The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 434: Sarah Yourgrau—People You Should Know

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

You may know Sarah as the on-camera producer from Facebook's Returning the Favor with Mike Rowe. She is also a two-time Emmy-winning storyteller, social anthropologist, founder and CEO of Common Ground Studios, and the absolute cheeriest person you'll ever meet! Sarah talks with Mike about their new show, People You Should Know, which will premiere May 2 on Mike's YouTube channel @therealmikerowe.

Hey guys, it's Mike Row and this is the way I heard it, but it could also be people you should know. Because Chuck, as you'll recall, there was a time when I was pretty sure this podcast should be called people you should know. Yes, and the reason for that, I believe, was because these were people that you found interesting that you wanted to share with other people. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And the more I thought about that title, the more I thought, wow, you know, it really does encompass most of my misspent career. Dirty jobs. Somebody's got to do it. trying to favor. These are all people you should know. But then we had already started the podcast and it was called The Way I heard it.

Yeah, you can't go backwards. It felt like even though we changed the format to change the name at that same time. I didn't like it. I know you didn't. And I didn't like it either. Yep, there you go. And so, friends, what I was stuck with

was this terrific title for a podcast that didn't exist and some shows that I never produced. Well, that's all about to change. On May 2nd, we're launching a, well, I was going to say, TV show, but technically, if it's not on TV. I mean, you know, it's a fine distinction, really. It's some content. It's a program. It's a... Well, it's a program on YouTube. But if you have YouTube

TV or if you watch YouTube on your TV, then it becomes a TV show. It could very likely be a TV show. This is probably confusing for you guys, but here's the headline. People you should know is a new show. I'm going to call it a TV show because I think a lot of people will watch it on their TVs. And it will... And computer show sounds stupid. Yeah, tune in for my computer show, my phone show. Yeah, yeah. Nobody wants that. My iPad show.

No, we want. But I do hope you want this. And if history is any indicator, a lot of you will, because people you should know, and legally I'm not supposed to say this, but we really are picking up where returning the favor left off. If you were a fan of returning the favor, you're going to love people you should know. Got a brand new title, but guess what? I'm still in it. And I'm still looking for people with bottom up solutions.

to some of society's big problems. And joining me in this adventure is my dear friend Sarah Yardrell, who produced Returning the Favor with me. And now she's along for this ride. She's my guest today. And my agenda, full disclosure, is I want you to get to know Sarah a little better. She was on the podcast a couple years ago. Yeah.

Everybody loves her. But she's had a really interesting career in my industry. And it's so much fun to be. working with her now because there don't appear to be any rules left. And we're going to share some things with you guys. And I hope you find it interesting. I think you will because basically the metaphor I use in this is that we're building the plane in midair.

We don't have a network behind this endeavor. We don't have a bunch of big advertisers. We don't have a big production company. Me and my business partner, Mary Sullivan, who joins us for this conversation. Oh, yeah. It's a full room, actually. It's a full room. Yeah, Taylor's here and he's working on people you should know.

Pugia's here, you'll meet Pugia. Anyway, I want you to know that this show is coming. I want you to know that I think it could be, I don't know if I want to say important. It's a lot of fun, but we really want you to get to know some people with some pretty effective solutions to some big problems. And the fact that we laugh our butts off along the way, I like to see it as a bonus. Yeah, yeah. No, it's good. It's a good time. It's a good role.

So having said all that, this is the way I heard it. My guest is Sarah Yarrow. The title of the episode is People You Should Know, which also happens to be the title of a show that used to be called Returning the Favor, which I'm probably not legally supposed to say. But having said all that, don't you go anywhere? It all happens right after this. The federal government is not going to close America's skills gap. They have an important role to play for sure. but if we're serious about reinvigorating the skilled trades on a national level,

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Thousands of kids are being introduced to the trades in a way that's absolutely positively moving the needle. The goal is a million members by 2030. I think it's doable. I'm doing what I can to help them. Learn more at skillsusa.org slash Mike. That's skillsusa.org. slash Mike. I'm talking skills, US, skills, US, USA. Sarah is hunkered down for another one of our unforgettable, unscripted, unwarranted conversations. Mary Sullivan is here as well. She's walked away from the control center to, I can't decide if you're here to contribute or supervise. Both. Great. That's Pugia there in the background. She came with Sarah.

and who is Pugia? Exactly. How do you describe Pugia? Oh my gosh. Pugia is a literal rock in my life at this point. Do you know what literal means? Pugia is such an MVP. She started out actually as my writing partner.

Pooja, you know how me and Pooja linked up? I don't. Pooja cold emailed me on LinkedIn. Because she had seen returning the favor. And she loved this kind of content. And I just loved her sort of tenacity to even be able to, in this audacity, to be reaching out in that way. And she felt, and I just said, wow, let me, if someone has passion, I'm going to follow that with them. This is, this thing, this, Pugia, that quality is so for sale.

It is so in need. Honestly, if I could find somebody with it, I'd replace Mary immediately. But I can't. I can't. And Chuck, too, for that matter. Taylor, you could do it, probably. If this sounds a little inside, folks, it's because it is. Sarah, if you're familiar, and even if you're not with returning the favor,

was a producer who shnered her way on camera so often that I really had no choice but to bring you on as a kind of co-host for this reboot. So in an attempt to shamelessly plug the premiere of people you should know, I thought it would be good to sit down and introduce slash reintroduce your particular Genesecois to our literally dozens of viewers. And at the same time, dragged my boss Mary Sullivan into the conversation because this whole reboot would have happened without her.

In fact, it was Mary's a genius idea. I'll never forget it when she walked into my fake office and said, hey, what if we spend our money on a TV show? That's never happened before. Wouldn't that be exciting? Well, when you have a brain like that, you've never had a bad hair day in her life. I know, I know.

It's protecting that beautiful brain. I know. I'm surrounded with people with impossible hair. You, Chuck, I mean, in spite of his dotage, has a fantastic hairline. Taylor, preposterous. Pusia. Yeah, I mean, and I'm doing what I can. But the reboot is not about hair. What is it about exactly? How would you, why are, why from your vantage point are we doing this? I think we're doing this because you and I don't love. like to move in traditional spaces and to wait for permission slips on things. And I think, at least for me, I feel so tapped into actual culture and people and to wait. And I've spent so much time with more traditional powers that be, who are green lighting things, that I'm like,

but people want and need this, too, right, of what we're doing with people you should know. And I also think it's a, you know, I think sort of uplifting programming has had a bad rap because it's been really reductive and one-dimensional. Well, it's so predictable. So predictable. Totally. Every feel-good show I've ever seen, at least on network and on cable, from the music to the way it shot, you know, everything sort of telegraphs what we the producers want

you to feel at any given time. And I hate that personally. Well, I will say that the reason why I went back with you on this, One, because you are one of my favorite improv partners, and you don't wait for, and I have a background in improv. We both have some theater in the background, too, and you just, I love the live honesty of the show. We come in with research.

We come in with really vetting and prepping our people, but then we're just responding to life, you know? And I think that's really refreshing, and people can feel that. Because, like, with this uplifting version, sometimes I hear from people saying, well, it's not real. It's not reality. It's not life as if life is only negative and downtrodden and hard and challenging. And that is one part of life, for sure. But the other whole other part of life is delightful and joyful and ridiculous and filled with sort of tenacious attempts at ridiculous feats, you know?

Yeah, well, you know, I remember when RTF was first getting pitched. And I've told the story before, but since Mary's actually here, I think it was used. who I said no, how many times? Many. I mean, and to be fair, it wasn't just no. It was hell no. You've got to be kidding me. Why are you coming with this?

But the secret sauce for dirty jobs was always that BTS camera. So Mary was like, Mike, don't think of it as a feel-good show. Think of it as... The making of a feel-good show. That's correct. That's what actually did it. for me.

