Pod Insights The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe 434: Sarah Yourgrau—People You Should Know About this episode You may know Sarah as the on-camera producer from Facebook's Returning the Favor with Mike Rowe. She is also a two-time Emmy-winning storyteller, social anthropologist, founder and CEO of Common Ground Studios https://www.commonground-studios.com/, and the absolute cheeriest person you'll ever meet! Sarah talks with Mike about their new show, People You Should Know, which will premiere May 2 on Mike's YouTube channel @therealmikerowe https://www.youtube.com/@therealmikerowe.
Transcript 16,217 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:03 Mike Rowe? Hey guys, it's Mike Rowe and this is The Way I Heard It, but it could also be People You Should Know. Because Chuck, as you'll recall, there was a time when I was pretty sure this podcast should be called People You Should Know.
0:13 Speaker 01 Yes, and the reason for that, I believe, was because these were people that you found interesting that you wanted to share with other people.
0:19 Mike Rowe? That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And the more I thought about that title, the more I thought, wow, you know, it really does encompass most of my misspent career. Dirty jobs, somebody's gotta do it, returning the favor. These are all people you should know. But then, we had already started the podcast and it was called The Way I Heard It.
0:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, you can't go backwards.
0:37 Mike Rowe? It felt like, even though we changed the format to change the name at that same time...
0:41 Speaker 01 I didn't like it.
0:42 Mike Rowe? I know you didn't, and I didn't like it either.
0:44 Speaker 01 Yep, there you go.
0:45 Mike Rowe? And so friends, what I was stuck with was this terrific title for a podcast that didn't exist. And some shows that I never produced. Well, that's all about to change. On May 2nd, we're launching a, well, I was gonna say a TV show, but technically, if it's not on TV...
1:01 Speaker 01 I mean, you know, it's a fine distinction, really. It's some content, it's a program.
1:06 Mike Rowe? Well, it's a program on YouTube, but if you have YouTube TV, or if you watch YouTube on your TV...
1:13 Speaker 01 That's so true.
1:14 Mike Rowe? Then it becomes a TV show.
1:15 Speaker 01 It could very well likely be a TV show.
1:17 Mike Rowe? This is probably confusing for you guys, but here's the headline. People You Should Know is a new show. I'm gonna call it a TV show, because I think a lot of people will watch it on their TVs.
1:27 Speaker 01 A computer show sounds stupid.
1:29 Mike Rowe? Yeah, tune in for my computer show, my phone show. Nobody wants that.
1:33 Speaker 01 My iPad show, no.
1:35 Mike Rowe? But I do hope you want this. And if history's any indicator, a lot of you will, because People You Should Know, and legally, I'm not supposed to say this, but we really are picking up where Returning the Favor left off. If you were a fan of Returning the Favor, you're gonna love People You Should Know. Got a brand-new title, but guess what? I'm still in it. And I'm still looking for people with bottom-up solutions to some of society's big problems. And joining me in this adventure is my dear friend Sarah Yargrow, who produced Returning the Favor with me, and now she's along for this ride. She's my guest today. And my agenda, full disclosure, is I want you to get to know Sarah a little better. She was on the podcast a couple of years ago.
2:21 Mike Rowe? Everybody loves her. But she's had a really interesting career in my industry. And it's so much fun to be working with her now because there don't appear to be any rules left. And uh,
2:33 Speaker 01 Right, right.
2:35 Mike Rowe? We're gonna share some things with you guys. And I hope you find it interesting. I think you will because basically the metaphor I use in this is that we're building the plane in midair. We don't have a network behind this endeavor. We don't have a bunch of big advertisers. We don't have a big production company. Me and my business partner, Mary Sullivan, uh, who joins us for this conversation.
2:56 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. It's a full room, actually.
2:58 Mike Rowe? It's a full room. You got, yeah, Taylor's here and he's working on people you should know. Pooja's here, you'll meet Pooja. Anyway, I want you to know that this show is coming. I want you to know that I think it could be, I don't know if I want to say important. It's a lot of fun, but we really want you to get to know some people with some pretty effective solutions to some big problems. And, uh, the fact that we laugh our butts off along the way. I like to see it as a bonus.
3:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, no, it's good. It's a good time. It's a good role.
3:30 Mike Rowe? So having said all that, this is the way I heard it. My guest is Sarah Yargrow. The title of the episode is People You Should Know, which also happens to be the title of a show that used to be called Returning the Favor, which I'm probably not legally supposed to say. But having said all that, don't you go anywhere. It all happens right after this.
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5:19 Mike Rowe? Sarah is hunkered down for another one of our unforgettable, unscripted, unwarranted conversations. Mary Sullivan is here as well. She's walked away from the control center to... I can't decide if you're here to contribute or supervise.
5:35 Speaker 02 Both.
5:36 Mike Rowe? Great. That's Pooja there in the background. She came with Sarah. And who is Pooja? Exactly. How do you describe Pooja?
5:44 Speaker 02 Oh, my gosh. Pooja is a literal rock in my life at this point.
5:50 Mike Rowe? Do you know what literal means?
5:56 Speaker 02 Pooja is such an MVP. She started out actually as my writing partner. Pooja, you know how Pooja, me and Pooja linked up?
6:03 Mike Rowe? I don't.
6:03 Speaker 02 Pooja cold emailed me on LinkedIn because she had seen Returning the Favor. And she loved this kind of content. And I just loved her sort of tenacity to even be able to, and this audacity to be reaching out in that way. And she felt, and I just said, wow, let me, if someone has passion, I'm going to follow that with them.
6:21 Mike Rowe? This is, this thing, this Pooja, that quality is so for sale. It is so in need. Honestly, if I could find somebody with it, I'd replace Mary immediately. But I can't. I can't. And Chuck too, for that matter. Taylor, you could do it probably. If this sounds a little inside, folks, it's because it is. Sarah, if you're familiar, and even if you're not, with Returning the Favor, was a producer who schnered her way on camera so often that I really had no choice but to bring you on as a kind of co-host for this reboot. So, in an attempt to shamelessly plug the premiere of People You Should Know,
7:03 Mike Rowe? I thought it would be good to sit down and introduce/reintroduce your particular je ne sais quoi to our literally dozens of viewers. And at the same time, drag my boss, Mary Sullivan, into the conversation because this whole reboot would have happened without her. In fact, it was Mary's genius idea. I'll never forget it when she walked into my fake office and said, "Hey, what if we spend our money on a TV show? That's never happened before. Wouldn't that be exciting?"
7:33 Speaker 02 Well, when you have a brain like that, you've never had a bad hair day in her life.
7:37 Mike Rowe? I know, I know.
7:38 Speaker 02 It's protecting that beautiful brain.
7:40 Mike Rowe? I know. I'm surrounded with people with impossible hair. You, Chuck, I mean, in spite of his dotage, has a fantastic hairline. Taylor's preposterous. Pooja, yeah, I mean, and I'm doing what I can. But the reboot is not about hair. What is it about exactly? How would you, why are, why from your vantage point are we doing this?
8:05 Speaker 02 I think we're doing this because you and I don't like to move in traditional spaces and to wait for permission slips on things. And I think, at least for me, I feel so tapped into actual culture and people and to wait, and I've spent so much time with more traditional powers that be, who are greenlighting things, that I'm like, but people want and need this too, right? Of what we're doing with People You Should Know. And I also think it's a, you know, I think sort of uplifting programming has had a bad rap because it's been really reductive and one-dimensional.
8:44 Mike Rowe? Well, it's so predictable.
8:45 Speaker 02 So predictable, totally.
8:47 Mike Rowe? Every feel-good show I've ever seen, at least on network and on cable, from the music to the way it's shot, you know, everything sort of telegraphs.
9:00 Mike Rowe? What we the producers want you to feel at any given time, and I hate that personally.
9:05 Speaker 02 Well, I will say that the reason why I went back with you on this, one, because you are one of my favorite improv partners, and you don't wait for, and I have a background in improv. We both have some theater in the background, too, and you just, I love the live honesty of the show. We come in with research, we come in with really, you know, vetting and prepping our people, but then we're just responding to life, you know, and I think that's really refreshing and people can feel that because like with this uplifting version, sometimes I hear from people saying, "Well, it's not real, it's not reality, it's not life," as if life is only negative and downtrodden and hard and challenging. And that is one
9:46 Speaker 02 part of life, for sure. But the other, whole other part of life is delightful and joyful and ridiculous and filled with sort of tenacious attempts at ridiculous feats, you know?
10:00 Mike Rowe? Yeah, well, you know, I remember when RTF was first getting pitched, and I've told the story before, but since Mary's actually here, I think it was you who, I said no, how many, how many times?
10:14 Speaker 02 Many.
10:15 Mike Rowe? I mean, and to be fair, it wasn't just no, it was hell no, you've got to be kidding me, why are you coming with this? But the secret sauce for Dirty Jobs was always that BTS camera. So Mary was like, "Mike, don't think of it as a feel-good show, think of it as..."
10:34 Speaker 02 The making of a feel-good show.
10:36 Mike Rowe? That's correct. That's what actually did it, for me.
10:40 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:41 Mike Rowe? Right? I mean, that's what kept that thing on for 100 episodes, and that's why we're doing it now. But I don't, you know, you're what? Why are you laughing?
10:50 Speaker 02 I only got you to commit to five.
10:53 Mike Rowe? It's true.
10:55 Speaker 02 A hundred later.
10:56 Mike Rowe? Yeah, just a tip. Yeah, yeah. But look, that's the other thing, you know, I come from a world where like networks would never cough up a penny unless you signed a 20-page agreement, gave them every option in the world to do whatever they want, whatever they felt like, like doing it. So with Dirty Jobs, I went from trying to sell a pilot to having to sign a contract that gave Discovery really unlimited rights to unlimited seasons. And back then, that was the only way I could get anything on the air. This whole thing, I'm still not even sure how to think about what happened with Facebook
11:41 Mike Rowe? and us. I, people still look at me and shake their heads when I tell them we did a hundred episodes.
11:48 Speaker 02 Won an Emmy.
11:49 Mike Rowe? And then got canceled.
