The Jordan Harbinger Show - 69: Adam Carolla | Why You Should Stop Trading Time for Money

Episode Date: July 17, 2018

Adam Carolla (@adamcarolla) is a best-selling author, comedian, actor, and host of The Adam Carolla Show -- the Guinness World Record holder for Most Downloaded Podcast. What We Discuss with Adam Carolla: How Adam came up in comedy and resisted negative influences. Why trading time for money is a losing proposition and how we can break the cycle. Sometimes you don't need a grand plan to break away from a medieval laborer's mindset -- just the motivation to do something more with your life. How to tell if we're doing something for ourselves or doing something based on pressure from others. Why it's important to run toward your fear. And much more... Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course!  Full show notes and resources can be found here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with my producer, Jason DeFilippo. Today we're talking with my friend Adam Carolla. Yes, that Adam Carolla finally had a chance to have Adam on the show. And we'll discuss coming up in comedy and resisting negative influences. Plenty of those in many of our backgrounds, especially Adam. And we discussed why trading time for money is a losing proposition, how he came to that conclusion, how we can break that cycle, and what led Adam to do the same. and we'll learn how to tell if we're doing something for ourselves or doing something based on pressure from others and why it's important to run towards your fear. Adam's a great storyteller. That probably goes without saying he's a radio legend and there's so much covered in this episode.

I really think you'll enjoy it. Even if you're not sure what would Adam Carolla teach me about life? I think there's a lot here. I mean, remember, this is a guy who when we were kind of kids was doing Loveline and influencing a lot of the generation that's, broadcasting right now that you're hearing right now, myself included. Don't forget, we have a worksheet for today's episode so you can make sure you solidify your understanding of all the key takeaways here from Adam Carolla. That link is in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. All right, here's Adam Carolla. So when you started off in comedy, I know you

said before your friends were making fun of you for going to groundlings and taking opportunities like that. Well, they didn't really look at them as opportunities. They were making fun of me the sense that they didn't understand what the notion of doing improv and paying to do improv was pretty foreign to them. Like you make stuff up and it's not even for free. You make stuff up and then you pay somebody to watch you make stuff up. And that seemed like a fool's errand to them. Well, at the time for you, did that feel like a negative influence or did you just feel like, all right, I'm an alien among my contractor buddies or my construction buddies? I guess Growing up, not really having a dad that I confided in or took direction from or discussed

or had any, my dad never did any like mentoring. And no one in my family did any, what you would call sort of mentoring. So I guess I realized that I was going to be sort of left to figure things out on my own. and I never really thought like I should really talk to one of my friends and then weigh their advice and really see where they're coming down on this whole doing comedy or standup versus radio or radio versus sketch or improv or whatever it is. I didn't feel like the world was against me. I just felt like nobody cared and why should that guy know anything about improv or sketch or whatever. And then when I, you know, later on, when I ran into the Jimmy Kimmel's of the world, I was like, okay, well, that guy knows about radio. He's been doing radio for, you know, 10 years or by the time I met him, I don't know, maybe eight years.

And I was like, okay, listen to that guy about radio. But don't listen to your buddies who are doing earthquake rehab about comedy. Yeah. So you were able to parse that out because I think a lot of folks, when they write me, they're like, oh, my family doesn't understand or my friends, they don't understand. and they feel like they need to resist this negative influence. It sounds like you almost had an inoculation by being born into a family where nobody really gave you much direction. Is that safe to say?

Yeah, I didn't get any direction from my family. So the plan was always kind of no plan and whatever it is you do, you'll do. And you're going to have to kind of feel your way through this with not much of an emphasis on success. My fantasy was sort of like, I couldn't read or write very well. So I wasn't having fantasies about getting a job writing scripts for sitcoms or anything because physically,

like couldn't write. And back then, if you couldn't write, you couldn't physically write, you couldn't physically write. Like you can't, how are you going to be a writer on a sitcom if you can't actually pull out a typewriter and pound out a script, you know?

And it was like, there wasn't any like, well, you get a computer, you get your assistant to do it. Or, you know, you pace and you'll take a note, you know, like it wasn't any of that. So that was kind of off the table. My fantasies were like, I'd get a job at some advertising firm. And I would come up with funny ideas for commercials or campaigns or, you know, I'd be the brains behind the next. Bud's McKenzie for Bud Light or whatever it was. Like I remember watching commercials going, oh, that one's kind of funny, but I think I could have had a... So my fancy is I'd be in the room with a bunch of other dudes, and those dudes could type.