Yeah. Right? I mean, that's what kept that thing on for 100 episodes, and that's why we're doing it now. But I don't, you know, you're what? Why are you laughing? I only got you to commit to five, though. That's true.

It's true. It's a deal in the world. A hundred later. Yeah, just a tip. Yeah. Yeah. But look, that's the other thing. You know, I come from a world where, like,

networks would never cough up a penny unless you signed a, 20-page agreement gave them every option in the world to do whatever they want, whatever they felt like doing it. So with 30 jobs, I went from trying to sell a pilot to having to sign a contract that gave discovery really unlimited rights to unlimited seasons. And back then, that was the only way I could get anything on the air. This whole thing, I'm still not even sure how to think about what. what happened with Facebook and us.

People still look at me and shake their heads when I tell them, we did 100 episodes. One in Emmy. And then got canceled. Exactly. I mean, if you're going to apply logic to it, you're going to be really disappointed. Yeah. You know? To me, it was just this lightning in a bottle.

That, like, churned something in me, the cancellation of it, turned something in me. Because I went back and I went back and I did a net. Netflix show and I did some other things. And I'm just like, once you experience something like that, it rewires you. You know, the last time I saw you on TV that didn't have anything to do with me, I was in a hotel room. And I'm flicking around. I was in a Marriott.

And I came across that Bonvoy channel. I'm like, God, that looks a lot like Sarah. And I'm watching. I'm like, it sounds like Sarah. I'm like, oh my God. It's you. And you're up there. I'm, well, I'm in bed, if you must know.

Please. Just flicking around and like you were, how did you idea, you were a social anthropologist or something? A social anthropologist, producer, like in this vein of storytelling, that's where I kind of, but the social anthropology part is always my end. I'm always fascinated by just culture and how it can be moved and changed and all the subcultures in the world and the stories we're all living in. You know, that's infinitely fascinating to me. Yeah. infinitely fascinating. Because they're also, it's totally legitimate if that's been your lived experience, you know.

And so that was a really interesting one because they actually found me from RTF, from returning the favorite. They found me. They reached out. And then they flew me. We sort of workshops some ideas of what stories would be interesting to me. I had pitched this going to Finland and the happiest country in the world. They said, no, that sounds really boring.

And then I said, you know, I have. I got this 23-in-me test or this DNA results that my family has this really long, long, long, old connection to one of the oldest Jewish communities in the Azores. And I described it as like the first string that strikes the sound and the vibration of where you end up. Where exactly are the Azores who people are said? The Azores are this archipelago. Archipelago. That CH just crushes me. Archicapalica.

Archicapalica now. It's this cluster violence. In the small cluster violence, it's sort of the Hawaii of the Atlantic. So it's actually, it's only like four and half hours from Boston where I grew up. And then it's like an hour east of Lisbon. And so it's this completely, it's a singular culture that's a little different from Portugal. Because Portugal's this really like a sort of protected, wild, you know, they didn't have a strong economy for a while. And so they had less tourists coming through.

Portugal's on fire. There's so many expats. I know. I am like every day annoyed that I didn't move there. Move there and live amongst the Azoresans. But it's really, I really recommend it because it has this, it's like Hawaii. It really is, but it has this incredibly volcanic soil. So you go there and it looks like you're on the set of Jurassic Park, dead serious. And if you're in the springtime, spring into summer, all the streets and the highways are lined

with these arches of hydrangeas, these huge that feel like you're like wondering if you took something because it's so psychedelic, you know? It really is, and the colors are so fluorescent. And they paid for me to go and explore my ancestry there. And it's so, and they allowed me to make something kind of, I worried that it was indulgent, but I veered it towards it being a little bit more of a sort of poetic analysis to that feeling you can't name. of feeling familiar in a place you haven't been. That's very close to a German word called Verchmaltz. Which is, yeah, it's not quite nostalgia and it's not quite sentimentality,

but it's a longing for a time that you didn't actually experience firsthand. Verchmaltz? Verchmaltz. Yeah, like I remember, Chuck, we were working at United Artists, and the movie was Excalibur, John Borman, and the opening scene is this crazy pitched battle, swords, and I mean, I felt so, I'm not really into the whole past life thing personally, but I felt like, boy, if I was, I think I was there.

It just felt that, like, personal and weird and connective. Totally. And with music, too. Yes. You know, the old standards kill me. Gosh, I really feel like I was there. Of course, I wasn't. What is that?

Is it a form of mental illness, you think? I think, well, I think I'd have to check your labs, but it does sound like, it might be for you. No, I think it's like, sometimes I think to myself, I'm like, we're humans floating through space on this strange ball that's, like, just floating through the galaxy. And so I try actually to temper my own audacity of what I know and don't know. I don't go too deep into rabbit holes, but, like, I love some ideas. Those are fun stories to live in of like, what is that? What is that?

Yeah. Well, that's what I'm asking when I look at the episodes we've shot so far. What is that? What are we doing? And, you know, I've been sort of glibly saying we're picking up where we're turning the favor left off. But I'm not, I guess we are at a glance. And I think the two million or so people who were really into episode 101 that never happened are going to be into this.

But I also know that for me, I'm different than I was four years ago. Older, more bitter, broken, perhaps. You are becoming more of who you naturally are. I was just thinking the other day of, like, the amount of time we spent on camera as I was trying to write that post for my dad's birthday, and I was so pissed off

because all of a sudden the crew is ready to shoot, and I'm in the middle of this thing. And, you know, he's 93 years old. I can't not put this post. stop. And so we wind up filming all of it. And, you know, so I'm like, Mary, we got to put this in the show. And she's like, oh, you know, that could be a bit indulgent. I'm like, well, maybe, but maybe not. I can't decide yet. So I think we're going to use that clip to actually promote. And I'm only mentioning all of this because it's an insane way to think about creating content. But I really think

the future has to be some weird combination of genuine reality and actual mission. And we've got that. I mean, the people that we've, the first six people we've profiled, I think are really, really, and I think by and large, the country's going to fall in love with them, if not you and me. I think all of the above. I mean, I think you were saying before asking what, what is the show, what makes people resonate with it? And I think you just named it. Like, I think, there's also a sense of these last four years were wild, right? And we have been exposed to more than our brains are meant to handle and we're burnt out. Do you think we're over it? In general, like it as a sort of like over, like I know I have had to rest my own burnout that was even subconscious

of being too connected to things. And what I realize and why I actually think even bringing it back to people you should know, it has this kind of like boignancy in the depth of the sea that is everything going on around, right? Sometimes the waves are super rocky. You're being tossed. It's infinitely deep. You have no concept of them. But it has this sort of buoyancy that you can hold on to to remember. It's like the go out and touch grass. Remember what's real. They say when you're having a panic attack or you have anxiety or you're overthinking, two in your head. Go outside, touch something real. Touch a tree. Touch grass. Recalibrate. You know, and I think there's something. You know, and I think there's something, I know there was something with returning the favor, and I know now, as people

who care about real people and everyday people, right? That how do you, what is, we can't even, if it's not real and it doesn't have a mission and it doesn't feel like it has a greater meaning for me to tune into, it's hard to connect with for me. And that can be a laugh. Like, who said, Anne Lamont said that laughter is carbonated holiness. Who the hell is Anne Lamont? Damn it, I should have taken it for myself. You should. I should have.

