PBD Podcast - Mike Rowe | PBD Podcast | Ep. 206

Episode Date: November 19, 2022

In this episode, Patrick Bet-David is joined by "Dirty Jobs" Mike Rowe & Adam Sosnick to discuss the most DANGEROUS jobs he's ever done, the future of education and the college monopoly system.  TOPICS How Mike Rowe became the #1 personality on TV Top 10 most dangerous jobs in the world The concept of Altruism Why Mike Rowe never had kids The 'Mike Rowe Works' foundation Reaction to the FTX collapse Check out Pat's Top Udemy Courses here: https://bit.ly/3Aic5Yz PBD Podcast Episode 206. For more on The Mike Rowe Works Foundation: http://bit.ly/3gervqX Text: PODCAST to 310.340.1132 to get added to the distribution list Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller Your Next Five Moves (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pbdpodcast/support

Okay, so by the way, you know, for the folks that are still waiting, you're with us. Appreciate you. We thought this was not going to happen. This is the benefits of talent release form. Lawyers when they get involved, life gets more exciting. You sit there, you go back and forth, and I'm sure you loved that part of the game. You know what, man, I apologize. We're down here in Florida, my partner and I, we were at the, the Patriot Awards last night. That's right. And I've been wanting to hook up and do this show with you for years. But the schedule really is a hot mess and we got here.

And there's the release, right? And I mean, I've signed a thousand releases in my life. But the rule we have is I got to see it in advance, but we didn't see it. And so it's like, oh, we better read it. And then the rest of the story. So apologies for the slide. So in other words, a guy named Robert, it's gonna have a meeting afterwards.

We already had a meeting with Robert, but it's a great way to start his weekend. So when you say that comment on the podcast, he knows what's gonna happen. Never a good meeting. But listen, the fact that we're getting started would possibly, you know, maybe the greatest voice we have in America, and Adam said it best.

He says, you have a voice for radio, but you have a face for Hollywood with TV is what you said. He said, now you're making it awkward. And then you got to create it weird right after the gate. And welcome to the show. By the way, we've had a lot of different things that we've been talking about. Obviously, you're probably one of the most beloved TV personalities in America. And I would say it's hard to do

because people from left, right, and middle like you, and that's not an easy thing to do. When your messaging is hard work, dirty jobs, don't chase your passion. Some of the stuff that you say could piss off the other side, but they still like you. How are you so likable where people want to hear from you even though they disagree with you? That's an extraordinarily nice way to frame a really thoughtful question. Thank you. I don't really know, except to say that part of it has to do with optics. And, you know, I freelanced in this crazy

business for 20 years before dirty jobs became a thing. And when it became a thing, the optics of that show, at least in the first season, it was just feces from every species, right? I mean, most people in the country got to know me as a guy crawling through a sewer. And so they saw me literally covered in other people's crap with condoms stuck to my rubber suit as I attempted to do whatever the God awful job was. And so I think part of it was, well, whatever this guy has to say, whatever it is he's selling, whatever it is he wants me to think or believe or do,

he's covered with other people's crap. So, how full of crap can he really be? You know what I mean? It's like, there was so much baked in humility for that show. And I'm not saying it's because I'm a humble guy. I'm not frankly. In fact, for 20 years, I was impersonating a host and pretty good at it, you know, and in my world, you get paid based on your ability to create the illusion of competence and knowledge in short bursts. That's what hosts do.

Dirty jobs simply required me to stop doing that, take the pie in the face, let the person I was with be the expert and assume the role not of a host or an expert, but as as an avatar, as an apprentice, frankly. So that's the long answer to your question. I think people got to know me as a guy who came out of the gate saying, I don't know, could be wrong, who came out of the gate saying, I don't know, could be wrong, probably am. But here's what I think. And so I got a certain amount of permission as a result of that show to weigh in on things. Frankly, I'm really not that qualified to talk. How do you view people you disagree with, you know, for yourself? Like, if you, what is this, you just, I found this on to your point, Pat.

We're such a divided time in America today, right? I mean, possibly in definitely in our lifetime. And we talk about being a unifier versus being a divider. Sure. And we had this conversation yesterday and we were like, well, is he more right? Is he more left? And we, Pat looked into who's following you

and it was people all across the aisle, not even politically, just across the media spectrum, across everything Ellen and then Mike Hunkabee and all wide range. And here I just looked at this article, Mike Roe hits number one on top TV personality so I was like, meaning somehow you're a very beloved figure, you're not a divisive figure.

And I mean, I'm just looking at the stats here, brother. I mean, I say, my opinion, hey man, it's only internet. It's gotta be true. But look at that hair, by the way. That's true. Holy cow. That's amazing. Well, Mike, let me ask this.

Here's a question I wanted to ask. And I know this is really hard to get something like this to happen. But we're living in a time where the last two and a half years. If you want to talk about dividing conquer, you know, split the country, you know, Maga crowd hates the other side, the other side hates Maga crowd. Look at these Republicans, these Democrats, ProVax, anti-Vax. It's so much about, you know, I was on a flight the other day. Guy sitting next to me on the flight back from DC. The entire time he had his mask on,

in your mind, you already can say, this person voted for, you know, what kind of channel he watches, you can probably list 20 things this guy does. And then, you know, it's unfortunate, but we kind of are doing that. So for you, whether it's, I know you're an iron-ranked guy, I know you're a big reader, you quote philosophers,

you're a guy that was big on self-development, was the concept of how to win friends and influence people, a natural thing that you grew up with, or was it something your mom taught you, your dad taught you a book you read, how did that personality come about? To learn how to get along with people you disagree with? I, it was probably a little bit of all of it,

but your example is so insanely relatable. I mean, I sat next to a guy coming out here with two masks on, right? And when I sat down, he offered me a mask. And I said, hey, thank you, but I'm going to go ahead and, uh, and he had already warmed it up. I mean, he pulled it out and just pocket. Oh, it was extra. Not when he was wearing. No, okay. And so naturally, I offered him my underpants. No, I just said, Thank you. Um, but but I'm gonna, you know, I'm good. He said, okay. And I sat there,

and I thought, what do I say to him next? I mean, we're gonna spend six hours together. And it's not like we have to have a conversation, but to your point, I didn't see a mask. I saw a talisman. I saw an indicator of some other set of beliefs. So I stepped back from that and I said, well, wait a minute, is it just a mask? Is it something else? And then I thought, well, what if he doesn't feel well? What if he thinks he might be running a low grade fever? What if he's actually not scared, but trying to be as considerate as he possibly can to the people in this pressurized

aluminum tube that are about to defy the laws of gravity. And what if he's just offering me a mask, go, I might offer somebody a breathment if I had an extra one, you know what I mean? Now do I believe that's where he was coming from? Actually no, I don't. I think he was probably coming from where you think he was coming from. But I felt better thinking that I was sitting next to a guy who was concerned about me.

Optics. And then I just went on with my life. Yeah, you know. So look, you can assign any meaning to anything, whether it's a mask, or the release I just looked at for the first time, that I wasn't able to immediately sign because I wasn't sure what I was doing, right? And so in those moments where you're not quite sure what's happening, you either just

stick your head in the sand and go la la la and sign it and hope for the best. Or you put yourself in the other person's place and say, well, why would they, why would they ask me to sign this? Maybe they're worried that I'm going to bitch them up somewhere down the line by, by withholding a permission or something, right? And so it's all that. If you're, if you're able and willing and interested to look at the man behind the mask and ask yourself a slightly different question, then study after study shows you might not be an asshole. That's a that's a very good system to consider. So the next time I'm going to sit next to a person with a mask, I'm going to be asking myself and processing it that way. But you know the

whole thing with talent release form and why you maybe don't sign it or why we want people to sign it. I remember I'm a the Army and I'm a Hummer mechanic. When you have an ASVAB of 31, you don't, you don't, they typically don't put you as, am I so, the recruiter says, you can be infantry or Hummer mechanic choose. I said, I'll be a Hummer mechanic.

And I see next to this fan in the Hummer that I'm fixing, there's a sticker with warning sign on it that says don't put your finger in the fan while it's running. So I look at the guy, I'm like, what an idiot. Who would put a sticker like this on it? And Sergeant Braxton says, the only reason there's a sticker there is because some idiot

put a sticker there. They got sued, the army did, and then they said, we gotta put the sticker here do not put your finger here so for you and for us I mean you know we had a wonderful I'm just a delightful sweetheart of a guest on a podcast three weeks ago Gain and Antonio Brown and it was uh I'll go for you. Oh it was just you know the entire unbelievable from the beginning to the end last or, you know It's like like the Christmas morning when you wake up the feeling was very similar

But you know this is this is when you run a business for 21 years and you come in initially You're very naive and you're like man everybody wants me to make it and it get bigger like holy shit these low years one after another after another You got to be a little bit prepared for it. Anyways, that was very helpful. Look, couple things. So we got some stories I wanna go in because I like the way you process issues. We got, we wanna talk Musk with you, we wanna talk FTX with you, we wanna talk dirty jobs with you,

we wanna talk a few different things about economy with you. We wanna talk you, what's going on with Starbucks? I don't know if you're following this, you know, what happened with Starbucks with the Union thing? Yeah, yeah, the Union thing. I wanna talk about everything I'll sit here as long as you want to talk because I feel bad about that release crap

But one quick point to your point when you see a sign that says don't stick your finger in the fan It does something to your soul and it does something to the culture at large that's not good It's kind of like when you when you unpack something and you see this bag is not a toy. Yeah, right. It makes you crazy because you know that bag is not a toy. And in so many ways, that's happening all of the time right now. I think part of the problem with Black Lives Matter and that whole push and why it wrankled so many people is because we knew it. Millions and millions and millions of people know it. And so to be told it presupposes the fact that you don't know it. Now some people might not know it. Some people might think that bag is a frickin toy.

Some people might think that fan would be a fun thing to stick their tongue in or their finger in. Now these people, I don't know what to tell you about these people. They're going to be in for a rough time. But when we are surrounded and peppered with idiotic advice, platitudes, bromides, and all of that, I think it collectively lowers our IQ

and it worries me. Yeah, you know, at least Black Lives Matter was a noble cause where the founders used the money to put it into good charities and not buy houses and all. And you know that, I mean, it's just a noble, very noble, but I think before we get into all these stories, that was my signal because today's podcast is sponsored by Youtamy, let me give our sponsors a quick shout out.

We love Youtomy. I think it's a, when we go through companies we choose to bring in our sponsors. We vet them out. I love the product that they have. We went one time, you and I, to Utah. That was an event about online courses. They were there. We spent a bunch of time with their executives.

That's cool. They are the largest online education technology platform in the world. They have 50 million students, 70,000 instructors, 200,000 courses, 65 languages, 80% of Fortune 100 companies use Udemy to upscale their employees. A couple of things, one, to have an MBA course, I highly recommend to my son, both of my sons.

