A Bit of Optimism - The Extraordinary Magic of Ordinary People with author Brad Meltzer

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

Magic moments do happen in real life. If you ask Brad Meltzer, magic happens when ordinary people choose to do the extraordinary. Brad is a prolific writer and bestselling author. He’s published over 70 books in nearly every genre you can think of—thriller novels, biographies, children’s books, film and television. He’s written comic books for iconic superheroes like Spider-Man, Superman, and Batman. And in 2024, his commencement speech at the University of Michigan went viral for its simple, powerful message—to shock the world, unleash your kindness.In this conversation, Brad tells me how his journey from a writer drowning in debt to bestselling author would not have been possible without the extraordinary kindness of a few ordinary strangers. He shares how other people’s negativity can become inspiration, why fictional heroes inspire us so much, and how ordinary people change the world. This…is A Bit of Optimism. For more on Brad and his work, check out:his book, Make Magicbradmeltzer.com

This episode is brought to you by True Classic. The way they became our sponsor is because I loved their t-shirts, and so we just called them up and asked them if they wanted to work together. And they said yes. So check out their clothes at trueclassic.com. After Superman came out, it's 1938, Hitler's encroaching and World War II's encroaching on our shores, and two Jewish 17-year-old kids are the ones who come up with the idea of Superman. And it sells a million copies and no one can understand why. So what does everyone immediately do is they start making more heroes that have capes and they look like him and have muscles, but nothing sells like Superman. And why? Because they don't have Clark Kent. They're missing that

key ingredient. The key ingredient is not the heat vision or the powers of the things or lifting a car over your head, but it's that part of, man, I wish I could do something that's beyond ourselves and do something right, especially by other people. If you're a nerd, you're going to love this episode. If you're not a nerd, you're going to love this episode. If you're a nerd, you probably already know Brad Meltzer's name. And if you're not a nerd, you probably still know who he is. He's the guy with all the mystery books in the airport. Brad Meltzer is a prolific writer. He's written Superman,

Spider-Man, and Batman comics. His books are the toast of the thriller and conspiracy genres. He created a whole series of inspiring short biographies for young readers, and if that's not enough, last year he gave a commencement speech at Michigan that went viral online. Basically, if it involves storytelling, he has mastered it. But in the age of AI, Brad is living proof that the human touch is what makes a true hero. This is a bit of optimism. Look, you and I have known each other a very long time. When I met you, I think you'd written a book, maybe two.

Yeah, I mean, I truly had written like a couple books, had no kids books, which we should talk about thanks to you. And I had no book or no TED Talk when we first met. I think you were just starting the speaking circuit. I was just starting the writing circuit. So I wrote my first book, I think 15, 16 years ago, and I have since written three thinky thinky books, one book inspired by a children's book and one workbook. And that's my oeuvre for

16 years of work. You, I have contempt for you because in only a few more years, you have written five nonfiction books about conspiracies, 13 thrillers, and 60 children's books. This in addition to I don't know how many comic books. I really hate you. No, listen, the thing is, is let can we just give credit where credit's due? I would not be writing my kids books. I don't think we've ever talked about it publicly. I wouldn't be doing this without you. And without our friendship, we were starting

out both of us and just paint the picture, right? My brother-in-law says, "'You gotta meet this guy, Simon Sinek.'" I'm like, who's that? We get on the phone, because we're just like, whatever, we'll kibitz. And we get on the phone, and I remember just being like, I can't believe I like this guy.

I can't believe it. We're on the phone, and I said, I'll never forget it, I said to you, listen, you wanted to write a book proposal, I wanted to figure out my why. And I said to you, why don't you come to Florida? We'll spend half the day you'll figure out my why and the other half I'll help you with your book proposal. And I never forget you said to me that is the craziest stupid thing

I've ever heard. I'm in. And you came down to Florida. I don't know if I've told you this part of story. We work on my why. Yeah. And you tell me you didn't know anything about me. I don't know anything about you. And you tell me after I tell you all about my life, I give you everything I've got. You're like, tell me about who you know everything. You do the whole why thing with me. And you look at me and you said, you believe ordinary people change the world. And I well up with tears. And I go, have you read any of my books? You said, no. I said, that's what every one of my books is about. And I didn't even know it until that moment.

And here's the part you don't know, is I tell my mother, may she rest in peace. I said, I met this guy, Simon, and he told me my why, that I believe ordinary people change the world. My mom says, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. She goes, I could have told you that. You've been like that since you're little. And I go, I know mom, but you didn't tell me that.

Simon told me that. And she goes, he just held up a mirror to you. And I'm like, I know, but sometimes you need the brilliant person to hold up the mirror. And I love the fact that she's like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I could have told you that you've been like that your whole life. So that was my mom's review of you. But of course you realize you were completely right. Oh, that's the greatest affirmation of my work. I could possibly hear some mother thinking

that everything I told you was completely obvious. I mean, that is about as good as it gets. I said it can't be more right than her saying, you've been like that forever. And I still didn't know my mother knew, and I didn't know, and you figured it out. When you gave it to me, you said, here's the thing, now you have to live it. And you said, you have to say it out loud. And the first time I ever said it out loud is when I won the Eisner Award.

I said it out loud to a group of people at San Diego Comic Con. I just was like, I didn't think I was ever gonna win. And you said, you have to tell people. And I went up in front of this massive group of people, people I respect the most, the Oscars of comic books. And I said, I believe ordinary people change the world. I didn't know where we're supposed to say it or not. Do we tell people that or not? And then I finally, you'll see in like every speech I give

and everything, I remember calling you once and being like, is it okay to tell people? You're like, yeah, tell people. I'm like, oh, I didn't know if I was supposed to. And obviously, even when I did my commencement address, I was like, I'm saying your name, I don't care. I got to say it to everybody. Well, it's very kind of you. And I'm glad my work has had such a profound impact on your life and your work, because your proposal is completely useless for me. The thing we did write a proposal, just to be clear, we did write a proposal in the afternoon. And then I remember going to you and saying, I said, how'd the proposal go?