And I'd be like, wouldn't it be funny if we did this for a Coors commercial or a GM commercial or something? And I would somehow be some sort of creative person at a... Right. But it was never like, I'll be in the commercial. I was just like, I'll have the idea for the commercial. So this wasn't like, all right, I'm moving to, I'm moving here. I'm going to learn comedy and try my hand at this. This was something that you thought would eventually maybe lead to something else. But in the meantime, you were seemingly, were you happy doing the construction thing? I mean, you'd like building stuff going to Home Depot now. Could you see yourself doing that long term? Or were you desperate for a way out at that point? I did the math on the type of construction, at least I was doing, which is I worked like a day labor works. And it started to become clear to me that there were no paid vacations and there were no days off. and the way I work my entire life up until radio is if you, you know, if you had to, if you had to cut out at noon, like at lunchtime on a Friday, because you had a dental appointment, then when you got your paycheck, you got paid for 36 hours that week. You didn't get paid for 40.

It's like you, but you took, you took a half day on Friday. So you got paid for 36. And if you wanted to work on Saturday for four hours and make it up, you could do that, you know. But then if it rained on Saturday, then you wouldn't get paid on Saturday. Yeah. And I mean, it was like if Christmas fell on a, on a Thursday, and I kind of remember this once, we did a half day Wednesday. We took Christmas day off, but we were back Friday. because people wanted to get paid.

Sure. People had to get paid. You had to get paid. So nobody could afford, if Christmas was on a Tuesday or Wednesday, nobody could afford to work a two-day week and then not work the rest of the week. You get a paycheck that had 13 hours. Like, you couldn't do it. So true story. Like, if you're playing on the weekend, you got into a pickup basketball game on a Sunday on the blacktop at the schoolyard and you rolled your ankle,

halaciously bad and it swole up like a grapefruit, then you wouldn't get paid for the three days of work of that week or until whenever you came back to do stuff on your feet, you know, like not data entry. So like I was like, I saw which way the wind was blowing like really quick in this world, in the world I was living in. And I was very much like, how is, so how is it going to work? with a mortgage and maybe kids and a family and things of that nature, when you have this job where you're getting paid by the hour all the time

and there is no medical or dental or days off or vacation or there's nothing. And there was no like time and a half or golden time. It was nothing. It was just like you got paid at the end 15 bucks an hour straight away. That's it. And I started kind of, you know, the first mode everyone would get into that I worked with was how do we get more an hour? That was the thought. The thought was, you know, when I was cleaning carpets, I was getting six, maybe seven bucks an hour.

And then when I was working as a day labor, I was getting seven bucks an hour. And then my boss told me if I bought a pickup truck, he'd give me a number. other dollar an hour. So, and then I bought a used pickup truck and I was making $8 an hour. And at some point, when I was doing earthquake rehab and I was working for the city, I was getting $19.50 an hour. And I was like, oh, man, that's a big chunk because the city's stupid and they overpay and they paid a bunch of guys that could have got for $13 an hour. They paid them $19.50 an hour. But anyway, then at some point, I was like back to $15 an hour. whenever I worked with, the goal would, the discussions would be that guy, that plumber guy

over there, he's making $28 bucks an hour. And everyone just go like, holy shit, 28 bucks an hour. And then everyone would be like, oh, so, that's right, they're 10. Guys make like $225 a day. And it was like, oh, shit. And so everyone's kind of goal was, geez, man, if I could get to $28 an hour, maybe you should start learning plumbing. I was the guy who was kind of sitting around going,

and I had this thought, even though it was like a stupid fantasy, weird thought. But I was like, even if you made $100 an hour, I remember thinking to myself. And that was just an insane, you know, super attorney. Yeah, I was going to say lawyers. Lawyers. Yeah, it was a lawyer pay. But I just went, even if you're getting $100 an hour, let's just say, I'll set the highest amount humanly possible, $100 an hour.

I thought if it was still based on you having to come in, having to be up on the roof or carry the drywall or dig ditches or whatever it is. And then if you got sick, you got the flu and you couldn't come in for two days, you got nothing. It's still kind of flawed, even at that princely son. some. So I started to sort of think, what is it that would pay you by the job sort of thing? Like, obviously, Jerry Seinfeld doesn't get paid by the hour. Right. He does a gig. He gets paid, you know, guys who write for sitcoms or write jingles for radio stations or something. They don't get paid by the jingle, you know, like my plan was it's got to be some job where you just get paid to perform.

form a task. And like at the end of my construction career, I started to kind of figure it out a little, which is like, I'll do your kitchen cabinets for $1,200, you know, and I would figure out that if I could do that in a week, you know, minus materials, I might average $26 an hour or something. But if I screwed up or I got my tool stolen or whatever, then I wouldn't. And it never really worked out, but I kind of figured out that instead of telling people $15 an hour, I'd tell them $500 to do your back vets, you know, or whatever. And then I'd hustle my ass trying to do it. But half the time you'd get burned by it.

