LS 60 - Intelligence for Your Life TV, the John Tesh Radio Show, Entertainment Tonight, Olympic Games, Wimbledon, and US Open Tennis with John Tesh

This show is produced by the Hartman Media Company. For more information and links to all our great podcasts, visit hartmanmedia.com.

Welcome to the Longevity Show. Informing listeners on the important aspects of health, wealth and happiness to ensure you live life to its fullest. With fascinating interviews with top authors and gurus in the field, along with the.

Latest news in the science and technology.

Of longevity, we're going to reveal expert advice and amazing secrets of living a longer.

And now, here's your host, Jason Hartman.

Welcome to the show. This is Jason Hartman, your host and every 10th episode we do something kind of special, kind of different. What we do is we go off topic. So regardless of which show it is on the Hartman Media Network, whether it be one of the financial shows, economics, real estate, investing, travel, longevity, all of the other topics that we have, every 10th episode we go off topic and we explore something of general interest, something of general life, success, value. And so many of our listeners around the world in 164 countries have absolutely loved our 10th episode shows. So that's what we're gonna do today. And let's go ahead and get to our guest with a special tip 10th episode show. And of course, on the next episode, we'll be back to our regular programming. Here we go. It's my pleasure to welcome a name you are certainly familiar with, and that is Mr. John Tesh. He is host of Intelligence for your Life TV and the John Tesh Radio Show. It's heard by over 15 million people across the US and Canada. He's former host of Entertainment Tonight, the Olympic Games, Wimbledon, US Open, tennis Tour de France and the Ironman Triathlon, and writer of the NBA and NBC basketball theme Round Ball Rock, which is regarded as one of the most memorable sports themes of all time. Winner of six Emmys and two time Grammy nominee, recipient of the Associated Press Award for investigative journalism, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Best selling author of Intelligence for your life. Powerful lessons for personal growth. John, welcome. Is there anything you don't do?

You are a Renaissance fan.

I appreciate it. My dad, you know, often said, you know, why don't you just pick a lane? But I've always been sort of an ADD personality, so I love doing different things and a lot of them are connected too. You know, a lot of the music that I was writing was the sports themes were when I was a sports announcer for cbs.

Right, right. But you know, it's very rare that you'll have a sports announcer doing the music. Right. And then acting and different and you've got Your media company, and then you're writing books, too.

I think the most ridiculous thing is that I went to North Carolina State and studied physics and chemistry because my parents were convinced that I would starve to death as a musician. So that was. Yeah, but about, you know, in my junior year, right, when the courses started getting really complicated and difficult with organic chemistry and quantitative analysis, I found television and Radio 101. I was like, I think I'll do this.

That's easier and more glamorous.

Well, it's also one of those things where you can, you know, you start at the beginning of the day and then you can have a finished product at the end of the day. And now with software, you can have a finished product in an hour. But back then, I enjoyed that. It really fit my lifestyle.

Yeah, yeah. Good stuff. You know, if you had to answer the question, nowadays, what is your main thing? What would you say to that question?

I think our fans and friends would say that our main thing is radio because we've been doing it for 15 years and we were on for, you know, Connie and I both are on for 36 hours a week. And so a lot of people hear that. We just started television a couple years ago. But I would say if you asked if it was the Newlywed Game and you asked my wife, what lights your husband up the most professionally? It would be sitting behind a grand piano playing to an audience. It's a real opportunity when people actually show up to listen to your music. And it was the thing I was doing when I was a little kid. I was always making little Broadway shows in my basement. So that's actually something I would love to do between now and the time I'm six feet under is. I'd love to. To write a Broadway musical, but that's probably the most difficult thing you could possibly do.

I figured you'd probably get in there, some of you back to your college days and do addendum to the theory of relativity or something, too. Why not?

Yeah, I watched that. I watched that movie. That's about as far as I got. It is interesting, though, that that kind of work, when you're having to do that kind of homework is a good lesson for in anything you do, you need to do the research and do the homework. And I think that's why the radio show became a success so early on, is that we started it with 10 researchers and we just sort of ferret out all the great information that people need to live their lives better. And I think that the listeners appreciate the Fact that we did the homework for them.

Well, tell us about that. I mean, what are you doing on the radio show? Is that all investigative journalism type stuff?

No, it's really all lifestyle. Sort of like you give us two minutes and we'll find something that you can use to enhance your life, to enhance the lives of those around you or just broadcast it on your Facebook page. So it's, you know, it's the three ways to affair proof your marriage. It's the two ways to shrink your, your waistline, five ways to find your purpose in life. And it's really. People call it bite size intelligence. Some people will tell us that they're driving home from work and they'll sit in there because they want to hear the other for 10 minutes.