She's a writer, and I just love that phrasing of it, because I think that's also part of the service of it, too, right? There's like, we can, amidst all of the chaos, we're real people who have hard days, and we also have a lot to laugh about and a lot to connect with each other. And I love, to me, that's why I like every person that we profile and every person we've always profiled with returning the favor, which, you know, my role was before to just be launched into these communities and build trust in these communities, right? And that's my social anthropology, right? I could do that every day in, day in, day out for the rest of my life and it would charge

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And right now in this industry, a lot of people aren't laughing. Yeah. You know, to take your ocean metaphor, Mary hears me talk about this all the time. I look out my window at home and I see the bay. I see the San Francisco Bay and I imagine all my industry friends and so many of them are out there treading water in this metaphor. Producers and directors and talent and mid-level executives

and high-level executives in networks and production companies all over the place. And also in the water are these little dingies, you know, and there are people in them. And I've got one. I almost said I've got a little dingy. Can we cut that out, please? No, we're putting it into the open like you love. Sorry, scratch that.

For the little dingied folk out there listening and tuning in. I have an enormous dinghy. I've got room in my dinghy for, you know, what, like maybe a dozen people. And we're full. And every day somebody swims up. Usually somebody I worked with on any one of a hundred projects over the years. And they grab onto the gunw. And they're like, hey, you got room in there?

I got an idea. And that's what's happening in our industry right now. And it's amazing to me. I've, you know, this show, just so people understand not to put too fine a point on it, but there's no network behind it. There's no big production company. Facebook was behind returning the favor. Well, YouTube isn't behind this. We're just putting it on YouTube.

And we're finding our own advertisers. We are building a plane. in mid-air. And I've never done it before. And the reason I ask Mary to sit in on this is because she's never done it before either, which makes it super exciting. But Mary's really good at figuring out new models. I'm pretty good at telling the truth on camera, the good, bad, the ugly, and the warts and all. And you're really good at being Sarah and being like super curious and really, you're much kinder than Mary will ever be. You're much more decent than I can ever aspire.

Mary, you want to weigh in on this? Yeah, Mary's only been the kindest, most decent people to me. She is the smiliest, happiest. When Mary hears the truth, she's generally rendered mute. All of these things are true. And so it's, you know, I don't want to bore people with too much inside stuff, but it's very strange for me. I've had, you know, half a dozen shows that worked in a very predictable way over the years.

And I'm telling you, folks, those days are over. They're over. I don't think that's inside baseball. I actually think that would be for so many people who can't find something to watch, it's part of why you can't find something to watch because the models are totally constricted. Why do you think so many things on TV look the same? And why do you think so much of it sucks? I think that a couple different things.

I think it's people are, the budgets have gotten social media, this, right? Social media, the attention, you're now fighting for attention there, and that has become legitimately, I mean, 70%, and that's probably a conservative number, of people are consuming their data and consuming their programming content just via their phones, right? Just via social media. We also have sort of trust erosion, I think, with the larger networks, partially because they are run by the same kinds of people. And because whatever brand they used to have, they've completely betrayed.

They've betrayed. And because your attention economy has shifted, budgets have really constricted. So people are buying executives, or even some amazing execs that I know, right, who really want to root for you and are championing your projects. They can't get them through because they are now a constricted budget. They're buying like 20% of what they were buying before, right? And they're making it for 80% of it. less. And they're making for 80% less. Right now it's 2025. We're talking with, you know, big

streamers. They're not even programming until 2027 again, right? And so this is a deeply, deeply entrepreneurial time in the industry. We're always changing, but not at the rate we're changing right now. This is unprecedented. Mary, you still awake? How many calls do you get a week on average from people pitching, soft pitching, kicking the looking to see what might be possible and so forth. You know, I mean, hundreds, but it's worse than that because a lot of people go in through info. I mean, poor Sherry is...

She's talking about info at microworks. Send all your ideas to info. Easy, microworks. Easy, cowboy, easy. Oh, my God. No, but I mean, you know, it's across the board from, you know, very serious people that have specific ideas to somebody who, you know,

just is starting out and wants advice or somebody who's really a fan of the foundation. It can be anything. But this is, I mean, I think it's so interesting and maybe even kind of important since we started with poor Pugia, who's just your mind in her own business. Think about what she did. She looked around and she took a really proactive step. You know, she picked up the phone. You got to do that.

Now that's the same thing I'm just kind of making fun of because a thousand people do that every week with Mary. But, you know what? There's no getting around it. You got to do that. You've got to do some other things too. But it's either in service of simply paying the bills and keeping your business on its feet or it's in search of call it meaningful work.

And this is the other thing that I think is kind of interesting about you. Most everybody in this business gets worn down and gets a shell. And they really do just for self-preservation, become in-werectuary. become inward and brittle. You are outward and spongy. You're fungible. You're squishy. You're happy.

I mean, so I just, you know, I don't let this business break you. Thank you. Even if I have to fire you next time. You know, I do a lot of work to protect that shell because you do talk with like so much of my energy goes towards lifting people back up into possibility. And then you start to kind of look at the, I think with the traditional business, I was doing that for so long with them, and I love them,

and everyone's always welcome up here, right? But I can't keep going down and pulling people to Everest anymore, right? And that's the burnout part. I do think what's so exciting and what why is a testament to the length of your career, and you know, you guys as partnership, 20 years. 20 years. That's amazing. That's unbelievable, particularly in this business. Yeah. In particular, because Mary was a, a somewhat respectable lawyer at the time. In fact, you casually mentioned Jurassic Park. Now, isn't it a man, I mean, that story,

it was such a big movie that it's easy to forget how ingenious Crichton's basic narrative was. I mean, the idea that you're finding in resin, like, what is it, like a mosquito DNA? Mr. DNA, right? Yes. It's so, now, so Mary used to represent Michael Crichton. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. Yeah, Coma. Michael Crichton. Right? Sphere, that guy. And Donald Sutherland, rest his soul. And John Cleese, still alive, not as funny as he used to be, but love him. I mean, now he got political.

He got political. No, I love John Cleese. My God. Sidebar, the greatest eulogy I've ever seen is John Cleese burying his dear friend, Graham Chapman. Wow. You have to look at. Okay. It's short.

It is deeply inappropriate and as funny as you can be in Westchester or Westminster Abbey or wherever it's amazing. But the point is, here's Mary. Bio major once upon a time. Yep. I forgot about that. Yeah. Biomager went to law school. Straight A student?

Yes. Good break. No, but decided I didn't want to go to medical school. Did you want to talk into the microphone? I'm not used to this. I mean, I know you've got, you're the biggest, loudest, most obnoxious person when you want to be. You put a microphone in front of her and it's just like, you know, I just wanted to help out, you know, with law. No, the point is, Mary changed her path.

You know, sure she was going to be, you know, in the medical field, a doctor. And then a corporate finance person, film finance. and then entertainment, right? And then me. I wind up in a sewer calling her and her assistance on breaks so she answers the phone. That happens 20 years ago, and I keep her on the phone for an hour.

And then, you know, whatever weird vision quest you're on, you know, the fact that we worked as hard as we did on that show, and then you came across my transom as I was trying to fall asleep in a Marriott and you pop up on some walkabout in the 80s. Or wherever the hell you were. It was beautiful, no. It was very pretty. But you were going on and on about purpose and your roots and everything else.

And I'm just lying there going, we actually had a show. Look, Dirty Jobs is the thing for me. I'm never going to top that. But in terms of an engaged audience, I never thought I would say this, you know, because Dirty Jobs was programmed mostly by the people who watched it. But returning the favor was deeper. It was deeper. And there's something about all of that

and our collective, weird, reverse commute, crooked thing that I never really got over and I just couldn't put it completely behind me. So when Mary comes up and she's like, look, this is, we've got unfinished business. And I'm like, well, who's the sponsor? You know, we don't have any.

Well, who's the network? Well, we don't have any of those. Well, who's a production company? Well, we might get these guys at impact to help us, but, you know, is Sarah? available at least? Maybe. Or she could be

Niazors. I don't know. But I just want people to understand what we're dealing with in our industry. And I'm not looking for pity. Believe me, nobody in this room needs any of that. But this is a Rubik's Cube. I think it's totally a Rubik's

cube. Two things. I want to throw back to, I think, all of the qualities one of the reasons why I hired Pooja and brought Pooja into my life and had her shift around. Pooja has lived 19 different lives with me over the last four years, really. Her versatility, her work ethic and her attitude are unparalleled, right? And I think that's a quality of everyone. Actually, it's a testament to you guys, too, Mary and you, Mike.

