american population. good afternoon. 140 million of us are in mother nature's path this afternoon. temperatures well below zero. snow measured in feet. cities big and small crippled. check out subzero windchills. as low as negative 50 and 60 degrees and those conditions frostbite can set in in just five minutes. serious stuff. we woke up to 54 degrees and fog here in new york city this morning. we'll be near zero by the time we wake up tomorrow morning. jetblue grounded all flights in and out of all three new york area airports and boston. they're trying to get back up to speed after days of bad weather. officials tell wnbc they should be fully operational again by tomorrow at this time. bottom line is it doesn't matter if you're a die-hard or novice, when it comes to winter weather, everyone is feeling this. >> i'm not used to it. coming from southern california where it's 80 degrees in the

winter. i come out here and i have three jackets on, a scarf, a hat, i've got three pairs of pants and some knee socks on. it just is kind of crazy. >> our job is to make sure that people stay safe and if we need to remind someone, hey, you need to move indoors for a little while, because you look cold. that's our job. whether it's 16 below or 70 degrees. you have to have a plan and be prepared. >> it's not just the midwest. the bitter blest extends into texas and places like houston residents have been scrambling to protect themselves and property as reported by kprc. >> reporter: this is the inventory that they have to protect your plants and pipes. many people here in houston took note of the warning of the deep freeze and they came out to buy it. >> volunteers have been handing out coats, hats and gloves to the homeless. we're all in this together. we begin in chicagoland with ron allen who is covered up to the

chin. are you all right? >> reporter: i'm doing just great. how are you doing? it's not bad. you come out here. you get bundled up and it's fine. believe me, this is nothing. it's deserted. chicago is like a ghost town. this is the center of town. people have heeded advice to stay indoors. wise thing to do. temperatures are -- last time i looked it was negative 15. windchills 35, 40 and of course once you get in those numbers it all just is like that woman said, it's just crazy. if you look over here, there's nothing. usually there are thousands of people out here. that's a good thing. it's dangerous out here. there are traffic accidents. public transportation is in many cases having a lot of problems here. the governor and others, emergency officials, are saying to people stay inside unless you have to. schools have been closed. universities have been closed. things are just -- it's a day to

sort of chill out and wait for tomorrow. the temperatures are supposed to get a little bit higher tomorrow into the single digits here in chicago. and double digits by thursday and then by friday while temperature in new york is going down, it's going up here slightly. still very, very cold. michigan avenue, a lot of people know down there, everything is pretty much closed up because nothing happening. people can't get to work. it's just quiet and it's quite peaceful here. flights are delayed. canceled. hundreds of them again here in chicago this morning after thousands over the weekend. somehow i was able to get a flight last night that got me here. just 12 hours. express. back to you guys. >> very peaceful for a very good reason, ron allen. get inside quickly. thank you for joining us in chicago. as cold as it is in the windy city, other parts of the midwest are even colder. state governments are responding. 13 states have school districts that have shut down today

because of the cold temperatures and in fact in minnesota all schools are closed statewide. that's something that has not happened in 16 years. nbc's kevin tibbles is braving the elements in the twin cities. >> reporter: schools in the minneapolis-st.paul area are closed today. many of the businesses are also remaining closed and others are allowing their employees to go home a little bit early because of this dangerously cold temperatures. the national weather service is referring to it as a particularly dangerous system. it's not just here in minnesota. obviously this is spreading throughout the heartland in the chicago area schools remain closed. in indianapolis, they have so much snow combined with cold that the mayor there is asking people to stay off the streets. temperatures with the windchill wind gusts are about 35 miles an hour. that brings the windchill in minneapolis-st.paul down to minus 45 degrees. you cannot stay outside for any

length of time and if you do, you have to protect yourself, which is why your reporter today is going to be doing this. i also suggest that you don't walk into a bank looking like this. guys, back to you. >> all right. kevin tibbles in st. paul, minnesota. my crystal ball is more of a snow globe today. all right. our coverage continues in indianapolis where the mayor actually ordered cars off the road because of a combination of the cold temperatures and the big snows. the weather channel's mike seidel is checking things out there. >> reporter: here in indianapolis we have dropped to 14 below zero. the record is 20 below. our windchill right now is running at 40 below zero. in the twin cities, the actual temperature has dropped below 20 below zero and some of the windchills in these colder locations are running 50 to 60 below zero. also here in indianapolis,