Like it was too cheap and you didn't end up making any money. How do you push yourself to make it in the comedy or the radio when nobody's really, the people around you, you know, you're still putting up drywall the next day. People don't really care around you at the time. You're just self-motivated the whole time. Do you have, I mean, because I'm trying to figure out what you would advise somebody who feels like, well, shit, everyone around me is just like, why are you doing that? It's a waste of your time. Let's go get a beer.

I didn't need any motivation other than I was not living an enjoyable life at all. I'm not an anxious person, but I had sort of this numbing kind of. of pain of like walking around with no insurance and no like medical and dental and a kind of a low grade kind of a little tinnitus in my ear of just like you how you're going to buy a house like you can't buy a house you have no no history of like really employment like you you don't have pay stubs and things you know you get paid under the table you're getting paid under the table you're getting pay I mean some of It was under the table, some of it was not under the table. A lot of it was like, I'll come to your house and I'll build your entertainment unit for 900 bucks and you give me 900 bucks. And I either pay taxes on it or I don't, but it's still not much of a history of employment, this sort of collage of side jobs and stuff.

And it wasn't like, well, I was a big, I was a foreman for a big construction outfit and we're building a soccer stadium. And so I had six years with the company and blah, blah, blah. I didn't have any paper trail at all. I couldn't up until the very end. Like I had a credit card that was from the Bank of Hoven that was secured. Like, you know, I gave him 500 bucks. They gave me 300 bucks worth of credit on a credit card.

I couldn't buy a pickup truck. Even if I could make the payments, I still couldn't walk into the Van Nuysse Nissan dealer. Nothing would pencil out. You know, when I would go to rent an apartment and they'd be like, oh, we got to run a credit check. I'd just be like, see you guys later. Yeah. Just please. Can we talk for a minute?

Like don't, you can see I'm an honest person. I've always paid my rent. If you run this credit check, like it's not going to work. It's just, but I'm a good guy. I'm an honest guy. And I always pay my rent, but you're not going to see anything good. on there. Like, it was just, I bought a sofa on credit just to make payments on something, like

have a history. I borrowed money from a bank with my grandparents, like, co-signing for like $3,000 just to have payments and I missed a bunch. And the bank would always contact my grandparents and they got really pissed. And I was just like, you know, what's going on? Like, how long's this going to go on for? and then what happens when you're 45? It's still going to be trying to get people to co-sign for shit or like, what are you going to do?

Yeah. So I was like, you got to figure out something. Like, it's not here. That's what I figured out. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Adam Carolla. Stick around and we'll get right back to the show after these important messages. Thank you for listening and supporting the Jordan Harbinger Show. To learn more about our sponsors, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash advertisement.

And don't forget to check out our Alexa skill. Go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash Alexa or search for Jordan Harbinger in the Alexa app. Now let's get back to Jordan and Adam Carolla. Comedy just seemed like a natural extension of something that you might want to do. Because I guess what I'm trying to do is reverse engineer this a little because I think a lot of people go, oh, well, Adam had this grand vision and then he went after it. Dot, dot, dot, dot, follow your passion. And I don't really believe that advice often because I think we only hear from people who made it.

We don't hear from the people that followed their passion into their mom's basement. You know, we hear from people who have metaphorically or literally a microphone in front of them who are like, oh, well, what I did was point at a destination and achieve my goals. But it seems like I can't really tell if you went, I'm going to do that or if you went, I'm going to explore opportunities and see what shakes out and then just work hard. I never had any path or destination or. direction or goals that were specific. I had a sort of rough outline of not using my body to make money,

like swinging hammers and carrying drywall and stuff like that. Like I had a goal of, it'd be nice if I could sit somewhere in a place with some air-conditioned. and like in a bathroom and like think of things and get paid to have ideas or or to contribute in some other way that didn't involve physically moving. There's a kind of a weird stigma. That's not a stigma. It's it's more of a just sort of kind of sad reality of the blue collar world and mentality, which is you get paid to physically do things. So it kind of starts off when you're young.

Like, hey, you want to buy a mini bike? Yeah. And you're 10 years old. Yeah. And you have no money. Yeah. We'll mow some lawns. And if you mow a whole bunch of lawns, you take that money and you get a mini bike.

