Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: How to Make Money Doing What You Love & How Weather Forecasting Works

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 is 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.

Starting point is 00:00:42 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, brilliant ways to feel

Starting point is 00:01:08 more confident in situations where you feel just the opposite. Then, should you start your own side business? A lot of people are. So for anybody listening, like if your whole life you've gotten a paycheck and then all of a sudden you start one of these little side projects, you know, you wake up, you know, a month from now and you have a PayPal notification that a stranger sent you money. It feels really, really good. Also, why you're more likely to trust an attractive person just because of their looks. And the fascinating way the weather is forecast and how meteorologists are getting better

Starting point is 00:01:42 and better. Their forecasts have gotten better by about a day a decade over the last 50 years, which is to say that a five-day forecast today is as good as a four-day forecast was 10 years ago, is as good as a three-day forecast 20 years ago, or most staggeringly as good as a one-day forecast was 40 years ago. All this today on Something You Should Know. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives.

Starting point is 00:02:11 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,

Starting point is 00:02:41 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.

Starting point is 00:03:12 And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi. In the last couple of weeks, we've gotten a lot of really nice reviews on Apple Podcasts and some of the other podcast platforms. And if you're one of the people who left one of those reviews or any of the reviews, thank you for doing that. On Apple Podcasts, we're over 4,800 ratings and reviews, and we're trying to get to 5,000. So if you have a moment, head over to Apple Podcasts and leave a rating and review. It only takes a second, and it really helps

Starting point is 00:03:50 us out. First up today, we're going to talk about the sun and your skin. While most dermatologists and moms agree that you should always put sunscreen on when you go outside, the topic is actually quite controversial. There are plenty of people who cite research that shows that sunscreen does little to prevent skin cancer. In fact, in the last 35 years, as people have increased the use of sunscreen and avoided sun exposure, the rate of melanoma, which is the deadly kind of skin cancer, the rate of melanoma has actually tripled, which has led some people to believe that sunscreen

Starting point is 00:04:30 may actually be contributing to the problem somehow. Now, while scientists hash all this out, one thing research is pretty clear on is that your diet can help prevent skin cancer for sure. A diet that includes a lot of fruit, vegetables, fish, and herbs seems to have a very protective effect against melanoma. In regions of the world where people eat this way, the rate of skin cancer is substantially lower than it is here in the U.S. And that is something you should know. If you want to make more money,

Starting point is 00:05:11 you could get a second job, or you could drive for Uber or Lyft, or you could start your own side business. I'm not necessarily talking about taking the full entrepreneur plunge, but doing something on the side while you keep your current job, at least for a while.

Starting point is 00:05:27 There's a name for this. It's called a side hustle. And there are some strategies to use that will help you start your side hustle successfully. Here to discuss this is the guru of the side hustle, Chris Guillebeau. Chris is the author of two books on this topic, and his latest is 100 Side Hustles, Unexpected Ideas for Making Extra Money Without Quitting Your Day Job. He's also host of the daily podcast, Side Hustle School. Hey, Chris.

Starting point is 00:05:57 Hello, Michael. So it seems that people have been talking a lot lately about side hustles. Maybe that's in large part because of you, but it's not really a new concept, is it? I think side hustle, the term has been around since 1950 something. Um, but obviously in the past decade or so, a lot more people are using it and in different ways. And I think for some people, side hustle just refers to a part-time job or to participating in the gig economy, you know, driving for Lyft or Uber or whatever. I try to look at it from the lens of a side hustle is an income generating project

Starting point is 00:06:30 that you start without quitting your day job. So ideally, it's not just, you know, doing something for somebody else, but actually creating a bit of an asset for yourself so that you have more security, more options as you move forward with the rest of your career. So if you're thinking in terms of generating more income with a side hustle, where do you begin to, where does the thought process begin? What are you trying to do here? Yeah. A great way to begin is by looking at your skills. So instead of the old, you know, follow your passion thing, it's follow your skills. You know, make an inventory of your skills. Write down all the things that you're good at, you know, make an inventory of your skills, write down all the

Starting point is 00:07:05 things that you're good at, not just what you trained for in your traditional career, not just what you have, you know, work experience with, but maybe even hobbies or some kind of topic that you have specialized knowledge in. Ask your friends as well, because sometimes your friends can see things, you know, that you don't. So pay attention, start with those skills, you know, and then from the skill, it's like, well, most of us, you know, are actually kind of passionate about the things that we are good at. So there is a connection there, but starting from the skills is more helpful. And then, you know, the next step is, okay, you know, I've got this skill. It is helpful to someone else. How can I then create some kind of offer from that? And that offer could be a service. It could

