Hugh Downs: These Common Mistakes Are MAJOR Communication Red Flags

Hi, this is Joe Polish doing a very awesome, genius network interview that I'm so looking forward to. I've got Mr. Hugh Downs. Hugh, thank you so much for taking the time. We're going to do an interview here. I'm going to ask you about your life. If you don't know who Hugh Downs is, you've probably been living in a closet for the last however many years. But nonetheless, I'm going to go through a couple of highlights. He's a longtime anchor of ABC's television primetime news magazine 20 20, which I was on on the very last year. And you did that for many years. I'll ask you about that. He's one of the most familiar figures in television history. Up until 2004, he was on television over 15,000 hours. I think Regis Philbin is kind of now surpassed how much time on television.

Yeah. I should explain that the Guinness Book of World Records record still stands if you use the words primetime commercial television, because Regis Philbin and two others I can mention, three through syndication or locally, were on longer than I was, but I still have the record for the most on network commercial television.

That's great. And you've been doing this for 66 years?

Well, yeah, I'm still doing it, but not regularly. Now I'm staying away from regular work.

Wow. I'll point out a couple more things for our viewers. So, yeah, got the world record. You started in radio and went on to television as a reporter, newscaster, interviewer, narrator, all kinds of stuff. Received many awards, including six Emmys and other awards like the Broadcaster of the Year and the National Media Award for excellence in long term healthcare reporting. Hugh also helped launch the NBC Tonight show in 1957 and anchored the Today show from 1962 to 1971. I was just like three years old when you stopped doing that. Authored many books. He's an avid sailor and accomplished pilot. And we were just talking on the drive up here that you're going to go back and get your renewal of your pilot license at 87 years old, which is current. Unbelievable. And in 1999, Arizona State University upgraded its commuter communications department into a school, now bearing the name the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, of which he is a frequent visitor and lecturer at the university. He and his wife Ruth, are happily married, and as of February 2008, they've been married for 64 years and live in Arizona. They have two children, Hugh, Raymond and Deidre Lynn, two grandchildren, Leah Downs Harb and Carmen Black, and now two great grandsons and a great Granddaughter. And you have this book that you wrote, your most recent one Letter to a Great grandson.

Yeah, I had fun. That really was a letter to him. But it was made into a book and I left it as a letter. I didn't clean it up or anything. It was just very personal book.

Well, yeah, and you can get a copy of that from Amazon. You can track it down. Well, Hugh, there's so many things you've done. I mean, I wouldn't even know where to begin. What are some highlights of who you are that you'd like to point out that I didn't mention?

You know, I wonder. My wife, I do confess to being a generalist. I'm interested in a lot of things a little bit like what Alexander Wolcott once said. He said, I'm interested in everything except incest and folk dancing. And I said, that's kind of where I am really. I'm interested in everything. And my wife, I calls me a generalist. But she defines a generalist as somebody who comes to know less and less about more and more until he knows nothing about everything. I said, I think that's about where I am.

I mean there's one area where you're. You're just a complete exper. Which is in communication. I mean, this is.

I have focused on that. That's true.

If you had to identify your core expertise out of all the things you know. And yeah, you do know a tremendous amount when I was just even researching you. It's amazing how expansive your knowledge base is.

I've been fascinated by communication really, because it is. It's what it's all about in human relationships. There's no doubt about that, you know, and it's useful if you have communication techniques. And no matter what you choose as a. As a walk of life, you know, engineering or law or whatever, know, communication is important. And that's why I'm kind of proud to be connected with that school.

What makes a good communicator or a great communicator?

I think establishing a rapport with another human being in a way that is honest and as powerful as you can make it. And it sounds corny, but if it's at the very, the least bit of self serving that you have, that's good. Because if you're out to do it all for yourself, you're going to fail. First of all, you won't communicate right. And secondly, you won't establish relationships that you want. So you have to be open to that and vulnerable and still get across whatever you want. To get across in an honest way.

Well, I mean, I remember reading, reading something you had said where I don't know how many years ago this was, but you said, my customer. I guess I don't know if this is your exact words, but is the audience. It's not the networks, it's the actual audience. And at the time you said that even went against what some people believed in. But you always felt the person that you were catering to was the viewer, the listener.

Exactly. My first allegiance was to that person tuned in and then after that, to the product or the network or whatever. And I did have an argument with an agency guy one time, and he said, well, you don't know where the bread's buttered. And I said, the bread would not be buttered for me at all if I lost faith, if people didn't believe that I believed what I was saying. So I adopted that as a means of operation.

Wow. Wow. Well, you've done news reporting and journalism for, I mean, God, years, 66 years. You started in radio. How does journalism and news reporting today compare to where it was 20, 30 years ago?

There are some interesting differences, really, and not all of them are good. I think, first of all, technically, it's improved vastly, as you know, from the standpoint of where. Of how it operates. I think it's deteriorated to this extent. Competition made it got so fierce finally, that in order to get better ratings, better circulation for print and whatnot, you had to kind of lean toward going toward that arena audience that tunes in for blood and dirt. You can get fast ratings that way, but you won't last as well if you take a longer view. And I think that it's important to recognize the fact that we went a little downhill that way when we. When we got so competitive. When I started 2020, 1978, you had to have a share in the low 40s or mid-40s to be respectable. By the time I left 21 years later, a share in the low 20s was more than respectable. When I left 2020, we had a share of 21 and the competition had 17 and 11.

What does that even mean?

A share a share means a percentage of people tuned in who had their television sets on that are tuned to you. If half of our. You got a 50 share. That's right. And so 21%, the reason we had so little at the end was that pie got sliced so much thinner and thinner that, you know, originally, when. When I first went into television, there were three television network. No, there were two television network. ABC wasn't quite on the air yet and a couple of independents. And that was a choice of five channels maybe in a community look at the choice we've got now with cable. And so the pie does get sliced thinner. And that's one of the big differences in the media today.

Well, what do you actually. Where do you get your information from? I know you've read a tremendous amount of books. You've written 11 or 12 books.

Yeah, I've finished 11 books now and that. But my information comes largely. I get a lot of news information from television and I must say CNN has been a pretty good source. I'll tell you something later about that because it made some changes after Turner no longer owned it.

Right.

But that and local newspapers and the New York Times I try to keep up with. And that's about the way I have found out though that the world goes on. Even if I've missed a day of following what the journalists say, it doesn't make a big difference.

Do you watch a lot of tv?

Not a lot, no. I try to catch some news. I just don't have time to watch television like I did once. So I can't really judge what the television fair generally is anymore. But that's. I try to keep up with the news in some ways.

What do you recommend for people? There's. We are in a current age where there's more data inputs and we're so over communicated to. I mean, in most people. I don't know if it's just my perspective, but it seems to me 10 years ago people were nowhere near as stressed or at least crazy busy as they are today. And I think it's simply because of the Internet and communication. I mean, you're right. What recommendations do you have for people to stay tuned in but not, you know, go nuts with trying to pay attention to so many.

