Mike Rowe speaks at the 2013 National Jamboree

Oh Toto good stuff huh so much to do here I hope you're enjoying it we sure have I've enjoyed every second I've been here what I want to do now is take the honor the privilege of introducing our next guest this is somebody who might have grown to respect so much over the years he's a very intuitive a very insightful man you know him as the dirty job guy he's a great friend of scouting he is an Eagle Scout and he's a great friend I want you to welcome with me Mike Rowe Michael [Applause] [Music] hello everybody is anybody having any fun at all I can't be sure cuz man oh man if you're not having fun here I don't know what to tell you so nice to be here with you you're standing up because there's no place to sit is that right alright well I'll try not to talk too long this time I might have seen some of you before there was a little event three years ago down at ap anybody remember you guys were unbelievable that means I'm going to have to come up with a new speech that's too bad alright so there's so many different ways for me to say to you today what it is I would like to say to you but I'll just I'll just try and keep it pithy I'll try and make it simple for those of you who were there at the hundredth Jamboree my message was pretty simple then and it's pretty simple today in fact everything you need to know in advance about what I'm going to say is written on my shirt and on my hat some people some people prefer to speak with a teleprompter some people like to have notes some people just like to memorize their whole thing I just like to write it on my wardrobe so I don't forget but for those of you who were there three years ago on the occasion of your hundredth birthday you might remember that I had some fun with the Scout law I said that I was a big fan of trustworthy loyal helpful and friendly courteous kind obedient cheerful is great thrifty brave very important reverent absolutely but that whole business with clean right I just couldn't for the life of me get it straight in my head how a guy who was hosting a show called Dirty Jobs could take a solemn oath to be clean and so I thought well it might be fun to say a scout is clean but not afraid to get dirty and I think somebody up the food chain must have been listening because well get written right here the Boy Scouts made a shirt for me it says the Scout is clean but not afraid to get dirty and underneath it it says something really cool and really personal maybe some of you have seen it it says the dirt Patrol now to me [Applause] to me the dirt Patrol sounds like something that should exist in the Boy Scouts of America and I say that because you know I'm just thinking of the 8,000 volunteers who've been here now for over a week you know living for to attend I'm thinking about the people who always volunteer for the Dirty Jobs and I'm thinking about my own childhood when I was a kid we used to talk about the dirt Patrol in my family it was my grandfather my dad me and my and my two younger brothers my mother called us the dirt Patrol and I'll tell you a true story I was 12 years old I got up one morning did what I always did when I was 12 years old in February I got up went out to the porch got some wood came in and started a fire in the wood stove my dad was one of those guys who liked to heat his whole house with a wood stove so first one up goes to make a fire and then of course I went to the bathroom now we had one bathroom in our house I told myself not to make this all about toilet humor but I really can't help it it's a true story I went to the bathroom took care of business stood up flush the toilet I stood there I watched it go down I don't know why I do that I've I'm fascinated by it and I'm standing there just just waking up and the toilet made it made an amazing sound the sound I'd never heard our toilet make before it was like the like the devil was clearing his throat or something right and then there was an explosion I'm not kidding yeah second later that which was in the toilet and and vanishing suddenly reappeared with extreme violence and flew out and within a second there I was 12 years old covered with my own poo right so I'm stunned you know and I go get my dad and like that I'm covered with my own poo and he said yeah you're disgusting this is a problem I said what are we gonna do and my mother came in and said oh hello we're basically going to get the dirt Patrol together and what that meant was my grandfather who lived across the lawn and he was like the superhero my granddad you guys melon you haven't met him but he's just one of those guys who was born hardwired he could fix anything he only went to the eighth grade but at the time he was 30 he was a he was a bricklayer he was a steam fitter he was an electrician he was a plumber he was a mechanic he was welder you could do it all and I loved it and he came over and with my dad we went out front to try and fix the broken toilet now this was incredible because it was a school day and my father said look you're going to take the day off you're gonna work with me and pop and we're going to fix this and I'll spare you all the details but for the next eight or ten hours it was great my my father had this thing called a ditch which and he let me operate it basically dug a trench in our front lawn looking for the problem in the pipe that had caused them the the toilet to explode it was so much fun digging this ditch and then with my grandfather we found the problem in the pipe and we made the cut and then we put in a new pipe and there was welding and I heard my dad say a bad word and we laughed and there was more welding and there were blisters and there was pain and my mother made a big thermos of hot coffee and she brought it out to us I drank my very very first cup of coffee right it's fantastic I felt like a man I got my hands dirty and I was a part of fixing a problem and I decided that day that was the day I decided I knew what I was going to do with the rest of my