11:50 Speaker 02 Exactly. I mean, if you're gonna apply logic to it, you're gonna be really disappointed.
11:55 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
11:56 Speaker 02 You know? To me, it was just this lightning in a bottle. That like turned something in me, the cancellation of it, turned something in me. Cause I went back and I went back and did a Netflix show and I did some other things. And I'm just like, once you experience something like that, it rewires you.
12:18 Mike Rowe? You know, the last time I saw you on TV.
12:20 Speaker 02 Yeah.
12:21 Mike Rowe? That didn't have anything to do with me.
12:24 Mike Rowe? I was in a hotel room.
12:25 Speaker 02 All right.
12:26 Mike Rowe? And I'm flicking around, I was in a Marriott and I came across that Bonvoy channel. I'm like, God, that looks a lot like Sarah. And I'm watching, I'm like, it sounds like Sarah. I'm like, oh my God, it's you. And you're up there, I'm, well, I'm in bed, if you must know.
12:42 Speaker 02 Please.
12:42 Mike Rowe? Just flicking around and like, you were, how did you ID, you were a social anthropologist?
12:48 Speaker 02 A social anthropologist, producer, like in this vein of storytelling, that's where I kind of, but the social anthropology part is always my in. I'm always fascinated by just. Culture and how it can be moved and changed and all the subcultures in the world and the stories we're all living in, you know, that's infinitely fascinating to me. Yeah. Infinitely fascinating because they're also, it's totally legitimate if that's been your lived experience, you know, and so then to, that was a really interesting one because they actually found me from RTF, from Returning the Favor, they found me, they reached out. And then they flew me, we sort of worked shop some ideas of what stories would be interesting
13:30 Speaker 02 to me. I had pitched this going to Finland in the happiest country in the world. They said, no, that's sounds really boring. And then I, and then I said, you know, I have got, I got this 23andMe test or this DNA results that my family has this really long, long, long, old connection to one of the oldest Jewish communities in the Azores. And I described it as like, the first string that strikes the sound and the vibration of where you end up. Where exactly are the Azores? The Azores are this archa, oh, here's the word I didn't. Archipelago. Archipelago. That C H just crushes me. Archipelago. Archipelago. It's this cluster of islands in, the small cluster of islands is sort
14:12 Speaker 02 of the Hawaii of the Atlantic. So it's actually, it's only like, four and a half hours from Boston where I grew up. And then it's like an hour east of Lisbon. And so it's this completely, it's a singular culture that's a little different from Portugal because Portugal's this really like, a sort of protected, wild, you know, they had, didn't have a strong economy for a while. And so they were, had less tourists coming through. Portugal's on fire. There's so many expats over there. I know. I'm like, every day annoyed that I didn't. Move there. Move, move there and live amongst the, live amongst the Azorians. But it's really, I really recommend it because it has this, it's like Hawaii, it really is, but it has
14:56 Speaker 02 this incredibly volcanic soil. So you go there and it looks like you're on the set of Jurassic Park. Dead serious. And if you're, if you're in the springtime, spring into summer, all the streets and the highways are lined with these arches. Of hydrangeas, these huge, that feel like you're like wondering if you took something because it's so psychedelic. You know, it really is. And the colors are so fluorescent. And they paid for me to go and explore my ancestry.
15:24 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
15:24 Speaker 02 There. And it's so, and they allowed me to make something kind of, uh, I worried that it was indulgent. But I, I veered it towards it being a little bit more of a sort of poetic analysis to that feeling you can't name. Of being, feeling familiar in a place you haven't been.
15:43 Mike Rowe? That's very close to a German word called Wertschmalz. Which is, yeah, it's a, it's not quite nostalgia and it's not quite sentimentality. But it's a longing for a time that you didn't actually experience firsthand.
16:02 Speaker 02 Wertschmalz?
16:02 Mike Rowe? Wertschmalz. Yeah, like I remember Chuck, we were working at United Artists. And the movie was Excalibur, John Borman. And the opening scene is this crazy pitched battle. Swords and I mean, I felt so, I'm not really into the whole past life thing personally. But I felt like, boy, if I was, I think I was there. It just felt that like personal and weird.
16:31 Speaker 02 Totally.
16:31 Mike Rowe? And connective.
16:32 Speaker 02 Totally.
16:33 Mike Rowe? And with music too.
16:34 Speaker 02 Yes.
16:35 Mike Rowe? You know, the old standards kill me. It's like, gosh, I really feel like I was there. Of course I wasn't.
16:41 Mike Rowe? What is that? Is it, is it a form of mental illness, you think?
16:43 Speaker 02 I think, well, I think I'd have to check your labs, but it does sound like it might be for you. No, I think it's like, sometimes I think to myself, I'm like, we're humans floating through space on this, this strange ball that's like just floating through the galaxy. And so I try actually to temper my own audacity of what I know and don't know. I don't go too deep into rabbit holes, but like, I love some ideas. Those are fun stories to live in of like, what is that? What is that? You know?
17:12 Mike Rowe? Well, that's what I'm asking. When I look at the episodes we've shot so far, what is that? What are we doing? And, you know, I've been. Sort of glibly saying we're picking up where returning the favor left off. But I'm not, I guess we are at a glance, and I think the two million or so people who were really into episode 101 that never happened are going to be into this. But I also know that for me, I'm different than I was four years ago. Older, more bitter, broken perhaps. You are becoming more of who you naturally are. I was just thinking the other day of like, the amount of time we spent on camera as I was trying to write that post for my dad's birthday.
17:55 Mike Rowe? And I was so pissed off because all of a sudden the crew's ready to shoot and I'm in the middle of this thing. And you know, he's 93 years old, I can't not put this post up. And so we wind up filming all of it and, and you know, so I'm like, Mary, we gotta put this in the show. And she's like, oh, you know, that could be a bit indulgent. I'm like, well, maybe, but maybe not. I can't decide yet. So I think we're going to use that clip to actually promote. And I'm only mentioning all of this because it's an insane way to think about creating content. But I, I really think the future has to be some weird combination of genuine reality and actual mission.
18:40 Mike Rowe? And we've got that. I mean, the people that we've, the first six people we've profiled, I think are really, really, and I think by and large, the country's going to fall in love with them, if not you and me.
18:51 Speaker 02 I think all of the above. I mean, I think you were saying before, asking what, what is the show, what makes people resonate with it? And I think you just named it. Like, I think there's also a sense of, these last four years were wild, right? And we have been exposed to more than our brains are meant to handle and we're burnt out and.
19:12 Mike Rowe? Do you think we're over it?
19:15 Speaker 02 In general, like it as a sort of like over like I know I have had to rest my own burnout that was even subconscious of being too connected to things and what I realize and why I actually think even bringing it back to people you should know it has this kind of like buoyancy in the depth of the sea that is everything going on around, right? Sometimes the waves are super rocky, you're being tossed, it's infinitely deep, you have no concept of time, but it has this sort of buoyancy that you can hold on to to remember. It's like the go out and touch grass, remember what's real. They say when you're having a panic attack or you have anxiety or you're overthinking, two in your head, go outside,
19:57 Speaker 02 touch something real, touch a tree, touch grass, recalibrate, you know, and I think there's something, I know there was something with Returning the Favor and I know now as people who care about real people and everyday people, right?
20:11 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
20:11 Speaker 02 Um, that how do you, what is, we can't even, if it's not real and it doesn't have a mission and it doesn't feel like it has a greater meaning for me to tune into, it's hard to connect with for me and that can be a laugh, like who said Anne Lamont said that laughter is carbonated holiness?
20:33 Mike Rowe? Who the hell is Anne Lamont?
20:35 Speaker 02 Damn it, I should have taken it for myself.
20:37 Mike Rowe? You should.
20:38 Speaker 02 I should have. Um, she's a writer and I just love that phrasing of it because I think that's also part of the service of it too, right? There's like, we can, amidst all of the chaos, we're real people who have hard days and we also have a lot to laugh about and a lot to connect with, with each other. And I love, to me, that's why I like every person that we profile and every person we've always profiled with Returning the Favor, which, you know, my role was before to just be launched into these communities and build trust in these communities, right? And that's my, that's my social anthropology, right? I could do that every day in, day in, day out for the rest of my life and it would charge my batteries. But at the end of the day, you just realize we're so resilient
21:21 Speaker 02 as people and part of that is we have to be laughing with each other to be able to even keep going another day.
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22:57 Mike Rowe? And right now in this industry, a lot of people aren't laughing. Yeah. You know, to take your ocean metaphor, Mary hears me talk about this all the time. I look out my window at home and I see the bay. You know, I see the San Francisco Bay, and I imagine all my industry friends, and so many of them are out there treading water in this metaphor, producers and directors and talent and mid-level executives and high-level executives in networks and production companies all over the place. And also in the water are these little dinghies, you know? And there are people in them. And I've got one. I almost said I've got a little dinghy. Can we cut that out, please?
23:40 Speaker 01 No, we're putting it into the open, like you love.
23:42 Mike Rowe? Sorry, scratch that.
23:43 Speaker 02 For the little dingied folk out there, listening and tuning in.
23:46 Mike Rowe? I have an enormous dinghy. I've got room in my dinghy for, you know, what, like, maybe a dozen people, and we're full. And every day, somebody swims up, usually somebody I worked with on any one of a hundred projects over the years, and they grab onto the gunnel, and they're like, hey, you got room in there? I got an idea. And that's what's happening in our industry right now. And it's amazing to me. I've, you know, this show, just so people understand, not to put too fine a point on it, but there's no network behind it. There's no big production company. Facebook was behind returning the favor. Well, YouTube isn't behind this. We're just putting it on YouTube, and we're finding our own advertisers. We are building a plane
24:31 Mike Rowe? in midair, and I've never done it before. And, you know, the reason I asked Mary to sit in on this is because she's never done it before either, which makes it super exciting. But Mary's really good at figuring out new models. I'm pretty good at telling the truth on camera, the good, bad, the ugly, and the warts and all. And you're really good at being Sarah, and being, like, super curious, and really, you're much kinder than Mary will ever be. You're much more decent than I can ever aspire.
