The Jordan Harbinger Show - 213: LeVar Burton | Storytelling the Enemies of Education Off

Episode Date: June 18, 2019

LeVar Burton (@levarburton) is an award-winning actor famous for iconic roles from Kunta Kinte in Roots to Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the host of long-running PBS series Reading Rainbow and the LeVar Burton Reads podcast. What We Discuss with LeVar Burton: How LeVar went from pursuing a vocation in the priesthood to acting in a miniseries that changed the national dialogue about slavery forever. What LeVar's Roots experience taught him about the power of television for education and engagement and how it paved the way for his involvement with Reading Rainbow. The questions LeVar asks parents who want their kids to read more. What it was like to act in Star Trek with the most expressive parts of his face covered and a head full of technobabble vocabulary. How LeVar avoided melting down in spite of international attention from an early age and what he's done to stay relevant over 40 years in show business. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/213 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Build Your Network with Travis Chappell is a podcast for aspiring professionals who want to grow their inner circle and sharpen their relationships. Listen here! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with my producer, Jason DeFillopo. Today's guest has 26 Emmys and a Peabody for Reading Rainbow. He was Kuntikinti and Roots. He was Jordi LaForge on Star Trek and is a legit cultural icon. Today we're talking to my man, aka the black Mr. Rogers, LeVar Burton. I wanted to find out why, despite early success, LeVar never had a Hollywood meltdown. He had the right kind of people around him and will learn how we can do the same. This is a tale of self-almost sabotage.

Is that a term? Self-sabotage, hustle, resilience, grit, and it's a story of someone who has probably influenced almost every single person listening to the Jordan Harbinger show. This was such a fun conversation today. I know you're going to love it.

And I met LeVar through my network where two degrees of separation. I'm teaching you how to do all that network and stuff. You know, reach out to people, stay in touch with them, offer value, get them to know, like, and trust you so that you can help each other out throughout the rest of your life. You know, that sort of small, game-changing set of habits that

has totally transformed my life and my business. That's a free course, six-minute networking. It's at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course, and I would love to hear what you think about it and how it changes your life as well. In the meantime, here's LeVar Burton. When people come up and see you, do you ever go, okay, this person probably recognizes me from Star Trek, but that person recognizes me from reading Rainbow? I've developed a sort of radar, and I can pretty much, Peg it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Someone's like, oh, Roots. You're like, yeah, I knew it. Yep. Yep. Star Trek, Reading Rainbow. Yeah. There's a type.

There's overlap, you know. Sure. In the Venn diagram. But basically, it's easy. It's easier these days. I mean, because reading Rainbow fans are so Legion, I mean, it's a generation. I think it's maybe two generations. Has to be.

So they're of a certain age. Right? So they're kind of easy to spot coming. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes they have books in their hands. Oh, really? Which is bonus.

So that means you're like, oh, my, when you see that, are you like, oh, yes? Yes. Impact. Absolutely. Absolutely. My mother was an English teacher, so to have, and teaching is sort of in the, it's the family business. My older sister, both nieces, my son.

If you're a Burton, you're probably in the education business. And I consider that I am, too. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know. So, yeah, it's kind of cool. Yeah, it is cool. I guess teaching is our family business, too, but I never thought of it as the family business.

Really? Grandpa, mom, me, sort of, you know, doing this. Doing this. Yeah. Educating. Educating. Right? Yeah.

Yeah. And having that sort of, like, larger. I thought about becoming a teacher, and then I heard my parents, and other teachers in my family be like, here's all the problems we're having, and they were all so ridiculous. Like, we can't get money for crayons, so I need to take your old crayons and bring them into the,

and it just was like, okay, I can't have a job where your own employer is working against you. That's not going to work. It is a sad reality of the state of education in today's America. Yeah. We used to do a pretty good job of educating our kids, giving them what we call the classical education. Not so much anymore.

Not so much anymore. much more interested in spending money on weapons of war. We're engaging in conflict all around the globe. So, you know, I guess you can't have everything. No, no. It seems like we could sacrifice something else for education. It seems, but we haven't made that choice. Yeah.

Not as far as I can tell. No, we definitely haven't made that choice. No, we are full speed ahead on the bombs. Well, on that cheery note. Yeah. Yeah. But you have been in the public eye for as long as I can remember. Because I, you know, I half the time when I was doing the research and reading about you and everything like that, I was like, you know, you have the image of LeVar Burton, circa in 1989, 88 in your head.

You don't look that much different, but you had a different haircut. I had a different haircut for certain, and the mustache was busier, I believe. That's right. Yeah. It was like the 70s stash that now makes you either look like a traffic cop, or not a traffic cop, a state trooper or somebody who's. A porn star. Yeah, exactly. The bushy mustache still makes you look like a porn star.

That's true. That's true. Hence a more prim version. Yeah, yeah. You got to step, your mustache game has stepped up. Now you just have to elevate your thermoscane. My thermos game, and then I'm good. Yeah, you know?

I think so. And I'm a fully realized human being. You've been active for a really long period of time. And I want to get into that in a second, but I heard first you almost became a Catholic priest. True. Yeah. True story. So why did you make the shift to acting?

Because it doesn't seem like an adjacent field. It is actually. Really? It's from my perspective. Okay. It is. Why? That's a story.

I started really reading about different points of view other than the Catholic point of view. And I just felt that I wanted, I mean, I entered the seminary when I was 13, so I was pretty young. But I was committed. Yeah. And then I had a great teacher. I had a great teacher who was a layman, which just, to say he wasn't a priest or a brother. And he taught my favorite subject.

He taught English philosophy. He was also the drama coach, Lee Bartlett. And Lee just introduced me. He gave me books to read. The Dow de Ching, my Lao Tzu, Kirkagard. I was reading and expanding my mind. And the Catholic point of view just felt more and more narrow to me. And I just felt I owed it to myself to get out there

and live in the world before I made a decision like that. And I was looking around for, so what am I going to do? I mean, I decided to become a priest when I was around eight or so. Wow. Yikes. I know. Because I can understand then, like, hey, look, you can never be with a woman. You're like eight, fine. And then you're 16 and you're like, what do you mean by never?

And how flexible are we with this particular regulation? So that was a part of it. Yeah. That was a part of it, certainly. A large part of it was service, the idea of service. my mom, her second career, was as a social worker. So I grew up in a family where it was, it was normal to want to be of service. Yeah.

That one's life should be about something greater than one's own pursuits that you should really try and make the world a better place. That's, you know, one of the values that my mother instilled. And so in looking around to find out or figure out what I was going to do with my life, Theater arts was something that I discovered at St. Pius and really fell in love with it. And I figured, well, I could give that a shot. Plus, now here's where the connections began, the sort of the overlap between theater and the ministry. The Catholic faith itself is really, the liturgy is very theatrical, right? The vestments, right?

