Taking Opportunities When They Come With Mike Wagner
When life offers you opportunities, you take them. Opportunities are hard to come by, especially today with the pandemic. Be open to learning new things and try not to be locked into one career path. Mike Wagner found his golden opportunity after several career plans. Now, the host and producer of the Mike Wagner Show, Mike believes that you can do anything as long as you believe in yourself. Join your host Chad Burmeister and his guest Mike Wagner on his early show days, his faith in God, the media today, and more. He inspired millions of people through his show. Now, it's your turn to get inspired.
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Listen to the podcast here:
Taking Opportunities When They Come With Mike Wagner
I'm with the professional podcaster, which is rare for me. I think in 150 episodes, I don't know if I've had a professional podcaster on before. We have Mike Wagner from The Mike Wagner Show from the 701 area code, which is in North Dakota. Isn't that right, Mike?
That's correct. We were outside Bismarck, and we're 250 miles south of the Canadian border. Watch out when you go further North, watch out for the hockey pucks coming in from Canada, otherwise very friendly people.
Mike, it's fun to have you here. I normally don't broadcast live on Facebook because I figured we're with a professional. What can go wrong?
Taking Opportunities: In podcasting, you have to be interested in hearing other people's stories. Your goal is to get them to tell their story and show how they can inspire others.
What can go wrong is that you all technical bugs, you’ve got the gizmos, and you can blame this advanced technology, yet you download a patch, update, whatever else. They say that smartphones can make you smart, but it does the opposite. Somebody asked me a question, “Would you go back to a certain area with offices?” Around the ‘40s or ‘50s, you had a desk, rotary phone, lamp, pen and paper, typewriter, little file tray, and percolator with a little cup of coffee and a table radio. Now, I'd be glad to do that nowadays and have a newspaper right by it.
The first question I like to ask is for our audience to get to know you. Tell us what your passion was when you were young and some of your first memories. What comes to mind?
Some of the things that first came to mind is being born in Milwaukee and live in Racine for nine years before moving outside Chicago in 1973. This gives you an idea of how old I am. It’s a fact that I would carry a radio with me, and I would listen to all these AM stations to see how far I can get at nighttime when it's supposed to be sleeping. I would like to see what station I can get. I picked up stations in Detroit, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, San Antonio, and Oklahoma City. I also picked up Denver, New York and Boston.
I listen to Boston Bruins. I picked up a top 40 station, which was better than ours, a Little Rock, Arkansas of all places. I picked up some of that, and that was a big sports Getty-all being in Wisconsin. My folks love football, the Green Bay Packer fans, which I was told that they put a transistor radio in my crib and put on TMJ listen to the Packers and try to get me to sleep. That's how I came up with it.
That's a small world because my grandmother was in Milwaukee. I was born in Madison, but the real small world is that my aunt and uncle, with their two kids, lived in Racine. That’s a very small town. It would have been around that time. I was born in 1973. My cousin would have been eight at that time living in Racine, Gary and Sandra Burmeister if you know that name. It's a small town at that time.
I think it’s a small town, maybe 50,000 or 70,000, something like.
It's not 50,000 or anything like that.
The name might be familiar but we did live on Ohio Street with a couple of duplexes. If you go down to Washington, there was a turnstile there and also a Pied Piper restaurant with great pancakes. It’s the best on the planet. They had a Danish shop pastry. They had a thing called the Kringle, which is like a Danish, but it’s shaped in an oval. They sprinkle almonds and have a little filling on them.
Listening to AM radio, how does that tie into what you've done in your career and what you're doing now? It sounds like there's a very close tie.
Originally, I was going to be a sportscast in a play-by-play guy. I take a little long tuck-a-wooden spoon, for example. I have a newspaper with me and I’d be watching the Cubs on WGN. I turn on the TV, especially when they're playing the Dodgers at night in Los Angeles. I'd be doing play-by-play. You don't pretend to do so. My mom and dad will look at me and says like, “Is it time for you to go to bed?” I give them a look and I was like, “No. I'm doing some practicing.”
Who gets to go to bed? They did. That was my first accurate parenting like, “You're the ones that should go to bed. I'm here to practice a career.” I play a little music too. My dad brought home some records from my Goodwill and Salvation Army that nobody ever listens to it. I think it’s nickel, dime, or something like that. They would take the records. I flip them over, watch them spin and everything like that. I also read the newspaper out loud, and I picked up a natural instinct of what's going on in the world and about everywhere.