And you said, I threw it away. And I'm like, what do you mean you threw it away? You I threw it away. And I sold the books without you. I'm like, what happened to my work? My mother tells you you're a genius. And your mother tells you chuck it in the trash. Well, I mean, in fairness, in fairness, you know, we both helped each other with what we needed at the time. I think what we needed, what we truly needed was the other to help us figure out who we were. It was just the other person to get us unstuck and whatever the thing it was. And I was the objective third party for you

who happened to have a special set of skills. Me and Liam Neeson. Special set of skills. That's it. I have a guy on my phone who has a special set of skills that my whole family knows if anything happens, they know who to call. People will disappear. I met a guy once who was a Marine Raider, which is like the Navy SEALs, but they call them the Raiders. And by the way, he looks like Superman. He's got a little curl in the, you know, like the whole thing.

This big curl, yeah. I mean, he's built like a brick shithouse. I mean like he is just a machine this guy And I remember when he met him He gives me a business card and he says if you ever find yourself in a foreign jail call me Yeah, that's what this guy did with me He's the guy I go to whenever I want to murder someone in one of my thrillers and especially torture someone I call him And then he'll say to me How do you feel about the Russians? And I'm

like, what do you mean? And he's like, I have someone who tortures Russians or is Russian and tortured other people. And then I get a phone call. He's like, tell me when to be where I am. And then he comes and I get a phone call from people who you're like, you don't know the number, you can never call them back. They're calling from a phone that God knows where it is. Some burner phone and you're getting like, this is how Russians actually torture people. So basically what you're saying, if a GRU agent or KGB agent ever reads one of your books and it's the torture scene of it, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's pretty accurate.

Yep. Well, this is also how I know it is I always say to them, you want to be in the acknowledgments and not one of them says yes, none of them. Well, of course. Of course not. But they're great because they're like, you know, you see these movies in taken or whatever, there's like a guy who opens a suitcase and he's got like, you know, a hacksaw and all these things.

And he's like, that's not how we do it at all. You know, and he'll tell you about gruesome things that you do to hurt people and make sure they stay alive. That's the key thing. I am both tempted to go down this rabbit hole with you. And you don't want to go as gruesome. And tempted not to go down this rabbit hole with you. Don't go down to go. It's gruesome. Not to go down this rabbit hole with you. Don't go down the rabbit hole. How did you, were you a writer as a kid? I'm only a writer because of my ninth grade English teacher.

I really believe that. My ninth grade English teacher was this woman named Sheila Spicer. And she, you know, my family struggled. There were no books in my house. My parents didn't read anything. My mom read like the Star and the Inquirer. My dad read the sports pages, no books. And this English teacher in ninth grade, when we moved to Florida, my dad lost his job and she changed my life with three words. She said, you can write.

And I was like, well, everyone can write. She said, no, no, you know what you're doing. And so she tried to put me in the honors class. I had some sort of conflict. She said, here's what we're gonna do.. You're going to sit in the corner for the entire year, ignore everything I do on the blackboard, ignore every homework assignment I give. You're going to do the honors work instead, and you're going to thank me later. And a decade later, Simon, I went back to her classroom. My first book was published. I knocked on the door. She said,

can I help you? I said, my name is Brad Meltzer. I wrote this book and it's for you. And she starts crying. And I said, Why are you crying? And she said, You know, I was going to retire this year because I didn't think I was having an impact anymore. And I said, Are you kidding me? I said, you have 30 students, we have one teacher. And Michelle Spicer is the first person who ever told me I can write and she changed my life in that action. Now, if I asked you to tell me all the names of the teachers

that you had that day on your schedule you can't remember any of them. You can maybe one or two of them. The idea that someone can have an impact in someone else's life and just like Sheila Spicer you will carry their name around with you for the rest of your life and you are now who you are today, career definitely, but even your personality in some way shape or form in part because of this one human being who didn't even know that she had An impact miss Spicer's one. I mean, but it's not just teachers, you know for me and this is you know This gets back to my wife right is there's a woman when my when my dad lost his job. We moved to Florida We we we lost everything and we had to move in with my grandparents in Florida, because we had no place to live. We didn't. We were

worried about safety. And it's my mom, my dad, my sister and myself are living with my two grandparents, six of us in a one bedroom apartment. And everyone in Florida in this condominium was complaining about us saying you can't have six people in a one bedroom, they're sleeping on the floor, you can't do that. They were trying to evict us every day. And it was terrifying. I remember being, I was 13 years old.

It wasn't like I was a little kid. I knew everything that was going on. And this one neighbor comes to my grandmother and says, listen, I see what they're doing to your family. I'm gonna move out of my apartment. You take my apartment for you. So your family could have some space and won't be evicted. The nicest thing anyone to this day has ever done for my family and arguably for me. And I remember as a kid her name was Mircey

but when I was young I always heard her name as Mercy and make no mistake that Mercy and empathy is what she showed us. And I'll never forget her name ever. I carry Mircey around with me forever. Wow. Your life is a reflection of your characters, right? You said it, like you didn't even realize it, but you were writing books about ordinary people who changed the world. And these are ordinary people. I mean, this is a teacher, just a nice person, just an ordinary person. And yet these decisions that they make have profound impact in the world. I mean, I love the fact this is, you know, art imitating life and life imitating art, how integrated and how inseparable your life is and your characters.

