April 11, 2025 • 30 mins
In this episode, Robbie Starbuck shares his journey from a successful career in Hollywood to becoming a conservative activist. He discusses the influence of his Cuban heritage on his political beliefs, the challenges of navigating friendships in a politically charged environment, and the impact of current events on the younger generation. Starbuck also addresses the corporate world's embrace of woke culture and its consequences, while offering insights on parenting and the importance of perseverance and rational decision-making in life. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Wednesday & Friday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi, Welcome back to Carol Mark Wood Show on iHeartRadio.
There's been this kerfuffle on the right in the last
few days. Megan Kelly had a clip where she talked
about how conservative men don't want their women to work.
Let's roll that clip.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Here's what's happening on the right young women. And I
talk to young conservative women all the time about their
lives and their goals and you know, the things that
they want. And what's happening is they can't find men
who are maybe more conservative. Usually they're looking for somebody
who is religious, you know, like a lot of conservative
women tend to be God, God loving conservatives, and they
(00:43):
can't find a lot of young men who want to
marry a working woman. Now, this is an actual problem
that's coming up on the right, and to me, it's
so sad because it's like, how did we get to
the point where we were now telling young conservative, amazing
women that they're not attractive if they also work. If
(01:04):
they choose to, let's say, do what I'm doing and
what you're doing and get their voice out there. But
I'll stick with me just because I think conservatives listening
to this will like the thought of another Megan Kelly
voice up and coming. Well, why wouldn't we want that?
Why would we take somebody who's talented in this field
and really wants to make a difference and have the
messaging to her be you're really not that valuable unless
(01:27):
you give it up and go into the home and
only have a family and only raise a family. And
not only resenting her that message, but young men are
actually believing that. They're actually believing it, especially on the right,
because like the trad mom has gotten so popular and
it's like, no, if.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
We do that, we're not going to have any strong
conservative or right leaning women to provide a role model
for younger conservative women who and there's nothing to apologize
for here, don't necessarily want to spend all their twenties
and their thirties getting married and having kids or can't
(02:04):
they just weren't able to meet somebody and definitely don't
need to be shamed over it.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I love Megan a lot, and I get what she's saying.
Don't snuff out the potential of girls to be something amazing,
And there's nothing wrong with working and having a family obviously,
And the pushback to this has come from people like
Matt Walsh who say men don't want to have a
girl boss wife. They want someone to care for them
(02:30):
and for the kids. And I think more than anything else,
the men don't want their kids raised by someone else
while the woman works long hours. Understandable. I think the
truth is that most people don't have jobs they super love,
and I mean men and women here. I love what
I do. I have loved it all along. I've done
(02:52):
it when it didn't pay a lot. But it's a
choice because I've been blessed to have an off ramp
if I want one. My husband still talks about this
magical time where I was briefly his stay at home
girlfriend when I had gotten laid off four months before
our wedding. He enjoyed that, of course, and I've kind
of done it all. I was a stay at home
mom after that. I owned a business in New York
(03:14):
City for a few years, so I worked outside the home,
and I've been a work at home mom for much
of the last decade plus. Most people don't work because
their job is so fulfilling, or they just can't get
enough of it, which kind of is my case. I
love what I do. I'm obsessed with what I do.
I do it even when I don't have to do it.
(03:36):
People work for the money, and it's hard to have
a family on just one income. Yes, you can make sacrifices,
but you never know what happens in life, and if
you somehow lose that one income you're relying on, it
could be very tough. But more than anything else with
this whole thing, I hear from women who are confused
at this conversation altogether. Where is this pool of men
(03:58):
who need their wife to stay home? They say, I
know when I was a stay at home mom. Even
moms with similar financial circumstances told me they were jealous
that my husband was okay with me staying home. It's
not such a common thing for men to be into.
And I'm sure that Megan and I have somewhat similar schedules.
(04:18):
I have to travel from time to time, but I'm
done by three pm nearly every day, and I'm the
one who picks up my kids from school, and I'm
there for dinner every night. It's not a typical schedule
for most working people. All of this to say we're
getting too into the weeds on this. The problem starts
that young people aren't having relationships, and it's probably not
(04:40):
because the men want their women to stay home and
not work. We need to focus on the big picture
and fix that first. Thanks for listening. Coming up next,
an interview with Robbie Starbuck. Join us after the break.
Welcome back to the Carol Marcowitch Show on iHeartRadio. My
guest today is Robbie Starbuck. Robbie is a filmmaker and
(05:02):
conservative activist. So nice to have you on, Robbie.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
So a lot of times when somebody says that they
worked in Hollywood, it's like, you know, on some project
no one's ever heard of, and they're not really taking
any huge chances, leaving you know, their career behind. But
you worked with Smashing Pumpkins, Acon Eve. I mean people
everybody knows, everybody should know. Maybe, and then you left
(05:30):
it all behind to go be an activist.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
Why you know?
Speaker 5 (05:35):
Maybe Yeah, I'm a little crazy, so maybe you know. Yeah,
I directed of scaring actors. Actually some of the biggest
music stars, you know, people like Natalie Portman, Jamie.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Fox, Snoop Dogg.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
You know, and I think I was I'm sort of
an anomaly. In the sense that not only did I
leave Hollywood and do that, but I came out at
the peak of my career.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Versus a lot of people in Hollywood. What they do
is they wait until.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
They don't Yeah, they wait until they don't have jobs anymore,
you know, and they're like, okay, yeah, actually I'm a Republican.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
You know.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
For me, it's fairly simple though. My family came from
Cuba and they lost everything to communism, and so probably
the most important figure in my life was my great grandfather, Raphael,
and I was called him Peyo, that was his name,
And you know, I remember very distinctly some talks we'd
had about how Marxism and you know, Castro rose to
(06:26):
power in Cuba, and how things happened, what were the
warning signs, and essentially, you know, I'd always made the
promise to him that, no matter what the cost, I
would stand up if that same sort of thing was
ever happening in America, because we both agreed America was
the last stand for freedom, that if the same thing
happens here, that was it, you know, at least for
one hundred.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Years, or there's nowhere else to run to.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
I mean, Ronald Reagan used to tell this story about
a Cuban refugee where he's talking to two businessmen and
the businessmen are like, I'm so sorry, you know, we're
so lucky, and the business and the Cuban started laughing
at them and they couldn't understand.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Why and why are you laughing? And He's like, I'm
not the lucky one, or you're not the lucky ones.
I am because I had somewhere to go to.
Speaker 5 (07:07):
You don't have anywhere to run to if it happens
to you, you know, and it's it's the truth, you know.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
So I knew in that world, you know, I.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
Wasn't going to be like some total savior or something
like that that was going to just change the dynamics
of the industry. But I knew that if I came
out and I was honest about where I stood on things,
that it would make it a little bit easier for
the next person. And beyond that, also, it moves the
needle of social acceptability, and you know how you can
converse about these things. And I knew what the cost
(07:37):
would be. I don't pretend otherwise, like.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Well, no, they didn't take it well.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
And I'm not one of those people that's going to
pretend I didn't know I was going to get blacklisted.
