Why Jay Leno Has More Meaning Than Money (381)

Mike Malatesta  00:00

On today’s episode, I am talking about why I think Jay Leno has more meaning than money. Check it out and let me know what you think. Hey, everybody, it’s Mike and welcome back to the How’d It Happen podcast. So happy to have you here today for this solo episode that I am calling why Jay Leno has more meaning than money. This more meaning than money thing is something that I first heard from one of my mentors, Dan Sullivan, and he was talking about really what happens when entrepreneurs have more money than meaning. And his point in this whole discussion was that if your money is more than your meaning, you are headed down a path that’s not going to end well. And you see a lot of people who have well, I guess in the in TV and stuff, especially you see people in movies, you see people who are, you know, very, very wealthy, but don’t appear to have any meaning in their life. And basically, their life is kind of a mess, or it’s all about them. And I’m thinking about that all the time ever since I heard Dan say that. And I was listening to a podcast episode podcast called fly on the wall. It’s hosted by Dana Carvey and David Spade, and it is mostly a Saturday Night Live ish podcast where they bring on people who were cast members on Saturday Night Live or production people answering live or hosts on Saturday Night Live. And Jay Leno was a was a recent guest on the podcast. And I didn’t realize that he had been a host of the pack of the Saturday Night Live. But apparently he was in February of 1986. And as I was listening to Jay, and those guys talk about, you know, go through the podcast, there were certain things that struck me nine things in particular that struck me about Jay, that made me think that Jay Leno has more meaning than money. And let’s just be clear off the bat. Jay Leno has a lot of money. I mean, I don’t know how much money as but his his earnings have been something that are kind of public record. And the guy’s done tremendously well. But as I said, as I was listening through it, I thought this guy has a lot more meaning than he has money. And here’s how I sort of distilled it down number one, Jay Leno is humble. So I mean, this is the way he strikes me. I don’t know Jay Leno, personally, of course, but this is the way he strikes me from not just this podcast, but the interactions that I’ve seen with him. He is humble. He’s never forgotten who he is. He’s a kid from, you know, the Boston area from Massachusetts. He doesn’t buy into the hype about him people, you know, he’d you would never know, I guess that he has accomplished all the things that he’s accomplished by listening to him or hearing him talk. And one of his one of his favorite things is to just be like, you are like you and I. So that’s number one. Jay Leno is humble. That’s one of the reasons I think he has more meaning than money. Number two, Jay is excited. He’s excited about cars. He’s excited about comedy, and he’s excited about people. He’s excited about telling stories. The guy is like, there’s not it there doesn’t appear to be anything about the way J approaches life that isn’t, you know, dipped in excitement. So that’s number two. That’s why I think he has more meaning than money, because he’s excited. Number three, he’s generous Jay is generous with compliments. He’s generous with time. And I’ll bet you and I don’t know this for sure. But I will bet you that Jay is tremendously generous with his money, probably, and probably in ways that he does not publicize, because it’s just not how he is. The fourth reason I believe Jay has more meaning than money is that he is kind and gracious. And during the podcast, he told the story about you know, he was he goes places all by himself. And if you’ve never seen his videos, I mean, he drives by himself, he goes to hotels by himself, he doesn’t have one of those riders, he doesn’t have a rider that when he goes to a hotel or to a venue or whatever to perform. There’s no like, I have to have this and I have to have that. He’s I think that gets back to his humbleness, too. But he told the story on the podcast about you know, eating, he was eating in a restaurant, like at the bar at a place where he was performing a show and someone came up to him and you know, he could tell the guy wanted to ask him a question, but the guy was, you know, a little hesitant about asking him a question and Jay invited him over to ask him whatever he wanted while he had dinner with the guy and it was just like, it just showed me or as I listened to it, I thought to myself, yeah, that guy’s a he is willing to give of himself so he is kind and gracious in addition to being generous. And then the next reason I think he’s more he’s got more meaning than money is he’s future focused. When you listen to Jay talk, you know, Jason is 60s now like later 60s, but there’s nothing about him that’s done. He needs to be moving, working and talking and sharing. And I get the sense that with Jay, what’s always going through his mind is that the best is yet to come. And I just love that saying the best is yet to come. I have adopted it myself, I say, whenever I’m, like talking to my partner Drew, and he’s a little down about something in the business or whatever, I’d say J, I say Drew, the best is yet to come. And it’s true. The best is always yet to come. And I think the J feels that way as well. Next reason, I think he’s got more meaning than money. And as the most obvious one, I suppose, is that he’s funny, Jay Leno is really funny. And he’s committed to being funny. He may not be the funniest person in the world, but he is committed to being the funniest person that he