1083: Mike Rowe | Rethinking Success in an Uncertain World

24:25That's right. That's the biggie. It's like the minute you feel the comforting wash of certainty come over you, whether it's the climate, whether it's your elected official of choice, whether it's, it just doesn't matter what it is. Right. But the minute you start to really feel sure, the genuinely interesting and curious person goes, what am I missing. Yes. Thank you. If I'm 100 % positive about something, there has been a problem in my thinking. Yeah. Most of the time. So when's the last time that you really affirmatively changed your mind in a way that like you heard your mind go, oh, I was very sure and now I'm very wrong.

25:08And now that's a good question. I mean, there's some things that the sort of lab leak theory stuff was one of the more obvious ones because I mentioned it on the show and so many people gave me feedback that was like, oh yeah, that's cool that you changed your mind. But so many more people were angry, which I found surprising, but I probably shouldn't have been that surprised. Other times I changed my mind of just smaller sort of things like throughout the day. And it's really hard to say if there's another good example that anybody could possibly relate to. I don't know. I feel like I should have come prepared or found something that's a little more obvious.

25:44Well, actually, like the reason I'm asking you is because I think you're really having a good time doing what you're doing. That's my impression. Yeah, sure. Right. And part of the reason I believe that is because you're still doing it. We were having this conversation the other day, the separating of the wheat from the chaff in Podcastlandia. It's happening now, right? But five, six years ago, like when we met, it was so nascent and it was growing so fast that you could really suck and still somehow find an audience. Yeah. People were just coming to it and it wasn't so noisy and it wasn't so crowded.

26:18And today, it's a very different deal. And I have to figure out, am I going to put my big boy pants on in this space? We get our share. People like the show, but I do it once a week. And I do it because I like it and I enjoy talking to people. But you're at a whole other level. How many shows do you do a week? Three. That's a lot for a long form, right? Yeah. So the reason I'm asking you about this is you've interviewed how many people? Oh, gosh. It's probably close to 1 ,000 over the last 17 years. And not just random Joes. Big thinkers. Yeah, you're up to episode 969. On the current show, and I had another show before that that was 720-something episodes long.

26:56The show that we dare not speak its name. That's right. The show that we dare not speak its name. Exactly. I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, it didn't exist. Anyway, change the subject. It's existence-free. I believe you brought it up. Sorry. Good point. I'm certain he did. Craving that certainty myself. I don't know how I feel about that. Thinking about it, I do change my mind on a whole lot of things. I mean, the topics of the day are things that I'm always thinking about because I'm being bombarded with media. Immigration was one thing where a lot of people think they have a black and white sort of answer about what it should be.

27:25This is one of those onions where the more you investigate it, the more you're like, well, okay, but we also have like this thriving worker economy. We should make that legal for hard workers. But then also this, and then people throw out these weird red herrings like, but the drugs. And it's like, you know how many backpacks you need to run across the border to bring in all the fentanyl or whatever we got in this country. It's like 62 ,000 per year. That's how many kilos they estimate of fentanyl or something. And it's like, that's a lot of backpacks. It's probably not that. The way they intercept this stuff is proving that it's not coming in in the backpack, right?

27:54But I also understand both of these arguments on different sides. So I won't say flip-flop, but it's so nuanced and people hate that stuff, man. My brain doesn't like it either, but I realize that's kind of reality. People's brains, we don't like nuance. We like to be able to compartmentalize something after having decided it and put zero brain power on it after that. Supporting this podcast is a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it. We'll be right back. If you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors, thinkers, creators every single week, it is because of my network, the circle of people that I know, like, and trust.

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28:51Once again, sixminutenetworking.com. Now back to Mike Rowe. This whole idea that two things can be true at the same time is vexing. It's vexing. It's like, For me, since you mentioned immigration, I talk a lot about the skills gap in this country. There's not a single construction company that I know of, and I know a lot of them, who aren't behind in every single project that they're working on. And they're behind because they can't staff up for every five tradespeople who retire to replace them. Every year, that's been going on for decades. Well, 15, 16 years. Wow. and if you took the immigrants if you took the illegal immigrants out of the equation it would be much worse than it is oh i'm sure yeah and so what we're left with is this really uncomfortable kind of thing right and i'm you'll find no bigger fan of the working man or skill traits that's my jam and i'm sincere about it but there's no getting around it it's not just a skills gap It's a will gap.

29:51Oh, yeah. It's funny you mentioned that. And we're just not willing to take advantage of the opportunities that so clearly exist. That's a real problem. I think I've changed some people's minds. Definitely. When I talk about, listen, this is not an ephemeral topic. This is your house, right? This is supply chain. This is where our food comes from. This is where our energy comes from. So riff on that, if you will, because I think it impacts everybody. Okay, so stop me if this is something that's been said on the show 8 ,000 times before. Stop, stop. Okay. No, go. So everybody I know who owns a company, you know more contractors than I do, one of their chief gripes is they'll hire somebody who graduated from college or just graduated from high school to do, let's say, roofing.

30:37And after half of the first day, if it's raining, they're done. If it's sunny, they're done. Basically, if it's not 65 degrees with a nice breeze and partly cloudy, they're not doing it. And these guys will just say, okay, screw it. And they'll hire an undocumented group of immigrants who are just showing up, just roasting in the sun and getting drenched in the rain and working and then saying, call me on Sunday if you want to finish this faster. And it's like this work ethic gap, I don't even know if it's something we can close. Like, look, I don't think people should work 365 days a year just so they can feed their kids.

