The Jordan Harbinger Show - 295: Shep Gordon | Interview with the Supermensch

Episode Date: December 31, 2019

Shep Gordon (@SupermenschShep) is a talent manager, Hollywood film agent, producer, and author of They Call Me Supermensch: A Backstage Pass to the Amazing Worlds of Film, Food, and Rock'n'Roll. He is also the subject of Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon -- a documentary by Mike Myers that chronicles his life and times. What We Discuss with Shep Gordon: How do you create history rather than waiting for it to happen? Do you have to be a jerk to make it in Hollywood? What's Shep's coupon system? What's the most selfish thing you can do? Is fame toxic? And so much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/295 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! 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 producer Jason DeFilippo. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most brilliant and interesting people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. I want to help you see the Matrix when it comes to how these amazing people think and behave, and I want to help you become a better thinker. You know, sit through some of the BS we see these days. If you're new to the show, we've got episodes with spies and CEOs, athletes and on authors, thinkers and performers, as well as toolboxes for skills like negotiation, public speaking, body language, persuasion, and more. So if you're smart and you like to learn and improve, then you'll be right at home here with us. Today on the show, another one from the vault with my friend Shep Gordon. He's one of the most legendary talent managers of all time. He's the subject of the

Netflix film Super Mench, the legend of Shep Gordon, which is both entertaining and a really fun watch. We did this one live at Shep's House in Maui, and it was great to hear his stories of Alice Cooper, Janice Joplin, Pink Floyd, Jimmy Hendrix, all firsthand, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. He's got a great, unique way of doing business. Always, always, always, always got a story. By the age of 21, 22, he's managing all these legendary rockers and still manages Alice Cooper. He invented the concept of the celebrity chef, those chefs, those cooks you see on TV all the time, that whole thing, that was his idea, all that stuff, was his original idea, the celebrity chef. Kind of hard to believe that somebody just popped up, came up with that, and boom, Emerald Legacio.

in that whole industry. He also cooked for the Dalai Lama and even shared a cat with Carrie Grant. Now, to be clear, he didn't eat the cat. Him and Carrie Grant shared custody of a cat. I know that might sound a little strange. He shares a lot of values here with the Jordan Harbinger Show family, always doing win-win handshake deals with great people. He's got his coupon system that he uses to track how much he helps others as well. And today we'll get a glimpse into how he solves problems and makes people famous. Last but not least, why fame is actually quite toxic. There's a reason he tells his clients, if I do my job right, it'll probably kill you.

If you want to know how I managed to book all these amazing folks, I've got systems and tiny habits that help me along my networking process. I'm teaching you how to do that for free in our six-minute networking course. That's over at jordanharbinger.com slash course. And by the way, most of the guests on the show, they subscribe to the course and the newsletter. So come join us, and you'll be in great company. Now enjoy this episode with Shep Gordon.

One of the reasons I really wanted to talk to you so much that I'm intruding on your family vacation here at your own home is because you've had so much success. It's almost kind of like Forrest Gump of Hollywood level. My friend's globalie forest gum. Yeah. I mean, it's unbelievable. It's like this super nice person does a lot of bright by everyone and then amazing things seem to fall from the sky. And later in the book you actually clarify, look, it's not like you just snap your fingers and it happens. You've got to hustle and leverage those opportunities as well. The first group I worked with with Alice Cooper, and we didn't do well. I don't know if you know. I mean, I know a little bit about us. Alice actually played last night in Vegas, two nights ago in Vegas. So Alice still does shows. I didn't realize that. Alice does a lot of shows. Golfing.

No, no, he's rocking. He's rocking. He did 150 shows this year. Part of it as Alice, part is part of the Hollywood vampires with Johnny Depp and Joe Perrier in and a bunch of the guys. So we finally left the Los Angeles saying we were going to go on the road until we got our first standing ovation. and we played a pop festival in Saginaw, Michigan.

Which is kind of a rough area, even today. Yeah, this was a big open field. We came on after Arthur Brown. We get the standing ovation in Saginaw. First standing ovation we ever got. We didn't realize that the Hells Angels were on bicycles at the back of the field pushing everyone to the front. So we go to a real estate agent,

and we find a place we can rent by the month that's very cheap, and it was a farm in a town called Pontiac, Michigan. And we move in at night. We wake up in the morning. They set up the equipment to practice. Maybe a football field away is a fence. And all these people are watching us at the fence rehearse and applauding and stuff. And they looked a little bit weird.

And it turned out we had moved in next door to an insane asylum. So they're all shaking their head and shuffling around. Which is perfect. They were exactly our target. Right. Yeah. I can imagine it this time like, all right, we just need to find as many of these types of people. This is our gold record.

We moved to the right place. Yeah. Yeah. Nailed it. Confidence builder, though, right? Look at them line up outside the fence. We're going to kill it. And Detroit was great because Detroit was the antithesis of California rock,

where California rock was, you know, I love the flowers, aren't the bees beautiful? Look at the rainbow. Detroit was, you know, going to get your face and knock your teeth out and here we come. Pick out the jabs, motherfucker, you know, with all that stuff. It's still like that only it's not just the music. It does it anymore. I was just back in Detroit. It's really getting Shinole of this company.

China and older, it's got a great job. Jack White just opened a vinyl record store, and they have eight pressing machines, and they just press the record on the vinyl. And great that it's at the Detroit, which is the home of manufacturing for America. It really drives the point home. I mean, my parents still live there, and it's, uh... In Troy. And we go down to Detroit, and it's great because five years ago when I went back there, you really couldn't go. There was maybe one block of Detroit you could go to. And then there were six blocks of Detroit. It's slow progress, but it's... You have to give them a lot of credit all those people who've come in. It'll take 15 years, right? But hopefully it will get back to, or at least rebuild itself a little bit. Detroit in those days was so great because you had the Motown Sound.

You had the Rooster Tale Nightclub, which was the Bible of Motown music. And then at the same time, you had the East Town and Grandley Ballrooms, which were the film wars of really tough music. It was just a great city for us. We got very lucky. My dad's cousin was a VP at Motown, along with 500 other people, or however they ran that company in those days. Yeah, amazing presence in Detroit. I did you ever tell you about the rooster tail? My mom's friend owns it actually now. I'm sure they didn't back then. I mean, it was like

walking into a Martin Scorsese movie, smoky and fedora hats everywhere and Cadillacs outside. I don't think you could get in without a pinky ring. Like a big gold with a ruby on it or something. Even on your own vacation a while back, you had a computer problem and you were one of three people on the island other than the girl that you were with, and then the other guy on the island ended up being Steve Jobs. I mean, this stuff doesn't happen to normal people, right? It is amazing. It's a convergence of luck, chutzpah. Yeah, Hutzpah, exactly. Because nobody's that lucky, seriously. No, just nobody, there's no, it's off the meter. No, I think they are because I'm sort of an example of it. There's a lot of things that I grasp for, and maybe that's part of what makes it

work. I think there's a part of me that's a little bit groupy. I'm really attracted to fame and power. There's a part of me that's always been looking for a substitute father. Mentors I tend to stretch out to. One of the things I always told my clients is, you know, I can get you and know very fast. A yes, I can't tell you how long it's going to take. So when I set my targets on meeting someone, I'm able to sort of find the path usually to get me into it. Our friend Jason did a good job of that. I mean, he put it up everywhere. I don't know if he told you how he finally got connected to you.

No. He was asking, hey, has anyone seen this? Has anyone seen the Supermensch thing? Does anybody know Shep Gordon? And it was on a little private community that we have for events he set up. And then he just kept asking. And finally someone said, I think I know somebody that knows somebody that knows somebody. And he got introduced to you.

And then he, to my knowledge, lived in your house for three days. Yeah, it's so funny. I never thought about it, but he actually is a perfect example of those things I talked about. You know, Luck, Hutzpah, being a little bit of a groupie. Jason, for those of you don't know, Jason is this wonderful guy, lives in Canada, who runs a thing called Masterminds. Right, Mastermind talks, yeah. And I never go on Facebook.

Yeah, I know. I added you and I thought, no. I almost never go on Facebook. I've started to now about Jason's insistent. Yes. I remember who was my secretary. Somebody highlighted to me an email from Jason. And I read it and I said, boy, this sounds really interesting.

And I didn't answer it. And then another one came in. And I said, this is really, you know, this is different than the others. He was able in a very aloha way to hit on things that he knew would get my attention. He said, you have a book coming out. I'd love to help you promote the book. I don't know if you care or not, but if you care about how it does, I think I can be useful. Yeah.

And that hit a note with me because, you know, I don't have a manager. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Why would you? And I know how much work it takes me. you know, to get above the noise for anything. Oh, man. Especially now. Yeah, amazing. So I answered him, which I rarely do. And every one of his answers was so honest, full of aloha and intelligent.

When you say full of aloha, do you just mean, is that like a synonym for humility in some ways? Yeah, humility, concept of innocence, win-win, a thankfulness. He was very confident of what he did but didn't push it. Just a beautiful approach. One thing led to another. We started talking on the phone. He said to me, I have some free time. Could I come out and see you?

I said, you're kidding. He really would do that. And he said, yes. And he came out and we spent three days together. And I sent him back a note after the three days. And I said, you know, if I had a birth son, I sure like him to be like you. Wow. And in the end, it serves him well.

It's a beautiful win-win. It's what I try and do. I talk in the book about how you try and make things a win-win situation. So for me, he's given me a viewpoint. on how to get this book to people to read. Yes. He does these conferences. I can't wait to go to one of his conferences.

I'll see you there. I'd like crawl to get to the conference now, and that's a win-win. Well, I asked him if you were coming to Mastermind talks, and he says, well, let me sell some books first. He hasn't even asked. Yeah, let me help you sell books. So one of the reasons I'm down here is because we're going to sell a few thousand books. Thank you.

