The Jordan Harbinger Show - 380: Blake Mycoskie | Made for Entrepreneurship

Episode Date: July 21, 2020

Blake Mycoskie (@BlakeMycoskie) is the philanthropic founder of TOMS Shoes, author of Start Something That Matters, and co-founder of wellness subscription box service Madefor (get 20 percent off by using code MFJORDAN if you feel like checking it out). What We Discuss with Blake Mycoskie: What Blake's new Madefor startup can do to make you better (and how you can get 20 percent off by using code MFJORDAN if you feel like checking it out). Why entrepreneurship is more than just saying "I don't want a boss" -- it's seeking to remedy a problem the world needs to have solved. The benefits of cultivating the "beginner's mind" of a Buddhist. Why Blake advises founders in the early stages of a startup to bootstrap resources rather than seek investment dollars. What Blake sees as emerging business trends in a COVID-19 world and beyond. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/380 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.

Coming up on the Jordan Harbinger Show. I really see myself as an artist, and business is my canvas, and culture and people are, you know, the canvas that I love creating with. I just love the beginning. I love the incubation. I love the idea creation. I love the testing. I mean, seeing in real time how people were experiencing something that I spent, you know,

a year and a half creating. So I love the art of the start. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's sharpest minds and most fascinating 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 our mission here on the show is to make you a better informed, more critical thinker so you can get a much deeper understanding of how the world works and make sense of what's really happening even inside your own brain. If you're new to the show, we've got episodes with spies and CEOs, athletes and authors, thinkers and performers, as well as toolbox. for skills like negotiation, body language, persuasion, and more. So if you're smart and you like to learn and improve, you're going to be right at home here with us. And for a selection of featured episodes to get you started

or to get your friends started if you're trying to share the show with others, some of our favorite guests, popular topics are on jordanharbinger.com. Go right there. We'll hook you up. We can even email them to you. Now, today on the show, Blake Mikoski, founder of Made 4 and more famously Tom's Shoes.

He originated, him and Tom's Shoes, that is, popularized the one-for-one giving model where you buy a pair of Tom's shoes and then a kid, you know, Guatemala gets a pair. Y'all have heard of that. Tom expanded the one-for-one model from shoes to coffee to bags, to glasses. So this is a guy who just essentially originated the social entrepreneur formula. Tom's has provided like 90 million pairs of shoes to kids from all over the world. So it's amazing. They've restored sight to over 600,000 people.

The coffee bean company is cleaning up water and making it safe for people. I mean, he is just really gunning to change the world and good for him. On the show today, we discussed the fake it till you make it concept, as you guys have heard before. I think that's gotten a bit out of hand. Blake and I discuss that. We'll discuss the founding of Tom's, of course, and some close calls that almost put the company out of business several times and what he learned as a result. And we'll discover that there's a time to follow your gut and there's a time to accept that, look, you just don't know what the heck you're doing. Follow the established rules.

I thought this was a fun entrepreneur-based. I thought this was a fun entrepreneur-focused conversation, and I really enjoyed it, so I hope you will as well. If you want to know how I manage to book all these amazing folks, every opportunity that I get, every guest I have, it's through my network. I'm teaching you how to create your own network. Doesn't have to be for podcast guest booking, but it can be for anything in your life, business, or personal. Check out our six-minute networking course, which is free over at jordanharbinger.com slash course. By the way, most of the guests on the show, they subscribe to the course and the newsletter. or come join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. All right, here's Blake Mikoski. You started early. I mean, you're a serial entrepreneur. This was not Tom's made for,

not your first rodeo, man. No, I started my first company when I was 19 years old, which a lot of people don't realize. And it largely was out of necessity. I was a college tennis player at SMU. I had an injury to my Achilles tendon, which put me in crutches in a leg cast. Because of that, I couldn't do my own laundry. And I tried to find someone to pick it up and deliver. it. No one did. So I started a laundry business. That's a good way to start a business as solving a problem. You did have some entrepreneurial bugs earlier though, right? Weren't you selling mom's cookies back in the day? Yeah, I don't know if that counts. I think that, yeah, I mean, I don't know if the lemonade stand or the mom's cookies counts. It seems like almost every kid has a version of that,

whether they become an entrepreneur or not. But yeah, I definitely started early with that type of stuff. But really, the laundry business was, it's funny. When I started the laundry business, I didn't know what the word entrepreneur was. And it was about six months into the business that someone said to be on campus, they said, you're really young to be an entrepreneur. And I literally had to look up what that word meant in the dictionary. And I realized that, you know, what had happened in starting laundry business was very entrepreneurial. I do wonder what you think of this, because now there's like an entrepreneur culture. But when I started my business in 2006, yeah, late 2006, nobody used that word. And if you used it for yourself, you sounded like a massive.

d-bag. And I think people still actually sound a little pretentious when they use that word for themselves. Yeah, I think a lot of it depends on your resume of businesses. I mean, I think at some point, well, yeah. You know, you kind of, you are what you are. But one of things I always say to students, I do a lot of speaking at universities and I love it, is I say, I don't believe that you can choose entrepreneurship as a career path like a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher. Because I think that the best entrepreneurs are not setting out to ever be an entrepreneur, but they become an entrepreneur because they seek to solve a problem in the world. So in my case, it was the fact that a lot of students don't want to do their laundry or can't do their laundry and let's solve that problem for

myself and for others. But, you know, I look at some companies, I love, I always use the example of like Quicken and Turbo Tax. Like, I mean, here are softwares that have changed the way that most Americans do their taxes. And it's only because someone was frustrated and sick of having to pay to count it and go to someone's office to do their basic taxes. And so they create the software. And there's just countless examples of people becoming entrepreneurs versus choosing entrepreneurs. And so that's what I always recommend to people is, you know, if you have an entrepreneurial inclination, start with the problem you want to solve first and not the ideology of being an entrepreneur. You know, I always thought that's interesting. It's a different animal, someone who says,

I don't know what I want to do, but I just, I want to run my own business. I guess that makes sense if your parents own a business and you get that bug. But it is strange for me to hear someone say, all I know is I want to start my own business. And this is, again, not totally fair to the people who say it. But I get a little with, if the person's young enough especially, it almost sounds like they're saying, I just don't want a boss. Yeah, exactly. And I'm like, that's not really, I think a lot of the best entrepreneurs have a boss or

someone they've learned from where they go, this is how people who really crush stuff work. Not every time, but a lot of the time. Yeah, no, it's interesting is I always really try, and I think other entrepreneurs who I've been around who've had success try to really, even if you are the boss, try to create environments where you kind of have a pseudo boss. So whether that's creating a board of directors for your company or an advisory board or a strong mentorship, where you have a mentor that can really kind of tell you how it is because I am much more effective when I get some really clear direction. Now, I might disagree with it and I might challenge it. But if I don't have that constant kind of direction in my life like a boss would give you, then I don't think my clarity on my ideas and my leadership is strong enough. Yeah, I think there's something to that.

