3 Essential Ideas

  1. The price of success is persistence. Continue to show up every day. 
  2. Don’t avoid failure. Failures lead you one step closer to success. 
  3. Set your sights high. Understanding your tremendous potential is the first step in pursuing your highest contribution. 

1 Essential Action 

  • Do something to celebrate the fact that you showed up today. 

Key Moments From The Show 

  • How Dave learned he could be successful in television (4:10)
  • The case for continuing to show up every day (10:57)
  • The importance of finding joy – even in the beginning (12:35)
  • How to increase joy by creating rituals (14:32)
  • Why we need failures in our life (17:11)
  • Success rewards longevity(19:24)
  • The real reason it is important to pursue what you love (20:29)
  • When we believe in ourselves we realize our tremendous potential to make an important contribution (26:10)
  • How positive affirmations create new soundtracks for our mind making the impossible improbable and then the improbable possible (30:11)

More About People We Mentioned

Connect with Dave Noll
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Barry Diller – American television executive
Cleve Keller –  American television show creator

Speakers

Greg McKeown, Dave Noll


Greg McKeown

Dave Noll, Creator of 50 more television series, including Chopped, and Chopped Junior all of those things, CBS syndicated to serious face the truth, and many, many others. A Hollywood Insider, I think it’s fair to say Emmy Award winner twice over to Gracie awards for a James Beard Award for Best Television series. A Platinum album award from the recording industry of America for your work on Titanic, the soundtrack for the motion picture, and and many, many other things. Dave Noll, welcome to the What’s Essential podcast.

 

Dave Noll

That introduction was unbelievable. I like myself a little bit more now.

 

Greg McKeown

That’s what we’re going for. I want you to do this. Can you give me like a Reader’s Digest version of your story from birth to the moment you get here? You have? I’m going to give you three minutes go.

 

Dave Noll

I can I think I could do it in 60 seconds.

 

Greg McKeown

60 seconds even better.

 

Dave Noll

I still I was a kid from New Jersey. Nowhere Ville, New Jersey. It’s a tiny, tiny town called Belvedere, New Jersey, right on the border of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

 

Greg McKeown

How many people live there?

 

Dave Noll

I have to look that up because I’ve gotten that question before. I think it was like 5000 you did get high school that I did not so we moved when I was in sixth grade. But that’s you know, that’s where I feel like that has landed with me the most. I feel like a Belvedere in walking around every day, even though I haven’t lived there. You know, since I was 10. We basically used to joke you would in order to get to Belvedere, you would pass like 12 Farms make a left, pass a couple more farms go over a hill. And then this and then Belvedere was down in the valley. And we would you know, we would we would swim in the Delaware River it was that it was right there. And it was an amazing cornfields and a little town square that we lived on, in a little tiny village with a pizza place and a bank and a post office and, and Bob’s candy store I used to buy my candy. And that’s kind of you know, that’s me. That’s who I really am.

 

Greg McKeown

And next you went to where?

 

Dave Noll

I went to American University in Washington, DC. It was a huge, huge moment in my life for two big reasons. One is I met my wife so that obviously it was a big deal. We’re still married to this day. Congratulations. You’ve been married for 25 years. Oh, that’s marvelous. Now that I think it through. And then they had it’s the reason I went there. They had this big old television station and weren’t doing much with it. They had the news, and they had a game show called the roommate game. And I heard about that and I was like, Well, I’m gonna go and work at this television station and eventually I started a late night talk show called midnight with Dave Nall. And that was the first show I ever created. I don’t even count that one. I think actually, if you count midnight with Dave No, I’ve actually now created 60 plus television shows. And the biggest thing about that was a it taught me everything, everything I know about TV, I either learned from working with Barry Diller or Cleve Keller, who I’ve worked with forever, or I learned at that television station back in the day we creating shows and getting people to be your camera person and getting writers and all that other stuff. But the cool part is that show same show, midnight with David on became midnight with crystal, my little brother who’s four years younger, he took the show over. And then after he graduated, about five years later, we took his greatest moments, put them together and sold that show to Comedy Central. And we got my little brother a late night talk show. That proved to me, Well, if we could get a show than anybody like it’s do I could do it again.