I know. And obviously one of the things that has caused the polarization in our community now is the fact that so much is available that if a person gravitates only toward that ideology or that source that he wants to believe in, then he kind of misses out on the perspective. And that can happen at both ends of the spectrum. My advice would be to anybody that really wants to know what's going on is to broaden the scope of what you take in and then make judgments. And I think smart people do that to a large extent. So even though it is, as you said, overwhelming, I used to think there was such a thing as information overload. I really don't think that now. All you got to do is watch an early teenager working a computer, right. You know, and maybe, maybe listening to music at the same time. And the information isn't overloading him, it can overload you a little later on. And if you get lost in that labyrinth and don't make judgments and decisions, then you get overwhelmed. But people who have anything on the ball are not going to be overwhelmed by it.

Well, I remember, I remember you trying to think who you actually were talking to about it. You said that you think one of the most crucial things of keeping your mind sharp was just having a lot of different interests in a lot of different areas.

I think that's true because now I admire people who are single purpose. A brain surgeon who is really good and devotes all his attention to that, that's commendable. But that makes him more vulnerable. If you've got a lot of interest and I've seen people in my business, television, who when they were forcibly retired or elected, they got bored and they didn't know what to do with themselves. I can't imag being bored. It was a 40 hour day, you know, and I had nothing else to do but sit and think or read. I can't imagine being bored. So it's important, I think, to keep active mentally. And the brain is like a muscle. That's a cliche observation, but if you don't use it, it's going to kind of atrophy.

Well, you've done a tremendous amount of work with just helping people. Older people, however you define it, live better lives, understand their purpose. I mean, what would be some of your tips and recommendations as people get older to keep themselves totally mentally sharp? I mean, here you are, 87 years old. I live here in Arizona. So when I went to pick you up today, you know, I was getting there a little early. I called and your wife said, well, he'll be back here at 9:30.

You said, you're right, doing something this.

Morning, you have appointments this afternoon. I mean, you stay very active and I mean, you're clearly a very sharp individual and you're physically in fantastic shape. I mean, at least it appears that way to me. I mean, what are some tips and recommendations that you would have that would be significant life changes?

Well, a realization that you can mitigate hazards. You can, you can influence your longevity and your comfort and everything by habits that you clean up. When I was 25 years old, I thought it was a normal adult human condition to feel bad. I really did. I remembered when I was 15, I felt good all the time. If somebody had said when I was 25 and didn't feel good, when you're 45 and 65 and 75 and even, even 85, you will feel about like you did when you were 15, I would not have believed them. But I was too dumb to realize why I felt bad. At 25, I was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. I had a diet that would, would have not been good for a hog, really. And I wasn't getting enough sleep and I drank too much and I got that all cleaned up in short order through the help of my wife and with a decent regimen. I realize you can influence very heavily how your well being is, how you feel, how long you're going to make it. So I would advise that let nobody adopt the idea that they're going to die young because an ancestor died young. That's not necessarily true. You can do things to make things better and if people realize that, they start doing them well.

You said a really important thing, which is you adopted a regimen that just turned it all around. I mean, what, what, what was the happiest time of your, your life or your career?

Oh, well, probably at points in 2020 because that was, that was not just because it was the last, but it was because it was where I belonged really. I'd done a. I once said to somebody in a newspaper interviewer said, I said, I've done everything there is to do in my end of my business except play by play sports. And then I realized as soon as I said it that wasn't true because in 1939 I broadcast a boxing match on Radio Globe. Wow. Mercifully, no recording of that still exists because it was pretty awful, I imagine. But I've done even play by play sports. So I was, I imagine that being a generalist, I belonged on 2020 and I felt that was where I felt most comfortable because it was news, but it wasn't headline news and little snatches that you had to go on from one to another. You could get in depth in a thing and do a news feature. And I loved doing that. Was the high points there that, I.

Mean, all the time that you spent doing news reporting, do you think it's gotten better, worse, or is it just kind of the same?

Well, some of it, some of it's pretty good, but I think in some ways it has, it has slipped because of the competition, as I mentioned, you know, the competition got a little fiercer than it ought to be. And then you ask yourself how, how will we Mitigate that if. Do you want the government really running that right? No. Free enterprise is still the best way, but a proper regulation of free enterprise, and I would like to see the, the FCC a little less supinely weak than they've been on some points, but I think a proper supervision of what's going on and then allow the free enterprise aspects to flourish because that's what keeps capitalism alive.

What are your thoughts on capitalism? I love capitalism. I mean, my good friend Dan Sullivan says, you know, the problem with capitalism is that it was named by its enemies. You know, capitalism is.

Yeah, I know it sounds like a bad word.

Right, exactly.

And the funny thing is, no, capitalism is the basis of the best governments have ever existed on the planet. But laissez faire capitalism is in danger of racking itself to pieces by lack of supervision. And then greed will take over. And you get, if you get increasingly, this is simplistic, but if you get increasingly small number of extremely wealthy people and an increasing big number of very poor, you're headed for a revolution of some kind, which is not good. I think what made America great was we had antitrust legislation, we had all the things in place that would keep capitalism healthy even for the wealthy. But one of the things that, you know, when you look at, I can't blame if a CEO makes a lot more money than his average worker, 300, 400 times as much, that's okay, he may be worth that, but 30,000 times as much, and that has, that has existed in the United States. For a guy to make 30,000 times as much as his worker, that is doing the work for him isn't right. And I think that was pointed out by Warren Buffett at one point.

Well, you know, I mean, considering what's going on in the economy right now at the time that we're doing this interview, I mean, what are your thoughts on, in terms of what people can do? I think ultimately we're most responsible for our own situation. You know, we're not relying on the government, not relying on other people to come and take care of us. What are some recommendations in terms of mindset and attitudes and behaviors that people that you think if they adopted them, would give them the highest possibility of succeeding in this wonderful country that we live in?

I wish I had a formula for that. You know, it's like saying, don't worry. How can you tell anybody not to worry? But if it can be done, some self help books point to this. I think if it can be done, that you can adopt a view that will be useful to you in really moving you toward taking responsibility for your own actions and all of these things. It may light a little fire that you can nurture into a bonfire, and it would save your life and make life a lot more comfortable for you. As I say, I don't have a formula for that, but people who want to do it and want to badly enough will probably do it.

Well, let me ask you about what are some people, maybe some books, maybe some insights that just were significant to you in your life that really helped direct the course of your actions?

That's interesting. One of the most interesting, I think, was reading two sources of stoicism, and that was Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus. And from it, I learned some things I would never have believed. I was in my mid-20s when I read the first of those, and I woke up to the fact you don't have to hate anybody. You know, you may deplore and hate something they've done that is wrong, but you don't hate the person. Because somebody once said, I read this someplace, too, that hate is a weapon we wield by the blade, and you just hurt yourself if you hate. So getting away from hate is important. But since we don't hate anything that we don't. That we don't fear, people who are afraid of certain things will come to hate people who are associated with those things. And education is a big factor in eliminating that. So I'm all behind good educational policies, but otherwise, I don't. That was one of the things that changed my life, was to learn you don't have to hate anybody.

