How You Get to Work Needs to Change with Rudy Salo

February 14, 2023

72. How You Get to Work Needs to Change with Rudy Salo

If you commute to work, you know how miserable and time-consuming it is to sit in traffic. Rudy Salo wants to change that, doing critical rethinking of our infrastructure to accommodate the advanced technology currently available to make our commutes more tolerable, safer, and productive. 

Here are some important moments with Rudy from the podcast: 

At 4:43 Rudy answers the question how do you succeed with mass transportation in a city like Los Angeles when everyone lives so far apart?

At 8:06 Is it realistic to put a hard date on when gas vehicles should be eliminated?

At 16:10 With so many pieces and moving parts it seems like a daunting task for you to be successful with what you are trying to do?

Here are some ways to follow Rudy:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rudysalo/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rudyss77/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodisinthedetailspod/ 

Important information from Homeowners Be Aware:

Here are ways you can follow us on-line:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/homeownersbeaware/

Website: https://homeownersbeaware.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-siegal/

If you'd like to reach me for any reason, here's the link to my contact form:

https://homeownersbeaware.com/contact

Here's the link to the trailer for the documentary film I'm making: Built to Last: Buyer Beware.

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Thanks for listening!

Transcript

George Siegal: 0:00

Hi everybody. Welcome to the Tell Us How to Make It Better podcast. You've probably heard all kinds of ways that we can tackle climate change. That conversation often comes around to transportation. Are we driving electric cars? Do you drive a gas guzzling car? I'll leave any of the debate about how much of a difference we can make with that kind of change to the experts. But my guest today, Rudy Salo, has a broader way of tackling the issue. Rudy is a lawyer, writer, actor, podcaster, public speaker, and Professor. Rudy's Big idea involves working with advanced technology to make our commutes more tolerable, safer and productive. He feels rather than relying on convincing each individual to change their habits, he wants to create a solution that is available to the masses. I'm George Siegal, and this is the Tell Us How to Make It Better podcast. Every week we introduce you to people who are working on real world problems and providing actual solutions. Tell Us How to Make it Better is partnering with The Readiness Lab, the home for podcasts, webinars and training in the field of emergency and disaster services. Rudy, thank you so much for joining me today.

Rudy Salo: 1:10

Thank you for having me, George.

George Siegal: 1:11

Hey, no, no problem. Um, so. Right off the bat, Rudy, so tell me the problem that you have identified and tell us what you're doing to make it better.

Rudy Salo: 1:22

The primary problem that I have identified and that I, that I'm working on and extremely passionate about, let's, let's just call it my day job problem, George, cuz little just snippet of background, I, I am an attorney. I do infrastructure finance, so I, I help local governments, nonprofits build all of the necessary buildings and other, and other tools that we need in order to live a great life that we live here in the United States thankfully. The United States is very unique in that we have, um, tax exempt municipal bonds unlike other countries. And so I'm a tax exempt municipal bond lawyer, and it's a very unique thing. We don't need to get into it. Some people kind of get bored by that. My passion, which is thankfully connected to my job, is in the future of transportation. I do a lot of transportation finance. I, I help, um, train systems get built. I help toll roads get built, I help bridges stay afloat, um, et cetera, et cetera. And the problem that I have been writing about and have been focusing on laser focus for the last several years is the future of transportation in particular., um, the adoption and, um, use of driverless cars. For several years now for, for, if you go back and you, you go like pre 2016, pre 2015, all the rage was driverless cars are gonna be here by 2020. It's gonna change our society overnight. You know, traffic deaths are gonna stop. Everyone's gonna be sleeping in their cars on their way to work. Our city's gonna be redone, et cetera, et cetera. And I honestly was one of the first, and, and continually to be the, the one, one of the voices that say no. No, we, we, we, you can already have driverless cause we've had driverless cars for forever. You can go into YouTube and go see videos. You can go see videos from like the late two thousands that they, that they've been driverless cars, people have been having driverless car models, you know, since the 1990s. My whole point is that in order to actually maximize the utility, the safety, and the the real use of driverless cars is our infrastructure needs to be completely refashioned in order for driverless cars to be adopted. Now here in San Francisco and in, sorry, not here cuz I'm flying to San Francisco today. But in San Francisco, in, in soon in LA there's already some robo taxis being rolled out. In some other cities, they, they have those as well, and that's cool. So that's a car without a driver, like big deal. But, uh, you know, I, I, I don't, I don't see how that's supposed to really change or impact how we live here in the United States.

