404 Mike Rowe: True Success (Part 2)

"Short cuts lead to long delays." - Mike Rowe If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewihowes.com/404 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?

  Episode number 404 with Mike Rowe, part two.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, 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.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  All right, guys, welcome back. If you enjoyed part one of this with Mike Rowe, then you are in for a very special treat. Again, to recap, part one, we talked about why having passion for something doesn't guarantee you'll actually get good at that thing. Why people with dirty jobs tend to be happier than most other people. Why working smart, not hard, is horrible advice and so much more that we talked about in part one with Mike Rowe. And in this episode, part two, we talk about how if you can have a fulfilled life without working hard, actually, the concept of working hard and how it relates to fulfillment, interesting concept. How to build a big audience without inflating your ego.

• 1:17Lewis Howes?

  Mike's view on masculinity today versus what it used to mean as a man. The truth about whether Mike was being considered for vice president this time around, and so much more. Guys, we dive in deep in this one, so make sure to listen in, take notes, connect with Mike on social media. Again, this is lewihowes.com/404. So watch the full video interview back there. Check out all the show notes and information there as well. And without further ado, let's go into part two with the one, the only Mike Rowe.

• 1:53Lewis Howes?

  Do you think that we can have a fulfilled life without working hard?

• 1:56Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:57Lewis Howes?

  Why do so many people try to not do any hard work at all? They just try to get by in the easy way?

• 2:03Speaker 01

  Because...

• 2:04Lewis Howes?

  And then they feel like they're like suicidal, they're unhappy, they're depressed. And I'm like, because you don't work hard.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  People are rivers. People, people are rivers trying to get to the ocean. And the river is making its way and there's a mountain. Well, you know, the river's not going to go over the mountain. The river's going to go around the mountain. It's going to find the lowest possible way. And that, that, that's why rivers look like broken snakes. You know, they, they, they go wherever the circumstances they encounter push them. Right?

• 2:40Speaker 01

  Most people do the same thing. Now, Lewis and Clark didn't, right? Lewis and Clark went west. They looked around, they saw a mountain, they went over it. They, you know, certain people aren't rivers. Certain people are something else. And, and those people, to a man and a woman, uh, work hard.

• 2:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  You know, it's the, again, it's, it's, it's very hard to say any of what I'm saying right now and not sound like somebody's grumpy old neighbor on the porch yelling at the kids to get off the lawn.

• 3:10Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  But I'm sorry, it, it's the, my granddad used to say shortcuts lead to long delays. Shortcuts lead to long delays. So, we're told every single day in a, in about a thousand different ways, back to our earlier conversation, that, that, that happiness is attainable. If you do this, this, that, and that. And, I mean, turn on any commercial right now for any financial institution. You'd be happier if you could retire a little sooner. If you could take a, a longer vacation. Why work forty when you can work thirty? Why work fifty if you can get by with forty?

• 3:51Speaker 01

  Everything is geared in a very, very subtle way to suggest that the reason that the proximate cause of your misery is something external. It's your frickin' boss. It's your crazy schedule. It's that son of a bitch down here.

• 4:10Lewis Howes?

  It's this, it's, it's. Victim mentality, yeah.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  I, I just think it's, I think it's true, you know, and, and I, and I honestly believe that. Look, there are no guarantees for success, but the most interesting people wake up, look around, identify the hard, challenging thing. It's not about eating your peas and sucking it up and getting through it. It's about identifying it and loving it. And saying that looks affirmatively, it's about learning how to salsa. That's what it's about, man. You, you, you know, it's about look, look for the thing that doesn't drip with comfort.

• 4:47Lewis Howes?

  It was so uncomfortable learning. I was this tall, white dude.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:52Lewis Howes?

  With everyone who, you know, didn't speak English and I was like, I want to learn how to dance and understand your culture. It was terrifying. It took me months just to step on the dance floor.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  And in hindsight, how is it informed?

• 5:03Lewis Howes?

  Best decision of my life.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 5:05Lewis Howes?

  I mean, I can go anywhere in the world. Doesn't matter if I know the language or not, I can jump into any salsa club and every major city, there's, there's salsa clubs. And I have the confidence to go speak to anyone through the way I dance.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:18Lewis Howes?

  I don't even have to ask them a question. I can just go up and, and grab their hand and dance with someone and have friends.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Good for you. Honestly, I, I, I get now why people are listening to you because fundamentally, in my view, that you're in on the joke.

• 5:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  I think I am too, but, but, but, but the joke is, you know, you, you can, you have to do the hard thing. And look, the, the, the best thing, well, one of my favorite unintended consequences of getting dirty jobs on the air and being the dirty jobs guy is when I go to places. I get a chance to talk sometimes to recently a very powerful group of men. About 2,000 of them. I mean, heads of state from all over the country and it's a private club and exclusive and a lot of reasons that a lot of people get a little nervous around it.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  But this group of men was the most extraordinary assemblage I'd ever seen. And I talked to them very candidly about dirty jobs and told some funny stories. And later, hundreds of them came up to me. These are people who run Fortune 500 companies. And Louis, they all said the same thing. They all pulled me aside and you know what they all wanted to tell me? They wanted to tell me about their first job. They wanted to tell me. How hard it was. They wanted to tell me about the time in their life when they looked down and didn't see a net.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  When they realized sometimes you gotta make little rocks out of big rocks. Sometimes you gotta pick up the hammer. Sometimes you've got to work hard and not smart. You know, they, they were just so eager to, to talk about that and not in a, a braggadocio kind of way. But just like, you know, when, when you hear truth, when you hear something that strikes you as truth, it, it, it's agitating. You know, right? Well, like when you, when you hear something you believe to be true, but most people haven't heard. It's agitating and it, and it, and it makes you want to grab the country by the lapels and shake it.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  And, and it's, it's that, it's that sense of disconnectedness that I think, I think the country has become fundamentally disconnected from the definition of a good job. From the importance of hard work. From the importance of an education, but only in a, in a, in a very broad sense.

• 7:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  We've become convinced that a four-year degree is the best path for the most people. And therefore, all the other options are somehow subordinate. We've just become untal- we don't know where our food comes from. We really don't understand where our food comes from. One and a half percent of the country is feeding 300 million people three times a day. We're not impressed by that. How the hell can we be so blasé about the fact that, that, that 30 million people are, are feeding, sorry, 3 million people are feeding 300 million? How can we be so huh? How can we flick the lights? How, how can we flick on a switch? See the lights come on and not be like, oh my God.

• 8:35Lewis Howes?

  Blown away.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Right. I hit that button over there, it gets cooler.

• 8:39Lewis Howes?

  I get cold water, hot water.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Poof, it's a miracle. Go in the bathroom, look down at what you've done, be horrified, hit the handle.

• 8:46Lewis Howes?

  Gone.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Gone.

• 8:47Lewis Howes?