Fingers crossed, right? Thank you. But no, I mean, there's no way to keep me away from it. And that's a win-win. Yeah. You know, so he sort of gets what he wants for his life. get what I want from my life. We have a beautiful exchange. You get to meet another human being who's on the same journey, which is great. That's a perfect example of how some luck, perseverance,

and having a little bit of group being in you. When you say a little bit of group of you mean being a fan of the person? Yeah, being a fan of other humans. So many people that world is six inches from their nose. If you can really appreciate what another person has done and want to get to them and say thank you, maybe have some of what you're attracted to bleed off into you. That's a beautiful thing. But the first comes desire and consciousness of, that's a great person. I'd love to meet them. Then work on it, which is I'm sure the first thought of Jason was, wow, I'd like to meet

him. How do I get to meet him? How do I do it in the right way? He perceived the need for me. He filled that need. And we got to meet and he got his sort of thing. I got mine and the ballet will continue. Yeah.

He's a great person. Like, none of that what you saw was even 1% fake. No, no, no, I got it. You know what I got it? I got it completely. He's one of the guys where the reason people think Canadians are super friendly is because of guys like Jason Green. I agree. And so smart.

And smart and sharp. And he's all the right stuff. I can't wait to go to his mastermind. Yeah, I can't wait. It's such a fun event. He does, as you can imagine, a guy like that brings in a great crowd of people that are all super nice. Amazing. I mean, it's just entrepreneur woodstock.

Right? It seems like there has to be an element of luck. On the other hand, you're clearly very conscious of creating the right connections and creating the right relationships and creating the right scenarios. I think, you know, it's funny, a great follow-up. I got taken to a speech in Los Angeles by the Dalai Lama, who I wasn't really aware of. It was a picture, but I didn't really know much.

Right. No internet that you can go, no Wikipedia for you to take a look at it real quick. It wasn't part of my consciousness. It wasn't any goal of mine. I got taken by a girl I was living with who was an actress. Was Sharon Stone who took you there? Yeah. We got backstage because of Sharon, and he walked in the room, and I felt like I had just taken

the greatest shower of my life. I don't know how else to describe it. Just him coming in the room, I saw his face. He came walking in, and it was like, wow, that's wild. I just felt clean, like really clean. I got to be on a line, and he gave me a scarf. Wow. Nice.

And I got back home to Hawaii and I said, boy, I sure would love to be able to spend a little time near him, see what this is all about. And I did some research and I got a whole of a friend of mine. I asked him about Buddhism. What is the real essence of it? And then I went to a bookstore here and there was a sign that he was coming to Hawaii to give a speech. This is way before Secret Service and as crazy as it is now. Boy, I would love to spend some time with him. He's coming to Hawaii.

He's got to eat. I deal in culinary arts. why don't I make an offering of the food while he's here, and maybe that way I'd be able to see the world get a little closer. And that's what I did. I reached out, went through some connections, found out from Sharon, who had invited us, got a hold of the person who invited us. His name was Rinchindarla.

He accepted my offer. Wow. And the only thing he said to me was, you can't have any expectation that you will meet his holiness or interact with him. That's a very Buddhist thing to say, right? And I said, okay, I understand. And I was sort of sad. Then the first morning, they asked me to bring him breakfast.

And I walked right in. He was brushing his teeth in the bathroom. And here I was with the Dalai Lama. It was like so wild. And then I made more offerings. And I went to Trinidad with and went to a few other places and got to accomplish what my goal was for me, which was to spend some time near him and see, could I see something in the way he conducts his life that would help my life be better?

I ended up going to New York with him to cook. and in New York someone actually knew what I did for a living. Right, right. And because I thought I was a cook to them. I joined the board of Tibet Fund, which is the vehicle that finances the government in exile. I've been on the board for the last 20 years. Wow. So it's a win-win for everybody.

Again, it turned into a beautiful win-win, but it was luck to have been taken to that speech and then dedication and work and sincerity. It was selfless. All I really wanted was to be near him and serve them. I think it makes sense that they asked you that question. right? Make sure you have no expectations because that's the screen because somebody who says, no, I'm just here to get a selfie with the Dalai Lama isn't going to cook breakfast with no return on what they consider an investment. And it's funny to hear that he's sitting there brushing

his teeth when you go in. And then even the things he says in the book, right? Oh, he's so funny. He's brushing his teeth and he goes, is that yak butter? This is why I left Tibet, because it smells like dirty socks. He is so funny. I think another great one was when I tell the stories and I talk about it, it sounds as if I have an important. important place in his life, and I'm sure I do because I'm a human, but not because of anything else. And I think that I'm one of a blur of life going by. I truly have no expectation of him ever remembering me, any of that stuff, part of my journey. We went to Trinidad, and I got on an airplane to go to Trinidad, and he was on the airplane. And I walked past him to go to the

bathroom, and I could sort of tell that he didn't recognize me. Right, because he meets a thousand people, Yeah. Easily. And when I came out of the bathroom, I could tell that his handler, it told him who I was. So, oh, how are you? So good to see you since Hawaii, you know, he had been trapped. So we get to Trinidad, and there's only two people and me with him. There's a very little entourage, one security guy, Rinchindarlo, who was his ambassador.

I mean, obviously a different time. Totally different time and me. And we get there, and we're in a holding pattern backstage. Right at the airport, there's a convention center, and they had to dig. dignitaries of Trinidad there to meet him and he was going to give a little speech. So we're backstage. A security guy goes off and the other person goes off. And it's just us.

And he says, oh, you cook for me in Hawaii, yeah. And I said, yes, your holiness. And oh, and you cook in New York, yeah. Yes, your holiness. He said, now you cook in Trinidad. And he said, yes, your holiness, very happy to do this. And he says, you only cook on island? Now they say it's time for us to walk out.

And in Trinidad, I had never been to Trinidad before, but what makes Trinidad really unique is that everyone gets along, but none of them have merged together the different cultures. So the Africans wear pure African garb. The South American Indians wear pure South American Indians. So we walked into a room that was beautiful with all these costumes. And His Holiness was wearing his orange robes. And he looks around, gives it a minute.

Oh, must be in the wrong room. This costume party? And then he looks at himself and he looks down. he goes, oh, no, be dressed right in robe for a costume party. Oh, my gosh. And just everyone loses it. And then he becomes a human. Right.

Now all that other stuff is gone, and now he can talk to him. He must have learned that over years of just be a little. Maybe lifetimes ago. Maybe, yeah. Because there's got to be a lot of work if everybody is treating you like you're floating your whole life. It would get really tiring. So I've noticed now, I've been in enough things to see he always comes up with something

to make himself human. To defuse that. Yeah, to defuse that attention thing in the air. Interesting. Do you see that as a skill that a lot of famous people learn over time? I think most people don't care about that. They enjoy the step ladder. I think they enjoy that privilege of almost being above the fray.

That wall. I think that's the difference between the compassionate ones and the ones who don't maybe use their power like they possibly could. Yeah. It's a powerful position, as you well know, because you're on the air. You can influence a lot of things. You get to a lot of minds, and it's a responsibility. I agree.

A lot of times when authors come on, they'll say, sell books, by the thousands, they get really surprised, or even presidential candidates have said, look, why don't we come on and you can endorse this person? I was really surprised to see that. Even most authors have to look up what this is. But people who are really, really in the know, they see where the influence is starting to shift. And it can be powerful, but it can also be very intoxicating. And I'm talking about, look at the minute sliver. No, no, absolutely. You're going to get a good sense of it. It's a good sense. And it's a power that's, I always think of it as like Star Wars. The lightsaber? Yeah. So to hold on to the fame in the,

thing and you just try and use it for good stuff, but it's, there's so much fools gold out there. Right. Don't turn it on in your pocket. Don't turn it on in your pocket, exactly. I mean, you started early enough where you met Janice Joplin, Hendrix, Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd, and you were what, like 22 years old? Yeah, wasn't even. Not even. So you weren't even old enough to drink, but you were hanging out with people who only did stuff like that. Yeah. I got really lucky. I got lucky, and I took advantage of the luck. And for me, strangely enough, being Jewish is really what led me into my life's career because that came up in conversation in those days, are you Jewish? And Jimmy Hendrick said to me, are you Jewish? And I said, yes,

and you should be a manager. All the managers are Jews. Because back then, that wasn't a weird thing to say, right? Yeah, politically not correct. That's really what led me on my journey. I think if the answer had been different that day, I have no idea where I would be today. Right. He could have said, you should sell carpet. That's what people are doing now. And you'd be, you'd have sold a lot of carpet. A lot of carpet. It might have been easier. Yeah, it might have been a lot easier. It certainly would have been better for your liver.

That's for sure. Yeah. I read the whole book. That's unbelievable. I watched the documentary. I googled everything. And I can imagine reading your own book would actually be really painful in a lot of ways because you've already heard it and you wrote it and you read it and now you're reading

it again, but you've got to make it a performance. Yeah, it's wild. But I've been enjoying your own because it's all so new to me. One of the things Alice always says is that the only time. of the day that he knows what to do is when he's Alice on stage. You always knows what Alice will do on stage. He's got the Alice Cooper persona down. Got it down. The rest of it he's winging. Doesn't matter what happens. Anything could happen. He knows what that character is going to do. Everything else in his life is sort of winging. Really? And I think most of us are winging most of our life.

I think so. Yeah. And for me, it's been really interesting because I feel the same way about chef Gordon in interviews and on stage. I sort of know who I should be. Right. Yeah. Tell some stories and be funny and entertaining. Yeah. I'm very bad at speeches because the speech is just about me. Right. It's just about you. Yeah. And I have no idea still at 70 years old who I am. Right. I'm so trying to figure it out. You're going to have to take some bullet points, man. But that guy who's in the book and on the screen, him I sort of know really well. Yeah. So anyway, it's. Yeah. I I can see that. I mean, I originally started out having to be, or thinking I had to be some kind of character on the show as well. And after a while, Jenny, who I met through this show as well, the reason she met with me in the first place was she said, I just wonder if he's like this in real life.