25:06 Speaker 01 Mary, you want to weigh in on this?
25:07 Speaker 02 Yeah, Mary's the kindest, most decent people to me, but...
25:10 Speaker 03 She is the smileiest, happiest producer.
25:13 Mike Rowe? When Mary hears the truth, she's generally rendered mute. All of these things are true. And so it's, you know, I don't want to bore people with too much inside stuff, but it's very strange for me. I've had, you know, half a dozen shows that worked in a very predictable way over the years. And I'm telling you, folks, those days are over. It's they're over.
25:40 Speaker 02 I don't think that's inside baseball. I actually think that would be for so many people who can't find something to watch. It's part of why you can't find something to watch because the models are totally constricted.
25:53 Mike Rowe? Why do you think so many things on TV look the same? And why do you think so much of it sucks?
25:58 Speaker 02 Um, I think that a couple of different things. I think it's people are the budgets have gotten social media. This right? Social media, the attention, you're now fighting for attention there and that has become legitimately. I mean, 70% and that's probably a conservative number of people are consuming their data and consuming their programming content just via their phones, right? Just via social media. We also have sort of trust erosion, I think with the larger networks. Partially because they are run by the same kinds of people.
26:30 Mike Rowe? And because whatever brand they used to have, they've completely betrayed.
26:33 Speaker 02 They've betrayed and because your attention economy has shifted, budgets have really constricted. So people are buying executives are able to be even some amazing execs that I know, right? Who really want to root for you and are championing your projects. They can't get them through because they are now a constricted budget. They're buying like 20% of what they were buying before, right?
26:54 Mike Rowe? And they're making it for 80% less.
26:55 Speaker 02 And they're making for 80% less. Right now it's 2025. We're talking with, you know, big streamers, big. They're not even programming until 2027 again, right? And so this is a deeply, deeply entrepreneurial time in the industry. We're always changing, but not at the rate we're changing right now. This is unprecedented.
27:15 Mike Rowe? Mary, you still awake? How many calls do you get a week on average from people pitching, soft pitching, kicking the tires, looking to see what might be possible and so forth?
27:30 Speaker 03 You know, I mean, hundreds, but it's worse than that because a lot of people go in through info. I mean, poor Sherry is.
27:38 Mike Rowe? She's talking about info at MicroWorks. Send all your ideas to info.
27:42 Speaker 01 Easy cowboy, easy.
27:45 Mike Rowe? Oh my God.
27:46 Speaker 03 No, but I mean, you know, it's across the board from, you know, very serious people that have specific ideas to somebody who, you know, just is starting out and wants advice or somebody who's really a fan of the foundation. It can be anything.
28:01 Mike Rowe? But this is, I mean, I think it's so interesting and maybe even kind of important since we started with poor Pooja, who's just here minding her own business. Think about what she did. She looked around and she took a really proactive step. You know, she picked up the phone. You gotta do that. Now, that's the same thing I'm just kinda making fun of, cuz a thousand people do that every week with Mary. But you know what? There's no getting around it. You gotta do that. You gotta do some other things too. But it's either in service of simply paying the bills and keeping your business on its feet. Or it's in search of, call it meaningful, work. And this is the other thing that I think is kind of interesting about you.
28:44 Mike Rowe? Most everybody in this business gets worn down and gets a shell. And they really do, just for self-preservation, become inward and brittle.
28:57 Mike Rowe? You are outward and spongy. You're fungible. You're squishy. You're happy. You're always, I mean, so I just, you know, I don't let this business break you.
29:09 Speaker 02 Thank you.
29:09 Mike Rowe? Even if I have to fire you next time.
29:11 Speaker 02 You know, I do a lot of work to protect that shell because you do talk with like, so much of my energy goes towards lifting people back up into possibility. And then you start to kinda look at the, I think with the traditional business, I was doing that for so long with them. And I love them and everyone's always welcome up here, right? But I can't keep going down and pulling people to Everest anymore, right? And that's the burnout part. I do think what's so exciting and what, why is a testament to the length of your career and you know, you guys' partnership. Twenty years. Twenty years. That's amazed. That's unbelievable, particularly in this business.
29:49 Mike Rowe? Yeah, in particularly cuz Mary was a somewhat respectable lawyer at the time. In fact, you casually mentioned Jurassic Park. Now, isn't it a, I mean, that story, you know, it was such a big movie that it's easy to forget how ingenious.
30:05 Speaker 02 Yeah.
30:06 Mike Rowe? Crichton's basic narrative was. I mean, the idea that you're finding in resin, like, what is it, like a mosquito DNA?
30:16 Speaker 02 Mr. DNA, right?
30:17 Mike Rowe? Yes. It's so, now, so Mary used to represent Michael Crichton.
30:22 Speaker 02 Oh, my gosh.
30:24 Mike Rowe? Yeah. Yeah, coma, Michael Crichton, right? Sphere, that guy. And Donald Sutherland, rest his soul, and John Cleese, still alive, not as funny as he used to be, but love him. I mean. Now you got political. You got political. No, I love John Cleese, my god. Sidebar, the greatest eulogy I've ever seen is John Cleese burying his dear friend Graham Chapman.
30:50 Speaker 03 Wow.
30:50 Mike Rowe? You have to look at it.
30:52 Speaker 03 Okay.
30:53 Mike Rowe? It's short, it is deeply inappropriate, and it, as funny as you can be in Westchester or Westminster Abbey or wherever it is, it's amazing. But the point is, here's Mary. Bio major once upon a time?
31:08 Speaker 03 Yep. I forgot about that. Yeah, bio major, went to law school, yeah.
31:12 Mike Rowe? Straight A student?
31:14 Speaker 03 Yes.
31:15 Mike Rowe? Good break.
31:15 Speaker 03 But decided, no, but decided I didn't want to go to, to medical school.
31:20 Speaker 01 Did you want to talk into the microphone?
31:22 Speaker 03 I'm not used to this.
31:24 Mike Rowe? I mean, I know, you've got, you're the biggest, loudest, most obnoxious person when you want to be.
31:29 Speaker 01 Put a microphone in front of her and it's just like.
31:31 Mike Rowe? Well, I just, you know, I just was, I just wanted to help out, you know, with law.
31:38 Mike Rowe? No, the point is, Mary changed her path. You know, sure she was gonna be, you know, in the medical field, a doctor. And then a corporate finance person, film finance, and then entertainment, right? And then me, but I wind up in a sewer, calling her and her assistant's on break, so she answers the phone, that happens 20 years ago, and I keep her on the phone for an hour. And then, you know, whatever weird vision quest you're on, you know, the fact that we worked as hard as we did on that show, and then you came across my transom as I was trying
32:17 Mike Rowe? to fall asleep in a Marriott, and you pop up on some walkabout in the Azores, or wherever the hell you were.
32:24 Speaker 03 It was beautiful, though.
32:25 Mike Rowe? It was very pretty, but you were going on and on about purpose and your roots and everything else, and I'm just lying there going, we actually had a show. Look, Dirty Jobs is the thing for me, it'll, I'm never gonna top that. But in terms of an engaged audience.
32:44 Mike Rowe? I never thought I would say this, you know, because Dirty Jobs is programmed mostly by the people who watched it. But returning the favor was deeper.
32:52 Speaker 02 Yeah.
32:53 Mike Rowe? It was deeper.
32:54 Speaker 02 Yeah.
32:54 Mike Rowe? And there's something about all of that and our collective weird reverse commute crooked thing that I never really got over and I just couldn't put it completely behind me. So when Mary comes up and she's like, look, this is, we've got unfinished business. And I'm like, well, who's the sponsor? You know, we don't have any. Well, who's the network? Well, we don't have any of those. Well, who's the production company? Well, we might get these guys at Impact to help us, but I don't know. Well, is Sarah available at least? Maybe. Or she could be in the Azores, I don't know. But I just, I just want people to understand how, uh, what we're dealing with.
33:34 Speaker 02 Yeah.
33:34 Mike Rowe? In our industry. And I'm not looking for pity. Believe me, nobody in this room needs any of that. But this is a Rubik's Cube.
33:43 Speaker 02 I think it's totally a Rubik's Cube. Two things, I want to throw back to, I think, all of the qualities. One of the reasons why I hired Pooja and brought Pooja into my life and had her shift around. Pooja has lived 19 different lives with me over the last four years, really. Her versatility, her work ethic, and her attitude are unparalleled, right? And I think that's a quality of everyone. Actually, it's a testament to you guys, too, Mary and you Mike. The people you surround yourself with all have that quality. Incredible work ethic, incredibly good attitude, right? And there's a, there's, you have, that's no longer a, what a lovely quality.
34:26 Mike Rowe? Bonus.
34:26 Speaker 02 That's a have to have it now.
34:28 Mike Rowe? That's a prerequisite, yeah.
34:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, have to have it because, listen, if we're talking about the traditional network or traditional way of doing things, that's very, that's apocalyptic, right? It's, it's no longer.
34:40 Mike Rowe? It's Yesterday's Kisses.
34:41 Speaker 02 It's Yesterday's Kisses, exactly. Yesterday's Kisses, I've never heard that. I love that.
34:45 Mike Rowe? Hat full of rain.
34:46 Speaker 02 So, as I always say, it is a hat full of rain.
34:49 Mike Rowe? You're just pissing up a rope, as my granddad would say, which I never really understood either.
34:53 Speaker 02 I get that, and then on the way down.
34:54 Mike Rowe? Oh.
34:57 Speaker 02 But what I love too is, and what I've always felt with, with everyone in this room, is we've never been happy or comfortable playing by the rules, right? It's not in this crazy nefarious way. It's just like, uh, we're Y people. Why would I do it like that? Why would I do it like that?
35:15 Mike Rowe? Man, that's true too. And that, that is a mental illness for sure. And it...
35:19 Speaker 02 It's affliction.
35:21 Mike Rowe? Yeah. Yeah, I know, I know. I just, God, the, when I think of the amount of times we fought City Hall. Look at Chuck, he's just nodding his head, rolling his eyes. It's true.
35:33 Speaker 03 Well, you were unusual because when you reached out to me, you didn't have an agent or a manager.