The people you surround yourself with all have that quality. Incredible work ethic, incredibly good attitude. right? And there's a, there's, you have, that's no longer a, what a lovely quality. Bonus. That's a have to have it now. Yeah, have to have it. Because, listen, if we're talking about the traditional network or traditional way of doing things, that's very, that's apocalyptic, right? It's, it's no longer. It's yesterday's kisses. It's yesterday's kisses, exactly. Yesterday's kisses. I've never heard that. I love that. Hatful of rain. As I always say, it is a hat full of rain. You're just, pissing up a rope is my

granddad would say, which I never really understood either. I get that and then on the way down. Oh. But what I love to is, and what I've always felt with, with everyone in this room, is we've never been happy or comfortable playing by the rules, right?

It's not in this crazy, nefarious way. It's just like, we're wide people. Why would I do it like that? Why would I do it like that? Man, that's true, too. You know? That is a mental illness for sure. It's affliction.

Yeah. Yeah, I know. I know. I just, God, when I think of the amount of times we've fought City Hall, look at Chuck is just nodding his head, rolling his eyes. It's true. Well, you were unusual because when you reached out to me, you didn't have an agent or a manager. Still don't. Or a publicist or not even sure a competent accountant, but. But. That's rough. Ouch. Shazam.

I'm just joking. But I didn't come from the entertainment world either, which I think was the point you were making. I mean, not only was I a bio major, but I was a corporate lawyer. And so I didn't know how Hollywood really worked either. And so we fought a lot of things because we just didn't do them like other people did them.

Yeah. I think equality that we don't talk about enough and that I hope everyone who's listening can lean into with themselves, naivete is a gift with any sort of entrepreneurial endeavor, right? Like, you're not knowing can be an edge. What a beautiful transition to bring Chuck into the conversation. You made a minute.

I mean, look, you said everybody in the room, and I mean, think of, what are the odds that I'm sitting here with a guy I've known 45 years? 45 years. Like we sang in a barbershop quartet in high school. And now, look at him sitting there, impersonating a person. producer, live switching a show, two computers open, both of which are a source of great mystery to him. Looking him switching back and forth with cameras even as we speak.

I mean, honestly, what you're doing, don't stroke out, you're on the TV. The odds of you sitting here doing what you're doing right now are really no... Like four to one at least. I'm not sure what's less likely. The fact that you're sitting here now doing what you're doing or the fact that Mary's sitting here now doing whatever it is she's doing. True. You still strike me as somebody.

You're still on some kind of, like your emotional IQ and your actual presence, right, still seem to line up a bit. But I don't know, man. I mean, like the more I think about it, the more impossible. All of this seems. And that's the adventure of it all. To me, that really invigorates me. I think I'd be bored if the path, like I love, for instance, YouTube right now, where this will launch for the first time is the next thing. It's already there, right? There's such amazing opportunity to actually build without any of those pesky other additions that you had to accommodate for in the past, right? And with, you know, we had, I I had great executives. I've had wonderful things,

but I've also had a lot of people who are disconnected from the ground being able to control the trajectory of a project. Yeah. Right? And as people who know and love people, you and I, right? All of us in this room. You said people who know.

You should know. It's just to me, like that, that's the, there's also a betting on us and our own, genuine curiosity and passion for people and our knowledge of stories and places and communities that don't see enough light that are amazing, right? Sure. Yeah. I mean, I put that under the earnest side of the column, but absolutely.

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own question but like when I think about why so much of the programming today has it's so same same and kind of disappointing derivative yeah it's derivative and I think it has to do with risk and and I think this is what's getting worse and worse on the network level there there's no reward for well there's no punishment for boring yeah there's great punishment for assuming risk and failing but there's no punishment for not taking risk and failing. So if you greenlight filthy jobs, right, or some, you know, awful sequel, hey, Axeman was good. Let's do Hatchetmen.

See how that works, right? If you do that and it fails, you keep your job because, hey, we had success here. Why wouldn't it work again? There was a path. That's right. But if you try something really new and that misses, they walk you behind the barn and shoot you. Absolutely. And that's what I mean, too, of like, there's, you can have all the greatest champions. We had people, you know, my company Common Ground has, you know, we were out, we are out there. We have great relationships with execs. We have wonderful champions. They can't do anything for us, really, in the same way, right? Because of everything you just said, you can't take a, so you never end up innovating this field, right? You get once in a while, listen, let's talk like also the listeners through the arc of what was happening these last few years, right? You had, the lockdowns where everyone was suddenly completely hooked to their TVs, right, and watching things

sort of professionally. And there was a huge bubble of inflated budget that went to anything got greenlit at that time, right? And then the after effects of that. Once we started getting out into the world and the whole country was able to get back out of lockdown, the strikes happened, right? And then those writer strikes were major and they had a repercussion. So in the background of this industry, things get greenlit sometimes a year and a half before you see them, right? So it's never a recent green lighting that you're watching something. And then you had, by the time the writer strike was over, people started to realize that you could make things, one, like I said before, the cell phone and people watching on YouTube and all these other ways that people

were watching from content creators started to really compete with TV and film. You suddenly realize you don't have to spend so much to get so much. And you're only, you're only, you're betting on, you know, this is a little inside baseball, but internal IP, right? If you bought Marvel and you paid for all the rights of Marvel or you paid for NFL content or whatever, you have to double down on anything in that. So get very, very limited on what you're able to create. And which is why I think there's no kind of better time to be alive in this world than now because of the opportunity to say, we don't have to wait. We have a proof of concept, right with returning the favor and we have our knowledge and and understanding of how the world has

changed and shifted and why wouldn't we just go out and make something you know why would we wait for permission because there's no money sir i'm sitting here it's your bankrolling it yeah i mean it's works up for me but that's classic mary too it's like well if i'm going to think mostly about the creative and what i think people might what i think i might have permission to do in the the creative space. Mary will just think, well, then the riddle for her is that partially, but also to figure out, can you get it paid for? And the answer, of course, short term, it's, you can figure it out.

Yeah. You know, we'll bootstrap it ourselves. But long term, how do you satisfy an advertiser? How do you bring people in who otherwise, how do you do any of this without an agent, without a manager? And this is where it gets tricky for other people like Puzhou who are, what are you like, 13 or something how are you she's 25 years old right so classic like Gen Z right what do you tell a Gen Z or in this business should you get an agent should you get a

manager should you get a publicist should you I mean when I was her age it was very clear if you don't you're doing access yep you don't have access to anything but here she is cold calling you right and so It's a difficult time to offer advice. It is, and yet I have one piece of it. And yet I'll find a way. I think it was Dorothy Park who said, advice is that thing we ask for when deep down we're desperate to hear nothing.

Exactly, exactly. I think, like you said, back in the day, even as of like six years ago. Right? If you didn't, five years ago, four years ago, if you didn't have an agent or a manager and you didn't go that traditional path, you didn't have access to create something and build an audience, right? And that beautiful reciprocal process that that creates. Now, the gatekeepers have left their post. And we are- The barbarians are at the gate. And to me, there's something really, really invigorating. I love a power to the people movement. I love a, you. why are we waiting for permission from? I love a sort of libertarian view applied to a secular context. You know, I love the idea of being able to say, well, let me go and, you know, as a creator, which is what we end up being on the show, like, you've amassed a massive audience, right?

