244 How to Write a Story That Never Gets Old with Phil Rosenthal

"Your name is all you have." - Phil Rosenthal If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/244 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 244 with the creator of Everybody Loves Raymond, Phil Rosenthal. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:34Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone. But before we get into the episode, I had the pleasure of sitting down with an incredible human being. His name is Phil Rosenthal, and he's an American television writer and producer who is best known as the creator, writer, and executive producer for the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, which ran for nine seasons and is still on TV all over the world. He has had 70 Emmy nominations for his show and won two Emmys. Also, an author and currently producing a new show, all have what Phil's having. You're going to want to make sure you watch the show because it's really awesome and come

• 1:12Lewis Howes?

  back to the show notes at lewishouse.com/244 so you can watch a video of what I was having with Phil also. You can watch the full video interview there. Top five things you're going to learn from this episode. Why Phil recommends that actors take writing classes and directors take acting classes. Also, why they decided to stop writing Everybody Loves Raymond while it was still at its popular peak. How young people are making the cheap urban neighborhoods cool through their creativity. Phil's best tips for writing an amazing screenplay for all you screenplay writers out there. And how Phil got himself to write 210 episodes of the same show.

• 1:54Lewis Howes?

  I'm very excited about this, so let's go ahead and dive into this episode with the one, the only, Phil Rosenthal.

• 2:03Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness Podcast. We've got a very special guest, Phil Rosenthal in the house. How's it going?

• 2:09Speaker 01

  It's good. I can't believe I'm in the School of Greatness.

• 2:11Lewis Howes?

  School of Greatness. This is the studio. Here we go.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  Wow. Can we lower the expectations a little bit?

• 2:16Lewis Howes?

  We can.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  School of Okainess?

• 2:18Lewis Howes?

  School of Average, yeah. But there's nothing you've done that's been average.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Oh, you're very nice.

• 2:23Lewis Howes?

  And Gary Vaynerchuk's mutual friend introduced us.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  He's the force of nature.

• 2:27Lewis Howes?

  He's a force. He emailed me and said, "You've got to have this guy on." I never heard about you until he mentioned you and then I researched and I was like, "How have I not heard about you?" I've heard about the work you've done.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:36Lewis Howes?

  The creator of Everybody Loves Raymond, right?

• 2:38Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 2:38Lewis Howes?

  And that was... Is that still on?

• 2:41Speaker 01

  It's on everywhere.

• 2:42Lewis Howes?

  It's on everywhere. But how many years has it been? How many seasons now?

• 2:45Speaker 01

  Well, we did nine seasons.

• 2:46Lewis Howes?

  Nine seasons.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  And we've been actually, we finished almost 10 years ago and it's still on.

• 2:52Lewis Howes?

  So I feel like it's still running.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  That's called syndication.

• 2:54Lewis Howes?

  That's called nice paychecks.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  It's nice, but more than that, it's all over the world.

• 3:00Lewis Howes?

  All over the place.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  And even there are countries that are doing it in their own versions. Like, I went to Russia to help them turn it into Everybody Loves Kostya.

• 3:10Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  And I filmed the whole thing and it's a documentary, I made a documentary about it. And it just started this month on Netflix. You can see it on Netflix. It's called Exporting Raymond.

• 3:20Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  And it's actually that that PBS saw and said, "We want to do more with you."

• 3:26Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it led to this new show.

• 3:29Lewis Howes?

  And the new show is called I'll Have What Phil's Having.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:32Lewis Howes?

  And tell me a little bit about it because it's different than what you've ever done.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Yes. I mean, this is something I've done in my whole life. Yes.

• 3:38Lewis Howes?

  But you've never created a show like this.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Never.

• 3:42Lewis Howes?

  So what is happening? It's every Monday night right now.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, on PBS.

• 3:46Lewis Howes?

  On PBS.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  And then it's, and then after the night it premieres, you can see it online on pbs.org. And you can, so everything's available to everybody all the time.

• 3:54Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 3:55Speaker 01

  Soon, you know, the Apple Watch just came out. And what it's missing is what the phone has, that you can actually see the person you're talking to and watch TV show. You know, you're too young to know who Dick Tracy was, right? You know who he was. But he had a watch with the with the video phone in it. "I'll be right there," talking into their wrist. "I'll be right there."

• 4:17Lewis Howes?

  It's happening. It's happening, yeah.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Your phone, your TV, and your computer are all becoming one thing.

• 4:25Lewis Howes?

  And your probably your wallet will be on there.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 4:28Lewis Howes?

  Car key.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:30Lewis Howes?

  Tap the car and it opens up.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  I was talking to somebody this morning and saying, "We are now half-human, half-phone."

• 4:36Lewis Howes?

  Right? When our phones are connected to us 24/7.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  We're bionic.

• 4:41Lewis Howes?

  Do you have yours right by your bed?

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Look, I have it right here. Look.

• 4:43Lewis Howes?

  Do you have it by your bed and you're like?

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Yes, I do.

• 4:46Lewis Howes?

  Can you reach out and touch it?

• 4:46Speaker 01

  Yes, you know why? Because I'm sick. I have an addiction problem. Am I alone out there?

• 4:52Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  I think some of us maybe have this, right? "Put the phone down." "Look at the, look at me."

• 4:58Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, yeah. So what are you gonna do about it? Are you gonna start putting the phone in the other room when you go to sleep?

• 5:03Speaker 01

  I'll do what everybody else does. Nothing about it. I'll just live this way. I'll accept that I'm half-phone, half-human.

• 5:09Lewis Howes?

  And what's your wife do? Does she have?

• 5:12Speaker 01

  She's busy on her phone.

• 5:13Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:14Lewis Howes?

  So when you guys are in bed at night, are you both?

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Yes, it's replaced other activities in the bed.

• 5:20Lewis Howes?

  But eventually you set it down and have fun. And connect.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  All right.

• 5:26Lewis Howes?

  So, so tell me exactly what's happening during your show.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Okay, so, they asked me, they saw me in this exporting Raymond movie. They, they saw me go to Russia. They, they said, "We like that movie. We like you in the movie." "Do you have, uh, do you have any ideas? We like the idea of you going places." I said, "So does my wife."

• 5:45Lewis Howes?

  Not with her, getting away from her.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  She wants me out of the house, I think. So, I said, "Yeah, I've had this fantasy where I go to a different great spot." Every episode of a show.

• 5:57Lewis Howes?

  Different city?

• 5:58Speaker 01

  Different city, a different great place on earth. Every episode, and I show you where to eat as a way of connecting to different cultures, right? They say, "We've been looking for a food and travel show with humor." For years.

• 6:13Lewis Howes?

  Cause it's all been serious or.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:16Lewis Howes?

  Or maybe a little playful but not.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Well, they've done like cooking shows and then they do very straight laced kind of travelogue shows.

