This is the best of Newtsworld coming up. My conversation with Micro on this episode of Newtsworld. You know him from his hit Discovery Channel show Dirty Jobs and his podcast The Way I Heard It as a TV host, writer, narrator, producer, actor, and spokesman. His performing career began in nineteen eighty four when he faked his way into the Baltimore Opera to get his union card. I'm pleased to welcome as my guest today, Micro, a great entertainer and great American. Mike has made a career out of shining a light on the lives and experiences of American laborers. Mike became known as the dirtiest man on TV. He traveled to all fifty states and completed three hundred different jobs, transforming care television into a landscape of swamps, sewers, ice roads, coal mines, oil derricks, crab boats, hillbillies, and lumberjack camps. For this, he has received both the credit and the blame for Labor Day. We're sharing stories about the skilled workers who've crossed Mike's path, the importance of work, and Row's fascinating life.

This is the best of Newtsworld coming up. My conversation with Micro on this episode of Newtsworld. You know him from his hit Discovery Channel show Dirty Jobs and his podcast The Way I Heard It as a TV host, writer, narrator, producer, actor, and spokesman. His performing career began in nineteen eighty four when he faked his way into the Baltimore Opera to get his union card. I'm pleased to welcome as my guest today, Micro, a great entertainer and great American. Mike has made a career out of shining a light on the lives and experiences of American laborers. Mike became known as the dirtiest man on TV. He traveled to all fifty states and completed three hundred different jobs, transforming care television into a landscape of swamps, sewers, ice roads, coal mines, oil derricks, crab boats, hillbillies, and lumberjack camps. For this, he has received both the credit and the blame for Labor Day. We're sharing stories about the skilled workers who've crossed Mike's path, the importance of work, and Row's fascinating life.

Nerd it out there everywhere. Just take a look around down the freed or up the stairs or reading underground. You don't need tomorrow Bag, and you don't need Rob. All you got to do is getting yourself at bearded job.

Nerd it out there everywhere. Just take a look around down the freed or up the stairs or reading underground. You don't need tomorrow Bag, and you don't need Rob. All you got to do is getting yourself at bearded job.

I am particularly excited to have somebody who I think has come for many Americans to personify the work ethic, the legitimacy of work, the requirement that we understand how many different jobs have to be done for civilization to succeed. And somebody who's also become in his own right, a household name Mike Rowe. I'm just thrilled that you're with us.

I am particularly excited to have somebody who I think has come for many Americans to personify the work ethic, the legitimacy of work, the requirement that we understand how many different jobs have to be done for civilization to succeed. And somebody who's also become in his own right, a household name Mike Rowe. I'm just thrilled that you're with us.

Newton, Hello, and thanks, I'm flattered. It's great to talk to you again.

Newton, Hello, and thanks, I'm flattered. It's great to talk to you again.

Did you ever imagine when you were younger that you would end up doing national television, doing podcasts, writing books, speaking to the Congress? I mean, you know, you become sort of an institution in your own right when you were in your teens in your twenties. Did you have any notion that this is where your journey would take you?

Did you ever imagine when you were younger that you would end up doing national television, doing podcasts, writing books, speaking to the Congress? I mean, you know, you become sort of an institution in your own right when you were in your teens in your twenties. Did you have any notion that this is where your journey would take you?

Absolutely not. I hadn't really ruled anything out. I was a fairly curious kid, and I had parents who encouraged me to look at everything from every angle. But no, I grew up next to a man who happened to be my grandfather, who could build a house without a blueprint, and I was determined and convinced that I would follow in his footsteps. The handy gene, as you may know, is recessive, and it pounced over me. And so while I grew up surrounded by farmers and tradesmen, and I had a real appreciation that the kind of man my grandfather was, who incidentally only made it through the seventh grade but wound up a master electrician, plumber, steamfitter, pipefitter, welder, mechanic, I thought that is what I would become. I really thought I was destined to be that person. And it took me a few years to get it through my head that my assumptions, my dreams, and my expectations were in no way lined up with my skills. And so, you know, as a teenager, even in my early twenties, I think I was a lot like those contestants on American Idol who realized, often for the first time, that they can't sing after all, in front of a few million people. Once it became clear that I wasn't going to be that guy, I went to a community college. I took every imaginable course I could, the broadest variety of topics I could find, and at twenty six dollars a credit back in those days, you could afford to do that. I stayed in that community college for three years. Then I went to work. Then I went to a university, eventually got a degree in communications, and Horace gumped my way into the entertainment business and Wade leads onto way, as Robert Trott said, And then one day I looked up and I was forty two. I had had a pretty decent freelance career. My grandfather was ill, ninety and dying, and my mother called me at my desk at CBS in San Francisco and said, Mike, before your grandfather dies, wouldn't it be nice if you could turn on the television and see you doing something that looked like work? And I laughed and I said, yeah, that would be great. And so I went out and I started filming a series that turned into Dirty Jobs. And that's how it happened. It took forty two years. It was a weird mix of serendipity, good luck, and hard work. But you never know how the story ends. But that's how mine began.

Absolutely not. I hadn't really ruled anything out. I was a fairly curious kid, and I had parents who encouraged me to look at everything from every angle. But no, I grew up next to a man who happened to be my grandfather, who could build a house without a blueprint, and I was determined and convinced that I would follow in his footsteps. The handy gene, as you may know, is recessive, and it pounced over me. And so while I grew up surrounded by farmers and tradesmen, and I had a real appreciation that the kind of man my grandfather was, who incidentally only made it through the seventh grade but wound up a master electrician, plumber, steamfitter, pipefitter, welder, mechanic, I thought that is what I would become. I really thought I was destined to be that person. And it took me a few years to get it through my head that my assumptions, my dreams, and my expectations were in no way lined up with my skills. And so, you know, as a teenager, even in my early twenties, I think I was a lot like those contestants on American Idol who realized, often for the first time, that they can't sing after all, in front of a few million people. Once it became clear that I wasn't going to be that guy, I went to a community college. I took every imaginable course I could, the broadest variety of topics I could find, and at twenty six dollars a credit back in those days, you could afford to do that. I stayed in that community college for three years. Then I went to work. Then I went to a university, eventually got a degree in communications, and Horace gumped my way into the entertainment business and Wade leads onto way, as Robert Trott said, And then one day I looked up and I was forty two. I had had a pretty decent freelance career. My grandfather was ill, ninety and dying, and my mother called me at my desk at CBS in San Francisco and said, Mike, before your grandfather dies, wouldn't it be nice if you could turn on the television and see you doing something that looked like work? And I laughed and I said, yeah, that would be great. And so I went out and I started filming a series that turned into Dirty Jobs. And that's how it happened. It took forty two years. It was a weird mix of serendipity, good luck, and hard work. But you never know how the story ends. But that's how mine began.

You originally pitched it as something like somebody's got to do it, and evolved into dirty jobs, and then it went on for eight seasons. And this all grew out of your mother calling you.