And like, I got it. Like when I was a kid and I wanted a go card or something, I, I watch. washed everyone's car in my dad's apartment complex. And I cobble together 40 bucks or whatever from washing, you know, 25 cars or whatever. And it's like there's a very straight line on how to make money. It's almost, you know, sort of medieval. And it's very old and it's very sort of day labor. It's very blue collar.

and it's like very donkey-like thinking, which is, and so your whole life, you get paid, you know, you get it, then your first jobs, you know, my first jobs would be like, so-and-so friend of my grandparents are moving, and they want someone to help them move. And it's like, all right, I'll spend entire Saturday carrying boxes full of books from this person's thing to a U-Haul and back, you know, like sweating through your shirt. And at the end of day, you busted your hump, you got 50 bucks. once that gets kind of like cemented in that world, 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 this person's over here. They work in this company. And they have ideas and thoughts.

and they use their words to create capital or something. That is a very like foreign thought. I understood the concept of you could be a school teacher. You'd have to go to a bunch of college. You'd have to pass a test or get a certificate or something. All that is very foreign and very like college and certificates and, you know, so black box. Yeah.

Passing tests and filling things out. That's not really going to work. I could see like being a lot. lifeguard and filling out a application or something. But the teacher kind of felt still kind of blue collary, which you don't get paid very much. You show up. You have to like lay out your lesson plan and ride on the chalkboard and clean the erasers and put out the materials. And the, you know, so it was like, huh.

So I got very deep. And then going from, you know, McDonald's to carpet cleaning to construction labor. It was all super based on physically flipping burgers and cleaning carpets and moving boxes and, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then so at some point, you just buy into that program. You don't have thoughts about maybe I could go get some training and this and that. And then I could be a counselor or something. Like, you don't have those things. Like get to work, shut up.

Like literally shut your mouth, pick up that shovel and get going. I think for most of us, that's true, right? When we're kids, when you're in kindergarten or something, you think, police man, you say army man or something, nurse, doctor, teacher. Those are pretty much the only jobs firemen, whatever. The only jobs that you know exist. And I was thinking about this. When I went to college, I don't even know how much more my idea of what was possible had expanded beyond that other than what my dad did, which is work on cars at Ford. My mom was a teacher, so that base was covered.

And then you find out a few of your friend's dad's jobs and mom's jobs, and those get added to the list. but nobody's thinking like, like you said, nobody's going, well, you know, somebody's got to create the marketing for McDonald's. Somebody's got to create all these items that I see, these custom things that I see for businesses. Nobody's thinking about that unless you grow up around it. So you have to break out of that pattern. And 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. Why would you pick comedy out of all those things, all those things? of all those ideas. I think you need to be realistic. I just had a conversation with my son this morning. He's just turned 12. He loves basketball.

He loves the NBA. He loves all that is the NBA. He loves football, too. He's labeled baseball and soccer is boring and a waste of time. And I concur. And we played on Father's Day. Jimmy Kimmel throws a Father's Day softball game. So it's fun and everyone convenes and they bring the watermelon and the beer and the waters and the kids and everyone has a good time.

And my son who's never brought up baseball is anything but boring and not interested. and he sort of mirrors my thoughts on especially soccer and certainly baseball. He doesn't want to go to any Dodger games or anything because it's boring, and I agree. But I saw him playing. He wanted to play in the game, which I didn't kind of even expect he'd want to play, but he wanted to play. And I saw him swinging the bat, and he swung it well. And even though he never really practices or played or played a mussels around with his friends a little bit.

and he swung the bat well, and then I saw him out in the field, and I could tell he kind of knew what he was doing. He took to it a little bit. So when I was young about his age, I played football, and I played baseball. And I loved football, and baseball is just like, eh, baseball was fun, but I didn't love it. It was just fun. It was easy compared to football, which was difficult. At some point, I had the curse of being very good at football at a very young age and then not being, my gifts ran out. And I tried to force myself into football and I had success at the high school level, but I never got past it. And I for went my senior year playing baseball to go start training for football. at the next level at a junior college.

And it became pretty clear, pretty quickly that I was just not going to cut it at the next level. And then I quit. And then, you know, then it was just picking up garbage on construction sides. Anyway, I said to my son, look, you don't like baseball that much. And you like football. You like basketball. There's nothing I can do about a vertical leap with you. And there's nothing you can do about it.

When it comes to speed like 40 time or 100 time, that's that. You might be able to shave a 10th off your 40, but you're either faster, you're not fast. So you're either gifted with a vertical leap, speed, and strength. I mean, you can lift weights and you can work out, but you're not going to be what these guys are. And you don't like baseball, but you have a skill set that actually lends itself to baseball. And we could practice that. I later on in life tried out for the Dodgers on a goof with a man show bit. But it was a legitimate tryout.