  Clean.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  It was never here. Right? We are so, we are no longer gobsmacked by these fundamental things. And that, that disconnect, I'm talking very generally, but that, that disconnect. You know, it was so real in my life when I, I went from a guy, a 16, 17-year-old kid, convinced and utterly connected to all the things I just mentioned. Then I wandered in the wilderness till I was 42 in Hollywood and New York, impersonating a host, completely just kind of bullshitting myself and anybody who might be watching. Just creating the illusion of competence.

• 9:25Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  And then all of a sudden, oh, now I'm in a sewer in San Francisco crawling around, trying to get a show off the ground in honor of my granddad. And suddenly, you know, again, a long sloppy rambling way of saying that Dirty Jobs reconnected me to a lot of things that I believe are fundamentally important. And I don't know, I don't know what will reconnect you, not, not that you need to be reconnected, but, but the many, many, many other millions of people who are not going to get a chance to work shoulder to shoulder, castrating lambs or repairing sewers.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  But everybody somehow or another, in my view, needs to get reconnected to the important things.

• 10:05Lewis Howes?

  And that's why I start and end every day with gratitude. It's something that I feel like to give me perspective every single day because I can get caught up in the stresses or the overwhelm or whatever's happening in my business, but I'm like, gosh, I'm so grateful that I am healthy. You know, I have friends without arms and legs.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:21Lewis Howes?

  I interview people who are war veterans who lose their limbs and I'm like, gosh, I'm so grateful that I get to shake someone's hand.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:28Lewis Howes?

  And, and touch my girlfriend's face and simple things that I think a lot of us take for granted. And I just, it's a daily practice. Otherwise I'm going to be nasty with the best of them, you know what I mean?

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, listen, I'm, I, I'm a little, uh, Ayn Randian in that, in that regard. I mean, I agree with you, but my, my reasons for being grateful are, are actually selfish. Um, I can't, I can't feel depressed when I'm great. What do they call it? An attitude of gratitude, right? If you're grateful.

• 11:02Lewis Howes?

  Yes. Can't be angry at the same time.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 11:05Lewis Howes?

  It's the antidote of anger.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 11:07Lewis Howes?

  Or fear or frustration.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  Every bad thing gets co-opted by gratitude. Now it gets a little, it gets a little smiley and squishy for me. We gotta be careful because you know, anything that rhymes gives me the creeps. So that attitude of gratitude.

• 11:21Lewis Howes?

  Yes, I hear you.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Hey, turn that frown upside down. Don't, don't be buck up little camper, you know? No, no, that, that, that pisses people off.

• 11:28Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  But it is nevertheless true. So.

• 11:32Lewis Howes?

  Just don't do it in a cheesy way, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  Execute, always execution. Everything is always execution.

• 11:40Lewis Howes?

  I've got, I've got a ton of questions I want to ask you, but I want to be respectful of Tom, so I want to ask a few more. What time do you have to get out of here?

• 11:46Speaker 01

  I had, in one hour from now, I have to walk behind that glass and I have to sit down and I have to start telling stories about, uh, Bering, today it's Bering Sea Gold. These guys up in the Bering Sea are mining for gold underwater. Big brass ones. Yeah.

• 12:04Lewis Howes?

  Okay. So you got a little bit of time?

• 12:06Speaker 01

  I got a little time, you know?

• 12:06Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool. My question is, I'm writing this book about masculinity. I talked, I talked to you a little bit before about this. My, my question is, what is your definition of masculinity and has it changed over the years?

• 12:19Speaker 01

  It has changed. As a kid, you know, you definitely won't remember this, but there's, my dad used to go to this barber shop and they sold combs in the barber shop. Ajax combs.

• 12:34Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  And they were just black combs like every guy in the world had.

• 12:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  You've seen Mad Men.

• 12:39Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  So Don Draper, right? A guy who looks like Don Draper.

• 12:43Lewis Howes?

  They say I look like, some people say I look like.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  You got a little bit, a little bit?

• 12:46Lewis Howes?

  Some people.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  A little bit.

• 12:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  Some people probably don't.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  But there was a picture of a guy, sort of like a, like almost a little cardboard cutout, who looked a little bit like Don Draper.

• 13:00Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  And, and, and a little bit like Superman.

• 13:03Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  Dark hair, gelled, parted on the side, square jaw, cleft in the, I mean, and um, my dad would sit there and get his haircut and I would just stare at this guy, knowing, you know, he doesn't look like my dad and he doesn't look like me, but that's, that's a man.

• 13:19Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  That's a man.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  And then not long after that, we were driving up to Delaware and we went, we were on 95 and we went through the toll plaza and the guy who took the toll looked just like the guy on the Ajax comb thing. And I said, Dad, that, that's, that's a man. And he laughed. I'm probably seven years old at the time.

• 13:42Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  He goes, yeah, he, uh, he's a man. I'm a man. Men everywhere. He goes, yeah, but I said, that guy, that, that guy was a man. And he, and he said, so you, you, you like the look of that man? And I said, well, I'm just saying, he, he looks like the man in the barber shop, the cardboard cutout. And, and my dad just laughed and we didn't have a big apocryphal conversation in the car about it. But I remember just thinking, you know, okay, they walk among us, these men. And they look like that.

• 14:13Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  And, and hmm, wouldn't it be good to be one of those? So my earliest.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  My earliest feelings about manhood were embodied by a face I never saw really in real life, except, you know, it started with a cardboard cutout and then somehow mutated into a guy in a toll booth. Sure. And then, you know, all the traditional archetypes and stereotypes, growing up, you know, watching, watching Bonanza, you know, I thought, you know, I thought Purnell Roberts on Bonanza, he looked like that guy too, he, he, he was a man. And then, and then, all that was double downed with my grandfather, who, while he didn't look like those guys, he was just a, he was so, he was like Abe Lincoln strong. He could take. Old man strength.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  He grabbed, I saw him grab a, a pole that was attached to my mother's clothesline one day, and he, he put his right hand thusly, and his left hand here, and then his body just went completely up. Flag. Parallel to the ground. It's called a human flag. He flagged it, man, and he, and he held it for a long time. Was your daddy or grandpa? My, my, my grandfather. Wow. My grandpa, now again, I'm what, nine, 10 years old. That's impressive for. Right. So, you know. I can't even do that for a second, maybe. I, I could do it, but I gotta cheat with my elbow tucked in. Yeah, yeah. He did like this. That's impressive. It's crazy, it's all, all wrist strength, yeah.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Anyway, a very sloppy way of saying that these, these images from the 50s and my grandfather's ability to fix anything, and crazy strength, and, and my dad, his, his contribution to it, just aside from having all the, the, the power that fathers have, was a, was, was patience. My, my father will wait you out. My father will spend all day, he, he might not know how to fix the plumbing, he might not know the hack, but he'll just, he'll stick with it until it's fixed. Wow. So my earliest notions of manhood were this weird mishmash of my, my. Super strength.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  Superhuman strength embodied in my granddad, amazing facial features involved, you know, that, that I knew were out there, and, and, and my dad's patience.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  That that still does inform some of some of what I think, honestly. And we were chatting, you know, earlier about that, uh, oh, God, there was a terrible article in the New York Times. I forget who wrote it. It's called The Modern Man. It was called, it was called The Modern Man. And it was just a list, it was a good natured list of qualities today that define the modern man. And, um, I mean, I, one of them was like, you know, the modern man today looks after his children's electronic devices and makes certain they're plugged in before the family goes to bed. The modern man today would never own a gun. He has no reason for it.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  The modern man today, and it goes down the list, and I just thought, there's not a single one of these things I agree with. So as a good natured rejoinder, I wrote, the man's man, you know, a man's man owns a gun. He owns a gun because he knows it's the best way to protect himself and his family. He also makes sure he can disassemble it and put it back together. He's accomplished with it on the range and he understands what safety is. A man's man, you know, lets his children learn through cold experience how frustrating it is when their iPhone isn't charged the next morning and goes to bed himself the following night, confident in the knowledge that they'll be better for it. So anyway, that that conversation, which I really just did.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  You posted an article about this. I, I, I posted the exact same thing. With your? With my rejoinder. Interesting. I'll have to see that. We'll have to link it up. It's somewhere out there in the ether, but nine million people read it. Wow. What's it called? It's called The Man's Man. Man's Man versus Modern Man. Oh, I'll have to link this up for sure. But look, again, I, I wasn't trying to make a point. I was sitting home drinking Dos Equis at nine o'clock on a Saturday and I did it to amuse myself. Sure. But then, like so many other things. I went on Facebook and I posted it and then the next morning.