31:15That's extreme. But if they're willing to do that and somebody else is not willing to complete half a day of work, we got a gap that we got to figure out what to do with that. That's not sustainable. And we have to figure out how to talk about it, right? I mean, Bernie Sanders put a 32-hour work week bill in front of Congress last week or maybe it's a week before, with no drop in pay. So this is an extraordinary thing, right? And when we started Microworks 16 years ago, the first little umbrella under which we all tried to come around, the first thing we could agree on was work is not the enemy, but it is, man.

31:51Work has become the proximate cause of people's misery. And I'm not saying that all jobs are pleasant. I'm agreeing violently with you, but it just seems like it's back to the infantilizing. It's like, we need people to save us from work so we can retire sooner. Retire from what? What happens when you retire? I mean, not a single study indicates anything good. Talk about changing your mind about something. If you can get the masses to think differently about the benefits of retiring, everything would change. But that's a neat trick. And that's going to be hard to do because we're certain that retirement equals happiness.

32:32And we're certain that hard work leads to misery. Part of this is the lack of purpose that I think a lot of people have. And I understand that if you are roofing and you don't think that this is your calling, I get that. But why does that mean that you shouldn't do it at all for a few years? Or why does that mean that you can't figure out another thing? Like you say, you bring your passion with you. I worked at a movie theater when I was in my teens. I wasn't like, man, I have made it. I'm making$5.25 an hour. Killing it. A couple times a week, I clean up barf. I scrape gummy bears off the screen that kids have thrown and stuck there.

33:10There's other things I won't even mention on this podcast because they're more suitable for an episode of Dirty Jobs, these kinds of things that happen in movie theaters would shock you. So many fluids. And in so many surprising spaces. Surprising places, yeah. It's incredible where you can get your fluids, really. I mean, if you're focused on it. That's true. It's amazing. But Jordan, it won't surprise us because we worked at a movie theater when we were kids. Teenagers. Yeah. We each did our time at United Artists. Oh, nice. It was one of the first multiplexes in the country, Golden Ring Mall.

33:40So yeah, concessions, tickets, ushers. Those are the glam jobs at a movie theater, man. If you only had to touch money, you had it made. Oh, yeah. It was on the days when there was other things that you had to touch. Those are the bad days. You put a bunch of people in the dark and throw some suggestive images up on the screen. You reap what you sow. What was your first job? The movie theater. That was the first one. That was the first job. And what did you learn doing that job that you still use today? Oh, man, so much. First of all, the bar is so low for what passes as good work. And not that anyone should aspire to just barely meet the bar.

34:20But I remember, you know, you show up on time and you clock in and you go downstairs and you get your shirt tucked in and you pick up the broom and the little, I forget what, like a dustpan with the extended handle. I guess it's probably just called a dustpan. You're walking down and you sweep up the popcorn thing that's on the floor. And I remember my manager going, you know what? I like that. And I go, what? And he'd go, you're ready to work. You're clocked in and you're already doing something. You're not waiting for me to tell you. And I'm like, well, but you told me weeks ago, I just have to, you know, I'm going to sweep the floor.

34:45So there's this, and he's like, no, that's what I'm talking about. And my friends started working there and they would clock in and they would dilly dally in the break room and they would wander down. Their shirt would be untucked in the front, maybe completely untucked. And then they would be chatting with each other, kind of hiding in the back hallways. And the manager would go, is your shift started? Yeah, yeah. Well, it's 3.30. When did your shift start? Three? Okay, what have you guys been doing? Well, nobody told us to do anything. And I'm thinking like, come on, guys. This is some kid stuff.

35:13And we were young, but I think everybody who owns a company has dealt with one or two of these people and grown adults are doing this. And I saw that at the movie theater as well. There'd be a guy in there who's 30 and I'd go, wow, he's doing the same job as me. That's maybe not a great sign. And they would get fired after two days because they'd be sleeping in the theater. and trying to get away with it, or they'd leave and come back, and the manager would go, where have you been? Oh, I was here. Where? And it's like, they have cameras, man. And this is in the 90s, they had cameras. Now, of course, they know where you are.

35:44And it was just like, you guys are not doing it. And I thought, huh. So when I get a real, real job, like an adult job, because I'm 16 at this time, if I show up on time, and I sort of pretend that I'm the owner, what would I do if I was the owner or the manager? I'm going to be at the top 1 % of employees. I love you. That was it. You'd write your own ticket. And it was just like, I just remembered that going into every job that I had after that. And when I started my own company, when I was doing the Jordan Harbinger show, it's like, okay, I am the owner. No one's going to pick up the slack.

36:16And also I have to set the example for everyone else. And I also only want to hire people who do the right thing when nobody's looking. And that's really hard to hire for. It's impossible. It's very much impossible to hire for. So I consider myself extremely lucky because my team, doing the Jordan Harbinger show, my team, they do the right thing when no one's looking. I can maybe in a couple of instances over a decade and change have I been like, did you do this? Oh, no, you know what? I spaced on that. And that you can chuck up to a mistake at some point. Tell me what happened when you left the show that they're not speaking.

