The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 216: Off the Wall – A Message to Garcia, and Tim Johnson

Episode Date: September 6, 2021

Mike responds to criticism from some guy named Tim Johnson, and celebrates the anniversary of mikeroweWORKS by reading the most popular essay of all time. Then, a spirited conversation with Chuck, the nervous producer.

Do do do do do do do. Dumb. Is it weird to love people but despise human resources? If so, well, color me weird. It's not to say I don't respect the millions of people who work in HR departments and companies all over the country. I do. It's just that I don't envy him.

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ZipRecruiter works for me, and they'll probably work for you, too. Post a job for free at ziprecruiter.com slash row. And watch what happens. Odds are, you'll find a human resource that just happens to be a great fit for your company in 24 hours or less. ZipRecruiter.com slash row. ZipRecruiter.com slash row. The smartest way to hire. This is episode number 216 of the way I heard it. It's called Off the Wall, A Message to Garcia and Tim Johnson. Think of this one as a Labor Day special.

I started the MicroWorks Foundation 13 years ago on this day, and I thought I would mark the occasion with a dramatic reading of a legendary essay called a message to Garcia and dedicated it. to Tim Johnson. As some of you may know, Calixto Garcia was a rebel general who fought the Spaniards in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. As none of you may know, Tim Johnson is a guy who posed a question to me on my Facebook page after listening to last week's podcast, a question that I'm going to answer right here. In a brand new iteration of the way I heard it, called Off the Wall, where I turn my answer to a random question into an hour-long podcast.

Here's what Tim Johnson wrote on my wall, after listening to last week's podcast and concluding that my efforts to help the working class are at odds with my political views. Mike, I love your ideals when it comes to supporting skilled labor, but that flies in the face of your now obvious staunch conservatism, the meeting that you referenced with Bill Wittle that quote, may or may not have happened, was, I assume, a very conservative event. And for some reason, you were both too ashamed to admit what it was. So be it. But how on earth can you say that you support the working class? Is it all just a show? Conservatism does not support unions. Conservatism is why our wage gaps are where they are today. Conservatism protects corporations.

Now, those of you who follow me on Facebook know that my foundation is completely apolitical. We exist to assist those who wish to learn a useful skill and who demonstrate the kind of work ethic we want to encourage. Unfortunately, work ethic, like everything else in our country these days, has been politicized, which means Tim Johnson's comments require an honest reply. So, here it is. Hello, Tim Johnson. I am sorry to have been vague last week about the details of a meeting that may or may not have happened in Los Angeles 10 years ago. But I can assure you my circumspection had nothing to do with being ashamed of where I was or who I was with.

The event was a luncheon attended by people who share a deep respect for our military and a steadfast belief that America is still an exceptional country. I have no idea how many conservatives attended versus how many. liberals, but either way, the event was completely irrelevant to my conversation with Bill Whittle, as well as my charitable efforts to assist those who are looking for work. Regarding your views on conservatism, unions, and corporations, I think you're painting with a very broad brush. I know many conservatives who support unions and more than a few who belong to one. Likewise, I know many liberals who support large corporations where the wage Gap is alive and well. Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Nike, Delta, Netflix, Google, Apple, United,

Disney, the NFL, the NBA, Major League Baseball, Discovery. The entire Fortune 500, it seems, is bursting with corporations eager to publicly share their support of liberal values. As for my personal politics, it is true that I am attracted to some ideals that are fundamentally conservative, especially on the economic side. But I'm also aligned with many ideals that are classically liberal. For instance, I'm sympathetic to business owners currently struggling to attract quality workers, but I'm also committed to helping workers get the skills they need to succeed. Do you really see this as a contradiction?

If so, you're not alone. Many people today can't understand how somebody who claims to care about the little guy refuses to see the big guy as the enemy. Obviously, life is simpler when your enemy is clearly defined, and clearly you have defined your enemies, conservatives and corporations. But it's a mistake, I think, to assume that the employer is the enemy of the employee. It's also a mistake to assume that unions are always in the right, or that corporations are always in the wrong,

or that conservatives are always in the way of progress. These people who make these assumptions, they're like the contestants on a terrible version of let's make a deal, where there are only two doors from which to choose instead of three. Well, I'm behind door number three, Tim. I'm the guy who sang in the opera for eight years and went on to host a show called Dirty Jobs. That shouldn't confuse people, but it always does. I'm the guy who graduated with a liberal arts degree 30 years ago from a university, but who criticizes the cost of higher education, Tim. today. From my conversations, very few Americans align completely with either political party, and yet we're determined, it seems, to put everybody into one camp or the other. That's what you've done to me with your question, and I don't think it's productive. This Labor Day, I'm proud to tell you that my foundation has so far awarded over $5 million to 1,400 workers who wish to pursue a skill

that doesn't require a four-year degree. And many of those people are now making six figures a year with no college debt. I'm proud of that. I'm also proud to tell you that a new curriculum based on my sweat pledge is currently in a pilot program in dozens of technical schools all over the country and being developed for home use as well. The sweat pledge, if you're unfamiliar with it, is a simple document that contains 12 tenants that I believe

can improve anyone's chances of prospering, in today's workforce. Sweat stands for skill and work ethic aren't taboo. I wrote it shortly after I launched the foundation in 2008 to try and articulate the importance of work ethic, personal responsibility, delayed gratification, a positive attitude, a willingness to take initiative, and several other time-honored principles that have, for whatever reason, become controversial here of late. Nevertheless, everyone who applies for a scholarship from my foundation today is required to sign this document. There are no exceptions. To answer your question, Tim, none of this is for show.

My support for the skilled trades is real, and so too is my appreciation for all those who work for but I refuse to support the working class by vilifying the people they work for or taking sides in labor disputes. my foundation has no dog in that hunt. Instead, we look only for individuals who agree with the principles outlined in my sweat pledge. When I find such people, I pay for their training. It's really that simple. I don't care about their politics, their race, their ethnicity, their gender, or their stance on organized labor. I care about their work ethic, their willingness to learn a skill that's in demand and their determination to put those skills to use.

Anyway, I appreciate your question, Tim, and to show my gratitude, I will now read for you a message to Garcia, a decidedly non-traditional rumination for a Labor Day. This essay was written over 100 years ago by a self-described socialist named Albert Hubbard. Well, something transformational must have happened to Mr. Hubbard along the way because the words I'm about to share do not sound to me like the words of a socialist. They sound like the words of a frustrated businessman, struggling to find competent help.

