← The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe
The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe
431: David Bahnsen—Poor Smart and Desperate
01:16:52
David Bahnsen is the founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group, which manages over seven billion dollars in assets. He’s also a podcaster, author, and Christian intellectual. His book, , is simpatico with Mike’s...
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- [00:00]
Mike Rowe
Foreign, who you're about to meet is looking for people that are poor, smart and desperate. A mission I appreciate so much. That's the title of this episode. I'm Mike. This is the way I heard it. How are you, Charlie?
- [00:18]
Charlie
I'm living the dream, buddy. Living the dream.
- [00:21]
Mike Rowe
That was. Now, this is such a stupid thing to say out loud. Looking for blanket confirmation, as I'm want to do. But that was a really good conversation.
- [00:28]
Charlie
It really was. And it's right up your alley in the message of micro, which is that work ethic is important and you don't even need the ethic. In David Bonson's case, it's the work that's important.
- [00:39]
Mike Rowe
He's written such a great book. It's called Full Time Work and the Meaning of Life. And I know that might sound a tad earnest. And you know what it is? He pulls no punches with this book and he makes a super reasonable case. But part of the reason I wanted to have him on is because we have some mutual friends that we'll discuss in a moment. But mostly it's because you don't often hear the messages that you're about to hear from people who manage in excess of $7 billion of money.
- [01:11]
Charlie
Right. You know, that's exactly what he does for a living.
- [01:15]
Mike Rowe
Yeah, he's good at it. If his name is familiar, then his face might be as well. He pops up on the news now and then to weigh in on all sorts of things, but his real passion seems to be articulating the idea that work is not merely a means to an end, it's the end. Having lost sight of that, our country seems to have lost sight of a few other things as well, in his estimation. I just happen to agree with him. So, on the one hand, it's a conversation between two guys who are in violent agreement on any number of things. On the other hand, he manages $7 billion, and I don't.
- [01:56]
Charlie
I can barely manage my. My weekly allowance.
- [02:01]
Mike Rowe
You mean your paycheck from.
- [02:04]
Charlie
I call it an allowance.
- [02:06]
Mike Rowe
So, all right, we'll talk about your future during the brief break that you're all about to experience right now. But when we come back, you're going to want to focus your undivided attention on the undeniable wit and wisdom of David Bonson, who, as I may have mentioned, is all about poor, smart and desperate right after this.
- [02:32]
Advertiser
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- [02:44]
Mike Rowe
Well, that's a long story.
- [02:46]
Advertiser
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- [03:58]
David Bonson
American Giant, American made.
- [04:07]
Mike Rowe
David, last checks. This is spelled right as far as you know. Chuck put his banner up there again just so we can make sure we got it right this time. David Bonson, author and founder of the Banson Group. No, we were just talking. This is David Bonson. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for coming here.
- [04:29]
David Bonson
Thank you for having me.
- [04:30]
Mike Rowe
I can't wait to get into this book. I got a gajillion questions. I've seen you on the Fox News talking to all the pundits and they all seem to regard you with a. Well, with I won't say reverence, but they certainly respect what you have to say. And I wonder if, like me, some of them aren't a bit confused by the fact that you're managing over $7 billion and still talking often about real meaning and biblical principles and like old fashioned type virtues. And it leads me to wonder, you know, how a nice guy like you turned into such a rapacious capitalist.
- [05:08]
David Bonson
Yeah, I think that there's a couple things there. It does seem to me that some people are either confused or modestly respectful of this idea that someone could be a Wall street guy who seems to not be afraid to talk about the Bible or talk about character or what have you. And it probably seems Somewhat freakish to them. It's a rarity. I'll take that as a compliment. But you know, in terms of just kind of how I came to be, the whole thing comes down to my dad. And so I get to give him the credit, not for the capitalist part, other than that he was pretty poor as a Christian intellectual. So I certainly was motivated to not be poor.
- [05:48]
Mike Rowe
It's impossible to say those two words grouped up anymore. Not for me anyway. To think of C.S. lewis.
- [05:53]
David Bonson
Yeah.
- [05:54]
Mike Rowe
And what others. Who else sort of fills out that. That ledger.
- [06:00]
David Bonson
Yeah. So throughout history you're John Calvin's in the early Reformation days And then the 19th century, Abraham Kuyper was a big influence where you had this guy who was the prime minister of Holland and ran the newspaper there and was this, you know, doctorate holding academic who's this great theologian. And that was kind of like mainstream. And then you got in the 20th century and there's no question Christianity embraced an anti intellectualism. And so guys like my dad who were well respected in the academy and you know, C.S. lewis died in 1963 and my dad was in high school and Francis Schaefer became a bigger Christian intellectual into the 70s. But it's kind of rare. And then what's really rare is if you get a quote unquote Christian intellectual, they're usually not orthodox. I think there's something off.
- [06:50]
Mike Rowe
Is McDowell in that group?
- [06:51]
David Bonson
Not as an intellectual.
- [06:53]
Advertiser
No.
- [06:53]
David Bonson
He's definitely orthodox though, right? Yeah.
- [06:56]
Mike Rowe
Evidence. The evidence demands a verdict, Right? Yeah, yeah. Would you consider that like apologetics?
- [07:02]
David Bonson
Yeah. So that was sort of my dad's domain is he was an apologetics professor and philosopher. He got his doctorate at USC and studied epistemology, theory and knowledge. And McDowell had an evidentialist approach. You know, how you can go about using archeological evidence and physical evidence, kind of prove truth claims of the Bible. My dad's was a bit more philosophical, more C.S. lewis, like, you know, where things were self evident in nature and in the way the world works. And so Lewis had a famous line about I don't believe in the sun because I see it. I believe in the sun because by it I see everything else. That was sort of my dad's apologetical way of doing things. So I just sort of applied that to finance and economics and things like this. And that's sort of my story.
- [07:51]
Mike Rowe
Well, how does it apply? If you look at these things that are fundamental, whether you attribute them to a biblical precept or not, I think everybody agrees that ideas like work other virtues as well. They have a universality to them. But how are they applicable in the public markets? And maybe as you contemplate that too, just give me just a quick background on, like, what you actually do for money.
- [08:22]
David Bonson
Yeah. So my story is that I run a private wealth management firm. I was for many years a managing director at Morgan Stanley. So that's more of a household name on Wall street. Had been over 15 years at high level, you know, big firms, and left and started my own firm 10 years ago. And why? Just purely for the entrepreneurialism of it. Morgan Stanley was a great firm. They're good to me. I had done very well there. But I was turning 40 and I said, if I'm going to do this for decades to come, then, you know, I want to do it on my own. If I was going to stay at a big firm, I was happy to stay there. But it wasn't to go, leave and get more money. I wasn't smart enough to know when I did it how opportunistic it proved to be. What I knew was I could hire who I wanted and fire who I wanted and not deal with 61,000 other employees. And I do believe big, large companies like that, to no fault of their own, just the way the world works, have to manage to some degree the lowest common denominator. And it bothered me, you know, it took too long to get things done, and I have a certain contempt for bureaucracy. And I thought, well, me and a few of other people around me, we can do things on our own. Let's go give it a shot. And so over the last 10 years, we've grown. I left with eight people who worked for me at Morgan all joining me. And now we have 75 people and nine offices and are managing $7 billion and pretty much growed about 30% every single year. Not like 51 year and 10 another. But I mean, really stayed consistent. And I wouldn't do anything different.
- [09:58]
Mike Rowe
Well, at what point do you look over your shoulder and say, you know, I've become the thing I left? I mean, how big do you get before you go, oh, wait, that's a great question.