I knew what was going to happen, and it happened
pretty much overnight. I mean, we had some massive contracts
at the time. We didn't just do no. I wasn't
just a director. I owned a production company that had
some huge clients, like Paramount Pictures, where we did a
lot of pret auction for them that people don't realize
o their companies do. And so we had managed quite
(08:05):
a few really big projects from the Terminator movies, Transformer films,
things along those lines, and pretty much overnight everything stopped
because of ME coming out and endorsing Trump in twenty fifteen.
And you know, it took a little while for some people,
but eventually me talking about politics enough pushed everybody off.
(08:26):
Which is sort of interesting, you know, because if I
had been doing it the opposite direction, I would I'd
probably have an oscar right now.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
You know.
Speaker 5 (08:35):
But that was actually kind of the funny thing is
I never fit in Hollywood, and I think that was
actually part of the reason I was successful, is because
I was sort of an anomaly in the sense that
I never went to any of the parties. Even when
I was up for major awards like at the MTV
VMAs and stuff like that, I never went. I never
went and accepted awards that I won. I didn't believe
in it. I thought the whole thing was kind of
(08:56):
disgusting and we have real problems, and I think the
you know, self congratulate bs at these award shows is
honestly kind of sickening.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
So, you know, I never was quite a fit.
Speaker 5 (09:06):
But that's at least a little bit of an explanation
why I came out and was honest about my politics.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
So you don't feel any bitterness about that, about being
blacklisted in Hollywood and not getting to do the work
that you were doing.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
I'm just not a terribly bitter person, you know. I
don't get too high or low.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
I'm very analytical and reasonable, and I knew what would happen,
so I didn't go into like the emotional state of oh,
how does this make me feel?
Speaker 4 (09:30):
It was more so a reality.
Speaker 5 (09:31):
You know, you deal with it, you move on, you adjust,
and in many ways, I'm thankful it all happen the
way that it did because one amazing thing that I
got to experience, and most people will never get to
experience that. I would say, outsider looking in It's one
of those like glass half fool things.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
You know, you kind of have to decide how you
see it.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
Some people would be heartbroken by what happened with friendships,
you know, they'd be like, oh my gosh, I want.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
All these friends for me. I consider it the.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
Most beautiful gift I could ever be given and be
on my way of my kids.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
It was like this.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
Clarity of you really know who your friends are, and
it's just like in an instant it becomes so clear
because I think for a lot of people, you know,
they think they have all these friends. And again another
lesson from my great grandfather. He told me when I
was very young. He said, you'll understand this someday, but
if when you die you have enough friends to fill
up one full hand, you are a very very lucky man.
(10:25):
And you know, I thought I had all these friends,
and then you know, I come out and find out
you know essentially that if you're you know, sort of
accused even of wrong think, you can lose them overnight, right,
And so that clarity is a really wonderful thing, and
that's something I'm very thankful for that.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
It happened to me.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
I think your children are small, but are you going
to tell them the stories like about losing friends and
how that's actually a gift and you know, don't don't
take it so hard. If you do the right thing
and you lose friends, that that's just the way it goes.
Speaker 5 (10:56):
So I have I have four kids with my wife,
and our oldest is actually so she's she's close to
she's close dad at the house. I mean, we're we're
looking at colleges and stuff, and she's real, she's a
smart cookie.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
We're so lucky.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
But in the respect of her and our oldest son,
he's twelve, they both got to experience a lot of
this themselves.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
You know, our daughter lost friends.
Speaker 5 (11:19):
When I came out as conservative, where like their parents
told them, you can't hang out with them anymore because
their parents are you know this that or the other thing.
I mean, I say, whether they were calling me a
racist or whatever, which was so funny because they're all
white liberals, right, and my family's Latino.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
They're chief. The chief complaints seemed to be that.
Speaker 5 (11:39):
I backed the immigration policy of Trump, and if not
only back I'm actually I would say to the right
of Trump on immigration in the sense that you know,
I'm Latino. I understand very clearly what is happening on
our border. I understand the dangers involved. And I will say,
what we just saw happen in the last twenty four
hours with El Salvador is a lot more of what
(12:01):
it would look like in my world, you know, but
for everybody involved, and it would send a very clear
message and we would no longer have a legal immigration anymore.
I think Trump is eminently reasonable when it comes when
it comes to immigration. And so it's kind of funny.
That was their chief complaint about me. You know, it's like, oh,
you're the racist, right, It's you know, it's kind of funny.
But yeah, no, they got to experience it, so they know, right,
(12:23):
they know all of the pitfalls here.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
They're very intelligent and wise beyond their years.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
Our younger ones will definitely explain it to because we
have an eight year old and then we have a
newborn as well, and you know.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
It's interesting. The newborn is.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
Going to have a very very different upbringing than the
rest of them because he's coming in.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
At a very different time.
Speaker 5 (12:43):
He'll never know his dad is like you know, super creative,
you know, person, it's going to be something very different.
I mean, I'm sure he'll know I'm creative in some sense,
but it'll be different, you know. So definitely lots of stories,
but I would say, you know what, they'll get more
stories about, like what our family went through in Cuba,
because that's something that generationally, you want to make the
(13:04):
DNA of your kids because you want them to be
you know, the defense mechanism against it ever happening again.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
It's so hard.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
I mean, I was born in the Soviet Union, so
I have a very kind of similar story. But it's
so hard because these kids, they you know, we live
in Florida now, so it's actually already a little better
for them. We lived in New York. I was able
to kind of draw the parallels and say, look, you
know what happened in my family in the Soviet Union,
Look how easily it could happen during COVID in New York.
But in Florida they lived this like magical free life
(13:34):
where you know, in New York, I had them like
not tell people what I do for a living in Florida,
I'm like, tell everybody, I don't care, but you know,
they still run into some resistance sometimes. My twelve year
old son is arguing with girls at a school because
he's a big Elon Musk fan, and they're like, Elon's
a racist, and you know how why do you like him?
(13:55):
And my son's like really into like technology and science
and he's like, Elon's a genius. Yeah, but you know they're.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
Going to have to you know, what's you know, what's
funny is like seeing I will say this, it's very
interesting with my oldest daughter, who's sixteen. When she was younger,
she was absolutely the outcast when it came to politics
because she was.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Always your friend, right in your family, Oh yeah, in.
Speaker 5 (14:18):
Her pure in her pure group, the entire peer group
was very either afraid of politics or they had sort
of accepted hook line and sinkly the left wing you
know ideology. Now today almost I think honestly every friend
of hers is extremely to the right, you know, if
not at least a center right person, but most of
(14:39):
them are on the same page of like they're full,
full bore on board with the magage and you know,
which is so different from just you know, eight years ago.