As you listen, consider this. A message to Garcia went viral, long before going viral was even a thing. This was written back in 1890. And 10 years later, there were over 40 million copies in print. Some say the number was closer to 100 million. Either way, Hubbard's essay was translated into every major language and distributed all over the world. Hollywood turned it into a movie, and the United States military distributed it to just about every recruit. Then, in 1977, decades after a message to Garcia went out of print and was mostly forgotten,

my old scoutmaster read it to the boys in Troop 16. as we listen to his impassioned performance around a campfire. The story begins with an intrepid lieutenant named Andrew Rowan, who was asked by President McKinley to deliver a critical message to the leader of the Cuban insurrection during the Spanish-American War, a general called Garcia. This was a very dangerous undertaking, but in the essay, Hubbard doesn't dwell on the details of Rowan's harrowing journey through Cuba,

Instead, he uses Rowan's initiative to bemoan a conspicuous lack of work ethic among the masses. He then begs the reader to consider not just the plight of the employee, but also the plight of the employer. Like I said, a rather extraordinary plea from a former socialist. Anyway, 30 years later, when I wrote the sweat pledge, a message to Garcia was very much on my mind. because back in 2008, many employers in this country were saying the same thing that Albert Hubbard was saying 100 years before, that they couldn't find employees willing to take the initiative. Even at the height of a recession in 2009 and rising unemployment, millions of good jobs were going unfilled. Today, 12 years later, the situation appears even worse. According to the

BLS, there are no less than 10.5 million open positions in this job market, most of which don't require a four-year degree, 10 and a half million. And yet, we continue to push college as the best path for the most people. Student debt has now eclipsed $1.7 trillion. Employers are struggling to find trained workers with the necessary skills, and our government is literally paying people to stay home. As I was writing my reply to your trenchant question, Tim, a headline appeared on my computer announcing that a McDonald's in Oregon is now hiring 14 and 15-year-old kids at $15 an hour, because no one over 18 is interested. It's the very thing Albert Hubbard wrote about in 1890, a general unwillingness to take the initiative and the endless search for those who

do. Now, is a message to Garcia an appropriate thing for me to share on a Labor Day? Many will say no, including Chuck, the producer of this podcast. Chuck believes that Labor Day ought to be reserved for celebrating those who work hard, not for criticizing those who do not. And he's concerned that doing so will invite more unflattering comments. Chuck might be right. On the other hand, I'm not so sure the most logical way to celebrate the business of working is to take the day off. We'll discuss that momentarily when Chuck joins me to evaluate my performance of this long-forgotten, but weirdly relevant rant. In the meantime, this episode's for you, Tim Johnson. A message to Garcia brought to life on this the occasion of my foundation's 13th birthday,

and what I hope for you is a very happy Labor Day. In all this Cuban business, there is one man who stands out on the horizon of my memory like Mars at Perihelian. When war broke out between Spain and the United States, it was necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain fastness of Cuba. No one knew where, no mail or telegraph could reach him. The president must secure his cooperation and quickly, what to do. someone said to the president, There's a fellow by the name of Rowan

will find Garcia if anybody can. Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. Now, how this fellow by the name of Rowan took the letter, sealed it up in an oil-skin pouch, strapped it over his heart, embarked for Cuba in an open boat, landed by night, four days later,

disappeared into the jungle, and in three weeks' time, came out on the other side of the island, having traversed a hostile country on foot to successfully deliver his letter to Garcia? These are things I have no special desire to share in detail. The point I wish to make is this. President McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia. Rowan took the letter and did not ask, where's he at? By the eternal, there is a man who's form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statute placed in every college in the land, for it is not book learning young men need today nor instruction about this or that, but a

stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, to concentrate their energies, to do the thing, to carry a message to Garcia. General Garcia is dead, but there are others like him. And no man today who has ever endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands were needed hasn't been well-nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man, the inability or the unwillingness to concentrate on and do a thing. Slipshod assistance, foolish inattention, doubty indifference, and half-hearted work seem the rule. And no man succeeds unless by hook or crook he forces,

or bribes other men to assist him, or mayhap, God in his goodness, performs a miracle and sends him an angel of light for an assistant. You, reader, put this matter to a test. You are sitting now in your office. Six clerks are within your call. Summon anyone and make this request. Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me

concerning the life of Coragio? Will the clerk quietly say, yes, sir, and go do the task? On your life, he will not. He will instead look at you out of a fishy eye and ask one or more of the following questions. Who is Coragio? Which encyclopedia? Where is the encyclopedia? Was I hired for that? What's the matter with Charlie doing it? Is he dead? Is there any hurry? I bring you the book and let you look it up yourself? What do you want to know for? I will lay you ten to one that after you have answered the questions and explained how to find the information and why you wanted, the clerk will go off and get one of the other clerks to help him, and then come back and tell you there is no such man. Now, if you are wise, you will not bother

to explain to your assistant that Caragio is indexed under the seat. not in the case. You will instead smile sweetly and say, never mind, and go look it up yourself. And it is this, this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to cheerfully catch hold and lift. These are the things that put pure socialism so far into the future, for if men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all? A first mate with knotted club seems necessary, and the dread of getting the bounce Saturday night required to hold many a worker in his place. Advertise for a stenographer today and nine times out of ten, those who apply can neither spell nor punctuate, and do not think

it necessary to? Can such a one write a letter to Garcia? I know of one man of really brilliant parts, who has not the ability to manage a business of his own, and yet who is absolutely worthless to anyone else, because he carries with him constantly the insane suspicion that his employer is oppressing or intending to oppress him. He cannot give orders, but nor can he he received them. Should a message be given him to take to Garcia, his answer would probably be, take it yourself. Tonight, this man walks the streets, looking for work, the wind whistling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare employ him, for he is a regular firebrand of discontent. Can he deliver a letter to Garcia? We have been hearing much maudlin,

expressed for the downtrodden denizen of the sweatshop and the homeless wanderer searching for honest employment and with it many hard words for the men in power. But nothing has ever said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get Frowsy Naredewels to do intelligent work. Nothing is ever said about his long patient striving with help who do nothing but loaf when his back is turned. In every store and factory today, there is a constant weeding out process. The employer is forever sending away help that have shown their incapacity to further the interests of the business, while others are being taken on. No matter how good the times are, this sorting continues.

Only if times are hard and work is scarce is the sorting done finer. but out and forever out the incompetent and the unworthy go. It is the survival of the fittest, for it is self-interest that prompts every employer to keep the best, those who can carry a message to Garcia. Have I put the matter too strongly? Possibly I have, but when all the world has gone a slumming, I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the men who are struggling. to carry on a great enterprise.