George Siegal: 4:07

You're, you're confusing me just a little bit, so. Sure. So let me jump in and ask you some questions. I noticed one of the things when I was reading about you was you used the, the train that, that, uh, transportation in LA. When I was growing up in LA that didn't exist. And, and I always thought that was, is way too far in the future, but I did take it when my son was going to usc, he had to spend a semester at Santa Monica City College. So we would take the train from downtown to there. The problem in such a big city like Los Angeles, it's getting everybody to that hub where they can use that form of transportation because everything's so far apart.

Rudy Salo: 4:43

Excellent point. Excellent, excellent point. And that, and that, that, that is another segment of, of the, of, of the transportation problem that I'm, that I'm trying to, uh, address. I don't know when your son was out here, but lately in, in the LA area, there has been an explosion of the personal use of e-bikes, electronic bicycles. Now, if you're, if you're able and you're fit enough to actually ride an e-bike, there are a wonderful first mile last mile solution. I live here in Manhattan Beach. I live exactly 1.8 miles walking distance to the end of the green line Now. If I had car trouble, or, you know, last week, a week or two ago, my cata catalytic converter got stolen from my Prius and I, and I didn't have access to my car for a little while. I had to walk to the train station, um, down in this part of Los Angeles, in the South Bay. We do not have, um, any of the E-bikes or e scooters, those are just banned. They're not allowed. If I had a working functional e-bike, I could drive to and from the train station, no problem at all. The solution is that more and more people need to have e-bikes. That you're, you're absolutely right. The hubs of where the transportation systems go, they are in the more densely populated areas, but most people don't live there. Most people live in this massive suburban area that that is a conglomeration, that's Los Angeles. So what I have been advocating for are tax credits for for E-bikes, and it turns out those are getting rolled out this year in 2023, there are going to be tax credits for people to purchase E-bikes because that's a great first mile, last mile solution. A lot of people take their kids to to school. I walk my kids to school, but a lot of people take their kids to school here in the South Bay via e-bike. It's wonderful. The problem is, okay, it's not just tax credits for e-bikes so people can have e-bikes. George, it's, we need to rebuild our infrastructure, our streets for the safety of those bicycles. So

George Siegal: 6:43

that's, that's what I was gonna ask you because

Rudy Salo: 6:44

it's the same thing, it's the same, it's the same discussion. It's the exact same discussion about redoing our infrastructure. We need to redo it for driverless cars and, and we could talk more about that. But we also, we need to do it for the safety of, of, of electronic bicycles and other alternatives to the personal vehicle. The, the real, real problem that I have identified truly, truly, and this is maybe, maybe I should have said this in the very beginning, that I wanted to capture everybody's attention by bringing up driverless cars. Cuz that's kind of the hot thing. Here is the true problem george, for the last almost 100 years in the United States, the vast majority of our transportation, uh, excuse me, of our infrastructure funding, has been built for one purpose and one purpose only the personal vehicle. And that's a problem. Sorry, go ahead. No,

George Siegal: 7:32

I, I, I believe that, and also we're talking about a lot of these are electric vehicles and, and, and to me the challenge with that, and, and I know you'll say, well, you live in Florida, so you just hear the bad stuff about California. But when during the summer with the heat waves, with the rolling brownouts and they were saying, don't charge your electric vehicles, don't use your air conditioning. If so much depends on electricity, that seems to create a whole other problem. So I know they did it in a lot of places where they said zero emissions or, uh, no gasoline cars by 2030. I mean, is that practical? Is that realistic to say something like that?

