Sarah Yargrow (5:56)

Both.

Mike Rowe (5:57)

Great. That's Pooja there in the background. She came with Sarah. And who is Pooja exactly? How do you describe Pooja?

Sarah Yargrow (6:05)

Oh, my gosh. Pooja is a literal rock in my life at this point.

Mike Rowe (6:11)

So Pooja, do you know what literal means?

Sarah Yargrow (6:17)

Pooja is such an mvp. She started out actually as my writing partner, Pooja. You know how Pooja, me and Pooja linked up?

Mike Rowe (6:24)

I don't.

Sarah Yargrow (6:24)

Pooja Cold emailed me on LinkedIn because she had seen returning the favor and she loved this kind of content. And I just loved her sort of tenacity to even be able to. And this audacity to be reaching out in that way. And she felt. And I just said, wow, let me. If someone has passion, I'm gonna follow.

Mike Rowe (6:41)

That with this is this thing, this Pooja, that quality is so for sale. It is so totally in need. Honestly, if I could find somebody with it, I'd replace Mary immediately. But I can't. I can't. And Chuck too, for that matter. Taylor, you could do it. Probably. If this sounds a little inside folks, it's because it is Sarah, if you're familiar and even if you're not. With returning, the favorite was a producer who schnurred her way on camera so often that I really had no choice but to bring you on as a kind of co host for this reboot. So, in an attempt to shamelessly plug the premiere of People youe Should Know, I thought it would be good to sit down and introduce Reintroduce, your particular je ne sais quoi to our literally dozens of viewers and at the same time drag my boss, Mary Sullivan, into the conversation. Because this whole reboot would have happened without her. In fact, it was Mary's ingenious idea. I'll never forget it when she walked into my fake office and said, hey, what if we spend our money on a TV show that's never happened before? Wouldn't that be exciting?

Sarah Yargrow (7:54)

Well, when you have a brain like that, you've never had a bad hair day in her life.

Mike Rowe (7:58)

I know, I know.

Sarah Yargrow (7:59)

It's protecting that beautiful brain.

Mike Rowe (8:01)

I know. I'm surrounded with people with impossible hair. You, Chuck, I mean, in spite of his dotage, has a fantastic hairline. Taylor Preposterous Pooja. Yeah, I mean, and I'm doing what I can, but the reboot is not about hair. What is it about exactly? How would you. Why are. Why from your vantage point, are we doing this?

Sarah Yargrow (8:26)

I think we're doing this because you and I don't like to move in traditional spaces and to wait for permission slips on things. And I think, at least for me, I feel so tapped into actual culture and people and to wait. And I've spent so much time with more traditional powers that be who are green lighting things that I'm like. But people want and need this too. Right? Of what we're doing with people, you should know. And I also think it's a, you know, I think sort of uplifting programming has had a bad rap because it's been really reductive and one dimensional.

Mike Rowe (9:05)

Well, it's so predictable.

Sarah Yargrow (9:06)

So predictable.

Mike Rowe (9:08)

Every feel good show I've ever seen, at least on network and on cable, from the music to the way it's shot, you know, everything sort of telegraphs what we, the producers, want you to feel at any given time. And I hate that personally.

Sarah Yargrow (9:26)

Well, I will say that the reason why I went back with you on this one, because you are one of my favorite improv partners, and you don't wait for. And I have a background in improv. We both have some theater in the background, too. And you just. I Love the live honesty of the show. We come in with research, we come in with really, you know, vetting and prepping our people, but then we're just responding to life, you know, And I think that's really refreshing. And people can feel that because, like, with this uplifting version, sometimes I hear from people saying, well, it's not real. It's not reality. It's not life. As if life is only negative and downtrodden and hard and challenging. And that is one part of life for sure, but the other whole other part of life is delightful and joyful and ridiculous and filled with sort of tenacious attempts at ridiculous feats, you know?

Mike Rowe (10:21)

Yeah, well, you know, I remember when RTF was first getting pitched, and I've told the story before, but since Mary's actually here, I think it was you who I said, no. How many? How many times?

Mary Sullivan (10:35)

Many.

Mike Rowe (10:36)

I mean, and to be fair, it wasn't just no, it was hell no. You've got to be kidding me. Why are you coming with this? But the secret sauce for. For Dirty Jobs was always that. That BTS camera. So Mary was like, mike, don't think of it as a feel good show. Think of it as the making of.

Mary Sullivan (10:56)

A feel good show.

Mike Rowe (10:57)

That's correct. That's what actually did it for me. Yeah, right. I mean, that's what kept that thing on for 100 episodes, and that's why we're doing it now. But I don't, you know, you're. What? Why are you laughing?

Mary Sullivan (11:11)

I only got you to commit to five, though.

Mike Rowe (11:14)

It's true.

Sarah Yargrow (11:16)

100 later.

Mike Rowe (11:17)

Yeah. Just a tip. Yeah, yeah, but look, that's the other thing. You know, I come from a world where, like, networks would never cough up a penny unless you signed a 20 page agreement, gave them every option in the world to do whatever they want whenever they felt like. Like doing it. So with Dirty Jobs, I went from trying to sell a pilot to having to sign a contract that gave Discovery, really, unlimited rights to unlimited seasons. And back then, that was the only way I could get anything on the air. This whole thing, I'm still not even sure how to think about what happened with Facebook and us. People still look at me and shake their heads when I tell them we did 100 episodes, won an Emmy, and then got canceled. Exactly.

Sarah Yargrow (12:13)

I mean, if you're gonna apply logic to it, you're gonna be really disappointed.

Mike Rowe (12:16)

Yeah.

Sarah Yargrow (12:17)

You know, to me, it was just this lightning in a bottle that, like, turned something in me. The cancellation of it turned something in me because I went back And I went back and they did a Netflix show and I did some other things. And I'm just like, once you experience something like that, it rewires you, you.

Mike Rowe (12:39)

Know, the last time I saw you on tv. Yeah, that didn't have anything to do with me. I was in a hotel room and I'm flicking around. I was in a Marriott and I came across that Bonvoy Channel. I'm like, God, that looks a lot like Sarah. And I'm watching. I'm like, it sounds like Sarah. I'm like, oh, my God, it's you. And you're up there. I'm. Well, I'm in bed, if you must know. Just flicking around and like, you were. How did you id you were a social anthropologist?

Sarah Yargrow (13:09)

Social anthropologist, producer, like, in this vein of storytelling. That's where I kind of. But the social anthropology part is always my in. I'm always fascinated by just culture and how it can be moved and changed and all the subcultures in the world and the stories we're all living in. You know, that's infinitely fascinating to me. Yeah, infinitely fascinating because they're also. It's totally legitimate if that's been your lived experience, you know. And so then to. That was a really interesting one because they actually found me from rtf, from returning the favorite. They found me, they reached out, and then they flew me. We sort of workshopped some ideas of what stories would be interesting to me. I had pitched this going to Finland and the happiest country in the world. They said, no, that sounds really boring. And then I said, you know, I got this 23andMe test or this DNA results that my family has this really long, long, long old connection to one of the oldest Jewish communities in the Azores. And I described it as like the first string that strikes the sound and the vibration of where you end up.

Mike Rowe (14:18)

Where exactly are the Azores?

Sarah Yargrow (14:20)

Azores are this. Archa. Oh, here's the word. I never.

Mike Rowe (14:23)

Archipelago.

Sarah Yargrow (14:24)

Archipelago. That ch. Just crushes me.

Mike Rowe (14:27)

Archicipelico.

Sarah Yargrow (14:28)

Archicopelico. Dial. It's this cluster of islands in the small cluster of islands. It's sort of the Hawaii of the Atlantic. So it's actually. It's only like four and a half hours from Boston, where I grew up, and then it's like an hour east of Lisbon. And so it's this completely. It's a singular culture that's a little different from Portugal because Portugal is this really like, sort of protected, wild. You know, they had. Didn't have a strong economy for a while, and so they Were had less tourism.

Mike Rowe (14:58)

Portugal's on fire.

Sarah Yargrow (14:58)

Portugal.

Mike Rowe (14:59)

There's so many expats over there.

Sarah Yargrow (15:01)

I know. I am, like, every day annoyed that I didn't move there. Move, move there and live amongst the. Live amongst the Azoreans. But it's really. I really recommend it because it has this. It's like Hawaii. It really is. But it has this incredibly volcanic soil. So you go there and it looks like you're on the set of Jurassic Park. Dead serious. And if you're. If you're in the springtime, spring into summer, all the streets and the highways are lined with these arches of hydrangeas, these huge. That feel like you're, like, wondering if you took something because it's so psychedelic, you know, it really is. And the colors are so fluorescent. And they paid for me to go and explore my ancestry there, and it's so. And they allowed me to make something kind of. I worried that it was indulgent, but I veered it towards it being a little bit more of a sort of poetic analysis to that feeling you can't name, of feeling familiar in a place you haven't been.

