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The Iced Coffee Hour
Mike Rowe: How To Make $10,000 Per Month In 90 Days - No Degree Required!
02:51:02
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- [00:01]
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- [00:53]
Mike Rowe
People say to me, Mike Will, are you ever going to run out of dirty jobs? And I say, not this season. I know you love that. America the Great Dirty Secret of Dirty Jobs. We probably featured 45 multimillionaires on that show. You would have never known it because they were covered in or something worse.
- [01:13]
Jack
You became famous showing America the jobs that we all depend on. Why did we stop respecting these jobs?
- [01:21]
Mike Rowe
I think the fault has to do with our tendency to resent that which we rely upon. What about the fact that for every five tradespeople who retire, two replace them? I don't have to be an economist to tell you that that's not sustainable. There are 7 million able bodied men right now who are not only not working, they're not looking for work. That's never happened in our country. Not in peacetime anyway. Seven million men.
- [01:50]
Jack
What do you think happened? Mike Rowe, thank you so much for coming on the Iced Coffee Hour.
- [02:01]
Mike Rowe
Well, you're welcome. But did I really come on your hour or did you come to the place?
- [02:06]
Co-host
We came to San Francisco just for you because we were so excited for this.
- [02:10]
Mike Rowe
Then let me officially thank you for doing that. I know it's a pain in the ass to travel these days, especially into San Francisco where half the runways are closed for no good reason.
- [02:19]
Jack
Well, for me this is big because I've been a huge fan of you and Dirty Jobs. I grew up watching Dirty Jobs and in fact, you inspired this. I kept it up briefly on my channel. It was called Undercover Millionaire. What I did is I worked these jobs that you would have no idea made a whole bunch of money window washing this kid made $1,000 a day car washing. This kid made $500 a day dog walking and running a dog business that was making fifteen hundred dollars a day. And so I found these jobs that were making a whole bunch of money, and then from doing that, people would reach out to me. Incredible businesses. And you were the inspiration for that.
- [03:01]
Mike Rowe
Well, wow. Thank you. You know, that was a big part of the thesis of the show that didn't get talked about enough. It was the underpinning of entrepreneurship. Like, first and foremost, it was a TV show, right? Like, it had to have some entertainment spectacle to it. So there was always an exploding toilet or some misadventure in animal husbandry or, you know, know, some crazy thing that would get you to watch. But if you really paid attention, as you obviously did over time, you know, we did 350 of those things. And you would almost always find in every episode, not in every segment, but in every episode, you would find a buried love letter to entrepreneurship, and you would find a rumination on the dignity of work. And you would find humor that often exists on job sites but doesn't get baked into a lot of popular portrayals of work. The great dirty secret of dirty jobs, which nobody really believes to this day, but you will, because you watch. For all these reasons, we probably featured 40 to 45 multimillionaires on that show. You would have never known it because they were covered in shit or something worse.
- [04:19]
Jack
What's the job that made the most money that would shock people?
- [04:23]
Mike Rowe
The answer will be one of the segments that was really about entrepreneurship. Again, it's the. It's the story nobody tells, but the business of mastering a trade and, you know, taking the reverse commute. Right. In other words, seeing where everybody else is going and totally taking your. Your passion and your dreams and setting them off to the side and saying, no, I'm going in the other direction. I'm going to find the opportunity, I'm going to get great at it, and then I'm going to find a way to love it. You know, the answer to your question is probably Les Swanson comes to mind. He was a guy in Wisconsin who I met in the pilots, like, in the very, very, very early days. He put me in his honey wagon, this is outside of Madison, and we went to clean out a pumping station on the side of the road, which you would never recognize as a thing. It's just a. It looks like a concrete bunker. You probably drove past a couple on your way in. But when you go in, they go down four or Five stories sometimes. And that's where all the, the crap accumulates in a given zip code. And it's just an unspeakable level of, of hell at a glance, right? It's like 104 degrees crazy hot in Wisconsin. We were standing up to our nipples in the, the filthiest of the filth, knocking cholesterol off the walls, talking. That's really what Dirty Jobs was. It was, it was an interview, it was a talk show in a sewer. You know, nine out of 10 times, unless at one point it was just so hot and so miserable and, and there was really nothing to do except what I did, which was look at him and say, how did you wind up here, man? Like, what happened to you? And his answer was he was a guidance counselor for years. And then he had a, he had a practice like a, like a psychiatric practice. And then he turned 50 or so and, and he just went in another direction. And I said, but why? You know, I mean, remember, we're literally covered in crap like working in the most inhospitable environment you can imagine. And without missing a beat, he said, I got tired of dealing with other people's shit. And you know, it was one of those unscripted moments and you start thinking, so wait a minute. Turns out he owns three or four honey wagons. Turns out he's got, you know, a dozen people working for him. Turns out he's got a summer house. Turns out he's got a margarita machine by his built in swimming pool. Turns out he's living a pretty great life. Anyway, sorry for the rant, but that's the. It's, that's the answer. Are men and women like that who actually used a dirty job to build a going concern?
- [07:12]
Co-host
What makes a trade higher or lower earning? Is it the obstacle to enter the trade? Is it how dirty a trade is? Is it just like how many.
- [07:24]
Jack
The operator.
- [07:25]
Co-host
Yeah. How many people want to get into it? What determines the pay of a trade?
- [07:31]
Mike Rowe
So many things. The time in the century to which you're referring, the day of the week, the state that, that we happen to be in. Was it union? Was it non union? I mean, there's a long, long list. Like, my foundation has helped train hundreds of welders. Some of them are making $300,000 a year right now. Others are making $58,000 a year. So the thing about the trades, and I think it's probably true of everything else too, is you can't paint with too broad a brush. Actually, you can, but you shouldn't. I Was just in Plano, Texas, and touring a data center. I met three electricians all making north of $240,000 a year. 240 to 280 electricians, no college. Two of them were former submarine guys out of the navy and the other just went through the typical trade school process. No debt. And the craziest part of the stat is they were all poached three times in the prior 18 months. Now, what's true in Plano right now with data centers might not be true in Boise, might not be true in Tallahassee, I don't know. But what I can tell you is the entire economy is flipped with regard to job security and with regard to the definition of a good job.
- [09:03]
Jack
Yeah. Now, a lot of people believe that the jobs market is weak and the average American can't pay a thousand dollar emergency. From your perspective, what's the reality on this?
- [09:13]
Mike Rowe
I think that's probably true, but I don't spend a lot of time agonizing over the plight of the average American. And I know that sounds kind of crappy, but I'm not running for office. Right. I'm not even running for a renewal on a show. You know what I would do? I would refer you to a terrific book. I bet your viewers would dig it. It's by a guy called Todd Rose. He runs a think tank up in Boston. He's written three amazing books. The first is called the End of Average. And it goes to your question, right? It goes to this idea that we have it in our heads that there is this. This state that most people fit in. That's the average state. It could be average intelligence, it could be average height. It could be so many different things. But what Todd basically argues is that it's all nonsense. It's all rooted in a fallacy. And he gives lots of examples. Like the Air Force spent a fortune trying to build a cockpit and their fighter jets that suited the average fighter pilot. And what they wound up building was something that wasn't comfortable for anyone at all. The whole thing is a misnomer. How that applies to work, how that applies to education. There are a lot of lessons in there. Of course. The key to a successful cockpit is maximum adjustability on every single angle. Right. So again, it's back to the painting with a broad brush. You can't. You can't really do it. But since you asked, yeah, I. I think the average American is confronted with a list of serious problems that manifest in the circumstances that you outline. They're living paycheck to Paycheck. How did they get there? Why are they there? Can the trades offer you a way out?
- [11:06]
Co-host
What are the biggest problems pushing Americans to this low average American status? And how do they get out of that?
- [11:14]
Mike Rowe
Interestingly, I think the hinge upon which your question relies is status. You know, we are beset today with constant reminders and challenges and invitations to up our game. Whether it's the color of our credit card or the type of vehicle we're driving. It's the oldest story in the world. But the status is this idea, whether it's caused by an influence or whether it's just caused by the proliferation of proof. I mean, it's everywhere around us. And so people are feeling lesser than all the time, constantly. That's, that's the message that I think we're sending. Maybe unintentionally or intentionally, it doesn't really matter, but the country's filled with people who feel like they're not participating in the dream somehow or another. And I think it's, I think it's self inflicted, by and large. I think they've confused living life to the hilt with living life to the hilt of spending.
- [12:25]
Co-host
Explain that.
- [12:26]
Mike Rowe
Well, what's in your garage right now that you're not using?
- [12:29]
Co-host
Me?
- [12:29]
Mike Rowe
No, not you, but metaphorically.
- [12:31]
Co-host
I have a 2000 Mazda Miata that I should drive more often.
- [12:35]
Mike Rowe
Well, I don't mean the car, I mean all the other stuff. I mean, if you go into the average garage today of the average American, I'm making it up.
- [12:45]
Jack
Sure.
- [12:45]
Mike Rowe
I don't know that this is true, but anecdotally, I mean, there's ski equipment, there's a snowmobile, maybe there's a kayak, maybe there's a bow and arrow, maybe there's. I just go down the list. I mean, the stuff we buy and use once or twice and then store, right? I mean, I, I've just seen it so many times over and over and over. People who are living some kind of status life, some version of prosperity that's defined by the stuff that's in their garage that they rarely use, it's not just a car. It could be the size of the garage itself, it could be the house itself. But look, I'm a capitalist through and through, but our relationship with spending is problematic.
- [13:31]
Co-host
If someone's not where they want to be in life financially, would you mostly attribute it to an earning problem or a spending problem? Spending what, like 90% of the time, 80% of the time? Like, like by and large you would say that people have a Much greater spending problem than it is an earning problem.
- [13:49]
Mike Rowe
Well, I would start by saying what's more in control of the average American's life right now? How much they're earning in whatever job they happen to be in or how much they're spending in whatever lifestyle they've chosen to embrace. Again, apologies. I'm not talking about people who are. Who are in poverty or who are literally struggling to get their next meal or their basic needs met. I'm talking about, you know, the poor sucker. If your whole personal economy is rooted in your W2, and you. And you continue to grow and. And prosper, and maybe your wife's a baller, she's killing it, too. You know, she's making a few hundred grand, and you're making a few hundred grand, and now you're making 6, $700,000 a year. And maybe you're living in this town or maybe you're in New York. You know, the average American can't conceive of the fact that you're living paycheck to paycheck, but so many people are. So, you know, I mean, it's a really good question, but I don't know what the average American really is. I know there's a big cohort of people who look at a big chunk of people who are making 5, 6, $700,000 a year, and they can't imagine making that kind of dough. But at the same time, they can't believe that that person is somehow living month to month and this close to something that feels like oblivion. So, look, there is no new advice, at least that I've heard recently, that can trump the idea of paying yourself every week, every month. Investing broadly with a diversified portfolio with an eye towards asset allocation and a real discretionary bent toward fees and costs. You start doing that when you're 22. I don't care if you're making 50,000 or 500. You know, when the dust settles down the line, you're going to have a bunch of money socked away.
- [15:55]
Co-host
Yeah.
- [15:55]
Jack
Now you became famous, showing America the jobs that we all depend on but rarely respect. We're talking sanitation, farming, roadkill. Why did we stop respecting these jobs? It seems like. It seems like a lot of times we look down on these jobs. Now, most people don't know this, but the second you file an llc, your home address becomes part of the public record. Anyone's able to pull it up. We're talking vendors, customers, even random people online. That's why we partnered with Northwest Registered Agent, because they help Keep your personal information off the public record completely.
- [16:29]
Co-host
Instead of using your home address when filing, which is public information, by the way, Northwest uses theirs so your privacy stays intact from day one.
- [16:37]
Jack
And their offices aren't some rented mailbox either. They actually own the buildings, so that address isn't disappearing on you a year from now.
- [16:44]
Co-host
Plus, you get a free domain, website, email, and phone number when you file your LLC through Northwest, which means your business is ready to operate right away.
- [16:52]
Jack
They also include brand protection as part of the package. So you're not just protecting your home address, you're protecting your business name, too.
- [16:58]
Co-host
So file your LLC today and get your home address off of public record. Just go to northwestregisteredagent.com to get started today.
- [17:05]
Jack
That's northwestregisteredagent.com or click the link down below in the description to get your LLC filed.
- [17:12]
Co-host
Thank you so much to Northwest registered agent for sponsoring this episode.
- [17:15]
Jack
Why did we stop respecting these jobs? It seems like a lot of times we look down on these jobs.
- [17:22]
Mike Rowe
I think the fault in our stars has to do with our tendency to resent that which we rely upon in a very basic way. We don't like to be reminded of our own shortcomings. And I used to be able to change my brakes. I used to be able to change my oil. I used to be able to tend to my car. Well, I can't do it now. I open the hood, I don't know what the hell I'm looking at. I gotta be a rocket scientist. I need a software. I can't do anything. So I have to take it to an expert. And the expert is actually the kind of person I admire. My foundation helps train those people. But if I'm being honest, you know, I'm standing there in the lobby looking through the glass, watching somebody do something that I used to be able to do, but now I can't. And it's not their fault, obviously, but somewhere in there is, like, this reminder that I can't do. Do that. But in the end, Dirty Jobs was a love letter to two industries, right? And there are only two industries in the whole world. There's mining and agriculture. Everything else is a. Is a version of those two industries. Everything in this room, you know, was either grown from the ground and fashioned into something useful or pulled out of the earth and fabricated into something important. So those are the only industries. We have all the jobs in the country. You can draw a line, direct or indirect, back to those. So the point of the show was really just to elevate those two industries. And what it turned into was just a long and smelly odyssey from sea to shining sea.
- [19:17]
Co-host
Speaking of smelly, what was the worst smell you ever encountered?
- [19:20]
Mike Rowe
In Dirty Jobs, there's a thing called a boil, which they'll do at Skulls International, where they prepare skulls for public display. And they'll articulate entire skeletons of creatures. Sometimes humans, too. But, like, when you put a buffalo into a kettle the size of this room and bring it to a boil and then throw in some oils and things and just put the whole carcass in there and then pull it out and start to flense off the. Off the flesh. It hits you like a sponge.
- [20:03]
Jack
What does this smell like?
- [20:07]
Co-host
It's like you have to go to the gym. Walking on an incline treadmill for 15 minutes.
- [20:11]
Mike Rowe
Well, dude, no, it's closer to, like, a double hockey workout. You take the hockey jersey and then you throw it in the hamper, and then two days later, you know, there's things growing on it, you know, that weren't designed to grow. It's like, what does blue look like to a person who's never seen anything? The thing about smells, you gotta remember, and I read this in, like, a crime novel. It really stuck with me years ago. But all smells are particulate.
- [20:41]
Co-host
Yeah.
- [20:43]
Mike Rowe
So what's really going on when you get that kind of smell, whether it's from a sewer or whether it's chemical or whether it's just a. A fart from the guy sitting across from you. I'm not implying anything, but I'm saying, like, when that happens and you smell it, it's not like, oh, boy, that my nose is filled with something unfortunate and it's unpleasant. It's like, that's it. That's a particle. It's a tiny particle, and it gets in your blood and it goes to your brain. Like, that's what's happening. So it's like you're ingesting it. Something that just flew out of your ass seconds ago is now, like, in my brain.
- [21:22]
Jack
Is that harmful?
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Mike Rowe
It can't be. Good. I'm not an expert in this.
- [21:26]
Jack
Like, I'm wondering. Yeah, that.
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Co-host
That's probably for everything. It's probably some candles, you know, True. It's probably like walking on dirty streets.
