Something You Should Know - Why It’s So Easy to Get Food Poisoning & Academy Award Winner Brian Grazer on Human Connection

Episode Date: October 21, 2019

We all sometimes struggle to remember important things – like names or passwords or what to get at the grocery store. This episode begins with some very simple techniques that will sharpen your memory and help you remember. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7591279/DR-MICHAEL-MOSLEY-stop-forgetting-passwords-Does-gum-disease-really-cause-heart-attacks.html Food poisoning is amazingly common. Every year, millions of people get it, over 120,000 end up in the hospital and some die from it. Yet most of it is preventable according to Dr. Mark Tamplin author of the The Food Safety Book (https://amzn.to/2pya8GT). Listen as he explains some of the myths about food poisoning as well as how people typically get it and the precautions we all need to take.  Do you eat breakfast? A lot of people don’t and even feel good about the fact that they skipped all those calories. But there are several really good reasons NOT to take a few moments to eat something for breakfast that will improve your mental performance and help you eat less. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26239831 Your ability to connect with people is so important because every relationship or friendship starts with that initial connection. Someone who know a lot about this is Brian Grazer. Brian is an academy award-winning producer, partners with Ron Howard in Imagine Entertainment and is author of the book Face to Face: The Art of Human Connection (https://amzn.to/32xyVcC). Listen as Brain offers insight into the best ways to connect with anyone and hear his stories of meeting U.S. presidents, Fidel Castro and Dr. Jonas Salk – who he threw up on.  This Week’s Sponsors –Airbnb. To learn more about being an Airbnb host visit www.Airbnb.com/host -Babbel. Get 6 months for the price of 3 when you use the promo code SYSK at www.Babbel.com  -Upstart. See how low your interest rate is at www.Upstart.com/something.  -3 Day Blinds. For their “Buy 1/Get 1 at half-off” deal go to www.3DayPodcast.com and use promo code: SOMETHING.  -Article Furniture. For $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more go to www.Article.com/SYSK  -Forevernote. Visit www.Forevernote.com and get $25 off when you use promo code :SOMETHING 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, simple techniques that will improve your memory. Then the huge problem of food poisoning, why we get it and how to stop it.

The CDC estimates that about 70% of all foodborne illnesses in the United States are caused by one factor, and that's not properly washing your hands after you use the bathroom and then going into a kitchen. Plus, why you really shouldn't skip breakfast. And Academy Award-winning producer Brian Grazer on the power of human connection. And some great stories from his life when human connection went wrong. Like when he met his hero, Jonas Salk. I had so much pre-anticipatory anxiety when I went to say hello to Jonas Salk that I barfed. I like threw up on him.

It wasn't good. But then he was like a doctor. He is a doctor. So he resuscitated me with orange juice and held my head. All this today on Something You Should Know. 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. 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. And we do start today with some very practical advice. Advice to help you remember things that you sometimes forget, like names and passwords.

And this advice comes from Michael Mosley. He's an MD who writes a regular column for the Daily Mail, and he was a contestant in the World Memory Championships. And his first piece of advice for whatever it is you're trying to memorize, like a password, is to say it out loud. Because for some reason, it just helps. Also, test yourself. 15 minutes after you've memorized a password or a name,

write it down and say it again, and then 15 minutes later, and then do it again a couple of hours later, and again the following morning. And then it should stick. Sleep and exercise, getting enough of both, are essential to a good memory. And if you're trying to memorize something in depth, like a speech,

it helps to create flashcards where you write down key definitions, quotes and formulas, whatever you need, then use them as reminders to test yourself. And a great way to remember things short-term is to use mind maps. An example of how to remember, say, a shopping list of a loaf of bread, a bunch of bananas, and two cans of beans, you just create this visual image of a man going into a store and on his head is a loaf of bread, around his neck is a bunch of bananas, and in each hand he's holding a can of beans. If you imagine that image, it'll be easy to remember that list.

And that is something you should know. You probably don't lie awake at night worrying about how safe your food is. After all, we have a very safe food supply. But the CDC reports that 48 million people get some sort of foodborne illness every year, and 128,000 of those people end up in the hospital. So clearly food safety is an issue, and it turns out that a lot of the food safety problems we have can be prevented. Here to discuss that is Mark Tamplin.