And I think it's that young people had a couple
of things happened. Number one, COVID. They had to experience
the totalitarian control of largely Democrats and experiencing the failures.
(15:01):
Yeah yeah, nothing made sense and it was illogical at
every step of the way. And then they had to
experience the Biden administration's failures when it came to just
how you live in a normal life. These kids are
coming up realizing, oh my gosh, we're.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Going to be saddled with all this debt. Am I
ever going to be able to own a home? You know?
What are these things that should be stabilizing forces in
my life?
Speaker 5 (15:22):
And they're not around anymore, and they're realizing the failures
of policy. The other thing, too, is kids are getting
smarter than we give them credit for. They have total
access to all information, and it's much harder to lie
to these kids today than it was, you know, twenty
years ago about politics because they have everything at.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Their fingertips and they can go and they can question you.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
And what are teenagers and young people in college really
great at questioning authority? So they're going to go and
question it exactly. And the other thing we have going
for us is the rebellious spirit of maga right, the
rebellious spirit of America. First, when you have all these
like overgrown hall monitors who are your teachers in school,
and they're all harping on about pronouns and you know,
(16:02):
all this ridiculous stuff, what is your average, especially young male,
going to do.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
They're going to rebel against it.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
And so, in some beautiful way, the left took it
so far with the indoctrination in school so that they
actually created a monster and helped hand us these young
men who you know, in their eyes, I'm saying monster.
In reality, what they've made is free thinking young people
who are going no, we don't want to be a
part of this control mechanism, a part of this system
(16:29):
of indoctrination. We're going to think for ourselves. And they've adopted,
I would say, you know, really great political values at
this at this stage. And so we have a job
to do. Obviously, we can't fail these young people. But
if we don't fail them, and we actually do a
good job, I think we're going to see a very
different electorate in the coming years.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
So I met you for the first time recently, and
I told you that I think that you're you've really
found your calling, and you know, as I was getting
ready for this interview, I was googling you and like,
you know, looking up stuff that I wanted to discuss.
But you know, a lot of the articles about you
say that you target companies to you know, stop them
from having diversity and that kind of thing where I think,
(17:09):
you know, you help companies that have leaned too far
into the woke world, probably are hurting their bottom lines
and are being you know, catered, They cater to like
the Human Rights Campaign, which is obviously a far left
special interest group which uses their corporate index to equity
index to get companies to do what they want, and
you sort of help them find their way back to sanity.
(17:31):
How did you get into that and what's that like?
Speaker 5 (17:34):
Well, you know, it's interesting kind of goes back to
the first answer about why I came out politically, you know,
with my my great grandfather. You know, what was happening
with THEI. It was essentially a trojan horse for very
far left politics, and the people who are running these
DEI programs are left wing activists, and so recognizing that
it's one of those signs, you know that I was
(17:54):
talking about earlier that things can go terribly wrong, very quickly.
It's why Elon Musk has spoken up of this and
the President's spoken of about this, because it's it's not that,
you know, including one another is just a bad thing.
That's that's not the sense that anybody gets. It's not
the argument I'm making. It's that DEI in itself, the
(18:15):
actual ideology is poisoned by left wing politics.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
And none of it means what it purports to mean.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
And everybody's pretty clear on that now because they've experienced
it a lot like what I was talking about with
young people, why they've shifted right. They experienced the opposite,
They experienced the thing, and now they're going in the
other direction.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Well, same thing with adults in the workplace.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
They experienced DEI, and how many of them are going
in a different direction because they saw how divisive it
truly was and.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
How discriminatory it turned out to be.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
And so for me, I saw, you know, really an
opportunity with the following I had to make a difference.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
And that's how it started.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
As I said, I think we can make a difference
on this front and tear away some really you know,
divisive racist policy. You know, if we make enough noise
and make people aware of what's going on. And ultimately, yeah,
we were very successful and happened very successful at it.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
I think that, you know, my life has given me.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
A lot of different unique tools and I sort of
fused them all together for this, you know, And so
it's unique and I think it's it's doing a lot
of good, you know, because if you think about it now,
eight months, I guess we're nine months later after we
started this campaign.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
Dozens of companies have changed.
Speaker 5 (19:27):
Their policies because of us, wiped out all the woke stuff.
And so we're talking about millions and millions of workers
in America who get to go to work and not
have politics injected, not have all of these divisions injected,
not have to worry that their race is.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
Going to stop them from getting promoted.
Speaker 5 (19:42):
Everybody being treated fairly and you know, decisions made on
merit and that's the way it should be, right. And
the companies that we've helped do this, they've actually performed
better in the marketplace.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
They're doing great with their values.
Speaker 5 (19:55):
And so the exact opposite of what the left wing
media tried to tell us the last decade. If you
stray away from this, you're gonna go bankrupt. Well, actually
it's the companies that embrace DEI that are going bankrupt,
you know, Like today it was Forever twenty one just
declared bankruptcy, a company that had fully embraced DEI.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
In fact, they're head of DEI. Had even admitted to a.
Speaker 5 (20:16):
Fortune or reporter that essentially, you know, there's a quote
that what they were doing wasn't quite legal. And you know,
it's it's interesting to see how these companies that are
going down so often.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
If you see a chapter eleven announcement.
Speaker 5 (20:29):
You can just go in Google search that company name
plus diversity, Equity Inclusion and you will see they had
a DEI.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
That interesting.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
Yeah, it's interesting, and I have not found a case
otherwise in recent history.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Amazing. We're going to take a quick break and be
right back on the Carol Marcowitch Show. What do you
worry about?
Speaker 4 (20:51):
You know what's interesting?
Speaker 5 (20:53):
Like I think I'm actually extremely normal, you know, I
just worry about the normal dad stuff, you know, like
I worry about my kids getting hurt.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
You know, I worry.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
I have a sixteen year old, so I worry that
once she starts dating, she'll get her heartbroken. You know,
I worry like our young one who just learned how
to ride a bicycle is going to get her knees
scraped and stuff, like the normal worries. But you know,
there are also the types of things where I know
they have to happen. It's like it's growth takes pain sometimes, right,
(21:24):
So if I protect my little one from ever getting
her knees scraped on a bike, is she going to
ultimately learn certain things to keep herself safe. It's going
to be much harder for her to learn them, right,
And you try to teach them, You try to tell
them the right thing to do. But if they if
they ignore it five times in a row and then
they go and they get their knees scraped, what are
you going to do?
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Like they learn from that.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
Right, my oldest daughter, as much as I never want
her to go and date and get her heartbroken, you
know that that's kind of a rite of passage for everybody.
People get their hearts broken and you learn from it.
And you know, so that's the stuff I worry about,
is dad's stuff.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
When it comes to the politics of the world, I've.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
Learned that worry gets you know where, and you're much
better off planning and having you know, very clear, concise
direction that you're wanting to go and that you need
to execute very clearly, and to execute clearly, you can't
be clouded by emotions.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
And so I'd say that's that's the truth.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
Politically, I don't allow myself to get fearful or you know,
anxiety ridden.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
About any last four years were an anxiety ridden?
