Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Interview with Music Producer Randy Jackson

I recently interviewed Randy Jackson on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today is your Grammy Award winning producer who has spent more than 40 years in the music industry, including over a decade serving as the longest tenure judge on the hit TV show American Idol. Randy Jackson is also the founder of unify health labs, where he is dedicated to helping people transform and improve their health. Randy, thank you for joining us.

Randy: Thanks for having me, man. How are you?

Adam: I'm great, excited to have you here.

Randy: Life is good. How’ve you been? How's this COVID thing treating you?

Adam: I don't know that it's treating anyone well, but I'm just trying to stay as positive and as productive as possible. That's been my mantra throughout. And I'm just focusing on what I can control because that's the only way we can get through this in the best way possible.

Randy: Yeah, I agree. I so agree.

Adam: Randy, one of the first guests that I've had on this podcast was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Michigan. But you and Simon Cowell might be the two best known judges in America after the judge.

Randy: Ah, that's funny.

Adam: How did American Idol come together and how did you become a part of the show?

Randy: You know, it started as Pop Idol in London. Simon was doing this thing on there and it became a huge sensation over there. And you know Fox bit the bullet and decided to bring it over here. Before I got involved a bunch of networks turned it down and it became a huge sensation. I got a call from an agent friend of mine, Jeff Brasco, who's one of my dearest friends in the world. And, you know, I took that chance to be on it and you know, the rest as they say, it's history. And, you know, we went about our way and I think back about it now. It's so funny to me that we were judges on the show. We're both A&R guys. Paul Abdul sat in the middle of us. This guy had seen superstars and secrets, the other guy was a comedian. It's just funny when I think back on what we didn't know and what actually helped to propel the show into the juggernaut it became but yeah, that's how it all happened.

Adam: American Idol changed the landscape of both television and music, and you are right at the center of it. What were the best lessons you learned from that experience and from your time on American Idol?

Randy: You know, that you should always be open to new ideas. You should always be open to the possibilities of things because you just never know. If someone had told me five years, two years, 10 years before that, that I would have been a TV star while I was working on records with Mariah, Celine, Whitney, Springsteen, Dylan, Elton john. I mean, I mean, I've been like a session musician and playing with John Aponte and, you know, Herbie Hancock and Billy Cobham, and all these greats, and someone had said, listen, one of the biggest things in your life is going to be you're going to become a TV star, I never would have believed that. I would have said you're a lying piece of whatever, you’re crazy. But if you're open to the possibilities, be open to the blessings that life can show you, because just when you think you know, is probably when you really don't know.

Adam: Yeah, Randy, I think that's extremely well said and applicable to listeners across all endeavors no matter what phase in your career you're in, no matter what it is you're pursuing. Be open minded, be open to whatever it might be in front of you.

Randy: Yeah, I'm sure Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, I'm sure none of those guys imagine had an inkling that, man, this could become something. Nobody imagined that it could become more.

Adam: It's interesting you mentioned Jeff Bezos because my first job out of college was with D.E. Shaw, which was then the largest hedge fund in the world. And Jeff Bezos worked for D.E. Shaw years before I was there. But the story was that when Jeff Bezos worked for D.E. Shaw and he told the senior management at the hedge fund that he was leaving to pursue this idea of his to start amazon.com he was essentially laughed out of there. Everyone was wondering like, why is this guy leaving another incredible opportunity to make all this money to start a bookstore? Who in their right mind would do that?

Randy: Right. Exactly. He had the last laugh. Well, that's the thing is the show got turned down by a bunch of networks. But Fox eventually bought it, you know? And then I think when we premiered, nobody thought it was gonna work.

Adam: So what made it work? What were the key elements and ingredients that ultimately made American Idol successful? And what are some of your other best memories and takeaways from your decade plus, right at the center of what's an incredible part of pop culture history?