Men whose working hours are not limited by the whistle and whose hair is fast turning white through the struggle to hold the line against dowdy indifference, slipshod, imbecility, and the heartless ingratitude which but for their enterprise would leave the masses hungry and homeless. The men who against great odds have directed the efforts of others and having succeeded find there's nothing in it.

Nothing but bare bored and clothes. I have carried a dinner pail and worked for a day's wages, and I have also been an employer of labor, and I know there is something to be said on both sides. But there is no excellence in poverty. Rags are no recommendation, and all employers are not rapacious and high-handed any more than all poor men are virtuous. My heart today goes out to the man who does his work when the boss is away, and the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly takes the missive without asking any idiotic questions and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer or of doing aught else but delivering it.

for that man never gets laid off or has to go on strike for higher wages because civilization is one long, anxious search for just such an individual. Anything such a man asks will be granted. For his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, town, and village, in every office, shop, store, and factory. The world cries out for something. He is needed and needed badly. The man who can carry a message to Garcia. Well, are you sick of it yet?

Are you sick of AI hogging up all the headlines and sucking up all the bandwidth? You find yourself wishing we lived in a simpler time? Do you miss the rotary phone? Well, get over it. The genie is out of the bottle. The poop is out of the goose. I'm afraid. AI is here to stay. And every business in the country is asking themselves the same question. How do we make it work for us? Well, the answer to that question varies, but you'll find

it in a free guide that you can get right now at net suite.com slash Mike. It's called demystifying AI. It's totally free. It's essential reading for anybody trying to make sense of a future that appears to have arrived yesterday. NetSuite, of course, is the number one AI enterprise research. resource planning software out there, trusted by over 43,000 businesses. With NetSuite, you can use the AI of your choice, GROC or Claude or Chat, GPT, whatever else is out there to connect to your actual business data, all of it, and automate all of those tiresome, time-sucking, soul-deadening manual processes. This is AI built into the system that's currently running your business.

Learn more at NetSuite.com. slash Mike. And while you're there, pick up their free business guy, demystifying AI. It's filled with super useful information. And again, it's free at net suite.com slash mic. That's net suite.com. NetSuite.com slash mic. Well, there it is, man. It's my first performance of a message to Garcia. What do you think? I think as far as performances go, I give it a, I give it an A. That was a, a performance. It's good performance. Thanks, everybody for listening. We will...

Well, I thought you did very well with it. There were some tricky bits in there. I mean, for instance, what is an oil skin pouch? Oil doesn't have skin. No, you idiot. It's a waterproof repository, popular around the turn of the prior century. Why is it called an oil skin pouch? Because the leather was treated with oil, and the oil help keep the rain out.

You see, oil and water. being well-known lifetime repellents. I had one of those great coats. It was a raincoat, but it was cut like a Western duster. And I got it at one of these outfitting shops in the Pacific Northwest years ago. It was slippery, but it wasn't rubber. It had been treated with oil. And it was the best raincoat I ever had.

They just don't make them like that anymore, Chuck. Well, thanks, everybody, for joining us. I don't know. I don't know where we go from there, Mike. We've just... Well, first of all, happy Labor Day. I know this whole episode has made you somewhat anxious, but I'm hoping now that you've had a chance to listen to the reading.

You can see my point to Mr. Tim Johnson. And my affection for this somewhat archaic, but I think still relevant essay. Yes, more than anything, I'm just delighted that it's done. And once we post this, I'll never have to hear you say, hey, what about a message to Garcia? We could do that. That'll fit for July 4th. That'll fit for Thanksgiving. That'll fit for, you know. And you know what? Finally, I need a guy named Tim Johnson to justify it. I mean, literally, Chuck, since 1977, when Mr. Huntington read this to the boys in Troop 16,

it was a great performance, you know, my old scoutmaster with his corn cob pipe, a former lieutenant colonel himself, standing there by the fire, reading this thing to us. And like me, he chewed up the scenery good, you know. I mean, he had embers flying out of his pipe, and he was frothing at the mouth and just raging and raving against, what did he call it, the imbecility of men, this laziness that our little humble sweat ped, sweat pledge. What do we call it again?

A sweat pledge. A sweat pledge. A sweat pledge. Yeah, you know, I mean, look, I get it. It's old school. It's Horatio Alger. But I just always thought it would be a cool thing to share because even though, I mean, I'm interested by the fact that once upon a time, some people say there were 100 million

copies of this thing in print. And you had never heard of it when I brought it up the first time. In fact, no one I know in my personal circle had heard of a message to Garcia. But of course, if you Google it, endless pages of thought on the thing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the first thing I want to say about your scout master, is good on him for being able to read it around a campfire. That is not an easy thing to do.

I have tried to do that, and it's very difficult because the fire is below you and coming up and you're looking down at the page. How does one see? Did he have one of those lights, those lanterns on his forehead? No, he went with an even newer and more cutting edge invention called a flashlight. So he held the document in his right hand and the flashlight in his left and he read it to us, Although, I think he probably had most of it memorized. He would do this every night during summer camp. One night it would be the cremation of Sam McGee. One night it would be, I mean, no, it was poetry.

It was these readings, you know, the telltale heart. He read to us one evening. This explains a lot. Well, look, I admit it. It was maybe the most formative time in my life. And this grown man was repeatedly searing these missives into, our memories, you know, this weird mix of performance. And I think interesting content. We would talk about it after he read it. And I didn't really think of it in those terms at the time.

But it was really, it was a cool mix of lecture and performance. I liked it. Well, let me tell you, I mean, I'm a big fan of that type of teaching. I think I told you this story before. When I was going to school in New York, I had a theater history teacher who would tell these elaborate stories and they were they were just amazing he just would have you uh you know he was he was like mark twain telling a story and we were you were just you hung on to every word and he told this story and he was he was telling and it just to make a point he slammed his fist down on the table and his watch broke and then he did this digression about how he had purchased the watch at a little kiosk on the streets of New York and the value of imitation and, you know,

what real quality means. And suddenly it was this amazing imprompt to discussion that had nothing to do with theater history, but somehow wound its way back to make a point. And everybody walked out of there like, wow, that was the most amazing lecture we'd ever seen. And later that day, I was talking to, I think Rico, and I said, hey, man, you know, Mr. So-and-so did this thing and his watch broke. And he goes, in the middle of the speech. And I go, yeah, he goes, the same thing happened when we saw it. So it was all an act. Right.