Speaker 4 (22:31):
You know, honestly, I didn't. I didn't let myself get
like that.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
I mean, it's hard to explain to how, you know,
I think a unique ability to turn off some of
those subsets of emotions and just focus on the actual
problem and how you fix it and how can you
be a part of changing things. And so that's where
I tried to gravitate towards. I will say there were
moments during the four years of Biden administration where I
did get very angry.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
I did.
Speaker 5 (22:56):
There were certain things that happened, you know, where I
just you can't help but get angry. When Lake and
Riley was murdered, you know, I thought about my own daughter,
you know, that's headed to college, you know, not not
long in the future, because she's graduating early too. From school.
So she's she's just brilliant kid. And you know, as
a dad, like you see that girl, I saw my
(23:20):
own daughter, you know, and so I see a country
that's not protecting the kids who matter the most, you know,
our future, and we're not protecting them from violent criminals,
Like who are we?
Speaker 4 (23:31):
You know? So there were moments like that where I
got very very.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
Angry, But in general, like day to day anxiety, it
gets you nowhere. You know, even in a situation like that,
you just need to be focused on how.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
To create change. And that's my mindset has always.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
Been wake up every day and get a w no
matter how small it is, Like, get some kind of win,
even if it's tiny, advance the ball.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Love it. What advice would you give your sixteen year
old self.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
Hold fast and work, you know, work hard. I think
that's the thing. When you're sixteen, it's very easy to see,
you know that things in front of you are not
working out, and to give up.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
It's very easy to give up at sixteen, it's very
easy to give up at seventeen, eighteen, nineteen twenty. And
the thing that you've got to realize if you're at
that age is that it's not the end. It really
does actually get better, and you need to just put
down your head and work, do the work. Don't give up.
You know, every successful person is defined by their failures.
(24:33):
And I mean that to say, like, I've failed ninety
five percent of the time in my life at things
that I tried to do, and I've okay, it doesn't
it doesn't seem like it because I've been incredibly successful
at five percent of it. And that five percent that
I've been incredibly successful at in the end, I only
got there because I never gave up during the ninety
(24:53):
five percent of the time that I failed. And a
lot of people give up along the way, and they'll
say it's too hard, the system's rigged against me, whatever
it is, right, The truth is there were people more
talented than me.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
There's people smarter than me.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
There's people who have many different things where they're just
better at that thing than I am. The thing that
I always beat them at was that I didn't give
up and that I will stay on it. One way,
it's been described to me as I'm like a dog
with a bone, just I'm relentless, and so I would
tell young people be relentless you know, don't give up
(25:31):
at the first sign of failure, Like failure is just
a symptom of succeeding.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
You just have to continue, continue, continue, until you get there.
Speaker 5 (25:38):
And almost every great thing that our country has achieved
comes with sort of that same math, where a ninety
five percent failure rate, you finally succeed and everybody only
remembers the success, but you, personally, if you're the person
behind it, you remember the failure because had you not
gone through it, and had you not given up, you know,
you wouldn't have ever gotten to the success. And so
(26:00):
I think that's probably the thing that separates exceptional outcomes
from very average outcomes or bad outcomes is not giving
up and persevering and being relentless.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Well.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
I ask all of my guests to leave us with something,
that piece of advice that they could offer my listeners
on how they can improve their lives. What do you got,
I mean, you just gave us a lot.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
So yeah, I just I gave a little bit of
therapy session. You know what, Actually I do have one.
This is probably the single most important thing to me.
Speaker 5 (26:36):
It's actually something I'm planning on making a video about
to talk more and expand on. But essentially we have
a problem with people being overly emotional on society and
making their decisions out of an emotional place. It's the
reason why the mainstream media like Huffington Post and I
won't even call the mainstream, they have such a low
readership at this point, but their legacy media, right like
(26:59):
Huffington Post, New York Times did this. A number of
other papers did this. They ran with these headlines saying
Elon Musk denies, Hitler killed millions and so why did.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
They run those headlines? Why did they run those headlines?
Speaker 5 (27:13):
They ran them because they could technically get away with it,
And it was because he actually posted something that was
pointing out that Hitler and Mao and Stalin didn't personally
go out.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
There and kill millions people each. He was pointing out
that when you have a.
Speaker 5 (27:30):
Fully adherent public sector that all believe one ideology, it
can be incredibly dangerous because they're the ones who were
willing to carry out the evil, murderous plans of people
like Stalin Hitler. Now, and that's what he was pointing out,
But the media doesn't want your average scroller to know
the context behind what he's saying. Instead, they want you
(27:52):
to scroll by and believe that Elon Musk is Hitler,
or he's a Nazi and he loves Hitler and he's
excusing the Holocaust. That's what they want people to believe.
And so the truth is, how do you get there
to that belief? Because you have those friends in your
life who believe those things that they scroll past with
these headlines that are just fully a farce, And the
truth is they get there through being overly emotional. We
(28:15):
need a society that is reasonable, and when you get
too high or too low emotionally, we need to remind
people to take that eagle eye view, pull out, look
at it as an unbiased observer. The best way that
you can possibly do and ask yourself, is it really
this bad or is it really this good? Whatever it
might be, however high or low you are, but ask
(28:35):
yourself a series of questions to figure out if you're
really making good decisions or if you're really being fair
to the people that you're judging. I think that's something
that societally, if we want to decrease division and we
want a more intelligent society, better outcomes for our kids,
we're going to decrease the amount of decisions that are
made with emotion and increase rapidly the amount of decisions
that are made with pure reason. And that's probably the
(28:58):
thing that I would tell everybody to kind of take
a moment and look in the mirror and examine their
own life and how many of their you know, decisions
are making out of pure emotion.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
You know, I've seen so many relationships break up over
this too.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
My wife and I are blessed to be married seventeen years,
and I think a big reason that we have such
a great marriage is because we approach any problem we
have very rationally, Like you'll never catch me and my
wife being, like, you know, screaming about an issue like
that's not how you solve problems. So, like I guess,
to pin this all down, it's that we have to
remind ourselves to be the adults in the room and
(29:32):
to look at things very objectively and work on that.
For the overly emotional people, work on it, try to
work on having a more balanced response to things, because
your emotionality, if you look at your life, I want
to ask you where has it gotten you? Has it
gotten you anywhere positive? Or has it only led to
negative outcomes. When you look at the totality of your life,
you're going to trend negative. I guarantee you if you're
(29:54):
an overly emotional person, which means that if that's the
sense you get, you examine your life and you go, oh, yeah,
it's brought me mostly negative outcomes. I'm sure there's a
few positive, right, but brought you mostly negative ones. You
need to look at that mirror and go, Okay, it's
time to do that work, to peel back you know,
all this and get to a better place.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
I love that he is. Robbie Starbuck, thank you so
much for coming on. We'll check out that video. I
actually needed to hear that today more than you would know.
