Founder's Story - The Talk Show Era That Created Reality TV and the Real Story Behind It | Ep. 395 with Maury Povich Legendary TV Host

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

Daniel Robbins interviews Maury Povich about how a local news journalist became a national TV icon, the real production machine behind Maury, and what it was like competing in the early talk show wars of the 1990s. Maury explains how the show verified stories like a newsroom, how paternity, lie detectors, and out of control teen themes became mainstream, and why the tabloid talk era directly spawned today’s reality TV ecosystem. The conversation widens into modern media, AI deepfakes, grief, money, marriage, and what Maury believes matters most now. Key Discussion Points Maury explains that being recognized for “you are the father” is a badge of honor, because it means the show became part of culture and people truly watched. He shares how his producing teams operated like a newsroom, checking stories and vetting guests, and says in 31 years they were never faked on air. Maury describes the early days when his show and Jerry Springer started tame, then shifted after Rikki Lake proved a younger audience could be captured, forcing everyone to evolve. He says the 1990s talk show era sparked modern reality TV, connecting the thread to Housewives, Kardashians, and today’s cable reality landscape. Maury reacts to AI misinformation, including a viral deepfake featuring his show that was so convincing his sister called to ask if it was real. He opens up about his marriage to Connie Chung, saying she is funnier than people expect, and shares their rule: take work seriously, never take yourselves seriously. Maury reflects on comedians as truth tellers, comparing different comedic styles and explaining why his podcast guests increasingly include comics. He shares why Montana is his reset, valuing silence, space, and solitude, and why golf reveals every morsel of a person’s character in 18 holes. Maury discusses money insecurity and why he takes Social Security proudly because he remembers paying into it when he had almost nothing. He tells the story of his brother David, the lifelong hero dynamic between them, and why his father’s generation never taught them how to grieve. Maury reveals the surreal moment the New York Times began drafting his obituary years in advance and refused to show it to him. For his unlimited possibility moment, Maury credits Rupert Murdoch bringing him to New York to host A Current Affair, which launched everything that followed. Takeaways The reason Maury worked was not chaos, it was verification, a newsroom level commitment to not getting fooled on air. Rikki Lake changed daytime talk by bringing young viewers, pushing the entire category into more provocative, reality driven themes. Reality TV did not start with streaming, it started with tabloid talk and the appetite for raw, unscripted conflict. AI will make media harder to trust, and the next skill is learning how to verify what you see before you believe it. Longevity comes from humility and gratitude, and Maury’s perspective is simple: he never believed anyone owed him anything. Closing Thoughts Maury Povich is not just a TV icon, he is a case study in cultural impact, reinvention, and staying relevant across decades of media change. This episode shows the real person behind the catchphrase, a journalist who ran a disciplined production machine, a husband who still laughs every day, and an 87 year old who is still curious enough to start over with a podcast. If you want to understand how the internet’s viral culture was built before the internet, this conversation is the origin story. If sleep, stress, or recovery is something you’re struggling with, check out Magnesium Breakthrough by BiOptimizers. It genuinely changed my life. You can get it at BiOptimizers. Huge thanks to BiOptimizers for supporting the show. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There is no doubt that our shows in the 90s and early 2000 spawn all the Housewives shows, all the Kardashians, any kind of reality show now on cable, was all sparked by our shows. 31 years, we never got fake on the air. You are not! You are not! You are not the father! Five words that turned daytime television into a cultural obsession. He outlasted every trend, every network, every critic. at 87, Mori Povich is doing it all over again.

The thread for my entire career was I was chasing other people's stories. I was never able to kind of reveal myself. And so with the podcast, I feel unchained. Today we find out what fuels him at 87 and why he's not done talking. I want to do everything my brother did. I thought that was the nicest thing anybody has ever said to me, that my brother, who I looked up to all of my life, thought that I was his hero.

I can even tear up about that. I've spent the last couple of years talking to the New York Times about my obituary, which is written. I don't think I've told anybody this, Dan. So, Mori Povich, the obvious thing is I'm going to have to say the phrase that really puts you on the map, which I'm sure at this point, you could be annoyed hearing this because you've probably heard it so many times. But there's a reason why I'm going to say it.

So you are not the father, is the phrase that everyone knows you by, or it could be you are the father, depending on the episode. However, what I want to know, though, is what emotions, what feelings, what thoughts come to mind every time somebody says that to you. Well, I consider it a badge of honor to me. It means that if people say that to me, that means that I'm part of their culture. And so that means that the show had some penetration and that they either watch that show for entertainment or for information or for knowledge or for, as Shaquille O'Neal used to say, he and his buddies used to bet on whether the guy was the father or not. So I'm curious about how it was at this time.