Is he like who he is on the show in real life? And then we met up and I was, according to her, the same person on the show. I think when you're a communicator, when your business is communicating, it's like Alice's character on stage or my character. If it isn't the essence of who you are, it's almost like a classic comic book read of who you are. Yeah. It doesn't come off as real. It doesn't come off. And you become kind of a commodity, right? Because if you're just acting like somebody else, then somebody else can act that way.

And I think it starts that circle of trouble downward. You know, you're living a lie. That lie starts to eat you up. Sure. And a drug or a liquor or food or something comes in to fill up that hole. Because you start to say, well, I'm clearly not going to. enough who I really am. And that's got that that burns. And the more you have to be somebody else, the more that would reinforce itself. Absolutely. You even mentioned in the book that fame is corrupting.

It's the stove you don't touch. It's the toxic waste of celebrity. I think Mike Myers or. Yeah, that was Mike Myers and I thought it's a great line. How does that work in your eyes? I mean, why does that happen? I think it's different for different people. I think I have a narrow viewpoint because I worked with entertainers who perform live on stage for the most part. And I think that's the most dangerous than the most at risk of all fame because the amount of rejection you have to go through to get to a point where you're selling out a stadium is inhuman. And you only do it if something's driving you more than making money. And that drive is normally some hole in you that you need people applauding telling you're great, filling some kind of a

hole. And it doesn't get filled by applause. So the performers are the most at risk. to me. Right. Because they, for the most part, have a need that will never get fulfilled. I had a moment when my documentary first came out because no one knows who I am and I can talk about fame. It's always easy to talk about stuff that doesn't touch you. You know, once it touches you, it's a different thing. It was the first week of the film and it was at a Tribecker Film Festival, I think, and I was walking in New York City to screening where I was doing a question and answer with Michael Douglas. My quiet zones, you know, the Joseph Campbell concept of find a quiet space and do what you like.

For me, walking is one of them. Yeah, I feel you. I love walking. Especially in New York somehow. Somehow, and I love multitasking. And I love seeing the faces go by and thinking about stuff. It just, it relaxes me. It's just a beautiful thing.

And so I was taking my walk to Tribecker thinking about something. And I heard my name, Mr. Gordon, Mr. Gordon. And I thought, looking there was a young lady on. the street and she said, you mind if I talk to you a minute? I work at CNN and we screened your movie yesterday and I want to be a producer and I had a tough childhood and I wondered if you could give me some advice on how you got through and how you stayed happy. You know, as a human, you sort of wait for those moments where somebody actually needs help and reaches out to you and maybe you can help them. That's sort of what we do different. That's the whole point. That's the whole point.

Yeah. So here it was, you know, presenting me this beautiful, gift. And you got to run. And I got to go to this thing. Oh, man. And I said to, I'm so sorry. And then I gave him my card. And when I got to the event, we got up on stage and I said, Michael, before you ask me questions, I need to ask you a question that I just, and I told them what happened. And I said, you know, I've spent most of my life having my hand up in front of people like you, separating you from people like that. Right. And I know there had to be plenty of people in wheelchairs and penny of people on canes and plenty of really old people and plenty of new babies.

And every day you have to be blocked from those kind of people getting to you. What does that do to you? Yeah. What does that do to, like, walk past the guy who was in a wheelchair who you know how much you would add to his life just from the, all he wants to say is, oh, I met your father 40 years ago or, you know, some thing that's important to him. And he said, it's really tough. At the beginning, it was really tough for me.

And then I found out that I had to sort of make myself unconscious. And it's not something I'm proud of. But there's no way to get through life in my position. Sure. And be that conscious person that I would like to be. So I compromise myself and I try and do a lot of good stuff outside. But I know that when I'm out in public, there's a lot of people who I would love to make their day better, who I'm probably making their day worse.

It sort of flips the script on what people think about celebrities because we think, oh, they go to these private things so I don't have to interact with us, common folk, which is only true up into the extent where they don't want to interact with us because it makes them feel terrible that they can't interact with everybody or they can't give everybody what they want or they can't be everybody that we all want them to be in the moment. And that makes them feel bad, not because they can't stand the smell of the commoners or whatever. I think it's an individual thing, but I would say for the most part, that's 90% of it. But there are some who live on a high horse and just don't get what life is about. Yeah. Go through and it's beautiful. They're great too. But for the ones that are conscious like a Michael Douglas, you can see the pain.

It's sort of, you know, when you talk about it, you can feel his pain. When I was a kid, he was one of my favorite actors because he seemed kind of, he was really serious a lot. But when he was funny, he was very understated with it. And I like that about him. I thought that was a cool thing. But he also seems like the kind of guy you just don't want to cross because he still got a little Gordon Gecko in that.

Oh, yeah. There was, I won't say who it was, but it was an actor that I worked with on a movie who was very disrespectful to everybody, did all the wrong stuff, really disrespectful. And about a year later, like way beyond disrespectful. That's the wrong word. Disrespect where he was. Incredibly, yeah, just a terrible person. Yeah, yeah.

And we walked in a restaurant, he was there, Michael went over to him. It was my movie, not Michael, and he punched him. Oh my God. That's for the crew of the movie. Wow. During the meal, huh? Just Coles Cockham. But well deserved.

To understated applause. Yeah, I mean, really, really well deserved. Wow. He said, I'm just writing a speech to introduce him in New York at a dinner for a very famous chef who died, Roger Virginia. And I was sitting in writing a speech. He's one of my best friends, my mentor. He's an amazing man. I mean, he's been focused for 30 years on.

deterring nuclear weapons. Really? Wow. Worked real bit to the UN, probably 20 times giving speeches. I mean, he does all this amazing stuff. So fun to see the other side of some of these celebrities who you only see on stupid entertainment shows. They're humans who have real emotions and, you know, trying to do the best they can do. Roger Vaget taught you a lot.

In fact, he mentioned it's never about what you want. That was something that was kind of a recurring theme in the book as well. And I think that's obviously something that you seem to be living by as well, especially with your dealings with others. For me, one of the hardest things to get through my brain and one of the most rewarding things that got through my brain was the people that I were attracted to, Roger Reggie, His Holiness, their happiness came from serving others.

That was their real joy. You know, the words of the words, that's a hard concept sometimes to get through your brain, that the most selfish thing you can possibly do is serve other people because it makes you so happy. Yeah, yeah. That's what both of them really taught to me. And I try and live my life by it.

And I think all the religions sort of say the same. Everybody sort of says it. And hopefully, you know, all of you listening at there at one point, I'll have an epiphany because it takes an epiphany. I don't think we're raised that way anymore in America. It's not the way we're raised. A lot of people try to fake it to where they go, no, I'm going to do this for you. Oh, no problem.

And then they go, by the way, can you introduce me to Grant? No, I'm sorry. I can't do that. well, screw you, Shep Gordon. I've done so much for you, right? How dare you? That's so the wrong approach to it. Yeah. Once that really started to settle in my brain and I saw it really through Verje the best, I realized that my life had leaned that way without me understanding what I was actually doing. I made so many choices in my life that lean towards that direction. But I never thought of them as service. Right. It was just choices. It was just choices. Everybody, even the paparazzi likes you, Which is like, I guess technically they love a lot of folks, but not in the same way.

In the documentary, you manage to make them happy and get them to do what you want, which is a group of people that nobody can seem to control. You know, so much of it is attitude. If you come in angry, you usually leave angry. It was so obvious to me that the interests of the star and the interest of the paparazzi are the same. No matter what star you are, you have a PR person who's looking to spin good stuff about you. You have a movie come out, a record come out, your new restaurant opens. There's no celebrity who's important enough for the paparazzi to care about,

who doesn't make their livelihood off press. So the two of them meet at the exact same place. The problem was nobody was talking to both of them to say, be of mutual interest to each other. So what I did is I got the paparov. Luckily, I live on a small island. Yeah. There's very few paparachi. And they're hanging out down there on the beach.

They're hanging. I know all of them. And I said, listen, if I tell you someone, one's coming in, you don't take any random shots. They'll set up a photo session for you. You'll get the only shot. Give half the money to the food bank here on Maui. Keep the other half, everybody's happy. Yeah. And that's what we do. Yeah. And then you get a little semblance of control over it. You get control. You get the picture you want out. It helps your career. The food bank makes a lot of money, feeds a lot of homeless people. Popsie guy doesn't have to sneak around bushes. Right. He's not

hanging out. I invited up to dinner. I invited him to Tom Arnold's wedding. He came to the wedding with us. But it's great because you can't be a public figure and lie to yourself in your public that you don't want attention. Right. It's kind of a weird game to play. It's a weird game to play. Everybody please leave me alone.

Here's me doing something scandalous in public. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Shep Gordon. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. And to learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard from our amazing sponsors, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Don't forget we have a worksheet for today's episode so you can make sure you solidify your understanding

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And now back to our show with Shep Gordon. To sort of put another fine point on this, serving people doesn't make economic sense for you or for anybody in the beginning necessarily. I mean, like the chefs, for example, one of the reasons for the massive success was because you didn't have to see an opportunity there to help out Roger Vichet and the other chefs. This wasn't something where you went, okay, if I help these guys out, dot, dot, dot, profit. This was pure love for. And pure service. And pure service. Really service. You know, it was really service. It was Mr. Verje asked to bring some dignity to the

profession and I was of service. I think this is an important point because I think a lot of folks kind of just what we talked about before, they try to plan for the opportunity, then they try to offer an air quote service at that point where they can then leverage it later on or something like that. And this proves that you can't really plan for what opportunity will come because sometimes the opportunity doesn't even exist at the time that you end up serving. I mean, you could have easily either failed to bring dignity to the profession or brought dignity to the profession at the return of zero dollars for anyone involved. Also, I was lucky in that I had resources. You do have to provide for your family. You do have to eat. There are certain real necessities of

life. I was very lucky in that I could truly serve for the service and not have to think I had a music business that was doing really well. I had happy clients. I think that's also an important part of it, you know, is that I had that ability because it's rough out there. And I get it if you can't buy dinner. It's hard to be of service. Yeah, sure. Do you think you would have done it even if you weren't successful in the other area? Do you think you still would have ended up? I don't know if I would have had time. You'd have been too busy hustle. Yeah, I don't know. Hard to say. But I know that, you know, feeding the family is sort of the first line. Yeah. That's just biological imperative at that point. So when I say luck, that's part of what I mean about luck.

