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Okay. So I would go back to, I think, one of the very first things that came out when we started talking, which was my pop, if he were still around, would say, oh, this woman, this hollow woman, yeah, she's a tradeswoman, clearly. And if you pressed him, he would say, well, think about how she approaches work. She has many different clients.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
She advises them in different ways, depending on their needs. She's a jobber, probably has short-term contracts with some, longer-term contracts with others. She's probably paid on her results at some point. At some point, you're going to say, well, if I grow your business to this degree, how can I participate? Or are you purely time and materials? I don't know.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
No wrong answer either way, but those are all questions that tradespeople with an entrepreneurial bent will ask themselves. I look at myself, I think, much the same way you do in the sense that I do a lot of different things, but I'm really not trying to define the work by any one thing.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
One of the things really missing from the conversation today, whether you wanna be an influencer or whether you wanna be a plumber, the question is, are you an entrepreneur? Do you think like a freelancer? Do you even like the whole notion of a gig economy? Because the gig economy, that's under siege today. Freelancing is under siege. Here in California, It's a real thing.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
There's a thing called AB-15. It's an assembly bill that turned into something called the PRO Act, which is currently in Congress. And there's a giant effort in this country to discourage people from freelancing. They want more employees. That's the relationship that a lot of people are being pushed into. And I think it's kind of tragic because it kills their entrepreneurial spirit.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
If I really wanted to, I just needed to get a different toolbox. That's when I realized that being a tradesman is really a state of mind more than a mastery of a specific set of skills. It's both, obviously, but I think today a lot of people really think about being in the trades in a very narrow way. It's very much a state of mind.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
So to answer your question, I got a call the other day from... And this happens all of the time because early on in MicroWorks, there was nobody but me to tell anecdotal stories of dirty jobbers and things that I had seen. What's happening now, and the reason the foundation is so robust, is that for the first time, I'm able to go back five or six years ago to check in with somebody who we helped.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
and ask questions like, so how's it going? And what I do is I bring a small crew with me, and I've been recording the answers to that question. And oh my God, the stories are amazing. But Dirty Jobs is the, I mean, it's the granddaddy of essential working shows shot through with an entrepreneurial spirit. And I could just talk for hours about all of them. Not all of them. That's a bit rich.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
We did 350 different jobs, and all of them are important. Some are critical. Some are small businesses. Others were independent contractors. Others were big companies with an employee focus. It was a mosaic. But I'll tell you what shocks people to this day, and they just straight up don't believe me when I tell them, but I swear it's true.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
If you go back and look at old episodes of that show, I think the exact number was 41. 41 of the people we profiled were multimillionaires. And you would have never known it because they were covered in crap or something worse because they just didn't look like the modern version of what a successful aspirational entrepreneur looks like. But they're there and their stories are amazing.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
It's a privilege to tell them.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Way leads on to way. And part of what I think we've lost is patience. We want to see a playbook. We want to understand, if I do this, this, this, and this, am I going to get to where I want to be? And it's reasonable. Well, it's just not accurate. It just doesn't happen that way. And this is my complaint, aside from what I think is a preponderance, a proliferation of cookie cutter advice.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
It's just this tendency among successful people to look back and say, let me tell you how I did it. Here's what you do. And there's nothing wrong with doing that. In fact, it's fun to do. But it presupposes the idea that the people who are reading your book and taking your advice are you. And of course, they're not. Like I said, the phone call I got from my mom, I got exactly when I needed it.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
When I accepted the fact, honestly, that just because you love something doesn't mean you can't suck at it and started to put together a different toolbox in a community college and with a couple of really great mentors and the way I just kind of was able to Forrest Gump my way into the TV business was was a real blessing. And it started with the attitude of touch everything like it's hot.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And the 15 years I spent freelancing, I wouldn't trade for anything. I loved it. But neither would I trade where I am now. And really, I mean, I'll take my own advice, even though I couldn't master any of the trades I was interested in. my pop explained were beyond my grasp. I don't know if I've mastered anything necessarily, but I've become fairly facile at the things I get paid to do.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