The costumes. Watch me change this, right? this wine into the blood of Christ. Yeah, there is a whole lot of... This host into the body of Christ. There's some real theatricality in that. I used to have sort of a recurring dream about my first sermon as an ordained priest. And the setting would change.

Sometimes it was in a big church. It was a small church sometimes. But the sense that I was reaching people, that I was connecting with them with a message, was very powerful. And I feel like I do that in this job. Yeah. Well, you certainly do. It's about connecting, right? And providing something of value to people, something that lifts them up and encourages their spirit.

You got a huge role early on with the acting with Roots. That was like a game. I mean, I think you were 19 right then. I was 19. Roots was my first professional audition. Wow. So that's like hitting a massive home run. right out of the gate.

360 feet. Yeah. Wow. And how did reading... I'll get... I want to get to why you didn't implode in a second. But I'm curious how reading Rainbow came out of that, because it seems a little bit like an unglomerous role for an actor who just smashed

it with roots. It's like, hey, great job starring in this major emotion picture. It was a runaway hit. Now, here's some kids under 10 reading library books, and we're going to do a thousand takes of them, like, crying and yelling at the camera. and half the show is animation. I don't think we did nearly that much animation. The connection for me was really clear.

Roots really made me aware of the power of the medium of television. I mean, in eight consecutive nights of television, this nation was changed. There was an America before Roots and there was an America after Roots. And they weren't the same country. Before Roots, it was possible for us to tell ourselves the story that slavery was this necessary economic engine, right?

Afterroots, we could not even think about slavery. It was impossible to discuss it without holding in mind the cost, the human cost. That's really powerful to have a nation that was built on chattel slavery, right? Sort of rearrange its idea around the impact, right? And as I say, the cost. So when the idea for reading Rainbow was pitched to me to use this very powerful medium for engagement to steer children who are making that decision as to whether or not they're going to be a reader for life, the idea of taking a kid who can read and turning them into a lifelong reader,

using the meeting with television was really attractive to me, right? Because television at that time, we're talking 1984, I think, yeah. Yeah. For Reading Rainbow? And television in the educational community was the evil empire. I mean, it was... Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it was really...

The enemy of education. It was really counterintuitive, and I loved that about it. And like I said, I had just experienced this massive awareness of just how much good we could do. Yeah, it's almost sneaky. It's like, oh, you're going to sit around and watch TV all day? Fine. You're going to spend your summer watching cartoons. And that's...

See, Reading Rainbow was originally a summer show, right? And that was part of the idea, to go where kids were during the summer vacation and give them something that was fun, something that was really enjoyable. But it was various of stealth education. Yeah. It was stealth. And that was attractive to me as well. It's got to be one of the longest running shows.

Was it 21 plus years? Third behind Sesame Street, of course, and Mr. Rogers' neighborhood. That's awesome. Yeah, that's great. And it won a ton of awards, which I went over in the introduction, which I will when I record it, of course. But that makes sense because three months off during the summer is where I essentially forgot every single thing that I learned in school. We tend to do that. I remember thinking the first time, well, probably not my first summer, but one of, I remember thinking, I haven't been back to school in a while. I wonder if my mom just forgot or if I'm just allowed to watch TV every day forever.

That was your first orientation around summer. Yeah. This is great. This is, it's kind of nice. When's the other shoe going to drop? When are they going to? I thought about asking my mom what was going on. And then I thought, better not, because then she might go school.

Right? Oh, you're right. Pack your stuff. You're going to go back to school. Yeah, that totally makes sense. I'm wondering if the theme song was stuck in your head for the entire 21-year run of the show or if you had some breaks. It's still stuck in my head, Jordan. Yeah.

Still there. It's every, I mean, it's, you can't. And not just in my head, you know. No, my wife and I are, someone's humming it in the house at any given waking moment. See? Yeah. And it's not a bad little ditty. No. It can be annoying as an earworm, but it also provokes fond memories for a lot of people.

A little nostalgia. A little bit. Yeah. Maybe we can sample it, Jason, for the show. I mean, it might get us sued and run off the air, but we can try it. little, a couple seconds. A few seconds. A few seconds. Yeah. Yeah. They can't get that, man, about it. Come on. Waterfly in the sky. I assume you read a lot as a kid. You said your mode of education in the house was primarily reading. Yeah. So did your mom just sort of be like,

read, you have to do this? My mom was a reader. Yeah. And that was, as it turns out, really critical modeling. And I believe it still is. Parents ask me all the time, how do I get my kid to read more? And I ask them generally two questions, number one. Do they see you reading? Oh, yeah. There's that, right? Yeah. And then the other thing is, what are your child's passions? If you know what your child is passionate about, then you've got a window into what sort of reading material they're going to be interested in. But yeah, the whole idea of, uh, of, uh, of, seeing my mother read two, three books at a time for her own personal enjoyment was, as it turns out, really important information for me to absorb.

It's funny hearing you say that I didn't really notice until now. My mom's an avid reader. My dad read the newspaper and things like that, but not, I don't think I've ever seen him really read a book. But at least somebody was reading in the general vicinity of the children, which is good. and in kindergarten I was like a bad kid kind of getting in trouble, hyperactive. I know, a big surprise to everyone here listening or watching this. But then I remember my older friend, we had a split class. It was like kindergarten and then first grade in the same room.

And my friend Corey had their reading book. And I was like, give me that. And I tore it away from him before class. And I just started reading the whole thing out loud. And the teacher was like, what? This idiot can read better than the kids in the class above. And then she kind of got it in her head that like, oh, okay, maybe he's bored reading one sentence, see spot run, see the dog jump when it's like I can just plow through the semester or whatever it was reading book. You were an early reader.

And I didn't even know. And neither did my mom. She had no idea. Really? Yeah. My mom, I think, knew a little bit, but she wasn't sure or at least I know the teachers didn't know. And of course, every mom is like, my kid's smart. And the teachers are like, no, your kid's an idiot and you're in denial.

So, and I was a latchkey kid. My mom was always working. And so there was kind of like a lot of me watching TV or just going and reading stuff in the house and not understanding half of it probably. But I don't even know if that matters at that point. Sounding out words in kindergarten can do pretty big things, I think. Absolutely. Do you remember when you first learned to read? Because I don't know when I learned to read, but I know when I realized that I could, which was that moment reading sun up in kindergarten.