36:50Right, right. My previous. And you hung out basically a new shingle, which means you're starting from zero. Yeah. Yeah. So what did your team do at that point? Did you have to just rehire? Yeah. So it was interesting, right? Because I don't expect people to work for free. That's not a thing anybody should expect. In fact, you know those jobs where they tell you that you're all one big family, but then they treat you like crap, everything else they treat you like crap? I didn't want to do that. So it's like, we're going to treat you like family, but I'm also going to pay you. And that's how things are.

37:22So when I left my previous company, guys were like, can I go with you? Because I want to work with you on the new thing. I had to have a really kind of somewhat humiliating talk where I said, so yes, but also I can't afford to pay you for some months. And that sum, that number is completely unknown. And if we fail, I can never afford to pay you. So I don't want to ask you to leave. So what they did was since they were all part-time, they basically are full-time doing whatever you want to count the hours. They kept their previous gig and then they worked for me sort of after hours because they're freelancers, most of them at the time.

38:03And then they would eventually leave or if they had savings, they'd go, eh, I'll just work with you. And I want to say like six or seven months in, my wife, Jen, I go, okay, we're doing okay. It looks like we might survive. We got to make everybody whole. we got to just pay everybody what we would have paid them if we could afford to pay them back then and probably give them a nice Christmas bonus because you know they went out on a limb for us and we did that and it was expensive but you know what it was the coolest thing ever because people basically worked for free because they believed in something that I was creating with them yeah and that's the highest compliment I think anybody can probably pay you but then of course there's a part of me that's like I wonder if I could have just gotten away with anything you know there'll be no money.

38:47But being a scumbag is not exactly something. It's a skill that I have yet to build, I suppose. But it felt great to make everybody whole, man. Those were like the coolest checks I ever signed. Here's$36 ,000 for six months of work that you did that you didn't know. And I didn't say you're going to get paid tomorrow. I was like, just pay everyone. Wow. And people were like, whoa, I just got a bunch of money from you. Like, is this a mistake? Or did Jordan pass away? are you guys okay it was really fun it was just a fun thing to do it's kind of like probably like it is when you go to ed mcmahon used to go to the person's house and hold up the giant oversized check with a million dollars on it that's kind of how it felt well i mean that's awesome i can't it rhymes in a weird way with your departure from wall street with your boss being like ah you know maybe you don't have to keep coming in yeah maybe hoping that you still would like the whole notion of the slow no is one of the great tortures in the universe, especially in an airport, right?

39:45When they push your flight 20 and then 20 and then another 20. That's what happened to me on the way here. Oh, man. It's just talk about uncertainty. Yeah. I'm sure the plane's going to take off. I just don't know that's going to happen today. Yeah. And I would really like to know. It's out there. And then they were like, all right, real talk. We're cleaning up the bathroom. I was like, say no more. I understand. And take your time. Get that right. Do you need any more sanitizer? I got some in my backpack. But I wonder too, like your relationship to debt. Like how do you feel when you owe someone not just money, but something?

40:19Because there are lots of people who sleep like a baby. They've been at debt their whole life. They're so used to it and they don't think they're ever going to get out of it. So they just adjust. That makes me feel itchy. Does that make sense? Totally. It's like an itch that you can't scratch. It's like knowing that you borrowed something from someone and they kind of want it back and it's sitting in your closet times a thousand. When I was first year on Wall Street, I was paying my student loans, which is always fun. You get a really nice reminder of how valuable your education was. Where'd you go?

40:48I went to the University of Michigan Law School and it's a good school, but it's very expensive. And you get paid well on Wall Street, as you might imagine. But if you pay the minimum, your debt is gonna last till you're like 50. And I said, all right, I'm just gonna live on the minimum and put like$12 ,000 a month towards these loans. And then my mom was like, well, I could help you pay off the high interest loans if you pay me back. And my thought was, I really don't want to do that because I'll feel gross about it. And then she ended up giving me a chunk. I put it towards the loans and then I paid my mom back three times as fast as I would have paid those.

41:27I was eating ramen. And my mom, this is how low the bar is for kids these days. I'm 44 now, but back then I was 24. She told all her friends, you know, I lent him money and he paid me back. And her friends were like, oh my God, I can't believe it. So courtly, so old school. And I'm like, well, why would you tell your friends that? That's so weird. And she's like, oh, well, Peg lent this money to her kid and she doesn't even come over for Christmas anymore. And it's like, so my relationship to debt is I don't love it. I understand the function of it. I had to borrow money for law school. educational debt it was significant i think i borrowed what you would normally pay for a home in the 80s to pay for that education that was in a very uncomfortable amount that nobody under the age of 30 should ever be allowed well be allowed quote unquote to borrow because you just don't understand how much money that actually is you'd better be certain yeah you'd better be damn certain you're on the right path exactly i mean it's a big deal but so this is an roi calculation right?

42:29I went to, and people don't think of it this way, but law school is a trade. We don't necessarily label it as such, just like medical school because people go, oh, well, if you're not banging a hammer on something in the beating sun or biting the testicles off a lamb, it's not really a trade. But law and medicine, that is, you pretty much know you're going to get paid back. Now, that's changed a little bit with law and possibly also with medicine, but you have a fighting chance in heck of paying that debt. If you're borrowing$170 ,000 for an English literature degree, and this is where you stopped me because you talked about it on the show a thousand times, you might as well buy a lottery ticket because one of those two things, they have an equal chance of paying off college loans.