It's really easy, especially for somebody like you who's got business ideas and the world-changing one-to-one giving, which we'll get into. Would you agree with the sentiment that it would be pretty easy for you to get off track and then get way off the reservation and stay there? Totally, totally. Because, I mean, you know, as my ex-wife always says, like almost everyone in your life, becomes a yes person, not because that they want to be that, but that they just want to please the boss or the founder or the whatever so much that they don't have as much ability to give

you the clear judgment that having someone you've appointed to really be the devil's advocate or the critic or the challenger. And that's why I've always tried to have a pretty strong board of directors. Yeah, I think solving a problem in finding a problem to solve is a different skill set. How did you train yourself or how could you train yourself to spot gaps and opportunities? You may have stumbled onto the laundry thing, but do you see a way where someone can go, can train their mind to find gaps and opportunities? I like that you say train your mind because we'll get into that with Made 4 because I've become a big believer in how much we can actually change and train our mind by working with this

neuroscientist Andrew Huberman at Stanford. And a lot of that is factored into why we created Made 4 and how we did it. But yes, I think the way that you train your mind, I think, is just to be curious, like, to be curious about why things are the way they are in the world and especially curious when you experience something that you're not satisfied with. Or you hear someone. Like I started an online driver's education company. And it started because at a barbecue for another company I was running, there was a 15-year-old

boy talking about how much he hated driver's ed. And then it was so boring. And the teacher was like stinky. and you know, da-to-da. And I was like, man, like, I remember learning to drive as like an exciting thing. And you're talking about it like it's a chore. And so that curiosity of recognizing that there is a service that's not providing, you know, an optimal experience for someone. And then the curiosity of a war, there are other teenagers that feel the same way?

And I found that there were. And that ultimately led me to starting a driver's education company where specifically I hired really hot models and actors and actresses to be driver teachers. The biggest problem was is that the teachers were not interesting and are inspirational. Right. You know, and so the kids weren't paying attention. And so I thought, what are teenage boys and girls pay attention to? And that's Abercrombie and bitch models. Yeah.

And they all need part-time jobs. That's right. That's right. Where did you find out of work actors in L.A.? I don't know where you even look. It was amazing. Yeah. I think everything's at attention once you find the right teacher.

It was all online. It was all online, right? No, the online part was the classroom, but they actually obviously had to learn to drive in the cars. Oh, well, yeah. the models were great teachers in the cars because everyone was paying attention. That's really, I can imagine other people just getting so nervous that you're like, all right, get the stinky guy. This guy's going to crash and kill someone.

Get the stinky guy back. Oh, man. I know you've found a couple of really interesting opportunities, like the Hollywood billboard situation where the whole side of the building was painted and importing that outdoor advertising model to Nashville. How did you know that that, or why did you think that was going to work? I mean, it's easy to say how you know 20-20 hindsight. How'd you think that was going to work back then?

I think you goes back to spying this opportunity. So I was curious at how in L.A. There were these massive buildings with billboards painted on the side. So it was very cost efficient because they didn't have to build a billboard. They should hang the vinyl on the building that existed. And I noticed that most of them were for big movies and TV shows and kind of in some ways feeding the egos of studio heads and actors and actresses. And at the time, I lived in Nashville and was very much. experiencing the country music culture and that there are a lot of egos in country music,

probably even more so because it's such a small town. And so the thesis or hypothesis that I brought to this idea, which turned out to be wildly successful, was if I put the Dixie Chicks on the side of a building, then, you know, Shania Twain is going to want her building because she doesn't drive by and see her competition larger than life in her hometown. And same with Garth Brooks and George Strait or whoever. And so I tied up all the sides of the buildings and started putting country Western stars up and really profited on their egos. And it worked wonderfully. Go figure. Yeah. You mentioned in some of your other interviews in your book, like fake it to you make it as a young entrepreneur. And we see this a lot. But I think now we almost see it too much maybe. Yeah. Right. What are the rules? What are the rules to this?

I'm glad you brought that up because, you know, I wrote that book, God, 2010. So it's been 10 years since I wrote that book. You know, Tom's was what, three years old. and, you know, the fake-it-to-you-make-it was really well documented in the laundry business because we had no customers. The girls were afraid of giving me their laundry. They didn't want me to see their panties, all these things. So we had to pretend that there was a lot of people using the service and then everyone started using the service because it was like a herd mentality. Now I'm a little bit more cautious with that advice because I think that we live in a society where unfortunately truth has been jeopardized and people have fake things and it's been misleading. and then it gets exposed because everything's exposed on the internet. So I'm a little bit more cautious,

but I still think the general premise, it makes sense in that, you know, when you're starting something, you're not going to have experience. And no one is going to work with someone that feels, A, they don't have experience, and B, they don't have confidence. So I think with the more of the way I'd give the advice now is, if you're going to do something, pretend, even if you have to, that you're competent enough that you have confidence because people, it's really hard for people to trust a business or a person if they don't

feel that that person's confident that they'll deliver what they're going to deliver. So it's not as much vacancy to you make it. It's just really making sure that you let people feel secure in your business with enough confidence because if you don't believe in yourself, they should ever believe in yourself. How do we do this successfully without being scammy, though? Because I do see a lot of especially young entrepreneurs being scammy intentionally or unintentionally because of their excess confidence, which is often quite unwarranted. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I really don't know the answer to that. I mean, I really think that is something that in everyone's kind of gut, they have to feel good about how I'd say this. We have a term here in Jackson because we're a lot of skiers. It's like, don't get over your skis. Like, you know, don't bite off too much than you can chew. And so I think everyone has to kind of know, like, how far are they comfortable leaning over their skis versus, you know, being in a situation where it's, like you said, it's more misleading than authentically trying to deliver. or something without experience. At one point you moved to LA,

you did the amazing race, which is like a cool travel reality TV show, and you didn't win, and I've heard you say, I'm glad I didn't win because it would have damaged my entrepreneurial drive. Is it because of the money?

