October 12, 2023 • 30 mins
In this episode, Karol starts by addressing the recent attacks on Israel and shares her personal connection to the issue as a Jewish person. She urges others to understand the fear and pain that Jewish people are experiencing and suggests ways to support them. Karol is then joined by Clay Travis and talks about his career journey and his perspective on success. He emphasizes the importance of finding a career that one enjoys and aligning it with their aspirations. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Buck Sexton and you're listening to the Carol
Markowitz Show on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show. This
is not going to be a political show. It was
important to me that this show be on bigger topics
and not just news of the day. But the news
right now is extremely personal to me, and so I
have to say something about it. On Saturday morning, Israel
(00:30):
was attacked. I'm sure you've seen the horrifying videos and stories.
I'm not going to go over any of that. I've
barely slept since Saturday. The images, they really stay on
my mind. We're just getting to know each other on
this podcast, so I wanted to tell you a little
bit more about myself. I mentioned last episode that I
(00:53):
was born in the Soviet Union. I'm Jewish, and that's
actually how my family was able to get out. I
won't go into the whole history, but I do enjoy
noting that my family owes their freedom to President Gerald Ford.
He negotiated for Jews to be let out of the
Soviet Union because we were being persecuted for our religion.
(01:15):
We couldn't hold various jobs, live in certain places, and
so on. I feel like people sometimes don't understand that
Judaism is a religion, yes, but we are also a people.
That's why I can take a DNA test and find
out that I'm Jewish, but you can't similarly take a
DNA test for other faiths and find out that you're
(01:36):
Catholic or Muslim or something. So in the Soviet Union,
we were Jews as our nationality. That's what it said
on our papers. It wasn't like you could convert out
of it. Some of you might know Jews from the
Soviet Union who live in America and refer to themselves
as Russian, maybe not recently, but then you come to
(01:58):
find out they were born in Ukraine or Belarus or elsewhere.
But that's because we were never Russian or Ukrainian or Belarussian.
We were just Jews. My family moved to Brooklyn, New
York when I was a small child, and despite the
fact that my parents are both atheists, because again Soviet
(02:19):
I went to an Orthodox Jewish school for the first
eight years of my life. I mentioned that because I
want to give you some insight into what little Jewish
kids learn in Brooklyn. All day. We learned about peace.
Our songs were about making peace, we read books about peace,
We prayed for peace. I've been lucky in some ways
(02:42):
because my ex Soviet world, and my politically conservative world,
and my Florida world are all overwhelmingly pro Israel. So
I never fear in speaking out that I'm going to
lose friends or something. And while I noticed the silence
of some people I follow, I really don't have anyone
in my life arguing that murdering babies or kidnapping grandma's
(03:03):
is just to be expected. And honestly, I know some
Jews are angry about it, but I somewhat understand the
people who are not speaking out. If you're not Jewish
and you want to stay out of it, I get it.
You can feel disgusted by the images of dead bodies
at a music festival but not take to Facebook to
let your friends know how you feel. It's understandable. But
(03:26):
I am Jewish and I can't stay out of it.
I can't be quiet. Those dead people are me. I
see my children's faces in the faces of the kids
that were taken. I won't pretend otherwise. I can't. Of course,
if you comment on every single other catastrophe around the world,
(03:47):
and are suddenly silent on this. Yes, we notice, and
there are a lot of people like that, big time
activists for every cause, who care a lot about everything
except dead Jews. We notice. One of the things that
is hard about this current moment is that people hear
your support for Israel or just general opposition to rape
(04:11):
and slaughter, and immediately imagine you're pushing a policy position.
I'm sure there are people who want the US to
get involved in Israel's fight. I'm not one of them.
I think Israel can handle her own business and will
understand that you're being lied to. If you hear the
Jews in general or Israelis in particular, are asking for
(04:33):
American involvement, it's simply untrue. We're afraid right now. I
always saw America as a safe haven for Jews, and
I always referred to American Jews like myself as the
luckiest Jews in history. But I'm not going to lie.
It's been a tough few years. There was a moment
where there were attacks on Jews every day, and so
(04:54):
many people rush to excuse them. It was happening in
Brooklyn daily and other Jews shrugged. I remember Kanye West
said Hitler was right, and way too many people invited
him on their shows to hear more about that. It
hasn't felt great. If you have Jews in your life,
(05:15):
understand that they are really going through something right now.
None of us are functioning well. All of us are afraid.
Good people have asked what they can do and how
they can help. There are Israeli charities you can support.
I've listed some on my Twitter. You can check in
with your Jewish friends, especially if they have family in Israel,
(05:36):
which many of us do. Another thing is, if you
go shooting, offer to take your Jewish friend. Silly as
that may sound, many of us didn't grow up in
a shooting culture, and many of us are very interested
in protecting ourselves but don't know exactly how. Listen. I
want my kids to sing those songs of peace, and
i want them to work for peace, but I'm also
(05:58):
going to teach them how to shoot as soon as
they are old enough. And I'm never going to cower
to people who hate us for an identity we couldn't
shed if we wanted to. So that's it. This is
a podcast about life and this is what's going on
in my life right now. Coming up next is an
interview I did with Clay Travis, recorded before the war
in Israel began. Join us after the break. My guest
(06:25):
today is my friend Clay Travis, co host of The
Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show and author of the
best selling book American Playbook.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Hi, Clay, how are you, Carol?
Speaker 1 (06:34):
I appreciate you having me on. Yes, I've got my
own copy. I hope you're enjoying it. It's supposed to
be a fun read, and so I hope you're enjoying it.
I hope anybody else who's reading it I am.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
I haven't reached the part where you are insulting the
Dallas Cowboys yet.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I'm always thinking, like, hey, can I write an entertaining
book for people who might not otherwise be interested in
a politics book?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
And I like to think that I have done. So
we'll see whether or not that continues to be a case.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
I mean, I'm loving it, and you know, I mean,
let's just get right into it. But you know, you
mentioned in your book that you are a history nerd,
and you know this is something that I did know
about you already. I have two sons, and you know,
one is a sports kid, you know, a superstar in
football and nic name every player on every team, and
the other one is super into history. I've really never
seen anybody kind of merge those two interests. Do you
(07:27):
feel like you're unique in that way?
