The Tim Ferriss Show - #258: From Long-Shot to $50 Billion Empire - Bill Rasmussen

Episode Date: August 10, 2017

Bill Rasmussen (@bill_espn) is the co-founder of ESPN. He turned a massive gamble into an opportunity to create the 24-hour programming cycle used universally by networks today. This episode comes from my new television show Fear(less), where I interview world-class performers about how they've overcome doubt, conquered fear, and made their toughest decisions. You can watch the entire first episode with illusionist David Blaine for free at att.net/fearless. (To watch all episodes, please visit DIRECTV NOW). We recorded three hours of material and only one hour was used for the TV show. This podcast episode is almost entirely new content that didn't appear on TV. Enjoy! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at tim.blog/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Ascent Protein, the only US-based company that offers native proteins -- both whey and micellar casein -- directly to the consumer for improved muscle health and performance. Because the product is sourced from Ascent's parent company, Leprino Foods -- the largest producer of mozzarella cheese in the world -- it's entirely free of artificial ingredients and completely bypasses the bleaching process common to most other whey products on the market. If you want cleaner, more pure, less processed protein -- which I certainly do -- go to ascentprotein.com/tim for 20 percent off your entire order! This podcast is also brought to you by Four Sigmatic. I reached out to these Finnish entrepreneurs after a very talented acrobat introduced me to one of their products, which blew my mind (in the best way possible). It is mushroom coffee featuring chaga. It tastes like coffee, but there are only 40 milligrams of caffeine, so it has less than half of what you would find in a regular cup of coffee. I do not get any jitters, acid reflux, or any type of stomach burn. It put me on fire for an entire day, and I only had half of the packet. People are always asking me what I use for cognitive enhancement, and right now this is the answer. You can try it right now by going to foursigmatic.com/tim and using the code Tim to get 20 percent off your first order. If you are in the experimental mindset, I do not think you’ll be disappointed.***If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Visit tim.blog/sponsor and fill out the form.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. And parents, sorry, you have to define minks for your children listening in the car during the drive to school. But so it goes. That's how the cards have fallen. It is my job to deconstruct world-class performers on the show. And we do that in many different areas, whether they come from, say, the military, from entertainment, from research, from sports, you can spot common patterns. And my job is to tease out the details,

the philosophies, the habits that you can use. This episode features Bill Rasmussen at Bill underscore ESPN on Twitter. I'll keep this short because we want to jump right into it. Bill is the founder of ESPN and the creator of the 24 hour programming cycle that all networks use today. I was really excited to be able to sit down with him. And we really recorded a lot. We recorded three hours of material and only one hour was used for my new TV show, which I'm going to get to in a second. And this podcast episodes is almost entirely new exclusive content that did not appear on the TV show. The TV show, if you want to check it out is fearless with less in parentheses, because the goal is not to be fearless, but to learn to fear less, where I interview people like this, world-class performers,

about how they've overcome doubt, fear, and made their toughest decisions. You can watch the entire first episode with illusionist and endurance artist David Blaine for free at att.net forward slash fearless. I highly recommend you check it out. It's awesome. And he does a lot on stage and to watch all of the episodes. There are 10 of them. You can go to tim.blog forward slash fearless. Just type it all out. No parentheses, tim.blog forward slash fearless. And you can select your option. If you're a cord cutter, if you use computers instead of TVs, you can just click on Direct TV Now, and all of the packages have it, so you can choose the cheapest one, or the free trial

to take a look. And that is it. So without further ado, please enjoy my wide-ranging conversation with Bill Rasmussen. Welcome to Fearless. I'm your host, Tim Ferriss. And on this stage, we will be deconstructing world-class performers of all types to uncover the specific tactics and strategies they've used to overcome doubt, tackle hard decisions, and ultimately succeed. By show of hands, how many people here wait for, say, the morning paper to get their sports scores? It's a big fat zero. How many of you can remember when television wasn't available 24 hours a day? Anyone? All right. Of my generation or a little bit older. Got a few hands. And when I say

Bristol, Connecticut, what do you think of? After meeting my guest tonight, you'll associate it with one thing and that is sports. Against all odds, he set out to change the course of television and the status quo as we know it. And in the process, he created one of the most iconic and recognizable brands in the world. Please welcome the founder of ESPN, Bill Rasmussen. Thank you very much. Good to see you, sir. Watch your step. What was your grandfather like?

Describe for us your relationship with your grandfather. He was literally a dyed-in-the-wool White Sox fan. He took me to Comiskey Park when I was very, very young, and I can remember he lived, if you're familiar with Chicago, 35th Street, it was 35th and Shields is where the Comiskey Park was. And he lived at 33rd and Bell. I can remember these details like I can't believe they're there. And he would walk me to the street car and say, now, when all the people start getting off, you're at the ballpark. Like I

wouldn't know where the ballpark was. There it is right in front of me and i can remember finding out early and this is in the early 1940s the the uh ballpark would open if it was one o'clock game there was they opened the gates at 11 o'clock and my goal was always to be there to be one day be the first one in the ballpark and one day i did do it and my grandmother would give me a sandwich and a little Coke bottle with those little green bottles. I would take that off onto the streetcar, a nickel or whatever it was to go on the streetcar, get off at Comiskey Park and be in there. One day they were worried. Red Sox and White Sox played a doubleheader. First game went 13 innings, and the second one went to the bottom of the ninth.

Both games were seven to six. And it took, you know, half a day to play all that. I didn't leave. I was there from two hours before the first pitch to the end of the second game. And my grandfather allowed us out. At that point, I became an official White Sox fan. So anything allowed, as long as it's White Sox. As long as it was the White Sox. Well, then it was really, it's only a few blocks from the streetcar. I hear you reciting these statistics. One of the first thoughts that jumped to mind was, you'd make a really good intelligence officer. And then I thought of something that I had heard, which was you played war games as a kid. Am I making this up, or did you have?

Oh, yeah, we used to. Well, everybody did. Okay. I mean, when 1941 occurred, I was in the fourth grade. And before, I think, before Christmas, we're all talking about... Everybody, everybody in America was talking about we all have to be together. There were no right, left, up, down or anything. We were all on the same team.

And at the early part of the war, before they started saying you couldn't do this, I can remember my father's shirts come back from the cleaners with a piece of cardboard in them, pretty much like they do today, I suppose, in some places. And we used to draw whatever we wanted to do. If I was going to be a master sergeant for the games the next day, we would draw it on a board, then color it with crayons, you know, red and green and blue or whatever it was, cut them out. And with rubber bands, we'd put them on our arms. And off we'd go the next day to do whatever battle we had decided we were doing.