I think so, I mean, because I was only 25 years old. So, you know, 25 years old, if you win a million bucks, you're probably going to take off and chill out for a little bit. So, you know, I think the experience is great.

I had an awesome time on the show, but I think that that much money at that age might have, you know, dampered my drive. Has your success with Tom's put a dent in your drive? It doesn't seem like it. Not necessarily.

The drive is different. You know, I think, you know, I was talking about this with someone the other day in the context I made for. And I said, this is the first time in my life that I've started a business or created a program in this case where I don't feel like I care if I make any more money and I don't need any more money. It's just going to go to charity anyways. And I don't have anything to prove.

Like I don't need to be on the cover of ink magazine again, you know? So to me. It's really fun to actually create a business and a culture and a product when you have literally nothing to prove or even to lose in that regard. And I think it allows you to create things from a really deeply pure state. And so I don't think it's dampen my drive at all. It's just changed the drive, I think. When you had the reality TV channel that you'd created as a result of seeing the inside

of the reality TV game, you lost money, the investors lost money, everybody got laid off. How did you get back on the horse? Why didn't that failure break you? You know, I wouldn't say it came close to breaking me, but it definitely got me into a rut for a while. I think the hardest part about that wasn't really losing money, but having to fire 40 people. Yeah. At that time, I was like 27 years old, 28. And so that was a really hard experience.

And some of these people were, you know, had kids and families and mortgages. And, I mean, this wasn't like a bunch of young people I was firing. I mean, there were people in their 40s and 50s that I had to let go. And they really believed in me and my vision for the channel. I think ultimately it's funny. The best way I've described it is like how sometimes the best way to get over a relationship is to get in another relationship. That's true. See, sad truth.

Yeah. So entrepreneurs the same way. Rebound business. Yeah, I had a rebound. That was the online driver's ed company. That's funny. I never thought about it like that, but it is true. It's like, I'm so depressed about this failure.

You know what? I'm going to get excited about something else. That's the way to do it. Exactly. There's got to be pitfalls to it. Nothing comes to mind right away. Maybe you get really impassioned about something that you later on don't care about, but that's true for any business. You'd said I've never thought one business would be the rest of my life until I got to Tom's.

Obviously, you said that before, Made For Hadnard as well. But did you just think you'd be a serial entrepreneur forever, which turned out to be true, obviously? Yeah, I just, I think I just love the art of the start, you know. Guy Calazaki, a great author. I don't know if you read him his books. He's been on the show. Yeah, he's a friend of my. Okay.

Great, awesome. So he wrote this book called Art of the Start. And literally, I recommend it as the most important entrepreneur book anyone should read when they start a business. It really takes you through every aspect of thinking it through. And I realized after reading that book, I'd started maybe two or three companies. Like, I love the art of the start. Like that is, and I really, I say this with humility, but I really see myself as an artist. And business is my canvas.

And culture and people are, you know, the canvas that I love creating with. And so I just love the beginning. I love the incubation. I love the idea creation. I love the testing. I mean, we had 1,300 people go through the made four beta test over a year. And that was some of the most fun I've had in years, just like seeing in real time how people were experiencing something that I spent, you know, a year and a half creating.

So I love the beginning. I think with Tom's, the reason I said that was it was like a soulmate, right? And so, you know, it was like all of a sudden, I never imagined in my life. that I'd be able to build a business, make money, and help tens of millions of people and have a lot of fun doing it until Tom's. And so everything collided. And so it just seemed like I can't imagine anything better than this. And so the nice thing is, is all the same principles of Tom's have been, you know, dragged over to Made 4. And it's, I guess, a topic, mental health that I'm much more passionate about right now because of what's going on in our country.

So, yeah, I feel like maybe you get a couple soulmates in your life and business. You mentioned Tom's a few times. We've talked about it here, but there's going to be somebody who was kind of born under Iraq and or is from another country or, hi mom, who might not know what Tom's shoes are. Sure. Give us a little brief overview of what it is. We'll kind of dive into the story. Yeah, so 2006, I was traveling in Argentina. I met many children who didn't have shoes. I also discovered a really unique canvas shoe that a lot of the farmers and polo players and their girlfriends are wearing called the Alpregata. And I had this idea on a farm. It was really simple. I said, you know, I want to sell these shoes in the U.S. because I've never seen them there.

And every time I sell a pair, I also want to give a pair because there's so many children in this country that I've already experienced not having shoes and they really need shoes not only to protect their feet, but it was a requirement for the school uniform. So the shoes themselves were keeping them possibly out of education, which we all know is critical in developing countries. And so I literally scratched out this idea of what I called one for one. You buy one. We give one. At this point, I had never heard of anyone doing this before. And I really, frankly, wasn't even thinking of it as a business. I was originally called The Shoes for Tomorrow Project.

We didn't even have a business account or a DBA or anything until we started selling so many shoes that it had to become a business. And so we started 2006. We are at 96 million children so far have received a pair of shoes. We also expanded into things like sunglasses where we provide eye saving surgeries to hundreds of thousands of people. as well. And so yeah, so I did that for, you know, a decade of my life and I've moved on now, but it's like kind of like a child to me and it always be a part of me. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Blake Mikoski. We'll be right back. And now back to Blake Mikoski on the Jordan Harbinger Show. There's more to the Tom story. You can hear about it in other

interviews that you've done and in your book and things like that. I assume everyone thinks your name is Tom and that's how they got the name. And it actually comes from the tomorrow's shoes right, buy a pair of shoes today, give a pair of shoes out tomorrow. You got a ton of orders from this PR sprint in LA Times. You get like thousands of orders overnight. You're in vogue. Everything explodes. I do wonder, though, how you got your investors to be cool with you giving away tons of your

profit money for what they might have seen as marketing. Was the key just, did you have investors? That you just said it. The key was I didn't have investors. There you go. I was like, these greedy bastards. I was the only owner. and very much, you know, that limited us in some regard.

But I knew that with this, like I said, I didn't really go into it thinking it was going to be a big business. I saw it as a project. And by the time, it really started taking off. The great thing was most of our sales were online. And so we had a great cash flow because of a D to C business. And we didn't have a lot of infrastructure. We were making the shoes in garages in Argentina. I mean, it was so from very early on, we were able to fund most of the growth with cash flow from online sales.