Sure. Tell me about the coupon system that you have that you kind of keep in the back of your or maybe in the front of your head. Yeah, I think it's very much in the front of my head. For example, Jason, who we talked about before, who's done me all these things for me, it's not even a question to me. Of course, I'm buying a ticket to his series. It's not even a question.

That's a key, he had a coupon with me. I think the word coupon maybe is a little demeaning to it all. But it just means, you know, if you come across a fellow traveler in this journey and they're willing to go out of their way to make your life back. and happier, you owe it to him to go that extra mile to try and make his life happier and better. Look, I mean, you've obviously mastered the art of leveraging relationships. I mean, some of the

stuff in the book, I'm just scrolling through here. I mean, there are some unbelievable stories in here. First of all, great quote from Alice Cooper that I think maybe comes from the book jacket, I would imagine. Reality has never seemed too important in the 50 years, Shep and I have been working together. When we need something to happen, Shipp just works his magic to simply make it a reality. I'm still not sure how he does it. He just has the natural ability to create scenarios and relationships that help to get you where you need to go. That's a powerful statement, and it's not something that sounds like some of a PR person crafted for him to throw in there. I mean, some of the stunts that you had done in the past to get him on his feet and moving are incredible. I mean, first of all,

maybe we can bring a little background. How did you get into the rock scene at such a young age. How did you even get involved with all these crazy folks? I went out to California as a probation officer, which lasted one day. It was a very ugly experience. I thought my law career was short. This was short, but I was a long hair during the Reagan era working in a jail. It wasn't a good thing. Yeah, got beat up by prisoners. Yeah, got beat up by prisoners, left, checked into a motel, very cheap motel late at night, took some psychedelics. Yeah, I noticed that you got in, you're tired, you quit your first job that you're driven across the country for, and your plan is, I'm going to drop some acid.

Yeah. This is the first thing I got to do is drop some acid here. I try and figure this out. Yeah. Like, where am I going? You know, sitting on the porch, my life is fucked completely. I have $400 to my name, and I just got beat up in a jail. What else are you going to do except, you know, and I was a bit of an acid head at the time.

Yeah, it sounds like that was the go-to. And I heard someone screaming, broke up the screaming. The girl punched me because they weren't fighting. They were making love. Turned that to be Janice Joplin. So you got beat up by prisoners and Janice Joplin at the same day. Yeah, a big day. And at this motel, which is where she sadly died,

a landmark motel years later, were all these rock and rollers at Chambers Brothers, who I was big fans of, Jimmy Hendricks, guys like Jim Morrison were there all the time. I started selling psychedelics to some of the people there. And one day they asked me what else I did for a living. And I said, I didn't really do anything. And either Hendricks or Lester Chambers, I said, are you Jewish? Yeah, you should be a manager. And they introduced me to Alice Cooper.

And that started my journey, and I still manage Alice. But you chose, you said yes to Alice Cooper, not because you're gung-ho to be a rock manager. I needed a front for dealing. Right. So you said, look, this band is so terrible. This will never happen. I'm never going to have to do any work as a manager. And I can just continue selling drugs to cover for my ink. This will never happen. And then people started getting busted all around me. And I knew I couldn't do it anymore. And I sat down with the band. And then I said, listen, now somehow I'm going to become a millionaire.

I'm not quite sure how. But if you all want to do it together, let's shake hands. And let's make this thing happen. And that was the only contract you ever had in the hospital. Never had another contract. Even now people don't try to say, hey, look, you got to put this on paper and you got to do it. Yeah, people try, but we don't. You just don't need to worry about it.

That's amazing. Yeah. Contracts make lawsuits. They do, yeah. Handshakes make friends. Yeah. And even if something happens at this point, now you get to work it out with whoever it is. You don't have to call in $5,000 an hour lawyers to deal with it. And we're so past that now.

Well, you and him for sure. Yeah. It's like body parts. Yeah. It's insane. Yeah. At this point, at this point, you guys are family, whether you like it. What I always tried to do with Alice, and I thought, you know, I was very young in my life at Buffalo.

I was involved with an event that I guess sort of shaped me, but not that I'm from voting psychedelics at all. But I think the psychedelics opened my mind up to the possibility that you could create history. The rules didn't have to apply. When I was in Buffalo, we did a ridiculous thing where we brought it. We may believe that a leader of a country was coming to Buffalo. The Thalas. Yeah. And that he was anti-Semitic. And we got thousands of people out and broke through the window of the airport. And it was insane. Protesting the Thalas. Yeah, the Thalus was coming. But it worked. It was a thought. that ended up being reality.

And later on, when I started working with Alice, and we decided we really had to make it, that's what came into my head. Why, what we used to say was, oh, we got to do something that'll get parents to really hate us. What'll be this? We've got to somehow figure out. Then we said, well, let's just do something.

So we did see-through clothes. And I called the police. Right, the see-through clothes while Alice Cooper's playing on stage. It's on stage. Essentially like a shower curtain around each of them. To get him busted for obscenity. which we thought would be fantastic because our goal was to get parents to hate Alice, which meant kids would love them.

That was our goal. We came in the back door, and it didn't work. Police came, the clothes had fogged up. The clothes had fogged up because they were sweating on stage. But it led us to, we just kept trying. Then we had the chicken incident, which, again, was history, Alice biting the head of the chick, but we set it up. Did he didn't bite the chicken?

No, he didn't at all. No, you don't need to. Right. That's just what had, that's how it evolved. That's it evolved. And that's how I sort of tried to work with all my clients was to create history, not wait for it to happen. So with Teddy Pendergrass, for example, we did for women-only concerts. Yeah.

I was trying to, you know, as a manager, what can you do for an artist? You're not going to remake his body. You're not going to remake his, you can try and take the artistry that he has that appeal to the public, narrow it down to a message that can be conveyed, and then figure out how to tell people. who this person is. And in Teddy's case, it was about sex. It was pure sex. The songs were about sexes. So how do we get that across? We'll do concerts for women only. We'll give them a little chocolate teddy bear lollipop. I know. I couldn't, I had nightmares about chocolate teddy bear lollipops after I read about that. But then when it came to Luther, who was a very similar artist. Luther Vandross, he was all about romance. So how do you define romance to your public? Well, with him,

Then we did a series of contests across the country at radio stations, get married on the air by Luther Vandross, the most romantic thing in the world. So weddings, and he became the song that got played a wedding. And that's what I always call creating history rather than waiting for it. As soon as we did for women only, all the press started calling him the Black Elvis. Oh, wow. You know, me, yeah. Boing, boing, boing.

Handled, yeah. Yeah. What a good. So that's what I tried to do for all my acts. and I tried to do for the chefs and try to create the history. Yeah, you got the chicken incident or the chicken story, the broken down truck. The broken down truck. It's fantastic.

This one was really incredible because essentially you had to find some guy who was willing to take a dive. The incident was in London. We were playing London for the first time, Wembley Arena, a big hall. Huge. Yeah. 8,000, 9,000, siege, which was big for us. I got into town and we hadn't sold many tickets at all, very few. At that point, when you didn't sell that many tickets,

Are you thinking, oh, shit, we didn't sell that many tickets? Or do you just go, all right, we can figure this shit? Oh, no, I'm looking in the mirror saying, you completely fuck. You blew it this time. This is it. The whole thing's over. You are really an asshole. Okay.

So, yeah, that's the first thing. The same reaction as I would have. Yeah, as every human being. Yeah. As every human being. And then, okay, asshole, what are you going to do? Yeah. You know, you can feel sorry for yourself or you can make this thing work.

Okay, how am I going to make it work? Bingo. Bango go to the record company. There's a guy they named Derek Taylor, who was a living legend. Brilliant, man. And I went into him, and I said I'm Alice Cooper's manager, and he didn't know who Alice Cooper was. And he said, tell me about him. I said, well, instead of telling you about him, let me ask you a few questions.

I said, what's the fastest way to get to every parent in England? Is there an Ed Sullivan show in America? If you're on Ed Sullivan show, every parent. And I explained to him about Elvis Presley. Colonel Parker wouldn't let the hips be shown on Elvis Presley, and that's what exploded Elvis. Because they were too sexy. Because parents said, you can't watch this. He's too sexy. And he picked up kids at a point of rebellion. I said, Alice is a guy named Alice that wear dresses. We've built our career on parents hating him, just like the Elvis thing.

I need to get to those parents really fast. Is there something like the Ed Sullivan show? He said, no, here it's like morning news, BBC morning news. Right, which isn't going to feature some rock act, which is never going to feature a rock act. especially not Alice Cooper. And I said, what do they show on? And he said, it's the weirdest thing, a lot of traffic for people coming to work in the morning. So British. You know, how to grow wheat and soy.

Oh, my gosh. And the ostrich festival in Cambridge. And I said, they do traffic a lot? And he said, yes. How do they do? He said, helicopters. And I said, what about if, I said, I had this great picture of Alice naked that we just shot. What about if we figured out, what's the busiest intersection in the morning?

And he said, Piccadilly. I said, maybe we take this and we put it on a truck and break it down at Piccadilly and get the helicopters to show the traffic backed up. Right. And parents say, who is this disgusting naked person who's backing up traffic? And Derek, you know, I figured out he found the driver who was willing to go to jail. And we broke it down twice. And they took them off the second time.