life I knew I was going to learn a trade sit out guys you're making me nervous take a load off fast they take a load off all right this this is the day I love you back I love you back that was the day I knew what I wanted to do at 12 years old and so for the next four or five or six years I did everything I could to follow in my granddad's footsteps I went through junior high went through high school I took through the woodshop I took the metal shop I took auto shop and you know what I learned I learned just because you want to be good at something doesn't mean you're going to be good at something see - and woodshop d-plus and metal shop got to see an auto shop I was getting frustrated I was starting to wonder maybe maybe there was something wrong with me I'm 17 years old at this point I'm a senior in high school and I take the college tests that they make everybody take you know and I'm I'm just I'm just lost I'm confused and I got a call to go see the guidance counselor his name was mr. Dunbar all right mr. Dunbar wanted to talk to me about my future and he said look based on your scores here we know exactly what you should do Mike James Madison is a great school it's a great four-year school you should go there or maybe the University of Maryland you should go there too and I'm sitting there thinking look that's a lot of money and I don't want to borrow money and my my folks don't have a ton of money and I I just don't know what I want to do so I said mr. Dunbar I think I think maybe the smart thing for me to do is go to a two-year school right just just maybe learn a trade maybe maybe just figure out what I want to do at a community college and he said Mike that is below your potential you don't want to do that and then and then he gave me the worst advice I've ever heard in my life he pointed to a poster on his wall I brought it with me you want to see it you're gonna love this you're gonna love the gun thing hang it back here somewhere oh it's right here beautiful thank you that could have been awkward this is the poster mr. Dunbar showed me okay it's a picture of a guy with the Diploma standing next to a guy with a wrench look how happy the guy with the diploma looks and look how sad the guy with the wrench looks and check out the worst advice in the world on the bottom of this poster work smart not hard right mr. Dunbar says Mike which one of these two guys do you want to be and all I could think of was well I thought some bad things I didn't say him because the Scout is kind and courteous and whatnot but I thought man that's that's my grandfather he's talking about and so I went home and I talked to my I talked to my folks about mr. Dunbar and I talked about what I thought would be best for me to do and it was decided that you know what Mike you're right you go to a community college don't worry about that work smart not hard stuff right and I did that and I started to learn a trade but not the trade you're thinking about I started to learn the stuff that made sense to my brain because my grandfather did give me some good advice you said you know something there are lots of different toolboxes get a different one so I went to college I learned how to sing I learned how to write I learned how to talk in front of people I learned how to act and I started to learn about television something I didn't know anything about it all but figured well you got to learn something and then I went to work and to make a long story short about 15 20 years went by and I started to do pretty good I worked for some of the big networks I worked for National Geographic I worked for the Discovery Channel off and on I worked for CBS and NBC I did freelancing I started to approach my career like it was a trade right and I started to do pretty good and the next thing you know I'm 40 years old I promise you there's a point to all this I'm 40 years old I wake up one morning I'm working for CBS on a show called evening magazine it's a great gig okay it's a fantastic show I'm living in San Francisco I can go wherever I want I'm very busy I'm feeling pretty good about my life I get up I go to the bathroom one morning I take care of business I flush the toilet I stand there I watch it go away the way I always do and then the toilet made the same sound it made all those years ago when I was 12 years old and I swear it exploded again everything that was in the toilet came flying back on me and just like that once again I'm 40 years old and covered in my own poo this is a problem it's a problem because I got to go to work and my grandfather he doesn't live next door anymore so I get on the phone I the Yellow Pages I call a plumber I say look my toilet just exploded okay I need somebody out here they said fine leave a key under the mat just put a check on the counter I said fine I went to work I came home my toilet is fixed there's not a sign of the mess the check is gone I called my mom just to catch up a little bit see how Pop's doing he's 92 at this point right and I tell my mother the story about the exploding toilet and she laughs and she says so the plumber came over and saved the day again and I said yeah yeah he did and she said what was his name and I said you know what I have no idea and she said well didn't you meet him and I said no no I I didn't I was I was at work she said oh that's that's too bad and I said yeah it is actually now that I think about it it's kind of weird and that brings me to my hat my hat says profoundly disconnected and I want to talk about that for just a little bit but that was the moment if anybody cares when I decided the dirty jobs might be an interesting thing to do because how could I have become so so far removed from knowing exactly what I wanted to do from knowing exactly how I wanted to work from being so sure of all those things when I was 12 suddenly I'm 40 and I don't even know the name of my own plumber I'm so disconnected from the very things I thought that I used to want to do and be that all I can do is leave a check on the