I mean, I've seen documentaries about your friend Springer and about how things were during that time for them. How was it for you, though, behind the scenes of creating this machine? I was very proud of the way we came up with our themes and the way we employed them. My show had a, we had production teams, and it was like being in a newsroom. They had to check out these people who wanted to come on.

Obviously, the 800 number helped with, whether it be DNA or lie detector test or out-of-control teenagers. And so these producing teams would check every story out. And I can say in 31 years, we never got faked on the air. Sometimes we got faked before the show ever started, and we sent the guests home. But we never got faked on the air. And so I applaud the way we handled things.

Jerry's show was different. Jerry kind of gave me the best compliment I ever had when he would publicly say, you know, Mari, your show is the real deal, and my show is wrestling. And so that's how I differentiated it. So how did that go? Because I've heard that you became friends

at some point. I guess you were kind of like rivals, essentially. Jerry and I, we started the same month in the same year, 1991. That's when he started his show. I started my show. And we would, and both admitted back then in the beginning, the shows were very kind of tame. I mean, they were just afternoon or morning versions of the Today Show. We would do topics. And we would, I mean, our, you know, if there was an edginess to it, it would be, you know, I have a favorite crushes, things like that. I mean, that would be as far as we would push the envelope. Pretty tame next to where we ended up.

At what point did you realize, like in order for this to really take off like a rocket ship, we need to, you know, we need to move the needle over here? I think one of the reasons we changed was when Ricky Lake, who by the way is our guest this week on the podcast, I hadn't seen Ricky in. Yeah. And so Ricky came in and she, first of all, most of us were in our 40s and 50s doing the show in the early 90s. Ricky was 24 years old when she started. and she was able to do something we couldn't do, and that was get a young audience to watch. You know, the average age of our audience was probably near 50,

and she was getting kids to watch daytime talk. And so, therefore, we had to start doing some subject matter, which would appeal to a younger group. And so I'd say about six or seven years into the show is when we started with the themes of paternity and lie detectors and out of control teenagers. So it seems like, you know, basically it was the beginning phases of reality TV, which I know people have mentioned to you before. Like you were the pioneer, one of the pioneers of reality TV.

And it seems like whether it was reality TV then or how shows are now on YouTube, you always have to come up with something new. you always have to push the envelope. It's almost like you had to create virality on TV before, you know, virality now is more of an internet thing. So what was the secret sauce behind, like, continuing to do this? Well, first of all, there is no doubt that our shows in the 90s and early 2000 spawned all the Housewives shows, all the Kardashians, any kind of reality shows.

now on cable was all sparked by our shows, the first reality shows of the 90s and 2000s. That's, I mean, you can just trace it. I mean, that's the thread. Now, when it comes today, YouTube, now including AI, it's one of these things where you never know. I saw the other day, and this went viral, millions of looks. There was an AI, there was an AI Instagram of Mike Vrable and Diana Rusini coming on my show, and I was going to determine whether he was the father of one of her children. And it was all AI.

And they had my set. A year and a half ago, I was going through one of the hardest periods of my life. I was dealing with anxiety, depression, brain fog. And a huge part of it was because I was not sleeping. My schedule was brutal late nights, early mornings, constantly pushing my body. I tried everything, but nothing really worked. Then someone introduced me to magnesium breakthrough by bioptimizer. Night one changed everything.

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breakthrough by Bioptimizer. You can get it at bioptimizers.com. Huge thank you to Bio Optimizer for supporting the show. They had everything. I mean, it was so real that my sister called me and said, did this happen? And I went, no, it didn't. Well, don't you think you should apologize? I said, I'm not apologizing. It's AI.

You know, that's what it is. And so therefore, when you go on YouTube today, you got to figure it out whether it's real or not. It's almost scary, right? Like, it's entertaining, but it also is so scary because people have sent me many videos. And I'm like, this is definitely AI. And they're shocked. They're like, this is AI. I'm like, you can't tell this is, yes, this is AI.

These are like very smart, digitally focused people. I'm like, can you imagine the people that aren't as smart or digitally focused? They don't know. They could be easily manipulated. What do you think about that? Yeah. I mean, it's going to cause, it's a quandary with AI because it really does look real in a lot of ways. I mean, I know there are great benefits to AI.