Mike Rowe (16:04)

That's very close to a German word called wirt schmaltz, which is. Yeah, it's not quite nostalgia and it's not quite sentimentality, but it's a longing for a time that you didn't actually experience firsthand.

Sarah Yargrow (16:23)

Vert schmaltz.

Mike Rowe (16:23)

Vert schmaltz. Yeah. Like, I remember Chuck, we were working at United Artists, and the movie was Excalibur, John Boorman. And the opening scene is this crazy pitched battle, swords. And, I mean, I felt so. I'm not really into the whole past life thing, personally, but I felt like, boy, if I was. I think I was there. It just felt that, like, personal and weird and connective.

Sarah Yargrow (16:53)

Totally.

Mike Rowe (16:54)

And with music, too.

Sarah Yargrow (16:55)

Yes.

Mike Rowe (16:56)

You know, the old standards kill me. Like, gosh, I really feel like I was there. Of course I wasn't. What is that? Is it a form of mental illness, you think?

Sarah Yargrow (17:04)

I think. Well, I think I'd have to check your labs. But it does sound like it might be for you. No, I think it's like sometimes I think to myself, I'm like, we are humans floating through space on this strange ball that's like just floating through the galaxy. And so I try actually to temper my own audacity of what I know and don't know. I don't go deep, too deep into rabbit holes. But, like, I love some ideas. Those are fun stories to live in. Of like, what is that? What is that? You know?

Mike Rowe (17:33)

Well, that's what I'm asking when I look at the episodes we've shot so far. What is that? What are we doing? And, you know, I've been sort of glibly saying we're picking up where returning the favor left off, but I'm not. I guess we are at a glance, and I think the 2 million or so people who were really into episode 101 that never happened are going to be into this. But I also know that for me, I'm different than I was four years ago. Older, more bitter, broken. Perhaps you are becoming more of who you naturally are. I was just thinking the other day of, like, the amount of time we spent on camera as I was trying to write that post for my dad's birthday. And I was so pissed off because all of a sudden the crew's ready to shoot and I'm in the middle of this thing and, you know, he's 93 years old. I can't not put this post up. And so we wind up filming all of it. And, you know, so I'm like, mary, we gotta put this in the show. And she's like, well, you know, that could be a bit indulgent. I'm like, well, maybe, but maybe not. I can't decide yet. So I think we're gonna use that clip to actually promote. And I'm only mentioning all of this because it's an insane way to think about creating content, but I really think the future has to be some weird combination of genuine reality and actual mission. And we've got that. I mean, the people that we've. The first six people we've profiled, I think are really, really. And I think by and large the country's gonna fall in love with them if not you and me.

Sarah Yargrow (19:12)

I think all of the above. I mean, I think you were saying before asking what. What is the show? What makes people resonate with it? And I think you just named it like. I think there's also a sense of. These last four years were wild, right? And we have been exposed to more than our brains are meant to handle and we're burnt out. And do you think we're over it in general? Like it as a sort of, like, over. Like. I know I have had to rest my own burnout that was even subconscious of being too connected to things. And what I realized and why. I actually think even bringing it back to people, you should know, it has this kind of, like, buoyancy in the depth of the Sea that is everything going on around. Right. Sometimes the waves are super rocky. You're being tossed it infinitely deep. You have no concept of time. But it has this sort of buoyancy that you can hold on to to remember. It's like the go out and touch grass, remember what's real. They say when you're having a panic attack or you have anxiety or you're overthinking too in your head, go outside, touch something real, touch a tree, touch grass, recalibrate, you know, And I think there's something. I know there was something with returning the favor. And I know now as people who care about real people and everyday people. Right. Yeah. That. How do you. What is. We can't even if it's not real and it doesn't have a mission and it doesn't feel like it has a greater meaning for me to tune into. It's hard to connect with for me. And that can be a laugh. Like who said Anne Lamont said that laughter is carbonated holiness.

Mike Rowe (20:54)

Who the hell is Anne Lamont?

Sarah Yargrow (20:56)

Damn it. I should have taken it for myself.

Mike Rowe (20:58)

You should have.

Sarah Yargrow (20:59)

I should have. She's a writer. And I just love that phrasing of it because I think that's also part of the service of it too. Right. There's like we can amidst all of the chaos, we're real people who have hard days. And we also have a lot to laugh about and a lot to connect with with each other. And I love. To me, that's why I like every person that we profile and every person we've always profiled with returning the favor. Which, you know, my role was before, to just be launched into these communities and build trust in these communities. Right. And that's my social anthropology. Right. I could do that every day, day in, day out, for the rest of my life and it would charge my batteries. But at the end of the day, you just realize we're so resilient as people. And part of that is we have to be laughing with each other to be able to even keep going another day.

Mike Rowe (21:49)

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Sarah Yargrow (23:17)

Yeah.

Mike Rowe (23:18)

You know, to take your ocean metaphor, Mary here's me talk about this all the time. I look out my window at home and I see the bay, you know, I see the San Francisco Bay. And I imagine all my industry friends and so many of them are out there treading water in this metaphor. Producers and directors and talent and mid level executives and high level executives in networks and production companies all over the place. And also in the water are these, are these little dinghies, you know, and there are people in them. And I've got one, I, I got, I've, I almost said I've got a little dinghy. Can we, can we cut that out please? Now we're putting it into the open like you love. Sorry, scratch that.

Sarah Yargrow (24:00)

For the little dingied folk out there.

Mike Rowe (24:01)

Listening and tuning in, I have an enormous dinghy. I've got room in my dinghy for, you know what, like maybe a dozen people and we're full. And every day somebody swims up, usually somebody I worked with on any one of a hundred projects over the years. And they, and they grab onto the gunnel and they're like, hey, you got room in there? I got an idea. And that's what's happening in our industry right now. And it's amazing to me, I've, you know, this show just so people understand, not to put too fine a point on it, but there's, there's no network behind it, there's no big production company. Facebook was behind returning the favor. Well, YouTube isn't behind this. We're just putting it on YouTube and we're finding our own advertisers. We are building a plane in midair, and I've never done it before. And, you know, the reason I asked Mary to sit in on this is because she's never done it before either, which makes it super exciting. But Mary's really good at figuring out new models. I'm pretty good at telling the truth on camera. The good, bad, the ugly, and the warts and all. And you're really good at. At being Sarah and being, like, super curious. And really, you're much kinder than Mary will ever be. You're much more decent than I can ever aspire. Mary, you want to weigh in on this?

Sarah Yargrow (25:23)

Yeah. Mary's only been the smartest, most decent.

Mary Sullivan (25:26)

People to me, but she is the smiliest, happiest producer.

Sarah Yargrow (25:29)

Sorry.

Mike Rowe (25:30)

When Mary hears the truth, she's generally rendered mute. All of these things are true. And so it's. You know, I don't want to bore people with too much inside stuff, but it's very strange for me. I've had, you know, half a dozen shows that worked in a very predictable way over the years, and I'm telling you, folks, those days are over. It's. They're over.

Sarah Yargrow (25:57)

I don't think that's inside baseball. I actually think that would be for so many people who can't find something to watch. It's part of why you can't find something to watch because the models are totally constricted.

Mike Rowe (26:10)

Why do you think so many things on TV look the same? And why do you think so much of it sucks?

Sarah Yargrow (26:15)

I think that a couple different things. I think it's. People are. The budgets have gotten social media, this. Right. Social media, the attention. You're now fighting for attention there. And that has become legitimately. I mean, 70%, and that's probably a conservative number of people are consuming their data and consuming their programming content just via their phones, Right? Just via social media. We also have sort of trust erosion, I think, with the larger networks, partially because they are run by the same.

Mike Rowe (26:45)

Kinds of people and because whatever brand they used to have, they've completely betrayed.

Sarah Yargrow (26:50)

They've betrayed. And because your attention economy has shifted, budgets have really constricted. So people are buying, executives are able to. Even some amazing execs that I know, right. Who really want to root for you and are championing your projects, they can't get them through because they have now a constricted budget. They're buying like 20% of what they were buying before. Right.

Mike Rowe (27:10)

And they're making it for 80% less.

Sarah Yargrow (27:12)

And they're making for 80% less. Right now it's 2025. We're talking with, you know, big streamers. They're not Even programming until 2027 again. Right. And so this is a deeply, deeply entrepreneurial time in the industry. We're always changing, but not at the rate we're changing right now. This is unprecedented.

Mike Rowe (27:31)

Mary, you still awake? How many calls do you get a week on average from people pitching soft, pitching, kicking the tires, looking to see what might be possible and so forth?

Mary Sullivan (27:46)

You know, I mean, hundreds. But it's worse than that because a lot of people go in through info. I mean, poor Sherry is.