They wanna learn how to edit and make videos. I had them take a course on Udemy on how to edit and make videos. One of them is 10. The other is nine. They learned a 10-year-old and a nine-year-old learn how to edit videos, at least at the beginning as a beginner, but they took that course. Another one is a course that they have for digital media. If you're a sales person or running your own business, I highly recommend you check it out as well. Specifically at a time like this where we don't know what's going to happen with recession, some of the indicators are showing that unemployment

is gonna go high next year. We're seeing people getting laid off, left and right with a lot of these big companies. This is a great time and a great season for you to recreate yourself. And to have a holiday deal going on right now, perfect time with courses on sale for the holidays. Being part of IITAM and Family, you do get a discount.

So click on the link below to take any of these three courses or some other courses that might interest you. Tyler, let's put those link below in the chat and description, go there, take advantage of these courses. Fantastic. Okay, dirty jobs. I had the guys pull up two things. Top 10 most dangerous jobs and top 20 dirtiest jobs.

So let's, which one do you want to go for? Do you want to go dangerous? Because you did dirty a lot, right? Yes, sure. So let's go dangerous first. Okay, so apparently according to a study, OSHA, which I know you work very closely with, OSHA, the most dangerous job in America is fishing

and hunting workers. Okay, number two is logging workers. It tells you fatality. Look, fatal injury, 132 out of 100,000. It's pretty interesting, by the way, fishing and hunting. So logging workers in 91.7 out of 100,000, roofers, 47 out of 100,000 construction workers, 43.3 out of 100,000 aircraft pilot and flight engineers. 30, you know why that concerns me? If you put 34.3 out of 100,000, if the pilot is going down, doesn't he? Wait a minute. They're not flying alone. Maybe aircraft pilot and flight engineers

were listed as two most dangerous jobs in 2018, but have since dropped in terms of profession with the highest fatal injury rate, fatal accidents. And these profession commonly occur because of transportation incidents while commercial airplanes remain to be incredibly safe. The most dangerous aspect of their job is, oh, private aircraft. Correct. Wow.

And helicopter. Yes. Guys, that's a big number though. This is not commercial. This is not American Airlines. It's not You need to tell me this is 3.4 out of a thousand. I feel like every time I turn on the news a plane crash today And it just some dude in a field out there like I feel like that's how every day and you're introduced me to your friend to my private You're so funny. That's not a private private jets jets aren't such. It's a review. One man, two man playing every day. Refuse waste and recyclable material collectors,

structural iron and steel workers, delivery and truck drivers, number nine, underground mining machine operators, farmers and agricultural workers. So those are known as the toughest jobs. Here's my question for you. We can take this any angle we want, but I'd love to see if CNN has done a survey because I know they're all for equal opportunity

And MSNBC to find out what percentage of these dangerous jobs are being done by men versus women. What do you think since you're in this space? Well every single one of those jobs has been featured on dirty jobs most of them I think in the first two seasons. And, yeah, I'd say the overwhelming majority or a performer by men. Why do you think that is? Well, part of it has to do with inertia. You start doing a thing, then you do the thing again, and it gets easier and easier to keep doing the same thing.

That's always part of it. But personally, if you go back up to the first one, you're talking about basically hunting and gathering. I mean, that's what fishing hunting. You leave the cave, you find the creature, you hit it over the head, you drag the meat back to the cave, you eat what you kill, you feed your family, and your identity comes from tapped in to that basic primal thing, to some degree. And they awakened in an agenda.

They awakened in men. They reminded men in many, many cases, in my view, that that thing had not been arbitrage out of our species yet. And we show you again and again, men leaving the cave to hit the thing over the head to eat what they kill and bring the food back home, even in refuse workers. Even you can go down any job on that list. And most of the 300 jobs I did on dirty jobs. But what's interesting

about this list is the very, very first one. Fishing is a very first word up there, even before hunting. It's a very specific kind of hunting and it's a very specific activity. You know, they don't call it catching, right? It's fishing. There is no guarantee. It's interesting to be the most dangerous job. I was trying to sell dirty jobs in 2003 with no real success, and the network said, we do have something though that we're kind of curious about, which is crab fishing in the bearing sea. Would you be interested in exploring that? And I said, yeah, sure.

And they show me some footage, little boats, big water, cold. All right. And so I flew from San Francisco to Seattle, Seattle to Anchorage, Anchorage, one of those little planes that become a statistic down in the job number seven or eight there called Pan Air and they fly it to the middle of the illusion chain and you land at Dutch Harbor, Alaska. And you get off the plane and you check into what looks like it might have been a motel once upon a time. And then you get all one of these boats

and you start fishing. And then you realize what actual fishing really and truly is. 20, 30 foot seas temperatures that can swing 40 degrees in five minutes. You want to talk about danger. I actually thought this was a misprint. You'll love this. They, they, they gave me an actuarial chart before I went out on the boat. Three columns, injury rates, catastrophic injury rates, and mortality rates. Now I'm on this little pen air flight from Anchorage to Dutch and it's sporty, right? I got a bush pilot up there, and he's like saying, all right, folks, hang on, we're going to give... Whenever you're landing, and the pilot comes on and says, ah, you know what, let's give it a shot.

You can hear the sound of your sphincter slam shot, and you're just like, the pilot's going to give it a shot. Because like 40% of the flights that come into touch, they abort, they just turn back around and they land in Cold Bay or some other place because you're flying in between mountains and the wind is crazy. So I'm on this plane being up and down and back and forth

that I'm reading these actuarial charts. And I'm thinking somebody just fucking with me, this can't be true. What do you think the injury rate is for a man who works on a crab boat for a full season, which is about at that time in 2003, is six weeks, the injury rate, 20%, higher. 50.

Higher. 100%. Yeah, you're gonna get injured on the type are correct at them one. Yeah, 100% yeah That's why I don't do those kind of things. I stay here on podcasts and to be clear a couple of stitches Broken finger right a mild, you know contusion. You're gonna get knocked around for sure guaranteed catastrophic injury rate get knocked around. For sure. Guarantee. Catastrophic injury rate.

Eight percent. Wow. Six weeks. So yeah, an iron pot's going to slide across an icy desk and shatter your pelvis. All right. You know, she's your mic. You're going to lose an eye. You're you're you're going to dislocate an elbow. A helicopter is going to come again, flown by one of these poor bastards down in California.

Number seven, it's probably not gonna make it back. To drag your ass off the boat right to some hospital. They're eight percent, okay? The mortality rate, column three, is not even a percentage. They don't even give it a percentage number. One a week, One a week. Right. Now, one a week. So again, one person statistically is going to die every week

during the six week period of crab fishing on the bearing sea. Now, people who watch that show, which by the way, is now in its 20th season. Is it deadly as catch? This is deadly. This is the show I've been narrating from the, from the job. Yeah. They know you can't script the barring sea.

We don't, we know something bad is going to happen, but we don't know when. And in that first season, I spent six weeks up there. When I left, everybody I met, including me, had gotten injured. One of eight and ten were eight out of a hundred, eight percent, had gotten seriously hurt, and I went to six funerals. Wow. The actuarial chart in 2003 for injury rates and mortality rates on the

barring sea was not in fact an actuarial chart. It was a prophecy and it came true 100%. And when I got back to the States and talked to my friends at Discovery and we all looked at this footage, you know, we realized that the question you're asking is not so different than what do people want to watch? Like, what is satisfying curiosity really mean? What does discovery really mean? Is it limited to, you know, how the universe works and planet earth, or can we look at what

it means to leave the cave and bring home the meat? Like, is that actually a thing you can do on television? And when we saw that footage and we saw real men, most of whom, you know, the lower 48 doesn't know exist. I mean, nobody had ever gone up there with cameras before. Much less put them on a boat, much less get to know the decans and the green horns and the captains and live in the midst of that shit storm. Nobody even knew it was happening. The Pribil off islands. What are those? What do you mean you're a 50 miles off the coast of Russia

with 800 pound crab pots going over the rail. What do you mean you don't sleep for 48, 58, 70 hours at a time? What do you mean six people are gonna die in the next six weeks? Like all that stuff was unknown and then all of a sudden it was self-evident. And that show, in my view, is the granddaddy of the shows that answer the question

you're asking, which is, why do men do these jobs? Why do men watch these shows? Why do women watch these shows? You'd be amazed at the number of women watching, but what is it actually? I'd be curious. It's not quite half. Is it 70, 30? It's more like 60, 40. That's that's great. I think that's great. Not even, it's actually 55, 45 because women are intrigued by these type of men because I doubt they're watching it because they want to pursue that type of career. They're just, they want to see what a man has to deal with. What is the, the mindset of a women watching? So that's me going way out of my lane, bro.

Let's go there, baby. Let's go there. I'm gonna stay in my lane and look at it and say, I don't know, but I think when we see something that is undeniably true, it resonates with you regardless of your chromosome makeup. When I see women behaving in a way that strikes me as classically feminine, right?

I love that. That excites me. It makes sense to my brain in a way that- 100% right? But I feel the same way when I see men doing these things that lift them up in the species up. And I know that's not very correct right now. No, it is.

But it's real, bro. Yeah, well, I have one question for you. This is like the biggest question I had for Mike Row. Today, I mean, you just did an episode on this. I'm like, what it means to be a man today? Be a man's man, right? So when I think of Mike Row, I'm thinking, that's a man's man. I mean, he's doing dirty jobs. He's doing the deadliest catch. Like, he a man's man, right? So when I think of Mike Roe, I'm thinking that's a man's man.

He's doing dirty jobs, he's doing the deadliest catch, like he's doing some manly shit. All right, but at the same token, like I'm reading your bio, you were an opera singer, you're an actor, you were a writer, you were a TV host, you have these qualities that are, maybe more liberal arts-ish. Sure.

So there's a conversation. I should leave the most important part. The guy sold $100 million on QVC. That too. I mean, how do you salesmen? Yeah. But, you know, the conversation that we're having, you know, Pat just did an episode on this.

I have an entire show sort of dedicated to the role of a man in feminism and what the man bring home the bacon and all that. And we're seeing what's happening with transgender and the manner becoming softer and women are becoming stronger and boss babes and you can be a CEO and man, you can just kind of chop your dick off and be a female, like whatever not to go there, but.

No, you went there, man. Yeah, I went there. From Mike Rose perspective, what does it mean to be a man today? Well, for starters, we don't use words like chop and dick in the same sentence. We just don't do that. I agree. That's probably a job on your list too.

That sounds like a deadly catch right there. I think, you know, we're in a bobbin. I think two sides of the same coin is like an old adage that's important because coins are important and coins make sense to our brain because they're fundamental to our currency. But a head is different than a tail. In fact, sometimes we'll flip the damn thing in order to solve a disagreement. It's a very important metaphor, the coin.

But the head and the tail don't appear on the same side. And if you were to try to make it so, you would have a very confusing piece of currency. And you wouldn't quite know how to talk about it. Metaphorically, I'm not even sure what I'm trying to say. All right, right now is one of those moments on QVC where I would just keep making sounds, hoping that my brain would come up with a really great point.