- [10:08]
David Bonson
I have an answer. If there's ever a moment where I do not know every single employee's name, look at them, know their name, know their story. That's when we're too big. So is that at 80, 90, 100? I don't know. It's not 300. I can't make it there. So, yeah, I don't have any vision to scale this to that large of A sort of institutional, bureaucratic entity. I could probably handle a little more than 75. I have a pretty good memory. We just had our team off site recently. We were out playing games and doing the dinners and events and lip sync contest and all that fun stuff. And I know everybody in the company.
- [10:44]
Mike Rowe
That's interesting. Like, do you think that duty of care you just described sort of radiates out to your employees, but what about your clients and like. And how do you think about the client relationship when you're a part of a big entity versus a smaller one? And do you have the same thought process in terms of familiarity, intimacy, and so forth?
- [11:08]
David Bonson
I very much do. And if anything, the way I feel about this issue with clients is informed how I feel about employees, not vice versa. So there's a sort of proximity and intimacy that is at the core value proposition of the advice business. There's a lot of things that can't be commoditized, and there's a lot of things that can't be scaled. Relationships are at the top of that list. So at a very, very large organization, every client does become a number. I don't say that, though, as a moral judgment. It's just a reality. Sure. For us, what we say is basically, we can keep growing, but not because advisors are taking on more clients, but because we'll have more advisors that fit, that are aligned with our philosophy, our belief system, the entirety of it is based on a small number of clients per household. So people remember that 1990s movie, Jerry Maguire, and he. And he wrote that manifesto. Yeah. And it was all based on relationships and knowing your clients, all that. That's exactly how we view it. And we don't lose clients for that reason. I mean, we really value the intimacy of the relationship. I can't know 1500 clients, but I can employ 25 advisors that each have 50 to 75 clients that they can all know, and then I can know all of my people. That's how we've kind of done it.
- [12:26]
Mike Rowe
Full disclosure. There's a. A fair amount of triangulation here. Will Swaim, who sat where you're sitting, Dear friend of yours. In fact, you guys are still doing. Is it Radio Free California?
- [12:37]
David Bonson
Radio Free California.
- [12:39]
Mike Rowe
That's fascinating. You sit on the board over at the National Review. I've got many friends over there, too. So I suspect we're in violent agreement on all sorts of stuff. Before we jump into the book, the real reason you're here is because of the sign over my right children. I said that out loud, I GUESS it was 16 years ago, maybe 17, right when we were starting this foundation and some reporter asked me, what's the. I mean, you tell stories, so who's the villain in your story here? And my answer was, the villain is an idea that the reason we're all unhappy, to varying degrees, it seems, is because of work. Work has become the. The punching bag. It's the. Or something. Work adjacent. My boss, right. It's. There's just somehow or another, and I don't know when, but it became not just fashionable, but almost expected to make work into the proximate cause of your discontent. And I hadn't thought too much about it, but it was the big lesson from Dirty Jobs and it was the premise upon which microworks was launched. So much of this makes me feel like a smart guy. I always love it when I run into people who have some science and, you know, a bigger brain and the time to put some real thought behind some ideas that I have been clinging to. So having said that, I'm not alone, am I?
- [14:10]
David Bonson
No, you're not. And it's not just that we have a general agreement. I mean, there's an alignment in our respective views on this that extraordinarily tight for a lot of the same reasons and with a lot of the same cultural observations. There was a moment where it shifted. I have my own theories about what kind of caused some of it. And I think it was at different paces and different causation in different parts of the country. You know, there's a movement that broadly, I think you're describing, has sort of created this narrative that work is weighing on people. And I think a lot of it is embedded in us being victims of our own success as a society. Prosperity and deeper mortality. People are living longer. I would think that's a good thing. We have more money. I would think that's a good thing. Has somehow combined together to have a lower view of the things that enabled those two conditions. So we bite the hand that feeds us to some degree.
- [15:11]
Mike Rowe
Interesting, the idea that living longer. I agree the immediate thought is, well, that's nice. But you know, it does add incredible pressure because the last few years of one's life are certainly very different than the first few years. More expensive, for one thing. And you're just. You're still here at 104, right? You're like, what's next? How you gonna find meaning at that point in your life?
- [15:39]
David Bonson
And I think that four month old, it's difficult to define how they're finding meaning. But we believe babies have meaning the sanctity of their own lives. And they're in this very developmental phase. They don't have a lot to contribute. You know, they're kind of a pain.
- [15:55]
Mike Rowe
They think they're the center of their.
- [15:56]
David Bonson
Own universe and they certainly have to be the center of the parent universe for the baby to survive. 104. You know, you're at the end of a cycle of life and there's not a lot to contribute and it requires a lot of attention from others. But where our mortality is extended is not just in the right tail, the median level. There were people who were dying at 60 forever that had 10 more productive years intellectually and physically, that were not getting it. Now most, again at a median level, people are getting that right up to the late 70s. And we're voluntarily saying, well, I'm going to pretend I'm 104 when I'm 65. Meaning voluntary removal from a productive place in society.
- [16:42]
Mike Rowe
Yeah.
- [16:42]
David Bonson
So 104, you're pretty limited physically and mentally most of the time. 65, usually not. So I think that there's been a voluntary decision to exit from a lot of this. Not things have been forced on people because of age and stage.
- [16:57]
Mike Rowe
You know Nick Eberstadt by any chance.
- [16:59]
David Bonson
You quote him heavily in the book.
- [17:01]
Mike Rowe
So he's another one of those guys who wrote a book that made me feel like, oh, that's what I meant to say. He talks about, I think, what you're saying. You've got 7 million able bodied men in the prime of their working life who have affirmatively chosen to step away from work. So what the heck does that mean?
- [17:22]
David Bonson
Well, and I decided to try to answer it as an economist, and it's my view this sort of overlaps with some of Nick's study. I believe the financial crisis 2008 was a seminal moment of my adult life in the history book. So right now we're too fresh to it to be able to say this. They haven't updated the chapters in history books yet. So 30, 50, 70 years from now, the way that we would have studied the Great Depression, people would be studying 2008. And they won't study it as just a moment where, you know, Lehman went down or what did Congress do or whatnot. There'll be certain factual stuff to recall and that'll all be interesting. But it was the moment at which a kind of extremist socialist became a mainstream politician with Bernie Sanders. It was a moment that created a populist angst on the left. And the right, you could argue years later, kind of created Donald Trump in a lot of ways, or at least fertilized the soil that produced the moment for Trump. But I think that we were children of the 80s and 90s where free markets were just presumed to be efficient and morally good. Everybody seemed to be doing better. And wealth inequality has never really historically been a concern. When everyone's getting better together, poor people don't mind rich people getting richer, when poor people are getting richer, but when all of a sudden they feel that they're now getting poorer, then the divide becomes a bigger issue. And 08 just really hit us across the face with that. So then the labor participation force collapsed and it didn't recover. And it's all men. Epperstat's written about this extensively. So then you say, okay, well boomers are retiring. And then you look at it and go, yeah, that's not really the data. I mean, it's true there, but it's not disproportionately true.
- [19:12]
Mike Rowe
Right.
- [19:13]
David Bonson
So what I do in the book is look at the 18 to 25 demographic and say, why are we tolerating this? Why do we think it's good, good that young adults are not entering the workforce and that we don't have part time employment for teenagers and we don't think college students need to work a job anymore and for those who don't go off to college, that we don't have trade schools or various, you know, vocational endeavors. I don't think it's true that that demographics drop in employment is irrelevant. I think it matters a lot. But then the one that no one can ignore is that 29, ages 29 to 54, because then you have the no excuse, able bodied men, whatever, and no one seems to know where they've gone. And so I was unable to answer it only as an economist. I had to answer it partially out of my own moral and cultural assessment that I think it's a byproduct of a declining spirituality, a declining hope, and unfortunately it's a negative feedback loop. It feeds on itself. People are less hopeful that they can achieve a good life, so they go about doing the things that ensure they can't have.