I mean, I know what doctors say that AI is going to make sure that we are. all live longer. In terms of medicine, it's going to be spectacular. It's going to give a lot of professions, shortcuts to success. And that's fine. But when it comes down to the internet and so, you know, we all use it, we all look at it, you're going to have to decipher whether it's real or not. I mean, you're like in your 60s, right? But you look like you're in your 40s. You can live to 100 if you might only be halfway done oh gosh you might have eight i'm at i'm in my 88th year i mean i'm just wow i never would have i hope i'm like you when i'm 88 well i'm going to be 88 i'm 87 i'm going to be 88 in about six months what what's been it is it connie that's been like

the rock that's why you look so good and why you have so much energy because my wife makes fun to me that I have like 80 year old knees and I'm in my 40s. But what is it for you that, I mean, I love your, you have this love for life I can tell. And I love that you love, I could tell you really love your wife at the same time and you're in your 80s. Yeah, I've always said that if you ever looked at my career where, you know, I did television news in various cities over the years, local news. and I, we didn't, we got married in 1984 and right after that, Rupert Murdoch bought the local station I worked at in Washington. And my whole national career from 1986 on, I firmly believe it's because I married my wife. I, I, there are many people, particularly in New York.

I mean, I've, you know, I've been Mr. Chung for 40, almost 42 years. So, I wear that proudly. So obviously she's an extremely celebrated journalist, incredibly, like you said, honorary PhD, always seem very serious to me when I would watch her, serious exposés. You, on the other hand, seem always, I don't want to say comedic in a bad way, but you're humorous, you're fun, like, what was it like sitting at that dinner table? between the two of you. Well, believe it or not, she is much funnier than I am. And that, I mean, she has one of the great senses of humor. She is, uh, uh, you never know what's going to come out

of her mouth. Uh, I mean, I, I had her on my first podcast on par with Mariupovic. She was my first guest. I didn't know what was going to happen. I mean, you never know what's, what's happening with her. I mean, she can be. when it comes to me, she can be very insulting and do it in a humorous way. And I'm much more serious personally than she is. But we've always, I mean, our axiom has always been, we always took our work seriously and never took ourselves seriously. And so we really don't take each other seriously.

I love that. Maybe that's why you're just, you know, there is no way. You can never have a full chest with each other. You just, you always got to be, you always got to be ready for the insult. A little cut here and a cut there. I like that. My wife told me that she thought it was really weird when she first met me, but the weirdness was also funny. And she liked that part.

I think she was attracted to the humor, not to my fading hairline at that time. It kind of reminds me of like misconceptions. Do you think there's misconceptions about you? Well, I'll tell you, there might have been only because, I mean, the thread, Daniel, for my entire career was, you know, I was chasing other people's stories. I was always looking at events. It was never about me. when I did the talk show, it was about the guests, about their stories. I was never able to kind of reveal myself.

And so with the podcast, it's great. I mean, I feel unchained. I can, if I talk to a guest, for instance, about them being fired at some point, I say, well, let me tell you about when I was fired. Let me tell you about the list of guys who I didn't get along with, who were my general managers at various stations, and I had a list, you know, a revenge list and things like that. And so they said, well, did you ever get revenge?

And I said, well, believe it or not, every single time, I had about five people on the list. I said, every single time, you know, I was looking for revenge. At one point or another, they all got fired and I felt sorry for them. I was so mad that I felt sorry for them instead of seeking revenge. because I just, you know, I just know what it's like to be fired. It's not pretty. I've been fired. And you know, the last time I got fired, my manager who fired me also got fired like a day after I got fired. But it was the best thing ever. Honestly, it was I was miserable anyways. So you obviously have a lot of wisdom. And I'm sure you've gotten to me and I've heard

some great stories about the people that you've met in your life. But is there anyone who you've met doing this podcast, or is there something that you're looking to take away or learn from these people? Some of the most successful podcasts we've done are with comedians. And I'm just fascinated by comedians because I think when you take a look at their work, you're taking a look at the present around the world or in our country, what the present is like. I think comedians reflect that more than anything else. And what I'm so excited about is, in my younger days,

I was very lucky to have interviewed people like George Carlin and Richard Pryor and Mel Brooks and Don Rickles. That was my generation of comedy. And now I have all these kind of youngish comics in their 30s and early 40s, like Josh Johnson and Adam Friedland and Dan Soder and Mark Norman. And next week I'm going to, I just interviewed him. He's very, very funny. Yannis Pappas. So I mean all these young guys, young to me 30s, Leanne Morgan, a little older, I think it's fascinating to kind of

Look at the world through their eyes and how they perform. We have a Josh Johnson who can go two minutes. I've compared him to George Carlin. He can go two minutes telling a story without a laugh. And he's fine with that. And yet a guy like Mark Norman, I mean, he's a machine gun. And so I'm fascinated with the various ways they get their comedy across.