And then once we got to, you know, five, $10 million business, we had enough credit to the banks would give us credit. And I never had investors. I would wonder, look, I don't know anything about manufacturing, but I assume making shoes and garages in Argentina, despite sounding inexpensive, is actually much more price. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, we eventually, we expand into factories all over the world.

Today, Tom says factories in Kenya, Ethiopia, China, Vietnam, Mexico. I mean, it's, yeah, no, eventually, once we got some scale, we hired some really smart people to help us scale up manufacturing because it was very not only expensive but chaotic. Yeah. I mean, what if the person, you have all these people in this different area, you got to go collect them if they can get robbed, they can get sick. Oh, yeah. It was not ideal for sure.

And then what do you do? You like pack them in a suitcase and fly back with them on American Airlines? I mean, how are you even getting them to the United States? Yeah, we did a lot of it, actually. We did a lot of the initial shipping in just big duffel bags and boxes and cargo and paying cargo rates on American. That's true. Oh, wow.

But eventually, you know, we got to where we were able to ship them and it just took a long-grown boat. So I would imagine you started them with the giving motive first, right? All right, we're going to give a pair whenever anybody buys one. There's not going to be a whole lot of profit left over necessarily. But then when you scale up, you don't have to lower the price, right? The profit is that. So your margins increased greatly at that point. It became enormously profitable.

That was the, I always say to people like if there's like a picture of the word karma in the dictionary. It should be a picture of a Tom shoe. Because, I mean, literally, like, I started four companies before Tom's. And Tom's is like the one business that I was not really interested or thought possible that could make money. But then once we scaled up, we had all this efficiency. Price is still the same. And we became incredibly profitable. And, you know, Tom's made a lot of money. And we helped a lot of people. And that was never the intent from the beginning. So I really do look at it as a good example of karma. When did you know you were on to something? Yes, you got a spot in vogue. Yes, you got plenty of attention from media. Was it the woman in the airport in New York where you were

like, this is a thing? I mean, was there a moment? You know, I think there are two things. I mean, I love telling about this woman in the airport. I've told the story a lot and I wish someday I'd get to meet her again. I keep waiting for her to like send me an email. You would think by now, right? Yeah. But no, she did not recognize me, but I asked her about her shoes. And I noticed that when I asked her about her shoes rather than just saying their tombs. She told me the whole story, the giving story. She told me about my life. She told me about the fact that I lived on a sailboat. It was quite comical, actually. And then I told her who I was and she totally freaked out. But what I love about that moment was it made me realize that if we just focused on giving and helping people as a business, that was

so radical in 2007. Like now it's part of almost every business plan you see, which I am so proud of and excited for the future of the business, whether it's giving or sustainability, environmental stewardship, whatever. But back then, our story was, I used the word radical. Like, it was like, you're doing what? Like, business is business. Like, charity is charity. Like, and so I recognize that people love telling the story as they became customers.

And so if we just focused on doing what we said we were going to do, we wouldn't really have to worry about growth and marketing and all these things. And that proved out to be true. I mean, we were the fastest growing shoe company. in the world for three years. You said the hardest part of the business building was making the shoes themselves. Do you still feel that way? Yeah.

I still. Really? I mean, I don't think now. I mean, Tom says, you know, legions of people working on that. But yeah, initially for sure, because I had to experience and most of the people that I hired, lots of them off Craigslist didn't have experience. They were all passionate people who wanted to help make the world a better place. And that doesn't translate into technical design and footwear very well.

So, yeah, that was the hardest part for sure. and that caused a tremendous amount of stress that I'd never want to go back to. Do you think your lack of experience at that time was actually an advantage? Because it's like, I can imagine you saying, had I known how hard making shoes was going to be, I would not have made shoes.

I would have started off with key chains or whatever, I don't know. I think lack of experience is great in everything. And I think, you know, one of the Buddhist concepts that I really prescribed to is the idea of the beginner's mind in all areas of life.

And so I feel the more that you can approach everything, even a new relationship with a beginner's mind, I'm just trying to forget anything that you've learned or anything you've experienced. Any potential trauma that you've had in the past allows you to experience each moment in a totally free way. And I think that is applicable to business and in our personal lives especially. Shaquille O'Neal told me that he met you at a party and he said, hey, those are cool shoes. I like these times.

Can you give me a pair of size, I don't know, 28 or something? He said that you're like, no, I can't. I don't have like a mold, right? that big and he goes but I really want him how much is the mold and I don't know it was like 20 grand or some crazy thing to make it so he bought I'm going off memory here but he bought the mold and then it was like but the minimum run we can make shack is 400 pairs of shoes or something like 100 yeah 100 so he has 100 pairs of red tombs in size 28 no not all red he has not a hundred pairs of every he has styles that we never even made okay leopard print zebra print I even think he has some with the playboy

Bunny on it. I mean, like, it's crazy. He has the greatest collection of Tom's, and that's so funny that, you know, you know that story. Very few people do. But yeah, shout out to Shaq. He's been, he's been our best customer. I mean, he's so hard. Yeah, and he has. And if you ever see him, he's, if he's

not wearing athletic shoes, he's wearing tops. Always. Always. I run in him all the time because we share a recording studio in Los Angeles. So whenever he's in L.A., yeah, I've seen him probably a dozen times, you know, last year. Always a pair of times. Usually reds. usually red, so I just assumed he only had red. No, he has all different colors. That's funny. He's

leaving the Playboy Bunny once for a special occasion, maybe. Yeah, I think so. Your favorite movie I've heard is Rudy, that football movie from like the early 90s? I don't know if that's still the case, but that's an underdog flick. You know, your business is made for Tom's. They're based around helping out the underdog a lot of the time with the charity element, the one for one angle. Or am I reading into this too much? No, I don't, I mean, look, I mean, it's funny. And my three favorite movies are actually Rocky for Rudy, well, four, Shawshank Redemption and Dead Poets Society. Yeah. And they're all underdog movies.

And I think that that comes from my tennis days. So even though I went to college on tennis scholarship and was one of the better players in the country, I was always the underdog. Like I didn't have the natural talent. I worked so hard. I mean, I was obsessed with tennis as a young kid and always the last man on the team. I always made the team, but I was the last man. I was the one like hoping to get to play.