- [21:35]
Jack
Well, they say some. Some candles, believe it or not, in a closed room, are not safe.
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Mike Rowe
Why is the sense of smell far and away the most powerful? More so than taste, more so than sight, more so than hearing? It's the most primal sense that we have. Nothing can evoke A memory faster than the perfume she used to wear.
- [22:01]
Co-host
That's interesting. I think that there's more diversity in terms of what you can smell than the things that you can taste. But also your nose is only ever assaulted. It's never like, it's very rare that you go out actively seeking out different smells your mouth. Like if you want to taste something, you only ever really choose what you want to eat.
- [22:20]
Mike Rowe
Interesting. I think you're right. But I think that again is, you know, back to the spending question. It's like, it's just a choice. Yeah, like people right now, you know, food is having a moment. I guess maybe it's had a moment from the beginning. But look, for, for a long time people thought of is it's just fuel, you know, and now there's just the biggest section in any bookstores. What to Eat, what not to Eat, the Evolution of Nutrition. They got a cooking channel, you know, with hundreds of shows on it. They don't have a smelling channel. They don't have. They, they don't do that. I'm not saying it'd be great tv, but if you look back, look, metaphors are very powerful, right? Take time to smell the roses, you know, it's not like take time to eat, you know, candy corn. It's a. Smells are powerful and there's some great smells out there.
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Co-host
So you're still very involved in the trades within that community and outside of that community. Do you think people are just getting more lazy or they're valuing work, life, balance?
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Mike Rowe
Nick Eberstadt, one of my favorite economists who wrote a great book called Men Without Work, talks about the fact that there's 7 million able bodied men right now who are not only not working, they're not looking for work. Right. That's never happened in our country. Not in peacetime anyway. Seven million men are not in the workforce. You're saying what's wrong with them?
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Co-host
Well, I'm not saying what's wrong with them. You work like balance. I'm serious.
- [23:52]
Mike Rowe
Where's the balance, dude? Where's the balance? This is really important. Nick answers that question, but the first thing he says is, let's look at what they're not doing. Okay? 7 million able bodied men not working. Okay, what are they doing? He says, well, they're not volunteering at their local church. They're not in the jcs, they're not in the Kiwanis Club, they're not Lions Club. They're not helping out with SkillsUSA or the boy Scouts of America or the Future. Farmers of America, they're not engaged in any way in any kind of civic connective tissue, which for a long, long time was the thing that you would do if you had some spare time and you had something to contribute. Like none of that is happening. What his research bears out, unfortunately, is an average of 2000 hours a year on a screen. No judgments. But are they lazy or did we create an environment where we said it was okay to do that with your life? Are we incentivizing? Are we disincentivizing? You know, and that's when it gets political. Half the country right now is going to look at that cohort and say, good for them. Why should they work for these greedy, rapacious capitalists who are just out there to take and take and take and all the billionaires with all their money and the exploitive class and so forth. And then my buddies on the right will say to your point, yeah, they're fundamentally lazy. Shame on them. Shame. Now, I'm somewhat right of center, I think, but I don't think it's as simple as writing them off as lazy. Something else has happened in the culture and we do that. Sorting that out is important. It's gotta be done because it doesn't reflect well on who we are as a, as a country or a species.
- [25:54]
Jack
What do you think happened to all of them?
- [25:56]
Mike Rowe
I have no idea. But again, back to the broad brush thing. Look, I think they were told collectively that the system's rigged and that life isn't fair and that the only way to get ahead is to take from somebody else and that it's a zero sum game. Right? It's that it's just this, you're never gonna make it because the game is rigged. I think that's, you know, one of the most self defeating greatest lies, you know, that we've told a whole generation. So again, broad brush, but I think a lot of them genuinely feel that.
- [26:46]
Co-host
What are your thoughts on the consequences for mediocrity not being very great anymore? It's like back in the day, if you didn't go out and work, then you were stuck at home and you couldn't afford food for your family and really or even have a home maybe. Whereas now, you know, if you want to kind of just do whatever, you can hang out on your phone and watch the most interesting YouTube videos or
- [27:10]
Jack
jobs
- [27:12]
Mike Rowe
indication, sure, you can live a
- [27:14]
Co-host
pretty comfortable life doing not a whole lot.
- [27:18]
Mike Rowe
Well, there's so much there. What's the upside of being comfortable? Where's the benefit?
- [27:25]
Co-host
I would Say it's. It's very immediately gratifying. It's very easy.
- [27:30]
Mike Rowe
Well, sure, it's easy, but where's the upside in doing something that's easy? Where's the benefit? Where's the, you know, iron sharpens iron, right? I mean, at least in my life, everybody I've ever admired was uncomfortable for most of their life. They looked for adversity. They didn't run from it. The really smart ones figured out a way to enjoy it, to welcome it, to bring it. You know, along with the end of Average and everything Todd Rose has written, there's another great book by a friend of mine, Mike Easter, called the Comfort Crisis. I would refer you to that man. If you're not willing to be fundamentally uncomfortable, then where is your. Like, well, how bad should. Should anyone feel for you if the thing that you're most interested in achieving is comfort and ease? Like, nobody in the history of the world ever wrote a song or a. Or a poem. Nothing good that I can think of was ever inspired by the individual who said. And so I set out to be as comfortable as I could, to do everything that's easy, to never really challenge myself. And now what? Look how. Look how happy I am. I just have never seen it.
- [28:53]
Co-host
What's the most convincing thing that you could say to the average viewer listening to this right now that doesn't feel like they challenge themselves or seek out adversity to hopefully be able to. To hone that desire of wanting to challenge themselves?
- [29:07]
Mike Rowe
What are you scared of? You know, be honest. What do you. What do you really.
- [29:12]
Jack
I'd say a lot of people would just be failure.
- [29:15]
Mike Rowe
Okay.
- [29:16]
Jack
Humiliation.
- [29:17]
Mike Rowe
Okay. You're scared of being humiliated, and you're scared of failing. Got it.
- [29:21]
Jack
Embarrassment.
- [29:22]
Mike Rowe
Embarrassment, Absolutely. All great motivators. How does pursuing a life of comfort and ease protect you from those things?
- [29:32]
Jack
Well, it insulates you from feeling embarrassed or fearful.
- [29:36]
Mike Rowe
Sure. In much the same way the ostrich insulates himself from the environment by sticking his head in the sand. You can get away with a lot of stuff for a while, and then you don't. And I think. I think it's really tempting, and I've certainly made this mistake in my life more than once. But you look at your life, it's a snapshot. It's like, this is what I'm doing. This is how it. But you're not in a snapshot, you're in a movie, you know, and there's stuff happening all around you all of the time. The chickens are going to come home to roost for those 7 million men who have chosen this life, and it's not going to be good. And I would love to help them. My foundation tries to help them. You know, if you start with this idea that, look, I'm not going to do a thing that makes me uncomfortable, then, okay, check back. Let me know how it goes for
- [30:41]
Jack
you in terms of your own career. I'm curious. It seems very accidental and somewhat random from the outside looking in. From opera to QVC to dirty jobs to narration, what habits did you employ that led to that success?
- [30:56]
Mike Rowe
I can't choose what I look like, how tall I am, my race, my gender. There's a bunch of stuff out of my control. But I can choose to be curious, and I can choose to be uncomfortable. And I got very lucky growing up. Those two things were always presented as wise choices. You know, if you're curious and uncomfortable, you're. You're probably on the road to becoming, if not interesting, at least somebody who has some stories to tell, you know, so that was kind of burned in. The interesting thing, I think, for me is the realization that curiosity has a partner, and the partner is humility. You can't be curious and arrogant at the same time. We're certain, right? Curiosity by definition means I don't know, and I'm game to find out. And finding out might humiliate me. It might make me embarrassed. It might make me uncomfortable. So if you really value curiosity as a virtue, then all the other things we're talking about kind of fall in line. And I was always curious. I still am. The humility for me was. I was sure I was going to follow in my granddad's footsteps, the guy I mentioned earlier, you know, and I spent a couple years as a teenager kind of working as his apprentice on a lot of different jobs. And just because I assumed I was so passionate about wanting to do what he did, that I would have inherited the skills necessary to allow my passion to unfold. But of course, the handy gene is recessive, and it was a very early, really important lesson to realize. Just because you love something doesn't mean you can't suck at it. And conversely, just because you're not particularly interested in something doesn't mean you might not have a. Like, a real facility for it. So when my granddad told me to get a different toolbox, he said, you can be a tradesman. You just need a different set of tools. You need to go a different way. That's what got me in entertainment. Now.
- [33:18]
Jack
One thing I really admire is how good you are on QVC and selling. And I'm so curious. What's the thing that you learned about selling that most entrepreneurs miss?
- [33:29]
Mike Rowe
If there were a host or expert, you know, playbook. It's to create and foster the illusion of knowledge and competence where it. Where it doesn't really exist. And, you know, the sales book is very similar. Right. You know, I know the features, and I know the benefits. Therefore, I can explain to you exactly in great detail anything that you hand me. And in the course of that explanation, by employing various techniques, including a great level of empathy and enthusiasm, I can get you to. Yes, okay. That's the. That's the basic idea. Tom Sawyer taught us something different, and I read that book when I was a kid. Tom Sawyer, you know, didn't want to paint the fence and basically conned his friends into doing it for him. My first night on QVC was extraordinary. I'd never been on live television before. I'm sitting there in front of, you know, four robotic cameras. There is no training program. At least there wasn't in 1990. You know, if you could talk about a pencil for eight minutes, you were hired. You got.
- [34:35]
Jack
That's a skill in and of itself. I mean, I wouldn't be able to talk about a pencil for 8 minutes, 5 minutes.
- [34:39]
Mike Rowe
I bet you could.
- [34:41]
Jack
I don't think I could.
- [34:42]
Mike Rowe
Well, I can teach you how.
- [34:43]
Jack
How do you do it?
- [34:44]
Mike Rowe
You never say anything about the pencil that you don't follow with a reason. Every feature on the pencil has to have a benefit. So, okay, it's a yellow number two pencil with an eraser and that little silver thing that holds the eraser to the thing, is it lead or is it graphite? It doesn't really matter. But you have to decide which one it is, and then you have to tell me, and then you have to explain that graphite from Madagascar is a far superior solution or alternative to lead, because a lot of people still lick the tip of the pencil, and that's a stupid way to get lead poisoning, right? So if you're going to tell me something about the product, tell me what the. What the benefit is. Why is it yellow? Because you're busy, right? You open up your desk drawer, you don't have time to be rooting around for a beige writing implement. You want that yellow to pop out of there. So you know right where it is. Why is the eraser as long as it is? Because after years of testing, we know that the life of that pencil sharpened incrementally as the data Shows it will be will coincide with the life of the eraser, which employed statistically from time to time as we know it will be will coincide. That's why you get that little pencil down here and the eraser's been used. It's all perfectly engineered. Why number two? Why not number three? Why not number one? What's the difference? Well, number one leaves that big, fat, stupid skid mark. You look like a kid with a crayon. Number three is all too fine and wispy. Now, number two is the perfect. It's the perfect amount of Madagascar graphite for your yellow pencil. And you just talk, man, you just everything crazy, though. Everything you say is followed by a reason.
- [36:27]
Jack
And how do you make it sound exciting without lying about it?
- [36:31]
Co-host
Running a podcast is actually a lot more work than people may think. From sponsor contracts, invoices, show notes, research docs, it piles up incredibly fast. A few months ago, we started using Claude to help with all of that stuff. And that is exactly why we are so excited to be partnered with them.
- [36:46]
Jack
Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop. Good enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you. Whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter.
- [37:01]
Co-host
And work goes way beyond a chatbot. It's not just answering questions, it's actually doing the work. Real spreadsheets, formatted reports, organized files directly on your computer with no uploads and no cleanup.
- [37:12]
Jack
You could even connect it to tools that you already use, like Google Workspace, HubSpot Notion, queue up multiple tasks, step away, and come back to all of them. Done. A fun fact, but we've actually replaced our entire invoicing system with Claude. Like, it used to take us forever to input everything manually, but now all we have to do is upload a screenshot. Claude's able to get it all done for us, and then draft an email that's ready to send.
- [37:37]
Co-host
Ready to tackle bigger problems. Get started with Claude today@claude.com Iced Coffee.
- [37:42]
Jack
That's Claude.com Iced Coffee. And check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all of the features mentioned in today's episode. Thanks again to Claude for sponsoring this podcast.
- [37:52]
Co-host
So I am always looking for little ways to save time. For example, every single day when I drive to the studio, I'll take a different route depending on whether I see a green light or a red light. Or whenever I'm listening to podcasts, I always do 2x speed just to save that time as well.
- [38:04]
Jack
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- [38:13]
Co-host
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- [38:20]
Jack
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- [38:21]
Co-host
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- [38:29]
Jack
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- [38:33]
Co-host
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- [38:37]
Jack
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- [38:50]
Co-host
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- [38:54]
Jack
And how do you make it sound exciting without lying about it?
- [38:58]
Mike Rowe
Oh, well, that's. That's a different matter. But, But I'll tell you what I did. I mean, before I fully employed the whole feature benefit approach to selling, I went to the Tom Sawyer's method. The first product they brought me, June 1990, was the health Team Infrared Pain Reliever. What the hell is this? I couldn't. It was midnight. I worked the overnight shift for years. And it looked like a flashlight with a little red glowing ball at the end of it from which infrared rays were emitted. So what you would do is you would. You would rub this thing on your arthritis or whatever hurt, and through some miracle, right, suddenly the pain is gone. Now you put yourself in my place. I'm 27 years old. I'm sitting there, I'm about to go live, it's the top of the hour. And they bring me this thing with a little yellow, a blue card. I've got the item number, the price, a couple easy payment options, and a sentence describing what I've just shared. And now you have eight minutes. You have eight minutes to talk about this fricking thing. And I didn't even know if it was real. I thought it looked like something you would get out of the, you know, the machines on the boardwalk with the mechanical claw. Right, right. It's just like, really, it's just stuff that hadn't sold in primetime and they would give it to the overnight Guys. Cause they're on a three month probationary period. And that's how you find out if you, if you got the chops.
- [40:31]
Jack
Are you getting paid on a commission? Like the more of these you sell or just flat?
- [40:35]
Mike Rowe
It's a great question. It's a great money question. First of all, what I did is just say, folks, I'm Mike, I'm the new guy. Nice to meet you. If you're just joining us, this is the health team infrared pain reliever. I've never seen one before and I'll be honest with you, I'm a little nervous because I got eight minutes to kill. But there's an 800 number on the screen and if you call it and ask for Marty the producer, he'll put you through and maybe you can tell me how the hell this thing works. On the air, lines blew up like people were on hold to tell me how to do my job. I was like, oh, this is great. To answer your question, no. Back in those days, I don't know how they do it today, but you weren't paid on commission. But what they would do do was send out these extensive surveys to the audience. And they ask their most loyal customers to evaluate each host based on all sorts of things that didn't have anything to do with sales. In a way, it was the opposite of commission. Right. Do you trust them? Do you find them amusing? Would you trust them to do this or that? It's like a lot of trust questions. Would you like to hang out with them in real life? So the bonus was based on trust and likability, not sales. So when I realized that, I hijacked my three hour shift and I didn't worry about selling at all. Because back then the network was saying, don't worry about the sale. The programmers know what they're doing and the items themselves are of quality. They'll sell themselves. You know, just talk about them. But your bonus will be based on your likability. And that of course, was the recipe for a talk show.