You know, I don't know if I say it right. Epitis or Epictetus.

Epictetus, yeah.

The Art of Living, I think, is one of the most amazing books that I've ever read in my entire life. Real thin, thin little book. But my buddy, Dr. Edward Holloway, is a great psychiatrist who wrote a book called Crazy Busy. And that's one of the books he actually recommends for people today, just to kind of, you know, calm down and not. You said something I heard you say once. I don't know, it's one of your friends. He said, there's the difference between being stressed and being distressed.

I got that from Hans Selye, who's a Canadian physician. But I thought it made a lot of sense. Stress is not bad. Distress is. And again, the muscle analogy, if you stress a muscle by exercising, you're going to build that muscle. If you overdo it and tear the muscle, that's Distress. And you shouldn't do that psychologically either. You know, the distress is a bad thing to have to suffer. There are ways around that by experts that know a lot more about that field than I do. But I think there's a big difference between stress and distress.

Oh, I think it's profound. I mean, because, yeah, it could be your. It could be a great asset, or it could be your worst enemy. It could destroy your life. Well, let's talk about relationships and such. I mean, you. You now have a great family. You've been married. How many years have you been married?

Well, In February of 2009, it'd be 65 years since we got married.

Well, then the obvious question is tips, suggestions. What's the secret?

If there is what the secret is probably over 90% luck. Because when we met, we were very young, we didn't know each other. You know, people who fall in love don't know each other. You come to know each other if you establish a relationship, being totally mysterious about each other. I could have been an abuser. She could have been a snake, you know, and as it turned out, I found she had something more important than her beauty and attractiveness was character. Because she has a lot of character and she thinks I have a lot of it. So let's not disabuse her. And then that allowed us to grow together and to get over some things that early in marriage, we had some stormy times. In the very early moments, you do, you know. But we determined to stay together, and we finally got to a point where we could ventilate irritation without rancor.

Ventilate irritation without rancor.

That's really important because if you don't ventilate irritation, it's going to build up, and that's awful. And if you do it with rancor, then you're going to tear something that you don't want to have to repair later. But we got to a point early on where we could. Either one of us could say something to the other one like, well, you idiot, if you hadn't put the potholders in the microwave or whatever. And it all is kind of funny. And even if we criticize each other, we wind up laughing. And I think laughing is very important in a marriage.

You know, I think laughing in general, I mean, when I look at people that are sitting across from each other having dinner and they not saying anything to each other, they have these sour lips on their faces. I think you can gauge the quality of a relationship by how often they laugh at you.

I think you're right. You're right. Somebody did a study at ASU about marriage couples and what they. What percentage of time they spent talking about the children's education, about finance, about. And what percentage of time they spent in laughter. And it came out to close to 1%. And my wife and I looked. When we got that result, we did a speech on. We looked at each other and said we must do. About 18% of our married time is laughing, you know, laughing at each other and with each other and everything. But I think that's an important.

Who's funnier, you or her?

That's a good question. And she might answer it differently from me. I don't know. I like to think I have something of a sense of humor. But she's got a great sense of humor.

No, I think I actually. I think you've got a great sense of humor. Well, so mentors, people that you've looked up to in life.

Who.

Who were some of those people to you? And.

Well, oddly, a lot of people that I read and some no longer living, obviously, or weren't even when I was born, but in the family, my dad was a great inspiration to me because he kept us through the Depression without ever going hungry. And the Great Depression was great. I mean, it was very big, you know, so I didn't suffer any trauma like that because even when the banks all closed in 1932, I was 11 years old and my mother called us in and said, I've got bad news. I thought maybe some cherished relative had died or something. She said, the banks have closed and you're probably not going to see your money again. Well, I had $11 in an account that I thought they were going to make me spend on school supplies or something. I couldn't care less. I went out and played. So here I had that. I was cushioned against the awfulness of what the Depression was going to be and as I say, never went hungry. But we didn't have any frills, right? And so my dad's attitude toward that was interesting. He had a way of explaining things that impressed me. This is maybe worth mentioning. I asked him questions like, you know, the old tree falls in a forest. Is there a sound? And he'd say, well, he was very scientifically minded. He said, you define sound. If sound is just the expansion and rarefaction of the wave train of air and there's nothing, no ears to hear, then there's a sound. If the sound. If sound is that kind of train going on, an eardrum and an Auditory nerve and there's no there of that nature to hear it, then there is no sound. I thought that was very simple. Another one he had disabused me of was what happens really if the irresistible force meets the immovable object, you know, and he said that's a real. And he said this is a non problem. He said if there exists an irresistible force that precludes any immovable object and vice versa, so it's a non problem. And it just, it was solved like that for him. And I thought, isn't that amazing? Things that puzzle other people endlessly. And he just had it solved.

Well, is he the one that created your interest in science?

Yes, he is indeed. When I was 5 years old and I remember this, I asked him how far away the moon was. And I remember that he said it was 238,000 miles away. Well, you know, at 5 years old, I didn't know what 238,000 miles was. But I was so flattered to be given an adult answer to a question of mine that that triggered an interest in science in me because, you know, many fathers would have said, well, we'd have to stand on the kitchen stool to reach it or something. And he gave me an honest scientific answer as if I was grown up enough to understand it. And that was very worthwhile to me.

Do you think that people, the way they talk to children like their kids is bad?

Often. Often it's not good. You've got to give honest answers. And for example, I remember in both my parents case when I was in the first grade in school, I remember kids that were in school that had some weird ideas about sex, you know, and I thought, what's the matter? Where do they get let's hear about weird ideas? And my parents would never explain more than they needed to. But if I asked a question, they'd give me an honest answer. Me and my brothers. And the result was we never thought it was a big deal. There's never any time later on of a talk about the birds and the bees. Because that's nonsense. You've got to bring a child along as needed and leave it at that. And that's what my parents and that's what my wife and I did for our kids and those kids did for their kids. Well, what about.

You have a great grandson. I mean, you have. What's your parenting advice for people out there?

Parenting advice would be, first of all, you've got to want children and love them. Once you do that, then it's on the job training because there are books that help you steer away from some awful pitfalls. But otherwise you learn as you go. Because you got to do what's best. And if you're motivated by what's best for the child, you'll do the right things. I think that's my best advice.

Okay, great. Well, in terms of reading and education, what has been and what do you feel today is some of the most significant things that people could invest their time and attention on that would really benefit them in terms of their knowledge, in terms of their behavior.