 

Greg McKeown

Yeah, you said you said it, given where we came from, and what assets we had, if you can make the journey, then it’s repeatable. It’s you now know, enough of the path for doing it.

 

Dave Noll

I’ve gotten dinged for that before people are like, Oh, you came from nowhere, but and then you know, and they’re it’s kind of insult. Like, they’re basically saying, well, anyone can do it. You know, you just have to work really hard. And I and I think yes, that’s the answer. It doesn’t matter. But But look, my brother and I, we had no ends in the industry. You know, there’s a lot of nepotism, there’s a lot of booty, you know, there’s a lot of who knows you. We didn’t have any of that. And yet, we worked our way up from the very bottom, him just going out to Hollywood and being a comedian and finding himself an agent and me working at MTV Networks and starting as an intern and production assistant and assistant producer and segment producer, and you just go and you grind. And you’re and we both started right away right out of college. And we got to the place where we sold that show it is doable. dreams do come true people.

 

Greg McKeown

What do you know for sure about dreams coming true about how to make that happen?

 

Dave Noll

I know it’s hard. And I know it’s never what you think is going to happen. I never ever really thought we were going to get that show on Comedy Central. Because it was me and my little brother and the guy leading the band was our cousin Michael. I never really thought chopped would be a gigantic hit show that would it will cross 1000 episodes across the franchise next year. I never, it is never how you think it happens. It’s never what the you that’s my experience. It’s always hard and it’s never predictable.

 

Greg McKeown

What I hear actually, underneath what you just said, is a kind of imposter syndrome. I mean, imposter syndrome is that sort of internal experience of believing that you’re not as competent as others perceive you to be or as other people are. But and that’s not quite what you said. But it’s a sense of like, there’s no way that just me and my brother and the family member are just going to cut it just can’t happen. It has to happen to other kinds of people, you have to be a different kind of person for it to happen. And then as it happened, you started going, Oh, you don’t have to be a different kind of person. to us. You can just be normal people. And, you know, an amazing things can happen.

 

Dave Noll

I’ve heard showbusiness and especially television, and especially unscripted television, which is what we do. I’ve heard it described as living in Vegas. Meaning it’s colorful, there’s lights, there’s famous people. It’s great. It’s exhausting. It’s intense. And it’s possible. You can say some things and write some things and talk to some people and you could get millions of dollars, they will give you millions of dollars to make that show. That has happened. I know that has happened. But on the other end, it’s a lot like Vegas, one phone call and you can lose millions of dollars. And it’s heartbreaking. And it’s painful. And I live like that meaning I’m not sure I feel like an imposter but I definitely feel like I’m visiting. Like I am here in Vegas. And I’m enjoying every moment that I can. And the days when we lose big. It is heartbreaking. But dammit I’m going back down there. I’m going back down tomorrow and we’re going to play again and tomorrow. I may win probably not going to By the way, most days, we lose Every day you lips. But there are those days where you go back in. And you pick up the dice, and you roll them and you hit it. And you’re and that’s how I feel. So I would say I feel personally less an imposter and just more a visitor that’s trying to have a great time. And at the end of the day trying to

 

Greg McKeown

Win, and, and losing nine, nine days out of 10.

 