No, yeah, I mean, it's because it's my existence. It's all the proof I have. I've never even told you this story. So I used to I used to work at this. I used to scoop ice cream at the Haagen Dazs in the Aventura mall in high school for four years. And I remember this woman, she used to come over one day, she'd snap her fingers at me. And I said, ma'am, you know what, I'll be with you in a moment. She's like, help me now. And I'm like, ma'am, I'll be right with you. She says, no, you got to help me now. And I said, you know what, ma'am, you're being rude. I'm not going to help you. And she starts

screaming at me. She says, you're going to be working at this miserable Haagen-Dazs for the rest of your miserable life. And I said, ma'am, if I am working here for the rest of my miserable life, you're still never getting any ice cream. And I used to tell that story laughing and saying that never bothered me, but it absolutely bothered me. Yeah. And the reason it bothered me was this, is I thought it would make my life feel like my dad's life a financial struggle. But here's the story you've never heard is I I used to work at that Haagen-Dazs with a

guy named Nick Wicket. He and I both had nothing. If I had nothing, he had less than nothing. I had two parents, he had a single mom. And Nick struggled even more than we struggled, and we were struggling. And I remember I used to wear, it was the late 80s, so everyone wore gold chains and a little charm on it in Miami. I had a gold Superman charm that I wear and his was a tale of a killer whale because he

wanted to train the whales to see world. That was his dream for his whole life. I lose track of Nick. It was pre-internet. We didn't know where it was. My first book comes out. It's my high school reunion. I have everyone's email.

I send invitations to everyone from my high school. And the first events, you know, where I live, my family's there, but I'm in an event at Vero Beach, Florida. There's nobody there. It's like my wife and my family and nobody else. It can't be 10 people there. And in walks Nick Wickett with a pint of Haagen-Dazs ice cream. And I'm like, oh my gosh, what are you doing now? He goes, guess. I go, I have no idea. I said, where do you live? He says Orlando. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, what are you doing? Now? He goes, guess. I go, I have no idea. I said, where do you live? He says Orlando. And I go, Oh my God, you train the dolphins at SeaWorld. That was your dream. You always wanted to train the dolphins at SeaWorld. He says, you got to come see me do my job. I'm like, okay, I'm coming. So I take my kids to SeaWorld. Nick gives a little

seat like roped off. So we're all excited. The show starts, and the show begins with a dolphin that leaps out of the air and goes like 25 feet into the air. And Nick is on the nose of the dolphin as it flies in the air. And I watch him, and I start bawling crying, because I realized this kid who came from nothing, who that woman screamed at us and would say, we're never going to be anything, we're never going to have anything. He's living his dream. And I remember afterwards, he saw me, he says, why are you crying? You're the only person who cried as much as you as my mother.

And I was like, Nick, you did it. You actually did it. And that was, again, it's the thing that I always write about. It's that ordinary person who just can reach beyond that and prove that there's no such thing as an ordinary person. What is it that all of these people in your life have in common? Yes, they're ordinary people. Yes, they push through adversity.

But what is it about them that they all have in common that you can only see now? I do think, and I'll include the unordinary people, right? The Rosa Parks is the Jane Goodall. I mean, I've written books about Jane Goodall, Amelia Earhart, Abraham Lincoln, Dr. King. I mean, so now I've seen the most amazing people on the whole planet, and I've seen the people that are like myself,

just ordinary people trying to do their best. And I have one thing all in common, the ones who are successful, and it's simply this, they're doing what they love. They're doing what they can't do anything else but do that. And it may be, you know, Jane Goodall does it with chimpanzees, Jim Henson does it with puppets, Amelia Hart does it with planes,

but they're doing that thing that they can't not do. And for me, it's writing. For me, it's telling stories. For you, it's inspiration. I don't care what you did, where you were, you cannot help but inspire. That's always been your superpower. And Nick Wickett couldn't help but go and be on the nose of that dolphin at SeaWorld. And my teacher had to find that person who can write because that's her passion is saying, where's that kid I'm going to find, I'm going to help him. It's not just passion, it's putting

in the time and putting in the work. You know, these things aren't magic. They don't just happen by themselves. They take time and intentionality and they take you. Right? You taught me that. That was your word. Full commitment to the bit or it all falls apart. That was your line. And that's what they all have in common is that passion of what they love and then that full commitment to it. That is a potent combination. Let's dial it down. Kids graduating high school, kids graduating college, what do I do next?

And they invariably get some completely useless advice from a guidance counselor, parent or friend, which is do the thing you love, follow your bliss, find your passion, right? It's true and useless. It really borders on terrible advice because it makes you think that it's a simple thing. It's not simple. So the thing that you're advocating,

how is that different from that unhelpful advice? Like, so I asked you like, what all these ordinary people have in common, they did the thing they love, they pursued the dream, they pursued the passion. But how does somebody who's trying to figure out what that is, regardless of where they are in their life? You didn't know somebody else saw it in you. Nick knew what he wanted to do, but you didn't. Listen, there is an alchemy, right? There's an alchemy moment, I got on my first book 24 rejection letters. There were only 20 publishers.

I got 24 rejection letters, which means some people writing me twice to make sure I got the point. I said, if they don't like that book, I'm going to write another. If they don't like that book, I'm going to write another. What happened at the time is I said to my then girlfriend at the time, I'm going to be a novelist. I'm going to write this book. I'm going to write another.

She did the best thing of all. She didn novelist. I'm going to write this book. I'm going to write another. And she did the best thing of all. She didn't laugh. She'll go write the book. And there's this great thing. It's called a reflective best self portrait. It's by a professor named Jane Dutton at the University of Michigan studies it. And what she says is when you have someone

who tells you that they believe in you and you trust them, you actually start to become that person that they believe in. And that's what Miss Spicer was to me. That's what Jane Goodall's mother was to her. It's not just Oh, love your thing and go do it. That's nonsense. It's that full commitment, nonstop. And this is the part we leave out is all the failure. Yeah, you remember the first hero story you ever told me? Very

first one. I carried around with me. The first hero story you ever told me was the Wright Brothers. Which I had to check it to make sure it was true. And this is a story, right? You know it. Every time the Wright Brothers would go out to fly their plane, they'd bring extra materials from multiple crashes. Which means every time they went out, they knew they would fail. And they would crash and rebuild and crash and rebuild. And that's where they took off. And Simon, I remember you telling me that story 20 years ago almost. I love that story. I want my sons to hear that story. I want my daughter to hear that story. I want everyone to know if you dream big, that's the cheesy part. You work hard, cheesy part, but you have that side order of