can be. And I just think that it’s so cool, especially at his where he’s at what he’s accomplished. There’s no reason like, there’s no reason for him to need to do that. It’s just he wants to do that, because that’s about meaning for him. Next one is think this is number seven. J is hard work. He is hard working with his car collection that’s sort of infamous now. And what’s cool about his car collection is that it’s not just the car collection that’s there for people to look at, or like a museum or whatever, it’s a working garage, he calls it a garage, I guess, where he’s driving his cars around LA and where he lives and, and like for real, driving these old cars around breaking down on this side of the road, fixing the cars himself, just recently, he was burned as a result of some type of fire that came from gasoline or whatever in his garage, he was burned. And then not long after that, he was riding his motorcycle, and he was going to turn around in a parking lot. And he hit a wire, and he fell off his motorcycle and got all banged up. And one of the things he said on the podcast was like, he missed two shows to comedy shows that he had been booked for as a result of those two things happening. And the burn was serious. It wasn’t like nothing. And I can’t remember exactly what happened to him. But he had his shoulder broken ribs or something as a result of death falling off the motorcycle. So these weren’t nothing things but but he said, You know, I missed two shows. And I don’t think I’ve missed a show ever before. So it was really, really went to this hard working, especially when you know, people cancel things now, like I was going to do a podcast yesterday with a fella and at 1030 or at 11 o’clock, and at 1030 He sent a message. He basically just changed the podcast on my calendar link to another day, which okay, maybe something happened or whatever. But if it were Jay Leno, I bet he would have shown up, I guess is what I’m saying. He’s a hard working guy, you know, not any TV shows. And he’s also hard working being a human. You know, Jay, Jay Leno doesn’t feel like he’s owed anything. And I think that’s when I think back to Johnny Carson, for example, who Jalen will replace on The Tonight Show. And I didn’t know Johnny Carson, of course at all, but it felt like from what you read and in and hear about Johnny that he kind of felt like the world owed him something. And I don’t think Jay feels that way at all. And so that’s why I think he’s got more meaning than money. Number eight, Jay Leno is determined. He just keeps moving forward just like you and I do. And he keeps his commitments. As I mentioned, you know, earlier that guy that changed on me, I bet J wouldn’t have changed on me. And he’s on time always on time. That’s one of his biggest things. And so many, especially, well, so many people were just late. They just late. They they run on their time. And they think that they are owed that for some reason. And certainly, if Jay Leno ran on his own time, probably not too many people would give him crap about it, because he’s Jay Leno. But that’s not the Jay Leno, he is he is a Jay Leno, who is on time. And the last thing I will say about why I think Jay Leno has more meaning than money is that he’s not wasting a great thing, which is him, he is not wasting a great thing, which is him. He knows, as I mentioned before that the best is yet to come for him. He knows he feels like there’s an obligation or maybe not an obligation. He feels like there’s the option for him to do more. And he knows that he has a talent. He knows that he has an impact. He knows he can be positive, you know, positively influence people. He knows he can make people laugh. And he knows that he’s got a great thing and he is not willing to waste it. So those are the nine reasons why I think Jay Leno has more meaning than money. He’s humble. He’s excited. He’s generous. He’s kind and gracious. He’s future focused. He’s funny, he’s hard working. He’s determined, and he’s not wasting a great thing. So I will leave this with you. This made me think a lot about me as I was doing this, like, do I have more meaning than money? Obviously, I don’t have money anywhere close to Jay Leno’s money, you probably don’t have money anywhere close JSLint Jay Leno’s money, it doesn’t matter. The question is, do you have more meaning than you have money and some days I don’t know if I do and that’s a horrible thing for me to think about. So I don’t want that. I I want to have more meaning than money because the last thing for Jay is just like you I have a great thing and I need to be sharing, pursuing improving and just working at that. Great thing all the time. How about you, I appreciate you listening to my podcast today. If you like it, please share it, please follow the podcast. Tell your friends about it and make it a part of your learning experience in your pursuit to having more meaning than money. And until next time, please, every day maximize your greatness. Make your future your property, something you are proud to own everybody. Thanks for listening to the show. And before you go, I just have three requests for you one if you like what I’m doing, please consider subscribing or following the podcast on whatever podcast platform you prefer. If you’re really into it, leave me a review, write something nice about me Give me five stars or whatever you feel is most appropriate. Number two, I’ve got a book it’s called owner shift how getting selfish got me unstuck. It’s an Amazon bestseller, and I’d love for you to read it or listen to it on Audible or wherever else Barnes and Noble Amazon, you can get it everywhere. 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