George Kamel - Millionaires in Cars Getting Coffee With Mike Rowe

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app!     Mike Rowe is an Emmy Award-winning TV host, bestselling author, narrator, producer and the CEO of mikeroweWORKS Foundation—and this week, he's sitting shotgun in the Tesla. He opens up about his finances, gives behind-the-scenes insight on his new movie Something to Stand For, and more.  Next Steps  ▶️ Watch “Millionaires in Cards Getting Coffee With Dave Ramsey.”     📗 Order George Kamel’s new book, Breaking Free From Broke.’    🎥 Watch the trailer for Mike Rowe’s new movie, Something to Stand For.    🎙️ Listen to Mike Rowe’s podcast, The Way I Heard It, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.  Offers From Today's Sponsors  This episode is sponsored by Tello, a mobile service plan designed to save you money. Go to https://www.tello.com/George for $5 off your first month of Tello’s unlimited data plan.  This episode is sponsored by DeleteMe. 🔒 Remove your personal information from the web at http://joindeleteme.com/george and use code GEORGE for 20% off. 🙌     Listen to More From Ramsey Network  🎙️ The Ramsey Show    🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour  💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights  🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show  💡 The Rachel Cruze Show  💼 The Ken Coleman Show  📈 EntreLeadership  Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nine out of ten ideas pitched in Hollywood are so fundamentally bad that no amount of luck or talent can possibly turn them into anything other than the turds they were destined to be. I'm self-recllaimed frugal millionaire. I bet you're not as frugal as me. Are we going to do a frugal off right now? Like anything else, it takes on its own inertia. And once you get used to not possessing things, it becomes intoxicating. I was a sprimper and a saver and a hustler and a freelancer. And then dirty jobs came and it was a miscalculation.

It wasn't supposed to be a hit. So you've got a financial strategy from a fictitious character. What's up, guys? George Camel here. And today I'm super excited because I'm on my way to pick up the dirtiest man on TV, the one and only Mike Rowe. Mike is a writer, narrator, producer, recording artist, and the award-winning TV host, New York Times bestselling author, and the CEO of the Mike Rowe Works Foundation.

And his true calling, I think, is storytelling. He's going to share some stories today. as he joins me for another installment of Millionaires and Cars, getting coffee. We're going to talk about money, how he spends it, what he's frugal on, what he splurges on, his journey of bouncing back after losing almost everything, and his new film that takes him to the heart of Washington, D.C., and I watched it. It was so good.

So before I pick him up, I got a dirty job for you to do. Okay, not that dirty, really. Pretty clean, pretty easy. Just hit those like, subscribe, and share buttons as we get started. No hard hat required. All right, let's pick up Mike Row. Mike, welcome. Permission to enter?

Come on in. I know it's a little low for you. All right. I fit great. How are you doing? Tesla. What do you think? Well, this is so... So is this like a product placement thing?

Is this your actual car? No, I wish they sponsored me. This was just, you know, I'm a millennial tech nerd, and I thought, let's try this out. I don't even have a key, Mike. I'm going to be honest. I got to start it from the... Remote start failed. You know how to start an electric car.

Can you hotwire it? No, but if it were a combustion engine, I could overhaul the whole thing for you. This is... so nightmarish that I can't even get my own car. There's nowhere to put a key, Mike. It's a story of my life. It's what it is. Well, you know, it reminds me. I just watched something to stand for. Excellent. I'm glad you liked it. And you trying to start the Bronco is, this is my version. This is it. I don't know how to start the car. People have been tossing me the keys to vehicles. I have no business operating for the last 25 years. What do you do in that case? I started up and do my best. But like, you know your way around an engine, I imagine.

I flipped a bulldozer over once, too. Oh, you have no. You're just. You're just. You're just. You're swinging it. No, people point cameras and they're like, oh, he'll be fine. They see like a tan manly dude and they go, this guy, he'll figure it out. Of course he knows how to operate back up. But when they see me, they go, this guy can't start a Tesla to save his life. Yes, that is accurate. Are you into like

classic, are you a car collector at this point? I'll be honest with you, I don't collect anything. Are you a minimalist? I was for a long time, and then I finally broke down and bought a house. Oh, it's hard to be a minimalist with a house. What with all my money? Yes. So I

I had to do something with all my fast. You're like, where do I do with this? And the financial advisor said, I don't know. Put it in the house, Mike. No, I bought it. I spent most of my life. I mean, like, most of my professional life from, from 26 until 42, I didn't own anything. Because you were just so busy, you're, you know, traveling, filming.

