The Story of Howie Mandel | Digital Social Hour #12

All right.

Welcome to the Digital Social Hour.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly.

I'm here with my co-host, Charlie Cavalier, and our guest today, Howie Mandel.

How are we doing?

When you say, how are we doing?

You want me to speak for everyone?

I'm doing good.

For you.

Yes.

So I am doing well, and I would assume you guys are doing well.

So

we are doing

fantastic.

Perfect.

You're doing well, Charlie.

I'm doing very well.

You can speak for all of us.

Okay.

I don't want to leave you out of it.

I feel like I'm a spokesman for you guys now.

You might be.

So I don't think we need an intro on you.

Normally we do that.

I think it's too late.

Yeah.

Didn't you just say I'm here with Howie Mandel?

Is that not considered the intro?

I would say that's sufficient, yes.

It's enough.

All right.

Enough.

Less is more.

Less is more.

That's the bare minimum.

Not in NFTs, though.

More is more.

More is more.

More is more for sure in that situation.

Okay.

All right.

So I want to start off with a topic that is interesting because I used to have an afro.

And when I was researching you, I saw you had an afro.

I don't know.

I have curly hair and it was big.

I don't know if I had an afro.

I don't think I had an afro.

Okay.

I don't know if you could tell from here, but I'm white.

So it wasn't an afro.

Fair enough.

It was a jufro.

Is it true you decided to shave your hair voluntarily?

Yeah.

Do people shave against their will?

I know that Manscape

is one of the sponsors here on your program, and I would imagine that they wouldn't even condone people

being shaved involuntarily.

But yes, so I got a part in a in a movie and

so I shaved my head for it

and then when when it was shaved I felt clean and I've been very open about my mental health and I have OCD and one of

one of the many issues that I deal with is misophobia, which is a fear of germs.

And though I'm

okay right now, I'm medicated.

But when I'm not medicated, it's really tough.

But it feels clean.

I would imagine, and if anybody's listening, if you have hair, the first thing that kind of feels like maybe you should go take a shower is your hair gets a little greasy.

So without that, I feel clean.

So I decided to, and my wife said I looked very sexy.

Whoa.

She never, yeah.

Yeah, that's, and I, she never said that.

I spent, you know,

three and a half decades, four decades with hair.

She never said that.

And then in my 40s, I shaved and then I was sexy.

Interesting.

I feel like not a lot of guys could pull off the bald look.

Do you think you could pull it off?

No way could I pull that off.

I don't know that anybody can't.

Why?

Like, what do you think?

Why would you think you can't pull it off?

Because what if your head's uneven and you got some dents and it just doesn't look appealing to women?

First of all, I think that

we'll let the women decide.

You decide.

Right.

And

do you know that you have dents?

I don't.

My dad said he dropped me a few times when I was a baby, so I'm not positive.

Okay.

But even there's nothing wrong with dents.

I don't think there's something wrong.

It makes you look like I think it's good to have some

imperfections.

Right.

It makes you unique and.

original.

And

what was fun about shaving my head is I think everybody should do it at least once.

You don't have to keep it.

But I had so much fun

with the art.

Like I created like different shapes.

I sometimes do it with my face too, but I created like first I just went down the middle and then I was Princess Leia for a couple of minutes.

And then I was, then I made like little horns.

And then I made,

I just kept a mullet and nothing else.

And then I did, I do that with my face too.

I have a,

you can probably look it up online and your editor could put it in.

But

when I was in my 20s, I wanted a mustache.

But

again, being a germaphobe, I didn't want to, well, here I am with a beard now, but I was afraid of getting food in it and stuff in it.

So I said, like, who, who made the rule that it's got to be under your nose and above your mouth?

So I grew a mustache on the side of my face, perfectly coiff, and had it for about a year.

I have an 8x10 of me like that.

Wow.

It's online.

If you go Howie Mandel's mustache, Google that, you could see me with that.

And what was kind of interesting about it is at the time I was in show business, I would go and do appearances on talk shows.

And more than not, people wouldn't even ask me what that was.

So it was just this weird.

mole.

They thought.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah, we'd have to see a photo of that.

Your hair grows pretty fast.

I think you could give it a go, Sean.

The baldness?

Yeah, I think you could try it.

You know what?

For Howie, I'll do it.

I'll send you a photo and I will do it.

Why wouldn't you do it?

I'm down to try doing it.

It's a scary thing to

jump off the bridge and do.

I feel like for you.

Well, first of all, stay on the ground.

Do not jump off a bridge and shave at the same time.

That's dangerous.

And number two, it's hair.

It grows back.

I'm not saying,

let's see what it's like to cut off your leg.

It's just your hair.

Right.

And hair comes back.

So even if you don't like the way you look, it's like it takes like five days to at least, I don't know if that's a good haircut, but it's to just return.

Right.

How often do you shave?

Say once every week or two.

Oh,

just once a week?

Yeah, is that not enough?

For me, it is.

Well, I would imagine you look clean shaven.

Are you not clean shaven?

I'm pretty clean.

I think about a week ago, yeah.

You're still clean-shaven after a week?

Yeah.

I haven't shaved for four days.

Four days?

Yeah.

You guys are not.

Well, I have to shave every day.

I mean, if I, unless it'll look like a beard, I have to shave every day.

Wow.

Wow.

I guess I got a lot more testosterone than you guys.

I can actually say that that might not be true because we did the 10x thing recently.

My testosterone was off the charts, which I was very happy about.

We did just get ours tested, yeah.

You got your testosterone?

Where do you test that?

We did a blood test.

10x?

10x health systems yeah and and they told you our testosterone our vitamin levels everything yeah grant cardone's company right yeah pretty interesting it was much more in-depth than a normal blood test at your doctor actually yeah but you got you have information that you don't really need like what do you do with that information from there you see what you're deficient in what you're lacking in and then get what are you lacking in i had some vitamin deficiencies um

that's about it nothing crazy i always do those uh I'm concerned because I don't think I take good care of myself, so I always get an IV drip.

We haven't tried those yet.

You have never had an IV drip?

No.

I get them because I travel and I'm old and I don't think I drink enough.

I want to

hydrate and get my vitamins.

And I don't want to eat like good food.

Do you feel an instant difference when you take IV therapy?

No.

No.

Like, you mean in the minute?

Like, ooh,

right after you unplug it, do you feel better?

No.

Not like if you drink like a Red Bull and then you,

you know, or a Celsius, whatever I'm drinking.

That I feel like right after coffee, I feel like, oh my gosh, I'm ready to go.

This must be, every time I drink like a triple espresso, I go, oh, I got to go.

This is a lot of energy.

And then, so I imagine that means that triple espresso is very healthy for you because it gives me such get up and go and energy.

So it must be really, really good for me.

I'd have to agree there.

I love my morning espresso's.

You love your coffee, but you had to cut back.

I did.

They told me we did the blood test, I had to quit eating sugar so much.

My blood glucose was off the charts.

Oh, diabetic?

Borderline diabetic?

Borderline diabetic.

They said I'm luckily also making enough insulin that it's counteracting, but at some point, that's not going to be the case anymore.

And that I needed to quit eating sugar.

I think you need to shave your head.

I'm down.

Let's do it.

If I do it, will you do it?

Yes.

Do it on this episode.

It'll go viral.

No.

I have manscapes here.

Ariel would be pissed.

She wanted to do it.

Why would you keep your hair just for a silly Disney character?

All right.

We'll consider it.

Can we compromise with a buzz cut?

Is that possible?

I'm not the boss of you.

I feel like we're playing Let's Make a Deal.

That was Monty Hall.

I was on deal or no deal.

That's why we're saving that for later, but I feel like right now we're

Let's Make a Deal?

Yeah.

I think it's more like family feud

so you had mentioned that you went bald for a role what is the most extreme thing you've done to your body for any role

i

i did i don't know that i did any movies that were of any note but i did do uh a movie called little monsters with fred savage and um i didn't know what in fact that's the movie that uh

eventually uh

helped me make the decision not to do any more movies.

