Sometimes I think people just don’t notice that they’re no longer passing quickly through negative space, but in fact are renting to own. When do sarcastic jokes reach the tipping point and turn into nothing but a steady drip of criticisms?* Avoiding someone who’s shape-shifted into a spitting viper is understandable. Not shouting a warning first in case they hadn’t noticed is unforgiveable. I remember going on a date with an influential actress who had a public image built around being charming and entrepreneurial. She was hugely successful and had far more fans and followers than I did; people genuinely admired her. I was looking forward to getting to know her. We went to dinner at a nice restaurant, and she immediately started making all these mean little observations about the diners surrounding us.
*It would be shock therapy if Fitbits counted the number of negative things we say or do along with the number of steps we take each day . . .
“Look at that hideous outfit she’s wearing,” or “Can you believe he’d go out in public with a face like that?”
Every time I tried to steer her into anything resembling an actual grown-up conversation, she would go right back to her insult monologue. It was supposed to be witty and droll, I guess, but it definitely wasn’t attractive.
Finally I just put it out there: “Look, I feel this may not be working. You’re pretty focused on criticizing everyone, and I’m not into that kind of negativity.” She was highly offended, called me an asshole, and stormed off. Six months later, I was shocked when I received a text from her out of the blue that said “Thank you.” No one had ever dared to call her out on it before. She admitted that she wasn’t raised like that, nor did she want that to be what defined her. It was reassuring to hear.
The gift of celebrity comes, I believe, with a social contract. Jennifer Lawrence put it best when she said: “What’s the point in having a voice at all if I’m not going to use it for what I truly believe in?”
To those online who say we should stick to renovating houses and stop giving opinions on anything else, I say shame on you. Shame on you for suggesting that one’s profession defines who they are as a human or what they truly believe in. Shame on you for closing your mind to a point of view different from your own. Humanity has evolved by learning from the errors of our past and struggling to improve for the future. Change is as frightening as it is inevitable.
When we were kids and fantasizing the way kids do about becoming rich and famous someday, our mom would temper our ambition with compassion, reminding us, “You don’t need a million dollars to make a difference.”
Our parents supported many different causes both locally and abroad, and we learned the value of giving back through the example they set. Our home, nestled in nature, and their love of the Rocky Mountains taught us to treat the land with reverence, and made us mindful of the marks we leave on an environment whose gifts are intended to benefit everyone, not just a privileged few.
I’ve learned that if you want to “dish it,” you gotta “take it.” If you feel the need to rant, then sometimes you also need to listen. Everything comes down to balance. -Jonathan
When we went to install solar panels on our house in Vegas, I soon found myself thrust deep into the trenches of the hot-topic issue of renewable energy, and the David vs. Goliath battle between everyday consumers wanting to harness the power of Nevada’s abundant sunlight and the powerful few who had a vested interest in thwarting them.
The controversy sparked a fire in me both creatively and politically. I have always believed in having an educated opinion if you’re going to stand for something, so I started digging. What I uncovered was frightening. The bully in this case was big business. The victim, all of us. I wrote a documentary on the findings, which exposes corruption, deceit, manipulation, and good old-fashioned greed. The facts are like something straight out of a Hollywood script. But this is all real . . . and it’s scary.
I hadn’t even finished writing the initial outline when somehow word got out about the project, and I received my first two warnings from some large, influential corporations threatening to blacklist me from working with any of their companies if I continued.
I’m still producing the film.
We were taught at an early age that we could make a big difference in this world, even if it was just a big difference for one other person. There was no minimum age required for a random act of kindness, or taking care of the planet we all share.
There used to be a public basketball court at a park in Maple Ridge where we played every weekend and through much of the summer. One day we showed up to discover that someone had broken the rim right off the backboard, and we could no longer play. They weren’t the best backboards and hoops to start with, and even though Parks and Rec was supposed to fix it, when we brought it to their attention, they said they didn’t have the budget for repairs. They told us there was no guarantee they would decide to allot the money for the fix in the following year’s budget, either.
Drew had run basketball camps for kids, and he understood on a personal level how important the game was as an outlet, especially for many kids who had nowhere else to go. He knew they would be let down by the loss of their practice court. Rather than wait for Parks and Rec to do the right thing, or expend energy mounting a protest that might well prove futile, he saw an opportunity to do something rather than just say something. He may have only been 15, but that didn’t stop him from launching his own fundraiser, which ended up raising enough for two brand new backboards and hoops, new lines painted on the court, and a small playground. Even I was blown away by how the whole neighborhood came together to offer their support.
It was also while we were in our teens that we discovered how tender the human bond can be, even between strangers, and how easy it is to acknowledge that connection. Mom and Dad raised us to understand the importance of giving back. When we signed up as volunteers to visit with the young patients in the children’s oncology ward of the local hospital, it just seemed like a natural extension of the clown and magic acts we’d been putting on for years at birthday parties. But spending time with children who are in the last few months or weeks of their lives changes you. This wasn’t about performing or entertaining someone, really, it was about being there with them. Sharing space that has been stripped bare of ego or expectation, where there’s no room left for pretense.