Rudy Salo: 8:06

It's gonna be very difficult. I, I, I agree with you, by the way, kudos to Florida. Last week I was on another podcast and I did some research because one of the main primary topics was the rolling out of electric vehicles and the necessity of the mass, uh, amount of electric vehicle charging stations that are gonna be needed. Florida. What I learned, I couldn't believe this. Number three state in the United States for electric vehicles. Kudos to Florida. You guys are Florida, and that comes with a whole host of, you know, funny connotations, but hey, you're adopting electric vehicles. So, which is great because the, the other southwestern, uh, south southeastern states have, have, are behind in the, in the adoption. However, there's a massive amount of e electric vehicle manufacturing is going to the southeastern part of the United States. So it's kind of this weird, strange conundrum that, that I'm watching. 2030. I mean, look, so last year in 2022, um, electric vehicles went from 2% of new cars sold finally up to 6%. That's, that's a pretty good increase. At the end of the day there's still many millions upon millions upon millions of new combustible engine cars being rolled out onto, onto the roads every single year. EVs are just a small part of it, and there's a lot of reasons for that, right? Uh, but there's, people have range anxiety. The electric vehicle charging stations aren't there. People, you know, the people still say that electric vehicles are too expensive and, and they, if they live in an apartment, how are they gonna charge their cars? There's a lot that needs to happen, thankfully, at the federal level, with both the, uh, infrastructure Act that was passed in November, 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed last year, they are, there are a lot of federal incentives being rolled out to the states that will, will definitely kickstart, um, the, the, the, let's say the mass adoption of electric vehicles. But still, George, that's great. Look, we're, whatever you feel about the climate or whatever you feel about combustible engines or cars or anything, an electric vehicle is still a personal vehicle. It doesn't solve the problem of transportation alternatives, right? It doesn't, it doesn't solve the e-bike problem. It doesn't solve the, the mass transit problem. It doesn't solve the, the fact that even places in Florida, , you guys are rolling out trains, right? The bright line mm-hmm., um, go going up and down the state. Everyone is super excited about that. People want alternatives to vehicles. How do we do that? Well, the number one question is, is who's gonna pay for it? And the way that we pay for it out here in California is we, we do, we do it through sales taxes. That's how that transportation, that train system in Los Angeles was built. Mm-hmm., it was built because we, we did a, did a sales tax and we taxed ourselves to build that system. One of the problems that I'm identifying is we as Americans need to decide, uh, what, what, what, what, what do we want for the future of transportation and what are we willing to pay for? Most people will say, well, I already pay for that. I pay for it through my gas tax or I pay for this tax and that tax. Well, okay. Gas taxes have definitely been one of the primary funding sources of infrastructure in the United States for sure. But as we get more fuel efficient vehicles, as more electric vehicles go out on the road, guess what happens to the gas tax? It Sure. They're not collecting as much, so at the end of the day, we need to decide how we're going to be comfortable taxing ourselves in order to pay for our infrastructure and the the future infrastructure changes that we want. Some people say we need to switch from the gas tax to vehicles per mile. Okay, so wait, the government's gonna count how many mile miles I'm driving on the road, like is that a little bit too big brother? Maybe, but we need to have these kinds of discussions. We need to, we need to have community input. We need to have people thinking about this type of stuff. If we really want to change and, and, and build out transportation alternatives and move away from just the personal vehicles. That is truly the, the, the problem that I am trying to solve. I want us to have discussions about what changes we want for the future that we are envisioning.