I think that was the title. Who memories, one related to the activity itself. I remember my aunt was visiting from Kansas City, and she was reading with me, and I got stuck on a word. And I thought I knew what the word was, but I was afraid to be wrong. And so I hesitated and hesitated and hesitated. And then she said it, the word, pretty. And I was like, I knew. That was the word.

So that was like really important for my own sense of confidence that I actually did know how to read. And then the book that I was reading when I got what reading was all about was third grade, fourth grade, Captain's Courageous, Rudyard Kipling. And when I finished that book, I got really sad and I didn't understand. I was like overwhelmed with sadness. And it was because I had left this world that I had become so connected to and the characters. To this day, when I'm reading a particularly good piece of short fiction, I slow down the last chapter or so because I know that, you know, that depression.

Yeah. That inevitable feeling of sadness is going to be a part of the experience when I'm done. Yeah, it's like saying goodbye to a friend. Exactly. And that's the power of literature, right? You make the movie in your head. You invest yourself in the story, literally. And that's powerful. Yeah. I can see it. Yeah, you don't feel that way about like, oh, I beat Mario Brothers. I'm so sad now. It just doesn't have the same. No, it doesn't. It doesn't have, it's not the same at all. I mean, there's certainly. some, you know, positive feeling and benefit from beating a video game, but it's not the same. Yeah, it's not quite the same. Yeah. Not at all.

You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, LeVar Burton. We'll be right back. And thanks for listening and supporting the show. To learn more about our sponsors and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. If you like some tips on how to subscribe to subscribe to Jordan Harbinger.com slash subscribe. Subscribing to the show is absolutely free. It just means you get all the latest episodes in your podcast players, they're released so you don't miss a single thing from the show. And now back to our show with Lovar Burton. I wondered if there's any books that didn't make the show that got cut for some reason.

Like, oh, we recorded a segment on this. Turns out the author is a terrible person. No. It didn't happen. We were very, very, very diligent about the literature that we chose. And there was a whole list of requirements that we had for the books in order to be on the show. Like author is not a white supremacist or something crazy. I think that was more unofficial than written down.

Probably don't need to write that one. Violet law. That one is a natural. But before internet, though, it's like, oh, we didn't know this person was like fled, you know, Argentina because he was outed as a former, like, you don't know that. Now you Google it. Back then, it's like, what are you going to do? Background check everyone?

No. What do you think about books like Huck Finn, though, being banned in schools? Huff Finn is banned now? In some schools, yeah, because... Is the word nigger? Yeah, is that why? I'm drawing a blind. I think that's the reason.

That would be my guess. Yeah, yeah. I actually... That would be my guess. I knew that was part of it, but I didn't know if there were other things in there that were... No, not that I can recall. I think it was the nigger thing.

Yeah. Yeah. And do you agree with that, or you kind of like, look, let's not... With your position of roots, it's like, do we need to sort of polish this? This is a thing that was written at that time for that reason. And we don't, you know, look, this is America. We don't need reasons for people to develop racist attitudes.

And we certainly don't need to encourage it. Yeah. So, yeah. Let's remove that one from the canon. Okay? Yeah. Yeah. Really.

Yeah. I can understand that. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. I think I didn't even know about that word until a friend told me not to say it, which sort of defeats the purpose of telling somebody a new word and then telling them not to use it. But so it's kind of what you're saying then, hey, look, those kids are going to find out this, the hard,

they don't need to study it in school. They don't need to be fed it in school. And it doesn't need to be normalized in any way, shape, or form. Yeah. I guess they can watch roots if they want a cold dose of what that was like. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

They had us watching that in high school. And I remember, you're right. You do go away from that going, oh, yeah, can't really just make this an academic thing anymore. Can't make this a whole X number of people were kidnapped and imported. And then you go, oh, that was terrible. What's for lunch? It's like, you're watching that, and you feel that. You feel it.

And you see the blood and the people going over. I mean, it's traumatizing. And it's like an appropriate dose of that for kids, especially in high school. In high school, for high school kids. in an age-appropriate way. Yeah, I think younger, I've been traumatized. Yeah, it is very. If we lived in like a Fahrenheit 451 culture,

what do you think, you know how some people like memorized books in that movie and one woman had a bunch of them and then other people just had one, what do you think would be your book that you would memorize? No one's ever asked me that question. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you. That's pretty good. That's a good question.

Wow. I'll buy you some time because I felt. thought, oh, he's going to flip this around on me and ask. And the only book I ever had memorized was Where the Sidewalk ends by Shell Silverstein. You remember that? I love Shell Silverstein. I don't still have it memorized, so I'd be useless even in a Fahrenheit 451 culture. That book is, you know, like many of Shell's books, it's a collection of poems that, I mean, Shell was a master wordsmith.

That's a really good book to memorize in a Fahrenheit 451. Yeah. Yeah, but I'm imagining them being like, we need the old knowledge. And I'm like, well, I do know a poem about kids being stuck in a bathtub and watching each other. Like, anyone else got any books memorized? So many. Even if you didn't have to pick, like, the top one. Do you just have one that comes to mind where you're like, oh, that'd be a good one to know?

I definitely want to memorize something by Octavia Butler. She was an amazing writer, and science fiction is my favorite genre. of literature. When I'm reading for pleasure, it's generally science fiction or fantasy. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. So then you could retell those stories, I guess, in the land of the world of Fahrenheit 451. Do you ever feel pressure to be perfect all the time? I mean, you're kind of like Black Mr. Rogers. Is that people tell you that probably? You're the first. No. Get out of here. Are you serious?

You're the first. I'm shocked. I've never been called Black Mr. Rogers. Or African American Mr. Rogers? That I. Okay, just checking that this wasn't a trick. I'm checking this wasn't a trick. I was telling my, because I was telling my wife earlier, I was like, what if, what if LeVar drops like an F bomb? It would be so amazing because of the character juxtaposition in my head

versus you're a real human, obviously. Right. No, I love swearing. Yeah? I do. It's very expressive. It is. You know, use your words, son.

Use your words. Yeah. I thought for sure people viewed you that way. thought, oh, man, whenever you're in public. It does surprise people when I say fuck. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's still, I mean, it's, I'm getting a childish giggle going right now just because of that. But I wonder if you're, like, out somewhere and if you're ever thinking, I'm in a bad mood, I'm sick of this BS.

This isn't going my way and you're like, there's people watching and they expect me to be the certain way. I better not have a public meltdown or, like, be annoyed at the airline person or whatever. There's a saying in French, no bless oblige. I don't speak French, but loosely translated, if you are noble in any way, then there is a responsibility that comes along with that. And I definitely believe that to be true. My job, when I go out in public, is to be Lovar Burton, right? Which means to me that when people recognize me and want to interact, unless I'm eating, then I feel it's part of my job to give them a quality experience, a moment of my time. It's just how I was raised in the business.