Yeah. Or six minutes in that case.

And we don't ever go. I'm a big fan of podcast listening, which is of course very, very popular now. But the way our show is, it's about two minutes of information and then it's surrounded by music and in all formats too. So it's on Christian stations, it's on classical stations, it's on talk stations, Hard rock, hot, all that stuff.

Is that a new model for media? I mean, it's a new concept? Well, I guess in terms of the programming you've got this bite sized information, perfect for our attention restricted generation in which we live or time in which we live. Everything's got to be bite sized. So that two minute idea is great. But is there a model to the media or the syndication model that makes that different?

I think that the tough thing about syndication, especially in the television world, and we found this early on in the radio world too, is that it's the big companies that have seven or, or eight shows and they'll come in and they'll go. And block booking as it's called, is not legal, but they'll come in and they'll go, hey, you should take your Dr. Phil renewal and we'll give you a break on whatever, Arsenio hall or something. I'm going back too far. But those guys are really, really powerful. So self syndication can be tough. And we self syndicate the radio show and also the TV show. But it's all about personal relationships. The beauty of syndicated TV versus network or cable is that we could have a bad ratings book in Omaha. We could switch stations and go someplace El or Dallas doesn't really care about what's going on in Omaha. So we treat each market as separate business. I think that this show, I think we got in early on, the curation model, where there's so much information there now that you're seeing more and more people. And you see it on podcasts, too, curating the information. Follow us as we curate. And buzzfeed does it too, although it's a little crazier there. Here are the five things that we found today for you. So I think that ultra curation model is something that you're seeing more and more of today.

What's interested me, John, is that we've got all these people that I'll call nowadays out there. You know, everybody's kind of their own little mini media company in a way. Certainly on social media, at least they are. But then you've got the podcasting thing. So it goes up from there up to the big time. Like you and Connie. Right. And everything in between. We have all these sort of unlikely experts nowadays where we've got people talking about, say, for example, health so much. And there are tons of podcasters out there that do that, for example, yet they have no actual academic background in it. You know, credentials. Yeah. And just a different world. And I'm not so sure that's a bad thing because a lot of the credentialed people have led us wrong. We know that it's hit and miss, probably. Right.

You have to be really careful with that stuff. And even people with credentials sometimes will come out too strong, too stridently and say, hey, take this or take that and it'll help you. Because what we found is we can interview a gastroenterologist on a Monday and then interview another one on a Wednesday, and they have a completely different feeling about what's happening inside your body.

That's the reason I picked health, because it's a science. Right?

Oh, yeah. I think that one of the things we're most careful about is not getting anything, quote unquote off the Internet. We make sure that we're either coming out of the Mayo Clinic or Cleveland Clinic and Harvard Wellness Review and interviewing credentialed PhDs and MDs. And since we've been doing it for long enough and people know that they'll. It's like your podcast. You reach a lot of people. So you're going to get some. With present company accepted. You're going to get some people who. Who know. Who have something to say and who also have the credentials behind it, and they've studied it. So that's the model that we use.

Yeah, yeah. Good stuff, good stuff. Where are you going with that? Like, what are your plans with your media Company. You know, it's kind of interesting. And as I ask you that, I'm thinking of these people that have really changed from what we'll call the mainstream media to, you know, alternative things like Glenn Beck with his own company and Howard Stern leaving terrestrial radio to xm. And gosh, Oprah did it, too. And it's pretty surprising, really. I mean, these are big people with huge audiences not doing the mainstream thing necessarily anymore.