- [20:19]
Mike Rowe
So a self fulfilling tautology. Yeah.
- [20:24]
David Bonson
Dumb.
- [20:26]
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- [21:40]
Mike Rowe
You also, I think, suggest that that which is symptomatic is in fact causal in a way. Right? So we've gotten it into our heads understandably that the purpose of work is to get us in a place where we can enjoy the things that we want to enjoy. Like it's a means to an end. And fundamentally what you're saying, I think, is that it's the end, the work is the point. And it doesn't much matter what your business card says, by all means, evolve, adapt, change things up. But whatever it is you're doing at the moment, that's the point.
- [22:30]
David Bonson
You're literally like quoting from the book, basically. I mean, that's exactly what I'm saying. And I will take the other side to make it even more not sarcastic, but hard hitting. I believe the message of the baby boomer generation was work is something you do so you won't have to do it anymore.
- [22:49]
Mike Rowe
Yes, that's it.
- [22:50]
David Bonson
And I believe that's the moment at which the societal view of work changed. But we didn't notice it because here's the compliment to baby boomers. They did work very hard. They produced a lot of goods and services. Gross output in society was extremely positive. So they were working and producing. You didn't have those issues of the 26 year old living at mom's basement and not wanting to get a job. And you didn't have, you know, 32 year olds asking their boss if they could go to yoga in the middle of the afternoon. They weren't an entitled generation, but they did enter the Workforce with an eye on retirement. And then they ended their time in the workforce with the ability to end their Life with a 25 year vacation, and then messaged that down to Gen X and especially millennials. And all I think millennials did is run with it. If the purpose of work is to just do the bare minimum so that you can then go do the things you really want to do, and you're not capturing that teagas that you're talking about that purpose, that work is the aim, that I'm not working transactionally, I'm not working instrumentally, that the work itself is the purpose, that I'm producing goods and services that meet the needs of humanity. And I might even be doing the things that achieve my hopes, dreams and goals in life, my passions that meet my skills. You know, these are like the textbook things you dream of. And now I can't go be an NBA basketball star even if I love basketball, because I don't have the skills. But in the workforce I can find things I love and that I'm good at more than MBA career and bring those things together. So the vision in a market economy with a rule of law and a free society is that work really is a venue to go do great things that are output focused. You're producing goods and services. And I think we spiritually, economically, politically, culturally adopted a view that the essence of life is consumption. And lo and behold, doesn't seem to me to have made a lot of people very happy.
- [24:54]
Mike Rowe
Well, it's certainly true that there are more consumers in this country than there.
- [24:59]
David Bonson
Are workers as a headcount.
- [25:01]
Mike Rowe
Yes, yes, because all workers consume, but not all consumers work. And so that fundamental distinction, I think, is one of the early ways where you start to take up sides and people start to say, well, which are you? Are you contributing or are you not? And then their back goes up because, well, wait a minute, what do you mean, am I contributing? You want me to stand there in the same spot and make little rocks out of big rocks so I can pay, blah, blah, blah. And then all of a sudden we're up to our neck in a polemic and we can't get out of it. And now you have Reddit and gajillion people who are just really, really, really angry at anybody in a blazer.
- [25:40]
David Bonson
You know, you used the word tautology earlier. This is just economics 101. There are more consumers than producers, but there is not more consumption than production. So by definition, somebody's getting richer than somebody else. The headcount is uneven, but There can't be more consumption than production because what are they consuming if someone hasn't produced it? So what that means is there are people sharing in a greater portion of the spoils. Right? Now traditionally we would say that's a understandable thing. Some people are going to work harder, some people are more ambitious, some people are more skilled. You know, there's different elements to it. And sure, some people get luckier, okay, whatever it is. But the point being production and consumption can't be disconnected. But producers and consumers are. So then how do we remedy that if we're really worried about wealth inequality? Well, apparently it isn't by focusing on math. Because you would think the remedy to that is to create more producers. And we're not doing that. We're demonizing producers. And we celebrate consumption sands production, which is incoherent.
- [26:56]
Mike Rowe
Why do we do that?
- [26:58]
David Bonson
Oh, well, I think that it comes from a covetousness, I think it comes from a godlessness, and I think it comes ultimately from a lack of understanding of the human person, the belief. It was a Marxian notion. When Bernie Sanders was pushing last year for this 32 hour workweek program, I remember him saying, you know, we all just know that the economic man wants to be able to work less. And I remember thinking, well, I know people want to work less. That might be true, but I know I do not just know that. I do not believe all people want to. And I actually know a lot of people, they get real excited to go do a week or two, a two week vacation. And on the third day they're like, I got to get out of here and everyone needs to recharge their batteries, enjoy a little time at the beach and look at a lake and walk on the sand with your wife, all that's good stuff. But no, I don't agree that everybody is looking to just work less. That that's endemic to the human person. I think that we are most fulfilled when we're producing. It generates self worth, it generates self esteem. And so much like the frustration you were talking about 16 years ago. I look around and I just say, I think everyone's got this backwards. And it would be one thing if we said they're saying it's X and I don't think it's X. Well, what they're saying is not merely that work is the problem, they're missing that. I believe work is the solution. That when we look at opioid epidemic, this is Nick Eberstadt's type stuff, the problems of despair, loneliness, alcohol, Abuse, drug abuse. People have less friends. People, you know, we, we say, oh, it's not good. People don't have the same level of friendships anymore. And then they want to move everyone out of working in a public place and have them go, right, all these 29 year old guys working in an apartment by themselves, you know, no friends, no girlfriend, no, it's just this is the recipe for a good life. It's, it's just depressing.
- [28:56]
Mike Rowe
How do you articulate these ideas, knowing as I'm sure you do, that in spite of your faith nobody wants a sermon and in spite of your certitude, nobody wants a lecture. Yeah, right. Especially the cohort to which you refer. They're sitting home and maybe they've taken a break from scrolling left or right or whatever and they've flicked around and they found this and they're listening to like what are they going to hear from the likes of you and me that would challenge the idea that all they're doing by showing up at their dead end job is perpetuating this whole enrichment that they're so opposed to anyway, on behalf of the upper classes or whatever it is. How do you persuade?
- [29:46]
David Bonson
Well, I think for one thing, I don't want the pressure on myself that I have to avoid being accused of being preachy. I try not to be preachy. But if someone says, hey, you know, you have a Bible verse in here or you're giving a faith based exhortation, I'll live with it. But I will say I'm not doing it for the purpose of proselytizing. I'm doing it because I think there's a truth in the message I want to share. But the one thing I'm asking people to do is just ask some questions. Do you believe that some of the choices people have made macro, the whole society not, not picking on one person, that it's. People seem happier because no one seems to believe that. Everyone seems. That's one consensus view we have that's bipartisan, is that there is less contentment and that there's a greater angst. And I think a lot of this intensified after that financial crisis moment. Now I'm totally open to the idea that some of it is house prices are too high, student debts too high, that people feel a little misled, they don't trust the system. I get all of that, but what I'm suggesting is would you be willing to listen to the stories of those that have focused on their own vocational endeavors, their own journey ups and downs, and believe that they found a fulfilling life out of it. So I'm asking them to at least be open minded to the idea that the one off is not the person who's found a lot of meaning in work, that that's the norm.