Starting point is 00:07:38 be a product, um, could be reselling or something else. Um, but you know, going from an idea to an offer would be the next logical step. Where, and I would imagine this is where, where do you think people go wrong? Is this a pivotal spot right here? Yeah, I think there are a few pivotal spots. I mean, first one is, you know, the first mishap, let's say, is overthinking. Believing that you have to, you know, have an 80-page business plan. Believing that, you know, it's going to take a year for you to get ready. You're going to have to cash out your life savings. I mean, you know, all those things are things I advocate people don't do. So, you know, overthinking it, maybe, you know, failing or neglecting to go from idea to action. You know, the vast majority of people, the majority of people, if you stop them on the street,

Starting point is 00:08:20 you know, they have a business idea of some kind, but they're not necessarily doing something about it. So, you know, just even taking small steps to move forward, maybe also getting overwhelmed, or I often hear this objection of like, I have too many ideas, you know, I don't know which idea to choose. I think those are some common pitfalls. What's the answer to that? If you have too many good ideas, how do you choose one? The principle here to remember is, and people find this, you know, oddly relieving. The principle is you're not making a life commitment here. You're not choosing your life partner. You know, this decision of like, what kind of income generating project am I going to work on for the next 30 days? You know, it doesn't have

Starting point is 00:08:58 very high stakes in terms of if it goes wrong or let's just say it doesn't work out. Well, you're not spending a ton of money. Hopefully you've learned something, you know, along the way, and then you can apply that to whatever the next idea is, you know? And so ultimately if you're, if you're really stuck, you know, you should just pick something. Um, but if you're not quite at that point, then it's, maybe it's a question of your goals, you know, like what am I trying to accomplish with this project? Because some people are just trying to make some extra money and that's great. You know, other people are trying to get out of student debt or, you know, some other significant debt. Other people really are trying to replicate the income that they have from their traditional

Starting point is 00:09:34 job. They eventually want to leave that job. So it really depends on like, what are you trying to do, you know, with this process? And that's probably why I love this whole thing, because, you know, there's lots of different roads, you know, to a similar outcome of having more security and freedom. And that's your thing, right? 30 days, you should be up and running in 30 days. Yeah, I mean, to be totally honest, it is somewhat arbitrary, like some people obviously can take longer, and some people, you know, might go gung ho and be done in 14 days. But I think the principle is like, you know, don't spend a ton of time on it. Really focus on like what is the minimum kind of offer that I can create and how can I actually put something out to

Starting point is 00:10:10 get real world feedback from it? Because that's the information that ultimately you need to be able to make the next decision on whether you're going to pursue this idea further or whether you're going to try something else. So the idea is just, you know, move quickly. So let's take it out of the abstract and talk about some real side hustles here and some people that have done it that might whet people's appetite. So let's talk about problems and solutions. Last night at my book event in Portland, Oregon, I met Brittany Finkel, who's actually in the book, but I hadn't met her before. And her story is she's a buyer for luxury brands. She works for a company, but she has three older sisters and she'd been part of planning all three of their weddings.

Starting point is 00:10:50 And so through that process, she learned that not only wedding dresses are really expensive, but also all the wedding accessories. So you got your veil, your tiara, you know, whatever else the bride or the or anybody else, you know, wants to wants to wear. So do we really need to spend, you know, hundreds of dollars, sometimes thousands of dollars on that kind of stuff that's only worn once? You know, do you really need to keep all those things for the rest of your life? And so she said, you know, why isn't there a rental market for wedding accessories? Because again, you know, very lightly used one time. And so she decided to create a little business called Happily Ever Borrowed.

Starting point is 00:11:22 And with this business, she's using the skills that she has, you know, as a buyer for luxury brands. She made a website, put this offer out, got some press. She's been doing it for about three years now. And last year, she made $80,000, you know, from this, and she still has her day job. So $80,000 on the side from this project that's really providing like a clear solution to a problem that in retrospect, everybody's like, well, why didn't somebody else do this? You know, but, you know, for whatever reason, no one did. Well, but isn't that sometimes a good question to ask? If no one else is doing this, maybe there's maybe there's no market for this. Yes, no, that's totally fair as well. So we could take it, we could take it on the flip side and say,

Starting point is 00:12:02 you know, if you if you have an idea, but you're concerned, you know, that somebody else out there is doing the same thing. It's not actually a huge concern because, you know, as you just kind of suggested the other way around, maybe that actually demonstrates that there is a market for this thing. And, you know, you don't have to come up with an idea that is 100 percent unique, you know, never been done before. You know, of the stories I tell on my podcast, I would say maybe, you know, 15%, 20% are unique in that way. And others are just, you know, iterations of a different idea. I wonder, and you would be the guy to ask this, I wonder how often it happens that people come up with an idea for a side hustle, and it turns into something else, or it's modified in some significant way from the original idea that they don't end up actually doing what their original idea was. Yeah, I would say that's extremely common, probably more than 50%. I mean, I don't know exactly, but I would say, you know,