there's plenty of snow to go around. yesterday when it was relatively balmy, 31 degrees most of the day, we picked up 11.4 inches of snow. that's a record for the date and the second snowiest calendar day on record going back to the 1800s. it's piled everywhere this morning. we do have the sun coming up on this icy morning. notice there's no traffic. there's no activity. that's because the mayor has basically shut down the city except to emergency vehicles and people trying to seek shelter. they'll reassess that midday today to see if they'll soften up that travel ban. everyone is sitting tight and trying to stay warm. airport issues speaking of chicago, another tough travel day. about 45% of their entire schedule so far has been canceled. departures and arrivals. yesterday the same kind of story. it's been like that in chicago because of all of the snow over the past seven to eight days. here in indianapolis they canceled 85 flights and that has

filled up the hotels here in the downtown area. and as far as forecast goes, the entire midwest, great lakes will stay in the deep freeze for several days. things will loosen up and thaw out thursday and friday as highs here in indy crank above freezing but not until friday and all of this cold air is now moving into the northeast, the eastern seaboard, through this afternoon and tonight temperatures in new york city will fall from the 50s this morning back into the teens for highs on tuesday. by the way, eight layers. that's what you have to do. this is face cracking weather here in indianapolis. back to you. >> wow. face cracking weather. thanks, mike seidel, for braving that. now to the personal meteorologist. what's going on? do you have eight layers on? >> as many as you can fit on, put on today. especially tomorrow here in the northeast. let's talk about why it's so

cold. we heard about this polar vortex. the reason it's so cold outside in the midwest is we have windchills below 40 below in green bay. 41 below at this hour. the cold air escaped from the north pole. a piece of it is rotating around. i'll set this into motion. you see the white area there is core of most frigid air by tomorrow. tuesday over the northeast and great lakes. today it felt like spring this morning in the northeast. tomorrow it will definitely feel like winter. dangerous windchills move into our area as well. and let's look at these warnings. you can see a tremendous amount of real estate covered by windchill warnings and advisories all of the way from montana down through florida. 35 states are under a windchill advisory at this hour and windchills remain brutal across the midwest. now the arctic front pushes into the southeast. it feels like 12 degrees in atlanta. even new york city starting to see windchills creep down to 30s and it feels like 9 below in pittsburgh. nashville feels like 1 degree

below zero. this arctic air mass core swings by the northeast tomorrow. tomorrow morning dangerous windchills in new york city. warnings are in effect. atlanta is going to see windchills around 15 degrees below zero on tuesday. even down to orlando windchill advisories in effect there. tomorrow is the worst of it here in the northeast and then things gradually get better as we head throughout the next few days. the jet stream takes a jog to the north. by the end of the week into the end, milder weather. proof for you. chicago five-day forecast. tomorrow back to 3. that's an improvement. by wednesday we're in the teens and by the end of the week above freezing in the windy city. 37 degrees. we're talking about potential for 40s and 50s here in new york city. so we have worst to get through tomorrow and then it slowly gets better day by day. much better weather heading into the weekend. >> it's better news. thanks for that. we have to spin about this.

yesterday i was out and about with my kids. there was so much ice on the sidewalks that we were doing the penguin walk to keep from falling. we're all holding each other's hands. but there's always that one guy who i saw i think on 61st and madison. wind breaker clearly a lot going on on top and shorts beneath. you see that guy all the time. what are you thinking about? >> it does present a unique challenge. this morning it was 50 degrees in new york. we all know it's going to get freezing called. i had on big coat and it was weirdly gross and warm. >> it's fascinating to me how much we love to talk about weather. if there's ever an awkward moment in an elevator or conversation, always reverts back to weather. it's beautiful out or terrible out. i'm from utah. i love a good snowstorm. i enjoy the cold weather.

this weekend it was the perfect excuse to not get out of your pajamas for the entire day. for me personally, i caught up on "breaking bad" and finished the series. it was the best weekend of my life. i don't have children so i enjoy every minute. i'm sure it was different for you. >> try being trapped in a small new york apartment with two young children. >> from someone who went to college in minnesota, i'm looking forward to tomorrow's single digit minus whatever degree windchill. it will take me back to my days of college. >> how do you stay fashionable when it is that cold? i'm curious about that. that's important. >> i will be in the studio tomorrow so i'll give you a whole primmer from boots to jacket to scarf to hat to gloves. it's possible. >> please give us that look. you chose to grow up there. i didn't choose to grow up in boston. i find this snow oppressive.