I mean, it almost saddens me that you said they're in their 30s and they're younger and they're in their 30s and they're also younger than me because I see myself as 20. I don't know. But when you talked about some legends, I've always been obsessed with comedy. It was really my way to escape reality. So all those people, I've loved all the things that they've done. Is there a time where you met one of them something interesting? I don't know. Maybe you heard something you discuss. I'll tell you. Mel Brooks was great. I was doing a talk show in Philadelphia. I was anchoring and doing a talk show called People Are Talking. And so Mel, I think, is coming, maybe one of his movies or something. This is early 80s. So he comes on the show. And he's so funny. He's so, so funny. And so, I said, so what do you do, Mel? Oh, what do you do for your off time? What? What? What do he did? I play tennis. Well, you really? Do you play tennis? Oh, yeah, we go to Murv's house. Murph, Griffith. We go to Murph, the four of us. I said, well, who's there?

He says, well, it's me and Corman and Dom Deloese and Murph. And we all play, and that's what we do. And I said, you play, yeah, three times a week. I said, oh, I don't believe it. He says, let's get him on the phone. So now I got Deloise and Corman. and Verve on the phone with Mel on my local talk show in Philadelphia, and it's hilarious.

Spaceballs was one of my favorite movies. I can recite so many lines, but no one ever knows what I'm talking about, sadly. I heard they're going to make another one. I don't know if they ever will, but... One I remember more than any is Blazing Saddles, because I had this... I had this... my son, who is now... 30 something, 30, whatever.

And when he's four or five years old, I put blazing saddles on. And it's the first time he ever laughed at a movie at the fireside scene when everybody is farting. My four-year-old starts laughing crazily because he's hearing all these farts at the campfire scene with the beans.

I remember that, too, by the way. I love that movie. Why do you think farts are so funny? I don't know what is it because it just seems like it doesn't matter. I think if you went back 200 years and you farted, people thought it was funny then. Yeah, it is. And worse, the most amazing thing is you can be 80 or you could be five.

And it's the same reaction. Like there could be a show of just people farting. Like the whole goal like you talk. Like we could have a serious conversation, but we're just like also passing. and gas, but you can't laugh. That would be a good episode, by the way. Yeah, that would.

Yeah, I'd like that. You could take that and you don't have to give me credit. I heard that you love Montana. And you love Montana, but you love golf. And then you also love your show on par. I went to Montana a few times. My sister went to college there. Where?

Missoula or Bozeman. Bozeman. So we went out there. Montana State. Montana State. I was like, wow, the sky is so big. And then my wife and I went there during COVID on a few different road trips.

What do you love about Montana? Well, I have to differentiate myself and all the people, all the kind of rich people who moved to Montana during COVID wanted to get out of these cities. And they went down there near Bozeman and south central Montana and built these big homes.

which I don't understand, in a gated community. You can't say gated community and Montana. I mean, just can't do that. So this is what I'm proud of. We went to Montana 30 years ago, and we've been there that long. And we went not down there, but our place is near Glacier National Park,

way up high, you know, 50 minutes from Canada. And so, and we live on our own mountain. And it's my son, our son lives there. He owns a machine shop. And I, you know, I go miles before I see my neighbor. It's, if you wanna, if you wanna be very restive and you're craving for silence, that's the way to do it.

it. By the way, see, not only are you a pioneer in TV, you're also a pioneer of Montana. When you, do you love silence, you know, recharging, or do you love more being around people, being more extroverted? No. You know, one of the reasons why I like golf is that even though you're playing with people, there's a sense of solitude. First of all, you have nothing, you have no one blame or praise than yourself when you're playing golf. I mean, I've always, one of the reasons why I like golf is, if I'm playing with someone, I can tell you in 18 holes whether I want to be with this person again,

because every single morsel of your character will come out on a golf course. All the demons, all the niceness, all the good, all the bad, or the ugly will be reflected in 18 holes of golf. And I can tell you whether I want to be with these people again as to how they demonstrate themselves during that rounds. Wow. I've only played like Happy Gilmore type golf.