And we did that basically all through the war. It was kind of crazy, but we had to start using other things because hangers and cardboard were all confiscated. We went out of newspapers. They were all confiscated. We went out and newspapers... They were all confiscated? Oh, yeah. Everything went to the war effort. We picked up newspapers.

Everything went and was... They didn't use the word recycle then, but that's what it was. They were recycling everything and producing new things. Pretty cool. Do you remember where you were when you heard about Pearl Harbor? Absolutely. I was at 9555 South Melvina Avenue in Columbus Manor, just south of 90. Today, back then, 95th Street was Highway 12 and 20 on the south side of Chicago, two lanes,

one in each direction. Today it's 12 lanes, six in each direction. But it happened and my father got us all around the radio and we sat literally on the living room floor watching the radio, listening to news reports. And we were not unique. It happened all across America. So if we flash forward just a little bit to, say, high school and look at your experience in high school, you played baseball. Did you try any other sports? Oh, yeah. I tried football once because my father encouraged me to do that because I was really fast.

How'd football go for you? Well, I was so fast. One afternoon, I intercepted a pass. You wouldn't even, maybe you would understand some of the football technology today. We had defensive halfbacks, and we didn't have all of these white outs and slots and safe different things anyway i was a defensive halfback intercepted the pass and because i was so fast i went around very quickly i didn't see anybody in front of me and i thought what a great this is really going to be great touchdown was in sight and i woke up under the

bench sweet what happened somebody was faster than i was and? Somebody was faster than I was. And when they were faster than I was, and I, when it's not expected and you get tackled from behind, I was literally lights out, lights out, game over, football career over. That was it. Done. So did you, was it, was it your choice to end the football? Oh, yeah. Okay. That doesn't happen with baseball. But then I did find out playing baseball in a practice. We were just doing an inter-squad game, and I turned around. You know what the cardinal rule is in baseball.

Never, ever take your eye off the ball, right? Right. And if you're playing, you never, ever take your eye off the ball. I went like this one time and turned back, and that's all it was. And as I turned back, I got hit right in the face with a baseball. And maybe that's why, well, no, we're not going to go, what? That's why I look this way today. I think you look fine. I don't know. I think my nose is more crooked than yours. Maybe I got hit by a baseball and don't remember it. Actually, I didn't actually know I did. This is true. So I remember my first day, uh, little league tryouts, deep in left field, fly ball, right in the middle of the face. That was the end of my baseball career. That would be

embarrassing for an outfielder. Oh, it was embarrassing for an anything fielder, especially as whatever I was, a third or fourth grader, it was the run to the litter as it was. Now I have lack of hand-eye coordination to go with it. It was terrible. Tell me a little bit about high school. In doing research, I read about an essay contest that ended up sending you ultimately to meet, I suppose, the president or soon-to-be president. Could you describe that for us? Yeah. Could you describe that for us? Yeah, and I was a junior in high school in 1948. Started my junior year that September.

And there was a Chicago Sun-Times had an essay contest for all students. And six from the city were going to be chosen to go to President Harry Truman's inauguration. That was the famous election where the Chicago Tribune put out the headline, Dewey wins, and then Truman held up the paper the next day, and his picture was in there holding up the picture of the newspaper. And, of course, Dewey didn't win. But the deal was we'd write an essay and so on, and my father decided that I could write an essay on becoming a lawyer. I was going to become a lawyer. And I must have done a really persuasive job. I was going to become a lawyer.

And I must have done a really persuasive job on why I wanted to be a lawyer, because I was one of the six winners. And we got to go to Washington. We got to sit on the Capitol, whatever, I'm not sure what they call it, but up there with all the dignitaries. The dais or whatever it might be. Yeah, well, you know, it's where the senators and the representatives, we were included in that. And, uh, there was six of us and watch Terry

Truman take his oath of office in 1949. I got to watch him take the actual oath. We were, we were right there in 1949. Then we went that night. Of course they have all these different parties. And one of the things that stands out, we were all 16-year-old kids, so we were chaperoned everywhere we went. And we were standing at the Shoreham Hotel, and I turned to my left, and General Omar Bradley was standing right there. And he put out his hand and said, hi, how are you? What are you doing here? General Omar Bradley was an icon to the people of that era. It was unknown, and I've never forgotten that. So were you able to maintain your composure through all of that? I mean, you get flown to the president,

or soon-to-be president, being sworn in. Then you turn, you see an icon on the other side. Were you able to maintain your composure through all of that? Yeah, I think I was just numb through it all. I didn't even register, you know. No, I mean, obviously I knew who he was, and I was very, we were all very honored to be selected. So you get to college and were there any

particular teachers? There are two I've read about, history and econ, but were there any particular teachers who had a large impact on you? The one professor in economics financial organization and investment he was the head of the economics department Dr. Jomi and he was an interesting gentleman to say the least if you weren't paying attention he had a great arm he should have been a shortstop

I don't think these schools exist this way today, but we used to have blackboard all the way across the front of the room and all the way down the side of the room. And he would start at the class over here at the left-hand side, putting things up and talking and on and on, lecturing. And his suit would get all covered with chalk dust and so on. Then he'd turn around out of nowhere and he'd say, Tim, what about, whatever the question was. If you didn't get it, he'd take that eraser and he'd hit you in the forehead or he'd hit you in the shoulder. And your mark was if you came out of the class with no chalk marks on you, it was a successful afternoon. And I could also, just to put it into a little perspective, I remember the day the Dow Jones average hit 3000. And you know how we used to get, there was no online follow minute by minute.

He would bring in, after the market closed, the Wall Street Journal would publish everything in printed form, and he would bring that in the next day, and that's how we learned about the stock market. Crazy stuff. And was there another professor who did reenactments? Oh yeah, Andrew Crandall, Dr. Crandall. He was a, actually he was a noted Civil War expert in the country, and every year he would, the only place big enough to hold his lectures, if you will, was Mitchell Hall, the chemistry laboratory with all of the theater-type seats and down front. And he would set up huge tables and reenact the Battle

of Gettysburg or whatever it was. And he had little, I mean, it was like kids' toys, really. He was so engrossed, and he too, he would start off with a shirt and tie and coat, and before long, as the battle progressed... Raging bull. All comes off. And they were standing room only lecturers. It was just amazing.