One thing that helped me a lot, Joe, was the Great Books, which came out originally. Stringfellow Barr and Scott Buchanan at St. John's came out with a great Books list, and it was just called the Great Books. Later it was Britannica, put it out and had the good taste to say great books of the Western world. Because there's an awful lot of Eastern stuff that isn't even translated yet. But that book, I was. Incidentally, I was very flattered because I had read the Great books starting in 1944. I was going to do it in seven years, and it took me 14 years because I read twice as long. Yeah, but that was better than the college education, the Great Books and now the Great books of the Western world, which are available. I mean, you can get them electronically and everything. Reading through that was very worthwhile to me to get a look at the minds of the great minds of antiquity and on up into modern. Modern times. I probably got more benefit from that than any other kind of reading course I could think of and still have time to read other things. Wow.

I mean, you have interviewed presidents. You've interviewed so many different people. I'd love to hear your philosophies on the founding fathers that started this country and what are some of the principles that guided them? I'd love to hear your perspective. Perspective on that.

Doesn't that get more impressive the more time goes by and the more I examine it against the troubles that the nation has from time to time. What inspired them to be able to do One of the things I think was a cooperation between youth and age. You know, at the time, you had fiery minds from 19 and early 20s forming the principles of the United States, working with a guy who was over 80 when the Constitution was adopted, Benjamin Franklin. And they had respect for each other. That began to go because there was a tendency for the young to call the old old fogies, you know, and for the old to say, well, the young are just wet behind the ears and they don't know what they're doing, but they had that cooperation and they somehow managed to put together principles that not only were right for humanity, I think, for a long term democracy, but were destined to be capable of enduring. And if we can run our country that way, we will endure. And so that we get rid of the idea that the might of America is in its military or its wealth and in. But rather in the principles on which it was founded and to a large extent operates. That's, that's hope for a democracy that can go on more or less indefinitely. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Well, okay, let's talk about some life challenges, some obstacles. What are some of the biggest challenges that you've had to deal with in your life? Because I'd love to hear how you overcame difficulties.

The biggest challenge I think would be. Well, for one thing I had to overcome, and I don't think I ever did, a lethargy when it came. Who was a writer that said the most frightening thing in the world is a piece of blank paper in your typewriter? Hemingway. I don't know who it was, but I suffered an awful lot of that. And I got some help from people who gave me tips. If you're going to write something and you're stuck, start writing anything, no matter how nonsensical. If you've got something then to correct or to work on and then it begins to unfold and you begin to roll, you know, but if you sit there staring at the blank paper, you're going to be there day after tomorrow doing the same thing, you know, putting it off.

I had a copywriter actually teach me to just write. Fee fi fo, fum, fee fi FA fo.

Yeah. No matter how nonsensical. And then you, then you can correct it as a track to run on. Well, that's one tip. I don't think that was a challenge to me. And maybe I have had a challenge about laziness. I've always kind of shortcut it and I don't know why.

I find it hard to believe you'd be lazy.

Well, sometimes I think of myself as kind of lazy because.

Do you feel accomplished?

Accomplished?

Yeah. Do you feel like what you've done in your life is really you've done?

No. I could have done a lot more for humanity, maybe, but I do think I had. I was lucky in having a successful life as far as raising a family and making a living. Accomplished. Could you could expand that. You know, I would like to go into space. I undoubtedly probably won't now.

You know, you know, there is a possibility. Richard Branson, who's got these, you know, the Virgin Galactic. I'm actually going to be at the very first launch of the one he's doing.

Oh, that's good. Yeah. You could get into space.

I would like to take you. Well, you fly. I mean, you do fly planes, so you like to go into space. I mean, what attracted you to flying?

Oh, how does all that happen? I'll tell you what. It was before Pearl harbor was hit. I was taking flying lessons. I had about eight hours in Detroit in a Luscombe Silver and I was about to solo. And then the World War II came along and I went into the military and didn't go into the air. It was the Army Air Corps before the Air Force was formed. I wound up in the infantry. But after I got out of the army and had established a family, I didn't have the time or the money to go back to training. But in 1962, the Today show came up. It wasn't even my idea with a feature to show how what it takes to get a private pilot's license. So we said, well, we'll pick a young pilot and get him. And then one of the writers said, why don't you take the lessons and then we'll show how identify with the viewer a little more. I thought it was a good idea. So I went at it as a broadcast project and I got hooked on it because once I became a pilot, I really began to garner some ratings and try to do something worthwhile. I don't have an impressive number of hours, but I do have a weird assortment of ratings. In addition to single engine land, I have multi engine seaplane, boat and float glider. Glider tow, hot air balloon. I'm a balloon pilot. Really? Yeah. I don't spend much time. I don't own a balloon, but I've gotten those ratings and I really enjoyed it. So it came about as a broadcast project, as a lot of things that I got interested in I owe to broadcasting. Wow. Wow.

Well, I mean, that seemed to be your school that you created. All the years of doing it. You maintain such a stellar reputation. I mean, you are a very respected guy. I mean, I'm sure you've said a few things that got you in trouble here and there, but for the most part, the public, I mean, they completely look up to you. How did you maintain this reputation?

I know it's kind of a limb to be out on, really, you know, but I don't know that I deserve that much of a Reputation, it's hard to tell. Something you said reminded me of somebody, a man who had a reputation of having great judgment, was interviewed late in life. And I said, how did you. How did you get this great judgment? And he said, through experience. And the guy said, how did you get the experience? And he said, through bad judgment. Right. And that's so. I don't know. I feel that partly my allegiance to the audience tuned in as a broadcaster, I think the public. I was striving to have the public be sure that I was leveling with them, and maybe that reflects back and they think that that makes me a better person. But no, getting back to your idea about being fulfilled. I don't know if in some ways I am fulfilled, I think, in my life, but I would love to expand it. As I say, there are things I'd yet like to do, like write the great American novel, which I'm pretty sure I won't.

You know, there is a possibility, I believe if you put your mind to it, you probably at least get close.

Yeah, I'd love to be able to write, like, to me, the favorite novel I ever read was Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove. I don't know how many people have read that or saw the CBS version for a television series that was really well done about the American west, and it was done as literature and not as dime novel Western stuff.

Right. Well, jeez, in all the times that you were interviewing different people and stuff, how did you handle situations where you were just opposed to someone's opinion or just didn't consider them a nice person or flat out evil? I mean, how did you. Were you still able to communicate with them and document stuff for your listeners and at the same time, you know, not jump across a table and want to smack somebody?

Yeah, No, I never. I never felt like losing my temper. But there were some people who. What they had to say was so disrespectful in my mind that. Well, I can tell you one. Many years ago, I interviewed George Wallace and he said something that was so outrageous that I knew our listeners would. Would know how awful it was. So why should I. Why should I pile on? You know, I. I just looked at him for a while and then I looked into the camera and didn't say anything. And later, later NBC crossed me on that. They said, you know, that was a comment. And I said, no, I didn't say anything. They said, the lift of an eyebrow is a comment. That was their attitude.