George Siegal: 12:32

It's time for emergency preparedness to go mainstream, smart, innovative, practical solutions that match your needs. Instinct ready, educates prepares and equips the everyday person for disaster with promo code make it better you can access comprehensive preparedness courses and premium go bags. Visit instinct ready.com with promo code make it better today. Preparedness starts at home. Yeah, the problem, I think a lot of that does end up boiling down to politics because of the people that are carrying flag for for the, for the cause. When you have people like Al Gore, uh, Greta Thunberg or whatever her last name is, uh, you know, AOC, all these people that are, that are demanding and they get angry at you if you don't agree with them, and they're screaming at us, what we have to do, and I don't think that pulls people in. You know, I, as somebody who's probably the opposite of that, I mean, I drive a Tesla, But, um, I don't do it for the environmental reasons. I just liked the car. I thought it was a fun car to drive, but I see there's a lot of problems with it when I go on road trips, having to wait to charge it, having to stop so often, and the inefficiencies of electric, electric vehicles on, on high speed. You know, they may go a long distance if you're driving 45 in town. So there's a lot of the, it just gets very political, so I think you have a daunting task in front of you. But I do like the idea because like I say, that train was very good. Here in Florida they're putting in high speed trains now. In Europe, that's how people get around from city to city. I mean, it seems like there's a, a, a real value there.

Rudy Salo: 14:03

What what there is, is people want a choice. I mean, it's, it's all about the choice, right? Like, if you give people a choice, they may ride more trains, ridership might rise, you know? Um, unfortunately, unfortunately, ridership, in fact, as a result of the Covid Pandemic has been dropping. Cause there was a safety factor there. And, and, and, and to be fair, ridership in some places was dropping even before the Covid Pandemic. If you read any of my forbes.com articles, I point out there's, I have a whole article about like, Hey, why are LA's Transit numbers dropping right. Now places up other places like, uh, San Francisco, which which had a more robust use of public transportation. They're, they're also down. Um, and, and they were, and they weren't trending down, uh, prior to the pandemic. I don't believe I, I mean not, and is not as stark as Los Angeles was, but now we have the work from home movement. There's a lot more people working from home. How is that gonna affect ridership? Uh, I mean, as I was going back, the vast majority of our, of our trains out here in California are, are paid for with, uh, it's called the sales tax. So every time somebody purchases anything we, we give funding towards transportation. But if you have a train system, which is 100% reliant upon fairbox revenues, i e tickets, that's gonna be a big problem. We gotta get ridership back, back on. Now, how do you get ridership back on? Well, you gotta get people to go to and from the train station in a, in a comfortable way. Uh, so that's where, that's where the whole e-bike thing comes in. And do you see how everything's kind of interconnected?

George Siegal: 15:45

I do, and I think it also feeds on crime and safety because there are places in L.A. I don't know that I'd wanna be on a train late at night anymore than I would in New York City. I certainly wouldn't want to in a lot of places in San Francisco. So, you know, it's like I'm, I'm for all that stuff. But it's like, how do you get to the point where there's so many loose ends you have to tie up? It seems like a daunting task to feel like you could actually make a difference.

Rudy Salo: 16:10

Safe. Look, safety absolutely is an issue. You know, um, so you, you've, you talk to some frequent passengers. They will, some will say safety is their number one priority. Some people suggest, well, the solution to that is more frequent, more f more frequent trains or more frequent buses or something. Safety is definitely a priority. You know, I'm sure there's a technological solution to that of some kind. Um, more cameras on a train, more perhaps more of a police presence, perhaps, perhaps something. But safety, you cannot dismiss safety. If people do not feel safe actually riding the train, well then forget about building something out to get them safely to the train. Cuz if they're, they're gonna stay off the train because of safety, then that's going to be a major issue. There's a lot of issues here, there, there really, really are more, most people feel safe in their personal vehicle alone going to and from where they're going. I will also say most people really hate traffic. You and I briefly touched upon politics prior to you hitting the record button, and you know, you've, you've brought up some political things on this. You've named some political members of a certain political party and, and you've said some things. I'm very quiet because I'm very, um, diplomatic. Here's the one thi here's the reason why. I have focused my life on fighting something that every American hates. That's traffic. I don't care if you're red. I don't care if you're blue. Everybody hates traffic. Now, maybe people on the red side have their thinking of how to deal with traffic. Maybe people on the blue side have their way of thinking of how to deal with traffic. I'm trying to bridge both sides to say, can we talk about the one thing that we all hate as Americans and that's traffic, and see if we can come up with a solution. That's my life's goal.