And so I just think that my tennis stage really affected my love for those movies. And then I think it does translate into, you know, and especially made for now. You know, I mean, underdog with Tom's, I would say, is a generous. Like we were serving the poorest of the poor. And I don't think they had the opportunities that some of the people were serving made for with. You know, and I think with made for, what I'm really excited about is helping people really live their best life and accomplish things that they didn't even think. they could accomplish. And that's very much comes from, you know, my just love and fascination. And I think self-identification with underdogs. I heard you learned, by the way, to play polo. That seems so

dangerous that sport. It is. I quit last year, actually. You did. Okay. I wrote a beautiful letter to the sport of polo and posted it on my Instagram, which a lot of my friends made fun of me for. But I am so thankful to the sport. I love horses. I had some of the greatest experiences of my life in Argentina playing. And I almost killed myself. And I said, enough is enough. And so, So I still ride horses, you know, daily, but I stay away from polo just because it is so dangerous. Yeah, you think of it as like this sort of tea-sippin, rich guy sport. But, man, horses, first of all, equestrian in general,

anything on a horseback is 10 times more deadly than even getting hit by an NFL linebacker with protective gear. Yeah. And then now you've got mallets, you're trying to turn the horse in all these different directions. They're running into each other. So you've got to be able to do that and then knock it trampled by your teammates.

It's like, no, thanks, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Were there any close calls in your businesses where you thought, this is over, we're screwed. I know like manufacturing, you can get 10,000 items and that they're falling apart by the time you're holding them. No, I mean, definitely we had so many close calls of Tom's. And to your point, most of them were manufacturing based. Some of them cash flow based, you know, like a factory, like didn't send an order. So then we didn't get paid by Nordstrom's. And then so I would say all the close calls were either financial because I didn't have investors or manufacturing. but there were plenty, and I never want to go back to those experiences again. Yeah, do you ever have like nightmares where you wake up and you don't have a shoe order in your garage?

I don't have those anymore, but there are many years that I did. And, you know, I will vicariously live through my children if they end up becoming entrepreneurs and watching their close calls, but very happy that that's not a type of level of stress that I'm dealing with these days. Yeah, I feel you. I feel you on that. What lesson did you take from manufacturing that you would, if you were doing it over again? And I've heard you say things like make sure that you know,

I'm paraphrasing here, and this sounds so general, but it's like make sure you know who's making your stuff, something along those lines. That's a huge part. I mean, I think that the hard part is in a global economy, so much of manufacturing is done not where you're operating. And so the best advice I give people is you've got to find someone that you would trust with your kids and they've got to live at the manufacturing plant.

Because either you've got to be there or someone that you trust that much. Otherwise, there's just too many shady things that happen. Yeah, you hear about even big companies. companies like Apple, which I assume kind of own or at least dominate that industry. I got friends whose job it is to go to the factory and make sure that they're still making your stuff correctly. Yeah.

Just because it's like if the cats away, the mice will play kind of situation with a lot of manufacturing firms. That is a great analogy, yeah. When do you follow your gut or your ethos and when do you bend? I mean, I'm referring to the time when you almost got kicked out of Nordstrom

or did get kicked out of Nordstrom for being, yeah, for being a hard ass about shoeboxes or something like. Yeah, right. You know, that's an interesting thing because when I start a little trivia on Tom's that most people don't know is I really had two big ideas with Tom's. One was I wanted to give a pair for every pair we sold, one for one, which we became famous for. But the other one was that I wanted to, you know, limit the environmental waste.

And the biggest waste and footwear I thought was shoeboxes, you know, because people, they open it, they throw it away. They usually don't even recycle it. So I tried to do the shoe business without shoe boxes and Nordstrom really fought me on it. And then ultimately, Nordstrom is right, it's impossible to do because all the stockrooms in every department store in the world have been designed to stack shoeboxes. And we don't have that. Then your shoes get mixed up. And if they're mixed up, they can't sell them. And if they don't sell them, you get kicked out.

So I think that's an example of when, you know, there's some rules that just aren't meant to be broken. And I think that's the art of being an entrepreneur, knowing which ones you can break and which ones you can't. Yeah. Do you have like a heuristic on where you should try the line and when you need to be more adaptable? I don't. That's why I think it's an art. I think every single example is unique. I've heard that in your fund, you sometimes tell founders to bootstrap, not raise money.

All the time. Why? Well, I think part of it is my experience with Tom's, right? Like, I wouldn't have created the personal wealth that I've created, and I wouldn't have been able to create wealth for a lot of my employees that I gave stock to in the early days had I had investors because I would have been so diluted. And so I think what's unfortunate is our business media has celebrated raising money more. than being profitable. Oh yeah. And I think that is a horrific thing for our economy. I think it's horrible for entrepreneur culture. It really kind of frustrates me, you know, that there's companies that, you know, are written about more in the media that have never made a dollar just because

they're really good at raising money. But then the founders, if they ever do make a profitable business, make no money. And last time I checked the purpose of, one of the purposes of building a business to make some money. Yeah. So I tell entrepreneurs all the time. I mean, literally, I don't think there's an entrepreneur that you'll find that I haven't talked to or mentored that I have said, hey, look, I could invest and I like what you're doing, but give it six more months, just bootstrap. And even if you come back and your valuation is higher, I'm still going to invest, but you're going to own more of your company. I think that should always be the goal of the entrepreneur. Yeah, that's interesting. I think there's so many people that celebrate raising money. And look, it's great. People believe

in your vision or believe in your product. But if you look at it like a loan, how many people celebrate. I just took out a huge loan. Exactly. Exactly. And it is a loan. It's a fucking high thing loan. I mean, it's the most expensive loan of your life. And not only is it that, but it also usually comes with all kinds of restrictions and, you know, sometimes limits your vision. And yeah, so I'm glad you said that. I think that's a great way to look at it when you're thinking about raising capital. Is it really just a big loan? Yeah. And at that point, you're kind of like, oh, maybe I shouldn't take 20 million when I only need five. I mean, you're supposed to take raise more than you need, but some people just want to have a press release that says, look how much we raised.

It's totally ego-driven. Yeah, then you sell your business and people go, wow, $100 million exit, and you're like, yeah, I can finally pay off my college loans and buy a Ford Fusion because that's all I got. It happens. Multi-six-figure. Yeah, you hear about it all the time. Post-COVID, what are some of the emerging opportunities or trends that you're seeing? You've mentioned some things in other news media, but I'm curious what you see now.