Dozens, dozens of them. Tens. Back it up. If you stack them end to end, well, they'd fill this room. And I have a strong four that comes out, that comes out in droves. And, no, but there is this, you know, I bet on that honesty of that connection and being able to build it up ourselves that just, and I know there's going to be learning curves with it and there's time and there is a real financial, you know, like that you have to, you have, that's the premium for

it. But I just know that, I mean, just look at the way anything is moving, right? With content creators and with being able to own your audience, it sort of, it sort of has a parallel with like the rise of crypto and, you know, less regulated environments that are sort of democratizing access. You can be sitting in your living room and pull a huge audience because there's nothing filtering it. People love what you're putting out there. That's the challenge too on YouTube. The audience doesn't really care how much you spent. They don't care how much you think costs. I mean, look at us. We've got three cameras. We're sitting here. This is costing whatever it costs is not a lot, you know. And it, you know, a million, two. You know, a million,

million people are going to watch this. What does that mean? Like how, so if I spend 100,000 or 200,000 or $300,000 an episode, am I going to get that extra multiple? I don't think so, but I'll get more, I hope. But it's all very like, huh, this is the part of the map that says here be dragons. Hickson Trocona. We're not sure.

Yeah. You know? That's thrilling to me. We are obviously sitting with a different contribution into creating that. However, you know, you guys are, no one's a dummy in this room. You can feel when also you've always been a pioneer in this space, right? You guys have never fully played. I mean, I've always been drawn to you guys for being very non-traditional,

forging your own paths. Well, thanks. Truly. Truly. We will take it. Mary will take credit for that. Because it takes grit, it takes vision, it takes self-trust, too. And it requires experimentation, right?

Because you are doing something no one's ever done before. And I just know that this kind of content, it answers the question, why it should be a little different than just throwing something together like this, is that the same problem that we're solving the problem that we spoke about at the beginning, which is no new longer-form shows are being greenlit. Right. And the other thing about that is like it's really fun to unpack it and think through the nuance. But sometimes the answer is really very simple.

It's like jet fuel, hotel rooms. You know, as opposed to this, the kind of show that I've always worked on, returning the favor, people you should know, dirty jobs, somebody's got to do it. Even six degrees. You kind of have to go where the people are. And so I want to talk about where we've gone so far with you and get your thoughts on who we've met. But Taylor, stick your face in front of the camera for a minute. So just people understand you're in the room too. This is Taylor Wooten.

And since we're kicking around people's, you know, curriculum vatais, what's your card even say now? What are you? A little bit of everything. Yeah, I mean, it's laughable. I mean, there he is on a poster where I met him 10 years ago. Yeah, he was shooting a commercial. Yeah. Oh, for the foundation.

He was doing a... Were you actually shooting or were you behind the scenes? No, he was shooting a camera. You looked, because we made that up on the spot and we didn't have an actor. And you looked at him and you're like, hey, you, can you come over here? Yeah, nice hair, I said.

Your hair looks pretty good. And I wanted to make up a, yeah, like a recruiting poster that was the opposite of the college poster that I had had. and, you know, when I was in high school. But the point is, I was like, yeah, sure, man. So he puts on this outfit that just didn't wardrobe.

It doesn't really fit him. He didn't care. And he just stood there and smiled. And now that thing's hanging in, I don't know, thousands of schools all over the place. But the point is, he's not a model, except he was on that day. Hey.

I mean, hey, hey, hey, hey. Before a picture. But you were also cutting a movie at the time, weren't you? Yeah, I was working on lots of other projects. a lot of TV commercials at the time. Yeah. So, I mean, look, I'm just making the point. You can get out of the shot now.

That's enough with your face and your hair. Anybody who thinks that they can put the one thing on their business card and get away with it had better be an accountant. Yeah. Because I don't think there's anything else. And I actually think that's going to be collectively so reinvigorating for all of us because we are all more than one thing. Right? And sometimes you just, if your book is going to be so short that you have like two or three chapters, that's your prerogative. But I love to be. I mean, you can be. That's the exciting time of being alive right now, too. You have to be and it means you can be so many things. I mean, I find that really, really liberating as a subject. So what kind of book are you? Are you a novel? Are you a... I'm a very thick book.

I am a thick book, fellas. Kind of like Mike's dingy. My what? You're dingy. Oh, my dingy. I ain't no small dingy. So bulbuous. Yeah.

A big thick dingy. That's great, Chuck. Good. Good. There's women in the room. You made Pugia blush. I didn't bring the dingy in to it. I just did a call back.

You certainly brought it back. There's a line. There's a poetry line that I love. It's John O'Donohue. And it's how I like to live my life. I have it in my office. And I'm going to paraphrase it a little bit. But I want to live like a river flows dazzled by the bend of its own unfolding.

So the sense of never, and that's not correct, but just Google John O'Donohue. I'd like to live like a river flows. And I just love that because I think what freedom feels like to me is not fully knowing what's next. you know like that's that to me is actually like a sign of good health and freedom that I'm living big enough I can I can know my trajectory but then I also like I said we're just floating around here in space on this ball just winding through the galaxy like let me be a little dazzled and delighted and I think if I keep staying every time I've said yes to things that felt like they were outside of my plan my life has gotten so much more interesting. You had a plan. I had a plan. I went to, there was a little while where, so I went to theater school. I went to an art school, and I was in theater, and my track was musical theater.

And I was really good at it. I was pretty good at it. I had some incredible Fagan cane work. Fagan, she's referring to, I believe, Oliver. That's right. You played Fagan? I played I Shvegan, a Jewish trope. But I was, like, that was one of my most joyful fun,

because he has a really interesting story, right? He's in petty crime, but he also has this depth, and he wants to be a name for himself, and he's figuring out how to, you know, he's sort of a father figure to these kids. And I just loved theater so much. It's still the thing I sometimes mourn in some way. I have this sort of duplicity of this other parallel.

life that I really, I sometimes wonder, not that I could do this again. Sure. But there'll be no money. There'll be no money. Exactly. But I'm like, hey, what's the difference between this life I've chosen now? No. But I loved theater for this.

But then I went on and I got my master's degree in social anthropology. And my focus in that was on conflict resolution and how to use humor, inject humor, to create sort of bridges of intimacy. So contract negotiation, hostage negotiating with songs. Yeah, but make it a musical. I just loved, and I think what I loved is getting to dive into another person's point of view, another person's lived experience. I love this idea of really understanding how to communicate with people, all the subtleties,

all the words that go unsaid, right? The biggest illusion of communication is, or the biggest misconception of communication, is the illusion that happened. All problems are communication problems. They are. Carnegie. I mean, that man's been right about everything. Yeah, right?

Pretty much. Pretty much. But that was my path, and that's where I got, you know, I was applauded for that, rewarded for that. I loved that. I grew up in a theater home. That was sort of a prerequisite for being a human in my house.

When did you know that the audience was a thing that you wanted to please? Oh my gosh. Four years old, five years old. I knew I had, I think it was also this brushing up with this power that you feel when you can shape a room reaction. I also have a twin brother who had a very different personality, and so I was sort of the outward performer, but by contrast, this sort of binary sibling experience. But I just loved play so profoundly. I mean, it's my favorite form of intimacy.

It's my favorite way to connect. The closest people in my life, play is just critical for connection. But I felt that that's one of my earliest recognitions of self. And something that I had to go through my own level of like what is a healthy love of that external. And then what is, at one point, you have to check that you're not the puppet being puppeteered. by audience reaction, right? Sure. Which can be hard.

But I just love... Because they will ultimately eat you alive if you let them. Yeah. You have to love them. And I look at them as my boss, but I also know that as much as I want to please them, if they think I'm trying to please them, they'll hate me. Totally. Totally.

And you'll hate yourself. But not as much as they hate me. Totally. True. Very true. Well, people are still raving, raving, I tell you, about my mother's performance in the latest Pure Talk commercial. And if you haven't seen it, I encourage you to give it a look on my Facebook page and read the comments. They're hysterical. In this commercial, you'll not only see Peggy Row gently criticizing her oldest son for his longstanding and well-established commitment issues, you'll learn about the latest offer from Pure Talk, which includes unlimited talk, text, and data for just 3490.