George Siegal: 17:59

Yeah, it's a great goal. And you know, although I did bring up a bunch of, of people that you would say are blue or on the left, when I was,

Rudy Salo: 18:06

I didn't say nothing. I said nothing. I didn't paint any pictures.

George Siegal: 18:09

But just to when, when you bring up like sides in something. For me personally, I, I like to consider myself on no side because there's no side that I really like. I'm more like what you're talking about. I want solutions. I want problems fixed and I don't wanna fight about them. What I don't like is people from either side yelling at me that I'm not on their side. I want people to find a way to bring everybody in and, and solve, actually solve problems.

Rudy Salo: 18:35

That's, that's my goal. That is one of my goals. And I, and yes. Okay. The things that I'm talking about, you know, more safety for, for, for alternatives to vehicles, uh, bikes and scooters. Um, building out infrastructure for driverless cars, or what does that actually mean? I. There was an, there was an article yesterday in the, in the Wall Street Journal in the review there was an opinion section. It was called Will We Blame Self-Driving Cars? And it's a, it was a discussion of a new study finds that people are likely to hold autonomous vehicles liable for accidents even when they are not at fault, even when the car is not at fault. This is exactly the type of stuff that I'm talking about for years, literally years. You can go back and go, see, I've been writing articles about this. I have argued that we need to put driverless connected cars. Cause all cars need to be connected and have the technology to talk to each other in their own lanes where no human drivers can go in there. That's what I'm, that's what I have been advocating for. Now, okay, why, what, okay. Big deal. Rudy, why are you coming onto this podcast to talk about? Well, are we go, are we as citizens gonna be willing to give up an entire lane for these driverless vehicles? Hey, the streets are already too small for all the cars. Uh, well we need to have this discussion, right? Like if we think that driverless cars and the technology, the amazing technology that's there, is something that can truly transform our country and traffic, we are gonna have to talk about their rollout and their proper rollout and what we are willing to give up in order for that rollout. So that's, you know, it's just some of the things that I like to write and talk about.

George Siegal: 20:14

Sure. I mean, and the problem with that is we always hear about the one that fails. We don't hear about the ones that were successful that day. Of course not. You just hear the, you just hear the bad stuff and when you do, it's scary. You know, you think of a, a driverless car driving into an intersection, but I tell you, I've been in some cabs and Ubers lately where I might have been happier if there was no driver.

Rudy Salo: 20:32

There you go. Right? I mean, you, you're right. I mean, it's, and that was one of the points of the article, is there's, there's, there's this bias. Oh, if it was a human driver, that human being, I mean, that human. Can you imagine, you, we, we all live amongst the other human beings. That human being would've figured out a way to, to, to not get into that accident. That's ridiculous. Uh, one of the forbes.com articles that I wrote over three years ago that still gets hit, is about how Hollywood and TV shows, um, have affected our AV biases, autonomous vehicle biases. And I and i, I list out like a whole bunch of movies where we've seen driverless cars and driverless vehicles and like, you know, the, the danger of them. And I actually wrote like, Hey, look like this. I really think that, that if, if, if this is what we're focusing on, the danger we're, we're never gonna have mass adoption. I, I, I, I, I, I do like the fact that there are some robo taxis out on the road, out here, out west, getting people familiar with them, getting people to the same, I, I understand that aspect to it. I just truly think that for, for insurance purposes, for future litigation purposes, Manufacturers of driverless cars, no matter what they do, they're always gonna, everyone's gonna think they got the big bucks. People are going to sue them and insurance premiums for them are gonna be through the roof. I really do think they need their own lanes, so I, I don't know, it's just something that I kind of, I know that's very niche, but just arguing for it.

George Siegal: 22:07

No, it's interesting. I remember when they were putting the monorail in Las Vegas and you were going, well, how are they gonna do this? And they, they elevated up there above the ground, but then you have a construction nightmare. I was just back in San Antonio, Texas, where I lived for a number of years, and they did an, did an elevated roadway from the city up towards the north, and it's taken years and it's been a nightmare for people. So it's the pain that you have to put up with along the way to convince people that it's worth it.