Shaq actually said the same thing. He said, unless I'm eating, I'll be cool about it. He goes, but if you catch me in a meal, I'm going to tell you now, it's not a good time. I'm going to tell you that this is not the appropriate time for this. That's fair. I'm eating, right? I'm eating. I'm clearly enjoying this.

The food's getting full. And the first thing out of, and someone who's that unconscious, the first thing out of their mouth is generally, I hate to disturb you. Right. Which is a lie. Right. You came over here to disturb me while I was eating. that nothing could be further from the truth. You don't hate to disturb me.

That's your purpose in being here in this moment. Yeah. I'm enjoying the shit out of disturbing you, and I want a photo, which is... And, yes, did you just stop what you're doing and pay attention to me? I don't want a handshake so that you have to go wash your hands again after this and leave your food on the table. So, yeah. That's... But...

That's really funny. It goes with the territory. You know what I'm saying? It does. It seems like probably a small price to pay. And I think a lot of us could do with a dose of, gee, who's watching, maybe I shouldn't act like an a-hole. You know, I certainly could use that. No.

Sometimes. You? My wife's like. Jordan Harbinger. You are the very model of civility and kindness. So far this morning. So far. That's right.

Yeah. How do you sort of parse being part of something that is so universal and also so universally good, right? Like reading Rainbow, for example, every kid watched that. Whether they liked it or not, it just came on after cartoons if memory serves or Sesame Street. Or they rolled in the AV cart, you know, on Fridays and watched it in school. Oh, yeah, that's true. I think we did watch it in school early on, with like a reel-to-reel projector. If you want to feel extra old, I was a kid watching.

you, but we were, I was watching real to reel, but you were on the reel. Yeah, yeah. Close the windows. Time to watch Reading Rainbow. Teacher has a hangover, which is 100% what that was, 2020 hindsight. But, you know, it was good for half an hour. Yeah. You know, the teacher could turn it on and walk away.

Yeah. Well, leave the room, knowing that they would come back and the room would be cool. everybody would be focused on the screen. That's not a bad thing. No, that's good. Yeah. For once you're playing a movie or a show where it's, you know they're learning something and not just zoned out. Exactly.

Yeah. I know that you brought a Kickstarter forward in, was it, 2014? Yeah. And you'd set a goal, was it a million or two million? A million. It was a million. Was that a stretch goal at the time? Because in just under 48 hours, I think you'd receive like, you'd raise 2.7.

and I think total was 6.4 million. 6.4. And I'm wondering if you were like a million. We'll see if we can get it. We'll knock out a couple seasons. No, no, no, no. What we were doing was we were, we had, I had gotten the rights to the brand from WNED and raised a little money, little seed capital, hired a team, built an app, the Reading Rainbow app.

And we released on the iPad only, right, in 2012. at WWDC, we actually premiered the Reading Rainbow app at the Apple Developers Conference. And then I flew to New York and we introduced it to the rest of the world on the Jimmy Fallon show, which had never happened before. I don't think it's happened since that an app was, you know, got airtime on a nighttime. No way. No. Right?

Yeah, there's no. I mean, it's not even generally, if a new app is like not newsworthy in any way. But there you have. it, you know, Jimmy, obviously, reading Rainbow Kid. Yeah. He and his sister, Gloria. So that was cool. And the idea for the Kickstarter was to expand our footprint.

We wanted to get it to Android tablets and phones. And the Kickstarter enabled us to do that and build a website and a specific product designed specifically for teachers to use in the classroom with lesson plans and rostering of 35, 40 kids. I mean, it's a very robust turnkey solution for teachers to use for supplemental reading, for emerging readers. And then we were able to, again, as a result of the amount of money we raised, we were able to give away 10,000 versions of that school product to Title I's classrooms. That was pretty awesome. We accomplished everything that we set out to do. It wasn't, it was never about bringing the television show back.

I'd already done that. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That makes sense. I wasn't thinking about, you know, you guys anymore. I was trying to reach a new audience. It's the same model that you had before. It's the exact same model.

And it's pretty, it was, it was a pretty ballsy move, you know, thinking that I could reinvent a television show as an app. But as it turns out, I was right. It's perfect for an app, man. The engagement factor, right? Because you see every kid playing with an iPad at the table. Kids probably don't even care about TV anymore. I don't know. We were maybe eight to ten months into the effort of raising money when the iPad came out.

And it was like, oh, wow. I get now I see where we're going, what we can do. Because it was books and videos. It's the perfect delivery system for both of those things, especially given that you could animate the books. you could have a little what they call an affordance, you know, an interaction. Oh, okay.

Right? An interaction. And what we did with all of the books that we animated was, you know, we would not have something that the child can interact with just for the sake of pushing a button. But, you know, to have it be in concert with the narrative to help tell the story, right? Yet another layer of engagement. At the end of each book, there was a matching game, right? with one of the pieces of art from the book itself,

and you know, you pick the tiles, turn them over, and, you know, you match and reveal the whole thing. Yeah, I was, I'm really, really proud of the product. Yeah. And we've just, now, we have put the whole things in the hands of Rift, right? Reading is fundamental. Oh, yeah, that's right. I remember those ads or those, were they ads, PSAs from back in the day?

PSAs. That's right. Reading is fundamental. So their, their mission is to put, They put millions of books a year in the hands of kids, oftentimes giving them their first books, the first books that they've ever owned. So they were looking for a digital strategy as part of their mission. And we got together.

And through the generosity of my primary benefactor, an investor, we were able to just put the whole thing in their hands. It's so slick, though, because it makes sense. There are plenty of people that have smartphones that do not have any books in the house. So you might as well give them a book on a smartphone. Please. Because the kids can play. Any way we can. any way we can.

Wow. I was going to ask if you found it hard with the new Reading Rainbow to compete with things like Internet and apps and video games because I know that you, as we said earlier, you looked at TV enemy of education, apps or our iPad games enemy of education. But it's like, well, we said that before and this is how we... This is our anecdote to that. And the same holds true in the digital realm. I believe in the product's ability to engage children, meet them where they are, and then take them where you want them to go,

and certainly enhance their relationship with their imagination. That's really, I think that's a critical skill for human beings to have a connection with their imagination. What do you think is the biggest enemy of education these days? You know, if it was TV in the 80s, what is it now? Is it Internet or? No, it's the will of the nation. or the lack of will to really make this the priority that I believe it should be. It's the same conversation, you know.