• 6:23Lewis Howes?

  Like Anthony Bourdain and.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Well, Anthony Bourdain is like a super.

• 6:26Lewis Howes?

  He's next level, yeah.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  He's next level. He's like.

• 6:28Lewis Howes?

  Great writer and.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, my joke is that I'm exactly like Anthony Bourdain if he was afraid of everything.

• 6:34Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  So I'm very.

• 6:36Lewis Howes?

  He'll try everything.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  Well, not only that, he's going to Beirut, he's getting shot at, you know, he's doing daredevil stuff.

• 6:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Look at me. I'm not doing that, right? I love him. I live vicariously through him when I watch him. But I figure people look at me on the screen, they go, well, if that putz can go outside, maybe I can too. And that's my whole reason for doing it. I want people to get off the couch and not live vicariously through me, but to have what I'm having. I'll have what Phil's having. I wanna go. I can. If that guy can do it, I can do it. And I'm starting with Tokyo, Italy, Paris, Barcelona, Hong Kong, and Los Angeles, right?

• 7:23Speaker 01

  This to me is, since I'm trying to entice you, why not start with Earth's greatest hits?

• 7:29Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  These are some of the best places on earth. They're not all the best places. I got a lot more seasons to do.

• 7:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's great.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  I'm telling people it's a, it's a big world out there. Somebody's gotta eat it.

• 7:38Lewis Howes?

  Sure. I like that. I like that.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  So that's the idea is to, cause I really think the world, wouldn't the world be a little bit better? If we, all of us got outside our own experiences, just a little bit to experience someone else's experience. That's the show. That's all I wanna do. And for me, food and humor are the way in.

• 7:57Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  That's the entertainment part.

• 7:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I like that.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  And the message comes from under that.

• 8:01Lewis Howes?

  So you've had, you know, an incredible life so far, you know, with all the things you've done with everybody.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Are you saying I should stop already?

• 8:07Lewis Howes?

  No, I'm saying it's, it's just beginning, right?

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:10Lewis Howes?

  And you, I think you won two Emmys, is that right? You're nominated for 10 or 11 or something like, I lost count.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Do you want me to tell you the real numbers?

• 8:18Lewis Howes?

  Tell me the real numbers.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  The show was nominated for over seven. The Emmys.

• 8:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Right?

• 8:24Lewis Howes?

  Wikipedia needs to update itself then.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Well, if you're talking about me personally, yeah, I won personally two.

• 8:30Lewis Howes?

  Yourself, got you.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  But the show won a lot more.

• 8:32Lewis Howes?

  Wow, seventy nominated for.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:34Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  It's amazing.

• 8:35Lewis Howes?

  Has any other show been nominated that many times?

• 8:37Speaker 01

  Oh, sure, there's lots of shows. Modern Family, I'm sure, has passed us many times. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:41Lewis Howes?

  Shows you how much I know about shows.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  That's all right. It's not about the Emmys, really. That's like a horse race, that's like a contest. I, I, I would rather they say, these are our favorite shows of the year. Here's a show where we celebrate these shows, we show you clips, people get up and talk a little bit about those shows. But that wouldn't be a, a bloodthirst sport, right?

• 9:03Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  That wouldn't be, that, we need some, we need a winner, we need a loser.

• 9:07Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right, right, or a second place, or whatever you know. Okay, so nominated for seventy, you were nominated for ten or eleven yourself, and you won two.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  That I don't know.

• 9:14Lewis Howes?

  Don't know, but you won two.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  That, those I know because they're in my house.

• 9:18Lewis Howes?

  So you have two?

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Yes, two sharp, pointy things that could kill you. I have on a high shelf because I, I had small children when we got these, and you can't let them play with that, that fills themselves.

• 9:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What gave you the inspiration for creating the show in the first place?

• 9:30Speaker 01

  I was a writer, I started at first as an actor in high school and college, that's what I studied. But at college, I got a kind of well-rounded education, which I recommend to everybody. If you're in a certain field, like if you were a football player, and you knew your position. Didn't it help you to know some of the other positions around you?

• 9:49Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Not just the other offensive positions, but the defense, you know what's coming at you.

• 9:56Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  All right, so, if you know that, it makes you better at your thing.

• 10:00Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  They're all branches off the same tree. So for me, and I tell this to actors, take a writing class. If you're a director, right, take an acting class. Because when you're in that situation, doesn't it help to know what the other guy's thinking? Mainly because, in my field, I'm not hitting the other people like you. I'm talking to them. And I'm trying to make it clear what I need. So this applies, I think, to everything in life. Understand the other person. Exactly. What they do, and how it relates to what you wanna do. We don't live in a bubble, where it's just me, and my thing, and what I want. That's the mistake we make. But the smart guy sees the other things, and applies it to what he wants to do. I love that.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  And, by the way, you never know. So here I was, studying acting, thinking, that's what I'm gonna do. And then the writing came along. How'd it come along? Some actors who were in school with me, and I, were starving to death. Yeah, no jobs. No jo- you know, I mean, we were bartenders, we were waiters, we were the usual thing that you... I was a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Wow. Where I was fired for falling asleep on a 300-year-old bed. Wow. How's that for your greatness? Wow. Amazing, good story. Good. You gotta start somewhere. You gotta start somewhere. By the way, let me tell you something. When I started writing, I needed a story, like, what are you gonna write? For a sitcom, like, they call it a spec script. Something you write for free, on spec. Yeah.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  That you then send around, it's your audition, it's your writing sample, right? So I'm with a partner at the time, his name was Oliver Goldstick, still his name. And, uh, he, he and I were thinking, like, what could we write about? There's a show on called Roseanne, at this time, in the late 80s, what are we gonna write? Well, how about this, how about the husband takes a second job as a night guard at the local museum, and he falls asleep on a 300-year-old bed? And we wrote that, my exact story. And people around town are reading this, they're going, what an imagination on this guy, right? So you never know where the good thing comes from. Here it was at the time when I'm fired. This is the most embarrassing moment of my life. This is, I'm a loser.

• 12:14Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  I can't even hold a job that pays a hundred and eighty dollars a week.

• 12:18Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  Right? I'm dead. Who knew? That was my ticket in. From that script, we got an agent.

• 12:24Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  From that script, we got hired on our first sitcom.

• 12:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  Right? And from there, it went.

• 12:31Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:31Lewis Howes?

  And what was the, um, what was the first job you got? What was the first show that was your own from, from after that?

• 12:37Speaker 01

  Everybody Loves Raymond.

• 12:38Lewis Howes?

  That was the first show?

• 12:39Speaker 01

  That was mine. And I worked on five or six other shows before that.

• 12:42Lewis Howes?

  As a writer?