Rudy Salo: 22:34

Amen. Man. Totally. App. Couldn't, couldn't agree more about, about the Las Vegas example, for example. Very interesting. As a, as a municipal bond lawyer, the, the monorail bankruptcy was, was like a seminal case for, for like municipal bankruptcy, cuz it had some very interesting issues. Every time I go to Vegas, I actually stay in a hotel that has the monorail. Why? Cause I'm a nerd. I'm a transit nerd. I went to high school in Anaheim. I was, I went to Disneyland. I loved the monorail. I, I really geek out on that, on that, on that stuff. Uh, and yeah, people were using the monorail when, when I was in Vegas. I mean, you know, it was a big convention I, that it was packed. It was, it was, it was nice to see because Vegas's traffic is, Just unacceptable. It, it's horrible. I hate sitting in Vegas traffic because you're driving by the casinos. You wanna be in the casinos or you wanna be walking by them and, and everything. And when you're stuck in a car, I don't know, it takes away from the Vegas experience for me.

George Siegal: 23:38

Yeah. You try taking a cab from one hotel to the other, it could take you 30 minutes and it's just, it's going a couple blocks, so. Totally. I think the, the monorail is great there. So when you think big picture now, just to try to, you know, put a button on this, how realistic and what do you think the timeframe is you know, you're, you're fighting this fight. Do you see a light at the end of the tunnel?

Rudy Salo: 23:59

I do, cuz I am reading more and more articles in the Wall Street Journal and in other, and in other places where I, I'm actually, I know this is gonna sound counterintuitive, I am seeing more companies. Divest themselves of their autonomous vehicle, kind of, kind of wings, right. Of the, of their subsidiaries or anything. And I, I, I make the argument and I have made this argument and there's some people finally hinting at, we are not ready. Okay, well, what does, we are not ready, mean well, we're mentally not ready. We as Americans are not, are not ready for their mass adoption.. And I've even seen some people say, oh, and you know, it sure would be great if that, you know, our infrastructure was, was a little bit built out for it, vehicle to vehicle, um, infrastructure, vehicle to infrastructure signaling certain types of lanes, certain types of paint, certain types of markings, uh, cer. Some states, like the state of Michigan, state of Colorado are really, are, are actually redoing some of their infrastructure for the adoption of driverless vehicles. So I think it's slowly moving in, in that direction., and like I said, I think it's great that these robo taxis are rolling out. We get used to them. I just think people have to have lower expectations about the effects of driverless cars lit seriously. Literally like in the middle of the 2000 tens, many, many, many, many articles about how things were going to change pretty rapidly, right? Like I say overnight, you know, just for exaggeration purposes. But I think people were thinking things were gonna change very, very fast. People, when people were there, people were saying, when you're making your real estate choices, you know, think about how, how, you know, driverless cars are gonna affect every, not yet. We, we are 20 to 30 years out. We, we just are. Like maybe when I have, you know, grandchildren, knock on wood, someday, maybe then at that point things will really be changed. Could it be earlier? Sure. If, if, if, if. If we make a decision to truly change things, I'm sure we could change things overnight, but I, I don't think that's gonna happen. Our, our, our passion and love and our, and, and like I've said, the vast majority of our infrastructure funding has already been built for the personal vehicle. You can't change that overnight. So 20 to 30 years maybe? Maybe a little bit sooner. Maybe sooner in some places versus others.

George Siegal: 26:21

It's hard to imagine big change. when we so disagree on things as a, as a country, it's like, I know Republicans will fight it just because the other side wants it and vice versa. And, and, and to me that's what, that's very frustrating. Reasonable people should be able to sit down and go, Hey, that's a really good idea. Let's find a way to make it work. Um, It's a, it's a tough, it's a tough challenge. So I, I, I wish you well with that. Now, I, I was reading about you, you, you kind of do a lot of different things. You're also an actor. When I was looking at your picture, you look like a, um, what was the actor, you've probably heard this before. Um, from, uh, Andy Garcia.