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Maybe? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
I mean, I've always been obsessed with sports and also
obsessed with history my whole wife. When I was six
years old, I don't think this is in the book,
but what I wanted to do for my sixth birthday.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Was go to the Alamo. So my dad took me
to the Alamo.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
I wanted to go to every Civil War battlefield growing
up and read everything about the Civil War. Also, and
when you're a kid, I think you think whatever you
do is normal, and then you get to be an
adult and you raise your own kids, and you're like, yeah,
knowing everything about the Alamo when you're six years old
(08:11):
is not like a normal thing, right, And also simultaneously
knowing everything about let's say SEC football and Major League
baseball when you're six.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
But uh, I don't know where that all came from.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
I was always a massive reader, and uh, you know,
I would say maybe the reading thing was abnormal, But
being obsessed with sports meant that I couldn't be any
body on the planet who liked sports, and I felt
like I had always that that dichotomy where you could
have like sort of a super nerdy interest. As I know,
(08:45):
I say this in the book because my wife still
refuses to believe that she married somebody who went to
Civil warst sleep away Camp and had.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Kids with them, and.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Camp scholarship kid to Civil Wars sleep Away Camp is
a different universe, right, But I do think that that
that whole aspect to me kind of always felt intertwined,
and I see it in my kids. My oldest, in particular,
as a monster sports fan, was also great at debate,
and whereas I was super interested in the Civil War
(09:21):
when he was young, he was very, very interested in
World War Two, and he would read everything about World
War Two, and so I saw that. I don't know
where that comes from, but I saw that a little
bit in him, and I said, Okay, this kind of
is in some way a reflection I think of me.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
So you have the biggest radio show in the country.
Did you always want to be in radio?
Speaker 3 (09:39):
No? I didn't.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
I didn't look I growing up, listened to sports talker
radio as a young kid. And so when my dad
would pick me up at school or whatever what we did,
and we were driving home, and it's funny, I had
my he just turned nine, but I had my eight
year old in the car recently, and I was listening
to sports talk radio and he just reminds me a
(10:01):
lot of me as well.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
But he said, Dad, can.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
You believe there's a radio station where all they do
is talk about.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Sports, Like that's the best thing ever.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
And you know, like he'll just sit there and listen
to it, and he knows all the players, and they
got the fantasy football teams and everything else.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
So I was.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Interested in radio, Like as a kid, I called into
local sports talk radio to talk about whatever at the top.
I mean I would sit on wait on hold for
forty five minutes to an hour or whatever and be
super nervous. So I was interested in aware of sports
talk radio. But you know that I went to college
and then I went to law school, and so I
(10:39):
thought that I.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Would do something with the law degree.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
And I had what I would call a quarter life
crisis where I was in my law firm and I
was twenty five years old, and I just almost had
like this panic attack come over me because I was like,
oh my god, this could be the next forty years
of my life. So I thought writing that I would
My goal was to make a living as a writer,
(11:03):
and in my mind, I knew writing and radio and TV.
I still think of myself as a writer, even though
it's a small part of what I do on a day.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
To day basis now. But that was my love.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
So I would have said, you know, if you've been
talking to me when I was fifteen, and if you said, Clay,
what do you want to do when you grow up,
if you had told me that I could make a
living as a writer, I'd be like, that's the greatest
job in the history of the world. And I went
and got a law degree, but I also got an
MFA and thought that I would like to teach creative writing,
(11:38):
that I would like to teach creative writing as the
way in which that I would make a living. And
I taught creative writing at Vanderbilt, and I still think
that I'm minored in creative writing in college. I still
think that's probably one of the best jobs out there
to live on a college campus, and just get to
teach kids writing, creative writing in particular. But I probably
(12:00):
would have said at fifteen, what do you want to
do if I could make a living as a writer?
Either I would have probably said fiction at that point
in time, because I'd always been a huge reader.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
But that's probably what I would have thought I would do.
I never really.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Thought radio or television or anything like that was likely
to be a career path.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Do you feel like you've made it.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
So? No? But yes in some ways. Let me explain
what I mean by that.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
About a decade ago, I was at a minor league
baseball game, Triple A, which is one level below the
major leagues, and I remember feeling like I was a
Triple A media talent. I felt like I could be
a major league player, but I was doing local sports
talk radio in Nashville. I was running my own website
(12:50):
at the time, out Kick, but I wasn't a major Yeah,
I wasn't a major league player yet, but I felt
like I had the talent to be in the major leagues.
I feel like I'm in the major leagues, and that's
great because I don't have to worry about paying my
mortgage or whether my kids can afford to go to college.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Like those things are great, but I still feel.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Like I'm not at the top level performance that I
can be. So I feel like maybe I'm in major
leagues and I still can prove that I'm an all
star and so so I feel like I'm fortunate to
be in the major leagues, but I don't feel like
I've reached, you know, the apex ability of what I
could could accomplish.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
What's it like living a public life, Like do you
get recognized everywhere you go? And like what you know,
any any.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Hate or it's mostly positive where I live now. Remember
I live in Nashville, and I think that's probably different
than if I lived in New York or LA.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Maybe the reactions would be would be different.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
But I think about it more in the context of
my kids, because they're getting old enough now where recognize
that Dad doesn't have a normal job, and like I
had a conversation with them the other day where I said, hey,
you know, you're getting old enough where you may hear
people say things about what I do or what I say,
(14:12):
And I said, that's great. You know, I'm fortunate to
get to be able to say exactly what I think
but I said, all I ever want you guys to
do is judge me on Dad, Like, don't let anybody
else what they're saying publicly about anything that I do.