You're like, why I own things? It's just more to manage. Yeah, I mean, I wasn't, like, raising a family. And I had clothing deals, like, with American Eagle. Yeah. and Eddie Bauer. And I was also working with a hotel chain. So I basically, I lived in hotels for about 10 years.

And I didn't own any clothes because I would just go to a new town. You just go to the... I have nothing. You stay in the hotel, you get the clothes, you move on with you. You were nomadic. My God, it was a simpler time, George. You were like a rich nomad. No, I didn't have any money then.

I had some. I had some. I was making money. But more importantly, I was working. whenever I felt like it. Oh, yes, that's a luxury in and of itself. Well, what happened to me was I was singing in the opera, like when I was in my early 20s,

and I auditioned for QVC one day, this home shopping thing. Yeah. And I got hired. I never should have been hired. I bet you sold the heck out of some products. I don't know what that stuff is in there, but boy, it's just nemo. I mean, QVC had 4,000 products in its inventory. And I didn't know what any of them were.

I was on in the middle of the night. That's how they trained you back then. They just put you on the air. In the middle of the night. And you would work your way up to a better slot, the prime time. Well, that was the promise. I never did. I stayed there at midnight to 6 a.m. for three years.

But then again, I didn't actually sell the products. What I did was my first night, I looked at the camera, and I was like, hi, folks. I'm Mike. I'm the new guy here. I don't know what this is. It's a health team infrared something. There's an 800 number on the screen. I said, if you call that number, ask for Marty.

He's sitting right in front of me. He's a producer. He'll put you through, and maybe you can tell me what the hell this thing does. That's amazing. So, you know, it's the middle of the night. So all these drunks and reprobates and, you know, people are sitting at home with nothing better to do. They start calling me. She's like, all right, the guy said to call.

I'll call. Yeah, I kind of turned it into a weird talk show. But the thing is, man, looking back, I learned everything. I needed to know about working in television, I learned at QVC because it's totally live. There's no set of second delay. If you can do that, you can do anything. Well, if you can fill eight minutes at a time talking about a product you've never seen before.

They're just like, all right, it's a pain relief thing. Well, they say, look, it's on you, right? So if you want to be prepped, come in two, three, four hours early, go through the stuff in the show, do your research. You are not interested in that. That wouldn't me, George. Wow. And here you are today.

QBC can't afford micro today. Actually, they did $9 billion last year. Oh my gosh. They can probably afford me. I take it back. Okay, Daddy Warbucks. But look, my point was, that crazy job made me really good at auditioning. And so when I decided to actually try and get into the business, I booked a lot of stuff.

Nothing really good. I wasn't looking for hits. I was just looking for, you know, something to do for. a week or two and then take a week or two off and then come back and do it again. That's a strong start. Well, you know, this segment is called Millionaires and Cars Getting Coffee. The idea is we talk to, you know, everyday millionaires, people with influence. How did you build the wealth and what are you doing today and kind of hearing the journey? And so I know you have an incredible story where you almost lost everything back in the day.

I actually did, yeah. And here you are today, you know, and you seem like a man of simple taste, high quality taste, but simple. Can I say that? Is that fair? Are you a millionaire? Yes. Here's the thing. I am, I'm self-reclaimed frugal millionaire.

I bet you not as frugal as me. Are we going to do a frugal off right now? I'll frugal. When's the last time you used a coupon? All right, you might be more frugal. So what are things that you're still like, I'm still frugal on this area? I refuse to spend X money on it. Okay, okay.

So I've never bought a new car in my life. Wow. I only bought the house. I'm living in now because I did have a financial advisor who said, look, you're just being an idiot. You're not being wise with this money. Right.

I'm a renter. I don't want to own anything. I never have. Do you see it as a burden to own things? It's just more to maintain and store and keep up with? I do. I think it was actually, Anthony Robbins said the more things you own, the more things own you.