You didn't do the sportscasting then. You didn't get the play-by-play opportunity.
I did some of that, but I also realized that there are a lot of people ahead of me. I turned to music to have an outlet. I did news and some other writing and everything else. Now I realize I get better at music, but I also have good sports chat, and I can chat sports with about anybody these days.
Since we're getting back to normal from the pandemic and the season like baseball, football, basketball, hockey, and all that, now I can get back to normal talking of whatever sports and find out, “Is this going to mean I’m playing? When is that going to be playing? What season are we in?” We had so much confusion. I got lost in trying to figure out what's going on in the sports. I'm like, “Is our Cubs playing now? Blackhawks are playing, right? What sport are we in?”
Taking Opportunities: There's too much negativity out there in the media. People need more positivity in life.
It's interesting because my mom's cousin, who passed and they had his funeral in South Dakota, was a pretty famous broadcaster in that area for many sports teams like basketball and baseball. My guess is my parents got off the plane, went to get the car at the car rental, and even the car rental people were like, “Why are you in town for?” “We’re here for Charles Rich.” They're like, “We know Charles Rich. We knew him.” He was a pretty famous guy out there in the other state next door to you.
Everybody faces some challenges in their life. Is there something that you're comfortable sharing? A challenge that felt huge at that time, but now looking back, you made it through. How were you able to make it through? I like to share that with our audience because probably many of them are facing challenges of their own right now.
The biggest challenge right now, and this is happening to a lot of people especially, and it hit me hard as well with the pandemic. My wife and I were in Bismarck and having a nice dinner. I got a call saying, “What's up?” and everything else. My phone wasn’t working and I run to the station. I was like, “What's wrong?” He goes, “What the hell is the matter with your phones?” I was like, “I really don't know. It wasn't working.” I got the news that I went into a furlough where they laid off many people.
I lost my local weekend radio gig, playing music and entertain the fans. Also, at the same time, I also worked a couple of part-time jobs, and they got shut down due to COVID. Luckily, with full-time work, you'll still be kept going, but one of the challenges I face is how you make that up without compromising.
I started The Mike Wagner Show in August 2018 with the fact that I wanted to supplement something by doing interviews, which I was actually scared of doing for quite a long time where I turned away. I've had a couple of bad experiences, but after practicing through before launching it, it was like talking to a friend. You'll find out who they are, what they're about, what they like doing, and everything is like having a casual conversation over a cup of coffee. That's what turned out to me.
Cheers to that. That's a good share because I think you're right. A lot of people do have to rebound, and there are some new and interesting things going on out there. If you want to come back to work as a Federal employee, you must be vaccinated or if you want to go to a baseball game. There are many changes in the world that people are going to get into a situation where they have to reinvent. You started as a part-time gig in 2018. Is there any advice you would give on how people could find what that alternative track for their career could be?
I would have to say do lots of research and look inside yourself. What can you do? What can you improve on? What are you willing to learn? You also do a little skillset at times and analyze your skillset. What are you good at? What do you need to work on? What can't you do? You take an inventory, talk it over or get with a counselor. You also figure out what else can you do to expand yourself? People need not reinvent but also expand. What else can they do? It can be totally different or maybe make a multi-career.
I've seen some people too that get laid off at jobs. They worked 20, 30 or 40 years, and they don't know what to do. They'll take little things they can do like mow lawns, paint houses, fix the plumbing or lay down carpet, or even some other tasks like help people file taxes, prepare tax returns, do their payroll, do some business consulting, write proposals or maybe work in the garden, or little things. They take all that and form as an enterprise. They can be consultants and they can say, “This is what I can do to help. This is what I can do to improve. Taking classes doesn't hurt.” You have to get out there and be willing to learn. It may take a while for those who have been set for so many years. I would say be open to learning a new skill. You’ll never know, you might excel on that.
You've been doing The Mike Wagner Show for a while. How many guests have you had on or thereabouts?
I was keeping track, but I lost after a while. Thanks to the podcast platforms. I had Spreaker, Anchor and YouTube. I look it up and I found out it was over 800. I was like, “Is this number accurate?”
Whenever I go to a new city and I get an Uber, and years ago it used to be a taxi, and I'd always ask, “What's the most interesting person you've had in your Uber?” The same question goes here. With 800 guests or more, is there 1 or 2 interesting stories that you can share that maybe one of your guests went through something that was like, “How in the world did they get through that?” Something that's shocking or whatever is interesting to share with our audience?
Taking Opportunities: Faith guides you through tough times.
