Something You Should Know - How to Make Money Quickly in a Crisis & Why We Are Getting Fatter and How to Stop It

Episode Date: April 9, 2020

The best way to solve your problems may be to pretend they are someone else’s. This episode begins with an interesting way to look at your problems that can help you come up with much better solutions. http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/06/09/0956797614535400 The coronavirus shutdown has many of us worried about money. Joining me to discuss ways you can make money quickly as well as into the future is Chris Guillebeau. Chris is the host of the podcast Side Hustle School (https://sidehustleschool.com/) and author of several books including his latest, The Money Tree: The Story About Finding a Fortune in Your Own Back Yard (https://amzn.to/2Rab2nQ). Chris has been a guest before and he is really good at helping people find news ways to make company. Do CDs and mp3s make music sound worse? Some people think so. Could you tell the difference between a CD and a high-resolution recording? Listen as I discuss what your ears may or may not be missing out on. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/rec.music.classical.recordings/m_kbHvHuQm0/QmhFwKbT5McJ Why are Americans so much heavier today than ever? What happened? More importantly, what can be done about it? Andy Boyle is a journalist who investigated why we have grown fatter. Andy reveals the causes and the solution that can help anyone lose weight. In fact Andy followed these simple practices and lost 100 pounds! He joins me to discuss his investigation and his journey to a slimmer self. Andy is the author of the book Big Problems: A Former Fat Guy’s Look at Why We’re Getting Fatter and What You Can Do to Fix It (https://amzn.to/3dRZMGn)  This Weeks' Sponsors -Better Help. Get 10% off your first month by going to www.BetterHelp.com/sysk and use the promo code: sysk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know was all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu.

She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Today on Something You Should Know, the best way to solve your problems may be to pretend they're someone else's. Then, some help for people who are financially suffering because of the coronavirus. And if you're in a place of desperation or if you're feeling a little bit panicked, what can you do right now to make money?

And then maybe even more important, what can you do in the long term so that you're not going to return to that place? You have something that you can rely on. Also, do CDs and MP3s actually make recorded music sound worse? And a journalist who was very fat investigates what really works to lose weight and why we're so heavy in the first place. They have incredibly smart scientists who are engineering the food to hit a certain couple of categories, such as crunch, having a lot of salt, and a lot of fat, and then feeling good in your mouth. That leads to you wanting to eat that thing a lot. All this today on Something You Should Know.

People who listen to Something You Should Know. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence

Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft

AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker, John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more

openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel, the world's top experts, and practical advice

you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. You know, we hit a milestone a few episodes back, but with all that's been going on, it kind of went by unnoticed, so I'll mention it now. We crossed 400 episodes of the Something You Should Know podcast, which is a pretty big deal. This is episode 405. So there are a lot of episodes that you could go back and listen to, since you may have a lot of time on your hands. And people seem to like when I recommend specific episodes, because, you know, with 400 episodes, how do you know where to start?

So I'll recommend episode 234. The title of it was How to Ask for and Get Anything You Want, and How Medicine Has Changed in 100 Years. It was first published on Christmas Day of 2018. So with the holidays back at that time, even if you're a regular listener, you might have missed it. And it is one of the most listened to episodes of all time. So once again, it's episode 234 that first published on Christmas Day 2018. First up today, if you want to make a good decision for yourself, a slight shift in thinking will help. Researchers asked some people in long-term relationships to imagine that they

had been cheated on by their partner. And then they asked other people to imagine that their friend had been cheated on by their partner. Then they filled out a questionnaire to determine what they thought would be the best course of action. The people who were thinking about what their friend should do tended to answer in ways that demonstrated more wisdom than those thinking about what they should do themselves. By putting yourself in that third-person point of view, in other words, imagining your problem is really someone else's problem,

seems to be an excellent strategy to help make tough decisions. The advice you would give to a friend is usually better than the advice you give to yourself. And that is something you should know. A situation that a lot of people are facing right now is the uncertainty of income. Many people have lost their jobs, others are not working as much, or they've been furloughed for a while.

And there's just a lot of uncertainty. And while I have no magic answer, it might be a great time for you to look at other ways you can make money and do so quickly. Here to offer some suggestions and advice on that is Chris Gillibeau. Chris is the host of an excellent podcast called Side Hustle School. He's the author of a couple of books, and his latest is called The Money Tree, the story about finding a fortune in your own backyard. Hey, Chris. Hey, Mike. Thanks so much for having me back.