• 12:43Speaker 01

  Working for other people. Yes. Oh, I have to go back for a second because I was telling you that we were actors. Some actor friends of mine got together and wrote a show for ourselves to be in. You see?

• 12:54Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  That was the transition of writing. At the same time, another friend of mine, this was luck, came to me and said, you're funny. Let's write a screenplay together.

• 13:04Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  And we did, and we sold it.

• 13:06Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  And suddenly I went from having a hundred and fifty dollars in the bank to having thirty thousand dollars.

• 13:14Lewis Howes?

  Right, like just like that.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  I went from a hundred air to a thousand air. I was now a thousand air.

• 13:19Lewis Howes?

  A thousand air.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Right?

• 13:20Lewis Howes?

  It's a big step from a hundred air.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  Well, I went from eating.

• 13:22Lewis Howes?

  You're rich.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  I went from eating pizza and hot dogs for dinner to eating whatever I wanted.

• 13:26Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  And so I liked that.

• 13:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  And so I thought, maybe I pursue the writing a little bit if I want to keep eating well.

• 13:32Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Right?

• 13:33Lewis Howes?

  And how old were you when you did the, uh, when you got fired from the job?

• 13:36Speaker 01

  That was, I was twenty one. And from then, till I was twenty nine, before I moved to Hollywood, okay? I had these odd jobs. And, and I was twenty seven when we wrote the show for ourselves to be in and wrote the screenplay. Nineteen eighty-eight, that was, I was twenty-eight. And then, you know, this stuff started happening. But there are these years of struggle. Now, these years of struggle, since we're on the Greatness Podcast. This is the crucible. These twenties, when you're after college.

• 14:08Lewis Howes?

  Hungry.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  Where you realize you've now graduated with a degree that's good for nothing.

• 14:13Lewis Howes?

  Nothing.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  These are jobs that you're gonna have where you feel like a loser.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  Isn't that everything? That's everything. The struggle, the wanting to make it, the being young enough and having, having energy enough. It hits you at the right time in your life. You don't realize it then. If I could go back and talk to my younger self, I would say, "Don't worry.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  This is, this suffering that you're having right now, this struggle that you're having right now is actually gonna make you." Listen, if you're gonna write about, for instance, if you're gonna write about real life, you should have one.

• 14:49Lewis Howes?

  You gotta have the struggle. No one wants to hear a story about everyone having it smooth all the way through. There's gotta be conflict.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  There is no story.

• 14:55Lewis Howes?

  There's no.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  "I woke up, I had no conflict, I had no problems."

• 14:59Lewis Howes?

  "I achieved everything I wanted with no struggle."

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:02Lewis Howes?

  There's no story.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  There's no story.

• 15:03Lewis Howes?

  So you have to have the struggle in order to have the story.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  It actually, not just the story. It makes you who you're going to be. You don't realize it at the time. I will say this, though. I, I will say that being young and living in New York, when New York, actually in the eighties, if you're as old as me, if you lived in New York at the eighties, it wasn't as nice as it is now. It was kinda run down.

• 15:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  There were things failing all over the place.

• 15:29Lewis Howes?

  And you weren't living in SoHo and West Village. You were probably living in Harlem or something.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. Which, and by the way, a nice part of Washington Heights where my grandparents settled after World War II.

• 15:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  They called it Frankfurt on the Hudson.

• 15:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  Right? And it was, it was kind of a nice neighborhood that nobody knew about. The rents were really cheap. It was just a 15-minute express train ride to Midtown.

• 15:50Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  Now, people go, "Now that's already gentrified and it's a fantastic neighborhood in Manhattan." Now people are living out in Queens.

• 15:58Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Because Brooklyn's already been gentrified. Brooklyn's already happening. More than expensive than Manhattan. Because it's where all the hipsters live. That's where all the hip... And there's a Brooklynization going on all over the world.

• 16:08Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy, man.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Where young people... Out of necessity are going to where the cheap rents are and using their creativity and and need, they're making it and making the place better.

• 16:20Lewis Howes?

  Cooler, artistic, interesting, yeah.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Great food, for example. You walk down the street in Brooklyn, it's like Disneyland for food, right?

• 16:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 16:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  And I, when I travel now, like for the show.

• 16:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  I'm seeing a neighborhood like that in every city I go to.

• 16:35Lewis Howes?

  I like that.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Because the young people are coming in and they're doing what they have to do to make it. And that's how the world is.

• 16:42Lewis Howes?

  In order to make it, you gotta create something cool, something that other people want, that's, you know.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  We do it out of necessity.

• 16:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  And my point is about my self-realization at that time.

• 16:51Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  And I'm thinking of our friend Gary Vaynerchuk.

• 16:54Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  I wonder if he would agree with this. You have to, you have to at least be happy about the fact that you live in a place where you get to pursue happiness, right? The pursuit of happiness.

• 17:10Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  This is major. If you live in another country, for example.

• 17:14Lewis Howes?

  You don't get this choice.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Or maybe you live in another part of the US where you're gonna do what your dad did. Or you're gonna be in an arranged marriage. Or you're gonna be whatever we tell you to be.

• 17:24Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Or your, your social class prohibits you from achieving what you're able to achieve in this country, in this place, in New York City, for example. I actually reminded myself at that time, as I was struggling. I'm happy because I get to pursue what I want.

• 17:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  I get to be like a real person out there. I'm not in school, they're not telling me what to do. I'm not doing homework that I don't like or understand. I get to, and I understand that, yes, you wanted to be in show business? Yes, you're gonna have the terrible job as well? Okay, I'm willing to do it. Why? I get to pursue being in show business.

• 18:04Lewis Howes?

  And it's fun and it's interesting.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  And it's fun.

• 18:06Lewis Howes?

  It's what you wanna do.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  It's what I always wanted to do when I was a kid. And I love every aspect now of the business. I always have. I love the acting, performing, writing, directing, editing, producing even. I love every aspect of the business, except the business. The business is terrible.

• 18:22Lewis Howes?