So I don't waste anybody's time. I know how to narrate. I can write. I know how to do what I'm good at. And so once you find that out, and maybe you've seen this in your own business, but I've done I don't know, probably seven shows starting with Dirty Jobs that are all out there. But the truth is, honestly, they're all the same show. I just change the title every few years.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Dirty Jobs, Somebody's Gotta Do It, People You Should Know, Returning the Favor, Six Degrees even, some history shows I've worked on. They're all a version of me tapping the country on the shoulder and saying, what about her? What about him? Get a load of that. Look at what they're doing over there. That's my brand to the extent that that can be a brand. That's my trade.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And that's why I asked you before, how do you really see yourself? And that, at the risk of contradicting myself, that is some advice that I would offer to really to anyone. It's really like take your own inventory and be really honest with yourself and ask yourself, how have you been defining yourself? Because who you are and what you do, it becomes more crystallized when you hang a label on it.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
for better or worse. And so for me, it was useful for a while to see myself as a host and to see host in the credits. Okay, that's what Mike does. He's a host, and I'll work for a bunch of people being a host. But the truth is, I would probably still be doing that kind of thing had I not had that moment in the sewer. The Greeks call it a peripeteia.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
It's a moment in the narrative when the hero of the story or the protagonist realizes that everything he thought he knew about himself was wrong. And it's like, those are the moments that I that I find myself most interested in, in, in people's lives. Not when they realized they were on the right track, but when they knew they were on the wrong one.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And like, if you're, if you're really interested in storytelling and you start to look for parapetias, you'll, you'll find them everywhere. You remember the sixth sense?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
That's a great example of a modern parapetia. You got Bruce Willis, spoiler alert, but you got Bruce Willis and he's a psychologist and he's helping this little kid who sees dead people. And all through the movie, their relationship develops and Bruce is very fond of this kid, but he's crazy, obviously.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
He's mentally troubled and that's what Bruce Willis believes and that's what informs everything he does. And then in the final act of the movie, he realizes this little kid really can see dead people. And therefore he realizes in that moment, oh shit, that's why he can see me. I'm dead. I've been dead the whole movie.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
So like when you realize you've been dead the whole movie, when you realize you're actually not really a host. You're not really the thing you've been seeing when you look in the mirror. And it's true, I think, honestly, of all of us. We are who we see in the mirror, but we can decide to call that reflection whatever we want. And that makes a difference.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
So if my buddy Jake sees himself as a welder, period, he's never going to go on to run a mechanical contracting company. And if I see myself as a host, period, then, hey, look, Ryan Seacrest had a pretty great life, but that's not the life I want. I don't want to be a host. Not forever. I wanted to change that. I would say to people, like, really think about it.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Don't swing for the fences. It's not about home runs in this game. It's about singles and doubles and do as much work as you can in as many different categories as you're able. And so I got a liberal arts background. a healthy sense of curiosity. And consequently, I tried a lot of different things. And the ones that stuck, I doubled down on. And before long, I had my toolbox in order.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Are you sure you're a lawyer or are you something else? Are you sure you're a brand consultant? Or maybe, maybe that's exactly what you ought to be right now. Maybe that makes sense. Maybe everything's firing on all cylinders. But a year or two, it probably won't be. And you'll probably be looking around going, ah, God, somebody moved my cheese, right? Something changed.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I want to mix it up a little bit. Well, what are you going to do? How are you going to mix it up? I would say maybe one of the ways is to think about a different business card, different label.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And yeah, I was singing in the opera. I was doing infomercials. I was guest starring in sitcoms. I was doing pilots for talk shows. And God, I wasn't terribly proud of the work, but I wasn't ashamed of it either. And spent probably 15 years probably doing maybe 200 different jobs in the entertainment business before Dirty Jobs even came along.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
The happy answer is we need to carpet bomb the country with myriad examples of guys like Jake and women like Chloe Hudson, another scholarship recipient who's living basically the exact same life. People who are thriving as a direct result of mastering a skill that's in demand.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
To make the skills gap close and to challenge the primacy of a four-year degree, we need to make sure that parents and guidance counselors and everyone in every state has a steady diet of examples of the very thing I'm talking about. And the good news is those examples are out there. My job in the missionary side of things is to do a better job of sharing those stories.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
The more cynical part of me says what needs to happen for people the ship to truly turn around and for the blue forge alliance to find the hundred thousand trades people that they need in the next nine years is unfortunately things need to get a little worse before they get better and um going splat is never fun but sometimes that's what needs to happen
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