People wanted to see because he was entertaining, but so knowledgeable about the Civil War. And he created an awareness in so many students about that period in our history that I can remember it very, very vividly. He was an enthusiastic and a very, very knowledgeable person about it all. And when he talked about Pickett's Charge or Robert E. Lee doing this and Grant doing it, I mean, it was incredible. I never missed one in four years.

I seem to recall, and you can shoot this down as a figment of my imagination, a stint as you had a lot of different gigs and part-time gigs that seem as a collection to have really informed what you did later at the ESPN. Did you not have some experience as a weatherman? Oh, yeah. Oh, is that fun? And you, and you started inserting things into the weather. Well, what, what happened? It's coming. Bear with us. So let's talk about being a weatherman. Yeah. Yeah. I, well, first of all, you had to understand why I ended up, why I even ended up at the station talking about being a weatherman. I lived in Amherst, Massachusetts, and there were only, you have to remember now, this is in 1964, 1965. We had two stations, one NBC station, one ABC station. That's all the television there was in

the entire western part of Massachusetts. The NBC station had news weather and sports from 11 to 11 or 7 to 7 30 and 11 to 11 30. The ABC station at 11 o'clock just did 15 minutes news and signed off. So I said I'm not going to get the guy's job at the one that does 11 hour, half hour at 11. Why don't I go talk to the's job at the one that does 11 out a half hour at 11 why don't i go talk to the station manager at the abc station and tell him he needs a sports show it's part of that confidence i guess and so i went and met him called for an appointment he said sure come on down he said what is it you want to do i said well the other guys are doing sports you should be doing sports ah we don't want to do sports.

So we talked a while, and he said, well, all right, all right. I'll pay you $10 a show. I had to drive 40 miles to get there, 20 miles, 40 miles round trip. So it's like a net loss. Yeah, so it's a net loss. And you can start Monday. Okay, well, I knew I could do sports. So I get down there, and I'm walking in the door on Monday, whatever it was, the 3rd of January, the 5th of January. And he said,

changed my mind. What do you mean you've changed your mind? I thought I was fired. And I wasn't fired. He said, you're going to do the weather. We're not going to do sports. You're going to do the weather. I said, I don't know anything about weather. Shoveling snow doesn't qualify you to, you know. He said, here's the way we're going to do the weather. You call Bradley Field, talk to the NOAA, the National Weather People at Bradley Field, call them around 1030, find out what the weather looks like around, you know, this general area, scratch a few things. We didn't have Klystron 9s and all of these kinds of things back then. We had a grease pencil and a whiteboard. And write something down, draw a picture of Springfield, if you like, or Massachusetts,

and just say it's going to be 68 degrees and rain tomorrow. That's all people are going to get. So I can remember, and just to digress for a second, this is some 9,000 or 10, to digress for a second this is some nine or ten thousand live shows ago but this is the very first one I can remember when they said one minute I turned around put my back to the camera and the sweat running down the center of my back and I remember saying why am I subjecting myself to this then they turned said you you know, 10 seconds, 5, 4.

I turned around, and I decided I really like this. This is pretty good stuff. I'm going to be telling people about the weather. And I decided I had followed the Springfield Indians hockey team in the American Hockey League, and the Boston Bruins, and the Rangers, everybody in the area. So I said, what we're going to do is we're going to find the weather from different cities, especially where the area. So I said, what we're going to do is we're going to find the weather from different cities,

especially where the Springfield team was playing, and say, tonight it's 32 degrees in Pittsburgh and light snow falling, and the Indians won 3-2. And I would just write 3-2. Can't do sports? I'll show you I can do sports. I'll get through. So I thought, this will get me fired for sure. So you didn't ask.

This was a forgiveness, not permission. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's much easier. Just ask forgiveness. So that's what we did. And the next day I didn't see. The general manager didn't say anything. So the next night I did a couple more scores.

And the next day I found out some people called the station and said, you know, this new sports idea whether they thought it was a they thought of that I guess it was a planned gig but it wasn't it just happened and great collaborative innovation yeah and then the gentleman at the NBC station was promoted went down to Charlotte North Carolina and before he left because he had obviously we had met along the way because competitors do that, and he recommended me for that job.

And then the things happen for a good reason kind of thing. I went up to that station, and I was only doing the weather and the sports for about four months. And then I went to the other station, the NBC station, started doing sports. And it happened to be in the year that Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston fought in Lewiston, Maine. Big fight.

And his headquarters were in Chicopee, Massachusetts. And I was the guy able to go down. And I met him back then. And we met each other several times after that. But you never know. I mean, here was a station that wasn't doing something, and I talked them into something, I guess, or they decided they were going to do it.

And then the other guy leaves, and I get his job, and all of a sudden, listen, and back then it was Cassius Clay, we're going to have this big fight. And I can tell you, and people who know Cassius Clay, you know, pretty bombastic person. And he was. We had a luncheon one day, and he was his usual self. And then he said he was going upstairs.

It was a long way from where his training camp was to the station, so I decided to just stay there. And I just sat in the lobby, and an hour or so after lunch, I was kind of dozing off, waiting for the 4 o'clock press conference, and I sensed somebody sitting down over here, and it's Cassius Clay. How you doing? We talked for probably an hour, normal tones, just a great guy. He was a young guy, obviously.

He said, well, I guess I better go up. We're going to do this at 4 o'clock, right? And I was, they didn't call it that, but I was, quote, the question asker, the pool announcer. I was going to ask all the questions, and he was going to answer for everybody. So I said, see you in a little while. Yeah, good, looking forward to it. A few minutes later, white suit, white shoes, white shirt, white tie, big, and everybody, wow, here he come, came down. He looked right through me like he had never even seen me before. Did his press conference with all

the usual bombast that he did. And I've never forgotten that. And I saw him many years later, and he remembered. He put on a show, but he was quite a guy. I was privileged to meet him. What were the most memorable aspects of that encounter to you? The fact that he could turn it on, turn it off that way? Turn it on and turn it off, and his personality. He talked just like you and I are talking. It wasn't, I'm the champ, and you're just a guy here in Massachusetts. It wasn't that at all.