And I believe that's true. Like anything else, it takes, on its own inertia. And once you get used to, like, not possessing things, it becomes intoxicating. Oh, yeah. So it's like the opposite of a collector. I went through a few years where I wore it like a badge of honor. You know, nothing. Nothing. It was your own pride in a different way. Yes. Yes, that's that's exact. Well, look, you can assign whatever level of meaning you want to assign to whatever topic. But there's minimalists who think I'm better than those who have things because I've learned to conquer the stuff. To be fair, that was me. I did lord it over people.

Like, ha, ha, you have all your stuff, I got nothing. You never catch me on hoarders. Am I better than everyone? It wasn't just with material things either. Like, after that whole QVC thing, when I realized I was a pretty good auditioner and I could book stuff, I had a lot of friends who were in the business and they were all swinging for the fences. Everybody swings for the fences in this industry, right? It's the only way I didn't make it, it seems. Well, everybody was like, look, I want to be famous, I want to have a hit. I want to do all these kinds of things. So they get the agent and then they get the manager and maybe they get a publicist

and maybe they have some success. But these blood suckers, George, these leeches, man. Who are the leeches? I mean, it's all the people who get paid a percentage of whatever it is you earn. And so I don't begrudge them. There's some wonderful people. That's how they make their living. That's how they make their living, and that's actually how the industry works.

But selling the infrared health team pain reliever in the middle of the night with the help of drunk viewers taught me a couple of things. And one of the big things was there's always a reverse commute, right? There has to be a way to work in Hollywood that doesn't require me to go to all the auditions and all of the traditional ways and hire all of the traditional ways. and hire all of the traditional representatives and do all of the traditional stuff. This doesn't speak well of me. That makes you so authentic. But when I look back at a lot of my friends

busting their butts trying to get a hit, I realized, my God, like nine out of ten ideas pitched in Hollywood are so fundamentally bad that no amount of luck or talent can possibly turn them into anything other than the turds they were destined to be. That's deep.

So I started looking not for good ideas. I started looking for ideas that were sure to fail. And then I would attach myself to them. I'd do the best I could. And therefore, I was never blamed for the failure of the pilot sitcom or the pilot talk shows that I did were the infomercials or the I touched everything like it was hot I avoided all encumbrances and I got paid for that and I saved all of my money and I invested it as wisely as I could and I didn't I never bought anything and I was happy and I was taking my retirement in early

installments oh like my favorite fictitious character Travis McGee made famous by John D. McDonald in 22 short mysteries. So you got a financial strategy from a fictitious character? Not just a financial strategy, a worldview and a business model. McGee lived on a houseboat and like soft crimes. He would take a case and he would keep half of whatever he recovered. He lives on a houseboat called the busted flush that he won with that very hand in a poker game. And he keeps his money hidden the way up in the bilge where nobody would ever think

to look. I think of all the things about that character that most appealed to me, it was the idea that you could take your retirement in advance, in installments. So he never thought of himself as a worker. He thought of himself as a retiree in his late 20s, early 30s, who would come out of his retirement from time to time. This is an encore career. That's right. This is just a thing he did to make money. He would go save people who had been condor or swindled. Wow. So you looked at retirement that same way and said, what if I could get it early in installments by paying myself? What was your strategy to pull this off? Well, again, align myself with people who will pay for my clothes, who will pay for my transportation. Cover the expenses.

Cover the expenses. Like, these gigs that I got, they weren't purely just freelance gigs. But there were shows with like 13 episodes of New York expeditions for PBS. 40 episodes of no relation for Dick Clark. Like, I was always in the middle of a project like that. And when you're doing a project like that, all your food's paid for, your clothes are paid for. You don't have time to even go spend money. Exactly. But the second it's done, you do.

And then you can decide, well... Is that what happens as people get that check and they go, oh boy. It's a famous story of, you know, Matt Damon, Goodwill hunting, and they went out and bought matching jeeps and they blew it all in this rental party house. and it was gone.

All the time, man. Have you seen that? You've seen the tail anyway. That's not going to be me early on. Oh, yeah. I was super lucky. My parents were very, very frugal. I mean, parsimonious, aggressive in their parsimony.

Just if they didn't spend unless they absolutely had to? Yes. My dad taught public school. My mom raised three boys, and we had no... Luxury was not a vocabulary. No, but neither was pity. And to be honest, neither was awareness. Like for the longest time, I thought we were upper middle class because we lived on a small farm.