Mike Rowe (27:54)

She's talking about info at Microworks. Send all your ideas to infoicroworksy Cowboy. Easy. Oh, my God.

Mary Sullivan (28:02)

No, but I mean, you know, it's across the board from, you know, very serious people that have specific ideas to somebody who, you know, just is starting out and wants advice or somebody who's really a fan of the foundation. It can be anything.

Mike Rowe (28:17)

But this is. I mean, I think it's so interesting and maybe even kind of important since we started with poor Pooja, who's just here minding her own business. Think about what she did. She looked around and she took a really proactive step. You know, she picked up the phone. You got to do that. Now, that's the same thing I'm just kind of making fun of because a thousand people do that every week with Mary. But you know what? There's no getting around it. You got to do that. You got to do some other things, too. But it's either in service of simply paying the bills and keeping your business on its feet, or it's in search of, call it meaningful work. And this is the other thing that I think is kind of interesting about you. Most everybody in this business gets worn down and gets a shell, and they really do, just for self preservation, become inward and brittle. You are outward and spongy. You're fungible, you're squishy, you're happy. You're always. I mean, so I just, you know, I don't let this business break you.

Sarah Yargrow (29:25)

Thank you.

Mike Rowe (29:26)

Even if I have to fire you next time.

Sarah Yargrow (29:28)

You know, I do a lot of work to protect that shell. Because you do talk with, like, so much of my energy goes towards lifting people back up into possibility. And then you start to kind of look at the. I think with the traditional business, I was doing that for so long with them, and I love them, and everyone's always welcome up here, right? But I can't keep going down and pulling people To Everest anymore. Right. And that's the burnout part. I do think what's so exciting and why is a testament to the length of your career. You know, you guys. Partnership.

Mike Rowe (30:01)

20 years.

Sarah Yargrow (30:01)

20 years. That's amazing. That's. That's unbelievable. Particularly in this business.

Mike Rowe (30:05)

Yeah. In particular, because Mary was a somewhat respectable lawyer at the time. In fact, you casually mentioned Jurassic park now, isn't it? I mean, that story, it was such a big movie that it's easy to forget how ingenious Crichton's basic narrative was. I mean, the idea that you're finding in resin, like, what is it, like a mosquito? DNA.

Sarah Yargrow (30:32)

Mosquito. Mr. DNA, right, with the.

Mike Rowe (30:34)

Yes, it's. So now. So Mary used to represent Michael Crichton.

Sarah Yargrow (30:39)

Oh, my gosh.

Mike Rowe (30:40)

Yeah, yeah. Coma. Michael Crichton. Right. Sphere, that guy. And Donald Sutherland, rest his soul. And John Cleese, still alive. Not as funny as he used to be, but love him. I mean, now he got political. He got political. No, I love John Cleese. My God. Sidebar. The greatest eulogy I've ever seen is John Cleese burying his dear friend Graham Chapman.

Sarah Yargrow (31:06)

Wow.

Mike Rowe (31:07)

You have to look at. Okay, it's short. It is deeply inappropriate, and it. As funny as you can be in Westchester or Westminster Abbey or wherever it was. It's amazing. But the point is, here's Mary, Bio major, once upon a time.

Sarah Yargrow (31:24)

Yep, I forgot about that.

Mary Sullivan (31:26)

Yeah. Bio major. Law school. Yeah.

Mike Rowe (31:28)

Straight A student.

Mary Sullivan (31:30)

Yes.

Mike Rowe (31:31)

Go ahead.

Mary Sullivan (31:31)

Brad Decided. No, but decided I didn't want to go to. To medical school.

Mike Rowe (31:36)

Did you want to talk into the microphone?

Mary Sullivan (31:38)

I'm not used to this.

Mike Rowe (31:40)

I mean, I know you've got. You're the biggest, loudest, most obnoxious person when you want to be. Put a microphone in front of her. And it's just like. I just, you know, I just was. I just wanted to help out, you know, with law. No, the point is, Mary changed her path, you know, sure. She was gonna be in the medical field, a doctor, and then a corporate finance person. Film finance and then entertainment. Right. And then me, I wind up in a sewer calling her and her assistants on break. So she answers the phone. That happens 20 years ago. And I keep her on the phone for an hour. And then whatever weird vision quest you're on, you know, the fact that we worked as hard as we did on that show, and then you came across my Transom as I was trying to fall asleep in a Marriott, and you pop up on some walkabout in the Azores or wherever the hell you Were.

Sarah Yargrow (32:41)

It was beautiful.

Mike Rowe (32:41)

No, it was very pretty. But you were going on and on about purpose and your roots and everything else, and I'm just lying there going, we actually had a show. Look, Dirty Jobs is the thing for me. I'm never gonna top that, but in terms of an engaged audience, I never thought I would say this, you know, because Dirty Jobs was programmed mostly by the people who watched it. But returning the favor was deeper. Yeah, it was deeper. And there's something about all of that and our collective weird reverse commute, crooked thing that I never really got over, and I just couldn't put it completely behind me. So when Mary comes up and she's like, look, this is. We've got unfinished business. And I'm like, well, who's the sponsor? No, we don't have any. Well, who's the network? Well, we don't have any of those. Well, who's a production company? Well, we might get these guys at Impact to help us, but is Sarah available at least? Maybe. Or she could be in the Azores, I don't know. But I just want people to understand how. What we're dealing with in our industry. And I'm not looking for pity, believe me, nobody in this room needs any of that. But this is a Rubik's Cube.

Sarah Yargrow (34:00)

I think it's totally a Rubik's cube. Two things I want to throw back to, I think, all of the qualities. One of the reasons why I hired Pooja and brought Pooja into my life and had her shift around. Pooja has lived 19 different lives with me over the last four years. Really, her versatility, her work ethic, and her attitude are unparalleled. Right. And I think that's a quality of everyone. Actually, it's a testament to you guys, too, Mary and you, Mike, the people you surround yourself with all have that quality. Incredible work ethic, incredibly good attitude. Right. And there's a. There's you. Have you. That's no longer a. What a lovely quality bonus. That's a. Have to have.

Mike Rowe (34:44)

That's a prerequisite. Yeah.

Sarah Yargrow (34:46)

Have to have it. Because, listen, if we're talking about the traditional network or traditional way of doing things, that's very. That's apocalyptic. Right? It's. It's no longer.

Mike Rowe (34:56)

It's yesterday's kisses.

Sarah Yargrow (34:58)

Kisses. Exactly. Yesterday's kisses. I've never heard that. I love that hat full of rain, as I always say, it is a hat full of rain.

Mike Rowe (35:05)

You're just pissing up a rope, as my granddad would say, which I never really understood.

Sarah Yargrow (35:09)

Either I get that. And then on the way down. Oh. But what I love too, is. And what I've always felt with. With everyone in this room is we've never been happy or comfortable playing by the rules. Right. It's not in this crazy, nefarious way. It's just like we're why people. Why would I do it like that? Why would I do it like that, man?

Mike Rowe (35:32)

That's true too, you know. That is a mental illness for sure. And affliction. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. I just. God, when I think of the amount of times we fought city hall. Look at Chuck is just nodding his head, rolling his eyes. It's like. It's true.

Mary Sullivan (35:50)

Well, you were unusual because when you reached out to me, you didn't have an agent or a manager.

Mike Rowe (35:57)

Still don't.

Mary Sullivan (35:58)

Or a publicist or. No, not even. Sure, a competent accountant, but that's rough.

Mike Rowe (36:05)

Ouch. Shazam.

Mary Sullivan (36:07)

I'm just joking. But I didn't come from the entertainment world either, which I think was the point you were making. I mean, not only was I a bio major, but I was a corporate lawyer. And so I didn't know how Hollywood really worked either. And so we. We fought a lot of things because we just didn't do them like other people did them.

Sarah Yargrow (36:27)

Yeah. I think a quality that we don't talk about enough and that should. That. I hope everyone who's listening can lean into with themselves. Naivete is a gift with any sort of entrepreneurial endeavor. Right. Like your not knowing can be an edge.

Mike Rowe (36:44)

What a beautiful transition to bring Chuck into the conversation. Hey, wait a minute. I mean, look, you said everybody in the room. And I mean, think of what are the odds that I'm sitting here with a guy I've known 45 years. 45 years. Like we sang in a barbershop quartet in high school. And now look at him sitting there impersonating a producer live, switching a show 2. Two computers open, both of which are a source of great mystery to him. Look at him switching back and forth with cameras even as we speak. I mean, honestly, what you're doing don't stroke out. You're on the tv. The odds of you sitting here doing what you're doing right now are really. No, like four to one, at least. I'm not sure what's less likely, the fact that you're sitting here now doing what you're doing or the fact that Mary's sitting here now doing whatever it is she's doing. True. You still strike me as somebody like you're still on some kind of like your emotional IQ and your actual presence. Right. Still seem to line up a bit. But I don't know man. I mean like the more I think about it, the more impossible all of this seems.

