On radio Friday, Glenn recounted the story of how he went from being a "washed-up alcoholic" who was losing his job to being named one of the most influential men in the world.
Then, he reminded himself and his listeners it won't always be that way.
"Change is constant. And change is good, if we know who we are," Glenn said.
Watch.
Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.
GLENN: We're looking for a strong man, instead of looking to a higher power and the humble man who will answer to that higher power, knowing that absolutely everything is possible with God.
I will tell you, and I mean this sincerely -- Pat knows my career trajectory. Anybody who has been with me from the very beginning. I was a washed-up alcoholic in 1999. Couldn't afford my own rent. I had no idea how to do talk radio. And everyone said, "You will fail at talk radio." Everyone. They were about to fire me from talk radio on my first job because I went -- in my first six months, I went from eighth place, and I rocketed to 18th place.
And it was a humbling experience. But I just stuck to my principles. I stuck to what I believed was true. But I needed somebody to remind me.
Dom Theodore, a guy who works for me now, he was a vice president of programming, and he was not a talk radio guy. And he was just a friend. And he took me out to lunch. And he said, "What are you doing?" He said, "You're doing talk radio because everybody tells you that's the way you need to do talk radio. And when I first heard you, that's not who you were. And now you're just doing what everybody else is doing. Because, Glenn, you're afraid to fail. And what made you so good and so promising a year ago was, you weren't afraid to fail. You knew, you're going to give it a whirl. And if it didn't work out, you didn't need it that much. You go do something else."
Are we there as a people at all? Do we look at our country, do we look at our jobs, do we look at things and say, "You know what, I don't need my house. I'm going to be totally fine. I'm going to be totally fine."
I said to my wife -- just last weekend we were walking around our house. We need our house that has a security headquarters, unfortunately, at our house. I can't just buy a house that's just on a regular street because of the life I live. Security-wise.
I walked around my house, and I said to my wife, I said, "I'm beginning to hate this. I'm beginning to hate this house. I'm beginning to hate the stuff in it. I want to have an auction and just get rid of all of this stuff and give it all to charity and go help people who are overseas, and I want to live in a small, regular house."
How many of us would be fine with America not being the world leader, but it was a country of principles, it was a country that stood for something? But the rest of the world didn't like us and didn't listen to us. And we didn't have a role at the world's table or whatever. I think the world would be worse off with America. I know that to be true, at least in the past. But how many of us are really okay with saying, "You know what, Lord, I want to be around people who are -- who understand what freedom really is and freedom really comes from serving you, serving each other, loving each other, helping one another." Not having your name up in lights. Not being famous. Not being rich. Not having the biggest house on the street. Not having a job that you never have to worry about.
Since when did we get to this place where we think -- even me. I spend the money that I have coming in. And I think about this -- for the last year, I've thought about this a lot: What are you, stupid? Do you really think -- you had a voice. You had no voice 15 years ago. Ten years ago, you started to have a voice. Five years ago, you were on the cover of TIME Magazine as one of the most influential men in the world. You're not that guy now. What makes you think you're not just going to be a regular Joe two years from now? And what's the problem with that?
It will always be this way. No, it won't. Change is constant. And change is good, if we know who we are. And I'm not sure we know who we are anymore. That should be our goal, to find out who we are.