Mark is an expert in microbiology and immunology. He works for the University of Tasmania in Australia, and he is author of the Food Safety Book. Hi, Mark. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Thank you, Mike. It's a pleasure to join you. When I read that number of 48 million people get some sort of foodborne illness every year. That surprised me. I didn't think it was that big of a problem. Well, it is a big problem, but it's underreported. So it's one of those things where we hear about the tip of the iceberg in most cases, the large outbreaks. But millions of people in the U.S. are affected per year by a foodborne illness. And again, most of them go unreported. And several thousand result in death,

many in hospitalization. And the trouble with reporting it is we don't really know where the cause is most of the time. Many people, if they've had a foodborne illness, an upset stomach, they're likely to blame chicken that they've had that day. But in fact, most foodborne illnesses take at least 24 hours or more to develop.

So it's very difficult in most cases to trace it back to a particular food. Well, that's interesting because you're right. If people get an upset stomach or they think it's food poisoning, they think it's the last meal they had or maybe the meal before, but you're saying it's probably three or four meals before. Exactly. There's two types of problems we have that we lump under foodborne illness. And one is a food intoxication. So a food intoxication is one that usually happens within four hours, you know, plus or minus a couple of hours. And that's because we've eaten a food that a bacteria has produced a toxin in. And so when we're eating the food, we're getting

the effects of a toxin and they're so when we're eating the food, we're getting the effects of a toxin, and they're happening almost immediately to us and typically result in vomiting and sometimes in diarrhea. The other type of illness is a foodborne infection. And in that case, a bacteria or a virus has to replicate in our body. So they have to get through our stomach, set up home in our intestines, multiply, and then begin producing their toxins and other factors that make us feel ill. And in the case of a bacteria like Listeria

monocytogenes, which is a serious pathogen, that particular disease, you might not notice symptoms for three days. Is there a general sense of when people have food safety issues, when things go wrong at home, it's because of what? Well, the number one problem is cross-contamination. Now, cross-contamination can happen two ways. One is, you know, the typical scenario you might have heard is someone is making, let's say, a chicken dinner, and they're also making a salad or something that's not going to be cooked. And they make the chicken, they chop it up or handle it on the cutting board or elsewhere with their hands. Then they may put a salad onto that cutting board, or they might have the salad come in contact with the sink where they were rinsing the chicken

off. So that's one kind of cross-contamination. And another would be not washing your hands after you use the bathroom. The CDC estimates that about 70% of all foodborne illnesses in the United States are caused by one factor, and that's not properly washing your hands after you use the bathroom and then going into a kitchen and typically handling a food that's not going to be cooked, right? Because if you're going to cook it, you're going to kill the bacteria or viruses, and you wouldn't see someone being ill. But if you're handling a food that's already been cooked

or a ready-to-eat product like deli meats or salads, then that virus that you might have on your hands from using the bathroom gets transmitted onto those foods. So mom and grandma were right about wash your hands before you come to dinner. Absolutely. Yeah, just imagine if we all did that properly, 70% reduction in foodborne illnesses. A lot of the talk about food safety in the home, anyway, revolves around how we store food. But it would seem, you know, if you put perishables in the refrigerator and, revolves around how we store food. But it would seem, you know,

if you put perishables in the refrigerator and use common sense, it seems like you should be okay. We typically see problems related to refrigeration issues traced back to that organism I mentioned earlier, Listeria monocytogenes. Listeria, unlike all the other bacterial pathogens, Listeria can grow in a refrigerator. E. coli, salmonella, they won't grow in a refrigerator. The temperatures have to be, let's say, 45, 50, maybe 50 degrees or more before you'll get very fast growth, whereas Listeria will grow. So the problem we have is, again, immunocompromised people, including pregnant women, the fetus, young children, they don't have the strongest immune systems.