Sarah Yargrow (38:04)

And that's the adventure of it all to me that really invigorates me. I think I'd be bored if the path like I love for instance YouTube right now, where this will launch for the first time is the next thing. It's already there. Right. There's such amazing opportunity to actually build without any of those pesky other additions that you had to accommodate for in the past. Right. Like and with you know, we had, I had great executives, I've had wonderful things. But I've also had a lot of people who are disconnected from the ground being able to control the trajectory of a project. Right. And as people who know and love people, you and I. Right. All of us in this room, you.

Mike Rowe (38:50)

Said people who know you should know.

Sarah Yargrow (38:56)

It's just to me like that's the. There's also a betting on us and our own genuine curiosity and passion for people and our knowledge of stories and places and communities that that don't see enough light that are amazing. Right?

Mike Rowe (39:13)

Sure, yeah. I mean I'd put that under the earnest side of the column, but absolutely dumb. You ever wonder why that free phone the big guys are always offering comes with all that fine print? I'll tell you why. It's because free phones require you to sign up for four lines and pay all kinds of activation fees plus all sorts of other gotchas along the way. And when the dust settles, you've actually paid for that free phone like three times over. Don't do that. Don't fall for it. PureTalk is my wireless company. They don't play those games. Their offer is super simple. With a qualifying plan of just 35 bucks a month, you can get a brand new Samsung Galaxy A26 for free. No hidden fees, no strings attached. This phone comes with Gorilla glass, makes it virtually indestructible next generation camera lenses that give you beautiful wide angle photos. Your monthly fee of just $35 includes unlimited talk, unlimited text, international roaming in over 50 countries and 15 gigs of data, along with a mobile hotspot on America's most dependable 5G network. And best of all, no fine print, no contracts and a money back guarantee. Go to puretalk.com rogue claim your free Samsung Galaxy with a qualifying plan of 35 bucks a month at PureTalk.com ro dependable and affordable wireless by Americans for Americans@PureTalk.com rock no, look, it's important. What the heck was I going to say? Oh, not to answer my own question, but, like, when I think about why so much of the programming today, it's so same same and kind of disappointing.

Sarah Yargrow (41:17)

Derivative.

Mike Rowe (41:17)

Yeah, it's derivative. And I think it has to do with Risk. And I think this is what's getting worse and worse on the network level. There's no reward for. Well, there's no punishment for boring. Yeah, there's great punishment for assuming risk and failing, but there's no punishment for not taking risk and failing.

Sarah Yargrow (41:38)

Right.

Mike Rowe (41:39)

So if you greenlight Filthy Jobs, Right. Or some, you know, awful sequel, hey, Axeman was good. Let's do Hatchet Men, See how that works, Right? If you do that and it fails, you keep your job because, hey, we had success here. Why wouldn't it work again?

Sarah Yargrow (41:56)

There was a path.

Mike Rowe (41:57)

That's right. But if you try something really new and that misses, they walk you behind the barn and shoot you.

Sarah Yargrow (42:05)

Absolutely. And that's what I mean too, of like, there's. You can have all the greatest champions. We had. People, you know, my company, Common Ground has, you know, we were out. We are out there. We have great relationships with execs. We have wonderful champions. They can't do anything for us, really, in the same way. Right. Because of everything you just said, you can't take a risk. So you never end up innovating this field. Right. You get once in a while, listen, let's talk like also the listeners through the arc of what was happening the last few years, right? You had the lockdowns where everyone was suddenly completely hooked to their TVs, right. And watching things sort of professionally. And there was a huge bubble of inflated budget that went to. Anything got greenlit at that time, Right. And then the after effects of that, once we started getting out into the world and the whole country was able to get back out of lockdown, the strikes happened, Right? And then those writers strikes were major and they had a repercussion. So in the background of this industry, things get greenlit sometimes a year and a half before you see them, Right. So it's never a recent green lighting that you're watching something. And then you had. By the time the writers strike was over, people started to realize that you could make things one, like I said before, the cell phone and people watching on YouTube and all these other ways that people were watching from content creators started to really compete with TV and film. You suddenly realize you don't have to spend so much to get so much. And you're only betting on, you know, this is a little inside baseball, but internal ip, right. If you bought Marvel and you paid for all the rights of Marvel or you paid for NFL content or whatever, you have to double down on anything in that. So you get very, very limited on what you're able to create. And which is why I think there's no kind of better time to be alive in this world than now because of the opportunity to say, we don't have to wait. We have a proof of concept. Right. With returning the favor. And we have our knowledge and understanding of how the world has changed and shifted. And why wouldn't we just go out and make something? You know, why would we wait for permission?

Mike Rowe (44:16)

Because there's no money. Sarah, I'm sitting here.

Sarah Yargrow (44:19)

This is bankrolling it.

Mike Rowe (44:21)

Yeah.

Sarah Yargrow (44:21)

I mean, this works out for me.

Mike Rowe (44:23)

But that's classic Mary too. It's like, well, if I'm going to think mostly about the creative and what I think people might, what I think I might have permission to do in the, in the creative space, Mary will just think, well, then the riddle for her is that partially, but also to figure out, can you get it paid for? And the answer, of course, short term you can figure it out. We'll bootstrap it ourselves. But long term, how do you satisfy an advertiser? How do you bring people in who. Otherwise how do you do any of this without an agent, without a manager? And this is where it gets tricky for other people like Pooja, who are, what are you, like 13 or something? How old are you? 25. She's 25 years old. So classic. Like Gen Z, right? What do you tell a Gen Z in this business? Should you get an agent? Should you get a manager? Should you get a publicist? Should you? I mean, when I was her age, it was very clear if you don't.

Sarah Yargrow (45:26)

You don't have access. Yep.

Mike Rowe (45:27)

You don't have access to anything. But here she is, cold calling you. Right. And so it's a difficult time to offer advice.

Sarah Yargrow (45:37)

It is. And yet I have one piece of it. And yet I'll find a way.

Mike Rowe (45:45)

I think it was Dorothy Parker who said, advice is that thing we ask for when deep down we're desperate to hear nothing.

Sarah Yargrow (45:55)

Exactly, exactly. I think like you said back in the day, even as of like six years ago, right. If you didn't five years ago, four years ago, if you didn't have an agent or a manager and you didn't go that Traditional path. You didn't have access to create something and build an audience. Right. And that beautiful reciprocal process that. That creates. Now the gatekeepers have left their post and we.

Mike Rowe (46:23)

The barbarians are at the gate.

Sarah Yargrow (46:24)

Barbarians are at the gate. And the. To me, there's something really, really invigorating. I love a power to the people movement. I love a. Why are we waiting for permission from. I love a sort of libertarian view applied to a secular context. You know, I love the idea of being able to say, well, let me go and you know, as a creator, which is what we end up being on the show. Like, you've amassed a massive audience. Right.

Mike Rowe (46:52)

Dozens, dozens of them.

Sarah Yargrow (46:53)

Does tension back it up?

Mike Rowe (46:56)

If you stack them end to end? Well, they, they fill this room.

Sarah Yargrow (47:00)

And I have a strong four that comes out. That comes out in droves. And no, but there is this, you know, I bet on that honesty of that connection and being able to build it up ourselves that just. And I know there's learn. There's going to be learning curves with it and there's time and there is a real financial. You know, sure. Like, you have to. You had. That's the premium for it. But I just know that, I mean, just look at the way anything is moving, right. With content creators and with being able to own your audience. It sort of. It sort of has a parallel with like the rise of crypto and, you know, less regulated environments that are sort of democratizing access. You can be sitting in your living room and pull a huge audience because there's nothing filtering it. People love what you're putting out there.

Mike Rowe (47:49)

That's the challenge too. On YouTube, the audience doesn't really care how much you spent. They don't care how much you think costs.

Sarah Yargrow (47:55)

Yep.

Mike Rowe (47:55)

I mean, look at this. We got three cameras. We're sitting here. This is costing. Whatever it costs is not a lot, you know, and it. Yeah, you know, million. Two million people are going to watch this. What does that mean? Like, how so If I spend 100,000 or 200,000 or $300,000 an episode, am I going to get that extra multiple? I don't think so, but I'll get more, I hope. But it's all very like, huh. This is the part of the map that says here be dragons.

Sarah Yargrow (48:26)

Hic.

Mike Rowe (48:26)

Sunter cone. We're not sure.

Sarah Yargrow (48:29)

You know, that's thrilling to me. We are obviously sitting with a different contribution into creating that. However, you know, you guys are. No one's a dummy in this room. You can feel when also you've always Been a pioneer in this space. Right. You guys have never full, you've never fully played. I mean, I've always been drawn to you guys for being very non traditional, for forging your own paths.