I didn't do any more movies after that.

And I've got offered movies, but I don't like doing movies now.

Why?

Because

the process, you know, my favorite thing to do is stand up because

in the moment, I can get a reaction.

I'm in control.

Or even if I'm out of control, it's up to me to get back that control.

I control the narrative.

I control the reaction.

The reaction is there.

If I go do a movie, you're lucky if

they do a few pages a day in no particular order, and you're at the mercy of somebody else.

You know, you go do a hi, will you come in here, cut, go into your trailer?

We're going to get that from another angle.

And I wait for six hours, and then I come out, and it's the exact same scene from a different angle.

They got a camera on the other side of the room, and I go, Hey, can you come out here?

Cut, go into the trailer, and wait.

But

to answer your question, I I did a movie called Little Monsters

and

I sat every day in I think it was like six or four to six hours a day in makeup where they put this

I'm sure special effects have advanced because this was like 86 1986 but they put

what's it called rubber all over my face.

I was a monster.

I was a little monster.

And I shot it in North Carolina in August, and it was 100 degrees.

I would pass out a lot.

I'd go to the hospital and then

every night they would just rip it off.

My skin was seething and burning and ruined.

And

it was just the most uncomfortable.

unhealthy existence, you know, four months away from home, away from my kids, away from my wife

in North Carolina, wrapped in rubber.

I guess that's what a penis feels like.

Oh, man.

So I was a,

I was,

I felt like such a dick.

You know what I'm saying?

I see what you did there.

Yeah.

So I, I,

and then I just said, I don't know, you know, the movie didn't turn out that great.

I think there are people who like it,

but

I just didn't want to do it anymore.

I don't know why I got offered movies that were just really hard to do.

And then it's just so much easier just to do TV, podcasts, stand-up comedy, ask somebody to open a case, do voiceovers for Saturday morning,

sit at a table with a bunch of friends and go, I didn't like that song.

That's what I do now.

I feel that.

Did you ever turn down a movie roll and then the movie blew up?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Can you reveal the name of the movie?

yeah

which one no um i think i got offered um

there was a couple i don't want to say because then other people

i don't i feel bad you know i'll tell you why i feel bad and i'll give you some little tidbit one of my first acting things is a show called saint elsewhere which is a dramatic uh series that aired in the 80s on nbc and that's where denzel washington came out of and a lot of other people that we know.

And it, it,

apparently, I wasn't looking to do a drama.

I was looking to do comedy.

And

I went in and met with the company, the production company, which was Mary Tyler Moore, the MTM, to go try to get myself on a sitcom because I had kind of...

had some success as a stand-up comic.

I did a young comedian special on HBO with me and Jerry Seinfeld and Richard Lewis and Harry Anderson.

And

I was selling tickets like crazy.

And

then the natural progression was to do a sitcom.

And when I went into the office, she goes, do you act?

And I said, I don't know.

I don't know.

I haven't.

But I don't know if I have that skill set.

And she had me read this script,

sides, you know, one page, which was this, all this.

jargon that I didn't really understand.

It was science and

medical terminology, which I thought, this isn't funny at all.

But anyway, she said, you're very good.

Come down the hall.

And I went down the hall and I went and read it again for who turned out to be Bruce Paltrow, Gwyneth's dad, and a guy by the name of Mark Tinker, who was

the boss's son who owned MTM.

And they stopped me halfway through and I figured I blew it.

And this is on a Friday.

And then I had, and then they called me and they said, come down and read that same thing for the network I did on the Friday.

And they said, we'll see you Monday.

And I thought I was going to do another audition for this bad sitcom about science and medical jargon.

And I got a job.

And that turned out to be Saint Elsewhere.

And I started on that Monday.

And I realized they had been shooting for seven days.

They didn't like what they were seeing.

So they recast.

Wow.

And I'm a recast on that.

I would talk about him because he actually ended up doing good.

His name is David Paymer.

I think he got nominated for an Academy Award for a movie he did with Billy Crystal called Mr.

Saturday Night.

Wow.

But I also don't want to,

I don't want to take anything away from anybody else.

Makes sense.

Yeah.

But yes, I have been offered movies that went on and did well, but I don't feel bad about it because it's not about, I don't know what that success means.

To me, success is just waking up in the morning and doing something I enjoy.

And even if you're in the biggest movie in the world or the biggest, that goes away.

So that's so fleeting and means nothing and has no currency.

It has nothing.

But if three months of my life is shit, because I'm on an island somewhere,

you know, away from my family, listening, you know,

walking into a room because they tell me to and stepping on a piece of tape and then doing the same thing over and over 10 times.

And then somebody

edits it together.

And a year later, somebody tells you, you're brilliant.

I don't understand why you're brilliant.

It doesn't mean anything to me.

It really doesn't.

So interesting.

So money has no role in social media.

Oh, money.

Money?

Yeah.

Yes.

Oh, it does.

Yeah, but that doesn't mean, you know,

I do well.

Yeah.

And I love business and I like entrepreneurs.

My entrepreneurial spirit outweighs my creative spirit.

But what I was saying was, just because I'm in a hit movie doesn't mean I could, I find ways to make money in other ways.

You know, and

that kind of game, that's a game.

And I like to play that game like you guys.

I like to invest.

I like to find things.

I like, you know, and create things that make money.

That doesn't mean

being a movie star is.

I mean, you can make a lot of money being a movie star, but you can also make a lot of money being a comedian, being the host of a podcast.

Can't you?

I think so.

Kevin Hart's doing well.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of future and a lot of stuff like that.

Yeah.

But speaking of money, let's talk deal or no deal because that show's about money.

Right.

What's the most someone's won on deal or no deal?

A million.

Oh, someone actually won the million?

Yeah.

Wow.

It was really hard to give it away, but

it took about three years to give away the first million.

Wow.

Because people's

greed

and hope and fantasy, that's not the entrepreneurial spirit, outweighs reality.

So the truth of the matter is you had one out of 26

cases had a million dollars in it.

And we would have people all the time who'd come on, you know, I'd interview them at the beginning and they'd go, listen, I'm a single mother.

I have three kids.

I've never owned a home.

We have no health insurance.

You know, they pick a case that they think the million dollars is in, and they open the first six cases, and it's still not revealed what is the million.

And the first offer comes in, and the banker gives you $50,000

and without any thought, any hesitation, they go, no deal.

And then that always killed me because I would say,

so where you live, assuming most of them didn't live in LA,

for $50,000 is much more than a down payment on a house at that time, 2005, 2006.

So you can live in a home, you can definitely buy health insurance, and you can invest and buy something that will make more money.

But you, without any thought, are going no deal

for

a chance.

You know,

I think they, you know, the and then people would ride it all the way down.

You know how many people left with a penny, with five cents, with a dollar, just because, listen, you guys live in Vegas.

You know, those buildings are not built because people are winning.

Yeah.

Facts.

What is the most frustrated you ever became with a contestant on deal or no deal?

That would have to be the thing that I just explained, and I will tell you, it's the very first, because I didn't know what,

so I got offered deal or no no deal and I didn't want to do it at that time

being a game show host was

not

considered an asset to a comedian you know when you're when you're when your currency is irony the the the game show host was the the punchline really nobody if you think about it before 2005 nobody no comedians

Years before that, the last comedian to host a game show was Groucho Marx, who did You Bet Your Life.

But no comedians did it.

And my wife told me to take the deal.

And I didn't even understand what the show was.

I mean, I got the game, but I didn't understand.

I can show you in the other room.

The presentation to me is just silly.

And remember, there's no skill.

There's no questions.

There's no nothing.

It's just, I said, how are they going to do an hour of me going, open the case?

So when they told me that they wanted to do it, I thought, I'm going to be funny.