• 18:35Lewis Howes?

  It blew up.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Right, so now I'm on Good Morning America talking about it.

• 18:38Lewis Howes?

  An article you wrote?

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 18:39Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Happens all the time.

• 18:41Lewis Howes?

  And was this your truth then, everything, was it more cheeky or was it this is what you believe?

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Well, look, everything about me is is a little true and a little cheeky.

• 18:50Lewis Howes?

  Cheeky truth, yeah.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think in the same way that we can define uh, what a good job means in two thousand sixteen, we can define what a real man is. We can define what a real woman is. We can have, we can't really define it, who the hell are we?

• 19:08Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  But we can talk about it.

• 19:09Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  And we can challenge existing ideas and paradigms and all that stuff.

• 19:13Lewis Howes?

  What do you think it is now then? If you said the definition of a man or masculinity, what is, what's a masculine man today in your mind?

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Well, I do think, to be fair to the times, um, you know, there, there is a measure of femininity and masculinity. You know, I, I think anything purely masculine or purely feminine is, is, is purely unpleasant. But, but I, I think like anything else, uh, at some point, I mean, I think we, we, we kind of all did the, the goatee thing. We all kind of did the metrosexual thing. Right, right? We, we all did that.

• 19:50Lewis Howes?

  Stingers, I did everything, yeah.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  Look, I mean, we, we, we laugh about it. There's a site I'm sure you've seen, you know, uh, the, the art of manliness.

• 19:58Lewis Howes?

  Uh, yeah.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  And, you know, when, when, when you look at just, just the, the facial hair over, over the generations, it's, it's hysterical.

• 20:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I think Brett is the one that owns that. It's a, it's a podcast as well called The Alter Manliness, yeah.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  You know, it's a total, uh, quick tangent, but I had a buddy when, when I was living in New York, going on auditions and doing whatever you could do. He was so excited, he came home and he, and he, and he booked a job. It was for doers, right? So he's just a model, it's a print ad and, um, And I said, well, what'd you do to get him? He said, I, nothing. I'd stand there and smile. They, they're, they're, they're four of us and they're, they're, they're gonna shoot us on the stoop of this brownstone and it's gonna be a great ad. And I said, oh, well, I'll look for it. So the next day he goes and there, there are three other dudes and they all kinda look like him and they all have a goatee, alright? And they all sit down and they're all looking like, you know, the director's like, ah, make it, you know, butch it up a little, look tough, you know? So they're all looking at the camera, you know, like with all this attitude at the camera, you know,

• 20:57Speaker 01

  like this. And, um, you know, there's a big doers thing and it's a great looking shot and there's the doers, but the caption.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  The caption says, okay, we get it. We've all done the goatee thing. Now can we just get real?

• 21:14Lewis Howes?

  That's funny.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Doers, so.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  It sucks to be hired to be a punchline and, and, and not know it. It's like showing up in a herpes ad. You don't know it and then you're on the subway and you're like, ah, crap. I didn't need to.

• 21:30Lewis Howes?

  I didn't get some, yeah.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:32Lewis Howes?

  Um, okay, so to finish what you were saying about masculinity.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  So.

• 21:35Lewis Howes?

  At the Times, you were saying, Matt, you don't, there's not, you don't want too much masculinity, you want too much femininity, it's a little bit of both.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  I think, I think a man in 2016 has the obvious overt, and forgive me, this is sexist, but a man looks and acts like a man in, in many traditional ways. However, the most important component is he knows who he is. And this is a wildly overused word, but it really matters. He's authentic. He's authentic to himself. The reason Donald Trump is where he is right now, in my opinion, has almost nothing to do with anything that's political or being discussed.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  It's simply, this guy doesn't need this job. And he's never pretended to. And he's, love him or hate him, he's been fairly consistent in his entire life. And we're so starved, we're so starved to see somebody tell us the truth.

• 22:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  Uh, uh, about something.

• 22:48Lewis Howes?

  At least how they feel about it.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  I wonder, even if I disagree with you politically, or socially, or whatever it is, if you've made a reasonable case that's consistent and congruent with your view of the world, and you happen to be a male of the species, then I would call you a man, you know? Men own their opinions, they make a reasonable case for it, they're willing to be corrected, they're willing to be wrong, they're open to the possibility that their head could very well have somehow gotten up their ass, but they don't apologize for that. They say, "This is what I think, this is why I think it."

• 23:32Speaker 01

  And, look, when your actions and your words over time line up

• 23:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  in a predictable way, I just think that, you know, I mean, I hate just to assign it to a man, but to answer your question, yeah, that's a very, very, very important quality. But I also think it's a critical quality of being a woman, too.

• 23:51Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Interesting. And just to, since you brought it up, I heard a rumor that you were like, a while ago, potentially a vice president candidate, was that? That was in talks on social media anyways, was that actually something that was happening? Or did you know about this, or?

• 24:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, I got calls.

• 24:10Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 24:10Speaker 01

  I got calls.

• 24:11Lewis Howes?

  You mean, you got calls from Trump's team? Or you got calls from just random friends like, "Hey..."

• 24:16Speaker 01

  No, it wasn't, I never heard from anybody on Trump's side, and I never heard from anybody on the Democratic side. What I heard from were from a lot of groups that started forming around a third party, or a tri-party. So, yeah, the vice presidential thing got bandied around a little bit, but I, of course, never took it seriously.

• 24:36Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  But, but I was interested in the conversation around a tri-party. Interested in the conversation, not in, "I'm not your guy."

• 24:45Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  "I'm not, I'm not your guy."

• 24:47Lewis Howes?