Some people love to know about inspirational stories and how they overcame things. One of the funnier ones was if you had ever seen Major League back in 1989, they had Corbin Bernsen and Charlie Sheen. One of them was a baseball movie. Willie Mueller, who played the Duke, he was throwing at his kid, hurling fastballs at their head and whatever else. I had him to the show, and it was one of the best experiences we had. He played for one season from Milwaukee Brewers and told me about how he got that one win. He came in, walked in to the guy or got a guy to pop out one pitch. He was on there and he told me about Corbin Bernsen and how he was like, “Get me this and that. That’s my chair.” He had all kinds of stories about Major League, and he does love being in it.
I also had a guest, Jim Peterik, from the Ides of March. He also wrote songs for Survivor and 38 Special. He has great background about how he got started. His dad was in music and everything else. I had Leland Sklar. He's a famous bass player who did over 2,000 artists, notably Phil Collins, Toto and James Taylor. He shared some great stories and improvised a lot of things. I would simply have to say the fact that you have to be interested in hearing their story, how they got there and how they can inspire people. My goal is to get them to tell their story and how they can inspire others. I have had some funny people.
For you to go to do that many episodes, there's something that keeps you going. I'm 100 in on my business show and 50 on this show. Every day, I wake up and there are 3 or 4 new episodes scheduled because I've got automation that helps me schedule that episodes. It's great. I keep thinking, I wonder if I'm ever going to wake up and say, “Is this fun anymore? I don't think so. I really enjoy it.” What do you think is it about getting inside people's heads, figuring them out, and helping them tell your story? What do you love about that? How do you get them?
What I love about the fact is that I love to get people to share their story and their experiences. In fact, I learned some things about people too, which apply to my life or I can say, “I can relate,” and whatever else. I've had some people who talk about their health or they cook a different way. I've had people who are on Keto diets and the other diet.
Intermittent fasting is a big popular one these days.
That's right. I had a guest on there too, Dr. Gregory Charlop, which I applied to myself as well. It's called the Eighteen-hour Diet, where you only have coffee for breakfast. Most doctors don't eat breakfast because they have to have surgery and they’ve got to concentrate. Of course, you're dealing with the body, surgery and whatever else, so you need to drink coffee, then you have your breakfast or your lunch at noon. You nibble a little bit or you don't eat for eight hours. They have dinner at 8:00. I thought this works perfectly because I got scheduled. I don't wrap up until late. That actually worked, and I've had people that love the grill and loved to cook.
I had some people on there who are celebrity chefs, but they also talk about how they can help others. They’ll be a personal chef, have food delivered, make a meal, send it to the other side of the United States, and they create a business. I had a guy who creates his own spices, which is fantastic. A lady on there has all kinds of preservatives. My favorite was apricot pepper.
We just got back from Telluride, Colorado, and there was a place called The Tunnel. It's in an unassuming building. It’s like a speakeasy where you go up to the door, you knock and you have to have the password to get in. Have you ever heard of those places?
I remember that.
It was really neat because they had those meals. It was a six-course meal and they have those things. They're usually very small but very tasty. They would actually have you ring a gong when the chef would come out. They've said, “Chef Isaiah.” You ring the gong and then he announces all of the ingredients. How do you fit fourteen ingredients into something that's the size of your thumbnail? He was so good. He's the understudy. It turns out the other guy who drove us on a four-wheel-drive trail was the other understudy. He wasn't working out here. It’s a very small town there in Telluride.
I was going to say something about speakeasy because I had some mission works for a few days at Carroll, Illinois and spend a few days down there. We wrapped up our work by going to speakeasy words so you can come in. No music, no jukebox, no TV, no games, no nothing. It was a bar and a bunch of tables. You sat around and you drink. That was with a bunch of priests over there and some laymen, clergymen and deacons. They're all passing around and having this, and they said, “I’ll pay for it.” They all get into a fistfight over who wants to pay. Not saying you're going to pay for it. They can fistfight and say, “I'm paying for this.” “No, I'm paying for this.” I was like, “Leave me out, guys.” I was the referee.
If you could wave the proverbial magic wand and everything changed for you in life, what would that look like? What would be amazing?
If I wave the magic wand, I take a finger and I say, “Make it a radio station, get me some food, or get me some coffee or something.” I would try to say the fact that I wave a magic wand and get people to be more in-tune with what's going on and be more positive. I think we need more positivity in life out there.