Randy: One of the things that made it work is probably the thing that's probably least ever talked about. When you look at the pedigree of the panel, and you looked at the whole makeup of it, it's what was innate that we didn't know didn't foresee. But that was the thing that led it towards greatness. But Simon Cowell and I were gods. I was at MCA Records. He was at RCA in London. What do they do? They find developing talent and existing talent. So we lucked into a job as a judge on a, you know, hit sort of reality show finding talent. Lo and behold, that's actually what we did in our day job. That's what we did. So the ball didn't roll from the tree at all. It was the same tree. We never thought about it that way. But we're always looking for the top criteria of the talent. There's something unique about them. They have some great, unique talent in the story. So we know we're gonna find the songs, we know we're gonna develop them, we know we're gonna do this, but we got to find the best undiscovered talent in America. Or else we're gonna have eggs on our face and saying, well, whatever your day job was, including this job, you should quit them all because you don't know what you're doing. So we have the same face a little bit. So we have to really make something that was entertaining, but at the same time, find somebody great. So you know, it was a task. I don't think we even realized at the time what we were the best equipped to do. And it all worked out. Who knew? Maybe all of our A&R training was the grooming for the show. It all worked out. See Ryan was a radio guy that we used to read copy on the air because reading copy on the air, it's almost like you have to act it out or at least give the emotion to it. Because nobody can see you on the radio. So, you know, it became second hand. I mean, Paula had cheerleading camps, TV shows, dance things, movies, a trained choreographed, the Lakers. I mean, all this pedigree, who knew that all that would work out. But the key thing; we didn't want to take the place of the people winning. We weren't jealous of the people winning, because that's not what we were trying to do. So, a thing about us was like, if you're still a star and you're trying to be on the charts and win, how bad do you really want that person to win? How bad do you really want to choose what could possibly be your replacement? Is your ego that in check?

Adam: Randy, there are so many great lessons amid what you shared, starting with the importance of knowing your role on the team, being a great teammate, understanding, yes, that for you to win in whatever sport you're playing, you can't have five centers or five point guards or five shooting guards. And you have to be either the guy passing the ball or shooting the ball or defending or doing a little bit of everything. And I love the fact that you and Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul and Ryan Secrest- everyone knew their role and understood that your role wasn't to hug the camera and your role wasn't to necessarily even be the talent but to support the talent and as a leader in any organization, the first thing that any successful leader will tell you, and you'll hear this a lot on my podcast, is leadership is about leading people around you. It's not about me, it's about you. It's about taking each and every person on the team to the next level.

Randy: And they say there's no “I” in team. So every success that you looked at, be it in the tech world, be it in the business world, be it at Forbes, be it Warren Buffett, be it whomever you think about. It all was built with the team. Somebody had a great idea but somebody also helped them to realize the idea. Probably a bunch of people to kick it around and say yes, say no, well, what about this? What about that? Have we thought about this? Always a team, every hit artist, there's a team. Every star that gets up to the Oscars says I want to thank the whole team. There's a bunch of people's names that come in there.

Adam: Randy before American Idol, you were an accomplished bassist and an extremely accomplished producer. Can you take listeners back to your early days and share some of the key experiences and lessons that ultimately shaped the trajectory of your success?

Randy: You know, growing up in lovely Baton Rouge, Louisiana, I was the kid that just had a dream like many kids, like every kid, it's a dream. I loved music. I was happy that I could play music and create. I was just trying to think about becoming the best that can be so I can enjoy the level of musicality that inspired me; Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Motown, The Beatles, The Led Zeppelin's, the Allman Brothers, just keep going down the list. I read the Franklins, the B.B. Kings, Howlin Wolfs, the, you know, Chuck Berry- just any of these greats that had come before. I wanted to be up there with them at some point someday. I never thought about the money. I only thought about getting good and becoming the best that I could personally be. I also thought about what a teacher of mine at the college said to me, it's always the right person that shows up at the right time at the right place, with the right information, gets the job. So how can I get enough information so that I can look and read the room? If I go in for an audition, knowing who I'm going to audition for, I've studied the people, like you did for this podcast. You looked at a bunch of people. So I prepared myself that this is not what they want. I could go here, I could go there. So being able to have enough artillery in your waist belt, or your tool belt, that you could really go in there and create whatever needed to be created, that's the idea. Because if I show up and they want something else, and I can't give them even remotely that, why am I there? So that's one of the things a straight session player does. The session player shows up like a great actor, and Spielberg says okay, act. Okay, I'm seeing the wrong busy side of acting so man I gotta take the main war like Nicholson meets Denzel or whatever, go, okay, got it. They switched up the dialogue, they've changed how that goes. That's it; perfect! So you've got to really be prepared.