Dave Noll

We have figured out these numbers, we have done this, it was years ago, we figured out the odds, it’s astronomical against you, Brandon Tartikoff, who ran NBC famously said, no matter how great the show is, even if you have friends, even if you have survivor, even if you have Downton Abbey, the odds are you’re gonna have to pitch that great show 30 times, because 29 times out of 30, they’re not going to get it you’re gonna say the wrong thing, they don’t have the money, they don’t have the time slot, whatever it is. So you’re gonna lose 29 times. That is to get a deal. Now you have a deal, congratulations. You only get a show on the air one out of four times. So of those, you need four deals to get one actual series on the air that never gets a pilot, you get a pilot, but then it gets turned down. Whatever happens, they pick up the series, and then it never airs, they pick up the series, they call you and say they’re throwing it up. So that’s one out of four. And then we went around and we asked television executives and we said, What’s the number? How many have X number of shows? How many shows Do you need before you get ahead? And the average number was eight. So if you do 30 times four times eight. Greg, I’m assuming you’re much smarter than me. Because I’ve listened to your podcast. It’s a very big number. I think it’s nine something 960 I think, yeah, there you go. So if 960 is the right answer, that means you’re gonna lose 959 days, and you just have to keep going. And just look around and enjoy the lights. By the way, enjoy every moment, that the biggest thing, Cleveland, I’ve worked with this genius Cleve Keller, I met her first in 2003. We’ve been working together since 2007. She is a genius. She is one of the smartest people when it comes to creating unscripted television series, one of the smartest people in the world easily. And one of the things we’ve learned working together all this time, is at the beginning, we didn’t enjoy it enough, we were concentrating too much on the legal stuff, and making people happy. And all this stuff that you have to cut the writing and the words and the editing and the and making just the best possible decisions. And recently, like in the last five years, we’ve decided we need to take more pictures. We need to smile more. We need to take a step back and look around and just be happy, even on the days where we lose.

 

Greg McKeown

Because if you don’t do that, I mean that’s your life. You know.

 

Dave Noll

if you don’t do that the all those losses are going to get to that. And we’ve seen it happen, you know, people just leave television. That’s probably a good choice.

 

Greg McKeown

I wrote a book fairly recently called Effortless. And I didn’t write it because I think life is easy. There’s no point in writing a book if you think that it’s it’s because life can be and so often is for so many people so hard. And so the question is, how can you make it a little easier? Or at least how do you not make it even harder than it has to be?

 

Dave Noll

That is smart? I Why don’t I have that book yet? other books are fantastic, by the way.

 

Greg McKeown

Well I appreciate that. The but what I’m sharing that is because you I mean that’s what you’re saying is, is if we can turn this basically, perpetual losing into a little more fun, a little more joy in it, then we then we take the edge off it there, we start to enjoy the experience the ritual. You know, the difference between a habit and a ritual is that habit is something you do and you enjoy the result afterwards. A ritual is something that you enjoy in and of itself, so that you you create a ritual for exercise in a way that you enjoy doing it and then later you also get the advantage and that’s what you’re saying how can we make it a little more playful, more enjoyable, Let’s smile our way through this. Let’s enjoy the journey. Let’s you know let’s take pictures and and note it and embrace and embrace the creative process. That you’re describing as being one, I’m gonna describe it as like living on Mars or something. Yes, it’s like, it’s like this is this isn’t, this is not going to be for everyone. And yet, and it’s a long term proposal.

 

Dave Noll

And that’s the crazy juxtaposition. Because on the one hand, you have to passionately dive in to these shows, or the book, or these jokes, you’re passionately diving, and you have to, no one’s going to pick up a show that Cleveland I have created unless we are 100%, confident 100 unless we know clearly how it’s going to be a gigantic hit. And we can express that in a unique, concise way. And then you’re going to get turned down and you have to make sure that your heart isn’t broken, even though of course it is.

 

Greg McKeown

Because you know, that I mean, even just knowing the odds you just described is helpful. Because if you know the odds are, let’s say it’s one and 1000, right? It’s 1000 days of every day doing it, you would approach that differently.

 

Dave Noll

Exactly. You can’t think of it as a pass or a no or someone being mean to you, which they often are or someone ignoring you which they often do, or someone insulting you, which they often do, you can’t think of any of those things as negative. Each one of those things is simply the 999 steps it takes you have to get turned down, or at least you have to think about it that way. Every time we get rejected even on the toughest, toughest days. Either cleaver, I’ll say, well, it’s just a step forward, and you move on some days, I need to stop, like, even if it’s like 1130, it’s that bad. Not it doesn’t happen often. But once or twice a year, some big gigantic, terrible thing happens where you just lose in a huge way. And I’ll just be like, I need to take the rest of the day off. But then you get a good night’s sleep. And the next day you say to yourself, that’s just a step Dave No, they have no, that’s just a step forward, that is a step forward, we need those failures, we need them, bring them on, because we’re gonna get to the next giant hit, it’s there.

