I have to tell you what I did yesterday. If you ever watch CNBC, you know about Jim Cramer and his show Mad Money. On Wednesday, Mad Money was in Columbus, Ohio and I was in the audience.

If you watched Mad Money last night, you saw what we saw but what you didn’t see the conversations with Jim Cramer between segments. The way it worked was that between each segment, there was 10-20 minutes where Jim would review his notes for the next segment but he also spent a large amount of time talking to the audience, expanding on what he said on the air. Shooting from the hip, he was throwing around stock names for all of us and having conversations with audience members.

One of the best conversations that he had with the audience was his thoughts on his critics. He said, “I’m a 54 year old father of two who had success as a hedge fund manager and now I’m trying to help people make money themselves. It blows my mind that people would think otherwise.” Further, he said that he takes criticism from both sides. One side, the academia, thinks that he is dumbing down what should be an academic subject and his show is diminishing the discipline.

On the other side, he knows that his viewers are average people with other professions who don’t want to hear the big words and advanced concepts. If he were to make the show an academic, lecture style show, he would be cancelled in four weeks. He knows that he can’t please everybody.

At the end of the taping of the show, he took random questions from the audience and again took time to speak candidly. I am normally very impressed with Jim Cramer but after seeing him in action today, my respect for him is higher.

Great show today, Jim!