And we had about eight acres attached to the house that wasn't really ours. The state technically owned it. And we had this amazing woods that was full of trails and wildlife. And, you know, for a kid with an overactive imagination. This is wealth. You have it all. My parents were genius at making us feel not envy. They actually made us feel pity for people who were wealthier than us.

Ooh. To go like those people are actually miserable. Like I remember neighbors coming over with photos of their trip to Yosemite, you know, and we sat down and like, oh God, that looks, that looks great. and pictures of all these things, the Branigans, they were bragging about all their vacations. They're bragging Brannigans.

And when they leave, you know, my mother, like my mother and my dad would always have these conversations as if they were just out of earshot of us. But they knew you could hear. They knew we were listening. And they'd say things like, gosh, isn't it a, isn't it too bad, John, my mom would say? Isn't it too bad that some people have to fly

all the way across the country just to see nature? Yeah, Pegg, it sure is. But you know, a lot of people don't have beautiful woods right behind their house full of the same basic. That's a genius parenting hack. I like that. I'm going to use it. All right, we'll get back to the conversation in just a second. Before that, let me tell you about the sponsor of today's episode, Telo. They're a mobile service provider designed to save you big money.

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episode. And while we're on it, let me tell you about another sponsor of today's episode. Delete me. I love what they do. They find and remove your data from these online data broker websites all over the web to keep you safe from online schemes. And they send you an easy-to-read report explaining exactly what they did and how much time they saved. And that to me is one of the most amazing digital dirty jobs I never want to do. So I'm very grateful for what they do. Give me amazing peace of mind. Helps me stay protected.

So go to join deleteme.com slash George. And they're going to give you an extra 20% off any of their plans just because I sent you there. How nice is that? Join delete me. dot com slash George or click the link in the description. All right, back to the conversation. Look, this is actually the coffee part of the show. George?

That's the one. Wait, are you the owner of Elroy? Oh my gosh, it's such an honor to meet you. I'm here with my friend. This is for my YouTube channel. This is Mike. Hi, Mike. How are you?

Your place looks familiar. Yeah, what are you going to do? He's got that face. Okay. Yeah, he's trying to get on TV, which is why he's on my YouTube channel. He's trying to make a name for himself. Oh, yeah, sarcasm. I'm a former musician, and I thought it would be fun if we sang a song.

together, but I don't, and you want this public domain, I think. Oh, yeah, which means, like, we're going, like, National Anthem, you know, America, I don't, I don't know all the words. I'm not, you don't know all the words to the National Anthem? I think I could nail that one, but you know how you get nervous when you're doing it in front, you've done it, I'm sure, in front of, you know, baseball stadiums. You ever get nervous, you're going to screw up a line just because of the pressure? That is something to think about, man. It's the most un-American thing is to botcha word. You mess up the words to the National Anthem. Yeah, that's a problem. But no, it's ever happened to me. Because truthfully, I don't, see,

sing it all that often. I'm sure you do every morning you wake up. It's like your alarm clock. Well, that's why I made a movie called Something to Stand for. Because we've forgotten. We forgot. It really was a movie that went, oh, that's what it's all about. Not the stuff you see in the media and the politicizing of,

these are the people that we need to be celebrating. These are the stories that make America what it is. I think so. As we become disconnected from our country and the history that made it what it is, it's not so different than being disconnected from, the farmers or from the, you know, the sewage workers, people who are out of sight and out of mind. So for me, that's kind of been the light motif for the last 25 years. These stories all came from a podcast I do called The Way I Heard it.

Amazing podcast. Go subscribe to that. And they were connected, really, in this case, by Independence Day. So I just stitched them together with the trip to the Capitol. because, you know, again, it's, I used to take field trips all the time when I was in high school. I don't know if they still do those anymore. But when I was a kid in Baltimore, yeah, we got on the big bus and we went to the Capitol, we saw the monuments, and we saw the statuary. And it was super cool.

And I hadn't been back in 50 years. So, you know, that's in the movie, too. What's cool is the reminder, you know, we obviously I talk about personal finance. There's a lot of woe as me and complaining in America. and if the president is in the inflation and the economy, and I'm going to move to a different country because it's getting so bad. And this movie just reminded me, no, this still is the greatest country out there.