- [42:36]
Co-host
So how do you increase trust and likability with humility?
- [42:41]
Mike Rowe
I don't know what this is or how it works. Somebody call and help me. Somebody call and help me.
- [42:46]
Jack
So people call with that exact item.
- [42:49]
Mike Rowe
Oh yeah.
- [42:49]
Jack
And say like, oh, here's how you use it. Did that increase sales by default?
- [42:54]
Mike Rowe
Well, not to the point. And this is the funny part of your, your, your question. I think my first year bonus check exceeded my, my salary. I think they were paying me $50,000 a year in 1990.
- [43:09]
Co-host
That's that's pretty good.
- [43:11]
Mike Rowe
Yeah, it's not bad. I mean, but more money than I'd ever seen. And it was my first TV gig, but my bonus was like 60. Wow. So it goes back to incentives. Right. I was being incentivized not to sell the widget, but to keep the customers somewhat entertained. And because I was on at midnight and sometimes 3am, I had the graveyard shift. Nobody was really watching me, so I was largely unsupervised. My boss would look at the tapes the following day, but nobody really knew what I was doing in the middle of the night on the air four or five nights a week. And what I was doing was wildly inconsistent.
- [43:57]
Co-host
What's the worst you ever failed doing qvc?
- [43:59]
Mike Rowe
I got called in once. It was a Sunday afternoon. I'd only been there a month. I was still on my probationary period, so I was sleep deprived. I'd been. I was total vampire. And the woman who was supposed to be on at like Sunday at 5pm was under the weather, violently ill, up in the green room. She couldn't go on the air. And so the guy that was on the air, he couldn't stay. He had like a wedding to go to or something. So I lived just a few minutes from the studio and they called me to come in to fill in for this primetime shift. And when I got there, it was called the QVC Dollhouse. And the whole stage was filled with collectible dolls, like sitting up all over the place. I didn't know people collected dolls. I thought it was just children. Well, I didn't think there were children up there, but I just was like, what do you mean the doll collector? And you know, the producer told me dolls are the third most collected thing in the country behind stamps and coins. I think it's a big deal. I'm like, wow, what am I supposed to do? It's just, just like anything else. Just, just put them on your lap, Just pick them up. Actually, he was like, don't, don't touch them. But they'll, they'll be next to you. Just describe them, give them a little story. You know, like these little Victorian porcelain dolls that looked like they'd escaped from like a roadshow of Little Women or something. It was very strange. But anyway, to answer your question, it was easier than I thought. And everything was selling out because the doll collectors, they just sit there and they just, they buy them like I couldn't not succeed. And they brought a doll, a nun doll called Sister Mary Margaret, like a two foot doll dressed Like a Benedictine nun with the glasses and everything else. And I mean, it was just so crazy. She was standing next to me and
- [45:53]
Jack
that was the popular one.
- [45:54]
Mike Rowe
I didn't know. I had no idea if it was going to be popular or not. But it was creepy. It was like a. Like an angry looking nun.
- [46:01]
Co-host
Is that how you described it?
- [46:03]
Mike Rowe
Worse. I went through a basic presentation and I was making stupid puns. You know, it'd be a bad habit not to invest in a little lady like this, you know, it would be. Oh, God. I had her over my head at one point singing the theme to an old song called the Flying Nun. I put a jewelry ruler in her hand, like those little 6 inch rulers, you know, and I would smack in my hand with her hand and you know, people were laughing and it was funny and I was basically just trying to kill time. And we got to the end of the. We got to the end of the clock, right? And they dissolve and to go to the next product, but the producer puts a new clock up on the screen. I mean, I have another four minutes to talk about this doll. And I didn't have an. I'm a Presbyterian kid from Baltimore. I got. I don't know anything about Catholic nuns, much less in a doll form. And I have nothing to say. And the reason they came back to me is because we were in a queue, meaning all the order entry operators were taking calls. So they had to like vamp and wait for the calls to go down before they brought out a new product. So now I got this nun next to me for another four minutes. I got nothing to say. And I look down at that blue card and the word musical is in quotes. And at the bottom of the card it says, climb every mountain. So I realize this is a musical nun, you know, and if you wind her up, I assume there's a music box in there somewhere. She plays Climb Every Mountain. And I'm thinking, oh, this will be great. We can sing along. Like I'll do a sing along with Climb Every Mountain. What? What a great way to kill four minutes. So I take the nun off the stand and I. I put her in my lap and I reach for the winder, right? And her back and it's not there, which is weird. Like, why, where else would you put a winder? Now I'm on a camera. I'm on camera basically like this, you know, facing the thing and my producer is freaking out because you're not supposed to touch the doll. Especially, you know, if it's a nun. It looks all like, she's between my legs. And I'm looking for this winder, which I figure has to be somewhere on her back, but it's not. But it looks like I'm giving the nun a massage of some kind. So he's in my ear, like, dude, don't touch the nun. And there are 150 order entry people in front of me who are, like, riveted to their monitors because this is weird, dude. Like, the new guy has a nun in his lap and he's rubbing her shoulders or something, and we don't quite know what to make of it. And I gotta find this winder. Now it's personal. So the dp, director of photography, all automatic switches from, like, this camera to another camera that has a tight shot of the nun in a light box, right? So this is the duplicate display. None, where you get those long, slow tilts and pans of every little detail. So I'm off camera, but my mic is open. And now I can conduct the search for this winder properly. And I find it. I feel it, and it's sticking out. This is so jacked up. It's sticking out of the lowest possible part of the small of her back. It's basically an arrest, right? It's sticking. It's sticking out of the top part of the crack in her bottom. I can feel it through the habit, but I can't. You can't wind it from the outside. Now I'm off camera, so I pick up the nun. And now every. I mean, people are just freaking out. And I take my hand up all the way up there, you know, and by the way, way more detailed than you would imagine. This is not even necessary. And I. And I get my hand on the winder, but I can't get any torque on it because their habit's too tight. So I. I turned the nun upside down and I push her habit down. So now her legs are sticking up in the air like this, and my face is, like, between her legs. And I lean over and I start winding her up. Now, the DP has been on this shot over here for, like, a minute, which is way too long. Just tilts and pans. And I'm like, any minute now, folks, we're gonna. We're gonna wind up Sister Mary Margaret and we'll be treated to a. A special rendition of Climb Every Mountain. You know, off camera, doing all this. But everybody, like, I'm sitting on her head and I'm cupping her butt with my left hand, and I'm winding her up with My right. And what happens next really wasn't my fault. But the DP didn't check his line monitor. All he's looking at is the preview. So he's seeing what the viewer has been seeing for the last minute, but he doesn't fully realize the level of debauchery that's unfolding on that camera. And he takes the shot. So I'm sitting there in this chair, looking at the monitors in front of me, and I see the dissolve happen. And I see what like a million people suddenly see in their living rooms. I'm sitting on a nun's head. My thumb appears to be somewhere in her bottom. I'm horrified by the image. Everybody in the studio just gasps. And I freeze and I, like, yank my hand out. And the nun falls forward from between my thighs and lands on the. On the floor and starts to play Climb Every Mountain. And in that moment, I sealed my fate. And this is really. I shouldn't have told you the story. But when I yanked my hand out, for reasons I can't even explain, I sniffed my fingers. It's just a nervous, stupid thing.
- [51:59]
Jack
You got the particulate?
- [52:01]
Mike Rowe
I got the particulate. That nun was authentic, man. So she falls down, she plays Climb Every Mountain and. And they go to a break. Anyway, I got through the rest of the hour and I knew it was bad, but when I got home, I had one of those old style answering machines you guys probably have never seen. Like, you have 54 new messages. And somewhere in those messages my boss was saying, so, yeah, caught the show this afternoon, why don't you come on in tomorrow and, you know, pick up your check. So that was the first time I was fired from QVC for inappropriate relations with a porcelain nun.
- [52:42]
Jack
You say first time.
- [52:43]
Mike Rowe
I was fired three times.
- [52:45]
Jack
What happened to the other two? Why do they keep firing you?
- [52:47]
Mike Rowe
Because I was being paid to be likable, not to sell stuff. And so I would make fun of the products and sometimes the viewers, but I would always do it, you know, as kindly as I could and as honestly as I could. And, you know, things often went off the rails. I was a. What'd they call me? A management challenge. But, you know, it was the viewers who saved me. Like, literally, like, after that incident, I went home, realized I was done, and called a buddy of mine who I knew was on a shift later that evening. And I told him what had happened. He, on the air, said, hey, if you caught Mike's show earlier today, I hope you liked it. He won't be back. And we Got a lot of letters from viewers who were like, oh, you know, that was really funny. That wasn't his fault. Give him a break. So my boss hired me back and so I got another shot. But it was that kind of thing for three years, really, you know, I was, I was, I was banished to overnights. I really never saw the light of day again. But I worked the midnight to three shift and you know, I didn't. It's funny, man. I didn't talk about this for years, but some. Somewhere around 99, somebody started posting old videos, VHS videos of me on the air. Like cracking open a lava lamp to see if that was really lava inside. Like breaking unbreakable plates just to see if I could, you know, all this crazy stuff that would get me in trouble. And then people started asking me about those videos. Like, you could Google the cat sack right now, which is pretty funny. We had a sack. It looked like a, like a grocery bag lined with mylar and your cat would crawl into it. Do you have the nun video that I don't have? My mom might have it. But I do have videos of me interacting with dolls in an odd way. The doll thing was like a light motif in those days in my career. But the real point is, you know, I, I got a thousand stories and you know, I can tell em if you want, but that was my first job in TV and I couldn't distance myself from it once I really started my career fast enough. But looking back, every useful thing I ever learned that served me well later I learned in the middle of the night selling stuff on the QVC cable shopping channel, including Dirty Jobs. All the ideas for the show were suggested by viewers.
- [55:29]
Jack
When people come to you, what's the question you hate answering the most?
- [55:33]
Mike Rowe
So. And you have to ask it the right way. Like, you have to ask it like, you've been thinking about this for a long time and you've now you've got.
- [55:44]
Co-host
I already know what it is.
- [55:46]
Mike Rowe
Hit me.
- [55:47]
Co-host
What's the dirtiest job?
- [55:48]
Mike Rowe
That's it, dude. That's it.
- [55:50]
Co-host
You know, it's the same exact thing. People come to me and they always like, yeah, I've been wanting to ask you, man, who's your favorite guest you've ever had on the podcast? I'm like, dude, always. I've had 350 people, like so many people on this. I could not tell you who my favorite is out of seven years.
- [56:07]
Jack
Or what's the best piece of advice you've gotten?
- [56:10]
Co-host
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [56:11]
Jack
And then it's always Followed up with, how do you like Vegas?
- [56:14]
Mike Rowe
How do you like. Yeah.
- [56:16]
Progressive Insurance Narrator
Yes.
- [56:16]
Mike Rowe
Yeah. It's always those three in the same way. You know, choosing to be curious or uncomfortable. Like, it is a choice, like questions. It's a muscle, like you. And you can work it out. You know, I'm sure you've guys, I mean, you've done a lot of interviews, so you can, like, you know. You know, when you're going down a road where it's like, I'm pretty sure the listener has heard this. I'm pretty sure they've heard this question. I'm pretty sure they've heard that story. Like, it's. It's a real. It's a talent to ask a question that hasn't been asked before.
- [56:50]
Jack
What should they be asking instead?
- [56:52]
Mike Rowe
If I were interviewing me, I would want to know how you got away with it. You know, how'd you get dirty jobs on the. I couldn't sell that show today in the room. I couldn't get it made. I couldn't film it. Like, there's nothing. That show was so off brand for the network at the time. And then it became the brand. I shot the pilots myself, and they rated very well, but they were put on the shelf because that wasn't the show that my bosses at the time wanted their viewers to like.
- [57:32]
Jack
What did they want the viewers to like?
- [57:35]
Mike Rowe
David Attenborough, Jacques Cousteau, Jane Goodall. The Discovery brand, which I still love very much at the time, was. Was really rooted in a different version of credibility, Right? Like, they, like, you have to decide what's persuasive and what do the viewers. What will the viewers respond to? And at the time, you know, 70s, 80s, 90s, I think most of TV was living in the age of authority, where we took comfort in hosts who talked like this. They'd hit the mark and they'd say their line were like narrators who would tell you about the lone wildebeest traversing the vast reaches of the Serengeti. Like, everything is measured. Everything is. You know, all those tropes of hosting were, like, really alive and established somehow. I came along at a time, I think, when the audience was starting to feel like, well, that level of authority is not really as persuasive necessarily as maybe something authentic. And then the question is, well, what's authentic? And if you're in that model of hosting or reading news or something like that, well, all you had to do was figure out a way to do the same basic job differently, right. Than everybody around you. And that's what Dirty Jobs really was, an attempt to say, look, maybe, maybe instead of a host, I can be a guest. Maybe the expert on my show is the guy you've never heard of doing some weird job out of sight and out of mind. Maybe he becomes the credible source of factual information. I become his apprentice. The viewer becomes the programmer. So, like everything about that show was designed to poke at the bear of existing expectations in nonfiction tv. Why did you like it?
- [60:00]
Jack
I found it fascinating. I felt like I learned something from it.
- [60:04]
Mike Rowe
Yeah, but you could have learned from every other show on the network. Why did you like Dirty Jokes?
- [60:09]
Jack
It was entertaining.
- [60:10]
Mike Rowe
Why was it entertaining?
- [60:12]
Jack
I think because your yeah, but also I think your narration of it was fantastic.
- [60:19]
Mike Rowe
Thanks.
- [60:19]
Jack
Now, speaking of all these jobs that you've done, where do you see the trends going in the future for people who want to get in the trades? Like, what's something that they should start today that in 10 years from now is going to be high paying, high demand?
- [60:32]
Co-host
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- [61:50]
Jack
Like, what's something that they should start today that in 10 years from now is going to be high paying, high demand?
- [61:56]
Mike Rowe
The unexpected answer is don't ignore AI. It's not going away. Understand it. Don't be afraid of it. I don't care if you're a welder or an electrician or a plumber. Don't let this thing get so far in front of you that you don't feel like you can catch up to it. Having said that, right now AI is not threatening any vocations that my foundation is typically concerned with. So it's not coming for the electricians or the plumbers or the steam fitters or the pipe fitters or the shipbuilders. Look, I would say if you're looking at a career in the trades, the most useful thing you can learn first is how to weld. Because that's like the gateway trade. We've got 3,500 people who have gone through microworks, probably, probably 40% of them are welders.
- [62:56]
Jack
Why does it pay so much at the moment?
- [62:58]
Mike Rowe
It's, it's supply and demand. It's, it's, it's really that simple. And certain elements, there's a danger premium, there's hazard pay. Underwater welding is about the most dangerous thing you can do.
- [63:11]
Co-host
Is that the most dangerous job?
- [63:13]
Mike Rowe
It's up there, man. I mean, you've got to talk about like the show I was just narrating. Deadliest Catch. That's dangerous. Crab fishing on the Bering Sea is dangerous. Lumberjacking anywhere is dangerous.
- [63:27]
Co-host
What's the main threat in lumberjacking?
- [63:29]
Mike Rowe
The chainsaws themselves are just giant, coiled razor sharp mechanical beasts.
- [63:35]
Co-host
It's not like bears though, right?
- [63:37]
Mike Rowe
I don't think a lot of people are attacked by bears, just in general. I mean, really. Like if I were a bear, you know, and I saw a lumberjack with a chainsaw, I'd be like, you know what?
- [63:47]
Co-host
I'm gonna stick another day.