Thank you so much, Robbie, thank you, thanks so much
for joining us on the Carol Marcowitch Show. Subscribe wherever
you get your podcasts.
Hi, Welcome back to Carol Mark Wood Show on iHeartRadio.
There's been this kerfuffle on the right in the last
few days. Megan Kelly had a clip where she talked
about how conservative men don't want their women to work.
Let's roll that clip.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Here's what's happening on the right young women. And I
talk to young conservative women all the time about their
lives and their goals and you know, the things that
they want. And what's happening is they can't find men
who are maybe more conservative. Usually they're looking for somebody
who is religious, you know, like a lot of conservative
women tend to be God, God loving conservatives, and they
(00:43):
can't find a lot of young men who want to
marry a working woman. Now, this is an actual problem
that's coming up on the right, and to me, it's
so sad because it's like, how did we get to
the point where we were now telling young conservative, amazing
women that they're not attractive if they also work. If
(01:04):
they choose to, let's say, do what I'm doing and
what you're doing and get their voice out there. But
I'll stick with me just because I think conservatives listening
to this will like the thought of another Megan Kelly
voice up and coming. Well, why wouldn't we want that?
Why would we take somebody who's talented in this field
and really wants to make a difference and have the
messaging to her be you're really not that valuable unless
(01:27):
you give it up and go into the home and
only have a family and only raise a family. And
not only resenting her that message, but young men are
actually believing that. They're actually believing it, especially on the right,
because like the trad mom has gotten so popular and
it's like, no, if.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
We do that, we're not going to have any strong
conservative or right leaning women to provide a role model
for younger conservative women who and there's nothing to apologize
for here, don't necessarily want to spend all their twenties
and their thirties getting married and having kids or can't
(02:04):
they just weren't able to meet somebody and definitely don't
need to be shamed over it.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I love Megan a lot, and I get what she's saying.
Don't snuff out the potential of girls to be something amazing,
And there's nothing wrong with working and having a family obviously,
And the pushback to this has come from people like
Matt Walsh who say men don't want to have a
girl boss wife. They want someone to care for them
(02:30):
and for the kids. And I think more than anything else,
the men don't want their kids raised by someone else
while the woman works long hours. Understandable. I think the
truth is that most people don't have jobs they super love,
and I mean men and women here. I love what
I do. I have loved it all along. I've done
(02:52):
it when it didn't pay a lot. But it's a
choice because I've been blessed to have an off ramp
if I want one. My husband still talks about this
magical time where I was briefly his stay at home
girlfriend when I had gotten laid off four months before
our wedding. He enjoyed that, of course, and I've kind
of done it all. I was a stay at home
mom after that. I owned a business in New York
(03:14):
City for a few years, so I worked outside the home,
and I've been a work at home mom for much
of the last decade plus. Most people don't work because
their job is so fulfilling, or they just can't get
enough of it, which kind of is my case. I
love what I do. I'm obsessed with what I do.
I do it even when I don't have to do it.
(03:36):
People work for the money, and it's hard to have
a family on just one income. Yes, you can make sacrifices,
but you never know what happens in life, and if
you somehow lose that one income you're relying on, it
could be very tough. But more than anything else with
this whole thing, I hear from women who are confused
at this conversation altogether. Where is this pool of men
(03:58):
who need their wife to stay home? They say, I
know when I was a stay at home mom. Even
moms with similar financial circumstances told me they were jealous
that my husband was okay with me staying home. It's
not such a common thing for men to be into.
And I'm sure that Megan and I have somewhat similar schedules.
(04:18):
I have to travel from time to time, but I'm
done by three pm nearly every day, and I'm the
one who picks up my kids from school, and I'm
there for dinner every night. It's not a typical schedule
for most working people. All of this to say we're
getting too into the weeds on this. The problem starts
that young people aren't having relationships, and it's probably not
(04:40):
because the men want their women to stay home and
not work. We need to focus on the big picture
and fix that first. Thanks for listening. Coming up next,
an interview with Robbie Starbuck. Join us after the break.
Welcome back to the Carol Marcowitch Show on iHeartRadio. My
guest today is Robbie Starbuck. Robbie is a filmmaker and
(05:02):
conservative activist. So nice to have you on, Robbie.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
So a lot of times when somebody says that they
worked in Hollywood, it's like, you know, on some project
no one's ever heard of, and they're not really taking
any huge chances, leaving you know, their career behind. But
you worked with Smashing Pumpkins, Acon Eve. I mean people
everybody knows, everybody should know. Maybe, and then you left
(05:30):
it all behind to go be an activist.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
Why you know?
Speaker 5 (05:35):
Maybe Yeah, I'm a little crazy, so maybe you know. Yeah,
I directed of scaring actors. Actually some of the biggest
music stars, you know, people like Natalie Portman, Jamie.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Fox, Snoop Dogg.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
You know, and I think I was I'm sort of
an anomaly. In the sense that not only did I
leave Hollywood and do that, but I came out at
the peak of my career.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Versus a lot of people in Hollywood. What they do
is they wait until.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
They don't Yeah, they wait until they don't have jobs anymore,
you know, and they're like, okay, yeah, actually I'm a Republican.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
You know.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
For me, it's fairly simple though. My family came from
Cuba and they lost everything to communism, and so probably
the most important figure in my life was my great grandfather, Raphael,
and I was called him Peyo, that was his name,
And you know, I remember very distinctly some talks we'd
had about how Marxism and you know, Castro rose to
(06:26):
power in Cuba, and how things happened, what were the
warning signs, and essentially, you know, I'd always made the
promise to him that, no matter what the cost, I
would stand up if that same sort of thing was
ever happening in America, because we both agreed America was
the last stand for freedom, that if the same thing
happens here, that was it, you know, at least for
one hundred.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Years, or there's nowhere else to run to.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
I mean, Ronald Reagan used to tell this story about
a Cuban refugee where he's talking to two businessmen and
the businessmen are like, I'm so sorry, you know, we're
so lucky, and the business and the Cuban started laughing
at them and they couldn't understand.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Why and why are you laughing? And He's like, I'm
not the lucky one, or you're not the lucky ones.
I am because I had somewhere to go to.
Speaker 5 (07:07):
You don't have anywhere to run to if it happens
to you, you know, and it's it's the truth, you know.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
So I knew in that world, you know, I.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
Wasn't going to be like some total savior or something
like that that was going to just change the dynamics
of the industry. But I knew that if I came
out and I was honest about where I stood on things,
that it would make it a little bit easier for
the next person. And beyond that, also, it moves the
needle of social acceptability, and you know how you can
converse about these things. And I knew what the cost
(07:37):
would be. I don't pretend otherwise, like.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Well, no, they didn't take it well.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
And I'm not one of those people that's going to
pretend I didn't know I was going to get blacklisted.
