Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 572 ｜ Mike Rowe： These Are the 3 Steps to Loving Your Work

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Friday. Welcome to this bonus episode. This episode is

00:00:05.680 brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. American meat delivered. Go to goodranchers.com

00:00:10.920 slash Allie. Okay, as promised, today we are sitting down with the renowned Mike Rowe. You

00:00:28.360 guys are going to absolutely love this conversation. Can't wait for you to hear it. Without further

00:00:32.540 ado, here's our new friend, Mike Rowe. Mike, thanks so much for joining us. I don't think

00:00:40.140 that you need any introduction. Everyone listening and watching already knows who you are. Are you

00:00:44.420 sure? I am fairly positive, unless we do have a few people that are known to live under rocks,

00:00:50.600 so it could be possible that some of them don't know who you are. Well, I've done some of my best

00:00:55.340 work under rocks. That's true. That's true. I'm going to speak as broadly as I can to your

00:01:01.380 enormous audience, including those currently living under a rock. Yes, you're big in the

00:01:05.840 live under a rock community, so I appreciate that about you. All right, there's a million things I

00:01:11.320 want to talk to you about. One thing that we've talked about a lot on this podcast, what's going

00:01:15.700 on in Canada, particularly with the truckers. I've heard you talk about this a couple times.

00:01:21.020 Um, this really is kind of a workers of the world are uniting situation and yet the socialists are

00:01:27.540 upset about it. What's your general take about what's going on there and seeing these regular

00:01:32.880 working class people push back on what they see as tyrannical mandates? On the one hand, I think

00:01:37.700 it's kind of inevitable. Somebody has to be first. Somebody, you know, in, in every pushback,

00:01:44.940 right? Somebody goes first. What's ironic about this is that three weeks ago, these guys were

00:01:52.580 national heroes, international heroes, really. And then overnight they went straight to villains

00:01:59.800 and that's amazing. And that's a sign of the times. I was on the cover of a magazine called

00:02:07.060 Trucker about, I don't know, probably seven years ago. And I remember talking to the guys then,

00:02:13.060 and it's, it's such a band of brothers. People don't realize that on the one hand, truckers live

00:02:19.720 lives of isolation, traveling oftentimes alone over vast stretches, you know, but they, they

00:02:28.740 have such a bond because they all, they all know what the others do. They all know what

00:02:34.140 it takes. They all know, uh, what it means to be essential. And so to me, watching it all

00:02:41.620 unfold, it's frightening for all the obvious reasons. Clearly the overreach is, is kind

00:02:47.060 of breathtaking, but to see a group of essential workers effectively push us to the point where

00:02:54.440 I think we're going to have to be right. I don't, I think the only way out of this is

00:03:00.260 going to be through some level of, um, hopefully peaceful, call it protesting or disobedience,

00:03:11.080 some kind of disobedience, because I, I just, I just don't think it's prudent to wait for somebody

00:03:19.060 to wave the all clear flag because I'm, I'm not sure that flag exists.

00:03:23.980 Hmm. You know, as you're speaking, I'm wondering about, for example, Trudeau said that, you know,

00:03:29.960 he's okay with dissent because he's talked to black lives matter and he's fine with their

00:03:34.360 protests and things like that. But obviously he's not okay with these protests, freezing

00:03:38.520 the bank accounts of people who disagree with him and all of that. And I'm wondering if it's

00:03:42.900 not so much a left versus right thing, but, um, the protests that seem to be approved of

00:03:49.000 by people like Trudeau represent ideas that are posh amongst, you know, the elite in the

00:03:54.940 intelligentsia, whereas the truckers are representing an idea that is unpopular among them, that they

00:04:02.200 shouldn't be forced to be vaccinated or they shouldn't have to follow these mandates just

00:04:05.940 to be in a truck by themselves all day. What do you think about the idea that what we're engaged in

00:04:11.140 as far as these culture wars and political wars really comes down to kind of a class war and a

00:04:16.480 demonization of the working class and the issues and the concerns that they represent?

00:04:24.040 Well, that's a lot, you know, um, but I, I, I think there's a lot of truth in the demonization

00:04:31.560 thing, but I think there's something even more fundamental than that that's going on. And that

00:04:36.280 is our, uh, tendency to resent that, which we rely upon. And it doesn't happen overnight,

00:04:46.240 but it's a slow burn. And the more disconnected we become from work, the more, the more, the less

00:04:52.720 competent we become at fixing our own toilets or putting in our own air conditioning or running our

00:04:59.180 own pipe or our own electric. Those areas are, are highly mystical to a lot of people. You know,

00:05:07.940 we need somebody else to come in and do that. Well, the need that we have for truckers

00:05:16.340 is enormous. Every single thing in this studio, every single thing in your home was either on a

00:05:23.100 train or a truck. We're quite likely both. Right. And so I do think as a group truckers,

00:05:30.900 I can't speak for them, but from what I've seen and the guys I have talked to, they know they're

00:05:38.620 underappreciated. Most often they're cursed. They're on the highway and they're big old thing.