I mean, it was a bit, but we're playing the game and got ball batting practice and blah, blah, blah. And then some years later, Tommy Lasota said, I could have made you into a big league ball player. And everybody who heard him say that yelled no, like as loud as they could. And he doubled back. He said, oh, yes, I've seen you. If I could have got hold of you at 18. I throw you 100 curveballs a day. I could have got you in.

And I was like, oh, cool. At the time I was, no, now I was 40, you know, but I was like, all I wanted to do is focus on football. And I could have never made it to the next level in football. So I sat around and I've sat around and I went, what are you good at? And I went, I'm good at construction. And I was like, all right, what else are you good at? And the answer was comedy.

Unfortunately, it wasn't stand-up comedy, which would have been a sport. You could have got paid it. It was a weird thing where it's like, I was like, I know I'm good at comedy. I don't think I'm much of a stand-up comedian. So I'm going to have to figure this out. but I am, these are realistically two things you could do. And you're already doing one of them and you're not happy with it and you're not really getting paid much. So what is the other thing and how might we explore that?

Don't go away. We'll be right back with more from Adam Carolla after these short announcements. Thanks for listening and supporting the Jordan Harbinger Show. Your support keeps us on the air. For a list of all the discounts from our amazing sponsors, visit jordanharbinger.com slash advertisers. And if you'd be so kind, please drop us a nice rating and review in iTunes or your podcast player of choice. It really helps us out. And if you want some tips on how to do that, head on over to jordanharbinger.com slash subscribe.

And now for the conclusion of our interview with Adam Carolla. Did you apply any of the sort of mechanical thinking, construction type thinking to building your career and comedy? That sort of, because you wanted to avoid trading time for money. Did you take any of the skills that you brought from one to the other? Short answers probably no. I knew that I didn't know anything when I started construction and that I had to be kind of a sponge to absorb everything. I could. And I absorbed as much as I could by hanging around with guys who were journeyman carpenters who all of that is all absorption.

There's no books. There's no manuals. No one ever reads anything on building a house. You just sit there and learn and learn and go to work every day. And I sort of knew inherently that if I could go somewhere where they had some experience, there were some journeymen, comedians and things like that, I could expose myself to them and be around them and mimic them and listen to them and expose myself to them and see how that worked. I didn't have a clear cut plan, but I understood the concept of find someone who kind of knows what they're doing and see if they'll let you hang out.

out with them. How did you get that to happen? Because I think a lot of folks, they write me and they're like, can you mentor me? And I'm like, I don't know what that means. So, so no. But if you have some idea of what you want to do or what value you might be able to bring, there's a different story. Did you have an idea or did you just have, were you just able to make friends in that industry? Unfortunately, all the people I'd befriended, uh, none of them were professionals. They're all struggling to because We were doing sketch and improvisational comedy, and there was no market for it, and there wasn't a million shows on Hulu and Netflix. And there wasn't places for everyone to go and write.

It was, you know, pretty much you're either sitcom, network sitcom, or Saturday Night Live. Like, that was about it. And none of us were going to Saturday Night Live, and none of us were going to a network sitcom. And then there was radio. But that didn't seem like they're doing. doing a lot of comedy. And so I didn't really, I had a bunch of like-minded, smart people that we could sit around and drink coffee at a diner and just write sketches. But we also, we knew they weren't going anywhere. But we also knew inherently or instinctively, like we needed

to keep writing and we needed to keep getting up on stage. There was no line between getting up on stage and doing sketches you wrote to getting paid. It didn't seem to be any clear line to do that. But yet we all did it night after night anyway. So was there a line where you were like, okay, we're doing this. It's not really relevant, but we can't just rely on making this. Nothing's going to fall from the sky and make this into a job for us. I got to figure this out.

So what was the next step for you going? Like you're at this diner, you're writing a sketch and you're going, this is never going to lead to money. What am I going to do about it? I was like, you need to get up on stage as much as you can get up on stage and work this stuff out. So this is not directly going to lead to money. No one's going to buy the sketch or pay you to do it or anything like that. But at some point, you're going to get your kind of sea legs under you and you'll feel comfortable on stage.

and you'll have some reps. And there were little bits and pieces of, like, one guy from the troop got hired. I remember clearly to, like, dress up like a cowboy and go to the Gene Autry Museum and pretend he was an old gunslinger and, like, tell stories while an insurance group was doing their Christmas party there or something like that. And, like, he, like, my roommate Ralph did that. And I remember like him going, they want two guys and they'll pay you 50 bucks, you know, and we got to get you a cowboy hat, you know, like, like, and I was like, all right. And it was like, okay, well, maybe there's a little scratch to be made like on the side, little bits and pieces of things, you know, little stupid stuff. And once in a while our improv troupe would like play a party or something.