But it was brilliant. Right. It was brilliant. Listen, I mean, in some ways, I think, and obviously this is a departure from the format that we've already established, which I know annoys you to no end as well. well. But somewhere in the mix of, is it a performance or is it improv is the way I heard it. And this essay, and again, I have no idea how truly interested the listeners are going to be to take a deep dive into this, but I encourage people to do it because Hubbard left in the wake of publishing this thing years of controversy. I mean, to this day, you can Google and read about

the military who loved this thing and truly embraced it as a just a love letter to leadership and obviously initiative, but then turned their back on it and rejected it now out of hand. And people are very angry with Hubbard on both sides of the aisle. You know, socialists today look back at him and see a fraud. And capitalists today look back at him and see a fraud. nobody could quite figure out, at least through the lens of the present day, who this guy was. A writer, a philosopher, a teacher, a businessman, but a self-proclaimed anarchist and a socialist. So, you know, his most famous work is this highly controversial essay that people continue to argue about today,

assuming they've heard of it because the best majority of people haven't. And yet it just goes to show. that anybody anywhere can get very passionate about virtually anything and then find somebody to argue with over it. Well, typically, I love to argue about stuff I know nothing about. That's my favorite way to do it because you just get to make things up. But he was a terrible socialist, it sounds to me. And I think that there's no way to be a very good socialist. I love that thing. He says he's been a worker and a laborer. I've carried a pale and I've directed men or whatever. And I don't think you can be a socialist if you've run a business.

And I think human nature sort of flies in the face of it. And what does he say in there, Comrade Hubbard? If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all? He says for this reason, that's the reason socialism is so far down the road. Right. Because of human nature. Right. If you can't get somebody to act in their own self-interest,

or in the interest of the person who's actually paying them, how in the world are you gonna inspire them to do things that they don't see a direct benefit from doing? And yeah, I'll buy that. I believe that people do act in their own self-interest very often. And that sort of is the problem with collectivism. I've heard somebody say who had been to the Soviet Union a lot. He tells a story of waiters,

in cafes who just didn't care. You know, they weren't attentive. They weren't good servers because it didn't matter how well they performed at their job. They were going to get paid the same amount anyway. Right. Yeah. It's the same way in Australia. There's no tipping, right?

The tip is sort of baked into the bill. And so, right, there's no extra credit. And so I think the assumption is, okay, these people are going to be well paid. fairly paid, therefore you're going to get the most excellent performance from them that you can hope for. But you don't. What you get is a baseline. There's no upside and outshining your fellow waiter. So there's a kind of there's a kind of reversion to what I would call like B minus or maybe C plus because there's there is a consequence for for being a D. They'll fire you. But there's no upside for being an A. Right. So that's just the world they've created. And Hubbard lived in different worlds.

You know, he was a, he was a big part of the arts and crafts movement that came out of the early part of the last century. He developed something, I think it was called Roycroft in upstate, New York. So he was in kind of a commune world, but he was also a publisher and selling pamphlets for money. Right. And so, yeah, he was just, I wish somebody would take a deeper dive, who was actually a historian, and explain Hubbard's transformation, from an anarchist to a socialist, to a capitalist, to a guy who wrote the rant I just read as a result of his own frustration with being unable to find good help, which is why today, I don't know if you saw the headline, but McDonald's up in Oregon. Oregon right now are affirmatively hiring 14 and 15 year olds. Affirmatively high at 15 bucks an hour because they can't find 18 and 19 year olds who want to do the job. It's incredible.

The article I just read interviewed a kid who's 19 making $51,000 a year managing a local McDonald's. That's Rowan. That's a Rowan. If you own that McDonald's and you have a kid who's 19 and capable of doing that, I think Hubbard was right. Give that guy a statue. Put that statue on colleges everywhere, because that's job security if you're that kid. Well, here's the thing I'm unclear about Hubbard, okay, because he's a self-described socialist and anarchist, which is an odd thing to be an anarchist,

really. I mean, how can you, you know, how can you write a pamphlet? It's like, why bother if you're an anarchist? Why not just break the press and just show that as art? Anyway, you. You know, You describe him as starting as this and heading towards capitalism or a capitalist, but I think that he just identified as a socialist and an anarchist his whole life. Did he not? I mean, did he come around and affirmatively say he was a capitalist? Not that I know of. You're just assuming that from what he's written.

Look, that's part of why I wanted to share it, not just to give Tim Johnson something to think about, but to give everybody something to think about. Look, our labels are all upside down. Like on the one hand today, we're very, very, very, very desperate to put everybody into their proper box. But when the labels themselves change, like the word anarchist doesn't mean today what it meant 110 years ago. And the word socialist means something different too. And the context is constantly changing around all of these things. Free market capitalism doesn't mean the same thing it did when Friedman talked about it.

And so everything is in this weird state of flux. And the result, I'm afraid, is that a lot of guys like Tim and women, by the way, I know how conspicuously absent this essay is of women, right? I mean, clearly, this is hopelessly dated. But my point is, when everything is in flux and everybody's at each other's throats, we're in a binary world. And so Tim Johnson asked me a couple of really fair questions. but right at the root of it is the whole point of this confusion. How can you offer work ethic scholarships and help the working class and at the same time not see big business and the boss as the enemy?

We're just not allowed to be able to do both of those things. And I think Hubbard did. I think Hubbard had a romantic version of himself, and I think he had a practical reality. I think he knew who he was on a practical level. And so it just forces us to deal with it. Sometimes capitalists do things that are not consistent with capitalists. And sometimes socialists do the same.

And sometimes a former opera singer will go on to host a show called Dirty Jobs. And that confuses people too. And today, here we are on Labor Day. And thank you, by the way, for all your work at MicroWorks. We're 13 years old. I'm super proud of everything that's going on. but I'm still in the center of a lot of confusion because people always, their back goes up when they see me falling out of whatever shoot I'm supposed to be in.

And you've seen me do this for years now. I'm just now doing it on the podcast for the first time because it's our birthday and why not. Yeah, and that's really good. And you're welcome. Thank you for your leadership. And look, you labor as well, man. I mean, you're one of the hardest working people that I know. Well, listen, what's he saying in the thing?

There's no rags are no recommendation, right? The first motto in our foundation, the first thing that we started with was work is not the enemy. Right, right. Because, so the narrative goes, if you're working, it's because you have to work. And if you have to work, it's because you're some version of desperate, right? It's because you can't retire. It's because you haven't succeeded. Therefore, you have to work.

Therefore, your boss must be some version of an enemy. That's just how the table's always been set. I'm just afraid it's been exacerbated somewhat here of late. And so, yeah, I work hard, but I love what I do. And so that makes me super lucky. You know, it's fun to do this with you on a weekend. So I don't know. I'm eternally struggling with the Tim Johnson's of the world because they can't see both things at the same time.