This is a great place for me to showcase showcase who i am and as a comedian and i will try to be funny the very first show when i walked out i'll never forget her her name is karen vann i've done 500 episodes karen vann that's the lady that was single who a single mother with three kids with no health insurance and no place to go And, you know, I talked to her and I realized that there was this glaze that came over her because the average person doesn't do television, isn't surrounded by 12 cameras and all these lights and 300 people.

And I think the first offer was something like $20,000, which in my, I'm not a gambler,

I would have said, okay, bye.

I'm here for five minutes.

I got 20 grand and let me figure out what I can do with that 20 grand.

How can I turn that 20 grand into whatever it is, whatever I can.

So when she went, no deal.

I felt like I was by being funny and being there, like this whole place was a distraction.

And I could see her kids in the, the in the audience and then I felt responsible I had this empathy where I felt responsible for this person and it also which ended up informing my cadence and how I threw all the comedy by the wayside and deal or no deal was the first place where I was just my I didn't play a character I didn't do stand-up and I would say things like Karen Van

The offer is, and I would talk to her like you talk to a child because I wanted her to really hear, the next offer is $30,000.

Do you hear me?

$30,000

before you answer.

And I would tell her, you know, if you say no deal, you have to open another four cases.

There's probably,

you know, I don't know what I'd have to look at at the board right now, but there's a, you possibly could open up a million dollar case or 700.

If you open up something that is 700,000 or more, the next offer is definitely going to go down.

So

for whatever this is right now, think about this.

This is a guarantee or do you go for a chance?

Deal

or no deal.

And, you know, it was always like, I just want to, and it was so frustrating.

Karen Vann walked out.

with five grand.

You know, and she'd been offered, I don't know what the top offer was, but she'd been offered.

And then we did this reunion years later to the past winners to see

what they have done and what they did.

And I think Karen got her breasts done.

Yeah, so there's an investment.

I think she made a mountain out of a mohill.

Wow.

Yeah.

I figured that would cost more than 5Gs, but I'm not sure.

I don't know.

2005.

But then, you know, it was a very successful show.

And

now a comedian hosting a game show is like a norm.

You're welcome, Steve Harvey.

You paved the way.

I did.

Was performing on the masked singer the most nervous you have ever been?

No.

Performing on the masked singer was not nerve-wracking as much as it was

debilitating.

I could not breathe.

I could not see.

And I went into it knowing I could not sing.

So it was a big

could not

night.

So I didn't realize how

cumbersome.

You know, I thought it would be funny.

I thought it would be funny.

I didn't, I have no aspirations to win.

I'm not a singer.

I've been a judge for many years.

Right.

And I've heard myself.

And if I was on America's Got Talent as a singer, I don't think I would get, you know, one,

three notes into whatever song I was singing without pushing a red button for myself.

I can't stand myself in the shower.

And so I, so I had no, but I thought it was fun.

They asked me, and then it sounds fun that you wear a costume.

Yeah.

You don't realize until you are, and a lot of people don't have this opportunity.

And the word opportunity, I'm using very loosely, to be trapped inside a giant lobster.

It's really not, not, it's tough.

It's tough.

I can relate a little bit.

I was the high school mascot and I had to wear a panther costume and it was really hot in there.

You jump up and down two times and you're sweating.

Okay.

So I had to sing a whole, I jumped up and down more times.

And I don't know if a panther is hotter than a lobster.

Because a panther, you have a skin and fur.

I had a shell.

Okay.

I'm getting calls.

Do you want to see who it is?

I forgot to to turn off my phone.

Let's see who it is.

It's my son.

Oh.

Alex Mandel.

I'm going to tell him.

Alex, I'm on a podcast right now.

And so are you.

What?

But now you're on the podcast.

Is this the NFT son?

No,

my son-in-law is into NFTs.

But have you bought NFTs, Alex?

I have in the past, yes.

Okay.

Very cool.

Nice.

That's all?

You got anything?

Does he want to buy more?

What did you say?

I might have bad service.

I'm in Japanga.

He might have bad service because he's in...

Remember the girl from Boy Meets World?

He's in the girl from Boy Meets World right now?

I don't know.

That's how I took it.

Bye.

Say hi to her for me.

Bye.

Hi.

All right.

She's doing well.

Moving on.

Okay.

I saw an interesting clip of you on the Joe Rogan podcast where you said you saw a UFO.

Yes.

Do you believe in aliens?

Yes.

I was one myself.

Hmm.

Explain.

The first time I came over the border from Canada, I didn't have the right paperwork or

I wasn't really allowed to be here.

What about aliens from other planets?

Oh,

yes.

Absolutely.

No doubt.

Have you been one of those also or just?

I kind of look with this head, with this shaved head, with this big shaved head.

Maybe.

I don't know what they look like.

I have seen a UFO, and I think it would be incredibly small-minded to think that in this universe and beyond what the naked eye can see, that we are the only living organisms.

I think those people are crazy if they do not believe that.

I don't think just like people point fingers at people who see aliens as being crazy I think the crazier People are the ones who don't believe they exist

Would you go to space?

Yes, what chances of your safety would have to be guaranteed for you to be willing to go to space Like if there's a if there's a 10% chance that you're gonna die Would you still go to space?

No, okay, no, I don't think that when they when you can

When you're given a seat on one of these Jeff Bezos or

I prefer a space to ride but yeah well you know what that's what I was gonna say except the other day did you watch the launch of the SpaceX so I watched it and then I was watching for less than two minutes when it exploded and they said they considered that a success and I went well

okay

then I don't want to seat on that if that was a successful flight Interesting.

Did you not see that?

I didn't see it.

Did you see that?

I did.

Did you see it blow up?

Yeah, I don't want to ride on that successful flight.

I'd like to.

But wasn't that the precursor to the manned flights to the moon?

Yes.

And it blew up

in still my sight.

It wasn't far enough away where I couldn't tell or they could have made up a beautiful story.

I saw it blow up.

And I heard, I saw that with my own eyes.

And I heard with my own ears that the SpaceX people said this is a success.

So

if I was lucky enough to get a a seat on a SpaceX

rocket ship to the moon

and they said, don't worry, Howie, it'll be a success.

They just have different criteria for success than I do.

I wonder why they called it a success.

Did it reach a certain point?

Is that why it was successful?

When I watched the news, they said all they were hoping for was to clear the launch pad.

Okay.

Interesting.

They got some work to do.

They have a lot of work to do.

And I think.

Well, they cleared the launch pad.

Success.

There you go.

I want to talk about what you were like in school.

Okay.

Because I saw an article where you got expelled.

I want to hear about that story.

What were you like?

There's many stories about getting expelled.

I got expelled from many schools.

Ooh, let's dive into this.

So you weren't a good kid in school.

I think I was a good kid.

I think I have

issues and

biological issues that don't allow me to concentrate.

And that's why I'm medicated right now and focus.

And then I didn't have social skills to make friends.

And I didn't really understand what I was doing.

These stories right now are funny, but they were just,

you know, one of the things.

See, I got to give you a little bit of backstory.

The first time, I didn't have a lot of friends, but the first time

I'm aware of joining into

laughter and a really fun,

was

my parents used to watch Candid Camera.

Do you know what?

It's like punked.

Okay.

The precursor to punked.

Got it.

Hidden Camera Prank Show.

And this was the first time that,

you know, I...

I didn't understand.

My parents liked comedy and would listen to albums, but I had no point of reference to know what the stand-up even meant or what, you know, if they would tell a joke about their mother-in-law.

I didn't even know what a mother-in-law was.

I was too young and too

uninformed to know what, but then what, on Sunday nights, they used to watch this prank show, you know, and it was this,

you know, Alan Funt was the guy who created pranks.

And he started on radio, apparently, even before my time.

And then it became a television show, which is...

And then I used to watch this show with them.

And it was kind of like this surprise party where he would explain to me what he was going to do.

And it got exciting.