So this is a time like no other. The coronavirus has just turned the world upside down, and for a lot of people, their individual and family worlds have been turned upside down in terms of money. And so perhaps it's time to think differently. Well, that's the thing. Whenever there's, you know, whenever there's large societal change, whether it's, you know, progress or disruption, and obviously we're experiencing tremendous disruption right now, there are always winners and losers. You know, there's always like some industries are advancing and some are declining. And so I think, you know, not to say that there is a silver lining, like I always want to be careful about that and say, you know, the

situation that we're in is obviously harming a lot of people. And if we could, you know, flip a switch or press a button, you know, we wouldn't be in this situation. But because we can't do that, you know, all we can do is say, well, what is within our control? What is within our control? And I think there are a lot of opportunities in a time of uncertainty because so many people are, you know, thinking differently, as I said, and just preparing to make a lot of shifts in their lives. And I think in some ways that can be good. In some ways, a lot of people will come out of this time on the other side, you know, better off than they were before. But, of course, it's a challenge to navigate that process. And so where do you begin? I mean, I guess first, we all have to take a deep breath and, you know, realize things are the way they are. And now what?

A lot of it is about understanding that you already have the skills that you need, like you don't need to go to business school. There's not some great, you know, skill or talent that you have to acquire throughout your life, you know, through your education, through your employment, through any other projects you've had, through your hobbies. You know, all this stuff is is interesting and valuable and helpful to someone. And so it's essentially about repackaging, like how can you take one of those skills or one of that one of those areas of knowledge, for example, and create a little business from it, even if you've never thought of yourself as an entrepreneur. So it's a little bit about that. It's like, what can you do right now? You know, if you're in a place of desperation or if you're feeling a little bit panicked, you know, what can you do right now to make money? And then maybe even more

important, what can you do in the long term so that you're not going to return to that place? You know, if your job becomes unstable or if we're in this situation again, you know, God help us, you have something that you can rely on and you have something that you can, you know, kind of build for the future with. And so maybe some examples would help because I can imagine, and the thing about this situation right now is it came so suddenly where people often when they think about starting a business take some time to sit down and you know put their feet up and think well you know and but there's no time for that i mean you know if your job is gone it's gone now and or will be gone soon

and so how do you do this quickly and maybe an example or two yeah Yeah, of course. So, I mean, there's a great example from the book. The protagonist's name is Jake, and he's in that situation of financial pressure that I mentioned. And he starts going to this group, which consists of people who are all trying to start these little projects. And they're all trying to start the project without spending a lot of money and by acting quickly, you know, either because they're in that place of needing to do it quickly or just because they don't want to waste money. And so after one of the first meetings, the mentor figure says to him, OK, Jake, I have an assignment for you. You know, before next week's meeting, I want you to make a thousand dollars. And at first, you know, he says, well, if I knew how

to make a thousand dollars, I wouldn't be in this situation to begin with. But they talk it out a little bit. And, you know, he says, do you have anything at home that you can resell? And at first, you know, he thinks that's kind of a boring, basic idea. But he does go home and he realizes he has these economics textbooks, you know, from college that have been in his closet, and he thought he would use them again, he never did. So he lists them up for sale. And then he starts paying attention to the completed listings on eBay and other auction sites, realizing that he can buy more textbooks at a certain price than resell them for a higher price. It's called retail arbitrage. There are a lot of people doing this these days. And then from there, he learns how to do that with photography

gear. And then from there, that leads to him offering a little service and so on. So I think the answer is not that every person needs to go out and become a professional reseller. But if you are in that place where you need money now, this is something that is pretty simple and pretty accessible. 20 years ago, when I started working for myself, this is what I did. Like I learned how to buy and sell things on eBay and other sites, and it's still available now. And so if you start doing something like that, whether it's that or some other example, then that gives you some confidence. You know, it gives you some money, but also it gives you confidence to believe that if you can do this, there's probably some other project, you know, that you can do that might be a little bit more advanced and might, you know,

rely more on those skills or that knowledge that you have. I love that idea of selling stuff on eBay, because that's something you can start in your own house, in your own attic. And we've had people on the podcast talk about how, I think, in the average home, there's somewhere around $3,000 worth of stuff that you could sell and get that cash just by listing it on eBay, if you know how to do that. And it's not very hard. Yeah. And I bet most of that stuff is stuff that they're not actively using. You know what I mean? We're not talking about like, you know, something that is important to you. We're talking about all the stuff that's in the attic, in the closet. And it's not just eBay. There's so many platforms these days. You want to sell your

clothes, you can go to Poshmark. There's Gumtree. We have these apps that allow us to connect with our neighbors next door, you know, Craigslist and so on. And, you know, again, anybody can do this. So it sounds simple. But, you know, when you start talking it through with people, you're like, well, have you done it? Have you tried it? And they're like, oh, no, I haven't. I'm like, well, why don't you try it and see what happens? You know, because it can, as I said, lead to something, you know, greater in the end. It's also because I remember when I moved, we sold a bunch of stuff on eBay. It's really a lot of fun.