Starting point is 00:12:58 roughly half the people that I talked to, like they have their idea and they run with it, which they're still going to end up making changes, you know, of some kind along the way. But the other half actually make, you know, very significant changes, end up discarding that project, which I think is actually a good idea in lots of cases. You know, if something isn't working, there's no reason, you know, why you should keep trying it. Like we have this American value of persistence that I think is kind of mistaught because ultimately the predictor of success is not persistence, it's adaptation, you know, and like you hear these stories about so and so failed, you know, 40 times, you know, before he succeeded on the 41st attempt. And

Starting point is 00:13:35 whenever I hear that, I'm always like, well, what else could he have been doing? You know, for all those 40 attempts, he could have changed, you know, projects. That's another reason why, why people do get hung up because they try something that doesn't work. And they think that they're a failure, rather than understanding, you know, that thing may have given them knowledge or experience to go into something else. Of course, you write about and highlight and profile the success stories. But I wonder, are they the exception or the rule? Every success story has failure or mishap or mistakes, you know, or setbacks. You know, I don't know statistically, right? Like how many people

Starting point is 00:14:11 attempt this and then give up for whatever reason. But I would always caution people to say, like, if you encounter these setbacks, understand that every successful person encounters setbacks. So the question then is like, how do we deal with that when we encounter it as opposed to like, how am I going to just avoid that entirely? What I like about this is that so much of the entrepreneurship idea implies that you need to take the plunge, that you need to really dive in headfirst into the deep end and hope it works. And what you're talking about is a lot less risky. You're starting something quickly, you're starting it small. And if it doesn't work, it's not the end of the world. But at least you tried because you don't want to be five, 10 years from now or the end of your life looking back

Starting point is 00:14:57 wondering, what if I had? Exactly. I mean, this is that that's very similar to something I say pretty much every night on the book tour. I'm like, you know, just just imagine your life at some point in the future. You've got this idea. Maybe you're not even sure exactly what the full idea is, but you've got this inkling of something you got, like even a vague desire. Fast forward in your mind, you know, a year from now, 18 months from now, whatever the time period is, and just think about how you will feel if you actually move forward with this and if you actually make progress. And I firmly believe that, you know, if people do move forward, even take the small next step, whatever it is, they're going to feel better than if they didn't. And I actually believe that's true regardless of the outcome. I think it's actually independent of what the actual result is because just making progress, just taking that step, you know, resolves that what-if question in your mind. And as I said, maybe it'll be a big success, maybe it won't. But if it isn't, hopefully it will lead you to something beyond that,

Starting point is 00:15:54 through that experience. I want to talk more about some real people, because we've been talking more or less in the abstract, and I think it's the stories of real people that have done this that is so inspiring. I'm speaking with Chris Guillebeau, who's author of the new book, 100 Side Hustles. 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.

Starting point is 00:16:26 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.

Starting point is 00:16:58 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. 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.

Starting point is 00:18:09 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. And so, Chris, let's talk about some real people who have taken the side hustle idea and really run with it. A story I really like to tell is this guy named Mark from South Carolina. And he goes on vacation to Austin, Texas, walks into an upscale men's store and sees a candle for sale for $80. And, you know, the first thing he thinks is, well, that's ridiculous, $80 for a candle. And the second thing he thinks is like, you know, how can I sell those? Like, I want to sell $80 candles, you know, nice first thing he thinks is, well, that's ridiculous, $80 for a candle, and the second thing he thinks is, like, you know, how can I sell those? Like, I want to sell $80

Starting point is 00:18:47 candles, you know, nice work if you can get it. So, you know, he didn't go back to school and get a master's degree in candle making or business or anything else. He went back home and just kind of figured it out. He watched YouTube. He watched YouTube tutorials and just kind of practiced on his own, and then, obviously, it wasn't just the making of the candles. You know, he applied some marketing to it. He really created this brand called Meeting and Market, which is named for this historic intersection there in Charleston. And now he's selling these candles, you know, on Amazon,

Starting point is 00:19:18 making several thousand dollars a month, you know, from them largely passively. You know, so that's one example. Just really quickly, another one. There's a woman who's a bit older who ended up making this course all about baking sourdough bread. And I think this is so interesting because like, you know, the first course she made was very, very old school. It was filmed with an iPhone in her kitchen with bad lighting. You know, she's just talking to the camera about baking bread. And for whatever reason, it really went over very well on Udemy. And she ends up making, you know, a second course, a third course, all about baking sourdough bread. Like she's really kind of owning this niche. And she ended up making something like $80,000, you know, from these courses. And it's so interesting because you

Starting point is 00:19:53 think, well, you know, there's all kinds of ways to learn to bake bread. Like I don't have to buy her course. Right. Um, but it seems, you know, that she's able to forge this connection with people enough that, you know, when they stumble upon the trailer or whatever, you know, they find it valuable. And that's that that has completely transformed her life. I mean, this money was like she actually wasn't very well off. And this was the most money she'd made in a long time and was able to put a down payment on the first home she'd ever owned. So, you know, this can be incredibly freeing and bring so much joy and transformation to people's lives if they take that leap. I would imagine a big problem for, or a big challenge for people who start a side hustle is the challenge that any business has is finding customers. Because it's great to have an idea,

Starting point is 00:20:36 and it's great to be able to make a really shiny something or to have an $80 candle, but it's no good if nobody buys it. If you can't find those people that are likely to buy it and, and which takes it into the realm of sales. And a lot of people, when they think about sales and marketing think I have no clue. Right, right. Well, I encourage people to think of marketing essentially as connecting and, um, it doesn't have to be this cold call situation. I think if you, uh, think about it from the front end, like here's my idea right from the very beginning before you get very far along, you need to have an answer to the question, how is this idea going to make money?