For people to really think twice about the value of the Ivy League, maybe they need to see the Ivy League affirmatively discriminating against free speech. Maybe they need to see the leaders of certain universities be found guilty of plagiarism, which they clearly were. Maybe these bad things need to happen in some ways to create some kind of wake-up call inside that institution.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Maybe in order to understand that the only way to really live in harmony with nature is to control burn, to clear the forest from time to time, to do the thing that's uncomfortable to watch. And to get that through our head, maybe the palisades need to burn. Maybe Santa Monica needs to burn.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I hate to say that, but maybe we don't get enough skilled workers to build those submarines until we get into some kind of hot conflict and we realize, you know something? The aircraft carriers that we used to believe were the pointy part of the spear are now on the bottom of the ocean because they have no defense against hypersonic missiles.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Submarines do, but oh my God, we didn't know that, but now we do. And I hope it's not too late. But I hope we start to think differently about the definition of a good job before those kinds of things go splat. I don't have a crystal ball, but I'm basically a glass half full kind of guy. And I know that from where I'm sitting, I can see the ship starting to turn. I have seen more and more people
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
step back and think a little more critically about the opportunities that exist and the way they might interact with their own sense of dreams and passions and hopes and so forth. But all we can do is what we can do. It's quixotic, but I've been tilting at windmills my whole life and pushing the rock up the hill. No, wait, that's not quixotic. That's Sisyphean.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
So there's a weird but bright line on my resume that I would call before Dirty Jobs and after Dirty Jobs because really everything changed in a huge way once that show hit.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Whatever it is, all we can do is what we can do.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
There's no age limit. In fact, I'm more excited when I get applications from people who have hit the reset button at 35 and 40 years old and want to go back and just kind of start from scratch. It takes a lot of balls to do that, and I appreciate it and I admire it.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Typically, though, we're talking about men and women who are just coming out of high school or a partway through college and realizing that They want to change the road they're on. If you're that person, what you do is you go to microworks.org and you just click on the apply button and you apply for a work ethic scholarship. No guarantees, but the scholarship game is simple.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
There are lots of different scholarships out there, by the way. Some focus on athletic achievement, others on academic, others on art. There's scholarship for everything. Ours are for work ethic and the skilled trades. So if a four-year degree is in your future, I can't help you. But if you're open to any of the other jobs that require a different kind of education, I'm your guy. Check us out.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
We're here to help.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Well, again, I would contradict myself if I actually answered that directly. Because I don't know what leads to profit, especially like tomorrow, if you mean that in the literal 24-hour sense. It took me 42 years to figure out my career. So I don't know about tomorrow. But I will tell you this. There's nothing new to say about failure.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I'm sure everybody who's ever come on your podcast has talked about failure is just learning. Failure is that's where we learn, blah, blah, blah. So I won't say that. But I will make a case for the importance of being uncomfortable. If you're willing to be uncomfortable, that's a step in the right direction. Because discomfort doesn't necessarily mean failure.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
It really doesn't mean anything other than, are you willing to be uncomfortable? Actually, it was my old scoutmaster who who told me this, and I hated him for saying it at the time, and I didn't believe him for a long time. But you will hear that character has a lot to do with a willingness to be uncomfortable. But what I'm saying is slightly different.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
It's great to be willing to do a hard thing or to agree to volunteer for a difficult thing. That's well and good. The next level, though, is to figure out a way to like it. That's what Mr. Huntington said to me. He said, look, man, if you want to go somewhere, it's not enough to simply endure being uncomfortable. You have to find a way to like it and look forward to it.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
That's what Dirty Jobs was for me. It was uncomfortable. I took a pie in the face in every single episode. There were broken bones, and I seared off my eyelashes and my eyelids. I mean, it was painful. It was painful. But the Navy SEALs say the same thing. Embrace the suck. Look forward to it. Take a cold plunge. It's good for you and it's miserable, but you feel great afterwards.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
There's so many things you can do, little things to reintroduce yourself to the kind of discomfort that usually leads to something good.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Well, a couple of things come to mind, but I'm going to go with the word you used earlier because I love it. And the word is pivot. It has to do with changing your course, but still being persistent. It has to do with... a word you don't hear a lot about anymore, which is initiative. God, talk about what's in short supply.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