Rudy Salo: 26:58

I get Andy Garcia a lot. I do, I do get a, I do get a lot of it. I get Andy Garcia and then, uh, Joe Mosaleono, when I'm really looking good and fit. That's the other one that people say.

George Siegal: 27:10

So how, how do you like a, I mean, you can bring your acting skills into your communication skills. It probably all ties together in some way.

Rudy Salo: 27:17

Oh, without a doubt. In fact, I, the reason why I got into acting is cause I started speaking at a lot of these conferences for my industry and strange, uh, I was feeling nervous and I never felt nervous in my life. So I, I started off as some really base level public speaking courses, then took improv. Which really elevated my speaking game. Improv led to acting, uh, lessons acting led to standup comedy for like a year and a half. And then at that point I had gotten into the podcasting game, but really enjoyed acting and had kind of developed a, a, a decent reel from the small little things that I'd done. And I just did it as a, you know, whenever, whenever I, whenever I have the opportunity, when work permits, I, I love to do, I love to act. I, I love to write. I also write, I'm a screenwriter. I, I don't know if you saw one of the films that I, um, that I put onto the, my LinkedIn, uh, movie, Fortune Cookie was one that I wrote, directed and, and acted in, and that one did well. And I absolutely love acting. It's so passion. I'm so passionate about it. The other thing that I'm, the other thing that I'm trying to solve for, so I talked about my day job thing that I try to solve for. The other thing that I'm trying to solve for George is, is lawyer happiness and general happiness. And I have found that creativity in the creative arts, Is truly the, the key to happiness. Uh, when I, when I became partner at, at my law firm, I should have been elated. A and I wasn't. I was miserable. And the reason why I was miserable was because prior to going to law school, I was a musician. And when I went to law school, I literally looked at my bass guitar and I said, I'm done with you. I'm putting you down. And I did. I didn't do anything creative for approximately 15 years, and at the end of that 15 years, I realized I was really unhappy. Once I started to go into the more creative arts, the acting, the, the speaking and the writing happiness finally came back and, and so we speak on Good As in the details podcast, the podcast that I'm on, one of the like frequent topics that we talk about is the power of creativity and how, how creativity and an expansive view of what is creative truly leads to happiness. And I also teach at, uh, I teach, teach at a law school down in Orange County and, uh, how to be a deal lawyer. That's the, the short way of describing what I teach and a big part of my class is I'm trying to teach these students about the importance of happiness. And yeah, that's the other thing that I'm solving through for both through the acting and through the podcasting and the teaching.

George Siegal: 29:48

The toughest thing I think you do is, well, first of all, trying to change the transportation system, but going on an audition, I used to go on a lot of auditions when I lived in L.A. It's the most humbling experience, and I'd always have my best read in the car driving home after I bombed it , because you, you walk into that room and you have one shot to impress the hell out of them. That's a pretty tough thing to do. I mean, it's...

Rudy Salo: 30:14

george, I, I'm gonna say so. I'm gonna throw this out there. I love in-person auditions. I love them. I, my hit rate is way better than self tapes. My self tape hit rate, George is terrible. And I think that's because I, I, I don't think I'm, I'm that great when I'm, when I'm just filming myself in front of a white sheet and, and, and there's no interaction there with a human being. George, I'm not, I'm not as great and, and, and so I'm really working on self tapes. The in persons of, of course, my, my, the, the hit rate is still extremely small. All, all actor hit rates are very, very small. But I always feel good after them cause I feel like, Hey, they got a piece of Rudy. Self tapes, I don't feel good. If you have any suggestions, man, please give 'em to me.

George Siegal: 31:02

You know, if I would prefer in person over, over a tape also, you know, unless you're taking a tape, making a tape of something you're actually doing.. But yeah, when you're standing there trying to do it, even if I take a selfie or I cut a little promo, it never sounds as good as if I just take a snippet of something I actually did. And that's because your mind, your mind has to be in the right place. I marvel at actors and, and, and people that, that do that for a living or comedians that can do standup. That's a real skill to be good at that.