Starting point is 00:21:13 It's not something that should be figured out later in the process. So I think in the case of like, you know, the candle guy, he had wanted to sell something on Amazon. He was reading up a lot about this process of how people ship products to an Amazon warehouse, then they handle fulfillment, et cetera. So he, then he did a lot of research into like, what's the best way to master that, you know, and there's lots of different approaches, you know, for how you're going to sell, how you're going to ship a product, whether it's digital, whether it's physical, et cetera. So I definitely think that, you know, research is helpful. But if you know, if you have an idea in the beginning of who your ideal customer is, it's going to make a huge difference compared to, you know, my customer

Starting point is 00:21:48 is everyone out there. It's not a good, not a good way to move forward. Well, that example brings up a question and a problem that I know exists for a lot of people. I've seen it myself. And that is, you can do research on the internet. For example, should you have Amazon fulfill your orders and ship your products or should you do it yourself? Should you create physical products or digital products if you're selling information? And you can find people arguing both sides of the case and leave you paralyzed, not really knowing, well, what should I do? Right. Well, maybe, maybe the best way is, I mean, that's absolutely well maybe maybe the best way is I mean that's absolutely true maybe the best approach is to go back to where we

Starting point is 00:22:28 started the conversation don't necessarily you know watch all these videos about where my business idea is going to come from let's start with you you know you as an individual you are good at something everyone is an expert at something and I think that's the key rather than going out and acquiring a ton of new skills you know ultimately the key is transferring your knowledge that you already have. The woman who is baking the sourdough bread, you know, ultimately, she learned about technology. Ultimately, she learned about marketing. But the main thing was this personality and her desire to teach, you know, her love of baking and so on. That's what made that a success, not whatever

Starting point is 00:23:01 she learned later, you know, by watching YouTube. It would seem that if you're going to start a side hustle, there are some things, even if you're starting small, there are some things you're going to need to get started. You're going to need a logo. You're going to probably need a website. You're going to need email marketing and some email provider. That there's a list of things that you're going to need that for some people is overwhelming or a lot to do on your own? Man, you start with the minimum. You start with like, what is the basics? You don't actually need like all of that stuff.

Starting point is 00:23:33 I mean, maybe you do need a website. Maybe you do need an email marketing list, et cetera. But, you know, you don't necessarily need to be active on 15 different social networks, which is what a lot of people try to do and fail. I mean, you're not going to be able to do that. So just to take that one example of like social media, I always encourage people to, to mostly be active on two, like pick two networks and like, well, which ones do I pick? Well, which ones do your, your ideal customers use the most? You know, if that's Instagram, then you should be on Instagram. If it's something else, then, then be there. So I think the process of elimination is really powerful in making these decisions, especially for people who have day jobs and

Starting point is 00:24:08 they've already got their 40 hours a week planned out. They've got a family, perhaps, other responsibilities. So since they're trying to do this on limited time, they have to really make that time effective. And one of the ways you can be effective is by stripping away all this extraneous stuff and saying, what do I actually need to do to go from idea to offer, put this out in the world, get the information that I need so that I can then determine what to do next. The examples you've been talking about so far are individuals. And I'm wondering, I can imagine people saying, well, you know, I'm going to do this with my best friend or, you know, somebody who can do things that I can't, that has a talent that I don't have. What about doing this as a partnership?

Starting point is 00:24:47 I've profiled some stories with partnerships so they can be successful. But I would say all things being equal, unless you have a really compelling reason to have a partnership, like you both have the same dream, but you have different skills, you kind of work together, then that's good. Unless you have a compelling reason, don't do that. Do it on your own. Because for every story that I featured of a successful partnership, there are so many more of, you know, a story that just features one person, but it began as a partnership. And what happens along the way, almost inevitably, not 100%, but pretty often, is one person ends up being more committed to the idea than the other. And so how do you then navigate that?