Yeah. Yeah, the making it a priority. Making it a priority. That's the problem. It's too bad because if it's like a distraction, you can kind of figure out what's more interesting and like with going to an app-based thing. But if it's a lack, if it's apathy, it's that's scarier in many ways. Yeah, and it's more than just apathy.

It's a decision that we continually make to spend more money on war than we do on educating our kids. That's a conscious decision that adults are making every day. Yeah, that's a little terrifying. It should be because it is. One of the primary things that we do on this show is we teach complex concepts, critical thinking skills, cognitive bias, logical fallacies, things like that. And through conversations like this or by interviewing somebody, is an expert on a certain topic.

And I'll admit, I channel you plenty of times when I'm explaining these concepts because people will write in and go, oh, this is like reading Rainbow for adults, except for the author comes in and talks about the book instead of somebody who read it. And it's maybe not quite as kid-friendly, but that's fine. But that's okay. Instead of the Emperor's New Clothes, we have the rise of AI and artificial intelligence in China, whatever. You're providing a public service.

I do wonder, though, if sometimes there's just, I do sit there sometimes to go, if I talked about things that were more accessible or even just for, I know the shows that are really popular, they'll be like conspiracy theory or comedy and I'm just going, you know, if I just had a dumber audience, it would be a bigger audience. And then I go, no, this is not what we want. You do not want to cater to that denominator. You are reaching those that need to be reached. Yeah, that want to be reached anyway. Back to Roots. Why didn't you implode? You were 19. I mean, how far. How come we're not seeing headlines like LeVar Burton pleads not guilty says we have to take his word for it?

I mean, how come we don't see? How long did you work on that show? That came to me in the shower this morning. I had to add it to my notes and then re-export my notes because I'm like, I can't not use that. Yeah, that was pretty good. I didn't implode. I had pretty good foundation, family foundation, good value. is luck.

People who cared about me. I had a manager early on, Dolores Robinson, who really looked after me, really, really, really protected me and helped me help me, help me navigate what at times were very, very confusing and, you know, waters. Success at any age is a process one has to adjust to. a process to adjusting to it, no matter how old you are or how young. I was 19 and on the cover,

Time magazine and known all over the world, it was, it was, it was heady, trippy. There were times that I tripped and fell, glad on my face, but I always got up. I would not want to have that experience in the current climate of a 24-hour news cycle and everybody being a journalist with a camera on the street. I really feel for these kids these days. These days. I survived. Yeah, I survived, and I'm glad. When Freddie Prince killed himself, that was pretty alarming. Because people would say to me, Lavar, you're such a nice kid, don't change.

You remember Freddie Prince? And I was like, so what is it about me that you think I'm... Oh, it was like reminding you of Freddie Prince. Yeah, man. Yeah, and I was like, it was kind of confusing, but I understood that it came from a good place, a caring place, but it was just a very, it felt like a strange message to send, remember Freddie Prince. Yeah. Like, you're doing so well, don't die.

Don't blow your brains out. Yeah. You're just thinking like, whoa, man, I'm just trying to have a taco here or whatever. Like, what, I'm fine. I'm on reading Rainbow. I'm doing rude. Like, what do you mean? Don't, yeah, that would alarm me, too, because it's kind of like you don't even see it coming.

What is everyone else see coming that I didn't see? What am I not getting? Yeah. And, you know, years of therapy later, um, years and years of therapy later, I'm still trying to stay out of the headlines. Oh,

you try to stay out of the headlines. Absolutely. That's probably a good move. Yeah. Because if you optimize for getting in the headlines, then you just start doing crazy stuff. It's a slippery slow. Yeah.

I'd rather be known for the work than for my lifestyle. And you don't feel like, oh, man, I'm getting less relevant somehow, because I'm not in the news cycle. maybe it's better just to sort of have that tradeoff where you're like, I have privacy. Well, I feel like I've been relevant for 40 years, which is no small trick. Absolutely. And that's not what I meant at all. I just wondered if you felt less relevant not being in the news. Because a lot of people do, whether they're relevant or not.

Yeah. But I think a lot of people aim for the news cycle and they go, oh, that felt good. I need to get more of that because when that happens, I get more attention, which translates to cash. And that's a feedback loop that I just. rather avoid. You know, I'm in my 60s, and I try not to think like a teenager anymore and have, you know, those sorts of pursuits. I think it's good you got therapy. I mean, therapy keeps people, keeps saying people sane, in my opinion. It's kept me saying. Yeah. It has. When I was 19, I don't know if I would have been smart enough to listen to my manager and the people

around me because the natural follow-on question is, oh, how did you get those people around you? But that's not even a relevant question for most 19-year-olds, because the answer isn't, gee, I'm 19 and I'm famous. How do I get a bunch of responsible people to tell me not to do all this fun stuff? It's how do you even think that you should listen to those people in the first place? And that's probably a function of parenting. I think so. I grew up with a woman who was a real disciplinarian and had expectations of me.

And it was always really important to me to try and please my mom, you know, at least to, at the very least, to, you know, not get yelled at by. To avoid displeasing my mom. Yes, exactly. That's funny. Exactly. So I guess, you know, some of that carried over, being a people pleaser, a lot of actors are, you know. Really? Yeah.

Huh. I guess that makes sense, but I never heard that before. Why is that? I guess it's just a profession that it tracks that personality type. Yeah, I guess most people don't. maybe think of that as a stereotypical trait of an actor. But it makes sense when you say it.

I just never thought of it like that. But yeah, I think you're right. I think a lot of actors also realize, or they think, look, I'm not a finished product, so they start delving into that to put try on different hats or try on different personalities. And then maybe that never gets cured or satisfied, which is what makes a lot of actors probably really great.

Really good actors. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, LeVar Burtain. We'll be right back after this. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers is what keeps us on the air. And to learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard,

visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. And don't forget that worksheet for today's episode. That link is in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. And if you're listening to us on the Overcast player, please click that little star next to the episode. We really appreciate it. And now for the conclusion of our episode with, Levar Burton.

I heard, though, that you didn't want to audition for parts after roots for a brief period of time. I was like, I don't have to do this. I'm LeVar Burton, bitch. That's, you know, that part of the learning curve. Yeah. Right? Part of the learning curve. And what I didn't realize was how much I was sabotaging myself by walking into a room with that kind of attitude. And when I realized it, it was like, oh, my God, that's not a good look. Yeah, no, no.

And in turning it around, I had to remember how much I loved acting. And I started looking at the audition process as an opportunity to do something that I really, really love. And now it's just get me in the room. Yeah. Just get me in the room. Was there anything that you didn't get or didn't do in your acting career that you think, oh, man, if I wish I had done that as well. Yeah.