I mean, it's it's there's this kind of like you're always checking to see, you know, is there a bid? What's the latest bid? I mean, who's watching it? And that gets kind of addicting if you do enough of it. It's a game. Yeah, it's fun. It's just like you said, when I first started doing that 20 years ago, I was selling Lego and other toys and video games and coffee. And it wasn't that I was

particularly passionate about any of those, you know, categories. I just like the process of doing it and all those things that you mentioned. And the thing is, you're learning along the way. So you're getting paid for your knowledge. It's like the opposite of going to college where you pay, you know, to learn. Like you are learning the skill of copywriting. You're learning about marketing. You know, hopefully you're improving in your photography, your detective skills of examining other auctions and such. So you're gaining all these skills that can be applied in a lot of different ways and you're getting paid for it. Beyond that, though, beyond reselling things, buying and reselling things or selling stuff out of your attic, where are some other places to look for possible income? Great. So I always encourage people to make a list of their skills. Like, let's do a little skill inventory, kind of like I touched on, like, you know, whatever education you've had, whatever you do at your job, and not just the hard skills, but also the soft skills, you know, if you're really good at follow up, if you're really good at, you know, productivity, getting things done, people skills,

etc. Along with those hobbies that you have. So I think hobbies are often like this, this kind of misunderstood and undervalued thing. So with like, with the podcast, I've been telling these stories, like I thought I would run out of stories. I started, it started at three years ago. And I said, every day I'm going to tell a different story of somebody who, you know, finds that skill or that knowledge that they have and turns it into income. And I thought I would run out of stories, but here I am like 1100 episodes later. I just did one recently about this guy. This just shows you how random it can be. This guy was really passionate about carnivorous plants. Like that was his thing. Okay. So there's a whole world of carnivorous plants. It's not just

the Venus flytrap. Apparently that's like the stereotypical one, but there's a whole world of them. So he decided to create the Wikipedia, you know, of these plants. And as part of that website, he built a little exchange, you know, where people could buy and sell them. And now he's making something like $10,000 to $15,000 a year on the side from it. It's just his little side project. And so if that guy can make money with this super, super niche topic, then I think everybody knows something. So everybody's had some experience that they can then turn into some sort of income generating project. Just doing it really simply, doing it basically without spending a lot of money. It's been my experience that people, it's often easy to see this in other people.

Oh, Bob, you should sell that thing or you should do that thing. It's very hard to look within and put value on yourself and the things you know. There's a tendency, I think, to discount that. I think that's because what comes easy to us, you know, is not easy to other people. We think, well, everybody knows about this or, you know, everyone knows how to use Photoshop, you know, to make a thumbnail image or, you know, everybody knows how to use this particular tool. When of course that's not the case. You know, there knows how to use this particular tool. When of course, that's not the case. You know, there's probably a lot of things that you're really good at and a

lot of things that you not only are not good at, but have no desire to do. So I think what's helpful in this case is to ask your friends, you know, ask your friends and your colleagues, anybody close to you, you know, say, hey, I'm trying to figure out, you know, what skill I have, you know, that can be monetized in some way. So without thinking too much about how I could monetize it, like that comes later, what do you think I'm actually good at? You know, and your skill, your friends will often see something in you, uh, that, that you, you don't, uh, or you can also, you know, just think, think to yourself, what are people always asking me about? What, what do people always come to me? You're the go-to person for topic X. Okay. Maybe that's telling you that you're an authority in

that space and that people are interested in that topic, and they're coming to you. We're talking about how to make money quickly in this time of uncertainty. My guest is Chris Guillebeau. He's host of the podcast Side Hustle School, and author of the book, The Money Tree, the story about finding a fortune in your own backyard. Hi, this is Rob Benedict. And I am Richard Spate. We were both on a little show you might know called Supernatural. It had a pretty good run, 15 seasons, 327 episodes.

And though we have seen, of course, every episode many times, we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again. And we can't do that alone. So we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show along for the ride. We've got writers, producers, composers, directors, and we'll of course have some actors on as well, including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers. It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible. The note from Kripke was, he's great. We love him, but we're looking for like a really intelligent Duchovny type. With 15 seasons to explore,

it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes. So please join us and subscribe to Supernatural then and now. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show.

Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation.

And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Chris, I think when people think about their career, particularly if their

career has been working for other people, you're talking about doing something that's very entrepreneurial and I think that scares a lot of people. Yeah, I try to avoid that capital E word, you know, because so many people have a preconception of entrepreneurship from watching shows like Shark Tank, which are very entertaining and you can learn from them, but that's only one form, you know, of owning a business. And there are all kinds of people across middle America and elsewhere that are not pursuing that model. You know, they're just they're just doing something for themselves.