Starting point is 00:25:28 Right. So I would say, you know, all things being equal, you can still get you can still get help. You can still get advice. You can still involve other people. But actually forming it as a legal partnership should be something that only happens for a really special reason. Obviously, success is a great reward and a great motivator. But what do you find when you talk to people who do this? What's the first thing? What's the thing that is the first big reward that really propels them forward and makes them glad they did this? empowering, and validating to people. So for anybody listening, like if, you know, your whole life, you've gotten a paycheck, and then all of a sudden, you start one of these little side projects. And, you know, you wake up, you know, a month from now, and you have a PayPal notification, or a Venmo notification that a stranger sent you money, it feels really, really good. I mean,

Starting point is 00:26:19 I'm telling these stories on book tour. And like, I can ask the audience who has a side hustle, and probably like, you know, a third of the audience raises their hand. And then of those people, I say, do you remember the first time you got paid? And probably about half of those people like have a specific memory of years ago, the first time they got this payment. So I want to encourage people to get to that point as quickly as possible. Don't worry necessarily about whether it's going to make, you know, a huge amount of money or be a huge success. Honestly, getting that first hundred dollar payment or whatever it is can feel really good. And it can lead you to something beyond that. Well, I really like this. I'm such a proponent of this idea. And I know so many people who have

Starting point is 00:26:52 done it. One of my favorite examples is a woman who I knew who, what she would do is she would take the bride's bouquet from the wedding. And she had this ability, this artistic ability to take those flowers. And she had a special technique to press them into a flat picture, into a frame that looked like the original bouquet. And it was gorgeous. And she would do it when she wanted. She basically would turn the switch on when she wanted to make some money and turn it off when she didn't.

Starting point is 00:27:22 And she did. She made quite a bit of money. It's such a great idea, what you're talking about. I really appreciate you sharing it. Chris Guillebeau has been my guest. He is the host of the Side Hustle podcast. It's a daily podcast where every day he features another person who has done a successful side hustle.

Starting point is 00:27:39 And he is author of the book, 100 Side Hustles, Unexpected Ideas for Making Money Without Quitting Your Day Job. And there's a link to his book and to his podcast in the show notes. Thanks, Chris. Awesome. Thank you. I appreciate it, man. 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.

Starting point is 00:28:08 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?

Starting point is 00:28:28 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. to, or it didn't snow when you were told it would, or it was supposed to be a hot and sunny day and it turned out to be a cloudy and dreary day.

Starting point is 00:29:29 So clearly, forecasting the weather is not an exact science. But it is a science, and how that science works and has evolved is really interesting and definitely worth understanding. Andrew Blum is a journalist who's written a couple of books. His first book, Tubes, was out a couple years ago, and he was a guest here, and I always remember that, Andrew, because I remember how you talked about the smell of the Internet, that the Internet actually has a smell.

Starting point is 00:29:58 It was really a fascinating discussion, and you can hear it in episode number 83, which was back in July of 2017. You can just go to the website, somethingyoushouldknow.net, and find that episode. Andrew's new book is called The Weather Machine, A Journey Inside the Forecast. Hi, Andrew. Hi, Mike. Thanks for having me. So are we, generally speaking, pretty good at forecasting the weather, do you think? We're actually very good at it.

Starting point is 00:30:27 And I know some people don't love to hear that because they might have gotten caught in the rain recently. But the numbers that meteorologists like to rightfully brag about are that their forecasts have gotten better by about a day a decade over the last 50 years. Which is to say that a five-day forecast today is as good as a four-day forecast was 10 years ago, is as good as a three-day forecast 20 years ago, or most staggeringly as good as a one-day forecast was 40 years ago. And, you know, it's not always perfect, of course. And I think a lot of that has to do with, you know, our willingness to hear when a meteorologist says maybe, you know, says it might rain or it might not, we don't like that uncertainty. But uncertainty can actually in itself be a good forecast.

Starting point is 00:31:09 So the age of the weatherman being wrong half the time is entirely over. It doesn't always seem like it, though, does it? I think a lot of it is there's a bit of a lag in how much the app makers and how much meteorologists are willing to sort of trust us with a forecast that says maybe. Because there are days where it's definitely not going to rain, there are days where it definitely is going to rain, and then there are days where it's going to rain and it's not going to rain. And the minute by minute prediction of that might be beyond the realm of technology, it

Starting point is 00:31:39 might be sort of beyond their ability, but we also have to consider it might be beyond our usefulness. Because a forecast is only as good as how you can act on it. That's the sort of truism of meteorologists. It's not just, you know, the moment to moment, this is what's going to happen, but what decisions can we make from it? And this may be a case of you tend to notice when things go wrong more than when they go right. But I had the experience of living in the Northeast in Connecticut for a period of six years between 2004 and 2010. And every winter, it seemed, there would be some forecast

Starting point is 00:32:15 of some big snowstorm in southern Connecticut. And they were predicting, you know, 4 to six inches, eight to 12 inches. And it almost never was. It just seems like anyway that it almost never was. There was no snow or there was a little snow that turned into rain or it snowed a little bit and there was maybe an inch of snow. But there was never, it seems like there was never 12 inches of snow. It seemed the forecast was always over predicting and under delivering. Yeah, snow is tough, particularly in this part of the world in the Northeast.