stubbornness, you could do anything in this world. The stories I tell you, you work hard, cheesy part, but you have that side order of stubbornness, you could do anything in this world. The stories I tell you, you've heard all the good parts, right? I told you, Nick got on the dolphin, I wrote my book, you inspire me, Amelia Hart flew her plane. But what I include in every kid's book I do is their failures. Every time I show you how many elections Abraham Lincoln lost, you know, over half a dozen. I show you George Washington

when he lost his election. I show you the Wright brothers when they fail when we do our show. Every single, and that's the part we always leave out. To me, that's the missing part. I think, but that's the human part, right? Because I think one of the weaknesses when successful people go on the speaking circuit or write their books about what it takes to succeed, they tell you, here's what I did, and I had grit and I had this and I'm in and I pursued and I never quit. But the reality is we don't learn the lessons from them telling us what they did right where we feel human and feel that we can where we can

actually learn is when they tell us where it failed were exploded when they did want to quit. We do a huge disservice to our heroes, where we build them and we carve them out of you know, granite and we worship at their feet and we make giant statues of them. They become these lowercase G gods where everything went well and everything went great. And that to me, we do a huge disservice. What I do in every story that I've told you even here today is we leave out the most vital part. That's why I told you at the beginning how bad it went for my family, not to get your sympathy, but to show you that even from there, you can get out.

Even when your family doesn't even know what an honors class is, you can get there. Those are the more important parts of the story than the finale. The finale is the useless part. The most important part is that struggle in there. And the thing that also happens is every single one of them keeps changing and transforming.

That's the other key part. They put away their fear and yes, they believe in and become that best version of themselves. But I think it's the only immutable fact is you should never be immutable. Those are the DNA cells of what gives the soul the soul. It's the humility, it's the failure, it's those things. My daughter, the best thing I've ever heard about AI

comes from my college-aged daughter who's brilliant. And she said to me, Dad, she said, let's try and write a book with AI. Let's see if we can do it for you. So I'm up for it. I want to learn from someone younger than me. I put it all in and it was a book that I had already written so I could actually test it. So I knew what the book was. I wanted to see, could it reproduce one of my kid's books? And the new one that's coming is I'm Simone Biles. I know her story. I'm like, okay, computer have at it. And it starts writing and it tells me all the things.

I give it actually my research. Sure. And I've done. I said, I'm gonna give you everything I have. So you have the same exact thing. And write it in the style of Brad Meltzer's. Write it in my style. And my, listen, AI has been fed on my books. Sure, sure. It knows exactly how to do it.

It knew how to outline everything. When it did the first outline in one second, it did the outline of the book perfectly. I said, great, keep going. I want to see what you can do. And I gave it all the things that I found important. What I bolded, I said, these are the important things. So it even knew what I thought was going to be vital. And there's this one moment where Simone Biles, when she's a young girl, she goes to live with her grandparents. She's in foster care for a while. her mom can't take care of her, she goes to live with her grandparents. There's this human moment, where she realizes this is my new mom and dad, my grandparents have taken me in, they've

taken my sister in, they're going to be our new parents now. And I said to chat GPT, I'm like, I want you to focus on that moment and make me really feel and the computer says, Yes, I'll make you feel it. And so then the computer says the grandfather muses her hair and says now you live with us now. I'm like yeah but that never happened. Says you're right, you're right. All of Brad Melcher's books always show you the real story. They don't just tell it to you, it shows you with real emotion. I said great do that. And it keeps going we love you Simone. That happened. I'm like yeah but that's just a thing. Get deeper, go deeper. And what I wrote in my book is this moment

where the grandmother is just braiding Simone's hair. And that feeling of her touching her hair and having someone take care of you. You're sitting in her lap. There's nothing being said with the grandmother, but she knows here's a person who's taking care of me. It's one of the most important parts of the whole book. It's not the gymnastics or the gold.

And the computer could not get there. And my daughter finally said to me, you know why dad? Because AI doesn't have taste. And I was like, that's it. AI doesn't have taste and AI doesn't have feelings. And it has no soul, right? That's it. And so I kept saying, go to the part

where it's brushing the hair. And all it kept saying is it brushes hair. I'm like, go longer. It says right? That's it. And so I kept saying, go to the part where it's brushing the hair, and all it kept saying is, it brushes hair. I'm like, go longer. It says, it keeps brushing it. It could not get to that feeling. Why? Because it never felt anyone do that. It can't feel love.

I will not finish one of my kids' books. When I get to the end, I mean, the number one thing people tell me about my kids' books when I get letters from parents is, your book made me cry. And why? The last pages of the book are always the inspirational big moment. I will not write it and say it's done until either

and I sit with my wife, she comes into my office and I read her what I'm writing. And if she sits there, she's like, no, it's not it. And I say another one. No, it's not it. Here's what it is. No, it's not it until she or I are crying. Yes. Truly tears in our eyes have to well up and then the book is done. Yes. And you can't create that on AI. Maybe one day you will, maybe I'll get better at just doing it. But the process of me getting there is not me going, what are the words that are going to make other people cry? Right. It's making myself cry with a memory from myself that goes, I'm not Simone Biles, I'm never winning the gold medal, but I know what it's like to be alone. I know what it's like to have my own mental health struggles.

I know what it's like to deal with things and go, I'm done. I know what it's like for the world to look at me and say, you did that one, you did a crap job. And to have to pick yourself up and go, I got to go back. It goes back directly to what you said before, which I think is the ultimate test of whether you've got an idea, which is when somebody else believed in you and your idea. I've always believed like for entrepreneurs or idea people, which is you are not the judge if you have a good idea or not. You have a good idea if at least one person goes, that's a good idea. Not you showed edition from American Idol, honey,

because you're wonderful and I love you. But like, can you sing that song again? Because every time you do it gives me goosebumps. People always come to me and say, tell me about how I can write a book. Or I wrote a book and what should I do with it? And I said, give it to five friends. And they say, why?