- [31:16]
Mike Rowe
How would you talk about universal basic income to again that there are many in that cohort? I think that look at that idea and say, yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I know some pretty hardworking entrepreneurial people who have made the case for it as well. Yeah, personally I'm suspicious of it, but I don't know how to argue against it other than through a moral lens.
- [31:47]
David Bonson
Well, I don't either. And so I don't. What I won't do is what a lot of my friends on the political right will do is make the argument we can't afford it. I happen to agree we can't afford it. But it's a very bad argument. 36 trillion of debt and we run 1 to 2 trillion of deficits more each year. Why not throw a few trillion more at something if it was really a good plan? Nobody believes that that limit is coming in the next trillion or the trillion after that. There's some limit at which this prolific fiscal deficit spending might come to an end. But that's not the argument that's going to be persuasive that we can't afford it. The better argument that has more staying power is the moral argument. And for me the moral argument has to be connected to what I believe about the human person. If I believed that half of us were supposed to be productive and half of us were merely to be consumptive, and that half of the people in the world, their meaning comes from what the other half of us do, then I would not be opposed to universal basic income. But my problem is I don't believe that. I believe that God made all people with dignity. And my argument against universal basic income is that it's dehumanizing because it is suggesting that there is a group of people that need to live off the largesse of others as opposed to produce. This has nothing to do with social safety net. And one of the ironies about a universal basic income is that last I checked with the word universal, they're not even talking about social safety net. Bill Gates is in the universe. Elon Musk is in the universe. Does he get his 1800amonth minimum amount as well? I mean, it's really to me a question about destruction, distributing resources instead of producing. And so we're not just talking about the efficiency of It I don't accept a zero sum view of the universe. I believe we can create more things. In fact, I think all of us have just been doing that ever since we were born. And the world has gotten bigger in terms of the totality of wealth, the goods and services that enhance people's quality of life.
- [33:46]
Mike Rowe
So, man, there's a lot there. But if you're talking about meaningful work, is there such a thing inherently as meaningful work? And also, since you brought it up from a creationist standpoint, how important is creativity to meaning in work?
- [34:08]
David Bonson
So the second question is a tricky one. The first part is right up my alley. Let me start with the easy one, because the second one's harder. Is there such thing as inerrant in work, that is meaning?
- [34:20]
Mike Rowe
Yeah.
- [34:20]
David Bonson
Well, I believe that work has meaning inerrantly when a worker is doing it and it is extended towards an object. So what I mean by this is Pope John Paul II had a wonderful encyclical about work in 1981, where he referred to it as a transitive activity. The subject of work is the worker, and that's where the meaning comes from, because the worker has dignity and purpose. But they're extending the work. If I'm just sitting here dropping rocks on the ground and picking them up, I'm not creating any value for anyone. So the work is when I'm extending my effort towards an object, that object is another human being. So it's a human serving a human and producing goods and services and painting a house and inventing an iPhone and providing financial services and creating a podcast.
- [35:09]
Mike Rowe
And picking up the rock. But rather than merely dropping it, arranging it in such a way that a wall begins to emerge.
- [35:15]
David Bonson
Carving it, building it, designing it, all those things. And so where the inerrant meaning comes in is that work is a transitive activity where one person is meeting the needs of others, and in so doing, has their needs met. That's the economic miracle of work, that we have our needs met. This is the great contribution of classical economics. We have our needs met by meeting the needs of others.
- [35:39]
Mike Rowe
So does the worker have to acknowledge the meaning he or she feels from doing the work in order for the underlying job to be inherently meaningful?
- [35:47]
David Bonson
They do not. But it sure does help. I do not think about every breath I take every day, but when I think about oxygen, I'm even more appreciative of the life I live.
- [35:57]
Mike Rowe
Yeah. And when I can't breathe, I sure do remember all those swell times when I could.
- [36:00]
David Bonson
That's right, yeah. Nobody appreciates work more than an unemployed person.
- [36:04]
Mike Rowe
Okay, well, then the second part of the question had to do with creativity. And I don't. I'm certainly not a scholar in any sense much, especially biblical, but it seems like as a. As a creator, if we are in his image, then we are creators ourselves.
- [36:23]
David Bonson
Definitely.
- [36:24]
Mike Rowe
And so, as a creator in training, you know, am I looking at my job through the lens of meaning and saying, well, I'm not being asked to create anything. I'm just being asked to move things and hold things and turn things. Or maybe my role in some supply chain or mass assemblage is so codified that I can't get a good look at the actual thing that's being created. And so I feel disconnected from a larger effort, therefore disenfranchised. Therefore, screw it, I quit, and you can pay me to sit home and play Call of Duty.
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Mike Rowe
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Mike Rowe
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- [38:31]
David Bonson
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Mike Rowe
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- [38:49]
David Bonson
What I encourage people to do with this issue is see a bigger picture where we are not limited to a point in time in the way we answer this. A cog in the machine concern is a real one. But I wonder if someone says, I want to add to the creativity of the process, but I'm just in the assembly line and I'm not really doing anything creative. I'm providing a service, but it's not creative. But if they perform at a high level in the assembly line, do they at some point get invited in to the discussions on how to improve the process, how more innovation, more creativity is in other words, a situation that is somewhat eschatological. Like at a point in time you're paying dues so you have more creative input later. That's a possibility. Not always. Some people get stuck and that's where those are fearful of being stuck. Should be the biggest advocates of labor dynamism and a market economy and a growing economy of anyone. Because all that a growing economy does is open up doors and doors and doors exponentially for more opportunity. Where people have been most stuck in a factory, dead end job without creative input is where there's been the least amount of economic opportunity and you need dynamism and mobility because the boss says, I don't want your creative input. Put the darn thing in the box and be quiet.
- [40:08]
Mike Rowe
Right?
- [40:09]
David Bonson
Say, okay, I'm doing that because I said, by the way, that guy called me and he wants me to be creative in the way I do it. So I'm gonna leave you and go work there. Any society that makes it hard to quit a job, hard to take a new job, hard to fire someone, hard to hire someone, they're hurting the cause of creativity. The ability to do creative work is often a byproduct of you have the ability to leave one job for another. But of course there's a process, dues paying, earning that credibility and so forth. But to your point about being made in the imago DEI image of God, I use three words throughout the book all the time. God was a producer, God was an innovator, and God was a creator. And all three of those things he invited us into, we don't get to create out of nothing. Only he could do that. But really, God's creativity was mostly a byproduct of creating raw materials to ask us to go do the really creative stuff. God didn't paint, but he sure gave us the ability to paint the creative beauty of the world. He had to give us the ability to see beauty and appreciate it and to create it. But that's an amazing thing about what we have the capacity for.
- [41:28]
Mike Rowe
The capacity, right? Not the obligation, the choice.
- [41:33]
David Bonson
The choice.
- [41:34]
Mike Rowe
It's incumbent on us to choose. That's the free agentry of the whole thing, right? I can look at a rainbow and be breathless and just overwhelmed with gratitude. And somebody else can just go, yeah. Colors we choose.
- [41:51]
David Bonson
And there is also a sense in the individuality of human people that not only our skills, but our passions. There's all these what, enneagram things and personality tests and all this stuff. And I'm sure some of them are good. Some of them maybe not so much. But there's a real kind of universal understanding that we're all wired differently. I mean, that's not exactly rocket science. And I think that when we talk about the word creative, it can mean very different things to different people. I think that someone could be very creative artistically. The painting and seeing, appreciating a rainbow and things. And then there's a lot of creativity in the way someone structures a business, our creativity in the way someone, you know, creates a business strategy or does a financial structure. When I talk about capital markets, artist types are going to be bored out of their mind hearing me talk about it. But it doesn't mean it's not creative, right? It may not be aesthetic, but it is creative.