You originally pitched it as something like somebody's got to do it, and evolved into dirty jobs, and then it went on for eight seasons. And this all grew out of your mother calling you.

That's correct, growing up next to a guy who was heroic, in my eyes, the standing of a true skilled tradesman in this country. Over time, his image, her image has devolved, and people we once viewed as heroic and almost magical in their powers to fabricate a thing really became very much well invisible almost, you know, we just simply stop valuing that kind of skill and that kind of person. And so on a personal level, I did it too. I became fundamentally disconnected from a lot of things that fascinated me as a kid. The way things are made, where our energy comes from, where our food comes from. Those things fascinated me for a long time, and then for a long time they didn't. So between the guy my grandfather was and the person my mother is, the two of them basically conspired to inspire in me that weird combination of guilt and ambition that led me to do something that turned out to be brand new. And you're right. The segment was called Somebody's Got to Do It. It first appeared on a local show in San Francisco called Evening Magazine. People were equally horrified and fascinated by my adventures in a sewer, my encounter with a giant rat, and the things we learned about the infrastry structure from an anonymous sewer worker in the course of shooting that very strange episode. And yeah, here we sit talking about it all these years later. You couldn't script it if you tried.

That's correct, growing up next to a guy who was heroic, in my eyes, the standing of a true skilled tradesman in this country. Over time, his image, her image has devolved, and people we once viewed as heroic and almost magical in their powers to fabricate a thing really became very much well invisible almost, you know, we just simply stop valuing that kind of skill and that kind of person. And so on a personal level, I did it too. I became fundamentally disconnected from a lot of things that fascinated me as a kid. The way things are made, where our energy comes from, where our food comes from. Those things fascinated me for a long time, and then for a long time they didn't. So between the guy my grandfather was and the person my mother is, the two of them basically conspired to inspire in me that weird combination of guilt and ambition that led me to do something that turned out to be brand new. And you're right. The segment was called Somebody's Got to Do It. It first appeared on a local show in San Francisco called Evening Magazine. People were equally horrified and fascinated by my adventures in a sewer, my encounter with a giant rat, and the things we learned about the infrastry structure from an anonymous sewer worker in the course of shooting that very strange episode. And yeah, here we sit talking about it all these years later. You couldn't script it if you tried.

I think was John Gardner who said something like, if you overvalue philosophy and undervalue plumbing, neither your pipes nor your ideas will hold water exactly. Your detour, however, has a couple of very unique, sort of American qualities to him. One is, as I understand it, you had a high school chorus teacher who changed your life.

I think was John Gardner who said something like, if you overvalue philosophy and undervalue plumbing, neither your pipes nor your ideas will hold water exactly. Your detour, however, has a couple of very unique, sort of American qualities to him. One is, as I understand it, you had a high school chorus teacher who changed your life.

I did. I've always believed that the happiest, most prosperous people I've met can always look back into their past and find a mister Holland. You remember mister Holland's Opus movie with Richard Dreyfus. I had a mister Holland. His name was mister King, and he was my high school music teacher, and he was one of a couple people in my life who just came along at the right time, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, and turned me in a slightly different direction. In this case, it wasn't so slight. Mister King was a world champion barbershop quartet baritone in a quartet called the Oriel Four, which won the international championship back in nineteen seventy one. And I didn't know any of this. I didn't know that there was an organization called the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America. I had no idea that my music teacher, who also happened to be a Golden Glove boxer, an All Pro football player who didn't have any of his original teeth, but wore these insane dentures that he swapped out every couple of minutes just to freak his kids out. This force of nature cured my stutter. I had a stammer for most of my young life. He fixed me. He used music to do it. He forced me onto a stage to audition for a play I didn't want to be in, demanded I learn a monologue and forced me to consider a different path. And thanks to him, I not only got a look at the entertainment industry in a way that I think I never ever would have been afforded, but I got a chance to join the course of the Chesapeake, which is one hundred and twenty men, many of whom were veterans of the Second World War Korea in Vietnam, who every Tuesday got together and sang the old songs. And when I say the old songs, I mean turn of the century tin pan alley typetoons, four part harmony straight out of Norman Rockwell. Right, these quartets come together, they form this giant chorus, and I'm suddenly inserted into their mid And for me, at seventeen, eighteen years of age, I'm suddenly exposed to a whole different kind of music that none of my friends in school are listening to. But more importantly, I'm sitting in Johnny Jones tavern, you know, in southeast Baltimore, drinking a draft beer while four older men sing unapologetically sentimental songs and weep as they sing and laugh. And then there were war stories, you know. So I just got pulled into, luckily, this very strange part of our culture where a certain kind of music and a certain kind of patriotism were elevated. And I got a weekly dose of that at a very young age, and it too, ultimately informed a lot of what I would do over the coming decades.

I did. I've always believed that the happiest, most prosperous people I've met can always look back into their past and find a mister Holland. You remember mister Holland's Opus movie with Richard Dreyfus. I had a mister Holland. His name was mister King, and he was my high school music teacher, and he was one of a couple people in my life who just came along at the right time, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, and turned me in a slightly different direction. In this case, it wasn't so slight. Mister King was a world champion barbershop quartet baritone in a quartet called the Oriel Four, which won the international championship back in nineteen seventy one. And I didn't know any of this. I didn't know that there was an organization called the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America. I had no idea that my music teacher, who also happened to be a Golden Glove boxer, an All Pro football player who didn't have any of his original teeth, but wore these insane dentures that he swapped out every couple of minutes just to freak his kids out. This force of nature cured my stutter. I had a stammer for most of my young life. He fixed me. He used music to do it. He forced me onto a stage to audition for a play I didn't want to be in, demanded I learn a monologue and forced me to consider a different path. And thanks to him, I not only got a look at the entertainment industry in a way that I think I never ever would have been afforded, but I got a chance to join the course of the Chesapeake, which is one hundred and twenty men, many of whom were veterans of the Second World War Korea in Vietnam, who every Tuesday got together and sang the old songs. And when I say the old songs, I mean turn of the century tin pan alley typetoons, four part harmony straight out of Norman Rockwell. Right, these quartets come together, they form this giant chorus, and I'm suddenly inserted into their mid And for me, at seventeen, eighteen years of age, I'm suddenly exposed to a whole different kind of music that none of my friends in school are listening to. But more importantly, I'm sitting in Johnny Jones tavern, you know, in southeast Baltimore, drinking a draft beer while four older men sing unapologetically sentimental songs and weep as they sing and laugh. And then there were war stories, you know. So I just got pulled into, luckily, this very strange part of our culture where a certain kind of music and a certain kind of patriotism were elevated. And I got a weekly dose of that at a very young age, and it too, ultimately informed a lot of what I would do over the coming decades.

Now, you moved from that kind of barbershop quartet and all male chorus, and I find this almost as amazing saying, so you moved to the Baltimore Opera Company, I did, This is quite a journey you're on.