Yeah, I mean, I think not just post-COVID, but just in general, I think is, you know, we have to continually focus on the fact that we have a big issue with climate change and being dependent on fossil fuels. And so I think that more and more there's going to be opportunities to create cleaner energy sources. And if I was an entrepreneur like starting off right away and looking fresh at things, I think learning about how technology is going to help us in energy production is really, really exciting. You know, and so that's an area. I think post-COVID, I think really looking at all things of digital learning, you know, using technology to do video conference like we're doing now. But even more than that.

I mean, I just had a friend who's an entrepreneur who's doing amazing with her online fitness classes. And they're just exploding in terms of the demand. And she's reaching people. I mean, it's so funny. My nanny, this is a woman who runs an incredible thing called the class in New York City. Our name's Terran. And my nanny in Jackson, the whole Wyoming, I asked her, hey, what did you do this morning?

She goes, I did the class. Have you ever heard of it? I was like, Terran's a friend of mine. Like, how do you know about the class? Like, it's like, I've only done it in New York City, but because of COVID, she's reaching people in Jackson Hole now. And so I think any type of business that allows you to be insulated with a situation like quarantine is something to at least be thinking about because I don't think this is

the last time we're going to experience something like this. This is the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Blake Mikoski. We'll be right back. After the show, we've got a preview trailer of our interview with the one and only Adam Carolla, like you've never heard him before. So stay tuned for that after the close of the show. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers keeps us going and puts gas in the tank in my electric car.

To learn more and get links to all the great discounts you've just heard so you can check out the deals for yourself, visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Don't forget, of course, we have worksheets for today's episode. The link is in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com slash podcast. And now for the rest of our episode with Blake Mikoski. I do think it's weird that the online fitness classes have taken so long to take off because Peloton, right? Yeah. You have this bike in your living room.

Hey, we're going to do a fitness class on this bike live from New York City. And then it was like crickets in every other vector. I know. And you're thinking, how is this not a thing where I thought yoga and everybody would get it? Yeah. I think it was just the hardware was so sexy and attractive. And part of it is like once you spend that much money on the bike, you're going to do it. Whereas like a yoga class or a fitness class that you don't need equipment is, you know,

have less invested interest. So who knows? Yeah, yeah, interesting. You're right. Maybe people just needed to be on lockdown before they care to jump in. I know you're passionately against gun violence. Who isn't? I hope that most of us can at least agree on that, whatever your politics. And you put your money where your mouth is with this $5 million check a couple years ago. But what was even more impressive or as impressive was the Tom's website within four days had made this. I assume you sort of hauled everyone together and went like, I know we're really busy, but can you divert all of our resources to making this website where we send print Postcards. Yeah, and he's also during Black Friday, so it wasn't just kind of busy. It was the biggest sales day of the year. God.

Yeah, we got 750,000 Americans to write a postcard to their congressperson, you know, really in favor of background checks. And I think the thing that I was and still am as passionate about is really taking gun violence and really showing people how it does not need to be a political issue. Like, I am not against a Second Amendment. I'm not against gun ownership. I grew up in Texas hunting myself. But I think, that background checks are just, it's just crazy that you can buy a gun without having a background check. You can buy a gun if you're a convicted felon. You can buy a gun if you have a record of domestic violence. I mean, this is, you can actually buy a gun if you're on the terrorist watch list. This is just crazy. And this is where, you know, I still believe we have work to be done. And in my hope and dream with this is that people will see it not as a political issue, but as a human issue. And that's, I'm not a political person at all. I obviously follow politics. I vote. but it is not something that I put a tremendous amount of time or energy in behind.

But this I felt like I needed to go really big, largely because people don't see me as a political person. And so they see me as a humanitarian, they see me as an entrepreneur, they see me as someone who desperately cares about, you know, making the world a better place. And so by going so big on this issue, I felt like, you know, we could be a voice down the middle. And I think that's why we had, you know, some effectiveness, but there's still a long way to go. You got pretty choked up on Jimmy Fallon talking about the company. pride. How do you cry and cue like that? It was really impressive. Yeah, I don't think, I don't really cry that much. And that's, that was so interesting to see. I think part of the

reason I broke down on Jimmy was like, I realized the enormity of history at that moment, you know, it was the largest donation, the history of the United States by a company. Tom's is a relatively small company, you know, if you think about it. So that made it even, you know, kind of bigger in proportion. And I just got choked up because I realized we were, making history in that moment. And I love reading history and believe the history is a really important thing for all of us to understand, especially right now. Yeah. And so that's why I got so emotional. Did that surprise you? Like were you? Oh, I blacked out. Yeah, totally blacked out. Like I got off the stage. I never forget it. And my friends that were there were like, oh my God,

that's amazing. I can't believe you held it together. Like, oh my God. And I was like, I don't remember a thing. Like I literally, last thing I remember is Jim and be like, like, Blake Mikeoskey. And then. Yeah. Like so it was. It's an outer body experience and one that I had to watch several times to kind of remember what I even said. That's, yeah, I felt like I would have been so self-conscious up there in the first place, but crying and then being like, okay, I got to turn this off. Yeah, I'm going to, I can't keep crying.

Right, you can get emotional, but then there's a peak at which you just start looking a little bit like a lunatic after that. And it's like, I got to. Yeah. Yeah. So it just kind of, you know, autonomously happened. And it was great. And Jimmy was wonderful and had me back on the show a few months later.

And, yeah, it was a really special experience. I know you're very big on morning journaling and you've been doing it for decades now. I don't know. Because I was 15, yeah. Wow. Why is a 15 year old would you think, I got to start writing down everything that happens in my day? Well, it goes back to tennis. So I was so obsessed with becoming a better tennis player. And I read some book about athlete training or Olympians. And it was very much that they kept track of every single training that they did, every practice session so that they could really understand the progress they were making. So all my journaling kind of from 15 to say 20 was oriented around tennis and progress and the mental state of the game and that. And then that just translated into journaling around business and then relationships and the

spirituality and now being a dad, there's a lot of things to write about. But the thing I love about journaling is it's almost like free therapy. You know, it's an opportunity for you to work out your thoughts without having to vomit them on someone else, especially before they've really been thought through. and it also gives you something to go back and read later to learn from mistakes and successes. I started journaling when I was an exchange student and it was one of the coolest things

just in case we need to sell this a little harder. In the beginning, it was all like, I'm homesick, I hate it here, and the ending is all in German, like fluent German. Wow, that's cool. I look at it now and I go, I cannot believe,

there's even entries in the middle that are like, the beginning parts German, then there's like an English word that's more complicated that I just didn't know at the time. Wow, that's cool. I hadn't heard that before. That's another great reason to do it. It's just such a cool thing to have because it's easy in your mind to look back on starting a business, learning language, doing whatever it is, and you sort of smooth everything out, right? Yeah.