take me out of this cold. can i get on a flight to rio? get me out of here. >> on a more serious note, there are 700 homeless people that die of hypothermia. if you are in new york city or chicago, call 311. if you see someone on the street that looks like they need help, if you are in a major metro figure out what your hypothermia hotline is and do what we can to keep people safe in this weather. >> important stuff there. up next, congress back at work and getting ready to hold votes tonight. really? that's happening? "the cycle" rolls on for this first monday in 2014. we have to work a full week. if you're in congress, you wouldn't have to work this hard. . yeah. everybody knows that. did you know there is an oldest trick in the book?

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the temperature in washington is falling through the 30s at this hour but inside the u.s. senate chamber it is hot, hot, hot. washington is in the second session of the 113th congress and there are two big votes tonight. first one is to confirm janet yellen as first female fed reserve chair. that starts in two hours. the next will test waters on reinstating long-term unemployment benefits. if you missed it, they expired more than a week ago for nearly 1.5 million americans. get used to hearing this message against growing inequality a lot heading into november. democrats are making it their midterm rallying cry.

president obama is expected to focus on it in this month's state of the union. some republicans fully aware that november is on the doorstep are willing to extend the benefits if they include job creating measures. it's the inequality campaign of 2014 and for that there is no one better to turn to than luke russert. looking mighty tan. >> golf with john boehner. that's how i do it. >> sure you did. >> what are odds here? do we think jobless benefits will come back? >> well, no matter what happened in the united states senate, it faces an uphill battle, that being unemployment insurance in the house of representatives for the reason that conservative groups are scoring this senate vote and have come out against this. you have this issue that played hardcore in the house gop conference which is that of debt and deficit. because this does extend benefits to 1.3 million people

but raised deficit by $6 billion is not deficit neutral and republicans by house gop conference are by in large going to be against it. in the senate, the test vote tonight is very interesting. it's very much what you said. democrats take this message of income and equality. one they want to play in 2014 and won them the day in 2012 and shields them from problems with the health care law. listen to harry reid on senate floor earlier today trying to find a few good men if you would from the senate republican congress. >> i hope a few reasonable and empathetic republicans will join my colleague from nevada, senator heller, and help us advance this bill today. passing the measure is one of the best things we can do for our economy. >> it's unclear if they will find those five republican votes. he's referring to dean heller, republican from nevada, co-sponsor of this unemployment insurance legislation. some folks think possibly

mccain, possibly collins in maine, moderates we've seen before willing to crossover. it's no guarantee. back to what i said at the beginning. even if it comes out of the senate, probably dead on arrival in the house. this will be an issue that honestly democrats would like to fight out instead of just pass through cleanly probably. >> we might like to fight it out but we would also like to see them extended. >> indeed. >> luke, thank you so much. always great to see you. >> always a pleasure. be well. let's turn to perry bacon. luke was just referring to the fact senator dean heller is the one republican we know is onboard. he's from nevada. a state that has the highest unemployment in the country. how much are the politics of where the unemployment is highest playing into the possibility of whether we will see jobless benefits extended or not. >> not much so far. dean heller is one republican

who said he's for this. as luke listed, other members who may vote for this, not that maine has high unemployment but that susan collins is one of the more moderate republicans. that's where this the extension is going to come from. moderate republicans in the senate and some talk in the house if there are $6 billion of offsets, you might see a vote where a combination of republicans and democrats pass these benefits. not likely but possible. less about where unemployment is highest and more about how bad republicans think this vote will be if they block unemployment benefits from being extended. >> perry, that gets the question i was going to ask. i believe senator rand paul had a proposal of sure, let's extend unemployment benefits but they have to be paid for but without saying how they would be paid for. so can you give us an idea of what these offsets might be that would make it possible for republicans to vote in favor of extending unemployment benefits? >> i can't, jonathan, for a reason. there's a bit of a game here.