The reason why I started The Mike Wagner Show is there’s too much negativity out there in the media and too many wannabes. They bash people. I want people to be more positive, creative and encouraging. Don't be too frightened over what's happening. These things shall pass, and you need more laughter and humor. Personally, this may start a firestorm, but throw political correctness out the window. Mel Brooks complained about it and he said, “Political correctness is killing comedy.” It's like, “Throw that out and let people follow themselves and appreciate people.”
I heard that a lot throughout 2020 in the election campaign. The media is the number one enemy of the state even. That's a pretty big phrase, but when you see it transpiring, it goes on both sides. It's a tough problem to solve because there's the thing called free speech. It's an interesting time we live in, but I agree with you. More fun in the world. We need to smile more and love more. Ultimately, to me, a lot of it comes back to our belief systems. There was a book called the Bible written many thousands of years ago, and it may be time for more people to lean into that literature.
When it comes to Bible, it goes back to what you can eat, what you cannot eat, and how to look for a mate. Regarding laws, it comes up to the book of Romans. What happens to a trespass, handling money, seeing how to build things, treating animals, how to raise your children, or getting advice from Proverbs? If you want some music, the Book of Psalms. The gospels from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and what they've heard and their different accounts. Basically, it's not just living history. It's an instruction manual.
Have you seen the show or the app called The Chosen?
No, I haven't.
It’s so good, and it’s two seasons. A lot of the Bible shows, you start to watch the first ten minutes and you go, “I’d rather be playing golf.” It’s hard to lean in on them, but this one is so well done that they re-enact the scenes. You can't put down the remote. I watched four episodes at a time to the point where we were through two seasons in 3 or 4 days.
You talk about lessons there. I think it's Simon that's going fishing, and he gets all the other boys to come out and says, “Come on out. Let's go fishing.” The wife sent all the other guys out and they fish all night. Finally, they're on the shore, and there's this guy preaching to a group of 50 people. He walks over like, “What's going on here?” He's like, “Humor me. Cast that net out one more time.” The boat is sitting on the shore.
You've lived near Michigan before. Imagine a boat sitting on the shore. You're not going to catch 1,000 fish on the shore. He was like, “Okay, Jesus. I'll cast it out.” He cast the net out and all of a sudden, you see the boats start pulling down. Why would someone fake that? They would not. There are many people who were there to witness that that's real. What's interesting is nowadays, we've lost sight that it was so far removed from us that we go, “That could never be real,” or Noah and the flood, “That could never have happened,” but it did.
People will say, “Fake news.”
There's an important one. We literally launched an app, 77Pray. The very first prayer request that came in was for a guy named Noah. I've had dreams about Noah for a year to the point where I flew to Kentucky and saw Noah's Ark. I'm like, “God, I'm here to see Noah’s Ark. What's this all about?” It turns out the kid, Noah, has written some songs and he's an aspiring singer-musician. He came down with the bug and pneumonia. Now, he's in need of prayer and a miracle like the fish jumping in the boat.
That's what he needs because of his heart condition. Having gone through that with my son, where he faced burns on his face and hands, we prayed about it, and he was healed. I now believe that anything is possible. Before, I probably would have thought, “You pray and it might work,” but it works. I'm optimistic that the app came out in time, and we can have a lot of people praying for this kid, Noah.
Of course, thanks to social media, that prayer comes from all over, even with the individuals carrying smartphones, Androids, tablets, laptops and their Fitbit. Do you remember Dick Tracy having his Dick Tracy wristwatch back in the cartoons and everything? It becomes more in reality. Now, you've got everything on your wristwatch with the Fitbit, your heart rate, you can even do a prayer from your modern-day Dick Tracy wristwatch. Maybe they never had that back then, but I can imagine them all saying a prayer through Dick Tracy wristwatch.
We're definitely praying for Noah, and we're going to get a lot of people on that bandwagon pretty quick. If you could go back and tell your twenty-year-old self something, what would you tell yourself?
I would probably say to myself, “Why didn't you go for this opportunity when you get a chance, or why are you afraid to take chances? Don't worry too much about this. You’ve got an opportunity.” For all the twenty-something out there, when you are given an opportunity, run with it. Opportunities don't come very often. You can seek it out, but some people seek the wrong reasons. When someone gives you an opportunity, take it.
There are many tools these days that you can take online that match your skills to the right job. Knowing that you're an engineer, a leader or a salesperson, getting in-tune with that lane is also more easily done than it probably was 30 to 40 years ago. Back then, your parents would tell you, “Go get a job and work at the mill.”