  You'll listen and have the conversation.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, we don't know, look, I'm, I'm, I'm very interested in the space, and on a personal level, I'm vested in the conversation, but on a, on a professional level, I'm not a politician, and I don't care to...

• 25:02Lewis Howes?

  If Trump was like, "I want you to be my vice president, if I win," would you have considered it?

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Well, I wouldn't have said no, but I would have said, "Why?"

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I mean, I, to cut to the chase, I don't see it happening.

• 25:17Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  I have less experience than you, and you don't have any experience at all.

• 25:20Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  I mean, what are we gonna do? We're a couple of guys who hosted a couple of reality shows. What are we gonna do? You know, I mean, you've, you've proven, you know, I, I am, I am the-

• 25:30Lewis Howes?

  How are we gonna run the country?

• 25:32Speaker 01

  I'm a, I'm an apprentice by trade, and, and you're a billionaire. I just, I mean-

• 25:38Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  I, it would be, it's just, there, there's another movie you've never seen, Dan. It's called, it's called Bullworth.

• 25:48Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  It stars, it stars Warren Beatty, and, and Warren Beatty is diagnosed, he's a congressman or a senator or something, and he's diagnosed with some terminal disease, and he just decides, well, he hires somebody to assassinate him, and then while he's waiting to be assassinated, he just starts telling the truth about the country, about immigration, about racism, about all these things, and he immediately shoots to the top of the polls. But now, of course, he's got a problem because he's paid somebody to kill him. And so, anyway, we're watching Bullworth right now. We're watching, and I, and I don't mean that specifically about, about Donald Trump. I just mean, we're looking at a country who is so, who's so desperate to hear something-

• 26:32Lewis Howes?

  Some truth from someone.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  Congruency. Something's just like, my God.

• 26:37Lewis Howes?

  We're, it's not this like, perfect polished thing that you wanna hear, or that they think you wanna hear, but actually what's on their mind.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  Right. And, and, look, I just make that point to say, I'm under no illusions of grandeur. Nobody's, nobody's talking to me about running for the senate or the congress, or, or something bigger, because they think I'm qualified. They're talking to me about it, because Dirty Jobs had a, had a component to it, that every single, whether it's the gubernatorial or the general, every two years, we see it play out, this, this terrible Kabuki on TV, where the people who are running for office, what do they do? They go to the factories, they go to the construction sites, they do the photo op.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  I still remember Hillary in some bar in, in western Pennsylvania, four years ago, doing like shots of rye with steelworkers.

• 27:31Lewis Howes?

  She would never, ever do. It seems fake.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  What are you doing?

• 27:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  What are you doing? Well-

• 27:36Lewis Howes?

  It's manufactured. Yeah.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  It's the, it's that, it's that desperate attempt to connect with real people. That, that's such an important part of, of getting elected. What was Dirty Jobs at base? At base, it was a TV show, but what really happened? What happened was a giant connection. Week after week after week. A guy named Mike constantly was showing up in towns you couldn't find on a map to meet people you didn't know existed. To try his hand at a job that you didn't know about. What could be more common? What could be more humble? What could be more ordinary? And by the end of the day, the viewer sees that anonymous person magnified.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  And they see Mike in a subordinate role who, you know, was learning and getting schooled. And then what do they do at the end of the day? They do a shot of ride. They have a beer. They laugh, they talk, they hug, they shake, and they go their separate ways. It looked like in some weird way that I was actually running for something in hindsight. Of course I wasn't. That just happened to be the DNA of the show.

• 28:42Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  But in a world where people are desperate to find something that looks and feels authentic. That looked pretty authentic.

• 28:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you were the guy.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Crazy.

• 28:50Lewis Howes?

  And I think, what was it? Forbes said you were in the top 10 most trustworthy celebrities three years in a row.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Crazy.

• 28:56Lewis Howes?

  So maybe that's like, hey, we don't trust this guy, but maybe we'll trust Mike.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  We'll trust. Why would a guy in a sewer lie to us? Right? That's, that, that, that trustworthy thing is really fascinating. And as much as I'd like to take credit for it, because I, I like to see myself as fairly trustworthy.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  The company you keep matters.

• 29:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  Discovery, at the time anyway, and, and today still to some degree, but at the time, they were the number one trusted brand in nonfiction. At that same time, I was the official spokesperson for Ford. Ford trucks.

• 29:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Ford automobiles.

• 29:35Lewis Howes?

  Those commercials, yeah.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Ford parts and service. This is 2009, right after Alan Mulally just said, actually it's 2007, 2008, after he just said, no, no. I'm not taking the money. You know, Ford, every other American automobile maker took the bailout. Alan Mulally and Ford didn't. So suddenly I'm working for Ford.

• 29:56Lewis Howes?

  Ford Tough.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  Ford Tough, the guy, the, the company that said, nope. We'll do it on our own.

• 30:02Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  We don't need your tax money.

• 30:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Discovery, I'm crawling through sewers, I'm in a Ford truck, I'm with two brands that people are just loving at the time. Um, and I'm not taking myself too seriously.

• 30:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  So suddenly, you know.

• 30:18Lewis Howes?

  The trifecta.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  The, the, the people who test these things and evaluate these things, look around and say, oh, studies show he's not an asshole, so maybe we should.

• 30:28Lewis Howes?

  That's.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Get him as president.

• 30:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow. See, right, that's, uh, so you never did talk to Donald, nothing ever happened with him, but.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  The only thing that happened with Donald Trump, you know, I raised money for my foundation. You know, and, and a couple of weeks ago, like I'll read these short stories I do on my podcast at my dining room table. And one day I was wearing a robe and, you know, at the end of each podcast, not all of them, but sometimes I'll auction something off for the foundation. We've raised nearly $4 million.

• 30:56Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  Auctioning off crap from my garage. In fact, it's called crap. Collectibles rare and precious, right? So I said, uh, somebody suggested I auction off my bathrobe. So I said, fine, it's bathrobes for sale.

• 31:07Lewis Howes?

  Cause you wear your bathrobe in your Facebook videos. I've seen a couple of times.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  Sometimes, yeah. So somebody paid eight grand for my bathrobe.

• 31:13Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  So I write, hey, you know what? If, if this is how it's gonna go, um, Donald Trump, why don't you send me a bathrobe, an autograph, and we'll raise enough money, we'll close the skills gap. But I also said, hey Bernie, send me one of those rumpled blazers you wear, or Hillary, send me some pantsuits or something, I'll put anything on. Anyway, nobody did anything, but, but Donald, Donald sent me an autographed bathrobe. And I auctioned it off the next week for 17 grand.

• 31:38Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  So, you know, I, my worlds are very, very messy, but I, I do what I can to raise money.

• 31:45Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  For these work ethic scholarships.

• 31:48Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  And, uh, that's how I do it.

• 31:50Lewis Howes?

  Um, I'm curious about fame and you've built this audience over time. You've got this huge podcast, you were a show for 10 years, you were on many other shows before that, you. Do voiceover for every show on TV, it seems like, and every documentary, you know, your voice is everywhere.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  If there's a wildebeest trying to get across the vast reaches of the barren Serengeti, the odds are good I'm telling you about it.