Interesting.

I said, well, I'll lift my Eyebrow. When I think you. There's something that's really ridiculous, you know, pretty preposterously racist statement like that, right? So. But I don't know. In doing interviews generally, it took me a long time to realize how simple interviewing is. You know what it is? If you and I didn't know each other at all from a load of coal, and you're. We're suddenly in a studio and there are 25 million people tuned in now, and I don't know anything about it, I could do an interview with you. And here's how simple it is. I would start by saying, who are you and why am I talking to you now? You presume to know the answer to that. And then I would ask, run down a list of words. Who, what, where, when, why, how, how much you know, listening to your answers and getting the next question from your answers. And you could build an interview without knowing anything about what you're about the person to start with. And I think that's a remarkably simple thing.

Well, let's break this down again because I think this would be so valuable to our listeners, me being in the marketing business and communications, which is. You're an expert in which I think any effective market marketing is simply just effective communication. That's a process that you just described there. So if someone has to sit down and talk to somebody, it could be watched on television, or it just simply could be, you want to get to know someone. Let's go through that again. How did you break it down?

Well, on a television interview, the who would not. You wouldn't do that for reasons of politeness. I would presumably know who you are and be able to say something gracious about you, like you said about me at the beginning of this. So you eliminate that. But once you've got that, the others are all you need, really. You don't need to know the subject about which, if you're an expert on something, I don't need to know your expertise in order to interview. And I'll give you an example of how that happened. One time, NBC had a thing called the Wisdom series, and they had interviewed Sean o', Casey, Robert Frost and everything. And in each case they would get somebody in the same field to interview them. And they were bad interviews, really. And they were coming up to Frank Lloyd Wright. And somebody, a Chicago producer at NBC made this suggestion because they said, well, find a young architect to interview Frank Lloyd Wright. And he said, why not? Let's not use an architect. Why not use an interviewer instead? And so they asked me to do it, and I really enjoyed that. Wright only do two television interviews, one with Mike Wallace and one with me, and that's in the archives. But I remember that I didn't know architecture, so I asked the naive questions that you need to ask so that he can give his answers. And that gets away from the idea that you have to know. It supports my idea you can do an interview without really knowing anything about the subject.

I mean, my experience, and in many cases, it served me well not to know anything about the person I'm interviewing because I'm simply asking questions that I'm curious about. And I think of, well, would my audience, would my listeners, would my viewers want to hear this? I simply just ask questions that I think would be interesting.

That's smart, you know. The astronomer Harlow Shapley was a guest on the old Tonight show when Jack Parr had it. And Parr asked a wonderful question. He said, you're an astronomer and you've turned telescopes on all directions of the sky. He said, is there a God? And Shapley then spent the next four or five minutes explaining his theology. Whatever it was, I don't remember exactly, but I thought that was a wonderful question to ask. You know, instead of asking, you know, about prisms for breaking down light or distances to galaxies or whatever, he asked her a question that was really right on for the audience. I thought it was good. Wow.

Wow. So, I mean, you're a pretty social guy. I mean, do you consider yourself an introvert, an extrovert? I mean, have you ever thought about that?

Slightly introverted? I think. Yeah. I don't. I've only known one real extrovert in my life, and that was Ethel Merman. You remember, she was a big star. Most people in showbiz who appear to be extrovert are really introverts who are. Who are throwing up some armor. That's extroversion.

That's an interesting point.

And they're hiding an introverted thing, but not Ethel Merman. We were talking one time on a. There was a television special we were both on for some charity, and in break time, we were talking about stage fright. She said, I've never understood that. She says, what. What is stage fright? And I said, well, you know, they're on stage and people may have paid to get in, and it's scary. And she said, what's scary? Are you afraid the audience is going to storm the stage and do you bodily harm? I said, no. She said, well, then, what's to be afraid of? I believe Her, I think she was a true extrovert.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. To even say something like that. Well, I remember the first time I actually did any public speaking, it was nerve wracking. I was sweating bullets.

Me too.

But I did it because my philosophy is anything that you fear and you don't face controls you. Anything that you fear, but you take steps.

That is so wise. Yeah, that's absolutely true. If you are afraid of something, then dive into it and confront it because you're not going to do yourself any good by just hiding all the time.

Absolutely. And I think part of accomplishment is getting out of your comfort zone, going out there and doing things. One of the gauges are if I'm a little afraid of it, I kind of know that I'm moving in the right direction because I, it's pushing me up against my self imposed limitations and I always want to, want to break through. So.

Good advice.

One thing I want to ask you, I mean, you certainly have had to sit down with. Did you ever get nervous sitting down with the President or talking to someone or how did you.

I've always been a little bit nervous. You don't want to be too nervous. It derails you. But if you're, if you're utterly unnervous, you're not likely to do as good a job as if you had a little adrenaline going to help you be alert.

Right.

So, yes, I've been a little nervous and maybe more with some than with others toward the end, the last few decades. Really. I haven't, I haven't been nervous about either being on the air or who I'm talking to, but I may feel alert and respectful, you know, talking to a president or somebody like that.

How do you deal with difficult people?

Oh, this is interesting. One time we had a. Oh, we had an awful. Another awful guy on what the. He wore a red, white and he had red, white and blue shoes. He was farther right than anything you can imagine. And in this interview live on Today Show, I said something about poor people. I don't know what it was. And he said, there are no poor people in America. I said, there are no poor people in America. He said, no. He said, there are a few Arawak Indians and Eskimos that are too lazy to work. And I thought, oh boy, how do I deal with this? Right? And I didn't. I thanked him and dismissed him and went to a commercial. Oh, that's funny, because I didn't want, I didn't really want to have anything to do with the guy. And I had. I had to get rid of it. And I had some words with the person who had booked him, as you can guess. But there. That very seldom happened. But what is.

What is some memorable stuff that's happened on the air, either extraordinarily insanely crazy or embarrassing that you think you are just always have stuck in your mind.

One that was embarrassing because you can't joke your way out of a religious thing. And I had. It was a charming story, really, of a group of Kalmuk Buddhists who had fled the banks of the Don river under Sahlin, and they fled to Germany at the time Hitler was rising, which wasn't a great place to flee to. And they finally then fled from there and made it to New Jersey and they put up a temple that had been there ever since. And the story was they were going to move the stones of the temple back to the banks of the Don because it was now safe to do. Charming story, really. So this was live on the Today show. And they sent a priest and a translator and they get there in the morning. Now dig this. I asked the first question. I did a little layup. I asked the first question, and the priest smiled at me and nodded and everything. And I thought, well, maybe. And I looked at the translator, I thought maybe. I didn't ask that. So I re. Asked the question a little more clearly, and I got smiles and nods and that was all. And I went to another question. The same thing happened. And then I put out my knowledge of Kalmuk Buddhism, which took about 11 seconds, and asked another question. I got nothing. And finally I was sweating and thinking, is this April 1st? And they've set me up for some April fool joke and finally had to dismiss them? And I went to a commercial and I said what was going on? And you know what did that. The translator, in the middle of the night was taken ill, and he didn't want to disappoint us, so he sent his brother, who didn't speak both languages.