Now, you moved from that kind of barbershop quartet and all male chorus, and I find this almost as amazing saying, so you moved to the Baltimore Opera Company, I did, This is quite a journey you're on.

Yeah, well, look, I referenced Forrest Gump a little earlier, because sometimes I really did feel that once you accept the idea that you're on a very crooked path, then the twists and turns and the zigs and zags are no longer alarming. They just become kind of amusing. And that's where I was. When I was twenty three or so, I was in a barbershop quartet that was singing for money on the weekends all over the country. I was still in school during the week and working part time at a computer company and looking for anything that just felt incongruous and different. And one of my friends in the barbershop society said, listen, you could actually get your Union card if you were singing in the opera. And I'd been frustrated at that point because I knew I I wanted to get into entertainment. I thought commercial work would be fun. But you can't get your Screen Actors Guild card unless you get a screen Actor's Guild job. You can't audition for those jobs unless you have your card. So I was frozen out of the Union in a weird way back in nineteen eighty four. But the loophole was if you've become a member of the American Guild of Musical Artists, the union that has jurisdiction over the opera, then you can buy your Screen Actors Guild card. So the analysis was really simple. The odds of me auditioning my way onto a sitcom or into a movie were horrible. The odds of me faking my way into the Baltimore Opera were not good, but they were slightly better. So I learned the shortest aria I could find. It was the code Aria from La Bom. It was an Italian It was sung by a guy named Samuel Ramie. I had a sony walkman, and for a week or so I walked around Baltimore. Listening to this guy sing these words, I had no idea what the words meant. Beck Yasi, Mara, senki, rest, well, pion, posh and right. I'm just listening to him sing these sounds, and I eventually get them in my brain. And I go to an open call for the Baltimore Opera and I sang for the chorus master and a genius named Billion Nutsie, who spoke six languages, and realized instantly that I had no idea what I was singing about. And when I finished, he said, mister Rowe, you have no idea of what you're singing about, do you? And I said, no, I don't, and they laughed. And as it turns out, they needed young men with low voices, and at the time I checked both boxes, so against some very long odds, they let me in any way, and that opened the door to the American Guild of Radio Artists and the Screen Actors Guild. And my plan, honestly, newte was to sing, you know, in one or two performances and then leave, because I had no real interest in opera. But as it turns out, the music was terrific. It was a world class orchestra the people were fun, and I stayed for seven years.

Yeah, well, look, I referenced Forrest Gump a little earlier, because sometimes I really did feel that once you accept the idea that you're on a very crooked path, then the twists and turns and the zigs and zags are no longer alarming. They just become kind of amusing. And that's where I was. When I was twenty three or so, I was in a barbershop quartet that was singing for money on the weekends all over the country. I was still in school during the week and working part time at a computer company and looking for anything that just felt incongruous and different. And one of my friends in the barbershop society said, listen, you could actually get your Union card if you were singing in the opera. And I'd been frustrated at that point because I knew I I wanted to get into entertainment. I thought commercial work would be fun. But you can't get your Screen Actors Guild card unless you get a screen Actor's Guild job. You can't audition for those jobs unless you have your card. So I was frozen out of the Union in a weird way back in nineteen eighty four. But the loophole was if you've become a member of the American Guild of Musical Artists, the union that has jurisdiction over the opera, then you can buy your Screen Actors Guild card. So the analysis was really simple. The odds of me auditioning my way onto a sitcom or into a movie were horrible. The odds of me faking my way into the Baltimore Opera were not good, but they were slightly better. So I learned the shortest aria I could find. It was the code Aria from La Bom. It was an Italian It was sung by a guy named Samuel Ramie. I had a sony walkman, and for a week or so I walked around Baltimore. Listening to this guy sing these words, I had no idea what the words meant. Beck Yasi, Mara, senki, rest, well, pion, posh and right. I'm just listening to him sing these sounds, and I eventually get them in my brain. And I go to an open call for the Baltimore Opera and I sang for the chorus master and a genius named Billion Nutsie, who spoke six languages, and realized instantly that I had no idea what I was singing about. And when I finished, he said, mister Rowe, you have no idea of what you're singing about, do you? And I said, no, I don't, and they laughed. And as it turns out, they needed young men with low voices, and at the time I checked both boxes, so against some very long odds, they let me in any way, and that opened the door to the American Guild of Radio Artists and the Screen Actors Guild. And my plan, honestly, newte was to sing, you know, in one or two performances and then leave, because I had no real interest in opera. But as it turns out, the music was terrific. It was a world class orchestra the people were fun, and I stayed for seven years.

So towards the end of that time, something comes up and you end up applying from QBC, which is certainly got to be a very big jump from the opera. How did that transition occur?

So towards the end of that time, something comes up and you end up applying from QBC, which is certainly got to be a very big jump from the opera. How did that transition occur?

Again? Utterly unscriptable, totally random. It was a Sunday afternoon. It was nineteen ninety. The opera was in the middle of a production, but we weren't on stage much during the intermission and the subsequent forty minutes of time where I didn't need to be on stage. There was a football game being played in Baltimore and I wanted to watch it from the bar across the street. It's called the Mount Royal Tavern. So I walked over to the Mount Royal Tavern dressed as a Viking and drank a draft beer while I plan I'll watching the football game. But the football game wasn't on. The bartender was another actor in town and he was watching QVC. I didn't know it was QVC at the time. It was just a big guy in a shiny suit selling pots and pans. But they were in town doing a national talent search. And the more I looked at it, the more, I thought, well, I think I'm watching a harbinger to the end of Western civilization, but I'm also looking at potentially an actual job in the entertainment industry. So I went down the next morning, auditioned and got hired, And three days later I was sitting in Westchester, Pennsylvania, in the middle of the night at three am, trying to make sense of an endless panoply of indescribable products, the kinds of things you might expect to find on the midway of a carnival, and those machines with the claw. I mean, this is a crazy collection of products.

Again? Utterly unscriptable, totally random. It was a Sunday afternoon. It was nineteen ninety. The opera was in the middle of a production, but we weren't on stage much during the intermission and the subsequent forty minutes of time where I didn't need to be on stage. There was a football game being played in Baltimore and I wanted to watch it from the bar across the street. It's called the Mount Royal Tavern. So I walked over to the Mount Royal Tavern dressed as a Viking and drank a draft beer while I plan I'll watching the football game. But the football game wasn't on. The bartender was another actor in town and he was watching QVC. I didn't know it was QVC at the time. It was just a big guy in a shiny suit selling pots and pans. But they were in town doing a national talent search. And the more I looked at it, the more, I thought, well, I think I'm watching a harbinger to the end of Western civilization, but I'm also looking at potentially an actual job in the entertainment industry. So I went down the next morning, auditioned and got hired, And three days later I was sitting in Westchester, Pennsylvania, in the middle of the night at three am, trying to make sense of an endless panoply of indescribable products, the kinds of things you might expect to find on the midway of a carnival, and those machines with the claw. I mean, this is a crazy collection of products.