Like he said, he was going to hire a receptionist to answer the phone.

And he was going to tie a rope to the desk that had the phone.

And the rope was going to go through the wall.

And he would tell the receptionist, you cannot miss one phone call.

And then he would leave the office.

And every time the phone would ring and she would go to grab it, he would pull the rope from the other room.

And the whole desk would fly across the the room and it would make me and my parents laugh.

And that was a really good feeling.

I liked that.

That was funny.

I understood what was happening.

And it was

my perception of what was happening was it's funny and entertaining and comfortable if you put somebody in an awkward position and you control that awkward position.

I never understood that this was a television show, that

you needed an audience.

So I didn't have any friends.

So I would do things all the time at school to kind of replicate this kind of action and with no show.

So

one example was I phoned in the yellow page.

I didn't change my voice or anything.

I was just a kid.

I phoned and said, I would like to add

10 feet onto the west side of the library.

Can you show up and give me an estimate at three o'clock?

And I said that because I knew that at three o'clock, I would be in the math class and I could look down on the field.

And I thought it was funny for me to watch this guy measuring when I'm the guy that called.

There's no reason.

Nobody wants an addition onto the library.

That was my humor.

What was kind of ignorant is it probably would have been funny if I told five other people and I said, guess what?

At three o'clock, you're going to see this guy in the field and he's going to be measuring.

And I sent the guy.

But I never did that.

And I I didn't have anybody to tell.

So I would sit in class and I would give my name to the guy who was measuring.

And I would sit in class and I'd see this guy out there with his clipboard and his measuring tapes.

And then, which I thought was funny, and I wasn't really focusing on math.

And then I'd see the principal or the vice principal walk out and talk to him.

And then I saw the guy walk away.

And then I saw the vice principal walk into the school.

And before you knew it, there was an announcement.

Will Howard Mandel please come down to the office?

And I would go down to the office and he would say, did you hire

a construction company to put an addition onto the library?

And very seriously, I would go, no,

I actually was getting bids.

I have not confirmed with anybody yet.

And it was just that awkward discomfort was, I don't know, like it was a drug to me.

And he'd said, just wait right here.

I'm going to call your parents.

And I go, okay, great.

And I sat there and they would call my parents.

My parents would come in and he would explain to them that Howard had employed a construction company to give a bid on an addition to the library.

And it was also funny for me just to watch my parents bite their lips.

I don't know what they were supposed to say.

We told them never, ever put an addition onto the library.

I don't know what they expected my parents to say.

It's hard to defend that.

Yeah, I can defend.

I love that as a parent.

Oh, well.

It's a great story right now.

You have to realize in the 60s, you know, and

no kid, it became a rumor in school that I did it.

So

the thought of me was more of a

just insane and out of my mind.

Nobody really wanted to hang with me.

You know,

in another school,

this is before the movie Caddyshack, but

I threw a chocolate bar into the swimming pool.

so that it would look like feces at the bottom of the pool, which I thought was kind of funny.

I didn't tell anybody that because I was, it was funny watching, I threw it in or I put it in to wait to see if people noticed, you know, and people go, oh my God, somebody shit in the pool.

Somebody shit in the pool.

And then I would sit back and watch it spread throughout the school.

And then there was an announcement if anybody has any,

you know,

information about who did that.

And at the end of the day, like there was like 200 kids looking at the pool and pointing at this

floater in the bottom of the pool.

And just,

it was just a knee-jerk reaction, but

I dived in and I came up with it in my mouth.

And everybody just screamed and were disgusted with me.

And I didn't have a friend for the rest of the year, and I was asked to leave that school.

Wow.

But there was always, I was always doing things.

These are funny stories now, but in context, you have to remember: you know, I'm,

this is high school.

I'm, I'm four foot 10, four foot 11.

I look like a little girl.

Um, my voice hadn't changed.

I don't have any friends, and I'm doing these bizarre things.

Like in retrospect, I look now, I go, oh, those are really funny.

Why wouldn't I, why the fuck wouldn't I tell 10 other kids, watch this, I'm going to throw a chocolate bar in the pool?

And it's funny.

But just the fact that I did it on my own, just for my own.

And it's

now that I've been in therapy, you know, the thing was that

most of us feel very uncomfortable and discomfort.

And I

felt

I like to make other people feel awkward and uncomfortable and control that so that it made me feel good about my discomfort and awkwardness.

Interesting.

More than entertaining.

But as it turns out, everything I was ever punished for, expelled for, gotten in trouble for is what I get paid for today.

Wow.

The tables have turned.

I could definitely defend the addition on the library as a parent.

The chocolate bar and the pool would be a little harder.

Because with the library, you say, you know, I'm glad someone's taking the library seriously, using school funds for a good purpose.

With the chocolate bar,

you might have lost me at coming up with it in your mouth, right?

Like, that'd be a little hard to defend.

I didn't get a date

for a long time.

Were you bullied in high school?

No, I don't think I was bullied.

Well, if I was, it was my own,

it was because i deserved it like it was not like anybody

found me and and decided to bully me but i almost got i was a fast runner and i was people wanted to stay away because i was weird like i i would do things like um

um

if i walked into the the men's room

And there were two people at the urinals,

I would probably go in between them.

He was that guy?

Oh, I hated that guy in high school.

Yeah, and then they'd run after me.

I'm going,

I didn't,

but I would make it like I didn't understand

what was wrong.

So back then you weren't prescribed any of the medication?

No, nobody talked about mental health.

I'm,

you know, and I wouldn't talk about it until I was in my 40s.

Wow.

I'm old, you know, and there's a stigma attached to mental health awareness.

And I didn't want to be part of that.

And I still feel that, except I know now it is really, and it's actually comforting to talk about because I know that I'm not the only one.

Yeah.

So,

but,

you know, in my era, I'm probably much older than even your parents.

In my era, there was just

the thought was, if I was diagnosed with anything, I'd probably be locked away.

Yeah, I have severe anxiety and I was so ashamed to even talk about it or tell anyone, to be honest.

And it got to the point where I was collapsing on the floor.

And that's when I knew I had to speak up.

This is the real deal.

Well, I have anxiety and I have collapsed and I've been in the emergency room many times and I have anxiety, I have depression, I have OCD.

I think I'm winning.

Wow.

Over you.

Yeah, you got me.

Actually, what about you?

Yeah, I mean, I suffer from anxiety and depression at times.

And it's something that needs to be talked about more often.

You know, I wish it was a more acceptable topic for men to openly speak about mental health, move forward together, and be able to feel comfortable, you know, in environment, in their environment, on social media, whatever it might be, to be able to have these discussions without fear of

men, everybody.

Everyone for sure.

Humans.

Everyone for sure.

You know, and, you know, I always say.

We need to take care of our mental health the way we take care of our dental health.

Nobody has a problem going in and getting a checkup, you know, when it comes to teeth, but not your head.

And I think that's the answer to everything.

I think if we were a mentally healthy society, a lot of the problems would be solved and we'd be probably more productive.

More people would be more productive and happy.

Right.

Do you think taking medication like Xanax and antidepressants is the best way to fight mental health problems?

No.

I think that

getting help is the best way and talking about it is the best way.

I don't know, you know, you're naming medications.

I wouldn't name any particular.

Everybody

has

a different makeup.

And, you know, what's good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander.

And

I just say that

the first step is to talk about it and to talk to friends, loved ones, caregivers, or whatever.

And, you know,

your

medication may just be yoga.

It may be working out.

It may be meditation.

It may be another kind of medication.

And even if you do take a medication and you're prescribed a medication, you know, your body biology

is a continuous changing flow.

So that I've been, as my age, and I was diagnosed in my 40s, whatever medication and levels of those medications that I have taken are not the same as when I started.

You know, so it's constantly changing.

You can't say this pill or this is the answer to somebody else.

But I will say there are always going to be answers.

And there are and it's a constant

puzzle, that answer.