the white house asked today what would offsets be, they wouldn't say. republicans won't really say either. that's intentional on both sides is my impression. no one wants to come out and say here's what i want to cut first. the fact they both talk about offsets means there is some middle ground that can be reached here. >> so liz cheney dropped out of her senate race in wyoming but we have several crowded senate gop primaries. a lot of it is establishment versus tea party. we have a political scientist who is good at crunching these numbers and looking ahead saying that it seems very realistic the tea party will win some of the senate seats. it appears that the gop civil war continues. >> i would look for georgia and north carolina and kentucky in particular. those three states. we have talked about about the race against mcconnell. that may weaken in the general election. north carolina and georgia are important. they have big republican

primaries in georgia you have one democrat and one democrat who is incumbent so you have a possibility again where the republicans will pick the most extreme, most controversial person and the democrats can win a seat or hold a seat in the south where they are very vulnerable otherwise. >> i want to get your thoughts on utah. my home state. big news came out this morning. supreme court putting a hold on gay marriage. obviously leaving the decision to the tenth circuit court that could take many months. this is just the beginning of something that will not go down without a fight. what do you think this means for couples that have now already been married. already now legally married for the couples that have been waiting in line that aren't yet married and how do you think this plays out longer term? >> the couples are in a legal limbo. 1,000 couples have been married so far in utah. a state that's very conservati e conservative. the supreme court has punted. we don't want to have 5,000 more couples get married because the

law is not clear here. key thing to remember. utah as you know better than i is a very conservative and very republican state. rad right now there are 17 states that allow gay marriage. one thing they have in common, barack obama won all 17 of those states. to go from allowing gay marriage to only blue states to go to utah, a very republican, would a big leap. it's an interesting issue. the supreme court in june punted. they said they made up legal ease but they made it legal in california. not controversial. utah, alabama, georgia, much different. the polls show that gay marriage is more popular in blue states but still the majority of republicans are not for marriage equality yet and that makes this difficult for the courts to deal with. >> thank you as always. >> thanks, guys. up next, after a decade of

war and 4,500 americans killed, a section of iraq falls back into the hands of extremists. we'll talk middle east fatigue next. ♪

♪ ♪

we're back. the subzero temperatures are not helping spirits for what is considered the most depressing day of the year. it's called blue monday. the holidays are officially over. christmas debt has piled up. those new year's resolutions are looming large and we're in the dead of winter. did we mention it's the most popular day of the year to file for divorce? there's one silver lining. "the cycle" is back. >> boston has a new mayor for the first time in more than two decades. martin welsh was sworn in today during a ceremony at boston college. checking wall street. stocks continue their sluggish start to 2014. it mixed bag of economic news

has investors anxious ahead of friday's jobs report and they are watching this evening's vote to confirm janet yellen as the next fed chair. dennis rodman is back in north korea this week with a contingent of nba players that made the trip with him to play an exhibition game against north koreans on wednesday to celebrate leader kim jong-un's birthday. he says this basketball matchup is about showing that north korea is not so bad. his words. not mine. remember, just last month jong-un allegedly had his own uncle thrown to a pack of dogs after accusing him of treason. from one international incident to potentially far more serious one, we learned over the weekend that al qaeda linked fighters have taken over two major iraqi cities, ramadi and fallujah and iraqi troops have ramadi surrounded. they want local residents to

drive extremists out. some blame it on the spillover from syria. secretary of state john kerry says the u.s. will support the iraqis but not with u.s. troops. >> this is a fight that belongs to the iraqis. that is exactly what the president and the world decided some time ago when we left iraq. we're not contemplating returning or putting boots on the ground. this is their fight. we're going to help them in their fight. >> after ten years in iraq, decades of failed peace talks between israelis and palestinians, not to mention the escalating conflict in syria, are americans just over the middle east? kenneth pollack is a senior fellow for middle east policy and author of "unthinkable" and recently testified at a house subcommittee hearing on resurgence of al qaeda in iraq. clearly you know a thing or two about what's going on. let's start with iraq before we go big picture.

paraphrasing your temperature to th that community. you said the united states left things messed up in leaving without leaving anything behind but there's responsibility for iraqi leadership to take responsibility for long-term problems of the country. so question to you is what sort of pressure are leverage does the united states have to make sure that the elected iraqi leaders take care of those long-term problems in that country? >> that's right, jonathan. at the end of the day it's going to be up to the iraqis to sort this out themselves because the simple fact is that as you heard secretary kerry say, the united states isn't going back into iraq. we need to recognize it if we ever wanted to go back in, going back in would be a major undertaking. we couldn't send 10,000 or 15,000 troops. nobody in the united states is interested in doing that. it would be about influencing the iraqis. united states doesn't have a lot of influence left in iraq but we