  The creating the deals, the politics, everything.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  The politics of people and and networks' agendas, which aren't necessarily

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Let's do the best thing. Let's do the best, the thing that makes the most money. Exactly. So I don't care anything about that. I never did. Yeah. Honestly, I never thought about the money. And you made a lot of money because of it, probably. You follow your pa- there's the lesson. You follow your passion. You do what you feel you were meant to do. You're open to other things, like for me, writing. Yeah.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  And it came by itself. It was a byproduct of doing what you were passionate about. You can't say, I want to make a million dollars. Now, there are people who do that. Yeah. There are people, they work in other fields. Their goal is to make money, and I guess if you're single minded enough, you will make that. I was single minded in trying to do good work in my field.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Luck and

• 19:29Speaker 01

  I guess, uh, maintaining a level of quality guaranteed that the living would come. Right. You mean luck? Do you mean timing? You have to be lucky. Like I write, if I write a script in my, in my apartment by myself at that time, let's say, I'm writing by myself about this comedian that I saw, uh, named Ray Romano. He has a real family and what I don't know about his real family, I'm going to put in my family. And I'm going to write stories about my family. I'm going to put it in this one script. And I'm hoping that somebody at CBS, this one person who's in charge of comedy, CBS likes it enough to show it to their boss. And let us film a pilot, one episode. That's all I'm hoping for.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  And then people need to like it and you can do another one. By the way, be- before that, you have to get a cast and every single person has to be right for that part, or the show is not a success. It doesn't even get on the air. Right? The audience that's at the taping, they have to like it. It has to be shot well enough so they can see it to like it. Right. Everything, the editing. Everything has to work together. All the planets have to line up for any of these things to even get on the air. And then I always say, it's not like winning the jackpot when you have a show that's successful. It's like hitting the jackpot over and over and over again because so many things have to happen for us to run nine years and for it to still be on today. It has to be relevant and people have to like it. Yes. It has, you know, so many things that happen. The network has to stay alive. Yes. Keep running it. And they have to support you. Yeah.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  And the people have to, yes, the people have to keep liking it. And you have to keep doing good work. It doesn't just, you just don't ride on your coattails. We all know the shows start big and they peter out fast and then they're gone. Two seasons, maybe three seasons is done. That happens. Yeah. So it's, that's what I mean. Every show almost is a miracle. We did 210. Every episode. Yes. 210 separate shows. They weren't like, oh, you just do 210 like it's a, like it's a factory and the thing, you made the mold and you just put the chocolate in the mold and we just make 210. Right. Every one of them, you're reinventing the thing again. Every one. Amazing. Yeah. How involved were you on all of those 210 episodes?

• 21:42Speaker 01

  Everything on every show. That what they, they call me the showrunner. That's the showrunner's job to run the show. And, and I guess the equivalent in movies is the director. Who oversees the whole production. That's what a showrunner does. Wow. It's very important that it seems to have a unity, a vision and a singular voice. You see? Hmm. Uh, otherwise it's, it's a mess of voices and not a clear vision. Yeah. So it has to be filtered. It helps, I think, to be filtered through one or two heads. Visions as opposed to 30 visions. What, um. Now, I, I want to say also, I had tremendous team there.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  I had the best comedy writers in the business. Couldn't have done it out without them. I had the best sitcom actors in the business and I had Ray Romano, who's a comic genius, who's not only a great actor, but a great writer and my partner in this. And, uh, you know. Couldn't have done it without him probably. Wouldn't have worked for him, would it? Wouldn't have anything without him. Wouldn't have anything without him.

• 22:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  He, he was a stand-up comedian. He was struggling for his struggle. He was struggling for 12 years just to get on the David Letterman Show.

• 22:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  He got on once.

• 22:55Lewis Howes?

  To do like a two-minute segment?

• 22:57Speaker 01

  Five minutes.

• 22:57Lewis Howes?

  Five minutes.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Letterman said, after that five-minute appearance, there should be a show for that guy.

• 23:02Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 23:02Speaker 01

  We're gonna look for a writer to create a show for that guy. They found me. I found him. I liked him. He liked me.

• 23:10Lewis Howes?

  12 years he was struggling.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  He was struggling, yes. And here I come. I was struggling myself.

• 23:14Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  But, look, luck, right? If we're not in the right place at the right time, that doesn't happen. Now, they say luck is the residue of design, right? He has to be, have honed his act for 12 years to know his comic voice. I have to hone my writing for so long to know my voice, to understand.

• 23:33Lewis Howes?

  And how long were you writing for?

• 23:34Speaker 01

  How to create. Uh, I would say five, six years before I meet him.

• 23:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Okay?

• 23:39Lewis Howes?

  Cause if it was your first year, you wouldn't have been ready for it.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  Yes, true. I learned from, not just the good shows, but I learned from bad shows. You learn what not to do.

• 23:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  Plenty. Listen, that's as important. That's what I mean by these struggling years. Learning what not to do. Learning, let's say, you have a shitty boss, right? Everybody does. At some point or another, learn from that guy. Not gonna do that.

• 24:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Not gonna be that guy.

• 24:07Lewis Howes?

  What are your parents? You know, things you don't like about your parents. You can be like, okay, I'm not gonna do that.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Okay, so how many people don't make the same mistakes as their parents?

• 24:14Lewis Howes?

  Well, some do, some don't.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  A lot do.

• 24:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  I'm saying, learn from other people's mistakes.

• 24:19Lewis Howes?

  Right, or your siblings' mistakes, or whatever, maybe.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  Yes. Don't fall into the trap and say, that's my destiny.

• 24:24Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  No, you're your destiny.

• 24:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  You make it happen.

• 24:27Lewis Howes?

  Right. So when you launched the first season, what was the vision for you? Was it, we're gonna do 210 episodes?

• 24:34Speaker 01

  No.

• 24:35Lewis Howes?

  1,000? Or just gonna do one?

• 24:37Speaker 01

  I wanna make one good one, so they like it enough to let me do another one.

• 24:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  Oh, they like that one? Maybe the, you know, we got picked up for six. Six.

• 24:47Lewis Howes?

  That's what you got picked up for.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  And I was really nervous. How am I gonna, I'd made one, I don't even know how to make a second one.

• 24:52Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 24:53Speaker 01

  So I get nervous. Now, how am I gonna do si- I have to do six more of these? It almost killed me to do the one. Right? So I couldn't, if, if you told me that you're gonna now make 210, I would've dropped dead.

• 25:05Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  It's like the, the journey up the mountain begins with a single step, right? So you only can look at that one step ahead of you. You can't, if you try to say, oh my god, I got a mountain to climb, you kill yourself.

• 25:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's like in sports, you know, we talked about focusing on the game at hand, not the big game four weeks down the line, but what's happening right now.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  And by the way, not the game at hand, the play at hand.

• 25:29Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Let's get this play, every moment. Uh, uh, there's a, there's a great animation company called Aardman in England. I don't know if you're familiar with Wallace and Gromit.

• 25:38Lewis Howes?

  Oh yeah, of course.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  It's this stop motion animation, okay? So the head guy there, they asked him, how does he do it? How do you, how do you envision that whole thing? How do you create that?

• 25:47Lewis Howes?

  It takes a lot of time, probably.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  He goes, I, I feel that if I concentrate on the 1/24th of a second that I'm working on at any given time, the rest takes care of itself.

• 25:55Lewis Howes?

  Oh my goodness, it's so much work.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Isn't that a great lesson though?

• 25:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  The 1/24th was, cause it's 24 frames a second.

• 26:03Lewis Howes?