We got, Noah, we got the arc, dogs and cats living together, and every other form of a beast on here as well. For twenty seven dollars and seventy nine cents. It's the sailing ship Noah carry bag. You simply grab the handle at the top, pick up the carry bag, and go on your merry way.

We got, Noah, we got the arc, dogs and cats living together, and every other form of a beast on here as well. For twenty seven dollars and seventy nine cents. It's the sailing ship Noah carry bag. You simply grab the handle at the top, pick up the carry bag, and go on your merry way.

And I spent the next three years sitting there in the middle of the night figuring out how live TV worked and trying to make sense of the products they would bring.

And I spent the next three years sitting there in the middle of the night figuring out how live TV worked and trying to make sense of the products they would bring.

Me to sell, And did you actually sell products?

Me to sell, And did you actually sell products?

Millions and millions of dollars you know what, I can't actually say I sold them, people bought them. I was a non traditional salesman because I had no idea I would actually get hired for that job, and no real understanding of what it was and really nothing to lose. I was very honest with the viewer. They had no training program. There was no way to know who was going to work and who wasn't. So I was hired because I was able to talk about a pencil for eight minutes, and then I was put on a three month probationary period. And the way it works is if you don't go up in flames during the next three months and if you show up every night for work on the graveyard shift, then you actually get a contract. But they didn't actually train us. They didn't actually tell us what the products were. That was up to us to figure out. But I didn't know that, and so the first night I was presented with something called a Health Team Infrared pain reliever, and it was purportedly would relieve arthritic pain in your joints with infrared light. Now I have no idea if this is true or even possible. It seemed crazy. I remember sitting there with this strange item that looked like a flashlight with a red bulb screwed into the end, and I looked into the camera and I said, Hi, everybody, my name's Mike Rowe is my first night. This is the Health Team infrared pain reliever. I don't know what it does, but if you own one, or if you've seen one before, it would be terrific if you could call the number on the screen, ask for the producer. His name is Marty. He'll put you on the air and maybe you can tell me how it works. And the phones lit up, and so for the next three hours I sat there as these insomniacts around the country called in to tell the new guy how the products he was supposed to be selling actually worked. And it was one of the great lessons for me, you know, in my own life, and certainly a lesson in humility and in honesty. Once I realized the audience would help me, that I didn't have to pretend to no more than I did. Well, then TV got really interesting and QBC turned out to be probably the greatest training ground for me that I could have possibly had. The lessons I learned there they continue to inform just about everything I do.

Millions and millions of dollars you know what, I can't actually say I sold them, people bought them. I was a non traditional salesman because I had no idea I would actually get hired for that job, and no real understanding of what it was and really nothing to lose. I was very honest with the viewer. They had no training program. There was no way to know who was going to work and who wasn't. So I was hired because I was able to talk about a pencil for eight minutes, and then I was put on a three month probationary period. And the way it works is if you don't go up in flames during the next three months and if you show up every night for work on the graveyard shift, then you actually get a contract. But they didn't actually train us. They didn't actually tell us what the products were. That was up to us to figure out. But I didn't know that, and so the first night I was presented with something called a Health Team Infrared pain reliever, and it was purportedly would relieve arthritic pain in your joints with infrared light. Now I have no idea if this is true or even possible. It seemed crazy. I remember sitting there with this strange item that looked like a flashlight with a red bulb screwed into the end, and I looked into the camera and I said, Hi, everybody, my name's Mike Rowe is my first night. This is the Health Team infrared pain reliever. I don't know what it does, but if you own one, or if you've seen one before, it would be terrific if you could call the number on the screen, ask for the producer. His name is Marty. He'll put you on the air and maybe you can tell me how it works. And the phones lit up, and so for the next three hours I sat there as these insomniacts around the country called in to tell the new guy how the products he was supposed to be selling actually worked. And it was one of the great lessons for me, you know, in my own life, and certainly a lesson in humility and in honesty. Once I realized the audience would help me, that I didn't have to pretend to no more than I did. Well, then TV got really interesting and QBC turned out to be probably the greatest training ground for me that I could have possibly had. The lessons I learned there they continue to inform just about everything I do.

He stay there for three years, but then you go on and you stay on television.

He stay there for three years, but then you go on and you stay on television.

Right when I left QVC, they fired me three times justifiably, but always hired me back inexplicably. But when I finally left in nineteen ninety three, I left with a toolbox that I never thought I would have before. It's interesting, you know, my grandfather told me years before, when it became obvious that I would not follow in his footsteps, that I was not going to be a traditional tradesman. He said, look, Mike, you can be a tradesman. Being a tradesman is a state of mind. You just need a different toolbox. It took me a while, but the toolbox I assembled when I left QVC really allowed me to audition for just about anything in Hollywood or in New York and get booked a lot. I wasn't looking for a full time job. I loved the idea of working like a jobber, like a tradesman. When I was thirty, I moved to Hollywood and I booked a lot of work on a lot of projects that I'm not really proud of them. I wasn't looking for the work to provide me with any real sense of accomplishment. I was just looking to do a good job on any project, whether I was writing, producing, narrating, or impersonating a host, and then enjoying three or four months a year to travel and take my retirement in early installments. And I did that from thirty probably until forty two when Dirty Jobs came back around. It was really a miscalculation. Like I said, my mom called suggest that I pitched something that looked like work, and I had no idea Discovery would order three hundred of them. We made a deal for three episodes, but again just goes to show the minute you think you haven't figured out, something else will come along and make you think twice.

Right when I left QVC, they fired me three times justifiably, but always hired me back inexplicably. But when I finally left in nineteen ninety three, I left with a toolbox that I never thought I would have before. It's interesting, you know, my grandfather told me years before, when it became obvious that I would not follow in his footsteps, that I was not going to be a traditional tradesman. He said, look, Mike, you can be a tradesman. Being a tradesman is a state of mind. You just need a different toolbox. It took me a while, but the toolbox I assembled when I left QVC really allowed me to audition for just about anything in Hollywood or in New York and get booked a lot. I wasn't looking for a full time job. I loved the idea of working like a jobber, like a tradesman. When I was thirty, I moved to Hollywood and I booked a lot of work on a lot of projects that I'm not really proud of them. I wasn't looking for the work to provide me with any real sense of accomplishment. I was just looking to do a good job on any project, whether I was writing, producing, narrating, or impersonating a host, and then enjoying three or four months a year to travel and take my retirement in early installments. And I did that from thirty probably until forty two when Dirty Jobs came back around. It was really a miscalculation. Like I said, my mom called suggest that I pitched something that looked like work, and I had no idea Discovery would order three hundred of them. We made a deal for three episodes, but again just goes to show the minute you think you haven't figured out, something else will come along and make you think twice.