43:08You might as well borrow$100 ,000 and buy$100 ,000 worth of lottery tickets. That's right. At that point. I mean, it's not just a bad idea. There are plenty of bad ideas and people make mistakes, but that bad idea is packaged as an investment in your future. Right. It's not even discussed as debt. I mean, the pressure we put on kids to borrow more money than they're ever going to be able to pay back when they are so profoundly uncertain. Absolutely. You're a podcaster by way of a law degree with a pit stop in Wall Street. There's no major for that. No. As you know, studying creative stuff... You could just as easily have not done any of the stuff you've done with the educational background that you have.

43:54I got a communications degree. You could still be selling flex ladders on the home shopping network or whatever it was. I could. Yeah, man. The health team, infrared pain reliever. That's right. Hot damn. So how then do you think about debt forgiveness, student loan forgiveness? Oh, with the current sort of? Yeah. Well, look, is it good to figure out a way to make sure that people aren't crippled by debt? great. But the problem is this does not solve the problem that we have. The problem is college has become a country club where they compete based on amenities and the prowess of the football team or the sports events that you have and how many pools they have on campus instead of, hey, this is going to equip you to get a better job.

44:38I made my decision based on, I was going to go to the cheapest law school. There was one that offered me a full ride and they were very generous with it. And I said, great, I'm going to take a free education. That sounds great. And my dad had me call another lawyer and this friend of his was like, ooh, but if you get into Michigan, you can get a much better job. I didn't know that. I just thought they were all kind of created equal. And I said, how much better? And she told me what people on Wall Street make. And I was like, all righty. This is how the investment pays for itself. So I understand the value of not going into your life when you're 24 with owing more money than you're going to make in the next decade, disposable income.

45:14However, the problem is college costs way too darn much. And then you get educated for a job, as you say, that doesn't exist. That's the problem. So if we're going to take a trillion dollars off the table and put it into something, how about making education sustainable in STEM and making it so that those people can get an education in that and incentivizing people to do that? What we've done instead is just gone, oh, go ahead and study whatever useless crap you want. And we're just going to kind of bail you out later, maybe. What about the incentives? That's terrible. For the universities. I mean, how is forgiving a trillion dollars in debt going to encourage universities to lower their tuition?

45:51Exactly. Now all they're going is, man, we had free government money before, but now it's free for us. And we can sort of sell it as, hey, it's going to be free for you too. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. So you might as well spend as much as possible. And we might as well charge as much as possible. And we can double our tuition. Oh, and by the way, Harvard, 52 billion endowment right now? Yeah. $52 billion. Yeah. But that's on paper, Mike. That's just on paper. Yeah. As a Wall Streeter, I would say paper sounds good to me. Sounds good to me. That works. We take paper around here. Pass the paper. What did you learn on Wall Street, if anything, that was as beneficial or more than those lessons learned scraping up the unmentionable hardened fluids from the floor of darkened theaters?

46:34It was really the power of relationships. And I know that sounds corny, but the truth is the partner that made the most money was never in the office because as it turned out, he brought in all the business to the firm. And so he was more valuable outside the office than inside the office. And that was the gig that I wanted. I was like, how do I, they call them rainmakers. It was like, how do I bring in business? Because that just blew my mind. I was like, do you work from home? He's like, well, sometimes, but really it's like he's playing, what it was, a squash, jujitsu, golf. And I'm thinking, but where's the work taking place?

47:06And he's like, I don't worry about billing 2000 hours a year because if I bring in a client every quarter, I get a fraction of that money. And I was like, this is like, he's like a salesman. And he's like, yeah, I'm kind of like a salesman for the firm. And that just absolutely blew my mind because I'd go in there on Sunday to show my office off to ladies I was dating and be like, yeah, I work in the skyscraper near world trade number two. And there'd be people in there at 10 p.m. on Sunday, 10 p.m. on Saturday. And I'm like, oh, crap, what's he doing here? He's working. Dave wasn't even there on Tuesday at noon.

47:36He was never there. When we tanked, when that firm tanked in 2008, I remember I had a job at SiriusXM doing my show on satellite radio. I'd see him in the elevator and I'd go, oh, hey, you work? He's like, yeah, I'm a partner of it. It's called Sun and Shine. It's a different law firm. And I thought, wow, you brought your book of business. You ended up maybe possibly with a raise or at least an equal level kind of place at this other firm and all these guys that were there on Saturday night trading time for money and billing hours and that was their thing, they retired early because they didn't have anything to fall back on.

48:09And I thought, okay, relationships and connections and having people know, like, and more importantly, trust you to do the right thing and do a good job. Your reputation was like, it's like an insurance policy that you can't buy with any amount of money. And that has lasted with me my whole life. It's like integrity, again, doing the right thing when no one's looking. I almost said when the lights are out. That's a different podcast. Also important. It's very difficult to look when the lights are out. That's right. Unless you're in a darkened theater scraping up fluids. Stop it. Stop it. Just stop it.

48:41You got to get in between the cushions. That really stayed with me forever. Not the fluids, the power of relationship. That really stayed with me forever. And even now, somebody comes to me for help with something, I will introduce them to somebody that can help them with that particular problem, give a little bit of my time. And I know people always have, they take issue with this. They're like, but I can't just help other people all the time. I have to look out for myself. And it's hard to kind of explain this to somebody who's young because I didn't get it at that point either. You are looking out for yourself when you're building strong social capital.