- [42:48]
Mike Rowe
Was it JP Morgan you're with?
- [42:50]
David Bonson
I was at Morgan Stanley.
- [42:51]
Mike Rowe
Morgan Stanley, okay, so did they lose you because they failed to create an environment that allowed you to check the boxes, or was it all of a piece and was it just sort of a design? And I don't mean to juxtapose predestination with free agentry and so forth, but, you know, did you leave them? Did they blow it? Would you have stayed had they presented a more intriguing palette for you?
- [43:19]
David Bonson
Like all of economics, it's marginal. There's always more on the margin you could do, but sure. Structurally, if I was predestined to be an entrepreneur, there's only so much additional freedom they can give you. When you're not an entre, you're not going to be an entrepreneur as a W2 employee at a big company. And so I don't think they did anything wrong per se. It's just that the model was wrong for me. You know, I didn't need someone else buying the furniture. I didn't need an HR department. I wanted to run my own deal.
- [43:51]
Mike Rowe
But my point is, it's incumbent then upon the entrepreneur to leave. And so the default has to be like, we're not building organizations and these big companies are not evolving the way they evolve in order to encourage entrepreneurship. Otherwise everybody would leave and become entrepreneurs and then that would be sort of self defeating in a weird way. They didn't want to lose you. You have an enormous brain. People like you, you're on TV all the time. Right. I mean, so that was a loss when you left and you probably took some clients and maybe some fellow employees, and now you're running $7 billion that they're not.
- [44:31]
David Bonson
Yeah, it's a big loss to them. And there's plenty of other corner office guys like me that have done it. And it isn't just in financial services. People lose employee talent to go an entrepreneurial route all the time. I would argue in the society case that's a net gain, and in the case of that company, it's a net loss. Right. They're losing something and yet that person is now going to be something greater than they would have been inside the confines of that structure.
- [45:00]
Mike Rowe
So a win for society and a.
- [45:02]
David Bonson
Loss for that company. What is that company? What they ought to do is provide as much entrepreneurial freedom as they can without violating their own business model.
- [45:13]
Mike Rowe
I mean, what a nightmare. To encourage your best people to leave, if that's what they want to do, to encourage them to stay, because you don't want to lose your best people. To do both of them honestly and transparently.
- [45:26]
David Bonson
This doesn't translate well to finance, but how do they do it in tech? You know, I think almost every VC person that Pete Thiel has backed used to work for him. He went out and started their own firm. Yeah, but he got a piece of it.
- [45:38]
Mike Rowe
Yeah.
- [45:39]
David Bonson
So there's ways that everyone can win out of that, but it'd be tougher at a Morgan Stanley.
- [45:43]
Mike Rowe
What are the three things you mentioned again?
- [45:46]
David Bonson
Production, creativity and innovation.
- [45:48]
Mike Rowe
Okay. And you used a Greek term earlier, talos.
- [45:52]
David Bonson
Telos.
- [45:52]
Mike Rowe
Telos.
- [45:53]
David Bonson
Purpose.
- [45:54]
Mike Rowe
Okay, so that's a fourth thing or that's a different thing.
- [45:58]
David Bonson
Yeah, I think that's a different thing. I think that most certainly we all have a purpose. And I do believe that it's in our image bearing status. But I guess what I'm suggesting is that the human purpose is embedded in work. That is the way God made the world. And that this goes against the kind of contemporary idea that the purpose of our existence is rather to enjoy a life of recreation or permanent leisure. I do not agree with that assessment.
- [46:33]
Mike Rowe
And in order to get to that state, we must endure a world of work from which we will eventually retire. The sooner the better.
- [46:44]
David Bonson
That's right.
- [46:45]
Mike Rowe
That's the premise.
- [46:46]
David Bonson
And then to the early part of our conversation. You talk about where you were 16 years ago, things you're observing. This is something I talk about in the introduction of the book.
- [46:55]
Mike Rowe
Me personally, when you were. Yeah, I'm in here.
- [46:59]
David Bonson
Well, but the. No, the. The way in which Hollywood reinforced this idea that work was drudgery, where something happened that when we watch a movie, we're supposed to take for granted. You know how you watch a movie sometimes and you realize, like, wait a second, this guy's supposed to be the good guy. And so like I'm watching Ocean's Eleven, I'm supposed to be rooting for bank robbers.
- [47:23]
Mike Rowe
Right.
- [47:23]
David Bonson
Like it's. But it's. You know, they sort of trick you into doing that almost every movie anyone's ever seen about work. Almost everyone. The embedded assumption is that your job is at odds with your peace of mind, that careerism is the enemy of the good life, and that there is something else. Like going back to the small town you're from or your ex girlfriend in high school or some sort of.
- [47:49]
Mike Rowe
You've been watching Hallmark, dude?
- [47:51]
David Bonson
Well, it's funny. Hallmark. Now. It almost seems like a caricature of what Hollywood's been saying for years, because the bad guy in the Hollywood movie is always the person at the office working, and the good guy is always the person who has some anti work view.
- [48:06]
Mike Rowe
Right, right. And the plumber is always £300 with a giant butt crack. And Schneider was the brunt of every joke on One Day at a Time. And so Hollywood and Madison Avenue and virtually every relevant vertical in culture did get that memo. That's why I wrote that, and that's why I'm. I push my little boulder up my little hill.
- [48:31]
Charlie
And by that you mean Work is not the enemy. That's the thing over your shoulder.
- [48:35]
Mike Rowe
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. I forget sometimes that we're not making actual tv, but. Yeah, there's a plaque and I didn't make that. Somebody I spoke at somewhere heard me say it and gave that to me, which means a lot more. You know, it's hard to know what to think about a fellow who takes his own quote and put. Puts it in a frame and hangs it in his office.
- [48:56]
David Bonson
If it's worth framing, then frame it. But it. I mean, it's golden.
- [48:59]
Mike Rowe
So why is there a telephone on the front of your book?
- [49:03]
David Bonson
The idea was a Subtle call out of calling. That work is our calling. And then because I'm a 50 year old gen Xer, I wanted a little shout out to the old days of when we actually held a phone and called customers and called people and there was a wire connected to it. And I knew every. It's funny, I know every single client's phone number by heart that I had before the iPhone came out.
- [49:29]
Mike Rowe
How many clients did you have?
- [49:31]
David Bonson
Oh, it was. It was 100. I still know I have a.
- [49:33]
Mike Rowe
That's impressive. Like if you said six.
- [49:36]
David Bonson
I have a crazy memory, but I used to dial their number.
- [49:39]
Mike Rowe
Sure.
- [49:39]
David Bonson
And now I don't know anybody's phone number because I've never dialed it once you hit their Siri call. And so I just thought it was sort of old school call out. But then the little artistic deal, my wife was the designer, by the way. It was meant to be a work is our calling. That was the idea.
- [49:55]
Mike Rowe
Well, it spoke to me because my first job where I actually learned that just because you, you hate something doesn't mean you can't be good at it. And conversely, just because you love something doesn't mean you can't suck at it, was telemarketing. I sold magazines over the phone. I didn't find any inherent meaning in the work at all. And I didn't enjoy it on its face at all. But I had a low voice for a young kid. I sounded older than I was. I sounded good over the phone. And then because I'm subversive by nature, I was given this script to follow. But my boss at the time gave me a lot of leeway and said, just say whatever you want to say. So there was creativity. Like I had a chance to go off the script and look at this thing as an exercise. Can I sell six months of Time magazine to Mrs. Johnson in Akron? And can I do it respectfully, like I played by the rules, but I used my own words off the script. Long way of saying a lot of what you wrote about in here. I was like, oh, well, did I find meaning in that job by doing it in a way that made sense to my brain? Or did I simply endure the reality of what was being asked of me because I was making $50 an hour in 1982? Yeah, I honestly don't know.