If they eat a food that's been left in the refrigerator for usually more than a few days, usually a week or more, it will start growing. And when it reaches a certain level, it reaches that minimum infective dose that we typically think about, that is the number of organisms to cause an illness. In the average, quote-unquote, healthy individual or normal immune system individual, we can eat a hundred, a thousand listeria and have no problems whatsoever. When people store food or when people talk about storing food, there's often, you know, confusion as to, you know, what goes in the refrigerator, what goes in the cupboard, is it okay? You know, some people put ketchup once it's open back in the fridge, some people don't. Can we run through

some common confusing foods and offer your advice? Well, I sure can. And one of those, I can give you some examples in my home where some things are put in the fridge that really don't need to be there, such as, let's say, pickles. Now, again, I'm going to focus on pathogens, all right? So bacteria are the typical pathogens we worry about. Viruses will not grow in foods. They only grow in an animal, the host. So we're going to focus on bacteria. So in the case of bacteria, if you put, let's say, ketchup in the fridge, that's fine. But if the pH of ketchup is less than 4.6 or 4.5, no bacterial pathogen of concern will grow. Now, of course, most consumers don't know the pH of their ketchup, and the people that make the ketchup are always going to lean on the side of safety. And so problems we have is when that ketchup is mixed with something else,

which could raise the pH, that is, the amount of acid because pH, the lower the number, the more acid, the higher the less acid. If you mix ketchup with something, then you can get bacterial growth. The most common example would be mayonnaise. Mayonnaise has a pH less than 4.5. If you never add any other food or contaminate mayonnaise with another food that could have a higher pH, you can leave mayonnaise at room temperature. But most of us think we would never do that, only if it's on an unopened can.

So those are examples of pH-controlling growth, as well as what we call water activity or the level of moisture. So foods that are dry will not support the growth of a pathogen. What about things like, okay, so you go to the refrigerator and there's some cheese in there and it's got a little mold on a corner, but most of it's okay. Is it okay? Well, the advice about cheese is that if you see mold, which is typically, you know, a dark or a light fuzziness to the cheese. If it's a hard cheese, you can cut off maybe an inch away from that area and you won't have any problems. If it's a soft cheese, if it's got fungus on it, if it's got mold on it, toss it out. The reason I differentiate the two is if it's a hard cheese, if there's anything produced by the fungus,

it's much less likely to migrate through a cheese, right? It's dry. You need moisture to migrate anything that could be, you know, somewhat bad for you. But in the case of something like brie cheese or camembert, where it's quite soft, you wouldn't want to take any chances with it. So I'm not saying even in the case of a hard cheese that there's a high, you know, if you ate the fungus, you would have serious problems. That's typically not what happens. But those, you know, those molds can, you know, reduce the quality and sometimes even produce small amounts of compounds that would upset our stomach. So that's my rule of thumb. In your view, are expiration dates on perishable foods, are they hard and fast rules or just suggestions? Well, there's two ways. Professionally

and personally, to me, they're suggestions. The reason I say that is because you don't know how that food has been handled. So it could say that you toss the food out or, let's say, use by or sell by date. It might be within three or four days. In the regulatory sector, those dates typically indicate quality, nutritional value, and such. The only food where a use by date is considered to be very strict are for infant and baby foods. So in those cases, you must follow those dates. But in the case of, you know, the typical things that we would get in a food store, again, you don't know how that food has been handled.

And what the industry is moving more towards are smart labels. Those are labels that will change color as a consequence of temperature. So the more, let's say, the more higher temperatures it's exposed to, the quicker the color would change, and you would know that that's not something to consume. But it is confusing. I realize that. But the regulatory group is really, I think, depending upon more technology like these color sensors on packages to be integrated in our food supply. But if my milk has expired by definition of the date on the bottle, but it smells okay, and it doesn't curdle in my coffee, am I okay? You're fine, absolutely.

No problem, because that milk has been pasteurized. Now, pasteurization doesn't mean sterile. It means that the bacteria that were there in the milk that came out of the cow or along the way, they've been reduced by 99.99%. So they're very low levels because you know that if you never open a bottle of milk, just leave it there at room temperature in the fridge, it eventually will spoil. So those low levels of bacteria in the background are spoilage bacteria. They're not pathogens. And again, remember pathogens in general don't grow on the refrigerator. So again, you would be fine drinking a milk sample like that. It's going to be mostly a function of quality. I'm speaking with Dr. Mark Tamplin.