certainly have some. and the bigger issue is we haven't really done very much to build influence in iraq. influence doesn't grow on a tree. it doesn't fall from the sky. influence is something that you create for yourself. what we need to be doing is showing the iraqis that we're committed to their future and that if they're willing to move in a direction that we want them to, we'll reward them and we need to see them focus much more on political compromise. that's the part that the bush administration finally got right in 2007 and 2008 when they forged a power sharing arrangement between sunni tribes and its shia majority. that's what has broken down since the american troops have left in large part because the u.s. troops left and that's where we have to push iraqis to come back together in particular get iraqi government to recognize that it is strong enough to make some compromises to bring the sunnis back into the fold. >> as the united states pulls

out of the region, obviously naturally a vacuum is created. someone is going to fill that void. so to what extent will china who as we know is a close ally to iran fill that void and what problems might that create moving forward? >> this is a great point. in the short-term everybody looks at the vacuum and says al qaeda is filling that vacuum. that's part of what is going on. only part of what's going on. i think you're pointing to the real critical issue lying ahead of us. the united states depends heavily on the middle east. our economy is still tied to middle eastern oil. even more so is china's economy. they are more dependent than we are on the middle east and chinese find themselves sucked into the region. most americans look at that and say that's bad. chinese are our rival. i would argue the opposite. over long-term chinese have the same interest that we do in the

middle east. they want stability. they want to see oil flow and end to the wars of the region. that ought to give us a basis for coming up with cooperative policies with the chinese to try to deal with these problems of the region, fill that vacuum together. >> that makes a lot of sense to me. that's such a great point. picking up on that, even though we are dependent on foreign oil, our dependency in the u.s. has been declining. it was at a high of 60% in 2005 and now it's at about 40%. how much does our lessening of dependence on foreign oil impact our strategic calculations in the region? >> this gets back to jonathan's intro. it's a critical one. no question americans are sick of the middle east. been sick of the middle east for a long time. certainly since the bush administration and the botched wars there, very few americans want to have a lot of involvement in the middle east and they look at this changing oil picture. what they say is we're no longer getting our oil from the middle

east so why should we care about it? the problem is that the world still heavily depends on the middle east. we should remember that iraq in particular is becoming a major contributor. iraq is the second largest oil exporter in opec. and looking into the future, everyone expects that if oil prices will remain low it will require iraq to produce more and more oil. even though we may not want to have a lot to do with the middle east, even though we may look and think our oil is really guaranteed by our domestic production, because our economy is so intertwined with that of the rest of the world and the rest of the world relies on middle eastern oil, we have to be concerned about the middle east. it's not las vegas. what happens there doesn't stay there. >> that's absolutely true. also before we can really say that americans are having some middle eastern fatigue or don't care about the middle east anymore, we have to keep in mind that americans care deeply about what happens to israel and will react if they feel an actual threat rising against israel and

from perspective of many arabs in the middle east, we have a totally israel centric perspective making it hard for us to be a fair broker and be seen as a fair broker from arab perspective there. if we had a different relationship with israel, do you think we would be able to help them more by seeming to be an actual fair broker? >> it's a great question. it's a really interesting one. i would argue that you're right. americans are very tied to israel. there's a very strong sense of attachment to israel for strategic and cultural and political reasons and i don't think that's going to change any time soon. i would also say that when it comes to brokering a peace between israel and the arabs, something that is essential for the united states, arabs and israel, america's friendship with israel has proven to be enormously important. we are one country that can go

to the israelis and say this is a good deal and you need to do this and we're behind you. that's what made possible peace with egypt and jordan and initial treaties with the palestinians. >> thank you very much. tonight is the night. we're hours away from bcs national championship. fsu versus auburn at the rose bowl in california. can auburn make it eight straight for the s.e.c.? will fsu bring the national title back to florida? the drama. i can't wait. talking college football next. [ dennis ] it's always the same dilemma --