You know me better than anybody who's going to write
about me. You live in the house with me. If
I'm doing a good job as dad, which is my goal,
(14:33):
then judge me on that. Everybody has jobs. The job
you can be good at or bad at. The praise
can come or go. You asked about whether I feel
like I've made it. What I would say, and I
bet you've seen this too, is media careers are very
much like roller coasters. Like you're really high up and
you think, oh man, everything's going great, and then somebody
(14:54):
like you'll lose something and you go back down, and
then you climb your way back up and then I've
just seen you know, I've been in media for twenty
years now, you know, a generation, and I've just seen
that happen so many times, where you think, oh, this
is really great, and then you get fired and then work,
you know, as hard as a can, and then you know
it may not be anything that you did. You know,
(15:16):
like I started out kick because FanHouse shut down the
site that I was at. I loved it. I would
have kept doing it for the rest of my life.
So I just think you have to The thing that
I would say I'm proud of is I think I'm
a pretty good dad. I'm not as good of a
dad as my dad was. He was phenomenal, but I
think I'm a pretty good dad. And I think I'm
(15:37):
an okay husband, and I've been married almost twenty years,
and I think I'm pretty good at radio writing and TV.
And so when you ask, I think it's such a
good question. Do you feel like you've made it? Here's
a way that I would think about it. If I
could go back in time right now, would I change anything?
My answer is no, because I'm very comfortable with where
(15:59):
I am today. That doesn't mean I've not made a
lot of mistakes. It doesn't mean that I'm not incredibly
flawed and imperfect like every person out there. But I'm
very comfortable in my own skin and with where I
am today, and I wouldn't want to change anything, Like
I wouldn't want to not go to law school, or
I wouldn't want to go to a different college, or
certainly I wouldn't want to you know, not get married.
(16:20):
I got married at twenty five years old. Like, I
wouldn't change anything. I would the only thing I would
I would want to have had more kids.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
I don't think. I don't think I'm going to have
any more. I think we got three.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
I feel happy that we have three healthy and happy
kids right now. But you know, other than like, I
would like to have five or six kids because I've
got the ability to take care of them, and I
think they're so amazing and so unique as I know,
you know, as a parent.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
But other than that, I wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
There's not really anything in my life that And I
fought for us to have three, so I feel like
I won that battle. My wife, I think, would have
said stayed it two, but I would have had four
or five or six if the timing had worked out
a little bit different.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Well, it's funny because in the book you say I
don't think I'm going to have a daughter, and I
was like, he's thinking about possibly having a fourth.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Oh. I say to my wife all the time, like
you're not.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
You know, I don't think. I mean, I mean, that's
a maybe.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
It's a maybe for me, it's a no for her.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
So so, and usually mom wins in these battles because
having a child for me is a lot less work
than having a child for her, as I will readily acknowledge.
But yeah, I would.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
I would.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
I think it would have been cool to have a
daughter and see what it's like to raise a daughter
compared to having, you know, three boys.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
I'm very happy to have three boys.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Thankful that I don't have three girls, trust me, but
I would like to have had three boys and maybe
a girl too.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
All right, Well, I was going to ask you how
long you've been married. You said almost twenty years. Do
you have any advice for newlyweds.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Oh, that's a good question.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I mean your co host is a newlywed, have you.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
We've not talked about this with Buck. I mean because
Buck's in a unique spot because he didn't get married
lafter he was forty. And you know, men get so
set in their ways that I think it's actually more
challenging for men if they stay single for that long
to get married than it is depending on how old
your husband is. I think women are way more mature
(18:15):
than men. And what I mean by that is like
a lot of the whole marital process like, I never
really just thought about it that much. Like I feel like,
you know, for instance, the age at which you should
have kids. My wife just said she's two years older
than me. She was like, yeah, we're going to start
trying to have kids now. And like, as a man,
(18:38):
I think because you have the luxury of like, you
could have a kid at sixty, right, Probably not advisable,
but you could. Like so that the clocks are different
for women than men, and so I would say women
probably need.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
In my opinion, to.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Be more linient with men, particularly early in marriage, because
they're not what you want them to be. What I
have come to find out is ye, most men when
they get married, in my experience, would love for their
wives to stay the exact same forever, right, especially if
(19:20):
you're getting married young. We would like, we would like,
we love everything about you. We would like for you
to be eternally the exact same way you are right now.
Every woman basically gets married to a guy in my experience,
with the idea being he's okay, but I'm gonna you know,
like you women go into like, hey, I'm going to
(19:42):
rehab this.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Now we see potential.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah, you guys invest in potential. Men invest in the
reality of now, and so men are very comfortable I
think oftentimes into now, and women are very comfortable with
the He isn't just kind of okay now, but in
ten years he can be a good dad.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
I think is going to have a good future. Like
that's what I'm saying about.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
You guys see a longer trajectory and range than.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
I think a lot of men do. And I'll give
you an easy example.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Every man when they get engaged has no idea what
the next step is. Every woman is like ready to
figure out every aspect of the marriage within, like in
terms of the ceremony and everything else where it should happen,
what the time is, or you know, it gets on
the phone with her mom and like it's it's like
the whole apparatus is moving in place. Because you guys
have all been thinking about it. I can barely even,
(20:30):
you know, like conceive of all the details that were involved.
So I just think women are way more involved.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
I wasn't one of those women who had thought about
what her wedding would be like, and that was a
mistake because you can't figure it out in a short
period of time. You need those years of planning, like
which I realized, you know, I realized in retrospect I
hadn't done. Yeah, so I you know, I think it's
I think it's the right way to go. That women
think about it for a long time before and then
(20:57):
you get to the most expensive event of your life
and I.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Don't know what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
And the other thing I would say was I was
very conscious of what I wanted.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
I wanted good looking and super smart.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Those were my two criteria, right, and I think I
went I hit a home run on.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
That, But you got it.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
I think a lot of men focus on the good
looking and they don't necessarily focus on the like idea
of hey, you're potentially going to be having children with
this person, like I want, you know, the offspring to
also be successful, so you know, and also thinking about.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
What was not pretty dumb, Yeah, what kind.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Of mom uh your potential significant other would be. So
I would say two men focus less on the immediate
Oh she's really pretty, I really like her right now,
and more on okay, ten years, twenty years, what's the trajectory.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
So the potential you want to think about than we do.
M Yeah, so what do you think are like some
of our largest societal problems in America, Like, what do
you worry about for your kids?