And I said, just give it to five friends who really love you, who will be honest with you. I said, they're gonna all give you five different opinions and they're all gonna tell you different things. None of them will be right. If they say, oh yeah, I liked your book. Okay, your book's not that great. You gotta get to the point where they go,

I didn't think it was gonna be as good as it was. That's the test you have to pass. And if you pass that test, where they're like a little bit in shock of what you did because they wanna read more, I was gonna try to go to bed, but I couldn't. It's what you're saying, right? I want to hear that song again, play it for me again. When you get that reaction from your friends, now you got a book. Now you got a book or an idea or a business or whatever it is.

Or a business or whatever it might be. And if you get that, and this goes right back to all these people who had someone in their life, all these quote unquote ordinary people who became extraordinary, they all had at least one person in their life, very often a mother, but at least one person in their life who said, you have to do this. This is actually worth doing. This is good. For most people, it's that or it's someone saying you can't do it. You can get just as much power. That woman who said to me from Haagen Dazs that said, you're going to be here for the rest of your miserable life. That woman, I used to really be upset with her and say, I'm so upset by that. I kind of internalized it. And I would say, I don't care about her, but I totally cared about

her. But I use it as rocket fuel. I was like, I'm going to do it to spite her. But the point is, you've got to have to me either someone saying saying yes or someone saying no, whatever it is, the only way, and this is the other study that we looked at, when it's someone negative, if the negative person is someone you respect, it crushes you, you're done. It's when the negative person is someone you don't respect, you can use it as rocket fuel. Here's the challenge I have with which is I don't dispute that it's rocket fuel, but at what point, what level of success do you have to achieve? How far do you have to go to be like, ha, I showed you, but then what? Then what's the next motivation?

And by the way, and then you're in the worst situation, which is you're never happy. That's why I think you need the person who says you're on to something because that's infinite. That's right. That never goes. And listen, the first person who does that is you, right? And listen, the first person who does that is you, right? We're trying something a little different. Instead of a traditional host-read ad, I invited Ryan Bartlett, the founder of our sponsor, True Classic, to sit down for a conversation. And it turns out there's a lot more

that we can learn from him beyond just how great his t-shirts are. And his t-shirts really are great. We call this an ad with authenticity. So we went out for lunch, that's how I met you. And in one lunch, you became one of my favorite entrepreneurs. Wow. Tell me a specific story from a time in your career

that you absolutely loved being a part of whatever it is you were doing, that if everything in your career went like this one thing, you'd be the happiest person alive. One of the most impactful decisions we made was the $40 million bet, which was absolutely insane looking back. What was that? It was for inventory. You were going to buy $40 million worth of inventory? Yeah, with no demand forecasting, like nothing.

Just a hunch and a whim and a do we believe in ourselves? And I just remember looking around the table at this scrappy group of entrepreneurs that were all very young, by the way, too. We were just way out of our league in terms of like the companies we were up against. And I just remember walking away from that conversation so proud that we were able to be so risky, but also have the confidence to execute on it. Because had we not, it just would not

have been what it has become. You have to take some unbelievable bets that just do not make sense on paper sometimes. And sure enough, we weren't able to sell through on that $40 million the way we wanted to. And we had to make moves and figure it out. So it didn't work. It did not work.

It did not work. And yet you are telling me the story. I love that we all were together in it. We all made the decision. We all felt good about it. We all believed in each other so much. ["The Star-Spangled B much. Who's your favorite superhero? It depends what they, it's either Superman or Batman.

I mean, and you know, listen, I love Batman because every day Batman's one goal is to stop crime, right? And every day he knows he's gonna fail. He will never stop crime, right? And every day, he knows he's going to fail. He will never stop crime, but he's going to try. And he's going to fail tomorrow, and he's going to try again the day after that, and he's going to fail, and he's going to keep going. So that's that do not stop. It's the Wright Brothers part, right? But Superman, to me, the most important part of the story is not Superman. The most important part of the story is Clark Kent, because we're all Clark Kent. And we all know what it's like to be boring and ordinary and wish we

do something incredibly beyond ourselves. And that's why, you know, after Superman came out, it's 1938, Hitler's encroaching and World War II is encroaching on our shores. And two Jewish 17-year-old kids are the ones who come up with the idea of Superman. They're not popular, they're not good looking, but they give us something to believe him. And that's why he looks like an American flag flying around. And it sells a million copies and no one can understand why. So what does everyone immediately do is they start making more heroes that have capes and they look like him and have muscles, but nothing sells like Superman. And why?

Because they don't have Clark Kent. They're missing that key ingredient. The key ingredient is not the heat vision or the powers of the things or lifting a car over your head, but it's that part of, man, I wish I could do something that's beyond ourselves. And the key to that is, of course, his parents, right? It's mom, pa, Kent. These two ordinary people who teach him what makes Superman is not this, but this.

It's his heart, yeah. That's it, baby. And we don't see ourselves in Superman, we see ourselves in Clark Kent. I'll never be Superman. I'll never lift a car over my head. But it doesn't mean I can't fight for good and do something right, especially by other people, especially as someone who has had so much right done for me. It's so funny that you love Superman because of the ordinary guy, part of his personality, and you love Batman. of the ordinary guy part of his personality and you

love Batman. It's just a guy. It's just a stubborn guy who won't give up. That's what I love. And I don't care. Some people love Batman because they want to be the millionaire with the butler and the toys. Keep all that stuff. I want to be Batman because I know what it's like that I will not be stopped. You will not stop me. Hand me 24 rejection letters. Hand me 28 rejection. Hand me 50 rejection letters. I will keep going. That's the part that will forever be the wish fulfillment to me is that no matter how many barriers you put in front of me, I'll be there tomorrow and then I'll be there tomorrow. I don't care how much you beat me up, I'll be there tomorrow again.