35:41 Mike Rowe? Still don't.
35:41 Speaker 03 Or a publicist or...
35:43 Mike Rowe? No.
35:44 Speaker 03 Not even sure a competent accountant, but...
35:47 Mike Rowe? Gee, that's rough. Ouch. Shazam.
35:51 Speaker 03 I'm just joking. But I didn't come from the entertainment world either, which I think was the point you were making. I mean, not only was I a bio major, but I was a corporate lawyer. And so I didn't know how Hollywood really worked either. And so we, we fought a lot of things because we just didn't do them like other people did them.
36:11 Speaker 02 Yeah. I think a quality that we don't talk about enough and that should, that I hope everyone who's listening can lean into with themselves, naivete is a gift with any sort of entrepreneurial endeavor, right? Like, your not knowing can be an edge.
36:27 Mike Rowe? What a beautiful transition to bring Chuck into the conversation. Hey, wait a minute! I mean, look, you said everybody in the room, and I mean, think of, what are the odds that I'm sitting here with a guy I've known 45 years?
36:40 Speaker 02 That's amazing.
36:41 Mike Rowe? Forty-five years? Like we sang in a barbershop quartet in high school.
36:46 Speaker 02 Wow.
36:46 Mike Rowe? And now, look at him, sitting there, impersonating a producer, live switching a show. Two, two computers open, both of which are a source of great mystery to him. Look at him switching back and forth with cameras even as we speak. Ah! So, I mean, honestly, what you're doing... Don't stroke out, you're on the TV.
37:09 Mike Rowe? The odds of you sitting here doing what you're doing right now are really no.
37:16 Speaker 01 Like four to one at least.
37:19 Mike Rowe? I'm not sure what's less likely. The fact that you're sitting here now doing what you're doing, or the fact that Mary's sitting here now doing whatever it is she's doing.
37:28 Speaker 01 True.
37:28 Mike Rowe? You still strike me as somebody, it's like, you're still on some kind of, like, your emotional IQ and your actual presence. Right? Still seem to line up a bit. But I don't know, man. I mean, like, the more I think about it, the more impossible all of this seems.
37:47 Speaker 02 And that's the adventure of it all. To me, that really invigorates me. I think I'd be bored if the path, like, I love, for instance, YouTube right now, where this will launch for the first time, is the next thing. It's already there, right? There's such amazing opportunity to actually build without any of those pesky other additions that you had to accommodate for in the past, right? Like, and with, you know, we had, I had great executives, I've had wonderful things, but I've also had a lot of people who are disconnected from the ground, being able to control the trajectory of a project.
38:27 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
38:28 Speaker 02 Right? And as people who know and love people, you and I, right? All of us in this room.
38:34 Speaker 01 You said people who know.
38:37 Speaker 02 As people, you should know. It's just, to me, like, that's the... There's also a betting on us and our own genuine curiosity and passion for people and our knowledge of stories and places and communities that don't see enough light, that are amazing, right?
38:57 Mike Rowe? Sure. Yeah. I mean, I'd put that under the earnest side of the column, but absolutely.
39:07 Mike Rowe? What if, say, five years ago, some big oil company offered a promotion that gave you a chance to lock in the price of gasoline at $2.50 a gallon for the rest of your life? Would you have taken that deal? Or what if a nationwide grocery store had given you an opportunity to lock in the price of ground beef at, say, $2 a pound for as long as you live? Would you have taken that deal? Yeah, me too. Unfortunately, those deals were never on the table, but this one is. Today, as in right now, for a very, very limited time, Pure Talk is offering every American the opportunity to purchase unlimited talk, text, and data, along with a 30 gig hotspot,
39:51 Mike Rowe? for just $29.95 a month for life. Not your phone's life, your life. No contracts, no commitments, just a very rare opportunity to lock into a ridiculously low rate for unlimited talk, text, and data for the rest of your life. It's the Unlimited Data Plan from Pure Talk, and it will not be around for long. $29.95 a month for as long as you live. Taxes and fees not included. Some restrictions do apply. See puretalk.com for details. Offer ends 11/15/26. So chop, chop. Pure Talk. Look, it's important.
40:36 Mike Rowe? What the heck was I gonna say? Oh, not to answer my own question, but like, when I think about why so much of the programming today has, it's so same, same. And kind of disappointing.
40:50 Speaker 02 Derivative.
40:51 Mike Rowe? Yeah, it's derivative, and I think it has to do with risk. And, and I think this is what's getting worse and worse on the network level. There, there's no reward for, well, there's no punishment for boring.
41:04 Speaker 02 Yeah.
41:05 Mike Rowe? There's great punishment for assuming risk and failing, but there's no punishment for not taking risk and failing.
41:12 Speaker 02 Right.
41:12 Mike Rowe? So if you greenlight filthy jobs...
41:16 Mike Rowe? Right, or some, you know, awful sequel. Hey, Axemen was good, let's do Hatchet Men. See how that works, right? If you do that and it fails, you keep your job. Because hey, we had success here. Why wouldn't it work again?
41:30 Speaker 02 There was a path.
41:31 Mike Rowe? That's right. But if you try something really new and that misses, they walk you behind the barn and shoot you.
41:39 Speaker 02 Absolutely, and that's what I mean too of like, there's, you can have all the greatest champions. We had people, you know, my company, Common Ground has, you know, we were out, we are out there. We have great relationships with execs. We have wonderful champions. They can't do anything for us really in the same way, right? Because of everything you just said, you can't take a ri- so you never end up innovating this field, right? You get once in a while, listen, let's not talk, like also the listeners, through the arc of what was happening these last few years, right? You had the lockdowns where everyone was suddenly completely hooked to their TVs, right? And watching things sort of professionally. And there was a huge bubble of inflated budget that went to, anything got greenlit at that time, right?
42:23 Speaker 02 And then the after effects of that. Once we started getting out into the world and the whole country was able to get back out of lockdown, the strikes happened, right? And then those writer's strikes were major and they had a repercussion. So in the background of this industry, things get greenlit sometimes a year and a half before you see them, right? So it's never a recent greenlighting that you're watching something. And then you had, by the time the writer's strike was over, people started to realize that you could make things, one, like I said before, the cellphone and the, and people watching on YouTube and all these other ways that people were watching from content creators, started to really compete with TV and film. You suddenly realize you don't have to spend so much
43:07 Speaker 02 to get so much and you're only betting on, you know, this is a little inside baseball, but internal IP, right? If you bought Marvel and you paid for all the rights of Marvel or you paid for NFL content or whatever, you have to double down on anything in that. So you get very, very limited on what you're able to- Create and which is why I think there's no kind of better time to be alive in this world than now. Because of the opportunity to say, we don't have to wait. We have a proof of concept, right, with returning the favor. And we have our knowledge and and understanding of how the world has changed and shifted. And why wouldn't we just go out and make something? You know, why would we wait for permission?
43:50 Mike Rowe? Because there's no money, sir.
43:52 Speaker 02 I'm sitting here, it's your bankroll again.
43:55 Mike Rowe? Yeah, I mean.
43:56 Speaker 02 This works out for me.
43:56 Mike Rowe? But that's classic Mary too. It's like, well, if I'm going to think mostly about the creative and what I think people might. What I think I might have permission to do in the in the creative space. Mary will just think, well, then the riddle for her is that partially, but also to figure out. Can you get it paid for? And the answer, of course, short term, it's, you can figure it out.
44:23 Speaker 02 Yeah.
44:24 Mike Rowe? You know, we'll bootstrap it ourselves. But long term, how do you satisfy an advertiser? How do you bring people in who otherwise? How do you do any of this without an agent, without a manager? And this is where it gets tricky for other people like Pooja, who are, what are you, like 13 or something? How old are you? Twenty five. She's 25 years old, right? So classic, like Gen Z, right? What do you tell a Gen Z or in this business? Should you get an agent? Should you get a manager? Should you get a publicist? Should you? I mean, when I was her age, it was very clear if you don't, you're doomed. Yeah, you don't have access to anything. But here she is cold calling you, right?
45:07 Mike Rowe? And so it's a difficult time to offer advice.
45:11 Speaker 02 It is, and yet I have one piece of it.
45:17 Speaker 02 And yet, I'll find a way.
45:19 Mike Rowe? I think it was Dorothy Park who said, advice is that thing we ask for when, deep down, we're desperate to hear nothing.
45:29 Speaker 02 Exactly, exactly. I think, like you said, back in the day, even as of like, six years ago, right? If you didn't, five years ago, four years ago, if you didn't have an agent or a manager, and you didn't go that traditional path, you didn't have access to create something and build an audience, right? And that beautiful reciprocal process that that creates. Now, the gatekeepers have left their posts, and we are-
45:57 Mike Rowe? The barbarians are at the gate.
45:58 Speaker 02 Barbarians are at the gate. And the, to me, there's something really, really invigorating. I love a power to the people movement. I love a, why are we waiting for permission from? I love a sort of libertarian view applied to a, in a secular context, you know? I love the idea of being able to say, well, let me go and, you know, as a creator, which is what we end up being on the show, like, you've amassed a massive audience, right?
46:26 Mike Rowe? Dozens, dozens of them.
46:27 Speaker 02 Dozens, tens. Back it up.
46:29 Mike Rowe? If you stack them end to end, well, they'd, they'd fill this room.
46:34 Speaker 02 And I have a strong four that comes out, that comes out in droves. And, no, but there is this, you know, I bet on that honesty of that connection and being able to build it up ourselves, that just, and I know there's learned, there's gonna be learning curves with it, and there's time, and there is a real financial, you know-
46:54 Mike Rowe? Sure.
46:55 Speaker 02 Like, that you have to, that's the premium for it. But I just know that, I mean, just look at the way anything is moving, right? With content creators and with being able to own your audience, it sort of, it sort of has a parallel with like, the rise of crypto and, you know, less regulated environments that are sort of democratizing access. You can be sitting in your living room and pull a huge audience because there's nothing filtering it. People love what you're putting out there.
47:23 Mike Rowe? That's the challenge too. On YouTube, the audience doesn't really care how much you spent. They don't care how much the thing costs.
47:29 Speaker 02 Yep.