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and god-like coaches and kids who are campus stars who are sometimes broken, often not getting much of an education to boot. 2% of them will go onto the nfl but they'll always have saturday. unless they don't. malcolm gladwell is arguing that college football should be banned. he wrote "fourth and long the fight for the soul of college football." welcome to the show. do you think these guys should be paid? >> i can see the argument for it because, look, nick saban makes $7 million coaching for alabama. and the ncaa march madness basketball tournament generates a billion dollars for ad revenue alone. there's money all over the place. money for the players would come out of the pockets of the fans and the students and they've all been stretched. what i think we should do is give basketball and football players what baseball and hockey players have enjoyed for over a

century and that's a viable minor league system. if you don't want to be a student and you want to be paid, you have somewhere good to go to pursue your dreams. >> john, it might be clear that i'm not a big football fan especially big professional football fan, i have to tell you as somebody looking from afar, the college football fans are some of the most fervent, rabid fans out there. why is college football almost a religion for football fans? >> it is a religion. carlton college is not the same thing as penn or michigan or uva with krystal ball. sorry about that. i've been there. very nice place. but it is a religion. one of the reasons for it is that it's the front porch of these gigantic state universities. at the university of michigan, ohio state, penn state, alabama, one building on campus where everyone in the state who paid for these universities is always welcome. in answer of father ed in state

college, pennsylvania, methodist minister i interviewed for the book, he said we all need as human beings a place to stand, people to stand with and values to stand for. he said i know you can get these things here in my methodist church but i can't help but notice that penn state church holds 108,000 people. religion is real. >> i followed these things so closely. i don't know why you are apologizing to me for going to uva. i do know that tonight is the last hurrah for current bcs system. next year they'll start a four-team playoff system. do you think that will work better than the much hated bcs? >> it will work better for those making the money on it. not for players and not necessarily for the fans. the old system, current one, you pick two peoples based on polls, strength of schedule and computerized rankings. they pick that by picking four teams based on polls, strength of schedule and computerized

rankings. problem solved. it will make more money. i'm also confident it will not stop at just four teams. >> we found the last person that prefers bcs system to tournament system. i thought we were unified as a nation on that. we'll have to have you back to dive deep into that. good luck with the book. we asked our facebook fans if they're happy it's the last time bcs will determine the champion. i would be happy if the number of bowls were cut in half. i don't know what you are talking about. like us on facebook and weigh in before tonight's big game. up next, are you really doing what you're really meant to be doing with your life? the new year is a great time to check in with yourself and ask am i respecting my destiny? "the cycle" is getting deep next. >> i have eight different people coming by to tell me about. that's my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and fear of losing my job.

you know, bob, that will only make someone work hard enough just not to get fired. humans. even when we cross our t's and dot our i's, we still run into problems. namely, other humans. which is why, at liberty mutual insurance, auto policies come with new car replacement and accident forgiveness if you qualify. see what else comes standard at libertymutual.com. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? as a police officer, i've helped many people in the last 23 years, but i needed help in quitting smoking. [ male announcer ] along with support, chantix varenicline is proven to help people quit smoking. chantix reduced the urge for me to smoke. it actually caught me by surprise. [ male announcer ] some people had changes in behavior, thinking, or mood, hostility, agitation, depressed mood, and suicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stopping chantix. if you notice any of these, stop chantix and call your doctor right away. tell your doctor about any history

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to prove to you that aleve is the better choice for him, he's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with him all day as he goes back to taking tylenol. i was okay, but after lunch my knee started to hurt again. and now i've got to take more pills. ♪ yup. another pill stop. can i get my aleve back yet? ♪ for my pain, i want my aleve. ♪ [ male announcer ] look for the easy-open red arthritis cap. it's that time of year where we all make resolutions. for some of us it's to get healthier. for others it's to finally land that dream job. >> i have finally decided who i want to be our new senior vice president of sales. he's right here in this room.

it's me. >> what did he say? >> toure's favorite clip. thankfully we don't all have to deal with horrible bosses. even well intentioned but contradictory advice may help others get success for what you were looking for. you can create your own road map to life in "what you're really meant to do." robert kaplan joins us now. so great to have you here. it's a great book especially the start of the new year where we're all thinking about taking that next step in our career whether it's a new job, getting that promotion, climbing that ladder somehow. it makes me wonder, are we ever actually happy in the job we are doing today? >> yeah. you go through periods where you are. but it doesn't last forever. often it's not day one because for you really to enjoy what you're doing has to be a good fit with your skills and your passions and then you have to get in a position where you can

shine and for most people the first year or two in a job you may not -- you are the low person on the totem pole. in a position where you shine, you love it. then something changes and you may need to do something else or you get promoted and you liked your old job better than the one you got promoted to. the point is everyone goes through it and there's a process for understanding your strengths and weaknesses and passions that all of us need to get better at. >> a lot of the book talks about ways to find the thing that you are most passionate about. some interesting questions that we can pose to ourselves. what would you do if you had a year to live. what would you do if money was no issue? what would you want your kids and grandkids to say about you. so just talk about some of the ways you want folks at home to try to self-actualize. >> what i do with people is first start with your strengths and weaknesses. most of us don't have a good feel for strengths and weaknesses. >> if you're toure, you don't