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:07):
So my thing that I hammer home to my boys,
and I try to say this every time I go
talk to young audiences is focus on what you can control.
I'm big on individual responsibility, but also just the only
thing you can really control is your work ethic. You
can't control how the world around you responds to you,
(22:28):
but I can control that. I work super hard every day.
So I say, graduate from high school. These are minimum standards,
by the way, but if every kid could do this,
I think the country would be far better. Graduate from
high school, get a job, get married, don't have a
kid until you're twenty five, white, Black, Asian, Hispanic, gay,
(22:48):
straight male female. If you do that, your poverty rate
is zero, no matter how poor your family circumstances were
for your upbringing, and then you can provide a better
opportunity for your kids.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
That would be my pitch.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
My concern, and I write about this a lot in
the book, is that we have allowed identity politics to
completely take over our body politic. And what I mean
by that is you'll often hear somebody say hey, as
a transgender woman. I believe, and I always think like,
(23:24):
if you put your identity in front of your opinion,
why should I care Your opinion is either a valid
and a good argument or it's not. I don't care
about the things you didn't control. And I'm concerned that
when we were growing up, because you're around my age,
it seemed like what we were taught was most people
are pretty similar, right, whether despite your background, your common humanity.
(23:49):
In America, most people are pretty similar. And now I
think what we're often teaching kids is you're all very dissimilar,
and that's because of things you didn't you as opposed
to things you did choose, like the idea that that
your race and your your your gender, to me are
two of the least interesting things about people.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
The things that you don't the things that you don't.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Choose are are are far more interesting to me, so
far less interesting to me than things that you do choose.
And I think we focus on identity over everything else.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
So is that solvable?
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Is that? Yeah? I think it is what.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
I think we have to have a landslide election, and
we have to have somebody who can speak to and
I think we're starting to see it right, because the
argument when Trump won in sixteen was oh, he's super
racist and Republicans are doomed forever to only have white voters.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
And then what's happened.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Hispanic, Asian and Black voters have actually become more likely
to vote Republican in twenty twenty and in twenty twenty
two than they were before Trump. Because I think the
fundamental lie that dimmocrats and I should say left this
because there's some Democrats who would reject this, but the
fundamental lie that Democrats tell is that America is an
awful racist place and that's just simply not true.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
That brown people are dying.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
To literally every day black and brown people die trying
to get into this country. If this were the most
racist country out there, their decision to do that would
make zero sy So I think that's the fundamental lie
that Democrats have brought into Then I think it's rooted
in identity politics because this idea that all white men
are evil. I used to joke and I still do
(25:33):
make this joke visually, but like I pick the worst
time ever to become a rich white guy for basically
all of American history. If you're a rich white guy,
like everything you were, like you the best person ever,
and now I suddenly I was poor. My family was poor,
you know, basically our whole life, and now I'm a
rich white guy like that, How dare you be a
(25:53):
rich white guy? You're you've done everything that's wrong with America.
I'm like, I went to public school. I didn't even
grow up in a good part of Nashville.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
And here with your best tip for my listeners on
how they can improve their lives. What's the advice that
you think people should follow to make their lives better.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
I think it has to be that you completely own
your own success or failure, and whatever you find that
you have a skill in that you enjoy spending time in.
I said, I had a quarter life crisis. Being a
lawyer's not an novel job. My grandfather's worked in factories
their whole lives. There are a lot of bad jobs,
(26:33):
trust me, I know, and a lot of jobs that
stink and also don't pay well, which is a double combo.
But I think if you can find something that you
don't look at the clock while you do over time,
you will win. If you can find a way to
do that. I looked at the clock all the time.
When I practice law, I couldn't wait for the day
(26:56):
to be over so I could leave and no longer
be required to be practicing laws. I don't look at
the clock when I sit down and write. I don't
really look at the clock other than to make sure
we hit time breaks. When I sit down to do radio,
I haven't looked at the clock from this entire conversation
that you.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
And I are having.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
That's because I enjoy it, and I think you can't
fake enjoyment because over time, if you like what you do,
you will be more successful at that than someone who
does not like what they do.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
So if you can.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Mirror your your advocation with something that you enjoy spending
time doing, you're going to be successful in it.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
I also would say this, figure.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Out, if you have a job, look and see what
your boss's boss does. If you don't think that you
would like to do what your boss's boss does, then
you probably shouldn't be in that profession because what are
you building toward what.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
You know?
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Like in the law firm, I'd be like, oh, the
name partner, Well, he just gets paid more to.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Do basically the same thing that I do.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Now, I was in a small law firm, so I
could see kind of what they did that wasn't for me.
Doesn't mean I couldn't have been successful at it, but
ultimately I would have never succeeded like someone who loved it.
And I think the reason I've had success in media
is because I genuinely love what I get to do.
And final way, by the way Carol would be when
(28:29):
I sold out Kicked two years ago, I feel like
I kind of won the lottery, and I think everybody
sits around and thinks, oh, what would I do if
I won the lottery? How would I spend my life?
Like everybody has had that fantasy and everybody's played through it.
That's the entire basis of why the lottery works as
a business, right, It's that fantasy fulfillment. To me, the
ultimate answer is I would wake up and keep doing
(28:52):
what I'm already doing. If you answered that, then you
are living a life that you can be. I think
successful and proud and happy in And I felt like
I had that experience where I woke up, Okay, I
won the lottery. I've got money, I've got the ability
to do lots of things. What do I want to
do oh wait, I want to keep doing exactly what
(29:14):
I'm already doing. I think that's why I ended up
winning the lottery, because I had already worked myself into
a place where I was so happy doing what I
was doing.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Thank you so much. I really love that answer. That's
some really great advice. I think our listeners should definitely
listen to that. Thank you Clay for coming on. Loved
having you, and please come back any time.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Well, by the way, you are killing it. I love
reading your columns. You are super talented At your show.
You probably shouldn't expect to get praised all the times
by the guests, but I am really impressed with how
talented you are the work that you are doing. The
only negative thing I can say is that your poor
Cowboy fan son is going to be miserable for most
(29:56):
of his life because he's a Cowboys fan.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
I really hope we play the Titans sometimes.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Well. Titans fans are definitely my worse courage.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Thanks Clay, Thanks so much Clay Travis for joining the
Carol Markowitz Show. We'll see you again on Mondays and Thursdays.