47:29 Mike Rowe? I mean, look at this. We've got three cameras, we're sitting here, this is costing whatever it costs, it's not a lot, you know? And it, you know, a million, two million people are gonna watch this. Uh, what does that mean? Like, how, so if I spend a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand or three hundred thousand dollars an episode, am I gonna get that extra multiple? I don't think so, but I'll get more, I hope. But it's, it's all very, like, huh. This is the part of the map that says here be dragons. Exondraconne. We're not sure.
48:03 Speaker 02 Yeah. That's thrilling to me. We are obviously sitting with a different contribution into, into creating that. However, you know, you guys are, no one's a dummy in this room. You can feel when also you've always been a pioneer in this space, right? You guys have never full, you've never fully played. I mean, I've always been drawn to you guys for being very non-traditional, for forging your own paths.
48:29 Mike Rowe? Well, thanks.
48:30 Speaker 02 Truly.
48:31 Mike Rowe? We will take, Mary will take credit for that.
48:33 Speaker 02 Cause it takes, it takes. It takes grit, it takes vision, it takes self-trust, too. Um, and it requires experimentation, right? You, cause you are doing something no one's ever done before. And I, I just know that this kind of content, it answers the question, why it should be a little different than just throwing something together like this? Is that the same problem that we're, we're solving the problem that we spoke about at the beginning, which is no new longer-form shows are being greenlit.
49:02 Mike Rowe? Right. And.
49:03 Speaker 02 You know?
49:03 Mike Rowe? And the other thing about that is, like, it's really fun to unpack it and think through the nuance, but sometimes the answer is, is really very simple. It's like jet fuel. Hotel rooms, you know? As opposed to this, the kind of show that I've always worked on, Returning the Favor, People You Should Know, Dirty Jobs, Somebody's Gotta Do It, uh, even Six Degrees, you kinda have to go where the people are. And so, I wanna talk about where we've gone so far with you and get your thoughts on who we've met, but Taylor, stick your face in front of the camera for a minute, so just, people understand there, you're in the room, too.
49:45 Mike Rowe? This is Taylor Wooton, and since we're kicking around people's, you know, curriculum viatés, what's your card even say now? What are you?
49:56 Mike Rowe? Yeah, I mean, it's laughable. I mean, there he is on a poster where I met him 10 years ago.
50:02 Speaker 03 Yeah, he was shooting a commercial.
50:04 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
50:05 Speaker 03 Oh, for the foundation.
50:06 Mike Rowe? He was doing a... Were you actually shooting, or were you behind the scenes?
50:10 Speaker 03 No, he was, he was shooting a camera. You looked, because we made that up on the spot, and we didn't have an actor. And you looked at him, and you're like, "Hey, you, can you come over here?"
50:20 Mike Rowe? Yeah, "Nice hair," I said. "Your hair looks pretty good." And I wanted to make up a, yeah, like a recruiting poster that was the opposite of the college poster that I had had in, you know, when I was in high school. But the point is, Taylor's like, "Yeah, sure, man." So he puts on this outfit that just didn't wardrobe, doesn't really fit him. He didn't care. And he just stood there and smiled, and now that thing's hanging in, I don't know, thousands of schools all over the place. But the point is, he's not a model, except he was on that day.
50:49 Speaker 02 Hey!
50:49 Mike Rowe? I mean, hey, hey, hey, hey, but...
50:52 Speaker 02 It's before picture.
50:53 Mike Rowe? But you were also cutting a movie at the time, weren't you?
50:57 Speaker 04 Yeah, I was working on lots of other projects. A lot of TV commercials at the time.
51:01 Mike Rowe? Yeah. So, I mean, look, I'm just making the point, all right, you can get out of the shot now. That's enough with your face and your hair.
51:10 Mike Rowe? Anybody who thinks that they can put the one thing on their business card and get away with it had better be an accountant.
51:18 Speaker 02 Yeah.
51:18 Mike Rowe? Because I don't think there's anything else.
51:20 Speaker 02 And I, I actually think that's gonna be collectively so reinvigorating for all of us, because we are all more than one thing, right? And sometimes you just... If your book is gonna be so short that you have like two or three chapters, that's your prerogative. But I love to be, I mean, you can be, it's, that's the exciting time of being alive right now, too. You have to be, and it means you can be so many things. I mean, I find that really, really liberating as a subject.
51:50 Mike Rowe? So, what kind of book are you? Are you a novel? Are you a...
51:56 Speaker 02 I'm a very thick book. I am a thick book, fellas.
52:02 Speaker 01 Kind of like Mike's dinghy.
52:05 Mike Rowe? My what?
52:06 Speaker 01 Your dinghy.
52:07 Speaker 02 Yeah, exactly. I ain't no small dinghy.
52:10 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
52:12 Mike Rowe? A big, thick dinghy. That's great, Chuck. Good. Good. There are women in the room. You may lose your blush.
52:18 Speaker 01 I didn't, I didn't bring the dinghy into it. I just, I just did a callback.
52:21 Mike Rowe? You certainly brought it back.
52:24 Speaker 02 There's, there's a line, there's a poetry line that I love. It's John O'Donohue. And it's, it's how I like to live my life. I have it in my office and I'm going to paraphrase it a little bit, but I want to live like a river flows dazzled by the bend of its own unfolding. So the sense of never, and that's, that's not correct, but just Google John O'Donohue. I'd like to live like a river flows. And I just love that because I think
52:54 Speaker 02 what freedom feels like to me is not fully knowing what's next, you know? Like that's, that to me is actually like a sign of good health and freedom that I'm living big enough. I can, I can know my trajectory, but then I also, like I said, we're just floating around here in space on this ball, just winding through the galaxy. Like, let me be a little dazzled and delighted. And I think if I keep staying, every time I've said yes to things that felt like they were outside of my plan, my life has gotten so much more interesting.
53:28 Mike Rowe? You had a plan.
53:29 Speaker 02 I had a plan. I went to, there was a little while where, so I went to theater school. I went to an art school and I was in theater and my track was musical theater. And I was really good at it. I was pretty good at it. I had some incredible Fagin cane work.
53:51 Mike Rowe? Fagin, she's referring to, I believe, Oliver.
53:55 Speaker 02 That's right.
53:56 Mike Rowe? You played Fagin?
53:57 Speaker 02 I played Fagin, a Jewish trope.
53:59 Mike Rowe? Jeez.
54:00 Speaker 02 But I was, like, that was one of my most joyful, fun, because he has a really interesting story, right? He's in petty crime, but he also has this depth, and he wants to be a name for himself, and he's figuring out how to, you know, he's a sort of a father figure to these kids. And I just loved theater so much. It's still the thing I sometimes mourn in some way. I have this sort of duplicity of this other parallel life that I really, I sometimes wonder, not that I could do this again.
54:31 Mike Rowe? Sure.
54:32 Speaker 02 But...
54:33 Mike Rowe? There'll be no money.
54:34 Speaker 02 There'll be no money, exactly. But I'm like, hey, what's the difference between this life I've chosen now? No. But I loved theater for the, so, but then I went on and I got my master's degree in social anthropology, and my focus in that was on conflict resolution and how to use humor, inject humor to create sort of bridges of intimacy.
54:58 Mike Rowe? So contract negotiation, hostage negotiating with songs?
55:02 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, but make it a musical. I just loved, and I think what I loved is getting to dive into another person's point of view, another person's lived experience. I love this idea of really understanding how to communicate with people, all the subtleties, all the words that go unsaid, right? The biggest illusion of communication is, or the biggest misconception of communication is the illusion that it happened.
55:29 Mike Rowe? All problems are communication problems.
55:31 Speaker 02 They are.
55:31 Mike Rowe? Carnegie.
55:33 Speaker 02 I mean, that man's been right about everything.
55:35 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
55:35 Speaker 02 Right?
55:36 Mike Rowe? Pretty much.
55:36 Speaker 02 Pretty much. But that was my path, and that's where I got, you know, I was applauded for that, rewarded for that. I loved that. I grew up in a theater home that was sort of a prerequisite for being a human in my house.
55:50 Mike Rowe? When did you know that the audience was a thing that you wanted to please?
55:55 Speaker 02 Oh, my gosh.
55:58 Speaker 02 Four years old, five years old. I knew I had, I think it was also this brushing up with this power that you feel when you can shape a room reaction. Um, I also have a twin brother who had a very different personality and so I was sort of the outward performer, but by contrast, this sort of binary sibling experience. But I just loved play so profoundly. I mean, it's my favorite form of intimacy. It's my favorite way to connect. The closest people in my life, play is just critical for connection. But I felt that that's one of my earliest recognitions of self and something that I
56:41 Speaker 02 had to go through my own level of like, what is a healthy love of that external? And then what is, at one point, you have to check that you're not the puppet being puppeteered by audience reaction, right?
56:55 Mike Rowe? Sure.
56:56 Speaker 02 Which can be, which can be hard, but I just love.
56:59 Mike Rowe? Because they will ultimately eat you alive if you let them.
57:03 Speaker 02 Yeah.
57:04 Mike Rowe? You have to love them and that, you know, I look at them as my boss, but I also know that as much as I want to please them, if they think I'm trying to please them, they'll hate me.
57:13 Speaker 02 Totally, totally. And you'll hate yourself.
57:15 Mike Rowe? But not as much as they hate me.
57:17 Speaker 02 Totally. True. Very true.
57:25 Mike Rowe? Here's a crazy idea. What if there was an academy out there that paid students to learn instead of the other way around? Specifically, men and women who want to work in the skilled trades. And what if this academy not only paid for your training, but also covered all the expenses associated with your training, like travel and food and lodging? And finally, what if this academy guaranteed you a job at the end of the training period? Well, that's exactly what's happening at America's Workforce Academy by Meta. This is a five-week, highly immersive, pre-apprenticeship program that gets you all the necessary certifications you'll need to start a career in the skilled trades immediately. I'm talking-
58:08 Mike Rowe? About AI-proof six-figure jobs, helping to build out the new infrastructure that our economy is depending on. Electricians, plumbers, HVAC techs, welders, fiber optic technicians, these jobs, they are all in demand like never before. And again, every graduate of America's Workforce Academy is guaranteed a job on a Meta website. I first announced this program a few months ago, and I have been watching the response ever since. It's extraordinary. This is a nationwide, unprecedented fast track to a long-term career in a skilled trade. If you or your spouse or your kid or your grandkid are looking for a straight path into a career with no cost at all,
58:53 Mike Rowe? check out the opportunities for yourself at meta.com slash America's Workforce Academy. That's meta.com slash America's Workforce Academy.
