Heroes in Business - Ross Shafer, Comedian, Host of Match Game, Speaker, Author 11 books “Rattled” most current

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

Ross Shafer, Comedian, Speaker, Author 11 books “Rattled” most current, Host of Match Game, The Late Show, etc. is interviewed by David Cogan host of the Heroes Show and founder of Eliances entrepreneur community.  

Up in the sky, look, it's captivating, it's energizing, it's Eliance's Heroes. Eliance's is the destination for entrepreneurs, investors, CEOs, inventors, leaders, celebrities, and startups, where our heroes in business align. Now, here's your host flying in, David Kogan, founder of Eliance's. That's right. And we've got another incredible morning with so much activity going on. I just am jumping, jumping up and down. Also, too, as always, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Keep the feedback coming. Keep the likes coming. Make sure you go and listen to the past interview which we've been getting a lot of comments on when i had on the founder of comedy central

so please make sure you go to alliances.com that's e-l-i-a-n-c-e-s.com because as you know it is the only the only the only place where entrepreneurs align. All right. So I'm excited about our next guest today. He's a comedian, speaker, author of not one, not five, not 10, 11 books. Rattled is the most current one. He's been the host of a variety of different shows, including the host of the match game. He was host of the late show and much more. Welcome to the show, Ross Schaefer. Hey, thanks, David. Appreciate having me on. All right. So I got to just tell you a little secret about me. My dream was always to be able to host one of these game shows and stuff. Tell me about what

that experience is so I could live through you in it. Well, it's the greatest gig ever because you tape five shows a day. You really, you tape a 20-minute show, then you change clothes, and now it's Tuesday. And that is just, it goes so quickly that you really only work about four or five hours, but you can knock out a lot of these because they're, they're a template and you have a continuing winners and losers to say goodbye to. So it was, I've done three of them. They're,

they're pretty, pretty cool to do. So what surprised you most of, I mean, it's, it's, it's such like a unique field. I mean,

when people came up to me and say, what do you do? A host of a game show. I mean, what, right. That in itself is pretty cool. What like surprised you and said, what do you do? A host of a game show. I mean, right? That in itself is pretty cool.

What surprised you most about being on the other side, behind the scenes, and being the host? You know what? I always was a fan as a viewer. But when you're in the studio hosting one of these shows, and in my case, I had six celebrity guests on the show as well, was just this overwhelming enthusiasm to want to play along. That's the key with game shows. It's got to be intriguing enough that people want to play along at home. And a lot of people pitch game shows. I worked for Mark Goodson, the Goodson-Todman dynasty,

and people would pitch him and he would stop them in the middle. He'd say, hey, hey, like I would say, hey, David, David, come on. If it takes longer to explain the game than to play the game, it's a bad game. So there's a lot of that kind of juxtaposing and jousting that went a long way. And Ross, though, it's a, it's a big responsibility because I mean, you basically, you're carrying it, right? You're, I mean, you're setting the pace. You're, you're, I mean, you're having to draw out, you know, to make sure people know and excited and all that. I mean, a lot of weight falls on you. How did you learn that skill? Well, practice. It was just simply practice. Before I got that show, I had worked in television for seven years as a talk show host. And, you know, from being a talk

show host that you've got to set the pace there and you've got to make sure that if your guest is boring, you know when to when to go to commercial or when to bring in the next guest or do something else to to shake it up. Because you and this is this was key to me. This was this was something I learned one thing from Johnny Carson, which is never try to be the best guest on your own show. And then I learned from other people who had hosted said, you know, you're going to be fine as long as you're the audience advocate. And that's when you have a television show, there's a tendency to want to be in charge. Game shows are a little different. The audience is in charge. The guests are in charge.

And it's up to the host then to make sure that they're having fun. We move the game along quickly and that we have a satisfying ending. The game shows have to create drama. That's kind of what's key for the home audience is how do we build the drama into this so they can't wait to see what's going to happen in the final ring of the bell, the final spin of the wheel. Right. Excellent. Excellent. And again, we have with us Ross Schaefer, comedian, speaker,

author of 11 books. And we're going to talk about now your latest book, Rattled. Talk to us about what rattled. Oh, look, Gabe. Look what I had right here. What a surprise. This is a magical incidence. I don't know how that could have happened. So Allison Dalvid and I wrote this book during the pandemic. We were all locked down and I saw people falling apart and Allison saw people falling apart. And when we compared each other's stories, we had stories of resilience when times were really tough because we're both entrepreneurs. Allison and I are both entrepreneurs and we were our own bosses, which is fun as you know, but it's also tough.

The responsibility of making sure that your bills are paid falls on you. Well, we thought that we should do during this period is write a book about our experiences. And we had 95 stories or something like that. And we culled it down to 30. And each one is a story of resilience. When we were knocked down, we both had really high levels of success and low valleys of failure. So we thought it might be helpful for people to see that this happens to everybody. So what are you going to do about it?