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You sort of explored, you have had such a rich track. Everything I thought I was, every plan I've ever had has gone up in flames. Every single one. But they've all led to something else that worked. Yeah. Which is why even now, you know, as old as I've ever been, I don't have a crystal ball. and I'm looking at this project, and I can see how it could be really big. And I could also see how it just gets swallowed up in a rough, tempestuous sea,

you know, because it's noisy out there. I don't really know. But I know we had a couple million people who were wondering who moved their cheese. They've been waiting for a couple of years to see what we just did over the last few months. I also think we have had, I have had over these last last. few years, I'd say over these last like six years, more than that, would that like, we started in 2017? So up until 2020, 2021, technically January is when that fell off. I've had hundreds fell off. We're slaughtered in public.

Exactly. That was really startling for people too, because I think I have had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of messages of people asking. And sometimes people kind of begging for that sort of honesty. Because our version of uplift is really messy and human and relatable. Right? I know. And that's something that you guys have held, you and Mary, have held such a bar for, too, of being like, these have to be real people.

Gotta be real. Got to be real. And real people are flawed. And let me tell you, as we all know, sometimes, the best of us, quote unquote, right? The people who are really endeavoring every day to move the needle on something that is like, wow, you can give up, you can give up, you've done enough, but are really endeavoring are people who have had, who have really walked through darkness, right? Those are the brightest amongst us, and those people are flawed, right? And it's

sort of a badge of honor. Well, it's the problem with everyday heroes. Yeah. There's no such thing. Yeah. If you're a hero, then you are by definition. in some percentage that sets you apart from the rest of us mere mortals. But the minute we set you apart from everybody else, you become less relatable, and then ultimately the object of some kind of envy, and now will there be a trophy? So I don't, you know, the hero thing, I'm super stingy with it.

We've had a couple of Medal of Honor recipients sit here. You know, okay, that works. That works. I don't know if I've met any hero. on returning the favor or on people you should know. But I've met a lot of people who are slightly better than me. But that to me is, that's the kind of person that I'm interested in, one, and who I want to shine a light on,

because to me, the goal of this show, this endeavor, is to get anybody at any point in their life to check in with, what do I give a damn about, and then feel like they have the agency, They don't need a permission slip. They don't need hundreds of thousands of dollars. They don't need a 501c3. They don't need permission from the government or from so on to endeavor to make a difference on something in their community.

And that is like if we all moved one degree, if we all stepped into that one degree, one, our life would get better. All the data around service and gratitude and doing something for other people is just like the mark of health and longevity. and two, our problems would be so much lighter and lifted with just small collective movement. And so that's like the point of why I'm in this storytelling world, in this medium, is just we can't be what we don't see. And when I see people who really have all total legitimacy to just tap out, say, your gig's been hard. This has been a rough road for you.

Like, back out. No one's going to flaw you for that. When I see them pushing through, it helps me. check my own excuses of why I can't be useful in the world. No, I get it. I mean, it was the same dynamic. Dirty Jobs was out of sight and out of mind. You're in a sewer, you're a septic tank.

You're working with real people without a script. So there's a modesty. I remember arguing with the network about, well, let's elevate them into working class heroes. I'm like, well, I don't think they are heroes. I think they're by and large good and decent people, many of whom are more prosperous than we let on, and maybe I would do that different if I had a chance to go back.

But it's the same thing here, like when we look at Lindsay and when we look at Steve Hatz and when we look at Mrs. Mays, these people are still fundamentally relatable. And what I like most about putting them out there is that, You're not left as a viewer. Like if you're a viewer and you really hear or see a Medal of Honor story brought to life, you wind up shaking your head and saying to yourself, Jesus, you know, I don't think I could do that.

I don't think I have what it takes to do what he or she did. The people you should know in the show, people you should know are people you could be. Yeah. Yeah. Who stuck with you most this round? I love me some Danny Combs and some tact. I love the mission over there. Judolin from Queens.

Tell me about her. Tools and tiaras. Yep. Judolin is an incredibly vivacious five-foot... Four foot nine, I'd put it. A generous five giant of a spirit who wanted to be... superwoman when she was growing up. And she looked at her particular set of circumstances, right? And what is the best use of her cards that she's been dealt? And she played them to be just that and went into the form

of being a plumber. And she realized that she says, instead of a doctor, I'm the person you need most urgently, right? You're going to need me more frequently than you need a doctor. You're going to need me more frequently than you need a lawyer. You know, when people are always happy to see her. Yeah. when she's at their door. And I love that she just didn't even indulge a world where, you know, there weren't other women. She was the first woman to be in the union in Staten Island. The Plummer's Union. The Plummers Union.

Yep. And I love that she just was not deterred by the fact that to make a door, she's going to have to run up that wall a couple of times, right, before she can punch through it. And I just love that. And she has this sort of all the young girls that she brings around her. right, to be able to at a really young age, to be able to, you know, start working with their hands, to see themselves as really capable as plumbers and as builders and how it just also re-appreciating at a young age. Like I love anyone who's also teaching kids at a young age to sort of look around and recognize how fundamental behind every one of these walls.

Yeah. A plumber has been here. My life is easier because a plumber and it's artistry and mastery. and she was just so vivacious and funny and playful, and she doesn't take life too seriously, but yet takes it dead seriously. She takes her work pretty seriously. Her organization is called Tools Antierras. She's basically making a more persuasive case

for this specific vocation to young women. And obviously, that's MicroWorks 101. She's one of my favorites too. But I can't wait to get behind that. Mary, what about you? Did you have, I mean, you've been on all these with us so far. We've got six coming up. Is there one that sticks with you most?

Well, yeah, chudeline was great. And Danny, because I was really behind that organization. Yeah, explain what it is. Yeah. TACT. So Danny started, Danny and his incredible wife, Becky, started an organization called TACT, which is an acronym for teaching the autism community trades. And Danny was, you know, a great.

He had an interesting trajectory. Right? Talk about interesting trajectories. Grammy Award winning musicians, singer-songwriters, top music to inner city schools in Nashville. All that shifted when his son was diagnosed with autism. Right. Right. And Dylan. Dylan.

And I love that because that's sort of a through line for all the people that we feature, for anyone we feature, whether it's returning the favor or all the people from people you should know, there's one circumstance that changes their trajectory, right? The inciting incident. The inciting incitent. Exactly. Denouement is the end. Okay. So not quite there yet. Well, that'd be the desec machina. His machina.

Yes. So Danny comes from a long line of tradesmen. He's like fourth generation tradesmen. He recognized that his son Dylan, who was diagnosed, was really, really, really, he wasn't able to vocalize. He wasn't able to, you know, he wasn't verbal. He wasn't able to, he wasn't learning in the same rate or the same way that other kids his age were learning.

But he was incredibly good at building and rebuilding things. and sort of very tactile. And he realized that there is incredible limitations for this entire community called the neurodivergent community, right? Because just really, which is a fancy way of just saying you think outside of maybe a neurotypical way, dyslexia, ADHD, autism. The spectrum. The spectrum, exactly.

Which is just a refreshing way to look at everyone's brains work differently. And he comes from a really strength-based look at it. right, where it's like you can look at where someone's flaw is, or you can say, you know, what is the thing? If a bear thinks it's a fish, it's going to be miserable. If a fish is being treated like a bear, it's going to look like, you know, it doesn't know what it's doing and it's not capable. And when the fish meets the bear, it's a bad day for the fish.