The thing that you and I have in common and it's partially just because we're nerds, but it's also, I think it's something bigger than that, which is you and I have decorated our homes, our desks, our offices, since we were little kids with the stuff that inspires us. The little Superman. I've had a little Superman on a... You want to see the one that's on my desk right here? I got two of them right here. And I've got like, my key ring is a Captain America shield, you know, and I have these things and it's like, again, it's partially nerd culture, of course, but to your point, they are reminders that these talismans that, you know, the little Batman symbol, I used to have Batman symbols all over the place. And again, not because he was a superhero, not because the gadgets, not because the million

dollars, it was just a guy who woke up every day and said, I'm going to do my part. I always think when it comes to heroes, and I write a lot about heroes, obviously, but you don't get the heroes you want, you get the heroes you need. And I think that you and I in some little back part of our brain, we still need those things. We still need that reminder of inspiration. We still need that reminder of hope. I certainly need it. And I know that I now get to bring them and I get to write them and I write Superman, I write Batman, I write Spider-Man. That's fun. But I feel like I get more out of it for me. Yeah. And what they've given me than anything that I've given them by far. And I think that those heroes, especially in

this world we're in today, you know, I know, for some people, oh, they're fun to watch and they're escapism. And that's fine. But that's not why superheroes take off. They take off because the best stories in the whole world are never a plot that you like or a character you like. They don't tell you anything about that. The best stories tell you something about yourself. Yeah, of course. You see in that person something that says, I know what that's like.

Who's your super favorite villain? That's a good one. It's funny. It's never Galactus or like these big ones. I mean, I love Darth Vader just because the human side of him, right? You know, it's an opera. I'm trying to think who I've written because that'll reveal quickly who I like. I mean, I mean, I do like Lex Luthor on some level, but as you say it, I'm like, beside Darth Vader, who takes a hero turn, I don't ever look at the villains and say, I love that person. That's much harder for me, oddly. It's funny now.

I've never thought that about myself. You figured that out. The villains never, I never, I don't have that side of me that's like, Oh, I wish I could, I can associate with that person. No one's motivations make sense to me like that. I hate to say this, but the backstory of the villains is a little bit like you in the ice cream store with the woman who says you can't. Like they've all got a chip on their shoulder.

You know, Lex Luthor's original motivation was that Superman made him lose his hair, which was a silly silver age thing. But they was like, Superman took my hair and I will get my revenge. And now we figured it out. But what I think is more interesting about the villains in comics, and this is what I study more, the best villains have to be the opposite foil to the hero. The Joker has always been Batman's greatest villain, but it took Chris Nolan and his brother and Goyer to figure out that Batman is order and the Joker is chaos. That's a brilliant take. And eventually, the comic book community was like, that's right. And that's why Captain America is, you know, that American ideal

and the red skull is the Nazi. That's the most obvious easy one. But the best ones that go against each other are exact opposites. And they finally figured out for Lex Luthor and Superman, there are people who are like, yeah, having him lose his hair is stupid. The reason why Lex Luthor is much more interesting is if Superman is this ideal and has all this stuff and Lex Luthor is that pettiness of us that says, why do you need something like that? You know, I'm the best there is. You don't need him. That's why I don't like the Haagen-Dazs story. Yeah, because you don't like the revenge part of it. It's a revenge thing and you spend your whole life. Oh, I agree. I agree with you. That woman drove me when I was a kid, but as I was older, I was like, that doesn't matter because it can't matter. Then that's just an anchor I'm holding

on to. I had that person in my life. It was my first job. And the boss that I had would, we were a young team. And my boss would have these monthly meetings or I don't remember maybe they were weekly I don't remember this is my first job my first boss and her exact words in my career development meeting I kid you not were you have no talent and I said nothing and she said, nothing. And I said, I can write pretty well. She goes, you don't write well for business. And I thought it was absolutely hilarious.

Right, because you had no respect for that person. Because it was so ridiculous. Like if she had said, you only have one talent, that would have been devastating. Right, right. No, but it was so absurd. It was so personal. You couldn't carry, you only have one talent, that would have been devastating. Right, right. No, but it was so absurd. It was so personal. You couldn't carry, you don't need to carry that around. Right.

It was so absurd to say you have no talent in the world. But that's also why it didn't beat you up. It didn't beat me up because it was so absurdist. Right. That's the woman in the Haagen-Dazs story is that to me, right? I don't respect her. No. So I don't put any weight to it.

So I'm just going to be like, I'm going to do my thing. I didn't even think about until years later, how much it bothered me. But in the moment, I was like, stupid lady, whatever, I'm going to go do my thing. But I do think, yeah, my editor once in my very first book, my editor, who I respect and love and adore wrote, I'm so bored right now, I want to put a gun in my mouth in giant letters in the side column of the thing. And I was devastated by it. And I remember going to him and saying, like, do you hate the book? What do you like the book? And then they're like, Oh, no, no, I'm just, you know, I'm just, I'm just trying to get you motivated. I'm like, that's a terrible way to motivate, terrible way to motivate somebody

terrible. But, you know, you move past them and you go, especially somebody who's supposed to be in your corner, right? Who bought the book? Who bought the book? I still tease him about it. I'm like, you almost crushed me that day. This is important. This is an important little piece here, which is we will all bumble and fumble through life. And people who disagree with us or don't like us or think we're stupid or think our ideas are stupid will tell us in most unsavory ways, you have no talent, you're going to be working here for the rest of your life, you're not going to go anywhere.

And I think it's very important for us because it does sting, especially if you're in a dark moment. That negativity can really validate whatever negative self-image we might have in that moment. But I think it's really important not to turn it into spite and to turn it into motivation, because I think that's, as I said, I think that's villain motivation. And that's why I can't, it's so funny, you're so good at kind of putting that thing, that's why I can't do it, right?