Maybe it could pay $25 or something. And I remember teaching comedy traffic school and going, well, okay, I could teach traffic school and get paid to like kind of be up on my feet and be talking. And it was still, you know, I think I got like, I think it paid like $80, $85 a day. But in my mind, I wasn't getting paid by the hour. I was being paid by the day, which I like. Still an upgrade, right? It was an upgrade. And I was on my feet talking.

I wasn't physically having to do anything. So I'm standing there. I'm talking. It's an upgrade. So you're like getting one inch closer to what you want to be doing with each little upgrade, even if it's not directly what you wanted to do. Yeah. If you even knew what you wanted to do, which was just not construction at that point.

I always liked radio. And I always thought I could do radio. It was very deep and dark to me. I could only imagine where these people were. or how it worked or where these unmarked buildings were. I've never passed any radio station. Like I wasn't, I never thought about, you know, traditionally, some do, but mostly radio stations don't have signs or antennas on top of their building or anything.

They're just like commercial buildings. You just drive past them every day. And they pipe it out somewhere. There's a radio station going on up there. You'd never know. I never knew anyone in it. I never thought, I didn't know anyone to like delivered sparklets to K-Lis X or something. I would have hit up that guy to ask him where the place was or if I could go with him one day

or see what it looked like inside or like anything. So I thought about radio a lot. I listened to radio a lot. My thought as I listened to radio and morning radio, especially getting up early and doing construction and just kind of having the radio on the job as your friend. I remember like listening to Mark and Brian in the morning on Klo-S and I remember going, I could for sure do that. If I was sitting there, you know, and they'd be talking, you know, and they'd say like,

what'd you do this weekend? And I'd come up with an answer like in my head, like on the construction site. And then the guy in the air would go, you know, this and that. And I'd think, oh, mine was better. Yeah. My answer was better than this and that, you know, like. And I would, and, and they'd be interviewing a porn star or talking to a celebrity or something, you know, and they'd ask the question. And I'd start having my own answers to the questions or my own questions to the porn star, whatever it is.

And I remember like kind of thinking like, man, if I were sitting in there, I could do that. I could do that better. But then my next thought would be you'll never sit in there. Where is there? Who do you know? And far as I can tell, the guys I would listen to, they're going on year 10 of sitting there. What are you going to do? Kick them out?

Start your own radio station? Like, you think Mark and Brian are going to retire when you show up to the building? Or like, they're just going to go 30 years. Like, yeah. And it's true. They went 30 years. Kevin and Bean 30 years. Like, you're not going to go displace these people.

so now what's the plan? What did you end up doing? I mean, I think we all kind of, those of us who are fans of what you've done know this. Aside from that, I think the question behind this is how you stay relevant or how you find an opportunity in an industry. For example, radio, I don't know if radio's slowing down. I actually don't have any data on that. But 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 lucrative bet?

Because it seems like you're good at staying relevant when industry has changed. Not everybody's good at that. most people are not good at that i had about three or four things sort of happen which was when i was doing morning radio they kept coming in to the station like the tech guy like the program director would go we need to get our ratings up in l.A we're fifth in l.A or whatever we'd be number one in seattle number one in Vegas but it's always like they'd always like they'd always find the market. You weren't doing well enough in it. We need to get it up. And I'd say, all right. And then some other guy would come in and he'd go, you guys had 16 million minutes of

streaming last month. And everyone would kind of go, where or how? And I remember them saying, you're number one in the country and streaming the show. Oh, sorry, number two, number one is the fan in New York, but they do like Mets and Yankees games and people just watch on the computer for three hours or whatever. But he said, you guys are number two. And I remember going, 16 million minutes a month of streaming or whatever the number was. It was a big number. That's got to be worse something.

And then the program director would like come back in and I, he'd 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 know, like, right. You're fifth in L.A. And I just walk out of the studio. And I remember kind of, you know, this was way back in 2008, you know, 2009.

I remember just sort of looking around going, I don't know. It seems good. Seems good, you know. Yeah. And they'd be like, well, how are you going to make a nickel on that, you know, or like, what are you going to do with that? And I'd be like, I don't know. I guess there's people who are listening in places that we're not on the radio. and they want to listen on their computer,

and I'm happy that they're seeking us out. So it's got to be something. And everyone's like, yeah, no, it's nothing. There is nothing because you can't sell it. And you don't know how to use the Internet and get it yourself, so it's not important. You don't know how to monetize it. We're not in that business. We're in the radio business, not the computer business.