Starting point is 00:32:52 You know, because often it might snow, you know, two inches on the coast and 20 miles away, it might snow six inches up in the hills. And that matters a lot to you. That's a big difference. But what I've seen over the last few years is, you know, it'll say, you know, it might snow, it's going to snow in this band, you know, four days from now, starting at this hour and finishing at this hour. And you can see this sort of the, you know, the drift and the weather maps and the snow accumulation maps. It's a, you know, it's, they might be off by 10 miles by 20 miles, which in the context of days in the context of the planet is really nothing. In the context of were you able to get out of your driveway, I understand certainly is a big deal. But it's interesting. I just think there's a real lag between what the technology,

Starting point is 00:33:36 the forecast has given us and our willingness to say, okay, I understand it's going to snow, but I understand that this is the band of uncertainty. This is what I can't quite know. And I, I frankly have to be prepared for, for both possibilities. And that's as much a kind of social science issue as it is a, as it is a weather forecasting or meteorology issue. So take me on a little journey here of where the idea came from, where somebody said, you know, let's try to predict what's going to happen and how that evolve.

Starting point is 00:34:06 Yeah, it's a great, it's a great story. I mean, the first thing that has to happen is you need telecommunications. The first thing you need is the telegraph, because you can't begin to think about what the weather is going to be in different times if you don't know what the weather is in many places at the same time. So it's the first step is kind of having a, you know, being able to draw a weather map of simultaneous conditions all over the place. And for that, you need some way to communicate faster than the weather itself. So that's kind of ingredient number one is the telegraph in the 1840s and 1850s. Ingredient number two comes from a Norwegian meteorologist, a guy named Wilhelm Bjorknes. And at the turn of the century, the most famous paper published in 1904, he said these equations, these equations of physics can actually predict the evolution of the atmosphere and the creation of weather.

Starting point is 00:34:55 And he had no way to calculate those equations. And he wasn't entirely right, but he was pretty close. But the key thing that he did and that he was right enough about was that if you could write an equation, if you could put it in math, then you can prove very clearly each day if you were right or if you were wrong. So he kind of made a way of turning the weather into a kind of science experiment. And as soon as that happened, you could begin to refine those equations month by month, year by year. And as a result of sort of that insight that the weather is a kind of daily science experiment, the weather forecast is a daily science experiment. By the time we had computers and satellites in the 1960s and 1970s, this started to work. And in the 40 years since, it's gotten better step by step, because not only can you sort of refine the equations each day and sort of see if they worked better the next day,

Starting point is 00:35:47 but you can go back and you can test your new equations against all of the past weather that you have on record of the past 10 or 20 years. And it's really that step by step iteration, but using the real equations of physics of the atmosphere that has led to this more remarkable forecast or really this course of improvement that's been remarkable. Then shouldn't it be the case that as time goes by, and maybe this is the case, that as time goes by and we have more history, it should become more accurate? It utterly is the case. The statistic that the weather modelers flaunt,

Starting point is 00:36:22 which is that they have improved their skill, which is to say their ability to predict the weather better than just sort of looking at what the weather was that day a year ago. One day farther into the future with each passing decade is really the sort of metric that they point to to say that, to indicate that their improvement has really been consistent. And that's actually been accelerating. The sort of best weather model in the world comes from the European Center for Medium-Ranged Weather Forecasts, which is in Reading, England, and it's made up a consortium of scientists from sort of all of the European weather offices, the government weather offices. And one of the things, you know, that it's kind of a top gun

Starting point is 00:37:01 outfit, their sort of single dedication is to making a better global weather model. And global weather models are important because those are the weather models that you need to predict farther out into the future because the atmosphere is moving around over the course of days. And so that's really the place that has been the most successful

Starting point is 00:37:18 in improving their forecast month after month, year after year. And they're actually increasing the rate at which those improvements are happening, rather than a day, a decade of increased skill, meaning we can predict the weather better than just looking at what the climate says it's going to be, to the point where they think they can get to 14 days in the next 10 years. So not just a skillful five-day forecast, but really yet another sort of quantum leap with better supercomputing power, with better satellites, with better physics and better equations and better algorithms and better methods of testing those to really sort of bring us to an entirely new point in the weather for tomorrow is pretty easy. Three days out, it gets a little tougher. A week out, it's starting to get really difficult. And 14 days out, it's almost 50-50.

Starting point is 00:38:11 And the amazing thing, though, is that if the three-day forecast is as good as the two-day forecast was 10 years ago, that's a pretty significant improvement. I mean, I started working on this book. Sandy was seven years years ago when I first looked at it. To think that based on the statistical benchmarks that the weather modelers use to measure the success of their models, to think that just in that seven years, it's almost a day of improvement in how far into the future they're able to be skillful,

Starting point is 00:38:41 I think is a really remarkable success story about a global infrastructure, and I should point out as well, a public infrastructure. This is not the creation of any single private corporation. It's really about the sort of cooperation of scientists all over the world. Something I think is really important and I'd like to get a handle on, because I don't really understand this, is the weather ever unpredictable?