And it's not because they're stupid. It's because the table has been set in such a hopeless way. I also think there's something to the idea that you have something in common with Hubbard, and that is that you have also carried a pale. You have also toiled and worked for someone. and you have also employed people. You've done both in the same way that Hubbard did both. You know, Carl Marx, who started the whole socialism thing, he never, he didn't run a business.

He didn't run a printing press. He didn't put out a pamphlet. He just wrote stuff. And guess what? He sold it, right? You know what I mean? He didn't give the book away. But my point really is that when you have the benefit of seeing both sides of the labor

coin of knowing what it's like to work for someone, as well as knowing what it's like to employ someone. And look, we just went through this ridiculous year last year. And God forbid, this happens again in this coming winter that we're headed for, that we locked down again or whatever. But 2020 was a goat rodeo that left a lot of people out of work. And nobody went a day at microworks without a paycheck, you know? Very true. And look, we were very fortunate and that we could continue to work throughout that. But you were in a position where you could have said, well, you know what?

Everybody just go home and let's just shut the thing down until the government says it's okay. But you didn't do that, you know? Well, in part because I couldn't. I mean, sometimes your own smack catches up to you, you know. and what started as a genuine attempt to shine a light on a few million empty positions. That's what MicroWorks was in 2008, just a simple little PR campaign. Well, you know, that led to the sweat pledge.

And the sweat pledge, against some very long odds, actually became a thing. It was a thing that was inspired in part by Hubbard's essay. But now, as you well know, it's on its way to becoming a curriculum. In dozens of schools, it's in a pilot program. And I got called on my own thing. I remember very clearly when the lockdowns came calling Mary and saying, look, we can't stop. We have to pivot immediately.

We have to do this. Otherwise, how in the world? My guest today, Tom Albanyse, is an American giant. And I'll tell you why. Tom understands on a fundamental level that the business. The business of mining is a non-negotiable prerequisite of our civilization and our economic independence, just like the business of making things. American Giant knows this, which is why they committed themselves 16 years ago to make all their excellent clothing right here in this country. It wasn't easy, but they did it.

They sourced locally grown cotton, and they built factories in towns across the nation where they could hire hard. hardworking locals who cared about making a quality product. And then they went about the business of gently reminding people that when you buy a piece of clothing from American Giant, you're not just buying a high-quality sweatshirt or t-shirt or another pair of jeans. You're investing in a local supply chain. You're supporting communities from the Carolinas to California. And you're getting a piece of clothing that won't just survive the wash.

You're getting a garment that'll get better with age. Check out their high-quality staples, hoodies, tees, denim, built to be worn year after year at American-giant.com slash mic. It's quality you can feel and a true American success story that you can be proud to support. Use code Mike. Get 20% off your order at American-giant.com slash Mike. American Giant, American Made. American Giant American Made. How in the world can I take any of the positions that I'm taking?

Look, that's another reason I think it's good to read certain things into the record, like a message to Garcia, because just the act of reading it. And sometimes maybe the act of hearing it, it just forces you to think and take stock of your own stuff. And so I'm proud of the way we pivoted. I'm glad we stayed busy. If we locked down again, we'll find a way to keep it going. But I honestly, Chuck, don't know that I would have done that, you know, simply based on my own personal feelings.

I'm out there now. I'm talking to guys like Tim Johnson on Facebook every day. And I'm giving speeches. And I'm trying to make a persuasive case for this idea that as hokey as it sounds, the thing that can connect both sides is an individual's commitment to take the initiative and decide to choose. What does he say? To cheerfully take hold and lift. Not just to swing the hammer and make little rocks out of big rocks, but to cheerfully do it. Yes. Look, I struggle with this too. It's been a hard year to be cheerful. It's been a hard year to be casual. It's been a hard year to be flip and glib and all of the things that I do when I'm feeling really great and feel like all the cylinders are firing right. This has been a time of measuring. and weighing and for me anyway, asking myself, what is the point of all of it and what is next? And what you said before too is also true.

You know, Hubbard, even though this whole thing is obviously exaggerated, is trying to figure out how to keep his people motivated and how to find people who are truly self-starters. And that hasn't changed. That has not changed in 130 years. That's still for sale. But what's different today is trying to figure out how to lead. How do you inspire your people? Because everybody is different.

We had a person working for us. I won't mention any names. A millennial. Nice kid. But he'd been there about six months working for microworks. And, you know, he was doing a pretty good job. And one day he came in and he said to me, you know, I've been here six months. And I've got to tell you, it seems like this whole skill gap thing.

them. Well, it's still open. Dude, you've been here six months and you're frustrated because we haven't closed the skills gap. And so the generation today, they're not all snowflakes. They're not all selfish, but they are impatient. And they want to see the needle move. Everybody wants to see the needle move. The question is, how do you lead this person versus that person? How much guidance do you provide? Hubbard didn't want to provide any. He wants to hand a letter to Rowan and know that the job is going to be done.

Well, guess what? So do I. You're my Rowan. You know, you always get it through the hoop. Now, you're a huge pain in the ass when it comes to questions. There's a great deal you need to know, but you get it done. I was going to say, I am not a good Rowan, man.

I ask a lot of questions. And listen, that was the first thing I said. When I was taking my walk this morning, and I told you, this thing is fromage de la Switzerland. You know, it is, it's filled with holes that, you know, the way he paints it, the way Hubbard paints it, Rowan walks into McKinley's office and McKinley says, I need you to get this message to Garcia. And he goes, okay, great. And he just takes the letter and leaves. It's like, how many Garcias are there?

How did he know that it was, that it was, that it was at the height of the, of the, of the war. I mean, it hadn't started. It wasn't at the height of the war. It was right at the beginning of the war. You know, the war between Spain and the insurrectionists in Cuba was going on. Right.

And America is about to enter the war. Everybody knows that Claxto Garcia is a general somewhere on the other side of Cuba. That's all baked in. Now, look, you're right. You're also a pedant, but you're right. This story is wildly lacking in, detail. In fact, I should say now, if you really want to read a thorough telling of what Rowan actually accomplished, go to historynet.org, I think. Yeah, historynet.org. Guy named Fleming

writes about 4,000 words on what really happened. Now, Chuck, you're right. Hubbard left out massive chunks. Yes. But if you go back and look at what he actually said, he said, how he puts the letter into the pouch, how he gets into an open boat, how he arrives on the shores of Cuba, how he traverses hostile territory to deliver the missive. None of those things are important. Right.

Right. And then he goes on to take that popular story of the day and bend it into his own agenda. But the way a lot of other people heard it, it's very, very, very, very different. And you can read all about it on the webs. But the fundamental truth is indisputable. Andrew Rowan was real. McKinley had an adjunct, a guy named Wagner, I think, who was a colonel. It was Wagner who told Rowan what to do.