He is an expert in microbiology and immunology, and he's author of the Food Safety Book. 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.

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So Mark, how important do you think it is in terms of food safety for every kitchen and every cook to have a meat thermometer? Very important. The meat thermometer, you know, you can buy simple versions that have a little probe on the end. Many are digital now. If you use that, and I do it a lot, if I'm making particularly something that's thicker, like a thick cut of meat, it could be a roast, something like that, I'm concerned about that temperature because we know that if we get to about 155 degrees and we hold it there for a minute or two, no pathogenic organism,

no bacterium or virus is going to be able to survive. So it gives us a lot of confidence. Now, we know that certain foods are ground. Think of ground beef. So any pathogen that was on the outside of, let's say, when they're, you know, when they're making the ground beef in a slaughterhouse, any pathogen that was on the outside of that meat, you have the same likelihood now that it's in the center because it's all ground up. The pathogens are on the outside of things. They're not on the inside unless it's ground up. In the case of a steak, you can go into a restaurant that's regulated by your health

department and you can order one rare, medium rare. That's because the center of that steak will not have any pathogens in it. It'll just be on the outside. So as long as we sear both sides like that, we're taking care of it. But one of the reasons I hesitate to myself to eat, you know, more raw types of meats is because industry is increasingly trying to tenderize meat. So they pierce the meat with pins so that it tenderizes the meat. Sometimes they inject additives into it to increase the flavor. And anytime you do that, you're potentially introducing something into the center, and that's why I think you should be using a meat thermometer. Knowing what you know, you're sitting at a picnic and a fly lands on your burger. Do you eat it or do you throw it away? I would eat it. I eat raw oysters too, Mike.

I might fall in that category of more of a risk taker, but the reason is I'm more informed. I've studied oysters for 30 years, and I couldn't believe the number of bacteria in there, but they're not the kind that's going to make me sick. So if I would qualify and say if I was at a picnic and a fly landed on my hamburger and I looked over to my right and saw an open trash can, I probably would not eat that hamburger. Or if there was a dog in the backyard, I might not eat it there either because, again, there's that potential of transmitting something from, you know, something like dog feces could get onto my hamburger. And now I'm talking about viruses and bacteria that could be

at high levels. So it depends on the situation, but in general, if it's happening in my house, I don't worry about it. Right. Well, but people do because they think, you know, as you just said, flies land on dog feces, and now they're on my burger. Do I really want to eat that? And maybe there's a bit of a yuck factor, but it may not be dangerous. It just may be a yuck factor. Exactly. In most cases, that's what it is. It's a yuck factor. Yeah. I mean, it's just spoilage is so relative. I mean, I like to drink buttermilk. I know a lot of people that think that's one of the yuckiest things you could eat. Same thing with raw oysters. What are some one or two of the other big issues with food safety that you

think people are unaware of? I would say maybe a good topic to talk about, because it's somewhat timely, is about, you know, cutting board safety or washing chicken before you eat it. I think that's a topic that people sometimes think, and I've been around people who have said to me, oh, I wash my chicken before I cook it, don't you? And, you know, being a food safety specialist, my reply is, no, I don't do that, because if I wash my chicken, the only reason I should be doing that would be to remove any bone particles, maybe when the meat was cut. It may not be chicken. It could be something else. It could be a steak. But when you wash something in the sink, you're going to be spreading any potential pathogen around, not just in the sink. You may say, well, I'm going to sanitize my sink

with some Clorox or whatever. But aerosols are produced. And so when you're washing a chicken and there's splashing going on, then there's droplets of water that are transmitting bacteria, pathogens, over to other surfaces in the kitchen. So my recommendation is, unless it's critical to get some, you know, something like bone fragments off, don't do it in your sink. It's just better to go ahead and cook it as it is. Which brings up another thing about washing in your sink. I have heard the argument for both sides of washing the lettuce that comes in the bag that it says it's already been triple washed. Do you wash it or do you not wash it?