  A second.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  And every frame, they move it a tiny bit, the, the stop motion and take a picture, and then move it a tiny bit, and it's the whole scene with a train running through it and a waterfall and characters moving and talking, and so they're changing the lips on each character.

• 26:20Lewis Howes?

  A little bit.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  1/24th of a second at a time.

• 26:26Lewis Howes?

  I wonder how long it takes to do one, you know, episode for that, or a movie, or?

• 26:32Speaker 01

  Uh, I think it takes.

• 26:33Lewis Howes?

  Gosh, a lot of time.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  Uh, a year, maybe a year and a half to do the, the, the seven minute thing.

• 26:42Lewis Howes?

  You need a lot of patience.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. A lot of patience and a lot of concentration and a lot of devotion and a lot, you gotta love it. Even the Warner Brothers cartoons, Bugs Bunny cartoons, a year and a half for three minutes.

• 26:56Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Hand drawn, every one, hand drawn, every frame.

• 27:01Lewis Howes?

  Greatness takes time, I guess.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Greatness takes time and devotion and dedication.

• 27:05Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Right?

• 27:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow. What would you say is some of the biggest lessons you learned over those those seasons, those 210 episodes about yourself?

• 27:13Speaker 01

  The best advice I ever got, I say this all the time, it was from a great showrunner named Ed Weinberger. He worked on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Taxi and other shows. And he was a little bit crazy in a funny way. But also, he said this to me, and I never forgot it. Do the show you want to do, because in the end, they're going to cancel you anyway.

• 27:35Lewis Howes?

  Right? They did. They eventually did, right?

• 27:38Speaker 01

  No. We actually, this is, we said, we've done enough. And we don't have any more stories. And now it's finished and we want to end well. It's very important to end well. We all know the shows that stayed on too long and didn't end well. And you know what happened? It tarnished the legacy.

• 27:55Lewis Howes?

  It did.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  So, we wanted to get out, you want to get off the stage before somebody says, hey, you should get off the stage. You want to get out before you're injured. You want to get out before something bad happens.

• 28:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. You don't want to win a few Super Bowls and then keep trying to win.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  My father's 89 years old. He didn't want to, he didn't want to stop driving. He says, I can still drive. And we're starting to see that, you know. He's, this was almost an accident over here. This was an almost over here. I said, Dad, you know, like when a comedian, you like comedians, you like watching comedy? They get off before they tell a bad joke. They know when to stop. So let's stop driving now before something bad happens, so you have a perfect record.

• 28:35Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  Let's go out a winner, Dad. And that made sense to him, and he did, he gave us the keys.

• 28:40Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  That's all you want. You want to get off before you become lousy, if you care about what you're doing. Listen, they offered us lots of money to stay.

• 28:48Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  It's not about the money. Right? Have enough money. Well, I mean, at that point.

• 28:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you had a lot. You had all the money you needed.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  But there are people who say, I can't take, I can't say no to that money. Because we've been trained to think that money is the thing.

• 29:04Lewis Howes?

  Or the identity. You know, this has been my identity for a decade now. What am I gonna do if I don't have this?

• 29:10Speaker 01

  What was that show I love? Silicon Valley on HBO. You ever, you ever, you ever watched Silicon Valley on HBO?

• 29:16Lewis Howes?

  I love that show.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  Okay, so there's a character who was a billionaire and he dropped to 900 million and he went crazy.

• 29:22Lewis Howes?

  He was like, I need another comma.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  He needs to be known as a billionaire.

• 29:26Lewis Howes?

  It's insane.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Perfect metaphor for how we're almost trained to think in America.

• 29:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Right?

• 29:34Lewis Howes?

  Was it the Three Comic Club or something? Or was it the Four Comic Club or whatever?

• 29:38Speaker 01

  But that guy's obviously an idiot and, and a very good lesson.

• 29:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:43Lewis Howes?

  That's important.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:44Lewis Howes?

  Did you feel like your identity was tied up in this show for that long? Or did you feel like?

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I do. That's who I am. I make that show. And I'm proud of it and I'm, I'm gonna work my butt off to make sure it's good every week. There's a, some shows are better than others. How could they not be? But there's a level you should never go below. I learned that in school too. We had a professor who said, there's a level of quality you can't go below. And if we keep that line in our heads, maybe our work is better. Right?

• 30:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Otherwise, we have no standards.

• 30:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  So it's good to have standards.

• 30:20Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. What was a show that you did that you felt like it went below there that?

• 30:25Speaker 01

  Everything else.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Everything else.

• 30:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  Because, look, I had, I had, as my friend used to say, you got the horses on that show. You know, you got the horses, meaning the great actors.

• 30:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  And the great writers too. I had everything working right.

• 30:44Lewis Howes?

  And you were at the right time and.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  Yes, I tried in my work not to go below a certain level that I can live with and I quit. I quit if it's not good. And when I go and speak to kids at schools, I go to colleges and talk to the, to people sometimes. I tell them that I'm only half joking. If you take one thing away from this meeting today, always quit.

• 31:04Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  What does that mean? Quit if the iced tea isn't cold enough? No. If the level is unsatisfactory to you, if you feel like you're getting so many notes that it's now diminished what you had in mind, you have no recourse but to leave. All we come with is ourselves and all we can go with is with ourselves, right?

• 31:25Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  So, no, you cannot ruin me. I won't allow it. I have standards if you don't. Now, am I being political when I do that? Am I playing them? Am I trying for something? No, I really mean it. When I quit, and it's agonizing, it's not something I do lightly. But sometimes you have to go because it's not gonna be right. And if it's not right and you've tried everything, I'm not saying quit on the first day. I'm saying you've tried everything, you see the train is gonna hit that wall. Jump off that train.

• 31:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, right, right.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  Jump off that train. We try to, if the train is gonna hit the wall, we try to take the wheel. We try to steer it so it doesn't, but if you see it the last minute, oh my god.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  You gotta get out of there. You gotta, you gotta, because your name is all you have.

• 32:17Lewis Howes?

  And when did you realize that it was like, now's the time? Was it the, you know, the seventh season where you're like, okay, maybe I've got a couple of seasons left, or was it like during the last season, you're like, oh, this is it?

• 32:28Speaker 01

  No, I planned it.

• 32:30Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 32:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, because I learned from the shows that I loved, that I, that went before us. You know?

• 32:36Lewis Howes?

  Smart.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  Well, that, why not learn from the best?

• 32:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  So you see there's things that, that you love and you try to emulate them. You try to, try to use them, use the good examples then.

• 32:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What were the shows that inspired you?

• 32:51Speaker 01

  Uh, The Honeymooners, Dick Van Dyke Show, All in the Family, Mary Tyler Moore, Taxi,

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Roseanne, The Cosby Show of the eighties.

• 33:02Speaker 01

  These shows had something in common. The Odd Couple, they were all filmed in front of a live audience, so they were like theater, which I liked. I liked hearing the laughs, the real laughs, not the fake canned laughs.