- [51:24]
David Bonson
Or maybe it's both. Maybe. In other words, the things we come up with to endure a job that has moments of drudgery and boredom end up creating some of that creative opportunity that ends up being very fulfilling.
- [51:39]
Mike Rowe
Please tell me about the chapter entitled the Movie Usher.
- [51:44]
David Bonson
Yeah, well, so what I do each chapter of the book is start off with a job that I worked throughout my journey. And it was. The movie usher job was one of my favorite ones I ever had. It paid $4.25 an hour. So you were doing much better in telemarketing than I was doing sweeping up popcorn. But you know, people dropped cash on the floor a lot. So you can some supplement income with folks that were leaving behind.
- [52:07]
Mike Rowe
They dropped a lot of things on the floor. Well, many, many things.
- [52:11]
David Bonson
There were some things that were. You earned your paycheck. Yes.
- [52:15]
Mike Rowe
That you can't pick up with a broom.
- [52:17]
David Bonson
But no, the. The intent of that was to just sort of show that there's a lot of people on Wall street that are making the kind of money I make and have had a rewarding career in a white collar role, corner office, New York, all that stuff. And their first job was working in an office on 6th Avenue. And, you know, what have you. My journey's been different. And it's something I was very sensitive to write in the book, that if I were somebody fueling that dead end job, that cog in the machine thing, and I was reading this book and saying the socioeconomic strata this guy's in is not something I can relate to. I don't want to hear what he has to say. I get it. There's not much I can do about it. But I did want them to know. I started off handing out fruit shake samplers at the mall and then being an usher and then working at Sizzler and then working at Togo's, and my dad dying when I was 20, never going to college and just working my tail off.
- [53:12]
Mike Rowe
You never went to college?
- [53:13]
David Bonson
Never been in a college classroom.
- [53:15]
Mike Rowe
You're running $7 billion.
- [53:17]
David Bonson
Yes, sir. It was the worst thing that ever happened, but it became the best thing because of work. And that was having to be a 20 year old orphan. So with no money.
- [53:33]
Mike Rowe
Character.
- [53:34]
David Bonson
Character and purpose. Because I think that you lose your best friend, you lose your. Your sort of vision of where you're gonna go in your life. At that age, it's vulnerable. You can get some bad habits, do bad things, make bad decisions, just.
- [53:48]
Mike Rowe
Your dad was your best friend?
- [53:49]
David Bonson
Oh, absolutely.
- [53:50]
Mike Rowe
Tell me about him.
- [53:51]
David Bonson
Well, he, you know, my mom was already gone and so I went. I go through high school, you know, with my dad and I. He was a single parent at that point. He was brilliant. He was extremely attentive. Father, you know, he died at 47 and so, you know, he had had. It's funny, we were. When. When I turned, when I. My 30th birthday party, my wife was pregnant with our firstborn and we didn't know she was. I was at my dad's 30th birthday party walking around, talking to people, you know, and so he had us younger and so forth. And so by the time he was in his 40s, I was a teenager. I had spent a couple hours a day, almost every day of my life, talking to him about God, about life, about girls, about sports, about the Beatles. And I became a huge U2 fan. And we had to fight all the time about who was better, U2 or the Beatles. And we love Chinese food and everything. And then. And all the hopes and dreams of what I wanted to do in my life, and then he was gone. And so I've always said when people ask what my journey was in life and they want to do the things I did to get here, I always say, you know, I'm. I don't take from the fact that I've had a great life and I'm really blessed where I am right now, but I don't wish that journey on anyone. I mean, it was not the way you would necessarily want to go about it.
- [55:09]
Mike Rowe
It.
- [55:09]
David Bonson
But it was pure survival to go have to just work real hard to make it. Didn't have money, didn't have parents, didn't have structure. But then the thing I write about in the work at a very personal and biographical level is I quickly realized that work was therapeutic and that was a good thing. So when people say this term workaholism is a pejorative, like you're. You're avoiding things in life with work. And I say, yeah, that's sounds right. I recommend more people do it. Treat your trauma with work. It's not all that bad. It's better than what most people are treating their trauma with. And so my experience was that out of the trauma of losing dad, that work became something that God used to really give me purpose. It was therapeutic.
- [55:54]
Mike Rowe
Was finance even on the wheel of possibilities at that point?
- [55:59]
David Bonson
Well, before he died, I mean, I went on Halloween. It's up on our company website. Picture of me dressed as Alex P. Keaton for Halloween when I was eight years old, with the briefcase and the sweater vest or the tie. And I didn't know what Wall street was. I just knew I wanted to do that. When I was a little kid, it just sounded like I could be intellectual and successful. My dad was intellectual, but didn't have a lot of money. You know, Christian intellectuals, they may be rare, but a wealthy one is really rare.
- [56:25]
Mike Rowe
That's a unicorn.
- [56:27]
David Bonson
And so I wanted to try to be smart, but I wanted to be successful. And then he's gone, can't afford college, and I just think everything's over. I thought, this path is done. I got to go sweat it out, figure something out. And so I just began working and working. And when the doors opened for me to go get into a training program at a Wall street firm, by that point I had. I was 27 then. I had a self confidence that was totally, completely unwarranted. But I had earned it. I just convinced myself I could do whatever I needed to.
- [57:00]
Mike Rowe
So did you get an internship?
- [57:02]
David Bonson
No. Well, so after dad died, I had friends who are in musical bands and I was working at these jobs like a Togo's sandwich shop. And I started managing their bands, helping them raise money and get concerts and things like that. And I said, you know, I'm gonna turn this into a business. And I turned it into a multi million dollar business. But it took years. But I worked 18 hours a day for years and years and years until I could not stand the idea of ever working with another musician again. But by that point, I had money in the stock market. I had really kind of made it, and I was comfortable talking to adults. And that's what you need to be able to do. So I could go interview and say, I want to be a financial advisor at Paine Webber. And they took me seriously. And the CEO of Paine Webber at the time, a guy named Joe Grano, never went to college. So they did not have a policy that they required a college degree.
- [57:56]
Mike Rowe
Do you think somehow today that the college path has become antithetical to a lot of the precepts that you're writing about here?
- [58:08]
David Bonson
Yes.
- [58:09]
Mike Rowe
How did that happen? Because it surely wasn't the case from the beginning. When you look at the greatest schools in the country and go back to their founding charters, there's so much of the virtue that's in this book is espoused in those documents. How they lose their way.
- [58:27]
David Bonson
It's complicated. I think some people have differing opinions on this. My view is pretty much in line with where a lot of things are. That's it. Look at this.
- [58:34]
Mike Rowe
That's you, Alex Keaton.
- [58:36]
David Bonson
Alex P. Keaton. And I would say, by the way, that the tie and the sweater choice even then were really spot on. I think it still works today.
- [58:43]
Mike Rowe
Well, you were either utterly brave or totally indifferent.
- [58:47]
David Bonson
Well, what it was is I was made fun of by my friends, but I didn't know I was. You know, I didn't realize that they were. I was not in on the joke. Right, right, right, right. The colleges stopped being a place to teach people how to live well and became sources of indoctrination. And then ultimately, if people are just being very realistic and honest, they're a place for people to go party. That's what they are. So when I get someone who comes and says, here's the college degree, I start off with the precept of what they're putting in front of me is proof that they went and drank a lot for four years. So it isn't really impressing me very much.
- [59:26]
Mike Rowe
Even if they were good at it, you're not that impressed.
- [59:28]
David Bonson
And again, they must have survived it and maybe didn't get arrested and so.