Adam: Randy, that's incredible advice and just sharing my own experience with the podcast, I think about the great quote from John Wooden, which is “failing to prepare is preparing to fail.” And I think about that all the time, both in advance of doing podcast interviews and in my business in my life as an entrepreneur, you need to go into whatever you're doing as prepared as you can because preparation is integral to attaining success.

Randy: Well, one of the things I learned early on is it is insane in the south, and a lot of these towns, there's a guy driving in a car. This is way before Google Maps or Apple Maps or whatever. He's got the fold out map. And he stops and somebody says, hey, do you need to get to so and so on? The guy says, well, where are you from? Wait a minute. I'm just trying to get to the mountain. Doesn't matter where I'm from. But the moral of that story really is, do you really know where you're going? I need to know where you're from so that you can understand where you go. So, if I don't know where I'm going in life, I have to ask the question, do I know who I am? Do I even know where I'm from? So where are you really trying to go and we can build a map there. But I need to know a little bit more about you before I can devise a plan for you.

Adam: Randy, this is great stuff and you're actually leading me into a topic that I wanted to ask you about which you have a very unique background in and that is mentorship. You mentored some of the biggest names in music through American Idol. They were unknown going into the show, they're now among the biggest names in music. You were a producer before American Idol for some of the greatest and most successful artists in history. What advice do you have on the topic of mentorship? What advice do you have on the topic of leadership? How can anyone become a great leader and a great mentor?

Randy: First and foremost, learn to listen. Learn to be open. Learn to sponge up everyone who has a trusted voice that you believe in that can offer you some wisdom. Try applying their wisdom, and pay it forward and test to see if it works for you and your spirit. If you don't listen, you will never ever learn. No one knows everything at every age. We all thought we knew it all at 21, 25, 30. Are you kidding? I got this, only to realize you didn't. So remain open to the possibility. Don't block the blessings, as my grandma would say, and have faith and belief in yourself. But also, don't let your ego get in the way. I say to most artists that I'm attempting to manage, it’s not who you think you want to be. I only want to deal with who you are. If you can't tell me who you are, come back to me when you can figure that out, because I only deal in realities, I do not deal in fantasy. So then, with those lessons, you can assume that if you've been doing that, and listening and understanding and testing and questioning, and trying to gain and garner all the wisdom possible, then you can become a leader and meet some other people because you've learned some lessons. Then you can try and guide other people in, but if you don't have those lessons, don't let your ego drive you to try to be a leader when you're not. Just because you've got a killer attitude and personality does not make you a leader.

Adam: Randy, you said it beautifully. And one of the things that I try to impart upon all the audiences that I speak to is that before you can successfully lead others, you need to be able to successfully lead your own life and, yeah, it sounds like that's core to your philosophy on how to become a great leader.

Randy: Well, you know, for me, honestly, that's why I studied the unify health plan. Somebody said to me, you've done a lot with your health and your weight and your type two diabetes, why are you doing it? Because everything I've learned now, I want to pay it forward. But what's the first thing that I did? I reached out to a team of doctors, a team of healthcare professionals, to help guide me. I'm not a doctor. I have a vision of some things I've learned. We put that to the test to come up with these products. It just didn't happen out of thin air.

Adam: So Randy, we could dive right into that because that's a topic that I wanted to discuss with you at some point in this conversation. We could jump right in. You've been very open about your health journey, your struggles, your ups and your downs. Can you take listeners through some of the highs and the lows and how on the other side of it, you became a wellness entrepreneur?