59:04 Speaker 02 So I thought I was gonna go into theater. Do you have a path like that? You sort of explored, you have had such a rich track.
59:11 Mike Rowe? Everything I thought I was, every plan I've ever had has gone up in flames. Every single one. You know, but they've all led to something else that worked.
59:23 Speaker 02 Yeah.
59:23 Mike Rowe? Which is why even now, you know, as old as I've ever been, I don't have a crystal ball and I'm looking at this project. And I can see how it could be really big.
59:34 Speaker 02 Yeah.
59:35 Mike Rowe? And I could also see how it just gets swallowed up in a rough, tempestuous sea. You know, because it's noisy out there. I don't really know. But I know we had a couple million people who were wondering who moved their cheese. They've been waiting for a couple of years to see what we just did over the last few months.
59:55 Speaker 02 I also think we have had, I have had over these last few years, I'd say over these last like six years, more than that, would that like, we started in 2017.
1:00:05 Mike Rowe? Mm-hmm.
1:00:06 Speaker 02 So up until 2020, 2021, technically January is when that fell off. Um, I have had hundreds fell off.
1:00:16 Speaker 02 Were slaughtered in public. Um, yeah.
1:00:22 Speaker 02 Exactly. That was really startling for people too, because I think we, I have had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of messages of people asking, and sometimes people kind of begging for that sort of honesty, because our version of uplift is really messy and human and relatable. Right? I know, and that's something that you guys have held, you and Mary have held such a bar for too, of being like, these have to be real people.
1:00:52 Mike Rowe? Gotta be real.
1:00:53 Speaker 02 Gotta be real. And real people are flawed. And let me tell you, as we all know, sometimes the best of us, quote unquote, right? The people who are really endeavoring every day to move the needle on something that is like, wow, you can give up, you can give up, you've done enough, but are really endeavoring are people who have had, who have really walked through darkness, right? Those are the brightest amongst us. And those people are flawed, right? And it's sort of a badge of honor.
1:01:21 Mike Rowe? Well, it's the problem with everyday heroes.
1:01:23 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:01:23 Mike Rowe? There's no such thing.
1:01:25 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:01:25 Mike Rowe? If you're a hero, then you are by definition in some percentage that sets you apart from the rest of us mere mortals. But the minute we set you apart from everybody else, you become less relatable. And then ultimately the object of some kind of envy. And now will there be a trophy? So I, I don't, you know, the hero thing, I'm super stingy with it. We've had a couple of Medal of Honor recipients sit here, you know? Okay. That works. That works. I don't know if I've met any heroes on Returning the Favor or on People You Should Know. But I've met a lot of people who are slightly better than me.
1:02:07 Speaker 02 But that to me is, that's the kind of person that I'm interested in, one, and who I wanna, I wanna shine a light on, because to me, the goal of this show, this endeavor, is to get anybody at any point in their life to check in with, what do I give a damn about? And then feel like. They have the agency. They don't need a permission slip. They don't need, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars. They don't need a 501(c)(3). They don't need permission from the government or from someone to endeavor to make a difference on something in their community. And that is like, if we all moved one degree, if we all stepped into that one degree, one, our life would get better. All the data around service and gratitude and
1:02:51 Speaker 02 doing something for other people is just like the mark of health and longevity. And two, our problems would be so much lighter and lifted with just small collective movement. And so that's like, the point of why I'm in this storytelling world, in this medium, is just, we can't be what we don't see. And when I see people who really have all total legitimacy to just tap out, say, "Your life, your gig's been hard. This has been a rough road for you." Like, back out. No one's gonna flaw you for that. When I see them pushing through, it helps me check my own excuses of why I can't be useful.
1:03:29 Mike Rowe? Sure.
1:03:29 Speaker 02 In the world.
1:03:30 Mike Rowe? No, I, I get it. I mean, it was the same dynamic. Dirty Jobs was out of sight and out of mind, you know? You're in a sewer, you're in a septic tank, you're working with real people without a script. So there's a modesty. I remember arguing with the network about, "Well, let's, let's elevate them into working class heroes." I'm like, "Well, I don't think they are heroes." I think they're by and large, good and decent people, many of whom are more prosperous than we let on. And maybe I would do that different if I had a chance to, to go back. But it's the same thing here. Like, when we look at Lindsay, and when we look at Steve Hots, and when we look at Mrs. Mays,
1:04:16 Mike Rowe? these people are still fundamentally relatable.
1:04:19 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:04:19 Mike Rowe? And what I like most about putting them out there is that you're not left as a viewer. Like, if you're a viewer, and you really hear or see a Medal of Honor story brought to life, you wind up shaking your head and saying to yourself, "Jesus, you know, I don't, I don't think I could do that. I don't think I have what it takes to do what he or she did." The people you should know, in the show, people you should know, are people you could be.
1:04:49 Speaker 02 Yeah. Yeah.
1:04:51 Mike Rowe? Who stuck with you most this round?
1:04:54 Speaker 02 I love me some Danny Combs and some tact. I love the mission over there. Judeline. From Queens.
1:05:04 Mike Rowe? Tell me about her.
1:05:05 Speaker 02 Tools and Tierras.
1:05:06 Mike Rowe? Yep.
1:05:07 Speaker 02 Judeline is an incredibly vivacious. Five foot.
1:05:15 Mike Rowe? Four foot nine.
1:05:15 Speaker 02 Four foot nine, exactly. A generous five, giant of a spirit. Who. Wanted to be a superwoman. When she was growing up and she re- she looked at her particular set of circumstances, right? And what is the best use of her cards that she's been dealt? And she played them to be just that and went into the form of being a plumber. And she realized that she says, instead of a doctor, I'm the person you need most urgently. Right? You're gonna need me more frequently than you need a doctor. You're gonna need me more frequently than you need a lawyer. You know, when people are always happy to see her.
1:05:52 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:05:52 Speaker 02 When she's up their door. And I love that she. Just didn't even indulge a world where. You know, there weren't other women. She was the first woman to be in the union.
1:06:04 Mike Rowe? The Plumbers Union.
1:06:05 Speaker 02 The Plumbers Union, yep. And I love that she just was not. Deterred by the fact that to make a door, she's gonna have to run at that wall. A couple of times, right? Before she can punch through it. And I just love that and and she has this sort of. All the young girls that she brings around her, right? To be able to, at a really young age, to be able to, you know, start working with their hands to see themselves. As really capable. As plumbers and as builders and how it just also reapprreciating at a young age. Like, I love anyone who's also teaching kids. At a young age to sort of look around and recognize how fundamental behind every one of these walls.
1:06:43 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:06:44 Speaker 02 A plumber has been here. My life is easier because of plumber and its artistry and mastery. And she was just so. Vivacious. And funny and playful. And she doesn't take life too seriously, but yet takes it dead seriously.
1:07:00 Mike Rowe? She takes her work pretty seriously. Her organization is called Tools and Tierras. She's basically making a more persuasive case for this specific vocation to young women.
1:07:11 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:07:11 Mike Rowe? And obviously, that's MicroWorks 101. You know, she's one of my favorites too. But.
1:07:18 Mike Rowe? Can't wait to get behind that one. Mary, what about you? Did you have, I mean, you've been on all these with us so far. We got six coming up. Is there one that sticks with you most?
1:07:27 Speaker 03 Well, yeah, to the line was, was great. And Danny, because I, I was really behind that organization.
1:07:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, explain what it is.
1:07:35 Speaker 02 Yeah, TACTT. So Danny started, Danny and his incredible wife Becky, started an organization called TACTT, which is an acronym for Teaching the Autism Community Trades. And Danny was, you know, a grand, he has, he had an interesting trajectory, right? Talk about interesting trajectories. Grammy Award winning musicians, singer songwriters, taught music to inner city schools in Nashville. All that shifted when his son was diagnosed with autism.
1:08:02 Mike Rowe? Right.
1:08:02 Speaker 02 Right? And
1:08:03 Mike Rowe? Dylan.
1:08:03 Speaker 02 Dylan. And I love that because that's sort of a through line for all the people that we feature, for anyone we feature, whether it's Returning the Favor or all the people from People You Should Know, there's one circumstance that changes their trajectory, right?
1:08:15 Mike Rowe? The Inciting Incident.
1:08:16 Speaker 02 The Inciting Incident, exactly. Denouement is the end?
1:08:19 Mike Rowe? Mm-hmm.
1:08:19 Speaker 02 Okay, so not quite there yet.
1:08:21 Mike Rowe? Well, that'd be the day.
1:08:23 Speaker 02 It's Machina, yes. So Danny comes from a long line of tradesmen. He's been, he's like fourth generation tradesmen. He recognized that his son Dylan, who was diagnosed, was really, really, really, he wasn't able to vocalize, he wasn't able to, you know, he wasn't verbal, he wasn't able to, he wasn't learning in the same rate or the same way that other kids his age were learning. But he was incredibly good at building and rebuilding things and sort of very tactile. And he realized that there is incredible limitations for this entire community called the neurodivergent community, right? Because just really, which is a fancy way of just saying you think outside of maybe a neurotypical way, dyslexia, ADHD, autism.
1:09:09 Mike Rowe? The spectrum.
1:09:10 Speaker 02 The spectrum, exactly. Which is just a refreshing way to look at everyone's brains work differently. And he comes from a really strengths-based look at it, right? Where it's like you can look at where someone's flaw is, or you can say, you know, what is the thing? If a bear thinks it's a fish, it's going to be miserable. If a fish is being treated like a bear, it's going to look like, you know, it doesn't know what it's doing and it's not capable.
1:09:33 Mike Rowe? And when the fish meets the bear, it's a bad day for the fish.