I don't know. I don't know. It's, but what you're talking about, I think, is polarity. I'm thinking he's about to make a few points. I don't want to dismiss sometimes it works out, Patrick. And sometimes it's just a, it's a sinkhole. And for the next 15 minutes, you can get this United States government

proof set of coins. What you're talking about is polarity. And for you, I'm left duality duality. That's correct. That's right. Yin and Yang, son and moon, light and dark. You're talking about his polarity. I have him left. Duality. Duality. That's correct. That's right. Yin and Yang. Sun and Moon. Light and dark.

Black and white. This is duality. Polarity. That's right. Things are not the same. Heaven hell. Continue with your coin metaphor. Well, and thank God.

Thank God we have duality. Thank God there's polarity. Thank God we live in a world where the physical universe still demands that when the coin is flipped it's going to be one or the other. Now there are a lot of things that I hate about binary choices. Let's make a deal with always door number one, door number two, or door number three. And the existence of door number three is the thing that makes life interesting. The gray area.

That's right. It's the basis for our conversation. Door number three is always the basis for a conversation. But in matters of clarity, in matters of purpose, when we need to have a quick yes or no, then the flip of a coin is something we can still rely upon because heads are heads and tails are tails, right? And so there is, again, not to torture the metaphor, but to kind of land the plane, what you're asking goes to his question too.

That's why people watch Deadliest Catch. You can't know if it's going to be a head or a tail. You can't script if it's going to be a head or a tail. You can't script the bearing sea. You can, as a producer, have all sorts of ideas about what you want to do. And then a rogue wave comes out of nowhere and makes a fool out of you. Right? It's the same thing on dirty jobs. You can go into the sewer to do a job and all of a sudden you can find yourself subsumed in a chocolate tide of disappointment because something happened and look, the viewer

wants an unpredictable thing. We crave certainty, but what we really want is the uncertainty of not knowing. Is it going to be a header of tail? Is the rogue wave coming? Is Mike going to get a face full of crap in the sewer when the lateral explodes next to his head, which of course it's going to do? It always does, just a question of when. And so all these things come together.

And hopefully in the TV world, if you do your job right, you give people enough to feel certain about that they're comfortable to spend time with you, but enough uncertainty to keep you watching, because you don't really know. If it's gonna be a head or a tail. You just don't know. So, anyway, that's a long way. I appreciate that metaphor, and I actually think it's spot on. Pat, when you did the episode about being a man's man to being an alpha, you referenced the Scott Galloway NYU

professor, he was on Bill Maher, it was awesome. What was your takeaway from that? To what, make money have sex and work out, like those three things he talks about, Galway? Well, about young men today, about how like, young lonely men are the most dangerous men on the planet. Yeah.

Essentially, you're entire premise that you did in your episode. No, it's a great article. You know, I guess the question I would have for you is, with, how much did Iron Rand have an influence over you? Was it something you read very, very early on or no? I read Atlas Shrug when I was young. Yeah. How old is young? I was a teenager.

I was probably 18. I was probably 18 when I read it. Did you do a fountain head as well or was it more Atlas Shrug that I found that later? Okay. At the Shrug first. But who gave it to you? Was it a friend, the teacher, was it a parent? Was it a friend the teacher? Was it a parent? Was it a librarian a librarian gave librarian and what did she say to you when she gave it to you?

She was a woman who actually sort of eavesdropped on a conversation I was having with a friend of mine in The library and we were talking about is this embaltimore is this embaltimore? Okay, yeah, and we were talking about why is this in Baltimore? Is this in Baltimore? Okay. Yeah. And we were talking about why people do good things and selfishness and so forth and so on. And I used the word altruistic. And my friend wasn't familiar with the term. And the library came over and said, the librarian came over and said, look, if you're going

to talk about altruism, you should read this book. Because in it, the author essentially argues that altruism is a false god, and the real key to doing a selfless thing, a good thing is if it's in your interest, first and foremost. And I just thought the duality of that was super interesting. You know, when a mask comes down in one of those aircrafts on that list because suddenly there's danger, what do we told to do? No matter how much you care about the person next to you, the first thing you do is you put it on yourself.

You're of no use to them otherwise, right? That metaphor was really powerful in my life. And I saw it through her writings again and again. Now, at the time when you were talking about altruism, were you a believer of that or were you for the most, or were you kind of trying to figure yourself out? Were you okay? You're still trying to figure myself out. But I'm talking about more like philosophy in life. You know, do I go, am I gonna be a capitalist, or rich people bad?

You know, or, you know, should I be the one that I should give everything I have? What, who cares about being a millionaire? Are you going through that? Or you kind of already are a pretty driven self-sufficient type of a guy? I was, I was a little suspicious of who I thought I was becoming. I was in the Scouts as a kid. I was, I was a little suspicious of who I thought I was becoming. I was in the Scouts as a kid.

In fact, I was a... 79, what's the year? I think a... 79, and I know. 79 Eagle City, yeah. Yeah. So it's about the same time, right? I'm a senior in high school, and I had just done, do this Eagle Scout project, and a

lot of people were thanking me me and I was getting a lot of compliments for being a nice guy and doing this, doing good things. One of the things I did for my project back then was I read, I read to blind people at the Maryland School for the Blind. I'd read the newspapers, I'd read them famous classical works. And I also helped build a bridge over at the Blind School that my grandfather helped build with the Lions Club.

Anyhow, and I liked the way I felt when people congratulated me and thanked me for doing a good thing. But the truth is, for me, I had a weird stammer when I was a kid, a stutter, really. And I was very shy as a teenager. And part of what I did to try and get past that was just put myself in awkward situations and situations where I had to talk. So the truth is, my Eagle Scout project was really very selfish.

It was great training for me to read out loud, to people who couldn't see me, right? Wow. And so I did that for months after school, I would go there and they loved it. And I had a, once I got over this weird hitch in my voice, my voice changed early on, you know. So people always, I sound older. Like when I was 18, 19 years old, I sounded like I was 35 or 40. And so I was able to narrate

shows early on. And I was able to do a lot of things that I maybe otherwise couldn't have done. But my training really came reading the blind people, and I made a lot of progress doing that. The point is, that was rather selfish of me, really. I had to do a public service in order to check that box at that point in the scouting program. But the service I chose to do was one that benefited me enormously.

It also benefited the people who were listening. And so that's what appealed to me about Iron Rand. So when you read Atlas Shrug, is that where the whole concept of it's okay to be selfish? I mean, she wrote a book on purely beings. I think there is a book titled selfish. When you read Atlas Shrug, is that where the whole concept of, it's okay to be selfish? I mean, she wrote a book on purely beings. I think there is a book titled selfish, if I'm not mistaken, she wrote a bunch of different books.

It made you think what? It's okay for me to make decisions that make me happy. That's how I'm able to benefit other people. Is that kind of how you process it? It's exactly like that. I'm kind of interested. And how much do you think where we are today? You know, because when you, I don't know if you've watched your interviews with Phil Donig,

I can watch it on repeat. I mean, I just love the way she pushed back and she, you know, some of the arguments. She was a little bit weird herself. I went to the restaurant where she would go and write. It's a New Yorkist, a Russian tea restaurant. It was a Russian tea, right? I would say, I would say, take me to the table where she sat when she would write. She would sit right here. It's a New Yorkist, a Russian, he was Russian, he was Russian, right? I would say, take me to the table where she sat when she would write.

She would sit right here, so fantastic. I did the same thing to me at the Algonquin with Dorothy Parker, where she used to write all of her stuff. That's cool. Anyway, got it, so. Yeah, so I just kind of wanted to see, what was the wiring of this lady who wrote this book? And it's unfortunate that the movie was never properly made,

that was supposed to be made by the same folks that made the Godfather. So let me take this to a deal, because I'll tell you how she influenced me. When I read it, I thought about it and I said, man, what's the purpose of getting married? You know, and I know, you know, or one of our girls came in who was talking to you and she says, you know what I'm talking about,

Kelly, who is here, she says, he's with his wife. I said, I promise you, he's not with his wife. That could be his girlfriend, but it's not his wife, because he's never been married. And he's never had kids. So I'm sitting there at 27 years old.

And I've obviously had read this book early in my 20s. And I said, I'm like, what is the purpose of marriage? Do I really want to get married? My parents got a divorce twice to the same. They married each other and divorce twice. And I've never seen a successful marriage. Do I really want to deal with one guy I spoke to about marriage?

He had four kids and he says, you know, if you really want to deal with one guy I spoke to about marriage. He had four kids and he says, if you really want to be a billionaire and be super, super successful, if you are going to get married, get married to somebody who already has three kids. I said, what? I asked another guy. Now the people that get married and have family are the ones that have the highest chance of succeeding in business. Guys I would talk to were playboys.

Listen man, you don't want to deal with this. Just stay single and you can have a good time and later on in your life, if you want to have some kind of a campaign, you should do it. But here's a guy who's a stud of studs. You, Eagle Scout, got the voice, got the look, got the height, you know, is gone around the world.

You've done good for yourself. I am sure you've had tens of thousands of options to say yes What was your processing and I've read the articles on you to see what you know when you explain why you didn't But what was there a moment where you're like, yeah, I'm just not gonna do it. I don't think I want to get married and I want to have kids What was that conversation like Jesus that's a lot, man, but let me start by saying that again Jesus, that's a lot, man. But let me start by saying that, again, I think the first thing we said when we sat down was you can assign any meaning you want to anything that happens.

And so for me, I was surrounded by perfect examples of the institution working ideally. Never mind I, Narend. I mean, in general, I like a lot of what she said, and some of it I thought was crazy town. I just dismissed it. I've no problem taking, you know, the stuff that I think is useful in dismissing the things that don't work for me. But my mom and dad, in fact, when I leave here, I'm going up to Baltimore. They're celebrating their 60 second wedding anniversary tomorrow. Wow. The day after my dad turns 90, okay.

They've been in love for 63 years. That's crazy. Right? It's great. Now it gets crazier than that. I grew up in a little farm in northern Baltimore County and next to us was another couple, Carl and Thelma Noble. They happened to be my grandparents and they were madly in love

till the day they died. Is this the grandfather that influenced you to be an eagle scout and build a bridge? Same one? Okay, correct. And so I had a mom and dad who walked the walk and talked the talk. And so I knew exactly what that sort of marriage and relationship look like. And next door, I had this other example,

this beautiful marriage of these beautiful people. And so there was never any doubt in my mind that this is a great institution. I did have some doubts as to whether or not I could measure up. And so the meaning I assigned to it was, look, if it happens, it'll happen. If you're going to make it happen, if you're going to force it to happen,

because you're coming from some sort of place where it's been written in the stars that this is what y'all do, well, then you can make that happen too, but I just didn't want to. I just didn't want to force it. And so for a whole bunch of weird reasons, the various relationships I've had combined with the trajectory of my career, I really kind of stepped back from all of it and said, I'm not going to abdicate my responsibility in making choices, but I do not have a plan.