So then I got fired, or the whole format flip. They just flipped the whole station, so everyone got fired. And then I had. had like 10 months of getting paid to stay at home. Oh, they just gave you your contracts. They just went contracts up at the end of the year. It's February. You're out.

And I was like, okay, well, this has been my dream to get paid to stay at home. Right. It's come to fruition. Although I don't know what my next job is. Yeah. I'd been doing Bill Simmons podcast a few times. I'd been a guest like back in the very beginning, like, just sitting in his garage where he only had like one microphone and stuff. And, uh, I thought, huh, we're already doing all this stuff.

And my buddy said, do, do a podcast. Yeah. Do a podcast. And I was like, yeah, I guess we're already streaming like we're already kind of doing it. I mean, we are doing a podcast because the people in Chicago, we're not on and shit. Chicago, but people are listening in Chicago and Hawaii. And we're not on in Chicago. They're listening on their computer.

So I guess this is what we're doing. And since I'm getting paid for the next 10 months, let's just do it. I had no idea with the, there'd be any revenue stream or nothing existed in terms of getting paid or anything like that. I was just like, yeah, I want to stay connected to the audience. An experiment that ended up working and obviously had really good timing as well, especially when you have a pre-existing audience that you were able to bring over. What I noticed is that you don't really compartmentalize your life seemingly into the blue collar

versus the white collar stuff. And I notice a lot of people do this, especially people that write into me on the Jordan Harbinger show, they'll say something like, well, you know, my parents, they never really did this, or I grew up doing that, or my parents grew up doing this. I don't know if you advocate for this deliberately, but you like to turn your brain on and figure things out, right? You could have just gone, no, I need another radio job instead, and you could have panicked. And that's what, when I got laid off from my law firm and everything, that was the same thing. It was like, well, should I get another law job? And everyone's like, yeah, of course,

are you insane? Of course you should get another law job. But instead started to do the podcast. And you like to tell people to kind of work on their game by figuring things out. Do you find that you go after things that you don't understand or things that you maybe are scared of. Is that been an element of your personality that you've noticed? Because I feel like I picked that up throughout our conversations, through the shows I listen to that you're on, and you just do a whole bunch of diverse things that are, it's kind of an unusual combination.

Yeah, I think doing things you're scared of has always been an important exercise for me. I didn't know. I'm trying to think if it's scared of. versus, I don't know, sort of challenging. You have no idea what the results will be. Yeah. The outcome is uncertain.

Very uncertain outcome. And I do a lot of stuff with uncertain outcomes. Most of stuff I do is an uncertain outcome. If you do enough things and a wide enough variety of things that have an uncertain outcome, and it turns out to be, good or okay or you're still in one piece or you didn't lose your house or whatever it is. Sometimes there's a physical element like doing a trans am car race or something where it's like,

I'm not sure there's a element where you could be injured or something, but you just do it anyway and it turns out okay. Then you get to then take that experience, of course, to the next unknown. and pretty much for the last decade, all I've been doing is stuff with unknown outcomes for the most part. And they've mostly worked. Some nothing has plenty of stuff. Fizzles out.

Yeah, just idea. You pitched it a few times. People said they weren't interested and you moved on. Other things turned into big paydays. Other things are in between. Other things are, well, you've made a bunch of documentaries now, and that's a good thing. And you may not have gotten paid overly handsomely for those things, but you're starting to create a library and a body of work and you have some books and some DVDs and some movies and some things that you can call your own. and, you know, I spent $4.8 million on a car that I didn't have the money for.

Like, I didn't, I literally bought this car and then had to go home and borrow $2 million and sell a bunch of stuff because I thought this $5 million car would be a $10 million car in seven years. but I didn't know anything. Sure. There's no way to tell if a car. Yeah, dangerous risky investment. It's like up there with Bitcoin, I think. Maybe not quite as bad.

Yeah, well, at least this thing you can sit in. That's true. Yeah. So once you do enough of that stuff, you go, well, really, what's the next one? And then the next way of thinking is, is not only do I want to bet on myself, I don't want to miss it. I don't want to miss any opportunities not to bet on myself. And then the other thing is, is, you know, people have this like, what if, like, what if, like what if? And it's like, I don't know.

What if? You know, what if you got cancer? I don't know. What if there's an earthquake building land on you? I don't know. Just go do it. Where does dancing with the stars figure into this? Because when I heard about that, I was like, wait, nah.

How is this possible? Is that a fear thing? because I don't see, I mean, maybe there's an element of your personality that I didn't see before, but I don't envision you as like, I just want to dance. Well, it's the only time I feel like I'm alive. There was a pure, it was a 100% fear-based decision. Okay. I don't remember a lot of dates or times or like where I was.