And they're they're not trying to necessarily find their life purpose in doing this, or they're not trying to make a commitment for the next 30 years. They're just in this time of uncertainty like we all are. And they're asking, OK, what can I do? You know, what can I do for myself to, you know, create more freedom, establish security, to make it so that I'm not dependent on a corporation or the government or whoever I work for, even if I like that job, that way I have that way I have some options. Well, that's interesting, because I think we also think if we do something to make money, that that kind of by definition, that's on that's now our career and then we built we grow from there and that's not what you're

talking about you're necessarily you're talking about maybe doing this for a little while or doing this as a very sideline thing while you continue this other profession that you have had there are a lot of people pursuing kind of a hybrid approach to all of this there are a lot of people pursuing kind of a hybrid approach to all of this. There are a lot of people who, you know, have jobs and they want to have their side project. And what I hope to do is help kind of steer them in the right path to the side project, whether that is, you know, the side project that they want to make $1,000 a month with or eventually quit their job and go all in because it is different for different people. Or if it's trying to pay off a lot of

debt, you know, whatever the goal is. So I think, you know, for me, it's like, you have to decide what your own goal is, like what's important to you, what are you trying to accomplish? And then, you know, match, match the project to that. But there's so many different iterations of it. And that to me is the beauty of it is you can, you can do, you can find the path that works for you and you might not even know what the, what the full path is, but you can just take that step that's in front of you and then it's going to give you more options and ultimately options are good there's also this very entrenched thinking about starting a business that oh you know takes money to make money oh you're gonna lose money for the first five years

and and gee i don't have time for that i can't do that um you know that but that's what people think when they hear starting a business yeah but that's what people think when they hear starting a business. Yeah, because that's what they have been told. You know, they, the model that I use is called the third way. And it's because, you know, it's explained in more detail there, but the short version is the first way is exactly what you just said. Like the old school understanding of like, if I start a business, I'm opening a dry cleaners or a coffee shop and I have to do all those things. I have to have the business plan, I have to go to the bank, you know, to borrow money, hopefully, they will, you know, approve me and give me permission to

start my business. And then I have to work for years in hopes of seeing a return. And hopefully it will work. But if not, you know, that's, that's part of risk. That's what I'm doing. And the second way is, is that startup way, that Silicon Valley way, where you have to, you know, essentially go in and beg people for money in one way or another. And if it works, great. But we all know there's so many failed startups out there. So in both of those ways, you're very dependent on someone else. You're very dependent on the investors, one form or another. Whereas the third way is everything that we've been talking about, which is not doing either of those things, not being dependent on external sources, you know,

finding the fortune in your own backyard, you know, just to use that phrase, um, asking yourself, what can I do, you know, without looking to other people to create more, you know, future and, you know, freedom and security for myself. When somebody does this though, when they think, you know, I've got stuff in the attic, or I know how to do this thing. But where do you go to learn how to market that? How do you, I mean, there's a million Kindle books and a million books, but to get very specific about this industry or about finding these customers, how do you know where to go? You know, even as the author of some of those books,

I would say they don't need to go and read a bunch of books. I mean, like I said, I'm an author, but the best, the best thing they can do is experiment, you know, to sell something on one of these platforms that we've been talking about. The platforms will talk you through it. I mean, they, they make it very simple. You go to these platforms, like sell an item and it's like, here's your next step, you know, upload a photo of your, well, everybody has a, you know, camera phone. Okay. Write a description, you know, then from there, you might want to pay

attention to how other people have written descriptions. Are you just writing like, Hey, this is a thing for sale. Or are you writing like, Hey, this, you know, this is an item that I've owned for a while. I've kept it in really great condition. I just don't need it right now. I would love to see it go to a good home, you know. So, you're kind of learning about that as you go. And I mean, the same with starting a service, you know, like it's not difficult to have a PayPal button or a Venmo button on a one-page website that people can click, you know, to pay you for a consultation. And you might not know a lot of people, but you know somebody. And so you go to you go to your

network once you have that service and you say, hey, everybody, I'm trying to start something new here. This is a time where everybody's figuring stuff out. And I just thought I would try this. If you know somebody who might be a good fit, you know, for this loan consultation service or this coaching session about whatever it is. So you just kind of start by that, one by one by one. And yes, you can read and study and take courses to improve. But ultimately, if you're going to choose between actually doing something and studying up, you should do something. How much time do you think people need to really ramp this up? It depends on what they're trying to do and also what time

they have available to them. I often think that being busy is a benefit because when you're busy, you don't have time to waste. You don't have time to spend hours upon hours in exploration and trying different projects. I'm going to have a blog and a podcast and a YouTube series. And I'm also going to sell stuff and start a product, you know, importing business and fulfilled by Amazon. You know, you don't have time to do everything. You have to kind of say what, what is important to me? What is essential actually? What is essential here? So I've heard from people that spend, you know, 20 to 30 minutes a day on their project, but if they do it consistently and if they do the right things,

