The Jordan Harbinger Show
1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World
Tue, 26 Nov 2024
Uncertainty rules modern life — from work to technology to education. Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame explores how embracing it might be the key to success! What We Discuss: Humans crave certainty, which can lead us to look for patterns that aren't there and make poor decisions. Being completely certain about something often indicates a problem in our thinking. Podcasting and media have evolved significantly, with success now requiring authenticity and strong relationships rather than just technical skills. The most valuable people often bring in business through relationships rather than direct work. The student debt crisis and college costs are systemic issues that won't be solved by debt forgiveness alone — the underlying problem is that education has become too expensive while not necessarily preparing students for available jobs. Modern technology and constant connectivity can prevent us from properly processing difficult decisions and uncomfortable situations. Sometimes we need to disconnect to think clearly. Success often comes from doing the basics well: showing up on time, taking initiative, and doing the right thing when no one is looking. These fundamental work habits can put you ahead of 90% of people and are skills anyone can develop with practice. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1083 And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course! Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom! Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
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Today, a little something different for you. I'm being interviewed, well, it's a conversation with, I should say, the one and only Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame. We talk about the economy, decision-making, uncertainty, and a whole lot more. This is actually from his show, The Way I Heard It. It aired several months ago. If you heard it and you gave us nice feedback, thank you very much.
If you haven't heard it, now's your chance. We're going to replay it here. Thanks to Mike Rowe for having this conversation and allowing me to post it as well along here in my feed for you all to enjoy. All right, here we go with myself and Mike Rowe.
Say action or begin or off we go.
I said, give me a minute. And you were like, let's just go. Is this a good time to announce your new show, Pass the Buck?
That is not a new show. Hey, first of all, thank you for returning the favor. We first met 2017, 16, something like that.
You know, that's a good question. I should have looked this up. I came unprepared.
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.
And then a couple of years later, you came back skinnier, fitter.
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Chapter 2: Why do humans crave certainty?
At eight knots.
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.
Exactly. It's called patternicity. Humans, we're hardwired to look for this stuff. So there's a psychologist named Michael Shermer, and he came up with this example.
He's been on here. Oh, yes. Okay. Love Michael, yeah.
One of his examples is right. If you're the caveman and you hear the rustling in the bushes, you think lion or leopard or whatever danger. But if you're the caveman who hears the rustling and goes, huh, that's probably nothing. You're done.
You're not going to be a caveman for long.
The gene pool has eradicated you or you've eradicated yourself. So we look for patterns that aren't there. And if you look on Twitter, you'll find the best examples of this because there was one tweet I saw earlier today and it was something along the lines of, hmm, this ship is had a white lion as a flag from the country that it was flagged.
And Barack Obama has a documentary where the ship is named White Lion. And also this women's volleyball team has someone on there whose last name is Baltimore. This can't be a coincidence. And it's like, actually, that's the definition of a coincidence.
Sure it can. Yeah. Okay. So we crave certainty.
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Chapter 3: How does uncertainty affect decision-making?
Yeah. I was doing mortgage-backed security. I was a first, second year associate. I was part of the problem, but it was like- So it's not your fault entirely. Right. No. Just a tiny sliver of it was my fault. It was a cog in the machine. But I talk about a front row seat. I mean, I was the guy at the boxing match who could touch the ring if he really got too drunk and decided to do that.
How accurate was the big short?
I would imagine that was quite accurate. The movie itself, I don't remember all the details, but I do remember partners in my law firm going, so you guys probably heard about Bear Stearns or the other banks, the investment banks that we're all going under. And I said, yeah, what percentage of our business is that? Well, let's just say it's a double digit percentage of our business. Okay.
Both banks put together or each bank? each bank. And it's like, oh, so is there work for me? Not right now. And then after a few weeks... Are you certain about that? I'm certain about it. Speaking of uncertainty. Then after that, I remember coming in for a few weeks and one of the guys comes in and goes, knock, knock. And I'm like, oh yeah, got some work.
And he goes, no, I'm just coming in to say like, you don't really need to show up anymore if you don't want to. Like, there's no work for you for the next several months. We'll just email you guys. And I'm like, but... You're still going to pay me and all that stuff. Yeah, but you should maybe look at other career choices because we're not sure when this is coming back. Yeah. If it ever came back.
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Chapter 4: What are the impacts of modern technology on our lives?
Chapter 5: How does the student debt crisis relate to job preparedness?