Starting point is 00:39:05 Can a hurricane turn left instead of right, and there's no way to know that it's just an act of God kind of thing? Or is it just that we don't have the technology, or someone made a mistake? In other words, does the weather sometime have a mind of its own, and there's no way to tell what it's going to do? Well, it's an interesting question. There's a bit of a cone.

Starting point is 00:39:29 Did the weather turn or was the forecast wrong? We can only look into the future in one direction. And I think the thing to recognize is that it's really about when you talk about what's going to happen if the forecast is wrong, you're talking about when is it wrong. Is it wrong two days ahead of time? Is it wrong three days ahead of time? Is it wrong six hours ahead of time? Is it wrong 10 minutes ahead of time?

Starting point is 00:39:57 And one of the things that's been interesting with the way the weather models work is you can begin to see a sort of convergence of forecasts among the sort of competing weather models and competing systems. If they're all saying the same thing, pretty likely that's going to happen. And sometimes, you know, at two days or at one day, there's a surprise where actually it turns out the models were wrong. And, you know, I remember that I think it was on one of the Florida hurricanes a few years ago, that the expectation was that it was going to go up the east coast of Florida and it went up the west coast. And that was a big deal. That was a big mistake. But it was really about the decision that was made four days before, rather than the forecast that came two days before.

Starting point is 00:40:31 And this adjustment to sort of knowing how to deal, you know, when to make decisions based on how confident we can be in a given forecast, you know, this is an adjustment that has to be made by governors, by emergency managers. And I think it really behooves meteorologists and weather modelers to be able to communicate how sure they are of a certain forecast, you know, how sure they are of the outputs of their models. How does it work that we have these computer models that examine what is going on, what's happened in the past, and then therefore what's likely to happen into the future. Does someone take that data, does some human take that data and interpret it, or does the computer say, partly cloudy and a chance of showers? First, I want to clarify one thing you pointed out there, that these computer models are not taking the weather statistics

Starting point is 00:41:24 or weather experience of the past and sort of extrapolating what might happen in the future based on what happened in the past. They're actually sort of deeper in the atmosphere than that. They're really about the physical equations of how moisture and heat and cool are moving through the atmosphere. They go back to thermodynamics, which means that when there have been moments

Starting point is 00:41:44 where we've had some weather that is unprecedented, for example, Hurricane Harvey in Houston a few years ago, the models spit out astounding rain totals that every meteorologist said this is this would be unheard of. This has never happened. I can't imagine this would be the case. And it was the case because the models don't have that kind of human bias of what hasn't happened in the past, won't happen in the future. And to answer the other part of your question, I think, you know, yes, the models produce outputs and it is the job of human meteorologists to interpret those outputs. But we're at an interesting sort of threshold with that because while certainly, especially in predicting impacts and saying, oh, well, if this is, if the sleet's going to happen, then, you know, I know that the, you know, I-95 is going to be a mess.

Starting point is 00:42:28 You know, that's still the job of humans. But I've observed over the last few years that there are often cases where the best weather models are second guessed by human meteorologists who are kind of going on gut instinct, who perhaps haven't really come to terms with the success of these weather models. Maybe an example would be a better way to answer this question. But when you talk about equations and the laws of thermodynamics and moisture and all that, it sounds very, very scientific. And an equation is A plus B equals C. There's not like A plus B might equal C, or there's a 50% chance of C. It's A plus B equals C. So when A plus B doesn't equal C in the weather, what typically, or just as an example, where does the divergence happen? That's a great question. I think the crux of it is our ability to know what the weather is as the starting point for knowing what the weather will be. And so, of

Starting point is 00:43:33 course, when we observe the atmosphere, that observation is absolutely imperfect. Not only do we not measure every molecule, but we choose places to observe the atmosphere. We might have a weather station every 20 miles. We might have a polar orbiting satellite that is in a low Earth orbit and is using its entire suite of sensors to collect different observations. But perhaps its only orbiting, its complete orbit might take 12 hours. And so, you know, the observations from one point might be older than the observations from another point. So I guess part of the weather modelers really hold dear is that their equations aren't wrong, but their observations of the atmosphere might not be quite precise enough. And so that disconnect between our ability to know what the weather is in order to know what the weather will be has been the kind of bugaboo for modelers for basically a century. And one of the things that's made the weather forecast better is that our ability to know the present state of

Starting point is 00:44:35 the atmosphere, as they say, to know what the atmosphere is doing at this moment has improved dramatically, particularly with the satellites that offer global coverage you know 40 years ago when there when there weren't satellites over over the the southern hemisphere uh it was very hard to make a good um you know get a good forecast several days in advance because you you didn't have a picture of the of the entire earth's atmosphere you only had the places where the weather was observed and you know not only in the just the northern hemisphere but really only over land and so it's really really sort of that extra observation that's one of the key legs of the stool that allows for then a better prediction forward in time. It's not that the equations are wrong.