then they're going to be able to make progress over time. But I don't think a lack of time has to be a constraint. I know there are a lot of people who would hear you and say, yeah, but that's just not me. I mean, I'm not that entrepreneurial. I've always, you know, gotten up in the morning, gone to my nine to five job, get my paycheck. And that's kind of, that's how I roll. I mean, that's what I do. And to do what you're talking about, there's a lack of confidence that this would work. Well, again, we are in a time when probably the only time, at least in our lifetime, where a lot of the majority of people on the planet are kind of rethinking a lot of things. And I really do believe a lot of shifts are going to come out of this time. So, you know, if there's ever been a better time to make a

change, I'm not sure when that would be. And so I guess I would say to that person, you know, you're not the only one in that situation. You're not the only one kind of wondering, you know, what do I do next? And I do have some anxiety and fear. I mean, that's perfectly natural. But I guess what I would encourage them to think about is, well, what's on the other side? And yes, some parts of this might be scary. I might have to learn some things or do some things differently. But if I could figure that out, wouldn't that be a lot better than kind of remaining stuck or, you know, trying to compete in a difficult job market or maybe even in a career that's kind of going away or changing permanently?

Wouldn't it be so much better if I could figure it out? And so I would just encourage them, you know, to take that first step. Don't worry about seeing the whole picture. Just take that first step. Do you think there's ever a benefit in, because this is kind of scary for a lot of people, of doing it with somebody else? There can be. I think getting, you know, working together, getting some advice, you know, that can be good. It's a little bit different than a formal partnership. And that kind of opens up issues. Like I've had a lot of stories about people who've, you know, started a partnership with their best friend. And, you know, at the end of it, they're not best friends anymore. And it's usually because one of the, one of the people believes in the project more than the other, which is kind of inevitable. Um, so I think it's

helpful. Um, you know, unless you, unless you both have the same vision and drive and you're both absolutely committed to something, I think it's usually better to have your own project, but then to surround yourself with people, you know, who are also doing these kinds of things and, you know, also on also on this path of exploration. Well, how many times have we heard variations on the phrase of, with every adversity comes opportunity? And this may apply to more people now than ever before. I think the question everybody has to ask, myself included, all of us,

how are we going to get through this time? How are we going to build security, you know, in the uncertain time? A lot of stuff is out of our control right now. So what is within our control and what are we going to do about it? And I'm on that same path along with everybody else. Well, it's a good message. And if you'd like to get more information, ideas, inspiration of what you could do to make more money during this time, you can listen to Chris's podcast. It's called Side Hustle School. And his latest book is called The Money Tree, the story about finding a fortune in your own backyard. There's a link to both the podcast and to the book at Amazon in the show notes. Thanks, Chris. Thanks for coming on today.

Awesome. Thanks so much, Mike. Appreciate it. Take care. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me,

But Am I Wrong? Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong. Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our Lister poll results from But Am I Wrong. And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts,

Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. One of the concerns with all of this staying at home and not doing a whole lot is it is very conducive to overeating and gaining weight, which was already a big problem for a lot of people before the coronavirus hit. Why is it seemingly so easy to gain weight and so difficult to lose it? Well, Andy Boyle knows. Andy is an award-winning journalist who himself was very large and struggled with his weight. He did some serious investigating into why Americans are so heavy and why we stay that way. In the process, Andy lost a lot of weight.

So he speaks not only as an investigator, but someone who has actually put his advice into practice without fad diets or devices. He's written a book about it. His book is called Big Problems, a former fat guy's look at why we're getting fatter and what you can do to fix it. Hey, Andy, welcome. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. So why is there such a weight problem? Why are people so much heavier than their grandparents ever were? And why do we have such a hard time getting rid of it?

So part of the research that I've looked into, it kind of comes down to three things. The first is we are basically engineered to gain weight. We kind of come from a hunter-gatherer time when it was feast or famine. And if you didn't, we had to be prepared for the lean times. And so our bodies have been engineered to be able to pack on a lot of pounds if we have excessive calories. So that's one point. The second point is, if you look at 100 years ago, we were eating so much less and our food was also completely different than what we eat now. We eat so much more processed foods than we used to.

That has also contributed to this. If you look at from, I believe, 1970 to a 2010 study, we eat 500 more calories or so a day than we used to. If you eat 500 more calories a day over a week, that adds up to about a pound worth of calories. The third one, we are a much more sedentary populace than we used to be. Not just our jobs where we're sitting a lot more instead of doing more manual labor, but also how we get around the towns we live in. Because of automobiles, public transit, that sort of stuff, People are just moving less. And so if you add all three of these things together, it's no wonder that we are continuing

to get bigger and bigger. And that one about that we're eating 500 calories more per day than we used to, that's a real interesting one to me because you wonder why. Did that just creep in? Or who said, hey, let's all eat 500 calories more than we used to? So some of it is small changes over time in how our food is made. I refer to it as the fat industrial complex. Basically, the food manufacturers, they're trying to get you to eat their product. You know, that's kind of how this all works. And so one thing they've done, and I'm not going to necessarily name some food companies, but almost every company, especially if they make candy or processed food, they have incredibly smart scientists who are engineering the food to be as delicious as possible and to hit a certain couple of categories, such as crunch or having a neon-ish color, having a lot of salt and a lot of fat, and then feeling good in your mouth.