• 33:14Lewis Howes?

  Tell people to clap, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  And... They all took place on planet Earth. Meaning, the stuff that happened in those shows could happen on Earth. Real life stuff, yeah. Yeah, it wasn't so crazy and exaggerated that you didn't believe it. I happened to like, even as a child, the shows that I believed. And the ones that were just silly, eh, I didn't care for them so much. Yeah. So, I was gonna have one rule at Everybody Loves Raymond. Could this happen? That's all. Wow. And we always found, whenever we were stuck, like, now what happens in the story? When we're sitting around the table, all the writers thinking, what will this story? Now what happens in the story? Well, maybe this could happen, maybe this could happen, maybe this could happen. And we go around sometimes for an hour, two hours. For one scene. For one moment. Wow.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  Now what happens? Cause we're trying to tell a story. Now what?

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Don't you know that always, somebody, one of us idiots who didn't say this earlier? Who was thinking that? Says, what would really happen? Well, what would really happen is she would say this, and then this, and this, and that. So why don't we do that? And sure enough- And that's probably the funniest thing. Well, it leads to a funny thing. Because if you're funny, you're gonna make that real thing funny. You're gonna say a funny line, you're gonna something, it's gonna trigger other things. But start with real. I tell aspiring writers, keep a journal. Why? Because it's easier to write things down than to write. It's easier to write down what really happens to you than to come up with shit, right?

• 34:50Speaker 01

  So, take notes of your day, and it's gonna be unique. Why? Because you're unique. You can't help it. You're not like me, I'm not like you, I'm not like him. I have my head, as screwed up as it is. Yeah. And the way I see things through these eyes, and hear things through these ears, and think things through this stupid head, it comes out different than if you write the same exact series of events. Right. So, I tell people-

• 35:21Speaker 01

  You already got what you need. It's you. We don't think that's anything.

• 35:27Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  What do you mean me? I'm nobody.

• 35:28Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  No, you are somebody. The way you think and the way you feel is unique to you. It makes you different from you. The easy cliche to say is write what you know.

• 35:39Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  Right?

• 35:40Lewis Howes?

  You probably won't have a-

• 35:41Speaker 01

  But it's a cliche for a reason.

• 35:42Lewis Howes?

  Right. You probably wouldn't have a writer's block if you're just writing down the things that happen every day.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  Yes, but we think that's nothing. And by the way, a lot of times it won't be something, but once in a while it will be something. So, you know how a photographer takes a lot of pictures? And then three or four are amazing? Same with writing.

• 35:57Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, but it might have taken thousands of photos to get to that, yeah.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  That's how you see the great photos.

• 36:03Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Right?

• 36:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  That's how everything great is.

• 36:06Lewis Howes?

  What would you say is your, uh, your superpower? From all the things that you've learned and all the experiences, what's the one thing that makes you stand out from?

• 36:13Speaker 01

  That's a good question.

• 36:14Lewis Howes?

  If you had a superpower, what would that be?

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Uh, boy, I think I can... Uh, and this is something that's been told to me and I've come to accept. I can walk on a stage and I can fix it. I know the difference because of my training between a writing problem, an acting problem, and even a directing problem. And so I can fix it. I can fix it by either writing it. I can fix it by talking to the actor. I can fix it by staging it differently. I know how to fix it. So that's the thing. I think other people are funnier than me. I think other people are more handsome than me. I think other people are, uh-

• 36:51Lewis Howes?

  Smarter.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Smarter than me, certainly.

• 36:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  But I can do that. And that is applicable- That's applicable to things in life, too. So, I'm lucky.

• 37:03Lewis Howes?

  That's great. What other things in life do you feel like that comes to the table, too?

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Well, you wanna, you wanna be able to navigate other human beings and, and other problems that come up, not just out in the world, but in your house. Right? With your children, with your wife, with whoever it is. You wanna be able to. Now, am I as good at home as I am on a soundstage? No. Because on the soundstage, they have to listen to me.

• 37:29Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  At home, they tell me what to do, and I usually do it.

• 37:34Lewis Howes?

  Right, usually.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:36Lewis Howes?

  I love that. What is the, um, you know, you've had all this success, you've had this incredible career. People want you to speak at all the universities, uh, you know, you're, any writer would love to sit down and have this conversation with you.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  We're doing it now.

• 37:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  But listen, listen to the thing. I'm not saying anything to you that I, uh, I wouldn't say to the writer.

• 37:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  I'm telling, I'm treating you as if you're.

• 37:59Lewis Howes?

  Well, I appreciate it. I appreciate it.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  Well, you're asking me.

• 38:01Lewis Howes?

  And all the writers listening, hopefully they're getting a lot out of this.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Well, even if you're not a writer.

• 38:05Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  I'm hoping that what I'm saying, that what we're talking about is applicable.

• 38:09Lewis Howes?

  Of course it is.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  The TV show, the, I'll have what Phil's having, is applicable. I want you to connect. That's all we do. As human beings on the planet is connect with other people.

• 38:20Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Right?

• 38:21Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 38:21Speaker 01

  For me, food, sitting around a table is how mankind's always interacted.

• 38:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Around the campfire over, over the bison we just killed with our sticks.

• 38:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  Right?

• 38:31Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  Or fancy meal.

• 38:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  We're sitting, we have to eat. We have to eat. We may as well eat together. So that's where all that comes from. Now, what cements us to each other, I think, sense of humor.

• 38:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Underrated value. As much as we love it, underrated. Why? Because the, the emphasis in our culture is on hotness. Is on cuteness, right? Is on, oh, I wanna be with them, you know, physically.

• 38:57Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  But what lasts, I think what makes us friends is an appreciation of each other's sense of humor.

• 39:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  And I'll go one step further. I say it's who we marry.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  We either laugh at the same things or appreciate the other person's sense of humor. And I'll tell you something, I've seen it. Once the laughs go, you go.

• 39:19Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 39:20Speaker 01

  What do you have?

• 39:21Lewis Howes?

  If it's not fun anymore, then what's the point?

• 39:22Speaker 01

  Listen, you, you could be. Here's what society, here's what the people who are selling you every product under the sun and television show never say. The physical thing, that has to fade.

• 39:35Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  Right?

• 39:36Lewis Howes?

  So it may work for a few years.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  No one stays, no one stays hot and desirable forever to everybody. That's just a, that's television, that's a fake world.

• 39:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  What does keep you together, I think, is we smile and laugh and enjoy the same things.

• 39:52Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, do you have a, any principles that you live by as, with your wife? Where you're like, every day I need to make her laugh, or every day we tell jokes to each other? Is there something that you do?