I'm not writing this down. This is not step one, step two, step three. I wanted to be conscious about what I was doing and about the choices I was making, but I also wanted to be a little bit of that feather in the beginning of forest gump. Just kind of like, well, let's see where it goes. Because to me, the world is big and interesting. And people who are certain about what they want to do and write books about how to achieve all of those things, that's cool, that's interesting. I and Rand did that.

Her whole, she created a philosophy about this whole thing. So, in the end, just decided I was gonna take my cue from the next day and play the cards I got as best I could. And it served me pretty well professionally. And personally, frankly. You don't think You know like sometimes we sit there and we're like, wow, you know What would have happened if I would have actually taken school seriously become a lawyer?

Well, you know, you're pretty good at debate kind of a lawyer. What'd you have been? Would you been running a law firm? Well, I know it kind of worked out for you. So stop talking about what if you would have done this Life's been okay with you getting into the insurance industry, which You know, you did okay there. if this what if that you seem like a very deep value Meaning of life Contribution understanding like you're the kind of guy that if we had dinner with I would just want to sit there You talk 99% of the time tell on stories. I'm probably gonna walk away learning so much from you There's a lot of depth, well look, depth in you and it's just felt.

It's not even like this isn't like a, you know, I'm complimenting to compliment. It's felt and I'm not the only one. It's very natural. It just comes out of you, right? Do you sit there and you say, you know, like, you know, the Jewish proverb, I'm sitting on it like, dude,

I just wanna, I just wanna, I'm the guy that goes to movies by myself and I enjoy it I'm telling you I do I would go to movies I'd say to my assistant I got an appointment to run okay and as you come what were you as I had an appointment Why do you have popcorn on your top? I don't know I don't appointment I told you I'm appointment and I would watch Movies with Anne and 85 year old woman at 10 o'clock in the morning. And these people would be lined up, hey Patrick, what are we gonna watch today?

I'm like, I don't know whatever. Let's just go sit there and watch a movie. So I enjoy my own company. But then I read this Jewish proverb, three things man should do. You know, plan to tree, which I haven't done yet, but very disappointing. Yeah.

Number two on the most dangerous Okay, yeah, like plant disease. I'm gonna stay away from that what he talks about when it falls on your house Right so plant a tree the other one is what right a book and then you know have a have a son right because it continues And you're able to do that do you sit down and you say man? I got so much to offer you know What would it look like and by the way you're living at a time where I'm sure you could have a kid or two or three. I think some people we know have kids in their mid 60s. Do you think about that and say, maybe, you know,

it'd be kind of cool, because at a time like this where we're seeing some troubled teenagers, what statistics of a bad father or not even a bad father, somebody that's not even in a picture, what that impact. What could a, you know, micrower race? Shit, I mean that kid is gonna be a positive, net positive to society. Do you think about that at all?

No, not much. Really? Not much. I used to a little bit, but you just can't know that. By the way, if you're sitting in the theater by yourself, you're not alone. You're there with the film. You're there with the people on the screen. And that can mean as much to you as you want it to. I get lost in movies.

I get lost in books. And I like being lost in those things because I don't like to be alone. I like to be by myself, but I like to be alone. So the movie is offul Metal Therapy, it's my first job, the first paycheck I ever got was a projectionist for United Artist. Actually, it was for an Usher, then it was for a concessionaire,

then it was for a cashier, then it was for a palatirist. I was still in high school. I started there when I was 17. And yeah, $2.10 minimum wage, 1978. But, I'm sorry, what was the other part? Oh, question about the fact that you sit there and say, Hey, you know, I'm going to want to show you the kid part, just purely the kid part. Now, by scholarships to weld and plumbing, steam fitting, pipe fitting, and so forth and so on.

I'm not saying that that's the same as having a kid. It's not even close. But I think the reason having a son is on that checklist that you just went down is because a man ought to be able to see the needle move, a man ought to be able to see an impact on another man, a boy. You know, you want to be able to make a difference. You want to think that your ideas and your beliefs and your words and your deeds can help shape something.

And so that is not something I'm willing to give up. But I really wonder, you know, I mean, Gerald Ford was adopted. The president of the United States had one of the worst fathers you could possibly have. And his mom, Dorothy, finally got out of there. And the paint salesman who married his mom, his name was Gerald Ford. He gave the boy his name. And he raised him like a man ought to raise a son. And if you ever read what what Gerald Ford went on to say about his adoptive father versus his actual father, then you're left with no choice, but to ask, what is the real relevance of the DNA?

What is the real impact? I mean, I just don't think there's ever... I don't think there's a better example of an easy thing juxtaposed with a hard thing. How easy is it to slip it in there? Have the kid. How easy is it to make a woman pregnant? And how hard is it to slip it in there, have the kid, how easy it is it to make a woman pregnant and how hard is it?

No question about how hard is it, right? For the next 18, 20, where you've asked my dad today, he'd say, yeah, man, he's still my dad, 60 years later, he's still being a dad. So yeah, having a kid, peace gay. Well, you know what, but that's coming from a guy, your shows are based on the hardest job and the dirtiest job, and I don't know a harder job or dirtier job than being a parent. You know, I don't know if they put that

at the top of the list, but no, I just thought about you and I'm like, you know, you know, there's certain people that you're like, dude, like, you're getting a little too much attention right now and you should not be a celebrity because you're bad for society. Dude, this guy should have 50 million followers. He's a talent, he would be a frickin' awesome net positive for society.

Now, I just think about it. I'm like, you know, because me at 27, I went to dinner one time at this one restaurant in Beverly Hills. This one, the top restaurants, I forgot the name of the waiter comes, extremely flamboyant personality, mid-50s, good looking guy, sharp joke stories, has been there for 30 years.

So I said, so what's this date all about? I said, well, you know, I think we has been different 30 years. So I said, so he said, so what's this date all about? I said, well, you know, I think we're at a phase right now we've been dating for about a year. I don't know if I want to get married or not. I'm sitting on my date. He says, you ever tell you my lesson? I said, what's that? He said, I got nine kids and I've never been married before.

Everybody that I got pregnant that has one of my kids, they sign a contract that I have zero responsibility for and they agreed to it. So why the hell would somebody do that with? You're like, you're not that you're a waiter. Like why would you? That's not a believable story. You know, I understand if somebody's a hell of a waiter. So as well, let me tell you, if you only knew on all the stories, just tell them, I'm like, I'm sitting there saying, I don't know. I don't know. I'm obviously people making packs in a different way, but I only asked that question for my own selfish reason

because when I was 27, I almost chose that route. Oh, me too. Oh, many, many, many close ones, very, very close, right? I mean, I never ruled it out. Till today. Is it done now? No, I'm, okay, cool. I don't still open on the agenda. I don't

worry. Let me just tell you our real our real sponsor today is Bumble and Tinder. We are announcing today that Mike Rose profile is official. Can you please put the link below. He gets 17,000 swipe right. I've got a question. So I'm sort of in the middle of all, like, Pats a father of four, okay? He was a former body builder, good looking guy, homer mechanic, you know, playboy, businessman, entrepreneur.

Now he's an amazing father, amazing husband. He's a leader, right? You have Tom, the biz doc over there. Two wonderful daughters. He's a, he's, he's a very similar age, right? Very good father. Pat tells the story of how every night he calls his wife and calls his kids and prays with them.

You know, I'm in a phase of my life. I'm in my early 40s where I've done the relationship things over and over and over again, whether I get married or not, especially to the government remains a question, whatever. I like women. But being a father is 100% on my agenda. Like I look at Pat's relationship with his kids, specifically Dylan. What a stud. He's what, nine years old, eight years old. Oh, I love this kid. My nephew, Rory, 10 years old. I love this kid. He's awesome my guy Fabian over here. Okay. He came in yesterday

If you did you meet Fabian's for you wrote? He likes on his that's my only concern. He likes what I need to see was having on It's will make it work that's I see I said Fabian like I understand you a little bit better now Like I look at someone like Bill Mar who, who's a definitely a mentor role model. I look at him especially politically and being a former comedian and offering insight and wisdom. I look at him and he's very selfish. We just talked about that with Iron Rand.

Be as selfish as you want, bro. I'm sure he's had a ton of women, smoked a ton of weed, done a ton of drugs, made a lot of people laugh. But for someone like Bill Maher, to not have that legacy, like a kid, and he seems very comfortable with that. Sure. I don't, like, I don't think I would be very comfortable

me not leaving the legacy of having a kid. That's very important to me. But like what you said about, well, I've, you know, uh, 1700 kids. And that was the moment I was like, ah, he's done something very unique that most men can't do. You know, they say like any man can be a father, but it takes a real man to be a dad, right? Like to be there and to be present. He was talking about, but you seem very, you're 60 years old, but you look great. But, you know, you're on the, the second half of life, so to speak, even though you look awesome. There's nothing in your DNA saying, all right.

Gotta pop one out. Like gotta have one in nothing. No, I mean, maybe something, but there's a lot of space between nothing and something, zero to one, right? Peter Teal, I mean, it's not, I'm hesitant to use words like nothing, never always. Paul, always, never, yeah. I just don't buy it.

But yeah, so I guess I'm a manby-ambi never say never guy in that space, but you know your earlier question I thought was was even better You know you mentioned the opera um And I only bring it up because I I think part of What's happening today is there's we don't do well with cognitive dissonance. And if you know me as the dirty jobs guy, and if you've seen me crawling through the sewers, and if you've seen Deadly sketch and it's all on it, and then you learn I sang in

the opera, you got a problem, right? It's like, wait a second, one of these things is not like the other. You're supposed to be the manly guy. Why are you singing in the opera bus? So if you were singing the opera, you know, so at end, you were on QVC for three years. So, so you're a salesman, which means you're an opportunist. And you sang in the opera, which means you're maybe super in touch with your feminists. And like, and so all of a sudden,

all of these things are on the page. And that page is under the light of some level of publicity and celebrity, and people start drumming their fingers I had a show on CNN for three years. I just presented an award last night at the Fox Patriot Awards I'll be on CNN next month promoting the return of 30 jobs and then I'll walk across the street and set out on Fox and talk about how America works on Fox business, right? So you know you you started off very kindly by talking about this weird space

that I'm occupying on the Venn diagrams that typically don't overlap. And I'm so grateful to be in that space, because it's hard to find it and no one wants you there. And the people from the old days who I sang with, the people who I did theater with, they look at this whole persona thing

and they're like, what? How did that happen? Right? And the people who know me best from my foundation and the people, you know, who I've, in the last 20 years, they can't reconcile what I did in my youth for money. I mean, I sold everything. I had every sales job there was.

If there was any performing job, I would try it. I got in the opera because I lost a bet. I got in QVC because I could talk about a pencil for eight minutes, right? I didn't want the job, but once I got it, that was a new bunch of cards to play. And I thought that was interesting. I'm not a trained singer, but they gave me a shot and I got a foot in the door. The opera was a world, Broadway was a world, sales is a world, the sewer is a world, the deck of a crab boat is a world, the flight deck on a plane is a world.