 

Greg McKeown

I just think it’s is such a powerful perspective, I remember a friend of mine, who teaches Spanish says, Look, you’ve got to imagine that you’ve got a bag with a hunt, like, like, let’s say 1000 embarrassing mistakes with this language, and it’s in this bag. And by the time you have to every time you make a mistake, every time you try to use your Spanish and fail with somebody, they don’t understand what you said, or they sort of laugh at the way you said it or, or they correct you in some way. Or you take one of those, you know, little ball bearings out of the bag and and you’ve now you’ve used it, once the bag is empty, you’re conversational in Spanish. It’s a similar thing, I think, with success, especially becoming very successful at something, it’s it’s not that the failure is something even. And I think that is the shift in perspective, it’s not just something just to endure. It’s exactly the price. It’s what it is. Exactly, you want extraordinary success. This, this is just the cost of it. You take one out after another and and i think that the the implication is that you must approach success differently. Because if you if you approach success with a sense of I’m going to go huge and big for a short sprint to make it to make the hit to make the breakthrough to make it in Hollywood to make it in your business. whatever it is you’re pursuing. you’re setting yourself up for for like a huge shortfall. Because that’s not the way the price gets paid. It’s a sustainable journey.

 

Dave Noll

How can you keep going and this is why when people say especially in a any kind of show business or entertainment or publishing any kind of job like that. And people will say, well, you should find what you love. You should find who you are. What do you love? That might take you a while to figure that out. But you should find that out and then do that. And then the mistake people make i think is because they think oh well when I find What I love that’s when I’ll be successful. No, no, that is not. What happens is when the reason why people say find what you love, is because when you find what you love, that’s the only way that you could make it through all the failure because at the very least you love it. That’s it’s not a path to quick success. It is a path to lengthy longevity, the work that then will someday pay off.

 

Greg McKeown

Yeah, that’s exactly right.

 

Dave Noll

This is what we learned from working with Barry Diller so but Barry Diller started the Fox Network, the Simpsons Marriott resort and all that started started with Barry Diller at one point he ran Paramount at one point he ran USA Network, he ran ABC. He’s a billionaire, an outstanding human being, and we worked with him for four years. And he, for better or worse, he changed the way we think about what you were just talking about. I was at a project where we thought it was amazing. It was a straight to series project. They picked up 10 episodes. Each episode was six, the budget was 600. That was a $6 million project. And we had only been working for him for four months, let’s say or five months. And I one of my jobs. That point was to go into this boardroom and present once a month, our new stuff. And that day, I was psyched. I was on fire. I was dressed in my very best outfit. I had this presentation. That was it had colorful charts and graphs. There was like that gold binder clip. And I was ready. I was so happy because I thought we had something huge. I was just like, this is $6 million. This is amazing. I go in, I make the presentation. I’m on fire. I hit all the beats. You know, it was awesome. And he said, so why are we doing this project again? And I laughed. I literally laughed. I thought he was joking. I laughed at Barry Diller billionaire, I didn’t I like an idiot, I went, Okay, and then I hit a couple of the biggest beats again, and he slid the packet over to me. And it slid across this table, I can hear it, that binder clip. He said it’s an effing eliminates that. Except you didn’t say anything, by the way. Mm hmm. And what we learned from him was this particular type of show was never ever going to be a long lasting hit that could go for 1000 episodes. And, you know, so he, you know, he basically ripped the rug out from under me, right destroyed me. Everyone looked at me like I was a total idiot. Which is, but then he built me back up almost immediately. He was basically like, Look, what you and cleave can do. What what you two have the ability to do is create the next Wheel of Fortune. You can create the next survivor, the next voice. The next America’s Got Talent, the next prices, right? That’s what you too can do. He didn’t say that’s your superpower. But if it was 2021, he would say that’s your superpower. Do that. Don’t do anything else ever basically was what he said. And at one point, he said don’t pitch me any show ever again ever. No show without a clear concise path to over $100 million globally. Period. And it that changed the way and I I’m not sure everyone should do that because I don’t want the competition.