I don't remember. I'm not one of these people. I have almost no rearview mirror in terms of like I remember right where I was when whatever. But in this particular case, I remember right where I was. I was finishing my radio show and I was walking out to my car in the parking structure. And the phone rang and it was my agent. And he just said, hey, I got a call from Dancing with the Stars. They want to know if you want to do this upcoming season.

And a shock like an electrical. sort of shock of a fear just just coursed through me real quick like like it was like somebody saying billy finnigan wants to meet you under the bridge after the school to fight like that moment of like you know you like moment of like what do you do do you say oh you know tell billy i'd love to take him apart but i'm lucky my shoulder sore from beating another dude so bad or do you go like yeah i think i could beat billy finnigan or like what what do you do and like my first impulse like you can't dance you don't how to dance You're no good at this.

You watch the show and like, but you're not, you'd be horrible at this. But this crazy wave of fear that I hadn't felt in a long time. You know, I was in my 40s. I'd done a lot. I, yeah, boxed and gotten in street fights and race cars. And look, I didn't have a big fear mode gene setting. But I was like, I had, I felt that come over my body. Yeah.

And I may have said to him like, let me call you back or let me check my schedule or something. And I just went like, I just hung up the phone and I went, if you're that scared, like if, and what are you going to do? Call him back and go,

that show's lame, dude. Yeah. I'm not going to make an ass of myself with some C list, whatever. I was like, I had to sort of sit with myself for a second. I was like, you were legitimately scared when he just said dancing with the stars. You got scared.

Like you put, you put yourself right in the middle of that parquet, right in the middle of that floor, not knowing what the fuck you're doing. And I remember just going, well, now, now you have to do it. Because, again, I could have called back and said, it's lame. I'm a comedian. Screw that. But I was like, that would be a lie. You would not be doing it because you were scared. And people say to me, how much did you get paid or how much would you get paid?

or what did you get paid or what season were you in or whatever. And I'm just like, I have no idea. I've never, I knew, we never discussed money. We never discussed anything other than when do I have to start this, whatever. And it was like three weeks or whatever. I was like, okay. Why do you think you got to move into that fear? Like, why was it so important to you to dive into that?

You knew it would not you if you didn't? I knew I'd never be able to avoid it really in myself. Like I just know you would tell. Tell everybody that you didn't do it because it was lame. But the reality is, is you didn't do it because you were scared. Even if it is lame, that's not the reason you didn't do it. You didn't do it because you're a fucking chicken of putting yourself out and making an ass to yourself because you weren't, that's not your comfort zone. It wasn't boxing with the stars or construction with the stars.

It was dancing with the stars. And you're not good. And I just remember thinking that would be the reason. And I might be the only person to knew it, but I'm the worst person to know it. And I just have to kind of deal with that. Thanks, Adam. I appreciate it. Before we leave, tell me about the new logo.

I noticed this first day, brand new logo. Kind of exciting. Yeah. All praise Lynette for saying my wife for saying the old website looks like shit. We need to update, get some pictures and logos and some merch. whatever. And again, it's not my world. I'm a complaint into the microphone guy and then go fix a car guy. So she got involved and got got some really good web designers and photographers and everything. And here we are. So Adamcarola.com, you can buy a beach towel with your wife

on it, apparently? Evidently, there's all, there's everything now. And it's a whole new world. Yeah, I don't know how she, you can tell that the logo is, it's got a nice touch. But the beach towel, I was just thinking, well, that's, those are going to be flying off the shelves for sure. Yeah, just don't put a hole in it. Yeah. Thanks, Adam. Appreciate it, man. Thanks, Jordan.

Great big thank you to Adam Carolla. Really, really enjoyed this interview. Just the whole process was, uh, it was pretty enlightening. Adam, I'm on Adam's shows regularly every single month, at least once. So you've probably heard me on there if you listen to those. And I'm looking forward to doing more with him and Drew in the very near future. as well. I'm a regular on Adam Drew and a couple of their other shows, which is a huge honor, as you might imagine. If you enjoyed this one, don't forget to thank Adam on Twitter.

Tweet at me as well, your number one takeaway here from Adam Carolla. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. Don't forget if you want to learn how to apply everything you learned here today from Adam Carolla, make sure you go grab the worksheets, also in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. This episode was produced and edited by Jason DeFillifil Show notes are by Robert Fogarty. Booking, Back Office, and Last Minute Miracles are by Jen Harbinger, and I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. The fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful, which should be in every episode. So please share the show with those you love, and even those you don't.

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