Drew remembers building a birdhouse from a craft-store kit with a boy who had lost his eyesight to cancer, and how excited the little boy was as he felt each piece and Drew guided him by touch through the project.* With another child, listening was the greatest gift he could offer as she confided in him that she was worried about her mother, who had a rough night. “She was crying,” the girl told Drew. “I was holding her hand.” Drew attended the girl’s funeral not long after. To this day he draws inspiration from her courage and compassion even as she faced death at the innocent age of 8.
*Kids just want to be kids, to laugh and play and not think about the sickness.
She didn’t have a million dollars, but there is no question that she had an impact. She made a difference to us. All the kids we’ve met at various hospitals over the years have had an impact on us. The chain reaction of a few hours with one blind boy and birdhouse becomes a lifetime commitment to supporting kids’ cancer initiatives for the two teen volunteers who happen to become adult celebrities, who are lucky enough to grow a big fan base whose numbers include many who will step up and do what they can, too.
We don’t have the luxury of a lot of down time with our schedules today, but we do have a lot of equity in our brand, and investing that in causes dear to our hearts is as important to us as the checks we write to the charities we support.
Social media has profoundly changed the landscape for raising funds and awareness—just look at the deserving people who have been helped thanks to crowdfunding, or by the research and development of drugs to treat Lou
Gehrig’s disease thanks to the $115 million raised by the much-ridiculed ice bucket challenge* that took the Internet by storm in 2014. We were among the hundreds of celebrities who joined in—it was exciting to be part of such a huge chain reaction for good.
*It originally seemed like a bizarre idea, but ended up starting a conversation, which is the most important thing.
In recent years, we’ve been able to help raise millions for charities such as Artists for Peace and Justice, World Vision, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Rebuilding Together, and Habitat for Humanity. The flip side of having that kind of visibility, though, is having to keep our passion in check sometimes when there’s a situation where we feel compelled to step up, but at the same time are constrained by the risks and reservations that come with being in the public eye.
To understand how we “really” are, let’s rewind to a high school assembly where the guest speaker was a girl whose twin sister had been killed by a drunk driver in a horrific accident. As she was telling her story, some “cool kid” idiots behind us started laughing and heckling her. Drew grew more and more livid with each jeer, until he was literally shaking with anger. He turned on the leader and grabbed him by the shirt.
“Open your mouth one more time and you’re not going to like what happens,” he warned. The hecklers could see in Drew’s eyes that he wasn’t kidding. They shut up.
Then there was me at the age of 23, just another straphanger on a crowded train. A tiny older gentleman, maybe 5 feet tall, was facing me. The train was bouncing him around and he kept accidentally jostling a brick house of a guy behind him. The guy turned around and snarled at him: “Hey, stop bumping me or I’m going to knock you out.” The old man apologized. He was trying his hardest not to touch the other passenger, but then the train lurched to another stop, and he bumped the hothead again. I could see the look of sheer terror cross his face as the guy turned on him. “I f---ing warned you . . .” he barked as he lunged toward the elderly man. Before he could finish or take a swing, the doors opened and . . . let’s just say I “briskly escorted” him off. “You come back on this train and I’ll knock you out,” I promised.
Thanks to our years studying the discipline of karate, both Drew and I know how to avoid a fight—and how to resolve one quickly with force if necessary. I’m not one to start a fight, but I admit there’s a part of me that enjoys it once I’m in one, because you’d better believe the person has it coming if I got pushed that far. It’s a hot button for both of us when people are being attacked unfairly.
I felt that button being pushed in a strange bar one night last year in Fargo, North Dakota, after wrapping up a local appearance and going to grab a drink with a friend and some folks I had just met at the event. The first bar was a lot of fun, and the staff even asked me behind the bar to take pictures and show off my wannabe bartending moves. When that bartender was getting off his shift, he suggested we go to this other bar where there was live music. As soon as we entered the second place, I could feel this weird tension between our group and the staff. This continued to brew under the surface for a good hour—when suddenly all the lights went up and they started clearing everybody out. It was closing time. A guy who’d been behind the bar immediately approached our table and was specifically eyeing the couple across from me.
“Get the f--k out, lights up!” he barked.
“What? We literally just ordered our drinks!” someone in our group said. No one had said last call. Something definitely seemed off, and for whatever reason, this couple was being targeted. The bar guy confirmed my hunch.
“Too bad,” he said, slapping a drink off the table and sending it smashing to the floor. I didn’t know these people, I had no idea what was going on, but this aggression was totally unwarranted.
“Whoa, whoa,” I said. “I think we all need to take a breath.”