• 32:11Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. How have you managed this audience, this responsibility over time, these people that trust you, you know, all these people that trust you in America and around the world, have you been able to facilitate your own journey through that and not let it get the best of you or not let it?

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Um, I've-

• 32:28Lewis Howes?

  If you have too big of an ego or, you know, because I think there's a lot of people listening that want to build their audience. So what, what thoughts do you have on that?

• 32:36Speaker 01

  Well, um, early on, I said somewhat publicly and, and now somewhat embarrassingly that I'd sooner push hot needles in my eyes than send out a tweet or face on a book. Right? And I've been called on that, obviously, many times since. But when I said it, um, I meant it because I just thought it was a terrible way to curry favor. Uh, and, and I just didn't, I just didn't want to do it. But around that same time, when Dirty Jobs was going on the air, Discovery said, hey, you know, the whole digital space is important to us, and if we build you a chat room, would you talk to your viewers? And I said, sure.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  And that turned out to be, um, a major, in hindsight, one of the biggest things that ever happened because, you know, I'd go to Oklahoma City and I'd work with, you know, Wildcatters during the day and I'd go back to my Motel 6, completely just, just, just beat to hell and dying.

• 33:37Lewis Howes?

  Exhausted.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  Too tired to even take a shower. But I'd lie down and I'd log on and fans of the show would ask me questions and I'd answer them. And we started having this very, very, uh, robust conversation in this little chat room. Over time, um, a million threads evolved from this.

• 33:57Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Over time, but in the beginning, what I started doing was saying, who do you know that has a dirty job and why should I go see them? And so halfway through season one, Dirty Jobs started to be programmed by the viewer.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  And that relationship happened in that little chatroom. It's like you're casting. It's exactly what it was. Wow. And, and so what, what that led to was a, you know, a, a call at the end of every episode of Dirty Jobs. Go to the chatroom and share your. Exactly. And so now I'm having actual conversations, but not just about the show. I would talk about anything. I was utterly transparent. I was talking about my most important characters in literature. I was talking about the changing face of the modern day proletariat vis a vis the digital divide. I was talking, we were doing dirty limericks, anything, right? And it was always happening, usually in the middle of the night from a Motel Six or a Super 8 or some, some little pit of despair off the frontage road in some godforsaken town.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  And so I became very close to the viewers of the show. And one day on, I think the Today Show, um, somebody, I don't know, it was Matt Lauer, Charlie Gibbs, or one of those guys. Said, what's it like working for the Discovery Channel? And without even thinking, I said, oh, I, I don't work for the Discovery Channel. And I said, no, I said, no, no, I, I work for the people in the chatroom. I, I work for the people who watch the show. And that wound up mutating into some sort of headline and it caused a little bit of grief with Discovery. But actually not much, not much, because, you know, I said the same thing about, about every show I've ever worked for. You work for the audience watching it.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  You, you, you work for them. Right. Right? And, and, and the, and the minute you don't, well, it doesn't mean the world's going to come off the hinges, but if you. They're going to stop watching. That's right. There's a, there are a couple of things between your paycheck and your performance. Yeah. And the big one is them, right? And so, so to, to start equating your, your paycheck with something that has nothing to do with your audience, that's a, that's a fundamental mistake. Sure. A lot of people, I think, in my line of work make. Um, so. Jesus, what was your original question? I'm like Forrest Gump my way through this whole thing. I apologize.

• 36:20Lewis Howes?

  How have you managed yourself through building this audience over time? You know, without letting it get the best of you or?

• 36:27Speaker 01

  By that, but by, by, by simply never forgetting that. Every, every good thing that's happened to me from relationships with Ford and HP and Master Lock. And I have Caterpillar. I mean, there've literally been 14 Fortune 500 companies to running a foundation, to a TV show that launched 32 other shows for the shows I'm working on now to the, but every single thing. Uh, if I, if I really walk it back, aside from my grandfather and everything else we talked about, goes back to asking a viewer, what do you think?

• 37:00Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  What would you like to see? You know, and I'm sure you do it here. I mean, right? You're very social with this, but it doesn't do you any good to interview people your audience doesn't care about.

• 37:10Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  I mean, I hope they're vaguely interested in me, but.

• 37:13Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  But you know what I mean?

• 37:15Lewis Howes?

  Of course. Yes.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  So.

• 37:17Lewis Howes?

  I'm very protective of my audience. I get pitched all the time for people that want to come on and be interviewed or want to promote their book or whatever. And I, you know, I'm like, this is the school of greatness. It's not the school of pretty good.

• 37:28Speaker 01

  It's, it's not the school.

• 37:29Lewis Howes?

  Or the school of average, you know?

• 37:30Speaker 01

  Or the school of your agenda.

• 37:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly. It's like, I have to think like, will all these people love this? Or a majority of them get a lot of great information from this idea?

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:39Lewis Howes?

  Or this person or whatever.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  You have to, look, if, if you truly believe you work for them.

• 37:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Then, then, then you really, it's, it's not about abdicating your, your, your, your pride or being subservient to them. You know, but no boss wants a kiss ass.

• 37:58Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  No good one wants a suck up. Uh, but, but no boss wants to be disrespected either.

• 38:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  And it's so easy in our business to forget that. And so, so, you know, here, look, I'll tell you a story about this dog. This dog comes home from the pound, right? And, and I don't know what the heck to do with him. You know, he's in a, he's in an apartment where there are no dogs allowed. And I, and I got the dog and, and I just, I love him. And I didn't know what to do with him, so I take some pictures and I, and I put them on Facebook and I say, I got a new dog. What do you, uh, what should I name him? And the next morning I had ninety, ninety-four thousand suggestions. So, so I take the top six. And I take a pee pad and I unfold the pee pad and I set up a time lapse camera.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  And I wrote the top six names, one in each square. We called it Puppy Poop Bingo. So the deal was whatever name he, he crapped on.

• 38:59Lewis Howes?

  That's his name.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  So he crapped on Freddie. So that's Freddie. The moral of the story is not to get a dog and not to set up a camera and let him crap all over a pee pad. It's to ask the people you work for what they think. And so, you know, for what it's worth, I, I get three, four million fans on Facebook now.

• 39:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  And among many, many, many, many, many, many other things. Hundreds of thousands of them know that story. And they know that I have a dog now whose name is Freddie because of them. And consequently, every Friday, you know, Freddie weighs in with either a photo or his view of the world. He's a, a smart aleck, but Fridays with Freddie becomes a thing. And, and so, I don't know. It's a, again, it's kind of a squishy way of saying somewhere between the content you're creating and the beast you're trying to feed, uh, is, is an engine. And, and that engine, um, spits out ideas.

• 39:57Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  And, and those ideas are who you really work for. They come from your listeners.

• 40:02Lewis Howes?

  I love that. Great analogy as well with the dog. What do you feel is missing in your life? You've created so much. You've, you know, you've got this wealth. You've got the audience. You're doing the work you love. It seems like you seem extremely fulfilled in the work you're doing. Is there anything that's missing?