There's got to be. There's got to be some. Yeah. Yeah. Gigs that I didn't get. And, you know, there you go. part of the learning. Sure. Right?

Yeah, I just wonder if that sort of self-sabotage, or as you called it before, did that, do you remember that teaching you a lesson or is it just something you got over? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. It's a huge life lesson. Huge life lesson.

I wonder if I'm like that. The idea that your shit doesn't stink is such a fallacy. Yeah. But, you know, we've all been there. You know, we've all been there. And luckily, I was able to course, Correct. Yeah, like you had your success kind of front-loaded in that particular era of your life, where you had roots. So, because had you done that 10 years of getting rejected or something like that before that, you might have just given up.

But if you have roots before and then you go through a couple of months or a couple of years where you're either sabotaging it or you're just not getting parts, you're like, well, wait a minute. I know that I can do this because I've done it before. And then you go, oh, wait, maybe I'm not that easy to work with or people are getting a vibe that I'm going to be a huge pain in the butt. So I should fix that. That one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Was there a time where maybe your manager said something like, look, roots, good job, can't ride that forever? I mean, when did you realize, oh, I'm doing this to myself? Yeah. It was a process of self-discovery. It really was. And it hit me hard, right? It really did. Because in recognizing that I was in my own way, there was a certain amount of shame in that.

Right? Yeah. I was ashamed of myself when I realized what I was doing because it's inappropriate. And it's just simply inappropriate. I suppose it's still empowering, though, to know that it's you doing it to yourself rather than like, oh, I'm just not able to do this. Well, it's always better to make the discovery and then make the change. Yeah. Isn't it? It's more rewarding.

How do you recommend other people or how do you prepare yourself for rejection and the hustle of need that you need to make it in show business? Because I would imagine a lot of people go in. You hear these actors that have done 10 years of auditioning and haven't gotten anything. You have to have a thick skin. It's like I couldn't do that. You have to have a thick skin. You have to have sort of a supreme belief in yourself in order to not allow rejection

to have that negative impact on you. It's almost delusional level of confidence. It is. It absolutely is. All these 10 years worth of these people, they don't get me. I got this. I would be like, after several months or a year, I'd be like, maybe I'm not cut out for this.

Well, it all depends on why you're in it to begin with. That's true. These days, I mean, a lot of the kids coming up these days, they want to be famous. They don't want to be actors. They want to be famous. And there's a big difference. Yeah, you kind of need that passion.

Bingo. Yeah, that's the antidote maybe that's self-doubt. Jordan Harbinger. It's almost like I'm learning when you're talking. It's amazing. What about people that say I don't feel any passion for any specific thing?

You ever hear that? There's a lot of people that... There are a lot of people that haven't discovered what their passion is or have surrendered their passion and forgotten what it was. I feel for those folks. Yeah. That's a tough one.

Yeah, I don't know how to solve that. That's why I threw that monkey. back there really quick. That's a real toughie. If somebody's in that place where they feel no passion for anything. I just tell them to get as much varied and diverse experience as possible, because this isn't something where I was like, I want to start an internet radio show.

That'll be fun where I talk to people. It was like, this is completely an evolutionary process where I was like, I'm talking about how pathetic my dating life is. We should record these conversations. There's no way to distribute conversations. Podcasting is new. It's a great way to distribute conversations. dating podcast, dot, dot, dot, dot, interviewing people about dating, dot, dot, dot, I'm sick

a hell of dating, let's interview other people, and here we are. But that's a 12-year process. Nobody goes, I want to start a podcast and have long, I mean, some people are way ahead of me on that, but I would never have thought about that. But you discovered podcasting as it was on the ascent. Sure, early, yeah, early in the game. You're an early adopter. Yeah, yeah, like your iPad app, I suppose.

and my podcast, you know. Yeah, LeVar Burton reads. We'll link to that in the show notes, of course. Would you? Yeah, of course. Of course. And it's exactly, great title. We try and keep it simple.

Very descriptive of what happens in that podcast, which is LeVar Burton reads to us and reads... I say at the beginning of every episode, the only thing these stories have in common is that I love them. And I hope you will too. Yeah, it's a great tagline. And it's a, it's a, If you miss reading Rainbow, or if you miss reading Rainbow,

you can always just listen to LeVar Burton reads, and instead of somebody reading a story about dragons. I love that the audience of children that used to get book recommendations from me are now all grown up, and I'm introducing them to new stories, and in many cases, authors that they've never heard of before. I think it's cool. It's great.

Yeah, that's kind of funny. I didn't really think about that, but you're right. It's like, You do any prep at all? No, I'm kidding. None. I had never thought about that. That's a good observation.

Like, hey, you thought you escaped the gravity of reading rainbow. Not so fast. Guess what? I'm still reading to you. I just don't call it reading rainbow. Right. Because I can't contractually. Because I'll get sued if I do.

Exactly. That's funny. That's that. Yeah. Pesky law. Pesky intellectual. property rights. That's funny. Did you try to do something like Reading Rainbow for adults? And they were like, ah, not so fast. No, but they, but

they got very, very upset when it was being referred to that. I never called it Reading Rainbow for Adults, but in launching the podcast a couple of years ago, and doing press, it was something that was kind of an obvious thing. And people would remark on that, and the folks at WNED got very upset. Yikes. And they even tried to enjoy me from using the phrase, but you don't have to take my word for it. Really? Oh, that's so inseparable from you, though. I got sued. I did read about that. I got sued. And I assume that at some point, your argument was, look, this is something I came up with for that, like, come on. The lawsuit was withdrawn. Actually, what happened was WNED just got blown up with

negative comments on their website to the point where they had to scrub it all. I mean, they They took a pounding. Well, good, because it's kind of like, what are you going to do? We're not going to use it, but we don't want him to use it, even though he's been using it for 40 years. It got ugly. But then, you know, then it was, again, part of a really important lesson for me. That lesson being never try and create a business with somebody else's IP. Yeah.

I've been, I have personal experience with that. Do you? Yeah, yeah. I separated from an old company. I was doing a show for 11 years. And then my business partners are like, we want to focus on picking up chicks. And I was like, we're 40. This is just kind of sad at this point.

And we have a bigger audience of not just like lonely dudes that we want to service and really speak to them. And these are our more popular episodes. They were like, cool, you're fired. So we started over fresh about a year and a half ago. This show's bigger than that last one ever was. Just saying, not that I'm competitive with it or anything. But it's got to be a good feeling, right? Of course it is.

It shows that we're, you know, able to do it. First of all, it shows you're able to rise from the ashes. That's right. And also... You have resilience in your bones. It's funny that you should mention that because that was one of the topics that I thought about as well, which is, especially with respect to the acting stuff. That's funny, you should mention resilience. Resilience is a really, it's a beautiful human trait.