You're not going to go to somebody and get the answer.

You're going to go to somebody and start that journey toward your answer.

I love that.

Do you think social media has helped or hurt people with mental health issues, talk about mental health, or really just in in general, be good or bad for people's mental health?

I think it's good and bad.

I think more bad than good.

I think that the

people's

image of what normal or what they need to be in life is really

curbed by.

what they see on social media and how what other people have,

how other people look,

how people are responding to whatever they're putting up

has a bigger impact than it needs to have.

So, you're probably healthier not being on social media.

That being said, social media is probably what somebody's listening to right now.

And this is a great little

life preserver in allowing you to know you're not alone.

So, it is a great tool of communication and information and

you know,

commerce, but it is also a very scary thing.

You know, it's like it's electricity, it is really good, but if you wet your finger and you put it in the socket, it could be really dangerous.

Yeah,

back to the germaphobia stuff.

Is that something you also had as a child, or did that

develop later?

Always, always.

I cannot remember a time when I didn't have a

crazy fear of

dirt, germs, craziness, craziness.

And so much so that, you know,

I wouldn't tie my shoe.

If my shoe came undone as a kid

and the laces touched the ground, then I would rather walk like a

person with special needs just to keep my shoe on than actually tie my shoe.

And I would rather tell people that other kids were making fun of me because I didn't know how to tie my shoe I'd rather say I don't I don't know how to tie it because I didn't want to touch the laces wow so can you even give your loved ones a hug or handshake or anything

now now but it was really tough I

when I

had the the the wherewithal to

afford

you know, whatever it took to make myself comfortable, I actually built a guest house, which wasn't really a guest house, it was a place for me to go when somebody coughed.

Wow.

So, when my kids were sick, I would go live in the other part of the house or the other house.

You know, so you must have been terrified during COVID.

Well, COVID really screwed me up horribly, and it screwed a lot of people up.

But

listen, I way before COVID, I've gotten help and

medicated.

COVID just sent my therapist and my

medication, my therapist into a whole new tax bracket and my medication doubled.

You know, there is some comfort in

my

issues

rearing their ugly head and then everybody around me saying, don't worry, you're not going to get sick or I'm not sick or I'm not, which is my whole life.

But after 2020, there was nobody saying that anymore.

So that kind of like, you know, you can wake up out of a nightmare, you know, the the nightmare that I had given myself, you know, but during COVID, you couldn't wake up out of a nightmare.

Everybody was living in the nightmare.

And, you know, so that was really hard.

It still is really hard.

But, you know, life is hard.

It is.

I was fascinated with the games that you got set up for your charity, Howie's Games, to help N95 Mask get delivered.

How did that come into fruition?

Because it's very out of the box.

And as, you know, we both do a lot of, of, you know, game building and stuff like that.

It was right in our wheelhouse.

And I, you know, downloaded the app, kind of became infatuated with it.

How did you come up with that idea?

And how did that kind of get built out?

Well, I'm fascinated by technology.

I have, you know,

my main

fuel is curiosity.

I'm still crazy.

I'm as curious as I was when I was five years old.

And I always want to know what the next thing is.

So I'm reaching out to game builders.

I'm reaching out to technology people.

I'm reaching out.

That's what you're in my office now.

We have holograms.

These are just, I slide into people's DMs and go, what is this?

How do I do that?

And that's how the game technology, you know, there was a guy that was building games.

And I said, well, if people are going to come on, let's just,

you know,

instead of putting

money in my pocket right now, let's give it to the world.

You know, maybe that was PPE, right?

That's what that was,

that partnership was.

The holograms are,

I slid into the DMs from proto-hologram.

And I said, I just want to be part of this.

I just want to be able to be in nine places without going anywhere.

As a germaphobe, a hologram company is.

key.

I said, I'll be, I'll do content.

You don't even have to give me money.

And then it turned out

I ended up investing in the company.

I sit on the board and now their head office is in my real estate.

So,

and they're all over the world.

But that's everything that I do is just based on curiosity.

Speaking of money, so you've made tons of money, obviously.

I'm curious how you view money now that you've made a ton of it versus how you used to view it when you were broke.

You still view it?

The same, it doesn't change.

You sold a company.

Do you think of money differently now than you did?

Not yet.

But I think there's a certain point where it's...

Where it's what?

Like, I think if once you make a certain amount of money,

what else are you going to buy at that point?

It's not about buying.

It's the value of the dollar.

You know, and one of my favorite philosophies on money, I read this book, you know, Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

I know you follow Gary Vee.

But Rich Dad, Poor Dad said something to me, which I always thought of.

And he said, even if you're making minimum wage or, you know, the average person in North America figures they got to go to school, graduate, and get a good job.

And I don't know what they consider a good job is, but if you have

a diploma and you're able to get a job where you can make $100,000 a year, then the average person will go, the first thing they'll do is they'll go buy a house for probably three times the value of whatever their paycheck is.

They'll buy a house for $300,000, which means they're buying a debt of $200,000.

And if they're buying a debt of $200,000, why are you doing that?

Where every, think of every dollar you make as an employee.

And how can I make, even if I can make another penny on that dollar, if it's making me, instead of giving it away.

And that's what the game, that's the game I like to play.

The game I like to play is

no matter how much you make, just means you have that many more employees.

And how can each of those dollars, and I don't care if they're $100, $100,000, $1 million, $10 million, or $100 million, will mean you have 100 million employees.

And how can each of those employees make you at least a penny more than their value each and every day?

And that's what the fun for me is.

Interesting.

What do you think of that?

I agree.

I mean, I see money as a lot more of a time, you know, purchaser than anything, right?

What do you mean?

So, I mean, I don't see really a lot of value in money other than money frees up time, right?

It gives you more of your time back.

It's the only finite thing we have.

So, the ability to do more stuff, have more time with your family, do more things that you enjoy while still not suffering financially, to me, that is the ultimate goal when any sort of money thing comes into perspective.

So, it's kind of a different, it's how you look at it.

So, if the dollar is your employee, then you don't have, before you have an employee, you have you.

So, if your dollar can work for you in an investment, and even if that's real estate, like if you move into, instead of buying that house for $300,000, why don't you buy a duplex for $300,000 in a place that is a little less than you'd want to do so that you can charge rent to somebody in that duplex and then you don't have any mortgage because that rent is paying that mortgage.

That's the first thing.

Or you can make an investment in something and whether that something is an NFT or whatever it is so that that can sell for more and it sits on a market or that's growing or it's a stock or it's whatever it is.

Everything's an investment.

And

the more employees you have working for you, if you have a hundred million employees or a million employees working for you, it doesn't matter that each of those employees is only making two cents a week, but they're all, you have a hundred million people making, a hundred million employees making two cents a week.

That's pretty valuable.

So how can I make sure I'm not wasting any dollar I make?

And that's what I like to do.

Do you remember what your first investment was?

Yeah.

So my first investment was I had

the first time I accumulated $10,000.

I had $10,000 or no, $5,000.

I had $5,600 in the bank.

And I bought, my wife was mad at me at the time, but

I didn't trust

show business.

You know what I mean?

You get a lot

for what you do to show up someplace on a talk show, even getting scale, I was getting $200 to show up and talk for five minutes.

So I had $5,600.

I bought a $5,000 term deposit at the time, which was paying something like 12%.

And it was a 10-year

term deposit.

Wow.

So, and then we had $600 in the bank.

I remember my wife was mad at me.

I said, but I'm guaranteed I always have that $5,000.

And I'm guaranteed I'm going to make $750 a year.

Guaranteed.

So now I have $600.

I'm going to go out and try to, you know, cover our rent every month.

I can do that.

I can go do spots at the comedy star.

I was getting like $35 a spot, you know, and I can go do that.

But that's put away.

And that's, and I just want to keep accumulating things that will make me money without me showing up.

I just want that.

So that was the first investment I made was a term deposit.

Interesting.

You've been with your wife for over 40 years.