• 40:18Speaker 01

  Not really. I mean, well, that's a great question because it's impossible to answer without sounding either glib or, uh, what do they call it? Uh, supercilious, right? I know there's nothing missing from my life, Louis. You see, every, every possible thing is just, uh, they're roses. Um, I could, I could tell you that there's not a single thing in my life that couldn't benefit from massive action and, and, and real improvement. But I can also tell you that I don't have any regrets at all.

• 40:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  Um, you know, I, I, I went a different way, you know, I'm a, I'm a serial monogamist and, um, I don't have kids and part of the reason I don't have kids, I think, is, uh, is because I'm selfish, you know? My, my parents did, in my view, an amazing job of raising three boys.

• 41:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  And of course I grew up right next to my grandparents who did an amazing job of raising two girls and I'm just surrounded by amazing examples of what it takes to be a great parent. And, and honestly, I, I, I don't think I can measure up.

• 41:33Lewis Howes?

  It's a lot of work, a lot of sacrifice, a lot of giving up what you want.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. And there are days when, you know, I would never say I regret it, but there are days where it's obvious now, I'm 54 years old and, you know, you tell yourself, you know, through your twenties and thirties, there's nothing but time and you can always,

• 41:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  always, always, always go another way. Um, and now, no, I don't think so. This is like, you'll, you'll see this when you go to your, to your 25th high school reunion, right? I don't know if you go to those things, but-

• 42:02Lewis Howes?

  I haven't yet.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Well-

• 42:04Lewis Howes?

  15 was just the other year, so-

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Right. Okay. Good for you because you were born in 83.

• 42:08Lewis Howes?

  We were both born in March, by the way. I was March 16th.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  March 18th. Yeah.

• 42:12Lewis Howes?

  March 18th, really?

• 42:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:14Lewis Howes?

  I think it said March 6th on your Wikipedia page, I believe.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah.

• 42:17Lewis Howes?

  March 18th.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  I wouldn't use the word believe in Wikipedia in the same sense, but, uh, but at least I got my name-

• 42:22Lewis Howes?

  We're both Pisces.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  We're Pisces, so we're all sensitive and whatnot.

• 42:25Lewis Howes?

  Very intuitive, sensitive, yes.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  But I'm, I'm getting toward the cusp there, getting into, uh, what is it? What's the next one? The bull Aries or something?

• 42:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, sure.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, um, what were we talking about?

• 42:37Lewis Howes?

  Great question. I was just, I just forgot now.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  Oh, regrets. I've had a few, but then again.

• 42:42Lewis Howes?

  About kids, kids, kids.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, no kids. No kids. Um, but you know, it's, it's, everything has a way of coming back around sooner or later. And, you know, we were talking about QVC and how I completely left it off my resume. And now it's one of the things I talk about more than anything else. The Boy Scouts, right? I went through the scouting program and it was hugely important in my youth. And, uh, after I got my Eagle, uh, seventeen or so, I, I didn't think about it for another, for another thirty years. And then when Dirty Job started, word got around that I had gone through the program. And somebody asked me if I would, uh, write a letter of congratulations to their, actually no. Somebody asked me if I would write a letter of encouragement to their kid,

• 43:29Speaker 01

  who was two merit badges away from getting his Eagle Scout. And they asked me to do this publicly, uh, you know, on, on, in the chat room that we were talking about. And, um, you know, there I am again, drinking a couple of, uh, Negro Modelos one evening. And I get this letter and I just decide to respond, you know, publicly. And I said, look, no, I'm not going to say anything to try and encourage your kid. But I will tell you this, statistically, he ain't going to make it. And when he falls short, he should take great comfort in the fact that he's with the crowd. Only one in a hundred is going to punch through. And the Eagle Award is not designed to be a trophy for someone who needs to be dragged across the finish line.

• 44:15Speaker 01

  If he is not interested and you have been unable to inspire him, then it's entirely possible that he's just supposed to.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  Be one of the majority. Right. Well, that letter wound up getting posted all over the place. And the Boy Scouts reached back and said, you know what? That level, no one ever talks publicly about that. And this was before the whole, everybody gets a trophy. Yes. Or at least that turn of phrase had come about. But the sentiment, right? The sentiment was alive and well with helicopter moms and soccer moms and, and self-esteem and everything else. And, um, and the scouts, to their credit, really liked what I wrote. And then I started getting many, many, many requests to congratulate kids who did make their Eagle. That's cool.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  And so I had a letter that I sent out about that and that made a big thing. And the point is, I don't have kids, but there are three million Boy Scouts now who, you know, they're like in my world. Right. And they're a couple, uh, 600,000 Future Farmers of America, right? And, and Skills USA. So I'm up to my neck with three of the largest youth programs in the country. You're giving. Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, I, I'm trying, honestly. You're doing your best, yeah. And, and really, no, no organization's perfect, but, but I think the country, the country needs organizations like that. Yeah. For so many reasons. Right, right.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  You know, the, the situation at home for a lot of people's a mess and, and when you look at, you know, how vocational education has been totally sucked out of high schools, you know, these organizations, uh, filled in that space in a lot of ways. So I'm a fan. What are you most grateful for in your life recently?

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Um, I gotta tell you, I, this will really, really sound ham-fisted and a little pandering, but I'm, I'm really flattered by the way, I, I don't know you, you know, uh, but I like you and I like what you're doing on your podcast. And I like the fact that you reached out. I like the fact that I have a seat at the grown up table. You know, I'm not interested in politics. Right. But I, I, I, it's very, very gratifying to move the needle. Yes. And so I have a little foundation. It's modest by most standards, but we've trained four, maybe 500 kids and grownups. What's it called? Micro works. Yep.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  So Micro Works focuses on jobs that exist that people aren't excited about having. And it awards work ethic scholarships to people who are willing to retool, retrain, relocate, and learn skill that's in demand. So I get letters every week from people from living up in North Dakota or down in the Gulf who are making 140 grand a year welding. Amazing. $200,000 a year working on heavy equipment. Amazing. Right? Who, who didn't, who barely made it out of high school, barely. And so, you know, when you hear from kids, I just got a letter from a kid named, uh, Jake was his name, 26 years old, working up in, uh, North Dakota, family lives in Kansas

• 47:32Speaker 01

  City, just had his second kid, paid for his house in cash, right? Actually quit his job to freelance on the high plains because he can work as much as he wants. Is it perfect? No, he's not home every night. He comes home, uh, every three weeks for a week, right? But what he's doing for his family, in my opinion, is somewhere between noble and heroic. Yeah. I mean, there's a 26 year old kid with no college, no debt, who's saving money and situating himself and his family for a future.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  And I, I just think that that's a, um, I, I just think that's a, of, back to your earlier question, if I were to give a better answer to what a man is. Mm hmm. It's that. It's that. It's, it's, it's a combination of sacrifice and, and humor and, uh, fearlessness, you know? And, and that quality really can exist in either gender. Sure. Uh, and has no, has no age requirement to it. But that's, that's my better revised answer. Okay. You know? I like that. Yeah. I like it. And you're grateful for?