 

Greg McKeown

But telling this story changed the way I

 

Dave Noll

Think so I’m working on a book right now. I’m just announced but we don’t have a title yet. And what I’m doing is reading books like yours. Or or Adam Grants books or Gladwell, his books are what are Gary Vee and basically delivering it and basically pouring my soul into it for a couple hours every day thinking how can I write the book that changes everything. Which is hard by the way, and it’s crazy.

 

Greg McKeown

Which is hard by the way.

 

Dave Noll

Does it does make it more fun. Like what I love is it I realize it’s because Cuz I, you know, as I say, I live with failure constantly, or quote unquote, failure makes it more fun, I’m having.

 

Greg McKeown

What you’re saying is, if you’re going to think think big, that’s what you’re saying, but but Delia gave you raised your he raised your target, he said, Don’t let it be an achievement that you have a show that gets made, and don’t let it be acceptable that the show is a commercial success. He’s saying you have the chance to do something that’s perennial that lives for a generation that that, you know, that entertains for you, that somebody’s kids and grandkids are still watching this show. Beyond you, the land is beyond your, there’s no, for me, at least there’s no justification in writing a book, or in this case, creating a TV show without that estimation.

 

Dave Noll

I was just gonna say in this time period, the year that we’re living in the years that we’re living in right now, you kind of want to say to every mom and dad everyone raising a child. Yes, give them unconditional love. 100% Yes, give them boundaries. So so they know there’s, there are things that they can’t do they know what the boundaries are. Yes, teach them to be great people, teach them to respect others. But almost Above all, teach them to believe in themselves, teach them that they have the tools no matter where they are. You You have the tools you have it with within yourself to do something fantastic. You have it within yourself to succeed, it’s there.

 

Greg McKeown

Sometimes I would frame the question as well, why aren’t more teenagers? Or just people in general? You know, more confident and in so on a visionary and, and that sometimes I think, what, what, what the question is more like, why is anyone Hmm, you know, and that’s helpful because it just, it says, Where are they being inspired to do that? Yeah, what class in high school? What? What Well, let’s say that way, one TV show, what what song in the media is really affirming, and inviting someone to, to ask these questions or to develop a vision of their life or to, to even start to sense that tremendous potential to make a contribution. And I’m not saying there’s, there’s none of this, but I do not believe it is the primary diet and they all need to hear it.

 

Dave Noll

Even even the best baseball player on the high school team needs someone to take the best softball player needs someone to take her aside and say, Look, you’re the best softball player and that might help you in college and it might not or you might hurt your knee, and blah, blah, blah. I just want you to know beyond softball, beyond playing second base and hitting homeruns you’re an awesome person and you have everything you need to be successful well beyond what you can hit or catch well beyond a song you write or well beyond the number of social media likes that you got yesterday, you as a human are going to be great, it’s going to be okay. You have all the skills.

 

Greg McKeown

I agree with that completely that and not just a single telling of it It must be affirmed and affirmed and affirmed as a soundtrack you know you are capable you have potential you you are you can achieve way beyond what you currently see. And so that if you can start extending your imagination beyond its current limits, and repeating that that movie in your head, enough times that you start to go I you know that then that seemed impossible before but you know, what, what if it isn’t what if it’s not impossible? What if it’s just improbable? What then, and then you keep repeating it and start learning a bit about it and breaking it down as you start to go? Oh, well, maybe it’s maybe it’s plausible now, but improbable but plausible, and eventually, it’s It’s like you actually experience a thing that is done that was beyond your belief before and and and I think what’s powerful about that is not just the single rendition the single moment it’s that that can happen again and again at higher and higher levels. And what that is ending you’re really seriously dealing with the closest thing to magic that I know of Dave, what a how great it is to have you on the What’s Essential podcast. This is the this is going to be the first of many conversations. It’s great to be able to be connected now. And it’s just just a delight to have you. Thanks for being with us.

 

Dave Noll

Thank you so much. I love that book. I love it. Your podcast is outstanding almost every single time. There’s moments of brilliance. It’s unbelievable. And this has just been a shocking honor. That makes me so happy.


Greg McKeown

Credits:

  • Hosted by Greg McKeown
  • Produced by Greg McKeown Team
  • Executive Produced by Greg McKeown