And it backed up traffic for 30, 40 miles. And luckily, this is where luck comes in, two members of parliament got caught in the traffic. late Mary White House, and I forgot the other guy's name. And when they got to the legislature, they put in a bill to bad Alice from coming to England. Wow. Talk about it. So that was the front page. And we hit the, and it sold out in like one day and life was beautiful. Oh, yeah. Wow. And then he had a different problem. We better crush this show in the UK. Reminds me, I get a friend Ryan Holiday who does similar stuff. I don't know if you ever heard of this kid. He's done similar stunts where he'll work for an author, another friend Tucker Max, and what he did was a lot of people thought that his writing was really

disgusting because it was kind of like this immature stuff back in the day. And so he created buzz that Tucker Max is coming out with a movie and we should protest this. And so he went to all these frat houses and got them to go to this movie, but he also got all these feminist groups to show up and say ban this movie. That's perfect. And they went out in force and it made news and it was banned the Tucker Max movie. And I mean, at this point, even if it went straight to DVD, he made up for it in book sales, right? Because then everybody knew who. I love that kind of stuff. Yeah. As long as it doesn't hurt people. Right. Yes. It has to draw no blood, right? That's the idea. Not to get political, but we're seeing so much of that stuff in politics where truth doesn't matter. In the entertainment

world, that's one thing. When it bleeds into real life, it gets a little dangerous. Yeah, it starts to become, the theater starts to get confused with real life. And that causes major problems for everybody. It looks like the celebrity chef movement is a large part of your legacy. Would you say that? Yeah, I think for me, the three things that I'm probably proudest of in my professional career, not my personal career, but Alice helping to get rid of the Chitlin circuit with Teddy. Right. And the respect brought to the culinary artists that the chefs are now culinary artists and not cooks. Not cooks, yeah. The Chitlin Circuit thing was kind of an interesting to give people a little background. This was essentially a take it or leave it circuit for

Afro-American entertainers that had to play just because they thought, if we don't play here, we're never going to get any sales and we're going to be out on our butts. And so they were just taking advantage of. It was maybe the next, I don't mean it as cold as it sounds, but it was a direct link to the slavery issue. It was a plantation owner. That plantation owner normally owned the record company. He had affiliations with radio stations around the country. The lifeblood for that record company was to have radio stations. stations play the records. All those radio stations made a lot of money promoting concerts. And when a white artist, for example, would have a hit record and go to Cleveland, and the

radio station would promote it in conjunction with a white promoter, and the act would get paid. The station would make a little money. The record company was happy. In the Afro-American world, the artist would have a hit record, would go to the same town as Cleveland. The radio station would promote the show, but they'd keep 99% of the money. Wow. And the artist was told by the record company, if they wanted to keep their record contract and have hit records, they would do these shows basically for whatever the stations wanted to pay them.

And the stations had promoters who were black promoters. There was a black promoters association that was run out of Chicago that I believe Jesse Jackson was the lobbyist for that were very powerful and very annoyed if somebody tried to break that circuit. So when a Teddy Pendergrass went to Cleveland, for example, he had a play for those guys. If he played for a white promoter

and got paid, he would get picketed. Really? Yeah. We got picketed, Radio City Musical. We got picketed a lot of places. What's the excuse for picketing? They just call in their cronies and they stand out there and cause trouble? Yes, course.

It was a tough time. Yeah. Nobody was breaking it. Nobody was willing to break it. You would hear about the other side of, you know, the record company, we'd give the guys Cadillacs that were rented and get the keys back if they stopped having a hit record. So it was, you know, when we did our first show, when we broke out, we got death threats. The FBI had to watch us. His last manager had been shot to death Teddy's. Were you worried about that at all? I mean, I would have been really worried. But it was a point

in my life where I didn't really care. Was the young and invincible phase? It wasn't so much Young and Invincible, I never had a, particularly at that point in my life, I didn't have a wife, I didn't have children. My dad had passed away and my mother was living. I hadn't figured out what life was about. I had a lot of those moments looking in the mirror and you know, what are you a schmuck? I had a lot of three o'clock in the morning, you know, putting stuff up my nose. Yeah. So if life had ended, wasn't a disaster. Yeah. Injury, I was scared of. Sure, yeah. You mentioned in the book, if I had a stroke, just killed me. So I didn't really, it wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't. part of my thing. And when I came up against this unbelievable injustice, there was something in me, which I hadn't figured out really until I wrote the book because I never really thought about stuff. I just would wake up in the morning and do what I'd do. I got to the first show with Teddy. And it was unbelievable. The PA system was like for a lounge show. The lighting was non-existent. He didn't pay us. He gave me a ring. That's weird. That was weird. When I read that, I was like, what the kind of mafia crap is this?

And that's what happened. That was life the way it was. Were you just expected to pawn the ring and try to get some cash and that's it? It was so far beyond me. It was like it was so different than anything I had known. I was really naive. I was a naive white Jewish kid. Yeah, from Long Island.

Yeah, from Long Island who had no idea. Alice had played that building for a white promoter. We got paid. Everything was beautiful. We did less business than Teddy. It's really after that showed it. I got educated. I don't know if I would have even agreed to manage him.

Knowing the uphill battle. Knowing, I didn't know his manager had been shot to death. I didn't know those kind of thing. But once I was in and I got confronted by this, it was like, somebody's got to do something. This is so wrong. And probably economics came into it also because it's like, I'm not going to work for nothing. Yeah. This is crazy.

I made a commitment to the guy. I'm going to live up to my commitment. But we're going to get paid because I can't get paid if he doesn't get paid. Right. You know, if I had thought about it, I probably would have taken a different path. Sure. Like, hey, this is looking pretty tough. Oh, my God.

How are those chefs looking? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, and I was at a point in my career, or I could have taken Axo and making a lot of money. Sure. And never was my path. Yeah. You could have not dealt with the headache, yeah,

and just as soon moved along. Jason told me you've been in the business space for, I don't know, what are we talking about, 45, 50-ish years, but you never liked business? Is that true? Yeah. How is that even, how is that possible? Yeah, there's nothing about it that I find enjoyable.

Really? Yeah. What keeps you going then? I think it's service. Service. You know, all of my stuff is service or I just got a new door in my bedroom. I haven't been able to open my bedroom door leading to the outside for 20 years. Because it was sticking on the...

Yeah. And I just got to change this week. And I said to one of my kids and said, you know, I may have carried this service stuff a little bit too far. Because I certainly could have fought a new door. Yeah. I mean, this is a nice. house on the beach here in Maui. I live like a king. I'm like, oh my God.

The door doesn't have to stick. So I think what's what I do? You know, I'm really good at it. I tried retiring and... Great job. Yeah, it doesn't work. You know, it just for me, it doesn't work. I wake up in the morning, I still do what I do. I love the challenge of doing stuff that no one thinks can be done. I love the challenge of

connecting the dots. And I just, you know, I'm working on a campaign now to try and move a couple of food companies that do home delivery into a Tom shoe model. Oh, I see. So you buy a meal and they give it away. That's great. Yeah, which is great stuff. Yeah. You know, it's the same kind of a thing. It's putting the pieces together. It's what I do. I know that I can maybe help some people doing it. And what else are I going to do? Just, you know, how many joints can you smoke a day?

Right. Yeah. Before it. It seems like the service and this sort of unique mover and shaker kind of arrangement. engagement goes way back. I mean, you read in the book that you went to work with your dad one day, never talked about his work, and then he went there and you saw why, because it was just this like fluorescent light bulb dangling from the ceiling kind of particle board office, and you thought to yourself, I'm never doing this. I think I'd bring up my dad, I mean, for me, the biggest revelation of doing the book was realizing that I'm basically living out my father's life in service. He sort of gave up the things he enjoyed in life. He said,

this is my impression to be of service to me and my brother and my mother. And he, without ever any hesitation, without any desire for anything in return, he lives if serviced us. And I think that's sort of, I'm sort of trying to live out his life. I never realized it before. Before you wrote the book? Yeah. But as I wrote, and then Norman Mele came out with a fantastic autobiography in the middle of my writing in the book, and I read it. And he talked about his father, and it just turn the light bulb on in my head. I said, wow, that's what he would have done if he had confronted the Chitland Circuit, or that's what he would have done if he had gone to the funeral and the four kids were there. Very quietly, never would have said a word. I'd take no credit. So I see I'm really

living out in some ways, you know, his life. I mean, the four kids you mentioned, you essentially adopted kids, I don't want to say on a whim, but certainly. Yeah, no, definitely on a whim. Yeah. Not even a whim. Just kind of a sub whim. It was a sub whim. Because they needed it. They needed it. Somebody had to do it. And I happened to be there.

Yeah. And this is why they call you the Superman. Yeah. And by the way, the best thing I ever did in my life. Really? Good. Good. Because the last thing you want to hear is,

and I've regret it ever since. Yeah. No, that's the best thing I ever did in my life. You mentioned that when you went to work with your dad, you saw the way that he was living. And yes, maybe you're living out the way that he would have done it now. But you still had that drive. It wasn't, oh, I don't want to work.

This looks boring. It was, I'm willing to work my ass off, but I got to love it, which made me think that you're a millennial that's 30 years ahead of his time. Well, I think the only way to get what you want is wake up earlier, go to sleep later and do more work in between. There is no shortcut. I think if the people that I've seen who have shortcuts in their lives, the damage for those shortcuts is almost insurmountable.

How do you mean? Being born too wealthy. Oh, yeah. being more into really powerful parents who know they're powerful and don't back off it for you, winning a lottery, not working for these fools gold items because they are fools gold stuff. And if you don't work for more than a sudden, you think that that's actually what life is about and not about the work and the journey to get to it. And it's just so hard to overcome. Whereas when you get up and you work for what you understand that accumulating more money

and the next guy is not going to make you happy. Accumulating enough to eat can make you happy. Getting up earlier, working harder, that's all part of it. Whether it's working at a relationship or working at business or, you know, working for something that you want, that to me is a key to luck. The key to luck? Yeah. It's getting up earlier, going to sleep later, working harder.