And the men and women who live in those worlds, they're more complicated than the one-dimensional identity we insist on handing them, right? We all have some weird opera thing in our past. And Adam, we all wonder, Jesus, am I really going to leave the world without leaving my mark on it? But I would say, is that rooted in just simply self-preservation? Is it rooted in selfishness? simply self-preservation? Is it rooted in selfishness? Is it rooted in altruism? Is it what the hell is it? Well, it doesn't come down to legacy at the end of the day.

So, yeah, but you're not in charge of your legacy. It's just like if you're in a theater watching a movie by yourself, you're not alone. We'll decide what your legacy is. Well, if I can give you a little pushback, I feel like you can control your legacy in the narrative. So for instance, when I started my whole social media escapade, I was a former nightlife guy in South Beach party guy.

I said, I gotta get out of this world. It's crazy. I'm gonna end up an alcoholic drunk drunk. I've seen it too many times. I got into the financial world. I started off as a cold caller, paid my dues, met Pat in the insurance space. I've been doing that for 15 years now,

made a bunch of money, had success, life's good, right? But five years ago, speaking of altruism, I had a selfish gene. I wanted to create a personal brand. And I started a show basically interviewing a lot of financial types of people about money. And basically specifically, what young people should understand about money. And I did, I mean when I tell you I did thousands of street interviews

from financial advisors and CPAs and state planners to college kids and people going to clubs and just party people. And I remember I was at this one event called the Hackerling a state planning. It's the top of the top of the top of the list. It's the 1% of the 1% advisers who go there and they're dealing with eyelids and trusts and irrevocable truck like the most heady boring stuff ever. And I'm not that guy. Like I'm like, talk to me like I'm a fifth grader. And I said, guys, let me ask you, you know, after you've done making the millions and the

billions and this and that, I said, what's next? And they said, well, let me ask you, you know, after you've done making the millions and the billions in this and that, I said, what's next? And they said, well, leaving a legacy. And that's while they're all doing philanthropic endeavors and starting charities and charitable funds, like you talked about the 1700 kids you've helped with your charity and all these people, they've already made an impact, they've already made the money, but they want to be intentional about leaving a legacy. But you can't, dude.

I'm telling you, I feel the same way. I can go down my list of attempts, hopes, dreams, and accomplishments, you know, not to get biblical on it, but those would be described as a pile of dirty rags. You know what I mean? We all do what we do and we do our best at it, but how I'm remembered, that's up to you. That's not up to me. How you're

remembered? It's kind of, I look at it like once the picture, let's go with the ball. It's truly out of his hands. So his legacy regarding that pitch really is more up to the batter than it was to him or it's up to the market. Well, both of you guys are making me think because the way I see it is, I fully agree with your point, but I also fully agree with you. I think it's kind of like you're the lawyer making a case for your life and the jury and the judge

you're saying, yeah, no, it wasn't okay life. It's just like, no, you know, it's kind of like, you know, that one of my favorite movies, The Judge, with Robert Downey Jr. where I'm Robert DeVal, oh my God. I watch that movie on one flight back to back, like literally back to back.

By yourself, from. By myself, and it was just a, it was a very, very, you. But I think that's what it is. I think a part of it is. Here's the other part. Here's what matters to me, I think. I believe this is what it matters to me the most.

So, you're a salesperson, you're a talent, you're a philosopher, you can be called seven different things is what you are. You're not one person or the other, right? You're creative. And, you know, I can sell myself, you know, you can sell yours, we all can sell ourselves. Once you learn how to communicate, I remember John Maxwell on the book says, you know, there's a, once you learn how to persuade, be very careful because you're one step away from knowing how to manipulate. You got to be very, very careful when you learn the art of persuasion. Fine. I can say whatever I say on that camera, I can say whatever I can say in the crowd here. We got, say, thousand people we're speaking to, say, we're at MGM Grand Arena annual,

I can't give a message. Then later on that night, when everybody's asleep and I'm sitting in the living room and nobody is there, no wife, no kids, no audience, no clients, no fans, no critics, nothing. If I'm 100% cool with the decisions I make, who gives a shit, but I better be 100%. I think that's the one part. I better be 100%. When's the last time you were 100%

um I was about kids uh Marriage you know always talk about marriage because you can't control the other person You don't know what's gonna happen with marriage we've been married now for 13 years going on on 14 years and I read on the second book we read a book called I called, I bought a book for on our second date. Second date, the book was called 101 Questions

to Ask Before We Get Engaged. Second date, I give this to her, at borders. And there used to be a borders. Week later, we go through the question at her place, six hours. And I'm sitting there saying, 60% chance this could work. I never said 100%. I'm being serious, I don't think you can say marriage 100% Yeah, because it's the other person

But forever that person is gonna be a partner of yours a wife of yours Or an ex partner or an ex wife or the mother or the father of your kids. There is a partnership still that happens, right? That part is a hundred percent could be an ex could be a wife could be a husband could be an X hundred percent Starting a business a hundred percent. I wasn't gonna choose the alternative. I couldn't do it. It's very very hard But it's not a lot of things that's a hundred percent just so you know and I would put the short list of man less than five That I would say a hundred percent short list of man less than five that I would say 100%. But you know what it is, here's the other part. The other part is say I make a decision

that I'm not a 100% about, but I'm by myself and I'm a guy that sleeps late. And I like to, I like thinking, I like sitting there and just kind of like processing issues, how could I have done this differently and I'm that guy. I'm the guy like, what do you mean sleep late?

Why I mean I I'm anyways, I what are you gonna do? We have different definitions of sleep sleep sleep in you mean no no no what I mean is I'm up when everybody's asleep And I'm gonna go to sleep late got no no, I'm a six hour guy before to six hour guys. Yeah, I Yeah, I thought you were saying you know, I'll just lay in bed to 11. No, that's not the opposite. That's what I was like holding more. Forgive my English guys. It's, yeah, I felt English as a good language. You go to bed late. I go to bed late.

That's sleep late. No, no, I go to bed late. Correct. I go to bed late. So I'm saying I'm thinking, I'm like, and you know, I'm a, grew up in a family of paranoia, Iran war some naturally paranoid, you know, you make investments, to investments, Iran, war, some naturally paranoid, you know, you make investments, investments,

you kid me, there's nothing 100%, right? You know, you're saying like, do we do the right decision here? Should, you know, do we do that? I'm that guy, right? You're constantly thinking, there's a certain things, a core values. I'm on 100% camp on, but it's not a lot of things, you know, it's not a lot of things. And it's tough, that's the part that's tough, you know, it's a a lot of things. It's not a lot of things. It's tough. That's the part that's tough. It's a part that's tough.

But again, if a person can sit there and say, I'm cool with my decisions, who gives a shit about all the other parts of it? If a person can sit there by themselves, and I'm totally fine with what I'm doing, no problem. But it's that battle of, you know, like for example, when you were saying something, I used to hang out with some Seattle Seahawk

back in the days. When I say Seattle, not Seattle Seahawk, Seattle Super Sonic. Super Sonic. You know, when you say Seattle Super Sonic, people have no clue what Seattle should. Sean can't bear it. Bole of Homa, Thunder, so, but it was back in the, saying, you know, you would look at the life and the party

and you're like, two, why the hell are you married? I don't think NBA players, NFL players, Hollywood, I don't think you should get married for a minute because what are you talking about? Like Tiger Woods, well, listen, you hear what Tiger Woods did? Yeah, but why don't you go become the greatest of all time and see what it's like to walk outside a Walmart. Go on and try it out.

Go do it. Go golf since two, three years old, have a perfect swing and then go to Costco tonight and then see what happens when you go to Costco. See what's thrown at you. When you go to Costco, the customer service throws, you know, towel out you and he goes to Costco, you get panties thrown at you if your name is Tiger Woods,

right? Go see what that life experience is called a dirty job Okay Costco, yeah, how that you're going to Costco. I'm going nightlife Point on this guy can't quote Costco, right? He's not allowed in Costco Tiger can't go to Costco Can't go anywhere the owner of Costco the manager of Costco is gonna say get out. We have protest outside, bro Yet, I we have some problems here, right? So, but the point is, you know, when you think about this stuff is, there are like, when you're saying, Oh, I

went in Alaska for six weeks and I'm really trying to see exactly what their job is like, what if you're outside of Russia and I'm here? Yeah, not a good idea to be married. If you're out there on the road, you know, military, I was in a military. I mean, such and such place for 18 months, haven't seen my wife for 18 months. It's probably not a good idea. Right. Yeah. It's probably not a good idea. So in that part, I totally see the argument if that's the job. There's a part of me that says, dude, you'd make one badass of a father, bro. You would make one B M F of a father. Like you would be, you'd be, you'd be God knows who you would race. God knows. God knows. You know, that's right. He knows. Okay, so let's transition away from

this and into other topics. Tom, you look like you want to say something. Yeah, you would talk next time. Honestly, let us speak next time when we're doing a podcast. Very good. Little bit too much interrupting this time. Next time, let us, next time, honestly, let us speak next time when we're doing a podcast. Very good. Little bit too much interrupting this time. Next time, let us, let us say some board. But go ahead. I'm warmed up inside and we're about it. You know, Mike, you talked a little bit about the foundation.

What I'd like to see is you have this incredible macrame that kind of was woven out through all of these steps that happened through your life. And at some point on there, obviously success brings financial enablement. You decided to do the foundation. And I'd love to understand the genesis of it, because the premise of it, I love. It's like, hey, your soul, go to college, get a good job.

But that's not necessarily the only product on the shelf that you can buy. You're being sold that product, but there is other alternatives in life, and you've dedicated yourself to building the foundation, to show people that, you know, through trade school and other things that you might be surprised that the local plumber makes 50 bucks an hour, right?

There's a lot of things that people don't know about it. I dedicated second half of my career teaching, and that's, you heard the phrase, bizzac, that's my alter ego, and I have a simple credo that says, you know, I'm the bizzac, and I hope I left you better than I found you. I don't know, I'm gonna try, but I just hope. But it doesn't make me better or worse if I don't.

I just hope that maybe I can apart something that gives you a hand and teaches you. What was the genesis moment? Obviously with some financial enablements so you could create a foundation that led to, you know what, I'm gonna put this foundation together because I got some messages and I've got some assistance so I can give these young men.

2008, dirty jobs is the number one show on discovery. Maybe the number one show on Discovery. Maybe, maybe the number one show on the network. Certainly on the network, maybe on cable. The show was 180 countries and I was doing great and everything, we'd been on five years and the country was going into a recession and it was shocking how quickly you guys will remember, how fast things crash.

September of October of August of August. That's well. So I started microworks on Labor Day of 2008 and I started it because we were on the road in those days, living in motel sixes and super eights and getting up every morning and, you know, I'd pick up the newspaper and I'd look at the headlines and it was just always, always, always unemployment numbers. It was always how many people are out of work. And I remember watching it go five, six, six, and a half, seven, and a half, eight, you know,

over 10 percent. On dirty jobs everywhere we went, I saw help wanted signs. And so something, something was happening in the country that nobody was talking about. And it had to do with what I thought at the time was a mismatch of skills. So you had 2.3 million jobs that people couldn't seem to hire for. And these jobs, by and large, didn't require a four-year degree.