Mike Rowe (48:55)

Well, thanks, truly.

Sarah Yargrow (48:57)

Truly.

Mike Rowe (48:57)

We will take. Mary will take credit for that because.

Sarah Yargrow (48:59)

It takes, it takes, it takes grit, it takes vision, it takes self trust too. And it requires experimentation. Right. Because you are doing something no one's ever done before. And I, I just know that this kind of content, it answers the question why it should be a little different than just throwing something together like this. Is that the same problem that we're, we're solving the problem that we spoke about at the beginning, which is no new longer form shows are being greenlit.

Mike Rowe (49:28)

Right. And you know, and the other thing about that is like, it's really fun to unpack it and think through the nuance, but sometimes the answer is really very simple. It's like jet fuel, hotel rooms, you know, as opposed to this. The kind of show that I've always worked on, returning the favor. People, you should know, dirty jobs, somebody's got to do it. Even six degrees, you kind of have to go where the people are. And so I want to talk about where we've gone so far with you and get your thoughts on who we've met. But Taylor, stick your face in front of the camera for a minute so just people understand you're in the room too. This is Taylor Wooten. And since we're kicking around people's, you know, curriculum via T's. What's your card even say now? What are you.

Sarah Yargrow (50:20)

Little bit of everything.

Mike Rowe (50:22)

Yeah, I mean, it's laughable. I mean, there he is on a poster where I met him 10 years ago.

Mary Sullivan (50:28)

Yeah, he was shooting a commercial.

Mike Rowe (50:30)

Yeah.

Mary Sullivan (50:31)

Oh, for the foundation.

Mike Rowe (50:33)

He was doing a. Were you actually shooting or were you behind the scenes?

Mary Sullivan (50:36)

No, he was, he was shooting a camera. You looked. Because we made that up on the spot and we didn't have an actor. And you looked at him and you're like, hey, you, can you come over here?

Mike Rowe (50:46)

Yeah, nice hair. I said, your hair looks pretty good. And I wanted to make up a. Yeah, like a recruiting poster. That was the opposite of the college poster that I had had in, you know, when I was in high school. But the point is, Taylor's like, yeah, sure, man. So he puts on this outfit that's just in wardrobe. Doesn't really fit him. He doesn't care. And he just stood there and smiled. And now that thing's hanging in. I don't Know, thousands of schools all over the place. But the point is, he's not a model. Except he was on that day. I mean, hey, hey, hey.

Sarah Yargrow (51:18)

But he's before picture.

Mike Rowe (51:19)

But you were also cutting a movie at the time, weren't you?

Sarah Yargrow (51:23)

Yeah, I was working on lots of other projects. A lot of TV commercials at the time.

Mike Rowe (51:27)

Yeah. So, I mean, look, I'm just making the point, all right? You can get out of the shot now. That's enough with your face and your hair. Anybody who thinks that they can put the one thing on their business card and get away with it had better be an accountant.

Sarah Yargrow (51:44)

Yeah.

Mike Rowe (51:44)

Because I don't think there's anything else.

Sarah Yargrow (51:46)

And I actually think that's going to be collectively so reinvigorating for all of us because we are all more than one thing. Right. And sometimes you just. If your book is going to be so short that you have, like two or three chapters, that's your prerogative. But I love to be. I mean, you can be. It's. That's the exciting time of being alive right now, too. You have to be. And means you can be so many things. I mean, I find that really, really liberating as a subject.

Mike Rowe (52:16)

So what kind of book are you? Are you a novel?

Sarah Yargrow (52:21)

Are you a. I'm a very thick book. I am a thick book, fellas.

Mike Rowe (52:28)

Kind of like Mike's dinghy. My what? Your dinghy. Oh, my dinghy.

Sarah Yargrow (52:34)

I ain't no small.

Mike Rowe (52:35)

So bulbulous. Yeah, a big, thick dinghy. That's great, Chuck. Good, good. There are women in the room. You made Pooja blush. I did. I didn't bring the dinghy into it.

Sarah Yargrow (52:46)

I just.

Mike Rowe (52:47)

I just did a callback. You certainly brought it back.

Sarah Yargrow (52:50)

There's. There's a line. There's a poetry line that I love. It's John O'Donoghue. And it's. It's how I like to live my life. I have it in my office, and I'm gonna paraphrase it a little bit, but I want to live like a river flows, dazzled by the bend of its own unfolding. So this sense of never. And that's. That's not correct, but just google John O'Donoghue. I'd like to live like a river flows. And I just love that because I think what freedom feels like to me is not fully knowing what's next. You know, like, that's. That, to me is actually like a sign of good health and freedom, that I'm living big enough, I can know my trajectory. But then I Also, like I said, we're just fully floating around here in space on this ball, just winding through the galaxy. Like, let me be a little dazzled and delighted. And I think if I keep staying. Every time I've said yes to things that felt like they were outside of my plan, my life has gotten so much more interesting.

Mike Rowe (53:54)

You had a plan?

Sarah Yargrow (53:55)

I had a plan. I went to. There was a little while where. So I went to theater school. I went to an art school, and I was in theater. And my track was musical theater. And I was really good at it. I was pretty good at it. I had some incredible. Fagin, Cain work.

Mike Rowe (54:17)

Fagan. She's referring to, I believe, Oliver.

Sarah Yargrow (54:21)

That's right.

Mike Rowe (54:22)

You played Fagan.

Sarah Yargrow (54:23)

I played Fagin, a Jewish trope. But I was like, that was one of my most joyful fun. Because he has a really interesting story. Right. He's in petty crime, but he also has this depth, and he wants to be a name for himself, and he's figuring out how to. You know, he's a sort of a father figure to these kids. And I just loved theater so much. It's still the thing. I sometimes mourn in some way. I have this sort of duplicity of this other parallel life that I really. I sometimes wonder. Not that I could do this again, sure.

Mike Rowe (54:58)

But there'll be no money.

Sarah Yargrow (55:00)

There'll be no money. Exactly. But I'm like, hey, what's the difference between this life I've chosen now? No, but I loved theater for the. But then I went on and I got my master's degree in social anthropology. And my focus in that was on conflict resolution and how to use humor, inject humor, to create sort of bridges of intimacy.

Mike Rowe (55:24)

So contract negotiation, hostage negotiating. With songs.

Sarah Yargrow (55:29)

Yeah, yeah. But make it a musical. I just loved. And I think what I loved is getting to dive into another person's point of view, another person's lived experience. I love this idea of really understanding how to communicate with people. All the subtleties, all the words that go unsaid. Right. The biggest illusion of communication is. Or the biggest misconception of communication is the illusion that it happened.

Mike Rowe (55:55)

All problems are communication problems.

Sarah Yargrow (55:57)

They are Carnegie. I mean, that man's been right about everything. Yeah, right.

Mike Rowe (56:02)

Pretty much.

Sarah Yargrow (56:02)

Pretty much. But that was my path, and that's where I got. You know, I was applauded for that, rewarded for that. I loved that. I grew up in a theater home. That was sort of a prerequisite for being a human in my house.

Mike Rowe (56:17)

When did you know that the audience was a Thing that you wanted to please.

Sarah Yargrow (56:22)

Oh, my gosh, four years old, five years old. I knew I had. I think it was also this brushing up with this power that you feel when you can shape a room reaction. I also have a twin brother who had a very different personality. And so I was sort of the outward performer, but by contrast, this sort of binary sibling experience. But I just loved play so profoundly. I mean, it's my favorite form of intimacy. It's my favorite way to the closest people in my life. Play is just critical for connection. But I felt that that's one of my earliest recognitions of self and something that I had to go through my own level of. Like, what is a healthy love of that external. And then what is. At one point, you have to check that you're not the puppet being puppeteered by audience reaction. Right.

Mike Rowe (57:22)

Sure.

Sarah Yargrow (57:22)

Which can be. Which can be hard. But I just love.

Mike Rowe (57:26)

Because they will ultimately eat you alive if you let them.

Sarah Yargrow (57:29)

Yeah.

Mike Rowe (57:29)

You have to love them and that, you know, I look at them as my boss, but I also know that as much as I want to please them, if they think I'm trying to please them, they'll hate me.

Sarah Yargrow (57:39)

Totally. Totally. And you'll hate yourself, but not as.

Mike Rowe (57:42)

Much as they hate me.

Sarah Yargrow (57:44)

Totally. True. Very true.

Mike Rowe (57:49)

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Sarah Yargrow (59:14)

So I thought I was going to go into theater. Do you have a path like that you sort of explored? You have had such a rich track.