- [63:49]
Mike Rowe
Yeah, you know what, I'm a, I'm a roots and berries kind of bear.
- [63:52]
Jack
Yeah.
- [63:53]
Mike Rowe
But no, I mean, you look, you can be a couple hundred feet underwater. Like you're at real depth sometimes in a dry suit. You've got air being pumped in, compressed air.
- [64:03]
Co-host
How much do underwater welders make?
- [64:05]
Mike Rowe
Again, it's all over the map. But there was a guy a couple years ago who I gave maybe $6,000 to. He filled out a work Ethic Scholarship, applied for money from my foundation. And his resume was great. His references were great. Everything about it was great. I couldn't give him the money fast enough. And I stay in touch with a lot of these people because I want to interview them later. They can answer that question better than I can. But this guy fell off the radar. I didn't know what, what had happened to him. His name's Jake. And anyhow, he came back on the radar a few years later. And I called him just to. Because we were doing a new series of commercials for Microworks. And I like to feature the people that we've actually assisted in these things. And I thought he'd be good. And I said, how's it going? He said, how's it going? I'll tell you how it's gone. You gave me what you gave me mig welding and tig welding. For the first year, I got promoted. Then I got promoted again. And then about 14 months in, I fell in love with this girl and I wanted to marry her, but I was still, you know, I was making maybe $70,000 a year. So I knew a guy who got me in an underwater welding program. And as it turns out, I was pretty good at it. And so I did that for a year and was making about 130, 140,000. And then something opened up overseas. Gulf of oman pipeline. Underwater. 315, 320 grand tax free.
- [65:54]
Co-host
Wow.
- [65:56]
Mike Rowe
So he says, how's it going? I was over there almost three years. I got a million dollars in the bank. First. First kids on the way.
- [66:05]
Co-host
I'll tell you what, though, like, if anyone's gonna make that kind of money, like, please take it. Like, I, I, you know what? Like, if I need a reduction in pay because some underwater welders, you know what I mean? I have no problem with those guys.
- [66:18]
Mike Rowe
So here's the, the better answer to your earlier question. And don't, don't let me boomer out on your audience. But that guy, compared to any one of the 7 million we were discussing before, who do you want to help?
- [66:33]
Co-host
Yeah. Even if he makes $300,000 more a
- [66:37]
Mike Rowe
year than those, it's like, again, no lectures, no sermons. But, man, it's. It's a. It's a scary, uncertain time for a lot of people. I get it. But, you know, to find men and women who are affirmatively, it's the bottom of the night, the bases are loaded, you're up by one, you want the ball. I want that guy. I want to do what I can to help those people. Because look, there are lots of scholarship programs out there, geez, for everything, you know, academic, artistic, athletic.
- [67:10]
Jack
So what should the role of government be in helping and supporting those people? Because it seems like at the same time, if there's too much of a safety net, it might discourage some of that risk taking.
- [67:23]
Mike Rowe
So this is the, the essential problem. If everybody was like Jake, or if everybody was like the 7 million who have just clocked out, I could answer the question and say, all right, as, as an elected official, I gotta figure out how to fix a problem that could likely lead to some kind of existential thing. I'm not in that position. And the state of play is not that codified. Right. So I'll tell you what I told the feds 15 years ago. I started microworks 18 years ago on Labor Day. I went to Congress 15 years ago and said, look guys, I'm not an expert, but Obama had just announced 3 million shovel ready jobs. So this was in 2009 and you can find this online. I wrote an open letter to President Obama and I said, look, I love the idea that, you know, you're going to create 3 million shovel ready jobs, but from what I've seen, it's going to be a hard sell to a country that's not currently super excited about picking up a shovel. Like, you need better pr. You're going to need to explain what these jobs are. You're going to need to explain why they're valuable and how they can get you to a six figure income quick, because they can. But you're going to have to sell that. You gotta sell the jobs. You can't just create them and wait for them to be filled. And around the same time I went to Congress to say, look, I don't think the ultimate solution to the skills gap is gonna be.gov, but I don't think there's gonna be a solution without it. So there's so many things you guys can do to reinvigorate the trades. And to the extent that my foundation can help, I'm at your disposal. It's funny, no one disagreed with me. I got calls from both sides of the aisle going, hey man, yeah, we dig what you're screaming, you know, let's stay in touch, whatever. Two years later, I went back to the Senate. Same basic pitch, didn't go anywhere. Last week I was in the pentagon. It took 15 years, but they got back to me with an answer to your question, which was basically, here's what the government can do. They've Launched their own site called Build Freedom Us. It has like 400,000 open positions there, many of which are AI proof, six figure jobs. They gave me $10 million from my foundation and I had a bunch of money saved up over the years. So we have millions of dollars earmarked for men and women who specifically want to learn a skill that's in demand. And the government is throwing gas on that fire and saying, as you look at all the opportunities in the skilled trades all over the country, don't forget about the ones in the dib, the defense industrial base. Because I got news for you, man. The people who build our submarines, they're freaking out. They need 400,000 welders in the next seven, eight years. They have no idea where to get them.
- [70:31]
Jack
Should we be concerned about competing with other countries like China?
- [70:34]
Mike Rowe
Yeah, China built a thousand ships last year, we built three.
- [70:37]
Jack
And why is that? Is that a work ethic thing? Is that a cultural thing that maybe those skills are more appreciated over there? Or is it just like a red tape policy issue?
- [70:48]
Mike Rowe
I think that is a government question, you know, because shipbuilding is its own very specific thing. And those contracts can, can go to any number of places for a lot of reasons. And you could look at organized labor, unions, you can look at importing steel, you can look at all kinds of different factors that might make it a lot more efficacious to give the business to South Korea. China's not building our ships. South Korea is. So getting that industry back in this country is something this administration wants to do. They want to reshore, they want to re industrialize. And look, just to be clear and not make it too political, I told President Obama 15 years ago, I'm like, look, man, I'm rooting for you. I want to see this work. I care about our country and I love the idea of closing the skills gap and making a more persuasive case for the trades. Seven months ago, I was with this president in Pittsburgh for this energy conference, along with 35 CEOs who basically run the country right now. I was literally in the room when those CEOs pledged $92 billion to Pennsylvania alone to build out data centers, primarily in the next few years. And when it was my turn to talk, I said the same thing. I'm like, you know, I'm rooting for this president. I want to see manufacturing reinvigorated. I want to see all this work brought back. But, and this is where I'm, you know, I don't know if I'll be invited Back. But I said you're going to create 2 million jobs in manufacturing. What about the 480,000 jobs in manufacturing right now that we can't fill? What about that? What about the fact that for every five tradespeople who retire, two replace them? It's been that way for 12 years. Five out, two in. I don't have to be an economist to tell you that that's not sustainable.
- [72:51]
Jack
So it seems like those are really good jobs to get into. Like what was it? It was like home inspectors and home appraisers, they're all aging out and no one's replacing them.
- [73:02]
Mike Rowe
Yep. Yeah, look again. The guys who built my house, there were seven people in the crew. The youngest one was 50 and that was 11 years ago. So you know every general contractor I know, and I know a bunch of them are agonizing over workforce. I mean, not to overstate it, but I mean there is not a week that goes by that I don't hear from the leader of some consequential industry or company who is freaking out in the exact same way. I mean, Blackrock, Wells Fargo, Ford, Jim Farley's talking about building automotive repair facilities like with. Within his own company. Lowe's has committed $250 million to workforce training. Home Depot's right behind him at 100 million. BlackRock's like on 150 million. This is how crazy it's gotten. America's Workforce Academy is a five week pre apprenticeship program on steroids. Right. This is how desperate META is for skilled workers. They will pay you to go through the course. Could be fiber optic, could be basic electric, all the construction trades. They'll pay you, cover all your expenses, plane, travel, food, everything. Plus they'll pay you and at the end of five weeks they'll guarantee you a job. Guaranteed. And if you decide, ah, I don't want to work for Meta or I don't want to work on that project, you can leave with your certifications. So I think what's coming is a completely new way to think about vocational training. I think it's going to be like a Manhattan Project type thing. It's going to just change the way we think about certifications, requirements, training and
- [75:07]
Jack
money based on that. I'm curious, what do you think we have too much of in terms of jobs or employees that are getting into an industry?
- [75:17]
Mike Rowe
I wouldn't second guess the market.
- [75:20]
Jack
Seems like everyone want to be a software engineer and that was seven years ago when that became very popular. Now we have a glut of software engineers. And AI seems to be taking quite away from that.
- [75:33]
Mike Rowe
We're not suffering from too few influencers. We're not suffering as a country from too few American idols. We're not suffering. I mean, like, you can go down the list of things, right? Again, it's basic supply and demand. Sorry to beat a dead horse. And with respect to Marco Rubio, who I think is doing a terrific job, but 10 years ago, there was a moment on the debate stage, as you remember, that we had 17 candidates in the GOP. I mean, 17. And he was up there. This also goes back to, you know, what happens when an organization realizes its customers want something they don't want them to want. I still remember, I think it was Reince Priebus, the head of the gop, going, look at all these amazing choices up here. You know, we have him, we have her, this doctor of color. We have this, we have that. So many choices. Anybody but the guy in the middle, right? It's like, anybody. Not that guy. Well, we all know what. What happened to that guy. But the point is, in the middle of that debate, I forget what the question was, but Marco said, and I'll tell you something else. What our country needs are fewer philosophers and more welders. And the crowd, a big applause line. And I'm watching. I'm like, oh, boy. So, like, an hour later, I go on my social channels, such as they were, like, 7, 8 million people there, and most of them were like, hey, man, did you hear that? He's singing your song. And I'm like, no, actually, it's not. I've never meant to suggest that what's plaguing the country are too many philosophers. That's not the way to think about it. What we need are more philosophers who can run an even bead and understand the mechanics of, you know, fabricating steel. And we need more welders who. Who can talk intelligently about the Stoics and about logic and reasoning and Aristotle and Nietzsche and Descartes and Kant and, like, why does it have to be one or the other? You know, that. That. I think that's what I meant by. I think we're going to have to reimagine education because we're, like, stuck in this prison of two ideas where we got too much of this and not enough of that, and therefore, we got to get rid of some of this. But that's the real message of the skills gap, too. Like, why do we still talk about unemployment as if it matters? You know, that Nick Eberstadt guy? Same Guy, the men without workbook, he says pretty persuasively. I think that you'd be hard pressed to find a more meaningless statistic than the number of people who are unemployed. That's an artifact of the Great Depression. Because in those days, you know, if you had 12 million people out of work, you could create jobs and those people would take them. Today, the unemployment rate is what it is, but you've got 7.2 million open jobs. Most of them don't require a four year degree. Then you've got this other cohort of 7 million men who are just not impressed or not interested. And so this idea that the number of people who aren't working are not working because there's no opportunity, that it's just not. It just doesn't hold up anymore. So that's what I, you know, I'm just suspicious of anything that's like too much of this, more of that.
- [79:14]
Jack
That's fair.
- [79:14]
Mike Rowe
It's, it's. That's not how the pie works.
- [79:17]
Jack
You know, what are the skills that everyone should know how to do? Like I'm talking changing a tire, being able to cook a steak, throw a punch. Like, what are things that universally.
- [79:28]
Mike Rowe
That's a good start. All those things, you know, look, I,
- [79:33]
Jack
I think plunge a toilet would be.
- [79:35]
Co-host
Should every man know how to jump a fence?
- [79:38]
Mike Rowe
Well, it's not gonna hurt you to know how to do it. You might get purpose.
- [79:43]
Jack
Jack. Jump a car, maybe.
- [79:45]
Co-host
I'm just saying.
- [79:45]
Mike Rowe
What are you running from, Jack?
- [79:46]
Co-host
Well, maybe run into something, who knows? Maybe there's opportunities and there's a fence in the way. You gotta jump the fence. I think it's a testament to just
- [79:54]
Jack
overall, you know, that's more of a
- [79:56]
Co-host
physical, Physical ability to do ability, which you'd probably agree that also is important.
- [80:00]
Mike Rowe
No, I mean, look, anything that bolsters confidence and competency is important. We made the point earlier. I think that, you know, our frustration with the trades sometimes is rooted in our inability to do the work ourselves. So I don't know if there's a corollary between jumping a fence or throwing a punch or changing a tire with being able to change your brakes, you know, like, I can still change a tire. That, like, the mechanics of that haven't really evolved to leave me in the dark yet. And I think I know how to throw a punch. And speaking of fences, man, quick sidebar. My favorite moment in Dirty Jobs, I don't know if you saw this one, but it was one of the things we were able to get Away with that you couldn't ever, ever, ever, ever do today. But I was putting in a protective fence around a sinkhole in the middle of the forest somewhere that was like 90ft deep and easy to fall into. And in the course of doing this, I had to remove a pre existing iron fence pole that had been hammered into the ground. And I couldn't get it out. It just wouldn't budge. It was like the sword in the stone. And so one of the rules on that show was never cheat. And so all I had was a shovel and a pulley and a rope, and I was determined to get this fence post out of the ground, this piece of iron that had been hammered in about three feet deep. It took an hour and a half of digging and nobody would help me. But my crew filmed it like it mattered, and it did, but nobody really knew it at the time. So there's literally a 15 minute segment in an old episode of Dirty Jobs where nothing happens at all except Mike tries to get a single fence post out of the ground. And I don't know if that in any way is adjacent to a decent answer to your question, but in the same way, you ought to know how to jump over that fence, you ought to know how to build it, and you ought to know how to deconstruct it. And if you're going to take the time on an international television show to so to illustrate how difficult that is, that's a very conscious choice to make. And I was so lucky to be able to make that case 20 years ago and to have that fight and to get the network on board and to have that as like proof of the day that I had. It was very, very gratifying to look back at a scene that would never make it into any other show under any other circumstance. But it does, I think, rhyme in a way with what you're asking as a.
- [82:49]
Co-host
It's weird and random, but it's also just adversity like we were talking about earlier. It was like you have the protagonist, you, and you have the antagonist. That fence that's three foot in the soil.
- [82:57]
Mike Rowe
That's exactly right.
- [82:58]
Co-host
And you just kept fighting.
- [82:59]
Mike Rowe
And you also have. Since you're throwing around the fancy literary words, you've got the Aristotelian definition of a tragedy hanging over the whole thing, which is that moment in any narrative when the protagonist comes face to face with the undeniable truth of his own identity. And in order to get to that place in a play, you have to be very patient through a number of what they call anagnoreses discoveries along the way. Same is true in tv. The reason most TV sucks is there's no patience for it. You just cut, cut, cut. Oh, the fence post is out. Now, what happens next? In reality, what happens next is you're going to spend another hour and a half on that fence post. Right. And so? Well, why would we put that in a show? Twenty years ago, I won the argument because I said, A, you're a nonfiction network, and B, this is a reality show. And those words back then both literally meant what they meant. They don't mean that today. They don't mean it today. You can't find a show on a nonfiction network that doesn't have a cut every three seconds. Watch them. Any of them. Scenes. Cut, cut. Can't do it.
- [84:20]
Jack
Speaking of the skills, what's the best skill to impress a first date?
- [84:25]
Mike Rowe
Are manners a skill?
- [84:27]
Co-host
Yeah. Should you always open up the car door for her on a first date?
- [84:32]
Mike Rowe
Absolutely. Absolutely.
- [84:35]
Jack
What about remove a fence post?
- [84:38]
Mike Rowe
Look, you gotta ask yourself, why is this fence here in the first place? Like, what is it?
- [84:44]
Jack
What is it keeping you from?