00:05:44.600 And they're in the way they're going too fast in this lane. They're going too slow in that lane.

00:05:48.620 And people shake their fists at them, you know? Um, so they're not appreciated the way they ought to

00:05:54.740 be. And I think some of what we're seeing now, that is part of it. You know, when things get dire

00:06:01.380 and people feel disrespected, they speak out. And when they come together like this and look,

00:06:07.600 I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the government's position. When you have a protest that is

00:06:13.940 affirmatively stopping commerce and disturbing neighborhoods, you, you can't sit by indefinitely.

00:06:22.360 Something has to be done. Freezing people's accounts. Okay. That's something. But it seemed

00:06:29.600 to me like there could have been a chronology of sensible things to do before you got anywhere

00:06:36.500 close to that point, like talking, right? Like talking to them. We hear you. Let's talk. But

00:06:43.800 they never gave an inch. Right. And so people got dug in real fast and now it's a crisis.

00:06:50.060 Yeah. It's kind of a clash between, I think I heard someone in the New York Times put it this way,

00:06:55.520 the virtuals and the practicals. So the virtuals are the people who talk about ideas. I'm one of

00:07:01.620 those people. And then the practicals are the people who do all the things that you just described that

00:07:06.920 we rely on. And really we listen far more to just the virtuals, the talking heads, the academics,

00:07:12.740 not saying that that's a bad class of people, but we listen far more to them than we do to the

00:07:17.600 practicals. And very rarely do the virtuals and the practicals come together to have the

00:07:24.140 conversations that you're talking about. But that's one thing that you do. You kind of try to merge

00:07:29.020 the virtual and the practical to give people an understanding of those jobs that, as you just

00:07:35.720 described, most people take for granted and don't think about. What do you think some of the

00:07:39.960 consequences have been in kind of the separation of what we have from the knowledge of the people

00:07:49.180 who built what we have, that transport what we have, the separation between the virtuals and the

00:07:54.760 practicals? What are some of the consequences of that, do you think, in society?

00:07:58.500 The incredibly inflated cost of college, the 11.1 million jobs currently open that nobody seems to

00:08:08.640 really want. The consequences of separating our workforce is really what you're talking about.

00:08:17.560 And it's very similar to the consequences of separating our educational system. Higher education

00:08:23.280 over here, alternatives over here. If they were equal, that would be fine. Different strokes for

00:08:30.040 different folks, right? But they're not equal. We elevate one form of education at the expense

00:08:36.560 of all of the others. And so we place a huge value judgment on how we learn. We do the same thing with

00:08:45.520 how we work because training, by and large, is looked at as a subordinate way to get smart. And

00:08:54.240 consequently, it leads to jobs that are widely considered to be less important. But it's exactly

00:09:01.060 the opposite, right? When all of a sudden the trucks stop running and the virtuals can't get the

00:09:06.900 things they practically need to live delivered to them, then you see the resentment I was talking about

00:09:13.400 before. Right. And look, you can call the separation a lot of different things, right? You can call it

00:09:19.900 higher ed versus alternative. You can call it blue collar versus white. You can call it essential jobs

00:09:26.540 versus non-essential, right? And that's, I think that's, it's been very humbling for me personally,

00:09:33.560 because, you know, Dirty Jobs was the, like the granddaddy of essential working shows. And over the last

00:09:41.720 couple of years, we rebooted the series because I wanted to use it as an excuse to talk about my foundation

00:09:47.480 and get, get, get that larger message out there and so forth. But, um, everybody asks me about essential

00:09:54.860 work now. And, and my answer is different than it used to be. You know, my answer now has to do with the fact

00:10:01.060 that everybody is essential to somebody, even if it's just themselves and all work, whether it's your

00:10:08.060 practicals or your, would you call them virtual? Virtuals. Yeah. Right. So the, there's always

00:10:14.880 going to be an unintended consequence when you separate people, things, and ideas. We separated

00:10:23.200 shop class, for instance, from the rest of high school. You're probably too young to remember it,

00:10:28.880 but shop class used to be everywhere. I wish that we had had that, but we did not.

00:10:33.320 Well, it's by and large gone now. And so the result is a whole generation of kids,

00:10:39.400 two generations really, that never even had a look at what those jobs looked like growing up. So

00:10:48.860 welding was never really on the table, you know, wood shop, carpentry, metal shop,

00:10:55.820 steam fitting, pipe fitting that you didn't even see them. And so by the time those people grow up,

00:11:01.900 these jobs are just shrouded in mystery. And yet they rely on people who have those skills

00:11:11.020 to let them live their virtual slash practical life. So it makes no sense to be at odds with the

00:11:17.900 people we rely on, but we are. And that's something that ought to be bridged and fixed. And look,

00:11:26.540 I did and still do try to do that on dirty jobs. My granddad was the ultimate essential worker.

00:11:34.740 He was handy in ways that, sadly, that gene is recessive, right? I didn't get it. And so part of

00:11:41.920 the reason that dirty jobs worked so well was that I really was a dilettante. I am an apprentice,

00:11:47.880 you know, and I can, I can learn on camera from people who are typically never on camera.