Yeah. It's something that a lot of people think is inborn and turns out is built pretty through, yeah, through experience. eating some serious dirt. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right? Yeah, right? And we've all eaten dirt. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

But we all don't have resilience. That's true. So there's some other catalyst. There has to be some other factors involved, right? And I'm not, I mean, I've never studied it. But I would imagine that there's more to it than just encountering adversity. You really have to have, goes back to passion, doesn't it? Yeah, it does.

I think you're right. So there's an ingredient there that we're not seeing. Because the negative event is the catalyst. Right. That's right. It's what says it's like the fire that burns you away. And then what's left over is either something that's made out of steel or, oops, that, that was, that guy was made out of wood. I use that image all the time.

The beginning part of my life and career and the whole roots experience where fame and celebrity is concerned was like walking through fire. and I came out of the fire a tempered piece of steel. I didn't implode. I didn't self-destruct. I learned how to cope. I learned that it doesn't work to try and satisfy every impulse that I have. This is a 19-year-old guy, no. Actually, it's a non-sustainable strategy for living.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. Literally. Literally for living. And I'm happy for that. I wouldn't change, I wouldn't change a thing, given the opportunity. Yeah, I can imagine.

I mean, you've said in past interviews or at least online that you couldn't have even imagined how rich and fulfilling your life would be now, which is, that's got to feel pretty awesome. It does. Like I had all these wild dreams and then I exceeded them. No big deal. If I had been given the right to blueprint my life, I would. wouldn't have been this generous to myself.

That's got to feel amazing. But also, how do you stop from wanting even more than that? I do. I still have goals. I mean, I feel like I'm in the last third of my life, and I want it to be the most productive period of my life. I certainly feel like everything that I've learned up into this point, I can pass on. Sure.

Right? And I want to. And I just have other things that I want to do. I mean, I want to have a, this would be my fourth career, I think, as a writer. I'm just a storyteller. And that's what I've discovered about myself. I'm a storyteller. I was born to storytell.

And I want to do it in as many ways as I can. Acting, writing, producing, directing, podcasting. I'm fulfilling my purpose. I genuinely believe that, Jordan. I believe that we are all here for a reason. I believe that it's really important for us to discover and discern what that reason is, right? And then pursue it with everything we've got. And that's what I've tried to do for the last 40 years.

Discovering that reason kind of goes back to our passion discussion. Absolutely. So if I say, how do we discover that? It's like, well, now we've come full circle to. Yeah. What are you? Follow your bliss, right? What are your passions?

What are you passionate about? That is an indicator as to how you're, you know, should be spending your time. It can be scary if you think you can't make a living doing something that you're passionate about. Yeah. That can be scary. Right.

In which case, I think maybe you can make a living doing something. It doesn't have to be something that you're passionate about. You can do that in addition to that. You can't. Yeah. You can find meaning and something else. If you are not making a living with something you're passionate, by doing something you're passionate about, you can find or exercise that passion in ways, in areas outside of your job.

Yeah. Right? But you have to have to have some passion for something. You have to. Yeah. It's what gets me up in the morning, and even when things are bad, you just get back on the horse. Because, yeah, because it's bigger than you are. Right, yeah. Right? It's bigger than you are. And it just makes sense to surrender yourself to something that is larger than you. I know that you're really selective, or you seem to be very selective in the roles that you take. I mean, Kwameen, Captain Planet, Tori Lefort. powers combine. Yeah.

For example. Yeah. And I know you've also made some cameos as yourself on shows like community, Big Bang Theory. Actually, it must be pretty awesome to be asked to play yourself. It is. That's got to be where it's like, oh, we just want you to come in as you. Yeah. Okay, first of all, rehearsal, handled.

It is flattering. And I love it, you know. You go through, if you're lucky, you know, you. You go through these phases, these cycles, right? You get famous, and then they say, well, get me somebody like him, right? And, you know, and if you hang in there long enough, they ask for you. Sure. Again, you know, it's kind of cool.

Yeah, it is cool. Is there a personal charter you have for things like, okay, this role, all right, it's Captain Planet, so it's good, environmentalist stuff, it's going to teach kids' consciousness, I'll take that. And then this other role, it's just kind of a hacky comedy, I'm not really into that. I mean, like, how do you parse those decisions? No, I don't. No. It's, I, no. I'm not one of those guys who can, you know, do what they want, you know. What do you mean? You know, guys like Kevin Costner, you know.

Sure. There are a lot of actors, you know, that can call their shots. They can, oh, I want to do that, right? And then they just go and do that. But, you know, I'm a journeyman. I audition. You still audition for, I guess that shouldn't surprise me, but I guess it does. No.

Like I said earlier, get me in the room. Just get me in the room, right? I feel like I've done a really good job of taking that, which has come my way, and, and, and killing it. Yeah. Well, I agree with that. Right? Yeah. I didn't plan this.

The trajectory of my career. I didn't. So I definitely believe that there's a. force that work here that is much greater than myself. That's got to be such an awesome feeling to be like, oh, well, I'm guided by the cosmos or whatever. Look at my life, Jordan. Look at my life. I mean, I've really considered that I've been kissed by God. Yeah, that's pretty cool. I mean, that's an amazing feeling. And I have no doubt that my career represents a force for good. No doubt. Well, I think we're all on the same page there.

Like, I don't think anybody can be like, oh, that reading rainbow guy, toxic. Toxic. My whole, my whole career has been about making my mom proud. Like you, I was a latchkey kid, and I could have been one of those statistics, right? Single mom, worked nine to five, you know, the black male child. Yeah, the statistics are not in your favor on this one. They weren't. No.

And the amount of love, dedication, support, and expectation that my mother had for me kept me. It was my guiding compass. It was, you know, my North Star. That's probably what kept you from, in part, from imploding. Yeah, because you're like, well, my mom is going to kill me. No shit. Yeah. Irma Jean did not play.

Seriously. I bet. I bet. Yeah. Yeah. Nah. Oh, man. I was afraid of that woman until the day she died. I am not kidding.

I believe you. I believe you. And so she did her job. Like, yeah, my famous A-list or son, oh, he's going to come home for dinner when I say he's going to be there on time. He will show up to that. I know he's not doing drugs in Hollywood with all those girls. You know, they are about to rename a park in my hometown in my old neighborhood. Oh, that's awesome.

They're going to put my name on it. And my mom's not here to witness that. but she would have been really, really tickled. My mom did everything she could to keep us one step, one foot out of the ghetto, you know? And I just, it's why I love that moment the way I do, you know. She was pretty incredible. The park is great. I mean, you can't hate it on a park.