Is that an Edison quote, the harder I work, the luckier I get? I can't know. Yeah, somebody. Somebody, right. It's very true. We'll throw it out there. And I think the other thing that I was just, when I was talking to somebody, that they was doing, became really apparent to me, is it in a business of service, particularly,

and particularly in a high-profile business, the ability to fail is almost more important than the ability to win. How do you mean? Nothing gets done alone. You're in every, almost everything is in relationships. And the most important thing for my relationship with my artist that I managed was having the ability to fail, because if you're not willing to fail, you're not going to do anything worthwhile. You're going to be doing what everyone else did? Sure, yeah, because you have to go down

the shore path. I was telling a story about Alice and I and the canon, which I think I tell in the book, where I put him into this horrible thing. You know, he's the guy in front, he's on stage. He was doing his first stadium show. I advertised we were going to shoot him out in a cannon across the stadium. It just sounds so dangerous. That's what you said, what I called about. Yeah. But I thought I had it. I got this. No, no one time. Yeah, I got it. What could go right?

I got this covered. And I went to some guys who built it for me, very cocky. They were so cocky, they asked me what period, canon. You want a World War I, World War II, Revolutionary Wars. Like, you've got to be kidding. So anyway, we build this cannon. It's 40 feet long. It weighs five tons or something.

Oh, my gosh. In its own truck. We do a break-in show in Lansing, Michigan. Alice gets in, the trick was you get in. They crawl down the barrel of the cannon. You go into a fake door. You crawl out the side of the stage. A motorized vehicle takes you around to the other side of the arena.

Oh, okay. While that's happening on stage or torchlights and drum beating, building tension, light the fuse, explosion, Dummy flies out, spotlight hits Alice, who's now running around. Tadda. Yeah, right. So dummy comes out, it goes maybe one inch. Just sort of slump, like complete nightmare.

Like a complete nightmare. We're now two shows away from 15. thousand people who we've advertised see Alice. Shot out of a cannon. Yeah. Big rookie mistake. Oh my gosh. I made a lot of rookie mistakes.

That was a big one. So what are we going to do? I said, I'll figure it out. I'll go to sleep. Gets up the next day in the hotel with these foam fire extinguishers. So he said, what are we going to do? I said, it's going to be a giant penis. I put two little balls at the end of the cannon.

I loaded it with these fire extinguishes. You get on and masturbate it. And we'll shoot the foam out. It'll go 40, 50 feet. to be fantastic. Right. So he gets on. He's working so hard.

He's on top of the can. And he's on top of the can and he's like working so hard. And it's horrible. It trips out like one inch. Me and him are the ODI2 people in the place that I'm a 80 idea of what this thing is. Now we're one show away. We've got 55,000 people see him shut up in Canada. And here's where I think a great lesson to be learned is in a normal, what an outsider would think

of a normal relationship of two human beings, trying to work together. they'd get to the same place. They would be killing each other at this point. The artist would be screaming at the manager. You jerk, I can't believe what you've done to me. It's my whole career. You're ruining me. You know, the manager would be screaming at the guy who built the cannon.

We didn't have time for that. If we had spent our time beating each other up, it would have been a disaster. I said, go to sleep. I'll figure it out. You went to sleep. When he showed up the next day, he said, you get it. I said, you're probably not going to enjoy this one. And he said, what's going to happen?

I said, I got a TV crew here from Cleveland. They're going to film tonight. Unfortunately, I have a feeling when you get in the cannon. It may explode with you in it. And he said, you're kidding. And I said, no, you'll be okay. It's all special effects. I got it covered.

But there'll be an ambulance and a crew, and they're going to take out of the cannon. You're going to spend the night in the hospital. Really? I said, yeah. I got it covered. Just trust me. He said, okay. And he got in the cannon.

And we blew it up. And they, oh, my God. People screaming. And we heard the sirens and put them out on a stream. and took him to the hospital. And I went on the air because I had the TV station there. And I said, we're going to check from the hospital. I don't know if we're able to do the show.

But I hear he's all right. It's nothing too serious. Check back from the hospital. Two hours later, I did a live feed to the radio station saying he's got some burns. But with medical supervision, they said he can do the show, but he might have to do it from a wheelchair. And that's what we did. We did the show in Pittsburgh.

We had the base player in a wheelchair. Alice had with blood and stuff, we had nurses coming out and doctors. checking them. Wow. Yeah. And the city went crazy saying, what an artist. How many artists would ever come after going to the hospital and do the show for?

Right. And he's the greatest. Perfect excuse for not shooting somebody out of a cannon is there in a wheelchair. They're in a wheelchair. Right. So it ended up better because we got the sympathy of everyone. We still got the show in. Right. But the point is if we had ended up fighting, we never would have gotten to this place.

Right. You didn't waste any energy doing that. Doing that. We went to those are the failures that you have to have to get to new, great creative stuff. You can't win every time. Or you're not doing stuff that is worthwhile. For women only, could have been a disaster. But you have to have the faith to be able to fail. And I think that's really important for people listening out there who are trying to do stuff particularly creatively. The ability to fail and to use it as a strength rather than a weakness

is really important. You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Shep Gordon. We'll be right back after this. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. Your support of advertisers keeps us on the air. To learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard so you can check out those amazing sponsors, visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals. And don't forget the worksheet for today's episode. That link is in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com slash podcast. If you're listening to us in 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 Shep Gordon. You've got a common thread throughout the book as well that's don't get mad, accomplish the goal.

You have a, it seems like you divorce emotions from the business as much as possible so that it doesn't distract you from what's really important, which is getting it done. Absolutely. How do you do that? Even in situations where maybe you should be mad as hell, someone stiffed you, the guy gives you a pinky ruby ring instead of a check. How are you able to go, okay, I'm not going to get emotional? I mean, do you feel it well up and you push it down or does it just not happen? Yeah. Oh, absolutely.

I'm human. I mean, we're all human. I have little practices. I am. It depends what the anger is. I think from being around. His Holiness, He's never said this to me ever. But being around him and around Verge, my sense is that when they see somebody, when

they see this table, where they see you, or they see that plan outside, the first thing they see is the miracle. And if you see the miracle first, you can't get mad. You can get disappointed, maybe, but you can't get mad. So I try and instill that into me when I can feel the emotion of anger coming up. And if it's a human, I go to forgive them, Lord, they know not what they do. but I can't let them take me on my journey. How do I get back to where I need to be?

Not to get angry. I feel sorry for him and try and turn the emotion that way. If I'm having real trouble, which sometimes I am. For me, I have little things like if I cook for a half hour, all the anger. Oh, really? Just like, that's your workout, huh? Or if I go to a jacuzzi, if I can find a jacuzzi. I assume you got one here.

Yeah, I do. I can get in. It's like a tuning fork. But I stay on point. All the other stuff is, you know, as humans, it's, we got a lot of stuff we got to get through. And anger is one of them. There's no way to get rid of it. There's a way to understand it and then deal with it. How did you manage to stay nice and, and I hate this term, so pardon me, but openhearted in such a cutthroat business? I mean,

Hollywood and being a manager, especially in a rock scene and films, not really known for the sweetest people and the easiest to deal with types of people. I mean, how come that didn't turn you rotten? You know, I don't know. One of the reasons is that a cumulative, has never been one of my goals. You know, I used to tell all my acts when I would sign them. If you're looking to make the most amount of money, other guys are better than I am. If you're looking to be a one-name artist, if you want to be, not having people say Alice who or Raquel who or Teddy who, that's what I do.

I know how to get you through the noise, preserve your artistry, make a connection with your audience. I won't make you the most money because I'm not willing to take it from other people to give to you, you know, your fair share is what I'll fight for, not your fair share and his fair share, and his fair share, and his fair share. And I saw that in the book, and I was so surprised. I mean, there were guys in there. I can't remember this guy's name, but you were advised, he will stay with you if you fail, and he'll stay with you if you do okay. But as soon as you win, he will screw you over. It's just who he is. And sure enough, at the end of the book,

he just turns around and tries to vote you out of a successful company. And he says, He was the snake. He was like, this is in my nature and I can't not do it. But it's forgiven a lot he knows not what he does. Can't help. He even said, I'm sorry, I'm compelled to do this. I just can't not. You've got to feel bad for something.

You got to feel bad. I mean, you really feel bad. It's what's it all about, Alfi. Yeah. It's really interesting. When I go to the mainland and I'm in L.A. For a week or two, I feel the greed start to come in. I can feel like I'll feel sorry for myself that I don't have a private plane, which is insane.

That fomo. That fomo, right? It's insane. Yeah. It's insane. It's like, but I feel it. It comes into my system and then I fight hard to like, are you absolutely insane? You're healthy.

You have money for food. You have people who love you. You know, I go through the list of my good stuff and I get through it. But I think all of us as humans that fools gold stuff is so ingrained in all of us. So, you know, it takes, that's what I mean. You get up early, you go to sleep later. It takes work. You don't not fall victim to being a jerk just because you say it.

Yeah. It's actual work and actual practice and actual doing stuff. It seems to be, well, you find positivity and just about everything, which is great. And you have a lot of gratitude practice, which, like you said, look for the positives. But I feel you, even personally, I definitely have that we called FOMO, fear of missing out. And what that essentially means is now, yeah. That's good word. FOMO, yeah.

When you hang out with somebody and they, or you hear about somebody else who's doing something, and you think, wow, I don't have that. I don't have that. And the problem is that you end up comparing your blue. real to their highlight reel. You don't look at their inside life and say, this is the loneliest son of a bitch with a plane. Right? Exactly. He would trade his, I guarantee you. And hopefully he's the happiest guy in the world. Hopefully, right. Hopefully. Hopefully. God bless them. Hopefully. Yeah. But a lot of them would kill to have one person that they

could call that didn't want something from. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's one person. I think it's tough being a human right now. It probably always was tough being a human. I was watching Game of Thrones. I was just in Italy in Tuscany. After watching Game of Thrones, and then you go to Italy and you see the little towns and every town has a wall around it, you realize how tough it must have been living then when everybody wants to kill you for no reason. They don't even know you. They just see that.