49:14You're investing in your network. You're investing in other people. You are looking out for yourself because if you give help and aid and advice and consult without the expectation, I should say the attachment to anything in return, it doesn't matter if 99 out of those 100 people never help you with anything again because when you're really in it, the one person or the 10 people that come out of the woodwork, those could be life-changing opportunities. Do you worry? You're in the advice business. You're coaching essentially, right? Yeah. I mean that's your real gig, right? Sometimes. Sometimes I give advice on Fridays, Feedback Friday episodes.

49:49Tuesday, Thursday, I'll do an interview with a brilliant personality such as yourself. Too kind. And on Sundays, we do Skeptical Sunday, which is where I say like, hey, bottled water. What's the real deal with this? Or this kind of particular program. Like we'd sort of debunk junk science or get into something like timeshares. And it's like, look at how these work. So you change people's minds. Yes. I'm assuming Shermer was a Sunday guest. Those are kind of like scripted with a collaborator who does a lot of research. Yeah. Schirmer was a regular guest where I read his book and then had him explain, oh God, what was it?

50:21This is a couple of years ago now. Why people believe weird. I think it's why people believe weird things. That's the one that got me in. It's a big one. I mentioned earlier, patternicity and how he was. That was like a Schirmer thing, I believe. So do you worry about, not that you would give cookie cutter advice, but you have a big audience. Yeah. And what's really true and really important for somebody to hear at any given moment might be really antithetical to somebody else who's in the same room. It's true. So like advice is a, you know, it's quite specific. It is very individualistic, but you're not podcasting to individuals.

50:54You're podcasting, you're broadcasting. I look at my relationship with the listeners as in many ways, as a lawyer would look at a relationship to their clients. One fiduciary duty to do the right thing. If you ask me, Hey, do you use this product that you advertise? I have to be able to say yes. So I, unfortunately for my bank account turned down a lot of sponsors where I'm like, this is hot garbage. I'm not going to endorse this. And I'm sure you've done the same thing. And unfortunately, that costs a lot of money because there's a lot of stuff that's willing to pay out the nose for some capsule that says they're going to regrow your hair.

51:30And I'm not putting that in my body. So I won't endorse that. Also though, when somebody writes in and says, I think my sister is going to join this cult or they're stuck in a multi-level marketing scam, I give that person direct, customized advice. And we put it on the show. You'd be surprised. Maybe you wouldn't be. But I was surprised at how many people have a roughly analogous situation in their lives. When you have an audience of a certain size, there's a thousand people that have a sister who's joining a multi-level marketing scam. And maybe the minutiae are not quite the same in terms of the circumstances.

52:03but the general advice that you give, even though it's very specific advice for that person, applies in many ways to those same situations. And so I look at that as my relationship. I know Mike is a big fan of the free market, and to honor that, here are some commercials. We'll be right back. If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is to take a moment and support the amazing sponsors who make this show possible. All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support this podcast are searchable and clickable over at jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

52:33You can also ask our AI chatbot, which is sort of always new and improved, but it's definitely for real new and improved this time. That's over at jordanharbinger.com slash AI. And hey, if you can't find something or the AI bot's giving you guff or it's just not working for you and you can't find it, email me jordan at jordanharbinger.com. I am happy to surface those codes for you because it is that important that you support those who support the show. Now for the rest of my conversation with Mike Rowe. I wrote about it in my book. But the business of being conned, the whole Madoff thing as a Wall Street guy, that must have really chapped your ass.

53:07And I've been in multi-level organizations. I've made some money. Like multi-level marketing organizations? I have. Really? Yeah. I sold, there's a company called NSA, and it's not the National Security Agency. It's the National Safety Associates. And they make water purifiers. And they make all different sizes. These little thermos size things. They make big ones for your house. But I think they were out of Nashville, somewhere in the south. And they – it's a huge organization and it's all built on a pyramid. But I like the product. There was a lot of chlorine in the water in Baltimore. And you could really smell it.

53:41You could smell it. It's like Michigan. Yep. Simple charcoal filter with a little silver stuff added to purify it and whatnot. Anyway, it made my water taste good. So I just – I got into the organization just to retail the product because the wholesale difference was significant. Sure. And I made money doing that. And then some friends came in and they made some money. But yeah, you peel back the layers and there are a lot of people who really are just moving thousands of water purifiers from one garage to another. That's right. And if you do the math on an MLM, I've done whole episodes about multi-level marketing.

54:12Yeah. If you do the math, after like X number, like a single digit number of layers, you just run out of people on earth that you can sell this thing to. Quickly. Very quickly. The airplane game. Yeah. Yes. Oh, the airplane game. I've heard of this too. Yeah. And it's just you think, who's doing this? What kind of nonsense is this? And they're preying on desperate people in many ways. Well, in many cases, but not dumb people in a classic sense. Greedy people, for sure. Impatient people. That's for sure. For sure. People who can tolerate huge levels of uncertainty. Yeah. For sure. I will say one thing that really disillusioned me for the multi-level marketing thing.