It's a bad day for the fish. Exactly. People talk, people say that all the time. But with Danny, like, I love everything is a, why can't you do this? You know, these are kids who would never have been given a power tool. you know, in any other context, being handed power tools, saw as being said, yeah, you can learn this, you can do this, you can do this. And in fact, maybe you're actually incredibly skilled at doing this. And I just love he's creating this very on the ground, sort of small-based community solution to a really big problem,

which is that the huge amount of people who are going to be leaving the trades, right? You know, what is the number at this point? Like, well, five, for every five who, retire to come in. And it's been that way for about a decade. And it's, you know, demographically, it's only going to get worse. And of course, all the stigmas and stereotypes that are making recruiting impossible. It's funny for me, Danny was the first favor we returned long distance. It was such a great story, but it was so frustrating to be sitting there in my office trying to make sense of this through the Zoom thing at the height of the lockdowns, you know.

Yeah. So going back to surprise him in this new model, that was great. Yeah. They're the best. I mean, it's like with anyone that we feature, these have to be people who are doing it with or without the camera rolling, right? In fact, we're often slightly inconvenient to them. Slightly?

Like our presence is slightly inconvenient. Oh, God. I know. Like, they can't wait to, and imagine me coming in, like, before they even knew you're coming, I'm just like this person who cannot read the room. I'm just so bloody annoying to them. And I just push through those social norms. You're like Mary Pop, you slide up banisters.

I like to try. But they're, you know, and the best thing is, too, like you get to go into, and I think the way that our show, and what I love listeners to even, you know, when they can appreciate when they watch this is, this is not us coming in as a TV crew, us telling you what you need in your life and we're going to solve this problem for you. We do such intimate research, really connected with people around this person that we're featuring to really understand what is going to be sort of rocket fuel on what they need, right? So from the outside, it may look like they really need X, Y, or Z. But a lot of times, you're birthday. You're

If you're not giving them the right gift, right? A gift can be a burden. Oh, you can break them. You can break them. I mean, unless they want to be constantly evading their taxes and move their operation offshores. Which we don't recommend. We don't recommend.

Mary, from a legal standpoint. Don't do that. Don't do that. That'll be the spin-off. But you know, we, Mary and I talked about this a lot in the old days, drinking from a fire hose. And I mean, it happens in life all of the time, you know. Look, you can do it to your kid if you send a little. them to the wrong school or give them too much of what they need, essentially.

Yeah. You know, and so all of a sudden people are, God, how many times did you look at me and shake your head and say, you know, you're going to kill them with our love. Yeah, they need a drink of water and you're giving them a fire hose. Yeah. It's true. You have to look at someone's sort of capacity. Like, what's the vessel of their operation?

Where are they at in that type? You may think it, we may think it feels generous to give someone a gallon, but they only have an eight, you know, an eight-ounce cup. Right, but some don't. But some don't. So like Luke Mickelson. Exactly. Great example.

Great example. He was able to scale. Right. He was able to scale. But you know what he also did? He quit his job after returning. After his episode airs, he pulls the plug. Yeah.

That lunatic goes all in. And now he's got thousands of people building beds all over the country. I mean, that's really been. I mean, to think about us just forest Gump. our way into his world and go, oh, here's some cameras and here's some wood. Surprise. And then, you know, like two years later, the guy's life is completely transformed, you know, and by extension, a lot of other people's. Absolutely. But that's the, everyone on this show, am I able to say the S word? Salmon? Yes, everyone on the Zemmer. Gives a salmon, okay?

Now you can say it. Okay. Everyone here gives a shit. We really, We like people, we respect people, and like, then, so that people can feel what's real out there now. And I think that's what's drawn them to this show. And we would never work on anything that's not real. I would be, there's plenty of other things I could be happy doing, you know? I could be a novelist in the woods in one, maybe one chapter I will be. That's weird. And look, I, for the avoidance of doubt, I have worked on some things that aren't real.

Yeah. A lot of things. Yeah. For 15 years, I worked in this nonfiction. space, which is not nonfiction. I've worked in a reality space, which is kind of the opposite of reality. It's really, really hard to find a way to balance between, okay, this is production, and this is a show, and this is a network, and this is the budget, and you're you, and you're trying

to build some sort of trust with the viewer, and you think maybe you have something resembling a brand, and it's an impossible thing to balance. And the funny thing is, we've done it. This endeavor balances that. But that in and of itself is a guarantee of zero point zero things. We don't know. But I'll tell you the one that I'm interested in. It's probably because I just spent the last day writing it.

Because what I do now, like you go in first, you do a lot of front work. And sometimes just because Mary doesn't tell me or just because I'm busy, I show up. I don't know my ass from a hot rock, right? I don't know what's happening. And when viewers see you bringing me up to speed on camera, that's real. I know generally, like, where we are, but I don't, there's a lot of stuff I do not know. And I'm only there for a day. Like, we only do this for, like, in seven, eight hours.

We shoot the whole thing and then we're out. And so a lot of stuff gets by me. And it's not until, like, a few weeks later that I get to sit with it. And, you know, Vins, our editor will send me a cut and I'll look at it and I'll think, okay, that's what happened on that day. But what's it mean to me personally now? And that's a privilege. And it's also a pain in the ass, but it's a privilege to be able to sit down and go, tell the viewer in, you have to show them what happened on the day, but you also have to explain, you know, a few weeks later what it meant.

And so. 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. That's why MicroWorks doesn't have an HR department for better or worse.

And it's also why I use ZipRecruiter whenever we need to expand. ZipRecruiter has proven themselves a million times over by helping countless, employers get through the hiring process faster and more effectively than ever before. And now they have a new feature that instantly shows you the most interested, the most passionate, and the most qualified candidates first. This is a huge time saver, hours and hours of save time. And it helps people like me find the people who can function in a non-traditional work environment like MicroWorks. In other words, 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. The trip we took to Fredericksburg and we met this guy, Steve. Steve Hatz, who runs a forge called the Black Horse Forge. The Forge Daddy. The Forge Daddy. And to be honest, it's not a fun episode from the standpoint that we're dealing with another

giant problem, you know, PTSD, veteran suicide. It's heavy. And it was raining and it was dark. Yeah. And I had thrown my back out the day before it broken my toe. They're so screwed up. I'm in the midst of what can only be described as kind of. of a weird and atypical pity party.

In fact, the first, like the episode opens, I tell you about the time I broke my ankle, apropos of nothing four years earlier, just because I couldn't believe we survived the plane ride. I thought the plane was going to flip over. So by the time you picked me up, I'm out of the plane. I'm shaky. Mary's looking at me like, look at this.

We're still alive. This is very exciting. And my toe hurts and my back hurts. And I just wind up going down. this weird rabbit hole of self-involved pain. Meanwhile, we're about to talk to a guy who's in the business of saving lives because, you know, 17 vets, more or less per day, punch their own ticket. So it's like, okay, you know, weeks later, when you look at that, like in the old days, I might have been like, Ari, we have to cut all of my ridiculous tertiary.

blather out of this thing or lean into it. Yeah. And that's interesting. And that's honest. Oh, it's honest. Right? Like, that's incredibly honest. And it ended up being a really, I think when it's honest, and it doesn't always

hit like this, but nine out of ten, I bet on when you take the more authentic path and you lean into it and you build, you really lean into it, you can see more complexity, you can see humor in it, you can see all of that. It's way more relatable. And it ends up kind of illuminating. this path, that I think that became a really interesting inroad for other people to empathize with why these guys are in pain day in and day out, right? Agonizing pain. Constant pain. Constant pain that we would cross our eyes, right? Like it's just, it makes you feel insane, right? It makes

you feel out of your body. And that's a driver for why some people say, I think, I can't, if life feels like this, I don't know if I want to live that, right? It's so powerful. And so the relatable pain and agonizing, if not pathetic in category, of hurting your toe, right? There's nothing that makes you feel more like a man when you stub your toe. But there's a lot of nerves there. But it's tough to complain about your toe to a dude with no legs. But you're allowing, I think you allow the audience then to relate to what pain might feel like in their life.