00:11:55.680 And so that I hope helped bridge this gap you're talking about.

00:12:02.500 You mentioned the 11 million jobs that are currently unfilled. And so are you arguing that

00:12:08.700 one reason that they're unfilled is because there are these blue collar jobs that no one wants to take, 0.98

00:12:15.200 or no one has enough knowledge about to take those jobs?

00:12:19.080 Yeah, the skills gap is real. And part of the reason it exists is because there are not enough

00:12:23.700 people with the skills. Therefore, you wind up with this gap. But it's not that simple. You know,

00:12:29.760 there's also a will gap. There's a PR problem. If you spend 40 years telling parents that all these

00:12:38.800 jobs and the education and the training required to master those skills are subordinate,

00:12:45.200 right? Then what's going to happen if you, if you take shop class out at the same time,

00:12:50.560 you're telling people the best path for the most people is a four-year degree. What's going to

00:12:55.860 happen to the cost of college? Well, you free up limitless piles of money and then tell people

00:13:02.620 their kids are screwed. If they don't get a four-year degree, then you're going to have this 0.91

00:13:06.580 incredible push. I don't think it's a coincidence that in that environment, colleges have felt free to

00:13:14.120 raise their tuition to whatever levels they can. And consequently, we've got $1.7 trillion of student

00:13:21.200 loans on the books. We have over 11 million open positions, most of which don't require a four-year

00:13:26.560 degree, right? So we're still lending money we don't have to kids who are never going to be able

00:13:31.320 to pay it back to educate them for jobs that, in your words, are more virtual than practical.

00:13:36.900 And so it's, the skills gap is not a great mystery. It's just a reflection of what we value.

00:13:45.360 Yeah. And what we value in the workforce right now are not truckers. That's why we could hire 50,000 of

00:13:52.980 them right now in this country, most of whom would make six figures within a couple of years, but we

00:13:58.880 don't tell that story. Yeah. I wonder why our definition of success changed to having to get a

00:14:06.420 four-year degree, to having some kind of corporate or desk job. Like I think about my own family's

00:14:12.640 legacy. My grandmother was raised by farmers in Louisiana. She was the first person in our family

00:14:17.180 ever to go to college. Then she got her master's. And then, you know, my dad took 10 years to go to

00:14:22.280 college, but he did it. And it just wasn't even, there wasn't even a question whether or not

00:14:27.340 I would go to college. That was just something that was expected that I wanted to do. It was just

00:14:32.040 a given because, you know, my family had worked so hard to make sure that I could, and that's how you

00:14:38.520 get options. But obviously that hasn't always been the case, and it's not the case for a lot of people.

00:14:45.860 So in your estimation, like how did that happen? How did that change happen? Our definition of success

00:14:51.200 that necessarily now includes for a lot of people that expensive four-year degree?

00:14:56.540 I think it starts with the desire for a playbook. Parents are anxious. They don't know, right? They

00:15:03.160 don't want to screw their kids up. So it'd be nice to have a roadmap, right? It'd be nice if somebody

00:15:08.180 came along and said, hey, here's the thing, right? The best path for the most people, here it is,

00:15:13.980 and here's how you get on it. So it starts with the desire not to screw things up. But look,

00:15:21.880 to talk about college as the sole source of education, well, that's like talking about,

00:15:33.640 I don't know, what do you call a cardiologist as the sole source of medicine. There's so much more.

00:15:42.720 There's just so much more to it. So look, the pushback that I get around this topic usually

00:15:51.120 comes in the wake of a conversation like the one we're having where people go, okay, so Mike's

00:15:55.900 anti-education. No, he's an idiot. And I'm like, well, wait, I didn't say that. I'm pro-education. 1.00

00:16:02.760 You know, I went to a community college, then I worked, then I went to a four-year school,

00:16:06.220 and my liberal arts degree has served me really well, to be honest. In this line of work that I'm

00:16:12.360 in, you know, a broad-based liberal education can't hurt you, really. But in 1984, when I finished,

00:16:22.760 two years of community college and two and a half years at a university cost about $12,000.

00:16:28.300 Right.

00:16:28.840 And today, that exact same thing, same schools, same course load over $90,000.

00:16:34.340 Yeah.

00:16:35.240 So nothing in my lifetime has ever, nothing essential has ever become so expensive so quickly.