The most I would do, I might rinse it. But most of the times I'm rinsing it, particularly if it's coming in a bag, is just to hydrate it. You know, sometimes it's dry and I want to make it a little bit more moist before I put it into a salad spinner or something like that. The reason I say that about salads is if they've already been washed and then packaged, they should be fine. If a pathogen, let's say, is in irrigation water and lands on,

let's say, romaine lettuce, no amount of washing is going to remove all of it because bacteria are pretty clever. They want to be on surfaces that provide them with nutrients. So the leaf of lettuce is a potential source of nutrient, and they glue themselves to the surface, and that happens within seconds. And so my own research I've done, you can, let's say there's a thousand bacteria on a surface of a leaf. I can wash it and remove about a hundred, but 900 will still be there. So washing is never going to be something where you can say, I feel really, really good about it. Now, in industry, they use compounds in wash water

that have antimicrobial properties. And so that's why if you know it's been rinsed and washed in those kinds of chemicals, you should feel pretty good that the only reason you would need to wash it would be to get rid of grit. I know there has been, I don't know if you have looked at this at all, but that when you go grocery shopping, that the cart itself could be so full of germs and disgusting things that it could touch your food and now you've brought it into your house. Mike, that's a wonderful question. I'm so glad you mentioned that. I wish more people would think

about that. I do the same thing when I put, you know, something onto the conveyor belt, you know, as I'm checking out. Yes, those carts, you don't know what's happened. They're not washing those carts in between each customer, obviously. And they're not even washing them when they bring them out of the parking lot. I don't know that much about how they overall sanitize it. I would suppose they might do it on occasion, but not on a daily basis. So, again, if it's going to be a food you're going to cook, don't worry about it too much. But if it's something that you're going to eat without cooking, you should be careful that it's bagged or it's away from any surfaces.

So if you put, you know, let's just say you're a recycler, like in our family we don't like to use a lot of plastic bags. So in our cases, we're going to tend to be putting more vegetables onto that conveyor belt. Well, if the person before me, you know, put on a package of ground beef, and then I put my lettuce on it, now my lettuce can potentially have E. coli. And obviously, the food stores need to be sanitizing those conveyor belts more often than they do. But if, let's just say it was a head of iceberg lettuce, be sure to pull all the outer leaves off before you would, you know, use it to make a salad. I remember somebody talking about this and saying, you know, because when I would go

shopping, and if I don't think of this, I still do, I open up the little seat where kids sit and I put food in there because it's just easier to grab it when it's time to put it. And then somebody said, well, you know, kids are sitting in that seat with diapers on that could be leaking and you're now putting your food in there. And so I thought, you know, that really is disgusting. That is, and yeah, you're exactly right. Honestly, I haven't thought about that specific one.

I'm going to keep that one in mind. Well, it's certainly an important topic that affects everyone, or potentially can affect everyone, and it seems as if a huge part of the problem could be solved if people would just wash their hands after they use the bathroom. My guest has been Mark Tamplin. He is an expert in microbiology and immunology, and he works at the University of Tasmania in Australia, and he's co-author of the Food Safety Book. You'll find a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. Thank you for being here, Mark. You're welcome, Mike. Anytime to help you in the future, too. Thanks for the opportunity.

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, 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 listener 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 podcast Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Maybe you're one of those people, or maybe you just know one of those people, who has that ability, that ability to magically connect with virtually everyone they meet. And it's easy to be envious of that ability, because being able to connect with other people is the skill that begins everything. Any relationship, friendship, or partnership starts with an ability to connect with that person that brings the two of you together. One person who does this particularly well is Brian Grazer, and it has certainly helped

him in his life and career. Brian is an Academy Award-winning producer. He's partners with Ron Howard in Imagine Entertainment, which has produced countless films and television programs. And because of his need and interest in making connections with people, Brian has authored a couple of books, including his latest, Face to Face, The Art of Human Connection. Hi, Brian. Welcome. Oh, thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. You bet. So I'm curious, your interest in this topic of human connection, is it because you're naturally good at it and you decided to write a book to share your wisdom with the world? Or is this something you really had to work at or what?