Why do you think Dirty Jobs took off.

Why do you think Dirty Jobs took off.

Timing A couple of things happened. My pitch to Discovery, on the one hand, was kind of different. You know that at the time that brand was defined by experts and authority, So whether it was Jacques Cousteau or David Attenborough or Jane goodall big expert voices that could satisfy curiosity in a way that you know, we all grew up with and remember fondly. But it seemed to me that something was shifting in TV. Reality TV was becoming a thing. But more than that, it seemed like authenticity was slowly replacing authority, and the idea of being curious didn't necessarily have to come hand in glove with being terribly informed. The Discovery brand is a curiosity brand, and satisfying that curiosity has to come from some sort of expert. But my question was, what if the titular figure in a show isn't the expert. So if I can find anonymous people who really know what they're talking about in a variety of vocations, then maybe we can satisfy curiosity in a way that doesn't require me to be a host, but something more like a guest or a cipher or an avatar. So it was a clunky pitch, but the network said, okay, let's try that, and they hired me to go on a series of expeditions in this sort of avatar format, and along the way they said, maybe we could do a few hours of something that looks a little more structured that allows us to introduce you to our viewer. Well, at that point I had done somebody's got to do it for CBS. I had this idea for dirty jobs. They didn't really see it as on brand, but they said give it a try, and so we tried it. In two thousand and three, the Discovery Channel was testing all all kinds of different programs and they had this one which was terrific, and that one which was amazing, and then they had this thing called Dirty Jobs, which is like it's a smart alec and a sewer doing these weird things. They put it on the air and it was the viewers who really told them what the situation was. You can't argue with the people, and the people wanted to see a version of themselves doing a version of work.

Timing A couple of things happened. My pitch to Discovery, on the one hand, was kind of different. You know that at the time that brand was defined by experts and authority, So whether it was Jacques Cousteau or David Attenborough or Jane goodall big expert voices that could satisfy curiosity in a way that you know, we all grew up with and remember fondly. But it seemed to me that something was shifting in TV. Reality TV was becoming a thing. But more than that, it seemed like authenticity was slowly replacing authority, and the idea of being curious didn't necessarily have to come hand in glove with being terribly informed. The Discovery brand is a curiosity brand, and satisfying that curiosity has to come from some sort of expert. But my question was, what if the titular figure in a show isn't the expert. So if I can find anonymous people who really know what they're talking about in a variety of vocations, then maybe we can satisfy curiosity in a way that doesn't require me to be a host, but something more like a guest or a cipher or an avatar. So it was a clunky pitch, but the network said, okay, let's try that, and they hired me to go on a series of expeditions in this sort of avatar format, and along the way they said, maybe we could do a few hours of something that looks a little more structured that allows us to introduce you to our viewer. Well, at that point I had done somebody's got to do it for CBS. I had this idea for dirty jobs. They didn't really see it as on brand, but they said give it a try, and so we tried it. In two thousand and three, the Discovery Channel was testing all all kinds of different programs and they had this one which was terrific, and that one which was amazing, and then they had this thing called Dirty Jobs, which is like it's a smart alec and a sewer doing these weird things. They put it on the air and it was the viewers who really told them what the situation was. You can't argue with the people, and the people wanted to see a version of themselves doing a version of work.

They recognized how rapidly did the word of mouth spread and indicate that you had a winning show.

They recognized how rapidly did the word of mouth spread and indicate that you had a winning show.

At that point, it was overnight. And this is interesting too, because there was no Facebook then. At least it was just beginning. There was no real social media. It was still two thousand and four, two thousand and five, that was just kind of becoming a thing. But Discovery built me a chat room, the Dirty Jobs chatroom. We called it the Mudroom, and fans of those early episodes all went there, and I made it really clear I took all the lessons from QBC A decade and a half earlier, and I put them onto this new thing and I said, look, Dirty Jobs needs to be programmed by the fans. I want all the ideas we do for the show to be suggestions in the Dirty Jobs chat room, this mudroom they called it. And I don't want to do second takes on the show. I don't want to ask people to perform. And that was a fairly revolutionary thing. You know. We hired a documentary camera to film the making of the show, and that footage wound up becoming dominant, and so as a viewer, you got a really honest, unvarnished look at what I saw on a dairy farm, or in a sewer or building a bridge, or in an open mind, you saw what I saw. And as a fly on the wall, you got a fairly authentic look at a job you might not have known existed, that took place in a town you've never been to, for formed by a man or woman who's utterly anonymous. It was that level of reality that people responded to, and we knew it immediately because we were looking at thousands of suggestions that we got from people who were saying, Mike, way do you meet my grandfather, uncle, brother, cousin, sister, mom, whatever way do you see what they do? So there really was a hunger in the country in two thousand and five for a lot of people who I think felt both anonymous and forgotten to show the country what they did and how they added value to the larger mosaics.

At that point, it was overnight. And this is interesting too, because there was no Facebook then. At least it was just beginning. There was no real social media. It was still two thousand and four, two thousand and five, that was just kind of becoming a thing. But Discovery built me a chat room, the Dirty Jobs chatroom. We called it the Mudroom, and fans of those early episodes all went there, and I made it really clear I took all the lessons from QBC A decade and a half earlier, and I put them onto this new thing and I said, look, Dirty Jobs needs to be programmed by the fans. I want all the ideas we do for the show to be suggestions in the Dirty Jobs chat room, this mudroom they called it. And I don't want to do second takes on the show. I don't want to ask people to perform. And that was a fairly revolutionary thing. You know. We hired a documentary camera to film the making of the show, and that footage wound up becoming dominant, and so as a viewer, you got a really honest, unvarnished look at what I saw on a dairy farm, or in a sewer or building a bridge, or in an open mind, you saw what I saw. And as a fly on the wall, you got a fairly authentic look at a job you might not have known existed, that took place in a town you've never been to, for formed by a man or woman who's utterly anonymous. It was that level of reality that people responded to, and we knew it immediately because we were looking at thousands of suggestions that we got from people who were saying, Mike, way do you meet my grandfather, uncle, brother, cousin, sister, mom, whatever way do you see what they do? So there really was a hunger in the country in two thousand and five for a lot of people who I think felt both anonymous and forgotten to show the country what they did and how they added value to the larger mosaics.

So you're developing this remarkably successful show, you have a great brand, and along comes Deadly as Catch, and you're offered to do either show, and you choose to host Dirty Jobs but narrate Deadliest Catch rather than the reverse. Well, what was your thinking?

So you're developing this remarkably successful show, you have a great brand, and along comes Deadly as Catch, and you're offered to do either show, and you choose to host Dirty Jobs but narrate Deadliest Catch rather than the reverse. Well, what was your thinking?