00:16:43.100 Not real estate, not energy, not food, not even healthcare. The cost of college has risen faster

00:16:51.040 than all those other things. And so what are we to make of that? You know, do we just say, well,

00:16:57.060 it's okay because it's so important that we'll pay whatever it costs. That's kind of what we've

00:17:03.480 been saying. When the truth is, college is not the best path for the most people. It's just the most

00:17:09.820 expensive path for the most people. And so whatever our definition of success is, it seems to be pretty

00:17:19.020 narrow when you look at it through the lens of education. But if you look at it through the lens

00:17:25.620 of satisfaction, job satisfaction, life satisfaction, career, whatever that is, then it gets a lot broader

00:17:33.480 and you start to realize that it's actually not the college that makes you smart. It's actually not the job

00:17:40.760 that makes you satisfied. It's you. Right. And, and to me, look, we have something right now that I didn't have

00:17:51.560 when I was in college. Yours is sitting next to you and mine is sitting right here. And for the people

00:17:56.360 who aren't watching this, I'm now holding my iPhone and I'm looking at it and I'm gobsmacked by the fact

00:18:02.560 that with an internet connection, I now have access to 98% of all the known information in the history of

00:18:11.380 the world. So if you have a curious mind and a smartphone and an internet connection, there's really

00:18:19.520 no limit to how educated you can become. Now you're not going to be as credentialed as you might be if

00:18:26.260 you go through the Ivy League, but that goes to your question too. What, what does success look like

00:18:32.680 vis-a-vis learning? And the answer to that involves words like diplomas, credentials, certificates,

00:18:41.400 certifications, recertifications, and so forth. So there's a, a bureaucracy that comes along

00:18:48.540 with success that exists separate and apart from the thing that really drives it, which is curiosity,

00:18:57.520 ambition, work ethic, delayed gratification, a decent attitude, a touch of that, what you call

00:19:03.900 your personal responsibility. Yeah. That stuff still matters. Yeah. That does still matter.

00:19:08.220 I am a mom of two babies. I've got a toddler and I've got a baby and my husband and I have already

00:19:17.220 been talking about, well, you know, I don't know if we want them to go to college, which is kind of

00:19:22.420 crazy considering that just, you know, 10 years ago, we were super excited to go to college and all

00:19:28.920 that stuff. And I don't think I ever would have considered that, but just looking at the state of

00:19:32.680 academia today and thinking about some of the stuff that you've talked about, I'm like,

00:19:36.780 I just don't know. I don't know if that's the best path for them. Maybe it is. For parents who

00:19:42.880 are weighing that, maybe who have older children and they're trying to encourage their kids to explore

00:19:49.360 other options. How do they do that? Do you have any advice for parents who kind of have been raised

00:19:55.460 in this world where college is the only form of success? Sure. You try everything. You know, for me,

00:20:04.540 and by the way, I'm not dodging the question, but I'm, I'm stingy with advice, honestly, because I think

00:20:11.180 so much of what's wrong right now is the fact that cookie cutter advice is so prevalent. And look,

00:20:21.040 we're podcasting, which is just another word for broadcasting. And, you know, hundreds of thousands

00:20:24.940 of people are listening to this thing. And I don't know any of them. I don't know where they are in

00:20:29.220 their life or what they need to hear. People, it's, advice is, it's, it's important, but like

00:20:36.420 anything that's important, you, you have to know who you're talking to if you're actually going to

00:20:41.280 dispense it. And so, you know, this happens all the time with me around this topic, but it also

00:20:48.520 happens with, with voting, right? People, I got 6 million people on my Facebook page and every couple

00:20:53.800 of years, some of them say, look, why aren't you encouraging everyone to vote? Why don't you

00:20:58.620 participate in the get out the vote campaigns? And I say, because I don't know who I'm talking to.

00:21:04.620 Yeah. Voting's important. Yeah. Right. I wouldn't encourage somebody I've never met

00:21:09.600 to vote simply because they have the right to any more than I'd encourage somebody to go buy a gun

00:21:15.800 who I'd never met simply because they have a right to. I'd prefer to know who I'm talking to.

00:21:20.720 Um, having said that, I don't think there's any harm in looking at everything. So field trips used

00:21:30.820 to be a thing that we did all the time in high school. And, you know, we would, we would go to

00:21:36.260 places of work where we could see things and try things. And it's, if I were a parent, that's what I

00:21:44.180 would be doing. I would make sure, you know, I would make sure that my kids saw as many options

00:21:50.460 as possible. And, and I wouldn't beat them over the head with college, but I would with education,

00:21:57.500 I would say in this world, you're, you'll be lost if you're not, if you're not proficient at

00:22:06.180 something. So to encourage good cookie cutter advice that I don't think ever hurt anybody

00:22:12.920 includes things like be curious and be uncomfortable. Try a thing. Guess what? Just

00:22:20.280 because you love it doesn't mean you, you can't suck at it. And that's sorry. That's just the way 0.97

00:22:28.100 it goes. Sometimes the thing you really want to do, you just don't have the skills for. And sometimes,

00:22:33.860 and this happened for me, I had no interest in this business. I wanted to be a tradesman. I wanted

00:22:40.240 to follow in my granddad's footsteps, but I wound up getting into this business. And once I got in it,

00:22:47.900 and once I started trying things, I, I realized I was actually okay, pretty good in some cases

00:22:54.000 with this toolbox. And so, yeah, change your dream, pivot, adjust. Yeah. Don't follow your passion,

00:23:02.180 bring it with you. That's a perfect segue to my next question that I have. A lot of people feel

00:23:08.160 like they have to have a calling or know specifically what they want to do for the rest of their life in

00:23:13.560 order to be happy. And if they don't have that, then they feel like, you know, they're not successful,

00:23:18.640 they're not good enough, or they'll never be productive or fulfilled enough. What is the balance

00:23:24.660 between finding something that you really love and that really fulfills you, or you feel like you're

00:23:30.440 really good at and simply a practical job that pays the bills and provides for you and your family?