And then imagine that was cranked up. Well, I hope, look, I mean, for me, it's micro macro. There's going to be some micro in all these episodes because, well, there I am. But what Steve has done, and this is something I think is really going to resonate. I hope it does. I'm proud of it. But we've profiled probably a dozen different organizations who take non-traditional approaches to combating veteran suicide. I mean, I've been in the swamps of the Everglades, you know, hunting python.

with these guys. And I've been in Indiana at Jason Sademan's place, putting together old motorcycles. There are so many ways to help get these men and women out of their own head and focused on something bigger than themselves. But nobody, nobody's bat in a thousand except this guy. I know. This forge that he's built and the way he healed himself, right?

This is an interior designer who quits his... job, joins the army, loses an eye, breaks his back, comes home, and rather than start sketching dresses and interior designs like he used to do, and now he's making knives. And now he's literally forging knives. And he realizes he's probably going to be okay because there's something so transformational about the business of forging. so he opens up his black horse forge to other vets. I mean, it's been years now, but he's got like 22,000 have come through.

It's insane. 22,000, zero suicides. Right. So look, folks, I mean, if we're looking for a place to land the plane, that's close to where it is. We're looking for people you should know. Steve Haas is one of them. You'll meet him. You'll meet him soon.

And what he's done, you know, it ought to be headline news. And what I did on that particular day was so inconsequential and self-involved that the only sensible thing to do is to jam it all together. It's a good one. It's a great one. And I think, I mean, it's just another thing that I think people, that makes people you should know really different and really special and sort of rebellious in a fun way. So for the viewer to understand is we're also connecting people to a moment. They get tapped into our entire network. And then we get to have this huge amplifying domino effect, right?

Of people who are not waiting around to be granted permission and who have resources that they can share and who can, you know, put their, like we had Luke, Mickelson that you cited involved in our very first episode. Sure. Right? Because that was in a universe. It made sense. And you're able to sort of jump in and have this amplifying effect, you know, which I just

think is so badass and invigorating? It's six degrees of decency, basically. You know, and I mean, I remember on that first one, Mary, we called, like we were with a spoiler alert, but we were looking really for a very specific kind of surprise and to call a guy like Bo Bachman, you know, a Ford dealer, and to explain what we need. I mean, you were on that first Zoom call. Yep. I've never met this guy.

Were you surprised by what he said at the end of that call? Yeah, I was surprised because we had nothing to show him. I mean, that was just, I think it's the power of the show. People really get it. You're trying to highlight people in the community that are solving the community's problems. And that's why you'll never run out of issues because we've featured PTSD many times.

But the people are different. And the way that they're tackling it are different. And some will be like Sleep and Heavenly Peace where there are chapters across the U.S. But I think just as important is inspiring people to do it under any name in their own community. Yes. To show them what they can do.

Yeah, it's back to the humility thing. And sometimes it's almost, you know, from the sublime to the ridiculous, I'm thinking of Mrs. Mays. I don't know what's, you know, you'll meet Mrs. Mays. She's a radical street librarian in my hometown of Baltimore. And I don't know how a woman comes to the decision to dress up like little Bo Peep and go to the neighborhood where they shot the wire and give away books to kids

who would otherwise not have access to them. But when somebody takes it upon themselves to try that, well, hell, the least you can do is show up and get Taylor to point a camera at them and see what happens. It's contagious, though, to be around these people, right? it just gets you sort of off your own butt to get out into the world. Because I just think like there's so many, you don't even have to have studies. It's a lived experience, right, of when you are endeavoring something that's passionate and meaningful.

And we need all hands on deck. Whatever you're actually lit up by, go that route. Don't try and force yourself to be, you know, she's really lit up by literacy, really lit up by solving those problems and wants to go to spaces that we're not being serviced. From the bottom up. From the bottom up. And that's true. I mean, again, I'm just going to reinforce this because the data is so immense.

If you want to live a long, satisfying, nourishing life, right? It's not happy every day in and out, but it's nourishing and you feel content with it. A lot of your life is going to include service, right? It's like you see people who have the veil lifted as they get into, you know, as a bad thing happened to them, but actually was the portal into this other space. And we can do that without having the bad thing have to happen to us yet. And you can do it in a small, tiny way. You can do it with one hour a month.

You can do it with, you know, spending, sharing some extra profit you have. You can do it in advertising something on your platforms or your channels or however you actually authentically want to show up. Like, this is what that show also gives. It makes you feel too like, ah, the world's. not a complete dumpster fire, right? My species isn't a total disappointment. Yeah, but I think that's a, like, it's a big thing to offer. That's a big buoy to offer in a sea where, you know, the headline making machines that is

anything on TV at this point, news, all of that that's meant to keep us all sort of in our, what's it called, like paralysis of what's happening, you can say, yeah, that's real. And so is this. it's also real. It's equally real. And real change, whatever that means, happens on a local level, period. I'll tell you what real change means. It means we could really use some change and some actual dollars on the show.

Pardon the shameless plug, but our friends that stand together, I've been super generous. They champion bottom-up solutions and they're helping us. We've had help from Pure Talk, some of our partners, Groundworks, Ferguson stepped up, Hogland. U.S. Money Reserve just came through in a huge way. So like when I said before folks that we're building the plane in midair, I mean it. There's no network. We have yet to have a, we don't have an ad sales department, but we're kind of in the spirit of Blanche Dubois, depending on the kindness of strangers and friends. And I'll say just to underscore that, with total humility and only 2% hubris,

we are the people to do this too. It's not like we have this fun idea that we're going out into the world. We have got battle scars on us. We have iterated, iterated, iterated, iterated, you know? We did a hundred of returning the favor. The only people that could do a returning the favor

are people who had hundreds of hours before that too, right? So like it is also, we are good stewards. of that capital, right? We're good. Like, it's a place to actually get some returns in all the metrics. Well, you know? That's awfully a mercenary of you. I'll close.

Look, we love the mercenary position here at MicroWorks, but personally, you can't beat the missionary position, Sarah. So I will just say to all of you, if you want to support us in this endeavor, and this is a shameless plug, we'll take your money. Info at MicroWorks, tag Mary. And yeah, we're figuring it out. If you want to be part of the solution, that's where you go.

In the meantime, first episode drops May 2nd here on YouTube. We're thinking about every other week after that, and we'll have some little surprises for you. On your channel. On my channel, right? Because where else would we go? We just got a million subscribers on the channel. Incredible.

So we're excited about that because I'd neglected YouTube most of my life. Sure. You know, but hey, I'm finally getting up to speed. And if there were any lesson to take from this whole conversation aside from the shameless plug I just offered, it would be that nobody in this room is where they thought they were going to be, you know? And so if you need a buoy, latch on. We're just booing out there. We're just booing.

We're buoy happy. We're buoy happy. You know what? If you just need to hang on to something, grab a hold of my big fat thing. All right, and hang on for dear life, because this ship is leaving the port, folks. Sarah Yardrow. Glad you're along for the ride. Don't know where it's gone, but it's a treat to ride with you.

It's a treat to ride with you. I love us figuring out as we go. Pugia, congratulations on making that call. Taylor, thanks for impersonating a model. Chuck, thanks for being my friend for 45 years and doing whatever you're doing over there. Who knows? Mary, we're going to have to let you go. I'll miss you.

You wouldn't even know how to do that. I really wouldn't. You know why? Because I don't have a freaking HR department. That's why I get at one of those two. All right, guys, see you next week. People you should know, May 2nd, right here on the YouTube's. If you like what you heard.

And even if you don't. But won't you please? Won't you please, pretty, please subscribe. Well, I hate to be. Pretty. Please. I heard it. you buy Progressive Insurance.

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