I never forgot that. And I saw him many, many years later. And it was the same way. You mentioned something just a minute ago, the things happen for a reason. Is that a core belief of yours, that things happen for a reason? Has it always been that way? Yeah, sometimes maybe we make it happen, and sometimes it just happens. If you had to, say, teach, let's just call it, you can pick the grade, ninth grade class, college class, doesn't really matter,

to help students develop confidence. How would you approach that or how would you even think about it? Are there any particular... Yeah. You know, a lot of people ask me that question and I'm not, it's going to sound odd. I'm not sure I'm qualified to do that in the form of a college curriculum, but if I can somehow transmit the belief and the feeling of success and positive approach to things that you have to have and be able to take the negatives and get past them. And I don't know how you do that in a college curriculum, but it's, I just, you know, whether it's stealing bases or selling products or whatever, as I said earlier, I think that when somebody says no,

they've made the mistake. And I don't know how I would do that. The other leg of the table, it seems, is advertising. So you shortly, well, I don't know if it was shortly after, but after getting the NCAA to commit. We were a little ahead of that. A little ahead. Yeah, we were floating them a little. They were one of them. We told them who we were talking to. We didn't tell them we had them. This is a well-known beer company, I suppose. It is.

And so can you tell us a little bit about how that was. Was that happening concurrently? Was that another ball in the air? Yeah. That was happening in early January. Okay. We had hired as an advertiser. Anheuser-Busch.

Yeah. We had hired a gentleman from Connecticut General Insurance to be our general sales manager. He was the general sales manager there, liked the sports idea. And I said, the obvious choice is Anheuser-Busch, largest sports advertiser in the world then and maybe today, I don't know. But we had a very specific plan to take them. That sounds odd when I say all these other vagaries that we're just juggling, but we had a very specific plan. We decided that if we could get eight sponsors at $2,760,000 a year, that would finance us. The sum total of the eight sponsors?

No, no. Eight times. So it would be $20 million. Oh, I see. Okay, got it. Got it. So we went down to New York, got invited down to Darcy McManus, and the vice president, Gene Petrello was his name. and he listened, and he was intrigued. He has to be intrigued. It's his business, sports business, Budweiser. He said, I'll take you to the brewery, and I'll get back to you. A couple days later, we went back down to New York, and he said,

I've been to the brewery, we'll give you $500,000. That's the first sign we ever had of any money coming our way. Our $9,000 had gone out the door. Our 9,000 had gone out the door. My family and friends had gone out the door. KS suite had put some money in. We were, we were running. This was the first black ink,

like real influx. Yeah. And Bob and I looked at each other and we shook our heads and said, and this just, I was sitting right the way I'm sitting with you, Tim. And as you know, in New York out windows,

there are advertising things on the sides of buildings, on the front of buildings and with you, Tim. And as you know, in New York, out windows are advertising things on the sides of buildings, on the front of buildings and marquees and everywhere. And it just so happened over Gene's left shoulder was a big ad for Miller, Miller High Life. And I looked at Bob and he looked at me and I took my eyes from Gene and I said, we can't accept that. We're going to have to pursue other evidence. I just looked over that way. And he said, before you do that, he knew he knew what ad was out that window. He said, let me have this exact word.

Let me have another go at the brewery. He called a couple of days later and he said, I'll tell you what. Nobody's ever done this in cable television. We'll give you a million three hundred eighty thousand dollars and let's go. And that's the way it was. So we had a million 380 committed before we had the programming committee. And then before we had the financing committee, which is kind of, you know, when all the eggs are running, it doesn't make any difference which order they come in. Just get them all in. What were some of the more, say, costly decisions or missteps that you guys had early on?

There had to have been some, I would imagine. Yeah, well, we did Canadian football. We tried to do a lot of different things. We always tried to overreach. And even to this day, just a couple of years ago, I was in Dallas talking to ESPN radio which by the way is now the biggest radio network it's just crazy and I asked that very same

question about what happens and what are the mistakes this fellow had worked for ABC and so I said what's the difference between the two same market he worked for ABC now he's working for ESPN because obviously they were all bought by Disney and they're all in the same house, so to speak. He said, ABC always sent out directives to us saying, don't rock the boat. We're doing well

in this market. We're doing well here. We're doing all these things. Don't rock the boat. ESPN, on the other hand, says, try everything that pops into your mind. If it works, great. If it doesn't, forget it and move on. Two totally different approaches. Sounds like the Bill Rasmussen guide to life. That's like the mantra right there. Well, but think about that. How discouraging it would be to your employees to say, I don't want you coming and telling me anything. You might have a great idea. I don't want to hear your great idea. After you've given them an opportunity to work for you, now I don't want you coming and telling me anything. You might have a great idea. I don't want to hear your great idea. After you've given them an opportunity to work for you, now you don't want to hear from

them. So encourage everybody and let's do it all. And so what if you mess up? Nobody's going to shoot you. There's no debtor's jail. There's no guillotine. This isn't whatever. And I thought that was interesting from them.

They've tried a number of things. We did a thing with, not when I was there, but with cell phones when they first came in. There was some gigantic program and they were testing it with kids of all the employees and everything else. It didn't work. So they just moved on. Of course, they've changed that around a little bit now with streaming and everything else. and cell phones today, of course, a little different than they were 10 years ago. Did we even have cell phones 10 years ago? I don't even remember.

We did. They were closer to the Gordon Gekko brick. Okay, I'm with you. But yes, we did have those. What I'd love to do, because we're talking about, of course, ESPN, arguably you're best known for that. But to sort of bring it full circle for a second, we're going to bring out a prop. It's not really a prop. This is a real thing.

I don't want to spoil the surprise, so we're going to get that. That's going to come out. What I thought we might do, if the team in the back can bring up the then and now, some of the stats. Because you mentioned radio. And I just thought just to put this in perspective for people, starting with Irish hurling and juggling five different balls, telling everyone, each person that everyone else is in until ultimately you get them all in. I think it's pretty staggering when you look at the before and after. And so I'm not going to read all these stats for you guys, but you can see subscribers 1.3 million

to more than 90 million, 80 employees, more than 8,000, then one acre just in Bristol alone, 223, radio none to 20 million. And that's not even counting the publishing arm, huge magazine, and everything else. Yeah. It's an amazing... There are subscriber fees. This is a staggering number to me. We started off asking for a penny a day, one penny a day. Would you pay me, Tim? If I came to you and I said, Tim, give me a penny a day, 30 cents a month, and you can watch sports 24 hours a day. I'd give you a penny a day. Does that sound good? That sounds good. Got turned down, got laughed out. As a matter of fact, to digress for a moment, one of those people that I said,

you can make money doing this. I said, not only that, we're going to give you local availabilities. I got this funny look like, what's a local availability? Yeah. I was going to ask you. Yeah. Well, what we're going to do is on ESPN, we'll pause and you can put in a local sponsor, Joe's Pizza, somebody's Sam's Toyota or whatever, in your market, in your telecast, you can sell him advertising. You know what the answer was? Why would I want to do that? I kind of did just what you said, like this, what? He said, I'd have to hire somebody to go sell. I said, here's an idea. That was probably rude. I shouldn't

have done this, but I did it because it's a knee-jerk reaction to me. I said, here's an idea. He sells 100, he keeps 10, and you get 90. Oh. oh well maybe we can talk again well now today that back then cable the cable systems didn't make much money advertising today it's a multi-billion dollar business as you know they just make all kinds of money so let's let's bring in what i mentioned before so if we could bring in what we have here. I'll do my best to hold this. The pieces may fall apart. The pieces may fall apart. Can you tell us what this is, please?

