Why Mike Rowe Doesn’t Want to ‘Own Anything’
By Movieguide® Contributor
DIRTY JOBS star Mike Rowe exemplifies how hard work can help you succeed, but despite his success, he’s not focused on material things.
“I’m a renter. I don’t want to own anything. I never have. It’s more to maintain and store and keep up with,” Rowe said on an episode of “Millionaires in Cars Getting Coffee” with George Kamel.
“I do think it was actually Anthony Robbins who said, ‘The more things you own, the more things own you.’ I believe that’s true. Like anything else it takes on its own inertia, and once you get used to not possessing things, it becomes intoxicating,” he added.
Rowe, who just released his movie SOMETHING TO STAND FOR, took his “less is more” mentality into every area of his life, saying that he was the “opposite of a collector.”
“I went through a few years where I wore it like a badge of honor,” Rowe explained.
This mindset influenced his work as well.
“I started looking for ideas that were sure to fail, and then I would attach myself to them. I’d do the best I could, and therefore, I was never blamed for the failure of the pilot sitcom or the pilot talk shows that I did or the infomercials,” Rowe explained.
“I touched everything like it was hot,” he continued. “I avoided all encumbrances, and I got paid for that, and I saved all of my money, and I invested it as wisely as I could, and I never bought anything, and I was happy. I was taking my retirement in early installments.”
Thanks to his frugality and hard work, Rowe has the time and resources to help others succeed, in part through his mikeroweWORKS Foundation which encourages people to reject college and pursue the trades instead.
“We’re on a mission to help close the skills gap by challenging the stigmas and stereotypes that discourage people from pursuing the millions of available jobs. We’re redefining the definition of a good education and a good job, because we don’t think a four-year degree is the best path for the most people. We want people to understand the impact of skilled labor on their lives, and we’re convinced that the solution has to start with a new appreciation for hard work,” his website explains.
Rowe is also vocal about his love for America, so much so that he produced a movie he calls a “love letter” to the country.
Movieguide® previously reported on SOMETHING TO STAND FOR:
Mike Rowe has something to say about his new docudrama, SOMETHING TO STAND FOR.
“Like most of my career, it was a combination of Forrest Gumpery and serendipity,” he told The Stream of what inspired the movie. “I had been working on a podcast called The Way I Heard It, and still am. I started that about eight years ago. Basically, it started as a collection of stories that were written in the style of Paul Harvey.”
“I love the idea of learning something I didn’t know about somebody I did, but getting a chance to figure it out along the way. So it was a short-form podcast with a mix of history and mystery. I called it ‘Stories for the Curious Mind with a Short Attention Span,’ and just started writing about some of my favorite people,” the DIRTY JOBS star explained.
“And that podcast turned into a thing, and I wrote a few hundred stories for it. And then it turned into a book, and then it turned into a TV show. And then some smart guy said, ‘Hey, around an occasion, maybe Christmas or maybe the 4th of July, why don’t you get a couple of relevant stories together, and we’ll do a movie?’”
- Content: +3Share:
- Content: +1