1:09:35 Speaker 02 It's a bad day for the fish, exactly. People talk, people say that all the time. But with Danny, like, I love, everything is a, why can't you do this? You know, they, these are kids who would never have been given a power tool, you know, in any other context, being handed power tools, saws, being said, yeah, you can learn this, you can do this, you can do this. And in fact, maybe you're actually incredibly skilled at doing this. And I just love, he's creating this very on the ground,
1:10:05 Speaker 02 sort of small based community solution to a really big problem, which is that the huge amount of people who are going to be leaving the trades, right? You know, what is the number at this point, like?
1:10:17 Mike Rowe? Well, five, for every five who retire, two come in. And it's been that way for about a decade. And it's, you know, demographically, it's only going to get worse. And of course, all the stigmas and stereotypes that are making recruiting impossible. It's funny for me, Danny was the first favor we returned long distance.
1:10:38 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:10:39 Mike Rowe? It was such a great story, but it was so frustrating to be sitting there in my office, trying to make sense of this through the Zoom thing at the height of the lockdowns, you know?
1:10:51 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:10:51 Mike Rowe? So going back to surprise him in this new model, that was great.
1:10:58 Speaker 02 Yeah, they're the best. I mean, it's like with anyone that we feature, these have to be people who are doing it with or without the camera rolling, right? In fact, we're often slightly inconvenient to them.
1:11:10 Mike Rowe? Slightly?
1:11:10 Speaker 02 Like, our presence is slightly inconvenient.
1:11:13 Mike Rowe? God, I know.
1:11:14 Speaker 02 Like, they can't wait to, and imagine me coming in, like, before they even knew you're coming, I'm just like this person who cannot read the room. I am just so bloody annoying to them. And, and I just push through those social, those social norms and...
1:11:32 Mike Rowe? You're like Mary Poppins, you slide up banisters.
1:11:37 Speaker 02 I'd like to try. But there, you know, and, and the best thing is too, like you get to go into, and I think the way that our show and what I love listeners to even, you know, when they can appreciate when they watch this is this is not us coming in as a TV crew, us telling you what you need in your life and we're going to solve this problem for you. We do such intimate research, really connected with people around this person that we're featuring to really understand what is going to be sort of rocket fuel on what they need, right? So from the outside, it may look like they really need X, Y, or Z, but a lot of times you're burdening somebody if you're not giving them the right gift, right? A gift can be a burden.
1:12:16 Mike Rowe? Oh, you can break them.
1:12:17 Speaker 02 You can break them. I mean, unless they want to be constantly abating their taxes and moving their operation offshores.
1:12:24 Mike Rowe? Which we don't recommend.
1:12:25 Speaker 02 We don't recommend.
1:12:26 Mike Rowe? Mary, from a legal standpoint, don't, don't do that.
1:12:28 Speaker 02 That'll be the spinoff.
1:12:31 Mike Rowe? But you know, we, Mary and I talked about this a lot in the, in the old days, drinking from a fire hose. And I mean, it happens in life all of the time, you know? Look, you can do it to your kid if you send them to the wrong school or, or, or give them too much of what they need, essentially.
1:12:48 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:12:49 Mike Rowe? You know, and so all of a sudden people are, God, how many times did you look at me and shake your head and say, you know, you're, you're going to kill them with our love?
1:12:59 Speaker 03 Yeah, they need a drink of water and you're giving them a fire hose.
1:13:02 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's true. You have to look at someone's sort of capacity, like what's the vessel of their operation? Where are they at in that type? You may think it, we may think it feels generous to give someone a gallon, but they only have an eight, you know, a, a eight ounce cup.
1:13:16 Mike Rowe? Right, but some don't.
1:13:17 Speaker 02 But some don't.
1:13:18 Mike Rowe? So like Luke, Luke Mickelson.
1:13:19 Speaker 02 Exactly.
1:13:20 Mike Rowe? Goes from seven chapters to 400.
1:13:23 Speaker 02 Right.
1:13:24 Mike Rowe? Right? He was able to scale, but you know what he also did? He quit his job after returning, after his episode airs, he pulls the plug.
1:13:31 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:13:32 Mike Rowe? That lunatic goes all in and now he's got thousands of people building beds all over the country. I mean, that's really been, I mean, to think about us just Forrest Gumping our way into his world and go, oh, here's some cameras and here's some wood and surprise. And then, you know, like two years later, the guy's life is completely transformed, you know? And by extension, a lot of other peoples.
1:13:56 Speaker 02 Absolutely, but that's the, everyone on this show, am I able to say the S-word?
1:14:02 Mike Rowe? Um, salmon?
1:14:04 Speaker 02 Yes, everyone on this episode gives a salmon, okay?
1:14:08 Mike Rowe? Now you can say it.
1:14:09 Speaker 02 Okay. Everyone here gives a shit. We really like people, we respect people, and like, then, so that, people can feel what's real out there now, and I think that's what's drawing them to the show. Um, and we would never work on anything that's not real. I would be, there's plenty of other things I could be happy doing, you know? I could be a novelist in the woods, in one chapter, maybe one chapter I will be.
1:14:32 Mike Rowe? Look, that's weird. And look, I, for the avoidance of doubt, I have worked on some things that aren't real.
1:14:37 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:14:38 Mike Rowe? A lot of things.
1:14:38 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:14:39 Mike Rowe? For 15 years, I worked in this nonfiction space, which, you know, which is not nonfiction. Right? I've worked in the reality space, which is kind of the opposite of reality. It's really, really hard to find a way to balance between, okay, this is production, and this is a show, and this is a network, and this is the budget, and you're you, and you're trying to build some sort of trust with the viewer, and you think maybe you have something resembling a brand, and you, it's an impossible thing to balance. And the funny thing is, we've done it. This endeavor balances that. But that in and of itself is a guarantee of 0.0 things. We don't know.
1:15:23 Mike Rowe? But I'll tell you the one that I'm interested in, and it's probably because I just spent the last day writing it. Because what I do now, like, you go in first, you do a lot of front work, and sometimes, just because Mary doesn't tell me, or just because I'm busy, I show up, I don't know my ass from a hot rock, right? I don't know what's happening. And when viewers see you bringing me up to speed on camera, that's real. I know generally, like, where we are, but I don't, there's a lot of stuff I do not know. And I'm only there for a day. Like, we only do this for like in seven, eight hours. We shoot the whole thing and then we're out. And so, a lot of stuff gets by me. Mm-hmm.
1:16:05 Mike Rowe? And it's not until, like, a few weeks later, that I get to sit with it. And I, you know, Vins, our editor, will send me a cut and I'll look at it and I'll think, "Okay, that's what happened on that day, but what's it mean to me personally now?" And that's a privilege. And it's also a pain in the ass, but it's a privilege to be able to sit down and go, "Tell the viewer in..." You have to show them what happened on the day, but you also have to explain, you know, a few weeks later, what it meant. And so...
1:16:42 Mike Rowe? Ever since Chapter started advertising on this podcast, I've been getting letters and emails from satisfied customers all over the country. Last week, I got one from Joseph, a retired veterinarian in Texas, who just learned his Medicare plan was shutting down. I can't tell you Joseph's last name because his medical history is complicated and personal, but his situation is not uncommon at all. Given his medical history, Joseph was unable to find a local provider that would include the doctors he'd come to rely on. Happily, Joseph listens to this podcast, and Joseph heard me talking about Chapter just last week.
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1:18:04 Mike Rowe? Make sure you're on the best plan for you. Also, people who switch plans after calling Chapter save an average of $1,100 a year.
1:18:14 Mike Rowe? 804, Chapter. That's the number. Call it today, it's free. Whole thing takes about 20 minutes. 804, Chapter. The trip we took to Fredericksburg. And we met this guy, Steve Hots, who runs a forge called the Black Horse Forge.
1:18:33 Speaker 02 The Forge Daddy himself?
1:18:34 Mike Rowe? The Forge Daddy. And to be honest, it's not a fun episode from the standpoint that we're dealing with another giant problem. You know, PTSD, veteran suicide. It's heavy.
1:18:46 Speaker 02 And it was raining, and it was dark, yeah.
1:18:49 Mike Rowe? And I had thrown my back out the day before, broken my toe. This is so screwed up. I'm in the midst of what can only be described as kind of a weird and atypical pity party. In fact, the first, like, the episode opens, I tell you about the time I broke my ankle. Apropos of nothing, four years earlier, just because I couldn't believe we survived the plane ride. I thought the plane was gonna flip over. So by the time you picked me up, I'm out of the plane, I'm shaky. Mary's looking at me like, "Look at us, we're still alive, this is very exciting." And my toe hurts, and my back hurts. And I just wind up going down this weird rabbit hole of self-involved pain.
1:19:34 Mike Rowe? Meanwhile, we're about to talk to a guy who's in the business of saving lives, because, you know, 17 vets, more or less, per day, punch their own ticket. So it's like, okay. You know, weeks later, when you look at that, like, in the old days, I might have been like, "All right, we have to cut all of my ridiculous tertiary blather out of this thing, or lean into it." And... That's interesting.
1:20:06 Speaker 02 And that's honest.
1:20:08 Mike Rowe? Oh, it's honest.
1:20:08 Speaker 02 Right? Like, that's incredibly honest. And it ended up being a really, I think when it's honest, and it doesn't always hit like this, but nine out of 10, I bet on when you take the more authentic path, and you lean into it, and you build, you really lean into it, you can see more complexity, you can see humor in it, you can see all of that. It's way more relatable, and it ends up kind of illuminating this path, that I think that became a really interesting inroad for other people to empathize with why these guys are in pain, day in and day out, right? Agonizing pain.
1:20:41 Mike Rowe? Constant.
1:20:41 Speaker 02 Constant pain, pain that we would cross our eyes, right? Like, it's just, it makes you feel insane, right? It makes you feel out of your body. And that's a driver for why some people say, I think, I can't, if life feels like this, I don't know if I want to live that, right? It's so powerful. And so, the relatable pain, and agonizing, if not pathetic, in category of hurting your toe, right? There's nothing that makes you feel more like a man when you stub your toe, but it's a, there's a lot of nerves there.