I realized the value of being good at it very early in life because I was dyslexic. And so therefore, the way I learned and communicated was through interpersonal relationships, by talking to people and asking lots of questions. And I didn't really see that it could be industrialized until later. I'm saying that kind of jokingly, but I didn't realize that I could evolve it and make it better and iterate upon it. So I basically used it as it became a survival tool pretty early in life, like sixth, seventh grade. Then I just worked at being better at it,

and I realized that you can learn all these different nuances with people if you really look at them and connect, and you can learn about important subjects, and you can do things that are very valuable to the nourishment of your mind and to your career and into your personal life if you're just focused on that. If you're focused on, you know, using the bridge of eye contact to reach somebody's heart. And when you do that, people open up. What do you think are the magic ingredients? What makes somebody really good at it that other people maybe don't have? What is that, you know, je ne sais quoi, do you think?

To be good at it, you have to be not just interested, you have to be interesting. So we've seen people just rattle off a lot of questions, and that doesn't get you very far, because anyone that's really worthy of asking a lot of questions to is going to want to gain something at the same time. So I think the skill is to be interesting, be informed, know about lots of different subjects, have different anecdotes to pepper in through conversations, and definitely research the person. Don't try to get a meeting or a conversation with somebody, even in a restaurant. You see Steven Spielberg in a restaurant or, you know, Tom Hanks, and you have that moment. I mean, moment could be like 10 seconds. Don't fumble around and have an insight to bring so it can begin a conversation. I know you're big on eye contact, and it's something I think a lot of people

struggle with, because, you know, what is good eye contact? How long is too long? How long is too short? And what are you supposed to do with it? And so talk about eye contact. That you can learn through human connection, and that's a valuable way to learn and to connect to somebody and gain empathy on both sides, the story begins before you enter the elevator, and the story begins before you enter somebody's office. The story begins where you put your phone down as you enter the elevator, and instead of being transfixed to your phone, you're at peace. Putting your phone away becomes like a set point or a prop to being centered.

And then looking at people in the elevator with very short but friendly eyes. Very short but friendly, humane eyes. Now, look, I've had the advantage of Ron Howard, who's one of the greatest, you know, one of the greater human beings in the world. And he's got very, he's very calm. And you can, so you really want to express calmness, but politeness. So therefore, you're never going to, you never want to stare calmness but politeness so therefore you're never gonna you never want to stare at somebody you just want to have a moment a real peaceful moment you know like a moment where you're centered and you look at somebody

and if they look they will probably look back at you and you can just say hey you know like politely and then that should be the beginning of a conversation. But you'll know because they'll either say, hey, back, or they'll get busy, or they'll be distracted, or they'll be present with you. And you can easily go like anything easy, you know, what floor, where are you from, what's, just ask kind of, in in an elevator just the most general questions, but only upon invitation through the eyes. When you go to a party, you definitely don't want to have your phone in your hand.

You can use phones, as we all do, but I think you want to walk into a party without your phone. So you see, oh, that person is here to be part of the party, not part of their phone. You said you've been interested in this for a long time, and over the course of time, you have become a pretty well-known person. So I imagine a lot of the people that you connect with already know who you are before they meet you. Is that an advantage to you? It's a little easier to connect with people because of who I am.

You know, there's a benefit in that people immediately would feel safe because I look familiar to them, and I am familiar in some ways. But I started this 35 years ago when I had no fame or relatability that way. So can you tell me a good story from your life of someone that you connected with, either because you always wanted to, or there's somebody that you've always impressed you, or somebody that surprised you, a story of a connection that really stands out in your mind? I've had many Uber drivers that have stood out for me. Really?

Oddly. Yeah. It was only like a month ago, I was being driven to my house, and the Uber driver was a very big guy, and polite, but he was big. I said, well, I normally don't talk, but I felt like I would. I'd say, where are you from? And he said, well, Serbia. I said, interesting, you're a pretty big guy.