Technically, I don't think there was actually a letter. I think it was an oral message. It was an oral message, yeah. And I think that Rowan didn't go straight to Cuba. I think he went to Jamaica first. Yeah, yeah. And then he met a handler. And then the handler, four days later, got them through a gauntlet of luchas, these Spanish fighting chips.

How do you remember all this? That's really impressive. Then they get to the near shore of Cuba. And then the odyssey begins. And it was an odyssey. It took time and it was dangerous as hell. And he finally got there. And then Hubbard doesn't even mention, Rowan's got to get back and getting back from Cuba.

That was also a bloodbath. Because what happened while he was there giving the message? Oh, was somebody assassinated or did the actual war just start? The war, the United States got into the war. Got into the war. So now he's a spy. He's a spy behind enemy lines. if he gets caught. Yeah. So let's be clear. Andrew Rowan was the real deal. He was a stud. He did what he was

asked to do. And by all accounts, he did it with very little whining or complaining. The fact that Fleming, the guy over on History Net, spent 4,000 words clearing that up, I think that's great. But really, in the original essay that Hubbard wrote, it was just a parenthetical. These things are not the point. The point is this. Some guy named Fleming goes, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's not the point. That might be your point, but I have another point, which is cool, because now in my world, some guy named Tim Johnson on my Facebook page says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, wait a second. Remember, his letter to me is based on the

meeting based on a conversation I had with Bill Whittle last week on the podcast, and he thought my presence at that meeting, which might very well have been attended by some conservatives, would therefore negate my ability to tell the story of a work ethic scholarship recipient through my foundation because in Tim Johnson's world, a conservative can't do a good thing with regard to the working class. Right. So all of these assumptions are all baked in together. And once again, it all distills into this prison of two ideas.

but there's room for everybody. There's room for Mr. Fleming to take exception with one paragraph in Hubbard's piece. And there's room for, I read something by a commandant in the Marine Corps not long ago who basically said, look, it's time to retire this essay, which used to be, you know, one of their default go-to instances of leadership in writing. And now they don't want to do it anymore because the art. Army and our armed forces in general want to lead in a slightly different way, which to my earlier point just proves that every single thing we think we know about every single thing is always constantly changing. And we're nailing jello to a tree and pulling our hair out because we can't

seem to find a common benchmark. Well, how the hell could we? You know, Hubbard yearns for a simpler time when a message can be delivered to a man by another man without a lot of what Elmore Leonard used to call hoopty doodle without a lot of back and forth. Can you just get the letter delivered? Please? Just give him the letter. But there is no letter. There is no letter, Mr. Hubbard.

It's an oral statement that he's got, okay, we get it. Okay. All right. Yeah, all right. Yeah, ma'am, it is one more reason why this podcast is called The Way I heard it. True or words never spoken. In this case, the way I read it. Any plans for Labor Day?

Yeah, I'm going to be working on this podcast. I'll be laboring. I'll be editing this. Yes, presuming you send me the other stuff. Yeah. Hey, man, let me tell you something else, since we're just kind of free associating here, with this new and exciting format, Hubbard died. Oh, yeah.

I wanted to ask you about that. Why don't I just shut up and let you do it? I don't think it's possible. You might be right about this. it's a very interesting what he did what he did before he died later when speaking about this the the tragedy of the titanic right so it's like ships you know ships figure heavily into this story and to hubbard's life we got into the war when rowan was over there because they blew up the main the main and remember the main became a big big slogan in this country

thanks to Hearst and Pulitzer and what they called the yellow journalism back in the day, they really whipped up public support for the insurgency at the expense of Spain. Not even really sure what happened on the main, except that's it. I want to interrupt for just one second because the Spaniards were blamed by Hurst and Pulitzer, I think. And some people say that it probably was the revolutionaries who did it in order to pull the United States into the war. But I saw this thing and I wish I knew where I saw it. I think it was on 60 minutes or something where they talked about or no, I think it was on Dan Carlin's podcast. I heard about it that God, I wish you were here right now. Right. I wish we had Dan Carlin on this. He could clear this up.

He knew what they were talking about. Dan, won't you help? Dan Carlin, a hardcore history, a terrific podcast. Dan and I have never met. But Chuck, please reach out. and telling him he's welcome here anytime, because God knows we could use an authority. Yes. Well, the point that he brought up was that it seems like there was a fault in the design of the type of battleship class that the main was, and that another battleship of the same class blew up similarly while it was at sea after the main blew up.

And it was something about the, you know, these things ran by coal back then, and something about the keeps of coal too close to the furnace or something, but it may have been just a total freak accident, and nobody, it wasn't intentional at all. Yeah, yeah. And how many wars have started with something that random? The Vietnam War. The Vietnam and the confusion in the Gulf of Tonkin. Yes.

Gabrielle Precept, the assassination that started the First World War. it's it just spins on and on and on. But let me go with the ships for a minute. Yes, please. I interrupted. So without the main sinking, Hubbard doesn't write a message to Garcia and doesn't become famous for creating, which by the way, at the time, no other writing had been published as much during the lifetime of the author as this. Like I said, some people say there were over a hundred million of these pamphlets that were ultimately out there with Hubbard's story in it. This was huge.

It was absolutely huge. And I don't know, Hubbard did a lot of other somewhat interesting things, but I don't know if he'd even be Googledable today had he not written this. Now, he doesn't write this if the main isn't sunk. And then 15 years later, maybe 13 years later, the Titanic sinks. And he wrote something about the sinking of the Titanic that got a ton of press. In fact, hold on, I'll find it right here. It was a general observation about a woman named Ida Strauss, who was married and loved her husband. his name was Isidore and refused to get in the lifeboat. And so the two died together. And he wrote this

to the general public, to them as a kind of an homage. He said, Mr. and Mrs. Strauss, I envy you that legacy of love and loyalty left to your children and your grandchildren. The calm courage that was yours, all your long and useful career, was your possession in death. You knew how to do three great things. You knew how to live, how to love, and how to die. One thing is sure, there are just two respectable ways to die. One is of old age, and the other is by accident. All disease is indecent. Suicide, atrocious. But to pass out, as did Mr. and Mrs. Isidore Strauss, is quite glorious. Few have such a privilege. Happy lovers, both, for in life they were never separated and in death they are not divided. Okay, so he writes that about the Titanic. Yes. Right.

He writes a couple of the Titanic. Yes. And he gets a lot of press for it, a lot of attention, and they wind up printing even more copies of a message to Garcia. So he's making money. His magazine, which was called the Philistine, is thriving, the arts and crafts movement with which he is closely associated. the Roycroft in particular is exploding. He's on top of the world, this anarchist, this socialist, who now is suddenly up to his neck in rapacious capitalism. And he's writing these things that are getting all kinds of press. And he's killing it. He's living a big life.