You can put one of those library things in there where you take a book and you exchange it. The little free library. Yeah. Maybe we will. Yeah. It's my park. That's right. You can do whatever you want.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That would be on brand. Yes. This is random, but in Star Trek, which I remember only a little bit from, you have this visor that allows you to see even though your character is blind. But what is that thing made out of in real life? I mean, are you walking around and you can see through it?

Because it doesn't look transparent. It's not. I couldn't see very much. About 80% of my vision was taken away. 80%. And how are you now just like walking straight into things? In the first season, in the first season, the visor was plastic. And then in the second season, we refashioned it out of metal, machined, machined metal.

But it didn't allow me, you know, any kind of, I couldn't see above my head. I couldn't see my feet, which was really difficult because my concept of Jordy as the chief engineer was that he moved with alacrity with confidence and surety all the time. And I couldn't be searching for, you know, so I had to learn how to navigate using things in the room. Sure. Right? As points of reference. Oh, my God. As if acting on a set like that is not hard enough. You've got to, like, not trip on people. First rule of acting, know your line.

Second rule of acting, don't bump into the furniture. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, because you've got to walk confidently. You can't be like, uh, and cut. I mean, there's tripping over cords. Not as a chief engineer. So it was a challenge. And then there's the whole idea of covering an actor's eyes, which tend to be their most expressive parts of their bodies.

There was that. And that was tough. But I think ultimately it made a better actor out of me. I'm sure, yeah. It's talk about being thrown into the deep end, though. It's like having to speak a foreign language on set or something. And literally, that's exactly what Technobabble is. It's a foreign language.

Trying to memorize Technobabble is, because it doesn't, it's not conversation. No. It's information, right? Yeah, you can't really ad lib much because it's like, no. We couldn't ad lib at all. That thing is the semiconductor protubulator, protibulator. Like, you can't mess that up. They got to fix it.

Because somebody's going to be like, hey, that's not what they called that in season one. Jordy. It was very exacting. You know, some actors would come to the show to guest and have a difficult time because the language was very exacting. Yeah. Very exact. You must have so much stuff you have to memorize. In fact, when you go to something like Comic Con or a convention, do they give you like 15 pages of, hey, your character was born here?

And this is what you did, and this is where, because there are people that know all of that stuff about everybody from Star Trek or Game of Thrones. And don't they expect you to know that? I mean, you are Jordy LaFord. I make it really clear. I'm not an engineer. I'm a fan of the show, but I'm not an engineer. And I certainly don't, you know, remember the minutia. There are the 179 episodes we did.

There are maybe 60-70 I've never seen or have yet to see. Oh, wow. Do you have any desire to watch them? Yeah, no, that's the thing. I have that to look forward to the rest of my life. That's true. Encountering an episode that I've never seen because it's on all the time somewhere, right? So it's fun for me to.

You ever watch your character, like, go to Germany and you're like, oh, that's me except speaking German. I've met the German actor who dubbed my voice in Star Trek. And did you think, this guy doesn't really, or like, this guy doesn't really, or like, This guy nailed it. I think if I met me in a foreign language, I would judge that person positively or negative. Yeah. I would assess.

I thought it was cool. Yeah. So you thought like, okay, they nailed it with my voice. He did. He did. And for the German audience, that voice is the voice of Jory LaFourke. It's not mine. Yeah, they hear you in English and they're like, eh, not real.

Not really, yeah. That's not the guy. That's funny. Where did you get this guy? That's really funny. What are you reading these days? A lot of short stories for the pod, sure, almost exclusively preparing for the pods,

choosing stories for the podcast. Yeah, it's kind of dominated my literature landscape, the short story. But I love short stories. I always have. Even as a kid, I'm heavily into like Ring Lardner and El Henry. I just think short stories are, it's such a difficult discipline to create a beginning, middle end, compelling characters,

oftentimes with a twist that you didn't see coming in 35 pages. Yeah. That's a good point. It's harder than doing it in 200. It's so much harder. So much harder. So I really do love the short story form. And so that's what I'm reading.

Yeah, nice. A lot of anthologies. Perfect. Yeah. This has been amazing. Thank you so much. Jordan. Really appreciate it.

My pleasure, brother. My pleasure. Jason. Levar Burton, epic win. I mean, I was pretty damn excited. excited about that and he did not disappoint. I love the story. And reading, it's funny, looking back, reading Rainbow influenced me more than I probably realize because I feel like I channel Lovar Burton when I'm trying to explain certain concepts. And we do have, in a way, a similar gig, right? Like a media

educator. Absolutely. I mean, I was not in the Reading Rainbow crowd, but I was in the Star Trek, the next generation crowd. That's for sure. So I grew up with Jordy. That was my, He was kind of like my my go-to Star Trek guy. And I eventually got to work on Star Trek and got to meet him at one of the movie premieres that I worked on very briefly. But this time, getting to hang out and just when he walked in the door, he just oozed cool. And it was super sweet to all of us. And, you know, look, I got a hug from from Lovar Burton before we left.

And I was just like, man, that made my year. He's so smart and just so prescient. And especially with his new podcast where he's, he picks the stories so it's like his thing i've listened to that podcast just incessantly and his stories that he picks are great so he's got such a great ear for you know what's out there and man he's just he's still kicking ass yeah yeah he's he's very much on top of the game and so i'm excited to see what he continues to do i think it's great that he's still so passionate about reading rainbow to not lose your passion about something for 40 plus years that's pretty amazing yeah that means

you're in the right gig, that's for sure. That's for sure. Yeah, absolutely. If you want to know how we manage to book all these great guests, manage relationships with them, it's all about systems and tiny habits. Check out six minute networking. That's at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course.

Don't do it later. You know you're not going to do it later. You're just saying, you're telling yourself that. But once you need these relationships, you're too late. You've got to dig the well before you get thirsty. The drills take just a few minutes per day. It doesn't matter how busy you are.

You have six minutes. You spent more time on Instagram than you would have doing these drills. This is the stuff that changed the game for us 10 years ago. I wish I knew it 20 years ago. That's all free and it's at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Speaking of building relationships, tell me your number one takeaway here from Lovar Burton. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. There's a video of this interview on our YouTube channel at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube if you want to see us horsing around with Lovar Burton. And of course there are YouTube only extras in there that you don't get here on the audio feed of the show. This show is produced

in association with podcast one, and this episode was co-produced by Jason Beam Me Up to Philippo and Jen Harbinger. Show notes and worksheets by Robert Fogarty. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Remember, we rise by lifting others, and the fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful, which should be in every episode. So please share the show with those you love and even those you don't. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you

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