Oh, my God.

At a complete language barrier on a live network program. And that made me sweat because it wasn't, you know, a religious thing. You can't joke your way out of it. And I just had to terminate it. But that was a memorable.

Well, when you have to terminate something like that, what do you do with the time?

I mean, I hid behind the time. I could go to the next commercial and then figure out what to do and maybe discuss it if necessary later. And because I found out what it was, I could explain to the audience why that happened and do so maintain some shred of dignity. But, but that was the. We used to have those five minute periods where the local people come in and bought 80 stations dumped out. We still had to fill the time for those stations that didn't do something locally. And we used to have fun with that because they didn't show in Washington or New York so our bosses weren't watching. And one time Barbara Walters and I were talking and she called me a wasp. Oh really? I said, I said do you know what WASP means? And she said, yeah, white, Anglo Saxon, Protestant. I said well, I'm not white, first of all, because nobody is. I said secondly, I'm not Anglo Saxon, I'm Celtic. And I said third, I'm not Protestant, I'm a Buddhist. And I said why did I say that? I'm going to get hate mail or something.

And he did.

I did get a little weird mail for a time. But that's the kind of thing we like to do with those five minutes things. It's a great waste of network time.

I imagine having to tap dance as an art and a science. Once you.

And you know, filling a minute or a minute and a quarter is a lot tougher than filling five minutes because five minutes you can develop some kind of a thing. But if you've got a minute and a quarter to discuss when television satellites first came up, who was, I forget the guy in the Congress that voted in favor of making them commercial and he swung a vote instead of making them purely government. It was a wise decision. And somebody asked me, I know they asked whether what was NBC's attitude toward that? Because NBC was owned by RCA. And I said at that time General Saranoff was still in charge of. And I remember saying on the air, because I had such a short time to deal with this, I said I don't know what NBC or RCA's at attitude is. I said it doesn't matter to me because they have no influence on what my attitude is. And I thought, no, I've just ended my career. And I got a letter, I got a phone call from Sarnoff's office. He wanted to compliment me on saying that because he was trying to prove that he wasn't dictating the policies that go on his broadcasting network.

That's funny.

Isn't that interesting?

Yeah, that's scary.

But I had to establish the fact that I wasn't under the influence of any big corporation.

Well, I mean you were. I imagine people in reporting are constantly, I don't know if bribe is the right word, but there's constantly people trying to influence them with their agendas. How do you deal with that?

I think so. And some weird things came out of that, because one time, way back in the early 60s, Boeing wanted to buy time. And at that time, today was really watched by Washington, you know, the Congress and everything, and the White House. Lyndon Johnson used to call up after a thing to compliment some guest or to raise hell of why we had had somebody on. He did that a lot.

Wow.

And so Boeing had. We had this big thing for doing Boeing commercials, and they suddenly quit. They suddenly bombed out and they weren't going to do it. And we found out the reason was they didn't want to be accused of going on the Today show to influence the legislation that might affect them. And we lost the account because of that, which was kind of flattering to their idea of what our influence might have been. But you're right, there is a lot of influence. Although never has a network said to me, we want you to soft pedal this or promote this. They never have said that. I'll give them that credit. And I don't think they've done it to any of the major newscasters in the network.

Well, you know, the whole term spin, I mean, how could you define spin? What does that actually mean?

Isn't that a marvelous thing? It's to put a. To put a complexion on something. A good example of spin might be if you had a Stadium for 20,000 people and only 5,000 showed up, and then you can put your cameras where the 5,000 showed up. You've got a big crowd. If you show an empty stadium, virtually empty stadium, that is spinning it in a different direction so that you can take a fact and give it as a fact, but you can do it in a way, either verbally or visually puts spin on it. And that's a very useful thing to politicians.

Oh, absolutely. Well, now you know the term. You know, don't believe what you read, don't believe the news. I mean, to what extent should someone believe or not believe the news?

To a great extent, in the details. In the main thing, if somebody says there was a train wreck in Georgia this morning, that's either true or not true.

Right.

But if you start taking into account spin and those other things, then you shouldn't just believe everything as it's presented, because it might be presented in a way that. That pretends to be objective and is and is not, you know.

Right. Well, did you. Did you find yourself a Lot in your career watching the news or watching television and just thinking, this is complete bs.

I mean, I mentioned, I mentioned, you know, I admired CNN the way Turner got that going and stuck with it for a long time. And I stayed with it until. And lately they've come back a lot. But once, right after Turner was gone, they did some things I thought were way off base. I'll give you an example. At the 2004 election, before that occurred, right before I was having breakfast and this anchor said, when we come back, we have a feature on the new voting machines. So I thought, well, I'm going to stay for that. Because we know from voting machines, four years ago they came back and they threw it to this guy. I forget who it was, who was standing in front of a voting machine. And he said, though these new machines are. And he talked about how user friendly they were, how they were going to help. I thought, well, come on, get to the story. And he finally wound up and threw it back to the anchor. I said, he missed the story because the story was not how wonderful they are. The story is how awful they are, how potentially dangerous for electoral fraud and everything. And I thought, why would CNN lose out on that? They've corrected a lot of that now. But that was a matter of spin that I thought was awful, an example of it. And because people who didn't know might just accept that as, you know, voting machines are wonderful.

Well, what makes good television versus what makes bad television? I mean, you've been news reporting, but you really kind of understand the whole communication.

Good. Yeah, good television has to be engaging and then useful to the person tuned in where it's going to help his life in some way and as truthful as possible. So it isn't just pie in the sky. One of the things I was kind of proud to be associated with, I was talking about nine years ago, I had ruined my knees and I had my knees replaced. You know, both. I'm ashamed that I don't have a Heisman Trophy to show for ruined knees. But it was just a series of dumb accidents that caused it. And I was going. I said to Barbara Walters right before I went to the hospital to do that, I said, don't lie and say I'm on vacation. Just say I'm away. That conversation was overheard by the executive producer who said, why don't you go public with that and show what's involved in knee surgery? And they talked me into. And it was one of the best things I ever did because I still get letters from People who say that they saw that, what we covered, and they had the courage then to go ahead and change their life because they got their knees fixed and they were all right. People who were afraid to do it. And I felt really good about doing that.

I mean, you know, it's interesting to think that as much time that you've been on television, the millions of people that have listened to your words and heard you, how much influence you actually have as an individual in that environment.