And he said, well, I am. I'm 6'4". And then I said, I don't always do this, by the way. And I said, what's Serbia like? And he told me just a little bit about Serbia. And then I said, do you ever work security at the same time?

And he said, well, actually, I do. And I said, what martial arts form do you use, if you do? He said, it's one called Systema, which is a Russian martial arts form. And I, because I like martial arts, and I've done like three or four disciplines,

I said, if I wanted to, and we're getting towards my house, if I wanted to, could you teach me that and I would pay you? And he said, yeah, I could do that. And then I got his number and I had him come over. That's Saturday. That was like on a Wednesday, and that Saturday, he taught me for an hour just the beginning of that discipline. And then I continued for a little while. And that stuck out. Yeah, that's really interesting that you would reach out like that. And you know what it makes you wonder is, how many times have we not done that and

what might have happened if we had? Good things usually. I've had many Indian drivers and I always say like, what's your favorite Indian food? Because there's not a lot of great ones in the city of LA, rather on the west side of LA. And I've gotten already like, I've gotten like two amazing restaurants that I've ended up going to. The only thing I've found to be true over the thousands of people that I've met, from Nobel laureates to, again, to Uber drivers to doctors, scientists,

is that even though I research the people or followed my own rule by being interesting, every time I try to predict what that meeting will be like, I'm wrong. So I met this really interesting chef, or I met this chef that I thought would be really interesting because of their body of work. And they were incredibly dull, like horribly dull. I couldn't take it. I met the most renowned and prolific writer of science fiction, Isaac Asimov.

I met with he and his wife, and they left after five minutes. They just said, we're leaving. We're detaching. And they did. Really? Yeah. They just felt like it. Well, she said to him isaac i don't think he knows enough about your work i remember that and that was kind of i said well no i i tried to get him to stay but she was a thousand percent committed to leaving how'd that make you feel terrible embarrassed shamed and then once i kind of rebalanced myself, which took a day or two,

I thought, well, maybe I didn't know. I saw the other side. I mean, I thought it was wrong to do that. But on the other hand, he's a busy guy. I asked for him to take some time with me, and he agreed. I flew across the country to do it. And not that they have to care about that, but I did. It's from L.A. to New York.

And then maybe they were right. I didn't know enough. Maybe I didn't ask good questions. Or maybe I didn't have the look in my eye like I knew enough about robotics and science fiction. I just sort of thought there's probably another side to this, too. Yeah, but that, well, maybe, but you don't strike me as the kind of guy

that, you know, if I met you and I didn't know enough about your movies, you'd walk out in a huff. No, I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that. Yeah, that's weird. I only do that if somebody offends me. And sometimes that happens.

Yeah, what's offensive is when people are really aggressive and they go, how do you be a producer? Like, I mean, just tell me how to get an agent. And they talk fast. There's a lot of, you know, velocity to their questions, but they're all just completely self-serving. Then I get, I get really bothered by that. I don't want to have relationships to work that way. And, and usually I feel like I'm pretty generous to people. And I try to make, always have three assistants, but I always make my own phone calls.

I dial them myself. I prefer it because I like to say hi to the assistant. I mean, I don't spend forever, but I go, hey, it's Brian Grazer calling. Is he in? That's really what I do. I don't want to put people on hold, and I want to have everybody rooting for me. And I want to mean to assistants and assistants to assistants. I want to hope that I have the karma in my favor. You want to have people rooting for you because why? Because it'll help you? Or why is it important for people to root for you?

I think if you do something nice, like you make somebody feel human, in the cosmos, in the world, there's this butterfly effect. And I just think it affects you and them. I think good vibes, the reason I don't make horror films is they don't produce good vibes. So I may make movies that are not successful, that fail, but they start off with the intention of creating good vibes, stories that create good energy, elevating, aspirational. So I think it's not that hard to make somebody feel like a human being. You know, that's really interesting to me, that you don't make horror films. Because you could, you know, you're very successful,

you could probably make a great horror film, but not because you don't like horror films, but because of the vibe it creates. Yeah, that it produces out in the world, the energy it produces. I think there's a lot of stories that I like a lot that can make money, like Parenthood or Nutty Professor or Arrested Development or even Empire. They're all about family.