I knew what was going to happen, and it happened
pretty much overnight. I mean, we had some massive contracts
at the time. We didn't just do no. I wasn't
just a director. I owned a production company that had
some huge clients, like Paramount Pictures, where we did a
lot of pret auction for them that people don't realize
o their companies do. And so we had managed quite
(08:05):
a few really big projects from the Terminator movies, Transformer films,
things along those lines, and pretty much overnight everything stopped
because of ME coming out and endorsing Trump in twenty fifteen.
And you know, it took a little while for some people,
but eventually me talking about politics enough pushed everybody off.
(08:26):
Which is sort of interesting, you know, because if I
had been doing it the opposite direction, I would I'd
probably have an oscar right now.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
You know.
Speaker 5 (08:35):
But that was actually kind of the funny thing is
I never fit in Hollywood, and I think that was
actually part of the reason I was successful, is because
I was sort of an anomaly in the sense that
I never went to any of the parties. Even when
I was up for major awards like at the MTV
VMAs and stuff like that, I never went. I never
went and accepted awards that I won. I didn't believe
in it. I thought the whole thing was kind of
(08:56):
disgusting and we have real problems, and I think the
you know, self congratulate bs at these award shows is
honestly kind of sickening.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
So, you know, I never was quite a fit.
Speaker 5 (09:06):
But that's at least a little bit of an explanation
why I came out and was honest about my politics.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
So you don't feel any bitterness about that, about being
blacklisted in Hollywood and not getting to do the work
that you were doing.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
I'm just not a terribly bitter person, you know. I
don't get too high or low.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
I'm very analytical and reasonable, and I knew what would happen,
so I didn't go into like the emotional state of oh,
how does this make me feel?
Speaker 4 (09:30):
It was more so a reality.
Speaker 5 (09:31):
You know, you deal with it, you move on, you adjust,
and in many ways, I'm thankful it all happen the
way that it did because one amazing thing that I
got to experience, and most people will never get to
experience that. I would say, outsider looking in It's one
of those like glass half fool things.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
You know, you kind of have to decide how you
see it.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
Some people would be heartbroken by what happened with friendships,
you know, they'd be like, oh my gosh, I want.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
All these friends for me. I consider it the.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
Most beautiful gift I could ever be given and be
on my way of my kids.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
It was like this.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
Clarity of you really know who your friends are, and
it's just like in an instant it becomes so clear
because I think for a lot of people, you know,
they think they have all these friends. And again another
lesson from my great grandfather. He told me when I
was very young. He said, you'll understand this someday, but
if when you die you have enough friends to fill
up one full hand, you are a very very lucky man.
(10:25):
And you know, I thought I had all these friends,
and then you know, I come out and find out
you know essentially that if you're you know, sort of
accused even of wrong think, you can lose them overnight, right,
And so that clarity is a really wonderful thing, and
that's something I'm very thankful for that.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
It happened to me.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
I think your children are small, but are you going
to tell them the stories like about losing friends and
how that's actually a gift and you know, don't don't
take it so hard. If you do the right thing
and you lose friends, that that's just the way it goes.
Speaker 5 (10:56):
So I have I have four kids with my wife,
and our oldest is actually so she's she's close to
she's close dad at the house. I mean, we're we're
looking at colleges and stuff, and she's real, she's a
smart cookie.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
We're so lucky.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
But in the respect of her and our oldest son,
he's twelve, they both got to experience a lot of
this themselves.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
You know, our daughter lost friends.
Speaker 5 (11:19):
When I came out as conservative, where like their parents
told them, you can't hang out with them anymore because
their parents are you know this that or the other thing.
I mean, I say, whether they were calling me a
racist or whatever, which was so funny because they're all
white liberals, right, and my family's Latino.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
They're chief. The chief complaints seemed to be that.
Speaker 5 (11:39):
I backed the immigration policy of Trump, and if not
only back I'm actually I would say to the right
of Trump on immigration in the sense that you know,
I'm Latino. I understand very clearly what is happening on
our border. I understand the dangers involved. And I will say,
what we just saw happen in the last twenty four
hours with El Salvador is a lot more of what
(12:01):
it would look like in my world, you know, but
for everybody involved, and it would send a very clear
message and we would no longer have a legal immigration anymore.
I think Trump is eminently reasonable when it comes when
it comes to immigration. And so it's kind of funny.
That was their chief complaint about me. You know, it's like, oh,
you're the racist, right, It's you know, it's kind of funny.
But yeah, no, they got to experience it, so they know, right,
(12:23):
they know all of the pitfalls here.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
They're very intelligent and wise beyond their years.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
Our younger ones will definitely explain it to because we
have an eight year old and then we have a
newborn as well, and you know.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
It's interesting. The newborn is.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
Going to have a very very different upbringing than the
rest of them because he's coming in.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
At a very different time.
Speaker 5 (12:43):
He'll never know his dad is like you know, super creative,
you know, person, it's going to be something very different.
I mean, I'm sure he'll know I'm creative in some sense,
but it'll be different, you know. So definitely lots of stories,
but I would say, you know what, they'll get more
stories about, like what our family went through in Cuba,
because that's something that generationally, you want to make the
(13:04):
DNA of your kids because you want them to be
you know, the defense mechanism against it ever happening again.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
It's so hard.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
I mean, I was born in the Soviet Union, so
I have a very kind of similar story. But it's
so hard because these kids, they you know, we live
in Florida now, so it's actually already a little better
for them. We lived in New York. I was able
to kind of draw the parallels and say, look, you
know what happened in my family in the Soviet Union,
Look how easily it could happen during COVID in New York.
But in Florida they lived this like magical free life
(13:34):
where you know, in New York, I had them like
not tell people what I do for a living in Florida,
I'm like, tell everybody, I don't care, but you know,
they still run into some resistance sometimes. My twelve year
old son is arguing with girls at a school because
he's a big Elon Musk fan, and they're like, Elon's
a racist, and you know how why do you like him?
(13:55):
And my son's like really into like technology and science
and he's like, Elon's a genius. Yeah, but you know they're.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
Going to have to you know, what's you know, what's
funny is like seeing I will say this, it's very
interesting with my oldest daughter, who's sixteen. When she was younger,
she was absolutely the outcast when it came to politics
because she was.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Always your friend, right in your family, Oh yeah, in.
Speaker 5 (14:18):
Her pure in her pure group, the entire peer group
was very either afraid of politics or they had sort
of accepted hook line and sinkly the left wing you
know ideology. Now today almost I think honestly every friend
of hers is extremely to the right, you know, if
not at least a center right person, but most of
(14:39):
them are on the same page of like they're full,
full bore on board with the magage and you know,
which is so different from just you know, eight years ago.
And I think it's that young people had a couple
of things happened. Number one, COVID. They had to experience
the totalitarian control of largely Democrats and experiencing the failures.