This is the latest and greatest glove of, at the time, a third baseman in 1947. This is my original baseball glove in high school when I was a high school sophomore. And if you can see it, I don't... Try and put your hand in there, Jim, as if you were playing third base. I'll be the guy who destroys it on national television. Can you imagine catching balls with that? That was not the easiest thing in the world. This looks like Cookie Monster. Now, you know, here's another baseball fans of the day.

This was what you had to do when the inning was over. You turned around and you threw your glove back onto the outfield grass. Major leagues did it. We did it. Say that again? I didn't know this ritual. All through the first half century, when the infielders came off the field or the outfields they never brought their glove in with them into the dugout they left them the third baseman drop his long the foul line shortstop to throw his in the short left field

second baseman in the short right field why nobody i mean today they're so if there's a i don't know a clean explodes across the field time out and you have to get out and clean. And here they were just littering the field with their own gloves. But what amazes me, I found this in some storage, obviously. This was absolutely the most expensive thing I had ever had in my life to do with baseball at that point. It would be the spring of 1947. And I look at the gloves today. Softball gloves are so much better than this. And I don't know how everybody didn't have about a 500 fielding average

because how we caught things, I don't know. It's pretty amazing, though. And I'm really pleased with that because it does bring back lots of memories. Did you collect anything as a kid? Did I what? Did you collect anything as a kid? Did I what? Did you collect anything as a kid? Did you collect statistics? Statistics.

We had a little board game where you spun an arrow and they sent out, I think maybe it was one of the bubble gum companies that made this little game and whoever they had on their cards, they'd make the all-star team for the National League and american league they give me a spin and you make up games and percentages and you do all that i was forever drawing little things i remember my father worked at the ford aircraft engine division and during the war and he brought me home uh what do they call a mimeographed scorecards and i would use those scorecards and play a game in eight or nine or ten minutes and fill in a scorecard. And I'd throw that one in and start all over again.

I guess now that I think about it, I had a pretty long obsession with statistics. If you were to give advice to yourself on the day before ESPN launched not necessarily about the next day but just any advice whatsoever would you would you give yourself any advice I probably would have hoped that we were a little farther along going on the air I would I always want to be the next step and it didn't turn out that the next step would have been a whole lot better because everything turned out pretty well. Are there any pitches that come to mind that were complete disasters, complete failures? Any? I certainly can. I mean, I have my fair share. I'm just wondering.

With regard to ESPN or anything? Anything. Oh, yeah. Entrepreneurs start lots of businesses. You're convinced that everything's going to work fine. I did the radio networks for Massachusetts, University of Massachusetts, and then expanded to doing basketball networks and hockey networks. Every time I thought they were really good, somebody would say, well, we're not going to do that anymore. And I said, okay, and, you know, that's the way it is. Obviously you're disappointed, but you can't stop living. It's not the end of the world. I mean, you keep eating. That's all

there is to it. And, uh, I don't know if it's, if it's luck, if it's coincidence, if it's coincidence, if it's, I don't know what. Whenever I've had a moment come, we had a home automation company that we bought into long before all of the technology could make it really happen. Not a good idea. Sounded like a great idea at the time. But you know what?

We tried it, Didn't work. Push aside and keep on going. So you, you've been thought of as, for instance, with the NCAA as a sort of Nostradamus of college sports, right? Because you, you got the programming and then lo and behold, we have Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, all of a sudden it's the rage, right? And it seems like, certainly I've seen this a lot where I live in Silicon Valley, that you've had a lot of great bets, but some of them, like the home automation, have been early. You've paddled for the way early. How do you think about evaluating opportunities like that? I mean, you've made plenty of investments.

Well, what I think about is, obviously, we all think about the success side. But I might think about success a little bit differently. You put together a business plan, right? What's your mission statement? Have you ever seen mission statements? Sure. Page long, three. I know you have. But, I mean, some of Sure. Page long, three, I know you

have, but I mean, some of them are page long, some are three paragraphs. They get beyond 10 or 12 words. I think we've lost focus. ESPN to this day, you know what their mission statement is? Six words. Six words, drive ESPN to serve sports fans anytime, anywhere. That's it. Does that say it for ESPN or does that say it for ESPN? So if I can't reduce it to some simple that I can see it, let's make it work this way. We're involved in a new business now. Sounds funny at my age, right? But I'm not that old. I'm not too old to want to do things your brain works ten times faster than mine so yeah I have no sympathy but this has to do with streaming what do I know about streaming I didn't know anything about satellites but I'll find out but I don't

have to know about streaming you dream it we stream it. How's that? Six words. Six words, good statement. Good mission statement. But really, isn't everything that we all undertake, if you decide you're going to go to the movie, you have to pick a good movie that you want to go see. If you pick the wrong one, what do you do? Well, we'll try again. Or do you go home and say, I'm never going to the movies again because that didn't work. When you make an investment, how do you decide how big it is and do you cap the downside? Is there a point where you say, all right, you know what? This isn't where we want it to be. I'm going to cut my losses. How do you think through that? I think you have to set a threshold, if you will. And it's both upper and lower. I always think the sky's the limit.

But you have to think at the bottom. And if it's not going to work, take your medicine and check out. That's all. I can't tell you how many things and how many times. How many cars do you buy in the course of a life? When you go into the day, you buy the car. oh, you're so, oh, this is perfect, and so on. And what, two years later?