The villain motivation doesn't work for me. It doesn so funny. You're so good at kind of putting that thing. That's why I can't do it, right? The villain motivation doesn't work. It doesn't work. And I think it's important for us in those moments to be able to sit back, take a beat and be like, that's ridiculous. Well, that's also what you're really good at is you never, the end is never the glory. I have a friend who used to say to me, if I could just get this, then I'll be happy. Yeah. And then he would get that thing and he'd say, if I could just get this and turn it into a TV show, then I'll be happy. And then he would get that thing and he'd say, if I could just get this and turn it into a TV show, then I'll be happy. And I remember eventually having this hard moment with him and I said, let me tell you something,

any sentence that begins, if I can just get blank, then I'll be happy, that's not happiness. And what you're so good at is it's not about the end result that makes you happy, it's the why you're doing it to get you there. You understand that part. You figure the rest out. I sort of had a back and forth with somebody not too long ago. And basically, I was I was pushing I was like, we got to do

more. We got to do better. Like, come on, come on, come on. I said, even if we fail, it doesn't matter. Like, why won't why won't you push yourself? And she said, because I don't like to fail. And you don't either. She said to me, I don't like to fail. And you don't either she she said to me. I don't like to fail and you don't either, she said to me. And I literally said, you're wrong. I said, if you look at my whole life, my whole life, I think of myself as a failure.

I love this. One or two things in my life have gone as I had hoped. But almost everything has fallen short of my desires, dreams, or ambitions. Almost all of it. I'm very comfortable in failure because my dreams are bigger than my ability. You told me when we met that first time all those years ago, you know, you told me my why and then you gave me my hows. Yeah. You gave me like five or six hows. I only remember one because I'm so stupid. I wish I had all five. But you know, when I remember that I took with me, I'll never forget is you said

to me, Brad, the struggle matters for you. I was like, what does that mean? You said the struggle matters. It says if you do something, you don't want to do it again. What you like is the struggle. You like when it's really hard, when you have to really push through it. You need that struggle to go. So when I got my 23rd and 24th rejection letter, here's the story I never tell. I got 24 rejection letters, but the 23rd and 24th one, I thought were going to be acceptance letters. And my agent said to me, they're going to sell, I had interviews with the final two

people. They said they liked the book and they're going to buy the book and they're going to call me at four o'clock. So be by your phone and I'm going to tell you how much the book sold for. And I was in law school debt and college debt. I had debt accrued all over. And she's like, I'm going to tell you how we're going to get out of debt because we have a bidding war on your first book.

Great. And I sit by the phone and I picked up the phone all excited to find out how I was going to get out of debt. And I'll never forget my agent, I picked up the phone, she said, sorry, kiddo. My heart just sank down. And here's the thing, I never told you this, Simon, is every day that I sit down to write, I replay that moment. I literally read that's my rituals. I replay the worst moment of my career. I picture the phone I was holding. It was a see-through one where you could see the wires inside because that was high tech back then. I picture the desk and the little swivel lamp on my left, the bed that had just a box spring, a bed, not even a headboard, nothing. I look over this

concrete empty parking lot. I see a fire station with three doors. I count the doors, one, two, three, and then I say those words, sorry kiddo, because I never ever wanna think I made it. I never wanna be not thankful for this life I have. I never ever wanna think I figured it all out because the moment I do that, I'm done and my hunger is gone. And for 27 years now, every day I sit down to write, sorry kiddo, sorry kiddo, sorry kiddo. And to me, when you use those moments, that failure,

that struggle, man, I think it's, we leave that out. You have to answer this question. Yes. You've written, let me do some quick maths, 78 books. That's ridiculous. No. That is ridiculous. It is ridiculous. That number is a stupid number. If you had written 13, I'd be like, whoa, 78 books is absolutely, I can't. Anyway, let me get to my question.

78 books. You've written 78 books. You have to answer this question, which is the best? Which is your favorite? Actually, that's two different questions. Which is the best and which is your favorite? Yeah, no, that's two different questions, which is the best? And which is your favorite? Yeah, no. Um, it's fair. The best one. I still think my first book is my best one, because I didn't know anyone would see it.

Yeah, that's why it's the best. The reason why you love people's first novel that you ever read from and then you're like, Oh, I like the first one is because when you're writing for the first time, it's like when you did your first talk, you didn't know millions of people were going to see it. So you just put it out there. You hoped it, but you didn't know. But once it's out there, and now you've received the criticism and the raves and the love, but once you know someone's watching, there's some little molecular thing that changes. Something changes in your little DNA. Something changes in that quilt in your brain. It's a little bit of protection, a little bit of safety,

a little bit of, you're not getting all of me. I put out all of me last time and I took a beating for it. And I think that that protection will always forever ruin art, right? It will forever take it away and make it less when you protect yourself. But to answer your question, I then, when I turned 50 years old, I have my midlife crisis was, I think in life, we can always keep doing what we do, right? You do what you do, I do what I do. We can continue doing it and hopefully people will pay you to do it and show up. And that's great. And that's fine. But at 50 years old, my midlife crisis was, how do I actually get better? I've been doing this for 20 something years.

How do you actually get better? And I was like, I'm not comfortable just doing what I do. I've read a million thriller writers and they, you know, once you get to their seventh or eighth or ninth book, you're like, they just phone it and it's the same thing. I'm like, I'm terrified to be that person. So I'm like, how do I get better? So what I did is I went back and looked at all my books. And I asked that question, you just asked me, which are actually the best? And I'm not

about what sold the most, which are actually the best? Yeah, I understand. There's a different I singled it out. And I said, now I figured these three, I said, I got these three, what do they have in common? And they were the three best characters, which are the three, the 10th Justice, the first counsel, and the book of fate at the time. And I said, those have the best characters in them. And then I was like, I was working on a new book called The Escape Artist. And I had this story for this great new character named Ziggen, and this character, Nola.

And I said, you know what? Don't start the book until you have Nola. I'm at the point in my career where I could build the boat while I'm selling the boat. I can start the book and I'll figure it out as I'm going. I'm like, don't do it. Wait an extra six months, build this female lead character. When I came out with the book, it was the number one selling book I've ever done. And why?