• 40:01Speaker 01

  She's very funny, I'm hopefully funny, and we just go through life. And every day we make each other laugh. Not because we're trying to, but because she knows what to say to make me laugh. And I think I know, you know, that doesn't mean it's perfect all the time. It's real life. She's really mad at me sometimes.

• 40:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Right?

• 40:23Lewis Howes?

  And you with her probably.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  Well, she's so annoying.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  No, I, I...

• 40:29Lewis Howes?

  But if you wouldn't have the laughs, do you think you'd still be together?

• 40:32Speaker 01

  No, I really don't. I'd called my book, "You're Lucky You're Funny", which is something she said to me in the middle of being really mad at me.

• 40:43Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  So that saved my life.

• 40:47Lewis Howes?

  Or at least the relationship.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  Because it's all I got.

• 40:49Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Right? It saved my life when I was getting beat up in school by boys like you on the football team.

• 40:55Lewis Howes?

  I was bullied, by the way.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  You were, really?

• 40:57Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah. That's why I joined sports and started getting active because...

• 41:01Speaker 01

  You were picked on?

• 41:02Lewis Howes?

  I was the...

• 41:02Speaker 01

  Were you a little kid?

• 41:03Lewis Howes?

  I was a tall, skinny, scrawny, but I was very, I was in all the special needs classes with like me and three kids in wheelchairs. Because I couldn't read or write until high school.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 41:14Lewis Howes?

  And I couldn't comprehend schoolwork.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  Look how great you turned out.

• 41:17Lewis Howes?

  Well, it made me learn how to connect with people in a different way and learn how to use different tools to build relationships as opposed to using my smarts.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:24Lewis Howes?

  So, yeah.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  Fantastic.

• 41:26Lewis Howes?

  But I was just like you.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  But that's fantastic. So I was even sure, I was, not only was I skinny and scrawny and shorter, so, you know, I was the, the, the boy most likely, most, I was the boy most likely to get his books, uh, kicked out of his hands in the hall.

• 41:42Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure, yeah, right.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Right? And I was picked on and I was like, and this is a cliche, you develop the sense of humor because it's your defense, it's your one way of connecting, it's your one way to get girls.

• 41:52Lewis Howes?

  There you go. I mean funny guys can get any girl they want, it seems like.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  I couldn't.

• 41:57Lewis Howes?

  If you've got humor.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  No, I guess I wasn't that funny. But, but, uh, I had, that's all I had. You use what you have.

• 42:05Lewis Howes?

  Now, how does someone, let's say they don't think they're funny, they can't tell jokes. I'm not a comedian, I'm never gonna be one, but how can they cultivate humor?

• 42:14Speaker 01

  That's a great question.

• 42:15Lewis Howes?

  Or cultivate storytelling, timing, because a lot of humor is timing.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:21Lewis Howes?

  And the space between the things we say, I would think.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  So how do you do that?

• 42:23Lewis Howes?

  How do you cultivate being funny?

• 42:25Speaker 01

  You can't. I know, I'm kidding.

• 42:27Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  I'm kidding.

• 42:28Lewis Howes?

  Let's end it.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  If you love it though, if you have an appreciation for it, find out what you're attracted to. In other words, why does that comedian make me laugh? Why does that show make me laugh? That actually becomes your sense of humor. The things that make us laugh are our senses of humor. That defines us, right? And you can't help but pick up on certain things. I'm not saying imitate that, but it can't help form your personality. And then, I know this is a terrible thing to say because it means nothing, be yourself, right? "I don't know who the hell that is," says the person listening. Who is myself? I don't know who myself is. You know, Ray Charles is one of the great singers of all time. When he started, if you listen to his records when he first started,

• 43:14Speaker 01

  he sounded exactly like someone who came before him called Nat King Cole.

• 43:18Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  He was imitating him.

• 43:20Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Listen, not a terrible place to start.

• 43:23Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  He then, once was accepted as a singer, started developing his own style.

• 43:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  So, it's okay to emulate other things.

• 43:33Lewis Howes?

  I think all musicians do this. They emulate Pearl Jam or the Beatles. They listen to people that influence them. Writers as well, actors, right?

• 43:40Speaker 01

  If you talk to any actor, any comedian, they will tell you, they, when they started, they were just trying to imitate who they liked.

• 43:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  So that's it.

• 43:48Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, I like it. Uh, a few questions left for you. I love this. I feel like we could do this for another hour.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 43:54Lewis Howes?

  Um, what's something, again, you've done all these incredible things. The show has been so successful, it's still running. I thought it was still happening, you know?

• 44:01Speaker 01

  They just started in India.

• 44:02Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  It's called Everybody Loves, uh, Sumit.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:07Lewis Howes?

  So it's amazing and you're getting, you know, all this recognition constantly for all this. What's something you've done that's small or maybe something that, something you've done that people don't know about?

• 44:18Speaker 01

  How about a show on PBS that's six episodes?

• 44:20Lewis Howes?

  That you really, we'll get to that too in a second, but something-

• 44:22Speaker 01

  That is it. You already got to it.

• 44:24Lewis Howes?

  Something that people don't know about.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  That I did?

• 44:26Lewis Howes?

  That you've done that you're really proud of.

• 44:28Speaker 01

  The book. Nobody reads a book. Who reads a book? I'm telling you, get this book. Don't even buy the book. Go to iTunes and download audio. It's like having me in the car with you for seven hours.

• 44:38Lewis Howes?

  It's a good thing you're funny. Is that what it's called?

• 44:40Speaker 01

  You're lucky you're funny. How Life Becomes a Sitcom. So I'm using the example of our show, Raymond, to show you how you can take maybe terrible things that have happened in your life and turn them into something positive. Using the example of making one of these shows, and I'm very specific. And so it's in colleges now as a textbook. It's the, uh, people call it the world's funniest textbook.

• 45:05Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 45:05Speaker 01

  But it's personal stories and taking those personal stories and making them into something that maybe someone else would care about, right?

• 45:13Lewis Howes?

  I love that.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  Because it's relatable.

• 45:14Lewis Howes?

  I love that. Um, couple of questions left for you.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 45:19Lewis Howes?

  What are you most grateful for in your life recently?

• 45:20Speaker 01

  My family, my beautiful wife and kids who are, you know, you don't even realize it. You take it for granted sometimes, but they're there. And, you know, I want to get up every morning and my, my, one of my kids is, is 21 and he's a junior in college in New York, so I don't see him every day. But my daughter is 18 and she's a senior in high school. And it's one of the joys of my life. I realize that I'm not going to have this forever. And you don't realize until it's almost gone. That I gotta get downstairs before she leaves for school. I gotta be home.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  You know, when she's home, she has a life. I wanna see her.

• 46:07Lewis Howes?

  Because she's gonna be off to college.

• 46:09Speaker 01

  But I've always wanted to do that. I've always wanted to at least see the kids in the morning and and be home. Even from Raymond, where it's a hard job.