• 48:57Speaker 01

  I'm grateful for the chance to tell you that story. And I'm grateful for the chance to be a cipher. Or an avatar.

• 49:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  Or, um. I'm working on a new show now, I'm trying to sell it. But it's. It's the working title is called People You Should Know. And I know it's probably very similar to the mandate that drives your. Guest selection.

• 49:17Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  And, you know. Look, there were eight, nine billion people walking around the planet. Studies show that. Some are better than others.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  Some, some are more interesting.

• 49:28Lewis Howes?

  Support groups show.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  Support groups show that the vast majority of these people, you don't want to be caught in elevator with.

• 49:35Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  But, but, but some of them. Are remarkable. And, um. And I. I've tried on Dirty Jobs and somebody's got to do it. Uh, and with my own little podcast to. To introduce you to some, and I'm going to try and do that again with another show. Uh, but. But a kid like Jake. You know, he, he would be the guest. The, the kind of guest that I would like to have. Not exclusively, of course. But. You know. But you can't. You just can't look through or past. A man like that.

• 50:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Quality man.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  It's just too important.

• 50:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  You know, but. Back to my granddad, you know, when he was in his prime. He was seen. For what he was. A fixer. A provider. And a, and a great intellect with no formal education. Today. That, that same man. At that same point in his life with that same set of skills. Would be transparent.

• 50:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  He would be invisible. To our society. We wouldn't know. How to value him and we wouldn't know how to talk about him. And we wouldn't know. We, we don't know where to put him.

• 50:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  So you went to the seventh grade and now you can build a house. Well, good for you. Good for you.

• 50:51Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  You know. And what a shame. What a shame. That one of the smartest people that, that I ever knew. Uh, today would be. More or less relegated to the. You know. Tough break pile.

• 51:05Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure, yeah. Well, we got to wrap it up. I got a couple of final questions for you. But I, I feel like I could talk to you for hours and just listen to your story. So I appreciate everything you've been sharing.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  It's my pleasure. Thanks.

• 51:16Lewis Howes?

  Um, but I want to. Make sure I get you out of here in the next five minutes. This is one of the questions I ask everyone at the end. It's called the three truths.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 51:24Lewis Howes?

  Three truths. So say this is the last day for you many, many years from now.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, great.

• 51:29Lewis Howes?

  You've, you've said everything you want. You've done every show you want to do. You've written books. You've presented, whatever you want to do, you've done it. But for whatever reason, everything you've created has been erased and no one has record of what you've said anymore or what you've put out in the world. Shows, it's gone. And everyone's there. It's the last moment for you and they give you a piece of paper and a pen. They say, well, you write down your three truths. The three things you know to be true about everything you've done that you would pass on to us, since we don't have anything else to watch or listen that you, that you've done in the past. Your three lessons that you would pass on to us.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  Wow, dude. That's, that's so much more involved than you're on a desert island with three movies.

• 52:12Lewis Howes?

  And this is what's coming up for you right now, obviously, you know.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  You're, you're basically saying, give me three examples of the best advice.

• 52:20Lewis Howes?

  Three principles that you would pass on to

• 52:22Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 52:23Lewis Howes?

  all the Boy Scouts that are, you know, they're, you know, anyone who's wants to read them.

• 52:27Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 52:30Speaker 01

  Find the hard thing and do it. Be wary of all earnestness. That's actually not mine. That's from my favorite fictitious character. Travis McGee, created by John D. McDonald. Some more books you haven't read, damn it. That you're gonna have to read. Read, read The Deep Blue Goodbye, written in 1964. It's pulp fiction. But it's great pulp fiction.

• 52:51Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  And the main character in one of these books is asked by somebody what it is he's most suspicious of, and he goes down a long list of things. But the last one is be wary of all earnestness. And I really believe that because earnestness is, is different than sincerity. We all want to be sincere. We all want to be real. We want to be congruent. But the truth is, Louis, that's very easy to fake.

• 53:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  So, you know, I, I'm paid to appear. Right? Earnest. And so that's what spokesmen do. That's what hosts do. That's what, right? So, so look, look beyond the performance. And just be wary. You know, when things sound good, it doesn't mean they are.

• 53:37Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 53:37Speaker 01

  Right? So find the hard thing and do it. Be wary of all earnestness.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  And

• 53:48Speaker 01

  the best advice I ever got, it just occurred to me, it actually came from my, from my father years ago, and it's, and it's just one word, and it's duck. And I'm gonna put that on my list, not because it's relevant at the moment to anyone, but because it will become relevant to everyone at some point. I was standing in the backyard as a boy, and there was a game of horseshoes going on. And a guy named Kevin Randlett threw the horseshoe, and it got away from him. And I was talking, I was talking to a, to a kid named, named Charlie Baker.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  And my back was to Kevin, and Charlie's sitting right where you are now. And from the distance, I heard a crisp, well-modulated, manly, baritone voice say, "Duck!" Now, what's interesting is, I didn't know who the man was talking to.

• 54:57Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 54:57Speaker 01

  But I recognized his voice as belonging to my dad.

• 55:01Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  And while I had no reason to ignore him, I also had no reason to just randomly assume he was talking to me, but I did. And it's not because his advice was excellent, it's because it came from him at just the right time and at just the right moment. And so I ducked. And a second later, that horseshoe hit Charlie Baker square in the face.

• 55:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  And broke his nose.

• 55:26Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 55:27Speaker 01

  And knocked out a tooth. It was horrible. So my dad still has a little bit of guilt from that, and I do too. But the, but the moral of the story is-

• 55:33Lewis Howes?

  His nose in your head, right?

• 55:35Speaker 01

  Back of my head or the front of your face? I mean, and you know, if my dad were here, he would say, "Look, I was saying, as a general rule, everybody sucks." But, but the thing is, if you don't know the source of the advice, you're not gonna duck.

• 55:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  Because you wouldn't assume it's being directed to you.

• 55:53Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 55:54Speaker 01

  And so, somewhere on that piece of paper, I would try and articulate the importance of specificity, individuality, timing, and luck.

• 56:04Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 56:05Speaker 01

  And because it's my last day on earth, and because my entire body of work, in your example, has been retroactively erased from existence, I don't have a lot of time, so, right, I'm gonna say, "Find the hard thing and do it. Be wary of all earnestness, and duck." And if I had room left on the paper, I would, I would probably write a quick note of thanks. No, I would just say, "Thanks for the pen and the paper. Uh, it's nice knowing that, even though this is all I'm going to leave behind, that, you know, if I didn't have the pen and the paper, I would have nothing."

• 56:40Lewis Howes?

  There you go. Um, I have one final question for you before I ask the question. Mike, I want to acknowledge you for a moment for being an incredibly true, honest human being.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 56:50Lewis Howes?

  This is the longest interview I've ever done.

• 56:52Speaker 01

  Really?

• 56:53Lewis Howes?