That's a really long time.

Maybe that's the first investment I made.

In your wife?

Yes.

So she's been with you through everything, which is awesome.

What do you think about the current dating culture where people are just hooking up left and right with whoever and they're not really looking for a long-term relationship.

I respect that.

You know, I don't know that a long-term relationship is

for everyone.

I don't think having kids is for everyone.

I think that you need to do what you need to do and you should do, and you shouldn't judge.

And

though that's how I make a living.

But

I think that as I get older, I realize how

vast our world is in points of view.

And I think the problem is that

when you don't realize that, when a big portion of people because of social media try to be like others, try to look like others, try to be like others, try to earn like others, try to...

And I think if you are content

in who you are and what you need and what you want, I think that that's success.

Success is contentment.

People ask me, how do you make it?

You know, and they're usually asking me, how do you make it in show business or in comedy?

And for me,

April 19th, 1977 is the day I made it.

I got dared to go on stage

in Toronto, Canada.

And I found this acceptance.

I found this laughter.

I found this place that I wanted to show up a couple of times a week.

I found something that was exciting that when I woke up in the morning, it's something I wanted to do.

I think most people are going through life

kind of,

you know,

unhappily.

You know, they talk about Wednesday as being hump day.

They're going halfway through the

get over the humps of showing up every day, doing whatever it is they do because they have to pay the rent.

And then they get to the weekend.

And it's not that anything great is going to happen.

They just don't have to do the shit that they're doing all week.

And I think that if you can find something in life that makes you happy, that you look forward to, that just that one thing, and it's not even about making money, that's making it.

And even if you think you're going to

do something that, especially in social media, that is going to make you famous.

I don't know what fame is.

You know, fame is a bunch of people kind of know your name.

Remember, all those people, including you that know your name, are going to die.

We're all going to die.

You know, so it really doesn't mean anything.

You know, I could tell my grandchildren, they were the most famous people in the 20s, in the 30s.

You know, you couldn't be any bigger

than the Beatles.

I don't know if you even understand how big the Beatles were because you're only 26.

Do you?

I've heard of them.

But you know who they are.

Yeah.

But nobody moved the needle more than the Beatles.

When the Beatles came out, just because everybody watched the Ed Sullivan show at that time, like the world, 100 million people tuned in to like Elvis or the Beatles when they were on.

everybody in the world started wearing their hair like them, dressing like them.

And that's all that was on the radio.

That's all the music we heard.

This is before streaming.

You know, now with streaming, you know, you don't really have top 40 anymore because all of us are kind of siloed into whatever we want to download and whatever we want to, we create our own worlds now.

Our world is not as

we have access to the entire world, but we're very siloed.

I can talk about comedy.

I have so many friends that can play arenas now all over the world that the average person on the street could not even know their name.

There wasn't a time when I was coming up in comedy where you could have somebody that would play an arena

and not everybody knew their name everybody knew their name that's how you were able to sell but now you can have you can garner enough of an audience where you could sell out or be the number one streaming song and there's a huge

swath of the world that doesn't even know who you are

yeah with the tick tockers

everybody tick tock is one of them so you can have i have a almost 11 million followers on tick tock

99% of the people who know who I am are not on TikTok.

They're older.

That TikTok audience is a specific audience.

The NFT audience is a specific audience.

And we're really much more siloed than we ever were.

I forget what the question was.

So siloed.

Yeah, I don't remember the question.

We'll pivot.

I'm surprised to hear you take such a strong stance on the Beatles because I read that you're a huge Stones fan.

I am.

So if you could go back in time to, let's say, you know, 17-year-old Howie, you can go to either a Beatles concert or a Stones concert.

Where are you going?

Well, I like the Stones personally.

I would have gone to a Stone.

I will go to a Stones concert.

I go to every Stones.

All I'm saying is that

unlike the Stones did not change the world the way the Beatles did.

The Beatles had an amazing effect.

As somebody who was alive when they made their first appearance on the,

I remember my grandfather going, What do you go get a haircut?

You look like a Beatle.

You know, the Stones were just great music.

Something went there.

It goes.

Their background went off.

Do you, are you?

Did you hire Kenny?

I don't know.

Okay.

Anyway, the thing is that

the Beatles had a much bigger change on

pop culture than

the Stones were just hugely famous and great, and I love them.

The Beatles

had a big change on pop culture.

Much bigger.

There's not even a comparison.

The longevity the Stones had was unparalleled, though.

I remember my parents going to a Stones concert in Sacramento in like the 90s for some time.

Well, the fact that the Stones are still together and the Beatles broke up, you know, there's no more.

But nobody had that.

It's kind of like,

I can't imagine, I can't think of in my lifetime or even before

a pop icon changing the way.

I think the last time I, that something else changed like that, I mean, it's going to sound silly and it is silly now, but I think Madonna kind of changed the way young girls were dressing and presenting themselves.

You know, she was,

right?

She was kind of that, I mean, you guys are

too young.

I wasn't alive for it, but yes, I've heard of the movement.

And that actually brings up another question: Did Madonna or Michael Jackson have more of an impact in the 80s on pop culture?

I think Madonna probably

had more of an impact on pop culture.

I think that Michael Jackson was a bigger star, a bigger international star.

Because

his style and what he did could not be replicated by others.

Whereas Madonna

was the, I remember it sounds silly now, but you know, she, she came out in her,

it was shocking that she was wearing a, what

looked like lingerie on stage.

And then that became the fashion model for young girls everywhere.

I don't remember everybody dressing like Michael Jackson.

I don't know that you wanted to, but you wanted to listen to his music and you wanted to go to his concerts.

But there are people that make this, that show up on the scene and change the way,

you know, now it's the Kardashians.

I think that a lot of people not only watch and worship the Kardashians, they want to be a Kardashian.

And if you look online, a lot of young girls, you go, oh, that's kind of like, she kind of looks like Kim, you know, and they're getting surgically changed to look like that.

So not since the Beatles, not since Madonna, and now the Kardashians are creating what is

an accepted look for females today on Instagram.

100%.

I see that.

Yeah, it makes sense.

And, you know, it makes me wonder, because you've enjoyed success, not at the SpaceX level, across a multitude of generations.

You don't know.

I could explode right now.

Well, if that's your definition of saying, please don't, can we leave before you do, okay?

Is there a guiding principle that you think has applied to, you know, you in the 60s, in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, 10s, and now, you know, in 2023 with 11 million followers on TikTok, is there just like a single fact that you find true across all of these generations?

A fact?

For me personally, it's always been curiosity.

I think that when people are young and that's what becomes of pop culture, people are curious.

And you, you, that's probably how you found NFTs.

You know, you're online and you see, oh, the, I got into this game and I get into this art and this and I get into that.

Oh, that's amazing.

I want to create something like that.

I want to do something like that.

I want to get involved.

And you know what's going on in your world and you're curious.

And this is the music I like.

And these are the concerts I like to attend.

And this is the music I like to download.

This is also, oh, these are the kicks that I like.

These are the, this is the, the way I like to dress.

This is the way I like to look.

I find that most people,

having surpassed that age, that most people get to an age where, you know, that can become tiresome, where they don't give a shit about what people are wearing, what people are listening to, what people are playing.

And that could be your parents.

And, and, and, you know, and then you get to an age where you go, oh, that's not music.

You know, when I was a kid, that was music.

Or you want to play a good game?

Or that's not art.

The Mona Lisa's art.

Go to the Louvre.

What are you looking at this NFT for?

What is a gorilla?

Why is anybody paying that kind of money?

But if you're curious, you stay with it.

And you'll find that your parents or older people will find a style.

that they're comfortable with, a haircut that they're comfortable with, music that they're comfortable with, and you just stop.

People just stop because it gets tiresome.

And even artists just stop.

The Rolling Stones don't really write new music anymore.

And they don't, there was a time when they were incredibly prolific.