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, it's Buck Sexton and you're listening to the Carol
Markowitz Show on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show. This
is not going to be a political show. It was
important to me that this show be on bigger topics
and not just news of the day. But the news
right now is extremely personal to me, and so I
have to say something about it. On Saturday morning, Israel
(00:30):
was attacked. I'm sure you've seen the horrifying videos and stories.
I'm not going to go over any of that. I've
barely slept since Saturday. The images, they really stay on
my mind. We're just getting to know each other on
this podcast, so I wanted to tell you a little
bit more about myself. I mentioned last episode that I
(00:53):
was born in the Soviet Union. I'm Jewish, and that's
actually how my family was able to get out. I
won't go into the whole history, but I do enjoy
noting that my family owes their freedom to President Gerald Ford.
He negotiated for Jews to be let out of the
Soviet Union because we were being persecuted for our religion.
(01:15):
We couldn't hold various jobs, live in certain places, and
so on. I feel like people sometimes don't understand that
Judaism is a religion, yes, but we are also a people.
That's why I can take a DNA test and find
out that I'm Jewish, but you can't similarly take a
DNA test for other faiths and find out that you're
(01:36):
Catholic or Muslim or something. So in the Soviet Union,
we were Jews as our nationality. That's what it said
on our papers. It wasn't like you could convert out
of it. Some of you might know Jews from the
Soviet Union who live in America and refer to themselves
as Russian, maybe not recently, but then you come to
(01:58):
find out they were born in Ukraine or Belarus or elsewhere.
But that's because we were never Russian or Ukrainian or Belarussian.
We were just Jews. My family moved to Brooklyn, New
York when I was a small child, and despite the
fact that my parents are both atheists, because again Soviet
(02:19):
I went to an Orthodox Jewish school for the first
eight years of my life. I mentioned that because I
want to give you some insight into what little Jewish
kids learn in Brooklyn. All day. We learned about peace.
Our songs were about making peace, we read books about peace,
We prayed for peace. I've been lucky in some ways
(02:42):
because my ex Soviet world, and my politically conservative world,
and my Florida world are all overwhelmingly pro Israel. So
I never fear in speaking out that I'm going to
lose friends or something. And while I noticed the silence
of some people I follow, I really don't have anyone
in my life arguing that murdering babies or kidnapping grandma's
(03:03):
is just to be expected. And honestly, I know some
Jews are angry about it, but I somewhat understand the
people who are not speaking out. If you're not Jewish
and you want to stay out of it, I get it.
You can feel disgusted by the images of dead bodies
at a music festival but not take to Facebook to
let your friends know how you feel. It's understandable. But
(03:26):
I am Jewish and I can't stay out of it.
I can't be quiet. Those dead people are me. I
see my children's faces in the faces of the kids
that were taken. I won't pretend otherwise. I can't. Of course,
if you comment on every single other catastrophe around the world,
(03:47):
and are suddenly silent on this. Yes, we notice, and
there are a lot of people like that, big time
activists for every cause, who care a lot about everything
except dead Jews. We notice. One of the things that
is hard about this current moment is that people hear
your support for Israel or just general opposition to rape
(04:11):
and slaughter, and immediately imagine you're pushing a policy position.
I'm sure there are people who want the US to
get involved in Israel's fight. I'm not one of them.
I think Israel can handle her own business and will
understand that you're being lied to. If you hear the
Jews in general or Israelis in particular, are asking for
(04:33):
American involvement, it's simply untrue. We're afraid right now. I
always saw America as a safe haven for Jews, and
I always referred to American Jews like myself as the
luckiest Jews in history. But I'm not going to lie.
It's been a tough few years. There was a moment
where there were attacks on Jews every day, and so
(04:54):
many people rush to excuse them. It was happening in
Brooklyn daily and other Jews shrugged. I remember Kanye West
said Hitler was right, and way too many people invited
him on their shows to hear more about that. It
hasn't felt great. If you have Jews in your life,
(05:15):
understand that they are really going through something right now.
None of us are functioning well. All of us are afraid.
Good people have asked what they can do and how
they can help. There are Israeli charities you can support.
I've listed some on my Twitter. You can check in
with your Jewish friends, especially if they have family in Israel,
(05:36):
which many of us do. Another thing is, if you
go shooting, offer to take your Jewish friend. Silly as
that may sound, many of us didn't grow up in
a shooting culture, and many of us are very interested
in protecting ourselves but don't know exactly how. Listen. I
want my kids to sing those songs of peace, and
i want them to work for peace, but I'm also
(05:58):
going to teach them how to shoot as soon as
they are old enough. And I'm never going to cower
to people who hate us for an identity we couldn't
shed if we wanted to. So that's it. This is
a podcast about life and this is what's going on
in my life right now. Coming up next is an
interview I did with Clay Travis, recorded before the war
in Israel began. Join us after the break. My guest
(06:25):
today is my friend Clay Travis, co host of The
Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show and author of the
best selling book American Playbook.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Hi, Clay, how are you, Carol?
Speaker 1 (06:34):
I appreciate you having me on. Yes, I've got my
own copy. I hope you're enjoying it. It's supposed to
be a fun read, and so I hope you're enjoying it.
I hope anybody else who's reading it I am.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
I haven't reached the part where you are insulting the
Dallas Cowboys yet.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I'm always thinking, like, hey, can I write an entertaining
book for people who might not otherwise be interested in
a politics book?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
And I like to think that I have done. So
we'll see whether or not that continues to be a case.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
I mean, I'm loving it, and you know, I mean,
let's just get right into it. But you know, you
mentioned in your book that you are a history nerd,
and you know this is something that I did know
about you already. I have two sons, and you know,
one is a sports kid, you know, a superstar in
football and nic name every player on every team, and
the other one is super into history. I've really never
seen anybody kind of merge those two interests. Do you
(07:27):
feel like you're unique in that way?