On occasion, there was real influence that I'm very happy and very proud of. Even though I had to be talked into that one. I wasn't going to go public with it, but I'm glad I did now because almost everybody I talked to who went ahead, the reason I went ahead with it was I knew my knees were ruined. And I thought, do I really want that surgery? And then I saw on a cable channel a guy who had had that surgery, both knees replaced at the same time, went back to his occupation, which was rodeo work. And I thought, if he can do it, I can do it, no doubt. And I did. Because after that replacement, in 13 days, I was back on the air in the studio because I figured if I could sit and watch television for an hour, I could sit and do television for an hour. And in a few weeks, I was walking in with a cane and whatnot, and in about seven months, I could run upstairs, which I hadn't done for 12 years before because my knees were so bad. Isn't that amazing? So I knew it was a good thing for people to do if they needed it. And having then, if I met anybody who had compromised results and didn't like what they got, I would say, did you do the exercise regimen that they told you? And they said, well, I was supposed to, but it was too inconvenient or too painful or something. And then they get a leg that they can't quite straighten and they can't bend very far. So it's very important, if you're going to do knee replacement, to do the exercises they tell you, I still do those exercises. Well, there you go.

Well, let's talk about business ethics, because I'd like to get your perspectives on this. I mean, I went on 2020, the very last year that you actually, I think the last month that you worked there. Yeah, October 99, and Barbara Walters did the story, and at the time, Arnold Diaz, the investigative reporter, and we did a story on how to basically not get ripped off by a professional carpet upholstery cleaning company using bait and switch advertising and that they ended up putting ethicalservices.com on the ABC website. And it created this idea that I had of if I could link consumers to service businesses that want to provide, provide a criteria of ethics, you know, guaranteeing their work, carrying proper insurance, employing people and not having them do any sort of high pressure selling to make a livable wage, agreeing to never use any dishonest or misleading advertising, that it will be a great way for consumers to find those people. And there's so much as a marketer for what I do for a living, you know, the number one question in consumers minds is who can I trust? And so I always want to do everything I can to teach my clients to convey trust and obviously to live that. Because Dan Sullivan, my good friend, he says money earned ethically is a byproduct of value creation. So I always think about when you're out there being an entrepreneur, when you're out there doing things, create value and you get paid for the value you create. And if you don't create value for other people, then you're not really providing a service, you're taking advantage of people. And that has everything to do with, with character. I mean, you know, it's not a gimmick, it's not a technique. It's literally how you conduct yourself and how you treat other people. And so I wanted to get your thoughts because you had to face that on a daily basis. You know, your own character representing, you know, the different medias. But it was you, it was your face that was out there and trying to serve the audience. What are your thoughts on business ethics, communication, that sort of thing.

Joe, there was such a needle for what you then provided because of communication that was untrustworthy. It might, might be an honest company that you could trust. But how do you, how do you know? Right. I tried to do that in my personal career. But you codified it in a way that was so much needed. That's why you, that's why it was very successful, I think, because people want to know can I, can I trust this person or not? I don't know. It's admirable how you, how you did codify it and turn it into something that could become a reality on a very wide scale. I tried to do it on a personal scale, I think just by making sure people understood that I meant what I said and that I wouldn't associate myself with something that was, that was shady or wrong. And I had a funny experience on that one time when there was a A sponsor on the Tonight show, the old Tonight show, that made it a linoleum like floor covering. And it wasn't right really, because nails would come up through it and stuff. And, and I, I said, I won't do this anymore. And they said, you're in breach of contract because you're supposed to do the commercials. I said, no, I won't. I won't have anything to do with it. I thought maybe that would damage my. But the net result was I, I was more in demand after than I would have been if I had gone ahead and done it. But I couldn't live with that and say the things they wanted me to say about it. So I made that attempt to do it, but it never occurred to me to put it together in a way like you did and make it into a really widespread entity.

Well, you know, one of my goals is to transform the way that Americans actually buy and locate service companies because you've got all these wonderful companies, but they simply don't know how to get the message out. And then you've got all these consumers that want things and they just want to find the right company. And if I could help develop a system where people can find people they can trust and people that are trustworthy and are willing to put their butts on the line because people have the ability to report on them, I think it will just provide a tremendous service. It is what I wanted too, because I thought, you know, if I need to use a painter, if I need to use anyone, and I simply could figure out a way to find them and eliminate the possibility of getting ripped off or dealing with the company, how good of a value would that be to me? And then I thought, you know, that'd be a good value to everyone.

Tell me something. Do you think in the world of finance now with Bernie Madoff and this kind of thing, would there be a way of investors finding out about whether somebody's got a Ponzi scheme going or whether is that going to happen?

You know, I, I think so. I recently read a survey where 98% of high net worth individuals, when asked would they refer their current financial advisor Planner, out of 100%, 98% said they would not, they would not, they would not. And now this is, I don't know if it applies to all across the board financial planners, but for high net worth individuals, and if you sit and think about it, how much distrust do people have? So, so I think ultimately it comes down to literally asking the people who do you in creating a vehicle of communication where they can give feedback. I think there could be an EthicalServices.com version for every sort of business, but it would require not the person who's the marketer or whoever's saying we're the best, but actually asking the real people.

That are, what do they try exactly.

Creating a vehicle for that? I think ultimately, when it comes to sharing valuable things with consumers and how they make decisions, I think ultimately one new thing that is happening with technology, with the Internet, is there's a guy I interviewed named Rod Beckstrom, and he's one of the co authors of a book called the Spider and the Starfish. And the analogy is that if you cut off the head of a spider, the spider dies. If you cut off the arm of a starfish, the starfish will grow another arm and certain species of starfish will grow. If you chop the starfish into pieces, it will grow an entirely new starfish. And so the point was a centralized organism versus a decentralized organism. And so the concept was that things like Wikipedia, like someone types in Hugh Downs, they can find information, not always accurate, but with anyone. I mean, you've got right now, as we sit here and do this interview, there's literally tens of thousands of people not getting paid working on building this starfish called Wikipedia or Google has aspects or Craigslist, you know, and one of the things he said is that like al Qaeda is actually a starfish. You kill, you know, bin Laden or you kill some of the.

It's not going to end, though.

It doesn't end. 12 Step Groups is actually a starfish. Starfish. There was a catalyst named Bill W. And Dr. Bob that in the 1930s found a solution to people dealing with alcoholism. You know, prior to that, there was no people either were, you know, institutionalized or died or just suffered from this condition of addiction. But that was a starfish. And so I think what is happening today, if you look at a lot of of the things that technology gives us an opportunity, are certain movements, they just expand because they. And it could work in both ways. It could be very negative, a very negative starfish, or it could be a very positive. And so I think with the current events of what's happening is as long as there's a catalyst that creates positive change, then it becomes. It just grows. And I think it will grow not from a CEO in the future. I think it will be large groups of people. And I hope that's the positive thing that comes out of it.

That makes a lot of sense.

And that's why I want ethical services to be. I want it to be a starfish. So it's not like me saying here's what Joe Polish or my company thinks is, you know, ethical. It's like here's how. Here's a criteria and you and the consumers build on that criteria and then the consumers own it. It's not. That's how I really.