00:23:39.540 Well, I'd reverse engineer it a little bit and start with what you want is a job that you're competent

00:23:48.160 at, that pays you well, that you really enjoy doing. That's what we all want. And that's what we call

00:23:57.040 job satisfaction, right? And that's what everybody talks about. The question is, how do we get it?

00:24:02.800 What's the chronology? And too often today, I think what a lot of parents instinctively believe

00:24:11.160 and pass on to their kids is that you start by identifying the thing you love, right? You look

00:24:17.360 around and you say, okay, this is what I want to be. This is my dream job. So how do I get the dream job?

00:24:23.220 Well, all too often, it involves a whole lot of test taking and a very competitive, expensive world

00:24:31.920 that requires you to borrow money in order to get into the school that will equip you with the necessary

00:24:39.860 tools to get the dream job. And so you pay money and you take your tests and you do your papers. And

00:24:44.920 maybe you need to go further than that. Maybe there's an advanced degree or a master's or PhD,

00:24:50.420 whatever it is, you go through this list of things and you get your papers and you get your

00:24:56.320 credentials and you pay your money and then you get out and then you start looking for that job.

00:25:01.000 You know, do you find it? Study after study says the odds are against you. Most people with higher

00:25:07.740 education degrees right now aren't working in their chosen field, right? Doesn't mean it was a waste.

00:25:13.060 It just means that the odds of you getting the job that you previously identified as the thing that

00:25:19.300 will make you happy is now more and more difficult. So it becomes a quest. And so you're not really

00:25:27.920 satisfied until you can get to the place that lines up with the thing you started searching for.

00:25:35.400 The dirty jobs route is different. The reverse commute route is different. I'm not saying it

00:25:42.480 works for everybody, but people always ask me, why was everybody on that show having such a good time?

00:25:48.340 Right. They're working in arduous situations, disgusting locales very often, but everybody

00:25:55.100 really seemed to like what they do. They were passionate about what they did. And the reason is

00:26:00.160 because they didn't start their search by saying, what's going to make me happy. They started their

00:26:05.520 search by saying, where's the opportunity, right? And once they identified the opportunity, they said,

00:26:12.420 what skills do I need to start working right now? And they would acquire those skills. And then the

00:26:18.460 next question was, okay, am I good enough at this to get great at it? And if I'm not, what do I need to

00:26:25.080 do? And how hard do I need to work? And, and you go down that road and then, then you say, all right,

00:26:32.640 I've learned, I found it. I learned to be good at it. Now I'm going to learn to love it.

00:26:39.520 So like the whole idea that you can learn to love a thing instead of simply imagine it at the outset,

00:26:48.920 dream of it. Right. And so that's the, that to me is it, it's at least part of part of the quest.

00:26:57.420 You know, we, you know, how you want to wind up well-paid challenged and happy. Right. But the idea

00:27:07.300 that there's only one path to get there or that you're going to be one of the lucky few to, to look

00:27:12.480 out over the, the whole sprawling future of your future and say, all right, when all these things

00:27:18.560 happen, that that's when I'm going to let myself be satisfied. You just, you just made it really

00:27:24.080 hard. Yeah. Really hard. Yeah. You're doing a lot to try to help people discover that there's more

00:27:31.060 than one path to that fulfillment that you just described. Can you talk a little bit more about

00:27:36.480 what you're doing there? Well, the MicroWorks Foundation evolved out of dirty jobs in 2008.

00:27:41.960 It began as a, a sort of PR campaign for a few million good jobs that nobody seemed to want that

00:27:49.880 were open. This was at a time of high unemployment country was in a recession. Right. And so the fact

00:27:56.940 that all that opportunity was still around, that's what got me interested in, in doing something,

00:28:03.600 you know, and then that morphed into a trade resource center. Fans of the show built out a big online

00:28:10.940 presence where people could go and see what opportunities existed and what kind of training

00:28:14.860 you would need and so forth. And today it's a, it's a scholarship fund. We give away a million

00:28:20.360 dollars a year. In fact, starting tomorrow, the 23rd of February, we'll have our next work ethic

00:28:26.800 scholarship program. And your listeners are welcome to go and apply for a work ethic scholarship.