They required training. And after these jobs, I would always go out and have a beer with the people that I worked with. And I always ask them the same question, and it was always the same answer. It was just, our single biggest challenge is finding people willing to show up early stay late and take a bite of the crap sandwich when it comes along, learn a skill that's in demand. We just can't find it. Couldn't find them five years ago.

Now it's virtually impossible. So the foundation started in a way, now that I think about it, for the same reason, I read to the blind. I wanted to do something good for somebody other than me, but I also wanted to benefit from it, to be completely honest. So it began as a PR campaign for what I believed were a couple million opportunities that

were going unloved, right? And so I wanted to talk about those opportunities. In the same way that dirty jobs was designed to shine a light on humans doing these kinds of jobs. I just wanted to look at the jobs themselves and say, hey, America, not for nothing, but right? These guys are killing it as plumbers. And here's how you do that. So it began as a PR campaign.

It took me to Congress a few times. We got some attention as a result of all that. And then some companies who were struggling with their own recruiting challenges came. And I started working with them because, you know, as, you know, a company is, it's, it's own least persuasive advocate. And a recruiting message is not so different than a marketing message. And the bullshit meter for people today is very, very high. And so companies do a really poor job by and large of making a case for themselves.

So I became somewhat useful to big companies in helping them tell the story of the opportunities that existed underneath their own umbrellas. And then it's sort of morphed into a trade resource center, fans of dirty jobs, helped me build an online resource that would just direct people to zip codes where these jobs existed and then we would attach things to that direction, like apprenticeship programs

that were available in other ways to get the necessary training and so forth. And then it was a scholarship fund. And I guess it was maybe 2012. I started to raise money for that. And we're modest by foundation standards, but we give away, we just gave away one and a half million dollars in work ethic scholarships. Modest stipends, right?

But they're not for kids who want to go to a four-year school. These are specifically for people who want to get trained for a skill that's actually in demand. And so we've been at it now 15 years. And what I learned along the way was this is making a difference in people's lives on a micro level, which is awesome. It's making a different micro's life, which is awesome.

But on a macro level, it is having an impact on the skills gap. And it is helping shape a broader conversation about the definition of a good job. And so we're about $7 million in now. And the biggest thing that's happened, Tom, that I didn't anticipate was that the stories I tell shifted from my own anecdotal experiences and suspicions and beliefs about what's going on

in the workforce to actual testimonies from a welder who five years ago we assisted who now owns three vans hired half a dozen people Heating air conditioning electric plumbing has a mechanical contracting company does a couple million dollars a year So it's this nexus of entrepreneurship nexus of entrepreneurship, a willingness to get your hands dirty, and understanding that opportunity might not look like the thing you were told it looks like. And all of that just kind of smeared together. And so for me, the great good fortune is that my foundation rhymes perfectly with my identity in the industry. Dirty jobs and how America works are the same basic show on two competitive networks,

justified by an underlying foundation that actually gives me permission to come on shows like yours and say, I think I think you can still read to the blind, dude, in a way that helps everyone, the reader and the listener. And that brings us back to Rand powerful. And it just brings us back to look, I, here's what I don't want any of your listeners to be confused by. I'm, it's tempting, really, really tempting to sit here and say, let me, let me tell you how I did it. Here was the plan. And here were my action steps. And here's my legacy that I've got my eye on, right?

None of that happened for me. It was simply put your head down, do the next job, get in the hole, crawl through the sewer, get on the crab boat, crawl up the bridge, meet the men, shake their hands, listen to their stories, let them be the expert, and then get out of the way. Go to another town, do it again. And in doing that again and again, and then talking to the woman you mentioned earlier, Mary, who's with me now, who's the only business partner I've ever had, never had an agent, never had a manager, never had a pub.

Really? How long has she been with you? 18 years. All right. So is that, is it just business partner? Is it, I mean, it's everything. Okay, good. Yeah. I mean, it's not that. Oh, okay. It's, I mean, it's everything. Okay, good. Yeah. I mean, it's not that. Oh, okay.

It's not that. But it's bigger than that. You know, Mary and I have a, we can communicate without talking. You know, she, she was running a really, well, a boutique law firm representing some really big clients. And she got a phone call from me, from a sewer. I negotiated my own deal with discovery, right? And in those days, I negotiated for failure

because my business model wasn't based on success at all. It was based on touch everything like a tot. I was a freelancer. I had a hundred jobs a year by and large. I wasn't looking for a hit. And so I shrewdly negotiated my own deal, which gave them the right to do whatever they wanted in the advent or in the event of success. Of course, there was no success. In my mind, there's no way anybody's going to watch this show. Anyhow, it blew up. And I needed help. So I found her.

And so yeah, she looks at a release and says, hey, have you thought about this? I said, oh, okay, maybe I should think more. We all need people like that. We had a guy, we had a guy on our team. I'm not going to say his name. We just had a transaction five months ago. We sold one of our insurance companies.

And we spent a few million dollars on legal fees, accounting, all this stuff just in the last six months. Anyways, so we're going through the process and I'm interviewing our attorney who we've used for the last six years, five years. We get a call from the other side attorney and they say, listen, man, we've never dealt with an attorney like this before. And I said, let me give him a call. This is not, we deal with a lot of attorneys. This guy is a ridiculous attorney. So I give him a call and we have a meeting together, our group on how to manage this guy moving forward.

I said, guys, we just have to realize, sometimes in life, be happy when the guy who's a pit bull is on your team. This guy's a pit bull. He's on our team. This guy's a pit bull, he's on our team. We're good. The weirdest guy, most meticulous, detailed, annoying S-hell for the opposition, but he got the things done in the contract that we needed it.

So when you find lawyers like that, 18 years, we feel the same way as well. We protect guys like that. Having said that, there's a guy that needs lawyers, right? I don't know if he has no this guy or not. Sam, Sam, Sam, Franklin, free. You know this guy's story or not? Are you following that story at all? How awesome that his last name has the word bank in it. Bankman free. Are you kidding me? Yeah. Yeah. You know about the paper that is mom wrote. Do you know the story that came out about the

paper that is mom wrote? So let me first read one of the stories of what happened. And we'll do a couple of stories here and then wrap it up. So at this point, there is go to page A, Tyler, if you can. So page eight, with a number of people, so more than a million creditors could be affected by the FTX fallout. And it's chapter 11 bankruptcy filing last week. FTX indicated that it had more than 100,000 creditors

claim in this case. In its updated filing on Tuesday, the company cited new estimates as set forth. In the debtors petitions, there are more than there are over 100,000 creditors in these chapter 11 cases. In fact, there could be more than 1 million creditors in these chapter 11 cases. The updated court filing says. Usually in such cases, debtors are required to provide a list with names and addresses

of the top 20 unsecured creditors. But given the large-scale FTX debts, the firm intends to provide a list of top 50 creditors by Friday. During the weekend, FTX was also hit by a hacking attack which resulted in a theft of $400 million worth of tokens. Just accidentally just happened this week. Random situation that obviously it's very random with this company. And now the lawsuit is tying in names like Brady, Steph Curry, Jezel, Shaq, and a bunch of other guys that are part of the lawsuit.

But the part that was interesting was the mom's article that she wrote for Stanford in 2013, San Bankman freights Professor Mother, penned 2013 essay, shredding philosophy of personal responsibility. So you can tell she's a big ironed person. If you want to go a little lower, go a little lower here to the article. So the mother's, I was a founder,

founder, former CEO of the new bankrupt FTAX company, Stanford Law Professor, Penn Day 2013 arguing that it is time for Americans to ditch the philosophy of personal responsibility. Well, trust me, your son ditched it. Barbara Fried, who just resigned from the Democratic Super PAC, mind the gap as the board of directors chairperson Penn Day 2013 essay in the Boston review title, Beyond Blame,

which argued in favor of harm reduction policies, like rehabilitation over incarceration, the philosophy person responsibility has ruined criminal justice and economic policy. It's time to move past blame. Public reactions to wrongdoings have been studied most extensively and the context of crime researchers have found that people, evaluations of serious wrongfulness very significantly cross social conditions and individuals. Tellingly the more information people have about the context of the crime, the person who committed it,

and the circumstances here she came from, the more nuanced are their views of moral responsibility. Yesterday, you're in Fox, I think the question was being asked. I don't know if it was yesterday, maybe like nine days ago, or so it could have been yesterday. And the question was asked about what's going on. And you said, listen, I just want us to follow the law. What is the law that we have? You know, if people are breaking the law, you know, we got to do

something about it. These guys are stealing and getting away with it. We ought to do something about it. What do you think about what's going on right now with FTX, where a guy whose company was valued at 32 billion when you raised $2 billion, net worth $16 billion takes the company from $32 to $0. There's nothing new under the sun. I mean, Enron, differences, Enron was in the energy space and we all knew that underneath all of this thing was the thing that we all desperately needed. It was energy, you know? What's under this thing? All I see is hope and faith and a notion that something is going to be worth more today than it was yesterday.

I don't understand what the asset is, really. So, you know, when there's nothing tangible to point to, you know, I mean, the thing about this story that interests me is, you know, what's Tom Brady thinking today? And what's Bill Clinton thinking, right? When you see that clip of him sitting there next to this guy in cargo shorts

who's clearly on the spectrum, just babbling nonsense. The number of credible people who sat next to this guy. That's David Rubinstein from Carlaw Group. He's gonna be on the podcast in a couple of weeks. Or $4 billion a guy's shit sitting there, not shitting there, he's sitting there with shorts. It's like, hey, what's up, David? Now look, on the one hand, to our earlier point,

I don't want my own cognitive dissonance to look at this guy and conclude that, you know, he's an asset because he's jittery and he wears shorts and he's got a funny haircut. Whatever. What's really going on? What's really under a collapse of a $32 billion company is beyond my pay grade other than a lot of people propped this guy up. A lot of people, for whatever reason,, a lot of people for whatever reason said,

yeah, him. Yeah, yeah, let's do that. And the next thing, you know, it's collapsing under its own weight. So I mean, it's a horrible thing to watch, but it's funny what you said about Fox. I was on there a month ago and they had a live audience and somebody asked me, what would you do if you were president? Like what, what one thing would you do? And, you know, it's a... That's the one.

Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, yeah. I said, well, for starters, let's enforce the laws on the books. Because if you don't do that, then this $32 billion story is going to actually rhyme really easily with the videotapes of smashing grabs all over the place. In the sense that we need to see a consequence for this. And when you don't see a consequence, you know, when you're shown a border that's clearly

insecure, when you're shown people falling from the sky during a withdrawal from a place like Afghanistan that was clearly botched, you know, when you can see clearly the fact of a thing and then you're told definitively that it's something else, then you really do have a level of cognitive dissonance. It goes way beyond, oh, the dirty jobs guy used to sing the opera. And it goes back to the very first thing we were talking about.