- [59:32]
Mike Rowe
Forth, but that's something.
- [59:33]
David Bonson
Yeah. I don't generally assume it gave them a leg up versus others, but this is a big Wall street thing too. There's sort of an aristocratic side of Wall street and then there's a real hustler side like the hedge fund community. A lot of listeners probably don't know, but there's only two types. There's people like Steve Cohen, owns the New York Mets now, grew up dirt poor, Brooklyn, just chip on his shoulder, resentful guy, one of the most brilliant traders who ever lived that. There's a lot of hedge funders like him. Then there's the guys whose dad went Harvard mba, the grandpa went Harvard mba. They were private school all throughout, and then they're brilliant, but now they're kind of following in that footsteps of three generations of Upper east side. You know, I don't have a judgment on either one of them, but it's two different socioeconomic stratas, and they can both. You can be very competitive and successful whatnot.
- [60:25]
Mike Rowe
Well, where did college lose its way?
- [60:28]
David Bonson
I think that with the student loan programs, it became something where they took literally everybody ought to go, and anything that is for everyone is no longer as special as it was supposed to previously be.
- [60:43]
Mike Rowe
Right.
- [60:45]
David Bonson
But then what they did by subsidizing is they gave free rein to college administrators to charge whatever the hell they wanted. And so there's no delineation anymore. How does Oregon State compete with Washington State when they can both get away with charging $60,000 a year? And I'm not saying anything negative about the school, but nobody believes it's Harvard, either name brand or academic rigor. So they compete over who has a bigger hot tub in the dormitories and things like this. Where previously a certain professor of a certain gravitas, they say, oh, Princeton has this new guy who is a research professor. It was really based on what you wanted to study and who you wanted to be. And it was very meritocratic. That whole meritocracy notion went out the window. But I don't think this happened quickly. I think it happened over a few decades.
- [61:36]
Mike Rowe
Do you think business perpetuated it, enabled it?
- [61:41]
David Bonson
I do, but out of laziness, because it became a filtering mechanism. If Morgan Stanley needs to hire six new investment bankers and they get 2,000 applicants, they can either hire someone to go through and really filter and do due diligence on 2,000 people, 1,994 of which are not going to get hired, or they can just say throughout all the piles that don't say Harvard, Columbia, Wharton, which is basically what they do. They just use it as a filtering mechanism. So it's lazy.
- [62:09]
Mike Rowe
How do you filter? Who are you looking for?
- [62:12]
David Bonson
We want PSDs. It's in both. Most important degree anyone can have.
- [62:17]
Mike Rowe
Tell me.
- [62:18]
David Bonson
Poor, smart and desperate.
- [62:25]
Mike Rowe
Jot that down, Chuck.
- [62:27]
David Bonson
If they come in already comfortable, they're not hungry, they don't mind if a client loses. They can treat a client badly because if they lose a client, they don't care. You want people who have skin in the game. And you know the poor part. You don't want to stay poor, but you want people to appreciate a dollar. Appreciate ambition and aspiration. They gotta be smart. You need to have aptitude. But then desperate, like it's part of the human condition.
- [62:50]
Mike Rowe
Do you really? I mean, that's. That's such a great turn of phrase. I would put it on a card or a T shirt or a hat or something. You could sell PSD hats all day long. But if you had to choose between desperation and initiative, what would you favor?
- [63:07]
David Bonson
Well, I would favor initiative. But it's more my observation that oftentimes initiative comes from desper.
- [63:15]
Mike Rowe
That's a good answer.
- [63:16]
David Bonson
And that was the case for me. And so we tend to do projection when we hire. You tend to hire people that you think are going to be like you a little bit.
- [63:24]
Mike Rowe
What's the difference between initiative and ambition?
- [63:29]
David Bonson
Well, I think ambition is the desire to achieve something. Initiative is the action you'll take to go about achieving it.
- [63:36]
Mike Rowe
Excellent answer. Are you familiar with Elbert Hubbard? Albert Hubbard is Elbert E L B E R T. He was a kind of a hippie back in the late 1890s, living in New England, he had a furniture company. He wrote an essay that for a time was more widely distributed than the Bible. It was massively popular over a hundred years ago. It was called A Message to Garcia. Does this ring any bells? Well, you can thank me later, but when you read it, it's a rant on the erosion of work ethic and initiative and a kind of shameless plea at the time for some sympathy for the entrepreneur and the small businessman. And it was awfully controversial, not nearly as controversial as it is today. But Garcia was a commander living in the hills of Cuba in the Spanish American War. And McKinley was desperate to get a message to Garcia involving U.S. involvement. And so he gave the message to a lieutenant called Rowan. The whole essay is about what Rowan did, doesn't do. He takes the message and he puts it in his oilskin leather jacket and says, all right. And six weeks later, the message is delivered. The story's not about hiking through this incredible wilderness to get there and the treacherous sea voyage to get there and all of the fighting that happened along the way. It's about the fact that Rowan didn't say to McKinley, where is he? Well, how am I going to do it? Will you get me a boat? How much time do I have? What's the pay like? He just took the message and got it to Garcia. So this old essay that I know you're going to love will. Will love it, too. Give him my regards. But it's really a rumination on your book. What happens if that level of initiative in a good soldier, a good worker, a good employer, evaporates? What are we left with? And the answer, tragically, is something that our friend Nick has written about and something you've quoted well.
- [66:08]
David Bonson
And it's something that I think even those who are employed now, employers, are dealing with oftentimes a heavily. We still have about a 96% employment rate as defined those who have jobs divided by the people who want them. So it's a very high employment rate. But there is a lot of people within that labor pool that don't have that initiative that they will go do the things you tell them that you spell out all the way through. But in terms of problem solvers, the sort of yes, I can attitude people, that's not at 96%.
- [66:45]
Mike Rowe
Right.
- [66:46]
David Bonson
It's at a much smaller percentage. And that's interesting. When people talk about the impact AI will have on the workforce, and I'm a huge contrarian on this subject, I simply do not accept the idea that AI is going to wreak havoc on humanity and our ability to employ people. And one of the reasons is this very subject. I believe that there's a premium employers will pay for problem solvers, where, yeah, people of virtue, but also people with initiative and that ability. There's a personality type. You hire two capable people, but one of them needs you to spell out what to do. And they need to ask 18 questions along their way to doing it. And then there's someone who just says, I might even make a mistake. I'm gonna run with this. That's what people want. No computer. You're not gonna get that. Never gonna get that from a robot. Never gonna happen.
- [67:35]
Mike Rowe
How are we going to reintroduce it? I mean, if I'm on a mission to reinvigorate the trades, you seem to be on a mission to reinvigorate work ethic and initiative.
- [67:46]
David Bonson
I mean, these are one in the same causes.
- [67:48]
Mike Rowe
How do we do it tangibly?
- [67:50]
David Bonson
Well, I would argue that a lot of the stuff I'm doing, the focus of my book, doesn't get into we need more people in the trades. And it doesn't get into we need more people on Wall Street. It gets into we need more people to love work and appreciate work and want to pursue the good life that comes from work. And so I'm pretty agnostic about their career path. But it has just as much utility in blue collar as it does white collar. And it even suggests that, you know, you're talking about the telemarketing job in New York City. I meet people have made it in Broadway. They say what was the happiest time of their life. And they talk about when they were a busboy at the diner, but they didn't feel that way at the time, but they feel it now. So I think there's a sort of journey to this whole thing that we have to get people to better appreciate. It also gives you a lot of hope in those low periods. If you think like, this is what I face tomorrow, it seems kind of dead end. But if you look at it from a longer timeline, it gives you this hope that you're going to be on the other side of something. But I would argue that what you're working towards so tirelessly and successfully in reinvigorating the trades, it does require a point of view that we first have to appreciate work itself as a source of dignity and value and purpose.