Rudy Salo: 31:33

Absolutely. I, I, I forced myself to do standup because in my opinion, and I've advocated this for my ch for children and even lawyers doing standup comedy and really doing it, not just taking a course, but standing in line at, at open mics, getting slotted at like some good places is truly the key to eliminate fear and self doubt. A hundred percent. If you have any fear of anything performance wise or speaking wise, or even I think career-wise, go do standup comedy. It eliminates fear. I really did not enjoy standup comedy. I had a couple of really good shows where I hit it out of the park and then I pretty much said, Hey man, you're done. You did it. You did it. You're. if you're, you're over this, like you can now move on from it, but I, I re anybody that's out there that's looking to like, improve themselves, improve their performance, improving their career, improving anything like that, go do standup comedy for at least a year, a year and a half. I promise you, you will, you'll be so much better after.

George Siegal: 32:39

Yeah, if you can survive, I mean, when you watch the brilliant comedians like Jerry Seinfeld or Dave Chappelle or some, you know, people that can just stand there and talk and are funny, it took'em a while to get to that point. They had to bomb a lot to probably hit that stride.

Rudy Salo: 32:53

Years. Years. The massive amounts of hard work that go into it. And the shield, you know, the Teflon that they have of their bombing. You have to bomb. How are you supposed to know if something's funny? Unless you bomb like it. You literally have to be able to bomb and then adjust bomb and then adjust, and then bomb, and then adjust, and that builds confidence, in my opinion.

George Siegal: 33:16

Well, if you really wanna feel like you're standing on a edge of a canyon screaming out to nobody, start a podcast.

Rudy Salo: 33:23

Oh, forget. Amen to that man. That's, that's a whole, that's a whole other dive into, into, uh, the abyss of, uh, performance, right?

George Siegal: 33:31

Yeah. But as a guy who's done so many things, and, and I, I always talk about this, you have to like what you're doing to be able to do it every day and be good at it. If you don't find any enjoyment in it, like with podcasting, you're doing it because you enjoy talking to people and you enjoy what you're talking about. If you're gonna count the number of people every day that might be listening, you're gonna drive yourself crazy.

Rudy Salo: 33:52

Couldn't agree more. And, and, and, and I don't, I I don't, we do not count the number of people that, that listen, uh, to good as in the details. We literally do it because we, we get, we get hit up by people that, that say, Hey, that was really helpful. I, I was thinking about this topic. It helped me discuss it with my partner. It helped me discuss it with my boss. And I, I'm on good thesis. I learn like I, it's like a self-help thing for me cuz my partner, she's a, she's a philosophy professor, um, at a number of universities. She's extremely intelligent and so she, what we do there is we try to use the tenants of like old philosophy. Like, how do you live a live and lead a better life and help people? And so on every podcast we have an expert and I'm learning, I'm learning in the prep of it. So to me, hey, it's like if nobody listens to it, yeah, that's too bad. But I know I'm becoming a better person by doing it.

George Siegal: 34:44

Excellent. Well, hey Rudy, I'm gonna have all your, uh, contact information in the show notes, um, so people can reach out to you. If you had to leave people with a thought who are trying to do something to make the world better and they just need advice to, to get off their ass and do something. What would you tell 'em?

Rudy Salo: 35:01

Oh, that's such a good question, George. Um, tip, put one step in front, put one foot in front of the other, one step forward is a step in the right direction, you know, and it's a slow, slow, slow process. And do not give up. Do not put one foot behind you. Always put one foot in front of you.

George Siegal: 35:20

Excellent. Rudy, thank you so much for your time today.

Rudy Salo: 35:23

Thank you, George.

George Siegal: 35:24

Thank you for joining me today on the Tell Us How to Make It Better podcast. If you liked what you were listening to, please become a subscriber. All of Rudy's information is in the show notes and you can hear more from him on his podcast. Good is in the details where he co-hosts the show where we learn what we didn't know, we didn't know to help live a good life. If you have any ideas for guests for a future podcast or wanna share your thoughts on what you were listening to right here, my contact form link is in the show notes as well. I'd love to hear from you. Thanks again for listening. See you next time.