- [84:46]
Mike Rowe
Well, I think it was Robert Frost who said, good fences make good neighbors. Famous poem called Mending Wall. It's a good one.
- [84:54]
Jack
Yeah. Where are you investing?
- [84:57]
Mike Rowe
I'm still basically all over the Wilshire. I've been. I mean, my investing career is.
- [85:10]
Jack
Oh, no.
- [85:11]
Mike Rowe
Complicated.
- [85:11]
Jack
Sounds like Jack.
- [85:15]
Co-host
No, I imagine he's just like, covered calls on Robin.
- [85:20]
Mike Rowe
No, I'm boring. At least I was. There was a book. Well, anything Jack Bogle wrote when. When he was running Vanguard, Burton, Malakil, Random Walk Down Wall street, all of those. I. I got religion in 99 when, through a crazy, disastrous scandal, I lost everything. And what happened? Do your viewers care about this kind of thing?
- [85:51]
Co-host
Well, we're mostly a finance podcast, so people.
- [85:55]
Mike Rowe
All right, well, you buried the lead. All right, there you go. Yeah. No, let's talk about money. I am a inveterate saver, as we've established. Until I got older, I didn't own anything. I mean, virtually nothing. I lived in hotels because most of the work I was doing had. Was on the road, so some network somewhere was paying for it. I didn't own any clothing because the shows all came with some kind of clothing deal. You know, I didn't live. I didn't have a. I didn't have a rental. I didn't own a home. I literally lived on the road, and I had nothing. And I saved every penny I could.
- [86:43]
Co-host
And did you invest it or. Did you just hold it?
- [86:45]
Mike Rowe
I invested it as best I could. You know, I started investing when I was 22. I bought a house in Baltimore for like $48,000 and sold it a couple years later for like 70 felt and felt smart. I took that money and put it in the market, broadly low cost indexing, you know. And then I met a broker who became a dear friend. And this broker worked for a big investment company. They became kind of the golden child and quickly amassed a lot of clients. And long story short, we became very, very good friends as a woman. And she left the firm to start her own firm and wound up building a house of cards that collapsed in the most spectacular fashion. This was extraordinary for me because I was living and working on the road and not back in Baltimore. So I didn't have a front row seat to. I was literally reading about it in the headlines and the entire thing when it collapsed. The firm that she launched had I don't know how many investors, but almost all were doctors and lawyers. There were no other TV dudes freelancing in there. So everybody lost everything.
- [88:27]
Co-host
What was she doing? Was she just paying herself? Taking vacations?
- [88:30]
Mike Rowe
No, it was a little more involved. She had private investments and private opportunities and she was using money that a lot of people assumed was still under the imprimatur of a big firm, was in fact invested in some of these other ventures. I kind of knew some of this was going on. But the thing is, over the years, I had made a lot of money with this strategy. I mean, I was. It's a very consistent bunch of money. And for a freelancer who saved all his money. So I own nothing. I'm living on the road. I've got a nest egg that I'm super comfortable with. About a million dollars.
- [89:17]
Jack
Oh, wow.
- [89:18]
Mike Rowe
Yeah, I mean, I, we. We had done really, really well. And I. And I felt really, I mean, like I felt like I had cracked the code. Like when my pop told me to get a different toolbox and get in the entertainment business, like the only way that makes sense is if you do it differently. So I had spent at that point 15 years. Like I never swung for the fences. I wasn't trying to get a hit show. I was hosting so many weird, random little talk shows and maybe a guest appearance on a sitcom or pilots and infomercials. See, the thing about QVC is it taught you how to audition. And I was really good in the room, so I could book way more gigs than a lot of people I was competing with. And I did and so I had a really interesting business model in those days. I kind of based it on this fictitious character that I still love called Travis McGee, who took his retirement in early installments, right? So he was sort of a detective, called himself a salvage expert, lived on a barge down in Fort Lauderdale called the Busted Flush that he won in a card game. And this guy in these great books by John D. McDonald would come out of retirement every few months when he needed money to solve a case, get back something that had been taken from somebody, he would keep 50%. I'm telling you. It's funny, because everything I thought about business back in those days was sort of based on that model. So I'm freelancing six months a year. I'm taking my retirement in advance. I don't have any encumbrances. I don't own anything. I got a million bucks in the bank, and my secret weapon goes up in flames, and I lost everything. So the good news for me was because my relationship went way back with the broker, I was able to go back to the original investment house and say, was there anything about this person that I should have known? Like, is there? And I. And I had a lawyer. Everybody else was represented by a. By a bankruptcy trustee. But I was different. I was outside of that group, and I had a lawyer. And as it turns out, there were some things that the brokerage should have known and should have been a bit more circumspect about. So after two and a half years of crazy drama, I got my money back.
- [92:10]
Co-host
Wow, you got it all back.
- [92:11]
Mike Rowe
Not all of it, but a chunk enough. And the crazy thing was, at the same time, like, my whole business model had collapsed because I lost my safety net, which is really kind of. You know, this is a. It's a very personal thing. But, like, what? You find out who you are pretty quick, you know? And the thing is, like, if you're up on the tightrope and you look down and you see the safety net, you know, and you don't fall. Like, nothing changes. It's just that the net's gone. It only changes if you fall. But I was just. I did something that I didn't think I would ever do. After the third firing from qvc, all those years before, I was like, I got a job, you know, I took a job hosting a show called Evening Magazine right here in San Francisco, which brought me right here into this recording studio 22 years ago, because I felt like I needed to work. And I also took another job hosting a show Called Worst Case Scenario and all that. As soon as I took those gigs, neither one of which I really, really, really wanted, the case settled. So all of a sudden I'm back here in San Francisco working at this job that I wasn't really my wish fulfillment. I got my safety net back, but it would have been shitty to quit the job. They just hired me and I liked the people, so I wound up staying with that job. And it was during that job that I came up with a segment called Somebody's Gotta do it, which became Dirty Jobs. But to answer your question, while all that was happening, that's when I got religion with investing and I went to low cost, highly diversified index funds with a little bit of international exposure, little bit of REIT here and there. And I took the rebalancing very seriously and I did that and I read all the books and that's what I did for probably another 10 years. And I was a hardcore full on. It's like, look, Jack Bogle got it right. In the end, you might find a stock picker, you might find an advisor, and they might turn you on to this, that and a bunch of other stuff. But long, long term, when the dust settles, you run those numbers against a low cost, blah, blah, blah. And I think the average American is going to do a whole lot better over there. And I believed that right up until Dirty Jobs became a giant hit and I started working in a different way.
- [95:00]
Jack
How did that financially change your life? Hey, by the way, really quick, if you want extra content just like this, as well as early access and a bonus post show posted every single week, feel free to join as a channel member to get immediate access to all of that as well as free early access to everything else that we post, along with priority responses to all of your comments. So if that sounds cool, feel free to join. We'd love to have you on board. Thanks so much. We'll get back to the podcast.
- [95:25]
Mike Rowe
Now.
- [95:26]
Jack
How did that financially change your life?
- [95:28]
Mike Rowe
Well, financially it didn't. Emotionally it did. The. The thing about me is that I, I've never, I've never lived beyond my, my means. And that was true when I was making 20,000 a year and 50 and a lot more, and then a lot more. The only thing I've done that's out of character in the last 60 years is I bought a house. Like a proper house. And yeah, over time I've started to acquire some things. But no collectible dolls? No. No.
- [96:12]
Co-host
Seem like you liked it.
- [96:13]
Jack
Yeah, you're very excited.
- [96:14]
Progressive Insurance Narrator
More of Them?
- [96:14]
Mike Rowe
Yeah. You know what?
- [96:15]
Jack
You sniffed it.
- [96:17]
Mike Rowe
I collect memories.
- [96:18]
Jack
You got the particles.
- [96:19]
Mike Rowe
No, man, I. I really. I'm still enamored with that whole Travis McGee model. I still love that guy. I still love, like, his. His whole business philosophy and life philosophy. But the trade off was, after, what, 15 years of not really caring about the work that I did, I was more enamored of being in this industry and enjoying it on my terms than I was with the work. Consequently, I did lots and lots of things that I'm not terribly proud of. Dirty Jobs was the first thing I ever did on TV that I was proud of. And once that happened, the whole model went to hell. And then I. Then I worked 300 days a year.
- [97:14]
Co-host
How did Dirty Jobs financially affect your life?
- [97:17]
Mike Rowe
You know, the first couple of years were not particularly. Wow. You know, it was like, you just. You've got to make a very specific type of deal to get a show on the air, and you're not going to get rich at all from that deal. The only way you do well specifically on the show is if it's a hit, and then they'll renegotiate with you. And that's basically what happened. So when the show turned out to be a hit, it was radically unnerving. Like, I never. I swung for singles and doubles. And so when the network finally got behind it in a meaningful way, they ordered, like, 39 episodes. And I realized, ooh, you know, I hate this deal I made. It's not a fair deal. And I needed some help. So I wound up hiring this woman, an attorney, and she kind of took pity on me. She was a powerhouse and with a really good firm, but she liked me. And she saw something in the show. Maybe something different than you did when you were a kid, but she saw something universal in it. She was very impressed by the fact that the viewers were so engaged that they were programming the show. She was like, that's rare. And I said, yeah, it is rare. You know, and it's also personal. You know, the show happened because my mother called me. I was right across the Right. Right across the street here at cbs. Literally, you. You drove by it when you came in KPIX. I was sitting in my cubicle in 2001, and my mom called me about my grandfather, who I mentioned and said, he's turning 90 this Friday, and I've got the perfect gift that you can get him. I said, what? She said, how great would it be, Michael, if before he dies, he turns on the TV and sees you doing something that looks like work. So the next day, I take a cameraman into the sewers of San Francisco, and that's what starts Dirty Jobs. But to answer your question, Mary and I started looking at the show really, really early and thought, yeah, there's a lot of exploding toilets and misadventures in animal husbandry. But under it, this thing is a real powerful rumination on American work ethic. And can you build a business around that theme? Not around the show, but around the themes that are, like, pregnant in the program. And if you can, how would you do it? And what would that look like? And the answer was, well, I don't really know. But part of it would be a nonprofit. Part of it would be a genuine attempt to shine a light on. On the industries that are making this show prosperous. And another part would be a scholarship program to help people get the training they need to do these jobs. If we do that legitimately, and this is probably a bit selfish, but looking back, if I'm being honest, I was like, I want a better way to promote the show. I want to be able to talk about more than, oh, yeah, and Les Swanson went up to his nipples and just this giant container of crap. Or, yeah, and today we boiled a bison. You know, it's like, what's the point? You know? So Microworks, the foundation, gave me permission to promote the show in a way that the network didn't really care about and in ways that most other shows weren't being talked about. As a result, a lot of big companies came sniffing around to say, hey, do you mean what you're saying? Because here at Caterpillar, here at Ford, here at Kimberly Clark, we wrestle with this every day. So we started making deals, good deals with big blue chip companies. They would support my foundation. I would speak on their behalf, and not like a yellow number two pencil or a collectible doll. Like, I did 300 commercials for Ford in six, seven years. I worked for some of the biggest companies in the country. They supported my philanthropic effort. Mary would make deals. And so I found a way to function, not quite as a pitchman, because my whole argument was, still, it's like, look, man, your company doesn't need a spokesman. Your satisfied customers are your spokespeople and your own employees. What you need is a fan of your brand. So that's what I started selling. I started saying, look, dirty Jobs is real. It's personal. I'm the spokesman for Microworks and nothing else. But there are a lot of brands I admire. If I can find a Way to talk on your behalf through the lens of the show that you know me for. That'll be authentic. And if it works, maybe we can make some money. And so we began to build this business around the ideas of Dirty Jobs and around the foundation that inspired it.
- [103:14]
Co-host
So it sounds like then the biggest financial impact on you were the actual brand deals with companies like Caterpillar, Ford,
- [103:23]
Mike Rowe
et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, I mean, it's not. I never really looked at it like, okay, you know, we killed it over here. This one out. It was. Mary talked me into doing something I swore I would never do, and that was start an actual business, like, hired people. I've had like 10 or 11 people that, that work with us today. I never wanted that. I wanted to live on a houseboat, solve crimes, take my retirement in early installments and not own anything, you know, and that worked great till I was. Till I was 30. 30. Well, 42, really.
- [104:02]
Co-host
Have you made more money investing or from your work?
- [104:05]
Mike Rowe
That's the answer I was getting at the reason. I can't tell you. You know, Ford versus Caterpillar versus Groundworks versus Pure Talk for. I mean, I've been in business with a lot of companies. I'm still curious about the deal. And we're, you know, we do the best we can and. But it's never about the money entirely. It's. I only partner with brands that share my sensibility. Right. But to answer your question, yes, in the end, the dust settles. I take my chunk of the business and I invest it.
- [104:39]
Co-host
What I'm curious about is because we love promoting financial literacy here, and financial literacy mostly meaning exactly as you've described it, which is low cost index funds. I always like to say as. As does Graham, that, like, hey, you can make. Realistically, if you're not like a high earner, you're making like the average income or maybe a little bit below the average income. Your net worth will mostly be accumulated from your investments and not from like an active income, which we also discussed early on, which is like, you can be making $300,000 a year. Doesn't necessarily mean that you're becoming wealthy.
- [105:11]
Jack
Right.
- [105:12]
Co-host
Because you're spending it all. But instead, like, your wealth is truly built from buying assets, from buying investment.
- [105:17]
Mike Rowe
I didn't know you guys were that. That value oriented.
- [105:19]
Jack
Oh, yeah, that's all I do is index funds. You see my portfolio, it's 99.9.
- [105:24]
Co-host
But we, we try to provide value in that sense. It's not financial advice because we're not you know, legally allowed to provide that. But we like to talk about low cost index funds, listen and cover calls.
- [105:34]
Mike Rowe
I, yeah, it's so funny. I'm gonna, I'm gonna contradict myself all over the place. But, you know, you're. I'm not adverse to the average American that you described, you know, earlier, because in this case, I think that's the best possible advice you could give them. I assume you know Dave Ramsey.
- [105:52]
Co-host
Yeah, of course. We've had him on the show probably three times.
- [105:55]
Mike Rowe
I've been on Dave's show probably three times, he's been on mine. We don't agree on every single thing, but we sure agree on that. And you know, my dad and my mom raised three boys. My mother taught school for a couple years. My dad taught for 28 or 29 years. I don't think he ever made more than 50 grand a year. He's 93 now. She's 88. She's writing her fifth bestseller. You know, if he watches this, he'll blush, but, you know, he, it's the American dream, you know, there's simply no way you can't wind up with millions of dollars over time if you do what you're talking about. I know that to be true. Now, full disclosure, I am a proponent of all of that, but I did get to a point where I started looking at deals and opportunities that I couldn't get to that I liked. Right. That I couldn't get to through indexing. So I started to hedge and I started, I kept my indexes and I'm still a very conservative investor. But I did find a guy who does the thing, you know, and he's terrific. And what does that mean?
- [107:24]
Co-host
Does the thing. And what does it mean to be terrific? Like, what's he returning you? Is he just a financial manager, a financial advisor?
- [107:31]
Jack
Sounds like he's hedging against a maybe overvalued market.