They see your town and they're going, let's burn that thing out. You let's burn that thing down. It's like so insane. So there's something in the nature of humans, it's really bizarre. And I think it's sort of from burning the town, it's now translated in our day and age to having everything your neighbor has and more. You know, everybody's jealous of everybody. Everybody wants what everybody else has.

Everybody wants more. And I hope that there's a generational change because it seems like generations go against what the last generation had. So I'm hoping that it comes back to some sense of sanity because right now it's insane. It's insane. I've noticed that when you say helping artists

make a connection with their audience and everything, one of the quotes that I thought was summed up in large part, the beginning of the book, was if I do my job right, I will probably kill you. And so you help people achieve that fame and that notoriety and that one-name artistry. So you have kind of this weird, complicated relationship with fame, right? Because on the one hand, you're building this big bonfire, but you don't want to jump into it yourself. It's a large part of going back to why I don't enjoy doing business, because that's the business I'm in, is helping and destroying people at the same time.

It's what I do. It's what they want. It's like chemotherapy. Yeah, I put a lot of disclaimers on all the time. It's weird. And I've had, sadly, so many in my life, Teddy's gone, Luthu's gone. You know, so many are gone. Then the fable sort of comes to life.

I'm just imagining for myself, if you sat me down and you said, Jordan, we're going to make you a star. But it might kill you and you're going to have drug problems. I would imagine literally everyone says, that's not going to be me. I'm going to be able to handle that. And you know from experience that they're not going to be able to handle that. It's just going to get you. Most people will come back, take the fall and come back. But it's going to knock you down.

Yeah. And even Alice, rife tales just in your book that aren't even gone into in detail where he's starting to drink 24-7. And then towards the end, there's a mention where it's like, Alice was smoking crack at this point. We got him back into rehab. And now he's in Vegas doing shows. But at some level, these people are playing Russian roulette with everything.

The more famous and more Russian ruling. It's a complicated relationship. But it's hard. I'm just living through it with a young lady. My assistant's daughter is a very talented young singer who sort of got discovered at 12 by people. Well. I was on stage with Willie Nelson at 13. Jeez.

My advice always to her is become a school teacher. Yeah. Have some kids. You're so happy. Enjoy your life. Sing at parties. And she's now in L.A., you know, following her dream, knowing the consequences. Oh, man.

And a great girl. But I think it just comes with the territory. It's part of that game. Yeah. And if you have the bug, it's a very tough bug to get rid of. The bug meaning fame. Fame, yeah. 99% of the young people starting fool themselves by saying it's about my art.

It's not about being successful or famous. Right. You don't need to be in front of people for your art. Right. You could do the art. You could do that in your living room. Yeah. Yeah.

So it's always about fame. It's not even a question. And it's tough to get, especially in this day and age when fame is now the end goal completely. I'm 70, so I'm not like a complete relic. But when I was 30s and 40s and 50s, and I have a huge network of people, my friends would reach out to me and say, my daughter loves to cook. She's going to a cooking school. Could you get her a job at Emeralds?

Emerald Lagassee's restaurant. Yeah, Emerald Lagossey's restaurant. Or they'd call up and say, my son plays guitar. He's always wanted to be in a band. Is there any way you can get him a job on an hour? tours so we can see what it's like. Oh, wow. A lot of calls like that.

Yeah. Over the last 10 years, now the calls are completely different. Now the calls are, my daughter loves cooking. She's going to cooking school. Can you get her on Top Chef? Oh, geez. Or my kid is a guitar player. He just went to Juilliard.

He's doing great. Any way you can get them on American Idol. Wow. The end goal is not the craft anymore. It's now step one. It's step one. And that's really scary to me. Yeah.

That's really scary. And there's no foundation to fall off of. Right. You can't fall back on. Well, I always love playing music on the club circuit. So it's just you started off in your mom's basement. Now you're on television. And when that goes away, you are left.

Really empty. You mentioned in the book, part of the tactics where if you want to be famous, get next to someone famous, where you would put, who is that folk singer for me? Ann Murray. And then you said, we got to spice this up. Let's get her hanging out with Alice Cooper and John Lennon, at the Rainbow Bar and Grill where they're all drinking their face. off and then take a couple of photos.

I call it Gilt by Association. Yeah. Which I love. I use that for the chefs a lot, too. It works with everything. You know, you bleed off. The fame bleeds off. You do it enough times.

And I brought that up because it seems like what you just mentioned is now, though, that's all people are doing. That's all they do. That's all they want. Right. Shame has become the end game. Yeah. You know, I think the Kardashians is a couple of people who really change the dynamics to where

the fame is the goal. Right. Rather than being so good at your craft, you become famous. Right. It's not about creating something anymore. It's about, there's a Hollywood term, star fucking all the time. One thing that you and I share in common is that after you achieve something, it seems like we're kind of over it. I didn't go to my high school graduation.

I didn't go to my college graduation. I didn't go to my law school graduation. It's just like you said, you high five yourself in the mirror and you either go to sleep or you say what's next. And I never really understood that part of myself. So I was really glad to hear that you were like that as well. Yeah, I still haven't figured it out either. Alice and I are very similar in that way. It was really funny what he got in the Rockervo Hall of Fame, which is gigantic.

The Rock Bowl Hall of Fame, I'm a kid from Oceanside of Long Island. Oh, my God, the Rocker Roll Hall of Fame. And for Alice, you know, this is the crowning achievement of a lifetime. It lives forever. This outlives everybody. Right. And it was at a hotel in New York, and they were having a party for all the inductees and everyone afterwards in the same hotel. Alice was staying in that hotel.

I was in another one. So the show ended, and my granddaughter was here, Amber, said, you're going to come to the party? And I said, nah, maybe I'll meet you there. And I jumped in a cab, and I went to my hotel, and I was 15 minutes after we got the award, 20 minutes. I was in bed watching CNN. And did the high five in the mirror.

Oh, you actually do it? Oh, yeah. Oh, motherfucker. You got the Hall of Fame. Holy shit. And then I got in bed. The next day I saw Alice, and I said, you know, how was the party? And he said, I didn't go to the party.

I went upstairs, went to bed. So you didn't even stop in the party? I said, no, I said, isn't it weird? I said, for me, I don't have a lot of regrets, but I wish I could enjoy those moments. And I don't understand why I don't. I still haven't quite figured it out. I think for me, I always assumed it was because the journey was interesting and I was getting pulled into the next thing.

But there's still no reason not to even go to the one hour aftermath, right? I still don't get it. Yeah, because graduation ceremonies, you've got to rent that. stupid thing and you got to stand out in the heat and then there's a bunch of people you don't know and you just want to go home when you're there but I would imagine a rock and roll hall of fame party it's air condition yeah oh no no it's a fun time right don't I don't get it I mean but that's just the way it is it's it I've always been like that get it done and and move on to the next thing or go watch CNN in your underwear whatever exactly I just thought that was so interesting

because very rarely do you meet people who do that most people are living for that kind of experience for that moment for that moment and you hear a lot about that with the Olympic athletes as well, though, is that there's a hump they go over when they win that gold. And I think part of me is avoiding that feeling of, you got this, but it's not completing you. So that's an uncomfortable feeling. So I kind of avoid. It's a false god.

It is a false god. So maybe that comes into it, worshipping of these false gods. Like you're making it not a big deal so that it doesn't end up being more disappointing later when it doesn't change life. Weird. It is a strange occurrence. I was glad to hear I was not the only one in there with that look. A lot of the early parts of the book link food to relationships.

You mentioned your grandmother, you're eating food in the kitchen before you even say hello. Sandwiches with your dad. You remember what you got was like chopped liver and something like that on rye. Yeah, with brisket on rye. Ice cream, that big ice cream Sunday with the editor of Mad magazine and his daughter, meals with friends. And these are just detailed things.

It's like, how do you remember what you ordered after the Cannes Festival at some hotel? I mean, it's just incredible. You know, for me, that's the only thing I do. remember? Really? I remember all my meals. You see the world through food. Yeah, everything else. I don't, not the world so much through food, but my life and the times. Like I can't, it's almost embarrassing with the kids because we'll do stuff and I'll say, yeah, wow, you got to go. I know, I was with you, Grandpa Shelf. Yeah. I said, well, I don't remember. I know we had a fastrammy sandwich with somebody having this pastoral. That was me. I was, I just remember it all by food.

It's really bizarre. And I wasn't a foodie, or at least the knowledgeable foodie, until I met Mr. Verge. You know, ketchup and macaroni was. It was for me a great meal. Oh, before that? Yeah, before I. That sounds absolutely horrible. Yeah. It was, my diet was basically Swiss cheese, macaroni and ketchup, frozen cheese.

Wow. And I was like 250, too 60s. Oh, I was going to say, you're not. I was a couch potato. And when I met Mr. Verge, it all came. And then I had the same, you know, when I looked back in my life, I realized I do remember meals were really important part of my life. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I thought that was interesting because most people write about, and it, looked like this. And then it felt like that. And you're like, and we ate up a strombie and there was cheese on it. And I'm thinking, that's what you got. And now that's, my life has become basically the celebration of dinner for the last 15 or 20 years. That's the most important thing in my existence. Jason said he came in and two hours later, 25 people showed up for dinner party. And that's just how you roll. That's just how I roll. When you're dealing with folks now in business and well, he was here a great night. Did he tell you who was here that night?