That's what every employer I know is just dying, dying to find, people with initiative. But I'll go back to pivoting. I've always known it was important, but it wasn't until the lockdowns that I saw just how clarifying that was. And I mean, it was pivot or perish. It was adapt or die.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And how many businesses went out of business because they just sat around waiting to be told what to do, where they just got into that, okay, two weeks to flatten the curve. All right, I'll wait another two weeks. I'll wait two more. Meanwhile, life is happening right in front of you. I remember two weeks into that, I called the president of the Discovery Channel.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And I said, Hey, this can't be good for you guys. I mean, your whole pipeline of content relies on people going out into the world and working, and we can't go out into the world now. And she said, uh, look, I know, I know, we're freaking out over here. Any ideas? And I had just read an article on this thing called Zoom. I'd never heard of Zoom.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I thought it was just some adjective or something like Zoom, whatever. But I looked at it and I'm like, wait a minute, people are talking. People are having meetings. This thing is connecting people in a totally new way. I said, what if we call the crab boat captains from Deadliest Catch, which I've been narrating for 21 years. And I'm like, what if we do a Zoom? call and record it.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And what if you put that on at 9pm as a show at a time when we're all literally like in the same boat? What if you go to crab boat captains to talk about what's happening in the lockdowns and get their take on it? So we did it. And we were the first Zoom show to ever air in prime time. That happened about a month into the lockdowns.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And then after that, I was like, look, I don't care what it takes. I'm going to put this show back in production. I got my old crew together and we went out into the world and we started filming a new season of Dirty Jobs. That show went out of production in 2012. We went back into production in 2020. And I'm proud of that.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Not because it was particularly great, although frankly, I thought it was pretty good. I was proud because my crew was so anxious to pivot and the network was willing to pivot. And I was desperate to pivot. And being allowed to pivot when you feel like that's what you got to do, man, that's freedom 101. And being willing to pivot, even into something uncomfortable, that's life.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Well, it helped me for as long as it helped me, and then it didn't. And that's the thing, really. I mean, the thing about advice is that I've lived long enough to know that the best advice I've ever gotten only applied at the time I needed to hear it. And I don't know...
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
The way I heard it is probably playing right where this podcast is playing, Spotify, Apple, wherever people get podcasts. I talk to people I find interesting every single week. I write a lot of short stories, mysteries that we put on the podcast. That turned into a show, and those have been a lot of fun as well. The shows are all out there. I'm still narrating a bunch of stuff.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Dirty Jobs is still on every day on the Discovery Channel. God bless them. Working on a new show called People You Should Know. That'll be coming to YouTube. There's a website with my name in it called micro.com. And of course, nine or 10 million people somehow or another on Facebook and Instagram still pretend to care what I say. So I'd be honored if you join them.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And most importantly, microworks.org. You know, we got a big pile of money there. I'm desperate to give away to people who want to learn to trade. So if that's you, go get some.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Thanks for having me.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
who's listening to this conversation right now necessarily or really what they need to hear all i know for sure is that i i live two very different lives in the course of the career that i've had and both were fun and both were necessary but neither could have happened
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
contemporaneously so the mercenary thing you read about was probably me talking about my foundation today and how i squared this kind of bloody do-gooderism with the business of actually making a buck in an industry that is in fact very mercenary and um In those conversations, I typically say something like, look, I think there's a missionary position and a mercenary position in all things.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And I think both those positions are somewhat underrated. But prior to Dirty Jobs, it was all mercenary. I was a freelancer in every sense of the word. By the way, do you know the etymology of that? Where freelance comes from? No. I didn't either. And when I learned about it, it really resonated with me that the word is actually medieval. It refers to a knight who served no lord or no king.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
His lance, in other words, was for sale. He was a freelance, not an inexpensive one, but he was free to work for anybody he wanted to. That attitude combined with the tools in the box my pop told me to assemble, a willingness to relocate whenever necessary, those things really informed the first 15 years of my career. And I loved that life.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I loved looking at every job like it had a beginning and a middle and an end. I enjoyed doing the best work that I could, but I also love knowing that I wasn't going to be tied to any particular project the way success demands. And so I carved out a really fun niche in the entertainment business where I owned virtually nothing. I was working on multiple projects at the same time.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I had clothing deals, for instance, with like American Eagle and Nordstrom's and Different shows had different deals. So I didn't really own any clothes except the ones I picked up in whatever town I landed in. I was working for American Airlines at the time doing a traveling show. So I had a free pass to travel anywhere in the world I wanted to. I had deals with hotels.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And so I was like a nomad for 15 years. I flew wherever the work was. I did the best I could on the job. And I mean, not to sound too cynical about it, but honestly, in those days, when I was in my late 20s and 30s, I was affirmatively looking for work and ideas that had been so poorly conceived that no amount of execution could possibly save them. That's the thing nobody talks about in Hollywood.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