- [107:35]
Mike Rowe
He has the breakfasts and the dinners with the people you would love to interview and they talk all the time. He. It's really at that level. It's just a question of, of access. I don't time. I, I don't buy anything that I have any intention of ever selling. I should be clear about that. I don't sell stocks unless there's a tax situation. Yeah. And it makes sense to harvest, you know, but no, I'm still very much about buy it, hold it, rebalance your portfolio. But you do get to a point where. Now for me, the bigger question is, well, how much powder really do you Want dry in a market like this. And why do you want the dry powder? Do you want it dry so that when things truly crap the bed and we see the 30 or 35% correction that your portfolio only corrects 18, 16%. Is that why you got all that? Or do you just like a sale? Are you just waiting to go shopping? And a 30% correction? Most people I know, they kind of know it's coming. They, of course, don't know when. But how do you think about it? That's why cookie cutter advice sucks so hard. That's why it's so dangerous. What you guys do is so important, but it's also dangerous because I don't know who's listening. And if Mike Rowe, circa 1990 QVC days, is listening, I don't want to fill his head with anything other than patience, low cost indexing. I just wouldn't want to do it. But I'm older than I've ever been, and I'm well set. My charitable giving is locked in. My foundation is solid. I will never spend the money that I've earned. So should that change something, you know? Yeah, we get to decide. We. We get to decide.
- [109:54]
Co-host
What percentage dry powder do you keep in your portfolio?
- [109:58]
Mike Rowe
I'd have to call my guy.
- [109:59]
Co-host
Is that how it is?
- [110:00]
Jack
Who does the thing?
- [110:01]
Mike Rowe
No, it's not that. It's. Well, you know what, ma', am, to my. I am not as focused as I was. And maybe you used the C word earlier. Man, It's. It's. It's the only. Aside from character, the only other C word that really matters is complacency. And look, the mistake I made years ago was rooted in trust and judgment. And I can't tell you, I've learned from it. I've learned that I don't like when it goes sideways. And I've learned that there's several ways that I can hedge along the way and feel better about assuming more risk. But for me, the exit door has always been the same. I'm living right now like I make maybe a couple hundred grand a year. I own four pair of pants and, like, five shirts. And most of those I stole from wardrobes on various shoots. I have a nice house, but I don't. I drive a Ford Bronco. I've driven Fords all my life.
- [111:12]
Co-host
Are you intentionally frugal, or is this just what comes naturally to you?
- [111:15]
Jack
Yeah, it seems like you don't like owning things.
- [111:17]
Co-host
I hate it.
- [111:18]
Mike Rowe
Why? Well, in the words of Tony Robbins, I believe the more things you own,
- [111:24]
Co-host
the More things own you.
- [111:25]
Mike Rowe
There you go. Where are you going to put them? In the words of Jerry Seinfeld, it's just stuff, you know, you got a bigger house now because you have more stuff. You got to put your stuff somewhere. We have so much stuff we have to go to, you know, private storage to put our stuff. We just have stuff.
- [111:42]
Jack
It seems secure, naturally, like this. It didn't seem like you just listened to Tony Robbins.
- [111:46]
Mike Rowe
No.
- [111:46]
Co-host
That clicked.
- [111:47]
Mike Rowe
No, I came by it.
- [111:48]
Co-host
I'm selling everything.
- [111:49]
Jack
All right? That's it.
- [111:50]
Mike Rowe
I came by it. Honestly. My, my, my dad is very parsimonious. But the trick is it's like comfort, you know, if you have to teach thrift, if you have to teach it and, and you have to convince somebody, right, that they should hold their nose and endure it. You know, it might work. It might. But long term, it, it really doesn't. It's more like the seals, right? You know, when they talk about adversity, it's. It's not enough to endure it. You have to embrace it, man. You have to embrace the suck. And then really, I think I said it earlier, but I, but I believe it to be true. The code to crack is not the code that allows you to endure adversity or discomfort. It's the code that permits you to love it, like really genuinely like it.
- [112:53]
Co-host
And how do you crack that though? How do you get to a point of wanting to seek out the hard stuff?
- [113:00]
Mike Rowe
You reframe it. It's not hard. A lot of people would say, look, it's really hard to be able to afford my dream car and then affirmatively not buy it, but instead take that money and put it in a low cost indexed fund. What do you say to that person? You know, it's like you can hold your nose and do it and chalk it up to forbearance or discipline or some other thing that frankly is a tough sell in a world where nobody wants a lecture or a sermon, right? Or you can say, look man, you need to re wire your, your whole deal. Like, what do you associate winning with? When do you feel like the smartest guy in the room? And this is like, I'm not a shrink. But a lot of that comes down to living on the outside of cool. And growing up, I had no problem doing that. I was a boy Scout. An Eagle Scout. Not cool. But it gave me an incredible insight into all these things. You know, the boy Scouts were the first guys who made me raise my hand and make a promise. It mattered, you know, so, yeah, early on, I stopped caring about what most of my friends thought. I sang in a barbershop quartet. Dude, how uncomfortable.
- [114:33]
Jack
But you're a good singer.
- [114:35]
Mike Rowe
Yeah, but if you're looking to get laid, right? And you know, you don't. You don't put on a straw hat and hang out with a bunch of. It has to, actually did.
- [114:46]
Jack
I mean, that's the thing is, that's so unique. But we're talking about skills.
- [114:49]
Co-host
I don't think it has. I could be wrong here, and correct me if I am wrong, I don't think it has so much to do with your interests. I think it has more so to do with your approach towards your interests and your demeanor. Like, if you have a certain level of candor and you. You don't. You don't care about things, you'll. You'll say things that you want to say. Speak your mind. Do the things you want to do. That's the best possible thing you can do in terms of attracting people.
- [115:16]
Mike Rowe
Yeah. Yeah. Well, look, I mean, you say it,
- [115:19]
Co-host
or getting nipple deep in poop and fetal matter.
- [115:22]
Mike Rowe
Yes. Take the reverse commute. Be surprising, not for the sake of being surprising, but that. That. That's the trick. Look, if you want to be truly authentic, you can't focus group the room and decide, okay, based on the research, here's what girls find authentic. Do this, this, this, and this. You'll just be another guy who wrote another book. And maybe you'll sell some, maybe you won't. But that's not what authenticity is. It's something else. And it's really hard to identify. Like, I fumble around this a lot when I. Like when people ask me is another great question. Who do you work for? Like, who do you really work for? You start asking people that who sit here, you'll be amazed what you hear. Some will say, jesus Christ. Some will say, my wife. Some will say, the man who signs my check. Some will say, the sponsors. Some will say what I typically say, which is the audience. I work for the audience. I never really worked for CNN or Discovery or for really anybody who ever paid me. That was just a sort of a direct, transactional thing. I work for the people who watch me and listen to me. And so if you believe that to be true, then how do you not annoy them? Well, if you work too hard to please them, they'll hate you because they'll see it as pandering and they'll see them trying to do a thing that you think they'll like, and they'll like it for a while, but ultimately it'll chap their ass. Now, if you ignore them, right, they'll take that to heart, too. Nobody wants to be ignored to that level. So all of it comes back to dating. All of it comes back to, you know, why do you admire the people you admire? Why do you like the comedians? You know, like, who's your favorite comedian?
- [117:25]
Co-host
Tim Dillon. Chris deleon.
- [117:27]
Jack
Dillon is funny.
- [117:28]
Mike Rowe
Tim Dillon is freaking funny. Here's what I think about Tim Dillon.
- [117:33]
Jack
I don't think Eddie Murphy.
- [117:35]
Mike Rowe
Eddie Murphy at his heyday.
- [117:37]
Co-host
Yes, I'll send to Tim, whatever you're going to say.
- [117:41]
Mike Rowe
I don't think Tim Dillon is concerned with amusing anyone other than himself. And I think when he does it, people love him and they go along for the ride. Now, I don't know if that's how he really thinks about it, but my hallucination with all my favorite comedians, when I watch them doing their thing, I don't think they're directly trying to make me laugh. I think they're trying to amuse themselves in a way that if I can relate to it, I've just become a fan and that's the closest I can get to like what's persuasive. If you're trying to do a really meaningful podcast that could seriously impact the way a person invests for the rest of their life, what's your duty of care? How can you balance the challenge of being persuasive and honest without painting with too broad a brush and unintentionally causing some consequence? Because the person listening at this particular time didn't need to hear what you were saying. They needed to hear something else. Because you'll never know. You have to constantly kind of check yourself, I think. And I think a good host, a good comedian, a good singer, a good performer, a good podcaster, they are. They're all going to wrestle with the relationship with their audience in some way.
- [119:24]
Co-host
If you are a young man and you feel lost, and this is typically, I know, associated with like the manosphere red pill space, but this is definitely an issue that a lot of people are facing. They feel no purpose in life. They don't work a job, they don't have a relationship, if you're that person, you're listening to this right now. If they were to follow the micro method of how to get purpose in life, what to do, how to make the right decisions for themselves, who to listen to, how to find a mentor, what is needed to live a good life, let's just say if you had to be dogmatic. What would you say?
- [119:59]
Mike Rowe
Well, that's a lot, dude. But again, with all the codicils and caveats baked in with the broad brush and so forth, I'll tell you that I wrote this thing about 12 years ago called the Sweat Pledge. Everybody who applies for a work ethic scholarship has to sign it. It's hokey, it's controversial, it's uncharacteristically earnest, but it's non negotiable. You have to sign it. 12 simple statements of belief that I genuinely feel helped me enormously along the way. If you don't like something on the Sweat Pledge, which is not unusual, it's cool. We can still be friends and everything. But, you know, this particular pile of free money is probably not for you. So the answer to your question is really, what's on the Sweat Pledge? Like the very first tenant, just for instance, it says, I believe I have won the greatest lottery of all time. I'm alive, I walk the earth, I live in America. Above all things, I'm grateful. So if you believe that, then the next 11 won't be too hard. But if you don't believe that, everything gets a little wobbly. And so the guy you just described, I don't think believes that because you can't feel lost or put upon or victimized if you fundamentally feel grateful. And if you can't feel grateful because of the miracle of your existence, if you can't look around the world at all the other countries and all the other governments and all of the other attempts to create a civilization and feel grateful that you were born into this one. But I just start there. Like, if you literally can't wake up and go, my God, this. Can you freaking believe this? Can you believe it? 10 fingers, 10 toes. I'm walking, I'm thinking, I'm singing, you know, I got it. Like, if you just can't take a rational inventory of your blessings, then
- [122:37]
Co-host
you
- [122:37]
Mike Rowe
are susceptible to all the things you've described. I've just never met anybody able, who's able to feel sorry for themselves, who fundamentally feels grateful.
- [122:49]
Co-host
I 100% agree with that. And that's the first thing that I usually tell people. If someone confides in me or, hey, I'm going through something, I always say, hey, look, it's really hard to feel sad for yourself and gratitude at the exact same time.
- [123:05]
Mike Rowe
It's not hard, it's impossible.
- [123:06]
Co-host
And when I practice gratitude, because I still do this quite often actually, I make sure it's never anything that I could be suscepted to. To be removed from, to be parted with. So, for example, like, I don't even go so far as, like, hey, I have 10 fingers and toes, because I
- [123:23]
Mike Rowe
could lose one, you bet.
- [123:24]
Co-host
You know what I mean? Like, I. I never. A hundred percent, never say I'm so grateful that, like, I make X amount of money. Of course I am, but that's not what I'm gonna attach my gratitude to. Like, I want to attach to something. Like, I'm grateful that I exist. You know what I mean? That I have the parents that I have or had the parents that I had, that I was born and raised in the way that I was.
- [123:44]
Mike Rowe
Look, man, I wish that were a new idea. I wish we could take credit for it. What we can do is say, that's not popular right now. It is not popular. I mean, this country just turned 250, and so many people are just twisted up. They can't feel good about it. They can't enjoy it. They've bought into an idea that they're living in a state of corruption. And that's not to say we've got plenty of corruption to talk about. You want to talk about money? Talk about fraud. I can't think of a more important thing to fix in the country than the squandering of taxpayer money, honestly. But it's just. It's a choice, you know? And it's a choice. And if you can't. If you can't take a minute, like, to really reflect on, I don't know, the American dream. Do you guys talk about that on the show much?
- [124:47]
Co-host
Yeah. One question that we used to ask every single guest on the podcast, I suppose we could ask it to you as well. If you are broke between the ages of 25 and 40, you have no kids, no physical or mental disability, whose fault is it?
- [125:02]
Mike Rowe
It's 100% mine. It's my fault if I'm between 25 and 40 and I'm broke.
- [125:10]
Co-host
No physical mental disability, no kids.
- [125:13]
Mike Rowe
Yeah.
- [125:14]
Jack
Usually we get a range where people would say, oh, maybe it's 70%.
- [125:19]
Co-host
That was the most resolute answer I think we've ever had.
- [125:22]
Mike Rowe
The Sweat Pledge is not for everyone, but that's another, you know, tenant on there. I mean, it's. It's. My past does not equal my future. I. I am not. I am not the product of my circumstances. I'm the product of my choices. Now I get it. It's easy to say, especially at this point in my life, given all the things that we've, that we've talked about. But what's more empowering, like what do you really want to tell somebody? Like if you can really change somebody's state, do you want to convince them that they're in the condition they're in today because of their circumstances or because of their choices? Because it's very difficult to change your circumstances and it's impossible to change your past. But your future has nothing to do with that. You are free to do all kinds of things. Now, to our earlier point, some of those things are going to make you humiliated, some are going to be hard, some are going to hurt, some are going to make you just question everything. They're all going to make you uncomfortable. But if somebody's trying to live their life with a playbook that says discomfort is the enemy and that your circumstances are to blame, how do, like, how would they ever get out of it? It might take some personal responsibility out of the sting of the moment.
- [126:56]
Jack
Why do you think people don't want to hear your answer to that though? That it's their fault?
- [127:01]
Mike Rowe
Well, I mean, you'd have to ask them, I think, look, nine out of 10 times, it's not the message, you know, it's the messenger. And I think maybe there's a lot of people who don't find me terribly persuasive. Happily, some do. But again, nobody wants a lecture, nobody wants a sermon, and nobody wants to hear from a 60 year old guy who's closer to the end of his career than the beginning that this is the way you've got to do it. Little camper, suck up and eat your peas. Nope, they don't want to hear it. It's exactly what we were talking about before, which I think is gonna be the most, for me, the most important thing we've talked about, which is what is persuasive? When is it persuasive? To what degree does the messenger affect the message? I'll tell you when it. Like when the, when the scales fell from my eyes and I knew that we had entered a totally different time in this country. I could tell you the exact week it was 2015, it was summer. And I went and did an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, killed it. Great crowd, big audience, delivered my message. It was very much a microworks message. Reinvigorate the trades, et cetera, et cetera. Three days later, same exact conversation with Glenn Beck. Now, I went home at the end of that week and opened my computer and started looking at the socials, see what's up. Holy shit, man. I can't tell you. My buddies on the right completely lost their minds when they saw me sitting next to Bill Maher. They just lost their minds. And my buddies on the left, their heads exploded when they saw me sitting next to Glenn Beck. Nobody talked about what I said. Nobody talked about the fact that I reached millions of people in both of those audiences with a message that was important to me and I think maybe important for the country. Nobody was interested in the message. They weren't even interested in the messenger, which was me, which was weird because these people follow me online. What they were interested in is the proximity of my interlocutor. And that was a problem. How could you sit next to that son of a bitch? How could you sit next to him? How could you normalize. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that to your question, that. That's the world that guy's living in, you know, everything is toxic. We're not everything, but half. Half of everything is toxic. So, you know, those are the times, you know, you must be this tall to get on the ride, you know, and. And we are. We're on it. And now you have to think about who you're sitting next to, not just what you're saying. At least that's what you're told. I. I don't have the energy for it anymore.
- [130:10]
Jack
Do you think we've become more divisive?