And I couldn't wait for the new Rolling Stone song, or I couldn't wait for the new Beatles song, or I couldn't wait for the Everybody You Love Today is going to stop.

You know, whether that's post-Malone or whatever, you'll stop, you know, and then that will become just because

they're not interested anymore.

We lose curiosity.

And for me personally,

I'm crazy curious.

I sit with my kids all day online.

I have FOMO.

It's probably part of my neurosis and probably part of my anxiety of fearing that I'm missing out or missing something.

So I'll go online and see there's a hundred million clicks on something.

And then I read the comments and they go, this is hysterical.

And I'll say to my son who called, you know, everybody's saying this is really funny and there's a hundred million people who are enjoying it.

And I'll be honest with you, Alex, I don't get it.

Tell me why this is funny.

What are they enjoying?

What is the, how is that funny?

What is that?

And I'm fascinated by why is that drawing that?

Why is that drawing an audience?

You know, I come from before I was in show business, retail.

I want to be able to, we were talking before this about the fire festival.

You know, I'm amazed at somebody who can garner, there isn't a person alive that doesn't want to garner a ton of interest for whatever

thing they're doing right you want whether you open up a deli you know you want everybody to talk about your deli you want everybody to show up at your deli like why are people attracted to this why is everybody interested in mr beast's burgers you know why is every like why is that over

you know anything else more than Burger King at this point.

So why?

And I keep asking why and how.

And as long as I ask those questions and it's just for my own personal interest,

I seem to be continued to be invited to the party.

You know,

and that's okay.

That's

an effect

after effect of whoever I am and whatever I do.

But more importantly, I wake up and I want to know.

And there's nothing wrong with not wanting to know, to be content with

what you know, what you have, and what you're interested in.

But I want to hear the new music.

I want to see the new game.

I want to know the new technology.

I want to see what people are trading.

I want to see the new currency.

I want to know what the new art form is.

I just am interested.

So that's just who I am.

Right.

But that's probably as a result of my mental health issues.

Interesting.

So you're using it more as a benefit then because your curiosity for learning has kept you relevant in various industries.

You know, it's a coping skill.

It's not a benefit.

You know, listen, if my mental health issues are a gift, I would like to regift and give them away because they cause me more...

You know, I'm up all night looking at everything, everything.

And I just, I'm afraid I won't know and that the world's moving on without me.

Wow.

You know, and so I look at everything and I'm interested in everything and I want to know why this is working or why who you are.

You know,

what is, who are you?

And how did you get into this?

And why did you,

how did you sell your company?

I asked you a lot of personal questions going into this, uncomfortable questions.

And I realized, you know, I walk away always when I'm with my family and they go, you asked that?

I go, is that too much?

But I always, I'm just really curious, really interested and were you like that in school too when you were learning in school

more interested in things that not things that they were teaching me because it didn't

a lot of the things that were in you know i don't have a ged

and i i wanted one i i like education but i like being i like learning things that i'm interested in and kind of trying to understand how they apply to whatever my life is and what doing.

You know, I like making people laugh.

I want to know why 100 million people are clicking on this.

I like

art.

I want to know why these NFTs selling here are worth more than this.

Why is that?

I wanted to understand.

I ran to Paris to go to the Louvre to see Mona Lisa.

That was one of the biggest conundrums of my life.

Have you ever seen the Mona Lisa?

No, how much is it worth?

Well, it's priceless.

I don't know what it's worth, but it's

you look at it, you go, if this was invented today and this was an NFT and somebody wanted to sell that, that it would, it wouldn't sell.

So it's amazing.

What I'm realizing is we create markets.

We create value.

We create,

it's just, it's all bullshit.

Everything is bullshit.

Value is bullshit.

Wow.

It is.

It's a bold statement.

But it is.

You know, you have a cotton t-shirt, a black cotton t-shirt, and you go to Old Navy and you could buy that for a three-pack for 15 bucks.

If you put,

if you write Versace on it or Calvin Klein on the same cotton t-shirt, all of a sudden we've said that that logo, that NFT, is worth 10 times the value.

And it's because people believe that.

Wow.

Right?

You have a sneaker and you put a swish on it.

It's worth more than a sneaker with an upside-down swish on it.

You can attach it.

The upside-down swish is actually worth more, is it?

It is.

Okay.

Because you're right, because value is all bullshit.

But we create value.

Yeah.

You know, one day somebody's going to dig this up, whatever we're doing, and they're going to dig up your sneakers.

And you're going to go, you know, this was, this is how they traded.

You know, this is what they,

it's, what was worth something

200 years ago has no value today.

And what look at an NFT today, what somebody is paying for it, it didn't even exist 20 years ago.

And it's garnered all this

interest now.

And what will garner interest tomorrow may not even be something that I can articulate right now.

And we create it.

So how do, and that's what I find fascinating.

How do we create, I want to create value.

I want to create value in something funny.

I want to create value in something entertaining.

I want to create, I just want to create things that you're interested in partaking in, whether you're buying it, listening to it, watching it, just looking at it.

And I find humanity incredibly

curious, incredibly interesting.

And I want to, because I feel so out of control, I want to see how much control I can have while I'm here in kind of navigating

even what you look at.

Interesting.

Wow.

I read an article.

I've read articles too.

Well, this one said you have four secret talents.

Whoa.

And you were unwilling to share them with the article that was being written at the time.

Is this a thing?

I don't know.

I don't know what I said.

I probably said I have four secret talents just that they would say, what are they?

And they're secret.

And then your answer was, yes, they're secret for a reason.

Yes.

I don't know that I have.

I would imagine I have much more than to share, but I don't know what they are.

I'm finding them out as I go along in life.

I didn't know I couldn't do that.

Look, look at what you guys did.

Look what you're doing.

That's a secret talent.

If somebody told you, you said you're 26?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So when you were 15 years old, what were you doing?

I was a high school stoner.

Okay.

So if somebody told you that you were going to

on the internet allow people to trade images

just through your little site,

and you were going to be able to create

a generational wealth

from that.

As a stoner, you probably would have.

Fuck you.

I would have thought they were crazy.

I mean, I literally became a millionaire in 10 minutes when I launched my NFT, and it just changed my life from there.

And

did you go into that knowing to say because that's how I feel about April 19th, 1977, walking on stage?

And that was going to be a joke.

That was a dare.

I didn't aspire to be a comedian.

I didn't think I was going to be in show business.

I definitely didn't believe I'd live in California and be in a building.

You're in my building here.

You know, to think that that day of putting a rubber glove on my head

would change my life.

Did you, when you,

you said in 10 minutes, so you, you, what you created an nft so i launched an nft project prior to that i had no idea it would do well or not so it could have flopped i could have made nothing or if it sold out i would make 2.4 million dollars it ended up selling out in 10 minutes so i went from being broke i think i had like 30k to my name at the time um to becoming a millionaire in 10 minutes it was the craziest day of my life and but but and that's not you you

when you did it there was no thought.

I just, this is something you want to do, right?

Yeah, I wanted to build a cool community of basketball fans.

That's how I met Charlie, met some great people.

Gary even saw the project, reached out.

So it's just been a journey.

Right.

But it was something you're passionate about, right?

Your basketball.

You did.

You're basketball.

Love basketball.

And your first NFT was a basketball NFT or something?

Yep.

So that's what I'm telling people.

If you find something, and it's not about becoming a millionaire, it's like even if that

you would have put that up and made another 30 grand or not

you you would be happy you really would it's about doing that's making it making it isn't the money making it isn't the result making it isn't how many people know your name or know what you look like or know who you are or listen to this podcast making it is finding something where oh today i'm gonna put my nft up today i'm gonna show up on stage today i'm gonna do my podcast Today I'm going to go meet my hero.

Today I'm going to go to Vegas for the first time in my life.

Today I'm going to, and we don't have enough of that in our life.