If you add all those things together, that leads to you wanting to eat that thing a lot, but it also makes you wanting to eat more. So there's an addictive quality to it. So that's one thing. The other big thing is we took out fats from our food. If you ever go to the grocery store and you see something that says low fat, well, what we actually did was we took out the fat and we pumped in a bunch more refined sugar, usually made from like high fructose corn syrup. That has actually increased the calorie amount. And also because you're eating carbohydrates as opposed to fats,

that can have impacts on how you actually store the food that you eat in your body. When you have a large sugar intake, that can lead to an insulin spike in your bloodstream. And so if you ever get that huge high after eating something that has a lot of sugar in it or having like a soda or pop, you then remember the crash. Well, the crash is because that spike happens and then goes away. The spike can also tell your body, hey, store these calories as fat instead of using it as fuel. And so sometimes we eat these more sugary things, instead of going through your normal functions and acting as a fuel source, they sometimes can just go straight to being stored as fat.

So you're a former heavy guy, right? Mm-hmm. And so what was your magic bullet that got you to say, hey, let me do something different, and what did you do different? So it was kind of two things, and they kind of happened right around the same time. One of them was I was working at a newspaper in Chicago, the Chicago Tribune. And during a meeting, because I was so big, you need to make some changes. And the second thing was I went to a sleep specialist because I noticed I was just having terrible sleep. And they did a study and the doctor was like, you have mild sleep apnea. And he kind of made a joke. He was like,

the two ways to solve it, one, lose 80 pounds, which we both know you're not going to do, which he actually said, or you have to wear this mask. And there was kind of this, I think, Midwestern reflex to be like, well, nobody tells me what to do. I'm going to lose 80 pounds. One of the ways I started doing that was relatively simple. I kind of like looked into how you're supposed to eat, which sounds really silly. I mean, I was in my late 20s. I'd gone to college. I thought I was relatively well-educated, but I was just eating like crap. And when I actually started reading a little bit more about how protein works, how fat works, how carbohydrates work, all of that kind of finally stuck in my

brain and made me realize, ah, I am completely eating the wrong kind of food now that I have a specific goal toward losing weight. And then what I kind of combined with that early on was just walking. I just decided when I wake up, I'm going to go walk for 10 minutes. When I have lunch, I'm going to go for another walk. And then after work, do another walk. And over time, those walks got longer and longer. And then after a point, I had lost like, you know, about 20 pounds just through some of these simple changes and through eating a little bit healthier. And sometimes it would just be like, cut my portions in half.

If I was going out to eat, I would just eat half of what I ordered or I wouldn't get fries or something like that. And then that's when I actually started thinking, I'm going to try to actually lift weights. I'm going to start figuring out what exercise is. And that kind of led me down a pretty big journey. Sometimes I think people who don't have a weight problem, look at people who do have a weight problem and wonder. And so I'll ask you, is it a case of you really don't know what you should do or why you're heavy? You just are? Or is it a case of you know what you're doing wrong or you know what you should do better and you just choose not to do it?

I think it was more of the latter. And for all of your listeners, all fat people know they're fat. We are aware. The amount of times I would go to a doctor and they would be like, I don't know if you're aware of this, but you're considered obese. And I was just like, oh, what? It's not a shock. And oftentimes people would point out my weight to me as if I was unaware of the body I lived in. And they would just sometimes tell you, hey, why don't you just exercise and eat healthy? And that just sounds so

simple. But what you actually need to do are to start making slow changes over time. In the past, I had tried to just decide, oh, I'm going to be Mr. Healthy. I'm going to go do 900 things. And then you get burnt out and then you go back to your old habits. The other big component of this, which I don't think it's talked about a lot, but I talk about it pretty extensively in the book, is how much mental health plays a factor in people's weight. A lot of people who are overweight, they have anxiety, they have depression, and they have other mental health issues. And sometimes becoming overweight gives you those issues. And if it's really hard for you just to get out of bed or to go to work and you are just mentally exhausted by that, it's not easy for people who are dealing with those issues to then add something else on top of it, whether it's exercise, making healthier eating decisions, or just cooking regularly. And so you have that.