00:28:33.380 Why work ethic scholarships? Because I don't care about your dream. Honestly, I don't care about your

00:28:40.120 wish fulfillment. I don't really want to help people who say to me all my life, I've dreamed

00:28:46.160 of being a blankety blank. I don't care. I'm looking for people who want to learn a skill

00:28:52.220 that's in demand and then get really, really good at it and then learn to love it. And so we look for

00:28:59.600 work ethic. That's why we call them work ethic scholarships. There's scholarships out there for 0.85

00:29:03.980 everything, you know, academic, talent, athletic, no shortage of those, but who's rewarding work

00:29:10.960 ethic. Who's looking for that man or woman who shows up early, stays late, wants to learn, wants to 0.94

00:29:17.020 advance. So, um, so that's what I'm doing to, to justify my, my big mouth and, and my, you know,

00:29:25.500 I'm told my, my ubiquity in this space, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to be ubiquitous. You know, somebody said

00:29:34.420 the other day, it's like, dude, it's like stepping in gum, you know, there you are again. But what

00:29:39.220 happened was really the headlines caught up with the themes of dirty jobs and micro works. And suddenly

00:29:45.900 people are, are desperate for the, for answers to the kinds of questions you're asking. And I don't

00:29:52.460 have all the answers, but I'm, I'm proud to say that 14 years after starting that foundation,

00:29:58.480 we now have 1400 people who have gone through a training program essentially. And now I'm circling

00:30:06.020 back to interview them and to see how they're doing and to get their stories. And Ali, I'm telling you,

00:30:12.880 it, it, it really is inspirational to talk to somebody who just had no idea what they were going

00:30:18.440 to do out of college was getting all kinds of pressure to borrow all sorts of money to go to

00:30:23.200 some sort of school that they weren't enthused about, but chose instead to learn how to weld or

00:30:28.940 get their plumbing certification. And today, you know, they're making six figures. Many of them are,

00:30:35.460 some have bought vans and hired people and began mechanical contracting companies. And it's,

00:30:44.040 to answer your earlier question better than I did that. That's what success looks like.

00:30:50.540 It's that reverse commute. It's finding a person who is not so focused on finding their dream job,

00:30:58.240 but ready to go to work by mastering a skill that's in demand right now. Yeah. That those are the stories

00:31:05.780 I reckon our country needs to hear. And, um, right now, anyway, those are the ones I'm privileged to tell.

00:31:11.940 Yeah. Finding a skill that's in demand, becoming great at it, learning to love it. I think that's,

00:31:18.360 that's right. Yeah. That's a really good formula for success that I think a lot of people assume

00:31:22.260 that you have to have a love for something before you start it in order to feel fulfilled. But I like

00:31:27.880 how you reverse that. I actually think that's a lot more hopeful. Well, what are you supposed to,

00:31:31.880 I mean, 15, 16 years old. I didn't know my from a hot rock. Yeah. What am I going to,

00:31:38.480 you know, and hear guidance counselors and, and, and well-intended, um, adults of from all walks are

00:31:46.900 asking me the same question. What do you want to do? Right. What do you want to be the rest of your

00:31:51.740 life? I don't know. Yeah. How, how could I know? Yeah. Community college. I had two great teachers,

00:31:58.760 uh, in, in high school, an English teacher and a music teacher that impacted me hugely. But it was

00:32:05.480 those two years at community college that had the biggest impact because I had no idea what I wanted

00:32:10.400 to do. And I took every course I could from philosophy to music. And, you know, I might've

00:32:18.360 been wrong about some of it, but for $26 a credit, I could afford to be right today. You can't. Yeah,

00:32:25.220 it's true. You can't experiment the same way. That's a shame.

00:32:28.120 I guess I'm thankful. I went to a liberal arts school too, and I got as general of a degree as

00:32:35.420 I could. It actually has served me well, but yeah, a lot of people don't have that option.

00:32:40.920 And a lot of, a lot of colleges really make you make that decision when you're 18 years old. And

00:32:45.940 where'd you go? I went to a school called Furman university, Greenville, South Carolina,

00:32:50.820 Greenville. Yep. Greenville, South Carolina. It's beautiful. What'd you major in? Um,

00:32:54.620 communication studies and I'm communicating. So it worked. Thank you. Thank you. Um,

00:33:01.160 any debt, no debt. Thank the Lord. How come parents help my parents? Thankfully. Yeah. But

00:33:08.260 a lot of people don't have that, but my parents, I mean, they worked so hard to make sure that

00:33:12.980 they didn't want me to think about that. They wanted me to be able to go where I

00:33:17.960 wanted to go. And it was a privilege I'm very thankful for. And I'm thankful for the experience too.

00:33:23.640 What was great about your college experience? What was it? The place you went? Was it the

00:33:29.260 professors you had or the friends you made? You know, I wasn't expecting to be the interviewee.