He was also deeply in love with his wife. And they got on a boat a few years later. This would have been 1915. Fifteen. Fifteen. Yep. They're about 11 miles off the coast of Ireland, and their ship is torpedoed by a German U-boat.

The name of that ship, of course, is the Lusitania. Shameless plug. Long before she was Peggy Roe, my mom was Peggy Noble, daughter of Carl and Thelma Noble. It was her father, Carl, who inspired me to pitch a show called Dirty Jobs to the Discovery Channel, and later start a foundation that honored the kind of work Carl Noble did for a living, trade work, skilled labor. That foundation is called MicroWorks, and today I'm proud to tell you that we've helped thousands of people get the training they need to begin a

career in the skilled trades. In fact, we'd love to help you. You can apply for a work ethic scholarship right now at microwworks.org. We've set aside $10 million for this year's applicants. Thanks to a number of very effective fundraisers, including the one with my grandfather's name on the label. I refer, of course, to Noble Tennessee Whiskey, K-N-O-B-E-L, which is now available in a variety of delicious mash bills, all of which you can peruse at Noble Spirits.com. In fact, if you spend 100 bucks and use code Carl, C-A-R-L, you'll get one tube of orange, bitter-infused sugar cubes for free. That's Code Carl with a C to get nine sugar cubes ingeniously engineered to make nine perfect old fashions every time.

It's my favorite way to support microworks and my favorite whiskey to sip responsibly after a long day of interviewing people on this podcast. Pick up a bottle at noblespirits.com. K-N-O-B-E-L-Spirates.com. Soon may the nobleman come to bring a bottle for everyone. One day, When the waiting is done, we'll take a drink and go. Now, what happens is Hubbard's son, Albert Hubbard II, gets a letter from a guy named Ernest Kalper, who was a survivor of the sinking of the Lusitania. And here's a chunk from that letter. To Hubbard's son, imagine getting this letter and opening it up.

I cannot say specifically. I cannot say specifically where your father and Mrs. Hubbard were when the torpedoes hit us, but I can tell you just what happened after that. They emerged from their room, which was on the port side of the vessel and came onto the boat deck. Neither appeared perturbed in the least. Your father and Mrs. Hubbard linked arms, the fashion in which they always walked the deck and stood apparently wondering what to do. I passed him with a baby, which I was taking to a life boat when he said, well, Jack, they've got us this time. They're a damn sight worse than I ever thought they were, referring, of course, to the Germans. They did not move very far away from where they

originally stood. As I moved to the other side of the ship in preparation for a jump when the right moment came, I called to your father, what are you going to do? And he just shook his head. While Mrs. Hubbard smiled and said, there does not seem to be anything. thing to do. The expression seemed to produce action on the part of your father, for he then did one of the most dramatic things I ever saw done. He simply turned with Mrs. Hubbard and entered a room on the top deck, the door of which was open and closed it behind him. It was apparent that his idea was that they should die together and not risk being parted on going into the water. That is chilling.

So that's how Edward Hubbard, a man who I'm guessing 98% of the people listening have never heard of, that's how he checked out after writing a thing about another couple on another doomed vessel that went around the world. And before that, after writing a thing that became the most popular printed text in the history of printing with the possible exception of the Bible and probably Stephen King at this point. But it's a heck of a thing to think that now you and I are talking about this on our modest little podcast on Labor Day, the anniversary of our Foundation's birth, in response to a guy I've never met named Tim Johnson who wants to know how I can really be for the working man when I may or may not have been at a certain meeting with Bill Whittle that could have been attended by conservatives.

These are confusing times, Charlie. They really are. Well, listen, let's talk about the foundation a little bit, Mike. It's been 13 years. Do you remember what was the inciting incident that led you to create the MicroWorks Foundation? You know, I remember a couple of moments where it seemed like I wanted to do something. It was really just kind of a slow burn, though. Dirty Jobs was at its height.

the year was 2008, the economy was teetering and about to enter a giant recession. And the headlines were really all about the number of people who were unemployed. On Dirty Jobs, it was more about the number of help wanted signs that we continued to see. And it became obvious that the people we featured on that show were really struggling to recruit to find the kind of people that Hubbard is describing in his essay. And so I just thought it would be a nice thing to do to try and draw some attention to the plight of these entrepreneurs that we featured often on dirty jobs. And this is another thing that would probably surprise Tim Johnson. People look at that show and they figure, well, that was a love letter to the working man.

And of course it was. First and foremost, it was a love letter to blue collar work. But not at the expense of white collar. I say this all the time and people are always surprised, but we featured probably 40 multi-millionaires on that show. You never knew it because they were covered in mud or crap or something worse. Right. But Dirty Jobs was not just an homage to hard work. It was an homage to small businesses and entrepreneurship and people who would take the initiative and do whatever they had to do to build their career and get to the next point.

It was really a love letter to work ethic. And so as the economy tanked and as the unemployment numbers continued to rise, the skills gap continued to widen. And because nobody was talking about that, I thought, well, there's an alternative narrative that might be fun to exploit. So I started micro works. It began as a, you weren't around when we were doing this, but it was not a scholarship fund then. It was a trade resource center. Wasn't it also sort of the goal to be sort of a PR campaign for the skilled trades? Yeah, I would use whatever celebrity I had, you know, which got me to Congress a couple of times.

And, you know, companies started to hire me to go out and talk about this skills gap, which many people to this day, by the way, still deny even exists, you know. But it's real. And this mismatch of skills and a mismatch of will. I used to call it a will gap as well, which the dirty jobbers loved because they said, that's really the problem. We just can't find people willing to learn a skill that's in demand. So I went out with that basic message, kind of a lighter-hearted version of a message to Garcia and just started talking about the opportunities that existed for people who were willing to cheerfully grab hold of a thing and lift. The fans of the show loved it. And many of them helped me build an online trade resource center.

So back in 2009, 2010, what the foundation was, was an opportunity to go online and see what opportunities existed in your neighborhood that didn't require a four-year degree. And that was a huge pain in the ass to maintain because, you know, it was just constantly changing and updating and so forth. And so over time, that evolved into a scholarship program. And that's when you came on board more or less. By 2012, we were offering work ethic scholarships. Modest amounts. We've since grown, as you well know, to a million a year. But back then we were just getting started. And my reason for doing it, full disclosure, was not to help as many people as I could. I really wanted to focus on the kind of person that Hubbard was eulogizing, the kind of person who, reminded me of my pop, honestly, who was the guy that inspired dirty jobs in the first place. But it grew. And the real reason I wanted to offer those scholarships was because I thought if we

could circle back and talk to the people who did something with them, we would be able to make a more persuasive case. And that's where we are now. I think I've spoken personally to about 60 to 70 of them. And I'm always amazed and impressed. with all of the different stories. You know, there are different types. There's the kid who grew up on a farm who knew he wanted to do this, his whole life. And then there's somebody who it's a second act for, who had a four-year degree, and they were unhappy for whatever reason in the job that they had.