This bag is not a toy. Don't stick your finger in the fan. And you find yourself looking at the other people in the room going, are you kidding me? So you're really going to tell me not to stick my finger in a fan. Are you kidding me? You're really going to tell me that I should put my retirement money into a pension plan that's going to invest heavily in a company based on that guy. Really?

So for me, it all comes back to the absurdity of being told that the bag is not a toy. This kid, right, you're going to tell me with a straight face that this kid ought to be running a $32 billion company. You're going to print, all right, you're in charge of a newspaper, and you're going to print an article from a woman who says what we need in our country right now is less personal responsibility. That says his mom, this is mom, right? So look, things will fall into place, things will start to make sense, but the bigger question is,

what's the publisher thinking? What, who would print an article like that? Why would you do that? You mentioned that he's clearly on the spectrum? No, apparently. Like this is what you're, well, can you go to that picture with the shorts? This kid's been build up for years, 30 under 30, right?

So for me, one of the cues on being on the spectrum is like your ability or your inability to take social cues. Okay, so like you look at a picture like this, you're sitting down with a full on billionaire doing an interview for Bloomberg. All right, we're familiar with Mark Zuckerberg. He shows up in a T-shirt and what have you. He's built up a legitimate business.

Whether it's controversial now, we can have a whole discussion about. Here's this kid. Shows up looking like this. They just rolled up out of bed at what point in your life? Do you say, yep, I'm just gonna show up in sweatpants, cut off, sock slippers, frazzled hair. The amount of disrespect it takes to show up to an interview like this with a credible businessman. To me, it's like a telltale sign of course something was off.

Okay, like the Zuckerberg thing, I T-shirt, you know, that's, you know, silicon valley. But to try to pull off this look, not taking social care. Yeah, but he's, it's even, you want that from that. That's what your expectation of this guy is. He's not going to give it to you. This is not a guy that sees him. So dude, his girlfriend's father was the X SEC chairman. That there's so much stuff with this guy

that people don't even know about what he was tied to. Like the amount of protection this guy had. But know, but going back to it, you know, there's a picture of him. If you can pull up him with Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton on the same stage with this guy. I don't know if you've seen that picture. Now, that's really the... Yeah, yeah.

That's the weird one. That's when you see something like that. You're like, what the hell is going on here, right? I mean, I understand David Rubinstein, you want to come in and say, hey, I'm a bigger deal than you. Fine. That's Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. Look at the way he's dressed.

Yeah. I'm with you. That's my point. I'm totally with you. But disrespectful. But forget, let's forget that part. Let's just say, okay, fine. So this is your style.

No problem. Fine. The paper trail. Mom says, let's avoid personal responsibility It's interesting how you mentioned N Ron. You know who was one of our keynote speakers We I put up event together two months ago at the Diplomat and I a couple thousand entrepreneurs show up from around the world One of our keynote speakers was Andy fastow. Mm-hmm. You know Andy fastow

Anyways, the CFO of N Ron. I went to jail for eight years. Yeah, I brought him I'm ever I was like we still trying to figure out why you brought this guy here. I said, I want to keep you out of jail. Because he got up and he says, one year I was the CFL of the year. Next year, this is my ID to the jail I lived in for eight years. That's the opening speech, okay Andy Festa. But can you bring up that?

What is up? Yeah, can you, Demi, she was what? Yeah, I just read that a minute ago. Can you bring up the Instagram post of the comparison of this versus Lehman's brothers? Go back to the first slide. Go back all the way down to the first one. Okay, so billions of dollars seem to have disappeared

with the collapse of FTX. How does this even happen? Go to the next one. The collapse of FTX was vaporized. Billions of dollars and customers money are shaking a confidence of market that was already in thrones of a long and brutal downturn.

Okay, great. Go to the next one. Okay, there are some useful historical comparisons, but none paint a complete picture simply because crypto's values by nature derived purely from the specular opinions that the traders and investors willing to buy and sell. Okay, fine.

But watch this one here. Go to the next one. A big difference between the implosion of FTX and the downfall of Lehman brothers in 2008. It is shocking, Mike, when you see the stats, is that Lehman's brothers had more than $600 billion in assets that while partially liquid at the time were real assets and could be recovered.

In the aftermath of Lehman's collapse, it's 111,000 customers received, the $106 billion they were owed, and secured creditors received full payouts, sure Lehman brothers, equity investors were completely wiped out, you bought the stock. As will be the investors in FTX, but that's the risk equity investors assume

when they buy in, totally get it. I bought a stock, go to the next one. What can be said in the FTX, but that's the risk equity investors assume when they buy in. Totally get it. I bought a stock. Go to the next one. What can be said in the FTX customers will be made whole on the billions of dollars evaporated from accounts in part driven by customer funds being used with leverage by FTX, a sister company, Alameda, who he was dating the CEO, research to make up for losses by trading liquid tokens according to a report from Financial Times. FTX had less than $1 billion on liquid assets against $9 billion on liabilities

compared that to Lehman Brothers who went bankrupt with $6.39 billion in assets. $6.13, if you compare it to Lehman should have never gone out of business. They just tipped the scale. That's insane to me when you see this comparison, 6.13, if you compared it to Lima should have never gone out of business. They just tipped the scale. That's insane to me when you see this comparison time. It is. The comparisons are out there and consequences out there.

Like, today is a very telling day. We all know who Elizabeth Holmes is, the nice young lady who took nearly a billion dollars from investors in Pardo. There it is, was it? Yes, that's correct. And put a secretariat state on her board. Yes, that's correct. And put a secretariat state on the on her board. Yeah, that's right. Secretariat state knows a lot about making a medicine. And her playbook, remember she blamed, oh, it's my lover, my COO, sunny, balwani. Remember that? It was like 48

and she was like 26. And she had that in there. But today, today in superior right there in Santa Clara County, she's being sentenced today. Her sentencing hearing is today. It might be happening right now. And we are going to find out, is there another set of laws for people who are well connected and can lawyer up? Or is she going to get the sentencing that's due? And we've seen during the year?

Waiting for the sentencing she's had one child and then got pregnant again and there is a leak of people closer that said That was the plot to get married and then to have a child and a half In order to have some sort of an influence on the court as we come into the sentencing hearing True story. And you know who he's blaming. He's blaming his the article reads F.T.X. claims to be a releasing uncensored sex tape allegedly between the spray sandbankment freed and Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison soon. This is a story that's coming out. And he's blaming his ex lover for FTX collapse and 32 billion auto loss admits he lied

about being moral. Yeah, there's a label. That there's a script. And then you do this. And then you do this. We woke Westerners play. Here's a word he used. A dumb game, we woke Westerners play.

Got a lot of this guy. You just see, and you read about this guy, like, you know, I want, you know, a very inspirational type of a character. You're Maxwell, quote quote earlier, right? Once you figure out how to persuade, now you have to decide what you're gonna do. Are you gonna use your powers for good or evil, you know?

And Adam, when you start talking about, you know, a sign of disrespect, it's interesting because this Zuckerberg shows up in a t-shirt, and this guy shows up in cargo pants, and it doesn't quite land the same way, except that it did. I mean, look at Bill Clinton. Look at, is that Tony Blair, right?

Yes. I mean, former prime minister of the, there you go. Two of the most powerful men on the planet are sitting next to this guy. And they have to decide, you know, is he so incredibly comfortable in his own skin? Is he so amazingly authentic

that we're now feeling we're the establishment. We're stodgy. We're fake in our ridiculous suits and ties. This guy is the real deal. I guarantee you a lot of people who invested in him saw him as authentic and persuasive, precisely because he was disrespectful in the traditional way.

And I just, every single day, there's, in my life anyway, there's a moment where I have to, like, think about that. Last night, I presented an award at the Patriot Awards. And right up to the last minute, I couldn't decide if I should wear a tie. And I never really agonize over this stuff too much. But some people are in tuxedos. And then they're at the next table, or the guys from Duck Dynasty, and they got their beards in their flannel shirts, and they don't give a shit, right?

They don't care. And then, you know, it's just very hard to know in this world where people have a perception of you, how do you address? And when do you stop trying to fit in in that traditional sense? In the end, I put a tie on. Just because, you know, I just thought that was a smart thing to do.

And frankly, my shirt didn't fit great. I had a bunching up a little bit. But the point is, right now it's obvious. Right now, there's nothing authentic. Really, there's nothing impressive here, you know. But in the moment, with $32 billion behind behind you sold the caricature of the mad scientist Correct. I'll say one thing real quick for me this comes down to knowing the difference between right and wrong So you use the the coin analogy, right?

And you can be awkward and you know authentic and I'm just keeping it real and I'm showing up with shorts and cargo shorts What the sitting with a former president of the United States and former prime minister. Okay, cool But there's a track record here. Okay, the look the hair the shorts To me disrespectful not reading the room not just you know showing showing class All right, what he's accused of is commingling funds right And taking money from Alameda Capital, and using it to fund FTX, and whatever that was, there was clearly wrong doing it. Paul Fraud.

Fraud, okay, thank you. The dating of the CEO and that whole thing, and whether that was appropriate or not, this is why I asked you sort of the, on the spectrum thing, the thing you hear about the spectrum is that you're not taking social cues and you're just sort of disregarding social norms.

And their traditions and norms for a reason, right? And it just seems to me that, you know, he was hiding under the guise of, I'm the smartest guy in the room. Trust me, all this bitty bobs and better, and crypto and blockchain, like just trust me, I'm smarter than all of you. But behind the scenes, it's kind of almost like behind the curtain, the Wizard of Oz

or the Emperor has no clothes on, it turns out that he was actually just a fraudster and just completely being disrespectful. Here's what else is missing, right? I don't know exactly what that event was, but if those two guys were there, then there were a lot of other people there There was a lot of security there. There was a lot of money there Right every everything was there except somebody

in charge who had the balls to say Sam Not in that outfit, right, okay, it's called a dress code code. And we don't care what you've done or who you are, but it's as simple as a dress code. You know, there are many, many, many, many restaurants that you wouldn't be allowed to walk into dress like that. You really think you're going to sit down here with two of the most powerful men on the planet, you know, looking like a skater? No. You know, and guess what?

We just Googled you and it seems you can afford a jacket and tie. Go get one. Right. There was no one there to say it because saying that would have been about the most uncool thing in the world. So that guy doesn't have, he's not subjected to dress codes. He's not subjected to what you said, Tom, we're going to find out if the rules apply to his homes, all right? The rules don't apply to him. Not yet. They're about to, they're gonna.

Well, I mean, listen, again, it goes back to how certain people on how they race kids, I'm now not surprised when I read an article like that. When your mom says we gotta get away from personal responsibility, who else do you have left to impress in the world? You know, when your mom's like, don't worry about it, son, it's, you know, if my mom says this, I'm gonna do this. Anyone surprised? I'm not surprised. You know, the biggest

pushback I get from people today is the fact that the scholarship program we run is called a work ethics scholarship. And one of the things you have to do to apply is you have to sign a document called the sweat pledge, which I wrote 12 years ago. It stands for Skills and Work Ethnic, aren't taboo. Yeah, I had had some wine beforehand. And I was trying to articulate the basic principles that had been important to me growing up.