- [69:03]
Mike Rowe
I've told this story before on here, so I won't tell it now, but I. I Spoke at a place called the Grove years ago in the woods, with a lot of very, very powerful, famous men in attendance. And I'll never forget, the most unforgettable part of the whole thing wasn't my speech, which I thought was better than average, and the fact that they appeared to be hanging on every word, which is gratifying. It was the fact that they stuck around to tell me about their first job, Usher in a theater, telemarketer, landscaping, down the list. And these are governors, these are captains of industry, real industrialists, many of whom were in their 80s. And they all just wanted a moment to tell me about the time that you just described before they made it on Broadway, and how those moments loomed ever larger in their lives with every passing day. And that's what makes me think you're right.
- [70:07]
David Bonson
The very first speaking event I did for the book, when it came out, was a National Review event in New York City. And Andy Puzder, who had been the CEO at Carl's Jr. And was Trump's nominee for labor secretary, there was a Treasury Department economist. And anyways, there were three muckety mucks on stage that were accomplished, educated, successful, wealthy. All three. Their first job was an ice cream shop in high school. And I remember thinking, like, okay, well, this sounds like a pretty good way to start things off then. I mean, that's a. If it's one out of three, that's one thing. But three out of three of these luminaries. And they were at Baskin Robbins, but it was the same thing. Even now, you know, 50 isn't that old. But I didn't have to, like, go back and check the scrapbooks to remember what I had done at age 12, 15, 16, 18. All those jobs I'd had kind of. I remember them like they were yesterday. I remember the manager's names, I remember the hourly wage. And I remember saying, why do I gotta listen to this boss? He doesn't know what he's talking about. And the lesson I learned from. Sometimes in life you have to listen to supervisor that you think you know more than. And getting along with a co worker and what it was like when you came on time and someone else didn't and you both got paid the same. And how do you deal with the seeming unfairnesses of life? Those are lessons that I was gonna learn with more zeros and commas attached to them 20 years later. But I learned them first.
- [71:32]
Mike Rowe
Same lesson.
- [71:33]
David Bonson
I had to learn them first at the movie theater.
- [71:35]
Mike Rowe
Yeah, yeah, the lessons don't change. Only the stakes. It's funny, Chuck. We were. Do you remember what your paycheck was at United Artists? I think mine was $2.70. It was minimum wage in 1980, before it was telemarketing. We were ushers, too, which is why that chapter jumped out.
- [71:55]
David Bonson
Yeah, I got 425 an hour for opening night of Pretty Woman and Die Hard 2 and Dick Tracy. And so it looks like the wage inflation was pretty good from when you started off to when I came in. I got.
- [72:08]
Mike Rowe
Well, we were Raiders of the Lost Ark, Prince of the City, the Shining. The Shining.
- [72:15]
David Bonson
You had better movies than I did, though.
- [72:16]
Mike Rowe
We did have better movies, but you know what else we had, man? It was a. And this is another thing about jobs. And I'll. I'll land the plane now. I know you got to go, but it's just this idea that. Were you really a movie usher or were you an ambassador for whatever that brand was? Who were you working for?
- [72:33]
David Bonson
It was Edwards big down in Orange County. Yeah, big.
- [72:35]
Mike Rowe
So you probably had a blazer. You probably had the Edwards logo on.
- [72:38]
David Bonson
Oh, yeah.
- [72:39]
Mike Rowe
So you're an emissary. You know, for us, it was United Artists. And then when you weren't an usher, maybe you were a cashier, or maybe you're working concessions, or maybe you got called up to the big show and learned how to run the projectors. And like all of these other attachments. Right. This whole way leads on to way thing. It's so important. It's so connected. And I think it's another reason why work gets a bad rap, is that we might just go, oh, telemarketer. Oh, usher. Oh, welder, steamfitter. It's like, that's not how it works at all, is it? It's all just part of a quilt.
- [73:15]
David Bonson
Part of overall ecosystem. And a market economy does a terrible job at promoting itself. But what you're describing is the sort of invisible hand idea, bunch of things working together to make social cooperation possible, to make a prosperous life possible. And yet we can just focus on one element of it and think it's dead end, but not see the whole kilt. And when you look at it in that bigger picture. Yeah. At a job, you generally get a chance to see. It's funny, I never did do the projector, but I remember getting to go upstairs and see the guys, and what we knew is they were union and they made more. And it's funny is I remember thinking like, that guy is just a stud, you know, I'm sure he made something seven, eight, Times what we did and he was older and they had good looking girls around and stuff. And you were just like, this is incredible. But it was like a whole different, like side of the business and then there was the concessions and different things. But you got a chance to see a whole kind of microcosm of human activity in the marketplace.
- [74:19]
Mike Rowe
Adam Smith or Henry Hazlett?
- [74:21]
David Bonson
Well, both. You know, you can't get to Hazlett without Smith. So you have to build. You got to stand on the shoulders of giants.
- [74:27]
Mike Rowe
So for my listeners, somebody who just really didn't realize until they're not going.
- [74:32]
David Bonson
To, they're not going to read Smith. Haslet's so easy to read.
- [74:36]
Mike Rowe
He's so wonderful. Economics in one lesson.
- [74:38]
David Bonson
Economics in one lesson.
- [74:39]
Mike Rowe
Yeah.
- [74:40]
David Bonson
Greatest popularization of market principles ever written.
- [74:44]
Mike Rowe
That's where I think I first read Broken Windows.
- [74:47]
David Bonson
Yeah. And so most people now will say hazards, broken window fallacy because they don't know. Frederick Bastiat read it, wrote it over 100 years earlier because Hazlitt was so good at popularizing it.
- [74:58]
Mike Rowe
Yeah, yeah. Well, look, I mean, with time, maybe full time work in the Meaning of Life will be right on top of Econ 101. It's important. And I so appreciate the fact that you wrote it and squeezed me in between all your many appearances over there on Fox Business.
- [75:16]
David Bonson
I really appreciate you having me. I love the conversation.
- [75:19]
Mike Rowe
Where do people go to get it? Is it the obvious stuff?
- [75:21]
David Bonson
Yeah, obvious, obviously. Amazon, all that. But we have a website for the book. Full time book.com fulltimebook.com it's got video clips and articles and reviews and things. And then they can click through to Amazon or Barnes and noble there.
- [75:34]
Mike Rowe
Fantastic. Fulltimebook.com Pick up a copy. It's awesome and so are you. Thanks for the time.
- [75:39]
David Bonson
Thanks so much.
- [75:40]
Mike Rowe
This episode is over now. I hope it was worthwhile.
- [75:45]
David Bonson
Sorry it went on so long but if it made you smile, then share your satisfaction in the way that people do. Take some time to go online.
- [76:08]
Mike Rowe
And.
- [76:09]
David Bonson
Leave us a review. I hate to ask, I hate to beg, I hate to be a nudge. But in this world the advertisers really like to judge. You don't need to write a bunch, just a line or two. All you've got to do is leave a quick five star review, not a four. All you got to do is leave a quick 5 star review and not 3. All you got to do is Leave a quick 5 star review.
- [76:35]
Mike Rowe
Definitely not 2.
- [76:36]
David Bonson
All you got to do is LEAVE a quick 5 star review.
- [76:39]
Charlie
We need 5.
- [76:40]
David Bonson
All you got to do is leave.
- [76:41]
Mike Rowe
A quick even if you hate it 5 star especially if you hate it.
- [76:47]
Charlie
Thank you. The Way I heard it is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice. Make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.
- [77:19]
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