Randy: Well basically, as a kid that grew up in the south where food is king. It can't be salty enough, sweet enough, enough butter, lard, it just needs to taste good. So I grew up eating that way, not knowing that there was another way to eat because that's what I saw around me. And that was what it was. And, you know, eating was emotional; happy time, sad times, whatever, you know, there's always food. They call it comfort food to feed people, whether it's a wedding, a funeral, a birthday, whatever, everybody's always eating. So, you know, I grew up with those bad habits, but I was playing sports a lot throughout high school in college, and so I was working out pretty regularly so I didn't have much of an issue. When I stopped that and started going on the road, I started to pack on the pounds and started eating my feelings, because eating is completely emotional. The ups and downs of all feelings wound about and 12 years later, you know,  I’m heavily overweight, a sedentary lifestyle in an office every day, going to some shows at night, but really just a bad lifestyle. Eating on the run. Not really working out. Just busy, busy, busy, busy going, kids and family- the whole thing. And the first thing I let go of is my health. And in the end, it's the thing that caught up with me, even though the doctors were telling me for years, hey, you're pre-diabetic. Hey, you gotta do this. You got to do that. I never did. So I did it a little bit. I joined this gym, that one, whatever, but nothing really worked. So one time I’m in the big emergency room feeling terrible. The doctor said, well, I got some seriously bad news. You got type two diabetes. I go, wow. And he goes yeah, there's no cure, but you can manage it, but you have to make the change now. So that kind of hit me and I was like, okay, no cure. I got something I'm gonna live with for the rest of my life. I can manage it. I got to get to it. I tried every other diet, tried every other thing known to man, every pill, every gym, whatever. Nothing quite worked. About four years into being diagnosed I said, okay, look, let me think about some stuff out here. So a friend of mine had gone to a gastric bypass surgeon and I looked into it. And I said, you know what? I'm gonna do it. Finally made up my mind. I was gonna do it- a two, three, four hour long surgery is serious, major surgery. I did it. And this guy, Dr. Poby, who helped invent it, one of the greatest people in the world, he'd have me go to six to eight weeks of behavioral therapy before the surgery, six to eight weeks afterward. Just so you understood what you were doing, and you're able to change the way you looked at it. I had no idea how much that would help me. That helped me tremendously.I went through the surgery and came out and I made a vow to myself; I'm never gonna let this happen to myself again. And weight loss is one of the things that helps to start you on the road to some sort of manageability with type two diabetes, because obviously, it's around food and what you eat, and how you live in your life. So it sent me on my journey and I'd said I would never look back and I haven't looked back and I've just continued to grow and gain knowledge and every doctor I've ever been to and you know, now I'm paying it forward with this great brand new Unify outlet.

Adam: Randy That's awesome. I love that and I love the fact that you've taken what could have been an incredibly negative thing and turned it into a huge positive for yourself and for others.

Randy: And while I want to pay it forward for people because I realized gut health was the ultimate- well, everything starts in forms in the gut; all the diseases, all the whatever. So it's what you're actually putting into your body. So we came up with a Unify coupon unit. You get 25% off. You go to Unify labs just so that everyone could get it even at a discounted price. I just really wanted to try and help people and encourage them and impart some of the wisdom I've learned with these doctors and everything they taught me and give back.

Adam: Randy, that's awesome. I want to ask you about a similar topic. And I know that you're a very strong believer more broadly on how failing and rejection particularly within the music industry has helped you become successful. That hearing a no can become more helpful than a yes.

Randy: And well, I always say I never listened to the yeses, I only listened to the no’s because the no’s will teach you far more.

Adam: Randy, that's something that I believe very strongly in as well. And I speak a lot about that topic on this podcast and in other settings and I wanted to ask you two questions. Number one, can you share some key failures and setbacks within the music industry that ultimately helped shape your success? And number two, why do you believe failure is so integral to attaining success?