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Maybe? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
I mean, I've always been obsessed with sports and also
obsessed with history my whole wife. When I was six
years old, I don't think this is in the book,
but what I wanted to do for my sixth birthday.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Was go to the Alamo. So my dad took me
to the Alamo.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
I wanted to go to every Civil War battlefield growing
up and read everything about the Civil War. Also, and
when you're a kid, I think you think whatever you
do is normal, and then you get to be an
adult and you raise your own kids, and you're like, yeah,
knowing everything about the Alamo when you're six years old
(08:11):
is not like a normal thing, right, And also simultaneously
knowing everything about let's say SEC football and Major League
baseball when you're six.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
But uh, I don't know where that all came from.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
I was always a massive reader, and uh, you know,
I would say maybe the reading thing was abnormal, But
being obsessed with sports meant that I couldn't be any
body on the planet who liked sports, and I felt
like I had always that that dichotomy where you could
have like sort of a super nerdy interest. As I know,
(08:45):
I say this in the book because my wife still
refuses to believe that she married somebody who went to
Civil warst sleep away Camp and had.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Kids with them, and.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Camp scholarship kid to Civil Wars sleep Away Camp is
a different universe, right, But I do think that that
that whole aspect to me kind of always felt intertwined,
and I see it in my kids. My oldest, in particular,
as a monster sports fan, was also great at debate,
and whereas I was super interested in the Civil War
(09:21):
when he was young, he was very, very interested in
World War Two, and he would read everything about World
War Two, and so I saw that. I don't know
where that comes from, but I saw that a little
bit in him, and I said, Okay, this kind of
is in some way a reflection I think of me.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
So you have the biggest radio show in the country.
Did you always want to be in radio?
Speaker 3 (09:39):
No? I didn't.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
I didn't look I growing up, listened to sports talker
radio as a young kid. And so when my dad
would pick me up at school or whatever what we did,
and we were driving home, and it's funny, I had
my he just turned nine, but I had my eight
year old in the car recently, and I was listening
to sports talk radio and he just reminds me a
(10:01):
lot of me as well.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
But he said, Dad, can.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
You believe there's a radio station where all they do
is talk about.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Sports, Like that's the best thing ever.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
And you know, like he'll just sit there and listen
to it, and he knows all the players, and they
got the fantasy football teams and everything else.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
So I was.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Interested in radio, Like as a kid, I called into
local sports talk radio to talk about whatever at the top.
I mean I would sit on wait on hold for
forty five minutes to an hour or whatever and be
super nervous. So I was interested in aware of sports
talk radio. But you know that I went to college
and then I went to law school, and so I
(10:39):
thought that I.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Would do something with the law degree.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
And I had what I would call a quarter life
crisis where I was in my law firm and I
was twenty five years old, and I just almost had
like this panic attack come over me because I was like,
oh my god, this could be the next forty years
of my life. So I thought writing that I would
My goal was to make a living as a writer,
(11:03):
and in my mind, I knew writing and radio and TV.
I still think of myself as a writer, even though
it's a small part of what I do on a day.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
To day basis now. But that was my love.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
So I would have said, you know, if you've been
talking to me when I was fifteen, and if you said, Clay,
what do you want to do when you grow up,
if you had told me that I could make a
living as a writer, I'd be like, that's the greatest
job in the history of the world. And I went
and got a law degree, but I also got an
MFA and thought that I would like to teach creative writing,
(11:38):
that I would like to teach creative writing as the
way in which that I would make a living. And
I taught creative writing at Vanderbilt, and I still think
that I'm minored in creative writing in college. I still
think that's probably one of the best jobs out there
to live on a college campus, and just get to
teach kids writing, creative writing in particular. But I probably
(12:00):
would have said at fifteen, what do you want to
do if I could make a living as a writer?
Either I would have probably said fiction at that point
in time, because I'd always been a huge reader.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
But that's probably what I would have thought I would do.
I never really.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Thought radio or television or anything like that was likely
to be a career path.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Do you feel like you've made it.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
So? No? But yes in some ways. Let me explain
what I mean by that.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
About a decade ago, I was at a minor league
baseball game, Triple A, which is one level below the
major leagues, and I remember feeling like I was a
Triple A media talent. I felt like I could be
a major league player, but I was doing local sports
talk radio in Nashville. I was running my own website
(12:50):
at the time, out Kick, but I wasn't a major Yeah,
I wasn't a major league player yet, but I felt
like I had the talent to be in the major leagues.
I feel like I'm in the major leagues, and that's
great because I don't have to worry about paying my
mortgage or whether my kids can afford to go to college.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Like those things are great, but I still feel.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Like I'm not at the top level performance that I
can be. So I feel like maybe I'm in major
leagues and I still can prove that I'm an all
star and so so I feel like I'm fortunate to
be in the major leagues, but I don't feel like
I've reached, you know, the apex ability of what I
could could accomplish.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
What's it like living a public life, Like do you
get recognized everywhere you go? And like what you know,
any any.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Hate or it's mostly positive where I live now. Remember
I live in Nashville, and I think that's probably different
than if I lived in New York or LA.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Maybe the reactions would be would be different.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
But I think about it more in the context of
my kids, because they're getting old enough now where recognize
that Dad doesn't have a normal job, and like I
had a conversation with them the other day where I said, hey,
you know, you're getting old enough where you may hear
people say things about what I do or what I say,
(14:12):
And I said, that's great. You know, I'm fortunate to
get to be able to say exactly what I think
but I said, all I ever want you guys to
do is judge me on Dad, Like, don't let anybody
else what they're saying publicly about anything that I do.
You know me better than anybody who's going to write
about me. You live in the house with me. If
I'm doing a good job as dad, which is my goal,
(14:33):
then judge me on that. Everybody has jobs. The job
you can be good at or bad at. The praise
can come or go. You asked about whether I feel
like I've made it. What I would say, and I
bet you've seen this too, is media careers are very
much like roller coasters. Like you're really high up and
you think, oh man, everything's going great, and then somebody
(14:54):
like you'll lose something and you go back down, and
then you climb your way back up and then I've
just seen you know, I've been in media for twenty
years now, you know, a generation, and I've just seen
that happen so many times, where you think, oh, this
is really great, and then you get fired and then work,
you know, as hard as a can, and then you know
it may not be anything that you did. You know,
(15:16):
like I started out kick because FanHouse shut down the
site that I was at. I loved it. I would
have kept doing it for the rest of my life.