They learned to trade and worked 40 years for a company, everything like that. Nowadays, working 40 years at a job is pretty much archaic. There's constant turnaround like crazy. People are always looking for new challenges. I've seen some people out there nowadays who worked many jobs. They can’t perform below enterprise. One example is I talked to a guy who used to play football. He went from team to team. He goes, “I don't play for a certain team. I played for the NFL.” I said, “Good point.”
That's an interesting perspective. Last question, and you've touched on it a little bit. What role does faith play in your journey and your life?
Having faith guides you through tough times, especially with the pandemic where we lost some jobs, but some got picked up along the way. A guy was simply saying the fact that, “I've got something better for you. Relax,” and whatever else. I also had a couple of children who died. One was named Brian, who was born with all kinds of multiple defects. Everything was pushed up to here. He died from a hernia. After three and a half weeks, he ended up going to heaven.
Maggie miscarried in 1993. We're ready to go to a comedy club, hotel afterward, and have dinner. My wife was shopping for dresses at Sears. All of a sudden, she suffered a miscarriage. I ran all over from work, ran over to the hospital and everything, and took that money I was going to save for a big night for a 13-inch TV and rest it for a couple of months, but we end up having four healthy children. It’s a fact that many things get in the way and are thrown a curveball, but people should look at this that there's always something better. Curveballs get in the way of a better road.
My mom has a sister and a brother. I'd never heard the story of the miscarriage until a few years before my grandma went to heaven. I'm interviewing my grandma on a VHS tape or something. Maybe I had an iPhone by then, but I'm filming the thing and she tells me about that. She was like, “I was depressed for a year. If I would've given up, your mom would not have existed and you don't exist. That means my kids don't exist.”
When she put it in that perspective, and it was my grandfather that kept her along the path and said, “We believe. We have faith. We're going to get through everything. Everything is going to be okay.” My mom was born, my mom's sister and my mom's brother. It's unfortunate, you know their names and God knows their names, but to your point, you had four healthy children. If someone is reading this and they’ve went through a miscarriage, move onwards because it's your duty to make sure that the next generation continues. Thank you so much for sharing that.
It was a tough thing to do. There are people out there who suffer miscarriages, divorce or lose a loved one, but it's important to stay together, and you do it for a very good reason. People should have your reason why or what is your why? People need to know more about that instead of jumping ship quickly.
Mike Wagner from The Mike Wagner Show, it's been a pleasure to talk with you. I'm happy that your business has rebounded. If anybody is reading and they know someone who puts on national radio shows, I bet The Mike Wagner show would do pretty well as a national radio syndicate.
I'm actually on over 30 podcast platforms, SoundCloud, Spreaker, Spotify, iHeartRadio, also Anchor FM, iTunes, Google Play, Audible, Podbean, Buzzsprout, Pandora, TuneIn, heard worldwide, JioSaavn, RadioPublic, Himalaya, the YouTube channel. Take The Mike Wagner Show with you on any mobile device. Subscribe to The Mike Wagner show on the YouTube channel. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. We're all over the place.
I didn't even know that 28 of the 30 you existed. That's pretty cool.
I asked them to add on. They added me on, and I didn’t even know about it. It's like, “You added me. Thank you.”
Mike from The Mike Wagner Show, thank you so much for sharing your journey with us and our readers. I really appreciate you being on.
You as well, Chad. You are truly amazing. We wish you all the best. We are praying for you.
Thank you. Keep the prayers for Noah.
Everybody, thanks for joining Living a Better Story Show. We'll catch you on the next show. Thanks for your time.
Important Links:
Spreaker – The Mike Wagner Show
Anchor – The Mike Wagner Show
YouTube – The Mike Wagner Show
Willie Mueller – Past episode of The Mike Wagner Show
Jim Peterik – Past episode of The Mike Wagner Show
Leland Sklar – Past episode of The Mike Wagner Show
Dr. Gregory Charlop – Past episode of The Mike Wagner Show
SoundCloud – The Mike Wagner Show
Spotify – The Mike Wagner Show
iHeartRadio – The Mike Wagner Show
Anchor FM – The Mike Wagner Show
iTunes – The Mike Wagner Show
Google Play – The Mike Wagner Show
Amazon Audible – The Mike Wagner Show
Podbean – The Mike Wagner Show
TuneIn – The Mike Wagner Show
JioSaavn – The Mike Wagner Show
RadioPublic – The Mike Wagner Show
Himalaya – The Mike Wagner Show
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Twitter – The Mike Wagner Show
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