You smooth everything out and you look over or overlook some of the major hurdles and bumps. And when you're telling someone else about it, it can be really distorted from that angle. Yeah, sure. And this is a very kind of candid look at how you thought when you were that age. And you can't really whitewash anything. You can't smooth anything over. There's bumps in it and they're there in your own handwriting. Totally. What's the process that you use? Do you just wake up in the morning and write?

You do have any prompts? I mean, by now it's old hat. Yeah, it's an old hat. A little bit depends on my day. You know, I have a morning ritual that I like to do before the kids get up where I make a really special tea and I drink three cups in silence, followed by like a 20-minute kind of breathing exercise. and then I usually journal then if the kids haven't woken up.

Oftentimes that ritual gets interrupted by a five-year-old or a two-year-old. And then I usually find some time after the kids go to bed, to journal at the end of the day. I think beginning and end is a nice because I think you just are more in a reflective mindset. It's hard for me to do it once the day starts. What are you writing about? What are you putting in there? You know, it's interesting.

It really depends on the day. I mean, sometimes it's very much doesn't look any different than someone's to-do list. you know, like here's the things that are most important to get done today. And this is why. And then a lot of it is reflecting on a learning or a special moment I had with my kids or a special person in my life. And then oftentimes it's, I find that when I do my meditation, things kind of come to me, kind of like a download. And I am very excited to journal kind of whatever feelings, thoughts, visions I maybe had during my meditation and kind of see maybe if that's in some way, some guidance on how I should make on a decision or what I should do during the day. So it really changes every day.

And I think that's what keeps it interesting. Now that you're out of times, you are out of the day to day, I assume. Like you said, it's a kid, right? You can't let it go. Kid went to college. Kid went to college, right? You're no longer in control, but you still care a lot. Yeah, exactly. Tell me what made for is doing. You mentioned a psychology angle. Of course, we're interested in that. Yeah, well, I think what's interesting is that our entire conversation started with a conversation about entrepreneurship is often the response of someone having a personal struggle or a dissatisfaction in creating a product. What made for is exactly that. So in 2016-17, I'd really been out of Tom's for about two years and I found myself kind of rudderless, not really with a strong purpose.

I'd taken up a bunch of activities that really weren't were fun but weren't giving me long-term meaning. I realized that during Tom's, I put a lot of my physical and mental health on the side and just was so driven working on work. And so I actually was diagnosed with mild depression and started seeing a therapist for the first time and realizing like I didn't really want to get out of bed a lot of days and like really experiencing some pretty heavy stuff, even though I had done everything that society told me to do to be successful. I'd, you know, created a great business. I'd helped a lot of people. I had made a lot of money. I had this beautiful child. I got married. I mean, all these things. But yet I realized that all that was external. And through this process of trying to feel

better, I realized that I need to focus on more things that are internal and truly in my control. And at that same time, I met this great guy who became my business partner named Pat Dossett. And Pat was a Navy SEAL for nine years, then got his MBA at Wharton and was working at Google when I met him and was very focused on human performance and not just human performance at like a super high level, but like in a like, how do we all live our best lives every day with the challenges and struggles of modern technology and modern culture. And so he and I really bonded over his passion and my need, really. And so we decided that it would be interesting, and I was happy to fund this research,

to go to the top neuroscientists and psychiatrists in the country from Stanford and Harvard and different universities and ask them, what have they been able to prove? So not like what's the latest trend or fad or whatever, but what has actually been proven in university labs to cause someone to be in a state of full? or high well-being. And what we found was, and I needed it for myself, and it made total sense after we discovered it, was it was actually these basic things that for hundreds of years people had been talking about and somewhat practicing. But most people had a really hard time integrating them life into their life in a sustainable way. And so it was things like being properly

hydrated, getting a good night's sleep, you know, experiencing gratitude in your life, you know, decluttering your household, like these simple things. But, science had shown that it was very hard for people to learn them with all the digital distraction. So I decided I was going to take them on and integrate them into my life and see how it affected me. And I found a huge benefit in practicing these things and learning these new habits. And that ultimately became the idea for the made-for program, which is now a 10-month program where we teach you one habit and practice every month. And it's done. And the thing that people find most interesting and kind of surprising is the science clearly showed us that it need to be

taught in a non-digital way. So it's completely analog. So everything that you need to learn the new habit or practice that month comes to your house in the made-for kit. And in that kit, you have everything you use to learn it. And so that's what I'm spending all my time doing now is really helping people with their journey on the 10-month made-for program. How do you stay competitive? I assume you're very competitive. because you played tennis, collegiate, and everything like that growing up. Sure.

But not consistently compare yourself to other people who you see as maybe more advanced. I mean, if you're hanging out with Navy SEAL MBA entrepreneurs and all that, how do you not get down on yourself seeing people like that around you all the time? How do you turn that into inspiration instead of depression? Yeah, I think one of the thing is interesting that I learned about through MaidForne that we really teach

is we have all the agency and faculty inside of our brain And it's incredibly for neuroplasticity, I mean, it's totally malleable really to adopt any mindset that we want. And so most people, unfortunately, after the age of 30 or probably in some form of a fixed mindset. Sure. And if you have a fixed mindset and you meet someone that is technically superior in terms of a learning or an accomplishment, then it's very hard to not have that have a negative effect. But if you have a growth mindset and say, what can I learn from this person that will increase or enhance my life? life, then it is a totally different experience. There's no competitiveness at all. It's just more opportunistic of what you can learn. And so what ultimately we're trying to do with made for is not

necessarily teach you 10 new habits and practices that will change your life. Like, that's what it seems like on the surface. But really the science of what we're doing is really trying to help you adopt a growth mindset so that you really can apply that to any area of your life. And so COVID is a great example. You know, the biggest issue with COVID for so many of my friends and family and workers, and colleagues was all this uncertainty and anxiety and lack of control. And so the people who were going through the May 4 program during COVID, the number one thing we heard from them is, gosh, I feel like I have something to ground me. I have some foundational practice to give me a little bit more control of my well-being,

even though there's so many things that are out of my control. And so that's really what we're trying to do is, yes, these 10 practices are all scientifically backed and individually they can have incredible benefits on your energy level. and in your mindset and your ability to accomplish things and stick to things and all of this. But really what's happening is we're changing the plasticity of your mind so that you have this growth mindset and you interact with life in a different way. It sounds a little fluffy in the abstract, but a lot of it is very practical. Like hydration was one of the ones that I'd seen.