I've never done anything serious. But I think I need to. Do you not to get too serious, but is there anything that scares you? If I was broke, I'd be scared. My family grew up, we were, I guess we were called middle class, but there wasn't a lot of extra stuff going on in our lives. I mean, everything was done because everything that my father made was spent. There wasn't much of a cushion. And so I, believe it or not, when I first got my television jobs in like the mid-year-old,

mid-1960s, I said to myself, if I could make $50,000 a year for the rest of my life, boy, would I be happy? I mean, how unrealistic did that become? And so, I mean, that's the way we thought back then. Money, especially in the news business, we didn't make a lot of money. When I got married, my wife was making 10 times the amount of money I was. Did the feeling of not wanting to go back to that or maybe not wanting to have that for your future family, did this inspire you? Sure, absolutely. So I know you and your brother, David, from what I've read, were inseparable. Sadly, you know, you lost him a few years ago.

What memories or what do you think about? What's a special moment that comes to mind when you think about him? Well, I saluted him this year because he died at 87. And I wanted to be able to reach his age. So when I turned 87 this year, I said, David, here I am and I'm still here. And I know that you would love to see me right now at 87. My brother, we were a very fortunate family. My father was the sports writer for the Washington Post for 75 years.

And we grew up with me and my brother and my younger sister, my older brother, David, my younger sister, Lynn, and I was in the middle. And I swear to God, Daniel, I don't know if families are like this, but I always felt that my brother was the most favored kid in the family. My brother thought that my sister was the most favored kid in the family. and my sister thought that I was the most favored kid in the family. So that's how we grew up. I mean, we kind of grew up as equals.

But my brother, who ended up being one of the really great lawyers in the world, my brother was my hero. I was known growing up as Me Too Poich, because everything my brother did, I said to my parents, me too, me too. I want to do everything my brother did. and the most fortunate part about it is as I got as an adult got more successful and did all these things my brother thought that I was his hero and I just couldn't I mean I thought that was the nicest thing

anybody has ever said to me that my brother who I looked up to all of my life thought that I was his hero in later years. And I, I, I, I can even tear up about that. How special. It reminds me, so my dad's brother just passed away, but the same thing, my dad is going to be nearing his age. And he said the same, he's the same thing because his dad and my grandfather passed away at this exact same age.

So he, he always tells me when he talks to me on the phone, like, you know, as I'm nearing this age that seems to be the end. And I'm like, what a fascinating. So life is very fascinating, right? Like full circles. I was just going to say the one thing that my father forgot to tell us, and it's interesting. My father was the seventh of nine children, grew up in born in Baharbor, Maine, spent his youth in Bahar Harbor, and Bath, Maine. He was, he was, he was. He was, he, he was, he, he, was the last of his clan. Everybody had died before him, all of his brothers and sisters. He was the last. He was the last of my mother was one of nine. And so all of her people had gone. That generation always kept their grief inside them for some reason, never showing it. And I really

I really would have liked my father to teach me how to grieve because I now have to do it on my own and I don't, I have to, all I know is that with my brother and with my friends and with my parents, I grieve and I get very emotional about it, but I sure would have liked to have known how they did it. When you think of like your grandkids or, nephews, nieces, at some point, you're going to be Googled.

Someone's going to Google you one day. Maybe they watch your AI avatar talking to them. But what do you hope that they understand that maybe the internet and then maybe your AI avatar won't tell them about you? Well, first of all, my youngest grandchild is 20. So they've all gone, they've gone through the Mari show for years. they now watch the podcast. One of my grand nephews works on the podcast. My nephew, one of my nephews, believe it or not, was my director on the talk show for the last 10 years of the talk show.

So all of my grandkids now, they don't have to look me up. But I will say, I don't think I've told anybody this, Daniel. I get a call from the New York Times about four or five years ago. And this guy, who I find out later on is a terrific writer, is calling me because they want to write my obit. And I went, oh, wow, this is interesting. So I've spent the last couple of years talking to the New York Times about my obituary, which is written.

And the only thing I got very pissed off about was I finally asked the writer, how about can I see it? Can I see my obit? I would love to see my obit. We can't show you that. Are you kidding me? This is the New York Times. We don't show people what we write. I said, does that mean I'm going to have to read about it after I die? I said, yeah, that's the way it's going to be. That my obit's already. written. You know what I said to myself? Well, then if that's the case, let's have the funeral right now so that everybody can stand up and say all these things about me and I can listen. Do you think that with the journalism change, with the media change, obviously used to be you had to

work for a network, you had to write for a publication. You have this transition now where instead of people writing about and talking about like you said in the beginning now they're free they can they can leave those they can go on their own talk about whatever they want do a substack newsletter do a podcast do things on their own how do you see this change do you think people even gravitate towards those traditional or do you think everyone's going to say screw that i want to go off on my own i think journalism is in big trouble and i've felt that for a long time so does my wife uh it's tough to find the kind of journalism that not only we practiced, but we believe in. I interviewed Joy Reid on the podcast.