counter and wait for somebody else to come in and do the work for me so it really struck me in that moment it made me think you know I've been working in television now for almost 20 years what would happen if I did a show where I could where I could have my name in the title because that's kind of cool right but where I wasn't really the star where the star of the show was the guy who comes over to the house and does the work when you're when you're not home the electrician the plumber the welder the skilled worker that's what Dirty Jobs was that's how Dirty Jobs started I just thought it would be fun to find some people that reminded me of my grandfather and do a show around them maybe they were farmers maybe they were miners maybe they were bridge painters or skulk leaners maybe they were Road workers it didn't matter but we were only going to do three hours we put the thing on the air and I got 10,000 letters from people saying Mike you should come and meet my grandfather my dad my cousin my brother my uncle my sister whatever because they do this work and it and it would be great to shine a light on them so for the next nine years well that's what I've been doing I was right in the middle of it the last time I talked to the Boy Scouts three years ago we went to every state we focused on every major industry and we did 300 different dirty jobs and we just wrapped it up earlier this year because well my knees fallen apart my shoulder hurts everything hurts tell you the truth but it was so much fun and I've been thinking about why was it why was it fun I mean really it was hard hard work but everybody I met seemed to be having a good time everybody seemed to love getting their hands dirty and I realized that what I'd been doing for nine years basically was trying to put the dirt Patrol back together I was out there still looking for my grandfather and my dad and people who were kind of kind of in on the joke people who understood that it's okay to get dirty that the dirt eventually washes off the dirts the thing that keeps us connected I started getting thank-you letters years ago from people we profiled on the show electricians would call me all the time farmers would call me all the time couple months ago in New York I was walking down Central Park south a garbage truck I heard that squeal you know that maker when the garbage truck stops real quick guy jumped off the back biggest garbage man I ever seen about six eight giant guy weigh over 300 pounds looks at me says Micro I'm like yeah runs up to me doesn't even break a strike grabs me lips me up off the ground and says man I can't tell you how much I appreciate what you do I said dude put me down you said no no man listen to me do you have any idea how dramatically my love life is improved since you did a show about garbage men like [Music] I didn't know but this is the kind of thing that's been happening now for four years and it's got me thinking why why are people grateful for the show nobody had ever thanked me before for doing television people blamed me for doing so efficient but people really seem to love this show and I think it's because I'm not the only one who became disconnected from my plumber I think there are a lot of people in the country who no longer really understand their relationship to where their food comes from or where their energy comes from or what sustainability really is people aren't connected to the environment the way they used to be and most importantly people aren't connected to the definition of a good job this is what I heard for the last nine years wherever I went from from business owners I would hear about how hard it was to find people not people who were educated but people who were skilled because something has been happening in the country where we celebrate one form of knowledge over the next and that's why I dug this poster out of the archives because this is this is still what's going on we're still telling kids that this degree is your only hope for a happy successful career and in our minds we still see this guy over here as some kind of vocational consolation prize it's crazy and you know what it's doing it's causing problems there's a thing in this country called the skills gap anybody here the skills gap no you've never heard of the skills gap you're kidding me my friend I'm going to open your eyes today all right the skills gap is the fact that there are three million jobs available right now for people who are willing to learn a skill and get the hands dirty they're out there right now these jobs how come nobody is going after them I don't get it I think it's because a big hunk of the country is disconnected now I'm not talking about you guys you guys are connected the Boy Scouts get it the Boy Scouts have always got Future Farmers of America they get it SkillsUSA they get it but the Boy Scouts they really get it because my earliest experience and the Boy Scouts was getting not merit badges but skill awards celebrating a skill that's the thing that we need to reconnect with because that's the thing that we've become disconnected from we have to find a way to make mr. Dunbar's advice go upside down he was completely wrong are you kidding me work smart not hard has anybody heard that expression but before today work smart not hard right everybody's got their hands up later on because you guys are connected go ahead and take your your phones and Google work smart not hard you'll see this advice is everywhere it's on it's on merchandize it's the title of books it's all over the place I think this is just a theory but I think our country has taken mr. Dunbar's advice I think there's a big hunk of our country who believes it's possible to succeed without working really hard working smart is great but where in the world that have become okay not to work hard so I started thinking well look I've one guy with a TV show and now that TV shows over what can I do to get that message out there who can I ask for help I'm thinking maybe the Boy Scouts could