You're slapping things around the car, you throw things in the trunk, there's something on the front seat, you don't pay much attention to it. And then pretty soon you don't want that car anymore, you have to get another new car. So that one's gone, so you cut your losses and you get rid of that one, you get a new one. Isn't that what life is all about, really? What's your choice? What are we going to do in the next hour? What are we going to do the next day or the week or the month that follows?

I've just been a positive. I approach life from a positive side. And when you say it's a loss and how do you cut your losses, sure, you would rather not do that. It's not the end of the world. Yeah. Part of the education. Part of the education, part of the education. So when you look at, I mean, you've, you've used your time very well. I mean, clearly putting together ESPN just to make that series of miracles happen.

Can't depend on a miracle. I mean, you had some good timing, but you made a lot of good decisions when you were at your peak, when you were just a machine, what did your days or weeks look like? How did you manage your time? And maybe the better question is, how did you do things differently? What I would do is every day, if I had to meet you someplace, you were on the schedule tomorrow. You were the next thing that I was going to do, but seven other things might come in between and I'd have to figure out how to do them. And some of them I'd put back after you. And I really, it sounds funny. It sounds like maybe I'm at that pinball machine. I'm going from here to here. But each one of those stops had meaning of some sort. Back in the soliciting cable operators time,

there was a book back then called Standard Rate and Data Service. There was no way. Oh, I remember that. You remember that? I do. Big book. We would look up sports directors or radio or presidents of cable system. We decided we were just going to go pitch the top 20 cable systems.

Two of us split. I took the top first 10. The next, Ed Egan was his name, took the next 10. And we had a young lady sitting in our hallway in our office. That was her office. It was in the hallway outside two offices. We only had two. And we had her call each of those cable operators and say, here in Los Angeles, if there was one, we'd say, you know, Bill's going to be in Los Angeles on Thursday and would like to meet with Tim at 2 o'clock. I don't know who Tim is. I don't even know where your office is.

I'm going to have to get out there and find a map and find you. We did that. She called 10 cable systems, the 10 biggest cable systems of the time. All 10 of them took a meeting. All 10 of them. So five of them were in Denver, and I just went right down the street and met with them all. Those kinds of things, don't be afraid to try crazy things. I mean, who would have thought something like that would work?

I'd probably be saying, what? What happens today if your cell phone rings and the phone number says unknown? I don't answer. You don't answer. Does anybody answer? Not me. I had two of those today. Hang up.

So now here we are calling. You just have to do it this way. Put the dial. That's a long way back. And I just think if your intentions are not honorable and you're not trying to do a good thing for yourself and the customer, you shouldn't make the call. But if you're trying to do it so two things I want to point out just to underscore

first is that so you had two offices three people but you very adeptly gave the impression of having a larger company. Oh yeah, we were big. We had this big thing running around. Huge hallway. And then number two is this gambit of so-and-so's going to be in town for two days, can you take the meeting? If you had said, I'm based in LA and I'd love to take the meeting in the next two days, never would have happened. Right?

I don't know why, for whatever reason, this psychological judo move just works so well. It works for just about everything. To this day. I'm calling from Hartford, Connecticut, or Plainville, Connecticut at the time. Denver, Colorado is a long way off. Houston, Texas. By the way, on that swing of 10, you've got two customers. Okay, so I have a question.

So you're like, just so happens that Bill's going to be in Denver, Colorado next week for two days. When you show up, did they ever ask you why you're in Denver, Colorado? No, they knew because apparently at that point they would have figured out by then who we were. Yeah, I do remember though, visiting TCI and I'm not sure TCI is around. I do remember them. I don't know if they're still in business. I don't know. I think maybe AT&T bought them at one point. But anyway, I went in to meet with this fellow, and I had my 11 lines. Literally, when you asked earlier, I had one piece of paper typewritten 11 lines. That was my whole pitch.

Do you remember any of these 11 lines? This is like the Holy Grail. Not really, but I mean, it was, we're going to do 24-hour sports. We're going to do college, et cetera, et cetera. We're going to be financed by Getty. We're going to be financed. We didn't say by Getty. We expect to be the largest cable provider.

Ted Turner only had 3 million subscribers at that point. It took us a year to go past him. Yeah, that was fun. But I went in to meet a TCI, and this older gentleman that I was meeting with, I mean, he was my age, but he was not a rookie, you know, vice president or something. And he had been a broadcaster in Minneapolis. And he looked across at me and he kind of smiled and he said, you know, this isn't going to work. He said, you know, we've both been in a broadcast. I do know nothing like it's going to work. Cable television. I said, you're working for TCM. Well, yeah, he said, he admitted that. So we went back and forth a little bit and he said,

I'm telling you, and he did just this. He said, I'm telling you, it's not going to work. But if it does, I want to be your first customer. I thought Trip to Denver has been a success. And he was, in fact, the third customer. He didn't make it fast enough to be the first customer. So a lot of those things just happen on the spot. You have to kind of know all of the general areas you want to go

and stay with it, and it worked. And it still works to this day. This is the first. This is from Facebook, from Sid Jacobson. Why don't they show Australian rules football, the world's strongest man in snooker tournaments anymore? My favorite part is the second part of this. And what happened to those cool jackets the reporters had to wear?

So now the first part, I don't know if it applies perfectly because I have seen you have so many channels now, World's Strongest Man, for instance. But is there anything that has been that you got rid of? So you didn't take the rooftop tennis league? No, no, that would never happen. Australian Rules Football is actually on ESPN Australia. Got it. All right.

So just found its way home. Yeah, it just found its way back there. And on occasion, it will show. There are layers of ESPN. ESPN, the mothership. That's what they call it. It's like Star Wars, only it's ESPN sport, the mothership. But then it's two and news and you and X, Y, Z and around the world.

But then they have Australia and so on. And as a matter of fact, it's intriguing. They show Australia the national cricket championship. Right. They sent a crew to Australia to do a lot of pre-production tape, brought it back, and actually produced the cricket championship from Bristol, Connecticut while they were playing in Australia. And how that works with satellites, I don't have any idea.