Randy: Well, I think for me, it was being told no a lot early on in auditions. I went for things that I thought I was sure to get that I didn't get. And it wrung out to me. You're not good enough. You don't have what we're looking for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I think failure builds character. It tells me, even when I meet people that are trying to make it today, it tells me who you really are. It’s actually what I did. So if it wasn't good enough for you, come back next week and make it better. Are you listening to why it wasn't good enough? We're telling you to change and work on yourself. So once again, back to that, if you can't listen and take the criticism, this is not the business for you. So, the failures told me what kind of person I was. So you're going to take that and just go away and run away? Like, they don't understand, screw them, whatever. Or are you going to get back up and come back again? Are you going to learn and grow from this moment and come back stronger? Yes. That's who I was. That's what I'm looking for. These are the real winners. Imagine how many times Bill Gates was told you're crazy, like you said about Jeff Bezos. You're going to go start a book company. What are you crazy? You’re at this big hedge fund. Are you nuts? They didn't see his vision, they laughed. So they did not see his vision, but he saw the vision. So you get knocked down, you get back up. I don't care how many times. I don't care how many times, I don't care how long it takes. I don't care how old you are; are you telling me your character? Are you telling me now, do you really want this? And some people say, how bad do you want it? I was talking to a friend of mine the other day. A professional football player. He’s a big wide receiver. He said they told me since I went to a small college, I knew I wasn't the fastest. I knew I didn't have the best hands. But you know what? I was gonna work harder than anyone out there to make sure that I got my shot and somebody saw me. This is what it's all about. Not all of us are not born with this super platinum plutonium spoon. We can just do whatever we have to to make our way. How we're going to make our way- every one of us has been given the tools. We have to make it work with these tools.

Adam: Randy, I agree with literally every word you said. And I want to dive a little bit deeper because feedback is such an integral part on both sides of the equation. Leaders need to learn how to most effectively give feedback and each and every one of us needs to understand how to receive feedback and act on it. And you and Simon Cowell and Paul Abdul and every other judge on American Idol over the years had to give feedback professionally and you received a lot of feedback including a lot of no’s in the course of your music career. What advice do you have on the topic of giving and receiving feedback and how to do it effectively?

Randy: Well, giving feedback you always want to be honest. So some people are brutally honest but If that's the only way they can give it, that's what they give. And you also want to be brutally honest. But you also want to add some construct to it. Listen, that was terrible, but here's what I think is going to help you. Here's what I think you need to work on. Okay, my ears are open. Now that wasn’t terrible. And I've even seen on American Idol people go like, yeah, that was terrible. Everybody's hating me. Let me put that aside for a second. Let me try and absorb the whole thing. So what do I need to work on? So I would walk up to people when I was a young kid, what do you think I need to work on to people that I trusted that I knew. I'd say hey, man, you want to listen to some stuff? What do you think I need to work on?  Yeah, I wasn't saying, love me. Tell me how great I am. Listen and tell me what I need to work on. How can I get better? I didn't let my ego lead. We have to be careful with ego. It's a terrible thing. Don't let the ego lead. So to give constructive criticism, as I say, you have to know what you're really talking about, and begin to try and put yourself in the body of that person and see the vision for where they might be trying to go. And say, well, hey, Jonathan, you really tried to go over here. Do you want to be the next Springsteen or Cardi B or Warren Buffett? Where are you trying to go, where you want to go with your life, that you can offer some real criticism?

Adam: Randy, that's great. I want to ask you one last question, which is on the mental side of success, which is incredibly important in the world of music, but in just about every other industry as well. What advice do you have on how to develop a winning mindset?

Randy: The way that I developed a winning mindset was to never give up and by trying to be as authentic as I could, and that perseverance is the key. I'm going to keep on scratching, biting, fighting, till I find it. And I was so open as a kid. I didn't care what city I had to move to. I didn't care where I had to go. I was going to find it somewhere. So I knew I had to get out of Louisiana for me to make it. I went to New York, went to Toronto, went to L.A. went to Houston, San Francisco, is where it sort of started- in New York then really moved to San Francisco years later for me, you know, with the Journey stuff with Frankie Beverly and with Narada Michael Walden, the Rita Whitney thing that we were doing so it moved for me to there, no one could have told me that that's what would happen. So I kept my mind and my eyes open. My heart open. I didn't get dumbed down into my ego that says it's gonna come to me. It ain't coming to you. I can tell you that right now. You better go out there, get it and find it.

Adam: Randy, I love it. Thank you for all the great advice and thank you for joining us.

Randy: I do appreciate you, man. Keep up the good work. I love what you're doing.

Adam: I loved everything you shared. And thanks again for being a part of 30 Minute Mentors.

Randy: Thank you, I appreciate you brother.