So even though some are kind of crazier than others, you're rooting for family. I think they have like three or four themes that I know I can succeed in without having to do horror films. Because horror films, they're not redemptive. Back to the idea of connecting with people, and I know you've met so many people. Do you have any other stories of unique situations, unique encounters with people who you've met? I've met many presidents at the White House because I had a lot of White House screenings. And I don't think I thought I would like George W. Bush. But I found that he was, I liked, I felt his humanity in kind of an exceptional way. I just felt like he was a guy that was very happy being, I just felt like he was a good person. I felt like he had good character.

Of course, I met Fidel Castro, I had lunch with him for six and a half hours, and I didn't expect him to be so knowledgeable about the physics and the culture of the island, I thought he'd be like sort of loud and boisterous and, you know, like perpetuating propaganda even to us in the room, but that's not what he did. You had lunch with him for six hours? Yes, six hours. That's quite a lunch.

Yeah, it was. Well, he's known as sort of a, he's one of the great orators of that century. And he oratated for you? Yeah, he oratated for me. Endless, without, after three and a half hours, he asked one question. After that, he just kept going. Tremendous stamina. Unmovable stamina.

That's funny. Tell your story about meeting Jonas Salk. Well, Jonas Salk, he created the polio vaccine. I decided I wanted to meet Jonas Salk, my childhood hero. And that took two years to finally get his new intern to say, who had a MacArthur grant, took two years for her to say, for somebody to say yes to me. His previous assistant said, no, he's too busy.

And then there was a brand new assistant that I could try to lobby, which I did. I was always lobbying the assistants. That's why they're important. You want all the wind blowing to your back, you know, just in every way. So I finally got this girl named Joan Abramson to say, yes, you can meet him. And then I had so much pre-anticipatory anxiety when I went to say hello to Jonas Salk that I barfed. I like threw up on him. That wasn't good. I was so nervous because it took two years, and it was him. And then he was a, but then he was like a doctor.

He is a doctor. So he resuscitated me with orange juice and held my head. So I've had a whole variety of things happen for sure. I have to ask you because your partnership with Ron Howard has produced, I don't know how many television shows and movies, that how you two guys connected. Yelled out a window. I said, there's Richie Cunningham, and I'm going to meet that guy. He was one of the most famous American icons. And I yelled at the winner, Ron, Ron Howard, and he sort of ran away. I was on the Paramount lot, and then I

called his assistant a couple times, and eventually he said he'd have lunch with me, and then we became partners. It wasn't quick, but he agreed to do a couple of movies that I had birthed. Well, those are a lot of interesting stories from an interesting life. My guest has been

Brian Grazer. He is an Academy Award-winning producer, partners with Ron Howard in Imagine Entertainment, and he's author of the book, Face to Face, The Art of Human Connection. Thanks, Brian. Okay, very welcome. For many people, breakfast is the easiest meal to skip. You're running late, you grab a cup of coffee, and you don't eat anything.

And maybe you even feel good about it because you skipped all those breakfast calories. But research clearly shows that eating a high-protein breakfast can help you eat less during the rest of the day and also help keep body fat from accumulating. There's also evidence that skipping breakfast can take a toll on your mental performance. So if you're too rushed in the morning to grab breakfast, you may want to set the alarm a few minutes earlier to give yourself some time for it. And that is something you should know. If you hear a commercial on this podcast that sounds interesting, and they offer a promo code or a custom URL to get a

discount. Remember, all those codes and URLs and all the information on how to get those discounts and how to order those products are all in the show notes. I'm Micah Ruthers. 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. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a co-founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lightning, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. During her journey, Isla meets new friends, including King Arthur and his Knights of the

Round Table, and learns valuable life lessons with every quest, sword fight, and dragon ride. Positive and uplifting stories remind us all about the importance of kindness, friendship, honesty, and positivity. Join me and an all-star cast of actors, including Liam Neeson, Emily Blunt, Kristen Bell, Chris Hemsworth, among many others, in welcoming the Search for the Silver Lining podcast to the Go Kid Go network by listening today. Look for the Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.