If you ask me, hey, what are your top three mistakes? I'd say it's the same mistake. One, two, and three. And that is. And I think this is sort of a human condition too, for people who are not enlightened. And I've gotten better at this. But you get to a certain level, and no matter what it is, whether you're. Okay, let's use me as an example. Whether you're playing in front of 10,000 people in a concert or you're hosting Entertainment Tonight, or you're doing a backyard theater show for the rest of the nine year olds on your block, you always want something bigger and you tend to get bored. And what I've really learned is that you have to. Certainly for me, you really need to pick a lane and figure out what makes you happy and what's fulfilling and what's purpose driven and forget about the other stuff, because people always come to you and they say, hey, it happened to me when I was doing Entertainment Tonight and I was doing my music at the same time. And it was a great place for me to be, right? Because E.T. opened doors for me and I really enjoyed the rest of my day writing music and doing film scores. And they came to me and they said, hey, would you like to do a talk show with Lisa Gibbons? At the time, I was also working with Mary Hart. I was like, they threw some money at me and I'm like, yeah. And it was just the wrong decision. I think a lot of us make decisions and you get lured into doing more stuff. And the most successful people, I think, are the ones that stay focused. And that's why books like Al Rees's Focus and Differentiate or Die are so popular. But I mean, what you're really talking about is, hey, listen, Stern, he made Howard Stern made a decision that was really right for the time. I know him, so I know that he agonized over that it was the right decision for him because he already had a massive following. I think she would admit it, too. We've seen people like Katie Couric, who is also a friend, who maybe got lured for the first female anchor, solo anchor, you know, a television anchor that may have lured her in. And gosh, I loved her on the Today show. I would have watched her, you know, forever. But it's. What happens to us is we get like, I want to make a difference, I want to make a change. And sometimes it's not the right career move.

Right. We have to temper that. Yeah, that's. It's always.

Yeah, good luck with that.

Exactly. But you know, it's interesting because I have the same sort of entrepreneurial add that I guess you have. You do a lot of things. I do a lot of things too. And have these different businesses that sort of tie together, but not completely. And you think in a way, gosh, that's bad. You know the old saying, to follow, you know, without halt one aim. That is the road to success. We all certainly know the concept of focus. Al Ries, who I'm a huge student of, he's been on the show before. I love his work in Jack Trout. But you know, you look at someone like, Richard Branson's got like 400 companies, right? You know, I don't know, maybe focus is overrated, maybe it's not. I'm really just being with the question. I'm not sure, you know.

Well, he has the stomach for that, I think. And if you've read his book Like a Virgin, he actually makes the point of how many of those businesses failed. But I think he also picks great people. You have to be that guy. And so he picks great people to run those companies. And then he goes off and gets into space. There's a guy who, he's a 34, 35 year old kid who I've known since he was 26, who is really just sort of tearing up the hip hop and Broadway and Broadway musical world. His name is Lin Manuel Miranda and he wrote the musical by himself and with orchestration and arrangement help from Alex Lacamore called Hamilton. And it's based on Ron Chernow's book. But he was interviewed on CBS and you were like, how could one person. It's 46 songs, this musical and it's the hottest ticket and will be forever probably. How does one person do this? And his thing was to Charlie Rosie is I picked a lane and I stayed in that lane until I got what I wanted and distractions came about all over me.

Very interesting, very interesting, John. So, I mean, you're obviously a very seasoned person in the world of media and so forth. Do you see that? You know, there's this big change of like, with agents and managers and record labels and production companies and the sort of do it yourself self syndication, self promotion model. And how much are you doing that? Like, for example, does a guy like you have an agent nowadays?

I don't. Not anymore. I did for a while. This is not like Taylor Swift or somebody saying, okay, I'm not going to have. And she hasn't done this, but I'm not going to have an agent or Macklemore saying, I'm not going to release my album through a record company because these guys. Well, especially Taylor Swift, already very, very successful. The only reason I started my own record company and the only reason I started my family and I started our own radio syndication company was that we couldn't get anybody to hire us. You know, I have all of the. That's the other reason people do this. I had six or seven really good rejection letters, including from Clive Davis and Arista Records, saying, I'm sorry, we're not going to be releasing this type of music. And so you find another path. And my path was through PBS for the music thing and then for radio was just getting on the phone and calling up general managers and saying, hey, you can have the show free for three months. I also think, as you know, that YouTube has opened up a lot of channels and the Voice and American Idol, of course, to showcase their talents. And so the agent thing is not totally necessary.

Right, right. It's great, though. I mean, I love that. The fact that there really is no gatekeeper anymore. You can go direct to the marketplace and the marketplace can decide if they want to buy your content or, you know, not. That seems like a great model to me. You know, it's very democratic.

It is. And we're also seeing it with Indiegogo and now Seed Invest, where you know, people can make investments in your company and actually. And actually get. Instead of just a keychain, they can actually get equity in your company now.

Right, A keychain. The perk for the backers on Kickstarter. Yeah, right. Yeah. It's amazing how things are changing. I mean, we are really living at an amazing time. You know, who would have thought it would have worked out this way? You know, it's really.

Yeah. I mean, it's also, as my songwriting composition teachers taught me, it's also. It can be garbage in, garbage out. You know, one of the things with the computers has allowed us is you can write a whole symphony of nonsense.