Mike Rowe (59:21)

That everything I thought I was, every plan I've ever had has gone up in flames. Every single one, you know, but they've all led to something else that worked, which is why even now, you know, as old as I've ever been, I don't have a crystal ball. And I'm looking at this project and I can see how it could be really big. And I could also see how it just gets swallowed up in a rough, tempestuous sea, you know, because it's noisy out there. I don't really know, but I know we had a couple million people who were wondering who moved their cheese. They've been waiting for a couple of years to see what we just did over the last few months.

Sarah Yargrow (60:05)

I also think we have had. I have had. Over these last few years. I'd say over these last, like, six years. More than that. Would that. Like, we started in 2017. So up until 2020, 2021, technically, January is when that fell off. I have had hundreds. Fell off. Was slaughtered in public. Exactly. That was really startling for people, too, because I think I have had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of messages of people asking and sometimes people kind of begging for that sort of honesty because our version of uplift is really messy and human and relatable. Right. I know. And that's something that you guys have held, you and Mary have held such a bar for, too, of being like, these have to be real people.

Mike Rowe (61:02)

Gotta be real.

Sarah Yargrow (61:03)

Gotta be real. And real people are flawed. And let me tell you, as we all know, sometimes the best of us, quote, unquote, Right. The people who are really endeavoring every day to move the needle on something that is like, wow, you can give up. You can give up, you've done enough. But are really endeavoring are people who have had. Who have really walked through darkness. Right. Those are the brightest amongst us. And those people are flawed. Right. And it's sort of a badge of honor.

Mike Rowe (61:31)

Well, it's the problem with everyday heroes.

Sarah Yargrow (61:33)

Yeah.

Mike Rowe (61:33)

There's no such thing.

Sarah Yargrow (61:35)

Yeah.

Mike Rowe (61:35)

If you're a hero, then you are by definition, in some percentage, that sets you apart from the rest of us mere mortals. But the minute we set you apart from everybody else, you become less relatable. And then ultimately the object of some Kind of envy. And now will there be a trophy? So I. I don't. You know, the hero thing, I'm super stingy with it. We've had a couple of Medal of Honor recipients sit here, you know. Okay, that works. That works. I don't know if I've met any heroes on returning the favor or on people you should know, but I've met a lot of people who are slightly better than me.

Sarah Yargrow (62:17)

But that, to me is. That's the kind of person that I'm interested in, one and who I want to. I want to shine a light on. Because to me, the goal of this show, this endeavor, is to get anybody at any point in their life to check in with what do I give a damn about, and then feel like they have the agency. They don't need a permission slip. They don't need, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars. They don't need a 501C3. They don't need permission from the government or from so and so to endeavor to make a difference on something in their community. And that is like, if we all moved one degree, if we all stepped into that one degree, one, our life would get better. All the data around service and gratitude and doing something for other people is just like the mark of health and longevity. And two, our problems would be so much lighter and lifted with just small collective movement. And so that's like, the point of why I'm in this storytelling world, in this medium is just, we can't be what we don't see. And when I see people who really have all total legitimacy to just tap out, say you're like, your gig's been hard. This has been a rough road for you. Like, back out. No one's gonna flaw you for that. When I see them pushing through, it helps me check my own excuses of why I can't be useful.

Mike Rowe (63:39)

Sure.

Sarah Yargrow (63:39)

In the world.

Mike Rowe (63:40)

I get it. I mean, it was the same dynamic. Dirty Jobs was out of sight and out of mind. You know, you're in a sewer, you're in a septic tank. You're working with real people without a script. So there's a modesty. I remember arguing with the network about, well, let's elevate them into working class heroes. I'm like, well, I don't think they are heroes. I think they're by and large, good and decent people, many of whom are more prosperous than we let on. And maybe I would do that different if I had a chance to go back. But it's the same thing here. Like, when we look at Lindsay and when we look at Steve Hotz and when we look at Mrs. Mays, these people are still fundamentally relatable.

Sarah Yargrow (64:29)

Yeah.

Mike Rowe (64:29)

And what I like most about putting them out there is that you're not left as a viewer. Like, if you're a viewer and you really hear or see a Medal of honor story brought to life, you wind up shaking your head and saying to yourself, jesus, you know, I don't. I don't think I could do that. I don't think I have what it takes to do what he or she did. The people you should know in the show, people you should know are people you could be.

Sarah Yargrow (64:59)

Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Rowe (65:01)

Who stuck with you most this round?

Sarah Yargrow (65:02)

Oh, I love me some Danny Combs and some tact. I love the mission over there. Judelyn from Queens. Tell me about her tools and tiaras.

Mike Rowe (65:16)

Yep.

Sarah Yargrow (65:17)

Judelyn is an incredibly vivacious five foot four foot nine. Four foot nine, Exactly. A generous five giant of a spirit who wanted to be a superwoman when she was growing up. And she. She looked at her particular set of circumstances. Right. And what is the best use of her cards that she's been dealt? And she played them to be that and went into the form of being a plumber. And she realized that, she says, instead of a doctor, I'm the person you need most urgently. Right. You're gonna need me more frequently than you need a doctor. You're gonna need me more frequently than you need a lawyer. You know when people are always happy to see her?

Mike Rowe (66:02)

Yeah.

Sarah Yargrow (66:02)

When she's at their door. And I love that she just didn't even indulge a world where, you know, there weren't other women. She was the first woman to be in the union, the plumber's union. It's un. And I love that she just was not deterred by the fact that to make a door, she's gonna have to run up that wall a couple times Right. Before she can punch through it. And I just love that. And she has this sort of all the young girls that she brings around her. Right. To be able to. At a really young age, to be able to, you know, start working with their hands to see themselves as really capable as plumbers and as builders and how it just also reappreciating at a young age. Like, I love anyone who's also teaching kids at a young age to sort of look around and recognize how fundamental behind every one of these walls a plumber has been here. My life is easier because a plumber and its artistry and mastery and she's just so vivacious and funny and playful and she doesn't take life too seriously, but yet takes it dead serious.

Mike Rowe (67:10)

She takes her work pretty seriously. Her organization is called Tools and Tiaras. She's basically making a more persuasive case for this specific vocation to young women.

Sarah Yargrow (67:21)

Yeah.

Mike Rowe (67:21)

And Obviously that's microworks 101. You know, she's one of my favorites too, but can't wait to get behind that one. Mary, what about you? Did you have. I mean, you've been on all these with us so far. We got six coming up. Is there one that sticks with you most?

Mary Sullivan (67:37)

Well, yeah. Judah line was. Was great. And Danny, because I, I was really behind that organization.

Mike Rowe (67:43)

Yeah. Explain what it is.

Sarah Yargrow (67:45)

Yeah, Tact. So Danny started. Danny and his incredible wife Becky started an organization called takt, which is an acronym for Teaching the Autism Community Trades. And Danny was, you know, he has, he had an interesting trajectory. Right. Talking about interesting trajectories. Grammy award winning musicians, singer, songwriter, taught music to inner city schools in Nashville. All that shifted when his son was diagnosed with autism. Right, right. And Dylan. Dylan and I love that because that's sort of a through line for all the people that we feature, for anyone we feature, whether it's returning the favor or all the people from people you should know, there's one circumstance that changes their trajectory. Right.

Mike Rowe (68:25)

The inciting incident.

Sarah Yargrow (68:26)

The inciting incident, exactly. Denouement is the end. Okay, so not quite there yet.

Mike Rowe (68:31)

Well, that'd be the.

Sarah Yargrow (68:35)

So Danny comes from a long line of tradesmen. He's been. He's like fourth generation tradesmen. He recognized that his son Dylan, who was diagnosed was really, really, really. He wasn't able to vocalize, he wasn't able to, you know, he wasn't verbal, he wasn't able to. He wasn't learning in the same rate or the same way that other kids his age were learning. But he was incredibly good at building and rebuilding things and sort of very tactile. And he realized that there is incredible limitations for this entire community called the neurodivergent community. Right. Because just. Really. Which is a fancy way of just saying you think outside of maybe a neurotypical way. Dyslexia, adhd, autism.

Mike Rowe (69:19)

The spectrum.

Sarah Yargrow (69:20)

The spectrum, exactly. Which is just a refreshing way to look at. Everyone's brains work differently. And he comes from a really strengths based look at it. Right. Where it's like you can look at where someone's flaw is or you can say, you know, what is the thing if a bear thinks It's a fish. It's going to be miserable. If a fish is being treated like a bear. It's going to look like, you know, it doesn't know what it's doing and it's not capable.

Mike Rowe (69:43)

And when the fish meets the bear, it's a bad day for the fish.

Sarah Yargrow (69:45)

It's a bad day for the fish. Exactly. People talk, People say that all the time. But with Danny, like, I love everything is a. Why can't you do this? You know, these are kids who would never have been given a power tool, you know, in any other context, being handed power tools, saws being said, yeah, you can learn this, you can do this, you can do this. And in fact, maybe you're actually incredibly skilled at doing this. And I just love. He's creating this very on the ground, small based community solution to a really big problem, which is that the huge amount of people who are going to be leaving the trades. Right. You know, what is the number at this point?