- [130:13]
Mike Rowe
More divisive than what, the past? Like 1865, 1861.
- [130:19]
Jack
I would probably compare it to 20 years ago.
- [130:23]
Mike Rowe
No. Nope. I think the country was in much graver shape in 1860. I think at the height of the civil rights movement, we were really fractured, I think. Oh, man. I think there are many, many, many, many occasions where things were much worse than they are now. What's different now, honestly, is access. You know, I can. I can pick up my phone if I can find it, and I can, you know, I can tell you I can. All the trouble in the world, man. It's right there. It's right there on your phone. We can. We have a constant diet, endless reminders of how divided we are. That guy I mentioned before, Todd Rose, End of average is great, but the one you want to read is called Collective Illusions. And Todd, again, his think tank excels in private opinion research, so he spends a lot of time trying to figure out what you really think. Not what you would say in a poll, not what you say when you're interviewed, but what you really and truly believe. Right? And Todd reckons the biggest enemy we face in this country right now is the threat of the manufactured consensus, like the idea that 80% of all the content on X is generated by 20% of the people. There's. And what you learn when you ask people whether it's their investing thesis or whether it's their views on sex or immigration, or down the list it goes, you can't trust them. You can't trust them to tell you the truth about how they really feel. And that's a shame. But the good news is that what comes out with all his research is how much we are not divided and how we have just been constantly reminded and told that we are. Look, and I think that's super encouraging, there's another book that makes the case really well, too. It's called Everybody Lies. And in this book, the author gets the keys to the kingdom of Google data, and he gets to look at the details of every search conducted over the last however many years. It was five years. There's hundreds of billions of searches. Right. And the thing is, you can't lie to Google. When you go online to find something, you have to ask it specifically what you want. And if you can step back and triangulate all that data with the demographic information of the person who's conducting the search, as well as their ethnicity and where they live and their economic strata, all that stuff, they have all that. When you start looking at what people truly think about a thing based on what they search for, you get a completely different template of who we are as a people and a country, and it's not being reflected virtually anywhere.
- [133:49]
Jack
Yeah, I would completely agree with you on that.
- [133:52]
Mike Rowe
So be of good cheer. You know, it's not great right now. Obviously, people are, you know, twisted up, but it's not real. It's not as real as certainly as it was in 1859 and 1860.
- [134:08]
Co-host
How do you know how honest to be? Like, are you only ever maximally honest?
- [134:14]
Mike Rowe
No, I lie. I lie a lot, personally. I mean, not a lot.
- [134:17]
Co-host
How do you. How do you determine when you're going to lie versus when you're not going to lie?
- [134:21]
Mike Rowe
I don't consciously lie about anything consequential that I know of. But beyond that, you know, lies of omission are probably more telling than overt stories.
- [134:38]
Jack
Is there anything you omitted from the podcast so far?
- [134:41]
Mike Rowe
This podcast? Oh, sure. I mean, we've only talked for, what, two hours? I've omitted a lifetime of truths. You know, look, think about. This is amazing, man.
- [134:53]
Jack
This is.
- [134:53]
Mike Rowe
I mean, this podcast, Landia you know, I mean, it came along at such an interesting time. Actually, I take it back. It didn't come along. It was birthed as a direct result of endless sound bites and surfacey scratchings and curiosity being teased but never fulfilled. You can't do this. You couldn't even do this on Charlie Rose once upon a time. You certainly can't do it on the evening news. I don't know where the truth ultimately resides, but I'll tell you what, what I said to Joe Rogan last year was, you know, anybody can come on a podcast for a half hour and show you the version of themselves they would like you to see. Maybe even an hour, hour and a half, two after hour, two, for better or worse, you. You get at something that I don't think most public people would ever, you know, they haven't been, at least until recently, they haven't been used to revealing the kind of thing you can get in a long form conversation. So the positive news is like, for the audience, that's great, man. There's a lot of truth out there to be had. The problem is there are 5 million podcasts and now I think a lot of the anxiety that the guy you were describing before might feel at least. Maybe I'm projecting, but it's annoying, man. How much? I don't know. And it's just a fire hose of information and a lot of it's really good. Just can't get to it.
- [136:38]
Jack
What's something that you wished that we asked you?
- [136:41]
Mike Rowe
I wish you'd ask me about my mother.
- [136:43]
Jack
What about her?
- [136:44]
Mike Rowe
It's none of your business. I'll tell you about my mom. You know, I, to the extent that I have a business and a career, I've spent it talking about work ethic and trying to shine a light on, you know, the people I meet, who I, who I admire, and the people in my life who have impressed me and have prospered as the result of being uncomfortable and mastering a skill that's in demand. Right? That's what I do. And I'm okay at it, and I do it a lot. But my mom is a writer. Her name's Peggy Rowe and she wrote every day for 60 years. All she dreamt of was being a. A New York Times best selling author. And she's a good writer. And she wrote unauthorized biographies about strangers she ran into. She'd write them every single day. That's her now calling me. She can wait.
- [137:48]
Jack
You could tell her that she could say hi on the podcast.
- [137:51]
Mike Rowe
That would. She's like, you never. My mom comes in hot. I wouldn't trust it. But, I mean, I watched her give up on her dream. After maybe 30 years of writing. She got published in, like, newspapers and magazines once in a while. You know, she writes stories about horses, which she grew up with, and people would write those stories in these little horsey magazines. But she kind of gave up on. On being a published writer, but she never gave up on writing. Every day this woman wrote when she was 79, she wrote a short story to me because she was pissed off that I didn't take her phone call and she had something funny she wanted to tell me. So she wrote this story about losing her big blue purse at the local Walmart and the crazy hilarity that happened in the wake of my dad, who can't hear so good, dumpster diving, trying to find this person. All those crazy. So it's a funny story, and I read it on my phone and posted it on Facebook. And then I flew off to do some dirty jobs or whatever. And when I came home, the story had been read 70 million times. 70 million times. And so among the many calls that I got were publishers who were like, hey, your mom's a terrific writer. I'm like, I know. And one of them said, get her to write 20 or so stories like that and just put you in them, right? So we have a hook, you know, And I called my mom and said, hey, you're not going to believe this, but I think I got a publishing deal. All you got to do is write, you know, a couple dozen stories like that. Just put me in them. And she says, michael, you know I have two other sons, right? I'm like, mom, give me a break. We'll deal with my brothers later. Do what the publisher says. She goes off and she writes 20 some stories. I'm not in any of them. They're all about my grandmother, her mom. The book is called About My Mother, and it was about growing up next to her parents and the impact that they had. And the stories are freaking funny. But publisher wouldn't touch him. Long story short, I printed 10,000 of them and put them on Facebook, and they sold out in a week. Publisher called back and said, okay, all right, we'll take it. About my mother on her 80th birthday. Goes out Simon and Schuster takes it goes to number six on the New York Times list. Number six. She's written four bestsellers since then, one every two years. So, like today, sitting here and driving over, I was talking to her and, you know, you think it's like you got your business down. You got your whole. You got your stories down. You understand whether it's the foundation, like you like. I got it. I cracked that code. And right in front of me the whole time is the ultimate work ethic story. The ultimate story of patience and discomfort and persuasion and stubbornness and disagreeability and integrity is my mom. Of all places, my mom, a woman who finally gets what she always wanted at 80. So, I don't know, investment advice, life advice, writing advice. Nobody's got a. Nobody's got a playbook. Not really. All we can do is fumble around and look for the best examples we can find and be as honest as we can and share the stories you have.
- [141:50]
Jack
That's incredible. I don't know how we top that.
- [141:52]
Mike Rowe
Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know. You still got a lot of notes on your phone there. What else were you thinking?
- [141:59]
Co-host
Well, speaking of mothers, my mom growing up, I would us as a family, we would watch a lot of Dirty Jobs. My mom had a huge crush on you.
- [142:07]
Mike Rowe
How huge?
- [142:09]
Co-host
I mean, enough to probably bother my dad.
- [142:11]
Mike Rowe
Interesting.
- [142:12]
Co-host
But I don't actually think he cared. It was kind of like a joke. Like, me and my brother would always go, what's Mom. The TV again.
- [142:19]
Jack
What's funny, though, is he says this to me, and I say, wait a second. Your dad kind of looks like you a little bit.
- [142:27]
Mike Rowe
There it is.
- [142:27]
Co-host
And you guys, your voice is a little deeper. And I looked it up, and I think you're, like, exactly 15 days younger than my dad.
- [142:36]
Mike Rowe
Well, thank you for sharing that. That's freaking awesome to hear.
- [142:38]
Jack
Could you FaceTime your mom? What would she do?
- [142:41]
Co-host
You know what? Yeah. Yeah, I probably could.
- [142:43]
Mike Rowe
Yeah. I'd like to meet this woman. What's her name?
- [142:46]
Co-host
I don't know if this is a good idea.
- [142:48]
Mike Rowe
No, I think it's fun.
- [142:51]
Co-host
Her name's Ann.
- [142:53]
Mike Rowe
How long you guys been doing this?
- [142:55]
Co-host
Seven years. Yes.
- [142:57]
Jack
Seven years.
- [142:58]
Mike Rowe
Unbelievable.
- [142:59]
Co-host
They're in Hawaii right now. And, in fact, I'm gonna go meet them.
- [143:02]
Jack
He's flying out after this to go to Hawaii.
- [143:04]
Mike Rowe
What island?
- [143:05]
Co-host
Maui.
- [143:06]
Jack
Oh, she better pick up. This is the. This is her opportunity.
- [143:10]
Co-host
She could be at the pool. And I hope she's enjoying her time. If so.
- [143:14]
Mike Rowe
Well, if not, call her. Voicemail. Let me at least leave a message. Oh, actually, no, better yet, let me make a video for you.
- [143:21]
Co-host
Yeah.
- [143:21]
Jack
Yeah.
- [143:22]
Co-host
Hey, Mom, I have someone who wants to speak to you.
- [143:25]
Mike Rowe
Anne? Are you kidding me? Where you been? I can't believe I've been Talking to these guys for over two hours and you don't, you don't show up. There's no appearance.
- [143:35]
Co-host
Hype up my dad. Say something about him.
- [143:37]
Mike Rowe
He's a good guy, your dad. Here's the thing. He's no micro, but he's a good guy. Stay with him. Just give it another 10 years or so. One of these days, you and me, our time will come. But for now, stay with the old man.
- [143:54]
Co-host
You heard it here. Amazing. She's gonna, she's gonna love that.
- [144:00]
Mike Rowe
We'll see.
- [144:01]
Co-host
They actually, you actually do look a lot like my dad, which is just also insane.
- [144:05]
Jack
But we'll put a photo right here, be able to see the resemblance.
- [144:09]
Mike Rowe
Dude, it's, I mean, I can't tell you how weird it is to be like walking through SFO yesterday as I was. And I mean, it's still super gratifying to meet people, you know, who, who like the show. And they say, they say nice things, but to meet, you know. How old are you guys?
- [144:28]
Co-host
27?
- [144:29]
Jack
36.
- [144:30]
Mike Rowe
27. 36?
- [144:31]
Jack
Yes.
- [144:31]
Mike Rowe
You're 27, man, that, that Dirty Jobs went on the air when you were 5.
- [144:37]
Co-host
It was like, this is like, this is what one of the first TV shows I watched. Like I, that's why I'm having a hard time remembering it as clearly as grandma's. But I watched basically every episode as a family. We watch like reruns and everything.
- [144:48]
Jack
I would watch it with my grandma. It was one of her favorite shows. And her and I would sit there watching this.
- [144:54]
Co-host
She probably had a little crush too.
- [144:55]
Jack
Oh, at the same time, I bet
- [144:56]
Co-host
you drove a lot of middle aged women crazy.
- [144:59]
Mike Rowe
Well, dude, I mean, what, what is going on with the, with the female of the species? Like why, why would a. Why I'm covered in other people's crap. Like 90% of the time, you know, what's the voice?
- [145:15]
Jack
It's gotta be the voice.
- [145:16]
Co-host
I think it's the voice, but I also think it's the demeanor. I think that it's like your, your lack of concern for whatever's going on. You know, you're, as they say, like you are the, the calm sand or rocks at the, you know, crazy waves crash upon. And you just sit there like I
- [145:33]
Mike Rowe
was 42 when, when I pitched that show. Now had I done it when I was 32 or 27, I would have been able to do it for a lot longer. It wouldn't have hurt nearly as much. But you know what? It would have, it would have consumed me. It would have, I wouldn't have been able to handle it.
- [145:55]
Jack
How so?
- [145:57]
Mike Rowe
I'd had 15 years of living like Travis McGee. I was very comfortable in my own skin. Like, I had enough time to figure out, for better or worse, who I was. And even though my whole business model went upside down, I was in a very, like, sanguine place. When I was 42, when I realized that show was a hit and that it could be a big hit if I tended to it, I felt like I was able to make a really grown up decision and just decide, look, you have a clear way forward, but it's going to require you to take the pie in the face. It's going to require you to stop being some version of a host. And you're going to have to be the apprentice, you're going to have to be the guest. So you're going to have to step back from all of that and you're going to have to live on the road for a couple years. More than a couple, as it turned out. You know, like 300 days a year. So it was uncomfortable. But dude, I mean, if, look, if it took us over two hours to get to this place, then it was worth it because every single bit of misery, discomfort, all the con concussions, the contusions, the stitches, the broken fingers, the crushed toes, like, that show was violent and it hurt. And I was away from people I loved a lot. Wouldn't trade a minute.
- [147:33]
Co-host
When's the last time you put yourself in serious discomfort?
- [147:36]
Mike Rowe
Counting today, sure.
- [147:39]
Co-host
No sitting across from this guy for two hours.
- [147:43]
Mike Rowe
Well, you know, serious physical discomfort. I'm shooting tomorrow all day outside in Las Vegas. It's going to be 107. It's going to be uncomfortable, it's going to hurt. But look, in relative terms, there's a long list of stuff I did on Dirty Jobs I'll never do again. You know, I'm never going to test a shark suit. I'm never going to go in an opal mine again. I'm never going to do things that scared the absolute bejesus out of me.
- [148:13]
Co-host
You know, Was there anything you wouldn't do?
- [148:16]
Mike Rowe
The only thing I ever passed on, I passed because I couldn't see how there would be any opportunity for humor. And the job was a body farm technician. What's that? CSI stuff like, what does a body look like that's been in the trunk of a Pinto for three and a half weeks. Right. You need to know that if you're going to really investigate myriad crime scenes. So what you do is you get a Pinto. And you put a body in the back of it and you put it in the Atchafalaya swamp for three and a half weeks, and then you pull it up and then you look at it and start poking around. Like you. That's a real job. And so body farms are these places where human cadavers are subjected to any kind of circumstance you can imagine, and plenty that you can't, for the purposes of experts coming in and evaluating the situation. I just didn't know how I could make that lighthearted.
- [149:26]
Jack
You know what's so weird is that I remember hearing a story about this a few years ago where a family sued because their grandparent accidentally got mixed in. Got mixed in and was blown up. I kid you not. You can. We're gonna.
- [149:44]
Co-host
That's of all of the things.
- [149:45]
Jack
But that's. She was blown up for science. It was for science, dude.
- [149:51]
Co-host
That is not science. We know what happens when things get blown up.
- [149:54]
Mike Rowe
Yeah. Like, when I. When I check the organ donate, I'm like, this is not what I had in mind.
- [149:58]
Co-host
Yeah.
- [149:59]
Jack
You know, they were testing some explosive.