The employee then grabbed the women in our group and began shoving them out the front while someone else started shoving the guys out the back into an alley. I was still trying to wrap my brain around what was happening and on what planet this kind of treatment was acceptable. The bar was still full of people who were slowly making their way to the exits. My friend was out front by herself, and so I planned to cross back through the bar to get to her. I turned around and took about five steps back inside when one of the bar staff grabbed me by the throat in a chokehold. I didn’t struggle, but I couldn’t breathe. Never in my life had I been put in a chokehold or thrown out of a bar, let alone for not doing anything. It took everything in me not to revert back to my martial arts training and flip the guy onto his butt. But that wouldn’t help the situation. There was something else going on. For all I knew, it could be more than just a beef with these people I had met . . . the whole thing could be a set-up and they were trying to get me to make a scene. Wasn’t going to happen.
Back outside, I flagged a passing cop and filed an assault report against the guy who’d practically crushed my windpipe and a complaint against the bar. The officer told me that this was a common complaint police received about this place. When he went back for the video from the security camera, apparently he was told the cameras weren’t running that night. Footage miraculously showed up three days later, though—a brief snippet zeroing in on me being hustled toward the back door. By then, tabloid headlines had already circulated saying I was in a bar fight with headlines like “Property Brother Gets His Face Renovated.”* Granted, I’ll give that writer the headline of the year award because that’s pretty funny. But the experience as a whole was anything but funny. I was shaken up, mistreated, and frankly pissed about the whole thing.
*I woke up to see this headline on my phone. My tactic to avoid any further issues . . . was to promptly go back to sleep.
Great! That’s what you get for standing up for a stranger, I thought to myself. I guess the entire ordeal qualified as my first (and only) Property Brothers scandal. Nothing more ever came of the incident, though my friends still make fun of me for my starring role in the lamest reported bar brawl in history, since not a single punch was thrown.
But let’s keep some perspective: Nothing could possibly be pettier than first-world problems like celebrity gossip, bar non-brawls, and concerns that some scam artist might stage something so they can shake you down with threats of a lawsuit. I know my place on this vast and troubled planet is nowhere remotely near center stage. Fame isn’t power; it’s energy. And what that energy can—and should—do is pull attention to the people and places and problems that need it the most.
One of the most humbling experiences I’ve had in my life was a trip Drew, JD, and I made to India with the humanitarian aid organization World Vision in an attempt to raise awareness about child trafficking and child labor. The slums of New Delhi were a culture shock. Poverty like that doesn’t exist in North America. Yet people would be singing while they made their naan, without knowing where their next drink of water or meal was coming from.
At the education centers World Vision set up in the slums, we were each assigned a child to get to know. The little girl we met used to sell trinkets—necklaces she made from flowers and grass—on the roadside to support her family. It was either this or rag picking, scouring the dump barefoot for bits of wood or metal to sell for pennies. In many of these slums, the children work because the parents are unwilling to. It’s hard to wrap my brain around the lack of value placed on human life in the eyes of some people. At 7, the girl we befriended had been kidnapped off the street, brutally raped, and then dumped back on the side of the road, barely clinging to life. When her parents got to the hospital, we learned, her father had immediately berated her, demanding to know if she had the money from her flower trinkets.
One of the World Vision representatives told us about another child, around 4, who wasn’t her usual carefree self one day when she came to the center. She lifted her tattered shirt to show severe burns on her stomach. A pot of boiling
water had fallen on her. The worker went to her parents and asked if the girl had seen a doctor. “I don’t know, ask her,” was the mother’s reply. She was too busy dealing drugs to worry about her own child. Kids as young as 5 and 6 would come to the education centers, blitzed out of their minds because the mothers or fathers decided to silence them by giving them drugs instead of parenting. It was incredibly upsetting to hear their stories and witness their tragedies. But even more heartbreaking was the absence of hope in the eyes of children who’d simply given up on themselves.
No amount of money is going to solve the problem. Support and education are key. People oppressed by slumlords will never rise up and stand up for themselves unless the rest of us show that we’re not giving up on them. Maybe it’s not the biggest thing in the world, after all, when our grande latte comes with the wrong spice on top. Throw a fit, by all means. But throw it over something you want to see changed in the world, not your coffee. A million voices can make a bigger statement than a million dollars.
Back at home, we’re excited when we can use our shows as a gateway to a better life for people who need a hand, or as a way to contribute something to the communities that host us. All the profits from the sales of the homes on Brother vs. Brother are donated to charity. Each year, that’s meant between $80,000 and $160,000 going to Rebuilding Together, which has put the money right back into the local community. Some of those funds were used to improve a transitional education center that helps people with disabilities learn meaningful skills that will help them find employment. Another year, the money renovated and improved a Boys & Girls Club facility. This year, we also donated over $250,000 in new furniture and decor from Wayfair to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. We can’t stress enough that every little bit counts. One dollar. One tweet. One hour helping out at your local food bank or animal shelter. It matters.
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