What really happened was the first couple episodes of Dirty Jobs went on the air, and they really did cause some serious cognitive dissonance with the network. What do you do when your audience loves something that you don't want them to love. It was very confusing time, and so they kind of took a deep breath and said, look, Dirty Jobs we don't really want to run with as a series. We have these other expeditions we want you to take, but we also have this thing that we're not quite sure what it is, but it's up in Alaska and it's crab fishermen. Why don't you go up there and work as a greenhorn, work as a host, go out on the ships, and let's see if there's actually a show up there. And again, this is two thousand and four. We don't know what Deadliest Catch is. Dirty Jobs hasn't really found an audience yet. And I went up there and wound up staying for six weeks. I worked on a couple of different boats and basically did my best Stone Phillips impersonation, doing a kind of a documentary, kind of a magazine type series. Look at what Derby style crab fishing was in the Bearing Sea, and knute what it was was unlike anything I'd ever seen. You can't script the Bearing Sea right. It's an utterly authentic work environment, terribly dangerous, with men doing a hard job under difficult circumstances, some prospering and some dying. I went to six funerals in six weeks at the end of two thousand and four, early in two thousand and five. So when we came back from that trip and we looked at the footage, it was obvious that there was something enormously important going on up there in the way of a potential show. But it also became obvious that for whatever reason, immersing me into work was a good formula. So they circled back and looked at Dirty Jobs and said, Okay, if we order this and order Deadliest Catch at the same time, you can't host both. So to answer your question, I chose Dirty Jobs A because it was deeply personal and B because my name was in the title, and went in doubt picked the show with your name and the title. So I opted to run with Dirty Jobs, and they invited me to narrate Deadliest Catch, and incredibly, I'm driving into San Francisco to narrate the final episode of season fifteen of Deadliest Catch, which is still on the air. It's truly a phenomenon.

What really happened was the first couple episodes of Dirty Jobs went on the air, and they really did cause some serious cognitive dissonance with the network. What do you do when your audience loves something that you don't want them to love. It was very confusing time, and so they kind of took a deep breath and said, look, Dirty Jobs we don't really want to run with as a series. We have these other expeditions we want you to take, but we also have this thing that we're not quite sure what it is, but it's up in Alaska and it's crab fishermen. Why don't you go up there and work as a greenhorn, work as a host, go out on the ships, and let's see if there's actually a show up there. And again, this is two thousand and four. We don't know what Deadliest Catch is. Dirty Jobs hasn't really found an audience yet. And I went up there and wound up staying for six weeks. I worked on a couple of different boats and basically did my best Stone Phillips impersonation, doing a kind of a documentary, kind of a magazine type series. Look at what Derby style crab fishing was in the Bearing Sea, and knute what it was was unlike anything I'd ever seen. You can't script the Bearing Sea right. It's an utterly authentic work environment, terribly dangerous, with men doing a hard job under difficult circumstances, some prospering and some dying. I went to six funerals in six weeks at the end of two thousand and four, early in two thousand and five. So when we came back from that trip and we looked at the footage, it was obvious that there was something enormously important going on up there in the way of a potential show. But it also became obvious that for whatever reason, immersing me into work was a good formula. So they circled back and looked at Dirty Jobs and said, Okay, if we order this and order Deadliest Catch at the same time, you can't host both. So to answer your question, I chose Dirty Jobs A because it was deeply personal and B because my name was in the title, and went in doubt picked the show with your name and the title. So I opted to run with Dirty Jobs, and they invited me to narrate Deadliest Catch, and incredibly, I'm driving into San Francisco to narrate the final episode of season fifteen of Deadliest Catch, which is still on the air. It's truly a phenomenon.

Then reach out in a philanthropical way, and you create a foundation which really is designed to help us remember the work matters. Talk some about the Microworks Foundation what you hope to achieve with it.

Then reach out in a philanthropical way, and you create a foundation which really is designed to help us remember the work matters. Talk some about the Microworks Foundation what you hope to achieve with it.

By the middle of two thousand and eight, Dirty Jobs was on in two hundred countries. It was the number one show on Discovery, and it had launched directly or indirectly a couple of dozen other hit shows. I had done well as a result, and in the summer of that year, July two thousand and eight, the economy was starting to teeter, and on the show, you know, I always took the crew out for beer afterwards. I always invited our hosts to join us, and I always wound up having long conversations with small business owners who had prospered in this dirty jobs world. And I always ask them, you know, the same questions typically, what was their biggest challenge? And what I heard from two thousand and five until two thousand and eight and to this day consistently was the biggest challenge was finding people who were enthused and willing to learn a skill that was actually in demand and then show up and apply a work ethic to that skill. A ratio Alger kind of light motif. But I heard it over and over again. And when the economy tanked in earnest and the unemployment rates were headline news every day, seven eight, nine, ten percent, every day, I was still hearing from people that their biggest challenge was finding qualified workers. And it just seemed like such an odd competitive narrative. Some other narrative was going on in the country. Nobody was talking about the skills gap. Everybody was talking about the number of unemployed people, and wherever I went on dirty jobs, I'm still seeing help wanted science. So it just seemed like in some way we were talking past each other on the national level. And at the time, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, we had two point three million open positions, many of which didn't require a four year degree, they required training. So on Labor Day of two thousand and eight, I launched Microworks, which began really as a pr campaign for those two point three million unwanted jobs that to me represented the existence of opportunity at a time when we were being told almost across the board that opportunity was dead. And at that time I remember shaking my head and thinking that we can't really believe the reason we have ten million unemployed people is because we don't have ten million jobs available. We can't really believe that, but of course we do. We think unemployed it can be cured by creating more jobs, even as today we have seven point three million jobs open. So I was just fascinated by the dynamics of the skills gap and by the existence slash non existence of opportunity depending on how you see it. And I wanted to shine a light as best I could on the jobs that really and truly existed. That's how it started. What it turned into was a scholarship program for the skilled trades. Today, we've awarded somewhere between five and six million dollars for training for steam fitters, pipefitters, welders, mechanics, heating, air conditioning, electricians, plumbers. It is kind of remarkable because the foundation truly is the legacy of the show, and the show is really a tribute to my grandfather, and the scholarships are proof positive that his jobs, the jobs I grew up watching him perform, are not only still very much in demand, but still offer terrific opportunities for people who really want to learn that skill and apply themselves. When you show the world a welder who's making one hundred and fifty thousand dollars and happy, you create in much of the country the same kind of cognitive dissonance that we did on the show when we portrayed people in a sewer covered with the worst muck there is who are prospering and understanding their role in the scheme of things is in no way minor. That's the goal of the Foundation that was the happy unintended consequence of the show.