There's nowhere else I'd rather be, and it still is the land of opportunity and freedom. And it's what you make of it. And I think part of the reason a lot of people might lose sight of that from time to time is because you have to travel the world to really see the United States for what it is. You know, you can't simply compare New York to California or Kentucky to Tennessee. Sure, opportunity varies. States are different.

But by and large, the idea of the country is what makes it unique. And it's just easy to forget. Yeah. I love it. But look, nobody wants a lecture. Jeez, nobody wants a sermon. So the movie, hopefully, in the same way Dirty Jobs did, entertains first and foremost. It tells a story.

Right. And that's my favorite part. So recommend everyone go check it out. You're going to love it. And you're watching YouTube. So, of course, you go watch something else. That's good for your brain. Yeah, I mean, but not until this is over.

Please watch the rest of this. The best is yet to come. I've got some popcorn lightning questions as we wrap here. Are you ready for it? That's the last thing you splurged on that you felt like, oh, wow, this is a big financial purchase for Mike that I wouldn't normally buy. I stayed in a really expensive hotel. Not long ago, but the $45 hamburger on the menu. Was it wag you and it had to be something crazy?

It was, but still, for me, I just, I can't get past it. Just thinking about your ancestors and your parents going, you spent $45 on a hamburger? Right, but, you know, here I am. And by the way, somebody else paid for it too. That helps. Right. And you were still upset that someone else paid $45 for a hamburger.

I'm in a $2,000 a night hotel room and I can't buy a $45. And it still hurts. Still hurts. I think it just goes to, though, look, you've got to assign, you get to choose, right? You get to choose what's valuable. For me, I was a sprimper and a saver and a hustler and a freelancer. And then dirty jobs came and it was a miscalculation. It wasn't supposed to be a hit.

It was supposed to be three, one-hour specials, a tribute to my granddad, who lived next to me on that little farm and who built the house I was born in without a blueprint, right? It was just a quick little thing for him. And I was just wrong about it. The first episode aired and we got thousands of letters from people, not saying, oh my God, that show was great or, oh, gosh, you're so funny or whatever. There were letters saying, wait do you see what my dad does. You think that's dirty? Way to see what my brother, my cousin, my uncle, my sister. Tell them their stories.

Exactly. And that was the moment. It became the community's show versus Mike's thing. And dude, let me tell you something, man. When you get out of your own way, like I realized in the first couple episodes of Dirty Jobs that I wasn't really a host. I was actually a guest. I wasn't really the producer. I turned everything over to the viewer and said, okay, fine.

You tell me where to go. And I was so sure I knew what I was. I was so certain. that I had the tiger by the tail and that I had figured it out. And I was wrong. And it was very, very humbling to crawl through a river of crap and realize that, yeah, yeah, you can work in TV, but not as a host. You're going to have to be a guest. And that, for me, like once I accepted that it's just not quite what you thought it was, but it's adjacent.

I mean, if there's a moral to the story, it's like, There's no shortcuts, man. Yeah. I wrote a song for Dirty Jobs. I wrote a lot of songs for Dirty Jobs. I wrote the theme song for Dirty Jobs. I did not know that. Now everyone who's got a job has got his dues to pay,

working for that paycheck and getting through the day. But if you're bored or otherwise inclined to be a slob, grab some boots and lose that suit and get a dirty job. Dirty jobs are everywhere. Just take a look around. Down the street or up the stairs or even underground. You don't need to borrow bag and you don't need to rob. All you got to do is get yourself a dirty job with me.

All you got to do is get yourself a dirty job. Once more. All you got to do is get yourself a dirty job. Can't script that kind of bull crap, brother. That is good content. All right. Hope you guys enjoyed that conversation. I know I did.

Thank you to Mike Rowe for taking. a break from his dirty life to join me in this relatively clean vehicle. Be sure to check out everything Mike is up to, especially his new film, something to stand for. It will put a little patriotic pep in your step, I guarantee it. And if you like this video, be sure to check out this next one to see what happened when I took Dave Ramsey for a spin, and he made me a cup of coffee for a change, and let me tell you, it was better than I deserve. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.