Mike Rowe (70:26)

Like, well, five for every five who retire to come in. And it's been that way for about a decade. And it's, you know, demographically it's only gonna get worse. And of course, all the stigmas and stereotypes that are making recruiting impossible. It's funny, for me, Danny was the first favor we returned long distance. Yeah, it was such a great story, but it was so frustrating to be sitting there in my office trying to make sense of this through the zoom thing at the height of the lockdowns, you know, so going back to surprise him in this new model. That was great.

Sarah Yargrow (71:08)

Yeah, they're the best. I mean, it's like with anyone that we feature, these have to be people who are doing it with or without the camera rolling. Right. In fact, we're often slightly inconvenient to them. Slightly, like our presence is slightly inconvenient.

Mike Rowe (71:23)

Oh, God. I know.

Sarah Yargrow (71:24)

Like they can't wait to. And imagine me coming in like before they even knew you're coming. I'm just like this person who cannot read the room. I'm just so bloody annoying to them. And I just push through those social, those social norms and you're like Mary.

Mike Rowe (71:43)

Poppins, you slide up banisters.

Sarah Yargrow (71:47)

I'd like to try, but they're, you know, and, and the best thing is too, like you get to go into. And I think the way that our show and what I love listeners to even, you know, when they can appreciate when they watch this is this is not us coming in as a TV crew. Us telling you what you need in Your life. And we're gonna solve this problem for you. We do such intimate research, really connected with people around this person that we're featuring to really understand what is going to be sort of rocket fuel on what they need. Right. So from the outside, it may look like they really need X, Y or Z, but a lot of times you're burdening somebody if you're not giving them the right gift. Right. A gift can be a burden.

Mike Rowe (72:26)

Oh, you can break them.

Sarah Yargrow (72:27)

You can break them. I mean, unless they want to be constantly evading their taxes and move their.

Mike Rowe (72:32)

Operation offshores, which we don't recommend, we don't marry from a legal standpoint. Don't. Don't do that, don't.

Sarah Yargrow (72:40)

That'll be the spin off.

Mike Rowe (72:41)

But, you know, we. Mary and I talked about this a lot in the old days, drinking from a fire hose. And I mean, it happens in life all of the time. You know, look, you can do it to your kid if you send them to the wrong school or give them too much of what they need, essentially, you know, and so all of a sudden people are God, how many times did you look at me and shake your head and say, you know, you're gonna kill them with our love?

Mary Sullivan (73:09)

Yeah. They need a drink of water and you're giving them a fire hose.

Sarah Yargrow (73:12)

Yeah, true. You have to look at someone's sort of capacity, like, what's the vessel of their operation? Where are they at in that type? You may think it. We may think it feels generous to give someone a gallon, but they only have an eight, you know, eight ounce cup.

Mike Rowe (73:26)

Right, but some don't.

Sarah Yargrow (73:27)

But some don't.

Mike Rowe (73:28)

Like Luke Mickelson.

Sarah Yargrow (73:29)

Exactly. Great.

Mike Rowe (73:30)

Goes from seven chapters to 400. Right, right. He was able to scale. But you know what he also did? He quit his job after returning after his episode airs. He pulls the plug. That lunatic goes all in. And now he's got thousands of people building beds all over the country. I mean, that's really. I mean, to think about us just Forrest Gumping our way into his world and going, oh, here's some cameras and here's some wood. Surprise. And then, you know, like two years later, the guy's life is completely transformed, you know, and by extension, a lot of other people's.

Sarah Yargrow (74:06)

Absolutely. But that's the. Everyone on this show. Am I able to say the S word?

Mike Rowe (74:13)

Salmon.

Sarah Yargrow (74:14)

Yes. Everyone on this episode gives a salmon. Okay, now you can say it. Okay. Everyone here gives a shit. We really like people. We respect people. And like, then so that people can feel what's real out there now. And I think that's what's drawn them to the show. And we would never work on anything that's not real. I would be. There's plenty of other things I could be happy doing. You know, I could be a novelist in the woods. In one, maybe one chapter, I will be.

Mike Rowe (74:42)

Look. That's weird. And look, for the avoidance of doubt, I have worked on some things that aren't real. Yeah, a lot of things.

Sarah Yargrow (74:48)

Yeah.

Mike Rowe (74:49)

For 15 years, I worked in this nonfiction space, which, you know, which is not nonfiction. Right. I've worked in the reality space, which is kind of the opposite of reality. It's really, really hard to find a way to balance between, okay, this is production and this is a show and this is a network, and this is the budget. And you're. You. And you're trying to build some sort of trust with the viewer, and you think maybe you have something resembling a brand and you. It's an impossible thing to balance. And the funny thing is, we've done it. This endeavor balances that. But that in and of itself is a guarantee of 0.0 things we don't know. But I'll tell you, the one that I'm interested in, it's probably because I just spent the last day writing it. Because what I do now, like, you go in first, you do a lot of front work, and sometimes just because Mary doesn't tell me or just because I'm busy, I show up. I don't know my ass from a hot rock. Right. I don't know what's happening. And when viewers see you bringing me up to speed on camera, that's real. I know generally, like, where we are, but I don't. There's a lot of stuff I do not know. And I'm only there for a day. Like, we only do this for, like, in seven, eight hours. We shoot the whole thing, and then we're out. And so a lot of stuff gets by me. And it's not until, like, a few weeks later that I get to sit with it. And, you know, Vins, our editor, will send me a cut and I'll look at it and I'll think, okay, that's what happened on that day. But what's it mean to me personally now? And that's a privilege, and it's also a pain in the ass. But it's a privilege to be able to sit down and go tell the viewer in. You have to show them what happened on the day, but you also have to explain, you know, a few Weeks later, what it meant. And so the trip we took to Fredericksburg, and we met this guy, Steve Hotz, who runs a forge called the Black Horse Forge.

Sarah Yargrow (76:57)

The Forge daddy himself.

Mike Rowe (76:58)

The Forge daddy. And to be honest, it's not a fun episode from the standpoint that we're dealing with another giant problem, you know, ptsd, veteran, suicide. It's heavy.

Sarah Yargrow (77:10)

And it was raining and it was dark. Yeah.

Mike Rowe (77:14)

And I had thrown my back out the day before and broken my toe. This so screwed up. I'm in the midst of what can only be described as kind of a weird and atypical pity party. In fact, the first, like the episode opens, I tell you about the time I broke my ankle, Apropos of nothing four years earlier, just because I couldn't believe we survived the plane ride. I thought the plane was going to flip over. So by the time you picked me up, I'm out of the plane, I'm shaky. Mary's looking at me like, look at this, we're still alive. This is very exciting. And my toe hurts and my back hurts, and I just wind up going down this weird rabbit hole of self involved pain. Meanwhile, we're about to talk to a guy who's in the business of saving lives. Because, you know, 17 vets more or less per day punch their own ticket. So it's like, okay, you know, weeks later, when you look at that, like, in the old days, I might have been like, all right, we have to cut all of my ridiculous tertiary blather out of this thing. Or lean into it.

Mary Sullivan (78:27)

Yeah.

Mike Rowe (78:28)

And that's interesting.

Sarah Yargrow (78:31)

And that's honest.

Mike Rowe (78:32)

No, it's honest, right?

Sarah Yargrow (78:33)

Like, that's incredibly honest. And it ended up being a really. I think when it's honest and it doesn't always hit like this, but 9 out of 10, I bet on when you take the more authentic path and you lean into it and you build. You really lean into it. You can see more complexity, you can see humor in it. You can see all of that. It's way more relatable. And it ends up kind of illuminating this path that I think that became a really interesting inroad for other people to empathize with why these guys are in pain day in and day out, right? Agonizing pain, constant pain. Pain that we would cross our eyes, Right. Like, it's just. It makes you feel insane, right? It makes you feel out of your body. And that's a driver for why some people say, I think I can't. If life feels like this, I don't know If I want to live that right. It's so powerful. And so the relatable pain and agonizing, if not pathetic in category of hurting your toe. Right. There's nothing that makes you feel more like a man when you stub your toe, but it's a. There's a lot of nerves there.

Mike Rowe (79:38)

But it's tough to complain about your toe to a dude with no legs.

Sarah Yargrow (79:42)

But you're allowing, I think you allow the audience then to relate to what pain might feel like in their life and then imagine that was cranked up.