And now they're doing something different. And they're making more money and are leading a happier life than their white-collar job that they had previously. Those are the stories I love. Well, it's interesting you would point those out because the first thing you said when we started talking 45 minutes ago was the importance of keeping microworks in business during the lockdown and keeping the business going during the pandemic. And it is that basic ability to pivot that I think, you know, that's not something I talk about much. but if Hubbard was really going to take a deep dive on the importance of initiative, then I think what the country learned in the last year and a half was, boy,

if you want to find people who have figured it out nine out of ten times, there are people who knew how to pivot. The initiative still matters, obviously. Work ethics still matters always. But it's the willingness to hit the reset button and go a completely different way to reinvent yourself. You're right. Those are the best stories we can tell. And look, I count Chloe Hudson among them. Oh, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So if you guys are listening and wondering what the heck we're going on and on about, you know, we award a million dollars a year in work ethic scholarships to people who want to learn a

skill that's in demand. We don't give money for four-year degrees. We look specifically for people who whose attitude aligns with the sweat pledge and who want to apply their efforts to a very specific set of pursuits. Well, Chloe Hudson was a woman who wanted to be a plastic surgeon, and she very nearly went down that road, but thought twice when she looked at roughly $400,000 in student loans that she would have to assume and said, no, no, I can't do it. And she applied for one of our scholarships, and we gave her a few grant. Not a lot, but enough to get her a welding certification. Flash forward a couple of years. She's up in New England working in some power plant, and now she's down in North Carolina at Joe Gibbs Racing, making somewhere between $140,000 and $160,000 a year with

zero student loans and no debt. And she's beautiful. She does not look like the welder you're imagining. Big fake eyelashes, gorgeous, talented. I mean, Tim Johnson, this is why I make no apology for doing what I'm doing. Well, I just have one more question, Mike, for you. And that is if people enjoy this podcast and they want to express their delight with it, is there any way for them to do that? Oh, there's so many ways. You could go to my Facebook page and jump in this thread right now that I'm sure

is exploding under Tim Johnson's name. You could thank Tim Johnson for his trench in question, which led to this whole back and forth. But if you really wanted to do something meaningful, you could go to microworks.org. You could watch Chloe's story. You could watch some of the other success stories that are there. You could, if you were so inclined, make a modest donation to our work ethic scholarship program. I promised to spend it prudently. Look, this is part of the reason the sweat pledge is important.

You know, we've raised millions of dollars and given away over $5 million so far. And the people who support this foundation, you know, I want them to know that we take their support seriously and we spend their money with great discretion and parsimony. That's why the sweat pledge has to be signed by everybody who applies for these scholarships because I can't look into their soul, but I want them. I want them to take a pledge. I want them to make a promise. I want them to be on the same page with me regarding the things that I believe are important.

And not just to your employer. I'm not trying to do this to make employers happy, although many of them are happy. I'm doing it because I think the best hope for somebody getting started in the skilled trades is to approach their work with a genuine appreciation for delayed gratification and a decent work ethic and some measure of personal responsibility, along with a willingness to take the initiative. And a cheerful attitude. You know, it doesn't hurt to be cheerful. As my old Scoutmaster used to say, he said that that was the most underrated Scout law.

That a scout is cheerful. Yeah. Yeah. Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. He said, if you're all those things but cheerful, you don't have any friends. That's right. People will trust you, but they're not going to hang out with you. Hubbard talked about it, the guy who without it with a bad attitude walking down the street

in the threadbare coat because nobody's going to hire him. He said that. And it's the truth. Look, man, I know how annoying this is to hear. You know, I'm older than I've ever been. I'm wealthy by most standards and I'm white. I'm a wealthy white dude who worked his butt off and did okay in his chosen field. And now I stand on my metaphorical porch and I shake my literal finger.

And I talk about the importance of these things, these things that were introduced to me around a campfire and the Boy Scouts, these things that you can find in the most popular essay ever written that no one today has ever heard of that's nearly 130 years old. Those things still count. And if you find, if you sit down with employers today over a beer, and if you ask them honestly what the single greatest challenge is they face, I promise you, they will all tell you the same thing. Finding people who are willing to learn a skill that's in demand, show up early, stay late, take a bite of the crap sandwich when it comes around to them, and most of all, take the initiative. It's not a popular thing to say, but it is still for sale. And look, the other reason I wanted to do this, Chuck, honestly, I think we've talked about it. But have you seen what's happening to the language at companies like Lockheed Martin?

Yes, yes, yes, hideous. It's not a joke, man. They're literally in an attempt to become more inclusive, which I think is great, and to become more relevant. they're looking at terms that have become, quote, problematic. And this is where it goes off the rails, because these terms include expressions, and I'm not making it up, you can Google it, like work ethic. Yeah. Rugged individualism.

Hidious. Right? These things are problematic. I got a buddy who works over at Corn Ferry, big recruiting firm. Man, there's seven or eight words that they have affirmatively waged war on internally. words like drive and competition and leadership. So culture is always upstream of politics, but language is always upstream of culture.

And part of what's going on, and part of the reason I love this essay, as flawed though it may be in so many, many ways, part of the reason I love it is because the language is just so archaic. It is. sentiment, the sentiment is still real. And so jamming that crap together and reading it for you all was a delight, good fun for me to do on this Labor Day. And hopefully there won't be a ton of blowback. Well, we'll see. Listen, everybody, if you enjoyed this, go and leave us a five-star review

and tell us what you think. We read all of the reviews. If you didn't enjoy this, leave us a five-star review and tell us. Definitely. Definitely. Cheerfully grab a hold of the thing and lift. Yes. That's what we need. A man or woman who can deliver a five-star review to Garcia. That's what we're looking for. And if you don't do it for us, do it for Tim Johnson. Yes. Hey, Tim, thanks for your question. I had no idea. I would answer it in a 90-minute format. But hey, man, these are crazy times and you never know what you're going to get. Back next week, folks, with more of whatever this is. Until then, as Garcia might say. Adios. When was the last time you felt in control of your business finances? Expenses tracked, invoices sent, taxes ready. That's where Found comes in. Found brings your banking,

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