have any weaknesses. >> arrows are in me. >> once you have done that, you have to understand what you have a passion for. you think everyone knows their passion but not really. so reason we ask these kinds of questions, you have a year to questions -- do you have a year to live -- to try to jar and thought people out. a lot of people think they're not supposed to think about this stuff anymore. passion is the rocket fuel that drives high performance. it is hard to perform at a high level without passion. i'm trying to thaw people out and get them used to using muscles they're not used to using. >> you talk a lot in the book how important it is to have passion for what you do and not measuring things in terms of financial success. and spoiler alert you say, i don't know how much money you'll accumulate or how many titles you'll garner, if you're true to

to your principals, you'll feel like a big success in the end. do you think that value set is taught enough in places like business school? >> we try to teach it, but for most people you have to -- the light goes on some point in your life where you realize, now i understand why i've been getting that advice. the reason for that is money is an outcome. people finally get it at some point in their live if they don't love what i'm doing and if i don't adhere to my ideals and i don't do what's true to me, i'm never going to make a lot of money and i'm never going to get the money. i've not met anybody who makes money who performs at a high level for a staying period of time who doesn't ultimately understand themselves and feel very comfortable that they're shining in what they're doing. >> very quickly, congress back

in session this week. what advice tough for them to be more productive? >> this is the big disconnect between congress and the rest of the country. what i just talked about, doing what you believe, acting like an owner, people do this every day in this country. millions of people are doing this every day. what is discouraging in congress is people are trying to adhere to a position. no new taxes. i'm not going to do entitlement perform as opposed to what they really believe. i think the country would like to see is people in congress figure out what they believe and act on it as opposed to being true to my party and what is going to get the most votes. >> that is great advice. i hope some of them are listening. fsu fan, i'm very happy about that. up next, new york may be the next state to embrace mary jane.

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i think you see people who got out and smoke one -- i don't know joint. >> that is the most common and delivery system for marijuana is called is joint. ab, i think it is good for you to have an african-american nearby when you have questions about marijuana. i think it's time for a little segment we'd like to call -- >> "ask a brother."

>> so, my brother, you say that states like colorado and washington are becoming like joints, but who is really getting high? >> excellent question, my sister. i think states will quickly find themselves getting high on the revenue from taxing the marijuana economy. the national survey on drug use and health found in 2011 over 18 million people said they have smoked in the last month. another study that was endorsed by 500 economists estimated the yield in revenues at tax and rates similar to tobacco or alcohol would be $8.7 billion a year. >> hold on, my brother. can you break that down a bit because that is some good stuff? >> my sister, oakland collected 1.4 million in taxes from just four dispensariedispensaries. colorado imposed a 15% excise

tax on wholesales and a 10% tax on retail sales. that's 27.9% of the money generated from seed to lungs. estimates range from 72 to $82 million in revenue in the first year. that doesn't account for money from marijuana tourism. imagine the business from wake and bakes. >> hold up, my brother. are you saying this isn't about morals, but about cold cash? >> right, my brother. this moment in history recalls the end of prohibition. after prohibition was repealed, alcohol taxes made up 9% of federal revenue. now we're mired in a slow recovery from a devastating

recession, that's why people on both sides of the aisle are saying we can't afford to keep prosecuting those who smoke marijuana. law enforcement says 60% of drug cartel inform is from weed and regulating will cut the alcohol income severely. i wouldn't be surprised if major tobacco companies start angling for the right to get into the business of america's biggest cash crop. >> geez, my brother. you seem to know everything. >> well, actually -- and then you light it. all right. thanks for watching "ask a brother." it is time for the man who asked me so many questions that had to

start "the ask the brother segment." >> i feel like things might be getting a little out of control over there. thank you very much. i look forward to the next installment of "ask a brother." washington is going back to work after the new year. will republicans help americans get back to work? >> hi, everybody. happy new year. >> democrats kick off a winter agenda focused on income and equality. >> if we can get four more republicans, gee whiz. >> you do a disservice to these workers, causing them to become part of this unemployed group. >> i wish i could go back and turn back the clock, but