So I just think you have to The thing that
I would say I'm proud of is I think I'm
a pretty good dad. I'm not as good of a
dad as my dad was. He was phenomenal, but I
think I'm a pretty good dad. And I think I'm
(15:37):
an okay husband, and I've been married almost twenty years,
and I think I'm pretty good at radio writing and TV.
And so when you ask, I think it's such a
good question. Do you feel like you've made it? Here's
a way that I would think about it. If I
could go back in time right now, would I change anything?
My answer is no, because I'm very comfortable with where
(15:59):
I am today. That doesn't mean I've not made a
lot of mistakes. It doesn't mean that I'm not incredibly
flawed and imperfect like every person out there. But I'm
very comfortable in my own skin and with where I
am today, and I wouldn't want to change anything, Like
I wouldn't want to not go to law school, or
I wouldn't want to go to a different college, or
certainly I wouldn't want to you know, not get married.
(16:20):
I got married at twenty five years old. Like, I
wouldn't change anything. I would the only thing I would
I would want to have had more kids.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
I don't think. I don't think I'm going to have
any more. I think we got three.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
I feel happy that we have three healthy and happy
kids right now. But you know, other than like, I
would like to have five or six kids because I've
got the ability to take care of them, and I
think they're so amazing and so unique as I know,
you know, as a parent.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
But other than that, I wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
There's not really anything in my life that And I
fought for us to have three, so I feel like
I won that battle. My wife, I think, would have
said stayed it two, but I would have had four
or five or six if the timing had worked out
a little bit different.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Well, it's funny because in the book you say I
don't think I'm going to have a daughter, and I
was like, he's thinking about possibly having a fourth.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Oh. I say to my wife all the time, like
you're not.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
You know, I don't think. I mean, I mean, that's
a maybe.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
It's a maybe for me, it's a no for her.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
So so, and usually mom wins in these battles because
having a child for me is a lot less work
than having a child for her, as I will readily acknowledge.
But yeah, I would.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
I would.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
I think it would have been cool to have a
daughter and see what it's like to raise a daughter
compared to having, you know, three boys.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
I'm very happy to have three boys.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Thankful that I don't have three girls, trust me, but
I would like to have had three boys and maybe
a girl too.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
All right, Well, I was going to ask you how
long you've been married. You said almost twenty years. Do
you have any advice for newlyweds.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Oh, that's a good question.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I mean your co host is a newlywed, have you.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
We've not talked about this with Buck. I mean because
Buck's in a unique spot because he didn't get married
lafter he was forty. And you know, men get so
set in their ways that I think it's actually more
challenging for men if they stay single for that long
to get married than it is depending on how old
your husband is. I think women are way more mature
(18:15):
than men. And what I mean by that is like
a lot of the whole marital process like, I never
really just thought about it that much. Like I feel like,
you know, for instance, the age at which you should
have kids. My wife just said she's two years older
than me. She was like, yeah, we're going to start
trying to have kids now. And like, as a man,
(18:38):
I think because you have the luxury of like, you
could have a kid at sixty, right, Probably not advisable,
but you could. Like so that the clocks are different
for women than men, and so I would say women
probably need.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
In my opinion, to.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Be more linient with men, particularly early in marriage, because
they're not what you want them to be. What I
have come to find out is ye, most men when
they get married, in my experience, would love for their
wives to stay the exact same forever, right, especially if
(19:20):
you're getting married young. We would like, we would like,
we love everything about you. We would like for you
to be eternally the exact same way you are right now.
Every woman basically gets married to a guy in my experience,
with the idea being he's okay, but I'm gonna you know,
like you women go into like, hey, I'm going to
(19:42):
rehab this.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Now we see potential.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah, you guys invest in potential. Men invest in the
reality of now, and so men are very comfortable I
think oftentimes into now, and women are very comfortable with
the He isn't just kind of okay now, but in
ten years he can be a good dad.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
I think is going to have a good future. Like
that's what I'm saying about.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
You guys see a longer trajectory and range than.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
I think a lot of men do. And I'll give
you an easy example.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Every man when they get engaged has no idea what
the next step is. Every woman is like ready to
figure out every aspect of the marriage within, like in
terms of the ceremony and everything else where it should happen,
what the time is, or you know, it gets on
the phone with her mom and like it's it's like
the whole apparatus is moving in place. Because you guys
have all been thinking about it. I can barely even,
(20:30):
you know, like conceive of all the details that were involved.
So I just think women are way more involved.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
I wasn't one of those women who had thought about
what her wedding would be like, and that was a
mistake because you can't figure it out in a short
period of time. You need those years of planning, like
which I realized, you know, I realized in retrospect I
hadn't done. Yeah, so I you know, I think it's
I think it's the right way to go. That women
think about it for a long time before and then
(20:57):
you get to the most expensive event of your life
and I.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Don't know what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
And the other thing I would say was I was
very conscious of what I wanted.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
I wanted good looking and super smart.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Those were my two criteria, right, and I think I
went I hit a home run on.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
That, But you got it.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
I think a lot of men focus on the good
looking and they don't necessarily focus on the like idea
of hey, you're potentially going to be having children with
this person, like I want, you know, the offspring to
also be successful, so you know, and also thinking about.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
What was not pretty dumb, Yeah, what kind.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Of mom uh your potential significant other would be. So
I would say two men focus less on the immediate
Oh she's really pretty, I really like her right now,
and more on okay, ten years, twenty years, what's the trajectory.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
So the potential you want to think about than we do.
M Yeah, so what do you think are like some
of our largest societal problems in America, Like, what do
you worry about for your kids?
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:07):
So my thing that I hammer home to my boys,
and I try to say this every time I go
talk to young audiences is focus on what you can control.
I'm big on individual responsibility, but also just the only
thing you can really control is your work ethic. You
can't control how the world around you responds to you,
(22:28):
but I can control that. I work super hard every day.