No, I don't think so. Wow, two heroes of mine. Joseph Wilson and his wife Valerie, Joseph Wilson was the ambassador to the African country who said that nuclear stuff didn't go to Saddam Hussein. And then they outed his wife, who was a CIA agent. Oh, my goodness. And they made that movie about her, Free Fall or something. And it was amazing to see these two American heroes who were outed by the government. The only time a CIA agent's name was published. It was published while she was on active duty. That's awful. Yeah, but they were amazing. We had a great time on that. It was really, what a joy to be in their presence. Yeah, geez. I mean, talk about putting it all in the line. Putting it all on the line. You do a great job with achieving goals,

and you mentioned that if you can see the goal, no matter how distant it might seem at the start, it makes it easier to start creating the path to it. But how do you look for and visualize these lofty goals that just seem kind of nebulous? I think it's, you know, at the, Depends what the situation is, but it's, again, it's spending more hours and time on it. So in the case of, like, for example, a Teddy Pendergrass, how do I define to people this sex appeal? You can't stand up and say he's sexy. Right. Because that's arrogant and you lose all your sex appeal.

So it was doing little things, like instead of a picture of him on the ad for women only, it was a stuffed teddy bear with a note on it that said, spend the night with me. Nice. So it was soft. my goal was to tell the world that women would go crazy over him. How do you do that best by creating that moment where women are going crazy over him and getting that picture out and that story out and that word out? It's all about working backwards. How do you do that?

Well, he sells a lot of tickets. Let's do it live in New York and L.A., which are the media centers. Let's make sure that everyone tells us we can't do it. Right. So it becomes controversial. Right. And then let's do it. And how do we keep adding to that story? The chocolate teddy bear lollipop definitely adds to the story.

It's still adding to my visions at night. So I think it's just a way of thought. You know, what would I like to see in the newspaper when I wake up or what would I like to see on CNN or what would I like Teddy's fantasy? And once you say, what would be the perfect thing for him? Oh, him in a room with just women. Well, let's do it. Let's not wait for it to happen.

Let's just do it. Don't wait for history to happen. Don't wait for history to happen. Right now, we're doing a campaign with Alice to get him elected president. I think that he could actually, it could happen. On the wild party. Yeah. No kidding.

Pretty funny. I think there's a chance. You're always pushing yourself to grow. I mean, you're not stopping. There's no. No, I'm having a good time. You mentioned they thought it was a stretch when you decided to work with Groucho Marx and Raquel Welch, but stretching is how you grow.

How are you doing that now? I mean, you're still cruising. Yeah. I still do the same. I mean, I'm trying to add a little more conscience to the culinary world. I think that I gave the commencement speech at the CIA this year. And I feel sort of partly responsible for this phenomenon. The other CIA.

The CIA, which I'm sorry. The Culinary Institute. Yeah, they don't let me into the other one except in handcuffs. And I feel partly responsible having created this movement of, you know, $150, 200 meals. And I'm proud of it. And I was addressing, you know, this beautiful audience of, couple of hundreds of culinary institute graduates who were going to, 10 years ago, if they graduated,

they would go into a $30,000 a year job that would have a ceiling of maybe $70,000. Now they're going to step into probably $100, $125,000 starting salary and have an unlimited ceiling. What I told to them was, you know, I'm really happy for them. It's really great. But if you think we all put the effort that we put in to make that possible for them, to just feed $150 dinners, they're headed for a crash. Yeah. They got to look out, when they leave the place of business, look to the left and look to the right,

and you're going to see homeless, hungry people. And if you think your job isn't to feed them, and only the guys who can pay 150, you're in the wrong profession. Right. I think that's important for the profession if it's going to really maintain itself as an art form to bring a conscious compassion and integration into it. So I do that. I'm doing a dinner September 12th in New York that's going to establish a Roger Verge

scholarship at the Culinary Institute, which I'm really proud of with 12 great chefs. I think about what I want. I went to the Culinary Institute and they had busts of other chefs and they didn't have a bust of Mr. Verge there. So I said, I want his place in there. How do we do this? And so we're doing this dinner and Michael Douglas hosting him, Danielle, David Boulay, Michael White, Dean Fearing, all these great chefs coming in, it's going to become reality.

So it's the same thing. When I go back to the CIA, there will be a bus. There will be Verge. You know, it's creating history, but in a different way. That's what I enjoy doing. It's my challenge and my nightmare. Yeah. You just are glutton.

Because I take these things on. It are just, oh, my God. And now I don't have an office, really, so I don't have a staff to help. Right. Now you're retired everyone else. Yeah, everyone else retired. Yeah. Yeah, I love that story.

You're like, I'm retiring. So the whole company goes down without you, but then you just decided to do everyone's job. Yeah, exactly. Like, you're doing it backwards, man. Yeah, doing everything backwards. Yeah, did it really back. I think anyone who doesn't say they still don't look in the mirror and say, what the fuck is it all about? What are you doing?

I think it's sort of lying. Yeah. Because I don't think as humans we ever, none of us are going to ever figure out why we're here, in my opinion. We can have theories. We can have beliefs. But how did this happen? And it's like, who did this? And what's the plan?

Anyone who thinks they figured it out? I don't know if you can figure it out. But if you find something that's comfortable that fits in your wheelhouse, you're lucky person. What do you think is the next celebrity chef type of star? I mean, where do you see a hole in an industry where... I think it's the growers of cannabis. Really?

Yeah. You know, what I try to look for is waves, cultural waves. I wasn't a genius with the chefs. It was so obvious that you could be on the 50-yard line at a football game. You could be in the front row of the Broadway theater if you had enough money. You couldn't get into Lyserk. You couldn't get into Charlie Trotters. It was so obvious that the man was there.

The man is what drives celebrity. Yeah. You know? And cannabis is the revolution. And it's exactly like the chef's work. You know, it's funny when I started with the chef's chef's, chef boy, R.D. was the famous. Yeah, Antimima. They were the famous cooks.

In the pot world now, it's Bob Marley. Oh, sure, yeah. Or Snoop Dog, not the actual grower, who's actually the real star. It's like Chef Boyd, against Emerald, Snoop Dog against the grower. Yeah. I think that has a real possibility to develop that they will become media stars out of it. They'll become heroes out of it. The economics are gigantic, so they'll be able to fuel the fire, just like the chefs did,

by hiring PR people, doing multiple, you know, the economics are so gigantic. And talk about the parents already hating you. Hate you. That's already built in. It's perfect. It's already built in. Yeah, you got it. Thank you so much.

Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you think, man, I've got to tell them this. Everybody go vote, please. Why are you so passionate about getting out the vote? I think it's a really dangerous time in our history. I think no matter what happens at the end of this election, our country's going to be different. And I think the most important thing is for people to realize that they have a voice and they can affect this. and if they're just sitting on the sidelines and letting everything happen to them,

they're allowing itself to be victims. There's a difference between a victim and a loser. You can lose and come back and win. A victim, you're just a victim. There's no reason at this point to be a victim, whether you're for one side or the other. I would like to think that there's more people who believe in what I believe in.

So by getting out the vote, it helps me. But even if it doesn't, I think, you know, this is a serious time. We all seem so disconnect. from cause and effect in our lives when it gets bigger than our own little apartment. Yeah, yeah. And when not, we really can do something. I mean, as a child of the 60s, I saw what we did with the war.

You know, I saw what burning the ratty cards did. I saw what, you know, protesting did. I saw it getting on. You really can have some effect. I think our generation, it's so big that it's hard to imagine you can affect it. I just think, you know, I love America. I end my book saying that I always wanted my kids to focus on this simple fact. You win or lose in life 99% of the time just where you drop out of the womb.

If you drop out of the womb in America, you have a chance to eat, be healthy, have love in your life, security, do what you want to do. You drop out in some of the countries in Africa. You drop out in Syria today. you drop out in these places, you have no chance. I mean, maybe one out of 10 million will come through. Right, it becomes lottery. So you're so lucky just to have dropped out here, to not understand how lucky this gift is and fight hard to keep it.

And I think we're at risk of losing. I just fear that that won't apply in a couple of generations. If the country goes away, you can see it going. Yeah, it is scary. I mean, and so you've seen a lot of different things. different waves, different cultural shifts. So there's some hindsight here as well. Yeah. Yeah. This is really different. Anyway, I think it's important. Everybody can out and vote and make their presence felt. Thank you, Shep. I love Shep. He's been a great friend since we recorded this. I just

really adore the man. He is as a legendary as you might expect. Great big thank you to him. Links to all his stuff, including that Netflix documentary, will be in the show notes as well. Also in the show notes, there are worksheets for each episode, including this one, so you can review what you've learned here from Shep Gordon. We also have transcripts now for every episode, and those can be found in the show notes as well. I'm teaching you how to connect with great people and manage relationships using systems and tiny habits over at our six-minute networking course, which is free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Now, don't do it later. Got to dig the well before you get thirsty. Once you need relationships, it's too late to just start making them. You know that person

that calls, hey, old buddy, haven't talked to you in five years, want to buy some shampoo? No. procrastination leads to stagnation when it comes to your personal and business relationships. Don't wait, do it now. They take a few minutes a day. I wish I knew this stuff 20 years ago. It is not fluff, it is crucial, and we're giving it away for free at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. And by the way, most of the guests on the show, they actually subscribe to the course

and the newsletter. So come join us. You'll be in smart company. In fact, why not reach out to Shep and tell them you enjoyed this episode of the show? Show guests love hearing from you, and you never know what might shake out of that. Speaking of building relationships, you can always reach out or follow us on social. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. This show is created in association with Podcast One.

This episode was produced by Jen Harbinger, Jason DeFillipo, and the engineer is Jay Sanderson. Show notes and worksheets by Robert Fogarty, music by Evan Viola. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Our advice and opinions and those of our guests are their own. And yeah, I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. I'm sure as heck not any kind of doctor or any kind of therapist. So do your own research before implementing anything you. hear on the show. And remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is that you share it

with friends when you find something useful or interesting. That 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 listen. And we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smart. in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here,

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