And she, I said, so what would you call your feelings about news? Do you think you're a journalist or do you think you're an opinionist? She gave me a comment that I felt was legit. She says, I'm an opinion journalist. I said, okay, a lot of us would think that that's kind of cross purposes, but that's okay. If that's where you want to feel, that's fine. I said, so what does that mean? She says, I give an opinion based on fact.

I said, okay, as long as your fact is right. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Like, I think about this a lot. Like, I'm glad you said opinionist. I've never heard that before. but I almost feel like most people sadly now have become opinionists and it's like we're forced to I mean social media now anyone can say their opinion and I'm like that's why I try to consume not a huge amount of content online because I get forced to listen to everyone's opinion instead of just

making my own a sum you know I give credit to one publication forget reading their editorial pages but I will tell you that the Wall Street journal, their news pages are as good as there is. They are very, very good. And they're very, and I don't think that they, I don't think any opinion or any slant is in their news reporting. You could take a look at their editorial page and that's different. But you take a look at their front page. That's a good front page. You know, my favorite social media platform is LinkedIn. I hope that one day you're on LinkedIn. I haven't seen you there yet. I'm not there. I feel like you should be, though. Really? I think you got to talk to your team. I think you got to get on LinkedIn.

I feel like this type of stuff would be great for LinkedIn, by the way. I don't know. I'm not a social media expert. But I did write this book with my wife, though. It's called unlimited possibilities. Oh, very good. How to live life. I believe in that. You know, that's what I'm going to ask you about. my final question. So unlimited possibilities is essentially breaking through barriers you didn't think possible. That's how we phrased it. I want to know what was an unlimited possibility moment for you in your life. I think the unlimited possibility came in 1986 when this wild Australian named Rupert Murdoch plucked me from the Channel 5 newsroom in Washington, D.C., and brought me to New York to do this.

crazy tabloid journalism show called A Current Affair and hooked me up with all these wild, crazy Australian producers and writers. And my whole world just exploded because everything I thought was new in the world of television news couldn't compare to the five years I did on that show. that show and it catapulted me into 31 years of talk and it was it was the funnest five years of my life and working with these guys I mean it was I mean we were just cowboys just riding out there doing everything in the world that no other news division was doing and within two or three years when we got so popular all of a sudden all the television news networks were doing the same stories we were the same stories they threw in the trash can three years before local tv to national

tv to the number one talk show on the planet to rewriting what it even means to be on tv creating reality tv before it even existed i mean what a like what a pioneer like what i never thought in 1993 when I'd watch your show, I'd be sitting here right now. That's the amazing thing about podcasts. And I love your show, by the way, on part. You interview really amazing. You interview a very diverse group of guests, like from all different industries, walks of life.

And they're sitting with a cross from Mori Poich. I like to understand what's going through their head. I have to ask one of that. That's one of the reasons why it's because in the old day, when I was doing local talk shows, nobody who knew who I was when they would come to town. Now, it doesn't matter who comes on. They all watch the show. They know, they think they know me.

Wow, I'm so honored to be. I said, no, it's, I've never, I've never been able. Only now am I on an equal level with all the guests I have. I'm amazed. You know, there's, there's really amazing. amazing humble people. You are incredibly humble and I appreciate that. Yesterday we had on the founder of Kind Bar, who is now like one of the leads on Shark Tank. And I have to say something I'm recognizing about the two of you is, and all we've had, we've amazing people like yourself,

you're always so humble. Like the most, the most successful people, really the pioneers of anything, I find are actually incredibly humble and kind people. Yeah, it's because we're just lucky to have gotten where we are. And we just feel fortunate. And I've never in my life thought that somebody owed me something. Never, ever had that thought in my life. Well, this has been great. I can't wait.

I hope everyone checks out the show. I know you got a lot going on. They can check out the social, but on far, it's incredible. Season 2, I can't wait. I'm excited for Ricky Lake. I started watching all your highlights. It was great. I'm hooked.

And thank you so much, by the way. I'm honored that I am sitting virtually across from you, and you're on our show today. So thank you for that. Thanks so much, Daniel. Nice to be with you.