(15:01):
Yeah yeah, nothing made sense and it was illogical at
every step of the way. And then they had to
experience the Biden administration's failures when it came to just
how you live in a normal life. These kids are
coming up realizing, oh my gosh, we're.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Going to be saddled with all this debt. Am I
ever going to be able to own a home? You know?
What are these things that should be stabilizing forces in
my life?
Speaker 5 (15:22):
And they're not around anymore, and they're realizing the failures
of policy. The other thing, too, is kids are getting
smarter than we give them credit for. They have total
access to all information, and it's much harder to lie
to these kids today than it was, you know, twenty
years ago about politics because they have everything at.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Their fingertips and they can go and they can question you.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
And what are teenagers and young people in college really
great at questioning authority? So they're going to go and
question it exactly. And the other thing we have going
for us is the rebellious spirit of maga right, the
rebellious spirit of America. First, when you have all these
like overgrown hall monitors who are your teachers in school,
and they're all harping on about pronouns and you know,
(16:02):
all this ridiculous stuff, what is your average, especially young male,
going to do.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
They're going to rebel against it.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
And so, in some beautiful way, the left took it
so far with the indoctrination in school so that they
actually created a monster and helped hand us these young
men who you know, in their eyes, I'm saying monster.
In reality, what they've made is free thinking young people
who are going no, we don't want to be a
part of this control mechanism, a part of this system
(16:29):
of indoctrination. We're going to think for ourselves. And they've adopted,
I would say, you know, really great political values at
this at this stage. And so we have a job
to do. Obviously, we can't fail these young people. But
if we don't fail them, and we actually do a
good job, I think we're going to see a very
different electorate in the coming years.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
So I met you for the first time recently, and
I told you that I think that you're you've really
found your calling, and you know, as I was getting
ready for this interview, I was googling you and like,
you know, looking up stuff that I wanted to discuss.
But you know, a lot of the articles about you
say that you target companies to you know, stop them
from having diversity and that kind of thing where I think,
(17:09):
you know, you help companies that have leaned too far
into the woke world, probably are hurting their bottom lines
and are being you know, catered, They cater to like
the Human Rights Campaign, which is obviously a far left
special interest group which uses their corporate index to equity
index to get companies to do what they want, and
you sort of help them find their way back to sanity.
(17:31):
How did you get into that and what's that like?
Speaker 5 (17:34):
Well, you know, it's interesting kind of goes back to
the first answer about why I came out politically, you know,
with my my great grandfather. You know, what was happening
with THEI. It was essentially a trojan horse for very
far left politics, and the people who are running these
DEI programs are left wing activists, and so recognizing that
it's one of those signs, you know that I was
(17:54):
talking about earlier that things can go terribly wrong, very quickly.
It's why Elon Musk has spoken up of this and
the President's spoken of about this, because it's it's not that,
you know, including one another is just a bad thing.
That's that's not the sense that anybody gets. It's not
the argument I'm making. It's that DEI in itself, the
(18:15):
actual ideology is poisoned by left wing politics.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
And none of it means what it purports to mean.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
And everybody's pretty clear on that now because they've experienced
it a lot like what I was talking about with
young people, why they've shifted right. They experienced the opposite,
They experienced the thing, and now they're going in the
other direction.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Well, same thing with adults in the workplace.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
They experienced DEI, and how many of them are going
in a different direction because they saw how divisive it
truly was and.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
How discriminatory it turned out to be.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
And so for me, I saw, you know, really an
opportunity with the following I had to make a difference.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
And that's how it started.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
As I said, I think we can make a difference
on this front and tear away some really you know,
divisive racist policy. You know, if we make enough noise
and make people aware of what's going on. And ultimately, yeah,
we were very successful and happened very successful at it.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
I think that, you know, my life has given me.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
A lot of different unique tools and I sort of
fused them all together for this, you know, And so
it's unique and I think it's it's doing a lot
of good, you know, because if you think about it now,
eight months, I guess we're nine months later after we
started this campaign.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
Dozens of companies have changed.
Speaker 5 (19:27):
Their policies because of us, wiped out all the woke stuff.
And so we're talking about millions and millions of workers
in America who get to go to work and not
have politics injected, not have all of these divisions injected,
not have to worry that their race is.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
Going to stop them from getting promoted.
Speaker 5 (19:42):
Everybody being treated fairly and you know, decisions made on
merit and that's the way it should be, right. And
the companies that we've helped do this, they've actually performed
better in the marketplace.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
They're doing great with their values.
Speaker 5 (19:55):
And so the exact opposite of what the left wing
media tried to tell us the last decade. If you
stray away from this, you're gonna go bankrupt. Well, actually
it's the companies that embrace DEI that are going bankrupt,
you know, Like today it was Forever twenty one just
declared bankruptcy, a company that had fully embraced DEI.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
In fact, they're head of DEI. Had even admitted to a.
Speaker 5 (20:16):
Fortune or reporter that essentially, you know, there's a quote
that what they were doing wasn't quite legal. And you know,
it's it's interesting to see how these companies that are
going down so often.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
If you see a chapter eleven announcement.
Speaker 5 (20:29):
You can just go in Google search that company name
plus diversity, Equity Inclusion and you will see they had
a DEI.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
That interesting.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
Yeah, it's interesting, and I have not found a case
otherwise in recent history.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Amazing. We're going to take a quick break and be
right back on the Carol Marcowitch Show. What do you
worry about?
Speaker 4 (20:51):
You know what's interesting?
Speaker 5 (20:53):
Like I think I'm actually extremely normal, you know, I
just worry about the normal dad stuff, you know, like
I worry about my kids getting hurt.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
You know, I worry.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
I have a sixteen year old, so I worry that
once she starts dating, she'll get her heartbroken. You know,
I worry like our young one who just learned how
to ride a bicycle is going to get her knees
scraped and stuff, like the normal worries. But you know,
there are also the types of things where I know
they have to happen. It's like it's growth takes pain sometimes, right,
(21:24):
So if I protect my little one from ever getting
her knees scraped on a bike, is she going to
ultimately learn certain things to keep herself safe. It's going
to be much harder for her to learn them, right,
And you try to teach them, You try to tell
them the right thing to do. But if they if
they ignore it five times in a row and then
they go and they get their knees scraped, what are
you going to do?
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Like they learn from that.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
Right, my oldest daughter, as much as I never want
her to go and date and get her heartbroken, you
know that that's kind of a rite of passage for everybody.
People get their hearts broken and you learn from it.
And you know, so that's the stuff I worry about,
is dad's stuff.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
When it comes to the politics of the world, I've.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
Learned that worry gets you know where, and you're much
better off planning and having you know, very clear, concise
direction that you're wanting to go and that you need
to execute very clearly, and to execute clearly, you can't
be clouded by emotions.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
And so I'd say that's that's the truth.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
Politically, I don't allow myself to get fearful or you know,
anxiety ridden.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
About any last four years were an anxiety ridden?