54:47There was the math, right? The math didn't work. What really caused me to investigate it, though, was when guys would write in and go, hey, I love your show. I run this company. And I'd look at it and I'd go, oh, it's multi-level marketing. It's not for me. And they would go, all right, here's what we're going to do. We're actually going to put you at the top of this thing. And all these people are, and I go, but isn't the whole thing, like you have to recruit and they're like, but you don't have to do that. And I go, all right, but all the people that were at the top before, they had to do all that work.

55:14And I'm just like above them because I have this large audience. And they're like, exactly. And I thought to myself, if you can just do it like that, and it's totally unfair to those people, that's not really honest in any way, shape, or form. No, of course not. I'm just getting paid for doing nothing, and they're like, oh, but you're not doing nothing. You're lending us your credibility. And I was like, oh, that's really gross. I definitely don't want to do that. Yeah. That's the problem. Yeah, you said the quiet part out loud. Yeah, you're going to use me to scam other people. That's like the worst thing I could possibly do to my reputation, speaking of the power of relationships.

55:47It's the worst thing you can do for your reputation. Well, look, I mean, last thing I want to do is make, unnecessary problems for us, Chuck. Well, look, I make my living in advertising. Oh, yeah. Well, same here. I mean, I sold out before I had anything to bargain with. QVC was the ultimate. I got my start in TV on a 24-hour commercial. I understand the transactional reality of things. And I personally find it adorable when actors will refuse to associate themselves with uh who was it i think it was bill peterson who's a great what great actor years ago and i met like ncis or one of those shows he's in a shot and the chevy pulls up oh right right right and the camera actually tilts down just a little bit to hit the logo on the grill and bill was like what the hell's going on here and they were like well it's just nothing bill sorry he was you know chevy's a sponsor and and he's like well i'm not gonna have anything to do with this and it was like well that's weird yeah but you know the sponsors are paying the network and we're paying you and and look if that's too much you know i mean we can we'll do the shot again but he's like no i'm not going to be anywhere in this shot if that truck's in the shot right so integrity right but come on man you're in commercial television right i don't understand his argument right because the difference between commercial being in commercial television being in a commercial is no different.

57:13Sorry, it's not. And so it's interesting where you make your stand. And in podcast Landia, I've struggled a little bit because it seems like the entire ecosystem is fueled by a certain kind of call to action. Yeah. There's direct to consumer. That's right. In seconds, you'll hear an ad and I'm going to invite you to go somewhere and there'll be a promo code like Mike. Now, I don't mind it because people need to know how they're doing, but I'm curious for you, how did you navigate that world? And I know you only work with sponsors that you use. Yes. Same here, but how do you find them? Do you approach them?

57:54My network does all that. Podcast One does all the sales. I mean, brands also approach me and say, will you do this? And I would say it's 50-50. I have a nice little carve out where I can do direct deals with certain sponsors at a certain volume. A lot of the ones that don't go through my network are also like, hey, if you do this, we'll pay you a commission on this. And I'm not fully comfortable with that. One, because you lose sales if they don't use the code Jordan or whatever. But two, now they can't tell if I'm telling the truth about the thing because I have to sell the thing hard to get them to use it.

58:22If you pay me a flat fee and somebody doesn't go and buy that level of insurance, okay. I mean, sorry that didn't work for you, but I got another sponsor in the pipeline. Sure. No skin off my nose. But if I only get paid if I tell you that this pill is going to do something to your nether regions. Because it did it for mine. Because it did it for mine even though I didn't take it but you're offering me a lot of money to say that I did. I draw the line on things like that. Good for you. You got kidnapped a couple times. I did, yeah. That's always fun. Yeah. Third time's the charm. It's only been twice so far.

58:50Knock, knock. Chuck's hating that I'm opening this door this late in the show but I'd be remiss if I didn't ask. Did you learn anything from getting kidnapped other than it's probably not great. Yeah. Avoid it. It's funny. The first time, this is kind of right up your alley, I think. The first time it was in Mexico and I was 20 years old, I got into a taxi that turned out to, it was either a real taxi that was kidnapping me or a fake taxi that was kidnapping me. Didn't really sort that out at the end of the day. But the only reason that I ended up not probably getting either taken to a bunch of bank ATMs to withdraw money and or chopped up into little pieces in a basement in Mexico City was because there were no mobile phones at this time.

59:26This is the year 2000. I mean, people had them, but I sure didn't. I was 20 years old. Cabbie didn't have it. So I didn't distract myself looking at social media. I remember looking out the window and going, am I being kidnapped right now? I can't open the door. The guy won't stop the car. I'm pretty sure I'm being kidnapped right now. And my mind goes, well, this has never happened to you before. Why would it be happening now? Well, that's not really a good argument. Pattern is saying. And I thought, I should probably do something about this. Try to open the door. It doesn't work. Convince the guy to stop.

59:54It doesn't work. if I'd had my phone with me, I would have gone, I'm just going to look at Instagram for the next 20 minutes. And then when they stop, I'll figure it out then because this is uncomfortable. And now whenever I don't want to think about something because it's uncomfortable, or I don't want to do this sort of internal math or the soul searching or whatever it is that is required, I find myself reaching for my phone or wanting to call someone or checking my email. And I go, oh, I'm doing that thing where I'm avoiding this uncomfortable feeling because I have to make a real call here, that's my signal to leave my phone at home and go for a walk and go, okay, I need to work this thing out in my brain.