By the middle of two thousand and eight, Dirty Jobs was on in two hundred countries. It was the number one show on Discovery, and it had launched directly or indirectly a couple of dozen other hit shows. I had done well as a result, and in the summer of that year, July two thousand and eight, the economy was starting to teeter, and on the show, you know, I always took the crew out for beer afterwards. I always invited our hosts to join us, and I always wound up having long conversations with small business owners who had prospered in this dirty jobs world. And I always ask them, you know, the same questions typically, what was their biggest challenge? And what I heard from two thousand and five until two thousand and eight and to this day consistently was the biggest challenge was finding people who were enthused and willing to learn a skill that was actually in demand and then show up and apply a work ethic to that skill. A ratio Alger kind of light motif. But I heard it over and over again. And when the economy tanked in earnest and the unemployment rates were headline news every day, seven eight, nine, ten percent, every day, I was still hearing from people that their biggest challenge was finding qualified workers. And it just seemed like such an odd competitive narrative. Some other narrative was going on in the country. Nobody was talking about the skills gap. Everybody was talking about the number of unemployed people, and wherever I went on dirty jobs, I'm still seeing help wanted science. So it just seemed like in some way we were talking past each other on the national level. And at the time, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, we had two point three million open positions, many of which didn't require a four year degree, they required training. So on Labor Day of two thousand and eight, I launched Microworks, which began really as a pr campaign for those two point three million unwanted jobs that to me represented the existence of opportunity at a time when we were being told almost across the board that opportunity was dead. And at that time I remember shaking my head and thinking that we can't really believe the reason we have ten million unemployed people is because we don't have ten million jobs available. We can't really believe that, but of course we do. We think unemployed it can be cured by creating more jobs, even as today we have seven point three million jobs open. So I was just fascinated by the dynamics of the skills gap and by the existence slash non existence of opportunity depending on how you see it. And I wanted to shine a light as best I could on the jobs that really and truly existed. That's how it started. What it turned into was a scholarship program for the skilled trades. Today, we've awarded somewhere between five and six million dollars for training for steam fitters, pipefitters, welders, mechanics, heating, air conditioning, electricians, plumbers. It is kind of remarkable because the foundation truly is the legacy of the show, and the show is really a tribute to my grandfather, and the scholarships are proof positive that his jobs, the jobs I grew up watching him perform, are not only still very much in demand, but still offer terrific opportunities for people who really want to learn that skill and apply themselves. When you show the world a welder who's making one hundred and fifty thousand dollars and happy, you create in much of the country the same kind of cognitive dissonance that we did on the show when we portrayed people in a sewer covered with the worst muck there is who are prospering and understanding their role in the scheme of things is in no way minor. That's the goal of the Foundation that was the happy unintended consequence of the show.

And what you're doing really has a moral purpose. And I think that's a very important part of the regeneration and revival of Americas to recognize that work is a moral good and that people should expect to work, and that all work as an inherent dignity.

And what you're doing really has a moral purpose. And I think that's a very important part of the regeneration and revival of Americas to recognize that work is a moral good and that people should expect to work, and that all work as an inherent dignity.

Correct. All narratives need a protagonist and an antagonist, All stories need a villain an enemy, and a very popular narrative today has cast work as the enemy. The proximate cause of your unhappiness is the fact that you need to work, as opposed to the proximate cause of your prosperity is your opportunity to work. That has been a seismic shift over the last two generations. And it's understandable. It's not rational, but it's not really a mystery. We've made work the enemy, and once you do that, then your arguments are going to be informed by that belief, whether you're arguing over the minimum wage or rent control, or social security or welfare or any political program. You know, you can almost always figure out where somebody's coming from by their belief around work, and so you know, to answer one of your earlier questions. That's why Dirty Jobs worked too. At its core was one of the few unifying realities of life, labor, which of course is different than work, right, But these two things, the business of earning a living, can either be seen through the lens of incredible opportunity or through the lens of drudgery and despair. So much of what we're teaching our kids to expect these are the work lines up on the drudgery and despair side. And so when you see a show like Dirty Jobs, you see people laboring hard and sweating and struggling, but then you also see them laughing and prospering. That was a really important juxtaposition to present to the country, and it still is because the only way you're going to challenge the idea that work isn't the enemy is to offer examples. I stay in touch with the thousand or so people who have gone through our scholarship program, because now I can go back and I can find a kid who five or six years ago learned to weld and who today is up on the high plains in North Dakota or maybe down in the Gulf, making one hundred and eighty thousand dollars a year. With no debt, you know, raising a family right, And that story needs to be told because the path to prosperity still exists vis a vi a skilled trade. It's not about a four year degree. It's not the best path for the most people. One point five trillion dollars in student loans is currently on the books. We have seven point three million jobs currently open, the vast majority of which don't require a four year degree. But we're still telling our kids that if you don't get the four year degree, if you don't sign on the line and assume whatever the debt is, then you are going to wind up with some kind of vocational consolation prize, and you're going to spend the rest of your life pushing the boulder up the hill. It's a false, nonsensical argument, but it's real, and we've been selling it for a long time in much the same way we've been lending money we don't have to kids who are never going to be able to pay it back to training for jobs that don't exist anymore. It's a busted system.

Correct. All narratives need a protagonist and an antagonist, All stories need a villain an enemy, and a very popular narrative today has cast work as the enemy. The proximate cause of your unhappiness is the fact that you need to work, as opposed to the proximate cause of your prosperity is your opportunity to work. That has been a seismic shift over the last two generations. And it's understandable. It's not rational, but it's not really a mystery. We've made work the enemy, and once you do that, then your arguments are going to be informed by that belief, whether you're arguing over the minimum wage or rent control, or social security or welfare or any political program. You know, you can almost always figure out where somebody's coming from by their belief around work, and so you know, to answer one of your earlier questions. That's why Dirty Jobs worked too. At its core was one of the few unifying realities of life, labor, which of course is different than work, right, But these two things, the business of earning a living, can either be seen through the lens of incredible opportunity or through the lens of drudgery and despair. So much of what we're teaching our kids to expect these are the work lines up on the drudgery and despair side. And so when you see a show like Dirty Jobs, you see people laboring hard and sweating and struggling, but then you also see them laughing and prospering. That was a really important juxtaposition to present to the country, and it still is because the only way you're going to challenge the idea that work isn't the enemy is to offer examples. I stay in touch with the thousand or so people who have gone through our scholarship program, because now I can go back and I can find a kid who five or six years ago learned to weld and who today is up on the high plains in North Dakota or maybe down in the Gulf, making one hundred and eighty thousand dollars a year. With no debt, you know, raising a family right, And that story needs to be told because the path to prosperity still exists vis a vi a skilled trade. It's not about a four year degree. It's not the best path for the most people. One point five trillion dollars in student loans is currently on the books. We have seven point three million jobs currently open, the vast majority of which don't require a four year degree. But we're still telling our kids that if you don't get the four year degree, if you don't sign on the line and assume whatever the debt is, then you are going to wind up with some kind of vocational consolation prize, and you're going to spend the rest of your life pushing the boulder up the hill. It's a false, nonsensical argument, but it's real, and we've been selling it for a long time in much the same way we've been lending money we don't have to kids who are never going to be able to pay it back to training for jobs that don't exist anymore. It's a busted system.