  I've ever done. I think maybe an hour thirty is usually about as far as I'll ever go. We usually go about an hour, hour fifteen.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  You think you're gonna use any of this?

• 57:00Lewis Howes?

  We'll use it all, absolutely. Um, maybe there was one other one the same length, but that's what I want to say, ever.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  But it wasn't as interesting as this.

• 57:07Lewis Howes?

  It wasn't as interesting, exactly. And, uh, I want to acknowledge you for your incredible journey. I think your story is really impressive, and the fact that you continue to follow your curiosity, and, um, be true to yourself. Everything you've done, you've been true to yourself, or you've said, "Oh, that's not true to me. Let me go do what I want to do right now." "Oh, I went to QVC three times," like, you continue to follow through, and you're genuine and honest along your journey. And your contribution for your work is so meaningful to so many people that you're a great symbol of inspiration for what's possible.

• 57:43Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 57:43Lewis Howes?

  For us. So I want to acknowledge you for who you are, for our time together. I hope I get to ask you more questions in the future sometime.

• 57:49Speaker 01

  Anytime, Louis. Honestly, I've done a lot of these, and, uh, you're, you're awfully good at it.

• 57:54Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it.

• 57:54Speaker 01

  And you're gonna go, well, if you're interested, you'll go as far as you want to go. But, good for you for breaking your wrist at a time.

• 58:02Lewis Howes?

  It's the greatest blessing.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  You know, uh, well, I mean, you could have-

• 58:04Lewis Howes?

  It was a nightmare, but, yeah.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  You just never know.

• 58:07Lewis Howes?

  Never know.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  You know, there's a- Oh, what is that? The, uh, the road not taken, right?

• 58:12Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 58:13Speaker 01

  You never know. It's so tempting to look back and say, ah, let me tell you what the plan was. But the truth is, you Forrest Gump your way through your own career. Sometimes you break your wrist. Sometimes you're in a sewer. Sometimes you let somebody name your dog. Sometimes, you know, you don't, you, you never know in the moment, the impact of

• 58:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  the thing until later.

• 58:36Lewis Howes?

  That's it. Um, you've got a podcast. It's in the top seven right now in the world of iTunes. So congratulations.

• 58:43Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 58:43Lewis Howes?

  Um, it's called The Way I Heard It.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  The Way I Heard It.

• 58:46Lewis Howes?

  The Way I Heard It.

• 58:47Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 58:47Lewis Howes?

  Mike Rowe. Make sure you guys download the podcast. Listen to the ads from either, I'm, I'm, I go check out bobblehead.com now because of the way you explain it. I want to buy markers because of how you even promote your ads. It's amazing.

• 59:00Speaker 01

  Well, every, every sponsor on the show is tied to my foundation.

• 59:03Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  And so

• 59:04Lewis Howes?

  You get back to that. So it's great. Yeah.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  It's simple.

• 59:07Lewis Howes?

  Check out your Facebook page. It's just Facebook slash Mike Rowe.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 59:11Lewis Howes?

  You've got great content there. Twitter, same thing. Mike Rowe, right?

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's out there. They just aggregate it, you know? I can't do anything, as this interview proves, in 140 characters or less.

• 59:20Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  So the heck with that.

• 59:22Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  I need more room, man.

• 59:24Lewis Howes?

  There you go. Go to Facebook. Go everywhere. Follow you. Um, and the final question is, what is your definition of greatness?

• 59:34Speaker 01

  I'm afraid we, we actually already talked about it to a, well, we kind of talked around it, but I think, I think it's that congruency. I, I, I think it's, I think it's a moment in a life when action, word, and intention all line up. It can be as simple

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  In a, in a dialogue, you know, and communication is, is hard. Everybody takes it for granted. It's easy. It's, it's really hard. But the, the, the way you're nodding your head right now, when you're trying to make a point, and you make it the way you want to make it, and the person listening goes, I know what you mean. And you believe they know what you mean? Not just faking it? Yeah, yeah. That's great. That's great. Yeah. You know, it's, it's such a, it's such a simple, simple thing. But, you know, one of those, one of those experts on the human condition said, um, it's probably Carnegie, "All problems are communication problems." All problems are communication problems.

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  So, so to communicate effectively. Yep. On my way. No worries. See? We're literally at the last second. No, no, I'm, I'm literally right in the middle of explaining how all problems are communication problems, and we had a communication problem. There you go. I don't know, I mean, if you're looking for a way to end, the- If you're looking for a sign. The only better way to end the interview is with, is with Mr. Fred. There you go. But yeah, man, um, thanks for letting him crash. He was great. He was proud and all. I loved him. Freddie. He's fierce. You're amazing. Well, Mike, I appreciate you, man. You're a legend. Thank you for everything. Thanks. Anytime. Appreciate it. Fred, any final words? Well, there you go. See? Two ears, one mouth. I like it. With the callback and everything. Thanks. Appreciate it. You bet.

• 1:01:30Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, guys. A two-parter with Mike Rowe. I don't know if we've ever done another two-parter before, maybe with one or two other people. But again, I was fascinated with Mike and just wanted to continue asking the questions. Luckily, he had a lot of time and we were able to chat it out for a while as bros in his studio. So make sure to check out the full video interview, the full audio interview and the show notes at lewishouse.com/404 for this one. I appreciate you guys so very much. We've got some incredible guests coming up. We've got one of the best dancers in the world. His name is Twitch. He is a superstar, been in a ton of movies and also the DJ for Ellen DeGeneres. We've also- Got Joshua Fields Milburn from The Minimalists.

• 1:02:15Lewis Howes?

  So if you are feeling hectic or chaotic in your life, or you've got too much in your space, learn about how to be a minimalist. We've also got Devon Franklin. Wow, this guy really inspired me a ton. He wrote a New York Times bestseller called The Weight, and he has produced a number of big films. Also, used to work with Will Smith as his intern early in his career. So got some interesting things there. We've also got one of the top spoken word poets in the world, Sekou Andrews, who's going to teach you how to become a better speaker, public speaker and performer. And we've got the founder of CrossFit coming on, Greg Glassman. That's right, this one is big, guys. Super fun time with Greg.

• 1:02:58Lewis Howes?

  Jay Abraham, if you want to learn how to build your business and 10x your business, the legendary godfather of strategic business marketing is coming on as well. Guys, an all-star lineup coming your way. If this is your first time here, make sure to subscribe to The School of Greatness on iTunes and also share this with your friends. Let me know what you think, @lewishouse on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, everywhere online. And this podcast is for you, for peak performers looking to get more out of business and life. If you have someone that you would like me to interview, someone who is at the top of the world at what they do, someone who is a peak performer, who is inspiring millions,

• 1:03:41Lewis Howes?

  and you want me to get more out of them to share with you, then tweet me @lewishouse and let me know your recommendation. Also, if you want me to tackle any specific topics, let me know as well over on Twitter or send me an email, lewishouse.com on my contact form there. I'm so pumped, so grateful for you guys. Make sure to consume this information and then take action with it in your life to improve your life. You guys know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.