Comedian Jason Jones was on Comedy Central’s "The Daily Show" for nearly a decade before landing at TBS for his show "The Detour." But slow and steady wins the race for Jones, he told Jen Rogers on Yahoo Finance's My Three Cents. “I was on a very successful show. A lot of me wanted to leave that show because of frustrations or whatever, not enough time on the air, but I stayed because it was the right thing to do. It was the patient route to go," he said.
Jones credits that patience and his work ethic (he still holds the record for the most field shoots in "The Daily Show" history) for his success today. He says he learned both growing up in Canada, watching his hard-working parents -- especially his father who worked in steel mills.
“Their parents made them work; my parents made us work,” explained Jones who got his first job (a paper route) at age 13. “There's no expectations in our life. I think we just want to work for everything. I think maybe that's where it comes from.”
Before his big break, Jones waited tables for 15 long years. Along the way, he took small acting gigs, including what he calls one of his worst jobs: dubbing a popular Japanese television drama into English. “We didn’t really have scripts and we’d always throw in the phrase ‘You know what I’m talking about?” he recalled, laughing. “They're so bad. So, so terrible.”
Today, Jones is at the top of his game, as the star and executive producer of “The Detour”, which he created with his wife, Samantha Bee. (He also serves as executive producer of her TBS series, “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee”.)
Looking back, he’s grateful that he stayed on “The Daily Show” for so many years. "It's a marathon, this career. Everyone thinks it's a sprint, and they want it now, now, now, now. What I did have was patience, because it got me to where I am. I didn't jump too fast," Jones recalled.
His advice to his younger self today? "I think the thing I would go back and say to myself is, ‘Quit being so frustrated, man. Just be cool.’ Ultimately, I still made the right choice to stay and be patient, but I would go, ‘Relax. Take a breath. Just enjoy life. You got it pretty good right now.’"
My Three Cents is a weekly interview series that explores celebrities’ history with — and relationship to — money. Find it exclusively on Yahoo Finance.
Jen Rogers is an anchor for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @JenSaidIt.
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