00:33:34.440 Get used to it. I'm trying to be relatable. Yes. Okay. So one of the things I loved is that

00:33:40.580 I grew up in Dallas, Texas, and I decided to go to school in South Carolina, even though all my

00:33:45.620 friends were going to school at a Texas school, I just wanted that independence. I wanted something

00:33:50.000 different. Don't know really why I picked the school. Um, and I loved it. I thought that I

00:33:55.780 wanted to go to law school, which you have to have obviously an undergraduate degree for. And so I

00:34:01.400 thought I was going to double major in English and communications. Turned out I liked my social

00:34:06.380 life more than academics. So dropped the double major really fast. Um, and did the whole communication

00:34:12.720 studies thing, which honestly comparatively is a pretty easy major, but I loved it. And then

00:34:18.180 I remember giving my graduation speech. I was chosen to give that. And that's, I really did

00:34:23.260 actually have a moment before I was in any career that I knew that I wanted to do something like

00:34:28.760 that for the rest of my life. So I do credit a lot of my college experience to that, helping me

00:34:34.860 understand what I was good at and what I wanted to do. So I don't know you, right? We met today for

00:34:39.800 the first time. Yes, we did. But I knew you were going to say something very similar and I'm not sure

00:34:45.340 why I knew it, but, but I think this is really important. And I, and I hope your viewers might,

00:34:51.300 might take something from this. There's so much pressure, not just to go to college,

00:34:56.220 but to get into the rights, the right school, that whole varsity blues thing was just amazing.

00:35:02.660 And the, and the pressure on parents and the pressure on kids to get into the Ivy league or,

00:35:07.960 you know, once you're at that level, it's just crazy. But the truth is in every study that I've read,

00:35:14.680 the, uh, the people who seem to have the most success in terms of an indicator after matriculating

00:35:23.840 through college are the people who graduated, not from the best schools, but near the top of their

00:35:31.160 class. The people like you who are chosen to give the graduation speech, the people like me who in a

00:35:38.640 modest little community college were given opportunities to star in plays, right? Given

00:35:45.300 opportunities to, to do all kinds of different things. This is true in athletics. This is true

00:35:50.500 in the arts. This is true in academia. The, and the reason I think that that cohort is so much more

00:35:58.940 interesting. And just to be clear, what I'm saying is somebody who graduates from the top of the class

00:36:03.720 at the school you went to will probably have a better run than somebody who graduates at the

00:36:10.720 bottom of the class of Harvard or Yale. It's not really the school because there's an emotional

00:36:19.340 growth that happens when you're in a college and there's, there's esteem that happens and there's

00:36:25.760 confidence. And if you're an A plus student and you crush it all the way through high school,

00:36:31.280 and suddenly you're at Harvard, guess what? Now you're swimming in the deep end of the pool and

00:36:37.620 somebody, all those smart people, somebody is going to be last in the class. And that person is not

00:36:44.820 prepared to be last because all they've ever been is first. That's interesting. And you know,

00:36:50.400 thinking back, I do think it was a lot of confidence and being comfortable because mine was the opposite.

00:36:55.520 I was an okay student in high school, very okay. And then I went to college and I found it pretty

00:37:00.860 easy and I did, I did well. And so that, you know, I didn't really think about that,

00:37:05.740 but it probably did give me a lot of confidence and personal growth that maybe I wouldn't have had

00:37:09.940 if I had gone to a more rigorous. And there probably wasn't a crying closet back there for

00:37:16.300 you guys, right? Or the aromatherapy candles? No, there probably is now. There probably is now.

00:37:21.200 It's changed. Unfortunately, I don't remember having my safe space or crying closet or anything like

00:37:26.300 that. And being that far away from your home, I think it's good. I think it's good for you.

00:37:30.820 You know, I, I rant from time to time about the whole safe space thing, because I really believe

00:37:37.580 that so much of what can happen that's good comes from a willingness to be uncomfortable.

00:37:44.460 Yeah. And being uncomfortable is, doesn't feel safe. And so once again, when safety gets elevated

00:37:52.960 to a place of constant prominence, there's going to be, there's going to be consequences.

00:38:00.820 That's all the last two years have been. That's constantly what we're hearing. Not that safety is

00:38:05.560 a bad thing always, obviously, but all we're hearing is promises of safety, safety, safety. This is for

00:38:11.560 your safety. Even what Trudeau was saying, what some draconian policies have promised

00:38:15.560 is all safety. Safety is one thing, but it's not everything. And I do think when we prioritize

00:38:20.860 safety and comfort over everything else, like you said, there's going to be consequences.

00:38:25.480 Can I show you my, my mask, my safety third mask? Oh, yes. This is a mask. My foundation

00:38:32.760 sells these. Oh, nice. Safety third was a expression that came out of a dirty jobs. Yes. And early on,

00:38:40.600 I thought, you know what, if the masks are going to be a thing personally, I, a cloth mask, it never

00:38:46.580 made a lot of sense to my brain, but I'm like, well, if I have to wear one, you know, just to be

00:38:51.480 in compliance. Uh, and then I thought, wait a minute, what if I put safety third on a mask

00:38:56.060 and market them to people who want to be in compliance, but also want to say at the same

00:39:00.440 time, I don't really think safety can be first all the time. Yeah. We raised $400,000 for my

00:39:07.820 foundation. Wow. People buying these masks. Wow. Hey, you know, you get lemons, you make

00:39:13.980 lemonade. Yep. That's what you've done. Thank you. Uh, last question for you. Very last question