So if you had a chance to talk personally to every twelve year old in the country, but as individuals, one on one, what would your core message be put.

So if you had a chance to talk personally to every twelve year old in the country, but as individuals, one on one, what would your core message be put.

It all on the table, look at everything, and don't limit yourself the things you think you're interested in. Your passion is important, your dreams are important. But if your strategy is to follow your passion and chase your dream, if that is your fundamental strategy, then you're taking a horrible risk and you're limiting yourself in ways. You don't have to put things on the table that you're not interested in, explore things that you have no affinity for, because you're twelve and you don't know anything, and when you're eighteen, you're not going to know much more, and when you're fifty you're not going to know nearly as much as you think you do. The idea that your success and your happiness could be way over here in some place that you hadn't considered is the thing that I want you to consider, because that's how it was for me. I didn't follow my passion. I took it with me, and as a result, I'm very passionate about where I am at fifty seven years of age. And as a bit of revisionist history, when I look at the people on Dirty Jobs, the people that we featured who resonated the most with the viewers. They were those people, the people who didn't follow their passion, but who were nevertheless passionate about whatever it was they wound up doing somehow or another. That's the message the seventeen year old who's trying to figure out do I borrow forty to fifty grand a year to go to a four year school, or do I take some time maybe in a community college, or maybe in an apprenticeship program, or maybe just a gap year. Not a gap year to screw around and waste time, but to figure out where your competency and your desire meet, Because that's the trick. And the more we tell kids that the secret to their happiness is to follow their passion, I think the more we're sending them on a snipe hunt.

It all on the table, look at everything, and don't limit yourself the things you think you're interested in. Your passion is important, your dreams are important. But if your strategy is to follow your passion and chase your dream, if that is your fundamental strategy, then you're taking a horrible risk and you're limiting yourself in ways. You don't have to put things on the table that you're not interested in, explore things that you have no affinity for, because you're twelve and you don't know anything, and when you're eighteen, you're not going to know much more, and when you're fifty you're not going to know nearly as much as you think you do. The idea that your success and your happiness could be way over here in some place that you hadn't considered is the thing that I want you to consider, because that's how it was for me. I didn't follow my passion. I took it with me, and as a result, I'm very passionate about where I am at fifty seven years of age. And as a bit of revisionist history, when I look at the people on Dirty Jobs, the people that we featured who resonated the most with the viewers. They were those people, the people who didn't follow their passion, but who were nevertheless passionate about whatever it was they wound up doing somehow or another. That's the message the seventeen year old who's trying to figure out do I borrow forty to fifty grand a year to go to a four year school, or do I take some time maybe in a community college, or maybe in an apprenticeship program, or maybe just a gap year. Not a gap year to screw around and waste time, but to figure out where your competency and your desire meet, Because that's the trick. And the more we tell kids that the secret to their happiness is to follow their passion, I think the more we're sending them on a snipe hunt.

I can't imagine a better message for this Labor Day, or a more relevant message for every American. I think you've already had an amazingly fascinating opening phase of your life, and I have a hunch that the next phase is going to continue to evolve and ended up being even more interesting. You have a book coming out in a little bit over a month. Call The Way I heard her can tell us just for a minute, what led you to write the book and what's in it.

I can't imagine a better message for this Labor Day, or a more relevant message for every American. I think you've already had an amazingly fascinating opening phase of your life, and I have a hunch that the next phase is going to continue to evolve and ended up being even more interesting. You have a book coming out in a little bit over a month. Call The Way I heard her can tell us just for a minute, what led you to write the book and what's in it.

The book is named after the podcast The Way I Heard It, which I started writing a couple of years ago as an homage really to Paul Harvey. He famously had a radio program called The Rest of the Story where he told five minute biographical mysteries. All of them had a twist at the end, so you wound up learning something you didn't know about somebody you thought you did. And I just thought they were terrific, You know, the kinds of stories that you can't get out of your car and until you hear the end of so you get to guess along the way who is talking about. That project started as a podcast for me a couple of years ago. It was a hobby that became completely out of hand, and now it's a book. And it's an odd book because it takes thirty five of those aforementioned biographies and juxtaposes them with thirty five autobiographical remembrances of me. So it's really half memoir, half mystery and kind of I hope, and interesting look at how we remember history with a capital H, and of course our own histories. The Way we recall these things the way we talk about ourselves and the people we admire and maybe not admire, and all smashed together into a hot mess, good natured recollections. I think the publishers callient.

The book is named after the podcast The Way I Heard It, which I started writing a couple of years ago as an homage really to Paul Harvey. He famously had a radio program called The Rest of the Story where he told five minute biographical mysteries. All of them had a twist at the end, so you wound up learning something you didn't know about somebody you thought you did. And I just thought they were terrific, You know, the kinds of stories that you can't get out of your car and until you hear the end of so you get to guess along the way who is talking about. That project started as a podcast for me a couple of years ago. It was a hobby that became completely out of hand, and now it's a book. And it's an odd book because it takes thirty five of those aforementioned biographies and juxtaposes them with thirty five autobiographical remembrances of me. So it's really half memoir, half mystery and kind of I hope, and interesting look at how we remember history with a capital H, and of course our own histories. The Way we recall these things the way we talk about ourselves and the people we admire and maybe not admire, and all smashed together into a hot mess, good natured recollections. I think the publishers callient.

So it'll be out in October, but people can pre order now, right.

So it'll be out in October, but people can pre order now, right.

That'd be terrific micro dot com slash book, And yeah, we're really excited about it because it's a great way to talk about the podcast, which has been gangbusters for me and my foundation, and really just a fun way hopefully to make history interesting and a little more accessible. As I'm sure you know, making history attainable and kittilating even for the masses is a tough trick, so that's what the book attempts to do in some way, just as the podcast does.

That'd be terrific micro dot com slash book, And yeah, we're really excited about it because it's a great way to talk about the podcast, which has been gangbusters for me and my foundation, and really just a fun way hopefully to make history interesting and a little more accessible. As I'm sure you know, making history attainable and kittilating even for the masses is a tough trick, so that's what the book attempts to do in some way, just as the podcast does.

Thank you to my guest Micro. You can get a link to his foundation micro works on our show page at newtsworld dot com. Newtsworld is produced by Ganger Sweet sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guarnsey Sloan and our research is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the tim at Ginglishtree sixty. If you've been enjoying Nutsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of Newtsworld can sign up for my three freeweekly columns at ginglisfree sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrich. This is Newtsworld

Thank you to my guest Micro. You can get a link to his foundation micro works on our show page at newtsworld dot com. Newtsworld is produced by Ganger Sweet sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guarnsey Sloan and our research is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the tim at Ginglishtree sixty. If you've been enjoying Nutsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of Newtsworld can sign up for my three freeweekly columns at ginglisfree sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrich. This is Newtsworld