But they are Australian rules footballers. I'll never forget those guys in the white hats. That was pretty cool. Never understood it, but it was a pretty good looking. It's a cool sport, too. For those of you who haven't seen it, these athletes, a lot of them have accuracy with kicking that quarterbacks in the U.S. have with their hands. Those cool jackets that we used to have. Yeah, what happened to the

cool jackets? You're talking about the Getty Red, the orange, and as soon as possible, impracticable, we got rid of those. Shortly after the check arrived. Got rid of the Dead Poets Society slash sponsor jackets. We used to have to pin little ESPNs on those jackets. We didn't have them in broidery because we didn't have the budget, I guess. I don't know why. All right. Well, I may have to go hunt down one of those jackets for myself. Next question is from Twitter at Neil O. Martin. I may be saying that incorrectly. What sports do you wish were more popular on ESPN? There's so many. I mean, I like college football, and I like college basketball,

and Major League Baseball. And I don't know how much more they can put on. They just put together a new 190,000 square foot digital center, new digital center. And in there, they have one studio devoted to the NFL only. It's a half a football field. They have rising whatever, and they have things that flow down and balconies and stair steps that you can walk up and all over.

And that's pretty impressive. And I don't know what else they could do for the NFL besides that. I mean, they're doing everything except having Roger Goodell for breakfast, I guess, on Sunday morning. What was your favorite odd sport or esoteric sport that you guys had on in the early days? Did you have a particular favorite? You know, we had an amateur boxing series, and I've forgotten what the name of it was. But what I remember about it is I was in the Dallas airport when they had the trains underground, not the way they are now elevated. And I was getting on a train and I heard somebody,

I was just stepping through the door and you know, you step through the door, it closes right behind it. I heard somebody calling me and we were Bob Arum and Don King. I'm getting on and somebody said, they're calling my name. And I look back and here it is. He's pounding on the windows and he wanted to talk to me. But the train pulled out. And before he ever got back in the discussion, we signed an agreement with Bob Arum. Some of those crazy things. And that happened on a train. The randomness of walking down a train stairs to get on a tram to go to another flight. The guy comes down, the door closes. He lost his program chance.

Wow. Crazy stuff. I mean, that's just the way it was. It's like terrifying slash meets like when Harry met Sally. It's kind of like a misconnection with Don King. Yeah. But that boxing series, to answer the question, that was a really interesting. A lot of boxers, no-name boxers at that time, and a couple of them, I guess, did rise through the ranks.

That was kind of fun. I'm so glad you did. And I'm not a boxing fan. Oh, I am. I am a huge boxing fan, but also a huge hurling fan. So for those of you who haven't seen it, I definitely recommend checking out the Senior Nationals of Irish Hurling. It will blow your mind.

It's like football meets lacrosse, but they're playing with axe handles and can hit each other and hit it like a baseball. It's terrifying. I was invited to do an interview in Dublin. We did it by Skype, and I agreed to do it only if the host would explain to me Irish hurling, which he did. And I used to describe it as two guys with baseball bats in the right hand and left hand batter's boxes, the ball on a tee in the middle, and somebody reaches in and throws it in the air, and they both take mighty swipes at it and hope they miss each other. I'm not so sure sometimes they hope they miss each other.

Oh, no, they go right after each other. Yeah, it's a tough spot. If you want to see what the Irish do when they're not drinking Guinness, and by the way, the senior nationals are sponsored by Guinness generally, so Internet, don't go crazy. Then you should check it out. It is fantastic. We did have those, by the way, at one time.

Did you ever see that? Those early red jackets that had ESPN in the circle around it? No. The original. No, I can imagine, though, knowing what the logo looks like. I haven't seen the jackets. It's one of the greatest marketing stories that ESPN had in the early days. Let's get into it.

We had these red jackets, little logo on the front. It wasn't ESPN Network. It was the ESPN with the ellipse around it. And we had the bright red jackets and then white on the back. It had ESPN on the logo. And Scotty Connell said we were credentialed, we could go to college football games. He hired kids and gave them a notebook and a red jacket, sent them to any game CBS was doing, and said, I want one of you on the 25-yard line, one of you on the 50-yard line,

and one of you on the other 25-yard line, and two more stay with the line of scrimmage, backfield, and offense. Now, if you're familiar with the line of scrimmage, backfield, and offense. Now, if you're familiar with the way a football game is covered, cameras are on the 25- or 30-yard line. They shoot downfield, and there's one high in the middle. And then there's usually some down in the field near the backfield or the line of scrimmage and so on. So every shot that CBS did that first week had an ESPN logo. You had free product placement.

Yeah, right in the middle. Nationwide. Right in the middle. Monday morning, the phone rang. We're going to sue you guys. You can't do that. Cannot do that. Scotty said, okay, fine.

Where's CBS playing next week? Did the same thing, and after the second week, they called and said, all right, we surrender. And so he didn't change very much, but he cut it down, I guess, from five to three on their side. That's about all he did. But advertising in that case was the necessity was the mother of invention in that one. That's genius. But those red jackets counted a lot. I was in the fourth grade that morning that we had Pearl Harbor, the day of Infamy. And I've read the Midway and Pearl Harbor and all of the books around that. And I have a library of about

it's probably 100 to 150 books from the early 30s all the way through up to the Vietnam War. Korean War. Coldest Winter is one that I would recommend. David Halberstam wrote that one The Coldest Winter is one that I would recommend. David Halberstam wrote that one.

Coldest Winter. Yeah. And there are just, I don't know what it is. I really just enjoy reading it. It's not that I'm lucky. Obviously, I'm lucky that I'm here and able to do this. But the things that people have done for us in this country are amazing. This point, I think, is really important.

So only in the last, I would say, six months have I started reading more books related to war, specifically in this country. And one of the main reasons is that I've spoken with a number of folks, including former Navy SEAL commander named Jocko Willink. He's very well known. And the point that he makes is that if you want to study human nature, you can learn, and I'm paraphrasing, of course, but you can learn so much by looking at it when it's forced to the extremes. When you see the most unbelievable levels of kindness, the most unbelievable levels of brutality, and everything in stark relief when you study war and warfare.

So if you are a student of human nature, which of course transcends this conversation and applies to just about anything, that was one of the points that he made. And just to pull it into, say, new media for a second, if people are wondering, if anybody here knows who Casey Neistat is, might have a few hands. He's an extremely well-known YouTuber. He has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of views. Very, very well-known filmmaker. And he says that everything he learned about business and life, he learned from studying World War II, effectively. It's that powerful.

Well, you know, when you say that, people don't think of America, we're just here. We won the war. All our planes were built in the interior of the country because they were worried about Japan coming to the Pacific and Germany. Submarines were made in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. You think of a submarine, why would you do a submarine in Manitowoc for safety? Because they had German U-boats on the East Coast and Japanese maybe, they don't know, on the West Coast. Lake Michigan, the Naval Air Station in Glenview had an aircraft carrier in Lake Michigan. That

was where they learned to fly. That's where they got their wings. Who knows? That's got to be hard to transport. Yeah, but just think about that. Lake Michigan is right outside Chicago. Glenview Naval Air Station is right outside Chicago. The Navy is training in the middle of the country for two oceans.