Because I finally went backwards and actually was like, don't be afraid to compete with your old self. Be honest again, show yourself again, and don't worry what anyone thinks. And what I realized is Zig is this character who believes if you're a good person, you put good in the world, the world will be a better place. A beautiful idea, completely naive idea, but an idea worth fighting for. And Nola is this character who believes, you know what, if you want the world to make sense, you gotta grab it by the throat and force it to make sense. Especially when you see injustice,

you gotta fight harder than you've ever fought before. That's also an idea worth fighting for. And I've now written three books with these characters. They're my biggest characters by far. And what I finally realized after a thousand pages with them is I'm not writing characters. I'm just writing myself. I firmly believe to my core that if you are a good person and put good in the world, the world will be a better place. I'm Zig. But I also believe, especially when I look around the world as

it is today, if you don't fight for justice, you got to fight harder than you've ever fought before when you see some injustice, when you see someone being hurt, when you see something that's done wrong. And it's just me trying to figure out which side of me is right. And of course they're both right. The world takes love and war. And that's the one I think is the best.

I still think the best thing I've probably have ever written though, is the Make Magic commencement address. And you helped me with that one. You were the person. But I never ever had anything that I've written get a reception like that. There's not many people who give a commencement address that then it becomes a book. I mean, again, you're from, you know, Maria Shriver was, was, I don't know Maria Shriver. I don't know Katie Kirk. All these people were blasting this thing out. And strangers were

contacting family members of mine after I gave the address at the University of Michigan saying, I want the text of that speech. What you said about empathy and about kindness, I want that for my kid, can you send me that? And I've been doing this 27 years and no one's ever contacted my sister and found her unlisted phone number and said,

I saw your brother in a stadium of 70,000 people today. Can you get me what he said about empathy and kindness? And I was like, something just happened and I don't know what happened. I know what happened. I know what happened. You have gone from being a New York Times bestselling author multiple times over. You are now Brad Meltzer, an influencer. God, the worst. That's why I love you because you know the nonsense of it all. I mean, look, some people don't know what we're talking about. Okay, sorry, sorry.

Okay, so we should say you gave a commencement address to the University of Michigan, which is your alma mater. And I went to Michigan and there's 70,000 people in Michigan Stadium. It is crazy, but I was focused on one. I was focused on one, because my son was graduating that day. And he's in the 14th row, and I'm looking just at my side, I can see him.

And I'm giving the speech, and you know how it is when you give a talk, you know that there are moments where you hope you know where the laugh is gonna come, and where the aw is gonna come, and where the claps are gonna come. But this was something brand new, I'd never delivered it. I was talking about magic and making magic and that there are, when you talk to magicians, there are

some things that can't be explained. And when you talk to magicians, there are four types of magic tricks. Put aside illusions and escapes as four types of tricks. One, you make something appear to you, make something disappear. Three, you take one thing and you switch places with another. And the fourth magic trick is you got to take one thing and you switch places with another. And the fourth magic trick is you got to take one thing and turn it into something else, which is the hardest trick of all, transformation. And I talk about in this speech, what you make appear, what you make disappear. And I get to the third trick, which is I say, we have to make two things switch places. I say, here, let's talk about empathy. And I say, cruelty

and venom have become sport in our culture. And making fun of other people has become sport in our culture. But cruelty and venom aren't signs of strength, they're signs of weakness and petty insecurity. And what takes strength is switching places with someone else and showing kindness and showing empathy. That's what empathy is, is switching places with someone else looking through their eyes. And I felt 70,000 people started going banana. And I didn't know what happened. I'm trying to get control of the crowd

because you can kind of talk through a crowd and surf the wave. And I couldn't. And I remember going, what was that? Something happened here and I can't put my finger on it. And my wife said to me after, you tapped a vein you didn't know was there. And I think right now as a culture,

we're starving for empathy, we're starving for kindness. And I happened to, in this speech, talk about it. This magic trick was this focus on empathy and kindness is what just took off. And then all these people started asking for it and publishers started saying, we gotta do a book about it. And that book came out,

but I never saw anything that I wrote get a reaction like that. Let's be honest, you helped me with that speech. I remember calling you and what's funny is when I gave the speech, I said your name, I said like Simon Sinek says, you know, it's full commitment, that's what magic is, it's full commitment to the bit

or it all falls apart. And when you said that part to me, that Brad, you need full commitment or it all falls apart, I was like, that's what it is. And my wife said, you know, you're in front of 70,000 people, you can't practice. You're doing a magic trick in real time. And you're doing exactly what the speech is about, which is full commitment to the bit. You're going to go for it no matter what, improvise, whatever happens. There were protesters, there's everything else. You're going to figure it

out. And it was me being my truly authentic, real self telling stories I've never told, telling this is the lowest moment of my family's existence, this is something I was embarrassed to share, this is the person who got to me and of course that's what connects is the pure honesty and you taught me this too, magic is never something you do for yourself, it's a gift you give other people. That's what magic is. The easiest way to ruin a magic trick is to learn how it's done. 100%. And by the way, no one does it for themselves. And that's always been your magic trick. Your magic trick has always been your stuff is always for someone else. That's the best part of you. That's why I love you. This is unfair to people listening to this podcast. You and I just sort of

cooing all over each other. But here's the thing is I'll go on at 50 other podcasts and you'll do 50 more. But this is as honest as we get, right? Because we know each other for so long. There's no artifice here. This is how we... I mean, we were talking before this podcast started and we were talking like this. Every time we get on the phone, because we never get on the phone for sure, but every time we get on the phone, it's always the same thing, which is... And it's the same thing from the start. You always leave me. I know your mission is to inspire. I still got the original coin, but like, I just feel better about the universe.

It's not about myself. It's not about, but I feel like I got hope. You know, it is, it is hope, man. That is what you give. I feel the same about you. Thank you. Thank you for teaching us. Thank you for showing us.

Thank you for guiding us. You're the best. Love you, pal. or made you smile, please subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts for more. And if you are trying to get answers to a problem at work or want to advance a dream, maybe I can help. Simply go to simonsonick.com. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other.