But then you also have people who might be a caretaker and they have families, or maybe they're working more than one job. And I think a lot of that stuff just kind of goes all together. And so there is an education component, but a big, big missing piece that we do not talk about often enough is a lot of times people gain weight because of some kind of traumatic stress that they've had to deal with that just kind of pushes them down this path. Yeah, well, and that certainly is a concern with coronavirus, that people are sitting at home not doing much, feeling stressed out because of the unknown,

and probably eating way more than they should. 100%. And, I mean, a lot of the stuff that I talk about are still some of the same skills you can be using even while you're kind of locked down in your own home. You can still, hopefully in most parts of the country, you can still go on walks. You can still do some of that stuff safely. You can still try to work toward making a healthier eating decisions. And I know that's especially hard for folks who have kids or families. But if you're ordering takeout to try to support some of the local restaurants,

instead of if you have a family of four, you really probably only need to order for two people because the portion sizes are so big. That is usually enough to feed everybody. Another big thing that I've been telling people, because a lot of my friends have been asking me what to do, you got to kind of make a plan. And something as simple as taking a sheet of paper in the morning and just writing down, I'm going to have breakfast, I'm going to have lunch, and I'm going to have dinner. And then kind of writing down what you think you might have. If you're going to have Cheerios and milk, cool. If you're going to, you know, because you're so busy, you're going to go have a hamburger

from McDonald's, that's fine. You know, something like that. What that does is it triggers you to follow the plan. Even if you don't look at the sheet of paper again, there's something weird that happens in your brain once you've made a decision like that, especially when you do the physical act of writing it down, that pushes you toward making those decisions. Same thing can happen with telling yourself, I'm going to go for a walk. Writing down what those goals are pushes you toward them.

I wonder, and you probably looked at this, how much it helps to not do this alone, to have a buddy or to have somebody who's kind of account you're accountable to. Yep. Uh, an accountability buddy is kind of, uh, uh, one of the terms that folks use. And there are some groups like this is, you know, Weight Watchers, that's kind of an accountability organization. Um, if you have another friend who exercises or, uh, is also struggling with their weight, it's a good way to confide in another person, but also hold yourself accountable. And like, I have like one of my good friends, Brian, he is incredibly strong. And he was like a strength competitor. He's just a really cool guy. And he's kind of in my sounding board. And also the guy I brag to, when I would like hit new, you know, personal bests on different stuff.

He's the guy I'd go to to be like, Hey, I did this really cool thing. Uh, and he would also sometimes give me critiques on my form and that sort of stuff. But he, then he does the same to me and we're kind of in different stages of our fitness, uh, but we can still help each other out. And I think that's really important for folks. And there's also a lot of online communities geared toward this sort of stuff that can give you that positive reinforcement. Talk about, let's about exercise, because I've talked to enough people to believe, and my own experience is that exercise is not a great way to lose weight, because what exercise does is make you hungry. Exercise is great for fitness, but as a weight reduction tool, it's no panacea. Correct. And one of the things that I

kind of talk about in the book is I think so many people focus on weight, like pure weight, as an indicator of health. Currently, at my current weight, despite, I think if you looked at me, you might go, I think that is an in-shape man. I am considered obese. Arnold Schwarzenegger, when he was competing in the 70s, was the same height and weight I am. We have a little bit different builds, but he was also considered obese and he was winning Mr. Universes. And so I think sometimes folks equate weight with health and that's one issue. But I think you touched on a really good point, which is exercise is not the end-all be-all. It's about what you're putting into your body. Exercise is something else. It's an extra thing

that you can add on top of it. When you see some of these reality TV shows that show people working out for eight hours a day and then they lose six pounds, well, not only is that not sustainable, that weight loss is not going to last. And they've actually done studies about people that have been on some of these shows. The vast majority of them gain all the weight back. Instead, you want to focus on losing weight slowly and over time. Exercise can help with that. But more than anything, the food you're eating and the choices you're making on food play way more of a role than the exercise that you do on a daily basis. You burn a lot more calories just existing throughout the day than you do going for a jog, lifting weights, doing yoga,

whatever you end up doing. I think it's really interesting that, as you said in the beginning, people are eating 500 calories more per day than they used to and feel as if that's a normal meal. And I've noticed, too, that, and I'm sure everybody's noticed, that when you go to a lot of restaurants, the size of the portion is just huge. And either most of it or a lot of it gets thrown away or maybe you take it home. But I've always wondered, I guess it's just because they want people to think they're getting a lot for their money. That's part of it. I think also

part of it is just people want more food. The portion sizes have definitely gotten out of control. And one of the things that a lot of food manufacturers and restaurants like to do is they might have on the box, it says 100 calories per serving. Well, that tiny box has 12 servings. And so they make it seem as if you're not actually eating very much. I just had like this, I had a snack thing recently that said that said that it said 100 calories per serving. And I was, I just ate it. It was like some trail mix. And then when I went to scan it into, I track all my calories and all that stuff. I scanned it into the app I use, and it was 200 calories because it was two servings. And I was like, they got me. And I'm allegedly a little bit more of an expert at this stuff. And so I think that impacts a lot of people.