• 46:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:17Speaker 01

  Come home for dinner every night. That was a value. That was a value. First of all, if you worked for me, I would tell you it's part of the job. Go home, get in a fight with your wife, come back in and tell me about it, because that's the show.

• 46:30Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  Right? So all 90% of what you saw on the show happened to me. Or to Ray, or to one of the other writers. We were writing from the stuff that happens. So again, you gotta have a real life if you're gonna write about it, right?

• 46:44Lewis Howes?

  I love that.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  That's very, very important. And, you know, at the end of the day, when we're all canceled one day, you wanna be able to say, I did the thing I wanted to do. I did the show I wanted to do. I lived my life the way I wanted to live. And you have to realize what's important. Because at the end of the day, your family and your friends and being good to other people in the world and giving something back to the world and being grateful. This is at the center of every religion in the world.

• 47:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  My joke is, you know, for my show, if those boys from ISIS would just sit down with me and have some chocolate cake, everything would be okay. Right?

• 47:27Lewis Howes?

  I think I saw that in your trailer, maybe, or something, yeah.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  You wanna, you wanna put something good out there. There's enough bad. Most things are terrible.

• 47:33Lewis Howes?

  Right, exactly.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  Right? It's like the photographs. We take many, many photographs. Most things are terrible. That's just how it is.

• 47:40Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 47:41Speaker 01

  But you gotta take a lot to get to the good.

• 47:43Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  So it's always been that way. It's not that television stinks now. No, there's just a lot of television. And because most things are terrible and have always been terrible, there's just more of everything now.

• 47:56Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  There's more good, too.

• 47:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  Because there's more everything.

• 48:00Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Right?

• 48:01Lewis Howes?

  I love it. Well, this is leading into one of my final two questions. If, if the show wasn't on and Everyone Loves Raymond is, was, was gone, canceled from everywhere, and no one could watch it anymore, and everything you've ever created was gone.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:18Lewis Howes?

  But you got to write one final. Script, one final show.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:23Lewis Howes?

  And in this show, you had three things you could write down. The three truths you know to be true about your experience from everything you've learned about writing, life, relationships.

• 48:34Speaker 01

  Three lines.

• 48:35Lewis Howes?

  Three lines, the three truths that you would hand over to the world.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  I think we covered them.

• 48:38Lewis Howes?

  If we could wrap it up in a bow, what would those three truths be?

• 48:41Speaker 01

  Do the show you want to do, because in the end, they're going to cancel you anyway. Right? Most things are terrible. And always quit.

• 48:51Lewis Howes?

  There you go, the three truths, I love it.

• 48:55Lewis Howes?

  Perfect. Before I ask the final question.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:57Lewis Howes?

  Where can we follow you online? And again, let's talk about.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  Social media.

• 49:02Lewis Howes?

  Yes, where should we follow you? What's?

• 49:03Speaker 01

  My name is Phil.

• 49:04Lewis Howes?

  @PhilRosenthal on Twitter.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  There I am.

• 49:06Lewis Howes?

  Are you on Instagram and everywhere?

• 49:07Speaker 01

  I am. Phil dot Rosenthal on Instagram.

• 49:10Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  And I think it's Phil Rosenthal or Phil Rosenthal Official or Official Phil Rosenthal on Facebook.

• 49:15Lewis Howes?

  Perfect.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  You know, my daughter said she's 18. She gave me this rule. Here's Lily Rosenthal's rules. You ready?

• 49:21Lewis Howes?

  Let's hear it.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  Twitter is for funny things. Instagram is for beautiful things. Facebook is for old people things.

• 49:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow, there you go. What, Facebook used to be for college kids.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, but now look. Yeah, because those college kids then got older.

• 49:37Lewis Howes?

  Oh, it's true, yeah. The kids are on Snapchat or Instagram now, yeah.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  I don't care, just watch my show.

• 49:42Lewis Howes?

  There you go. The show is on Monday nights, 10 o'clock Eastern or 10 o'clock Central.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  10 o'clock everywhere.

• 49:48Lewis Howes?

  10 o'clock everywhere.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  Except New York.

• 49:49Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 49:50Speaker 01

  Wait a minute, go back. 10 o'clock, 9 o'clock Central, there's always Central.

• 49:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:55Speaker 01

  10 o'clock, 9 o'clock Central, 8 o'clock in New York only.

• 50:00Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  Why they do it that way, I don't know.

• 50:02Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  But here's the thing, if you just remember the name, I'll have what Phil's having. You put it in your DVR, you don't care what channel or when it's on, it's on when you want it to be on.

• 50:09Lewis Howes?

  There you go. I love it. And can you watch it online right afterwards on iTunes and everywhere else?

• 50:13Speaker 01

  You can see it on iTunes, you can see it on PBS.org, you could see it probably on your watch.

• 50:18Lewis Howes?

  There you go. Awesome. Watch the show, we'll have it linked up on the show notes after this. We'll have the book linked up, all your social media. One final question.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 50:27Lewis Howes?

  What's your definition of greatness?

• 50:30Speaker 01

  Sitting with you on this podcast, sitting with you. This is great for me. I'm lucky. Everything, you know, my friend Norman Lear, you know who that is? He created All in the Family and about a dozen other world. He's the most influential creator of television in the world who's ever lived. Right? I mean, he changed the world, this man. He's 93. He's my friend. Okay, Norman Lear, remember that name. Follow him.

• 50:55Lewis Howes?

  I will.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  He has a book. Even this I get to experience about his life. So for me, you know, I remembered that. And so, sitting with you today is an honor for me. It's great. You're a great guy. We had a great conversation. It's very nice. So, that's great.

• 51:11Lewis Howes?

  There you go. I love it. Well, I want to acknowledge you, Phil, for

• 51:14Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 51:15Lewis Howes?

  Your creativity, what you put out in the world, your energy and most of all, your humor.

• 51:20Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 51:20Lewis Howes?

  Because I feel like you're making the world a better place

• 51:22Speaker 01

  Oh, you're nice.

• 51:23Lewis Howes?

  By keeping things light, which could be dark, and keeping things fun, which could be stressful. When at the end of the day, it's all a story and it's how we perceive it. So, I want to thank you for that. Acknowledge you. Thanks for coming on the show.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  Thanks, buddy.

• 51:36Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  I hope to see you again.

• 51:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 51:40Lewis Howes?

  And there you have it, guys. Thank you so, so much for showing up today. Make sure to head back to the show notes to watch the full video interview at lewishouse.com/244 and share this with your friends. Let Phil know what you thought about this episode. Tweet him, message him online. All his information is back at lewishouse.com/244. Thank you, guys, so, so very much. The dream is coming true and it's all because of you and your support with this podcast. Thank you. You guys know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.