Mike Rowe (79:53)

Well, I hope, Look, I mean, for me it's micro macro. There's gonna be some micro in all these episodes. Cause, well, there I am. But what Steve has done, and this is something I think is really going to resonate. I hope it does. I'm proud of it. But we've profiled probably a dozen different organizations who take non traditional approaches to combating veteran suicide. I mean, I've been in the swamps of the Everglades hunting pythons with these guys, and I've been in Indiana at Jason Sederman's place, putting together old motorcycles. There's so many ways to help get these men and women out of their own head and focused on something bigger than themselves, but nobody, nobody's batting a thousand. Except this guy. I know this forge that he's built and the way he healed himself, right? This is an interior designer who quits his job, joins the army, loses an eye, breaks his back, comes home. And rather than start sketching dresses and interior designs like he used to do, now he's, now he's making knives and now he's literally forging knives. And he realizes he's probably going to be okay because there's something so transformational about the business of forging. So he opens up his black horse forge to other vets. I mean, it's been years now, but he's got like 22,000 have come through.

Sarah Yargrow (81:28)

It's insane. 22,000 zero suicides.

Mike Rowe (81:32)

Right? So look, folks, I mean, if we're looking for a place to land the plane that's close to where it is. We're looking for people you should know. Steve Haas is one of them. You'll meet him. You'll meet him soon. And what he's done, you know, it ought to be headline news. And what I did on that particular day was so inconsequential and self involved that the only sensible thing to do is to jam it all together.

Sarah Yargrow (81:58)

It's a good one, it's a great one. And I think. I mean, it's just another thing that I think people. That makes people, you should know, really different and really special and sort of rebellious in a fun way. So for the viewer to understand is we're also connecting people to. They get tapped into our entire network, and then we get to have this huge amplifying domino effect. Right. Of people who are not waiting around to be granted permission and who have resources that they can share and who can, you know, put their. Like, we had Luke Mikkelsen that you cited involved in our very first episode.

Mike Rowe (82:39)

Sure.

Sarah Yargrow (82:39)

Right. Because that makes sense. It made sense. And you're able to sort of jump in and have this amplifying effect, you know, which I just think is so badass and invigorating.

Mike Rowe (82:52)

It's six degrees of decency, basically. You know, And I mean, I remember on that first one, Mary, we called, like, we were spoiler alert, but we were looking really for a very specific kind of surprise and to call a guy like Bo Bachman, you know, a Ford dealer, and to explain what we need. I mean, you were on that first zoom call.

Mary Sullivan (83:17)

Yep.

Mike Rowe (83:18)

This. I've never met this guy. Like, were you surprised by what he said at the end of that call?

Mary Sullivan (83:23)

Yeah, I was surprised because we had nothing to show him. I mean, that was just. I think it's the power of the show. People really get it. You're trying to highlight people in the community that are solving the community's problems, and that's why you'll never run out of issues, because we've featured PTSD many times, but people are different, and the way that they're tackling it are different. And some will be like, Sleep in Heavenly Peace where there are chapters across the US But I think just as important is inspiring people to do it under any name in their own community.

Sarah Yargrow (84:02)

Yes.

Mary Sullivan (84:03)

To show them what they can do.

Mike Rowe (84:05)

Yeah. It's back to the humility thing. And sometimes it's almost, you know, from the sublime to the ridiculous. I'm thinking of Mrs. Mays. I don't know what's. You know, you'll meet Mrs. Mays. She's a radical street librarian in my hometown of Baltimore. And I don't know how a woman comes to the decision to dress up like Little Bo Peep and go to the neighborhood where they shot the Wire and give away books to kids who would otherwise not have access to them. But when somebody takes it upon themselves to try that, well, hell, the least you can do is show up and get Taylor to point a camera at him. And see what happens.

Sarah Yargrow (84:42)

It's contagious though to be around these people. Right. It just gets you sort of off your own butt to get out into the world. Because I, I just think like there's so many, you don't even have to have studies. It's a lived experience. Right. Of when you are endeavoring something that's passionate and meaningful and we need all hands on deck. Whatever you're actually lit up by, go that route. Don't try and force yourself to be, you know, she's really lit up by literacy, really lit up by solving those problems and wants to go to spaces that were not being serviced from the bottom up. From the bottom up. And that's true. I mean, again, I'm just going to reinforce this because the data is so immense. If you want to live a long, satisfying, nourishing life, Right. It's not happy every day in and out, but it's nourishing and you feel content with it. A lot of your life is going to include service. Right. It's like you see people who have the veil lifted as they get into, you know, as a bad thing happened to them, but actually was the portal into this other, other space. And we can do that without having the bad thing have to happen to us yet. And you can do it in a small, tiny way. You're not. You can do it with one hour a month. You can do it with, you know, spending, sharing some extra profit you have. You can do it in advertising something on your platforms or your channels or however you actually authentically want to show up. Like this is what that show also gives. It makes you feel too like, ah, the world's not a complete dumpster fire. Right.

Mike Rowe (86:16)

My species isn't a total disappointment.

Sarah Yargrow (86:19)

Yeah. But I think that's a, like, that's a big thing to offer. That's a big buoy to offer in a sea where you know, the headline making machines that is anything on TV at this point, news, all of that, that's meant to keep us all sort of in our, what's it called, like paralysis of what's happening. You can say, yeah, that's real. And so is this. It's also real. It's equally real and real. Change, whatever that means, happens on a local level, period.

Mike Rowe (86:50)

I'll tell you what real change means. It means we could really use some change, some actual dollars on the show. Pardon the shameless plug. But our friends at Stand Together have been super generous. They champion bottom up solutions and they're helping us. We've had help From Pure Talk, some of our partners, Groundworks Ferguson, stepped up. Hogland.

Mary Sullivan (87:13)

US money.

Sarah Yargrow (87:14)

US money.

Mike Rowe (87:14)

US Money reserve just came through in a huge way. So, like, when I said before, folks, that we're building the plane in midair, I mean it. There's no network. We. We have yet to have a. We don't have an ad sales department, but we're kind of in the spirit of Blanche dubois, depending on the kindness, estrangement and friends.

Sarah Yargrow (87:36)

And I'll say, just to underscore that, with total humility and only 2% hubris, we are the people to do this too. It's not like we have this fun idea that we're going out into the world. We have got battle scars on us. We have iterated. Iterated, Iterated, Iterated. You know, we did hundred of the returning the favor. The only people that could do a returning the favor are people who had hundreds of hours before that too. Right. So, like, it is also, we are good stewards of that capital. Right? We're good. Like it's. It's a place to actually get some returns in all the metrics.

Mike Rowe (88:15)

Well, you know, that's awfully mercenary of you. I'll close. Look, we love the mercenary position here at Microworks, but personally, you can't beat the missionary position, Sarah. So I will just say to all of you, if you want to support us in this endeavor, and this is a shameless plug, we'll take your money info at Microworks. Tag Mary. And yeah, we're figuring it out. If you want to be part of the solution, that's where you go. In the meantime. First episode drops May 2nd here on YouTube. We're thinking about every other week after that. And we'll have some little surprises for.

Sarah Yargrow (88:52)

You on your channel.

Mike Rowe (88:54)

On my channel. Right. Because where else would we go? We just got a million subscribers on the channel.

Sarah Yargrow (89:01)

Incredible.

Mike Rowe (89:02)

So we're excited about that. Because I'd neglected YouTube most of my life.

Sarah Yargrow (89:05)

Sure.

Mike Rowe (89:05)

You know, but hey, I'm finally getting up to speed. And if there were any lesson to take from this whole conversation, aside from the shameless plug I just offered, it would be that nobody in this room is where they thought they were going to be.

Sarah Yargrow (89:20)

You know, and so if you need a buoy, latch on. We're buoying out there.

Mike Rowe (89:26)

We're just buoy. We're buoy happy.

Sarah Yargrow (89:29)

We're booie happy.

Mike Rowe (89:30)

We'll discuss it. You know what? If you just need to hang onto something, grab a hold of my big fat dinghy. All right? And hang on for Dear life. Cause this ship is leaving the port folks. Woo woo. Sarah Yargroud. Glad you're along for the ride. Don't know where it's going but it's a treat to ride with you.

Sarah Yargrow (89:48)

It's treat to ride with you. I love us figuring out as we go.

Mike Rowe (89:51)

Pooja, congratulations on making that call. Taylor, thanks for impersonating a model. Chuck, thanks for being my friend for 45 years and doing whatever you're doing over there. Who knows Mary, we're going to have to let you go. I'll miss you.

Mary Sullivan (90:07)

You wouldn't even know how to do that.

Mike Rowe (90:09)

I, I, I really wouldn't. You know why? Because I don't have a freaking HR department, that's why. I get one of those too. All right guys. See you next week. People you should know may 2nd right here on the youtubes if you like what you heard and even if you don't, won't you please, won't you please, pretty please pretty please subscribe. Well, I hate to beg and I hate to plead but please, pretty freaking please, please subscribe. Please subscribe.

Sarah Yargrow (90:51)

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Mike Rowe (91:21)

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Sarah Yargrow (91:30)

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Sarah Yargrow (91:47)

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