And what I want to do, what I want to do, as soon as we take the focus off of what other people are doing and what you, how you are not like that other person or how you have less than that other person or how your thing is not as good as that other person or you don't look like that other person, as soon as you can find something that you

are passionate about and you're just excited about doing it, whether anybody buys it, sees it, wants it, that's making it.

I love that.

That's powerful.

I agree a thousand percent.

You just got to find your passion.

That's it.

And then a lot of times those passions

will flip.

That's not why to do it.

That's not why to be.

We'll flip into changing your life like your life changed.

But you will not

by trying to mimic

what you think your image of what somebody else's success is agreed yeah and that's the problem with social media i think a lot of people start comparing themselves and it gets kind of tricky you know well everything social media is designed to

um like a drug to

like the success is based on likes the success is based on views the success is based on comments the success is based if you don't need any of that to feel okay,

it's about feeling okay.

And in life, all I want is contentment.

I want to have fun.

I want those highs.

You know, listen, I struggle without social media, without money, without a career.

I struggle just to maintain

every waking moment, just to feel content, not anxious, not scared.

not sad, not worried.

I just, that's my whole life is just to stay level, let alone,

you know, and then I realized from the outside, I've done okay.

I have, and I'm still trying even with money and even with whatever perceived success somebody thinks I have, I still feel like I'm, you know, just walking a thin line on a wall that you can fall off of.

It's tricky, man.

I was so scared of being judged on social media that I didn't post a video for five years.

And then eventually I'm just like, screw this.

I'm just going to do it.

Started posting twice a day.

And it's cool, man.

My friend Heidi Klum turned her comments off.

Really?

You can't comment on a Heidi Klum post.

Did she do that because she was getting hate?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And she's a beautiful, successful supermodel who does pretty well.

Why was she getting hate?

Because you just do.

Humanity is, those are the people that are awoken by anything you...

post.

Those are the things you'll notice.

That's the fire.

That's the flame.

You know, everything else is fuel.

Just somebody throws a match into that and you guess.

And those are the people,

that's the anything you post.

And if you're posting because you're proud of something, because you want to

highlight something,

most people are unhappy.

Most people don't feel success.

you know, and

the only way that they can feel better about themselves is by kicking you.

And if they kick you, then they can go, well, that's stupid what you're doing, or that's stupid.

You know, if they can kick you,

it gives them, it takes some of the self-doubt away from them if they can find something in you.

So I think that it awakens, the trolls are the people that

make the most noise on social media.

Negativity is making, you know, you're nice is not going to get commented on.

Well, that's nice.

Congrats isn't going to get commented on.

But you idiot, you stole it.

That's like my idea.

That's not even your idea.

You look like an idiot.

Well, even if it doesn't go viral, it's just the thing that people, that's what it awakens.

That's what, you know, there wasn't a time

when unhappiness and anxiety.

and darkness had a voice.

You know, it was, you know, aside from, you know, negative reviews in newspapers, which made more noise than this is a good movie,

and The Inquirer and people like that and all these rags that are gossip columnists.

Now we're all gossip columnists.

So everybody, every kid, everybody who's alone in the room, not feeling good, if you're angry, go tell somebody else.

Go tell them what you really think of

their negativity.

That's true, man.

All my most viewed videos are a lot of hate.

You've noticed that too, right?

Yeah, we were talking about how controversy gets boosted in the algorithm the most, which is probably touching on what you said earlier, where so hate is good and bad.

And that's a bad part of that.

It drives controversy and drives people apart.

I would love to see the algorithm start boosting a little bit of unity.

It won't happen.

It won't happen.

That's not fuel.

You know, think of fuel.

Fuel burns.

You know, it's a good analogy, but it burns.

If you can't light fuel, then you are not going to move forward.

So people are moved forward by, that's why it's called gaslighting.

That's why you want fuel.

That's why you want to burn.

And that's why maybe success is blowing shit up.

You know, it's just that's, that's the voice that's going to stand out.

And as somebody who's a stand-up comic, I could stand in a room of thousands of people.

If one person in my periphery is not laughing, That's all I notice.

I can get a standing ovation.

I can get a roar.

But if one person up front is just hating it, and you can ask any comic any performer that's what they notice and if you have a video that goes viral but you get a couple of negatives I think that that's standing out to you too you're not human if you're not yeah I'll get like a hundred positive comments and two negative and I'll think about the negative or even if you get a hundred negative comments a hundred negative comments but the video has five million views you still only have a hundred people said something negative out of five million that's such a small right and those are the idiots who are not happy people and then go click on their follows that's somebody with probably 30 followers it's not anybody of any

that can that could really affect your life right so how do you deal with your haters on social media and how do you deal with haters when you're performing comedy

i don't

you just ignore them um no i don't i don't i see them but i don't know how to deal with them I don't deal with them.

I see them.

It bothers me.

It's hurtful.

It's hard,

but I can't say anything more.

I don't know.

I don't answer.

I don't try to appease.

I can't, but it hurts.

Interesting.

You take the opposite approach.

I feel like you tackle it head on.

I do.

You know, I...

I do not enjoy confrontation, but I know that it exists and I do kind of tackle it head-on.

And that's had, you know, good and bad things for me as well.

It's probably good.

You know,

the one thing that people want on social media is engagement.

So they're trying to engage.

So if you engage, but what happens is if you engage, you will gaslight it and it open it up.

So if you engage, like I used to do that, somebody used to say something terrible and I used to go, I can't thank you enough.

You know, and then what I used to find that did is that got, that engagement blew up a little bit and made them more mad.

And then people who liked me would take on my fight.

You know, people who, but I don't, I just

I read it.

I'm being honest.

I read, I read all of it.

Wow.

I know.

It's not good.

It's not healthy.

I don't have any advice.

Yeah, it's tough to deal with, man.

Well, Howie, it's been a pleasure.

Any closing comments?

Anything you want to promote?

No, I think it's been a pleasure.

I think that I'm a pleasure.

I really,

and even if you weren't here, I would have pleasured myself.

Oh, that didn't come off well.

Do you want some of my merch?

Sure.

I have merch.

See,

where stuff, Howie Mandel Does Stuff is my podcast

with my daughter, which I do.

And I'm, and

that seems to be taking off.

That's my highlight right now: doing my podcast, Howie Mandel Does Stuff.

Love it.

Yeah, I do.

I do love it.

I don't have the same sponsors as you.

Oh, Manscaped?

I think at the beginning we had Manscape.

It was hard for me to talk about, I'm doing it with my daughter.

Right.

How do I talk about how do me and my daughter discuss manscaped?

That's tricky, but maybe they should.

It is tricky.

And she did a lot of the ad reads.

So she was reading about manscaping her father, which is not, yeah.

See?

It's not a good thing.

Yeah, that's a bit weird.

Though, Manscape, if you're listening, I love the product, and I'd be happy to re-engage if you want to.

There we go.

But in the meantime, I got some...

Rich, you want to give them merch?

Yeah, let's do it.

I'll wear a shirt.

You'll wear stuff.

You can wear a shirt.

You got a hoodie.

You tell us what you want, your sizes, and we'll get you stuff.

It's not just a t-shirt with stuff.

We have stuff.

You got more than that.

Oh, you got more than that?

Well, there you go.

All right.

Yeah, there's stuff.

Stop.

Do you guys have merch?

Not yet.

Coming soon.

Coming soon.

We got to to get on your level.

But yeah, it's been a blast, man.

Thanks for everything.

I don't get like an NFT or anything.

We'll give you a chibi diet.

We have a chibi dino for you.

Can I have a chibi dino?

You absolutely can.

I would love one.

Perfect.

Got you.

All right.

Oh my God.

I had to work hard to just get a little bit.

Sorry.

I should have offered that.

I gave them shirts.

I gave them my presents.

And I had to beg for a chibi dino.

All right.

Thank you, Howie.

It's been a pleasure.

See you guys next week, Digital Social Hour.

Thanks for tuning in.