1:21:14 Mike Rowe? But it's tough to complain about your toe to a dude with no legs.
1:21:18 Speaker 02 But you're allowing, I think you allow the audience then to relate to what pain might feel like in their life, and then imagine that was cranked up.
1:21:28 Mike Rowe? Well, I hope. Look, I mean, for me, it's micro macro. There's going to be some micro in all these episodes, because, well, there I am. But what Steve has done, and this is something I, I think is really going to resonate. I hope it does. I'm proud of it. But we've profiled probably a dozen different organizations who take non-traditional approaches to combating veteran suicide. I mean, I've been in the, the swamps of the Everglades, you know, hunting pythons with these guys. And I've been in Indiana at Jason Saterman's place, putting together old motorcycles. There are so many ways to help get these men and women out of their own head, and focused on something bigger than themselves. But nobody...
1:22:14 Mike Rowe? Nobody's batting a thousand, except this guy.
1:22:18 Speaker 02 I know.
1:22:19 Mike Rowe? This forge that he's built, and the way he healed himself, right? This is an interior designer who quits his job, joins the army, loses an eye, breaks his back, comes home, and rather than start sketching dresses and interior designs like he used to do, now he's making knives. And now he's literally forging knives. And he realizes he's probably gonna be okay, because there's something so transformational about the business of forging. So he opens up his Black Horse Forge to other vets. I mean, it's been years now, but he's got like 22,000 have come through.
1:23:04 Speaker 02 It's insane, 22,000, zero suicides.
1:23:08 Mike Rowe? Right. So, look, folks, I mean, if we're looking for a place to land the plane, that's close to where it is. We're looking for people you should know. Steve Haas is one of them. You'll meet him. You'll meet him soon. And what he's done, you know, it ought to be headline news. And what I did on that particular day was so inconsequential and self-involved that the only sensible thing to do is to jam it all together.
1:23:34 Speaker 02 It's a good one. It's a great one. And I think, I mean, it's just another thing that I think people, that makes people you should know really different and really special and sort of rebellious in a fun way. So for the viewer to understand is, we're also connecting people to, they get tapped into our entire network. And then we get to have this huge amplifying domino effect, right? Of people who are not waiting around to be granted permission, and who have resources that they can share, and who can, you know, put their, like, we had Luke Mickelson, that you cited, involved in our very first episode.
1:24:15 Mike Rowe? Sure.
1:24:15 Speaker 02 Right? Because that was a need of hers. It made sense. And you're able to sort of jump in and have this amplifying effect, you know, which I just think is so badass and invigorating.
1:24:28 Mike Rowe? It's six degrees of decency.
1:24:30 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:24:30 Mike Rowe? Basically, you know? And I mean, I remember on that first one, Mary, we called, like, we were, spoiler alert, but.
1:24:39 Mike Rowe? We were looking really for a very specific kind of surprise and to call a guy like Bo Bachmann, you know, a Ford dealer and to explain what we need. I mean, you were on that first Zoom call.
1:24:53 Speaker 03 Yep.
1:24:53 Mike Rowe? This, I've never met this guy. Like, were you surprised by what he said at the end of that call?
1:24:59 Speaker 03 Yeah, I was surprised because we had nothing to show him. I mean, that was just, I think it's the power of the show. People really get it. You're trying to highlight people in the community that are solving the community's problems. And that's why you'll never run out of issues because we've featured PTSD many times.
1:25:21 Mike Rowe? Foster care.
1:25:21 Speaker 03 But the people are different and the way that they're tackling it are different. And some will be like Sleep in Heavenly Peace, where there are chapters across the US. But I think just as important is inspiring people to do it under any name.
1:25:37 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:25:37 Speaker 03 In their own community.
1:25:38 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:25:39 Speaker 03 To show them what they can do.
1:25:41 Mike Rowe? Yeah, it's back to the humility thing. And sometimes it's almost, you know, from the sublime to the ridiculous. I'm thinking of Mrs. Mays. I don't know what's, you know, you'll meet Mrs. Mays. She's a radical street librarian in my hometown of Baltimore. And I don't know how a woman comes to the decision to dress up like little Bo Peep and go to the neighborhood where they shot the wire and give away books to kids who would otherwise not have access to them. But when somebody takes it upon themselves to try that.
1:26:12 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:26:13 Mike Rowe? Well, hell, the least you can do is show up and get Taylor to point a camera at him and see what happens.
1:26:18 Speaker 02 It's contagious, though, to be around these people, right? It just gets you sort of off your own butt to get out into the world. Because I just think like, there's so many, you don't even have to have studies. It's a lived experience, right? Of when you are endeavoring something that's passionate and meaningful. And we need all hands on deck. Whatever you're actually lit up by, go that route. Don't try and force yourself to be, you know, she's really lit up by literacy, really lit up by solving those problems and wants to go to spaces that were not being serviced.
1:26:51 Mike Rowe? From the bottom up.
1:26:52 Speaker 02 From the bottom up. And that's. True, I mean, again, I'm just gonna reinforce this because the data is so immense. If you wanna live a long, satisfying, nourishing life, right? It's not happy every day in and out, but it's nourishing and you feel content with it. A lot of your life is gonna include service, right? It's like you see people who have the veil lifted as they get into, you know, as a bad thing happened to them, but actually was the portal into this other, other space. And we can do that without having the bad thing have to happen to us yet. And you can do it in a small, tiny way. You're not, you can do it with one hour a month. You can do it with, you know, spending, sharing some extra profit you have.
1:27:35 Speaker 02 You can do it in advertising something on your platforms or your channels, or however you actually authentically wanna show up. Like, this is what that show also gives. It makes you feel too, like, ah, the world's not a complete dumpster fire, right?
1:27:52 Mike Rowe? My species isn't a total disappointment.
1:27:54 Speaker 02 Yeah, but I think that's a like, it's a big thing to offer. That's a big buoy to offer in a sea where, you know, the headline-making machines that is anything on TV at this point, news, all of that, that's meant to keep us all sort of in our, what's it called? Like paralysis of what's happening. You can say, yeah, that's real, and so is this. It's also real. It's equally real. And real change, whatever that means, happens on a local level, period.
1:28:26 Mike Rowe? I'll tell you what real change means. It means we could really use some change, um, and some actual dollars on the show. Pardon the shameless plug, but our friends at Stand Together have been super generous. They champion bottom-up solutions and they're, and they're helping us. We've had help from Pure Talk, some of our partners, Groundworks, Ferguson stepped up, Hogland.
1:28:48 Speaker 02 US Money. US Money.
1:28:50 Mike Rowe? US Money Reserve just came through in a, in a huge way. So, like, when I said before, folks, that we're building the plane in midair, I mean it. There's no network. We, we have yet to have a, we don't have an ad sales department, but we're kinda in the spirit of Blanche Dubois, depending on the kindness of strangers. And, um, and friends, so, um.
1:29:12 Speaker 02 And I'll say, just to underscore that. With total humility and only 2% hubris, we are the people to do this too. It's not like we have this fun idea that we're going out into the world. We have got battle scars on us. We have iterated, iterated, iterated, iterated, you know? We did 100 of returning the favor. The only people that could do a returning the favor are people who had hundreds of hours before that too. Right? So like, it is also, we are good stewards of that capital, right? We're good, like, it's a place to actually get some returns in all the metrics.
1:29:51 Mike Rowe? Well, that's awfully mercenary of you. I'll close. Look, we love the mercenary position here at MicroWorks, but personally, you can't beat the missionary position, Sarah. So I will just say to all of you, if you want to support us in this endeavor, and this is a shameless plug, we'll take your money. Info@MicroWorks, tag Mary, and, um, yeah. We're figuring it out. If you want to be part of the solution, that's where you go. In the meantime, first episode drops, uh, May 2nd here on YouTube. We're thinking about every other week after that, and we'll have some little surprises for you.
1:30:29 Speaker 02 On your channel.
1:30:30 Mike Rowe? On my channel, right? Because where else would we go? We just got a million subscribers on the channel.
1:30:37 Speaker 02 Incredible.
1:30:37 Mike Rowe? So we're excited about that because I'd neglected YouTube most of my life.
1:30:41 Speaker 02 Sure.
1:30:41 Mike Rowe? You know? But, um, hey, I'm finally getting up to speed. And if there were any lesson to take from this whole conversation, aside from the shameless plug I just offered, it would be that nobody in this room is where they thought they were gonna be. You know?
1:30:57 Speaker 02 And so if you need a buoy, latch on. We're just buoying out there.
1:31:02 Mike Rowe? We're just buoy, we're buoy happy.
1:31:05 Speaker 02 We're buoy happy.
1:31:06 Mike Rowe? You know what? If you just need to hang on to something, grab a hold of my big fat dinghy. All right? And hang on for dear life. Because this ship is leaving the port, folks.
1:31:18 Mike Rowe? Sarah Yargrow.
1:31:21 Mike Rowe? Glad you're along for the ride. Don't know where it's going, but it's a treat to ride with you.
1:31:24 Speaker 02 It's a treat to ride with you. I love us figuring out as we go.
1:31:27 Mike Rowe? Pooja, congratulations on making that call.
1:31:31 Mike Rowe? Taylor, thanks for impersonating a model. Chuck, thanks for being my friend for 45 years and doing whatever you're doing over there.
1:31:38 Speaker 01 Who knows?
1:31:39 Mike Rowe? Mary, we're gonna have to let you go. I'll miss you.
1:31:43 Speaker 03 You wouldn't even know how to do that.
1:31:44 Mike Rowe? I really wouldn't. You know why? Because I don't have a friggin' HR department. That's why. I'm gonna have one of those too. Alright guys, see you next week. People you should know, May 2nd, right here on the Youtubes. If you like what you heard...
1:31:58 Speaker 05 And even if you don't...
1:31:59 Mike Rowe? Won't you please...
1:32:00 Speaker 05 Won't you please, pretty please, pretty please, subscribe? Well, I hate to beg and I hate to plead, but please, pretty frickin' please, please sub... Please sub... Subscribe!
1:32:30 Speaker 01 The way I heard it is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates, not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.
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