It's marketing that is definitely geared to try to trick you into consuming more. I think one of the common things that happens with people trying to lose weight is they get very discouraged very quickly because it's a slow process and it takes time to reach your goal. I didn't set a goal to lose 80 pounds. I set a goal to lose five pounds. Five pounds, most people can do that in a month. And you can see the change over time. And there's kind of two components to that. My goal was I'm trying to lose about a pound a week. And I used apps on my phone where I weighed myself every day at the same time. So sometimes you eat food that might be a little saltier, you might weigh a little bit more

because of that and there's other issues that can kind of impact that but over time you can see the drop in your weight and then when you hit that that five pound goal it's an accomplishment you're like that's awesome and then your next goal if if you so choose five more pounds so instead of when i see people that are like i need to lose 30 pounds and i'm like you need choose, five more pounds. So instead of when I see people that are like, I need to lose 30 pounds. And I'm like, you need to lose five pounds six times. Or even if you only want to lose 10 pounds, you can make the goals even smaller. I want to lose three pounds. And then you just kind of go from there. It's kind of like the old saying, like you don't climb, you know, the, you don't climb a mountain. You climb parts of it.

And then at the end, you've climbed all of it. A lot of people lose weight, gain it back, lose weight, gain it back. They have yo-yo dieting. And I think there's a belief that the more you do that, the harder it is to keep the weight off. Is that true? I don't know if they've actually, in the studies that I looked at, I never saw anything like that. Yo-yoing is really big. It's really normal.

But one of the main causes of yo-yoing is because people lost weight at a rapid pace. If you lose weight, and what they say in the studies are up to 1% of your body weight a week. And for very large people, that's a lot. But for most folks, about a pound is a decent gauge. You are more likely to keep that weight off in the long run. If you do some kind of crash diet, your body's going to gain that back way faster. And so that's why you want to focus on these methods that take their time. And even though we are used to instant gratification, this is the best route to go forward. Yeah. But the problem with that is it's not very fascinating and sexy. It's just... Oh, 100%. There are no late night infomercials that just say, hey, folks, eat less processed

food and exercise a little bit more. There's nothing like that. They want to sell you a gadget or sell you a meal plan or something like that. Because they pretend as if they have all the answers when there are a lot of answers already out there. And what I've tried to do is explain from a real human perspective as somebody who's fought with his own body for my entire life, how I was able to make some better decisions. and then also what other folks can start to do to slowly push themselves forward. Yeah, well, it's always fascinated me that there's always some new, we've just, we've really figured it out now. We've got a new diet, a new plan, a new thing.

And no, you don't. Yeah, I mean, it kind of goes back to it's just marketing and snake oil. And you have a lot of folks who they kind of, you know, I call it like the cultification of so many of these things. They say that their way is the only way that can work. Every other way is a lie. And by the way, it's four easy installments of 99, 95 to learn my plan. And if that works for you, that's great. But a different method may work for somebody else. And what the science has shown is if you follow one of these fad diets,

you know, the ones that there's like lots of books that are written about certain kinds of things, as long as you change your lifestyle to stay on that diet, you will see results. You just have to stick with it. Well, you're an inspiration, I think, to a lot of people because how much weight did you lose? The most I lost was 100 pounds and I was incredibly small and I had to eat a lot more to gain muscle back. And so I'm right now about 80 pounds less than I used to weigh. 80 pounds? Yep.

That's a lot of weight. Yes, it is. And it took a while. But I think I'm fortunate in that because it took so long, it's been a lot easier for me to keep it off. It probably was about two years for me to actually get down to that full 100 pounds. Well, I certainly appreciate you sharing not only the research and the investigation that you did, but also your personal story, because, you know, you clearly you put your money where your mouth is and sure gives you a lot more credibility. Andy Boyle has been my guest. He is an award-winning

journalist and the name of his book is Big Problems, a former fat guy's look at why we're getting fatter and what you can do to fix it. And you will find a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. Thanks for coming on, Andy. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on. For years now, some musicians and audio experts have claimed that digital music, CDs and MP3s, sound terrible, that they ruin the music. The argument is that because the audio is compressed, some of the digital information is actually missing, so you're not really hearing everything the way it was recorded as you would with high-resolution audio files. Well, maybe, but it's more complicated than that. In several tests, most people cannot tell the

difference between a CD and a high-resolution audio file. Their ears just aren't that discerning. Plus, skeptics say the missing information is audio that the human ear can't hear anyway, so it doesn't matter if it's missing. What's really interesting is that in some cases, the high-resolution audio actually sounds worse. In a side-by-side test of a Nora Jones CD and a Paul Simon CD, the CD sounded better than the high-resolution audio. Why? Well, it has to do with the way the song was recorded and mastered in the first place. A lot of music is mixed so it sounds good on the radio, meaning it's compressed. And that would mask the benefits of high-resolution audio. And that is something you should know.

That's the podcast today. I invite you to dig into our archives and listen to some more episodes. And please stay safe. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible

criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla

who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.