And unfortunately for guys like you and I, and especially for Chuck,
There's no one like Chuck, by the way.
The downloads, that was like 30% of most people had that thing on. Some people had 40% and 50% of their downloads go down the tubes. Younger Gen Z audiences that mostly listen on Spotify, their downloads were fine because that was already sort of pushed on demand, if you will, pushed to stream. And so, yeah. But the number of people that are hearing us
didn't go down the number of people that were getting let's say something automatically delivered to their house for example that went down so it's like if you had a monthly subscription to toothbrushes it's not like less people are brushing their teeth it's just that less people are getting oh man here's another one of those toothbrushes i gotta cancel i forgot about these and then they put it in the pile with 30 others yeah
So the audience didn't decrease. The amount we get paid, unfortunately, did. And I'm like, oh, the CPM, the cost for the ads is going to go up because now our audience is, no, the advertisers didn't quite follow that argument all the way there. Yeah.
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 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.
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Chapter 6: What are the core work habits that lead to success?
That's true.
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.
But why do people do that? Why do we focus on the stuff that we just can't do anything about?
Sure. So humans crave certainty, right? That's one thing that any psychology book will sort of tell you is almost the reason that people come up with these ridiculous conclusions. We ruminate on things. We focus on what we can't control in part because they're the things that we actually can't control. And often also, the things you can control are scary.
So focusing on something you can't control is sometimes easier. But really, we crave certainty. And that's kind of the bottom line. It also... This thing that happened in Baltimore with the ship hitting the bridge, right? Yeah. Terrible. But what was the first thing on Twitter? This can't be an accident. Ships have backup systems. Yeah.
Look at how he steered into the bridge and then the smoke came up at the left. And it's like, no, they reported the engine problem. They tried to get, as far as I understand, stop traffic off. They should have got the workers off the bridge, but they didn't do that, unfortunately. But- The ship didn't crash into the bridge on purpose. And also, oh, it's the infrastructure.
No bridge in America is going to withstand 120,000 ton direct impact.
At eight knots.
At eight knots.
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Chapter 7: How do conspiracy theories relate to our need for certainty?
That's a lot for a long form, right?
Yeah.
So the reason I'm asking you about this is you've interviewed how many people?
Oh, gosh. It's probably close to 1,000 over the last 17 years.
And not just random Joes, big thinkers.
Yeah, you're up to episode 969. On the current show, and I had another show before that that was 720-something episodes long.
The show that we dare not speak its name.
The show we dare not speak its name. Exactly. I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, it didn't exist. Anyway, change the subject. It's existence free. I believe you brought it up. Sorry.
Good point. I'm certain he did.
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Chapter 8: What is the relationship between work ethic and immigration?
It was on the days when there was other things that you had to touch. Those are the bad days.
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.
That was the first one. That was the first job.
And what did you learn doing that job that you still use today?
Oh, man, so much. First of all, the bar is so low for what passes as good work. Not that anyone should aspire to just barely meet the bar, but I remember, you know, you show up on time and you clock in and you go downstairs and you get your shirt tucked in and you pick up the broom and the little, I forget what, like a dustpan with the extended handle. I guess it's probably just called a dustpan.
You're walking down and you sweep up the popcorn thing that's on the floor. And I remember my manager going, you know what? I like that. And I go, what? And he'd go, you're ready to work? You're clocked in and you're already doing something. You're not waiting for me to tell you. And I'm like, well, but you told me weeks ago, I just have to, you know, I'm going to sweep the floor.
So there's this, and he's like, no, that's what I'm talking about. And my friends started working there and they would clock in and they would dilly dally in the break room and they would wander down. Their shirt would be untucked in the front, maybe completely untucked. And then they would be chatting with each other, kind of hiding in the back hallways.
And the manager would go, is your shift started? Yeah, yeah. Well, it's 3.30. When did your shift start? Three? Okay, what have you guys been doing? Well, nobody told us to do anything. And I'm thinking like, come on, guys. This is some kid stuff. And we were young, but I think everybody who owns a company... Has dealt with one or two of these and grown adults are doing this.
And I saw that at the movie theater as well. There'd be a guy in there who's 30 and I'd go, wow, he's doing the same job as me. That's maybe not a great sign. And they would get fired after two days because they'd be sleeping in the theater and trying to get away with it or they'd leave and come back and the manager would go, where have you been? Oh, I was here. Where?
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