Right.

If you. If you want. So it's. The rules still apply, I think of writing A good book, writing a good song, writing a musical, whatever. You still have to get to that place that was established many years ago.

No question, you got to put out quality, but you can get it to the marketplace nowadays and it can go viral. For better or worse. There's a lot of stuff that's junk out there that still goes viral. Any tips you want to share with people about that do it yourself thing. I mean, you had to be just, just very motivated, you know, to do that after, you know, this very successful career that you've had to sort of start this new business that's, you know, and go out there and what were you making sales calls?

I mean, yeah, yeah, for sure. And we still do. You mentioned Al Rhees, R I E S, who you've interviewed, and Jack Trout. Jack Canfield wrote a great book called Success Principles. He's of course the guy from Chicken Soup in the Soup.

Sure, he's been on the show.

When I was a kid, I was very much into reading biographies and I highly recommend that whether it's Benjamin Franklin, Franklin or Houdini or anything that you're interested in, there are some great biographies out there and you can just use them to set up a template for your life. I mean, maybe you won't do everything that Benjamin Franklin did, but you'll be inspired. And I still use that as a tool. It was Pete Docter on the most recent Oscars who came up and said, hey, listen, holding his Oscar in his hand and he said, you might not make money doing it right away, but just make something. Make something every day. Create something, write something, build something. And it got a huge, huge applause. Because that's really what if you're a creative person. And even if you just want to be a creative person, make a movie, write it. Like Diane Warren says, write a song every day, even if it's a piece of crap. I think that that would be my advice would be just to get busy because I think we consume so much information about how to books and I'm guilty of this too. How to do this, how to manage your time, whatever, just pick a goal and accomplish it in one week and make it something you're truly interested in.

That is great advice and it ties in with a book I'm reading now just called Originals by Adam Grant. You probably know about that. This, you're obviously a very well read guy. He talks about all these famous people, including Einstein, who just put a lot of volume of work out there that really wasn't renowned at all. I never Knew that about Einstein. You know, he put a lot of junk out there, frankly or not, I don't want to say it was total junk, but it was just a lot of stuff that no one was interested in. And then if you put a big volume of work out there, there will be those few things that really get some play and really get some attention. So I think part of it is definitely volume and. And not becoming the consumer of content always. You gotta be the creator, right? Not just reading the how to books.

Yeah, for sure. And I think it was. I'll mess up his quote, but I think it was Wayne Gretzky there asking him about the same type of question. And he said that he went back and looked at how many shots on goal he had taken for the record breaking goal scoring that he had done. It was like 70% of his shots didn't go in. So to your point on Einstein, it makes. By the way, I just wrote down the originals. That's one I haven't read. There's. Elizabeth Gilbert, wrote a book called. I think it's called Magic. I'm about halfway through it and it's about. It is a little New Agey for me, but it's about how to let creative magic into your life, how to recognize it, how to put yourself in a position to receive that sort of meditative energy that's around you. Again, I'm not a New age guy. Yeah, you gotta sort of take what you want and leave the rest.

Sure, absolutely. Yeah. That's very good. Good advice. Connie Celica, by the way, for those who don't know, that's John's wife. Is she involved deeply in what you're doing now or is she, you know, busy doing family stuff or like, what's her main thing? I'm just curious.

Connie is really the. She's sort of the. Not even sort of. She is the gatekeeper for what goes on the air. Not so much on my radio show, but certainly for hers. Hers is called Intelligence for your Health, which is the weekend show. But as far as a television show, there's nothing that gets on the air without approval. And she's really good at. Does this make sense? Can it be said in fewer words and will it be inspiring? Because that's the type of person she is. She's the reason the radio show exists, because she's such a news junkie and she consumes so much information that when I was trying to get back into the radio world, that's how I had started years ago, right when I got out of college. I noticed that on her side of the bed when we were married for a couple years was these stacks of magazines and they all had sticky notes in there. I said, well, what's all this madness over here? She goes, well, these are all the articles that I'm going to get to with my sticky notes, but I haven't had time. And I said, well, why don't we create a show for that person who really wants that intelligence? That's really where intelligence for your life came from. Because at the time she was a 34 year old woman. That's right in our sweet spot of the audience that advertisers want from us.

Yeah, that's great. That's excellent, excellent stuff. I'm curious, how did you two meet?