help right I mean I just think maybe the Boy Scouts could help so here's what I did I thought about mr. Dunbar's poster and I asked myself what would it look like if it weren't so daggone stupid what would the worst advice in the world look like if it were actually the best advice in the world now keep in mind something when I show you this right now anybody know what a trillion dollars is yeah it's a lot okay a trillion dollars of student loans exists because kids who were in my position a long time ago borrowed money in order to go to a college that they weren't quite ready to go to and study really hard and pay a fortune to get an education that well it was awfully expensive now don't think for a second I'm standing here in front of you saying education and college or a problem no way after my Community College I eventually went back I did get a degree but I didn't get it until I knew exactly two things for sure hey I could afford it and B I knew what I wanted to study so rather than saying work smart not hard what if we were to say work smart and hard and that's me by the way that's me by the way holding my diploma down by my side it's not because I'm not proud to have it it's just because so many kids today are in debt because they've paid a lot of money to get an education without a skill not standing next to me there's a young man who went to a trade school didn't get any debt was immediately hired and he's out there working right now to me that's the poster that should have been in my guidance counselor's office this is the poster that should be in troop rooms around the country this is the advice that people ought to be hearing you and separate smart work from hard work and every time you try and do it something really really crappy happens like a toilet blows up in your face and you don't know what to do about it I was just standing backstage looking at the video of all you guys doing everything from woodworking to welding a kid stopped me yesterday to say how excited he was he was welding aluminum you know how hard it is to weld aluminum properly you know how much money you can make out there in the real world if you know how to weld I was talking to - Randall a little while ago who was kind enough to introduce me and he was saying you know at AT&T skilled work is just as important as anything else and the opportunities are everywhere I ran into a anybody here at caterpillar the big company yeah right remember last year or three years ago caterpillar brought me to stage and one of those big giant things dumped me out there it was fantastic caterpillars got jobs right now they can't find anybody who's willing to do them heavy equipment mechanics you can make a lot of money I ran into Lou - the person who runs their dealership down in Las Vegas a couple of months ago we got 26 positions open right now we just can't find people who are willing to learn a skill and really go to work so look I wanted to come here to tell you a couple of things today first of all the dirt Patrol is alive and well it's alive and well in my memory and it's alive and well out here secondly a scout is clean but not afraid to get dirty I know you guys know that I know you guys believe it thirdly work smart not hard is the dumbest advice in the history of the world work smart and hard does it make sense yes or no I think it makes sense too I think the country is profoundly disconnected I think you guys understand I think there's an opportunity to change the way people think about skill and about work look a lot of people have said a lot of nice things to you over the last week I'm sure you're probably used to hearing people give you great advice and tell you how great you are you know you're great I'm not going to blow any more sunshine up your class a uniform I'm going to ask you I'm going to ask you to help I'm going to say to you that the Boy Scouts get it and last time I was in front of you I talked at length about what the Boy Scouts had done for me but I wanted to come here today to suggest what you guys can do for the country if you understand the value of hard work and if you're not afraid to get dirty do me a favor and be a part of this profoundly disconnected campaign you'll notice there's a question mark here right what I'm really saying is are you profoundly disconnected I think most of the people in the country if they're being honest would say yes but I think you guys are connected am i right [Applause] all right Boy Scouts I want to thank you for bringing me here today I want to thank you for letting me tell you a story about my past and sharing a theory with you you're smart people you work hard I know you're here to have a great time I know you're having a great time but just take this with you okay your salt you're like salt you're the people who get it you're out in the world spread the message work smart and hard say it with me work smart all right you get it my work is done now I'm going to walk out and shake hands with each and every one of you you ready no that's not going to happen but I am going to tell you once again thank you so much for having me here you guys have a great time you're the best there is I love how about another round of applause for micro say cheese okay now is that time where we welcome onto the stage our entertainers are entertainers for the day hail from the great state of Mississippi is anyone out there from the Magnolia state they have sold over 20 million records they have shared the stage with several famous acts been certified six times platinum please welcome two stays in just a moment artists three doors down [Applause] you

Channel: Scouting Magazine

Views: 81,400

Rating: 4.9264369 out of 5

Keywords: 2013 National Scout Jamboree, Mike Rowe (TV Producer), Boy Scouts Of America (Organization)

Id: 85dCjsCgvXQ

Length: 30min 43sec (1843 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 21 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/fredbnh]

What a fantastic speaker he is. Thanks for posting this.