That shows a faith in human nature that the fascist mind doesn't have. Fascist mind believes that humans are intrinsically evil and they need to be governed by some dictator or something. But if you have faith in human nature is wonderful. And because in the news business we say good news is no news. And I guess there's a reason for that because if you've got charming news stories, it's really not much news unless it's unusual or tragic or something. We tend to think that humans because of that are bad because it focuses on the bad deeds of certain people. But if there hadn't been a countervailing force since before history began of cooperation and empathy and everything, we'd still be in caves eating raw meat.

Absolutely.

Humans are basically good and we've got to deal with part of them that isn't so good. But you've got to have faith in it. And I think that's what you displayed with that. The starfish idea, I think shows the humans. And if you believe that, then there's a lot of hope for humanity. We build things on that instead of building them on the fascist approach.

Well, absolutely. You know, it's about evolving versus devolving, which by the way, let me ask you about that because I wrote something down here where you talk about the anti evolution mindset that you currently believe is infecting our culture. Could you talk about first off, what is that?

Yeah, at first I thought it was just a function of the fundamentalist religious view. It goes much deeper than that. Forget the religion for a moment. There is something in some humans that is viscerally opposed to being related to any other species of animals. They'll talk about humans and animals. They don't want to say that we're animals. We are, you know, we may be a unique animal in intellect and some other ways and I think a very significant animal in the. In the universe. For the first time. The reins of evolution are in our hands now and we have control over every other species on this planet. Is here by our sufferance now and can and can be extinguished if we allow that to happen. Happen. And we are not only the universe. To me, it's as though the universe has not only gone into the idea of finding out about itself, but manipulating itself because we can manipulate the environment. This is an awesome responsibility. But we are still animals. And I think there are people who are so upset at the idea of being related to any of the great apes that they've got to reject Darwin because that would just be an awful thought to them. And the religious right has tended to adopt that view. They think it's not biblical and whatnot, but it's a very potent force that you have to deal with. And it's part of an anti science, anti intellectual movement that is a reality I think it can be done in. But there's a lot of movement against the use of the human mind. It's a kind of a know nothing neo Luddite approach that they think will make humans more comfortable, but it really will keep us in the dark. If we do that. We've got to respect science and follow a scientific method which doesn't preclude religious faith at all. That's apples and oranges, you know. But I think that to me the anti evolution movement is the spear point of that awful idea that is a fear of being related to other animals.

Interesting. Do you believe in karma?

Not in the strict sense. I think there's a lot to a lot of those things that have Hindu roots and everything. But I don't subscribe to karma in the sense that if you, that in some afterlife you're going to build up, you know, credit things or debit.

Right.

I don't think that. But I think there's, I think there's a lot to be said for some of the philosophy that's come out of the east that way.

Well, the reason I ask is not even really necessarily on a very deep spiritual level. More so, it's this. You've always strike me as someone that just is a friendly, nice, caring person. And one of my favorite sayings I heard years ago is be nice to the people you meet on the way up because they're going to be the same people you meet on the way down.

Isn't that true?

And I think it's just a good way to conduct your life because you know, frankly, we don't always make good decisions. We make mistakes as human beings. We screw up at times. And to go out and try to make your way through life by stepping on people, being rude, taking, you know, people that don't say, you know, thank you to waiters and they look down at people, you know, I just, I think People like that are jerks and there's, there's no reason for it and you've just conducted yourself, it seems. And again, this is the Joe Polish perspective. A few downs, but I think it's, I think the public perceives you this way and I'm really kind of wanting to find out as we wrap up here maybe what are some philosophies on how you've lived life and how you do that. So that I think a lot of people would like to lead their life with people liking them, meeting them, growing, evolving.

One of the things I learned, Joe, and it has worked for me, I never, I, I can't say never, but in the last decades of my career I never competed with anybody. I'll compete with my own past record or something. But I, and I found when I didn't compete, if I was helpful to some, some they were going to do a feature on I'm a scuba diver and I used to teach scuba diving in the 50s and everything and they were going to do something and I've done some diving things on, on 2020 and so forth and I can't remember who it was now wanted to do a diving thing and they said, well, that kind of compete with what you're. I said no, it won't if I help. And so my inclination was to help this person and having him make a good showing. And I found a long time ago that if I'm helpful to people, they're going to be helpful to me and that's the only way I'm going to rise, you know, and not trying to climb on them and get someplace. So that has worked for me and maybe it would work for, for just about everybody abandon the idea of competition except against your own record.

You know, I think first off, I think that's great advice and secondly, you know, what I take out of that, what I instantly thought of when you said that is comparing yourself to others. You know, that's the surefire way to be miserable because there's always going to be someone who has it better and there's always going to be someone who has it worse.

It's like the yacht owners, you know, finally gets a hundred foot yacht and he's moored behind a guy that has a 125 foot yacht and he's miserable.

Is that hysterical? It's so funny. Well, you know, first off, there's so many more things I could ask you. I'd love to ask you, but I want to wrap up here to the listeners, most of them being Entrepreneurs and business owners, a lot of them dealing with enormous struggle, but they're big risk takers and they're out there trying to just do stuff. And anyone that would even take the time to educate themselves, watch our interview. Things like that are genuinely interested in learning. And I wanted to see if any. There's been a school of communication that's been named after you, and you're out there doing a lot of stuff. What, like, words of advice would you give to business owners and to just people of America just to go out and have a better life and do good things? I mean, parting words, I would say.

I'd say one thing would be that they should pay attention to what you have. Have set up in the way of making sure that if they're an honestly run business, that the public knows that they're an honestly run business. And through what you've set up that has now become possible, they should support that kind of a view. That's kind of topmost in my mind as to what the other thing would just be to not lose patience. Some things take time and you can drive ahead, but don't get into such high gear that you're going to flail yourself to pieces. I don't know. I don't have any concise advice on that, except that one point, which I think is important to be sure the public knows that they have a way of knowing whether you're worth it or not. Right.

Right.

Great.

And also, what I want to do, I probably should have done this in the very beginning of the interview, is acknowledge Brian Kirk and Margie Abrams and Marty Edelston, all the wonderful people at Boardroom, Inc. Which have been my friends for over a decade, and they're the ones that really introduced me to you and we made the connection. And first off, I just want to really sincerely thank you. You're such a busy guy, even with all the things you're doing, and you took the time to come down the studio to do this.

It really was a pleasure. Yeah.

Thank you. And I hope in the future we can do it again. And if there's anything related that Hugh Downs does, when we publish this, this video interview, I will put it on our website@gieniusnetwork.com and keep you abreast of all of the cool things that Hugh is doing. And any famous last words.

I don't. Outside of the guy who said, in closing, I would like to say goodbye, which is something seldom said by somebody who starts with in closing.

Right, exactly.

No, I've enjoyed it very much. I don't have anything to add.

All right. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Joe.

I appreciate it.