Yeah, getting a great night's sleep. Yeah. Really understanding how your breath can regulate your nervous system. I mean, the thing that I find is so most people are surprised. prize with is, and I love these people when they finish the program that testimonials we get, they're like, you know, I can't believe the first month, I just paid 70 bucks and you basically help me drink more water, you know, and it's great, but they're like, and it changed my life. And the reason is because we all know we should drink more water.

Yeah. But for instance, in the month we focus on hydration. We not only give you the science to really understand what a 1% decrease in the optimal water has effect on your brain, your energy level, your ability to get a good night's sleep, et cetera. But then we also give you, we designed a special water bottle that actually keeps track of how much water you're drinking. So you can really optimize how much water for me, based on my diet, my activity level, my climate. And so we take these very basic things, but then help you fine tune them in a way and create a practice around them so you continually

do it habitually versus having to think about it. And that's what has the biggest effect on our life. And so I think in this day and age where we look for these silver bullets or these big things, especially in mental and physical health. Like everyone wants the next big workout or they want the perfect meditation app or whatever. The truth is, is there are no silver bullets. So there are these basic simple practices that if you have the discipline and you can learn them in a more kind of entertaining in easier way, that's what made for is all about. Then when they integrate into your life, then you see these big change. And that really comes from the seals too. I mean, I mean, Pat always talks that, you know, it was always crawl, walk, run.

You know, the idea that you take these very simple basic steps, and then they have these very big results. And that's how we designed the made-for program as well. Blake Tom, thank you very much for coming on the show today, man. Thanks to Blake for coming on the show. The Tom's Shoes' legacy really is social entrepreneurship. They give one, get one. They essentially popularized that, originated that.

I mean, that's everywhere now, and I think for the benefit of the rest of the world. Now, yes, some people will say, you know, that whole gift. giving away shoes, giving away glasses thing, that disrupts local economies. You know, it's an aid sort of need-based, almost addiction for a lot of countries. I did ask him about that and how giving away aid disrupts local markets and businesses. And, you know, his answer was, I got to respect it. He said, look, I think that criticism is largely true. And they actually went about changing the business and the giveaway model in order to help repair that, like hiring people locally to produce things, producing things in the country. I just wanted to include that because a lot of people have

that criticism of Tom's shoes or of any sort of donation wear. And he did have a pretty humble answer about it, which was that, you know, they should have thought of that and they corrected the problem. Really, really interesting how open he was about that. Links to everything that Blake is doing will be in the show notes. Please use our website links if you buy books from any of the guests on the show. Worksheets for this episode so you can review everything you learned here from Blake. That's going to be linked up in the show notes, transcripts also in the show notes, and there's video of this interview on our YouTube channel, or there will be soon, at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. I'm teaching you how to connect with great people and manage relationships using systems, using tiny habits.

That's our six-minute networking course. That's free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Don't postpone this. Don't procrastinate on this. The number one mistake people make is trying to do this later when they need to network. You've got to dig the well before you get Thursday. Build your network before you need it, even if it means starting from scratch and you feel a little uncomfortable. Just suck it up and start. These drills are designed to take just a few minutes per day. This stuff, I wish I knew this stuff 20 years ago. It's not fluff. It's been crucial for me. Find it all for free at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. A lot of the guests on the show, subscribe to the course. Come join us. You'll be in smart company.

Speaking of relationships, you can always reach out and follow me on social. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. You can add me on LinkedIn. I actually post more of their, I post more there than everyone else right now, I think. Yeah, I don't know. It's not a contest. This show is created in association with Podcast One. This episode was produced by Jen Harbinger and engineered by J. Sanderson. The ads were fun because of Peter Oldring. Show notes and worksheets by Robert Fogarty. Music by Evan Viola. And I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Our advice and opinions and those of our guests are their own. And I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. I'm sure as heck not a doctor or a therapist. So do your own research before implementing anything

you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting up. The fee for the show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know somebody's growing a business, starting to manufacture in footwear or any kind of entrepreneur that could use the advice that you heard here today, hopefully you do find something great in every episode.

So please do share the show with those you love. 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. As promised, here's your interview trailer with Adam Carolla. There's a kind of sad reality of the, blue-collar world and mentality, which is you get paid to physically do things.

There's a very straight line on how to make money. That world never pauses and goes, well, who are you? And what are your ideas? And what about all these other people that are composing songs or writing the theme song to the Tonight Show and going to the mailbox and getting a royalty check? or this guy wrote a movie. Or at some point, you just buy into that program. Shut your mouth, pick up that shovel, and get going.

What sort of triggered that for you? What sort of went, you know what, screw this. I'm not trading time for money. I have to figure something else out. I sat around, and I've sat around and I went, what are you good at? And the answer was comedy. Podcasting is obviously on the way up.

How did you spot an opportunity there and go, you know what, this is a safer or better or more liquiding bet. When I was doing morning radio, the program director would go, we need to get our ratings up in L.A. We're fifth in L.A. or whatever. Then some other guy would come in and he'd go, you guys had 16 million minutes of streaming last month. Then the program director would like come back in and go,

you guys got to get your shit together, you know? And I'd go, hey, we have 16 million minutes of streaming. And he'd go like, so who cares? You're fifth in L.A. And then he'd just walk out of the studio. And I remember just sort of looking around going, I don't know. It seems good. Seems good.

Then I got fired. And my buddy said, do a podcast. And I was like, let's just do it. For more with Adam Carolla, including why trading time for money is a losing proposition and how we can break the cycle. And how to tell if we're doing something for ourselves or doing something based on pressure from others, check out episode 69 right here on the Jordan Harbinger Show. 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 smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast-focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested, and what makes people like you or not. The through line is always the same. Smart ideas you can actually

use in real life. Something you should know has been featured in Apple's shows we love, and it's got thousands of five-star reviews because it's consistently interesting. So if you want another show that scratches that I want to understand how people in the world really work, itch, search for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts. Look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening. You can thank me later.