There's so many ideas and so many of them are bad. And if you associate yourself with these ideas that don't turn into hits, but do a good job working on them, you'll get a good reputation and you'll get hired. For virtually, I got hired a lot. I got hired for a lot of things I auditioned for. And I never really got punished for the fact that most of those things didn't actually work long term.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And so by the time I was 35, I realized I'd been taking my retirement in early installments. I'd been traveling a lot, working maybe seven months a year on projects that didn't really matter too much to me. But I didn't care because at that point in my life, it all made perfect sense. I'd made enough money to save and be comfortable, and I had enough time to enjoy myself.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And so for a long time, I thought I'd cracked the code. And I was pretty satisfied with all that until I wasn't.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
It was very strange. What happened was I was 42 and I was living that freelance life and everything was great. I had moved up to San Francisco to work temporarily as a host for a show called Evening Magazine, which is one of those local shows that comes on after the news. And I was the host of this show, and it was a pretty good gig.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
I would go to wineries up in Napa, and I would go to museum openings, and I would basically host the show every night from these different locations. It could be anywhere. I had settled into the job, and my mom called me. I was sitting in my cubicle at KPIX here in San Francisco, and she called to say, Michael, your grandfather turned 90 years old yesterday, as you know.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And, you know, I was just thinking he won't be alive forever. And wouldn't it be great, she said, if before he died, he could turn on his television and see you doing something that looked like work. And so remember, my pop is the guy who could build a house without a blueprint. He's the guy who can, he was a tradesman's tradesman.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And I laughed a lot when I think about what he must have thought when he saw me singing in the opera or selling things in the middle of the night on the QVC cable shopping channel or doing all of these jobs that I had been doing that I didn't really care about that made absolutely no sense to his brain. So my mom calls and kind of gives me this good-natured challenge, as she always does.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
She still does, in fact. But she was right. I'm like, why does Evening Magazine always have to be hosted from a winery? or a museum or opening night at a theater or something? Why can't it be hosted from a factory floor or a construction site or a sewer? And that was the question I asked my boss back in 2002. I said, I want to host tomorrow night's episode from a sewer. He said, I don't care.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
Do whatever you want. Nobody's watching the show anyway. I took my cameraman, I went into the sewers of San Francisco, and what happened down there is a book that I got around to writing a few years ago. And the massive lesson that I learned down there was that I was basically unable to do my job.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
between just an endless river of crap that kept knocking me over and rats the size of a loaf of bread and millions of roaches that completely covered us. I mean, it was so disgusting and so impossible to be a host. I stopped trying. And instead, I just asked the sewer inspector who was down there sort of as my guide if I could if I could help him do whatever it was he was doing.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
He was replacing the bricks in the wall. That was basically his job. So my camera guy filmed me working alongside this sewer inspector, and our conversation was captured on the video. And I thought when I looked at this footage of me working with Gene Cruz, the sewer inspector back then, it was like, why does the authority figure have to be the host? Why can't they just be a regular person?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And if that happens, then what am I if I'm not the host? And the answer was, well, maybe you're an apprentice or a guest or an avatar or a cipher of some kind. It might not seem like a big distinction today, but back then it was huge.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
And this idea, like after 15 years of impersonating a host, if all of a sudden I could work instead as a guest and find a dynamic where I could spend time with regular people doing real work, would anybody watch that? That was the question. Well, holy crap, man. I put that That segment went on the air on Evening Magazine, and the response was telling.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
It wasn't that people said, God, that was enjoyable. People were horrified. They were trying to eat dinner, and I'm crawling around in a river of crap. It was just totally inappropriate for that show. In fact, I was fired ultimately for putting that on the air.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mike Rowe: The Hidden Path to Wealth, Career Growth, and Business Success | Career | E343
But the feedback that I'll never forget came from hundreds of viewers who just said, hey, Mike, if you think that was dirty, wait till you see what my dad does. Why don't you come and drive the food truck at the zoo or replace a lift pump in a pumping chamber at a wastewater treatment plant and so forth? And I just thought I'd never seen that kind of reaction to anything I'd ever done on TV.