Starting point is 00:45:14 It's that we don't really know quite what to put into them. So I wonder, is it the case that certain kinds of weather or certain places in the world are more or less difficult to forecast? Is winter weather easier to predict than summer weather? Is Australian weather really tricky? Or is weather weather? No, I think there are definitely places in the world that are easier to forecast than others. That said, though, because of these new capabilities, particularly the weather satellites, and the weather satellites have really been the key to the whole system in terms of improving

Starting point is 00:45:48 forecasts, because they do provide a uniform coverage of the Earth. It's not just about LaGuardia Airport where there's a weather station, or it's not just about the dense network of stations over wealthier nations as opposed to over poorer nations. It really is the satellites that have brought a kind of a sort of a cohesion, a kind of a quality to the way that they look at the atmosphere. Well, and you just brought up like San Diego, you know, the weather, the weather's the weather. It's pretty much the same all the time.

Starting point is 00:46:16 It rains once in a while. But is it the case that extreme weather is particularly difficult to forecast compared to sunny 75 degree weather. I think it's the stakes for the forecast are certainly higher. But one of the things that the models have really sort of proven their amazing worth with is for our, frankly, new weather regime. You know, we are, every meteorologist will acknowledge that the, you know, that we are living in a new age of weather, that this is, you know, things are doing, you think the weather is doing strange things. Storms are bigger, temperatures are more extreme. And as that happens, it's not about, you know, the meteorologist recalling, you know, what had happened in the

Starting point is 00:46:59 past. And, you know, it's not about their instinct or their intuition based on the data at hand. It really does put more weight on the capabilities of the weather models to go deeper into the atmosphere, to calculate hundreds of millions of observations, and to do that with regularity in a way that proves their worth every single day that has sort of brought us into a new age of forecasting for a new age of weather. Will the future of weather forecasting eliminate things like, you know, there's a 50% chance of rain? Because, you know, what do you do with that? It might rain, it might not rain. Yeah, I could have told you that. But will we get to the point

Starting point is 00:47:42 where we're not giving probabilities, but that we'll really know? See, I think it already has, which is so interesting. I mean, it's certainly quite a regular occurrence for school districts to close schools before the snow even starts. And that's something that would have never happened 10 or 20 years ago because there wasn't enough confidence in the prediction. Now, of course, if you get burned, and this happens occasionally, where you say it's definitely going to snow 12 inches, you got to close the schools, and it doesn't happen, then that's a problem. But the thing that everyone's honing in on together, both the people who make the decisions and the people

Starting point is 00:48:17 who make the forecast and the people who make the models, is that when do you pull the trigger? At what point is this sort of converging lines of confidence and the need to make a decision? At what point do they come together? You know, we had a storm in New York this winter where school was closed, you know, the night before. And it didn't snow much. And I had actually seen the meteorologists looking at the most recent outputs of the models saying, you know, things are trending a little bit less. You know, 12 hours, it was 12 hours out, and we actually don't think this is going to be as bad as it was.

Starting point is 00:48:52 But that information hadn't yet been, sort of hadn't made it up the chain to the mayor, and the decision was already made to close the schools. So clearly, as you've discussed, time is a huge factor in predicting the weather. You know, predicting tomorrow's weather is pretty easy. Predicting the weather two weeks out is pretty tough. But as we get closer to that day, the predictions become more and more accurate. Andrew Blum has been my guest. He's a journalist and author of the book,

Starting point is 00:49:20 The Weather Machine, A Journey Inside the Forecast. And there's a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, Andrew. Thanks, Mike. This is great. I appreciate it. You know, from the time we are children, we have a tendency as humans to be more trusting of attractive people and less trusting of ugly people. And as we get older, that tendency gets stronger, particularly in females.

Starting point is 00:49:43 This is according to a study published in the journal Frontiers of Psychology. This is further evidence that supports something called the beauty stereotype. This describes the phenomenon whereby more attractive people are also considered smarter and more sociable and more successful. Other research has shown that attractive people are treated better by their peers and preferred by newborn babies, and now we can add trustworthiness to the list. While we try not to judge a book by its cover, it seems that when it comes to sizing up people, it's just something we do.

Starting point is 00:50:21 We're born with a tendency, and it only increases with age. And that is something you should know. And now that the episode is over, what better time than to leave a rating and review of Something You Should Know on Apple Podcasts. 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

Starting point is 00:50:49 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

Starting point is 00:51:16 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. Contained herein are the heresies of Rudolf Buntwine, erstwhile monk turned traveling medical investigator. Join me as I study the secrets of the divine plagues and uncover the blasphemous truth that ours is not a loving god and we are not its favored children the heresies of redolf bunt wine wherever podcasts are available

Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: How to Make Money Doing What You Love & How Weather Forecasting Works

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