Do you share that story? Yeah, sure. We met in a. I was doing a project with Lisa Gibbons for IBM and we were in Palm Springs, which for people who don't know, is about two and a half hours outside of Los Angeles in the desert. I was doing an event there. She was shooting a show For CBS called P.S. i Love youe where she played an ex convict who was helping Greg Evigan catch thieves. It was a great role. And I was on CBS Primetime. And so I walked into the gym at the hotel where she was shooting and where my event was and she was on the bicycle and, you know, and I had my white T shirt on with mustard stains on and really bad socks and went over, pretend, probably over. You actually have the Image now at 6 foot 6, just sort of really geeky with glasses that have gaffer tape on them. I looked like a coder. And so I went in there and I pretended I saw her out of the corner of my eye. I'm never going to talk to her. Way out of my league. And as I was walking out, she said, john, John Tesh, is that you? And I sort of whipped around and I said, oh, Connie Selicka, I didn't see you there. In her typical Bronx fashion, she says, well, we're the only two people in the gym. How did you miss me? You know, and we started. It's a long story because we've been married for 24 years, but that's how it got started. If she hadn't, you know, if she hadn't said something to me, I would have walked right out of her life and that would have been the end of it.

Yeah. Oh, that's great. That's a great story. Glad it worked out and she took the initiative there. That's great.

Well, that's what you and beautiful women wonder why, you know, how come nobody asks me out? That's the reason.

Yeah, right.

Well, we're scared out of our minds.

There's a lot to that, you know? There's a lot to that. No question about it. No question. John, what else would you like people to know as we wrap up?

One of the things I love to talk about is the fact that I've spent so much of my life doing stuff and just sort of jumping out of the airplane without a parachute and then sort of building it on the way down. I think that's a fun approach to things. But what I've really learned, and it's from doing the radio show every day, right? So it's like five hours of radio a day, is whether it's your relationship or whether it's your waistline or your parenting, whatever, the value of really good research and surrounding yourself with people that are much better. Like, if you see me in concert, Everybody, there's like 12 people on stage, and 11 of them are a lot better than me. I remember. I'll leave you with this. I remember when I was covering ski racing for CBS Sports, and I spent most. I got paid to follow the US Ski Team around the world, and Billy Kidd, who was the silver medalist downhiller, he was my color commentator. And we're on these amazing mountains in the Swiss Alps and Italian Alps everywhere. I said, billy, you got to teach me how to ski. And he goes, I'll do that. I said, come on, we're on these. I can ski, but you got to teach me how to be a better skier. He goes, I'll tell you what, you just follow me everywhere I go. Just do what I do and follow me everywhere I go. And I became a much, much, much better skier. So I think that there's a. You know, there's something in there about pick somebody that you quote, unquote, in the field where you want to be and study everything that they do. And you know what that is? That's apprenticeship. And that was so popular back in the 1600s, 1700s, we don't do that anymore. And I think that now you can do. You can do it by reading a book. You can do it by watching a YouTube video. You can do it by going on lynda.com and learning how to run software. So that would be my advice. What I'd love to leave you with is just, I think the more of that that you can do, the better you can be at anything.

I think that is great advice.

Ski behind somebody.

Yeah. Ski behind someone. Yeah, Definitely model someone. Your website's tesh.com t e s h.com teshmusic.com are those the two you want to.

Well, I mean, the site that we've just built where we've taken all. Because we had like, 2600 videos that we've made with our experts and with Connie Gibb And I, it's IFYL, which stands for intelligence for your life. Ifylondemand.com and that's where all the On Demand videos are.

Excellent. Yeah. You've got tons of material there. I'm looking at that site now. Good stuff. Good stuff. Yeah. Great. Well, John Tesh, thank you so much for joining us. It's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you and we so much appreciate you sharing some of this with us, and I just wish you the best.

Thanks, Jason. It's been cathartic for me. You know, sometimes you don't know how you feel about something until you don't walk around going, how do you feel about. You know, you're like, you don't do that to yourself. So when somebody asks you, it opens up to your own mind. Thank you.

Next time you come on, I'll have you sit back on the couch and I'll ask you about your childhood. Okay.

My childhood is very similar to what I'm doing now, so it would be ridiculous. Done it.

That's great. Good stuff. John Tesh, thanks for joining us.

Thanks, Jason.

This show is produced by the Holiday Hartman Media Company.

All rights reserved.

For distribution or publication rights and media interviews. Please visit www.hartmanmedia.com or email mediaartmanmedia.com Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own and the host is acting on behalf of Platinum Properties Investor Network, Inc.

Exclusively.