Why aren't they in the San Diego area or Los Angeles or Philadelphia Naval Yards? But you can really learn a lot about the operation of life. One thing that I, and every time I've mentioned this, somebody is surprised. We always hear about women at work. During World War II, especially in the aircraft industry and making those submarines in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, the majority of the labor force were women because they were more able to do the delicate detail work and the wiring for the

wiring then for radio and for all of those things was a lot different than right today well today they wouldn't wire they'd all be they'll be at a chip someplace but we never hear about that yeah and it was an all-out effort believe me so this this is going to be a bit of a left turn but i want to ask you about did you signal you're signaling at least left turn strike oh wait no i. I would be a terrible umpire, I tell you. Even worse baseball player, but that's a different story. Your best, or one of your best or most worthwhile investments you've ever made. And I want to explain what I mean by that. It could be money, it could be time, it could be energy, it could be anything. And an example that comes from someone

I've chatted with separately is Amelia Boone. So Amelia Boone's a three-time World's Toughest Mudder Champion. She's the most decorated obstacle course racer in the world. Also a full-time attorney at Apple. She's one of the most impressive humans I've ever met. And her answer to that was the entrance fee for her first major competition, which was, I think, about $450. A huge stretch at the time for her, but she did it, and it produced this incredible open door and trajectory to something she never would have anticipated. What are one of your best investments?

That $9,000 credit card cash advance. Yeah. Not bad. I have to tell you a brief story about that. I spoke to a group of Merrill Lynch and I think it was Bank of America, all senior executives in Greenwich, Connecticut, a couple years ago. And one of the topics that came up in the discussion, because these banks like to lend money,

and you should have bank loans to start your business, and we will work with you. I'm not a 100% subscriber to that. So when it was my turn to speak, I got up and I said, well, first of all, you'll all be happy to know that I started ESPN with bank financing. And they were all sitting, every single one of them, in tie and pinstripe suits and so on. I said, well, it depends on how you define financing. And they were all sitting, every single one of them in tie and pinstripe suits and so on.

I said, well, it depends on how you define financing. It was a $9,000 credit card cash advance. Well, talk about an icebreaker. That got me through to them. But the real thing that got me through to that group was there were a couple of Hartford, New England Whaler fans in the audience that sold it. That sealed the deal. But to me, to speak to a group like that,

they all, and I hope I'm not insulting anyone in the audience watching or sitting here today, there is a certain confidence, a certain bearing and feeling that bank people have because they help others down below them. And as I walked into the room, I was the oldest guy in the room. They were all like some of my kids' age. So they weren't intimidating to me at all. We started talking. Before the meeting was over, they were loosening their ties, and we had just a great, great session with them,

which I think reaching people is part of what you have to do, too, when you're making business. So I want to talk about reaching people in a very particular instance. So when you got that cash advance, $9,000 cash advance on a credit card, were you married? Were you single? Oh, yeah. Okay. Three kids, a couple of them in college, as a matter of fact.

Okay, so in today's dollars, I don't know what that would be. It's maybe $40,000. I'm just pulling a number out. Yeah, I have no idea. But was that a lot of money for you guys at the time, and was that a conversation that you had to have? Well, let me put it in context. We had a drawer in the kitchen, a little counter and so on, and the checkbook was in there, you know, because then we wrote check. We didn't have all this Internet stuff. We couldn't pay no bill payer.

Right. And I was writing a check and my youngest son walked by me and he said, is everything all right? You know, he was kind of concerned. And I was because I had the checkbook laying there. And we opened the checkbook. It was just before payday. And he said, that can't be right.

And there were 17 cents in the bank account. Not in the bank, but in the checkbook. Right. 17 cents. And he said, are you worried? And I said, why? He said, well, that's not going to, you know, we're not going far on that. He was maybe a junior in college at that point.

But I never had any doubt because payday came and I knew something else would happen and obviously did. Was your wife worried at all? No. No. No. She knew the 11 bullet points. She knew all of it right down the line, yeah. She was there for 56 years she was there, so it was okay.

That's incredible. If we had a golf ball, I would ask you about golf with one of this country's presidents. I was hoping you could maybe tell us a little bit about golf. I think it was with George W. George, yeah, George 41. So tell us about, I think there's one putt in particular. Well, yeah, maybe I was a little irreverent, but we, I was invited to play with President Bush in Naples, Florida. And, and just a great guy. We went out and met all the appropriate people went to the driving range did all that had pictures you know a thousand pictures taken and so on and then we started playing and we all hit on the green first green and and he was maybe i don't know three or

four feet from the from the uh the hole and he was a golfer who used this long the long putter where he put it up under his chin and gave the, you know, putting like this. And he kept swinging back and forth and like, okay, who's going to give me the putt? You know, because I guess you're supposed to. So after about the fourth time, he stepped back again and he looked over at us. And I don't know why I said it. It's just one of those things I said, presidential privilege only goes so far, putt. So he looked up and he smiled and he said, game on. And so we had a $2 bet for the game. And I had a putt this long at the, on the 18th. And obviously since he didn't get the first one, he was about to get, and I missed it.

And he made his putt and won the hole and won the $2 and took the ball out and said, I want you to have this in honor of losing $2 to me. But I, I don't know why I said that to him. It was probably inappropriate, but he cracked up. It seems to have turned out pretty well when you fly by the cuff. Yeah. ABC, NBC, Bill Rasmussen, everybody. He's not done. Thank you so much.

That was fantastic. Hey, guys. This is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the weekend. And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things

I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to 4hourworkweek.com. That's 4hourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it.

This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic, founded by the genius Finns who lit the internet on fire. And you may have heard of their mushroom coffee, which features chaga and lion's mane, which is taken Silicon Valley by storm. I use it pretty much every day, either that or the Chaga, which is decaf, a separate version. And I use both of these primarily for focus and productivity. They just get you going, light you up like a Christmas tree. So you should definitely check it out. People are always asking me what I use for cognitive enhancement. And for right now, this is the answer. I try to force this on all of my house guests. It is a hell of a thing. If I have employees or people come over who are working on projects with me, I always try to feed it to them because I'm going to get the limitless effect and get a lot

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