1:00:34I need my brain to have no choice but to do this. And you make some pretty difficult decisions doing that, whether it's letting someone go or signing a big deal or having a third kid or whatever it is. If you just distract yourself constantly, which our brains love to do, right? Then we will never be able to make those decisions. properly. How'd you get out of the car? What happened was, like I said, he wouldn't stop. I couldn't open the door because he had trimmed the lock so that when you locked it, it fell below the window and you can't get your fingers there. I don't know if this car had a child lock or if he'd installed something where just the handle was disconnected.

1:01:10So when he finally stopped and I knew we weren't where I was supposed to go, because I want to go to the center of Mexico City. There's lights, there's a presidential palace and a statue. This was a neighborhood with cinder block houses with no roofs half the time. So when he stopped, I said, don't get out of the car. And I was 20 and all I was doing was eating carne asada and working out at the gym twice a day. And this guy was probably 50 something and all he was doing was sitting in his cabin eating food, junk food. I slid over behind him and I put my arm between him and the door and he didn't notice that.

1:01:36I said, don't get out of the car, just drive somewhere else. Cause I knew this was the place where no one can hear you scream. I'm like, nothing good happens here. He's going to go out and get his friends or I'm going to get dragged out. Then he made a fast one for the door because again, he didn't know my arm was there. And so I just leaned my chest up against the back of the seat and reached this arm around his nose with my forearm and this arm around his mouth with my forearm. And I just squeezed as hard as I could. And he eventually passed out. And then - Choked him out. I choked him out through a car seat, which actually I've tried to sort of reenact this with friends.

1:02:09Like, hey, just for fun, car's not moving. Chuck, can I get a ride back to - Yeah, quick ride. That's how this episode ends. But then I still couldn't get out of the car. So I have to figure out how to do that. So I opened the door and I try to squeeze between these two seats, the passenger seat and the driver's seat, and I have to push this guy out of the car. And then I try to drive the car, but it's a stick shift and it was also an old car. So not only is it a stick shift, which I wasn't used to at the time, but every old car has a trick, right? Like, oh, you got to wiggle the clutch this way.

1:02:40And if you do it up and down instead of left and right, the thing won't shift. And when you're vibrating with adrenaline dump in a conflict situation - And you're in Mexico City. And you don't know where you're going anyways. So I took the keys out of the car and just chucked them so that when he wakes up in 30 seconds, he can't just drive after me and run me over. and I ran and ran and ran at least, I would say, a mile before hitting a major-ish road where, of course, nobody's going to stop because I'm this white dude with short hair in Mexico City. And at the time, I think I had a blonde streak in my hair because it was 1999 or 2000.

1:03:15That was cool. And I'm wearing Banana Republic chinos. Was it cool? Thanks, Chuck. Is that recording? Do we know? We'll find out later. And I'm wearing like Banana Republic chinos and a blue button down shirt. And I'm sweating through this thing because of anxiety and the fact that I just ran a mile. So people are driving by and you can just almost hear him go, hell no, I'm not taking this guy. No, not that guy. Not out here. And then finally this guy stops and is like, what are you doing? And I said, I got kidnapped by a taxi. And I was like, I'll ride in the trunk. Just get me out of here. And he didn't want to.

1:03:48And that's how you got kidnapped the second time.

1:03:53this is not your day gringo this is not your lucky day that's funny i man that's good chuck you're on fire man um oh god i wish this was recording yeah if only we'd hit record on this podcast the guy didn't make me ride in the trunk i got in the car turned out to be a doctor and he's like are you hurt and i said no and i said take me to the police because he's like where do you want to go i was like the police he was like let me explain something you don't want to go there. You just told me that you possibly killed a cab driver and you're foreign and this guy tried to kidnap you, but you're not totally sure.

1:04:27And you don't know if he got up or if he's still laying where you put him. I don't think you want to go to the cops and tell him that story. Additionally, this is Mexico. It's very possible that that guy either was a cop or that the cops know about this and that they're just going to drive you back here. Your best case scenario is getting arrested for whatever happened. Your worst case scenario is, so he goes, if I'm you, just get out of here and i was like all right so he drove me to a metro station i went back to where i was living packed all my stuff and i left i moved i've never been back to mexico city if this is 24 years hence through the podcast and doing the jordan harbinger show i've met like the dea liaison to something and i'm like can you check something for me is my name showing up in any kind of databases of things in me so thankfully not which hopefully means the guy just woke up and was like, wow, that was the wrong guy to nab.

1:05:20And that's the end of the story. Wow. You dodged a bullet, obviously. Yeah. Maybe literally, in fact, in this case. So do you think of it often? Does it inform conscious decisions today? Well, I would say with the phone thing, the distracting myself from difficult decisions, that's the sort of daily takeaway. I would say when I get into an Uber, I'm not like, huh, does this dorm? Can I tuck and roll if I need to? Right. Because we're in a different place. The app knows where I am. There's safety things. And usually the lady driving, Consuela driving the Uber is not in a position to probably fight me off.

1:05:56Don't judge, man. You never know. So I don't live in fear because of that. I don't think anybody should. But I will tell you, I've been to Mexico since after I've made sure I wasn't going to end up getting arrested at the airport. and I do use like a driver that I hire. That's a person who is trusted by somebody else. I don't just like jump in random cars like you do when you're 20 and hope that it's actually a taxi. Yeah, back when you thought you were truly bulletproof and it'll never happen. It'll just never happen to me. That was one of those moments where I was like, oh, I'm not the main character in whatever movie I think this is.