How will you come out on top when the catastrophe is over, the crisis is over? That's just, yeah. I mean, and so the motivation then, because I mean, it takes a lot of work to, to write a book. I mean, you know, 11 books. I never enjoy the process, David. Gosh. I mean, like seeing it when it's done, but boy, the process is a nail bite. Does it get any easier from doing, you know, again, from the first to the 11th with your latest book rattled? You know, the process, knowing the steps of the process gets easier, but no, writing the word and sentence and paragraph by itself is always a struggle.

And I would, if anybody's aspiring to do this, just write everything down. Do not edit yourself in the process. You have plenty of time to edit later. In fact, you should see all of your crap, all of your junk, all of your bad ideas all together and go, oh, wow, we don't need that. Let's scrap that. And we had to get down to around 40,000 words. We probably wrote 190,000 words, something like that. But when you get back and you can look at it from a distance, that's pretty obvious. Here's another tip for people who want to write books. Don't write the title first.

People want to do that. I have to have a title for this book. No, no, no. The book will evolve and the book will tell you what the title is. So don't worry about that just yet. In fact, Rattled had several titles along the way that in the end we thought, wow, these are terrible. Why don't we just see if we can get this down to one word? And that's where we got Rattled.

And again, Rattled. And you're listening, watching me, David Kogan, host of the Alliance's Hero Show. Make sure that you go to our guest's website, RossShafer.com. He's a comedian speaker. His latest book is Rattled. He's been host of The Match Game, The Late Show. In fact, Ross, you're studying prior to you coming on. I mean, you've been on like a gazillion things.

Talk to us about some of the things that maybe you remember most of shows, things that you've done, projects that you've been involved with, because it is a lot. David, do you want to hear about the bad ones or do you want to hear about the good ones? We want to hear about maybe a mix of both, but the mix of both. What is the ones that stood out most to you? I mean, you've done so much. It's like, you know, there's times when you go to bed and you think about, oh, I remember doing that. Why would that

have popped in your head? Yeah. Well, I think because it's really scary. I was a comedian for quite some time and it had some success in casinos and nightclubs and theaters and so forth. But then to take the leap from that to television was really scary. And I over-examine everything, but I always think there's a science to whatever the job is. So I was trying to detail what the science would be. And I got to the local level. Well, I wanted to be national. How does that happen?

And I had looked at a lot of TV shows. Oh, I was really arrogant when I was younger. Probably still a little. But I would look and look. I could do better than that. Joan Rivers had a show on the Fox network. And I would watch Joan every night. And I knew her as a comedian.

But I thought, yeah, man, you're not listening to your guests. You're not paying attention. I could do that so much better. And of course, I didn't. I'm working on local television in Seattle. Until a day came after they had exhausted every replacement for Joan. I had an agent. And the agent said, hey, they want to see you in California for

a test. I didn't even know they were looking. I didn't know they were a little guy in Seattle. What are you kidding me? Well, I went down and I scored so well on that initial audition in front of a real live audience that they offered me a contract right after the show. So that was a giant moment. I will always remember that moment of thinking, wow, wow. The testament is work really hard wherever you are. Somebody's paying attention. So somebody who says, I'd like to grow up and be a game show host like me, you know, but would like to. How does one even like get into those auditions or even get a break? Yeah, that's a really good question. You just have to, well, in my case, I had five years of local television, and then I had a number of years at the network level. And so I got on a short list, and I didn't know I was on the short list.

So there were five. I got the match made because former host Bert Conby died, and they still have, they ordered to do the show. And so four of us were chosen to go in and try out. That's how it happened for me. If I were to do it today on how do you get on a game show? I would create a web game show and build it like a regular show,

regular game show, watch a lot, watch as much game show TV as you can. So you get a rhythm, you get a pace, you see what the hosts are saying, what the host will say to a guest, and then do that on the web, create something original that you don't think is out there yet and see if you can attract a following. If you attract a following on the web,

Holly was going to call you. Excellent, excellent. You know, you talked about the one host that passed away and therefore it created a opportunity, right? That happened several times, actually. So if you knew you were going to be gone from this earth tomorrow and you were allowed to provide final advice to students coming out of school now into the world of working, right? What some say the reality, so to speak. What would that be with your wealth of experience? Yeah, I can make it very short, actually. We are taught that getting ahead is about connections. Getting ahead is about who you know. David, that could not be farther from the truth.

They might be able to get you an interview, but they can't guarantee any kind of success in your career. I think young people should understand that it's not about who you know. It's about who knows you. You've got to be so spectacular at one thing that you become the go-to person. And I don't care if it's television or engineering

or parks and recreation. It doesn't matter. If you're amazing at one thing, you will be noticed. You don't need people to open doors for you. It's better if you have the idea that I'm going to open my own doors. I'm going to be the category of one, as my friend Joe Calloway says. Well, excellent. Well, Ross, who knows you? Who's amazing? Be amazing. Worthy advice. You bring light to business. Keep them laughing. That's a hero. Ross Schaefer, comedian, speaker, author of 11 books. We may have you on again for the 12th, 13th, 14th.

Bring me back. Get his latest book, Rattled. Go to.com this has been david cogan with the alliance's hero show but ross you got to dance with me too all right here i'll dance excellent excellent