- [150:01]
Co-host
It was the terms and conditions on the new Apple update. That's what it was. You always have to let me show
- [150:06]
Jack
the article here because. Because I believe they. They rightfully.
- [150:09]
Co-host
That just. That literally sounds like, oh, we got all these extra bodies. Like, what are we. All right, let's just.
- [150:14]
Mike Rowe
I know.
- [150:14]
Co-host
Hey, desert. It's going to BLM land. Yeah.
- [150:19]
Mike Rowe
Hello to this.
- [150:20]
Co-host
Yeah. Check this out. Are you filming?
- [150:22]
Mike Rowe
Hey, how. How many people in your audience typically listen all the way to the bitter end?
- [150:28]
Jack
21%.
- [150:30]
Mike Rowe
Yeah, that's not bad.
- [150:31]
Jack
It's pretty good.
- [150:32]
Co-host
But it's actually, it's. It's more. If it's audio listeners, it's probably like about 50 to 60%.
- [150:38]
Mike Rowe
Yeah. Same with me.
- [150:39]
Co-host
Yeah.
- [150:39]
Mike Rowe
Isn't that crazy? Why, like, why is that. Why does the audio listener have a deeper commitment?
- [150:44]
Co-host
It's because of the different situations that the viewer is in. If you're. If you're watching the podcast, then realistically you're going to be sitting on the couch or, you know, watching it on a television. You're going to be in some. You're going to be in a different.
- [150:57]
Jack
Or it just gets recommended and people say, oh, let me click on this. They watch the first minute and they bounce.
- [151:03]
Co-host
The continuous needs of a viewer are a lot lower if they're just listening, they'll just be at the gym. They'll be in the car, driving, commuting, something.
- [151:11]
Mike Rowe
Who do you listen to? Who do you like Tim Dillon?
- [151:14]
Co-host
I would say I love Chris d'. Elia. I mean, I. The thing is, I went on such a huge podcast and like education binge for about three, five years that I felt like I read a lot of the things that I. That I kind of needed in order to like, be more closer to self actualized than I was, make enough progress there. And so I just did that for five years. Like, I read a lot and I listened to like a bunch of like Modern Wisdom Diary CEO. I don't even know every podcast. Joe Rogan, who started this?
- [151:47]
Jack
I would say we both did. It was Jack's idea. Initially I had a YouTube channel talking about personal finance, and I did that since 2016. And then Jack and I started working together in 2019. And in 2020 he comes to me with the idea of starting the podcast. And I said, sure. We had a dining room table at the time and we would just put the mics on the dining room table. At first it was just him and I, and then we thought, let's get our buddies in here.
- [152:13]
Mike Rowe
Were you locked down at the time?
- [152:14]
Co-host
Yeah, yeah.
- [152:16]
Jack
And so we got our friends and so we started that and it started to get decent viewership.
- [152:22]
Co-host
Our friends were like YouTubers or they had some sort of like fan base that we could also tap into. But yeah, then it ended up growing and we did focus mostly in the beginning on finances. But then as time had, I mean, you can only talk so much about low cost index funds and the same thing over and over. So it's like, okay, I guess Dave Ramsey can. Like, he still has his fan base and all, but we decided to branch out and get a little bit more into like weightlifting or we talk to doctors on the podcast. We talked to psychiatrists, we talked to Eastern Western medicine a bunch.
- [152:53]
Mike Rowe
It's so funny, I think, how. And by the way, not to hijack the interview, but you guys come on mine sometime.
- [152:59]
Co-host
Yeah, that would be really fun.
- [153:00]
Jack
And you film in Santa Monica, right? Yes.
- [153:02]
Mike Rowe
Yeah, I'd love to know. That'd be great. I'm only doing one a week, but typically I'll come down and like, do, you know, seven over four or five days? And it's really taken a crazy turn. I just had J.D. vance on yes. Which is bananas. And so I'm not, I'm not really sure where it's going. But it started so differently. Like I was writing these eight minute historical mysteries, like in the style of Paul Harvey's old show, something you didn't know about. Somebody you Do. And you get to figure out who I'm talking about as I'm reading you the story. And that's how the way I heard it started. And then, same thing. We were locked down and my producer's buddy I went to high school with, and we're like, you know, my man, it's hard to write good stories, especially short ones. It's easy to bullshit for an hour. And so people started listening to us talk about the stories that I had written. And then I started to bring in guests to tell me what I got right and what I got wrong. Like actual experts on the topic. Right. And then it just kind of became, you know, this. Very similar to this, but it's a weird world. And I didn't get into it on purpose, but I just don't think it's something you can ignore.
- [154:19]
Co-host
Yeah.
- [154:19]
Jack
I think what would do really well for you, and this is something I've wanted to do as well, is you do a Dirty Jobs, but like a podcast version of that, where you have people who come on, who talk about their careers and what they're doing, but in podcast format.
- [154:35]
Mike Rowe
Yeah.
- [154:35]
Jack
And you just back and forth and you listen to their story. How do you, you know, be a, you know, a sheep shaver or like just random careers that do well and you get their story. That I would love to hear.
- [154:48]
Mike Rowe
You know who did a pretty good take on that was Theo.
- [154:51]
Co-host
Yes.
- [154:51]
Jack
Yeah, the garbage truck guy was great. Awesome.
- [154:54]
Co-host
Tax driver one as well.
- [154:56]
Mike Rowe
Yep. Yeah, you're right. I should probably. I should probably make it a little more. A little more targeted.
- [155:02]
Jack
I would be targeted, but focus on the education and just screen people who are good on camera and who just talk. Well, that's. And usually on a phone call, you could have a producer or something weed through the people and get the. The ones who are just good.
- [155:17]
Mike Rowe
Yeah.
- [155:18]
Jack
Who are funny. Kind of interesting.
- [155:19]
Mike Rowe
You know, I think at the time when I. I did kind of look at that and think about it, but I felt like maybe it's Dirty Jobs light and maybe I don't like real fans of that show. Believe me, the minute I started to step back and not let the shark actually bite me through the suit or whatever it was, people were like, oh, okay, you're getting lazy. You know, And I thought that would probably be the ultimate capitulation, but screw em.
- [155:50]
Jack
I would just call it not as Dirty Jobs or not so Dirty Jobs or something like that. Not as Dirty Jobs.
- [155:57]
Mike Rowe
Not as dirty.
- [155:58]
Co-host
I think. I think it depends on your answer to the question we spoke about. Earlier, which is, who are you working for? Which you said, the fans, the audience, but then again. Or the audience, but then again, you just said screw them. So it's. Which I don't actually think you truly mean that, of course, but.
- [156:13]
Mike Rowe
Well, there's the audience who listens to your show and it like. And in my world, there is the. The great unwashed. You know what I mean? Like the masses. And, you know, it's hard to separate them too directly, but you have to, like, you have your audience and then you have this giant ecosystem.
- [156:33]
Co-host
What would you be most interested in doing?
- [156:36]
Mike Rowe
Well, for me, I actually really like the format and I would like to be doing more of it, not less. But I'm still in the same business model that I've always been, and that model is me and Mary keeping half a dozen plates spinning. So I'm the guy at the buffet that filled his plate and then saw the prime rib at the end. It was like, oh, that's really good. But I got to throw something off the plate, you know what I mean? So if I assume this is a big rock in your world. Right. So, you know, the way I heard it gets its share, it's doing great, but it's as described. You know, I take it, I go down there for a week and I get a month's worth of stuff out of the way, maybe more. And then there's speeches, and then there's books, and then there's endorsement deals, and then there's a TV show back in production. And then more than anything else, there's the foundation, which has become like the sun in my solar system. So everything is connected. And I don't know how to make the podcast any bigger than it is without walking something else behind the barn and shooting it in the head. And I don't really want to do that yet.
- [157:59]
Jack
I think you could take your existing format, but turn it into Dirty Jobs adjacent, and I think it'll do really well.
- [158:06]
Mike Rowe
You know, you're. You're probably right. And the. The lowest hanging fruit is just to go back and talk to. Like, where are they now? Like the sheep castrator.
- [158:17]
Jack
Yeah.
- [158:18]
Mike Rowe
Who used his teeth. Bring him on to see what's up, what's new. And I've done.
- [158:22]
Co-host
Do it again. I find a sheep that needs it done.
- [158:25]
Mike Rowe
Bring him in.
- [158:27]
Co-host
No, you don't even need him. You have the skill.
- [158:29]
Mike Rowe
That's true.
- [158:31]
Co-host
Do it every Tuesday.
- [158:32]
Jack
And if there's anything we could help with, by the way, like, I love anything podcast related, anything strategy, title, thumbnail, guest Format, like all this. I love it.
- [158:43]
Mike Rowe
You know what? I'll hook you up with my producer, Chuck, who we've been working together for years. And, you know, he's an old dog. He could use some new tricks, and so could I. You know, I kind of Forrest Gump my way into this as well. But look, it's fun and it's the future, and I really do believe it. It's the place where people will. Will come to find the truth, whatever
- [159:07]
Jack
that is, until AI just wipes us all out and takes over the podcast.
- [159:12]
Mike Rowe
Hey, have you listened to Andreessen on Rogan? Yes, I did, like last month.
- [159:16]
Jack
Yeah, the recent one.
- [159:17]
Mike Rowe
I would recommend that to anybody who wants a, I guess a slightly more bullish take on what might be happening. Back to that manufactured consensus thing. I think something's going on in this country where 75% of the people are basically holding a negative view about AI and data centers. And in China, it's 85% positive. And the senators I've been talking to, including the vp, are like, oh, yeah, there's a giant campaign driven by bots and all kinds of fake material that has inundated TikTok and other platforms that is designed to sow a level of uncertainty around that topic in this country. And I don't know if it's true or not, but a lot of people are saying that you're looking at a manufactured consensus right now around that topic, and we don't yet quite understand.
- [160:23]
Jack
There's so much out there, though, that could be easily manipulated. And, like, half of it's just marketing, and the other half is just like, oh, this. This group over here doesn't like this group. And they could run ads or they could promote, like, Reddit, I believe, is like half bots.
- [160:39]
Mike Rowe
Oh, my God.
- [160:40]
Jack
And the front page is completely just manufactured stuff to get an idea across.
- [160:45]
Mike Rowe
Well, look, the thing that worries me more than anything is. Is also the thing that encourages me. I think the greatest scene in the Matrix is when Cypher is eating that steak and he picks it up on the fork, he's like, I know, I know. This is only in my mind. You know, I know that it's not real. But after. After 10 years of this bullshit, I want to stay right here because it just tastes delicious. I think that a big part of AI is going to be about. I think it's going to usher in the age of the umpire, the authenticator. Like, we need a ref, and we're going to need to know if that stake is real or Not. It doesn't mean that we're going to reject it if it's fake, but we're going to need to know. At least some people are. In fact, we may have already been there. Like the whole Impossible Meat thing, right? The Impossible Burger didn't work, you know, but it might have had. It tasted better. And we're just not going to know, you know, what is it, like 20 of the songs in the top? Spotify, AI. That's not the creepy part. The creepy part is they all have artists attached to them with faces and Instagram pages with hundreds of thousands of followers. Now, do you care that the song you're, you know, jamming out with was AI or not? I don't know. But what about the picture on the wall? What about that Picasso? Turns out it's not. Do you care? Some people will, some people won't. Right now, there are five scams on Facebook alone with me in them. And, like, Morgan Freeman has the same exact thing going on where a brand aligns itself with me. Somebody puts words in my mouth, and I announce that yeti is turning 50. And the first hundred callers get a cooler packed with their favorite beverage. Giant fishing expedition, right? Facebook can't get them down. They just, they just can't make them go away. So there's scams now with, like, DeWalt and Big Tool companies and very familiar brands with familiar faces, and it's just all, just all bull crap. So my, my worry is that the default position online is going to become not why, why do you believe it, but why would you believe it? Like, why do you, why do you start with the assumption that, oh, you know, that might be AI? You'll just get to the point soon where it's going to be. I have absolutely no reason to believe that anything I'm looking at is real. I mean, I, I, that's why we
- [163:40]
Jack
need an authenticator online. Like some sort of badge or like
- [163:43]
Co-host
some sort of, like, X has that. Like X has like the reader's added context or the community notes that says always.
- [163:51]
Jack
This is super.
- [163:52]
Co-host
Of course, not always. It's pretty accurate.
- [163:54]
Jack
It could be like a dsa, though. Yeah, Some grading company out there who just says, hey, we put our stamp on this. This is a hundred percent real.
- [164:01]
Mike Rowe
But you know what's funny, man? I was just in this booth narrating the last couple episodes of Deadliest Catch for this season, and I had the same conversation with the producer. It's a big storm on the Bering Sea. Big, big waves, you know, and I'm like, so what are you going to do to let the viewer know that you didn't mess with this? Like, that's your whole trust. Your whole thing is like, like you're getting. And he's like, I thought, I've already talked to the network and yeah, they're like, we should. We want to put up. Not a simulation. No AI Was used in the making of this. I think you're right. I think that's. I think that's what it's going to come from.
- [164:39]
Jack
Pretty soon your voice could just be AI and then you license your voice out, and then they don't even need you.
- [164:46]
Mike Rowe
Have you seen Speechify?
- [164:47]
Co-host
Yes.
- [164:48]
Mike Rowe
Like, I mean, that's it. My, like, voiceover that I made my living in. Voiceover years ago. Anonymous, like, non celeb voiceover work. You make a great living. Those days are over, man. Non celebrity voiceovers are. Are finished. And somebody just sent me a. A file. They said, narrate my. Oh, it was a wedding speech as Mike Rowe doing an episode of Deadliest Catch. And I listened to it, and I swear, had I not known what it was, and somebody said, here's something you did, like nine years ago. Do you remember? I'd be like, I don't remember, but obviously I did it. That's a. It's that good.
- [165:34]
Jack
Yeah.
- [165:35]
Mike Rowe
And it's still early innings.
- [165:36]
Co-host
Yeah. Is there any chance we could do one last thing since you're here? Yeah, I think it'd be really funny to have something like here on the Iced Coffee Hour today we have Mike Rowe and then like, some, like, you know, voice of Deadliest Cat.
- [165:51]
Mike Rowe
Sure.
- [165:51]
Co-host
Host of Dirty Jobs and now guest on the Iced Coffee Hour or something like that.
- [165:56]
Mike Rowe
You want me to do it?
- [165:57]
Co-host
I think that. Yeah, something like that. Just. You don't have to, like, I suppose you could look into the camera as you say it.
- [166:02]
Mike Rowe
Well, since they asked me real nice. Next on Iced Coffee Hour, Mike Rowe stops by for three hours to talk about all of the trouble in the world. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll thrill as he talks to Anne, a secret admirer who somebody knows all too well.
- [166:24]
Jack
And then, last one, if you could just say, hit the like button and subscribe.
- [166:28]
Mike Rowe
Hey, you know what you do after you hit the like button? You subscribe. It's basic. Hit the like button, then subscribe. Did he still say, smash that like button or just hit it?
- [166:37]
Co-host
Obliterate it.
- [166:37]
Mike Rowe
Obliterate it, man. At least leave nothing but a. Just a hollow smile. Smoking crater where that, like, button used to be. All right, then. Oh, by the way, you still rolling?
- [166:46]
Co-host
Yes.
- [166:47]
Mike Rowe
Work ethic scholarships available@microworks.org we literally have, like, $20 million.
- [166:54]
Co-host
It'll be linked down below in the description. Just click the link right there.
- [166:57]
Jack
Just do it.
- [166:58]
Mike Rowe
Click it, baby. Click it and lick.