1:06:29I could actually die. I remember this very thought where I go, you know when you think you're going to rise to the level of your expectations. That's not really what's going to happen here. You're going to fall to the level of your training or habit. And if your habit is reaching for the phone and going, I'm probably not getting kidnapped, that would be weird. Who gets kidnapped in a car? That's what's really going to happen. So I had that moment where I was like, no skydiving, probably should be really careful about walking around dangerous areas at night. I grew up in a sort of uncomfortable way, I think, that weekend.

1:07:02Well, this is how we land the plane. We end where we began with the incident that probably did more to inform your thoughts on uncertainty than anything else. Because even in a foreign country, that patternicity that Shermer talks about, it's so rooted in us that even though we're surrounded by new things, it's still never going to happen to us. That's right. It's never going to happen. And when it does, you're right. You're not the star of the show. Well, or maybe you're not the hero. It makes you think, huh, okay, so if that happened to me, maybe I should not smoke things or eat bad things all the time or drink too much.

1:07:42Because if that can happen to me, that means all these other negative outcomes that weren't ever going to happen to me are on the table. Every single thing is always on the table. Yeah. You can be certain of that. listen i mean i feel terrible not asking you about your second kidnapping experience but when you come back on the show that's right what you're gonna do yeah absolutely we'll start up i would love to start there that's what we call a tease my friends by the way how many podcasts have you been a guest on at this point oh i should figure this out i actually have no idea it's got to be in the hundreds obviously this is the best one but i don't know the number be serious how are we doing good i mean my feeling is because again this is not the big rock in my world but i'm right I still struggle with this.

1:08:24You've got such sides. You've got sides on your podcast. You've got a purpose. And I think I kind of do because I kind of tried to have a conversation about work ethic and debt. I tried to slip that in there. Yeah, I like that. But fundamentally, it's either a conversation or it's an interview. This is a conversation which I appreciate. I do conversational interviews and I don't know, I haven't really gotten into the philosophy of like, is this more of a conversation or more of an interview? And people who write in have different opinions, right? Sure. Aside from that whole maybe not hitting the record thing, I think this went pretty well.

1:08:55And the bowel movement you had. I didn't want to be too specific, but you were gone long enough. Someone's going to have to break that thing up with a plunger. That's right. So it's big boy in there right now. Taylor, when you get back, could you, there's a plunger and just, we got a harbinger in aisle two. We got a big harbinger. Look at the size of that harbinger.

1:09:15This episode is sponsored by, I probably shouldn't say what we're going to have for lunch. Fiber. it's chipotle folks it's a short-term rental i would say your side hustle is my main uh stable of income so that must be nice for you i'm still waiting for my tv show on discovery you know what i mean anybody can get one that's what that's what it looks like i'm telling you it ain't that hard it ain't that hard hey you were terrific. Thank you for coming by. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Really good fun. Chuck, we're going to have to let you go. All right. Not this week, maybe next week, folks.

1:09:57Tune in and see what happens. See you. Bye. You're about to hear a preview trailer of our interview with Mike Rowe, host of Discovery's Dirty Jobs and Returning the Favor, on why the advice, follow your passion, is complete BS. Follow your passion as a bromide is precisely what 98 % of the people do who audition for American Idol. And they're lined up. Thousands of people who have been told, if you believe something deeply enough, and if you want something bad enough, and if you truly embrace the essence of persistence, and your passion, if you let your passion lead you, stick with it. Well, following your passion is terrific advice if the passion is taking you to a place where opportunity and your own set of skills will be able to coexist.

1:10:47Passion is something that all of the dirty jobbers that I met possessed in spades. They just weren't doing anything that looked aspirational. So it was confusing. So the guy in a plaid shirt sipping a cappuccino, that doesn't make sense. Well, guess what? Neither does a septic tank cleaner worth a million dollars. That guy had a million dollar business? I actually counted them up once. I could be wrong by a couple, but I put over 40 people that we featured on Dirty Jobs as multimillionaires. Passion isn't the enemy. It's just not the thing you want pulling the train. But look, I don't say don't follow your passion.

1:11:28I say never follow your passion, but always bring it with you. For more with Mike Rowe, including a behind-the-scenes look at some of his shows, and why we shouldn't view a blue-collar career pursuit as a cautionary tale, Check out episode 264 right here on The Jordan Harbinger Show. Once again, thanks to Mike for having this conversation and my friend Chuck over there, his producer. You guys are awesome. And thank you for letting me post this on my own feed. I know. I really appreciate that. I love this conversation. All things Mike Rowe will be in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com. Advertisers, deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

1:12:05Please consider supporting those who support the show. Also, our newsletter, Wee Bit Wiser. I'd love it if you check it out. The idea behind the newsletter is to give you something specific and practical that'll have an immediate impact on your decisions, your psychology, your relationships in under two minutes. It's really a quick read. We do that on purpose. And if you haven't signed up yet, I invite you to come check it out. It is a great companion to the show. JordanHarbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. Don't forget about 6 Minute Networking as well over at 6MinuteNetworking.com.

1:12:33I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. in. And this show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogerty, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for this show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. So if you know a Mike Rowe fan or somebody who would love this conversation, definitely share this episode with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn.

1:13:02And we'll see you next time.

1:13:07Thank you.