And it helped me achieve some measure of success, and the same principles that every employer I know, quietly craves in the workforce. And the pushback today is, work ethic has become a bad word. Personal responsibility has become a triggering word. A positive attitude. You start preaching that stuff become a bad word. Personal responsibility has become a triggering word. A positive attitude. You start preaching that stuff

then you're part of the patriarchy. You're part of the problem. You talk about the laid gratification. Well then you're just in the pocket of the man. So all of these traditional tropes have become weird targets today. And I just think that part of that's going on here too, for her to take it to the point that she's saying,

not only is personal responsibility, not the most important thing, but it's the enemy. It's so loud. So you, like Lockheed Martin of all companies, about a year ago came out with a statement that identified certain words is no longer appropriate to be used within their protocols, within their training materials and so forth.

Work ethic was on the list. Get out of here. Ambition was on the list. When you start to, right? And so the language is shifting under our feet. And Adam, you said it perfectly before. The Emperor has no clothes. This is the world we're living in right now, where we're being shown a thing that's crystal clear and we're being told that it's not there. And if you remember the end of Hans Christian's Anderson's great story, you know, it's not there. And if you remember, the end of Hans Christian's

Anderson's great story, it was a kid. It was a kid in the crowd who finally set out loud. The emperor has no clothes. That's what it's naked. Yeah, exactly. Okay, that's what it's naked. Hey, I don't know. And then people start to nod their heads.

Oh, that's more common. Right. But it's amazing how he was able to fool even the smartest people in the world. Everyone who was so used to traditional norms, traditional, what's the quote by Jim Kramer who's been wrong at a bunch of things lately? And though he's very entertaining.

Jim Kramer, JP Morgan of this generation is Sam Bankman-Free. Like, how do you not eat your word exactly? So it's like, he even fooled some of the smartest people. Cause they're like, oh, this is new. This is like totally different. Like, we gotta go with this. But that's the thing, right?

Right. The smart people want to be fooled. They want to be fooled. Except for Warren Buffett. What do you think about Elon Musk? I'm pro-musk, you know? I'm glad he's out in the world. I'm glad he's taking big swings, you know, I don't agree with him on everything, but he'll get us to Mars, you know, far as the electric cars and all the

other stuff beats me. I don't know. I'm a, I'm a classic energy guy. Personally, I don't think we have any hope. If we make fossil fuels, the enemy, I think there's great hope in exploring all kinds of alternatives. But I'm up to my neck in this conversation, you know, big time. Where are they? There are three billion people on this planet whose primary source of energy is burning wood and dung, three billion. China and India combined are opening a coal-fired plant every week and have plans to continue doing so for the next 30 years. So when I look at our energy policy, absolutely, explore and develop every alternative you can. But when we make energy,

when we make fossil fuels the enemy, good God, man. We're opening a Pandora's box that's gonna make this thing look like small potatoes. The dinosaurs had it coming. Let's use them up. They're making a great case for it though. And then anytime you, I mean, at this pace, I don't know if you are aware of this or not, based on what many scientists and congress women from New York are saying, we only have 12

more years left to live. Oh, Jesus. If you have, by the way, you know the two girls that threw tomatoes soup against Picasso painting, we had them on the podcast. No. No joke, just two weeks ago. Come on. No joke, I'm telling you live on the podcast. And I said, so tell me, what are you really afraid of?

It's like, what do you mean we're really afraid of? I said, you really believe you could, like what? I'm afraid I'm gonna lose the right to live a full life. I said, so I said so why do you think insurance companies are still insurance people, ensuring people saying you're gonna live to 95 years? So why do you think life insurance is getting cheaper? Don't you think these people who are smart people

would underwrite this and they're gonna die in 12 years? The other girl says, no, I think people are dying now. We may not see next year, and she's straight up serious. Yeah. The current educational system, you said something about college when you said, education, is it valuable?

Sure. Is it worth at any cost? Well, of course not. Right? Of course not. It's a cost for everything. Yeah, so it's interesting seeing how these kids are coming out of college and they're afraid that the world's coming cost for everything. Yeah, so it's interesting seeing how these kids are coming out of college and they're afraid

that the world's coming to an end. It makes a parent wonder if you want to send your kids to some of these institutions, because you may lose them if they go to some of these institutions. I'll tell you, it'd be a terrific guest for you. Michael Schellenberger, if you haven't talked to him already, he was on my podcast about two months ago. I love his Twitter feed. Oh, it's terrific, man.

It's so good. And... Tithy, quick and right. Yeah. And he was a couple minutes late to the podcast because he was watching a guy run on to the tennis court and lit his arm on fire during a Roger Federer thing and it was a climate activist who he described as

a climate narcissist, right? And he said, that's what's going on. If you're a person who glues their hand to the wall after throwing tomato soup on a priceless work of art, it doesn't matter why you did it or what your conscious explanation is for doing it. What you really want is to be looked at. You want to be seen. And that's unfortunately how we reward those people. You're not on a tennis court and light your arm on fire. You want to be seen.

And then you'll talk about whatever the cause of the day is. But it's his journey's extraordinary because he was, he was kind of a hippie. His parents were hippies and he was very, very much into the environmental movement and into the whole pushback against climate change. But he just got to the point where he began connecting dots and came to the conclusion that what's good for the climate was very bad for the environment. And he's looking at birds, millions of birds, not only being killed by windmills, but being killed by solar farms, calls him streamers, right?

In like Ivan Paul out in the desert, these large condors and eagles will be flying and the reflection coming off of the panels, they explode in mid-air, happens every day and they fall to the ground like fireworks. So he just went on an odyssey and came to the conclusion that the only sensible way out of this really is going to be nuclear. And the way to get to nuclear is going to be to help the world go through the hierarchical process of coal to gas, oil, and cleaner versions

of all of those things. And all of these things have to happen. He ran for governor. He only got a couple percent of the vote in California. But his journey's incredible. His TED talk is amazing. He's got his head screwed on in a really, really interesting way. And he's become a jagged little pill for that side because he's of them and he wants what he, he wants what we all want, you know,

a cleaner, safer, better planet. But, um, look, it's hard to, it's hard to argue with him. When he points to France and talks about, you know, 98% of the energy that they're generating, the electricity they're generating is nuclear. And a dirty little trick nobody wants to know about is the Chernobyl and three mile island reactors are seven generations back of the reactors, the small reactors that they have today, like in France, they're smaller. And they don't have to be right next to the ocean

to use one million gallons of pass through water a day. It's just amazing, and nobody seems to understand that. And it is actually clean, is actually efficient. It's not railroad cars full of rods that go on the death train and they're in the salt mines underneath Nevada. I'm gonna remember the Maxwell quote, more than anything else from today,

except for that release thing. But, but now, you know what? What, what you have your powers of persuasion? What are you gonna do with them? You know, what are you gonna do with them? have your powers of persuasion. What are you going to do with them? You know, what are you going to do with them? This guy is very persuasive. I love what he's doing. But I think you've talked about him before. And I want to say I follow him on Twitter because, you know, it was a topic of discussion we had about him. And I got curious. And I start to follow what he has to say. Interesting guy, but it has been a pleasure

to finally have you here on Link Up. Truly I've been looking forward to this for a long time. The conversation was unbelievable. I learned a lot from you and your journey and what you've done and the audience obviously loved it. How do we know they loved it? Based on, it's 100% fact. 100% because it's 100% fact. There's certain things in life, Mike, is 100%. I said it on the internet, Mike.

This is one of them. It's 100% fact. Good. But, uh, next time, next time we do a part two of this, I wanna coordinate a full day of our council meeting together. I want them to go to dinner together, lunch, bring all the paperwork, or once upon a time,

during the shooting as somebody's got to do it, the same exact thing happened. I was doing a story on a woman who had created us basically the perfect chicken. And we were going to meet her and talk to her about how all this breeding had had led to this perfect, perfect chicken that high-end restaurants were selling for 70 bucks a platter. And the farm that she had been leasing to, you know, raise these chickens was owned by

some menonites. And the production company had sent out the releases and, you know, everybody had signed them. But we didn't realize that her farm, the farm where we were gonna be shooting, was owned by these men and nights. And so we show up and we're ready to go, and we're like, oh, you know what, we need a location release, and the guy looks at it, he's like,

I would never sign something like this. Why would I ever sign something like this? And then my poor producers like, well, in order to be on TV, and they're like, why would I ever want something like that's in my poor producers like, well, you know, in an order to be on TV and there's like, what? Why would I ever want to be on TV? What's a TV? What are you even talking about? And so I finally step in.

I'm like, look, we're here to tell her story. She leases your land and she's raising her chickens. We think she's doing a cool thing and she says, I have no problem with that. Please, you're welcome. Be my guest. I'm like, thank you. It's just that, you know, we have to shove this nasty piece of paper up your ass, okay, because that's just

how the business works. And he's like, well, surely you understand that I would never, ever, under any circumstances, sign anything generated by anyone else, especially the last minute. And I looked at him, I was like, you know what, he's right. Why, why, we, we, we should have found a way to get to him earlier and sooner. And, and so I handed him a pen.

And I said, could you just jot down what you would be comfortable with? And he says, I, Josiah, Blankety, Blank, Blank, welcome you to my land and promise not to sue you. And he signed it. And I called the production company, so listen, we're either shooting or we're not. This guy just wants to shake my hand

and he wrote one sentence and he's like, read the sentence again and I read it and they're like, could you put it, I'm like, no dude, I can't put in anything, this is it. Yeah, this is it. So we shook hands and everything was fine. Got it, right? And so I'm not saying that dude, I can't put in anything. This is it. This is it. So we shook hands and everything was fine. Got it. And so I'm not saying that as some sort of weird metaphor

for what happened here, but it was a moment in time. That's cool. That's the story. I'll never forget. I'll never forget. So in other words, he was about influence on you. And he inspired you today. It's what I like.

I wouldn't be here without him. That's a bad saying. That's a bad saying. Hey, Gank, I'm sure you guys enjoyed it today. I wouldn't be here without him. That's a whole lot of handshake right there. Hey, Gank, I'm sure you guys enjoyed it today. Have a great weekend. We got a bunch of podcasts and stuff going on. Good.

You were going to say something next week. Next week we're doing podcast next week. Oh shoot. Next week we're doing a JFK special debate. Three people we have here that I'll be interviewing, that is a two or three, that they're gonna be talking about. One says the traditional story is right, the other says no. No, actually the hardest thing to find

with somebody that actually believes the traditional story. That's what I'm saying. One that's the hardest thing to do. Yeah, so it's gonna be a fun debate we'll have next week. And if we don't talk between now and the podcast, you missed next week for JFK. Have a happy Thanksgiving. Take care everybody.

Bye bye bye. And if we don't talk between now and the podcast you missed next week for JFK, have a happy Thanksgiving. Take care everybody. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.