00:39:18.900 that I'm sure you've answered before, but I haven't heard you answer it. What was the dirtiest job or

00:39:24.360 is the dirtiest job that you've ever done? It took you a long time to get there, Allie,

00:39:30.240 but I figured sooner or later. Yeah. Yeah. That's the, in 20 years, I, that's the most

00:39:36.300 common question that you get. I can't think of a day when somebody hasn't asked it, you know,

00:39:41.240 honestly. And, and, and I don't mind because it, it's, it's kind of impossible not to, but before

00:39:47.700 I answer you, just full disclosure, we did 300 jobs and, um, and I used to give the same answer

00:39:53.440 all the time because it was the answer that I thought was true. But then when I thought about it,

00:39:57.280 I realized, no, that one, that was pretty hideous. That's dirty. So in my mind, there's a wheel,

00:40:02.880 right? Like on the wheel of fortune and they're like 30 jobs. So I'm the, my, the wheel's spinning

00:40:08.780 right now and wherever it stops, that's going to be the answer. That's just what you're going to say.

00:40:12.420 Okay. So today I'm going to tell you, Oh, concrete chipper. Concrete chipper was the dirtiest job.

00:40:19.380 Well, yeah, but you can't, you can't limit dirt to, to grime. Yeah. All right. I was thinking like

00:40:30.260 sewage type things. If you want the sewer story, I got a sewer story. I got a septic tank story. I

00:40:36.320 got feces from every species, you know, but look, I'll just leave you with this. There's a thing

00:40:41.300 called a lift pump and a lift pump is a giant motor, weighs about four tons and it sits on the bottom

00:40:48.940 of something called a, uh, sometimes they're in a fixed film reactor, but mostly it's just the

00:40:55.460 first level of a wastewater treatment plant. And they're in like a silo that's about five stories

00:41:01.220 high. And when people flush their toilets in San Francisco, in this case, where I went into the,

00:41:06.580 uh, wastewater treatment plant, the, uh, the pumping chamber fills with the sewage and, and the lift

00:41:12.740 pump lifts the sewage out and pumps it into the process whereby the sewage is treated.

00:41:18.940 When your lift pump ruptures, the good people of San Francisco, they, they don't know. They just

00:41:24.180 keep flushing their toilets. So the silo begins to fill with their, with their filth. Uh, alarms go

00:41:29.820 off, man in woefully inadequate Tyvek suits descend the spiral staircase and they muscle their way

00:41:37.840 through these watertight doors and they swim to the lift pump through the sewage dog paddle. Mostly

00:41:45.300 and you get to the pump and you got to climb up on top of the thing, which is hard because it's just

00:41:49.600 like a glazed donut and the smell is incredible. And you're just, you just can't believe what you're

00:41:55.280 doing. And, uh, but you're doing it. And then you get on top of the lift pump and up top, there's a

00:42:00.940 crane and they lower a cable and you take the cable and you, and you attach it to the lift pump and you

00:42:06.700 give the signal and the guys hoist the whole thing out of this pit of despair. Wow. And, um, when the

00:42:13.960 lift pump breaks the seal of crap that had been holding it to the floor, it's a sound, well, it's

00:42:21.020 a sound that'll haunt your dreams, right? It's like somebody yanked a piece of Velcro, like a giant 0.65

00:42:26.380 piece of Velcro off a sticky wall. And as the pump goes into the air and you're hanging onto it, you look

00:42:31.840 down and there's your cameraman, he's filming and you're getting further and further away and giant

00:42:36.820 pieces of filth slide off the pump and go end over end and land on him. And you can't help but laugh

00:42:43.040 because he's your buddy and now he's covered in other people's crap. And you know, that's how your day 0.99

00:42:47.660 goes. Good times. It was, was it the dirtiest? It was, here's how dirty it was. When we were done

00:42:53.000 on that particular day, um, we always went out for a beer afterwards just to talk and decompress.

00:42:59.400 But the, the six of us stood in a circle looking at each other, covered, covered in the most vile

00:43:06.240 thing you can imagine. And no, no one spoke for like a minute. We just stood there looking at each

00:43:12.700 other, you know? And finally I said, okay guys, I'll see you around. And we all just walked away.

00:43:18.540 So it was like, you didn't even decompress together. It was, it was too soon to even talk about it.

00:43:23.740 Yeah. That much of an experience. Well, thanks for sharing that.

00:43:26.680 Sorry you asked. No, I'm not. I hope people were able to relive that in their,

00:43:31.340 in their mind. I'm worried. I'm worried your viewers, would you say they were like

00:43:35.100 young moms for the most part? This is not what they signed. This is not what they signed on for.

00:43:39.600 Oh, I bet if they're listening with their kids, their kids will love it.

00:43:42.720 Well, good. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

00:43:45.380 The time to come on. It was really fun. Okay. Happy Friday, everyone. Hope that you

00:43:52.120 had a great week. We will be back here on Monday with more. See you guys then.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - February 25, 2022

Ep 572 ｜ Mike Rowe： These Are the 3 Steps to Loving Your Work

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