Speaker 4 (22:31):
You know, honestly, I didn't. I didn't let myself get
like that.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
I mean, it's hard to explain to how, you know,
I think a unique ability to turn off some of
those subsets of emotions and just focus on the actual
problem and how you fix it and how can you
be a part of changing things. And so that's where
I tried to gravitate towards. I will say there were
moments during the four years of Biden administration where I
did get very angry.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
I did.
Speaker 5 (22:56):
There were certain things that happened, you know, where I
just you can't help but get angry. When Lake and
Riley was murdered, you know, I thought about my own daughter,
you know, that's headed to college, you know, not not
long in the future, because she's graduating early too. From school.
So she's she's just brilliant kid. And you know, as
a dad, like you see that girl, I saw my
(23:20):
own daughter, you know, and so I see a country
that's not protecting the kids who matter the most, you know,
our future, and we're not protecting them from violent criminals,
Like who are we?
Speaker 4 (23:31):
You know? So there were moments like that where I
got very very.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
Angry, But in general, like day to day anxiety, it
gets you nowhere. You know, even in a situation like that,
you just need to be focused on how.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
To create change. And that's my mindset has always.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
Been wake up every day and get a w no
matter how small it is, Like, get some kind of win,
even if it's tiny, advance the ball.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Love it. What advice would you give your sixteen year
old self.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
Hold fast and work, you know, work hard. I think
that's the thing. When you're sixteen, it's very easy to see,
you know that things in front of you are not
working out, and to give up.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
It's very easy to give up at sixteen, it's very
easy to give up at seventeen, eighteen, nineteen twenty. And
the thing that you've got to realize if you're at
that age is that it's not the end. It really
does actually get better, and you need to just put
down your head and work, do the work. Don't give up.
You know, every successful person is defined by their failures.
(24:33):
And I mean that to say, like, I've failed ninety
five percent of the time in my life at things
that I tried to do, and I've okay, it doesn't
it doesn't seem like it because I've been incredibly successful
at five percent of it. And that five percent that
I've been incredibly successful at in the end, I only
got there because I never gave up during the ninety
(24:53):
five percent of the time that I failed. And a
lot of people give up along the way, and they'll
say it's too hard, the system's rigged against me, whatever
it is, right, The truth is there were people more
talented than me.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
There's people smarter than me.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
There's people who have many different things where they're just
better at that thing than I am. The thing that
I always beat them at was that I didn't give
up and that I will stay on it. One way,
it's been described to me as I'm like a dog
with a bone, just I'm relentless, and so I would
tell young people be relentless you know, don't give up
(25:31):
at the first sign of failure, Like failure is just
a symptom of succeeding.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
You just have to continue, continue, continue, until you get there.
Speaker 5 (25:38):
And almost every great thing that our country has achieved
comes with sort of that same math, where a ninety
five percent failure rate, you finally succeed and everybody only
remembers the success, but you, personally, if you're the person
behind it, you remember the failure because had you not
gone through it, and had you not given up, you know,
you wouldn't have ever gotten to the success. And so
(26:00):
I think that's probably the thing that separates exceptional outcomes
from very average outcomes or bad outcomes is not giving
up and persevering and being relentless.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Well.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
I ask all of my guests to leave us with something,
that piece of advice that they could offer my listeners
on how they can improve their lives. What do you got,
I mean, you just gave us a lot.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
So yeah, I just I gave a little bit of
therapy session. You know what, Actually I do have one.
This is probably the single most important thing to me.
Speaker 5 (26:36):
It's actually something I'm planning on making a video about
to talk more and expand on. But essentially we have
a problem with people being overly emotional on society and
making their decisions out of an emotional place. It's the
reason why the mainstream media like Huffington Post and I
won't even call the mainstream, they have such a low
readership at this point, but their legacy media, right like
(26:59):
Huffington Post, New York Times did this. A number of
other papers did this. They ran with these headlines saying
Elon Musk denies, Hitler killed millions and so why did.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
They run those headlines? Why did they run those headlines?
Speaker 5 (27:13):
They ran them because they could technically get away with it,
And it was because he actually posted something that was
pointing out that Hitler and Mao and Stalin didn't personally
go out.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
There and kill millions people each. He was pointing out
that when you have a.
Speaker 5 (27:30):
Fully adherent public sector that all believe one ideology, it
can be incredibly dangerous because they're the ones who were
willing to carry out the evil, murderous plans of people
like Stalin Hitler. Now, and that's what he was pointing out,
But the media doesn't want your average scroller to know
the context behind what he's saying. Instead, they want you
(27:52):
to scroll by and believe that Elon Musk is Hitler,
or he's a Nazi and he loves Hitler and he's
excusing the Holocaust. That's what they want people to believe.
And so the truth is, how do you get there
to that belief? Because you have those friends in your
life who believe those things that they scroll past with
these headlines that are just fully a farce, And the
truth is they get there through being overly emotional. We
(28:15):
need a society that is reasonable, and when you get
too high or too low emotionally, we need to remind
people to take that eagle eye view, pull out, look
at it as an unbiased observer. The best way that
you can possibly do and ask yourself, is it really
this bad or is it really this good? Whatever it
might be, however high or low you are, but ask
(28:35):
yourself a series of questions to figure out if you're
really making good decisions or if you're really being fair
to the people that you're judging. I think that's something
that societally, if we want to decrease division and we
want a more intelligent society, better outcomes for our kids,
we're going to decrease the amount of decisions that are
made with emotion and increase rapidly the amount of decisions
that are made with pure reason. And that's probably the
(28:58):
thing that I would tell everybody to kind of take
a moment and look in the mirror and examine their
own life and how many of their you know, decisions
are making out of pure emotion.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
You know, I've seen so many relationships break up over
this too.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
My wife and I are blessed to be married seventeen years,
and I think a big reason that we have such
a great marriage is because we approach any problem we
have very rationally, Like you'll never catch me and my
wife being, like, you know, screaming about an issue like
that's not how you solve problems. So, like I guess,
to pin this all down, it's that we have to
remind ourselves to be the adults in the room and
(29:32):
to look at things very objectively and work on that.
For the overly emotional people, work on it, try to
work on having a more balanced response to things, because
your emotionality, if you look at your life, I want
to ask you where has it gotten you? Has it
gotten you anywhere positive? Or has it only led to
negative outcomes. When you look at the totality of your life,
you're going to trend negative. I guarantee you if you're
(29:54):
an overly emotional person, which means that if that's the
sense you get, you examine your life and you go, oh, yeah,
it's brought me mostly negative outcomes. I'm sure there's a
few positive, right, but brought you mostly negative ones. You
need to look at that mirror and go, Okay, it's
time to do that work, to peel back you know,
all this and get to a better place.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
I love that he is. Robbie Starbuck, thank you so
much for coming on. We'll check out that video. I
actually needed to hear that today more than you would know.
Thank you so much, Robbie, thank you, thanks so much
for joining us on the Carol Marcowitch Show. Subscribe wherever
you get your podcasts.
Host
Karol Markowicz
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