So I say, graduate from high school. These are minimum standards,
by the way, but if every kid could do this,
I think the country would be far better. Graduate from
high school, get a job, get married, don't have a
kid until you're twenty five, white, Black, Asian, Hispanic, gay,
(22:48):
straight male female. If you do that, your poverty rate
is zero, no matter how poor your family circumstances were
for your upbringing, and then you can provide a better
opportunity for your kids.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
That would be my pitch.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
My concern, and I write about this a lot in
the book, is that we have allowed identity politics to
completely take over our body politic. And what I mean
by that is you'll often hear somebody say hey, as
a transgender woman. I believe, and I always think like,
(23:24):
if you put your identity in front of your opinion,
why should I care Your opinion is either a valid
and a good argument or it's not. I don't care
about the things you didn't control. And I'm concerned that
when we were growing up, because you're around my age,
it seemed like what we were taught was most people
are pretty similar, right, whether despite your background, your common humanity.
(23:49):
In America, most people are pretty similar. And now I
think what we're often teaching kids is you're all very dissimilar,
and that's because of things you didn't you as opposed
to things you did choose, like the idea that that
your race and your your your gender, to me are
two of the least interesting things about people.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
The things that you don't the things that you don't.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Choose are are are far more interesting to me, so
far less interesting to me than things that you do choose.
And I think we focus on identity over everything else.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
So is that solvable?
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Is that? Yeah? I think it is what.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
I think we have to have a landslide election, and
we have to have somebody who can speak to and
I think we're starting to see it right, because the
argument when Trump won in sixteen was oh, he's super
racist and Republicans are doomed forever to only have white voters.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
And then what's happened.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Hispanic, Asian and Black voters have actually become more likely
to vote Republican in twenty twenty and in twenty twenty
two than they were before Trump. Because I think the
fundamental lie that dimmocrats and I should say left this
because there's some Democrats who would reject this, but the
fundamental lie that Democrats tell is that America is an
awful racist place and that's just simply not true.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
That brown people are dying.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
To literally every day black and brown people die trying
to get into this country. If this were the most
racist country out there, their decision to do that would
make zero sy So I think that's the fundamental lie
that Democrats have brought into Then I think it's rooted
in identity politics because this idea that all white men
are evil. I used to joke and I still do
(25:33):
make this joke visually, but like I pick the worst
time ever to become a rich white guy for basically
all of American history. If you're a rich white guy,
like everything you were, like you the best person ever,
and now I suddenly I was poor. My family was poor,
you know, basically our whole life, and now I'm a
rich white guy like that, How dare you be a
(25:53):
rich white guy? You're you've done everything that's wrong with America.
I'm like, I went to public school. I didn't even
grow up in a good part of Nashville.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
And here with your best tip for my listeners on
how they can improve their lives. What's the advice that
you think people should follow to make their lives better.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
I think it has to be that you completely own
your own success or failure, and whatever you find that
you have a skill in that you enjoy spending time in.
I said, I had a quarter life crisis. Being a
lawyer's not an novel job. My grandfather's worked in factories
their whole lives. There are a lot of bad jobs,
(26:33):
trust me, I know, and a lot of jobs that
stink and also don't pay well, which is a double combo.
But I think if you can find something that you
don't look at the clock while you do over time,
you will win. If you can find a way to
do that. I looked at the clock all the time.
When I practice law, I couldn't wait for the day
(26:56):
to be over so I could leave and no longer
be required to be practicing laws. I don't look at
the clock when I sit down and write. I don't
really look at the clock other than to make sure
we hit time breaks. When I sit down to do radio,
I haven't looked at the clock from this entire conversation
that you.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
And I are having.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
That's because I enjoy it, and I think you can't
fake enjoyment because over time, if you like what you do,
you will be more successful at that than someone who
does not like what they do.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
So if you can.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Mirror your your advocation with something that you enjoy spending
time doing, you're going to be successful in it.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
I also would say this, figure.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Out, if you have a job, look and see what
your boss's boss does. If you don't think that you
would like to do what your boss's boss does, then
you probably shouldn't be in that profession because what are
you building toward what.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
You know?
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Like in the law firm, I'd be like, oh, the
name partner, Well, he just gets paid more to.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Do basically the same thing that I do.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Now, I was in a small law firm, so I
could see kind of what they did that wasn't for me.
Doesn't mean I couldn't have been successful at it, but
ultimately I would have never succeeded like someone who loved it.
And I think the reason I've had success in media
is because I genuinely love what I get to do.
And final way, by the way Carol would be when
(28:29):
I sold out Kicked two years ago, I feel like
I kind of won the lottery, and I think everybody
sits around and thinks, oh, what would I do if
I won the lottery? How would I spend my life?
Like everybody has had that fantasy and everybody's played through it.
That's the entire basis of why the lottery works as
a business, right, It's that fantasy fulfillment. To me, the
ultimate answer is I would wake up and keep doing
(28:52):
what I'm already doing. If you answered that, then you
are living a life that you can be. I think
successful and proud and happy in And I felt like
I had that experience where I woke up, Okay, I
won the lottery. I've got money, I've got the ability
to do lots of things. What do I want to
do oh wait, I want to keep doing exactly what
(29:14):
I'm already doing. I think that's why I ended up
winning the lottery, because I had already worked myself into
a place where I was so happy doing what I
was doing.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Thank you so much. I really love that answer. That's
some really great advice. I think our listeners should definitely
listen to that. Thank you Clay for coming on. Loved
having you, and please come back any time.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Well, by the way, you are killing it. I love
reading your columns. You are super talented At your show.
You probably shouldn't expect to get praised all the times
by the guests, but I am really impressed with how
talented you are the work that you are doing. The
only negative thing I can say is that your poor
Cowboy fan son is going to be miserable for most
(29:56):
of his life because he's a Cowboys fan.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
I really hope we play the Titans sometimes.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Well. Titans fans are definitely my worse courage.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Thanks Clay, Thanks so much Clay Travis for joining the
Carol Markowitz Show. We'll see you again on Mondays and Thursdays.
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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